#ffm2025

We return briefly to the Selkies' Skins universe, sometime in Kirsty's first year of teaching.

July 3 2026

LadyRainStarDrago AKA Teresa “Amehana” Garcia

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Kirsty stretched, then turned over in her bed. Her arm reached out and only found her cat. Blue eyes slowly slitted open in the pre-dawn light.

Right, work day. In the castle, where her aunt specifically requested no hanky-panky. Why did they opt for rooms in the castle itself instead of getting a house nearby or one of the outbuildings, like Thomas and Ally, also professors, did?

When was the sale of the place she and David wanted to be expected to finish again?

Definitely a coffee day.

“Mroooooowww...” The large white fluff ball complained and balled up.

“Me too… Me too...” Kirsty blinked and focused with difficulty on the window.

Why was she awake before her alarm? David would still be sleeping, probably, in his own bed. Surely. She snorted, discovering that some part of her did hope for some romantic gesture from her husband, like showing up on the broom balcony, tapping at the window for morning kisses before the breakfast that would bolster him for his Potions class and her for her Merstudies students.

Nope. No David through the glass. Not in his human self, not the ravenperson thing that had figured so much in their last year of school she knew he’d been working on, no hippogriff form for early morning flights… and definitely no sedated werewolf.

Be big problems if she woke up finding her sedated werewolf on her broom balcony instead of where he sequestered himself to hunt and snooze during his transformation. Problems coffee wouldn’t fix.

“The horrors persisted because you never did anything to stop them.” Kirsty quoted to herself, sighing deeply. “Right then. Early start to my day it is.” She slid out of her bed, her familiar complaining again at the retreat of her warmth. Her gauzy white sleeping gown billowed as she made her way to her dressing table. Not that her husband was there to be impressed by it since he was in his own room, and if he’d seen her yawn wracked stumbles, he’d probably have gotten her back in bed and asleep with that strange pull she’d never figured out in all these years she’d known him. Definitely none of the hanky-panky – either sort – they’d been warned of when hired.

“Coffee… strong, sweet, on the non-acid end. Blond roast. Stomach isn’t ready for the dark.” She placed her order, willing a connection, still too sleepy to conjure it herself, and relying on the kitchen’s magics to pick up on and deliver the request. Being a professor, especially at such a young age, definitely had perks not available to her when she was just a student hiding what she was. “Ah, some eel and egg on toast to see me over til Breakfast is ready, too, please.”

She felt the acknowledging pulse on the other end of the connection. Whoever was on watch so early had received her request. Absolutely no way she felt like making her way down all those flights of stairs to go directly bother the cooks. Nope. That would be like mixing up a lemon and a danger fruit.

“Stairs...” She sighed, slumping against the dressing table and drawing her sealskin better around her shoulders over her sleep gown. Distantly, she felt the tide, the call of the sea. She would need another swim in the loch soon. “I hope you slept better than I seem to have, David.”

Her coffee and eggy fishy toast apparated before her, prepared just the way she liked it. A little pickled slivered seaweed garnished her toast, telling her exactly which of the crew had received the request. Her lips curved upward gently. The coffee was as velvet and sweet as she needed it for such an early start, the caffeine strong and without the changes that bothered her on super early mornings. Comfort and strength began filling out her limbs, giving her back the closest thing she’d ever have to land legs.

The time for the Hunt was approaching soon. Perhaps she could throw a salmon at David should she see him on the shore during his. He could share it with the wolf pack Hearne had drawn into his life, perhaps. Doubtful he and his pack would leave her any venison on the shore… but she did feel as much of the pull to them as she did to the merfolk in the loch. Not something that had a word in any language, something spanning species. Not kinship, per se, and not a caretaker role… But… something…

Another sip. Another bite. Her thoughts turned to how best to guide the young souls she must shape in her Merstudies lessons. How best to serve Mara, goddess of the sea, The Lady, still with pieces of her name missing, and goddess of the land’s waters, and Hearne, lord of the Hunt? What should she do today, in their service?

“Waking up more would be a good start.” The Lady’s voice curled in her ear. “I had a memory. It may lead to another Piece.” The steam of the coffee caressed Kirsty’s face. “Sleepy selkies have scattered thoughts.”

“Mmm, so that’s why I’m awake so early. Might need two cups. Too early.”

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The prompt was: The horrors persisted because you never did anything to stop them. – by bunnythewriter

https://flashficmonth.wordpress.com/2026/07/02/ffm-links-3-july-2026/comment-page-1/#respond

Posting to all my usual places. Maybe I can catch up and get today's posted too later in the day.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Amehana

Once again the kitchen was empty of coffee. The gnome watched her over the last dregs, swallowing even the grounds at the bottom of his borrowed mug.

“’Bout time you woke up, young’n. We need to have a serious chat about the muck you’re bringing in this house. I can’t let it go on.”

“Are you a house Brownie? I know I need to tidy a little more forcefully, but I plan to catch up after I’ve got this project done.”

“Your painting? Child, I’m not talking about your art mess, or your forgetting to wash up after supper. You do that when you’ve made breakfast. No, I’m talking about this crap.” He held up the empty can, shaking it. “It’s basically ground poop. If you want poop coffee, at least treat yourself right and spring for the Kopi Luwak, not something that’s had the soul processed out.”

“You’ve stolen my coffee every morning because it’s the cheap stuff? It’s all I can afford! If you keep stealing it I may as well get the cheap stuff if I’m not even going to get more than the one cup when I bring it home.”

“You get yourself something halfway decent, then I won’t have to dispose of it, will I?”

She sputtered, unable to argue with that. “How’d you even get in?”

You will know their majesty by the feathers sewn into their skin.

You will know their splendor by the light of their eyeballs, replaced with metal at birth.

I think I used too many prompts. I missed writing or drawing anything for Dark Crystal week, https://www.tumblr.com/dark-crystal-week so I used some inspiration from that, the line, “What it does with my blood… is none of my business.” from one of the FFM prompts (that now I can't find to credit... thanks power outage), and a scenario possibility in a game I'm playing.

I've not been very available lately due to the heat so I had intended to make a small gift for my mate. I then overshot my word count and can't quite shave this down more without losing too much. Version One is better but near 1500 words. A little long for an FFM Flash fiction.

Both this shorter version and the original version will be on my Patreon.

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Bobbing in the bay she could see Sifan and Vapran refugee ships, only able to harbor at docks or further out due to preparatory labor from an offshoot race, the Marelings. They restored the entry of the sleeping former capital.

The Lunar Temple at the gates of the ancestral palace enfolded her welcomingly. The hole she’d fallen into as a child was still there, and so too her father’s impromptu rope. Those braids had weathered the trine surprisingly well. On the other hand… Drenchen hair was famous for its durability. She touched her own braids, blazing Sifan red fragmented stories said came to them via a child born of the Rose Sun and San, the Hidden Moon. Perhaps one day she’d find more details of the fosterling that had birthed the gelfling who became the original Sifan Maudra.

Her tail swished and flared its fins as her thoughts wandered. Sometimes, to her embarrassment, it seemed to have a mind of its own. This time it brushed Alarii’s. Merfid still didn’t quite grok how they’d gained these adaptations. His had come while he obtained the seed from Oszah-Staba, the Wellspring Tree. Hers began growing after she’d fallen into something she suspected now was the Pool of Tears in Mithra on her way to enlist aid from the Firelings, calling on ancient treaties she’d only learned of through luck.

“All-Maudra?”

She looked at Alarii, the gentle Mystic’s smile she often teased him about rarely truly left his face. It was there now, but the soft concern in his eyes melted her before she could needle him. “It did it on it’s own.”

“Right.” He said, waiting for her real thoughts. His muski, Aaru, chirped her version of, “Right,” after him.

She smiled. Aaru did so love to be part of any conversation. “Thinking, that’s all.”

He hummed softly.

Her Drenchen archer often made her laugh without trying. She was glad that things were no longer as awkward between them as when she first laid eyes on him in that tavern in Duppington and Knew he was the one. She never called him her Apeknot to his face, far too embarrassing, but he was far stronger than his scrawny and now bowed physical frame led observers to believe. She loved that about him, his steadiness. His quiet presence made her feel full and blossom in fiery, windy, fluttery ways she’d probably never fully understand.

“I think I should wake the city. There are gelflings to live here again. No longer sleeping.” She mused, following the same pull that had led her to him, to the seeds, her true self and her appointed destiny. She laid a hand over the tree shaped birthmark on her arm just below where the cuff of the last maudra of the Lost Island, regained from its keeper in one of the royal families of Mithra, rode her upper arm to remind her of all the history lost to those ancient wars that had shaped the Sifa into what the urskeks and later the skeksis had found them as. Maybe, after the Darkening the the Replanting were dealt with Mother Aughra might see fit to help her try to reclaim what ghosts the Lost Countries had left behind.

“You keep calling them that.” Alarii said, looking around for the spirits of urVa and skekMal, the remnants of the urskek that had joined them on their journey. He sighed. Who knew where they were off to at the moment? He didn’t. They, like others, came and went.

“Because they do.” Merfid smiled and leaned on the walking stick her grandfather had carved her long ago, graven with ancient Sifan and Drenchen symbols meant to help her in her growth. “They have a very different feel than the main cities we’ve met around the Great Trees?”

“I suppose...” He said carefully. He may have bonded with her but he’d probably never ever fully understand the paths of her mind. “Sifa stuff?”

She laughed at the shared joke. “Sifa stuff.” She said warmly. Merfid touched the Stonewood emblem on her clothes. Ending up as the Stonewood Maudra by vote after their deeds in the Deep Forest and then All-Maudra after being attacked by what she considered a rogue swarm of lunamoths with the remnant of the Living Crown after landing in Ha’rar qualified. Anything unexplainable or strange their little group collectively labelled “Sifa Stuff,” thanks to him.

“Are you doing something that might make me concerned?” Alarii asked.

“Maybe...” She looked down at the worn stone in the center of a dais. “This looks a bit performative...” Merfid looked around again, finding herself where she’d consider center stage. “I feel like more than coronations happened in this particular spot. I can probably be seen by anyone down at the foot of the road by the docks even though we’re waaaaay up here, up the rise.”

“Probably.” He frowned slightly, then sighed. “Uh?”

Merfid’s eyes had taken on the green-blue glow he’d gotten used to observing whenever Thra took hold of her. She unsheathed the small dagger she wore on one of her belts next to San’s Blade. She tilted her head slightly as she listened and watched. As she became lost in whatever vision she was being shown his hands itched. A familiar urge to go touch the indentation in the platform tugged his hands, but something inside the still locked gates of the palace tugged harder. He’d wait, he could only use that gift once a day, and they still had yet to investigate the thing here that was to help urVa and skekMal. For now she was safe.

“Oh, that’s how it works. That’s some weird spiritual technology.” Merfid cut her left palm deftly and mashed her hand into the hand-shaped indent before he could do anything.

Aaru squawked. Alarii reached for her. “Merfid! What are you doing!?”

“Connecting Past, Present, and Future.” She said nonchalantly as the blue vliyaya streamed out through the city in swirls. Crystals, tucked away in strategic places through the city began to light in sequence while the water flowing through the channels that provided its running water filled, flowed, and took on life.

“You cut yourself. Why?” She rarely annoyed him, but he was very definitely unhappy she’d intentionally hurt herself.

She flicked her wings then stood after she was certain it was done. “I heal.” She smiled at him, trying to hide the fact that her hand stung. The line of blood in the indent was rapidly disappearing. “What it does with my blood… is none of my business.”

“All Maudra!” He took her hand, looking it over. “Don’t do that again.” With a frustrated sigh he began cleaning her up.

“Sorry, Dear.”

“You’re going to do it again somewhere, aren’t you?”

“Probably.” She said mildly.

Alarii grumbled. Aaru reprimanded Merfid loudly. He couldn’t help his irritation leaking through their bond with either.