Chapter Text
Emerging from the water is a scary experience.
To feel your own skin loosening, your senses changing, your limbs elongating as you seek the surface, the cold air that you now have to breathe constantly to live - to then feel your new body as you crawl out of the skin that’s covered you for seven years, feeling all too spindly and sharp with limbs that don’t feel like they belong to you. For Marc especially, the process was something he tended to quietly dread - the first time his Mum brought him to the surface, he was so shaken by the feeling that he refused to leave the surf for several hours for hours afterward, laying there shaking like a leaf in his mother’s arms until the sun came up and she gently cajoled him to walk with her until they were hidden. He supposes that the whole shedding thing is something he’ll never really get used to - at least not for a few more cycles. Probably.
But beyond that, Marc thinks he’s getting used to being human again now. He’s certainly had less embarrassing moments recently at least, and he’s kind of proud of the fact that he managed to have a one-on-one conversation with someone without royally messing it up. Even if Nathaniel did get too close to the truth for his liking. In retrospect he shouldn’t have freaked out like he did, but hey. At least he didn’t start speaking too out of turn. Probably.
Hopefully.
But while he is kind of enjoying being on land, he can’t ignore why he’s truly here. Why he didn’t just come out onto land, spend a few hours wandering around, then go straight back in for another seven years.
The developers.
Their boat was seemingly a permanent fixture in the harbour now, a pompous pearlescent thing amongst all the simpler houseboats, yachts and paddling boats. It was much closer to a small cruise ship than anything else, and Marc couldn’t deny that he’d often entertained himself in the early hours of the morning by sitting on the pier and just staring at it, picturing a storm or a hurricane or a tornado or even whales causing it to tip over and be lost to the cold, thoughtless ocean.
Then perhaps the sharks could eat the people. Or perhaps that was too far of him to want.
He hadn’t gotten too far in figuring out what to actually do though, mostly because he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could realistically do save for physical intervention, and while he really wanted to lash out at them for trying to destroy his home… he wasn’t sure he had to courage to do so. Just a lot of anger.
For now though, he just wants to make sure everything’s okay with the other seals, and maybe get a bit more information on what’s happening while he’s navigating the land. And to check in on the seals, he needs to get to them.
Which leads him to his current predicament. And even by Marc’s questionable standards, he can tell that what he’s about to do is a bad idea.
He shifts from one foot to another, staring down at the sea far, far beneath the cliff with a mixture of trepidation and deep rooted excitement. His usual route down to the Cove isn’t available anymore, the old wooden staircase that he’s sure used to be there is now completely gone. There’s a story behind that he’s sure, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) his curiosity doesn’t exactly extend to chasing down someone who can tell him why the staircase he usually would have taken to get down to the Cove isn’t there. Plus he just doesn’t have the time.
So Marc’s next best idea is to simply leap however many feet it is from the cliff into the sea below. He doesn’t have his seal skin on him today, having left it (albeit accidentally) on his desk at the house, so there’s no risk of him turning back into his usual form the second he’s fully submerged in water, and as far as he knows he’s a pretty strong swimmer even when in his human form. He just needs to remember to breathe when he’s down there and he’ll be fine. Probably.
Now he just needs to actually convince his mind to throw caution to the wind and jump, which is surprisingly difficult. He would have thought that after surviving more than one situation that could cause him harm (like that one time he accidentally swam into a fishing net and tore his flipper badly) he would be more used to dangerous scenarios, but apparently not.
But all the same he needs to get down there. Which means taking in a deep breath, forcing his feet to move, and-
The wind whistles past him as he plummets down, and he has to bite his lip to prevent himself from crying out in combined joy and fear as his heart leaps into his throat. He has about half a second of rational thought where he realises that he never checked for rocks before he fell before he hits the water and all feeling is forced out of him due to the shock of the icy water as he plummets down like a stone.
His leg grazes against something sharp and slimy at the same time and he bites his tongue so hard he can taste blood, kicking out desperately as he seeks the sky once again. His face breaks the surface of the water and he grimaces slightly at the feeling of the stinging winter air on his face, instinctively wanting to immediately duck back down and let the water envelop him once more. But instead he forces himself to ignore it, reaching out blindly until his hand grazes against a piece of rock sticking out of the side of the cliff to steady himself.
His lungs ache as he coughs, shuddering so violently he’s certain he’s going to lose his grip on the ledge and slip straight back under the water. But he doesn’t, so he simply waits for his heart to stop feeling like it’s about to tear its way through his skin before he takes another deep breath and pushes away and back into the water.
Luckily for him, he is in fact quite a strong swimmer as he kicks his way forward through the currents, trying to avoid swimming directly into any jagged rocks as he seeks the area where the cliffs break, revealing the slope of rocks and sand that he knows lies beyond. The salt and wind sting his face as he breaks the surface of the water to gasp for air, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been as relieved to see land before as his blurred vision rewards him with the sight of the exact stretch of land he’d been looking for, as well as a few grey seals dotted around.
Marc drags himself over to them, wishing that he’d thought a little bit harder before throwing himself into the sea while human. He’s so cold.
“Hey,” he chokes out, rubbing at his eyes to clear them as he half walks, half staggers over to one of the seals. “Been a while.”
The seal opens her eyes lazily, looking at him with a baleful look that gives nothing away. He can understand her though. He always can.
Perks of being a selkie, really - being able to speak to the thing you masquerade as.
“Sorry I haven’t come back yet,” Marc tells her, sitting down beside her and trying not to grimace as his wet clothing immediately glues itself to him like a second skin. “Trying to save our home - it’s harder than I thought it would be. I don’t know what to do.”
A surge of helplessness rolls over him as he says that, and he has to inhale sharply to prevent the emotion showing in his eyes. “I’m working on it, but beyond actually hurting them - there’s not much I can try. Nobody really seems to care or even know what’s going on, and I’m just one person - well, not really a person, but you get what I mean.”
The seal exhales in a huff.
Marc nods, sighing slightly and reaching over to her, placing what he hopes is a comforting hand on her back. “I hate the idea of losing our home too.”
“Are you okay down there?”
Marc whips his head around so fast, he’s convinced his neck will crack. He can’t see anyone - and then he cranes himself around to look up.
Oh no, someone’s here, they probably saw me talking to a seal, oh crap-
Far above him and leaning against the barrier is a short woman with blonde hair that he recognises as the one he’d spoken to on his first day up on land. She looks slightly concerned.
Marc blinks. “I’m okay,” he calls back. “Just…” he pauses, trying to figure out a justifiable reason as to why he’s sopping wet and curled up in a ball against the side of a cliff, surrounded by seals. “Just hanging out,” he says limply.
“How did you even get down there? Did you fall?” The woman presses, and Marc can feel the anxiety starting to set in. How is he meant to avoid this?
“I didn’t fall,” he replies after a minute, though even he can hear the hesitation in his voice. “I swam.”
Great excuse. She’s a human, she’s totally not going to know it’s not possible-
“You swam?” the woman echoes, and she sounds as alarmed as Marc suspects she would be if he clung to her excuse of I fell from the cliff and somehow didn’t die or get badly injured.
Oh well, he’s in too deep now.
“Yes,” Marc agrees bluntly, like it’s the most natural thing in the world and he doesn’t sound completely and utterly insane.
The woman is silent, but Marc can tell that it’s not because she believes him. If anything, she seems more like she’s in shock.
Then she speaks again.
“You’re a selkie, aren’t you?”
Marc freezes.
“How did you-” he cuts himself off, but he knows the damage is done. Damn it.
The woman laughs, the faint sound carrying down on the breeze. “I’m one too. Hi. My name’s Mylene.”
This time, it’s Marc who doesn’t know what to say.
“How long?” he manages after a moment. He lets the unspoken question hang in the air - how long have you been living here?
The woman - Mylene - hums. “About fifteen years.”
“Fifteen-”
“I liked it here too much when I came up,” Mylene explains. “So when my Mum went back to the sea, she left me behind with my Dad. I miss her, but I know she’s happier living her life. Like I’m happy living mine.”
Marc is quiet, trying to process this. His neck is really starting to hurt from craning it so much.
“What was it like?” he asks after a moment. “Learning how to live?”
Mylene rests her forearms against the barrier. “Difficult,” she says after a minute. “Scary - really scary. But I had my Dad. I made friends. I met my boyfriend.”
Marc wonders if he should ask her for tips. Then again, what would he ask her?
Hey, you know more about this whole being human thing than me by a long shot. Mind giving me some lessons so I stop talking myself into corners?
Luckily for him, Mylene seems to be able to read his mind.
“Don’t panic when you speak,” she supplies helpfully. “Try not to mention anything regarding the sea if you can. I can’t really tell you any more than that. There’s really no proper way to be a person.”
Marc hums but doesn’t say anything. Neither does Mylene.
“You know, you make more sense now,” She says after a minute. “The protest - I was wondering how you knew about the housing developments. I thought you just saw the boat. And then when you didn’t show up to the thing itself…”
“Would you believe me if I said I got lost on my way there?” Marc grins sheepishly, finally looking away because Gods, his neck really hurts now. “Then when I got there… it was all gone.”
“You’ll figure it all out,” Mylene says sympathetically. “Just try and live in the moment. That’s what I know for certain. Don’t panic.”
Marc stares out over the water, in the direction of where he knows seal island is, at the snoozing seals nearby.
Don’t panic. Live in the moment.
He thinks he might have preferred it if Mylene was able to give him a checklist of things to do.