Rebellion
(started
8/6/07 – finished 9/18/07)
Summary: During “Balto II: Wolf Quest”,
Jenna was told not to go find Aleu by both Balto and his guardian, Boris, but
what if the young mother felt that she had a strong enough reason to disobey
her mate’s orders . . . something that dates all the way back into her own past?
This is the story that answers the most-asked question that fans have
complained about since the beginning! (One-Shot Fic)
Rating:
G for General Audiences. There’s nothing bad here.
Disclaimer:Balto, Balto II: Wolf Quest, and
all other characters and events that took place within the Balto films are the
property of Universal Studios Inc. and Universal Cartoon Studios. The lines of
dialogue in the beginning of the story are directly from the “Wolf Quest”
script; the thoughts and the basic idea of this fic are completely fictional
and is the work of Juuchan17.
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Author’s
Note (before):
Good lordy,
I am sick and tired of people wishing that Jenna played a larger role in “Wolf
Quest”! (I know that there are others out there that will agree with me,
right?)
Anyway, in
complete sanity, I thought up the idea to write this quick, little one-shot
fic, which gives a different answer to this question: What if Jenna secretly
followed Balto into the wilderness when he went to find Aleu?
[RANT] God,
I seriously wish people would stop asking that question. Please. It’s really,
very annoying. You gotta think about it for a second: Jenna’s character is
pretty minor altogether if you think about it. In the first film, she was
mainly cast as the “hero’s love interest”, the female that still had hope for a
happy ending; of course, Rosy, her owner, got better, and she . . . well, she
got hooked up with the half-breed hero. The sequel should have given our
favorite purebred husky some more action and adventure, but instead, she just
became another devoted mother . . . not allowed to join her lover on the search
for their upset daughter (Hmm, the movie is called “Wolf Quest” for a reason .
. .). Many fans have flooded WQ topics, saying that if they could remake or
change the film they would have Jenna remain as that adventurous spirit that
risked her life to save Balto’s in the first film (or at least have her be in
the film more than just as a new mother, a worried lover, and a minor player
with only hope in her heart that her mate and daughter would come home safely).
As many
different opinions that we may have for Jenna’s role in the first Balto sequel,
there really is nothing that we can do about it. Besides, it’s kind of
impossible to actually change the film anyway – it’s been made over five years
ago. It’s too late to change it, so you gotta deal with it.
IT IS OVER.
[end-RANT]
Okay, now
that my rant is over, you can get to the story. Let me remind you that this is
only a “what if” story . . . it is not true and don’t get pissed if you don’t
like how I did it. You can write your own version of it; it is called a
fan-fiction for a reason, duh. It was just a random thought to try and spice up
the idea, that’s all.
I apologize
for my somewhat annoyed tone, but that’s how I feel with the premise of this
fic: VERY annoyed. ^__^
But don’t
worry: I’ll have a post-story explanation for why I wrote the story this way,
just so no one is confused in the end, okay? Enjoy!
- Juuchan17
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She awoke
with a light moan inside her mistress’s house to the sound of her hybrid mate’s
voice calling her concernedly.
“Jenna . .
.”
Her
burgundy and ivory head quickly turned towards the window where a
grizzly-looking male dog stood by the wooden windowpane, gazing worriedly from
the outside. It was a few moments after the start of the morning sunrise and
the young husky could easily sense that something wasn’t right, so the female
approached the window carefully speaking with a normal tone.
“Balto, what
are you doing here so early?” Jenna yawned slightly. She gazed at her mate’s
face, noticing a defeated look in his eyes. Her next words were spoken in a
worried mother’s tone. “Is Aleu all right?”
The
wolf-dog closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t know. I was hoping
she was with you.” Balto was smart: he knew that if his yearling daughter
wasn’t with him, she always went straight to her mother’s house to spend some
time with her. “She’s . . .” His gray-brown head turned to the side in shame.
“She’s kind of mad at me.”
Feeling the
seriousness of her mate’s concern, the she-husky knew they had to talk in a
more comfortable location for him. “Stay there,” Jenna told him, quickly
fleeing the safety of her owner’s room and through the back door of the house.
Once her dainty paws met with the snowy dirt ground, she turned her head up to
Balto, who still stood on the roof. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Carefully
and surely, the nimble wolf-dog made his way down to the ground, using some
nearby wooden storage boxes to descend back onto the earth. Once he finally
looked his mate eye-to-eye, he took a deep breath before announcing the news,
knowing very well that he had to brace himself for his mate’s sudden reaction.
“A hunter took aim at her.” Jenna only gasped, much to the surprise of the
patriarch. Quickly, he reassured her with his words. “No, don’t worry; we got
away . . .,” Balto’s ears began to droop as his tone turned to regret as he
stammered slightly. “but I-I finally had to tell her how humans see her.”
The
burgundy husky gasped again under her breath. “You mean, you told her about
being part –”
“Yes,”
Balto stopped her immediately; he didn’t want her to remind him of what he knew
very well: the fact that their eldest daughter, Aleu, had wolf inside her blood
and that, unlike her five other brothers and sisters, she looked more like her
father’s wild ancestors than her mother’s tame relatives. “We should have done
it sooner. I know that now.” The father blamed himself regretfully. His head
was low as he continued to speak. “She’s so angry with me . . .” He sighed
again, realizing that if Aleu hadn’t returned to his grounded boat of a home
and that she wasn’t at her mother’s – “she must have run away.”
In shock,
Jenna took a step back, repeating her mate’s final two words. “Run away?” Never
had she had to hear such frightening words! She had only become a mother over a
year ago, but she was surprised that one of her own would actually run away
from home . . . well, Aleu actually never received a home; because no human had
chosen her as a pup, she lived at both her mother’s and her father’s homes,
switching from between them every so often.
Balto
approached his mate, placing his head over hers and gently stroking her with
his nose in comfort. Aleu’s running away was equally as difficult for him to
deal with, so he tried his hardest to console both of them. “I’m sorry, Jenna.
I never thought it would turn out this way.” He closed his eyes in sorrow. “I
thought I could keep her safe.”
At the
sound of those words, Jenna jerked her head away from him in an angry mother’s
outrage. “But she’s not safe now – she’s running wild!” Letting out a huff, she
moved past him. “We’ve find to find her.”
Quickly
reacting, the hybrid halted her with his harsh yet careful words. “No, not you,
Jenna.” Again lowering his head, he realized what he had to do to make things
right within his world once more. “This is my fault, and it’s something Aleu
and I have to work out together.” Jenna, defeated by the truth, lowered her
head with a bothered look in her amber-hazel eyes. Balto reassured her with a
gentle touch of his nose against her cheek and his words of a promise. “Don’t
worry; I’ll find her.”
The hybrid
had been gone for many hours once the purebred was visited by her mate’s
guardian. He was a snow goose named Boris, one that had flown off-course from
his relatives and migration formation a couple of years ago, landing in Nome;
however, destiny began to guide him to the gray-brown hybrid pup, allowing him
to take a personal oath to remain by his side until his honking days were over.
Now, Boris was at the doorway of the side-house that was connected to Rosy’s
house, awaiting a reaction from Jenna after telling him what had happened only
some time ago.
While the
goose, accompanied by a set of polar bear brothers named Muk and Luk, wandered
through the nearby woods trying their best to help Balto reunite with his
daughter, they surprisingly discovered the blurry form of Balto lying against
the edge of the nearby Nome River. As soon as the three friends leaped into the
water to approach and greet their half-breed companion, a thick fog swirled
around them, almost as if to prevent them from advancing any closer. Within a
matter of seconds and after calling out Balto’s name, he answered back to them;
by the time the fog had lifted, Balto had vanished deeper into the forest, and
Boris realized that Balto had to make this one journey without them by their
side.
“What do
you mean he just ran off?” Jenna shouted enraged by the tale that the gander
had told her.
“I mean
he’s got Aleu’s scent,” Boris explained to her the simplest way he could. “Told
me to tell you not to worry, and away he went. He’s a wolf on a mission.” He
closed his eyes and gave a little nod of approval.
Jenna,
however, was not convinced by his confidence. “I’m going to help him look.” She
began to march past the gander with hope in her heart; the husky had a feeling
that if Boris and the bears couldn’t travel with him, at least his most-trusted
friend – Balto’s one and only love – should be able to.
With a
gasp, her dream was shattered into tiny pieces.
“No,
Jenna!” Boris blocked her from the doorway, forbidding her to move any further.
As she lowered her head and eyelids in dismay, Boris simply explained his
reason for thwarting her path. “This is a journey for Father and Daughter; you
must have faith in them.”
Well, she
did have faith in Balto . . . but it was her daughter that she was more worried
about. Aleu was only a yearling, and running out into the woods with no clue on
how to survive was dangerous – and Jenna had learned that at an early age. She
had felt a strange, ominous connection to her from the day of her own birth,
but it was something that she had just now begun to remember . . . something
about her own past that made the situation very critical.
I have
to tell her . . . and Balto . . . She thought, but she might as well follow along with this
charade for right now and show Boris that she could manage her emotions with
the current situation. “You’re sure Balto has her trail?” Boris nodded, making
an agreeable noise with his beak. “And you’re sure Balto’s all right?” Jenna
asked with a tinge of concern in her voice. As a mother, it seemed that she was
almost always worried about things sometimes.
“Don’t
worry, Jenna,” The gander began to rub the husky’s head as he spoke, setting
her mind at rest with his touch and words as he reminded her of their
connection to each other. “Remember, they’re both well equipped – they’re both
part-wolf.”
She began
to smile when she heard those last words. Yes, they are, aren’t they? Inside,
Jenna let out a slight chuckle as she talked to her inner self and watched a
relieved Boris take his leave of the mother’s house.
Once he had
left, she collapsed onto a basket that was lying within the shadows of the
storage house. The basket was slightly musty, the smell was stale, but it smelt
of blood and dog . . . it was a place of memories to her.
Ah . . .This
is where I struggled and strained over a year ago, Jenna placed her head on the side
of the wicker basket, reminiscing of the most painful and yet most wonderful
moments of her young life. All those long hours of intense labor . . . I can
remember feeling each contraction and every push that I made, bringing each of
my six children out of the darkness of my womb and welcoming them into the
bright, wide world that I have made my home. She sighed as a small smile
formed on her face, and a familiar scent passed through her nostrils. Aleu .
. . Her smile grew wider. My first-born . . . my wild daughter. I wish I
was with your father right now, looking for you out there. Jenna sighed
again, remembering what Balto and Boris had said to her earlier in the day; she
had understood that because Balto had to tell their daughter about her
wolf-like appearance and heritage, it was his duty as a parent to find her and
bring her home, hopefully mending their broken fence.
I wish I
could tell you . . .
Suddenly, her
ears pricked up once she recognized that Aleu’s scent wasn’t just in the basket
– it was outside of her house too, and as noticeable as daylight in the high
noon sky. Unknown to her, a thin mist began to line the edge of the house.
She’s .
. . here? Impossible!She lifted the rest of her head up and began to approach the doorway carefully,
pausing after every few tiny steps to sniff the ground, confirming her
thoughts. It is her! She’s close!
Jenna
darted out of the side-house, rushing quickly into the evening streets of town
and still tracking the mysterious perfume of her runaway daughter in the wind.
Before she knew it, she had reached the border between the forest and the tiny
town . . . and Aleu’s scent continued within.
I never
told Balto about when I was younger . . . She thought as she panted, catching her breath from
running. This time, she did notice the translucent fog as it grew in front of
her, covering the highest pines with a thin veil of light silver haze. I
didn’t know any better back then, but that was when I learned something he
should know about myself . . . Jenna closed her eyes and tilted her head
back slightly, remembering when she was still a precocious pup.
It was
sunny that day when she, a young seven-week old pup with recessive amber-hazel eyes,
had curiously ran into the forest outside of Nome, the town her parents raised
her in. She was always raised in such a prim and proper society by her
red-coated mother, Tasha, and her brown-furred father, Tundra, and she knew
that in about a week, she would be with a new human – an owner to call her own.
For once, she wanted to experience the wild outdoors for herself, for she saw
it as being beautiful and majestic whenever the sun’s shining gaze passed over
it, but her parents never allowed them to leave town for safety reasons.
“Wolves are
out there, honey,” her mother would always remind her. “If you’re unprotected
out there, who knows when one of them will come up and take you! It’s far too
dangerous.”
Without her
parents or three siblings noticing her sneaking through the back door of her
house, Jenna had scampered away like such a naughty, mischievous puppy. At
last, she was free out in the open wild. Her mouth opened wide with glee as she
leapt forward, giggling happily with every step she made within the safety of
the woods.
The rush of
the nearby stream, rolling past rocks and jagged stones . . . the mountain
fresh breeze that whipped around her fur . . . the melodious symphony of the
birds and wildlife that whistled into her ears . . . Her senses were all newly heightened
from every aspect and detail of the rough country that was laid out in front of
her.
So this
is what real freedom feels like . . . She thought as she stopped at a comfortable rock and closed
her eyes, taking a deep breath of the fresh air and savoring it. At the heat of
the moment, the young pup felt a strange energy deep inside her soul . . . one
that she had never noticed before in her short life of only seven weeks.
“Aaa-whooooo
. . .” was what came out of her lips . . . for no reason at all. She giggled,
thinking that the fact a howl came from her mouth was completely crazy.
Suddenly, a
strong, sinister shadow of a scruffy yet strong dog pulled her up off the
ground, as if she were a rooted carrot being harvested from a patch of quaint
garden soil. She squealed in fear, thinking it was a large wolf that had
grabbed her from her neck fur.
“Aah!
Wolf!” She screamed out in her high puppy voice. Never before had she felt so
frightened in the few weeks she had been alive than she was underneath the jaws
of this stranger canine. “Someone help me! Mommy! Daddy! Help! It’s a real wolf!”
She continued to cry out, hoping that someone would save her from this
nightmare.
However,
the intruder that grabbed her quickly carried her to a safe place underneath a
tall pine near the river and dropped onto the soft grass beneath the shade of
the tree. She let out a soft squeak as gravity returned to her body, let out a
groan, and looked up at the one that stole her from her newfound freedom. Once
the pup looked up at the dog’s face, she gasped, recognizing it as someone she
never would have expected.
“Huh . . . Daddy?
What are you doing here?”
The
she-husky sighed, remembering how relieved she was that her father wasn’t upset
with her sudden fascination with the great Alaskan wilderness.
I never
knew that he was interested in the forest too, but I knew he was a trained sledding
dog like Mom was . . .
I
thought that he loved the outdoors because he had been used to always being
surrounded by it while he was running on the sled . . . but that was when he
told me the real reason . . . a reason that he never told anyone, not even Mom
before she was separated from him over a year ago . . .
After a
moment, Jenna placed a slender foreleg into the welcoming brush that lined the
forest. Without hesitation, she continued into the forest, not caring anymore
about her appearance or her lover’s warnings.
Sorry, Balto
. . . but you and our daughter aren’t the only ones that are well equipped for
this journey . . .
I may
not look it, but I’m part-wolf too . . .
END
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Author’s Note (after):
Yes, I made
Jenna a quarter-wolf too.
Go ahead.
You can flame me, comment me or do whatever, but I’ve always wanted to make
Jenna rebel against Balto’s wishes. (Hence the title, “Rebellion” . . .
originally, I tried titles like “A Mother’s Secret” and “Jenna’s Rebellion”,
but just plain “Rebellion” speaks volumes. Gosh, I love short titles!) I mean,
who hasn’t wanted to read something so far from the ordinary WQ storylines,
right? Besides, I know most of you guys (unlike me) hate WQ as it is, so it
doesn’t hurt to spice it up a little bit.
Anyway, let
me just straighten things out: this is a one-shot story . . . that doesn’t
actually take place in the Balto storylines (even though, I’m sure some fans
would like it if it did . . . right?). I stopped it before she runs catches up
to Balto because Jenna never did that in the sequel, and I probably won’t write
that part . . . (I’m not going to, but if someone’s interested, PM me or
something – maybe we can start something!)
Besides, I
always wondered that if Balto and Jenna’s other five pups could survive with
husky looks and part-wolf blood, Jenna could be able to as well . . . thus the
idea of making Jenna have a secret: her father is actually half-wolf too.
(Actually, Tundra has made an appearance in a couple of my other stories:
“Forbidden Bond” – as the best friend of Balto’s actual father – and most
recently he has been in “StarCrossed” as the head of the Capulet family; in
each fic, he remains as Jenna’s father of course.)
Good luck
and I hope you have enjoyed my latest work!
- Juuchan17
(9/18/07)