Who knows what bothers it; who knows what it wants. Certainly not her. Her pup is a mystery growing inside her. Growing increasingly restless. She wonders what it will be like, when it emerges. She wonders if she will like it. Some betas love their pups so much they suckle them for years, right up until they are becoming beta themselves. Some betas loathe their pups and leave them to wither into leather, picked over by birds, on the rocks.

She swam slowly, moving her body as little as possible so as not to further agitate her quivering belly.

Gradually, they emerged out of the murk (or she emerged towards them): thousands of fat, slick bodies churning busily, bound by a webbed barrier. She pressed her face against the barrier and chewed for a while on the meshing, waiting for her pup to still, watching the fish stream past her face, unable to bite at them.

He was right; this was the most alluring thing she had ever seen. Ever smelt. Ever tasted on the water.

When her pup finally stilled, she swam as deep as she could into the murk. But she had no faith in herself, no faith in her pregnant little body.

She’s still not sure if she tried as hard as she might have. She wishes she knew. Not knowing means she will regret it forever, because she only had that one chance.

She rushed at the surface and launched herself, gasping, up into the air, kicking her tail as hard as she could (she hopes). But it was no use. She barely managed to breach her shoulders. And then her pup started wriggling and thrashing so ferociously it was all she could do to float. She drifted, racked by cramps, away from the herded school and towards the horizon, on the outgoing tide.

She is too small. It is too big, this thing inside her. It takes over her body and she has no choice but to let it.

When it finally calmed she decided to return to the female waters. She was getting too close to pupping to be this far south, to be this far from her harem. And it was getting too big and too busy in her belly.

Because she couldn’t launch herself into the tightly herded school, she did not get to ride in a roaring box and so she had to swim back north, hugging the coast so as to avoid the current, which was flowing in the opposite direction to where she needed to go.

She swam, gorged herself, swam, napped, gorged herself, swam. She floated supine whenever the pup thrashed inside her, holding her belly to the sun or stars and moon as she drifted.