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This is the 4th story in a directly related series, which is part of a longer ongoing series about Desdemona Iverson. To start with this quartet of stories, go to the first story in this folder. To start at the very beginning, head over here.

The Furry Basketball Association is a shared storytelling universe. The FBA and the Bangor Tides are both assets of this setting. Draft submissions normally open in May or June, so come join us if you're interested.

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The last time Desi had taken the bus from Thunder Bay's airport to Black Bay, it had been mostly deserted. She and Noah had taken a seat somewhere near the back, and there had been one other person sitting up near the front. They'd had almost complete privacy along windy highways, curling around the bays along the northwest shore of Lake Superior.

This time, Desi was lucky to get a seat on her own. The perch knew what she should have expected, but it still caught her off guard when she stepped onto the bus to find it almost full. She froze in place and let her eyes wander up and down the group. They were all sweaty from the summer heat. Some of them were obviously people heading down to Black Bay to join the protests - a mixture of excited-looking youngsters already wearing the blue armbands, and weary, older folks in rough-looking clothing who looked like they needed a sleep. They had the look of some of the people Desi knew from punk shows after she'd come out - the young kids who would yell and cause a stink if somebody gave her a hard time, and the old veterans who communicated with a look and the position of their bodies that they were ready to take or throw a fist if things escalated.

Mixed in with them were a few small groups of people that Desi immediately picked out as reporters. Her past five years in the limelight had given her a sixth sense for them. These weren't the reporters from major outlets - no, those would have rented their own vehicles to head up to the town. These were freelancers or people from smaller independent outlets. They huddled in their groups of two or three, talking in hushed tones and no doubt making plans for the moment they got off the bus in Black Bay.

What surprised her most was the mix. It wasn't just fish, though there were a decent amount of them there. There were a good number of walkers there, too, among both the reporters and the likely protestors. Desi let herself take that as a good sign.

She pulled up her hood, self-consciously hugged her duffel bag to her chest, and walked until she found a seat near the middle of the bus. She tried to hunch some so that people would notice her less - she'd seen a few of them glancing at the towering fish the moment she'd stepped onto the bus. The hoodie was an old one - faded black with the name of some band she'd gone to see in university. It was stifling in the heat.

She knew she should be worried about them recognizing her. She couldn't shake the feeling that all of their eyes were going to that bag she was holding, like they could see the little case in the middle of it.

Not long after she sat down, the bus set off. It wasn't a long drive - only about an hour and a half. For the entire ride, Desi kept her hood up and her eyes down on her phone. It was far too hot for her hoodie, and she couldn't stop flicking around from app to app. She considered posting something to social media for a moment, but thought better of it. Noah had been the one to council her against it for the next few days - it was far too easy to track somebody's location from their posts. So instead she scrolled through to check what others were doing, or to see what analysts were saying about the upcoming finals - anything other than thinking about home.

"Excuse me." The voice came from the young person sitting in the seat across the aisle from her. Desi resisted the urge to look up, and instead spoke while continuing to watch her phone.

"Yeah?"

"Sorry, um. You wouldn't happen to be--"

"Not whoever you think I am." She tried to keep her voice from sounding too much like she was rushing. She flicked her thumb across the screen, moving away from her social media feed full of basketball teams and players, and instead towards her music app.

"Oh. It's just that--"

"I get it. I'm not."

Her voice made it clear that it was the end of the conversation. She waited a long few moments in case he spoke again. When he kept quiet, she let herself glance over at him out of the corner of her eye. It was a bird with orange feathers, with a black duffle on his lap. He had his own phone out, and Desi thought she saw him reading emails on it. He had a much more harried look than most of the others on the bus, and that was saying something.

"Participating or reporting?" she finally asked.

"Reporting." His voice was flat, and he didn't look up at her. "Or at least trying to. It took a week to convince my editor that it was worth the cost to send me up here. Pretty sure any source that's willing to talk to a reporter's been snapped up already."

"So why still come?"

The bird looked back over at her. His eyes flicked up and down her once. He raised an eyeridge, and his skepticism was obvious. She shrugged. He sighed, then answered. "Because. I've been trying to get us to do some coverage up here for months. After the shit about the police's mole came out, I couldn't--"

"Mole?"

"Yeah." He laughed. "Haven't you heard? The police had some kind of undercover cop with the organizers. She's going to be the star witness at the trials for all the organizers. Some eel."

"Well shit." She had clear memories of the night she'd gone out to the Dredless to meet with Simon, and the eel who'd looked like she was about to call for Braydon's blood. "That's, uh... a lot."

"Yeah." The bird went back to his phone. She could see him checking his maps app, trying to figure how much further they had to go to Black Bay. She didn't have the heart to tell him that he wouldn't get any reception out here. After a few seconds of trying, he spoke again. "Either way. Probably going to be a waste of money coming up here. I'm not getting any scoops at this point. I still wanted to be here, though."

"Yeah, probably." Desi sat back, considering. She glanced down at the duffel bag at her own feet. It was like the little box in there was physically drawing her gaze. She stared at it and considered, then glanced back to the bird. "Hey, you got a card?"

It was a strip mall. She hadn't been expecting that, and for some reason it made the whole thing feel surreal to Desi. The yellow perch stood there, eyeridge raised and staring at the storefront. Braydon's smiling face looked back at her from multiple copies of his campaign sign, the otter's face looking flat and lifeless.

She couldn't see anything of the reassuring grin she remembered from him as a teenager. It was even harder to envision the steely, exhausted certainty that she'd seen in his eyes, driving back from the harbour last winter. Desi assumed that it was just a thing - mayoral candidates needed to have a certain look to them in their photos. It still felt wrong, though.

There was a spiderweb crack spreading out over the window, originating right over the otter's eye in one of the signs. Desi could see enough little bits of faded paint near the mark to know that somebody had spent time washing graffiti off. It wasn't the worst damage or graffiti she'd seen since getting off the bus two hours ago. Every broken window or obvious sign of protests or riots made her consider turning back - grabbing that stupid duffel bag and its distracting contents from her hotel room and hop a bus back to the airport in Thunder Bay.

She sighed, and then walked across the open parking lot, towards the glass door between a barber shop and a florist's. She pushed through the door, and noise and stuffy heat flooded over her. There was a small crowd of people working, sitting at computers or phones - less than a dozen, but they made more than enough noise to fill the space with a constant tense babble. All of the bodies in the tight space in the summer heat made the air feel like hot sludge.

A younger newt at the front desk glanced up at Desi as she came in. The newt had a phone pressed to her ear, and was speaking animatedly with somebody on the other end. She raised a finger to Desi, and the perch nodded, shoving her hands into the pockets of her shorts. A few of the people working in the back noticed her while she waited, and Desi saw one or two blinking in surprise or nudging their neighbours to point her out. She didn't react, and kept the same bored expression on her face.

At last the newt hung up, and she took a moment to breathe in and out through her nose before turning to face Desi fully. "Yes?"

"I was hoping I could talk to Braydon. Or Cali, if she's here."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Nope."

"You'll need to book one." The newt shrugged and gestured behind herself at the active war room. "It isn't exactly a good time."

Desi snorted. "Please. I'm his ex. There's no such thing as a 'good' time."

That caught the newt by surprise. She blinked. Desi waited, keeping her hands in her pockets and her neutral expression on her face. The newt looked her up and down, and then something seemed to click.

"Oh. I see. Are you here to, uh--?"

"Visit my mom and an old friend." She nodded meaningfully.

"Got it. Um. Go on through, then. Office in the back."

Desi nodded her thanks, and then slipped by the front counter. She wove through the war room, getting more than a couple looks. She didn't blame them - people generally weren't used to seeing somebody as tall as her, particularly showing up in the middle of their workplace. She slipped by a large table in the middle of the room, covered in maps of the city and printouts, as well as a number of coffee rings and crumbs. There was another glass door in the back, with the blinds pulled to block any light. Desi didn't bother to knock as she pushed through it.

"--five o'clock, and you know half of their questions are going to be about the protests." Cali turned as she finished speaking, and Braydon leaned over from where he was sitting to look around her. Both of them froze and stared as they saw Desi.

The younger perch stood there in the doorway for a long breath, caught by their gazes. Then she closed the door behind her, and gave a small nod. "So how's the damage control going?"

The quiet dragged on for a few more seconds after she spoke. Then Cali cleared her throat. She was dressed for the summer heat, but was still managing to make it look professional. The older perch let her gaze flick back and forth between Desi and Braydon, and then she raised an eyeridge at her daughter.

"Desi. I don't suppose you're here to offer a last second endorsement?"

"Wasn't the plan, no."

"Right." Cali glanced over to Braydon again. The otter looked stunned. He was more dressed up than Cali, but he also looked much more disheveled. His suit looked like he might have slept in it, and the fur on his head was messy from where he'd clearly been holding his head or rubbing with his paws. "I'm guessing since you came here, you two have something to talk about. Should I let your dad know that we'll be expecting you for dinner?"

"No. I've already got plans. Maybe tomorrow?" Desi hoped that her voice didn't sound too strained. She hated lying to her parents.

"Sounds good." Cali glanced over to Braydon, and simply said, "I'll come back in an hour to go over talking points for the interview." Then she slipped by Desi and out the door.

Silence took over the space again, while Braydon stared up at Desi from his seated position. After the silence started to feel unbearable, Desi sighed, then nodded at the otter.

"You look like shit."

Braydon blinked once. Then he gave his face a hard rub, his fingers running through the already matted parts of his fur. "You know, I was starting to miss that kind of sweet talk with Simon locked up."

He let out a long breath, and then sat back in his chair and let his arms fall. He looked her straight in the face. Then the otter blinked, and a look of dismay crossed his face. "Wait. Fuck, you're here."

"Happy to see you too."

"No, not that." Braydon reached up and pinched at the bridge of his muzzle. "With everything leading up to the election, I haven't had time to watch any of the Tides and Alphas series. I was recording them to watch later. If you're here..." He trailed off, and made a vague gesture at her.

She snorted. "I'm one for four on finals appearances in my career. I think asking for more might be a bit greedy."

"Right, right." He cocked his head to the side. "So. Bummed about missing playoffs?"

"Please." She rolled her eyes. "And miss all this?"

"Smartass."

The two of them were quiet for a few seconds. Then Desi inclined her head towards him.

"How bad is it?"

"Bad." He shrugged. Then he hesitated, and added. "What part of it, exactly? I mean, it's all bad, but some parts are worse than others."

She let out a long breath. "The campaign?"

He actually laughed at that. "So we're not slow pitching it at all, are we?" He leaned back in his seat. "Well. People know that I'm a former friend of and have recently been talking with the lead organizer of a planned 'violent terrorist attack on the town of Black Bay's economy.' Or at least that's how Laskin's been framing it. Oddly, that's been a pretty compelling case for a lot of people."

"You don't say." She took a seat across from him and considered.

He let out a long sigh. Then he met her gaze, and all of a sudden his expression shifted. There was no real transition period - one second he was tired and reflective, the next he was sharp and analytical. "Why're you here, Desi?"

Desi tried to not hesitate too much. She'd tried to map out this conversation a couple times on the flights up to Thunder Bay, but now that she was here she wasn't sure how to get into it.

"Things seem fucked," she finally answered. "I mean. It says something that I started hearing about some of the protests on American news."

"Yeah, well, when tear gas and riot shields start coming out, it tends to draw attention." His voice was sharp. He maintained his somewhat relaxed pose, but his expression was still hard as he pressed. "But why are you here?"

"To see what I can do."

"What you can do?" Braydon's hard expression cracked into an incredulous one. "Fuck, Desi. What you could do was give me some support back in, like, December. You know, when I asked for it? What you could do is have talked to Simon and convinced him not to give everybody flashbacks to the riots in the 80s. We're less than a week until the election, Desi! Damage is done, shit's already hit the fan, the town's tearing itself apart, and nobody's willing to fucking help me stop it."

He hadn't raised his voice for the entire tirade. He'd just stayed in his seat, glaring at her. Desi didn't respond, and he kept glaring at her. When he finally spoke, he gave his head a shake.

"Sorry. You didn't deserve that."

"No. I did." She shrugged to him. She considered. He was getting emotional - either that or just tired. It was probably the right time to start asking her real questions. "I assume the protests are getting pretty nasty, then?"

"Worse every night since they arrested Simon and those other two." Braydon sighed. "After the police implemented the curfew, it got even worse."

"Is it bad at your debates and interviews and stuff?" Desi tried to not let it sound like she was prying, or like she was paying too close of attention to his answers.

"Not so bad. Laskin isn't exactly making public appearances anymore - she gets plenty of milage releasing videos where she talks about it being too dangerous to talk in public. But the police station?" Braydon shook his head. "That's where shit's been getting really nasty. They're using pretty ridiculous force there. Most of the protesters going there now are doing it looking for a fight."

There it was. Desi resisted the urge to let out a long breath. Instead, she gave a small nod. "Right." She let a long moment pass, and then glanced down at her phone for the time. "Well. Uh, I shouldn't take too much of your time. I'm sorry. I'll get going." She got up and brushed herself off, then turned towards the door. "Let me know if there's anything I can still do to help."

"Sorry about the series." Braydon's voice drew her up short. She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was slumped back in his seat. He shrugged, then said, "I assume it was exciting?"

Desi rolled her eyes, but grinned. "I'm told it was a rollercoaster. Or a heartbreaker. Depends on who you were rooting for."

"Well." He shrugged again. "Sorry you lost."

She was quiet for a few seconds, staring at him. He just looked so tired. She couldn't help but think back to him as a teenager - vibrant and determined and full of energy. She'd managed to piss him off more than once before, but his tone had never been as bitter and defeated as it bad been when he chewed her out earlier.

She sighed, and then turned to face him fully again. "You know there was a reason you were captain of your high school and college teams."

"Because you weren't on them?" The otter was trying to sound playful. It didn't work.

"No. You probably would've been the captain if I'd been on your teams."

"Bullshit."

She kept her gaze fixed on him, considering for a few seconds. Then she said, her voice sharper, "Look. You know what you said earlier about me and Simon not backing you up?" He opened his mouth, clearly to apologize, but she cut him off. "Here's the thing. You're only half right. You're the person that you want around when you're winning. You're the person that's going to take something that's working, keep it working, and maybe even make it better. Team management and coaches love people like that. It's the boring stuff, but it's important. The problem is that things weren't working. We were already losing. That's why you needed Simon. He's the person who's going to do anything to claw shit back until you win."

"Glad to know I'm good at the boring stuff." He considered her for a long few moments before going on. "If Simon's the person you want to claw back a win, and I'm the person you want to preserve a win, what does that make you?"

She paused. She could almost feel her duffel bag back in the hotel, like a throbbing in her skull. What did that make her? She narrowed her eyes. "You're right that I should have been on your side earlier. I'm sorry that I wasn't. You needed me, because I'm the person who you want on your team the moment you know for sure you're going to lose."

He kept eying her, but his gaze started to turn hard."Why're you in Black Bay, Desi?"

Her fingers drummed along the doorframe once or twice, considering. She'd already said too much. She cleared her throat, then muttered, "Nevermind. Good luck with the interview tonight."

She turned and opened the door. The muffled noise flooded in, drowning out anything that Braydon might have said. Desi closed the door behind her before he could follow her, and then made her way out of the office.

When the fish got back to her hotel room, she immediately grabbed her duffel bag. She yanked it open and dug through it until her hands closed around something small and hard. Her pulse came faster as she pulled the walnut box out, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

She stared at it for a long few seconds before she lifted the lid. It slid open smoothly, revealing a thick, glistening ring sitting on a royal blue velvet cushion. Gemstones glistened along its surface, set around a burnished metal anchor.

Desi stared down at her championship ring, feeling the normal rush of odd emotions she got on the rare occasions she looked at or remembered it. Her memento from her first season with the Tides. The thing everybody associated her career with. She sighed, then plucked the ring off of the cushion and slid it onto her finger. It was heavy - impractically so.

The perch clenched and unclenched her fingers, watching how the ring caught the light. She sighed, and then reached into her pocket. She pulled out the reporter's card from earlier, and punched his number into her phone.

She waited for him to answer, and then spoke as clearly as she could through her nerves. "You want a scoop? Be outside the police station after curfew. Find a good vantage point and bring a camera."

Desi ended the call. She let herself take a couple deep breaths, and then looked down at the ring on her finger again. She clenched her fist, and then started digging through her bag again.

The news footage and pictures were everywhere by the next morning. There was a lot of debate around what Desdemona Iverson was thinking, what she was doing there, what she was trying to accomplish. It wasn't long afterwards that the takes started - people saying it was a meaningless gesture, people saying that it was a stupid risk to her career, people saying that it was too little too late.

Again, there was a lot of disagreement. As such, it probably isn't helpful to pick apart that side of things. What is perhaps the best thing to look at is the one piece that people couldn't disagree with: the footage.

It was taken outside of the Black Bay police station. It was after curfew - not that you could tell from the light. It was the height of summer, so it was still light out despite the late hour. But police officers with loudspeakers were declaring that it was after curfew, and ordering the assembled crowd to disperse, so it must have been after curfew.

The crowd assembled in front of the police station looked rough and dusty. Most of them had been participating in similar protests for the past week, and it showed. Others were new arrivals, flocking to the city as word spread. Despite the heat, all of them were wearing dark clothes that concealed as much of their appearance as possible - hoodies with the hoods pulled up, handkerchiefs and bandanas tied around their faces and muzzles, long sleeves covering up tattoos or fur or scales or feathers. They were chanting the same protest slogans they'd practiced over the past week, demanding the released of Simon Moakes, Sidney Hudson, and Jensen Miller.

Gathered between the protesters and the police station there was a solid line of officers, several officers thick. All of them were in full riot gear - helmets, padded clothing, riot shields. They were forming a clear perimeter in front of the station. Much like the protesters, they all had a worn down look to them - they'd been at it every night for the past week as well.

Up until this point, it was like any other video that had come out of the town in the past week. It was almost like a rehearsed play by now - the protesters forming up, chanting loud enough for anybody inside the station to hear them, and the police waiting for the other lines of riot gear-clad cops to come in from down the adjoining.

The change occurred a few minutes into the video. There was a rumble through the mass of protesters. Somewhere in the middle of the pack, people were moving aside as somebody walked towards the front of the group. The figure held a green-scaled hand up in the air, and light glittered blindingly off of a point on that hand. In the mass of dark clothing, this figure was a splash of green and blue - bare green scales along her arms, and a bright blue basketball jersey on her torso.

It didn't hurt that she was a good half a head taller than anybody else in the crowd.

She made her way to the front of the crowd, a bizarre pillar of recognition in the middle of a mass of careful anonymity. At the front, she raised her voice, roaring along with the rest of the crowd. She made herself as visible and loud as possible, and every time she shouted into the helmeted faces of the police in front of the station, she pumped her fist into the air. The ring glittered in the sunlight each time.

When the kettling started, it was hard to get clear images or footage of her. There were a few blurry cellphone photos and videos from within the crowd, but it was hard to make anything out. Eventually photos surfaced of her - Desdemona Iverson in her Bangor Tides jersey, an FBA championship ring on her finger, eyes streaming from teargas and her face looking bruised. Nobody got a photo of how she got that bruising, but both sides had their stories.

Again, it's hard to know what the truth of the whole situation was. If we're going to discuss only the objective facts, though, we also know this: overnight, the stories of the protests and riots in Black Bay went from a diminishing story to front page news, and the lead stories for most sports publications for a week afterwards. There was another round of publicity a few months later when the FBA handed down a punishment for her - suspension from a few games at the start of the season.

Whatever it was she'd intended, whatever the specifics were of what happened after the riot cops closed in on the protesters, and whether she was just being stupid all wound up being irrelevant. What was known for sure was that suddenly, people were paying attention. The fish's fame had dragged the story back into relevance.

In those photos from the aftermath, even the ones where she looked most worn down and battered after the protest, nobody could miss the demented grin playing at the edges of her lips.