11-14-2021, 11:38 AM
She is beneath the waves when the summons finds her, tracing shimmering refractions of golden light with eyes too blue to be anything but a shade borrowed from late summer skies. At first she thinks she must be dreaming, that her mind must be wandering like the tides that tug at tangles of her mane and set free the knots that the winds place there, that something is pulling old desires from her childhood back to the forefront just to see if they are yearnings that still wound her.
They are, of course, but she is good at lying to herself.
Except even as she blinks those bright, luminous eyes, the summons is a thing that tethers itself like a hook inside her belly and coaxes her forward, nearly tangible in a way that those ancient daydreams are not. She thinks, as she climbs from the depths of her ocean hideaway, as water runs down her sides in curving rivulets and the pale silk of her mane clings to her neck, that it must be odd how her heart is a thing unraveling inside her chest now, how it perches like a bird within a cage of delicate ribs and waits to see what exists just beyond this moment. Just beyond the sameness of daily rituals. If life will be different after meeting her father.
He is the only reason she goes to the mountain, finding herself paused at the base and looking upwards into a sky that feels almost like a different world to her. She is of the sea and those dark depths, and this place is towering heights and openness, it is bright in a way that makes her feel exposed. But she climbs anyway, climbs because this ache inside her is only growing stronger, and even though she’s spent her whole life building walls around it to protect herself, she can feel the fissuring inside herself the further she goes. Did he know she would hear his call, did he know she would be so willing to answer it? Probably, and there is something inside that truth that flares inside her like a shade of burning shame. A kind of vulnerability she would rather die than face.
She pretends that she is little more than surface deep, that she is bright eyes and dancing smiles, an empty tangle of beautiful, simple amusement. That she is nothing more than pretty, because pretty is underestimated. Pretty isn’t someone who hides her selkie skin in secret places lest it be stolen from her, lest she be bound in debt to a thief. Pretty isn’t someone who, as a girl, wondered why her dad wasn’t the kind of man who came home to his family, why he didn’t try to know her when she was so willing to know him. Pretty doesn’t have burdens, doesn’t have pain, because pain is a thing so easily weaponized and she wants no weakness in her armor.
Alleria is nearly to the top of the mountain when the magic in it wakes beneath her trespassing feet. It starts as a feeling at first, a sensation of watching eyes, but when she turns a circle there is only her shadow behind her. For a long moment she is still and quiet, the only sound in her ears that of the wind weaving over stone and ragged mountain growth. There is no movement, no scent but that of the sea on her own skin and the dry earthy odor from the ground churned beneath her hooves. Still, her skin prickles uneasily until it is something she cannot ignore, something that forces her back down a few yards the way she had come just to be sure - but sure of what? She knew there would be others here, others summoned, yet this feeling is something more sinister, something predatorial that she associates with the deepest parts of the ocean, the places she hardly ever goes.
“Are you a predator, or are you prey?” The question, the voice, the face she finds when she turns sharply to the right to face him all stir a sense of immediate distaste as her eyes refamiliarize themselves with a shade of dun and blue she has not seen in a long time, remembering a mouth that had tried to bite down on the curve of her neck. She had hated him instantly and those feelings are quick to rekindle now. Of course he of all people would be here. “Or are you just stupid?” She is taken aback by that question, and as her eyes turn a shade of blue too cold to be anything but glacial, she realizes what it is he has laying at his feet.
Her selkie skin laying in a damp mound in the dirt, half wedged beneath one hoof.
Horror has cold hands that squeeze too tight, she knows because she can feel them reaching inside her chest now. “How did you find that?” She takes a step closer, and in this moment she is both predator and prey, furious and terrified, but he picks up the skin between his teeth and retreats further down the mountain. She follows on reflex, a tangle of pale steel gray and burning white fury, chasing him for longer than she would later admit. It is only when she realizes that he is always the same distance away, always the same length of just too far between them, that she understands that he and her stolen skin are nothing but a hallucination. Nothing but a nightmare come to find her outside of sleep.
She is the stillness of a brewing storm when she lifts her dark face and turns from the wavering image, she is fury in it’s quietest form, raw to the depths of her core. But she returns to her task, to the summons of her father, and pretends that there is not a constellation of invisible fractures spread across her skin. When she reaches the top she is not surprised to find how many others have beat her there - she lost time chasing a hallucination, lost some dignity too.
Alleria joins them quietly, but there is only one horse in the gathering that her eyes fall on, one God. Her father. She had imagined him about a dozen different ways - the shape of his face and the color of his skin, if he had dapples and steel like she did or something different. But looking at him now she understands that in a million years and with a million guesses, her imagination would have always been wrong, lacking. She thinks of all the questions she had asked Ryatah about him, thinks of the last one. Do you love each other? There had been something in her answer, something in her face and in the sound of her voice, something that kept Alleria from asking those questions again.
But she can feel those curiosities welling again, the damnable desire that he sees her and knows who she is, that she mean something slightly different to him than the others standing here with her - and the fear, the heavy weight of knowing that he is not that kind of a father. That this want is a daydream and she should know better because she is not a silly girl. So she lifts her chin and allows a little steel to slip into her eyes when she finally meets his gaze and waits, just like the rest, for what comes next.
They are, of course, but she is good at lying to herself.
Except even as she blinks those bright, luminous eyes, the summons is a thing that tethers itself like a hook inside her belly and coaxes her forward, nearly tangible in a way that those ancient daydreams are not. She thinks, as she climbs from the depths of her ocean hideaway, as water runs down her sides in curving rivulets and the pale silk of her mane clings to her neck, that it must be odd how her heart is a thing unraveling inside her chest now, how it perches like a bird within a cage of delicate ribs and waits to see what exists just beyond this moment. Just beyond the sameness of daily rituals. If life will be different after meeting her father.
He is the only reason she goes to the mountain, finding herself paused at the base and looking upwards into a sky that feels almost like a different world to her. She is of the sea and those dark depths, and this place is towering heights and openness, it is bright in a way that makes her feel exposed. But she climbs anyway, climbs because this ache inside her is only growing stronger, and even though she’s spent her whole life building walls around it to protect herself, she can feel the fissuring inside herself the further she goes. Did he know she would hear his call, did he know she would be so willing to answer it? Probably, and there is something inside that truth that flares inside her like a shade of burning shame. A kind of vulnerability she would rather die than face.
She pretends that she is little more than surface deep, that she is bright eyes and dancing smiles, an empty tangle of beautiful, simple amusement. That she is nothing more than pretty, because pretty is underestimated. Pretty isn’t someone who hides her selkie skin in secret places lest it be stolen from her, lest she be bound in debt to a thief. Pretty isn’t someone who, as a girl, wondered why her dad wasn’t the kind of man who came home to his family, why he didn’t try to know her when she was so willing to know him. Pretty doesn’t have burdens, doesn’t have pain, because pain is a thing so easily weaponized and she wants no weakness in her armor.
Alleria is nearly to the top of the mountain when the magic in it wakes beneath her trespassing feet. It starts as a feeling at first, a sensation of watching eyes, but when she turns a circle there is only her shadow behind her. For a long moment she is still and quiet, the only sound in her ears that of the wind weaving over stone and ragged mountain growth. There is no movement, no scent but that of the sea on her own skin and the dry earthy odor from the ground churned beneath her hooves. Still, her skin prickles uneasily until it is something she cannot ignore, something that forces her back down a few yards the way she had come just to be sure - but sure of what? She knew there would be others here, others summoned, yet this feeling is something more sinister, something predatorial that she associates with the deepest parts of the ocean, the places she hardly ever goes.
“Are you a predator, or are you prey?” The question, the voice, the face she finds when she turns sharply to the right to face him all stir a sense of immediate distaste as her eyes refamiliarize themselves with a shade of dun and blue she has not seen in a long time, remembering a mouth that had tried to bite down on the curve of her neck. She had hated him instantly and those feelings are quick to rekindle now. Of course he of all people would be here. “Or are you just stupid?” She is taken aback by that question, and as her eyes turn a shade of blue too cold to be anything but glacial, she realizes what it is he has laying at his feet.
Her selkie skin laying in a damp mound in the dirt, half wedged beneath one hoof.
Horror has cold hands that squeeze too tight, she knows because she can feel them reaching inside her chest now. “How did you find that?” She takes a step closer, and in this moment she is both predator and prey, furious and terrified, but he picks up the skin between his teeth and retreats further down the mountain. She follows on reflex, a tangle of pale steel gray and burning white fury, chasing him for longer than she would later admit. It is only when she realizes that he is always the same distance away, always the same length of just too far between them, that she understands that he and her stolen skin are nothing but a hallucination. Nothing but a nightmare come to find her outside of sleep.
She is the stillness of a brewing storm when she lifts her dark face and turns from the wavering image, she is fury in it’s quietest form, raw to the depths of her core. But she returns to her task, to the summons of her father, and pretends that there is not a constellation of invisible fractures spread across her skin. When she reaches the top she is not surprised to find how many others have beat her there - she lost time chasing a hallucination, lost some dignity too.
Alleria joins them quietly, but there is only one horse in the gathering that her eyes fall on, one God. Her father. She had imagined him about a dozen different ways - the shape of his face and the color of his skin, if he had dapples and steel like she did or something different. But looking at him now she understands that in a million years and with a million guesses, her imagination would have always been wrong, lacking. She thinks of all the questions she had asked Ryatah about him, thinks of the last one. Do you love each other? There had been something in her answer, something in her face and in the sound of her voice, something that kept Alleria from asking those questions again.
But she can feel those curiosities welling again, the damnable desire that he sees her and knows who she is, that she mean something slightly different to him than the others standing here with her - and the fear, the heavy weight of knowing that he is not that kind of a father. That this want is a daydream and she should know better because she is not a silly girl. So she lifts her chin and allows a little steel to slip into her eyes when she finally meets his gaze and waits, just like the rest, for what comes next.
alleria
pull me back to shore, i'll never reach my place