𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 (𝙵𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝙱𝚡𝙱)

Track 09 | 𝗔𝗱𝗮

Eden was poking her head in through said window. She had a bright cheeky smile on her face and was dressed in her usual dark, velvet decor.

"Hello, female," Rian said in response as he inched to the right for Eden to climb inside and enter the room, as the couch was right in front of the window. "I mean, I think female..." Eden slapped Rian on the shoulder for that remark. 

That was when another limb came through the window, the leg of a familiar Australian Shepherd. "I've never climbed a fire escape before," Ari remarked as he ducked down and fit himself through the window. "So much better than scaling buildings with just a ladder." Somehow, for his first time, he had done it with much more agile and skill than the clumsy Eden, who had climbed through that window a thousand times.

"How was it? Rejoiceful?" Torrence cracked as Ari stepped off of the couch and caught his breath. He was wearing the same clothes as earlier today.

Torrence's little joke began to grow awkward as Ari was completely silent. No witty comeback or anything. It was like he didn't even hear it, almost. He was just busy putting his Fjallraven Kanken backpack down in the corner where no one would trip over it. Torrence eyed Rian and me, a little put off.

Ari turned back around and noticed Torrence's strange gaze. "What's up?"

"...How was it? ...Rejoiceful?" Torrence repeated, a little slower.

"Oh, yeah, totally, I feel reborn," Ari joked, which made Torrence laugh. The tension had been lifted and everyone seemed to immediately forget about it. It wasn't even that big of a deal, I don't know why I sensed so much strain from it. The calico-furred canine turned around and set his sights on me. "How was the gum, Northwest?"

"Chewy," I bantered back. Ari chuckled with his signature no-teeth smile.

"Okay, okay, initiation time," Eden squealed, grabbing Ari by the shoulders and guiding him towards the middle of the room. "C'mon guys!"

Everyone stood up, even if they didn't want to. I walked over to Eden's side, where she wanted us to go. Rian stood next to us, followed by the brothers. We all stood in a group in front of Ari, not knowing what Eden's "initiation" plan was, but we went along with it because she was passionate about it and who were we to take that away from her?

"This feels intimidating," Ari scoffed, staring at the five of us staring back at him. 

"Uh, where are the drumsticks?" Eden asked, putting her hands together.

Ari muffled a small 'Oh' and turned around, walking back over to the corner of the room. He reached back into his backpack and pulled out his neon yellow drumsticks, handing them to Eden and returning to his place.

"Alright, everyone except for Ari, grab hold," She prompted, holding the drumsticks together. We all had no idea what was going on, but we did it for Eden's sake. She was really excited about Ari joining the band.

Rian, Torrence, Levi, and I piled our paws on top of one another, holding onto the small drumsticks with Eden's smaller paws underneath our own. We tried to fit each of our hands onto the oversized pair of chopsticks. Ari and I both glanced at each other for a moment, wanting to laugh at how stupid this was.

"Now..." Eden then directed all of our paws with the drumsticks in our hands, moving them forward and touching them to Ari's right shoulder. "Arizona Sundance...." We then moved it over his head, touching his left shoulder. "...you are, officially, a member of Dogt—Or, whatever band name we are now."

"It's not 'Dogtooth' anymore?" Ari wondered, the drumsticks with all of our paws latched onto them, still on his shoulder.

"Harley wanted us to change it," Torrence filled him in.