A New Beginning

Chapter 47

Tessa's POV:

Opening up Soranto's belt pouch, I pretended to stick something inside before jumping onto his lap. He would probably be confused when he failed to find anything later on. He caressed my neck and back. It felt good and was almost as relaxing as a small massage.

Abby and Dirk were perched precariously on the back of the bench as they did something to the armor on the back of Tran's shoulder. Tran seemed perfectly content to let them do whatever they wanted, even though all of us knew he would likely end up taking off the shoulder section to get the joints working properly again.

Dirk was ferrying an awful lot of pebbles to Abby as she carefully wedged each one into the worst spot possible. I idly wondered if Tran would ever invest in armor like Soranto's, although I kind of doubted it. Soranto liked to tease back or foil our efforts, but Tran welcomed the pranks in quiet amusement.

"I heard your schedule is shifting to every second day, correct?" Taureen asked Soranto.

My ear tufts twitched as I resisted the urge to look up. Sometimes playing dumb was hard.

"Starting in five days, yes. From what I've heard, my side guards will be ready to join us around that time."

"Drae and Sipar?"

"Yes. They don't have any experience with bond animals or fire lizards, but they do have a lot of experience with crawlers and sicora. They just finished their additional training, so now we just need to get Tessa used to their presence."

"That shouldn't be too hard. I suspect you can try your first patrols without Aeria or me in a week or so. Just make sure that the tracker in her harness is linked with your wrist comm."

"It's already linked. I don't think I will have any trouble, but you never know."

They continued discussing what Soranto's first solo patrol was going to be like. From what I overheard, it was just going to be walking around the streets to see if I would remain with him and not go looking for the people I was more familiar with or take off for the main park.

While the general idea was boring, it was still exciting because it was the next step. An outing without Taureen, Aeria, Mom, Dad, or Dirk! I would finally get to meet Soranto's side guards as well. The names were strange, so I didn't think that I had met them yet.

It wasn't long before we left the park. Abby watched us go with longing eyes, but didn't leave the trees. We all knew it would be a long time before she actually tried. In the meantime, she would be pestering us for every detail of our days and nights as she tried to learn as much as she possibly could.

As had become custom, Adeline and Maria joined us for dinner and visited most of the evening as well. If nothing else, my slow bonding with Soranto was turning the two families into very close friends.

As they were getting ready to leave, Taureen asked Soranto, "Do you have everything you need at your place? I think today might be a good day to see if Tessa will go home with you."

Dirk and I glanced at Taureen in shock, although Mom and Dad didn't seem surprised. Mom looked irritated, but didn't even growl.

"You think so?" Soranto asked. "Everything is set up, and I have all of the supplies as well as several kinds of fruit on hand."

"Try taking her home and see how she does."

Excitement began to shine in Soranto's eyes. "Let's see how far I get. If she starts crying too much, I could be bringing her back."

"Just remember to record her singing in the morning."

Soranto nodded as he reached for my harness on the wall. "Tessa, want to come with me?"