Chapter 26 – A Man Worthy Of You

	The boat struck something in the ensuing chaos.  It jarred us all, hard, and briefly panicked me until I realized it was probably just the edge of the landing, itself.  We’d been close last I’d been able to see it.
	It jostled a second time as the boat behind us banged into our stern, and Grayson stood and shouted at the men behind us.  “Lash ‘em up!  Don’t get in the water if you can help it!”
	Odina finished packing her rifle a third time, standing carefully and taking the wolf’s offered hand after he’d leapt onto the platform.  “Whatever that was,” she grated out, “it was exceptionally foolish.  We’re underground!”
	“Thunder bomb,” Grayson said, everyone’s voices still sounding vaguely muted, to me.  “More bark than bite.  Sure as hell clears an area, though.”
	I dropped the oars and waited for the rest of the men to leave the boat before I stood, out of fear of unbalancing it.  It actually felt like we were resting on something beneath the water, like we’d run aground.  The platform here was made from packed earth and stone, but it seemed to work like a ramp, running down into the canal.  So when I clambered up to join the others, the boat didn’t move much.
	The platform actually did appear to be. . . mostly. . . intact.  The stone was blackened and littered with debris, including bits of white porcelain that probably hadn’t been there before.  I couldn’t guess at what the bomb had been packed with, but it hadn’t done much to damage the crates and the other small boats moored here.  Still, there were flecks of blood everywhere, and two men moaning in pain on the ground, clutching bleeding faces.  The rest seemed to have fled up a dark, shallow staircase nearby, carved into the earth and only barely reinforced with old lumber.
	Akachi pulled the blade from his hip, leaned down and deftly cut the throat of one of the injured Jackwalds, and another of Grayson’s men ran the other through before he could get up.  The casual affect with which these men killed still unnerved me, but I knew the worst was yet to come.  I pulled my own axe from my belt, preparing myself.
	Odina eyed the staircase, warily.  “They would have heard the gunshots anyway, but now they’ll certainly be prepared.  Up there, waiting for us.”
	“Aye,” Grayson agreed.  “We’ll have to hope he’s sent most of them out into the streets to handle the riot.  But still, that’s a kill zone.”  He looked out to his men as we crowded onto the platform.  “Any thoughts?”
	“You said you don’t have another of those things you threw?”  I asked.
	The wolf shook his head.  “We were getting picked off.  I could’ve held on to it longer I s’pose, but-“
	“No, I was directly in the line of fire,” I said, “I’m glad you did.  But. . . what if we had something that looked like one of those?”
	Grayson seemed to grasp my meaning after a moment, then slowly grinned, patting my shoulder.  “I like it.  Alright, what can we rig up quick-“
	I stuck a paw into my belt pouch, the one where I kept all the small essential things I might need day-to-day.  I knew for a fact that I’d stashed something in there a week or so ago, when we’d needed it for the break-in at the Immigration Offices.  I pulled out the chunky candle, offering it to him.  It was cylindrical.  Vaguely the shape of what he’d thrown.
	And it could be lit.
	“It won’t stay lit when you throw it,” Odina pointed out, while Akachi hunkered in close and began to rip the sleeve off one of the fallen men nearby, taking the candle from Grayson to begin wrapping it in the cloth.  He tied the strip of cloth off as well as he could once it was bundled, and by that point Grayson had pulled something from his coat.  A silver flask.
	“It will with a little encouragement,” he said, emptying the flask’s contents over the wick and the top of the bundled candle.
	“We won’t have long before they figure out it isn’t real,” Odina said, checking her rifle.
	“Hopefully by then they’ll have ducked and covered,” I muttered, flexing my jaw and trying to chase the ringing from my ears.  “I would.”
	“Sorry,” Grayson said to me, then turned to his gathered men.  “Move in fast, gents.  They’ll have men with firearms trained on that door, too.”
	The large, pebbly gray man with the thick hide and broad head, who I’d since learned was a type of person called a ‘hippo’, stepped forward and grabbed up the lid from one of the many old barrels on the landing.  Realizing his intent, I did the same.  A few others, including Arch, joined us.
	“First wave,” the hippo grinned toothily at me, showing off his tusks.  “Always us big’uns with tough hides, huh?”
	“Well I’m not ashamed to admit I’m glad for your heroism,” Grayson muttered, testing the weight of the improvised ‘fake bomb’ in his hand.  “I’ll poke my head out long enough to throw this thing, then fall back with the others.  We should have a gun-line behind the heavies, open fire as soon as we’re in.”
	The two of us bears, the hippo and the boar formed the front line, easily wide enough shoulder-to-shoulder to cover the width of the staircase up into the warehouse.  I pulled the hood of my parka up, affixing it over my ears and gathering it as well as I could over my shoulders, before lifting the barrel lid alongside the other men.  It wasn’t exactly the best cover, but it was better than nothing.
I watched Grayson light the ‘bomb’, the whole top half of the oblong bundle flaring up from whatever he’d poured on it, and for just a moment I reflected on how much I’d enjoy telling this part of the story to Finn someday.  When we were together again.
I had not come this far to lose him now.
Once we got to the foot of the stairs, Grayson slipped between the four of us, and carefully tossed the object up the stairs, planting it dead center on the landing upstairs.  It rolled out of sight, and there were distant cries of alarm and panic, just as we’d expected.
“Now!”  I roared, raising the lid in front of me.  Shoulder-to-shoulder, we stampeded up the stairs, emerging into the glare of the well-lit warehouse.
Everything erupted around us in a raucous clamor of shouting voices, gunfire, and the ever-present thudding of blood in my ears.  Immediately, a hail of fire fell on us, punching back my arm as the barrel lid was struck, twice, and a third bit me in the leg.  I registered the pain but wasn’t sure how bad it was, I just knew I was able to continue moving.
The boar fell beside me, the hippo similarly taking shots in his improvised shield, one of them skipping around it to nick him in the arm.  He threw the lid down, giving a terrifying, almost otherworldly roar as he pulled a pair of scimitars from his hip and leapt over the fallen boar, rushing the first blockade of crates some of the Jackwalds were taking cover behind.
I felt Odina moving in behind me, shouting, “Above!” as she lifted her rifle and fired.  Sure enough, along the second story of the warehouse, (much like the one Grayson had taken refuge in) there was a walkway several of the gunners were posted in, aiming over barrels and crates down at us.  Her shot caught one in the shoulder, sending him stumbling back into the wall, rifle clattering down off the walkway.
Grayson and Akachi were to the right of me, the two of them nimbly leaping up and over a lashed stack of grain bags.  Grayson drove his saber home into one man’s gut while Akachi spun around a smaller Jackwald, the two of them briefly dancing with knives until Akachi brought his elbow up into the canine’s jaw with a resounding crack, then his blade down into the man’s back with his other hand.  Once, then many more times in rapid succession for good measure.
While Odina and I tried to make our way towards cover, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.  A particularly brash Jackwald was leaning out from behind a support pillar, pulling one of two pistols from his chest holster.  I reacted fast enough to catch the edge of his barrel with my axe, the weapon going off less than a foot from me, the shot just barely missing.  
He swore, and was going for his second pistol when Odina thrust her rifle past me, under my arm.  It was actually Sawyer’s rifle, which while inferior as a firearm than her own, did have a bayonet on the end of it.
The man stumbled back away from us behind the pillar, still fumbling with the pistol on his chest holster.  I pursued him, choosing to hold on to my axe.  It was the only one I had, since we’d left the Basin.
He made it as far as back-up, a group of three other men who’d either already fired, or foregone their guns for hand weapons.  Two of them had sabers, the other a large meat cleaver that while still smaller than my axe, looked no less threatening. 
One of them was the maned dog.  The Captain.
He recognized me immediately, his teeth bared and snarling.  He already had a very fresh wound on his face, and another on his hand that was seeping blood.  But oddly, the one on his hand had been wrapped, like he’d somehow had time to treat it.  He must have sustained it in the riots outside, that was my only guess.
“Fer God s- goin’ ta kill that fuckin’ Priest,” he snapped, pulling his steel.
“Too late,” Odina growled from behind me, before whirling her arm forward.  A knife sunk itself in the breastbone of the man beside the maned dog, dropping him to his knees.  The maned dog gave a thunderous yell and came at us.  Despite his furious demeanor, his charge seemed calculated, his footwork careful.  The large man was shockingly light on his feet, and easily zig-zag stepped around the first swing I made with my axe, bringing his sword up in a twisting arc that caught me across the wrist, superficially, but only because of my parka, which it briefly caught in.
He was at my left then, moving back in quickly, then darting back again when I swung wildly at him once more.  Odina stayed to my right, only barely keeping the other man with the cleaver at bay.  The one we’d chased here fired off his final shot at us, but despite his close proximity, he still missed, the shot passing between us.  Those things really were inaccurate. . . 
The maned dog lunged forward again, and this time I brought my axe up in time.  I thought I’d managed to defend myself properly for once, but he seemed to have planned for it, and with the advantage of leverage and the fact that my wrist was bent awkwardly, twisted his sword to easily bat my axe away.  And then he had an opening, and he used it, driving his saber with a quick stab beneath my parka, into my torso.  He caught me just above my hip, the blade piercing past my fur and hide and into my muscle.  The pain briefly overwhelmed me, but my instinct to survive and honestly, pure fear soon eclipsed that.  I swung my axe out recklessly, not even possessing the foresight to turn the blade.  I struck his shoulder with the flat of it, and he darted back away from me, his blade withdrawing as quickly as he’d stuck me with it.
The unplanned, chaotic attack seemed to have caught him off-balance, and I must have hit him hard, because he was cringing when he brought his sword back up.  He kept his other hand on his hip as he circled me, turned to the side and keeping his profile slim, looking for another opening.
I could feel blood seeping out from the puncture wound, into the fabric of my shirt.  It was hot, and the smell elicited something feral and terrified within me.  That was my life.
The fighting raged around us.  Odina had stumbled into my back at least once now, trying to avoid the man with the cleaver.  All she had to defend herself with in melee other than the knife she’d thrown was her rifle and bayonet.  She was using it to keep him at a distance, but it was unwieldy.  And these men were trained killers.
The maned dog fought like a soldier- he’d probably been one before joining the Jackwalds.  The gap between us was becoming more and more obvious the longer this fight went on.
Through the haze of gun smoke and glaring lantern light, I could see the two large bay doors at the back of the warehouse.  And beyond that, silhouetted against the pale, purplish-blue of the mid-morning sky, masts.
I couldn’t die here.  I just. . . couldn’t.
The maned dog came at me with a cross-step and another well-practiced, arcing swing, and I let him complete it.  I leaned forward into it with one shoulder, his blade coming down on my neck.  I might not have been fast, or trained to fight like he was. . . but I was a bear.  The back of my neck was one of the thickest areas of fur and hide on my body, and it was where the hood of my parka had bunched, as well.
I still felt the sting of his blade as it sliced into my flesh, but it didn’t make it any deeper than my hide.  And more importantly, I’d caught the maned dog entirely off-guard.
I brought my other arm- the one I’d dropped- up, the axe still in hand.  I hooked it around the back of one of his legs and yanked, the backend sinking in and sticking there long enough for me to topple him over.
He was momentarily stunned and now bleeding profusely from the leg, but gathered his wits about him with the same ferocity to live that I’d had, and made to raise his saber again.  But that moment of shock was all the time I needed to bring one of my feet down on his sword-arm and stomp, grinding my heel into his wrist until I heard a pop.
I won’t lie, hearing him cry out in pain. . . there was something deeply satisfying about that.  But my victory was short-lived, as a moment later I heard Odina cry out, as well.  When I turned, she was backing away, not from the man with the cleaver, but the first man who’d run us into this group, who’d gotten in behind her with a knife.  She was bleeding from her thigh, limping back while trying to keep two men at bay at once.
I kicked the maned dog once more in the head to ensure he was no longer conscious, before turning my attention back on the two men assailing Odina.  But before I could assist her, a peel of gunfire sounded nearby us, and the one with the cleaver dropped lifeless to the ground with a hole in his chest.
Grayson stood over us on a stack of shipping crates, shoving the empty flintlock back beneath his coat, before leaping down to join us.  The distraction served Odina well, and she drove her bayonet forward into the remaining man’s arm with a frantic scream, the blade spearing him straight through the bicep.  
He gaped down at the wound for a moment, before his eyes rolled back and he stumbled over, falling off of her bayonet and to the ground, in shock.  Grayson made his way to us at that point, reaching down to grab the man by the ears and pull his head back far enough to run the edge of his blade across his throat.
A wave of dizziness and a feeling not unlike the vertigo I’d had after I’d been hit in the head washed over me, and everything Odina and he said to me for a few moments after that got muddied.  I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d lost too much blood, or if the violence surrounding me was just. . . more than I could endure.  My heart was pounding and my body was shaking, my vision tunneling like it did sometimes when I had those. . . attacks. . . where everything felt like it was falling apart. . . .
Odina put her hands on my shoulders, and her shouts, her eyes on mine, were what brought me back.
“-the ship, bearchild.  We need to get to the Favor.”
“GO!”  Grayson shouted, pulling another flintlock from beneath his coat.  How many did he carry?  “I need to stay with my men, but that bastard isn’t in here, so stay sharp!”
Akachi, Archibald and a small cadre of Grayson’s men met us at the bay doors, clearing the way for us.  Akachi’s voice rose over the din, “You ready to make the run?  I’m sure they’ve got gunmen on-board.”
Odina clamped a hand over her hip, her palm coming back smeared with blood.  But she nodded, regardless.  Thinking quickly, I leaned over and dropped a shoulder to her.  She balked at the gesture, shaking her head.  “I’m fine!”
“Don’t be stubborn,” I insisted.  “I’m not letting you fall behind so they can pick you off.”
Growling and resisting for only a moment later, she shouldered her rifle and gave a small jump, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.  I stood, lifting her with me, knitting my arms behind me to hold her up.  Akachi gave us the seconds we needed, before whistling at the men who’d gathered round us.  “Spread out!”  He ordered.  “Don’t clump.”
I readied myself as much as I could mentally to make the run.  All I had to do was get myself and Odina across one stretch of earth alive.  Looking at it that way made it less terrifying.  Simpler.  
When we broke out into the open, I sucked my first breath of salty, briny ocean air into my lungs, and it gave me a burst of renewed vigor.  I hoofed across the clearing, knowing full-well that if someone had me in their sights and was accurate enough to hit, there was nothing I could do to prevent it anyway.  
A few shots did erupt from the ship, but not nearly as many as there had been inside the warehouse.  I heard Arch cry out as he was struck, and I had to fight every instinct inside me not to stop and go to him.  It helped that I had another life on my back I had to think about.
Akachi and his men beat us by a wide margin to the ship.  It was about the size the Arbor Express had been, not small by my measure, but small enough that it could be moored off this pier and accessible over a gang plank.  By the time we’d made it on board, the Privateers had made quick work of the half dozen gunners left above-decks to defend it.  But more were coming from the lower decks, and I could hear others crossing the pier towards the ship as well.
“Find him!”  Akachi shouted, pulling his blade from one of the men on deck, before turning and pulling his rifle off his back, aiming carefully across the pier.
	Odina climbed down off my back and grabbed me by the hand, running with me towards the center of the ship.  It was clear most of the Jackwalds defending the Fortune’s Favor had come above-decks and were engaged by now, we managed to skirt past several melees on the way without getting involved.  I prayed silently for the men up here, but in addition to my yearning to find Finn, we’d also been given orders.  Without him, this whole ordeal was pointless for the Privateers, too.  
The stairs down were empty and quiet.  We approached them cautiously nonetheless, Odina taking the chance to re-pack her rifle.  If someone was waiting for us at the bottom of them, it would be a close-quarters fight.  And I wasn’t even good at the normal kind.
	Odina kept her rifle trained on the square of dim light at the bottom of the staircase as we descended it.  If this ship was built anything like the Express, which so far it seemed to be, the first of the interior decks would house the Captain’s quarters, and by the look of the ship from the outside, most of the guns.  We moved down each step slowly, the wood creaking beneath our feet.  A lantern flickered over the low entranceway, and beyond it the circles of many others down a clear central path, flanked by the glossy iron hides of the evenly-spaced guns. . . or ‘cannons’, as Grayson had once called them.
	I was prepared for something- anything.  For someone to leap out at us from around the corner in the dimly-lit space, or aim a pistol directly at our heads and fire as soon as we stepped out.  But Odina pushed her rifle through first, spinning to face one side while I faced the other. . . and we found ourselves alone.  The gun deck was empty.
	“There,” she pointed her rifle at another set of stairs, leading down to the crew quarters, the mess, likely the capstan.  I remembered the layout somewhat well from our time on the Express, even though this vessel was far more heavily armed and laid out differently in places, much of it was the same.  “If he’s stashed aboard, he’s probably below-decks like Grayson said,” she said softly, moving towards the second set of steps and gesturing at me once she’d poked her rifle down there.  “Looks clear.”
	I followed her, staring once behind us before we descended the staircase.  I kept my ears up, listening for anything. . . any signs of life.  I was beginning to fear we may have come all this way for nothing, assuming they’d have Finnegan here just because of what Gezan had said.  What if they’d decided to stash him somewhere else until they were ready to sail?  What if Gezan had been intentionally misleading me, knowing I could speak Amurescan?  But wait, no. . . he’d given bad information to the Priest then, and that didn’t make sense. . . 
	Every possible thought and terrible outcome went through my mind in that short trip down those stairs.  But then, I heard breathing.  Slow, so slow. . . and not just one person.  I knew Odina had heard it too, I watched her large ears come up and twist.  We both slowly turned to stare down towards the left-hand side of the crew quarters.  It was pitch dark down here, no lanterns lit.  I grabbed one from the staircase and we carefully picked our way through a twisted sea of hammocks, past the tables for the mess, towards the capstan.  Behind it, sequestered up against the keel-facing guns, was a partitioned-off area. . . with children in it.  
	There were five of them, all Otherwolves of various shapes and ages, but I’m certain none were older than Rory.  They were still as corpses save for soft, slow breathing that at least confirmed they were only asleep.  Something was very eerie about the scene, though.  They were lying on the hard planks, with little more than a few rough blankets thrown down beneath them, and some looked more like they’d fallen there than intentionally laid down.
	“They were still loading supplies on the ship when we got here,” Odina said, crouching down beside one of the pups and brushing their ear aside.  “They must not have had a chance to hide them away yet, below-decks.”
	“Are they okay?”  I asked fearfully. 
	She softly shook the child’s shoulder, but he didn’t wake.  “Something is wrong with them,” she said, concerned.  “But they don’t look hurt.  I think they may have given them something.”
	A loud clattering sound made us both snap to our feet, weapons out.  It settled after a few moments of muffled, continuous noise, like something had rolled across the floor and then settled.  Odina and I both looked to one another, confused, then slowly picked our way back through the crew quarters towards where we’d heard the sound.
There were certainly plenty of places we hadn’t checked, yet.  The Captain’s Quarters, although it was unlikely they’d have hidden him there.  The storage below this level, in the belly of the ship.  But towards the bow end of the quarters was a door presumably leading to the galley if the smell was any indication.  It was open and the room looked dark and unoccupied, but to the left of it was another, far smaller door to a closet or store room of some kind.  It stank of old beer, so I could take a guess.
	The reek of weak alcohol was strong, but as I drew closer, I smelled something else beneath it.  Blood.  A mix of blood, both unfamiliar. . .
	. . . and familiar.
	“Finn!”  I said desperately, grabbing the handle and twisting against the lock.  We didn’t have a key, but I didn’t want to kick it in, either.  He could be right on the other side of the door in such a small room.
	Gritting my teeth, I gripped the handle with one paw and braced against the frame with the other and put my whole shoulder into it, twisting.  My neck, my wrist and my stomach all hurt from where I’d been wounded, I probably had other injuries too, but the whole of my body was a tapestry of aches and pain at this point.  I felt the blood trickling down through my fur, but I didn’t care.  I knew he was past that door, and all I could think of was getting to him.
	The door handle gave way with a snap of wood and metal, I hardly cared what part of it I had broken, all that mattered was that it released its grip, which it did.  Yanking the door open, I stumbled inside into the cramped, dark room and I very nearly tripped over him.
	Odina had taken the lantern when I’d begun working on the door, so my own body blocked out most of the light.  But there was no mistaking the prone figure slumped over against the stacked barrels, his battered, gagged muzzle caught in a sliver of flickering yellow light.  He was sitting with his upper half drooped partially over, legs splayed out, arms behind his back, presumably bound.  There was blood all over his jaw and stained down the front of his shirt and half-open vest and in droplets across the floor.
	I fell to my knees in front of him, swiping aside several tin cups that seemed to have crashed down around him.  That must have been what we’d heard.  Considering the ship was stationary, it seemed likely he’d somehow pulled them down himself.  Which means he’d been awake and alive, at least until recently.
	I gathered him up in my arms, my whole body shaking.  And then he moved.  
	I pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes.  They were half-open, hazy and unfocused.  As I looked down on him, slowly stroking a paw up over the contours of his face, he tried to make a noise against the gag.  I reached around, trying to find where it was tied, growing more and more desperate to help him, but unable to make sense of the knot.
	“Let me,” Odina said softly, kneeling beside me, setting the lantern down and pulling her knife.  She worked it beneath the blood-stained fabric they’d looped around and through his mouth, and he closed his eyes and winced while she sawed against it.  But after what seemed an excruciatingly long time, the thing finally gave way, and I pulled it away from his jaw.
	“I love you, I’m so sorry,” I said frantically, pressing my cheek gently against his, stroking my paw over his ears.  “I’m so sorry. . .”
	“Please. . . be real. . .” he mumbled, his eyes drifting back for a moment before he blinked them blearily open again.
	“What did they do to you?”  I asked, my voice ragged.
	“. . . drugged. . .” he took a few moments to respond, visibly struggling for lucidity. “Bastard. . . Captain. . . force-fed me. . . something.”  He shook his head violently for a moment and struggled to get to his feet.  I wasn’t certain of his ability to stay standing, but we had to move him, so I helped him up.
	I looked again at the blood staining his muzzle and down his shirt, and something finally made sense.  “You bit him,” I said with realization.
	“I would’ve gone’long,” he growled out, “with what. . . they wanted.  But no one. . . puts anything in’my mouth I don’t. . . want.”  He clung to my arm, looking up at me, his eyes glassy.  “Thought they had you. . . thought. . . they’d kill you. . .”  His voice crumbled on the last words, and I pulled him in tightly, relief washing over me so powerfully, I lost the ability to speak.  I tried, wanting to console him, wanting to promise him I’d never let this happen again, even if I had no way to make good on that.
	When I did finally manage to speak, it was a tumult of words I barely thought out before they left me.  “Here I thought you’d. . . hatch some crazy escape plan,” I huffed, my nose buried between his ears.  “And instead you just bite someone’s hand.”
	“I also. . . got’m in the face,” he said, then closed his eyes and leaned into my chest.  “I would’ve given’m. . . everything, Tuli.  I don’t care.  Was so scared. . . for you. . .”
	A heavy creak of wood from the crew quarters was all the warning we got that we were no longer alone.  Odina had been watching the door, but she’d faced us to help free Finn of his gag, and by the time we’d all spun to look out the door, a glinting flintlock was pointed at us in the dark.  
	The enormous, imposing figure making his way slowly down the stairs could only belong to one man.  The swinging silhouette of his finned tail confirmed it.
	Odina tried to bring her rifle back up, but she was doing so one-handed, having to first drop the knife she’d held in her other.  Before she could get a good grip on the weapon, Gezan’s voice boomed across the crew quarters.
	“Ah-ah. . . I wouldn’t,” he warned, cocking the hammer on his flintlock.  
	She braced the stock against her shoulder, calling out, “I’ll still hit you, you son of a bitch!  You’re a big target!”
	“I think you have me mistaken for someone who gives a shit,” the leopard seal growled out in a low rumble, reaching the bottom of the stairs and continuing to walk towards us across the crew quarters, steadily.  “I ain’t some limp-wristed Pedigree cur who’s had it all handed to him.  I clawed and bit my way up from the bottom, and I’ve bled and spilled blood a-plenty on the way.  So if you think I’m goin’ to just let you walk on out of here with my Empire, you are about to find out how wrong you are!”  His voice rose to a crescendo, until he was shouting the last words, the resounding timbre of the man’s declaration thundering throughout the hull.
	I could feel Odina shaking, her tail thrashing against my legs.  She was between me and Gezan, bodily blocking Finn and me.  I couldn’t have shoved past her through the small door, and even if I wanted to, I’m not sure she would have let it happen.  And it would be foolish to budge her in the middle of a stand-off.
	“You have to be laid low,” Gezan said in a hiss between his sharp teeth, “to know how it feels to fear failure more than death.  And I will inform y’all. . . I have been laid that low.  Many times.”  He stared down the barrel of his flintlock and the corded muscle of his outstretched arm at us.  “So go on’n test me.  See how well it works out for you lot.  I guarantee you I’ll take that shot and keep coming.  How do you like your chances?”
	“Bearchild,” Odina said shakily to me in Nontawlik.  “Once I have fired, you must finish it.  Promise me.”
	“No!”  I said immediately.  “He’ll kill you for sure at this range!”
	“Let me die for at least one of my children,” she said resolutely.
	“NO!”  I screamed, looking frantically for a way past her.
	She brought her other hand up, bracing the rifle.  And Gezan fired.
	I braced for the explosive noise, and for a moment I thought I’d gone entirely deaf.  But I had heard something.  Just a hollow metal snap, and then nothing.  For a brief, frozen second, the room was dead silent.  And then Odina fired.
	Then came the loud crack I’d come to know, a two-part sound of powder igniting, and then the bullet leaving the rifle, a small cloud of white smoke billowing around us.  Through it, I could barely see Gezan stumbling back, a dark spot erupting from his clavicle, close to his heart.  But true to his word, he didn’t go down.  He buckled back against one of the supports, clutching a webbed hand over the wound.
	Of all things, Finn laughed.  He still sounded terrified and half-awake, but also appeased.  “You shouldn’buy that cheap shite,” he mocked the injured man.  “Cut with fake powder.  Doesn’t ignite well in this weather.”
	Odina limped aside from the door and called out my name, just as Gezan was wrenching himself to his feet again, throwing his useless pistol down disgustedly.  I didn’t need to be told again.
	I pulled my axe from my belt, roaring out a cry that made my lungs rattle in my chest and descending on the leopard seal with every ounce of unspent fury inside me.  He met my charge, pulling a knife and bringing it up just as I arced my axe down.  He leaned back away from the swing and his blade missed me as well, but I’d over-extended, my swing tipping me off-balance.  Before I could recover, he punched the knife forward at my gut.  I threw my free arm in the way and the blade tore through my parka into my bicep, the pain hardly registering.
	I bellowed in his muzzle and shoved him back against the support pillar he’d fallen against once already.  The ceiling shuddered.  The wood groaned beneath our feet.  Despite his grievous injury, he fought on with a strength that matched or exceeded my own.  His thick, powerful tail smashed against my legs, battering one of my knees until it gave way.  My next swing planted in the support beam instead of his neck.  He tried to jerk his knife up beneath one of my arms into my armpit, but I smashed my skull down into his nose before he could complete the swing, and he hollered out in pain and fell to his rear against the pillar, blood spattering out from his nostrils.
	Once he was on the ground, I released the axe and clambered over him like an Ursark over their prey, hauling back my fists and bringing them down into his head, once. . . twice. . . then one of his clawed feet thrust upward into my gut, catching me in the saber wound I’d gotten earlier.
	That pain, I felt.  Indescribable, deep, laced with primordial fear for my own survival, it momentarily staggered me.  I could hear Odina and Finn trying to move in to help me, but either of our titanic bodies could have easily knocked them off their feet if they got in close.  Odina came in from the left, trying to catch Gezan with her bayonet without risking hitting me.
	Gezan snapped at my muzzle, his already dark eyes gone animalistic and feral.  His teeth closed over half of my muzzle and tore through the thinner skin of my lip, and when I opened my own maw to snap back at him, it tore further.  I bit down into his flesh, his foul blood pooling between my teeth, and I crashed a paw down against his throat, digging my claws into the thick rolls of his hide.  He kicked me again, shoving me off of him, my claws pulling away bits of flesh and blood.
	Odina’s bayonet found an opening and drove down into his shoulder before he could get up again, but he snapped an arm up and batted the weapon aside, jerking her to put all of her weight on her bad leg.  She lost that battle, flung to the ground and gasping in pain, her rifle skidding across the floor beside her.
	Gezan’s jaws opened wide, blood strung between his teeth, the savage ferocity in his gaze unlike any I’d ever seen, in man or animal.  My body hurt and wanted to give in, my strength was fading, my life was leaking out onto the floor. . . and this man just wouldn’t go down.
	Small, dark arms closed around the leopard seal’s throat, a short metal chain slung between them.  Gezan was too focused on me to see the attack coming and soon the chain was digging into his throat, causing him to gag and froth.  Finn had gotten his bound arms to his front, and somehow despite the fact that I knew one of his wrists was badly broken, he was attempting to choke the massive seal.
	Gezan unbelievably got to his knees somehow, yanking the small wolfdog up with him, clawing at his arms frantically, leaving gashes where his fingers dug into the dark fur.  Finn had  a foot planted against his back, pulling the chains taut as well as he could, but he was swiftly losing ground.
	Balling my fists together, I swung them high over my head and brought them down on Gezan’s head with every last fiber of strength I had in my body.  I struck the top of his skull so hard it shook my body with the impact, and the seal’s jaw snapped shut so fast I heard his teeth crack.  He looked up at me, dazed, for a moment longer.  And then he tipped to the side, collapsing half onto his back, legs folded awkwardly beneath him.
	Finn fell away from him, gasping and sucking in air, his right hand dangling from the manacles limply.  He should have been screaming in pain, but all he seemed capable of was slumping back against the pillar, panting.
	Before he could somehow impossibly rise again, I pounced over Gezan and screamed raggedly, bringing my fists down into his muzzle until it barely resembled a face.  My lungs burned, my fingers felt like they were broken, my vision threatened to give way to blackness.  I had to stop eventually and pound a fist down against the ground to keep myself from collapsing.
	And still. . . .
	His chest rose and fell.  His eyes were open, staring up at me, welling with tears.  He couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to, but it was clear he was still conscious.  He was still alive.
	I had a knife on my belt.  Just a hunting knife, but it would do the job.  I reached for it with a shaking hand, trying to seize that conviction, that fury I’d been feeling since the prison.
	My fingers would not close around that knife.  I couldn’t will them to, no matter how much my clouded, desperate mind screamed that I had to.  I couldn’t. . . I couldn’t. . . .
	Why couldn’t I do this?!
	Finnegan stumbled to Odina’s side and tried to help her at least to sit.  She sobbed in pain when she tried, clutching at her leg.  The wolfdog gave a low, murmured, “Don’t move. . . it’s alright,” and reached beneath her coat, drawing her pistol with his left hand.
	I sat there over Gezan, the tears finally coming, my body shaking with heaving breaths.  When Finnegan kneeled beside us, I looked to him, helplessly.
	“I’m sorry,” I cried hoarsely.  “I can’t. . . why can’t I. . . .”
	Finnegan met my eyes with his own.  Even hazy and pained, they were the most beautiful evergreen hue I’d ever known.  Like the forests I’d grown up in.
	“You don’t need to be a murderer, Tulimak,” he said quietly.  He lifted Odina’s flintlock in his left hand, leveling it at Gezan’s head.  “Killing doesn’t. . . doesn’t make you. . . feel whole.  Trust me.”  He looked profoundly sad, then after a few moments had passed, resolved.  “But it’s one burden I can. . . shoulder. . . for us.”
	He fired.  Gezan’s head fell back with an unremarkable thud, and I turned away from the sight.
	“This one,” Finn murmured exhaustedly, “won’t haunt me.”
	I wrapped my shivering arms around him and he dropped the pistol and turned into my embrace, his muzzle pressing up beneath my own.  Odina dragged herself over to us, throwing one of her arms around Finn and I as well.  I held the both of them close, their bodies warm against mine.  We sat there all holding one another, doing little more than breathing, for a long time.
	And that was enough.
	It was Odina who broke the silence in time, drawing a sharp breath through her nose as her paws found Finnegan’s limp right wrist.  “Spirits,” she breathed, “that’s a bad break.  You must be in such pain. . . .”
	“Honestly, I can’t feel much of anything,” Finn admitted, blinking blearily.  “Whatever they. . . gave me. . . I’m in th’clouds right now. . . .”  He looked down at his wrist.  “Th’Divine, I think.  Cut with. . . something.  Used to. . . get it up b’neath my claws when I’d prepare it for my mom.  Sorta. . . built a t. . . tolerance. . . .”
	She shook her head.  “Ambrose, you’re a tough, slippery son of a bitch.  I feel better now that I never managed to catch you outright.  Wouldn’t have been worth the trouble.”
	He gave a dry chuckle, leaning his head back against my shoulder.  But he stilled when he looked to my muzzle, probably seeing the wounds I couldn’t.  “Oh, lord,” he forced himself more upright with some difficulty.  “Come on love, look at me,” he begged.
	I turned my head slowly, my body aching with every motion.  My vision was swimming and my strength was fading.  I wasn’t sure if I was dying, but I very much felt like I wanted to sleep, or lie down.  “I think,” I said unsteadily, blinking slowly down at him, “I’ve lost a lot of blood. . .”
	He glanced down, noticing the paw I had clamped over my midsection where I’d been stabbed.  I could feel the blood all down my side, sticky in my fur.  It had never really stopped bleeding, but when Gezan had kicked me there, it’d gotten much worse.
	Finn’s eyes widened in fear and he pressed a hand over mine, clamping it down over the wound.  “Pressure,” he urged me.
	Footsteps on the stairs gave me a fright so fierce for a second or two, I nearly blacked out.  But it was our men, the Privateers, finally pushing into the ship.  I heard Akachi distantly shouting orders, clearly looking for us.  
	“Here!”  Odina called out.  
	Things began to get hazy after that.  Finnegan and Odina helped lean me against the support pillar, the lioness making sure every few minutes that I wasn’t asleep, rousing me from drifting off intermittently.  Everything faded in and out between a series of moments I could only vaguely remember.  Finn was there, I had to find him each time I woke and touch him or see him at least once to confirm the fact for myself.
	At some point the ship got very noisy and I heard Grayson’s voice from the upper decks, shouting commands to his men.  The sound of the anchor windlass winching up the chain reminded me of when we’d left port on the Arbor Express and our worries had been simpler.  Finn had been manacled then, too. . . 
	Eventually the rocking of the boat was too much, lulling me into a deep, black slumber.  My companions’ voices faded, but I could feel Finn’s hand in mine, so I knew I wasn’t alone.  I was just too tired to wake again.

	One Month Later

	I blinked my eyes blearily open, the morning light streaming in from the small cabin window illuminating the edges of my white fur, and his, like a soft halo.  I was a little overly-warm, but I wasn’t about to complain, the heat sinking into my muscle and bone and making my whole body feel lazy and sluggish.  Some of that was probably because of last night, too.
	I stroked my paw down over his nude body, beneath the blankets.  The curve of his hip, the scruff below his navel, the thicker fur along the tops of his thighs. . . all of it was beginning to feel familiar.  I could trace his body with my eyes closed and find his scars, know which areas still pained him and where to be ginger with my touch.  
	I’d been coming to see him on the Manoratha for two weeks now, since we’d moved him out of Debriss and hidden him away on the large ship moored out in the harbor.  Given how much the Jackwalds were hunting for him now, it simply wasn’t safe for him in the city any longer.  Gezan might have been gone, but the organization he’d left behind wasn’t.  The Captains and other merchants in the Cartel were disorganized, scattered and squabbling amongst themselves, if what Grayson had been able to tell us was accurate.  But they were still very much a threat, at least until the Lancaster Estate was settled.  And the Jackwalds were out for blood.  Their ferocity turned more specifically towards Grayson now, but he assured us he had ‘enemies a-plenty’, and pissing off an entire militia of armed men who outnumbered the standing military in Carvecia was apparently something of a mark of pride in his profession.  Certainly would make his fleet doing business in this port more risky going forward though, and I felt pretty bad about that, even if he didn’t.
	But he seemed to think the ship he’d pilfered and sent out to sea to wait for the rest of his fleet, and the coin he’d been promised would be worth all the trouble.  Which is why I was here with Finnegan.  And not traveling back up north with him.
	I’d been well enough to travel for a week now, even if the wound in my side still ached and throbbed from time to time.  It had been a clean wound, at least. . . the one on my muzzle less-so.  Gezan had torn my lip halfway up to the bridge of my nose, the skin was badly split and I’d needed stitches, which hurt every time I moved my facial muscles, ate, drank, or smiled.  They’d come out a few days ago, but the healing scar still felt tight and painful, and everything I drank had to be lukewarm or it stung like hell.  I’d been hurt a half dozen other places as well, and bedridden with blood loss for nearly a week after everything.  Finn was in mildly better shape, but his broken wrist would take much longer to heal than any of my injuries.  The Ship’s Physician who’d treated him said it was even possible he’d never regain full function of it.
	He was right-handed, obviously, so that could be devastating.  It certainly ended his career as a Duelist, not that that seemed to worry him.  And we couldn’t know how things would end up.  Finn was tough.  He might recover entirely.
	I had scars that would stay with me for life.  And thanks to my light fur, they’d be far more visible than Finn’s.  But I was determined to wear them proudly.  Like my tribal markings, they denoted who I was and what values I held.  I had gotten them defending someone I loved.  I might not be a murderer, but. . . I was a warrior.  And Finn had been right.  I thought, in the time following Gezan’s death, I might feel weak or shameful for having failed once more to kill the man who’d tormented us all so terribly.  That I’d once again left that burden to someone else.  Someone who already had so much to carry.
	But I didn’t.  Honestly, I felt nothing but relief.  I simply wasn’t a killer, I had never been one, and I wasn’t less of a man for it.  Finn hadn’t expressed any regret about what had happened on the Fortune’s Favor, or down on Canal Street, either.  And neither had Grayson, or Odina.  I’d spent some time amongst the men of the Manoratha even, and spirits were high.  Everyone seemed to feel that what we’d done had been messy, dark and difficult. . . but like cleaning up after a storm, something that simply had to be done.  It was remarkable to me how they were moving on, accepting the deaths, the injuries, and all the wreckage as the inevitable cost of liberation from the ironclad grip of Gezan Archambault.  
	I couldn’t feel that way.  I might not have regretted my failure as a killer, but. . . every wound I’d caused, every grievous injury I’d witnessed, every life I’d seen slip away. . . I remembered all of them.  I’d see them any time my mind drifted, randomly at night, or throughout the day.  Whenever I had too much time to reflect.  It was inescapable.  
	I had fought when I’d needed to.  I knew now I was capable of that.  But I never wanted to see anything like it, ever again.  There had to be a better way to fight for equality, to stand up to men like Gezan and the forces of capital and law he’d wielded to amass so much power.  This couldn’t just. . . be. . . the state of the world.
	Every time I tried to talk to Finnegan about it, he’d just stare at me silently, mouth set in a slim line.  Whatever it was he thought about my aspirations, he kept his opinions to himself.  But I noticed he’d remain quiet for a long time afterwards, too.  Deep in thought.  I was no longer lost for answers when he got like that.  I knew him well enough now to usually guess what was on his mind.  And in this case, it wasn’t even hard.
	He was thinking about what he might be able to do to change things with his fortune.  In the time since the riot, we’d been able to help people because we’d had the resources to do so.  In addition to what the Manoratha men had pilfered from Gezan’s warehouse, and indeed many of his storehouses during the riot, the Captain’s Quarters inside the Fortune’s Favor where he’d been hiding when we’d first come in had a small safe full of what must have been his traveling money.  We’d given most of it to Grayson as a good faith payment for what he’d done for us. . . but what had remained, we’d dispensed to some of the people we’d met in Debriss who needed it.
	It was just coin.  But it made all the difference for those who didn’t have it.  We’d given some to the men from the tavern so they could relocate, including the otter, who’d since woken up, (thank the spirits) and his mate.  We’d also given some to the mink and the two workers, the feline and the fox, who apparently planned to remain in the city and re-build.  I was uncertain of the wisdom in that, but they insisted this wouldn’t be the first time.  And even if it had been ruinous near the end, my experience there had been so important, so liberating, I couldn’t doubt the importance of places like it existing.  If they were willing to forge on in defiance of authority and continue providing such a haven, I would pray for them.  	Archibald had been shot during the riot and he’d died a short time later.  I was glad, at least, that he had gone down fighting for something he clearly believed in, because he had no reason to have accompanied us other than out of sheer outrage.  I would never know what that man had endured throughout his life, and it saddened me that I could never tell his story.  I hoped at least that his spirit was resting soundly, knowing more peace in the next life than he’d had in this one.
	We’d released the children we’d found on the Favor into the custody of a family that Grant assured us was a safe place, or at least as safe as homes got in Debriss.  We’d given them a sizable stash of coin as well, to care for the pups.  I trusted Grant and the home seemed nice enough, but I got the feeling these children had been through places like it before, and they’d still ended up stray.  
	And finally, we’d given enough coin to Rory and his family that they could fix up their Inn.  The little rat was still guilt-stricken and traumatized, and it worried me to think he’d continue to grow up in this place.  Even with Gezan gone, Debriss was no place for children.  At the very least, they had men like Grant looking out for them.  Neighborhood boys who’d grown up here and wanted to change things for the better.
	If life had gone differently for him. . . if his mother hadn’t gotten sick, maybe that’s who Finn would have become.  But then I might never have met him.
	It was hard, when I reflected on these sorts of things, not to have selfish thoughts.  Especially so now, because Finnegan had a debt to pay.  Because of a promise I’d made in his stead.  And the only way he could fulfill it was by crossing the sea, back to his home country.  Farther than I could ever follow.
	I’d considered going with him.  Odina could bring the cards back to Tawnahowac, like Finn and I had discussed when we’d been trying to find desperate solutions for how we could stay together.  But. . . .
	. . . I had. . . to put my entire family over my desire to stay by my mate’s side.  I couldn’t know how things would be in the North Country, how difficult it might be for my father to fight for our land, even with documentation.  Even aboard a ship as large as the Manoratha, Grayson said the trip to Amuresca could take months.  Each way.  And settling something as complicated as Finn’s father’s estate could take far longer.
	There were storms at sea.  Finn’s home country could be as dangerous as this one.  This inheritance issue had already proven dangerous and with so much coin on the line, he wasn’t out of danger yet.  Which only made me want to accompany him more, but. . . 
	I couldn’t risk never returning to my family.  It wasn’t just about my own family, Odina’s daughter Nuka was grappling with an uncertain future, too.  And Uki, and Kissima.  My birthplace.  If we couldn’t establish our sovereignty, we’d lose our lands forever.  My fight wasn’t over.
	Neither was Finn’s.  But this next stage. . . we had to fight apart from one another.  Separated by half the world.
	I was terrified.  Grief-stricken.  I’d nearly lost him to Gezan, and now after only a few weeks of peace together, I had to give him up again. 
	I felt him stir against me, my claws tracing soft circles over his hip.  He arched his back, tail sliding back and forth a few times through my stomach fur.  He still smelled of me, and I of him, our scents inter-mingling in a way that I hoped would stay with me for some time.  I’d been staying here with him on the Manoratha for the last few days, while they readied the boat to sail.  But. . . today. . . 
	I hadn’t wanted to go to sleep last night.  We’d made love several times, talked all night long, and I’d broken down crying more than once.  I wasn’t ashamed of doing so in front of him anymore.  
	I’d only managed a few hours of sleep, in the end.  I didn’t regret the lost hours.  Parting with him today was going to be the hardest thing I’d done in my life.  Of that I was certain.  Harder than anything in this journey so far.  Because I. . . could do what I wanted, and no one would stop me.  But it wouldn’t be the right thing. 
	He turned in my arms, lifting his muzzle to mine, and I kissed him.  We exhaled through our noses, one kiss turning into several.  That went on for a long, long while.
	I didn’t know what more to say.  I don’t think he did, either.  
	It took us longer than it ever should have to get dressed and finally emerge back into the world.  I think we spent a full ten minutes just pinned against the door of Finn’s small cabin, sharing one last kiss, after one last kiss. . . .
	Once we got outside, we could barely touch.  An embrace, maybe.  No more.
	When we finally slipped away from each other for the last time, he was crying, too.  Finn’s nose got all wet when he cried, and he sniffled rather pathetically, cursing as he wiped on his sleeve.  “Shite.  I’m a wreck.  Ah. . . this is a new coat. . . .”
	I laughed weakly.  “You’ll be on a ship surrounded by a bunch of mangey Privateers for a few months.  Expect a lot more stains.  How are you doing, by the way?  I know these sorts of ships make you sick.”
	“Maybe because this one’s so big,” he said, “or. . . having one of the better cabins?  I don’t know, but it’s been. . . better.  Maybe I’m finally getting those ‘sea legs’ I keep hearing about,” he sighed.  “Or maybe it’s because we’re in the bay, and not at sea yet.  I guess I’ll find out.”
	He leaned up, and I pressed my forehead down against his.  We didn’t kiss again, we just leaned against one another like that for a time, listening to each other’s breathing.
	“Inkonuvit ek nua,” he said softly.  Then a moment later, “I love you.  Tulimak.”
	I felt tears threatening again.  I squeezed my eyes shut tightly.  “I love you, Finnegan.”
	We stepped out into the bright afternoon sun on the upper deck of the Manoratha, making our way towards the boat that would take me back to the mainland.  We passed Akachi and Taarush, who were drinking with their Admiral over a game of cards, waiting to see us off.  Grayson had sustained a slight injury to his shoulder, but was otherwise in top spirits, elated to be going back to sea.  He certainly belonged here, his infectious grin all the brighter in the clear air and sun, his eyes the same blue as the waters.  I’d hardly even noticed in the dank, filthy depths of Debriss.  
	“Odina!”  Finn called to the lioness, who was sitting astride a barrel near the wolf, watching the game.  “I have got a bone to pick with you, woman!”
	She stepped down, favoring her leg and making her way over towards us.  The men were absorbed in their current hand, so they stayed behind long enough to finish it.  She approached us, arms crossed over her chest, giving Finn a long-suffering look.  “What’s your problem now, Ambrose?”
	“Why,” Finnegan stressed, clutching at the air with his good hand.  “Why. . . would you give. . . that man. . . a fucking falcon?!  What possessed you to do something that insane?”
	She smiled a little.  “He told you he got it from me, did he?”
	I looked past her to the group of men, and the aforementioned bird.  It was wearing a mask, sitting to the left of Grayson on a coiled pile of rope.  I’d seen hunting birds kept like it before, often by tribal peoples.
	“Do you have any idea how much that thing is going to terrorize us, the whole trip to Amuresca?”  Finn demanded, exasperated.  “It bites everyone, including him, it’s already shit down my back, and I am pretty certain it did that on purpose.”
	“Oh, good,” she said casually.  “I was worried I hadn’t picked the right one, but the Ikonsic trainer I bought it from ensured me that was easily the most foul-tempered of the lot.  They were meant for one another.”
	“Grayson’s not so bad,” I reasoned.  I’d actually thought the two of them had been spending a lot of time together. . . was she still antagonistic with him?
	“He enjoys the abuse,” she muttered, glancing once back at him.  “Trust me.”
	“Why a falcon?”  I asked.  “I mean. . . it’s sweet, you getting a gift for him, but. . . .”
	“Have you never noticed the feathers on his mantle?”  She asked.  “It’s the only part of his tribal heritage he still carries with him.  He and I spoke about it, because I’d seen other wolf tribes in the north wearing something similar.  They wear them for protection, to call upon the spirits of the great Roc.”
	Finn looked confused, so I explained.  “Giant eagles from the northern mountains.  Roc spirits often protect wolf tribes, because the wolves leave offerings for feral birds of prey, whenever they make a kill.”
	“Grayson lost his connection to his family when he took to his current life,” she said quietly.  “And even before that, it sounds like his family was forgetting, either intentionally or not, who they used to be.  I just don’t want him to forget, as well.  We’ve lost so many of our people to the world, and I don’t begrudge them finding whatever freedom and prosperity they can, but. . .” she sighed.  “Our traditions, our stories, our faith, it’s disappearing.  He is trying to keep some part of it alive, in his own unorthodox way.  I realized I could help him do that.”  
	She looked behind her, hand on her hip.  “And anyway, that’s a man that needs a woman keeping an eye on him.”
	Finn smirked slightly at her.  “You know, not for nothing, Odina,” he leaned a bit, looking past her, “I mean. . . I know he’s not exactly the sort of man you raise pups with, but.”  He dropped his voice.  “For a romp?  I’ll bet he would’ve been a damn good time.”
	She gave the slightest of smiles, walking past us and patting Finn on the shoulder as she went.  “He was,” she said, with a swish of her tail.
	Finn whistled.  “Get it, cat.”
	I was grinning ear to ear by the time we joined our comrades at the boat.  I didn’t even care that my muzzle hurt, I couldn’t stop smiling.  Some of it was probably because I was afraid I’d start crying again, and it eased my anxiety to be laughing.  But most of it was earnest happiness.  I was hopeful for what came next, for all of us.
	Finn and I had one last chance to speak, our comrades giving us a few feet of space.  There wasn’t much more we could say and I was bound once more by the limitations of being unable to express myself with my mate in public.  Even here, surrounded by one of the most diverse, accepting groups of people in the world, it seemed. . . what we had was not allowed.
	But I held his hand, clutching to it like a lifeline.  And we spoke once more before I left him.
	“If it is at all within my power,” he said, “I will return to you.  I won’t ask you to wait for me-“
	I shook my head vehemently.  “I’ll wait.”
	“It could. . . be a very long time, Tuli,” he said softly.  “Even if things go well.  I can’t ask that of you.  I. . . I want you to find happiness.  You deserve peace, and comfort, and love.”  He hung his head slightly, but his eyes never left mine.  “I’ve. . . never treated you the way you deserve.  I’ve never understood how to.  I’m terrible at this.  At love.  Real love, anyway.  I. . . .”
	His left hand closed around mine tighter and his gaze grew intense.  That same intensity I’d seen long ago in the Wayward Inn, when he’d told me of his purpose in my country.  “I want to be a man worthy of you.  But, I. . . I think I need to respect myself more than I do now. . . and I can’t get that from someone else.  Not even you.”  He paused, letting out a long breath.  “I’m sorry, that might not have come out right.” 
	“No,” I shook my head.  “I understand.  I love you, Finn.  But loving you isn’t why I’ve grown more confident in myself.”  I smiled a little.  “It hasn’t hurt, though.”
	“I hated my sire for so long,” he said, tipping his ears back.  “And I thought what I wanted from him, the only thing I wanted from him, was coin.  It sure as hell would have made our lives a lot easier.  But. . . it wouldn’t have changed the fact that he discarded us.  It just means he would have paid to discard us.”
	He shut his eyes, muzzle tense for a few moments as he visibly gathered himself.  “I’ve always felt unwanted, unneeded.  You get told it, shown it enough times, you start to believe it, you know?  And then suddenly, I’m wanted. . . like really wanted,” he said with a forcibly amused huff, “but once again, it’s all because of who sired me, not because of who I am.”
	“I love who you are, Finn,” I said quietly, leaning in close enough that only he’d hear me.
	“I know,” he gave a fragile smile.  “But. . . I need to feel that way about myself, too.”
	“I’ll wait for you,” I promised again.
	“Don’t,” he repeated.  “Tuli, if something comes along that will make you happy. . . please.  Be happy.”  He stared out across the sea.  “I’m going to see what an ill-gotten fortune can do, when it’s scattered back out to the world.  My guess is. . . not enough.”
	He stepped away from me, walking to the railing.  I followed him, uncertainly.  I was the one leaving, after all.  But when he got to the railing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the slim pocket watch he’d carried throughout our journey, looking down on it with a twisting range of emotions passing over his features in a matter of moments.  
	“Damn thing never even told the right time,” he muttered.  “I don’t know why I held on to it.  It’s not as though it was important to me.  It was like I was giving him a way, no matter where I went, to remind me I was useless and fraudulent.  A knockoff.”  He looked back towards me, his face lost.  Confused.  “Why the hell did I do that, Tuli?  Why did he even give this thing to me?  What was the point, just. . . needless cruelty?  Why taunt me?  Why do all of that. . . and then name me his heir?”
	“Honestly, Finn,” I sighed.  “Some people just aren’t worth agonizing over.  It doesn’t matter that he was blood kin to you.  That’s literally all there was between you.  He’s gone.  I know it’s hard.  There are a lot of things I’ll never have answers for, either.  Maybe. . . while you’re in Amuresca, you can finally speak to people who knew him.”
	I thought back on when my otterfa had told me the real story behind my parents.  How they’d considered killing me rather than bringing me up in such difficult times.  In the end, Uki and Kissima had survived on our ancestral grounds.  They might have been able to raise me there.  But that just wasn’t how it ended up.
	Was I better off having known that?  I was certainly glad I’d come to know Uki and Kissima, so I suppose I’d have to take the good with the bad.
	“Claiming this inheritance,” Finn said, “I’m going to meet a lot of ‘long-lost’ relatives who are probably only going to come out of the woodwork for financial reasons.  Suddenly wanting to know me. . .” he stared down at the watch.  “Maybe he never knew his own worth, either.  All anyone wanted him for was his money.  Including me.”  He clutched his palm around the watch.  “Maybe that’s why he was so bitter.  So hateful.”
	He was silent another beat, then tossed the heirloom, not so much as bothering to watch it fall into the waves beneath.  “Fuck it,” he said with finality.  “It’s over.  I’ve got a lot to do.  I’m not going to waste my time on that man anymore.”
	I settled a hand on his shoulder and he leaned against me through our coats, his body warming mine for the briefest of instants.  For the last time, before the world separated us.
	“We carry their visage,” I said.  “Our blood parents.  And that can matter, but it’s only one part of who we are.  But the people who raise us shape us.  And then. . . we shape ourselves.”

	Epilogue

	Three Years Later, Late Spring

	It was midday when I’d finished the last of my pruning in the eastern forest.  It wasn’t strictly my responsibility to check in on the blueberry bushes and cut back the dead growth from the cold snap we’d had a month ago, but with my sister expecting and unable to keep up with it, and Odina back from her recent trip to Broen and free to watch over the stead, I’d seized my chance to leave the cabin for a little while and get some fresh air.  There wasn’t much left to be done at home today anyway, save dinner, which I had plenty of time to prepare yet.
	I checked once more around the bottoms of the berry patch, ensuring I hadn’t missed anything.  I liked blueberries just fine obviously, (who didn’t?) but these bushes were much more important than preserves or pie.  My otterfa had dug into the Otherwolf homesteading law that had been allowing them to seize so much land from us and found a provision for orchards.  It had obviously been intended primarily for apple farmers, but it suited our purposes well.
	With legal Citizenship, we were permitted to own land.  But in order to officially ‘own’ it, we would either have needed to pay the government per acre, which. . . to claim the amount we’d need to keep them from logging along our river and making it unusable, would have cost a fortune.  But if we planted fruit- and they were unspecific as to what kind- on every acre, we would legally be making ‘efficient use of the land’, and since we had established residences on it, could therefore claim it under the Homesteading Act.
	We had claimed hundreds of acres.  Using blueberries.  It had taken time, considerable effort and a Tribal Attorney from Broen to help us fight our case, but we’d prevailed.  The march of Otherwolf settlements continued around us, and the river grew busier every season, with more barges and log runs from other areas, but. . . we were adapting as well as we could.  And we had held on to our home.
	What’s more, we could plant the blueberries in the woods without clearing them.  They thrived well in the higher, rockier areas where the trees thinned, too.  And. . . well, you know.
	. . . you could make them into pie.
	This time of year, there wasn’t much for me to do save repair my fish traps and wait.  Spawning season wasn’t for a few months, and in the mean-time I didn’t want to fish more than we needed.  I’d finished construction on my cabin last summer, and Odina’s the summer before that.  We’d chosen to settle nearer to the spring than my village.  It was still close enough that I could travel between the two easily, but. . . quieter.  More private.  
	Ever since Odina and I had returned from Arbordale, I’d felt I needed that distance between myself and my family.  Not because I hadn’t been welcomed back with open arms, not because I didn’t feel loved.  I just. . . wasn’t who I’d been when I left.
	I’d seen and experienced things I could not explain to them.  There just wasn’t any context I could use that they would understand, or accept.  I’d tried.  For months after I’d returned, I’d tried.  But after the first few times I’d tried to talk to someone I respected, and explain what had happened and how it had changed the way I saw the world. . . only to be met with doubt and judgment. . . 
	The fact was, years ago, I would probably have been just as close-minded.  It wasn’t their fault.  Some of them listened.  The young, especially.  My sisters hung on my every word.  My brothers, less so.
	I simultaneously felt as though I understood myself better, but my family worse.  But it wasn’t hopeless.  There were bright spots.  My otterfa, although stubborn, persisted in trying to grasp the things the others struggled with.  We would talk late into the night and he would ask me so many questions, clearly trying to work out the truth of the world he hadn’t, nor would likely ever, see.  He wanted to learn.  He’d always been open to new things.  He was just discerning about the ones he chose to accept.
	He had accepted me.  Even despite my reticence and often morose introspection.  He’d been one of the few to support me when I’d decided to build a cabin, rather than a pit home.  It was infinitely more comfortable for someone my size, and my sisters loved to come by to use my little potbelly stove.  My father thought it right that I begin to go my own way, but was glad that I’d chosen to do so while still remaining close enough to my family that we could see one another often.
	It wasn’t just to appease him, though.  There was security with my tribe.  If there was one thing I had certainly learned the value of in Arbordale, it was the safety someone like me could find in a community that accepted them.  Most everyone in my tribe now knew the true nature of my relationship with the ‘wolf’ I’d once brought into our village.  Those who didn’t approve had made their feelings known to me by now, but most had chosen to keep their discomfort to themselves, if they felt any at all.  And some, like my sisters, insisted far too frequently how little they cared.  Which. . . made me think they did.  But even that had faded over time.
	Time eased all troubles.  Except loneliness.
	The last few months had changed. . . everything.  But that was overwhelming in its own way.  Thankfully, at the very least, it wasn’t fishing season.  Yet.  Spirits, I only had a few months.
	I had to make the most of my spare time now, while I could.  So once I was done pruning, I began to make my way down towards the village.  I hadn’t visited in a day or so and I wanted to check in on my sister.  Maybe I’d bring food from the tribe back to the cabin. . . 
	Before I’d gotten to the village center, I actually ran into my sisters, walking one of the game trails.  I was about to ask what they were doing out so late, when my youngest ran up to me, leaping for my arms.  I gave a surprised whuff as she bounced against my belly, then lifted her up, obediently.
	“Well, hello to you t-“
	“Tuli!”  She cried out excitedly in my face, loud enough that I had to tip my ears back.  She’d had a little bit of an issue with volume control, lately.
	“Alasie, spirits,” I blinked rapidly.  “This is a lot of energy for this late in the day. . .”
	Kirima and Nujua brought up the rear, the two of them looking particularly impish today, and that was saying something for them.  Nujua’s belly was swollen, she was in her sixth month, but it hadn’t slowed her down much.  “Brother,” she said mischievously, “we’ve been looking for you.  Father, too.”
	“Oh,” I said.  That did explain why they were out walking the game trails this late, but still.  My otterfa, as well?
	“What’s wrong?”  I asked instantly, my worry spiking.
	Kirima and Nujua both giggled to themselves, which alleviated some concern.  All the same, I didn’t trust them.  This probably wasn’t going to be good, whatever it was.
	“Something has come for you from town,” Kirima said.
	“Whatever it is, it looks like trash,” Nujua said with a wrinkled nose, stroking her belly.  “Odina sent us to find you.”
	I sighed.  Probably just a parcel from Broen, they never made it out here terribly intact, no matter how well we paid the courier. 
	“Maybe there will be a letter,” I said doubtfully.  I wanted to hold out hope, but it had been over a year since I’d heard from Finnegan.  He’d written. . . well, he’d probably written more than twice, but I’d only ever received two of his letters, and the last had come last summer.  He was still in Amuresca, handling the Lancaster Estate.  I’d re-read his letters so many times now, trying to imagine more than what he’d told me about his struggles, there.  How he might be living, day-to-day.  When he might be returning. . .  
I was glad, at least, to know that as of a year ago, he was alive and well.  Or. . . moderately well.  He’d complained a lot in the last letter.  I think complaining probably made up the bulk of it, actually.  Which was so very him. 
“I don’t think there’s a letter,” Nujua said, reaching over to me and taking my free hand.  “But, come.  We’ll find father, and we’ll go together.”
“Do you want to have dinner over?”  I guessed.
“Ugh,” she tugged on my hand.  “Just come!”
And so, I was dragged down towards the village by my sisters.  We found my father on one of the other trails, similarly looking for me.  When we found one another, he gave a whiskered smile.  “Tulimak,” he stroked his hand briefly over my shoulder, where I’d had my warrior markings done several years ago.  Despite not approving of war, he’d always seemed proud to have a son that bore them.  But he insisted I was a ‘guardian’.  Not a warrior.  
Honestly, I liked the sound of that better, too.
I carried my youngest sister the whole way out towards my stead.  I was glad to have my family over for dinner, even if they were all acting rather odd.  So my mind was occupied the whole way, thinking what I’d be preparing for a meal.
My sister hopped down from my arms before we rounded the trail that led past my pony paddock towards the cabin, and I’m very glad she did, because if she hadn’t, I honestly might have dropped her.
Pebbles was in the paddock, which wasn’t strange in and of itself.  She’d come home with me after Arbordale and lived a peaceful life here ever since.  But there was another, unfamiliar horse in the paddock with her, sleek black and foreign, with feathered legs and a long silken mane and tail.  It was hungrily munching on alfalfa while Pebbles stood in the shade under a clutch of trees.
And he was just. . . standing there.  Petting her.  Talking at her.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” he cooed, rubbing her nose, “to hell with him, don’t let’m get to you.  Snooty purebred.”
 I was still frozen in place when he looked across the clearing and noticed us, finally.  He let his hands slip away from Pebbles, crooking half a smile at me.  “Tuli,” he said my name breathlessly.  But then, “Tuli, I hate this fucking horse.  He’s a prissy cock.  Please, can I have my old one back?”
I’d broken out into a run by that point.  He grinned and crossed the paddock, ducking quickly under the fence and crashing into me with a joyous laugh as I scooped him up off his feet.  I think I probably squeezed him too hard, but he didn’t complain, only wrapped his arms up around my shoulders and crushed himself against me even more.  
He felt exactly as I remembered, even if the clothing he wore was obviously foreign and expensive.  He was still favoring a green vest, though. . . just finer.  More elegant.  He still wore a pistol on his hip, I could feel it against my thigh.  And his fur was in better condition, no longer ragged and unkempt.  He seemed healthier overall, perhaps even a bit less underweight.
His fur smelled the same, though.  It brought back wave after wave of feelings so powerful, they nearly bowled me over.  I sunk my nose into his neck ruff, sobbing out a noise of relief.  He was really here.
This was real.  He’d come back to me.
“Please,” I begged, pulling back far enough to look him in the eyes, “tell me this isn’t just a visit.  Tell me you’ll stay. . . .”
He gave me a hopeful smile.  “If I’m welcome.”
I leaned our foreheads together, bringing a paw up to cup his cheek, as I’d done so many times in the past.  He pressed his cheek back into the touch, his eyes slipping half-closed.
My sisters, whom I’d honestly briefly forgotten were still there, raised their voices loud enough to wake me from my reverie.  And as usual, they had no shame.
“Aren’t you going to kiss him?!”
“Alasie, hush,” I heard my father say.    
	“Tuli deserves a kiss-“
	“Hush!”
	Finn looked briefly uncertain, either because of our audience or because of the time we’d spent apart, I couldn’t know.  But neither mattered to me.  I leaned down and pressed our muzzles together, and even my family being wholly distracting and embarrassing couldn’t ruin the moment for me.  Finn gave a relieved sigh against me, melting into the kiss.
	I knew, though. . . as we pulled away, the wolfdog grinning, my family rushing up around us. . . I knew. . . all wasn’t settled, yet.
	I had to tell him.
	Each of my family traded turns embracing him, my sisters first, my father last.  He did so with only brief hesitation, and when he committed to it, he pulled the wolfdog to him tightly, pounding his back with a clap of his paw.  “My son has been mournful in your absence,” he said, looking Finn in the eyes.  “Please. . . stay here, if you so choose.  You are welcome.”  
	Finn gave a tight smile, nodding.  But my father wasn’t done.  He arched an eyebrow, glancing briefly past Finn to the stead.  “And do not think you get out of raising me up some grandchildren, just because you’re a man.”
	“Uh. . .” Finn chuckled, “. . . I’ll. . . see what I can do about that.”
	We walked ahead of my family, towards the cabin.  Odina was waiting for us there, I could see her on the porch from a distance, Nuka waving at us from her lap.
	“So,” I began uncertainly, “Amuresca?”
	He gave a long, tired sigh.  “You know, back when I was poor, I’d hear people say how some family’s fortunes were so large, you couldn’t give it all away if you tried.  And. . . .”
	“. . . and?”  I prodded.
	“And I tried,” he said, exasperated.  “I really did.  And it’s not that you can’t, it’s more just that. . . you can’t trust anyone where money is concerned.  It took over a year just to dissolve the fleet and sell off assets, and Tuli, that was even while not giving a shit what we sold it all for.  Which the Solicitors weren’t too happy about. . . but I made it clear I just wanted it done.  And still. . . .”
	I nodded.  “I remembered reading about that in one of your letters.”
	“Oh, good,” he said.  “You got those.  I wasn’t sure.”
	“Two.”
	He seemed irritated.  “I’ve sent at least a dozen.  Damnit.  It doesn’t matter. . . .”
	“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed.  “You’re here now.”
	“You know, even after I’d paid Grayson. . . overpaid him, in fact,” he said, “that was. . . a tenth, maybe less, of what the estate was worth.  It is absolutely insane how much money one family can amass.  I stopped being able to make sense of it all or keep track of it after a while, I just got a few Solicitors I thought I could trust and told them what I wanted done.  I bought my entire neighborhood up, in the Risers.  The whole of it.  They thought I was crazy.” 
	“What did you do with it?”  I wondered aloud.
	“I knocked it all down,” he growled out.  “No one should live in a cesspool.  I gave the people living there residences in a better district, I set up a trust to pay their taxes for. . . I don’t know.  The next century, I guess.  I spent almost a year petitioning the City Magistrate to let me build proper drainage infrastructure so a place like that couldn’t exist again, or at least if it does, it’ll be dry.  It was a nightmare.  The whole while we were trying to build, people kept moving back in, because of course they fucking did. . . people don’t have homes.  I kept buying up unoccupied buildings in higher districts and trying to find some legal way to re-house them, but the Development Magistrates were blocking me at every turn, trying to keep ‘undesirables’ out of their neighborhoods.  And then I found out one of my Solicitors was on the take, and-“
	I gripped his hand, squeezing it softly.  “I’m sorry,” I said earnestly.
	He rubbed a hand across his eyes, looking infinitely tired, for a moment.  “I kept throwing money at it all, trying to make a dent, but it isn’t just about the coin, Tuli.  These people have power that runs deeper than I can fight.  And I started thinking. . . about how much easier it would all be if I hired someone like Grayson again. . . or someone like the Jackwalds to just. . . take these people out.”
	I looked at him, worriedly.
	“I. . . I had to just accept, eventually, that I’d done all I could,” he said.  “I found out Grayson was in port, and that was really it.  I just. . . I knew I had to get out of there.  It’s poisonous.  Even when you’re not trying to play their game, it just. . . it starts to wear on your resolve to do the right thing.  You just want to get your way, whatever it takes.”  He shook his head.  “I spent some time with Mikhail, and his mate.  I got a headstone for my mother.  I even visited my sire’s grave, and told him. . . everything.  For better or for worse, I figure he deserves to know what came of his fortune.  And then I. . . left.  I came back through Arbordale, set up the rest of my money with Engelwood and told him to do what he could with it in Debriss.  I figure I can travel there occasionally, check in, see how he’s managing it.  Hopefully, it’ll do more good there than it could in Amuresca.”
	“He seemed like a good man,” I said, assured.  “And whatever he does with it, it’ll be better than it being under the control of someone like Gezan.”
	“Lord, that name,” Finn shook his head.  “I haven’t heard that name in so long.”  He looked up at me.  “So, I’ve been doing most of the talking, as usual.  What have you been doing?  I mean. . . obviously. . . building that,” he looked to the cabin as we approached it.
	“We built something similar for Odina and Nuka, a few acres to the south,” I pointed.  “But, ah. . . Finn,” I tugged him to a stop before we reached the cabin.  “I. . . .”
	Finn was canny.  He caught on to my trepidation, before I said any more.
	“Tuli, what is it?”  He asked, worriedly.
	I sighed.  “Why couldn’t you have made it here a few months ago?”  
	“I couldn’t travel through the worst of the winter- fuck, you’re worrying me,” he turned towards me, at about the time Odina came down the porch steps, carrying Nuka.  “What is it?”
	I looked away from him.  “My life. . . changed. . . recently.  It just. . . it wasn’t planned.”
	His ears fell, and I wanted so badly to chase away that crestfallen look with a kiss.  But this could affect whether or not he wanted to stay here, and it was better we address it sooner than later.
	“There’s someone else in my life now-“ I began.
	“Oh,” he said softly.
	“. . . multiple someones, uh. . . actually.”
	He gave me a quizzical look at that.
	“They’re inside,” I said nervously.  “Come on.”
	We walked past Odina, who’d presumably already shared a greeting with Finn when he first arrived.  She bounced Nuka on her hip, the little girl honestly far too big to be carried at this point, but I’d been spoiling her with rides and now she expected them from her mother, too.
	“Prepare yourself, Ambrose,” she warned him cryptically.  The wolfdog gave her a confused gesture with his hands, and she just nodded for him to go inside.
	The cabin was warm and smelled of early season mint, and the stew we’d made last night.  I moved through the sitting area towards the one bedroom, the only other room in it.  I preferred to sleep on the floor, but I’d made a large straw mattress with Odina’s help last summer, layered in sheep furs, beside the one window in the room where the sun streamed in.  It was where they were usually waiting for me when I came home.
	I knew the second he saw them, because he physically leaned against the doorframe for support.  I’d worried. . . since we’d taken them in months ago. . . I’d worried so feverishly about this moment.  Dreading that if he ever came back into my life, that he’d resent that I’d made this choice without him.  Or simply not accept it.
	I kneeled down beside the two rustling bundles in my bed, one of them yawning and blinking up at me, sleepily.  “I’m. . . I’m sorry,” I said, looking back at Finn.  “You weren’t. . . you weren’t here.  This is something I really would have wanted to talk to you about first, but. . . .”  I still couldn’t gauge his reaction, other than shock.
	I looked back down at the two infant canines.  “Odina leaves Nuka with this woman in Broen sometimes, when she’s out checking trap lines.  We were there a few months ago, and. . . and she had these two that someone had left with her, but she had a whole house full of other children she’s taken in over the years, and infants need so much time and attention.  She talked to Odina about how she was struggling, and. . . and it just. . . it seemed so obvious.”
	I heard my family approaching, their footsteps on the porch, but Odina spoke lowly to them and closed the door, giving us some privacy.
	Finn was still silent, frozen in the doorway.
	“Odina and I sort of trade off taking care of them, for now.  It’s been working,” I said, letting one of them nibble on my finger.  “She likes that Nuka will have someone to grow up with, although there’s a bit of an age gap there.  But my sister’s having a child soon, and Nuka’s just the right age to carry these two around everywhere, which she loves to do.  My father finds any excuse he can to spend time with them, too.”  I knew I was mostly rambling at this point, but I continued.  “Odina has to leave once a month to check her traplines, and a few times a year to trade in Broen, but for the most part I’m here.  Until fishing season starts soon. . . .”  I looked back to him.  “We were planning on having Odina and my father fill in where needed.  But. . . if. . . if someone were able to be here with them, all the time. . . .”
	“Tuli,” he breathed out, “oh my God. . . .”
	“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” I said, my throat closing up.  “I know I should have waited, but. . . you told me to be happy-“
	He closed the distance between us, lowering himself to his knees before me, and kissed me again.  This wasn’t like the kiss outside, when my family had been watching.  It was an oath.
	When he parted from me some time later, he sunk down beside me at the edge of the bed, slowly covering his muzzle with a hand, while staring at the two now very awake and fussing infants.  “What,” he breathed out shakily, “what. . . are they?”
	“Mostly coyote, we think,” I said, gingerly picking one up.  “Does it matter?”
	He shook his head, sniffing noisily.  “No,” he said.  “Can I. . . .”
	He gestured at them, and I nodded with a smile that felt like it would become tears at any moment.  He gathered the other up into his arms, hardly needing to be told how.  He’d obviously done this before.
	“Is this. . .” I hesitated, “. . .alright?  Will you stay with us?”
	He leaned against me, holding our child.  “Forever,” he promised.