Allura frowned at the map. "Can any of you read this?"
Keith leapt onto the table, stalking towards the map, and shook his head. Shiro also frowned.
"No. Too many words."
Pidge sniggered. "It's in Latin, guys. Don't you know the difference between Latin and English?"
Keith hissed at her and jumped away, head high with disdain. Shiro smiled apologetically. "Keith can't read. And neither can I. I'm assuming you can't either, Allura?"
"Of course not," she snapped, "Who would teach a slave to read English?"
Pidge blinked. "None of you... can read?"
"I can," Hunk volunteered.
"I can't," Lance said gloomily from the tub that they were keeping him in, "We don't need to under the ocean."
Pidge sighed. "I can't believe this."
"Hey, there's no reason for fishermen to learn to read," Shiro protested, "Matt and your father were just the odd ones out!"
Pidge looked up sharply. "You leave them out of this."
"Pidge?"
Pidge looked at Lance. "What?!"
Lance sighed. "I didn't know this was important, Pidge. I swear I didn't. But I was just thinking about it... y'know, because Keith's got the brand on his arm, and Shiro says that means you're going to be eaten..."
"What is it, Lance?"
"Pidge, I'm pretty sure that your brother had the mark on his arm when I saw him."
"No. No, Lance, shut up."
"But—"
"Shut up! Don't talk about it. I'm going to find him. Alive. So just... shut up. We're going to get the amulet. We're going to find it. Then we're going to find my brother. So I need to start translating this map. Go away."
Hunk blinked. "You know Latin?"
"A bit. Give me time. Coran, are there any Latin books on this raft?"
"A few. But I have memorized a Latin dictionary. You can simply ask me."
"Great. You stay. Everyone else, scram."
Three hours later, Pidge swore under her breath, shoving her chair back from her desk and slamming her head down on the table. "This is stupid. I can't get any of this! Half of these aren't even words! And the half that are are in the wrong declension!"
Coran shrugged. "Go take a walk and clear your head."
Pidge walked outside, grumbling, and saw Hunk whittling something. "What're you doing?"
He grinned. "I'm making a code-breaker! A letter corresponds to a number, and you can spin the wheels so you can see what each of the numbers makes and—"
"That's it!"
"What?"
"Coding! Caesarian code! You move the alphabet three letters down! Makes sense, since it's in Latin, right?!"
"Um... yeah. Sure."
"Thanks, Hunk!"
Pidge raced back down to where Coran was waiting and erased her slate, moving each of the letters of the coding three Roman letters over. Now the words were making sense, and she flew through them.
"Fantastic! Great! Of course it can't be easy, ever!"
Coran peered over her shoulder. "Well?"
"Another riddle! Why did everybody have to be so cryptic?! Something about the key we seek, yada, yada, yada, in the deep, etc. etc."
"Hm."
Pidge made her way to the deck with her results, waving them around. "We've got another riddle, folks! Coran, get Lance up here."
Lance was dumped unceremoniously on the deck, and he sighed. "What ocean expertise do you need now?"
Pidge ignored his comment. "Alright, heads together. New riddle. This thing was in English and was translated into Latin, so we have to deal with cryptic rhymes, again. Hidden among the stars, this power of ours, found where blue fades to black, the key to attack, without this our key, you'll be far from the sea."
"This key is in the ocean," Lance said immediately.
Pidge sighed. "What is it with you and the ocean?! Why does everything have to be about the ocean with you?!"
"Because I know the place it's talking about!" Lance protested, "Look- the last lines, the key to attack, without this our key, you'll be far from the sea- that's all about the amulet. There's a key to this amulet, which holds the power of the sea and apparently the power of storms based on Allura's powers. But this place... it's a place in the ocean. We call it the Blue to Black Trench because of how fast the light fades and the blue of the ocean fades to black!"
Pidge frowned. "But mer-people can see in the dark. Our eyes glow."
"Okay, yeah, but... rrrrrrgh. I'm going to tell you about the different kinds of mermaids, okay? You know about the ocean blue mermaids, and the coral mermaids, and the kelp mermaids. But there are other kinds. Storm mermaids, that ride storm-waves all of the time and subsist on shipwrecks. Their tails are grey, like the oncoming storm."
"Like Taras," Pidge remembered.
"Right. They're built to skim the surface, and they're really durable when it comes to wind, lightning and rain. Not to be mistaken with them are the cavern mermaids who are found either in caverns like the one that this ship was in or in underwater caverns. Also typically grey, but sometimes brown and they aren't as sturdy."
Allura sighed. "I don't see the point of this."
"Hold on. I'm getting to it. There are also Sandbar mermaids. They have golden tails, and, duh, live in the sandbars. Then there are the Arctic mermaids, which live in the lands of glaciers, where their white tails will help them blend in with the ice; they can stand really cold temperatures. There are the Freshwater mermaids, which live in rivers and whatnot, and they tend to look a little more horse-like and have greenish-blue tails."
"Kelpies!" Keith yelped.
"Yeah, I think humans call them that. Anyway, there is a point to this, and it's the Abyss mermaids. They have dark black tails that are sometimes speckled with other colors. They are really, really sturdy. The Abysses or the Trenches are hard to breathe in for normal mer-people, like being really high up is for humans. It's also darker than the rest of the ocean, so Abyss mermaid's eyes shine brighter. Their bones are stronger to withstand the pressure, and most of them are pretty muscular."
"Get on with it," Keith snapped.
"Hold your hippocampus, I'm getting to it! I've seen a few Abyss mermaids, and they came from the Blue to Black Trench. And they... well... some of them talked about how they guarded the stars, and how it was their duty as- what did they call themselves- paladins."
"Hid in the stars," Pidge breathed, "You think that the key is in the black to blue trench?"
"I know so," Lance said confidently.
"Can you get it, then?"
"Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Were you not listening to a single word I said?! Ocean blue mermaids can't survive down there! Only Abyss mermaids can!"
"Oh, well, good thing we've got all of these Abyss mermaids with us, then," Pidge shot back sarcastically, "I was wondering what we were going to do with them!"
"Hey, don't get snappy! We can ask one to get whatever it is for us!"
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure we can just ask one to go and get the treasure that it is his duty to protect."
Shiro entered the fray. "There's another option."
Both of them turned to him, their heads whipping around so fast he worried that they'd get whiplash. "What?"
"Each of us transforms into a merman. There's a lot of us; one of us has got to be an abyss mermaid."
Lance frowned thoughtfully. "That's plausible, I guess. But I can only cry one tear at a time, and it's awfully risky to pass tears around."
"Isn't there anything else you can do?" Allura inquired, "Some kind of mer-magic?"
"Well... I could try... maybe..."
"What?"
"There's a magic that would turn you into a mermaid. But it would turn everyone here into a mermaid. And there's a really solid chance that it will fail."
"What's the harm in trying?"
"Oh, nothing much, just everyone here potentially becoming some sort of weird fish hybrid," Lance muttered under his breath so fast that no one quite had a chance to catch it, "No harm. Let's try this!"
Lance took a deep breath, and started to sing. It was wordless- just a tune- but open-air mer-song might do the trick.
To his surprise, Pidge started to join along, and then Keith- which was strange, since he was still a cat, but Lance welcomed it. The more voices in a mer-song like this, the better.
Wind swirled around them, both lifting everyone up to set them in the ocean and amplifying their voices. Everyone started to glow, and Lance closed his eyes, finishing out the song. When he opened them again, he whooped in elation.
"It worked!"
Keith hissed, and through the mer-song now flowing between all of them, Lance caught a distinct dislike of the wet, as well as a thrill of surprise and annoyance.
Lance glanced at Keith and laughed. His bottom half had still turned into a fish, and he'd grown a back fin and ear fins, as well as gills. But...
Amusement chimed in from all corners of the mer-song at Keith's cat half combined with his fish half. Keith hissed again, awkwardly attempting to swim.
A thrill of nervous excitement shot through the mer-song from Shiro's end, and Lance whirled around. Shiro's lower half was a dark, midnight black, his eyes glowing much brighter than anyone else's. He was an abyss merman.
Lance splashed his tail, diving down into the ocean and setting a mental course for the Blue to Black Trench. He streamed towards it, circling the top of the trench. They'd be waiting for Shiro here- they couldn't go down with him. Lance frantically tried to impart what plants and animals were safe to eat and what weren't, and felt reassurance from Shiro. Shiro would be fine. They just had to trust him.
Lance backed off, and Shiro smiled, swimming down into the trench. Lance gulped as the darkness engulfed Shiro and broke off the mer-song. He didn't want the others to know how terrified he was that Shiro would never come out of that darkness again.
Xxx
Lance?
Lance smiled at Allura. Her tail was a brilliant white that matched her hair, and light blue fins graced the space behind her ears. Yes?
Am I an arctic mermaid?
Lance looked her over. Probably. Why?
I was just thinking that it's strange. Living in Africa, and then being a mermaid suited for the arctic.
Little strange, I suppose. But then, it can be based on personality, too. You're used to surviving tough conditions, so you're built for cold extremes. Keith is a bit of a loner, and a bit outside of a team, so he's the kind of merman that is sort of... shunned by the other mermaid communities. Pidge... honestly, I think hers is about size because she can slip through kelp forests. Shiro... Shiro's gone through some bad things. He's even tougher than you. So he's the most durable kind of merman.
And what about Hunk?
Lance glanced over at Hunk, who was creating gleams of light in the water with his golden tail that Keith chased after like a housecat. I think him being a Sandbar mermaid just means that he should be staying on land.
Allura smiled, swimming to the edge of the abyss. I hope he's okay.
Yeah. Me too.