If you saw the first version of this post, no you didn't.
I haven't been able to focus on any of my wips, but I did manage to get this out somehow. Anyway, here, have my not-yet-titled and not even edited contribution to mermay with some merklance
Keith had always dreamt of the ocean. Every night he saw rolling waves, sunlight filtering through salt water to make the coral sparkle. He saw brightly-scaled fish in colors he could never find at the aquarium, smooth pale stone carved with words and images he couldn’t exactly recall after waking. He always knew where the ocean was, could scent it in the air, even where he lived with his parents just outside the city built over the desert. He dreamt of a soft voice singing gently to him in a language he couldn’t remember, wrapping him in comfort and safety. It would whisper a name to him, but like seafoam it dissolved when he tried to touch it.
His parents nurtured his love of the sea, and it surprised absolutely no one when he left for a university on the coast, one with one of the best marine biology departments in the country. Keith had left most of his old books and toys behind in his childhood bedroom, but he brought the one thing he had never been without for as long as he could remember. At first glance, it looked like a normal conch shell. A second look and the color that was just a little bit off would become apparent. As a child, Keith had taken a magnifying glass to it. He had wanted to know everything he could about that small part of the ocean he kept close. He found words he couldn’t read, but felt so familiar carved into the surface, intricate, swirling designs wrapping around the foreign letters. He never told anyone what he found, keeping it a well-guarded secret.
He was dreaming about the words on the shell again early one morning in his college dorm. He wasn’t alone this time, something that had never happened before. He couldn’t see the other person, but he knew they were there. They were saying something, and Keith had to strain to make out the words through the salt water he was floating in. Even if he could hear the separate words of the rolling, melodic language, he couldn’t understand it. It felt to him that he should be able to, but the speaker was too far away, too muffled for the sounds to make sense. He woke with a start only seconds before his alarm went off. The muffled sounds played on a loop in his head all day, and try as he might, Keith still couldn’t make sense of them. He was so distracted, he ran into someone.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled, but stopped, hearing the same language again, the same soft sounds like ocean waves. He looked up and into the intensely blue eyes of someone he didn’t know, but felt as though he should. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
The stranger looked startled at the collision, but didn’t move. He repeated himself. His volume was low, voice soft, but the words carried. The same words Keith had heard in his dream.
“What is that? Key…what? I know I’ve heard that before.”
“It means ‘home’,” the stranger said. An odd sadness passed over his face. “You don’t remember do you? I’ve come to bring you home.”
Keith froze. He knew, knew, that that was what those words meant. A long-buried moment flashed through his memory, one of him on the beach, tightly clutching his conch, saying that word over and over to his parents, who looked utterly bewildered at it. No, at him. They were confused by him. And all he wanted was to go home. Where was home?
“That ‘key’ word. I’ve said it before. A long time ago. I…I think I might be adopted. I think my parents thought that was my name. They brought me with them that day. Too many humans, too many lights. How did I forget that?” He was muttering to himself, but looked back at the stranger again. “What’s my name?” he asked, needing the answer to be the one he’d heard in his dreams, spoken by the same voice that sung to him.
“Kira.”
Keith hadn’t heard that name since he was a small child. It was warm and comforting, but at the same time filled him with a longing for a home he’d forgotten. He needed to know more, and it looked like the stranger in front of him could supply those answers.
“Are you done with classes for today?” he asked, “If you are, there’s a good sushi place on the beach. I know the guy who runs it. We can talk more there.”
Keith only nodded, too much in his head to verbalize. The stranger led the way, leaving Keith to trail after him, sorting through his thoughts. Except Keith was having a very difficult time doing that, distracted by this person he’d never met, but was still intimately familiar. When they passed through the cover of the trees, Keith found himself staring at the stranger’s skin. A warm, rich tan that almost looked like it was shimmering in the sunlight, glittering gold wisps wrapping and curling over his exposed forearms, ones that echoed the ones Keith had always seen in his dreams, appearing and vanishing like smoke. Short dark hair that was carefully cut to keep his neck just below the ear exposed and looked like the softest fluffy silk. Intensely rich blue eyes that sparkled like the sea itself. There was no denying he was beautiful, but more than that, Keith trusted him completely and totally.
Before he registered where they were, they had stopped where the road met the beach. The pale sands were covered in tourists and locals alike, but that wasn’t where the stranger was looking. He scanned the shoreline, turning to head down the far-left side of the public beach. As Keith continued to follow, he realized something.
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours,” he said once they’d passed the bulk of the crowds.
The stranger gave a half-shrug. “Lance works for now. It’s close enough.”
“That’s not your real name, is it?”
“It’s as much my real name as Keith is yours.” Before Keith could point out that he had never mentioned his name, Lance continued. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time by human standards. Nothing for us, although it felt like an eternity. I knew your human name, and where your halls of learning were, but I had no idea what you might look like now. It was the luck of sea and stars we collided.”
Human name. In a moment of desperation. Keith had asked Lance for his own name, and Lance had answered without hesitation. The pieces of his past were hazy, and remembering that day on the beach startled him. He knew that the people who had raised him, who he thought were his parents, had put him in therapy as a child for some trauma he could never identify. Now, meeting Lance, he suspected that that trauma was vary different from anything his adopted parents could have conceived of.
Once again, due to being lost in his thoughts, Keith hadn’t realized that they were at their destination. It was a secluded section of the beach he never knew was there. Looking around, he realized that there was no way to see it from the road or even from the open water without knowing what to look for. And right there, the gentle waves lapping at the sea-facing wall, was a small building, warm light glowing from the open windows. Lance led them to secluded table in the back corner, ignoring the looks they were getting from the few people there. If Keith hadn’t been so focused on where he was going and processing everything that had happened in the last twenty minutes, he would have realized the people around him were all like Lance – human enough in appearance, but there was something about them that wasn’t quite all human.
They had barely sat down when two seashell-shaped glasses of a clear, sky blue liquid shimmering with tiny flecks of gold were set in front of them, along with the absolute freshest sushi Keith had ever seen. Lance picked at it and sat back, brows furrowing in consideration before he spoke.
“Your shell. You have it with you?”
“Yeah, I do. I don’t usually, but I heard those words in my dream and felt like I needed to keep it close today.”
“May I?”
Keith carefully took the shell, wrapped in his favorite t-shirt, out of his bag, setting it on the table. Lance removed the conch with a gentle reverence, running his fingertips over its surface while looking it over. It had to be some sort of reflection from the light, because Keith could have sworn Lance’s eyes glowed for the briefest moment before putting the shell back down.
“I know how humans can be with gifts from Mother Ocean, but you’ve taken great care of it.”
Keith reached out, fingers brushing over familiar ridges and lines. “I’ve never let anyone else touch it. It always felt like it wasn’t for them to have.”
Lance chuckled softly. “It isn’t. Humans would have taken it, argued over its origins and meaning. Something like this was never meant for their eyes. This was meant for its recipient, something to be kept as a symbol of a bond.”
“Why do you keep talking about humans that way? You’re one too.”
“I’m not. And neither are you. You, Kira, are not of this surface world. You never were. You belong with us among the waves.” He paused, staring into the glittering blue liquid of his drink. “I…I’ve missed you.”
Flashes of another world, another life, overlapped one another, creating an incomplete mosaic of memories. The images from his dreams, the feeling of being fast and free in the salt water, gentle touches from webbed fingers, the walls of carved pale stone, but this time the room full of others, all there for him. In his mind’s eye, he turned, the feeling alien to a human body but so natural, only to find Lance beside him, fondness and love in his eyes. He remembered another conch shell, aqua-tinged, and carved with the same words and decorations. It sat beside the one on the table, his own in coral-stained reds. The one sitting between them right then. Keith wasn’t sure what to make of the memories, but the pull he’d always felt toward the ocean was even stronger than ever.
“I…I think…I think I’ve missed you too,” Keith said, knowing it was true the moment the words left his mouth.
Lance reached across the table, offering his hand. “Come with me. Let me help you remember who you are.”
Keith accepted, taking nothing but the conch when they left.
At the water’s edge, Lance stripped down, wading waist-deep into the water. Keith knew he needed to do the same, joining Lance with the conch. Lance guided Keith's hands underwater, the invisible carvings on the shell glowing a pale amethyst. Keith couldn’t take his eyes off it, allowing Lance to lead them both deeper, following until neither could touch the shallow ocean floor. Without warning, Keith dove under the water’s surface, never letting go of the conch. Lance knew what was coming and shifted behind him, one arm wrapped around Keith’s waist. He submerged as well, letting the change flow through him. For Keith, it was far less gentle, and he thrashed, his body too used to a human shape. Lance held on, stronger in his natural form than he could be as a human. But he’d forgotten how strong Keith could be, and struggled to keep his grip.
Keith relaxed, the burning in his lungs gone. Once he realized he could breathe again, he was able to allow his body to do what it wanted to. He stared at his hands as delicate lavender webbing stretched between his fingers, sharp claws replacing his dull nails. At first, the feeling in his lower half was one of constriction, but it felt so good he couldn’t have stopped it if he wanted to. When he dared look, his human legs were gone, replaced by an elegant coral red and amethyst tail. He looked at his hands again, realizing Lance was still holding the conch, aqua webbing and sharp claws on his hands as well. Lance’s long legs were gone, aquamarine and sapphire scales covering his tail.
The words on the conch made sense finally, bonding vows speaking of lasting love and devotion until Mother Ocean called their souls home. The pieces of memory came together, Keith remembering the ceremony binding him to Lance. He remembered the altered migration of sea creatures unknown to humans, remembered the monster – a kraken, his human memory supplied – remembered the sorceress, a deep mer causing pain and destruction for no reason other than she could. He remembered taking his bonding shell back from her twisted hands, and her cursing him. He remembered trying to get away from her, having lost sight of his mate and family. He remembered making it to shore, small and helpless, legs instead of tail and fins. He remembered wanting nothing more than to go home, and the humans who found him, mistaking his native word for home for his name, calling him Keith. Kira looked up from the shell, his mate’s eyes holding the same love and fondness they had on their bonding day.
“Laneris.”
“Kira. I’ve missed you so much. Let me take you home.”
(Skipped a couple days. Must not listen to inefficient brain chemicals that tell me I did something wrong by doing so. I am a mess!)
Day 4: Mermaids
Couple things. One, I am an anthropology geek and I go nuts for anything culture! And social interaction! So like. If you’re all for cultural shenanigans and some truly amazing and emotionally-piercing writing, go check out Time and Tide by RangoAteMyBaby. If you haven’t already. I feel like this is one of the more popular ones, but still. Exceptional stuff.
Okay three things because I just remembered another fic I want to rec so here’s How to Train Your Dolphin by Gohstwriter_Red. Good writing, emotional conflict, the Blade of Marmora as army vets in a trailer park, you love to see it.
Maybe eventually I will write the ‘merperson gets put in an aquarium’ fic that I want to see, but ALSO. I’ve been sitting on a ‘Lance gets experimented on’ idea for months. I love weird experiments, I love transformations, I love a good dose of whump/angst.
So the thought IS: Galra get ahold of him (as they do) and Haggar starts doing some fun (not fun for Lance, of course) quintessence experiments. She wants to see how far she can push the natural state of a being, how far she can warp the essence of THEM. Lance gets to watch as he slowly gets turned into a meralien. That’s about as far as I’ve got, but there you go.
