Somehow Boris had made it through the darkest coldest part of the night without the slightest discomfort from his belly or his mind. It had been several days since he had eaten, and just as long without a good nights rest. The exhaustion from his belly, mind, and wounds must have worn him out until he finally couldn't hold on any longer and simply passed out while the storm raged around him.

When Boris opened his eyes he could see stars up above him through the thatching of sticks that hung over him. Thin bands of red and gold from the northern lights mixed in with the stars made the snow around Boris semi-bright. He could hear the not to distant wind of the already passed storm whistling through the stunted trees before falling silent, and then dashing off again on the other side of the thicket.

Boris rolled over on his side. The cold was thick in his feathers and he wanted to see where the pup was. Maybe he had grown some sense and was going to come and keep warm with Boris?

Boris wasn't exactly sure where the pup had last been sitting, but he knew that it was just off to the left of where he was sleeping. He peered through the thin light that held the landscape before him at the spot where the pup should have been to find it empty. He moved his gaze from where the pup should have been to the other stunted trees that he could see clearly. The pup was nowhere to be seen.

Boris sat up grumbling. "Where are you?"

He sat for a moment scanning the forest in front of him with his wings folded over one another to keep the heat in. The pup wasn't where he should have been. Maybe he had gone to sleep back behind Boris where he couldn't see.

Boris fell forward and crawled out of the cove and into the light of the forest and stood up with his neck fully extended. He made a quick three-hundred-and-sixty sweep of the forest around him. Nothing. He did it again, this time making sure to take his time. The pup was nowhere to be seen.

"Boy chic?" Boris called with a wing to his mouth. He turned around and repeated the call. If the pup was out there he wasn't responding.

What if something happened to him, Boris thought? What if some dangling tree limb had fallen and knocked him out and he was buried under the snow suffocating, unable to call out for help?

The thought sent Boris wandering through the snow in no particular direction to see if he could find the young pup under a layer of snow, hopefully just sleeping.

"Boy chic" Boris continued calling.

The snow was deep within the trees and only Boris's wide feet kept him from falling through to flounder in the snow. The pup had to be around here somewhere, he comforted himself; he just had to be underneath the snow. Hopefully he was alive and well, just sleeping. But what if he wasn't? Boris had to get that thought out of his head before it consumed him and sent him to a screaming mass.

Boris tried to keep himself calm as he made zigzags back and forth through the snow calling the young pup with his wing to his beak. Boris held his wings across his chest and kept his head tucked down low to keep warm in the subzero temperature and low breeze. But as he reached one side of the thicket and started to come back he started to become frantic.

Boris began running back and forth, left and right shouting at the top of his voice.

"Boy chic!"

Where had that young pup gone?

"This is no time for games Boy chic." Boris pleaded to the light whistling of wind and twinkling of northern lights between the shadows of the trees.

Boris became beside himself with worry. The pup wasn't anywhere. He had to be someplace close. Where would he go? Boris began running towards any lump that might have marginally been large enough to conceal the pup beneath its white blanket and ripped the drift apart. He was here, Boris knew he was here.

For a full ten minutes Boris bolted around in a heated frenzy to find the pup. When he had finally tore apart every drift he could find, he stopped in the middle of the thicket to stand on his cold feet and think aloud to himself.

"Where would you have gone? I mean … where is there for you to go?" Boris put his wing to his beak and held it ever so slightly. "Where are you? He pleaded. "You have to be around here somewhere."

Boris took several steps forward to the place where he had last seen the pup. This would be the best place to search for clues. The snow covered any trace that there had ever been a creature there. Boris pushed his wing down through the snow with a crunch. There was nothing here of use to helping Boris find the grey pup.

"Where are you?" Boris pleaded aloud. Then something entered the old bird's mind that he hadn't thought of before. Something dark that the pup might have done if he felt like he was nothing and worthless. "No!" Boris yelled aloud and looked out into the barren wasteland around the thicket. "Why hadn't I been more forceful on talking to you? Now you might be out there someplace, freezing to death in a snow bank. I have to find you, if it isn't already too late."

Boris ran out into the snow and the waste under the heavenly northern lights above to search blindly for the young pup, or die trying.

The warmth surrounded the pup on ever side. There was no ice below him and no cold wind around him to blast through his fur. He felt safe and comfortable like a pup snuggled close to his mother. But where was he?

He opened his eyes and was instantly blinded by warm white fur. It was everywhere, in his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. It smothered him in a warmth he hadn't felt since the vague memories of his snow-white mother. The memories were dim and hardly there, but he could still remember her.

A second thought came over the pup. What if the pain, cold, loneliness, and hate had all been nothing more than a dream and here he was with his mother? The fur was the same color as her. He couldn't remember what his mother smelled like, but whoever this was they smelled like fish. Did his mother smell like fish? He couldn't remember.

The grey pup squirmed every so slightly, trying to break free and see if it had all just been a memory. Whoever was around him responded to his outstretched paw that pressed hard into it's side.

The warmth around the grey pup was instantly gone and he was on the snow. The sun was just coming up to the south, and the wind of the storm he had somehow lived through was beginning to die down. On the grey pup's left and right side two creatures moved in opposite directions, slowly turning around. The pup suddenly realized he was in between to large bears.

The pup yelled out and the bears leapt back in fear both yelling at the top of their lungs. The pup was utterly terrified of these two powerful creatures that stood on either side of him. He tried to keep both of them in his vision, but they were at the perfect spots so he couldn't keep them both in his sight. The grey pup threw his head back and forth at the two of them, ready to bolt away.

The bigger bear looked at the smaller one and began mumbling something. The other bear listened.

"Um, we just wanted to help you, you looked like you were cold." The smaller bear said sheepishly. "Luk say's we didn't mean to scare you."

The grey pup looked at the larger bear, then back at the smaller bear. "What's your name?"

"Me?" The smaller bear raised a paw to his chest. "My name is Muk. Muk and Luk, we're brothers. What is your name?"

The pup was still wary of the two bears and kept his gaze switching back and forth between the two. What if this was some sort of bear trick, and the second he let his guard down the bear he didn't have his eyes on would end him.

"I don't have a name."

"No name!" Muk said "Every creature must have a name. What does your mother call you?"

The grey pup felt frustrated that this stranger was making him speak what he really didn't want to say. "I'd rather not speak about this." The pup said turning away, hoping that the two bears would drop it. But then he turned right back around again remembering that he might not be able to trust these two

"Well, what are we supposed to call you?" Muk said.

Luk mumbled, making an array of hand signals to Muk. Was he trying to explain how he wanted to kill the grey pup? Explaining what pieces of meat he liked the best, and which parts were too tough for him.

Muk seemed to understand and smiled. "Luk asks if you are hungry. He also says that we have seal, and we would like to share it with you."

The grey pup was still wary. He didn't see any seal in sight, what ever seal was. But if seal was some sort of food, he could hardly resist. He didn't know how long it had been since he had eaten last; but he was sure going to know when he would eat next.

"Yeah. I'm famished." The grey pup said, then wished he hadn't said it with such enthusiasm. He still didn't know if he could trust these two bears fully. Uncle Boris had told him stories of bears and their way with words. He told the grey pup of what a quick and painful death he would receive by their paws. The pup didn't want that, but he was starving.

Luk turned his body around to where he had some seal stored in the snow and came back with a large chunk of fatty flesh. The pup hadn't seen that much meat in one place in his life, and he almost leapt atop it while it was still in the bears paw. He nearly swallowed the meat whole. The bears could have killed him and he wouldn't have cared. But by this time the pup realized that bears had no intention of hurting him. This became especially apparent when Muk brought another piece of meat. The pup nearly swallowed this to. By the third piece the pup's stomach was beginning to painfully bulge below him. It was a good pain he thought though.

"Are you full?" Muk asked.

The pup raised his front right paw up to feel his belly and how tight it was. "Yeah. I am full."

"Well, we do have more if you have room. There is just to much for us"

"More!" The pup felt astonished that these two creatures could possibly have more food than they could eat.

"Yeah, we have it buried here, and there." Muk said motioning all around him in different directions. Luk did the same motion with his paws. "So … um … what was your name again?" Muk asked

"I don't have a name, but my uncle Boris calls me - Boris!"

"Boris?" Muk asked confused. "So you are named after your uncle?"

"No." The grey pup hastily said. Somewhere out there Boris was probably looking for him. He probably would have seen that in the morning he was gone and went looking for him. But what if Boris had woke up in the night and came looking? He could be frozen in a snow bank someplace, and it would all be the pups fault. "No. My uncle calls me 'boy chic,' his name is Boris."

"I'm not sure I completely understand Boris." Muk put his paw to his chin to hold the weight of his thinking.

"My name is not Boris. I don't have a name." The pup tried to get through to them.

Luk began waving his arms and talk in mumbles. Standing and shaking his entire body like he was freezing, he then raise his right paw just over his eyes like he was looking for something.

"Oh." Muk said with a smile of understanding. "Luk says that your uncle Boris is lost, and we need to help him."

Luk mumbled a few more words than turned to Muk.

"He also says that your name is boy chic."

Luk shook his head an affirmative yes.

"Will you help me find him then?" The pup asked.

"I don't see why we shouldn't." Muk said looking to Luk for a different view. Luk shrugged his shoulders then shook his head. "Sure, I mean how hard could it be to find a Boris out here?" Muk smiled

The pup realized that maybe he wasn't going to find Boris. When he looked around him to see exactly where he was he quickly found that maybe finding Boris wouldn't be as easy as he had thought. All around the pup for as far as he could see was flat ice. It looked like there were just hundreds of miles of flat in every direction. Where was the land?

"Where, where's the land?"

Muk put his right paw back to his chin and scratched while looking through squinted eyes in one direction, then the other. "I think it's that way." He said finally pointing in one direction that didn't look any different than any other direction.

"How can you be sure?" The pup asked.

"Because I have a good sense of direction."

Luk in the meantime had been looking all around with a careful eye. He was looking at the sun, at a shadow in the snow, and raised his nose to the wind. He finally stood on his back paws and pointed in the opposite direction Muk was.

Muk saw his paw flash and stood to face him. "How are you so sure that you know where you're going?"

Luk mumbled for nearly a full minute, using his arms to illustrate some form of what he was saying. The pup looked on stupefied.

"Okay." Muk said after Luk had grown tired of talking. Muk turned in the direction that Luk had pointed and began walking like he was incredibly confident of where he was going.

The pup bound up to Muk's side. "What did he say? How do you know that this is the right way?"

"He always knows the right direction." Muk said with a smile.

The pup followed silently for nearly four miles, that's when a snow-white mountain came out of the ice ahead and began to reach for the sky. Luk had been right in his direction, and the pup was impressed.

"There's land. There's the mountain! Boris has got to be somewhere around here." The pup exclaimed when he saw the mountains, the mountains he had left.

"So where will we find this Uncle Boris?" Muk asked

"I don't know where we will find him." The grey pup confessed.

"Well I'm sure me and Luk can sniff him out. Aint that right Luk."

Luk shook his head yes and hummed a positive sound. The pup felt hopeful that they would find Boris soon, if he was still alive.

Boris stumbled through the snow and caught himself with his wings. It had been several hours since he had left the trees and begun his search. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. He didn't feel that he would die if he fell asleep; the sun was high overhead and cast great warmth through his feathers.

But Boris couldn't give up. Somewhere out there the pup was freezing and trying to live. Boris kept seeing the image that he had conjured of the pup being swept underneath a snowdrift to vanish forever. Boris knew that if that happened he would never find the pup and he would most likely die looking for him.

Boris hit himself in the head with his wing. He had to think positively. The pup was just sitting out there in front of him someplace waiting for him. He had to be. He just had to be.

Boris's eyes began to flutter as he kept on his vigil march forward. He couldn't keep going any further; it had just been too much. He kept trying to image the pup waiting patiently, but the image was working against him. It was lulling him into a false security that he could just sit for a moment and the pup would be there when he woke up.

Boris felt himself sit down in the snow. His eyes had been closed in the world of darkness within his own skull. Boris began to image the pup sitting in the snow. Then the image turned into a dream.

Luk was the first one to notice the smell floating across the snows. He raised his head, sniffed right, then left, letting the unfamiliar smell soak into him. He stopped walking after the grey pup and Muk to look around him to see if he could see where the smell was coming from.

In front of Luk the sun skimmed along the edge of a mountain. Muk and the young pup were already deep into the shadow of the mountain. But the smell wasn't coming from that direction. It was coming off to Luk's left where the wind blew in his face.

Luk stepped off of the trail that Muk and the pup had left and began walking towards the smell.

The pup was the one who noticed that Luk was no longer following him. He noticed a white bunch of fur moving off to his left and realized that Luk was walking away from him and Muk.

"I think Luk found something?" The pup said bolting into the snow towards Luk with hopes that he had found Boris.

Muk looked over his shoulder at the Luk and the young pup. He shrugged his shoulder and walked after them with a nonchalant scamper.

The grey pup pulled up next to Luk and looked up at his face. Luk looked like he was carefully studying the air in his nose. Half the time Luk had his eyes closed as his black nostrils flared in and out with his breath.

"What do you smell?" The pup asked.

Luk mumbled his nonsensical rambling. The pup could sense a tension in his voice that there wasn't before. It was a good tension like before a large animal was broke into. At least that's what the pup thought of it as.

"What did he say?" the pup turned to Muk who was just catching up to him and Luk.

"I didn't quite catch it."

Luk mumbled again, this time with annoyance in his voice at having to repeat the same thing twice.

"Oh, he says that he smells something he has never smelled before."

Luk mumbled more, turning his head to Muk so he could hear him better.

Muk smiled. "He also says that whatever the source of the smell is, it's just a little further."

"Is it Boris?" the pup said with hope.

Luk shrugged his shoulder and twisted his head slightly to show that he wasn't sure. Muk did the same thing. It wasn't what the pup was hoping for. But maybe they had found the right trail and Boris would be sitting in the snow wondering what took the grey pup so long.

The three of them walked for another minute before Luk mumbled something and Muk stopped in his tracks to watch. Luk began making slow circles over a fifty by fifty area. He held his head low to the snow and moved it back and forth like he had just got a good whack in the nose.

"What is he doing?" The pup asked impatiently. "We don't have time for this-"

"Shu-shu-shu-shush." Muk said putting a claw in front of his mouth and his paw in front of the young pups. Muk then leaned closer and began to whisper. "He smells something. It's under the snow."

"There's nothing under the snow." The pup scoffed. "Boris could be freezing, we need to keep moving."

"Shu-shu-shu." Muk said in a flurry of movements with his paws around his face and the pup's.

Luk began to make smaller and smaller circles; each time moving in half a dozen feet and swinging his nose back and forth slightly faster. His circles became tighter and tighter until he stopped on a certain spot in the middle and began digging. Luk threw the snow to the sides and pushed deep with his claws and nose until his head vanished beneath the snow. His shoulders soon followed.

Muk and the young pup looked on in a dumbstruck awe at his searching ability. Muk began to speak.

"You should see him at hide-and-seek." Muk said it loud in so that it shattered the need for absolute silence. "If you're within half a mile from his nose, you can bet that you're going to get found." Muk seemed proud and smiled as he said this.

The grey pup didn't want to sit around and watch Luk dig any longer. He wanted to get out and find Boris. He was probably sitting back in the group of trees waiting. He wouldn't be under the snow. Would he?

"He's got em. He's got em." Muk yelled running forward.

The pup had been lost in his own mind when Luk brought a frozen bird to the surface with his paws. He held it up to the light to get a better look at the creature in his paws.

The pup bound forward towards Luk. "Boris! Boris! Boris! Are you okay?"

Boris was frozen as hard as a rock. The young pup was frozen with fear that his caretaker, who might as well been his father, had froze to death. Boris was the only one who had ever taken care of the young pup, the only one who truly cared what, if anything, happened to the pup.

"I,I,is, he okay?" The grey pup asked timidly. He looked on at Luk with hope, a deep hope.

Luk looked over the frozen bird at the young pup with remorse. The bird felt frozen like a board, and silent as a windless mountain. Luk looked at Muk for the answers, or at least a good way to say it.

Muk looked back at Luk, and shrugged his shoulders slightly. He then looked at the young pup, and then lowered his eyes towards the snow.

The young pup couldn't believe it. Boris couldn't be dead. He had to be alive, he just had to be. The pup bound forward and Luk brought Boris down to meet the young pup.

Boris's blue tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. He looked peaceful, like he had just fell asleep and would be awake any moment, but his body was stiff like a board.

The young pup began to cry. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to go. Boris was the only one who had been there for him.

Muk and Luk both looked at each other with sorrowful glances before lowering their eyes. Then Boris moved.

It was a small move from his chest, possibly a single heartbeat, but the grey pup was sure he saw it. His eyes were stained with tears, but he looked at the bird that still rested in Luk's paws.

"Did you see that?" He said looking up at Luk and Muk. They looked at the pup, then at each other. Neither of them had seen anything.

"What?" Muk asked.

The pup looked frantic at Muk. He had to have seen it? The bird in Luk's paws twitched again. "That!" The pup yelled, almost jumping onto Boris.

Luk once again looked at Muk for the answer. Neither of them had seen it, whatever it was. Luk set Boris down in the snow on his back. The bird's head rolled sideways as soon as it hit the snow and his tongue stuck out. Then Boris rolled his head over the other way.

This Muk and Luk had both seen. They grabbed at each other and leapt back a half dozen feet before calming long enough to look at Boris.

"The dead have risen." Muk said with a pleading tone to Luk.

Luk mumbled and looked frightened, pointing at the bird that he had just held in his paws. "Yeah, me to." Muk agreed.

The grey pup stood over Boris's head and looked down into his closed eyes. The lids slowly opened and peaked at the blurry world around him.

"He's alive." the pup flashed a smile at Muk and Luk. The tears that graced his cheeks began to freeze solid without any replacements to keep them warm.

Muk and Luk both looked at the pup then returned reluctantly to the bird's side.

Boris felt numb and cold. Like he had been locked within a frozen cocoon until the blood in his veins almost froze solid, only to be let out at the last moment. He could feel his wings out at the sides of his body and his heart slowly beginning to come back to life. Though his feet were lost someplace below that thump that represented his heart.

Boris opened his eyes to look at the world. He could see a single grey blur in front of his face, and a voice sympathetically talking to him. Boris wanted to reach out and respond, but when the message was sent to his mouth, it didn't happen. He tried again. His tongue might have moved slightly, but he couldn't tell; his body felt very far away.

Muk laid his ear on Boris's chest. "I hear something thumping." He said looking at Luk. His eyes shifted over to the grey pup. Luk mumbled something and pumped his paws on his chest indicating his heart.

The grey pup looked anxiously at Muk. His small eyes wanting answers, the tears straining out the fear that he had. "Is he going to be okay?" He timidly asked.

Muk smiled and raised his head. "Well, I'm not any good at this, but I would say he's going to be just fine."

Even though the pup didn't receive a definite answer, he beamed with brightness at the words. "He is?"

"Oh yeah," Muk said turning away from Boris and looking at the grey pup. "We just need to keep him warm until he wakes up. He just needs some rest, and he should be fine."

Luk shook his head and mumbled confidently while smiling. He stepped forward and grabbed Boris with his left paw, then with his right, and gently lifted him from the snow. He then shifted the half limp, half frozen bird onto his shoulders where he lay with his wings and legs spread out over Luk's shoulders, his head stretched straight up Luk's neck.

Luk twisted left, then right while looking over his shoulders to see if Boris still held tight. He did, and Luk smiled at Muk.

The grey pup stood next to Luk looking up at Boris. He stared straight into Boris's eyes. They blinked open slightly and looked straight at the young pup, then closed. The pup felt better and actually let a smile grace his face.

The grey pup then bolted forward to Muk's side and took up his semi-fast pace across the ice and snow. The pup looked up at Muk. "Where are we going?"

Muk dropped a single eyebrow at the young pup and smiled. "Well, before we ran into you, we were on our way to see our mother. And I think that is where me and Luk will take you." Muk glanced over his shoulder at Luk.

"Your mother? What for? You seem to be getting along pretty well out here by yourselves."

"Well," Muk's sighed. "Me and Luk was begging mom to go to our favorite fishing place. She said we should go and spend the day fishing. We went. When we got back she was gone. There was no sign as to where she went."

The pup twisted his head and squinted his eyes before looking off across the ice in front of Muk, then back at Muk. "But you said you were going to find her. I thought you just said there was no sign?"

Muk squinted his face. "Well … yes and no."

"What? How can that be?"

"Well you see, Luk and me didn't exactly know what to do. We tried to track her, but she had swum across open leads multiple times, it was like she was trying to hide from us. So then Luk got the good idea to go back to where we were born. It seemed like a good idea. Maybe she would be there waiting for us?" Muk smiled.

A minute of silence passed before the pup slowed up to be next to Boris. Boris looked no better and didn't even flutter his eyes to show that he was alive. A rush of fear drowned the pup, but he pushed it down. His new friends said Boris would be alright.

The pup pushed forward again until he was next to Muk. He leaned over to ask Muk a question. "Where were you born?"

This question brought Muk to a standstill; like he had forgotten exactly where it was. He closed his eyes and put his paw on top of his head to scratch with his long claws. He sat on his haunches, deep in thought as his mouth began to move as he remembered the very beginning.

"Very strange creatures live there. They walk on their back legs." Muk stood on his back legs pretending to be one of the creatures standing still. He raised high above the pup. So high that the pup though Muk would fall down on him. "They also have creatures like you now that I think about it." Muk dropped down

"Like me? I mean do they look like me, exactly?"

"Yeah … … I can't think of what this place was called." Muk's face twisted again in thought. "My mother knew. She showed me and Luk a sign near this place. It had strange symbols on it."

"Like what?" The pup pushed. "Do you remember what they look like?"

"Yeah."

"Then can you draw them in the snow?"

Luk looked on at the conversation before him and watched as Muk raised his right paw with one claw out in front. He began making the strange symbols in the snow. When he finally finished he stepped away and the pup moved in to look straight down on the letters.

Welcome to Nome.