The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity

by Joshua Palmatier

  His family was slower to respond, slipping onto the shore only as the humans grew apparently bored with his inactivity, and started gathering the scattered evidence of their intrusion as the sun slipped towards evening.

  He heard her before he saw her as she settled beside him, slipping out of her sealskin with a sigh that begged elaboration. He glanced over at her where she sat, expression inviting. “Where did they all come from?” Aine was the splendor of the young sunset rolled into a casually human form, red gold hair whipping around her head in the evening wind. Her dark eyes were wide in a face just a little too lean and perfect to belong to the girl she posed as. Clutching her seal skin she sniffed daintily, catching the smoke and sweat smells that the humans had left behind them.

  Slipping his skin was always easiest just as the sun was setting. The evening air tickled, leaving startled goose flesh in its wake as he carefully set his sealskin beside him on the rocks. Dylan frowned, the expression spreading across chiseled features. He exhaled in a very seal-ish huff, nostrils flaring. “I’m not quite sure …” All across the shore, seal maidens settled onto their favorite spots, brushing tangles of seaweed from long hair with sharp fingernails. Dylan watched them, their grace soothing, their beauty rivaling the most elegant shell at the bottom of the sea as the moon rose and lit pale skin. He didn’t remember there being so many humans before, but time was a tenuous thing to an immortal.

  Dylan pulled Aine near, pressing his face into her hair and inhaling deeply of brine and musk. “Don’t worry. They can’t stay forever.”

  He had faint recollections from last season of the feel of a human woman soft and warm beneath him, her gaze gone unfocused with a heady dose of sensuality and roiling waves of magic, the morning sun warm with the new summer above them, the flavor of her sweat reminding him of the sea with its roiling surf and magic-riddled depths. The taste of her, salty and sharp on his tongue, added that dangerous tenderness and fascinating intensity to the seduction selkie lovers were infamous for. He could hear the wails of her menfolk as she drowned herself trying to slip beneath the waves after him, but that should have chased the humans off, not drawn them near. It was a warning that had always worked in the past.

  The selkies drifted off with the morning tide and, as always when they were surrounded by nothing but the sea and each other, the human problem seemed less pressing than it had before.

  When next Dylan came to shore he balked slightly before creeping up the beach alone at night to slip his skin and stare at a rather changed shoreline. The dwellings had been unexpected. They definitely had not been there on his last visit to this particular shore, settled in amidst rocks and weeds, connected by roads. Never before had his shores been so full of human habitations. Habitations that looked dauntingly permanent. Everywhere looked the same, an oppressive and overwhelming wave of humans. Dylan sat on the beach alone, head cupped in his hands, seal skin carefully hidden. Every now and then someone read, remembered, and believed old stories about stealing seal skins to gain a fairy wife.

  Or husband.

  Dylan reflexively checked the skin he had stashed in the bag at his side. He had an air about him that reminded folks of an actor or musician down on his luck, bag over his shoulder, clothing just this side of artfully worn, soulful eyes in the middle of a face too handsome to easily forget. At least that is what they told him, humans who took his contemplative expression for depression and offered conversation and the odd handful of coin or cash.

  His family had drifted apart—wandering up rivers, into lakes, and into human beds. Some willingly, some following their skins as they must. Aine had been the last, casting an almost apologetic expression over one shoulder, her right arm linked around that of the young man who had been flying the kite that had caught her eye and imagination.

  What an awkward situation. Dylan had no interest in giving in and moving on like so many of his people. He scratched the side of his face, allowing himself to be amused by the way people passing by made a point of not paying attention to the slight webbing the action exposed between his fingers.

  Standing with a sigh, Dylan turned his back on the sea and, ignoring the way he wanted nothing more than to whimper and run back to let the waves swallow him he started to walk inland. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and there was no surer sign of desperation than a selkie walking away from the sea.

  He had never thought the smell of salt and seal would tantalize his nostrils a mere day’s walk from the shore he had so resolutely turned his back on. It had taken some practice, and some patience, walking along the side of loud roadways, nose wrinkling against the bitter fumes of human transportation. He honed in on and followed the familiar smells like a hunting hound on the trail of a deer.

  Dylan followed a bit of road that turned to the right, made his way across a wide stretch of asphalt filling with cars and the excited shouts of children. He allowed the current of excited humanity to pull him towards what looked to be sea cliffs rising from the ground.

  “This … is strange.” Dylan ran a hand along the concrete that had been shaped to mimic a wave-formed tunnel through rock. After walking through the tunnel a woman asked him for money. Dylan scrounged a collection of coins and cash out of one pocket and into her hand, only half paying attention as she stamped the back of his hand, and then wandered in through the excited mass of humans that gathered just inside, adjusting hats and rubbing lotion on faces and ears.

  It was a jumble of sights and smells, predator and prey all jumbled together in a way that could never be natural but was so very fascinating. Seal, polar bear, gull, penguin, fish… . Nostrils flaring in an attempt to take in every subtle hint, eyes looking everywhere but where he was going, Dylan felt the woman he ran into more than saw her.

  She stumbled back with a startled oomph! and he reflexively threw a hand out to catch her, tendrils of magic twisting in a net of pheromone and suggestion. She was a cute girl, all wide eyes and freckles, younger than his usual prey but he was off center and she was enticing.

  “I am so sorry about that.” Dylan was the model of outdated concern, offering her a steadying hand before stepping back. “Are you all right?”

  She had the slightly muddled look of a human brushing at the edges of fairy charms, but she nodded. “I’m fine. Really. Should have been looking where I was going.”

  “My fault.” Dylan smiled apologetically and wandered off into the crowd. But not too far. He set his backpack at his feet as he leaned against the penguin viewing area, hands in his pockets, smile on his face.

  Dylan watched his freckled girl settle on the bench, the oddity of the setting carried away by the familiarity of an ancient ritual. Selkies were picky about their prey, took their time watching and selecting. He could taste the loneliness of the young adult as she recovered from her embarrassment at having run into a stranger in public—salty and sweet and oh so enticing… .

  A throat was cleared near to his ear, distracting him. Lips curled up in displeasure, Dylan turned away from his pretty girl, intent on telling the intruder to go elsewhere. His snarl twisted to horrified dismay as he took in the woman standing before him, his backpack over one shoulder. Oh, a selkie’s worst mistake, taking his attention away from his skin. It had seemed safe, sitting on the ground at his feet. It had seemed secure as he watched his pretty girl. “That’s mine. Return it.”

  The interloper’s eyes were narrow, and more importantly knowing. Somehow she knew what prize she held in her hands, and was all the more dangerous for it. The muddled young girl across the way forgotten, Dylan stood still, hands clenched into fists at his sides and heart pounding.

  Human park-goers looked up in concern as clouds gathered in the sky, a chill wind slinking through the previously warm afternoon, threatening a storm. There was very little of the charming, unassuming young man left in his expression as he stared down at the woman who held his freedom in her hands.

  She bared her teeth in the feral cousin of a proper smile
, fearlessly meeting Dylan’s eyes, inspiring the hair on his arms to stand at attention. “Come with me.” She gestured with her free hand as she turned her back on him, unconcerned with the storm roiling in his eyes, and started to walk.

  Selkie. The recognition tumbled through his fear and fury. She was a selkie, and she had stolen his skin. It was unthinkable, a selkie stealing from another. The sun crept out from behind a cloud as Dylan turned thoughtful and followed after. He had no other option.

  “You want me to do … what?” Her name was Ilane, and she was tired of running the seal show. Dylan’s tongue fumbled around his mouth. Here the woman who had brought him to the small office had tossed him his bag as she shut the door behind them, shutting him in with the smell of salt and seal, brine and musk and everything he missed from home. Clutching his bag to his chest in a way that was sure to have embarrassed him had he noticed, Dylan stared at the sleek, tiny selkie seated at the cluttered desk.

  Ilane snorted in something close to amusement. “Did you just beach yourself? How sweet. I run the seal show here. There are two other selkies in the tank—an old bastard called Carrick who I swear has been here since the park opened, and a young girl I picked up last year called Murel—a straggler, like you. Her family dispersed and she went a wandering and wandered her way straight into me. Sound familiar?”

  “But what is all this?”

  Ilane smiled broadly, revealing teeth a little too pointed to pass closely for human. “This is a sea park. Humans pay to wander through and gawk at the things that they have dragged out of the waves. For my little band, it is a nice, comfortable vacation. All the humans we could want, and all of them already primed for loving us. It is as close to perfect as one can get these days. Carrick retired when he took me in—we even had an actual grey seal back in those days. She was the sweetest little thing. I am handing you my job and retiring. Technically, you will have to speak with the park manager, but I will give you a good word, say I called you, let you know I was retiring and there was an opening. You will bring with you a little seal you have decided to name after me and huzzah. The show is yours and I get some tank time.”

  “It seems so undignified …”

  Gathering her hair into some sort of tie, Ilane stood. “It’s about time for the two o’clock. Let me show you what you will be doing.”

  Caught, just as surely as any woman he had dangled at the edge of his magic, Dylan followed in Ilane’s wake.

  After walking through a short series of hallways, Ilane deposited Dylan in a chair looking down over a tank of water and sculpted shoreline. An old bull seal barked a sleepy greeting from his place at the edge of the manufactured shore, rolling over slightly in the sun, dislodging the smaller female that had been using his side as a cushion. Dylan recognized them, tasted their briny magic in the air. Selkies.

  They both rolled into the water as Ilane approached. She made a fuss over placing some balls and buckets while the seats around Dylan filled with chattering humans.

  Ilane moved to center stage, a smile on her face. “Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the seal show!” She raised a hand and Carrick pulled himself up onto the stage with a dry bark, rolling and lifting fins on command as the audience cheered.

  Dylan had to admit, it was an elegant solution. Nestled in the middle of the human sea park, their territory protected and preserved, the selkies held court. Sure, they carried on like new pups, rolling and barking and begging for the amusement of their audience, but in the soft smile of a woman watching her young child clap and shout in glee, Dylan felt it all come together. There was salt enough, glittering in laughing eyes, pleasure enough to get his pulse pounding. He was off center in this world that kept changing, but here, there was a chance to settle in. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship, human and selkie—it may well be this was the better option as opposed to skulking from shore to shore, carefully guarding his seal skin and still unable to stay away from those who would take it.

  Ilane made her way through the emptying stands after the show, stopping for bits of conversation here and there before reaching Dylan where he still sat. “Well?” Her teeth flashed white and sharp in her quick smile. “Perfect, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll consider it.” He wanted to answer her wide smile with one of his own. There was an obvious, easy companionship between the selkies, one that made him almost itchy with the need to be a part of it. But he could smell the harsh tang of automobiles and unidentifiable bits of food that were too close and too strong. It made him want to back up a bit, slip into the water and reassess the situation. “Are you sure I couldn’t just join the tank side of things?” Still the center of attention, inspiring salt and smile, but safe in the water—that would be easier to get used to, to deal with.

  “No way. I get my bit of retirement if you join up. Who knows when the next selkie will chance through?” Ilane snorted, plopping down into the chair next to Dylan.

  “Exactly. If I agree to this, what happens when I decide I’ve had enough?”

  “Selkies are immortal. I am sure one will snatch back a skin, or get bored of slipping around the shore and hoping for the best. Someone will come through, skin clutched, but not quite close enough, and you can have your chance at making a deal.”

  “Stealing a skin seems so …” Dylan floundered around for a word that had enough disgust and discomfort in it to express the sinking feeling in his stomach, the way his lip wanted to curl.

  “Better another selkie than a human.” Ilane shrugged. “It’s a good life, brother. It’s just been long enough for me. For now.”

  There had been so many people in the stands. They had stared at her, at them, entranced. The air had been thick with happiness, adoration, exultation… . It had been enough to keep him from remembering the look on Aine’s face as she left, the feeling of waking on lonely stones, the snorting and snoring of his family missing from the night.

  Ilane had a flush to her skin and a glitter to her eyes that Dylan had not seen gracing a selkie in a long time. It was the poise of a Seal Maiden positioned perfectly on the shore, catching every stray moonbeam in her hair. It was the assurance of a selkie male cresting a wave, hands outstretched toward the human woman grasping after him. It was a confidence Dylan didn’t remember losing, but having had that little epiphany, he couldn’t bear being without.

  Humans were meant to be enthralled by selkies. Dylan inhaled, tasting the salt in the air, holding it before exhaling and meeting Ilane’s raised eyebrow with a crooked smile. “I will give it a shot.”

  Dylan would put on a seal show they would never forget.

  * * *

  Carrick sprawled across some concrete masquerading as a bluff, dark eyes open only a sliver to acknowledge Dylan’s entrance as he soaked in the afternoon sun, fins spread to maximize his basking. Ilane had settled beside him, distinctive nose propped on his back, mimicking his half-nap. Only Murel seemed restless, swimming circles around the deep tank, much to the delight of the crowd that gathered at the lower viewing area watching her lithe movements through a pane of glass set below water level. The attention of the seals was always on him, at least a little, visible in the way nostrils flared occasionally, whiskers twitched, and eyes rolled ever so slightly beneath lazy lids.

  Ilane’s nose worked and one eye cracked open. With a stretch and a snort Ilane rolled herself off of Carrick and into the water. She joined Murel in her laps around the tank and Dylan indulged in his own stretch as park patrons started to gather in the seating area positioned to give them a good view of water and demonstration area.

  The children were his favorites, leaning as far over the railing between themselves and the seals as possible, eyes and mouth wide open in the thoughtless joy they had not yet learned to suppress. The parents had their cameras, and often a hand on the more exuberant of their offspring, just in case. They couldn’t fall in, not with the additional wall of glass between rail and water, but it was a reflexive gesture, and one Dylan approved of.


  Making his way from demonstration area to bluff, Dylan whistled quietly at Carrick. “C’mon, old man. Let’s earn our keep.” He rubbed a hand along Carrick’s speckled side, ending with a pointed push as Carrick’s eyes seemed intent on sneaking back shut.

  Carrick huffed in irritation, admitting Dylan was more likely correct. He wriggled to the edge of the bluff, mouth open as he gave the distinctive wheezing bark before sliding down into the water.

  Dylan took a minute to be envious of his charges, gliding effortlessly through the tank, touching here and there with fin and nose, holding lengthy conversations that the audience missed, before moving back to the center of the demonstration stage. He smiled at Karen, his show partner, as she entered through the well-hidden staff entrance, and turned on his microphone.

  “Good morning! And welcome to the seal show.” Ilane, familiar with the routine, made her way up into the shallow water at the edge of the stage.

  Dylan lifted a hand and Ilane mirrored the gesture with a flipper, rolling on her side to accommodate the motion, mouth gaping open in a mocking grin. Dylan tossed her a fish, ignoring the amusement glittering in her dark eyes as she swallowed and wriggled off the stage and back into the water.

  So clumsy on land, the seals were a delight to watch in the water. The crowd gathered to see them perform; sliding up onto the stage like Carrick was doing in response to a practiced gesture from Dylan. But the real show was in the tank where the girls swam complex patterns around each other, enjoying the feel of the water, exulting in the way the audience gaped at them in amazed enjoyment.

  Dylan kneeled down as Carrick hauled himself close, moving like a sort of aquatic caterpillar as he propelled himself with rippling muscles. The bull seal was old, and his size impressed the crowd. “This here is Carrick.” Dylan bent close, allowing Carrick to press a wet snout against his cheek. The audience clapped and laughed, but none laughed harder than Carrick, a dry rolling cough as he backed away, teasing and taunting with his expression. “Carrick is our old man, and quite taken with little Ilane.” A scatter of chuckles from the adults in the crowd greeted that statement as Dylan tossed Carrick the anticipated fish and watched as he carried it back into the water before turning his attention back to the crowd.