Sea Lion Shores your heart will fly on wings forever in never never land

Time passed — Coelacanth found herself unable to gauge exactly how much of it. Trembling, the atramentous sheepdog cross rose tremulously to her paws, the ugly wound that sullied the inky silk of her neck and chest yet weeping in small rivulets that stained the muddy embankment. Dark crimson globules of coagulated blood tangled in her feathery fur; her seablue eyes, dulled with shock, disinterestedly regarded her sanguine-swirled reflection. Swaying where she stood, Seelie pitched abruptly to the side, and only the last vestiges of her natural grace kept her from falling headlong into the brackish delta water again; she sidestepped clumsily, a sick parody of her former dexterity, and in a continuation of that movement began to limp south. Staggering, her tender muzzle hanging so low her lips practically grazed the ground she walked upon, she pressed forth.

She thought she was moving inland toward the river and its refreshing chill — she thought she was going home to Amoxtli — to Crosscurrent — to Selkie and her sheep — and only the gathering of granules beneath her catlike paws clued her in to the fact that she was alone and vulnerable. The sinking sand swallowed up her tentative steps, and she buckled, going to her knees, her hindquarters sloping upward as she tried to rouse herself. But she was tired — so tired. Her eyes were closing, and her chin was resting upon a mossy rock in a river — “I tire. Perhaps a nap.”

Marbas? Marbas?

“What big ears you have.”

“You are like a night sky. Nathimmel.”

“You can call me Marbas — ”

“I am Kierkegaard — ”

“ — a reasonable wolf — ”

“Can you hear them, Shadow?”

“Siren, please, I didn’t mean to…”

Do not leave! Please! I will be a good dog — good dog —

The inky creature crumpled the rest of the way, a puddle of ink, feathers, and blood.