Under Her Skin

The Selkie has always been the most stunning woman you had ever seen. She is as dangerous as the sea she walks from. You knew that, but no matter what she did you always found yourself back by her side, with your unconditional love, even once she had run out of new ways not to deserve it.

She sits on your bed and asks you to braid her long hair. You trip over yourself to do it. You would trip over yourself to do anything if the request came from her lips.

You don’t dare use anything other than your stubby fingers. There is intimacy in forgoing a hairbrush and threading your fingers through her hair. She is wearing nothing but your old sweatshirt, her soft, spotted pelt hanging by a hook next to your door, coat always in her line of sight.

She knows you won’t take it. You revere and fear her too much to ever make her angry. The coat remains as a reminder that she is something more beautiful and incredible than you will ever be.

You are careful with the braid, if you tug too hard there is a chance she’ll eat you alive or drags you into the icy ocean like the sailors who hunted her. She has made sure humanity knows she is not to be messed with. The last man to try to take her coat still haunts the bay he died in.

You have been luckier than others.

You first met the Selkie in your darkest moment. You had been walking with a boy, a friend, but he betrayed the trust you thought he’d earnt.

The ravenous hunger he usually kept to himself burst out like blood from a punctured artery, covering you in the horror of his greed. The Selkie saw your pain and she took pity on your fractured heart. She didn’t say a word, just wrapped her own coat around you, in doing so binding you as hers to keep warm and safe. You would do anything for her if it meant feeling like that for even another moment.

She is the ocean, equal measures beautiful and terrifying with a rage that chips away at cliffsides and a calm that washes clean.

You are just a pebble caught in her drift.

Illustration by H J Ford.