"Tell us a story, Da!" He laughs at the two sets of small arms clinging to him as he tries to deposit his sons on their bed for the night, rolling his own body over the mattress in a playful way in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge them. Instead, the little boys scramble on top of their father, pinning him down as they tickle at his chest with their quick fingers.

"Come on, Da!" Colm begs, tickling harder. "One story, please?"

Little Tam, still too small to form full sentences adds his own voice to the din, a song more musical than any their father ever heard sung in the Chantry. "Story, Da, story!"

Twitching against the nubile fingers, he finally grabs one boy under each arm, swinging them in a circle before depositing each small blue-eyed head on a pillow. "Under the covers, then, and I'll tell you a grand one." With grins of triumph, the two boys scramble into the bed, and he smoothes the down-filled quilts over them, then seats himself on the edge of the mattress, back against the post as he crosses his long arms over his chest in a thoughtful pose.

"Now this was a long time ago, my lads, long before the two of you were ever thought of. I was living as a lay brother in the Chantry in Kirkwall, but from time to time I would go out to the Wounded Coast after vespers to practice my shooting by the light of the stars. Well, what should happen one night, but I should see a selkie..."

Watch the ocean rolling in,
Moonlight tripping off the waves,
Along the bays.

Sight. Aim. Breathe. Release. With a thunk, the arrowhead buried itself in the thin crack between two boulders he was aiming at, leaving the shaft and fletches to quiver slightly in the soft silver glow of the midsummer moonlight. More than likely, he'd have been better off practicing somewhere safer, within Kirkwall proper at this hour of the night, but after so long trapped within the stone walls of the Chantry, listening to the sounds of summer as they floated through the thick doors and high windows, the wild boy of years past that still existed inside him was threatening to mutiny.

So, with the permission of the Grand Cleric, he'd swapped his fancy white armour with a simple set of brown hunting leathers and set off into the rising moon, to this lonely bay heavy with the clean scents of sea water and night blooming jasmine, stress and cares swept away with the ocean breeze, pulse dancing happily to the sound of a young seal barking with joy as it romped in the surf.

With a steady hand, Sebastian worked the arrow back and forth gently as he knelt down in the dry bracken, taking care not to damage either the head or the shaft. True, neither would be very expensive to replace, but then the shaft would not have been carved by his grandfather while teaching him, nor the head forged by the master smith of Starkhaven, with the crest of the royal house engraved on it. Such a silly thing, to mourn for a bit of wood, metal, and string, but he had to admit the ice around his heart had melted slightly since that girl, Hawke, brought his grandfather's bow back to him.

Down by the waves, the seal's barks changed to laughter, human laughter, and he froze on his knees in the grass, not believing his ears. But there it came again, not the loud, stuttered jabbering of an animal, but the pure, dulcet tones of a young woman, clearly enjoying herself. Carefully, he snuck to the edge of the bluff in a crouch to keep his head from being silhouetted against the blue-black void, and peered down at the shoreline. Rock-strewn sand glittered in the cold light of the midsummer moon, mirroring the star-strewn sky above and the equally radiant sea beyond; the long beach empty, as it had been an hour prior. No, wait - there, beside a bush heavy with fragrant coastal flowers, lay a large, dark bundle of some sort, almost like a messy tangle of discarded clothes... or a single discarded hide.

With the silence of a wraith, Sebastian slipped down the hillside, flitting from shadow to shadow like the deer who wandered the woods of his homeland in the cool dark of spring mornings. Unclasping the strap holding his bow and quiver over his tunic, the exiled prince lay them inside the small cave created by two of the monstrous boulders leaning against each other at the bottom of the cliff. Like a wary hunter he stalked the darkness beneath the overhang, but in truth he felt he should be scurrying like a mouse chasing after a lost piece of cheese, hoping to avoid notice of the cat.

Part of his mind was scolding him for the juvenile flare of glee within in chest at the thought of seeing one of the mystical sea creatures of Grandda's tales, but the rest was too caught up in the moment, fair glowing with excitement to know that, perhaps just this once, a childhood dream would come true. Slowly, he lowered himself to his hands and knees, crawling the last few spans to the bush, not daring to breath until his hands closed over the shadow he had seen from the top of the bluff.

Fine fur, almost like that of a rabbit, lay smooth and soft under his fingers, and as he dug down with his nails, he felt the leather-like skin underneath, still damp with sea water. With a rush of wings in his stomach, he traced his hands up to what he thought were small curved ears, then a short, square muzzle set with long wiry whiskers. Behind him came a large splashing sound, and he turned to see a dark head breaking the water, long strands of jet black tossed backwards to float around a face, small and pale in the moonlight. Small, and pale, and beautiful, and perfect. Gathering the skin to his chest, the archer-prince stood to face her...

A/N: Standard "I don't own Sebastian, BioWare does; I'm just playing with his mind" disclaimer. Lyrics are from "The Selkie" by Damh the Bard.