Chapter 1: Crash-Landing

Water crept between the piers of Hood's Bridge, sparkling in eternal lamplight under the incredibly bored gazes of two dockhands.

"So, what do you think of all these ships coming in from Polythreme?" Travers, the older, asked. Experience helped little with what he'd seen.

"They're... Um, at least they're polite enough," Kieran answered. "They just have a disconcerting habit of— hang on, what's that?"

A clump of white fur floated down the river under them, disappearing under the bridge.

"I think it was a cat," Travers said sadly.

"No, cats have too many lives. When's the last time you've seen a cat in the Stolen River? Must be a fancy coat or something."

They looked at each other, then rushed down to the riverbank. This could make someone quite rich very grateful. By the cold black water, Travers pulled half of an oar out of the muck; neither he nor the former watermen were eager to get too close to this particular river. Swinging it over to bat the floating thing onto the bank, he hit something far more solid than he was expecting.

"Kieran?"

"Yeah?"

"I think this coat's still on someone."

They were right, in a certain sense. The moment they pulled the white coat up onto the shore, they saw that it was not any of the familiar denizens of London.

And then he sat up.

Coughing water, but conversing more calmly than anyone so recently drowned had any right to, Paige rubbed his eyes and looked up.

"Ack. Thanks! Who're you two?"

He asked, then wheezed and bent down to try to wring the river out of himself. Travers and Kieran stared: The coat they found was still attached to a fox, standing upright as tall as a human and speaking mostly intelligible English. If this was a costume, it was a very sophisticated one, and somehow wasn't ruined by the water.

"You're a fox!" Travers exclaimed.

"You haven't got any clothes on!" Kieran proclaimed with some fright.

"Yes! Um, do I need any clothes?" Paige asked, holding a damp paw out to check the weather.

"Wha-- You can't just go around stark naked, I don't care where you just washed up from!" Kieran answered. "Even the rubbery gentlemen wear clothes!"

Paige's pointy ears went up and focused on Kieran, giving them a brief unwelcome glimpse into the nightmares of a fieldmouse.

"Rubbery? Oh! This must be Neptune," Paige said.

"Erm... Neptune? No, this is London," Travers corrected.

"On Earth," Kieran added, sensing it might be important. "You really do need to wear clothes though, for the constables' sake, if not everyone else's."

"Oh. Well..."

Paige concentrated, and gleaming solid light emerged from his spine. Ribbons of red and yellow and cyan snaked out to wrap him up, covering him from neck to knees in a striped silhouette of near-blinding vividness.

"Will this do?" he asked, as Kieran and Travers shouted in terror.

Paige yelped and jumped back, unraveling his light-suit, ribbons whipping apart into the distinct shape of fox tails. When both parties were done scrambling away from each other and had emerged from the cover they found, Kieran took the time to actually look at Paige's lights. They were in the shape of eight tails now, all in different colors, casting an array of splendid shadows on the mud. He occasionally walked on them like an octopus, pressing tailtips to the ground to pull his feet up.

"I guess that's better than being naked, if you don't mind causing a panic," Kieran muttered as they rubbed the sparks out of their eyes. "You might attract the wrong kind of attention, though."

Travers was quite bewildered that this was the problem Kieran chose to focus on. There were, he supposed, plenty of strange creatures in London; an exceptionally furry fellow wasn't all that out of the ordinary.

"So, erm, where did you come from?" He asked.

"Oh, I'm from Saturn!" Paige answered. A planetary level of specificity seemed about right for the situation.

Travers blinked helplessly. "...Rrright. And how'd you end up in the river?"

"Oh, I'm not sure," Paige started, looking back at the dark water while he weaved his tails back into a suit. "I think... My ship crashed? And I woke up there."

Well, at least that explains something, Travers thought. He must be from somewhere across the sea.

"You said this is Earth? Have you really never seen a fox before?"

"Well, no, not in a long time. There's no foxes in London, not since the fall," Travers said.

"Why's that?"

Travers looked to Kieran. "I don't really know," they eventually answered. "It can't be anything good, though. You might want to be discreet."

Paige's ears drooped. He was getting the impression that he'd landed somewhere dangerous and unpleasant. The almost kittenish gesture tugged at the two dockworkers' heartstrings, though, and they glanced at each other.

"Travers?"

"Yeah?"

"We must have some spare clothes somewhere, don't we? We can't just leave — what was your name? — here out in the cold..."

"Paige. Thanks."

"Well... I'm sure we can put something together. I have an old coat, it's a little full of holes, but that's better than nothing. You stay here under the bridge until we get back, and put those lights out before someone tries to lock you up in a lighthouse or something!"

Paige nodded and retreated into the dark, climbing up into the bridge's understructure before turning off his tails. He should probably save the charge anyway, he wasn't sure when he'd be able to find more power.

Kieran and Travers rushed back to the docks, gathering a few of their old things and soliciting donations from their fellows and wondering if offering a long yard-wide strip of canvas to someone would be insulting. In about half an hour they shuffled back to the bridge with everything they could get their hands on, and Paige dropped back onto the bank.

"Oh, wow. So, do I just need to get dressed? Or should I make... A disguise?" he asked, a little excited about the idea of going undercover despite the grim situation.

"Erm, I suppose going incognito can't hurt," Travers said, with Kieran agreeing mostly to see what exactly the fox would do with rags.

The zeal with which he leapt into tailoring was impressive, even if the results of his novice disguisecraft were less so. He assembled scarves, coats, and cloth, with long boots and gloves, to turn himself into sort of hunched mass of patchy fabric, and pulled on a moth-eaten wide brimmed hat to cover his ears and snout.

"How do I look?" he asked proudly, a little muffled under all the layers. It was fortunately cold enough in the dark that it wasn't too sweltering.

"A bit shabby," Kieran said quietly, "But, ahem, you don't look like a fox. Good job."

Paige's tail slipped free to wag, but he pulled it back under the cloak. Peeking out from under the hat to look up at the lamp-lit city, he asked, "So what do I do now?"

"Well, I suppose you'll need to find a place to stay... Find honest employment and all that," Kieran said.

Paige shrank into his coat. "Employment?" he squeaked, recalling history and thinking this may be even more dangerous and unpleasant than he thought.

"Chin up, I'm sure you'll do fine," Travers reassured. "You could be a tailor, if nothing else. But, until then... You might be able to find some help for a few days. There's boarding houses around run by generous types who won't mind giving a new arrival a hand."

Paige stood up straighter and smoothed his ruffled fur. "Thanks. I think I'll go look around, then. See you around?"