After dinner, Lolo and Standig returned to the meditation circle together to wait for dusk.

"What are you thinking, Lolo?"

"I'm thinking that I'd rather be doing something else right now. Anything else."

Standig laughed as Lolo pouted. "If this works, you might not feel that way when you're done."

"Maybe, but I have so much catching up to do, Standig. I mean, the rest of you have a two month headstart on the whole meditation thing. Technically, by some miracle, I am meditating, but it's just not effective for me."

"Before you despair, let's give this nocturnal theory a shot, huh?"

"Fine. It's about time anyway. Let's get this over with." Lolo got into position with her legs comfortably crossed and her eyes closed. "Standig, I'm feeling awkward. Would you breathe with me for a minute?"

"Sure." He sat down across from her to match her breathing until she visibly relaxed.

Lolo worked hard to be patient and stay focused on the present moment. She was aware of the moonlight and a soft mountain breeze hitting her face. Now mid-September, it was starting to feel like autumn, and her skin responded to the post-sun-down chill by covering her arms and legs in goosebumps. Standig had moved away to give her some space to focus, but she could hear his footsteps on the grass across the circle. Becoming aware of her heartbeat, Lolo observed the slight delay between her heart pumping and the surge of blood at her fingertips. This sensation gave her a feeling of anticipation.

Something stirred in her chest that was not her breath nor heartbeat. In fact, it wasn't even a true physical sensation. Nevertheless, it was there. She felt energy spread from that movement outward to the rest of her body. "Finally," something seemed to say. It occurred to Lolo that this must be her wolf spirit. The energy throughout her body converted into an electrified tingling. For a moment, she felt invincible. Her lungs took involuntarily extra deep breaths. It felt like she was inhaling energy, and she was hungry for it. Once sated, her wolf spirit calmed and the extra movement in Lolo's chest stopped. Now, Lolo could feel her breathing, her heartbeat, and a warmth settle beneath her sternum.

She came out of her meditation still feeling that heat in her chest. She was strangely peaceful, like things were as they should be, and she had the control to keep it that way.

When she opened her eyes again, Standig was sitting in front of her, staring at her with his jaw hanging loose.

"Standig?" He seemed to be lost in thought. "Hello-o?!" Lolo waved her hand in front of his face. "Wake-up, Standig."

He shook his head.

"Is everything alright?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah.... How do you feel?" This sounded like a loaded question.

"Well, that's a good question. I feel warm and in control. I think meditating at night actually worked! Why? Did something happen?"

"That was a short meditation. It only lasted ten minutes or so."

"You didn't answer my question, Standig. Did something happen?"

"You tell me."

"Well, I think I connected with my wolf spirit. I felt it move, and it seemed to help me collect energy through my breathing before it went back to sleep."

"Fascinating."

"What is?"

Standig struggled to find the words to describe what he'd seen. "You said that your animal spirit helped you collect energy through your breathing? I saw it!"

"Saw what?"

"The energy! I saw you breathe it in! The energy kind of converged on you."

Now it was Lolo's turn to struggle for words. "What did it look like?"

"Light."

"Like the little orbs?"

"No. More like radiant light, except instead of coming out of you, it was going into you," Standig frowned. "It's kind of hard to describe."

"Where did it seem to come from?"

He shrugged. "No idea."

"Weird."

"That's kind of the theme for all of this primordial stuff," Standig chuckled.

"Well, what do you think it all means?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. The Great Owl did say that we are supposed to build our spiritual energy through meditation, and you said that it felt like you breathed energy in."

"Doesn't that seem a little too easy?" Lolo asked. "I mean, I meditated for, what, ten minutes?"

"Yeah, but you've been meditating for hours every day for two and a half months."

"So, what? This was the reward for all that effort?"

He shrugged. "It's a theory."

"Ah, man! That means I still have to get up early to meditate in the morning."

"But look on the bright side," Standig grinned. "It means you're not so far behind the rest of us after all!"

“Now I’m really curious to watch the rest of you meditate,” Lolo said. “Theoretically, you’ve been absorbing spiritual energy this whole time, just incrementally and much more slowly.”

“I think the rest of the team would be interested to watch you meditate at night, Lolo, and I’d be curious to get their opinion.”

“But, according to your theory, I just absorbed two plus months of spiritual energy. I doubt one or two day’s worth would even be visible.”

“True. You could try meditating for a week before doing this again? It might not be as dramatic, but it might at least be visible.”

“It doesn’t hurt to try, I guess.”

“So,” Ulana prodded the next morning as they walked to the courtyard, “how did it go?”

Lolo was still half-asleep and croaked, “what go?”

“Your meditating last night, of course!”

“Oh. Good.”

“Really?! That’s good news. Tell me all about it!”

“Ask Standig,” Lolo grumped. “Words are hard.”

Ulana grinned. “Fine. Standig!”

“What?”

“Lolo said last night went well. Tell us about it.”

“She doesn’t want to tell you herself?” Standig was surprised.

“She’s not awake yet. Apparently, ‘words are hard’,” Ulana laughed.

Standig turned around to see Lolo following them up the mountain with her eyes half-shut still. “I see,” he joined Ulana in laughing. “Well, it did go well. Very well. In fact, I’d like you all to come observe the next time she meditates at night.”

“Oh? What happened?” Fortus asked.

“She only had to meditate for a few minutes, but she seemed to absorb large quantities of spiritual energy. Oh, how did she put it…?” he paused to remember. “She said that her wolf spirit helped her inhale the energy. I could actually see it.”

“Wait, what?!” Fortus moved in front of Standig to make him stop walking.

Standig grinned. “Yeah. It was observable. I think you guys should come watch next time, see what you think.”

“When? Tonight?!” Fortus asked.

“We have a theory,” Standig skirted the question. “We think that, last night, she absorbed all the energy she’d been working towards since we first started training. So while the rest of us have accumulated that energy slowly, she got it all at once.”

“And, thus, the energy was a visible quantity,” Fortus continued the thought.

Standig nodded. “Since talking about it last night, I’ve been thinking that meditating only expands our capacity to absorb energy. Like it makes our vessels deeper. Does that make sense?”

“That would make sense,” Jadu inserted.

“Care to elaborate?” Ulana asked.

“Just, our animal spirits are ancient. They wouldn’t have limits on their spiritual potential. It’s us as hosts that are limited.”

“So, let me recap,” Ulana said, brow furrowed. “The more we meditate, the more energy we are capable of absorbing? Then why didn’t Lolo absorb that energy until last night.”

Standig smiled. “Because our animal spirits have to help us collect the energy. Our job is to expand our capacity. Their job is to fill it.”

“And her wolf spirit is nocturnal, so it draws spiritual energy during the night, while our animal spirits collect the energy as we meditate,” Fortus finished. “That’s weirdly cool.”

“To answer your question, Fortus, Lolo and I were thinking that she ought to wait a week before meditating at night again. Maybe a week’s worth of energy will be visible.”

Fortus nodded. “Makes sense. I’m kind of wondering what else this theory implies. We’re supposed to eventually discover our ‘ultimates’ which develop from our bond with our primordial spirits. We meditate to develop as hosts. The spirits help us absorb energy. Are we just trying to reach a point as hosts where we can sustain the spiritual energy needed to produce our ultimates?”

“I think that’s probably part of it,” Ulana said. “The other part of it is our combat training. We are developing our personal fighting styles while developing that spiritual connection or energy pool or whatever you want to call it with our animal spirits. Historically, we know that the ultimates aren’t the same from team to team. The Blue Dragon always has some sort of healing power, but, according to Jadu’s book, what kind of healing power is different each cycle. I think that, as hosts, we must influence what our ultimates look like.”

“Speaking of, Jadu, have you picked up any more trends on what each of our ultimates might look like?” Fortus asked.

“Yes,” Jadu smiled. “The Black Bear is strength-based. The Red Phoenix likes fire. The Golden Lion develops leadership abilities, but the range is extremely wide. And the Silver Wolf is defensive.”

“I feel like I should have been able to tell you that already,” Fortus said, looking around the group. “The primordial spirits must pick compatible hosts.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Jadu said.

“Are we going to train or not?” Lolo piped into the conversation impatiently. “I’m getting cold just standing here.”

“What’s that look for, Lolo?” Standig asked after their morning meditation.

“I was thinking about our host-primordial spirit bonds.”

“What about them?”

“Last night, when I first started meditating, I seemed to hear-- and this might sound crazy-- but I seemed to hear my wolf spirit talk.”

“Talk? Like we’re doing right now?”

“Sort of,” Lolo frowned. “I didn’t hear her talk with my ears. It’s more like she spoke in my head… like when you’re thinking to yourself, except that it wasn't me thinking.”

“Well, what did your wolf spirit say?”

“Just one word: ‘finally’.” A moment passed during which Standig and Lolo just stared at each other. “Has that ever happened to you?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“But it sort of makes sense to me,” Standig added as an afterthought.

“It does?”

“I mean, yeah. When people talk about hosts and animal spirits, they refer to them separately, but then they tend to conflate them. I think there is some confusion about whether or not hosts and animal spirits are actually separate, but when we were talking to the Great Owl, she only seemed to address our animal spirits and ignored us, the hosts. I think we must be separate and distinct, so communication between us, the hosts, and them, the primordial spirits, seems like it should be an obvious step in forming the bonds we’ve been working to create.”

“If that’s the case, I wonder why they haven’t chosen to, you know, help us out a little. Give us some instructions. Introduce themselves,” Lolo said.

“Maybe they have been talking and we just haven’t figured out how to listen yet.”

“I suppose that’s possible. Or maybe they’re just not particularly chatty,” Lolo grinned.

“That’s a definite possibility too,” Standig agreed. “Either way, you should probably open up the rest of the team’s eyes to the potential for a thought conversation? Can we go with that? ‘Thought conversation’?”

“Sure,” Lolo shrugged.

“Anyway, we should probably tell them that there’s maybe some potential to literally communicate with our primordial spirits. Maybe we can work towards that.”

Lolo nodded in agreement.