"They can help," Alice said to Robert as the adult wolf looked down at the two glass pups, now joined by eight of the pride's cubs, all of them in varying degrees of being wet.
The black and gray male sighed, but decided not to bother. Life would be easier that way, and there was no need to make it complicated.
"It will speed up taking the does and the fawns home," Abbey spoke, "reunite them with their bucks and we can all go home."
"And take care of Samantha," Alice added.
Robert nodded, "be careful though. They may not have antlers like the bucks do, but their hooves are still sharp and strong... and while Mistress Alice and her sisters are indestructible, you eight are not. I would not want to explain to your pride mates that you've been injured."
"We will be careful, sir," Tano told him, "are they very skittish? Jack and Tom charged at Nane and we do not wish to spook them."
"Not very" Jessica spoke, "but we'll still have to be careful. We've been trying to keep them close to shore, where Alice and Abbey can take them into the mirrorverse, but the act of chasing them and holding them still long enough to make the journey can be time consuming."
"But it'll go faster now that we're helping, right?" Tatuli asked, "I mean we're helping right?"
The adult wolves nodded.
++++++++
Penny sat nervously in her wheelchair as the group began engage in a series of friendly conversations with her mother hugging Kirk. She seemed to be as glad to have him back as Penny did. Then, Penny felt something flutter through the back of her mind... something about her mother saying that Kirk was a fine male and she might have to test him. And that memory made her gasp...
She remembered the parents of Penn Glen being intensely loyal to one another, but then lions were in nature polygamous had little loyalty to their mates. A female might be impregnated by one male one year, and then roughly two years later being impregnated by a different male if a pride had more then one male. And that pride males commonly mated with every female within the pride.
She wondered if that was a side effect of their transform that they were gaining certain things that mundane lions did as part of their transform? Or was his something else? Something related to the overall effects of reality? Penny didn't know, and prayed that she'd be able to figure everything out before everything about her disappeared and all that remained was the lioness she had become.
"But then, motherhood would be nice," a voice spoke in the back of Penny's mind.
Penny shuddered and shook her head.
"Is something wrong, dear?" Mother Glenn asked from beside her.
Penny nervously looked over to see that her grandmother still sat beside her wheelchair.
"It's nothing to be concerned about," Penny spoke, "Just some things I'm thinking about."
"Future cubs?" Mother Glenn teased.
"Kirk and I haven't even gotten to the details for our wedding," Penny retorted, and the thought, "and I'm not in heat right no, so I couldn't get pregnant if I tried."
"Is this to deal with the rest of the Pride?" Mother Glen asked, "you said they were hurt. Are they at the hospital? Do you want to visit them?"
"They aren't at the hospital," Penny answered, "and with my legs as they are, I can't really go much of anywhere. Stairs are impossible for me."
"Your future Prime Mate and his family, and your father and mother would be more then happy to help," Mother Glen told her, "and I can carry you... I can remember you enjoying to ride sidesaddle on my back when you were a cub."
That made Penny sigh. She remembered enjoying horseback riding, and remembered that her interest in becoming a policemen was after a trip to New York and seeing that some of the policemen there still road horses. She remembered as Penn wanting to join Glendale's police to do the same... and then learning that Glendale's police did not have "mounted" officers. She did not, yet, remember riding anything sidesaddle.
"Well, I would like to visit them," Penny spoke, "but..."
"Then where are they?" Mother Glen asked, "we'll all go. To help you and to check on our pride mates."
Penny wanted to say that they couldn't, but seeing the firm look on her grandmother's face, she couldn't help but back down.
"They're at Wolf Manor," Penny admitted, and then wondered to herself, "where did that come from? It's Smith Manor as far as I know... but Mother Glen can't go there! All the wolves are there, as is that red and white pup..."
"I wonder how Blackie is doing these days?" Mother Glen then wondered.
"Blackie?"
"His name is Patrick," Mother Glen answered, "but I've always called him Blackie... even if he has some gold in his fur."
"You know one of the wolves there?" Penny gasped.
"Of course I do, dearie, we all do," Mother Glen answered, "and Patrick and I grew up together. He has been a very good friend over the years."
Penny didn't know what to do. The way her grandmother was speaking, it sounded like the wolf pack and the pride had been friends for years... but the pride had only just been formed to counter "Jensen's" use of the game. Was this some side affect of her transform? Was this related to something else she was somehow sensing.
++++++
"This is the beginning, isn't it?" Betty asked, "Where they started to go bad, Gita wanting revenge and Goldwyn increasingly listening to that cat... who seems to already be evil, to me."
"In a way," Marie sighed, "but even at this time, they were still fairly innocent and capable of achieving redemption."
"What about those early victims?" Lawrence wondered, "the brother and sister turned into statues? Even Balthilde's murderer?"
"They are likely somewhere in Glendale, though I do not know where."
"Did Marie Cruz's godfather join her team for her battle with the witches?" Cassandra asked.
"No, he had died of old age by that point," Marie responded, “but we haven’t quite got THAT far yet…”
++++++
Goldwyn soon found out that while her efforts with Princess had removed the problem of Balthilde's murderer, who while he was no longer "living" technically, his soul, being immortal, would remain alive so long his body wasn't damaged. But Gita was not relieved to hear that he was no longer a problem.
"You turned him into a statue?!" Gita yelled at her sister as the walked quietly in a quiet sector of the woods near Joseph's home.
"Yes," Goldwyn answered, "he'll no longer trouble anyone, and he'll be good forever. Princess said it was good."
"I wanted to see him PUNISHED! What he did was wrong," Gita growled, "He didn't deserve to be good forever."
"But Grandma said to be good," Goldwyn told her sister, "and we should do as Grandma says."
"If we always do as Grandma said, we'll end up dead by paranoid prudes or drunks wanting money," Gita warned, her anger not dissipated in the least.
Goldwyn and Griselle were quiet for a moment, before Gita broke down in tears, clutching at Goldwyn's cloak.
"I want Grandma back! I want mamma back! It's NOT FAIR!" Gita cried.
"Then make it fair, Miss Gita," came Princess's voice from their feet.
All three girls looked down to see Princess rubbing against Goldwyn's leg.
"Princess, where have you been?" Goldwyn asked.
"Around," Princess answered, "seeing if there are any good males around."
"But what did you say, Princess?" Griselle asked, the fact that they could communicate with the can not even a concern, it was magic, after all.
"Make it fair," Princess urged, "there is much that you see that is wrong... then correct it."
"Grandma said not to," Griselle said weakly.
"Grandma said to be good," Goldwyn spoke, "and would it be bad to help others be good?"
"No," Griselle admitted, "but Grandma said it was dangerous."
"She didn't know how powerful you are," Princess spoke, "Together, nothing will stop you. EVER! All you have to do is take it."
The three slowly nodded. It was perhaps possible that their Grandmother didn't know how strong they were, and that her warnings were based off her own strength, which was not as strong as it had once been, since Balthilde didn't operate in a Coven the way the three of them were, and in addition, THREE was a powerful number. And they meant no harm.
"But the murderer?" Gita asked.
"Will never live again," Princess spoke, "He shall forever remain a statue. He has been punished."
"Mr. and Mrs. Wise will want to be with their children," Goldwyn commented.
"What about Mr. Running-Bear?" Griselle asked, "he will surely escort us if we go into the main part of town, and he wouldn't approve, like Grandma wouldn't approve."
"He likely knows less then your beloved Grandma did, after all," Princess spoke, "he is not of your family. Merely a trusted friend, but one who doesn't understand. And he can be distracted..."
+++++
Elsewhere, near what was a large building for its day, the Wolf Manor of the colonial era, several young male fawns followed a kind and caring Gold Deer doe, they knew as "Swift-Hooves". She had found them closer to the center of town on the grounds of another manor, and quickly gathered them up and lead them away. If the humans didn't kill them, the lupmans or the leomans would.
Swift-Hooves found it odd that these fawns had English names, but guessed that their mother had been killed shortly after giving birth and the fawns were adopted by the humans. But now they were free, and Swift-Hooves would make sure they grow up healthy and strong, and would carry on a their own lines.
++++++
In the present, the pride's quadruplets and two of the pack's glass pups while the others resumed the efforts to gather up the does and the fawns that many of them were carrying. As they watched, Mbili wondered a bit about the water war that had been paused, and Saba hoped Paula would be okay while they were gone. In Alice's presence, the Pack's master of semantics, Mbili found herself too curious not to ask.
"Toni told me about how your prefixes all go," Mbili told Alice, "it's left me curious... how do you feel about not getting a prefix?"
"It is no real concern for my sisters and I," Alice answered, "they are only prefixes, and has nothing to do with our names."
"Prefixes?" Sita wondered, not having heard Toni, Jay, and Amethyst's explanation earlier.
"Largely letters of the Greek Alphabet to represent our rank in the Pack," Alice explained, "though, because our pack is so big, keeping track of who holds what rank gets tougher and tougher. Father has decided not to do that any more. The only prefixes that are likely to remain are Alpha and Beta, but they will become a title of office, given to the Pack's leaders and "second in command"."
"Toni seemed to think that all of that would be done away with," Mbili told the glass wolf.
"The rigid placement of ranks will be done away with," Alice replied, "but the Pack will always need leaders. Someone to protect and lead us."
"So who will lead when Jensen and Kaylee step down?" Moja wondered.
"Either Jenny or Bart," Alice told her, "as for the most part, leadership has largely followed father's bloodline going back to when the pack was first gathered... but that doesn't mean that others have been alphas besides father's ancestors. Some have challenged for the lead and have taken the reigns as leaders until one of father's ancestors was able to restore the original line."
"How other wolves challenged for the right to lead the pack?" Tatuli asked.
"For awhile there was real combat, which could result in serious injuries," Alice spoke, "but within the last hundred years, it has become more ritualized, rather then actual combat. Wrestling matches and so on... and Mr. P is good at it, despite not having thumbs."
"Where did that come from anyway?" Tano wondered, "Isn't his name Patrick?"
"It is, and it is my fault I am afraid," Alice chuckled, "I had trouble pronouncing Patrick, and the only thing I could manage to say Mr. P."
"You couldn't say Patrick but you could say Mister P?" Nane wondered.
"I was two at the time," Alice answered, "I can not explain it."
"But great-grandpa's been Mr. P ever since," Abbey spoke, "He doesn't mind... it's sort of a nickname now."
"You now," Nneli commented, "we've been playing the water war with your pack mates, it's just now occurred to me that we haven't seen their folks around... or at least can not remember seeing them."
"Well..." Alice sighed, "that can be difficult. Laura and Zulema are the daughters of Abdul and Ingrid, which is where you'll get the explanation why Zulema has an Arabic name. Giselle and Gretchen are the daughters of Abdul and Martha. Cassandra and Lilly, whom you likely haven't seen today, are the daughters of Maddex and Whitney."
"How come their fur colors don't match perfectly? Other then Laura and Zulema... anyway?" Saba asked.
"Don't know," Abbey shrugged, "Mommy ran paternity tests. They are the pups of our "Shiva" wolves. She also found that the genetic mutations that made the Shiva wolves grow their extra limbs are not present in their children."
"But aren't they "Omegas"?" Mbili wondered, "Mary's told us that omega wolves generally don't breed. Only the alphas."
"Among our mundane cousins, you would be right," Alice nodded, "but lupmans are not mundane wolves. We allow for every wolf, regardless of rank, to find love and have a family. Father would fight to defend them as he would to defend my sisters and I."
"What about the others?" Mbili asked, "Jay, Pence, Toni, and Paula?"
"By blood or by time together?" Abbey asked back.
"Is there a difference?"
"In their case yes," Alice explained, "Anne found them abandoned them in one of the shelters she volunteers at. She adopted them practically then and there. Jensen's tried to do some digging, and Aunt Julie's gone to some fortune teller to try and find their biological families, but so far no luck."
The discussion of the parentage of the gem twins was cut short as Garnett and Amber moved the first of the does toward the ones that wold take them home.