The Kelpie's Cries (Completed)

Change of Life

Being the spawn of a forced marriage between a human man and a selkie woman was certainly a weird feeling. Enfys told her everything she knew about selkie folk; it appeared her opinion of the girl changed after learning of her mother's origin. She told her of the selkie folk, who were beings capable of therianthropy, shapeshifting from their seal form into a human one by shedding their skin and how that transformation came with some drawbacks. Female selkies could be coerced into relationships with humans by someone stealing and hiding their sealskin and that was exactly what the father of the girl had done.

On his hunts in Iceland, he had come across a selkie -the girl's mother- but she had not taken notice of him as she was spending time with her selkie husband and their two kids. Because he had read on that species of shapeshifters, he decided to do something unethical, to please himself for once and not just his... patrons. Once she was alone in her human form, he swooped her sealskin and stole her from the comfort of the sea and from her family. Another night, after successfully hiding the woman away in the basement of his house, he returned to the beach he had found her and waited until he spotted her husband. With just one bullet to the temple, he managed to kill the man and proceed to the kids -however, the two were smart enough to make their escape before he could catch them. And then, he forced the selkie woman into marrying her.

The girl didn't know what to think. She thought that her dad was bad for killing her mother and almost herself and then she learnt that it was the second time he tried to obliterate a family. Why would he kidnap someone in the first place? He had taught her to be nice to people, to be kind to her peers and to the old. Maybe he didn't consider her mother a person and that was why he did what the did? And treated her like he did any other human being until the jig was up? She couldn't know but that was what Enfys suggested. Odan agreed to it as well.

"An enslaved selkie's only dream is to return back to sea", he said and flipped through another page of the book he had in hand. He quickly closed it and stared at the witch. "I suppose she's not completely human", he pointed at the girl. Enfys hesitated before finally nodding, her face slightly softening.

"Thankfully for the forest and my hut, she isn't", she said and started putting away the notebooks in a cupboard that was high enough for them to be away from the girl's hands. The girl was about to retaliate but the witch's worlds stopped her. "These will stay here until they have been thoroughly examined; in no way will I let a child look after such valuable information".

Now it all made sense. Why her friend tried to drown her in a lake. Why he left the confines of the forest and even risked his life to visit her in the home of a human enemy. He must've sensed that something was off but then again... Her mother was the selkie, why didn't he go after her? She was mostly human if anything else. She didn't have webbed hands or feet... or even gills for that matter! Wait, I'm getting them mixed up with mermaids, seals don't have gills! Then there was the matter of the sealskin which she never in her life witnessed the existence of, maybe she didn't have one in the first place. It was a little saddening to suddenly learn that her mother could shapeshift into an animal only for that trait to not be inherited by her child. Yes, she was her third child but still. It was too much to take in all at once.

Out of nowhere came a fuss in a tunnel, the hut trembled and took her out from her thoughts. Össur -who was still outside- was growling at something and making threats that were sure to be carried through. The three of them fearfully ran out to see what was going on and to their surprise, the dragon was growling at the sound of galloping hooves and some mockingbirds that were perched on top of the tunnel ceiling. The girl smiled and run towards the exit, knowing fully-well that it was her friend, the kelpie, who had finally arrived. At last she wouldn't be stuck solely with strangers. The two adults were relieved that it wasn't something much more serious. Össur followed after the girl after Odan gave him the order to look after them whilst he and Enfys would go back inside to talk.

The girl wasted no time hugging the neck of her friend and bursting into tears of emotional frustration and conflict. She shared the awful news she had just learnt about her family and the complicated situation of her existence to him and in return she received a silent neigh and a bewildered expression on his face. The dragon had sat down nearby, watchful eyes staring at them and noting every movement in the environment, ears picking up all sound of the surrounding forest. Sure, the bird sounds were getting to his nerves but there was nothing he could do to those mockingbirds; he didn't want to cover the tunnel in ice only to get yelled at by Enfys for making the temperature drop even more underneath in the end.

"Hey, can we go for a ride?", the girl asked after her monologuing seized to a stop and her tears drained. The kelpie nodded a second later and walked over to a fallen tree trunk nearby so she could mount him easily. "No running to lakes, please". She was on his back in a flash and Össur could only sigh as he stood and out-stretched his wings. The two took off and the dragon followed suit from the sky.

It felt nice to have her hair flowing in the air, the cold bursting on her warm cheeks and the trees zooming by around them. The forest was completely quiet; maybe because Össur was flapping his wings above and the animals were scared of making any sort of sound. Time went on like that -peacefully- for some time. The girl laughed as the kelpie jumped over a rock, did a few zig-zags and avoided trees and near leg-breaking injuries in their path. Her mind had no displeasing thoughts, only images of what they would get to jump over next and how much more fun the ride would get. However, that peace was soon to end.

There was a deafening sound that came from somewhere farther away and simultaneously, the kelpie stood on his hind legs in retaliation to it -had the girl not been glued in place, she would have surely fallen off. Fear started spreading through the trees and branches. Birds swarmed in the sky and other small fairies and critters fled from their small homes. Össur roared as well and with one look at the sky, the girl could tell that something was wrong with his wing by the way it scarily changed colour. The same sound was heard again and Össur finally fell from the sky and landed with big, loud thuds somewhere amongst the treetops as horns blew from where that terrifying sound had come from.