(From Ashes) Chapter 37

     Pride: From Ashes
            Chapter 37
            Scars and Stories

It had been quiet since the latest incident. Too quiet, arguably. Though if the team had learned anything from their time on Arus—or the mission in general—it was to enjoy what little breathing room they got. Another crisis would come up soon enough.

One always did.

Sure enough, there had been a setback in the infirmary. The doctors had deemed Hunk ready to transition to milder painkillers. Unfortunately, Hunk's immune system turned out not to appreciate Arusian ridgewillow extract.

There had been a little bit of panic. Nobody on Arus had experience treating Earthlings, after all. It should've been okay, was the literature wrong? Had they poisoned him? Who knew?

By the time the ultimately minor allergic reaction was dealt with, the entire team had arrived at the recovery room to provide moral support. It gave Hunk a warm fuzzy feeling… which was nice for offsetting the excessive amount of poking he'd just had to undergo.

Dr. Gorma was not feeling any such warm fuzziness. The team had dutifully waited outside while he finished his work, but having the planet's defenders and royalty taking such an interest in a simple medical procedure was taking a bit of getting used to.

"So is he gonna die?" Daniel asked as the doctor finally waved them in. "NO WAIT, nobody translate, I've been practicing!" He switched to Arusian and immediately stumbled over the words. "Him… die?"

Maybe it hadn't been the best endorsement of his language practice.

Larmina elbowed him; that seemed to be the standard for dealing with such things. Gorma just shook his head, not bothering to answer out loud. It didn't seem worth it, considering…

"Nah, that's just a flesh wound," Lance countered. As he spoke, he reached up and shifted his jacket a little, doing his best to hide the bruises on his throat. He kept finding himself reaching up and touching them, which… no. He couldn't go there, and he definitely didn't need anyone else noticing.

Hunk sat up as much as he could in the bed, grinning brightly. "What'd I tell ya? Lots of padding!" Immediately he regretted that; talking too loud was still a bad idea.

Gorma turned and pointed at him. "Don't do that."

After the amount of time he'd spent laid up in here, that was a phrase Hunk did not need translated; he grinned sheepishly. "But I'm bored, Doc."

Romelle relayed that, and the doctor sighed. He understood well how boring it was to just sit in an infirmary bed all day; it had been a problem back at the Royal Hospital even when patients had access to digipads and other entertainment. In the shelters it was really the most common reason people took unwise actions… unwise actions which often inhibited recovery and ended with them spending even more time stuck in bed.

Well, if his whole team was going to be here, they could help keep him occupied. "How about you all play Trivia Toss? Or something like it that won't necessitate Mr. Garrett here hurting himself any further."

That drew a snicker from Larmina that she forced down quickly, and a confused look from Romelle. "Trivia Toss?" She directed it to the other Arusians; Gorma was already departing.

"It's a popular game within the shelters." Allura frowned. Obviously, she didn't get to partake much in the in-shelter entertainment, but she had heard things. "I've not played it myself, but I believe it involves the telling of something… factual or secret, depending? I'm not certain."

"That doesn't sound like trivia," Lance commented, and Keith nodded.

"Sounds more like Truth or Dare."

"How do you play?" Sven asked with a shrug. So far it didn't sound too objectionable.

The princess made a face. "I wish I'd had the chance to play, so I could say for sure. Larmina?" Her niece had a distinct I know what's going on here and you're all wrong about it look.

"There's a few different versions of it," she explained, stifling another giggle or two. "Trivia Toss is the one where you get in the least trouble, usually."

Pidge had perked up a little at the start of the conversation; he generally enjoyed trivia games. Though after thinking it through… "Feels like cultural barriers would get in the way of any trivia contest we tried to have here." He still had glaring holes in his understanding of human culture, let alone adding Arus or probably Pollux into the mix.

Larmina blinked. "It's just telling stories, maybe the translation is weird. The version we play in the militia is called Toss Your Rolis…" Allura snorted at that, but the others just looked confused. "…Doesn't translate either, huh." That might be for the best.

"Toss Your Rolis sounds dangerous."

"Don't think the Doc wants me tossin' anything right now, yeah?"

Just telling stories still sounded familiar to Daniel. "Now it sounds like truth or dare without the dare, which is just stupid."

"You just like to be challenged," Lance smirked.

"I like keeping my secrets secret." He shot Red a mental glare at that, just on principle, and Lance snickered.

"Yeah, you're real mysterious, kid."

"You don't know all my secrets."

"Thank God!"

"I think we should go with the safer option right now." Allura shook her head a little. "Can you tell us how it's played?"

Nodding, Larmina located the room's supply kit and opened it up. Chalk was pretty ubiquitous in the shelters, for understandable reasons. "So first you draw a grid. I'm told there would've been fancy game boards and stuff back in the day but, well, you know." She drew a large four-by-four grid on the stone floor, just next to Hunk's bed. "Then you put stuff in the boxes. Stuff like, I dunno, we'd probably get in trouble if Hunk rolled 'sneak past the guards and watch for sinycka for five minutes' so… what's Truth or Dare?"

"It's a game from Earth," Vince explained. "You have to either answer a question truthfully, or do a dare to avoid it."

"That's unusually intuitive for humans," Pidge muttered; the other engineer raised an eyebrow.

"Which part?"

"The part where a game called Truth or Dare involves truths or dares." Snort. "I've seen what you call football."

"Uh-uh, ninja." Hunk glowered. "No dissin' on football when I can't yell at you."

Biting down a laugh, Vince admitted, "That's always confused me too." Hunk looked slightly betrayed, but then gave a one-armed shrug; it was fair.

Larmina looked between them and the grid, shrugged too, and wrote Explain Football in barely-legible Common in one of the middle squares. "Yeah well you're not wrong about one thing, Toss Your Rolis is all 'dare' and Trivia Toss is all 'truth'. Boring safe one it is." Starting in the upper corner she wrote Funny Story, True Fact, and with a small smirk in Daniel's direction, DEEP DARK SCARY SECRET.

The gunner rolled his eyes. He would not be sharing any deep dark secrets.

Having not actually played the boring safe version of this game, Larmina was certain there would've been more options on a real Trivia Toss board. Given what they actually had to work with, she settled for repeating the three main options until the grid was full. "Anyway once you set the grid up, you throw rocks at it. Pretty sure they had better things to throw back when there were real game boards too, but, you know." She looked around the room and frowned. "Of course they don't just leave rocks lying around the infirmary."

A few of the others started looking around too, maybe more on reflex than anything. Pidge made an exasperated sound and went to the doorway, returning with a handful of gravel from the corridor outside.

"I feel like we should have popcorn," Lance decided as he looked over the grid; Sven nodded.

"I agree."

"Popcorn is never a bad idea, bro." Hunk missed popcorn.

Keith shifted uncomfortably, settling back against the wall as he watched the proceedings. Part of him felt like they needed to get someone back out there, to be keeping watch. But patrols had only done so much good so far, and they needed to be here for Hunk, too.

Maybe, with all that had gone on lately, they just needed to be together.

"You do like this." Larmina had chosen four decent-sized pebbles, and held them out over the game grid. "Aiming is cheating, that's why there's four." She flipped the rocks into the air, and they clattered down across the grid; drawing a cross between them with her fingers, she made a face. They intersected squarely over Explain Football. "I will not be demonstrating further."

A few of the others snickered.

"Seems chaotic enough for us, I'm in."

"Let's do it."

"…Sure, I guess."

Vince grimaced, his eyes darting over the options. Do I even have any funny stories? Hopefully he would have plenty of time to think through his options before—

—Larmina, noticing his expression, handed him the pebbles with a big grin. "Confused guy goes first!"

Great.

Accepting the stones, Vince resigned himself to the inevitable, because he knew he wouldn't get away with the NOPE he wanted to try. "Fine. So you just toss them like this?" He threw the stones into the air over the board and watched them drop… and groaned as he traced the intersection to Funny Story. Of course.

"You've got this, mechka," Pidge said brightly. It sounded genuine enough to be very weird. But Hunk backed it up with a big encouraging grin, Sven gave a thumbs-up, and Romelle made a point of eagerly settling in to listen.

Definitely couldn't nope out, then. "Okay, um…" He did have a lot of stories about weird things happening around him, they just usually weren't funny. Blowing up random computers at school was not a big barrel of laughs. Would a funny story about someone who wasn't him count? His grannies were always good for—oh! That might work. "Well, when I was about five, two of my grandmas got into this war over who made the best cookies, so um, they had a bake-off."

Romelle tilted her head. "Was the queen of Kansas one of the ones involved in this?"

That got Vince several quizzical looks, and he felt himself flush. "Um, yeah. My Gran Diva, she's the reigning Kansas BBQ Queen." For a moment he thought he could literally see hearts in Hunk's eyes; he'd thought that only happened in comics. "But this was just over cookies. So they had me judge, but all that really happened was I got really hyped up on sugar…"

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

He flushed even hotter. "So my moms came home to me covered in chocolate, running around the house pretending to fly. Granny Mel declared herself the winner because I ate more from her bowl…" He trailed off, frowning. It felt like he should have some grand conclusion, but there hadn't been one. Just the biggest sugar rush of his life. "That's a really lame story, huh?"

But Keith and Allura were chuckling, and Daniel shook his head. "I think it's cool." He wished he had a story like that.

"I enjoyed it," Sven agreed, grinning, and Romelle nodded.

"That sounds adorable."

"Dude, that's the best way to end a bake-off." Now Hunk wanted cookies, too.

Encouraged by the reactions—even Pidge and Larmina looked amused, if also a bit bewildered—Vince let himself laugh. "Ma said she kept finding frosting on the walls for weeks. I guess I kept trying to fly without using the brakes."

"Frosting, huh? We're not talking your normal chocolate chip here?" Lance was eager to focus on anything else right now, yes… but he was also genuinely getting a kick out of the mental image of tiny frosting-covered Vince, arms outstretched, bonking off of walls.

"Oh, um, I mean there are chocolate chips." Vince could feel his stomach growling. "She also puts in marshmallows and hazelnuts."

"Dude." Hunk was doing the heart-eyed thing again.

"They've won competitions. I'm really unsure why Gran Diva thought she could win? I mean her BBQ is amazing but cookies?" He happened to be looking Sven's direction as he said it, and the navigator arched a knowing eyebrow at the words. Which made Vince's own thoughts cycle back. "…Though she does kind of like causing messes?"

A few more knowing grins flickered around the room. "Little dude, I'm just takin' a wild guess here, but I think gettin' you on a sugar high might have been part of the plan."

"Yeah…" Vince grinned too. "I'm getting that now, in retrospect." It wasn't anything he'd really thought back on much, until now. For that matter, he hadn't had a lot of time to think back at all lately. A pang of homesickness reared up, but he was still smiling as he collected the pebbles and looked for someone to pass them to.

"My turn?" Sven accepted the pebbles and gave them a toss, landing on True Fact. That was probably for the best; he wasn't sure how many funny stories he had that the team didn't already know.

Though, as he searched for a fact worth telling, he knew certain people who'd have insisted this one was a funny story.

"Hmm… alright. I went to the French Finishing School for Boys for both middle and high school."

That wasn't news to Keith; it had been in his file. The rest of the team, however…

Both of Lance's eyebrows shot up. "Oh really?" Next to him Daniel was desperately struggling not to laugh. For that matter, Hunk was also trying not to laugh, though in his case it was a little more important to succeed. Though, thinking about it as he struggled not to re-injure himself, he had to admit it made perfect sense.

"The… what?" Pidge asked blankly.

"Finishing school?" Romelle could feel Blue Lion's amusement, which told her this would be an interesting revelation if she had any idea what it meant.

Sigh. "It's a private school where boys are prepared to enter into 'high society'."

"That sounds like you're… some sort of royalty." Romelle had a lot still to learn about her fellow pilot and bonded partner, but she really hadn't seen that coming.

"Viking Prince!"

He shook his head. "No, my parents are just very involved in politics." Perhaps that was as close to royalty as it got in the Alliance, to be fair. "I needed to be a respectable young gentleman."

Allura's quizzical look gave way to a silent nod of understanding. Such institutions had once been prominent on Arus—the Crown might employ a dedicated governess, but there was still the rest of the nobility to worry about. Even some provincial ruling lines utilized them…

"Sounds like a dyat-nah'cioh," Larmina said as if reading her mind. "I think, anyway, I got kicked out of both of mine."

Lance eyed her. "I believe that." He turned back to Sven. "Did you have to wear a stuffy uniform?"

"Yes. Incredibly stuffy." Sven shot a wistful look at Larmina; at the time, he'd only ever been able to wish to get himself kicked out. Had to uphold the family name, and all.

"What do you even learn in a finishing school?" Pidge could not help the impression that this was an entire school dedicated to manners, and he'd been unaware humans ran such dedicated torture institutions.

The navigator gave a long-suffering sigh. "Spoons."

"…Spoons?" Vince echoed as Pidge just blinked. Daniel had completely lost his battle with the laughter.

"Spoons."

Allura was chuckling again. She understood exactly what he was talking about. "Preparations for the most formal royal meals here were like that. Oh, the flatware… Nanny had an entire textbook." She still could've recited most of that book, too, but decided nobody needed to be subjected to that right now. Or, indeed, ever.

That sounded like one of the many features of 'Arusian decadence' that Pollux had dispensed with, and Romelle couldn't help feeling they'd been right about this one. "What could possibly be so important about spoons?"

Sven turned to her, surprised. "Does Pollux not have a level of high or fashionable society that comes with all sorts of absurd nuances?" One civilization's upper echelons might look very different from another's, but the idea of having arcane rules for no good reason was rather consistent.

"Oh, we have them." Nothing compared to Arus or the Drules, but the fine art of Polluxian flower arrangement had created a blood feud or three. "But nothing about the importance of flatware beyond the basics."

Lance snorted. "I'm with Pollux on this, how is learning about fancy spoons a nuance of society?"

"There's spoony bards, yeah?" Hunk frowned. "But that's not high society at all."

"It's the same way anything becomes a nuance of any society." Sven shrugged. "Because that's what that particular group of people care about. Somewhere in ancient Earth history, people cared very much about spoons."

That still seemed like nonsense to Lance. There were so many better things to care about. "Well then, I'm gonna open a Beer and Gun Finishing School. Priorities."

"Headmaster McClain?" The only thing that could make Daniel stop giggling about Sven's finishing school was the product of giggling about Lance's. "I like it."

"Definitely don't need a school on finishin' your beer, yeah?"

"I'd go to that school. And not even get kicked out."

"I'd go to that school to get kicked out."

Lance looked at Daniel and smirked. "But I wouldn't kick you out, because I'm weird." The kid groaned and shook his head.

Having successfully prompted plans for chaos and bad behavior—was that really a success? For this team, of course it was—Sven looked around to see who looked interested in taking the next turn. Romelle shook her head slightly, so he passed the pebbles to Allura.

Even if it was 'just telling stories', Allura was eager to participate. Nanny wouldn't approve of her partaking in 'commoner games', but her father surely would've. If only to learn more about what her people did in the shelters, but of course, it wasn't only that. A teammate should spend time with her team, and it couldn't all be hunting down traumatized pilots in their lion's den. Seizing whatever enjoyment you could was part of surviving too.

"Here we go." Her toss of the pebbles landed on Funny Story, and she cracked a small grin. "Mmm… okay, I have one. I don't remember it well myself, I was very young, but I heard my father tell the tale enough."

Vince shifted to face her, and had an odd moment of… familiarity? He could see a glimpse of King Alfor's warm smile in his mind. It's weird that I feel like I know her father, isn't it?

Yellow Lion chuckled, which he hadn't needed at all.

"There are certain important milestone anniversaries on Arus. My parents were having a ball for their first Great Anniversary, and of course—it was to be one of the most important social events in years, perhaps since Father's coronation. Everything was seamlessly planned out, formal and perfect. You can imagine."

Romelle and Sven, especially, could imagine—as could Larmina, who bit her lip to keep from laughing already. "This should be good."

"There was a dress made special and set aside for me, but I didn't want to wear that one. There was another dress I wanted. The problem was, it was my mother's." She smiled. "It was the most beautiful dress I could imagine. Black accented with red, golden embroidery. I'd seen her in it recently and it was so… perfect."

For a moment, Keith's eyes sparked electric-blue as he listened. Black, red, and gold… his mind drifted to the lion hidden in the mountains. Their lion. He wondered if Allura had known about him yet… Black purred, but didn't answer the question. Maybe he didn't know either.

"It was time to get ready and I was nowhere to be found. Nanny and all of her maids were searching up and down the castle, and I was… hidden in my mother's closet, attempting to put on this massive, sleeveless, triple-skirted dress. In the corner of the closet, in the dark."

Snickers were starting to circle the room now. None of the 686, of course, had experience with fancy royal dresses. But they did all have experience with dress uniforms, which frankly were complicated enough. What Allura was describing sounded orders of magnitude worse.

"When I was finally found, the way my father described it, I was just a face and a pair of arms being swallowed by a huge pile of fabric. It looked like the largest and fanciest…" She paused for a moment, certain there was at least a rough equivalent for what she was thinking of in Common. Actually, hadn't Vince just mentioned it in his story? "…Mar-mellow ever on Arus."

"That. Is. Adorable." Hunk was, again, doing his best to keep down the giggles. Dr. Gorma might not have thought this game recommendation all the way through.

Larmina proceeded to not help with that at all, dropping her voice into a dramatic whisper. "Here we see the Big Fat Royal Ballgown in its natural habitat, feeding on its natural prey, the Arusian princess…"

Blushing a little, Allura nodded in agreement. "Our dresses do take up a lot of space," she admitted. "This one may have seemed to be winning the battle, but I kept a death grip on it when Nanny came to rescue me. It took many bribes to finally make me let go of it."

"Hey," Lance winked, "when you know what you want…"

"Trying on a cool dress sounds more fun than attending a ball." Daniel knew which one he'd choose.

Pidge looked between Allura and Larmina, trying to imagine his copilot dealing with fancy ball gowns like the princess was describing; he couldn't do it. Of course, maybe that was why she'd been kicked out of fancy manners school. "Being important sounds complicated."

Now that was the understatement of all understatements. Allura nodded. "It is very complicated. I'm sure there will be other tales…" She gathered the pebbles off the board and looked around. "Who wants to go next?"

Larmina motioned and accepted the stones, juggling each one between her hands separately. For luck. She'd gotten a lot of extra patrols playing Toss Your Rolis, which most people would have considered bad luck, but she'd usually wanted to be out doing something. So she felt pretty confident as she tossed the pebbles onto the board…

…And rolled DEEP DARK SCARY SECRET, because of course she did.

*****

On the banks of the Almer River, surrounded by water-smoothed stones, a motionless human form had washed up. Human, yet not. The body wore broken armor and was covered in deep burns; energy swirled around it. A sickly pink-purple energy that oozed from the wounds, trying to heal the scorched flesh. This was normal, for a jaivur.

What wasn't normal was the reaction. As the jaivur energy tried to assert itself, something else flickered. Brilliant silver energy, arcs of lightning, lingered within the wounds. The healing was still taking place, but slowly…

As the powers clashed for control of the wounded body, the real battle was going on deep within.

—It was silent and slightly chilly the morning the message arrived. It was always silent and chilly, though, given where he lived. Cam looked out the window of his grandmother's living room at the scene outside. The dust on the surface of the moon, shining in the harsh sunlight, never failed to make him think of snow… or at least, what he thought snow would look like. He'd never actually seen real snow before. Hell, he'd never really been off the moon. Not that he could remember, anyway; the time before he'd come to live here was a vague blur. He'd been too young.

That would all be changing soon. Maybe he'd even get to see real snow!

Glancing back down at the datapad in his hand, he reread the message displayed there one more time. Finally, he'd been accepted to the Alliance Academy on Earth. It hadn't been a question, or he wanted to believe that… his test scores had been excellent, his entry essay thoughtful and heartfelt, but there were only so many slots and a whole cosmos of competition.

He'd expected the acceptance to be a relief, and was surprised to find himself feeling a little anxious. Even torn. It wasn't for himself. Babushka would be proud, no doubt about that, but she was getting on in years. Would she be all right here without him? Would she admit it if she wasn't?

"Iosif? Iosif, where are you?"

"In here, Babushka," he called back, turning away from the window. As if summoned by his thoughts, his 102-year-old grandmother walked slowly into the living room.

She smiled. "My Iosif." She walked to him and hugged him, and he gave a little squeak of protest. For such an old lady she gave a remarkably strong squeeze. "So, have you heard anything from Earth yet?"

He sighed, nodded, and handed her the datapad he'd been holding.

Scanning it quickly with sharp blue eyes, her smile widened. "Oh, Iosif!" As she looked back up at him, she brought one hand up to cup his cheek. "Your grandfather would be so proud of you, just as I am."

Cam blushed. "Spasibo, Babushka."

"We should celebrate. My little Iosif is becoming a man!" She beckoned for him to follow and left the room, with a much steadier gait than she'd entered it.

He followed her to the kitchen, though he had a suspicion what she was planning. "Babushka, we don't have to…"

"Nonsense! This is an important thing, it should be celebrated." She reached into the cupboard where she kept her bottles of real Earth Russian vodka—on the moon, such things weren't easy to get hold of. Lunar vodka would do for anything but the most special occasions. "You've made me so proud, and I know you're only going to continue."

Now he was really blushing. "I sure hope to."

"Ot tvoikh ust do ushey boga," she declared as she cracked the bottle open.

From your lips to god's ears. Cam couldn't help the grin, hearing the words she'd always said whenever she opened a new bottle. "Why do you always say that, Babushka?"

She laughed as she poured vodka into two glasses. "Tradition." She set the bottle down and picked up the glasses, handing one to him. "My Iosif," she said with a smile. "Vashe zdorov'ye."

"Vashe zdorov'ye," he echoed, and tapped his glass to hers.

The glass felt heavy with expectations, but the drink made him feel so much lighter.—

It was all he'd ever wanted, he thought. Growing up on tales of his family's distinguished history, in the Alliance and long before. Tradition. Upholding that tradition was his duty, yes, but never a duty he'd resented. Quite the opposite. It gave him a sense of purpose, of accomplishment.

That hadn't gone as he'd planned…

But, he'd succeeded, hadn't he? He'd found not just purpose but belonging. The team, with all its madness. A best friend, with all their turbulence. It didn't matter if they weren't prestigious or respected; tradition wasn't about that. It was about respecting yourself, believing that what you did was worthwhile.

And finally, when he'd died for them, it was the same thing. This was his team. If his legacy was to ensure that they lived on without him, what greater duty could there be? He'd never regretted it for a moment. Not even when he'd reawakened to that strange, growling voice, asking him to help one more time. If his team needed him again, Cam would be there.

And where was he now? Fighting against them? No. He couldn't let his sacrifice be undone.

The lingering crackles of lightning continued to run through the burns, and a low roar of thunder echoed from the mountains in the distance.

Honor.

*****

Sighing, Larmina glared for a few moments at the DEEP DARK SCARY SECRET square, then sat back and shrugged. She had no one but herself to blame for that option being there. And really, she didn't have a shortage of secrets. Though her first instinct, the obvious one, wasn't really a secret. More like just a thing she hadn't had any reason to properly explain.

In terms of actual secrets, well… there was one the offworlders would actually understand! Better yet, they would understand what she was talking about, but wouldn't understand all the fancy Arusian context behind it. And it would probably only make Auntie's head explode a little bit.

"This uh, is going to sound dramatic." She glanced around the infirmary, the stone walls and threadbare beds and the heavy curtain between them and the corridor. "But is this room secure?"

Multiple eyebrows went up in unison, and Daniel immediately looked interested. "That's definitely dramatic."

"That knight is guarding the door again," Pidge volunteered. He'd seen her when he went to get the pebbles, though he supposed that wasn't proof she was still there… he poked his head out briefly to check. Sure enough, she was on station, and he retreated and nodded to the others.

Keith frowned. He'd wanted to talk to the knight in question, but they had so many other problems right now… he was sure of one thing, though. "Miralna seems to be trustworthy." He wouldn't have been letting her stand guard otherwise.

"She is." Romelle thought back to the interrogation she'd helped with. And more to the point, the facts that hadn't gone any further than that interrogation. "She also doesn't speak Common, I've had to translate before."

"…Sure, that'll do it." Trusting someone to have the team's back and trusting them with fancy royal secrets were different things, but the language barrier was an effective safety measure. Larmina knew that for a fact. Still, instinctively she leaned forward and lowered her voice. I can't believe I'm doing this. Green purred, which she felt wasn't an endorsement. "So you know Lord Shady from the fortress? He's uh… my uncle."

By some miracle—aided by a lifetime of intensive training in courtly decorum and politics—Allura's head did not, in fact, explode. She didn't quite keep her jaw from dropping open, but Larmina was the only one who noticed it, because everyone else was having similar reactions.

"I see zero resemblance," Lance finally announced as everyone else struggled for words. Daniel opened his mouth, only to have the pilot slap a hand over it quickly; he shrugged and didn't object. Probably fair.

"Wha…?" Actually, now that she said that, Romelle remembered her reaction when Lord Byrom had first made his appearance. It hadn't been a happy reaction…

"Wait." Hunk was sure he was missing something here. "Isn't Allura your aunt?" She hadn't seemed to know the dude beyond name recognition, just how messed up were the noble family trees around here?

Though the answer to that question would've been very, Larmina shook her head. "No, that's a royalty thing." She pointed to Allura. "She's a princess, I'm a kinda-sorta bastard princess that still technically qualifies, so tradition says she's my aunt. Lord Shady I'm actually related to."

"Dynamics between royal bloodlines can be… complicated," Allura said quietly. "The tradition is, at least partly, to avoid having to figure out the real relationship between various branches." As for the actual revelation, she still wasn't sure what to make of it. She'd suspected her father knew the truth of Larmina's parentage, but had never gotten him to confirm or deny that; he'd only said it was Queen Orla's tale to tell. Or Larmina's herself, if she knew.

Rubbing her temples, she refrained from asking any further questions. It didn't matter now. Larmina's actions in defense of Arus—and her uncle's lack of the same—spoke for themselves. The nonsense of bloodline politics had no place here.

…But she might ask those questions later. Curiosity was still a thing.

It was glaringly obvious to Keith that this was more significant news to Allura than the rest of them, so he jumped in to try to buy her time to work through it. "I'm guessing this is one of those especially complicated ones?" What little he knew of Larmina's kinda-sorta bastard princess status told him that much.

Rolling his eyes, Daniel pushed Lance's hand away from his mouth. "Is anything not complicated these days?"

Larmina made a face. "Let's just say he has a history of doing asshole things for his own gain."

"That is unsurprising." In fact, that was the least surprising thing Lance had heard all day.

"That sounds more simple than most of what we deal with lately," Pidge agreed.

"And it is an actual secret, let me remind you." She pointed to the square again; it was clearly labeled, after all.

Hunk gave a low whistle. Trivia Toss might be the safe version of this game, but it was not boring.

Shaking her head, Romelle thought of her father. What he'd done to her, what he'd done to Pollux, and for what? It hadn't been for their people, even if he'd truly believed it. She saw things clearly now. "For what it's worth," she murmured, "I'm sorry you're related to someone like that."

"Yeah." Larmina cracked a wry grin. "Me too." She gathered the pebbles and tossed them to the Polluxian with a little smirk. "Your turn, go for it!"

Startled, Romelle fumbled the stones, nearly dropping a couple before recovering her composure. "Here goes…" Whatever she landed on, she had no intention of sparing any more thought to her fool of a father, so hopefully…

To her relief, the pebbles landed in a tight cluster surrounding Funny Story. She could do that!

…Couldn't she do that? She frowned, searching for a good option. Childhood silliness seemed popular, and here she was, having the misfortune of growing up polite and well-behaved. She'd certainly never tried to sneak into any of her mother's dresses. Though, clothing disasters before formal events were not solely an Arusian problem.

"Well, this is more about my brother, but all it says on the board is funny story." She waited a moment to see if anyone would object to that, but not long enough for anyone to talk themselves into it. "We were preparing for an important state dinner and my little brother, Bandor, was already in his formal clothing and waiting outside for the delegation. He'd been told not to leave the reception deck but… he's young." She felt a bit of warmth as the memory sharpened. "So he was running around too close to the moat, and fell in. His clothes were trying to drag him down… the guards were panicking, trying to go after him. But they couldn't get their armor off faster than he could get all that soaking embroidery off." Grin. "I had to sneak him back into the castle and to his quarters, without the governess or any of the other guards noticing, in nothing but his undergarments."

The others were snickering already—except Hunk, who was going to have words with Gorma about this game later. Not being able to laugh at this was not fair at all. "Didja make it?"

"We made it." Romelle blushed. "The look on Father's face when he showed up wearing something else… and nobody could tell him why." She had, in fact, promised the guards who were supposed to be watching Bandor that she would take the blame, knowing her father and older brother's tempers. Though she needn't have worried, especially about Avok. "Legend among the castle guards says his clothes are still at the bottom of the moat, being protected by the anirato—they're large reptiles," she explained quickly, "sharp scales, huge toothy grins. Very dangerous. But my older brother, Avok, always got along well with them." Her smile widened. "So when he claimed not to be the reason the outfit mysteriously reappeared in Bandor's wardrobe a week later, we didn't believe him."

Once again, Hunk didn't get to laugh, though he was coming as close as he could get away with. This was the worst game. The rest of the team was making up for it, at least.

"Having siblings sounds entertaining." Sven could imagine what mischief he might've gotten up to if his parents couldn't focus only on him. It was an amusing thought.

"My kid brother fell into the frog pond more than once." Lance shook his head. "Never had to rescue his fancy clothes, though."

"Oh, my." Allura was still chuckling. "Do all younger brothers do things like that? I have some similar tales." Tanner had tried a little too hard to catch a glimpse of the mythical Lion of Water… more than once.

"As my family's youngest brother," Hunk made a face, "I never jumped into anything more interesting than the Pacific and now I'm kinda bummed."

Vince shrugged. "I just have weird grandmas." They caused plenty of chaos without siblings in the picture.

Quietly, Pidge drew his knees to his chest and avoided drawing any attention. The thought of his own brother brought too much uncertainty, too many worries… Green purred, a wind brushing by him, and he exhaled slowly. Yeah, I know.

Across the room Daniel was having similar thoughts; all he had was a distant jerk of a father, and there was no need to bring the mood down with that. He was kind of envious, hearing what the rest of the team had grown up with, but he was also enjoying it… Red purred too, very loudly, and he cracked a grin. Thanks, Red.

The lions weren't so bad sometimes.

"Bandor was lucky, honestly." Romelle shook her head. "The anirato had already been fed that day. They're supposed to be trained not to attack people, but he really might not have ever seen his clothes again."

…Daniel also really wanted to see these aniranto, and possibly also swim with them. Lance noticed his expression and snorted. "Kid, I'm not rescuing your clothes if you get eaten by a," he didn't even try to get the word right, "Polluxian alligator."

"If I get eaten why would I need my clothes?"

"Point."

As the others chuckled, Romelle gathered up the pebbles and offered them to Daniel. "I guess that makes it my turn?" With a shrug, he accepted them and did his best to aim, landing on the same Funny Story space Romelle had just hit. He didn't care if it was cheating, he would not be spilling any deep dark secrets. Besides, you could never have too many funny stories, right? Right! "So many to choose from…"

Larmina sat up a little straighter, Lance settled in against the wall, and Hunk leaned forward eagerly. This was going to be fun, whatever it was.

"Okay, so Hunk, Vince, I know I told you guys about some of my roommates. But we didn't get to number five, did we?"

"Oh dear," Keith whispered. He knew of Daniel's multiple roommates, but hadn't pulled the incident reports. It had seemed like he was better off not knowing.

Thinking back, Hunk shook his head; Vince confirmed it. "Nope, wasn't a five." Only a to be continued that they definitely hadn't foreseen being continued like this.

"Awesome." The gunner gave a wistful smile. "He was some of my best work."

"…Better than the others? Dude, this is gonna be great."

Smirk. "Okay, so a little backstory for those who didn't hear about the others. My first roommate was actually a fine roommate, but we ended up dating and he was crystal-spur-like so he was 'uncomfortable' remaining roommates against regulations and all that. Complete BS but whatever."

Lance stared at him. "You dated a Keith?" Keith made a strangled noise and shot him a withering glare; he answered with a big grin. "No offense."

Somehow, Keith wasn't convinced.

Daniel had glared too, but couldn't actually refute it. "I dated a Keith. ANYWAY. Number two was fine but dumb as shit, so I didn't even really get to enjoy fucking with him. Number three was a Kolaliri," he rolled his eyes again, "enough said." It was clearly not enough said for several confused-looking princesses, but that wasn't the story he was telling here. Another time. "Number four, I actually feel a little bad about him, he was the one with the cleansing ceremony. Number five, though. Five was fantastic."

Lance was not, in fact, going to be letting that dated a Keith thing go. But that, too, could wait for another time.

"Five was this good ol' country boy from North Carolina, and I just did little things at first. Moving his shit around, taking the batteries out of the remotes, taping security tags inside his wallet so everyone thought he was stealing things—you know, I was playing the long game. I'd chased Four out in less than two months, I wanted to take my time. But then I was passing this dumpster behind some stupid clothing store and there was this mannequin…"

"A mannequin?"

"A what?"

"Creepy plastic fake people that they put clothes on in stores," Lance explained; Larmina wasn't sure how much that really explained, but nodded. "Also a great ancient movie." That explained even less.

"A mannequin," Daniel repeated, and continued as though he hadn't been interrupted. "So I had this great idea and took it back to our dorm, getting a mannequin past dorm security is a bitch by the way." Lance and Pidge both actually looked impressed by that. "So it's pretty late, Five is dead asleep. I dressed the mannequin up with a ski mask and everything, set it up so it would look like someone had broken in as he slept. I thought he would just wake up and lose his shit like a normal person, but no."

"Oh… this can't be good."

"Oh no."

"Why would…? Earthlings are weird."

He couldn't really refute any of that, either. "He uh, liked guns. Like, I like guns, don't get me wrong. But Number Five loved them. He'd brought one of his personal firearms into the dorm, and apparently he was super stressed for some reason." He shrugged innocently. "Wasn't like his roommate had been torturing him or anything. But he kinda emptied his entire clip into the mannequin, point blank."

"…Whoa."

"Yikes…" Romelle and Allura exchanged wide-eyed looks. Every so often, the sheer craziness of this team could still surprise them… somehow.

"I mean, that's a fair reaction." Lance was not a bit surprised. "I'd probably have done the same thing."

"Yeah… he uh, got expelled." Daniel sighed. "I felt kinda bad, got a very stern talking to, and had to promise not to fuck up with Number Six." A promise he had dutifully kept, even!

"Poor kid." Keith shook his head. Maybe he should've looked at those reports earlier after all; it could've reassured him that yes, the Daniel he had on the team now actually was more mature than he used to be.

Vince tried to imagine having a roommate like Daniel. Did I get lucky with a knife wielding ninja?

"Why expel him?" Pidge asked. "It seems like the correct response."

…Well, kind of lucky. I guess.

"Well he did kinda shoot up our room. Plus having firearms in the dorms was 100% against regs."

"No one listens to that rule." Lance remembered keeping several guns in his dorm room. Often in plain view of whoever happened to come by and inspect; it was usually just upperclassmen he could charm out of a report if need be.

Hunk nodded. "The only rule I remember from the dorms is 'don't get caught'."

"I think shooting up an Anakin counts as getting caught," Larmina pointed out, and Daniel snorted.

"I wish someone had shot Anakin."

Shaking his head, and not even entirely sure which of them he was speaking to at this point—mostly Daniel, but probably all of these beloved delinquents he called a team—Sven muttered, "Sometimes I worry about you."

With that, Lance doubled over laughing, and Hunk completely abandoned his attempts to avoid doing the same. It hurt, but it was totally worth it.

The fact that he was wincing wasn't lost on Romelle, who quickly gathered up the pebbles and handed them to him. That got the desired effect, and he caught his breath with a grateful smile. Tossing the stones with his good arm, carefully, landed him on True Fact.

"Hmm. No rule that says a true fact can't also be a funny story, yeah?"

He'd directed that question mostly to Larmina, who supposed she was as close to a Trivia Toss authority they had. That was different from being an actual authority, but she also really wanted to hear Hunk tell a funny story. "You're hurt, you can probably get away with it."

"Awesome!" He flinched and lowered his voice. "Ow. Okay, so my pops was a crush car driver, yeah? Not a pro, but totally one of the best on the Amateur-1B circuit. He taught me the ropes, all the moves and the little track tricks and stuff, but I was usually just on his pit crew. Liked it better there."

"What are… crush cars?" Allura was a little afraid to ask, honestly, considering how the last tale had gone. But she was also intrigued.

Hunk hesitated a moment. "Uh, does Arus have car racing?" Did Arus even have cars? He thought he remembered hearing something about the knights having mechanized forces once, but…

To his relief, she and Larmina both nodded. "It was a very… niche sort of event. I think the organizers had seen it somewhere offworld, I remember my father bringing their petition to the Council."

"Perfect. So crush car racing is like regular car racing, except you custom-build the cars to beat each other up." Larmina, at least, seemed to find that concept very interesting. "Anyway, we're out at the Chiron 500. It's my first time off-planet, and there's this dude there, this huge Quasnot with a car that's got an entire vacuum valve. It was the coolest crusher I'd ever seen. I was makin' all kinds of notes, totally squeein' over the thing… right up until he flipped Pops off the road."

"Uh oh." Sven felt like an awful lot of these stories ended up requiring a well-placed uh oh or seven.

"Yeah. Car was fine, but he had to go in on concussion protocol and send in the backup driver… 'cept it was also the backup driver's first time off-planet. And there's this thing called Centauri Vertigo that hits some people… not great!"

Having heard of Centauri Vertigo, the navigator gave a sympathetic wince. He'd been told it was much worse than rift sickness.

"So my pops comes outta the dark room to tell me to suit up and go in." Hunk gave a sheepish one-armed shrug. "My dudes, I wasn't even legal age for that race."

"NIIIICE."

"Awesome!"

"Did you win?"

Hunk chuckled at that; he supposed the setup could invite some high expectations. "Came in second to last. I mean, we were already lapped by the time they got me in the car."

"Still fucking awesome."

"Thing is," he grinned wickedly, "that Quasnot miiighta been last. Because I miiighta gone bumper to bumper with 'im until he didn't have a bumper to bump anymore."

Pidge glanced at Larmina and muttered, "Getting the sense that when he says 'bump' he means something more like 'extreme high speed impact'." He didn't know much about crush cars, but he did know a fair bit about Hunk.

That sounded exactly right to Larmina, and in fact, she'd be disappointed if it turned out otherwise.

"Did you go vroom vroom?" Vince asked, earning a mildly scandalized look in return.

"You better believe I did!" Smirk. "Matter of fact, I threw in an extra vroom each time I lapped the poor sucker. Y'know, for style points."

"Thought you might've."

Laughing, Hunk noticed it was hurting a little less now. Maybe this game was okay after all.

*****

—Rio de Janeiro do Novo Mungo, better known simply as Novo Rio, was never dark and never quiet. Proxima Centauri's tidal locking ensured the first part, bathing the city in perpetual sunrise. The second part, well…

Who knew what the fuck everyone's excuse was.

Jace had just been trying to get home. It shouldn't matter that he was late, he hoped; he'd come up with an excuse about a study group. His parents couldn't disprove that, what were they going to do? Ask his friends?

Like he had friends?

He stopped in the shadows by the front door, tapped his fingerprints on the lock, and entered. No sign of anyone. Maybe he'd get lucky and—

"—Jace, why didn't you call? You were supposed to be home an hour ago."

Damn it. With a huff, he turned to the voice, and found his father scowling from the kitchen doorway. "Lost track of time." That wasn't a lie. "Study group ran long." That very much was.

"Study group." His father's eyes narrowed. "Is 'studying' what you call it when you go and spend time with that butcher?"

…Oh for fuck's sake. "His name is Professor Ferreira." They'd had this discussion before, and he was well and goddamn truly sick of it. "And I still don't know who you think he was butchering, the Alliance doesn't make enlistees perform a fucking blood sacrifice when they join."

It had nothing to do with Professor Ferreira. It had nothing to do with anything that had happened within this century. It had to do with a very old cultural wound on Prox: the Novo Paulo Massacres, when a corrupt military cabal had been backed into a corner and blood had run in the streets.

Why exactly that meant that, three hundred years later, every reserve trooper on Prox was still just presumed to be a murderer, Jace did not particularly understand. But the people who believed it were pretty stuck on it.

"Watch your language!" Oh good, his mother was going to join in this bullshit. "Your sister might hear."

He glowered; his parents knew that card worked on him. But he was tired of that, too. "You know, she wouldn't hear if you weren't yelling at me for nothing."

"Jace." His father took a shot at a conciliatory tone. "You know our concerns."

"Yeah, and they're ridiculous." He'd been planning to join the military long before a vet took over the gym. "You don't want me to enlist, but you can't point to anything more recent than three centuries for why not, so I just have to assume it's the same reason that you send the neighbors to spy on me when I say I'm going to a study group—"

"—We did not send anyone to spy on you, honestly, we called the school when we hadn't heard from you—"

"—This time? What about the last six?" Neighbors snitching on him wasn't a new thing. "I can take care of myself."

"You're a child."

"I'm fifteen!" And his parents thought they had three years left to talk him out of his plans. They actually had four months. Sixteen was the oldest you had to be to enlist with parental permission. And while Prox's garrison wasn't killing anyone these days, they did have quotas to fill and kickbacks to earn. Paperwork got lost sometimes. "You're just pissed that I won't do what you want."

"We want you to live a good and productive life, Jace! Soldiers have never done anything for our planet!"

Jace snorted. "Then maybe I'll be the first." None of that was true anyway; people like his parents liked to leave out certain parts of the history. It had been the soldiers who'd stopped the Cabal's murder spree, and the soldiers who'd stood aside and let the people of Prox exact some well-deserved vigilante justice. If he'd had any interest in letting a three hundred year old massacre dictate his life, he'd have considered that a good argument for enlistment.

Not that it actually had anything to do with it. He just wanted off this planet. Out of this city.

Out of this house.

He nearly got his wish.

"And what of your family? Your saintly tataravó would—"

"—Probably be sick of you constantly trotting out her three hundred year old murder as a trump card just because you can't let me make my own fucking decisions," Jace spat before she could finish.

His mother made a sound very much like a mortally wounded night jay, and his father stabbed his hand at the door. "Jace Inácio, OUT! Leave and don't come back until you are ready to behave with respect!"

"Fine. Bye." He headed for the door without another word. It would be a nice vacation; wouldn't be the first night he'd spent in the gym. Unless, of course, they tried to walk it back now that he'd called their bluff, which…

"…Where do you think you're going?"

"Leaving, like you told me to. Why the fuck would I stay?"

As if on cue, the answer to that question appeared in the hallway behind his parents. A young girl lugging a large stuffed feline, tears starting to well up in her wide eyes. "Mai, Pai, Jace…?"

The boiling anger in the hallway evaporated, replaced with enough tension to choke someone out in a matter of seconds. His father rushed forward, kneeling and giving his little sister's shoulders a squeeze. "It's alright, Catarina. Your brother got into a little bit of trouble, but it's nothing serious."

"Now look what you've done," his mother hissed before moving forward to comfort her as well.

Jace stood silently, seething. But there was only one person in this house he gave enough fucks about to not start the fight again, and he wasn't that person. So he let the injustice of it simmer as he fought to get his expression neutral. Because he couldn't actually deny his mother's accusation, either.

Of fucking course having me around isn't good for her.

Just a few more months.—

Fury had never been a stranger to Jace, and he'd had enough to be angry at. But he'd known better than to let it control him. He'd needed the structure and discipline of the military, but also the paradoxical freedom. Nobody cared how much you swore when you were saving their life. It was a harmless release at worst, keeping a safe distance at best. He wanted distance. He could do good things, sure, but he wasn't a good influence, and he was perfectly comfortable with that.

And then he'd been thrown at the unexpected. Friends. Friends worth getting close, despite himself, and ultimately worth dying for. Friends even worth answering some weird magical lion, inviting him to a strange planet to try to talk some sense into Sparky one more time.

Friends the witch forced him to work against now, and worse, by using that very same fury.

Fuck that.

A wind whistled down the riverbank, and the jaivur's form shivered as silvery energy danced around it. A few leaves from the distant foothills drifted by on the breeze.

Loyalty.

*****

Since Hunk couldn't very well gather up the pebbles himself, Larmina did it for him. And when he pointed to her copilot, she was only too happy to agree. "Your turn!"

"Sure." Shrugging, Pidge took the stones and gave them a toss… and landed with the intersection squarely over Explain Football. Naturally. "It's a human game. People run into each other a lot. There's no kicking."

Larmina glowered. "You don't know what football is. If you can't complete a square you have to roll ag…" She stopped, reconsidering, and gave him a wicked little smirk. "If you can't complete a square, someone else gets to pick." Who was going to argue the rules with her? She was the authority. Before he could object, she pushed two of the stones several inches from where they'd landed.

Tracing the new lines, Pidge found himself staring at DEEP DARK SCARY SECRET. "No."

"Arus game, Arus rules," Lance declared with a shrug.

"Arus totally rules," Larmina agreed. "Hey, I admitted to Uncle Shady, you've got this."

Though Daniel looked sympathetic and Romelle looked nervous, nobody was jumping in to save him, and he wouldn't have expected them to anyway. Still…

What are you afraid of?

Several things, but… he became aware that his hand was on his knife, and slid it free of its sheath, staring at the blade. "Know what, fine." This was his team, the team and duty he'd chosen. He couldn't pull back now. "But you asked for it… I was seven when I first killed someone."

The smirk on Larmina's face fell right off. He was vaguely aware of that, and could feel the stunned looks of the others, but the last thing he wanted was to actually look around at the reactions. He could imagine.

"Seven?" Lance was the first to find words, as usual. "Seven? You should have been falling into frog ponds."

"Baltans develop differently than humans." Pidge said that, and it was true, but the slightly steeper Baltan aging curve did not actually make such things normal. He kept his eyes resolutely on the knife. "They were trying to kill me. For being varetya—non-telepathic, it's a serious thing on Balto. Even there it's not justification for murder, but nobody thought to tell the other seven year olds that."

"What the fuck."

"Holy hell," Hunk whispered. What the fucking fuzzmuffins? Though as he exchanged looks with a clearly short-circuiting Vince, he couldn't quite escape the thought that actually this explained… well, maybe everything.

Vince thought so too, but he'd still retreated from the knife out of reflex.

"That's fucked up," Daniel said quietly, and Sven nodded. Even Allura made a soft sound of agreement. She'd heard of all manner of alien civilizations, and been taught not to judge—unless they were bombing her own planet, anyway. But she'd never heard of anything like that.

Romelle, with some effort, lowered the hands that had flown to her mouth in shock. "That's… awful." Unbidden, her mind went to Lotor and the Drules. Notions of war and glorious battle to the death felt even more ridiculous now.

"So um, let me get this straight." Lance was still short-circuiting. Just a bit. "Other seven year olds tried to kill you because what, exactly? You can't read minds? What the hell kind of place is Balto?!" He'd be fuming right now… Hell, Lance was fuming right now.

"A very different place than anything we would call 'normal'," Keith said softly. He remembered the reading he'd done to prepare for having a Baltan on the team. Nothing had quite prepared him for this, but it had warned of, well… 'social maladjustment'. No wonder.

"A place that's been training its whole population as warriors for longer than humans have had civilization," Pidge said grimly. "It's not optimal."

The ninja really was a master of understatement.

"Who wants to read people's minds?" Daniel made a face. "That doesn't sound like a perk." Lion mind reading was bad enough—Red gave a short growl of protest, which he ignored because the lion knew he was right.

Varetya. Larmina had seized on that word. She wondered if being 'varetya' was like being a bastard. Probably even worse, somehow—nobody had ever tried to kill her. Though her mother had always worried that if she had a legitimate heir, someone might… either way, she was certain even she wouldn't have been killing anyone back at that age.

Scooting about an inch closer to him, she immediately had doubts; he had his knife out. Maybe she should've gone the other direction? But his eyes flickered up to her and he seemed to accept it, and Green purred annoyingly at them both.

"Couldn't tell you that." Shaking his head, Pidge leaned forward and gathered up the pebbles. There were too many sympathetic looks still; it made him uneasy. The knowing looks even more so, but… that was the point, wasn't it? Maybe it would get easier. "Do I need to elaborate any more? I think we were supposed to be having fun."

Vince had a lot of questions still, and he was not the only one. But it was obvious Pidge had already thrown himself completely over his own comfort line—which the other engineer could sympathize with—so he moved back closer and looked around. There weren't a lot of people left.

Clearing his throat, Lance reached for the stones. "Alright, time for some awesome!" He could also sympathize with having to find a way to recover after blurting out lingering childhood trauma; at least Pidge hadn't broken any cups. If he could help the ninja and weave tales of epic at the same time, why the hell wouldn't he? The pebbles landed on True Fact, and he grinned. A few good options came to mind, but the best was clearly… "True fact, I beat all of Keith's Academy flight scores."

Arching his eyebrow, Keith cleared his throat just slightly. Yes, Lance had broken several of his records, but all of them? Not quite accurate.

"…Most of them were official."

Looking between the commander and his frontseater, Daniel rolled his eyes. "That's not that impressive. I beat yours."

Oh had he. "Without cheating?"

"Oooooh…" Hunk snickered.

Daniel glared. "It wasn't cheating! It just didn't count because it was after hours…" Lance's eyebrows went up and he finished in a mumble. "…And all of the safety features were disabled." He was lucky he hadn't been expelled for that particular stunt.

Not one word of that surprised anyone in the room.

"That's called cheating," Lance clarified, "and taking away about 70% of the challenge." His own unofficial records had been unofficial due to mundane sim version differences, not disabling critical systems. "And if I'd done that there's no way you'd have beat any of my records. Man, the speed…"

Snort. "You wish. Speed is my thing, old man. And how is it cheating? Not like you have any of their stupid safety features when you're piloting for real."

"Do you know how many safety systems are active on any combat-ready fighter?" Pidge objected. Larmina raised an eyebrow.

"How many?"

"…Depends on the fighter, but several."

Daniel ignored Pidge, because he was not helping. Lance didn't ignore him, because he was helping. "Right! You're supposed to push the safeties without breaking them, it takes skill." The real challenge in the sims came from runs with more safeties, simulating damage. Not less. "Stopping the ship from falling apart is still a thing in real piloting."

"The ship did not fall apart!" Okay, so he'd put a few dents in it. Nothing that couldn't be fixed even if it weren't a simulator. "And we better not be going back to the whole 'you need pilot training' thing, because—"

"—If you think I'm not putting you through the paces with Red you're crazier than I realized."

"I bet Red doesn't have safeties."

"You'd be wrong." Pidge was enjoying this a lot more than he'd enjoyed his own turn, which he was pretty sure meant this had all gone according to plan.

"Safeties are there to be disabled," Hunk said with a big grin.

"THANK YOU, Hunk!"

"Dude, not helping!"

"But they are!" the bomb tech protested. "Stuff won't blow up with the safeties on!"

…Suddenly Daniel didn't feel like that had been quite the backup he'd thought it was. Lance, on the other hand, shrugged his acceptance. "Oh, well, if you wanna set off explosives I guess you do have a point."

Keith had collected the pebbles while the others bickered, wincing slightly as a few bruises still made their presence known. Rattling the stones in his hand got everyone's attention. "Are you all finished?"

"Don't you know by now?" Sven had his fondly exasperated face on. "They are never finished."

Wasn't that the truth.

Everyone was looking at him now, though, so Keith shook the pebbles one more time and gave them a toss. They scattered wide across the board, but wound up giving him a True Fact. That was probably the easiest, he thought.

"I learned swordfighting from my mother," he said finally, shrugging. "Dad thought it was a little silly, you know, not practical these days. But she insisted. It was a way to keep me connected to my heritage." He exhaled slowly. "Raiden was an heirloom from her side of the family."

Romelle tilted her head; that was a name she hadn't heard before. "Raiden?"

"My katana. I had it on the Bolt, before we were captured…" Keith sighed and shook his head. And who knows where it is now. Allura reached over and patted his arm; though she wasn't entirely clear on what a katana was, she fully understood the importance of an heirloom.

And the pain of losing a precious piece of one's heritage to the Drules, of course.

"Mom's sword, huh?" Lance grinned. "That's sweet."

"Awwww." Daniel smirked. "I was hoping you'd tell us when that other sword was inserted, you know, the one up your ass. But sweetness with Mom Kogane is cool too!"

Lance elbowed him; he half-heartedly elbowed back and pouted. Keith glared.

Hunk had not known Keith's sword had a name, and absolutely wasn't going to let it slip by. "Raiden, really? That's way too on point."

"How so?" Pidge was listening with great interest.

Rolling his eyes, Keith heard Black chuckling again. Okay, fair. "It's Japanese, means 'lightning strike'."

"Of course it does." Lance snorted, and Sven grinned because he unironically agreed with the pilot's sarcasm. Of course it did.

Honestly, knowing what he knew now, Keith would've loved to ask his mother why the sword had that name. In all the time he'd spent with her and the blade, that particular question hadn't come up. And now… he sighed again. "Mom and Dad are both gone. Have been since I was in the Academy."

…Well, now Daniel felt a little bad for being an ass. He frowned. Between him, Lance, Keith, the Arusians… hell, even Cam for that matter! "So is that what Explorer Teams really are? Just a bunch of ornery orphans thrown together? Like, who on this team doesn't have at least one dead parent?"

"Uh…" Vince felt a little guilty as he sheepishly raised his hand. "Me? I mean, the sperm donor could be dead I guess, but…" No, he very much did not want to be thinking about that dude, whoever that dude was.

Whatever that dude was… nope, absolutely nope!

"Oh yeah." Daniel shrugged, he'd known that. "We're still adopting you."

"My parents are still kickin'," Hunk offered, "and trust me, if we ever get to do a road trip they'll adopt ALL OF YA." He gestured as widely as he could without aggravating his side. High society Vikings? Ninja child soldiers? Alien princesses? His parents wouldn't even blink.

Speaking of high society Vikings… "Mine are both alive." In terms of people who understood and accepted him, or people he'd like to spend more than a couple of hours with at a time, Sven felt the team was a dramatic upgrade. But his parents weren't dead.

On the other hand, death wasn't the only way for parents to be out of the picture. At least he still loved his parents… and liked them, in manageable doses. Jace's parents being technically alive wouldn't disprove this theory of Daniel's one bit.

"That's three out of ten." Daniel was actually surprisingly bothered by this. He looked at Pidge and was not surprised when the ninja just faintly shook his head; he'd brought enough depressing death into the conversation today, but he wasn't going to lie about it. Then he turned to Romelle, who winced. She hadn't been holding back intentionally, it was just…

"I don't know the status of mine. The last I knew they were both still alive, but…" She hesitated. The spirit of this game was revealing things, wasn't it? Perhaps it would be okay. "My mother has been unwell for most of my life, and doesn't leave her quarters. They call her the Dead Queen."

…Well then. "I'm gonna say that counts for my poll of how many of us have depressing parental situations."

"It does seem to be a bit of a theme." Lance thought about Flynn, again, but this time it was easier to remember the real Flynn. And his family situation wouldn't disprove Daniel's theory either, but what had been true then was still true now. Just with a few new additions… "We have each other."

"…Yeah, that's true."

"Heck yeah we do."

"Yes."

"We are all an Explorer Team." To her own surprise, Romelle gave Allura a little grin as she said it; the princess blinked, then grinned in return.

Pidge didn't say anything, but nodded slowly. It was true, wasn't it? Next to him, Larmina gave his shoulder a nudge before looking around the room. "Yeah, I guess you're all okay."

"Okay?" Lance repeated indignantly. "No, I'm awesome. The rest of them are okay."

"Sven's awesome," Larmina retorted.

Daniel had rounded on his frontseater and launched into full rant mode immediately; he didn't register Larmina at first. "Okay first of all, nobody here has given you the right to be that full of yourself. Second of—wait, Sven?!"

Lance shrugged. "Viking is cool."

"Yeah, I guess he's okay."

"I'm overwhelmed with gratitude," Sven said dryly.

Pidge shot Lance a sly grin. "You're serviceable, Lieutenant." Hunk and even Keith nearly choked trying to stifle the laughter.

Blinking, Lance stared at the ninja, wide-eyed disbelief slowly giving way to a smirk. "Never say either of those words again, ninja."

"I will not confirm or deny that order."

"They really are always like this, aren't they?" Allura whispered to Romelle, who smiled softly as the banter continued.

"They really are." And it was a good thing.

We have each other.

*****

—The day was bleak and gray; odd, really. In the six months that he'd been on Earth, Flynn had never seen the skies so dark. Arizona was nowhere near as hot as Arvaste had been, but it was every bit as bright if not more. Though he was aware they'd exited something called 'winter', which on Dathreil would've been the hot season, and would soon be entering 'summer', which on Dathreil would've been the hot season.

Dathreil hadn't really had seasons. Earth was weird.

He was alone, as usual, wandering slowly down the sidewalks on his way home from school. Though he was living in the same boarding school as the rest of the heretics—the Earth English word for them was 'refugees', apparently?—the Alliance had considered it important for the younger ones to spend some time in the public school system rather than being put straight into technician training. To learn socialization, they said. Flynn had found a certain talent for socializing, but at the end of the day here he was… the only fifth-grade heretic, winding his way through a city that was still impossibly alien.

About halfway home the wind started to pick up, ruffling his hair. He flipped it out of his eyes with a slight scowl. It hadn't been cut since he got here, not since he'd discovered that if he told their minders no they would actually respect it. That freedom was… also alien, but he could get used to it.

He was lost in thought, but it wasn't the wind he was thinking about. So when the sky opened up he was caught totally by surprise.

Water was pouring out of nowhere.

Rain.

Horrified reflex kicked in and Flynn bolted, sprinting for cover as fast as his legs would carry him. He bypassed several trees—they made him sneeze and he'd learned the leaves were awfully flimsy—though there was nothing else for shelter, he'd been walking by a park, of course he had. Finally he veered into the green, it was better than nothing, and a few steps into the trees something solid and brown loomed ahead of him.

Oh!

One last desperate burst of speed took him into the pavilion, where a few other people had gathered. He collapsed on an empty bench and gasped for breath, shaking water off of his backpack and frantically scraping the wetness from his arms. He didn't understand, it didn't make sense. No sirens? No anything?

"Hey… hey kid, hey! You alright?"

It took a moment for him to realize a persistent voice to his left was talking to him. Looking up he saw a dark-skinned woman peering at him with concern. "I, um…" He took a moment to try to sort out the answer. Nothing hurt except his legs and his lungs. Maybe he'd gotten out of it in time. "I think… so…" He'd had no idea he could move so fast. "It just… came out of nowhere…"

She offered him a bemused, but sympathetic, smile. "Don't like rain much, huh?"

Like it? He must have been giving her a look twice as confused as she'd given him. "Of course not, it…" He trailed off. Behind her, outside of the pavilion, he could see someone walking through the rain. Unhurried. Totally calm. "It… isn't it… poison?"

Now she looked outright dismayed. Did he sound stupid? Crazy? But her eyes lowered and fell on his backpack—and the Alliance patch on it. Finally, an understanding grin spread across her face. "Ahh, you're one of the HARDEC kids, aren't you?"

"Yes." He was strangely relieved by the question.

"Nothing to worry about here, kid." She chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. "Just water. See, have a look." She pointed out the other side of the pavilion. A handful of children were running and laughing in the rain, seeming if anything energized from it.

Earth was such an alien place, all over again…

Flynn stood hesitantly, approaching the edge of the shelter. Is it really? But they're out in it… he lowered his gaze for a moment. Everything he'd ever known, all his training and reflexes, told him one thing. His eyes told him something else.

Nothing else the prophets had said mattered anymore. They'd lied about everything else, they'd lied! But he'd seen the burns the Dathrean rain could cause firsthand… and here he was seeing the opposite. No faith necessary. No belief. Just the facts that were staring straight at him.

Swallowing hard, Flynn held a hand out, doing his best to stay steady as the rain soaked his skin. It was cold, but it felt good, and he gave a small, awed laugh. This planet was impossible. Not even the false gods claimed this kind of paradise… and the resentment that usually flowed when he thought about the lies was strangely silent.

It didn't matter. The past didn't matter. Standing there in the rain, he suddenly understood. What mattered was being here, now. Moving forward. What was behind him was miserable, in ways he hadn't even realized.

Why wouldn't he focus on moving ahead?—

They'd been an Explorer Team. And so many would've hated that, but Flynn had loved it. There was a freedom with the team, released from the expectations and restraints of the normal military. They'd been damn good at their jobs, and they'd fulfilled every mission until the last.

But they'd fulfilled the last, too. They'd escaped. They'd survived. Without him, yes… and yet, he and the others hadn't been lost. Of course he'd agreed to help the lion—hoping only that it wouldn't be needed. But nothing would keep them from their friends, not until the witch got hold of them.

No. Not even now.

We're still an Explorer Team.

Life, death, whatever the hell this twilight place was… it didn't help anything to dwell on how they'd gotten there, what they'd done. The damnable witch had used his body, his mind, placed him on the front line of this twisted war. Made him do horrible things…

But it wouldn't break him. Not as long as he could fight. Not as long as he could try, with whatever he had left, to fix it. To protect the team she thought she could make him kill.

The pain of the burns was fading, but not because the jaivur energy was winning. A silver glow suffused the wounds where Red Lion's flame had touched. One last echo of the power their team had awakened.

Pursuit.

*****

As things wound down a bit, for the moment—they were never finished, after all—Sven gathered up the pebbles. "So, are we doing another round?"

"We should." Larmina shrugged. "Nobody's explained football yet."

Keith still felt like they needed to get someone back out on patrol, but it was also impossible to deny this was helping the team. One more round wouldn't be too much. "Maybe change up the grid for more variance?"

"Grid's fine."

"I like it the way it is."

"I mean, if the boss has any ideas for what to add, I'm for 'em." Hunk sulked a little. "Too bad we can't have 'eat some murder pepper sauce' on there."

Allura wouldn't have been against making some additions; she was a little worried about landing on a deep dark secret square, now that she'd seen it in action. Royal secrets weren't necessarily even hers to tell. But the prospect of 'murder pepper sauce' was worrying enough to convince her known quantities were better. "It seems fine."

It seemed fine to Vince, too, to the extent that having to come up with something else to talk about was fine. "That means me again?"

"I believe so, Vince." Sven handed over the pebbles with a wry smile.

Great now I need another story, or facts, do I have facts? Oh god, what if I have to explain football? Surely he'd think of something. He juggled the stones in his hands a little to stall, then gave them a toss… and rolled the one thing he'd forgotten to stress about.

DEEP DARK SCARY SECRET.

"Fuzzmuffins!"

"Sucks, dude."

"Uh oh."

"Oh my…"

Does he even have one of those? Keith tilted his head quizzically. Vince was often nervous but he wasn't really secretive, he freaked out too much for that.

That thought was going through Vince's mind, too. They knew about the sparks, they knew about the ghosts… except, they didn't all know about all of the ghosts. And they had just had a moment. He looked between Hunk, Sven, and Romelle. "Well, a few of you already know this but, um." Getting it a little bit off his chest had been terrifying, but it had been a relief, too. Maybe…

"You've got this, little dude." Hunk had a suspicion. Yellow growling with satisfaction helped.

Maybe I have got this. "I haven't felt great about keeping this secret, I've just felt guilty, really in a few ways." The pang shot through him, but it didn't completely twist his guts the way it had before. "But uh. Flynn, Jace, and Cam's ghosts were visiting me here. Until they weren't."

Several jaws dropped; Sven just raised an eyebrow. Ah, that secret. He was impressed Vince had admitted it that soon to everyone else, really.

"…Huh?" Keith blinked. Putting aside whether he thought it was the right call or not, he was kind of impressed Vince had been able to keep that a secret.

"You saw him…" Lance swallowed hard, coughed, and shook his head. "…Them?"

Vince nodded slowly. "They were helping me, or trying to. It was about me and Yellow—not that there is a me and Yellow, I mean…" He trailed off; the lion purred in his mind, and he groaned. It was comforting.

"Great, more ghosts that people don't want to see?" Larmina muttered under her breath. Only Pidge heard it, and he frowned slightly. He was honestly surprised not to be upset. But why would he be? They did all know how Vince felt about ghosts in general. Of course he'd keep something like that to himself.

Daniel wasn't sure how he felt about this, either. Nothing against Vince, certainly, but maybe a little jealousy. He wished he could've seen them, he had a few words for… wait. "Did Cam explain why he died so stupid?" This was the hill he died on.

That kid needs a mute button, Sven thought, shaking his head, though he was quietly amused all the same. He understood. Remembering the eulogy, Larmina giggled, and even Allura had to bite her lip to keep down a small grin.

Staring, Vince opened his mouth to ask why in the world he thought Cam would've explained that… then stopped as he realized it had come up. "Um. He was happy with it, I think."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Of course he was."

"They were just… them, you know?"

"They were okay?" Lance asked quietly, touching the bruises on his throat again. Daniel rolled his eyes again; if Cam had been talking about being okay with how he'd died, then obviously they were 100% okay.

Dumbass even in death!

"Yeah. They were okay, they were themselves." Vince felt the last crippling weight of the secret leaving his shoulders, and exhaled slowly. They weren't mad, none of them were. In fact, if anything, some of them seemed encouraged…

"They were still with us," Pidge said softly.

A round of answering nods went around the room. All this time, from the moment they'd fled Korrinoth, those they'd lost had followed. The 686 had felt it deeply; their new teammates had seen it haunting them. But… to hear that they actually had been there? That was something else. Something new. The often-exasperated refrain of magical cat robots shrouded a more basic truth: there were things in the universe they, and the whole of the Alliance, hadn't dreamed of. They'd been thrown into far more than a simple war here.

We are not conventional.

And they would not fail.

"Then we're going to get them back," Lance said, eyes flaring red. "And fuck that fucking witch!"

"That sounds unpleasant," Pidge muttered, drawing a nod from Sven and a snicker from Larmina.

"Unpleasant for her!" Lance clenched his fists. "She's on my fucking list."

It was all Daniel could do not to burst into laughter. Lance was being all rageful and serious, and it wasn't funny, but he also clearly wasn't actually realizing what he was saying. The urge to say that sounds like sexual harassment was intense, and nobody could even appreciate how much effort he was—no wait! Red!

"Your restraint is noted, Flamechaser."

"Dude." Hunk shook his head. "We are totally gonna hafta play rock paper rocket launcher on that, pretty sure she's on everyone's list."

"Oh it'll be a fucking team effort."

"I wonder if Drule witches need their spinal cords more than jaivurs do," Pidge mused a little too casually; Vince considered scooting away again.

Keith facepalmed. He was certain they'd discussed that.

"We'll find out," Larmina said, also a little too cheerfully, and Allura shook her head. Though she couldn't really argue the sentiment…

Sven quietly gathered up the pebbles again, and Hunk couldn't help a chuckle. What he'd been thinking before was truer than ever now.

Trivia Toss was not boring.

*****

Dawn was breaking along the riverbank, and the scorched, wounded form slowly stirred. Silver energy still glimmered deep within the wounds. The rushing river and the toxic jaivur magic had not succeeded in eradicating it, and the spirits trapped within were gaining some semblance of control.

Remember.

This isn't right.

This isn't who we were.

Every movement hurt as the jaivur rose to its feet. Flynn was very aware of the others—not voices drowning him in rage, but presences. Friends. Anger was churning harshly below the surface, but the memories and the competing energy prevented it from fully taking over.

Honor.

Loyalty.

Pursuit.

How long would this last? There was no way of knowing. What he knew, what they knew, was that the window of opportunity wouldn't stay open forever.

This has to end.

With no sign of lions in the sky, the jaivur began to stagger towards the castle.

They have to end us.