Morning at Hearthwild arrived with a wheelbarrow crashing into a fence, a spider hanging from the rafters, and a monkey butt firmly planted against Kalen’s face.

  He sputtered awake, waving one arm wildly until Milo squeaked indignantly and scampered off the bed, leaving behind nothing but a warm dent in the covers and his lingering scent of half-stolen toast.

  Kalen flopped back against the mattress with a groan.

  “New rule,” he muttered, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Small form. Always.”

  He triggered the rune bond instinctively.

  A soft pulse of mana shivered through the link — and across the room, Milo shrank in a ripple of pale blue light, returning to his cub size.

  Shrinking a bonded beast wasn't free — it tugged at a Tamer's mana core like a slow leak from a cracked faucet — but waking up to monkey butt again wasn’t an option.

  Milo blinked, confused but unbothered, and then launched himself onto the dresser to steal a button from Kalen’s old jacket.

  Kalen rolled upright, grabbed his boots, and resigned himself to facing the chaos.

  The kitchen was somehow worse.

  A loaf of bread lay shredded on the counter. Two jam jars had been knocked over — one missing its lid entirely. Dozer was halfway inside a potato sack under the table, snoring loudly. Webber clung to the ceiling beams, spinning a web between two hanging ladles.

  Milo perched proudly atop the pantry door, holding a spoon like a war trophy.

  Threx, to Kalen’s mild surprise, sat stoically by the back door, his tail wrapped neatly around his feet, watching everything unfold like a judge at a very disappointing court hearing.

  Kalen stared at the scene.

  The scene stared back.

  "...Breakfast first," he decided.

  It took effort, bribery, and only minor injury to get everyone fed.

  By the time Kalen set the last bowl of mash down, his tea was cold, his sleeves were stained with jam, and Milo had attempted to smuggle an entire sweet roll under his tail.

  He sat heavily at the table, sipping lukewarm tea and pretending he didn’t notice Webber lowering himself spider-like toward the butter dish.

  Outside, the morning sun had risen fully, casting long beams of light across the sanctuary’s mossy stones and sleepy training fields.

  It felt alive again.

  Messy. Loud. Alive.

  After breakfast, one by one, the cubs began shimmering.

  The contracts pulsed softly, and their tamers — still in the city, starting their own paths — summoned them to their sides.

  Webber vanished in a swirl of gold threads.

  Dozer disappeared with a heavy snort and a half-chewed potato in his mouth.

  Akari shimmered like a moonbeam and was gone.

  Even Threx, after one long last look at Kalen, was pulled away — his form dissolving in a low hum of mana.

  Kalen was left standing alone in the empty courtyard with just Milo and Daisy blinking up at him expectantly.

  The Sanctuary, for the first time that day, was quiet.

  He ran a hand through his hair, dislodging a few stubborn crumbs.

  "Well," he said to his only audience, "I guess it’s just us now."

  Milo chirped in agreement, bouncing once on his toes.

  Daisy flapped her tiny wings, causing a small poof of dust.

  Kalen smiled.

  "Alright. Let’s see what we can do."

  Training, it turned out, was less a matter of drills and more a matter of survival.

  Kalen quickly discovered that trying to organize two cubs — especially one who was behaving like he’d just finished battling invisible monsters in his sleep — was like herding fireworks.

  (Not that Kalen knew why Milo was acting so fired up. He just chalked it up to general monkey chaos.)

  He set up a simple obstacle course: mossy stones to hop across, hollow logs to crawl through, little mounds of dirt to leap over.

  Milo, naturally, turned it into a competition.

  Daisy, meanwhile, approached each obstacle with the careful, plodding seriousness of a soldier preparing for siege warfare.

  Kalen chuckled under his breath as he watched them.

  "You’re not racing to save the world, Daisy," he said gently as she inspected a mossy stone for the third time. "It’s just a hop."

  She eyed him. Fluffed her feathers. Then executed the world’s tiniest, angriest hop — landing with a triumphant squawk.

  "Ten out of ten," Kalen said solemnly.

  Milo, of course, immediately tried to one-up her by launching over three stones at once, crashing into a bush, and emerging with a twig stuck to his tail.

  Kalen shook his head, smiling despite himself.

  By midday, it was clear that something else was happening too.

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  Milo wasn’t just getting more coordinated — he was getting... bigger.

  Not dramatically. Not alarmingly. But Kalen could feel it when he caught the monkey midair to stop another disaster — Milo was heavier. Denser. His limbs were thickening subtly with muscle. His tail, once thin and whip-like, was starting to shrink down, the proportions shifting toward something stockier.

  Kalen frowned thoughtfully, brushing a hand over Milo’s back as the cub clung to his arm.

  The rune pulsed faintly against his palm.

  Shrinking a bonded beast was always reliable — designed to compress size without hurting the bond — but Kalen still felt a quiet flicker of relief as Milo compressed down without resistance.

  Especially considering how solid he felt lately.

  He wasn’t just growing.

  He was changing.

  Later, sitting on the worn front steps of the Sanctuary, Kalen watched the late afternoon sun stretch long shadows across the clearing.

  Daisy dozed at his feet, fluffing her feathers with little sighs of contentment. Milo curled in his lap, his breath warm against Kalen’s side.

  The Sanctuary felt... small, suddenly.

  Not broken. Not empty.

  Just... too small for what was coming.

  Kalen leaned his head back against the doorframe and stared up at the blue sky.

  "I’m going to need more space," he said aloud.

  An outdoor kitchen, maybe. Feeding areas big enough for beasts that wouldn’t fit through the front door anymore. Shaded dens for the larger cubs. Training fields that didn't involve crashing into his fence every time Milo got excited.

  The thought didn't scare him.

  It thrilled him.

  Evening came, and with it, the return of his friends' beasts.

  One by one, golden threads of mana shimmered into existence across the courtyard — and deposited very dirty, very tired cubs.

  Webber's fur was dusted with chalk and sawdust, his many legs twitching slightly.

  Dozer rolled in like a boulder, half-covered in mud, proudly clutching what appeared to be a broken cartwheel.

  Akari stepped gracefully from her summoning portal, but even she couldn’t hide the scuff marks along her paws and the way her normally sleek white coat was now more “charcoal gray.”

  Threx reappeared last — silent, watchful, tail flicking — but his scales were dulled from dust and his posture a little heavier than when he’d left.

  Kalen stared.

  They looked... wrecked.

  Not hurt. But rough around the edges.

  He sighed and rose from the porch.

  "You know," he said conversationally as he fetched towels and brushes from the supply shed, "taking care of you guys wasn’t supposed to mean polishing you too."

  Dozer snorted happily and plopped down in the middle of the courtyard, spraying mud everywhere.

  Kalen rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Line up."

  One by one, he knelt beside each cub, checking their paws, cleaning dirt from their fur, smoothing out tangled feathers and matted manes. Milo helped by occasionally holding a brush in his tiny hands — and immediately getting distracted and brushing his own head.

  As he worked, Kalen talked.

  Not formal training lessons. Not lectures.

  Just... stories.

  Soft stories from Earth — silly ones, comforting ones — about brave dogs and clever crows, about ancient deer spirits and mischievous foxes. About wild jungle kings who learned to trust friends.

  None of the cubs understood every word, but they listened anyway.

  Breathing slowed.

  Tails wagged.

  Eyes drooped.

  And as Kalen finished brushing the last stubborn patch of mud from Dozer’s shell, he looked up to find half the cubs already half-asleep in the courtyard, their bodies curled into loose piles of fur, shell, feather, and scale.

  He sat back on his heels, a strange, warm ache blooming in his chest.

  This wasn’t a battlefield.

  This was a family.

  That night, Kalen made one final round through the Sanctuary before going to bed.

  Milo wasn’t in the bedroom. Neither was Daisy.

  He found them curled up together near the old arbor by the feeding pens — Milo wrapped protectively around the little duck cub, both of them fast asleep under the stars.

  Kalen smiled.

  Maybe he wasn’t the only one who understood that things were changing.

  He pulled his jacket tighter against the night air and turned back toward the Sanctuary.

  Tomorrow would come.

  The work would get harder.

  The beasts would get bigger.

  The Sanctuary would have to grow.

  But tonight?

  Tonight, he just listened to the quiet breathing of his family, and let Hearthwild dream with them.