Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Can you tell us more about Great Aunt Yaz, Nani?” 

“If you want, Beti.”

“She always wants to hear about Great Aunt Yaz, even though we tell her you just made it all up.”

“Hush now. Sit down, and I’ll tell you about the War of Whitby Bay.”

“Are there soldiers? Like Baba?”

“Of a sort. Now, a long time ago, not far away…”

Yaz’s eyes blink open slowly, dazzled by the early morning sunlight of the first of June and then by the way it catches, halo-like, in the hair of her wife.

Orla smiles at her from where she’s propped up on one elbow. The light sparkles in her eyes, highlighting gold flecks, and Yaz lets her eyes drift down the delicious curves of her body. “Good morning.”

“Mornin’, sleepyhead,” Orla teases. 

Yaz had always believed that Orla slept so little because she was a selkie, but in the two years of their marriage she has learned that Orla doesn’t sleep because she is Orla. “How do you look so beautiful in the morning?” she asks, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind her wife’s ear. “Is it some kind of selkie magic that I am not familiar with?”

“I would never hold back magic from you, Yaz,” Orla says, a small smirk tugging at her lips. She reaches out and runs her index finger up Yaz’s side, before moving inwards to circle her breast. “Just as you don’t keep your magic from me.”

Yaz pulls her close, sliding her thigh between her legs so they can move together in a chorus of shaking breath and slick sounds, chasing their pleasure against each other and using their knowledge of each other to bring themselves to a peak at the same time, Yaz with a cry and Orla with a whisper.

“Kippers?” Yaz whispers when they’ve recovered, and Orla laughs against her collarbone. 

“Please,” she replies. 

Yaz dips into the sea for a quick clean up then heads into their little cottage. She doesn’t feel the cold the way she had as a human, and she and Orla sleep most nights in the small clearing where they’d spent their first night on their island, but due to Yaz’s preference for human meals once or twice a day, they had built a house together. It’s a little ramshackle, but at this time of year it is beautifully surrounded by cornflowers and cowslip, and it’s Yaz’s favourite place in the world. 

Inside, she wraps her seal skin around herself and uses bellows to bring the little fireplace back to life. She pulls a pair of kippers from their small cool store, a box which they keep surrounded by water constantly on the brink of freezing, a selkie household trick Orla had taught her early on, and sandwiches a wedge of butter in the centre of each fish. She then places them side by side on the metal grill over the fire. Whilst they cook, she cuts up some of the bread she had baked the day before and spreads four slices with a generous helping of butter. She turns the kippers over to cook on the other side, and calls Orla in from the beach where she had remained sunbathing. 

“Yaz, this looks amazin’,” the blonde tells her as she takes a seat at the small table they had made out of fishing crates. “Smells good too. Ooh, have we got any jam?”

Rolling her eyes, Yaz passes her a jar of the plum jam Sonya had made last year, and tries not to watch as she spreads it on top of her fish.

Orla bounces in her seat as she tastes it. “Oh come on, Yaz, you've got to try this, it's so good.”

Yaz chooses her words with care. “Darling, I love you, but I would sooner lick a dolphin’s blowhole.”

Orla’s face scronches. “That’s disgusting.”

“Exactly.”

“Plans for today?” Orla asks, disregarding the previous topic before shoving a large chunk of jammy fish in her mouth.

Yaz averts her eyes. “Yeah, got lunch with Son.”

Orla grins. Yaz regrets looking. “That’s so lovely that you get to stay in touch. What about your parents?” 

“They’re usually busy durin’ the day, but I said I’d go jump around the Hope Abides when she comes home this evening.” The crew of her father's fishing boat have taken the frequent seal visits as a sign of good fortune. Yaz likes to rustle up a little hang of true seals and leap around with them, and they're easily encouraged because the crew feed them. “Would you like to come along?”

“Not tonight,” Orla says with a polite smile that sets an uncomfortable feeling of confusion brewing in her wife's gut. “I'm feelin’ a bit tired, might stay home. Do some maintenance on the cottage. Or catch up on some correspondence. There's a few people I should write to.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you know. My old tutors. I like to stay in touch.”

Yaz accepts this… almost. It doesn't feel like it's the full story, but if Orla's not being truthful, Yaz is sure she has a good reason.

“Wanna go exploring until you have to go?” Orla asks her, hope filling her eyes and making them shine. “I just remembered some caves I haven't shown you yet.”

Yaz smiles back, helpless to do otherwise when that joy and love of the universe fills her wife's eyes. “Of course.”

When they open the front door, they find that the bright sunshine of earlier on has been eclipsed by a heavy black cloud. Orla stares at it, frowning. “That’s strange.”

Yaz tugs her seal skin up over her head as she steps outside. “Didn’t seem like it were gonna rain today, did it?”

“No,” Orla says, glaring up at the sky through narrowed eyes. “It definitely didn’t feel like rain. Today was summer all the way through. I wonder…” She pauses and then seems to shake it off. She shoots Yaz a wide smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Never mind. Let’s go explore some caves!”

That unsettled feeling sweeps over Yaz again, but she forces a smile almost as wide as her wife’s. “Just show me the way.”

They Change at the edge of the water. The seal shape comes easily to Yaz now, as if it was always meant to be hers - and perhaps it was. She spares a thought for her great grandmother, the selkie who had been shackled to the land, as she flies through the sea, laughing as she and Orla race and leap out of the water.

Orla stops after one such leap, turning around and bobbing at the surface. Yaz takes a moment to realise she’s not with her, then she turns and swims back. She can sense Orla if she’s nearby these days; a type of magic that Orla says will grow as their bond deepens. Usually Yaz would wonder how their connection could possibly deepen, that they are woven together as intricately as threads in fabric, but today… there have been those two moments where it felt like her wife was keeping something from her. Yaz surfaces, sucking in a deep breath through her nose and turning to see what has captured Orla’s attention. 

The lighter furred seal is staring back at their island home, looking between the island and the sky. It takes a moment to see what’s drawn her attention.

Above their heads now is blue sky, the June sun burning and bouncing off the small waves. 

Further away, a single large black cloud hovers, unmoving, over their island. 

Orla? Yaz asks. What’s going on?

Funny cloud pattern, that’s all, Orla says, though Yaz doesn’t need to look at her aura to see she’s lying. Come on, those caves won’t explore themselves.

Chapter Text

Yaz had worried that her picnic with Sonya would need to be moved indoors - never ideal because their mother worried people would Talk - but the weather over the beach is perfect, all glorious sunshine and far too many people sprawled on the sand. It is early in the season so the majority of the summer’s tourists haven’t arrived yet, but the folk of Whitby seem to be treating the day as a holiday.

The tide is very low, and Yaz stays a long way out as she heads towards the end of the headland where she usually meets Sonya. There’s a line of rocks that make it easy for her to get close to land without being seen, and she drags herself onto the sand and Changes behind one of them. She fashions her seal skin into a tunic the way Orla had taught her and waves to Sonya, who’s waiting for her on a picnic blanket. 

“Alright, idiot?” Sonya calls out to her. “What time do you call this?”

“Noon?” she hazards. She glances up at the sun. “Maybe a few minutes past?”

Sonya chuckles. “Alright, you’re not actually late. I got here early so I could collect mussels while I waited.” She gestures to a small basket next to her. Yaz glances around, then summons a small ball of water from the sea, cooling it and dropping it into the oiled basket next to her. 

“Keeping them fresh,” she explains to a wide-eyed Sonya.

“How did you do that?” her sister hisses. “It’s like… witchcraft, or somesuch.”

“It’s just selkie magic,” Yaz explains gently. “We have power over water. Not a lot, but enough. Orla can do it, but she doesn’t practise much because she’s too busy bouncin’ around half the North Sea.” She chuckles, then glances out to sea and notices that the cloud is still out there. If she isn’t mistaken, there’s something very strange about it. 

“What’s the matter?” Sonya asks, trying to follow where she’s looking.

“You see that cloud?” she asks.

Sonya squints out over the bay. “What cloud?”

“What d’you mean, what cloud? There’s literally only one cloud in the whole bloody sky.” 

Sonya frowns at her. “Yaz, there’s no clouds in the whole bloody sky.”

Yaz glances between the cloud and her sister, trying to remember if her eyesight was that bad when she was human. She doesn’t think it was. “You really can’t see it?”

Sonya looks again. “All I can see is water and blue sky, maybe a little haze.”

“Hmm,” Yaz says, staring at the unmoving patch of grey. “That is very strange.”

“You can really see a cloud out there?” Sonya asks.

“I can.” She tells Sonya about her morning (minus the very start, but she suspects Sonya realises anyway from her blush) and how Orla had seemed to be hiding something.

“I’m sure she will tell you eventually,” Sonya soothes, scooping up a mouthful of the sarson da saag she had brought with some of their mother’s makki di roti, a flat sort of corn bread. 

“I just wish she would tell me now ,” Yaz grumbles, reaching for the food herself. 

“Are you settling in better, in general?” Her sister pretends interest in the pakora, but Yaz can tell she’s paying attention to her reactions and trying not to show it. For one thing, it is clearly her father’s pakora: burnt on one side and with… 

“Sonya, is that biscuits?” she asks, poking at it.

“Er… yes,” Sonya concedes. “Chocolate digestives, actually. Mum made me bring these. Mostly to get them out of the house, I think. You’re avoidin’ my question.”

“I’m makin’ friends,” Yaz says with a small smile.

“Really? You?”

Yaz throws her remaining roti at her. “But they are… It is as if they are only my friends when nobody else is around?”

“So they're not really your friends,” Sonya says, calmly matter of fact.

Yaz frowns, dipping a fresh roti. “I thought that at first, but I am beginning to doubt meself.”

“How so?”

“Do you remember who Orla's mother is?” 

Sonya rolls her eyes. “Course I do. Not every day you gain a sister-in-law who's an actual lord. Or heir to one, anyhow.”

“I think that the selkies aren't allowed to be friendly to me,” Yaz confides. “I think Tecteun has forbidden it, and they dare not go against her in the presence of anyone who may report it to her.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Tecteun despises me,” Yaz says, trying to keep her tone level but it comes out with a slight whine. “She won't ever forgive me for taking her daughter from her, for that is how she sees it. She doesn't see me as owt different than human, and she believes our marriage is an abomination. She thinks I sabotaged her efforts to turn Orla into her perfect little pawn.”

Sonya snorts at this. “As if Orla were ever goin’ to be owt but who she is.”

Yaz smiles fondly. “She is her own person before all else.”

“Actually I think she is your person before all else,” Sonya tells her, her voice wistful.

Yaz looks at her properly for the first time, taking in the bags under her eyes and the dullness of her hair. “Are you alright?” she asks. “Everythin’ going well with Jack?”

Sonya gives a small smile, glancing out to sea as if by habit. She had married a young man from Scarborough the year before, having met him on a visit to her nani. He had moved to Whitby to escape his overbearing mother, and had moved in with Sonya and her parents. “He's lovely,” she says, blushing. “It's just that he's off on the boat a lot with Dad, an’ I miss him. Plus yesterday his mother turned up.”

Yaz grimaces. “Oh dear.”

“I think that bein’ disliked by your mother-in-law transcends species,” Sonya says glumly. “Nothin’ I do is good enough for her. She came in and started finding dust on things - I couldn't see any dust, mind - and saying I must be a shoddy housekeeper.”

“Where was Mum?” Yaz asked, astounded Najia would let her away with that.

“Just in the next room,” Sonya says with a satisfied smirk. “Oh, she let her have it. It was wonderful. How if she ever dared speak like that about me or Jack again, she’d hunt her down and have ‘er ears for doorknobs. Best entertainment of the year.”

“So how come you look so tired?” Yaz asks, skipping by a quip that married life can’t be treating her sister that well if her mother fighting her husband’s mother is the most fun part of it.

Sonya looks around as if to check for eavesdroppers, then gives her a mischievous look. “Keep a secret?”

Yaz, who hasn’t seen anybody from the village in well over a year, tilts her head in confusion. “Who’m I gonna tell? The fish?”

“Maybe the dolphins,” Sonya says, and they both wince at the memory of their father’s big dolphin conspiracy theory. 

“What’s the secret?” Yaz asks, unable to wait any more.

Sonya leans forward, eyes sparkling. “I’m going to have a baby.”

It takes Orla a while to find the selkie she’s looking for. Her friend isn’t on the island where most of the colony are sunning themselves, nor is she in the water immediately around it. She remembers that sometimes Bill likes to spend time with a solitary older male that she sees as a sort of grumpy father figure, so heads that way only to be swept up in a group of seals who desperately want her to play. It takes some time for her to make her excuses and promise to play another time, and by the time she makes it to the male’s cove it is mid afternoon. 

She finds Bill wrapped in her seal skin sitting on the beach with the older man, who is wearing a black velvet suit. They are playing chess. Bill is losing, but she looks delighted about it, her sharp eyes darting around the board as she takes in every way she can improve.

“Bill, your friend is here,” the male - the Doctor, Orla remembers - tells her.

“Which friend?” Bill asks, not looking up as she memorises the positions of the pieces. “I do have more than one.”

“The annoying one.”

“You think everyone is annoying,” Bill points out. She finally looks up, her smile broadening as she sees Orla. “This one I will grant you, however.”

“Oi,” Orla complains once she’s finished Changing. 

“Have you eaten?” Bill asks. She gestures to a basket at her side. “We have sandwiches.”

“Ooh, may I?” 

Bill passes her a sandwich with thick slices of ham in slightly dry seeded bread. “Were you looking for me?”

Orla casts an uncertain look at the Doctor, who is glaring at the chessboard from under a pair of magnificent eyebrows. “Could we speak alone?”

“He won’t tell anyone,” Bill says with confidence.

“I don’t like anyone enough to tell them anything,” the Doctor adds.

“That’s true,” Bill nods.

Orla considers for a moment, then flops onto the sand. “There is a cloud over my island.”

“Is that some kind of metaphor the young people are using these days?” the Doctor asks.

“No, it’s a literal cloud over my home,” Orla tells him.

Bill winces. “Oh dear.”

That grabs Orla’s attention. “You know sommat.”

“Not… know…” Bill says slowly. “But I’ve heard some things.”

“My mother?”

Her friend nods, clearly troubled. “She still refers to your wife as ‘the abomination’. She complains to those she trusts most about how your attention is divided, how you’re distracted by your ‘little human pet’. If she’s progressed to actually tormenting you…”

Orla turns to look out at the cloud she can still see in the distance, fear boiling in her chest. “If she’s doing this, it means Yaz is in danger.”

Chapter Text

Aside from every moment spent with Orla, moments like this are Yaz’s favourite part of her life as a selkie. 

It does not hurt at all that Tecteun would disapprove. 

Her snout breaks through the surface of the water and then she is flying through the air. There’s a flash of silver in the corner of her eye and she snatches at it, feeling a burst of satisfaction as she secures the fish in her jaws. She pauses to swallow it, then feels a wave of joy wash over her as something magical brushes up against her senses.

Orla is near.

Then she's next to her, and they leap side by side next to her father's boat as the fishermen holler and clap, the pack of seals surrounding them, but instead of the delight she expects to sense from Orla there is nothing but grim determination.

What's going on with you? she asks, smacking back into the water.

Nothing. I'm fine, Orla insists.

You know I can feel your aura, right? Yaz asks, irritated. You can't lie to me any more. 

I never lied to you before, Orla says, and to Yaz's relief she's telling the truth. She passes the mackerel she's caught to Yaz, who recognises it as a peace gesture but chooses to ignore it, throwing the fish behind her to one of the older seals who struggles leaping from the sea. 

Then why start now? she demands.

Can we talk about this later please? Orla begs. I'm… I just. I will tell you, I promise.

Yaz relents, shoving down her irritation and letting her seal mind rejoice in the water rushing past and the companionship of others. 

Thank you, Orla says, sending her feelings of gratitude and love.

Yes, well, she grumbles, You'd better tell me later.

Orla fidgets as Yaz deals the cards, tapping on the edge of the table as each little rectangle slaps down, each a little harder than the last as Yaz grows more frustrated with her.

The last one goes down at last and Orla reaches out a hand to take her pile but Yaz slams a fist down on top of it. “You're supposed to be talkin’,” she reminds her.

The light from the oil lamp flickers over Yaz's features but there's no softness hiding in the shadows; Orla knows her wife is fearsome when she sets her mind to something.

“I'm scared,” she says after a moment, knowing there's no way she can prolong this moment. 

Yaz's head tilts to the side, brow furrowed as her eyes flick over Orla's features. “Scared o’ what? Is this about the rain earlier?”

A small smile tugs at her lips. Of course Yaz knows something was strange. “Gold star for Yaz,” she whispers. 

“I'm a fisherman's daughter,” Yaz says, scathing. “Course I pay attention to the weather.”

Orla bites her lip, drumming harder on the table, trying to think what to say next, but every one of her thoughts feels like a roaring storm and she can't see clear sailing.

“Is it your mother?” Yaz asks.

Orla peers up at her from between her lashes, looking for anger and finding only minor irritation; Yaz is struggling with patience. She nods. “She… doesn't like you.”

“You don't say,” Yaz says dryly. She sighs. “Orla, your mother tried to kill me, remember? I didn't think she would have started to love me just because I married her daughter.”

Orla nods, hands reaching for her cards again. Yaz lets her have them this time, but captures her fingers and gives them a squeeze. 

“I don't… I don't think she even loves me ,” Orla admits, her voice cracking. “Not the way she should. Not like a proper mother. I think she just… I'm like a prize to her. Something to keep an’ to shape and dominate.”

“Orla…” 

She can't bear to look at Yaz any more so she slams a card down on the table. Queen of hearts. Yaz takes a deep breath and then follows her lead, and the speed and skill required for the legendary game of Snap draws their attention for a while. 

Yaz wins the first round, and Orla shuffles the cards. They're an older pack, soft and worn in her hands. They feel like the home she and Yaz have made together.

“You're very brave,” Yaz tells her in a voice so soft it's like the fur of a seal pup.

Disbelief crashes over her in a wave, and she snorts as she begins dealing the cards. “Of course. I am so brave that I am crushed under my mother’s thumb. I am so brave that she threatens the life of my mate and I cower.” In her self-loathing she accidentally flings one of the cards right off the table, and Yaz has to rise from her seat to pick it up.

Instead of returning to her chair, Yaz moves to the opposite side of the table, standing behind her wife and wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “You are brave,” she murmurs into her hair. “Brave and strong. You have the courage to admit to yourself something truly horrible about your own mother, and I am proud of you. And you were strong enough to escape and find your way back to me when she tried to keep you away. Just because you can’t see your way right now, it doesn’t mean you won’t.”

Yaz sits on the floor and Orla drops the remaining cards and slides into her lap. “Thank you,” she whispers, burrowing her face into her wife's neck. “I'm sorry I upset you by not talkin’.”

Yaz's arms tighten around her. “I only wanted to help,” she says. “We're in this together, remember? I'm with you. Let me in.”

Orla responds by kissing the side of Yaz's neck, grinning at the little hiss she gets in response, then she sits up straight, remembering. “Oh! How was Sonya? Sorry, I've been so focused on my stuff I forgot to ask.”

“Oh, same old same old,” Yaz says in a breezy way that Orla recognises as artificial. “Fighting with her mother in law, expecting a baby…”

Orla's jaw drops. “Expecting a what?!”

“A bailey,” Yaz teases. “Her castle does not have enough walls.”

Orla blinks, confused. “Wait, when did she get a castle?”

Yaz kisses her nose. “She didn't, love. We are going to be aunts.”

Orla gasps, wiggling in Yaz's lap. “Oh my stars! Yaz! We have to… erm…” She realises she has no idea what is expected of her, and stills. “I have no idea. What do aunts do?”

Yaz laughs. “I’m not really sure, I only have uncles. I suppose we will find out.”

“You’re going to be a brilliant aunt,” Orla tells her. Peace that has evaded her all day is wrapping around her, and she feels her eyelids growing heavy, although it is not that late. “I love you.”

“Same to you on both counts,” Yaz says, kissing the top of her head and then twitching when some of her hair tickles her nose. “You’re looking sleepy, love. Shall we sleep outside tonight?”

“If you want to,” Orla agrees, words distorted by a yawn. “Should play more Snap tomorrow. Whole evenin’ got out of hand tonight.”

“Alright,” Yaz agrees in gentle amusement. She gives Orla a shove. “Get off me, then. Can’t get up with you on me lap.”

“Says the girl who carried me through half o’ Yorkshire,” Orla counters, but she rises and holds out a hand to her wife. “Let’s go to bed.”

Chapter Text

The sun is rising when Yaz wakes, marking it as around half three in the morning, though she can only sense the progress of the dawn because she is in her seal form. 

Orla? she says. There's a strange smell, and her wife twitches next to her, still dreaming. 

Yaz opens her eyes. Everything seems orange, and it's far too hot. She snaps the rest of the way awake and slams her body into Orla's. Orla! Fire!

But I don't have a gun, Orla says sleepily. Guns are for stupid people. I have teeth.

Wake up! There's a fire!

Orla struggles her way to wakefulness, then her limpid eyes reflect the orange light of the fire coming from their cottage. 

Anguish and loss strike Yaz in waves coming from her wife, and she throws a fin over her back, wishing she had let her sleep on. 

It's just a house, she reminds her. We're safe.

Rain is striking her hide, making it hard to see more than just an orange blur. Maybe the rain will stop the fire from taking the whole cottage, but the size of the light does not give Yaz hope. 

Orla's mood changes to a grim kind of determination, and the water in the sea behind them starts to feel different. Power surges through it, working with it, building with it. Yaz gets the idea of what Orla is trying to do and she throws her strength into it too. Gradually the sea retreats from around them and then it charges back up the steep beach, a vengeful wave to defeat the wrath of the flames. 

Rain thuds into the ground around them, leaving small circles in the sand. A crack of thunder startles Yaz, and the cloying scent of burning makes her bark a cough. The cottage is making a sizzling sound.

That sense of loss is rippling from Orla again, and Yaz presses her nose between her eyes. Peace, love. It was just a building.

But it was ours, Orla cries back, keening aloud. We made it and we loved it. We loved each other there, and now it's gone. 

We love each other everywhere, Yaz reminds her. And when it's safe, we'll rebuild it. Come on, sweetheart. Let's get some more sleep. We'll look at the damage in the morning.

Orla agrees, but even though it takes Yaz a long while to fall asleep, her wife is still wide awake and seething when she drifts into unconsciousness. 

When Yaz wakes, she can smell that Orla has already Changed so she follows suit. It has stopped raining, and the sun is beating down. It's around ten in the morning; the early morning distress must have worn her out. 

A pan flies out of what remains of the front cottage window, and she ducks.

“Oi!” she yells, hands on hips.

Orla's face appears at the window. “Oh! Hiya! Didn't realise you were awake.”

Unimpressed, Yaz glares. “Good thing I were, otherwise you'd have hit me with that pan.”

“Oh,” Orla says, grimacing. “I'm sorry, guess I got carried away.” Her face is caked with soot, but as she draws closer Yaz can see there are streaks in it from tears, and she starts to feel bad for getting cross.

“What are you up to?” she asks, peering in through the window. The thatched roof is completely gone, as are the wooden shutters. 

Orla leans forward to kiss her on the cheek, then steps back to show her the room. The fireplace is the highlight of a room that is otherwise filled with ash and charcoal. Their cooking pot is sitting under the chimney. The north wall is crumbling. Everything is black.

“It really burned hot,” she whispers.

“It was lightning,” Orla growls. “From our personal highly localised storm.” 

“Your mother?” 

Orla gives an affirmative jerk of the head and brushes her hair from her eyes, turning a streak of it grey with soot. “Yeah.” She sighs, and then looks at Yaz, a dishonest smile stretching her mouth. “You should go visit your family. See if they can spare us anythin’ to help rebuild. Plus you haven't seen your mum in a while.”

“What are you gonna do?” Yaz asks. She circles around to the doorway, now just a vaguely rectangular hole in the stones, and then falters as she takes in the destruction from a new angle. It's hard to picture things as they had been in their beautiful bright cottage when all the sunlight picks up is shades of black and grey. The table had been over there, by the window. She was sure of that but it seemed impossible now. 

She'd had a little gold pendant, an heirloom from her dad's mother. Would it still be here? She doesn't even know where to look. 

Maybe she should leave Orla to search. 

Orla seems to sense Yaz's uncertainty and comes close to her, placing her hands on her hips and brushing their noses together.

“We could have been in here,” Yaz whispers.

“We could,” Orla agrees. “We weren't.”

Yaz isn't sure what comes over her then. All of their clothes, except those buried at strategic points on the mainland, have been burned, and now Orla's hands seem to contain a fire of their very own, blazing against the skin of Yaz's hips. Even more tantalising is the brush of her wife's breasts against her own, and Yaz slides a hand into Orla's soot-streaked hair and pulls her closer, kissing her with a rising desperation that seems to come from the realisation that they are both alive when they could so easily have been otherwise. 

Orla is slow to respond but then her heat matches her wife's, her tongue stroking Yaz's as her hand grabs greedily at her breast. 

Yaz's back hits the blackened wall, head thrown back as Orla begins to suck and nibble at her neck, and then she is struck by the scorching absence as Orla's knees land in the ashes at her feet.

The same storm that has swept through Yaz now simmers in Orla's gaze as she makes eye contact before burying her face between Yaz's thighs. Yaz releases a guttural moan, her fingers knotting in Orla's hair and tugging. Her wife squeaks but intensifies her efforts, her tongue working faster and faster, moaning into Yaz's cunt as she snakes one hand between her own legs. 

Yaz grinds down into Orla's mouth, her legs trembling as she heads towards her peak. “Orla,” she breathes, the fingers of her left hand digging into a gap between the wall stones. “Please, I need -”

Orla's left hand is bruising her hip, pressing her back against the wall, but then wet fingers are drifting up her inner thigh and then sliding inside her, and Yaz clenches around the intrusion. She's pulling Orla's hair again and then she comes with a hoarse cry, squeezing Orla's hand as if she could milk it dry.

She slides down opposite her kneeling wife, keeping her hand in her hair and her head pulled back to reveal the graceful column of her neck. She licks down it messily then nips at her clavicle as she begins to finger her, pressing swift, desperate circles around her clit. The smell of smoke clings to them both as Orla's back arches. Yaz slips two fingers inside her, fucking her hard and fast and watching the line between her eyes deepen. She's so beautiful, so alive, and Yaz kisses her harshly as she pushes her over the edge. 

Orla lets out a moan that's almost a sob, and then they collapse into each other’s arms, tipping over to land in the soft ash of the floor. 

They lie there for a moment, holding on tight, and then Orla starts to laugh. “We are really, really filthy.”

Yaz smirks. “Yes, an’ we’re also completely covered in ash.”

Chapter Text

Once they’ve recovered their strength, the selkies make their way into the ocean to clean up, which turns into another spell of lovemaking that feels like mending, slow and gentle. 

After, Yaz departs to see her family without complaint, which makes it easier for Orla to hide the ulterior motive she hadn't allowed to fully brew in her mind. With her perceptive wife gone, Orla lets it fill her thoughts. 

Her mother cannot be allowed to get away with this. If left unchallenged, who knows what depravities she might move on with. And who better to challenge her than the daughter she has raised and groomed for leadership? 

Orla ignores the pain that this will inevitably cause. She loves her mother with a desperate kind of wistfulness, and the idea of losing her and being forced into the dull monotony of leadership will feel almost as bad as the period in her youth where she had been anchored, though at least this time she will have Yaz.

As long as she keeps her safe.

She moves to the cook pot and reaches inside, pulling out the clump of melted gold she had hidden there: the remains of Yaz’s heirloom necklace.

Staring at the misshapen metal seems to focus her, forging her into something sharp and cold. She closes her fingers around it. 

“Right,” she whispers. “Let's end this.”

She lifts a stone from the floor of the cottage and slips the gold underneath, then returns to the water, Changing in a shimmer of energy. She swims with purpose, ignoring the handful of seals who attempt to play with her and trying to ignore the fact that she is finally acting like the person her mother raised her to be.

Her mother isn't at the rock where she usually keeps court, so Orla casts her senses through the water to check her usual haunts. 

She is on the mainland, a couple of miles south of Whitby, close to the shore.

Confused, Orla swims. 

“Hello, dear.”

Tecteun doesn't turn as Orla enters the small glass building - a greenhouse, she realises. 

It is hard to surprise Tecteun.

“What is this place?” she asks.

Her mother turns, a gentle but proud smile on her face. “This is my laboratory, child. You know I studied botany extensively.”

“Why didn't I know about it?” She looks around at row upon row of plants, then at the peaceful expression on Tecteun's face that she's never seen before. A broad-brimmed hat dangles on a string around the selkie lord's neck. 

“You are not entitled to all my secrets,” Tecteun tells her, a glint of steel behind that peace. “Why are you here?”

“You know why I’m here,” she snarls, her teeth bared. “You sent a storm and it burned my fucking house down. ”

“And what did you learn?” Tecteun asks softly.

Orla jerks her head back in confusion. “You what?”

Tecteun sniffs. “Child, it is like you were raised by humans. ‘Pardon me’ is the phrase you are looking for.”

“I do not seek your pardon,” Orla snaps. “Not now, not ever. You could have killed us both.”

“Everything has its time, nothing is forever,” her mother chides. “Nothing is certain. Not you and not this human you seem to love so much. You can go.”

“I will not go!” Orla barks, stepping closer. “Tecteun, I challenge thee, according to our ancient customs. Fight me, and the winner reigns as leader of our people.”

To her shock and indignation, Tecteun laughs. “No.”

“No?” Orla echoes, the refusal sending ripples of nausea through her. She wonders if the rest of the colony will feel it too, this breaking of the Law. “You… you can’t just say no.”

“I can’t?” Tecteun asks, her face full of superior amusement. “Good heavens, why not?”

“Because it’s the Law, ” Orla says, her mouth working in silence as she tries to think what to add to that. 

“And who enforces the Law?” Tecteun queries. “Come, child. Walk with me.” 

“I am not a child,” Orla mutters, aware that doing so makes her sound more like one.

Her mother strips off her heavy gardening gloves and places them on the table beside her with more care than she has ever shown for her daughter. She leads the way out of the greenhouse and down onto the stoney beach, stopping when the North Sea starts to wash over her bare feet. She stands looking out at the water, Orla at her side. 

“You are not ready to rule,” Tecteun says after a while. “You are too… raw. Too passionate. Too moral. Morality is always your flaw.”

She’s mad, Orla realises. “Morality is a strength.”

Tecteun sniffs just as she does when Orla lets her company manners drop. “True strength is knowing when morality has served its purpose.”

Orla realises the sky has darkened. The sea whips at her ankles. “Mother?”

“You have forgotten your place, child, ” Tecteun tells her. “I will help you learn. Again.”

Yaz drags herself ashore on their little island, weary to the flipper. The sun is setting on this longest of days. Her mother had asked so many questions that her head had spun, and they had spent much of the afternoon dodging Sonya’s vile mother-in-law, and all Yaz wants to do is curl up with her wife in a bed that no longer exists.

There’s no sign of Orla, either.

Yaz Changes, as it is easier to move on land in her human skin, and explores the island. Her wife isn’t there, and the cottage remains in the same state as it had been that morning. 

Anger and worry wage war within her, and she steps into the sea to search with her senses, but Orla doesn’t seem to be close enough. She sits down in the water, trying to let the wash of the waves comfort her, but all they do is send her traces of her wife. She’s out there somewhere, but Yaz can’t sense anything more than that. 

As the sun drops below the horizon, she backs out of the sea and curls into a ball on the wet sand, her seal skin draped over her as she stares out over the water. 

Orla flies through the night on shining silver wings.

Orla and Yaz dance together on a field of ice, staring into each other’s eyes.

Orla invents a biscuit that can solve world hunger.

Orla flies a blue box through space and time.

Orla dies and becomes a man with dark skin and dancing eyes.

Orla lives and she and Yaz meet time and time again, in life after life, and fall in love - in theatres, in hospitals, in space…

Yaz’s dreams are full of her, and then so are her arms.

“Yaz,” Orla whispers. “Help me.”

The blonde collapses on top of her, unconscious and bleeding.

“Orla!” Yaz hisses. She pushes her wife off her and gets to her hands and knees, shaking Orla’s shoulders. “Orla, wake up.”

Her wife looks tiny and crumpled, cuts on her face and body looking black in the moonlight. Her skin is cool to the touch but she is breathing, her pulse firm beneath Yaz’s fingers, and she releases a sound between a sob and a sigh of relief. 

“You’re alright,” she whispers, combing her fingers through Orla’s damp hair. “You’re alright. Please wake up. I’m right here. Please wake up. You’re supposed to not scare me like this anymore, remember? Wake. Up.”

Chapter Text

The sun has risen by the time Orla stirs, and Yaz is at her side in an instant, terror ripping through her veins at the weak, pained sound she’d made. 

“Babe?”

Orla just whimpers, and Yaz scrambles back as a ripple of gold light like selkie magic passes under her skin. Her lips part and some of the light comes out like a puff of smoke. 

Yaz stares. She and Orla have been hurt before during their marriage, and yet she’s never seen this. A cut on her wife’s head heals before her eyes.

Orla whimpers again and Yaz inches back towards her. “Orla, wake up,” she pleads. 

There’s another moan, and then the blonde’s throat works for a moment before she rolls over and starts to vomit water, which glows for a moment before dimming. Orla coughs and splutters, and Yaz strokes her back, crying. 

“You’re alright,” she murmurs over and over again. “You’re alright, love.” She longs to carry her wife inside and tuck her into bed, but neither house nor bed remains and all she has is a cold beach and the cold light of dawn. She lies down next to Orla instead, stroking her side as she takes in great heaving breaths. 

“I’m alright,” Orla croaks after a while. The sun is gaining height but not heat, and Yaz pulls both their seal skins closer, covering them before pulling Orla into her arms.

Orla’s cold skin warms against hers as the day finds its heat, but Yaz nuzzles in closer, a second night of terror chilling her bones. “Where did you go?” she whispers as Orla’s heart slows to normal beneath her fingertips.

“I made a mistake,” Orla says. “I’m so sorry, Yaz. I nearly lost everythin’. I’ll tell you more, but can I sleep? ‘M so tired.”

“Sleep, babe,” Yaz whispers, holding her tighter. “Sleep. I’ve got you.”

“You did what?”

Orla squeezes her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I challenged Mother to single combat.”

“How… you… what? But…” Yaz seems to struggle with herself for a moment then shoves her wife with both hands, sending her stumbling back a few steps. 

Orla flaps her arms to keep her balance, guilt and hurt warring within her. She thinks it's the hurt that shows on her face, because Yaz is already looking horrified at herself. 

“You scared me!” Yaz snaps in a clear effort to defend her action, then she deflates. “But I shouldn't have pushed you. I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry too,” Orla admits, arms folded over her chest. “I got so caught up in me fear about what could happen to you that I forgot what it would mean for you if something happened to me. ” She looks along the coast towards her mother's laboratory. “She refused the challenge.”

“She… what?” Yaz blinks. “Can she do that?”

“No she bloody can't,” Orla growls. “It's… obscene. It hurts. Don't you feel it, Yaz? It feels physically wrong.”

Yaz goes silent for a while, chewing on her bottom lip. “I feel queasy, is that it?”

Orla nods. “It's your selkie magic tellin` you things aren't right. She's not going to stop attacking us, Yaz. We can't let this stand.”

Yaz folds her arms, glaring. “You still haven't told me what she did to you.”

“Haven't I?” Orla says in an effort to breeze past it that she knows Yaz has seen through even as she says it. She gives in straight away, hanging her head and playing with the wet sand with her big toe. “She summoned up a storm when I weren’t even in me seal form. Got swept out to sea. Think I hit my head. Don’t remember much after that.” She frowns as something occurs to her. “Why don’t I have any injuries? I swear I had a broken arm, at least.”

“Let’s sit down,” Yaz suggests. They move higher up the beach so they can sit on dry sand. It’s humid today; a storm seems to be brewing. A natural one, this time.

“Why are we sitting?” Orla asks when they’re comfortable.

“This morning, when you were unconscious…” Yaz looks at her then tears her gaze away to where her fingertips are playing with the sand, sweeping it into tiny sandcastles and flattening them. “I thought you were gonna die. Again.”

“Sorry -”

“Not the point,” Yaz cuts her off. “Right when I thought you were going to go, you began to glow with a golden light. When it stopped you were all healed.”

Orla just stares at her. “What?”

“The light that shows sometimes when we use selkie magic, the light from the pillars in our cave. It shone from you.” Yaz looks as bewildered as Orla feels.

“I don’t understand. Why would…? Unless it was something my mother did, perhaps?”

Yaz has no answer and they sit side by side, shoulders pressed together. Orla tucks her head under Yaz’s chin, her thoughts brewing like storm clouds.

“I think we ought to go and see my Aunt Romana,” Orla says after a while, the storm clouds having shaken loose a few bits of mental precipitation. 

“If you’d like to,” Yaz says, playing with her hair. “Why?”

“I think she can help stop my mother. And I think she will want to.”

I see the problem, Romana says, her mind-voice weary. But then, I’ve always seen the problem.

Will you help? Yaz asks. They lie on their sides on Romana’s little beach, taking in the last of the day’s sun. Orla’s aura prickles with unease and grief; Yaz longs to comfort her but feels uncertain in front of this old friend of Orla’s mother.

There’s a long pause. Orla and Yaz can feel the older selkie’s conflicting emotions, how she yearns for peace.

What exactly are you proposing? Romana asks Orla carefully.

I’m not exactly sure, Orla admits with a wave of her right flipper. I do know that I do not wish to rule. I will, if I have to. 

I am happy to rule, Romana says, sounding more certain now. I will not throw my weight behind another selkie, not again. I backed your mother, and I have regretted it ever since. At least I know I can trust myself. So if, rather than me helping you, you will help me… then I am in. And we will declare war.

It is the next night when they visit Romana's next. The older selkie has spent the past day gathering her closest supporters and this evening is to be a council of war. 

Romana meets them on the beach in her human form, so Orla and Yaz Change politely to match. “Good evening,” she greets them with a tight smile. “Thank you for coming early. I thought if we were all together it presents a united front.”

“Good thinkin’,” Orla approves. “Where are we meeting?” 

Romana shoots her a mischievous grin. “Follow me.”

She leads them about ten feet onto her island and sweeps aside the branches of a small weeping willow to reveal a tunnel descending into the ground in a steep slope. Without comment, she strides down and the younger women follow. As the sunlight fades it is replaced by the golden glow of selkie magic coming from rocks set into the earth, and then the lights expand to form a sprawling spiral like a galaxy on the ceiling of a large, round cave. 

“Oh, very fancy,” Orla comments. Yaz grins, squeezing her hand. She has always loved the way her wife loves the world.

There are no chairs, but the sandy floor is warm, and they sit on a slight rise to the edge of the room and wait. 

The first to arrive is an older man with wide eyes and wild curly brown hair. He and Romana exchange a long look and then sit next to each other in silence, their knees touching.

Yaz smirks at Orla; there’s some chemistry there.

The next is a tall young woman with fiery red hair and her more mousy mate. The latter gives Orla a little wave before sitting across the circle from them. Yaz is unsure why nobody is speaking, and the silence starts to press in on her, curling her shoulders inwards. Her human sensibilities are also giving her trouble; all the attendees somewhat preserve their modesty with their seal skins, but there’s not a lot left to the imagination. A part of her wishes to add at least four layers of clothing to everyone.

Orla’s arm brushes against hers and then their fingers intertwine, and she looks into the steady eyes of her wife. Sometimes it feels as if they can have a whole conversation without saying a word, and now is one of those times. By the time the next selkies arrive, Yaz is feeling much calmer.

People start to arrive in greater numbers, and soon the room is almost fully lined by a circle of selkies sitting in silence. 

“Order,” Romana says softly. The sound level in the room does not change, but it feels as if attention snaps to her like a bowstring. 

Yaz nods to herself. Romana could very well be the leader they are looking for. 

“Thank you all for coming,” Romana says, looking around at them all with a welcoming smile. “We have one more yet to arrive, but I believe we can start without him. As I have told you individually, the time has come to intervene in Tecteun’s reign, as we have long expected it might. Ah - here he comes now, let’s hold off a moment.”

There’s the shuffling sound of feet in sand and then a head pops around the corner. “Hello, only me.”

The man is around Yaz’s age, handsome, with skin the colour of her own and hair that curls slightly at the ends. She smiles instinctively, but Orla is scrambling to her feet, teeth bared in a snarl.

“You!”

“Me,” he agrees, sounding almost fond.

Romana stands too, placing a calming hand on Orla’s shoulder. “I see everybody knows Olchobar.” 

Chapter Text

Orla’s sure the hand on her shoulder looks light and friendly to the observer, but Romana’s thumbnail is digging in so hard it might be drawing blood.

Yaz is on her feet now at her side, turned slightly in so her body is partially between Orla and O. “He’s Olchobar?” she growls. “Oh, let me at him.” Despite her words, she remains a steady presence blocking them from reaching each other.

“We’re best friends,” O says smoothly.

The redhead - the younger of two present, the one who must be Rory’s mate - sounds skeptical. “Sure about that, are you?”

“We’re going through a rocky patch,” he admits.

“Yes, because he’s a treacherous little flower urchin ,” Orla snarls. “He’s been in Tecteun’s pocket since he were six years old.”

“Look who’s talking,” he responds, unruffled. 

Her fists clench, but Yaz leans back slightly so their shoulders brush together. She takes a deep breath and turns to Romana. “You can’t trust him.”

The older selkie gives her a calm nod. “That may be, but he is too valuable to turn away. He still has influence on Tecteun.”

“Very well,” Orla says. She takes a deep breath. “He will betray you. And I’ll be there to stop it.” She turns, making eye contact with O, and sits without breaking it.

“I would expect nothing less,” Romana says, her voice fond. 

The meeting moves on with introductions, and a male a little younger than Romana, Dan, diffuses the tension with his easy manner and jokes. Even Orla finds herself smiling, though her eyes rarely drift from watching Olchobar. She knows he’s aware of her gaze but he appears relaxed, exchanging jokes with a few of the others. He really can be charming sometimes. 

She’s glad to have Yaz at her side, knowing she’ll retain any details from the meeting that Orla misses due to her intent observation. She can tell from her occasional glances that her friend Bill also has her eyes on him; Bill is too young to remember when Orla and Olchobar were friends but she had been there for some of Olchobar’s mistreatment of her in their youth. 

It is decided that Bill and her friend the Doctor will deliver their notice of intent to Tecteun, calling for her to abdicate in favour of her old friend. Whilst they wouldn’t put it past Tecteun to attack the messengers, the Doctor is too well known and admired throughout the colony, and any harm done to him would risk further rebellion. The notice will include the fact that Orla stands with Romana. 

The rebellion contains about a quarter of the adults in the colony, and that’s without extensive recruitment. Orla feels a thrill of hope as she looks around the circle that fizzes out when her eyes land on Olchobar once more. 

Romana dismisses everybody, inviting them to stay on her island for the duration of the unrest. Orla glances at Yaz to confirm this is what they will be doing and when she looks back, Olchobar is standing in front of her.

She scrambles to her feet, growling, and feels Yaz follow a beat behind. 

He gives a disarming smile. “Orla, might I have a word? Alone? I would like to try and bury the hatchet.” He pauses. “Not in you. That’s a very aggressive turn of phrase, isn’t it? I would like to put our disagreement behind us.”

She looks at him and sees her oldest friend.

She looks at him and sees her oldest enemy.

He looks at Yaz. “I won’t take her far from you, I promise.”

“No. You won’t,” Yaz says in a level voice. 

Orla turns to her wife, exchanging a long look full of promises, before returning her gaze to Olchobar. She waves a hand towards the entrance. “After you.”

It is a clear night, so clear they can see the Milky Way like a rift in the sky. Orla had loved the astronomy lessons she’d had as a child, had longed for more, always searching for ways to expand her universe. Olchobar had seemed the same, and they had talked and dreamed together. And then it had stopped.

Olchobar stops atop a rocky outcropping, silhouetted by the stars, his hands on his hips. Tears burn Orla’s eyes as she once again sees the little boy he had been. “What do you want?” she demands, pushing the emotion aside. “What’s your game here?”

“Rebellion, my dear,” he tells her. “Your mother needs to be stopped.”

“Oh please,” she spits. “You don’t care about that.”

“I care about you,” he says, and his tone is so simple, so matter of fact, that she believes him and then doubts herself.

“Like hell you do,” she snaps. “You’ve been cruel to me for nearly two decades, Olchobar. How am I supposed to believe you care?”

“I’ve always cared,” he snaps back. He sits down on a boulder, his arms wrapping around his knees. “You were my best friend in the world, the only person I had who cared about me, and you replaced me."

She scrunches her nose. “You what?”

He sighs, ducking his head. “I know it’s petty. But when I saw you with Yaz for the first time, the way you smiled at her, the way you glowed for her, it was as if you were the sun. And I was burned. I didn’t understand until I was much older that it was because you were in love with her, that it was not something you chose, but by then I had already destroyed our friendship, and I couldn’t tell you what I had learned.”

She lowers herself to sit on a boulder opposite him. His face is in shadow, but she can see the breeze ruffling his hair. “Learned about what?”

“You,” he says softly. “I learned about you.”

Orla frowns. “You already knew about me.”

“I knew what you knew,” he corrects her. “But your life isn’t what you think it is, Orla. Your mother has lied to you. I found her diary.”

“My mother doesn’t keep a diary,” she says, awash in confusion. 

“Of course,” he scoffs. “She doesn’t keep a laboratory either.”

“You know about her greenhouse?”

“I found it,” he says. “Had a nose about. Found a diary. Read it. Learned about you.”

“Learned what about me?” she asks, trying to keep a note of pleading out of her voice. For some reason she is filled with fear, her skin rippling with goosebumps as if everything she knows is about to change.

She wishes Yaz was with her.

“This is going to be difficult to hear,” O tells her, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forwards. “Orla, Tecteun is not your mother. At least not by birth.”

The tingling feeling intensifies. Her lips are numb. “What?”

“I’ll start at the beginning,” he says. “25 years ago, Tecteun was supposedly the leader of our colony, but she did not care to rule. Instead, she was an explorer. The humans having already mapped most of the landward world, Tecteun set her mind to the seas and caves. She mapped the coastlines and travelled extensively, while her friend Romana ruled in her place.”

“I didn’t know that,” she whispers.

He acknowledges her with a nod, but continues. “One day, as she was exploring off the coast of Ireland, Tecteun saw a strange light on the shore. She swam towards the light, Changed, and walked up the beach. There was a church at the top of the beach, and the light was coming from a basket in front of the door. It reminded her of our magic, but a slightly different hue. She walked up to the basket, and inside was a baby girl.”

“No,” Orla croaks.

“Yes,” he says firmly. “She was unwilling to leave a magic baby with humans so she picked you up and brought you back to the colony, claiming you as her own. She had been gone so long that nobody knew otherwise.”

“But I'm a selkie,” Orla says, fingers digging into her seal skin for comfort. 

“Ah,” says O, eyes shadowed. “But are you? You see, when Tecteun found you, you were wrapped in a white woollen blanket, edged with dark blue ribbon. And when she picked you up, that blanket shifted beneath her hands into the seal skin you wear right now.”

“No,” she whispers. Then she shouts. “No! This is all lies. I know my own life!”

“I'm sorry,” he says, his voice soft as a pup's fur. She actually believes him. “I wish I could say I was lying, but for once in my life I'm not. There's more, and it's not pleasant but I think you need to know.”

Her eyes burn like she should be crying but the tears don't come and she doesn't want him to see them if they do. She turns to the side, letting her hair drop between them as a shield. “Tell me.”

Chapter Text

It's three days after the council that the war begins. Yaz is out on patrol with Rory's wife Amy, a petite selkie called Clara, a male called Mickey and, to her disgust, Olchobar. They're spiralling outwards from Romana's island, swimming in tense silence. Clara leads, the others in a V formation behind her when Clara pauses, moving her flippers gently to stay in place. Yaz feels it then too: an electricity to the way the water touches her whiskers.

How many? Yaz asks.

Seven, Clara says, outwardly grim though Yaz detects a degree of excitement that tints her aura a pinky shade of purple. Maybe eight.

Well, which is it? Mickey demands, orange with panic. Seven or eight?

Does it matter? Yaz asks, giddy with bravado. You lot take one each, I'll handle the rest.

Clara sends her a sense of approval. That's the spirit, Yaz, but let's take them as we find them. Speaking of finding them… Ready? She leads them up to the surface where they take a few moments to fill and then empty their lungs, then dive back under, where they wait for her order. Charge.

Clara moves through the water like a small, pointy steam train, using magic to whisk the water behind her, propelling her even faster. Yaz follows suit, grateful for the time she had spent working with Orla on honing her magic. Her mind feels clear, everything is simple.

Eight, comes Clara's voice. Pick your targets.

There's a flurry of intent from the other selkies, so fast a human would not have been able to understand, but Yaz does. She chooses the larger of the two left to her, knowing she’ll need the advantage of her speed to make an impact. The other pack have spotted them now, their auras lighting up in alarm as they try to fall into a defensive formation.

It's too late. Clara's pack slam into them, the sea cloudy with bubbles and blood. Yaz reels from the impact as the large male she’d hit starts to drop into the depths. The surprise counts in her favour; the enemy selkie she's closest to takes enough time to understand what’s going on that she is able to recover her senses. 

The fight that follows is the most exhausting thing Yaz has ever been through. She is well matched with her opponent, a younger male, but she finds herself unwilling to take any action that might lead to his death, which puts her at a disadvantage as they whirl and twist through the water. She’s worn out and desperate to surface when she finally finds an advantage, her teeth ripping into one of his flippers and drawing a cry from his mind. 

The cry is answered.

The larger male from before slams into Yaz from behind, pushing her deeper underwater. Her thoughts are a formless cry of surprise and pain, but she manages to steady herself and looks towards where the light dapples the surface. She wonders where the others are; the sea is quiet and she’s too tired to stretch out her senses. 

She needs to breathe. 

In a last burst of energy she dashes for the surface, but the larger selkie slams into her again. An unpleasant crack goes through her body, and she realises he must have broken one of her ribs. She’s sinking now, her body screaming for air as the large male follows her down.

You’re the Abomination, he says, radiating smug satisfaction. Tecteun shall honour me for being the death of you.

He advances on her, teeth bared, as Yaz comes to rest on the sea bed. And now I lay me down to sleep, she mumbles. A Christian prayer. How did she even know that? Mum would be mad at me…

Something crashes into the other selkie from behind and then the world once more dissolves into blood and bubbles. Yaz watches it peacefully, sparing a little regret for the fact that she’d never find out what Orla had been so distressed about for the last few days. 

Orla…

She tries to push off the ground with her tail but nothing happens. The world is darkening at the edges, and she thinks of the beautiful light shifting under Orla’s skin.

Something is nudging underneath her, pushing her upwards. It’s a pity the world is so dark and she can’t see what it is. Maybe Orla stole all the light?

Swim, damn you. Something sharp digs into her fin.

There isn’t supposed to be pain. It had been so peaceful. Mum, I’m tired. Just a little more sleep?

Bloody hell, girl, I am very much not your mother. SWIM. 

Yaz wiggles her flippers and her tail, achieving slight movement. The person underneath is still pushing her up. Is Dad going out on the boat? I thought it were a Sunday.

Still not your mother, Yaz. Keep going. Move those feeble flippers of yours. 

There’s a ripple of daylight. Air bursts in, setting her lungs on fire.

Then blackness.

Orla isn't paying attention to the meeting, though she knows she should. Romana and the Doctor are discussing attack strategies and arguing about pacifism, but all her brain can do is obsess over every word Olchobar had said to her on the night of the council.

How could her mother do such things to her? And why, why doesn't she remember?

“Orla?” Romana asks. “Have you anything to add?”

“I agree with the Doctor,” she says. She's found that the opinions of Bill's misanthropic friend almost always align with her own. 

Romana sighs. “Very well then, I'll circulate the word to avoid harm where possible. Though I am not sure how we are supposed to win a war like this.”

“With our brains, Romana,” comes a booming voice from the entrance. Orla turns to see Romana's wild-haired friend, Baker. “Orla, you are needed on the beach.” He hesitates for a moment, his face grave. “It's Yaz.”

Her feet are running before she truly understands, slipping over cool rock and sand. Yaz had been unhappy with her this morning because she hadn't been able to tell her about O's revelations. What if that was the last time they'd ever speak? She should never have let Yaz go on patrol without her. 

She finds Clara on the beach arguing with Amy and Mickey. No sign of Olchobar or Yaz. 

“This isn't a discussion!” Clara snaps. “I'm going back in to find them, you two are staying here. You don't have the strength left to look for them properly. I bet the pair of you can't sense anything past your flippers.”

“And you can?!” Amy demands.

“We can't just leave them,” Mickey argues. Orla is surprised; she had the man pegged for a coward. 

“We're not,” Orla says, skidding to a halt. “I'm going. What happened?”

Clara draws her shoulders back as if to make space for the responsibility that weighs on them. “We were doing a spiral patrol when we encountered an enemy group of eight approaching the island with hostile intent. We attacked but Yaz and Olchobar were separated from us in the battle. When the three of us had despatched our targets we were unable to locate them. We hoped to meet them back here but…” She shrugs hopelessly, looking around.

Dread pounds at the base of Orla's skull. She turns to look out at the sea, her hair blowing in her face. “I'm going.”

“Let me come with you,” Clara pleads.

“No,” Orla says. “You need to rest. Stay with the others.”

“What's that?” Amy says suddenly, staring at the waves.

“Seals!” Mickey replies in excitement. “Ours, or…?”

“One's hurt,” Clara says, her feet in the sea. “Or, erm…”

Orla's up to her waist already, wading out, the beats of her heart running into each other. 

“Yaz!” she cries out when she sees the deadweight seal being shoved along. There's splashing from behind her: the rest of the patrol group are with her, and between them they lift the unconscious selkie. Olchobar Changes to human form and helps too, he seems to be without injury but as exhausted as the rest. 

In her seal form Yaz is around 36 stone, and the group are relieved to sink to their knees with her in the cold sand. Orla calls to her connection with the sky and sea as she rests her hands on her wife's pelt. “Change,” she orders.

Yaz’s body doesn’t respond; her aura is tight to her skin and black shot with red.

“Change, damn it,” she hisses. The aura is still shrinking, and Orla tries not to panic, tries to think but her mind is filled with the sound of Mickey’s quiet crying and images of the life she wants with Yaz, of blue skies and thunderstorms and travels around the world, of nights under the stars in each others arms, and she tries to shove those thoughts into Yaz, the thoughts of the life they will have together. 

Her hands are hot.

She looks down at them and to her amazement they have taken on a golden glow, something flowing through them and into Yaz.

“What is that?” Amy breathes. 

“Magic,” Olchobar whispers in fascinated response. “But what kind?”

“It looks like love to me,” Clara says. She kneels next to Orla, who feels some sort of cloth dab at her cheeks - she must be crying. “Keep going, Orla. I don't know what you're doing, but it's working. Her aura brightens.”

“Come on, Yaz,” Orla whispers. “You told me once I have every power over you but the power to make you do as you're told. So I'm not tellin’ you, I'm asking. Begging. Pleading. Change.”

The gold light in Orla's hands spreads through Yaz's whole body, mellowing from a sharp orange-gold to the more typical sunshine of selkie magic. 

And she Changes. Smooth lines and seal fat turn to human skin and slender legs that Orla knows as well as her own. A sob bursts from her throat and she wants to hold her wife but her hands won't move, still pressed to Yaz's side. 

Yaz's eyes are shut, her face pained, but then there's a series of sick cracks from the ribs under Orla's fingertips. The pain eases from Yaz's face and she breathes deeply, then her eyes start to open. “Orla?” she whispers. “Who… how?”

“Olchobar brought you home,” Orla whispers. She lifts her head to look at him. “Thank you.”

He nods, looking exhausted. 

Mickey slings an arm around O’s shoulders. “Come on, let's go get some rest.” The others follow them. 

“You didn't tell me,” Yaz croaks. “Why you've been so mardy.”

“Gods, you never let up, do you?” Orla says, somewhere between laughing and crying as she brushes matted hair from Yaz's face. 

“Part of my charm,” her wife tells her. She starts to struggle to sit, and Orla helps, pulling her in close. She presses her head to Yaz's chest, reassuring herself with the drum of her heart.

“I'll tell you this evening,” she assures her. “Let's go home for a bit. I need you to meself for a while. Once we've rested.”

Chapter Text

“You’re sure she won’t know we’re here?” Yaz asks, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and sitting next to Orla on the beach. The blankets were the only things she had managed to bring back from her visit home while Orla was attempting to challenge her mother. She’s brought another one for her wife, but chooses instead to move closer and share her own. 

Orla is rigid with tension at first, but when Yaz starts to play with her hair she relaxes against her with a sigh, tucking her head into Yaz’s neck. They watch clouds flit across the moon until Orla is ready to speak.

“My mother… I found out… Olchobar told me… She didn’t…”

Orla is shaking, so Yaz holds her tight, pressing her lips to her hair. “It’s alright, love. You can tell me.”

“Some things feel too big to fit into words,” Orla whispers. She takes a deep breath. “My mother found me. On a church doorstep in Ireland. She stole me. She kept me. She lied to me. And then she hurt me.”

It feels like the words form a cloud above Yaz’s head and each phrase jumps out at her one after another like lightning. The last one strikes. “She hurt you?”

There’s the tiniest of nods against her clavicle. “She wanted to find out what I was.”

“What you are?” Yaz feels lost, but that’s just a shadow of how Orla must be feeling. She tugs gently at her arm, inviting her to lie with her head in Yaz’s lap, and Yaz continues to stroke her hair. 

“I’m not a selkie, Yaz,” Orla says in a tone of abject misery. “I don’t know who I am. What I am. Some kind of shapeshifter, but not a true selkie. Mother… She wanted to know what I was, but all she had to go on were some old books by humans on how to identify the fae. She poisoned me. I were just a wean, an’ she poisoned me.”

Sickened, Yaz leans forward, cocooning her wife in a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“The poisons made me sick, but every time it seemed like I might die, I lit up all gold, like the other day, an’ then I got better. So then she started experimenting to see how close to death she could push me, an’ trying to see if she could use that power for herself. For science, of course.” She releases a bitter laugh. “So selfless, my mother. She couldn’t draw the power from me to use for herself, so then she sought to control me utterly. No wonder she was so displeased when I grew to be me own person.”

“An’ what a person you are,” Yaz tells her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Beautiful, kind, brilliant. She tried to make you less, yet you made yourself more.”

Orla’s response is somewhere between a hiccup and a sob, and she rolls over to look at Yaz, eyes glinting in the moonlight. Yaz is sure she imagines the gold spiral of a galaxy in her eyes. “How are you so perfect?”

“Magic,” Yaz jokes, but Orla surges up to capture her lips, stealing her smile and replacing it with a moan.

Familiar heat rushes through her as she manoeuvres them both until they're lying side by side, trading deep, languid kisses. Orla's hands are flat against her ribs, and Yaz realises she's feeling her heart. She recognises it from the times she'd done it herself when she’d thought the blonde had been lost to her. She slows the kisses further and dots gentle ones to her wife's forehead and nose. 

“I'm alright, you know,” she murmurs, slipping lower to kiss Orla's jaw below her ear, then underneath.

“I'm not,” Orla tells her. “I need to feel you, to love you.”

“I'm not going to complain,” Yaz chuckles, then sucks a mark into her neck. “Feel that?”

There's a surge of movement from the blonde and Yaz finds herself pushed back into the sand, Orla straddling her hips and pinning her arms above her head. She looks up at her from heavy-lidded eyes, taking in the lithe, strong figure outlined by the moon. “Let me show you,” Orla says, and Yaz nods, swallowing. 

Orla moves slowly, every action precise as she starts to kiss her way down Yaz’s body. Yaz reaches for her but finds her hands pinned once again.

“Stay,” Orla orders. Yaz obeys, trying to ignore how electrifying she finds it when her wife commands her like this.

Her hands claw into the sand as Orla kisses the underside of her breasts; she arches her back to direct where she wants her but Orla pushes her back down with a firm hand. “Patience.”

Yaz whines as Orla returns to teasing her, spending an eternity kissing her way around before finally drawing Yaz's nipple into her mouth. Her hand plays with the other breast, squeezing and pinching in ways she knows will drive her wife crazy. 

“Orla,” Yaz grumbles. “Please…”

Orla props herself up on her elbow, and even in the dark Yaz knows her expression of smug mischief. “I’m sorry darling, is there something you wanted?”

“I swear, if you don’t touch me this instant -”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Orla teases. She drags a finger up Yaz’s side to her neck. “Where did you want me to touch you? Here?” She dances it down to her belly. “Or here?”

When her fingers finally move between Yaz's thighs, the moan she makes is so loud she claps her hands over her mouth even though they're alone on an island half a mile from the shore.

“Let me hear you, sweetheart,” Orla murmurs, then joins their lips as she swirls her fingers in a move that has tension building throughout Yaz's body. Her movements are gentle and sweet, and she pulls back to watch Yaz as she slowly comes apart on her fingertips.

Yaz blinks her eyes open to find Orla's face barely two inches from her own. “Hello.” 

“Hiya,” Orla whispers. “Not quite finished yet, you know.”

A lazy smile stretches Yaz's lips. “No?”

“I have the most beautiful woman in the world sprawled beneath me,” Orla tells her. “How could I be satisfied with just once?”

“I love you,” Yaz tells her, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “More than anythin’.”

“I'm so lucky,” Orla says, kissing her nose and then her lips. “I love you too, my Yaz.” She punctuates the point with another kiss that deepens quickly, and then breaks it to kiss her way down her wife's body. Yaz sighs at the feeling of Orla's lips, cool on her skin in contrast with the heat of her tongue, and then gasps as that tongue finds its way between her legs.

She winds Yaz up slower this time, one hand stroking her inner thigh while the other works inside her. “Fuck, Orla, I…”

Orla hums her appreciation, curling her fingers up and pressing in just the right spot to have fireworks burst behind her eyelids. She crawls up and Yaz pulls her into her boneless arms, pressing her lips to her forehead as her eyes drift shut.

“I don't know who I am, Yaz,” Orla whispers as she's about to drift to sleep.

“You're my Orla,” Yaz whispers back. “An’ you're the best person I've ever met. N'night babe…” She's asleep before she finishes the word.

Much to her disgust, Yaz is not permitted to go on patrol for the next four days. She spends her time basking on the beach, cooking - most of the other selkies haven’t tasted Indian food before and her services as a chef are much in demand - and shadowing Romana.

She’s doing the latter when a runner, one of the pups, dashes in with a message. “My Lady, there’s a battle!”

Romana pauses in the middle of a debate with Baker about prospective strategic targets and looks at the boy. “Hello Luke, tell us more.”

“Three of our patrol groups encountered around 30 of the enemy. Clyde - one of the other runners - went to locate the fourth patrol while I came here.”

“Well done, thank you. Stay on shore, you are not to enter the water, understand?”

The boy gives a reluctant nod. “Yes, my Lady.”

Yaz is on her feet, heading towards the exit when Romana says her name. “What?”

“You are not excused, Yasmin.”

Yaz whirls to face her, incredulous. “Romana, my wife is out there.”

“Indeed. My niece. One of the few people I have ever loved with all my heart.” Romana looks at her with complete understanding. “She is brilliant, Yaz. She can take care of herself. You need to trust her.”

Yaz looks wistfully at the door. “Of course I trust her. I just…”

“Need to stay where you’re told. I am going to join the battle now. Baker, do keep an eye on Yaz.”

“Oh, am I not coming?” he asks.

“You’re my second in command. I need you to remain here.”

He raises his arms and opens his mouth to protest, then lets it drop. “Very well. But if you die, I shall kill you.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

They exchange a lingering look before Romana strides out through the tunnel.

There’s a pause of around ten seconds.

“So,” Baker says. “Let’s go join the battle, shall we?”

Yaz stares at him. His wild eyes dance with mirth. “Romana told us to stay put.”

“She did indeed.”

“She’s the leader.”

“She is.” He takes his hat off and unwinds the ludicrously long scarf he often wears. “But I’m afraid I have a terrible relationship with rules.” He reaches into the pocket of his coat and holds out a paper bag. “Have a jelly baby.”

She reaches into the packet, fingers closing around a jelly sweet. She looks at it curiously. “This is an Unclaimed Baby.”

“And what kind of name is that?” he asks, popping one into his own mouth. 

“Romana is expecting us to stay here,” she points out, determined to draw them back to the point.

He grins at her, seeming for a moment to have far too many teeth. “I always like to do the unexpected, it takes people by surprise.”

Why am I fighting this? she wonders. She’s making him talk her into something that she wants to do. “Alright, but if we get in trouble I’m blamin’ you.”

“As you should.”

It is a sort of comfort having Baker with her as she slips into the sea. In seal form he is much larger, almost 20 stone heavier, and when Yaz swims beside him she can see how the larger male had managed to injure her so badly. 

Trying not to fret about what's to come, she ponders Orla's apparent ability to heal - it must have been what she'd done herself after her confrontation with Tecteun as well as what she had done to Yaz. It seems to be instinctive, driven by biological or emotional need. It must be some indicator of what type of being she is. But if Tecteun, devoid of decency and morality and possessed of great scientific knowledge, was unable to ascertain what Orla is, what hope do she and Yaz have of working it out?

You are angry, Baker observes. Not necessarily a bad thing in this context, but possibly a little premature. 

I'm thinking about Tecteun, she admits. She… experimented on Orla. Wanted to find out what she is. 

Word of Orla healing her on the beach had spread rapidly amongst the rebels, and of course Baker had been one the first to hear, close as he is to Romana.

She can feel his anger. We suspected as much. But we did not have the power to intervene. It was an argument about Orla that saw Romana outcast from the colony. I don't think she knows that.

She doesn't, Yaz confirms. Tecteun tried all sorts of horrible things to find out what Orla is and how to take advantage of her power. When she couldn't she began to concentrate on making Orla hers completely.

She feels his wince . You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.

Yaz thinks about that for a while as they swam, then tries to shift the whole thing from her thoughts. So, what is it with you and Romana? Are you married or…?

Oh look, a convenient battle, Baker says. 

Sure enough, at the edge of view the water is dark and filled with movement. 

Saved by the war, she says dryly. What's the plan?

I propose snooping, he says. If all goes well, we need not intervene. 

He leads her at a distance around the outside of the battle, then sneaks into a shipwreck. The two seals stare through cracks in ancient green boards at the chaos. 

Aha, Baker says. This was a true attack. Do you see the selkie at the centre? That is Gat, one of Tecteun’s most trusted lieutenants. 

Yaz looks at all the movement, forcing herself to take her time and see the patterns within it. She tries to see an overview, blocking out the identities of selkies she knows. Sure enough, the skirmishes seem to orbit around one particular spot. I see her. Where’s Romana?

You can find her, he says, sounding amused. See if you can trace the pattern. 

It takes Yaz longer, because unlike with Tecteun’s people the leader is embroiled in the fight herself. Orla is to one side of her, a little behind, with Clara on the other side. She’s like an arrowhead. 

She cannot stop watching now as Orla wounds a much larger selkie, forcing him to retreat.

What do we do? she asks.

Our side is winning, he says thoughtfully, But several of our people are in trouble and everybody is exhausted. I believe we can bring this to a quicker end. He looks around the shipwreck and his aura begins to sparkle with enthusiasm. I have an idea.

The tide is very low that night, which makes it much easier to have a ceilidh on the wet sand. Various selkies switch in and out of the band, allowing everyone who wishes to to dance. Yaz and Orla spend hours swinging each other around and holding one another much more closely than is strictly necessary.

Baker and Yaz’s capture of Gat with fishing nets from the shipwreck had brought the battle to a swift conclusion, with Tecteun’s people scattering in confusion. The rebellion had captured a total of five prisoners, including the lieutenant. 

Now Romana’s island is happy chaos, with ale flowing and music drifting across the water, and Yaz is happy in the arms of her wife.

“Ladies! May I cut in?” Bill asks, holding out her arms to Orla.

Yaz laughs. “Of course, I’ll go and get a drink.” 

She’s exhausted but happy; Baker had taken the blame as he had promised, though a warning look from Romana told her the leader was not fooled about how hard she had been to persuade. 

She makes her way up the beach, sand clinging between her bare toes as the simple dress she wears billows in the breeze. Somebody had brought a shipment of clothes and food from the mainland that afternoon, and she happily reaches for a slice of fruit cake and a cup of fruit juice off the refreshment table set up near the tunnel entrance. She takes a bite of cake, her eyes drifting shut as she savours it.

“Yasmin!” 

Her eyes snap open; Olchobar is in front of her, looking agitated. She really doesn’t know what to think of him. He’d saved her life, but…

“Yasmin, you need to come with me.” His voice is low and urgent. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks, feet unmoving in the sand.

“Tecteun has your mother.” 

Chapter Text

Orla finishes her dance with Bill with both of them laughing from trying to get ahead of the beat. They cling to each other for a moment, giddy from spinning, then Orla looks around for Yaz.

The smile slips from her face, replaced by a puzzled frown.

“Are you alright?” Bill asks. 

“Can't see Yaz,” Orla explains. 

Her friend chuckles. “You really are smitten, aren't you? Can't go five minutes without her.”

Orla chews her lip for a moment. “It's just… a bad feeling, I suppose.”

Bill purses her lips. “Would you like me to help look? It's a small island, won't take long.”

Orla clasps her shoulder in gratitude. “Would you? I'd really appreciate it. I'm probably just worryin’ for nothing, it's been a scary couple of weeks.”

Bill smiles at her. “It's fine, Orla. We'll find her and you two can get back to dancing the night away.”

It's over an hour before Bill and Orla reach an agreement: Yaz is not on the island. 

Bill goes to report to Romana while Orla paddles into the sea up to her shins, her stomach churning with fear. She closes her eyes and reaches out; she's beyond weary but is still able to search. 

“Orla?” Romana asks, splashing through the sea to get to her.

“She's gone,” Orla whispers. She feels as if all the blood has left her face and arms. “I can't find her.”

The back of Yaz's head hurts, and she's somewhere cold. The floor is… rock? Her fingers scrape against it. Yes, rock covered in a thin layer of gritty sand. 

She opens her eyes a crack and pulls a face as light from an oil lamp filters through. 

“Wakey wakey, Yasmin,” a familiar voice croons.

She forces her eyes open the rest of the way, blinking in the light to stare at the person in the cave with her, sitting in a wooden rocking chair that's at odds with its surroundings.

Olchobar. 

“You… kidnapped? Hit my head?” she manages, lifting a hand to the back of it. Her fingers come away sticky with blood, but it's already healing. “My mum, you said -”

“Funny thing that, actually,” Olchobar says. “I just made that up.”

She clenches her fists, considering punching him.

“Ah-ah,” he admonishes. “Look at your ankles.”

She does, and finds there is seaweed wrapped around them and tied to a loop in the floor. The weed glitters with golden light.

“One thing about Tecteun is that she's really good at finding uses for selkie magic that haven't been done before,” Olchobar says, cheerfully conversational. “You won’t be able to reach me, and it’ll hurt you if you do. Now, as I was saying, I made the thing about your mother up, so imagine my surprise when I got here and found out that Tecteun actually had kidnapped her!” He giggles, wiggling in his seat like a small child. “Of all the coincidences!”

“You’re lyin’,” she says flatly.

“It wouldn’t be out of character,” he admits. “But no. Listen.”

Yaz takes a deep breath and releases it, allowing herself to stop concentrating on the inside of the cell - for that is what it is, with iron bars crossing the entrance to the cave. Sure enough, she can hear her mother’s voice. She shuffles as far as she can towards the entrance to see if she can make out what’s being said.

“The way you’ve treated that poor child is unacceptable, an’ I suspect I haven’t heard the ‘alf of it,” Najia is saying. “She doesn’t expect to be loved, for goodness’ sake, and there’s no way that is not down to you. You don’t deserve that girl.”

Yaz’s heart warms. Her mum has taken the chance to have a motherly heart to heart with Tecteun. Of course she has. 

She can’t hear the words of Tecteun’s response, just that superior tone of hers, but then there’s the sound of a slap echoing through the caves.

Olchobar’s jaw drops. “She didn’t.”

“Of course she did,” Yaz says. “That’s my mum.”

Orla swims her fastest as the sky paints the sea red around her. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning, she thinks. Olchobar’s going to wish he listened.

As soon as Romana had informed her that O was missing from the island as well as Yaz, Orla had known. They hadn’t been taken together; Olchobar was behind it. 

She hadn’t let Romana mount a full offensive or even provide her with any backup. This has the scent of a distraction, and Romana needs to rally the troops around herself in preparation for whatever Tecteun has planned. Instead she had set off into the ocean, nudging the long-dormant mental link between herself and O until it lay clear before her, guiding her to him like a beacon. 

Yaz’s aura is not as yet fully developed due to her becoming a selkie rather than being born one, so Orla is only ever able to find her with it if she’s in the sea. With full selkies that Orla has a deep connection with, such as her mother or O, she is able to find them on land or beneath the waves, and now she knows that Olchobar is a few miles down the coast from Whitby at Robin Hood’s Bay, and he is in his human form. Which is helpful, because he will be much easier to beat the living daylights out of this way.

She manages to get there before he leaves; she is in far better condition these days than she had been when she had outrun O following her long period of anchoring, needing to get to Yaz. He is sitting on the beach, sprawling on the sand and looking pleased with himself as ever.

“Orla!” he says when he sees her, all friendly delight. “Fancy meeting you here.”

She ignores his words and launches herself at him, tackling him the rest of the way to the ground and pinning his shoulders, snarling in his face. “Where is she?”

“Who?” he asks.

“You know who, don't play with me,” she warns him.

“I'm afraid I have no idea,” O says, his eyes wide with innocence. “Although I am worried it might be Yaz, with how upset and irrational you are.”

“I’ll give you irrational,” she snarls, and drives her knee up between his legs as hard as she can. 

His eyes roll up into his head and she scrambles to her feet, sinking her hands into his hair to pull him to his feet. She half marches, half drags him down to the sea. “You’re going to take me to my wife. An’ if you’re very lucky, I won’t tear you to shreds.”

O had left Yaz alone hours ago, but somehow Najia is still berating Tecteun. From time to time the diatribe fades and then Yaz hears “An’ another thing!” and it starts up again.

She's impressed both by Najia’s stamina and the fact that for some reason Tecteun hasn't killed her yet.

Finally the matriarch seems to snap. “For the love of all the oceans will you just SHUT UP!”

Yaz gets to her feet, prepared to shout and distract Tecteun, but then there's a series of strange sounds, shuffling and shouting, and then silence falls.

Yaz tiptoes to the bars at the entrance, straining her ears for the slightest clue as to what is going on, but now all there is is muffled voices so she sighs and sits down again, her back to the bars.

There's quiet footsteps but she's tired and doesn't turn. 

“Is this a private cell or can anyone join?” Orla asks. 

Chapter Text

Yaz scrambles to her feet, her arms stretching through the bars to grab Orla. “You’re really here.”

“Pretty sure I am, yeah,” Orla says, stepping in close so they’re hugging through the bars. She can feel the tension in Yaz’s body, and swears she’ll make O and her mother pay for it. “Found you quick, didn’t I? Tell me you’re impressed.”

“Alright, bighead,” Yaz murmurs, but she grips Orla tighter. 

“Your mum’s just diggin’ out the keys for the cell,” Orla tells her. “Then we’ll get you out of here.”

“Is she alright?” Yaz asks. “What happened to Tecteun?”

“Mother had to take a quick break to deal with some Romana-related problems,” Orla says. “O showed me the way here. Not very enthusiastically, but we can’t ask for everythin’. I went back to get rid of him and get some backup, then came to get you. Are you alright?”

“I am now,” Yaz whispers.

“Right, I think this is the one!” Najia announces as she appears in the tunnel behind Orla, carrying a large bunch of keys and a candlestick in a holder. “Tecteun has a lot of keys. Are you alright, Yasmin?”

Yaz releases Orla and adjusts her seal skin, trying to make herself look decent by human standards. Orla knows this is impossible as she’d need roughly 35 more pieces of clothing. Humans are funny like that. “Am I alright?! Mum, you slapped the lord of the selkies!”

“You did?” Orla looks at Najia in astonishment. “Yaz’s mum, that’s amazin’.”

“It’s Najia,” she corrects weakly, more out of habit than anything else. Orla can tell she’s wearing her down. “And she was bein’ rude about my girls, how could I not?”

Orla takes the keys from her, the iron cool and unpleasant in her hands. She tries a few before the clock clicks open, and then Yaz is in her arms properly and the whole world drops away. “I were so worried,” she whispers. 

“I’m sorry,” Yaz says. “He told me Tecteun had Mum - he thought he were lyin’, thought it was dead hilarious when he found out it was the truth. I didn’t even question it, I just left with him. Then he hit my head.”

“He’s next on my slap list,” Najia announces.

“I already got him,” Orla informs her, voice dripping satisfaction. He’s lucky Yaz wasn’t badly hurt; she can feel vengeance like a living force within her that will break out if anything happens to her wife. 

“Still can’t believe you slapped her,” Yaz mutters.

“You should’ve heard what she were saying about our Orla, you would understand,” Najia says darkly.

Everything in Orla stills, her heart feeling too big for her chest. She'd assumed that by "my girls" Najia meant Sonya and Yaz. “You were defendin’ me? Why would you do that?”

“Because she should,” Najia says simply. “Now come along, we all have places to be. Hakim’s home this evening and I can’t be away wi’ the selkies.”

Orla chokes out a laugh that’s almost entirely a sob, and she holds out her hand to Yaz. “That’s true. We have a war to fight and a colony to win.”

In a rowing boat half a mile off the shore and a couple of miles to the south of Whitby, Yaz and Orla wait for the sun to set so they can take their part in the battle. Maria, one of the pups, is in the boat too, waiting in her seal form so she can slip into the sea and notify Romana or Baker of their progress. Orla is hoping her mother will be too preoccupied to perform a full sensory sweep for her; it would be no problem for Tecteun to find her under normal circumstances. 

Yaz’s hand is warm in hers, Orla’s fingertips finding the calluses from years of working with fishing nets. She remembers helping Yaz collect mussels when they were children, and wonders how many rough places come from that instead. Her fingers had blistered doing it, and she’d pretended not to mind because she didn’t want to look babyish in front of Yaz. 

She looks to her left. The sun’s gold is deepening from the colour of selkie magic to something more like her own, the healing light that had healed her and Yaz.

What am I?

She keeps coming back to the question, the same way she does to biting her fingernails. 

There are more colours in the sky now, pinks, reds and purple as the sun touches the sea and seems to set it aflame.

“Time to go,” Yaz says.

Orla gives a sharp nod and focuses on Changing, her call to the sea as strong as ever.

Who am I?

Flight in water, fish-hunter, sea jester. I am the stones beneath the foot and the sand under the wave. I am the crash of waves against cliffs and the lightning that loses itself in the ocean…

Two adult seals drop off the boat into the North Sea. An adolescent follows suit, but swims in the opposite direction.

What am I?

She really needs to focus. 

Oh, do pardon me.

There’s something large and grey in front of them that takes Orla by such surprise that it takes her a moment to realise it’s just a dolphin. 

A talking dolphin.

Interesting.

Sorry, Yaz says. She and Orla awkwardly part so the bottlenose can swim through the gap between them, as if there isn’t a whole sea around them.

Wait, Orla says before he can go. What are you up to?

Me? The dolphin seems surprised to be addressed. Oh, you know. Dolphin things. Dolphiny wolphiny. His dorsal fin emits a strange buzz and beep. Oh, hello. That’s interesting. He turns to look at Orla. Selkie?

…Yes?

Are you quite sure? He seems amused, but then the sound from his fin happens again. Ugh. I don’t have time. What’s your name, little selkie?

Orla, she tells him, something in her calling her to trust him. 

I will see you again, Orla, he tells her. Must be off. Lovely to meet you.

It takes them a moment to remember that they’re actually going somewhere, that they need to fulfil their part in the multi-pronged attack that Romana and Baker have been planning for weeks. 

The lab, Yaz says, aura flashing mauve with urgency.

Gods, yes. 

They swim in silence for a minute.

Orla? Yaz asks hesitantly. Was that dolphin wearing a bow tie?

I thought I imagined that! Maybe your dad was right after all.

Oh, I hope not. Mum hates when that happens.

Still, Orla's mind has a new thing to wrap around: that intelligent tone, that query, “Are you quite sure?”

She will find him again, on a day when he is not so concerned with… whatever is dolphiny wolphiny, and when she is not swept up in a war. 

They pull themselves onto the rocks outside Tecteun’s greenhouse laboratory, Changing despite the tiredness gnawing at their bones. The door is locked with a heavy iron padlock, which Orla pulls a face at. 

“Looks a bit rusty,” Yaz comments, turning it over in her hand. “Let’s find a good hard rock.”

They end up breaking it with a large flint, Yaz pulling it out of the way and dropping it to the ground. She opens the door and waves a hand airily for Orla to precede her. “Ladies first.”

“Why thank you, kind sir,” Orla simpers, picking up one end of her pelt as though lifting a skirt as she steps over the threshold. “We need to move quickly now, that dolphin’s thrown us off. Quick look around, then flames for this place.”

The greenhouse feels much colder than when she had visited last in a way that cannot be attributed to the late hour alone. Orla shivers as she thinks of what had been done to her here.

“Babe?” Yaz’s quiet voice still makes her jump, and she draws her seal skin tight around her. “I think I found her diaries.”

Orla’s mind retreats even as her feet advance to the workbench where her wife is standing. She doesn’t want to see them, and yet she wants to know everything. She reaches out with a shaking hand and brushes the faded green leather of the top journal, then looks at Yaz, pleading with her to understand even though she doesn’t know herself.

“You want to keep them?” Yaz guesses, her hand coming to cover Orla’s trembling one. 

Orla nods, huffing out a little breath that makes her hair dance.

Yaz walks a few steps away and then she returns holding a lantern and a shovel. “Alright. We’ll bury them.”

“Do we have time?”

“We’ll make time.” Yaz’s tone leaves no room for argument. 

“You, me, an’ a shovel at night time,” Orla says in a wobbly voice that she tries to shore up. “Just like the good old days.”

Yaz nudges her. “Be quiet an’ go dig a hole outside. I’ll look around some more.” She softens her words by pulling Orla back towards her and kissing her gently. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

“Alright,” Orla breathes, nodding to herself. She shoulders the shovel and takes it outside. The moon is rising as she buries the books above the high tide mark.

“Orla!” Yaz calls, and she jerks her head up, throwing one last shovelful of sand over the spot and sprinting back to the greenhouse in a panic.

“What?” she gasps as she stumbles back into the main room of the lab, finding Yaz kneeling by a flower bed. “Are you alright?”

Yaz looks up at her, eyes dancing with delight as she holds up a glowing basket. “I think I found something that will stop Tecteun.”

Chapter Text

The mental and emotional noise as they approach the main battleground is deafening; it hits Yaz like a tidal wave and sends her rolling through the water.

Yaz! 

Orla’s mindvoice is lost in the sea of others and Yaz thinks she (they both) might be screaming. She’s never felt anything like this, it sweeps through her, tingling and stabbing, and then…

Silence.

Orla’s flipper is against hers, her aura like steel as she sets a wall around Yaz’s mind. Yaz?

What… was that? Yaz asks in a voice that’s hardly there.

I’m so sorry, Orla says, though no hint of it reaches Yaz’s feelings. I didn’t think, you haven’t learned how to shield yourself. I’m sorry.

How… shield? Yaz asks, still feeling weak and dizzy. 

Normally it just happens as you get older, Orla explains. Pups are kept away from things that might overstimulate them, and then they develop control. You haven’t had that steady acclimatisation because Mother didn’t want you round. Let’s rest a moment.

Careful to keep their flippers together, they pull themselves out of the water onto a low sloping boulder, the harness Orla wears attached to the basket from the laboratory scraping on the rock. 

Yaz draws in deep breaths, trying to shut out the out-of-control feeling of moments before and remember how her own mind fits. Orla is steady by her side, nose pressed against her flank as she regains equilibrium. 

Better? Orla asks after a while.

Yes, thank you. 

Right, I'm going to show you how this shield is constructed and then I'm going to take mine away, alright?

Alright. It doesn't feel very alright, Yaz wants to wrap herself in that shield forever, but she can't stay flipper-to-flipper with her wife forever. 

Orla relaxes some of her own control so that Yaz can feel her emotions again, revealing concern and deep love. Yaz smiles inside, a little giddy. It's always wonderful to feel how somebody feels about you, and Orla's love for her is as bright as a sun. Orla recognises her joy and sends it back to her as the love is answered and…

We're getting distracted, Orla points out, amused.

I know. But still. I love you. Yaz tries to focus. What do I need to do?

Orla directs her to points of her mind and instructs her to set up a sort of mental scaffold, then she gets Yaz to push out with her senses, and with a mental clunk Yaz feels her own shield come into position.

Thank you, she says. 

It's a bit crude, Orla tells her with a mental frown. We'll work on it, but for today I don't think you'll be able to hear anybody while it's up unless they're touching you. I'm not sure anybody will hear you either unless you drop it, or again, if they're touching you.

That… is going to be a complication, Yaz points out with a sigh that ruffles her whiskers. We'll have to plan out exactly what we're doing then.

Never a fan of advance planning, Orla barks in dismay. 

The sea feels quieter than Yaz has ever experienced it, as if she is cut off from everything. It’s uncanny; all she can hear is the water whooshing in her ears, no chatter pushing against her mind, and the rippling colour of Orla’s aura is completely hidden from her.

She doesn’t like it.

She likes it even less when the couple part ways and she is alone with the vastness of the ocean and the instincts of her seal self. She has lost the feeling that she is part of the ocean, and instead she is a speck of dirt in it, tiny and insignificant.

But she has a mission and no time for fear. She swims.

Past a wrecked fishing boat.

Past a coral farm of Tecteun’s, full of unnatural straight lines like the ones Orla had refused to grow in.

Past fishing net after fishing net, tangled and sunk to the sea bed.

She’s glad she knows exactly where the battle is taking place, the spot where Romana’s forces had lured Tecteun’s, because she can’t sense the fight at all until she’s at its edges, all blood-tinged bubbles and nonstop movement. She cuts through it all like she’s no part of it, just as she feels, and hopes nobody attacks her from behind because she cannot sense anything. 

As had been the case at the smaller battle, Romana is the arrowhead of her seals whilst Tecteun is the nucleus of hers. Yaz is grateful for the lesson she had received from Baker on spotting the patterns. She angles herself so she passes through the ranks of her friends until she arrives behind Romana, who is engaged in a fierce fight with another female. The two are evenly matched, but Yaz throws herself into the fray, helping Romana force the enemy to retreat. When Romana goes to find another opponent, Yaz grabs her flipper between her teeth.

Yasmin, what -?

You need to pull our people back, Yaz tells her. Right now. Trust me.

Romana hesitates for a moment, then barks a signal to her selkies. They detach from their fights as well as they are able, moving three fathoms to the east and then holding their position.

Can you let go of me now? Romana asks, full of careful patience.

No, sorry, Yaz says. In a minute. Orla should be here any moment now. She relaxes her jaw, trying to assume a more casual grip on her leader’s flipper. She winces when she tastes blood; her seal teeth are just too sharp.

She had better hurry; they’re forming up, Romana warns. 

Sure enough, Tecteun’s selkies are forming a wedge and preparing to charge. Yaz looks to the surface of the water, and releases a huff of relief when she sees the shape of a boat above Tecteun’s fighters. A very familiar boat.

Something smaller breaches the surface of the water at its stern, something that glows, and then a seal enters the water above it. 

All the selkies are looking now as the seal begins to glow with the same orange-gold light of the basket. The radiance grows, spreads out, reaching for the nearby seals. They try to flee but the light grows faster than they can move, a tendril of it touching each of them. Each one freezes, their bodies and flippers like stone as they begin to drop towards the sand below.

Ah, Yaz thinks. We’re going to need to pick those up.

What is this? Romana thinks in wonder. 

A little something we found in Tecteun’s lab, Yaz explains. It’s power she managed to harvest from Orla when she was little - 

Romana’s rage grows - Yaz is starting to gain a little control over her shield, allowing some emotion in. The leader’s anger swirls around her own, tangling them together for a moment.

Tecteun’s been experimenting with the power for years, but it was just a simple ball of it. She couldn’t move it without a basket or a blanket, and it froze anyone she touches. The magic is static, unless…

Unless directed by the one who made it, Romana realises. That’s very clever. 

Tecteun hadn’t made that leap, Yaz tells her. I think the idea that Orla could do something she could not didn’t occur to her. She felt that once the power was separated from “the child,” as her notes called her, that the power should be her own and bend to her will.

But it is Orla’s magic, Romana says warmly. And Orla does not bend. 

Romana orders the fallen selkies to be gathered from the seabed, and then calls a hasty counsel with Baker and Orla.

Yaz swims to the surface. The Hope Abides floats at anchor, her dad, sister, and brother-in-law aboard. She leaps a few times to get their attention and thank them for sailing out from Whitby with Orla and the basket. Hakim waves from the wheel, and Jack begins to haul anchor.

It is late the following night when the selkies of both sides gather in a small cove just north of Whitby. Tecteun’s people seem to have lost their fight after being incapacitated by mysterious magic, and they huddle in small groups watched by rebels, all in seal form. 

The groups form a loose circle on the beach, and in the centre waits Romana. 

Bring forth the prisoner, she orders. 

A rhythmic sound comes from the selkies around them, coming deep from their throats but sounding almost like drums as Baker and the Doctor galumph forwards with Tecteun between them. Both males have grim auras, and Yaz remembers that both had counselled pacificism. There’s no room for this in selkie Law with regard to leadership, however, as leadership is passed down or assumed through combat. 

Tecteun, Romana says. I challenge thee, according to our ancient customs, in front of all our colony. You have defied the Law and divided our people, and now you must face the combat you have dodged. Have you owt to say in your defence?

Tecteun sounds bored. I accept your challenge, in accordance with the Law. This is all very foolish; you clearly do not know what is best for all our kind. 

We will see, Romana tells her. Begin.

Yaz huddles close to Orla as she watches the fight, feeling the uncertainty and sorrow ripple off her wife as growls fill the air. She forces herself to remember to keep an eye on the small cluster of Tecteun’s people she’s assigned to as well, but none of them seem interested in intervening. 

As she watches, Yaz realises to her amazement that Romana is growing larger. Tecteun had always been the largest seal she’d ever seen, and she’d assumed that was natural, but now it seems that as Romana gains ground in the fight, she’s gaining size as well.

She’s winning over Tecteun’s people, Orla tells her. They’re empowering her. 

Yaz looks around her, sees seal heads bobbing as they watch teeth and claws tear skin. When Romana is larger than Tecteun, she pins her to the ground, her teeth at her throat. Yield, she demands. I win.

I yield, Tecteun says, her voice full of pain and rage.

They pause, catching their breath, the whole colony caught in a moment of change. Behind the headland, the clocks of the churches of Whitby begin to strike midnight.

Chapter Text

It is an odd memorial. 

They had come so close to the bloodless victory that Orla had advocated for along with Baker and the Doctor. And then…

The colony stands in human guise along the edge of the beach where the majority live, faces sombre. Unlike with an English human funeral there is no black in sight, just selkies wrapped in seal pelts gazing out to sea. 

Yaz watches Orla intently as she and Romana place Tecteun's body in the small skiff, which has the circular selkie writing on the side. Yaz can read some of it these days, but she can’t decipher this. 

Baker is by her side. “It says ‘Tecteun, matriarch, fallen leader. Rest well.’”

“I knew that,” Yaz says, no sting to her words.

“Of course you did.” He winks at her. “It is time.”

Romana and Orla douse Tecteun’s body and the boat in oil and then step away. The Doctor passes them each a lit torch, the flames leaping into the gathering night. Yaz mouths a prayer to herself as her wife and her wife’s aunt place the torches on the boat and step back. The fire rises quickly, and Romana holds her hands in the air, shaping the water to push the boat far out to sea. 

The air fills with a keening, wordless ballad that Yaz has never heard before, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The sun drops below the horizon and the ship blazes in the growing darkness. As the song finishes, Orla steps up to Yaz, tears glinting on her cheeks. Yaz opens her arms and holds her wife tight.

“I don’t understand why she did it,” Yaz whispers.

“I do,” Romana says. She rests a hand on Orla’s shoulder. “She still thought she could win. She still thought she should win, the Law be damned.”

Yaz thinks she’ll remember the moment when Tecteun had made her move for the rest of her life. She had waited for Romana to turn to the side and lunged for her throat, teeth tearing through skin and fat as the colony looked on in horror.

She had reckoned without Orla and the power that had been newly returned to her as Tecteun’s selkies had regained the ability to move. Orange-gold light pulsed through her and leapt into her mother, and Tecteun threw back her head in an anguished scream. The light filled her from nose to tail, rippling and sending off flares, and then it receded, leaving the shape of a human-appearing woman on the pebbles. 

Orla had Changed too, her pelt flapping around her in the sea breeze as she strode towards her mother and dropped to her knees at her side. She had looked back at Yaz, her face a pale blur in the darkness. “She’s dead.” 

The despair with which she had made that announcement still clings to Orla as she in turn clings onto Yaz.

“You couldn’t have helped her, Orla,” Romana says, her voice kind. “I know you think you could have changed her mind, saved her. But you were always the best of her. You have her brilliance, her tenacity, and none of her cruelty or superiority. She was not worthy of you.”

Yaz nods, holding Orla tightly. “We’ll go now, if that’s alright. We have a home, a life, to rebuild.”

The matriarch smiles. “Strong currents go with you.”

They arrive back at their own island exhausted and crawl onto the sand. Yaz pushes them into one last Change, and they make their way into the skeleton of their little house and curl up together where the bed used to be. Yaz clasps her hands around Orla's middle, pulling her as close as she can get. “I love you,” she whispers.

“Love you too,” Orla replies, though she seems to fold in on herself. “I just don't know… who to be, right now. What shape I am in the world without her there.”

“I understand,” Yaz whispers. “I'm here, whatever you need.”

“Mostly I just need this,” Orla says, holding onto Yaz's hands. “Let's sleep. For… two and a half years. And three days.”

“We've got a niece or nephew comin’ before that, remember,” Yaz tells her, a smile tugging at her lips. “Long before those three days are over.”

Orla sits up, dragging Yaz partway with her. “We do! We are going to be such good aunts, Yaz. D'you reckon Sonya will let us take the baby swimming? Do babies eat raw fish?”

It had taken a month to rebuild their cottage, but today they stand before a completed home, hand in hand, looking at it proudly.  Orla has woven honeysuckle from Umbreen’s garden through a trellis around the front door, and the thatch on the roof is cosy and bright. They’ve painted the front door blue, a shade that Orla calls “the bluest blue” and, for the whimsy of it, stuck shells in the shape of the number 13 on the painted wood. 

Orla goes to walk in but Yaz stops her on the doorstep, the scent of honeysuckle strong around them. “Hold on a moment.”

Orla looks at her then squeaks in surprise when Yaz hoists her into her arms in a bridal carry. 

“We didn’t do this the first time,” Yaz explains. “I’m buyin’ us some luck.”

Orla looks at her with darkened eyes, her cheeks pink. “It’s a good thing it’s not devastatingly attractive or anythin’.”

“Oh really,” Yaz drawls, though the effect is somewhat spoiled by the way her breath catches as Orla nibbles her neck. She carries her wife over the threshold, and then further into the bedroom.

“Tell me more, Nani?”

The little girl is older now, almost thirteen, and yet she still comes back to Sonya again and again for more stories of Yaz and Orla. She had thought it was comfort in the years her father had been off fighting the Nazis, but now she wonders if it is something else about the story that calls to the child. Her mother calls her late-blooming, not interested in boys as she is, but…

“Maira, why do you still want me to tell you stories?” she asks, brushing dark hair away from a dirty face. There are twigs in it; she's been up the apple trees again. 

Maira doesn't look at her, instead her gaze travels wistfully out of the kitchen window and down to the bay. “You never said if Orla found out what she really was. And… and I just want to know more. Everything. About them.”

Sonya smiles. “Would you like to meet them, beti?”

Her granddaughter looks at her with eyes full of wonder. Her skirt is too short, her legs sticking out like twigs below, and one white sock has fallen down in wrinkles around her ankle. She is covered in bruises and scrapes from her adventures.

She's so young.

“Meet who?” Maira whispers, not daring to believe.

“I think it's time for you to meet your great aunts,” Sonya tells her. She takes off her apron and hangs it on the hook on the back of the kitchen door, then holds out her hand for her youngest granddaughter. She thinks of the trials Yaz went through in her youth, and swears that, if she can prevent it, Maira will not face the same.

Hand in hand, she leads the child who does not fit in the human world to find a better one, even as she prays that one day that world will be this.