Selkies III
Jan. 6th, 2024 02:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marjoricaA lot of people thought of the seals as a nuisance, liable to steal the fish. He remembered a time when one had been caught feasting in a salmon fishery further up the coast. The men there had given the beast short shrift, hauling it out with hooks and nets then smashing its skull.
Sometimes seals, following the boats for what might be stirred up, would swim into the nets and take fish from those. Mostly they might watch the boats with a guarded interest, as if wondering what the strange, human interlopers might do next.
Occasionally he had seen seals with parts of the fishing nets wrapped around their tails or flippers. This was when he felt like a trespasser in the waters himself, as he felt that this could be only doing them ill. The tough ropes bit into their flesh, rubbing, burning and cutting off blood. He had been warned not to help unless he wanted to lose a finger or three. This did not mean that he had never tried. In the majority of cases, the animals would flee as soon as he approached. There had been other occasions when he had got closer and been confronted by a growling, hissing demon, lunging with fangs and claws like bone daggers before the frightened creature could get away.
An entire once he had been able to do some good, when he had seen a young female out on a skerry with net around her throat. There had been the usual show of teeth, but her heart had not been in it. She had allowed him to approach her, to get out of his boat and to talk to her softly as he cut the rope away, as if she had been a dog or a cat. She stayed still, without playing dead, and then slid away gracefully into the water, pausing to look at him with what he thought was intelligence. It wouldn’t have been, as anyone would have told him had he been foolish enough to tell the tale. As it was, he was left with the blood streaked twine and the hope that he had done well by another of God’s creatures. Not much more.
Sometimes seals, following the boats for what might be stirred up, would swim into the nets and take fish from those. Mostly they might watch the boats with a guarded interest, as if wondering what the strange, human interlopers might do next.
Occasionally he had seen seals with parts of the fishing nets wrapped around their tails or flippers. This was when he felt like a trespasser in the waters himself, as he felt that this could be only doing them ill. The tough ropes bit into their flesh, rubbing, burning and cutting off blood. He had been warned not to help unless he wanted to lose a finger or three. This did not mean that he had never tried. In the majority of cases, the animals would flee as soon as he approached. There had been other occasions when he had got closer and been confronted by a growling, hissing demon, lunging with fangs and claws like bone daggers before the frightened creature could get away.
An entire once he had been able to do some good, when he had seen a young female out on a skerry with net around her throat. There had been the usual show of teeth, but her heart had not been in it. She had allowed him to approach her, to get out of his boat and to talk to her softly as he cut the rope away, as if she had been a dog or a cat. She stayed still, without playing dead, and then slid away gracefully into the water, pausing to look at him with what he thought was intelligence. It wouldn’t have been, as anyone would have told him had he been foolish enough to tell the tale. As it was, he was left with the blood streaked twine and the hope that he had done well by another of God’s creatures. Not much more.
