The After-Howl Party

The "After-Howl Party", for this pack, at least, is partly a pack-gathering, partly a talent-show. Pack-members have a venue here to try to entertain the rest: there's a rock platform that acts as a "stage". When you're up on the stage, you can tell by how many wolves are encouraging you as to how well-liked your performance is. If there's enough encouragement, you finish it. If not, you just hop down off the stage and think up another thing to do for the next "After-Howl Party" and let the next "contestant/s" try out.

"Clumsy" was first up. He stumbled up onto the "stage", almost falling onto it. Everyone who wasn't already looking looked- his tripping and stumbling usually did catch their attention, since they wanted both to be entertained by his antics, and to stay out of his way, lest they be caught up in his clumsiness. He sat down somewhat hard, facing the pack with his tail completely hidden under his backside. He sat there for a moment, looking dazed, then nodding and grinning good-naturedly at the chuckles from a few members of the pack. Then he lifted his right front paw and craned his neck as he looked back to his right and behind him. "Whaaa...? Hey, where'd my tail go?!" He put down his paw, raised his head, and said in a sing-song voice "Tail, oh, tail, where did you go? You were just here a minute ago! I miss you, tail!" As he finished, he shifted position and his tail popped out from under him. His tail wagged. There were some laughs from the audience. He looked back again "Oh, there you are! Don't do that to me!" He sat up onto his hind legs, grabbed his tail with his front legs and hugged it with a big, goofy grin on his face. "I love you, tail!" he crooned, "Oh, yes, I do!" Everyone burst out laughing and howling their approval. Some even sat up on their hind legs and applauded with their front paws. "Clumsy" let his tail go and put his front paws back down. He then stood up, grinning, ears back and tail wagging, saying "Thank you! Thank you!" As he went to hop down off the stage, he tripped and tumbled, almost into some of the pack-members below. There were some laughs, but then, "Hey, watch it!" came a growl. "Sorry! Sorry!" "Clumsy" apologized, head, ears, and tail down, cringing as he scrambled to his feet, "Just me being me, you know." He slunk away, making his way towards where Betty was waiting.

Lucky was next up on the stage. "That was pretty good, 'Clumsy'," she said in a stage-whisper as she passed him, "You just need to work on your exit." She winked and grinned at him.

No one seemed to notice that "Clumsy" was no longer slinking by the time he reached Betty's side and sat with her to watch Lucky. Around her, he wasn't "Clumsy" anymore, he was Swift. Betty leaned against Swift, laying her head on his shoulder. He put his left front leg over her shoulders. They both sighed contentedly.

Lucky got up on the stage and sat down. She grinned, nodding her head, acknowledging everyone there. There was some polite applause and a few soft howls. The pack knew they were in for a treat: Lucky was well-loved for her jokes. She was actually the most-respected of the Omegas. "Well..." she started, with a suddenly-serious look on her face, "I'd like to tell you some jokes, but you'd just laugh at me!" She hung her head, giving everyone a wistful look. The entire pack burst out laughing.

"Well," she thought to herself as the pack continued laughing, just starting to settle back down, "I'll have to remember that one."

After about 5 minutes of nearly non-stop jokes, she said "You've been a great audience! True, you're my only audience, but hey! Time for someone else to have a turn up here. I love you all!" She sat up on her hind legs and brought her front paws to her mouth, then spread her front legs out to each side of her, "blowing them a kiss". Everyone howled and applauded as she hopped down from the stage.

Lucky headed over towards where Jake was sitting. "Clumsy" who had been off to the side with Betty, got up and hugged Lucky, grinning. "You were great, Lucky! I wish I could tell jokes like that."

"Well," she replied, returning the hug, grinning, and giving him a nuzzle on the side of his face, "you're good at what comes naturally to you, I'm good at what comes naturally to me. I don't think I could ever master your style."

Next up were the Omega triplets: Betty, Bertha, and Bathsheba. Betty was the shortest of the three, with honey-gold fur and blonde head-fur that was almost white with bangs to just above her crystal-blue eyes. Bertha was next tallest, with gray-brown fur and light-brown head-fur in the same style as Betty, but with deep chocolate-brown eyes. Bathsheba was the tallest of the three, with rather plain-looking gray fur and head-fur just a shade lighter in the same style as her sisters with light green eyes.

They hopped up onto the stage, one by one. They then stood facing the pack, acknowledging them. Then they sat as one and Betty began howling, followed a second later by Bertha, then another second later, Bathsheeba joined in. They howled in perfect harmony, each voice blending and melding with the others. The pack sat transfixed. This was simply amazing! It was rare, even among siblings from the same litter, for voices to go together so perfectly. The triplets had most certainly never shown this talent before, and yet, here they were. For five minutes, their perfect song continued. At the end of that time, each sister stopped howling in the opposite order that they had begun. As the last voice faded, the pack was silent for a few moments, hoping that the performance hadn't ended. Alas, it had. When they realized it was over, they rose to their feet, howling and barking their approval. "Clumsy" gave some of the loudest howls and barks. The Omega triplets were the hit of the night. They stood thanking their audience for the next three minutes, as the howling and barking gradually faded.

When the last bark was given, they hopped down from the stage and were immediately surrounded by the rest of the pack, everyone wanting to talk to the girls at once. Joan and John were in front, being the ranking Alphas. Joan had her ears down and was smiling, but looked directly at each of the triplets in turn, starting with Bathsheeba. "That was absolutely amazing, girls! Why've you been hiding this talent from the rest of us?" She tilted her head to the side and frowned at them slightly, narrowing her green eyes a little, ears barely up, still with a pleasant smile. "How long have you known you could do this?"

Bathsheba looked to her sisters, asking without words for permission to speak for them. Permission was granted, again without words. "Well," Bathsheba began softly, her gray head and light green eyes slightly lowered, her ears back, somewhat awed to be speaking directly to the pack-leader, "we didn't intentionally hide it from anyone. We didn't really know about it until we thought to give it a try a few days ago. We've always enjoyed each others' voices, and decided to try howling together and see what would happen. We were as amazed as the rest of you seem to be at the result. We decided we needed to share this with the rest of the pack. It could come in handy to get pack members' attention when it's needed, like for helping to break up fights." She raised her eyes, head still lowered, to look at Joan in a non-threatening way.

Joan smiled at Bathsheba, her frown gone, and her emerald eyes clear and bright. "I don't doubt that, Bathsheba. I know I'd stop fighting if I heard that wonderful sound. I'm sure the rest of us would, too. But I think there'd be other uses for your talent, as well, like a signal for the pack to gather, if we had you use a certain tone that everyone would know."

Bathsheba's face brightened at the prospect. All three sisters smiled widely. She said "We never thought of it as a signal."

"That's part of the reason why I'm the pack-leader. I'm trained to think of these sorts of things when others don't." Joan smiled at Bathsheba again, then included Betty and Bertha in her calm, happy gaze. "You girls have a wonderful talent. I'll see that it doesn't go to waste."

John stood staring at the Omega triplets for a few moments, his face unreadable. They started wondering if he was upset with them for not sharing their talent before now. Then he spoke, more quietly than anyone had ever heard him speak before, "I dunno know what t' say girls, except that ya struck me speechless. There's nothin' I've ever run across in my entire life that's done that b'fore! That was fantastic!"

As the triplets moved on around the circle of wolves around them, accepting compliments and greetings, it seemed that everyone was awestruck by the girls' talent.

Finally, after about five minutes, they had made their way around the entire pack.

No one else volunteered to get up on the stage. How could anyone follow an act like that?

Everyone broke up into their usual groups and started catching each other up on what had happened while various groups of the pack had been away hunting and foraging.

After everyone was caught up on happenings, the call went out from John: "All right, ever'one! Time t' eat! Ya know th' drill."

A caribou kill had been made earlier that day, and had been brought there and laid out on the grass in portions so that there was meat enough for everyone. The Alphas had first choice, followed by the Betas, then finally, the Omegas were allowed to choose. Lucky allowed the Omega triplets to go ahead of her this once, because she respected their talent, even though she out-ranked them in the Omega group. "Clumsy" was dead-last, as always, but Lucky purposely chose the lesser of the two pieces of meat left when her turn came, so that he could have a little more than he usually got. He'd seen her make her choice, and gladly accepted what she'd left him, catching her eye and giving her a delighted grin just before he picked the meat up to head over to Betty to have dinner with her. "Thanks, sis'." he mouthed.

She paused just long enough in eating alongside Jake to grin and mouth back "You're welcome, bro'. Enjoy!"