The Story of Taren

As night flew over the waterfall on the outskirts of Nome, a red Huskie quietly drank from the small pond below the fall. All of a sudden, he heard a sound come from the dense green trees around him. He quickly looked up at the tree, and jumped back at the same time.  He let out a sigh of relief.  It was only a family of blue jays who had perched in the tree earlier that week.  Night grew closer.  So did some dark clouds overhead.  He quickly ran to the small cave he had found right behind the falls.  The instant he set foot in his home, it started to rain.

"Heh. Perfect Timing", he said to himself quietly.

The huskie instantly fell asleep.  He had been working hard running along the trail past the fall, on the beach beyond the falls, and the rock that ran along and looked over the falls. He never liked going to sleep. His mind always started to wander during his slumber.  He had been there as long as he could remember.  He could only remember one person in his life: Himself.

This night turned out to be a very interesting night for the huskie. He had a dream.  But it was more like a long lost flashback than a dream.  It took place at a beach by a town.  It seemed familiar because he thought that he ran along this beach earlier that day. Yes, it was, because he remembered seeing the giant washed up old boat. He saw other red huskies that looked exactly like him.  Only they were pups.  He looked at himself.  He was shocked to see he was a pup, too.  He looked back at the other huskie pups.  There were six of them, five playing and wrestling with each other, and one being shown how to run by a big gray dog that looked nothing like himself or the other red huskies.

Then he noticed that one of the pups wrestling was gray just like the big dog. "Could that be the father of these pups?" he thought to himself. "If I'm one of these pups, is that my FATHER? Are these other dogs my brothers and sisters?!"  

His head started spinning with many questions, and that made him dizzy.  But his dizziness was gone when one pup, the gray one asked the larger gray one, "Papa, can we run along the trail into the falls?"

"Sure, Aleu. I'll catch up after Kodi here becomes educated on the art of running." 

The dogs started running towards him, and the huskie looked behind him.  There it was, the path leading into the falls. The dogs ran past him, with a darkly colored red one shouting, "Hey bro, come on!"

That cleared things up.  The Huskie realized he was the brother and sister of these pups, and the larger gray one was his father.  But who was his mother?  He came back to reality (in the dream) as the other pups up ahead yelled at him to catch up.  He took off running, but in the dream, he had the power of his full grown huskie body.  He quickly sprinted past the pack, and as he ran by, he heard the gray one say, "Wow, Taren, you've gotten so much faster since the last time we ran!" 

But the huskie kept running, paying no attention, thinking that the gray pup was talking to someone else.  But as he neared the thin rock shaped bridge near the falls, he realized that the gray pup was talking to him!  He quickly started to turn around to find out more about himself...

when he slipped.

He fell ten feet down of the bridge, and hit with such ferocity, he wasn't able to move for a few minutes.  He heard the other dogs running above him, saying, "I bet I can catch up to Taren faster than YOU!"

"No, I'll beat you all!"

The huskie suddenly awoke with a start.  It was daytime, and a rainbow was reflecting into the cave.  He wondered if the dream was to tell him how he got to living in the falls.  He quickly hopped down to the ground out of his hidden cave.  He looked up to the rocky bridge above him, and saw a red huskie walking with a thin gray dog.  He looked at himself, then looked at the other huskie in disbelief.  They both looked the same.  He wondered if this was a brother or sister from the dream.  He knew it was, but he didn't know which one he/she was.  He listened in on their conversation.

The red male said, "Dusty, I swear, I remember running along here when I was a pup.  I never got the chance to keep up with my brother, Taren, because he disappeared one day while he was running.  I was still learning that day."

The gray dog giggled."So, Kodi, you really were the slowest learner in your family!"

The two burst out laughing, while the huskie burst with tears of joy.  He knew he had found a member of his real family.  He quickly ran up the hill leading up to the end of the bridge, tripping twice because he was so excited.  He remembered everything now.  He remembered trying to climb this same hill after he fell, but it was no use.  But as time progressed, he could scale it with ease.

He jumped up right in front of Kodi and Dusty, and scared the heck out of them.  Kodi quickly jumped in front of Dusty, paws low, and teeth bared.  The Huskie glanced at Dusty, and she mouthed the words "My Hero..." to Kodi.

"Who are you, and what do you want with us?" Kodi snarled at the Huskie.  

The Huskie didn't know his name, but he remembered in the dream that his "brothers and sisters" called him "Taren".

The Huskie took a deep breath, and said, 

"Kodi, my names Taren, and I'm your brother."

Kodis eyes grew wide with shock and joy.

"Y-y-ou're T-taren?!" he stuttered. "You're ALIVE!"

The two started wrestling in the grass beyond the falls, while Dusty watched happily.  

"What happened to you, bro? You gotta tell me!" Kodi demanded.

So Taren told him the whole story about his dream, and living by the pond under the falls.

After he was done, Kodi told him how nobody could find him after he went running off. He also told him about being part wolf, like most of the pups in his family were. But that didn't matter now.  He was with Kodi now.  An actual member of his family.

"C'mon, Taren, let's go back to Nome for you to re-,meet your brothers, sisters, and your mom and dad."

As Kodi and Dusty walked away, Taren stopped, and looked at the falls.  It was the time of day when the sun hit the falls at the right spot, and a lustrous rainbow fell out of the top.

"Hey, Taren, come on!" Kodi and Dusty yelled at him.  They ran off into the woods leading to the beach.  All of a sudden, Taren's new wolf instincts came to life, and he took off sprinting after the two love dogs.  As he sped past them onto the beach, Kodi said, "Whoa, Taren, you're even faster then I thought you were!"

Taren smiled, and his body was filled to the top with joy.  As he looked over to the town of Nome, he thought to himself, 

"Life's about to change."

THE END!  

  (Please Note: The waterfall area I mention in this fanfic is the one seen in Balto 3, when Kodi slips off the rock bridge, but Balto catches him.)

 Please let me know if I should make a sequel to this story or make more, different fanfics! Thanks for Reading!

- Ariu