It was a bright evening with a full, summer's moon. Huo Lohse felt the wolf spirit within her itching to get out and roam, so she put her shoes on and slipped a light robe over her pajamas. Even with the sun down, the breeze was warm as it blew through her hair, already down and brushed out for the night. She moved quickly and silently toward the woods down to the left of the hill upon which Pack Hall was built, but she did not go unnoticed.

Standig was out star-gazing and appreciating the full moon when he caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. Curious, he followed the figure out the front gate and into the woods. Whoever it was, they moved quickly, picking their way through the trees effortlessly, further piquing Standig’s interest as he jogged to keep up.

The figure turned a corner, and Standig lost visual momentarily. Upon rounding the corner, the figure had disappeared. Seemingly alone in the middle of the woods now, he stopped to take stock of his surroundings and consider the absurdity of following some unknown person into the forest in the middle of the night. The woods around him were quite thick, and there was a healthy carpet of grasses, pine needles, fallen leaves, and moss underfoot. He was standing between two enormous trees with perfectly spaced branches for climbing. He looked up to an obscured view of the moon and appreciated the moonbeams filtering through the tree branches. It was beautiful, so he sat on the plush ground to admire it for a moment.

Just then, a collection of pine needles fell around him like confetti. He looked closer at the two trees he was sitting beneath. Sure enough, there was motion about a third of the way up the tree on the right. Standig got up, and proceeded to climb the tree to his left. About seventy feet up, it became evident why the figure he had followed chose the tree on the right. His tree was shorter, and the branches grew thicker together and harder to maneuver as he approached the limit of where he felt the tree could take his weight. Breaking off a few of the smaller, more obstructive branches, he peered up into the other tree. The figure had also stopped climbing and was about forty or so feet higher up, perched on a branch peeking out over the top of the forest canopy. He managed to successfully scale another ten feet or so before he felt that wisdom dictated he stop. Finding a thick branch with a good view to sit on, he leaned against the trunk of the tree to watch the figure silhouetted against the moon.

Huo Lohse loved her tree. Climbing it in the nighttime breeze gave her a thrill and a sense of freedom that nothing else could quite match. Add a full moon, and this was perfection. She had been sneaking out at night to come here for a few years now. The wolf spirit she was host to especially loved coming out during a full moon, so these night excursions were as much about connecting with her animal spirit as anything else. Huo Lohse closed her eyes and bowed her head in a sort of meditation. When she opened her normally dark greenish-brown eyes again, they had turned a glowing, electric green color. She took a deep breath of the warm forest air, and her wolf spirit howled into the night.

Standig wasn't exactly sure what he was witnessing. The figure across the way looked positively wild and yet poised with the wind tossing its hair and clothing about. Then, the clearly human figure howled at the moon, loud, clear, and almost sorrowful like the call of a wolf-- in retrospect later, that made sense seeing as he was visiting the Wolf Tribe-- and Standig felt his own bear spirit stir a little.

As the howling continued, small orbs of light appeared like magic from all around the forest. The twinkling lights floated up from the leaves of the trees and from the grasses on the ground. They rose gently to the wolf call until the breeze captured them and whisked them into currents. The lights swirled and danced across the forest canopy until the wolf call ended, and just as quickly as they had risen, the lights extinguished. It was a breathtaking sight, and Standig had never seen anything like it before.

Her wolf spirit now satisfied, Huo Lohse’s eyes returned to their normal color. She took in a few deep breaths and began her descent. In the next tree over, Standig gave the figure a head start, hiding behind the trunk of his tree as it passed before beginning his own descent. Having reached the forest floor once again, Huo Lohse, trailed closely by Standig, made her way back home. She swam through the tree branches, climbed the hill to her home, snuck through the front gates, and slipped back into her room.

Standig managed to trail the figure all the way back to… Huo Lohse's room? He thought about knocking on her door to confirm that the figure he'd witnessed had, in fact, been her, but he decided against that course of action. How would he confirm that exactly? "Hi, I followed a strange figure into the woods and back, and I was just wondering if that was you or not." He couldn't do that. Besides, what he'd witnessed felt private. If she was the figure he'd trailed, what if she got mad at him for invading that privacy? No. He would keep this to himself.

But he couldn’t, at least not entirely. That week in class, Standig raised his hand for the first time ever to ask the wolf elder a question.

“Sir, I was wondering, do wolf hosts have any special abilities?”

“Like what?”

“Uh.” He hadn’t anticipated that he would need to clarify his question. “Like magic?” He suddenly found his shoes very interesting. There was an awkward silence punctuated by muffled sniggering. Standig’s face flushed.

“Sir, if I may,” Zizai addressed the wolf elder, who nodded, and Zizai continued. “There is one spiritual ability I know of that is unique to the Alpha of the Wolf Tribe. It’s referred to as the Alpha Call, and it’s said that this call can reveal the hearts of those who hear it. It’s not exactly magic, but it is mysterious in a way kind of like magic.”

“Did that answer your question, young man?” the elder prodded.

Standig nodded his head, but, after class, he looked for Zizai to ask some follow-up questions. He found Zizai talking to the rest of the Lang brothers. Deciding that the collective group of wolf princes might hold the answers he was seeking, Standig approached, waiting patiently for them to finish their discussion. After a moment, Qingchi noticed Standig’s presence and nudged Rensui, nodding in Standig’s direction. This started a domino chain of nudging, nodding, and turning until all six pairs of eyes were on Standig.

“What can we do for you, Standig?” Qingchi took the lead.

“Um, I just wondered if I could ask you guys some questions about the Alpha Call.”

“Fire away!” Lingdao smiled at him encouragingly.

Standig hesitated. “Well, what exactly is the Alpha Call?”

“That’s a good question,” Zhongyan said, his brow furrowing. “My understanding is that it’s a howl, like a wolf howl, that’s produced by an Alpha wolf spirit.”

“But how does that work, exactly? Aren’t host and animal spirit kind of, you know, connected? Inseparable?”

Almost comically in sync, the Lang boys frowned the same frown, thinking. Finally, Rensui broke the silence. “But are they? Are they truly inseparable? We refer to the animal spirit and host separately, right? It is understood that they are intimately bound together and housed in the same body, developing a symbiotic relationship of sorts with each other, but can they truly be considered one-and-the-same?”

There was silence again as the boys considered this idea.

“So the Alpha wolf spirit uses the host’s body to produce the Alpha Call, or endows the host with the spiritual energy needed to produce the call?” This time Haowan asked the question.

“Something like that,” Qingchi responded.

Pulling his head out of the same or separate debate, Standig asked, “have you ever heard the Alpha Call?”

They all shook their heads, and Qingchi explained, “the Alpha Call is typically only produced once each generation during a special crowning ceremony to identify the new Alpha from among the children of the current Alpha. That’s how our dad became the Alpha from among his siblings.”

“So you don’t even know which of you will be the next tribe leader?” Standig was incredulous. He had always assumed that Qingchi was the crown prince.

Qingchi grinned. “Nope! That’s why it’s tradition for the Alpha to father so many children-- to ensure that the Alpha Call and an accompanying Alpha wolf spirit is passed on to the next generation.”

Haowan added, “and that’s why each child is trained as though they will assume the throne.”

Rensui finished, “and that’s also why the Alpha’s children are encouraged to develop strong sibling relationships, so no one prioritizes the crown over his brothers and sisters."

Standig mulled this over for a minute before asking, “is it possible for the next Alpha to be female?”

“You mean, could Lolo be the next Alpha?” Zhongyan surmised with a chuckle.

Standig nodded, his cheeks a little pink.

“Short answer: yes. Technically, Lolo has a one in seven chance of being the next Alpha, same as the rest of us, and she is being trained as a potential Alpha for that reason. However, it is unusual for a female to be the Alpha. Our great grandmother was an Alpha. Of course, she was born into a family of all girls too,” Rensui mused.

Standig had just one more question. “Has the Alpha Call ever been heard outside of the crowning ceremony?”

The Lang brothers looked surprised. Lingdao was the first to respond. “Yes. Historically, the Alpha Call has been heard on the battlefield. Why do you ask? Do you think you’ve heard the Alpha Call?”

Standig looked at his feet again. He didn’t have a good answer for Lingdao’s questions.

Zhongyan pressed, “more to the point, do you have reason to believe that Lolo is the next Alpha?”

Standig looked up and shook his head earnestly. “I-,” he stammered, “I really don’t know.” It was the truth.

“What are you guys talking about?” It was Huo Lohse. “What don’t you know, Standig?”

“Nothing,” came the unified chorus from all seven boys.