“People who live at the lower ends of watersheds cannot be isolationists — or not for long. Pretty soon they will notice that water flows, and that will set them to thinking about the people upstream who either do or do not send down their silt and pollutants and garbage. Thinking about the people upstream out to cause further thinking about the people downstream. Such pondering on the facts of gravity and the fluidity of water shows us that the golden rule speaks to a condition of absolute interdependency and obligation. People who live on rivers — or, in fact, anywhere in a watershed — might rephrase the rule in this way: Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”
- Wendell Berry, from his essay “Watershed and Commonwealth”, in Citizenship Papers (2003)
The Selkie: Part 1: Water Flows Through All Cultures
Title: The Selkie
Pairing: Pero Tovar x OC (female OC)
Word Count: 2600
Rating: R for the series
Warnings: Language, violence, sexual situations (more mature chapters will get their own markings)
A/N: Introducinnnnng The Selkie. Pero x OC. Set after the events of The Great Wall. Not in any remote shared universe with The Cross. When I first saw The Great Wall I wrote a post that said I was angry at how good a story I came up with....this is that story. We are going to Medieval Scotland kids. Get yer brogue on.
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Water Flows Through All Cultures
Every culture has legends about women. Especially wild ones. Some talk of demons and witches. This is their greatest fear--- women whose wildness makes them powerful. Some talk of evil queens--- women whose wildness made them tyrants. There are dark tales of mothers eating their children, as if the greatest fear is that women could not be tamed by the children they had no choice in bearing. We tell tales of beast women-- women who change their skin from animal to human. They live in the ocean and strip off their fur to walk around, seducing men they then take a mind to drown or, sometimes, just to walk around feeling the world on two feet and owing no man allegiance. These are the selkies.
Pero Tovar had lost his patience many years ago and had yet to find it again.
China had forced him into the uncomfortable position of acknowledging many things he didn’t want to think about: monsters were real. Real monsters were real. This was fucking depressing. Maybe they could be killed but if the Tao Tei were real, what the fuck else was? And despite their successes...they had left with empty enough hands. He had truly hoped, once, not all that long ago, that he might one day soon have enough money to retire. He was getting old. He knew his luck would not endlessly overflow like a fountain of youth. His legs were tired, he was not as quick as he once was...his line of work was ravenous, devouring lesser men with younger stronger bodies. He knew he would not long outrun the same fate. He had hoped to but now there was a stone of knowledge in his belly: he would not outrun a sad ending. If he was lucky it would be quick, relatively painless.
Pero Tovar did not feel lucky.
Luck was mostly ability concealed by bullshit.
They had taken eight fucking months to get back from China and that was with the fucking escort, which waned in number as they came further west. There had been one runner...just one. They had only parted ways with him a month ago after William had a long drunken night and apparently decided he couldn’t keep the runner around.
It wasn’t until then that Pero even realized that the runner was intended to stay in case William wanted to return.
Later, when Tovar prompted William to discuss it, all William said was, “I know what direction East is if I ever want to go back.”
This was hard logic to fight.
Tovar had rolled his eyes, “Well, now what do we do?”
“Look for work? Who knows, we may chance on something good.”
“As always, amigo, you are a leader worthy of song.”
William pretended his friend wasn’t joking and slapped him on the back, “That’s the spirit. Now...eat up.”
Tovar gestured to the two rabbits roasting over their fire, “Ah yes, this mighty feast...tell me, do you have a plan of where to go? Because I could do for a table, real meals.”
William threw a small twig into the fire, “My...gut is telling me to head towards home.”
“Your home? You said you had no been back...in what? Twenty years?”
“Closer to thirty.” William shrugged, “I don’t know...do you have a better idea?”
Tovar sighed at the rabbits: England and Ireland were far, that he knew. Far and wet and cold.
“Why can’t we ever go somewhere fucking warm?” He grumbled.
“Oh don’t worry-- it just rains until it snows and then you catch a cough and die.” William smirked, but seemed bothered. Distracted. He’d been just a little...darker since he sent the runner off.
Tovar didn’t have tender reactions. If he sensed that William was ….sad about something, if he sensed that they were moving so far West so he could outrun some of that sadness….well, he didn’t say anything. This was William’s decision, he didn’t have to offer a stance.
Besides, what home did Tovar have to return to?
Like William he had been orphaned young, set to the sword, and he had been clawing and gnawing his way through life since. He had forgotten what it was like to have a friend who wasn’t cut down around you until William. Yes, William, for better or worse, was a survivor and he was now the longest friendship Tovar had had since he was a child. He would stay by this man’s side now as long as they continued to live-- a brotherhood, a partnership, something both could put their hands on and know was real in a world that sometimes threatened their sense of permanency.
What would they find if they followed William’s gut?
Tovar couldn’t guess. His own gut was always empty. Always. And he knew better than to follow it to anything more substantial than food.
_____________
Travel did, however, make Tovar want some distance from William, some privacy. He missed the days of separate rooms at the same inn.
At least tonight they were by a river.
It meant a bath.
A cold one, sure, but a shave perhaps and the feel of dirt leaving the body.
His beard was wild again, he longed to trim it.
Camp was routine to them-- they had done this so many times it didn’t require talking.
Wood gathered.
William went off to hunt birds or rabbits. Tovar sitting with their meager possessions waiting for William to come back. Tovar setting up the bed rolls, ferrying water, grumbling the whole time about black powder left behind.
When William came back, Pero plucked and gutted the birds, draining their blood, putting them on skewers he’d whittled. William disappeared-- he assumed his friend was bathing. Sure enough William returned without as long of a beard and a cleaner face.
As they cooked it was Tovar’s turn.
He had a deft hand at blades-- his hands learned them easily. When he was by water to spare for it he liked to shave and he could do so by touch. For this he used a dagger and he then moved to clean his blades, making sure they did not rust or dull. They were all that separated him from death most times and he would keep that spectre away as long as he could.
He was hungry.
It was a quiet enough day on the road.
Pattern, routine. He was able to splash the cold water on his face, wash his hands, let it cascade down the back of his spine. He considered for a minute if it was going to be too cold tonight to bathe in this water but then shrugged and remembered there was no guarantee of bathing locations on the road.
The thing was-- this road had no real determined end. They could be walking for fucking months.
So he stripped-- layer after layer of battle armor, the thick hide that protected him and kept him alive, and he laid it aside. From this angle he saw it differently...on him it felt like a second skin, well broken in, moving with him without a thought, but from the outside he saw it was dusty and starting to crack. He would need to get pieces repaired or replaced soon.
His boots were starting to split.
Those would need to come first-- he had seen a man with infected feet, rot swelling them to four times their size. The man had tried to hack them off with an ax. A terrible way to die.
The water felt like blades-- in this way at least he did not flinch, he was used to being cut. His body was a map of scars.
He drank some-- this water ran clear and clean and he found there was something to it, he liked the taste.
It was a calm night.
For a man with little patience and a lot of aggravations a night like this always seemed a trick-- he could have a hundred in a row and he would be waiting for something he could not see. There was a line between pessimism and instinct that he straddled-- he felt like something bad was about to happen, but then...he sensed it. Knew it.
Without really understanding why he stood up straighter and began looking over the horizon lines, up and down the river.
He made the bird call for William, the one they used to call one another in secret, a wavering mockingbird cry that carried well over the air.
William was on his feet in an instant and Tovar got to the bank, pulling on his pants first, taking the risk at not being dried off. He could catch a fever or a lung cold and die this way but he just...he knew. He knew something was coming.
He was tying his boots when the splashing sounded.
The light was starting to die down and so he was not able to fully see up and down the curvy banks and the sound was bouncing off the water--it sounded like it was coming from everywhere.
A piercing high cry came.
Tovar’s head cut up and he had a hand on his dagger.
It sounds like...like a baby. But tortured. A tortured scream.
Of course it is. What a shit fucking country he brings me to.
The splashing got louder, and the lumbering body of a person began to emerge.
“AH! COME BACK FOR ME NOW YE HEINOUS BITCH!” Someone roared.
He was a tall man with braids and knots down his hair that were held back by a leather thong. He had an accent--akin to William’s but stronger and thicker-- and a bushy black beard.
He looked half-mad. Drenched. Blood streaming down him from a cut...a bite?… on his upper arm.
He was approaching Tovar but didn’t seem to notice.
“Where are ye ye mad bitch!”
He was nearly laughing with some sort of battle rage and when he noticed Tovar, half-dressed, a sword in hand, looking around as if an army might be approaching and he hooted, “Oh lad! Better get ye shirt on! Ye will tempt her, and ye’ll no be wanting that!”
The accent was thick as tar and hard to sort through.
“Who is her?”
“WATER WITCH! A cunning one!” He laughed and he notched an arrow into a recurve bow like William’s and started looking along the water clucking his tongue like he was calling a street cat.
“I do not understand...a woman?”
“A fucking devil.” The man warned and then, “No, worse….”
He cocked his head, listening, then put the bow around his shoulder and unsheathed a sword.
“Hell hath no fury.” Was the dark proclamation before he swung out--anticipating the thing that flew out of the water.
Tovar now had both of his swords in hand and William was running towards the ruckus, bow cocked and ready. As fast as his feet could carry him without sacrificing balance on the terrain Tovar backed away from the water.
It--she? It as far as Tovar could see-- was a greenish-gray skinned creature with a golden mane, red eyes, and sharp teeth and claws. It jumped out of the water like a dolphin and went for the man’s neck. He knew it was coming for him, but his angle was slightly off, and his swing missed it by inches.
William and Tovar paused as the thing sank its teeth into the soft juncture between his neck and his shoulder and then William growled and shot its arm. Enough, normally to send an animal running.
But it was not so feral.
It dropped the black-haired man and looked at them.
Then Tovar saw why the man called it a her.
There should have been breasts but it looked like it was wearing a tight shirt of scales. The face was curved like a woman’s, the eyes wide and the mouth red, and that was hair-- not a mane. The claws were shaped like a hand. A hand.
But unlike any hand he had ever seen before.
She began to stalk up to the men and then looked at one another, nodded, and Tovar rushed forward, bent backwards and pushed her away with both blades scraping her stomach open, spilling her innards, and he began running to the other man to see if he could be saved. William took the creature’s surprise at Tovar to notch two more arrows which were fired in rapid succession into her eyes.
Fatal shots.
Tovar watched the thing fall into the shallows and then sheathed his blade, looking down at the man. He tried to stand, nearly fell over, but gasped out, “Get me over ….to her.”
Tovar shook his head, “She’s dead.”
“Over to her….arrow.”
Tovar shrugged, helping the man over, and the man took the arrow from his quiver that he had previously notched and he looked over the creature, pausing to stab it in the heart with the blade.
Even though Tovar would have said she was dead a wail, quiet like a breath escaping her lips, sounded as the arrow pierced her heart. Blood blackish and grotesque smelling erupted from the wound as if the heart had not stopped beating prior.
The man smiled but blood was pooling in his mouth, “To hell with ye.”
William came over, handing Tovar his shirt, and kneeling to talk to the man, “What was that?”
“Terrible...beast.”
“Why were you hunting it?”
“Sent...Sent on hunt...Quest….for….Sive.”
“Who?” Tovar could not tell if that was a word in a language he did not know or a name.
"She should….been a highlands queen... wears a torque of ….pure gold….the man who….kill these creatures...rescue... brother. Show arrow to her...arrow with the blood...they...need to be...killed...iron….Gold Torque Woman...offering...offering…."
He was gone.
William and Tovar shared a look at him, at the beastie they had helped kill.
They took the arrow, drenched in the nearly blackish-green blood, and William eyed the creature for a moment. Arrows were one thing, other things spoke a little louder. Tovar noticed and pointed harshly at him, “No, amigo-- the last time you cut some fucking monster’s hand off we--”
“Became heroes of a foreign country? Slew a mythological beast? Or was that just me? Where were you….oh right, you were rotting in a Chinese prison you smarmy, jealous thief...Highlands are north of where we were going but they aren’t terribly out of our way.” William’s tone was light, playful, but there was something a little...desperate underneath. He had sent back the runner. He...he wanted to feel what he had felt in China again. He wanted to chase that dragon, feel that rush.
“We should find this golden torqued woman. Get the...do you think he was going to say reward?”
“God willing.” Tovar grumbled, knowing that whether or not he liked it William had caught the scent of something and there would be no getting him off of it.
Waterfall water flows 1-5/? - 1, 2, & 4: Olympic National Park, WA, June 2017 - 3 & 5: Iceland, august 2017
photo by nature-hiking
if you’re thinking: “wait, 1 & 4 look incredibly similar”, that is me experimenting to get a feel for what kind of photo/ edit style people like best. I’m playing with the idea of just posting both photos in a single post and just asking which one people like best in the future.
so feel free to leave a comment and tell me which one between the 1st and 4th photo you like best and why. any other comments or constructive criticism is of course always welcome as well.
