With Alika’s wound slowly healing, the two’s progress down the fjord was slow and agonizing. For each day that passed, Alika could feel Tarka slowly slipping away from her. What horrible things had the humans done to him? Was he in pain? Was he still alive? Alika could do but press on and keep hope, even men with spears and nets haunted her dreams.

Though her wound was substantial, the spear hadn’t hurt anything critical. Stretching her wing hurt, but it wasn’t like she had to worry about flying. Still, if there was any a time in which she wanted to take to the skies, it was now. If only she could outfly the canoe, swoop down, and rescue Tarka!

Every day it seemed like at least one boat passed by Alika and Snow, forcing the latter to hide them with her magic. Almost all of them were heading north for winter, up to the sea. Chunks of ice came flowed from the south with them. Every time a boat came down to the south, Alika’s hopes were raised that Tarka would be with them — but every time, her hopes were dashed.

More human villages lined the fjord as they walked north, and as they became more numerous, Alika took to walking only at night, and eventually abandoning walking alongside the water altogether. Apparently, human night vision was poor enough that even with the light of the rings and moons, they wouldn’t notice Alika if she was holding still. After a close call while they had been sleeping, the two settled into an odd schedule: while Alika hiked during the night and slept in the day, Snow remained awake when the sun was out, so that she could hide Alika when she slept. With the fox asleep on her back, the nights were long and lonely for Alika, but she was always grateful to be woken up by the smell of fresh seafood that Snow had fished from the fjord.

The arrangement left only dawns and dusks when the two were both awake. It was during a dark evening, and the start of a long day for a Alika, when the first snow began to fall. Cold white flakes fluttered down in front of Alika’s snout, and she knew that soon, the fjord would freeze over and winter would consume the land.

“I wonder when the Long Night will begin,” Alika murmured to herself, watching the fading glimpses of sunlight disappear over the horizon. A few lit lamps indicated a town in the distance. It was so nice of the humans to provide warning lights, so that Alika could steer a wide berth around them.

“The Long Night?” Snow yawned. “What’s that? It sounds nice. Do you know how hard hunting in the day is?”

“You don’t know? Really?” Alika asked.

“Enlighten me.” Snow tickled Alika’s back with one of her tails, an intentionally irritating gesture that made Alika’s fur itch.

“It’s when the sun stops rising for so many great months of the Elder Twin at a time, as if Nigel finally snuffed out its light,” Alika explained. “But it always comes back. You know?”

“Huh,” Snow said. “Sounds cool.”

“Seriously?” Alika’s ears twitched. “You don’t know what that is? How can you not know? Are you just asleep all winter?”

“The sun was only ever missing for a few days at a time in my forest. It freaked me out the first few years, but I got used to it. I didn’t realize that it lasted so long that far south.” Snow tilted her head to watch the rings above them. “This far north, I doubt we get it at all.”

“Oh,” Alika ears drooped. “That’s sort of sad.”

“It is? I’d think that no daylight would get pretty tiring for you after a while. Same with the winter down there being so harsh.”

“Well, yeah, it does. It gets pretty dangerous outside, so we had to stay inside our den for pretty much the entire night. You think Tarka is bad now — you can’t imagine spending three great months in a cramped up cave under the snow with him.” Alika tilted her head. “But I still have fond memories of all the stories Serka told us. That’s when dragon packs pass down all our histories — we rest and celebrate. I guess I’m just a bit sad I won’t experience that this year, even if Tarka and Serka wouldn’t be around for it anyways.”

“Having a huge family to do that with must be nice. I only ever had my mother, and even then, not for long. My first Not-So-Long Night consisted of me freaking out. Why is the sun gone! Where did it go! If this is about that time I used my magic to make a bear fall in love with his own reflection, I’m really sorry, but I think that taking away my daylight privileges is a huge overreaction!” Snow paused. “Don’t judge me. I was really bored.”

“I never had a pack either.” Alika sighed. “Everything I know about being in a pack is just stories that Mom told us. But all that will change once I find Tarka, and then we find our pack.”

“Well, I hope it’s as good as you think it’ll be,” Snow replied.

Eventually, the two reached the end of the fjord, and the beginning of the ocean. It was the middle of the night when Alika first laid her eyes upon the great expanse of blue water, stretching out to eternity. Ringlight scattered from its wave-filled surface in an panoramic arc, vividly lighting up the human city clustered around the point where the fjord opened up to the sea.

To Alika’s eyes, the city was huge — it could fit ten of the largest ruins that she had ever seen. Wooden houses cramped together on every street, the occasional flicker of candlelight visible from inside their walls. A vast stone bridge connected the two sides of the fjord together, and boats sailed beneath its arches, out to the ocean. Every speck of shoreline seemed to have a pier jutting out from it, as if the city had grown thorns.

“Snow! Snow, wake up!” Alika said, shaking her back rapidly.

“Gwuh?” Snow groaned, sinking her claws between Alika’s wings. “What? What is it?”

“The ocean!” Alika exclaimed. “It’s so huge, and it just goes on forever! There’s nothing out there!”

“It ends, I promise you,” Snow yawned. “You just can’t see that far. It’s because Tasien is shaped like a gooseberry. See, if you stand on the surface, you can’t see the other side, because there’s, um, more gooseberry in the way. So you can’t see the end of the ocean because there’s so much water. I think.”

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“You can’t stand on a gooseberry!” Alika replied. “It’s just, it’s so big, and it’s so empty. And we’re supposed to cross it? It could swallow us whole!”

“Well, I certainly prefer being on land myself,” Snow remarked. “But it’s definitely crossable.” She pointed one of her tails at the coastline, toward a canoe heading out to sea. “See that boat? It’s probably going up to the northern shore, and whatever is up there. Dragons, I guess.”

“Right.” Alika’s voice became hushed as her eyes scanned the coast. There were so many boats of different shapes and sizes here. Small ones, large ones, ones with sails and ones without. Her talons curled as her gaze landed on an all-too-familiar one, and smoke poured from her nostrils. “Snow, that’s it. That’s the one that took Tarka.”

“You sure?” Snow asked, craning her head to try and see. “There’s a lot of boats here.”

“I’m sure. I could never forget it.” Alika growled, fuming, and spat out a puff of smoke. Her claws quivered as she took a step forward. “I’m going to burn this place down. I’m going to make it a ruin.”

“Hey, hey!” Snow said, leaping from Alika’s back and skittering around in front of her. She fanned out her tails and held her paws up, as if Alika couldn’t just walk over her. “No need to rush in yet! If you burn it down, you’ll burn down Tarka within it. Let’s hold off on the pyromania until after we’ve found him, okay?”

Alika’s eyes narrowed at the city, and she whipped her tail. “Fine. After.”

“We need to do this my way,” Snow continued. “Scope out the situation. Find Tarka. Sneakily — like foxes, not dragons.”

Snow shut her eyes, muttering to herself as she brought her tails together, white sparks floating off from their ends. As soon as her tails touched, they merged into a single one. Alika watched her vision distort, and her surroundings grow larger.

Suddenly, Alika found herself seeing Snow eye-to-eye. Her wings were gone, her saber-fangs had shrunk, and her tail had become light and fluffy. Alika looked at her paws to see that her light-blue fur had become long and white.

“See, now that’s an improvement,” Snow remarked. “You oughta see yourself! You’re gorgeous!”

“You just made me look like you, didn’t you,” Alika sighed. She turned back and forth, allowing herself to get lost in the illusion. She was so small and light, far more nimble than she had been a moment ago. It was strange, realizing this was how Snow always saw the world — to Snow, she must look like a huge, threatening monster.

“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.” Snow winked. “Now, same rules as always: no speaking to any humans. Also, make sure you don’t go into any tight spaces. Just cause you think you’re a fox doesn’t mean you actually are one.”

“This didn’t work so well last time,” Alika remarked.

“Well, this time, we’re just two totally average not magical at all foxes. No one will pay attention to us! Promise on my mother’s tails!”

“You didn’t even like your mother,” Alika grumbled.

“Eh, fair enough. Who just up and abandons their kit in the woods?” Snow took a leap toward the city. “I promise on own my tails, instead. I’d make a much better mom.”

Alika and Snow descended into the city, their white fur illuminated by the light of the rings. From the perspective of a fox, each of the timbered houses had become a terrifying fortress. Every human on a late-night stroll was a tall, dangerous monster. The buildings loomed above Alika, and even the occasional bird overhead was a threat. How did Snow remain so calm in a world that was so much bigger than her?

Still, none of the few people out this late paid them any attention, and Alika had to admit that Snow’s plan was working. Who would bother two perfectly ordinary foxes?

The pier that the boat had docked at was built of creaky, rotting wood. As Alika stepped from plank to plank, she could feel them bend beneath her weight.

“Are you sure this will hold me?” Alika whispered.

“Shh!”

Alika’s gaze caught on the canoe that Tarka had been taken in. Large gashes and scratches had been ripped into the wooden hull. This was definitely the right boat.

Sudden movement rustled from within the canoe, and a hunched over figure climbed from the boat to the pier. Alika growled as she recognized it — the man who had taken her brother. New to his scraggly appearance was a series of white bandages covering his arms, and a nasty scratch across his face. Alika was glad to see that Tarka hadn’t gone down without a fight.

As the man began to walk down the pier, a beam of wood in his hands, Snow slammed herself into Alika’s side, trying to push her into the water. Alika didn’t budge, giving Snow a confused stare.

“Hide!” Snow hissed.

Alika complied, and leaped into the frigid water beneath, creating an oversized splash far more befitting a dragon than a fox. She dove down, paddling to get as deep as she could.

The fisherman looked up from his wooden beam, his face blurred from under the surface. He frowned as he saw Snow — her form now that of a white cat.

“Scram! Get out of here!” He said, kicking at Snow. Snow easily evaded the boot, rushing back down the pier and out of sight. The fisherman lost his balance, wobbled on one foot, and Alika almost thought that he’d trip into the water after her. Instead, he only dropped the beam he was carrying, falling into the depths past Alika.

It was unfortunate that he hadn’t fallen in himself. Alika wouldn’t have minded getting her claws on him.

“Stupid cat!” he yelled. “What did it even push in there?”

Grumbling curses, the fisherman continued to the shore and out of sight. Once he was gone, Alika climbed back up to the pier, pieces of wood cracking beneath her paws. She peered into the boat.

Tarka’s familiar scent was there, but it was old and stale. Other than the scratches on the hull and mast, and ripped up rope, there was no other sign of him. Wherever they’d taken him, he wasn’t here.

Checking behind her to make sure that the fisherman hadn’t returned, Alika placed her snout up against the hull, and summoned fire in her belly. Perhaps she couldn’t set the city on fire quite yet, but she could get her revenge this way. The fox illusion shuddered and twisted as she set a small flame upon the boat.

The wood caught quickly — in a few minutes, it would become a shining beacon, a warning to any other humans what would happen if they messed with her. She used her jaws to pull away the ropes keeping the canoe tied to the pier, and pushed the boat out toward the ocean with a force far larger than a small fox could do. It was good that no one was watching.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Snow said, a fox once more.

Alika turned around, trying to crack her fluffy tail. “Done what? How could a small, innocent fox do something like that?” She grinned, exposing her teeth — a move that would have been far more intimidating with her saber-fangs.

Firelight reflected from Snow’s golden eyes as she watched the waves slowly take the flaming boat out to sea.

“C’mon,” Snow sighed, sprinting away. Alika followed, the pier creaking under each of her steps.

A wail of fury came from behind them as the two ran off into the city. Alika purred, quite happy with herself.