Daughter of the Witcher Ch. 03

Cuilén laughed quietly as he slipped one arm around her waist and the other reached for her breast, "The things that you say to me, little words from you hold me bound for the way that my heart listens."

He kissed her and Louhi's heart thrilled to feel him begin to harden for her.

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Down on the cove, it was one of those sunny fall days which carry little if any wamth. The sun didn't feel too bad on you, but the wind was still there and it stole everything away. Annikki had come wanting to see some of the place in the daytime.

She sat on the rock where she'd seen the figure the night before, but though she looked as carefully as she could and spent some minutes at it every so often, she saw nothing.

No one and nothing, she said to herself, wondering a little at the slight sense of melancholy which had seemed to descend over her. She wasn't lonely and she knew that all that she had to do was to go to Louhi and stand a little close to her and she'd be in her arms being kissed. As far as that went, she thought, it would likely bring the same response from Cuilén. She made a mental note to be sure to talk with them and spend some time later.

As far as she was concerned, Annikki thought that she was a pretty lucky girl to have two friends and lovers like them. It was just, ...

A gull landed next to her a few feet away on the rock and screamed at her as though ordering her to give up whatever was in her basket and she swung at it for the interruption to her thoughts.

It was just that, ... well, she thought, maybe it was this place or maybe she'd been feeling a little hopeful the night before to see who it had been out here. She didn't know, but it wasn't bad sitting here.

Her gaze had been pretty fixed at just one spot a little away from her in the waves nearby. It hadn't been a thought, really. It had been more of a by-product of the thought while she'd been having it. But she did see the dark shape shooting past there under the water as something passed the spot.

Annikki looked up a little farther out and she looked closer in. She looked everywhere but she saw nothing. When she turned a little, she almost jumped off the rock into the water herself.

The head was there just a little away from the rock and looking at her.

Well, she didn't know if it was the same one or anything. She quietly said hello and wanted to laugh at herself. What was she doing?

She felt even more foolish when she slowly raised her hand and waved just a little. She saw the brown eyes as they followed the motion and then when she'd put her hand down again, the eyes returned to her face, watching silently.

"I was told to see if you were the right kind," she said in Norse, smiling and feeling like an idiot. "I was told that the right ones were smaller than the regular ones." She leaned over a little closer and she looked down, "But I can't even see any of you, but what's here. You don't have ears, so that's a good thing, I heard."

She went on like that a little, feeling stupid, but since it was plain to her that this was a real seal and possibly even a female, she just laughed at herself. She remembered the basket and she took a little bread and meat out of it and started to eat.

The head remained where it was, watching the same as before, though with some interest since she was eating something.

"I'd put some out on the rock here for you, but I don't know if it's good for a seal. You eat fish, I guess."

The head bobbed a little nearer to see her eat and then she left a little crust and a small piece of meat there right at the edge. The eyes looked at it and then back up at her.

"Well go on if you want," Annikki smiled, "I put it there for you, after all."

She was turning to find something else in the basket and she found a piece of salted herring. Seizing it, she turned to hold it up a little triumphantly, but she saw that the creature was chewing something and then it was gone. She looked down and her offering was gone as well, so she came to the only possible conclusion after she saw that the rock was still dry other than a sweeping smear which must have been left by ... a flipper?

"Well you're welcome," she laughed a little, pleased that she could have at least a little interaction with this fascinating animal. He must have risen up a little and swept everything into the water and then grabbed it.

But that was something that must have been foreign to it, she thought. The herring might be taken a lot quicker, so she decided to be careful. Annikki didn't take her eyes from the creature as she held out the piece of fish. The nose came forward slowly as everything bobbed in the waves, but at last, the fish was gone and Annikki still had her fingers.

They stayed like that for a long time, with her talking and the creature listening – or appearing to as she talked about where she came from and some of her travels with Louhi. Eventually, she had no more to share and after a while, she ran out of things to say in her one-sided conversation. The seal stayed for all of it, and then Annikki very slowly got to her knees, which caused the animal to stare a little, and then she got to her feet to leave.

"I must go," she said, "I have enjoyed this little joke that my friend has played on me and I was surprised to see you this close and be able to talk to you. But I need to see if my horse has been looked after and then I must think about the evening meal and then bed. I do not even know how long we are staying yet. A pleasant afternoon to you."

When she turned around, Annikki saw that the tide had been coming in the last little while. She made it back to the dry part of the beach, but her boots got wet regardless.

Annikki rolled her eyes. Here was some added work, to stuff her boots so that she leather dried without drying out and turning brittle.

She looked back and saw that the seal was in as close as possible and still watched her. She waved, feeling just as silly for it as anything else, but then she saw the flipper rise out of the water a little and she stared. The creature looked at her and then at the flipper and she just saw the wave. She waved again and walked away, not trusting herself to have come to the correct conclusion. There was only one possible, she thought. He or she had raised a flipper. It was probably something that they did for whatever reason and that was all. There couldn't have been any other reason.

Back at the house, things were in a strange state. Annikki walked in and almost jumped back out. There was another troll there and she was just leaving. She barely said 'pardon me' or anything and there was precious little room to allow her passage as it was. Annikki would have been flattened.

Moppy and Leif were in earnest discussions of some sort while Cuilén and Louhi looked on. When their eyes met, they just shrugged at her.

It took a while.

Leif's father was dying of some illness and he'd asked to see his son once more. Moppy said that he just ought to go, but he wanted her to come and the smithy and the little inn were the sticking point.

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He was surprised.

Actually, he was in a bit of shock. That he'd been startled the night before had been one thing. That the human came back today was quite another. He wondered what she wanted.

He was here alone and it was hard to bear, his kind being social creatures.

Well, both of his kinds, he supposed. He was a half-breed, after all.

He supposed that he ought to feel something like an affinity to humans, thought he really didn't. He'd hardly ever seen more than a few in his young life before now.

He'd seen a few females, but mostly the ones that he had seen were all dour and grim-looking fishermen and he'd been careful to remain unobserved by them.

He raided their nets, you see.

Along with other sorts of predators, he and others often went after the contents of fishing nets. It was easy enough, after all. You looked to see the boats, headed that way, slid in behind them and just dove. You might have to gnaw through a bit of netting, but after that you took what looked good to you and you were home free.

Of course if they saw you, they'd get a little nasty, shooting arrows at you or tossing harpoons but if you were careful and not too destructive towards their nets and if you left them the lion's share of the catch, since they'd done all the work, well, after that, you just had to swim into a cove or somewhere to grab a few clams or crabs if it was a good day for it.

Well that was what he'd done before all of his life from childhood. He swam with his mother and his siblings and he'd learned.

But it wasn't what he'd really wanted for a life.

He knew that now, at the ripe age of nineteen and a half. Of all of his siblings; three girls and four boys, he was the only one who'd had a human man for a father.

To hear his mother tell of it, she and her male had been courting and it was getting rather serious, from her side of it and one day, she'd been hauled out and sunning with him on some warm rocks. There were others, lots of others who'd been doing the same thing, though he imagined that there was a fair bit of mating going on as well, not that his mother ever said anything about that.

But then a human man had run out onto the rocks and everyone scrambled to grab their skins and vanish beneath the waves in the cove.

That man must have been watching for quite a while, he imagined. Or maybe he was a little smarter than the rest of them. In any event, everyone got away with their skins but his mother. And there is no way that a Selkie can live in the ocean without that.

To hear her side of it, she'd had to follow the man, weeping the whole way, walking naked behind him until at last, he'd turned and said that he'd give her back her skin if she'd marry him. She had no choice and agreed, not that it had worked out that way.

For one thing, the man lived in a rather small community of humans. They lived in a spread-out sort of fashion, but everybody knew every other person in it. The arrival of a lovely girl, not matter how fine she looked in the clothes that he'd bought her so that she'd be presentable just had to be noticed and it was.

By everyone.

His mother had tried to be friendly, though she had trouble with the language at first. She thought it was the best thing to do to try to fit in. But they all knew that she wasn't one of them. The arrival of a new family was a thing talked about for half a year at least. The arrival of a comely young woman from out of nowhere when the trading boat hadn't come yet led many to come to the same conclusion.

And that wasn't that she'd been the only survivor from a Hansa trader ship from Danzig – the one which had supposedly wrecked without a trace no matter how the old man lied to his neighbors.

It grew worse when the real trader ship came and they knew nothing about a lost ship. They weren't missing any.

You'd have thought that they'd have laid the blame on the man for lying to his neighbors and kin and they did , but as well, everyone turned even farther from his mother. She kept his house for him and tried to be a good wife, though she hated it all. The only reprieve came when the priest had refused to marry them.

But it bought her nothing but more housework for a grumpy old man. He told her that even if he couldn't marry her, she'd live as his wife.

She reminded him of their agreement. It wasn't her fault that they couldn't get married. She asked when she could have her skin returned to her.

He told her never. He told her that he'd burned it.

She came so close to killing him in his sleep so many times ...

At length, though she hated every second of having his beard in her face, she found herself pregnant.

As the months passed, it led her to so many more almost-murderings.

But it never came to that. She found her skin herself one day while cleaning out the attic during one of those brief times when her little one was asleep.

She grabbed the skin and shook it out, barely able to believe that she held it again. She almost ran out, leaving her baby in her haste to get back to the sea. It had been done by her kind before. But the child was so small and barely two weeks old. She just couldn't. She ran back.

What she could do was what she did. She snatched the child up out of his cradle and ran with the baby screaming all the way down to the shore. It wasn't far from where the old fisherman was rowing his boat in after a hard day out fishing in the swells. The men tended to work together at it in groups, often based on familial ties, but not him, not anymore.

He'd alienated his family over his preposterous tales of the way that he'd come by the beautiful, but nearly silent young girl with the soulful eyes. And he'd seen the male Selkie many times as he'd looked for her. More than once, he'd stood up in his boat and thrown a harpoon. The Selkie man had been missed every time, but he'd managed to grab the harpoon as it sank on its line once and with a quick gnaw on the rope as it was being hauled back, he had the wicked thing free and he was off with it.

As he'd shown it to the others, they all came to the only conclusion that was possible.

What had been thrown at him had been a sealing harpoon and that was plenty close enough.

The frantic mother dove into the waves while she still had time. In an earlier day, she'd have been able to get the skin on underwater in the blink of an eye but it had been over a year and it took her a little longer that day. The baby, being what he was, began to swim. The skin on at last, the girl swam after her child, grabbing him to guide him but she saw that shadow in the water over them.

She knew what it likely meant and holding the baby, she swam for her life.

In the boat above, the fisherman got to his feet and grabbed his other harpoon, trying to find a moment of relative steadiness. But the moment never came and seeing something a little farther out, he looked and saw the male Selkie there rising out of the water already beginning his throw. The man tried, but began to lose his balance and was desperate himself not to fall out of the boat. He had an idea that drowning at a Selkie's hands would be the most likely and kindest fate that he could expect.

But before that happened the other harpoon arrived and he as speared through the gut and pulled from the boat.

He did not die by drowning.

It was all to the good after that. The girl was reunited with her male who welcomed her with his kisses and they swam off together while the old man who was thought of as a fool by everyone floated slowly on his back with a harpoon sticking out of his stomach. He was dead before anyone could get to him.

The baby didn't care much one way or the other. He was loved by his mother and her male never gave him a reason to think that he was any less loved than his siblings who all arrived after him in about as rapid a procession as their biology would allow. He was accepted and embraced by his family and one half of his kin.

Well it was all good until he began to try to find a female of his own. That was when he grew to know the other side of how his mother had been made to feel. No one treated him badly, but no Selkie girl wanted much to do with him, though they were all polite about it.

He remembered thinking as he'd watched all of the others playing in the sunshine that maybe he ought to go looking for a human girl, but the thought was a little unpleasant to him after a moment at the time. He assumed that the human women there were quite capable of making their own choices in who they wanted to play with.

He wasn't good with their speech, knowing only what his mother had taught him of it as a game sometimes when he was little – just a thing with which to amuse her little boy and not much more, since she had no real proper grasp of it herself. The thought died out a few seconds later when he remembered a few more things. To seek for a human woman who was lonely and unhappy with her husband might be fun, but the more that he thought about it the less that he liked the idea – especially with the problem of the language added on top of it all.

And of course there was the other thing. A Selkie male with his skin off held a lot of attraction to human females. He knew this as he knew that he was like any other male in liking the way that human females looked – well the ones that he'd seen who'd come down to throw off their absurd clothing to frolic with a few of his friends.

But a Selkie male; one who was full-blooded, had fully human-like fingers and toes, while a half-one as he was had, ... the same webbed digits that the Selkie females weren't crazy about. They looked like fingers and toes – because that's what they were, after all. They were the right size and length and color. They were just, ... a little webbed for about a third of their length.

But it was enough.

It was the strangest thing to him and he'd have thought that a half human ought to have fingers like a human, but that wasn't the way that it went. Any child of a human and a Selkie could be told by the webbing in between their digits.

He gave more thought to maybe seeking for a girl of his kind from the other side of the island, or, ... maybe the next one over, since it wasn't all that far.

But two things had happened on the day that he'd had those thoughts back in the middle of the previous summer. He'd grown a little more melancholy and decided to forget about it for the moment to pull on his skin and slip into the water. He just wanted to be away and he swam out near to the walls which bracketed the cove. He just wanted to be alone, since that was what he was destined to be anyway, he'd guessed.

That was the first thing which had occurred. He wasn't directly aware of the second thing right away. He'd been feeling too sorry for himself to really notice the first huge flash of black and white as it tore past him in the opposite direction, going in when he'd been coming out.

He saw the next one as it was coming to him and slipped aside just enough to be out of the way. He saw the one eye on the side of the thing which regarded him as it passed. The decision must have been made to reap the full harvest and not alarm it with the cries of one like he was, taken too far out and too soon before the rest had been trapped.

So the first thing was the way that he'd felt. The next thing had been the pod of killer whales grouped near to the entrance of the cove and liking the way that their prey would be hemmed in.

There are things in the cold North Sea which even Selkies need to fear.

Those creatures, if the hunger and the mood was on them would thrash right into a cove like that at high tide, snapping at the terrified Selkies and taking some of them right off the rocks as they threw themselves forward in their gorging.

To them, seal or Selkie, it was the same thing, though maybe the Selkies weren't carrying blubber.

As he swam for his life, hearing the thin shrieks of the dying as they came to him underwater and the same thing whenever he raised his head a little, he did as his parents had always taught him and his siblings - get away if you can first, get away as far as you can go and don't stop; thinking that silence in the first little while after from behind you is an indicator that it was over. The creatures like to talk under the sea. Listen while you run. Don't ever stop to hear it. Don't come back until there is silence for a long time.

He took a huge gulp of air and descended, needing to get to the submerged shoal that he knew would hide him. Once there, he waited for his heart to stop pounding and then he closed one side of his brain down to sleep.

It wasn't something that he thought of – none of them did. It was just another thing that his kind had borrowed from the seals. He could shift things inside himself unconsciously, just as the seals could, things which slowed some metabolic processes to a tenth of their normal rates. He could stay down for two hours and more, hiding huddled against a stone overhang on the bottom. Longer if he slept; one cranial lobe shut down in sleep, the other keeping watch through open eyes.