Hushed Willows Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way.

Tambourine was not a grumpy pup, except for those first few moments after waking. He stayed still, his paw still jammed in his mouth like a pacifier, eyes opening wider and wider. He grumbled under his breath. He twitched. At last, he sat up with a sigh, then shook his head. Once the cobwebs of sleep were cleared, he jumped to his feet, suddenly perky. His tail waved as he pranced toward his mother, nipping affectionately at her heels and grinning at the sound of her voice, even if he still had yet to understand anything she said.

He trailed after Tavi obediently enough, bounding like a baby bunny to keep up with her, his floppy ear flapping in the wind. When she paused just outside the entrance of The Crook, he bumped into her hind leg, then wove around it to slither between her forelegs. With a giggle, he paused there and glanced up at her chin, lips forming into an o shape when Tavi tossed back her head and howled. Boy, she was loud! The cub felt his own throat rippling in sympathy, a very pathetic echo of the Alpha female's howl erupting from his blunt muzzle.

This was not the only sound the pup made. He felt a twinge in his gut and his blue eyes suddenly screwed up as he bore down on his abdominal muscles. His hindquarters joined the symphony, a very noisy burst escaping his back end and echoing backward into the cavern. In his haste to sniff his own fart, Tambourine smacked his head against his mother's foreleg. But he needn't have bothered, because the overpoweringly dank smell stained the air like a cloud of poisonous gas—just in time for the pack wolves to begin arriving.