.

Looking at a nearby shrub, the snow-white lupine spied a sharp vine of briars and thorns winding around the greenery. Knowing that it had to act quickly, it grabbed the cub with its mouth and approached the medium-sized shrub, halting once it arrived in front of it. With a quick swipe, its paw began to bleed red onto both the snow-and-dirt ground and the ivory fur that surrounded its front paw. The red elixir dripped off of its claws as it carefully placed the cub down and tried to coax its mouth open to swallow a drop of the blood. 

Please . . . if this one must live, this one must drink this . . .

Finally, a red drop touched the cub’s tongue and it began to swallow. A faint glow of white light surrounded the cub’s body for a matter of seconds and quickly went away, proving that the wolf’s actions had worked. 

God, forgive me for this sin I have just committed . . . but I do not regret this choice at all . . .

Once the cub let out a tiny hiccup, the white wolf could feel the once weakening pulse of the pup beating strongly against its own white coat. Again, that small grin graced its lips, calming the legend with a sense of a decision worth making. It knew that the child would never be the same ever again, especially since it could have joined its mother, who was now buried underneath a thin coating of wispy flurries that had just fallen over the past few moments. 

I just hope this one learns to accept the destiny that is waiting . . . and that now this one will roam the earth for many years . . . with many lifetimes of adventures awaiting the future . . .

For the cub’s safety, the white wolf had no choice but to take the child to a surrogate mother, one that would offer a spare teat for it to suckle and the bond of maternal love to substitute for the loss of its biological dam. Tracking a friendly human scent, the white wolf continued to carry the pup in its mouth and down the mountain to the closest town to the peak; for once, it was not on a mission to find the next victim, but the mission was to find someone to raise the orphan as its own. 

Looking at a straight stretch of white valley, the white lupine sniffed the air once again, realizing that it was going the right direction. After several minutes of a quick sprint across the flat snow, it stopped at a small, cozy house with a large pen of local huskies yapping and barking in the backyard.

This one belongs here . . . I can feel the love and warmth glowing from this place . . . this will be its home from now on . . . 

Satisfied by the location, it carefully trotted to the wire and wood pen that held the dogs that the human that lived in the house owned. There were about seven sled dogs all together – most of them were clearly Siberian or Alaskan Huskies, while a couple of the larger ones were purely Malamutes. A couple of them began to growl when the wolf approached the pen walls, but one of them, a large Malamute of brown, gray and white, stood forward and barked at the lupine.

“You reek of wild dog! You’re a wolf, aren’t you?” The Malamute growled defensively.  

The white wolf nodded, not changing its expressionless gaze at the several tame dogs that looked back at it.

“Can’t you speak?” The male spoke with a sense of confusion. 

Another husky, a smaller one with a coat of light red-brown with a bit of gray swirled in, walked up to the Malamute and rubbed against him, calming him with a kind voice. “Oh, I don’t think this one means any harm, Harold.”

Feeling a sense of trust with the small husky, the wolf let out a high whine, bringing attention to the pup in its mouth. 

“What’s this?” the she-husky asked, tilting its head to the side slightly. Realizing it was a newborn, she gasped. “Oh my! It’s a newborn pup!” She oohed and ahhed at the darling child, but the Alpha of the tame dogs, the tri-colored Malamute, seemed to differ, especially after hearing the next words from her mouth. “Maybe we could take care of it, Harold . . . why else would this wolf want to bring it to us?”

“Chira, we can’t care for this pup,” Harold told her flat out. “It has the stench of wolf on its fur; there’s no way the Master will let this one stay alive.” 

Chira leaned her nose past one of the holes of the wire fence, sniffing the cub curiously before giving the male and her fellow tame dogs the truth. “But this pup’s not wolf at all. It’s a husky pup, through and through.”

“But how . . .?” One of the other huskies spoke up. “This just seems impossible!” 

“I agree,” Another female stepped up. “but how can a wolf have a newborn husky pup in its possession?”

“Maybe it killed the mother and took the pup as bait to kill again,” the other Malamute offered his own opinion. “We shouldn’t take that pup, especially if it’s someone else’s.” 

The wolf responded to the other Malamute, finally speaking in a language that the canines could understand. “My apologies, fellow dogs. I do not wish to cause you any trouble, but I only ask for you to open your heart to this one here. This one has lost its mother after being born in the nearby mountains and needs nourishment to live. I could not save the dam, but perhaps it is possible to save her only cub.” It was hard to tell just by the lupine’s voice what gender it was, but apparently, gender didn’t matter to the huskies; they knew it was a wolf, and that was already enough information for some of them to feel a bit threatened by the white wolf’s presence and wild scent.

“I would care for this one myself,” the lupine continued, its ears were lowered slightly, proving that there was even a trace of emotion within that snow-coated fur of the lupine. “but it is considered bad luck if a white wolf cares for cubs. I . . . I wonder if one of you could raise this one as your own. That’s all I ask of you, and I’ll surely be on my way . . . No harm done, I promise.” 

Feeling touched by the white wolf’s words and unafraid of taking in the orphaned cub, Chira stood proudly forward, much to the dismay of the lead Malamute. “It would be an honor to care for this newborn for you. I shall raise it as my own, for I am unable to successfully have a child.” Her face looked glum as she turned to Harold then to the white wolf. “Please, let me take the child, dear wolf.”

She will make a good mother for this one . . . I feel her pure heart and gentle spirit; yes, she shall be this one’s adoptive mother . . .  

Harold let out a sigh after hearing the pleas of the young female. “Oh, I can’t argue with you when you act like that.” The light red-brown husky nuzzled him sweetly as a thank you.

“Then it is agreed,” the wolf replied before handing the pup to the female’s mouth. “You shall raise this one has your own, but . . . I sense some good fortune for you, Lady Chira.” The ivory beast paused, allowing Chira to approach it on her own without the presence of the other huskies and Malamutes. “You shall be barren no longer, my Lady, for I feel the presence of three sleeping inside you at this very moment. They were conceived only days prior to today, but you will notice their faint heartbeats and fluttering motions within a couple of weeks.” 

Chira let out a gasp of surprise and disbelief; she was about to ask the wolf how this was possible, but the wolf bowed its head as it began to depart.

“Now, I must be on my way. Your master is approaching and I shall be his target if I stay much longer.” The white wolf lowered its head once more before sprinting away into the snowy wind from the mountains. “Farewell, and take good care for that one. That one’s destined for great things.” 

“I will,” The motherly husky whispered softly as she barked a friendly farewell to the wolf, especially after hearing the wonderful words that the white creature had promised both her and the newborn cub that she continued to hold in her jaws.

Just as predicted, a human’s wooden sled soon approached the house with a team of six dogs pulling it. Mysteriously, the lead dog was missing, and the musher had a saddened look on his face as he began to slow down his team and hear the anxious yipping and barking of the dogs that were waiting for his arrival. 

“Whoa . . . whoa, there,” the human calmly told his team as they began to trot to the backyard pen.

After they stopped, he quickly took each husky off of their harnesses and led them into the pen with the other huskies and Malamutes. Each of the six small dogs had sad looks on their faces, which quickly got the attention of Harold and the others. 

“What happened?” The tri-colored Malamute asked. “Did something go wrong on the mountain trail this run?”

For some time, no one said a word, but after a while, one of the team dogs, a light-gray and white male spoke up with a quiet voice and his ears lowered against his neck.  

“We lost one . . . Ruby, our lead dog . . .” The emotional weight of the words were too much for him to continue and the tears began to pour down his cheeks.

“Ruby’s gone?” Chira’s ears pricked up at the news. “But how? What happened to her, Kenta? She was about to have pups again . . . and  . . . and her parents were so eager to meet her newest litter . . .” Her eyes were now filled with tears. “How awful . . .” 

Another member of the team, a dark red-burgundy female with white facial markings had the courage to answer Chira’s query. “Yes, my sister is gone. We ran into a bit of trouble on the last leg of the mountain path and crashed into a series of boulders and trees, causing her to slip through her harness. Once the rest of us came to, she was gone, and her paw-prints led to a higher part of the mountain.” Tears were now beginning to swell in her blue eyes. “I was able to track her down once I woke up and recovered, but I was shocked to see what had happened to her . . .”