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The sailors pulled in the fishing net one morning and found a sleek, speckled seal tangled in the ropes. She must have been trapped during the night, and now she was exhausted and weak. Some of them wanted to kill her and eat her with the rest of the fish, but the captain ordered them to free her, seeing a spark of intelligence and fear in her dark eyes as they spoke, like she understood.
Reluctantly they cut her free, and she swam away slowly, drifting behind the ship. The captain watched her, and she seemed to watch him, too.
***
Captain Arran Blaine slept poorly the next nights. He had strange dreams of the sea, a seal, and a beautiful woman with dark eyes.
Tonight, after dreaming of her leading him into the sea, dark hair flowing to her waist blowing in the wind to obscure her face; he needed fresh air. He went onto the deck and let the breeze wash over him, shedding the confusion of the dream.
No one was there except the helmsman. Arran sighed, gazing out to sea.
Something in the water caught his eyes. It disappeared quickly, but he thought it was a seal…
***
It became a ritual, a few nights a week, for him to stand on the deck for a while during the night. Sometimes he saw the seal, sometimes he didn’t, and his heart felt lighter after seeing her. Arran would talk to her, sometimes sing to her, and he knew, somehow, that she enjoyed it as much as he did.
After nearly a month, he stepped onto the deck to see something entirely unexpected: a naked woman, with dark hair, and skin that shone in the moonlight. She was humming a familiar song. Suddenly, he knew who she must be.
***
The woman’s name was Lorna, and Arran didn’t need to see the speckled sealskin coat in her arms to know what she was. She was the woman he’d dreamt of, and she was the seal he'd been seeing all these nights. Her eyes were as dark and intelligent as the seal’s had been.
He knew about selkies, but never expected to see one so far from Scottish shores.
“I’ve followed your ship a long time,” she confessed, as if reading his thoughts.
“Why?”
Before she could answer, approaching footsteps made her throw on her coat and leap into the sea.
***
The selkie came back the next night, and this time she stayed longer. She told Arran that she’d seen him often and knew he was a kind man, and the fact that he’d saved her from the net and the sailors who would’ve eaten her, proved that.
Arran’s heart was in his throat. He could only take Lorna’s soft hand in his and press a kiss to it. She smiled at him. Her dark eyes were shining and hopeful, and he knew she wanted this as much as he did.
He kissed her softly, and her hand cupped his cheek.
***
When they met again, Lorna pressed her sealskin coat into Arran’s hands.
“There’s no one else I would rather take it,” she pleaded.
“Your coat is yours, I’d never take that from you.” He placed it around her shoulders again. “Although, I would ask one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Will you show me?”
She smiled and drew the coat tighter around herself, the head over her own. The transformation from woman to seal was smooth and beautiful, and Arran couldn’t be sure what he’d seen once it was over.
It felt right; this was her natural form, too, and she was beautiful.