Chapter Fifty-Four: Handily-sized Snacks (Patreon)

First, I need to confirm – or deny – my suspicions. As casually as I can, I turn to Bastet and ask her a question, doing my best to control the feelings and images I inadvertently send down the link.

“What happened to your pack, Bastet? You seemed too powerful to be taken down easily.” Instead of doing a ‘don’t think of pink elephants’ sort of scenario I try to instead send the memory of being chased through forest by their pack, driven to hiding in an underground burrow to escape as an illustration of how powerful they had seemed to me. At the end, there’s the comparison with the memory of walking out of the forest line to see their butchered half-eaten bodies strewn over the outcropping.

A wave of sadness and longing emanates from the raptorcat padding next to me. She sends me the sense of overpowering ferocity, Strength which they couldn’t hope to match, and the environment turning against them. It suddenly makes me wonder if I’d have seen something different if I’d spotted their den before the whole slaughter. At the end is a brief still-image of the creature that had done all this, and the picture makes the blood turn to ice in my veins.

Snarling, blood-spattered, and larger than life, the picture is different from any other time I’d seen her, but it is Kalanthia for sure. A Kalanthia that frankly I’d never like to see again. At least, not aimed at me. That...complicates things.

We walk in silence for a while, the cubs occasionally letting out the odd squeaky snore. My brain is racing as I try to work out what I can do. If there’s anything I can do, that is, to avoid the car-crash I can see coming. Is it possible to warn either party ahead of the inevitable encounter? Should I?

After some consideration, I realise that the most important one to warn is the raptorcat padding beside me. She’s the one who’s lost her entire family, or pack, or whatever she’d call it. Either way, the clear sadness and loss that she feels now indicates she had strong bonds with the other raptorcats, and now they’re gone. They’re gone and she’s soon going to come face to face with their killer.

On Kalanthia’s side, I doubt there’s much emotion. Unless she has a particular dislike of raptorcats or they did something to her which she was getting revenge for, I reckon that she probably just treated the pack as they had treated me a few days ago: as prey. Although why would she leave the bodies half-eaten in that case? Actually, can I even assume that she ate them at all considering it had been hours since she clearly killed them; something else could have come through the area and consumed the corpses. Then there's the fact that she didn't pursue Bastet after having given her a significant wound; if she was hunting for food, wouldn't she have gone after the escapee after having dealt with the rest of the pack?

Maybe she had different motives. Lathani's certainly getting bigger and stronger - it probably won't be long until she starts trying to explore the world beyond her den. Having a pack of killers roaming around is probably a threat to that. All of which raises a dilemma for me: if Kalanthia hunted down the raptorcats to get rid of a potential threat against her cub, how is she going to take me bringing four of them into her personal space? Kalanthia took the presence of Spike with equanimity, but in a way that's different: he would be considered prey, not a threat to Lathani. The cubs are too small to any threat to the rambunctious nunda cub but an adult raptorcat is a different matter. On the other hand, Bastet is Bound to me...

I allow myself a moment to consider the differences between my Bond with Spike and my Bond with Bastet, just wanting to verify for myself that I could assure Kalanthia that Bastet would be no threat to her cub. After all, if I promised that and it turned out not to be true, I'd be lucky to see the next dawn.

Feeling the two Bonds, which seem to be stored in some alternate space connecting to both my mind and something deep in my chest, I get a different sense from each. It must be something to do with my increased Wisdom since I’ve only been able to detect either bond since earning two Wisdom points today. Before then, I’d been aware that there was something between Spike and me, had even used it to send images to him, but it was different. Before it was like I was holding a thin cord with thick gloves – difficult to feel except when it moves and impossible to manipulate delicately. Now, it’s like the gloves have been replaced with thinner versions – I’m more able to feel the bond even when it’s not active and I sense I can manipulate it a little more easily.

Thinking back to when I felt the niggling sensation of a new notification, I’m pretty sure that one of the points came when I stretched out my senses to try to work out what creatures were outside the cave while the five of us were hiding inside. I suppose that kind of makes sense – Wisdom is, apparently, all about connecting with the world around me, so I guess that situation qualifies.

I’m not sure about the other – it could have been when I decided to Bond Bastet, or possibly whileI was Dominating Bastet. I would have thought the decision to try to convince her to allow herself to be Bound rather than just trying to force the issue would count as showing Wisdom, but what do I know?

Either way, when I accepted the two points post the lizog fight – twenty-eight percent of my Energy store suddenly disappearing as a result – I suddenly felt a new sensation settle in me. I now have a better idea of why Kalanthia called them ‘chains’: that’s exactly what they feel like, though on my part it feels like I’m holding the ends of them rather than being bound myself.

Each feels a bit different too. Spike’s is calm, placid. Solid, in a way, but there’s also a sense of indifference. It’s completely counter to Bastet’s that feels...like a feral cat settling into your home. I mean, I’ve never had a feral cat, but from what I’ve seen of cat videos and read on online comments, there’s a settling in period for any new cat. Probably any new pet, really. And while Bastet isn’t exactly a ‘pet’, there’s definitely that sense of uncertainty in the bond.

It feels like she’s tiptoeing a bit around me, a bit touchy, a bit defensive, on edge because she’s not yet sure of how I will react to things. Indifferent, she is not. Unlike Spike’s Bond, Bastet’s feels a lot more two-way. That’s been pretty obvious from the start: Bastet took to responding to me through the Bond with an ease that Spike has never shown. Whether that’s because Spike has less Intelligence – or Wisdom, or whatever the stat is that affects this kind of thing – or that perhaps Bastet actually had some sort of similar connection to her pack-mates and was therefore already used to communicating like this, I don’t know.

Fortunately, I do get the sense that despite her greater capacity to communicate, my control over her is just as strong as it is over Spike. Though I do get a sense that she probably is capable of resisting an order to an extent, I feel confident that if I order her to leave Lathani alone, she will have no choice but to follow. Ultimately, that’s what I need to know ahead of talking to Kalanthia. Talking to Bastet though…

I spend a long time considering how to broach the subject with her, considering and dismissing one approach after another. Unfortunately, my hesitation takes too long, something I only realise when Bastet tenses, her ears pressing back against her head, turning to glare at me and sending feelings of anger and betrayal down the Bond.

For a moment, I’m confused, but when images accompany the feelings, images of Kalanthia once more tearing the raptorcats apart, only this time actually succeeding in killing and eating Bastet herself, and then moving on to gulp down the cubs, I realise the problem: she’s caught Kalanthia’s scent and drawn her own conclusions.

“No,” I yelp, louder than I intended. Loud enough, in fact, to wake the cubs out of their sleepy state. “No,” I repeat at a lower level, despite it being too late. The cubs are already awake and picking up the suddenly fraught atmosphere, as their uncertain mewls indicate. “I swear, Bastet,” I continue, staring at the raptorcat and trying to push sincerity down the Bond, “I swear I’m not collaborating with Kalanthia.”

She responds with feelings of distrust, the same pangs of betrayal again being sent to add a poignancy to her message.

“Look,” I tell her, stopping and putting my hands out a little defensively. It’s not because I think she’ll attack me – the little I understand of the Bond tells me that attacking the Bond holder is something it explicitly prevents – but because I’m trying to show her how genuine I’m being. “I live with Kalanthia. I’ve done it for quite a few days now. I wasn’t aware she would attack your pack. I didn’t tell her about you or direct her in any way. Nor did I know she had attacked your pack and come to take advantage. It was all complete coincidence.” I sent memories along with my words, memories of spending time near Kalanthia and her cub, sleeping next-door to them, looking after Lathani while Kalanthia hunted, going searching through the forest for wood only to find an injured raptorcat…

The response from Bastet rather surprises me. Pure irritable indifference. Like such thoughts are irrelevant and she’s annoyed that I’m wasting her time with them. I think part of my surprise must seep through to her as she adds a flurry of more images and emotions.

Finally, I think I understand why my previous attempt at reassuring her fell completely flat. I pride myself on being a good communicator, but this time I forgot to take the other person’s background into account. Bastet isn’t a human, who might be concerned with the past. She’s a predator, an animal who lives very much in the present.

A human might feel betrayal because the person they’ve sworn themselves to appears to be in cahoots with the person who killed their family. A human might rail against nature, at their family being taken before their time. An animal, no. Bastet has consistently shown me that she accepts the death of her pack, that she understands the nature of the world is survival of the fittest. Her feelings of betrayal are not because I appear to be in cahoots with her family’s killer, but because she thinks that I’ve brought her here to be eaten by Kalanthia; that my promises of helping her and, more importantly in her mind, the cubs to become stronger are worthless. With that realisation, I try once more to reassure her.

“Nothing has changed about what I promised you. I didn’t bring you here to be snacks for Kalanthia. I’m going to talk to her and make sure she doesn’t eat you, OK?” Once more trying to send waves of sincerity down the Bond, I see her hackles starting to descend and her ears beginning to rise again after a few moments. Her stubby wings also start to lower from their fluffed up anger display.

There isn’t any whole-hearted sense of an apology for doubting me, or even a re-expression of trust. However, she doesn’t send more feelings of betrayal or distrust, instead sending a sense of resigned ‘wait and see’. If I can put it in words, it’s like Bastet acknowledges that she doesn’t have a huge amount of choice in the matter but will tentatively hope for the best. I figure it’s the best I’m going to get.

Soon reaching the river at the base of the hill, I take a quick dip to wash off the worst of the dirt and sweat. For once, I’m not coated in blood too. Small mercies.

Then, gazing apprehensively up the slope, I slip back into my clothes. Time to put my money where my mouth is and ensure that Bastet and the three cubs don’t become handily-sized snacks for my nunda landlord.