Archive of Our Own ^beta

Allura pulled up her silver sleek Toyota next to Coran’s bright red mini cooper. She turned down the keys and shivered inside the car. It was early in the morning, the grass still glossy with dew next to the parking lot and heavy mist gliding in between the buildings. The sun hadn’t even come fully out yet. The clouds in the sky painted oranges and pinks, while the dark blue of the night slowly disappeared.

Grabbing her bag and winding her scarf closer around her neck, Allura stepped out of the vehicle and made her way over towards the back entrance of the Altea marine centre.

Lotor liked to joke around by calling it “the Castle”, mostly because of its shiny white walls and large towers that stood on top of the construction. He didn’t much like it when she called Dabizaal “the evil overlord ship” in return. “Just because my father decided to coat the facility in a much more pleasant colour so to say, doesn’t mean you can immediately start calling it malicious.” he would spit towards her. Lotor and her did these small bickerings a lot lately.

Shoving her pass against the operator, Allura made it through the door when the light finally turned green, leaving behind the cold morning for the more pleasant temperature inside the facility. The hallway she just entered was small, but functional with a couple of chairs and lockers only used for staff members. She quickly shrugged off her coat while clocking in at the same time, draping her jacket together with her scarf over one of the recliners.

Opening the door, she made her way over towards the main area, where she was met with the smell of chlorine and sea salt. Large tanks illuminated by blue lights filled up the room, casting dark shadows upon the ground. She saw some tails scampering away as soon as they saw her, probably hiding between the seaweets. Most of them didn’t like to show themselves around humans, probably because of the way they’ve been treated. It made her feel goosebumps just thinking about how some of them came into the rehabilitation centre.

She crossed the large grounds quickly to the tiny office with the security room next to it, which was tucked away between two parts of the facility. When she peaked through the window she saw Coran sitting behind his desk, nursing a drink between his palms and reading the morning paper. He wore the signature blue Altea polo shirt and some khaki pants, with a sweater knotted around his neck.

The office was small and contained only three desks with a water filter in the corner, a little fridge they used to store their lunches in and some pictures her father hung up on the wall a while ago. Allura made herself known by waving behind the glass, Coran showing his brilliant smile when he noticed her.

“Good Morning Allura! ” he said to her in a chipper voice while taking a sip of his cup. “How are you doing today my love?” Allura snorted and dropped herself unceremoniously onto the chair, tossing her bag over the counter and taking out her datapad. “I’m alright Coran, nothing exciting happened in the eight hours I saw you for the last time”.

He took another sip and pointed a finger into the air. “Could’ve been! Maybe some mysterious admirer proposed to you in that time! Or, I know one better!” He turned his office chair around towards her, braced himself and said; “Aliens”. Allura cocked an eyebrow at him. “Aliens? Really Coran?” He twirled his moustache playfully while his eyes crinkled with joy. “Of course! We’ve only recently discovered that Mermaids are real! Who says that intergalactic creatures can’t be?”

Allura had to hide her smile behind her fingers, enjoying the old man joking around while not giving in to him too much. “Speaking of mermaids Coran, how was the night for you? incidents?”

Coran’s expression turned serious for a second before he smiled again. “Nothing much to worry about princess, everything went perfectly fine!” Allura rolled her eyes. Princess had been a nickname since her childhood, and although she didn’t mind it at all, she detested it when Coran said it around Lotor. Made his argument about the Altea facility being a castle all to more convincing.

“Just tell me Coran, don’t leave me questioning” Allura said with a sigh. Probably just to test her patience, Coran drank the last few drops of drink slowly, humming a tune when he finished it. He pulled out his datapad, typed something quickly on the screen, and with a satisfying grin pressed on the device, giving her a small wink. Shortly after that a notification appeared on Allura’s display.

“I’ve sent you all the reports from last night Allura! Most of them just involve cleaning enclosures and monitoring the conditions of the patients, so nothing exciting about that. For some reason Nadia had this peculiar swelling on her tail at the beginning of the evening, but luckily the inflammation disappeared overnight.” He started rambling about the kelp vegetation doing a terrific job in the tanks, some incorrect ordered supplies and other minor data. Meanwhile, Allura clicked on the documents Coran was talking her through, skimming throughout the information and nodding when he assigned some tasks for today.

“Oh! and before I forget” Coran continued loudly. “ I’ve managed to replace Shiro’s bandages. It should last him a couple of days, but the bleeding wasn’t dreadful this time and-” Allura froze in her seat, dropping her pad loudly on the wooden table and silencing Coran in the process. “You did what?!” she sneered.

“Something the matter princess?” his voice sounded very small, and if it wasn’t for the situation, Allura would’ve immediately apologised. “You know how dangerous that was to do alone Coran! “ she bristled. “What if something happened? What if Keith-”

He immediately held up his hand, interrupting her sentence. “First of all, Keith is not dangerous Allura. He’s just overprotective. You and I both know that.” The chipper in his voice had disappeared, making way for a tone she seldom heard from him. “And second of all, if you were here a tik earlier, you would’ve noticed that Romelle just finished her shift from tonight. So to answer your concern, no I wasn’t alone”.

A loud silence fell between the two of them, the strumming of the air conditioning filling the air. Allura felt her cheeks slightly colouring. “I’m sorry Coran” she whispered quietly. They had found Keith and Shiro together a couple of months ago. Shiro had been in a bad condition, open wounds littering his body with a missing arm. Keith had been there protecting him, attacking everyone who would even come remotely close to him. Now when mending Shiro’s wounds they had to be extra careful around Keith. Nobody was allowed to enter the tank alone.

Coran let out a breath of air, and softly patted her hair. “It’s okay Allura. Just have a little bit more faith in me” he mused.

After that Coran packed up his stuff, threw his cup into the trashcan and waved her goodbye, but not before he could ruffle her hair one last time. Allura swatted at his hands, and with a laugh he reminded her quickly that Lotor would be joining her in an hour.

Which meant that she could visit the mers before he came.

She quickly wrote her schedule for today on the whiteboard that was hanging against the door, before she went over to the enclosure of their latest rescue. When she arrived, she saw a speck of yellow hiding between the rocks and Allura couldn’t help herself from forming a smile.

“Hunk” she called, careful to not touch the glass. A pair of brown eyes peeked over the stones at the bottom of the tank, curiously watching her when she waved at him.

It took a moment for him to come out, something she wasn't really surprised about. He had been brought to them a couple of weeks back, his injuries were very minor, but he was painfully afraid of them the first time. When they tried to move him to his new basin, he had been trashing and hyperventilating, shrinking back whenever somebody came close to him.

Her father had told them that he had found Hunk in a small tank in a large villa along the California cost. He had belonged to a collector, and the thought alone of that had Allura shaking in her boots.

Hunk swam up to her in slow strokes, his yellow tail gleaming brightly in the sunlight that shone from above his enclosure. Allura was happy to see that the scales along his arms finally came in. They had speculated that maybe there were some species in Merfolk that didn't have a large quantity of scales decorating their body, but Hunk didn't seem to be one of those species as she spotted the first scale at their daily meetups a couple of days back.

"Hello" he gestured to her. “Hello” she signed back. A hesitant smile formed on his lips, his tail anxiously stirring up the water. She was glad that Hunk had picked up sign language relatively easy. The clicks and thrills that the Merfolk produced was something that the human ear couldn’t comprehend. Scientist were still figuring out the overall structure of their language, so they come up with a solution to teach the mers around the facility sign language. Although, not everybody had been willing to do it so far.

Allura saw him looking around, his eyes scanning the room nervously. “It’s okay. He won’t be coming in for another hour” she let him know.

Hunk’s shoulders visibly relaxed and he seemed to be more at ease swimming in the open. He wasn’t the biggest fan of Lotor, probably because Lotor came off as intimidating and large, something that he had unfortunately in common with the collector that had taken Hunk in the first place.

She talked with him for another ten minutes, asking him about how he was feeling and if he had any complaints about his environment. Hunk was sweet and only signed that he wanted more kelp to hide in, even though Allura frowned when she heard that. “Feels safe at night” he gestured tensely, as he picked up her expression.

Allura quickly smoothed up her face and signed back to him that they could arrange it for him. Hopefully it made him less anxious throughout the day. Hunk seemed happy enough with it and shot her a big grin, swimming a small loop around the tank.

They eventually said their goodbyes with a promise of meeting up again for lunch. Allura had brought her favourite salad with her this time, and she was curious how Hunk would react to that. The young mer had been endlessly curious about the food that Allura had brought with her, and he had even tried some of it a couple of days ago.

However, when she stepped away from the glass she suddenly heard a voice.

It sang a beautiful melody, the tone reminding her of those choirs CD’s Coran occasionally played in the breakroom. She closed her eyes briefly, letting the song wash over her. The tension that she still held from the small encounter with Coran before, slowly ebbed away from her body.

When Allura opened her eyes again, she had to hold in a choke. Before her stood out the Chena hot Springs in Alaska. Thick curls of steam hovered up to the sky and snow was gentilly falling down into the pools. She couldn’t believe it, it had been ages since the last time she visited this place, let alone her childhood home in Alaska.

Allura had no time to think about the fact that she was suddenly standing in the middle of a hot spring, when somebody called out her name. Whipping around her head, she searched for the source and saw her mother standing waist deep into the water, a warm smile curling around her lips.

“Come” her mother sang playfully, and Allura all at once felt like she was five again, spending her holidays around the cabin her parents rented in the nearby woods. Dipping her toes into the water, she slowly stepped into the hot spring, the heat soothing against her skin.

Her mother was still beckoning her to come closer, her white hair dancing behind her like a cloud. She opened up her arms towards Allura, her dark skin glistening in the sun. It felt warm and inviting, but when Allura tried to come closer, something stuck to her leg in the water, preventing her from reaching her mother.

“Allura” her mother called, her equally blue eyes shining brightly and reflecting the snow surrounding them. Allura tried to shrug off the thing that was holding her back, but it suddenly sprang forward and grabbed her, holding back her arms and legs. She started to trash and scream, trying to throw it off, but it only held on to her more tightly.

She attempted to call out for her mother, who stood there silently, watching her from the middle of the pool. She began to hit the thing that was holding on to her, and cried for it to let her go. It didn’t listen to her and instead dragged her back towards the edge. With a sharp tug it tilted her off her feet and her stomach swooped from under her while they were falling backwards.

“ALLURA!”

With a gasp, Allura opened her eyes. She was laying on the cold platform of a basin, warm arms wrapped around her and a pair of glowing eyes watching her from the water. Breathlessly she watched as Lance, one of the younger mers they housed inside the Altea, showed off his razor sharp teeth and slapped his tail in agitation across the surface.

It didn’t catch up to her what happened, until Lance let out a series of notes and dove under, leaving behind an ocean of bubbles. She then started to notice that that her shoes were soaked, her feet drowning in sea salted water and her pants sticking uncomfortably against her skin.

Somebody behind her let out a sigh of relief and Allura craned her neck to see who it was.

It was Lotor.

***

They had moved relatively quickly towards the breaking room, Lotor eagerly wanting to distance themselves as far away as possible from Lance’s enclosure. Allura didn’t really complain. She still could see the curling steam clouds of the springs with her mother's inviting arms in front of her. The melody that Lance had sung, somewhere playing at the edges of her mind. It made a chill run down her spine.

Lotor had found some diving shorts at the back of a utility closet and Allura quickly changed into them, hanging her own pants over the chair near the table and stuffing up her shoes with old flyers that they still had laying around. Her datapad lay facing down on her desk, it’s screen broken somewhere along the way.

With a emergency blanket draped around her shoulders that Lotor had tossed her from the emergency kit, the two of them sat in tense silence. Lotor was leaning against the wall, his focus on the colourful magnets decorating the small fridge that stood in the corner.

Unlike Coran, he refused to wear the Altean uniform. Something about the style clashing with his own fashion. So he succumbed to wearing long sleeved designer shirts and washed out jeans. His expensive shoes were drying next to Allura's.

Meanwhile Allura’s mind was spinning. Since when was Lance able to do that? They had tons of mermaids over the years and none of them had shown any signs of singing and effectively hypnotize people. Or was it something like that? He had certainly taken her to a dreamlike state. What else could explain the vivid memories of her childhood home? She didn’t even remember the whole walk she had made towards his tank!

Some scientists had speculated about the nature of sirens, a different species from mermaids that could lure it’s prey by vibrating their vocal cords in a way that activated the neurotransmitters in the human brain, essentially making you dream. Which was exactly the thing that happened to her.

Other scientist believed it was not only the internal organs of the siren that differed from it’s sister species, but also their appearances. Lance certainly looked a little bit different from the other mermaids they had encountered so far. His tail was longer, more snake like and he had spikes instead of the soft scales that mostly decorated the arms of mermaids. Most Merfolk came in different shapes and sizes, so they hadn't really questioned it, but now…

“We have to tell somebody” Allura said softly after her mind stopped panicking. Lotor steadily ignored her and blew at a hair in front of his face. “We cannot sit still about it. Think about the damage he can cause! I was in luck that you were there to save me, but what if you were too late? What would’ve happened?”

Lotor still held his silence, and although that would cause her to only be annoyed by him, something unpleasant started to form inside her stomach. She was expecting him to scold her, making fun of her for being lured inside Lance’s trap, but the ever growing stillness alone made her worried.

“Lotor?” she questioned. His jaw tensed and he started biting on his nail, a trait he kept from their younger years whenever there was something wrong. Yet he still wouldn’t answer her. It made the gnawing feeling in her abdomen all the more real.

“Lotor” she pressed this time, her lips forming a thin line. He stopped picking at his nail and heaved a long breath. His shoulder sagged where they had been pressed against his ears, and he pushed himself away from the wall.

Not meeting her eyes he murmured quietly: “You would think foolish of me”.

Never. She thought and she immediately opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself, giving Lotor the opportunity to convey his story.

“It happened to me as well, a couple of weeks ago.” he declared after a moment of silence. Allura’s heart dropped. So this wasn’t the first time. It made the situation even more dire. “ I refrained from saying it,” he continued. “because I-”. His face folded in a way that made his handsome face almost ugly. He had a hard time confessing this to her.

“Because I was ashamed.” It came out as a whisper, something she wasn’t used to from the overly confident heir of Dabizaal. Her father had told her once about the vexatious pride that housed inside of Zarkon, something that made Alfor wanting to rip out his hair and scream for days. Apparently a little bit of that transferred over to his son.

“Remember that night you called in ill?”

Allura shook her head to chase away her thoughts, looking back at where Lotor was standing. “Excuse me?” she asked him. A tight smile formed on his face. “Coran had been making amends at that conferences in Virginia, Romelle was attending that party she had been looking forward to and you were in no condition to be working”

“There are other workers too you know” Allura quickly interjected. While yes, Romelle, Coran, Lotor and her were the head employees around the facility, it did not mean they were the only ones working there. They had a lot of mers and four people could do so many things by themselves before it became too much. “Are you insinuating you were alone?” she began. “According to my father’s policy-”

Lotor pinched his nose, silencing her. “I was” he stated.

“I thought I could handle it myself.” he breathed. Allura couldn’t stop herself from glaring at him. He rolled his eyes when he saw her scowl. “You know how it is Allura! Nights are mostly uneventful here!”. Irritation was bleeding through his words, but quickly deflated when he continued on his explanation. “I just simply hadn’t encountered for…” Lotor took a shuddering breath, gripping his stomach tightly. Allura averted her eyes.

“When I woke up I saw him watching me from the water, lingering. Like a delicious meal waiting to be eaten.” his voice was wavering and Allura could imagine the same sharp teeth that haunted her mind, being engraved into his memories. “Coran found me the next morning, and that was it.” To finalize his words he crossed his arms, staring harshly at the ground.

“Coran knew about this?” she asked breathlessly. Why would he keep this a secret? The safety of his co-workers went above everything else. So, why? “I requested him not tell anyone.” he whispered. Lotor’s features twisted. Apparently he wasn’t happy with that outcome either.

“Because of your reputation? So you would rather risk the wellbeing from everybody else instead of you own pride? How could you even consider-”

“You don’t understand!” he shouted. It startled them both and Lotor clasped a hand in front of his mouth. Somewhere in the back of the building the sound of equipment falling down was heard.

He ran a hand through his white hair and continued on talking softly this time. “Think of the consequences Allura. When people hear I’ve been running around alone and letting a situation like this happen, I can say farewell to my place here and any other opportunity I would get! Unlike you, I do not intend to take over my father’s business. I want to venture out of my own, and this,” He gestured vaguely with his arms in the air. “Isn’t helping my cause.”

Allura bit her lip. She could understand where he was coming from. They had been talking a lot through the years about their hopes and dreams, but she could hardly comprehend the measures he would take there to get to it. However, based on the body language he was showing to her, closed off and tense, Allura figured that maybe it was better to let it rest for now. She could always talk to him about it another time.

So she changed the subject slightly.

“What was the dream showing you?”

Lotor squeezed his eyes shut, breathing heavily through his nose. Allura kept her silence, folding her hands in her lap. “My mother” he said after a while. It surprised her only a little bit. Unlike Allura, Lotor’s mother still lived, working somewhere in a lab and giving her only son the cold shoulder. He never spoke kindly about her.

“For you?” he asked, most likely to avoid them from delving in too deep into his personal feelings. “Pretty much the same” she smiled back, not elaborating on it either. He answered her by one of his own smiles, although it was more a grimace at this point. Another silence filled up the room.

Allura watched the timer on her desk. Right now it was somewhere around 9 am, which meant the whole ordeal had taken place for over an hour. They had to figure out how to take care of Lance now. Under no circumstances could they be alone with him, they probably needed to wear earplugs for a couple of months until Lance was safe enough to be released into the wild. They also had to keep strangers outside for a while. Who knows what they would be doing with him once they found out what he was capable of.

Suddenly all their other problems seemed like nothing compared to their growing Siren issue and Allura let out an involuntary laugh. Lotor’s eyebrow rose up from where he was standing in the corner. When Allura continued giggling to herself he couldn’t help, but curl up the corners of his mouth just a little bit.

“What’s so amusing?” Lotor questioned after Allura didn’t really seem to stop.

"Don't you realise?"

He shot her a look. Allura had to stifle in a laugh before she continued. "Or little escape artist isn't our biggest problem anymore!" Lotor stared at her for a moment, watching her as if she had grown a second head before he too burst into laughing

Pidge was one of their youngest mermaids and had a nick for disappearing from her enclosure and wounding up somewhere entirely else into the facility. They hadn't found out yet how she did it, but it was always a relief when they located her somewhere in another tank.

"Remember when she wound up in that empty basin?" Lotor wheezed. How could Allura forget. The entire centre had been in uproar when Pidge had managed to escape again and they still hadn’t discovered her after several hours, only for her to end up stuck in an uninhabited enclosure without water. She still could recall the pouting expression on the young mer’s face.

They continued their banter for a while, discussing their odd experiences with the merfolk from the facility and their own personal stories with them.

Lotor could tell her about the time they tried to socialize Hunk with one of the older mermaids, Iverson. He was a large mer with a calming presence, which worked perfectly for anxious patients. Only as soon as Hunk took sight of him, he hid himself beneath the sand and wouldn’t come out until Iverson was removed from the tank. Allura’s heart swelled with affection for the nervous mermaid and laughed with Lotor about the ridiculous sight that must have been.

In her turn she told him about the time they wanted to take a more thorough examination with Shiro, so they removed Keith from their enclosure and paired him up with Lance. It went fine for a couple of minutes, but Allura had to jump in at some moment against all protocol to prevent the two from hurting each other. Lotor threw his head back laughing when she explained to him that the only reason they attacked one another was, because Keith apparently took one of Lance’s shells with him in order to break down the glass and get back to Shiro.

By the time 9:30 am rolled around and they were done laughing about their narratives, Allura’s stomach was aching and Lotor exclaimed that his cheeks were hurting. Realising that they spend way too long humouring themselves, they quickly cleaned up the break room. Allura tested out if her clothes were dried yet while Lotor folded up the emergency blanket and stored it away into the closet.

After she determined that her shoes were still moist and would most likely not be dry at the end of the day, she turned towards Lotor. “I guess we better should get started right? I believe our friends have been waiting for long enough.” He let out a humorous chuckle, but nodded silently.

He quietly grabbed his own datapad from his bag and made his way over towards the door, waving behind him. “Wait!” she called before he disappeared into the hallway. She grabbed Lotor’s free hand and he watched her with surprise, his fine eyebrows raising up towards his hairline. Allura felt her face starting to heat up and she tried to pull away, only for Lotor to grip her fingers more determined.

She avoided his gaze and stared at the ground, pulling a lock behind her ear shyly. “We’re going to be alright, you and me” she whispered quietly. “I’ll talk to my father about Lance, I won’t mention your name! I will tell him that it was all my fault and-”

“Allura”

When she looked up, Lotor was watching her with a fond expression on his face, brushing his thumb lightly over her knuckles.

“Thank you.”

Allura couldn’t help but smile.

End.