Bastet is on the alert when I get back. She must have picked something up from the Bond, though clearly not enough to make her come running the way she did with the crocodile. As soon as the raptorcat sees me, she sends a wave of emotion over the Bond: concerned-danger-threat? I reply back in the negative.

“Spike’s dead,” I tell her as she bounds up to me and rubs her head against my hip. My voice is flat, the emotional rollercoaster of the past couple of hours leaving me feeling empty inside.

I’ll rally, I know that. It’s not my first time on this rodeo – I know how grief sends emotions as high as Everest one moment and then as deep as the Mariana Trench the next. And that when the cycle becomes too much, the mind just shuts down its capacity to feel. For a time, anyway.

Bastet cocks her head on one side, the announcement leaving her unmoved. Understandably – she and Spike had a wary relationship at the best of times. Wary on Spike’s side, that is: Bastet never really cared much about him as long as he wasn’t too near the cubs. I sigh, sending her a picture of Spike accompanied with a feeling of loss, the ache that I feel whenever I think about my parents, or my ex.

She pauses for a moment to consider what I sent her, and then returns with a complicated bundle of images and emotions. Parsing through the confusing mix, I manage to get the gist of what she’s saying: pack-mates die and we feel their absence. But life continues.

It’s such a pragmatic way of looking at things, characteristic of the raptorcat who was able to move in with her family’s killer the day after it had happened.

I don’t know if I could ever be so prosaic about it – perhaps that’s part of being human. But in a way, she’s right. If I dwell too much in the past, I’ll forget to live in the present. I’m guilty of having already done that for years – do I really want to do that for years more?

Like it or not, this is a dangerous world and Spike is unlikely to be the only Bound I lose. Of course, I’ll do my best to avoid that happening, but I need to be realistic. I need to learn from my mistakes, but I can’t get bogged down with guilt and self-blame.

Sending her a wave of gratitude, I rub her head for a moment, and then walk off to dump my armour by the entrance of the cave and greet the cubs and Kalanthia as well. Bastet sends me a sense of confusion about what she’d done to be thanked, but pleasure at having helped her pack-mate. The cubs, of course, don’t notice anything and just pile on me as usual, treating me like an object to be climbed or target to be pounced on, depending on their mood in the moment.

When they tire of the game and move off to play with a couple of large beetles, squabbling over who gets to torture the poor insects, I find myself alone with Kalanthia. Unlike the start, the massive nunda’s presence now only fills me with a sense of safety.

Sure, I know that technically there’s nothing stopping her from killing me. As much as I’ve been succeeding on squeaking by my encounters with large predators by the skin of my teeth, I know that I still have as much chance as a snowflake in Hell against Kalanthia. Nevertheless, I find myself starting to trust that Kalanthia won’t hurt me as long as Lathani is safe.

We sit in silence for a while, just watching the cubs play. It’s a nice balm to my raw emotions – watching four cute little fluffballs (one a lot larger than the others) tumbling and tussling together.

Your Bound is right, Markus Wolfe, Kalanthia finally rumbles in my mind after long syrupy moments where I couldn’t have said exactly how much time passed. Loss is a part of life. You will feel it whatever you do, but you cannot stop living because of it. I twist around to give her a long, slow look.

“I thought you couldn’t read my mind?” Kalanthia gives a leopard grin, full of teeth.

I never said that...but nonetheless, your thoughts are loud enough that I can no sooner not hear them than I can shut my ears. My face pinks a bit in embarrassment. Damn mind-reading massive felines…. And I only half care if she heard that last bit.

“Have you lost someone before?” I ask, only belatedly realising that she might not want to bring up past losses any more than I want to bring up the memory of my mother’s final moments. “Sorry, I-”

Yes, Kalanthia replies quietly, pensively. Lathani is not my first cub. And even before I met my mate, I lost my siblings and parents one way or another. My action is automatic, I don’t even think about it. Feeling sympathy welling inside me, I turn and give her a hug. Well, I say that, but she’s so big that I only get my arms part of the way around her shoulders. She looks at me in confusion. Markus Wolfe, if this is an attack, it is not very efficient, she tells me bemusedly.

“It’s not,” I chuckle briefly, the momentary humour serving to raise my spirits in a way nothing else has succeeded in doing since I realised Spike was in danger. Sobering, I continue. “It’s a way humans express...affection. Sympathy. Sorrow for the other person.”

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Ah, she said in a way that seems like she’s had an epiphany. That makes a lot more sense then. I had always thought that it was strange for humans to attack their mates so often.

I snort at the thought, and then suddenly freeze. Wait...how come Kalanthia is talking about humans as if she’s seen many?

“Are there humans somewhere near here?” I ask, hope daring to rise in my breast that Nicholas had been wrong. Wrong, or intentionally deceptive, for whatever reason.

Not in this world. Kalanthia’s next response dashes my hopes once more, but only raises more questions, ones which perhaps I should have asked earlier – there have been other moments before which made me wonder. It was never a good time then, but perhaps now it might be.

“Then...are you…” I don’t know how to ask the question. “Did you...come from another world?” Unconsciously, I hold my breath.

I did. Much like you. I chuckle a little nervously and rub the back of my neck.

“You realised, huh? Pretty obvious, I guess. Especially if there really aren’t any other humans here.”

It’s fairly obvious, yes. But unlike you, I suspect, I came here voluntarily to give Lathani a better chance in life.

“Oh,” is all I can say. It seems so...noble. Travelling between worlds to protect one’s child. So much better than my reasoning. “I did actually choose to come,” I feel obliged to correct her supposition. “But I didn’t really understand what I was choosing.” I feel like a fool as I admit my idiocy. “And now I don’t know whether it was the best or the worst thing to happen to me,” I finish, staring at my hands.

For better or for worse, I’m not the same person I was when I arrived here. I hadn’t known what it was to kill before I came. I hadn’t known what it felt like to be on the brink of death, either. Those things change a man.

Kalanthia is silent for a long moment, long enough that I think the conversation is finished. Then, shifting, she places her massive foreleg the other side of me and pulls me close.

Is this how it is done? she asks. For a moment I’m confused, but then I realise what she’s doing and warmth spreads through me.

“Yeah.” My voice is croaky and I have to swallow to wet it. My vision blurs. It must be the dust in the air irritating both my eyes and my throat. No other explanation. “Yeah,” I say again, daring to lean into the large feline body I’ve been pulled up against. “That’s exactly right.” Closing my eyes, I let myself sink into the first hug I’ve had in what feels like years.

*****

Eventually, I have to pull away. I’ve taken far too much advantage of the fact that Kalanthia isn’t human and doesn’t know how long these sorts of things are supposed to last, so I’ve just been luxuriating in the comfort.

Despite being in this place so far away from home and anything familiar, maybe I’ve still found some sort of family.

It makes me smile, the loss I feel at Spike’s – and my parents’ and my ex-girlfriend’s – absence not gone, but feeling easier to bear now I know I’m not alone. Perhaps I’m grasping at straws here but...they’re right. Everyone has been telling me for years to leave the past behind me. I won’t forget everyone I’ve lost, but perhaps living my best life is a better way of honouring their deaths than the half-life I was living before.

I feel restless. I’ve been doing a lot of work here at the cave, crafting various things, but my immediate projects are now done.

I have a bow and arrows – which I need to practise with. I have some rough armour.

I have soap which is just drying out to make a bar, though technically I could use some of it immediately.

I have an upgraded mace which was literally a life-saver today.

I need to make some more armour for my arms and legs, but that will take a lot longer, and I feel I want to do something else first. Twisting back towards Kalanthia, I ask her a question.

“If I gave you some of the corpses I’ve collected, would you be able to delay your next hunting trip?” She stretches for a moment, deadly claws the size of my forearm shooting out of her paws, before settling back down.

Perhaps, if you can supply enough meat to satiate me for a time. Why?

“There’s somewhere I want to explore, but I’m concerned it may take multiple days. I wouldn’t want to accidentally abandon you and Lathani.”

I see. What do you have for me? Standing up, I pull out the crocodile corpse. It’s a bit battered since I used it as a bludgeoning tool against the mini-rexes and then let it crumple against a tree, but the hide is surprisingly intact. I think there’s probably been more internal damage than external, to be honest.

“How’s this?” I ask, looking at Kalanthia expectantly. “I’d like to use the hide so if you could leave it as intact as possible, that would be great. The rest can be yours if you want, though.” She stands up and inspects the carcass, sniffing and prodding it.

An impressive kill for one so small, she remarks. I’d consider it more of a compliment if she’d left off the ‘small’ comment. Everything’s small in comparison to her. Still, I would need more to delay my hunting trip by as much as a day, let alone more.

“I see,” I reply thoughtfully. Opening my Inventory, I check through for other corpses I can spare. Huh, what about all the mini-rexes from today? It’s not like I’ve got any other use planned for them and I’ve got the ostridocuses to feed my Bound and her cubs. “How many of these would you need?” I ask, pulling out one of them. “I’ve got seven in total.”

Hmm, she muses mentally, inspecting the mini-rex’s carcass as she had the crocodile’s. Several of these plus the nere should keep me going for an extra day, two if necessary. What does several mean?

“OK, well, let me know when I’ve pulled out enough.” She waits until I’ve pulled out six of the seven mini-rexes before she indicates it’s enough. If this is the quantity of meat she has to eat for one, maybe two days, how many animals does she kill when she goes out hunting every four days? Without waiting for any further conversation, she starts digging in. I watch in fascination as she flips the crocodile onto its back and then cuts it open. With one delicate claw, she opens a neat line from jaw to tail tip and then she just starts ripping pieces away, completely unashamed of the blood and guts that quickly coat her jaw.

“Well, enjoy, I guess,” I say weakly, turning away before her actions make me feel nauseous. Just another reminder that, despite giving me a hug, Kalanthia is still definitely not human.

Moving far enough away that I can only just hear the crunching, chewing sounds, I turn my attention to more enticing prospects. Namely, the fact that my Energy store has reached a hundred percent full. Time to level up!