ds_flashfiction | The Selkie (A Fable) by Writedragon for the Cryptid Challenge

Title: The Selkie (A Fable)

Fandom: due South

Rating: Mature

Word count: ~1,800

Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski

Tags: AU, selkies, Celtic mythology and folklore, cryptid_challenge

Characters: Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski

Warnings: No warnings apply

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Summary: Wherein Benton Fraser is a selkie who meets a human, and therein lies a tale.

Notes: “They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.” — Whales Weep Not, D.H. Lawrence

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Long ago, or perhaps it was only yesterday, there was a young selkie pup.

He lived with his colony, his family, off the coast of the northern islands, and he loved his life. His fur was dark and sleek, his eyes the sapphire of a winter sky. His sharp nose knew the scents of every creature in this part of the great grey-green sea, and his bright mind knew all their names.

He spent his days playing, catching fish, chasing otters, snapping at gulls, and basking on sun-warmed rocks. He reveled in the feel of sinewy ribbons of kelp as they curled around his body, caressing him. On warm summer days he lay in the sun, flecks of sea-foam speckling his fur as salt dried upon his whiskers.

In the arms of Mother Ocean, he felt the swell and sigh of her breasts as he swam and turned beneath the rocking waves. He dove deep, his lungs full of air, to where sparkling sea-jellies and needle-fanged fishes hunted in the dark places, and the kraken lurked. The kraken tasted good, too.

As he grew older, the pup became a bull, fast and strong, a thick layer of warm fat covering his taut muscled body. His blood grew hot and he sought the company of other selkies, and of humans. Every now and then, when the moon was full and the tides were high, he climbed upon the land and shed his sealskin, transforming himself into a two-legged walker-upon-the-earth. He would charm the humans with his beauty and take a lover for a day or a year, but he always longed for the deeps, and always returned there, to his home and to his family.

Everything was peaceful, and beautiful, and good, until the seal-hunters came.

First to strike were the wolves of the sea, the orcas, circling in deadly packs of white and black, their knife-fins slicing the waters as their jaws sliced into his kinfolk. After the orcas came even more vicious predators: humans who did not recognize selkies in their seal-forms, who picked them off, one by one, taking their pelts and meat.

They took his mother first, then his father, then his herd, and he fled. He swam for his life across the vast and unforgiving spaces, following the currents and the wandering albatross. He swam for many turns, sleeping on his back and letting the wind and waves take him where they would.

He passed many unfamiliar coastlines, seeking shelter and safety, and — he hoped — a new colony to join. But everywhere he went, the other seals knew he was different, that he was neither animal nor human, and they shunned him.

One day he came across a baby dolphin, a false-killer-whale, trapped in a fishing net. It was wounded, alone and crying for its pod. And although the dolphin resembled the sea-wolves that had killed the selkie’s family, he could not let the creature suffer. The selkie freed the animal, and Dolphin adopted him, and they became inseparable.

Another day the selkie found an enormous sea-serpent. Silver glistening scales covered it from head to tail, and its body rippled and writhed as it danced among the waves. He followed it, curious, keeping a safe distance, with Dolphin close behind.

They swam and swam, never veering left or right, but always straight ahead, tracing an imaginary line towards a destination only the serpent knew. Soon, new tastes appeared in the water: strange fish, freshwater mussels, the leaves of deciduous trees, overlain by the bitter flavor of humans and their many poisons. But still the selkie followed the sea-serpent, because he was young and naive and had nothing to lose.

Closer and closer to land they ventured, until brackish bay waters became the fresh outflows of a river, a seaway. And still they pushed on, further and further upstream, into the heart of a great continent that the selkie had never seen before. The seemingly boundless lakes in which they swam now were murky and deep, littered with giant metal wrecks and the memories of storm-lost men.

One night during a screaming autumn gale, the waves whipped to a blinding frenzy by the Witch of the North, the serpent disappeared into the tempest, and the selkie realized, too late, that he had become lost. He drifted with the angry waves for hours, keeping as low in the water as he dared, surfacing only to take deep gulps of air.

By dawn the storm had passed, leaving the waters glassy and still. He spy-hopped above the surface to breathe and get his bearings. The early morning stars were all wrong. The water, too, was wrong, silt-laden and heavy. The land, what he could see of it in the far distance, was unknown to him, and it frightened him.

Towering stone mountains, human-made, lined the shore and glittered with lights. It was a city, the largest the selkie had ever seen. He heard the sounds of vehicles and anguished human cries drifting across the water, along with the stench of decay and poisoned air — and food.

Hungry, lost, and alone but for Dolphin, who had stayed glued to his side while they rode out the storm, he sought a place to beach himself, perhaps to find a fishing-boat from which to steal a meal. And, maybe, a lover or two.

The selkie swam along the shoreline until he found a place where many small boats lay moored to wooden piers. He hauled himself atop a secluded floating dock, exhausted and terrified, and fell into a deep sleep. The sun rose and set, until only the city lights lit up the night again, muffling the stars.

When he awoke at dusk, he took human form, stripped off his seal-pelt, and climbed aboard a sailing boat. There he found some clothes and borrowed them, leaving three large lake fish as payment. He put the clothes on and draped his fur skin around his shoulders as a cloak to ward off the bitter night wind.

As he walked along the waterfront, he avoided most of the people — couples huddled together, groups of men and women laughing and drinking something that smelled of rotted plants, and dark-clad skulkers with ill intent upon their minds. And then he spotted him: a beautiful pale gold human with hair the color of sunlight, standing alone, hands tucked into his pockets, staring into the dark waters.

They spoke.

“I’m Ray,” said the golden man.

The selkie’s true name, “Grace-of-pearl-shoaled-night”, would be lost on human lips. To their insufficient ears it sounded strange, a crude bark that meant nothing to them. The selkie had long ago chosen other, simpler names to use in their presence, fashioned to match his mood at the time.

“Call me Fraser,” said the selkie, “or Sto:lo”. Both were human names for a muddy, roaring river that led to the northern sea, and he felt much like that river right now — confused, wandering, and tumbling over the rocks. The name suited him.

“I’ll stick with Fraser, if that’s ok with you,” said Ray.

They walked together along the lakeshore, and Fraser watched Ray’s movements from the corner of his eye. His limbs and hands were graceful and full of energy, like a coiled sea-eel. His tongue was sharp like the barb-tipped tail of the winged fish that shared his name, and his words stung sometimes. But his smile and his heart shone like the moon through the clouds, and the selkie found himself longing for this man.

They laughed and talked, and walked some more. They enchanted and ensnared one another with their beauty, their voices, and their shared loneliness, that night.

They went to bed together, quenching their despair with heat and sweat and coursing blood and the fiery touch of skin on skin. Their desire sated, they wrapped themselves in the selkie’s pelt and slept, warm bodies entwined.

When Fraser awoke, Ray, along with Fraser’s fine pelt, was gone. Bereft of his magic and his lover, Fraser tore his hair and cried to the heavens. Without his fur-skin, he would never be able to return to the sea. He would never find a new home, and would be doomed to walk the stinking earth forever, like the damned soul he was.

But then Ray was there, holding him, comforting him, the smell of human-food coming from the box in his hand. Ray had only gone for breakfast. He showed Fraser the soft fur-skin tucked neatly into a closet, and promised not to leave.

Fraser collapsed with relief into Ray’s arms. He was not trapped after all: he was safe and warm and no longer alone, and life seemed livable again.

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They stayed together many years and had many adventures, the selkie and his golden stingray who could not swim. Dolphin stayed nearby, and Fraser visited him often, promising they would return to the sea one day.

At long last, that day came.

Fraser led Ray to the northernmost ocean, across snow and ice and mountain ranges that pierced the sky. There they found sunken ships and pale men’s frozen bones scattered along the rocky shoreline, gnawed by wild animals.

He showed Ray his true self then, what he was, and Ray was astonished. This time Ray rent his hair and begged Fraser not to go, for he loved him. But because he loved Fraser, neither would he hide his pelt, and would not keep him prisoner.

In the end they found a way, as lovers often do. Ray lived in a cabin by the sea, sharing his heart and his bed with Fraser whenever Grace-of-pearl-shoaled-night walked upon the land. Sometimes Fraser went to the water for many turns, to play with Dolphin and his descendants and to remember what it was like to be one with the sea. But he always came back to his Ray of light, to his new colony of two.

On dark starry evenings he wrapped them in his fur, warming them by the fireside. They held each other tightly, the way the sea envelops the shore, unsure of where one stopped and the other began. They listened to the sounds of each other’s heartbeats, and the singing northern lights. They listened to the soughing of the pines and the endless cresting waves, the breath of Mother Ocean, whispering into the night. They listened, and they heard, and they were happy.

The End.