Chapter Text
The water splashes lightly as you dive in. You're met with a slight cold chill that should pass once the sun rises above you. Morning swims like this were how you liked to start your day, they gave you a wake up, a refresh. The cooler temperature of the water reminded you of home.
It takes a moment for your vision to adjust, your lungs adapting much quicker. You were born for this after all. Though you will admit it took some adjusting when you first started swimming like this.
Nothing but a swimsuit, your coat left behind. It’s a different feeling. How the water glides against your skin isn’t nearly the same as how it would flow through your fur. It almost tickled, before you got acquainted with it that is.
You swim further down below, the cold water turning colder as you do, but you’ve swam in far worse conditions. You find that the rest of the ocean is still ‘waking up’ below you. There's little activity at this time of the morning.
Small schools of fish flit past you, too small to keep you interested anyhow. You squint and see a few crabs and other crustaceans skitter across the sand along the ocean floor. A lone shark goes by, paying you no mind.
Once you make it a bit further down, floating between the surface and the bottom of the ocean, you scan around for any signs of breakfast. Ideally you’d be around a reef, but that was usually a matter of luck you’d started to find. You still weren’t quite familiar with the coast you’d be drifting off of for the past few months. Still learning the locations of things.
You had some maps you’d found during a rare trip to shore, but those didn’t give you ocean floor topography. Annoying of humans to only bother with the surface and not below, which is what mattered in your opinion.
Though, the unawareness of what lies below probably kept you safe to a point, so perhaps you shouldn't complain too much.
You decide to do a lap around the area to hunt for your meal. Believing that surely by the time you finish you'll find something worth eating.
That was another thing, swimming in this manner felt strange. The movement was similar, but different to your normal method. Far more effort as well. You’re still fast though, and even if you weren’t you’d argue that—like the maps—the anonymity of pretending to be human provided was well worth it.
Considering that you enjoyed certain lifestyle choices they had—the clothes, the food, the knickknacks, oh how you loved their knickknacks—blending in with them was of much higher importance to you than say, any other selkie.
It offered you the freedom to travel the world as you pleased, and additionally, do it alone. It’s strange for a seal to be alone in the middle of the ocean with no colony or pod to go back to. But a human? As long as you had a means to be there, that seemed to work just fine. You'd gotten away with it long enough now, at least.
After a third lap around the perimeter of your boat, you spy a sizable fish to catch. You slow down, watching, waiting. When the opportunity presents itself, you snatch it up, biting into it to kill it instantly. Usually you’d eat it all then and there, but recently you've been trying out some recipes that have been quite tasty. Who knew fish could get even better?
Breakfast taken care of, you swim back to the surface and your boat. As you’re climbing back aboard, the warm sun hits your skin. You breathe in the cool, salty air, eyes tracing the horizon for a moment.
You were a good few miles away from shore. Far enough to keep your peace, close enough to not seem odd to be out on a houseboat in the middle of the ocean.
You'd found your little home by chance while on land one day, falling in love with it the moment you saw it. Not very big, but very cheap—a major factor, considering you didn't have much in terms of money—and 'homey'. At least you assumed, given you lived most of your life in caves or beaches. Not much of a reference to go by in that regard.
Still, you enjoyed the lifestyle you'd adopted over the past... you can't remember how long, but you'd consider it at least several years. It made things easier, more enjoyable, and less stressful at that. Like this, you didn't have to worry about someone stealing your coat or capturing you. Or worse try to kill you. You could live quite freely pretending to be human, yes indeed.
You shake water off as you walk across deck, parting the curtain of shells and beads covering the doorway to inside. It's still a bit dark inside the cabin, a warm shadow casts across the space, a breeze blowing through the open windows. Of which you stare out of at the cerulean waters which push gentle waves against your boat.
Though, there was one issue that came up given your choice to travel out in the open ocean like this; mers.
Less common closer to shore, they still posed a threat when you were out at sea like this. And the last thing you needed was a threat. Either of injury or even death.
You didn't know the full extent of the history between your kind and mer folk—you doubt anyone truly did—but you were aware that they were dangerous.
Unfeeling, malicious, unkind, and so on. Perhaps it was their size, or the extent of their differences compared to selkies, but it was rare an encounter between the two species went well.
In certain cases you'd even heard of mers going so far as to kill and consume a seal or two. Going so far as to toy with their 'meal' multiple times over before finishing the job. Given they were far larger than any selkie, trying to defend oneself was futile.
Even worse were the mers that would capture selkies, drag them around where they so chose. Treating them as lesser, nothing more than commodities or pets. Until eventually they grew bored, disposing of 'their' selkie as they so chose. And that rarely involved letting them go.
Cruel and cold, that's what you'd always been warned about in relation to the merfolk that prowled the seas below you. Best to avoid them at all costs, lest you end up as a toy. Or worse.
Being out here like this meant more freedom yes, but it was also that much more risky. Hence why you kept your coat hidden at most if not all times. Even if it pains you to do so.
Though, in all your time, throughout all your travels, you'd yet to have a legitimate meeting with a mer yourself. Seen from afar yes, but never anything more than that. And usually while donning your human disguise. You doubt such encounters would go well were you in your true form.
After breakfast, you review your maps again, making sure you're still on course. You were planning to go landside to a particular little town and gather some supplies, as well as replenish your gas tank. With your current pace you should get to your destination in about 3 days—
Thump!
You sigh, not another one.
You swear for the past several weeks you've been hitting more reefs and sea creatures than ever before. You wait for the telltale sound of scraping, and when it doesn't come, sigh in relief. Just another small whale or the likes then.
It's odd, you won't deny it. For where you are there shouldn't be any migrations taking place, nor such high elevation coral reefs. But, every time you'd check things had been clear, and no noticeable damage was being taken by your boat, so you've been shrugging it off.
You spend the rest of the day doing your usual routine. Navigating, sunbathing on your deck, and going for a swim whenever you get too hot. You've picked up on some human activities and hobbies throughout the years, and dabble in them today as well. In particular painting has become one of your favorites.
As you're staring at the horizon, working on another landscape of the open ocean—an afternoon lighting piece this time—something glimmers across the water. It's far enough out you can't make it out quite exactly. Or much at all. Really, you have no idea what it may be.
It had been iridescent, a rainbow shimmering not quite like the sparkling waters that had been surrounding it. It was gone as soon as it came. Could have just been a trick of the eye.
Your guess? A school of fish swimming close to the surface. Nothing of importance. Nothing to worry about. You forget about it by dinner time.
During your search for dinner however, something strange happens once more. Swimming through the water that have grown colder—again, just out of the corner of your eye—a flicker of movement. Only for a second, and when you turn to assess it, there's nothing there.
This time you assure yourself it was just a trick of the light. A shade of yellow exactly like the fading sun on the horizon up above. You brush it off, focus on searching for your meal.
You find it when you spy a particular outcropping of sea grass. Knowing that inside likely lies a score of tasty fish hiding out between the waving blades. Not to mention, probably a few crabs or such. You feel your stomach growl at the thought.
You dive in and emerge victorious, returning to the surface and your boat with a couple of crabs in your hands and a fish in your mouth.
As the sun goes down, you sit out on the roof of your boat, drifting along, sketching out your day in the journal you've been keeping.
The handwriting on the page beside your doodles is scratchy and probably illegible to most. However, they comfort you as they display your progress in attempting to learn to write. Never something you'd ever needed before this lifestyle, but something you appreciate now.
You're not quite sure what tomorrow holds, but if it's anything like today, you think you'll be content with exactly that.