A/N: Alright so how long has it been since I updated? Like a week maybe two, right? "..." wait, what? "..." you're telling me it's been like seven months!? What have I been doing during all that time? "..." HIBERNATING?! I don't hibernate! Screw you, voice in my head.

Well I better get busy then. Thanx to all the people who answered the riddle last time (like three people: TheTARDISLegilimens, Omnitrix 12, and HoboJr2000) and the answer was indeed 'G' so congrats to all of you because you were all right.

The new riddle is:

The poor have me, the rich need me, and if you eat me, you will die. What am I?

38: Nome: Part the Second

It was time to try our luck in Nome...

I stood up and stretched out my legs. For some reason I was extremely tense and nervous, though just a moment ago I had felt relaxed and at ease. Even the buzz in my head had intensified, as if over-eager to get moving. 'You held on this long, you can wait a little longer' I told it. I didn't know when I had given it a consciousness, but the vibrations seemed to abate, if only slightly.

Aniu stood beside me and loosened up her muscles as well. For a moment we waited, staring at one another, waiting for the other to move first. Finally I broke the trance and nuzzled her lightly. To my surprise, I felt her shaking. "It'll be fine." I told her in as calm a voice as I could muster. She just nodded and led the way out of the wheel house.

I followed and we jumped to the ground from the bulwark. We climbed a nearby hill and looked north to the sprawling town of Nome. We spent a minute there, admiring the way the fading light gleamed off the snow covered roofs and flashed a variety brilliant colours.

But eventually we forced ourselves forward, making our way down the other side of the small hill and setting off towards Nome. It was an easy enough trip and we didn't have to worry much about hiding. No one was this far out and the moving shadows helped conceal our approach.

I wasn't too worried about being seen myself. A dog walking into Nome wasn't an uncommon occurrence after all. But if a wolf should be spotted, especially one with a glittering white coat like Aniu's, every hunter in town would be tripping over each other trying to get to her. I was determined to keep Aniu out of sight.

After about half an hour of walking, we finally reached the outskirts and darted behind a small shack. I whispered to Aniu, "ok, so far so good. From here we need to make our way to the western side of town where my old musher's house used to be. If there is anything that I need to remember it would be there. We need to be careful however, because on the way, there is an open stretch right in front of a big warehouse that the dogs call the boiler room. It's like the meeting place for the entire canine population of the town." I warned. "We could go around the other side of town or cut through but that would take twice as long and raise our chances of being discovered by the humans."

Aniu nodded and gave me a small grin, "what is it you say? Easy as a piece of pudding?"

I smiled back. I knew that she knew the correct proverb, as I had heard her use it before, but she was trying to lighten the mood and for that I was grateful. "Cake. it's a piece of cake." We smiled at each other for a moment more, then I made my way around the side of the building and started moving west.

It wasn't difficult to remain unseen in the fading light and shifting shadows that blanketed the town. It seemed like the entire town was already asleep. We only had a single close call in town when a front door suddenly swung open, revealing a tall red-headed man who was busy putting on a thick fur coat and arguing loudly with someone in another room. "I know it's freezing out but I'm worried about Aurora. She's been behaving strangely and eating a lot lately." He stopped just outside the doorway with his head sticking back in to listen to the other person's reply. It was his hesitation that saved us as we were able to quickly duck out of the bright rectangle of light that the open door cast and behind a different house. "Yes, yes, of course I'll be quick. I just want to make sure she still has food and water for the night. We'll probably have to take her to the vet anyway."

He closed the door behind him and made his way to a small fenced in area on the backside of the house where a small shed leaned against the house. He entered and disappeared inside. I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and I heard Aniu sigh in relief behind me. Once we had steeled our nerves again, we headed out from the shadows and continued west.

We were nearly caught again during the open strip where the warehouse stood a little ways away from the main collection of buildings. We were halfway across and I had finally felt a bit of relief because we had almost made it when two dogs suddenly appeared out of the alley ten meters in front of us. I froze at once and I hope that Aniu had too but I didn't dare turn my head to look.

The two canines, however, didn't have eyes for us as two more dogs followed the first out. The back two were obviously females and the two dogs leading must have been males by the way they kept glancing over their shoulder to stare dreamily at their companions. The females pretended not to notice, but made it all too apparent that they did by the swing in their hips and raised noses. They were obviously used to the attention and enjoyed it. If the four had perhaps not been so wrapped up in the other sex, they probably would have noticed us and we would have been done for. But as it was, they didn't even glance in our direction while they paraded to the boiler room and closed the door behind them.

We waited an extra five minutes, not moving and barely breathing, to make sure there were no other dogs and none would come back out. Finally we continued on our journey and once we were in the relative safety of another house, we relaxed for a moment to let out the tension of the last few minutes.

Just before we were to resume our seemingly endless trek, Aniu gazed back in the direction of the warehouse and scoffed. "Males." she said, and as I noticed how breathtakingly beautiful she looked even as she glared into the distance, I couldn't help thinking that she was absolutely right.

At last we made it to our destination. My owner's old oceanside house. I remembered how it used to look, with it's freshly painted shutters and cleared roof. But now the paint was peeling in the harsh conditions and there was a gaping hole in the roof where the heavy snow had caved it in. It looked so unfamiliar, especially without the lazy curl of smoke drifting from the old stone chimney, that I thought I had the wrong place. But this was it and for a moment, I just sat there in the middle of the road and stared sadly at it.

I had so many memories tied to this place. The first time I had been in a different house than the one I was born in. The first time I had gone swimming when the ice melted all the way to the shore. And of course there were the dozens of times that my human and I would sit out on the back porch as we dozed and watched the sun set out over the ocean. All these memories swarmed and flew around my mind as I stood staring at my old home.

Aniu finally brought me back to reality when she sat down next to me and leaned against me. I glanced down at her, then back at the house and heaved a great shuddering sigh. "I wish you could of seen it in it's better days. It used to be much cheerier."

"If you lived here, I can imagine." She whispered back and I let a sad smile split my lips. "from your descriptions, I was able to roughly guess at what it would look like, but you never mentioned that hint over there." She was indicating a low stand to the side of the house with several items resting on it. They were hard to make out in the moonlight, so I walked closer and realized that it was a memorial. In memory of My owner and team.

On it sat eight burned out candles, one for each dog and our musher. There were also several wilted and dried out flowers but on top of all of them was a single fresh wildflower. I wasn't exactly an expert botanist but I was pretty sure I knew the name of this particular type of flower. But for some reason I couldn't put my paw on it. Before I could think anymore on the matter, Aniu hissed out a warning.

"Someone's coming!" She whisper-yelled. I turned and caught a faint canine scent on the breeze. But it was getting stronger.

I desperately looked around for somewhere to hide but the only place was inside the house. I really didn't want to go in there though. It was just to painful. But there was nowhere else so we dashed inside and hid just inside the doorway so we could see out.

We were just in time as a light golden-yellow dog appeared around the corner of a house a few meters down the street just as Aniu got her tail through the doorway. Again I got that feeling of familiarity, but still couldn't pin it down long enough to recognize it.

As the new dog got closer, I realized she was female and saw that she carried a flower in her mouth. And it was a marigold, the same kind as the one on top of the pile of deceased flowers resting on the memorial. As we watched, she placed the fresh flower on top of the pile and pulled the old one of and set it down beside her. Then she sat down and just stared at the memorial.

Aniu and I didn't dare breathe as we waited for the strange dog to leave, but she didn't so we stayed. Finally, the female got up and made to leave but as she bent to pick pick up the flower to take back with her, she paused and sniffed at the ground. At first she seemed alarmed, then confused, as she continued to sniff the street. I knew we had been discovered and waited for her to either call for more dogs or go get humans.

But then she did something that surprised me. She followed our scent all the way to the front of the house and stood there, confusion and shock written across her face. It was then that I got my first good look at her features and I realized why this dog was so familiar. The flower, the regular visits to the cairn as if she had a personal connection with it... It all fell into place.

I stepped out from the shadows and the female recoiled with surprise. I sat in the doorway and waited for her to compose herself once again.

But she only seemed to be getting more worked up as she inhaled large quantities of air at a time. "No! No, you're supposed to be dead! You all died! How are you here Uncle Trajan?" She shouted and fumed at me, shaking her head and blinking, as if she was hallucinating. "HOW ARE YOU HERE!?"

Finally I spoke, "Hello, Marigold."

A/N: DUN, DUN, DUN! Uh oh, uh oh indeed. What will happen next? How is this new dog related to Trajan if his family is all dead? How will she react to Aniu? All these questions and more (including the riddle, so remember to try and be the first three-five to PM me) will be answered next chapter!