Ghost

Moonchild - Fields of the Nephilim

A starved light filtered through the surface of the sea and fluttered into rays that barely penetrated the dark water. He was coursing through the waves, racing his adrenaline. It was hard to feel guilty after seeing she was finally back on the island. She had grown; taller he guessed, but it might have been the angle. Wild, her hair was as curly as ever, and her cheeks weren't as round as they used to be, sunken in and giving way to high cheekbones. her bright eyes still seemed to be the same grey-green color as the ocean.  He knew what Briggs, the herd leader would've said had he still been around. 

"stay out of sight and stay safe" and as an unspoken chide "quit terrorizing the lass " not that moray had ever paid it any mind.

like a hawk in a dive, he swam as fast as he could, muscles beginning to ache with the effort. He was heading to a spot hidden deep in the dunes of Ether Vein, the kelp forest. Still thinking about Briggs, how he would have opened his mouth and began ranting about years long before when it was considered bad luck for fishermen to even harm a seal since any one of them might be selkies. Moray could practically spout every word of it from memory. 

He whipped through the sea, weaving a trail of current that swung the kelp around in whirlpools. He had been in touch with the gulls, had found out a large man was providing transportation for her to the Island. It had been three long years since he'd last seen her leaving after her grandmother died, and it was too much to miss. His flippers ached and he thought about how he had followed her out into the water when she'd gone, deep enough for her not to notice. He'd watched her grandfather ache from the dock, his breath shuddering into vapors in the air. it had been so very cold then, the snow falling into soft piles on his shoulders. He'd seen the tears she'd shed into the ocean and how still the water had been that day, like it was grieving something. How she had gotten off at the dock on the mainland and he'd lost her then, unable to follow. He thought about how unfair it all was. She'd left, for god knows where to do god knows what. His herd was gone, he was alone. It was his own fault, he was the reason the seals hadn't been able to stay out of the villagers minds. Him and his knack for causing trouble. Eating their wares, disrupting their markets, putting holes in their nets. He was angry, angry at the villagers whenever he'd found a dead basking shark, thrown back after being found in a drag net, a gull soaked in oil, the algae sick and dying from the shit they emitted from their boats. Of course, it wasn't just about her in the end, but the poachers that searched tirelessly for him, and the dangers of a young selk caught overnight in the ocean. 

It wasn't his fault he looked like this, that he could be spotted five hundred yards away like a lighthouse on a moonless night. He hadn't chosen to become a selkie, much less a white one. Souls didn't have a say in the matter when they drowned, they didn't have the voice to deny being trapped in animal skin and sequestered away from sight when they changed, to lose all memory of their past life and start an entirely different one. Then again, he knew for certain if he had been given the chance between death and life as a selkie, he would have taken it anyways.

Darting through the looming seaweed, he recalled the first time he'd noticed something was off. He'd been 2 years old, twelve in human years, and it had been his first time going hunting with adolescents from a different herd. They had been swimming for what felt like days, traveling to a different island as a meeting place.

Once there, the adolescents and adults from the other herds had all given him an unexplainable wide berth, fear carrying in whispered mumbles through the salty water. As soon as he'd gotten back to their dripping cave, he'd asked his Briggs why the other herds seemed to dislike him. He had quieted, a wise apprehensive stillness coming over his chocolate features, and put his warm head on his back.

"They dinna ken you. So they're scared of you."

He hadn't known what to say. He'd wanted to tell them he wasn't scary, that he was just another seal, the same as any of them. That he wanted to play hide & seek with them, hunt with them, to be friends.