Bonding
Bonding is the deepest level of intimacy shared between those who are bonded to each other. Bonding can only happen when one or both members have powers. There are four types of bonds; marital, parent-child, sibling, and familial.
Marital Bond
Marital Bonding is the binding of two married individuals in mind, body, and soul, and it is a level of intimacy deeper and greater than marriage. The bond between spouses exists from when the bond is created and exists until both partners have passed onto the afterlife, at which point the bond will come undone and cease to exist. When properly bonded, couples have no other person in world that they can love trust more than their bonded partner. Once bonded, couples are incapable of bonding or having children with anyone but their bonded partner. Not even if one partner dies earlier than expected.
Proper Bond
In a properly created bond, couples are able to stabilize and anchor each other even when the partner needing the anchoring is on the verge of breaking down or is in the midst of magically destroying themselves.
Power to Power Bond
When bonding, the majority of bonds are created between those who have powers. In a power to power bond, the bonded couples are able to share powers with each other, sense each others emotions and locations better than even the best psychic, and allows telepathy between the most powerfully bonded couples. A benefit of a power to power bond is that the pair is able to heal each other of magical and demonic created injuries.
Power to Normal Bond
In a bonding between a partner with powers and a partner without powers, some of the benefits of bonding is lost. Like with a power to power bond, the couple gains the ability to sense each others emotions and locations, and the non-power partner is still able to stabilize the power partner. However, unlike in a power to power bond, the couple is unable to share powers and the partner without powers is unable to heal their partner of injuries.
Improper Bond
In a marital bonding, sometimes a bond can be created improperly. There are several reasons why a bond may be created improperly.
In a power to power bond, one partner has yet to learn to use and control their abilities.
If one or both partners do not trust one another with their whole being.
If the bonding ceremony was interrupted.
Consequences
Should a bond be improperly formed, the bonded couple should immediately seek an elder to help fix and recreate the bond. If not corrected, the bonded pair will grow to eventually distrust and despise one another leading to a breakdown of the couple's marriage and to become trapped in a loveless bond. Despite that, it is not the worse consequence of a improperly formed bond.
The worst consequence of an improperly made bond does not affect the bonded; it affects the children conceived in an improperly bonded couple or power couples who have yet to bond. Children conceived through an improper bond or a power couple without a bond, have what is known as a faulty bond. These children generally are never born, most dying in utero, and of the ones born, rarely ever live pass their first birthday.
Of the children known to have survived pass their first birthday, none have been known to live pass adolescence much less to adulthood. Due to the circumstances of their conception (improper bond), these children are born with abilities that are extraordinarily powerful; however, their abilities are as extremely volatile as they are strong. The children would be hardly able to control their powers if they are even able to all. Children who were conceived without a bond tend to have weaker abilities than their bond-conceived counterparts but are still just as volatile.
Currently, there is no known cure or treatment that could save the children conceived in an improper bond. Even if the parents correct their bond, the damage has been done and the foundation the is to grow from has already been laid.
However, it is believed that if the child conceived in an improper marital bond may be able to save themselves if they are able to forge a proper marital bond with their chosen partner. This is believed to be able to stabilize the foundation on which the child was conceived in. But this option also has a steep price if the child does not survive, as the child would be leaving their spouse behind without them being able to bond with another or have children.
Another method that is believed to help stabilize the child and prolong their life, even if it's only delaying the inevitable, is introducing the child to as many blood related relatives as possible. It is believed that the more familial bonds the child forges the more stabilized they become as the familial bonds contributes to their foundation.
Research on how to fix and cure children of improper is currently still ongoing.
Note that these consequences do not occur in children born from un-bonded power to normal couples.
Familial Bonds
In a family with powers, bonds naturally form at conception and at each relatives very first meeting with each other. Familial bonds are what keep families tight-knit and feeling safe and comfortable.
Parent-Child Bond
Of the familial bonds, parent-child bonds are the most important and central point of the familial bonds. This bond leads to the children growing up with stability in their abilities and their mentality, and encourages the growth of the innate trust between parent and child.
Damaged Bond
A damaged bond forms between a parent and child when the father is rarely ever in the mother's presence while child is developing in its mother's womb. The bond can also develop improperly if the mother is traumatized in anyway while pregnant with the child.
If a bond is not formed with both parents, normal or power, then the child will not develop properly. A child with an improper bond with their parent(s), typically does not live very long after birth. However, luckily, an improper bond between parent and child is generally easily corrected if the parent(s) the child has an improper bond with spends enough time with the infant for the bond to heal, re-stabilize, and strengthen itself. In the cases where bonds are not healed, children with improper bonds die before even reaching their sixth birthday.
Sibling Bond
A sibling bond is created beginning from the older sibling feeling their younger sibling’s energy and soul while they are developing in their mother. At this point, the sibling bond is half created with the older sibling unconsciously surrounding the younger in the elder’s energy in support and comfort. The sibling bond is not completed until after the younger sibling is born and meets its older sibling outside of the womb for the very first time.
This bond helps the older sibling develop love and protective instincts for new sibling. With the the younger sibling the bond helps them swiftly develop control over their abilities and grow accustom to the outside world faster than their older sibling did if the elder was their parents’ first child.
The strongest type of sibling bond is between those who are born in sets of multiples. Unlike the standard sibling bond, a bond between multiples (especially identical multiples) is exceptionally strong with the bond developing and completed in utero instead of post birth.This sibling bond is special even among the sibling bonds as it strengthen the children and increases their control and power stability to a level higher than others their same age. A bond between multiples give the children abilities similar to the ones given to those in a marital bond such as telepathy and power sharing.
Damaged
A damaged sibling bond rarely happens, but they do occur every now and then. How a damaged bond occurs is that when the younger sibling is born, they are separated from the elder sibling(s) before they can even meet or die in utero. This leaves the elder sibling with an incomplete bond, and a need to complete it.
When a sibling bond is left incomplete, the elder sibling’s energy starts seeking out their younger sibling or for another infant that could take their missing sibling’s place. In these cases, the elder sibling’s energy is most attracted to infants who have damaged or incomplete bonds.
A damaged sibling bond between multiples only occurs when one or more of the multiples die in utero. The surviving multiple absorbs its deceased sibling’s powers; however, in exchange, a void is left and the living child loses all the support and stability it had grown used to having while its siblings have been alive. The loss of this kind of bond typically leaves the surviving multiple the feeling that something is constantly missing unless they are somehow able to reform the damaged bond and bond with a new sibling.
