Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The morning dawned gray and overcast, and waters choppy and irritable, as though the waves themselves protested the early hour. Seagulls shrieked overhead, ducking in and out of the salty mist that heralded the coming of the sun. To some it might seem like a dreary and less than ideal time to be at sea.

To Keith, it was nothing short of perfect.

He leaned over the railing eagerly, breathing in the cool ocean air as it whipped past him. The slate gray waters did little to curb his enthusiasm, as it might for others. Keith loved the ocean as he did nothing else, and he loved it’s every mood. Sometimes it was lively, while others it was mischievous (more often than not, it was both at once). Sometimes it was dark as night, in the throes of a terrible storm that could drown even the most steadfast of sailors. It demanded respect, and Keith loved that too.

Most of all Keith loved the sheer mystery of the sea. Humans such as himself could only delve so far into those deep blue waters, and the ocean seem to stretch as far as the sky itself (as a child, Keith had often imagined that the sky and the sea were one and the same; he still wondered if there was a place the two met, to this day). Who knew what strange stories the dark depths held. Most sailors regarded the unknown with deep-seated superstition and fear. Keith peered eagerly over the side of the ship, heart pounding with nothing short of excitement.

From behind, someone clapped him on the back, perhaps a little too hard, as Keith pitched forward a bit farther than he would’ve liked. He whipped around, scowling, to find Shiro grinning as though he hadn’t nearly pushed him overboard.

“You really shouldn’t lean so far over the edge,” Shiro noted airily. “You could fall right over.”

“I won’t as long as you don’t push me,” Keith bit back. If Shiro noticed that his grip on the railing was a bit tighter than before, he didn’t say anything.

Shiro laughed. “I didn’t push you, you just weren’t paying attention.”

Keith rolled his eyes and turned them back to the ocean ahead. He thought he could see a pod of dolphins hopping playfully above the waves in the distance. It might’ve been a trick of the fog, but he smiled all the same.

“Looking for mermaids?”

Keith frowned again. “Are you ever going to let that go?!”

“Oh, come on, am I not allowed to tease my baby brother anymore?”

“Not on my birthday, that’s illegal,” Keith huffed.

Shiro laughed loudly then, leaning against the railing near Keith. They both gazed into the waves below, as though looking for those alluring creatures of myth. It had been almost ten years since Keith had sprinted into the palace, screaming that he’d seen a mermaid while playing in the shallows. Even now he had trouble believing that the sweetly smiling face set with ocean-blue eyes had been a vivid figment of his imagination, but there had been no proof, and Keith had never seen that face again.

“Maybe if you fall in you’ll find mermaids,” Shiro idly commented.

Keith shoved him. “Shut up! I know mermaids aren’t real! And I’m not going to fall in.”

“Careful there,” Shiro warned, grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll jinx yourself.”

Keith scoffed. He and Shiro both knew better. They’d both been sailing as long as they could walk; there was no way Keith was going overboard. And strange sightings of stranger boys with shining blue tails aside, mermaids were definitely, assuredly, and without a doubt not real.

Or so Keith told himself as he looked intently at the choppy waters.

~*~

Far beneath the roiling waves, where the pale morning light glimmered brightly, ocean-blue eyes glanced up towards the surface, as if knowing that someone was looking for evidence that such eyes existed below the water. They didn’t linger long however. There were important things to be done, after all.

“Lance, I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” Hunk whispered, for all that there was no one around save for himself and the young mer-prince.

Lance grinned as they peeked over the top over a large outcropping of rock, towards a long eroded shipwreck.

“Come on, Hunk, where’s your sense of adventure?” he asked his lifelong companion.

“At home, where we should be!” Hunk protested. “Do you know how much trouble we’d be in if anyone found out we were here? Shipwrecks are forbidden!”

Lance blew a stream of bubbles. “I’m aware. Anyways, we wouldn’t get in any more trouble than we have all the other times we’ve been caught.”

With a sharp swish of his sleek blue tail, Lance hoisted himself over the rock and darted towards the shipwreck. Reluctantly, Hunk propelled himself after Lance, his strong golden tail flipping anxiously behind him. In the gloomy waters around the sunken ship, Hunk was acutely aware how bright their tails looked.

“Yeah, see that’s the thing, we always get caught when we do this--”

“No, no, there was that one time, with that one ship… Half of it fell into the trench, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, cause I’d take near-death over a firm scolding any day,” Hunk scoffed.

“Well maybe if someone didn’t go running his mouth any time someone asked, we wouldn’t get in nearly as much trouble!” Lance retorted as they neared the ship.

Hunk grimaced, both at the accusation and because of the looming shadow of the ship. “You know I don’t like lying…”

“I know, buddy,” Lance said gently, as he peered through a porthole. “It’s one of your best qualities. It just doesn’t pair well with… this.”

Hunk sighed as Lance ventured into the ship. It had been fun at first, really, exploring the unknown. For all that Hunk had been genuinely scared of anything human related all those years ago, Lance had managed to drag him along when he first got it in his head to explore the forbidden shipwrecks. Now it wasn’t so much fear (although the sunken ships still gave him major heebie-jeebies), as much as it was concern that they would get in trouble. Again. They were forbidden, after all.

Initially, being the youngest prince in this sea meant that Lance always had a certain sort of flippancy when it came to rules. He went where he pleased, when he pleased. Even Hunk couldn’t stop him, even though he’d likely been placed at Lance’s side to do just that. Forbidden, to Lance, meant something to be intently explored for the simple sake of youthful rebellion. Hunk had been dragged along, fear and all.

From the first shipwreck, however, something else had sparked within Lance, something just as intense as his desire to find trouble. Hunk had never known exactly what it was that had ignited Lance’s curiosity regarding humans, for initially Lance had passed over human objects found in shipwrecks unless they were especially shiny. Then one day he’d insisted on picking up the most random of objects with the intention of learning about them and humans, and, well…

The waters inside the shipwreck were still and ominous. Hunk shivered. Lance beamed. He’d been thinking he’d searched all the shipwrecks within swimming distance, yet here was a ship that was totally new to him! He could hardly contain his excitement as he began to sift through the debris that littered the floors. Hunk, meanwhile, glanced around, looking for dangers lurking in the shadows.

“Hunk, will you chill out? Nothing here but barnacles and maybe some fish hiding from sharks,” Lance called over his shoulder as he grabbed a handful of shiny coins and stuffed them in his bag.

Hunk sighed, his tensed shoulders relaxing only marginally. “I know, I know, I just--wait, you don’t think there are sharks in this area, do you?!”

“No way, this wreck is too old,” Lance assured him. “I think.”

With a giggle, Lance rounded a corner out of Hunk’s sight, leaving the anxious merman to hurry after with a high-pitched protest. There was very little in the shipwreck that Lance hadn’t found in others, so the excursion quickly became boring for him. Even Hunk had to stifle a yawn after a while.

Hunk nearly launched himself through the ceiling of the room they were in when Lance squealed suddenly.

“Hunk, look at this!” Lance insisted, holding out the strangest object he’d ever found.

Hunk obliged, unamused. “Wow, a thing.”

If Lance noticed the sarcasm, he didn’t comment on it. He turned them item over in his hands a few times, eyes wide with fascination. It wasn’t at all colorful, like some human objects were, but it was well polished. Wide at one end, narrow at the other, and curved twice along its length. Lance had no idea what it could possibly be. It sent a thrill of excitement coursing through him all the way down to his tail fins.

“We’ll have to visit Pidge,” Lance announced as he placed the item into his bag.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Hunk groaned. “As if exploring forbidden shipwrecks wasn’t enough.”

“No one’s found out we visit Pidge though,” Lance pointed out as they continued meandering through the ship.

“Yeah, cause no one suspects enough to ask me,” Hunk grumbled.

“And hopefully, no one will!”

They continued to banter as Lance dug through the wreckage, appraising certain familiar items and keeping a keen eye out for new ones. The room they drifted in boasted an entire wall made of glass, which allowed light to stream in plentifully. This was only a minor comfort to Hunk, perpetually worried as he was. Even so, his eyes were glued to Lance, whose eyes were engaged in a search for the unknown.

Neither of them noticed the massive shadow that passed by just outside.

“Anyways, I thought you were cool with Pidge,” Lance noted as he held up what looked like a badly tarnished, miniature trident.

“I am,” Hunk insisted. “But they’re still--you know--human.”

Finally, Lance turned to Hunk, his eyes gently glimmering.

“Hunk, we’ve known them for years. Don’t you think if they were going to do something to us, they’d have done it by now?”

“I guess…”

“If I thought Pidge was anything less than trustworthy, there’s no way I’d bring you anywhere near them, I promise,” Lance continued, placing a calm hand on Hunk’s shoulder.

Hunk let out a breath, the bubbles tickling his cheeks. Sometimes it was infuriating, how Lance always seemed to know just what to say to keep Hunk calm. It was perhaps the only reason Hunk continued to allow himself to be dragged along on all these misadventures.

“Alright, alright,” Hunk relented, his shoulders slumping. “But you’re so busy with weird human things, one of us has to be on the lookout for danger, right?”

Lance shrugged. “I guess, but I don’t want you keeling over from stress, you know?”

When Hunk said nothing, Lance grinned wide, holding up his latest find. “Now, what do you suppose this is?!”

This time, Hunk regarded the object more seriously. “It looks like a tiny trident.”

“That’s what I was thinking!”

“Can humans do magic?”

“Pidge never said so.”

“Pidge doesn’t say a lot of things.”

“Tell me about it--”

The two young mermen halted abruptly as a large shadow passed over them. They whipped around, but by the time they did, whatever had cast the shadow was long gone. Hunk shivered, his nerves all on alert once more. Lance had said that there probably weren’t sharks lingering around this ship wreck. Probably.

Lance laughed nervously. “You suppose this place is haunted?”

“Lance!”

“I’m just kidding!” Lance cackled, a little less tremulous this time. “Come on, the sooner we go see Pidge the better, and this time we’ve got two new things!”

“For once I completely agree,” Hunk huffed.

They swam a bit more directly through the ship, towards the gaping hole in the side through which they’d entered. Hunk was still on edge about that shadow, large as it was.

“Do you suppose that maybe one shark decided to chill around here? You know, in case there was something all the other sharks missed?” Hunk said, glancing around as they swam out into open water again.

“Dude, sharks only follow ships in the first place because of all the junk that humans throw overboard that they can eat. As far as shipwrecks go, they don’t hang around for long once they realize there’s nothing left to eat,” Lance explained, twirling to face Hunk.

“I know, I know, you’ve told me before, and I know, but--”

Hunk stopped abruptly, eyes widening to the size of sand dollars. Lance made a face and put his hands on his hips. Hunk started pointing at something behind him, lips moving wordlessly, and Lance’s attempt at remaining cool as a clam started to fray. Hunk began waving at him frantically. He’d completely given up on trying to say anything.

“If I turn around and there’s not a shark ready to take a bite out of my tail…”

Lance turned around.

There was in fact a very large, very intimidating great white shark just a few meters behind him.

It did in fact look ready to take a bite out of his tail.

Lance let out an undignified squeak just as Hunk grabbed him and pulled him sharply away, just as the shark opened its massive maw. Hunk and Lance were both screaming as the shark began to pursue them with frightening speed. No doubt their tails looked especially appetizing to it.

“What do we do, what do we do, what do we do--!” Hunk practically cried as they rounded the end of the shipwreck.

“Double back under it!” Lance instructed.

They neatly flipped through the water, the hairpin turn too fine for the shark to immediately follow. It was a faster swimmer by far, but it didn’t have the precision that most merfolk had. That wouldn’t give them enough time to get away though, and they both knew it.

“We can duck back into the ship!” Lance shouted.

“What?!”

“It’s too big, it can’t get in there!”

“No way, nuh-uh, absolutely--”

The shark’s jaw snapped dangerously close behind them.

“Into the ship it is!” Hunk readily agreed.

They ducked into the ship, only for the shark to crash into the rotted wood behind them. The shark was not to be deterred. It followed them along half the length of the ship, chomping through any and all obstacles they tried to throw in its way.

“I don’t think coming back in here was such a great idea!” Hunk screamed.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” Lance shouted back as he heaved a large barrel into the shark’s waiting jaws.

They sped up to one of the upper decks. The shark was still in hot pursuit.

“There!”

Hunk pointed to a small hole in the side of the ship, too small by far for the shark. Lance grabbed him by the arm to push him ahead; they didn’t have to time to bicker over who should escape first. The shark was almost upon him when Lance shoved himself through. Hunk yanked him by the arm, the harsh breaks in the wood digging into Lance’s sides. The shark slammed into the wall just as Lance’s tail fins cleared the hole.

They breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief as the shark tried to muscle it’s way through the hole.

“Ha,” Lance laughed weakly. Then, “Ha! Take that you big, overgrown--!”

If Hunk hadn’t been vigilant enough to pull Lance away, the young princling would’ve certainly become shark food that day. Lance made a mental note to give Hunk a break sooner rather than later. For the moment, however…

The chase quickly turned into the ocean’s worst game of ring around the shipwreck. The shark swam steadily closer despite Hunk and Lance swimming at top speed. They weren’t going to last at this rate, Lance knew.

The were nearing the aft of the ship when Lance spied something. He wordlessly pointed it out to Hunk (he was far to breathless to even scream at this point), and Hunk gave him a knowing nod.

Hunk split off from Lance, and the shark, drawn to the sudden movement, made to follow Hunk. Steeling himself, Lance flipped around and punched the shark right in the gills to get its attention. It worked, for better or worse Lance couldn’t say as he swam in tight circles to keep his tail out of the shark’s hungry mouth.

“Lance!”

Lance chanced a glance up where Hunk was ready and waiting by a large coil of heavy iron chains. He gave him a thumbs up, and shoved the shark upwards as hard as he could to get himself a decent head start along the side of the ship. The shark was on him again in an instant, still hungry and now incredibly angry. Above Lance, Hunk gave a mighty heave against the iron coil.

It would be a close thing for Lance, but at this pace it was a sure thing that the shark would be caught up in the chains.

“Lance, look out!”

Hunk directed his attention to an anchor, dragged over the side of the wrecked ship by the chains and falling far faster. Lance whipped his tail as hard as he could; it would have to be a straight shot under it. Lance dove down, scraping the ocean floor and kicking up a cloud of sand. He shot back up as quickly as he’d gone down, twirling around to see if their plan had worked. Hunk swam up beside him only a second later.

The sand settled. The shark was hopelessly tangled in a coil of iron and trapped under the anchor for good measure.

Lance whooped loudly as Hunk dragged him away.

“We did it!” Lance cheered.

“Yes, we did it, now let’s go see Pidge so we can go home!” Hunk insisted as they swam away from the struggling shark.

“Alright, alright, chill out before you turn into coral and keel over.”

It was always hit or miss as to whether Pidge would be in the tide pools where they normally found them. They’d once tried to teach the mermen human methods of time keeping so that they didn’t have to guess all the time, but it was never easy to keep track of underwater. Lucky for them, Pidge was puttering around in the tide pools when they poked their heads above the surface.

“Hey! Pidge!” Lance shouted eagerly, waving his hand to get Pidge’s attention.

Beside him, Hunk was still only just peeking above the waves, looking at Lance in a way that suggested he wished the young prince would be a little less conspicuous. Lance paid him no heed.

Pidge peered up through their over-large glasses (a rather odd contraption they wore on their face, which apparently was supposed to help them see better) and waved them over. Lance swam into shallower waters, Hunk following close behind.

“Hey guys, been a while,” Pidge greeted as they settled atop a large rock that the mermen could easily hide behind should any other humans pass by. “What do you have today?”

Lance grinned eagerly.

“Okay, first, we found more of those coins for you--”

“Nice!” Pidge exclaimed, holding out their hands for the handful of salt-crusted coins that Lance had dug up.

Then, Lance pulled out the strange, curvy object for Pidge to appraise. They snorted when they looked at it.

“It’s a musical instrument, right?” Lance guessed, noticing for the first time that it was hollow on the inside.

Pidge laughed openly at that, nearly falling off the rock they were perched on.

“No! It’s a smoking pipe!” they wheezed.

“A what now?” Hunk asked as he slowly rose a little higher out of the water.

Lance rolled his eyes. He was certain that Pidge was pulling his tail (again). It looked like an instrument, after all, if only very small. He took a deep breath as he brought the narrow end of the pipe to his lips, and blew very hard before Pidge could stop him.

Nothing but seaweed and foam issued from the other end, the pipe so horribly clogged that Lance’s breath caught in his throat and sent him into a horrible coughing fit. Hunk fussed; Pidge laughed uproariously once more, absolutely beside themself. Lance decided that perhaps it wasn’t an instrument.

“I told you!” Pidge said once they’d managed to stop laughing. “It’s a smoking pipe! You put some leaves in the wide end and then set them on fire--”

“Fire? What’s that?” Lance interrupted.

“It’s, uh,” Pidge faltered, trying to find the right words. “It’s super hot, and super bright, and it burns things--”

“Burns?”

“Yeah, it--burning is… You know what, remind me to show you next time we see each other,” they sighed, giving up on explaining.

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind,” Lance said as he put the pipe back in his bag and brought out the next item.

“Pidge! You never told us humans can do magic!” Hunk accused.

Pidge choked on their laughter. “That’s because we can’t.”

“Then how do you explain this mini trident?” Lance insisted, waving the tarnished object around.

“It’s called a fork,” Pidge said, taking it and twirling it between their fingers. “We use it to eat things. This one was a really nice one, for fancy dinners and the like…”

Lance paused at that. The phrase “fancy dinner” stirred something in the back of his head.

“Lance,” Hunk started in a horrified tone. “The dinner…”

“The state dinner, oh no, the state dinner! With the diplomats!” Lance shrieked, his voice going up an octave with every word. “My family is going to kill me!”

“You think that’s bad, imagine what they’re going to do to me for not making sure you were there!” Hunk prodded.

Lance stuffed the fork back into his bag.

“Thanks Pidge, wish we could stay and chat but, you know, important merfolk business and all! Later!”

The mermen were gone before Pidge could even bid them a proper goodbye. They bickered with each other the entire way back to the palace, both insistent that the other should’ve remembered, or that they themselves had simply remembered wrong, and overall that they did not deserve the end they were sure to meet. They swam as fast as their fins would take them, all the while unaware that lurking in the shadows, a pair of eyes watched with keen interest.

“Very impolite, to be so late to a state dinner,” a voice drawled from a dark cove. The only source of light was a large bubble, in which the image of a certain young mer-prince gleamed brightly. “How very lucky then, that these diplomats are your friends and allies, and are inclined to forgive such a grievous insult.”

The voice scoffed. “How juvenile. Were it me, I should wonder if such a person took me seriously at all. But these mer-folk are more readily disposed to trust friendship and kindness rather than any real skill or importance.”

A slender tentacle stretched out of the shadows, followed shortly by several more as the devious watcher peered more closely at the young mer-prince. A wicked smile was reflected on the surface of the bubble.

“And that,” the watcher mused. “Shall be their undoing.”

~*~

When Lance and Hunk finally returned to the palace, they had hoped, perhaps a little foolishly, that they could sneak in unnoticed. The eldest princess, however, was all too familiar with her baby brother’s antics, and was waiting rather impatiently for them when they crept back into Lance’s rooms.

“Lance,” she greeted in such a tone that seemed to chill the water around them.

Lance swallowed hard. “Hey, Veronica.”

“Hunk, if you please, I’d like a moment to speak with my brother,” Veronica ordered politely. “Alone.”

Hunk wasted no time in bowing out of the room, sparing Lance a pitying glance as he closed the door. Veronica’s steely blue tail swished sharply through the water. Lance, meanwhile, worked to still the nervous twitching of his tail. She couldn’t do anything but scold him, he knew. It was little comfort all the same.

“Listen, I know I messed up--”

“I don’t want to hear it, Lance!” Veronica snapped. “How could you be late to such an important event? What in the world could possibly be more important?!”

“Nothing! I just… forgot?” Lance offered lamely.

“You forgot,” Veronica repeated. She eyed him critically, as though she could pull the truth out of him with her gaze alone. Lance wasn’t so sure she couldn’t. “You were exploring shipwrecks again, weren’t you?”

Lance, to his credit, tried his very best to feign innocence. “What? No, I would--Veronica you know that’s forbidden, and--anyways I haven’t done that in ages, why would you--”

Veronica glared.

“Okay, fine, I found a shipwreck I hadn’t explored yet and thought I’d check it out, and then we got a little sidetracked because there was a shark! And, man, it must’ve been starving because it was really out to get us--”

“Of course,” Veronica huffed, deaf to the fiasco with the shark. “Of course, it’s more human stuff! Do you not get why contact with humans and anything related to them is forbidden?!”

“They’re not as dangerous as we think they are!” Lance protested.

“Oh and I suppose you know all about them?”

“I would, if learning about them wasn’t such a pain!”

“It’s a pain because humans have maimed mer-folk like us!” Veronica shouted. “Or have you forgotten?!”

“That hasn’t happened to anyone in our kingdom for ages--”

“And what of the neighboring kingdoms? You know, the ones that are visiting? The ones that are attending the state dinner that is in progress at this very moment? What do you suppose they would think about all this?” Veronica demanded.

“I could probably convince them--”

“Enough, Lance!” Veronica snarled. “It’s one thing to have a harmless hobby--”

“This is a harmless hobby--!”

“But this is interfering too much with your duties as a prince!”

“What duties?! I’m the youngest prince, if you don’t count Nadia and Sylvio! Why do you guys even need me?!”

Veronica massaged her temples. “We’ve been over this before, Lance. You have a natural talent for diplomacy, to the point where some people even say--”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, silvertongue and all that, old mermaid magic and junk. That’s not even real,” Lance dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“That’s not the point,” Veronica insisted. “The point is, you have a responsibility to this kingdom. This one, here, underwater. You know, your home?”

Lance scowled. He hated it when she played that card.

“I know that,” he muttered, eyes averted.

“Do you? Cause this isn’t the first time this has happened!”

“I know that!”

“Then act like it, Lance,” Veronica hissed. “One of these days you’re going to brush off the wrong people, and then it’s going to become the whole kingdom’s problem!”

Lance did not deign to reply.

Veronica composed herself again. “The dinner is still in progress. We’ve told them you weren’t feeling well, but you’re still expected to make an appearance. Don’t be too long.”

And with a flip of her radiant tail, she was gone.

Lance allowed himself only a moment for self-pity before he began to get ready to make an appearance. This was by no means anything new to Lance. Despite being the youngest prince, there were a great many expectations placed upon him, all because everyone had it in their heads that he possessed a rare, supposedly lost mer-folk magic. Lance had preened under the attention the supposed magic gave him at first, but before too long he began to chafe under the scrutiny. He couldn’t go anywhere without someone talking of silvertongue magic, but no one could explain what it was or how it worked, so Lance could never improve or control it. Eventually, Lance decided that it simply wasn’t real.

And to be valued for something that wasn’t even real… Suffice to say, Lance wasn’t happy with it.

Hunk peeked into his room just as Lance was getting ready to leave.

“Hey,” he greeted gently. “How’d it go?”

Lance shrugged. “Same as every other time. Did she interrogate you herself or have someone else do it?”

“She must be really focused on the dinner because no one’s asked me a thing, thank goodness,” Hunk sighed.

“For now,” Lance warned. “Anyways, they still want me to be there, late or not. Wish me luck.”

“You got this, bud,” Hunk assured him with a firm pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, man.”

Once again Lance allowed himself to hope that he could sneak in unnoticed. A foolish hope, to be sure. He was still a prince, younger or not. The guests had been chattering animatedly when the heralds announced Lance’s arrival, and he had to work to keep himself from shrinking away from all the eyes now on him. Like the rush of a wayward current through the water, intense whispering filled the hall as Lance made his way to his seat.

A familiar face awaited him at the table.

“You certainly know how to make an entrance, don’t you?” a silver haired mermaid whispered as he took his seat. “Why were you really late?”

Around them, conversation resumed, and Lance replied in a low voice, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Then, in a normal voice, “How have you been, Princess Allura?”

Allura smiled wryly. It was hard to get anything past her, but sometimes social courtesies provided a nice shield to hide behind. Lance was certain that she would find him when the dinner was well and done and prod him for the real reason he’d been so egregiously late. For now, however, being held to a certain decorum allowed Lance to keep all probing questions at arm’s length.

Several more delegates did indeed inquire after Lance’s health throughout the remainder of the dinner. All Lance had to offer was some bland reassurance and gently nudge the conversation in a different direction, and his late arrival was all but forgotten.

The rest of the dinner went swimmingly, albeit a little too long for Lance’s tastes. Most people were still talking well after desserts had been cleared away, and Lance was struggling to keep his tail from twitching under the table. When his parents finally rose to signal the blessed end of the dinner, Lance had to physically restrain himself from swimming out of the hall as fast as his fins would take him. Eventually he found an opening to leave, and gracefully slipped away without anyone being the wiser.

Save for one mermaid, that was.

~*~

Princess Allura was a lifelong friend of the youngest prince’s, and as such knew better than to believe that Lance would ever make an appearance at any sort of function if he was truly feeling unwell. Something had kept him, and Allura wanted to know what. It did not escape her notice when Lance, who normally revelled in social situations, snuck out the first opportunity he got. Allura, without a second thought, followed him as quickly as discretion allowed.

Were Lance truly unwell, Allura knew he would go straight to his rooms. When she spotted him just outside the dining hall, however, he swam in the exact opposite direction. Allura followed discreetly. Once or twice Lance glanced over his shoulder (which only served to increase Allura’s suspicions), and Allura had to duck behind some large pillar or other to avoid being caught. Wherever Lance was going, it was clear he didn’t want to be followed. Allura wanted to know all the more what he was hiding because of it.

Curiosity and suspicion rose tenfold when Allura watched Lance meet up with Hunk, both of them glancing around for any bystanders that might see them. Once they were certain they were clear, they swam out of the palace. Allura followed discreetly behind. Several times she almost lost them, but their vibrant tails were hard to miss, even from a distance.

The palace was well out of sight when Lance and Hunk stopped at an unremarkable outcropping of rock. Allura frowned, perplexed.

“What in the seven seas are they up to?” she muttered.

The two young mermen had ducked down where the seaweed grew tall and thick. Allura darted through the water and weeds to find them again, and caught a flash of color disappearing into a cove she hadn’t noticed before. She approached slowly, in case they came right back out. They did not. Allura crept towards the entrance, and peered inside.

When she saw what lied within, Allura had to stifle a gasp.

The grotto that Lance and Hunk had ducked into was far larger than anyone might’ve guessed from the outside, had they known it existed at all. A small opening at the top of the outcropping allowed light to filter in and cast a soft glow on what was perhaps the most shocking feature of the grotto: a veritable collection of human (human!) items.

Towards the back of the grotto, Lance was digging around in a bag that Allura hadn’t noticed him carrying before. From it he took two more items of human origin, and placed them almost reverently wherever there was space. He sighed deeply. Hunk drifted towards him and placed a comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Allura heard Lance grumble.

“Well, you are a prince,” Hunk replied.

Lance shrugged away from Hunk. “A younger prince.”

“Still a prince.”

“For all the good it does me.”

“It’s only because they think--”

“I know what they think,” Lance snapped, crossing his arms. “They’re wrong.”

“Even if they are, there’s still the fact that you do have a way with words,” Hunk offered.

“Except when it comes to humans, apparently,” Lance sighed.

“People are just scared. I know I am.”

Lance was full on pouting by then. “If they would just listen, they’d know there might not be anything to be scared of at all!”

“Dude, we’re talking about generations of misunderstanding, and mer-people getting caught on fish hooks and tangled up in nets… You have to admit, humans are pretty careless,” Hunk said in a soothing tone.

“I know,” Lance sighed. “But they’re also amazing! I mean, look at all this stuff! It’s just incredible, and this is just the surface of all the things they’ve created! I want to see it all, Hunk! I want to see people dance and run, I want to know what fire is, I want to know what humans have to write about that they write so many books--”

Lance stopped abruptly, looking as though he’d swallowed a stone. Allura froze where she was lingering in the entrance of the grotto. Their eyes were locked.

Lance shrieked and launched himself backwards into the wall of the grotto, causing several items to fall and hit him right on top of his head. Hunk, who hadn’t yet spotted Allura, was whipping his head around, wondering aloud what in the world was happening. Slowly, Allura emerged from the shadows. Hunk squeaked in surprise, freezing where he floated.

“Allura! Hey! What are… you doing here?” Lance stammered as he hurriedly replaced the fallen objects.

“I was curious as to why you were really late, but you left before I could ask you, so I followed,” Allura explained. “Now I see.”

“Oh.”

Allura eyed all the curious items. “I thought you’d grown out of that rebellious phase of yours.”

“I have!” Lance protested. “This is… different.”

“I see.”

Allura perused the many odd curios that Lance had collected. Some of them Allura could guess what they might be, other things were simply too peculiar for her to guess any purpose. Lance and Hunk watched her anxiously.

“What is this, then?” she finally asked.

Lance gestured awkwardly. “It’s… my collection?”

“Your collection,” Allura repeated. “Of human items.”

Allura pressed her lips tightly together.

“Listen, I know it seems a little weird--” Lance began.

“Weird? Lance this is--I don’t even know where to start! Do you even know what humans do?!”

“I’m well aware, but I think if we could actually talk to them--”

“Talk to them?! As if they wouldn’t snatch you out of the ocean the first chance they got?!” Allura screeched.

Lance’s expression turned sour. “I knew you wouldn’t understand, why’d you have to follow us?!”

“I--” Allura faltered, recoiling.

Lance was her dearest friend. But humans were a much bigger problem for her kingdom, which was settled in shallower waters. It hadn’t happened in a few generations, but there had been instances of humans actively hunting mer-folk. Allura didn’t want anyone to have anything to do with humans, least of all her closest friend.

She sighed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have followed you and I don’t understand. You’re my friend, Lance, I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You either, Hunk.”

Allura paused. Lance’s expression softened. Hunk stood by anxiously, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Allura turned back to the foreign items that lined the walls. “So long as it’s just collecting… I don’t suppose it’s all that bad.”

Lance heaved a sigh of relief as Allura processed his fascination with humans. He had hoped that one day he might be able to tell her, but this was far from how he imagined it going. Still, it seemed to be going better than he could’ve hoped, given the circumstances.

Allura seemed to take an interest in one of the many items Lance had on display, a box-like object of metal and glass with a slender, cylindrical object set inside.

“That’s a lantern,” Lance blurted.

“A lantern?”

He nodded eagerly. “And on the inside, that’s a candle. Humans use it to light their way at night, and Pidge says--”

“Pidge? What’s a Pidge?” Allura asked sharply.

Beside him, Hunk looked as though he would like nothing more than to turn to seafoam on the spot. Lance was feeling much the same, internally berating himself for such a careless blunder.

“A talking seagull?” he offered lamely.

Allura narrowed her eyes dangerously.

Lance raised his hands defensively. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you, but you can’t be mad--”

“Lance…”

“You can’t! You’re not allowed!” Lance insisted.

“What,” Allura demanded. “Is. A. Pidge?”

“Pidge-is-a-human!” Lance said very quickly, shielding himself immediately.

Allura, to her credit, did not immediately explode in an incoherent rage. Once her mind had fully processed this new tidbit of information about Lance, however, she immediately dove into a stern lecture about the dangers of humans, and did Lance’s family know about this, and were there any other humans she ought to know about--

It took the combined efforts of Lance and Hunk over the greater part of the remaining daylight, but they did eventually manage to calm Allura and convince her that they hadn’t doomed the entirety of underwater civilization. Even then she seemed on edge.

“It just seems so reckless,” she despaired.

“Hunk said the same thing when I first met Pidge,” Lance said.

Hunk nodded. “He’s right, I honestly thought ever time he went to see them he would never come back--that’s how he convinced me to come along, to see for myself that Pidge wasn’t going to catch Lance and sell him off or something. Or eat his tail. Or--”

“I think she gets it.”

“Right, sorry.”

Lance took Allura’s hands in his, their eyes meeting.

“Allura, I completely understand your concerns, but I promise I would never do anything to put anyone in real danger. You believe me, right?”

Allura blinked, as though snapping out of a trance.

“Of course I believe you, Lance, it’s just… this all took me quite by surprise, is all,” she said. “I suppose… if you’ve managed to keep it under control this long, there’s no reason to believe you couldn’t keep it so for a while longer.”

Lance grinned, and twirled with delight. “Awesome! In that case, what else should I tell you about? Ask me anything, I’m pretty much a human expert by now.”

Allura picked up a slender metal object, curved along its entire length. It was only slightly longer than her hand.

“What’s this then? It looks completely pointless,” she noted, turning it over in her hands.

“That’s… uh…”

Before Lance could further illuminate Allura on that brilliant piece of human innovation, a muted pop sounded overhead. The three mer-folk looked up, where the last of the daylight was touched with splashes of color. Lance drifted upwards towards it. Several more pops were heard. Several more flashes of vivid color.

“What do you suppose…?” Lance muttered, completely taken by curiosity.

They remained frozen in silent wonder for only a moment longer. Then Lance whipped around and out of the grotto before either Hunk or Allura could stop him. Hunk followed him with a resigned air about him, offering a knowing nod to Allura, who looked immensely perplexed. Now that she was in on the secret, this was something she would have to learn to live with.

By the time the other two caught up to him, Lance had already poked his head above the surface. He gasped in sheer awe at what he saw. He’d seen human ships before, but this one had explosions of light going off above it. It was a little frightening if Lance was honest, but also thrilling. Just behind him Hunk and Allura were already trying to tug him back beneath the waves. Lance couldn’t be bothered to listen to them.

“Do you suppose they’re fighting something?” Allura asked quietly.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Hunk answered.

“What strange creatures humans are…”

“Tell me about it.”

At first it seemed as though Lance would be content to watch from a distance, much to the relief of his friends. After a moment, however, he dove back into the water and began swimming towards the ship at full speed. In retrospect, both Hunk and Allura supposed it had been foolish to hope that Lance wouldn’t do anything rash. After all, the humans were doing something new and exciting. How could they have expected him to stay put?

Reluctantly, Allura and Hunk followed Lance all the way to the ship. There they tried to stop him from doing anything more, insisting that this was close enough and anything more would be far too risky. The explosions overhead had ceased, but there was nothing stopping a human from looking over the side of the ship and spotting them. The last thing they wanted was for humans to be definitely aware of the existence of mer-folk.

“Don’t worry, guys,” Lance assured them as he began to hoist himself up the side of the ship. “I’ve got this completely under control. I just want to see what’s going on that would have them doing that.”

Even as he climbed up the side of the ship with unparalleled confidence, Allura and Hunk whispered their objections. About halfway up, their voices blended in with the sound of the surf against the ship. It was a challenging climb, what with the ship pitching back and forth, but Lance had never been one to back away from a good challenge. He eventually made his way to the top, and even found himself a nice perch to sit on that allowed him a discreet view of the deck.

The deck was packed with more humans than Lance had ever seen in one place. They were all laughing loudly and stomping their feet against the wood in such a merry fashion that Lance couldn’t help but giggle a little. The humans were hopping to the beat of a melody, lively and jaunty. Lance couldn’t help but swish his tail through the air along with it as well. He wondered idly if this what dancing was. Pidge never did want to show him.

“Get in there, Keith!” a voice insisted just above Lance.

A new human stumbled into Lance’s view, followed closely by the strangest creature Lance had ever seen (it walked on four legs and was covered in more fur than Lance had ever thought possible to fit on a single animal) that nipped playfully at the human’s heels. The new human, who seemed younger than all the others (at the very least, his face was clean shaven and not nearly as weathered as the others), began to dance after a hesitant moment. He was not nearly as certain as the other humans that traipsed around him, but there was an earnestness in his movements that set Lance’s heart to fluttering.

Then the human, Keith, smiled wide, and Lance was certain that this was the most beautiful human on the face of the earth.

So entranced was Lance with Keith’s clumsy dancing that he didn’t notice that the shaggy beast was no longer at Keith’s side. Instead, it had its nose to the deck, sniffing intently and inching ever closer to where Lance was hidden. The creature was almost upon him by the time Lance finally noticed where it was going. He retreated back on his perch, hopefully out of sight. When he peeked back around, however, he nearly fell off the side of the ship. A curious, sniffing snout awaited him, a cold nose immediately prodding his cheek.

Lance stifled a laugh as the hairy beast gave him a huge, slobbery kiss. It tickled! Lance was just raising a tentative hand to give the creature a friendly pat, when a sharp whistle jerked it’s attention away.

“Kosmo! Come here you silly dog!”

Lance retreated away from the hole he was peeking through as the creature (a dog? Lance made a mental note to ask Pidge about that later) bounded away and back towards Keith. Kosmo put his paws up on Keith’s chest, and Keith ran his fingers through Kosmo’s thick fur, smiling fondly and speaking in a hushed tone to the animal. Lance sighed, leaning against the sturdy wood of the ship. He found himself wishing that Keith would smile at him, share whispers with him.

Kosmo ran back to where Lance was hidden, but Lance shrank back into the shadows. Keith was walking over to where he was. Lance wondered distantly how Keith would react to seeing a merman. There was no way Lance would reveal himself with so many other humans nearby, but if Lance ever happened to find Keith by himself, then perhaps…

~*~

Keith leaned against the railing as he huffed a breathless laugh. The cool night air brushed across his flushed cheeks. Nearby, Kosmo was sniffing at something again. Keith didn’t think anything of it. There must be many interesting smells on a ship at sea, Keith thought.

The wind whipped a little more insistently, messing Keith’s already unruly hair. He watched with keen amusement as several tipsy sailors continued to dance across the swaying deck. They were quite good, or at least better than Keith, in spite of the unstable dance floor.

Beside him Shiro leaned idly against the railing, looking a little tired.

“You alright?” Keith asked.

Shiro waved him off. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“You’re as bad as Adam,” Shiro scoffed with a light shove.

Keith shoved him back, a little harder than he’d been shoved for good measure. Shiro eyed him with a mischievous glint in his eye that Keith didn’t trust at all.

“So you’re another year older,” Shiro started.

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I’m just saying, you may be the younger prince, but everyone is wondering--”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Then let them wonder. We’ve been over this before, I’ll settle down when I’m ready--when I find the right person.”

“People just want to see you happy,” Shiro said. “Including me.”

“I know, but you and Adam got lucky, meeting each other when you did. Anyways, it’s not like I need to get married like you. I can afford to take my time, and that’s what I intend to do. I don’t want to end up feeling like I’m trapped in a loveless marriage.”

Shiro snorted. “Who knew you were such a romantic.”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, I remember when you were a kid--”

“Shiro, stop--”

“And you made this list of requirements for your future spouse, like it was a job--”

“Enough! Shut up!”

Shiro laughed, and Keith couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

“Seriously though, I don’t get why you’re so impatient about this,” Keith noted.

“Can’t I just wish happiness for my little brother on his birthday?” Shiro asked.

“By insisting that I need to get married off?”

Shiro only chuckled in response, so Keith continued, “Trust me, when the right person comes along, I’ll know. It’ll just hit me, like lightning.”

As if on cue, a distant rumble of thunder snapped their attention to the dark horizon. Lightning lit up an intimidating shelf of clouds. A gentle patter of rain arrived on the next gust of wind. The music died, taking the dancing with it. The mood became considerably more sober as the crew set to turning the ship around. No one wanted to fight a storm at night.

Swift as their actions were, there was no outrunning the storm. The mild sprinkle of rain became a veritable torrent within moments. Lightning cracked through the air, thunder barely audible above the roar of the gale. The waves reached up around them, trying to drag some poor sap down to their death. It didn’t take long for them to realize that they’d been caught in the midst of a squall against which there was no fighting. They were completely at the mercy of the sea.

Keith was sliding across the deck, offering help wherever he could. A monstrous wave leapt up over the side of the ship and knocked him off his feet. The ship tilted precariously, and Keith would’ve slid right off had it not been for Shiro grabbing his arm just before Keith had been tossed over the railing. Shiro gave him only a quick word of caution before setting off towards the main mast that had come loose.

It was bad, worse than anything Keith had experienced in all his years at sea, but he still had hope that they could make it through, so long as they could hold out just a little longer--

Then a stray bolt of lightning struck the main mast.

Keith was aware of the ringing in his ears before he had fully processed what happened. The shouting around him was muted, but the panic was evident in the expressions of the sailors. Keith whipped around towards the main mast, watching in horror as the top half of it fell to the deck. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the entire thing was engulfed by flames, too intense to be put out by the rain.

Keith leapt down from the quarterdeck and ran towards Shiro, who was still dazed by the lightning strike. The captain was calling for everyone to abandon ship. The fire spread from the fallen mast to the rest of the ship. Things were quickly going from bad to worse.

By the time the fire had spread to the entirety of the ship, the entire crew, Shiro and Keith included, were watching from the water. The rain had stopped, the wind remaining to aggravate the fire. It seemed as though they would make it through the ordeal unscathed. Keith was allowing himself to breathe a sigh of relief when a frantic barking made his insides twist with nauseating guilt. Kosmo.

Keith was back in the water before anyone could stop him. The climb back up the side of the crumbling ship was precarious. He hopped over the railing mid-deck--Kosmo was on the quarterdeck, the stairs leading down completely collapsed already. Keith wasn’t sure he could climb up to the quarterdeck. Smoke and embers pressed in on all sides.

He held out his arms. “Kosmo! Jump!”

His dog hesitated only a second before leaping over the railing of the quarterdeck. Keith nearly fell over when Kosmo landed in his arms, but he managed to stay upright. He wasted no time in running to the side of the ship, towards where the rest of the crew was waiting. He prepared to jump; there was no time for climbing. Just as Keith pushed against the deck to launch himself and Kosmo overboard, however, the wood gave way under him. His momentum pushed Kosmo overboard with a shrill yelp.

Keith’s ankle was stuck. The jagged edges were digging into his leg painfully. He was coughing and sputtering, his eyes were watering. The crack of the ship falling apart around him was almost overwhelming. He yanked hard on his leg; it was almost loose. The only warning Keith had that something was about to go horribly wrong was a sharp hiss of something other than wood catching, and the beginning of a deafening explosion.

Then there was nothing but black.

~*~

Lance dropped off the ship not long after the storm hit. It had started rocking too wildly for him to do otherwise. Allura and Hunk pleaded with him to leave with them, to take refuge well below the surface. They could not drown, but to be in a storm this close to a ship was far too dangerous. They had almost convinced Lance to retreat when the surface of the water dipped down and ripped them up from below. The wave tossed them mercilessly, and Lance found himself separated from the other two.

He slapped the water hard, and Lance had to blink a few times to reorient himself. Allura and Hunk were nowhere to be see. Part of him insisted that he should find them and make sure they all got to safety. The rest of him hesitated, wanting to keep an eye on the humans, on Keith. Storms were far more dangerous for humans than mer-folk. The numerous shipwrecks that Lance had explored were proof of that.

Lance jumped back when the lightning struck the mast. There were spots in his vision no matter how much he blinked. Before his vision had completely cleared, the ship was alight with something bright, something that set the humans to screaming. Lance wasn’t certain, but he felt like that might be fire. He wasn’t so sure he liked it very much.

It wasn’t long after that that the humans began to abandon ship. Lance breathed a sigh of relief as the storm began to die down. The fire flared up, burning with such intensity that Lance could feel the heat from where he was observing. The ship began to collapse into the water. Lance wondered what sort of things he might find on the ship once it sank, now that he didn’t have to worry about anyone dying.

Then Keith got back onto the blazing ship.

In the light of the blaze, it was all too easy to see who the madman climbing back onto the ship was. Though he didn’t know him, Lance had half a mind to shout and drag Keith back off the ship, until he saw why Keith had gone back in the first place. Kosmo had been left behind.

Lance watched anxiously. Keith caught Kosmo in his arms and sprinted back to the railing. Kosmo jumped ship. Keith did not. Lance held his breath. What was Keith waiting on? As far as Lance could see Keith was struggling with something. It was a race against time; Keith only needed to get off the ship before it completely fell apart. Lance couldn’t have ever imagined how much worse the situation could’ve gotten until it did.

The ship was blown apart with a deafening explosion that ripped a sharp gasp from Lance. Without a second thought he dove back into the water, swimming straight towards the debris. The water glowed a hot-orange color. It was almost blinding. Lance pushed through the charred remains of the ship as the sank around him, looking for anything vaguely human shaped.

He found it after only a moment, sinking a little faster than everything around him. Lance dove for the unconscious human immediately. With a mighty push of his bright blue tail, Lance dragged Keith up to the surface. Keith did not rouse once they were there. Lance took a moment to weigh his options, using a larger piece of wood to help keep Keith above the water.

The other humans were not very far, but could Lance deliver Keith without being spotted? He could deliver Keith on the piece of wood he was currently perched on, he considered, but in the light of the dying flames there was no guarantee that Lance wouldn’t be seen. Being spotted by panicked humans was the last thing Lance wanted. Kindly as he felt towards humans, there was no telling how they might react to something so unexpected.

Ultimately, Lance decided to swim Keith to shore himself. It would take some time, but Lance was confident he could do it. If Keith woke before they made it… Lance decided he would only worry about that if it actually happened. He didn’t want to spend too much more time thinking over things. The sooner he got Keith to safety the better.

Allura and Hunk found him about halfway through his journey, alarmed but at the same time unsurprised that he was swimming a human to safety. Allura in particular regarded the human with extreme caution, as though he might wake at any moment and literally bite their heads off (in spite of the absence of fangs and the fact that they could easily drown him if he decided to attack them), and she kept a fair distance away from Lance all the way to the shore.

By the time they made it to shallow waters, Lance was breathing hard and the sun was peeking over the horizon to reveal clear skies. Keith remained unconscious all the while, even as Lance less than gracefully dragged him onto land. Lance paused to recover, slumped next to Keith’s splayed out form. He pressed a hand to Keith’s chest; he was breathing, thankfully.

Thus assured of Keith’s safety, Lance was about to leave, but stopped short. He was alive and breathing, yes, but he had not roused once throughout the journey to shore. Could Lance really just leave him like this, with no guarantee that he would wake, or that anyone would find him?

Allura was confident that he could, and insisted that he should. Hunk, despite being a bit more comfortable with humans than Allura, seemed to agree. Lance, contrary as ever, took their opinions as a sign to stay. After all, if he hadn’t stayed through the storm, Keith would’ve drowned for sure.

So he waited by Keith’s side, studying his features closely as if to commit them to memory. He had a mess of night-black hair that was plastered to his face in thick strands. Lance brushed it gingerly away. It was such thick hair, and it nearly reached Keith’s shoulders. He could tie it back if he wanted.

“Lance?!” a familiar voice gasped.

Lance whipped his head up. “Pidge!”

“Oh my--how in the world--” they stammered.

“There was a storm,” Lance started to explain.

“I know, the rest of the crew got back not too long ago, they all thought Keith was dead! I was actually hoping to find you to ask if you could find Keith, but it looks like you’re a step ahead of me,” Pidge said. Then their brow furrowed. “Is he…?”

“He’s alive,” Lance assured them.

Pidge heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

“He hasn’t woken up since I found him though.”

Pidge looked from Keith’s prone form to somewhere down the beach, their expression that of fierce contemplation.

“I can’t carry him back by myself,” Pidge said.

Lance glanced to his glaring lack of legs. “Uh…”

“I’ll have to get help,” they clarified. “But I don’t want to leave him behind.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Lance said.

“But when I come back with help, you might be spotted.”

“If I can hear you coming I can probably get back into the water quick enough,” Lance reasoned. “I’m willing to risk it.”

Pidge eyed him curiously, but eventually nodded and sprinted back down the beach. Lance turned his attention back to Keith. A few drops of sea water still lingered on his cheeks; Lance brushed them away, noticing how uncommonly long Keith’s lashes were as he did. Lance found himself wanting to know the color of his eyes, among other things.

“I wonder,” he mused in a low tone. “What sort of person are you? What sort of things do you like to do? Do you like to dance? Read? Or do you do things that I’ve never heard of, could never even imagine… won’t you wake up and tell me?”

As if bidden by Lance’s words, Keith sighed deeply, his lashes fluttering. He blinked hard in the glaring morning light; Lance noted with delight that Keith’s eyes were a deep, brilliant violet, not unlike the sky just after the sunset. Keith reached up with a weary hand; Lance froze. He should be leaving, a reasonable part of his mind said, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to, not when Keith placed his hand over Lance’s so tenderly, absently stroking the back of his hand. Lance beamed, his eyes meeting Keith’s. Suddenly Lance couldn’t think of a reason to leave.

Until he heard voices from down the beach. His head snapped up, almost immediately spotting Pidge’s slight figure even from a distance. Reluctant as he was, Lance had to leave. He slipped his hand out of Keith’s, savoring the lingering warmth, and dove back into the crashing waves before Keith could even push himself up to watch him go. Allura and Hunk were ready and waiting with every lecture in the book and then some, but Lance could hardly hear them.

Lance hardly waited a minute before he was peeking above the surface again, watching Pidge and the the other people they’d brought carry Keith away. Even as Lance watched him go, he knew he would see Keith again. He had to. The beating of his very heart would not allow otherwise.

It took forever for Hunk and Allura to drag Lance beneath the waves again. By then they knew it was hopeless to even try to lecture him, especially since no one other than Pidge had really seen him. All they could do was firmly guide their lovestruck fool of a friend home, where he could hopefully cool his head.

In the aftermath of all the excitement, not one of them had a clue they were being watched once more.

“Well, well,” a keenly interested voice mused. “This is certainly not a development I expected, but one that I can make excellent use of.”

Vivid yellow eyes gleamed wickedly as they danced across the image shown in the watching bubble. Several pairs of eyes watched eagerly from the shadows. The eyes turned to those waiting.

“I think it’s time we do some gardening,” the watcher suggested with a grin. “Plant the seeds of doubt among the mer-folk. Suggest that their darling youngest prince is more interested in the one thing that would see them destroyed. That should do nicely.”

Four shadows nodded obligingly and immediately swam away. There were hardly any bubbles left in their wake. Sharp eyes returned to the image of three young mer-folk sneaking back into a glimmering palace after an entire night away. It seemed too easy. The watcher couldn’t help but chuckle. Were anyone else nearby they might’ve felt a chill run through the water at the mere sound.

“Who would’ve thought, that of all the fish in the sea, this princeling would fall for a human prince.”

~*~

The sun rose and set on the kingdom as it was wont to do. Several delegations that were present at the state dinner returned to their homes. Allura’s delegation stayed a while longer, having another meeting to attend before they left. It was just as well, Hunk decided. If Lance had been insufferable before, there was simply no describing how he was now. Hunk was glad to have Allura help wrangle the prince, if only for a little while longer.

It wasn’t that Lance had been more intent on getting out and above the surface in search of the object of his affections. Such was his state though that Hunk almost wished he would. He’d been floating around the palace aimlessly wearing a blissed out expression and always a few words away from revealing everything. A Lance in love was not a Lance capable of keeping his mouth shut, it seemed.

Hunk and Allura were by his side as often as they could be. It wasn’t highly unusual. Allura was known to be a particular friend of Lance’s (the possibility of marriage between them had been entertained some years earlier; sometimes Lance’s parents suggested that the idea wasn’t completely off the table yet), and Hunk was always by Lance’s side anyways. For all their careful treading, however, Veronica suspected that something was up. She didn’t dare try to confront them with Allura nearby, but they all knew it was just a matter of time before she cornered either Lance or Hunk.

Her method was far more direct than any of them had expected.

“Princess,” Veronica greeted with a slight bow. Allura nodded her head in return. “I was wondering if I could have a word with my brother? I know you only have so much time left here, but it’s rather important. I assure you I’ll make it quick.”

Allura glanced at Lance, who seemed to barely register his own sister in front of him. Then to Hunk, who already looked nervous.

“I--”

“Thank you so much, we won’t be long,” Veronica pushed, grabbing Lance by the arm and swiftly dragging him away. Allura and Hunk were left to gape like fish.

“We’re done for,” Hunk whispered. Allura couldn’t find it in her to disagree.

Meanwhile Lance had snapped out of his mooning for long enough to realize that Veronica looked especially stern. He grimaced. She couldn’t possibly be onto his secret, could she? He’d been careless, he knew, but surely not that careless! She steered him into an empty sitting room and released him.

“A delegation from the Taujeerian trench is coming tomorrow,” she began without preamble. “They want to meet with us, the entire royal family. We’ll be discussing the contract regarding our kingdom’s use of their thermal vents. I think it goes without saying that this is incredibly important.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

Veronica scowled in a way that suggested to Lance that now was not the time for jokes.

“I’m serious, Lance. You’ve gotten away with a lot, but we cannot afford to have you be late to this. I don’t even want to consider the idea that you’d miss it. Do you understand?”

“Important stuff, do not miss under pain of death,” Lance summarized airily.

Veronica narrowed her eyes at him. “The only reason I believe you is because Princess Allura is around. You always behave a little better when she’s around. In spite of that, I’m having Rizavi and Leifsdottir keep you all company until tomorrow just in case.”

“What?! You’re giving me babysitters?!” Lance exclaimed.

“If you had proven before that you’d be able to make it to these things on time I wouldn’t have to!” Veronica snapped back.

“I’ll be there, I promise, just don’t have them follow me everywhere!”

“No can do, baby brother,” Veronica said, already swimming to the door. “And don’t try swimming all over the place to try and lose them, or next time I’m tying your tail around a pole.”

She left before Lance could get another word in. To say he was furious was perhaps a mild understatement. It was enough to say that he was genuinely surprised that there weren’t bubbles coming out of his ears. He left the room not long after Veronica, to find the two knights waiting expectantly. Lance offered them his most petulant frown before swimming off in search of Allura and Hunk.

They weren’t far, and confused to see Rizavi and Leifsdottir following close behind Lance.

“Allura, Hunk, these are my babysitters--”

“Knights of the crown!” Rizavi corrected indignantly. “And royal babysitters.”

Lance’s frown deepened. “Rizavi and Leifsdottir. There’s a really important meeting with the Taujeerians tomorrow--”

“Oh, it’s tomorrow? I thought it wasn’t for another few movements,” Allura commented. Then, upon seeing Lance’s face, “Apologies, Lance, continue.”

Lance blew a stream of bubbles. “There’s a really important meeting with the Taujeerians tomorrow, and Veronica doesn’t trust me to be on time on my own, so she’s having these two watch my every move until I am solidly in my chair at that meeting.”

“Oh.”

A beat of silence carried on the current running through the hall.

“I suspect the youngest prince doesn’t want us here,” Leifsdottir commented.

“Gee, you think?” Rizavi replied with a sarcastic grin as she eyed the suffering prince.

Initially, Lance resolved to be a good prince and go along with what his sister wanted. It was the most likely way to get her off his back, anyways. And at first, it seemed to be going well. The two knights kept some distance and didn’t bother Lance and his friends. He could almost imagine that they weren’t even there. His mind began to slip back into its most recent and favorite pastime as Lance, Hunk, and Allura settled in their favorite sitting room, the one with a glass dome for a ceiling (around midday, the sun hit the glass in such a way that warmed the water of the entire room, making it a rather relaxing place to retire).

He had just been imagining a chance meeting, a coincidence really, involving Lance casually sunning himself on a rock near the shore, where a certain human might pass by. The vivid blue of Lance’s tail would certainly catch the human’s eye, and upon closer inspection he might find something familiar about that face…

Lance couldn’t help but smile at the thought. He reached over towards a column of coral, where an array of lovely flowers were blooming, and plucked one with petals of deep violet. He ran his fingers over the silky petals. He wondered if Keith thought of him at all (he wondered if Keith thought of him in the way Lance thought of him). Lance liked to believe he did (he very much hoped he did).

Lance had just begun plucking the petals, muttering under his breath (“He loves me, he loves me not…”), when Rizavi made her presence known again.

“Aw, does our little princey-prince have a crush?!” she squealed.

“He’s been distracted from his companions’ conversation this entire time, has an affected look about him, and is plucking petals in a manner consistent with a method used to discover the feelings of the object of one’s affection--It’s safe to say that our prince is indeed infatuated with someone,” Leifsdottir droned.

Lance crushed the loose petals in his hand.

“What? Lance? In love with someone? No…” Hunk insisted.

“He definitely is,” Rizavi pressed.

Allura jumped in. “Lance is most definitely not in infatuated with anyone, much less in love.”

“I have to wonder how good friends you are then, if you haven’t noticed such obvious behavior,” Leifsdottir said.

Instantly Allura took on her princess posture. “I beg your pardon?”

Both Leifsdottir and Rizavi recoiled. It was one thing to poke fun at a prince they’d known for years. The crown princess of an allied kingdom, however, was quite another thing. They bowed their heads without another word, but Lance was far past being done with them. He had to lose them, and quick.

Lance weighed his options. There could be no plotting with Allura and Hunk, so whatever he did, he would just have to hope that they followed along. The steadfast knights likely knew the palace as well as Lance himself. He would have a better shot if he could make it out. He wasn’t sure how fast they could swim, but Lance was willing to bet that, without any extra armor weighing him down, he would be faster.

It was just a matter of getting out of the palace first.

Lance meandered casually out of the sitting room. Allura and Hunk weren’t far behind, followed closely by Rizavi and Leifsdottir. He didn’t make a mad dash for the first exit he saw--that would be far too obvious. He had to be subtle, he had to be clever, he had to be--

“Something tells me Prince Lance is trying to escape our watch,” Leifsdottir said.

Lance had to grind his teeth from saying anything, but gave the knights a sharp look over his shoulder. It was no wonder Veronica had assigned these two specifically to watch him.

Palace chase it was then.

Lance changed direction so quickly he swore his tail made a sound like the crack of a whip. Hunk yelped, Allura tried to stop him; Rizavi and Leifsdottir were on him without a single sound of surprise. He sped down the hall, grinning wildly. Lance was determined to have some fun with this whether he succeeded in losing his royal babysitters or not.

He took a sharp right and turned right back around just as Rizavi and Leifsdottir were following around the corner. Allura and Hunk were a ways behind, unsure if they should follow Lance or let him try to swim himself silly. Lance offered them a cheery wave as he sped by, the two knights hot on his tail (maybe a little farther behind than before).

When he took a left, he didn’t double back again, instead making his way towards a place in the palace where he knew the coral had grown old. It ended up becoming a natural tunnel system through the palace that he and his siblings had explored thoroughly throughout their childhood, and while Lance had no doubt that Rizavi and Leifsdottir knew about it, he was positive that they didn’t know it nearly as well as he did.

Lance zipped through one hall after another, sometimes doubling back, sometimes not, but always keeping Rizavi and Leifsdottir guessing. The coral tunnels were at the very heart of the palace, where he risked being spotted by one of his family members. It was a risk he was willing to take. It took twice as long for him to get there, what with all the twists and turns he threw at the long suffering knights. He had to keep himself from cheering loudly when he finally did make it.

The tunnels were a lot smaller than he remembered. Several times he scraped himself against the old coral, but he didn’t dare slow down. Rizavi and Leifsdottir were on the edge of panic now, and he could hear them yelling not too far behind him. A right turn, a left, middle fork and two more rights, careful not to run into them from another part of this veritable maze.

Lance stopped short when he heard the knights yelling in front of him rather than behind, or from the side. He peered through the porous coral, biting his lip to keep from giggling.

“We haven’t lost him, we know he’s in here somewhere!” Rizavi was insisting.

“I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘lost’,” Leifsdottir replied.

“We haven’t lost him!”

“Princess Veronica will likely not be happy about this.”

Lance was on the verge of exploding with laughter, so he quickly ducked down into the lower tunnels. If he remembered correctly (and he was certain he did), at least one of the tunnels lead out of the palace. He felt a little guilty at having ditched Hunk and Allura, but he could always meet up with them later. He just couldn’t spend the rest of his day with people nannying him. All he wanted was some room to breathe. That wasn’t so much to ask for, right?

Free of his babysitters, Lance swam at an amiable pace towards his grotto. Perhaps Allura and Hunk would think to find him there later. Either way, he could hide out there until the sun went down and then make his way back to the palace to get a good night’s sleep, and then be up and ready for the oh-so-important meeting that their allies just had to have him at (more than likely they just wanted to see if the rumors of his silvertongued gift were true).

Lance had just been meandering through the tall seaweed that surrounded his secret cove when a shadow darted past, catching the corner of his vision. He curled down low. Either there was a predator lurking nearby, or Rizavi and Leifsdottir had found him more easily than he would’ve thought. Lance waited with bated breath. The shadow swam away.

Lance inched closer to the entrance of his grotto, still careful not to make any sudden movements. When he reached the entrance, however, his stomach dropped to the bottom of his tail like the anchor of a sunken ship. Several carefully curated objects were strewn about the sand of the entrance. A quick peek inside showed Lance that the inside was worse. He realized that the shadow had not been pesky knights or a predator looking for a bite of his detail.

It had been a thief.

“Hey!” Lance shrieked, darting after the mysterious shadow.

Whoever they were, they were a fast swimmer. Even as Lance flipped his fins as quickly as they would take him, the thief had a solid lead on him. They kept low to the ocean floor, kicking up sand as they went to throw Lance off their trail, but he was not to be deterred, not even with sand in his eyes. He kicked hard with his tail; just a bit closer and he might be able to grab them.

Lance reached out, stretching his hand as far as it would go. He almost had them. Just a little closer, and--

The thief stopped abruptly and whipped Lance in the face with their tail. Lance automatically recoiled, nearly crashing into the sand as he did. The texture of their tail was abrasive and left Lance’s cheek (and pride) stinging. Lance grit his teeth. They were not getting away.

Lance pushed himself off from the ground and sped after the thief. They had made ample use of the scant few seconds their attack had given them. In the dim evening light, Lance could hardly make out their figure. He refused to let that stop him.

The thief turned this way and that, through forests of kelp and massive coral reefs; Lance pursued them doggedly all the while. His entire tail was aching with the effort. He did not let himself slow down. Not as his lungs burned, not as his entire body screamed in protest. Especially not as he started to creep ever closer towards the thief once more.

Then the thief disappeared into a labyrinthine outcropping of rocks. Lance thought he had been close enough behind them to not lose them, but as soon as they went out of Lance’s sight, they vanished. Lance swam upwards, trying to see if he could spot them from above. Nothing. And with every passing moment that Lance did not spot them again, his fatigue threatened to overtake him completely.

Lance drifted down to the top of a tall column of rock, sighing deeply. He looked around. He realized that he hadn’t been paying attention to where the thief had been leading him, and now his surroundings were completely unfamiliar to him. The sun had just set. The skin of his face was still throbbing slightly.

Lance let himself rest for some time. Exhaustion had seeped into his very bones, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep the next several days away. He sighed deeply. He had to get home. The best way to do that would be to swim upwards and follow the surface currents until he found a familiar one to take him home. It was just a matter of making himself get up.

“Okay Lancey-Lance, let’s get a move on, you’ve got a super important meeting to get to in the morning,” he muttered to himself.

He did not immediately move from his perch.

“Your loving older sister will kill you if you’re not home in the morning,” Lance continued. “Then again, she’ll probably kill me for ditching her knights.”

It took several more minutes of unenthused cajoling with himself for Lance to finally swim upwards to judge the currents. He knew that his grotto was northeast of the palace, so he guessed that that was the general direction he was in. By that logic, the warmer currents ought to take him home.

Lance chose large, cozy current to drift along, his tail undulating lazily. It was just enough to keep him within the current. His eyes fluttered every once in a while. That chase had been more taxing than he had initially guessed. He idly ran his fingers across his cheek, wondering how bad it looked. Hopefully it was something that would be gone by morning. He didn’t need Veronica nagging him for being anything less than perfectly presentable for a visiting delegation.

Far too much time had passed before Lance realized that the scenery below wasn’t becoming any more familiar. The beginning of a panic began to squirm in his gut. He couldn’t possibly be lost in his own kingdom, right? Of all his family, he was the one that explored it most often. Then again, he always paid attention to the currents he took going out. He hadn’t done that this time.

Lance took a deep breath. Panicking wouldn’t do him any good. He just had to try something new.

Lance left the current and swam upwards, hissing as his face met the sharp night air above the surface. The sky was brilliantly bedecked with stars. He paused for a moment to admire them in spite of the chill. Normally he came to the surface during the day; it wasn’t often he got to see the stars.

After a few moments, Lance forced himself to focus again. He scanned the horizon for any sign of land. If he could find the shoreline, he could most assuredly find his way home. He had to squint, and even then he couldn’t be sure of what he saw in such deep darkness, but Lance was almost certain he could see a large shadow looming in the distance. A notion was better than nothing. Lance swam for it.

He swam just below the surface, popping up every once in a while to make sure there really was land ahead. The shadow grew more clear cut against the starry sky. Lance propelled himself a little faster. He really wanted to get home and get whatever sleep he could before the meeting in the morning.

Only a few lights were lit along the shoreline when Lance reached it. The stark shadows made everything unfamiliar. Lance worried at his bottom lip. If he swam along the coast he would eventually come across something familiar and then find his way home. It was just a question of which way. If he went the wrong way, that would consume a greater part of the night, but there was no telling how soon he would be able to tell which way was the right way.

Then again, Lance thought, treading water just thinking about it would waste just as much time. He looked to his right: a brightly lit but quiet shipyard full of moored ships of all kinds. Even from a distance Lance could see one or two humans milling about. It was exactly the sort of place he would want to explore if he had more time (he made a note to himself to do just that another night). To his left, a long stretch of dark, even quieter beach.

Lance took another deep breath. He went left.

It was perhaps the longest and most boring swim Lance had ever taken. Everything was simply too dark to be interesting, and Lance was becoming increasingly tired and cold. Worry gnawed at the back of his mind. How long would it take him to find his way home? How long to sunrise? Lance shivered. The cold air bit at him every time he went above the surface. He stuck to warm currents as often as he could.

When Lance realized that he could see things more clearly, and that there were fewer stars in the sky than before, he finally allowed himself to truly panic.

Morning was not far.

He’d been lost for the entire night.

A torrent of feelings descended upon Lance in an instant.

He was upset with himself; how could he have gotten lost so easily?!

He was furious with Veronica; if she had just let him be this wouldn’t have happened!

Most of all Lance felt utterly and completely hopeless. He’d been confident that he would make it to that super-ultra-mega important meeting (and on time), confident that he could do it right. Maybe he hadn’t been exactly enthusiastic about it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to disappoint his entire family.

Lance leaned against a rock, eyes screwed shut against the swirling current of awful feelings. He shivered again, the motion jostling the tiniest sob from him.

“Hello?”

Lance gasped, freezing behind the rock and slowly sinking back into the water.

“Is someone there? Do you need help?”

Lance was ready to swim away, but paused just as the water reached his face. He recognized that voice.

A deep sigh was heard. “I must be losing my mind, Kosmo.”

Heart-wrenching excitement mingled with his nauseating panic. Lance had wanted to see him again, but there was no way he was ready for this! Of all times for them to meet again!

Lance peered around the rock carefully. His heart leapt into his throat. The morning light was still dim, but just bright enough that Lance could make out a human figure pacing on the beach, followed closely by a furry, four-legged creature. There was no doubt.

Lance hid behind the rock again, trying to calm his heart for long enough to think with his head. He’d imagined a thousand different scenarios in the days since he’d rescued Keith, and all of the dialogue he’d come up with, from spectacular opening lines to passionate confessions of love, had promptly vanished the instant he’d laid eyes on Keith.

Still, this was a chance. A chance that Lance had to take.

He took a deep breath--

--and was promptly yanked down into the water by his tail.

Lance was ready to shout at whoever had the audacity to pull on his tail (and more importantly, they had interrupted such a significant moment in Lance’s romantic endeavors), until he saw Rizavi wearing an uncharacteristically grim expression.

“Apologies for the rough treatment, your Highness,” she said plainly. “But I’ve been ordered to deliver you expressly to the palace at once. I’m sure you understand.”

Her tone left no room for argument. Her eyes held none of that mischievous light they were normally alight with. Nearby, even Leifsdottir looked stern. Lance went without protest. Panic settled alongside his fatigue, weighing so heavy on him that he was surprised he didn’t sink.

The sun had fully risen by the time they returned to the palace. Lance was escorted to a sitting room that was part of Veronica’s residence. He was left by himself, told that his sister would see him shortly. Lance tried to sit, but his tail swished jerkily through the water too often. He ended up swimming circles around the room.

The door opened. Lance froze in place.

Veronica’s expression was not at all what he had been expecting. There was a touch of exasperation, but mostly she just looked tired. Lance wished she looked more angry.

“Veronica, I know I messed up--”

“Lance.”

His mouth snapped shut.

“This is beyond messing up. This--I don’t even know where to begin.”

Lance waited in silence for her to continue.

Veronica sighed. “I get it. There’s a lot of pressure on you to do well, even though you’re the youngest prince. But you can’t just run away from your problems--”

“I’m not trying to run away!”

“Then what are you trying to do, Lance?! You’ve always neglected your duties--” she began loudly.

“I have not--”

“--and you’re more concerned with humans than your own people!” Veronica shouted a little more loudly.

Lance clenched his fists. “That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it?” Veronica challenged, narrowing her eyes. Then she sighed, her entire body slumping. “Maybe this is my fault. I thought it was just a harmless hobby, something we didn’t need to worry our parents about.”

She spoke in a dangerously soft voice.

“Then the rumors started.”

“Rumors?”

Veronica scowled at him. “If you were around your own people once in a while you’d know. People are saying you’d sell out the entire kingdom to humans. Some think you already have.”

“I would never--”

“I didn’t think anything of them,” Veronica pressed. “People like to talk, and I thought I knew my own brother.”

Lance didn’t like the way she’d said that.

“Then, last night, you ditched the knights I assigned to keep an eye on you. It didn’t surprise me much, but I figured you would come back. You didn’t.”

Veronica began to swim back and forth, not once looking at Lance.

“Not only did you worry our entire family half out of their minds, but you worried Hunk and Princess Allura too,” she scolded. “We had guards combing the entire kingdom for you, but there was no sign of you. It wasn’t until around midnight that we got some clue of where you’d gone.”

She paused, as though considering her next words.

Her tone became even quieter, but no less stern. “Allura and Hunk came to me and told me about your collection.”

“They what--!”

“They found it completely trashed and thought that you were in trouble! They were completely right to tell me about it!”

Lance pressed his lips tightly together.

“I had Rizavi and Leifsdotter investigate, and told them to bring you straight home if they found you. And where should they find you but in shallow water about to reveal yourself to a human!”

Her voice rose with every word. She was facing Lance now, her posture almost threatening. Lance found himself backing away on instinct. Then he steeled himself.

“I wasn’t about to reveal myself--”

“Like you didn’t reveal yourself to that human who tells you all about the things you collect? Like you didn’t reveal yourself to the human you rescued?!” Veronica demanded.

Lance felt his breath catch in his throat.

“How many more humans have there been, Lance?”

“Just those two.”

Veronica shook her head. “I don’t even know if I can believe you. Rizavi and Leifsdotter saw you about to approach that human on the beach--”

“He wasn’t a different human, he was the one I rescued!”

“It doesn’t matter, you shouldn’t have rescued him in the first place!”

“So I was just supposed to let him drown?!”

“Yes!” Veronica shrieked, throwing her hands up in the air. “He could end up telling other humans about us!”

“You act like him and all the other humans are going to hunt us for sport!”

“Because they have!”

“Yeah, several centuries ago! Veronica, if we could just talk to some humans and maybe negotiate--”

“No, Lance, I don’t want to hear it! It’s all you ever talk about, and you can’t go on ignoring your responsibilities any longer! If you applied even half of your enthusiasm for humans towards something productive--”

Lance huffed harshly. “So I’m only supposed to speak when I say what you want me to say?”

“That’s not what I said--”

“No,” Lance spat. “But it’s what you meant.”

Lance escaped from the room before Veronica could utter another word, slamming the door and feeling every bit a petulant child. He felt worse for it. His first instinct was to swim to his rooms, but he met Allura and Hunk halfway there. A stab of guilt pierced his heart, followed closely by the sting of betrayal. They’d told Veronica everything. Everything he’d worked so hard to keep a secret for so long.

“Lance! Oh, Lance, buddy, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Hunk exclaimed.

“What happened to your face?! You really were attacked!” Allura gasped.

Lance scowled and turned away, unconsciously touching the abrasion on his cheek. He still had no idea how bad it actually was.

“Lance? Are you… okay?” Hunk asked.

Here, Lance looked up at them. There were bags under their eyes. Hunk’s golden tail was twitching, as it did when Hunk was especially anxious. Allura’s dusty pink tail was perfectly still, a tell-tale sign that she was working especially hard to keep herself composed. Lance’s gut roiled with a sickening mix of guilt and fury.

“No,” Lance finally said, his voice as ominously quiet as Veronica’s had been only moments earlier. “I’m not.”

“Let’s get a doctor then, we’ll get you patched up in no time,” Hunk began.

“That’s not it.”

Allura frowned. “Then what is it?”

“You guys are my friends. I trusted you.”

Hunk’s eyes went wide. “Lance, we were just worried about you! Your collection was a mess, and that’s the one thing you keep absolutely pristine! What were we supposed to think?!”

“I don’t know, but you didn’t have to tell Veronica about Pidge, or Keith!”

“That wasn’t Hunk,” Allura interrupted sternly. “That was me.”

“Well, thanks for that! Now I’m not only a disappointment to my family, but the entire kingdom now too! Just what I’ve wanted in life! At least now maybe I’ll be left alone,” Lance scoffed.

“Lance, that’s not--”

“Whatever,” Lance snapped, eyes flashing. “Just leave me alone!”

Lance wasn’t sure if he wanted them to follow anyways or not as he swam away. Regardless, they did as he bid them. Lance was left to swim in fuming silence.

He thought he’d been swimming aimlessly, only wanting to be anywhere that wasn’t the palace. In his head Lance was still arguing with everyone. Unfortunately, they were arguing back, and they were far less kind in his head. Just as he was starting to think he needed a distraction, something to quiet everything in his head, his hand brushed along some tall seaweed.

Lance found himself at his not-so-secret-anymore grotto. In spite of knowing that his sister knew about it now, Lance couldn’t help but want to go in, content to console himself with all his knick-knacks and thingamabobs. More so, it would be easy to distract himself by cleaning up the mess that had been made by that thief and figuring out what exactly they’d made off with.

When he slipped into the grotto, however, it was like being dropped out of a cold and turbulent current into colder, quieter waters. The grotto, which only a day earlier had been crammed to the brim with all sorts of delightful oddities, was completely empty. Lance sank to the ground in despair. Years of collecting and appraising--gone.

It was too much for Lance to fathom. Where only a moment before he’d felt filled to the brim with frustration and misery, now Lance felt empty. There was no question in his mind as to who had done this, and why, but he still couldn’t quite comprehend it. He wanted to storm back to the palace and demand explanation, but he was certain he already knew what he would hear.

So instead, all Lance could do was drape himself across a nearby rock and begin to weep. The sobs wracked his fatigue-ridden body so violently that Lance hugged himself tightly in a weak attempt to quell his shaking. It offered little, if any comfort.

Lance had been so consumed by his melancholy that he did not notice several shadows slip into the grotto with him.

“Are you alright?” a voice asked Lance.

Lance whipped around to find his grotto, his private space, invaded by three unfamiliar mermaids. They looked at him with varying looks of genuine pity. Lance turned sharply away.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Well excuse us for wanting to offer help,” the largest of the three, with a tail like a scorpion fish, scoffed.

“I don’t need your help.”

“It’s not our help we’re offering,” the mermaid with characteristics of an angler fish said.

Lance didn’t say anything, but cast a sidelong glance at the mysterious mermaids. A mermaid with a shark tail swam a little closer.

“It just seems as though you have a very serious problem,” she said. “Valued for something you don’t even want, rejected for something that’s an intrinsic part of you, and to top it all off, in love with someone you could never possibly be with.”

“But what if you could be with him?” the angler mermaid piped.

Lance frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We represent someone who could make all your dreams come true,” the scorpion fish mermaid said with a fierce grin.

“I don’t understand.”

The shark mermaid extended a hand to Lance. “Lotor has great powers.”

“He can help you.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.”

Lance recoiled from them. Lotor was a name spoken in hushed tones throughout the various kingdoms of the mer-folk. A great many stories swirled around the name, but the general consensus seemed to be that he should not be trusted. Rumor had it that he dabbled in old and dark magic, older and far more dangerous than any supposed silvertongue gift. Downtrodden as he was, Lance was determined not to resort to something so treacherous.

“No, no way, absolutely not, get out of here! I’m not interested in anything Lotor has to offer so you can just take your offer and--”

“Cool it little prince, we’re not forcing you to do anything,” the scorpion fish mermaid interrupted.

“Yeah, it was only a suggestion,” said the angler mermaid as they began to leave.

The shark mermaid was the last to leave, casting one last glance at Lance over her shoulder.

“See you ‘round, silvertongue.”

Lance sniffed, left alone in a chilling silence. The name seemed to echo in the emptiness of what he’d once had. It seemed to slap Lance in the face as it reverberated (more likely the scrape on his face was stinging again). Even so, the force of the name eventually forced Lance up from his spot on the ground, out of the cavern, and towards the retreating mermaids.

“Wait!”

~*~

“I don’t know about this,” Allura said as they swam. “He seemed so upset… Are you sure we shouldn’t give him some space?”

Hunk shook his head. “I mean, I’ve never seen him so upset, but he hates being alone for too long. He’ll have cooled off by the time we find him.”

“If you’re certain…”

“I am.”

They had waited only a few moments after Lance had left to go after him. Hunk had been of the opinion that they should’ve followed sooner, but Allura held back. Lance had been more than furious, he looked positively heartbroken. That had been the last thing she wanted. She just wanted him to be safe.

Hunk was confident that they would find Lance in his not-so-secret-anymore cavern, either rearranging the mess they’d found the night before, or gathering everything up to be moved to a more secret location. Whichever it was, Hunk was sure Lance would become lonely after too long. He always did. Hunk intended to be there when the inevitable happened.

Only, it seemed, someone had beaten them to the punch.

Allura and Hunk had just made it to the edge of the field of seaweed that surrounded the grotto when not one, but three figures emerged from the grotto, followed closely by another. The two of them froze, watching the scene intently. Even at a distance Lance’s vivid blue scales were unmistakable. But who were the mermaids he was talking to?

The mermaids began to swim away. Lance followed them.

Hunk and Allura were after him with a swift flip of their tails.

“Lance!” Allura called out. “Lance, where are you going? Who are these mermaids?”

Lance didn’t even turn to her as he said, “If you must know, these fine ladies are my new friends who are taking me to see Lotor.”

“Lotor?!” Hunk choked.

Allura paled. “You’re not serious?”

Lance continued to swim.

“Lance, you can’t go to Lotor, he can’t be trusted, he--”

“Why don’t you go tell my sister?!” Lance snarled. “You’re good at that.”

Whatever Allura was going to say next caught in her throat as she and Hunk stopped following briefly. The mermaids Lance was following hardly spared a glance at them. Allura and Hunk exchanged looks. The smart thing really would be to tell someone, they thought. But if they didn’t follow Lance now, how would they possibly be able to find him again?

Allura and Hunk followed, if at a distance.

As if determined to keep up a certain aesthetic, Lotor’s residence was within the massive skeleton of a long dead whale, reinforced here and there with coral. Lance almost hesitated before going in, but the name “silvertongue” was still ricocheting around in his head. If Lotor really could help him, Lance didn’t want to waste the opportunity. He steeled himself, and swam right into the belly of the whale.

“Welcome, welcome,” a silky smooth voice greeted. “It’s always an honor to receive royalty in my home.”

From the shadows emerged several coiling tentacles, followed shortly by a devilishly handsome cecaelia with gleaming yellow eyes. Lance shivered. There was something about the way Lotor smiled that had him on edge. He had to work to keep his tail from switching about anxiously.

“I understand you have a very serious problem,” Lotor said without waiting for Lance to say anything. “A dire situation--what else would it be though? After all, you’re here for my help, and help I can grant you.”

“What kind of help?” Lance asked slowly.

Lotor’s expression did not once shift from that of polite interest, but his eyes seemed to bore right through Lance. It was unnerving, to say the least.

“Any kind, really. I have a great many abilities at my disposal, so anything you ask for, I could very likely give you,” Lotor explained, gesturing with his tentacles instead of his hands.

Lance must’ve looked skeptical, because Lotor continued, “I know it sounds too good to be true, but I assure you that it is my mission in life to help poor, unfortunate souls such as yourself. Picked apart for what others want, cast out for what they don’t, but never, ever good enough… Does that sound about right?”

Lance didn’t reply. Lotor placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Trust me when I say I’ve been there,” Lotor assured him. “That’s why I do what I do.”

“So then,” Lance began. “What are you suggesting?”

Lotor grinned wide. “Well, you are fascinated by humans and everything they do. You want to convince mer-folk that they aren’t all that bad, but no one wants to listen to you, not even those closest to you.”

Lance frowned.

“Not only that,” Lotor pressed on. “But you find yourself hopelessly smitten with a human prince. As such, the only solution to your problems is to become human yourself.”

Lance blinked, completely caught off guard by the idea.

“Become human? Can you actually do that?”

Lotor’s eyes flashed with something between mischief and interest.

“I did say I could do anything.”

Lotor steered Lance over to a large, eerily glowing basin that looked like the claw of some monstrous creature or other. He took on a business-like tone as he began to explain what his offer entailed.

“Understand that this will not be a permanent solution. The potion I can make for you will turn you into a human for three days. No more, no less. Once you are human, what happens next is up to you,” Lotor said as he peered into the basin. Lance peered in to, but whatever Lotor was looking at, Lance couldn’t make sense of it.

“In order to remain human permanently, you have to get your prince to fall in love with you--that is, he has to kiss you before the sun sets on the third day,” Lotor went on. “It should not be any ordinary kiss, however. This must be the kiss of true love, which is the most powerful of all magicks.”

“True love…” Lance breathed.

Lotor glanced at him. “You don’t think you can manage it?”

“Of course I can!” Lance lied to both Lotor and himself.

“Very well,” Lotor said with a nod. “Should you fail to get true love’s kiss from your dear prince, I’m afraid the consequences will be… unfortunate, to say the least.”

“What’ll happen?”

Lotor leaned over the basin towards Lance, the glow casting stark shadows on his face. “If you do not get true love’s kiss before the sun sets on the third day, you will turn to seafoam.”

Behind him, Lance thought he heard someone yelp, but did not dare avert his eyes from Lotor. He clenched his teeth, trying to not show how unnerved he was.

“Turn to seafoam? Isn’t that a bit… extreme?” Lance ventured.

Lotor shrugged. “It’s an extreme thing to turn a merman to a human. As it is, that which belongs to the sea will always return to it, especially you of all mer-folk, little prince. Were you an ordinary merman perhaps I could find a workaround, but alas, the ocean holds you dear. Unless your prince proves that he holds you more dearly, you will turn to seafoam.”

Lance turned the idea over in his head, weighing his options.

“If I become human,” Lance started slowly. “I’ll never see my family or friends again.”

“Unless your becoming human convinces them to come out of hiding,” Lotor suggested. “After all, they do care about you, don’t they?”

Lance didn’t answer that question.

Lotor resumed, “Now then, regarding the matter of payment.”

“I didn’t bring any--”

“I’m not talking about any conventional method of payment,” Lotor interrupted. “Just a trifle, really, something you wouldn’t even miss.”

“What is it?”

“Your voice,” Lotor said simply.

“My voice?” Lance repeated, touching his fingers to his throat. “But without my voice, how can I--”

“There are more ways to communicate than with words. And after all, you wouldn’t want that pesky silvertongue gift to trick your prince into believing himself to be in love with you, would you? That’s not true love at all.”

As he talked, Lotor began throwing all manner of things into the basin. Lance was entranced as the glow of the mysterious liquid changed different colors spitting and hissing and emitting bubbles of colors that were contrary to the color of the liquid.

“You want someone that loves you for you, right? Not some vague magical gift that you aren’t even sure is real?”

Lotor threw an entire jellyfish into the brew, causing it to boil threateningly.

“I hope you didn’t come all this way to dither. I’m very busy, you see, as my skills are in high demand.”

A plume of bubbles like those from a volcanic vent erupted from the basin. Lance recoiled from the heat radiating from it. Lotor pressed ever on, producing a shining scroll as though from thin air.

“Make your choice, little prince, go ahead, sign the scroll.”

A quill of fishbone manifested in the water just next to Lance. He took it unthinkingly and poised the tip just over the scroll. He hesitated.

“Unless, of course, you’d rather continue living your life as the host of a magical gift and nothing more.”

Lance squared his shoulders, his expression set.

He signed the scroll with a flourish.

Lotor snatched up the scroll, which shimmered brilliantly and then disappeared in a flash of light. The basin changed color once more as Lotor began murmuring words that Lance couldn’t quite understand or even make out. The water around them began to swirl menacingly like an eddy between currents. Lance’s heart pounded almost painfully against his ribs.

The chanting grew in volume, but Lance didn’t understand what Lotor was saying any more than he had before. The light followed the current of the water, blinding and dizzying. Lance wanted to shut his eyes against it, but found that he couldn’t look away.

Wispy tendrils curled up from the basin, looking like ghostly, unnatural hands. They mirrored the motions of Lotor’s hands as he gestured towards Lance. Lance drew away from the hands at first, every inch of his skin prickling as his instincts warned him of danger. He’d agreed to the deal though. He couldn’t back out now.

Lance held himself perfectly still as one hand slid into his mouth, feeling like a rush of icy cold air forcing itself into his throat. He coughed and sputtered around the sensation, but he was unable to escape it. When the hand withdrew, it held a gentle, radiant light of deep blue. Lance gasped, but no sound came out. His hands flew to his throat as the light of the basin changed once more.

The current closed in around him. Lance shut his eyes tightly as his entire body went too cold, and then far too hot. His tail felt like it was being ripped in two. His throat was already raw from silent screams. He drew a breath to continue screaming, only to find that he couldn’t.

Lance couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t swim.

Everything burned, Lance couldn’t make it stop. He felt hands grabbing at him, dragging him up, and the pressure all around him began to ease.

Lance broke the surface of the water with a ragged, silent gasp. His nose and throat burned in unfamiliar ways, and the saltwater stung at his eyes. He looked from side to side, seeing that it had been Allura and Hunk to bring him to the surface. Unthinkingly, he mouthed his thanks at them, and then remembering what he had given up, simply hugged them tightly and hoped they understood.

“Are you alright?” Allura asked him.

Lance nodded.

“Let’s get you to shore,” Hunk said. “You’ve only got three days to make that prince dude fall in love with you, and I bet you anything that today counts as the first day.”

The sun was almost at its peak. Lance made as though to push against the water with his tail, only to find extra and unfamiliar limbs where his tail should’ve been. A thrill ran through him, and Lance couldn’t wait to reach land.

Even with both Hunk and Allura carrying him, it took some time for them to reach the coast. Lance nodded off more than once. Several times he accidentally dipped his face into the water, only to be rudely reminded that he could no longer breathe water. As soon as they spotted land, however, Lance was completely awake and buzzing with excitement.

When they reached shallow waters, Lance felt the sand, but it felt completely different. Allura and Hunk set him down near some rocks and looked at him, almost expectant.

Lance lifted a long, slender leg out of the water. His eyes widened. Experimentally, he wiggled the toes on the foot, grinning hugely as he felt the sensation, proving that these toes, these legs, this very human body, was indeed his. Lotor had done it.

Lance was human.