Tehi grew up in a very full family, as selkie cleins often co-parent pups. She was the eldest of those she grew up alongside. Ever the mischievous one, or rather the one everyone else called mischievous, she rather enjoyed foraying into places she perhaps shouldn't go, like dangerous sea caves, and of course further onto land. Her clein suspected that one day she would end up leading land-dwellers back to them, leaving them to defend themselves against those that may mean them harm.

She grew into becoming a healer for her clein, much like her mother, but her connection to the land and sea was truly deeper than many other selkies. The power granted to her by nature meant she yearned to discover more, to protect both land and sea, and it led her away from her role as a medicine woman learning her craft, into fanciful time spent lying in the grass or playing with the water of the waves as they came into shore. Her clein did not like this curiosity of the land being so well-fostered. And so it was that the elders of the clein took Tehi aside one day, asking her to complete a task for them; find the pelt of Ysbal, and return it to them. Little did she know that the elders did not believe the pelt was real, or at least that it still existed, for selkie pelts are known to melt into seafoam with the selkie themselves when they die, and had merely sent her away to learn the hard way about the ways of the land.