decisions. If you’re not ready to live with them, I understand. Old Boris isn’t exactly rushing to find other geese either. There’s no reason we still can’t stick together,” he said, putting his wing around the wolfdog’s neck.

From the beginning, Boris had promised that he would look after Balto until he could look after himself, but Balto could probably look after himself now. He was a full-grown wolfdog who knew how to hunt or grab scraps from town, and after today, he wouldn’t be short on friends. So why would Boris want to stay? Maybe it was because he and Boris went far back, almost as far as Balto and Jenna. Boris had tried his best to be a father for him, and despite being a goose, he had done a pretty good job.

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Two years earlier. Late winter, 1923.

For months, Balto had lived a solitary life. All thanks to what had happened that summer…

“We can’t keep a wolf in our house. I’m sorry, he has to go.”

He was alone, all because he was part wolf. He tried to approach other humans, but word of his breeding had spread, and no one wanted anything to do with him. At first, he didn’t know what their shouting meant and kept trying. But they hated and feared him, all because he was half-wolf. They would throw snow at him and kick at him if he got too close. Once, the butcher had almost taken his head off with a meat cleaver. Luckily, all that the cleaver hit was air while Balto dashed out of town.

After that Balto stayed away from the humans, using the back alleys and rooftops to cross the town. He had come to use the alleys so frequently that he knew every hiding place and secret path through the town. If anyone saw him, he could disappear within seconds. There were many times when he would need to make a stunning escape. The dogs also knew he was part wolf now, and would try to chase him out of town. Worst of all was Steele. The husky never forgot how the young pup had bitten him and would take every opportunity to harass him. Usually he would be able to scamper off and find a hiding place, but one time, he was not so lucky.

He had been scrounging for food when none other than Steele came around the corner, accompanied by three other dogs. It was Nikki, Kaltag and Star; fresh new recruits on Steele’s team. A sick grin came over the husky’s face and Balto dashed in the opposite direction. He scampered into an abandoned building and up the rotting stairs to find shelter above. The dogs stayed on the lower floor while Balto crept around the rafters. There were ropes and other debris strewn about the place, meaning Balto had to watch his step.

Unfortunately, one the boards he stepped on creaked, and the noise alerted the other dogs to his presence. Panicking, he tried to dash across a beam to an open window, but in his rush, his legs became tangled in the loose rope. He got caught up in it and fell off the narrow beam. He braced himself for the hard impact, but instead felt the rope yank on his leg while he hung in mid-air. The other end of the rope had been tied off, making Balto dangle six feet above the ground.

For Steele, this was even more fun. He jumped up and tried to snap at the dangling pup, but would never get closer than a few inches to him. The others tried snapping at the pup too, all the while chanting “Piñata! Piñata!”. Even though Balto was out of reach of all of them, he was absolutely terrified. Every time their jaws came close to him, he screamed out, only making them laugh harder.

It was only when a man heard the commotion coming from the empty building that Balto was saved. He called the dogs away and cut Balto out of the rope with a pocketknife. He put the shaking pup down and nudged him with his boot. “C’mon, get outta here you little mutt.” Balto didn’t need to be told twice. He darted out of the town towards his boat and crawled under his blanket. The shock of the whole ordeal made him cry for hours. Never before had he been so terrified in his life.

Despite the risks, Balto still needed to visit the town because it was the only steady place to find food. The butcher would leave scraps for the local dogs to find rather than throw them out, and one of those dogs was Balto.

But as Balto grew, he needed more and more to satisfy his growing body. When the scraps weren’t enough, he would try his paw at hunting. Despite not having any formal lessons, Balto still had the instinct to hunt in him, but his young, inexperienced body was rarely successful. He had the best luck with fishing in a small stream, but as winter came, the streams and ponds froze over, making fishing impossible. So, he tried catching rabbits and squirrels, but his first attempts would always end in failure. It took many, many tries before he could actually catch anything, but he was still rarely successful and often went back into the town to find more scraps.

Balto was now almost a year old and had an appearance similar to many adolescents in the animal world. He was almost the same height and length of a full-grown dog, but he was still quite skinny. He had grown up, but he still had months to go before he would thicken out and reach full adult size.

Today he had spotted something that looked like a good prize. He waited behind a log while a large white bird washed itself in a thawed out puddle. The temperature had been slowly rising and the snow had been melting, forming large puddles on the ground. The bird was singing something incomprehensible to him, but that didn’t matter. Even though he had never tried catching large birds before, Balto’s growling stomach drove him to stalk the plump goose. Balto thought that it would make a good meal - if he could catch it. He crept closer, ducking back behind the log when the goose would look back, then continuing on when it wasn’t looking.

Balto crouched behind the end of the log, and when he looked around the other side one more time, he saw that the bird had already started to waddle away. Balto knew that this would be his last chance. The young hybrid dashed out of his hiding place and towards his prey. But no sooner had he started running did the bird turn around and see him barreling towards him. The bird screamed and started running as fast as it could away from Balto. The bird could move quickly, but Balto was quicker and was gaining on it.

“Heh, he’s probably too scared to fly away. This is going to be too easy,” Balto thought to himself. He tried to snap at the bird, but all he got was the air behind the bird’s rear end. The bird was now zig-zagging, preventing Balto from getting a clear shot at it from behind. They both eventually strayed onto the sea ice, making moving difficult for both hunter and hunted. Balto could hear the thinning ice creak and crack under his weight, but it still held.

Finally, Balto came up alongside the bird, and was inches from snapping his jaws around its skinny neck. But as fate would have it, the bird tripped and fell flat on its face while Balto kept going. He slid on the slick ice, stopping several feet away. He turned around to charge at the bird again, but the ice started to snap under his weight. Balto tried to scramble away, but it was too late. He plunged through the melting ice into the freezing water.

It may have been warming up, but the water was still ice cold. The shock of it knocked the air out of Balto’s lungs as the current pushed him away from the opening he had made. He desperately banged against the ice above him to try to break through, but to no avail. The sheer cold of the water stabbed at him from all sides and it became harder and harder to move. He was running out of air, energy and time.

But fate would strike again, this time for the better. The current was pushing him towards another opening in the ice, this one near the shallows. Balto kicked with all his might towards it, feeling like his lungs would burst without any air. He broke through the surface gasping and scrambled out the hole before collapsing on the shore. He was out of the water, but not out of trouble.

He had been in the water for less than a minute, but that was more than enough time for the frigid arctic waters to take effect. It clung to his coat and he was too numb to shake it out. As he lay there, he saw that he was near his boat, but he was too weak to walk onto it; the icy waters had completely sapped his strength. He shivered uncontrollably, and as his vision started to blur, he thought he saw a small figure walking towards him, but he couldn’t identify it before he passed out from the shock.

----------

Balto was sure he had died. All around him was fog, but in the distance, he could see his mother, her snow-white fur shining through the haze.

“Mother! I found you!”

“Oh my son, you have grown so much since I last saw you,” her voice was still the same kind voice it had always been, “But you must go back.”

“But why? I want to be with you! I’m all alone with out you. Why can’t you come back to me?”

“I wish I could my son, but something happened to me. I can’t come back to you.”

“Then let me go with you!”

“No, you must not follow me. It is not your time my son.”

“But why not? Don’t you want to be with me? Don’t you care about me!?”

“I do care about you, but fate has forced me away from you. In time, I will be able to tell you everything, but not now,” his mother started to fade away. “We will meet again my son. That I promise you.”

“No! Come back!”

“No matter what, know that I always have, and always will love you.” She was almost gone by