Sancha: A Spirit Animals Story

Chapter 20: Brothers In and Out of Blood

Sancha's first 'patient' as she viewed it, was of course, Finn Cooley. Over the course of a couple months, which were laborious and taxing though incredibly rewarding, Sancha managed to cover much of the mental manifestations of Euran youth's spirit animal bond. Though Sancha outwardly showed an air of confidence that this would work, she privately dreaded the idea that more incidents might occur.

When they stopped nearly all together, Sancha allowed herself to accept she'd made progress. Alec, too, had been apprehensive, and stayed so for a long while. He trusted Sancha, and knew at least a fraction of what she could do, having seen her work done on Finn with his own eyes. Still, this was unknown territory, and no one knew where it might lead or what might unexpectedly arise. Thankfully, for Sancha and everyone else, the obstacles that did arise were ones Sancha had already faced before. Not they weren't difficult at times. 

In the beginning, Sancha's sessions with Finn left her drained and sore all over, unable to do extensive training two days later. This interfered with her typical schedule with Tarik, but the Niloan Greencloak seemed much more concerned with Sancha's health than maintaining their normal routine. Sancha couldn't be certain, but she was fairly certain that part of Tarik worried that what Sancha was doing was a mistake, and that perhaps, more harm than good might come of it. But he also hoped that Sancha's efforts would bare fruit, and this hope and trust in his protege's abilities overruled any lingering doubts.  

But as time went on, Sancha grew more perceptive and discovered that she was able to get around the many violent defenses the Bonding Sickness manifested to keep Sancha from containing it. She discovered that when her own mind was calmer, her manifestation in Finn's mind was better able to resist the numerous thorny brambles that attempted to obstruct her. It was as if a sense of inner peace created a mental armor whilst up against the Bonding Sickness. As a result, Lenori conducted further meetings with Sancha, directing her on excersizes that helped to clear her mind, release tension, and resist spiraling into fits of major anxiety. At Lenori's reccomendation, Sancha even took up a new habit: drinking tea, which if it didn't calm her down, certainly helped keep her warm as the days grew shorter and the wind grew heavy with ice.

Sancha had never seen snow before in her life, and needless to say, the first snowfall over Greenhaven was a wonder to her. That morning, she put on a newly accquired coldweather coat and boots and headed out to revel in this new found white beauty. The little ice crystals reflected what little light had stuck around, and the landscape seemed touched by tiny radiant diamonds. Her joy was not shared by those junior Greencloaks who'd been given the unfortunate task of clearing snow out of the fortress courtyard to avoid ice building up and resulting slips and injuries. They watched Sancha with disbelief and slight annoyance. Snow was cool, but not when you had to clear it out of a large courtyard early in the morning. But Sancha didn't even notice the other people around her, so entranced by the white winter greeting she was receiving.

...

Alec and Finn found reason for some joy when the remaining three Cooley brothers returned from extended posts abroad. 

Naturally, Sancha got to meet the three of them, and she liked them almost instantly. The feeling was mutual. Aside from their grattitude toward her for helping Finn and also Alec to a degree, they judged her to be a humble, unpretentious individual who laughed when they said something funny, and made an effort to know all of their names and those of their spirit animals.

Torrin, the eldest, was a near giant of a man, two heads taller than Finn at the least, with large shoulders and firm hands that were calloused yet warm, as Sancha observed when the eldest brother shook her hand upon their first meeting. Like Finn and Alec, his hair was brown, a tad unruly, and thick, and his eyes were the same gray as Finn's. His spirit animal was a badger, Amilia, which Alec had mentioned at one point previously.