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He should’ve waited for help. Delsin had been trying to get one of the other boxes out of the moving van, but it was in an awkward spot and he’d tugged a little too hard. His elbow had smacked into another stack and knocked over a few things, including a rather ornate wooden chest. It had tumbled out of the van into the grass and popped open, spilling its contents onto the grass.
Groaning, Delsin hopped out too. He carefully righted the chest and paused for a second to admire the craftsmanship. The carved surface was covered in Irish Gaelic and depicted an ocean cliffside with a woman surrounded by seals. Fish swam in the ocean below and birds flew above, and it seemed like the woman was wearing some kind of cloak.
Actually, whatever she was wearing looked similar to the two piles of fabric laying in the grass. Delsin picked one up and frowned faintly. The silvery material felt kind of like velvet, but sported dark patches. Seal fur? Why would Lyn have something like this?
“HEY!”
James’ sharp, angry yell caught Delsin by surprise and the fabric slipped out of his fingers. “I’m sorry, it fell out of the truck and-”
“Don’t touch any of this, understand? Don’t even look at it,” James snapped as he stormed over. Snatching up both pieces of fabric, he shoved them back in the chest and scooped it up. Without another word to Delsin he carried it back into the house, muttering something under his breath in Irish.
Delsin, meanwhile, was left wondering what the hell just happened. Lyn, who had stepped outside the same moment as James, approached him with a sympathetic look on her face. “I’m sorry Del, I should’ve taken that chest inside first thing. James shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
“What even is it?” Delsin asked, getting to his feet and dusting off his jeans.
“It’s an heirloom chest from his nana. Belonged to his birth mom before him. He’s very protective of it.”
“Oh. Why did you have it then?” He wasn’t accusing, only curious. James didn’t talk about his birth parents much, if at all, even though he talked about his grandparents all the time. From what Delsin knew, it was a sore subject.
“I was doing some restorative work on the chest and the coats inside. And before you say anything, since I can see the question on your face, he keeps them for cultural reasons. They’re never worn.”
Delsin held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I wasn’t even going to ask.”
Lyn smiled and gave him a half hug. “Come on, you can help me bring in my bookshelf.”
James was in the kitchen when they carried said bookshelf inside, pacing back and forth with a water bottle in hand. He looked agitated. Delsin was going to give him a wide berth to cool off but the lanky man cleared his throat and called him over.
“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have freaked out like that,” James said once he got closer, voice filled with remorse.
Delsin shrugged and lightly punched his arm. “All good man, I get it. And I'm sorry for dropping it.”
A tired smile worked its way onto James’ face. “No harm done, that thing’s solid as a rock.”
“It's beautiful. Whoever carved it had some serious skill.”
James tilted his head and tapped the water bottle against his chin. “I'm not entirely sure who carved it. Someone in the family, that's all I know. I think Lyn dated it for me, so I could look at the records and have a decent guess, but it's not that big a deal. Besides, we've still got a lot to do.”
“Back to the grind,” Lyn quipped as she stole James’ water bottle.
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A week later, Delsin was out on the boat with Reggie, leaning against warm black scales while he sketched. He'd gotten lost in the movement of his pencil and the gentle rocking of the boat and kind of zoned out. It was only when he went to stretch out the kink in his back did he realize he'd unconsciously been recreating the scene from James’ chest. He stared at it, frowning.
“Hey Reg?”
“Hm?” was the sleepy reply.
“Do you speak seal?”
Reggie picked his head up off his arms and squinted at Delsin. “What dialect?”
“Any I guess? There are that many?”
“Yep. I know enough harbour seal to get by, and a decent bit of grey, but that's about it. I don't magically know every language in the ocean, but according to Jack they get easier the more you learn.”
“Huh.” He glanced down at the photo again, then back at his brother. Leaning his arm on a thick coil, he asked “Do you ever eat seals?”
Reggie blinked at him, the question obviously taking the storm-singer by surprise. “I mean, I've scavenged a few, but I make it a point not to hunt them. Why the twenty questions?”?”
“Just curious,” Delsin mused. “One last question. Do any other mythical creatures exist?”
Reggie rested his chin back on his arms and gave a noncommittal shrug. “Dunno. It’s always possible.”
Not much of an answer, but Delsin wasn’t sure what else he expected. He sighed and set his art supplies aside. “You up for a swim? Or are you going to be a lazy bump on a boat all day?”
Thwack
“Ow! A no would’ve been sufficient. Dick.”
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Two more days passed. Delsin was chilling on the couch when Reggie suddenly went running past and out the door like a bat out of hell. Neon let him catch up in the nick of time, sliding into the passenger’s seat just as Reggie hit the gas. The truck lurched and Delsin grabbed the dashboard to keep from getting thrown into it.
“Whoa! Where's the fire, Reg?”
“Go back home, Del,” Reggie answered, tone clipped. “I’ve got it handled.”
Delsin frowned. “Someone in trouble? You have that face right now, the ‘matter of life and death’ face.”
“What? I don't have a face.”
“You do.”
“Don't!”
“If it's a secret or sacred storm-singer thing then I'll leave, no questions asked. But if it's not, and I can help, why not let me? Two sets of hands are better than one.”
Delsin held his breath while Reggie thought about it, the only sound the roar of the truck’s engine. “...Fine. When we stop, get the boat started and follow me.”
The moment they were out of the truck, Delsin zipped ahead to get the boat started. Reggie climbed in and stripped the moment they were out of view of the shore. Leaving his clothes on the deck, he dove into the water. Delsin waited patiently, watching for him to surface again.
“Follow me.”
Without another word Reggie swam off in another direction. A year ago, the sight of a spiny sailfin cresting the water would’ve scared the crap out of Delsin, but now he followed it like a beacon. It still amazed him sometimes that storm-singers could outpace a boat. One of these days he’d have to ask if they were all that fast.
Rocks appeared in the distance. As they got closer, Delsin spotted dorsal fins. A lot of them. A pod of orcas had surrounded the rocks where a single seal was perched. From this distance, Delsin couldn’t see it very well, but it looked too big to be one of the harbor seals that inhabited the area.
Ahead of him, Reggie didn’t slow. Instead, his fin flattened against his back and Delsin’s jaw dropped when he rammed right into the side of the largest orca, knocking it from where it was trying to climb the rocks. He swam a full circle around the mound in seconds, forcing the rest of the pod back. Delsin had never thought to use the word skittering in relation to his brother, but that’s the best word to describe how Reggie climbed the rocks, coiling like a pissed off snake and flaring his fins at the large orca that tried to bite his tail.
Slowly but surely, the pod left. Reggie remained perched on the rock, warily watching them swim away. Delsin moved the boat closer and vaulted onto the rocks. His foot slipped and he only avoided a cracked skull thanks to Reggie’s steadying hand on his arm.
“Thanks, Reg.”
“Don’t mention it,” Reggie said absently, turning his attention to the seal.
Now that Delsin was closer, he could make out the dark grey, almost black coat, lighter spots along its belly. Blood coated the seal’s hind flippers and back, evidence of a close call with an orca’s teeth. It looked at Delsin, then Reggie, and started making all sorts of snorting and barking noises.
“I know, I know. Can you please stop yelling?” Reggie shouted over the barking. “I can’t understand you when you talk that fast. Look, it was just a matter of time, and you know Delsin, he’s not going to say a word. You can trust him.”
The seal looked at Delsin and growled.
“You also know you can trust me,” Reggie insisted. The seal hissed and Reggie sighed. “Seriously? You're going to act like this? Can you just drop it and let me help you get in the damn boat?”
The seal hissed at him, but nevertheless slipped into the water after Reggie without so much as a splash. Delsin hopped back into the boat and watched Reggie clamber up. The seal climbed in with far less grace, making the boat rock side to side and requiring Reggie’s help to get all the way aboard.
“Uh, I think we might be a bit over the weight limit, Reg,” Delsin joked, glancing between seal and storm-singer. Reggie had mentioned at some point that he weighed around a ton with his tail, and the seal had to weigh at least six hundred pounds, if not more.
“It'll be taken care of in a minute.” Reggie waved off his concerns and started rummaging through the boat’s storage bins. He came back with a first aid kit. Delsin was holding back a million questions but they all promptly fled when the seal raised a flipper and suddenly James was sitting in its place wearing some sort of long coat. His bare legs and the bottom of the coat were covered in blood.
Delsin stared. And stared. And stared some more as he put two and two together that what James was wearing was one of the folded garments he saw in the chest.
“Take a picture, it'll last longer,” James grumbled, shifting a little and barely supressing a wince.
“Calm down, James. He came to help,” Reggie said, slithering over and pulling gauze out of the kit. “Delsin, get us out of here. The blood in the water will attract more predators.”
Delsin gave a numb nod and took the wheel. Behind him, he could hear the two arguing.
“If you'd waited like I said, this wouldn't have happened. You know what season it is, man.”
“I almost got eaten, Reggie, I don't need a lecture.”
“What if I hadn't gotten here in time, huh?” Reggie snapped. “What exactly am I supposed to tell Lyn if that happens? You're not stupid but fuck if you don't make some stupid choices!”
“You of all people should know exactly why it's hard to wait!”
“Trust me, I do know! But you're not the apex predator in these waters and I don't want to go searching for your song one day and not find it. I already had to go through that with my mom.”
James sighed. “...I'm sorry. You're right, I should've waited. I just… needed out of my own skin.”
“I get it, just please be more careful.”
“Okay.”
Once they were a good distance out into the open ocean and away from the rocks, Delsin stopped the boat. “So now that James is no longer in mortal peril, can someone explain to me what the hell is going on? Are you like a mammalian storm-singer or something?”
“Those do exist, but no. I'm a selkie, different type of creature.”
Delsin's nose wrinkled in confusion. “I thought selkies were women?”
“Male selkies exist, they're simply very rare,” James explained, wincing as he slid a pair of sweatpants over his hips from Reggie’s stash of spare clothes.
“Is Lyn one too then?”
“No, she's not.”
“But there were two coats in the crate?”
“The other one belonged to my birth mother.”
“Oh. Why’d Lyn have the chest then? Was she really restoring it?”
“She has it because she's my fiancee.”
Delsin paused. He didn't know much about selkie lore, but what he did remember hadn't exactly sounded like happy relationships. “Are you running away? Do we need to help you escape?”
Reggie and James exchanged confused glances. “I'm lost, what are you talking about?”
“Selkies marry whoever steals their coat, right? You managed to steal it back, and now you're trying to leave. We can help.” He loved Lyn to death, but he wasn't going to tolerate anyone being forced into a relationship they didn't want.
James’ confusion melted into affection, blue eyes warm. “There are a lot of stories about that, but that's not the case here. I gave Lyn my coat willingly and she gives it back to me whenever I ask for it. She's not keeping it from me.”
Oh. “You're not stuck?”
“No, Del, I promise.”
Delsin tilted his head curiously. “Then why would you risk coming out here alone?”
“Because sometimes the draw of the ocean is difficult to ignore,” James explained while he leaned forward so Reggie could bandage his back. “It's like a ringing in your head that keeps getting louder and louder and the only way to quiet it is to return. I tried using other things to shut it out and that didn't turn out too great.”
Figuring out exactly what he was implying didn't take an astrophysics degree. Deciding to move on to a lighter topic, Delsin asked “Do people ever try to catch you? To like, take you back to Ireland? You're obviously not one of the seals native to this area.”
“I'm a grey seal. And yes, they do,” James laughed. “Last time it happened, your mom was actually the one who came to my rescue.”
Delsin perked up at that. “You knew Mom?”
“Well yea. This was her territory. She wasn't used to selkies since they're not very common in the Pacific, but any time I went in the water she wasn't far away. She mostly let me do my own thing, but occasionally she'd come over to talk. The first time I met Reggie was actually when he was around five or six. When I moved to Salmon Bay it took some effort to pretend we didn't know each other.”
Huh. He was finding out all sorts of new things today. Drumming his fingers on his knee, Delsin asked the question that'd been burning in his mind ever since James turned back. “Why didn't you want me to know? I've kept Reggie’s secret this whole time.”
“It wasn't personal. But the more people who know, the higher the risk of my secret getting out. So like Reggie, I try to avoid people knowing unless there's no other choice.”
That made sense. It also eased Delsin's injured pride. “Okay. So… is there a way to fix your coat? Or will it magically heal?”
“I need to sew it, but I'll handle that back home,” James explained as he carefully folded the garment and set it in his lap.
Reggie, meanwhile, had finished what he was doing and shifted back. He gingerly stood and grabbed his clothes. “Next time you do something stupid like this, I'm eating you on sheer principle.”
James flashed him a grin. “Please, you hate the taste of seal.”
“Boy, and I thought you guys had a morbid sense of humor before,” Delsin quipped, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Please, you should know me by now. If I can make it dark, I will.”