Changeable as the Sea

Over an hour later, a silvery seal slid out of the waves and onto the wet sand of the shoreline. She could have spent the rest of the night out at sea, but reality had to resurface sometime, and she couldn't spend the rest of her life swimming around aimlessly. At first she just lay still, letting the water swirl around her lower half and recede again, wishing it could have lasted longer, before she gathered her forefeet under her and arched her back, rolling her shoulders forward-- seals didn't have shoulders. The sealskin released her, and Keren knelt on the sand on her hands and knees, the pelt resting over her back as her only clothing.

For a long moment she stayed there, staring at the sand and blinking back tears. There has tae be a way-- some way tae have this, tae be meself, without having tae give up everything I've worked fer.

But there wasn't, not now, not while she was at the whim of her superiors. She would have to snatch what moments of freedom she could and hope that they came often enough for her own sanity.

Sighing, Keren held the wet sealskin around her like a meager blanket, and rose slowly-- to see Adara standing on the hilltop, staring down at her. Keren stared back, for a moment too stunned to move, to even think. The worst possible thing had happened-- well, next worst possible, compared to being eaten by a shark or a water demon. Adara had, somehow, been drawn away from the camp, all the way down to the beach and its sheltering hillock, just at the moment Keren was returning to the shore. Just in time to see her change-- not when she was redressing, not when she was safe in the waves, but right when there could be no doubting exactly what was happening. Right when one could only believe that a seal had just turned into a person.

Then she realized that Adara was still staring, and with a strangled, "Oh God," she tugged her sealskin around to belatedly hide the fact that she wasn't clothed. Normally, Keren wasn't very modest-- growing up sharing a room with half the family did that to a person-- but now, standing naked and wet in the moonlight after someone who wouldn't, couldn't possibly understand had seen the most intensely private thing in Keren's life, she needed to be covered. Adara looked away, but her face betrayed confusion, surprise, and-- Keren saw it-- disgust.

In the silence, Keren stood still a moment longer, fighting back an irrational urge to wail and run to hide somewhere and never come back-- her life, as she knew it, was ruined now. Adara would never trust her, might even tell the rest. Her eyes shut with a pained expression as she imagined the looks of disgust, maybe even fear, on people she was growing to consider as friends. Then she slowly stepped fully onto the shore, her wet feet picking up sand as she moved up the beach towards her clothes. Adara was close enough for conversation, but... what was there to say? Holding her sealskin to her chest, letting it dangle down to touch nearly her knees, and paused at the grassline, eyes darting back to Adara and staying there.

She had to say something. Break this awful silence. Her lips quirked up in a weak, nervous smile. "H-Hi."

Oh God, tha' sounded dumb.

For a moment more Adara didn't say anything, looking back at Keren, taking in her sodden state, her wet sealskin, and the fear she knew had to be in her eyes all over again. Then, her voice halting and shocked, Adara asked, "What. Was that?"

What should she say? What could she say? The smile faltered into something almost fearful, and Keren's eyes slid aside from Adara's confused, angry, and oddly hurt gaze. Gra'mother would be furious, she thought wildly. I waesn' caerful aenough. Shae'll tan me when I go home. When she went home. She might well be going home, now. The story would get out, even if Mullen told everyone to keep quiet, and then it would be over. UNIS wouldn't want a "freak" for a cadet. Keren gulped back the beginnings of tears, eyes burning, as she pridefully refused to cry. For now, at least, she succeeded.

Adara. She needed some sort of explanation. If only she hadn't seen her change, that would make things so much easier. Jaest gooin fer ae swim, tha's all. Yae, wi'a sealskin. Nae, tha' wasn' me yeh saw wi'flippers an' fur. Ih'was soomeone else. Relly. Doon't yeh believe me?

Despite everything, Keren felt a little disgusted with herself. Gra'mother'd be ashaemed o'me, cowerin en afraid o'what I am. Even if they all hate me, I cannae change who I am. Ye're special, they told me. I en't actin like it. Armed with at least a sliver of pride in herself to take refuge in, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, though it trembled slightly and her voice shook when she said, "I'm a selkie."

"A what?" Adara furrowed her brow. She shifted the remnants of her longish hair over her right ear as if that would help her hear better.

Oh God, she daesn't know.... She didn't know how to explain, not without making things seem worse. "A-A selkie. Seal-folk. Most e'my family is. We... we taern intae seals, when we get intae the sea with our s-skins." Holding the sealskin with one hand, she motioned to it with the other. Her cheeks felt very warm. Daemmit, I'm blushing. Gra'mother would be vaery unhappy wi'me.

Again, Adara's expression was stunned and even a little angry, disbelief warring with memory. Adara stared at her, then slowly shook her head. "How?" was all she managed to get out.

For a moment, Keren was stuck. Er, how did it happen? "I... daenna really know. My gra'maether might, but she's back en Airelend. It's jaest... soomthen we do. S'why I wes soo excited aeboot thae trip here... I haevn' heard thae ocean in... God, tae long." She sighed, eyes shutting again briefly against the pain of this conversation. Adara really wouldn't ever trust her again... probably not even like her. "I knoo, et's relly strange... ye werenae saeppoosed tae knoo..." She shivered, holding her wet sealskin tighter. "Nae one was..."

Again there was a pause, and then Adara began again, her voice soundly oddly muted and guilty, as if she were somehow trying to ignore what she had just seen and pretend everything was normal again. Including Keren. "I'm sorry," she said. "Look-- You're probably getting cold...."

Keren's eyes moved up from where they'd landed on the meeting of sand and grass, to Adara's face, surprised and confused by her friend's-- ex-friend, probably, after this-- almost abrupt change of tone and, she now saw, expression. "I-- mebbe ae lettle...." She was dripping wet still, after all. Getting back into her clothes would be uncomfortable, to say the least. "But-- but et's all right. Et's colder en Aireland...." A pause, and what was really bothering her blurted out: "Ye hate me na'ow, I know, I'm ae freak. I'm soo soorry I caeldnae tell ye, but I knew, I knew ye'd hate it. It aenna normal, and I'm soorry." Her accent coming thicker in her distress, she hugged herself and her sealskin, looking down at the sand again and shivering.

"Keren--" Adara tried, voice sounding as if she still feeling awkward-- of course she was, her best friend was a creature out of legend! "You are who you are." Trying to work up a grin, she added, "The only reason I'd hate you is for not telling me why you kept hogging the fucking bathroom all the time! And here I was left to believe that it was just your god-damned hair. Jeez." She actually managed to smile a little. "Did you at least bring a towel?" she asked, scanning the beach and spotting the cadet's clothes by a piece of drift wood.

Overwhelmed by the unexpected, Keren blinked at Adara and, to her even greater embarrassment, felt tears leaking down her cheeks. Hurriedly she wiped them away, sniffing. Mundane issues first: "I... kindae fergot...." Talk about silly, planning on a swim and then forgetting a towel. "Thaer-- thaere's one en me backpack, but.... D-do yeh relly mean tha'? Tha' yeh daenna hate me?" She'd tried so hard to keep it a secret, and now Adara was accepting it? She could hardly believe it, even though it was what she'd wanted all along-- a friend in the cadets who knew who and what she was, but wouldn't be disgusted, or afraid, or laugh at her.

Adara actually did laugh, but not unkindly, and Keren couldn't help adding a little laugh of her own. "I hate the way your dripping on my boots! What are you thinking? I couldn't hate you!" Grinning with only a trace of discomfort, the darker girl added reassuringly, "You can't get rid of me that easily. Or, yeah, you can. Hold on. I'll go find you your towel... Just stay here."

Brushing away one more tear, Keren smiled brilliantly-- if still wetly-- at her friend. Her friend, not ex-friend. "Thank you," she said-- to both Adara's sentiments and for the towel; as much as she loved the sea, standing there damp and shivery wasn't very comfortable. As Adara jogged back towards the camp, Keren wiped her cheeks and looked out over the ocean, still smiling.