Ok so I got this from some fanart and couldn't get it out of my weee little mind. Soooo this is a world where magical creatures exist and are known but they are segregated, not only from humans but also from one another. The equal rights is just now becoming in effect. That being said there are some differences still being worked out and tempers do tend to flair. Such is the case with Merman, Lance McLain and Avio-human, Keith Kogane.
Keith sat at the bar, his wings were tight against his back as he nursed the beer that was now, way too warm. He kept his wings hidden despite the newly passed Equality Laws. He lived in South Texas. The laws had a way of taking their sweet time getting here and if it was exposed that he was an Avio-human then he would no doubt be booted out on his tail feathers.
He hated the hate and he hated the segregation but he also had learned early that being Avio-human made him luckier than most. He could tuck his wings against his spine and look absolutely human. He was luckier than most in that aspect. For example the merfolk couldn't leave the water, the centaurs were of course half horse, fauns, harpies… the list was endless. Succubii were also pretty easy to hide but they had the disadvantage of being in a constant state of wanting to bed someone which, if they could control they could hide but they couldn't always.
Of course he was double cursed, also having a Galra for a mother. After the trade had opened between other worlds it wasn't uncommon for aliens to be roaming about. When they had first arrived they had been given the same privileges as humans if full blooded. Half breeds were under similar segregations as the Magics as humans called them. He could somehow hide his Galra genetics also, as long as he didn't come in contact with any of the Quintessence products that the Altaen's and Galra so often used in trade.
With one last brooding sigh he stood and tossed his money on the counter to pay for the beer before heading out the door of the bar. He shoved his hair back and sighed at the feeling of the warm sun on his face. He wished he could just spread his wings and let the sun soak in on them. He missed living in the Mesa's and alone, where he could fly and feel the sun on his warm red feathers. Why the hell did he move to Corpus Christi again? He wondered that as he wondered down the street.
His shirt and jacket were confining his wings painfully. He could have gotten the shirts made for his wings to extend through but he preferred the easier life of not having to be looked down upon, unlike the fae who couldn't hide their delicate gossamer wings, folded against their backs like Avio-humans could.
The scent of the ocean blew over the city and while he wanted to fly over the mountains he figured the ocean breeze would be close enough. He didn't want to reveal his wings around humans and he wanted to stay here a while without being ridiculed for being different and yet he wanted to fly. He wanted to touch the sky like he used to be able to.
He wondered the streets of the town until he made it to the bay. He knew Mustang Island would be the best place to see the ocean but it was crawling with tourists and he did not feel like dealing with that. He didn't like people in the first place. The only reason he was here was because of Shiro. His human friend had been in an accident and had a new Galran prosthesis, he was getting used to. Keith was helping him adjust and trying to keep his own self afloat as he tried to search for a job so he could stay close to his "brother."
He sighed as he stepped onto the beach and took a deep breath of the salty sea breeze. Where he was, was too close to the harbor to have been flooded with tourists and other humans, and it smelled so strongly of fish it almost turned his stomach. But it was secluded, he was the only one here, so he could stretch out his wings and let the breeze waft through his feathers. It wouldn't be long but it would be enough to give his cramped sweaty wings a break from being cooped up against him.
000
Lance was swimming alone. He hated swimming alone but his pod had stayed in Cuba. It made sense really, he was going to study in Texas and stay with his Aunt Rosa, he didn't need his family following him just because he was lonely. It wasn't like he was going along the roads like humans or ground based creatures. The Gulf of Mexico was easier to cross in a straight line than around the continent.
What would take someone from Miami, Florida almost a full twenty four hours to drive took him a lot less shorter of a time to swim. He could swim faster than a lot of cars could drive for a longer time the closer to the surface he swam with the lighter water pressure. Plus he could catch the currents and ride them to rest.
So now after about six hours instead of a car's twenty plus hours, he was swimming along the Padre Island shoreline, headed for the bay where he was supposed to meet his mother's sister. He was tired, he wouldn't lie, but he wasn't completely exhausted. His blue fins were propelling him through the water at a much more leisurely pace now and he couldn't help but glance up when he got to the "Magic's" part of the beach where his people and other with magical creatures were "allowed" to sunbathe.
Lance flipped and winked at a couple of mermaids swimming up to catch some of the warm sun's rays on the beach and some of the sandbars. They giggled as he swam by and waved their fingers at him flirting back. One of them swam over and swam a corkscrew around him.
"Hi," she crooned, "You're new here." Lance could practically feel her song, but since he was a merman it didn't have as strong an effect on him as it did on the people of the land.
"Yeah, just got here from Cuba," he said adding a Spanish flair to "Cuba" to impress, "The name's Lance."
"Nyma," she crooned, tracing a finger over his chin. Lance grinned and felt his face turn a little red. "Can you stay and hang out with us?" she purred, her song filling the water and his head.
"I would love to," he said, "But I gotta go meet my aunt first. Maybe I'll come back by sometime."
"See that you do," Nyma smiled with a wink before swimming back to her friends. Lance watched as she swam away with a happily dazed look on his face as he continued on toward the bend of the island.
He hated how humans and land dwellers ships messed up the sweet smell of the ocean but he understood why they had to do it. He also hated the fact that the only real estate his aunt could afford was in the Bay where it reeked the worst. In Cuba his family, though poor because of all the mouths they had to feed, was on the reefs, beautiful and protected because of the many endangered species that lived there.
Aunt Rosa, however, was married to a fisher who helped humans catch fish in their nets with others in a pod similar to dolphins, which they sometimes used in their work as well. Aunt Rosa mostly stayed home with Lance's little cousins, her family almost as big as her sisters, but then most merfamilies were big. The ocean was a much more unforgiving environment than the land even with the evolutions that the merfolk had made over the years the best assurance for survival was a large family.
He wasn't too thrilled to be spending the next four years in a musty place like the bay waters of Corpus Christi but at least the open oceans and the beaches of Padre Island weren't too far off. He flicked his tail and bustled on toward his aunt's apartment. The long tendrils from his hips and side fins as well as his head were streamlined behind him. In centuries past, when merfolk were still a "wild" people they were used for hunting and lures, the thin membrane in the peacock looking eyes (from what he had heard about and read in his schoolbooks that had been special made for merfolk) reflecting light and drawing in food, doing the same during mating season and changing colors to attract a mate. Now that was about all they were good for.
It didn't bother him that those were the only purpose for the tendrils anymore. He liked the way that they made him look and the way the "stained glass" ends caught the light through the water. He swam to the surface breeching briefly and letting his dorsal fins cut through the surface. Merfolk had differing dorsal fins, some having a single fin sprouting from their spine, some not having a dorsal fin at all, some having as many as four.
Lance had two, spreading like wings when he needed to hover in the water or gliding above the waves in like a flying fish. Sometimes, in moments of duress they could even work like wings under water and propel him faster in the water as a means of better hunting or escape. Merfolk didn't usually hunt anymore but there were still some purists and after all their hunting skills came in handy when they were hired by fishermen.
Only, Lance wasn't planning on being a fish wrangler, as he called them. No he had bigger plans. He was going to be one of the first deep sea human pilot guides. It took, not only the ability to deep sea dive, like he could, but also the ability to be able to pilot a submersible and know how to use them. They were mostly made with Altean and Galran tech so the air locks were better than those made on Earth, and more airtight for humans. It didn't make sense to some for him to go from average air pressure to massive amounts of water pressure in a shock, but it wasn't going to be an instant thing, over a period of roughly thirty minutes he would be introduced to the water pressure and air pressure because of their extended deep sea stay. Even he could only stay that deep in the ocean for only a few hours because of the pressure.
Lance dipped back into the water and folded his fins back against his back and with a little twist was off to his Aunt Rosa's. She was going to be worried as it was and he was late enough. He didn't notice the eyes his little light breech had caught as he sped on further into the bay.
000
Keith had just stretched his wings out to catch the rays of the Texas sun beating down on him when his sharp, hawk-like eyes caught movement under the water. At first he thought it was just a fish until two dorsal fins sliced up out of the water like a pair of fairy wings. (God, Pidge would kill him if she heard him say that) and cut through the water like a lazy knife, before dipping back into the water and disappearing swiftly down the bay.
He hadn't even realized he had jerked his wings in until the beautiful blue shaded fins had disappeared. Even then he didn't know why he had done so. It wasn't like the mermaid would even care if he was Avio-human. But something about those fins…
She must have been singing. That was all Keith could think, because he couldn't keep those pretty blue dorsal fins out of his mind. The sun had glinted off of the fin and through the membrane, putting the water to shame. Of course that wouldn't be difficult in the murky bay, but he felt that those fins could put the crystal clear lagoons to shame as well.
He shook his head and turned back to head back to Shiro's place. He had promised Matt he would be home in time for supper. Pidge was coming. That was always a fun experience. Keith ran his hands through his hair. It was going to be a rough couple of hours while the song wore off and those fins disappeared from his mind.
Boom! So a lot of explaining in this chapter. I love and live for magical creatures and myths and stuff so there may be a lot of explaining in this whole story. It is who I am as a mythologist. Sorry not sorry. And yea since it was just Lance's dorsal fins that Keith saw he doesn't know that it is a merman instead of a mermaid. Only mermaids have song that effect the mind so that is the only explanation Keith can come up with.