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Disgusting is the only term he can grasp at that would perfectly surmise the situation Lance finds himself in.
He should have listened, he realizes now. It was simply a matter of listening and understanding that there were places he should not venture to, should not swim idly to in hopes of finding glowing treasures or precious food for their slowly growing shoal. Lance, for all his experience of guiding himself through their homes in the reefs and kelp gardens, couldn’t have imagined that a simply solitary trip would turn into this.
Shiro, with all his bite marks and scars from various fights with other predators, dismayed him with warnings that now resound heavily in his own mind, chiding Lance for not following his leader’s perceptive reasoning. The colder waters, the sinister depths, and the humans that had settled with their clear rings and their metal discards all wove troublesome scenarios for their shoal. Lance’s fins had twitched at Shiro, whose own tail had swung idly to show off its latent power (the blue fin wants to apologize for the slight disrespect). The motion was simply to remind Lance that he could be gotten to quickly if need be, but the whole damn point was not swimming out into the depths for a hunt in the first place asking to instead be made prey.
But, humans fascinate Lance and his companions to a degree—Hunk, with all his tentacles, could gather Lance’s findings closer with ease as he inspected his friend’s findings with such glee. Pidge would always slither closer, eyes watching with mirth as Hunk and her would name the humans’ trash. Clearly, having lived centuries within the reefs and kelps had given them a long-drawn sense of humor. Finding delight in their laughter, Lance wanted to find them new treasures to catalog and gleam over; it made the cycles not so boring, honestly.
Humor did not find Lance here, his blue eyes shut tight with the effort to free himself. Nothing was out, not a shark, not even a lonely tuna to be found. Lance didn’t understand it, couldn’t conceive why nothing was around. The ocean, expansive as his home was… was filled with so much life. Where were other creatures? Did they truly not reside or pass through these waters?
The clear string around his tanned neck grows tighter, threatening to close his sludge-layered gills. The anticipation is damn terrifying, if not also retching, making Lance’s immobile arms shake with wanted purchase to feel right again. His throat closes over the bile that threatens to surface; he can’t lose his last meal and risk starving either.
With slow, unsure strokes of his resplendent tail, Lance drifts while the fading light of the surface shimmers along his scales. Lance curses at the sound in his own head again, swears he can recount his shoal leader now because yes, Shiro would mutter with a slight inclination of reluctance, Lance is quick, capable of agility and grace to take down larger prey for their meals. The but, the continuation is what might would have saved Lance from this fate had he just damn listened, as Shiro would carry into the truth; Lance does not intimidate, he does not exude danger or authority. His tail, while strong, does not have the latent dominance Shiro possesses nor does he have dangerously abrupt poison like Keith.
The currents churn around him, thrumming noise the only consolation Lance has out in the open. The debris from the human sinks down to the sand far, far below, distracting his eyes from seeking any hope to find any ocean life that wouldn’t be looking for an easy meal. He’s called out towards the direction of the reefs several times, but what if Shiro hasn’t heard him? Should he sing? No, the thought comes, so instantaneous that it burns traitorously, he cannot sing.
To sing would be a death knell.
His gills flare along his neck to provide him some slight destress; the thought of drowning, of dying in such a way is sickening. Lance would almost curse the humans, but again… Shiro did tell him not to wander off into areas they haven’t discovered together. Lance is just simply the idiot that got caught in this. Perking slightly, he hears the faintest of whales out, but when he peers out across the ocean, there is naught a shadow to be seen.
To his dread, the sun is fading.
Shoulders hunching in, his tail curls idly about. Shiro is surely on his way, probably with Keith in tow. A secretive smile tugs at his lips, Lance believing he can hear the huffs of Shiro’s mutterings so clearly in subspace of his own mind. Furthermore, Hunk and Pidge are probably watching the home in the reef as the two warriors of the shoal swim out, sorting out the shells and observing for any predators that would disturb or harm them.
It’s just… so very quiet. How can the sea, his mother, his birth place and one day his death bed, not be singing to him? Calming him?
In spite of the silence, something answers; there’s a sound, a slight scrape that’s almost painful to hear, somewhere out in the depths.
The horrifying moment, the one truth that clamps at the base of his spine, is that Lance doesn’t know what the sound is; he’s never heard it before, even for the cycles that he has existed and swam about in glee or in hunt, he has never heard something so sharp and grating. It lights a cold fire in his core, stomach tensing on instinct alone, as though nature tells him herself this sound is by far not a good thing.
Swim away, the instinct scream, millions of cycles of evolution ring out in his head, a mantra necessary for assured survival, swim away!
Grunting lowly, Lance’s struggles continue, trying to keep the clear string from his gills because he refuses to die such a pathetic death despite the death noises approaching. Only idiotic fish in their first cycles die with their gills closed against their will, and despite his current position, he’d like to bestow upon himself the kinder opinion that he is a tad bit smarter than that. Lance has proven himself by outwitting enemies or taking down larger pretty around the reefs before, impressing even Keith a monstrous tuna Lance had brought to them. Every ounce of energy and mental prowess spent had been worth it simply for Shiro to gift him with a soft, encouraging smile as the elder pat his shoaling on the head.
The scrapes, though, are near deafening now, scratching at his senses and tearing at any thought of getting away. He’s dead, he’s surely dead, an easy victim because some dumb human dumped this stupid string into his home waters along with that nasty sludge. Now, there’s something coming and the sound, oh by the sea, the sound is like bone grinding together, taut and sinister, so very, very deadly, ready to cut and to carve.
Then, just like that, the tone-high grind ceases.
Lance opens his eyes, having not realized he had darkened a sense at all. Ocean blues flit about, the ocean silent again despite her soft churns, empty.
A shadow breaks into his peripheral vision; Lance’s own scales nearly crawling out of his skin when his blues meeting another’s blank whites. Every cartilage, every joint, every scale stands on end, tight, scared, and utterly motionless. Ages seem to pass in a breath of second, fear the only wracking sensation known. A voice, low and so full of age that it’s full of sand and rust, speaks.
“What a pretty thing I have found. Dirty though.”
The first thing that screams in Lance’s head, once the first few moments sink by, is that there’s armor around those eyes and that form the head, sharp bone in place of teeth. The sight alone induces a sense of cold dread wafts down his spine, catching on the edge of each vertebra. His ancestors, long decayed and gone, knew this one, he thinks, this beast that grinds and that stalks.
It’s an ancient, one of the armored ones. A monster.
The shadow hums as though time is meaningless, but then again, this one must have seen cycles upon cycles, currents upon more currents, so infinitesimal compared to his shoal’s lifespans. It does not even swim, but rather slinks through the water, large gray hands catching at Lance’s pretty scaled hips, brushing off some of the offensive sludge.
“I thought pretty things only lived in the shallows.”
Shiro is suddenly forefront, his arms crossed around his strong chest. The vision is so stark and so present that Lance wonders if he’s simply drifted off into his own dreamland in the wake of a seeing a horrific beast. “Stay in the shallows,” Shiro warned him, stern and worried, “only stay in the shallows.” Shiro would only say that because he comes from the open depths, the colder waters. The shoal leader has fought and scraped through countless encounters, all displayed by the lacerations along his tail and torso. The scar on his face is always the one Lance wants to know the mystery of, but it’s a tale that Shiro refuses to tell. However, when he thinks no one sees the pain on his face, the name Sendak whispers from Shiro’s lips.
“I…” Lance starts, his voice weak and laced with fear so profound every inch trembles. Armored ones weren’t supposed to even exist anymore, having thought to have died eons ago. Their hulls and bones should be dust in the sea, swirling through the currents, long forgotten. The tales of them were horrors of their own, grand fairy tales contrived to keep little ones away from the waters of predators because what little fish would go where bones sing in agony in search of another victim? But this one, this ancient shadow, is very much real, as the hands lightly claw at his scales determine. In a terrifying revelation, Lance feels as though the fingers along his vulnerable state are searching for soft, untouched expanses of himself.
The great beast’s jaw unhinges slightly, the knife-like bones grinding ever so deftly. Frightful is the sight alone, and the sound is near mind-shattering. “Speak, little one.”
“I… I can’t move.”
The beast does not laugh, and he does not speak. It may ponder, but only for an agonizing stretch of time. Instead, the bones of his jaw shift to hollow out what Lance can only call a ravenous smirk.
It’s the most terrifying thing Lance has ever witnessed.
“Can you not, little one?” the voice alone invades into every inch of Lance as the armored beast circles him, his own tail covered in armor thick and aged in contrast to such a pretty one. As the beast circles its prey, Scanning the grim thing, the blue fish sees every scratch, every teeth mark, every moment of age this monster has endured. Lance cannot win, can’t even tease the thought of it. In half a current, maybe less, his remains will sink fathoms deep as this thing satisfies himself on resplendent blue morsels.
A bone tooth nuzzles against the side of his prone neck, dangerously close to a slit of his gills. Those hands, they slither along his form again, running the ridges of his ribs, slight claws catching at the strings that confine the smaller frame. A chuckle then, so deep it shakes the trenches down below. “Praise the humans, my own children… that they have made a pretty one like you so easy for me to find,” it croons, dark and sinful, as a hand plunders back down to touch Lance there to shake out a gasp. The touch shocks him, sends the fear railing up and roaring, “and one untouched at that.”
Lance writhes in the hold, crying out for Shiro, for Keith, for Hunk, for Pidge, for anyone, anything that would come and free him from this monster because it’s going to kill him, eat him whole. Helplessly, all Lance can bring himself to do is his tail as hard as he can strive, slamming it against the armor of bone. The act is hopeless, more painful for Lance that it is for the armored one if the pleased grunts are indications. At Lance’s fight, it only laughs, ancient and victorious, every sound and movement so precise in candor.
Does no one hear him? Lance screams and screams and screams, even sings in fear before a hand wraps around to silence him, the wrinkled palm pressed tight against Lance’s full lips. The taste alone makes Lance wish it was simply the humans’ sludge trapping his mouth instead, bitter and foul and overpowering.
In finality, the beast wraps his armored tail around Lance’s, almost as if to comfort and calm. The calm is cast away, Lance’s eyes wide open to stare up at the surface above, voicelessly begging, please, please, if he should be saved, be saved now when this ancient could take him so disturbingly.
The smaller one’s spine tightens, every nerve bristling at the death blow he’s given in the softest of ways:
“None will hear you again, pretty one, for you are mine… and I have been lonely for ages.”
The sun is gone now, leaving only the dark abyss of a dismal ocean, as a blue fin sinks with an ancient beast, the grinds of bone teeth accompanying them down, down, down into the depthless void.