#human!clarke

Lexa turns around one last time to blow a kiss to Clarke, her eyes shimmering softly, apologetically. 

“I’ll be back when I can, croí álainn.”  The words are almost lost in the wind that whips sharply around them, but Clarke, unerringly drawn to Lexa’s lip as she is, catches them and the slight, half smile that follows. 

Clarke smiles softly back at her love as Lexa carefully wraps the coat around her, blending into the dark, writhing sea as she carefully walks into the waves. Her face drops back into a heartbroken frown as Lexa turns away, joyfully diving under the cold water with barely a ripple. 

When she surfaces she isn’t human at all but the sleek, beautiful seal that Clarke had seen for months prior to their actual meeting. Large dark eyes watching her from the distant waves as Clarke went about her life on the coast, dutiful daughter of a fisherman. 

Miles away from shore, Clarke can barely make out the glint of other sleek heads as they bob in the sea, waiting for Lexa to join them. 

Sinking to the shoreline, Clarke watches Lexa go until she can barely make her out through the depths of the night. She stays on the rocky beach until she isn’t sure if the dampness on her cheeks is tears or the spray of seawater as it flings onto the shoreline, dancing up to lap at her toes before retreating back into the depths. 

Always returning, never staying. 

Clarke drops her head to Lexa’s thigh, smiling into the warmed skin there as she feels the trembles, minute but noticeable under her vigilant, loving touch. Lexa lets out a forced breath as she raises her head from the splintered wooden dock, threading hands through Clarke’s flaxen hair to tug her up, pressing a deep kiss to smiling lips.

Clarke lets herself be led willingly, settling into the cradle of Lexa’s hips as she melts into her lover, running a gentle hand across the heartbeat that she could feel thrumming under the tips of her fingers. Lexa smiles at her adoringly, her bright eyes sparkling as she tucks a hand underneath her head to prop herself up. 

She presses an adoring nose to the place where Lexa’s ear meets her neck, inhaling the comforting scent of the beach after it rained, the brine of the sea. They sit in silence for a few long moments, simply taking comfort in each other. Lexa stiffens slightly as she catches sight of the moon, hanging brightly in the middle of the sky as its cool brilliance pours in through the shack’s little window.

“It’s late, Clarke. I must go.” Lexa sounds regretful as she shifts Clarke gently, preparing to stand. Clarke is abruptly jarred from her good mood as Lexa’s arms close on her biceps to nudge her off, already reaching for the beautiful pelt that she tucked reverently in the corner upon her arrival. 

Clarke stews quietly as she pulls her own clothing on, feeling the dark cloud over her head grow to a thunderhead as Lexa continues to peer out the window, oblivious to Clarke’s mood. 

Lexa tucks the pelt around her shoulders, reaching for Clarke to press a goodbye kiss on her as she had so many times the past few months. Clarke had been a dutiful girlfriend, had smiled and made herself soft for the various goodbyes, but she felt the tenuous leash on her temper that had been fraying slightly more over these abrupt goodbyes, abruptly snap as Lexa brushed her shoulder with a small smile on her face. 

Clarke jerks back abruptly, Lexa’s fingers halting in surprise as her loving girlfriend transforms into a hostile force before her eyes. 

“I think you should just go, Lexa,” Clarke snarls as she purposefully avoids Lexa’s hold, wrapping her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her rage only grows at the bewildered echo in Lexa’s eyes, how her gaze follows Clarke as she moves away from the water, away from Lexa. 

“Wouldn’t want to keep you from your true love,” Clarke growls spitefully, pressing a slightly mocking kiss onto surprised lips before stomping further up the beach, burning with anger as she stands with her back to the waves. 

She ignores Lexa’s soft entreaties for her to come closer, to say goodbye properly as she darts another panicked glance at the moon, at how the tide laps at her feet. 

Why did she have to leave? Why does she always leave?

“I will explain everything, Clarke,” Lexa breathes, looking pained as she stands with one foot in the foamy wash of the shore, the other on land, turning like she was poised to sprint up the beach to Clarke. 

“But for tonight, we are out of time.” 

Clarke looks away pointedly from the water, denying Lexa a chance to say a proper goodbye as she hears a body enter the water gracefully. When she looks back, a dark, sleek head is bobbing far out in the water. 

Lexa is gone for two weeks. 

In her free time, still inflamed with righteous anger at her perceived abandonment, Clarke storms off to her grandmother’s house, and asks to see her collection of lore books that she keeps, shelved neatly in a back corner of her bright cottage. Lily raises an eyebrow but agrees, appearing to hand Clarke a steaming cup of tea as she leafs through the books, searching. 

She had bit her tongue, apart from a few stunned questions when she had first seen a beautiful girl emerge from the waves at the turn of last summer, eyes greener than the forest, dark hair cascading down her back as she had quietly, shyly introduced herself to Clarke. Clarke had fallen for the Selkie so deeply and completely, deciding early on that whatever Lexa deigned to tell her about her culture, her people, would be enough. Now, however, that was not enough to satisfy Clarke. 

Sitting crossed legged on the smooth wooden lore, she cracks open a small green book, rapidly flipping pages-

Abarta, Changelings, Banshee, Faeries….Leprechaun….Selkie.

Heart in her throat, she bends over the little book, squinting at the age-yellowed pages as she turns them gingerly between careful fingers. 

Because the skins are limited, passing one on is very rare: either from the death of its previous owner, or a parent choosing to give up their mortality so a younger family member may have a turn. Since there are so few, not every Selkie child receives a skin. While human in appearance, Selkies are very much Other, and must live by the rules of their kind. If someone takes their skin captive while the Selkie is in human form, they are very much Indebted to that person. Selkies must be back in their seal form prior to midnight, so tied are they to the sea. Such is the curse of the Selkies. 

She runs a trembling finger farther down the page to read the inscription that had been scrawled in a cramped margin, tucking her hair impatiently behind her ear as she bends closer, nose almost skimming the page as she reads. 

"You are here to make your choice. Will you join the Selkies in the sea, or will you live human for the length and breadth of your days, however long or short those days may be? Before you choose, you must understand where we come from; why our skins are limited in number, why there are no other races like us in Faerie. To become a link in the chain which binds us, you must first be forged. Will you swim the deep waters? Will you be a sister to your people, and keep them ever in your heart?"

A tear drips off of her nose, hitting the page with a wet plop. Two more fall in rapid succession. Clarke closes the book as the tears stream down her face, loathe to ruin the book with her outpouring of emotion. She cradles the small tome close to her chest as she leans back against the shelf, chest heaving as she tries to keep the maelstrom of emotion contained within herself, so as to not alert her Grandmother. 

“I didn’t understand, Lexa,” she whispers to the salt air that pours through the nearby window, the quiet calling of gulls in the distance mixing with the soothing wash of the waves.