He swims aimlessly for a bit, confused. But when he reaches a current that feels familiar, he surfaces and looks back the way he came and sees how the layers of headland seem to lounge along the horizon, like a beta snoozing prostrate while her pup suckles her teat, and he realises where he is. He’s all the way up north, near the nursery and harem waters—the female territories!

He knows it’s not his place anymore, but he can’t miss the opportunity to find his friend and tell her about the strange school of fish. He doesn’t stop to nap or feed even when he bursts headfirst and laughing into a school of herring and sends them scattering.

He slows his pace as he enters the female territories, cruising in long lines and doubling back on himself, searching the waters as he swims to where their favourite cluster of rocks rise up and breach the ocean.

Other females spot him and swim over.

Why are you here? they ask by spiralling around him, and then before he can answer they snap, Go away, you shouldn’t be here anymore, by slapping their tails in his face as they swim away.

He doesn’t care; he just wants a moment with her. He just wants to say hello and tell her what he has been doing since he saw her last.

It’s night when he finds her. The familiar braids of seaweed are swaying and curling slowly up from the rocks, then sucking back towards them, as waves rise and fall. He pokes his head up out of the water and instantly recognises her snoozing on the shore. He grins at the familiar mound of her body, which is lit up softly in star and moonlight.

He barks once, quietly, and she starts awake. Her head lifts, and he watches her peering at the dark water, searching for him.

She slips into the water and disappears into the darkness. Then all of a sudden she is there, gliding and sliding against his body, curling about him, nuzzling her head into his shoulder and belly and so saying, I’ve missed you and You’ve grown.

He pointedly rubs his face in the slight swell of her pregnant belly, to say: So have you.

Why are you here? she asks him, by cocking her head to one side.

He grunts, laughing to her softly, to tell her he didn’t mean to be.

She tilts her head to the other side to ask him what he means.

He slips and slides and slithers about her, grunting and barking, and so tells her what happened to him.

She barks in surprise, laughing, and rubs up against him eagerly to ask if he’s okay and to tell him she would love to see this school of herded fish.

But you still have time! He realises it’s true as he honks it.