I have my way across! It is not the way I would have chosen, but desperation will drive a brownie to do strange things. Yestereve at the shore I spied one of the selkie folk. She had shed her sealskin and was lounging about in her human altogether. This would have shocked me at one time, but you can’t live over 150 years and still be startled by such things.
Happily, discovering her in this state gave me all I needed to gain her help, for while she was combing out her hair, I went to the water’s edge and hauled her sealskin into the woods.
Then I sat beneath a tree and waited.
When the selkie lass was ready to return to the water, she went to slip into her skin. Oh, what a wailing she unleashed when she found she could not find it!
At the sound of her woe, I came skipping down the beach, all syrup and innocence. Eyes wide, I said, “Why, what’s wrong, miss?”
“Oh, brownie!” she cried. “Someone has stolen my skin, and I cannot return to the sea without it.”
“Nae, it has not been stolen,” I tell her. “Merely hidden, and glad I’ll be to return it in exchange for a wee favor.”
“And what favor would that be?” she asked, glaring at me.
“I need passage to the other side of the Shadow Sea.”
Her glare grew fiercer. “That’s a mighty high price, little man.”
This was not a good thing to say to me.
“I am nae a man!” I cried, and the fit was upon me. “I am a brownie, as you well know. A brownie, a brownie, not some stinking human with great clumping feet and eyes that do not see. I am a brownie fierce and proud, you silly, soggy, seagoing wicked wench of wetness. And I still know where your skin is, which you do not!”
I was leaping up and down now, shaking my tiny fists at her. Though she was many times taller than me, I think I frightened her.
“All right, brownie,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll do as you ask.”
I have done many foolish things in my time, but I am nae fool enough to take a mere promise from a selkie. I made her cup water from the waves into her hands, then swear by the sea itself that she would deliver me safe and do me no harm.
She grumbled, but did as I asked. When she had completed the oath, I fetched her skin.
We depart in the morning.