Test of the Depths

The Test of the Depths, also called the Trial of the Depths or the Maholomo, is a magical ritual that Selkies can perform at Mohomwa Cove that creates a specialized Selkie Pelt attuned to their self-image and personality. In Selkie Culture, the Test of the Depths serves as a coming of age ritual for selkies entering young adulthood. The Khilaia, or self-declared selkie government, controls access to Mohomwa Cove and the Test of the Depths as a way to maintain control over the diverse and scattered selkie communities.   Selkie candidates come from all around the world to undergo the Test. Some are sea nomads, others are from countless sedentary kingdoms, and many of them wear wildly different clothes and religious symbols. Most of them have some physical trace of selkie heritage: the sharp canines, the webbed feet. Most candidates are also teenagers or young adults, though some are older. All arrive in the city of Halamahi and gather at the Pilgrim's Port, where they mix together and prepare their minds and bodies with shared rituals. Finally, they gather together at the Pelting Gate to be examined, verified, and taken on board ferries to Shonai Point. From Shonai Point the candidates then walk four miles to Mohomwa Cove, chanting ancient songs in a great ritual procession.    The Mahalomo takes place at a massive underwater pit off the coast of the island of Okailu, in easy swimming distance from the beaches of Mohomwa Cove. The water is crystal clear and the sand is an unnaturally dark black. Black slabs of igneous covered in kelp host great beds of oysters and clams, and hundreds of fish and crabs flourish in the small coral reef outgrowths and between the blackrock boulders. Amidst it all is a great hole, shimmering pit in the water - like a God pressed their thumb into the cove and drove the earth down. The black stone there twinkles, as if a night sky was cast down and petrified. The current should be tumultous around it, yet the water is strangely still.   The Test should be incredibly dangerous, yet hundreds of children in their teenage years fling themselves into the great hole monthly, sometimes weekly. They dive down from barges and rafts and they swim out from the soft black beaches. The water welcomes them even as it tests them. It tests their fear, some of their endurance, but Selkie s learn to swim from a young age just for this. They are pulled down; it takes several tries for some, who panic at the feeling of being dragged down to drown. But when they finally make it, the water gives them new breath; the ocean pulls them into their own alcove with their own current. Ethereal otters swim around them, magical emanations and shadows of potential, guiding them to their place in the depths. The black rock unfolds, and they find their place; they squirm through current and darkess, into tunnels of starlight rock. They emerge as large otters, rushing upwards with new bodies to greet the sky from down below.   The Test of the Depths is a unifying experience for selkies of many cultural backgrounds. Selkies often bring the languages, religions, and cultural beliefs of their native countries with them to the Sacred Isles, but rising from the depth of Mohomwa they all speak and swim as a united people. This feeling of unity, with each other and their ethereal otter ancestors, often creates a lasting feeling of connection between the trial-goer and the islands. For some, this feeling fades over the rest of their adult lives. Other people, who have to undergo this test repeatedly and who have a bad time with it, walk away feeling anything but united. But there are many others who have a true religious experience here. Many selkie youths feast, drink, and dance together in Halamahi the night after earning their pelts, making friends with their "graduating class". Many selkie youths might find people to court in this afterparty or might form business relationships with their new friends.