Fic: Selkie
Mar. 25th, 2012 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meridian_roseTitle: Selkie
Fandom: Original
Rating: PG
Word Count: 314
Prompt: For the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
writerverse 'beginnings and endings' challenge
Summary: Half-selkie, half-human. The balance is hard to maintain
Warnings: None
I chose the beginning provided by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mareel, which is shown in the initial italics.
The sea has never stopped calling to me. Despite all of my denials of that call, I've never silenced it. To do so would be a denial of who I am.
In the stories men steal our skins and force us to be their brides. I don't know what about us is so alluring. Perhaps it is because it is forbidden. Or maybe it is the desire to own and control something no man should. We belong to the sea, the great mother ocean, ruled over by the feminine moon.
My mother left the sea willingly for love of my father. She birthed me in sea water, though, and throughout my childhood she bathed me in the ocean. Even now I can't move far from the coast. If I go more than month without at least paddling my bare feet in the waves I feel drained and lethargic.
I'm a selkie, or at least half-selkie, but I've been raised as a human. I have no desire to live beneath the waves, and give up my electronic communications and warm bed. Yet I cannot turn away from my heritage either. The balance is difficult to maintain. Easier to deny the call at neap tides. Harder at spring tides. Come, the sea calls to me then more than ever. Come, and stay.
The thing is, I'm afraid. Afraid that one day I'll swim out too far, dive too deep, and forget my human side. That the embrace of the ocean will be too strong for me to resist. That I'll never again eat in a restaurant or sit in a park and read a book.
They're foolish fears. My fully selkie mother managed to overcome the pull of the waves to walk onto dry land; surely I can always do the same.
Yet the sea's call quickens my heart. Come, she whispers. Come, and stay.
Fandom: Original
Rating: PG
Word Count: 314
Prompt: For the
writerverse 'beginnings and endings' challengeSummary: Half-selkie, half-human. The balance is hard to maintain
Warnings: None
I chose the beginning provided by
mareel, which is shown in the initial italics.The sea has never stopped calling to me. Despite all of my denials of that call, I've never silenced it. To do so would be a denial of who I am.
In the stories men steal our skins and force us to be their brides. I don't know what about us is so alluring. Perhaps it is because it is forbidden. Or maybe it is the desire to own and control something no man should. We belong to the sea, the great mother ocean, ruled over by the feminine moon.
My mother left the sea willingly for love of my father. She birthed me in sea water, though, and throughout my childhood she bathed me in the ocean. Even now I can't move far from the coast. If I go more than month without at least paddling my bare feet in the waves I feel drained and lethargic.
I'm a selkie, or at least half-selkie, but I've been raised as a human. I have no desire to live beneath the waves, and give up my electronic communications and warm bed. Yet I cannot turn away from my heritage either. The balance is difficult to maintain. Easier to deny the call at neap tides. Harder at spring tides. Come, the sea calls to me then more than ever. Come, and stay.
The thing is, I'm afraid. Afraid that one day I'll swim out too far, dive too deep, and forget my human side. That the embrace of the ocean will be too strong for me to resist. That I'll never again eat in a restaurant or sit in a park and read a book.
They're foolish fears. My fully selkie mother managed to overcome the pull of the waves to walk onto dry land; surely I can always do the same.
Yet the sea's call quickens my heart. Come, she whispers. Come, and stay.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 11:36 am (UTC)Well done!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-26 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 12:59 pm (UTC)I really like the juxtaposition of the ancient selkie legends with the modern woman that she also embodies. (And as an added personal note, "The Great Silkie of Skule Skerrie" has always been a favorite of mine.)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-27 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 04:00 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for writing this beautiful piece, bb! :D
Come, and stay
Awwwww))))
I so hope you'll write more of this verse! :D I know I'm saying this about all your stories but I mean it with all my heart!! :D
no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 12:48 am (UTC)This was so beautiful and haunting. The idea of never being whole, of being torn between two worlds.
And I was so affected by her knowledge that someday she may not be able to resist her Selkie heritage, and will give in to the lure of the sea, even though she knows it will lead to her death.
Wonderful idea perfectly executed. I felt like I was inside her skin.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 07:32 am (UTC)re: tracking tags; yes, that's a good idea which I ought to implement too. I try to always tag at the very least either fic: fanfic or fic: original work as appropriate on fiction for my own indexing purposes
no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 12:10 pm (UTC)I do try to tag as best I can, although I could certainly do better with that, too.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 06:28 am (UTC)