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Fadó, fadó, there lived a young man called Rodney McKay. Now, this Rodney was a solitary man, who lived by himself in a small house on an island right at the very top of the world, where the wind was fierce and the people scarce; and he was a lonely man, this Rodney, a man who surrounded himself with books and papers, who twisted figures and numbers around in his mind, because at night his double bed held only one person, because the noise of the ticking clock in his empty kitchen was so loud.
So he was lonely; but he was content, for the most part, because Rodney knew no other life than this. He was born here, and raised here, and lived all his twenty years here; he couldn't think of a life that could be led without the whisper of sand beneath his feet, the blurred line of land running down to water, the ever-present wind that would snatch equations from his lips, carry away fragments of songs, half-remembered bits of poetry that he'd taught himself, that he would murmur to remember in the evenings, walking along the quiet beach. If you were to ask him, he would tell you that his life was happy, that this was the best he could ever hope for.
(Though sometimes, in the longest winter evenings, he would wonder, sitting at his fireside; he would trace patterns and fractals in the blue-grey turf smoke and he'd wonder.)
And so one day, Rodney was sitting on a big rock on the beach, right down at the tip of the headland, right at the furthest grasp of land into sea. This was his favourite spot for reading and for thinking, and just then, he was doing both; hungrily making his way through the latest letter that Radek had sent him from the lands far away to the south.
Radek left home when he was very young in search of adventure and knowledge in the great cities, and he had found it in plenty. Each letter home would tell of marvels and wonders; progress in maths and magic and science; encounters with great lords and ladies; of the railroads which were working their way further and further north, trapping all the old, wild magic of the land beneath a web of iron. Rodney read every letter he got with a kind of sick fascination; he wanted to know more, always, and sometimes the letters made him want to travel south, were there were people and books for the taking; most often, they made him want to stay right where he was.
This letter was no different; and Rodney was so caught up in it, so fascinated by Radek's descriptions of powerful new telescopes that could chart the lands of other worlds, that he didn't notice how the time had passed, how the light had changed. It was twilight now, the border time, the most dangerous time to be where earth meets water, with the setting sun flaring up to turn the sea gold, but Rodney only noticed when drops of water spattered across his page.
Rodney looked up, startled, to meet a pair of green eyes, quizzical under a shock of wet, raw-silk hair. He was startled, and a little shocked, and a little afraid, because Rodney knew right away that he couldn't be human, this boy-man; all sleek, bare skin and curious touches, wet fingertips against Rodney's hands, and seeming lack of speech. Rodney knew him for a selkie even before he saw the speckled brown skin lying abandoned a little way away, and he was oh so tempted to take that skin; reach out and tuck it under his arm and take this being for his own, because just the sight of him, the clean lines of his body, were enough to make Rodney's heart ache in his chest. The thoughts of turning away, of going back to his neat, empty little cottage all alone, seemed almost unbearable.
But he didn't have to take it, because the selkie leaned forward and whispered in his ear; he could speak after all, with a voice silver-liquid like rain against a pane of glass. He leaned forward and told Rodney that he'd heard him singing, all the days that Rodney had walked the shore alone; that he'd heard his songs, and his pieces of story, and the numbers he uses to meld them together; told Rodney how they remind him of Atlantis.
Rodney said "Atlantis?", confused, because surely it's a myth, the drowned city; a story told to children at night when they want to go to sleep hearing of wonders.
"Atlantis," the boy selkie said, and smiled, "Home. She's beautiful, too."
There was something in the selkie's smile which made Rodney lean in, impulsive, and kiss him; and there was something in the way the selkie's hands came up, tentative at first, to slide along Rodney's biceps, his shoulders, to cup his face, that made Rodney want to close his eyes and beg.
But he didn't have to do that either, for the selkie just pulled back, stepped away. Picking up his sleek brown skin under one arm, he followed Rodney up the narrow path to that small, neat cottage that could shelter two under its eaves so easily.
There they lived for many years, content with one another and loving so well; the selkie kissing a smile onto Rodney's face each morning, Rodney curling an arm around his stomach as they fall asleep each night, thumb stroking against a soft patch of skin like it was his own safeguard against sorrow. It was the easiest thing that Rodney had ever done, and the best.
But the years passed; and when ten had slid by, the storms outside their little cottage grew steadily fiercer, the smell of the salt air around them stronger, and Rodney knew it for what it was without having to be told: for the selkie seemed sadder, as if all of a sudden his home had become a cage.
There was no change in how he treated Rodney, and his kisses were as warm as ever, wet and intimate; he still shivered when Rodney licked the salt from his skin, and the curve of his smile was still wide and real every time Rodney pushed inside him. But the West Wind whistled through the cracks in the door and hammered against the windowpane; and the south, and the north, and the east winds too. Rodney knew that they had been sent by the sea to call the selkie home, back to the glass-spired city beneath the waves; and Rodney knew too that he was selfish, that he would fight off every creature that lived in the sea, each animal and merman and selkie, if it would mean that he could have this always: contentment by his hearth in late spring, curled up next to his love while he dozed and dreamt.
But the selkie had always known how to find the ways around Rodney's selfishness, and he had no resolve which could stand against him, against the songs the selkie hummed to himself; those melodies were becoming wilder, stranger, whistling like the wind moving over open water; and the selkie swayed as he moved, as if he were being pushed by unseen tides.
Rodney knew he would lose him, and that he could not make him stay; for this time together was freely given to him, no trick, no captivity, and Rodney had no claim on him. He wouldn't change that even now; and so Rodney waited for the day when he would wake to find the skin gone from the chest at the foot of their bed, the sheets growing cold next to him, and all the world grey outside.
But when the last day came — when the storms outside knew no ceasing, for all that it was the height of summer, when the sun cast no warmth and the sea knew no colour — the selkie did not slip away. He stood in the doorway of their home, as bare as the day Rodney had met him, skin clasped in one hand; as silent as the first time Rodney had met him, too, his other hand held out in invitation. Rodney swallowed when he reached out to take that hand, but he didn't stumble when he followed the selkie down the shining path to the sea. He didn't stumble when they stood in front of the roaring waves, the pounding surf, and the selkie looked at him and smiled.
Rodney just grinned back, and kissed him once, hard; then the selkie wrapped his skin around their shoulders, curled warmth and the smell of salt around them both. When they dived into the water together, Rodney breathed in deep.
This story happened fadó, fadó, when there were still kings in Galway and wild magic abroad in the world. The small, neat cottage sits empty on its hill now, the door sagging from its hinges, pages of abandoned books fluttering in the salt breeze, and the grey ashes of a long dead fire sitting in the grate. It is home to no lonely man called Rodney, to no selkie who is restless for the sea; each sea storm pulls more tiles from its roof, makes the people from the nearest village determined to avoid it even more (for each child knows from its cradle the story of the sea-prince who enchanted away the simple fisherman). The only sound it ever hears nowadays is the rustle of grass growing steadily closer to the door with each season—except for at night, sometimes, when the tide and moon are full, and the foaming water echoes back the sound of laughter, and a selkie's clear voice, and Rodney calling out his name.
Note: Fadó, fadó, fadó a bhí ann (agus bhí rí i nGaillimh) is the Irish story-telling equivalent of 'Once upon a time.' It translates to 'A long, long, long time ago it was (and there was a king in Galway).'