DINNER AT THE GRAND OLD NIGHT FOREST

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, we got to the Night Forest Packhouse. We were on the news. The crowd that met us was crazy. And Beta Larson met us on the porch to welcome me back and remind us that "dinner would be at 7pm upon my leisure."

The Night Forest warriors stepped forward to give us a hand with our loot, but mostly because Beta Larson ordered them too. I had gone out with a single very large bouquet of white roses for Grandpa Alpha, and somehow came back with a truckload of assorted flowers, cards, and gifts. Literally so, because whatever didn't fit in the boot, came home in the back of a pick up truck.

It felt a little like coming back after a successful Halloween night - if we went treat or tricking on Valentines day. Wait, no… I take that back. If you considered the Blue Demon Warriors with me, it looked like we had raided a pack and robbed their gift shops.

"Yo, thanks man." Neil grimaced as he passed his armful of flowers and packages roughly to the Night Forest Warrior. It was funny because Neil was so XXL and the warrior was a very average M warrior size. Still Neil made it look like the other man saved him. He wasn't faking it either. It was quite apparent that my blue demon warriors were struggling. Give them jerry cans and sandbags anytime and they'd be tossing it down the line to store away. One armful of bouquets accompanied by little cards and assorted packages were another ball game altogether. There would be no flower left uncrushed in this lot.

"Use the boxes, dammit." Ben got annoyed as random objects from ribbons to pieces of flowers littered the porch.

"There aren't enough, beta." Neil shrugged towards the limo. He didn't say it, but even I understood. We took Uncle Louis' limo, not any of our cars. Our cars that would have been well stocked with those black foldable boxes that I had seen Harvey magic out from the trunk before.

Ben growled. (He was not in a good mood atm - none of my betas were.)

"Oh s***." Jax quickly scooped up the box he just dropped. He whispered way too loudly, "Please don't be broken."

Jax checked the box by shaking it a little. We all heard the contents jangle. He read the levels and studied the shop brand embossed on top of it in gold foil, "Ok, exactly HOW 'fragile' is 'crystal hearts'?"

Which was funny too, or at least I'm sure it would have been funny if everyone was in the mood to clown along, but the earlier high had ebbed away by now. Nothing like a long slow early evening commute to bring us back to reality.

How should I explain it? Like the entire episode at the Warriors' Resting Place was like something straight out of a TV, and as our entourage of vehicles pulled out of the parking and onto the roads, the adrenaline was still pumping.

We left of a high. My betas were all in a good mood, drinks were promised, jokes were bantered. We watched the news reels play on Ki's phone and the video was unbelievable - as in, it should in no circumstances be believed. I could not in good conscience call what the LNC produced as news. From now on, I shall call it, dramatized speculations loosely based on true rumors.

The late afternoon traffic slowed down to a crawl as we entered Night Forest's Town Center where their Packhouse was located. This gave us plenty of time to reground ourselves to real life. Nothing like joining the early evening traffic jams to get back to reality.

Ki was working hard on his screen and mindlinks to stay on top of the PR team handling the communications back home at our FAO. (We had a PR team?)

I don't think Harvey was in such a good mood after the last video, but I'm not sure if it were because he was still troubled by the one little pup comment, or because we were steadily falling behind schedule at every traffic junction.

My good beta who didn't like leaving loose ends often reviewed his own work, which was commendable. My only gripe was that he was more often than not, way too hard on himself.

He also liked to take the blame for things completely outside of his control.

Overall, we had just survived an unexpectedly chaotic crowd at my walkabout - and we survived without incident and exactly on schedule, but as our car slowed to a crawl, I caught Harvey checking his watch. We were mostly stationary for the last part of our journey back. It was just regular evening traffic, I can't imagine what possessed Harvey to believe that the traffic jam was his fault.

He had apologized several times for the delay.

We weren't that late back - just a little over 15 minutes.

"Apologies Alpha." Harvey winced after Beta Larson's reminder that dinner was a 7.

"You don't have to apologize every 5 minutes, Harv." Ben turned away from the warriors to grumble. The warriors looked visibly relieved because Ben had finally stopped berating them over the mindlink. (Now this was a beta who would have benefitted from more self-reflection.)

Harvey's mouth pressed in a straight line but he didn't respond to the younger guy. From the way his forehead was crinkled, he was either receiving a serious report over the mindlink or still mentally beating himself up.

We weren't even actually late for dinner.

I made it just in time... Not quite at my leisure, and not technically on time, but ARGUABLY, because if the grand old Night Forest can arguably be the oldest and wealthiest pack in the continent, I could arguably be on time. Haha.

Because we were behind schedule (due to NO fault on Harvey's part), I only had time to change out of my boots before rushing down to the dining hall for dinner. It turned out that this was a busy time at the Night Forest Packhouse too, so everything took longer - even the wait for the lift. But no matter, I made it just in time to rush into the dinning room in the same manner and moment as Uncle Louis.

If Grandma Luna were here, we would both be in trouble for rushing in like that. (It was undignified.) But it was also Uncle Louis default style of entering and leaving any room, and when I did it together with him, it looked perfectly natural.

Aunt Jade was already at the table. She stood up with the rest of the hall at our entry.

"Alpha is here." Beta Larson announced.

"Alpha Princess is here." Ben added dryly.

For some reason, even though Uncle Louis and I had rushed in, our betas were able to enter behind us and announce us like they hadn't just run down eight flights of stairs to get here (The lift took too long to wait for).

Okay, granted I had no idea where Uncle Louis and Beta Larson had rushed over from (running down 8 flights for stairs was just Ben and me… the my poor security detail), but Uncle Louis' hair was windswept as he rushed over to his Luna's side while Beta Larson stood without a hair out of place as he pulled out the chair for his harried alpha. #betamagic.

I plopped down into the chair Ben held out for me and grinned at him. It gave me some satisfaction that he was unable to coolly "whatever" me in front of our host pack.

Anyway, that was how I was "on time at my leisure" even though I was sure it had to be way past 7 by now.

"Sit, sit." Uncle Louis waved down the other wolves, "Let's eat."

Because unlike in Night Leaf, it was normal for wolves to stand on ceremony at their Alpha's arrival and the kitchen to only start service AFTER the Alpha's arrival. I used to think it was mean of the kitchen to withhold the food when I was younger, but now I get it. I don't really agree with it, but I get it.

There was even a theory that the clear boundaries lines that tradition drew helped wolves find security and stability in their place and pack resulting in a more efficiency and less infighting within a pack. (Insert Lorent shrug here). I don't know… there were a lot of theories… wait, how did I know about stuff like this? What was I reading in this life? My dad's books? O.o

No, worse… in this timeline Roy was still around. Roy's living room was like a library with a single sofa and coffee table. He also used to babysit me a lot in this timeline. He liked to read a lot of boring books about administration and socio-economics and sometimes for lack of anything to do, I had flipped through some of the economic journals he left lying around (but only the ones with colored photos and pictures).

Wow, its true - the environment of a pup really made a difference! Gasp - and how did I know this? (Mrs Beta's bookcase.) WTH… it was like I went around people's houses reading their books in this life! I wasn't quite sure how to feel about the new stuff I had unearthed from my brain. I think the main question was - if I had this in my brain the entire time in this life, why was I still such a dumb pup?

Aunt Jade cleared her throat. Oh, Uncle Louis and I were doing it again, both spacing out at the same time so that our table was now an awkward space. Our table that only sat the three of us. Poor Aunt Jade - stuck with us.

My cousins, Estelle and Esmeralda were away at Black Forest Academy and it was term time. Little Eddy was home but he was with his governess. Apparently, this was the norm with fancy families as far as I could tell. I mean, James and Charles had dinner with their governess until they were of age too. (Insert another Lorent shrug.)

Luckily, I was brought up unfancy so I had dinner at the family table since I could sit in the high chair. Till today, Mum still reminded me how messy I was as a baby, but she often remembered with a wistful smile so I didn't mind. I had even offered to pour my soup across the table to help her relive the memory. (She didn't find it that funny.)

It was weird to be the only three people seated at this large Alpha table in front of the hall while the other tables in the dining hall were bursting around the seams from the number of wolves being squeezed together.

"It's more crowded than usual tonight." Aunty Jade tried to start normal conversation.

"Well, Sam's warriors need to be fed." Uncle Louis answered. It was true, and they were being fed here in the dining hall too, but they were not ALL my wolves. We took at most four tables.

"And I suppose many of our wolves are curious to meet the Alpha Princess too." Uncle Louis admitted as an afterthought.

Quite a number had stayed back after work at the Packhouse, or came over for dinner just to see the Alpha Princess. Which weirded me out a little, but at least they weren't screaming or shoving flowers and chocolates at us. In fact, the dining hall was very quiet.

It was buffet style for the other wolves, but even while going to fetch their food, the wolves were very quiet at meal times here. And guess what? My warriors were apparently capable of eating quietly too. Now that was a sight I had never seen in Night Leaf! Haha.

Ben brought my food over straight from the kitchen, deboned and shelled with minimal green stuff - just the way I liked it. Beta Larson had the servants serve Uncle Louis and Aunt Jade - it was very fancy service, as if they hired wait staff from Moshiro. This was also typical of Night Forest - although not every night. But I had to settle for Ben-service because of some Night Leaf security protocols which restricted me to only eating whatever my Betas handed me when I was outside my home pack. Since when did Night Leaf have protocols (that we actually followed)?

I tried not to think of it as yet another restriction. The food was yummy and had everything I personally liked. I didn't have to queue for the buffet line. (Lorent shrug). Why did I keep doing that? Why was I feeling less and less happy as the dinner wore on? Maybe I was just tired. There was a part of me that wished I could just go home. Like my real home… all the way back in the Green Packlands, Night Leaf, ORIGINAL TIMELINE.

It had been a long day and I had this nagging disquiet all day long about the way Timeline 3 wasn't quite exactly like the Original Timeline it presented itself to be. In some ways, it was so alike, sometimes I forget entirely that I was in a different timeline. Everything was "as it should be" on the outside.

It was really the little inconsistencies, the ever present internal realization that something was different that left me feeling increasingly anxious that it wasn't quite "as it should be."

Had you ever felt like you were living in some kind of enchantment? Like I was here, but not… and everything around me - was it real or not? Did it even matter? OMO was this what they called an existential crisis?

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of time to dwell in my first ever existential crisis. Uncle Louis had asked me about what I did today and if I enjoyed myself. He had already seen the news and received Oscar's report. (Then why was he asking me?)

Oh wait, I was supposed to put a good word in for Oscar. Now this was my chance, "Ah, about Oscar…"

Uncle Louis raised a brow and I hastily explained before anything untoward happened to the poor young beta, "He took care of us very well. Please thank him for me."

I think that should suffice. It would be exactly how Lady Amber would commend the staff to her brother and ensure those deserving of it receive due recognition. So Lorent, yes, but I was dealing with the grand old Night Forest, AND at the moment, I felt quite proud of myself for actually knowing the right script to use. Could it be that I was adulting?

Uncle Louis considered my words and then nodded, "Of course, Good work should be rewarded. I will reward him appropriately."

He looked towards Beta Larson who quickly bowed, "Understood Alpha, I shall convey your thanks to Oscar and in the future, he will be attached to the Night Leaf team whenever possible."

Eh? No! That would be the opposite of a reward to Oscar! But of course I couldn't quite say that. Especially since I had to consciously force my hair at mid-flare to stay down. Sigh, so much for adulting.

"Thank you." Because I was following the Lorent script I started, "That would be nice (for us, not him)."

I'm sorry Oscar. #betalife.