It was quite curious. Normally, neither Luna nor I cared all that much about our test subjects. Sure, we generally tried to be careful with them, if only because breaking a test subject before the experiment was concluded and could be evaluated was a waste of time and effort, but also because neither of us took joy in the suffering of others. Unless those others deserved it, I had certainly enjoyed what vengeance I had managed to wreak upon those who had killed Sigmir and even now, knowing that those had been actual people, I would gleefully repeat my actions.
Well, maybe not repeat. I was fairly certain I had better ways to maim somebody horribly now, but the sentiment remained the same. Those who hurt somebody I cared about would find themselves in a world of hurt, even if I had to hurt the entire world to get them there.
However, in the case of the Sasquatch, that sentiment was even more pronounced. Neither of us wanted to traumatise the creature needlessly, to the point that we both hesitated to start the experimentation while carefully studying her nature. Sure, we wanted to figure out how she, and all the other Sasquatch, had come to be from ordinary Shattered, but keeping our experiments non-invasive made things a little difficult.
At least, at first.
As it turned out, while we kept studying the Sasquatch, she got used to us fairly quickly, possibly aided along by the fact that she kept consuming water infused with my Astral Power. Or maybe she realised we were caring for her, even if we kept her imprisoned, and had healed what she possibly understood to be crippling injuries. Either way, after the first day of remaining in her corner she started to relax around us and even started to skittishly approach.
Uncertain of how to respond to her approach, I acted similarly to the way I would have when dealing with a canine, something I had a fair amount of experience with thanks to my exposure to Silva and Ylva back on Mundus. Sure, both of them were vastly more intelligent than your average canine, but that didn’t mean that the instincts I had learned when dealing with them were completely wrong.
Somehow, that approach worked.
The first day, she was in her corner while using a different corner as her bathroom, forcing me to clean that area or risk an infernal stink, quite literally. During the cleaning, I also altered that particular area to be a mix between toilet and litterbox, something the Sasquatch soon took advantage of, as I learned thanks to my scrying constructs.
The second day, after she had approached us for the first time, she started to explore her cell some more after we left her alone. Part of that exploration was digging into the litterbox, though it seemed to be more driven by curiosity than a desire to escape.
On the third day, her approach became somewhat more proactive, a trend that continued for the next few days, allowing us to touch her body and check on her wounds without lashing out. At that point, I became fairly confident that the ingestion of my Astral Power had an effect on her. She started to trust us too quickly for me to believe otherwise, or she was smarter than I thought. Either option was plausible.
By the fifth day, we knew almost everything there was to know about female Sasquatch bodies. Thanks to continued observation of their nearby community, we also had a fair amount of knowledge regarding their male counterparts and culture, though the biggest source of information was the study of our captured, or rescued, specimen.
Thanks to the growing familiarity with the Sasquatch, who we had dubbed Sasha, Luna and I could directly interact with the creature and use our magical skills on her. She didn’t mind to be moved into positions as necessary and had even learned to accept that, once she was placed on the table, she was supposed to hold still. Teaching her that had required bribery with a few treats and, again, she demonstrated a fair amount of understanding and intelligence, though I could hardly guess how much of that was her as an individual and how she compared to other Sasquatch. We might have the genius of the tribe here, or their village might now miss their idiot. We simply had no point of comparison.
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What we did have, however, was a most curious observation. Either thanks to the continued ingestion of conjured Water or due to some other reason, her soul seemed to get, for lack of a better word, brighter. At least, that was how Luna described it. I had yet to recognise the changes to her soul beyond an incredibly slow, gradual fusing of the Shattered parts into a new whole. It would likely take months for the process to complete, but I was fairly confident that something was happening with her soul. A part of me was curious to give that slowly fusing soul, or maybe calling it a slowly healing soul would be more appropriate, a little push, just to see what would happen, but I restrained myself. There was no telling what observation of this process might yield, though given its glacial speed, I knew that observation would take a while.
“You know, we could simply try and take her with us,” Luna suggested after yet another of our study sessions. We had gently poked and prodded Sasha for some time, even adding a bit of careful magic to the mix, mostly using my Ice and Water Magic to provoke a response, which we had accomplished. It seemed that Sasquatch had an instinctive ability to keep their bodies and fur dry by preventing water from clinging to them and some skill in keeping themselves warm by pushing away the cold. It was a reasonably interesting process, primarily because it obviously functioned by viewing the elements as a great cycle, allowing a user of Ice Magic to create warmth by metaphorically pushing the Ice away, something I could only accomplish by using Fire Magic. Maybe with physics, too, though I would have to carefully think about possible ways to accomplish that.
Now, however, Luna had thrown me a curveball instead of continuing with our usual discussion on Sasha’s abilities and how we might be able to augment or redirect her development.
“You mean like we did with Alex?” I asked, not wanting to compare Sasha to either of my daughters or to our most loyal canine companion, Silva. Sasha was interesting, but she was not that interesting just yet. Maybe she would get there someday.
“It could work, couldn’t it?” she asked, a grin on her face. “We might need a leash for her, though,” she added, the grin only growing wider.
The only immediate response I had to that was a deep, mournful sigh as my dear daughter occasionally had some very strange ideas, making me wonder just where she had gotten them from. I was fairly certain that I had never suggested anything like that to her, especially not after what we had seen in Belgrade, and yet, the ideas were there. For some reason I didn’t want to consider too deeply.
“Not sure about that idea,” I admitted, only for Luna immediately to ask whether I meant the leash or taking Sasha with us.
“Either, if I’m honest,” I replied before taking a moment to consider the actual idea after banishing the incredibly strange images I had briefly seen in my head. I didn’t need to imagine what Luna would look like while leading Sasha on a leash. That felt just incredibly weird, especially as Sasha had been demonstrating that she was generally more intelligent than a normal animal.
On the one hand, it would allow us to continue our travels, even if Sasha’s presence would probably slow us down to some extent. Not as much as staying here would, obviously, but given her comparatively low level, she simply didn’t have the stamina to keep up with us, even if we didn’t actively pushed our limits. Or passively, if I was honest. We generally travelled at a comfortable pace, not hurrying or forcing us to continue when we came across a nice spot to rest. In that regard, Sasha would probably be able to keep up, especially if I occasionally helped her with my Blood Magic.
On the other hand, adding her to the group would add some major potential for trouble. The Sasquatch had only briefly looked around the area where she had fallen, and even that came over a day after the event, so I doubted they’d try to hunt us. But, unless something drastically changed with Sasha, she wouldn’t immediately obey commands, adding a potential point of failure to our party.
“I’ll think about it, okay?” I asked Luna, as I was unwilling to decide this question without quite a bit of deliberation, it wasn’t something I could agree to on the spot.
“Sure, not like we are going anywhere,” Luna snarked back, a small grin on her face as she essentially hit the problem on the head. We weren’t going anywhere at the moment.
