Tidebound

The sharp sting of saltwater on her tongue roused the unconscious girl’s senses. She shivered against the cold, blinking against the fog of confusion, as she assessed her surroundings. The girl was sprawled on the rocky shore of a fjord, a persistent ache throbbing in her bones from lying down on the uncomfortable surface. Seaweed from the fjord’s depths were tangled in her long, auburn hair and entwined around her delicate limbs like chains, binding her to the shore as seagulls squawked from the heavens as if mocking her. Another shudder wracked her body as a chill raced down her spine; instinctively, she tried to pull her pelt across her form like a quilt, to keep herself warm from the breeze.

That was when she noticed that her fingers grazed nothing—just the unnatural smoothness of a human body. Her dark eyes widened in horror and her lips parted in a strangled bark-like gasp as she attempted to scramble to her feet—the cursed appendages betrayed her from having never used them before.

My skin! She flailed helplessly, clumsily. My skin!

Tears pricked at her eyes as she scanned the tide. Surely it must have just been washed away by the sea? But a prickle of doubt stabbed at her newly sentient mind: what if her pelt had been taken? After all, who knows how long she had been unconscious for until she had come to! The girl had heard tales from other seafolk, tales about greedy men that would steal and hide the skin of her people to make them bound to the land in their human forms. Their skin, after all, was their identity—without it, they eventually withered and died. The girl did not wish to have the same fate.

With a defeated huff, she flopped back down onto the shore like a dead fish, her nerves screaming in anguish and despair—

“Are you alright, maer?”

The girl looked up, eyes large and shining with tears. A shadow broke across the soft glare of the tide. She blinked, squinting up at the tall figure that was approaching only paces away—broad shoulders wrapped in a wolf-pelt cloak, hair the color of wet sand, eyes as bright and clear as the sea. A young man.

“Are you alright, maer?” The man repeated, concern softening his tone as he hovered halfway between reaching out to her and keeping a respectable distance.

The girl, making a sound that sounded vaguely like a gasp, quickly crab-scuttled away from the stranger, her palms slipping on the slick rocks, her legs catching on the seaweed that strangled her. Her chest heaved in panic as the man advanced closer. The tide, as if sensing her distress, sloshed against her hands like a soothing balm. It’s okay, my child, the tide seemed to whisper to her. You’re okay.

“Easy now.” The man held his hands up as he slowly crouched in front of her. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He cocked his head, studying her disheveled appearance. “Odd day to go out swimming, eh?”

The jest fell pathetically flat. The boy cleared his throat awkwardly, his eyes briefly flicking over her vulnerable form, particularly the strange swells of flesh on her chest. Blotches of red started blooming on his cheeks, and he coughed again. The girl, noticing this sudden phenomenon, tilted her head innocently, her distrust quelling slightly with a surge of curiosity.

With a gentle grace not befitting for such a rugged-looking individual, the man undid the clasp of his cloak and draped the heavy fabric over her trembling shoulders, doubling his efforts by trying to cover every inch of bare skin that could be subject to the cold.

“There you are, little one,” he said with a twitch of a smile. “You need it more than me.”

The cloak smelled strange to the girl. She buried her face innocently into the fabric, before withdrawing, her nose wrinkled in distaste. This reaction earned a chuckle from the man.

The girl looked up at the man and her lips quirked into a faint smile. She did not know how to say thank you to the man in the words of his language. But her eyes—those large, dark eyes, now glazed over with admiration—said it all.

“Can you stand, maer?” He inquired softly, starting to stand up.

The maiden, immediately understanding, attempted to stand, though her movements were constricted by the heavy cloak that engulfed her. She wobbled like a baby deer on her odd new feet, but then—to make matters infinitely worse—the slick rocks beneath her deceived her footing, and she slipped. Expecting to plunge back onto the rocky surface, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, only to be pillowed by a broad chest. She peeked a hesitant eye open to see that the young man had caught her fall, then her cheeks burned, and her heart raced in a new feeling she couldn’t quite understand yet.

“Easy now, little one,” the man chastised with a rich laugh. The girl hadn’t heard such a beautiful sound before. “You’re clearly not fit to walk. Here, let me carry you.”

Before the girl could protest or even understand his words, the man hefted her up into his arms. She gasped, frightened from the amount of space between her and the ground, and she instinctively burrowed deeper into his embrace.

The man laughed again. “Easy now, I won’t drop you, little one.” His expression shifted into thoughtful. “I believe I didn’t ask you for your name. I don’t want to keep calling you ‘maer’ and ‘litill einn,’ y’know.”

The girl merely stared at the man, confusion written across her youthful face. She tilted her head innocently, opened her mouth, then immediately closed it. How could she tell this stranger that she had no name, that she only belonged to the sea?

“Ah, you must be foreign,” he murmured to himself. Then, with one large hand he pointed at himself: “Eirikr.”

Eirikr. Ayr-ih-kir. His name rolled off his tongue like a wave. The girl liked the sound.

Then he pointed at her. The girl’s eyes widened, and she shook her head vigorously.

Eirikr’s brows furrowed. “You have no name? That’s preposterous. Everyone has a name.” But then his features softened, almost sad: “Then again, not everyone has the luxury of having their own identity.”

Eirikr’s gaze flitted over the fjord’s landscape—the sea, the shore, the fog that had always seemed present no matter where he traveled. Then his eyes lit up, and he pointed at the girl.

“Saer. I’ll call you Saer,” he announced, then pointed at the tide. “It means sea. It’s only fitting since I found you here.”

Saer. Say-r. The girl liked its sound. Everything Eirikr said seemed to sound like the ocean tide—slow and relaxing, comforting even. She nodded, a soft smile playing her lips.

Eirikr smiled, pleased with himself. “Saer it is, then.”

Saer didn’t like where Eirikr had taken her.

It was a peculiar place. The air smelled of smoke and mead, thick and constant, and men. Always men. They were always too loud, their work too rough. They frightened her—but not Eirikr. He was gentle and kind, and he carried her on the worn paths that connected oblong structures that were clustered together.

Saer was taken to one of those odd structures, one slightly larger than the rest. She was quickly surrounded and coddled by many women. They stripped her of the cloak that she’d grown accustomed to, causing a flurry of goosebumps to race across her skin as they plucked the seaweed off her trembling form—in return, the women dressed her in coarse wool, cinched at the waist with a strip of leather, and braided her damp hair with clumsy fingers.

Then the women fed her morsels that she’d never seen before. Porridge that burnt her tongue. Barley bread soft as seafoam. Salted fish that stank of smoke, not brine. She sputtered as she took a tentative sip of the drink they had given her, her nose wrinkled in disgust. Eirikr watched in amused silence.

After eating what she could, Eirikr dismissed the women and helped Saer sit by the fire. She stared at the dancing flames in awe, admiring how its warmth sank into her bones. She closed her eyes and let out a weary sigh. The heat reminded her of when she’d bask lazily on the shore in her true form as the sun lulled her to sleep. But then her heart tightened with longing, and her eyes fluttered open.

She needed to find her skin. And fast.

“You look as if you’ve never seen fire before,” Eirikr mused, noticing her awe-stricken expression. Saer looked at him blankly, those wide eyes making Eirikr’s heart skip a beat. “Ah, I forgot that you don’t understand me.”

Pointing at the firepit, he said slowly to Saer, “Eldr.”

Saer looked at him, at the flames that licked the logs, then back at him. She mouthed the word, remembering the way the letters weaved together on his lips. Eirikr smiled triumphantly.

“Ja, that’s it,” he praised.

Saer’s gaze wandered the enclosed space, across the plethora of strange objects that only reinforced her curiosity. Turning back to Eirikr, she pointed at his cloak.

Eirikr smiled. “You want it back, don’t you?” However, as he started to unclasp it, she shook her head and pointed again, more insistently this time. Eirikr laughed, mirth twinkling in his eyes. “Ah, you want to know what this is now, huh? This is a felder. A fur-cloak.”

Saer scooted towards him and touched the cloak gently, almost reverently. She marveled at the soft, shaggy texture beneath her palm that was so unlike her own. A pinprick of sympathy poked her mind as she thought of the poor creature that had been butchered to make this pelt, but she quickly forced the thought to the dark recesses of her mind as she scoured other things to learn about.

As Saer pointed at objects at random, Eirikr patiently taught her what they were. When she pointed at one of the big mattresses lining the walls with animal skins, he answered, “That’s my svefnstoll. You sleep on it.”

When she pointed at him, herself, then the bed, Eirikr’s cheeks flushed bright red, and he coughed. “Right. Sleeping. Wait, together? Nay, I meant—”

Saer cocked her head to the right. A few strands of hair had fallen out of her braid to frame her face, only causing her to look even more innocent with her large eyes. Eirikr, noticing this, began to turn an even darker shade of red.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you?” he said at last.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏ ࣪ ⊹

Village life wasn’t easy for Saer.

Weeks had gone by since Saer’s arrival. Through Eirikr’s guidance, she learned to fit in with the women by cooking, cleaning, and loom-weaving—or, at least, tried to.

She burnt food and spilled mead. She swept with clumsy strokes. She tangled thread into hopeless knots. Yet, she always tried again. Failed again.

It wasn’t long before rumors started circulating among the village folk. Children often followed her around the village like a pack of wolves stalking a lone sheep, hoping to catch her in the act of something peculiar.

“Why won’t she talk?”

“She’s daft, that’s why.”

“She’s pretty, though.”

Worse yet, her reputation was tainting the eldest son of the jarl—none other than Eirikr himself. Men and women often chastised her at the feasts in the jarl’s hall, too drunk on mead to care less about their hurtful criticisms. They even gossiped in broad daylight as she passed them by in her aimless wanderings of the village.

Onyttr kona. Useless woman.

Havsra. Sea witch.

Sjavarbruor. Sea bride. Eirikr’s sea bride.

Saer pretended not to hear them, pretended that their words didn’t hurt her as much as they did. She merely masked her consciousness of those around her with obliviousness, reducing her curious nature to that of shyness and hesitance.

The moments with Eirikr were the ones that she cherished most of all. She braided his hair with seaweed, gifted him seashells, listened to him as he taught her more words in his language. No matter how many men clapped him on the back and, without any vocal restraint, raucously demanded how many times he’d bedded his sjavarbrour, Eirikr remained calm, even defensive of Saer’s rumored origins.

Eirikr den stille, he was often called—though he was not so when he drank.

It was as if all of the village folk’s gossip melted away into the waves when she was with Eirikr. It was as if Eirikr knew what she was, even though she knew that he truly didn’t.

Everyone in the village thought that she was just a poor, foreign shipwrecked girl, miraculously washing up on their village’s shore, her voice having been stolen through “whoring around”; though some of the more superstitious of folk suspected something far more mystical.

And through it all, there was this itch underneath her skin that became almost unbearable to ignore. The call of the tide was beckoning her. The sea wanted her home. But her skin was still lost. She could not return until her skin was found.

Maybe Saer would tell him the truth, after all that he’d done for her.

Maybe he would help her come back home.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏ ࣪ ⊹

That idea came crashing down like a tidal wave.

Eirikr and Saer were in the longhouse by themselves, in the time of day where the longhouse was eerily empty—an extremely rare occurrence. He was teaching her runes while she braided his hair with seaweed when he suddenly cleared his throat.

“Saer,” he said gravely, his gaze suddenly serious.

Saer blinked, caught off-guard by his shift in tone. She tilted her head.

Eirikr patted the space in front of him. “Come here.”

Saer obeyed, plopping down in front of him with childlike wonder. She tilted her head once more, as if asking her companion, What is it?

Eirikr glanced away, the familiar blush painting his cheeks. He seemed nervous, far too nervous for such a humble, strong man. Saer was puzzled by this.

“I have something that you’d might like to have,” Eirikr explained slowly.

He reached inside his cloak. Saer tilted her head to the other side, eyes wide as she patiently waited for this unexpected gift, her mind spinning with countless possibilities, her fair cheeks blushing from the intimacy of the moment.

Saer had only blinked for a second. Then her skin paled and grew clammy, her eyes widening in horror as she gaped at the gift in his hands.

A sealskin. Her sealskin. The way it imperceptibly pulsed rhythmically to her own, as if the pelt had a heart of its own, made her know that it belonged to her.

Saer couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She just stared at the pelt in stunned silence.

“I felt like it belonged to you,” Eirikr continued to explain, though his words fell deaf on Saer’s ears. “I found it in my belongings chest yesterday. I don’t know how it got there, but I know that I’ve never owned sealskin before, Saer. And when I found it, I knew that it was no ordinary sealskin.” His voice softened. “That’s when I put the pieces together, that it was yours, from all your odd quirks to even your appearance.” He laughed ruefully, shaking his head. “I mean, how often does a beautiful girl wash up on shore, naked and afraid?” He then gently offered the sealskin to her—Saer flinched. “I want you to have this again. So that you can go home. So that you don’t have to endure the insults of my village any longer. So that you can be free.”

Saer finally looked up, eyes glittering with tears. Eirikr looked like a beaten dog, his head bowed, shoulders hunched. He offered the sealskin again, his eyes pleading, “Please, Saer. Take back what’s yours.”

Saer continued to stare at her pelt. Why? she thought, struggling to hold back tears. Why now, Eirikr? Why?

That was when Saer’s heart, so full of misery and longing, suddenly melted into an unfamiliar, white-hot feeling. Her face burned, her throat burned, everything burned. It consumed her, body and soul, and she felt like she’d explode any moment.

Was this what humans called anger? Was this what humans called heartbreak?

Saer acted before she could think. She snatched her sealskin and burst out the door. Hearing Eirikr’s voice calling out to her, she only sprinted away faster, her lungs and legs burning with each step. She panted in short gasps, her abdomen singing with pain, but she pressed forward, the sealskin held tightly in her grasp as she raced across the terrain, the cold earth hard underneath her bare feet.

She did not care about the villagers gawking at her. She did not care about Eirikr pleading for forgiveness. No, she only cared for one thing and one thing only: going home.

Salt from the ocean stung her nostrils. Sea foam broke the tide in the distance. Cold fog blanketed across her skin like a familiar embrace. As the shore’s distance came closer into view, Saer’s heart raced with joy and purpose, and for the first time since washing ashore, she laughed. A soft, melodic sound that made her heart soar.

For a brief moment, Saer remembered Eirikr’s laugh—so lively, so true—and she almost forgot the pain that he had forced upon her. After all, he had given her skin back voluntarily. It would have hurt more if she’d found it herself.

Heimer er par sem hjarta, Eirikr used to say. Home is where the heart is.

Saer thought the sea was where her heart was all this time, but maybe—just maybe—her heart was with Eirikr, the man that had saved her and betrayed her.