Chapter Text
Being a selkie wasn't so bad. There was a lot of complaining among selkies, San thought, but he was fairly positively inclined about his cursed seal heritage. Yeah, they were mammal shifters and not in the cool fish gang, and they originated from an age-old curse so they weren't natural shifters. That meant they had to deal with the whole "if someone steals your hide you're stuck in human form" thing.
Some fish-kin and reptile-kin, especially the turtles, thought they brought bad luck, which was just rudely prejudiced. Nobody could even remember what the original curse had been about, it was a thousand years ago, at least, maybe three. On the other hand, merfolk and some others thought killing a selkie led to misfortune, so it evened out.
Okay, maybe their ethereal beauty had caused all kinds of trouble. There were about as many krill in the sea as there were stories about selkies getting kidnapped, forced into marriages, or wanted for pleasure, status, or offspring. Not to mention when horny kings, princesses, and whatnot caused literal kingdoms to fall in the hunt for a selkie spouse.
This happened both in the ocean and on land, because their seal form was unnaturally attractive to sea creatures too, and they could reproduce with any type of kin and merfolk, which admittedly was a fair bit unsettling if San stopped to think about it, so he didn't. But! Selkies seemed to forget that there were also plenty of stories about them seducing people, tricking people, and winning kingdoms and wars with their charm.
Selkies had brought some new problems on themselves by gathering and retreating into seclusion to stop the kidnappings and political messes. They'd clumped together, disregarding that they were different types of seals. San's harbor seal heritage meant it stressed him out to be cramped together with herds of noisy gray seals and oafish harp seals. He could barely hear himself think, and they kept telling him to speak up! As if it wasn't their problem that they never shut up. He had nothing to say to them anyway.
San couldn't understand why they were still there. There hadn't been a selkie kidnapping in a hundred years! Well, at least sixty. The humans didn't think they were real anymore. Some fish-kin didn't either, although San wasn't sure how that worked because they weren't hiding, they were still right there.
Anyway, they were fairly safe now. Being a selkie had literally never been better. When they very rarely went to bigger merfolk gatherings, they were greeted warmly and treated well, San got free gifts and everyone wanted to be his friend, it was great.
So being a soft, blubbery, oddly sexualized sea pup had in itself inflicted no harm on San's life whatsoever, and the fact that everyone (except other selkies) thought he was the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen was hilarious. What had caused horrific and irreparable damage to his happiness and wellbeing, was that selkies were fanatics, and they'd arbitrarily decided that he was special.
Ignoring the fact that nobody could remember what the curse was or if they'd started out as seals or humans, or literally anything at all, selkie society was obsessed with breaking the curse. The only thing left in collective memory was a vague and distorted prophecy about a "pure" selkie being born curse-free. The clergy seals ran insanely strict breeding programs chasing some kind of clean bloodline.
To his great misfortune, San was considered one of these more selkie selkies, whose purpose in life was to breed with a few select people. It was the stupidest puffer imaginable. Why would they even want to break the curse? They were fine! If everyone could just relax!
Until he'd produced a satisfactory amount of pups, he absolutely must not run away or get killed, so he'd been assigned a companion – a bodyguard and chaperone – by the clergy: a grey seal named Wooyoung. Wooyoung was also there to make sure San mated with the right selkies and not the wrong ones. He had no idea why he couldn't mate with the wrong ones and the right ones, and neither did anyone else, as far as he could tell, but those were the rules.
Meanwhile, these wrong ones thought their offspring would inherit this great and unbearable honor if they managed to sneak pups with him, so he had to dodge crazy ass cultists throwing themselves at him around every corner, or see Wooyoung body them.
Normally, the only ones selkies' cursed beauty didn't affect were other selkies, so they could rest among their own. But while other people at least liked him, for whatever reason, selkies sucked up to him for their own gain. San was just average, to a selkie. His brother, Yeosang, was top shelf oyster. That was a blessing in disguise since Yeosang drew some attention away from him, but it still made it painfully obvious that selkies were only after San for the prophecy puffer.
Wooyoung was of course entirely sold on the religious propaganda, being the son of top clergy. San had a duty to his people. San had to take care of himself, only eat the best fish, and only associate with the right people. San had to think about his reputation and stay away from danger.
San was perfectly capable of taking care of himself! Even if predators could get weirdly confused between wanting to eat him and wanting to mate with him, and San wasn't really into that, he knew how to twist a phrase and twitch his vibrissae to steer them towards the relatively less violent option. He still vastly preferred that over selkies sucking up. He was also a fast swimmer, not bad in a fight, and his claws were sharp. There was so much ocean out there to explore, and so many people to meet, but instead he was fenced in together with… Harp seals should be called honk seals!
It was difficult to sneak away from Wooyoung, who was like a homing pinniped, somehow popping up nearby half the time that San thought he'd managed to ditch him. It meant he had to go to extremes to get some time to himself – or rather, go to shark sea.
Selkies had two mortal enemies: sharks and orcas, for obvious blubber-chomping reasons. One could argue humans deserved a place on that list, who were also blubber-consumers and at the head of the kidnapping and espousing business. Personally, San would add octopus-kin for being grabby creeps. But in general, selkies hated two things and they both came with dorsal fins and generous amounts of sharp teeth.
Sharks, barbaric and unintelligent, subscribed to the ancient warrior way of "might makes right," and you'd have more luck asking a seahorse for a ride than begging them for mercy. However, some areas had been designated shark sea, and thanks to some type of warrior honor, the sharks stayed there.
The very inclusive shark menus, stretching from the smallest living things all the way to surfboards, meant San definitely got to be alone there. He just had to keep his wits about him, not go too far inside, and stay deep. Sharks often spotted seals – and surfboards – by the shadow and silhouette against the sun when passing under them.
He was hanging out near some rocks that matched his own base pale gray color, decorated with darker spots, when a massive shadow passed over him from behind. Too shocked to do anything sensible, he rolled over on his back and met eyes with, well, one eye because this fish was so enormous the other side of its head was out of sight. The mouth was huge; San thought he'd fit into it sideways. He neither produced a sound, nor shook a whisker because he was frozen in absolute certainty that he'd be swallowed whole.
The giant fish swam by above him, and San saw mostly nothing more than the light belly, and finally a gigantic tail fin slowly sweeping back and forth. The fin was vertical, so it wasn't a whale. In fact, it looked like a shark, just way too enormous. His little seal heart was racing and his mind was blown. It had definitely seen him, but not even said hello? Everyone said hello to a selkie. He pushed off from the rocks and darted after it, having to put some work into it to catch up despite the colossal fish seemingly leisurely floating along.
"Hey! Hi!"
He managed to get close enough to bump the side of the tail, and the creature slowed down to let him catch up. Its sides and top were darker than its belly, and decorated with a scattering of white spots and lines, almost like stars or a bloom of glowing jellyfish. San swam above the tail to look closer at the two dorsal fins, far down its body.
From the side it looked like a regular – if humongous – fish, but from above, the head was almost square. Diving down the side, he found a couple of remoras stuck to the skin just behind a big pectoral fin. They were kin, but ignored him. Remoras were smarmy assholes who could talk the sail off a marlin, though, so whatever.
Of course he knew about whales, and had seen them at a distance, but the biggest creature San had been properly introduced to until now was orcas. Unlike the sharks, orcas were whales and intelligent. Everyone had warned him to stay away but they were so big and fascinating, he'd had to at least try. How much worse than dolphins could they be?
He might have been able to handle one orca, but they always moved in pairs or more, and that had been absolutely terrifying. They weren't just bullies, they were actual psychos. For a second he'd hoped for being forced into marriage, because that seemed a lot less bad than what they had in mind. Fortunately he'd escaped thanks to a passing seagull distracting them.
But the orcas had been around three or four times his own size. This thing was at least two whole orcas. The only thing this size he'd ever seen up close before, were human boats.
He swam up alongside an eye, choosing the right one because he couldn't talk to both at once. This way he could show his left side, which he thought was his better one.
"Hi."
The eye looked him over, interested but silent.
Was it not kin? San had definitely gotten the feeling. "I'm San."
"Hello, San," the giant fish said, with a kin-voice that was much more friendly than the size and shark-shape suggested it would be.
San waited for some sign of kidnapping or eating tendencies, but the shark was just floating along, slowly. The huge mouth had closed, even. He swam a turn to show off his flippers and well-distributed blubber, and wiggled his vibrissae a little, but didn't get much of a reaction, strangely. His whisker-game was top tier, so while it was refreshing to not instantly be ogled, he was also disappointed.
"What's your name?" he asked, feeling a little lost. He'd never actually had to hold a conversation, most kin and merfolk showered him with attention and volunteered all kinds of things about themselves.
"Yunho," the ginormous shark said.
"Your pattern is a bit like stars at night," San said, glancing back at the long body. He'd never seen a fish blush before, but was rather sure the pink color that the white belly was turning wasn't some kind of disease. "Aren't you a shark?" he asked.
"I'm a whale shark."
"A whale… Are you a whale or a shark?"
"A shark."
"A shark whale shark," San said, giggling. "Or a whale shark shark?"
The blushing was intensifying, in some mysterious way. Fish weren't supposed to be able to blush.
"Oh, don't swim over my fin so close," Yunho said. "What if I hit you?"
"This?" San asked, shimmying down to look at the pectoral fin. He set a flipper on it, just to really see the unfathomable size difference, and the whale shark flinched. Since it was massive, the tiny flinch was rather large for San, who was flung off a little ways in a flurry.
"Oh no, oh, I'm sorry–"
San zoomed back, laughing. "Do it again!" He parked his chest on the fin this time, waiting expectantly. Very, very hesitantly, Yunho raised his fin, launching San again. The seal tumbled through the water, squealing and waving his flippers trying to balance himself. Dizzy, he made a less-than-straight rush back. "You're really strong!"
"Not really," Yunho said. "Just big."
"Eh. Orca or killer whale, they'll still eat your liver."
"What?"
"Uh… it's a selkie saying. No matter what you call something… Nevermind."
"Selkie," Yunho said, as if to himself.
San had heard that big whales came off as slow, but it was just a question of time perception and if you gave them a second they were smarter than most. He wasn't sure if the same was true for big fish as for big mammals, or if sharks were really all stupid, but he'd give Yunho the benefit of a doubt.
"I guess orcas don't eat you," San said.
"Nothing really eats us, except humans."
"Are you solitary?" San looked around. No other ship-sized creatures were to be found in the blue-green water.
"Yeah. We only meet up to mate," Yunho said, and froze. All the fins just stopped moving, while the momentum kept him drifting forward.
San tried to appraise what that meant, but so far this was the most passive shark he'd ever met. In fact, someone had said if sharks stopped moving they suffocated, so he nudged the hole behind Yunho's eye with his nose. He chose the spot mostly because it looked a little sensitive and squishy, so maybe he'd feel it more than a general pat on the head.
Some very adorable giggles came out of the monumental shark that he'd more have expected out of a herring, and water was shot into San's face. Blinking his eyes clear, San coughed.
"Sorry, I'm ticklish," Yunho said.
At least he'd come alive again, so San considered it a success. On some level he figured his selkie charms weren't completely lost on the whale shark, but blushing was probably the least kidnappy of all reactions he'd ever gotten. That it came from a creature that could very easily scoop him up in its mouth and take off with him, only made it more fascinating. He felt like he was dealing with an absurdly overgrown guppy.
"Are you solitary too?" Yunho asked.
San allowed himself to complain a bit about the stupid pure bloodline thing and about Wooyoung – well, it wasn't Wooyoung's fault, he was just doing his job – and how he wasn't supposed to go here.
"Actually, we're getting a bit too far into shark sea," he said. "I should go back." He turned, and froze, seeing a sharp, vertical tail fin appear in the distant blue haze. "Um, I… can I…" he chose to swim up on top of Yunho, as if he could somehow pass for a very plump, wrongly colored dorsal fin.
"Oh, that's Mingi," Yunho said. "He doesn't eat… You're a mammal, aren't you?"
"He– I– Yes?"
"He's chondrichthy-arthrovore."
"He's what?"
Yunho called hello, making the closing shark zig-zag in greeting. "He only eats chondrichthyans and arthropods."
"... what?"
"Cartilaginous fish, fish with cartilage instead of bones, like sharks and rays. And creatures with exoskeletons, like crabs. No bones. It's this whole thing, he's protesting the… Mingi, what are you protesting?"
The slim, light blue shark had reached them with lightning speed, and peered at San with curiosity. San shuddered at the creepy, blank shark stare. He wasn't much bigger than San was, but that still fit a lot of teeth.
"I'm protesting the systematic anti-bones sentiments in shark society," Mingi said. "We recognize rays and crustaceans as intellectual equals, so why do we push this totally unsupported narrative that mammals and bone fish are stupid? I think we're just miffed that they don't want to talk to us, and that's childish."
San sort of slid down Yunho's side, on his stomach. The shark looked amused by the process. "I… have to go back, I'm too far into shark sea. But it was nice to meet you, Yunho. And… um, you too… Mingi."
"Bye," Mingi said.
"San!" Yunho called him back, when he'd gotten a short distance.
"Yes?"
The behemoth of a fish seemed to be fretting, mouth opening and closing somewhere in the vicinity of fast. "Uh… th-there… there's a lot of krill around here!"
"Yeah, I guess," San said. He waited for a moment but Yunho seemed to be done. "Bye."
Swimming away, he felt rather happy about it all, weird as it had been. Clearly sharks weren't all bloodthirsty barbarians; nobody had tried to eat him and they'd been about ten thousand times more pleasant than the orcas.
Whale shark, huh. Yunho was kind of cute. And so big! San's stomach tickled thinking about if he would actually fit into Yunho's mouth, and if he'd dare to try.
—
"There's a lot of krill around here," Mingi mimicked him and laughed, swimming a joyful circle.
"Stop it, please," Yunho muttered.
"Are you blushing? Is that physically possible?"
"Stop it!" He sped up, but Mingi was very fast and had no problems keeping up. Instead he dove under him to talk to the remoras hitching a ride. Yunho couldn't get rid of them, they used him as a mode of transportation and vacation spot to see the northern sea; like a tour bus. He'd happily allow them if they asked but they never did, they just showed up, stayed for a while, and left without saying thanks, or even hello and goodbye. It was… cute.
"A selkie, are you for real?" Mingi said, once he'd gotten the gossip he was after.
"I don't know what that is, some type of pinniped?"
"Yunho, dude, you gotta do something other than float around and, I don't know what you're doing all day. Attaining spiritual enlightenment?"
"Meditating."
"You passive breathers are so weird. Maybe that's why you need all this meditation. Since you have to swim or you suffocate, you can't stop for a second and think. And you don't even take mer-form to rest. Have you been in mer-form even once, since we met? I sure haven't seen it."
"It's greedy to seek experiences outside the bodies that were designed to house the sacred souls. I have everything I need–"
"Oh for sun's sake."
Mingi transformed. His sleek, blue-toned body gave his mer-form an agile, longer-than-average tail, and stray silvery tones climbing up his slightly blue-hued abdomen. Silver traces also spread from the fin on his back, and lined the gills on his ribs.
"Come with me to the Depths, instead of floating around here thinking about greed."
Yunho rolled his eyes. "I'm not interested."
"Don't you get bored doing this decade after decade?"
"I am experiencing my pilgrimage. That's what I came here to do. And fishing krill is an artform–"
"Please! If I hear you say one more word about krill, I will cut off my own fins and sell them to the nearest luxury soup restaurant. Tell me about the selkie, instead."
"Tell you what?" Yunho asked, and felt himself blush again. Whale sharks couldn't blush, it must be some weird crossover mutation from being shark-kin except he'd never felt like this before in his life. It was sinful, but he couldn't contain the words, they just burst out. "He just… He… So cute…!"
Mingi laughed. "He was absolutely adorable, and if I was in the business of cracking open mammals, I'd gobble him up."
"Eugh," Yunho groaned. "Do you have to be such a shark about it?"
"It's dangerous for him to come here, you know. If another shark catches scent of him…"
"They don't come here, there's nothing here."
"Except krill," Mingi said and broke down in laughter again. Yunho had the very unfamiliar desire to smack him with a pectoral fin. "Dude you are so… There's a lot of krill here, so I'll be here, so you should come back and let me piously stare at you from a distance– Okay I see why you didn't elaborate. Does he even know what you eat? Nobody around here has seen a whale shark before you. He probably thinks you're like the rest of us."
"You don't think he thought I wanted to eat him, do you?!"
"All I know is, selkies get damn good at turning up the charm, because the alternative is being seal-napped or seal-filet. They're cursed, you know. Everyone with two eyes and a serviceable reproductive system wants to bang them. I mean they look scrumptious, I haven't had the urge to eat a mammal in years, but that seal–"
"Stop it! Do you have to be so disgusting!" The idea that the whole exchange might have been San playing along to not get eaten, pretty much crushed Yunho's mildly elevated spirit. A thing like that wouldn't ever occur to him, he should have said something, he was so inconsiderate…
"Yunho, buddy."
Mingi swam up to sit on his head and patted him. His skin was so thick that he mostly only felt the faint impacts, not the touch, but somehow he'd felt San's little flipper on his fin with his whole body.
"You're gone, you've lost it, you've been selkie'd. This is like when you accidentally swam into a sardine mating dance and got high on too many fertilized fish eggs, and kept going on about seeing dolphins with hats."
"There were dolphins with hats! It had nothing to do with the fish eggs!"
"Okay, buddy. Anyway, I'm going to the Depths tonight. Supposedly, a delegation of merfolk are in shark country, so they might be there. I've always wanted to try a mer. You should come! I get that other shark-kin aren't really your type, a good struggle getting us going and all, but merfolk are different. Hey uh… you know selkies don't have a mer-form right?"
Yunho paused. "But aren't they kin?"
"Mammals don't have mer-forms, they have human forms, and selkies are a special case. They take their hide off to transform and if someone steals it while they're out of it, they can't transform back."
All of this was so distant from whale shark life. Nothing wanted to eat – or bang – him, and he'd never heard of a whale shark involved in a curse, or the stealing of anything, or any kind of sensational thing at all actually. They were strictly pacifist, keeping to the Five Vows.
Yunho was constantly worried he'd squash someone or hit someone with his tail fin; he felt so clumsy and out of place with other fish, in mer-form too. Thinking about going to Mingi's parties and trying not to bump into anyone or push anyone over, and getting yelled at if he did – it made his gills tremble.
He had kind of pushed San though, but it hadn't caused any injury, San had even liked it, so it hopefully wasn't against the Vows. The selkie's squealing laughter at being thrown around had sounded like how it felt to dive into clear, deep water. Yunho moved his pectoral fin a bit, remembering the little toss. He'd been so soft.
"Are you blushing again? Ew, what are you thinking about, while I'm sitting on you?" Mingi got up and turned back into shark. "Well, I'm leaving. I only came by to ask if you wanted to come, even if I knew you'd say no. I've asked you every three days for the last… twenty years? So now it feels weird if I don't."
"Has it been that long?"
"How old are you now, anyway, forty? Wait, whale sharks reach adulthood way before they're sexually mature, since they develop so slowly, so… Yunho, are you reaching sexual maturity? Is that why you're suddenly interested in–"
"No! Please, be quiet! You can go now!" He turned to put Mingi in the path of the outflow from his gills, making the shark wobble in the water for a second.
Laughing, Mingi's quick, silvery shape dove off into the deep blue.