Little Merman - Klance Mermaid AU

Chapter Fourteen

A/N: Thank you guys for being so patient while I wrote this chapter, and I'm so sorry that it's a lot shorter than my usual chapters. I still hope you guys like it, though.

Mrs. McClain ended up having to send the twins to bed, since they kept badgering Keith with questions, saying that they had something to talk about. Keith probably wouldn't've minded, except that it was true.

"So, what do we need to do?" Mrs. McClain asked, her hands folded in front of her cup of cocoa. She had sat the three teens down at the table and Veronica was with them, aftering putting all of her younger siblings and cousins to be. The grandparents were in bed, too, saying that they were old.

"I need to learn to walk, for starters," Keith said, his leg bouncing nervously under the table. He hadn't touched his own cocoa, which had begun to turn cold. Pidge and Hunk also had mugs of their own, but Pidge wasn't touching hers, while Hunk seemed to be stress eating.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Pidge said, adjusting her glasses, "Your brain is already developed quite far enough to learn and control your muscles, so it wouldn't take years, like it would for a baby,"

"Good," Keith said, nodding and turning back to Mrs. McClain, "and I need to know where the witch lives,"

"A ew mies orth o us, jus fowow de efe of the ciff," Hunk said through a mouthful of cookies that he had found in what Mrs. McClain called the "pantry". Humans were strange.

"Hunk, swallow before you speak," Mrs. McClain snapped in a way that gave Keith flashbacks of Shiro. His mind instantly went to the time him and Adam had argued over the table over whether or not Keith could have dessert. Tears began to sting Keith's eyes at the memory and her quickly wiped them away before anyone could see them.

"A few miles North of us, just follow the edge of the cliff," Hunk managed after swallowing the cookies in his mouth, "She lives alone," Then, he went back to stuffing cookies into his mouth, worried tears streaming down his face.

Veronica, who had been quite this whole time, suddenly slammed her hands on the table and stood up. Her fingers were clenched into fists that turned her knuckles white, and her brown hair hung in front of her face, while clear drops fell onto the table.

"If she does anything to my little brother," she growled, her head bent even lower, "I will rip her into pieces until her screams are drowned out by her sins,"

Everyone around the table looked at each other, worry for both their own safety and everyone's within 100 miles. Veronica stood still, her breaths heavy and her arms shaking.

"I just want him to be safe," she whispered, sitting back down. Mrs. McClain took her by the hand and quietly lead her out of the room, leaving the other three to try and process what had just happened.

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To say Lance was miserable was to say the least. He was being tortured. Not only was he only allowed a single meal a day, just composed of a piece of bread and some water, but Haggar also kept him awake all hours. She would wake him up at midnight to do all the chores and not let him go to sleep again until 11 that night.

Haggar herself, however, only worked on potions and spells, sometimes testing the more dangerous ones on Lance himself. So far, he had grown eyes all over his body, vomited in the flower beds for three hours straight, and lost his tongue. He began to suspect that she was just doing it to see how long he would survive, but he couldn't do anything to defend himself. If he had to guess, Lance probably had a day or two left.

One day, a week into this, Lance found himself listening to Haggar as she was making one particular potion that had been taking her a good three days. She was talking to herself and scowling into the pot in thought.

"I'll be ready when he gets here," she said, twirling the green liquid around in the pot with a metal spoon, "He will come, and when he does, I will make his father pay for killing my husband,"

She turned to a rag that hung on the wall, something Lance was not allowed to touch or even look at, and moved it back, revealing a picture and a couple candles, like a shrine. The candles were purple and the flames glowed a strange gold, rather than the normal purple. The picture was of a man that seemed to have pale purple skin and a mouth full of jagged teeth. A scar ran down his left eye, which seemed to glow in the light of the candles, making Lance shiver and want to scream. The man wore what seemed to be a pirate's outfit, something Lance hadn't heard of anywhere, except in stories.

"I will avenge you, my dear Zarkon," Haggar said, stroking the picture, then she turned towards the door, causing Lance to basically launch himself into the flower beds to not get caught.

"Boy!" Haggar called, exiting her hut and looking around. Lance quickly stood up, getting dizzy for a second, and tried to play it off as if he had been trying to tend to the flowers, even though it was all for naught.

He looked up and tilted his head to the side, silently asking if she needed him to go do something. He still didn't have his voice after all.

"I'm going to town to get something," Haggar said, scowling down at Lance with a suspicious look, "You are not to go inside, but stay out here and dig a large hole in the yard,"

Lance nodded, then stood up and began to walk around the house, but was stopped when something poked him in the back, nearly knocking him over. He looked back and saw Haggar holding a shovel towards him, the tip of the handle a couple of inches from his back.

"I need this done quickly," she said, dropping it into the dirt and walking in the direction of town. Lance scrambled to get the shovel and quickly made his way around the house to start digging.

I wonder why she needs this. He thought, finding a layout lined out with string and pegs. After a few hours, realization dawned on him and he realized that it was starting to look like a grave.