Mohomwa Cove

Mohomwa Cove is the move insulated cove of the small island of Okailu, at the foot of the sacred volcano Lokaha. The a small inlet from the broader Okailu Bay, the Mohomwa Cove is all black sands boulders emerging from the peaceful crystal-clear waters. 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. 
This 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 Selkies 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. This is the Test of the Depths, the selkie initiation ritual that makes them what they are and gives them their sacred pelts.
Overlooking the Cove is Mohomwa Citadel, a grand walled palace and sacred temple built into the volcanic foothills. Amidst the hotsprings here, the Selkie Circle of Elders lives and works. Bureaucrats send out messengers and couriers with reports of the Elders wishes, and they meet in the a grand chamber made of the ancient selkie meeting houses - which themselves recycled materials from the house of ancient Daykai, the ur-ancestor of selkie-kind. This is the most sacred place in all selkie-kind, where the bones of the great ancestors are kept and where the oldest relics of the Khilaia are stored. Most teenagers glimpse it but once in their lives, and only from a distance, as the Elders emerge to call for the test to begin. 
Only ships loyal to the Elders themselves dock nearby or at Mohomwa Cove; most instead go to Shonai Point, a 4-5 mile walk to the South. For most able-bodied selkies, making it from Shonai to Mohomwa is part of the trial; they march from Shonai to Mohomwa, chanting and preparing themselves for the trial spiritually.

Alternative Name(s)

Sacred Cove of Okailu

Type

Cove

Location under

Khilaian Isles

Owning Organization

The Khilaia

Contested By

• Selkie Circle of Elders