New Arrival
Nome Alaska, 7 am, 1925;
Balto leaped from his boat, he was running late. He started into a dash as soon as his paws hit the ground, "I better make up the time or Jenna will be worried." he said, smiling at the thought of his mate before jumping onto the top of a fence then onto a roof and making his way across town. He had traveled the country for the past few months along with Nikki, Kaltag, Star, and the other dogs on the team. Everywhere they went, they were met with a hero's welcome. It was fun but Balto missed his friends in Nome horribly. When the humans with them saw him sad one day, they correctly guessed he was homesick so the other dogs were still traveling and he'd been taken home. A few things had changed while he was gone. Jenna had told him her friends Dixie and Silvie's families had moved away in his absence due to the overflow of tourists into the town, she didn't know if it was for good or not. Likewise Boris hadn't been able to handle all the tourists poking around the boat so he had left, naturally Muk and Luk had followed their 'uncle', until Balto came back or the tourists thinned out, both of which had happened so he had sent word with the last sled dog team that had gone out to the town Boris was staying near, one that the dogs, all young ones on their first run, had wanted him to lead but he turned them down. It wasn't that he didn't want to, it was no secret he'd wanted to be a sled dog since he was a pup, he'd just been away from Jenna too long already. That was also why he was late, because Boris wasn't there to wake him up. Balto stopped, his paws sliding on the new fallen snow, he had been so caught up in his thoughts he hadn't noticed he was running towards the edge of a roof with the next one being too far for him to jump. He slid to a stop right at the edge. "That was close." he said, turning to get back on his path, his right front paw slipped on a patch of ice, causing him to lose his footing and fall off the roof. Luckily he landed in a pile of soft snow. "I guess I better be more careful, won't always be a pile of snow to break my fall." he said, crawling out and shaking the snow off his coat. "Good thing Boris wasn't here, he would of given me an earful for that." He laughed, thinking of just what the goose might of said when he remembered something. The town were Boris was staying was only a day or two away from Nome. Maybe the sled team would be coming back soon and even though he guessed his friends probably wouldn't be able to keep up with them, he still wanted to know if they had gotten the massage. It wasn't too far out of his way so he ran down the main road.
As he ran, he heard some people ,most of them looked like tourists, talking about his heroics, he even slowed down when some reached out to pet him. To be honest, he really didn't care about the fame, all he had really wanted to do was save Rosy for Jenna and he had done that, not that he wasn't glad that the towns people didn't hate him anymore. He then saw something that made him stop, Steele was walking down the other side of the street. No collar hung around his neck anymore, his owner and friends had disowned him after finding out what he had done. Some people pet Balto on the head as they pass, sparking a glare and snarl from Steele, whom they were ignoring completely. Humans might not of known everything that happened that night but it didn't take them long after Balto and the sled team returned to figure out Steele had abandoned his team in the middle of a blizzard. The tables had been turned, Balto was the hero and Steele was the hated outcast and Steele didn't like it one bit. Balto didn't know if it was that or the fall Steele had taken after their fight but Steele was becoming almost insane. Balto looked around for some way to avoid Steele, no such luck, he'd have to do his best to ignore him. Balto had to walk at a slow pace, there were more people in this area or else he might of just dashed past Steele. As he passed, Balto braced himself as best he could for Steele's insults. "Stupid half-breed, why don't you just go back to your pack like a good wolf ? I promise I'll take good care of Jenna, even if she has horrible taste in mates." said Steele mockingly, making sure Balto heard him then letting out a rather disturbing laugh while his face turned to an almost demented smile.
Balto didn't respond in any way, he just walked past the larger dog. Once Steele was out of sight, Balto hung his head and tail low, he was sad, angry, and confused. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, no matter how many times he heard the same insults, Steele's words always cut like a knife and hearing Steele wanting to take Jenna away just made him furious. He really didn't want to fight Steele, that was just what Steele wanted, but he wished Steele would stop, that's why he didn't show Steele that he was upset, that would only get him picked on more. He was proud of his wolf half and he and Jenna loved each other too much for anything to get between them so why could Steele always get to him? He dug his nails into the ground in an attempt to vent some of his anger. He drove it out of his mind as best he could, if the sled team had came back he didn't want to look upset when he met them and he definitely didn't want to look it when he saw Jenna. He went back into his run once there was enough room to do so, the sooner he checked the sooner he'd get to Jenna and Rosy. He reached the edge of town and looked around, he didn't see anything, not even tracks in the fresh snow. "Well, maybe in the morning." he said, slightly disappointed. Boris was the closest thing he ever had to a father and those two polar bears were like family too, he just wanted to know if they were on their way home yet. Balto laughed, he had a pretty weird family, his mother was wolf, his father was a goose, his best friends were polar bears, Jenna was the only normal one in the bunch. As he turned to head back into town, he caught smelled something. It wasn't very strong but he recognized it as the smell of burnt fur, he remembered it from when Jenna had burned Steele a few months ago. He looked back into town and then in the direction of whatever he was smelling. "Well it can't be far besides someone might be hurt and I can't just leave them out here." he said and ran after the scent. At first he didn't see anything until he almost tripped over the red and white dog buried partway in the snow. He looked it over, at first he was worried it might of been Jenna but then he realized that it was too small to be her, whoever it was they were younger than he and Jenna were. He could tell from the scent that it was a female and strangely she smelled similar to his mate, he thought she must just be another husky. Then it occurred to him, the amount of snow on her meant she'd been unconscious out in the cold for awhile, a lot of times that was when someone died, was she still alive? "Hello?" he asked, he was happy to see some response in the form of a small twitch on her eyelid. He nudged her with his nose.
Tina began to wake up, the first thing she noticed was that she was freezing cold, it made her entire body ache. She couldn't remember what happened, she was in too much pain to concentrate on trying. "If you don't wake up, you'll freeze to death out here." said a voice as something gently nudged her shoulder. She opened her eyes with a groan but her vision was blurred for a few seconds. When her vision focused, she was surprised to see Balto. She had no reason to believe she was face to face with her idol, she was just startled to see a wolf dog of any kind. She tried to get to her feet but she was shivering too badly and her legs felt numb from the cold. Balto saw this. "You must be freezing, let me help you to the boiler room, you can warm up there." said Balto.
He helped Tina up and let her lean on him for support. "Th-thank y-you." she stuttered.
A few minutes later, Balto set her down in the warm boiler room and managed to find her a blanket. Balto then laid down near by. Normally the sled dogs stayed here when not on runs but all the sled teams were out at the moment so the boiler room was empty. Balto then noticed the burn on Tina's neck, the shape of it was strange, like whatever burned her had grabbed her to do it. That was strange but not as strange as how much she looked like Jenna, the only differences was her age, the tuff of fur over her eye, and the eyes themselves. Her eyes were strange, it wasn't that he hadn't seen eyes like them before, in fact it was because they seemed so familiar, he just couldn't remember where he'd seen them before. "Feeling better?" asks Balto in a concerned voice after letting her warm up for a few minutes.
"Yes, thank you very much, if you hadn't found me, I probably wouldn't of lasted much longer. I owe you big time." said Tina, getting up and shaking a combination of water and unmelted snow off her fur before stretching her legs to try to get the blood flowing threw them again.
"You're welcome but you don't owe me anything, I was just doing the right thing."
"It was still a nice thing to do, one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me." Even though she was very grateful, Tina hadn't been looking at Balto when she said that, she was still wondering where she was. Even though she wasn't hurting anymore, all she could remember about what happened was at the moment was that she was in New York City in the summer before she lost consciousness and she woke up outside a town half buried in snow. Her enhanced intelligence on the other hand seemed unaffected. She looked around the room, looking for some inclination of her location. Then she spied a newspaper clipping on the wall. She had seen it before, it was one of the newspaper articles from Nome about Balto's sled run. What shocked her was that it looked so new. "Excuse me, how old is this?" she asked pointing to the article with her nose.
"That's from the newspaper a few months ago, why do you ask?" asked Balto, he found it strange considering nearly everyone in the country knew what he had done.
"I'm just trying to figure out how I got here, where is here anyway?"
"Nome, Alaska." Balto noticed the shock on her face when she heard that. "Why are you so surprised?"
"Because before I lost consciousness, I was in New York City."
"You're pretty far away from home."
Tina was in shock, Balto was right she was very far from home but that wasn't as surprising as the fact that from the looks of things she was in 1925, about 83 years in the past. Had she really went back in time? Then it hit her. She was talking to a wolf dog in Nome, Alaska in 1925. "Your name wouldn't be Balto by any chance would it?"
"That's my name."
"The same Balto that on February 2, 1925 lead a sled dog team through a blizzard, past many obstacles including his long time tormentor Steele to deliver a load of desperately needed diphtheria antitoxin to the town of Nome, thus turning from a despised outcast to the town hero?"
Balto was surprised by how specific she was. "Yes, that's me."
"Amazing…oh sorry I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Tina."
Tina's expression completely changed, she had looked rather confused before she found out who he was but now she was very happy, if not a little embarrassed for not introducing herself earlier, this confused Balto a little. "Glad to meet you, I have a feeling you're glad to see me."
"Yeah, you're my role model, I wish I could do all the things you've done and a few things you haven't done…yet. By the way has Jenna had her first litter?"
"What? No." said Balto, a little unsettled, what she had said was strange and her question seemed to come out of nowhere.
Tina wondered, if she really had came back in time then she could alter history but sense she was never supposed to be there she had already done that, the truth was no one knew what would happen because she was the first one she knew of that had gone back in time, maybe she was even supposed to have come back or the universe was going to implode, human time travel theories were confusing. She guessed as long as she didn't reveal too much it would be ok. "Really? You'll be very proud of them, two in particular take after you a good bit. One in looks, the other well you know what they say, like father, like son." said Tina.
Balto gave her a confused glance. "Well I'm sure I will be proud. Sorry but did you get hit on the head or something?"
"No, but I seem to remember lightning for some reason, everything else is a blur right now."
"Well that explains that burn on your neck but how could you know about kids I haven't had yet, are you from the future or something?", he thought Tina was joking.
"Actually, yes."
Balto just stared for a few seconds. "You're serious?"
"Nah, I'm just pulling your leg...or then again maybe I'm not." said Tina with a laugh and a mischievous smirk, she decided maybe she'd better wait a little while before telling the truth, at least until she could completely remember what happened before she went back in time, but she couldn't resist fooling around and she seemed to remember that Balto had a good sense of humor.
Balto looked at her cautiously, what did she mean by that? He decides she was joking and laughs. "You had me going there for a minute, I'm still not sure about you but lets go see what Jenna has to say." he said, a little unsure of what to make of Tina.
"Ok, I've always wanted to meet her too." said Tina, making sure her bandana was on tight and biting off what burnt fur she could reach, Balto noticed her bandana strangely looked like Jenna's, only aged.
"Nice bandana, my wife wears one like it."
"Really?" Tina said, after Balto turned around a smile crossed her face. "You have no idea." she whispered.
Balto looks over his shoulder. "What?"
"Oh nothing." she said as he lead her out the door…
Ok, as you can tell Tina is a bit of a trickster when she can. The Outsider will come back into play in a few chapters and Boris, Muk, and Luk will show up later. Also does anyone know the correct spelling of Rosy's name? I've heard it spelled a few ways. Hope that chapter was better. See you next time!