Disclaimer: I don't own Free!
Chapter 1
In Iwatobi, close by the sea, there is a river. You can hear it loud and clear in the entire west side of the town, the water rushing so hard you won't even be able to hear the bell of the church ringing. The riverbanks are always slippery and just a bit further down along the path, the cliffs rise and it is altogether impossible to continue.
Nobody tries to climb the cliff. If you fall down, if you slip, you'll land in the water. And even before the fishermen will find your reeking corpse in their nets, they will know you have died by the screeching of the seagulls and the stench the wind brought with it. If you haven't been ripped to shreds by the jagged edges of the bedrock, you'll be devoured by the seven rapids the river hosts. Even the fish don't survive there.
One of the first lessons the little ones of Iwatobi are taught is this: Stay away from the river (it will be your death if you don't).
Sometimes, though, passer-by's see people climbing the rocks in the river, as if they are following a path only they can see. They don't think it strange. They don't feel alarmed. If there are people on the rocks in the river, it can only be the Nanase's, named for the seven rapids that make the river so dangerous.
The foot of a Nanase won't slip on the riverbanks, nor will they fall off the stepping stones only they can safely reach. They somehow belong there, in between the rushing water, the sharp rock and the howling of the wind.
The bay at the river mouth is their sanctuary. One side is sealed off by the river and the cliff, the other by the course crashing into the sea, and the coral reefs in the parts where the current is tamer. No seabird dares to deface the place, but you'll spot crabs and many treasures in the sand- shells, sea stars and sometimes even a sand dollar. The breeze smells like salt and sand, and even the pebbles are smooth. Despite the force, the water rushing into the bay doesn't tend to be any louder than the waves crashing into the shore.
It is a beautiful place, but the way the water flows is sorrowful, like a mother dying of childbirth caressing the face of her child for the last time. No one knows why.
When they hear the seagulls screaming how another fell victim to the sea, the old biddies gather children around them and spin tales of sirens in front of the fireplace. Gorgeous creatures who sing their heart out for lost men, they croak. They lure them deep into the water and drown them to rip into their corpses, teeth sharper than those of even the most vicious shark. Ruthless as the sea itself.
The children hang onto their words- Nobody knows whether that story is true either.
His grandmother tells him tales.
''And they sang, darling, they sang,'' she would say to him on cold nights when he would leave his bed behind and crawl shivering into hers, ''and it sounded like home. They are the voice of the sea, the pearl in the shell of the world.''
An owl hoots outside. It's dark, but it's much warmer nestled into his grandmother's warm body, underneath the heavy duvet she knitted last winter, than in his own bed. It smells like old people, but that's okay. Haru has ever known anything else. He vaguely remembers the fragrance of his mother's rose perfume, but otherwise, it's his grandmother's lavender scent that means family.
He puts his cold hands in hers and shifts even closer to her warmth. He watches the shadows on the wall and loses himself in the story.
''Long ago, on a coast not yet named, a fisherman spent all day at sea, but as the sun began to set, he still had only a meager catch. When night fell, he rowed to shore and beached his boat.
As he walked toward his cottage across the beach, he heard beautiful voices singing a sweet, high, lyrical and lovely tune, a song more beautiful than any he had ever heard.
He turned towards the sound and saw what few have ever seen. There, near the water, a dozen Selkie people were laughing, playing and singing. The fisherman could not believe his eyes. Few ever saw the seal folk, who now and then cast aside their skins and took on human forms to play on the shore.
The fisherman stood and stared, but when the Selkie people noticed him, they quickly dived into the sea. Slipping beneath the waves, they disappeared.
"I must have been dreaming," said the fisherman aloud, and again he turned toward his cottage. But something nagged at him, so he turned again, and this time he noticed something sleek and shiny lying on a rock. He walked closer, and now he saw: It was a seal skin.
"No one will ever believe I've seen the Selkies unless I show them this," he said, and so he leaned over, picked up the skin and slung it over his shoulder.
As he walked, he whistled. "My, what a pretty penny I'll earn by selling this."
Just as he said this, he heard footsteps close behind him, and fearing a thief, he quickly turned around to look.
There was no thief behind him. No, indeed. It was an exquisitely beautiful young woman standing there, but she was weeping so hard it nearly caused the fisherman's heart to break.
"Beautiful lady," he said, "why do you weep?"
"Kind sir," she said, choking back tears, "you have my sealskin. I beg of you, give it back, for I belong to the Selkies, and I cannot live under the sea without my skin."
The fisherman could not stop staring. You see, he had fallen in love at first sight, and because he was a young man, and terribly headstrong, he thought he must keep her with him, not thinking of her wants at all. He clutched the sealskin to his chest, pressing it to his pounding heart.
"Dear lady," he said gently, "be my wife, for I have fallen madly in love with you, and without your sealskin, you'll have to live on land. I'll make you happy, I promise."
"Please sir," she cried, "my folk will be so worried. I must go home. Never could I be happy on land."
But the young man was stubborn. So he smiled as sweetly as he could, bowed his head and bent down on one knee. "Dear woman, my cottage is a cozy place. I'll keep you warm by the fire, I'll feed you all the fresh fish you could ever wish to eat. I promise you will live a blissful life on land as my bride."
The young woman felt helpless without her skin. "I fear I must go home with you until you will return my skin," she said frightened, and saying this, he took her hand and led her to his home.
For many weeks the fisherman kept the sealskin with him for he feared his bride-to-be would steal it and slip away. But after a while, the sweet lady began to settle in the life on land, and when the fisherman thought she was content, he stuffed the skin inside a crevice in the chimney. "There my girl will never find it," he said to himself.
Another month went by, they married and time passed nicely indeed. They led a joyful life, for though the fisherman was stubborn and selfish at times, he was also kind and generous. He truly loved his wife, and he always worked hard to make her happy.
After a while, the Selkie woman grew to love her stubborn husband, and sometimes she would sing to him. Those nights he was the happiest man in the world.
And as the years passed, the couple had seven children, and the Selkie woman loved them with all her heart.
Most of the time the family was merry, though every once in a while the children would find their mother on the beach, gazing wistfully out to sea. They would circle her and ask, "Mother, why do you look so sad?"
And she would shake her head and kiss their foreheads. "Never mind," she told her children, "I've only been dreaming too long."
One day the fisherman and the three eldest children went out in their boat to catch fish. The next three walked to the village to buy some bread and milk and the mother and her youngest son stayed home alone.
Now the mother looked out of the window and watched the waves crashing onto the shore. Far in the distance, she noticed a band of seals playing and barking on the slick, black rocks. She sighed deeply, and her eyes filled with tears.
Her youngest son ran to her side. "Mother, what's wrong?" he asked. "Whenever you look out to sea, you grow so sad."
Without thinking she turned and said: "I'm sad because I was born in the sea. It's the home to which I never can return because your father hid my sealskin."
Now the boy, like all children, had heard tales of the Selkie folk, so right away he knew what his mother must be, and he ran to the fireplace, reached up and pulled the sealskin from its hiding place. He held it out to his mother.
"How did you find it?" she asked, astonished at the sight of her skin.
"One day, I was here alone with father," said the boy, "and he took this from its hiding place and stared at it. I knew it was special, and now I understand what it is."
The woman embraced the sealskin, and then she reached for her child and embraced him. "My darling," she whispered, "I will always love you," and then, clasping sealskin to her heart, she ran outside and down to the sea.
She slipped into her skin and dived into the bracing water.
''And the wife swam away from her husband. And though he called out to the sea every day, desperate to get her back, she never answered.''
Haru frowns. ''What happened to the children?''
His grandmother smiles sadly, her face barely visible in the soft light of the lamp on the bedside table. ''The sea god was furious, and his rage brought terrible tragedy upon the fisherman's family. Despite the fact the fisherman had forced the selkie maiden to marry him in his own selfish desire, he was a family man, and what hurt his family was what would hurt him the most. So the sea god took his revenge in a manner so terrible that even today we can hardly bring ourselves to speak of it. He cursed the fisherman's children and all those of their line to lose their tail-skins upon birth, so they were fated to long for the sea forever, but nevermore be able to join it.''
There has been a tremendous ache inside of him for all his life, and somehow, the tale makes him so awfully sad. But Haru can see the look in his grandmother's eyes and knows he is not alone in this.
They still do not sleep well that night.
His gaze tends to flit around at times, as if glimpsing something in the corner of his eyes. He doesn't, but Haru feels like he should. Like the creatures in his dreams belonged there, dancing around in the water instead of air.
The life he lives while he's awake is boring in comparison.
He doesn't mind the other children much- at least, as long as they don't bother him. He just… Wants to do his own thing. Wants to be free, even if he isn't sure what being free truly means.
He's been trapped all his life.
''It's just,'' his mother sighs, looking down at the lipstick stain on the rim of her teacup, ''I would be less worried if he would just talk to people. Makoto is his only friend. He simply shuts everyone else out! Haru isn't shy- he's anything but! So why does he keep being so difficult!''
His mother keeps picking at her sleeves. The plaid shirt is wrinkled terribly, and her fidgeting only makes it worse. His grandmother reaches over the table and takes his mother's hand. Her smile is tight-lipped, and she licks her lips as if she is trying to soften her expression. It doesn't work.
Haru knows how hard it is to be patient with the people around you.
''Aoi, stop worrying about Haruka. He's fine, believe me. Chiura was no different as a child! Always puttering of somewhere, doing who knows what- though it probably involved water in some way.'' She frowns and lets go of his mother's hand. ''How is Chiura, actually?''
His mother bites her lip and averts her eyes. ''He… He's not feeling well, I'm afraid.''
His grandmother shakes her head and tilts it until she is gazing towards the sea, lost in her own thoughts. She folds her hand underneath her chin. ''I thought so.''
Haru doesn't dwell on the conversation he overheard- to be honest, the only thing he even paid attention to was that his mother said he had only one friend: Makoto. That's not true. Haru has another friend, and though he loves Makoto, Rin somehow makes the world shine brighter.
Rin is unlike the other children. He's another species, for one.
Authors note
Hi, everyone!
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoyed it!
This story has already been finished, the only thing I still need to do is edit the next chapters. I'll post a chapter per week- there are four chapters in total.
For those who didn't know, Nanase (七瀬) means seven rapids. The river had seven rapids in it, so the people called it Nanase river (literally ''seven rapid river''). As the cursed family was the only one who could get near the river without dying, they were eventually called by its name too, and so the ''Nanase'' family name was born. I wanted to explain this just in case it wasn't clear.
The Selkie Bride is a real fairy tale, thoughI rewrote some parts and changed some word choices that I didn't like or didn't fit the story.
I chose a unisex name for Haru's mother because Haruka's name is unisex too (even if it's used way more for girls and as such ''girly, but not unheard of''). I chose Chiura for Haru's father because the second character of the name means ''seashore'', and the romanized version also ends with the letter a, even though the characters aren't the same.
I hope you liked it, and constructive criticism is always welcome!