Hiccup stood just outside the door, he could hear his father and Gobber talking inside about the new prisoner, Strider she said her name was. that alone caused him to freeze.

"I don't get it. if she was after the silver in the first place, why not just drag her out like we would've three years ago?" Gobber was saying.

Stoick sounded tired, "she said something about being a vessel to dragons, guise dragons, what are those anyway? She never told me, and just kept asking me about the dragons we have on the island. Over and over and over… argh, it's like she doesn't get the simplest things, were at peace with the dragons, How hard is that to understand."

Stoick sighed, sitting down, wood creaking slightly in protest at the sudden weight, "And then she says how Ryu Haven would never believe that an island of Vikings were treating dragons like friends."

"I heard her talking about this Haven place, you think she's from a place where humans and dragons live in peace? Long before we did?" Gobber slurped noisily at his mug. Stoick sighed.

"I think she might be crazy, strong I'll grant you. but Thor almighty, you can't have a person running around. She's a monster so for that You'd be out of yours to trust her."

Hiccup nodded silently to himself, his father had a good point, but so far he hadn't heard anything useful; if she was from a place where dragons and humans lived in peace, then what did she really want with Feather-storm?

"So what are you going to do with her, keep her locked up till she rots?" Gobber was saying.

Stoick sighed, "That won't smell so good after a while will it? no what I'm going to do is keep her there until we can find out more from her. And I have a feeling that's going to take a while the way she keeps talking. You'd have to be some kind of genius to get anything out of her."

Gobber gave a low laugh, "Don't let Hiccup hear you say that. Imagine if he tried to talk to her. Alone."

Stoick nodded, "I know, dragons he can handle, we know that much. But how could anyone handle a wolf as tall as a man and as fast as a night furry?"

Hiccup quietly left.

Gobber glanced towards the door, "Where is that boy anyway? He should be back by now."

Stoick shook his head, "He's spending the night with Toothless. That dragon hasn't left Feather-storm's side for a while now."

Gobber gave a knowing laugh, "This keeps up, we'll be hearing some tiny claws running around. And I don't mean Terrible Terrors."

***8***

Strider was curled up asleep in the cell, having gone full wolf to keep out the cold. She woke up from her own sneeze, groaning in despair, "Werewolves have fur to keep them warm, and yet I'm still cold. Blast why did I think coming out here in summer was a good idea?"

"Are you cold in there?" a small voice asked.

Strider turned to see the Viking boy she had tried to kill before. he stood there right up against the bars, smiling.

The werewolf huffed, shivering, "Isn't it past you bedtime little slayer?"

The boy gave a nervous cough, "Look we got off on the wrong foot before, and that's saying something since I only have one."

He chuckled at his little joke. Strider turned to look, sure enough, one of his feet was nothing more than a stump sitting on metal and wood. A strangely shaped one at that, she would've expected to see a peg leg, or him leaning on a crutch. But this one seemed a bit more…springy.

Wonder how I didn't hear him coming on that. She thought to herself, "So what, half the time I have four feet and everyone gets on the wrong one around me."

Hiccup laughed aloud, surprising her, "See? wolf, four feet, I get it."

Strider laid her head on her paws facing him, "when the moon is up children should be in bed little slayer."

"Ok first off, I'm not a little kid. Any more than you are." the boy sounded like he was lecturing a class or something. The wolf soon pricked her ears, "Second of all I'm not a dragon killer, yes I've slayed one but I don't think of the red death as a dragon."

Strider flattened her ears again, "Red death, deadly Nadder, monstrous nightmare, terrible terror…you Vikings come up with the strangest names for things you know that? The only dragon we both have the same name for would have to be the Scauldron, a dragon with scalding hot water coming from a special cauldron like stomach."

The boy brightened, "Really? So that means you call dragons by different names?"

"can a jeweled hummer sit on your hand?" the wolf asked.

The boy shrugged, "what's a jeweled hummer?"

Strider smiled, "A dragon."

The boy nodded, tapping his chin, "Small enough to fit in your hand, Jeweled so it must have a jewel like color to it, and it hums. Is that the sound it makes or the way it flaps its wings or both?"

Strider frowned, she had used the same question on the chief before and he had just tried to go back to the subject he was fishing for. This boy had done no such thing, "Er, the wings. They move at the same pace as a Boulder eater."

The boy thought a bit, "You mean a Gronkle right? It's the only one I know of that flaps it wings quick enough to get a hum, a whispering death pretty much spins its teeth."

Strider' ears drooped in confusion, "That's… where it gets its name."

The boy's face brightened, "Oh, so a whispering death for you is a…Spinning mouth?"

Strider shook her head slowly, what was this boy trying to do, "Drill mouth."

"Drill huh? makes sense." The boy was thinking again.

Strider sneezed, reminded of how cold she was. she curled up again and shut her eyes, "Look kid its late, it's cold and I'm tired, so if you don't have anything better to do than just go away alright?"

"My name is Hiccup, and I almost forgot I have something for you." he reached to one side, picking up a thick folded cloth of some sort. He carefully stuck the cloth in through the bars of the door and sat on the floor, "Come on over if you want it."

Strider looked between him and the fabric, another sneeze became her downfall. The boy smiled, "If you don't want the blanket then that's your choice."

Strider wanted to scream at him for such arrogance, the idea of Vikings running in to see what the ruckus was didn't sit well with her any more than the idea of taking charity from a child of the same. But then, with how cold it was in her full hound form she wasn't sure she would ever get to sleep. Reluctantly she stood up and padded over to the fabric, wrapped herself in its folds and sighed. So warm, she now recognized the smell of sheep wool, a homespun fabric as this and her wolf form's summer coat would easily keep the chill off of her.

"Any better?"

The wolf glared at him, pulling the blanket closer around her, "Sure."

Hiccup smiled, to the wolf it was like he was laughing at her, "you seem to know a lot about dragons. Did you grow up with them?"

Strider huffed, "Can a guise change shape?"

Hiccup didn't seem to be thrown off by the question like Stoick was last night, "How do they do that anyway?"

The wolf flinched, stupid, how could you forget he saw it happen? "Trade secret."

"Are they really dragons or…?"

"They aren't humans, that's for sure."

Hiccup's next question annoyed her, "Where do they come from?"

She glared at him dangerously, "Watch your mouth kid."

He held up his hands, "sorry, it's just I've never even heard of a dragon like Feather-storm. We were thinking of calling her a White Frost but since you seem to know so much about her maybe you two came from the same place?"

The wolf touched her mouth, that was a subject she didn't want to cover, ever! She shrugged, "I'm not going anywhere am I?"

Hiccup sighed, "No not so long as this cell holds up, and I know it can I know forge work."

Strider sniffed, "And I know when people are fishing for answers. Your father already tried with me and all he got was a headache."

"I can't see how." Hiccup said simply, "We've been talking pretty normally this whole time."

"Think it over," Strider settled further in the blanket folds, "If one asks a question and then gets another as an answer with an answer they're not looking for then they go back to the question and ask it again. But if they don't realize the answer to the question is in the question and assume it's just another question, then the question is, what do the answers have in common?"

The wolf grinned to herself, smiling, being a Viking, there was no way a long statement like that wouldn't give him a headache. She watched him as he drew a blank stare, curling up for the night, "If you can't answer then maybe you should try again when your head stops spinning, Good n…"

"So you're a talking wolf who grew up with dragons and you don't like to talk about where you come from because you're worried Vikings like my father will come flooding in and take away all the dragons you grew up with.

"You also care greatly for Feather-storm as you came all this way to find her, and you're not going to leave without her or an explanation to why we don't hunt dragons on Berk. And I can't help but think right now you're not as locked up as you seem to be, are you?"

Strider's body went ridged, she turned to look at him, her mind going blank at such an unexpected statement from this boy. She half expected him to be smiling at her in a smug 'I got you figured out' fashion. Her blood nearly boiled when all she saw was concern on his freckled face. A minute staring at her and he nodded.

"Yeah, I'm right aren't I? struck a nerve." He said simply, standing up and dusting himself off, "I think I've asked enough questions for tonight, but there's two things I want to know before I go."

The wolf bared her teeth growling, "How do you know I won't lie about them? I'm a monster after all. Just like you Vikings are to dragons."

Hiccup's face sadden a moment, only to be replaced a second later by a look of sincere determination*, "You haven't lied to me this whole time, so you won't now. the first thing I want to know is, if Feather-storm wasn't there, would you have followed through with that attack, would you really have killed me?"

The wolf's golden eyes widened, ears going flat, jaw tightening with fangs bared. Hiccup returned her gaze coolly until her eyes fell to the floor, her voice so low he almost didn't hear it, "There's a reason nobody forgets their first kill kid. Be it bird, beast…or human."

She slumped to the floor pulling the blanket around her shoulders again, "If Mimibrunser wasn't there to save you. you'd be waking up in your father's house with a bruise on the back of your neck."

She didn't need to see it to know the boy had relaxed, she heard him release the breath he had been holding. In the warmth of the blanket and her own fur she suddenly felt very tired, more than before.

"there's still one more thing I want to know." The boy said firmly. The wolf groaned in response but didn't stop him, "Do you…have a name?"

The wolf looked at him a moment, closing her eyes with a smile, "Humans call me strider, dragons…"

She closed her eyes and allowed sleep to take over, "…Call me Koro."

AN:*for here think of the scene where Astrid asked him if he would risk everything to protect his 'pet dragon' at the cove.

Please review, and sorry it took so long. (bow)