For a while, Yuri thought that the man would soon forfeit, so full of fear had his eyes become. Instead, he murmured ever more of the races they could win on the mainland, running against mounts far swifter than the sturdy island ponies and before crowds with pockets deeper than the fishermen's sorry coin.
Yuri had seen it before. The man had taken hold of far more than he could bear, but only reached for more. He feared loss – not simply of what he had, but of the dreams dancing in his mind. Soon, he would grow sloppy and careless. He'd not make it past Samhain, when his trinkets and charms would weaken against the brutal autumn storms.
It was what it was, and what it had always been.
It had never been a hushed, pre-dawn conversation with an unfamiliar voice, hidden out of the stable and Yuri's sight. It had never been the sharp strike of metal upon metal, the clanging of which echoed in his ears. It had never been watching with dull eyes as he was brought out, so weighed down with knots and spells that he could barely lift his hooves.
"You said a horse," the farrier said, looking askance. "I'll have naught to do with any other than that."
"One that might be known across the mainland, and farther besides," the man replied. His hands shook on the reins. "Is it your eyes that are failing, or superstition that blinds you to all but your ponies and the farmers' old nags?"
A pause. Yuri tried to jerk his head away, but the silver bit cut into his mouth and held him fast.
The farrier stepped back, examining the charms that gleamed in Yuri's mane. His face was weathered, reddened with the bloom of winter's claws. He frowned.
"Oh, yes." The man laughed, hollow and forced. "The children won't let him alone – you see how patient he is. Come, now. A horse is but a horse no matter how swift he is. Would you have me run him without shoes?"
There were no children. Yuri quivered as his foot was lifted from the earth.
When the iron touched his hoof, the world exploded into fire.
:: :: ::
The seawater in Otabek's hair had only just begun to dry as he climbed the last hill that separated him from the accursed stables. Someone gasped as he yanked open the gate to the ramshackle courtyard and Otabek turned.
If he'd hoped to see Yuri, angered but safe, the thought was quickly dashed. It wasn't him, nor was it the fool who'd thought to harness the ocean for his own. He recognized the town blacksmith, slumped against the stone and clutching an arm that ran dark and wet.
"What did you do?" growled Otabek, yanking the man to his feet by the collar of his blood-spattered shirt. Though he was shorter by more than a head, the blacksmith cowered in front of him. "Tell me. What did you do?"
"I was bid shoe a horse," came the whimpered reply. "I hadn't known- I was told it was but ornaments-"
Otabek let him fall to the ground. He felt numb as he looked to the gate, ever more fearful of what may lie within – and if Yuri would still be there at all, or if he'd already been taken from the island. He wondered if Yuri might send him away once more, if the rules he'd set for himself were so strict as to be unbreakable, or if Yuri might not be able to ask him anything at all. This was more than the touch of iron.
He shivered in the dawn chill, though it was more from anticipation than the cold, and Otabek suddenly felt the wetness in his hair and crust of salt drying against his skin. His sealskin was under one arm, near forgotten. The bite of frost on his feet and ankles had started to sting, and soon the ache would set in.
Of course, his clothes were yet in the boat, or more likely tossed into the waves by the lifting wind. There was distant pang of loss as Otabek remembered the coin still in his pocket, now returned to the sea as he'd told Yuri to do months before. He closed his eyes for a moment. It was time to think, time to act, and not to feel.
"Give me your trousers," he snapped at the blacksmith. "I'll not freeze for you. Then bind your arm and go."
If there was any thought of protest, it was quickly stifled. Folds of fabric swam around Otabek's feet, the excess length at least serving to return a bit of warmth. It would be hard to run, but more difficult still if his limbs were numbed with ice.
The cold iron gate was slick with rain, which had begun to spatter from the dark clouds that obscured dawn's first hint of wakefulness. An iron gate to hold Yuri, and iron horseshoes to bind him. Otabek had never heard stories of anyone who dared to shoe an each-uisge, but he could guess that the intent was to forge a stronger hold than the year granted by a silver bridle.
Rain hissed against the grass, drowning out the farrier's ragged breaths and whimpers, and the gate's hinges creaked under Otabek's touch.
The stable yard was cast into deep, stretching shadows by a pair of lanterns in the far corner. The flames were no more than whispers of light in the rain, a pair will-o'-the-wisps beckoning him. Otabek stepped towards them, peering into the impenetrable gloom.
His eye caught on a figure sprawled across the ground, and Otabek felt the icy water of the harbor closing over his head once more. He might have prayed, had he remembered how, or to whom; he thought of the Cailleach's expression so many years before when he'd shouted at her to give back what was his. The body before him refused to shift to a tumble of stone or mound of earth, and the wet gleam of shadow against the bare dirt reflected the lanterns' pale light. It had only been raining for a short while, and all the droplets sank into the soil.
The man's hair curled. Otabek inhaled for the first time in what felt like hours, breathing in relief with the thick, coppery stench of blood. He looked away from the mangled, empty face. It was impossible to muster any pity.
A flicker of movement.
Otabek didn't dare to so much as blink as Yuri melted from the shadows, his dapple-grey coat nearly invisible in the darkness. He moved with a brutal, liquid grace that left no question as to what might have happened to the farrier's arm and the dead man's bloodied head.
He couldn't tell if Yuri knew him or not, if the hold of the farrier's iron was too strong, trapping his mind as well as his body. Otabek's muscles burned with the tension of holding still as Yuri approached, only letting himself speak soft words that didn't reach his own ears. It might have been no more than Yuri's name, repeated over and over like a lullaby.
Yuri Plisetsky. That, Otabek didn't knew he didn't give voice to. He'd heard the name from Viktor's lips and not Yuri's own, but it would still have some power. It was another chain, another rope. Otabek wouldn't command him.
Yuri stopped, snorted – not scenting his prey but curious, searching – and Otabek forced his foot forward, leaving his hands loose at his sides. His sealskin was draped around his neck. He was close enough to reach out and touch Yuri.
Otabek stumbled as Yuri shoved his shoulder, nosing the soft fur of the sealskin. .
His fingers found the knots in Yuri's mane. He untangled them blindly, afraid to look away and fail to notice a kick he'd have no chance at dodging. They were in tangles of sevens and threes, laced with ribbons and charms and tiny silver chimes, and Otabek was all too aware that they'd been put in place by the man lying dead on the other side of the yard.
Finally, the silver bridle slipped free.
:: :: ::
Yuri stumbled as he shifted; two legs weren't enough to stay steady, not when one of them was heavy and numb from the brief touch of iron. Otabek moved to catch him. The accursed bridle was still in his hands.
"Don't touch me," Yuri snarled, lurching back. He glanced at the gate. It hung open, wide enough for him to slip through without touching, The ocean was near, and he quivered as it called to him from behind the stone walls. He smelled saltwater.
Otabek tossed the bridle to the ground and wiped his hands as if trying to scrub its residue from his skin. He didn't belong in the stableyard, with its blood-soaked earth and stone walls.
Or perhaps he did, Yuri thought, turning away. Otabek was another chain tying him down, binding Yuri to the island he'd never asked to be part of. The whole thing was a trap painted with the promise of freedom, and worst of all, it was one he didn't want to leave. Perhaps the daoine síth weren't so wrong to hide in their hills and leave the land to humans who took and took until nothing was left.
They didn't have the ocean, not yet. Yuri darted through the gate, hearing Otabek hesitate before his footsteps followed him out of the stableyard. He didn't stop until he reached the shore and stood ankle-deep in the surf. Otabek joined him.
"You're leaving."
"You haven't asked me to stay," Yuri said. "Nor if I'll return."
You could have kept me here, he added silently. A shining silver bridle and shining silver words – it was harder to say which would have held him more tightly.
"You haven't asked me to wait for you," Otabek replied, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
"I won't live in their world." Yuri kicked at the water, sending a spray of droplets to meet the falling rain. "I thought I could find a place here. I did. I don't want it."
"He couldn't control you."
"No, he couldn't, and I killed him for trying," replied Yuri, curling his lip. "What about next time? The blacksmith will talk. They'll try again. You don't know what it means to be caught."
"Yura." For a moment, Yuri thought Otabek was about to laugh, but the glint of amusement in his eyes was dark and hollow. "Yura, that much I know."
Yuri scowled, raising an eyebrow. What would Otabek know of silver bridles and iron shoes?
Otabek sighed. "Yura, really?"
"What?"
The fur over Otabek's shoulders was thrust into Yuri's hands. It was a pelt, damp with saltwater, its fur sleek and warm against his fingers.
"And you were so upset when you thought I was going to hurt the seals," grumbled Yuri. His thoughts felt slow and heavy, sluggish in his mind. "So?"
"Do you know why it's forbidden to hunt seals?"
"Selkies," Yuri replied absently, stroking the silky fur. "Of course I know that."
Otabek watched him, waiting.
Yuri scowled. "What does this have to do with anything?"
"Yura."
Otabek's eyes were black in the gloomy dawn, his hair sleek with rain. Yuri had thought he was a seal when he first walked from the ocean, his dark head popping up from the waves.
"You're a fucking selkie."
"I am," agreed Otabek. Yuri would miss his slow smile, so subtle it was nothing more than a twitch of his lips. "Maybe you should pay more attention."
The water had grown colder. Yuri shivered. "Your mother. You told me your father gave her flowers, not-"
Not hidden her sealskin, tearing her away from the water as surely as locks and chains would have done. Not-
"He didn't." The waves soaked their legs, whipped into caps of foamy white by the wind. A storm was coming. He could feel lightning in the air, see the thunder rolling across Otabek's face. It would be quiet beneath the water, once he was deep enough to forget about the fishermen's hooks. "He never tried to keep her. She would have never come back if he did."
"That's why you haven't asked me to stay."
"You've spent enough time trapped."
The stormy sky was an inky, swirling shadow. No one would try to follow him.
"Beka, you could come with me."
:: :: ::
For a moment, Otabek was a child, struggling to answer his mother as the acrid scent of burning fur scratched his throat. Yes. Lose the sea, lose the island. No. Even then, he must have known that she'd never come back. In the end, he'd only been able to run, leaving the choice to her. She hadn't waited for him.
His soul had fractured that day, falling into splinters he'd needed decades to piece together again.
Yuri was the only spot of stillness on the shore, surrounded by the wind and rain and waves. It felt as though he'd stand halfway into the water forever, never moving, not unless Otabek answered. A story wasn't over until its last lines were spoken, and a song didn't finish until the last note had faded into silence.
The border between land and sea was both, and it was neither.
Otabek closed his eyes. "I'll always come back to the island. I've tried to leave it before. I couldn't."
"It's changing too. What is there to stay for?" Yuri stood in the waves like a story, like a promise.
"What it will be doesn't change what it was."
He'd learned to walk on its cliffs, to swim by its shores. If the ocean was in his blood, his bones had been formed from the island. And yet… it would remain, and it would vanish. His presence wouldn't hold back the world's encroachment, and his father would have drowned whether they'd been at home or on the other side of the sea. It was only a question of whether Otabek would be there to watch the changes.
It was easier to leave than to lose.
"I'll go with you," Otabek said. "I'll go. But not yet."
"Then when?"
"I have to tell Leo." He'd left without a goodbye, before, and now Leo's hair was streaked with silver. "Viktor and Yuuri, too. They'll be searching for you."
Yuri's eyes widened, and Otabek thought that for all his talk of change, he might have never learned how quickly humans grew old.
:: :: ::
Once upon a time, there was an island.
Once upon a time, there was an ocean.
They were the same as they'd always been, through countless winters and sunsets, and they were different each time the sun rose and the tides fell.
Once upon a time, the sea was bound to the land with a silver bridle and iron shoes.
Once upon a time, the land was bound to the sea with blood and bone.
A blacksmith told them about how a man with proud eyes told him to shoe an each-uisge, and about how the pride had turned to fear just before it had become nothing at all. One could carry seawater in buckets, but it would remember, and it would return.
Once upon a time, a new story was born.
Be careful, it said. The ocean is deep and you are small. Be careful, it said. All is not yours.
"You do have a place here," murmured Otabek. "If you want it. You're part of the island."
Yuri smiled as the words settled in his bones. "I do."
There were no prophecies or lost kings, no secrets buried beneath the earth. There were only choices, and in this choices, there were stories.
