DISCLAIMER: Hetalia: Axis Powers – Hidekaz Himaruya

AND "The Maiden and the Selkie" – Heather Dale

THE BOY AND THE SELKIE

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please excuse my taking liberties with some character names & relationships. This short story was inspired by "The Maiden and the Selkie" by Heather Dale, as well as selkie folklore in general. It's also, technically, set in modern-day Norway, not Sweden or Finland, but that's a minor geographic inaccuracy I'm willing to overlook for the sake of a SuFin fairytale. :)

CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance):

SWEDEN — Berwald Oxenstierna

FINLAND — Tino Väinämöinen

NORWAY — Bjørn Thomassen

Berwald was a seal lord of the Oxenstierna herd, who lived in the icy Barents Sea. He had a tough, muscular body with a freckled complexion that mimicked his sleek spotted coat. He was a fast, strong swimmer, and a fearless predator with wicked canines for tearing and hard, serrated molars for crunching bone. He was a young male—twenty-years-old—healthy, handsome, and highly sought for a life-mate. But Berwald did not have a mate. Too shy to reject all of the interested females, he spent most of his time alone, distanced from the herd. Because of that, he had a reputation for being a stoic male, whom the females competed for, but who was secretly uninterested in anyone in the herd. He preferred to be alone. He started to believe that he was meant to be alone forever, until one cold winter night he saw a boy.

A human-boy.

And he fell in love.

Tino Väinämöinen was only seventeen-years-old when he went down to the water to drown himself.

It was night and it was cold. He took one last look over-the-shoulder at the small blue house on the hilltop, and then walked out onto the ice. He stepped carefully as it spider-webbed beneath him, afraid of falling in too soon, into water too shallow to drown in. He wanted to quickly suffocate, not slowly freeze in negative temperatures. He did not remove his winter coat or gloves or boots, hoping that the heavy weight would prevent him from floating. He did not want to have breath left to sputter and gasp. He wanted his lungs to fill with salty, arctic water and sink him to the bottom of the sea floor, where no one would find him until the tide washed his body ashore, bloated and disfigured.

When he reached an acceptable depth, a tear rolled down his rosy cheek. Then another. And another. His lip trembled childishly as he stabbed his heel into the ice and heard it crack. Another tear fell as water flooded his boots. Then another when he lost his balance and slipped, falling onto his knees with a startled outcry. The force of impact accomplished what his lightweight had not, and a moment later he found himself bobbing buoyantly in the darkness. His legs kicked in reflex and another tear rolled down his face before he remembered that this is what he wanted. He let himself go stiff and tried not to panic as the sea slapped his face, but not before one last tear fell into the water.

Tino saw the moon for what he thought would be the last time, then closed his eyes and his head submerged.

A moment later he was being lifted. His head broke the surface and he gasped. The cold burned his lungs. He was carried to shore in the arms of a tall, sturdy man, whose body was warm despite the water's chill. His footing was steady upon the rocks and gave no indication of being hindered by Tino's waterlogged weight. Tino pressed his cheek to the man's naked chest and heard his heartbeat, his tired eyelids falling closed again as the stranger's body swayed. It could have been a minute or an hour or a day; Tino could not tell. His head was numb. He felt the man kneel on the shore and then he was being cradled, his upper-body gently lifted. He felt the man's breath on his face and smelled his briny scent. He pressed himself closer to the dense, inhuman hide.

What happened? he wondered, forcing his eyes open. What is he?

Naked, that's what the man was. A long-limbed, muscular man draped in nothing but a spotted seal pelt. A man—a selkie—with the purest blue eyes Tino had ever seen.

"Did I die?" he whispered weakly.

"No," said the seal lord in a voice like deep water. "Do not fear, I will protect you."

Tino's lips parted to speak, to protest the rescue, but he did not have the strength. He fainted.

Tino's father found him in the early hours of quiet morning, on his way down to his fishing boat. A layer of ice coated the boat's wooden deck and Tino felt its bite against his cheek when his father threw him roughly down. It burned and scraped his cheekbone, but did not hurt as much as the shaft of his father's metal fishing spear as it struck his exposed skin. His father pulled up the boy's coat and sweater and walloped him until his back swelled with ugly red welts. Tino tried not to screech or cry, but the attempt was futile. Despite his high pain-tolerance, his father's angry brutality was merciless. He gave the boy a backhanded slap for crying. Men did not cry. Then he left Tino to right his clothes and crawl meekly to his feet, trying to wipe the tears from his violet eyes as fast as they filled and fell. He pulled up his fur-trimmed hood and began uncoiling a length of rope with shaking fingers. He did not speak to his father, and nor did the man speak to him. Both had seen the evidence of Tino's failed suicide, both of them knew why he had done it, but neither of them acknowledged it. Instead, Tino spent a long, cold, hungry day at sea with his massive, short-tempered father, whose body-language barked voiceless orders and smacked the boy when he misunderstood or did not obey quickly enough. By sunset, Tino's shivering hands were as red as his eyes, sodden from hauling in nets of fish, even through his thick gloves. His back ached so horribly that he stooped, and he received an ear-lashing from his mother upon their return.

"Stand up straight!" she reprimanded, batting his ear. He flinched in reflex, which provoked a lecture about how disappointed she was in her only child.

"Look at you, shaking like a reindeer calf! And half again as stringy! Call yourself a man, do you? I've gutted fish that put up more of a fight! There's five men for every woman out here, boy; you'd better toughen up if you want to fetch a wife. No woman's ever going to take you seriously looking and acting like a timid girl-child, yourself! Better shape up, or you'll be a better wife than a husband! Why can't you be like the other lads, fighting and chasing after the girls, eh?" she criticized, as if such boorish behaviour reflected a boy's assent into manhood; as if it proved him strong of character as well as body. "Do you know what all the other mothers say to me? Your son is so small and pale, is he unwell? They think you're ill! They pity me for having such a weak child! It's embarrassing!" she snapped, and hit him again. "Now eat—eat! Get bigger and grow a beard so the neighbours will think I've reared a son and not a daughter!"

"No," said his father, swiping the meal—boiled bread, dried cod, and pickled cabbage—from his wife's hand.

"He needs to eat and get stronger!" she argued.

"He can eat when he's earned it," said his father stonily, glaring at the small, pale boy he refused to call son.

Tino retreated from the tiny blue house and picked his way down to the water painfully slowly. His stomach growled, rivaling the pain in his back. If he was bigger and stronger and had a more aggressive temper he might have challenged his father. He was seventeen, a man by law. But as he was not big or strong or aggressive, a confrontation with his violent father would only leave him sorer and hungrier than he already was. Like everything else in his life, it was safer to ignore the bullying than try to change the bully. Instead, he spent much of his time outdoors, away from the house and his parents. Admittedly, it was much easier to flee from the hearth in the summer than the dark winter, but Tino was a beggar who took what solitary peace he could get. As he descended the steep incline—even injured he was as sure-footed as a mountain goat—a flutter of crisp snow began to fall. His breath came in puffs as he walked the shoreline, scooping up a handful of salt-smoothed pebbles and pitching them skillfully into the water. Four of the five skipped across the dark surface. In the distance he saw a stout tailfin dive and he shivered, wondering what it would be like to never feel the cold? What would it be like to have powerful tusks and teeth instead of hands too weak to fight back? What would it be like to dwell in the deep, dark Barents Sea? If he had been born with fins, then he could swim away into a life of endless freedom.

"You look melancholic," said a deep voice.

Startled, Tino slipped on a rock and landed with a shriek of pain.

The seal lord moved deftly for so large a man. He had knelt and scooped Tino into his arms before the boy could protest.

"You're injured," he said.

"Yes," Tino replied softly, stunned. He had not thought to see the seal lord ever again. He had already begun to convince himself that the beautiful man was no more than a figment of his perverted mind. "Please," he said, afraid of the man's touch, "put me down."

The seal lord sat Tino on a rock and then crouched in front of him, his blue eyes unblinking. It was then that Tino registered the man's nudity, wearing only a spotted seal pelt over his broad shoulders, and he blushed.

"You're a selkie," he said quietly, cautious of offending the sea-creature.

"Is that what you call us?"

Tino nodded mutely. He had heard tales of the seal-folk since he was a small child, and knew of the beguiling beauty and charm they possessed. Male selkies were described as being especially handsome in their human-forms, and young virgins—girls, of course—were often warned of their seductive powers. Selkie husbands were lustful beings, said the storytellers, and sought out unhappy human women to bed and breed. "But beware! For the selkie can only visit his bride once every seven years," the tellers warned, discouraging women who were dissatisfied enough in their marriages to seek a selkie husband for themselves. "Handsome and lustful as he may be, no human bride can follow her selkie husband into the sea." Tino did not know how much of the old folklore was true, but neither could he look away from the blue-eyed seal lord staring back at him.

"What is your name?" he asked, regarding Tino with considerable patience.

"Tino," Tino heard himself say, dazed. "Tino Väinämöinen."

"My name is Berwald, of the Oxenstierna herd. You are shivering," he added, removing his thick, spotted pelt and draping it over Tino's shoulders.

Tino tensed, but it was only a reflex, and as soon as the warmth enveloped him he relaxed. "Aren't you afraid I'll steal it?" he asked, self-consciously hugging the pelt around himself. It was soft and sleek and sat heavily upon his shoulders. It was known that if a selkie's pelt was stolen, the creature would be doomed to remain on land in human-form until it was returned; a tragedy for creatures who so cherished the sea. But Berwald merely blinked, as if the thought had never crossed his mind.

"No," he said without inflection. "I am not afraid of anything, and I do not think you would steal my pelt."

"Why not?"

"Because it would be cruel, and you do not have cruel eyes, Tino Väinämöinen. You have sad eyes."

"Is that why you're here?" Tino asked, a little defensive, "because I'm unhappy?"

"Maybe," Berwald admitted. "I do not know what drew me here to you, but I am glad it did. I have watched you for many nights now, and I have yet to see anyone more beautiful."

Tino blushed redder at the blunt compliment. "My looks are nothing for a man to be proud of," he dismissed, bowing his head.

"I would be proud of your beauty, if you were my mate," said the seal lord candidly. "But," he added, lifting Tino's chin; his hand was warm and firm and gentle, "I was not only referring to your looks."

Tino softened at the seal lord's words, his touch. He wanted to forget his painful penance and embrace his perversion, lean in closer, stay longer, but fear had schooled him for too long and instead he broke contact and stood.

"I have to go," he said, shamefully avoiding eye-contact. He wished that his heart was not beating so fast. He wished that he did not yearn for the intimate touch of other men. More than anything, he wished he was brave enough not to care about what the village and his parents believed, but he was a coward. He was afraid. So, rather than accept Berwald's compliment and unvoiced invitation, he reluctantly removed the seal lord's pelt and handed it back.

Berwald took it, brushing Tino's chafed fingers.

Tempted, Tino blurted: "Will I see you again?"

"If you want to," Berwald replied. His tone was matter-of-fact, but his expression was pleased. "I cannot walk on land as a human in daylight, and I cannot stay past midnight."

Tino knew this, too. A selkie who did not return to the sea by midnight would die.

"At sunset tomorrow then," he said, afraid of what he was asking even as he spoke. "Will you be here?"

Berwald nodded. "I will be here."

And so it was that every evenfall Tino left the tiny blue house and crept down to the water to meet the seal lord, with whom he was rapidly—secretly—falling in love.

"What's it like, living in the sea?" he asked, intrigued by the notion. He leant eagerly forward, ready to hear a tale, a song, a lecture, anything! but Berwald's reply was typically short:

"I like it," he reported benignly.

Tino rolled his eyes in amusement. He loved listening to the seal lord's deep voice when he talked of his herd and lifestyle, and he learnt a lot about selkies in the weeks that followed. He learnt that selkies were not as rare as he had thought, but were very difficult to distinguish in the sea because they lived integrated with seal herds. There was strength in numbers, and selkies, being the cleverer species, used the seals to distract predators and fishermen alike. The easiest way to tell a selkie from a seal, Berwald explained, was to witness the selkie shed his or her pelt and take a human-form. (Berwald was a very straightforward and literal man.) Nor was this as rare an occurrence as the folktales presumed, but selkies were shy by nature and avoided populated areas for fear of being tricked into a union with a human partner. Instead they chose quiet, secluded beaches to come ashore, mate, and give birth to their young. The pups were born human before adopting their seal-skin. And, like adults, pups that failed to transform before midnight died on shore. Tino was fascinated and wanted to know everything about selkie culture, but he felt invasive asking so many questions. He wished Berwald were a more loquacious man, but the seal lord never initiated conversation about himself. He preferred to talk about Tino, because he found Tino fascinating. Though, he mostly just stared expectantly at the boy, patiently awaiting the next question like a dog happily awaiting a command. It made Tino smile. He had never had anyone's undivided attention quite like this before, in a positive, affirming way, and it made him feel good. It made him feel like his words really mattered, silly and—sometimes—nervous as they were. It made him feel like he mattered.

One day, however, Berwald did ask a question, and it was the question that Tino was dreading.

They were sitting opposite each other on the icy beach with a small, crackling fire between them. It was just big enough to keep Tino's toes and fingers comfortable, since Berwald's thick skin was impervious to the cold. He had offered his pelt to the boy, but Tino politely declined. After Berwald dismissed the boy's concern—"I do not get cold"—he suggested the seal lord wrap the pelt around his waist to cover up his nudity, which was distracting and made Tino feel things he shouldn't. Berwald had merely cocked his blonde head. "Humans are very shy," he deduced, complying and covering his lower-body.

"Tino," he asked, staring straight at the boy while Tino's gaze stayed safely fixed on the fire (though, he stole bashful glances at the seal lord's fit body). "Why did you try to give yourself to the sea?"

Tino hugged his knees dolefully, and said: "It's my only escape."

A tense silence enveloped them, made quieter by the stillness of night. The only sound was the lapping water, echoing beneath the ice, and the whistling wind. Then, wordlessly, Berwald got up, circumnavigated the fetal bonfire, and sat down beside the despondent boy, dwarfing him. He angled his body to block the wind coming in off the water. And he said:

"From what?"

Tino pursed his lips. He could already feel tears welling-up in his eyes. "My heart," he admitted sadly, staring into the flames. "It's wrong. It wants something it shouldn't. Something it can't have."

Berwald's callused knuckle brushed a tear off Tino's cheek, then gently migrated to cup his jaw. "The sea did not give you these marks," he said, referring to the bruises on Tino's face, and implying the marks he had not seen but knew by the boy's flinching and yelps.

"No," he agreed.

"What did?"

"People who claim to love me," Tino spat, venom in his tone. "People who don't—won't—understand me."

"These marks were not made with love," said Berwald somberly.

"No," Tino repeated, embarrassed by his tears. He turned away to hide his face, his shame, but he could not fight the seal lord's strength and soon found his body wrapped in a careful embrace.

"Why?" Berwald asked, his voice low, his breath hot on Tino's ear.

"Because," Tino squeezed his eyes shut, letting his body go limp, "I did something I shouldn't have, and my parents found out. They saw me with a man... mating with another man," he said, deliberately using terminology that Berwald would not confuse. "He was a sailor. He left the next day, but I-I..." He paused, his voice trembling in shame. Berwald's big hand cupped the back of his head, protectively drawing him closer. "I had to stay," he finished on a sob. "I can't leave this place. I'm trapped."

"Your parents hurt you because you mated with a male? Why?"

"Because it's illegal. It's immoral," he recited miserably.

"Then why did you do it?"

Berwald's question took Tino off-guard, but he knew the answer, even if he had never admitted it out loud.

"I did it because I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not," he said honestly. "I'm tired of lying about who I really am and what I really want. I know it's wrong and wicked of me to feel the way I do. I know it's unnatural, and I've tried to correct it, I really have, but... the moment I saw him, and he smiled at me like I was someone special, I just... I knew I couldn't change. I knew I didn't want to change. That night, I wanted to follow my heart instead of my head. Just once."

"It is not wrong," said Berwald after a minute. He sounded stern. "Not if it is who you are. Not if it makes you happy. I do not know much about human customs, but—" he pulled back and lifted Tino's head so that pale violet met deep sea-blue—"you are not wicked, Tino Väinämöinen. You are the kindest soul I know.

"You are the human-boy I love."

I want to share something with you," said Berwald, cordially extending his hand. "Will you come?"

The seal lord may have been a stoic, silent man much of the time, but there was an ethereal charm about the way he moved and spoke; something that whispered of forgotten chivalry in the way he propositioned Tino, and Tino found himself believing the old folktales about the reputably seductive creatures.

"Yes," he said, and felt his heart quicken as he took Berwald's hand.

Tino dressed in his warmest clothes, because Berwald had said it would be cold where they were going. "I will keep you warm," he promised, but Tino took the precaution of an extra wool sweater and socks beneath his heavy outdoor clothes. He finished lacing his heavy boots just as the scent of pipe tobacco reached his cell of a bedroom. It was six o'clock in the evening, which meant his father would be smoking his pipe by the woodstove while his mother did the washing-up. Tino had only a limited time to disappear before she was finished, since their evening meal was lean and required only one cook-pot; then the old woman would be after something—someone—to criticize, and Tino was determined not to be there when she came looking. But nor could he leave by the convenience of the front door. If his parents saw him leaving after dark, they would assume the worst of their degenerate son, and Tino would be made to recite morality laws while suffering the sting of his father's leather belt.

So, instead, he quietly opened his shuttered window and climbed out, grateful for once for his small figure. He re-latched the shutters from the outside, an invention of his own, which his father had not yet noticed, and slipped into the cloudy night. At the water's edge, he took Berwald's hand and was embraced by the thrill of forbidden love and the joy and relief of escape.

Tino hadn't yet told Berwald he loved him. Not with words, anyway. Despite the seal lord's affection for him, he was too afraid to let himself act on it, traumatized by the consequences of his last forbidden tryst. But Berwald was more than a tryst and that scared him, too, because what would he do when Berwald finally left for good? Every night before midnight he was forced to return to the sea, and Tino feared more than anything that, one day, he would not come back. No matter how many adoring looks and tender touches passed between them, a selkie and a human boy could never be together. It was only a matter of time before summer peaked and the midnight sun prevented Berwald from visiting at all. Only a matter of time before the seal lord realized the truth of their circumstance and abandoned their hopeless romance.

Which is why I won't tell him, Tino thought, resigned to his fate. Words of love shared between them would only make their inevitable parting harder than it would already be.

Instead, Tino placated himself by holding tight to Berwald's hand as the seal lord led them out across the ice.

"Fear not," he said when Tino hesitated. "It is frozen solid. I will not let you fall."

Tino let his boots slide cautiously across the ice, covered in a sparse layer of powdery snow. A gentle breeze swept across the water, whistling, yet he did not feel afraid. In fact, he felt less exposed here on the open sea than he did in the village.

"I think you will like this," Berwald said, helping Tino onto an iceberg trapped in the frozen froth.

It was tall and wide and shaped like a mountain-range with smooth, sloping sides and sharp peaks. Tino had trouble staying his balance on the slippery surface and clung tight to Berwald, who smiled, pleased to be of service, even as a walking-stick. When they reached the centre, Berwald lifted Tino onto a ledge, so that he was standing in an alcove of ice surrounded on all sides by organic shapes, not unlike glass sculptures.

"I can't believe something like this is real," he smiled, turning in a circle and watching his reflection change.

"Wait," said Berwald, and he pointed to the sky.

Tino waited patiently for a minute, then two. He glanced inquiringly at Berwald, but the seal lord's face was as impassive as ever, his head lifted skyward, his eyes unblinking in concentration. Tino stole an indulgent look for as long as he dared, admiring Berwald's sculpted face, his straight-cut jaw and vibrant features despite pale skin. He had hair like gold thread, rich even in darkness, and iridescent eyes that hooked Tino like a fish. Over the weeks, he had learnt more about Berwald by his actions and posture and instincts than from his words. He was a physical being who seemed to save his words, which were always honest and meaningful, never empty or shallow. The sailor whom Tino had mated with had called him beautiful, and the village girls whispered to each other, jealous of his smooth skin and round features, but he had never believed any of it until he had heard it from Berwald. The seal lord was blunt and did not lie. "You are beautiful, Tino," he said simply, oblivious to the effect his words had on the self-conscious boy. Tino had stared at his reflection in his tarnished looking-glass afterward, looking past the signs of abuse and instead seeing his soft fairness as something to be proud of for the first time in his life. In that moment, he did not care that he did not look like the other boys, the other men, in the village, because Berwald did not care. He forgot how awful he felt in a crowd, effeminized by the men and emasculated by the women, because labels did not matter to Berwald. He had never once compared Tino's appearance to anything else. He simply called Tino beautiful for what he was: himself.

I love how honest he is, he thought. I never have to second-guess him or myself when I'm with him. I love that I don't have to hide.

"The wind will change soon," Berwald said, interrupting Tino's contemplation. The sky was dark and cloudy.

Soon was a rather subjective term, Tino decided, but he did not mind the quiet wait. He sat cross-legged, and asked: "How did you find this place?"

"I like to explore. There are many wondrous secrets in the world if you look closely enough, but nobody does. I will show you more someday."

If only you could. I would follow you anywhere. Tino felt a sharp pang in his heart. Aloud, he said: "Yes, I'd like that. I'd like to see more of the world. I think I—"

His words fell away midsentence, because the wind had changed as promised, blowing the clouds southward, and he was now sitting in a crystalline cavern of bright, vibrant colour. The Northern Lights shone vividly, bathing the ice and reflecting off every jutting, sloping, twisting surface. Tino's face was alight with colour; Berwald's too, like two canvases streaked with paint. It felt like they were in the sky, inside the Lights, themselves.

Tino laughed in joyful disbelief.

Berwald smiled, and said: "You have a wonderful laugh, Tino. I am glad you like it."

"I do!" Tino gushed. He stood on the ledge, a few inches taller than the seal lord, now, and placed both hands on Berwald's broad shoulders. He stretched his body upward and arched his back, tipping his head and laughing like an infatuated child. He felt the bright, cold lights on his face and the seal lord's warm hands securely upon his waist. Slowly, his smile matured into a smaller, softer curl, no longer the open-mouthed delight of a child, but puckered like someone expecting a kiss. His body seemed to move of its own volition. He bowed his head a fraction and lowered his eyes to meet Berwald's, seeing him through a film of pale eyelashes staring tenderly back, his gaze fixed and smiling. Tino's heart leapt into his throat, not for fear or nerves, but in anticipation. The closeness of their bodies excited him like he had envisioned it would, and, suddenly, he was eager to fall into the fairytale temptation. What harm could it do? Who else existed in this magical place? This is unreal. The thought breached somewhere in the foggy depths of his mind. His eyelids fell closed as he leant forward, down. This is a dream. This can't truly be happening...

And then it was. His puckered lips met the seal lord's, kissing him, and Berwald was kissing back. The tiniest whimper of disbelief escaped the boy, then his hands were cupping the seal lord's sculpted jaw, pulling him closer to deepen the contact. One of Berwald's hands slid down to the back of Tino's thigh while the other slid up over his back, the long fingers splayed as if trying to hold the expanse of Tino's whole figure at once. A brief, gasping break and then the kiss resumed, the soft tentativeness of experiment melting into wanton desire. Tino's foot slipped on the ice and he fell forward, his chest crashing against Berwald's, whose grip tightened. His animal canines cut the boy's lip. "I am sorry—" he started, pulling away, but Tino barely acknowledged the fleeting pain. "No," he gasped, drawing the seal lord back. "It's fine. I don't care," he whispered. I don't care about anything else but you. In proof, he coiled his arms around Berwald's neck and moaned helplessly as the seal lord lifted him off his feet.

"I love you," Berwald rumbled, holding the boy in his arms.

Tino felt himself break, overwhelmed by the flood of feelings Berwald's confession provoked. He had heard the words before, but not like this; never like this.

He buried his face against Berwald's shoulder and hugged him, afraid to let the seal lord see the tears in his eyes; afraid of the whispered words that, trembling, spilled out:

"I-I—I love you, too."

I love you," Berwald repeated. "I would have you for my wife, Tino."

"And I would be your wife if I could," Tino replied, unashamed, "but I can't."

Berwald's face tightened. "Why?" he asked, painfully perplexed. He did not understand. "Is it because of your human-laws?"

Tino jerked his head. "Hang the laws!" he spat vehemently. "I don't care anymore. I'm done pretending, no one believes me anyway. I won't waste another breathe begging love from people who hate me.

"It's not the laws," he explained, gentler, "it's the sea. I'm just a human. I would drown beneath the waves if I went away with you."

Berwald's expression softened, as if he had forgotten the fact of Tino's human mortality. The realization of it looked sad on his face, misplaced. But it was soon replaced by a swift, matter-of-fact decision. A creature guided by instinct—emotion—he did not linger indecisively. He felt, then acted; there was no thought in between.

"Then I will stay with you," he proposed, squaring his shoulders in a way that betrayed his animal nature. It was the entitled toss of a lion's mane, the powerful swipe of a stallion's hooves, the bloated chest of a silverback facing a rival, not aggressive, but an alpha self-assured of his place and purpose. "I will be your husband on land tonight," he said, "and we can—"

"Be together once every seven years?" Tino interrupted before Berwald could further tempt him. He looked the seal lord in the eye and shook his head. "I would die of loneliness waiting for you," he said honestly. "And if I was ever made to marry in your absence, I—" A sob choked him and he buried his face in his hands. "I couldn't bear it," he whispered.

"Then how can we be together as selkie and human-boy? Tell me," Berwald begged, his confidence fled. "Tell me and I will make it so."

Tino deflated against his touch. The sincerity of Berwald's words hurt his heart, because the cruelty of reality strangled the hope he should have never let himself feel.

"No," he squeaked pitifully, "you can't."

Bravely, he lifted his head and looked upon the seal lord's handsome face. He would never forget that face as long as he lived.

"I love you, Berwald, but we just can't be together."

To be his wife, Tino thought as he climbed the icy slope. Berwald had left him on the shore, then disappeared into the dark water at the stroke of midnight, diving beneath the waves that would crush the life from Tino if he were to follow. But, oh! How wonderful it would be if he could! To leave this horrible, desolate place; this life of cowardly hiding from the laws and abuse, and instead live forever with the man—the selkie—he had fallen helplessly in love with. To be his wife, his life-mate, would be a dream come true, he knew, trying to find the irony funny. His mother's scathing words rang in his ears: "you'll make a better wife than a husband!", but he could not feel guilty or ashamed about it, because it no longer cut him like an insult. Now, it ballooned his heart. To be his wife...

But no smile was forthcoming, only tears. He felt the sour certainty of abandonment as he distanced himself from the water, then the familiar weight of loneliness. It was a loneliness he had lived with for so long already. He had not noticed its absence in Berwald's presence, too preoccupied by other, stronger emotions, but now he felt the tide of its delayed returned, and it hurt all the more for having known true happiness, if only briefly.

He could still feel Berwald's careful hands on him as he slowly unlaced and unbuckled his outerwear, letting it fall to his bedroom floor. But he did not stop. He pulled off his indoor clothes, too, despite the chill, and then his underclothes, quietly running his fingers over the slopes of his bruised body like the seal lord had never touched skin-to-skin. He regretted that, as much as it hurt to think about. Just once, begged his unsated desire; urged by selfish longing or the beguiling spell of selkie lore, he didn't know. He only knew what his head and soul and body wanted, and it was to offer himself to the seal lord like husband and wife, even once. Only the ache in his heart stopped him and ceased his roaming hands, because once was all it could ever be.

Once is what would kill him if he let it.

Tino was deep asleep and dreaming of soft, sleek furs and sea-blue eyes when they came for him.

Hands, a dozen of them, crass and callused, closed around his defenceless limbs and hauled him up, carried him like a struggling forest beast, and cast him, nude, into the snow. The shock of it vitalized him, waking the primal instinct that existed in all living creatures—the desire, beyond all else, to survive. The mob were big and bearded and wearing the armour of clothes, men like bears, but Tino threw himself into the fight as wildly as any cornered prey. A punch, a kick. He gnashed his teeth, wielded his fingers like claws, but still they overpowered him; still he was nothing but an uprooted sapling breaking against the howling wind. If he were bigger, or stronger—if he had tusks and fins—!

"That was the last time you sneak out of this house," said a steely voice.

Tino looked into the wind-burnt face of his formidable father and knew once and for all that he was not loved but hated. There was no regret or compassion in the man's stare, no indication that the beaten boy in front of him was his own flesh and blood. He would have left Tino to freeze in the night, if he could. Nothing but the preservation of his own immortal soul urged mercy in him. Nothing but the morality laws he forced upon his degenerate son stilled his strangling hands and reminded him that murder yielded eternal punishment.

"Forgiveness," lectured the priest, somewhere beyond Tino's vision.

Tino's father held his gaze for a moment longer, then released the boy's fragile throat.

Tino coughed and gasped. He brought a shaking hand to his neck, foolishly thinking the abuse was over. But he was wrong. The priest continued to speak:

"Atonement for your sins. Absolution for your soul," he said in a tired monotone.

"Beat it out of him," translated a less theological voice.

"It's for his own good," said another.

His father said nothing.

Tino's struggles were quelled, his fire snuffed. He fell into a frightened ball, crying and yelping as they struck him and held him down, splayed his limbs, and molested him with objects that bit and bruised, tore and tormented. He would have screamed, if he could.

The voices did not stop. Every abuse was named, explained. The beating's accompanying lecture was drilled with fists and boots into the boy by men who excused their cruel hunger by calling it a necessary violence. It was not savagery, nor fear and self-hate that guided them. They were civilized men—proper, unperverted men, unlike the boy they sought to save from his wicked self. Their actions were brutal and damaging, but they had to be for the boy's own good. He must remember this night, this pain, and associate it always with his debauchery. It was a courtesy that they left scars on him to prevent future acts of indecency. A body was a fragile and temporary thing; it was the boy's soul that would be saved.

Tino was glad when darkness finally descended upon him. He went quiet and still. Someone jerked his head up and tried to open his eyes—"are you listening, boy?"—but it was useless. The voices faded out of Tino's reach. The darkness was numb and peaceful, the death he had gone searching for upon the icy sea. He had yearned for it then, a quiet end to his lonely, loveless life, but no longer. As the darkness closed itself around him, a coffin of nothingness, leaving him paralyzed in the snow he could no longer feel, surrounded by predators he could no longer see or hear, he tried to fight it. He tried to move, tried to speak.

No, please... he forced the thought. He summoned a picture of Berwald, his strong, handsome seal lord; the man who would have been friend and lover and husband to him in a different world, a different life. He thought of the brief happiness he had known and grief flooded him, because it was not enough.

It was not enough.

Please, he begged, bargained, prayed.

Don't take me away from him...

Berwald waited on the rocky shore, standing in the lapping, starlit surf. One hand gripped his spotted pelt; the other was fisted in determination.

Tino had refused his marriage proposal, but the seal lord was not discouraged. Disappointed, yes, but he had not been thinking of Tino's well-being when he had made it. He had neglected to consider the boy's feelings, as well as his own. Seven years was much too long to live apart for the promise of one passionate night. It would be too hard for him to swallow his appetites and ignore the natural urge to claim the boy; too tempting to stay with him and endanger himself; and, worse yet, too depressing to think that the magic of his selkie blood might prevent him from wanting to return before the seven years had passed. Selkie husbands returned to their human-wives for the purpose of breeding, nothing more, but with Tino he wanted more; he felt more already. He did not even care that he could not breed Tino, because it was enough just to love him. Nothing was more important to him than the boy's happiness and well-being. So, if Tino's humanity prevented them from being together in the sea, then Berwald would do his best to make him happy on land. He disliked the dangerous shore—he was too shy, as was typical of his species—but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for the human-boy he loved. If he never saw the sea again, but traded it, instead, for Tino's smile, it would be worth it.

Berwald waited on the shore to tell Tino this, ready to give the gift of his pelt to prove his commitment.

If Tino cannot live as a seal, then I will live as a human-man.

He would accept no excuses from Tino. No lies or fears or worries, especially not for the seal lord's safety. It was his decision to make, his sacrifice, and he would do it, because Tino was worth it.

"I have never been in love before," he said aloud, practicing. "And I will never be in love again."

He squared his shoulders and stood taller—strong, proud, dominant. He waited patiently for Tino to appear on the rise and climb carefully down the slope to the beach. He waited for their eyes to meet in the moonlight and for Tino to smile beautifully at him, his satin-soft lips curled into that sweet smile Berwald loved; the smile he would do anything to preserve. His fingers flexed, remembering the shape of the boy's body, stuffed into layers of clothes, and wondering what he would look like and feel like stripped of every article. He paced the shoreline to distract himself, practicing the words he would say, muttering the clumsy human speech so that he did not get it wrong. There could be no doubt of his intentions. He would say it plainly, as straightforward as possible:

"Tino, long have I loved you. Please take my pelt and accept me as your life-mate. I love you and I want to be your human husband. I will stay beside you forever and never go back to the sea."

He nodded, satisfied with the words he had carefully chosen. Words he had troubled over for days, weeks, months even, without realizing it.

Words he never got to speak.

Berwald waited and waited, day after day, sunset after sunrise, patiently and hopefully returning each spring evening to the rocky shore-land, but Tino never came.

Tino lay motionless on his bed, staring up, watching the afternoon fade into early-evening. The shadows on his ceiling were his only clue of the time. He did not know what day it was—the daylight was slowly stretching, the shadows shier to emerge every night; winter melting into spring, spring blooming into summer—but he did not care. He did not care that the drudgery of village life was being lived outside his window; he had never wanted to be a part of it anyway. He had always felt like he did not belong—had been made to feel unwelcome at every opportunity. Not that he would ever have to worry about integration or ostracism again, because his parents would never free him. He was their prisoner, now. He was their shame, their punishment, the priest had said, a living reminder of their failure as parents.

Tino laughed, a dry, throaty chuckle that tickled a cough.

He was cold and hungry and thirsty, but he pushed all of that aside and closed his eyes. He felt dizzy and his body ached and ropes squeezed his chafed wrists, but he ignored it. He thought of Berwald and of the Northern Lights and of how much he had enjoyed kissing him. If he concentrated, he could still feel the press of the seal lord's firm lips to his; the taste of his tongue; the touch of his nose. It hurt to remember, but it was the only thing his parents could never take away from him, so he was damn well going to cherish it. It was his one last act of defiance. They could beat him, restrain him, starve him, blind him, mute him, but they could never steal the memories inside of him. He knew it, and they knew it, and they hated him for it.

Again, Tino laughed. It scratched his raw throat, pained his chest, but he did not stop. The herculean effort left him exhausted, but his voice had filled the lonely silence.

Only when he stopped laughing did he feel the tears on his cheeks.

Berwald surveyed the slope. He flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders, placed a bare foot on the incline. He had never ventured beyond the beach before, but he did not look back now. He climbed with purpose, sinking his weight into the earth to steady his balance and propel himself upward. He paused at the top, but only briefly. The small blue house, wheezing wood-smoke from the chimney, looked just as Tino had described: a square box with a leaky, lopsided roof shedding shingles. Berwald stalked toward it through splatters of slush. He was barefoot and bare-chested, but he had found a pair of trousers to cover himself from hips to ankles, remembering Tino's coyness at his nudity. His spotted pelt hung over his shoulders, the fur pale against the sunflower-gold of his windblown hair. He looked like a ruggedly handsome castaway, though he did not know it. A frail woman—Tino's mother, the cow of the family—shrieked when she saw him, dropped a pitcher, and retreated inside. A moment later, a large bull—Tino's father—emerged carrying a metal weapon.

"Not another step," he barked, lifting the barrel to his face.

Berwald stopped, not because he was afraid, but because he preferred to avoid needless violence. As a seal lord in the waters, he only fought when his person or property was being threatened, never to assert dominance, and never for entertainment, as so many young bulls did. He was half-a-head taller than Tino's father, besides, and he had the benefit of inhuman hide and muscle, and teeth as hard as tusks. It would not be a fair fight if negotiation failed.

"Tino," he said, loud but not a shout; stern but not hostile.

"I'll say this only once," the man warned, "you're not welcome here, none of you degenerates are. Go before I fill you with lead."

Berwald stared. "Tino," he repeated, stricter. "Where is he?"

"He's not your business!" shouted the woman, glaring from inside. "Just stay away from him! It's your fault—yours!" she insisted. "He's damaged because of you!"

Berwald hadn't the faintest clue what she was talking about, but nor did he care. Her word-choice concerned him. Tino, damaged? Is that why he had not come to the shore in so long, because he was injured?

"Where is he?" he pressed, resuming his advance. He did not trust the guilty high-pitch of the woman's voice.

A sound—metal being shifted and locked—and then the man's voice: "I'll shoot."

It was the threat of a bull guarding his territory, a concept that Berwald understood, but a warning he did not heed. Tino was inside that little blue house, damaged, maybe injured, and if Berwald had to force himself inside, then he would.

The weapon discharged, but its wielder had lost his nerve at the last moment and jerked it sideways. It was a shot meant to scare, not kill. And it might have done, if Berwald were a human-man, but he wasn't, and he had never had reason to fear human weapons before. The bullet grazed his shoulder and stung. He hissed and flinched at the explosive noise, but fear did not seize him. It confused him, and angered him. His reticent features tightened, and his eyebrows drew together in a disapproving scowl, hands curling into fists at his sides. His top lip pulled back from his teeth, displaying his canines in a show of aggression.

He was upon the frantic man in a single, long-legged stride, ripping the weapon from his gnarled hands. He threw it aside, then elbowed past he and the woman. The force of his entrance pushed them back—humans, so weak. Their bones were aged and brittle, weathered by too many winters and too few meals. He would not let Tino become like them, a withered waif of his beautiful self. The woman's shrill shouts echoed, calling Berwald names he did not understand. Her voice would call forth others, more men with explosive weapons, it was only a matter of time. He had to find Tino quickly and remove him from this dangerous place of ugly words and suspicious eyes.

"Tino!" he called, even as he opened the bedroom door. (The three-room house did not take long to search.)

He stepped inside. And froze.

The fragile human-boy lay upon a bed, bruised and broken. He wore a nightshirt, but nothing else to fend off the chill; nothing to hide the evidence of abuse.

Berwald thought of Tino's other, preliminary marks and the boy's words, his sad face, when he had said they were given by people who claimed to love him.

These are not marks of love, he thought, now, consumed by an anger he had never felt before. He had never wanted to hurt anyone so violently.

He turned from the sight of Tino, pulled by protective instinct to kill the threat to his precious life-mate, but Tino's soft voice stopped him inches from the door.

"Berwald," he said. It was a raw, rasping sound unlike his honeyed voice. But his eyes were Tino's eyes, and his smile was Tino's sweet smile.

"Yes," Berwald answered, kneeling at the bed.

"You're here. You shouldn't be here," Tino worried. "It's too dangerous. Your pelt—the guns." His words were fragmented, but his panic was plain. "You must go before—"

Berwald pressed his hand to Tino's mouth, covering it. "Not without you," he said.

Before Tino could protest, Berwald gripped the ropes binding the boy to the bed, and ripped them apart. The sudden jerk made Tino flinch, which Berwald was sorry for, but the incredulity—the impressed awe—on his fair face nearly made him smile. He collected Tino's clothes and helped him dress, then scooped the human-boy into his arms.

"They'll see us," Tino said, clutching the seal lord's shoulders. "They'll shoot you. They'll kill us both."

"I will take you far away from here," Berwald said, a stark statement, as if he had not heard Tino's warning. "I will not let them harm you again."

Tino's fingers dug weakly, yet determinedly into Berwald's skin. "Aren't you afraid?" he asked quietly.

Berwald looked down at the human-boy in his arms. "I have never been afraid of anything in my life," he said honestly, "but now I am afraid of losing you.

"I love you, Tino. I will stay upon your shore-land, even if it robs me of my life. I will protect you, and stay by your side. I will be your husband even if it means my death."

Wait," said Tino as they exited the house. He gestured to a copse of trees, shallow cover from the village. A mob would be gathering, and he and Berwald would die if they were found. The village law-speakers would call it an accident of the chaos, even if it wasn't, and the priest would absolve the murderers of the crime, even if he shouldn't, but Tino put all of that out-of-mind for a moment. There were things he needed to know, needed to say.

"Put me down," he asked, and Berwald reluctantly did.

Tino swallowed a grimace when his feet touched the ground, but his legs held his weight. It was painful, but his body was well-tempered to abuse. It was not big or strong, but it knew the mechanics of getting up and moving on.

"Lord," he spoke formally, using Berwald's title for the first time, "I cannot wed you just to watch you die. I won't endanger you, and I won't force a living-death upon you. I won't take you from the sea."

"Tino, I—"

"I won't be left a widower," he said fervently, "but"—he paused—"I-I-I—I do have a plan."

Lying alone in his bedroom, accompanied by nothing but memories and dreams, he had had a lot of time to consider the consequences of such a risky plan, if they ever got the chance to employ it. A plan that was, potentially, more fatal than facing the angry mob.

Berwald's blue eyes were aglow with renewed hope. "A way for us to be together? Tell me," he said.

Tino took a deep breath. "There's a witch who lives by the sea," he admitted. "He was exiled long ago, before I was born, before my parents were born. It's said he practices a terrible magic, dangerous and unwholesome, but if anyone knows some trick or treasure to help us, it's him."

Berwald's brow creased. "Why have you not spoken of this witch before?"

Tino looked down, felt ashamed of himself, and looked back up. He faced Berwald, and said: "Because I was afraid.

"I'm still afraid," he added, before Berwald could ask, "but I don't care anymore. You risked yourself to save me. You were willing to sacrifice everything to be with me. You've proven yourself to me time and time again. Now, let me prove my love to you. I want to do this, Berwald. Trusting a witch might be a mistake, but if there's even a chance we can live together, I want to try."

The witch lived in a stout cottage by the sea, surrounded on all sides by jutting rocks. Water broke violently upon the salty stone, but the cottage, somehow, remained dry.

Tino and Berwald did not. By the time they reached the elevated door, they had both been peppered by sea-spray and Tino shivered. He raised his fist to knock, afraid it would not be heard over the loud crash of water and the cry of gulls, but the door opened before he even touched it.

A young man stood before them.

"Oh," said Tino, taken aback. "I'm sorry, is your... grandfather home?"

The man's eyes were heavy with black kohl, creating the illusion of a mask, but they were violet, like Tino's. His skin was alabaster, and his blonde hair was a mane of tangled braids upon his head. He wore a fur-trimmed cloak that trailed on the floor, and adornments made of bone and salt-smoothed glass. He had white marks on his skin that were almost invisible—tattoos, or scars? which scored a delicate neck and bony, yet artful fingers. He looked wild, a child of sea and snow, but there was no hiding his ethereal beauty. And youth. With the furs and cosmetics he looked like a god of the Old Religion, power steeped in mystery, but without the costume he was just a boy, like Tino, with big bright eyes and skin stretched taut and smooth over unbent bones, and decades too young to be the witch they sought.

"You've come seeking my help," he said, toneless. It wasn't welcome or unwelcome; there was no inflection of emotion in his voice, nor any change in his flat expression.

Tino exchanged a glance with Berwald. "Is this not the home of the—the village exile?" he stuttered, afraid of the word witch.

"It is."

"Then you—?"

A sharp, fey-like grin curled the young man's lips. "Am older than I look," he finished. "Come in. My lord," he added, inclining his head to Berwald. "I've been expecting you."

The interior of the cottage was unexpectedly cozy, warmer and friendlier than Tino's house—if he ignored the bottled things cluttering the shelves. The floors were draped in furs and woven rugs, a kettle steamed, filling the space with a floral scent, and a fire danced merrily in the hearth. An old elkhound watched them through intelligent black eyes, but did not lift its head in greeting. The witch whirled back inside, his cloak sweeping the wooden floor. He did not invite his guests—customers—to sit, so they stood quietly together beneath a low ceiling that forced Berwald to tilt his head.

"Please," Tino broke the heavy silence. (Silence? Why could he no longer hear the sea crashing outside?) He abandoned caution, no longer afraid of prejudice, and beseeched the exiled witch, trusting—hoping for—his mercy. "Is it possible for a human and a selkie to be wed? Is there any way for him to stay on land past midnight and not die?"

"No," said the witch, turning to face them.

Tino searched his angular, blackened face and cryptic eyes, as perceptive as the dog's, but there was no lie. The witch was telling the heartbreaking truth.

Tino felt Berwald's hand on his shoulder, squeezing, and he pursed his lips against a sob.

It can't be, he thought sadly. We can't have come all this way for nothing. I can't live without him now that I've found him. I can't—

"Lord," said the witch, yellow firelight licking his face, "I know not how to aid you, for you kind can never live on shore. The dawn will suck the strength from you, steal the life from your body, and leave you naught but sea froth to wash upon the ice."

Tino closed his eyes. The witch's harsh words were daggers in his heart. Beside him, Berwald's body deflated.

Then—a chuckle.

"But," said the witch teasingly. Tino looked to find his expression changed, no longer a cruel mockery of their hope, but now the face of wicked approval. "I will tell you a secret," he smiled. "My mother once owned a seal pelt that she buried beneath the great elfin oak in the forest, and she told me that it's wearer—" his pale eyes captured Tino, "—would become a selkie.

"He cannot live on shore, but you, Tino Väinämöinen, can become a creature of the sea."

Tino gasped. "Where is it?" he blurted. "Please—tell us!"

"Inland," the witch disclosed, "far inland, deep in the forest. You'll risk death to find it," he said, ignoring the couple's eagerness. "And you'll never make it back to the sea by midnight if you don't leave now."

Berwald stumbled; his shoulder slammed into a tree and a branch broke.

"Berwald!" Tino rushed to his side.

"I am fine," he wheezed. His face was fish-belly white and glossy with sweat, and his chest was undulating in deep bursts, stretching his ribcage through his skin. His limbs, when Tino reached him, were shivering.

"You're not fine," he said, taking the seal lord's arm. "You're weak. You're too far from the sea. We should go back—"

"I am fine," Berwald grumbled, carefully but firmly removing himself from Tino's crutch. "We must find that pelt tonight. You cannot go—" he grimaced, "—back to the village."

He hefted the shovel and forced himself to continue, leading Tino deeper into the forest. Tino felt conflicted, but hurried after the seal lord. He took the shovel from him and shouldered it, sparing Berwald from the added strain. They trudged through the dark for over an hour until, finally, they reached the elfin oak, a huge, ancient tree stretching its limbs toward the starlit sky. It was bright and cloudless. Tino hunched under the rising of the full-moon and stabbed the spade between the tree roots, guided by instinct to unearth the treasure they sought. Berwald stood nearby, his body sagging and braced against the trunk. Tino quickened his pace and could have cried with relief when the spade struck a box. He yanked it up, tore at the fraying ropes, and removed the lid. Inside, folded with care, was a soft, silver seal pelt. He drew it out, squeezed it between his gloveless fingers, then draped it over himself like a shawl. He stood and faced Berwald.

Berwald, who was smiling at him.

"You are so beautiful," he said, slow and soft. Then he fell to his knees.

"It's okay, my love. I'm here," Tino said, kneeling. He left the shovel and took Berwald's upper-body into his arms. "Come on." He pulled with all his pitiful strength, taking the seal lord's weight. "We're going to make it," he said as they began the arduous journey back to the coast.

"Tino—you should—g-g-go," Berwald gasped. "Go—to the—s-s-ea. Take the—p-p-pelt. Escape."

"Not without you," Tino said sternly, recycling Berwald's words. He, too, was breathing hard in exertion. "I'm not leaving you. We're going to escape together."

"Tino—the moon."

Tino looked upward and saw the opalescent moon hanging suspended between the branches. It had changed position, nearing its meridian in the sky. It was almost midnight.

"Come on, love, we're close—we're so close," he said, more to himself. He could smell the sea, hear it lapping at the beach.

"Tino—"

Berwald's knees hit the ground, dragging Tino down with a painful yelp.

"No—no, no, get up, love. Please," Tino urged, trying to coax the seal lord up, then jamming his arms under Berwald's and pulling, dragging his legs through the sodden earth. One step, two, then—

A gun, loaded and lifted.

"If you don't get away from that man," snarled his father, "then I will shoot you, too."

Tino glared past the wicked bayonet and gun barrel into his father's dark, hateful eyes, but he did not feel intimidated. For the first time, he did not shake or cower. He was no longer a frightened reindeer calf; he was about to become a brave, free creature of the sea, and he would not let his father stand in his way. Not now, or ever again. He stood taller and faced the man who had been his living nightmare for seventeen miserable years, and he said:

"No."

Then he ran. Before his father could react, Tino charged at him and threw his whole weight into a tackle that dropped them both. He wrestled the gun away, his raw, desperate fingers jerking it out of his father's slippery gloves. "I am not afraid of you!" he yelled, wielding the stock like a club. He blocked his father's flailing fists and slammed the butt down. "I've found someone who loves me and I'm going away with him and I will not let you stand in my way!"

"You!" the man growled, nose and teeth bloody. "You are an abomination! You are no man! And you are no son of mine!"

"Good!" Tino screamed. It felt unbelievably good to hear those words—those debasing, disowning words that were his jailor's surrender, finally releasing him.

He lifted the gun and twisted it so the barrel faced his father, the bayonet flashing brightly, and watched the man's face pinch with disbelief, then fear. It was invigorating. It was everything that Tino had ever wanted to see since the first time his father struck him as a child. He was breathing hard through his teeth, but his lips curled into a smile. He wrung the gun between his hands, his heart pounding, screaming revenge. It would be so easy to fire, or stab the bayonet into his father's flesh and watch him bleed-out, watch the life leave his eyes.

I can do it! he thought, even as a sob racked his chest. I can kill him—end him! I can—

"Ah!" he screamed, and stabbed the bayonet into his father's hood. It grazed his cheek and pinned him to the ground.

"I am not like you," he said proudly. "I will never be like you."

Just before the stroke of midnight, the seal lord and human-boy slipped into the sloshing Barents Sea.

Tino dragged Berwald into the surf and placed his spotted pelt over him, which seemed to revive him. He lay still in the water for a moment, then stirred and stood, rising like something imbued with ancient power. He looked so sure and handsome in the moonlight that Tino paused, seeing the seal lord for the first time all over again, seeing him as he had on that fateful winter night: as something unattainable, the whispered yearning of a lonely boy's heart; the wish he had dreamt, but never known; and indulging in the inhuman sight with his human eyes for the very last time. Then he, too, waded into the water. He donned the silver seal pelt, pulling it up over his head, and felt the selkie magic flood his body, seeping into his soul. He shed a layer of clothes with each step, letting the tide take it all until he stood naked, hip-deep in the water, but he did not feel the cold. A warmth surged through him, strengthening him. The cuts and bruises on his skin paled to harmless scars and he stood taller, no longer bowed by abuse. He threw his head back and closed his eyes, then reopened them bigger and brighter and nocturnally luminescent; he felt a fleeting ache in his gums and clenched his hardening teeth; his body involuntarily arched and jerked, his bones cracked, and a breathless groan escaped him. Then he fell forward with a splash.

"Berwald," he gasped.

"I am here," said the seal lord's kind, deep-water voice. He took Tino's trembling, transforming body in his arms and held him close. "I will always be here.

"I love you, Tino," he promised.

"I love you, too, my selkie lord."

The soft words puffed in the night as he exhaled the last breath of his human mortality.

Then the two selkies, as husband and wife, walked hand-in-hand into the waves and disappeared.

THE END

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