her beginning to change,” Muru added sharply. “All wolves had been taught at a young age to never get close to any canine other than a wolf, and it was obvious that Anyu was starting to pay it no mind. Also, she was beginning to have a larger appetite, crankiness, and always seemed to stay by Tulu’s side. It was at that moment when her parents, the Alphas of the Clan, decided that she and the husky had to be exiled from the Clan – forever.”

Aleu gasped. “That’s terrible! All they did was fall in love! Why did they decide this?” 

Muru let out a breath. “Because they had done something long forbidden in wolf society: Anyu had laid with the husky and was carrying Tulu’s pups within her womb, thus cursing her family’s pure wolf breed-line permanently.”

“Is this when my Papa and I get into the picture?” She asked Muru.  

He nodded. Muru then pushed a short crystal forward toward the center of the centerpiece, causing the longer prisms surrounding the center to collapse outward like blooming flower petals. “Yes. A month after the scorned lovers were banished from the Clan, Anyu birthed three beautiful children – all looked wolf, yet each carried husky genes within them. One of those three pups was your father, Balto,” An almost hologram-like image began to brightly shine on the wall once a beam of moonlight hit them. The moving pictures of a pure-white lupine and a black and white husky muzzling over their newborn litter intrigued the quarter-wolf. She peered closer and began to smile. Aleu could see the grayish-brown and tan-marked pup sucking on his mother’s teats, followed by the light-gray and black-and-white bodies of his siblings. “and at the point of his birth, his destiny was already chosen.”

“Do you mean he was meant to be living with a cranky, old snow goose and a couple of playful bear cubs on a grounded boat outside of a human’s town? His destiny was to be that wolf-dog that fell in love with my purebred husky mom and be the proud, overprotective father of six hybrid pups?” Aleu growled. 

“Well, yes and no,” Muru clicked and clacked a couple of prisms together, changing the picture once again. “He was actually destined to become a leader of a wolf pack, for Anyu’s family was bred for leadership, and mainly it was the males of the Clans that were destined for Alpha-ship. However, due to a twist of fate, things changed.” The image quickly rippled into a shot of the two proud parents separating their children among them and running in opposite directions – the black and white carrying the brown child in its mouth, and the white with the other two. “A rebelling Clan of wolves had found their hide-away and in revenge for the death of one of their own, they were out for blood, whether it meant murdering all of them or not. Not even the pups were to survive the attack.”

“They killed them?” Aleu was shocked. “But how did Papa survive?” 

“Luckily, Tulu and Anyu saved their children from an instant death,” Muru murmured in a sad tone. “by leading their children somewhere away from the rebel Clan and by sacrificing themselves instead.” Aleu gasped then lowered her head in remembrance. A tear began to swell up in her eye, but Muru used his tiny fingers to dry her eyes. “It is a sad thing, I know, but thanks to that sacrifice, Anyu and Tulu assimilated with each other in the next world, together forming the deity that all wolves know as the Great Aniu. Anyu had hoped that when Balto was older and remembered his heritage, he would return to the wild world of his birth and reclaim his rightful place as an Alpha in her Clan. Unfortunately, love stepped in the way here too, as was becoming a leader in his own right.”

“I understand the love part, Muru, but I’m afraid Papa never mentioned anything about himself becoming a leader . . .” Suddenly, Aleu’s ears pricked up. “No, wait a sec! I do remember once he said he had ‘led a sled team, but never a wolf pack.’ He said that when Nava first mentioned about the Clan being led by ‘the one who is wolf and does not know’ at the meeting that evening before we went across.” She turned to her guiding spirit. “Was that it?” 

“Indeed, it was,” Muru nodded as he moved the prisms again, changing the picture to a moving shot of her father leading a team of local dogs towards her hometown. He was leaping in the air and letting out a jubilant howl of joy as she caught an eye at the precious cargo inside of the sled. It was a human male, bundled up in furs and blankets; above it was a familiar wooden box with the words “FRAGILE” written in bold, red letters, but a thin, long rip lined one side of the medium-sized container.

“Hey . . . that box . . .” The yearling lowered her eyelids to catch the container’s tiny details. Her eyes grew large in surprise. “Wait a minute, I remember that box!” Aleu exclaimed. “My brothers and sisters were adopted from that box!” 

“That’s right,” Muru responded. “Months before you stood in it, that box held a supply of life-saving antitoxin to help cure the ailing citizens of Nome from a fatal disease called diphtheria. Your father, although he was teased since he was a newcomer in town for being half-wolf, wanted to do something to help those that were sick and close to death. However, the only way to do anything during this crisis was to find and lead a lost dog sled team home from the wilderness, and only he felt it was the right thing to do. He used his dormant abilities from his wolf heritage to find them and once there, he endured many beatings and torments to overthrow the team’s leader and guided them home with a hero’s welcome awaiting the almost hopeless town.” A shot of the angry black and white malamute appeared on the wall after the field mouse moved the prisms again. The yearling let out a fearful gasp at the sight of the racing canine as he let out a vicious growl. “After Balto’s fantastic feat, the male leader was sent away to another city, far, far away from the town that had once dubbed him as the fastest.”

Aleu let out a sigh of relief as Muru changed the shot again. This time, her father was lying on a sheet of snow as a large, white wolf howled to him. With a look of sorrow and failure in his eyes, he turned his head away in shame as the wolf disappeared into the fierce snowfall, but after he looked at his own paws and placed his paw over top of the lupine’s paw-prints, he lifted himself up with a new sense of strength and began to cry out in a powerful howl. Suddenly, the white lupine appeared yet again and joined him in their howling song. 

“Is that . . . Aniu, Muru?” Aleu asked him.

“One of them is, actually,” Muru began to explain. “You see, one of Balto’s sisters was blessed with Anyu’s looks and recognized her brother’s scent – she was the first one that walked into the snow when he turned away from her. The second white wolf was the Great Aniu in all of her glory and majesty, showing herself to her son after over four years.” 

“Did he recognize her?” Aleu queried.

The mouse shook his head. “I’m afraid not, but later, he was able to see her again and got to speak to her after so many years apart.” He turned to her, pointed a small-clawed finger at the much larger Alpha. “Both you and your father have seen her in one of her more popular forms . . . as a raven.”  

Aleu’s eyes grew wide; now she understood the raven’s actions from when she first ran into the deep wilderness. “The raven led me into the cave when I first met you . . .” She smiled. “I had told my Papa that I wasn’t sure if it was leading me or following me, but . . . he said that he was following one too, in order to find me.” A quick chuckle came from her mouth. “I guess I know that it was really leading me to the place that I wanted all my life: a home to belong.” Aleu let out a sigh before Muru let out a cough.

“But I tend to digress. There are still more things you must know before you begin your quest.” The light-brown rodent brought back the main reason why they were meeting in the first place. Aleu pricked up her ears, making sure to pay attention.  

“Aniu observed the actions of her son carefully days after his heroic deed; she wanted to see if she could find some way to bring someone of his mixed blood into the wild where he was meant to belong. That was when she saw her son naturally courting with a certain female husky – your mother, Jenna.” The wall’s image rippled again, this time turning into a moving picture of Balto walking beside Aleu’s elegant matriarch. She was beautifully formed, with her small head, thin legs, dainty paws, and bushy two-toned tail of bright red-burgundy and white ivory. Just by looking at her mother once again, Aleu could see why her father fell in love with her at first sight.

“Well, she is beautiful. Even I envied the love that everyone in town gave her when I was a pup. What else about her was special?” Aleu began to joke sarcastically. “Let me guess, my mother wasn’t all husky either?” She laughed, but received a strangely angry glare from the rodent. 

“This is serious business, my friend,” Muru spoke in a heated tone, scolding the yearling with his sharp words. “Your mother was very important to the white wolf. She decided that Jenna was to carry the destined leader that Aniu was waiting for inside her . . . and that child was you.”

“Oh, I see,” Aleu spoke in a hushed tone. She felt bad that she had insulted the one that brought her into this world and tolerated her differences the most as a pup. “I’m sorry.” 

“Ah, you’re young,” Muru easily forgave her. “It’s understandable for someone as naïve and inexperienced as yourself to not understand Aniu’s will.” Of course, that statement easily confused her too. “But to Aniu, you were destined to discover your destiny eventually; that took place when you went into the wilderness after