Stavanger Bay [m] the sparrows drag me down

That knocked all the air from his lungs. He realized all over that it'd been a year or more since they'd last seen one another. The intervening months were a blur of pain and desolation, and he did not yet know exactly how poorly they'd treated her.

"I am angrier with the sea than with the stars," he admitted, self-conscious about the sound of his own voice. He had the feeling he'd once spoken prettily, but it sounded strangely flat to his ears, now. He felt that he was not the man that had once charmed Marina — but perhaps he could be again. Someday.

He would try.

"But I will go where you go," he told her, "and I will stay where you stay."

He touched his nose to her hip, begging her silently to stop.

"What — " He shook his head, unable to articulate all that he wanted to know. He had so many questions, but not one of them was brought easily to the forefront of his mind. He had to grasp madly at the incessant swirl of his thoughts. The first one he produced was, "What happened to them?"

Her last litter, he meant. It galled him that they had not been born to Chakliux, nor to him. He was not angry with Marina over it, but he was jealous over their parentage all the same. They were likely grown or dead by now, if they were not here with her, and that was her triumph or tragedy to bear — but selfishly, he wished they were here for him to claim.

He shifted, discontent. The whelping season would soon be upon them, and the time to rectify this unease along with it.

"I saw Chagak," he told her then. "Before the first snow. North of here — far, far north. He... he was well."