we are slaves to the sirens of the salty sea
She is not surprised to be with child again this season. It was rare for the season to go by without her having the weight of it. Ivar was, if anything, predictable in this. Perhaps because she is compliant. Perhaps because she has a knack for bearing him children of the water. She doesn’t know anything else but this life at this moment. Doesn’t know anything but the role she now fills—this life of living on the sun drenched beaches, obeying the kelpie, and bearing him children when the seasons turn.
It is not what her parents would have wished for her.
It’s not even what she would have wished for herself.
Perhaps that’s what leads her back up the freshwater of the river, despite the way that she despises the way that the pure saltwater turns brackish and then muddy. Despite the way her scales dry out and her body feels strange. Still, she feels the pull of it and she follows the stream until it grows shallow, until her hooves can touch the muddy bottom and she can work her way toward the shallows of it.
She rises again slowly, blinking the water from her eyes, the water running in rivulets down her.
He’s there, again, and she doesn’t bother to hide the delight in her silvery eyes. “I was hoping that I would see you again,” she rises further, not thinking about how differently she looks from the last time that he saw her. Pregnancy is now such a routine part of her life—why would she think twice about it?
