BAnished

Ardala sat slumped against the wall in the cold cell and stared at her hands. She hadn’t meant to; she wasn’t used to having that kind of power. Usually, it had all been stripped away from her and she’d just been so happy that it had just kind of exploded out of her. That hadn’t been anything native to the Sea Court, those had been land vines but why would that be when she’d never seen land or any of the plants that grew there other than in lessons, she’d overheard on her way to or from her own duties. But there they’d been, and the entire Sea Court had seen them.

She’d already been tried for upsetting the balance of the Sea Court, she was simply waiting now. Waiting to see if she was to be killed or if she was to be banished. Banishment was terrifying but she could find a place in one of the other courts. Hopefully a place to be useful like she’d been here, a place to strip her of her magic so that she didn’t do any more harm.

A voice, someone clearing their throat in front of her cell. Ardala’s head slowly came up, she’d been deep in thought and most of the people didn’t like it when she looked them in the eye. To her utter surprise, it was her mother. The first of the Sea Court rarely came to see her so for her to come now, when Ardala was in disgrace and deep, terrifying trouble was an oddity.

“Look at me, child, we do not have much time.” Her mother was looking back and forth down the corridor that ran in front of Ardala’s cell. “Listen, your father is a druid, your blood is from him. Find him for your protection, I can do no more for you.”

Before Ardala could reply, her mother was away back down the corridor and she heard heavy feet approaching. Many heavy feet. An entire group of guards stopped in front of her cell and they were all looking at her with an odd mixture of disgust and pity. Her heart sank into her stomach, they were going to kill her, weren’t they? Why else would the guards look at her like that? Well, if she was going to die, she was going to at least face it with dignity.

So, she got up off the bench and walked to the door when it was opened. Spell chains encircled her wrists, her ankles, and her neck weighing her down as she was surrounded by the guards. They walked silently with her in their midst as she tried to figure out and become accustomed to the fact that she was about to die. She was so young, but her life was over.

She was stuck in that turbulent circle of thought until they arrived in the council chambers where the Thirteen met and there they all were. Staring at her with scared fury as she was positioned on her knees with the guard at her back, neck chain tied into the ring on the floor in front of her. Would they kill her here or would it be somewhere more public? They wouldn’t kill her here, they might let the chamber kill her, then at least she could be of use one final time. Perhaps if they let her speak that was what she would ask for. Let her last words speak of her desire to be useful to the court.

The First rose, walking to the center of the room and standing just over Ardala. “For crimes against the balance, you will be banished.” The First paused for a moment, allowing the clamor in the room to die back. Hope bloomed in Ardala; she wasn’t to be killed. “The banishment is from Faerie; you will be banished to the human realm.”

Ardala tilted as the sentence crashed down on her. To be banished to the human realms was to be forbidden the safety of-

She was pulled roughly to her feet and something warm and furry was pressed into her arms. When she looked down to see her sealskin she tried to fall back to her knees, tried to beg for death rather than this but her mouth was stopped with a quickly whispered spell and her failing legs were forced to work as the guards towed her away and out.

They swam with her quickly, snapping their teeth at her flippers as she was ushered away as fast as she could swim. The sea court was separated from the wider ocean by a shield made of sea-magic and she felt it when she crossed into the human realm. All the magic went out of the water. But the guard chased her, hurrying her flagging strokes as she tried to catch a last look at her home.

But it wasn’t allowed, she was chased to the shore, beyond her ability to feel the Sea Court magics and tossed up like some sort of strange sea wrack on a stony, lonely, cold stretch of beach. She had no way of knowing where she was. The cows of her cohort wouldn’t surface for another generation so there had never been a need to learn human geography.

She hauled herself out of the water and onto the slick stones but did not cross the tide line. To cross it meant she would collapse back into the frail human seeming form and she wasn’t prepared for that yet.

One of the guards broke the surface and set his teeth into her flipper hard enough to drive her over the line, high enough that the change took her and made her into a human. Then they left. Left her alone and stranded and on her own to fight off the fear of the place where she’d found herself.

Banished, the word pummeled the inside of her head, bouncing off the inside like particularly sharp coral. It brought tears to her eyes. She had been banished and nothing would ever be alright again. Ardala walked the beach, moonlight streaming down around her, sparkling off the waves that broke gently on the beach, tears streaking her cheeks as she tried to track what she’d lost. She’d lost her home, her family, the safety of the deep ocean, and any reassurance that life was as it should be.

## Chapter 2

She hitched her sealskin up higher against her neck against the frozen wind that was coming off the water and tried to think beyond the pain that was hitting her in waves like the ones crashing onto this stony beach where she’d found herself. This was where the guards had brought her, to this lifeless stone and sea wrack laden stretch of beach. Where there was likely no one around for miles and no way to survive other than to go back to the shallow water to forage for fish. She walked to the cliff that fronted the beach, seeing stairs cut into the cliff face. Cautiously, she laid a hand on the rope rail that ran up the rough-cut stairs and started climbing. The stairs had been there for ages, dips in the center of each stair to trip the unwary, algae growing in the puddles that formed in the dips from the light snow that was falling from above. It was only barely warm enough to keep the puddles from turning to ice and Ardala felt every frigid step she took away from the stones of the beach.

The top of the stairs gave way to a small human settlement, brightly colored, a slight smell of fish and old sugar that stung her nose. A vehicle rattled past, nearly striking her as the occupant yelled something that was torn away in the wind too quickly to make out. She needed shelter, the wind was bitter, painful and raw, and it sliced through the dress she’d been given as though it weren’t there at all. All she could do was walk, she had to find something that would suit as a windbreak before she froze.

That may be what they were hoping for, she’d never seen the council of thirteen look so angry and worried before. Ardala held up a hand and glowered at it, green sparks escaping her control and weaving phantom vines up into the air. She shook the magic off, shunting it away to the place where it hid within her. The world of men had no magic, no wonder, everything was flat and gray and lifeless.

Ardala walked the streets, aimlessly searching for a place to get out of the wind and try to make any kind of sense of what her life had become. Eventually she wandered through the town, back down to the level of the beach again. This end of the town was much more populated, men chattering and hurrying through the cold as the snow came down more and more heavily. Every time a human passed her, she cringed away, gripping her skin tightly to her body. She had to find a safe place for it before she did anything else. She’d been raised on the stories of what happened when a human got their hands on a Selkie’s skin, and they gave her the horrors.

Eventually, she found her way to an open-air seating area where there were many humans, ordinarily she wouldn’t go anywhere hear it but there were some kind of poles that were belching heat and the warmth was too nice to resist when it washed across her shivering body. Drawn like a fish to the moonlight, she drifted up the odd little set of stairs and into the area with the warmth, drawing her skin close around her to try and conserve all the warmth she could get. She barely noticed the conversation halting around her as she tried to get close to one of the heat emitting poles.

She stood in the shadow of the one closest to the edge, letting the heat run over her half-frozen body. She was just starting to thaw when she saw someone start to come her way. It was the work of a moment for her to flee. She wasn’t as cold now, so her body obeyed her commands to run back the way she’d come. She dashed along the beach, keeping to the tideline where the sand was more solid, and she was less likely to leave tracks. It wasn’t foolproof, but at least she got away from whoever had been following her.

She passed days like this, freezing unless she managed to make the change and use her other form to avoid the wind. But she had to be judicious with its use. Since she was barred from the Sea Court, she was also barred from the magic that made the change possible. So once she ran out, that would be the end of her ability to make the change. The place she’s been, the place with the warmth, she went there once a day to keep the blood flowing through her veins and to keep herself from losing digits to the frigid wind coming off the sea. The owners of the place had started keeping one of the heaters on. It was the closest one to the edge of the raised area where the humans dined, and she was able to get warm before the place was deluged with humanity.

It was the first bit of kindness she had been shown, though how much of it was truly meant and how much of it was meant to lull her into a false sense of security she didn’t know. So, she kept her visits sparse, only stayed as long as she had to and never said a word or looked at anyone and if anyone approached, she fled.

Then one day there was a woman there, she was perched next to the heater and had an odd bag at her side. It was a hard looking rectangle and Ardala hesitated to approach. She needed the warmth; she’d lost feeling in her injured foot this morning and if it became frostbitten, she would need to either warm it or lose the foot somehow. So, she gritted her teeth and got just close enough to feel the heat dampen the chill of her surroundings.

The woman gave her a small smile. “I’m not going to eat you, dear. You can come closer.” She opened the strange box by her side and looked away. “My name is Francis, I’m one of the social workers for Sarah’s Point. That’s where you are if you didn’t know.”

Ardala gave the woman a skeptical look and crept forward fractionally until she could feel more of the heat.

“Do you speak, or would you rather not?” Francis pulled a folder from the box and set it on her lap. “The owners of the restaurant called me, they said there was an unhoused person living on the beach and I thought that there was no possible way that there could be someone on the beach at this time of year.”

“This is where I was placed.” Ardala hadn’t spoken since her arrival and her voice squeaked and cracked with disuse. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Well, that won’t do, dear.” Francis gestured Ardala forward a little more. “We have a cold weather shelter set up in town. Wouldn’t you rather be warm?”

“I-“Ardala fled, all her courage giving out as she rushed away from the woman and the warmth. She couldn’t fall prey to any form of reassurance from a human, they were only looking for her to drop her guard and then they would take her. She was still a Selkie, and humans were mad for selkie magic especially by the sea where they could control weather. She’d heard stories of Selkie strapped to the bows of ships to do precisely that.