Title: Peoples of Water and Wave
Fandom: Celtic Mythology, Scarborough Fair (Song)
Rating: G
Length: 200
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking. Inspired by the line 'Between the salt water and the sea strand' in the song Scarborough Fair, as well as by the picture.
Summary: A celebration of the life in salt water and sea strand

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Sunset touched the advancing water with molten light, turning the foam to red-gold, the spray to ruby and amber above emerald and malachite waves. On the shore and in the shallows the people watched - Selkies and seals, Men and Mer - as the clouds mirrored the sea, fiery and bright as the sun sank down, vanishing beneath the horizon. In the east, purple-grey haze softened the line separating water and earth from air, and the first stars began to glimmer over the low dark hills and distant islands. A crescent moon sailed in mid-heaven, a serene and cool harbinger amid the hot colors of day's end. Soon the swimming-folk would don their skins, the sailing-folk launch their coracles and out-riggers, the sea-folk lead the way past the rocks and reefs that guarded the shore to the open ocean, and the ceremony would begin. Thanks for new life, the new season, the turning year, the ever-turning tide. Celebration and re-affirmation of the accord between all the peoples of the archipelago.

A joyful shout went up from the shore. A flame leapt high as the bonfire was lit. The last ray of sunlight flashed green-gold as the sea swallowed the sun. It had begun.