Toby Recharged Part One: Desire

 “Hey, Dad, I think I got it!” came the all-too-familiar voice.

“Alright,” Toby sighed, walking over to a pile of boxes. “Just let me get into place.”
Caspar groaned. “Aw, Dad,” he protested, “I don't need a spotter. Just stand back and watch me.”

“No, no, I'd really feel better if I were here, alright?”

The young pup shook his head. “Okay,” he agreed. Once his father was in place, he stepped back and took a running leap at the stack. Timing his landing exactly, he planted his claws in the top edge of one of the boxes and, after a moment's scrabbling, managed to get his grip. “See?” he said. “I don't need you there.”

“So far, so good,” Toby replied. Deciding to employ a bit of tact, he added, “I'll wait here. If you make it, I don't want to miss a thing.” It was true. Despite dozens of past failures, Toby kept hoping that this time, the pup could do it. And if his son did take a fall... well, he was still hoping he wouldn't miss, in a different way.

Caspar smiled, placated by the answer. “OK, watch this!” he boasted. Swinging for a moment, he managed to work first one back leg and then the other up onto the box. Then he jumped up to the next one. Little heart pounding with excitement, he focused on the topmost crate. Just one more, and he would be at the top! He jumped, and...
...misjudged the leap, clunking into the side of the box. He fell back down, landed on the box he had jumped from, and was spared another painful landing by Toby's well-practiced catch.
“Aw, man,” he groaned. “I was almost there.”
Toby set him down. “Are you alright?” he asked.
Caspar rubbed a paw on his head. “I bumped a bit, but yeah, I'm OK.”
“Good,” said Toby.
“Can I try again?”
His father shook his head. “No, I think that's enough tries for one day. Why don't we...”
“Toby, Caspar, where are...” another dog appeared, nodding in satisfaction as she spotted them. “Uh-huh. I thought I'd find you here.” She walked over to them, a somewhat stern look on her face. “Have you been doing what I think you were doing?”
The pup tucked his tail between his legs. “I was, uh, practicing,” he admitted.
Luna suppressed a groan and looked at Toby.
“It's alright,” he said quickly before she could voice her objections. “I was here the whole time, and he didn't get hurt.”
“He even checked the boxes first to make sure they wouldn't fall,” added the pup.
Luna nodded. “Well, alright,” she conceded. “As long as he was keeping an eye on you.”
Toby noticed the sun sitting low on the horizon, painting the south-eastern sky a bright splash of oranges, reds, yellows, and purples. “Well,” he said, “Time to go home.”
“Just one more?” pleaded Caspar. “I really think this time I can do it.”
Toby feigned considering the matter. “How about we come back tomorrow?” he offered. “The boxes should still be here, and you'll be well-rested.”
Caspar's tail began to wag. “Promise?”
Luna gently nudged Toby with her hip. “I think we'd better discuss this in the morning,” she interjected. And Toby knew by her tone that what she meant was, “I need to have a talk with somebody before tomorrow morning.” It was amazing how well he had learned to read Luna once they got married.
“Uh, right,” Toby agreed. “For now, let's go.”
“Aww, do I have to?”
“I'll stop by before bedtime and tell you a story if you go now,” Toby promised.
Caspar jumped in the air. “Yipee!” he yelled. He tried to flip to show his excitement, but all he managed was to land on his back. Rolling over, he made a mad dash for Luna's house as fast as his little paws could carry him, his tail whipping like a pine sapling in a blizzard.
“We'll be right there,” Luna called after him. Then she turned and gave Toby one of those worried looks. “You promised to be careful,” she said reproachfully.
“And I was careful,” he replied, starting after their son at a slow pace. “I kept my eye on him the whole time, and I was always in place to catch him if he fell.” Toby knew Luna worried about Caspar, he being something of the runt of the litter. But he still felt justified in what he'd been doing.
“You won't always be there to watch his back,” she replied, walking beside him. “What makes you think he won't go doing the same stunts when you're not around? He could really get himself hurt. And then you go encouraging him with those stories about all the nutty stuff we did when we were kids. Why?”
“Because...” Toby thought for a minute. “Because he looks up to me. He's my son, and I want him to be happy.”
“So do I,” Luna agreed, “But can't you teach him to be happy with who he is? You sure didn't get very far trying to be Balto.”
Toby sighed. “I know,” he confessed. “I guess it's just harder when I'm the one someone's trying to be like.”
In spite of herself, she couldn't help smiling just a little. “Honey,” she half-scolded, half-teased. “You're being silly now.”
“I am not,” he protested. “I'm proud that he admires me, that's all. Don't you want the girls to look up to you?”
“I want them to be themselves,” she replied. “They need to know...”
“Who they are, not what they are,” Toby finished with her, knowing Luna's family motto all too well at the moment. “I know, I know. I just want to be admired by my son. If he wants to be like me, why shouldn't I help him?”
“Because he's not like you,” she replied, her ears dropping slightly. “Out of all our kids, he's probably the least like you until you get to his personality.”
Toby drooped like a withering leaf. Luna was right. Caspar had poor coordination, he couldn't run well or long even for his age, and his sense of smell, while not the worst Toby had ever seen in a pup so young, was far less than one would expect given that he was one-fourth bloodhound. With orange-toned fur inherited from Luna, he didn't even look like him. And yet the driving passion within that little heart was nothing except to be like his dad. The irony was sickening. It seemed the only thing he had inherited from his father was his obsession with the impossible; his will to be someone else.
“I know he's not like me,” Toby admitted. “He's got my attitude, but almost everything else is straight from you. Why?”
“I don't know,” Luna admitted. “Maybe the stork thought it would be good for a laugh.”
“I'm serious,” Toby insisted. “Why is it that everything he wants to have like me, he can't? And why can't I teach him to be like me anyway?”
“I don't know,” she confessed, “But sooner or later he'll have to learn to be himself, just like you did.”
“But what is 'himself' anyway?” he asked. “I don't have the heart to tell him this, but he doesn't seem to have any special abilities at all.”
“He will,” Luna asserted, nodding her head confidently. “Once he stops trying to have yours.”
Toby groaned. “Am I being egotistical,” he asked, “To wish that he did have mine?”
She shook her head, and advanced a few steps only to turn and push her muzzle past his into a warm doggy embrace. “No,” she replied. “You're just proud of him. Maybe if you tell him that, he'll stop trying so hard to please you.”
Toby nodded, finding this to be, if not wholly settling, certainly an encouragement. Perhaps it was less that it gave him an idea of direction than that he knew just as he loved and was proud of his son without reservation, so Luna supported him in the same way. He nuzzled her back. “Thanks, Luna.”
As they continued on, he added, “But be honest. Don't you want the girls to look up to you?”
“If you come right down to it, I'd rather have them look up to you,” she answered to his surprise. “I'm not the one who wears the pants in this family.”
Toby smirked. “Need I point out the obvious?”
As promised, Toby told the pups a story that night while they nestled in their basket. Luna curled around them, and Arrow, who was by now at the stage where she felt she should sleep on her own, was in a basket nearby. Toby sat facing the menagerie, regaling them with the story you may know as Wilderness Hunt, the tale of how he and Luna, together with Nome's police team, had tracked down and captured a desperate criminal. It was a familiar tale, and one by one the pups drifted off, all except for Caspar. He sat riveted to his spot, his eyes shining as if he could see the events played out before him. And indeed they were, for Caspar had a most powerful imagination, more than Toby's had ever been. He could see an event that had happened, or a plan as he hoped it would, as clearly as the finest movies ever made.
When Toby finished the tale, Caspar bounced up to his hind legs twice. “More, more,” he pleaded.
Luna nudged him back down. “No, Caspar. It's time for you to go to sleep.”
“But I'm not sleepy,” he whined.
“Let me take him for a minute,” Toby said. “I want to have a talk with him anyway.”
“He needs his sleep,” Luna replied. “So do you and I, for