Stavanger Bay [m] the sparrows drag me down

Her mouth tensed slightly with remembered pain when Dutch asked after the fate of her last litter. Angrier with the sea, he'd said, and maybe Marina could relate to that in some ways. They're gone, she said quietly, the words acrid on her tongue. I... I didn't want them. But I raised them. I loved them. Until I got sick, and then... I don't remember.

My brother found me. River. He saved me, Marina reached out to touch her nose to Dutch's cheek. The sea has taken so much from us. But it gave me my life back, too. I have family by the sea, more family than I ever knew.

But when he spoke of Chagak, her eyes filled with tears. Chagak, she breathed, voice hitching on the word. He was well. I hope he found them, or they found him. She turned abruptly to press against Dutch, desperately seeking his embrace all over again. He was the only piece left of the life she'd tried so hard to build from the ruins of her youth.