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Prompt - Something Lost, Something Found
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SONG OF THE SEA ( joshua, alecto ) A selkie far from home, searching for his coat. He meets a kind, lonely, young fisherman who tends the lighthouse near the sea. |
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SONG OF THE SEA ( joshua, alecto ) A selkie far from home, searching for his coat. He meets a kind, lonely, young fisherman who tends the lighthouse near the sea. |
no subject
Alecto was a child of the water. A selkie. He was born of seafoam and made a home on the cold Northeastern shoreline with the rest of his family, a raft of spotty grey seals that commonly rested upon and argued about the rocky black cliffs near the lighthouse. They’d spend the summers here, playing, reveling in their freedom and unique magic, untethered to the demands and the laws of the world of mankind. Under the cover of moonlight, they would sometimes slip into town, shedding their skin and faking their way amongst society, for entertainment. For fun. Learning the people's language and their gestures, their dances, their music. Never straying far from the waterside, from safety (“for that world is more full of weeping than you can understand,” his sister sang, a warning). And for a while, that simple, happy life was all he had known.
Until the day a man held him close and refused to let him go.
(To be fair, Nathaniel wasn't a terrible man by any means. Though he was a selfish one. He provided his all for Alecto, pampered him, cared for him like one would a treasured prize and conquest. He met all of his needs except for one - and no matter how Alecto begged and pleaded, no matter how much he ached and sobbed, the man who claimed to love him could never - and would never - give him back the sea.)
His first few days after his…capture, Alecto had found himself roaming the land like a sleepwalker, stunned and drunk with sorrow. His coat was lost, held hostage, traded for a heavy metal ring around his finger and no amount of tears could bring him back to his family, to the depths he belonged to. But, with time, even that weight felt less ominous as he slowly fell into a routine. Into acceptance. He learned to make a home of the little house overlooking the hills, to find comfort in its big west-facing windows and large rooms - monkish and bare, with scarred oak floors and a ceiling slanted like a garret’s. He learned even to enjoy his marriage bed, laid upon it during the twilight while his new husband touched him all over, reverent and adoring and greedy, as the walls around them went slowly from grey to gold to black, every night. He learned to become a good wife too (that human term always felt so strange and alien in his mouth, not to mention strangely gendered), tending to the chores, to the cleaning, to the cooking as he was instructed.
And today, he had to make a shepard’s pie. And he was missing potatoes.
So he found himself observing the stalls at the market, a pale silver figure nestled amongst the flurry of brown tweeds and stained cottons and worn leather. He moves from stall to stall, quietly, like some liquid seraphim, turning heads. Not that he was any great beauty, but that there was an air about him that seemed to disquiet people, something that suggested he simply did not belong and therefore giving the impression that he was highly unapproachable. Perhaps it was his dark, exotic features, set against the shock of his pale, knowing gaze, wise beyond his years. Or was it his voice? Melodic, too ethereal and supernatural in quality that it struck horror in the hearts of god-fearing men. Whatever it was, it worked to keep Alecto at arm's length from everyone else.
He turns a corner and makes a face.
The fish at the market stunk. They had been dead for days and left on ice and it makes Alecto's skin crawl to think about. He couldn’t even consider it, couldn’t meet their vacant eyes, that chilly nothingness. He turns his head away, towards the baskets of vegetables and fruits instead, picking up an apple with delicate hands. Considers it. Everything on the land stinks of rotting citrus and mud, he thinks. It makes him sick.
He walks on quickly, searching for the rest of what he needed, humming a mournful, old seafaring song, the lyrics long forgotten, until a breeze picks up to interrupt him, lifting the tails of his grey scarf all about his face. It makes him startle, briefly, and misstep, bumping into - someone. Someone who reminds him of a face from the past, with golden hair like the noon sun: so similar to that of a young boy who had ran about the sands, tossing fishheads into the waves, who once touched Alecto’s wet nose curiously with his fingertips a long, long time ago -
“Oh -” he says, his voice pitched low but strangely sharp. He lifts his bright eyes, flecked with warmth from some otherworldly light. “Excuse me.”
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"I haven't heard that song in a long time," he says, the words escaping him without thought, pre-empting the man - Alecto - from moving to walk around and past him. "It's fallen out of fashion, of late." It's far from an excuse, but he's not sure what he's saying anymore as he offers a hand out, motioning for the basket he is carrying. "May I help you carry your things?"
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"You know it?" A slow flush rises to paint his cheeks a light rosy hue, his expression brightening. "It's a old song, as you say. Native to this place. You must be a local?" They fall into step, surprisingly even-paced and well, and as Alecto hesitantly offers over the basket, revealing the smooth underside of his naked wrist, he observes the man before him, closely. He's handsome, in that bright, young way, fetching. And strong. Certainly a popular bachelor.
Why does he seem so familiar?
Alecto's nose twitches a little, an old habit from his previous form, as he recognizes the musk of this man and he can't help but ask, "What's your name, sir?"
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He is a little surprised at being asked for his name, when somehow it feels like they're already old friends, but he supposes it's only polite. He certainly had the advantage of him at this point. "Joshua. Joshua Archer."
"Do you already have everything you need?" He glances down at the basket, noting the items inside curiously.
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It's more a feeling than anything else, like - like home.
Alecto shakes the feeling off like tossing water off his metaphorical fur. "I...just some potatoes," he answers, lamely, "for supper."
They walk a bit more, searching the stalls but Alecto is hardly interested anymore in what's for sale. He continually peers at the man - Joshua Archer - beside him, as if trying to decipher him. "The lighthouse," he says again, with a touch of longing. He knows his husband would be upset to know he'd run so close to the shoreline again but - "It's beautiful, what they've done with it. Would you mind if I stopped by with you on my way back?"
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Overall he feels - odd. Nervous and elated at the same time, as though he were getting away with something. In a way, he supposes he is, for all that he is keeping a polite, courteous distance. He hefts the basket, now definitely full, for all Alecto's apparent disinterest. "I wouldn't mind at all. It's... a long walk though." He knows he would definitely be willing to walk twice that distance, if Alecto were there as well.