“That was quick,” Standig commented.

“It wasn’t a hard decision,” an elder responded.

“We’ve had our own conflicts with Tadellos over the years, but he’s never given us a reason to think he was unfit for the job,” another elder added.

“It’s not that we were looking for an excuse to depose him, but it’s hard to deny that his recent actions have been anything short of despicable,” the wispy elder said, more to Lolo than anyone else. “You are really something, Huo Lohse Lang. Your parents should be proud. I believe it was your testimony, as an outsider and the young woman that got us through the Purple Fever, that put the final nail in this case. Even our most taciturn members could not refute you.”

Lolo was at a loss for what to say, so she simply bowed to the elders. In doing so, the injuries on her back were once again exposed.

“Lolo, let’s go take care of those cuts,” Shanti fussed, pulling her upright. “We need to clean them so they don’t get infected.” Shanti turned to the elders and bowed. “If you will please excuse us?”

“Certainly,” the wispy elder smiled. “We only came to collect the Bear Tribe leader for the meeting anyway.”

Word of Tadellos’s fall spread like wildfire through the Bear Tribe and beyond, and soon people were showing up to pledge their allegiance to the new leader. Philige was kept quite busy, and the trainees didn’t see much of him. An official coronation ceremony was scheduled for Saturday, the day after the last day of classes.

“The coronation is merely a formality, so it isn’t especially lavish. But it will draw a large crowd,” Standig explained to the trainees. “Philige invited you all to attend. He figures that it might be the single most worthwhile class on Bear Tribe culture you’ll get this summer.”

“Well, then, how can we refuse?” Haowan grinned impishly.

Lolo jabbed Haowan in the ribs. “We’d be honored to be there, Standig.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

***

Classes for the last week were all but cancelled, so Lolo convinced Matron to give the trainees a proper lesson on meditation in one of the gardens.

“Could everyone please sit in a circle?” Matron began the class quite flustered. “I don’t know how you convinced me to do this, Huo Lohse.”

“You’ll be great!” Lolo gave her a thumbs up.

“I’m going to show you some breathing techniques, and then we will practice them together. First, close your eyes and empty your lungs completely of air. Hold that emptiness for a few seconds before allowing your lungs to slowly fill back up. Once your lungs are full, hold that fullness for a few seconds and repeat. Like this.” Matron demonstrated the breathing technique. “Make sure you sit up straight, but relax your neck and shoulders. Focusing on your breath will help you quiet your mind and get in tune with your body-- a great starting point for meditation.”

The class repeated the exercise until Matron called for their attention. “The goal of meditation is to focus your mind on the present moment. Notice how frequently your mind travels to other moments. Things like something you need to accomplish, something someone said to you earlier in the day or even many years ago.

“When you meditate, you should focus on what is happening right now and simply acknowledge it. Things like how you are breathing, physical sensations, sensory stimulation, current emotions. Become fully aware of your existence, and experience that existence without attaching any emotions to it. When your mind wanders to other things, take a moment to acknowledge those thoughts, release them to deal with them later, and then return again to the present moment. The mastery of meditation is in the ability to return to the present and simply exist in it, and that takes practice and patience with yourself.

"For those of you that are animal spirit hosts, which, I realize that's all of you, consistent meditation and mastery of meditation can serve as a way to increase your spiritual connection to your animal spirit. Those who master meditation report feelings of internal harmony, an increase in spiritual energy, a heightened awareness of their animal spirits, and greater focus, skill, and endurance when performing challenging tasks.

“I would like to spend the rest of the class practicing meditation. My understanding is that you’ve all studied multiple breathing exercises and meditation techniques, but studying and doing are two different things. I want you to have the time and space to practice, and I will help you as needed.”

The trainees sat in silence with their eyes closed. Each trainee approached meditation using different techniques. Lolo found listening to the different breathing techniques incredibly distracting. She kept wanting to open her eyes to see how everyone else was breathing rather than focusing on her own breath. “Meditation is basically just isolating yourself in your own head.” She tried to sit still, but she kept twitching, irritable at having to keep her eyes closed for so long.

Matron noticed Lolo’s lack of focus and tapped her shoulder. Lolo opened one eye to glance at her teacher, and Matron had a hard time stifling a laugh.

“You seem to be struggling,” Matron whispered.

“I’ve been told that I’ve never been very good at meditating.”

“As I recall, you told me that once before. Who told you that?"

“The Great Owl.”

“The Great Owl taught you to meditate?!” Matron seemed awed.

“Well, she tried to,” Lolo said apologetically.

“It does take practice, Huo Lohse,” Matron tried to reassure her disheartened student.

“But I can’t even begin to focus on my breathing. I’m wired to be aware of other people, so when I try to listen to my breathing, I end up just hearing everyone else’s breathing.”

Matron thought about Huo Lohse’s struggle for a moment and then had an idea. “What if you meditated with a partner?”

“You can do that?” Lolo was confused. “I thought the whole point of meditation was to focus on your own solitary existence.”

“Well, yes. But partner meditation is an advanced technique that most people never even try. It can be incredibly intimate because you work together to synchronize your breathing, finding harmony in a shared existence and awareness. While most people master personal meditation on their own before dabbling in partner meditation, I wonder if you would do better starting in reverse.”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“Is there anyone here you would feel comfortable to try partner meditation with?”

“You mean, besides you?”

Matron smiled indulgently. “Yes, besides me, though I thank you for the compliment. Whoever you choose should be someone that you trust completely. Perhaps one of your brothers?”

“Standig,” Lolo thought out loud.

“What?” Matron wanted to be sure she heard correctly.

“Oh, is that not ok?”

“You want to try it with Standig?”

“Well, we are sparring partners and best friends. And, no offense to my brothers, but he actually knows how to meditate.”

“I didn’t realize the two of you were so close.... I’ll go get him.” She left.

Matron tapped Standig on the shoulder and started a whispered conversation with him. After a few moments, Lolo could see the look of surprise on Standig’s face, but he willingly got up to follow Matron to where Lolo was sitting. Standig sat down next to Lolo.

“Partner meditation, huh?” He resisted a smile.

“Only if you’re ok with that.” Lolo felt suddenly embarrassed and her cheeks became a little warmer.

“Fine by me, but I’ve never tried it before.”

Matron interjected, “to be fair, I’ve only ever seen others do it a handful of times, but I think I can walk you through the basics. Cross your legs and face each other knee-to-knee.” They followed instructions. “Standig, because you have more experience, you are going to lead the breathing. Pick a simple technique with a predictable rhythm because Huo Lohse will have to copy you. The goal is to match your breath with each other.” Standig nodded. “Now, hold hands and close your eyes.” The two trainees stared at her. “Well?”

There was an awkward moment in which Lolo and Standig fumbled with each other's hands, trying to find a comfortable position to settle into.

“Very good. I guess the best thing is just to try it now, so I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need anything,” Matron said and walked off to help other students.

Standig chose a simple in-through-the-nose, out-through-the-mouth breathing rhythm, and Lolo did her best to follow his lead. To her delight, it was infinitely easier for Lolo to focus on someone else’s breath than it was to focus on her own. For the first time ever while trying to meditate, Lolo managed to relax.

Instead of wandering aimlessly, her mind focused on her connection with Standig. Her hands were relaxed in his, their knees were touching, and their breathing naturally synchronized. So this was what meditation was supposed to feel like. She became aware of the heat of the sun and the coolness of the grass she was sitting on. She felt her shirt ruffle in the slight mountain breeze and took a strange satisfaction in knowing that Standig could feel the breeze too. It didn’t bother her that she was sitting still, and time didn’t seem to matter. She could feel Standig’s pulse where her fingers rested near the base of his palm. It was steady and comforting.

“Hey, Lolo,” she heard someone say, “class is over.”

“Hm? What?” Lolo startled and looked up to see her brothers giving her a funny look.

“Or were you enjoying holding hands?” Haowan teased obnoxiously.

Lolo didn’t dignify his comment with a response.

Zizai leaned down to pat Standig on the shoulder. “Have something to tell us?”

“Yes,” Standig said while rising to his feet. He easily had four inches or more on the wolf princes. “Buzz off.”

“Oooooooh!!” the Lang boys responded in unison, laughing at Standig’s testiness.

Lolo stood up too. “You guys don’t even know what we were doing, do you?”

“All I know is that the two of you were holding hands for everyone to see.” Haowan was the master of harassment, and Lolo enjoyed making him pay for it. No one batted an eye when she stomped hard on Haowan’s foot, and while he bellyached, she explained partner meditation to the rest of her brothers.

“It actually worked,” she chuckled. “I’ve never been able to meditate before, but having someone meditate with me made it so much easier.”

Her brothers were no longer laughing and teasing. “That’s interesting, Lolo. I struggle with meditation too, but not quite as bad as you. I wonder if partner meditation would also be easier for me,” Lingdao mused.

“Maybe!” Lolo encouraged him. “We could try it together sometime, if you’d like. I actually wonder if partner meditation would work better for all wolves in general. We don’t do things alone in real life, why would we meditate alone?”

“That’s a reasonable theory,” Rensui approved. “We’ll have to experiment with it.”

Satisfied, the Lang boys moved off to go to lunch.

“Well,” Lolo turned to Standig, “you’ve been awfully quiet. What did you think?”

“It was a lot easier than I’d expected it to be,” Standig confessed. “Unlike you, Lolo, I’ve never struggled with meditating on my own.”

“Did it work for you, though?”

“It took longer for me to focus than when I meditate normally, but eventually, yeah. I got there too.”

“Hm. That’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“Oh, just that partner meditation was so easy for me, where it was more challenging for you, someone who actually knows how to meditate.”

“I like your theory on wolves and partner meditation. That makes sense to me. I’d add to it that bears are the opposite, and standard meditation is easier because it more closely resembles our social habits.” He laughed, “maybe wolves are actually really talented at meditating, and you just don’t know it because no one ever thinks to teach partner meditation right out of the gate.”

***

Captain Starkam decided to forego his planned finale for the exchange due to the unusual circumstances of the summer. Instead, he allowed the students to decide how to spend their last week of training. After a few days of fun sparring matches, the group decided to have a class brawl, every man for himself, at the end of the week. The rules were simple, the last man standing wins. All students would start on the edge of the field and fight with each other one-on-one (no ganging up on each other) until only two people remained. The final two students would then face-off against each other for the win.

All nineteen students moved to their starting positions and Captain Starkam dropped a flag to start the game. For the first few minutes, the field was in chaos. Sarnai was the first person to be knocked out of the fight, followed by Saikhan, Haowan, Insaltus and Haleit. Zhongyan allowed Et’zana to beat him, then Ulana beat Et’zana. Rensui beat Jadu, Qingchi beat Zizai, and Fortus beat Lingdao. Ernkit knocked Begrent out of the match before squaring off against Ulana. Meanwhile, Lolo beat Shanti, and Fortus took down Rensui. Ulana eventually lost to Ernkit, but Ernkit was quickly beaten by Standig.

Captain Starkam called for a reset, and the final four took up positions at the corners of the field. The flag dropped, and Lolo matched up against Fortus while Qingchi fought with Standig.

Fortus was a tough competitor. He had a knack for planning and executing multiple attack combinations in rapid succession. His swordsmanship was precise, even Standig would be hard-pressed to present more textbook forms. But his weakness was in his inflexibility, and this was Lolo’s strength.

As Fortus pressed his technical advantage, Lolo memorized his more frequent attack combinations. One of his favorite combinations was a slice at the middle that looped fluidly around for an attack over her head, followed by a thrust back at her midriff. About the fourth time using this combination. Lolo blocked his slice, breaking Fortus’s flow, preventing the next move in the attack, and causing Fortus to hesitate as he recalculated his next move. Taking advantage of his hesitation, Lolo switched to offense, and Fortus was left to play an uncomfortable defense.

Unlike Fortus, Lolo didn’t follow any sort of attack pattern. She attacked wherever there was a weakness. When he defended low, she went high. Her style kept Fortus off-balance, and eventually, Lolo’s sword was pointed at the center of his chest, his own sword out of position to defend against it.

“I yield.” Fortus nodded and left to find a seat on the sidelines.

Lolo turned to watch Standig’s match against Qingchi. They were still going strong. After his defeat in the tournament last summer, Qingchi had solicited his sister to help him practice. His improvement was evident. Qingchi’s swordsmanship resembled Huo Lohse’s in versatility and speed, but he was bigger and stronger than she was and could stand up against Standig’s attacks better and deliver harder blows himself. Standig was having to dodge attacks a lot more than he was used to, and ultimately, this was the reason he lost.

As Qingchi brought an attack down over Standig’s head, Standig was out of position to deflect and didn’t move fast enough to get out of the way. Qingchi adjusted his attack to land the broad side of his sword on Standig’s shoulder.

“Nice! I yield,” Standig said, bowing out.

Qingchi turned to see that his final opponent would be his sister and laughed. “Of course it’s you!” He pulled her into a quick side hug and boinked her on the nose. She scrunched her nose at him but smiled.

Captain Starkam grinned at the pair and moved them to the center of the field to start the final fight. “Alright, you two. Begin!”

Having spent many, many hours sparring with each other over the past year, there were few surprises between them, and they were very evenly matched. Qingchi’s advantage was in his relative strength. Lolo’s advantage was in her ability to incorporate martial arts into her maneuvers. At one point, Lolo dodged one of Qingchi’s thrusts and dropped her sword to bring Qingchi’s swordhand down over her knee. A risky move, but the effect was that Qingchi dropped his sword, which Lolo caught and turned on her brother.

Qingchi shook his head and laughed, good-naturedly. “Even after all that practice, you can still surprise me, Lolo. I yield!”

Huo Lohse returned Qingchi’s sword to him and gave him a hug. Captain Starkam declared Lolo the winner, and dismissed the class for the last time. Everyone left to get cleaned up for the rest of the afternoon and start packing for the journey home.

“Hey Standig, do you want to do something like the bonfire we did last year?” Ulana asked after a private chat with her sister.

“Um, I hadn’t given it much thought.”

“I think it would be fun to start a tradition of throwing a party on the last night of the exchange,” Et’zana declared.

Standig looked around for help, but the boys in the group gave him a look indicating that they were happy to stay out of it, and Lolo was talking to Shanti, not paying attention. “Did you have anything specific in mind?”

“Nothing specific. We figured that as a member of the hosting tribe, you’d have some ideas,” Sarnai said.

“We don’t do parties,” Standig mumbled inaudibly.

“What was that?” Ulana asked.

“Nothing,” Standig winced. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well, think quickly. Tonight is the last night,” Sarnai reminded him unnecessarily.

As the trainees started breaking off to head to their rooms, Standig pulled Lolo aside to ask for help.

“They want you to throw a party?” Lolo laughed. “You?!”

“They didn’t leave me the option to refuse,” Standig grumped. “It’s not funny, Lolo!”

Lolo was clutching her stomach because of how hard she was laughing. “Yes, it is! Standig, apart from last year’s bonfire, have you ever been to a party?”

Standig opened his mouth to protest, but realized she was absolutely right. “No,” he finally admitted.

“Leave it to me, then. Let’s plan to meet up in the garden between the two north corridors for dinner and games. I’ll leave it to you to spread the word.”

“Thanks, Lolo.”

“I’ve got to get ready for tonight. There’s not much time.”

Before Standig could say good-bye, Lolo was gone.

Standig arrived in the garden a little early to help out, but Huo Lohse had everything under control. “How?” he said, looking around dumbfounded.

“Oh, hi, Standig! What do you think?” Lolo beamed.

“How?!” Standig repeated.

In the central lawn of the garden, Lolo had set up a series of heavy quilts in a circle with cushions to sit on, and more quilts folded to the side. Against a row of bushes sat a table covered with a spread of classic Bear Tribe foods that even Standig had only ever seen once or twice. The table was draped with a thin, gauzy material to keep bugs out of the food. In the great trees above them hung dozens of iron lanterns. Once it got dark, the lights would appear to be floating over them.

“What do you mean, how?” Lolo asked.

“How did you pull this off?!”

“I found the right help,” Lolo stated simply. “Frankly, I think the cooks were tickled to dust off some of their old cookbooks, and Matron was more than happy to send a couple servants with a table and a ladder. The blankets and cushions weren’t exactly hard to locate either, and I was lucky enough to run into a few maids that offered to help me carry everything.”

“Yeah, no big deal,” Standig said sarcastically.

Lolo nudged him playfully in the ribs. “It really wasn’t.”

“It is to me!”

Lolo flushed under the compliment. “Well, claim your seat, Standig. People should be arriving in just a few minutes.”

Right on cue, people started filing in, starting with her brothers.

“Let me guess,” Zhongyan said to Standig while looking around, “Lolo had a hand in this.”

Standig was more than happy to give her the credit. “I didn’t do a thing.”

“I figured. This set-up looks like one of her parties.”

“Does she throw parties a lot?”

“No, but when she does, she does it right. Look, she even has blankets to wrap up in when it gets cold,” Zhongyan said while pointing to the folded stack. “Who else do you know that would think of something like that?”

Standig shook his head.

Once everyone arrived, Lolo removed the cloth from over the food and invited everyone to serve themselves and then gather on the blankets to eat. The party was a hit. After a rather stifling and stressful summer, the relaxed picnic setting was most welcome. The friends didn’t even feel the need to play games; just sitting and talking felt like enough.

People started getting tired and leaving to head to bed. As people left, Lolo collected the discarded blankets and cushions, folding and stacking them neatly under the table now cleared of food.

“Let me help,” Standig offered.

“There’s really not much left to do. I already sent the dishes back to the kitchen with a thank you note to the cooks there, and Matron told me that I should just leave the rest for the servants to take care of in the morning. I figured I would at least try to stack up the bedding for them. We are just waiting for the last stragglers to leave, but I don’t want to rush them.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Insaltus and Sarnai quickly realized that they were the last people there and left. Standig helped Lolo fold the last few blankets and stack them with the others.

“Well, I’d say that was a success!” Lolo grinned.

“In case I haven’t already said it, thank you!” Standig nudged her.

“You’re welcome!” She nudged him back.

They continued pushing each other back and forth as they moved to the garden exit, laughing when Standig pushed too hard and sent Lolo tumbling into the brush. Her efforts to return in kind were in vain as she really didn’t have the strength or leverage to knock Standig over. They rounded a corner and startled a couple kissing under a tree. It was Zhongyan and Et’zana.

Lolo grabbed Standig’s arm and wheeled around, her face hot with the embarrassment of invading their privacy. “Please continue!” She shouted over her shoulder before dragging Standig to the exit as quickly as she could.

“What’s going on?” Standig barely had to trot to keep up with her.

“You didn’t see?”

“See what?”

“Them kissing?”

“Who kissing?”

“Nevermind.”

“Who kissing, Lolo?”

“Stop! Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, now I’m curious.”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“Then I’ll go back to see for myself.” Standig turned around and pulled Lolo’s hand off his sleeve.

“Don’t you dare!” Lolo moved in front of Standig to push him out of the garden, but even though she was pushing as hard as she could, Standig only had to lean forward slightly.

“What’s wrong with kissing?”

“Nothing! But I think the couple in question would prefer to keep it to themselves,” she said, still straining to get Standig to budge.

“Fine,” Standig took a step back and Lolo toppled forward. He caught her under her arms and pulled her up, laughing at her determination.

“You can be so aggravating sometimes,” Lolo said, straightening out her dress and smoothing her hair back.

Standig just continued to laugh. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She shook her head. “I guess I will see you at the coronation tomorrow.”

“Good-night, Lolo.”