Miguel O’Hara |Selkie|

The scent of the salt water always felt like home, clinging to Miguel's skin as it did to everything else along this rugged Irish coastline. The Atlantic was restless today, but not angry just humming a low, constant tune against the rocks. It was the kind of day that made the solitude feel less like loneliness and more like peace.

He sat perched on a jagged outcrop of rock, his legs dangling over the edge where the foam hissed against the stone. In his hands, he held a piece of driftwood he'd found after a storm, its surface smooth from years of tumbling in the depths. His fingers moved with practiced precision as he worked. A small blade carving away thin curls of wood, slowly beginning to make the form of a dolphin.

Miguel was a man in his prime, strong and capable, yet he spent his evenings alone in a small cottage, carving trinkets to sell and eating fish caught by his own hand. In the water, he was free, a powerful grey seal cutting through the depths. On land, he was a craftsman, a solitary figure who kept his pelt locked safely in a chest.

Yet, sometimes, when the moon hung too low and the waves sang too sweetly against the shore, the silence of his small cottage felt less like peace and more like an ache; The thought of a mate someone to share the quiet with, someone to witness the way the light hit the water at dawn together flickered in his mind like a dying ember before he forcibly pushed it aside.

He wasn't desperate. He was weary of the world, wary of the humans who roamed the cliffs above, always curious and often dangerous. He knew the stories. He knew what happens when humans found something beautiful. They wanted to own it.. His hand instinctively drifted to the heavy leather satchel resting right beside him, Inside lay his seal skin, his soul, his freedom. Without it, he was nothing more than a man trapped on land, vulnerable to any passing stranger with greed in their heart.

He presses the blade back into the wood, determined to finish the dorsal fin before the tide turned.

But then a sudden shift came upon the air, perhaps, or just the instinctual wariness that came with being something not quite human, making him pause. Miguel didn't move immediately, though his muscles coiled with a reflexive tension. He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon for several seconds, playing the part of the harmless hermit, before slowly turning his head.

He scanned the shoreline with sharp, wary eyes, expecting to see a human trespasser drawn to his isolated spot.

Instead, his gaze dropped to the waterline.

A dark, sleek head broke through the surface of the waters. A seal. It stayed still, bobbing gently with the current, its dark eyes fixed directly on him. There was an unnerving intelligence in that stare, a curiosity that felt almost... deliberate

Miguel's shoulders dropped, though the wariness remained etched in the lines of his face. He knew the behavior of seals well, he was one after all, but this one felt different.He set the carving knife down carefully on the rock beside him, making sure his movements were slow and non threatening.

"You're a long way from your colony, uno curioso." He kept his tone low and steady. "Or maybe you're just as lonely as I am."

The sea was cold, biting, and perfect. Beneath the surface, the world was a symphony of muffled currents and distant sounds. As a seal, Miguel felt a sense of clarity that his human form rarely allowed; The water rushed past, a soothing pressure that silenced the restless thoughts that usually plagued him.

In the water, he wasn't a man burdened by the weight of solitude or simply completing tasks of carving wood and mending nets; he was simply a part of the tide.

Dios, qué paz. he thought as he glided through a kelp forest, the sleek fur of his body catching the dimming light filtering down from above.

As dusk began to bleed into the horizon, painting the surface in bruised purples and oranges, Miguel decided to steadily make his way toward the shallows. He wanted to feel the sun's last warmth on his back before the day’s end. He also liked to watch the land from the safety of the surf, observing the world he walked in when he removes his seal coat.

When his head surfaced, that was when he spotted them.

A human, walking along the shoreline where the foam kissed the sand. They didn't look like the usual tourists who occasionally wandered too far off the beaten path. They looked content enough, but there was an unmistakable air of longing about them, as if they were searching for something the land couldn't quite provide.

Miguel froze, his head bobbing in the gentle surf. He should swim away. Humans were unpredictable, and his instinct was to protect his seal skin and his privacy at all costs.

He wasn't wary of humans out of malice, but out of necessity. A human on this beach was a complication he rarely invited. But something about the way they carried that unmistakable air of longing pulled at something primal inside him. It was a loneliness he himself could recognize.

He drifted closer to the shallows, the water growing warmer as it touched the sand. He kept his head just above the waterline, half submerged, watching them. He wanted to see if they would notice him, or if there were too lost in their own thoughts to realize they were not so alone on this beach.