Disclaimer: I don't own characters, just the story and world I built.

This is a Mermaid au I'm jumping on board with. I hope I finish this, I'm doing this for Nanowrimo so cross your fingers.

Chapter One: Bitten

Keith was still reeling with questions and stunned shock as his body switched to autopilot and he jumped onto the creature to fight it down. The humanoid looking sea monster was thrashing and throwing people off it left and right, as the seamen tried to throw nets and rope to tie it down. The creature screamed deafeningly and sliced through the rope with sharp claws and teeth as terrifying as looking into the maw of a shark. It would have otherwise been a beautiful creature, if its anger didn't make it look monstrous.

Keith's brain didn't catch up with him till he had latched onto the creature's tail and stabbed it with a knife. In retrospect, he could have done something less dangerous.

"Keith! What are you doing?!" Shiro's voice cut through his haze and finally brought him back to viewing his actions. Just in time to get thrown off and into a create. The monster screamed in pain and turned to him, throwing itself with such force a creature from water should have been able to do that it was right on him in one jump. "Keith!"

His knife went right through the creature's throat as it bit down on his wrist and shredded his ligaments. His scream was almost as loud as the creature.

The creature didn't let go, no matter how hard he tried to throw it off him. Its teeth were latched onto his arm as much as his knife was lodged into its throat, and it was still alive. "Arghugh! Get off!" He tried kicking at its chest, but pain shot through his arm from the near ripping out of his arm, and he was sure a bone cracked. He tried again, but this time the creature pushed back, stronger than any human he had faced.

The creature let out a high pitched scream and let go suddenly. Keith pulled back, crawling away from under it, and finally saw what had stopped it. Shiro was standing above it, a spear thrust through its heart. The creature went limp, and everyone took a breath they didn't know they had been holding.

Shiro dropped the spear and fell back onto the deck, taking deep breaths to calm his thumping heart and collect his thoughts. "Keith, are you okay?" But Keith was on the deck, writhing in pain and gripping his arm like he was trying to keep it from falling off, and holding in as much of his screams as he could. "Keith!"

"Get some medical supplies!" One of the crew members yelled out, and several others scrambled about.

Keith tried looking at anything but his arm and focused in on the creature that had torn into it. Its face was empty and its eyes were void. Blood poured from the stab on its tail and the spear through its heart, tainting and dulling the scales over its half humanoid form. It would have been a shiny, beautiful kaleidoscope of pinks and reds. How could such a beautiful creature been so dangerous? And the most terrifying part? How human its face was.

"Keith, stay with us!" He hadn't even realized he was losing consciousness until his vision nearly blurred out and he felt gravity wrap itself around him and yanked him to the ground. He was caught by Shiro, cradling him and trying to keep him conscious, but his voice was becoming distant. The last thing he saw was the face of worry and the clear blue sky of a calm, peaceful day.

—

He heard his own voice calling out before the others in the room. He didn't even know what he was saying, only that he felt like he was spinning in his own head. At least the pain was gone. Mostly. It was what woke him up. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, only that it hurt.

"-eith. Keith. Can you hear me?" The face came into focus, but the rest of the room didn't. He felt relieved to see that Shiro was the first person he saw.

"Hey." His voice felt more strained than it sounded.

Shiro's worry didn't leave his face. "Are you okay?"

"Probably not."

Shiro chuckled. "Well, at least I know you still got your sense of humor."

"This is how we know you two are related. You only joke in morbid sarcasm." The voice was familiar, but he couldn't place it. He tried searching for the owner, and his eyes fell on a blonde with a barely noticeable scar on his left cheek. Wait, he knew him, but his mind was drawing a blank. Why was his head so fuzzy?

"Wha…"

"Don't try to think too hard, the anesthesia hasn't fully worn off."

"Get ready for worse humor then."

"He sounds alright to me." Came a third voice. How many people were in the room? "Can you feel anything?"

He had to think about it. There was pain, but he didn't know where it was coming from. Other than that, nothing else. "Something hurts…"

"That would be your arm." He was starting to recognize that voice. He knew this person well. He turned his head to look, but realized that was a mistake.

"Whoa, don't move too fast." Shiro must have grabbed him, because he didn't feel like he was about to topple over anymore. "You need to take it easy, possibly sleep a little more."

"What happened?" He was drawing a blank, but not enough to think he couldn't remember. He felt like he knew, his brain just wasn't functioning right at the moment.

"You were hurt, but you're okay. Just try to rest."

He wanted to shoot back that he didn't want to rest anymore, but his body must have wanted to comply. Because in the next couple of seconds, he was out again.

—

The next time he woke, he was more coherent. Unfortunately (or fortunately, considering he was a recluse), there was no one else in the room. The lights were dim and the darkness from the window told him roughly what time of day it was. It didn't tell him what day it was, though. He gave himself time to adjust to his current situation.

He started with a linear outline, beginning from how this all started.

He could finally remember the names of the people in the room with him earlier. Matt and Katie Holt. they worked with there father Samuel Holt, who was a prestigious Marine Biologist. They finally got permission to change their exploration territory to a location with deeper depths. He was part of a team that got the first priority for new discovery. His kids, Matt and Katie (who actually goes by Pidge, but he doesn't have the backstory to that) weren't necessarily in the same field as him, but their talents contributed to the mission.

Matt was a communications specialist, and was able to decode everything from radio waves to mathematic algorithms. His talent made him known for being able to come up with a translation to whale and dolphin songs. It wasn't enough to communicate with, but it wouldn't be long before he figured out how to do it. In the mean time, he was able to decode vague impressions the mammals spoke to each other with and helped to learn a lot about the ocean and its influence over global currents. He could read and interpret the sonar waves used to scan the ocean floor and the creatures within it down to the smallest plankton.

He was the one who discovered the creature.

They were first curious about its mass and size. It had dorsal and tail fins that beat vertical like mammals, but it didn't seem to have any features that could link it to needing air to breathe. The shape was odd too. Mostly by the arm-like fins coming from the side of its body.

Of course, they realized when they pulled it up that it was because it was humanoid.

The shock and awe from the sight of it when they fished it out of the sea left a knot in the pit of Keith's stomach. As much as he was amazed at what they had found, he was the most on guard when it started attacking.

A mermaid. A real, live mermaid. A creature of legend and folklore. There was no evidence of real creatures like them in the fifty years of exploration humanity has been able to discover from its ocean. There were faked footage and replicated skeletons proven to be false, so there was nothing ever solid to prove their existence.

Until now, he guessed. Unless there was some sort of conspiracy. Maybe the government was keeping them secret like aliens? He would have almost been excited if he didn't remember how horrifying that thing was.

He had to close his eyes just to push back the memories. That thing was able to tear through rope and splinter up the deck. Anyone who got near was slammed by its tail and thrown at least 3 meters away. A couple of people had been thrown overboard. He wondered if they ever got them out. Keith the the only one to grab on long enough to hurt it. He hadn't thought beyond stabbing it in the tail. He only focused on stopping the thing that was attacking them. Unfortunately, his single-mindedness zoned in on the tail, instead of the whole creature. If he had jumped onto its back and stabbed it in the neck, he might have been able to avoid getting thrown off and bitten. He didn't usually think before reacted.

He looked at the cast that was thickly wrapped around his arm. he wondered how bad it was. It wasn't amputated, so maybe it wasn't that bad? He felt like a chunk of it had been ripped off. The teeth in that thing looked as sharp as knives, reminding him of sharks. He even thought he might have seen several rows. He probably had a missing chunk of flesh where his wrist should have been. He might never be able to use his hand again.

He concentrated on his fingers, focusing of them as they stuck out of the cast, and flexed them. He must still have enough ligaments to work them, so that was good. Maybe it hadn't pulled off as much as he thought it did.

He was tired of thinking. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know what day it was. How long had he been asleep? He sat up relatively easy, holding his arm close to his chest. He would need a sling. He felt a little stiff, but that was probably from laying in bed for so long. He had no trouble standing and leaving the room.

"Keith!" He looked up to see a crew member. "You're awake! Good to see you not looking like shredded flesh."

Oh, that guy. He forgot his name but he remembered he found him annoying. He didn't even acknowledge him as he walked down the cabin hall and up onto the deck.

There was barely anyone outside but the night was bright enough with the stars lighting up the sky. They looked a little weird from this angle, and it took him a moment to realize they were headed back to the mainland.

Shiro was the Navigator. He was the best they had. Keith wanted to follow in his brother's footsteps, but that dream shattered when he flunked out of college in his first semester. He hadn't even done well in high school, but he fixed that with his GED. Shiro suggested online schooling, but there was no college that offered a degree like Shiro's with those types of classes.

He didn't want to bother with school anyway. He was sick of it. Training to be a sailor was good enough, even if he never got his certificate. If he could ride alongside Shiro, that's all that counted.

This was his first time out to sea. Before, he had been stuck with school; but since he dropped out he had free time to sail with his brother. He had been on boats before, but never a ship.

It was exciting, at the time.

"Keith, you're awake." Shiro was standing beside him, his hand on his shoulder. "How are you doing?"

"Better than I thought I would be." The ocean was calm beyond the wake from their ship. "What happened?" He looked at Shiro. "Was that actually a…"

Shiro shook his head. "We don't know anything for sure. Dr. Holt is examining it now."

"Are they going to dissect it?"

"Probably." Keith didn't know how to feel. The thought of dissecting anything for science made him uncomfortable and a little angry, but the creature was already dead, so why not. "How's your arm?"

Keith moved it a little. "Feels alright. How bad did it look?"

"It tore into muscle and clipped some of your bone, but it didn't rip anything out. If you hadn't stabbed it in the neck, it probably would have."

"But that didn't kill it. Why?"

Shiro shrugged. "There's a lot about that thing we don't know; that's why we're studying it. Dr. Holt says it had already started choking on its own blood before the spear went through its heart."

"Good." Whatever that thing was, it was a monster, and it was dangerous. If there were more out there, they needed to stay far away from them. "Are we headed back in?"

"Yes. We got a good sample for the labs, and we need to get you to a proper hospital.

"I feel fine."

"But we don't know if it could cause any kind of infection." Shiro was right, but at this point Keith didn't care. He just wanted to get home and curl up in his bed. Maybe wish this had never happened. He wasn't going to stay away from the sea, he just needed a break.

A long, long break.

Hey, so this is my first voltron/klance fanfic, and I hope it turns out okay. I wanted to add in autistic Keith and adhd Lance, but idk if I'll write them correctly. Please let me know if I do a decent job. I would love constructive criticism!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!