Saba, first person
Snow... Snow snow and snow, is all I remembered for the past few hours. I caught myself observing the snowfall in the middle of a blizzard. I couldn't… No, wouldn't give up though, the wind was pushing me back harder than any force I know, but I wouldn't give up.
To my owner, I was just a worthless bitch, and I was going to prove him wrong... But I wasn't doing a very good job of that.
"Come on girl... Push yourself further. Just... A bit... Further." I told myself.
I was being pushed back in a few seconds, what took me nearly five minutes to walk. There was no type of marker for me to see that would give a hint to my location, but I figured that I was far... Far from my town, far from my family, my friends... I was far from my home... No, not my home, that place is no longer my home… Nowhere was.
The wind ripped through my fur, and was not the least bit forgiving, but I was okay. I knew I would make it... But to where exactly?
For the first time in a while, I finally thought about what I was doing, seemingly coming back to reality this exact moment.
"What the hell am I doing out here?" I yelled at myself, finding it remarkably similar to when Jenna would scold me...
What was doing here? I was miles from home, and according to my nose, miles from the nearest... Anything. I was just in the middle of an endless frozen ocean or something. I was unsure.
Why did I run? I suppose it was because I had nobody to run to... Sam was... My everything.
But it was all a lie... It was all just one big fat lie... There were times when you wouldn't know it was a lie, that the love we shared was genuine.
Flashback
Sam closed the door happily behind him, as he brushed the snow off of himself, he also brushed the snow off a small puppy. Saba, she was only about two months at this point and Sam had just adopted her happily from the box by Nome general store.
"Ah little girl you'll love it here. I don't have any kids so you don't have to worry about them tugging your ears." Sam said as he scratched her head a bit.
He put the small pup down on the couch, a dirty broken beaten couch, sure, but to Saba it was the best thing in the world. It was her new owners', so to her it was home.
"You stay put, I'll go and bring you a present."
Saba jumped happily, yipping and whining in a high pitch.
Sam returned a moment later with his left hand behind his back, something was hidden. He gave the puppy a bacon treat, and she ate it happily. As she was licking his hand, she felt something to around her soft neck.
It was a small, thin red leather collar with a golden tag hanging from it.
"There we go, Saba. Haha I went out to the general store thinking I was going to leave shaking my head with regret as I buy an 8 dollar gallon of milk... Damn overpriced store... And yet, I come back with a happy, cute face." He said as he rubbed her head and neck.
Saba loved his touch, not only was being scratched soothing to her, but it was a hand or warmth, kindness, and love. More so, it was a hand of trust.
Sam smiled with his eyes shiny, and picked up the small pup. He held her close to his chest and kissed her softly on the head.
"You'll always be my little Saba. I love you already, and nothing is ever going to separate us." He said in a soothing voice.
Saba, cold wind blows.
"Ha, separated... I'm nothing but a worthless bitch to you now..." She thought.
The wind... The snow, the cold was starting to get to me. Down to my bones, I felt a deathly chill coursing throughout my extremities. At this point I know I'd get frost bite at least on my paws... That I knew. But I did not know if that was all I was going to get away with.
"S...s...so c...cold..." I forced through my teeth.
My brother... He was the runner; he was the one who knew how to deal with this. But I was no sled dog; I didn't know how to survive this.
"Survive..."
It was my only motivation, it was to survive. What I would do, where I was, where I would go, we're all questions that needed to be dealt with later. Right now it was to get out of this storm.
"I can't walk anymore... I need to drop down and try to cover myself or else I'm going to freeze..." I thought.
Decided, I locked my back paws into the show and began frantically scratching at the ground below me... But that was it. Scratching away at the impenetrable ice below me. Alaska is known for its permafrost, super strong and near unbreakable earth, but this was something else.
A deafening sound shook the floor beneath me... The ice was breaking.
"Great... If the blizzard isn't going to freeze me, falling in the water will." I thought.
Below me seemed stable enough, so I pressed on, giving it my all.
Balto, Siku, Nome.
"Dad, dusty said Saba has run off or something..." Kodi said.
He had run from the post office all the way to his boat, and nearly collided with him in the process. He stared his father down, panting frantically.
"What? What do you mean she's run off?" He asked.
"Come!"
Balto watched Kodi run off back in the direction of Nome. He cocked his head in confusion and called Boris.
"Hey Boris... Uh, keep an eye on Siku and Jenna. Tell them I'm in town... Tell them… something is wrong with Saba..." He said as he too ran off towards the town.
When they arrived, dusty had already assembled a small group of dogs around the main post office.
"Balto! Saba left... She just... Ran, and seemed to ignore my calls... Her owner threw her out... He seemed mad, but she was crying!" Dusty explained loudly so that the others could also hear.
"That doesn't sound good..." Balto said slowly, like he was thinking.
"I don't understand... Saba always talked good about Sam... They loved each other."
"Maybe she took a crap on his favorite rug." Kodi half-joked.
"No, no... He loved her... There really isn't anything I could think of that would cause him to kick her out."
"Maybe it's a misunderstanding... Lets to and check out her owner and his house." Kodi suggested.
"You've got to run though... Ah, I see Siku has awaken. Send her over with me after she finishes her daily ritual with you before you leave." Balto laughed a bit as he watched the small white wolf pup running towards the two from main street.
"Can do..." Kodi said absentmindedly as he prepared for Siku.
Balto walked off, but before turning the corner, he peaked back and smiled as Siku jumped Kodi, knocking him on his back, then licking him all over, before lecturing him on staying safe when he was out on the run. It was a daily thing that entertained everyone in the morning. At first it was embarrassing to Kodi, but he, and everyone else for that matter, got used to it and found it cute.
Balto shook his head with a smile and walked off towards Saba and Sam's house. He soon stood before the large metal door and began to sniff the air that escaped underneath the door frame. Saba's scent was nonexistent...
"Huh..." Balto's lower jaw lazily hung as he looked around for clues.
After about five minutes, he looked to the left and gave a quick howl to his son as the team of barking, hardworking dogs soon disappeared behind the trees. He smiled, but forgot that his howl may have alerted someone else.
Siku came running from the left now just in time for Sam to open the door.
Bakto jumped and lowered his ears at the sudden slam of the door, and stared at the knees of a ragged man. He looked and smelled like he hasn't bathed in weeks and in his left hand he held a pistol... Unloaded and empty, but it was still a pistol. In his right hand he had a square flask of what Balto could smell as Vodka.
Sam stared down the wolfdog, not moving out of the door frame, then finally made a move.
He slowly stumbled out of the doorway and plopped down on a stack of logs outside of his front door. He smashed his head on the green metallic outside of his house and sat back, still holding both dangerous items with him.
Balto whimpered slightly and walked up to him, but he nodded to Siku to keep her distance.
"I shoon'ta done it..." He stammered
"My girl is gon'... She ran inta the forest... Now she gone..." He continued, gazing back at Balto.
Balto lowered his head further and got closer to the man.
"You her papa... I know it... You look it... Look like her" he said.
He slowly out reached to Balto, and dropped his pistol in the snow before him.
"Take the thing man... Take it away 'fore I do sumtin' stoopid..."
Balto was a bit confused, but listened to him. No doubt he also wanted to get this firearm as far away from the drunken man anyways. He scooped up the pistol with his mouth and took it away, running past Siku.
"Balto what's that... You've got a gun!" Siku said surprised.
"Itchs shamss'" he tried to say.
"What?"
He dropped it for a second and repeated himself.
"It's Sam's... I'd like to keep this as far from him as possible for now." He said
He picked it back up and ran with it, dropping it in front of the sheriff's office and scratching at the door. The main officer opened the door quickly and looked down confused at Balto. Balto nudged the gun with his nose, and then ran off leaving him scratching his head.
"What a good dog, knows to bring this here." He said, not particularly to anyone.
Balto quickly ran back to Sam, who had not moved. He sat down right in front of him and cocked his head. He knew that the humans loved it when dogs did that. To top it off he raised a paw at him, pretending to scratch something in the air in front of him.
Sam struggled to laugh, his eyes closing and his teeth barely showing, but he laughed.
"You like her... Like ya dodder. She was a gud gurl. Never did nutin wrong." He struggled to say.
Balto stared him down as he raised his left hand -the one that used to hold his pistol- and aimed his finger at himself. He cocked his thumb like a pistol and made a boom sound. Suggesting that he wanted to blow his brains out right now.
"See? Good thing ya took it away huh." Sam said slowly.
Balto leaned over to Siku and said "man this guy's gone off the deep end..."
"Yeah..." Siku whispered back. "What does going off the deep end mean." She said while still looking forward.
"Ballot youse a good dog ya saved the town. And I loved ya dodder man I really did."
"Ballot isn't your name!" Siku whispered.
"Shh" Balto replied.
"Dun matter now. I made 'er leave. All cuz' of money probums'."
Sam took another swig of the vodka, and then leaned it over to Balto, offering him some.
Balto looked at Siku and did the dog equivalent of shrugging his shoulders in a 'why not' sort of way. Then he licked some of the foul tasting liquid and immediately began shaking his head and squeezing his tongue.
"Agh! It's like my tongue caught fire!" Balto said.
Siku laughed a bit as she watched him licking the top of his mouth repeatedly.
"Nasty to ya' huh." Sam said.
"Yeah you gets use'ta it." He added
Balto whimpered a bit and placed a paw on the doggy door.
Sam seemed to get a bit emotional and waved his hand at Balto, while looking the other way. He violently ripped his head to face Balto.
"She gon man. I know youse lookin' for 'er . But I ran her off… I want 'er back, but I know she not a'comin' back. I'm sorry Saba."
Balto walked over and licked his hand, then turned away. Sam raised his flask to him, and Balto nodded goodbye. Sam watched him slowly walk off, and Siku sat there for a few more seconds, but then followed Balto. Sam just took another hard swig of his alcohol and continued his state.
"Man that guy was really torn apart." Siku said.
"I know him... Knew him even before Saba was born. He's a good guy... There must be some other reason why he kicked Saba out."
Siku seemed to think intensely for a second, then she got an idea.
"Hey... Didn't he used to work at the mines? And... They just closed the mines."
"So he's unemployed now." Balto said, agreeing with her.
"The stress of no longer having a job is one thing..."
"Perhaps he felt that he could no longer take care of her?"
"Who knows... But I know one thing. Look to the south, there's a blizzard about 50 miles south east... She ran off that way. I'm going to follow her scent... I'm going to bring my daughter home." Balto valiantly said.
"You're not going alone." Siku said.
"What? You want to come with me?"
"Yeah! It'll be like old times!"
"I've only known you for like... 4 months."
"Doesn't matter. Anyway, you need another wolf by your side... And I want to find Saba just as badly as you do."
"Well alright then we leave first thing to tomorrow morning. Let's hope that storm is gone by then..."
Saba.
It was so cold; I felt a clicking sensation when I walked... Looking back, I saw that ice had formed in the fur along my backside, and walking caused it to click together. I shivered nonstop and continued on, but this blizzard was showing no signs of stopping.
"C c...can't g...go on..."
Something was wrong... My legs went numb, starting with my front legs, I fell, face first into the floor, my frail body following a second later.
The winds had died down almost as soon as I fell... What luck I had. But I could no longer move... My body was beginning to shut down...
The winds stopped, but the heavy downfall didn't. I soon found myself being covered in snow, but allowed it, because it would actually help to warm me.
I was shivering like mad... A husky mix, and even one that was part wolf, was shivering... How pathetic. I felt the cold down to my skin... I felt it down to my bones... I felt it down to my heart...
Third person, unidentified character.
I walked along the outskirts of a forest... I had nobody left in the world, but I knew one thing... Something was drawing me to the middle of 'Norton Bay' in the center of the frozen, blizzard ridden lake. Something was out there. Someone, maybe.
Being guided by something, nearly an hour later, I found it: granted from this point it was not even recognizable... There lies a dog, or possibly a part wolf mix. She was a color I've never seen before, a type of dark crimson red, and the rest of her was a white with the faintest tint of cream. She was frozen... Her body was locked, and her brain into hibernation. But she wasn't dead... Yet.
The great Aniu must have acted in our favor today, because the blizzard almost immediately stopped, and the warming weak sun above began to re-animate the near-dead husky. I did what I could to help, and curled around her head, amazingly, barely able to even keep that save. Man I was small.
Saba.
"...c...cold...must...try to...move..." Her mind said over a course of minutes.
Her thoughts were very slow and lagging, and her perception of time was nearly frozen. It was an odd state... She felt like she was not in a body, just a locked mind in a world where time went by sluggishly. It took her a full minute for the message from her skin to tell her brain that something soft... And warm... Was snuggled against her head.
An hour passed, the warm soft thing did not leave.
Eventually, she seemed to have full thought, it moved in real time, she could finally perceive what her senses were telling her. She heard the calm winds above, she felt the snow on her body, and the warm object around her head and neck, she smelled... A wolf puppy? What on earth was a pup doing out here alone?
Finally, her eyes that were literally frozen shut broke free. And she tried her best to look at what lie before her eyes.
It was two tiny black-furred paws.
Cliffhanger?! Who is this wolf pup and why is he here? Well granted that question may have already been answered.
I have to thank soulfireflame for this. I picked up her request thinking it would be a side project, something that would have to require more time than my other stories. As a challenge. But I've come to love this story, and its characters… I really enjoy writing this, and I hope you all enjoy reading it too.
Also I added my OC Siku, because she's awesome and everywhere, and as welcome in Nome as Balto himself Lol.
Till next time, brythespy.