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Alaska. The site of the current Holy Grail War, a ritual comprising of seven Masters and seven summoned Servants, seven pairs fighting for the omnipotent wish granter. Copied off the ritual based in Fuyuki, t...
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It almost felt like the race had already started. Gripping the sled tightly as he hunched over the handle, his dogs racing through a blizzard, barely able to see the trail ahead of them. He didn't know these dogs, the ones pulling his sled through near-invisible conditions. Could he really trust him to stay on course, to keep them all alive?
"I don't know what it is," he grimaced, wiping at his goggles again. "But I trust these dogs. They're not a team I trained nor have I gotten to know them too well, but..." He watched them run, admiring their flawless teamwork. Kaskae and Aga led the pack, both of them keeping in stride. Pakak, who liked to misbehave, was fully concentrating on the race, even keeping up with the half-wolf beside him, Tikaani. Right behind them were Nini, named for her spiky fur, who was smaller than her partner, Nanuq, meaning polar bear in the native tongue, who was named so after her white fur and bulky build. Despite their size difference, they raced along in perfect synchronization. When the trail curved suddenly, they all adjusted for the sudden turn, making Graham feel safer than he normally would have atop the sled.
Through the white storm, he could just see Joseph on his sled. It was good to know that he was doing okay in this storm.
"But where'd it come from?" he wondered, ignoring the cold biting at him. While it wasn't totally unusual to get this much snow this late in February, suddenly coming on like this was definitely strange. "I wonder if that girl had anything to do with this..."
He shook his head. All the strange stuff happening to him lately must be getting to his head now. That wild girl surely had nothing to do with this freak storm.
"If anything," he thought. "This reminds me of that race a couple years back. We had gotten stuck in a fierce snowstorm and had to stay at one of the checkpoints because Yelper and two others had gotten injured."
He smiled softly. Those were the good old days, when he and his team had competed. He had thought his racing career was done for good after Crisper had passed, but here he was, back on his way to participate in the Iditarod Race once more.
"I'll need to get these dogs microchipped once in Anchorage," Graham thought as they made another sharp turn. He had done everything he could to find out where these dogs had come from. No collars, no tags, and no microchips from what the local vet had said when he got Kaskae and Aga scanned.
"It was weird though," he remembered. "The machines they used to scan for any chips seemed to go a little haywire at first..."
Kaskae barked from up front and the dogs began slowing down. Graham shook his thoughts away as he peered through the snowstorm, seeing that Joseph's team was slowing down as well. Soon, both sleds came to a stop. Graham stepped off his sled and met Joseph between their two teams.
"We can't keep going in these conditions," Joseph said, rubbing his thickly layered arms. "I can barely see my lead dogs much less the path. If we go on like this, we might end up dying in a drift." He looked around. "This snowstorm, it almost feels unnatural."
