Tanatswa had managed to patch up all the wreckage and cleared all the debris that was left from his clash with the newcomer, Tichaona. Shami only fully recovered after 2 days of resting and during those days, Tanatswa was constantly checking for whether or not he would ever see that bastard again. This anger also put him on edge when he was hunting. To blow off steam he became rather merciless in his acquisition of meat. The mammals and even the wolves he trapped were slaughtered with indiscriminate brutality. When Shami had finally woken up from her peaceful slumber, the young man felt peace of mind once again.

“I have been thinking, whilst I was recovering, that we should probably focus on getting as strong as we can. Considering that there are people out there who are strong enough to break down my walls and who can easily trespass without anything restraining them, I think we should protect our place Tanatswa.” she said, as she dressed into her animal fur cloak.

“Yeah, for people like that guy, we would definitely need that extra power.” he said, standing outside the room she was changing in.

“Tanatswa help me with the training so that I can get as strong as you.” she said, coming out of her room and immediately seeing him face to face.

“That won’t be a problem. I am more than willing to help you.” he said, with a smile as he looked at her completely healed face.

“How do I look?” she asked, a bit wary about his response.

“You look beautiful. No scars but pleasant skin. You definitely look 100%” he said, as he ogled her body.

“You are being totally honest right? I hope you’re not just telling me those nice things because you like me.” she said, as she caressed her own face, just to be sure she didn’t have any spots or scars.

“I have no reason to lie. If you really are desperate to hear something, then I would say it would be nice to see you with make up for a change. Your all natural look is stunning, but sometimes things can get old.” he said, as he giggled.

“So I guess this is how Tanatswa sounds when he is head over hills for a girl. He says corny things and flatters her, even when he teases her. Hmm, I actually don’t mind this Tanatswa at all.” she said, walking towards him and then embracing him in what seemed like a sensual hug. She made sure to press her bosom against his body and looked up into his eyes. Tanatswa could feel those plump breasts and saw Shami’s usual wicked smile which made him think she had something naughty planned.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“You know exactly what I am doing silly.” she said, standing on her tip toes to reach Tanatswa’s mouth. She began to kiss him and he began to kiss back. The kissing felt like a well-deserved relief from the tragedy of their home being destroyed. As the kissing continued, Tanatswa whose body got carried away, stretched out his left hand to grab Shami’s ass. He squeezed the girl’s left butt cheek, just under the creases of her firm behind and then got a smack on that same hand, from her. Tanatswa got out of the kissing embrace and wondered why his hand had been swatted. Shami then looked at him with a rather chaffed look and told him, “Just because we are kissing it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to do anything more than that. I haven’t yet left you off the hook because of what happened that night, so consider yourself lucky that I am even allowing you to do mouth to mouth with me.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t over reach my boundaries.” he said, taking a pause.

“Hey I didn’t say I don’t want us to kiss, just no touching for now.” she insisted, with her cute puppy eyes look. Tanatswa took this opportunity to make up with her, which lasted for just over 7 minutes. He worked up the ability to resist the urge to touch her on any of her erogenous body parts as they continued to kiss each other like a couple of high school kids. As soon as they were done with romancing with each other, they looked at each other in rather cute way and then started crackling in laughter. The laughter died down eventually and the reality of being in Goshem sunk in. Tanatswa then took this opportunity to say, “I have been thinking, since we need mana to use our special abilities and a high level of intelligence to use it sparingly, then if we are going to grow it ourselves, we are going to have to ration the plant, until we have more than enough.”

“That would give us less of a reason to travel far to get a single one. I hope the plant isn’t some seasonal based produce, because if winter happens here and those plants refuse to grow, then, I don’t know, maybe I am thinking too much into it, but we are going to have to become very good mana farmers.” she said, only realising how comical the term ‘mana farmer’ sounded, towards the end.

“Mana farmer, well, I guess we could start a business of selling mana to anyone who wants it. From subsisting to commercial produce.” he said, as if an epiphany had dawned on him.

“Aren’t you rather enthusiastic about the idea of us farming mana?” she asked, raising one of her eyebrows wide.

“Well, if we get this right, then I think we could attract a lot of people who may want our mana.” he said, placing his hand over her shoulder.

“But what would they use to purchase it? I don’t think there is an existing currency here, unless you want them to do batter trade? There is always the chance that we learn how to do this and others also find out how to grow their own mana planation.” she said, really scratching her head as she pondered about what they could possibly do with their options.

“Well then, we could make sure that we learn how to do it and become the best at it. If anyone tries to steal our yield, I would just kick their ass.” he said, in a jovial tone.

“You mean we would kick their asses, after all, we are a team in this. I don’t want to get my ass handled by any random douche bag among the 1000 out there. I want to be able to defend myself and make shit happen.” she said, giving him a serious look.

“Like I said, I am more than willing to help you, so it’s a matter of when do we start?” he asked.

“Well, if we go about this based on priority then, we should put training as number 1, learning how to grow the mana as 2nd, rebuilding and expanding this place as last. No point in working up a sweat to make something if you’re not strong to defend it when it counts.” she said, with much resolve in her heart.

“Yeah, but that’s just answering the part of the priority list, I meant when would you like for us to start?” he asked, actually curious to hear what she had to say.

“Well you’re the man here, so, take the initiative and decide.” she said, teasing him but secretly wanting him to take the lead.

“Well, since I am the man here, I think we should first eat before we get into any physical activity. Build up our strength before we get down and dirty.” he said, jokingly.

“I hope that wasn’t a sexual innuendo because I am really up for the training part, like no more Shami who whines and bitches about leg day and pull ups or planks. I am really gunning for the gains. So are we going to eat fruits and vegetables?” she asked, curious about whether or not he had prepared anything.

“Nah, we can’t have a vegan meal after your recovery. Something with protein will do the trick. I was actually making something outside that I finished. It’s in the pot.” he said, with a confident face.

“I hope it’s edible or else us kissing will become really, really, really rare.” she said, teasing him.

“Excuse me, I can actually cook a decent meal, besides, don’t act as if you didn’t indulge me first with the kissing. I mean, if you’re gonna use something against me, at least don’t use something you know you will miss out on when you really enjoy it.” he said, not being moved by her taunting.

“So you think I would have a hard time not getting some kissing action from you? I would be able to outlast you in a test of wills buddy. I am pretty sure you would miss my scrumptious lips.” she said, daring him with a childish expression.

“Well, with the way you can’t seem to keep your hands off me, I really doubt it. Besides, I have learned how to come up with alternatives as a single man, so I would definitely outlast you.” he said with a stubborn look.

“Hmm, so you would blow your load to cope with not kissing me? News flash Tanatswa, that’s more like suffering than outlasting me.” she said, breaking into laughter.

“You know if you really did test me, we could become a celibate couple that only holds hands.” he said, darting his eyes at her with a stupendous look.

“You think you could stand to just hold hands with me when you could barely handle not grabbing my booty. Dude, get over yourself. This petite mama could outlast you because you would go crazy.” she said, daring him.

“Well, we can always find out. I dare you, you wouldn’t outlast me, let’s say a month.” he said, with a serious look.

“A fucken month! Tanatswa? Okay you win. Let’s just eat what you made and get ready for the day.” she said, forfeiting this childish squabble with him. She wasn’t sure if he was being serious, but didn’t want him to take the dare because she didn’t want to end what they had going between them prematurely. Tanatswa just took her loss as a badge of honour and laughed. She was a bit peeved by this brash act, but chose to ignore it, holding his hand as they went on to try out the meal he had cooked.

The meal Tanatswa cooked was above average, being very tasty and just slightly missing the mark of perfection. He had at first boiled the game meat and then roasted it, with the intention of it not tasting like wild game meat. The fruits and the vegetables he used for the flavouring were complimentary, but the really delicious elements were dulled out by the not so strong flavours being the centre of attention for the taste buds.

Shami was at least happy he cooked this meal for them. She was surprised by the fact that his cooking which was decent, had moved her heart this much, considering that when they were just friends who were cohabiting together to survive, a meal was nothing but an expected result for long day of hard work. Just having affection for someone, could do this much to change how she felt about a mundane thing, like being served food. Falling in love in Goshem was surely going to do wonders for Shami.

As soon as they were done eating, Shami took the time to scan their fortress and noticed the changes Tanatswa had made in the past 2 days. The wall was refilled by destroying the layer on top and replacing the rocks with new rocks. The animals that were thrown over were all butchered and even the wolf was skinned alive. Shami felt satisfied and then followed her boyfriend’s lead. For warming up and getting ready for the day, they would start off with some rigorous calisthenics. Tanatswa was also mindful of the fact that for this to work out, he would have to give her a training regimen that was suitable for her current strength. For whatever Shami was given, Tanatswa would do 5 times the number whilst using boulder sized rocks as added weights on his body.

The tag team helped them both to grow: Shami was trying to overcome her exercise indiscipline by witnessing the guy she was in love with work his ass off to produce results as Tanatswa increased the intensity of his own routine, inspired by his girlfriend’s willingness to preserve even when she wanted to quit. Tanatswa was the type to growl when pumping his muscles whereas Shami would moan, sometimes sounding unintentionally sexual even though she was gasping for strength. Tanatswa even got a boner which Shami noticed and instead of being thrilled by this, she laughed at him for being weird. This made Tanatswa try by all means to not think impure thoughts during training, but what he didn’t know was that Shami would sometimes feign moaning to get him distracted. Her playful antics would end up spicing up the day with humour and lots of dick jokes from both parties.

After the calisthenics, John would opt for them to do cardio, but instead of doing a marathon around the jungle, they would run multiple laps around the fortress. Since the distance around was way shorter than 400 metres, Tanatswa believed that it would be better to run several laps around the fortress. Shami was made to run 1000 laps as Tanatswa ran 4000 laps. The pace was between a ¾ pace and a full sprint. John out ran her but by the time he was at lap 3479, Shami had completely finished her run. Shami who felt wobbly after this, still wanted to put in more laps, even when he stamina bar was close to zero, but Tanatswa insisted that it was okay. After relaxing for 15 minutes as they drank coconut milk, they got into the weight lifting department, deadlifting large rocks and even sometimes testing their strength by lifting movable ledges up and down.

As usual, seeing Tanatswa work his body gave her a dose of her much needed fan service. As long as he wasn’t close enough to give off the smell of sweat, looking at his soaked abs, arms and fantastical physique was enough to make her instantly climax from just his visage. Since it was really hot, having to wear an animal fur cloak not only looked out of place during their exercise but was inconvenient to move in. Shami ended up having to use animal hide that she used to make a bra and some sort of skirt which was pretty short.

Her look was inappropriate and made her look slutty. Since her unitard was torn up during her transformation into a wolf, she only had the chinchillas and animal cloaks that were more like ovens when she wore them in the sun. Nevertheless, she ignored how she looked for the sake of finishing her training. Tanatswa couldn’t help but feel aroused by her look, but still managed to finish his sets. As soon as they were done, they collapsed on the ground, muscles throbbing and then Shami asked, “We are going to have to do this much work every day at this level of intensity?”

“Yeah, as you get stronger, certain things will get easier so we are going to have to upscale the intensity.” said Tanatswa who was panting.

“Well quick question. If I end up looking like those female body builders that look like Silvester Stallone with tits, would you still want to fuck me?” she asked, curious to hear what he would say.

“Um, that’s a really disgusting image to give me. Rambo with breasts would give me nightmares.” he replied, as his face aged revulsion.

“Well I hope you realise that I want to get strong, not look weird, so keep aesthetics in mind as you train me.” she said, happy to have put her desires across to him.

“Trust me, the last thing I would want is for you to look like that.” he said, laughing out loud.