otter

the magpie's honest cousin. the magpie takes what is yours and hides it; the otter gives back what the sea took. sea otters live in coastal water and rivers in small rafts, elegant under the water and a comedian on top of it — the seal's amphibious body, quick where the seal is a boulder.

an otter rests on its back at the surface, and where there is kelp it anchors in it; one otter floating draws the next alongside, so a kelp bed ends up with three or four drifting as one. it dives to the floor, comes up with a clam, rolls onto its back and cracks it on its chest with a stone of its own — stone on stone, three or four blows — then eats it. no item, no drop: the clam is the otter's and the sight is yours.

and the habit the mod exists for: an item in the water within reach — dropped from a deck, lost off a pier, sunk in a river — the otter dives for, takes, swims to the nearest shore with, and leaves on the ground there. it wants nothing for this. the sea stops being where things go to be lost. no taming, no feeding, no drop, no number; the fetch returns your item unchanged and never produces one.