They had been right, of course, that the party was close to over. Really, the party is over. The only stragglers remaining are those too drunk to go elsewhere, those already asleep, and the quiet few lost in conversation in pairs or threes, including the doctor and Mrs. Marks sharing a drink on an isolated bench.

The strangest aspect of it all is the number of foxes mixed among the men. Foxes like Dorian; large as wolves and sitting around tables and on benches like humans would, holding mugs in their paws. Dorian holds familiar banjo instead, strumming his lullaby to the stars, away from everyone else with drooping ears.

I rub my rear, half-consciously. I can hardly help myself, after such a ride.

Dr. Oswald and Mrs. Lydia wave, offering smiles complete with worry lines in their brows.

I smile back, just to tell them that I am okay, and look around.

I quickly remember to jerk my hands away from my throbbing buttocks. "Have some dignity about you, my man," I chasten I under my breath, dusting my fingers against my blouse.

The celebration must have been good, judging by the sights of the aftermath. Bottles and mugs litter the stone floor and cover every bench and tabletop. A few drunks stagger on the dance floor as if music were still playing. The lights strung on the ceiling, a combination of lanterns housing fire and lanterns housing the blue wisps of the land, set a calm, yet vibrant mood. Empty kegs are haphazardly clustered in a puddle of mixed leftovers which drip from their nozzles behind a long bar. A large black fox's head pops up behind the bar.

Strange. I frown. It is even larger than the other foxes, though scrawny and scruffy with a roguish look about it. He has one white, scarred eye, and a glowing crescent-shaped pendant around his scruffy neck. How could it possibly be... I creep closer, but his eyes catch on me and he ducks down with haste.

Simon throws himself over the bar. "Officer Langley! Is that you? I would know that scar anywhere. How can you possibly be a fox? A complete fox! Complete!" He climbs over, chasing the poor man—or, fox—into a corner. "I want to learn everything. How is this possible?"

"Aye, ya rottah, leef meh ahloon," Langley growls, mismatched claws kneading the stones with a knife-like scraping.

"What's that on your paw, sir?" Simon asks, stooping to investigate, holding his glasses to his nose.

"Eet's woot ah'll yeuse to slash yer quifferin' throot, thas woot." The fox raises its claw, a contraption built of rusting steel, in place of flesh and bone, too large on his little frame. He slashes the metal hand through the air, grabbing it with his other paw before it can slide off. Something sparks in the back of my mind after the scrawny officer scampers off with a silver flask and disappears.

"He always had an incredibly hard grip," I remark, brows raising. "But I never thought... A false hand?"

"Fascinating!" Simon draws his notebook from the inside of his waistcoat and flourishes a quill. He opens a bottle of ink and sets it on the bar, then starts to scribble in his book. Elian sits next to him, sliding a mug towards his friend.

"Darling took his hand when he mutinied, along with his eye," Elian says, raising his mug suggestively. "That's what I heard."

Simon stares at him eagerly. "Tell me more things that you have heard."

Elian waggles his drink.

Simon sighs and lifts his own, "Very well."

They clink their mugs together and drink.

"All right, Sim, is your quill ready?" Elian teases.

I roll my eyes and limp for a keg. I push the bottom of my shirt into a mug on the counter and clean it out as best as I can before filling it, then survey the guests. Did I want to approach strangers from the Witch's crew? No. Foxes? Not particularly. Drunk and bizarre werefoxes? No. Simon and Elian? In a million years I could not fathom understanding what goes on between those two. But I will dance with some of these people. I can't dance with everyone, like the captain would, but I would like to try. I would like to have that confidence. In his honor. I am his son, in blood. A part of him may live on in me.

I set my jaw and, holding my mug tightly, vault across the dance floor to the most isolated bench. Dr. Oswald and Mrs. Marks would try to entertain me, I am sure, but they seem so interested in one another's speaking, that I fear committing sin to interrupt.

Instead, I stand over the loneliest fox in all the land, and I try to give him a smile, but it falters. He should not be alone. The captain had said that on this night, he would reunite with his family and belong among his own people. Where is his family?

"Hh..." I clear my throat and stare at the ripples in my mug, reeling in my thoughts. My cheeks burn under his scrutinous gaze. Eventually, I sip my drink—scarcely managing to swallow the fiery taste—and conjure some words to choke out, "Was the celebration good?"

He turns his head to stare off to the falls, his bushy brows low. "He would have thought so."

"And you?"

He makes a sound, as if spitting, though nothing comes past his lips. "What are you doing here? And why do you have a crutch that doesn't belong to you?"

I hold the crutch a little bit tighter, pursing my lips. "I need it. Dorian..." We have spoken so rarely, it feels strange just to speak his name. I am almost surprised that I know it. I swallow the sluggishness of the word, rolled off my tongue thick as molasses. He bares his teeth at me, tail swishing at his side. I sit down by his feet on the bench. "This is where you come from, isn't it? Where is your family?"

His ears fold tight against his skull and he puts the captain's banjo aside, snarling at me. He pulls a vial from around his neck, tugging the twine necklace taut. "Right here. This is my family."

A glowing wisp aimlessly drifts behind the glass, hitting the barriers and bouncing off over and over. My brow knits. My fingers restlessly twiddle around my mug.

"It's Hank," the fox wheezes finally, faltering to weakness, only for a flicker. He gnashes his teeth. "But, he's dead and so is everyone else I thought I'd come back to. My ma, my sisters, my grandmother, my pa. It's just me and strangers."

I bite my lip, staring at the trapped wisp. "I'm sorry. I know it isn't much, but you know the crew at least." My finger hesitantly lifts to the vial. "How do you mean, 'that's Hank'?"

Dorian closes the vial in his paws, drawing it closer to himself. His muzzle wrinkles and his nose twitches. When he looks up at me again, his eyes are wet. He shoves the vial down his collar and tumbles off the bench, breaking quickly into a run on all four paws.

"Dorian!" I shout, standing clumsily on my oversized crutch. I leave the mug and its strong, foul drink behind and stumble after his flailing tunic. His tail swims through the air and bobs over the edge of the plateau, down the hill. A whine bubbles at the back of my throat and I rub my neck. I look back at the party. Who am I kidding? The party would mean nothing to the captain. His son would. His real son; the one he cares—cared—about. Butterflies fill my chest, causing a waver in my breath. My heart flutters. What could I say to the fox? Who was I to say anything at all?

My crutch swings despite myself for there is no better cure to overcoming anxiety than barreling forward and getting it over with, giving it a try.

Sweat trickles down my cheek as he comes into sight again. He sits near the bottom of the hill, hunched back to me, tail wrapped around himself. His quiet crying, a repetitive sound similar to a lady's sneeze, wanders to my ears, louder as I carefully, step by step, near.

I sit next to him with nothing to say and no smiles to offer. I look at the grass and twirl my fingers distractingly through the blades. While his tears catch in his fur, mine slip to the earth, some bursting over my fingers, cold.

Crickets chirp choruses from the woods. An owl hoots somewhere. Foxes chatter.

Dorian's sniveling reduces to sniffles. In the corner of my blurry vision, I see him hug himself, claws tightly gripping his lean biceps. His wet nose raises to the moon, glistening in its glow, and he closes his eyes.

I turn my head and lift my sleeve to dry my face. My eyes feel puffy and stupid, and the stupidness of it makes me grin just a little. I hold out my hand.

"Dorry," I begin, "will you dance with me?"

"I hate dancing." Dorian snaps, lowering his snout. His expression softens, his tense little body relaxes. He reaches one paw to take mine, smiling slightly over sad eyes. "But he loved it."

I pick up my crutch and ease myself to my feet, pulling him up, too. He stands lethargically, as if aged a thousand years. He slouches, paw limp in my grasp. His muzzle lifts wearily so he may meet my eyes. His black lips raise again, barely more than twitch, then slip back to a frown.

His hand falls from mine and he sinks to his knees.

Dismay slackens my shoulders.

Then, he reaches around his back and yanks a small handsaw from a holster on his toolbelt. The saw touches my crutch, touches again, bites in. The little fox saws the end shorter and reclaims the spring from his original mechanism. This, he shoves into a pouch on his belt, then replaces his saw and stands again.

I test my weight on the adjusted crutch. Though still uncomfortable, it suits my height and saves me the energy of constantly stretching out to cling to it.

"Thank you," I whisper.

He takes my hand, nodding, then reaches for the other. He stands on his toes to better meet my height, though it throws his balance and takes mine with it. We stumble over the grass. My crutch hastily kicks up dirt to keep my swollen ankle and sore shin from hitting the ground, and he laughs. And I laugh, too.

He pushes me back, stabilizing me, and I squeeze the crutch under my arm and try to swing with him without stepping and falling. His ears perk and he sways with me, his tail flicking around his ankles.

He jumps, springing up on his haunches, tugging on my arms. We giggle like schoolboys, and it feels right.

"There's a glow on your chest," I notice, my breath heavy from the excitement.

He looks down and his lips stretch back tightly into a smile. A happy wheezing huffs through his teeth, his feet continue stepping. "Hank," he squeaks, nose twitching.

"What's it mean?"

"If he could see us," Dorian peeps, smiling wider than I have ever seen despite the dampness of his cheeks, "he'd be happy."

My heart flutters and my arms go limp, though his little paws continue to tug. "He's alive, in there?"

"Don't stop," the fox pleads, the glow dimming. His wide eyes quiver when he looks at me and I cannot deny him. I slip one hand from his to grip my crutch and twirl him around in front of me. The glow brightens.

It's all I can look at. The more we dance, the more we smile, the more we laugh, the more the wisp glows beneath his tunic. We carry on until I can carry on no longer and must to stop to catch my breath and rest my injury. By the time we are lying beside one another in the grass, we are friends.

"He's alive in there?" I ask again, breathless.

Dorian's head shakes from side to side. His tongue lolls out from the corner of his lips and his paws clasp over his rising belly. "His essence. Hank is... Hank is gone." A claw runs under his eye and his breath staggers out, then in. "The wisps are dormant; they can't think or communicate, they simply glow with the phases of the moon, dark when there is none and blinding when it is full. They... glow brighter when they feel they have found themselves. Hank's wisp... it... It remembers happiness playing my lullaby on the banjo, and it remembers happiness in dancing. It doesn't glow because it sees us doing those things; it just senses that familiar happiness and action and gets excited, sort of. Because, it's lost, really. All of the wisps are lost. On the next full moon, Astiza—our god, that is—will take him, so he can be at peace."

"All the wisps here are... dead people?" My eyes half-consciously flick to the blue and orange lights of the plateau temple.

"There shouldn't be so many." Dorian sits up, slumping forward and hanging his paws off his knees. He looks out over the grass. The woods start just yards away from our perch, alight with the drifting dormant spirits.

I sit up, too, rubbing my arm. "So, why are there?"

Dorian grabs his nose, ears flattening. His eyes squeeze shut for a second. "Astiza only speaks to one fox every generation. The Speaker was dying... kept hostage by the Witch for her uses. She must not have had the energy to send souls to peace at the full moon. Or she must not have been allowed the chance. Now, she is dead."

"So is the Witch."

"So is the captain."

We look up at the moon, silent lips drawn.

Dorian pulls on the twine around his fluffy neck and the small glass vial slides from his collar. We stare at the dimming wisp within.

"Hey, Dorry?" I lay my hand over his wrist.

His eyes, like mirrors in the dark, roll to me.

"The captain wanted to build a cabin..."

"... on the point of the smallest isle, out of the wood of Eclipse." He smiles. "I know."

"Let's do it for him."

Dorian shakes his head. "The ship is underwater. I can't swim."

"I can. But I'm not much good at building."

His teeth poke timidly from behind his lips. "I am."

I hold out my hand and Dorian's paw lifts to meet it. We shake.

"Together, then."

"For Hank."