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Buck glides under the murky water, more careful than he usually is.
The water is choppy, clouded with stirred-up sediment and debris. He’s already gotten a few nicks from bits of sharp wood and the shards of glass and iron that are slowly settling in the sand below.
It’s worth it, though, for the chance to satiate his curiosity.
The waters will have receded by tomorrow, the initial flood already over, but for now, he can explore the damaged houses, the streets currently held in the lingering uneasy waves of the tsunami’s grasp.
He’s grateful to have seen no bodies. The people in the village must have known this was coming from the time of the first quake, the vibrations even he had felt from the rocks where he’d been sunning, a little ways off the coast. They’ll rebuild, eventually. This isn’t the first time the sea has risen to meet them, and it won’t be the last.
But it is the first time he’s been there to do this, he thinks, swimming deeper until he can poke his head in through the broken window of what used to be an inn, stools still standing in front of the bar.
He wonders, as he often does, about Maddie, if she lives in a town like this, or if she’d find this world as fascinating and alien as he does.
He misses her presence with him in the water.
He rises to the surface again, poking his muzzle up above the murky waves to take a breath. He’s edging into the shallower waters now, trees and roofs peeking up above the water. He can even see a few patches of muddy land, the tops of hills slowly uncovering.
He’s about to dip back under, spotting the top of a church a little ways away, when he hears something.
A faint whimper, soft and keening.
He perks up, raising his head up further to listen. The sound comes again, and he turns his head quickly, zeroing in on a strip of mud and debris up in the shallows.
He picks his way carefully towards the land. The sound comes again, tugging at something in his heart, even as he knows that the smart thing to do right now would be to swim deeper, where it’s safe.
His belly scrapes against splinter-filled earth, invisible from above, and he flinches back, reassessing his approach. The water’s too shallow for him to swim close.
If he wants to get closer, he’ll either have to beach himself, or slip out of his skin.
Another soft whine. He wavers.
His parents, for all their flaws, taught him to be cautious. The moment he changes, he is vulnerable, which means any excursion onto land has to come with the question:
Is this worth the risk of losing the sea?
Another weak, wobbly keen, breaking off after only a couple seconds.
Within moments, he staggers upright on shaky legs, stones and splinters digging into his tender feet, clutching his skin where it lays draped across his shoulders.
There are a couple muddy bushes, battered but standing. It’s not easy to get closer, unused to walking especially on such difficult ground, but he stubbornly manages to stay upright.
“Hello?” he croaks out, flinching at the unfamiliar sound of his voice.
Something rustles. He edges a little closer, warily scanning for a trap.
He’s not sure what he’s expecting. A stranded human? An injured animal?
It’s not the little wolf pup that comes stumbling out, fur muddy and eyes wide and frightened.
The moment he meets the pup’s eyes, he knows he’s looking at another shifter, gaze too intelligent to be anything else.
“Oh!” he says, startled. The pup flinches back, and he quickly lowers himself, feeling awkward looming above the clearly frightened baby. “Shh, hey, it’s okay,” he says softly. “Hi. I’m not a human either, it’s okay.” He shrugs with one shoulder, drawing attention to the skin wrapped around him like a cloak.
The child’s ears prick forward, leaning towards him as its nose twitches, eyes brightening in curiosity.
Buck chuffs, the sound strange with human vocal cords, but it seems to have a similar effect as it would on a selkie pup.
The pup cocks his head, taking a few wobbly steps towards him, little tail starting to wag. Buck feels his brow furrow, searching for an injury. The pup should be steadier on his feet, right? He’s seen dogs before in the villages and near the beaches, none of them shook this much.
Before he can try to ask, the pup shifts, reaching out to grab the closest bush to keep from stumbling as he rises to two feet. Buck’s eyes widen, startled that the little boy doesn’t have a pelt. “Hi,” he says shyly, human voice high and clear. “My name’s Chris.”
“Hey Chris,” Buck says. “I’m Buck.” He smiles cautiously, the expression unpracticed and unsure if showing his teeth will be a threat to a wolf.
But Chris smiles back, a bright little smile that lights up his whole face. He’s still holding on to the bush.
“Are you…okay?” Buck asks worriedly. “I heard you crying.”
Chris’s face falls, and he almost regrets asking if it makes him stop smiling. “I - I can’t find my dad,” he replies in a small voice. “He was out hunting, and - and the wave hit really fast.”
He looks too tiny, too vulnerable out here, with no pelt and no protection. Buck bites back a trill.
“I bet your dad’s really tough,” he says sincerely. “He’s probably fine, just out looking for you.”
Chris sniffs, scrubbing at his nose with one muddy wrist. His eyes are hopeful as he watches Buck. “You really think he’s okay?”
“Yeah,” Buck tries to put as much confidence in the word as he can. “But right now, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a lie.
Buck tilts his head. “Your legs aren’t hurt?”
He shakes his head. “No. I was born like this.”
Buck feels his shoulders slump with relief. “Oh! Okay. Good. I’m glad you’re not hurt.”
The smile comes back, so bright and earnest it makes Buck’s heart ache.
He shifts uncomfortably, stones digging into his knees. He glances back at the water behind him. His instincts tell him that he and the pup are too exposed, but he obviously can’t take a werewolf back into the sea with him, and he obviously can’t leave Chris here up on land.
Even if he isn’t hurt, he’s alone, and he has no doubt that the world is as dangerous for a baby werewolf as it is for a selkie.
“Do you want help finding your dad?” he asks.
In the next moment, he’s got an armful of werewolf pup, clumsy fingers gripping his pelt tightly. “Yes please,” Chris mumbles into his shoulder. “I tried to track him, but everything just smells like salt.”
Buck croons softly, drawing his pelt up to drape him in its folds. With a pang, he remembers Maddie doing the same thing when he was a pup, back when she still had a pelt to wrap around him.
“Alright buddy, it’s okay. We’ll find him, I promise.”
Chris sniffles again, but draws back a bit, grabbing his much larger hand in his small one and tugging. “C’mon,” he commands. “He’s - he’s probably in the woods somewhere.”
Buck stands up, following as he’s guided forward. He winces as he looks at the hill-covered trees surrounding this section of the coast. His feet are getting steadier the more time he spends on them, but without the benefit of a wolf’s paws, the idea of hiking through those woods doesn’t sound pleasant. “How about we start as close to your home as we can get, okay? That’s probably going to be the first place he goes.”
Chris lights up, nodding quickly. “That’s smart! I’ll take you to our cabin.”
Buck smiles back at him, keeping a careful eye to make sure that he doesn’t fall as they pick their way through the mud and patches of shallow water.
But it quickly becomes obvious that for all he’s trying to be brave about it, the pup is exhausted. He nearly trips three times, only his grip on Buck’s hand keeping him from falling, before Buck hesitantly asks if he wants him to carry him.
“I can do it,” Chris insists stubbornly.
“I know you can, kiddo, but you’ve already been super brave and strong today. Why don’t you give your feet a rest? I bet having two of them is a lot more tiring than having four.”
He has the sense, even only knowing the kid for a little bit, that if he were any less tired and sore that he’d put up much more of a fight.
As soon as he’s got Chris bundled in his arms, he tucks his pelt in around him, noticing the way he’s shivering in the salty air.
He can only hope Chris’s dad is as much of a fighter as his pup clearly is.
***
By the time they reach the cabin, he’s confident that he is, if even half of the stories Chris has told him about his father are even half true.
To hear the pup tell it, his father spends every day helping the people in the village, doing hard labor with his superior strength and using his wolf form to help find lost goats and making sure the humans made it safely home at night. And from the sound of it, he’s not just doing it to endear them to the humans and keep them from being afraid of the wolves in the woods. Or at least, if he is, he’s still taken the time to teach his son the importance of kindness, and helping his community, even if they live on the outskirts of it.
For the first time, he starts to hope the older wolf is okay for more than the pup’s sake. He wants to meet this other shifter, to know if he’s truly the hero his son clearly believes him to be.
And also, he can’t help but be curious. He’s never met a werewolf before, knows about them only from stories from the selkies he’s met that have spent more time on land.
He’d like to meet an adult shifter, to know if his life resembles Buck’s lonely one in any way.
The waters here haven’t risen as high as they had in the village proper. The wave clearly still swept through, clumps of seaweed clinging to the damaged underbrush, but the worst of it has already receded.
They pick their way around the edges of the deeper standing water, Buck’s feet splashing in the shallow puddles and damp pine needles.
They’re able to get close enough to see the cabin, which fortunately is still standing. He doesn’t take them closer, not wanting to take Chris deeper into the chilly water, which looks to be around waist-deep next to the structure itself.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, when the pup falls quiet at the sight of the flooded house. “The water’s gonna draw back in another day or so. You and your dad will be able to clean it up and get it all dry and comfy again.”
“Do you have a house?” Chris asks, as Buck turns them back so he doesn’t have to see the cabin through the trees anymore.
“Nah,” he answers. “I, um. I don’t really come up on land much. I mostly stay in the water.”
Chris cocks his head. “Where do you sleep?” he asks curiously.
Buck smiles. “I like to lie on warm rocks, when the sun’s out. Sometimes I sleep in little caves or coves, if I find them.”
“Do you have a pack?”
It’s an innocent question, no malice in it, but it still makes Buck flinch a bit. His smile gets a bit tighter. “Nah,” he says again. “Selkies don’t really have packs.”
It’s kind of true. They don’t have packs, not like he’s heard wolves do, and they don’t live in the kind of communities humans do.
But they do usually travel as family units. Usually, when their parents are kind and their siblings aren’t stolen away from where they belong.
The other selkies are wary of him, when he bumps into them.
A selkie alone is usually a selkie with something wrong.
He opens his mouth, trying to pull up some bit of selkie lore that will keep Chris’s interest without touching on anything too painful, but he never gets a chance.
Behind him, something snarls.
He tenses, drawing his pelt tighter over Chris and baring his teeth. He doesn’t get a chance to fully turn before a heavy weight crashes into him like a battering ram, knocking him down with a loud splash. Chris tumbles out of his arms as he rolls.
Teeth sink into his pelt, yanking, ripping, and he screams, a shriek that’s more seal than human. The feeling of fangs sends a shock through his system, not quite pain, but a horrible wrongness, like a knife prodded against his spine.
The tree branches hang above him as he wheezes, the air knocked out of him, chest pinned down by the wolf that stands on top of him, brown eyes glaring down at him and hot breath wafting across his face. White teeth snap in front of him with another snarl, rumbling through him like thunder.
“Dad!” Chris’s voice cries.
The wolf’s growl falters, a whine breaking through, and even through his terror Buck can see him wavering. With a last harsh growl, he leaps off him, jogging over towards the pup.
Buck rolls over, instinctively reaching out towards the pup, fear and adrenaline overriding logic and leaving him with only the need to protect Chris from the new threat.
There’s no time, he’s not going to make it, the wolf is almost to Chris -
It’s not a wolf that reaches him.
“Chris!” The man is scooping him up out of the water almost before he’s done shifting, crushing him against his chest as he frantically cradles the back of his head. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he breathes, patting him down as best he can with Chris’s little arms locked around his neck. “You’re okay? You’re not hurt? Dios, mijo, I was so scared.”
Chris is crying audibly, but Buck feels the tension draining out of him as it becomes clear that the pup isn’t in danger, that this really is his father. He slumps limply into the lingering seawater, concentrating on getting air into his lungs and ignoring the bruised ache where the werewolf slammed into him.
“I’m okay dad, Buck found me! I tried to run down to the village, but the water was too fast, and I got stuck, but he found me and he helped me find you!”
The man turns to look at Buck warily, still clutching Chris protectively. Buck watches his nose flare, taking in his scent, and his eyes widen.
“You’re a selkie,” he breathes.
Buck gives him a small, cautious wave, feeling like he’s still pinned on the ground under his gaze. “Buck,” he croaks. “My name is Buck. I wasn’t stealing your kid, I promise, just trying to get him back to you.”
The man’s shoulders drop, the lingering wariness disappearing to be replaced by exhausted relief and guilt. He walks over, bending down to offer Buck a hand.
Buck cautiously lets himself be pulled to his feet, a small flush appearing on his cheeks at the easy way he lifts him up one-armed, as though he weighs nothing.
“Eddie,” he introduces himself. “I’m…I’m really sorry for attacking you like that. I might’ve been panicking a little.”
Buck shoots him a small smile. “I get it.” Glancing at Eddie to make sure it’s okay, he reaches out to ruffle Chris’s muddy hair. “If I misplaced a pup as cool as this one, I’d probably panic too.”
Eddie grins back. It lights up his whole face, the same way Chris’s does.
His eyes land on the bite marks at the edge of his pelt, and his expression falls just as quickly. “I hurt you,” he says, sounding wounded himself. “That’s your skin, right? I bit you.”
Buck glances down at it, quickly shifting the folds of the pelt so the marks are less obvious. “It’s okay,” he says quickly. “It’ll sting a bit when I go back in the water, but it’ll heal fast.”
The unhappy furrow on his brow doesn’t disappear. “You should come with us,” he says. “My friends will be setting up some temporary shelter deeper on the mainland, until the waters draw back. Come stay with us until you’re healed.”
But Buck is already drawing back, shaking his head warily, fingers tightening at the edge of his pelt. “I - thank you,” he says, and his throat aches. He’s spoken more words in a single day today than he has since he was a child. “But - no. It’s not - safe.”
“Please,” Eddie says insistently, holding out the hand not supporting Chris. “You protected my son when I couldn’t. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
His eyes are wide and earnest, and Buck -
Buck has always been more curious than is wise for a selkie.
Is it worth the risk of losing the sea?
Hesitantly, he reaches out, and takes the hand. It’s warm.
Eddie’s face breaks into another breathtaking smile, adjusting Chris on his hip as he starts to lead Buck through the woods, away from the shoreline. Buck has no doubt that he could wrestle his pelt away from him, and there would be little Buck could do to keep himself from being trapped, just like Maddie.
But he makes no grab for the soft pelt, his grip on Buck’s hand strong but not confining.
Buck finds himself smiling back.