(On the Hunt) Chapter 10

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 10

The Hunters

Explorer Team 686 had once again gathered in a conference room. It wasn't the same conference room as last time; the Bolt had four of them. May as well rotate for a bit of variety.

They were all identical, but that wasn't the point.

"Alright." Keith looked around and raised an eyebrow. Most of the group was sitting at varying degrees of attention, except for Lance, who was lounging with his feet on the table. It was clearly going to be one of those days… he shook his head and resolved to just ignore it. "Let's get this underway, shall we?"

"Yes sir."

"Let's, please."

"Whenever you're ready, bossman."

So far, so good. "First, any issues or complaints to report on the status of the ship?"

"Yeah," Jace muttered immediately, "that's gonna be fucking unsanitary next time someone brings donuts in here." He jabbed a finger at Lance before pushing his feet off the table.

Their pilot sulked, straightening up to sit properly. "The donuts go in the middle of the table."

"They go in your mouth, bro," Hunk countered.

Keith could already feel his resolve cracking; he allowed himself a withering look at them before clearing his throat and moving on. "So, no one has anything to report?" He shot Flynn a glance too, suggesting he might appreciate a bit of backup here.

His second caught it and shrugged. "Everything in engineering is fine."

"Good." He waited a beat, in case anyone else was inspired to speak up, then shrugged himself. "Then we can move on to the next order of business." Who are you kidding? It's the only order of business. They were between Kaliega and Alcieux, in what Sven had described as one of the emptiest stretches of space he'd ever seen; extra business wasn't too likely to jump them here, even with their luck.

"What business, sir?" Cam asked eagerly. The commander gave him an appreciative nod, and he couldn't help but grin.

"As you know, we need to keep our mission as quiet as possible. We can't go tipping our hands to the Galra." He frowned. "We should have developed a cover story to begin with, but hindsight is what it is. Kleid came up with one on Kaliega, and I think it's best we go along with it."

Lance raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"Yes. We're on the trail of a wanted criminal who's searching for Altea and the weapon hidden there." He looked around the team. "Does anyone have any objections to that story?"

A few nods went around the room; Lance nudged Flynn and smirked. "Creative, it's all the movies, isn't it?"

Flynn smirked back. It certainly wasn't, but why shoot it down? "Sure, we'll go with that."

"Is his name Galra McGalraface?" Jace asked after a few moments, having clearly put together where the idea had really come from.

Lance snorted. "No, it's Jace McAssface."

Sven rolled his eyes and elbowed the medic before he could respond. "No problems here, sir."

"So we're like what, bounty hunters or somethin'?" Hunk asked, cocking his head curiously. "Can we have cool hats and someone with a parrot on their shoulder?"

Daniel's eyes lit up. "Oh hell yeah, I'd make an awesome bounty hunter."

"Thought you hated birds, kid?" Lance nudged him, too.

"Parrots are for pirates."

"Damn, and I wanted an eyepatch."

"Nothing's stopping you," Flynn pointed out, earning another smirk.

"I'd be hot with an eyepatch."

"Yeah," Daniel snarked, "only in the sense that it would be covering part of your face…"

"Alright!" Keith cleared his throat so loudly he was definitely going to need a lozenge later. "I suppose bounty hunters is an accurate description for what we're doing. But we'd need to come up with a more in-depth story, in that case."

"That's easy, we're mercenaries, someone hired us to find Jace McAssface."

"What do you have in mind, sir?"

Ignoring Lance yet again, Keith gave Pidge an appreciative look. At least someone is taking this seriously. "We would need false backgrounds for everyone. References, previous jobs, the works… and the ability to insert them into any databases required."

Several people looked at him blankly. Vince, though, immediately seemed a little more animated. "Oh! Like an RPG game."

Now it was Keith's turn for a blank look. "What… is an RPG?"

Vince was much too horrified to answer that—whether horrified because he'd said it out loud or horrified that the commander had asked that question, he couldn't quite have said. Either way Hunk bailed him out. "Rocket-propelled grenade, boss, aren't you in the military?"

Somehow, Keith didn't think that was what Vince had been referring to at all, but he decided it was better not to press the issue. "Okay, moving on. What else do we need to make this happen? Kleid, what do we display as on IFF?"

"We show as a Vagrant with an Alliance military cargo registration. That isn't unusual though. Most ships with any sort of noticeable anti-ship armaments aren't permitted to carry civilian registration, no matter who's operating them."

Something about that didn't seem quite right. "The Firecrown used a civilian registration, didn't it?"

"Yes, and our being more than mildly insane notwithstanding, would you say it had noticeable armaments?"

That, Keith supposed, was a pretty good point. "Okay. But if we needed to, could we change it?"

Flynn shrugged, turning to Pidge, who straightened slightly in his chair. "Yessir. Easily."

"Good. Come up with something and have it ready, just in case. Maybe more than one."

"Paranoid much?" Jace muttered under his breath. Sven looked at him and considered throwing another elbow, but he didn't entirely disagree.

Pidge looked at Flynn, who just shrugged again. "We needed to officially change the registration to Bolt anyway, make it happen."

Keith's mind was racing too much for him to sit still; he stood up and started pacing. "Gregory, you'll need to make a set of new medical records for everyone, more civilian ones, won't you?"

"…No?"

He didn't actually stop to register the answer. "In case we get boarded or closely inspected, we'd need to take steps to not be identified as connected with the Alliance. Our uniforms, records—"

"—Kogane!" Flynn was starting to get a headache. "I think you're getting bounty hunters and the covert ops agency confused, I literally told the Lygoth we were working on the Alliance's behalf…"

That got through. Or at least the round of snickering that went around the conference table did. Keith stopped and exhaled slowly, shaking his head. Maybe he had gotten a little bit carried away there. "You did, I know. So… the Alliance just hiring bounty hunters for some reason is our story?"

"If you think about it, isn't that pretty much what the Explorer Teams are?" Sven pointed out with a small frown. "Small irregular units to do odd jobs the line units can't do, without splashing we're the Alliance military everywhere?"

"We kinda did that last time, yeah?" Hunk agreed. "They even painted the Firecrown up to be less Alliance-y for us."

"And keeping a little bit of Alliance affiliation could be useful. You know, little things like any Drule ship we run into not attacking us on sight." Not that Lance was afraid of the Drules, but he did very much feel like saving their missiles for the Galra was the better option.

Keith nodded slowly. They were all good points. "Fair enough. The best lies do have elements of truth to them."

"Why don't we just say we're an Explorer Team, then?" Vince asked. It wasn't that he minded being a bounty hunter, he was just a little confused.

"Because bounty hunter sounds way more respectable than Explorer Team." Jace smirked. "What doesn't?"

"Definitely putting bounty hunter on my resume," Daniel said with a grin.

Flynn took the question a little more seriously. The initial idea behind the cover story had been a bit more about the fugitive angle and less about the bounty hunter angle, but he could see the merits in detachment, too. "Mercenaries wouldn't have the same sort of restrictions a formal Alliance unit has to deal with. This could take us into No Man's Land or the Fourth Kingdom itself, for all we know."

"Yes. The best of both worlds." Keith returned to his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "We will still need to cover our tracks in some respects."

Nod. "Colonel Hawkins said he sealed our records because of the pirates. That'll work in our favor."

"It will. That just leaves what we have on the ship… the uniforms will need to be dealt with. Can we strengthen the encryption on the computers?"

Pidge took that one again. "Hardening the systems is easy enough, sir." Lance snorted, for reasons that had nothing to do with his thoughts on the ninja's technical capabilities; Sven and Jace both rolled their eyes in tandem.

"Very well. Do what you need to do, Stoker."

Hunk grinned. "We can stash our uniforms in the smugglers' hold."

"…I thought we didn't have a smugglers' hold?"

"We still do not have a smugglers' hold."

Sigh. "No fun."

Keith gave Hunk a look, then shook it off. "Well, we'll still need to stash them somewhere. Any ideas?"

"Dude, the smugglers' hold!" Lance didn't care what Flynn said about it—he might not know where this mythical smugglers' hold was, but he knew Hunk had to have hidden his contraband bombs somewhere. That was good enough for him.

"Can we just move on?" Flynn asked. "We'll figure it out."

That wasn't reassuring, but then, at least a couple of people here seemed to know what was going on. He had to trust his team… "Yeah, we can do that. Anyone think of anything else we might be forgetting?" Silence and a few headshakes went around the table. "Alright. Starr, how is the translation of those Terinian reports going?"

Cam looked a little startled to be addressed, though also pleased; he opened his mouth. Words didn't come out. A series of chirps and a light, trilling whistle did instead.

Daniel hit his head on the table before glaring across it. "One more fucking whistle and I swear to god, fanboy…"

That turned a few of the others' blank stares into laughter. Blushing, Cam coughed and took a moment to get his thoughts organized. "Apologies, Commander." He was not going to apologize to Daniel. "With Vince's help we're pretty much done with it."

"I didn't do much," Vince protested. Mostly he'd served as a sounding board, though he had been able to puzzle out one particularly fragmented document. Literally; he'd more or less reassembled it for Cam to translate.

Keith frowned. "Anything significant to report?"

"The Skyguard we talked to wasn't exaggerating about the multiple reports." Cam sat up a little straighter. "They did a pretty thorough job of collecting them, and nearly every one says the same thing about the presence of beasts in the sky. They don't agree on much else, though. Primarily the beasts reported were the ones she mentioned, but there are also reports of a green one, a silver one, one that says they were all black, one that says there may have been a multicolored one…"

"Multicolored?"

"Whole thing's multicolored, yeah?"

Shrug. "It's what was in the reports. But nobody could describe the beasts in any detail. It was night, and well, they were being attacked by alien warships of some kind."

"So basically we still just have Jace's bad artwork to go on," Lance clarified, "but now it's confirmed by some other sightings?"

Cam nodded, a slight frown on his face. "Unfortunately yes, sir."

Whatever Lance may have said there vanished into a look of stunned disbelief. Did he just call me sir? Beside him, Flynn bit his lip hard to keep from laughing—it was only mostly successful. Lance shot him a look, but couldn't really argue the point; he shook his head and chuckled silently himself. Sir! That'll never happen again. …Hopefully.

Flynn fought it down after a few moments. Something in Starr's report was concerning him. "Beasts, plural. But the information from Sorthal seemed singular. Unless one of the languages involved doesn't differentiate…" He gave their comms officer a questioning look.

"Terinian does, sir."

"Multiple Voltrons, then?" Even that didn't seem right. Multiple Voltrons for some conventional assault fleet, only one for a monster that had wiped out a whole continent? Everything they learned only seemed to raise more questions.

"Could be the opposite, yeah?" Hunk suggested. "Terinians saw a bunch of colors and figured a bunch of different pieces or beasts or whatever, but it's actually all one thing?"

"Right now, it seems like just about anything is possible." Keith waited another moment to see if anyone else had comments, then looked back at Cam. "Thank you, Starr. Make sure your translations are secured."

"You're welcome, Commander." He followed that with another whistle, and Daniel glared.

Lance looked over at him too, slowly raising an eyebrow. "That kid okay? Jace, maybe you should look into it."

Jace followed his gaze and matched the raised eyebrow. "Could be a sign of vitamin deficiency."

"No it can't." Daniel made a face. "That damn alarm of his goes off all the fucking time."

The medic took a moment to think that over. "…Could be a sign of vitamin overdose."

"I've been taking my vitamins EXACTLY AS INSTRUCTED," Cam snapped, "khuy tebe!"

Daniel grinned. "Sven, I'm not sure exactly what he just said, but I know it was a bad word."

"Language," Sven muttered obligingly, though there wasn't much enthusiasm in it. Immediately Cam responded in a series of whistles and chirps.

It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on there. "Wait, they taught you to swear in bird?" Hunk demanded. "For research?"

Grin. It hadn't exactly been spelled out, but it turned out birds swore a lot when they were under attack by unknown warships. "I'm just that good."

Hunk nodded in approval; Daniel scowled and threw a pen at him. "Seriously, would you can it with the fucking whistling!"

"You gonna make me, brat boy?"

"Knock it off," Keith barked. "Now."

"Oh sure," Daniel grumbled under his breath. "He gets to whistle til I wanna blow my damn brains out, but I throw one little pen and all the sudden boss man's panties are in a twist…"

Smirking, Cam looked down at his datapad and tapped out a quick message. Because he LIKES me.

Daniel sent back a quick doodle of a hand flipping him off.

"You're both ugly, kids," Jace snorted, and turned back to Keith. "So what's next?"

"Alcieux." The boss hadn't said so out loud, at least to him, but Lance had read the course data Sven had programmed into the computers.

He'd pronounced it alsee-you; Jace blinked. "You'll see who?"

That was enough to draw Cam's attention away from Daniel. "It's not pronounced that way."

Oh? Lance crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "What is it then?"

"The Lygoth back at the Cathedral said it alsee-uks." Flynn shrugged. "It's alien, not French." 

Well that was dumb. "It should be more French."

Rolling his eyes, Pidge spoke up from his chair in the corner. This briefing had ceased to be interesting a long time ago. "It isn't a long trip, kir sa tye? I should start work, if you want the new registration ready for landing." He considered pointing out the rest of them should get to work too, but that wasn't really his place.

Keith took it up gratefully, in any case. "I think we're done, unless anyone has anything else to raise?"

"Nah, ninja's right. Better move." Hunk grinned. "Bring anything you guys want hidden over to general quarters, we'll take care of it."

"The smuggling hold is at your service." Lance smirked.

"Yup! Holdin' your smuggles for fun and profit."

Keith stared at them for a moment, then rolled his eyes so hard it actually hurt. They were definitely finished here. "Dismissed."

*****

Hunk was the first to make it back to the room, and the first order of business was flipping on some good montage music. One should never pass up the opportunity for a montage, after all—they weren't in a movie, but why should that stop them?

The cheerful synthrock of Bobblehead Avenger was just starting to pump through the room when Lance came in, looking somewhat betrayed. "Dude, why didn't you tell me we had the fucking smuggler's hold in here?!"

Blink. "You didn't ask, bro?"

"I didn't…" Lance stopped in the middle of his protest. "…no wait, that's a good point when it's you. Show it to me?"

"Totally would, if we had one. Which we don't. Here." He pulled the mattress off one of the empty bunks with a flourish—except there was no mattress, just a padded foam cover hiding a large box. Or, more accurately, a thin foam exterior and six different layers of various scan deflection materials hiding a large box.

Lance gave a low whistle. "Totally fucking fell for that." Maybe he was going to have to rethink his opinions on furniture covers after all.

"Good!" Chuckling, he pointed at two of the other bunks—there were ten in the room, intended for a Vagrant's standard complement of cargo workers. "Thought they might be handy, yeah? Last time I hid the bombs I had to use the engine shielding and uh, that ain't the best."

That sure as hell didn't sound like the best. "I mean it's really shortsighted of the Alliance not to build ships with smuggler's holds."

"Seriously. No imagination." Hunk was opening up the other two fake bunks as they talked. One was empty. The other was about two-thirds full of neatly blocked and packaged explosives.

Lance's eyes widened. "Holy hell!"

"Chill, bro! They're totally safe without a blastin' cap."

Eyeing the explosives warily, he calmed and looked back at the huge engineer. "And again, I should've expected it."

"Probably." Hunk paused to play some air guitar as the montage music hit its peak.

There wasn't a ton of space left with the explosives, but the other two fake bunks were actually pretty roomy. "Yeah, the uniforms will fit in here alright. Rather burn them."

"Not me." Snort. "You know how hard it is to get these things made in my size?"

"…Point." Lance flipped his collar. "I like my jacket."

"It's a good jacket," Hunk agreed, patting the leather before turning back to the bunk. He carefully tucked his uniforms away—they were folded and rolled into tight cylinders of fabric, if there was one thing he was good at besides bombs and barbecue, it was efficient packing—then accepted Lance's and stashed them. Frowning, he looked up and studied the general quarters. It was pretty stark. "Feels like we oughta decorate."

"Yeah…" Lance looked around, wondering what kind of decoration was normal for bounty hunters. Maybe he should've brought some more sniper rifles to hang on the wall or something. But he was pretty sure of one thing, as he watched Hunk close the bomb bunk back up. "We are meant to be smugglers."

"By the end of this we might be!" Hunk flopped back onto his own bed, throwing his arms behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. "Heck, think we might already be. We're smugglin' plenty of stuff, just cuz we ain't sellin' it…"

"True that." Lance sat on the floor and leaned back against Hunk's bed, looking at the ceiling too. "I mean we're looking for what? Some kind of beast weapon? It's not a person, but it is a bounty."

"Totally." Frown. "Keep tryin' to figure out what the Terinians would think were beasts. Some kinda ships, you think?"

The red metal sprang to Lance's mind again. "Has to be. She said they thought the attacking ships were mountains, they wouldn't know." He shook his head. "It's big, whatever it is. I can feel it."

"Yeah?" Hunk eyed him curiously, though he didn't seem to find the comment all that strange. "Like, the heat or whatever?"

"Yeah… yeah." Lance looked at his hands, trying to bring up the memory of the warmth. "Five beasts, all the same metal, right?"

"Is it the same metal? You'n the boss reacted different."

"Think it is." Snort. "We got called in about, you know, the reactions we had—'cause of course bossman put it in the report. The tech said it was causing the reactions, all mystical or whatever. It's fucking weird."

Hunk sat up straight, looking at him with double the confusion. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, she did some tests, had us touch both metals, then she touched one too… had me looking at the numbers, they went ballistic." Even the summary felt like it was making things more complicated. "She didn't feel anything. Said it was magic."

"…Magic, huh?" Hunk fell silent, turning that over in his head. Did he even believe in magic? It probably wasn't that crazy… no, it was definitely crazy, but so was at least half of the chemistry he'd studied. Still… "Dude, I'm just the bomb guy. What're they throwin' us at?"

"I don't know." A shiver ran up Lance's spine. "But I'm telling you, whatever this Voltron is… big. Above-our-fucking-paygrades big."

"Kinda soundin' like it." Grin. "And Colonel Bossman says we get to try to figure it out, pit boss is gonna go nuts."

"Yeah. Him, me, all of us, dude. It's so fucking weird."

"Could be fun though. Hopefully. Kinda suck if it's anything else."

"I mean sure, less temples of murder and more asteroid fields and it could be fun, yeah."

Hunk swung his legs over the edge of the bed and gave him a look. "…Can we skip the asteroid fields? Maybe just some nice normal explosions, yeah?"

Lance burst into laughter. "Don't worry, I'll handle the flying. You just take care of the booms. But let's focus." He stood, shaking off thoughts of magic and beasts. "How do we bounty hunter up our quarters?"

Grinning, Hunk jumped up too. "Bro, I thought you'd never ask…"

*****

Keith was standing over his bed, folding his uniforms. Re-folding them, really, to neat military precision. It wouldn't do to have them get all wrinkled in this mythical smuggler's hold; they would need them again at some point.

His roommate was watching, unimpressed. "You know, it'd be easier just to pitch them down an engine core."

Sparing only a quick look over his shoulder, he went right on folding. "That seems like it would be bad for the engine core, wouldn't it?"

Flynn laughed. "Three thousand degree plasma does not care about your polyester."

No, probably not. Keith sighed and looked at the small pile of fabric—were they even made out of polyester? "I'm surprised nobody decided to have a bonfire in the cargo hold, honestly. Or throw them out of an airlock."

"Throwing things out the airlock is dangerous, haven't you heard the horror stories about space debris?" He briefly debated suggesting the commander could get rid of his Crystal Spur that way, but decided he really didn't want the thing pinned to his forehead.

"True enough on that." Keith sat on his bed and exhaled. The stateroom wasn't really meant for two people; it was very nicely furnished, but a little cramped with a second bed hauled in. The burdens of command. Speaking of which, "How are things going with your new crew?"

Flynn looked distinctly unappreciative at that question. "Vince is fine. Pidge is difficult."

"Well, given his record, that's not surprising. What's been going on?"

Tell me about it. "I just don't understand how he thinks—nor does anyone else—and when he has misunderstandings he tends to pull knives on people. I'm working on it." He wouldn't have minded an offer of help, truthfully. Kogane and his sword might be able to figure the ninja kid out a little bit. But he wasn't going to ask, and wasn't surprised not to get one. 

The commander nodded. "I know you're working on it. He is from a different culture, I'm sure he doesn't understand us very well either."

To put it mildly. Flynn snorted. "How are your kids doing?"

"Starr is alright, I think. Brennan… he just doesn't seem…" Keith looked for some kind of tact, gave up, and shrugged helplessly. "I don't know really, when it comes to him."

Sounded about right. "I think you felt that way about the rest of us once." His second paused, reconsidering, and grinned slightly. "I think you might still feel that way about some of us."

It was impossible not to at least chuckle at that. "Yeah, but I'm kind of getting used to the strangeness from the original crew. One hell of a learning curve, that's for sure."

"But you're learning." Flynn eyed the uniforms. 

"That I am…" Remembering he'd stashed a dress uniform in a different locker, just in case, he crossed over and opened it up… and the pumpkin crown fell out.

His second erupted into laughter. "Your finest moment!"

"No," he objected, cheeks flushing deep red, "I assure you it wasn't. I'd rather just forget about that night, really." He tossed the crown into the trash.

"Hmm." Flynn gave him a reproachful look. "Maybe you haven't learned as much as I thought."

"…What is that supposed to mean?" All that got him was an innocent shrug. "I should have just come and helped you with the test fire."

"Too late now. You had fun, it won't kill you… probably."

"Yeah." Once again, Keith was seriously starting to question his understanding of the word 'fun'. No, that wasn't quite right—more he was questioning everyone around him's understanding of the word 'fun'. Dropping his dress uniform on the pile, he looked over his shoulder again. "You already take care of your uniforms?"

"Sort of." By which he meant absolutely not, and pulled them out of one of his own lockers. They were already folded just fine, as far as he was concerned. 

A half grin spread over Keith's face. "If you want, I can take them over to our not a smuggler's hold on my way back to the bridge."

"Wouldn't say no." Flynn grinned back, then stood and delivered his uniforms to the boss's stack of fabric. "Maybe Hunk will actually show you where it is."

"No. I'm going to stick with plausible deniability."

"Think that's usually the best option with this crew. You are learning."

"Yeah, trying to." He adjusted his load of uniforms and headed for the door.

Flynn looked after him, frowning slightly as his mind went back over the discussion… the question came out before he'd fully decided to ask it. "Kogane?"

Keith stopped. "Yeah?"

"Does your sword have a name?"

Huh? That seemed like it had come out of nowhere. "…Why do you ask?"

"Just curious."

Well, why not? The sword had been in his family since before human spaceflight; when exactly it had picked up its name, he wasn't sure. But it did have one. "It's Raiden. Means…" He paused a moment, blinking as he thought of the black metal. "…Lightning strike."

Flynn nodded slowly. "Like I said, just curious." He glanced over at his rifle in the corner, wondering if it needed a name, then shrugged it off with a slightly sheepish grin. "Go smuggle our uniforms, would you?"

Not at all certain what to make of that, Keith decided not to worry about it too much. There was plenty around here for him to worry about. "Yeah… I'll do that."

*****

The other stateroom was playing host to a fairly similar scene; two stacks of uniforms, two Explorer Team members giving them judgmental looks. Why had they even brought so many? Wasn't like they wore them.

"We have to have somewhere better to put these than a nonexistent smuggler's hold," Jace grumbled, poking his pile.

Sven looked at his own pile and shrugged. "It was the only option presented. Do you have a better idea?"

"Shove 'em under the bunk? Seems like if we get boarded we're already kind of fucked." He rolled his eyes. "But sure, let's take this stuff to casa de donut dude and go do something useful."

Oh really. He wanted to do something useful now? "What did you have in mind?" 

"Fuck if I know. I should make sandwiches."

That wasn't precisely the wrong answer Sven had expected, but at least it was a wrong answer. "You should do that paperwork the Commander assigned."

"Pretty sure I told him I wasn't gonna do that." Frown. "Pretty sure I told him we didn't need me to do that."

"Pretty sure he didn't rescind the order. Come on, I'll help you do it."

"Sure you will." Actually, he probably would—Jace could have used a Viking back when he was struggling through Alliance history essays at the Academy. This, though, was not homework he needed help with. "Tell me something, what the fuck does 'more civilian medical records' even mean?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm not the medic." Sven sat on his perfectly-made bed and shrugged again. "I'm sure there's a difference, though? If we were civilians our records wouldn't have the mandatory military checkups, and probably not nearly as many vaccines?"

"Sure, unless we're ex-military. Or are we just a bunch of random-ass civilians who took up bounty hunting one day? That's less suspicious?"

…Oh. Sven hadn't thought of that. "Alright… how do we make them look less suspicious?"

"They don't look suspicious!" The medic buried his face in his hands with a few dramatically muttered Portuguese curses. "Everyone on this ship watches too many movies."

Everyone on the ship probably did watch too many movies, but that wasn't really the issue at hand here. "Official Alliance files could still prove we are active military. Which could blow our cover story."

"Yeah… tell you what, middle ground, we'll get rid of these." Jace pulled the physical files out of his desk and held them up. They did say Official Alliance Document in excessively large letters at the top. "Make it harder on whoever's really that worried about tossing our bunks. If they crack our computers, they're gonna have shit like… I dunno, we've gotta have some authorization codes or some shit we can't get rid of… anyway the medical files won't really be our biggest problem."

Sven opened his mouth to object, then hesitated. It was a fair point… the objection became a slow nod. "I can get on board with that. We'll at least be semi-following the Commander's orders."

"Totally. We're doing the spirit of the thing, just not the dumb parts." He looked at the files and frowned. "…Now how do we make paper disappear onboard a spaceship?"

"We could throw them out into space?"

Jace snorted. "I'm as excited about the thought of chucking annoying things out the airlock as anyone, but classified medical files floating around in the void forever doesn't seem quite like the spirit of the thing."

And there was another good point. "You're right. Any other ideas?"

Considering that, Jace found his mind wandering to the obvious. How did you dispose of classified files when you weren't on a spaceship? There was one standard. "Fire?"

Sven stared. Jace stared back. Neither of them was about to blink, but finally the navigator couldn't take the silence. "You want to start a fire onboard the ship?"

"How do you think the galley works?" No, that wasn't even the best example. "Fuck, pretty sure we've got six giant fiery things on our ass driving us around, though Chief might get pissy if we pitched paper in there without asking."

"I…" Sven briefly debated pointing out that only the conventional engines used anything like fire, but it really wasn't worth it. "…Don't we have a paper shredder?"

Oh. There was that. "No idea?"

Did Sven really want to search the ship for a paper shredder that may or may not exist? More to the point, did he want to explain why they needed one? No, not really. That could only result in more bad ideas. "Fine, let's just burn them."

"We could look for a shredder first." Jace shrugged. "That's the Viking way, isn't it? Pillage then burn?"

"Where do you suggest we look?"

He could see the medic going through exactly the same thought process he'd just gone through. "…Good point, let's just burn."

Dumping their uniforms off at the door of the general quarters, they headed for the galley. Jace passed the files to Sven and produced a large cast-iron skillet; that got him a skeptical look, which he answered by waving it threateningly. "We practice safe fire containment aboard this ship, Viking."

Somehow, Sven did not find himself reassured. "It's good to know that if we're going to be starting fires aboard a ship in the middle of space, at least we'll be doing it safely."

Jace rolled his eyes and started ripping the files into large paper chunks, dropping them in the skillet. "You're the same kind of person who doesn't like surgery because it involves cutting you open, aren't you."

"…You say that as if I'm supposed to be happy about being cut into."

"Rather die?"

"No." Sven watched, less reassured than ever, as the medic dug out a lid and a bottle of cooking oil, dousing the paper before turning the burner on. "Doesn't mean I'd enjoy it."

It was only a matter of seconds before the oil burst into flame. "And I'm not enjoying this preparation of papel queimado, a dish with zero intrinsic or nutritional value, but we do what the fuck we've gotta do." As the paper started burning cheerily, the galley's air scrubbers kicked in with a dull roar, shunting the smoke away.

"Language," Sven muttered without conviction. Being roommates with Jace had only hastened his giving up on actually changing anything—like he hadn't given up long before—but he still felt the need to say it every so often for the sake of habit. Plus whenever he let it go for too long he started getting threatened with medical tests.

This time Jace glowered. "It just means burnt paper, porra…"

It was definitely not worth answering that; they both knew perfectly well what he'd been referring to. He allowed himself a raised eyebrow, which was answered with a smirk. Then, exchanging shrugs, they fell silent and watched the medical records burn.

*****

Modifying a ship registration was not an efficient process. Shocking, truly. Pidge's objective had gone from untraceable modification to rewriting a whole new interface in about the first five minutes. Someone—whether the manufacturer or the Alliance, it didn't particularly matter—prefabricated the identification codes in a way that had probably been seeing minor tweaks for centuries, and now instead of a nice neat form, there were scattered fragments of source data all over the place.

Nothing he couldn't handle. But inefficient. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, his datapad linked into the ship's systems with its holographic conversion mode on. The keyboard and screens it projected almost made it so he didn't notice his roommate.

Almost.

Vince was sitting on his bed, being wholly inefficient himself. He was reading a book… or at least he was trying to read a book. What he was actually doing was casting furtive glances over at his roommate who was usually not here. Having the ninja in close proximity was making him edgy, and knowing he shouldn't be only made it worse. Finally he sighed and gave up, flopping back to stare at the ceiling.

Get over it, Vince. He saved your life, he's not—

"There's nothing up there, mechka."

Sighing, he lowered his eyes again. "What does mechka mean?"

"It means I'm trying to adapt to human social expectations."

That didn't tell him anything; he snorted. "Guess that means it's not nice."

"It's not…" Pidge paused for a moment, searching for the exact English word he needed and concluding it didn't exist. "…not-nice," he finally muttered sullenly.

"Not not-nice?" Vince eyed him and shrugged; he'd bite. "How exactly do you think it fits with what's expected of human social interactions?"

The ninja looked back at him and frowned slightly. "Nicknames are that, kir sa tye? Mechka are… here." He swiped the holoscreen with the ship registration aside for a moment, calling up another screen and drawing a rough sketch of a cute seal-like critter.

Vince stared at it blankly. "Uh…" What the heck? He wasn't even wholly sure what he was looking at, let alone how to respond.

"…If I were trying to insult you, I'd do a better job of it." Scowling slightly, Pidge banished the screen and went back to the registration.

Something about his businesslike indignation made Vince laugh, though he stifled it quickly. It didn't seem polite. "Yeah, I guess so… that's not exactly how nicknames work."

"How do they work?"

…Walked right into that one. Closing his eyes, he considered the question carefully. He'd never really thought about it before, were there actually solid rules? "Well, either it's something obvious about a person—like Sven and the Viking thing, or you and the ninja thing—or it's… something that has to do with the relationship you build up with a person? I guess?"

Pidge looked up from his screens again, considering that. Then he nodded with renewed confidence. "Mechka."

Welp. "Okay then, that's sticking."

Nodding wordlessly, his roommate returned to his work. Great. Were they done talking now? It seemed like it, so Vince made a valiant attempt to go back to his reading. It still wasn't working out.

Okay, let's try round two… "You working on the registration thing?"

"Yes. The Lieutenant Commander just wants it officially changed to Jupiter's Bolt." Pidge shrugged; even his shrug looked slightly unfriendly. "It'll be good enough. The Commander is excessively concerned."

Vince snickered. "Yeah, Flynn's really attached to Bolt, his logic is flawless. And Commander Kogane, uh, worries more than my moms combined, and that's saying something."

"I see his point, but the people who are going to question our legitimacy aren't the kind who'll be looking up our…" He trailed off, blinked, and looked up from the screens. "Komora?"

Vince blinked too. "Komor-what?"

"Yes, what."

"…Huh?"

The ninja shook his head, exasperated. "What did you say?"

"I said Kogane overworries." What had been wrong with that? Pidge had just said the same—

"How many mothers do humans have?"

And once again, welp. "Just the two?" he stammered, off balance. "Well, I mean, generally one… well no, really it depends on the family situation…"

"Just the two," Pidge repeated. "Komora sa kye."

Vince's eyes narrowed slightly. He had no interest in picking a fight with the ninja, but he also wasn't just going to sit here and let him take potshots at his parents. "Yeah, my moms are gay." He managed the slightest bit of defiance in his tone.

Pidge did not seem impressed by either his defiance or his words. In fact he seemed mostly bewildered. "What does that have to do with anything?"

…Deep breaths, Vince. He took a few moments to try to steady himself. He is so confusing, ugh… "I have two moms because they're gay, usually how that happens. The same-sex parents situation, I mean."

All that got him was another very long few seconds of blank green ninja-stare. Then, all at once, understanding seemed to hit. "Oh, that's right, English uses the same word, they're your…" Suddenly he was visibly flailing just as much as Vince had been a minute ago. "…raisers, not, um, birthers?"

"Uh, no, my…" He cut himself off. This conversation was making a beeline right for him having to try to explain the in vitro fertilization process to an oblivious alien, and he was already blushing so hot it was uncomfortable. "Know what, that's not exactly it but we'll go with close enough."

"Okay." Nodding, Pidge turned back to his datapad. He looked perfectly satisfied with how that discussion had gone.

Vince, on the other hand, was still reeling. That was the weirdest conversation of my life. He watched his roommate quietly. Something was creeping into his thoughts. Someone else a bit more… belligerent… would probably have punched the ninja in the nose long before getting that resolved, when all it had been was a simple…

Misunderstanding…

He blinked at the realization, and wondered just how many punches Pidge had taken before now.

"I can stop calling you mechka if you want," the other engineer said abruptly.

Huh? To his own surprise, Vince found himself not jumping on that. He's trying, I guess? Maybe he should let him try. "Nah… it's okay."

Nodding again, Pidge looked back at his screens and typed in a few more commands. A soft beep sounded through the room. The ship was officially renamed.

"Success?" Vince asked.

"It's done," he confirmed. "Have to strengthen the main system encryption now. Unnecessarily inefficient, but ought to be fun." He packed up his datapad and stood. "I'll have to go to the bay for that. You can read now."

His roommate didn't seem quite as happy to be rid of him as he'd expected. Or maybe he'd just forgotten what he'd been doing before. "Uh, okay…"

Watching Pidge exit the room without another word, Vince slowly exhaled and lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There was still nothing there.

…I don't look like that seal-thingy though, do I? He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head slightly. One thing was for certain. This trip remained interesting.

*****

Daniel was hard at work. As with most things, he wasn't really working on something he was supposed to be working on. But he was working nonetheless, hunched over the small desk in the room he and Cam shared, sketching out a picture. Or more precisely, a wanted poster. Drawing was the one hobby he'd been able to acquire that didn't get him in trouble—usually, some graffiti'd buildings in Utah definitely had other opinions—which meant his opportunities to exercise it were limited. This situation seemed to call for it.

"What the hell are you doing, brat? We've got to get our uniforms squared away."

He didn't even bother to look up at the question. "My name is Daniel," he said flatly, "and I'm drawing a sketch of our make believe criminal. Figured it might come in handy."

"I know your name, brat," Cam snorted, pausing as he finished folding up his last uniform. "And that… actually might be handy, Commander ask you to do it?"

"No." He certainly didn't want to impress the Commander with his initiative. Or Lance. "I just figured it'd be a good idea."

"Huh." Shrugging, Cam turned away, eyeing his own bed and chirping a few things in Terinian. He was trying to keep up with the language—no sense learning it well enough to translate the stories but not sticking with it—and lacking a conversation partner, talking to himself was really his only option.

Of course, right now he was talking to himself when he wasn't alone… his roommate finally looked up from his sketch, glaring. "Are you fucking kidding me with the bird shit again?"

"What do you have against birds, dude? Did one shit on your face when you were a kid or something?"

"No! I just…" Actually, he was pretty sure he didn't want to answer that truthfully. "…I don't wanna talk about it, and my—" It's not a fear! "—DISTASTE for birds has nothing to do with your annoying as fuck chirping."

"Well I won't get any good at speaking their language if I don't practice it."

Who even cares? Daniel wondered; he didn't think they were going back there. But he doubted that question would go anywhere useful. "Well I'd appreciate it if you didn't practice around me, it's driving me nuts."

Cam wondered how he could tell. "You know, you could learn it too. Maybe it would help you get over your aversion to them."

"No thanks."

Big surprise. "Fine, brat." He gave a heavy sigh. "I'll try not to improve my education in your presence."

Brat this, brat that. Daniel rolled his eyes. He needs a bigger vocabulary. Still, it was a win, and he went back to his wanted poster. "Thank you." Somehow, his fugitive seemed to have picked up Cam's dimples. Whoops. He added a few last finishing touches and held it up. "Whatcha think?"

His roommate eyed the sketch critically. "Well, it's better than what Lance has dubbed Jace's artwork…"

"…That's not exactly a high bar," Daniel mumbled to himself with a worried frown.

"…I think a five year old still could've done better, but you're probably used to that." With a smirk, Cam picked up his uniforms and headed for the door.

Daniel, though, was suddenly not one bit inclined to let him go. "Can you not go two minutes without being a miserable snot?" he demanded, standing up and glaring. "What the actual fuck is your problem?"

Cam froze in the doorway. Had the brat really just called him a snot? "You," he snapped, turning back around. "You are my problem."

It was far from the first time Daniel had ever heard that, but… "The fuck did I do? You're the one who won't leave me alone." He'd thought being roommates would improve the situation, but so far not so much. "We're gonna be stuck together for awhile, so you should probably get over it."

"Get over it?" Glare. "The Commander roomed me with you because he hoped if I set an example for you, you might straighten out." The Commander had actually said no such thing, but it was the only explanation. "I've been trying since day one. But you just keep acting like a spoiled, entitled brat."

There he went with the brat again. "What did I even do to you?" he repeated, glaring right back. "And what example do you think you're setting, exactly? All you've shown me is that you're a major dick when the boss man has his back turned."

Cam snorted. "Oh, I'm a dick? Well I'm sorry you think that," he wasn't sorry, "but you sure don't act like you want it any other way."

"What exactly have I done to you that makes you think I want you to act like a dick to me, hmm? Was it when I repeatedly asked you to stop calling me names? When I let you drag me all over Garrison Island for team bonding? Asking you to stop chirping when you know it bothers me? Telling you to chill out when you take shots at me for no reason?"

Dropping his uniforms, Cam took a step forward, then thought better of it and leaned back against the door. "To me?" Of course this selfish little prick could only think that way. "You're just like all those damn entitled officer's brats at the Academy. Disrespecting superiors, rolling your eyes, thinking it's all about you… I can't stand that shit. It gets people in trouble, or worse, killed."

Oh for… this guy is fucking stupid. Daniel ran a hand through his hair in frustration, nails digging painfully into his scalp. "Get off your fucking high horse. If anyone is acting like an entitled brat it's you. You're mad that I'm not kissing your precious Commander's ass? That's it? You barely know me, don't act like you know shit about why I do what I do." 

"My fucking high horse? I'm not the one with problems with authority!"

Whatever self-control Daniel possessed was evaporating rapidly. His blood was boiling. If fanboy wanted to play suck-up he could have it. "Well authority doesn't screw you over every chance they get, do they? Nooo, Cammy the golden boy can do no wrong."

"Because I do what I'm told! I don't go mocking protocol or barging in on my commanding officer without knocking, and I sure as hell don't give my superiors smarmy fake apologies when they call me on it!" Cam shook his head. "I know this is an Explorer Team but fuck, if you're here you must be a smart kid, if you'd just engage your brain first once in awhile you probably wouldn't have ended up here!"

Oh fuck that. "It never matters if I do what I'm told. I could be the most well-behaved little kiss-ass ever and it wouldn't matter. Nobody gives a shit!" He'd just gotten told off for throwing one lousy pen, for fuck's sake. "I might as well do and say what I want, it's not like anyone cares." He never cared… he shook that off.

"Bullshit. If they didn't care they'd have sent your ass packing, not put you on an Explorer Team." Cam crossed his arms. "So this is just what, some sort of stupid rebellion?"

Golden boy really didn't understand anything, did he? Daniel's eyes narrowed. "Yeah sure, fami—people have to actually care what you do to be able to rebel."

He'd caught himself, but not before Cam caught where it was going. He blinked. "What? You're not making any sense…" That definitely wasn't the entitlement he'd been expecting.

Daniel had been prepared to yell back. He'd been prepared to take this shouting match as far as he had to go. The abrupt lack of hostility drained his own, and he took a couple of steps back. "I don't know how I can make that statement any more clear." Like it's any of your damn business anyway. The thought sounded more hollow than angry in his own mind. Post-anger crashes sucked ass. "I earned where I am. Fuck you for suggesting otherwise."

That was definitely a better thing to discuss. Cam was not touching that other slip if at all possible. "Yeah. You're proud to be here, I know. Why would you want to earn being on an Explorer Team?"

"…You know, sometimes you make me want to bash my own head in," Daniel muttered, his voice dripping with frustration. "I earned my spot. I earned being here in general. Wade wanted me gone, hell, he wasn't the only one—but I'm still here because I'm good at what I do, I worked my ass off to prove it, and I forced them to fucking keep me. Meanwhile you volunteered for this gig like you're God's gift to Explorer Teams, but I'm the entitled one?"

Cam stared at him for a moment that felt very long, slowly working his jaw without managing to force any words out. He slumped back against the door, sighing, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? He wanted to argue, but…

Shit, am I really the one who's been screwing this all up?

"…Yeah. I volunteered. I could've gone anywhere, I was even offered Wade's command."

Daniel snorted, sitting at his desk and looking at the sketch again. It really wasn't that bad. "And you're bragging about that why?"

Lowering his eyes from the ceiling, Cam managed a glare. This was hard enough as it was. "Because, brat, I'm trying to word this in a way that comes off as an apology."

And again with the brat! "Try harder."

"Will you just keep your trap shut for five minutes, for a change?"

It was very tempting not to agree to that. But Daniel supposed he couldn't just refuse an apology, no matter how bad fanboy was at it, after all that yelling about him being a dick. He sighed. "Okay. Proceed."

"You're… kind of right." Cam huffed in frustration. "I do have a lot of respect for authority… for Kogane in particular." He preemptively glared harder, and could see his roommate fighting back the smirk. "First impressions are everything, you know? I wanted to make a good one… and then you came barging in and ruined it. And that was yours, and I didn't like you right then. Not knocking, sitting without permission, half-assed salutes…"

There was a lot Daniel wanted to say there, but he was behaving himself. Mostly. His lip was almost bleeding from how much he was biting it, but he was successfully keeping his trap shut.

"…and then we got to talking, and sometimes I'd get to thinking we could be friends, good friends… then you go off and," he waved his hands in a gesture of exasperation, "do something else to put you right back in that entitled brat category, and here we are."

Daniel couldn't take it anymore. "First, that is by far the worst attempted apology ever made." Cam didn't even protest; he knew it was the truth. "Second, hold up. You think Kogane's a good guy, right? So like, he has good judgment, that sort of thing?"

"Yeah. He keeps you off the bridge when nobody else is around…" He gave a weak smirk that turned into a grimace. There you go again. "Sorry."

Brushing that particular point off—he still found it pretty funny—Daniel crossed his arms. "Okay, then do you really think he'd let me barging in on you affect how he views you?" Not that he'd never had any guilt-by-association incidents at the Academy, but it was only the biggest asshole officers that did that.

Cam blinked. He hadn't even thought about it like that. "…See, why can't you act like that more? Being friendly instead of, you know… things that make you look like an entitled brat?"

"Yeah, well maybe if you acted more like a friend I'd be more friendly, I'm not going to sit there and be nice if you treat me like shit. Two way street, dude."

They stared at each other for what felt like a very long time. Then, slowly, Cam nodded. "Tell you what, you act like that more, I'll be nicer."

"Deal." Smirk. "But if you start acting like a dick again, all bets are off."

Chuckling faintly, Cam nodded… then looked down at his uniforms scattered over the floor and made a face. "Guess I'd better get to refolding all this."

"Guess you'd better," Daniel agreed, going over to help him pick them up. "Oh yeah, and just so you know?" He paused a moment and pointed back at his sketch. "That is a fucking masterpiece."

Masterpiece was still an awfully strong word. But looking over at it again, Cam grinned. "It's good enough."

Maybe it was all good enough.

*****

Connected to the castle shelter by a long, narrow tunnel, an underground river flowed beneath the Meadows of Raimon. It sounded like a lovely thing to have nearby; it really wasn't. The water was thick with minerals, some mildly toxic, leaving it wholly unsuitable for drinking. Bathing was okay, if one was careful… and desperate… it was better than nothing, but the refugees weren't exactly flocking to the water. Not to mention the damp chill, and the slimy film of algae covering everything.

It was an excellent place to go to be alone, and Larmina sure as the five hells wanted to be alone.

She was sitting by a small diverted stream, staring at the back wall, trying to convince herself the sound of the water was drowning out the occasional whispers. They did seem to have let up a bit over the last few days, ever since… since, well…

Stop it. This isn't helping anything or anyone, least of all you. With a sigh, she slumped forward and tried to pick out patterns in the algae. If she squinted really hard, it looked like… no, still a gross slimy mess.

A noise that was not a whisper echoed from the tunnel behind her, and she stiffened, pulling her hood up and hoping not to be noticed. A moment later she heard a familiar voice muttering, "Of course it would fall to the bottom of the bag…"

Oh. Great.

Allura had been helping distribute some new supplies. The flow of scavenged materials from the surface was steadily decreasing as the Drules solidified their hold, and hidden stockpiles ran dry. The people were getting more anxious. Who could blame them? Some had even ventured to the surface, opting to try their luck with the occupation… despite her best efforts, they hadn't been dissuaded. She was exhausted, frustrated, and sore, and with any luck a good foot soak would at least help with one or two of those.

Flopping gracefully—as gracefully as one could really flop, anyway—by one of the larger pools, she removed her shoes and pulled a towel from her small satchel of personal possessions. As she dipped her feet in the water, she finally noticed she wasn't alone. A hunched figure in a dark gray-green cloak that nearly blended in with the rocks was sitting on the other side of the chamber, shifting just enough to look over their shoulder and catch sight of her.

"Oh…" A soft blush sprang to her cheeks. "Am I interrupting?"

"…A little bit, but it's okay."

Her eyes widened slightly. Larmina? She hadn't seen her honorary niece in days. Not since two of the militia had brought her back into the shelter, dazed and muttering about her mother. Allura had known what that must mean… she'd made herself available, but hadn't pushed the issue. She knew Larmina would need to deal with it on her own before she could speak of it.

This didn't seem like the best coping mechanism, but who was she to judge?

Smiling sadly, she ran her toes through the icy water and shivered. Cold though it was, the minerals did have some soothing effects. "Pity these waters can only be used to bathe," she murmured. "Even more so that they can't wash pain away as well."

Larmina snorted. "Yeah, too bad we can't drink it too, so we'd get to go outside even less." She turned again, looking mildly betrayed. "You didn't tell me there were ghosts!"

She blinked. "I was… not aware you didn't know about them," she said apologetically, sighing. "Perhaps it's one of the hazards of seeing them… one can forget that what seems common to me is not so much to others."

For a moment Larmina kept glaring, but it faded quickly. Too quickly for her tastes. She wanted to keep it up, but then, Auntie had said her mother would contact her… probably should've pressed the issue then. "I thought the caves were driving me crazy," she finally muttered, turning back to the wall. "Kind of wish that's all it was."

She could practically feel Allura's sympathetic look. "What other things are testing you now?"

"What isn't testing me?" She rolled her eyes. "We're stuck in a hole in the ground. A big fancy royal Arusian hole, but still a hole."

"Yes…" Frowning, Allura ran her fingers along the edge of the water. The algae came off on her fingers; she wrinkled her nose. "We are."

"Is King Alfor making any progress with his… whatever?"

There was another person she hadn't seen, this one in much longer. "I don't know for sure," she admitted. 

"Well good, that helps." Larmina glared at the wall as if it were personally responsible. Not that it mattered. It all seemed so pointless now…

Allura looked at her and sighed heavily, then scooted forward a little bit until the water was up to her knees. This soak, this conversation, was doing nothing for her own frustration. Why didn't they have these answers already? Why had they been hidden or erased? And what if…

We have to rely on each other. "Larmina… I'm scared."

Her niece whirled around at the admission, her startled look trying to turn into a glare. She didn't quite pull it off. "What?"

"I know what my father is trying to do, but the longer things go… I'm having a hard time. I keep thinking of our past. In all our history I can't think of a darker time than now. And if my father fails…" She trailed off, staring into the water. No, she didn't want to think about that, she couldn't.

As if anything could prevent it.

Under the circumstances, Larmina felt wholly inadequate to the task of reassuring the Crown Princess. But she couldn't help feeling like she ought to at least try. "I heard the War of Golden Revival kind of sucked," she offered after a few moments of hesitation. "Though," she made a face after another moment, "I guess at least we won that one." In a manner of speaking. Such optimism, young lady.

"Yes…" Allura tried to smile. She didn't quite pull it off either.

"…What is he doing? Why isn't he hiding? Why isn't he even keeping you in the loop?"

"He's…" Again she felt the pull to tell the truth, again she couldn't bring herself to do so. Especially not here, where someone could walk in on them at any moment… yes, that was it. "…he's trying to call upon a legend." The image of Black Lion, awakened with wings outstretched, flashed into her mind again. The thought of all of them… a glimmer of desperate hope in the darkness.

Larmina sighed. Still can't tell the half-royal bastard child, got it. For a moment, she considered telling Auntie about her own uncovered legend, the banewolves. But some mix of uncertainty, sullenness, and spite prevented it. "Guess that's all we can count on, huh."

"Yes. But it is something." This time she managed a bit more of a grin. "Even if it is the last little bit of hope out there."

That was cheery. But… Mother told you to survive and fight, not sit here feeling sorry for yourself. You could try to be a little more helpful here. "…And a little bit is better than none, right?"

"Right." Allura looked at her. "I have to believe he'll succeed, he will call the legend. It would be such a sight…"

"Yeah, legends are like that." Larmina's eyes widened slightly and she coughed. "I mean, uh, they're supposed to be anyway—they're legends, right?"

"Yes…" Auntie looked distant for a moment. Lost in thought, the legend coming to life before her eyes. 

Larmina's mind went back to her own myth. Could it really be a coincidence? The mystery King Alfor had charged her with, could it all be connected? But no… if she were supposed to be part of this legend, surely he'd have told her to do something by now. Shaking it off, she realized she was certain of one thing; she wanted to see the banewolves again. Badly.

"How's our food supply?"

The words startled Allura from her reverie, and she tapped her chin in thought. "Hmm. We are low on some herbs, and berries for sure. Could use a few rolis, we're not too bad off on meat, but we're going to need as much fur as we can get before the winter…"

That was all she needed to hear. "I think I'll go out and see what I can find. I know of a spot we haven't really picked over yet." Standing and stretching, she winced at the tingling aches that shot through her; she'd been sitting for entirely too long. But the Forest of Altair was waiting.

Allura stood too, approaching with a soft smile. "Before you go…" She wrapped her up in a tight hug, and the younger girl gave a startled squeak. "Hopefully you'll find plenty of what is needed."

"Yeah, here's hoping." She didn't think either of them were really talking about plants or rolis. "…Hang in there, Auntie. If I have to, you have to." She accompanied the words with a completely unconvincing scowl.

Chuckling, her aunt nodded. "Understood." She watched Larmina head out, then returned to the pool she'd been sitting by and closed her eyes. Suddenly it seemed very quiet…

She let her mind wander a bit. And as it always did, it seemed to wander to the storms, and a lion's roar echoing in the darkness.