Chara hummed to themself as they walked along the road, long legs carrying them at a fast pace, bag slung carelessly over their shoulder. They had spent the day in town and were on their way home when they decided to take a detour to the shore road. It was quite the sight to watch the sun sink into the ocean in a blaze of brilliant oranges and yellows, pink wisps of clouds overhead, all of it reflected in glinting light over the water's choppy surface, a breeze rushing in from the ocean ruffling their hair. Even though the sun had set and only the golden afterglow was left, they kept walking that same road.

A rocky outcropping forced them to move closer to the water, actually walking over the sand. That was fine, the tide was out so they weren't likely to get wet. They cheerfully headed around the rocks. That's when Chara noticed flickering firelight streaming from the other side of the rocks. Draped over the last few boulders and the few trees clustered near the rocks were seal pelts. Chara stopped dead, only now realizing they heard the rhythmic pounding of feet and voices laughing and singing.

Selkies!

Chara had heard the legends of selkies at their mother's knee, how they looked like seals but would take their pelts off to reveal unbearably beautiful people underneath, that they would come to shore on the night of a full moon to dance, that taking a selkie's pelt gave you control over them. Chara had no use for that last one, they were a little young yet to be thinking of settling down to marry, they weren't even sure they ever wanted to. But to glimpse a group of selkies dancing… that would be a tale worth telling.

They gently placed down their bag and slowly crept towards the end of the rocky outcropping, crouching so they wouldn't be spotted before getting their peek. If Chara were really lucky the selkies wouldn't notice them at all and they wouldn't get chased off or scare them. There was a shuffling, huffing noise and Chara stopped, crouching even lower. They peeked around the rocks to see one last, late seal slowly huffing it's way up the shore.

The youngest, Chara immediately thought. Their mother's stories always had that one last selkie late to join the party. The youngest, the most beautiful. Chara didn't know why the youngest was always late and always the most beautiful in all the tales their mother told, even when it wasn't about selkies, but they were. Chara thought watching the youngest shed their pelt might be better than spying on the whole party. Though getting to watch that and spy on the party too would be even better.

The seal gave one last huff, Chara thought it might be wider than it was long, before stopping and seeming to just give up. As Chara watched the seal heaved and stood up, standing taller than should have been possible even if seals could stand on their flippers. Long, slim, pale hands came up to grasp the head and pull it off to reveal a round, pale head atop thin, spindly shoulders.

A skeleton. The seal had just peeled off its skin to reveal a skeleton underneath.

The skeleton just dropped its skin right there on the sand and started to stretch. Chara put their hands over their mouth to keep themself from retching. Thank god it didn't have any flesh or blood, Chara was sure they'd have lost their supper otherwise.

"SANS! THERE YOU ARE! WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS THE LAST TO ARRIVE?"

Chara peeked around the rocks again to see another, taller skeleton with their hands on their hips glaring down at the first skeleton, who was shrugging.

"gotta be fashionably late, bro."

"AND DON'T JUST LEAVE YOUR SKIN LYING AROUND! THAT'S SO UNSANITARY!" The taller skeleton stalked over and picked up the discarded pelt before neatly folding it and laying it over a tree branch that looked like it was a little out of the shorter skeleton's reach.

"don't let it, heh, get under your skin."

"AUGH! WHY MUST YOU PLAGUE ME WITH YOUR INFERNAL PUNS?!"

"c'mon, bro, i think you need to grow a thicker skin."

"I REFUSE TO STAND HERE AND LISTEN TO YOU MAKE MORE AWFUL PUNS! NOW GET OVER HERE, THE PARTY STARTED WITHOUT YOU."

The tall skeleton put a hand to the small skeleton's back and started guiding them… him? past the rocky outcropping. Chara briefly considered sticking to their original plan to peek at the party, thought of seeing a bunch of skeletons dancing around a fire, then decided their evening had been waylaid enough and it was time to get home. They scurried over to their bag, picked it up, and headed inland to find the road home.