"Now he's leaving. It has him to the shoulders now, and he's preparing to go under. We say our goodbyes, smile (him cheerful, me certainly sheepish and unconvincing), lick and kiss noses. Then he turns his face down, facing into the Bluemire, giving himself to it.

"And I watch him go. It swallows his shoulders, takes his muzzle. He folds his ears down, closes his beautiful eyes. The quicksand makes a pit around his head, smooth banks closing in as he descends. His closed eyes, his eyebrows gone beneath the edge. Just a sinking tawny hill now. I watch the hill go beneath surface level, watch the last of him slip down into the pit. And before it closes over him I bend quickly down and kiss the top of his disappearing head. He twitches.

"And the sand closes and he is gone.

"I sit alone at the end of the Tongue, looking at the cold blue surface, and I just cry.

"When I feel like moving again, I go back to shore, reel in and park the Tongue in its bay. All the time I'm doing that, and all the way home, I'm thinking. When he's back, I want to meet him with at least the start of a workable plan."

Start of story
Part 2