Even by the usual standard for new huskies, Goldie's sudden eagerness to please was clearly shocking to everyone, most especially Zack, but
she could tell they still didn't really trust her. It was her 4th day as a husky now, but she still hadn't been transfered over to the traditional
training program, and even the other new recruits were cutting conversations short anytime they saw her coming. The sense of rejection was
driving her further and further into humility and causing her to look for new ways to somehow prove herself. At first, her motivation had been
as selfish as they come, just trying to keep herself from once again being forced to leave the park. The in-built loyalty and pack mentality of a
husky though had, over time, managed to correct a major character flaw she had always suffered from, and provided her for the first time in
her life a proper sense of empathy. Every night since arriving, she had been losing sleep over how everyone must think of her. The opponents
she'd verbally abused in all those games, her formal employer she'd constantly disappointed, all the people whose dinner she interrupted trying
to push sales on them... and of course, coming here as a wolf had only made everything worse. All those people she'd terrorized... especially
that little bunny girl she'd almost scared to death. That's exactly the sort of person she was here to protect now, why all the other huskies still
clearly hated her even if they never said it, and in hindsight they had every right to. Several times she'd almost asked if she was still in the park
somewhere, so she could find her and apologize, but she new she could never do that. The girl had looked catatonic the last time she saw her,
and odds were she wouldn't let anything remotely canine close to her again. She'd probably fly into a panic if she learned the pack had
accepted such a terrible person as her on top of that. Plus there was a chance that bringing the topic up would just reopen the wound for
everyone else, and suddenly they'd remember what a monster she was and send her away again. She just needed to find another way to
overcome the guilt.
"That's more than enough pushups Goldie," said Zack. "Stop and go have a drink, you're panting so much you're going to run out of saliva."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
++++++++++
Chad had been jogging down the length of the stream, still trying to make sure he was in top fighting form, but also hoping he'd get an
opportunity like this. There was a deer woman, trying to give a bath to her children, and so far as he knew, there was only one doe in the park
with that many little brats. "Well! What do we have here? If it isn't the top prize!"
"Excuse me?" asked Leticia, gathering up her children to get away from this creep as soon as possible.
"You're that 'Lord Jeremy's' girl, right? The one he won the last time you all had a proper bit of sparring around here to see who was top stag?
You still the choicest piece around here, or is there a younger model now?"
Lateshia ignored him, hurrying along towards home and wondering why this had to happen the day she sent off the other does who offered to
help with the kids for some nice alone time.
"Don't get me wrong," said Chad, "the kids are a turnoff, but you're still rockin' it. Anyway, if seeing a good fight is what gets you going, we're
all gonna be set up for one in that big clearing downstream. Just 3 more days, and you can find yourself a way better stud-"
"Hey meathead!" Zack shouted as he came across the scene with Goldie in tow. "Clearly she isn't interested, and even if she was, how in the
world were you raised that you think that's an appropriate way to talk to anyone in front of their children!"
Chad put his hands up backing away. "Hey man, I'm sorry. You're right, that was over the line. Just trying to pay the lady a compliment, thought
she'd like to see a show. Sometimes the ol' gums flap too much when a 10 walks by. You must know what I'm talking about there. I mean, if I
were into dogs..."
Zack tensed up, Goldie looked over, clearly primed to spring into action the moment he said a word, but it was clear from his face what he was
thinking. It just had to be Chad. The one Stag he couldn't toss out of the park without starting a riot, and probably taking some serious heat
from management too. "Look, I don't care how well connected you are, it does not give you the right to harass a married woman in front of her
children... or anyone else for that matter. You are going to march yourself back to your little camp, with your little cronies, and you are going
to stay there until you have finished your creepy little initiation ritual or whatever it is you're here for, and then you are going to leave. And
until you leave, we are going to keep someone watching you, 24/7, and the next time ANY of you step out of line and harass another guest like
this, we are going to toss every single one of you out of here, regardless of any sort of special deals you've cut for yourselves. Am I being
clear?"
Chad may have had some serious ego problems, but he knew when to pick his battles. "Crystal. Again, I didn't really mean anything by it. We'll
keep to ourselves out there. I'll just go right ahead and let everyone else now there'll be plenty of ladies for us to choose from after we crown a
winner either way."
++++++++++
Naturally, Goldie offered to keep watch on Chad until a permanent rotation of huskies could be posted specifically to keep the stags corralled
to one area. There'd even been some talk of fencing them in, but management had shot down the idea, and specifically disallowed any further
action to be taking against them than the proposed segregation measures.
The worst part of the situation, thought Goldie, was how closely it followed her own. She recognized the sort of tactic Chad was employing all
too well. Find a nice vulnerable victim, put just enough menace in your tone to scare them without really making any sort of threat, and see
how strong a reaction it produces. Her impression was that he didn't even have any real interest in Leticia. He was probably just trying to
escalate things with the local deer in general, banding them together to defend her honor. The fact she could so easily follow the logic made
her feel another strong pang of guilt.
She couldn't help think about that offhand comment he had made either, implying she had some kind of romantic involvement with Zack.
Obviously that would never happen. She wasn't really female, and every husky knew it, just like they knew everything else about her. They'd
compliment her appearance now and then, but that was just to rub the way she'd tried to hide in her face. Odd that Chad was apparently in on
the joke. Were they all just everyone in the park who she used to be?
It was the twins Zack was actually involved with. Goldie always felt a little jealous of them for that. Zack was always happy to see them, trusted
them completely, it was the same with Harry and Katie. To a lesser extent all the other female huskies seemed to be treated with love and
approval but her. She supposed it really came down to seniority. Apparently, the previous pack leader was something of a man hater. There was
a point when Harry and Zach were the only ones on the team thanks to her policies, and only because they were so competent. It was only
natural for her to particularly seek out their approval in particular, since they'd risen to the top, and gave her all her orders. Otherwise, she was
fairly sure all the males had joined up the same time she had. She wanted them to like her so she could make some kind of fresh start. That
was the reason, she told herself, she didn't seem to care so much about winning the approval of the other girls. They all sort of fell in the
middle. Too senior to forget how she used to be, but not in any sort of position where winning them over would convince anyone else she'd
really changed. That and the males were all a bit more powerfully built. She'd used to have a body like them, so it was only natural that she'd
try and take in all the details when she had a close look at one of them. It was just something like envy, or pining for what she'd lost. She'd
been teased for that too once or twice, when she'd been caught staring. Just more humiliation as obviously there was no way she'd suddenly be
attracted to men.
Goldie turned her mind to what else she could do to prove herself. So far, she'd at least done her part by naming everyone she'd seen in the
park that followed her old patterns. None had quite gotten the treatment she had from the huskies over it, but then most of them didn't really
act in such a predatory fashion as she had as the 'Lone Wolf' either. She was running out of people to turn in though, and worried that when
she could no longer act as an informant, she'd be thrown out. The only one she hadn't turned traitor on so far was Max, but there was
something... off about Max. Max never really bragged about scaring anyone like she did when they met up now and then, but clearly seemed to
know what it felt like to stalk people and run them down. Apparently, nobody had made any complaints to the huskies about being frightened
or harassed by any wolverines, but clearly Max had some experience bringing that sort of real fear out of people, she knew it.
The next morning, after she caught her breath from her exercises but before setting out on patrol, she looked up at Zack and asked, just to
rule out one of the darker possibilities, "There haven't ever been any cases where any guests just went missing, have there?"