Black eye

Black eye stood above the cave opening, it being only a few feet thick, he could hear everything -even whispers- coming from the cave. As wise as he was, he set them up in this specific cave for that reason. He heard everything... Saba the dog and her traitorous human, and her parents, who believed that her human was misunderstood. This dog had seen the hate in humans eyes. Perhaps she wasn't as bad as he though. Had he grown to the point where judging a dog based on circumstances was his only choice? No, it had not always been that way, first with Alex, the wolf dog hybrid, and again some weeks later with the dingo/wolf hybrid known as Rusty. Both had become good friends in his eyes, regardless of being brought up by humans. Another thing they had in common, they all had been I righted by the human menace...

Rusty told of his past, how reluctant it was, but he told. He didn't lose half of his pack in one night, but what he suffered was pretty much as bad. Alex's story was somewhat the same. Untrusted by humans, shunned by both wolf and dog, same story, same thing. He knew those two's stories... What about Saba?

To gain this knowledge he listened closer, mostly to the smaller white wolf that also seemed to trust these dogs as well.

"Sam tried to get Saba to breed with Steele, and when she refused he beat her and called her a worthless bitch." He overheard Siku say.

So that's it then? A little forced mating gone bad, and the human she so deeply loved turned on her when she wouldn't oblige. Damn humans...

Black eye made a choice to give this dog a chance and let her tell her own story to him directly. He spotted her as she left the cave, no doubt on a route to meet up with Rusty, Kijo and... What was the damn pups name again? Black eye jumped down in front of Saba with a growl, not an intimidating growl, more... "Stay still before I rip your head off" sort of growl.

Saba and Black Eye.

"What's wrong sir?" Saba asked after she jumped back.
"Saba, tell me your story. I want to hear it from you directly."
"I…"
"Nobody here will know your secret except for me."
"Okay..."

Saba sat down, and black eye, even being nearly two feet taller than her, sat down too at her level, and listened to her tell her story. What was it about this dog that intrigued him? He had an unrelenting hate for them since the incident, but that was years ago. He had grown from being the hard alpha wolf that grieved for his lost brothers, to one who could listen to a dog speaking to him and not have the urge to rip the speaker in half.

"And then your wolf Kijo woke us up, and you know the rest from there."
"Fascinating..."
"Really? I thought you hated dogs."

Black eye walked up a bit, more towards the direction of Rusty and Kanai, before turning back.

"Perhaps I can sympathize for any canine who has been turned on by the ones they trusted."

Black eye walked ahead of her, leaving her confused until he had to snap her out of it.

What did he mean by that? She wondered. Black Eye was known by everyone to have always hated the humans, yet he said… Perhaps he too, was turned on by someone he trusted.

"You coming? We'll check the status of Kanai's pack and see if we can reunite him with what remains of his pack..."
"Okay."

Saba looked back for a quick second at Balto and Jenna, the former of which was still looking at his injured paw, and lucky it wasn't broken. Then she followed Black Eye to Kanai and Rusty.

Rusty was playing with Kanai a little bit, well, he was trying to talk to Kijo, but made sure he paid Kanai a good percentage of his attention, turning to him every time he would nibble on his paws, or chase his tail, Rusty would laugh with the pup before turning back to his friend.

Black Eye made a quick siren-like howl into the night around them, causing his wolves to freeze. An elder wolf approached from the left of the crowd, either hidden from sight by the larger adult wolves, or simply stood up from lying down.

"This is Adolf, our pack's elder and previous Alpha for seven years. Show respect, dog." Black Eye bowed down, quickly followed by Saba, who nearly fell face first.
"At ease, young one. Why do you insist on bowing down to me, you are the Alpha here." Adolf said.

Saba took note of his voice, it was rather raspy, and low, like he was always on the verge of coughing. Then she looked up at him. He was definitely an elder by the looks of it, with the fur around his muzzle being a white-ish grey. Though the rest of him resembled Black Eye, apart from him being about a foot shorter than him, he still towered over Saba in comparison.

"You still deserve the respect an Alpha does, and I will see to it our pack members understand that. As well as our visiors." Black Eye shot a look at Saba.
"Fair enough. Now where is this wolf pup?" Adolf asked.

Rusty grabbed Kanai by the neckfur and brought the restless pup over to the others. Kanai was still in a playful mood, but as soon as he paid better attention to his surroundings, as well as the larger than life wolf before him, he froze. Kanai, being the pup he was, stared up at the huge dark-furred elder wolf in front of him with his mouth slightly open. Adolf did the same, staring back at the pup, but instead of being in awe at the size of the other, he was focusing on matching Kanai's scent to whatever he could pull up.

"Ah… Eastern wolf heritage… Pure bloodline… His pack was-" Adolf cut himself off as he remembered the latest news from the pack. Kanai was indeed born into a pack that was more or less allies with Black Eye's pack, and both suffered heavy casualties from a human attack. The difference was that Black Eye's pack remained mostly intact, however Kanai's, is virtually non-existent at this point.

"What is it?" Kanai asked.

The innocence in the pups' voice prevented Adolf from talking any further, and instead signaled Black Eye to talk to him in private.

Saba whispered to Rusty as Black Eye and Adolf faced away from them, talking amongst themselves.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this…" Saba asked.
"Probably nothing, pack matters or something". Rusty explained, and shrugged it off. Mostly for Saba though, because he too had a bad feeling.

Adolf walked off, leaving Black Eye to turn and face the three.

"I'm afraid the last record we have of this pup's kin, point to a large portion of their pack being killed off by a human attack."

This was already known by Kanai. Black Eye did not know that Kanai was actually a survivor of the attack, and saw the massacre for himself.

"But… I was there, is my mom at least safe?" Kanai asked.

His step up, asking questions to Black Eye proved something Saba nor Rusty could have read about the pup. He was most likely trained for situations like this from a young age. Most likely from the leader of his pack… Kanai must have been next in line for Alpha of his pack.

"That Adolf cannot say for sure. Latest word was that they left their homeland. If your mother is alive, best place to look for her would be the outermost reaches of our territory.

Imuruk basin.

"Where is that?" Saba asked.

"It's the name Inuit humans gave to the land that covers most of the eastern Alaskan territory. It isn't so much a place, but rather a huge portion of land stretching from the bering sea to the east, to the human settlement you all know as Nome."

"Is that far from here?" Kanai asked.
"I'm afraid it is very far." Black Eye said in a sympathetic tone.
"Oh…" Kanai said, and then looked down at the ground.
"If you'll excuse me." Black Eye said to them, as he quickly trotted off to a group of wolves a few meters away.

Saba and Rusty looked at eachother, then down at Kanai. Saba then looked back to the holding den. Her parents and self-proclaimed sister were there. Wanting her to go home.

Then there was Rusty, who no doubt wanted to get back to… Whatever he was doing before he met Saba.

And finally, Saba looked down only at Kanai. Nobody else was here to help him. Sure, he could easily be adopted by this pack, but knowing that your mother, and possibly more of your family was somewhere, hundreds of miles away, would tear Saba apart.

"Kanai, go play with Rusty and Kijo for a bit." Saba said.
"But… What are we going to do?" Kanai asked.

Saba didn't answer.

"We're going to find my mommy right?" He continued.

Saba couldn't fight it. Kanai was on the verge of crying, and so was she. This pup's mother could be alive, yet there was no way they could track her down, let alone the fact that they've both been running in completely opposite directions from eachother. Imuruk Basin was a week's trek even from White Mountain, the farthest post Kodi would tell her stories about when he'd visit there on a long run.

So what could Saba do? What would she do? Without a home to return to, she couldn't just leave Kanai with the pack.

"Saba? What's wrong? Come talk to us." Jenna called out to her from the den, knocking her out of her thoughts.

Saba walked over and explained the situation to Balto, Jenna and Siku, who were all ears to her story.

"So what, you think you're going to go travel hundreds of miles to find this pups pack?" Balto asked.

Saba opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a voice behind her.

"Hey, I'll go with her." Alex said.

Alex was present, but decided to sit back and examined the conversation from all fronts. He knew the family and their story much more than they knew. He'd taken interest in them from the first day he met Balto, and it wasn't like he had anything better to do than to help Saba and Kanai.

"You again? Great…" Siku said sarcastically.
"Alex? Why would you- No, still, what are you thinking Saba? You're not going on this trip."
"Why not? Huh? I have no home to return-"
"Enough of that! So Sam wasn't nice to you, doesn't ignore the fact that you have family, friends… Us, all back at Nome!" Balto said.

Siku somewhat angrily cut off Balto, stepping in front of him.

"I'll go too." Siku said as she sat next to Saba.

Saba smiled back at Siku, who still looked at Balto with a serious expression.

"This is crazy! Why would you-"

Balto stopped talking a soon as the pup in question walked up from behind Saba.

Kanai didn't say a word, but he obviously had signs of crying. He ignored everyone in the room, and came to lie down at Saba's paws. Saba laid down too, on her stomach and curled around the pup.

"Sleepy?" Saba asked in a small voice.

Kanai only nodded his head, then hid himself in her neckfur, still sniffling a bit, and Saba could smell the tears shed. Where was Rusty to comfort him? She looked out expecting Rusty to be there, to her surprise he was not.

Saba looked back at Balto, who was still unsure of what just happened. He wasn't aware that the pup was hat comfortable with Saba, let alone who he was. Balto thought for a second, and he too, knew just as well what it was like to lose one's family.

"So Imuruk Basin, huh?" Balto said, mostly to himself.

As always, thanks for reading!