.

One

(In which Lyon's dull little life is blown wide open when he finds a legend on the beach.)

Lyon's house seemed emptier than usual when he finished supper and settled in for a quiet evening, so he decided to take a nighttime stroll along the beach. He lived right beside a rocky area of shoreline that led onto the sandy beaches the port was famous for. The house was set a little aside from the town proper, thanks to his late mother's independent streak and both his reluctance to leave behind his childhood home and equally strong appreciation of a little distance from the rest of the rowdy town.

His house might be steeped in solitude, but the beach was common ground and frequented by the rest of the townsfolk as well. It was a little late for most of them to traipse down here, but there was always someone who enjoyed a nighttime stroll from time to time.

So it wasn't anything out of the ordinary to spot a girl wandering the high reaches of the beach. No, there were only two unusual things about this girl. One was that Lyon had never seen her before in his life, and everyone knew everyone in a small town like this. They didn't get frequent visitors, and when they did, everyone knew of their presence within about two hours. News and gossip traveled fast in a small, close-knit community.

The second thing was that she was completely naked.

Heat flooded Lyon's cheeks despite the protective cloak of night draped around her. The moon hung high in the sky and cast her pale skin shimmering, and this felt taboo, something Lyon should not be privy to. He wanted to turn back and leave this strange girl to her own unchaste devices.

But… She might just be passing through and have a proclivity for skinny-dipping, but given that she was not from around here and her lack of clothing, it was also possible that she was lost or in some kind of trouble. As much as Lyon did not want to get involved, he couldn't, in good conscience, leave without making sure she was alright.

"Hey!" he called, taking a few steps forward and hesitating. "Are you okay?"

The girl spun about, blue hair swirling around her to hide swathes of her milky skin. Her eyes widened, shimmering brightly in the starlight, and she stared at him like a startled doe for a heartbeat that seemed to stretch for an eternity. Then she turned and ran.

Lyon blinked after her, having no idea what to do now. Maybe she was just embarrassed at being caught, but she seemed genuinely frightened and Lyon felt it unchivalrous to leave her out here alone in that state. He realized belatedly that running after her would only frighten her more, but by then he had already taken off down the beach, his boots sliding in the sand.

"Hey, wait! I just want to make sure you're okay!"

The girl stooped to snatch something up from amidst the rocks, and then swung at a ninety-degree angle to make a beeline for the ocean. Her foot caught in a rock pile and she pitched forward, smashing into sand and rock face first. Lyon was close enough to hear an audible snap break the still night air, slicing through the gentle lapping of the waves.

He uttered a curse that would have had Ur positively scrubbing his mouth with soap and rushed over. The girl pushed herself up on shaky arms, threw him a frightened look, and tried to rise. Her ankle twisted awkwardly beneath her, and she toppled back over. She hadn't made a sound when she fell, though, so maybe she wasn't too injured?

"Calm down, calm down," Lyon said past his panting breaths as he approached. "You're going to hurt yourself more."

The girl scooted away from him, scrabbling in the sand and holding something up against her chest as if to cover herself. Lyon dropped to a crouch and held his hands out palm-up in what he hoped was a nonthreatening gesture.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, automatically adopting a soothing cadence as if trying to calm a frightened animal. "I'm not going to hurt you. Look, I'm not going to come any closer, okay? What's your name?"

She only hugged the fabric—her discarded clothing?—closer to her breast and watched him with eyes too big for her face.

"Come on," he coaxed. "Won't you tell me your name? What are you doing out here by yourself? Are you in trouble?"

She said nothing, and he sighed.

"Can you tell me anything?"

After a long pause, one hand released its death grip on her clothing to massage her throat. When Lyon stared at her blankly, she touched her lips, mimed talking, and shook her head.

"You can't talk?" he suggested.

She nodded and threw a longing glance back towards the ocean that was now out of her reach. Lyon was stumped. They'd never had a mute in their village, and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to communicate with her effectively. He supposed the only thing to do was continue as normal and try to decipher any nonverbal offerings she might make in return.

"Okay… Can I look at your ankle? It looks like you might have hurt yourself pretty badly."

The girl eased back another inch, eyes wary. Lyon felt bad for frightening her, but this state of affairs was quickly becoming frustrating.

"Look, I'm sorry I scared you." He inched forward, trying to get a look at her injured ankle. "Let me at least make sure you aren't hurt. I can help patch you up."

He leaned forward despite her discomfort, but froze. He had dismissed the bundle of clothing held to her chest, but up close he realized that it wasn't clothing at all but fur. His mouth dropped open as he traced the outline of the seal pelt with his eyes.

"You're one of them?" he asked, aghast. "A selkie?"

She nodded slowly, her wariness increasing exponentially.

That explained what she was doing here and why she had run to retrieve her skin before making a dash to the ocean, but the pieces still didn't quite click in Lyon's head. He had heard the stories, he had accepted them as a fact of life for Hargeon, but he had never expected to actually meet a selkie.

He'd never heard of a mute selkie, either. There were stories of mermaids losing their voices in exchange for legs, but those were just legends. Maybe to some other fishing village the mermaids were a fact of life in the same way that selkies were fact to the people of Hargeon, but they weren't fact here. This girl was definitely a selkie, not a mermaid, even if mermaids did exist.

Lyon shook his head and rallied valiantly. He couldn't have an existential crisis just yet, not until he had straightened out the mess he'd created.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't realize. Can you swim with your leg like that?"

The girl's face fell, and she shook her head sadly as she cast another longing look towards the sea.

"Okay…" Think, Lyon, think. "I have some bandages and things back at my place. Why don't you come back with me? It's right over there, not far. I'll fix your ankle up, and you can go back to sea as soon as it's healed enough for you to swim again."

She curled in on herself, in on her skin, and shook her head. Lyon wondered if maybe selkies had stories of fishermen like fishermen had stories of selkies. Did they tell cautionary tales of the selkies that had gone up on the beach and been held prisoner by humans because they had hidden their skins carelessly? He didn't know, but he didn't think she was stupid. She knew that losing her pelt meant that she wouldn't be able to return to the sea and her kin, and she knew that he could easily take it from her while she was in such a vulnerable position.

"I won't take your skin," he said. "You can hold on to it."

Still, she was unmoved.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, trying a different tack.

Slowly, she nodded.

"Okay, how about this? Come back with me. I'll bandage your ankle and make you some dinner, and you're welcome to stay until you can go back to sea. As far as I can tell, your other option is to hide out here on the beach until you heal and run the risk of someone else stumbling across you. You can keep your skin. Anyway, I feel bad that I frightened you and you got hurt. Let me make it up to you."

The girl stayed huddled up around her pelt for another long minute before glancing once more at the sea and nodding. Lyon sighed in relief. He stood and held down his hand, waiting patiently until she cautiously placed her small, soft hand in his calloused one. He drew her to her feet and let her lean against him, and that was the point at which he suddenly recalled a pressing concern.

Averting his eyes and silently cursing the intense heat burning his cheeks, he shrugged off his heavy coat and draped it around her shoulders. She hesitated but then pulled it shut around herself. The seal skin disappeared beneath the fabric, but Lyon knew she still had a strong grip on it.

He relaxed marginally now that her state of undress was somewhat resolved, and helped her limp back down the beach. She managed to keep a sense of distance between them even though she needed his support, but at least she was coming.

"My name is Lyon," he said. "I live right over here."

He led her up the pathway through the rocky part of the shore, where his cabin was situated. Pushing the door open, he ushered her inside and sat her down in one of the worn chairs in the living area.

"It's not much, but it's home," he said a little sheepishly as he lit the lamp. "You're welcome to stay until you've recovered."

It really wasn't much, but he had never been embarrassed about it before. There were two small bedrooms and a bathroom in the back, fronted by a cozy sitting room and a kitchen. There were a handful of old, cloth-covered chairs in the sitting room, along with a small table and a threadbare rug to cover the weathered floorboards.

It was also, unfortunately, a mess. Now that he lived here alone, he saw little need to keep everything neat or decorate it for the sake of 'prettiness'. He hadn't inherited the gene for obsessive cleanliness and organization that had so plagued his mother and brother. Cobwebs lurked in the corners, crumbs were scattered about the floor, dust coated the furniture, and clutter was strewn across every flat surface.

It had never much bothered him before since he felt that his time was better spent on less frivolous pursuits, but now it looked like a rundown mess with his guest sitting in the middle of it. She was out of place here. In the light, he could see exactly what he was dealing with.

The selkie sat perched on the very edge of the chair as if preparing to make a run for it if things got out of hand, eyes as blue as the ocean watching him guardedly. Her skin was very pale, covered only by Lyon's coat and the curtain of azure hair that fell about her shoulders in loose waves. She seemed ethereal and out of place, especially against the drabness of his abode, but the spirit of the sea raged in silence behind her eyes. There was a wildness underneath her fear that could be attributed to the tempestuous nature of the ocean. If he hadn't believed her to be a selkie before, it was impossible to deny when faced with those eyes.

Lyon went to fetch some bandages and half expected the girl to slip away during his brief absence, but she was still waiting warily at his return. He approached slowly and knelt to examine her ankle. It was already swelling, and purplish bruises bloomed beneath the skin like storm clouds. He prodded gingerly at the bone—marveling as he did so that her skin felt exactly like any other girl's—and noted that it might be poking out at an odd angle.

"Does that hurt?" he asked, looking up.

The girl's face tightened in discomfort, but still she made no sound. She made a strange motion that was half a nod and half a shrug.

"Or is it numb?" Lyon asked shrewdly. "Or tingly?"

She nodded. Wonderful. Lyon wasn't an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but he'd grown up with a younger brother who was just as careless and rough-and-tumble as he could be. He'd seen his fair share of injuries over the years, and he was betting this was a fracture rather than a sprain.

"I think it's broken." He wrapped bandages around her ankle carefully. "I'll visit the apothecary tomorrow. For now, just keep your weight off of it. I'll get you some ice to help reduce the swelling."

He rushed to the kitchen to fetch some chunks of ice from the icebox and wrap them in a rag, and even managed to snag a hunk of coarse bread and a wedge of goat cheese on his way out. The girl didn't object to the ice on her ankle, but did give the food an odd look before taking a wary nibble.

Lyon watched in bemusement until a thought struck him. "Oh, you're probably used to eating fish or something, right? Seal stuff?"

Something almost like amusement flickered in her eyes as she shrugged and nodded.

"Okay, let me just…"

He rushed back to the icebox to pull out what was left of the fish he'd cooked for dinner. He heated it up on the stove and brought it out on a plate, and the selkie actually flashed him a tiny smile.

"Do you have a name?" Lyon asked, dropping into the chair across from her. She nodded. "But you can't talk, so you can't tell me." Another nod. "Can you write?" She gave him an odd look, and he flushed. "Right, you live in the ocean. Not a lot of opportunities to write there."

She nodded, but made a writing motion. When he only blinked at her curiously, she repeated it. He scrambled for a scrap of paper and a pen. Setting aside her meal, she knit her brows together and awkwardly scratched the pen across the paper. The result was a messy scrawl of letters from someone not used to writing, but it was remarkable that she could write at all, really. It took Lyon nearly a minute to puzzle out the illegible lines and come up with a name.

"Ju…via?" he ventured.

The girl—Juvia—nodded and went back to attacking the bread and cheese, having already scarfed down the fish.

"Juvia," Lyon repeated. "Pretty name. Here, let me find you something to wear."

He had no clothing suitable for a young woman, having long since given away or recycled what remained of his mother's, but dug through his drawers until he found an oversized shirt that might just be decent. He brought this to Juvia as an offering and then led her to the other bedroom when she'd finished eating.

"You can rest here. If you need me, I'll be right over here in this room. Get some sleep, and we'll figure this out in the morning."

Juvia nodded, gave him another small smile that might have been a gesture of gratitude, and shut the door of his mother's old room behind her. Lyon put out the lamps and retreated to the room that he had at one point shared with his brother.

But he didn't sleep. He stared up at the darkened ceiling with wide, sightless eyes, his mind racing a mile a minute. There was a selkie next door. What was he supposed to do with an injured selkie?

By the time sleep finally overtook him an eternity later, he was no closer to finding the answers.