The selkie had never noticed anything unusual about his roommate’s hands. All human hands felt strange to him, and fascinating, with their dextrous fingers and bony knuckles, their flexibility, their smallness. Sea lion flippers were broad and flat, like swallow’s wings, and smooth as the water’s surface. It had been one thing, on earth, to flex his own man’s hands when he took on man’s shape, disturbed by how mechanical they felt, but it was something else entirely to hold Amber’s. They felt slender and graceful, to him. It was all a matter of perspective.
So, too, was the question of her powers. Amber had as little to worry about in that regard as she had about her hands; Graeling was relieved. It was a relief not to have imagined Amber’s voice inside his head, a relief that she trusted him...and a relief that he wasn’t the only freak in the building. To think, they had been living together for months and had never known. He wondered how often he had “thought too loudly,” then realized that maybe that was why she liked his company; he never did think much. Just like her steadiness, her calm, were reasons he loved being around her.
He smiled.
“Tell me about it. I bet their emotions are even louder.” It was much more difficult talking to her with his thoughts than he expected it to be – difficult to be sure the words he was trying to form were taking on their expected shapes and order. He squinted a little with the effort. “I always just assumed you knew I was an empath, but if I didn’t realize you could do this, maybe that was a silly assumption. You must have a lot more control than I do, though. I can barely shut people’s feelings out, much less give them one of my own.”
Was that even possible? It had never occurred to him that his magic might have an active element; he had always experienced it as something that acted on him, filling him up or bowling him over, nagging at the corner of his mind. As a seal it had been more subtle, more useful; his family had used it to keep track of each other and communicate without sight or sound. But as a fairy...the emotions were sharper, louder. It seemed a large enough task to learn how to put up a wall to keep the magic out. The idea that he might be able to really control it someday was comforting. And maybe, with each others’ help, these two misfits could learn together.
His hand squeezed hers in return – his eyes were luminous silver in the low light. “You’ve never told me about your mother. She sounds wise.” His mouth ended up shaping half the sentence in silence, and he laughed, catching himself. “This is hard! It’s going to take some getting used to.” He traced circles over her hand with his thumb, smiled lopsidedly. The pain in his head was a dull memory.
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