Werewolf Bonds
1 January, 1982[?]
Remus
We provoked a bond? he contemplated. His memory seemed to pull a book out of the library: "Bonds must be prepared by emotions, provoked by actions, and sealed, usually by ritual. There are many types of bonds, some of which are more easily formed or broken than others. Familial bonds are most common, as they apply to blood as well as legal and even chosen family. Familial bonds are easily made and - often - easily severed.
"Second most common are marital bonds, which allow bondmates to share magic when completely prepared, provoked, and sealed. Others include bonds of servitude, enchanted bonds (see Life Debts, Unbreakable Vows, and Other Binding Magic), and a variety of bonds specific to the werewolf community…"
Wait. Marital bonds? Fuck . His mind filed that book away to recall another. "Marital bonds are prepared by emotions of romantic love, provoked by actions of devotion, and sealed by a wedding ritual."
Romantic ooey-gooey feelings? Check. Actions of devotion? So many checks.
Leaving… he couldn't finish his own thought. The words of the book still hovered behind his eyes. "Some marital bonds are prepared and provoked but never sealed. Others are sealed without prior preparation or provocation. The strongest bonds, with the greatest enhancement of the bondmates' magic, are of course those that go through proper preparation and provocation before the wedding ritual seals and completes them.
"These bonds allow true synergistic sharing of magic, enabling bondmates to share another's magic without diminishing either's power. Incomplete bonds do not exhibit this to full effect, and are also more easily broken. The only comparable examples, some claim, are the bonds between werewolves and their pack or mate…"
Damn, I actually need to check on the werewolf bit, don't I? Placing the sceptical book back on a mental shelf, he flipped through the first book and picked up where he left off. He didn't imagine any action in the interim; he wasn't using some "method of loci", and he didn't have an eidetic memory. He simply remembered most of what he'd read, and could even visualize the pages when he needed to, most of the time. The memories of reading were so inextricably tied to the image of a library, he couldn't recall one without the other, regardless of his original location whenever he'd actually studied the text. It wasn't something he'd ever consciously tried to do, it was just the way his brain worked.
"Werewolves form two unique types of bonds, similar in some ways to those previously mentioned. Among what is referred to by some as the 'lycanthrope community'," - a mental snort, then and now - "the most frequently formed is the pack bond.
"Pack bonds are prepared by emotions of attachment, provoked by actions of teamwork, and sealed with a hunting ritual. The act of drawing blood together forms a sealed pack bond, though preparation and/or provocation do strengthen it. It is unknown whether human blood is required to complete the hunting ritual." Hmmm…
A very different memory surfaced. Memories of books were like text scrolling behind his eyes. Other than the image of the library, there was very little sensory data. This memory was a sensory overload.
Earth. Leafmould. Green. Sweat. Silver moonlight, bright orb, bursting, pouring into every cell, now unseen but never unfelt. Muscles churning. Wind, leaves, twigs, all brushing through fur and tumbling after each other. Paws pounding. He howled .
Howlreturned, at his right. Smaller, broader too, black and bulky and shaggy, not lunascent and lithe, but still keeping pace. Panting. Breath fogging. Running, running together, striding, leaping as one, through forest, over earth, through water, over stone.
A clatter of hooves. A magnificent figure of tawny, proud strength, not even approaching top speed on sprinter's legs, wind and leaves and twigs tangling and tumbling through nobly upheld antlers. And there, perched at the base of the grandiose rack, a tiny morsel, all quivering whiskers and twitching tail. Watering jaws…
A push on his right side. Warm. Coarse fur. A reminder. Not prey, some part of him whispered,neither of them. None of them.
And a sense, though he hadn't needed a word for it at the time, of a connection, to all of them. They were Pack.
And Peter severed it in the absolute worst possible way. The present came roaring back. He rested his elbows on his knees to bury his face in his hands. His hands slid roughly up his skin to his hair, gripping and almost pulling on it as he took deep breaths. The scent and sound of his current surroundings - or lack thereof, compared to Moony's memory - helped to ground him. He resumed his recollection.
"Pack bonds are very different from normal bonds, in that all members of the pack share every bond through each other. However, bonds are still strongest between packmates who have directly prepared, provoked, and/or sealed their bonds with each other. Werewolf packs have been rumoured to share magic, able to pool their power, magnified in proportion to the strength of the bond…" …he scanned ahead.
"Sealed pack bonds can only be broken by a different blood ritual: drawing the blood of a bondmate. When any pack member draws the blood of another, any and all bonds he created or shared with mutual packmates are instantly severed. No other bonds have been observed to exhibit this unusual behaviour.
"The second bond exclusive to werewolves is the mate bond.