Don't have much to say, but I have a five foot icicle outside of my window AGAIN. Plus I dove in a giant snow bank :D

Enjoy!

Fuyuko let them into a small lodge surrounded by perhaps the toughest trees that Spyro and Cynder have ever seen. Their branches were so heavy with snow and ice that they were drooping down towards the ground, threatening to break at any time. Fuyuko was smart and did a high-pitch roof top so that the snow wouldn't gather up on the top and cause it to collapse. Instead, the design of a high-pitch roof top made it more difficult for snow to accumulate on it and if it gets too heavy, the snow will roll off. So it was a pretty smart design.

"Sheskeen." Fuyukp said, opening up the door to her wooden lodge. Hunter certainly didn't waste any time going inside. He was shaking so much from the coldness that his teeth were chattering together rather loudly and his wings were numb, wrapped up around his body.

"Sil vous plait." Fuyuko said, taking a towel and rubbing it over Spyro's purple scales. At first, Spyro was trying to figure out what she was doing, but then it quickly dawned on him that she was just simply drying him off. Well, she did an exceptionally good job…especially considering that she even got in between his toes. Then she did the same with Cynder.

Hunter looked around the lodge, his head tucked in his shoulders and his arms crossed. The fire in the fireplace felt so nice up against him. It turned his once numb feet into how they should feel. All around the lodge were beautifully handcrafted wooden sculptures and pictures…many of them containing dragons. There were two brown leather couches near the fireplace that were facing a wooden coffee table. Hunter sat down on the couch, and without thinking, grabbed the nearest blanket and covered himself with it. It was very soft and comfortable, hand-knit, and warm.

"Enjoying my blanket, Hunter?" Fuyuko said." Hunter turned his eyes at her since his snout was buried in the blanket.

"So you do remember me?" Hunter said back.

"How can I forget? You were the little kitten that got lost."

"I wasn't a kitten…."

"You still are a kitten, cheetah. Always will be." Fuyuko said, putting the towel away. "You're going to get the couch all wet with that melted snow. I'd get it off of your fur, you know. Eventually it's going to knot up and that's a very painful experience."

"I don't really care right now." Hunter said, his voice muffled as he spoke into the blanket.

"Fine then. Forget your manners." She said with a small smile, putting her staff away. "You said that you came here for something important, Hunter. But before you do so…I know that you can 'put you wings away'…so do so already!" Hunter sighed. He managed to somehow tuck his wings back into his back, but yet it still didn't look like it. Blood started to stain the blanket, but Hunter still didn't really care.

Fuyuko picked Cynder up, surprising the dragon. She just looked as if she were a puppy or a kitten, just looking her over.

"What are you doing?" She said.

"You're quite the frail dragon, dear." She said, putting the black dragon down. "Such determination you three--"

"Four." Sparx said, crossing his arms.

"…such determination you four had to get here. Tell me, what is it?" She said, sitting down on the couch opposite of Hunter.

Spyro and Cynder sat dangerously close to the fire, shivering fiercely. Hunter glanced over at them.

"Loo encasha ban a lee…Allah haja yo combien." Hunter said, before Fuyuko interrupted him.

"English…so that your friends can understand." Hunter sighed.

"It's quite the frightful story…God may have been watching over me." Hunter began, then told her the rest of the story…even when he was nearly killed. It was only when he got to the Golem part that Fuyuko got interested.

"…then we wound up here…" Hunter finished, looking at her. Fuyuko's white clothes seemed to be reflecting dome of the fire's red and orange glare, giving her a bit of a different look.

"He arose…yet again?" Fuyuko said, really bringing out the Scandinavian-Finnish accent. "Oi vey…" She said, settling back in the couch a little more, crossing her arms. "That's quite disturbing to think that once the Golem rose, your village turned against you. The Great Earth Golem was first summoned by Malefor, but then Malefor died so the Golem shouldn't have come back…unless…" She looked up at Hunter. "…unless if Malefor enchanted the Golem with a spell. Then he would rise again…being more powerful."

"Great, so even after Spyro and I went through all of that trouble just to bring down the Golem, he comes back?" Cynder said.

"I'm afraid so, Cynder." Fuyuko said. "The Golem can't turn best friends against best friends, but he can possess others and make them do what he wants. If that happens, and if he wants someone assassinated, then it'll happen. There will be no escape unless the assassin is killed before he gets to you."

"Well that a confidence booster." Cynder said, rolling her eyes.

"So it won't be able to take over us four…err…five…but it will be able to do so to others?"

"Yes. The bond of friendship is so strong that the Golem can't tear it apart. Which is why if any of you fight each other, you're making perhaps the biggest mistake ever. If you fight, you're dead."

Spyro exchanged a nervous glance with Cynder.

"But we mustn't worry about things like that now. You guys have to eat something. Hope you don't mind mountain goat." Furyuko said. Sparx looked like he was about to throw up.

"Uh…do you have anything…different?"

"Yeah. I have the organs of the goat. The inside of the stomach is really good, believe me! The heart is really irony, though. Still, it tastes rather good."

That was perhaps enough for Sparx.

"I don't think I'll have anything now…." Sparx said while Fuyuko went into a small kitchen-like area.

"There's also the head. Ever had roasted goose head before?" Hunter tried to hold in his laughter as he looked at Sparx and Cynder. The two had faces of disgust of them and looked like they were about to throw up.

"Goose sounds nice." Spyro said, only to have Cynder whack him upside the head in a playful matter.

Hunter laughed at the two and just wrapped himself up more in the blanket. The snow was beginning to knot his fur up now, but he didn't really mind. It wasn't too much effort to get the knots undone.

When Fuyuko had finished making the plates in the fireplace, she gave Spyro perhaps the most diverse dish ever known to Dragonkind. First of all, there were good feet and head, then mountain goat heart in some time of slushy broth, and various other muscles and shanks. Not to mention the ribs…that obviously still had the bone on them. Thankfully for Cynder, she only got steak in the same brown, slushy broth.

Now Hunter? No one knew what he had, but whatever it was, there was a lot of it.

Sparx had little strips of meat. He didn't have to eat so much!

"What is this?" Spyro asked, holding up the goose leg.

"That's the leg of a goose." Fuyuko said.

Cynder made a gagging noise.

Spyro just did a brief surprised expression at it and bit down, biting through the bone. Apparently he didn't realize that he wasn't suppose to eat the bone, so everyone was just looking at him in surprise while he was crunching very loudly. "What?" He said.

"You're not suppose to eat the bone…" Fuyuko said, beginning to laugh.

"I'm not?" Spyro just swallowed, not really realizing how strong his jaws were. The bone didn't damage his esophagus or anything, but it surely grossed out Sparx.

"Too late." Hunter said, eating whatever meat it was that he had.

When they were all finished, Hunter started mumbling random prayers again.

"And to thy city of Bethlehem…" He said, but was saying much shorter prayers this time. Fuyuko noticed Hunter's rather emotionless state and was just trying to figure out what he was saying, but when he's saying it in Latin, then it's a little hard to understand.

When they were all practically doing nothing, Hunter just laid down on the couch and shivered slightly, wrapping himself up tightly into the blanket.

"Sha shee tec na hococo…doogluna…." Hunter said to her.

Fuyuko stood up and said, "Doogluna." Spyro and Cynder were already on the ground, sleeping side-by-side, pressed up against each other. Spyro his wing over Cynder's back and their tails were intertwined. Sparx was up on the dream catcher, even though he didn't know what it was. Fuyuko sighed and walked into her bedroom, looking at the blizzard outside for a moment. She had specially built house to withstand blizzards, and it's been standing for quite a long time. She slipped underneath her comfortable blankets and fell asleep.

She was woken a couple hours later by faint whimpering noises. At first she ignored them, but then they gradually woke her up. With her eyes closed, she trudged herself out of her bed and into the living room. She thought that it may have been coming from the two dragons, but instead, it was coming from Hunter. She looked at him with curiosity as she listened to the faint, dog-like whimpers and watched his paws twitch. The expression on his face looked as if he was angry, or about to fight something.

Fuyuko sat down on the couch across from Hunter and watched him. "You're dreaming." She said quietly, careful not to make too much noise. The angry expression then turned into one that looked as if he was about to cry. Fuyuko grabbed her staff and put her hands around the topmost part of it. She closed her eyes and thought hard, trying to see what Hunter was dreaming was dreaming of.

Eventually, it came into focus, and what he was dreaming of startled her.

It was a like a living blood bath in that dream. The walls and buildings of Warfang were stained and splattered with blood; bodies of the deceased lying everywhere. There were cheetah, tigers, wolfs, moles, rabbits, but no dragons.

In his dream, he was laying down on his side in a steady river of bright-red blood that was flowing down the street. It was a small stream, like pouring water on a road. His fur was stained red and he was panting. He had been shot by an arrow in the chest, through his heart, and was bleeding badly. All around him were dead creatures, some of them just simply lying on the ground with their mouths open. Others were up against walls, and some were literally cut in half.

Hunter seemed to have been the only living creature there. That is…until a huge, no I mean huge, black dragon landed down in front of Hunter. This wasn't Cynder, but he looked a lot like her, just more muscular and had shining scales.

"You're the only survivor." The dragon said bluntly. Hunter only looked up at him with his eyes, bloody streaming out of his mouth. The dragon smiled at him…but it was a friendly smile. Not one when it looks as if he's about to kill you, but rather it was a reassuring smile, and one that brought relief. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you." He had said, reaching down and grabbing Hunter.

In the dragon's arms, Hunter was very limp. He couldn't keep his head up and his arm was dangling down towards the ground. It was beating-up that it looked as if it had been rubbed up against a jagged wall.

"There, there, little one." The large male dragon said. "Don't fret. You'll be alright." With that, the dragon flew away off to a lair.

Then the dream switched suddenly. It changed to Hunter standing in front of Chief Prowlus, except Hunter was holding an arrow and was ready to release it.

"Kill me if you wish." Prowlus teased. Hunter tensed up and was ready to let go of the arrow at any moment.

"You can kill me now and go against Allah, or you can lower that arrow and beg for mercy and forgiveness. Sure, I killed Spyro and Cynder, but you've been alone, Hunter. You've always been alone."

Tears started dreaming down Hunter's face.

"I'm the one who killed your parents. They didn't die from diseases, I killed them." That was when Hunter had enough. He released the arrow and it went directly through Chief Prowlus' stomach-area. There was just a moment of silence.

"So this is what you choose, huh, Hunter?" Prowlus said. "May Allah have mercy on your soul." And with that, he fell down to the ground."

The dream was so frightful that Fuyuko forced herself out of the spiritual trance and looked over to Hunter. He stopped whimpering, and instead, his eyes shot open. "Hunter?" Fuyuko said.

"Sanctus Espiritus…I praise thy Allah…" He whispered to himself.

"Don't worry, it was only a dream." Fuyuko said, but it seemed so much more than a dream.

"Did you see it?" Hunter asked.

"I am the Sanctus Espiritus. Of course I saw your dream, Hunter." Hunter just sighed relief.

"Tell Allah I am sorry." Hunter commanded.

"For what?"

"Just tell him!" There was a pause for a moment.

"Allah, lu ecasha bien Hunter une et regat." Hunter sighed relief as he heard the words.

Fuyuko walked up beside Hunter and kneeled down. "It was just a dream, Hunter. Don't worry." She stroked some of his fur, hoping that she was correct.

Hunter sat upright and looked into the glowing red embers of the dying fire. "How did you keep that fire going?" He asked.

"Pine tree sap. Makes wood burn a lot longer." She sat down next to Hunter and put an arm around him, as if she were hugging him. "You're right, Hunter."

"Right about what?"

"You're not a kitten anymore." She smiled a little bit. "But there's also something that I have to tell you."

"What?" Hunter looked over to her.

"Do you remember your parents?"

"Of course I do, Fuyuko. But I lied to Spyro and Cynder. I told them that they died when I was young. I didn't tell them the truth…should I have?"

"You did it for the sake of your friends, Hunter. That's good enough for me." Hunter looked away from her and down to the ground. A tear fell from his eye as he wiped it away.

"I just miss them so much…I told them…Spyro and Cynder…I told them that I lived my childhood with Meadow and his grandmother. No one ever told them what really happened. And I…I feel guilty for that." Hunter's chest started to quiver.

"Did you tell them where you were from?"

"No…they think that I'm from Avalar…."

"Do you remember everything exactly as it was? Do you remember your parents being slain?" Hunter nodded his head and started quivering, wiping away tears from his eyes.

"I didn't…I didn't get to…to say…good…goodbye." Hunter said through his quivers, trying to burst out in tears like how he used to every night.

What really happened was that when Hunter was only twelve years old, his village, nestled in the Dragon Mountain Range, was attacked. His parents were slain right in front of him, and Hunter was captured. He was a slave for about three years, being tortured and nearly killed, until eventually he managed to escape. Starving and dehydrated, traumatized and wounded, he traveled through the mountain range and made it down into Avalar somehow. When he was founded, he was going through heart failure. He had strained his heart just too much, and then he started collapsing for no reason. Then he started having asthma attacks, and until he was too fed-up with it all, he ran away.

He only wound up being ambushed and captured again and put on Skab's ship. He was there for about two years, so now he was fifteen. Then when Spyro had come and burnt the ship down, he fell into the ocean and washed ashore. With his brothers and sister dead, his parents slain, asthma, and trauma-after-trauma occurring, he just broke down into a heap of fur, tears, and terrible memories.

That was when he became so angry with himself that he punished himself by traveling all the way back to Avalar. No one knows how he managed to find it, but he just did.

When he had returned, he was much stronger, but extremely angry. Depressed and angered, he started learning archery so that he could help recover. Also to release his anger by killing things. When he went back through his entire life, he realized how miserable he was letting himself become. All what he started doing was crying, and becoming extremely unresponsive. The thoughts of his dead family made his mental state brittle, and one slip could end up in a fight. Whenever Hunter got in a fight, he always won. People learned to 'back off' form him.

He's been traumatized one too many times. He witnessed his parents dying…saw their blood slashed up against the floor, and saw his brothers and sister burn to death. He was captured and tortured, forced to do his 'master's' bidding. Then he was freed but captured again and forced to compete with others. He had to fight for his own food, for crying out loud! Then he fell into the ocean and washed up ashore on some random island.

And yet…he's never told Spyro and Cynder how depressed he's been. He's never told them any of it…but now he believes that he should have. He should have told them at least that his parents were murdered. That might make things a little better.

I know this is long, but I really had to bring in Hunter's past.

Please review!

Thanks cornys for all your help! If you ever spot anything wrong, just tell me!