Gertrude scrambled back up the chair as high as she could when the wolves were suddenly in front of her. The predators that appeared out of nowhere were by no means small. Each one was probably as big as her, and clearly stronger. As she pointed and stared at them, she slowly began to calm down. One of them sat on the chair with Natalie, while the other two sat on either side. They made no movements, nor did they seem to be angry or hungry. Natalie herself was as calm and collected as could be, save for the wry smile she had on her face. This is what she was hiding throughout the whole conversation. Gertrude had been sure that most people would not just walk into a compound like theirs unarmed, and boy was she right. Most people would not be hiding giant ass predators that could rip her face off.

     As Gertrude finally started to calm her breathing and lower herself back into the chair, Nat decided to start explaining the whole circumstance behind the wolves. The discovery of Kali trapped under a tree, how the others were wolves that Bryden had given his life to protect. How all of them had helped bury him and given the man who fought to keep them safe as much respect as possible. How they had traveled and fought goblins all along the way from Waterton to here. Before going to far in depth with the whole Soulscape side of things, Nat took a decent sized pause in her explanation to give Gertrude some time to collect her thoughts. The older woman appeared to have her eyes spinning at all of the extra info as she tried to connect the parts of these stories to the ones that Nat had just finished going over.

     Placing her hands on her knees to steady herself, Gertrude looked at Natalie, "You said they helped you fight off a bunch of goblins. Any in this area in large groups? We have been harassed daily by a horde of them every evening, but they never showed up last night. We have all be on edge ever since."

     "There was a large group that we found at a farm outside of town. There were dozens of them but we never stopped to count. Those we did all take care of, but they may or may not be the group that has been attacking you." Nat explained, doing her best to recollect the memories of the encounter the previous day. By this point, she could tell that none had tried bonding with any animals. Gertrude's reaction and the constant looking back and forth between the canines and Natalie as if she was trying to find out where she was hiding them. Almost as if she had kept them in her pockets, and just threw them out like pocket sand. Heh, pocket sand upgrades directly to pocket wolves. Better, improved, and with a hundred percent more fluff.

     Slowly, Nat started explaining what it was like to bond with an animal. How it felt, what you could do afterwards, anything she thought might be of use. After hearing about all of this, Gertrude slowly looked over at her cat, which was already staring back at her. Stretching, the feline got up and walked over to Gertrude. As the tabby leapt up as if to perch on her lap, the cat disappeared into the elderly woman. Looking down at where the cat entered her in surprise, she was even more taken aback when the cat's head popped back out and meowed at her. The wide eyed look made it painfully obvious that being able to talk with her pet was something she was not expecting to actually be able to do. Tearing her eyes away from her feline friend, she started pressing Nat for all of the information that she had.

     After a couple hours of just hearing all of the stuff that Nat had tried, Gertrude started going around and tried to get stuff inside herself. When it worked and was able to duplicate, tears started to gather in her eyes. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I was so worried that we would run out of supplies before help would arrive. Now I feel like we can make it through." Once more, Gertrude turned into a bawling mess and hugged Natalie, however this time the feelings that were felt were of pure joy and relief. The sudden hug caught her off guard, and Natalie stood there for a second surprised at the emotional lady. Almost out of instinct, she started returning the hug and just let Gertrude just let all of her emotions out.

     Now knowing that it was not just her, but that everyone was able to do this, Natalie brought up ideas for a whole new list of tests that they could do. Hearing some of the ideas, Gertrude was immediately on board. They checked numerous things, such as whether a duplicated item could be stored by someone else and get access to it, whether bonded animals could enter another's Soulscape, and could a live person enter into someone else. While duplicated items could be transferred easily, giving access to a whole new side of possibilities for growth, people could not enter one another at all. There was just no feeling of being able to enter into one another. Kali offered to be the one to try, though she said if she became un-bonded, she would immediately turn back and re-bond with Natalie. Hearing this made Natalie glad that she had helped Kali, though it felt like much longer than the five days that it had been.

     What was found out was hat while Kali could feel like she could enter into Gertrude's Soulscape, it felt as if she was getting far more distant to Nat as she did. This prompted the idea that only bonded animals could go inside, but animals could change who they are bonded to. There was apparently no feeling of being blocked from entry, nor from leaving. Just as if she was making a choice as to which person to be with. The info was reassuring to Nat, as her biggest fear with it was that if someone wanted power, they could force animals to bond with them, from which they could never leave. Knowing that the choice was entirely in their hands made that issue null, and she felt immense relief flooding her mind. That was until Gertrude asked a certain line of questions that lead to Nat's other main worry. "Could people bond with monsters? Could that be what Troy had done?"

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Lachlan, Coen, Adam, John, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times.