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I didn't think I was going to follow up Sweet little lies. But I thought, there were still points that I could still expand on. Boris, Aleu, Balto's family. So I'm making another story pair, turing the whole thing into a quadrilogy. And for those who want to know: Cave Canem means "Beware of dog." You've seen "cave" in another conjugated form in "caveat emptor."
Family: Cave Canem
By: Gabriel LaVedier
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Universal. “Sinopa” as a name came from Catwhohas14tails.
“And when ship landed in Nome, I promised I would never go back. Never tell what had happened.” A crisp, cool morning in the town of Nome. The sun had barely crested the horizon. But still, there was activity. Boris was hanging his head and speaking, to an intimate audience that listened intently to every word. Son-figure Balto, and girlfriend Stella. Both could not believe what they were hearing. “White Russians fled east. East to here. May have taken stowaways with them. I could not say anything. If they heard, I would be in danger. And so would anyone close. But I had to tell you. You two, above all others, needed to know.”
“Boris I… I had no idea. I knew you left home but I never suspected…” Balto looked up at his dejected caretaker, who looked older, far more tired than he had ever appeared before.
“Oh Boris honey… You should have told me sooner. This is the kind of thing we’re supposed to share as a couple.” Stella wrapped her long, delicate wings around the older goose, pressing her feathered body close to him.
“Could not risk it. Could not put you into danger like that. So many different creatures, borzoi, huskies, wolves, hawks, swans, geese. I am not safe when I don’t know who served Tsarists before the fall of the Tsar. But fox was right. You two are my family. And you had right to know.”
“Don’t worry, Boris. We’ll keep you safe from whatever’s out there.” The wolf-dog indicated the snowfields, and the great empty space beyond the visible plane.
“Should not be your job. I am your father, yes?” Boris smiled at last, his first smile since beginning the narrative.
“Yea. Yea, Boris. You’re my father. The only one I’ve ever known, anyway.”
“Say, what DID become of your father anyhow? And your mother. As a rule, wolf pups don’t just come from the snow.” Stella looked across at Balto, her eyes bright with curiosity.
“My mother, I know, died in the snow. She had been wounded by a hunter, and lost track of my siblings. Boris found me with her, crying. To this day, I wonder if I have brothers and sisters who somehow survived in the cold wastes. But my father, no one ever talks about. He’s been shut out of their memories, because he was with a wolf. And a generation ago, that was the darkest taboo. I can’t get anyone to talk. Not even Steele, when he was around. He never even tried to insult him. And that shows how powerful the hate is. No one even mocks him.”
“Is greatest mystery of Nome. No one knows what happened to Balto’s father, or will not say. He was sled dog, that is all we can tell. Loved a wolf, and then vanished. Was also big wolf hunt when Balto was pup. No one says anything about that. Is very strange.”
“I don’t worry about it too much. I don’t think he was anything that special. If he had been any kind of father he would have protected his pups and his mate. He never would have left my mother unprotected, to be shot by a hunter and left in the cold, alone.”
“So this is where you live now. It’s… I’m sorry, Sis. But it’s really small.” Three canines and a fox were cramped into a single hollow in the earth, dug into the side of a hill just outside of Nome. At the furthest back portion rested Sinopa and Aleu, the lovebirds who returned to Aleu’s home to reconcile with her family. Near the entrance, and most cramped, were her brother Kodi and his boyfriend, Kirby. The huge sled dog was worst off, his bulky frame well-compacted by the cramped quarters.
“Well, yea, it’s small. We’re just starting. Besides, unlike SOME dogs I know, my mate isn’t the size of a building. We’ll expand it, and then make some more chambers. Sleeping, storage, the usual. A big underground den, just to be safe.”
“I like it.” Kirby nodded his approval of the construction, even as he crunched himself as small as possible. “It’s private. Privacy is very important. Right, Kodi?”
“Ok! I’ll try to find a private home for us. Why can’t we live at the saw mill?”
“Too dangerous. Soft dog like you would break in half when they turned the big saw on.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny, Kirby. Honestly, we can both live in there. It’s warm enough. There’s a boiler in there too, you know. We could have a private place.”
“I’ll see how things go. I’d rather just get a place of our own. Times are hard now that Duke runs the mail.”
Kodi gave Kirby a soft lick on his cheek and followed it with a nuzzle at his thick chest. “We’ll be ok, honey. We can make it.”
A whispered conversation ensued between Sinopa and Aleu, the former casting her cold, deep eyes over the pair. “I could show you how to make a burrow like this. It’s not as fancy as a house, and there’s no fire. But its shelter. And private.”
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