A word from AU!Jeremy Shada:

"Galra are like if a bull shark and a dragon mated and their love child had a baby with a mermaid. Basically."

Lance is pretty much a Galapagos seal in the first scene.

Selkies belong in the ocean. Lance should have planned for that.

"Lance, be safe." He turned to leave.

"Wh-where are you going?" The seal was warned away from following, but it was so hard to not follow the only person you had left in the world.

His uncle didn't stop, but his nephew already knew the answer. Lot was going to do what he'd been trying to do for months now. He was going to take the Galra down. It was no place for a child like Lance.

1

Between the sudden disappearance of his family and the fact it was his birth anniversary, Lance felt it justified to let the panic make him a little teary eyed.

No one was around to notice anyway. His uncle had left him in the farthest familiar area he could before swimming in the opposite direction. It was just not safe to be in the middle of the ocean anymore.

I wasn't really crying, he rationalized later. Just tearing up a little, so no red eyes. By all means, his eyes were nearly pitch black. The salt water that leaked out of them faded into the rest of the ocean.

No, no one would be able to prove that Lance was crying. He was too old to cry anyway. He was officially ten now! An entire decapheeb old.

He approached a familiar cove, hoping to at least find his siblings. Maybe they and their parents were throwing a party with the rest of his family there. Uncle Lot was just really paranoid after all, everyone knew that. Maybe his and his neighbors' homes had been destroyed on purpose because it was just the best way to surprise Lance.

The selkie surfaced, hoping to see his sisters, and his mom, and his dad.

"Teme? Ami?" he called. "Ma? Pa?"

The cave was his. Somewhat of a summer treehouse, though Lance didn't know what a treehouse was at the time. Selkies usually liked staying in the same place for as long as possible, but Lance's family tuned into the human seasons and traveled as such.

With family all over the world, it was nice to visit them every once in a while. However, the territory this cavern was in was completely desolate of sentient life. It was the most alone Lance had been.

Lance entered the cave with the hope it was all some sort of elaborate prank. Maybe a joke everyone was playing on him and his Uncle Lot because everyone knew Lot was a little iffy in the head. Galra would really stage an all-out war on the ocean. Conquest? The sea was for everyone.

The high walls shimmered in the brackish water of the cove, like most of the salt had been sucked out of the ocean water to ornate them. Nobody was there.

Lance found himself on the rocky floor, half his coat off to better taste the air. He leaned over to stare into the calm water, watching his human face crinkle. More tears escaped his eyes, disturbing the reflection in the water. Human eyes do turn different colors when they leak.

It had been so peaceful in the ocean. Who would ever want to ruin that?

Galra, apparently. Lance had played with some Galra children once. The obvious game to play had been war at the time, but now just remembering made Lance feel sick in the stomach.

What a rotten anniversary. One more tear fell into the water.

"Why are you naked?" a voice suddenly startled Lance, making the poor selkie jump right out of his skin (a very literal statement) and into the sea. He splashed around, spluttering at the sight of his first human.

Although he could still swim well enough, his movements were jerky and felt weird compared to how he usually resided in the sea. Like he no longer belonged there. It wasn't a very nice feeling, and Lance would never understand how humans could swim in the beach without a coat of their own. The ocean was kicking him out with every jerky kick his feet made.

The human was the same height as a child, but taller than Lance, and with greater shoulders. He neared the coat, poking it curiously.

"Don't take it!" Lance yelped, splashing his way onto the hard ground. "Please!"

"I'm just looking," the boy pouted, but he sat back to stare as the selkie made his way to his skin.

Lance was only a little wary. The boy looked like what selkies hid under their coat. All humans did, he supposed, but the human pulled it off in a strange and exotic way. He belonged on land, after all. Under the sea, he's probably just look like a wet human.

"Why does it look like a seal?" the human asked, frowning at the empty coat.

Lance blinked. "I'm kind of a seal," he answered, sliding his legs into the tail comfortably. Except seals didn't have a hidden body below their skin. They were a bit temperamental too, but so would Lance be if he could only flop around on land instead of walk on legs.

He swished his tail as if to prove a point, slapping the human's hand when he poked him a little too hard.

"Oh," the human blinked. "You don't look like a seal to me."

"I have to put it on all the way," Lance explained, but he didn't move to demonstrate—he wasn't going back in the water anyway. He didn't know where to go now that Uncle Lot was gone. He knew he wouldn't find anyone by himself, and right now, being alone in the sea was very dangerous for a young selkie like him.

"Why are you crying?" the human asked, frowning hard.

Lance sniffed, wrinkling his nose in discomfort. Selkies didn't sniff like this, but apparently they did when their coat was off. It was strange. The tears made him feel better, but the situation was not getting better at all, so it all confused Lance very much.

"I can't find my family," he answered, wiping his eyes with his wet arm. His face was completely soaked by the time he felt his eyes dry out, but the human didn't comment.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Don't you know where you live?"

Lance gave him a look, glancing at the water behind him meaningfully before casting his eyes back on the human.

"They're missing, I didn't lose them," he stated, slightly offended. "Some bad people stole everybody." His lip quivered at the thought, and the human gave him a very sympathetic look.

"Your mom and dad too?"

Lance nodded. "And my sisters and cousins and everybody," he added. "Except my Uncle Lot, but he's gone too."

"That sucks," the human said, and for a second, Lance felt a little better. "Does that mean your mom won't have dinner ready when you go back?"

Feeling more misunderstood than ever, the selkie nodded gingerly, frowning at the thought of going back to his destroyed home. He already knew what it looked like, he'd seen the mess that had been left behind.

Worst of all, he'd seen how the mess had been made. The memory of it made him burrow himself into his body, giving him a smaller appearance than the one he liked to give.

The human could very easily detect the melancholy, so he worked his brain to make the other boy feel better.

"Hey, here's an idea," the young human smiled widely. "Come eat at my house! My mom makes the best calzones, ever!" He paused, hesitantly glancing toward the ocean behind Lance, "You don't want to go back there, do you?"

Lance got the feeling that the boy did not actually believe he lived in the water. Humans didn't believe in selkies. Humans drowned in the water.

His first instinct was to decline. Why would he ever leave the ocean? There was always something fun to do, and selkies lived to swim. It was nice and wet and much more peaceful than the land.

At one point, Lance had thought he would become a traveler, switching between human lands and the ocean water. Now he just wanted to be safe, and the safest place he knew was in the water.

But, he thought, furrowing his brow, that's not true. His parents and his sisters had been kidnapped. Everyone he knew had been kidnapped probably. His uncle was out there, but he clearly didn't want Lance around.

"I'm Lance," he finally said, staring into the human's eyes with determination. He was young and alone, he couldn't stay in open water, especially not with the Galra running amok.

It was so scary…

For now, land was the safest place Lance could be.

It took the human a second to speak again, mesmerized by the selkie's eyes. He could almost, for a second, believe the other didn't belong on land with the rest of the humans. A second later, the helpful child grinned delightedly, standing up and offering his hand to the selkie.

"Hunk," he said. "And you're still naked…"

Lance stepped out of his coat and firmly place his feet on the ground (truly, he was naked). He quickly knelt to grab the seal skin, biting his bottom lip when the ocean water caught his eye. He usually didn't let go of his skin, and now he was giving it to a human?

He'd heard the legends. He knew of horrible stories in which selkies were banned from the ocean for being stupid enough to let a human touch their skin. Yet here he was, willing to give up his home to a human.

Maybe he could just… Lance stared at the ocean, hesitant. Just...go back.

Oh no, he couldn't go back. Not now. He had already decided.

But I will come back, he thought furiously, and very bravely. He swallowed a lump in his throat and held on tighter to his coat.

"Hunk," he said in a vague tone.

"Yeah?"

"Can you hide this from me?" Lance turned to offer the human his coat, pushing it into Hunk's arms.

"I thought you said I couldn't take it," Hunk wondered, but he still grabbed it eagerly, inspecting it with a curious eye. He admired the wet coat, grabbing it at the edges to better stretch it out.

"Well, you can't keep it forever," Lance said a bit hotly, "but- but I need you to hide it from me. For a while."

Hunk looked like he wanted to ask why that was, but Lance interrupted whatever question he would have asked with his own. "What's a calzone?"

It had an immediate effect. The boy began explaining food to Lance with stars in his eyes.

For the next seven years, Lance would come to learn more about Hunk's passion for food, but at the moment, all Lance could hear was his own thundering heart.

It sped up a little more with every step he took away from the tides. Over the years, it would learn to calm down enough to let him enjoy his stay with the Garrett family.

But his gaze would always lead him to the sea.

2

"The Garrison?" Hunk flung his legs off Lance's bed, almost dropping the plate of food on his lap. Crumbs fell to the floor and onto the covers.

"Aww, come on Hunk," Lance complained, trying his best at crumb damage control. "I sleep here, dude."

"Whoops. But, seriously? You want to work in a submarine? But you hate the ocean! You don't even like going to the beach, which is weird because you once told me that you-"

"-lived in the sea. I know. Why do you still remember that, I told you like, what? Six years ago?"

"That was the day I met a weird kid who didn't know what calzones were, of course I didn't forget! Oh, also, my family practically adopted you that day."

"They didn't really adopt me till a few months later-"

"Lance," Hunk interrupted, "you've been family since day one, buddy."

Lance fell into his desk chair, smiling softly. "Yeah. Thanks, by the way."

"Whatever, dude," Hunk played it off, leaning back into the bed quietly. It was a very well built bed. Hunk was tall and bulky, so furniture tended to strain under him.

On the other hand, Lance, though tall, was thin and better built for a sashay than a lifting session. He thought it a bit weird, looking at his long fingers when his father and uncle had been almost as bulky as Hunk.

"So," Hunk continued their initial line of thought, "Mauna?"

The base had recently been rebuilt since the sea race had begun. It was the space race all over again, but under the sea and the hometown had been dragged into the action. Which nation would be first to discover the secrets of the ocean? Of course, Columbia was all over that quest.

Lance sighed. "I know, it's probably stupid. I can barely drive a car, much less a sub, right?"

"What! No! No way, that's not what I was gonna say. Besides, people go to the Garrison to learn how to operate subs too. But, you know, you have to go to boot camp too. And, and technically, the Garrison is on Columbian soil and water, so you'd be out of Oceania. Oh god, I've heard military food is terrible, what if the food is terrible?"

He said this all in one breath, and he would have continued had Lance not thrown both hands over Hunk's mouth.

"Buddy, calm down. I love you, man, but I never said you had to come with me. You don't need to worry about the food."

Hunk deflated. He mumbled something under Lance's palm—probably something akin to, "but you're so picky,"—but he didn't want to hear it. When the teen didn't move away, he licked his hand.

"Ah," Lance yelped, jumping away, "ew, Hunk!"

"Bleh, you taste like cocoa butter."

"Duh."

"Lance," Hunk said before the other could go on a tirade about personal hygiene and outer beauty, "do you seriously want to lead a submarine?"

Lance saw that Hunk was calculating. They both knew each other well. A little too well, in fact. Sometimes, Lance wondered how Hunk didn't realize Lance didn't belong where he was.

He looked at his hands, inspecting the polished nails for any flaws. He remembered a younger face, similar to his own (a face he hadn't seen in a long time). She happily played in the dirty ocean trenches and elegantly groomed herself when fun time was over. Two smaller figures interrupted the grooming to sprinkle sand around them.

Two other familiar faces smiled down on them, inviting him and his sisters for a nice family meal.

Surrounding the happy memory was water. So much water, all of it free and open. It tasted like salt; a welcome feeling surrounded them.

Lance found himself staring out his window, where the beach showed itself off in the distance. The ocean was not too far from the house, and a thin blue line of water remained barely visible in the horizon.

"Hunk, I have to get into the Garrison. Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do." Live out the rest of his life as a human? He felt restless at the thought. Eight years had been enough, thank you very much.

Lance was going back in the water, where the Galra had possibly infested the seven seas. He shuddered at the thought.

"Okay," Hunk nodded to himself. "Yeah, okay. Me too then."

Lance turned to face him with wide eyes. "Hunk, you don't have to-"

"Shut up, dude. You know I get motion sick anyway. I didn't really want to join the space garrison. Actually, I kinda thought you did..."

Lance didn't have the heart to tell him at that moment that the type of submarine he planned to man wasn't much better than a typical fighter jet.

"Thank you, man. You know, space was actually my second choice," he admitted thoughtfully.

"Why didn't you go for it?" Hunk asked, cocking his head. "You always looked pretty interested in it. Your eyes light up whenever someone mentions flying, did you know that?"

Lance scoffed. "Yeah, well flying is weird. I'm weirded out by it?"

"But you don't like swimming and you're joining the Navy…"

"I feel safer staying in this planet, how about that? Besides, your eyes light up when someone mentions a jet, why aren't you disappointed? You know we'll keep in touch even if we don't go to the same place, you could even go to a real university." Actually, Lance wasn't sure he would ever see his family again.

Hunk shrugged. "Subs are cool too. Also, closer to home. By the way, the space garrison is in a desert! No way am I comfortable stepping away from the beach. Dry land and me will not get along!"

Lance shivered at the thought of a desert, very in tune with Hunk's last statement. How did anyone survive without water? Why would anyone choose to live in a desert? By choice!

He kindly ignored that he and Hunk almost had. Maybe in a different life where Galra didn't exist in the ocean and Lance had his parents and his sisters intact, Lance could have flown a jet.

He groaned and looked away from the window (when had he started looking out again?) to finish his meal. "I guess you know what this means," he mentioned, eyebrows wiggling with mischief.

"What?"

Lance grinned, chewing his food carefully so as to not drop more crumbs on the floor (Hunk was going to clean that). "We're going to be roomies for another two years! We could even sneak out and get to know the rest of Columbian Hamoa! Aw, it's going to be sweet! Do you think the girls there are cute?"

He could tell Hunk was already beginning to regret his decision. He'd never been much of a rule breaker, which was why Lance was a great influence on him (he thought).

3

Sometimes, Hunk found Lance scavenging through his things.

Feeling furiously desperate one night before both teens were sent off to Mauna, Lance threw himself off his bed and quietly entered Hunk's room. His door was always open, so it was an easy task.

First he checked under the bed, where he knew Hunk liked to keep whatever he didn't want their cousins to mess around with. Lance ended up touching a lot of metallic things that made him feel unexpectedly proud and disappointed at the same time. Hunk was a genius, sweet. No skin under his bed (which would normally make one happy for entirely different reasons).

Mech stuff is weird, he concluded, putting away an incomplete radar.

He continued to scour through the bed, moving on to drawers and a box piled with miscellaneous objects.

"Lance?" Hunk's voice swam with weariness. The teen stilled in a crouched position, hands still touching Hunk's underwear. "What are you doing?"

"This is a dream," Lance tried, quickly turning around to wave his hands in Hunk's direction, hopefully in a manner that looked sort of dreamlike.

It didn't work. "Go to sleep, dude. Did you have a nightmare? You can sleep in here if you want, just stop making noise."

Lance straightened in offence. He was being totally quiet! The definition of sneaky! Besides, he knew better than anyone how to appreciate naps and one's beauty sleep, there was no need to tell him, of all people, to go to sleep!

Except, maybe there was this night. Lance glanced at Hunk's alarm clock and winced. It was way past any sane person's bed time. Closer to morning, really.

"Sorry," he apologized quietly, looking down at his shuffling feet. "I just…"

Hunk's sheets ruffled as he sat up, but Lance didn't look away from his bare toes. Toes were so weird. He wiggled them.

"Are you looking for something?" Hunk asked, sounding more awake.

Lance almost jumped at the opportunity to tell him what it was that he was missing.

He almost confessed that he'd been looking for something for almost six years, and that sometimes, when he looked out the window for too long, he couldn't help but wander into rooms in the house that he thought could have that something.

He almost begged Hunk to tell him, right then and there, where that something was, to tell him what he'd done to it.

But he had given Hunk his seal skin when the human had been too young to care about it. Lance himself had been young and naive enough to let go of his skin with only a few second thoughts.

Lance took a deep breath.

He smiled and said, "Nah, man. Just stressed about tomorrow."

Hunk complained that that was no reason to come bother him. Also, it was already tomorrow. He should just go to bed and make sure all his things are packed. "Just be quiet, I don't want mom to yell at us."

"Nighty night, Hunk," Lance gave him one last grin before exiting the room, pretending to find himself amusing. Once he reached his own bed, he sighed to himself and looked out the window.

He hadn't seen his coat since the day he's given it to Hunk and told him to hide it from him. It was the one thing keeping him on land (or rather, away from the water), and Lance knew his decision should not be regretted.

He liked land. It was very nice and inviting. Sure, it was a strange brown and green compared to the ocean, but that was superficial.

Land was dry too.

Lance groaned into his pillow, forcing his gaze away from the faraway ocean. After six years, he had no doubt Hunk had thrown away his coat.

Lance would never go back to the ocean as a selkie. He just had to get used to that.