Chapter Text
Bucky walked along the beach, kicking a particularly round stone as he went. His parents had told him and his sister to get out of the house and not come back before sunset. They were preparing for some sort of adult event that he, a ten year old boy, didn’t have even the vaguest interest in. His younger sister had begged to go to the beach, and with lack of much else to do, he had agreed. Becca was currently chasing seagulls, giggling as they scattered before her.
Hands in his pockets, Bucky glanced up at the sound of shouting. It was coming from further up the beach, and had the high, mocking tones of a group of boys taunting someone. Bucky hurried his steps, and soon saw the group, local bullies with nothing better to do. They were a few years older than him. They surrounded something lying on the ground, and Bucky caught glimpses through their legs of something small and grey.
“C’mon little fey, don’t you want to come out and play?” the leader asked.
“Hey!” Bucky said. “Leave it!”
The group turned to look at him. “Ooooh, look who it is, big James Barnes, come to protect the faerie.”
“Get lost,” Bucky said. “You know what happens when people mess with the fey.”
“It’s a selkie pup, Barnes. It’s not gonna do anything to us,” the leader spat.
“Don’t make me tell my gran,” Bucky said. It was not an empty threat. Bucky’s grandmother was a powerful witch, but more than that, she was the village’s healer and wisewoman.
The bully’s face screwed up in disgust. “Can’t even fight your own fights, what a wuss. Just remember, Barnes, your granny won’t always be around to protect you. C’mon boys, let’s go.”
Bucky truly wanted to throw a punch, but he didn’t have even the slightest chance of winning, so he merely stayed put until the retreating backs of the group were gone over the dunes. Then he turned to the small grey form lying on the sand.
He squatted down next to them, putting a hand on their shoulder. They were small and thin, and looked, at first glance, like a seal pup. But upon closer examination, the lines were not quite right, the flippers just a little too long, the snout a little too round. And when he brushed his hand across their soft skin, the eyes flew open to reveal the bluest eyes Bucky would ever see on a being, human, fey, or animal.
The selkie pup quivered under his hand, and Bucky quickly retracted it.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just makin’ sure you’re alright. Nasty bullies, those ones.”
The selkie looked around for a moment, twisting their head this way and that. Becca was still far down the beach, having apparently not noticed Bucky’s intervention in the slightest. They opened their mouth and a soft barking noise came out.
Bucky shook his head, “Sorry, don’t speak selkie.”
The selkie opened their mouth again, and, to Bucky’s astonishment, spoke. “Thank you,” they said. “You are kind.”
It was clear that the selkie was taking great care to enunciate the human speech, and Bucky smiled. “They’re bullies anyway. Do you need anything? Fish?”
The selkie shook their head. “Ma will come soon. I was supposed to be hiding but they found me.”
Which means they were looking, Bucky thought.
Bucky sat down on a nearby rock, looking over to where Becca was building a sand castle. It was midafternoon now, and they had a few hours before they had to be home. He looked down at the selkie, and then reached into his jacket pocket. He had a bit of bread in there left over from lunch, and the selkie looked thin. Even if they had refused fish, surely it didn’t hurt to offer?
He held out the bread, and the selkie sniffed it delicately. “What is it?” they asked.
“Bread,” Bucky said.
The selkie nibbled a bit of it, and their eyes lit up. “Can I have some more?”
“You can have it all, if you want,” Bucky said.
The selkie practically wolfed down the rest of the bread. They spent the rest of the afternoon together, while Becca played down the beach, building an elaborate complex of sand, driftwood, rocks, and shells. Bucky told the selkie about his granny and his mum and pa, and the selkie told Bucky about their (his, Bucky figured out) ma.
The sun was low on the horizon, just above the water’s edge, when the selkie’s head whipped around. Bucky heard a faint guttural bark from somewhere out in the sea, and the selkie answered, his bark higher. “That’s my ma,” he said. “I have to go.”
“Of course,” Bucky said. “I’d like to see you again, sometime?”
The selkie hesitated, but nodded. “I’d like that too.” He turned and began an inelegant shuffle toward the surf, before Bucky’s voice made him pause.
“Hey, I’m Bucky, by the way. What’s your name?”
The selkie looked over his shoulder, shook his head, and went back to sea.
Bucky slapped himself on the forehead as he realized his mistake almost immediately.
Never ask a faerie for their name. To know a faerie’s name is to be able to control them.
-
It was almost two months later when Bucky saw the selkie again. He and his gran were walking on the beach, collecting shells and herbs for her magics and healing salves.
He nearly tripped over the selkie, who was doing a very impressive impersonation of a rock. He landed hard on his hands, the contents of his gathering basket scattering all over the sand.
“Oof,” he huffed. The rock he had tripped over turned fearful blue eyes on him, and it took Bucky a moment to figure out that it was the selkie and not some strange apparition.
“Sorry,” the selkie said quietly.
“Hello again!” Bucky said brightly. He was so happy to see the selkie that he didn’t even care about having to gather all the things into his basket again.
“You’re not mad?” the selkie asked.
“Wasn’t looking where I was going. That’s not your fault,” Bucky said. He finished piling the now-sandy contents of his basket back in rather haphazardly, and sat down on the sand next to the selkie.
The selkie tilted his head, but said nothing.
“How have you been?” Bucky asked.
“Ma’s sick,” the selkie blurted.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bucky said.
“She’s been sick for a long time. Cough she can’t shake,” the selkie said. “Winter makes it worse.” It was late autumn.
Bucky hesitated. “My gran’s a healer,” he said after a moment. “A witch, too.”
The selkie looked up at Bucky through long, thick lashes. “Ma doesn’t trust humans.”
“Wouldn’t give her any reason to,” Bucky said. “But gran’s not… all the way human.”
“What do you mean?” the selkie asked.
“I dunno,” Bucky said. “But there’s something about her. Do you wanna meet her?”
The selkie froze. “Now?”
Bucky nodded. “She’s just over there,” he pointed.
The selkie seemed to consider for a moment before saying, “All right.”
“Granny!” Bucky called, and her head came up from where she was examining a patch of ferns just on the shore. “C’mere a minute!”
She hurried over, and if she was surprised to see Bucky with a selkie pup, she didn’t say anything.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Louisa.”
“Hello,” the selkie said.
“His ma has a bad cough,” Bucky said. “Can you help?”
Louisa considered for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll need to go back to my cottage to get something. You stay here with him, Bucky.”
She was gone for the better part of an hour. Bucky and the selkie traded stories, as boys that age do, for Bucky was sure that the selkie was about his age. Bucky complained about his sister and the selkie nodded sympathetically, although he had no siblings of his own.
When Louisa returned, she was carrying a wrapped bundle. She put it down in front of the selkie. It was a fish, or at least it looked like a fish.
“It’s got herbs in it that’ll help her cough,” Louisa said. “Although from the sound of it, it’s the Deep Cough. There’s no cure for that, I’m sorry.”
The selkie nodded sadly.
“If it helps, come back here at the next full moon and I’ll have more for you,” Louisa said. “Bucky will bring it down.”
“Thank you,” the selkie said. “I… am in your debt.”
“No,” Louisa said. “You are not. This is a service freely given and you and your mother are free from any debts to me or my family in this matter.”
The words seemed to shimmer in the air as Louisa spoke them, and Bucky could feel them vibrate in his bones.
“Thank you,” the selkie said again, quieter this time. Then he picked the fish up in his mouth and returned to the waves.
“What was that about?” Bucky asked.
“Faeries take debts very seriously,” Louisa said. “I’ve relieved him of the need to repay me for this, which would have indebted him and his mother to me and my family for a very long time.”
-
At the next full moon, Bucky was sitting on the beach, the cough-fish in a basket next to him. It was cold, the first full moon of winter, and Bucky pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulder. It was approaching midnight, and there was still no sign of the selkie.
He was dozing when a splash woke him. The selkie was coming up from the sea, and he wasn’t alone. A larger selkie followed him, presumably his mother.
“Hello, Bucky,” the selkie pup said.
“Hello!” Bucky said, genuinely glad to see him.
“This is my ma,” the selkie said, pointing with his flipper.
“Hello, ma’am,” he said.
The adult selkie looked around, as if she were expecting a trap.
“You have been kind to my son,” she said. “More than most humans would have done.”
“It’s nothing, ma’am,” Bucky said. He stood, and held out the fish. She took it, and ate it whole.
Bucky expected that to be the end of it, but the selkie opened her mouth again, and took a long moment before speaking.
“I know your grandmother says there is no debt incurred. But… please tell her thank you. Tell her thank you from… Sarah,” the selkie said.
A chill went up Bucky’s spine as he realized the gravity of what she had just trusted him with.
“I will, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll be here next month, too.”
-
The months passed quickly, and every full moon, rain, snow, or clear, Bucky waited on the beach for Sarah and her son to come ashore. As he grew, he expected the selkie pup to as well, but it seemed that Sarah’s sickliness had passed to her child. Some months she came ashore by herself, saying that her son was ill.
Seven years passed like this. Bucky grew to regard the selkie pup as his greatest friend, although he never again asked for the selkie’s name.
In the winter of the seventh year, however, something changed. Sarah missed first one month, then two. Bucky was worried as he sat on the beach in the dark, in the deep snows of late January.
A splashing sound from far down the beach caught his attention, and he ran to find the source. It was the selkie pup, alone. He was breathing heavily, and a dark stain coated one of his flanks.
“What happened?” Bucky asked, dropping to his knees in the surf, heedless of the cold.
“Pirates,” the selkie said, between labored breaths. “Ma died two months ago. Cough finally got her. I was stupid. Got too close to a harbor. They harpooned me. Barely got away.”
Bucky made a wordless sound of sadness for the loss of Sarah, but the selkie’s bloody wound was more concerning at the moment. “Will you let me take you to gran’s cottage?” he asked. “She’s not well enough to come down here, and I can’t help you.”
“Yes,” the selkie said without hesitation.
Bucky pulled the blanket off his shoulders and wrapped it around the selkie’s small body, hoisting the seal-shape into his arms. The selkie was surprisingly heavy for his small frame, but Bucky had been throwing cargo from the docks in recent months, and had built up a great deal of muscle.
He hurried back to his gran’s cottage, and knocked on the door with his foot.
It took her some time to answer, holding a lantern against the darkness. She looked cross as she opened the door, ready to give hell to whoever had disturbed her rest, but when she saw Bucky and his burden, her face changed, anger replaced by worry.
“Come in,” she said. “Put him down on the sickbed.”
Bucky did so, and then retreated across the room so Louisa could work her magicks.
It was dawn before she was done, and she was exhausted. Bucky was wiping the blood away from the selkie’s skin with a warm, wet cloth, as Louisa collapsed into her bed and fell asleep. The selkie was similarly asleep, and Bucky could feel tiredness dragging at his bones. He tossed the rag into the basin and put the basin on the table. It was too early to return to his parents’ home without waking anyone, and he didn’t have the energy to do so anyway.
The only available space was a sliver of mattress at the head of the selkie’s bed. He sat down in it, back against the wall, and closed his eyes.
The selkie shifted in his sleep, squirming closer to Bucky, until his head rested in Bucky’s lap. The warm weight drew Bucky down, until he slept.
-
When Bucky awoke, he was disoriented for a moment. Bright sunlight slid in through creamy yellow curtains. He had woken in his gran’s house before, but not for many years, and certainly not ever with someone else in the bed, as there seemed to be now. The events of the night before returned in a tumble, and he looked down to find himself wrapped around the selkie, the faerie’s seal-head resting on Bucky’s shoulder.
Bucky was loathe to move, but nature called.
When he returned from his business, the selkie was awake, and eating. His would from the night before was nothing but a dark scar on his grey fur.
“Good morning,” Louisa said to Bucky.
“Mornin’,” Bucky said.
“I’m going to market today,” Louisa said. “Becca and I will be going to your parents’ house this evening. It… would probably be best if you waited until night to return to the sea, selkie.”
“Ma’am,” the selkie said. “You cannot discharge this debt like you did for my ma’s.”
“I know,” Louisa said. “But debts do not have to be repaid immediately. And we all must live with something.” Her words had the same gravity that Bucky remembered from the night on the beach years ago, and he thought they must be some kind of spell.
Louisa left, and Bucky found himself in the improbable situation of being in his grandmother’s cottage with his friend who looked like a seal.
The selkie sighed. “I’ve gotten myself into a right mess this time,” he said.
“How did you end up in a harbor in the first place?” Bucky asked, going to Louisa’s larder for some sort of breakfast.
“Pirates,” the selkie said. “I don’t like them. They come and they pillage, stealing from the poor to help only themselves. I thought I could do something about them.”
“That’s a tall order,” Bucky said.
The selkie barked a laugh. “You’re telling me.”
They passed the day like they had passed so many before, although the surroundings were different. Bucky found a deck of cards, and taught the selkie a simple game that he could play without having to hold a hand of cards.
He was surprisingly good at it and Bucky soon found himself outwitted. The angle of the sun through the window traced a line across the floor, until it was deep twilight outside.
Bucky looked out through the window and saw the distant lamps of the village lights coming on.
“It’s dark enough now,” he said. “We should go back to the beach.”
The selkie sighed, seemingly regretfully. “You’re right. But I still don’t want to.”
“Why?” Bucky asked.
“I’ll miss your company,” the selkie said.
“Oh,” Bucky replied, at a loss for words. This was the same feeling he had every time the selkie left. “And I’ll miss you.”
The selkie smiled sadly.
Bucky helped the selkie roll into a blanket, and scooped the bundle up into his arms, striking out for the beach. It was a short walk he had traversed hundreds of times, but it had never taken him as long as it did this time. He wanted to linger with the selkie.
Bucky didn’t know if he wanted the selkie to come home with him or if he wanted to go to the sea with the selkie. He wasn’t sure it mattered.
Inevitably, however, he reached the water’s edge, and put the selkie gently down on the sand.
The selkie rolled out of the blanket, and looked out toward the sea, and then back at Bucky.
A long moment passed between them, and then the selkie spoke. “Bucky,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”
And then he slipped into the ocean and was gone.