swim with me? [klance au]

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"Alright girls, Lancey-Lance has gotta go back in. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" The girls giggled, waved to him, and Lance eased back into the cold ocean water, keeping his head above the water until he was safely behind the rock platform that the surfer hottie had been laying on before. Thankfully, he'd left and Lance was able to change back to mer in peace.

It was getting late- he could tell by how the sun was nearly kissing the ocean, so he strapped his satchel on quickly, flicking into a current to get back home quicker. He'd meet up with Allura and Hunk for their chore for the day, then go back home for dinner. Same old, same old.

Of course, Lance loved his friends. Allura, the daughter of the head committee member, Alfor, was treated with high respect in the community. Because of her father, who held the highest status in the committee, she didn't have normal classes like Hunk and Lance. She instead had leadership and government classes taught by her tutor, Coran. One day, she would lead the committee. She was gorgeous, and caught the eye of nearly every merman she passed with her brown skin and white hair, but to Lance, she was only a friend.

Hunk was the sweetest boy imaginable and he came from a tribe off the coast of the islands of Samoa. He had black tribal tattoos inked into the brown skin of his shoulders and back. His hair was normally tied back with an orange ribbon he found on the coast- he'd liked it because it matched the color of his tail near perfectly. He was an excellent cook, and he hoped to open up his own in the human world.

That was a small chance though. It was possible to get permanently turned into a human, but the selection for such a gift was so slight that Hunk's hopes were low. Each year, those who wanted to apply to become a full-time human had to fill out a long test, judging both an understanding of the human world, one's morals, and their academic skills.

The committee then selected three mers who had taken the tests that they saw fit to become humans and they sent them to the Dark Kingdom, where all things disturbing and cruel lived. There, they met an evil sea wizard that changed them into humans permanently. That's what Lance had heard anyways. His grandmother had tried to become a human for 17 years before she met her husband, Lance's grandfather, and stopped trying.

Lance had no desire, only curiosity, of such a thing. He liked being a merman! He wouldn't want to throw away his tail, but he thought that Hunk deserved it since he worked so hard on his meals. He'd thought about the whole process before and decided that it wasn't worth it.

In minutes, Lance was down to the neighborhood again. Instead of heading deeper into the residential coves, he veered left, past the school campus, and darted to the community center. The entrance was easy to miss, but Lance was here every day, no matter how much he hated chores. The opening to the cave was small, just a hole in the wall, and Lance wiggles through it without much trouble. Sometimes Hunk, embarrassed, requested to leave last because it took him a while to squeeze through the small hole. The center wasn't even really a center, just a natural cave that held the chores supplies and schedules for the community. About 20 mers could fit in it comfortably, but there were only a few present, shelling clams or making nets.

Lance smiled when he saw said merman talking to Shay, the coordinator. She was young, maybe a few years older than Lance, but after her mother had died, the previous coordinator, she had taken on the job and was doing an excellent job of it. She was pointing to the wall behind her, which had a giant schedule etched with a pick onto its surface. It showed the day with a list of the chores needed to be done under it. Some had been crossed out with a spray of ink, but the group's normal chore, weaving baskets, was still available.

Lance swam down to Hunk and nudged him with his shoulder, smiling hello. "Oh, hey Lance! I was just gonna ask Shay if we could take baskets for the day."