2022.01.05:Sealing The Selkie
| Sealing The Selkie | |
|---|---|
| Kaitlyn and Oswald respond to a surge of glamour down at the beach and find a new Selkie. | |
| IC Date | January 5, 2022 |
| IC Time | 11:00pm |
| Players | Kaitlyn, Oswald and Marina |
| Location | The Shoals |
| Spheres | Changeling |
| Theme Song | Lenny Gallant - Selkie |
The Shoals may be busy with tourists and surfers during the day, but at night, especially a night in January, it's virtually deserted. Waves wash up onto the sandy shore, grasping fingers of water that briefly cling to the shore before retreating back out to the watery depths, creating a continuous sussuration of sound. The lights of the city are present, but distant, the beach seeming more isolated than they do during the day.
The sun has set when the surge of glamour surges up. In fact, it's past ten, and the part of The Shoals from whence it comes is all but deserted. It shouldn't happen out of nowhere like that, and yet.. there it is. A beacon, or perhaps it's more of a tsunami that suddenly seems to rush and crash and spray up in sea colours. Possibly attracting the attention of those able to see such things. And anyone investigating will find the beach deserted. Almost. Almost deserted, save for two. One person can be seen kneeling at the center of the whirling glamour, another laying sprawled in the damp sand, the hands of both figured seeming to hold a small bundle of something.
It didn't take long before a taker arrived. Part Pooka and partial to the beach, Kaitlyn drifted along the seawall on her skateboard, roughly half-remembering the tune to Suicide is Painless on a ukelele she'd... acquired. She nestled it into a satchel, hopping nimbly down onto the beach towards the source. "Was that what I think it was?" she practically called into the dark.
Oswald also comes along, moving quieter than a man his size has any right to. He offers an answer in his deep rumbling voice "I think it was. A Chrysalis." he spares a glance to Kaitlynn but not much of one, his attention fixed on the kneeling figure as he continues "You were the first on the scene, are they one of yours do you think?"
It's not quite a wall of solid glamour, more like the tide. Coming and going, revealing for a moment that the kneeling figure is evidently human, or at least /looks/ human. Brown eyes, huge brown eyes in a freaked out face. Whereas the woman on the sand is... not. She's soaking wet, her hair is probably silver, her eyes solid brown. Oh. And she's bleeding... a lot. A lot a lot. And looks to be missing... part of herself at the leg, like she was attacked by a shark. Then the glamour swirls up again. But someone heard, that someone being Marina, the kneeling girl. "Oh, god, help! I need help, she's dying!" And then the glamour pulls back one last time. Back and back and back and then comes swelling forward, and yeah, it's like a tidal wave that crashes over Marina as the older woman's hands go limp and fall from the sealskin she's evidently shoved at Marina. And when the wave settles... well. Now Marina's the one with the wet silver hair.
"Just at the right place at the right time," Kaitlyn offered sidewards to the large man. She picked up to a jog to close the distance, tapering to a halt just a few feet from the two. "What the hell caused all that?" she asked, decidedly vague about what exactly 'all that' was.
Oswald ponders and frowns slightly and seems on the verge of offering a theory when a cry for help comes and he heads that direction with no hesitation. He gets to the bleeding woman's side and kneels, checking her briefly and then looking to the new fae, shaking his head as he gently closes the dead woman's eyes "I'm sorry young one. Her life and glamour have passed from her. Her magic now is yours." the last with a gesture at the seal skin.
"No. Nonono," Marina starts to babble her denial, despite the obvious. She shakes her head, wet silver hair falling into her face, her rather bloody hands clutching the seal skin against herself. It looks like she tried her best to staunch the unstaunchable. Something huge got her, clearly, probably a shark, and probably not while she was human. Marina turns, though, half-recognizing the voice from the bonfire, and then she sees Oswald, and sort of gasps and scrambles back on the sand. Then notices Kaitlyn, who she doesn't know, but... like. There's a cat tail.
Kat probably would've made some attempt to hide the tail, had she not been stood next to a Troll of such caliber, but as it was that would've been futile if not counterproductive. A disarming smile spread across her features, assuring all present that it'd be okay, but didn't speak up.
Oswald blinks at Marina's startled expression "Ah. The girl from the bonfire the other night, but you can see me properly now that you've become one of us. I know this is all a bit startling and traumatizing but it will be alright."
Marina looks like she might hyperventilate, for a moment. What stops her... gods only know. Maybe the memory that she was initially a little unnerved by normal Oswald, but he turned out to be her kind of people. Maybe the cuteness of the kitty tail or Kaitlyn's smile, or perhaps... maybe some gift of vague memory passed into her from the bundle she's still clutching. "Oswald." Good memory for names, and it helps that she was speaking of him earlier. "I... you're... sword. Uh. And.... " But she looks down, and her face falls. "I found her like that. Uh. Except she was a seal. Then she was a woman, and she said... a shark. And then she said I had the blood very faintly, and she gave me this and... I tried to stop the bleeding." She's babbling, yes.
Kaitlyn squatted down, her tail curling around her feet as she did, and put a hand on Marina's shoulder; that was okay, because the Pooka was a friend. "It'll be alright. She knew what she was doing, and we're here now." she spoke slowly, reassuring the new fae with a sage nod and a smile, removing her hat to reveal real-life, non-chimerical cat ears, twitching slightly as they rose from being flattened against her scalp. She looked up to Oswald. "You know her? Any knowledge of our side of things?"
Oswald nods at Marina "It speaks well of you that you tried but a shark must have gotten her and with wounds this bad, making it to someone she could pass her magic to would have been all she could manage." Then to Kaitlyn "I met her briefly the other night and she wasn't aware of us at the time. Selkie blooded without a skin would seem very nearly mundane. Not any more though."
"Ears," murmurs Marina, somewhat distantly, staring at the animal features of the woman. She's in no position to talk, though. Not that she's got seal ears... seals don't even have external ears. But she's sure got seal hair, and seal eyes. She glances back and forth between the two, trying with everything she has to calm down enough not to either go into shock or start screaming. What she's not doing is trying to deny reality.
"Ears." Kat chuckled softly, with a grin of agreement, her focus back down on Marina. What explanation was really necessary? None, that's what. "That's why they call me Kat," she nodded, doubling up as an introduction as she transitioned to sitting down in a cross-legged position. "With a K. And what do we call you?"
Oswald nods at Marina in encouragement "Let us make introductions and be on our way. We can return this lady to the Sea and get somewhere less exposed. I am called Oswald Aston Leopold Burroughs in the lands of Autumn. But to those that walk the Dream I am Arden Rangarson, Titan of Storm and Falling Stars, Fist of the North, Wielder of Stjerners Brann, Greybeard of the Firstborn. I am a Frost Troll."
Speaking of appropriate names. "I'm... Marina." A deep, if not very steady breath is taken, and Marina finally looks down at the bundled seal skin she's holding onto like a security blanket. She loosens her grip enough for it to stop being a bundle, falling into a shawl of sorts, fringed at the end but in the same color and pattern as her hair. Then she looks up, and stares at Oswald, though this time it's different. "Frost troll," she murmurs. "Strong. Valiant. I'm... selkie. She said Selkie. Like Gran's tales. How do I even know what..." She breathes. "Nevermind. Not now." She touches the woman's shoulders. "Her name was Magda. She said."
"Never met a Selkie. Always wanted to, though." Kaitlyn smiled. It was an insidious smile, permeating the mood. For now though, she agreed with the Troll. "If that's how they do it, let's get her out to sea. Then... Blue Boar, or would that be a bit much?" she asked him, slowly getting back to her feet.
Oswald tilts his head and considers Kaitlynn's suggestion "I was thinking the Sideshow but that's more out of habit than anything else. The Blue Boar would be fine." Then he turns back Marina "This is going to seem odd but know that it is done with great respect. Then, turning to Magda's body and he starts drawing runes in the sand around her, ending with his hands held over her, fingers spread broadly "From wind and rain we remember, to sea and storm we commend, from a future beginning we see you to your end. Rest well Daughter of the Sea, till the wheel brings you round again."
The Selkie just... kneels there. "I... guess you have now," she notes quietly before her enormous, liquid brown eyes turn up to Oswald. She manages a sad little smile, and then dips her head. "I think you do nearly everything with respect." She makes a gesture to silently give her consent to this, and then gets to her feet, drawing the shawl around herself and watching with bowed head, tears running down her cheeks as se watches, mourning for the loss of someone she only knew for a few moments and yet is now intricately and inexorably linked to. On the sand, a growing patch of dampness starts to appear as sea water drips slowly from her hair.
There's a sense of pulling in the air when the power builds and with a rush a tongue of sea water rushes up and engulfs the body and when the water recedes Magda is gone. After a moment of silence Oswald stands and nods to Marina "It is my nature after all. We could also go to Snow Peak, there is a good tavern there. Really though it is up to what Marina feels up to. Those places all might bring more of our kind to meet if you are up to it."
Marina looks faintly alarmed, to the point of taking a step back. She stares at Oswald and then swallows. "I... I know I have to do that, but can it not be tonight? I don't... well. I'm all bloody. And wet." Of course, the wet isn't going to change, but evidently that's not part of the faint things she kind of remembers. "And I think I need to breathe and settle. Is it safe for me to go home?" She gestures up the beach. "Home is just over there, at the docks. My houseboat."
Kat took a step back as the cantrip was cast, putting herself instinctively at a safe distance from whatever magick was being called upon as she indelicately plopped her beanie back over her ears to conceal them from autumn folk. "Snow peak's too damn cold." she pouted, not really disagreeing that it was an option but certainly opining. With the idea of a houseboat coming to light, consideration crossed her face. "Ooh, houseboat. I've never been on a boat."
Oswald is not really invested in any of the presented options, he seems to be focused on easing Marina's transition "That makes a great deal of sense. Your people do tend to be drawn to the sea. Lead the way then."
Marina nods and turns, starting to trudge, slowly and shakily, off up the beach and through the marina, though once they reach a place with people she shrinks a back, drawing closer to Os and Kat a bit nervously. But, sure enough, people don't notice anything strange about her. Oswald, on the other hand, gets some stares. She keeps moving, though, until she comes to a houseboat, painted blue and bedecked with solar panels, Japanese style lanterns in blue and green hung from the awning, and The Starfish on the side. There she stops, pulling her shawl/skin around herself. "Look, I... I want to talk to you. Both of you. To learn, and to thank you for coming to my aid, but I think right now, I need to curl up in my hammock over there and feel the waves and just be quiet. Can we speak another time? I won't do anything... stupid. I remember some things. A bit, like it's my memories and not mine, and I remember about... I don't know the word. The code. The not talking about this."
Oswald nods at Marina and fishes a phone out of a pocket somewhere inside his coat "That's fine. I will give you my number and we can get you introduced around. I know some very interesting people." "The Escheat." Kat nodded. "That's good. And... yeah. If you need to find me, I'm over Glenhurst way. Just listen for the house getting noise complaints." she offered, stopping a moment to fuss with her hat. "Just don't be a stranger. I've got too many of 'em right now."
Marina pulls her phone out, which is... not wet. Her clothes only seem damp, it's her hair that's all drippy. She gets Oswald's number, gives hers... to Kat, too, then smiles weakly at them both. True to her word, when she trudges up the ramp and onto her boat, she doesn't go inside, but inside flops onto the hammock and curls up there, bundling up in her sealskin. Just not to the point of becoming a 300 lb flippered furry sea mammel. And there she stays, soothed by the rocking of the boat even more than usual.
