The Little Selkie (retail)

  The Little Selkie

  A Timeless Fairy Tale

  By: K. M. Shea

  a Take Out The Trash! Publication

  Copyright © K.M. Shea 2015

  THE LITTLE SELKIE

  Copyright © 2015 by K. M. Shea

  Cover design by Myrrhlynn

  Edited by Jeri Larsen

  Line Edited by Bethany of A Little Red Ink

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any number whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  www.kmshea.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: A Rescue

  Chapter 2: The Capture

  Chapter 3: Voiceless

  Chapter 4: Festivals and Food

  Chapter 5: Breakfast with Royals

  Chapter 6: The Wild Flower and the White Rose

  Chapter 7: Parties and Portraits

  Chapter 8: Eating in Easky

  Chapter 9: Breaking and Entering

  Chapter 10: Regarding Borders

  Chapter 11: Bandits

  Chapter 12: The Summer Ball

  Chapter 13: Evidence

  Chapter 14: Stopping Storms

  Epilogue

  About

  Chapter 1

  A Rescue

  If Dylan knew how much trouble it would be to save one bothersome human, she might have thought twice before performing her good deed.

  She was minding her own business, investigating the violent storm that had recently popped up near the coast. Although the rain was torrential and the waves turbulent, Dylan was safe, floating deep below the surface in her sea lion body. She dodged a broken board and avoided a tattered sail.

  Had those greedy humans tried to sail in this weather? she wondered, twitching her sea lion whiskers forward. She gave the sail a second glance before spiraling upwards, flicking her hind-flippers in irritation when the waves tossed her under the surface. Several humpback whale-lengths away, Dylan saw an orange glow above the water.

  She popped above the surface, and a cresting wave almost dunked her back underwater. Still, she could see the burning ship, which was half sunk already. Yep. They tried to sail in it. Crazy landers, she scoffed.

  She, begrudgingly, swam a little closer to look for survivors. She couldn’t see or hear any sailors on deck—which should have been easy. In Dylan’s experience, sailors on sinking ships either cursed or prayed louder than usual.

  All the lifeboats were missing. The humans must have abandoned their vessel when it became obvious she wasn’t going to float.

  Good. Dylan dove back underwater and narrowly avoided smacking into a splintered board. Thinking herself free of duty, she went about exploring the wreckage and the storm—being careful to stay a safe distance away from the sinking ship. The stately prow was the only piece of the craft jutting out of the water.

  This storm…It came on too sudden and strong to be of the ocean, she thought, swimming backwards as she looked up at the wreckage strewn in the water, being tossed about by the wild waves.

  Perhaps I should go get Muriel. She’s more knowledgeable about those human weather mages. Although why humans should wish to sink each other is beyond anyone’s reasoning, Dylan decided, bending her body so sharply to change directions that she almost touched her hind-flippers with her nose. This doesn’t feel like weather magic, though. Weather magic always feels like sandpaper. This—

  Lightning lit up the water above her head. For an instant, she saw a human silhouette floating in the water above her. Then the flashing light died.

  I’ll pretend I didn’t see that. She started swimming south. She made it about one seal length before smoothly turning around and swimming back towards the human shape. Silly selkie duties. Guardians of the sea, my hind-flippers!

  As a selkie—a people of the sea who had the abilities to wear pelts and become seals—Dylan and her kind avoided contact with landers. There were a few exceptions, and one of them was to save a drowning human. Her parents had banged it into her skull at a young age that, as guardians of the ocean, selkies were duty-bound to save anyone in distress in their waters—humans included.

  Resentfully, Dylan swam up to the human. It was an unconscious male, dressed in a baggy white shirt that—as it was wet—was going to make him weigh a stone more, not to mention the weight of his sodden boots and cotton trousers. It would be a male, she barked before she began the arduous process of nudging him to the surface.

  Dylan got him to the surface twice before she realized she would need to throw him on something floating, or he would just keep sinking.

  Luck would have it that, nearby, a board from the ruined ship floated on the unstable seas. As she lacked hands in her sea lion form, it took her a lot of heaving and prodding to get the human resting on the board.

  You better not be dead already. You’re ruining my investigation. Now Da and Ma will wonder where I’ve been, and I’ll have to tell them, Dylan groused as she used her head to push his arm onto the wooden plank. She floated backwards and inspected her work.

  From the chest up, the human rested on the plank. The sea began to calm as the storm moved further north. Her work here was done. Good riddance. Don’t try to sail in any more storms, lug-bug. Dylan dove back beneath the water. She took a moment to get her bearings, and in that short time, a violent ocean wave tossed the wood, sending the man plunging back into the water.

  By King Murron’s crest! The ocean must be testing me. She swam back to the human and dove beneath him so she could push him out of the water. Again. It was unlikely she could toss the human onto anything stable enough to let him ride out the rest of the weather.

  It would be faster if I turned human, but, nah! Dylan turned her nose towards land. The few times she had changed from a sea lion into her human body in the middle of the ocean, she’d half-drowned herself while sliding out of her pelt. Changing and trying to keep the Sinker from sinking would be nearly impossible. Plus, she mostly just didn’t want to. Being a sea lion was fun. Human? Ehhh.

  Still, even in her “fun” body, it took ages to get the man close to shore. Lacking arms and hands in her sea lion body, she was stuck nosing and pushing the human along while she tried to keep his head above water.

  When they reached shore, she realized it was rocky, without a patch of sand in sight. I’m not saving you from drowning just so you can have your silly head smashed on rocks. She nudged the human farther south. When she found a small, sandy bay—empty of rocks of any kind—Dylan pushed and dragged the human so his body rested on the shore.

  There. You’re welcome, she said, turning her hind flippers forward so she could shuffle back into the ocean. She twisted to give the human one last look and watched an incoming wave crest over him, flipping him so he was face down in the sand.

  Dylan narrowed her sea lion eyes at the man. I’m starting to think he’s doing this on purpose. I give up. I’ll switch and drag his carcass onto shore, she decided. She planted her flippers in the sand before initiating the switch. Magic foamed and fizzled inside her sea lion body, and Dylan felt her pelt part. She stood up, stepping out of her pelt in the body of a human girl—her other form. She wrapped the pelt around herself in a makeshift dress, tucking the edges together to hold it, then flipped the human on his back. She grabbed his arms, yanked them over his head, and dragged him up to the dry sand dunes.

  “Do you live?” she asked, slapping one of the human’s cheeks. He
didn’t respond. She set her ear by his mouth and heard his raspy breath. “You’ve got too much water in you.” She smashed her hands onto his chest. It took a few thumps, but eventually she got it right, and the human folded in half, coughing up the sea water in his lungs. “Are you awake now?” Dylan asked when his coughing subsided.

  There was no response, although his breathing sounded better.

  Frowning, she tucked a wad of seaweed under his head to lift him above the dry sand. “If I leave you here, I would not be surprised if some land creature lumbered by and ate you. You have terrible luck.” She pushed his wet, sand-colored hair aside. “Are you listening?” she asked, inspecting his face.

  Dylan wasn’t a good judge of human beauty—she was far more enamored with the ocean—but it seemed to her that the man looked well enough, if not half-drowned and a little ashen.

  She sighed and plopped down in the sand next to the human. “I will wait with you until you wake up, or until someone finds you. They cannot have missed the storm, and although you landers are stupid enough to be out on the ocean when you shouldn’t, you are meticulous enough to remember a ship was out. Soon, people will start searching the coast. They always do when they lose a boat.”

  The storm was blocking out what little bit of the sun was left. Tiny patches of visible sky began turning satin purple, accented with glittering stars.

  The sand was still warm—the sun had been strong earlier in the day, and the storm had come on so suddenly. Dylan buried her toes and fingers in the warm beach after checking the human again.

  Even from the shore, she could see the dark spot on the ocean where the ship had gone down, another victim to an angry ocean.

  “The ocean is a hard mistress,” Dylan said pushing her wild hair out of her face. Although her words were hard, her throat and heart ached. She hated it whenever a human drowned. It seemed like a senseless loss. If they stayed on the land where they belonged, their lives would be much safer.

  She inhaled before the selkie song of passing spilled from her lips. Selkies sang in a magic language, unknown and foreign-sounding to anyone not their own, but Dylan thought the ocean and those who had died in its embrace might understand. So she sang, her voice weaving up and down, weighted with sorrow and regret but buoyed by the promise of hope. Her song rang out above the crashing waves, and the magic in her voice called out to the ocean. Two giant sea serpents of water formed in response. They eased across the beach, catching bits of sand that spiraled through their serpent bodies in the currents that held the magic-formed creatures together.

  Dylan sang and held her hands out to the creatures. They lowered their snake-like snouts until they touched her hands. They would remain as long as she sang and do only what she bid in her selkie song. For the song of passing, they would stand with her and observe her sorrow.

  Dylan continued to sing and check on the human. During the following hour, she sang a song of peace and a song of stillness. Twice her saved human opened his eyes, but never for more than a few seconds.

  Dylan was standing, singing a song of her own making with her great serpents curling around her, when she noticed a glow in the forest. She cut herself off and leaned against the coiled body of one of her water serpents—magic gave the water resistance and a surface.

  She squinted in the twilight, straining her ears to hear above the crash of ocean waves on the shore. “They’ve come. Off you two go,” she said. The creatures dissolved. The magic that held them together dissipated, and the water that formed them fell on the shore like a torrential rain.

  The Sinker groaned. “Don’t worry,” Dylan said, patting his cheek. “Someone’s coming. You’ll be fine. Don’t sail in another storm, though,” she warned, retreating to the ocean. When she was shoulder-deep, she untucked her pelt and slid into it. She felt the magic binding catch, sealing her inside her sea lion body. She happily splashed in the water for a moment, before she remembered her responsibility and settled in to watch the Sinker.

  A search party, armed with torches, rope, and lots of bulky, impractical clothes moved toward the bay. When the light of their torches fell on Dylan’s human, a young woman wearing a puffy dress shouted and hurried across the sand, throwing herself at the half-drowned male’s side.

  Finally—he’s safe. My duty has been fulfilled. She relished the thought and dove underwater, giving her human no further thought. Instead, she considered how she might explain to her father—king of the selkies—that she, his youngest daughter, had ignored all his orders and swum into the center of a storm. And she had a dreadful feeling the typhoon wasn’t a natural occurrence.

  Chapter 2

  The Capture

  The sea witch fled north. Dylan could feel her traveling in their direction—whatever bit of ocean the foul creature touched seemed to grow tainted, a feeling that spread quite a distance from the sea witch’s presence.

  Finally. The witch would pay!

  Dylan. Dylan!

  Dylan would have ignored her oldest sister Maureen’s distinctive call if she could have, but Maureen’s seal body crashed into her. While Dylan’s sea lion body was the same length as Maureen’s seal body, Maureen’s form was much thicker and had a lot more heft to it, so she bounced Dylan off her body like a minnow.

  What? Dylan barked, anxious to chase after their target.

  Maureen floated in front of her, tilting her seal head as she listened to other seal voices.

  Dylan settled in with ill-disguised impatience as she felt the sea witch draw closer. Most days, Dylan was perfectly happy with her sea lion form, even if it was a bit of a disgrace. (Bad selkie blood in her mother’s side.) Even if she was the only one of her kind in her father’s kingdom, she could swim twice as fast as anyone else, was far more flexible, and could shuffle-walk on shore in her sea lion body instead of inching along like the rest of the selkies.

  The inability to stay underwater as long as her kinsmen was a definite downside. Dylan’s record was nine minutes, but most selkies could stay underwater up to forty minutes. Most irritatingly, though, all other selkies could go twice as deep as she.

  It was also a little harder to understand her clan when in seal form. As a sea lion, Dylan communicated with barks and chirps. Her kinsmen, however, communicated with croons and clicks. Some vocal noises were distinctive—she had been yelled at by enough selkies in their seal bodies to recognize when they said her name—but complex ideas were difficult to interpret.

  Her father’s long-winded speech was a perfect example. While Maureen listened to the seal croons, Dylan was stuck ignorant and waiting. She fidgeted—twisting and twirling in the water under Maureen’s baleful eye.

  Dylan thought the croon meant Dylan was supposed to hang back with her sisters, Muriel and Maureen. She had long ago lost interest in learning what her father had to say as a seal, because it was typically an idea or order she didn’t care for.

  Whenever possible, Dylan confessed her worst sins to her father, King Murron, when he was in his seal body. That way, she could skip off, claiming she didn’t understand him. That was how she’d gotten around a severe punishment for swimming in a storm near a shipwreck two years prior.

  Dylan started swimming again before her father finished crooning, twisting around her sister and leaving her in her wake—her streamlined body pulling ahead of the other seal selkies in their company.

  Dylan! Maureen clicked. Maureen was not above half-drowning Dylan to keep her in check.

  Dylan ignored the call and dove behind a line of her father’s best fighters, waiting for them to move forward and capture the sea witch in their trap. Come out, come out witch-y. It’s time you pay the price of your deeds.

  For approximately two years, the witch had wandered and troubled the ocean surrounding Ringsted. It started with unnatural storms up and down the coast. That hadn’t bothered the selkies too much—although all the ship wreckage wasn’t good—until they realized the sea witch was supplementing her magic with the blood of ocean cre
atures: sharks, sea lions, whales, anything she could get her hands on. Dylan winced, remembering the last creature she had found drained of blood—a small, lifeless dolphin.

  As guardians of the sea, the act enraged the selkies. All selkies.

  You’re going to regret every drop of blood you spilled, Dylan thought as she peered between the hefty selkie warriors in their seal bodies.

  Maureen and Muriel caught up to Dylan. Maureen bumped her with more force than necessary, but Muriel fretfully nosed her cheek.

  Wait, Muriel clicked as she moved in front of her.

  Dylan twitched her whiskers at her sister and swam for the surface to get a breath of air.

  Her sisters weren’t merely trying to coddle her. This time, it was crucial that she follow orders. If the sea witch dodged the trap, Dylan would have to take the risk of changing forms in the ocean to sing as a human. Her voice was the key to their plan.

  It was almost as if the ocean felt sorry for giving her the near disgrace of a sea lion body by gifting her with the strongest, best voice of all the selkies in her father’s clan. It wasn’t just an honor; it was a weapon. As the best singer, Dylan was also the most infused with water-wielding magic.

  When Dylan returned to her sisters, the pair squeezed her between them, as if they could shelter her.

  Danger! Murphy, another one of Dylan’s sisters, crooned as she swam towards them. She just made it behind the line of fighter selkies when the sea witch appeared.

  The sea witch was human, of course, though her stark white skin made her look fearsome in the water. Her tattered, black dress spread around her, moving like octopus tentacles in the underwater currents. A steel bar was tied to her back, and her eyes glazed hot with anger when she saw the selkies waiting for her.

  She tried to hurl a wave of water magic at Dylan, her sisters, and the fighters, but the water passed them without disturbing so much as a whisker.