Isa Machine

  When they dream, more often than not, they dream together. Tonight is no exception; limbs tangled and sheets kicked off so they can tuck in close despite the heat, cocooned in their little home by the sea.

It feels almost official, now she’s bought a tiny villa not far from their coast, the hotel room getting too small to contain them plus all of Florence’s (and increasingly, Isa’s) alarmingly large collections of miscellany and paraphernalia. They’d ended up creeping like ghosts through their ever-broadening citadel of art and books and bags and bottles of perfume kicked over and rolled under the bed amongst scarves and dresses and vintage coats they’d found and rescued whilst gasping and laughing their way through countless tiny thrift shops. And scrunched up paper, relics of midnight scrivenings when Isa was splayed out alone because Florence’s heart felt too full to sleep – reams of musings on love and loss and half-finished sketches hewn in biro on creamy hotel-watermarked leaves, but mostly the grid-lined stuff she keeps a stash of always, because the squares feel so much less intimidating than lines.

It had become like an ocean in its own right, of them both, but it had become as stifling as it was comforting. Florence began to wonder what she was afraid of – that somehow this strange happiness was tied up like a frail and threadbare magic to the four walls they had shared since they’d met?

But it wasn’t. Florence was thankful to whatever god or goddess hung up there in the vast blue sky above that the strange working allowing her this peaceful ebb in her life, allowing her Isa, was somehow remaining stubbornly intact. The new place was modest but big enough, with a bedroom and room for a studio of sorts off to the side, with space for a keyboard set-up and a view of the water to holler at and sing. Isa had shocked Florence by knowing her way around the chords and keys oddly well, short fingers hesitant at first but soon reclaiming some previous knack. She’d simply raised one wise eyebrow at Florence’s shrieking laugh of wonder at her talent, marvelling at Florence’s unfiltered mirth that Isa could still find ways to surprise her. Moments like these happened almost disquietingly often; little hints that Isabella isn’t quite human, of the many lives she’d lived, always when Florence was in danger of forgetting just how different they are really, despite the fact they share kisses and memories and dreams. ‘I haven’t played in years.’ she’d said with a distant smile, and Florence still wonders whether she’d meant two or twenty or two hundred.

It feels the same when Florence wakes up alone, just as Isa arrives back, dripping wet, always a wild look her eyes. (Sometimes – especially when the moon is round and full, tuning the sea into silvered glass, bringing the tide closer and closer until she can see the hairs raise into gooseflesh on Isa’s arms and the agitated beat of her fingers, drumming, drumming, drumming, to some frantic tempo only she can hear – Isa needs to swim, further and faster than Florence could ever hope to keep up with. She never brings her sealskin with her – they don’t talk about why, but Florence knows somewhere deep and raw that despite how much Isa loves her, there are some things she can’t risk, can’t control – so she just swims her girl-form out beyond the milk-white horizon, as deep and far as her human lungs can take, until the crawling need passes and she can return to shore, sated, but for a time, perhaps a little more feral than before). They always make love on nights like those, Isa still smelling of salt and tasting of the ocean, her red mouth and her tanned skin and everywhere, and it’s like drowning, like the sea is pouring right through their open window and claiming them both. In the hazy time after as they drift off to sleep, Isa’s there again, not quite girl, not quite seal, floating through her mind, curling up in Florence’s arms or tucked against her back as she lays to rest between her temples. Isa’s always there, so it’s almost easy to not worry that one day, after one of these midnight trips, she won’t be. That her sealskin won’t be folded carefully, tucked safely away in the overstuffed ottoman at the foot of their bed.

Almost.

Especially not now, since Isa had shown her, had taken Florence with her – wrapped them both in her fur and shot them together through the water, tiring herself out breathing for two so Florence would know, could have for moments what she had felt only second-hand with every traipse through Isa’s memories of everything being so cold and so sweetly, brilliantly blue. Even though Isa’s face was grey with it when they surfaced, from sustaining two lives deep beneath the waves for the short time they’d been under, she was so alive in that moment, in her element truly and completely. Especially not now, after that, now Florence feels it too. It’s becoming harder and harder to believe Isa will want this, here, forever, when Florence isn’t even sure she can resist the arms of the ocean, so wide and so strong.  

___

The sky is open and endless even though by rights autumn should be nipping right at summer’s heels by now, sending needles of cold with every landing bite. Isa threads her fingers through and idly plays with Florence’s hair – it’s getting so long, trailing like seaweed, just brushing the dark wood of the floor from where she’s lying, nose pressed into Isa’s belly on the sofa as she sleeps off the worst of her fever.

Isa tries to busy herself, gently tracing every one of Florence’s tattoos she can reach, cataloguing them silently for the hundredth time. The Third Eye. Water and Air. A birdcage: empty. The Heart, on the curve of her elbow. Florence was quick to assure Isa that it was just a summer cold, short and sharp, but it’s another reminder of how fragile this all is, how fragile Florence is. When Isa’s in a mood like this, quiet and sombre and so, so grateful Florence is not awake to witness it, everything pulls at the pit of her stomach, filling it with something that feels all too much like dread, of the gaping, gnawing variety that had been giving Florence such awful, awful night terrors when they first met. Because she can’t always ignore the truth. She can’t ignore the obvious fact that, as a selkie, Florence will age and decay and die practically in a blink of one of Isa’s dark, unfathomable sealish eyes.

Isa tightens her other hand, still entwined with Florence’s, slightly clammy but so real and alive she could scream. Florence smiles in her sleep, burying her face deeper. If Isa closes her eyes too, she can just about make out the fuzzy outline of Florence’s fever-thoughts, colourful and strange.

Isa feels the grin spread involuntarily across her face. Not that different to usual, then.

She will just have to take what she has. And that will have to be enough.

___

Mairead is just happy she’s writing and singing again, apparently, but there’s an edge to her voice too. It’s been a long time. Florence has told her she was ready to come back to it all before. Florence knows she’s never successfully convinced anyone she was fixed, though, really, Mairead included. How could I, when I couldn’t even convince myself?

“Wait.” Florence cuts through Mairead’s stock assurances that it really is fine, and she doesn’t have to do anything until she’s ready. It all sounds reedy and strange through the transatlantic call, like she can hear the thousands of miles of ocean distorting her voice while quietly listening in on their conversation. Isa subconsciously perks up from where she’s leant against the window, watching as the sun slowly lifts itself above the horizon and pretending not to listen in. It’s very early – it had to be because of the time zones, and it’s making everything feel a bit surreal. Florence’s interjection wasn’t unusual as such, but it feels odd in her soft voice.

“I really have been working on something new. I think – no, I know, it’s different this time. I know the last year and a half I haven’t been the best person ever to manage, I can’t apologise enough for that, but I think this is it. I’m going to send you some demos we’ve been working on and –“

“We? Is Rob out there with you? Or… are you…?”

There’s a moment of silence and Florence can sense the trepidation in Mairead’s voice. She’s figured something must have changed and she’s not wrong. 

Shit. It sounds just like I’m abandoning the band!

“Yes, it’s not Rob – you know how we were always saying, how we could do with someone permanent on keys who could actually play? Rather than endless session musicians or my awful jangling…”

At this Isa shakes her head in mock outrage – any notion of trying not to be nosy thoroughly abandoned – and sighs; there’s little point in telling Florence she’s actually a half-decent pianist again if the girl never believes it. Florence grins before quickly putting a finger to her lips: Shush.

“So anyway, I’ve found a new… collaborator… she’s called Isabella and she’s been recording with me for a few months now…” Florence laughs silently at herself for being so hesitant, so obvious. But Mairead has known her for nearly ten years, ever since that fateful night she found Florence half-cut off cheap vodka and singing her soul out in that filthy nightclub toilet, so–

“Collaborator…? Oh. Oh.” Florence can hear the smile in Mairead’s voice, and it’s oddly comforting. “Congratulations. Well, I can’t wait to hear what you two have been up to!” Florence knows there’s two meanings to that and can’t help but grin.

“Thanks,” she manages, feeling herself blush.

Mai’s tone is suddenly serious. “Does Grace know yet?”

“Not quite… she knows I’m okay, but I haven’t–“ A breath. She wasn’t expecting this, the prickly heat of emotion suddenly overwhelming. “I’ve been neglecting them all, and I feel so guilty but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it to them all over again,” and then it’s pouring out, words Florence didn’t even know she needed to say, breathlessly tumbling out and flinging themselves across the Atlantic for Mairead to hear. “Every time I break down or fall apart I always blow back in through their door and Mum and Grace pick me up and sort me out and then it just happens the next time and the next and I couldn’t do that to them again. Grace always just got everything I didn’t, it came easy to her, she always just knew how to live and love like a normal, healthy– like a real adult and I just don’t–“ A pause. Florence can feel tears she didn’t know she was still holding in now falling freely, making wet rivulets down her face and then Isa’s arms are folding around her, wrapping securely around her waist. She can feel a steadying presence in her mind, and that’s Isa too, instinctively lending her strength, as natural as breathing. (Isa had explained it once, some quiet whispered early morning conversation, how a mated selkie could share things – knowledge, emotion, strength – or even pull their mate from the brink of Death herself with a link such as theirs, and at the time Florence had kissed her in awe and prayed that that day would never come, where their mind’s connection would be tested in such a permanent way.)

Mairead is silent, either stunned at her outburst – or, more likely, considering how well accustomed she is by now to Florence’s ways, just letting her take her time before she speaks. “It’s part of the reason I stayed here – I couldn’t run back to them again. I stayed here to grow the fuck up.  Grace is having a baby soon, for Christ’s sake. I wanted to be sure this time.”

Mairead finally speaks, softly: it’s the voice of an old friend, not a manager. “And this time, you are?”

There’s no hesitation now, except to look briefly down at Isa, still holding her close, before answering.

“I’m sure.”

Time still is a strange concept to Isa. For her the time moves in the idea of oceans and tides and for Flo it moves in a much different way. In one moment, Isa recalled how she met Florence so very lost and dealing with heartbreak. In another, which could be constructed as her being on tour with a band and playing songs that are new and fresh, Isa feels like it is thousands of other years passed with the releases of massive albums and incredible feelings. In those seconds when there are large crowds that have accepted the new sounds as almost this reverent and deep meaning. Isa does her best on the keys still convinced she somehow doesn't belong but Flo assures her off stage she does. Time is an irrelevant concept to Isa, though the little touches and meanings add all up.

There are moments on stage when it looks to Isabella that Florence is flying across the crowds and stage. There are these moments when she feels every last emotion coming out of Florence's lips and arms raised up in some heavenly plea. Isa watches everyone in the band from Rob who somehow pulled her in like some sisterly form to Tom the harpist who reminds her of the harps of her long dead brothers and sisters in the ocean every time he plays. He's so achingly good at the harp that it sounds as if she is right in the ocean. But her eyes as deep as blue as ever are upon Flo as she twirls. It is then when she realizes her heart pulsates in time with the drums and the beat. Maybe tonight she really is somehow dying but maybe she's flying instead. It does feel that way in that moment as her eyes trail all over the stage and she does her best to keep up. The crowds all want Florence's attention. It's all a bit much for Isa in those seconds and she shies away from crowds.

All the attention is for Flo and one night in a hotel on the road in some big city, Florence feels that Isa is lost. This is too much for her at that point and off the stage where they have settled in New York for one night, Isa stands near the window of a hotel somewhere in downtown Manhattan. The buildings are so tall, taller than she even recalled swimming across the Atlantic. She's staring off at them and wondering how on earth she got here without swimming. Isa looks at her coat and has a thought she could leave all of this but it is as if Florence knows and then the redhead stirs. This is the night of her insomnia and the sounds of loud cars outside all become too much. Every siren wails, every voice seems loud in the hotel, every creak of people and shouts from below about a bodega open all night long. Isa's been away from the sea for so long and these are not the sounds of peace. She's done everything to help Flo pursue every dream she ever knew possible. Her body shakes and she slides out of bed onto the floor, trembling and crying.

Flo immediately moves from her bed upon hearing tears, "Isa?" and she immediately feels the guilt in her chest. What have I done? she asks as she pulls Isabella into her arms. Have I taken her happiness away in attempts to replace that with my own dreams? Isa's tears stop and there are soft kisses against Isa's blonde hair and temples. "Shh, I'm here. I'm here."  Her voice is soft, so very soft and tender against Isa's ear. These are the moments that no crowds ever see or photos ever taken. Isa turns i her arms and puts her hand against Flo's chest before her head does too. Isa hears the heartbeat between breaths of long lungs and it feels as if everything in New York is far away at this point. That the only sounds that matter are the dried tears that were stopped. The ache of feeling as if she lost Florence to such massive crowds was far removed in that moment. The redhead's guilt recedes like the tide of the ocean that pulls back.

And then Isa falls in love right there. Oh she fell before, but that moment of falling hits her beyond all comprehension. That this is what humans need in their lives, the feeling of love and attention being so sacred behind the door that was so difficult to close. She hears every ghost in her head screaming about what was long ago, her family long and gone and so she sobs. Not because Isa is grieving but because she finally is caught without letting go of what matters. And so she breathes out through her tears, "I love you, Florence. I love you more than every note you ever sing or will sing."

There is mascara on Flo's t-shirt that Isa has sobbed on out. But Florence does not care about that, she cares about what is in between her arms. She wonders briefly if she was selfish in wanting to keep Isa here for herself. All of what they have created after all was rooted originally in her own very creation of self-destruction and pain. "I want your dreams to come true too, Isabella. Tell me your dream. Tell me, please. Tell me how I can make that happen for you."

Isa in all her 400 years of existence has never been asked this question. Most of her Selkie life has been watching most humans toss their own dreams away. Sleep for her is something she dreams of in drifting in the ocean and why she ran to it. Now she lays in the arms of a love, so very pure in every capacity and so very real. In true Isa form though she answers, "Ice cream. I'd really love a bowl of ice cream right now."

Florence laughs and nods, "Okay ice cream it is."

That night in the bowels of the East Village between blinking lights and stragglers home from bars, Isa and Flo eat ice cream cones from an all night diner. There are no big crowds, no flashing lights of cameras and the music isn't between keys and all. It's between two fingertips that wipe Isa's lips from a dripping vanilla fudge swirl cone followed up by a kiss from Flo. Isa mentally  notes that she feels more human than selkie at this point. Instead of running to the ocean, she ran for ice cream instead. Time loses meaning then.

From that point on, Isa has no more nightmares on tour. Florence ensures and tells Mairead she must have at least a few nights off if only so she can make sure Isa is okay. On those precious nights when there are no crowds to sing for, the only voice she is interested in hearing is Isa's. And slowly but surely, Isa each night tells her stories now. Stories about her adventures in the sea about how she really learned to play piano watching drunk sailors and times. Every word, every little syllable, Florence holds onto. Isa speaks about the losses of her brothers and sisters too. How she tells and confesses that the harp that Tom plays reminds her of the sea and why it means so much to her. How many lives have passed through her body like currents in an ocean that doesn't relent.

They eat bowl after bowl of fruits and cakes at this point. Florence at this point realizes how much more there is to now and how full her life is. How she never knew what it was to give to someone at this level. It used to just be her body, her songs, her words. But now she gives much more at this point to hands that are held and arms around her. It is a wonderful thing to love, she thinks and sings. But it really is. Isa never had someone to talk to like this, never someone so devoted to her in the ways that Florence has in her life. They share and they share again.

And time carries on when there is a birthday for Florence and there is a call about Grace giving birth at the same time. In between a mouthful of chocolate cake, the dish is dropped and Flo screams, "I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!"

Isa wonders what on earth that is and that kind of pitch and in a frenzy there Flo forgets her shoes. Isa grabs them of course out the door and Florence's brother JJ picks them all up and off to a hospital. "What...what's going on?"

Flo in the back seat is scrambling to put on her shoes, "Grace is giving birth!"

Her eyes blink blue repeatedly, "Birth...I ...wow, on your birthday, that's...that's intense, Florence!"

"Intensely wonderful," Florence replies and everyone runs into a hospital. Isa in all her years of being alive, has never seen a human actually born. Human death yes, but not human life. And even though JJ is a medical student, none of them are allowed in the delivery room except for Grace and her husband. The entire time Isa stands outside but she feels Flo's emotions, swirling like a set of rain clouds, but the dancing kind of rain that falls when someone is happy. Isa looks around a hospital and thinks about the entire cycle of life and death in humans. And then there is a cry and birth and Bonnie is born.

There is that second when everything else fades away and Flo holds Bonnie. And all Isa can see as she stands back is the joy and tears that fall. The hospital walls break away and Isa for the first time doesn't imagine Flo standing in a hospital room or lost with anything. She instead sees Flo floating in the ocean holding Bonnie there too. She doesn't wish to interrupt the second at hand. In that image and vision, Isa no longer thinks about the selkie way of life. She sees the love of Grace, Evelyn, JJ and even Nick. All these people that have come into life and Isa knows now it is time.

Not time to go back to the sea. But time to give up her selkie coat forever.

A few months pass until the Autumn creeps around. The garden's flowers blow in the wind just enough, sign that their colors are changing. It is midnight in London. Isa hears a bong from far away from Old Ben. Everyone has settled and in this house that has so much collected material of Flo's clothes and Isa's little hoodies, there is a trunk. And Flo is asleep. Or at least she thinks that. It is midnight and Flo of course thinks Isa will go off again to the sea. And sure she is off to the sea this time but not to swim. She does this while Florence is asleep, if only to keep the one dream she had to herself. It isn't that Isa doesn't want to reveal her dream, but it is something she knows she must do alone. Isa takes the coat and heads to the Thames. It is blustery and windy and only a few people milling about. There is her coat under her arms and she brings it to her face to feel the fur one last time. A rush of memories comes across her features in ways no man or woman could ever hold.

Isa chants something and takes out a small little cassette player that is straight out of the 1980s, that she collected once from one of her runs with Flo. On it she had begged Tom to play the harp and there she hits play. Tears run down her face and then, and only then does she toss the coat to the river. It sinks hard and heavily to the depths. Some tears fall; but they aren't tears of unhappiness nor sorrow. They are the tears of freedom. Isa shakes for a moment, her entire body sort of crumbles. Her breaths are short and now she knows she will live a mortal life much like Florence has. Everything she did, was a dream and now it will come true. Hours later before the dawn she returns. Florence is awake and pacing and full of worry.

"Where did you go? I called your phone, you did not answer, I thought something horrible happened!" she wraps her arms around Isa's form. Isa feels cold, the product of being out in the cool breeze. "Where is your coat?" Florence whispers in her ear. The redhead wondered if finally Isa had escaped to the sea, finally maybe that was her dream after all. Her love no longer smells like the sea at all. She breathes her in. She smells more like the perfume that she wears, like little flowers and peach mixed in with her shampoo. Her legs are wobbly and the tiny blonde breathes in Flo's t-shirt and her form.

"My dream...you asked me my dream a year ago," she says unable to actually know if it's a full year. It feels that way though. "on the floor...I..." she struggles to form her words.  "My dream was to fall in love with a human so I could finally be free of my ghosts. When Bonnie was born, I saw nothing but pure love in your eyes. I fell in love with you drunk, I fell in love with you eating ice cream in New York. I fell in love with you every time you waited for me to return from the sea, Florence. I wanted to watch you grow old but I wanted to watch myself grow old with you so that I would never be alone again. In your arms, it feels like a dream. A dream to which I don't think I need to visit asleep but to be awake with you. The coat is gone forever. So now I will grow old with you."

Florence is speechless for the first time in many years. "Your dream was that?"

Sapphic Moodboard: The Arctic Mermaid and The Selkie

In the cold waters of the north, they found each other.

Inspirational.

  Chittering, the smell of urea and old house. It’s happening again.

Florence tries to open her mouth to scream.

There’s nothing here, no here at all, really, only thousands of red-eyed mice scratching, scratching, scratching, scoring deep red lines into her arms, vicious little claws pulling at her skin. Dread wells up in Florence but her mouth still won’t open: everything is thick, yellowing damask the colour of canaries dead in their cages and it’s stifling and her lungs are heavy and burning with grave dirt and brackish water and when her mouth does open all that comes out is curdled, stagnant river mud, moths’ wings and dust.  

__

Isa is floating in gentle peach-toned emptiness that could be the late-afternoon sea, or perhaps the early-morning sky. She’s half-girl, half-seal in a way she never quite is in waking hours and idly dreaming of better times when the ocean was not so vacant and unfilled… and maybe just a little of red hair and green dancing eyes, when she feels it. A little needle of pain and terror, poking into her consciousness and unfurling like an ink blot across her temples, intense but gone almost as quickly as it arrives. She’s old enough to know it’s not her own feeling, but someone else’s, distress high enough to knife right through into her sleeping brain. In an instant, she remembers foggily her new friend, her promise, and immediately guilt twists sharply in the pit of her stomach: she’d stopped Florence from taking her medicines with a vow to protect her, and here Isa is, distracted by her own thoughts and not helping much at all.

Gently, with small hands transiently human, Isa feels for the space between their minds. She expertly slips through the gap into rancid sludgy darkness, as black and swirling and furious as squid’s ink so she can barely see or breathe, and she can already feel stifling waves of anxiety and terror overwhelming her, and it’s not even hers, this nightmare she’s found herself in. Oh, this poor, poor girl.

Then, there. There’s a flicker, like the flame of a single wax tealight, flickering somewhere, almost-but-not-quite extinguished by the thick and turbulent gloom. Isa swims towards it, shape fluid and shifting as convenient, sturdy tail propelling her towards the ailing light, palms upturned, ready. As soon as her hand wraps around the flame – warm and fluttering, like the fragile heart of a bird, just hatched, not at all burning like fire should – it unfolds on itself, and there she is, tears tracking down her ashen face, verdigris eyes wide and unfocussed.

Isa wraps her arms around Florence, and feels their Dreamselves mirror their current position, thousands of layers of consciousness up tangled together in the bedsheets of Florence’s hotel room, but not before making a clawed fist over her heart – dispel all evil.

Slowly, the colour begins to return to Florence’s face. She blinks up at Isa, still shivering slightly, as Isa whispers soothing nonsense into her hair, pulling her close. There’s a heaviness in the air again, but it’s the good kind, of the secure warmth beneath stacks of blankets in a freezing room, the delicious ache in your limbs after a long day outside, shrieking and laughing through the trees, catching your breath against an oak, steadfast and still. Isa is pulled into the memory quite without meaning to; she’d resolved to ask before this sort of thing next time, but here she is, long limbs stretching out in front of her as she hangs from a high branch, Florence’s second-hand exhilaration a powerful drug making her mind hum with excitement. There’s something so intoxicating about being this high up, a whisper away from falling, leaves and broken-off bits of twig caught in wild hair – hair that was most definitely brown here, Isa noted. It was almost enough to distract her from the wrongness of her knowing this feeling, Isa, a creature of the seas, knowing and enjoying being wrapped around this tree, up in the air, probably hundreds of miles from the saltwater that sustains her and all others of her kind. That, and she’s singing, some exuberant chorus about birds and human sacrifice and broken hearts but of course it’s Florence’s voice, Florence’s song, and it’s the most wonderful sound Isa’s ever heard.

And then that too fades away, and everything is blurry and indistinct, and Isa is young, young enough to remember the taste of her mother’s milk. The sea is calm and flat except for where it isn’t: neatly bisected by great human sailboats of the kind Isa hadn’t seen for a good two centuries now, creating choppy trails in their wake as they head towards a port teeming with activity and trade. And this is it, this memory of a memory in a dream, bleary and faded and careworn, this is the first time she understood there was another world up there, thriving and alive and waiting for her, but before she knew at what cost. Back then she only saw the beauty; knew nothing of the dangers and cruelties that could be.

And then, there is only Florence, limbs entwined with hers, warm skin softly glowing in the morning light that seeps around curtains carelessly drawn the night before. Her eyes are still closed, dark lashes brushing the soft jut of her cheekbones, but Isa can sense she’s stirring, a hitch of breath here, a shift of weight there, and her consciousness is rising back to the surface for air, perhaps unknowingly riding in the bow wave of Isa’s – such things often happen, when you share dreams. Especially when the connection is like this; they’ve not known each other a full turn of the world, but already memories have begun to flow both ways as freely as the gushing vernal tides, and Isa remembers with an instinctive twinge of pain, that feels almost like numbness now, the one other time she’d shared such a connection before. Why, whist she had known many lovers, situations like this were exceedingly rare.

As if on cue, Florence’s eyes choose this moment to open, accompanied automatically by a slow smile, sleep-softened and but beaming nevertheless, and the combination makes Isa’s heart leap almost painfully at the tangle of emotions suddenly roiling about in her chest and absolutely seethe at whoever hurt this wonderful girl, whoever hurt Florence enough to give her those dreams and make her cry like her heart had been torn open when they could have this.

___

When Florence wakes up, the first thing she sees is blue. Isa is watching her, an unreadable expression on her face, which softens into something like a smile when she notices Florence is awake. She feels herself blushing, a grin blooming from a slight tug at the corner of her mouth quite by accident at how ridiculous she’s being, that this proximity is making her feel like this. But Isa had been there, just like she’d said. And like before, she’d seen some of Isa – been in the sea, watching the world through the turbulent lens of the waves above, sometime long, long before she was born. But it had been different this time, not the jarring, nausea-inducing accidental trip in the hotel lobby before, but a soft descent into an amorphous world of their dreams and memories, somewhere that was both and neither where even her night terrors couldn’t reach.  

Florence felt… rested. Perhaps for the first time ever, or close enough, it had been so long. A soft, embarrassing noise escaped her lips as she stretched, all loose-limbed and pliable and she turned even redder, almost as red as her hair, and Isa’s smile erupted into full-blown giggles.

‘You were there?’ Florence asks, but it’s more of a statement. She knows in her bones that Isa, the whole 400-year-old might of this strange creature of Sea and Earth, chased the darkness out of her mind.

Isa inclines her head on their shared pillow, bringing their faces close in a sleepy half nod. ‘I was there. And now I’m here, I think I should like to hear you sing.’

And then Florence remembers, with sudden, startling clarity, what Isa saw– what they saw, together, just last night. Hanging from the trees, when she was fifteen maybe, singing and shrieking and laughing, one of those breathless moments when everything feels easy and the world is reduced to sensations and light.

The mood shifts suddenly, and Florence’s expression clouds as she waits for the inevitable winding clench in her stomach to drive the air out of her lungs, that split-second feeling of falling when you miss the last step on the stairs, the reminder that she can no longer do the thing that once brought her more joy than anything else in the world.

But somehow, with Isa here, the anxiety fizzes out, not altogether gone, but subdued with a peculiar kind of calm. Florence almost laughs with relief. Almost.

Instead, she tilts forward. It was simple, easy. They are already face to face, noses almost touching, bodies tangled beneath the sealskin still keeping them sleep-warm and cosy. It makes perfect sense for Florence to lean forwards, to close the tiny gap between them, and press her lips to Isa’s.

It’s a flutter of a kiss, brief and feather-light, but it sends a tiny jolt of electricity right through Florence’s spine. She can tell Isa feels it too, the way her blue eyes widen almost comically, suddenly looking incredibly young in a way that belies her years.

‘Yes,’ Florence finds herself sleepily agreeing, time stretching out languidly like warm toffee in the space between them as she forms her words, ‘I’ll sing for you. That was what I did, actually. I sang. And sang and sang until I couldn’t anymore. But.’ A pause. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I feel like something is changing…’

And she knows it is. 

Especially when Isa smiles radiantly and kisses her back.

The kiss was so far from any of the night terror that Flo experienced with Isa getting in between from the previous evening. Taken by surprise, the 400 year old selkie is familiar at this point with the art of a human kiss. She's kissed so many males and females at this point that it's almost instinctual. Isabella long distanced herself from the romantic feelings up until this point in which she felt the danger. A week she swore she would only stay but now it was impossible. She heard tiny voices in the back of her head from her long dead brothers and sisters beware the curse that falls upon young lovers, Isabella. And though she might fight the tides of the ocean later, in this moment, this very moment of the feeling of the warmth of sleep dulling away and the time that is awake, she gives into the kiss. Her thoughts are of this will heal Florence, this will make her better. And she's sworn to protect her now at the cost of perhaps her own being. Isa is the last of the Selkies as far as she's known. With this kiss it inspires a fire of devotion and she wonders if it would last twenty years. But it certainly goes longer than a moment.

Moments like these have no time with her being. They pass through each other's lungs and breath between and Florence deepens the kiss with Isabella. It's been a very long time since the redhead felt anything other than an empty pill bottle and a bottle she drank of whiskey and vodka at some point. For the first time in months, Florence knows that the change between them moves quicker like faster than she's ever known. The sheer rush in which she felt beyond the stage at one point feels like that heady gauze in which she propels herself over in the kiss. There are sounds yet, sounds between lips and tongue and the vulnerability. There are the familiar hands that Isa reaches and slides through ginger hair, only with the bright light of sunshine through the hotel room in which this kiss feels like the songs that she once sang - that exciting double time in heartbeat in which crowds dived with her and she felt so alive.

And for Isa, the kiss feels so dangerous because now she knows she must spend more than a week. For every day and minute that passes, the danger of staying is there. And so she kisses and without ever knowing or actually stating in words, Florence now feels incredibly protective of Isa. And Isa doesn't know of Florence's devotion either. Florence isn't ready to tell her in words not yet. But the feelings are stirred. They make love for the first time that morning, hungrily and instinctually. There is no reason to ask if either are ready, it felt too incredible to stop.

--

Time moves like the tides of the ocean, in, out and months are spent still in the hazy Southern California gaze. But instead of Florence looking out at the ocean every day, she sings for Isa. She sings the songs that she once sang about Ceremonials and Lungs and explains to Isa in so many words - death, sex, religion and so forth. For Isa's part she understands but wonders how a human who appears to be so young has so much wisdom. She's heard mermaids sing, dreadful siren songs that lure sailors to their deaths. She knows Flo is far beyond any mermaid - she does not sing and lure people to their deaths. Instead it's finally understood that all the efforts towards her once failed relationship to James was her own death and now Isa worked on making magic happen.

It is one evening late and it is nearing Spring. The time and shift of the seasons are there and Isa has now spent nearly 8 months with Florence, 8 months since a late Summer day. She takes Florence by the hand and Flo gently holds her coat up. Of course she's careful now not to simply take the coat.

"Let's go walk to the ocean, Florence," Isa has missed the sea. She also needs to show Florence something far greater. And she knows it is a risk, everything is a risk. She has never done this with another human.

"It's cold though, Isa!" Florence laughs and at this point the hotel room is far cleaner now. Less alcohol, there are even pots of flowers. Isa has given Florence confidence in ways that were lacking, the youthful ways of an older woman now returned. And in the light of the moon, Florence writes songs again. She hasn't shown anyone yet these beginnings of songs yet, but she knows the muse has returned.

"But it's only cold if you don't have a warm coat and lucky for you," she says as she goes barefoot out the door and leads Florence also in bare feet towards the water. "You happen to have my coat to protect you."

Florence sighs softly, "If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead."

This statement from Florence makes Isa slightly sad. "My dear, in 400 years of swimming in the ocean, the death to which you speak of is not an option for you anymore. Do you hear me, Florence?"

Florence nods, "I understand."

The Pacific Ocean rolls in with the blue depths of water of the sea in and out. Tide is high and so the waves look strong. For Isa, she feels the stirring in her heart of the ocean calling for her. Florence tightens her grip on Isa's fingertips but speaks, "You want to go home don't you?'

Isa looks up at those green eyes which are rimmed with sadness. "When I first landed upon the rock, I told myself I would only spend a week with you. A week because..." she closed her blue eyes. "My brothers and sisters died staying any longer upon the land. I am the last of my kind, Florence. If I stay, I risk..."

Florence finishes her sentence, "Everything. I understand. I may not be 400 years old but you risk your heart. You think I'm going to kill you." She pulls away and shakes her head, "Damn it. I love you!"

This declaration startles Isa. "You love me?"

Florence is like a child in this moment. She worries about losing her most prized possession. She realizes though of course she cannot keep Isabella. "I love you, Isabella. I've loved you since the morning you protected me. And now you want to leave because of some myth! I'm all for myths but not now!"

Isa opens her eyes, the wind blows her blonde hair over her shoulder. She folds her arms. She knows the passion is there. She stares back and then she makes another decision. "Do you trust me, Florence? I've never done this with another human before. But this is the only way for me to show you..." and in that moment she grabs Florence by the hand. She pulls her towards the water and Florence at first is deathly scared.

Isa sweeps up Florence into her coat and then in that moment she dives into the water before Florence has a chance to answer.

---

In the arms of the ocean, deliver me. Florence briefly reminds herself and she can't breathe but she doesn't need to. Isa's seal like coat has become her form. And she's swimming with Isa now in the water, deep below. She has no idea how her lungs haven't given out. And it's possible that the magic of the selkie nature has come to root. Isa takes her in the sea and shows her everything she has never shown another human in her life. She shows her the emptiness of the water, the way that the sea creatures are there and the fishes swim. She is lightning fast and yet she opens her eyes and she leans in and kisses Florence giving her every breath possible, and Florence is not sure if she is dreaming again.

Isa in this moment is swimming still and giving Florence every essence of herself that she once swore never to give. She's given her love now to Florence and has given her the ultimate risk that is there. The ocean is big, the ocean is blue and in that moment it is beautiful to Florence. Isa stays under with Florence for longer than time allows it to happen and then swims to the surface, pulling Florence up with her.

There is a gasp for air and for oxygen. Florence now understands why Isa never wished to give up the sea. The sea was her only protection from the emptiness of her heart, the spirit to which moved her. And now she has given Florence her heart and there is no question about where Isa belongs. She pulls Florence upon the rock and Isa leans in and her back and kisses Florence to give her oxygen. The wet clothes perhaps will have to go off but there is Isa's coat and she protects Florence.

"I love you too," she breathes against her lips. "I will not go back to the sea without you."