Coralline wanted one thing that morning: a full bottle to add to her collection. She lounged around her broken reef barrier, purple scales flat in the sun, blue fin swaying, eyes scanning the surface of the reddish purple ocean. Bits of coral grew wild in her hair. She had lived past the sandbar for as long as she could remember, alone, waiting for the wide current to carry gifts out from shore. But the current was slow today. She drifted, bored, and watched the far beach glitter with strangers she never dared approach. Then the water changed. A wave rose in the distance, dark and red-purple, taller than any she had seen. It curled and rushed toward her. She dove behind a jagged coral fragment and gripped it tight. The wave broke over the reef. Coralline held on as the water dragged her sideways. When the churn faded, she opened her eyes. The wave had carried more than foam. Small dark shapes tumbled through the swirling water. Turtles. kicking hard for open sea. She watched them scatter and vanish into the deep. She hopped back up on her reef to lounge again and scan the ocean some more. When Something white bumped against her arm. Floating, An egg, barely cracked. Its shell like a tiny boat. A baby sea turtles head could barely be seen. Not a bottle, not glass, but a real egg with a baby sea turtle, drifting away from where the others had already hatched and swum. The wave had knocked it loose too soon. It should have stayed buried in warm sand. Instead it spun alone in cold water, sinking. Coralline caught it in both hands. The shell was cracked. Through the gap, something moved. A tiny green head pushed out. Two dark eyes blinked at her. Flippers pressed against the broken shell, too weak to break free, too small to swim. She knew what waited below. The deep swallowed things that could not swim. This hatchling would sink and drown before it ever reached air. She pressed the egg to her chest and swam. Not toward the beach. Toward home. She cut through the water fast, one arm cradling the shell, the other pulling her forward. The reef barrier passed beneath her. Her hollow opened ahead, its rounded mouth dark and quiet, glass bottles tucked in its shelves like small kept promises. Soft anemones lined the walls. Inside, on her mossy coral bed, nothing could reach the little turtle but her. She slipped through the entrance and settled the egg in the center of the cushion. The hatchling still pushed at the crack. Coralline curled her body around it, the way she once curled around the whole egg through long nights. Her fin blocked the doorway. Her hands shielded the shell. "You're too early," she whispered. "Don't come out yet. You can't swim. Not yet." The head withdrew back a little into the shell. The flippers slowed. For now, it stayed inside, safe in her hands. She knew the shell would open soon, ready or not. And when it did, Coralline would have to let her friend go. Until then she decided to nurture him.