The process was bloody, with a few rocky moments here and there. The slate itself had fragmented inside the wound, making the process take far longer than they originally thought. They did not want to leave around bits of rock underneath the bear's skin, as that could lead to discomfort in the future in the best case scenario. The issues could go all the way up to causing an infection, or even rupturing something inside and causing a massive amount of internal bleeding. Thus, they did their best to get out every piece they could find. Which was incredibly hard given that the shale was both dark in colour and not magnetic. Added into the fact that they could not shine any direct light into the opening to look around, it was all either lucky glances or feeling around for anything inside. They couldn't poke around too much, as that may lead to other issues, but the Vilkas couple did their best to do a thorough search of the cavity that was the bear cubs wound. When they felt they were unlikely to find any more, Charlene started suturing up the cub as Matis cleaned up the area and kept everything in place and steady.

By the time that the operation was all said and done, the sun was already nearing its highest point in the sky. As Matis disconnected the IV that slowly dripped in the anesthesia into the bear cub, Charlene went around and started duplicating some of the tools and materials that were sitting around. The mother bear just spent her time examining her cub's leg, before laying out beside the table. With everything that he needed to do done, Matis slumped down and leaned upon the large bear's torso, using it as a backrest. While she had been the biggest source of stress throughout this whole operation, he felt so relieved right now that he couldn't care less. Her fur and body heat were the comfiest thing in the room, and he didn't seem to mind him laying against her form. At least going by her lack of reaction to his slump.

As he sat there, Sheera laid down across from them against the wall. Charlene laid against her chest just as he did to the bear, mirroring his position. She had felt the stress from the whole procedure as well, a mother bear watching each and every one of their moves as they worked on treating her child. However, most of the stress she felt was from when they were pulling slivers of rock out of the wound. Not having access to proper lighting or tools to look for the pieces meant that they had definitely missed some, at least the smaller ones for sure. But that was not possible, not with the current state of the world. So she tried to focus on what she could do and learn right now, "Hey Matis, you going to explain to me what's up with the bear?"

Matis looked up at her, confused for a second. He thought he had given an explanation the second she walked in here? Then he realized that he only had explained to the bear that she was his wife, and had said nothing over the past few hours to Charlene on how they got into that position. She had just jumped into work mode once she saw he was treating an injured animal, not caring about the reasons at the time. Now they had time to sit down and talk, without someone being under. Especially since the anesthesia would take another thirty minutes at the minimum to wear off so the cub could wake up and crawl back into his Core to rest and recover in peace. "So, given the way you burst in here, I would be correct to assume you had seen my office?" He waited until he saw a nod come back before continuing, "When I woke up this morning, I walked out of the room to find all of the doors open, and a trail of indistinct prints leading through the house into my office. Following them, I had originally thought it might have been a burglar, so I had grabbed the closest implement I could which happened to be a knife from the kitchen. Walking into the office, i was greeted by her sleeping form, which I accidentally awoke nd discovered there was not one but four bears there. After acting as We know is proper when encountering a grizzly, she didn't get physical or try to take me out to remove a threat from her young. Instead she pushed her young to me and they all entered my Core. I was so shocked by this, that my mind went blank. Next thing I know, I'm trying to stand up the broken desk in my office with everything behind me having been cleaned up. Then I remembered that one of her cubs had limped up to me, and the rest should be pretty straightforward."

Charlene just stared at Matis, her jaw slack. He had followed tracks, into a room in their house, and did not feel the need to wake her up? He had even closed the door to their room, meaning that even if he had called for help, Sheera would have had to wait until she had gotten up and opened the door? She really did love the man, but sometimes he was as dense as a brick wall. From the look on his face, she could tell that he hadn't even thought of that for a second, and was just living in the moment as he usually did. She had tried to reason him out of it so many times, she felt that it was just who he was, and put it off to the side. The part of all of that which interested her the most was the fact that he had bonded to not one, but four individual bears. Was that true across the board? Was it possible that she could bond with more animals should they deem it acceptable?

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Hades, Sir Hellington, Onean, Sebastian, Adam, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

 

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