#odyssey

“It's not my place to say. Kin don't get champion right.”

She says a touch sharply.

"Yeah, whole lotta don't do this, don't question that, pecking order blah blah blah..."

"Other Selkies ain't like this, though, yeah?"

“I don't know. I decided to stay.

…is high school really like they play it on TeeVee?”

"Not nearly so dramatic, and everybody is younger."

"I'm in high school."

Dayana is tall, but perhaps only Thistle’s age or so.

“Island school only goes to 8th grade.” A sigh. “I’m getting my equivalency, but it would help to have internet.” Apparently Thistle stuck a burr in her mind about that.

“Download anything in any library without waiting, isn’t it?”

"God, yeah."

"You could go to college online!"

"You're smart, maybe you could use that to help improve things here. Make the water systems better, or improve the fields - possibilities are endless there."

“Wishin’ is as good as fishin' but one gwan fill no basket.” She says, in the tone of a repeated saying.

“My family is here. My friends. And Seamus is sweet on me. He's not bad. Not the worst come sniffin'. Stick around, I might have a Selkie babe of my own some day.”

She rolls her eyes. "People decided things are this way. Ain't nothing but people stopping it from being different."

"So, fine, what - you need a way to work the wifi around the magic? Bet Wudlig could do it, he's a specialist in being sneaky."

"No excuse to just throw up your hands and act like 'nothing can be done."

"Shit can always be DONE. But you gotta do."

“Sometimes they make exceptions. The Redfin, I hear she had a Selkie baroness up the coast what follows a dragon banner send down someone to help build the passages under the inland sea. They're a Labyrinth if you don't know the way in or out. You're lucky you didn't end up with that as a Wit- quest.”

"Really lucky, yeah. Art's good at riddles, but swimming?"

She bites on her lip. "I worry I might be making a mistake, doing this."

"How can you not know how t'swim? Bebe comes out swimming, harder to forget it than not know it!"

"Art's a sidhe - he dropped in late."

Dayana takes a step back and looks at what has taken shape under Thistle's hands.

"Yeah, we know about body-stealers. Folk go to the Obeah man to get charms against that sort of bad jumbie."

"It... seems more complicated than that. They get yeeted out, and have to land. But yeah, I knew Arty before Art. They're not the same person, but... it's complicated? memories are there, but..."

It might be a wave... it might be a tree? Something organic, for sure.

"That bit's right pretty there. Looks like wind, through the trees. Wind, she's even free'r than the sea. Sea, she's pulled to and fro by the moon. But wind goes where she wants." A smile, seeing something in the work that resonates.

"Yeah... I envy the little sillies a bit, for that. Flying looks like fun."

She hears a loud CLICK sound over by one of the shelves. And where is Citrine?

"What's that?" Squint and peer.

She is fending off a small swarm of beetles, each several inches long! Actually, she is swinging at them courageously with a clay scoring tool, but the beetles are mostly ignoring her, trying to get at small mounds of colorful specks scattered under the powdered dye shelves.

Each has a pair of glowing dots on its head- the color seems to vary as they nibble at the dyes!

Citrine managed to flip one over on its back… with a loud CLICK, it fights itself. She laughs!

Squint!

"I wonder...."

They seem to be attracted to the dyes that Thistle had mixed, particularly.

“Then peeny wallies- click beetles. They come around now and again. Borax keeps them out a while.”

Dayana flips one with a toe. And it CLICK! Flips back again.

Citrine LAUGHS.

"There any dead ones?"

"Yeah, they only live a season or so. Some kids gather 'em up, the Obeah man will pay a few cents for dead things come by honest."

"I can get you some if you want? I know you're on a time crunch."

"Could you? Would he want American money? Those little light organs, we could blend'm into the glaze..."

"Touch of glamour, and... oh yeah..."

"Sure. I can do a trade. He sells some pots I make, they're good enough for souvenirs, you know? And you maybe, if you get the Redfin's ear? You talk to her some about that internet idea."

"Oh! I saw some of the pots."

"Just practice work." She loads up a basket. "Anything else you can think of?"

"If Judge thinks something is right?"

She considers, then nods. "I'll ask. And thanks, you know. For listening." Dayana heads out.

Thistle hasn't stopped working - creating different elements, propping them to dry to proper hardness, getting colors for Grog - she knows it's ambitious.

And maybe a mistake. But she can't focus on that right now.