...And We Will Have Snow

Chapter 6-8: Unbelievers

Bear and Xayna arrived. They tied the cabin cruiser up to the little dock that had been rolled down from the top deck of the Shell. Bear cleverly warped the boat away with an anchor line on the lee side so that it wouldn't bump against the dock or the Shell with the waves and tide. Ryan and Rosita met them. They didn't waste much time in conversation, it wasn't long before the four of them were swimming with the sea lions, in sea lion form. But before they dove, Rosita repeated what Sedna told her Zeke said. So they swam near the surface, and were careful to stay away from the Shell dwellers.

This cautiousness did not sit well with Bear. He wanted to go everywhere. He thought about just swimming the way everyone else did, without shifting. Or swimming where the Shell people didn't go. Bear didn't have to ask Ryan for his thoughts. Ryan had hidden his selkie nature for years, hadn't even known any other shapeshifters until he met Dema, and then Rosita. He made the most of being a member of a shaman community, but he was still cautious around other people. If anything, Ryan would consider Zeke's reaction had been his own slip-up, and insist on being more cautious than ever when in sea lion form, staying clear of mingling with people, even in the company of other playful sea lions, until Zeke forgot about the incident.

Bear wanted to find Sedna alone so he could ask her what had really happened, and what she thought about it. That was not hard to arrange. After all, he and Xayna had not seen her in over a week. So at the next meal they excused themselves early to go to the drone apartment.

Rosita was curious what was up, but when she asked Xayna said, "We ought to inspect our drones. We know that you took good care of them, but it's part of the protocol. And besides, we can be there when Sedna comes back from her lunch break at WBI. We can't wait to see her!"

So it worked out that they were there when Sedna brought her drone to life and stood up. "You're back! Oh, I have so much to tell you!" It was still no good hugging a drone, but they could share shaman dream hugs and that was always nice.

Bear said, "Yeah, Rosita told us about Zeke, but we want to hear it from you."

So Sedna launched into the whole story of how she got Zeke to use the drone, and how well he had done with it. If she realized that Bear was focused on the tagging business, she didn't let on. The rest wasn't really news and Bear was a little impatient at first, but then he realized there was a lot more to what Sedna was telling them than just that Zeke could operate a drone now. Zeke had been full of surprises.

In the end, Sedna didn't even mention the tagging comment, and Bear had to remind her.

"Oh, that," she said. "I wish I'd seen that coming."

"Uncle Ryan wants us all to avoid swimming in sea lion form near people until Zeke forgets about it."

"Really? Well, that's Uncle Ryan for you. It's been his life."

Bear took a few seconds to catch up with her, but then he knew that what she said made total sense for Ryan. Xayna didn't know, so Bear told her.

"There was truth in the selkie lore about being trapped in human form if their seal skin was kept from them. The truth is that it's simply very hard to shift in the presence of unbelievers. The myth of the hidden skin was really about the need to convince a witness that the seal dream could be made real."

"Oh, that's a lot like Haida stories of putting on the skin of an animal."

"Right. The skin is a metaphor. We call it having a familiar, an animal you know so well that you can be one. It's not that hard when you're alone with the animals. You go into their dream, become like them in the dream, and they accept it. Then all you have to do is convince your own body. It's very different if there's a room full of people watching."

"Not that hard alone if you're a shaman and a shifter," Sedna added. "I do okay as a shaman, but with all the stories Mom tells about the risks, I'm not very tempted by the shifting trick."

"Risks?" asked Xayna.

"I know you and Bear have been swimming in sea lion form. Bear supports you in the shift, probably makes it pretty easy. Ryan did the same for Bear when he was little. Ryan and Rosita think nothing of swimming as sea lions when there are people around. But now imagine trying to shift back to human form with a lot of people watching, people who are all very convinced that you're a sea lion. It's the flip side of what Bear said a minute ago. It wouldn't be easy to make them all believe what they saw, even if you managed to do it."

"So if for some reason we couldn't get away from the people, we might be trapped in sea lion form from then on?"

"Possibly. Especially if something happened that made you start to agree with the people who can't conceive of you becoming human."

"You know, I think some of our stories hint at that."

"It's like Bear said. There's a lot of truth in those stories."