To say Boris was upset was an understatement, he was almost livid and he set out to find answers. How could Balto go from near puppy like happiness to what he just saw in under half an hour? As he made his way to town he noticed that the canine population of Nome was gathering at the mill, he made his way inside but he couldn't anything because there were simply too many dogs in his way to see what the commotion was about.
Quite fed up he flew up to the rafters to see who the center of attention was, it turned out Jenna and Steele were the center of attention. Most of the dogs seemed to be shocked by the recent turn of events but they got over it quickly. It still sent chills through their bodies to see a wolf dog hybrid walk up and down the streets. Steele may not be popular, but he was predictable.
Boris eyes just about bugged out of his skull when he saw one of the pups bore resemblance to Steele. No one seemed to take notice of his presence here, until Jenna spotted him up in his perch.
"Oh uh, hello Boris, what brings you here" Jenna asked and she braced herself for his reaction.
"What am I doing here? An hour ago my boy Balto left home as happy as I have ever seen him in my life, then half an hour ago he walks by the boat with a dead serious face and I asked him where he was going and he said anchorage. So it thought I should come here to FIND OUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!" he roared as he felt his hot Russian blood take over his veins.
Jenna seemed to wince at his words which made him wonder how she would react if he started throttling her "you have to trust me on this Boris, after the serum run Steele has changed, he realized the error of his ways and he was extremely depressed and mentioned suicide a couple of times, I stuck around him to make sure he did nothing foolish; we talked and turns out we had some things in common than one thing led to another and here we are now." Jenna answered truthfully.
She was telling the truth, he could tell. But he wasn't here because Steele turned a new leaf and that meant everything was peachy, Balto had been stabbed in the back and while he may not be a judge or an executioner she would realize the full amount of pain she caused Balto.
"How dare you?" he growled "How dare you lead Balto on for so long? That dog is in so much pain he may never let anyone in again, no one may again see the great dog he is underneath that wolf pelt. I do not know what is going to become the outcome of your poor design making skills but know this; Balto's heart of gold has now been turned into a heart of stone. You may have just turned Balto into the monster that we fear all wolf dogs are. I hope you and Steele live happy lives, because wolves are notorious for their lust for revenge."
With that Boris turned to leave letting everyone ponder the words he just spoke. Before he made it to the exit Steele spoke up.
"Just wondering, do you think there is anything we can do to undo this?" he asked skeptically, he hoped to stay out of this to keep up his three month low profile streak but after a month of isolation he had learned how to swallow his pride.
Boris turned his head to examine the pair of dogs. He thought the question over for five seconds, Balto was in pain now, so much pain no one could help him out. He had to find his own way before he could once again open up to people.
"Pray, pray hard and strong that one day he might once again open up. Pray there is someone out there for him and he finds her." And he left without another word.
/
True to his word Balto left Nome for anchorage and it took him ten days to get there, he left at a trot of five miles an hour and a wolf could keep it up all day, he would go for twenty hours with no stops covering one hundred miles in one day and he slept for four hour before continuing. Only three rabbits were foolish enough to cross his path on his journey and he made short work of them.
Balto stood on a tall hill overlooking the town of anchorage, it was much larger than Nome, which meant it kept the local wolves at least ten miles away and the dogs rarely went further than one hundred yards from the town without their masters. That gave him over three hundred square miles in which the wolves would not bother him as well as the dogs unless they were hunting dogs which he could deal with. Three hundred square miles he could call home.
There was still much work to be done, first he had to find food to get his energy back up then he had to find or make a den for his shelter. Then he had to skirmish the large town and rid himself of the local feral dog packs before they became a problem for him. Foxes probably inhabited the land due to the haven it provided from the wolf packs. They would make nice allies plus extra sets of eyes and ears and noses over areas he wasn't at.
Raccoons could also be allies that could be worth his time looking into. Not to mention he had a lot of scent marking to do. All in all he had several weeks' worth of things he needed to get done before he could settle down. It was perfect. He could only hope he could be kept busy enough to never have enough free time to remember what he left in Nome. Wrapping up his thoughts Balto was about to got to work but he opened his mouth instinctively.
"This is mine."
