How can I ask you for compensation from the people you have adopted as your own when you have just offered me your aid without setting any sort of price on it? Though I would have recovered from the injury myself over time, it would have caused a whole lot more pain than it will now. And yet, you asked for nothing in return. It would be churlish for me to demand sacrifices from the people you lead now.

She sounds more than a little aggrieved, but also slightly grudgingly impressed.

“It wasn’t my intention,” is all I can say, still a bit taken aback.

I know, sighs Kalanthia. Which is partly why it is so frustrating. She goes silent for a moment, but I can tell she is deep in thought. I will waive any compensation for my own injuries from the lizard-folk, she decides. For Lathani, I want her injuries to be healed. Either to return her to where she was, or to give her a different, even more powerful foundation. How that happens, I do not care any more. My bloodlust for those who stole Lathani away has been soothed by the knowledge that they are all now chained to you and that you will make sure they do not do it again. And that they are now part of your following means that any actions I demand against them will impact you which, as I said, is rather churlish after the services you have rendered me.

“Well, I would be happy with those terms,” I say after a moment of thinking them over. Frankly, they are nothing that I wouldn’t be doing anyway, so it’s a win-win scenario for me. “If Lathani’s ‘foundation’ – her Energy channel pattern, I have to guess – is changed, will that cause any problems for you?”

Her eyes narrow.

Why would you think it might? I hesitate, looking down at Lathani who twists to fix me with a pleading glance.

Don’t tell her, pack-leader, please! she begs. I wasn’t supposed to talk about it.

Kalanthia’s eyes narrow further, becoming nothing more than the barest slits through which the golden colour of her irises peek through.

Markus Wolfe, did my cub say something that made you consider that our channels might be linked somehow?

I send Lathani an apologetic look.

I’m sorry, I send to her privately. It’s probably best that she knows her secret isn’t so secret anyway. Lathani lets out an audible moan.

She’s going to kill me, she mutters accusingly to me, burying her face back into Kalanthia’s fur. I send her a sense of sympathy, though fear that I might have accidentally conveyed a bit of my amusement too. She’s just like a teenager who knows that her parent is going to be mad at her.

“Lathani mentioned something about how you weakened yourself by dedicating…something to her, that you would only regain once she Evolves.”

Did she now? Kalanthia asks, her tone dangerous, her tail lashing behind her. She dips her head and twists her neck fluidly so she can look at the juvenile nunda half-buried in her fur. Lathani? Anything to add?

Sorry, mother? Lathani tries. I forgot it was a secret.

Kalanthia growls, but it sounds more frustrated than anything else. And maybe a little anxious. I don’t know whether it’s familiarity with her, increased Wisdom, all the practice in Animal Empathy I’ve had recently, or something else, but I’m finding that I can interpret her body language and mental tones more easily.

Who else knows? she demands furiously. Maybe even fearfully.

“A few of my Bound,” I say, a little reluctantly. “But I’ve forbidden them from speaking about it with anyone else. But maybe now you can see why I’m asking the question about how you’ll be affected by the way Lathani heals.”

Kalanthia growls again, but it trails away into a huff.

It is more than I wished you to know, she says frankly, but I wasn’t expecting Lathani’s foundation to be as damaged as it is, nor that you would be in a position to heal it if it was.

“Sorry?” I respond tentatively, a little bemused at her aggrieved tone.

I wish I could blame you, but it’s the lizard-kin’s fault first, Lathani’s second, and only yours in small measure. I will speak with you about it, but too many already know more than I would wish them to. I will direct my words only to you; I ask you to do the same.

I hesitate.

“I know how to do that through a Bond, but I don’t know how to do it without one,” I admit.

Block your thoughts from travelling down your Bonds, instructs Kalanthia, and direct them at me. I will collect them from the outer reaches of your mind.

That gives me a disturbing view of Kalanthia like a massive cat catching fish that rise to the top of the water for some reason, but I push it away. If it works, great.

I take a moment to block off the other Bonds as she says – not enough that they couldn’t contact me if they need to, but enough that I won’t accidentally send my own thoughts to them.

Is this working? I ask uncertainly, doing my best to push my thoughts to Kalanthia. Without a conduit between us, I try thinking about her as I speak in my mind.

It works well enough, she thankfully verifies. Now that we are as private as possible, I will do my best to explain what you will need to know to help my cub. My kind’s cubs are born very vulnerable. Unlike other species, it takes us a long time to start developing our foundations. Taking a long time over developing the foundation is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does delay the first Evolution significantly and therefore lengthens the time during which our cubs are vulnerable to attack since they don’t fully develop their magic until after their first Evolution.

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Can you explain what you mean by ‘foundations’? I ask. Is it their Energy channels?

Yes, ‘foundations’ refers to Energy channels, but also the setting up for saturation of Energy in the body. The foundation set by these before and after the first Evolution are essential in determining how far the Beast will go in their life’s advancement. You can thus see that it is very important to set ones that will offer the best chances for future advancements. Beasts have been blocked from advancing to further stages because they have poor foundations.

Abruptly, I wonder about Fenrir. He rushed his Evolution when he was still damaged. We fixed it while he was Evolving, but I don’t know whether his foundations could be considered ‘good’.

Can foundations be fixed after the first Evolution?

It’s possible, Kalanthia admits. But harder. In your human terms, it’s like building a house. If the foundations of the first Tier are correct, the house will be sturdy. At the same time, even while building upon the foundations, it’s possible to put supports in place to ensure that the house can develop differently than originally intended. But the foundations of the house will still be a limiting factor.

That makes sense, I agree, quietly noting how she knows so much about houses for a beast. So is that what causes blockages in Tier two? Needing to put supports in because the house design has changed?

That is, perhaps, taking the metaphor a little too far, Kalanthia replies. From my own experiences, blockages are usually caused because we do not know how we want to proceed, or we wish to proceed in a way which doesn’t fit with what we have already done. Prior to the first Evolution, developments are made mostly or entirely unconsciously. The first Evolution is the time when Beasts become aware of their Energy channels and begin consciously affecting them. Energy channels must be drawn and redrawn until the entire foundation is complete. After the second Evolution, the structure of the foundation is fixed. Do you understand?

Mostly, I agree, thinking about my own experience with repairing my Energy channels. I haven’t actually tried changing them actively – I’ve seen them adjust as I’ve added Skills and stats, but I haven’t redrawn the lines of my mandala in any significant way. When I repaired my internal matrix before, I only retraced what had originally been there. So what happens in Tier three, then? Is it something to do with the soul?

Kalanthia eyes me in surprise.

No, she replies slowly. I am told that that is the domain dealt with after the third Evolution. So Tier four, by my standards then. The next stage is all about modifying the body to make it more durable. But that is not relevant to the topic at hand. Perhaps we could return to Lathani, she suggests in a way that isn’t a suggestion.

Of course, I answer hurriedly.

Good. As you can no doubt conclude, rushing ahead with foundations prior to the first Evolution can often lead to problematic development after. As a result, my mother – and possibly her mother before her, but I was never able to ask – had a way to impress on her offspring her own foundations as a sort of guidance. In return for sacrificing her own strength and power for a time, the cub, I, was able to much more quickly advance to my first Evolution. What this method sacrifices in individuality, it makes up for by offering the basics of a structure which works well to help the cub progress at later stages.

A thought occurs to me: is this what the Tamer Class stone did to me? Impressed on me a previously determined structure?

So what you’re saying is that you’ve kind of lent a bit of your own internal matrix to Lathani so that she can build her own foundation more quickly?

In essence, yes, though she is not building directly on my own internal patterns, but is merely using them for guidance.

A bit like tracing paper, I muse, then return my attention to Kalanthia.

So back to my original question: if you’ve lent your internal matrix to her as a guidance system, will you be affected by the changes she makes to the design?

Not directly, Kalanthia answers.

Meaning that they will affect you indirectly, I guess, narrowing my eyes at her.

An astute observation, she acknowledges, then huffs heavily. Yes. My mother told me that if the cub reaches Evolution, the mother gains back the power she temporarily sacrificed, and more besides. The universe is balanced: short term sacrifice leads to long term gain – if the being survives the period of sacrifice. And equally, demands for power in the short term lead to significant consequences in the long term.

But that is more philosophical than we should be at the moment. The fact is that I don’t know exactly how Lathani’s Evolution will affect me. I should receive my power back regardless of how successful her Evolution is. However, I believe that the amount of extra power I receive along with it will depend on how successful her Evolution is.

And if she never Evolves? I ask, feeling it’s important to know.

Then we will both be weakened for as long as she is still alive, Kalanthia replies heavily. I eye her carefully.

It seems like a heavy price to pay, I remark.

It is a significant change that this makes: offering the nunda cub the chance to Evolve in five to ten years rather than fifty, she answers pointedly. My eyebrows rise on my forehead.

How old is Lathani?

Four and a half years old, by your count, Kalanthia replies promptly.

And she still looked like a fluffy cub until she got kidnapped by the samurans? I ask incredulously.

She should have remained looking that way until she reached her first Evolution, Kalantia responds, her tone angry. That she has changed so much physically even before her Evolution is just another indication of the damage the lizard-folk wrought on her system. They must have poured the Energy they stole from her channels into her body, forcing her to grow unnaturally, even as they reformed her channels into brute tools of force. As she is right now, she cannot Evolve. Her potential for Evolution has been stolen to make her stronger in the present – at the expense of her future.

And now I have far more understanding of why Kalanthia has been so angry at the lizard-folk – and still is, even if she’s not now actively seeking retribution. It flabbergasts me that she has been willing to essentially forgive what they have done. But then, I suppose, the main instigator is dead, the other instigators are Bound to me, and she knows that I already intend on doing everything I can to help Lathani. Apart from gaining satisfaction by killing everyone associated with those who hurt her cub – which, as she realises, would harm me – there isn’t much else she can ask for.

Then what do we need to do to get her to a state where she can Evolve? I ask, determined to do just that.