took Saba by the scruff of her neck and limped up the street, Jace followed nervously. In no time at all the stranger was pawing on Jenna’s door. Jenna’s head poked out from the dog door. “Saba! What happened?” she gasped, pulling her self out of the dog door to sniff her daughter.

“This boy here and his sister were attacked.” The stranger told her. Jenna looked at him all funny, apparently wondering if he had attacked them. “He didn’t attack us, this other dog was attacking Saba and I went to help her.” Jace explained. “Quite a kid, he is. I have never seen a small puppy like him throw a pit-bull.”

“What?” Jenna exclaimed.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jace began. “All I know was that I was scared for Saba and angry at the dog that hurt her…. I was really frantic…” Jace breathed. “He saved me. I probably would have been killed if Jace hadn’t turned up.” Saba said thankfully, nuzzling her brother.

“Jace, I’m so proud of you!” Jenna whispered, nuzzling her son and then her daughter. “What did the dog look like? Maybe I can—” Jenna began. “He’s dead.”  The stranger held up his paw and Jenna gasped when she saw the peg on his leg. The she noticed the needle sticking out. “I just really hate it when people attack pups just to prove their ‘oh so strong’.”

“So you killed him?”

“Yup. Right on the spot.”

“May I ask what you’re name is? I’ll need to thank you for saving my children.”

“It doesn’t matter miss…?”

 “Jenna! I’m back!” Balto came trotting around the corner. He froze when he saw his son with the new dog. “I haven’t seen you in a long time, not since the ship wreck.”

“Balto? Oh hey, whatcha doin’?”

“I went for a run on the beach with the pups, Aleu and actually running faster than Kodi.”

Balto looked at Saba and concern clouded his eyes. “Saba, are you alright?”

Jace quickly explained the situation and Balto frowned when he finished. “Jace, what you did was dangerous and pretty risky but… that doesn’t stop me form being prouder than I have ever been in my life!” Balto said, licking his son’s ear. “Saba, you need rest. Jace, so do you. Thank you very much for your help, Black-adder.”

The dog merely shrugged. “It’s fine, see ya.” He growled, he turned, his tail curling around his back as he began to walk away. “Wait, mister!” the dog groaned. “What?” he snapped trying to make it perfectly clear that he wanted to be left alone. Jace did not get the message. “Where are you going?”

“Away from annoying puppies, that’s for sure. Why ya followin’ me?”

“You act like an adult, but really you’re one year old right?”

“Yeah, why are you so interested? Bug off.”

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing, piss off.”

“Thanks for earlier.”

“Don’t mention it now; piss off before I get angry!”

Jace nodded, he began walking away but he looked over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to come visit us in case anything happens.”

“Yeah, sure, thanks, kid.”

“Can you tell me you’re name?”

“Fine, the name’s Adder.”

 “Thanks again, Adder.”

 

Adder growled and began walking away although part of him wanted to stay with Jace, he knew he couldn’t though. He began walking; he looked over his shoulder and sighed when he saw Jace was no longer there. Jace had said he was welcome if wanted to come back, that was the only nice thing anyone had ever said to him in his short miserable life.

 

Balto had been a very small source of comfort when he met him. Adder had been able to spend very little time with Balto because of the town’s hatred for him.

 

 

 

The moon sat in the darkness casting a silver glow upon the land, Jace sat on Balto’s boat, alone. His father was at his mother’s house with his brothers and sisters so he, Jace, was alone. Boris was out with Stella so the boat was free of goose. Jace sighed and closed his eyes as a wind blew through his golden brown fur. He opened his eyes and smiled sadly. “I guess I have to accept the fact that my father will always look upon me with fear.” He whispered.

Jace knew he would have to face the truth of the matter at hand, which was that Jace would always be looked upon badly, because of his striking resemblance to his grandfather. “Don’t they know what it’s like?” he growled. “Why doesn’t anyone understand?” he bellowed.

 

Jace’s voice echoed throughout the stars, vibrating through out the air and then the echo vanished. Jace looked left and right and without warning the feeling of despair crashed over him, the feeling of loneliness, of horrible loneliness filled him up with sorrow and as the feelings mixed together Jace threw back his head and howled.

 

When his howls died away, Jace slammed his head repeatedly against the wall. “DAMMIT! Why me, why me? Why did this have to happen, my mother’s never going to trust me, my father’s never going to trust me… I might as well—”

 

“—just shut up actually, you’re much noisier than I expected.”

“No, you shut up! You don’t know what I’m going through!”

“I know as well as you do, Jace. Ya know why? Because I went through the same crap you did.”

 

Jace turned. “Adder, what are you doing here?”

Adder sat on the window sill in the captain’s cabin, his curled tail wrapped around his back leg. “This used to be my ship; I gave it to a young goose named Boris after I tried to eat him for lunch. He was lookin’ for a place to stay away from town so I gave him the ship. Now it’s Balto’s boat.”

 

The younger dog, Jace, sighed and walked over to him just as Adder jumped down from the window sill and curled up on the floor, Jace sat down in front of him. “So, what happened to you?”

Adder looked at him and sighed.

 

“In spring my mother gave birth to a litter of six puppies. I was born a day later so there were seven of us. My father cared for us and loved us and I don’t know what went wrong but one day, my mother was crying. When I asked her what was wrong she simply said that my father wouldn’t be comin’ back. She was wrong, my father came back, but he had changed a lot. The old fool had completely lost his mind, each one of us he tried to kill and all my mum did was sit and watch, too horrified to act.

“The right thing to have done was to get up and fight for me and my litter mates, to fight for us but… she just stood there and watched as my father threw my siblings off the cliff finally he turned to me and pulled on my ear so much that it just stays like that, bent.. Then he grabbed my throat and tossed me about. Still my mum did nothing, she just watching, and watching, listening to the screams and howls. The last thing she did was scream when my father knocked over the ax on the table. That’s how I lost my leg here.

“She was thrown off the cliff without protest and I was left for dead until someone with a kind heart came and took care of me, gave me a patch for my eye and a peg for my leg but I found out that my father had committed murders in town and I was beaten yet again for my resemblance to him. He was a husky/akita inu mix just like me only I have German Shepherd blood in me.”

 

“That’s awful. I thought I had it bad.”

“But you do!” Adder suddenly snarled, standing up he prowled towards him.

“You have it plenty bad here, don’t you? My story may be different but either way we’re punished because of resemblances to people who are hated through out the world! You’re Father half hates you because you look like his father, and I’m hated because I look like one of the most dangerous dogs since…” he trailed off there.

 

“What are you getting at?” Jace asked. “I don’t think my father hates me; I just don’t think he trusts me.”

“But off course he doesn’t trust you! You look like you’re god forsaken grandfather! With you’re strength I don’t think you’d need to depend on you’re father for that much longer. You have the choice to come and go as you please, you can be free.”

 

Jace’s ears perked and he cocked his head. “‘Be free’? You mean I could leave if I wanted to? No kidding?”

 

“I’m not joking, pee-brain!” Adder snapped. “If you really don’t like life as it is you can do something, dammit! And you never thought of this…?” he growled. Jace considered this. Adder was not quite a friend yet so he could be tricking him but at the same time, Jace knew that this was no lie and he knew at that moment that Adder had done the exact same thing.

 

“So I could leave Nome and go, wherever I want?”

“Hell yeah, you could go to Japan or England, Greenland, Iceland!”

“What’s Japan?”

“God you’re dumb, more like deprived.”

“I’m not dumb! Just because you know more than I do doesn’t mean I’m stupid!” Jace growled.

 

Suddenly Adder turned to look at him; he looked him right in the eyes. “You’re eyes are something else… you’re only a little puppy right now but, you make me believe differently. It’s like I’m staring into the eyes of an adult, sometimes I find myself lost in them.” Jace didn’t know what to say. “Is that unusual?” he asked.

 

“I’ve never seen eyes like yours before so for me, yes.” Adder responded. Jace looked at him and walked past him and over to the edge of the boat. He leapt up onto the edge and sat there, staring at the town of Nome in the distance. “I’ve never felt any love in Nome. Or from my family. I’ll miss everyone but I really have no desire to stay here and live with that burden here. I want to leave it behind and see new people, new places.”

 

Jace looked over at Adder who was expressionless as he watched Jace. “Could we really leave? Where would we go?” Adder shrugged. “We’d just stay in Alaska there are quite a few nice towns out there. But, you might not come back here. So if you’d like to say farewell to anyone you should do it now.”

 

Suddenly there was a creek and Adder froze. Someone or something was creeping up the dock towards them.

 

 

Jenna lay in her basket by the fire with

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