shayoranwriting

[shayoranwriting]

New post on my marine biology blog. Putting a spotlight on the ocean sunfish (Mola mola).

[shayoranwriting]

Updated my marine biology blog with a creative non-fiction piece about whale strandings and one in particular that's close to my heart.

[shayoranwriting]

Calm Among the Stars

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing: Analogical; can be read as platonic or romantic

Word count: 490

Summary: With Virgil feeling a little pensive, Logan decides to keep him company using stargazing.

-

"You've been out here a while," Logan said as he cautiously approached Virgil, who was currently sitting on the grass in the yard staring up at the night sky.

"Yeah," came the quiet reply.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked.

"...yeah."

With a sigh, Logan summoned a thick blanket and, sitting himself down beside Virgil, draped it around both of their shoulders.

Virgil looked at him with surprise.

"Would you like to hear about some constellations?" Logan said simply.

Virgil huffed a laugh.

"Sure thing, Teach."

Logan straightened to attention, eyes shining with delight.

"Alright. Do you see that star right there? The one that's brighter than all the others?"

Virgil nodded, humming in acknowledgement.

"Well, that is Sirius, or the dog star, which is the brightest star in the night sky and part of the constellation Canis Major. It is actually what is known as a binary star, where two stars orbit one another and they can appear as a single body at this great distance."

Virgil made an interested sound to show he was still listening. He shifted to lean against Logan slightly, causing him to pause, smiling softly at the other.

"Now, moving up from Sirius, do you see that line of three stars right there?"

"Mm-hmm."

"That's Orion's belt. See the shape of his body? And there's his sword, his shield, and his club. Orion is particularly easy to find because the constellation has a number of especially bright stars. For example, Rigel, there, and Betelgeuse, right there, are among the brightest stars in the night sky and Orion contains six more stars with a magnitude below than 3. Where stellar magnitude is concerned, the smaller the number, the brighter the object."

"That seems a little confusing."

"Not really. It's a reverse logarithmic scale that was adapted from the original system proposed by Hipparchus, who defined the brightest stars as the first magnitude, the next brightest as the second magnitude, and so on."

"That's less confusing," Virgil said genuinely.

"Indeed. And because Orion is so easy to find in the night sky, it can be a useful tool for locating other constellations. For example, you can follow Orion's belt in the opposite direction from Sirius to find the Taurus constellation."

Logan glanced at Virgil from the corner of his eye. "Just like you can use the Big Dipper and Polaris to find the tail end of Draco."

"Draco is my favourite constellation! Dragonheart was a good movie," Virgil said, now seeming more present.

A stretch of silence passed between them, though it was a comfortable silence.

Finally, Virgil looked away from the stars and turned to Logan.

"Thanks, Logan."

Logan's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"You're very welcome," he said in a bemused tone.

"I'm ready to head back inside now."

Logan smiled, "Alright."

He stood up, offering Virgil a hand to help him do the same, and, together, they headed for the familiar warmth of the commons living room.

[shayoranwriting]

The Selkie of Port Mo Chalmaig

Summary: It's been months since selkie, Catrìona, was taken captive and she still can't understand why the locals see her and her people as the problem.

Word count: 992

Content warnings: Domestic violence, mentions of trafficking, mention of war, mention of death

-

Many people would say that a young lass shouldn’t be out on her own this late. But, with me, they know better. I’m not what I appear to be. And I’d much rather face whatever may lurk on these dark streets if it keeps me from the house a little longer.

I came to the surface months ago to avoid the conflict between my people and the Ceasg, who wanted to exterminate all our men but weren’t above slaughtering our women and children too. It was supposed to be temporary, just till the worst of the conflict had died down and I could feel safe again. But someone found my skin and they’ve been holding me here ever since. My ma always warned me about that. A lot of selkies have been caught the same way, though, so at least I know I’m not the only fool. There are even people that make a career of it; they go out and collect loads of skins at a time and keep all the selkies in a big house, then sell them on to folk. They make the selkies do all sorts… It doesn’t bear thinking about.

I suppose I’m one of the luckier ones. My captor brought me to his home in Port Mo Chalmaig. It’s a fairly small coastal village where everyone seems to know each other, but there’s also a larger town nearby. I haven’t seen my skin since that time. He stashed it away upon our arrival and I’ve been unable to find it.

He’s much older than me. Sometimes, when I’m running errands, I hear the elderly townswomen gossiping about us, wondering why he couldn’t get a woman his own age. And species. To be quite honest, I agree with them! So I don’t understand why I’m the one that gets all the dirty looks and vicious whispers. Sometimes they even openly harass me and other people will join in or cheer them on, jeering at me. I haven’t done anything wrong so I don’t know where this hostility comes from. All I can do is rise above it and not sink to their level. That’s the way my ma raised me.

Nevertheless, this is the life I’ve landed in and, with a heavy heart, it’s time for me to return to him. The last light is gone and there’s not a soul left on the streets. I just know he’ll be waiting for me, nursing his wrath to keep its embers smouldering. So, I make my way back along the main street, with the shore on my left and the village on my right, before heading up the winding roads that lead to his old, stone house. I open and close the door as softly as I can, then hold my breath and wait. Did he hear me?

“Where have you been, Mhairi?” he asks darkly from the sitting room.

That’s not my name. It’s the one he chose for me. My real name is Catrìona and I like it. But, sometimes, it’s easier to simply co-operate.

“Just a walk,” I answer after a moment.

“Why?”

“I needed some fresh air.”

“You better not have been at the shore,” he says, with a clear threat behind the tone.

“I wasn’t,” I lied.

I often go there just to be close to the sea. But, more than that, I go there to help my people as best I can. I don’t want them to end up like me or like the others in the “selkie houses”. I would give anything to stop another from suffering our fate. So, I warn anyone that comes ashore and I hide any skins I find. It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.

I’m not supposed to go down there, though. I’m not supposed to interact with my people at all. It’s better if I “assimilate” is the way he puts it.

I hear him push himself up from his chair, followed by the thud of his footsteps as he crosses the sitting room and, when he steps out into the hall, I shrink back involuntarily. He’s taller than me, though not by much, but he has plenty of meat on him. A great hulking beast of a man. Wild and hairy too. All in all, he paints quite an intimidating picture.

“Don’t lie to me, woman!” he spits the last word. “Where else would you go for so long?”

He’s in a worse mood than usual and it puts the fear into me. I decide to cut my losses and tell the truth.

“Alright, I was at the shore. But I don’t see the harm! I like it down there.”

“You shouldn’t be down there,” he declares. “You’ll get ideas. You should be at home.”

The words are out before I can stop them: “The sea is my home!”

Before I can react, his hand is in my hair and I’m being dragged. Down the hall, through the kitchen, and to the much dreaded door. He opens it and throws me down into his coal cellar. A regular occurrence when I don’t toe the line.

“You need to think long and hard about how lucky you are to be here, my lady,” he tells me.

I watch the light from the door above me narrow into nothingness as it closes, and I am left in pitch darkness.

Sometimes people tell me I should go back where I came from. I never understand why they say it with such hostility. I’d love to go back to the sea. I’d love to see my family and know that they’re safe and well. I’d love to be safe, myself, and feel like I belong again. But I can’t. Things would be better if people understood that the selkies aren’t the problem; it’s the people trapping us here. We share the same enemy and we could stand together against them. Wouldn’t that be simpler?

[shayoranwriting]

Granny Takes the Burnt Toast

Description: A short reflective piece about my relationship with my granny.

Word count: 784

-

My granny has always been the embodiment of the saying “mother takes the burnt toast.” She is the most selfless person I have ever known and I always aspire to be more like her in nature. She never considers her own wants and needs and always puts other people first, whether they be family, friend, or stranger.

When I was little, she always took care of me when I was sick, bringing me care packages of Lucozade, lemonade, and rich tea biscuits (things I always craved during illness). She would sit with me for hours without complaint and gave me things to keep me occupied and take my mind off my misery, even if it was something as simple as having me unwind the wool as she knitted beside me.

All throughout my life, anything of my granny’s that I admired, she gave up for me. I have so many of her rings and other assorted jewellery, including an old antique ring that is beautifully engraved and has five rubies set in it. I never take it off.

It does not stop with jewellery, however. Perfume, wool, CDs and CD-players, old music sheets; you name it, she has parted with it all. When we ask why she so readily gives up her possessions for us, she simply replies, “They’re just things to me. I’d quite happily watch someone else enjoy them.”

There was even one time I happened to comment on the lovely colour of the scarf she was wearing as she left our house and, straight away, she whipped it from her neck and handed it to me. “Here. Take it,” she insisted, then joked, “Look at me. Giving you the clothes off my back!”

She has always been a self-proclaimed witch with her “evil eye” an “ugly thumb”. Her so-called evil eye could see all and she would often predict events with a shout of “See! I told you! I’m a witch!” when any of her “premonitions” came true. As for her thumb, she got it caught in a mangle as a child, leaving it permanently deformed and, thus, she had always dubbed it her “ugly thumb”. I could never be repulsed by it, though. It was attached to my lovely granny.

She even used her witch’s powers to help me stand up to bullies when I was growing up (her heart was in the right place). At the very mention of me being picked on, she would always tell me, “Well, you know what to do. Tell them I’m a witch,” or “Tell them I’ll come and put the evil eye on them,” or, more embarrassingly, “Tell them your big, fat granny will come and squash them!” I say it was embarrassing for the simple fact that I took her advice. How was I to know the bullies would only laugh harder? I laugh too in hindsight.

My little cousin and I have always been particularly close to Granny as she often babysat us together and she and my granda were always taking us on beach holidays in their caravan or on day trips to the zoo and other such places. Somehow, she never once, in all our years, lost her temper with us, no matter how annoying we got. Messing her hair, pinging her stockings, giving her lip, and just generally being the “cheeky, wee monkeys” that we were.

She had endless patience for us and she provided countless activities to keep us entertained. Baking, making pom-poms, picnics on the stairs, and, our personal favourite, cooking sausages on the beach. Even on day trips, she would produce snacks, notebooks, and puzzles from her “magic bag.” Those years spent with them were some of the best of my life.

One memory of my granny stands out in particular. I was very young and my mum and I were visiting my granny just after Valentine’s Day. It was a visit like any other but, just before we were leaving, my granny stopped us with a “Hold on. I’ve got something for you.”

She went through to the kitchen and came back with a beautiful handcrafted, hand-painted box filled with Valentine’s candies, apparently from my “secret admirer”.

“It came through the door for you,” she told me. “They must have known that I was your granny and that you’d be coming here.”

I loved it. It made me feel so special and for a long time I would remember it and find myself wondering who this mysterious suitor was.

It didn’t occur to me until years later that my granny was my secret admirer. Even once I realised it was her, it didn’t bother me because, to be honest, I’m her secret admirer too.

[shayoranwriting]

The First Time

Description: Just a short vent poem.

Content warning: Referenced child abuse.

-

The first time she hit me

When I was 5

They asked me, "Why?"

As if it could be justified.

The next time she hit me,

I didn't tell.

[shayoranwriting]

King Hrothgar's Lament

Description: An original poem inspired by the part in Beowulf where, terrorised by Grendel, King Hrothgar has been forced to close his mead hall, Heorot.

-

Laughter, tales, dance, and song

A thousand guests have come and gone

With rivers of mead and magnificent feasts

Until our revels drew the beast.

Now my eyes strain to see

Colour, light, and company before me

And then I strain my ears to hear

The music and laughter I held so dear.

Drawing patterns in layers of dust

I heave a sigh in a mighty gust

As I sit before this empty hall

And wonder why I built it at all.

So here I dream that a time will come when

The doors of noble Heorot will open again.

[shayoranwriting]

The Red Rose

Prompt: Character = an orphan; setting = a bus station; item = a rose.

Word count: 1,253

Content warnings: Mention of death; mention of a car accident.

-

On such a bright, warm spring evening, people couldn’t help feeling cheerful. Strangers shared a smile as they passed one another, showing a little more courtesy than they normally would, commenting on the trivial, such as the day's bargains and the “lovely weather we’re having.”

However, at the town’s bus station, dour and dingy at the best of times, a young boy was completely oblivious to the care-free atmosphere. He sat alone, staring into space as he absent-mindedly twirled a perfect red rose between his fingers. He had slipped away from his would-be home earlier that afternoon. Thinking of that place as his home felt like a betrayal.

After a short detour, during which he had visited his special place and pilfered the rose, he had returned to the station and remained there. Weighing his options.

Should he go back?

He remembered his mother’s face, her morning ritual of “putting it on” as she called it. Carefully painting her lips in red and dusting around her eyes with a black that brought out their calm, reassuring blue. Her honey-coloured hair would frame her face perfectly and gently brush her shoulders. His mother was the most beautiful woman he knew.

He gently plucked a petal from his rose, allowing it to slip from his fingers and lightly drift to the ground below.

He thought of how she used to smell and how that scent alone could comfort him whenever he was sad or scared. It was some floral perfume that she would wear, one he couldn’t name, mixed with something else. Something that was uniquely her. Essence of mum.

Another petal floated down to join the other.

She was a good a person. There were, of course, times where he didn’t understand her and felt she was being unfair to him but, deep down, he knew everything she did was in his best interests. So he preferred to think of her as the kind and gentle woman she was. There were times when she could barely bring herself to swat a fly, he thought with a bitter smile.

She deserved better.

One more petal fell like a droplet, landing in the growing red pool at his feet.

His father had all the features that he pictured in a superhero. Dark hair; bright, alert eyes; sharp features; ever-present stubble; sturdy, broad shoulders. He always seemed so strong. Invincible even. From the young boy’s point of view, his dad could overcome anything. He was always there to save the day, right when he was needed most.

That’s why it came as such a shock.

His eyes slid shut as another petal slipped between his fingers.

His father was the protector of their little family. Always tough, but always fair. The boy often admired how he could be so stern while still emanating pure love and comfort and care. Everything he did was for his family and he taught his son so many things. Simple, seemingly insignificant, things. But they meant so much.

He wanted to be just like his father.

Another petal fell gracefully to join the others.

He remembered the day that brought him to his current situation. He remembered it well. It was like a tape that he could play back at any time, so vivid. It terrified him, but he found himself reliving it anyway. Every time he closed his eyes. Every time he allowed his mind to wander.

It always started out the same way. Normal. Happy.

Hand trembling, he dropped yet another of the now disfigured rose’s petals.

They were in the car. It was a short journey; one that could have waited for another time. It was just a five minute drive down to the local supermarket to pick up some odds and ends. But, for his parents, it would be a much more significant journey than any of them realised.

The radio was on and they were joking with one another. Everything was so light-hearted. A bouncy, dance tune had just come on and they were making fun of the silly, high-pitched voice that the artist was using.

The traffic lights that they had been stopped at changed to green. And it all happened so fast. As they set off again, he was the only one that saw it. The other driver seemed to be going far too fast. There was no way he would be able to stop in time.

Skipping the lights entirely, the young man’s car slammed into the front of the driver’s side of their own. Both his father and the stranger were killed instantly.

His mother had stood a chance, though. She was unconscious, her head having struck the passenger window in the collision. But a bystander had phoned an ambulance right away and, thankfully, knew first aid. There was still hope for her.

She was pronounced dead at the hospital two hours later. The impact had been too hard on her.

He had escaped with relatively minor injuries, all things considered. People called it a miracle but he didn’t feel very lucky or blessed.

Two more petals fell in sync as a single tear rolled down his cheek, dancing together in their descent.

He remembered the day of the accident clearly but he could never bring himself to remember the looks of fear frozen on their faces as they realised their fate. He could only see warm and loving smiles.

The funeral was one of the toughest trials he had ever had to face. Trying to remain strong and composed in front of a sea of people who showed nothing but pity for him. Some of them he didn’t even recognise. At least his parents were well-loved if that crowd of mourners and the steady supply of flowers at the cemetery were anything to go by.

The roses were his favourite, he mused, as he plucked another petal from the one he was holding.

Finally, he considered his new home. His new family. A whole new life that he kept running from.

They were nice people. And they were welcoming enough, but the wound was still far too fresh for him. He wasn’t ready to accept a new family. He wanted his old one.

It was a childish thought, maybe, but, as a child, he was entitled to it. And it was an unrealistic thought, he knew, but he didn’t care. He just wanted his mum and dad back. Why did life have to be so complicated?

He paused in his plucking.

Maybe it didn’t.

He had technically been given a clean slate. A second chance at life that not all children in his position were granted. This could be a new beginning for him.

Perhaps he had been too hard on his new family, he mused, as one more petal dropped. They weren’t his mum and dad, but they were a mum and dad. They’d saved him from spending the rest of his childhood in a care home, if that could be considered a childhood. They had opened their home and their hearts to him. Could he open his own heart to them in return?

“Oi! You gettin’ on, lad?” a voice called, breaking him from his thoughts.

The bus had arrived. The one that would stop near his foster parents’ house.

He paused a moment, then smiled, genuinely.

“Yeah. I am.”

He stood, boarding the bus and flashing his ticket to the driver. He glanced back at his bench one final time, where he left behind a thorny stem.