“Lathani,” I breathe. Is she waking up at last? That will be a relief – I was worried that the shaman had done something irreversible, despite River’s explanation of a sleeping draught.

Carer, I hear in my mind, a warmth of relief and gratitude shading the mental tones. My eyes go wide. Did she just…? I am glad to see you. Raising her head, she turns it to look around. Suddenly her hackles go up and she pushes herself to her feet quickly, though stiffly. A growl rumbles through her chest, the tenor version to Kalanthia’s bass. Why is he here? She looks to be a step away from attack. I follow her gaze to work out the reason for her sudden anger.

When I see the cause, I feel exasperated at myself for not connecting the dots more. Of course she’s going to be concerned seeing a lizard-man next to me. Particularly since he’s one of the lizard-kin who was immediately involved in her incarceration.

“It’s OK, Kal-Lathani,” I reassure her, almost confusing her with her mother. Can you blame me? I have an association between talking leopards and Kalanthia. Lathani suddenly talking is confusing me. “He’s one of my Bound now. He helped me get you out.”

Your Bound? She sounds a little confused. Like the spiky one and the smaller carer? And the little fluff balls who are fun to play with?

“Spike and Bastet, yes,” I tell her, amused by her ways of describing the various creatures which hang around her. “The cubs aren’t actually my Bound, I’m just helping take care of them – like I do with you. Anyway, how are you feeling? And how come you can talk?” The last one is really bugging me, though my rampant curiosity isn’t enough to pop the balloon which is my joy at finally having her with me, alive and well. Apart from being three times – or more – her previous size, that is. But she’s here, she’s talking, and we’re not being chased by lizard-folk. No, just magical and homicidal trees, a little voice says in the back of my mind. I ignore it: can’t I be happy for just five minutes that my latest half-baked plan was actually successful, despite all odds?

Her initial response isn’t so much in words as it’s a wall of emotion bludgeoning me. It’s similar to when Bastet sends me a message purely composed of emotion, but not quite the same. The main difference is that with Bastet and River’s mental communications, I always have the sense that I could cut it off if I wanted to: a bit like a flip phone. With Lathani, it’s more like she’s standing next to me and shouting at me; I feel like there’s nothing I could do if it all became too overwhelming. A bit disconcerting, I have to admit.

Hungry, angry, sad, mournful, relieved, fearful… The range of emotions she’s feeling is impressive – and strong. Even my buoyant mood is briefly brought down by association. I don’t really know where to start except by pulling out a corpse from my Inventory, one of those monkey-hybrids we’d killed a couple of days ago. I hesitate before putting it down.

“Can you eat this now? I know I’ve fed you some cooked meat before, but you were drinking milk a couple of days ago…” The way she tugs it out of my hands and digs in tells me everything I need to know. Bastet indicates that she’d appreciate a snack too, so I pull out another of the corpses from the same fight. It’s not a bad idea to pause for a break, despite our surroundings – between Bastet, River and I, none of us has had more than a few hours of restless sleep in a full day and a half, and we haven’t eaten properly in a good while. I’d say we’re running on fumes, but actually with the improved stats we’re all coping fairly well. Still we could do with some food; the cubs too.

I’m a bit reluctant to let the cubs out considering where we are, but they have been cramped up in the sling since before dawn and are past the point of wriggling. Frankly, I don’t think I could succeed in keeping them in there for much longer. We’re going to just have to be very careful that they don’t get caught by any of the moving tree roots. Releasing the three cubs, I put them next to the same corpse Bastet’s munching from and they dig in happily.

“Are you hungry too?” I ask River. He takes a moment to answer.

I could eat, he says finally, his tone effectively flat, though it’s the stillness of a pond with a maelstrom of currents below the seemingly calm surface. I eye him, but ultimately don’t ask what’s wrong – I have a feeling I know anyway. I tell myself it’s because engaging in such deep matters while we’re travelling through a dangerous area of the forest is a bad idea; actually, I chicken out. While I have a feeling it will be necessary to discuss eventually, I’d rather procrastinate over exploring the fact that River has just betrayed all the people he’s - probably - ever known and was party to me bashing in the skull of a villager he had shown clear respect for.

Then again, I could be completely misreading it – that could be a lizard-kin’s Tuesday for all I know and he’s in turmoil over something else. Regardless, there’s only one thing to say.

“Do you want cooked or fresh?”

Cooked? he asks, a sense of confusion cutting through the other emotions drifting over the Bond from his side.

“Transformed into a different state by fire like this,” I explain, gesturing at the still-burning end of my torch. He still looks bemused so I just hand him a bit of cooked bird-meat as a demonstration, while quietly celebrating at how well the distraction seems to be working. River takes the meat delicately from my hand with clawed fingers. He sniffs it first, then puts it in his mouth. I watch his reaction as he chews. His crocodilian teeth don’t seem to chew very well – he gnaws on it a bit at the side of his mouth near the jaw connection, then tips his back and swallows. He makes a bit of a face.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

It tastes strange. Not bad, but not good either. It’s also very dry. I think I’d rather have what they’re eating, he decides finally, pointing at the corpses the raptorcats and nunda are enjoying.

“No problem,” I shrug. Pulling the final monkey corpse from my Inventory, I give it to him. He stays standing, keeping an eye even as he rips pieces of meat off from the carcass with his claws and tosses them in his mouth. Ah well, I may not have made a convert to the ranks of the cooked meat eaters, but at least I don’t have to defend my supply, either. It’ll be easier to feed him too if he can eat fresh meat; sometimes I wish I dared to as well. I’d rather not risk catching a disease or eating a tape-worm or something, though. Actually, I don’t know if Lay-on-hands could even deal with those. I’d rather not find out the hard way that they can’t.

Once we’re all sated, we keep going. I pick the cubs up and tuck them back into the sling despite their protests: I’m not willing to let them wander around by themselves right now. Besides, we need to move quickly and they’re not that fast yet. Fortunately, Lathani apparently feels well enough to trot by herself.

While she was eating, I spent some time cataloging the differences between her previous cub-self and her new juvenile-self. She’s much bigger, pretty much matching Bastet. She’s a little shorter than the adult raptor-cat, but she’s longer. Lathani’s definitely not an adult yet, her features still a little cub-like, but they’ve definitely gained more adult definition. I can see the nunda she’s going to become and she really is beautiful. Her coat is also more adult than before, as I noted in the dark when River passed her out to me. It’s still a bit fluffy, though, the markings not quite as clearly defined as they will be. In short, although she’s still a sight to see, she’s less adorable and more magnificent.

“Are you feeling a little better, Lathani?” I inquire as we jog quickly. At this speed, I can still talk at the same time as run. When we switch to a higher gear soon, I’ll have to save my breath. Still, I’ve already earned a point in Strength (Endurance) in the last twenty-four hours, so clearly this headlong rush is doing me some good.

Slightly, she replies. I am no longer hungry. Where are we going, carer? This is not a good place to be. I’m curious about how she knows – can she sense the murderous intentions of the trees around, or the number of other creatures which have died here? Or is it something different? Either way, I already know that this place isn’t a great spot, so her senses don’t inform me of anything new.

“We’re going back to the cave, to meet up with Kalanthia,” I tell her.

Mother is alive? Her whole voice brightens with hope and burgeoning joy. I thought… She doesn’t finish but I can guess what was in her mind, especially considering the emotions she hit me with soon after waking.

“She’s alive,” I confirm, my heart breaking at the thought of how she must have felt – kidnapped, taken away from everything familiar, had things done to her, and all while thinking that her mother was dead. “They hit her with some sort of stamina-dampening poison. If not for that, she’d have been way ahead of me in rescuing you.”

I had hoped… She trails off. I thank you for coming for me, carer. You are still so weak and puny that it took great bravery to follow me.

“Thanks?” I reply a little uncertainly, not sure if it’s really a compliment. I want to ask what happened to her while she was with the lizard-folk, but figure that would be pretty insensitive. “How come you can talk now?” Hopefully that isn’t too likely to bring up bad memories.

I could always talk; you just weren’t very good at listening, she accuses me cheerfully. I frown. Is that right? Is it because I’ve increased my Wisdom that I can now hear her? Or Willpower. Surely that’s not the answer… They’ve definitely done something to her.

“And nothing’s changed about you,” I say to her dubiously. She squirms a little, an odd look on a leopard.

Well...I suppose something’s changed. I’ve got bigger.

“I saw that,” I acknowledge with amusement.

And speaking to people is easier. At least, speaking to you is easier. And the smaller carer. I never used to be able to speak properly to her either. But I couldn’t speak to the scaly creatures, even when they hurt me. My heart, already sore from her earlier revelations, breaks again at the innocent confusion and hurt in her mental projection. At the confirmation that they hurt her, I also have a sudden urge to go and slaughter all the lizard-folk I can find. I glare at River and he has the grace to look away, shame coming across the Bond between us. Returning my gaze to Lathani, my anger drains away to be replaced with compassion at her unhappy mien.

“I don’t think they would have listened to you anyway,” I tell her gently. “I’m sure you did the best you could. And now you’re not there any more.”

No, she agrees, once more hitting me with a wave of emotion, much more relief and gratitude in this one than the previous, though the undercurrents of hurt and fear are still there.

We pick up the pace soon after rendering speech impossible. For me, anyway, but since I don’t have a Bond with Lathani, I can’t conduct the same kinds of mental conversations that I’ve been having with Bastet and River.

It’s a while later, that something happens. We’ve been travelling through this forest for hours and the sun is reaching its zenith, judging from the angle of sunbeams through the canopy. There’s a shrieking cry and cracking noise that keeps coming from an area just off to the right from us. Without me asking her to, Bastet peels off and investigates, venturing a little closer, though keeping within eyesight. Like when we travelled through this forest before, I don’t want anyone going out of sight in case the trees take the opportunity to spring a trap again.

It’s close enough for her to see the cause of the commotion. She sends back an image of a winged creature trapped by vegetation. This time, it’s not a tree that has caused a trap with its roots, but one of the vibrantly-coloured plants that make up the undergrowth between trees. It seems to have thorny vines and has dug these into the wings and body of a creature not all that dissimilar from the one which attacked Bastet and I at night – the one I chose not to Dominate. Just like the other one, it has four legs, two wings with claws at their front joints, and a toothed beak. Unlike the previous, it’s much more brightly coloured, mixing reds and yellows together in a beautiful display. Though, with the thorns that have dug into its body, there’s rather more red than I suspect there should be.

I hesitate: we need to get through this forest before I run out of torches, and this one’s already burning up. We don’t have time to stop and help some random bird. But on the other hand, how can I just leave a magnificent creature like that to be torn apart by some over-ambitious weeds? Should we take the time to save it or not?