Maeryn Lestat

The selkie skin

When Selkies come to shore, they shed their seal skin and place it somewhere where they can get to it with ease, but is well hidden. Once their skin is hidden, they frolic about in the human world, seducing men and women and having affairs with them. When they're finished, they pick up their skins and return to the water. If, however, their seal skins are stolen while they're on land, they will be unable to turn into seals and will be trapped on land until they find their skin. The need to find it overwhelms them and they search for it tirelessly. Occasionally, they will find the person who took it, without knowing it's the thief, and they will come to love them and make them their partner, but as soon as their skin is found, they will disregard their lover, children, and Earthly family in favor of returning to the sea. However, every seven years, they might be seen coming to shore to bid their children love and good lives. If the skin is burned they don't die but are forever stuck on land to never return home and forever bound to their captor. And any harm that comes to the skin will be harm to the Selkie itself.

In order to shapeshift they have to cast off their sealskins. Within these magical skins lay the power to return to seal form, and therefore the sea. If this sealskin was lost, or stolen, the creature was doomed to remain in human form until it could be recovered. Because of this, if disturbed while on shore, the selkie-folk would hastily snatch up their skins before rushing back to the safety of the sea.

The selkie-men were renowned for their many encounters with humans— married and unmarried.
A selkie-man in human form was said to be a handsome creature, with almost magical seductive powers over mortal men and women. According to tradition, they had no qualms about casting off their sealskins, stashing them carefully, and heading inland to seek out the “unsatisfied".
Should such a mortal wish to make contact with a selkie-man, there was a specific rite they had to follow. At high tide, they should make their way to the shore, where they had to shed seven tears into the sea.
The selkie-man would then come ashore and, after removing his magical sealskin, seek out “unlawful love”.

Selkie-men are more affectionate and emotional than Selkie women, and will often search out real lovers among the mortal world, rather than simple playmates. Even if their skins are never taken, they can be seen leaving the sea every seven in search of their lovers, intent on spending time with them and even mating with them before returning to the water, only to come see them again after seven years have passed.

Selkies can take different forms. They can take the form of a complete seal in water, where their bodies are simply that of a seal. Other Selkies have half-forms, where their lower half is that of a seal, but their upper body resembles that of a human, however they have webbed fingers, dozens of sharp, pointy teeth, and nearly completely black eyes, like that of a seal. Some selkies might have pale, milky blue or green eyes. Their noses will also usually be flatter and wider in this form. On land, they take on a humanoid form, but keep their webbed toes and fingers. The males will usually have long claw-like nails, and some older males will have a claw, similar to a dewclaw in other animals, placed on the inside of their wrist, below their thumb. These can be filed down and almost completely hidden, but the webbed fingers and toes can't be hidden. Their eyes will tend to be very dark. Their pupils and irises will seem to blend together, but the whites of their eyes will remain visible, unlike in the half-seal form.