Stavanger Bay i've been trying to fix my pride

Coelacanth followed the fiery female’s virescent gaze to the ocean, and her Neptune eyes twinkled keenly with understanding. Although she had just emerged from the wintry depths, she executed a sprightly pirouette and danced eagerly back toward them, her feathered tail tracing serpentine swirls in the air. Her damp fur had settled into a collection of finely drawn quills, beads of saline dripping at random from their tips, but once it hit the shallows her aphotic pelage turned to ink. She regarded Komodo the way a guilty child might, her tufted ears falling back as she lifted one catlike paw entreatingly above the water’s surface.

In a short space of time, she was asked two questions: “Where are you going?” and “Where are you staying?” Each of them brought its own brand of sorrow, and she realized that even if she’d had a voice at her disposal, she might not have been able to answer clearly. She glanced around at the bay with a familiar, melancholic eye, and nodded grimly at her surroundings. This had been her home. It would have been easy to lead them to the den where Isengrim, Julep, and Moorhen had stayed; the answers would be clear to them if they followed their noses. She couldn’t bring herself to go back there and look at the empty den, though. It was bad enough to stand here and not see Doe — Doe, with her one flopped over ear; Doe, singing songs that nobody else knew the words to; Doe, calling out joyfully, “Shadow, Shadow!” — and so she caught Hemlock’s eye with a bashful tip of her head, then thrust her muzzle in an eloquent sweep toward the island.

Komodo’s question was harder to answer, because her initial desire had changed. Her intention had been to have a bath in the swell of the river she drew such solace and strength from, but seeing Hemlock had altered her course in an irrevocable way. She wanted to stay here and spend time with the pretty almost-acquaintance. Involuntarily she glanced inland, toward her original destination, but her revised answer was in the way she edged closer to Hemlock and then darted toward Komodo with a muted splash. She crossed the distance between herself and the angakkuq with characteristic timorousness, sliding the bridge of her muzzle along the line of his lower jaw with the grace of a violinist’s bow, and the airy whine that spilled from her throat was as apologetic as she could make it. She was very sorry to have left him — but she was even more delighted to see him! Her tail whirred like a helicopter rotor behind her as she sidestepped daintily back toward Hemlock and then crashed inelegantly into the shallows, paddling circles in the chilly water.