Archive of Our Own

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There was so much noise.This was the first thing that Keith consciously noticed as he stealthily made his way around a group of soldiers, looking for a way to get on board before the ship sailed and left him behind. (He couldn’t allow that. His brother was inside that ship and Keith would be damned before he let Shiro sail off to unknown lands without him. Shiro was everything Keith had left—there was no way in hell Keith would let him leave him behind.)There was the common, somewhat familiar noise of the port: the crashing of the waves, the deep blasts of the horns, the scream of the seagulls. A buzzing atmosphere not much different from any other busy day: merchants and customers haggling over prices, people walking around chattering in groups, laughing or complaining.There was also a hint of oddity in the hushed, excited whispers of people gathering to see the departure of one particular ship. That was definitely not common.Neither was the sound of marching soldiers.Keith watched as dozens of uniformed men and women diligently marched towards the ship, stern-faced and focused. They ignored the curious stares of the bystanders, seemingly deaf to the whispering and conjecturing going on around them. Keith wondered whether they really didn't care, or if they were just putting on a facade.“It's a private expedition,” he picked out of the chatter. The voice was high-pitched, easy to distinguish even when its owner was trying to be subtle. “A millionaire in search of a dream.”“I heard it’s a warship.”“Yeah, me too.”“No, no. That's not a warship. It's a depot—it carries a submarine.”“Submarines can be used for war.”“Not one as big as the Ulysses, no. This is another thing.”“But all those machines...”Keith bit his tongue and forced himself not to interrupt the conversation. He knew exactly what the ship was sailing for; the first person had it somewhat right. It was a private expedition in search of a dream—in search of Altea, to be more specific.He slowly moved closer towards the ship. He wouldn't have been so careful if he hadn't spotted the figures of his brother and Matt not too far away from his place. Merging and going unnoticed in this kind of crowd was usually easy, but Keith was not taking any chances.Shiro had explicitly told him that he didn't want Keith on the dock to say goodbye. He had explained that it was because, at the moment of departure, Keith should be in class—which was ridiculous, because Keith literally couldn't give two hoots about school, and especially not when its policies wouldn't let him skip to say goodbye to his brother. (Shiro had always been very concerned about Keith's education, though, so Keith had taken it upon himself to be a model student to make him proud). He would have protested the order more if it hadn't actually suited his plans just fine.But now he had to be very careful and sneaky, because if either Matt or Shiro saw him, he could kiss his plan goodbye. Keith was sure that he would be told off, hugged, and sent away before he could do anything else. He would then be watched really closely to make sure he did as he was told, which would completely ruin his plans to sneak into the ship, which in turn would mean that despite all the trouble he had gone through, Shiro and Matt would go off to sea without him anyway.And Keith just couldn’t let that happen.So he was being extra cautious. And a little bit paranoid, perhaps, but he couldn’t help it!Shiro turned his head towards Keith’s general direction, startling him badly. Alarmed, he immediately ducked to hide, thanking his luck that there was a trashcan he could use behind the group of excited civilians he had been more or less using as a shield.He put a hand over his heart while he worked on controlling his breathing. Had Shiro seen him? Was he about to be sent back to the Garrison without a chance to follow? He hoped not, he really hoped not.After some minutes passed without any sign of Shiro approaching, Keith let himself relax. He slowly got to his feet and curiously peeked over the lid of the trashcan.Shiro and Matt weren't there anymore.Panicking, Keith let his eyes roam over the people closer to where his brother had been standing, and then sighed in relief when he spotted the pair checking in with a guard over one of the gangways.He wouldn't have to worry about being spotted by them anymore, at least.Now, the hard part would be actually boarding the ship. Once inside, getting lost among the huge amount of people wouldn't be too complicated, but he first needed to find his way in. He didn't have a pass, so he obviously wouldn't be boarding through any of the gangways.Looking around, Keith carefully considered his options. He could technically try to pass together with a big group—the guards may overlook him if he was sneaky enough—but it was way too dangerous. He couldn't afford to be discovered. He had only one chance, and if he wasted it, he knew he would berate himself forever.Keith's eyes traveled over the visible side of the ship, finally landing on the large, open hatch that led to the hold.One corner of his mouth twitched upwards.
Bingo.
  Keith knew that sneaking inside in one of the vehicles being loaded would not be easy—there was security there, too—but he honestly believed it was his best option.As he got closer to his destination, he felt his eyes widen in awe at the sheer quantity of vehicles and machinery assembled for the expedition.Shiro had explained it to him, though not in much detail. (He hadn't had the time, really. Everything had been kind of last minute and very rushed, one of the many reasons why Keith did not trust the mysterious rich benefactor that was funding the expedition). Keith had known that it would be big, but he had never imagined something as big as this.He was impressed.He was also wary.Wary and eager, then, in roughly equal parts.There was a part of him that was more than happy for Matt—he was finally going to search for Altea, the lost city that had been Matt's dream for ages—but another, more childish and selfish part of him begrudged him the fact that he had to drag Shirointo his adventure. It was a tiny part, though, almost minuscule. Shiro, after all, also shared Matt's dream, even if not as fervently.Keith was mostly annoyed because it was a trip to places unknown, with equally unknown dangers, and he wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of losing his only family because of it. Not one bit.He hid behind different things as he made his way closer and closer to the vehicles, trying his best to stay unnoticed.Whenever he felt someone looking at him, he made an effort to look indifferently curious, as if he was just a passing civilian that had nothing to hide. It was much more difficult that it sounded; in fact, it was rather nerve-wracking.He could feel himself sweating bullets under his dark red coat. Why the heck had he decided to put on his red coat and not his black one? Sure, it wasn't a bright red (actually, it was rather dark), but hardly inconspicuous all the same. Luckily, he was always quickly dismissed as unimportant, which let him feel like he could relax again, even if just for a moment.He tiptoed around a huge digger, keeping his senses alert and his breathing controlled.There was still a lot of noise in this area, although not as loud as the section near the gangways. This meant that he wouldn’t need to be too cautious about the amount of noise he made, but he wouldn't be able to rely on his sense of hearing to detect the guards, either.He stopped dead as he saw the inspector appear in front of the digger, and flailed mentally for a second or two before his instincts kicked in. Quickly diving beneath the drill, Keith hid behind one of its huge wheels. He closed his eyes tightly and waited.This close, he could hear the heavy footsteps of the officer's boots, rhythmic and methodical as they came closer, and closer. Don't stop, don't stop, don'tstopdon'tstopdon't—Keith's heart hammered madly inside his ribcage, but he felt hyper-focused and ready to act in case it became necessary.
Please, don't stop—
The footsteps faltered; the officer was right on the other side of the wheel. Involuntarily, Keith's breath hitched.
Fuck.
He closed his eyes and ceased breathing completely, cursing himself inwardly because he had been discovered, it was over, he would be sent back—For whatever reason or stroke of luck, however, the guard didn't stop to inspect the noise. They continued walking, farther and farther away from Keith.He hadn't been discovered.Keith kept still and mentally counted to twenty. Only when he had finished and there seemed to be no more danger of being discovered, he let himself relax. His heart still felt like a hummingbird trapped inside his chest, and he was gulping on air as if he had been underwater, but the adrenaline was receding. The downside of that was that it left Keith's legs feeling weak and shaky like a newborn calf’s. He let himself fall to the ground, taking a few seconds to calm his breath and try to regain some strength in his limbs.Once he felt steady enough, he got to his feet, breathed in deeply, clenched his jaw, and darted out of his hiding place.Shooting quick, nervous glances around, he rapidly made his way towards one of the loaded medium-sized trucks. He only stopped to part the canvas enough to let him pass, and then he sneaked inside.He was not expecting to crash against another person.He yelped in surprise, but the sound was swiftly cut off as his new companion put a hand over his mouth and hissed him an order to be silent.Unfortunately, the damage was already done.“Fuck, they heard you,” the person said, and Keith felt very uncomfortable because he wasn't able to see them. “Move, idiot. We have to hide! And—don't scream again.”Keith nodded warily and the stranger let him go. He didn't have time to do anything before they insistently pushed him towards the back of the truck, behind a crate of undetermined content. Just in time, too, because they had barely squatted behind it when the canvas parted, letting some light in.Keith squinted at his companion, trying to take a good look at their features with the little light there was. He only managed to determine that they were short and probably wore glasses, before the canvas fell close again.Both of them let out a sigh of relief, but neither said anything or moved an inch until a few minutes had passed and they were relatively sure that there was nobody else near.Slowly, but surely, Keith's eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light and he was able to make out the contour and features of his companion. As he recognized them, his eyes grew wide.“Matt?” he whispered, shocked. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he with Shiro? Wait… hadn’t he boarded already?Matt—or was he Matt?—gave him an unimpressed look. “Really, Keith? Do I look that dopey to you?”If possible, Keith's surprise skyrocketed. “Katie?” he asked, disbelievingly.She raised a hand, lazily. “Yo.”Keith sputtered, not really noticing that he had stopped whispering. “What are you doing here?”“Shh, mind your volume!” she shushed him angrily. “Do you want them to find us this time?”He grimaced. “Sorry. But… what are you doing here?”Instead of answering, she threw the question back at him, full of sarcasm. “What are you doing here, Keith?”“Following Shiro,” Keith responded immediately. Wasn’t it obvious?“Well, there you have it. I'm following Matt.”“Ah.”That made sense, Keith supposed. After all, her brother was all she had left, too. Her dad had died six years before after catching a nasty virus in his last expedition, and her mother had passed away long before that. (Keith never got to meet her).He looked at Katie—or what he could see of her in the dark—and realized why he had confused her with Matt. “What happened to your hair?”She shrugged with only one shoulder and answered nonchalantly, “Cut it off. 'S easier to disguise myself when I look like a boy, right?”“I guess,” Keith said, even if he didn't—not really. Katie looked way too much like Matt with her hair short, especially with the glasses.“By the way, I'm Pidge now, not Katie. We need to keep a low profile, at least until we're in the submarine.”“I heard that before… there is a submarine, then?”“Yeah. Matt babbled about it for hours; huge, modern, the best of the best. I kinda wanna see if all his praises have a basis, you know how he is with tech.”Keith snorted. Yeah, he knew.“Do you think it's true? The expedition details, I mean.”Katie—Pidge, he had to start thinking about her as Pidge—hummed thoughtfully.“Honestly? I don't know. From what Matt shared with me, that wasn't all that much because even he didn't know much, it is. It seems that Mr. Slav—that's, you know, the benefactor—was an old friend of our dad,” she explained, and there was a rustle of fabric as she moved. Keith squinted and realized that she had taken off her bag, which reminded him that he still hadn’t removed his own.As he took care of that detail in order get more comfortable, Pidge continued. “He even went with him on the expedition six years ago. You know, the one in which…” She grimaced. “Even if Dad never mentioned him. Which is rather suspicious, if you ask me. But Matt told me the man had pictures of Dad and him together so I guess… I guess it could be true.”“But you don't believe that,” Keith pointed out shrewdly.

Pidge tsked. “There is something fishy going on—there has to be. Why would this man appear out of nowhere and drop this whole thing on Matt’s lap just when he was thinking of resigning? The expedition that, might I add, Matt has been trying to make the stupid Garrison fund for years? And with barely a day to prepare!”Now that was news to Keith. “Wait, wait. What? He was going to resign?”“Yeah. Iverson—the asshole—changed the time of his appeal and only let him know about it when it was already too late to make it.” She scoffed derisively. “And the committee fled. They didn't want to listen to him again, the dicks.”For some reason, Keith was always caught by surprise every time his best friend swore like that. It was probably because of her size and her completely inoffensive looks (which were so misleading that Keith felt vaguely offended by her ability to get away with things), but he tended to forget she could out-swear most sailors.He had to agree with her on this one, though.“Bastards,” he spat, really angry in behalf of Pidge’s brother.“Right? So… yeah, no. I'm not sold on this, and that's one big reason why I decided to sneak in and not stay at home like a good girl and wait for Matt to return.”Keith nodded, understanding. “Yeah. I thought so, too. Shiro wasn't listening to me, though.”Pidge snorted. “Of course not. Shiro might have his head on straight most of the time, but you and I both know that when it comes to Matt, he will ignore his better judgment if my brother decides to do something potentially dangerous. You know, better be there to help than let him go alone.”It was Keith’s turn to snort, and he couldn’t suppress the wry smile. “Yeah, I suppose. And I can't imagine Matt even thinking that there was something else going on with this, not after he was told it was for Altea.”“Are you kidding? It's like he was blindsided! He hasn't left the Journal alone for a minute! You know, the one he was obsessed with finding?”“Oh, yes. I remember. Ireland?”“Iceland. That was his big discovery—that wasn't much of one, apparently, since our dad was the one to retrieve it six years ago.”“… what?”“Uh-huh.” Pidge nodded and then started fiddling with her bag. “The expert team on this expedition is apparently the same one as the team on Dad's last one: the one in which they found the Journal.”Keith didn’t really know what to say to that, so he settled in a surprised, “Wow.”“Yeah.”They were silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts and drawing their own conclusions. Then, Pidge broke the silence by clearing her throat. “Anyway, that's why I think he hasn't seen anything wrong with all of this. That Journal. That's what sealed the deal for him.”Keith opened his mouth, but before he could make any type of sound, a bustling noise started around them, coupled with the loud honking of the ship. Feet started rushing towards them, and several different conversations started at once.He snapped his mouth shut as he saw Pidge’s eyes grow wide. His stomach dropped and he froze for a moment, but then her face cleared up and her shoulders relaxed.Pidge made a series of gestures that Keith was pretty sure were meant to conveysomething, but he could not, for the life of him, make heads or tails of the message. He could only stare in mild confusion and shrug helplessly when she finished. She sighed in defeat and made a final gesture with her hand over her lips that even Keith had no trouble interpreting: keep your mouth shut.Keith obliged, even if he wasn't half as relaxed. But, he guessed, if Pidge thinks it’s safe, then it probably is.Doors opened and closed, and suddenly the truck dipped as more weight was added. Keith looked sharply around, but Pidge gripped his forearm tightly and made him sit still.There was a series of groans and creaks, and suddenly they were moving; or, to be more precise, the truck in which they had hidden themselves started moving.Keith's eyes widened; they were being loaded onto the ship!That must have been what Pidge had been trying to convey with all her arm waving.He turned to her with a smile, and happily signed his understanding. Pidge’s only response was a deep sigh.He frowned.“What?” he whispered, even if he knew she wouldn’t be able to hear it with all the noise. She must have sensed his bewilderment, though, because she shook her head dismissively.Keith scowled and went to cross his arms, but his annoyance was interrupted when Pidge poked his arm. Keith narrowed his eyes at her but she ignored him, motioning towards the boxes that surrounded them. Looking up, Keith realized that they were swaying over them, threatening to fall on their heads. Alarmed, he pushed all thoughts away but the one that urged him to keep both of them safe. He braced himself against the stacks and waited for what seemed like forever.   Some time later, the movement stopped, the boxes settled and Keith relaxed as they stopped being a danger to their continued health.Both of them breathed out a sigh of relief but didn’t speak. Instead, they focused their hearing and other senses on their surroundings, trying to determine what was going on.It was not easy. There was too much noise for that: loud commands shouted over many different conversations; the sound of dozens if not hundreds of feet running around; motors roaring to life. That was without mentioning the fact that any and all sounds were amplified by the metal panels of the ship, or the fact that some of the noise had to come from the ship itself.“Do you think we'll have to move?” he asked Pidge in the lowest tone he could manage while still being audible.“You mean, now?”Keith nodded.She shook her head. “No, these vehicles will be loaded directly onto the submarine. We'll just have to be quiet as not to arise suspicion until the submarine actually submerges. After that, we can get out of this blasted thing and roam freely until our brothers find us.”Keith shifted and rotated his shoulder, frowning in discomfort. It had suffered a bit when one of the boxes had almost crushed him, but he didn’t think it was anything more than a bruise. “Why are you so sure they will?”“Keith,” Pidge said in a slow, deliberate tone that easily projected her disbelief, “we're talking about Shiro. Matt might be super oblivious, but Shiro has little brother detector senses. The moment he sees you, that's it.”“… Point taken.”She patted his cheek. “I know. It's only a matter of time, but let's be sure that when he does find us, we'll be far enough out that sending us back won't be possible.”   An unexpected, blaring honk made Keith jump, startled.“What the—?” He put a hand over his heart and looked over at Pidge, who didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised. Unfair.“We're finally sailing,” she sighed, making herself as comfortable as she could possibly be while sitting in the back of a truck, surrounded by boxes that threatened to squash them every time the vehicle moved.Keith pursed his lips for a second, and then let himself fall back in a boneless heap. Almost immediately, though, he had to straighten his spine again as his head thumped loudly against the edge of one of the blasted boxes. Keith was beginning to despise them.He hissed and rubbed the affected area with his hand, valiantly ignoring Pidge’s sniggers.“How long d'you think it'll take?” he asked, and luckily, his question seemed to be enough to distract her.“To reach our destination?”Keith nodded. Pidge pushed up her glasses with a finger and hummed.“I honestly don't know,” she admitted finally. “Matt didn't give me details, but I know that the ship is supposed to be dropping the submarine as close as they can get to it. It’ll be hours, possibly. Maybe even days.”Keith made a face.“… what?”“I just, eh,” Keith shifted, fidgeting, and earned a sharp elbow in the side for his trouble. He grimaced and sighed. “I just kinda came without thinking things through—”“Not surprising.”“—so I didn't really bring any supplies but for a change of clothes and some water?”Pidge sighed loudly. “You're lucky I like you,” she said, “and that I'm always prepared.”“What are you now, a Boy Scout?”“Pidge may as well be.” She nodded sagely. “So be grateful that I decided to pack more than one sandwich. They have peanut butter, though.”Keith scrunched up his nose. “Yes, well. I think that I can manage. Better than going hungry.”“Attention. All hands to the launch bay,” a woman's dry voice resonated through the whole ship, surprising them both into silence.There was a sound of feet thundering closer, and then of doors opening. Immediately after that, their truck suddenly lost a couple of inches as it had to start supporting the weight of new passengers once again.“Attention. All hands to the launch bay,” the voice repeated, and this time it was accompanied with the sound of blaring alarms. “Final loading in progress.”The truck’s motor roared to life and they were moving—slowly, way too slowly for Keith’s liking, but… this was it. They were finally going to be loaded into the submarine, which meant that they would soon be able to move.“Matthew, there you are!” a man's jovial greeting reached them from outside the confines of the truck. Keith and Pidge tensed and strained their ears in an attempt to listen. “I was wondering if this was one of the three thousand and three realities in which I couldn't find you before the Ulysses went down, but alas… I want you to meet Commander Zarkon. He’s the one who led the Iceland team that brought the Journal back.”Keith saw Pidge's eyes narrowing, and he himself decided to memorize that name.“Matthew Holt. And this must be Mr. Shirogane. Samuel talked much about the both of you—all good things, I assure you. It's an honor.” Zarkon’s voice was raspy but pleasant, and Keith didn’t trust it one bit.“Ah, nice to meet you, too,” Matt answered, and Keith could picture Shiro nodding respectfully from his place, either right beside Matt or just a step behind him.“I see you got that journal…”The voices faded as their truck continued its slow but continuous way towards the submarine. Pidge tsked and tried to move closer to them, but the lady with the dry voice used the intercom to give a new announcement and rendered her intentions useless.“Attention, all personnel. Launch will commence in fifteen minutes.”It wasn’t much different than when they got onto the ship: there was a sudden incline as the truck started going up the ramp, and Keith and Pidge had to struggle with the boxes once again to avoid being crushed. Keith swore under his breath as one of them smacked his thigh. Just what he wanted, another purple bruise to add to his growing collection.Alarms and voices combined with the stomping of feet to form a rising cacophony of sound that rendered Keith unable to hear his own thoughts. There were orders being called left and right, machines grunting and sputtering as they did their jobs, and the intercom lady reciting the countdown for launch.Then it ended, with one last blaring alarm.Without any other notice, the whole submarine lurched. Keith let out a soft, strangled ‘oof’ as the sudden movement made their truck rock and Pidge fell sideways and onto him.“Sorry!” she said as she tried to disentangle herself from him, but it was a fruitless endeavor, as the truck continued to move with the submarine's descent.“Stay still!” Keith ordered, and then curled himself protectively over her tiny form when the boxes around them started falling. He closed his eyes tightly. She would be fine, they would be fine. It would all end soon. It would all end, and then they’d be able to get the hell away from this damn truck.What seemed like hours, but must have been mere minutes later, the truck stopped moving.Keith let out a painful breath as he opened his eyes and tried to focus on his hearing. There was a dull ringing inside his head from the rough treatment, but it cleared after a couple of minutes of silence.“Keith?” Pidge asked in a whisper, but Keith hushed her. They were inside the submarine, and the submarine had launched, but they couldn't risk being discovered just yet.She seemed to understand, because she stopped moving. They both kept still and silent, listening. They waited until they were relatively sure they were safe—that is, until there were no sounds of people nearby—and only then did they relax.Pidge shifted and patted Keith’s thigh gently. “Keith? You can let go already.”“Uh? Oh—yeah, sorry.”“Nah, thanks for sheltering me. Are you hurt anywhere?”“Nah. I was lucky this time.” He dismissed her worry with a lopsided smile. “But damn, that was rough.”“Yeah. But we’re down, finally.” She took her bag and crawled towards the back of the truck. Keith followed on her heels, carrying his own bag. “And you know what that means?”“That… we can get out?”“We can get out!” she confirmed in a triumphant tone as she pulled the canvas open. “I may be small and young,” she grumbled as she hastily got out of the truck, “but that doesn't mean that my joints don't suffer!”She then put the bag down by her feet and stretched her arms over her head, like a cat. It made her back pop loudly, and Keith winced.“Ahh, freedom,” Pidge said in a blissed-out tone as she let her arms flop back down to her sides.“Don't do that.”“What?” She quirked her eyebrow and looked at him curiously. Then she entwined the fingers of both hands and stretched her arms in front of her, palms facing forward. Not only did her wrist joints crack then, but also did her shoulders. “This?”Keith hissed. “Yes. That. Stop it.”She rolled her eyes but acquiesced. “Let's take a look around?”“Sure.”They curiously wandered the storage space and studied the machinery as they passed it, Pidge with a much more critical eye that Keith could ever hope to develop. Even so, they were cautiously avoiding the few guards that they knew must be patrolling the sector. Keith felt a little off balance, and it was probably due to the lack of noise. After the continuous ruckus that had been the last five or six hours, the silence felt almost unnatural.They were looking for a door to get out of the hold (and into the busy parts of the submarine) when the dry voice that had announced the launch resonated through the speakers again.“Will Matthew Holt and Takashi Shirogane please report to the bridge? Thank you.”Keith looked at Pidge with questions in his eyes. She blinked up at him and nodded decisively. “Alright, we have a place to avoid. Let's go in the complete opposite direction once we get out of here.”Keith had no arguments against that, so he simply nodded.They finally located a door that looked promising as a way out and were about to take their leave, when it flew open just in front of their faces, seconds before Pidge’s fingers made contact with the handle.Both of them froze as they stared at the young woman who had opened the door, and she stared right back at them. Keith felt the tension press on him, coiling in his muscles as he prepared to either fight or flight.Luckily, it wasn’t necessary.Kind brown eyes blinked, dissipating the tension as if it had never existed to begin with, and moved down to look at Pidge curiously.“Mr. Holt, what are you doing here? You were told to go to the bridge.”“I'm not—” Pidge was about to say something stupid, Keith could feel it, so he quickly elbowed her as discreetly as he could while he loudly cleared his throat. She startled, turning her head to look at him with furrowed eyebrows, but Keith only gave her a look. Her eyes widened minutely behind her glasses and she coughed, turning a sheepish smile towards the woman. “I'm not sure where the bridge is located, could you be so kind as to point us the way?”“Oh. Sure, there's no problem,” she said with a warm smile. Keith couldn't quite believe that someone so tall and imposing had such a soft and kind personality. She motioned for them to follow her out of the storage room and they did so. “See there?” She pointed to their right to a large passageway. They nodded. “You've got to go all the way 'til the end, then up three ladders. The bridge is easy to find. There’s a magnificent view through the tinted glass there,” she explained.“Ah, yes. Thank you...?” Pidge said, trying her best to sound like Matt.“Shay, mineralogist. And you're welcome, Mr. Holt. Now, if you excuse me, I've got to…” she pointed to the room they had just gotten out of, and Pidge smiled way too widely. Luckily, it didn't seem like Shay noticed it was fake.“Ah, sure. Sorry. And, uh, thank you again!”They waited until she disappeared behind the door, Pidge with a forced bright smile and Keith really tense but trying not to show it, and relaxed only when the door closed. Their eyes met for a second, and then they were both bolting down the passageway in the opposite direction from the bridge.“Fuck, that was close,” Pidge groaned as their mad running slowed down to a brisk walk.“No shit, Sherlock,” Keith snarked. His heart was beating madly inside his chest, and he wondered whether this expedition would be the death of him. It would probably make his heart burst or something. Somehow, he didn’t believe that it would stop surprising him anytime soon. “Let's just hope we don't find her again, because she's bound to know sooner or later that we weren't Matt and Shiro and that we just kind of impersonated them.”“Whee, thank you.”“I'm only stating the facts,” he pointed out. “That's what you get for disguising yourself as your brother.”“I did not do such a thing!” she exclaimed, outraged, turning towards him and planting a finger on the middle of his chest and ouch. That hurt. “I only cut my hair. It wasn't supposed to make me look so much like Matt!”Keith grumbled and batted her hand away, rubbing at the sore spot. “And what about the glasses? You can't tell me it's because you need them, because I know for a fact that you don't.”“Shut up,” she grumbled, but didn't deny it. Honestly, Keith didn't understand why she added the glasses to her disguise if she didn't want to look like Matt. But then again, he didn't usually understand half the things that Pidge did, so he might as well just roll with it. “Anyway, I've got a new plan. Hopefully it’ll help us blend in better than we’re doing right now.”He believed he was justified in feeling wary as she turned to him with a wicked, devious smile. It gave him the chills.“What are you planning?” he asked cautiously, not really sure he wanted to know.“Oh, you’ll see,” she answered cryptically, and Keith’s alarm increased. “You’ll see… Follow me.”   “You are insane,” Keith declared with conviction as he struggled with the stupid blue beret. How did people get them to stick to their heads? His kept falling off!Pidge shrugged, and man did she look weird in that sailor uniform… though he guessed he didn't look much better himself. “Well, it worked, didn't it?”“Yes but—”She interrupted him with an exasperated growl. “Gimme that, get down,” she demanded and Keith didn't dare disobey. He knew Pidge could be vicious if she wanted to be. She snatched the blue monstrosity and neatly tucked it over his head. “There,” she said, deeply satisfied. Keith blinked and got to his full height again, and was astounded at the difference. It wasn't falling off anymore! What kind of trick…? “And no buts, Keith. The important thing is, we are now virtually invisible. People will look at us and not see anything, really, because we won't stand out at all.”“That—that may be so, but I still don't like it.”She rolled her eyes. “Since when do you have such high morals? We only took some uniforms from those guy's bags. We even put the bags back in their place. It's not like we ambushed someone and knocked them unconscious to steal their clothes before tying them up and leaving them half naked in a closet or something.”“… the fact that you actually thought about it enough to use it as an example scares me.”She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Deal with it.”In that moment, a loud, shrill noise was projected through the speakers, interrupting their conversation and making the hairs on the back of Keith's neck stand on end. The thick, tense silence that spread over the submarine immediately after it felt ominous and unnatural.“What the heck was that?” Keith wondered, his voice barely above a whisper.“I don't know!” Pidge hissed, looking around worriedly. The sound repeated, louder, closer. “It sounds like… metal?”“It's… It's definitely not a whale.”They listened attentively as the sound got even louder, as if its source was passing right beneath the submarine. Keith stopped breathing for a second, listening attentively and trying to decipher what it could be, and if it might be dangerous. Before he could reach any type of conclusion, though, the sound dimmed. Then it disappeared completely.“It's… gone?” Keith ventured. There was a queasy feeling at the bottom of his stomach.Pidge didn't answer immediately; she kept listening intently for a few more seconds. When nothing happened again, she relaxed. “It seems like—”The submarine gave a sudden lurch; Pidge stumbled with a yelp. Keith tried to catch her, but the submarine rocked again, and both fell on their asses.They struggled to get up as the submarine swayed to one side, and it was only thanks to Keith's quick reflexes that Pidge didn't fall down a deck.“Fuck, it’s definitely not!”There were alarms ringing in their ears, screams of fright and pain, orders.Something out there was attacking them, and Keith didn't know much about submarines, but Pidge's wide-eyed look of terror was enough for him to know that this wasn't good. At all.“We've gotta find our brothers now, Keith,” she said as Keith helped her stand. It was more difficult than it should have been, because the deck kept shaking and various fallen things were rolling around, augmenting the already existent chaos. “Now, before this thing gets buried at the bottom of the sea!”“You got a plan?”There was a loud, aggressive roar followed by another wild quake, and they both stumbled.“Yes,” she panted, tugging at his arm as she started running, “run.”  Shiro groaned as his back collided with the floor, but didn't stop to assess the damage. He rolled over and pushed himself off the ground and onto his feet, clutching at whatever solid piece of equipment he could grab so that he didn't lose his equilibrium again.“Matt?” he asked as he looked around for his partner. “Matt, where are you?”“Oh, my goodness… It's a machine!” That was Matt’s voice coming from… beneath?Shiro used the railing as support and peered over it, and his eyes widened when he saw what Matt did: a giant, red and clearly mechanical eye glaring at them from the other side of the fortified orange glass.“Fuck,” he breathed out, and then he shook his head and focused. They had to get out of there, now! The Commander was giving orders and the subpods were about to be launched; it was his job to get himself into one of those, but Matt's safety came first, always. “Matt! Are you alright?”“Shiro?”“Over here!”Matt stood up and craned his neck to look at him. “Oh. Yeah, I'm fine, just a bit battered. I think.”“Good—”The thing let the submarine go as dozens of small fighting subpods fired on it, and the change in angle threw Matt towards Shiro. Opening his arms, Shiro caught him before he could get injured.“Whoa, I got you.”“We're free!” the Commander announced, turning towards the people on charge of driving Ulysses. The submarine lurched again and started moving away from the giant beast. “All ahead! Full power!” he ordered. “Fire torpedoes!”Shiro clutched Matt tightly, and the other smiled lopsidedly at him. “Thanks,” he said warmly, but before he could add anything else, the submarine rocked back, making them lose their balance once again. The torpedoes seemed to have only enraged the machine—if machines could be enraged—because it stopped paying attention to the subpods and instead turned to launch some kind of violent, laser-like attack on the main submarine. It tore right through the middle of the ship, tipping the sub sideways and sending people sprawling across the deck.“Zarkon!” the mechanic yelled through the intercom, “We took a big hit down here and we're taking on water fast! I don't want to be around when it hits the boilers!” She said more, but Shiro didn't hear the rest because a more familiar voice grabbed his full attention, and that of his partner.“Shiro! Matt! What the fuck is that thing?!”“Who—Keith?” Shiro asked disbelievingly as he turned towards the source. Impossible, Keith couldn't be here, he should be back at home, safe and protected and… not here. But once he got a good look at him, there was no doubt, even if he wished otherwise. “What are you—is that Katie?”“Matt!” screamed the person that Shiro was now sure it had to be Katie, even if she looked much more like her brother than herself, with the glasses and the short hair. “What is happening?! What is that… that giant lobster thing?!”“What are you doing here?”“Does it fucking matter right now?! We’re about to become crab food!” Katie retorted almost hysterically, clutching Matt’s arm in a way that Shiro knew definitely had to be painful.Before any of them could say more, the Commander barked out more orders.“... you heard the lady, move! Move!”Even when he had questions that desperately needed answers, Shiro knew this was not the time to interrogate his little brother or Katie. That would have to wait.“Right,” he interrupted sharply, and made sure to give both teens a very serious look. “We're talking later, you hear me?” They nodded, and Shiro continued. “For now, let's go. Keith! With me! Matt, take your—”“Pidge,” Katie piped up. Shiro looked down at her questioningly but didn’t wait for an explanation. He would accept it for now. Questions later.“… take Pidge and follow the rest! Go, now!”Matt pressed his lips into a fine line and nodded somberly. “Got ya. Take care,” he said, giving both him and Keith quick hugs. He then turned to his sister and pulled her away. “C'mon, Ka—Pidge!”Shiro let his eyes follow both Holts for a second, and then turned around and started guiding Keith towards the remaining subpods. He trusted Matt and Katie to take care of each other and be safe. For now, he had a job to do… and a little brother to protect.“I drive, you fire!” he ordered as he boarded one of the very last fighting submarines left, Keith hot on his heels.Keith grunted, rapidly taking over the weapon's handle. “Got it!”Pulling the lever that opened the hatch, Shiro shouted, “Let's go!” and took off immediately.He drove the subpod away from the main submarine towards the creature, maneuvering it into position without worrying about the artillery. He trusted Keith completely when it came to handling it. Shiro might not be happy that Keith was here in the first place, but he could concede, at least inside his own mind, that he was glad that his battle companion was someone he could trust implicitly with his life instead of some stranger.Keith fired whenever he had the chance, and Shiro focused on keeping them safe maneuvering their tiny battleship through the huge float of subpods. Their objective was only to buy time for the Ulysses to finish evacuating, as it was quite obvious that their attacks were not affecting the monster at all.Shiro cursed as the Leviathan swatted at them with its enormous tail as if they were nothing more than annoying little fish. The subpod pilots coordinated a new attack, but it failed. Before any of them could do anything to prevent it, the monster fired another of those destructive rays towards the submarine.“Matt and his group got out of there already?” Keith asked anxiously and Shiro felt his throat tighten. He'd like to say that yes, yes they had—but he honestly had no idea.Then he saw all three of the emergency passenger submarines escape from the blast, and Shiro felt like he could breathe easy again.Not too long after that, they heard the voice of Lieutenant Sendak on the radio. “All craft, make your mark: 20 degrees down angle.”“Roger,” he said, turning all his focus to the controls and following the instructions. He had to believe that Matt and Katie were fine. They had to be.The next minutes were pure chaos.As everyone followed the new directions, they became an easy target for the Leviathan. Shiro had to evade the giant machine, its dangerous laser-like weapons, and the debris from the subpods that either got blasted apart or crashed in front of them. He cringed inwardly every time he heard the sound of explosions and screams on the radio, but pushed all his concerns about other people aside. Keeping Keith and himself alive was difficult enough without being distracted by pity and thoughts of the recently deceased, so he concentrated on driving the best he could to get them both out of this alive.He was forced to make a sharp turn to avoid the blast coming from behind, and he swore as it took down one of the bigger submarines. There were more pained screams on the radio, followed by the sound of an explosion, but then they were all turning down, down, down and leaving the mechanical beast behind.“… a grease trap; it's just like a sink!” they heard Matt scream through the radio, among the sound of the lasers, and Shiro felt his stomach settle if only a bit, because Matt was fine and that meant that Katie was fine; they were alive—Then they were pulling up, leaving the beast behind and unable to follow them due to its massive size. There was one last unfortunate explosion, but after that, the blasts stopped completely.Everything was eerily silent as they emerged, one by one, inside the air chamber Matt had mentioned back on the bridge, just before everything went to hell.Keith reached the hatch before him, but Shiro was quick to follow him outside. Everyone was doing the same: getting out, looking around, feeling shocked and numb as they realized the full impact of what had just happened. Of all the lives that had been lost.The silence was almost suffocating in its mourning, but it didn’t stop Shiro from feeling an overwhelming sense of relief as he saw both his partner and the girl he loved as a little sister emerge, safe and sound, from the only passenger submarine left.He didn't hesitate before jumping out of the pod and hurrying towards them, Keith right beside him. For the moment, he ignored the rest of the crew—he didn’t particularly care what they were up to—but vaguely took notice of the fact that they had turned on the reflectors.As he got close enough to see that Matt was hugging Katie for all he was worth (and almost smothering her in the process), he knew that things had just become much more complicated than what anyone could have ever anticipated. And as he pulled Keith with him to join in the hug, conscious of the many pairs of eyes that rested questioningly over them, he knew they would have a lot to explain.But his family was safe and together and whole, and that's everything that really mattered to him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“… From here on in, everyone pulls double duty. Everyone drives, everyone works,” Commander Zarkon stated, finishing the impromptu memorial service to honor all the lives that had been lost in the last hour.The only sound apart from the commander’s voice was the dull echo of the moving water. The atmosphere was solemn, melancholic, and it hung over them like a dark cloak. Smothering.(So many people had died.)Keith was standing on Shiro's left side; Matt on his brother’s other side with Pidge tucked right beside him. They hadn’t separated after their reunion hug, but they had at least decided to pay attention to what was happening around them. Discreetly, he looked around and took notice of the survivors’ faces. Most were tinged with grief and sadness, and it made him feel partially ashamed, because he couldn’t really feel the same. He was too full of relief, too happy that none of his loved ones had died in the escape to feel grief. Was he a bad person for it?(He must be.)Of course, there was also the fact that they had been discovered. True, they couldn’t be sent back now—there wasn’t a way back at the moment—, but he was sure that there would be at least some kind of consequence, and it made him a little anxious.The Commander turned around and fixed Matt with a serious look. “Looks like all our chances for survival rest with you, Mr. Holt. You and that little book,” he said, and then his eyes narrowed. Keith fought down a shiver as the man’s dark eyes passed over the rest of their group, paying special attention to Pidge and Keith himself. “And who, pray tell, are these gentlemen?”“I'm Pidge. Pidge Gunderson,” Pidge said before Matt could open his mouth and introduce her as his baby sister. “I'm this idiot's cousin, and a mechanic. Neither of us knew the other was part of the crew,” she lied through her teeth, sounding rather convincing—Keith was impressed.“And this is Keith, fight class pilot of the Garrison. I recognized him in the submarine, I had no idea he'd been recruited, too.” Shiro had obviously picked up on what Pidge was doing, so Keith allowed himself to relax, even if only marginally. “We've piloted together before.”“Mr. Shirogane was my mentor,” Keith added his two cents, stiff. It was not a lie, but it felt really weird being so formal when talking about his brother. Even if they weren't related by blood, or even by law—Shiro had been an orphan, too, when he took Keith in—Shiro was Keith's brother, and not acknowledging that fact felt strange. Bad, even.“Is that so?” Zarkon hummed, eyes still narrowed.Keith nodded his head once in confirmation, and from the corner of his eye, he could see Pidge and Shiro doing the same. Matt, though, looked increasingly confused. That was… not good. Keith felt his stomach drop.Luckily, before he could open his mouth and throw off their act, Pidge very deliberately stomped on her brother’s foot. He made a noise on the back of his throat and then started nodding vigorously.Zarkon sighed. “Your group will take point, Mr. Holt,” he said, seemingly buying the act—or probably just figuring that it wasn’t worth the hassle. He then pointed towards one of the trucks. “This expedition is now in your hands,” he declared almost ominously, looking at Matt for a second or two longer before he turned to the rest of the crew. “The rest of you! Saddle up! Lieutenant, I want this convoy moving five minutes ago!”Sendak saluted and took charge. “You heard the Commander, people. Move!”There was a chorus of ‘yessir’ as the men and women rushed towards their own vehicles and made sure that everything was in top condition to start the caravan.Keith was startled out of his thoughts when Shiro put a hand on his shoulder.“Let's go,” he said when Keith looked up at him, signaling with a tilt of his head towards the truck the Commander had pointed before.Keith nodded absently, eyes roaming over the truck. Something was nagging at him. What was it, what—He noticed the emblem on the side of the canvas and, suddenly, it clicked. His eyes widened and he barely had time to cover his mouth before snorting, amused. Shiro looked at him with questioning, narrowed eyes but Keith only moved his hand dismissively in front of his face. Shiro didn’t look very convinced, especially since it was obvious that Keith was struggling to suppress his rather inappropriate laughter. He couldn’t help it! The irony was too much! He had just realized that their assigned truck was none other than the one Pidge and he had used to sneak in in the first place.Shiro waited some more seconds, but when it became obvious that Keith wouldn’t share, he rolled his eyes and turned towards Matt, who was focused on his little book. “Matt. C'mon. We gotta move.”“Uh?” he looked up and blinked, then nodded. “Ah. Yes, let’s go...” He looked down, towards the place where Pidge had been until just recently, and frowned, concerned. “Wait. Where's Ka—Pidge?”“Already here, you sluggers!” she said from where she was already sitting in the truck's cabin, feet kicking back and forth rhythmically.“When did you even...?” Matt shook his head. “You know what? Forget it.”They piled up inside the cabin, Shiro at the wheel, and waited for orders.“Pidge, huh?”“Later, cousin.”“Okay, okay. Just. I can't believe you're here.”“I know, right? What an unexpected turn of events, who would have thought?”“Yeah, about that...” Shiro turned his head and smiled a sunny, radiant smile towards Keith.Keith gulped, shuddering in horror. That smile never meant anything good, not for him.“I can't wrap my head around such a coincidence! It's quite fortunate that we found each other before the submarine sunk during a terrible battle against a mythical creature that was actually a ship-destroying machine.”“Right. Fortunate, very fortunate,” Keith answered, voice an octave higher than normal.“Let’s move!” the Lieutenant ordered, and Keith felt relief wash over him.Shiro narrowed his eyes. “Don't think you can get out of this; once we have time and privacy, we will talk, you hear me?”Keith nodded, making a vague sound of acknowledgment in the back of his throat. Pidge was quick to imitate him as Shiro turned his attention to her. They held their breath as Shiro looked at both in the eyes, assessing, until he seemed to accept their response as sincere. Then he turned to Matt.“Matt?”Matt had the Journal open and only glanced at it for a second before giving his instructions. “For now, we should get inside the gaping fish!”“Roger.”The vehicles all roared to life, and their travel in search of Altea started.   “I don't trust Zarkon,” Keith stated later, when the expedition had deemed it time to stop and make camp for the night. The caves were dark and stuffy, and most had discarded their heavy clothes in favor of lighter shirts. They had decided to follow their wristwatches in order to keep track of the days, as there was no sunlight at all to help.Shiro looked up and frowned. “What?”“I don't trust Zarkon,” Keith repeated, scowling. He shifted a bit where he was sitting in Matt and Shiro’s tent.“No, Keith, I heard you the first time,” Shiro sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “What I want to know is why would you say so.”Keith crossed his arms over his chest, scowl deepening, and looked to one side. “I just don't.”“Keith is not the only one,” Pidge interrupted before Shiro had the chance to needle him more. “I don't trust him, either. Or this expedition. Or the one funding it.”Matt lifted his gaze from the Journal and gave Pidge an incredulous look. “But he was Dad's friend!”“One we never knew. How odd is that?”Matt opened his mouth to refute, but soon closed it. Then he frowned and said, “He gave me the Journal.”“That Dad found six years ago.”“I was too young to have it then?”“You were eighteen.” Pidge rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, imitating Keith. “Also, he could have contacted us once Dad passed. He must have known that we were orphaned.”“Well, he… he’s a busy man,” he defended, sounding unconvinced with his own words. “It doesn't matter why he didn't before, but he did it now, and he didn't even ask me anything in exchange for funding the whole thing. Katie—”“Pidge.”“… Pidge. What is this about, truthfully?”Pidge scoffed, a sound so harsh and sarcastic that took everyone by surprise, even Keith. “He didn't ask anything of you?” she repeated, mockingly. “Are you even listening to what comes out of your mouth? Matt, the guy appeared literally out of nowhere, made you resign without informing you, had your belongings packed and moved without so much as a warning, and he put me into the care of a foster family without even asking you for permission when you are my fucking legal guardian!” she spat, angry and so obviously hurt and what the fuck? Keith hadn’t known that! Behind her glasses, Pidge’s eyes were bright with pooling tears; her cheeks were red from anger. “And you just… accepted it, just like that! Because he gave you a stupid book with pretty pictures that is supposed to lead to a dream!”She had been almost shouting, but at the last words her voice cracked, and it became obvious that she was fighting off the angry tears as she glared at her brother.Matt paled, his expression suddenly contrite.It was then that Keith looked at Shiro, just to gauge his reaction. His brother looked tense, like a statue, but Keith recognized the tell-tale sign of his twitching hands. Shiro desperately wanted to hug someone, and as Keith saw the tears start rolling down Pidge's face, Keith was sure that it was not Matt the one he wanted to comfort the most at the moment.“What?” Matt asked in a horrified whisper.Pidge rubbed her face with her arm roughly, trying to get rid of the tears. She laughed hollowly. “Yeah. So. I'm so sorry that I don't feel like trusting the people who basically took my brother away from me without any warning whatsoever!”Keith cringed at her wording and her suddenly drained visage, and then quickly got up and went to her. That was enough, he decided. He had to take her away.“Pidge?” Keith called softly, putting his hand on her narrow shoulder. She startled and then craned her neck to look at him, blinking owlishly. Keith forced a smile on his face, trying to look reassuring but probably failing miserably. “Let's go to bed, okay? It's late.”She looked at him blankly for a second, but then nodded. “… yeah. Yeah, okay,” she said, and let Keith help her get up and guide her out of the tent.Just before he followed her outside, he stopped and looked back to the two men still sitting inside the tent. He didn’t make eye contact, looking instead at some point to their left. “We can talk about this tomorrow,” he said, and then debated whether he wanted to say his next words or not. Finally, he decided that he might as well do so. “And for the record, my reasons are more or less the same. Goodnight.”   Matt roughly rubbed his face with both hands. “I can't believe I—why didn't I notice—why didn't I even think that—”Shiro sighed and crossed the few feet that were separating them and sat by Matt's side, putting a hand around his waist and tugging him into a hug. “You didn't kno—”“No, Shiro,” he snapped, pushing away from the embrace and turning to face him with a full-on scowl. “Don't you dare make excuses for me, because I don't want to hear them.”Shiro put his hands up in surrender.“I don't know why is it that I didn't think about what all of this meant for Katie. I just—I don't know. I forgot she was sixteen and not an adult yet? She's so bright and so mature and I—I stupidly thought she'd stay at home until we came back. I don't know, that maybe she'd bunk up with Keith and they'd both be living together waiting for us to return.”Shiro snorted at the thought of Keith patiently waiting for him. Damn, he had been an idiot, too.“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, chuckling self-deprecatingly. “I thought that Keith would be the responsible one and stay home and go to class like nothing's different.” It was his turn now to rub a hand over his face as he groaned and tipped his head back. “Keith, Matt. When the only information I could offer him about this was 'oh, we're going to search for Altea, sorry it’s kinda last minute but we were literally told today so, be good and don't come to send me off, you have classes to attend'.”It served both his purposes: venting his frustration with himself, and making Matt laugh. True, it was a wet kind of laugh, not a happy one, but it was a laugh and Shiro would take any right now.“Oh my—you told Keith to—” Matt sniggered, clutching his stomach, tears falling from his eyes. “You told Keith to go to class when you were leaving for an unspecified amount of time?”Shiro's lips twitched, but he valiantly suppressed his smile. “Stupid, I know.”“No, not stupid—awfully naive of you,” he corrected him, still chuckling, but not as hard as before. He took off his glasses and wiped off his tears, little snorts escaping him occasionally. His face became contemplative as he put the glasses back on his nose. “I did find it a little strange that he wasn't at the port when we left.”“I honestly don't know what I was even thinking,” Shiro admitted with a shake of his head. “If I was even thinking at all.”Matt sighed deeply, good humor receding a bit. “Well, I know I wasn't. Katie is right, I was so happy with the Journal and the whole opportunity presented to me that I didn't take the time to think about how—I don't know… how convenient it was.”“We both fucked up,” Shiro said, rubbing circles on Matt's back. Matt sighed again and relaxed against him, letting Shiro hug him to his side.“We did.”They were silent for a few minutes, thinking. The heat emanating from Matt’s body pressing against him made Shiro slowly relax. It was comforting.“We have to apologize tomorrow,” Matt pointed out.Shiro grunted in acknowledgment and kissed the top of Matt's head. “Yeah, we do.”   “I'm sorry.”Pidge stopped what she was doing and looked towards her brother, pushing up her glasses. Matt fidgeted.“I’m really, really sorry, I—”“I know.” Pidge sighed. Matt bit his lip and fidgeted some more, which made her a little uncomfortable, so she patted the seat beside her in silent invitation. She smiled lopsidedly at his questioning look, and only then did he take her offer. “I know how you get when, you know, when a big project is starting, or when anything related to Altea comes up,” she said, not looking at him but playing with a piece of string in her hands. “I know you kinda… forget yourself and the rest of the word, then, but that you actually don't mean it.”She felt Matt flinch at her side. “I'm really, really sorry, Ka—Pidge. I should have realized… asked more questions—”“You would still have come,” she said, one hundred percent sure. Matt grimaced and looked away, but before he could feel ashamed or guilty or anything like that, Pidge hurriedly added, “And I'm not saying that you shouldn't have—Altea is your dream, it has been your dream since forever, I wouldn't want you to toss it away for my sake but,” she bit her lip and made eye contact with him. “I'm just saying that you should stop being so… so trusting. Maybe I'm wrong and Mr. Good Benefactor has nothing but the best of intentions, but… what if that isn't the case?”Matt grimaced, hands fumbling with the closed Journal. “Yeah—yeah, you're right. I just—”“Couldn't contain yourself, I know.” Pidge smiled at him, warm and fond. Then she teased him. “You wouldn't be Matt if you did.”“Hey!” Matt cried in mock offense, hand clutching his shirt over his heart.They looked at each other and burst out snickering. Pidge rested her weight on Matt’s side, and Matt put an arm around her shoulders.“Teach me?” she asked after some minutes in silence, signaling the closed book on her brother’s lap.Matt blinked, and looked from Pidge to the Journal, and back to Pidge. He smiled. “Ah—sure.”   Keith liked languages. Studying them wasn't exactly his favorite pastime, but he enjoyed learning them on his own terms. At the Garrison, he had attended Dead Languages—the class Matt taught—together with Pidge, and enjoyed it a lot.He would never be a linguist, because his passion was in piloting, but as Matt showed both him and Pidge different passages of the Journal and tried to explain how the symbols worked to form the words, Keith couldn't help but listen and try to learn as much as he could.“… and this, here? This points out the way to our next location. See this combination of—”“Mr. Holt,” called Rax, the man in charge of driving the Digger. All three of them snapped their heads up to look at the perpetually scowling young man. “There's a bifurcation up ahead.”Matt blinked, lost, and then his eyes grew big. “What? Already?”“Yes.” Rax hissed something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like an insult, and then bit out demandingly, “Which way?”“Uh…” Matt quickly scanned the pages in search for an answer. “Left.”   Matt laughed awkwardly after their party was attacked by yet another giant monster.“Ah, eh. Sorry? It was right.”Rax, together with the rest of the crew, glared daggers at him.“... I hate you.”   Keith carefully peeled off his undershirt, hissing as the fabric rubbed over his healing bruises. He was glad that they had found a place with an underground water source, kind of like a shallow river, and that the expedition as a whole had agreed to stop their advance in favor of getting themselves cleaned up.He had felt gross and sticky after several days of travel without being able to shower or anything.“That doesn't look too good,” a voice said behind him, surprising Keith into a standing position, tense. He looked at the speaker and relaxed some as he realized it was only Thace, the doctor. He was a tall man, broad and rather intimidating at first sight, but Keith had quickly realized that he was both soft spoken and kind.Keith shook his head dismissively. “Oh, no—it's nothing, just a few bruises.”“You're bleeding,” Thace pointed out dryly, one eyebrow raised.Keith blinked.“What?” he asked, dumbfounded. Was he? He turned his head and tried to see over his shoulder, without luck.Pidge appeared then, still clad in her stolen sailor uniform. “Yeah, he's right,” she said, looking at his back with a frown. “You didn't tell me you were injured, Keith.”“I'm not—what?”“It's nothing serious, probably just a scratch. It must've scabbed over some and got stuck to your undershirt, and when you took it off it tore it open again. That's probably why it's bleeding now,” Thace said placatingly.“I—I didn't notice.”“Well, it's better if I take a look at it and clean it up a little. It might not be dangerous, but we don't want it to get infected, either.”“Um, it's not necessary—”“Nonsense, wash up and then come find me, I'll bandage it up for you.”Keith opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by Pidge. “Oh, Keith will, don’t worry. Won’t you, Keith?”God, her warning smile was terrifying. He gulped and then nodded, accepting the doctor’s help. “Um, yeah—thank you, Thace.”   “Oh my! Shiro, look at the size of this! It's gotta be half a mile high at least. It... it must have taken hundreds of… no,” Matt scoffed, “thousands of years to carve this thing.”Someone grabbed him from the back of his shirt and hauled him away from the column as it was shrouded in dark smoke, product of a loud explosion. He looked with wide eyes as the masterpiece trembled and fell backwards, effectively forming a bridge between the place their group was standing and the other side of the room.“Hey, look, I made a bridge,” Rolo commented happily, completely ignoring Matt’s wide-eyed look of horror. “It only took me, like, what? Twenty seconds?” He shrugged. “Less, perhaps.”Matt sputtered, turning indignant eyes towards Shiro.“Sorry,” he said apologetically, with an awkward half-smile.Matt sighed, defeated. “Nah, it doesn't matter.”   A heavy winter coat fell on top of Keith and he squeaked—not that he would ever admit to it.“You should have packed more,” Shiro said disapprovingly, with just the right amount of amusement and snark to let Keith know that he wasn’t really angry, just amusingly resigned.Keith's teeth chattered, and he chose to completely ignore his brother’s words in favor of pulling the coat around him closer to his body. He hoped it would help him regain at least some of the warmth that had left him when they had reached this… freezing, snow-covered piece of land. Where did the snow even come from? How was it this cold after so much heat? It didn’t make sense to Keith, but he didn’t dwell too long on the mystery—he was warming up again, and that was everything that really mattered.“Thank you, Shiro,” he said wholeheartedly, and Shiro smiled, ruffling his hair.“You’re welcome, kiddo.”   Matt was scowling at his book, trying to decipher a passage that didn’t quite make sense. Pidge was talking with Keith and Shiro, and trying to get her brother to join them as they waited for the food.It was only the four of them, as it had been since the very beginning of the caravan, after what they had dubbed “the Leviathan Disaster”. They hadn’t really attempted to get closer to the main group, in grand part due to the subtle sense of hostility directed at them from some of the members.Rax, in particular, seemed to dislike them the most.And while Matt and Shiro were completely clueless as to why that was, Pidge and Keith could make a good guess.Shay approached them with dinner, her smile still present as if nothing was wrong, and Pidge was tired. Tired, ashamed, and determined. The young woman filled their trays and then politely excused herself, and Pidge followed her retreating back with her eyes.“We have to do something,” Keith whispered, and when Pidge turned to look at him, she saw that his eyes were trained on Shay, too.“I know,” she sighed, playing with her food. It looked… edible. Mostly. She bit her lip, mulling over the possibilities. There was a heavy feeling in her gut, and suddenly she felt like she needed to do something right now.She brusquely handed Keith her tray and pushed to her feet, resolutely walking towards Shay. Keith sputtered behind her and stood, too.“Pidge?”Shiro looked up and frowned. “Where are you going?”“I’ll be right back,” she reassured him, before looking back at Keith. “Stay here.”“But—!”She put her best 'I'm serious' face and repeated, “Stay.”He looked like he wanted to fight her, but after a few seconds of standstill, Keith grumbled and sit back down. Pidge smiled.“I’ll be right back.”She walked hurriedly to the last place she’d seen Shay and looked around for her. After a few seconds, she finally located her. She approached her briskly, if somewhat nervously.“Um, Shay?”The young woman looked up, curiously.“Yes, Mr. Gunderson?”Pidge cringed inwardly at the innocuous reminder of the thing that she was trying to apologize for.“Ah, um… Pidge, please. Just Pidge is fine and,” she gnawed on the inside of her lip and shuffled her right foot a bit, joining her arms behind her back, “I actually wanted to apologize for, um. That moment on the sub, you know—when I let you think I was Matt.”Shay pursed her lips as she studied Pidge's expression in search of… what? Pidge didn't know, and she didn't know if Shay found it, either. It was making her nervous.Then the tension broke when Shay exhaled loudly. “You and Keith… you aren’t supposed to be here, right?”Pidge stopped breathing for a second. What? How?Shay smiled kindly. “I suspected as much… that’s why I haven’t said anything. You two really love Matt and Shiro, huh?”“I—we—”“So you followed them. You aren’t really part of the expedition.”Pidge struggled for a moment. What could she do? Did she accept that? Did she come up with a different excuse? What was better in the long run? If Shay knew they were stowaways… but she hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t alerted anyone. Maybe it was for the best?“Uh... yes.”Shay’s smile turned a bit warmer. “Don’t worry, Pidge. I won’t tell. I’d have done the same for Rax.”“I’m still really sorry.”Shay moved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “You apologized—it’s fine.”Pidge wasn’t so convinced. It must have been obvious on her face, because Shay snorted, amused, and regarded her with a tiny smirk.“Tell you what. Help me with dinner from now on, and I’ll completely forgive you. Sounds good?”Pidge grinned widely. “Deal!” Then her smile turned slightly evil, and she added nonchalantly, “Keith will be delighted to help with the washing up, you know.”Shay’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, really?”“Yup—he feels real bad about this, too.”“My, my. We can’t have the poor boy feeling bad,” she mused. “I guess I’ll have to let him help, then.”“I’ll let him know.”   “Looks like we have a little roadblock. Rolo, what do you think?” Zarkon asked, eyeing the massive piece of carved wall in front of them.The explosives expert looked at it contemplatively. “I could un-roadblock that if I had about… two hundred of these,” he said, pulling out a stick of dynamite. “Problem is—I only got about... ten. Plus, you know, five of my own… and a couple of cherry bombs…” He dug into his satchel. “And a road flare.” He shrugged and then his lips curled in a smug smile. “Hey, too bad we don't have some nitroglycerin, eh, Matt?”Matt scowled at the reminder of the stupid prank.Zarkon rolled his eyes at the childishness. “Looks like we're gonna have to dig,” he said instead, directing his statement to Rax.The man grinned and saluted. “It will be my pleasure.”   The Digger tore into the massive block in their way, but then it suddenly sputtered and died. From the cabin, Pidge could hear a scream of pure frustration.“What the fuck is wrong with this?” Rax complained. “Nyma!”“Calm the fuck down, Rax! I'm on it,” Nyma shouted at him, already opening the back of the Digger to take a better look. “I don't understand it. I just tuned this thing up this morning,” she grumbled, missing the moment Pidge appeared beside her.Pidge looked at the motor and recognized it immediately. She knew what was probably wrong with it, so she decided to try and help the other woman out. “Um,” she started, but then Nyma jumped out of the vehicle and spoke before Pidge could.“It looks like the rotor's shot!” she announced out loud, completely ignoring Pidge’s presence. Then she sighed. “I'm gonna have to pull a spare from one of the trucks.”“Can l...”She pinned Pidge down with a narrow-eyed look. “Don’t touch anything. I'll be right back.”Pidge snorted, rolled her eyes, and jumped inside the machine. She looked around for a second, grabbed a wrench, and gave the boiler a good thunk as she adjusted some of the valves. Almost immediately, the Digger hissed and groaned, and started working properly again.“Hey, what'd you do?” Nyma asked harshly as she came back.Pidge shrugged, unconcerned. “This boiler is a Humac P54/813. The heating cores on the whole Humac line are a bit temperamental, but they are easy to fix as long as you know where to look at. I've worked with these things before.”“Oh. Yeah, I remember you said you were a mechanic,” she eyed Pidge critically. “You look too young but hey, who am I to judge?”Pidge blinked but then gave her a sympathetic look. “Got shit for being young and female?”Her lips quirked upwards. “Yeah, I guess you can relate, huh?”Pidge shrugged once again, thinking 'more that you'll ever know'. Out loud, she said, “Those people? Idiots. It's obvious that you know what you're doing, or you wouldn't be the head mechanic in this expedition.”Nyma snorted. “Well, I guess you ain't too bad. But flattery will take you nowhere, young man.”Pidge blinked and made a face. “Ugh, no offense, but—no.”Nyma giggled. “Oh, my. You are way too cute.”   “All right, we'll make camp here,” Zarkon stated. They had reached a deep cave, and a long bridge extended in front of them connecting the two salients.The group scrutinized the strange lamp-like formation on top of the bridge, which glowed a soft green, illuminating the place. It was definitely the landmark depicted in the Journal.“Why is it glowing?” Nyma wondered, voice soft.“That? That’s just natural phosphorescence,” Rax commented dismissively. Keith looked at Shay for confirmation, and noticed her nod. Then he exchanged glances with Pidge, who shrugged.There was a deep sigh at his back, and then Rolo’s distinctive voice groaned, “That thing is going to keep me up all night, I just know it.”   “And what I don't get is… right here, see? The Journal says something about a source of energy and then cuts off…”“Guys!”Matt stopped talking and lifted his gaze, and he felt Shiro doing the same at his side. The sound of Keith sharpening his knife stopped, too.Nyma was talking to them from her place in the main group, sitting in a circle around a campfire. He was somewhat surprised at her cheery, friendly smile. Not that she had been particularly confrontational—not like Rax, in any case, or even Rolo, who Matt didn’t understand at all—but since the beginning they had pushed Matt's group away.“Yes?” he asked cautiously, as neither of his companions seemed to know what this was about, either.“Would you like to sit with us?”“... Uh?”He… wasn’t expecting an invitation to join them, for sure. Maybe a question or two but not—this. He blinked, confused, and turned towards his partner and his little brother. At first sight, neither looked too surprised or shocked, but Matt knew them both quite well and knew their tells: Shiro’s eyes were slightly more open than normal, and Keith’s eyebrows were just the tiniest bit furrowed.They looked at him questioningly, and Matt shrugged a single shoulder. Shiro then nodded once, and Keith put his knife away—a clear sign that he was willing to move, at least. So Matt turned back towards the patiently waiting girl and smiled a bit. “Yeah, why not.”He put a finger inside his book so as not to lose the page and got up, quickly going towards the circle. He stumbled on a rock, but Shiro was right there, immediately stabilizing him so that he didn’t fall. He gifted him a warm smile and then sat in one of the empty spaces the group had made for them. Shiro sat on his left, Keith on his right.“Hi,” he said with a beaming smile. Rax scoffed but didn’t say anything, and the rest reciprocated the greeting with different levels of enthusiasm, but mostly welcoming.“Hi! So… what were you guys talking about? You looked to be deep in concentration,” Nyma commented.“Oh? Um, yeah!” Matt opened the book and turned it towards her, and towards the people that were sitting to that side. “See here? This,” he pointed a specific passage in the book, towards the end of the page. “This passage here seems to be leading up to… something. Something called the heart of Altea, whatever that may be. I think it could be referring to the power source mentioned in the legends. But then it just… it cuts off. It's almost like there's a missing page.”Rolo shrugged. “You're probably reading too much into it.”“Yeah, I agree. You never close that book, I'm surprised your brain hasn't fried already with all that gibberish,” Nyma added.“Uh-huh, plus, it's not like you're being paid overtime for it so—relax. It'll do you good,” were Thace’s added two cents.Shiro actually chuckled. “That's what I've been telling him for days,” he said fondly.Matt huffed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Sometimes I get a little carried away. But, hey, you know, that's what this is all about, right? I mean, discovery, teamwork, adventure.” His smile dimmed. “Unless, maybe… you're just in it for the money.”The others looked at each other and one by one answered, “Money.”He sighed. “Well, I guess I set myself up for that one.”“Sorry for the wait!” Pidge chirped, interrupting them as she and Shay moved the big pot of food.Shay nodded her assent and started filling their trays with her characteristic warm smile. “Enjoy!”Matt’s smile became fixed and just the tiniest bit forced. Like everyone else’s. Shay's food was… um, curious. She was not the designated chef of the expedition, but she had taken over the duty because the cook, poor man, had been lost during the Leviathan attack. She had done so with a smile and plenty of good will, and nobody had opposed… until they actually tasted her cooking. It was… edible. More or less. But nobody had wanted to tell her to stop because she was a ray of sunshine, so very kind and helpful, and they feared they would hurt her feelings if they did, so they endured the tasteless stuff.A little hope had appeared when Pidge offered to help her some days before, but it really didn’t make that much difference. Matt wasn’t really surprised—his little sister had never had a gift for cooking, either.Matt took a deep breath and started eating, Shiro and Keith following his example immediately.It took him a few minutes to realize that the group had gone eerily silent, but then he swallowed and looked up to see what was going on. Everyone was looking at them completely flabbergasted.“... What?”“I haven’t seen anyone eat that much of this,” Nyma said in an awed tone. Then amended, “apart from Rax, that is.”At the mention of his name, the young man looked up from his own serving, mouth full. “Huh?”Rolo looked faintly nauseated. “Eating. This stuff.”“Eh, it’s not bad,” Rax protested, gaining a scoff from his friend.“Liar. You don't even like it, and don't you dare say I'm wrong. The first night you almost threw it up before you were told Shay was the one who cooked.”Rax sat up straight and narrowed his eyes at Rolo, but before it could derive into a fight, they were interrupted.“Shay… she’s your little sister, right?” Shiro asked from his spot on Matt’s left.Rax eyed him suspiciously for a second. “She is”“Well, there you have it.” Shiro shrugged and started eating again, and in truth, there was nothing else Matt could add.“True.”Rax looked surprised, but then he actually smiled at them. Not a sneer, an honest, grateful smile before digging into his food again. Matt blinked. Who would have thought? Maybe they were finally making real progress with this group.   Keith woke to loud, panicked screams and the taste of smoke on his tongue.Jumping from his spot was instinctual, and it almost made him butt heads with Shiro, who Keith realized had been about to shake him awake. He blinked at the arm that was inches from his shoulder, and then at his brother’s worried face. His brain was still fuzzy from sleep but the screams were doing a fine job of waking him up fast.“What—”“Fire,” Shiro stated sharply, worry pulling at every muscle of his face and body. “Get Pidge, now. We’re leaving.”As if to prove Shiro’s statement, the Commander’s voice reached them, “Into the caves, now! Move it, move it!”Keith didn't lose any time in getting to his feet and shooting out of the tent. In that moment, he felt inordinately glad that he had taken to keeping his boots on all the time. It was mildly uncomfortable, but really useful in this particular circumstance.He got out of the tent, sweating but ready to do as his brother commanded, but then he froze.His eyes grew huge as they took in the ocean of bright, all consuming fire and smoke in front of him. People were running, saving what they could as they made their way towards the already moving trucks. Keith’s eyes fell on a small shining insect that was poised upon a tent nearby, and he couldn’t believe his eyes as he saw it literally lit the tent on fire.“Fuck,” he whispered, momentarily paralyzed by the whole scene. How—? Why—?“Keith!” Pidge screamed as she ran up to him, already clothed and with her bag on her shoulder. Her eyes were blown wide behind her glasses as she looked at him and then aroun. She took him by the fabric of his undershirt and shook him. “Have you seen Matt?”Surprised, Keith pried Pidge’s small hands from his clothes. “What? Matt?”“I can’t find him!” she screeched, and Keith could feel her shaking.He bit his lip. “I’m sure he’s—”“Pidge! Keith! Run!” Nyma’s loud scream interrupted him, and the panic in her voice made him look up and towards her. The caravan was moving towards the bridge; the fire was consuming everything. A car exploded and the air was suddenly filled with flying debris.Keith hissed and grabbed Pidge by the arm, pulling her down to avoid being hit. “Fuck, we need to get out of here!”“But Matt—!”“I told you to grab Pidge and run!”Keith felt himself being pulled up and then there was Shiro, looking harried and worried, but determined. “Katie, he’s fine. He’s the one who let us know about the fire, I helped him jump into a truck just before—”There was another explosion and Shiro swore. He picked up Pidge and pulled Keith towards the trucks. “C’mon. We gotta get out of here now!”“Guys, jump!”Somehow, they made it inside Nyma's truck just as they reached the bridge.Then one of the trucks that carried flammables exploded, causing a chain reaction just behind them. A scream, a screech of tires, and Keith was suddenly being pushed down by a strong arm that he knew was Shiro’s. Debris was falling around them with loud crashes, and there were even more screams. Then a loud, ominous crash came from the opposite direction of the camp.“Fuck!”And suddenly they were rolling backwards. There were screeches of fear and the sharp sound of metal hitting against metal, of tires frantically trying to stop. A high-pitched scream.The bridge collapsed under them.They were falling down, down, down into the abyss, and beneath Shiro’s protective arm, Keith closed his eyes and prayed.Their truck was jerked around and crashed into another vehicle. Keith lost the pressure of Shiro's arm, and didn’t know which way was up anymore. There were more screams, more metallic sounds.Keith oofed as his body hit the ground, and then he passed out.    When he came to, everything was dark and silent. He couldn’t see anything, but there was something heavy pushing him down, and the dust was making it difficult to breathe.“If you're alive, make a sound,” said Zarkon just as Keith started coughing uncontrollably.Then the silence was obliterated by loud groaning and muttering, accompanied by the sounds of metal hitting the floor and doors opening.Someone turned on a flashlight.Keith closed his eyes again and groaned. His whole body ached, and his head was throbbing, but he didn’t think that he’d broken anything. It was a small miracle, seeing as he had been ejected from the truck at some point during the confusing fall.He braced himself against the strangely soft ground and pushed himself up. He stopped once he sat on his haunches because his head swam and he feared he’d black out again if he pushed.There was a groan to his right, and Keith managed to distinguish Shiro’s form curled around Pidge when the flashlight swept over them. He forgot about his own problems and hastily dragged himself towards them.“Nyma, give me a damage report,” Zarkon ordered, and Keith tuned the man out. That was not important. His family’s safety was much more pressing.“Hey, hey are you okay?” Keith croaked as he reached them, worried. He coughed again; his throat felt raw and parched.“Keith?”“Yeah.”“Oh, thank God,” Pidge grunted. “I’m fine, but Shiro’s out cold. I think he hit his head when we fell.”Keith’s stomach rebelled, but he firmly pushed the nausea down. “Here, let me help you,” he said instead, positioning himself in a way let him pull his brother to the side. Hopefully, it would be enough to let Pidge get from under him.Shiro was not a light man. He was rather tall, and pure muscle. Moving him was difficult even with Pidge’s help.“... Lucky for us we landed in something soft,” he heard Nyma say, just as he turned Shiro over letting Pidge crawl out from beneath him.“Pumice ash,” said Rax thoughtfully. Then his voice adopted an awed tone. “We are standing at the base of a dormant volcano.”The explosion of a flare gun startled Keith into looking towards the Commander’s group. Lieutenant Sendak had shot a flare upwards, and they were all holding their breath as it kept climbing up, leaving a trail of fire and dark smoke behind.“It just keeps going,” the Lieutenant said.Shiro grumbled. “Maybe… that's our ticket out of here.” Keith turned his head and was relieved when he found Shiro smiling back at him. It was rather weak, and tired, and there was a deep cut on the bridge of his nose that was bleeding, but otherwise he seemed to be fine.Then the flare made contact with something that blocked the way.“... Maybe not.”“The magma has solidified,” Rax said. “That's why the exit is blocked.”“Wait, wait, wait. What? Are you—are you saying this thing can blow up at any time?” Nyma asked, concerned.“No, that would take—”“Where is Matt?” Shiro asked, distracting Keith from the conversation.He turned towards his brother, squinting a bit. “What?”“Matt. Have you seen him?” Keith shook his head and looked at Pidge, who suddenly looked alarmed.“I haven’t, have you?”“No,” she said, biting her lip. She turned to Shiro. “Where did you say—”“—what do you say, Mr. Holt?”There was no answer.“Mr. Holt?”Silence.“Matt!?”   Everything hurt.His legs, his arms, his lungs as he heaved in breath after labored breath. His head was pounding.There had been… fire. And running. And Shiro bodily throwing him into a truck. And then—Something cold and sharp pushed up his glasses, and suddenly Matt found himself able to hear more than the rush of the blood in his ears.There were voices. Unknown. What?He forced himself to open his eyes, and then had to blink twice before he could really focus.His stomach dropped and, for a second, his heart stopped beating. Then, as if to make up for it, it started beating twice as fast.Everything was dark but for the eerie blue light that emanated from behind the masks of his assailants. Matt tried to push himself back, away from them and their sharp looking weapons, but as he did, he felt a sharp stab of pain on his right pectoral. Filled with dread, he felt his arm give and he flopped back against the cold rock he had been resting against.Instinctively, he reached towards the injury with his other arm, and his eyes fell down to inspect it; to visually confirm that the warm, sticky liquid on it was his own blood.For a moment, he had forgotten about the masked people surrounding him. He still felt dizzy and unable to think coherently. His head throbbed.Then the warrior that had pushed his glasses up with their lance took off their mask, and Matt had to make a double take.He definitely wasn’t expecting the person behind the mask to be a young woman, much less one this beautiful.What he noticed first were her eyes, and how they reflected the bluish light that came from her necklace. Dark skin, long wavy white hair. She had two small pink marks, one beneath each of her eyes, like crescent moons. Matt was taken aback by the curious but worried look in her eyes, fixed on his injury. Before he could say anything, or react in any way, she grabbed her necklace—a type of glowing crystal—and leaned close to Matt, entirely focused on him.Matt’s eyes grew wide and he gasped as, after gently pressing the crystal to his wound, she replaced it with her hand and pushed.It was a strange feeling: warm and cold at the same time, but not painful. It was over immediately, and when she took off her hand, there was a blue hand impression where the wound had been. He gaped at it for a second, and then he was further surprised as he noticed that it was disappearing, leaving only unmarred skin behind. The cut had healed completely, and Matt couldn’t believe his eyes.After gaping at the place where a wound should have been, he lifted his gaze towards the mystery lady, and found himself confronted with a pleased warm smile. Sadly, it quickly disappeared behind her mask as she pulled it over her face once more.Matt swallowed, frantically searching his empty brain for something, anything to say, but he lost his opportunity. There was a loud noise of earth crumbling and voices shouting for him, and the young woman and her companions didn’t waste any time waiting for the source to appear. They ran.Matt had a fraction of a second to recognize that the thing responsible for the loud noise was The Digger, but then he was turning towards the group of escaping masked people.“Hey, wait!” he called as he pushed himself to his feet and tried to make his body cooperate with him. “Who are you?!”Damn, they were fast. Matt was no runner, and they were rapidly getting away from him. They were using their weapons to navigate the complicated terrain, using those to push themselves over tall rock formations that Matt had much more difficulty passing over.As he ran and shouted for them to stop, please, he could hear the voices of his family calling his name among the metallic whirr of the Digger and the destruction of the rocks.“Matt!” that was his sister’s voice, high pitched and obviously worried, and Matt should have stopped. He should have stayed put and waited for her, waited for Shiro and Keith and the rest. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t.He ignored the cuts on his palms and the bruises he was gaining because of his haste, and kept running. Even if he couldn’t see the masked people any longer, there was something in him, in his chest, in his very core, that screamed at him to hurry, to catch up, because it was important—He ran and climbed and jumped, and then he struggled to pass through a small opening in the rock, and was momentarily shocked to feel fresh air on his skin and see green vegetation under his palms.“Wait, wait a minute!” he screamed again and pushed himself up to his feet, running over the new surface and looking around for his quarry.He stopped in his tracks when the floor suddenly disappeared. He was on a cliff. But what really caught his attention and made him forget what he had been doing was the magnificent view that stretched out in front of him.He didn’t even flinch when the Digger noisily made an appearance behind him, followed by his family and the rest of his team, who promptly ran to his side.Was he dreaming?Giant waterfalls cascaded down to a river of burning lava, creating clouds of steam at the bottom that rose and gave the already impressive image an even more ethereal quality. Further away, in the center of what appeared to be a perfect circle of ocean, there was what seemed to be an island. A city? Could it be…?“It’s beautiful,” Nyma and Shay said at the same time, awed.“Matt, I gotta hand it to you,” Rolo said. “You really came through.”“Matt, is that—?”Pidge couldn’t finish her question, as the people that Matt had been following suddenly appeared, quite literally falling over them and holding their group at lance point.“Uh,” Rolo started, and Matt couldn't really fault him for his next words, because he got it. Being stuck between a hostile group of warriors and a precipice was nobody's idea of fun. “I take that back.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Keith scowled at the moss-covered stones under him and roughly tore out a weed with his right hand; his left was propped up on his knee and holding his chin. At his side, Pidge fidgeted and let out a long deep sigh, leaning back towards the wall.He lifted his head when Shiro walked in front of him yet again, and as he studied his brother's tense countenance and worried frown, he couldn't help but wonder what could be taking this long.They had discovered that the group who had ambushed them at the cliff was, in fact, a group of living Altean warriors—which was already surprising enough on its own—and that their leader was the Princess of Altea, herself. Everyone had been taken aback when she had taken off her mask to reveal a young face, blue eyes full of a mix of curiosity and mistrust, white wavy hair contrasting nicely with her dark skin.Keith hadn't had a clue of what language she was speaking, not until Matt had tried to communicate with her and he realized he was speaking the bastardized form of Altean Matt had been teaching him and Pidge during their travels. The contrast was jarring—the woman's quick, certain syllables clashing with Matt's slow, halting tones. But then it had devolved into Latin, which Keith understood at least a little, and then finally French, which was even clearer, but still surprising.How many languages did these people know?Before anyone had time to really process what was happening, their groups were mingling, interchanging curious greetings in multiple languages such as Spanish and German.“Their language must be based on a root dialect,” Matt had explained in wonder when Pidge had asked how could they speak so many languages. “It's just like the Tower of Babel.”“Well, maybe English is in there somewhere,” Zarkon had interrupted, smiling charmingly at the Altean party. “We are explorers from the surface world,” he had said aloud, arms outstretched in a friendly gesture, catching the warriors' attention. “We come in peace.”“Welcome to the city of Altea,” the young woman had replied, smiling brightly. She had signaled behind her with an encompassing gesture of her arm, towards the island beyond the waterfalls. Then, she had grabbed Matt's wrist and started dragging him away, insisting that they had to come with her to speak with her father, immediately.Zarkon had acquiesced and given orders to go back to the shaft and salvage whatever was worth salvaging, but Keith hadn't paid much attention to the commander. He had been already following the retreating woman and the rest of his family.(He couldn't let his guard down. He couldn't trust these strangers not to hurt his family… not yet.)That had been five hours ago, give or take a few minutes.They had traveled across the ominous lava river and then through a series of bridges that alternated between wooden construction and stone. It was clear that at one time the wooden parts had not existed; they were a sort of patchwork to complete what had once been a single, magnificently carved piece of architecture that, for some reason, was now broken in several places.The result was still stunning in its magnificence, but at first sight it could be taken as ruins.In fact, Keith had been amazed as he had noticed the half covered statues and partially submerged domes at the bridge's sides. They hinted at abandoned buildings, and he had wanted to know why—or how—had they ended up underwater, but when he had tried to ask about it, his questions had been blatantly ignored.He had fumed a bit at that, at least until he realized that none of their questions were being answered, no matter who asked them. It wasn't because it was him asking; the princess simply didn't seem agreeable to discuss anything with them just yet, and the warriors had taken her tight-lipped demeanor as their cue.There had been flutter of wings, followed by loud cawing, and Keith had immediately looked up, trying to find the source. A flight of long, graceful birds had soared over their heads in a beautiful display of colors, taking Keith's breath away. He was pretty sure that they didn't have birds like those on the surface—those colors were unreal.It wasn't long before they had finally reached the main island, and they soon started encountering more Alteans.They had looked at Keith's group with guarded curiosity, whispering among themselves as they went about their day, but none had approached the Princess or the warriors to ask them what was happening.Most of them, Keith had noticed, had white hair.He had started to believe that it was a sign of their race—dark skin, white hair—until he had seen some mousy-haired kids. Then he had started looking closer, and had found a couple of redheads, and some blondes. It was then that he had noticed that every single one of them wore the same type of necklaces, and almost everyone had tattoos on their faces.Once the signs of habitation started appearing, the buildings had stopped looking so much like ruins.There had still been moss covering their path, true, but the houses around them hadn't looked abandoned anymore. Noise and smells and soft chatter had come from them, barely noticeable. It would have been completely overlooked, Keith knew, if that buzzing of life hadn't been so obviously absent until they had reached the outer edges of the city.Their party had soon arrived at a kind of central plaza where the Princess had stopped the procession and had finally spoken to them after hours of silence.“Only the leaders and the interpreter may continue,” she had said, face solemn. “The rest of you, please wait here.”Keith had frowned, not liking the idea much, and judging by Pidge's tense demeanor, she hadn't liked it any more than Keith.A heavy hand on his shoulder had stopped him from complaining, and when he turned he had found himself staring into Shiro's dark eyes.“He'll be fine,” he had stated, even though the tightness of his eyes belied his claim. Then he had turned to Pidge and repeated, “He will be fine.”(To Keith, it sounded more like he had wanted to convince himself than to reassure them, but he had decided to keep his mouth shut, this time.)Zarkon had taken Sendak and Matt, and followed the princess up a flight of stairs. They had disappeared behind a pair of massive, heavy looking stone doors guarded by a couple of stern-faced guards.Keith didn't know how long ago that was, but he was decidedly feeling antsy. It felt like hours.Shiro paced, walking in front of him yet again; Pidge fidgeted and grumbled at his side; Nyma looked up and sighed. Rolo had sat down and was tinkering with a handcrafted bomb; Thace was subtly trying to make Rolo stop while Rax and Shay bickered softly and Keith… Keith had had enough.
Enough.
He felt jittery and uncomfortable and anxious, and staying quiet and still for another minute seemed like a prospect from hell. He couldn't, he needed to—he needed to do something, anything, now, before he went insane—Just as he jumped to his feet, ready to start pacing with Shiro or maybe even run to see if Matt was okay, the doors opened with a loud grinding of stone on stone. Every member of their party was shocked into attention immediately, and Keith felt himself relax a bit as he watched Matt descend the steps, thoughtful but unharmed.Pidge immediately rushed to him, and Keith was hot on her heels.“What did they say?” she demanded as she reached him, and Matt blinked down at her for a second, uncomprehendingly. Pidge huffed. “The King. The Princess. What did they say?”As Pidge asked the questions, the rest of the group arrived.“Yes, what's the verdict?” Rolo asked, curious.Matt glanced at them briefly, and then his eyes went back to Pidge.“Their opinions are divided,” he said. “The King,” his mouth twisted, and he let the sentence hanging. He took a deep breath through his nose and started again, “The King doesn't really wants us here. The Princess, though, seems to think differently. They were arguing. She appears to like us okay, but him… I don't know, I think he's hiding something.”The group processed that bit of information in silence.“Well, if he's hiding something, I want to know what it is,” said Zarkon at last, looking meaningfully towards an oblivious Matt, who was going over his notes, eyes focused.“We'll do it,” Shiro offered, putting a hand on Matt's shoulder.Matt startled and looked up, frowning in confusion. Keith couldn’t fault him; even when he had been paying attention, he felt completely lost.“Do what?”“We'll talk to the Princess,” Shiro said calmly, completely ignoring Keith's disbelieving expression and Matt's confusion.Zarkon looked Shiro in the eye for a moment, then nodded. “I'll leave it up to you, then.”“Yes, sir.”The commander turned around and fixed his attention on the rest of the team. “We've been granted asylum for the night—we might as well get our provisions and prepare for departure in the morning,” he said, and it was an order if Keith had ever heard one.The men and women assembled in the plaza all made some sign of acknowledgment before dispersing, forming into smaller groups that went into different parts of the city.“Shiro?” Matt asked carefully once the four of them were alone.Shiro crossed his arms and studied Matt's face for a moment before sighing. “The King… he didn't want us just gone, right?” Shiro asked, making Keith tense at his solemn tone.Shoulders slumping, Matt sighed and shook his head. “No,” he admitted darkly, causing the rest of them to look grim. “He wanted to kill us on the spot—he was indeed surprised that we were even there instead of dead somewhere in the caves.”“Well, that's heartening,” Keith muttered and Pidge snorted, though it was not exactly amused.“I'm glad that the Princess seems to like us, then,” she said, gaining a small nod from Matt.“I do,” a voice spoke from behind them, making them all jump.Pidge squeaked in surprise and Keith instinctively turned around, taking out his knife and pointing it directly at the Princess' chest.She looked downright unimpressed, which made Keith feel both outraged and dumbfounded, at least until she quickly and efficiently batted it away. While speaking. (As if Keith wasn't a threat at all). “I have questions for you lot, and you will not leave this city before you answer them.”Taking Keith's wrist, she turned around and started dragging him away. “Follow me.”   Of course Lance had noticed the arrival of the outsiders.Who hadn't, really?He had been going towards Hunk's house when the whispers had reached his ears, and he couldn't help but feel curious.He had asked one of his neighbors, and she had told him that another girl had told her that somebody else had told her that a big group of foreigners had arrived in a caravan following their beloved Princess that morning.Lance hadn't believed it at first.Strangers in their home? Impossible.But the whispers had continued and grown and—Well, Lance was a curious person.He had wanted to go off and search for the nameless strangers immediately, to confirm the rumors that began sounding frankly more and more unbelievable as time passed, but alas, he had a job to do (and a terrifying mother that he'd rather not piss off).It was just some minutes before his morning break when he actually saw a group of them: men and women, some pretty, some old, some grumpy.They looked so alien, so out of place with their lack of crystals and their heavy clothes. Looking down, Lance was horrified. Their feet weren’t bare, they were trapped in some sort of… prison. For feet. He couldn't understand how they tolerated it. He wiggled his toes, as if to confirm that they were free to burrow in the soft sand.“Hunk, Hunk!” he called his best buddy, who was busy untangling one hummer from their fishing net and only grunted in acknowledgment. Lance didn't let it bother him. “Remember those rumors I was telling you about?”“About the foreigners?” Hunk didn't wait for his response. His voice, as he answered, held a mix of exasperation and long-suffering humor, “Yes, Lance, I do. You've only mentioned them about… let me see… seventeen times already.”Lance decided to ignore the quip, and instead patted Hunk's arm a couple of times. “Look!” he hissed.Hunk sighed deeply but obeyed, and Lance immediately pointed to the group of strangers with both his head and his left thumb. He felt vindicated as he saw Hunk's eyes grow wide.“Oh, wow,” he breathed, slack jawed. “It was true?”“What?” Lance questioned, slightly offended. “Did you think I was lying?”Hunk shook his head, chuckling uncomfortably. “No, no. I just thought—” Hunk fidgeted, eyes going from the group to Lance and back in quick succession. He bit his lip. “Do you think they're dangerous?”Recognizing the true reason behind Hunk's tone, Lance forgot about being mad and went back to studying the strangers. There were five of them, three guys and two girls, all of them rather tall and imposing, except for one of the girls, who had a smaller frame but looked equally fierce.“They definitely look dangerous. They have weapons,” Lance observed. He hummed. “The blonde one is cute, though.”Hunk groaned. “Please, just don't flirt with her. You said yourself that they look dangerous. What if they hurt you?”“Nah, man. Don't worry yourself so much. Let's go say hello.”“Lance! Wait. No, don't!”Lance walked towards the group of strangers without hesitation but trying to be discreet at the same time. It didn't matter what he had said to Hunk, once he got a closer look at the group, he had a really bad feeling. He stopped, too far away to hear what they were talking about, but not feeling the least bit inclined to get any closer.“Lance?” Hunk fidgeted at his side. Lance turned towards him with a smile that he hoped didn't look as forced as it felt.“It doesn't matter. Let's go back to work.”   Some time later, Lance spotted another group of strangers.He would have ignored them too, if it wasn't for the simple but incredibly important fact that this one was being led by their Princess.“Hunk,” he called, tapping his friend's arm urgently once again.“What now, bud?”“Is that Princess Allura?”Hunk turned his head and looked.“Mmm, yeah, I think it's her,” he said, and then he frowned. “What’s she doing with the outsiders?”Lance didn't like that, either. “They are following her,” he hissed.Hunk shook his head. “No. More like… like she's leading them somewhere.”Lance narrowed his eyes at the group and—yeah. It was true, if only because she was literally dragging one of them by the wrist; the lanky, brown haired man was struggling to keep up with her fast, agile strides. Still, Lance didn't like it. “Hunk…”“Uh-huh. No.” Hunk shook his head repeatedly for added emphasis, giving Lance his I'm-not-joking-Lance-I'm-serious face, arms crossed over his broad chest.“We can't let our Princess be alone with four male outsiders!” Lance cried out indignantly. “Even if one is just a kid. That's just wrong.”“Princess Allura can beat their asses just fine,” Hunk pointed out sagely. “She can handle herself.” The statement lacked conviction, though, and Lance was not above pouncing on such a clear weakness.“I don't doubt that she's strong, heck, I know she's crazy strong!” He paused, remembering something. He snickered. “Remember that time she threw Imar over her head? When he was coming onto her too strong?”Hunk chuckled, too, some of the tension draining from the line of his shoulders. “I remember. Point?”“The point is, big man, that even if she is strong, it's just wrong. She should have, you know, some backup. Just in case.”Hunk pursed his lips and looked Lance over, arms still crossed. “You are just curious about the dark-haired boy, aren't you.”Lance sputtered, tearing his gaze away from said dark-haired boy to give Hunk a look of flustered betrayal. “No!” his voice came out higher than he would have liked, so he cleared his throat and scowled at his best friend. “What the heck, Hunk. That's not it. At all. Who do you take me for?”Hunk rolled his eyes. “Anyway, we can't. We have a job to do—” Lance opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, Hunk continued, “—and plus they're already gone.”“What?” Lance swiveled around and looked for the group of strangers, but Hunk had been telling the truth. They had completely disappeared while he was otherwise occupied. “Where—? Which way did they go?”Hunk pointed towards a vague point in the shrubbery. “Over there.”“We have to go, Hunk,” Lance spoke urgently. “What kind of citizens leave their Princess like that? She really, really might need our help.”Hunk sighed deeply, and Lance looked up at him with big, hopeful eyes. “Fine. Fine. Let's go now, before I change my mind.”Lance cheered and stood on his tiptoes, chastely kissing Hunk's cheek. “You're the best. Let's go, c'mon!”   “Place crystal into slot.”“Yes, yes, I have done that!”“Gently place your hand on the inscription pad.”“Yes!”“Okay, did you… turn the crystal one-quarter turn back?”“Yes. Yes!”“While your hand was on the inscription pad?”“Ye—no.”“Well, that's it, then. That's an easy thing to miss. You know, you deserve credit… for even... even gettin' this far.” Matt coughed, obviously uncomfortable at being pinned with the Princess’ unimpressed stare. “Okay, uh, give it a try,” he said, letting her have access to the control panel of the big lion she had decided to show them after discovering that Matt could actually read Altean.It had been a strange experience, learning what exactly had happened with the city and its inhabitants, and the princess’ story. Pidge still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that the young-looking woman was actually around ten thousand years old.Once Matt let her pass, the princess didn’t waste any time before touching the pad, eyes alight. However, her face dropped from a barely restrained smile into a confused, disappointed frown when the lion stayed quiet.“What? Why isn't it working?” Matt asked aloud, getting his face closer to the pad and the inscription that surrounded it. Adjusting his glasses, he narrowed his eyes. “Did I read something wrong?”That was Pidge’s cue to interrupt.“Lemme see,” she said, pushing Matt away and studiously ignoring his ongoing protests. She might not know much about languages, not like Matt did, but she was a good technician. She understood machinery, even if said machinery was very different from the kinds they had on the surface.After examining the pad for a few seconds with only her eyes, she proceeded to curiously touch it with the tip of her finger.“Turn the crystal, keep the—woah!”The lion activated without delay at Pidge's touch, and she barely had time to react before it accelerated, flying straight ahead towards the root-covered statue. Instead of stopping there, though, it bounced, flying back over towards them at a frankly terrifying speed.Pidge squeaked as Keith pulled her down and covered her with his body, the flying machine going over their heads and making a mess out of their hair. She closed her eyes tightly as she listened to it bounce over at least three more times on different surfaces, fervently hoping that the next one wouldn’t be them. It finally stopped after a last loud crash, and it was only then that she decided that it was safe to open her eyes to assess the damage.From the corner of her eye, she noticed Shiro was protecting both Matt and the princess in a similar way Keith was protecting her. She then dragged her eyes towards the now deactivated lion.And smiled.That. Was. Brilliant!If her smile was making her look crazy, she didn't care. She had just activated a flying lion! A piece of technology that was thousands of years old that could fly! A piece of technology that no one had used for almost that long! It was unprecedented, it was important, and she needed to understand why, she needed to—“What the fuck, you almost killed us!” a boy shouted, jumping out of the shrubbery and startling Pidge out of her thoughts.He was wearing a blue toga-like garment consistent with ones they had seen most of the male population wearing so far, a golden bracelet on his left bicep, and he had two upturned crescent moon tattoos beneath his eyes—just like the Princess', but blue. His short, curly brown hair was his most noticeable feature, because as far as Pidge had seen, most of the population had white hair.Behind him, another boy appeared, taller and much bigger than the first one, dressed in a similar manner. His hair was darker than the first boy’s, almost black. He also had a third tattoo on his shoulder, bigger and much more complex than the two beneath his eyes—and his were gold.Like the princess, both of them were barefoot.The lanky one pointed at them with a trembling, accusatory finger. “Are you people nuts?”“Lance?” the princess asked after a beat of confused silence. “What are you doing here?”“I—” It was interesting to note how the boy's angry expression immediately dissolved into a smile that Pidge could call flirty, even if a bit weird, when his attention turned to the Princess. He put a closed fist over his heart and bowed his head slightly. “Good evening, Your Highness.”The Princess waved her hand dismissively. “Allura is fine, Lance, and you know it.”“I couldn't possibly—”“Lance.”“Ah-em,” he cleared his throat. “Yes, anyway. My buddy Hunk and I were working, minding our own business, as always, when we saw Princess Allura guiding our… guests… around town and we decided that we,” he pointed back at his nervous-looking friend, who timidly waved at them, “as good Altean citizens, should make sure that they were not a threat to our beautiful princess' continued safety so—”Keith snorted and the boy, Lance, turned on him immediately, eyes narrowed.“What are you laughing at, shaggy hair?” he spat.Keith’s eyes widened; mouth dropping in shock. Pidge had to put a hand over her mouth to smother her sudden giggles.“My hair isn't shaggy!” Keith’s voice came out higher than normal in his outrage, and Pidge felt like she couldn’t breathe, she was laughing so hard.“It's a mess,” the boy sniffed, turning his nose up and crossing his arms over his chest, “and it's obviously greasy.”Keith gaped, and then growled. “Well excuse me for not being able to wash my hair while we've been wandering inside underground caves for days!” he snapped, crossing his own arms in an almost defensive posture.“Whoa, calm down, man.”“You calm down!” Keith said which, honestly, didn't make much sense because Lance wasn't the one almost shouting. “What's the matter with you?”“What's the matter with me?” Lance asked incredulously, and his calm approach flew right out of the window. “The matter with me? I'll tell you what's 'the matter with me'. I was calmly answering the question my beautiful princess had just asked me, and then you—you started laughing! At me! You interrupted me to laugh at me! How is that polite?”“I did not!”“You did!”“Did not. You're being ridiculous.”“You are ridiculous! And you totally did.”Princess Allura blinked. “Well that's new,” she said, eyebrows high on her forehead.“Matt, are my eyes deceiving me?” Shiro asked, and Pidge was amused to hear the almost awed tone in his voice.“No. No, dear, they are not. Keith is actually bickering with a stranger,” Matt answered wonderingly, also staring at the strange image. Well, Pidge couldn't really blame them. She herself was finding it rather incredible. Keith just… didn't do that.“I take it that this is not the norm?”“Absolutely not,” the three of them answered in unison.Shiro shook his head. “Keith is usually very closed off with new people,” he explained. “Opening up is very difficult for him. It makes him uncomfortable.”“Yeah, and because of that, he tends to glare a lot, which in turn makes others uncomfortable,” Matt added with a sigh. “It’s a miracle that he feels comfortable enough to not just talk with someone new, but bicker.”“It is weird,” Pidge agreed. “A bit.”“Well, Lance has always had a special effect on people,” the Princess mused. “He's a charmer, even if his charms don't work exactly like he would like them to.”They watched the two boys in silence, wondering how long they would keep arguing. Pidge hoped it wasn’t much longer—she was growing bored with it, already.A minute passed, and they were still at it, with no sign that they were going to stop anytime soon.“They’ve completely forgotten that we’re here, haven't they?” Matt wondered aloud.“Yeah, It really looks like that, huh?”“I'm still surprised Lance stopped,” Princess Allura said, surprise still etched in her expression. As she noticed that none of them understood what she was talking about, she added, “His explanation, I mean. Usually, no matter what I say, he likes to flirt with me. He knows he won’t get anything out of it, but he does so anyway. It’s strange to me that he stopped, is all.”“Do you want him to?” Matt asked with more curiosity that Pidge was expecting. Shiro looked interested in her answer, too.“Spirits, no. I’ve known him since he was a baby. He's cute, but not my type.”Pidge made a face. “Ugh, not to offend you or anything, but I don't really wanna hear this, so…” She slowly but purposefully backed away from them. The three adults looked at her questioningly, and she vaguely motioned towards the lion. “I'm gonna… go take a look. You can… stay here and do whatever, bye!”She was not running away from potentially mushy stuff. She was not.(It was only a strategical retreat because she was bored already of watching Keith make a fool of himself. Obviously. Also, because the prospect of examining the new, intriguing piece of technology was much more enticing than doing nothing, of course.)   “How did you do that?” Lance's friend asked her some minutes later, as Pidge curiously studied the lines and carvings on the lion.She jumped slightly, and turned her head towards him. “Pardon?”“The lion. How did you make it work? And why did it change colors for you?” he asked curiously.Pidge's eyes lit. “Oh! You're right, it did change colors when I touched it, didn't it? From the cool blue of the crystal to a deep green. Why is that?” she asked to herself while inspecting the lion again. Without taking her attention from the mechanical beast, she said, “I'm Pidge. You're Hunk, right? Help me move it?”“Um, sure?” he said, and without much effort he managed to help her carry the lion away from the wall.Pidge then climbed over it and inspected the pad closely. She carefully touched it again after rotating the crystal as she had seen Matt do, and then the lion got back to life, hovering noiselessly at about three feet above the floor.“Wow,” Hunk breathed, and then grinned. “Neat.”Pidge returned the grin with enthusiasm. “I'd say so! I've never seen this kind of technology before!” she said, and then amended, “Well, except for the big crab that wanted to eat us at the beginning of the journey.”“A crab?”“A giant crab.”“It was the Leviathan, Pidge. Not a crab,” Matt said tiredly as he approached them with Shiro and Princess Allura trailing behind him.Pidge shrugged. “Leviathan, giant crab—same thing.”“You saw the Leviathan?” Hunk inquired, torn between queasy, alarmed and impressed. “I thought it was a myth! Aunty has always had fun scaring the kids with those stories. Is it real?”“Believe me, it's real. Huge, too, and vicious. But it isn't a real animal, it's a machine,” Pidge said, eyes unfocused. “Man, I'd really like to dissect and study it.”Hunk shuddered. “I think I'd be happy studying this one here, thanks. It seems much less… murderous,” he said, dragging Pidge back to the present and away from dangerous ideas that may or may not have involved fishing for the Leviathan and cutting it to pieces. For science.“Yeah, maybe you're right,” she sighed. Then brightened. “Want to take it apart?”Before Hunk could give her an answer, though, Shiro interrupted. “No taking apart ancient and forgotten machinery, Pidge. You don't know what you're dealing with. Plus, the Princess wants her necklace back.”“You too, Allura is fine,” the Princess said to Shiro, before turning apologetic eyes to Pidge. “But yes, I'd like it back, please?”“Oh, sure.” Pidge looked at the little crystal dejectedly. She turned it to the other side, deactivating the lion. It settled down gently, and then she offered the necklace to its owner. “Here.”“Thank you, Pidge,” Allura said gratefully, taking it from Pidge's hands and putting it around her own neck. “And I'm sorry, but…” She hesitated for a second, and then said firmly, “I could give you one of these later, if you want?”Pidge’s eyes grew and started sparkling. “Really?”“Sure!”“Cool! Thanks, Allura!”She could feel Hunk's surprise—whether at her casual use of the Princess' name or the offer, Pidge couldn’t say—, but Allura beamed.“You’re welcome! Now, I'm taking these two,” she pointed back at Matt and Shiro, “for a city tour. Would you like to come with us or would you prefer to stay here and go your own way later?”Pidge and Hunk both looked back at the still bickering Lance and Keith, then to each other, and finally back at Allura. They shook their heads.“We'll stay here for a bit,” Hunk said, “I can lend… Pidge?” He waited for Pidge's nod before continuing, “While those two flirt, I can lend Pidge my crystal to see what this baby can do. When they are finished with that, we’ll see what to do.”Allura blinked at the flirting reference but then snickered. “Oh. Okay, then!” she agreed cheerily before turning back to Matt and Shiro. “Come with me, you two. I still have lots of questions to ask, and lots of places to show you!”   “And anyway I wasn't talking to you.”“Yes, well, I didn't want to listen to you, either!”“Then you shouldn't have responded.”“You got carried away because I laughed at your babble.”“Ha! So you admit that you were laughing at me!”“Yes! I do!” Keith said lifting his arms in an exasperated gesture. “Could you please shut your mouth already?!”“Hey, hey! Tone it down with the flirting, you two,” Hunk interrupted them and both Keith and Lance whipped their heads around to watch their friends with horrified faces.“We are not flirting!” they shouted in unison, and then looked at each other with similar horrified faces.“Sure, you aren't,” Pidge drawled, obviously unconvinced.“We are not,” Keith insisted, knowing that his face was burning but trying to pretend it wasn’t. “You've seen our brothers flirt, Pidge! This is definitely not flirting!”“Uh-huh.”“We are not! Shiro—!” Keith turned towards where his brother should have been, looking for support, but the place was empty. He furrowed his brows. “Pidge, where’s Shiro? And Matt? And the Princess, for that matter.”“Allura took them away some time ago,” she said distractedly from her spot beside the lion. Her attention was fixed on the lines on its flank. “Said they'd be going sightseeing or something. We decided to stay with you and work on this baby. I think I've cracked down how to make it fly.”“Wait, seriously?” Keith said at the same time Lance said, “Really?!”Eyebrows furrowed, Keith looked at the other boy and gauged him again. For his part, Lance seemed to be doing the same thing. Instead of arguing, though, they both decided in some sort of silent agreement to let it be. Together, they walked to the place Hunk and Pidge had moved the lion.“Yeah, look!” she said as she climbed onto its back. Then she turned the crystal and the lion activated, hovering in mid air, markings glowing with a pale blue light.“Cool,” Lance breathed, impressed, as he inspected the vehicle with his eyes. “Can I try it?”“You'll crash it,” Keith muttered. Yeah, he was still a bit ticked with the guy, so what?Lance turned to him with a fixed smile. “What was that, Shaggy?”Keith scowled at the nickname and crossed his arms over his chest. “My name is Keith.”“Whatever, Keithy. Something you wanna say?”Keith grounded his teeth and breathed deeply through his nose. God, this kid was infuriating. “No, nothing at all.”“Ah, I thought so.”Pidge snickered. “Sorry, dude, but for some reason this girl here only works for me.”“... What?”“It's true, man,” Hunk said. “I tried and I only got it to hover, but it wouldn't accept any other command from me. But when he does this thing—”Pidge grinned toothily and placed her hand over the pad again. Immediately, the blue lights turned green and the lion opened its eyes, and when she dragged her palm to one side, the lion moved.Lance whistled, impressed. “Man, that's awesome! We should totally look for more of these. There must be some that'll work for us!”Forgetting that he was kind of mad at the guy, Keith nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we should. If we all had one of these… we could probably see the whole island.”Lance blinked and turned to looked at Keith again, but there was something in his face that Keith couldn’t decipher. It made him feel uncomfortably bare and he didn’t know why so, naturally, he snapped. “What?”Lance narrowed his eyes for a second longer, making Keith fidget, and then he smirked. “Oho. It seems like I judged you too quickly, pretty boy.”Keith blinked, too surprised to react to the not-really-but-sort-of-compliment with anything else than a bewildered, “… What?”“Nothing, nothing,” Lance chuckled. “Let's go!”“No, wait a—wait a minute. Lance? Lance! What did you mean by that?”Lance snickered, but didn't answer.   “No, Lance, wait!”“But I swear I know where they are, Hunk! I swear I remember seeing the weird statues before, I just—I just don’t exactly remember where!”Hunk groaned.“That’s the same as nothing,” Keith muttered with a scowl. Hunk had noticed, in the short time he had gotten to know the guy, that Keith’s default expression tended to be a scowl. Honestly speaking, if it weren’t for the fact that he had immediately engaged with Lance in childish bantering-slash-flirting, Hunk would have been rather intimidated by him. His glare was powerful stuff.“Shut it, Shaggy,” Lance snapped, though it lacked animosity. “I know I’ve seen them when I had to accompany Asher to the mines. It was a clearing around here somewhere…”Hunk stopped for a tic and frowned, thinking hard.Lance’s words had sparked a memory.It was true that he’d had less motivation to visit the mines than Lance—Lance’s older brother was one of the current crystal artisans and he had taken to bringing Lance along with him from time to time, at least since Lance had expressed interest in learning the craft—, but he had visited them before, and he remembered the clearing Lance was talking about.He looked around, hand touching his chin. His eyes roamed over a curled carving that resembled a little heart on a derelict statue and, like a sudden flash, an image formed clearly in his mind.“Here!” he called, and then had to say it louder because the others had kept walking while he had his small epiphany. “Guys, it’s over here!”Without really waiting for the others to catch up, Hunk went off the path and walked closer to the marked statue, looking around it thoughtfully.Soon, Lance’s soft footsteps and the two foreigner’s heavier ones approached him from behind.“Hunk?”“Yeah, I remember. It was that time when Aunty—” He frowned and moved a branch out of the way, and sure enough, there was the path. He let out a happy sound and turned a bright smile on his best friend. “Yeah, through here! Remember that time when I had to go looking for you because Aunty wanted you to help Lai with old woman Kass’ dinner party?” He saw Lance nod curiously and continued, “Well, I got a bit lost on the way, and, well, you know me… I got anxious.“I made sure to notice unusual things to know if I was going in circles or what, and that little heart-shaped carving was definitely something I noticed. And I remember I found a clearing then, though it was really dark and there were many scary-looking statues and I was starting to panic so I ran, and then I found you and was so relieved that I started crying and then I completely forgot about that until now, and—oh! Here they are! Look!”Making sure to let the others pass and see, Hunk eyed the clearing with more curiosity than fear. With more people there with him, and the day-cycle lighting still bright, he felt his past self had overreacted a little bit.It was, indeed, full of what at first glance looked like moss-covered statues. Looking closer, though, now that he knew what he should be looking for, he could see the markings on their sides and the pad with the crystal-shaped slot to command them.He quickly looked around the clearing and noticed with increasing curiosity that most of the vehicles there looked like fish and other sea creatures, nothing like Pidge’s lion.“Oh—aren’t you just beautiful!” Lance cooed suddenly some feet to Hunk’s left, surprising him away from his examination of a cool-but-deadly-looking shark.“It looks the same as Pidge’s,” Keith said drily from his place on Lance’s side.Lance turned offended eyes onto him, and Keith—rather predictably—scowled. “She does not!” Lance cried indignantly, covering the lion’s ears as if he could protect her from Keith’s apparently insulting words. “She’s bigger, and softer around the eyes.”“It’s a machine, Lance!”“You are just jealous because I saw her first.” Lance stuck his tongue out and turned his back to Keith, exploring the lion with his eyes and trying to find a way to climb on it.“Yeah, right.” Keith huffed.Then Pidge, who had been conspicuously absent until that moment, burst from a bush behind Hunk, startling him. His loud scream, in turn, startled the other two.Ignoring the glares directed at him, the younger boy smiled triumphantly at them and exclaimed, “I’ve found three more! Come!” and then he disappeared just as quickly as he had popped up.Hunk turned to look questioningly at Keith—he was, after all, the one who knew Pidge best—waiting for him to make sense of his friend’s out-of-the-blue statement.Disappointingly, Keith only shrugged, looking rather sheepish as both Hunk and Lance gave him similar incredulous looks.Lance sighed. “Well, we better go after him before he disappears completely or gets lost,” he said, and Keith frowned rather heavily at him. He opened his mouth—was he going to refute Lance? Why? Did he not think Pidge could get lost here? Hunk had lived here for nineteen years and he still got lost easily—but then frowned even more and clicked his mouth shut.“Yeah,” he said, and then pushed past Lance towards the spot Pidge had disappeared through. “Let’s go find out.”   'Three more', it seemed, meant three more lions.After following Pidge through a set of dense bushes and jumping over a huge, twisted root that closed their path, the four of them arrived at a much smaller clearing in the woods that was the resting place of three more lion-like machines.Two were enormous—much bigger than the other two they had seen before—and the third one was, in comparison, really small.For some completely inexplicable reason, Keith felt the strong urge to inspect the smallest of them. It was like a tug, a wordless call to his subconscious mind that compelled his limbs to approach it, commanding his focus and attention.He didn't even know what the others were doing; he barely remembered he was not alone with the lion."Hi," he said, feeling a mixed sense of incredulity and rightness as he spontaneously decided to talk to it.She.It was a her, and she was beautiful.He was sorry he had scoffed at Lance before, if what he had felt was anything remotely similar to what Keith was feeling right now.He caressed her flank as he studied her with keen eyes. "I'm Keith." He lowered his voice. "And don't tell Lance, but I think you're beautiful."Yeah, Keith was sorry, but he wasn't about to admit that to Lance. He was sure the other boy would never let him live it down.Even knowing he wouldn't be able to activate her, Keith climbed to her back and touched the pad reverently, wondering how it would feel to fly her. He was a pilot—a submarine pilot, sure, but a very good one, if he said so himself. He didn’t think he was being cocky when he thought that he would definitely be able to do it.Flying on her would feel nothing short of blissful, he was absolutely convinced of it. Just imagining it sent Keith’s blood boiling, singing in his veins with the thrill.He bit his tongue inside his mouth, eyes trailing over the smooth lines that he knew would light up once activated, and wondered whether they would turn green, as Pidge’s had done, or if they would stay blue. Or, maybe, if they would change to a completely different color.Absently, he heard the others discussing something, but his mind was too occupied with the idea of activating the lion. He didn’t stop to think that his sudden obsession was probably odd, he just knew it in his gut, in his heart—He needed to know.Even if he had to beg Lance to lend him his crystal, he would do it.Decision made, he forced himself to slid down her back and turn away from her. He looked towards the others, psyching himself up to just ask, but before he could even open his mouth, the rather quiet atmosphere was completely shattered by a loud scream."Lance!"The feminine but very angry voice came from somewhere near the main path, making everyone jolt in fright. Lance’s cringe was a lot more pronounced, though, making him jump away from the biggest lion—the one which appeared to have wings, of all things, and that he had been unsuccessfully trying to activate with Pidge’s help—and turn towards the voice in horror.When Keith looked towards Hunk in search of some kind of explanation, he didn’t find any. Standing next to the other big lion, Hunk was frozen in place with an alarmed look on his face. Keith then turned to Pidge to see if she had any idea of what was happening, but his words died on his tongue when he found her looking at the other two; wry amusement and nostalgia etched on her face."Where are you?!" The angry voice continued, and Keith was not really familiar with mothers in any capacity—he had been in a foster home for all of a month, once, and that was it—but the tone was so similar to those the motherly matrons would use at the orphanage when the kids did something wrong that he didn't have trouble in coming to the conclusion that yeah—that must be Lance's mother. Lance’s angry mother. "I sent Nadeen with refreshments for you and Hunk and what did she find? You, gone! Nowhere to be found! The nets, abandoned! An uhlockeating the little catch there was!"Lance and Hunk had somehow huddled together in the time Keith had looked away from them and, if Keith’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, they were actually trembling.Pidge had a complicated expression on her face that Keith could recognize as part grief. Keith himself felt wary—he didn't know why, but there was something in that voice that made him believe Lance's mom was not someone to be trifled with."I swear to the Kings of Our Past that if you don't get back to work immediately, I'll..." the voice faded as its owner walked away from their position, but the uncertainty of incomplete threat made it, somehow, even more terrifying.Lance winced again and looked guiltily towards the place where his mother's voice had come from.Hunk looked like he was torn between hiding and running back, expression twisted in guilt. “Uh-oh. Man, we better go back to work, now, before Aunty decides to skewer us.”Lance gulped. “Yeah, yeah you're right,” he agreed shakily. He then turned to Keith, who had walked to where the rest of them were standing, and then to Pidge. He looked uncertain. “Uh...”“We can go with you?” Keith suggested, and he was as surprised as the rest of them as the words left his mouth. Where had that come from? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t going to take it back, though.He shrugged at the three pairs of eyes that regarded him with different levels of surprise. “It's not like we have much to do,” he pointed out.It was true, even. Shiro and Matt had gone touring with Princess Allura what felt like hours ago, and Keith didn’t have a clue where to find them. It was the same with the other members of their group, and Keith wasn’t entirely sure he liked them enough to purposefully seek their company. Shay was okay, mostly, and Thace. Even Nyma. But the rest—“Yeah. We might as well help you,” Pidge said, grinning rather mischievously. “Maybe that way you'll finish your duties more quickly, and then we can come back here. Or go exploring?”“Uh…” Lance blinked, then looked at Hunk questioningly. The other boy shrugged at him, and Lance went back to them, the corners of his lips pulled upwards in a soft smile. “Sure, why not?”“That'll be after dinner, though,” Hunk warned. Keith and Pidge looked at each other and shrugged.“That's fine with us.”“Well, in that case…” Lance grinned, and started strutting back towards the path. “I hope you like getting your feet wet, ‘cause we're going fishing!” he sang, disappearing from their sight.“… I regret this already,” Pidge grumbled. “Ugh, nature.”Keith laughed.   “So, your name is Allura?” Matt asked as he followed the Princess up a statue's head. He almost lost his balance but she caught his wrist and Shiro stabilized him from behind. He smiled at both in thanks.“Allurakha Nedakh, in fact, but everybody calls me Allura.”“… Uh, I'm. I'm really glad about that. I don't think I'd be able to pronounce that correctly.” Matt chuckled nervously, pushing his glasses up his nose after they slid down due to perspiration. He made an effort not to look down—even if he wasn’t particularly scared of heights, there was a real chance for him to fall this time, and he wasn’t too keen on dying now that he had made the discovery of the century.Princess Allura—she was a Princess, and it would feel wrong not to call her by her title—giggled. “And you are Matt, and Shiro, right?” she asked, looking over her shoulder and smiling in a way that made Matt’s stomach flutter.She was beautiful and strong in a way that reminded him of Shiro, somehow, while being almost completely different.“Those are our nicknames, yes,” he said, ignoring that train of thought for the moment to concentrate in matters at hand, namely, formally presenting himself and avoiding to fall off a cliff. “My name is Matthew Holt.”Shiro’s warm hand settled on his back and helped him climb over the last bit of rock, while the Princess took Matt’s forearm and did the same from her end. After Matt was up safely, Shiro got himself up to the robot’s head without any help. Then, to the princess, he said warmly, “I'm Takashi Shirogane.”Princess Allura blinked. “Those are… very different sounding names.”Shiro inclined his head and smiled. “Different cultures of origin.”“Ah.” She looked pensive for a second, then smiled. “Yes, that makes sense.”Matt grinned and then looked around to take in the view. Immediately, his eyes grew huge and his mouth dropped.“Woah,” he breathed, feeling a vague sense of detachment from his vocal chords. It wasn’t something conscious, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything else but the mesmerizing landscape that spread in front of his eyes.He sniffled, and a tear ran down his cheek. Hurriedly, a bit self-conscious, he took off his glasses to clean them with the hem of his undershirt.“Matt?” Allura asked, frowning.Matt shook his head, a bit helplessly. “No, it's just…” He smiled, fragile and nostalgic, but honestly happy. With one hand, he put on his glasses, and with the other he signaled vaguely to the view of the city. “This was my father's dream. I guess… I guess I just wish he was here, with me.”Shiro, bless him, tucked him close into a comforting embrace that Matt gladly melted into. Princess Allura smiled, soft and warm, and the three of they spent some minutes in silence, just taking in the view and committing it to memory.   Lance looked around cautiously, making sure that there was no sign of his mother anywhere near. He really didn't feel like receiving a scolding now, not when there were other people present. He had already been embarrassed enough back in the clearing with the lions; he wasn't up for a repeat performance.Luckily, the coast was clear, so he confidently led their group down to the beach, towards their abandoned nets. He cringed as he saw that yes, his mother had been telling the truth. There was nothing left of their earlier catch but for some pitiful rests that were being picked apart by a solitary uhlock.“Shoo! Shoo, you stupid thief!” Lance scowled, shaking his hands threateningly at the bird, which squawked loudly and snapped its beak, offended. Lance didn't give a quiznak. “These are ours! Go catch your own hummers, you lazy bag of feathers!”The uhlock puffed up and refused to move until Lance got tired and finally threw a small rock at it. Then it squawked again, shrill and loud, and flew off.“Stubborn bugger, huh?”Lance snorted. “You don't know half of it,” he said, approaching the net the bird had been picking at and scowling as he revised it. “At least nothing is broken.”“What do you need us to do?”Turning to look at Pidge, he raised the net for show. “We have to get these over there,” he explained, pointing towards the water.“Yup,” Hunk added. “The idea is to get about a dozen hummers. More, if possible. It's always cool to have extra. But not too much, because they can get bad before we eat them.”“Hummers?” Keith frowned. “What are those?”Lance blinked. “Uh, you know. Long, red. With clamps. Nasty buggers, but very yummy.”Going by both Keith's and Pidge's blank expressions, his explanation hadn't been of much help.He sighed. “Nevermind, we'll show you what they look like once we catch one,” he said, taking off his outer toga.There was spluttering behind him, before Keith asked in a strangled voice, “W-what are you doing?”Lance looked back with an eyebrow raised in mild curiosity. “We've got to get in the water,” he said slowly, pronouncing every syllable to make himself perfectly clear. “I'm not getting my clothes wet.”Keith's pale cheeks turned bright red, and Lance smirked, realizing what was happening. He cocked his hip and rested a hand on his waist.“Awww, is Keithy-boy embarrassed?”Keith spluttered even more and then scowled, and Lance laughed because his reaction was just perfect.“I'm not!” Keith snapped, and then dropped to the sand.Lance watched on curiously as the boy wrestled with the things on his feet, finally taking them off. He wrinkled his nose in distaste as he noticed that there was some kind of loose, gray skin also covering the feet. Just how many layers of torture did these people put on their feet? Did they always wear it? Did they have to put them on and take them off every day? He couldn't understand it at all!He looked at Pidge to see if he was the same and indeed, he was also taking off his own gray skin.“I've been wanting to ask,” Hunk started in a curious but hesitant tone, “but what the quiznak are those things, and why the quiznak do you use them?”Pidge and Keith both blinked in apparent confusion.“The what?” Keith asked, inclining his head to the side and frowning.“Those…” Hunk made a vague gesture towards their feet, and then towards the contraptions that lay already discarded at their sides, “… things.”“Yeah,” Lance added, “they look terribly uncomfortable. Like, why would you wrap your feet with those? What happens to your toes? Are they squished?”Hunk nodded along with him, looking just as uncomfortable as Lance felt with the idea of imprisoning their feet like that.Pidge started laughing loudly after a moment, while Keith just gaped at them in silence. Lance frowned.“Boots, they are boots. And… socks?” Keith finally answered, rather bewildered.“Wait, you seriously don't know?” Pidge shook his head. “No, obviously not. I haven't seen a single Altean wearing any kind of footwear yet. What do you use to protect your feet?”“Protect our feet?” Hunk and Lance echoed at the same time, incredulous.“Yeah… because the skin of the feet is fragile and easy to cut? So we protect them with footwear,” Pidge explained, frowning and putting one of his feet up so as to show them.Hunk was faster than Lance, and closer to Pidge, so he was the one that grabbed the foot first. He studied it carefully while Pidge fell back a little, having to catch himself and hold his weight with his arms behind his back.“Oh, my! Lance, it's true!” Hunk exclaimed, amazed, touching the underside of Pidge's foot with a finger, making him snort out a laugh and wiggle. “They have baby feet!”Lance's eyes grew wide. “No way!” he breathed. “No way.” His gaze zeroed on Keith, who startled. “Give me your foot!” he demanded, walking with purpose towards him.Keith stood up quickly and backed away, trying to widen the distance between himself and Lance.He scowled. “No. No way. Get away, Lance.”“Nuh-uh. This, I have to see it with my own eyes. Now be quiet and good and let me see your feet.”“No.”“Yes!”“No!”Lance pounced and wrestled Keith to the ground. The boy was strong and put up a good fight, but Lance was pretty good himself and, after a bit of roughhousing, he finally managed to get a hold of one of Keith's feet.It was a pale pink, just like his little brother's had been before he learned to walk, and had a completely different feel than his when he touched it.“Oh, Ancestors. So soft!” he marveled, tracing the folds of skin with a curious finger, making Keith jolt beneath him and start squirming.“Lance. Stop that. Stop, it… it tickles!” He then laughed out loud, though it almost sounded like a giggle, and it was surprising enough to shock Lance into letting the foot go and twisting to look at Keith's laughing face. Oh, man. He was already pretty when scowling, it was unfair how positively beautiful a smile made him.It was Lance who was now embarrassed, and he jumped off away from Keith, trying to fight down the blush. He was lucky it didn't show so obviously like Keith's own.He coughed and turned to the water pointedly. “We should be working, not playing around,” he stated, gaining what was definitely a snort from both Hunk and Pidge, and he gave them the evil eye. “What?”Pidge snickered and didn't answer, and Hunk just shrugged, though his eyes twinkled in a way that Lance didn't like.“Whatever.” He huffed. “C'mon, the hummers won't catch themselves!”    “And you call that fishing?” Lance's voice was full of mirth as Keith came up and spluttered, coughing up water and wrestling with the red, tenacious hummer that he had managed to catch in his net.“It's—” Keith grunted and moved to subdue the animal that was trying so desperately to escape. “It's not my fault! This little bugger just… won't… stay… still!”Lance snorted out a laugh but took pity on the poor boy and decided to help him deal with his catch.He waded through the shallow water separating them and pried the hummer from the boy's grasp, being mindful of its claws. Then he quickly brought it close to his face and gave it a precise, hard bite.The animal stopped struggling immediately, lying limp on Lance's hands.“There you are.” Lance presented his prize to a wide-eyed Keith and smiled smugly. “That's the way you deal with these little demons.”Keith hesitated before taking the hummer, and he looked so distrustful that Lance was tempted to startle him by shaking the animal and making him believe it was still awake. He lost his chance, though, when Keith finally took it, holding it at a safe distance from his person but in a secure grip.“… thanks,” he said, so softly that Lance almost didn't hear him.“No problem, dude.” Lance grinned. “Now you definitely don't have any excuse to drop out of the competition!”Keith frowned and looked at Lance with confusion. “What competition?”Lance clucked his tongue. “The one in which the best fisherman wins, of course!”“Wha—that's totally unfair! You've been done this forever!”“Ooh, sorry.” Lance put on a worried facade. “I guess it's too much for you, how inconsiderate of me.”Keith growled. “Don't—! Argh. Fine, shut up. I'll do it. And I'll win.”Lance grinned triumphantly. “Ha, I'll believe it when I see it. Because right now, pretty boy? You're waaaay behind me!” He pointed towards his own catch, that already had three hummers in.Keith gaped. “That's cheating!”“Nuh-uh. It's not my fault you weren't paying attention when Hunk explained what you had to do. Look at Pidge! He's already caught his second one. You're losing quite badly, I'd say.”Keith sputtered again, and Lance couldn't resist laughing.His moment of distraction cost him—there was a hand on his leg, pulling in a way that made him lose his equilibrium and fall back into the water himself.When he resurfaced, coughing and sputtering, Keith was looking at him with an obviously fake expression of surprise and apology, with his lips pulling up in a rather smug smile.“Ooops,” he said, eyes wide but completely devoid of apology. “I thought it was another hummer. Sorry.”Lance gaped, then narrowed his eyes, and then smiled dangerously. “Well, I guess this settles it. You've asked for it, I'll destroy you.”Keith returned the smirk with one of his own. “We'll see.”The competition began in earnest.   Keith wasn't sure how long had they been fishing, but it felt like minutes and hours at the same time. Their competition was almost savage, and sabotage was encouraged. He lost the count of how many times he had fallen underwater, but he was sure that he had drunk more seawater than any other time in his life.It was the most fun he'd had in a while, too.Between the four of them, they managed to catch almost thirty hummers—that on closer inspection Keith had realized were some kind of angry, vicious lobsters—which was double their original goal. They hadn't even realized they had surpassed it until they saw Shiro, Matt and the Princess pass by and Lance had thrown them the last one he had caught. Keith saw the Princess take the angry sea-creature from Matt's struggling grasp and bite it in the way he had learned rendered it immediately docile.“Whoa, we have too much.”“Well, I guess it's okay,” Hunk said, scratching his jaw. “We do have visitors, and you guys were going to resupply before heading back up, right? I don't think Momma or Aunty will be mad at the excess.”“Yeah, but how are we gonna move all this?” Pidge pondered as she looked at their catch. Keith had to admit that it didn't look all that light. It was too much, even for the four of them.Lance frowned, and then sighed, shoulders drooping a bit. “I guess—”He was interrupted by the excited voices of children running to them, though, and was almost tackled to the ground by a small body that collapsed with his legs.Lance oofed and put his hands around the little girl. “Nadeen, be careful!”“Lance, momma said that she es-expects you back with the catch now, or else!” The girl giggled and detached herself from Lance. “She said—”It was then that she made eye-contact with Keith, her own growing wide. She made weird, strangled noise and then hurriedly hid behind Lance, to Keith complete confusion.“Nadeen?” Lance's voice was just as confused as Keith felt, and the boy tried to look at the girl by twisting his upper body and craning his neck. “What are you doing?”Instead of answering, she peeked around him before quickly burying her face on Lance's recently clothed back.“Aw, they're shy,” Hunk commented with a laugh, and it was only then that Keith realized that the other Altean also had a kid clinging to him. A boy, around the same age as Nadeen, maybe. Keith couldn't be sure, he didn't usually interact with children so young.Lance snorted loudly. “Shy? These two little demons? Since when?”“Who are they?” asked the boy behind Hunk, looking from Keith to Pidge with curious eyes. “They are weird.”Keith blinked, and wasn't sure if he ought to take that as an insult or not. “We're not.”“They are, a bit,” Lance said at the same time, and Keith glared. Lance smiled and shrugged. “You look weird, at least for us.” He then turned to the little boy. “They are friends, Kai. From outside.”Kai turned his head to one side, narrowing his eyes as if he was thinking deeply. “Outside?”“Yeah. From the surface.”At that, Kai's eyes grew wide and he turned them towards Pidge and Keith in awe. Keith fidgeted, uncomfortable with all the attention.“C'mon, Nad. They don't bite. Say ‘hi’.”The little girl hesitantly took some steps away from Lance, and then waved. Without really knowing what he was supposed to do, Keith waved back. The girl blushed and hid again. Keith stopped waving and looked at Lance questioningly, but the other boy was too busy laughing to explain anything.“These two are my siblings, that one's Kai, and this one is Nadeen,” Lance presented them. “The small one is Pidge, the grumpy one is Keith,” Lance continued, signaling to them. Keith scowled at his introduction, but then realized that he was only proving Lance's point by doing so, so he tried to relax his face.As if it were a cue, Kai hurried away from Hunk and closer to Pidge.“Hi, miss, you're really pretty. But what's that on your face?” He asked excitedly, and Pidge blinked before her eyebrows rose high in her forehead.Lance spluttered. “Kai! Pidge is a bo—”“Thank you, Kai. And these are glasses, they… help me see things better,” Pidge explained, completely ignoring a gaping Lance and a wide-eyed Hunk. “How old are you?”Kai's chest puffed out. “I'm seven!”“Oh, so you are old enough to help a girl carry this to your house?” She gestured to their catch, and Keith groaned.“Are you seriously recruiting a kid?”“Of course!” Kai exclaimed, as if offended by the implication that he couldn't do it. “I'll help! Nadeen, too. Right, Nadeen?”Curiosity seemed to have won over her shyness, because Nadeen nodded with enthusiasm, brows furrowed in determination.Pidge shrugged. “Hey, we need the help, and this way we can definitely carry everything without having to make more trips.”“PIDGE IS A GIRL?”Everyone turned to look at Lance, who seemed completely confused.Pidge sighed. “Yeah. It's kind of a secret, though.”Lance opened and closed his mouth wordlessly for a second, and then shook his head and composed himself. “Oh, okay. Um. Let's take this all home, then.”   “I was wondering,” Pidge said at one point, after they had left their haul at Lance’s home, met his thankfully not longer angry mother, and decided that they might as well go eat together with the other members of the expedition. “Why don't your siblings have any markings?”Lance frowned and looked at her, puzzled, and stopped walking.“You know,” she elaborated, lifting a hand to touch the skin beneath one of her eyes. “Here.”Comprehension dawned on his face, and he smiled with obvious pride.“That's because they're kids still,” he said. “You get these when you reach nineteen, and therefore are considered an adult.”“Lance n' me got ours this year,” Hunk added, happy.“Wait,” Keith said. “So you're actually nineteen? Not… I don't know, ten thousand like the Princess?”Lance's reaction to Keith's question was rather comical: wide eyes, open mouth, and a crease between his eyebrows that could be expressing either incredulity or outrage, or maybe a little bit of both.“No!” He seemed to be unable to find the words to elaborate. “We're not!”“Oh, so you two are the same as Keith, then,” Pidge commented casually. “How come the Princess is so much older, but doesn't really look like it, then?”It was Hunk who answered, “That's because of the ritual.”“Ritual?”“Yeah.” He nodded, and distractedly touched one of his own tattoos. “You receive these during a ritual. I'm… not really sure how it works, though. Lance?”Lance hummed. “No, sorry. Leo hasn't said anything about it yet, I don't know if artisans even know.”“Oh.” Hunk shrugged. “Well, anyway. You need to have your crystal with you, and then this…” He gestured around with his hands.“Glow,” Lance supplied.“Yes! Glow, thanks. The crystal starts to glow. Real bright, brighter than ever. And it feels… warm. And safe.”“Like a hug.” Lance nodded, and then both boys fell quiet.Keith and Pidge exchanged curious glances.“That sounds… nice?” Keith ventured awkwardly. It worked, though, and the Altean boys snapped their attention back to the group.“Yeah, it was really nice.” Lance cleared his throat. “You see a color, and that's the color your tattoos will be. That's why Hunk's are gold, while mine are blue.”“And the Princess' pink,” Pidge added, nodding. “It still doesn't explain how she still looks so young?”Lance shrugged and looked at Hunk with uncertainty. “Almost every adult looks the same forever after they gain the tattoos. I don't know.”Pidge hummed, not satisfied with the answer.“You could try to ask the Princess later? Maybe she'll tell you,” Hunk suggested.“Yeah, maybe I will.”   “… and Pidge is a mechanic, but not the mechanic. That's Nyma. Rax is moody, but cares for his sister, Shay, who studies rocks and cooks, but doesn't cook with rocks. Am I right so far?”Matt laughed gently. “Yeah, you're doing pretty great, in fact.”“And Thace is the doctor, who cures people but is not religious?”“I honestly don't know.” Shiro hummed, amused. “He's certainly not a priest, though.”“And Rolo makes things go 'boom'.”“Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.”“And that leaves you, the translator. And Shiro—you and Keith are pilots, yes?”“That we are, Princess.”“Did I forget someone?”“… and then Keith growled and actually fought me for my catch!”Lance's incredulous tone made Keith focus back on his own group’s conversation.“It was mine, Lance!” he snapped, scowling. “I already had it, and then you startled me!”“Well, maybe. But you let it go, I didn't force you,” Lance refuted, pointing at Keith with a spoonful of doubtful Altean food. Keith was pretty sure he had heard Thace telling the others not to forget to eat the eyes, as they had a lot of proteins and were, in his words, delicious. Keith rather doubted it. What kind of edible animal was purple and had at least a dozen eyes? “It was fair play, pretty boy. And I was the one to catch it next. It was my catch.”Keith gritted his teeth, utterly irritated, but for some reason he found himself having to fight off a smile.“So, who won?” Nyma asked eagerly.“I did,” Hunk said proudly after gulping down one of the strange purple animals. “Lance was second. Keith did pretty well for his first time fishing, actually. He caught like, half the number Lance did.”“I caught three,” Pidge admitted, unconcerned, when the eyes turned to her. “Tragic loss, it was not. Those buggers are a menace, they tried to pull us under. And I hate nature. And getting salt water in my eyes. So,” she shrugged, “I let them win.”Both Keith and Lance turned to her with incredulous looks.“Yeah, right!”“Puh-lease!”“Sorry to cut in,” Shiro said, and when Keith turned to look at him, he was smiling. Keith narrowed his eyes. There was something in that smile… “I'm glad you've made new friends, kids. Can you stay with them for a while? Allura asked us to accompany her to look at some murals, so we're gonna go with her for a while.”“Yeah, sure.”“Don't get into trouble.”“Yeah, yeah.”“And don't go anywhere without Hunk or Lance, okay?”“Shiro,” Keith complained, and no—it wasn't a whine, okay? It wasn't. “Stop being the dad-friend; you're embarrassing.”Shiro chuckled, completely ignoring him and the barely contained laughs around them. “I just worry about you two. And as you seem to keep getting into places you shouldn't…” He let the sentence hanging, heavily implying that he was thinking about their illegal infiltration of the submarine.Keith huffed and refused to acknowledge him.“Oh, now that sounds like a story we have to hear, doesn't it, Hunk?”“Yeah, definitely.”“Shiro, are you ready?” the Princess asked, and Shiro smiled apologetically at Lance and Hunk.“Sorry, maybe later,” he said, getting to his feet. Then he stopped for a moment, and grinned evilly. “Or, well, I'm sure that these two would love to fill you in, if you ask nicely.”Keith felt the sudden need to punch him, and it only increased when Lance's eyes started to sparkle. He was sure the other boy was not about to let it go, and there was no way they could explain it here in the middle of the group, so they would have to put him off. And Keith was sure that Lance would whine. And insist. And insist even more until they finally cracked and told him, and—Shiro was totally doing this on purpose!As predicted, the moment Shiro walked away Lance's eyes turned to Keith, pinning him with clear intent.“So, wanna go try those lions?” Pidge suggested, and Keith could have kissed her. On the cheek. Platonically, of course.Her question immediately attracted Lance's attention, taking all of its intensity off Keith.He exhaled, long and drawn out. That had been too much. Keith hadn't known that having too much of someone's attention could be so overwhelming. Or was it just Lance?“Oh, yeah!” Lance jumped to his feet and pumped a fist in the air. Then he smirked in Keith's direction, making Keith's traitorous breath hitch. “But don't believe for a second that you're getting out of telling that story, Keithy-boy. You'll have to tell us on the go.”Keith groaned, but smiled reluctantly and accepted his fate. He pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his hands.It wasn't that the story was embarrassing, in fact, he could even say that it was… cool. In a way. He really didn't have a problem in recounting it, but he simply could not do it where the others were listening.He was thinking about how he should start when they were interrupted once again. The four of them turned to look at Nyma curiously, and she cleared her throat.“Ah, sorry, guys. I just…” She pressed her lips tightly together and then sighed. “I need a little bit of help with one of the cars, and I was wondering if you could help me?”“Uh...” Keith blinked and looked at Pidge, as she was the one that the question was obviously directed to.Pidge pushed her glasses up her nose and squinted. “Yeah, I guess,” she said, though she sounded disappointed. Then she turned to them. “I'm gonna help with that and then catch up with you, guys.”“Ah, actually, um, Thace was calling for you, Keith. Something about the… provisions, I think.”Keith rose his eyebrows but then nodded, and then looked at the two Alteans. “Sorry, guys.”Hunk scratched the back of his neck and smiled, while Lance shrugged.“It's fine, man. Go help. You too, Pidge.”“Yeah, maybe we'll see you later, Pidgeon. Keithy.”Keith rolled his eyes. “Goodbye, Lance. Bye, Hunk.”“See ya later, boys!” Pidge added.Once Lance and Hunk walked away, they turned expectantly to Nyma. She smiled and clapped her hands once.“Okay, so,” she said, turning and walking back towards the place where they had left the cars, “I mostly want a second opinion about the carburetor because it was making strange noises, and...”It was probably instinct, or maybe a premonition, Keith wasn't sure. What he did know was that suddenly, a chill ran down his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Something in his mind screamed danger, and Keith had enough faith in his instincts to follow this gut feeling.A flash on the corner of his eye, sudden sounds of steps, Nyma's uncharacteristic babble—everything came together in a single breath, in a single moment, and Keith let his body react.He dove down just in time to avoid the hand grabbing for him, but he hissed in anger as it took Pidge instead. She yelped in surprise and Keith berated himself for not dragging her down with him. He jumped to his feet and prepared to fight the person holding his best friend, but then froze in his tracks when said person put a gun to her head.Keith stopped breathing. Pidge's eyes were wider that he had ever seen them before. Behind her, Sendak sneered.“What the fuck is this, Sendak?” Keith snarled, beyond enraged.“That’s Lieutenant Sendak to you, kid,” he spat. Pidge flinched and closed her eyes; the man grinned, tightening his hold on her arm. She yelped again, and Keith ground his teeth, body tense.“Let her go.”The man laughed. It was dark and nowhere near what anyone could call nice. “No, no. I can't do that. You see, the Commander needs your brothers to play nicely, and it is his belief that that may be a bit difficult without… proper incentive. Insurance, you know.”A cold feeling of dread washed down Keith's back.Did he say brothers?“Now, walk.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The calm surface broke with a splash and Allura emerged, pushing the mass of wet hair away from her face with a hand. She breathed in deeply, renewing the air in her lungs, and barely had to wait before her companions also emerged, panting after long minutes of being underwater.She had decided to trust her instincts and had taken them to see the murals she had discovered ages ago but had been unable to read. She had always known, deep inside her soul, that those scriptures were the key to understanding her past, her people's past… and the key to changing their future. Her father had protested—he didn't want the stranger's help, he didn't trust them, he didn't believe they needed it… but they did. They needed the help, desperately, and Allura was sure that Matt, with his knowledge of their language, was the only one who could help.Matt gulped in air and started rambling, too fast and too low for Allura to understand a word. She looked at Shiro for help, but he was frowning at Matt, looking just as lost as her.“Matt?” he asked, but the other man didn't seem to hear him.He kept muttering unintelligibly until he suddenly stopped, eyes unfocused and lost. Allura held her breath, tense. Then Matt's expression tightened, and his next words were both a realization and an accusation.“… the missing page.”“Wha—fuck.”Allura snapped her head to Shiro, not believing her ears. He had cursed? He never cursed! Something was definitely wrong.“Shiro...?”“We need to go back. Now.”The urgency in his voice was alarming, and even though Allura wanted to demand an explanation, she understood that this was not the time. There was a vicious kind of desperation reflected in Shiro's eyes, of worry for another's safety that Allura recognized all too well and knew that it needed to be attended to immediately.“Wha—Why?” Matt's eyes were wide in surprise, but then they narrowed sharply as he seemed to reach some kind of epiphany. His face contorted in anger, making him look fierce in a way that Allura hadn't known Matt was capable of. “Fuck, Pidge!”Shiro's nod was grim. “Let's go back,” he said, and then his expression turned solemn. “Be careful,” he ordered, looking them both in the eye.Allura nodded, lips pressed in a tight line, and Matt did the same. Then Shiro dove down once again, and they followed him back towards the shore.She didn't know what was happening, exactly, but she didn't need to. They were worried for their siblings, for their safety, and that was enough. She could ask her questions later.They swam quickly, close together because they depended on the light of her pendant to see in the dark, and only emerged once to breathe before reaching their destination.Matt was the first one to get out, with Allura closely behind.She had thought she was ready for anything.She had thought herself prepared.She was wrong.A hand gripped her hair and roughly pulled her out of the water before she could process what was happening. She gasped, half in surprise half in pain as her attacker tried to subdue her, but then she clenched her teeth and forced herself to think. Her scalp was prickling and she felt disoriented, but Allura was not only a Princess—she was a warrior.She stood on her tiptoes to lessen the pull on her hair and transferred her weight to her left leg, using the right to sweep at her attacker's feet.Allura might be a Princess, but she had known how to fight since she turned seventeen, and had over ten thousand years to perfect her technique. She was not about to lose to some unqualified idiot.Using the momentum created by the stumble, she twisted her body and grabbed the arm holding her hair. She pulled it down until it was close enough, and then she closed her teeth around it in a hard, vicious bite.The man holding her screamed, pain and shock and rage mixing, and the grip on her hair weakened. It was all she needed to get herself free.Dropping into a crouch, she tipped forwards to shift her center of gravity and make her attacker lose his balance. Then she rolled away.Two rotations and she was back on her feet, now armed with the dagger she retrieved from its place on her thigh.One second was all she had to assess the situation, but it was enough.Matt and Shiro were being attacked, and their siblings were hostages. More masked men were running towards her, brandishing weapons.It was an ambush.She snarled, dropping down again and kicking one of her new attackers in the kneecap, then she twisted, quick and clean as both her father and Coran had taught her, and jumped at the other one. He stumbled backward and fell, Allura on top of him, with one of her knees putting pressure on the arm that held the weapon. She raised her dagger and swung it down towards his neck.A loud bang and a pained scream startled her, making her stop just before she could cut his carotid artery.Alarmed, she looked up and behind her, and then her stomach dropped in horror.There, laying in front of her on the muddied floor, was Shiro.He was bleeding.   The stone was cold beneath Lance's feet as he walked, but he didn't really pay much attention to it. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary; it was utterly normal. He had walked the same path back home countless times, some alone, but more often accompanied by a family member or Hunk.It was for this reason that he didn't need to focus on the ground as he walked, mind free to mull over his own thoughts.At his side, Hunk's steps were barely audible.“Are we going?” he asked after a while, and Lance had to blink twice before he was able to refocus his eyes and turn to him. “To the lions.”Lance clutched his pendant and bit his lip, deliberating. Well, they could. It wasn't like they needed Keith or Pidge to activate the lions, they could do that themselves, but—It felt wrong, somehow, even just thinking about going without them.“Do you want to?” Lance returned, instead of answering. Because he still wanted to know Hunk's opinion, even if Lance really didn't want to go.Hunk shrugged and shifted his weight from foot to foot, then grimaced. “Not really. It… it doesn't feel right, y'know?”Lance nodded. “Yeah, I get you.” He sighed and let his hand fall back to his side, adjusting his pale blue tunic as he did. “Let's just go home. Maybe tomorrow we'll be able to sneak out and fly them before their group has to go.”“Yeah, maybe.”They resumed walking, each lost in their own thoughts.Once they reached his house, Hunk said goodbye and then Lance continued alone until he was standing in front of his own. He stopped and looked at it contemplatively for a moment, and then made a decision.Turning on his heels, he made his way towards his brother's workshop.   It had to be some kind of nightmare.It had to be.Shiro was bleeding on the ground, dark red spreading quickly beneath him as it mixed with water. Keith's ears were still ringing with the loud bang of the gun, and Allura's screams of rage were not helping. He watched as she struggled with her captors, fighting to get to Shiro, and wished with all his might that there wasn't a gun pressed to the small of his back so that he could do the same.Pidge was sobbing at his side, a muffled, terrified sound that made all his protective instincts flare and his skin itch, Sendak's gun still pressed to her temple.Trapped in Zarkon's rough grip, Matt trembled.Keith could recognize the expressions on his face—a mix of rage and dread and fear—because it was the same mix he was feeling himself.Their eyes met; Matt's blazed.“Zarkon, this was not the plan!”Thace. It was Thace, hissing as he hurried towards Shiro and then hovered over him, looking so fucking concerned that Keith wanted to hurt him because Thace hadknown. He had known about Zarkon, about this plan. He had known since the very beginning, was an accomplice—“Save it,” Zarkon growled. “Uncooperative people get what they deserve.”With a cruel sneer, the man turned to Matt, triumph shining in his eyes. And Keithloathed him.“Now, Mr. Holt,” he said in a tone that could have passed for amicable if it wasn't for the fact that he was openly threatening the captured Princess with the same gun he used to injure Shiro. “I believe we have some matters to discuss.” He lifted the crumpled, yellowed page he had taken from Matt's Journal at some point, his expression turning deadly. “The crystal?”Matt ground his teeth and looked first at Shiro, then the Princess.“Today, Mr. Holt,” Zarkon barked, losing the smile and cocking his gun once again.Pidge whimpered as Sendak shook her, and Matt's eyes snapped to her, his whole body tensing in suppressed rage.“The King,” he spat, narrowing his eyes at the man. “It mentions the King. 'The heart of Altea lies in the eyes of her King.'”Zarkon grinned as he put down the gun, and Keith felt utter revulsion.“Now, it wasn't so difficult after all, see?” he mocked, and then turned sharply away. “Move, people!”His voice carried, loud and commanding, and everyone hastened to comply.“We have a King to interrogate.”Keith was pushed and he stumbled, eyes frantically searching for Shiro behind them, even with the cold bite of the gun pressing on his skin and the rough treatment. He was afraid that they were going to leave him there, terrified that they were going to walk away and leave Shiro behind to die.His lungs ached. He didn't remember when was the last time he had feed them air, but he didn't care, either. It felt like he had cotton in his ears, muffling the sounds and making him unable to understand the words spoken around him. The only thing he could hear was the continuous mantra going inside his head.
No! Shiro! Shiro, Shiro…!
He was dizzy; he wanted to throw up.They couldn't leave him there!And then—A piercing scream; soul-wrenching, bone-deep.Agony at its most raw, painful in a way that resonated all the way down to Keith's bones, unclogging his ears and sharpening his vision. He managed to catch a sight of Thace cradling Shiro in his arms before he was roughly pushed forwards again, making him turn his back on his brother, his family. But one glimpse had been enough.It was enough because now Keith knew that Shiro was alive, alive and not dead. He hadn't left Keith behind, he hadn't left Keith alone. He felt so relieved that he felt guilty, because even if he was alive, Shiro was also suffering. It was obvious in the muffled whimpering he could still hear, and it made his heart break. The mix of overpowering relief and oppressive guilt left him reeling.He didn't know how long it took to reach the throne room.Breathing was still difficult, and there were dark spots dancing in front of his eyes. Everything seemed to be both moving too slowly and happening too fast for his mind to process.Before he knew it, they broke into the throne room amidst blaring weapons and shouted orders, amidst the screams of terrified citizens and general mayhem.Too fast, too many things, and Keith's head was too fuzzy to remember exactly what happened and in which order.At least until Zarkon actually attacked the King.There were gasps of surprise and outrage as the monarch doubled over in pain. Allura lashed out, gravely injuring one of her captors before she was subdued again, and both the guards and the King's adviser had to be threatened with more guns. The tension was high, charged with hostility that didn't seem to faze Zarkon at all as the man carelessly draped himself over the throne, his murderous weapon lazily raised and pointed at the fallen King.He sighed. “Well, as usual, diplomacy has failed us,” he said. Then, he bared his teeth in a parody of a smile and bent forwards in his seat, looming. “Now, I'm going to count to ten, and you're going to tell me where the crystal is,” he stated icily, and began to count. “One… two… three…”The King watched him impassively, features blank but defiant at the same time. He was not going to give. Zarkon's tone changed as he cocked his gun again, pointing it at the center of the King's forehead.His next word was a hiss, low and threatening. “… nine…”Keith's shoulders tensed, and he prepared to close his eyes. He had already seen his brother get shot; he wasn't prepared to see someone else going through the same thing.However, just before his mouth could form the last number, Zarkon's face changed. The first sound died at the same time that his eyes grew wide, his vision fixing on something behind the King's head.“The heart of Altea lies in the eyes of her King,” Zarkon repeated in a whisper, as if the last piece of a puzzle had fallen in place, as if he had just solved the enigma.The sharp, victorious grin on his face as he stood was a sure indicator that he at least thought he had.“Lieutenant, with me!” he barked, quickly passing the hunched form of the King without even glancing back at him. It was then that Keith took note of the defeat carved into the man's face and realized that yes—Zarkon had deciphered the meaning of the phrase. Keith's stomach dropped. This couldn't be good. “Bring the girl! Holt, come!”Zarkon jumped into the pond and waded towards the center of it, pulling Matt with him. He then climbed onto the centerpiece of the design—the first letter of the Altean alphabet, if Keith remembered correctly, the equivalent of their 'a'—and the stone made a loud, whirring noise and started to go down.Zarkon stood and made room to accommodate Sendak, Matt and the Princess, and suddenly the four of them were gone.For a few beats, Keith stared at the spot where they had disappeared, and then turned his attention back to himself and his situation.“Guys, you got what you wanted. We won't… We won't interfere. Please, let me see Shiro. Please.” He didn't really care about the crack in his voice. He couldn't really care about how he looked to them, not now, not when everything was so uncertain that he wasn't sure where he was standing anymore.His muscles were still coiled tight, ready for action, but he made a point of not struggling in his captor’s grip.Rolo sighed behind him, heavy and resigned, and let him go. “Go. Just… don't do anything stupid.”Keith wasn't about to risk it. Not with his family's lives on the line. If it was just him, he might have tried, but as things stood… there was no way he was going to put his family in even more danger by not thinking.He ran to where Shiro was being treated by Thace, barely glancing at the man as he focused all his attention on his brother and the uneven, painful rise and fall of his chest. He was alive, still. He was alive and that was what mattered the most. Keith tried not to pay too much attention to the bloody mess that was his right arm.(It reminded him of the pool of blood that formed where he had fallen, of all the blood he had already lost.)“Is he…?” Keith’s voice trembled in apprehension. The question escaped before he even finished framing it in his mind.“He's in a bad shape.” Thace sighed and looked over to the place where the King was placed, then back to Keith. “I've stopped the bleeding for now so he won't die of exsanguination, but…” He grimaced. “I'm almost sure that the bullet shattered the bone and shredded the tissue.”“Which means?” Keith pressed, too worried to try and make sense of the technical babble.“He'll lose his arm,” said Pidge, tone sombre. Keith's head snapped towards her, but she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Thace's, her face pale and haunted. She was clutching her fists so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Won't he?”Keith felt sick to his stomach.He turned back to Thace sharply, hoping beyond measure that he would refute her, that he would say that it was not true, that there was something he could do—Thace winced, and Keith felt his hopes shatter—like bone under a bullet.“With the kind of instruments I have here,” Thace said, “there is no chance of saving it in a way that'll keep it fully functional. An amputation with cauterization is our best bet in order to avoid a possible infection that he won't be able to fight off—I don't know what kind of viruses roam this place, but I can say with certainty that we don't have the immunities to combat them.”The ground seemed to be moving beneath Keith's feet. His knees felt weak, his chest too heavy, and his head too light.“There is no way…?” Just pushing those words was a struggle. His throat felt parched and dry, like sandpaper.“No,” Thace said sadly, and it felt like a stab to the heart. “For what little it counts, I'm truly sorry, Keith. I didn't want this.”“Nobody wanted this,” Shay whispered in agreement from her place at the King's side.“This was not—This was not the plan,” Nyma said, biting her lower lip and looking between the two injured men with something that could have been regret, but Keith couldn't be sure. He was suddenly too angry to pay attention.They dared—They were the reason why Shiro was injured; the reason his brother might die, and they dared to—They dared to—!Hot, fiery rage ignited in his very core, spreading through his veins like wildfire, filling him with all-consuming hate for every single person present and urging him to act, to lash out, to hurt them like they had hurt him and—The grinding of stone on stone and a whirring noise, a shift in the atmosphere.Like a switch, hot rage turned into cold dread.Something was wrong.It felt like freezing water running down his spine, like sunshine bursting inside his chest. It felt different, nice and terrible at the same time in a paradox that Keith couldn't begin to comprehend.The water in the pond started moving, rippling, and Keith felt dread coiling into his stomach, closing his throat.The four that had gone under were back.But they were not the same as when they’d gone down.Something had happened to Princess Allura—she was blue. Blue like the crystals every Altean wore around their necks, blue like the crystals that Lance and Hunk had explained were part of themselves, of their culture. Her hair seemed to float behind her, weightless, defying every law of gravity and physics Keith had ever known. And her face… her face was completely devoid of expression.Her feet weren't touching the ground.Behind her, Zarkon and Sendak were staring at her with eyes full of greed, completely ignoring Matt.“Oh, no. Allura…” The voice was one Keith hadn't heard before, and when he turned, he saw the red-headed royal adviser looking at the Princess with fear.
For her.
It struck home with Keith immediately, because he could recognize the grief etched on his face. He was feeling something similar for his brother, after all.“Nobody touch her,” Zarkon ordered when his men went to grab the Princes, who was slowly but steadily walking away from the throne room. “Hurry up and prepare a container. I want her in one of those the moment she reaches the plaza, you hear me? She's going to make us rich, gentlemen.”   Lance flinched, looking up and then around, searchingly.There was nothing out of the ordinary, not really. Not that he could see. Nothing was missing, his brother had been fine when he saw him, and his mother was taking care of his little siblings in the other room.So why did he feel so restless?He clutched at the necklaces he had convinced Leo to part with and pushed himself to his feet. He looked around once again, feeling his skin crawl and his stomach twist in knots, and then, before he could think about it, he jogged towards the front door.Something was wrong.What, exactly, he couldn't say, but he could feel it. It was there, in the drop of his stomach and the eerie feeling of cold dread traveling down his spine.Something was horribly, terribly wrong.There was a loud banging on his door, but it stopped immediately when he pulled it open. On the other side, Hunk was looking at him with wide, worried eyes, and the fist he had been using to knock with was clutched close to his chest. He was scared. Lance had known him since they were babies, and he knew how to read his best friend. Hunk's body language screamed fear.The vague sense of dread sharpened, and Lance's knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists.“Lance!” Hunk panted. “Lance, I heard—”“Wait,” Lance interrupted, forcing himself to move forward and close the door behind him. Something in him was screaming that he had to move, and he wasn't about to ignore his instincts. They had served him well for years. Gesturing for Hunk to follow him, he said, “Tell me as we go.”Hunk frowned, anxious, but hurried to catch up.“What did you hear?” Lance prompted. They were practically running, and from the corner of his eye he could see their neighbors acting strange, jittery. He didn't like this.“Lani.” Hunk puffed. “She came from the market, scared, and told us that she'd heard loud bangs and screaming coming from the plaza… and from the throne room.”Lance cursed, long and colorfully and in as many languages as he knew how to, and hurried his pace even more.“The King? The Princess?”“She didn't know.” His tone was strained. He hesitated for a moment, and then his voice turned hard. “She said it was the foreigners.”Lance clenched his jaw tightly.Of course, the foreigners. Who else? They were the strangers, the unaccounted-for factor, the abnormal addition to their daily life.Suddenly, he remembered the first impression he had gotten from them: dangerous. The time he spent with Keith and Pidge later had diluted it, made it weaker to the point that he had almost forgotten and now he felt like an idiot.Their homes weren't too far away from the plaza; they normally reached it within fifteen dobashes if they were walking fast, but today there were too many people on the streets. Too many scared Alteans that were trying to figure out what had happened, what was the cause of the earlier disturbance. It was making it rather difficult to reach the center.Lance was forced to use his elbows more than he would have liked, but not as much as he would have needed had he been alone. Hunk's size and strength made it easier to navigate and carve a path through the multitude.The feeling of dread and apprehension grew with each step, with each whispered speculation that reached his ear. Lance didn't want to focus on them, he didn't like them, he didn't want to believe them because… because he had really enjoyed Keith and Pidge's company, and had even had a good time with the rest of the crew during dinner. He didn't want to believe that everything had been nothing but a scam.He was not sure his heart would be able to accept it without breaking a bit.

Hunk stopped brusquely with a sharp inhalation of breath and Lance froze behind him. That couldn't mean anything good.Swallowing, Lance moved behind his best friend until he was able to look around him.His eyes widened; his stomach plummeted down.That was… that was Princess Allura!It was her but… it wasn't? She looked different. Pale blue, translucent. Her presence alone made the hair on Lance's arms stand on end, powerful and electrifying in a way he couldn't understand and didn't have the luxury to think about because just as his eyes fell upon her form, she was blocked from sight by a closing metal door.They were sealing her inside a big metal container.Lance's breath caught.No.
No!
They couldn't do that!They couldn't take her!He couldn't believe he had trusted them to—“You can't do this, Zarkon!”Jolted out of his angry shock, Lance turned to the voice and his eyes immediately zeroed on Keith's slim form. The boy looked livid and ready to punch the tall man he called Zarkon in the face.Lance took a step forward without noticing, and gasped when it was Keith who was socked in the face instead. The man used so much force that Keith fell back to the ground with a loud thump.Only Hunk's hand on his shoulder kept him from immediately running to help him back up.Lance turned, scowling fiercely. “Let me go.”Hunk shook his head. “Not yet, Lance. He has a weapon.”He turned back and narrowed his eyes, taking the scene in and focusing on more details. Yes, he could now see the weapon Hunk was worried about, and understood that even if it wasn't yet in use, that could change in less than a tic if the man so desired.Clenching his teeth, he looked on helplessly as Zarkon approached Keith's fallen form. For a moment, the man simply observed him, emotionless. Then he sneered and, before anyone could do anything about it, he delivered a sharp kick to the boy's ribs. Lance growled. What the quiznak?“Get away from him, Zarkon!” Matt snapped, running towards Zarkon and pushing him away.That was brave, Lance thought. Monumentally stupid, because the man was obviously no slouch at fighting and had a weapon in hand, but it was brave.However, Matt didn't look intimidated in the least. Furious, yes. And incredibly resolved, as he placed himself between Zarkon and Keith.“Ah, Mr. Holt,” Zarkon said acidly, rubbing the place Matt had hit with one hand. “You've been a pain in my neck. Do you need me to kill someone else apart from your boyfriend to get you to stop making a nuisance of yourself?”Lance gasped in horrified shock. On his shoulder, Hunk's grip tightened so much that it became painful. He had killed… He had killed Shiro?“Fuck you,” Matt spat. Now that Lance knew, his anger made a lot more sense, as did Keith's. “You can't do this, it's wrong! If you take her, you're condemning their whole civilization to die.”The statement made Lance shiver in dread.“That just doubles the price,” Zarkon answered, dismissive and uncaring, and Lance hadn't liked him before, but now he positively loathed him.“I'd say it triples it, sir,” the man behind Zarkon added, rough voice dry and amused. He was tall and burly, and had an eye-patch over his right eye. His smile was nasty, cruel, and Lance glared at him in revulsion.Zarkon hummed. His eyes never moved away from Matt's. “Millions. Billions, even. Last chance to change your mind, Mr. Holt.”“I'd rather die.”Zarkon sneered. “Suit yourself,” he said and turned back, walking towards one of the awaiting vehicles, the other burly man following after him. Then he stopped, but didn't turn to address Matt directly again. “Perhaps it's fitting—the man who discovered Altea will die with her.”And then he kept walking.Hunk's hand fell from Lance's shoulder, and that was all the permission he needed to dart away and sprint towards Keith, vaguely aware that Hunk was hot on his heels.Matt was already helping the boy up, and Lance hissed in sympathy when he saw the blood covering Keith's face. He grimaced and dropped to his knees, putting the necklaces down and trying to see how he could be of help. A white piece of cloth was thrust in front of him, and Lance blinked.“Here, if you want to help him, use this,” Matt said. There was something dark and serious in his brown eyes, and Lance knew there was more to what he was saying. Lance nodded once, accepting the cloth, and Matt smiled grimly before he pushed himself to his feet and turned towards Zarkon and the rest of the crew.There was a rumbling sound coming from the vehicles.“Congratulations!” Matt said loudly, sarcasm thick. “I guess you're all filthy rich, huh?”Lance stopped paying attention when Keith hissed in pain. He looked him over, trying to pinpoint where the blood was coming from, and then he finally spotted the split lip.“Ah, quiznak.” Lance carefully prodded at the blood with the cloth Matt had given him. It stained red immediately. “Here, let me help you. Damn, he did a number on you, huh?”Keith's answer was just another hiss.“What…” Lance hesitated, then asked softly, “What happened to Shiro?”“Zarkon shot him,” Keith said through clenched teeth, eyes closed. Then he recoiled as Lance probably put too much pressure on the wound.“Sorry, sorry. Is he…?”“Alive, for now. But… he's in a bad shape. Like your King.”That made him freeze for a tic.“Fuck,” Hunk said, echoing Lance's thoughts perfectly. “That's—”“No! We have to stop them!” Matt shouted, startling them.Lance barely had time to register that someone was restraining Matt before the bridge blew up in orange flames.Once the thunder of the explosions had died down, silence reigned supreme for a moment. Everyone was looking at the blown-up bridge with wide eyes, and Lance realized, almost unwittingly, that the Princess was gone.His pendant dimmed, and he felt his stomach drop.“Now you can go,” said the man that had stopped Matt from being blown away in the explosion. He had pale blond hair, and Lance recognized him from dinner. Rolo? So he had decided to stay, then.The man dusted off his gloved hands, ignoring Matt's gaping stare. “But I must warn you—this is not the only bridge they will destroy. The big one, above the lava river? That one, too.”“So we're stranded here.”The man shrugged, biting down on the thing—it created fire, Lance was sure. He'd shown them while they ate, but he could not remember the name—in his mouth and changing it from one side to the other. “Pretty much.”“You guys… you stayed?” Keith asked, disbelieving, and it was only then that Lance realized that many of the members of the expedition had stayed behind, not only Rolo.The pretty blonde, Nyma, scowled. “It was the right thing to do,” she stated firmly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.“I never wanted to be a part of this,” Shay said, biting her lip. “And even less when they started hurting people.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, sorry. I have to go back to help!”She quickly ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, followed by her brother and some more people, like Matt.Keith made a strangled noise as he moved beside him, catching Lance's attention. Hunk had already extended a hand to help the boy up.“What—?”“I need to see Shiro. I don't—Thanks, buddy,” he said to Hunk as he finally got to his feet, and then shook his head a bit. “I need to go.”“Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure.” Lance pushed himself up and stood, snatching the necklaces from where he had left them. “Do you… do you need any help?” He asked, eying the long stretch of stairs dubiously.Keith set his jaw and squared his shoulders, taking the blood-soaked cloth away from his lip and bunching it in his hand. “No. I'm fine.”Lance exchanged a glance with Hunk, and then nodded. “Okay. Let's go.”And if they walked just a couple of steps behind him, well. It meant nothing.   After running up the stairs with Shay, Matt went immediately to Shiro's side to check on him and make sure that he was still breathing.There was sweat on his forehead and his face was twisted in pain, but he was alive and the guilt and fear that had stirred in Matt's chest was replaced with a heady sense of relief. He gingerly touched Shiro's cheek, careful with the slash over his nose. The shallow wound he had gained after the bridge collapse in the caves had reopened, and Matt wouldn't be surprised if it left behind a scar.A wet piece of cloth was put over Shiro's brow, and Matt looked up at Shay with surprise. She smiled apologetically.“Sorry. It's to get the fever down.”Now that she mentioned it, Matt realized that Shiro felt too warm to the touch. The fingers of his free hand clenched, but he tried to give her a smile nonetheless. He probably failed.“Thanks,” he said anyway, and then turned to search for Thace.The man was tending to the King, together with the royal adviser. The creasing of their forehead and the tightness of their faces were enough to tell him that things weren't fine. Even then, he had to ask.“How are they?”“Not good.” Thace sighed, looking at Matt with sad eyes. “Shiro regained consciousness for a bit there, but he's out of it again. And the King…” His shoulders slumped. “He has internal bleeding. I can't do anything for him.”Matt felt cold. “He's not going to survive this?”The grave, slow shake of Thace's head was definite. Matt stomach twisted in knots.“This is my fault.”Thace sighed. “No, it's really not.” His mouth twisted. “Zarkon's been after that crystal since Iceland. You couldn't have—”Matt's eyes widened, the epiphany hitting him like a freight train.“That's it!” he exclaimed, interrupting Thace's diatribe and turning towards the King, and more precisely, the necklace resting on his chest. Matt grabbed it and held it up, admiring the soft glow of the crystal, now diminished after Allura had been taken. “These… these crystals. They have some sort of… healing energy. I know, I've seen it work!” His mind flashed back to his first encounter with the Princess, and how she had healed the cut on his chest. Is she could do that, then surely—“No.”Matt startled as a rough hand covered his own around the crystal, and then looked questioningly at the King. The man didn't look to be too old, but there were wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and around his mouth that indicated his age. His face was serious, stern.“Where is my daughter?”Matt winced and averted his eyes. “Well, she… she… Mmm.”“She was chosen, Alfor,” the adviser said in a sad tone.The King's face contorted in pain, and Matt was sure it was not physical this time. He sighed, closing his eyes.“Chosen?” Matt asked, confused, looking from one man to the other.It was the King who answered.“Yes. Chosen. Like her mother before her.”Her mother…? Matt's breath caught. She… Allura had told them about it! That her mother had disappeared after joining the bright star in the sky. She had not known details, however, and Matt hadn't made the connection until now.His voice was shaky when he asked, “What?”“In times of danger the… crystal will choose a host, a sacrifice, one of—” the King grimaced in pain, “—one of royal blood, to protect itself and its people. It will accept no other.”“Choose?” Shay asked, disturbed. “That thing is alive?”“In a way,” the adviser said, worrying his lip before continuing. “The crystal thrives on the collective emotions of all who came before us. In return, it provides power, longevity and protection.”“And as it grew, it developed a consciousness of its own,” the King added. He coughed, harsh and dry, and his next words were weaker, even though he was obviously making an effort to spill them out. “In my arrogance, I sought to use it as a weapon of war… but its power proved too great to control. It overwhelmed us, and led to our destruction.”“That's why you hid it beneath the city,” Matt said softly, awed. Incredibly sad. “To keep history from repeating itself.”“And to prevent Allura from suffering the same fate as my beloved wife.”A cold chill ran down Matt's spine. “What do you mean? What… what's going to happen to Allura?”“If she remains bound to the crystal, she could be lost to it forever,” the adviser said, and a tear ran down his cheek.“The love of my daughter is all I have left,” the King rasped. He removed his necklace with difficulty and pressed it into Matt's hands. “My burden would have become hers, when the time was right. But now, it falls to you.”“Me?”“Return the crystal.” The King's eyes were unfocused, unseeing, but they held a weight that pinned Matt down. “Save Altea. Save… my daughter.”The King's eyes fluttered closed, and his labored breaths stopped completely.He was dead.There was a moment of utter silence as everyone digested the news, heads bowed in grief. Matt could hear some muffled sobs around him as he suppressed his own tears. Hunk was openly crying.Nobody moved. Time seemed to have stopped completely.A click and a grunt brought him back to reality, and then Thace said, “Well, what now?”Matt blinked, then frowned. “Excuse me?”“You have your orders.” Thace put his medical pouch aside and shrugged. “I figured you'd have a plan. What do we do?”“What do we—” Matt shook his head. “What are we supposed to do? They blew up the bridge! There's no way we can—!”“… ion.”Matt's mouth closed with a snap and he quickly turned to Shiro. “What?”Shiro was trying to sit up, obviously struggling and dazed. His eyes were partially shut and his brow was covered in sweat, but he looked determined. Before Matt could force him back down again to rest, Keith was there.“Don't move,” he hissed in a mix of anger and worry. “You're injured, lay still!”Shiro didn't answer him, but didn't fight him either. He let himself be pushed down. “The… the lion,” he said, voice rough.Matt blinked, confused. Lion? What lion?“Oh.” Keith's movements stilled and his eyes grew wide. “Oh.”“What?”“The lions!” Lance repeated behind him. “Yeah, we could totally—”“I don't know, Lance, what if—”“They took Princess Allura, Hunk!”“But we haven't—”“Guys.”“Pidge managed!”“Yeah, but—”“Guys!” Matt snapped, startling the young men into silence. He rubbed his temple. “What are you talking about?”“There's no time,” Keith stated as he turned around and started running. “C'mon!”“Hey, wait, Keithy!”“Oh, quiznak,” Hunk whimpered before following Lance and Keith.Matt turned to his sister with pleading, confused eyes.“Remember this morning? The lion in the clearing?” At Matt's hesitant nod, Pidge grinned. “Well, we found more. And I made her fly.”Comprehension dawned and Matt felt hope bloom in his chest. He straightened his spine and clutched the pendant the King had given him.“Okay, let's go!”“Where?” asked Nyma, just as he started running to catch up with the three that had gone ahead.“After Zarkon!” he answered over his shoulder.“Are you crazy?”“Probably!” he conceded, feeling a sudden urge to laugh and barely refraining from doing so. “But it's the right thing!”He thought he heard a grumbled agreement behind him, but he didn't stop to check.He ran.There were people he needed to save.   When Pidge reached the clearing where her lion was, the boys were nowhere to be seen. She was not worried, though, as she knew they weren't too far away.Matt, however, was completely lost as he appeared behind her, face red and huffing from running all the way.“Where… Keith?”“My lion is here, but—” she pointed towards the path that would lead to the other clearing, “—theirs are over there, along with all the other small machines we—”“Whoa,” Nyma said as she entered the clearing, eyes glinting with interest as they roamed over the sleek form of Pidge's lion. “What is this?”Rax, Shay and Rolo stopped beside her, also admiring the lion with wide eyes. Pidge couldn't resist the giddy smile.“Matt, can you lend me the necklace?”Matt hesitated for a second, but then his face set in determination and passed her the crystal. Pidge took it gratefully and climbed atop the lion, stuck the crystal in the slot and activated the machine. It rose and hovered, green light glowing beneath her hands and down the lines carved on the lion's body, prompting a chorus of awed exclamations.The smile she turned to the other was bright and full of teeth. “Follow me!” she said, dragging her palm over the pad, confident she would be able to fly it even if she had never done so before.She was right.Call it instinct, gut feeling, fate. Pidge didn't really care, at least not now. Her whole attention was on the ease in which she was able to make her lion move. She maneuvered without any kind of trouble, swiftly avoiding the natural obstacles as she flew.She zoomed past the place where Lance's lion had been, and burst into the other clearing with a rustle of leaves and a loud whoop.Her three friends were already on their lions, hovering over the floor and laughing in delight. Well, Lance was, while Hunk was having a small crisis with a lot of tears. Keith was busy trying to calm Hunk down. She looked over the lions and admired the change in colors. Lance's was blue, but a deep ocean blue that was very different from the pale blue of the necklaces. Hunk's was yellow-gold, like his tattoos. And Keith's—Keith's was red.How had Keith activated the lion without a necklace?“Guys!” she called, waving her arm over her head to catch their attention. It worked, and the three of them made their lions land.“Hey, Pidge!”“Where did you get that?” she asked her best friend, pointing at the crystal. Keith frowned and followed her finger, and then his expression softened and he smiled, pointing to Lance.“I have one for you too, Pidgeon!” Lance said, putting up another necklace for her to see.Pidge blinked, surprised, and then she smiled. “Oh, thanks!” she said, deactivating Green and holding up the borrowed crystal. “This one is Matt's.”“Where is he?”“Coming right behind me. The rest of the team is with him. I'll give him this back, if you’ve got one for me.”“Yeah, here you go.” Without warning, Lance threw the necklace to her and she was barely able to catch it before it fell. She glared at him and Lance chuckled. “Ooops, sorry. Should've thought about that.”Pidge rolled her eyes but smiled, and it was then that Matt and the others arrived. They were not alone, however. The two throne room guards were also there, and so were many other Alteans: men and women, warriors and civilians, looking fierce and determined.“We want to help,” one of them said. “Teach us.”Pidge gave Matt his crystal back. “Here! Lance had one for me. You should try, too!”Matt caught the necklace and nodded, then quickly jumped over one of the smaller machines. It looked like a hammerhead shark. He rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath, and Pidge just knew that he was praying that it worked.“Okay, so,” he said loudly, addressing the attentive multitude. “You've gotta put the crystal in the slot, turn it a quarter angle, without removing your hand from the pad, and—” Pale blue light made the shark shine and a grumbling sound indicated that it had worked. The shark rose in the air and Matt grinned in triumph. “That's all!”After a buzz of activity and excited conversations, they were all in the air, ready to go get their Princess back.“Let's go!”   Below them, the city turned small, and Keith took a moment to appreciate the view.He could feel the smile on his face, wide and completely unintentional, but there was no way he could suppress it.They were flying.They were flying hundreds of feet over the blue waterfalls, over the burning lava river and the remains of what had once been an impressive hanging bridge. The wind on his face and the feeling of complete and utter freedom made him feel alive.It was a heady sensation, burning in his veins, liberating.Had the situation been less dire, had they not been on a time-sensitive mission to save the life of his brother, of a Princess, of a whole culture, Keith would have whooped and laughed out loud. He might have even tried to do one of the stunts that always earned him a stern talking to back at the Garrison.Flying Red was like piloting a submarine, but completely different at the same time. There was a connection there that had never been present with the subs. Red felt like an extension of himself; quick and agile and just perfect. She reacted swiftly to his touch, following every command of Keith's palms without a hitch, and Keith loved her.There was a loud, happy laugh somewhere behind him, and Keith turned to look at its source. It was Lance—of course it was Lance. Keith managed to make Red whirl just in time to avoid a collision with the other boy as he zoomed past him, still laughing.“What the fuck? Lance!”Lance slowed down almost to a stop in front of him, and waved. He was all smiles and delighted mischievousness, and Keith scowled.“C'mon, pretty boy!” Lance yelled. “Race you to the volcano!”“Lance!”“Guys, stop!”Keith ignored Matt's cry and accelerated, too, quickly catching up to Lance. When the other boy saw him, he laughed in delight and bent over his lion, practically plastering his torso to its back, pushing it to go even faster.“Oh, no you won't,” Keith hissed under his breath and instinctively traced a pattern over Red's pad, making her zoom ahead.Keith couldn't help but laugh when he passed Lance and heard his angry spluttering.“Good girl,” he said to Red, patting her softly, and he could have sworn she had purred. Must have been his imagination.“No so fast!” Lance cried, and then he passed him again. “Ha!”“Oh?” Keith narrowed his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. “You wanna race? Let's race,” he murmured to himself, and then projected his voice for Lance's sake. “You're on!”He accelerated once again and the two of them left the rest of the… pack? School? Pride? What do you call a group of flying fish mixed with lions? Keith shook his head. That was irrelevant right now. They left the rest of the group behind, and were the first ones to enter the caves.The competition was both fierce and fun, and Keith had almost forgotten that they were about to confront what for all intents and purposes was a group of heavily armed mercenaries.There were voices behind them, probably pleading for them to slow down.Of course, they didn't listen.It was unclear who was the first to reach the shaft of the volcano, but they didn't have time to fight over it and declare a winner. They didn't even had the time to think about it, because as soon as they appeared, their attention was caught by the sight of the red zeppelin rising in the air. And it was mere seconds after that that the bullets started raining down on them.With a yelp, Keith plunged into a dive and sent Red into a graceful spiral. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Lance had managed to avoid the barrage in a similar way. There wasn't time to make sure if he was okay, however, because the bullets kept on coming and Keith had to move again to dodge them. He cursed under his breath.“Guys!” Pidge popped up right beside him, startling him. When had the group arrived? No, it didn't matter, the important thing was—“What's the plan?!”“There's no plan!”Keith had to make a double take. “What?”“There's no plan!” Pidge repeated, rather unhelpfully in Keith's humble opinion. “Just don't get your pathetic ass killed, you hear me?!”“Pidge, that's not helpful!”“Tough luck!”Keith cursed again as both of them had to separate to avoid a new shower of bullets. Just how many weapons did these people have? Give him a break!He accelerated and made a loop around the zeppelin, spotting some others doing the same. Matt was trying to get close to Allura's container but having obvious difficulties while avoiding heavy artillery. Rolo and Nyma were flying in synchronized spiraling patterns, making it very difficult for the gunmen to shoot them. Keith was impressed. Hunk and Pidge were a bit further away, distracting some of the guys with the machines below.“KEITH!”The minute distraction cost him, and if it weren't for Lance, Keith was sure he would have been shot down.There was a rush of wind and a flash of something bright and cold and deadly; Keith had to take a moment to understand what he was seeing. Somehow, Lance had managed to create a wall of sparkling ice, of all things.“How did you do that?” he asked Lance, voice full of wonder. The boy looked as surprised as him, even though he tried to cover up his expression with a nonchalant, smug smile.“Wow, not even a thank you? That's cold, Keithy.”Keith rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless. “Yeah, yeah. Thank you. But seriously, how did you do that?”Lance clucked his tongue but relented. “Okay, so. I put my hand here and then turned it like this—” He demonstrated by curling his fingers as if they were a claw, and then dragged them down over the panel, touching it with the tips only. In reaction, a ray of ice shoot off from his lion's mouth, freezing one of the machine guns that was about to shoot at the approaching Hunk and Pidge. “—and boom! Instant ice!”“Wow, Lance, that's amazing!” Hunk shouted, eyes bright. He looked a bit pale, though, and Keith hadn't forgotten his panic when he first activated Yellow. At least he had stopped crying, which was definitely an improvement. He had seen Hunk fly, too, and for all his fear he was pretty good at it. “How did you—?”“Watch out!”“Pidge!”“Lance!”Keith reacted almost instinctively. Something tightened in his stomach, adrenaline surged through his veins, and he clawed his hand to repeat the motions Lance had shown him.He was not expecting fire to come out of Red's mouth.It was more attack than defense, practically the opposite from Lance's ice wall, but it worked all the same. The lick of the flames startled the gunmen, resulting in a failed shot.“Nice work, guys!” Matt said. Keith hadn't seen him coming, but there he was now, grinning but with a sense of seriousness on his features. His hair had soot. “I need you keep at it; teach the others! Distract them! We're gonna cut Allura free.”Keith nodded his acceptance sharply, and the others did the same. The four of them went around the zeppelin making use of their newly discovered weapons, creating chaos but happy in the knowledge that it was in their favor.Matt dove with his shark and destroyed one of the zeppelin's envelopes, making it lose altitude. Keith wasn't sure what happened after that; he was too busy paying attention to his own fight, making sure to avoid bullets and comrades' flying machines, while trying to neutralize some of the enemy's weapons.But then there was a loud, betrayed scream and Keith looked just in time to see Sendak falling down to his most certain death. It was a shock, in a way, and even though Keith felt nothing but hate for the man, he hadn't wished for him to die in such a way.A metallic cutting sound and a high, shrill scream shocked him into looking back at the zeppelin, and he was both horrified and fascinated to see Zarkon becoming some kind of crystal-thing. His heart sank as the crystallized Zarkon-monster attacked Matt. Their fight was brief yet terrifying. A flare came shooting from somewhere below, impacting against one of the surviving envelopes, and at the same time Matt tipped down one of the propellers, catching Zarkon unawares and utterly destroying him.In that moment, two more things happened at the same time: the chains that secured the container to the zeppelin were cut, and the zeppelin caught on fire. The whole ensemble was falling down.That could not be a good thing.As if to confirm his thoughts, Rax shouted, “THE VOLCANO WILL EXPLODE!”“Matt!” Pidge screamed and dove down, and Keith immediately followed her. Lance and Hunk weren't too far behind.Nyma was already helping Matt when they reached him, but their relief at seeing him safe and sound was short-lived. The latch on the container broke and Matt jumped from his place on Nyma's fish, back to the unstable, crumbling ground. He barely avoided the dangerously sputtering of the gas opening as he ran towards Allura's container.A ray of ice slowed the explosion down, enough that Matt was able to secure the chain around the container. Pidge immediately picked him up and accelerated away.The escape was a blur of motion and desperation, heat and adrenaline as they hurried as fast as their vehicles would let them in a race to save their lives.The volcano was going to explode any second now. How were they supposed to survive that?They reached the central plaza and lowered Allura's container to the ground. Matt took a piece of metal to use as a lever to try and force open the door, and after a little struggle, his efforts bore fruit.A small opening, just an inch, and it was everything that the crystal needed to take over and continue Matt's work. A gust of wind, an invisible push, and the container broke into six different pieces that started slowly gyrating around the Princess as she gracefully ascended into the air. Faster and faster, and then there was a loud grumble beneath their feet. The ground started shaking, small pebbles clattering with the movement of the earth. It felt eerily similar to the ground breaking inside the volcano, and the rumble sounded like a giant beast coming out of hibernation. Cracks, thick and deep opened up, making them scramble away if they didn't want to fall, and giant masks of carved stone broke through the ground, rising quickly into the air and joining the metal pieces surrounding Allura.Soon, they were moving so fast that they became a blur, impossible to distinguish one from the other. It was then that Keith understood what Allura was trying to say when she mentioned the star in the sky her mother had disappeared into when she was young. Like this, it certainly resembled one. The brightness was too much for his eyes, and he had to look down, squinting, to avoid being blinded by it.“Paladins.”The voice was deep and soft at the same time, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Resonating in Keith's mind, it made him shiver and snap to attention with its power and command. Without conscious decision, he looked up—and up, and up—to where the Princess was floating, carved stone masks circling her at dizzying speeds.“Allura?” Lance breathed out, voice thick with doubt.“You heard that, too?” Keith demanded in a louder tone, unintentionally catching the attention of the others.“Heard what?” Rax asked.“Me, too,” Matt said, surprised.“What?”“You guys, too?” Hunk's eyes were wide.“Paladins,” the voice repeated, unemotional but kind. It was not Allura's voice—or at least, it was not only her voice. It sounded like many voices combined, or overlapped. Even then, it felt like her, and so Keith listened. “Head to your lions.”Keith blinked and exchanged looks with the others. The lions? Why?Even though the question formed in his mind, it was not a deterrent. His body moved on its own, and he only noticed when he found himself climbing up and activating Red once more. Startled, he looked around and noticed, with some relief, that he wasn't the only one: Pidge, Lance and Hunk were also already on their lions, their faces set in different expressions of bewilderment.Then there was a loud thud and a rustle of leaves, and the fifth lion—the one that nobody had been able to awaken before—came flying at them, carvings shining a pale blue.“Matthew Holt,” perhaps-Allura said, and Matt jumped. “You have been judged through the eyes of the sacrifice, and found suitable to replace the chosen Black Paladin in this time of need. You may fly the black lion.”Matt looked dazzled as he climbed onto the big lion's back. Keith could relate. What the fuck was happening and why now, when they were minutes away from being killed by a magma explosion of an active volcano, he couldn't understand. However, he knew that it was important.More than important.“Let your lions guide you, Paladins,” the voice said cryptically and, before Keith could question it, new rays of light surged from the crystal in the sky.One by one, five beams of light touched the lions, and their colors reverted to cool blue. Keith blinked in surprise. What—?Without any kind of direction from him, Red twitched to the side and started moving. She was flying fast, and Keith couldn't do anything but hold on for dear life.She zoomed quickly away from the plaza, towards the city’s edge closest to the volcano. Keith's heart calmed down after the unexpected departure, and now a different kind of thrill thrummed in his veins. The heat increased the closer to the volcano they got, and Keith grinned as Red dodged three scalding boulders that came soaring at them. Had they hit, Keith would be dead, and he should not find such a prospect so enthralling, but he couldn't help it. He had always been an adrenaline junkie, and knowing that he was flying towards the most dangerous place to be was a treat all on its own—especially since he knew that the others were far away, and safer for it.They stopped abruptly just in front of the volcano, and the heat was almost abrasive. Keith was sweating profusely; his shirt was soaked. A boulder crashed some feet away from him, hissing as it made contact with the water. He felt a tingling on his fingertips, and a sudden urge to twist the crystal in the slot and push.Not allowing himself time to think and second-guess his actions, Keith did as his gut told him and pushed. At the same time, the volcano spluttered once, twice, and then exploded properly.A rain of boulders started falling around him, violent and copious and most certainly deadly, but Keith only had eyes for what was happening with Red. From her open mouth, a trickle of light started coming out and collecting in front of her, forming a small ball of compressed energy that was the same color as the crystals. Keith let out a startled breath as it suddenly started expanding to the sides, growing and thinning, like a hollowed sphere that left behind the skin. A smoking boulder crashed against it with a frizzling sound, and then crumbled uselessly into the water below.It was a shield!A shield, so then that meant that—He looked around frantically, trying to see if—Yes, there!A giddy feeling welled up inside him as he caught sight of two other sources of blue light in the distance, on on his left and the other on his right. He could only assume that the remaining two were too far away for him to notice them, but doing just the same.The shields continued growing in all directions, faster and faster until they merged, creating a complete sphere with Allura at its very center.And it was just in time.There was a second explosion, much more violent than the first. Magma surged out in waves, vividly red and terrifying, spreading quickly all over the shimmering dome. They were soon covered in yellow-red molten rock, and it was then that Keith started feeling the first twists of apprehension. They were alive, yes, but…For how long?What was going to happen now?Just as he asked himself that question, the magma started fizzling—and then solidified, as it cooled. Keith stared, waiting with bated breath, but there was only silence.Then, a crack. Then another. Piece by piece, the crust of magma started crumbling, separating in swirling patterns created by the bright light of the shield and falling down its surface and into the water. Only when the last of it was gone did the shield flicker and disappear.The beam of light that had been connecting Red to Allura receded, and her color became red once again. Keith touched the pad just to be sure, and when Red immediately reacted he grinned. He was back in control! Then he frowned and looked behind him.“Let's go back to the plaza, girl,” he whispered, patting her neck.He needed to check on the others. He needed to know that everyone was fine.   Allura opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Matt's worried expression as he held her in his arms.“Uuh.” Allura blinked twice and then squinted, trying to focus. She felt dizzy and confused, and had trouble recalling her memories. “Matt?”“Hi, there,” he said softly, gently, but there was a tightness in his eyes that she didn't understand.“What happened?” She felt light. Light and warm and kind of sleepy, but there was a dull ache on the back of her head that was bothering her. She made an effort to remember what happened to leave her feeling like this, and frowned when she couldn't recall anything after being dragged down with Matt to the cave beneath the city; just after—Her eyes widened, muscles tensing as she demanded, “Shiro?!”Matt's expression shifted, clouding in a way that made Allura's throat tighten. “He's… he's alive, but in bad shape. Thace says that we should amputate his arm. Either way, there's a high probability of him getting an infection and…” He gulped. “And not making it.”Allura's sleepiness had completely vanished, replaced by a shock of adrenaline fueled by fear. Why? Why did this happen? How did it happen? Shiro had been protecting her, she knew, so it was her fault.She looked down in shame, in grief, and her eyes fell on the crystal hanging around her neck. Her breath hitched as she took it with her left hand and examined it with thoughtful eyes.“I can help,” she said in wonder. Then her expression sobered, and she tightened her grip on her necklace.Matt frowned. “Wha—?”“Call your doctor,” she ordered, interrupting him without noticing. She pushed him away and stumbled on her first step, but then forced herself to regain her equilibrium and keep walking, ignoring Matt's surprise and his repeated calling of her name. She hurried up the stairs towards the throne room. “Your doctor! We have to do this right now!”Matt shut up for a tic, and caught up to her. “He's already with Shiro,” he said, and then hesitated. “And… Allura?”Allura stopped, surprised at the use of her name. She peered at him over her shoulder and quirked an eyebrow in silent invitation to continue.Matt looked away and played nervously with his hands, and Allura felt her stomach drop. What? What else could have happened? He took a deep breath and then made eye contact once again, making Allura's blood freeze in her veins. She turned to face him properly.“Your father…”Her heart skipped a beat, and she took an involuntary step back. “No.”Matt flinched, but the grief in his face only grew. Allura felt tears prick at her eyes.“He died.”The confirmation of her fears didn't come from Matt, as she had expected, but from a voice that she had known since infancy. A voice that was as dear and beloved as her father's, a voice that had soothed many nightmares, walked her through training exercises and told her multiple stories about her mom and the Altea from before she was born.It felt like being stabbed. Her heart stopped for a moment, and she could not breathe.“He died,” Coran repeated, voice thick with sadness and loss. When she turned, eyes pleading for him to deny it, to say that she had heard wrong, she was confronted with a serious face, tear tracks and a trembling mustache. “I'm so sorry, Allura,” he said, taking a step forwards ad opening his arms invitingly.Allura threw herself at him, choking down a sob, and felt gentle hands thread through her hair.“He asked me to tell you that you were right, and that he loves you,” he murmured in her ear, and the tears she had been fighting fell freely down her cheeks. His arms tightened around her. “You are the Queen now, Allura. You are the Queen, and I have complete faith in that you'll make a most excellent one.”Allura felt her chest constrict and her heart break. It was one thing to know that her father was old, that he could die naturally some time in the next century or so, but something completely different to have him taken away from her before she could even say goodbye.She wanted to cry and rant and break things; she wanted to break down, herself, and forget, even if just for a moment, that there was a world outside her loss. She would have liked to at least pretend.But reality was pressing, and she couldn't let herself grieve just yet. Not when there was a life hanging in her hands, not when she needed to be strong and focused to save it.Two solitary tears fell as she blinked. Allura gathered all her will and pulled it around herself like a cloak. She tightened her grip on Coran's waist for a heartbeat, and then let go, face set in fiery determination once again.“There will be time for grief later,” she stated, squaring her shoulders and walking past Coran to enter the throne room. “My father might not have made it, but I can still save Shiro's life.”   The following hours were tense, filled with barked orders and high expectations. Nerves were strung too tight to let anyone relax. Matt was dead bone-tired; his body ached with the pain of overworked muscles, cuts and lacerations. He was pretty sure his leg was burnt, too. And as if that wasn't enough, he felt disgusting, covered from head to toe with soot and dried blood.He was ready to collapse right there on the floor and sleep for at least a day, and he would have gladly done so, if circumstances were different. But Shiro needed him, needed them and their quick action to be able to survive, and Matt would not even contemplate resting until he was sure that his partner would be all right.Once Allura burst into the room, she immediately took charge. Matt followed her without question—it was obvious that she knew what she was doing. After gazing towards the prone form of her father for a heartbreaking moment, she focused on Shiro's unconscious form being looked over by Thace.Her shoulders tensed and then relaxed as she breathed out deeply; then she pulled her hair up in a bun as she set her jaw. Her eyes were resolute and firm, and her whole figure radiated stubborn determination.“I'll need hot water. Towels. Mr. Thace, I trust you have special utensils...?”Thace looked at her calculatingly, albeit with a hint of confusion. “Yes?”Allura nodded and quickly washed her hands with the water that one of the guards had brought at her demand, her eyes never leaving Thace's. “Will you help me save Shiro's life?”Thace's eyes widened for a moment, and then his face turned solemn. “Yes.”“Good,” Allura said, nodding sharply. Her lips tightened, and she turned her attention to the guards. “Take… take my father to his chambers. We'll take care of the funeral after… And we'll need the throne.”The guards' faces were grim, but they accepted the order without protest. Matt helped Thace to move Shiro to the late King's throne and carefully deposited him there, trying not to aggravate his condition. The throne was not the ideal operation table, but was certainly better than the ground.Allura started by cleaning the blood away from the area around the bullet wound. Matt felt his stomach turn, but he forced the bile down and breathed.“Matt?” Allura's tone was tentative, and Matt scowled.“I'm not leaving.”Allura nodded, with no hint of surprise on her face. “You'll hold him down. Coran, would you help him?”“Yes, of course,” said the red-headed Altean with the mustache. His forehead was creased with concern. “Are you going to…?”“It needs to be done.” She sighed and with one hand gingerly touched her pendant. “The arm is—” She shook her head. “However, I have enough energy to heal the injury completely afterward. He'll live. I'll make sure of it.”Be it the decisive slant of her eyes, or the stubborn twist of her mouth, something in her words and her disposition calmed Matt's frayed nerves more than what he thought he'd be able to. She was telling the truth; he could trust her.“Okay.”“It won't be pretty, and we need to act fast. He's lost too much blood as it is, and he will lose more during the extraction. There's no room for mistakes,” Thace said, setting up his utensils. Matt's stomach rebelled once again when his eyes fell on the saw, but looked up and breathed in deeply, fists clenched so tight that his nails bit sharply on his palms.The sting worked to keep him grounded, and when he felt he could look without throwing up, he did so and maneuvered to stand behind Shiro's head. It was a bit awkward, as the throne design was not exactly a throne but also not a bed—it resembled a couch, if anything, but made of solid stone.Matt put his hands on Shiro's shoulders, softly at the beginning, merely a caress as he dipped down and tenderly kissed his sweaty brow, and then adding his weight to keep him firmly in place. Then he looked at the others with sharp eyes.“Let's do this.”The entire process didn't take more than an hour, but he felt that it went on for ages.Shiro's unconscious state didn't dull the pain, and once the operation started, so did his screams. It tore at Matt's heart, and he quickly grew light-headed and nauseous, but he stubbornly kept pushing Shiro down as he thrashed. Coran was restraining his legs while Thace and Allura worked in tandem to get the arm removed as quickly and cleanly as they could.Matt focused on Shiro's face and tried to block out the screams, to ignore the warm splattering of blood on his skin as he murmured quiet reassurances into Shiro's ear in a futile attempt to calm him down. Even if he wasn't listening, Matt had to at least try.What felt like an eternity later, Thace stepped back and let Allura take charge. Matt glanced at her just in time to see her entire form glowing with leftover power from the crystal and then forcing it through her hands towards the stump that had once been Shiro's arm. He watched in horrified fascination as first muscle knitted itself back together and then new skin grew and shifted, and then he had to close his eyes because the light was too bright for his retinas.Blinking the spots out of his vision, it took him a moment to realize that it was finally over. Shiro had stopped screaming his throat raw, and Allura was being supported by Thace, looking exhausted but deeply satisfied. Coran was at her side almost immediately, helping Thace with her weight, but she didn't seem to mind.“We did it,” she said, eyes bright. “He's going to be fine.”Matt's heart skipped a beat, and then he smiled, too.   “Are you sure you want to stay? There's a hero's welcome waiting for the men who discovered Altea.”Matt laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. At his side, Shiro chuckled, lighthearted and warm, making Matt's heart skip a beat in pure happiness.Two days he had been unconscious after they had amputated his arm. Two days in which Matt barely slept, barely rested. Even though Allura had been sure that he was going to be okay, Matt couldn't help but worry as the hours passed and there was no sign of Shiro waking up.His fever had broken and there was no sign of infection, at least, and that kept him (and Keith) from reaching extreme levels of worry. They had only calmed down completely when Shiro finally woke up on the third day, confused and with his throat dry. The following days were difficult—explaining what happened with his arm and the whole debacle with Zarkon was not easy, and Shiro did not take it too well. It was understandable, and Matt was ready to help his partner in any way he needed.Two weeks later, Shiro had more or less accepted his condition and they had all discussed what were they going to do with their lives. Shiro was physically fine but in no condition to travel yet, and Matt was not really keen on going back to the surface and the Garrison. They had discussed it with their siblings and discovered that they weren't particularly interested in going back, either. Katie was in love with the tech here, and had confessed that she was working together with Hunk on possibly developing a prosthetic arm for Shiro (“Don't tell him anything yet—I don't want to get his hopes up.” “Of course.”) Keith had scoffed and said that there wasn't anything worth going back for, not really, and that if Matt, Shiro and Katie were staying, then so would he.There wasn't much more to discuss after that.“Nah, I don't think the world needs more heroes,” Matt answered dismissively, his right hand reaching for Shiro's left and twining their fingers together.Thace hummed, then smirked. “Aaand there's a certain Queen here you both have an eye on, don't think I haven't noticed.”Matt blushed hotly and Shiro coughed. “Maybe, yes.”They hadn't talked to Allura about it, as there had been a lot of things more pressing than figuring out the possible change in their relationship, but they had broached the subject between the two of them, to see where they stood. Both liked her a lot, but they hadn't yet spoken about it extensively and they really needed to do that first, before bringing it up with her. Only time would tell if anything came of it, but they were happy to wait.“Mmm. Well, good luck with that, and… take care of yourselves, you hear me?” Thace said, mock-sternly.“Yeah, you too, Thace.”“Thanks.”“Everything is ready,” Allura said with a smile, interrupting them as she stood on her tiptoes to put a necklace over Thace's head. The man smiled and marveled at the crystal, cupping it with both hands, and Allura returned his soft “thank you” with another smile. She then stepped back and turned curious eyes to Matt and Shiro. “Shay said something about a… commemorative photo?”Matt's eyebrows rose. A camera had survived? He hadn't noticed.Taking his free hand, Allura tugged him along and in turn, as they were still holding hands, Matt dragged Shiro for the ride. Thace laughed as he followed the three of them towards the big dolphin-like machine that they had found and which was going to take the crew back to the surface. He blinked in surprised when he noticed the amounts of golden treasure and bright gems piled in front of it, and then shook his head, smiling in amusement at Rolo's drawled “Naw, I think you've given us more than enough,” when Coran fretted they weren't giving them enough after all their help.As Shay explained to one curious Altean how he should work the camera, their big group struggled to get into a position in which everyone would fit in the frame. Matt ended up in the middle, with Shiro and Allura still holding one hand each. Katie, Keith and Lance were sitting cross-legged in front of them; Hunk and Coran just behind their backs. Rolo and Nyma were on Shiro's right, with Rax standing behind them with his arms crossed. Thace was on Allura's left, slightly behind her, and once Shay was sure the Altean man knew what he needed to do, she quickly joined him.The camera flashed as it went off, and Matt blinked twice to adjust his eyes. They said their last goodbyes, and soon the remnants of the crew boarded the dolphin-like ship and left.For a moment, he wondered if he shouldn't have gone, too, and taken his family with him; wondered if he had made the right choice. Then, he felt Shiro's and Allura's hands squeeze his, heard Keith and Lance bickering and Katie and Hunk whispering between themselves, and knew that he had.He definitely had. FIN.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A knock on the door made Pidge take her eyes away from her reflection in the mirror, startled out of her thoughts. She had been looking at herself at intervals while she prepared, a mix of anxiety and excitement warring inside her since the moment she opened her eyes that morning.She was nineteen today.“Pidge?”“Yeah?”Keith pushed the door open and peeked inside. His long hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and the red crescent-moon tattoos beneath his eyes were a stark reminder of what she had been thinking about all morning. He scanned her quickly with his eyes, and when he saw nothing amiss, entered the room and closed the door behind him. As he approached, his ankle rings made a soft tinkling noise.He sat on the bed behind her and took the comb from her limp hand. Huh. She had forgotten she had it.“May I?” he asked, raising the comb and gesturing vaguely to her hair.Pidge blinked and nodded, turning back to look at herself in the mirror. “Yeah.”Her hair had grown a lot in the three years since she cut it, even if it still hadn't reached the length it had been before. She had missed the weight and was glad to have it back, even if caring for long hair was much more tedious that keeping it short.They were silent as Keith carefully worked the tangles out of Pidge's hair and then proceeded it to skilfully style it into a pretty waterfall braid. She would have teased him if it weren't for the fact that it was a common occurrence, comforting in its normalcy. The soft caress of his fingers on her scalp worked magic on her nerves. When he finished, Pidge was completely relaxed.“There,” he said, breaking the peaceful silence of Pidge's room. “I'm sure Allura has a flower or several to add to it when she sees you. She was pretty excited when I saw her last.”Pidge let out a soft laugh and smiled at him in the mirror, and Keith returned the gesture without reservation.If there was something that never ceased to amaze her, even after all this time of living in Altea, it was the way her best friend had learned to smile. Keith's smile had been a rare sight at the Garrison, where he didn't really fit in, and even though it came easier at home—where he had been presumably comfortable—it wasn't anything like this. Here, in Altea, it almost never left. It suited him.“Hey, don't be nervous. It's nothing scary, you know. It's just—difficult to explain.”Pidge let out a long, shaky breath. “Yeah, I know. And… I'm not really nervous. I think. Or am I?” She unconsciously clenched her fists and grimaced at the sting, then brought her palms up for inspection and scrunched up her nose as she noticed they were glistening with sweat. “Uuugh, yes. I am. A bit.”Keith laughed and passed her a towel that was on her bed, and she took it gratefully to dry her hands.“I was too, you know.”“Mmm. But you weren't alone. You did it with Matt and Shiro.”“Tia is also getting her marks today, remember?”“Yeah, but I'm not close to her. It's not the same.”Sighing, Keith stood and offered her a hand. She didn't hesitate to take it, and he pulled her up.“C'mon, they are waiting for you,” Keith said, tugging twice as he started towards the door before letting go. “It'll be over sooner than you know, and the tattoos don't even hurt. And then you know we'll have a party—everyone's been looking forwards to it.”“Lance's been running all over the place and driving you insane, hasn't he?” Pidge asked drily as she followed him out of the house. “That's why you came?”Keith shrugged. “In part, maybe. But I also wanted to give you a hand. You were jittery all week, and yesterday especially, so I wanted to help.”Pidge stopped for a second, shocked, and then grinned. Trotting until she was at Keith's side, she cooed, “Aww, you'll make me go all gooey inside. If you keep being this nice to me, I might have to steal you from your boyfriend, you know?”Keith snorted and looked down at her as she clung to his arm, amusement clear in the sparkle of his eyes. “Please. I'm too boy for you. And, no offense, but you're too girl for me. Not to mention that we'd suffer Lance's hurt puppy look forever. Won't risk it. You know we wouldn't survive it for more than a day.”Pidge laughed heartily and linked arms with him, feeling lighter and much more at ease than what she had felt barely half an hour ago.She shook her head. “Yes, I guess you're right,” she said, sighing in mock-disappointment. Then, noticing that they were approaching the group waiting for them, she raised her voice just a little. “Too bad. It seems that you're doomed to spend the rest of your long, long life with Lance, after all.”“And why, exactly, would that be something bad, Pidgeon?” Lance asked with narrowed eyes and a smile tugging at his lips.“I was trying to steal your boyfriend,” Pidge said, shrugging and grinning at Lance's exaggerated gasp and betrayed expression. “But then Keith reminded me that I don't like boys, and that you'd sulk something terrible, and crushed all my hopes.”“I trusted you, Pidgey!” Lance cried, throwing himself at Keith in a way that forced them to unlink their arms and hogging him to himself, to Keith's halfhearted protests.Pidge laughed and let them go, amused with their antics.“Are you ready, Katie?” Matt asked, and Pidge gave her brother a beaming smile. He had never been too comfortable calling her Pidge, and had completely dropped the moniker once the charade was over and she didn't have to pretend to be a boy any longer. Pidge liked the nickname, but it was nice to hear her name from time to time, too.“Yup. As ready as I'll ever be. Though I expect nobody will be surprised when the color's green, huh?”Matt chuckled, a hand coming up to rest on the tattoos on his face. The tiny crescent moons were purple. He also had two small dots beneath the one on his left: one black, the other pink. “Nah. The only way you'd surprise us is if they aren't the color of your lion, which is… highly improbable, from what we've seen with the rest of us.”“Green will look lovely on you,” Allura said, smiling as she put a flower on her head, just as Keith had predicted. She was dressed in full Queen regalia, looking powerful and breathtaking with her hair up and the added jewelry that complemented and showed off her own tattoos. The small baby bump only added to her beauty.“Thank you,” Pidge answered softly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.“She's only telling the truth,” Shiro said. He had his left arm around Allura's waist, and used his prosthetic hand to lightly pat Pidge's shoulder. “You look beautiful, Katie. You're all grown up.”“Oh, shut up, you sap.”Shiro chuckled. “All right, all right. I'll stop. But I think we should be going, mmm? We don't want to be late.”Allura scoffed lightly. “I'm the Queen. The ceremony cannot start without me, so it is impossible to be late.”“Nevertheless, we don't want to let poor Tia waiting, do we?” Shiro pointed out, and Allura conceded with a sigh.“I suppose…”“Okay!” Lance interrupted with a chirp, dragging Keith by the hand. “Let's go, then! There's a party waiting for us after this! Hunk prepared the food, y'know? A feast!”“You did?” Pidge asked, turning to look at their friend. Hunk blushed a bit at the sudden attention, but preened with pride as everyone looked at him with curious, hopeful eyes.“Yup,” he said, scratching his nose, then grinning. “Mom helped, of course, but I made most of it. Prepare to be amazed.”“I'm not sure, Hunk,” Allura teased as they walked. “The food you cooked for our nuptials was delightful, after all. You think this will top that?”Hunk pursed his lips, thinking, and then shrugged. “If it doesn't, it just means that I'll have to work harder for Lance and Keith's wedding party,” he said nonchalantly, and then bit his lip to suppress a laugh as said men spluttered in surprise.Pidge burst out laughing, quickly followed by the rest. Looking at them, her growing family, she felt lighthearted and cheerful, and ready to start another stage in her life.It was only beginning, after all.