"Amethyst?" Ruby asked as the purple furred she-wolf had collapsed on top of Garnett, panting, "are you alright?"
Amethyst only panted in response.
"She overdid it," Kaylee spoke, shaking her head out of the trance like state it had been in when the omegas had begun to mimic the dance of chaos that Amethyst lead, drawing pretty much everyone who came to see it into it.
To a certain extent it startled Kaylee, as while she had heard from Elise and Fox's cubs somewhere in the past that their present omegas possessed rather hypnotic powers that could allow them to transform humans into lupmen during certain phases of the moon, she didn't think that lupmen or leomen, who in the previous reality had had their forms locked, would be effected. The dance had so far proved that wrong, in the sense that the hypnotic nature of the dance and drawn them all in, even if they couldn't be transformed by it.
Emerald and Martha both helped Amethyst up, but the busty she-wolf was still panting heavily.
"Can you sit up, Amethyst?" Martha asked her.
"I just need to rest for a moment," Amethyst said weakly.
"Yes, I know," Martha answered, "Emerald, could you help me move her into the shade of the trees?"
"Of course," Emerald nodded, and together they managed to get Amethyst into the shade of the few trees the pack had growing close to the manor.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group began to slowly recover.
"Don't tell me you were actually enjoying it in there," Tourmaline asked to Garnett, who hadn't moved and hadn't gone into one of her struggles to try and free herself from Amethyst's bosom.
Garnett only sighed. Among the teen wolves, Garnett's luck in that regard had quickly become something that the others teased her on. Somehow, someway, she wound up getting a face full of cleavage. Usually it was Amethyst, but on occasion, it was even one of the Japanese females or one of the triplets.
"It seems to be my curse, so why fight it?" Garnett responded, "Every time I do, I end up with more metallic purple fur in my face..."
"It'll end in time," Whitney commented as she came forward to help Garnett up, "Martha and I were about your height when we were young."
"But your not tall like Alpha female and her sisters, or the Betas..."
"We aren't as tall as them, true, but we're taller then we were when we were your age," Whitney countered, "and besides you know that Amethyst cares for you like a mother would."
"But she isn't our mother," Tourmaline spoke up, "and sometimes, I think looking after us and the gem twins has robbed her of the chance to become one. Everyone knows that she and Roger have been trying."
"Conception isn't that easy," Whitney commented, "and with the twins here, that is all I will say on the subject."
The gem twins all gave a groan. Jenny, Bart, Marcy, and Kevin turned to their mother, only to receive a "not now" look.
Mary turned to her half sisters and to Tano and her sisters. They still looked sad and depressed at the loss of their mothers, but there was fascination at the dance, even if it was now over. She was about to say something when a new voice cut her off.
"Interesting, wasn't it?"
Mary and the other cubs turned to see Ulysses coming to sit beside them. Part of him looked nervous and part looked hopeful. As he sat down, Moja shuffled around Mary and slowly hugged the purple teen wolf.
"Your friends will always be there for you," Ulysses told them, "I will always be there."
"Thanks, Uly," Mary spoke and joined her half sisters in hugging him.
++++++++
Inside the Medical area, Mother Glen sat quietly with Gillian standing quietly beside her. It was at this time that Mother Glen noticed that these leomen were unfamiliar to her.
"You'll forgive me, dears, but I can not fully remember you," Mother Glen spoke, "are you from the gallery? Did Penny free you too?"
"Yes, she did," Mal'akh nodded, "but unlike her future Prime Mate, were were all in the gallery for a very long time time."
"Rosa Daleson was the Matriarch when we fell victim to the game," Arael added, "so we felt it appropriate to talk with you."
Gillian blinked at the mention of one of his ancestors.
"I see," Mother Glen commented, "Is something wrong?"
"Not really," Gabriel responded, "we're mostly concerned that since we've been in the gallery for so long as to whether or not we'd be welcomed back into the pride or not."
"Whether or not we'd have to undergo our "first hunts" again," Armisael added.
"First hunts?" Mother Glen and Gillian both wondered aloud.
"Yes, females around Millie's age are taken on a hunting party and are given a Gold Deer buck to bring down," Mal'akh spoke, "but then, surely you know this. The Matriarch usually supervises every lioness's First Hunt."
Mother Glen blinked at that. This sounded like the first hunt, likely against a Gold Deer or a White Tail, or the occasional Moose that wandered in, and was likely some sort of "rite of passage" for these leomen. Now, while the Pride did take pride in the successful hunting trips of every female, especially if it was one who had not hunted before, but to Mother Glen's knowledge that hadn't been a required activity for years.
Gillie hadn't EVER joined any hunting party, largely as she seemed wedded to her work, or getting there when before she had joined the police academy. Bernie had joined with various hunting teams, but for her it had been rather infrequent, for reasons that Bernie had kept to herself. Bobbi didn't hunt all that often either, though Mother Glen surmised that this had to do with Bobbi's conscious knowledge of the weights on her chest. Bobbi wasn't as proportionately big as some of the female lupman in Jensen's Pack, but she was still the largest in the Pride. Mother Glen had guessed that at her size, Bobbi didn't want to have the hunt fail because one of her breasts brushed against something, or that Bobbi didn't want to get herself hurt.
And Mother Glen, herself, could never remember the Matriarch when she was younger ever making her hunt if she didn't want to. So it appeared that the Pride's customs and mores when it came to hunting had changed since since these three females and one male had been forced into becoming part of the gallery's collection of curse victims.
"I will first tell you that you all are more then welcome within the Pride," Mother Glen spoke, "It would be uncivilized to have you thrown out because some rogue decided to make you a target of the game... and to have you placed in the gallery. You were part of the pride before that happened. So, thanks to my younger grand-daughter, you have been returned to the Pride."
"Thank you, Matriarch," the gallery lions spoke, "Thank you."
"And as to your other concerns, I'm afraid the Pride has changed during your time in the gallery," Mother Glen sighed, "no female has been made to hunt if she doesn't wish to, and those that haven't, have not been thought less of for doing so. At least not in my lifetime. I will not require you to repeat the ceremonies that you performed in the past. Once you have healed, though, I will not stop you from hunting should you wish to."
"The First Hunt is not done?" Mal'akh gasped.
"Not formally," Mother Glen answered, "though every daughter is commonly encouraged to hunt, and some mothers are more pushy about it then others... but those that haven't hunted are not looked down on it."
"Didn't you have a friend who spent her time helping the suffragettes?" Gillian asked, trying to remember an example for Mother Glen to use.
"Yes, but once females had the right to vote, she joined one of the Pride's hunting parties and was successful in bringing down a White Tail buck," Mother Glen told him, "though she only got her chance after the Gold Deer doe that the White Tail had been following kicked that buck, and left with a Gold Deer buck beside that doe."
"Oh."
"Anyway," Mother Glen turned her attention to the gallery lions, "If you wish to hunt when you've recovered you are more then welcome to, but I will not force you to if you do not want to."
"I see," Arael responded, but silently wondered just how much the Pride had changed since she and the others had been part of the gallery. She did want to ask, but she was also slightly afraid to task for fear that some things had changed to greatly...
++++++++
"Why didn't the witches merely begin repeating the experiments they had done on Rosa with others?" Lilly asked, "If they were trying to restore or preserve the childhood of others?"
"Mostly feeling that it would take them too long," Marie sighed, "repeating what they had done with Rosa would have required them doing things one child, pup, or cub at a time, which in their minds would have slowed them down. They were beginning to believe that magic was not only the only answer, but that there was some way that they could use it on everyone on Glendale with just a snap of their fingers."
"They were becoming more arrogant?" Maddex asked.
Marie nodded, "which would lead to further conflicts between them and their Godfather as he tried to turn them from the "ill winds" that he had seen in the past and he continued to see around them?"
"Did they kill him?" Cassandra asked nervously, "You said earlier that Marie Cruz had seen him nailed to a cross."
"That dream also had him as a wooden image on the cross... but many parts of the dreams Marie had seen of the witches while they were all children and teens were merely dreams created by their subconscious minds," Marie explained, "the witches never killed him, and in actuality, they never harmed him in anyway beyond the anguish at seeing his family turn so dark and evil..."
"Did he join Marie Cruz and her team?" Alice wondered, "Since he has had such a history with them, and has tried to prevent their fall, it would be logical that he would join her if only to try and save them from themselves."
"It would be," Marie nodded, "but he was too old to help by the time Marie and her comrades arrived at Glendale. He did meet them, and he would provide them with some tips and advice that would ultimately prove important, but he was too old to do anything physically beyond that, and Marie would have forced him to stay away from the fight if he tried. Joseph Running-Bear did not join the hunters."
"So who was the American hunter?" Abbey wondered.
"We aren't that far along yet to meet him," Marie told the group.