Just a wolf between books

He climbs a rocky outcropping along the shore, his favorite vantage for looking out over the sea, and sits, trying to dispel the dark mood that had settled over him. His sisters had wheedled and begged him to come out with them—'let's just get coffee, hang out for a little while, it'll be fun!' Didi had said; 'you're always so busy, I miss my big brother!' Del had said, and Dream had capitulated. He hadn't even minded, truly; he does enjoy his sisters' company and he doesn't spend enough time with either of them. But the cafe had been crowded, and the noise of other people had become an unbearable distraction faster than expected, and with his social stamina deserting him he'd unfortunately run out of patience when Del's busy chatter about her thesis on folklore and how much truth could be found in the old stories struck a nerve.

He'd cut her off, condescended about fairies and the like being irrefutably fictional despite her willingness to consider otherwise, to devote her studies to the concept of 'maybe'. And then he'd seen the way her face had fallen, the frown Didi had given him, and the shame had risen in him right on schedule. He'd excused himself before he could do further harm.

Dream sighs out, breathes in again, letting the ocean air clear his head, smooth down the jagged edges of his nerves. He owes Del an apology, certainly. He will call her later, arrange to meet again somewhere quieter if she is willing. He would like to hear more of her research; it is not her fault that his patience was overtaxed nor that their mother spent the bulk of his youth methodically culling the whimsy from him, grooming him in her image. Del does not deserve his jaded bitterness; he should try, instead, to rekindle his own joy in the idea of the unknown.

It is an effort worth making, he admits, watching the waves dance their tango with the shore, remembering the delight he used to find in spinning stories as a child. He is an adult, now, and mother has been gone for years; he isn't entirely certain he knows how to reshape the person she crafted him into but more and more, he realizes, he is willing to try.

His thoughts are settling and he is finding his equilibrium again, is grounding himself in the gentle breeze and the mild sunshine and the roll of the waves lazing over the sand, when the sound of whistling reaches his ears.

Someone is approaching.

With an irritated sigh, Dream rearranges himself on his rocky perch, scooting down to lie on his stomach peering over the edge, watching as the person approaches. He won't be seen unless the stranger looks up; with any luck, the stranger—a man, it appears as he draws closer—will continue on down the beach and leave Dream to continue his recharging undisturbed.

But Dream's luck is, predictably, utter shit. The stranger stops directly below where Dream has hidden himself; the man looks around, as if to ensure he's alone, then drops the duffel slung over his shoulder and begins to strip.

Unfortunate.

Dream curses to himself, holds very still as not to betray his presence, and tries not to watch. He did not mean to end up in this situation, he is no peeping tom, how was he to know some stranger would come along and disrobe—

His eyes return to the man despite himself, and the heat that crawls up his neck and into his face is not enough to shame him into looking away again.

Because the man is beautiful.

Longish hair hangs around his face in artful disarray, warm brown and wavy, inviting; Dream is struck by the thought of running his fingers through it, tucking it behind his ear. The man's face that Dream can see from this angle is striking, pretty and open and friendly, lips shaped around the tune he's whistling while he undresses, the line of his jaw strong and clean-shaven. Dream wishes he could tell the color of the man's eyes, see his full face properly, but he is not about to make his presence known. Especially not as the man is stripping off his swim trunks, standing naked to the breeze while Dream can't stop watching like some sort of pervert.

The man crouches by his duffel, affording Dream a very nice view of his bare back and the curve of his buttocks, all of it healthily padded and beautifully defined. He pulls something that looks like a fur blanket from the duffel and sets it aside, stuffs his discarded clothes into the bag and zips it closed, wedges it into a crevice of the rock directly below where Dream is hiding. He stands, picks up the blanket and shakes it open, and Dream frowns as the shape of it becomes apparent.

It looks like a seal pelt.

The man takes off, running barefoot and naked across the sand toward the waves, slinging the pelt across his shoulders like a cape; there is an odd shimmer like a heat mirage that makes Dream squint and suddenly instead of a man flying an animal skin behind him there is a big brown seal gallumphing down the beach, splashing into the lacy surf with a joyful little bark.

Dream's sense of reality tips sideways; he is grateful to already be prone as his worldview cascades into an entirely new shape, one word ringing clearly in his head above the static.

Selkie.

He has just witnessed—

That man. Is a selkie.

It does not matter that selkies are fictional creatures, in Dream's lifelong understanding. He cannot refute what he has seen with his own eyes.

He stays on his stomach atop the rock, stunned, the cloud-filtered sun beating warmly down upon him, and tries to come to terms with that man is a selkie.

Selkies are merely folklore.

That man quite literally just donned a sealskin and transformed.

What else could he be but a selkie?

Selkies aren't real. That is his mother's voice, disdainful and aloof and dismissively practical from the depths of his memory.

But Dream knows what he saw.

The seal frolics out in the waves, surfacing frequently, a little brownish blob that Dream finds unerringly again and again.

Selkie.

By the time it occurs to Dream that he ought perhaps to leave, could reasonably use this opportunity to slip away unseen and avoid any sort of discovery or further awkward voyeurism it is already too late; the seal is splashing back through the shallows, through the froth of waves reaching up the sand, waddling up the beach toward the rock where Dream is shrinking back to keep himself hidden again.

The seal stops, turns a shuffling circle with his whiskers twitching in every direction, then settles and rears up and that peculiar little shimmer happens again. Dream blinks, and the seal is once again a man, streaming wet and shrugging out of his sealskin coat. Rivulets of sea water run from his hair, down his back, into the dimples of his spine and hips. He shakes out his hair and it settles in wet tendrils across his forehead, against his neck. There are freckles, Dream notes, on his shoulders—in much the same scattered patterns as the spots on his golden-brown fur.

He is so remarkably beautiful.

The man—the selkie—is facing out toward the sea as he slides the coat off, alert against anyone happening upon him from the beach, but he glances back over his shoulder once or twice despite the rock shielding him from behind.

As if he can feel that there are eyes upon him.

Dream remains perfectly still, barely breathing, but for all his vigilance the man does not look up and Dream remains undiscovered.

The man lifts the coat after removing it, passes a hand down its length and Dream can see the weight of the water in it dissipating, sees the way the sleek wet fur fluffs instantly dry.

Astounding.

"There we are," the man says, folding the now-dry seal skin over on itself in practiced motions. His voice is light, warm, pleasant, and Dream is not at all surprised by the mild thrill that curls in his stomach to hear it. He recognizes that he is dangerously close to being smitten with this stranger on the basis of how he looks and sounds alone.

Well. Not entirely that alone; the selkie aspect, the irrefutable proof that something beyond Dream's ordinary life exists, is also a very appealing variable.

Oh, how he wants to learn more.

Dream wants to talk to him. Wants to introduce himself, find out more about this fantastic creature, this delightful impossibility of a man.

He wants to know what color his eyes are.

He wants to know what his smile looks like.

The man is whistling again, a different tune than before as he stuffs his magically-dry seal skin back into his duffel and dons his trunks again. Then, to Dream's utter surprise and mounting horror, he wedges the duffel back into the crevice that mostly hides it and takes off running back to the sea, on human legs this time, leaping over the languid breakers and diving into the waves with a laugh that carries back to Dream.

Dream, dumbfounded, can only blink.

Did he truly just—he left it??

He's left his skin, left it unattended, like a complete—a complete moron.

He's an imbecile.

Foolish. Careless. Reckless. Trusting blindly that the universe would not take this opportunity to make him suffer, to cast him as the story-typical selkie victim?

Utterly stupid.

If this were the standard story, Dream realizes, he would be poised to be the villain. This is where he would sneak down, snatch the skin for himself, bind the naive selkie into his service.

Luckily this is not a story, and Dream has no interest in stealing anything or subjugating this careless man.

But he absolutely must learn more about him.

And point out the inadvisable idiocy of leaving his skin unattended, perhaps.

In a surge of boldness that he thinks would make his sister proud, Dream climbs down from his rocky vantage point and comes round the base of the rock to where the crevice is; he considers for a second, staring at the mostly-hidden duffel, then moves several steps away before seating himself primly in the sand to wait.

He doesn't want to give the impression that he is threatening the selkie's skin, after all. He just wants to caution him not to be so foolish, to have more care, to not tempt fate so recklessly.

To hear the sound of his voice again, to learn the color of his eyes.

To see his face full on, to know the shape of his smile.

To affirm for himself, irrefutably, that there is magic in the world after all, as he once believed long ago; and that perhaps, if he can open himself to the possibilities, he might find space for a small measure of such magic to inhabit his own life in turn.