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Three years ago he'd assumed himself normal. Assumed the wolf he'd encountered had been a normal random white wolf. Assumed the legends weren't real. Assumed Boris raising him was weird but just happenstance. But he had sought her out when he didn't feel older, even as Jenna had wrinkles in places and her fur sagged around her stomach.
“So Boris?” He had chimed after a long explanation. Teeth bared in annoyance.
She smiled, “Your spirit guide. He won't age, much like your daughter's own guides don't.” Aniu spoke, as if this was mere weather and not Balto balking and losing his mind. “Your father was a wonderful dog, but he aged, and he died. He had humans, and he went back to them. I know more of his passing than I wish, being what I am.”
“Your grand kids.” He spoke, tired and having a throbbing headache between his ears and behind his eyes.
“You are half of my own, and they are less, they will live long lives, but eventually they will die.” Her eyes shifted, and her haunches shrugged. “Likely after their humans do.”
Balto looked at Boris, evaluating the being that was his father figure for so long, the goose did not pull away or look askance. He was not ashamed of his involvement.
“Ball-toe, ye kno' me. I did what kept ya alive.” He spoke after a heated silence. “What spirit guides do. We can't give you all the answers.”
“So you knew what I was, and you did to... mother.”
Aniu gauged his worth and seemed to weigh her answers. “Yes. But I did not expect you to ever find anyone, wolf dogs often walk alone, same as wolves.”
“Wolves have packs,” Balto spat.
His mother's teeth were as white as her fur, her lip curled backwards. “Be that as it may, spirits and Gods do not have such a thing. If you were a wolf like myself, your kids would have lingered and some become pack as well. Jenna would be by your side more than her human.”
That much was true, with both Aleu and Kodi, Jenna had left it in his paws.
“So everyone around me will die then?”
“No.”
“Right.” He grumbled, feeling and being so small beside her. “Most will die.”
“There is one more gift. You can choose a single being to spend the life you have with. You have the power, but only once. Your father was too proud, he was a working dog and loved his humans, he wanted to live and die that life.”
A demi-god, a half-god, immortal, able only to die by serious wounds or a gun. Balto swayed with the immense amount of information layering itself into his brain. Everything weird was beginning to make sense. The things he'd lived through fell into place. Balto stared at his mother, he wanted to be mad, but he was unable to. Boris put a wing across his shoulder, he looked at him.
“Jenna loves Rosie more than anything in the world. Maybe even more than she loved our kids. Easily more than me. I think she will be the same as my dad, she'll live and die beside Rosie.”
“Aye kno'.” He looked away, to Aniu.
“Then the gift is rather cruel for her, I want her to stay young forever, but she wouldn't want that. Thank you, mother.” The words were empty. He took his leave.
Boris flew behind him, and he beckoned the goose not to fall behind. Bitter pill as reality was, he could not falt the bird for what he'd done. Expecting a spirit guide to defy a god was a big demand. What would his mother even have done had Boris said no? Kill him? Reform him? Send another more calloused guide to raise him? Those thoughts softened any negative emotions he had towards the bird. They vanished as he remembered how much Boris had done for him.
More than his mother had in some ways.
His life was forever, much like Boris, his mother, and somewhat, his kids. Balto needed decades to have such a matter sink in. But because of his mother, he had a lot of time.