Fuzzbottom has never been one for politics. He has never been one for ships, either, and finding himself trapped between barrels of pickled eggs in a grand, swaying Sentinel vessel was hardly his vacation of choice. He did not remember how his paws carried him here, and, in fact, that may not have been the paws at all. His great furry gut rumbled with despair. The furbolg was starving.

The pickled egg barrels were an impenetrable foe.

It lasted for days. The journey, the sickness, the claws grasping at chipping and splintering wood. Fuzzbottom wondered, briefly, if this is how it will all end. Here, in the bowels of a ship, away from the winds in the willows and whispering in their respective coniferous counterparts. Here, where his ears were constantly pricked by the sounds of so many elven feet scuttling about the docks. Here, where the only friend was silence.

But the silence did not last forever.

He stirred, and the whole world seemed to stir with him - the sounds were unfamiliar and muffled. The even "clang" of bells rang through the night and the all-penetrating ray of the searchlight pierced the boards above and, as if moved by some unknown force, he ran.
Shuffled. Fell. A clumsy and lightly overweight thing had little intention of stirring the whole crew awake, but if the inevitable was to happen, and-

The salt water in his nose, ears, maw was all the creature could remember.

***

A year passes. Day and day, Fuzzbottom crawls out of his makeshift shack hidden between the abandoned shipbuilding supplies, tosses the makeshift long-muzzled mask on and tugs on the folds of the faded, lavish robe. When he walks, he shouts in a throaty and raspy Common.

"Thhhrinkh- ets! Odds, ehhhndsss! Gooooohd luch ckhharms!"

In the noise and the turmoil and the commotion, he is almost lost. The chubby, clumsy worgen impersonator can sell, perhaps, enough fake amulets made from seagull bones to purchase another glass bead. He can't quite explain his affliction with those but, over a year, the small shack is littered with colourful marbles and faded pearls. He has to walk on the very tips of his claws to even make it to the pile of rags and stolen furs at the end of a long, long day.

"Foooortukhhne! Warkhhhd off spirikhhts!"

He feels the mask slip, just a little bit, and breaks into a hacking cough, his whole frame quivering in a sudden burst of emotion, overwhelming waves of it, and falls, to his knees, with a long and ragged sigh.

One day he'll have enough to get back home.