... She Wrote

Redemption

(prompt: 'seal' Feb 12, 2021)

She had known fear before; when furious storms lashed the land and the rocky coastline became shrouded in mists. She knew only too well how much respect the raging seas of Teran, the spirit of winter, demanded, with its unforgiving ability to snuff out life within its screaming voice and mountainous waves. All sea creatures that could dove ever deeper until they reached the calm that always awaited them.

This was different. This was Man she contended with and he terrified her. He had her twin babies taken from her minutes after emerging from her body... wet and slimy still. She'd thought giving birth was painful, and she had moaned and groaned, imagining herself alone in this barren cove. But he was a hunter of vast experience, ears ever ready to catch any untoward sound; ever ready to approach as secretively as the softest summer breeze.

He'd been able to grasp the two babes with gloved hands and stuff them into the bag he had at the ready, but he couldn't stop the mother from escaping back into the water, using the wet, seaweed clad rocks as a giant slippery-slide. The Hunter couldn't seem to turn away as the mother resurfaced and bobbed up and down at the rocks' edge, finding himself mesmerised by those great melted chocolate eyes, vast pools of grief. Crying?!? And was it his imagination, that dismal groaning, he wondered, or maybe the sweet voice of the life-giving 'Sea Mither'—the soft summer sea, the benign bringer of warmth and calm for the sea babes to begin life?

NOT YOUR IMAGINATION, MAN. WE DO HEAR EACH OTHER 'THOUGH WE SPEAK NOT A WORD.

PLEASE GIVE ME BACK MY BABIES!

PLEASE!

I BEG YOU!

I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU IF YOU DO THIS THING FOR ME.

Now the Hunter blanched, and he whispered, "A Selkie? You're a Selkie?" And he spluttered as he hastily undid the bag, "I thought you just an ordinary seal. I didn't know, I swear." And he fetched out the seal pups, already sucking on each other's lips as if at their mother's breast. Bending down, handling them more gently than he believed possible, he lay the squirming babes down on the rocks.

A great loving growl rumbled up from the depths of her being as the mother took them in her paws and clasped them to her. Without an audible exchange of words, once again, her eyes spoke volumes and the Hunter's heart heard all, and rejoiced. It seemed his heart was far bigger than his hunting instincts.

With a sharp slap of her tail on the surface of the sea, mother and babies disappeared in a great swirling whirlpool and it left the Hunter wondering if she honestly would 'never forget' him. And he wondered if her 'remembering' would be of the pain of loss, or the gratitude of restitution.

Only time would tell. And he was but a young, unmarried man on this day.

He wondered...