SEA, SWALLOW ME, remus lupin

ceithir deug, lovesickness strikes again

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
lovesickness strikes again

𖦹 ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ˚⋆˚ 𖦹

COVE HAS A BIT OF A PROBLEM.

You see, she has always rejected the L word, especially the idea of it with a human, which is almost a taboo thing to think about in her colony. It doesn't only come down to her natural nervousness either. Her parents are a prime example of all the ways it could go wrong for her personally — after all, stories of skin stealing are told to selkie pups to frighten them into staying close by their parents, trust issues embedded into their minds from a young age. Some selkies are reluctant to leave the sea out of fear for all the dangers on the shore, specifically the humans that inhabit the land. The way that her professor has been slandering her kind has put her on edge recently as well, the kind of mood where she isn't the biggest fan of humans at the moment. Luckily for her, she attends a school full of them. Hooray!

  When it comes down to loving them, she feels like screaming. Stuck in between mortality and eternal life as a seal, settling down to love or marry a human feels like picking one world over another. She's been putting that off for years. She doesn't like to choose. Never has.

Cove sits by the pebbly bank with her sealskin shrugged over her shoulders, cold water washing up to envelop her the tips of her painted toes. She can spot the distant lights of Hogsmeade twinkling far behind the tree line and nostalgia from the day before blossoms in her chest. Her alder wand lies upon the rocks by her side, thrawn and wizened enough to look like a refined splinter of driftwood. There's a pearl in the palm of her hand, one she found at the very bottom of the loch on her swim. She rolls it around to watch how the moonlight bounces off of it in awe, a smile curling her rosy lips. She's glad it was worth all the effort, since her flipper was caught in the rocks when she dove for it and it unfortunately transferred over to her arm when she returned to normal. She'd go to Madam Pomfrey about it in the morning.

Cove edges closer to the lapping water, hindered slightly by her sore arm, quietly reciting chants in Gaelic and drawing those memorised runes over the surface. A miniature whirlpool begins to tear through, the waves parting to show a familiar face glimmering turquoise.

Through the blue light, Cordelia blinks at her in confusion. "A Thighearna! Tide-messaging me again?" she murmurs sleepily. "Send a letter like a normal person for once."

"I need to talk to you, though," Cove says desperately. "I couldn't wait for a letter."

Cordelia waves a dismissing hand. "Ach, I know. I'm only teasing. What's the matter?"

She shifts from side to side. "Okay, well, um... How to I put this? It's boy problems."

That gets her attention. "Boy problems? You better not be saying what I think you're saying."

  "I didn't mean to, honest! I've only ever seen him as a friend before now. I think, anyways. Yesterday we were walking around the village and I sort of realised that I fancy him."

  "Cove, do you know how dangerous that is?"

   "It was an accident! He's so nice to me and he's really pretty and—"

  "You can't accidentally fall in love," Cordelia hisses through her sharp teeth. A few of the selkies around her shift in their sleep agitatedly. She lowers her voice. "Especially not with a human."