Page 87 of The Last Kelpie

He stepped up to me and said, “I know what I want.”

I closed my journal. “Tell me.”

Áedán perched on the edge of the table. For a long moment, he didn't speak. His fingers traced the wood grain as if he could read its story. “I spent six hundred years being what I was—a guardian. A judge. A creature people feared because they understood what I protected.” He looked up at me. “I want that back. That clarity.”

I waited.

“But the world's different now.” He straightened and walked to the window. Outside, the grounds were green and alive. “The lochs are different. The threats are different. I cannae tell the old story and expect people to understand.”

“So, what will your new story be?”

Áedán turned back to me. “That's what I dinnae ken yet. I need you to help me figure it out.”

I pulled out my notebook. “All right. Let's start with what doesn't change. What's the core truth about kelpies?”

“Water is sacred,” he said immediately. “It's alive. It has a memory. It deserves respect.”

“And kelpies?”

“We were the consequences of when that respect was violated.” Áedán came back to the table and sat across from me. “If someone polluted a stream, dumped waste into a loch, or committed violence on our shores—we judged them. Sometimes that judgment was death.”

I wrote it down. “So the core is: sacred water, guardianship, consequences for desecration.”

He straightened. “Aye.”

“That doesn't need to change. It's still relevant. Water will always be important. There are people who work to protect our water. You can be a part of that. The question is—what does desecration look like in 2026?”

Áedán's expression shifted. Something clicked behind his eyes. “I've been on the computer in the Archive. Agnes showed me how to use it to find information on this age. I looked up water issues. What I found was heartbreaking, Ethan. It's not just one drunk man pissing in a stream anymore. It's corporations dumping chemicals into rivers. It's fucking poisoning aquifers. It's climate change destroying entire ecosystems.” His voice gained strength. “It's industrial-scale destruction that makes what I fought a hundred years ago look like nothing.”

I cleared my throat. “Uh, I think you meant to say that fracking poisons aquifers, not fucking.”

Áedán blinked. Then he burst out laughing. “Fracking.” He laughed more. “Yes, fucking fracking.”

I grinned as I leaned forward. “So what would a kelpie do now? If you were still actively protecting water, what would that look like?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I'd be furious. I am furious. Not at individuals, but the corporations that treat rivers like disposal sites. And the governments that let it happen. I'm angry at the collective decision to exploit water instead of protecting it. They sell water in bottles now! That's dafty. Keep the water clean, and you wullnae have to clean it.”

“That's the evolved story.” I smacked the table. “Not a monster lurking in the water to drown children. A guardian whose rage at environmental destruction is justified. Whose existence demands accountability. You are the ultimate eco-warrior.”

Áedán stood again, pacing now. His magic shimmered beneath his skin—those ribbons of light I adored. “People need to understand that water isnae just something that comes out of taps. It's alive. It remembers, and it gives you life. When you poison it, there are consequences. Not because an ancient creature will drown you—but because you hurt yourself.”

“And kelpies are the embodiment of that balance. You are the physical manifestation of what happens when you violate something sacred.”

“Aye.” He stopped pacing and looked at me. “I want people to understand that I wasnae evil. I was and am necessary. Guardians commit violence because sometimes protection requires it.”

I wrote faster, ideas connecting. “So the modern framing is: kelpies as symbols of environmental accountability. Beings who understood that water is sacred long before humans invented the word 'ecosystem.' Whose judgment wasn't arbitrary violence—it was the consequence of desecration.”

“It's not sanitization,” Áedán slashed his hand through the air. “It's not making me safe for children's books. It's making people understand what I actually am.”

“It's the truth.” I nodded. “Just told in a way that matters now.”

He came back to the table and leaned over my shoulder to read what I'd written. His hand slid onto my back. “This is what adaptation should be. Not changing the core truth, but making it speak a language the entire world can understand.”

“The world needs to hear that water is sacred,” I said. “That polluting it has consequences. That there are beings who understand this so deeply they're willing to kill to protect it.”

“And those beings arenae monsters.” Áedán's voice was soft now. “They are guardians. Complicated. Powerful. Sometimes frightening. But not evil.”

I stood and took his hands. “Then that's the story we'll tell.”