Jie held out her hand, palm facing up. "Come, Xue, I have to get you bound and then you can eat whatever you want while I train," she said.

The cat stepped forward slowly, his little chest stuck out proudly and his gaze never once leaving Jie's eyes. He sniffed her hand and swished his tail. Jie waited. She had no idea how to handle pets. She'd never had one and was just going from what little she'd seen of cats in movies and books. And this wasn't some house cat. He was an alien tiger. Who knew how he'd act?

But, regardless, she felt it better to let him get comfortable with her first rather than just pulling him out of the cage and immediately binding him.

Xue pressed his nose into Jie's hand and she giggled. "Your whiskers tickle," Jie said. The cat ignored her words and pressed his face into her hand. She stroked his head softly and slowly and he came closer.

"That's it," Jie said, "see? I'm going to treat you as well as I can."

She took out the tube that was included with the instructions on how to perform a binding.

"Now, this is going to hurt a little, I think. But, it's just once and then it's over. Okay, Xue?" Jie said.

The spirit tiger paused and looked up at her. His eyes focused on the tube in her hand and he backed away.

Jie looked from the tube to the cat. "Can you understand what I'm saying?" she asked.

The cat continued to back away, staring at the tip of the tube. "Ah... you just don't like that little needle-ish thing," Jie said, "can't say I blame you. But, don't be a baby. I've had way worse. This is just a little prick to draw blood. Besides, I have to do it too you know."

The cat retreated against the back bars of the cage. Jie sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "I really need to be training," she said, "What possessed Jiang Feng to get him to give you to me? As if I have time for a pet."

She sighed again and waited with her hand outstretched and the tube still in view. "Come on, Xue," Jie said, "I have stuff to do. Neither of us wants to do this. Let's just get it done, so we can both do something we actually want to do."

Xue looked at her flatly.

Jie sighed again. "This'd be so much easier if you could understand me," she said, "Ooh wait a minute." She rummaged around in the pack of food that came with Xue. She grabbed something that smelled a bit salty and held it out to Xue.

"Come along, have some alien tuna fish. Or whatever this stuff is. I'm sure it's yummy for growing kittens! Come on," Jie said.

The spirit tiger eyed the treat and the tube in turn.

Jie sighed again. "Look, I really can't just sit here for days at a time. If you don't come by yourself, I'm going to have to grab you. Last chance," she said.

The spirit tiger narrowed his eyes at her but took a step forward. Much to Jie's surprise.

"That's it, come along. Let's just get this done and you can munch on all the food you want," Jie said.

Xue took one slow step after another before he reached her outstretched hand with the treat and sniffed it. He opened his mouth wide, snapped up the entire thing, and began to chew rather messily.

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Jie pressed her hand onto Xue's head and closed her eyes as she flooded his little body with her qi. Xue screeched, but Jie gritted her teeth. It couldn't be pleasant, but it had to be done.

Her dragon lightning qi with its much higher cultivation and concentration easily drowned out the energy in Xue as she wove the link between them. Although, she didn't do it quite as described in the instructions, and purposely avoided the step that would begin the oppressive subjugation of who Xue was. She hoped that she was doing it correctly, but she was fairly confident that she'd understood the core concepts and had figured out how to manipulate them from there.

Twenty minutes passed and she still wasn't even close to done.

Good luck to anyone who tries this with a strong magical beast trying to eat them, Jie thought.

As she wove the binding, she found it had rather large gaps she hadn't accounted for. These gaps seemed to be a result of the changes she'd made. The original binding was far simpler and her more complicated structure made the entire contract exponentially more difficult. Jie studied the gaps carefully and found that when she gave her attention to them, they shifted and spun something like a weave using a thread from Xue and a thread from herself.

The binding quickly got more complicated from there as it shifted everything. Jie wasn't sure what she was doing exactly, but she got the idea that she'd accidentally made the binding far more intimate as Xue wasn't just bound to her... she was bound to Xue. Albeit in different ways.

She didn't fully understand how it would affect her though. It didn't seem insidious at least, and there were no real compulsions placed upon her or anything. There was some kind of mutual sharing, a back-and-forth. A connection. A very different one from the one described in the notes.

But the strands were spinning faster and faster and while it wasn't out of control yet, she couldn't afford to spend too long trying to figure out things that didn't seem to be a problem. The binding reached the point where she'd gone as far as she could with just qi, so she pressed the longer needle into Xue's neck.

The cub hissed, but Jie made sure it was as quick and painless as possible. Little more than a pinprick, although the device was filled with complicated mechanisms and enchantments of some kind. Jie didn't understand them, but as she pressed her thumb to the prick on the other end she found it bit through her skin easily. Which was surprising given how freakishly tough her skin was compared to when she was on Earth.

She wondered what material the thing was made of to do that. How much did it weigh by Earth standards? Could she lift a car? A bus? She quickly returned her focus to the task at hand and pressed her bleeding thumb to the spot where she'd done the same to Xue. Their blood mingled and the bond-weaving continued.

Faster and more complicated this time. Her senses expanded in a way she hadn't expected, and she suddenly felt fur on her body... or no that wasn't her. It was... Xue? She could feel her hand on Xue both from her side and from Xue's as well.

And she felt an endless number of threads she'd never expected. She berated herself for trying to do things a different way. If she'd just done it the way other people did, then none of this would be a problem. As it was, there were so many threads, each of such daunting complexity that Jie didn't know where to begin. And none of this was even mentioned in the simple binding ritual she'd been given.

She felt something brush against her mind... it was tentative but continued to reach out to her. It grew more sure each time they brushed and then she felt... emotions. Dark, horrifying fear melted away like chocolate against her, but this fear wasn't hers. She didn't feel afraid just... overwhelmed by everything she had to figure out.

As the fear melted, it turned to hope. Hope born of... understanding? Gratitude?

Suddenly, she found herself thinking of the day her parents were taken from her. How those men had broken in... how they'd broken her. How she'd watched helplessly as they'd murdered her father and violated her mother before killing her too. Something wet ran down her cheeks as she lost herself to the memory. Then, it eased. She took in a sudden breath as though raising her head above water.

The brushes had turned into a constant contact. She felt empathy there. And further understanding.

But, she had too much to do to wonder about any of this and focused on the strands, how to figure it out... could she cancel the ritual now they'd come this far? What would happen if she did?

But she watched in her mind's eye as threads wove together both by themselves and with the help of the other awareness. Jie frowned.

"Xue? Is that you?" Jie thought, trying to project her thought toward the awareness. A soft rumble filled her... kind of like purring. Jie smiled softly and watched what was happening and what Xue was doing.