The Skulk's meeting rapidly turned into a sort of social meet and greet after the ceremony ended. In pure theory, this was a point were anyone, fellow werefoxes or their guests, could simply leave and go home. However most simply stayed and while Nate watched Akane take his parents and Jenny and Harry to discuss their den assignments. A moment or two later, Nate felt Alex give him a gentle tug on his arm, while pointing to the tables and their refreshments.
"Come on, let's get something to drink," Alex urged.
Nate dutifully nodded and followed his boyfriend toward the tables. He gave a polite wave to Eric, who seemed to just be taking things in at the moment. He watched his parents as they talked with the Skulk leader and then with another pair of werefoxes. Eric guessed that the new pair that his parents were talking to were the local den leaders. He couldn't hear, but that wasn't the big issue that had him amazed at the moment. The big thing was the sense of smell he'd gained. While weremers might not turn into a full fish, his sense of smell had grown to the point were it was on par with a shark's, in or out of the water and that allowed him to get a vastly different look at things.
"You okay?" Julie asked to him, squeezing his hand and feeling fairly happy that Martha and William had been friendly and had their whole "welcome to the family moment." True, Eric's parents might not fully recognize the significance of a pearled necklace to weremers, but the rational and intelligent part of her mind did figure one could still call it a "promise necklace" and get away with it, since she and Eric had "promised" to marry each other. It was a technicality, but for the moment it would work and would give them time to prep Eric's parents for the bombshell that she and Eric had for them.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Eric said as he squeezed her hand in response, "It's just all the smells... it's different... all the werefoxes... Nate and Alex... they smell fairly similar... yet still very different."
"Foxes and wolves are both members of the dog family," Julie reminded him, "maybe not closely related but still part of the same family."
"I know," Eric nodded, "It's just..."
"A sense of sensory overload?" Melissa Stovall said to him, "Yeah... that's normal for any normal transitioning into were society, getting used to heightened senses that allow us to identify others by smell in addition to sight."
Eric nodded, "It's amazing in a way."
"That it is," Julie smiled to him.
"Why don't we get something to drink," Melissa offered, "A little refreshment and meeting new people will be good."
Eric nodded slowly followed Mrs. Stovall and Julie out and around to join the group mingling with each other in the back end of the room. As they did so, they found Nate and Alex had been "ambushed" by a werevixen, in human form, wearing a bright pink dress that looked like it had a rose sewn into right shoulder. As they got closer, Eric managed to hear that Nate was introducing Alex to her.
"Alex and I just started dating," Nate said to the woman, who had introduced herself to him as Dawn Hale and had said she was happy to meet him after meeting Martha at the teacher's professional development day. "He turned me and things kinda grew from there."
"Well that's very nice," Dawn said back, "I'm glad you found happiness and that the rogue's actions didn't turn you off Moon Lake."
"Oh, there was never any danger of that with me," Nate chuckled, "I've actually been a rather big werewolf fan. Loved "American Werewolf in London" and "the Howling" and so on. Moon Lake has actually been something of a dream come true for me."
"Still, I'm glad for you," Dawn replied, "now... your mom said you had a brother?"
"He's right behind you," Nate noted as Eric arrived.
"Oh..." Dawn turned to see Eric and Julie approached, and it didn't take long to realize that Eric was a weremer. "But... Martha told me your brother was a normal."
"I was," Eric spoke up, "but I've also recently found my one true love today, I decided to consummate that love and became a weremer. No one in my family knew of that choice until this evening."
"Oh..." was Dawn's only response, and she managed to blush slightly at that, "Well, good to see that you did well... and, oh here comes the the my husband... and we're off to say hello to the new inductees. It was very nice meeting all of you."
Eric looked over to see anther werefox approach, hand Dawn what smelled like coffee with cream in it and then moved off. Eric looked over his shoulder to see both move to talk with William and Martha who were also being engaged by a few other werefoxes in what looked like pleasant conversation. Eric then turned back to Nate and Alex.
"She seemed rather nice," Nate commented, "though hopefully there isn't too much of the apologizing for Yvette's actions."
"All weres will probably do a lot of that," Alex said to his boyfriend with a cup of fruit juice, "we won't want to show that we're like any rogue"
Nate took the drink and then looked to see as Melissa approached him. The meeting was predominantly a welcome for William and Martha as they officially joined the Skulk, William officially as a member and Martha as a honorary member. However, Melissa did have some interest in meeting Nate, as she and Martin had not gotten Nate when Julie had invited the Andersons over for dinner. She had met William and Martha, but not Nate. And while they hadn't gone into as much detail as Julie had told her while they were getting ready for the ceremony, they had mentioned that there had been some difficulties in their marriage before their transformation into weres, they had stated clearly that becoming weres had fixed a lot of their problems outright, if not accelerating the healing in their problems. William's bond as a werefox proved his loyalty to Martha and becoming a werecat had helped Martha accept being bisexual. In that, Melissa did know that William and Martha had gone though and healed their won problems. So long as they were happy, Melissa wasn't about to judge. Her hope for the moment was to meet Nate and form an impression the rest of who would be in-laws once Eric and Julie married, hopefully after they turned eighteen at the earliest.
"And you would be Nathaniel Anderson?" Melissa said to Nate.
"Call me Nate," Nate answered, "You're Julie's mom?"
"Yes, Melissa Stovall," Melissa spoke, "Unfortunately, Martin couldn't be here to meet you and welcome your brother into were society and our pod."
"I would have thought that Julie did the welcoming," Nate gave a bit of a joke and was relieved when Julie giggled.
"Keep him," Melissa commented to Alex, "good humor is rare to come by these days."
"I hope to," Alex answered and held Nate to him and then remembered who he was talking to, "Mrs. Stovall."
"It's okay," Melissa assured him, "I'm only here as a chaperon for my daughter and her one true love. Nothing in any official capacity."
Alex nodded and glanced over to William and Martha conversing with some of the other werefoxes, though another one happened to be in earshot and had come over.
"Daughter and one true love..." the werefox, a male, spoke with some intrigue.
"Yes..." Melissa answered while Eric came forward and held out his hand.
"Eric Anderson, William and Martha Anderson's youngest son and newest weremer," Eric stated.
"Welcome," the werefox smiled, "You've got to try the punch, it's marvelous."
Meanwhile, William and Martha were going through a chorus of hellos and welcomes from the other werefoxes as they came to shake hands and personally welcome them. Both of them had heard much of these things before, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Both privately agreed that it did affirm that Yvette's actions were out of place in Moon Lake. It might be repetitive, and there were times when both William and Martha felt things could move past that, but for the moment it did assure them that in the end moving to Moon Lake was a good decision. They felt as though they were part of the community rather than just one of a large number of people where few even knew who they were.
They glanced over to see a male werefox talking to Melissa, Julie, Alex, and their sons, and from what they could hear, about how good the punch was that it was a pleasure to have guests for these ceremonies. William smiled to see Eric happy, though Martha soon found herself feeling a great deal of surprises as a very familiar werevixen approached with her husband in tow.
"Dawn!" Martha exclaimed, "You made it."
"Of course I did," Dawn answered, "Always a pleasure to meet new den members. I got to meet you at the in-service, but they don't have college professors there..."
"Nor college students... unless you're talking about student teachers," William commented, "which is why college professors don't go to the elementary schools."
The two shook hands while Martha tried to hide a surprised blush, remembering some of her thoughts from earlier in the day. Especially as her husband, who was also a werefox approached.
"William, this is Dawn Hale," Martha introduced them, "She helped me out with a few things at the in-service day today."
"And this is my husband, Douglas," Dawn introduced her husband to William.
"Glad to see you didn't let the rogue's actions get you down," Douglas Hale spoke, "I'm sure you've heard this plenty of times, but Yvette Smith ISN'T typical among werefoxes... and WOULDN'T be typical for any were really. From many of the old stories that normals have told about weres, one would think we're mindless beasts that would eat or rape people with no control..."
William nodded and held Martha to him.
"We have heard it a lot," William noted, "but in a way, this atmosphere has actually made me, at least, feel welcome and part of the community."
"That's we always aim for," another werefox smiled, "Hey Dawn... how's Johnny doing with his classes?"
Martha traded glances, and guessed that this new werefox was the father of one of Dawn's students. Martha watched as Dawn suppressed a laugh and shook her head.
"Glen, your son is doing fine," Dawn teased back, "and I swear... I think you're stalking me to ask questions about your son."
"Well, we're in different dens, so it isn't as if we can discuss it at the regular meetings," the werefox, Glen, answered back with a smile.
"Well, he's doing fine," Dawn assured him, "and as a head's up... remember that we'll probably be discussing how to celebrate Jenny and Harry's wedding at our pre-Halloween meeting."
"Fireworks would be nice," Glen commented.
"You celebrate everything with fireworks!" came a tease from another werefox.
Martha and William both chuckled. They were integrating fully into Moon Lake's were society and it was both amusing and a wonderful thing.