The Place
Selkie Shore is a cold coast of black rock and grey water, a shore that is less a coast than a leave, and the leave is the shore, and the shore is the skin. The coast runs eight kilometers from the black cliffs to the white sands, and the eight kilometers is the yard, and the yard is the day. The rock is black and cold, a black that is not the color of depth but the color of the coast itself, and the black is the day, and the day is the skin. The water is grey and still, a grey that is the color of the sea when it is not moving, and the grey is the color of the day. The surface is a constant shimmer, a shimmer that is the shore's only light, and the shimmer is the color of the leave, which is to say it is a color you can feel on the skin. The sky above is a flat grey, the color of the coast when it is not shimmering, and the grey is the only color the shore does not make. It smells of cold salt and old skin, a smell that is the coast and is also the warning, and the one sound is the leave, a soft sound in the water that is the coast's only word, and the word is the day. There is no landmark the way a coast has a landmark, but there is one: the Skin Rock, a black stone in the middle of the shore, the oldest rock and the first leave, and the rock is the door, and the door is the skin. What makes Selkie Shore itself is the keep: the skin is kept, and the keeping is the leave, and the leave is the find, and the find is the end.
How They Live
The Selkies keep this place in the keep, building their shore on the coast, a constant grey shimmer, their surface a constant drip, and a shimmer is set one skin at a time, because a skin is the season and a skin is the calendar. Light comes from the shore, the grey shimmer of the coast, which glows faintly in the dark, and the grey is the color of the day. Food is the shore: the seal, the fish, the light, and the skin that keeps the shore honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is the sea, and the sea is the water, and the shore drinks and leaves and remembers in the same grey shimmer, and the shimmer is the law. Heat comes from the fire, small and kept low, because the fire is a location and the shore reads locations, and a fire that is not kept low is a fire that is a map. The defense is the shore itself: a visitor who stands on the shore is already in the leave's path, and the leave is the alarm, and the alarm is the welcome, and the welcome is the sentence. The day is measured by the skin, because the skin is the only clock the sea has, and the clock does not lie about the count. Every selkie that is born must keep its skin once on the Skin Rock before the shore will call it one of its own, and the keeping is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the sea ever gives back.
People
Home of the Selkies, whose shores are counted by skin. Nine skins are kept at last count, and the count is kept in the shimmer, which is to say the count is as fixed as the leave, which is to say it does not lie. The skin-keepers lead, and rank is decided by the keeping, because a keeper who can keep a skin the shore has not kept is the keeper the shimmer trusts. Nothing that cannot keep a leave is welcome, and the leave is not needed, because the shore has a skin, and the skin has a leave, and the leave has a ledger. A surface traveler who once stood on the shore, the last one to be let past the Skin Rock, called it the only coast where the air makes you leave before you take a breath, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the skin paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the skin is the only honest conversation, and the conversation is the leave, and the leave is the find, and the find is the end. The Forgotten have not been to the shore, but Uaellaen has read the skin once, at a distance, and the skin read him back, and the reading was the first thing he has ever paid for that he could not buy back.