We met the night you almost died. The moon glittered on the water, heavy in the sky, and I watched the waves roll again and again and again. I was here because I had nowhere else to go. You were there because it was the only place you could be.
The tide washed you up, saltwater frosting your fur, and for a heartbeat, the world froze. You were made of drowning and dreaming, and I could not believe my eyes. What was I supposed to do, confronted with the most beautiful ghost of the sea I had ever seen?
And then you coughed, a ghost no more. I stumbled over the sands to reach you before the tide could steal your breath again, and together we crawled to the higher reaches of the shore with gritty sand sinking into our fur. The effort was almost too much for you, though, and we never reached the grass. Instead, you rolled onto your back and heaved seawater from your lungs. That was as far as you would go for the night.
With your limbs and tail spread out, you looked all the world like a starfish tossed from the waves, and I felt the urge to return you to the depths from whence you came. Somehow, I knew you belonged to the sea more than the shore, that you would perish without the tides to keep you afloat. But we all keep trinkets from the ocean, gathering gull feathers for our nests and shells for our dens, collecting the bits of the sea to make ourselves feel like we can master the untamed deep, folly as that may always be.
I needed to feel some power over the world after so many moons without. I needed the strength, the courage, the justification to stand up in the face of my fears. I could never master you, never own you, but I think I took you in as a trinket anyway. You were my starfish, my piece of the sea.
I needed you.