Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

*Lance*

“What does that mean?!” I ask.

“It means we have no control over where we’re headed!” Coran supplies. 

In the next moment, all of the lions are being sucked out of their docking bays, thrown out into the storm of the corrupted wormhole. All I see is flashes of lightning and swirling magenta as the cockpit is shaken so violently from being hurled through the side of the rampant wormhole, that I’m thrown from the pilot’s chair. I bash into the ceiling, reaching down to try and grab back onto my chair to no avail, before being thrown to the left wall. My body hits the wall, retching a scream from my chest, and the shaking doesn’t stop. 

After being thrown against every available object in Blue’s cockpit, I realize I’m just going to keep falling, maybe forever. And Blue’s presence is dim and panicked in my mind, offering little reassurance. When I finally manage to grab hold of the pilot's chair and heave myself back into it, I pull up on the unresponsive controls to keep myself in place. 

I’m not dumb enough to try to make it to the backup systems in the hull, which are likely down anyway, to attempt to spur Blue back to life while we are still freefalling through space. So, for now I attempt to wait it out. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling nauseous, and as vomit threatens to creep up my throat, I silently swear off any further poking fun at Hunk for his weak stomach, as the nausea is truly miserable. 

Suddenly, the cockpit begins quickly heating up, burning , and Blue’s lights blink out. The force of the lion falling through space sends me up out of the chair again as I hold onto the controls for dear life, my back pressed against the chair being the only thing still holding me in place, I grit my teeth against the scorching heat until I can’t help but scream if only to try and make it through. I just hope no one can hear me. 

*Keith*

As I’m flung through the side of the wormhole, I hang on tightly to the controls, heels pressing firmly into the metal floors. As Red’s cockpit rattles violently around me, I attempt to force my unresponsive lion to respond to my pulling up on the controls, and grunt in stubborn determination when we only keep falling. Then, as the shaking dies down to what feels like a freefall, I shift in my seat to fling myself at the door, propelling myself down the hull as soon as the doors slide open for me. I need to get Red flying again before we get to wherever this wormhole is taking us. 

I reach the control panel at the back of the lion, containing the backup keypad for accessing the flight controls, emergency systems, and reserve power, for in the event the main systems go down, but unsurprisingly, this screen is also blank and unresponsive. It must have been the jolt of energy from Haggar’s spell, as I recall the feeling when Red had been hit by the large bolt of lightning that likely zapped out the systems. 

I’m thinking about how much I miss ships and hovercrafts with manual controls when the lion hits something and I’m thrown back. The air is knocked from my lungs when I hit the opposite side of the hull, and I absently note that I may have bruised some ribs. A growing heat begins to creep under my skin and I grimace before turning my attention to grabbing hold of something, because it feels like we’re still falling, and falling fast. 

***

I blink my eyes open, vision clearing, and I take in my surroundings in the red lion’s shadowed hull. With a groan I lift myself up onto my elbows, everything aching. Hazily, I recall the battle to retrieve Allura, and being thrown out of the docking bay into the unknown. I make it to my knees and take a deep breath, trying not to panic. “Red,” I call, expecting the response of another consciousness within my mind. But instead, I feel nothing. I try again, reaching out with my own consciousness, but it feels like reaching into a void. A rotten feeling threatens to claw its way up my throat, so I push myself to move on. 

I try to assess my injuries, putting a hand to my ribs and hissing in pain, but, thanks to the paladin armor, nothing feels broken. With some more grunts and groans I manage to right myself, stumbling back into the open doors of Red’s cockpit. 

When I fall into the pilot’s chair, I bring a hand to my helmet, switching on the comms. “Hello? Does anybody copy?” There’s loud static in response. “This is Keith, is anybody there?” Still nothing. “Shiro? Anybody?!” The static mocks my desperation and I slump in my chair, my bruised body and the exhausting battle making me consider taking a nap while I wait for rescue, before a fractured voice comes through the comms. 

“K-th? s- t-th you?” the strangled voice asks, “-eith? Keith?!”

“Lance?” I call into the helmet mic, relief making its way into my tone. I hardly recognized Lance’s voice, void of its usual chipper. 

“W-where are we?” Lance asks, the comms clearing up. He must be close by , I reason. 

“I’m not sure,” I answer, “are you injured?”

“... a little,” Lance admits, his voice barely there. Worry tugs at my gut. 

“Alright. I’m going to go outside and take a look around, but my lion is completely unresponsive, my cockpit and hull have gone dark and neither of my control panels are working.” I climb up to the cockpit entrance at the top of Red’s head. The door doesn’t open, and I frown at it. This has never happened before. “I’m trapped inside my lion; the reserve power must be out. Can you get out of Blue?” There’s silence on the other end of the comms and I worry we’ve lost connection for a moment before Lance finally speaks again. 

“I may be a little more hurt than I let on,” Lance says, and I feel my stomach drop. “We burned up on entry,” Lance grits out, “Blue doesn’t have Red’s heat resistance, and we went through what must have been a planet’s atmosphere with a lot of force.” Impatient, I don't wait for Lance to finish talking before I draw my bayard and jam the hilt of my sword into the nonexistent gap of the lion’s exit. 

“I’ll get to you,” I promise.

“I thought you were trapped,” Lance answers. My blade digs into the metal, wedging in between the small door and the jam keeping it in place. I feel the door shift into a position where I can pry it open by force and I wedge the blade in the other side to do so, muttering an apology to Red for scratching her up. I can hear Lance’s heavy breath through the comms as I shove the door open the rest of the way with my hands. Light shines through the entrance into the cockpit and I squint. I stick my head out to see lush green. 

We’ve landed in some sort of foreign forest or Jungle, under a canopy of enormously tall trees with long hanging vines. “I think we’re in some sort of… alien jungle,” I inform Lance. 

“Cool,” Lance answers weakly. 

“How are you feeling?” I ask, activating my jetpack and hopping down from the lion’s head.

“Just peachy,” Lance sighs. 

“I need you to stay awake,” I insist, scanning the jungle until Lance’s location pops up on the screen in front of me. I look back at Red, her paint more worn than it had been the day before, but as usual, otherwise looking unscathed. 

“I’m exhausted,” Lance says. 

“Are you bleeding?” 

“I don’t think so… just dizzy.”

“Stay awake Lance, you’re not far off, I’m almost there.”

“Okay,” Lance answers weakly. 

I slice my way through giant leaves and thick vines until I catch sight of Blue, lying completely on her side covered in dirt, tree roots, and branches. They must have taken down a few trees when they landed, but I don’t see anything blocking the entrances. I also don't see any signs of life from the mech. “Lance, can you get any response from your lion?” I ask, and he hums sleepily in response. “Lance,” I say more forcefully. 

“I can’t feel her,” Lance says, adding to the anxiety in my gut. Where are we, will anyone be able to find us? 

“Alright,” I say, instead of any of the panic-inducing thoughts going through my head. 

I make my way around to the entrance to the cockpit and pry it open as I did my own. The cockpit is dark, but when I see Lance, I freeze. The pilot chair is completely sideways with the angle Blue had landed, and Lance is lying in it limply, precariously supported by the arm of the chair. Lance looks up to watch me watching him. He’s red and sweaty, and his palms are upright, with blood smeared on the armor plating of his thighs beneath them. I drop in beside him, the inside of the lion is still too hot. “Hey buddy,” Lance says, eyelids heavy.

“Can you move?” I ask. Lance brings his arms up to try and push himself out of the chair, but only ends up crying out in pain and frustration, then giving in. “I’m going to have to carry you,” I say, Lance nods, looking defeated. 

I support Lance’s weight and maneuver him out of the chair, then help him up by the shoulder while Lance winces and groans at every movement and every stretch of skin. “I’ll try to climb out,” Lance says as I’m contemplating how to go about carrying him out of the small hatch.

“If you say so.” 

Lance manages to pull himself up with my support at his feet, but he bites his tongue to hold back a scream when his torso meets the metal. He hauls himself the rest of the way out and lands on the ground below, I follow. 

After helping Lance get settled against the side of Blue’s head, I move to check his injuries. Before I can however, Lance reaches out, his fingers brushing my helmet and making me look up. “What?” I ask. He squints his eyes at me, observing. 

“Nothing, I just thought your skin looked a little… purplish,” he says, “pinkish I mean, like a burn,” he explains. 

“I’m fine,” I insist, neglecting to mention the fact that my skin had turned purple during our last mission, that certainly isn’t something I need to work out with Lance of all people, “did you hit your head?” 

“Maybe,” he says. I do a quick scan of his pupils to check for a concussion for good measure and he seems fine, so I move on. 

Removing his armor with sweaty hands, I see that the worst of the injuries are burns from where his skin came in contact with hot metal, on his hands and where there’s pain in his back. “I’m going into Blue’s hull to get your emergency rations,” I tell him, earning a weak smile before I venture back into the lion. 

I return with a bag of food pouches, hydration pouches, and medical supplies. I retrieve the bandages and some disinfectant amongst the items labeled with Altean writing that I can’t decipher. “Oooooh~ nurse Keith,” Lance teases, and I grumble. I pop the cap of the sterilizing spray. 

“Can we maybe just hold off on that,” Lance pleads, looking warily at the bottle in my hand. “I’m sure they can fix me up when we get back to the castle.” 

“We don’t know how long it will take before they find us,” I admit, “You can’t risk getting these wounds infected.” Lance glares at the bottle for a moment longer before taking a deep breath.

“Okay.”

“I’ll start with your hands,” I say, and Lance offers the fried appendages. I spray the glistening red skin and Lance throws his head back, crashing his skull against the lion. The pity I feel tugging at my features makes me think of Shiro’s injuries. 

I dab the wound with some gauze then begin carefully bandaging them. After giving the blue paladin a moment of reprieve to catch his breath, I put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. “I’m going to have to get to your back next.” Lance lifts his head up and nods, and I lean him forward, then peel off the top half of his suit, trying to ignore the close proximity. The burns on his back overlap with the large blast scar already covering his skin, angry red just below the pale raised mark. The thought that all his pretty olive skin will soon be covered in scars makes me feel mournful.

The wound isn’t small, and I decide that Lance deserves another moment to breathe. “How bad is it?” Lance croaks when I re-cover the wound with his suit and lean him back against his lion. 

“Not too bad,” I tell him honestly, “but it’s going to sting.” Lance groans at that and I grab one of the hydration pouches from the emergency supply bag.

“I’m gonna kill Zarkon if my beautiful soft hands scar,” Lance says.

“We’re gonna kill him anyway,” I say, sticking the straw in the pouch and bringing it up to Lance’s mouth. 

“Well, I’ll kill him twice,” Lance says with finality, leaning forward to suck at the straw. I roll my eyes and try not to make the movement endearing.

When Lance is done, I sterilize the burns on his back, drawing the most terrible noises of pain from him, and I thank the force of acceleration for bringing Lance’s bum off the burning metal chair, saving me from having to take his pants off. After Lance’s torso is bandaged, I look around us and notice that it’s darker than it had been when we started. 

“I think it will be nightfall here soon,” I say. Lance follows my gaze, still looking dreary. 

“Do you think we’ll need a fire?” Lance asks. I take note of my body’s temperature. Inside the sealed armor that has insulated us from the cold vacuum of space, the heat of the jungle still feels maddening and my skin feels sticky, but my ungloved hands feel a cold breeze descending upon the jungle as the planet’s star dips below the horizon. 

“If the lions stay down we won't have temperature controls, so we may have to sleep in our armor,” I say, “But I don’t think we should sleep outside just to build a fire when we don’t know what’s out there,” I decide, “Both Red and Blue’s hulls are tilted at an angle, but Red isn’t completely on her side like Blue, so I think the bed should still be usable. If I can get you there that is.”

“You want me to sleep in your bed?” Lance asks. 

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I tell him, hoping Lance can’t see the pink blush on my cheeks. “It’s best to stay together, I need to keep an eye on you.” 

“Maybe I should keep an eye on you ,” Lance retorts, attempting to sit up on his own and disturbing his bandages. He grunts and I sling his emergency bag over my left arm, packing in his chest plate, before fitting myself under Lance’s shoulder and hoisting him upright again. 

I wince at the pain in my own body as I drag Lance along over protruding tree roots on the forest floor while he’s drenched in sweat and stumbling. Halfway to Red, Lance seems to notice. He digs his heels into the ground, bringing us to a halt, and frowns at me. “You’re hurt,” Lance announces. 

“It’s just a few bruised ribs,” I say, trying to drag Lance along again. 

“You should have let me look at it.”

“You can’t even use your hands,” I huff, surrendering to the fact that Lance was stubbornly immobile. 

“Well then, when we get to your lion, you’re just going to have to help me out.” The look in Lance's eyes dares me to challenge him, and I’m too tired to take him up on it. 

“Fine,” I agree. Lance starts limping along again, looking annoyingly proud of himself.

When we reach Red, we both fall to the forest floor to rest before we’ll have to venture climbing up to Red’s opened entrance. The forest around us is dark now, decreasing the already low visibility amongst the trees, and I listen to a far-off clicking noise, not unlike a bird call, that reverberates through the foliage. “Do you think the others are alright?” Lance asks tiredly, staring longingly at the canopy above us. 

“They’ll make it,” I say, and when Lance turns to meet my eyes, I notice I’ve been staring at him. We’re sitting so close it makes my heart race, so I pry my eyes away and stand up. “Let’s get you into Red’s hull.”

Lance stands, with much effort, and we begin the climb. I climb up to the first divot in Red’s jaw and heave Lance up by the arm while Lance whines about me ‘nearly dislocating his shoulder’. I do it again, this time pulling both of Lance's arms, to get him atop Red’s cockpit, and he doesn’t complain. Once inside, I drag him to the hull and onto the shelf present as an emergency bed, now diagonally oriented so Lance has to lay half against the wall on his stomach. 

“Keith,” Lance says. I grunt a response. “Just because I’m on the edge of passing out doesn’t mean you’re getting out of me checking your injuries.” I laugh genuinely, some of the tension almost leaving my shoulders. 

“You can play nurse in the morning,” I tell him. Lance squints back at me, clearly struggling to remain combative. He relents with a,

“Wake me up if anything happens,” and closes his eyes. 

I pull out the emergency blanket from his bag and throw it over him, then take a seat on the cold floor, leaning against the bed at Lance’s feet to watch the permanently opened doors to the lion. Soon I hear Lance’s breath even out, a telltale sign of sleep, and I indulge myself in a few long glances at him. He’s even more beautiful (if that’s even possible) in the peacefulness of sleep. 

I shake off sleep when it tries to pull me under, impatiently waiting for Red to spur to life, or for another voice to break through on the open comms, promising rescue.

*Lance*

When I wake up, I still feel like shit. Even without moving, I can feel the harsh burns along my back, angry split skin, and I groan. I open my eyes and let them adjust, to see Keith, sleeping on the floor by my feet. “Keith,” I call, my voice muffled from my cheek resting against the metal table, then, “Keith!” a little louder when he doesn’t stir. He wakes suddenly, alarmed, like he hadn’t meant to be sleeping in the first place, and looks around discombobulated.

He finds my eyes and relaxes, then absently his hand goes to cradle his side. “You’re up,” he observes, “how are you feeling?”

“How are you feeling?” I ask, “I need to check your side.”

“We should check your bandages first,” he replies, moving to get up. I kick him in the head. 

“Oy!” he protests. He sees my frown and sighs frustratedly. “Just let me see quick before you sit up,” he insists. I’ve already decided to let him, but I huff anyhow, and he rolls his eyes. Then Keith starts walking away from me .

“Hey! My bandages are over here, Kogane!”  

“Just let me look outside,” Keith responds. I wait impatiently for his return, and when he comes back he slowly lowers himself to his knees beside me, clearly sore. 

“It’s morning,” he informs me. 

“You look like you’re in pain,” I tell him. He ignores me and gently puts a hand just above my bandages, making me shiver. For someone so ruthless and impulsive, he can be so soft. If I hadn’t been in so much pain when he was bandaging me the first time, I think I would have enjoyed it a bit too much. 

“I’ll need to change these,” he says now, “there’s puss.” I make a disgusted noise, my thoughts of Keith’s hands being entirely disrupted. I start to move to sit up and he makes a noise like surprise that’s entirely unwarranted, then helps me. 

He sits beside me and lets me remove the upper half of his armor plating and unzip the back of his suit. I hope he can’t see the pink in my cheeks. When I see his torso, all embarrassment is replaced by shock, then an anger rooted in concern. There is a puffy purple bruise with yellow edges blossoming out from the entire left side of his ribs, and it will likely only get deeper in color as the day goes on. “Keith! You’ve been dragging me around with this the whole time,” I shout, gesturing to the offending area. 

“It’s worse than it looks,” is all he says in response. “It’s just a bruise.” And there are about a dozen other bruises littered across the skin that I can see. 

“Are you breathing normally?” I ask.

“Yes,” he claims. I press on the bruised area with my bandaged hand and he flinches away from me.

“I need to make sure nothing’s broken.” He lets me press again; this would be so much easier if I could feel anything with my hands. But, as far as I can tell, nothing gives under my fingers. “Take a deep breath,” I command. He does, and his chest inflates evenly. “We should still wrap it,” I say. 

“Neither of us are in the position to do so,” he says, looking at me like I’m an idiot. I pout, and he prepares to change my bandages. 

My hands look ruined ; Allura better come to our rescue soon so they can stick me in a pod. They’re hurting and tender, and not being able to use my hands is annoyingly restraining. Plus, I’m starving . “I’m hungry,” I tell Keith. He’s just finished delicately tending to my wounds again and checking my temperature with a hand to my forehead, and the behavior is decidedly not out of character because it’s very in character for him to always be good at everything . 

The announcement of my hunger seems to have him deep in thought. I raise an eyebrow at him, half expecting him to hand feed me when he snaps out of his trance. “We can break into the rations,” he says. 

“Break into the rations?” I parrot back to him, he’s already grabbing the food pouches. “Keith,” I laugh nervously. “I’m sure they’ll find us soon, Allura–”

“If they find us soon then we’ll be eating well in no time to make up for the days spent rationing our supplies,” he says, “there’s no harm in being cautious.” 

I want to whine some more; I am incredibly hungry and I know he’s heard my stomach growling. But the heavy feeling of paranoia settling over me stops the words from coming out. “I’m sure you’re right,” he says after a moment, but Keith of all people agreeing with me doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s unsettling. 

“Do you think we could find a way to contact them?” I ask.

“Our lions are down, and, as far as I can see out there, it’s just jungle so we have nothing to jump start them with. But I admittedly can’t see far.” 

“So you think we should try to look around?” 

“We’re both injured,” Keith says simply. 

“Sooo, we wait it out?” 

“I’m not in charge here, I’m not Shiro,” Keith snaps.

“Alright alright, though you are second in command.” He frowns at me. “If you really want my opinion that badly, we’ll decide together.” Surprisingly he doesn’t refute that. “Let’s give it another day,” I tell him. His face softens this time as he thinks it over. 

“Alright, another day.” 

Chapter Text

*Keith*

At the break of dawn on day three, after having taken the emergency bed the night before, I’m still sore. Which isn’t surprising because this is really just supposed to be a shelf for a mattress we don’t have. It’s not as bad as yesterday when all of my wounds hit me at full force, but my chest still aches and my joints still creak when I move. Lance decided to be overly dramatic, as usual, about the bruising, and even after I convinced him not to use the bandages as a wrap for it, he still insisted I take the bed.

Lance is sleeping on the floor beside me, with a small puddle of drool from the corner of his mouth. I dread waking him and letting him see that they haven’t come. There’s a pit in my stomach when I think about what it means. Either that the lions are dead and untraceable even for Allura and the castle of lions, and of course the universe is too big to scour, or that something has happened to Allura and the others. I’m not sure which is worse. 

Beside me, Lance stirs. He blinks his eyes open, then squeezes them shut again, scrunching up his nose. “Morning,” I say, my voice deep with the remnants of sleep. He startles, and winces at the sudden movement. “Sorry,” I say.

“Is it morning already?” he asks. I sit up and hang my legs over the bed and my boots touch his arm. 

“It is.”

“Are we sure the days here aren’t shorter?”

“Yesterday you were asking if the days are longer.”

“Maybe they are, and the nights are shorter!” he says in the same way one would shout ‘Yurika!’. 

“Then the time evens out,” I tell him, draining his enthusiasm. “I’ll go out a little farther today to look around.” 

“You’re not going on your own,” he says, a little panicked. 

“I can handle myself, and you’re not going anywhere until those burns heal.” 

“Keith! Hold on,” he says, scrambling to get up. 

“I’m just–”

“You’re not leaving me here!” he shouts, and I pause. He’s made it to his knees and is glaring at me, panting from the effort of righting himself. 

“I’m just grabbing the rations from the corner,” I finish. His breathing calms and the creases in his brow smooth out. 

“Oh.” He looks embarrassed. 

I grab the bag from the corner and come back with a hydration pouch. There are ten food pouches and ten hydration pouches in each paladin emergency kit, courtesy of Coran. And Lance insisted we each have two of both yesterday, which leaves us with 16 food pouches and 16 hydration pouches. Eight each. 

“No breakfast?” Lance asks. 

“We’re not eating today, we each had two pouches yesterday.” 

“What?!” 

“Which part of ‘we need to conserve our supplies do you not understand’?” 

“I mean… but–”

“I need to go out today to look for water,” I say, cutting him off, “we can go without food for longer.” He looks at me, sad and defeated, and maybe concerned. I look back at him with a determination that I hope leaves no room for argument, but knowing Lance, there’s always room for argument. Why did I have to get stuck here with Lance?

“We’re both hurt, I don’t see why I can’t just go with you.” 

“You’ll slow me down,” I say. I really didn’t expect him to want to be up and moving with those wounds. 

“I don’t like the idea of us splitting up, we’ve already lost the rest of the team.” Oh.

My cold facade breaks a little. “I’m worried about them too,” I admit, “Shiro was injured after the battle, it kills me to think about where he may have ended up.”

“Pidge says most of space is empty,” Lance says. I must make a face that displays just how much the thought does not make me feel better, because he says, “Maybe he didn’t have to deal with a crash landing, maybe his lion is still online.” 

“Our lions are offline because of Haggar’s spell,” I say without hesitation. 

“Maybe,” he says, “Blue was still with me until we hit the atmosphere, even though the flight controls had been unresponsive.” I try to think back to before the crash landing. 

“Ya, your right, Red was too.” It brings a small flicker of hope to my chest for the others. 

“ It must not be your average atmosphere, even if Blue was unresponsive, she shouldn’t have burned up on entry. I mean, what kind of alien warship burns up just entering a planet’s atmosphere? ” Lance adds. 

“Regardless,” I continue with my original thought, “right now we have to think of our own survival, and finding water or civilization is the best way to do that. I can’t take you with me so we’ll have to split up, but I will come back.” Lance considers it. 

“You have to promise to be careful,” he bargains. 

“I promise,” I say.

“Liar,” he says. I sigh. 

“I just can’t win with you.”

*Lance*

I’m hungry. My back hurts from both the burns and sleeping on the hard floors. My hands hurt and the bandages wrap all my fingers together, making my hands into blocks. I can’t shoot like this. Keith is gone. I’m agitated. 

My mind is going 100 miles per minute, and I have nothing to do. I’m trying not to think of all the worst-case scenarios, I’m trying not to worry about how I can’t feel Blue. I don’t know where the others are, I don’t know where we are . I don’t know what to do in this stupid jungle! The lions are down and the only piece of technology I have is my suit… But that’s not nothing. 

Most data is stored on the castle hard drives or on Pidge’s computer, but the paladin gear helmets could store a surprising amount of data, and I’m using just about all of it. I started going to the observatory room on late nights when I was bored and couldn’t sleep not long after team Voltron first got thrown out into space. And on one boring mission or another I figured, why not just bring the observatory room along with me . So, I downloaded a sizable chunk of the system into my high-tech helmet. I bring the system up now.

The array of stars and galaxies that spread out on the small screen before me seems daunting, insurmountable, but I’ll sift through it somehow. I won’t let Keith have all the glory.

*Keith*

Jungle, jungle, and more jungle. Hot and humid, bug filled jungle. A giant flying beetle-like insect smacks into my helmet, blocking my field of view. “Shoo, shoo, get off.” I try to brush it off the helmet screen and it just lands on my arm; I shudder and flick it off. 

I’m only a few meters out from the blue lion after nearly thirty minutes, because the foliage is so thick that it takes forever to maneuver through. I’ve had to stop swinging my sword around because it’s killing my side, so I duck under another human-sized leaf. I mark the trees with slashes as I go and clear sap bubbles out of them. Tromping along I see a bush of purple fruits and I wonder how we can tell if they’re edible without just eating them and seeing if we die, then I trip on a tree root and nearly fall, cursing as I catch myself against a smaller tree. 

My head is pounding in an all-over searing headache. While I know I’m a bit dehydrated, my excessive sweat from the heat should be circulated in my suit, so that likely doesn’t account for the pain. I’m sure I hit my head while I was being thrown around Red’s hull, but the idea that I have a concussion is the last thing I need, so I ignore it and press on. One foot in front of the other through endless jungle in search of water. 

The signal from my comms fizzles out about three miles from Blue. My neck hurts and my eyes sting and my head is literally pounding. I can’t pass out in the middle of this jungle when I promised Lance I would be back, so I take a break and sit down on a fallen, moss-covered log. I sit with my elbows on my knees and squeeze my eyes shut against the light. Before I’ve caught my breath, another bug smacks into my helmet, this time a smaller one, now squashed. I sigh indignantly, I’m going to have to clean it.

My ear quirks up and I sit straight. Behind the noise of buzzing insects, there's a soft crashing and burbling sound. I take off my helmet to try and find its point of origin. I stand up and turn in a slow circle, listening intently, but when I’m finished I’m convinced I imagined it. I’m feeling defeated, until I recall the moss on one side of the log I was resting on. While it could be only due to the humidity, and I admittedly don’t know all the properties of alien moss, I decide it’s worth a shot. 

I walk over to it and observe that there is taller, heartier greenery on the side of the moss, suggesting water. So, I follow it down a slightly slanted slope, to see that not far in the distance there is a tiny stream of running water. I sigh in relief that I’ve found something so quickly (quick being relative, as it’s been nearly two hours now) and begin to follow it upstream. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much fuller. In the places where the rushing stream gets wider, it is swallowed by marsh. Puddling around tall grasses that I can’t get to without my boots squelching in the mud. However, my helmet’s analysis of the liquid does say H2O, so that’s something. I walk back to the log and slice a few more markers in the surrounding trees before deciding to head back. 

When I return to the red lion, dizzy and semi-accomplished, Lance lights up upon seeing me and my stomach does a weird flip. I’ve really got to get this crush thing sorted out if I’m going to be stuck here with him for much longer. “Keith,” he says, “I’m a genius!” I blink at him.

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head in the crash?” I ask, he pouts.

“No, you jerk, I think I’ve found a way to figure out where we are.” 

“How?” I gratefully collapse down beside him and lean back against the wall. 

“I download some of the archives from the observatory room in the castle of lions, Coran showed me how to work it from the bridge and now I go there all the time,” I let him go on his tangent uninterrupted, waiting for the point to come, I can go back to snapping at him once we’re out of this mess “And I think at nightfall we can scan the sky and triangulate our position based on constellations!” 

“That’s great,” I say, Lance nods fervently. 

“Not only do I have the star charts, but I also have some of the planet logs. If we’re lucky, and I mean really lucky , there might be an Altean log for this planet, possibly even a civilization here.”

“Wouldn’t it be 10,000 years old?”

“Some of them, but Pidge has been cross referencing some of our data from what they’ve downloaded from Galra ships to find planets in need of liberation, but it has also helped us update our data logs for other planets. That’s what I’ve been working with today, I’ve been going through the reliable updated data and ruling out the planets that don’t meet the description of this one. And get this! I was able to analyze the light from this planet’s star and it’s a G-type main sequence star, just like our sun!” 

“You’ve been busy,” I say, unable to help the small smile on my face. “I’m impressed.” He pauses at that and stares at me. I think I’ve mis-stepped, that I’ve strayed too far from our distanced comradery and familiar bickering without a good excuse, but then he gives me the saddest smile. It is quickly replaced by his usual upbeat demeanor. 

“Couldn’t let you take all the glory,” he says. “What did you find out there, I can add it to our unnamed planet log.”

“Bugs,” I grimace, “excessive heat.” He’s looking at me endearingly, like he had when he was still half comatose after Zendak’s attack. “I found water.”

“You did?!” 

“A small stream that bleeds into a bunch of little marshlands, only two or three miles out.” Lance sighs and rests his head back against the wall of the hull. 

“But no food?” 

“There were a few things that looked like fruit, but as of now we have no way of knowing if they’re edible. And no animals yet.” 

“Right. Well, we just have to last a few more days so water is what’s most important.” 

Something like grief takes root in me. A few more days .

“Right.”

***

At night, I sit atop Red’s head, watching Lance as he scans the sky through the trees’ canopy. We’ve both been gawking at the display of aurora painting the sky purple and green, and I watch it languidly as he walks up and down Red’s back, trying to get every star at every angle, building a map of our sky. “I need more stars,” he tells me, and we walk out to Blue. 

*Lance*

It’s morning and we’re going about our new routine. Keith cleans my wounds and changes my bandages, we each drink a hydration pouch, and we bicker all the while. It would almost be a comfortable interaction if it weren’t, ya know, Keith . I didn’t get any hits on my star chart last night, and it’s made me down and moody. To make it worse, I keep reaching out to Blue for comfort only to find nothing there. 

“Today we need to find something to collect and boil water in,” Keith says, breaking me out of my thoughts. He’s all business. Why did I have to get stuck here with Keith? 

“Well unless you want to wrench a metal plate off of one of the lions, there’s nothing.” Keith stares blankly at me, then sits back down. He must be tired, his comebacks are lacking and it’s starting to make me feel guilty. 

“We could use my helmet,” he suggests.

“Are you nuts? That’s our only way of communicating when you’re away, What if there’s an emergency. Not to mention you could damage it, genius,” I say mockingly.

“Like you said, there’s really nothing else,” he parrots, making me pause, “we can’t make a pot to put over a fire with tree bark. And besides, the comms disconnected at only a few miles range.” 

“But… you’ll lose more water without it.” 

“We’re doing this to get water,” he argues. I can’t offer my helmet, but I would. He doesn’t need to know that. 

“Fine. Be careful out there.”

“I will,” he promises.

When Keith’s gone, I continue through the planet logs. I hate that I can’t stop worrying about him. I tell myself I’d do the same for anyone on the team, and it’s true… But that doesn’t stop it from being different. 

*Keith*

Not even three meters out from Blue, I spot it. It’s only as big as a large dog, like a golden retriever, but it’s built like a tiger. It’s hairless, with muted-blue skin and yellow stripes along its back. Its face is the most distinctly alien, with stubby tusks from each side of its jaw and five yellow eyes. Its claws are big and sharp and its tail is large and powerful, and with a long purple tongue, it’s lapping at one of the cuts I made in a tree the day before. I watch it from behind a nearby tree. If Lance were here, he could take it out with a single shot without having to get close, but for now I decide to let it pass. We don’t know if we can eat it, and I don’t think we’re that desperate just yet.

It finishes licking up sap from the tree and turns away from me. The beast doesn’t sniff the air, or stop to listen, or even glance around itself, making me optimistic that this is the king of the jungle, the top of the food chain. Once it’s a safe distance, I walk back towards my path and move as quietly as possible to reach the steam. 

I find the mossy log again without incident and stop to rest against it, this time using it as a backrest. I definitely have a concussion, and Lance will kill me if he finds out I’ve kept it from him, but it’s minor enough that I should be recovered within a few more days. 

The little steam down below is still running through the grass. I remove my helmet and place it in the clear water, trying not to kick up dirt or gravel. When the helmet is as full as I can get it that way, I start scooping with my hands until the headpiece is full to the brim, then I start on my way back through the trees. 

Once I get this filtered and over a fire, I want to use some of the water to clean Lance’s burns. The wounds aren't concerning on their own really, but infection could be dangerous. 

I make it back to the lions without another run in with one of those tusked beasts, and climb Red’s muzzle carefully with the water in hand. When I reach the hatch I hear a small whimpering sound, like someone in pain, like Lance in pain . 

I jump down in such a hurry that some of the water spills, and at the same time the noise stops. “Lance?” I call, there’s no answer. I hold the helmet to my chest with one arm and summon my sword with the other, marching back into the hull. Lance is sat up against the wall, looking unharmed except for the tear tracks running down his exposed face, his helmet in his lap. 

“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” he laughs humorlessly, sniffling. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Fine, just too much time alone with my thoughts,” he tells me. When the panic leaves me, I let my bayard retreat to the plate on my thigh, and I suddenly feel like an intruder on his vulnerability. I take a step back, also just now noticing how my body hurts from the drop into Red’s cockpit. I nod.

“We should wait to start a fire until the temperature drops in the evening. I’ll just find a place to set this and–”

“Did everything go alright?” he asks.

“Ya,” I say, “There are some animals out there, I saw a creature.” He perks up at that.

“Oh! Describe it to me!”  

I balance my helmet in the corner and go to take my place beside him. “It’s about the size of a large dog, but it’s muscular, built like a predator. It’s got muted-blue skin with yellow stripes along its back, five yellow eyes, and two stubby tusks by its mouth. It's also got big claws and a powerful looking tail,” I describe.

“Like an alien sabretooth tiger,” he responds.

“No,” I deadpan. “It’s got tusks, not teeth, and they’re facing upward. And the tail is distinct.” 

“Fine,” Lance says, “But we have to name it.”

“Do we?”

“And I think a sabretooth is the best comparison.”

“You didn’t even see it, and they’re not teeth .”

“Fine then, we’ll call it a saber,” he says, stubbornly ignoring the first thing I said. I sigh and relent. 

Lance has me help him go through the logs with him while we eat our daily rations, it’s a whole lot of disappointment. There are no mentions of ‘Sabers’ in any of Coran’s logs.

*Lance*

The star begins to set on the horizon of our fourth day stranded as Keith and I strain the stream water through the fabric of our emergency ration bag. The water pours from his helmet to mine, then I haphazardly dump it back into his with my still bandaged hands. 

We got a fire going in a clearing at the foot of Keith’s lion by rubbing dry sticks together like you see in the movies. Keith has heated some rocks near the edge of the tame fire and he settles the helmet on them. “We’re going to drink this?” I ask him, he looks away from the fire. 

“Some of it,” he says cryptically. I raise my eyebrows at him. “I want to use some of it to try and properly clean your wounds.” I cringe at the thought. “We’ll analyze it after it’s boiled to ensure there’s no living bacteria,” he says to reassure me.

“I know, I just—"

“We can’t risk you getting an infection, or worse, sepsis.” I cringe more dramatically at that. “Your temperature is already high.”

“That’s just immunol response,” I tell him, though I’m not sure. 

We look back at the water on the fire, which is admittedly mostly clear. When the water starts to bubble, Keith lets it come to a full rolling boil and keeps it there for a few minutes, constantly adjusting the fire all the while. He then balances the helmet on two sticks while I support it on the other two sides with sticks I jammed down my sleeves. We settle it on some rocks Keith had set up on the ground, waiting for it to cool. 

When the water has cooled from scolding to warm, I lean over it and let my helmet analyze the contents. “H2O, unharmful minerals from the sediment, no live microbials detected,” I narrate. 

“I hate to use the gauze when it’s nearly our last pack, but we don’t have anything else. We only have enough bandages left for four more days.”

“That will be enough,” I say.

“And if we get hurt again?” he asks. I must look as helpless as I feel because he drops it. 

We take turns drinking the water and I try not to think about indirect kissing or that the helmet was previously on Keith’s sweaty hair. Then, Keith settles the helmet between his crisscrossed legs, sitting behind me. He unzips my suit and my heart picks up, a deep blush settling on my cheeks. The atmosphere outside is much better than the prison-like hull of the downed red lion, sitting here just the two of us by the fire in the twilight after sunset. It’s not every day that your crush of five years undresses you while nursing you back to health. The last three days sure, but this is managing to feel much more intimate. 

He removes my bandages to reveal the skin just beginning to itch and scab, and when I feel the cold night air dance over my exposed skin, I somehow manage to feel embarrassed rather than afraid. “I’m going to start,” Keith says, hot in my ear, and a chill runs up my spine. I watch him dip the folded gauze pad into the water behind me and take a deep breath as it nears my skin. The water dips over the burns and I hiss in pain. “Sorry,” he mutters absently, before running the harsh pad down my back. I feel my ragged breath becoming too fast and try to control it, then decide that thinking about Keith will for once be a welcome distraction. 

I think about his fingerless gloves, and his stupid hair, and his confidence. How he’s always managed to grind my gears, that I haven’t been able to stop looking at him and crushing on him since the garrison. My cheeks burn, I’ve managed to make myself uncomfortable in more ways than one. 

Keith rings out the gauze pad in the grass. “I’ll bandage these up, then I’ll work on your hands.” I nod, unable to access any words. His arms partially wrap around my waist while he’s covering my torso with white bandages, and I curse the gods who have clearly forsaken me. When he moves to the front of me, I try to look cool. He can attribute my red face to the pain. 

“The burns on your hands are just as bad as your back, but you’ve managed to move them less, so it looks like they’re healing better.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I mutter. 

“Probably for the best,” he responds snarkily, and I’m so out of it that I snicker in response. 

He wipes down my palms and each of my fingers delicately with the same gauze rag he used for my back, and I watch his every move. Then he wraps them with the rest of the third roll of bandages. He pours the remaining dirty water on the fire to put it out and we rest there watching the embers fizzle out. 

He takes his scorched helmet and my arm and hauls us up to the lion's head. I lie down beside him tonight, situated on my back in a way that doesn’t hurt if I don’t move, looking out amongst the stars for a sign of our team’s arrival as my helmet continues to process data from the star scans. I sneak a glance at Keith while he’s watching the sky. 

Chapter Text

*Keith*

“I can’t believe you had a concussion and didn’t tell me!” Lance shouts.

“It’s better now, I’m fine,” I insist.

“I cannot believe you waited a week to tell me,” he says.

“You weren’t in the position to be told.”

“Don’t tell me what position I was in,” he yells nonsensically, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Look,” I try to say calmly, “just let me–”

“You don’t have to do everything yourself,” he says, making me pause. 

“Lance, you had a fever for the last two days.”

“And when did you realize you had a concussion?” he questions. 

“The first day I went out to explore the jungle,” I confess. 

“Four days ago?!” He’s even more upset than I thought he’d be. 

“Everything turned out fine.”

“And what if you’d passed out in the middle of the jungle and got eaten by a Saber?”

“But I didn’t and I wasn’t!” I argue. He huffs. This is where honesty gets you with Lance. Why did I have to be stuck here with Lance?

He’s decided to go with me today, even though his wounds are still only half healed, his back barely scared over and his hands still raw. But even thoughts of his hands scarring or being infected won’t stop him from insisting on joining. Maybe it’s just because he’s hungry, I know we’re both ravenous. Then again, the mutterings I heard while he was overcome by his fever are difficult to ignore. About his fear of dying out here, so far from home, that he knew it’d happen all along since he’d agreed to fight. He thought it was his time, and he wanted me to stay. More accurately, he just didn’t want to be alone. 

It’s been a week since our crash landing, or since we heard anything from the team, and we’re both being forced to begin to honestly consider that they might not be coming. They could have all landed somewhere less fortunate than us, or they could have never made it out of the wormhole at all, our team–our family– could be dead. On the other hand, we could be untraceable now, like the lions were when king Alfor hid them away, but without a key to our whereabouts in the vast vast universe. 

“Keith, I know we’re rivals,” Lance says, frustrating me further. “But we have to work together here.”

Lance had me bandage his hands in such a way that he can now move his fingers. The split skin at his finger joints is covered by small rubbery patches we found in the first aid kit, which smell rancid but seem to be helping along the healing. His palms are still covered in our remaining bandages, creased and dirtied by sweat and activity.

“That’s why I’m telling you now,” I say, it doesn’t make him look any less upset. 

As soon as Lance’s fever died down yesterday, he was on the warpath. He decided he was sick of sitting around and sick of not having enough food to eat (not to mention our concerning shortage of water). We only have three days of rations left, and all we’ve seen out there are a couple sabers. So, he’s practiced to ensure he can pull the trigger of his rifle and is going to watch my back as we hunt the king of this alien jungle.

“No more secrets,” I tell him, “From now on, what I know you know. Okay?” Lance sighs.

“As long as it’s pertinent,” he adds. I raise an eyebrow at him. “What? It’s a word that Pidge always uses. It means—“

“I know what pertinent means,” I interrupt, a sly grin silently commenting on his sciencey vocabulary. 

“Whatever dropout,” he mutters, I roll my eyes. 

“Now when we go out there today, I don’t want you to overexert yourself and reopen your wounds. We can take a break whenever you need.”

“You’re one to talk about overexerting yourself,” he snaps back.

“Yes, I am. I took plenty of breaks.” ‘Plenty’ is garnishing the truth, but it makes him look away a bit ashamed so it’s worth it. “Now let’s head out.”

We climb out the hatch in stubborn silence, then down Red’s jaw. We make our way through the trees and Lance observes the markers I’ve left in the days prior. 

“Stop itching,” I scold after a while.

“It itches,” he argues, still digging his nails into the skin at his back through his flight suit.

“Those just barely closed and you’re going to claw the new skin right off,” I reprimand harshly.

“You’re so dramatic,” he grumbles, pulling his hand away. 

“We’re almost halfway to the stream, do you need a break?” Without answer he falls to his knees. I think he’s tripped or passed out, but when I turn around he’s just sitting there looking rather pathetic. “We could have stopped sooner you know.” He glares at me as I sit down beside him. 

“How did you do this with that nasty pain in your side, I’m already getting cramps.”

“That’s because you’ve been immobile for days. And, it hurt like hell, but I pushed through, I’m sure you’re not having the time of your life either.” I take his silence as agreement. 

After he catches his breath, we get up and keep going. I had the chance to make some fresh cuts in the trees yesterday evening, around where we are now, when I finally left Lance's side for the first time since the prior morning. Still, we’re not seeing anything but some gnats flocking to them. Then Lance stops abruptly. “I saw something scurry through the grass,” he says.

“Well, it wasn’t a Saber,” I tell him. He’s not listening, too busy looking through the sight of his rifle. He pulls the trigger and something to my left squeaks. 

We go to it, and find a creature that looks like a shrew in the tall grasses. “I didn’t even notice it,” I say, shocked.

“Sneaky little fella,” Lance says. I pick the poor thing up by its tail. 

“It didn’t make any noise,” I say. I secure its long tail around my belt and Lance looks grievous. “What? I need my hands free.” He walks up ahead of me without another word. I follow after him and we go back to scanning for larger animals. 

When we reach the top of the slope that leads down to the stream I grab his wrist to stop him and take off my helmet. But before we can make our way down, I hear a rustling sound distinctly different from the water. My head jerks towards it, alerting Lance, and I creep towards the slope to crouch by the edge. 

Below, drinking from the steam, is the largest saber I’ve seen yet. I look back to see if Lance has eyes on it, but he’s already taking the shot, straight through the creature’s head as soon as it looks up at us. He is a quick thinker and a perfect shot as usual, a force of nature in his own right. It falls by the stream and I hurry to move it before its blood muddies the water. “Holy shit that thing looks alien,” Lance calls, carefully shuffling his way down the hill, eyes still on the dead predator.

“This is bigger than the other two I’ve seen, it’s going to be a challenge to get it back to Red.”

“We can always just stop at Blue,” he says, “And cut it up there.” I’m trying to lift the thing but it’s absurdly heavy, so Lance comes to help.

We manage to drape it over my shoulders. Its blood, which is a bit purplish, drips from its head onto the ground beside me. “We’re really going to eat this?” Lance asks me. 

“It was your idea,” I remind him, pushing myself up from my knees. 

“You got it?” He asks when I’m standing.

“Got it,” I tell him, “Good thing I’ve got you to watch my back because I don’t have a hand free.” Lance smiles brightly at me. We really should be collecting water too, but I’m not confident that we’ll have time to prepare it nor that we’ll make it back safely without a trigger finger available.

Lance takes a step forward and lays a gentle hand over my ribs; my skin prickles under his touch and I suppress a shiver. His eyes snap up to mine, like he just realized there was a person attached to the chest his hand is on. “Ribs alright?” he asks. 

“Yup,” I respond. He nods and moves his hand away; I mourn the loss of contact. There’s something seriously wrong with me if I, of all people, have a problem with loss of physical contact. Shiro says—said— that I’m touch deprived, but I don’t think that’s what this is. I think it’s something worse. 

We make our way back through the wood, and I’m panting with exertion by the time we get to Blue. So, we set the beast down in the grass beside Blue’s head and I pull out my wrapped dagger that I’ve been keeping in my belt along with the shrew-like creature. “How fast do you think we have to eat this?” he asks, “how long before it goes bad?”

“I’m not sure. I guess we'll eat what we can, cook and dry the rest and stop eating it when it smells rancid.”

“What if it smells rancid to begin with?” he asks, looking down at the creature with a wrinkled nose, unsure. 

“We’ll tell each other all our deepest darkest secrets before we eat it, just so nothing is left unsaid in case we both die of food poisoning.” Lance laughs loudly and kneels down beside me. I raise my blade above the Saber’s underbelly. 

The beast has two stomachs and an irregular looking heart but is otherwise a remarkably standard mammal. I pull out the guts, trying not to cringe at the slime on my torn gloves, and take a cut of its ample thigh muscle first, cracking the bone at the joint. We separate it out in a way that seems sensible, though neither of us are expert butchers. 

“Let’s cook here,” I suggest. The emergency supply bags we brought to transport the meat, emptied of their contents, aren’t nearly enough for the surprisingly large amount of meat, so it’s really our only option. 

Lance gets a fire set up and started as I work to skin and skewer the first of the meat. I don’t let him touch it; it will dirty his bandages. I shouldn’t be letting him touch anything. 

*Lance*

Keith insists on cooking all of the meat and isn't going to let me touch it until he tries it first. The smell of the meat roasting over the fire makes my mouth water against my will; my stomach has been rumbling since we landed here and I think if this turned out to be poisonous, I might just eat it anyway. Once it’s cooked, the meat is a pale lavender, the deep violet of the blood dying the once white tendons.

Keith takes a break after preparing the first of it for us to try the reward for our efforts. “I thought we were going to share our darkest secrets,” I say as goes to tear into a chunk of the saber’s thigh. He closes his mouth, not around the meat. 

“You really want to? What if we live?” he asks. I laugh,

“We’ll die eventually.” 

It was the wrong thing to say, his face drops, mine does too. “Well, that’s my secret mullet,” I say, my tone remaining lighthearted, “I think we're going to die here." We’re silent for a moment after my confession. "...I never thought I was going to live through this war."

“Why not?” he asks.

“I’m not a fighter,” I say.

“Coulda' fooled me.”

“We’ve had too many close calls already and it’s only been like–6 months. There’s no way we’re all going to come out of this alive, and I’m the weakest link. I’m just sorry I had to drag you down with me.”

“Lance that’s—” 

“No.” I don’t want him to comfort me. “Keith, if the team is still out there, they’ll be fine without me, but you. You’re Keith Kogane.”

“What does that mean?” 

“You know what it means,” I say, his face makes me less sure of that.

I have other secrets I could tell him, but this one felt the most obvious. I take a bite of the saber meat while he’s distracted and he blusters. “Lance!” He shouts. I chew it.

“It doesn’t taste poisonous,” I say through a mouthful. We have assessed the contents of the saber’s meat with our helmets, but neither of us know enough to decipher what all the elements and proteins detected mean.

“Lance you’re not expendable, and I won’t have you acting that way, not with me. If one of us is going to make it out of here it should be you.” I swallow the lavender toned muscle; he’s waving around his share of the spit roasted animal to help emphasize his point with gestures. 

“What kind of logic is that?” I ask.

“You’re the glue that holds the team together, the social one that lifts people’s spirits.”

“You’re thinking of Hunk,” I tell him.

“Hunk isn’t the one who annoys me out of the training room so I don’t hurt myself, or pesters Pidge until they get some sleep. You tell Hunk you’re hungry when he’s stressed because you know baking calms him, you are the one who listens to all of Coran’s boring stories.” 

“They’re not all boring,” I argue weakly. 

“Lance, you are vital. You're always quick to lighten the mood with humor, and you're surprisingly levelheaded and tactical. We’d fall apart without you. If I were stuck here on my own, I would have pushed on through the dizziness when I realized I had a concussion, because I wouldn’t have had you worrying about me. If you hadn’t made me promise to come back, I wouldn’t have been half as concerned with my wellbeing, because I’m expendable. I’m a loner, impulsive and foul tempered, I’m difficult.” 

“Keith!” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Does he really mean all those things? And Keith expendable!? 

“You were the best pilot in our year, in any year!”

“Doesn’t matter, the lions do most of the piloting anyhow.”

“You’re our best fighter.”

“Debatable, a gun is more versatile than a sword.” I cannot believe this.

“I’ve always looked up to you!” I say, he has no comeback for that. “I admired you, and I was jealous. That’s why I hated you, why I started a rivalry. That and, you were rather rude to me when I tried to be your friend at the garrison—" I grumble.

“I was not!” he insists, “we never even spoke at the garrison.” I glare at him and he sits up straighter.

“You’re right, we didn’t speak. I tried to speak to you, and you brushed me off like dirt.”

“I-” he starts, then seems to think the better of it. “I don’t remember that,” he admits more quietly. 

“Figures,” I say, looking down at the suspicious meat that I consumed moments ago. 

“I was in a bad place back then,” he says, “I’m sorry.” I look up, he looks genuine.

“It’s cool,” I say lightly. I let it go a while ago now.

“...How are you feeling?” he asks, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s asking if I feel poisoned and not if I’m emotionally stable.

“Fine I think, but we should wait a bit longer.” He ignores me completely and takes a bite out of the piece in his hands. I watch as the tendons snap under his teeth. 

“If we make it out of this,” he says as fiercely as he can muster with food in his mouth, which is still quite fierce, “we’re making it out together.” He’s so confident in a way that just makes you want to believe him, that makes you want to believe that universal forces will bend to his whims to make him right even when he isn’t. ‘Together’, he says. 

“Okay.” I take another bite of my food at the same time he takes another bite out of his, it’s gone cold.

We cook some of the remaining meat and stow it in bags tucked in Blue’s hull. It’s cooler in the insulated lions even with the open doors, and Keith thinks it will keep till morning in the cold night. The rest we slice into thin strips and hang on sticks that we take up to the top of Blue to situate between her joints. We do the same with the shrew, as neither of us are keen on trying two foreign meats in one night. I try not to feel sad for the poor thing as Keith prepares it, and I make him keep the small animal’s soft fur because it seems like a shame to waste it. 

By the time we’re done with the lengthy process, it’s nightfall and the aurora are dancing across the sky. I stay atop Blue while Keith goes to move the Saber’s guts away from our camp. I watch from above as he breaks a stick and digs it into the ground, before sticking the Saber’s head atop it. “What are you doing?!” I yell.

“It will help scare away the rest of them,” he calls back.

“Or make them vengeful!” 

He ignores my hysterics and climbs up to sit next to me. He’s shameless. I lay back and look up at the sky in an attempt to ignore him, though I’m not really upset. He doesn’t seem bothered. 

We watch the sky, side by side in a proximity that has quickly become comfortable for us, and I try not to blush as his words from earlier are still replaying themselves in my head. Above us, an overhanging cloud passes, giving me a better view of the stars. The program running on my helmet focuses in on a dim star above us, and a light curve pops up on my screen. I recognize the slope, a type-1a supernova, a rare sight. If I were still the Lance McClain stargazing from down on Earth in my backyard, I’d be excited. Any astronomer would, backyard or otherwise, but now it just feels like yet another distant point in the sky. 

However, then the light curve retreats, a bunch of other numbers pop up, measuring the timing and exact distance, determining characteristics of the atmosphere, etc.. Standard candle stuff. Then a map of the sky bursts out in front of me, numbers still running. My heart works double time and I sit up slowly, not taking my eyes off that dim little point in the sky. “Keith,” I breathe, he looks over at me. “I think,” I start, I think I might cry, “I think I might know where we are.”

*Keith*

“Hiraeth,” Lance says. We’ve moved inside of the blue lion's hull to get away from the daunting sky. “In the Lledrith zone. There used to be a bunch of Altean outposts around here because it was so ripe with magic,” he pauses, like he doesn’t want to say what comes next. “But they were all abandoned, even before the Altean empire’s fall. The closest planet to here that is part of the coalition is galaxies away, the nearest documented civilization, which happens to be overrun by Galra, isn’t even in the same galaxy we are in. Our bordering zone, the Patrulian zone, is entirely uninhabited.” I don’t like the sound of that. “Even if we could get the lions running somehow, it would take years to get us anywhere.”

“And what about Hireath?” I ask.

“It used to be an Altean outpost,” he says. I perk up.

“Isn’t that good?” I ask, he doesn’t look enthused. 

“The crew that lived here was under the command of some great alchemist who put up spells protecting the planet. When she died the spells didn’t fade, so no one could get in and no one could get out. All of the crew members died.” We’re both quiet for a while and I watch the light from Lance’s helmet screen reflected in his wide, blue eyes. 

“They must have been living off of supplies deliveries rather than off the land,” I say. 

“This is why we burned up on entry, that’s why the lions went down,” he says. He looks horrified, I’m not sure why I’m not feeling the same. Maybe it’s shock. 

“Any other ship would have been destroyed,” I realize aloud. 

“We’re stuck here,” Lance gasps. He takes his focus off the screen in front of him for the first time since the file came up. He looks at me, scared, searching for comfort. But I’m no good at these sorts of things, I don’t know what to do. “Keith,” he cries, the tears starting to form in his glossy eyes. I put my arms out for him, and he falls into them. 

We’re stuck here, Lance and I. There’s no one coming, but even if there was, we’d be unreachable. Lance and me. “I’ve got you,” I say, we’re both crying. “We’ve got each other.”

Chapter Text

*Lance*

“Altean outposts are priority files,” Coran had said.

“Makes sense,” I answered.

“The logs are rather inconsistent though, because most are written by young emissaries,” he explained, “set out to explore the stars as a coming of age.” He said it in a reminiscent tone that normally meant he was about to go off on a tangent. I had let him, and he spoke about tradition, about living amongst other races, learning to shapeshift but also learning the culture of people on foreign lands. He spoke about his own coming of age, nearly 10,600 years ago now. Though, for the life of me I can’t remember the details. I’ve been driving myself mad trying to remember every detail of every person I’ve ever met, because if I forget, it’s not like they can remind me. 

No one’s coming, I know that now. Keith was going on about what ifs a week ago now, two weeks after our crash landing, and I shut him up. “If they were alive they’d have come for us. And screw this stupid atmosphere, that would be no match for Voltron and princess Allura, they would get it down. They would get us out!” I said. He’d looked at me with pity and fear, like I’d just punched him… Or like his brother had just then died. 

The pair of us are sitting together in Red’s hull now, eating the ripe purple fruit that’s abundant in this jungle, claimed a delicacy in Hiraeth’s extensive file. It’s all we’ve been eating, purple fruit, Saber jerky, and the occasional shrew. The fruit juice had tasted sweet when I ate the first one, but now the taste makes me sick. The juice drips down my hands; my wounds are scarred over and unbandaged, Keith has a new cut on his arm that I need to patch up. I’ve taken the ‘bed’ in the hull and he’s taken the floor, neither are comfortable. I’m looking down at where he sits beneath me, rehearsing in my head what I’m about to say. He looks up at me and our eyes meet. 

“Why are we even doing this?” I ask him tiredly. He blinks at me, trying to decipher the vague inquisition. 

“Doing what?” he asks, oblivious.

“I can’t live like this for the rest of my life,” I confess, a fat tear falls from my eye. Keith is staring openly at me, his eyebrow coming up in the middle. “I’ve been thinking it since that night, when we found the file. When we read through the logs about the settlement, then its collapse, when we tried the ginberries, everyday that we trudged further and further into this endless jungle. Keith,” I pause and really look at him, “I can’t go on like this.” More tears are pouring down my face. He stands, cautiously, like he’s approaching a wild animal. 

“What are you telling me?” he asks.

“Mierda, You know what I’m telling you,” I shout, he doesn’t back down, only gets angrier, less cautious. That’s good, I haven’t known what to do with him these past weeks, when he’s been so gentle. 

“No, I don’t,” he shouts back. But he does.

“You do, don’t make me say it.”

“Say what?!”

“That even if it’s not today or tomorrow, we’re going to have to give up at some point. I’m going to give up. We’re going to die here so why not just get it over with?!”

“No. That doesn’t sound like the Lance I know,” he says.

“Well then maybe you don’t know me at all!”

“You’re the paladin of the blue lion!”

“Not anymore!” 

We’re both shouting, it echoes in the hull. I haven’t seen him this angry since… well, ever really, at least not directed at me. I’m crying so hard now that my breath stutters, then I’m sobbing pathetically, no longer able to form words. Keith deflates. It’s no good. 

“Lance,” he tries, more gently.

“I never should have left home,” I say, “I’m never going to see my mom again.” It’s said so quietly that I’m not sure if he’s heard me, but I’ve learned recently that Keith has impeccable hearing. 

He kneels down in front of me, looking up at my tear stained face. “I can’t promise you your family back,” he says, “As much as I wish I could keep giving you hope that we’ll be rescued and that you’ll make it home, I know that will just make things worse.” I nod in agreement, still unable to speak or look him in the eyes. “But I promise we can do better.” I shift to shaking my head no. He takes my face in both hands and forces me to stop and look at him. He’s so close, his face only inches from mine. “I’m not the best cook, but I’ll try. You said you saw some herbs that could be the same ones we have on file, that were brought here by the emissaries; we’ll use them. And I’ll find a way to sow together those shrew skins you’ve been collecting to make a thicker blanket, that way you don’t have to sleep in your armor plating. And we’ll wash our flight suits and underwear more than once or twice a week so it won’t stink, and I’ll find a way for you to finally shower.” I keep shaking my head, trying to look away from his intense gaze but only ending up turning my head into his hand, which is too intimate even while I’m crying. “We’ve been in survival mode, we’ll switch gears.”

“We don’t have gears, Keith,” I say between sobs, “we’re dying!” 

“We’re not dying,” he insists.

“We don’t have food, we’re running out of medical supplies, we don’t have clothes–”

“I’ll make you clothes out of Saber skins,” he says, I groan. “It will be very stylish.” I can tell it’s a poor attempt at humor only because I know him so well, he says it just as seriously as he says everything else. 

“Keith,” I say.

“We aren’t just going to die like some poorly adapted Altean emmasaries, we’re going to live, you and me.” 

“Keith, you don’t even like me,” I whine.

“I know I’m not who you want to be stuck with–” he starts.

“No, you’re not! I want you to live to see 20 and 21 and 57! It wasn’t supposed to be like this, we were supposed to go on living our lives and I was supposed to watch you be happy from afar and hate it because I wished it was me making you happy,” I babble nonsensically. I was supposed to get over him is what I was supposed to do, I was supposed to surpass him or at least become his equal. I thought I could settle for this thing we had, friendship, rivalry. I thought with time I could watch him go be great without envy blooming in my stomach. 

I’ve realized I want him to be happy because I’ve realized this crush I have on him goes deeper than I had originally thought. Or maybe it’s growing, spreading like an infection with all this kindness and kinship. All that sentiment is too little too late. 

“Lance, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t actually hate you!” I yell. 

“I know that,” he says quietly, “just like I don’t actually hate you.” I stare back at him, my tears and my nose still running, but I’m not sobbing hysterically like before. “Look, I know we’re an unlikely pair, but we make a good team, remember? I think we can learn to live with each other.”

“You’re talking about it being just the two of us for the rest of our lives,” I remind him, “And you can’t stand me and I–” My argument is cut off by his lips. 

He’s kissing me. Keith is kissing me . His mouth is closed and he’s pushing me too hard, but, after the initial shock, I close my eyes and lean in anyhow. And then I’m kissing Keith . 

*Keith*

I knew he was unhappy, I knew he was grieving, he cries nearly every night. Lance has decided firmly that the team is dead as a method of coping I think, uncomplicating his grief. Though, he still looks for signs of them among the stars. But with all of this I wan’t expecting him to become suicidal, I thought that was more my thing. 

The prospects of our situation aren’t great, and I’m not sure what I believe about the others. I’d like to think they’re still out there somewhere, but I’m going to have to grieve either way and I’m beginning to think it’s silly for Lance and I not to be on the same page. Because we’re alone now, him and I, all the time. 

We sleep in the same room, we take the same route through the trees every day. The only time we’re apart is when we’re undressing to wash our clothes in the marsh. It’s been surprisingly peaceful between us now that we’ve been forced even closer by circumstance. We’ve fit together nicely. But, I always knew that I wouldn’t be enough for someone like him, no matter how well we get along. Kissing him hadn’t really been a tactic to combat that, it had just been an impulsive decision. More akin to a muscle spasm than a real thought out action. But right now, Lance Mcclain is kissing me back. He’s a good kisser I think, so I’ve relaxed and let him take the lead. His mouth works against mine and it’s warm, his skin is still soft. I’m not sure why he’s kissing me, I’m worried he’ll regret it. I think he might be straight. 

“What was that for?” he asks through panting breaths when we pull away for air. 

“I wanted you to stop saying all those things about dying and how much I can’t stand to live with you,” I decide, “I thought I’d show you just how much I can live with you, how much I want to.”

“Are you delirious?” he asks.

“No. Are you?” 

“No,” he says. 

“Why did you kiss me back?” I ask.

“Because I wanted to,” he says, I blush.

“Oh.” 

“Keith, why did you do that?” he asks again. I shrug and he looks miserable. I don’t know what it means. 

“I have a bit of a crush on you,” I confess honestly, my face beat red, I promised no secrets between us. His eyes go wide. “I’ll get over it,” I tell him, “if you want me to,” I add. 

“I–” he starts. I stand to try and escape the oncoming tirade but he grabs my wrist and pulls me back down. “I’ve had a crush on you since the garrison,” he says hastily, his face looking as red as mine feels.

“You said you hated me since the garrison.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive,” he argues, “and I never hated you. I told you I was envious of you, but since we got pulled out into space together on a giant mecha-cat, I’ve started really getting to know you and… to my horror, it’s only made me like you more.” 

“I think I started really liking you the night Zendak attacked the castle,” I admit. After a moment, he laughs at me. I haven’t heard the sound in weeks. 

“This is ridiculous,” he says between snorting laughs, “All of it!” I’m smiling because his joy is infectious, though I’m not sure what he’s so happy about. 

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“This!” he says, gesturing to everything in our proximity, “Us! We couldn’t be a bigger mess.” I chuckle.

“I guess that’s true,” I admit. He’s still smiling even when the laughing stops. “Will you give this a try for me?” I ask.

“Give what a try? Us? Because obviously.” My heart skips a beat.

“Us living here,” I say. His smile fades, he looks like he’s considering it. 

“Oh… I–” he looks at me, “I trust you Keith,” he says warmly, placing his scarred hands over mine that are still resting on his face. “If you think we can do this, I won’t give up.” 

I know I’m staring at him, but he doesn’t look uncomfortable under my gaze. Is that all it took to snap him out of his suicidal funk? A kiss? I know first hand that it’s not that simple, but maybe we both just need something to hold on to. I think I’d do anything to have what we hold onto be each other. 

*Lance*

We both slept close together in Red’s hull last night with our backs to eachother. Or, we tried to sleep. I was up all night blushing and overthinking on the uncomfortable excuse for a bed and I know Keith was awake in his spot on the floor because I could hear his breaths, too heavy for sleep. But, neither of us spoke. 

We’ve hardly spoken this morning either, which is more unusual for me than for Keith, but he’s being quiet even for him. I think it’s because neither of us know what to say. Talking about the kiss seems weird, but not talking about the kiss also seems weird. We’re packing our bags with some of the remaining jerky from our last hunt, along with our sparse medical supplies and refilled hydration pouches. Then Keith straps the tote bag over both shoulders at his back to wear it like a backpack, and holds his bayard in hand. He’s not looking at me. 

“Keith,” I say, and when he looks over at me I give him a peck on the lips. He blushes bright red to match his paladin armor. “How far out do you want to venture today?” I ask him.

“U-um,” he stutters, before clearing his throat and trying again, “As far as we can manage while still getting back to camp before nightfall.”

“Alright,” I agree, slinging my own bag over my shoulders and retrieving my bayard. I’m terribly nervous to fuck this up, I would be in any version of this situation, but here if we have a bad falling out, we’re still stuck together until death do us part. I promised him I’d give this my best shot though, and I promised myself I’d be brave. 

We start walking and Keith remains quiet until we’ve cleared the trees beyond Blue. “So…” he says, “Do you want to talk about last night?”

“What’s there to talk about?” I ask with forced chipper, “I like you, you like me, and we’re trying this.”

“This being… boyfriends?” he asks. I trip over a tree root.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice pitched too high. 

“And what does that entail?” he questions. I look away from the path to see his face and he looks clueless and concerned.

“If that’s not what you want–”

“It is,” he interrupts, “I just… don’t have any experience with this sort of thing.”

“Dating boys?” I ask.

“Dating anyone,” he says.

“Oh… me neither.” He looks surprised at that and I turn away to watch the path while I think about his question.

“Well, I’ve been thinking,” I start, speaking slowly to give him time to stop me, and give myself time to change my mind. “About the sleeping situation in the Red lion.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it seems kind of silly to be using that shelf in the hull like a bed, without the mattress it’s really just a shelf.”

“So, you want to sleep on the floor?” He’s completely confused and missing the point.

“I think we should both sleep on the floor,” I say as boldly as I can manage, “together.”

“Oh,” he says, finally seeing what I’m getting at. 

“And I wanted to propose,” I continue, “that we move to sleeping in Blue, because we would have more room sleeping on the wall of the hull the way Blue is situated, than the floor of the hull in Red. Plus, Blue is flat on her side, not slanted like Red.” 

“Right, that makes sense,” he says logically. 

“And how do you feel about it?” I press, “sleeping next to each other.” He’s blushing more deeply again.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” he says. I nod, some of the tension leaving my shoulders. 

“Well, I think that would be a good first step.”

“Agreed.” 

We’re quiet again after the brief conversation’s end while we continue tromping along our path through the trees. I think I’ll try collecting some herbs on our way back to analyze, there’s one that can be used to make soap, and Keith has promised me a shower. 

We pass the stream in only an hour, walking fast along the most efficient path, then we reach the larger river further out. The water here is of higher salinity, which makes me think we’re getting closer to one of Hiraeth’s seas. The current is too strong for it to harbor much life, so we’ve skipped over it and continue on. Almost three and a half hours in, twelve miles out because Keith is relentless, we reach the farthest point we’ve been to so far and stop for our second break to eat. We left at sunrise so we still have about six and half hours of daylight, an hour and half before we head back. 

“What are you humming?” Keith asks as I’m gnawing on some jerky.

“What?” 

“You’ve been humming, what song is it?”

“Oh, sorry I didn’t realize.”

“Don’t be, I like listening to you,” he says, flustering me for the dozenth time today. I think of what song was running through my head.

“I Was an Island,” I say.

“Hmm, I’ve never heard it.” The thought makes me unreasonably sad.

“And now you never will,” I say glumly.

“Why not?” Keith asks, “don’t you know the words?” 

When the shock passes, my face flushes again . I stand abruptly. “Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t want to hear me sing… do you?” Keith just smiles at me fondly, it’s a bit dizzying. Then he stands.

“If you ever feel like singing, I’d love to hear it,” he says, walking back along the path and starting to mark the trees. I follow him and humm with more purpose. 

Sixteen miles out, I’m ready to turn back. “Let’s go just a bit further,” Keith says.

“We’re already going to be pushing it, we probably can’t make it back before daylight as is.” I wish we had more water, I’m starting to feel dehydrated, but it’s so time consuming to collect that we never seem to get enough. Keith took his helmet off a while back to try and cool down, but Hiraeth’s merciless sun, named in the file as Ishtar, won’t let him. She’s part of a binary system, coupled with a cool red dwarf thousands of astronomical units away that we can’t see with the naked eye. 

A bead of sweat drips from Keith’s hair, it’s incredibly erotic. In part because he has a bit of stubble on his sideburns that he hasn’t shaven off with his dagger. Neither of us grow facial hair very quickly, though I have had to let him shave my face with that knife of his once. It was decidedly nowhere near as hot as watching him do it to himself, but I wasn’t about to start growing scraggly teenage facial hair, especially not in this heat. To his credit, he didn’t nick me once even though I moved. 

“I smell something,” Keith says.

“Food?!” I shout louder than I mean to, some little bird-like creatures that don’t have anything resembling a head in their anatomy startle out of a tree nearby. We haven’t tried eating those yet. 

“Salt,” Keith says.

“Salty food?”

“Salt water,” he says, walking up ahead.

“You think we’re near the ocean?” I run up to join him. 

“That’s why we’ve continued in this direction isn’t it?” Keith asks.

“I mean– yeah.” We quicken our pace and I look up at Ishtar as if I’m afraid the star is going to set at midday, then back at Keith. He’s staring determinedly ahead, brow furrowed. Then I hear it: crashing waves. I run up ahead of Keith, startling him, and he rushes after me. 

When we break through the next row of trees we’re on a white sand beach with turquoise waves crashing into white foam. I feel myself grinning wide and tears come to my eyes. “A beach!” I announce enthusiastically, holding my arms out to present it. When I turn to Keith he isn’t looking at the water, he’s looking at me, smiling. 

“I think we can spare a few minutes,” he says. I beam at him, giving my warmest brightest smile, which is very warm and very bright. 

I run down the beach and into the water. I can’t feel it in my sealed suit but I don’t care, I’m at the beach! Keith walks down near the water but doesn’t get in. He leans down and picks up what looks like a seashell, but not like any one I’ve ever seen. It’s a cluster of intricate spirals all a vibrant blue. Keith hands it to me and I take it. I feel the pressure of the waves crashing into the back of my legs and I let them push me towards him. “Thank you, querido,” I say quietly, as if he’s given me something expensive or rare. I feel like he has, I’ll treasure it with the utmost value. We spend the next few minutes walking the beach and looking for seashells. We find a few others with little creatures still inside sitting in the shallow water, but I leave them untouched.

“A lot of critters like these back on Earth are poisonous,” I say, and Keith drops the inhabited shell he’s holding back into the water, I laugh. I can’t believe how much we’ve been laughing in a situation like this. 

“We should probably start to head back,” Keith says, wiping his hands on his thighs. 

“Yeah,” I agree, looking back at the trees. 

“We came in over there,” he says, pointing. When he walks up next to me I grab his hand and interlace our fingers. He looks caught off guard, but then he squeezes my hand in his. We keep our hands intertwined as we make our way back through the trees.

*Keith*

Lance seems better today. I think it’s been good for both of us to have something to take our mind off of our arriving grief and impending doom.

We’re making the long journey back to camp, hand in sweaty hand and, though it makes me feel guilty, the thought of what may have happened to Shiro is only slightly weighing on me. 

I think I’m still in the denial phase, it didn’t last this long the last time I lost him. But, last time I thought I knew exactly what had happened to him, now I’m left to wonder. I was sent to a counselor at the garrison after Shiro disappeared who called what I was feeling ‘complicated grief’. If that’s the case, then this is complicated complicated grief. I only had him back for a number of months before I lost him again. I just wish I could cry like Lance does to get it out of my system a bit, I know I will eventually, probably when I'm least prepared for it. 

“Hey,” Lance says, pulling me from my thoughts. “You ok?” 

“Yeah,” I say, “just thinking.”

“About us dying of infection or dehydration?” Lance asks, I laugh at the dark humor.

“About Shiro,” I admit.

“Oh,” he says, “I’ve been trying not to think about the what ifs, but I still miss them every minute.”

“It’s the opposite for me, my emotions feel stunted,” I tell him. He looks sympathetic and keeps hold of my hand. 

I’m staring into his eyes when I catch sight of a movement behind him. I yank my hand away, startling him, and shove him out of the way just in time for a saber to leap out from the trees. It tackles me to the ground and knocks my bayard from my hand, sending it spinning into the foliage. I can’t reach for it, and as I hold back the beast’s claws it nashes its teeth at me. But, I see beside me that my dagger was knocked from my belt in the fall. Lance comes up behind it to try and pull it off of me and I wonder why he isn’t shooting. 

The beast's claw swipes just centimeters from my face as I’m pushing its jaw away from me, then it tries to turn on Lance. I reach for my dagger with the saber’s weight still on top of me, but it’s just inches away from my grasp, until suddenly it isn’t. My dagger appears in my hand and I stab it into the saber’s chest, trying to twist it in deep enough to reach its heart. In another flash of purple the dagger grows until it slashes out the other side of the beast above me. The saber roars, then goes limp on my sword. 

Lance pulls it off of me the rest of the way and I watch my sword retreat back into a dagger. “Fuck, Keith Are you alright?! Are you hurt?” Lance asks frantically. 

“I’m alright,” I say, “Are you–”

“I’m so sorry, I dropped my bayard and I couldn’t find it and I–”

“Lance!” I raise my voice, abruptly stopping his rambling. “Are you ok?” He blinks at me as though he didn’t understand the question. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m ok,” he says, raking a hand though his hair but beginning to calm down. Then we both look down at my dagger. “Keith,” he says carefully, “where did you get that?” 

“It was my mother’s,” I tell him, staring at the object I've had all my life like it’s foreign. “It’s never done that before.” Lance puts his hands over mine on the weapon’s hilt and I look up at him. 

“Alright, we’ll figure it out. Right now let’s find our bayards and go back to camp,” he says. I nod after a moment and let him help me up. 

We leave the saber there, deciding we can’t carry it back sixteen miles, and when we turn to look at it behind us we see those fluffy headless birds flocking to it like scavengers. The walk back is quiet as we try to remain alert, as if both of us just now realized that this alien jungle is dangerous. Lance collects a few herbs and we fill our helmets with water once we reach the stream at dusk, then we make it back to Red an hour after nightfall. 

We strain and boil our water over a fire for refilling our hydration pouches and for drinking. We gnaw on saber jerky and Lance crushes the herbs he found into a foamy paste which he stores in an old food goo pouch for later. I don’t know what to think about my blade, or what it means about my parents. 

“So…” Lance says, “Your mom was an alien.” He says it so surely and casually that it sounds irrefutable.

“My mom wasn’t an alien!” I disagree too loudly, he puts his hands up in surrender. 

“I thought you didn’t know her,” he says.

“I didn’t but I… my dad would have told me if she was an alien,” I say. Then I think about it. My dad was never the most open and approachable person, and he was always steadfast that aliens were real. Hell, he looked for UFOs over his morning coffee. “I think,” I add, suddenly unsure. 

“Ya know,” Lance starts with a thoughtful tone, “If your mom was an alien, that makes you an alien.”

“What?!” That’s ridiculous, this is ridiculous! 

“I’m just saying–” 

“I’m done with this conversation,” I growl.

“Alright, alright,” Lance says, going quiet. He quickly pipes up again. “You know, Pidge used to say, we’re technically all aliens.”

“Lance,” I scold, and he goes quiet again. 

We finish sorting out the water and then it’s time for bed. So, I grab our thin blankets and stuff the rest of our limited supplies into our bags, heading for the door. “What are you doing?” Lance asks.

“I thought we were sleeping in Blue’s hull,” I say.

“Oh, already? I mean, yeah, yeah. Okay.”

“Did you not mean tonight?” I ask.

“Tonight is fine,” he insists, taking his bag from my shoulder and heading for the hatch. 

*Lance*

So, my boyfriend is an alien. ‘Boyfriend’ still seems weird to say in my head, but somehow ‘alien’ isn’t such a weird adjective to tack on. I always knew he was too good, he had to have some unfair advantage helping him out. 

We’re settling our things around Blue’s sideways hull now with the lights on in our helmets. Blocking the door with plate of bark and setting out rappers at the entrance that will make a noise to alert us if stepped on. I’m thinking we should open the door at the bottom of Blue’s stomach as an easier way in and out, then make a new door that we can actually open and close with wood. 

I spread my blanket out on the floor and lie down on top of it. Keith hesitates, then joins me. We cover ourselves with his blanket, a frankly unnecessary ceremonious gesture since we're still in our armor, and turn off our lights. It’s uncomfortable, lying on the hard floor, but I enjoy our proximity anyhow. “Keith,” I whisper. 

“Yeah?” he whispers back.

“I really don’t mind if you’re an alien.” He sighs, exasperated. “I just need you to know that,” I say. “I still like you.” He’s quiet for a moment instead of scolding me. 

“Okay,” he says, “but I’m not an alien.” 

I shuffle a little closer to him and take his hand. Now that I’m not convinced we’re going to die soon, because ironically the saber attack today only made me realize how much I want us both to live, I’m going to have to go back to worrying about the scars on my hands. I have a boyfriend now after all. The skin on my palms and my fingers look like typical second degree burn scars, with dips and raised points all the off tone of scar tissue. I’ll just have to hope that Keith is as accepting of my scars as I am of his conspiratorial alien heritage. 

“Goodnight Keith,” I whisper, he gives my hand a light squeeze.

“Goodnight Lance.” 

Chapter Text

*Lance*

I wake up to the sound of a popping campfire. I sit up to see that Keith’s not next to me and the wooden door at Blue’s underbelly is open, letting the light in. I throw the shrew skin blanket off me and reach for my armor boots.

Outside, I find Keith roasting ginberries on a spit over the fire. “Goodmorning,” I say.

“How did you sleep?” he asks.

“Clearly better than you, you must have been up at the ass crack of dawn, Ishtar still isn’t all the way over the horizon yet.” He hums and removes the stick from its place over the smoking flames. I sit next to him. “I want to shower,” I announce.

“No,” he says immediately. “You showered the day before yesterday.”

“And if it were up to me I would have showered yesterday. I didn’t shower for three whole weeks; I’m still recovering even two weeks later .”

“And if you’ll recall, you’ve showered twice this week ,” he says. I frown.

We’ve been on Hiraeth for a month and four days now , and we’re starting to get the hang of survival here. There are still nights when I go to bed hungry and mornings when I wake up terribly sore, and every day my grief weighs on me. I know it weighs on Keith too. “It takes forever to collect all the water, and then even longer for me to pour it down a giant leaf onto you with my eyes closed,” Keith complains, “We need to get back to exploring.”

“I’ll let you peek this time,” I say, and Keith sputters.

“That’s not the point!” 

It’s remarkable how easily we’ve fallen into this. I direct my pickup lines and humor at Keith and try to be conscientious of not pushing him past his social limits, he makes an effort to control his hot temper and tries to open up more. Then, we kiss and curl up together at night. It makes me realize that maybe it could have been like this all along. 

“I know, I know. Fine, no shower today but shower tomorrow. Alright?”

“Fine,” Keith relents.

“Now, are we going back to the beach today?” I ask hopefully as he hands me a cut open roasted ginberry. I sprinkle some salt on it that we got from that salinated river water we boiled down. 

“No, I was thinking we’d try going in a different direction. Since we know where northeast gets us, why not try going southwest?” 

“Southwest?” I repeat, Keith nods. 

“Maybe we’ll find water closer to us in that direction, I’ve only gone out about a half a mile in diameter around us, who knows what the next half a mile holds.” 

“I guess,” I say, “when can we go back to the beach?”

“I say we go a few miles out in the opposite direction today, then we can plan to head to the beach again later this week. If we make good time on the cleared path we could explore down by the water, see if there are any tasty looking sea creatures we could analyze, maybe look for shells.” I have the shell Keith got for me displayed next to where we lay our heads at night. Keith sets his dagger with it when we sleep.

“That sounds nice,” I say, then take a bite out of the fruit. It’s less sweet this way, almost savory. Keith offers me a second one and I decline, though I do like them cooked this way. He shugs and eats a third. I give him a peck on the cheek and go to get ready. 

First, I slip on the rest of my armor, frowning at a hole in my flight suit that we will have to mend. Next, I brush out my hair with the comb that Keith whittled for us, and I use the versatile herb I’ve been using as a soap for mouthwash. I go to spit the sanitizing liquid in the grass by the lion and watch Keith putting out the fire. “I already have the bags packed,” he says, which also means ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night’. I would scold him, but we both have those nights. When we can’t get back to sleep after a nightmare or can’t fall asleep at all because of the thoughts buzzing in our heads or the emotions roiling in our stomachs. 

We grab our bags and start on our way southwest. 

*Keith*

Lance still hasn’t sung for me yet, but he hums as we walk. I think he misses music. He used to have some songs downloaded on his helmet but he deleted them to make room for the astronomical data (thankfully), and his phone has been dead since our first day here with no way to charge it. I didn’t even have my phone on me when we crashed. 

He hums 2000s pop songs that I recognize, and at night he hums lullabies he says his mother used to sing for him. Just the tune of those without the words makes him cry, but he says he’ll sing them for me some day. 

Today, the herbs Lance is foraging for as he hums ‘Shakira Shakira’, are a patch of garlicky scented shoots with thick roots. He’ll plant them along with the ones he uses for soap and the greens that look like clover and taste like lettuce. We’re working our way up to a stew as we collect more ingredients. 

We walk a little over four miles and find a semi-open meadow with some waxy looking thorned flowers that gleam in the daylight. “We can head back for today,” I say.

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees, still gazing around at the meadow, gun cautiously raised. 

The walk back is uneventful and when we make it to camp, it's only midday. I lay back on our blankets and leaf-stuffed saber skin pillows in Blue’s hull, while Lance gets to work outside on his newest hobby. Weaving is apparently one of Lance’s many hidden talents, so he’s working to make us a basket out of skinned vines. 

I sit in the shade of the hull until my thoughts start to get to me, then I stand and go to sit with Lance. I sneak up behind him and brush the hair off his neck, which I’ll need to cut soon unless he wants a mullet like mine, and I kiss him there. He squeaks a noise of surprise and turns on me, swatting at me as I laugh. “Keeeeith,” he grumbles. I sit down next to him and he rewards me with a peck on the lips. I like him like this, close. 

We don’t need to hunt for dinner tonight, and we can wait until tomorrow to fetch more water even though we probably shouldn’t, so we’re left with a rare moment to rest. “I think I’m going to go do some sword training exercises,” I tell him, he looks up from his basket. I haven’t been able to get my other sword to transform again since the saber’s attack, but he knows I’ve been trying.

“I could join you,” he says. 

“Are you going to wave your gun around while I wave my sword around?” I ask, he snickers and I feel proud of myself. 

“No, I thought you might want someone to spar with,” he offers. We haven’t sparred since we got here, first because we were injured, and lately just because we’ve been too busy with our daily tasks, which already leave us sore. 

“You want to spar?” I ask.

“Sure, why not?” he says, putting his project aside. 

He stands up, walking to the shade of our nearest tree, waiting for me to follow. We each stretch to warm up, and I watch him blatantly make a show of his flexibility. When he stands, he turns his gun to the stun setting and I summon my bayard sword. We both take a fighting stance across from each other. “You scared mullet?” he taunts, I laugh, then lunge at him. He dodges in the nick of time, but I’m already rounding on him, digging my elbow into his side. He tries to take a swing for my face, but I duck and come back up with my sword to his throat. 

“Not fair,” he whines, dropping his weapon as I drop mine, “close range is your thing.” 

“Best out of three?” I ask. 

“You’re on.”

I beat him again, then a third time when he changes the steaks to best out of five. We still have two hours before we should start on dinner, so I decide to check on the saber skin I hung out to dry two days ago. I’m no seamstress, but I’ll make some more thread from the thick skin of the low hanging vines. 

When it’s time for dinner, we finish off the saber jerky from our most recent hunt. “I can’t wait to eat other foods,” Lance sighs. 

“Me neither,” I agree.

*Lance*

“I think we should continue southeast,” I say.

“Really? I thought you’d want to go back to the water again.” We haven’t gotten the chance to go much of anywhere the past month and a half, as hunting, foraging, hygiene, and especially collecting water have consumed our limited energy and the hours of our days. 

“Well, I would, but I’m curious to see what’s out there. Hireath’s file says that Altean emissaries brought some medicinal herbs, if these others have survived for the last thousands of years, maybe those have adapted as well.”

“I can’t argue with that,” he says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He gives me a quick peck on the lips as he passes, and we start in that direction. 

When we get to the meadow I go to scan the flower still standing there, there’s no record of it which is nothing out of the ordinary. “Lance,” Keith calls, “I think I see another open space up ahead.”

“Coming,” I say, standing and walking to join him. Sure enough there’s another clearing, and there are more sprouts of the garlic weed growing there, they must like more direct light. There are bushes with red berries, common in this jungle, growing in the shade of the canopy at the meadow’s edge, and high up in a type of tree I haven’t seen before, I think I see a new fruit and a new type of bird pecking at one. I don’t see any on the forest floor but I take note of it. 

At about six miles in we find a slightly larger river of fresh water, still easy enough to hop over. Eight miles in I find something that looks like a citrus fruit and is born from large upside-down hanging flowers that smell like a fart. Still no medicinal herbs.

“How much farther do you want to go?” Keith asks me. 

“We can make it ten miles,” I say, not looking where I’m going, “just one more–” I’m cut off as I feel the ground fall out from under me and my stomach lurches. Within the second Keith has a hold on the collar of my suit and has yanked me back. 

He has an arm around my waist and another around my chest, holding onto me tightly as we each catch our breath. “I didn’t see the edge,” I say, looking at where the cliff drops off in front of me, shrouded by trees. 

“I’ve got you,” Keith says fiercely. 

“Keith,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“You can let go now, I’m alright.”

“Right,” he says, but it takes him another moment before he does. When we stand, we link our hands together, carefully inching towards the edge. I move back the veil of vines and trees, and when I see what lies below us the air is knocked from my chest again. 

“Dios,” I breathe vehemently. 

There, just beyond the edge of the jungle, is what looks like the ruins of an ancient city. 

*Keith*

My jetpack fires as we near the ground, cushioning my fall. Lance had jumped down near immediately when he saw what awaited us, as if he hadn’t just narrowly escaped it moments before. I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to get back up. 

Ahead of us are shorter trees than in the thick of the jungle, and beyond that is a wide, roaring river which breaks off into a few smaller segments. The water is between us and the ruins, but the way Lance is now, he might try to cross it.

I’m not sure what he’s so thrilled about, the place certainly doesn’t look inhabited, but maybe there’s some supplies that haven't corroded. The castle of lions survived ten thousand years so it’s not a long shot. “I don’t think we should try to cross the river today,” I tell him.

“Why not?” he asks.

“It’s still a few miles to the ruins once we get over the water, if we go now and explore we won’t make it back to camp before dark.”

“And that’s going to change on a different day?” he asks.

“I just–” I try to find the real reason that this makes me feel uneasy, “I don’t feel prepared for this, we don’t know what we’ll find,” I say.

“That’s why we have to look,” he says. He takes both my hands in his. “We can make it over the water.” I can’t say no to him.

“Okay.” He grins and turns away from me. 

It’s a long way across the wide river, but we walk along it until we reach a slightly thinner point and get over by turning our jetpacks off and on in pulses, hopping across the air incrementally. When we make ground on the other side our pace speeds up until we’re within a few meters of the rubble. Lance comes to a halt in front of me. 

“Should we really do this?” he asks, looking at me with shining eyes.

“No point in turning back now,” I say, laughing slightly, “just keep your guard up, I’ll watch your back.” He smiles and nods resolutely at me. 

We walk forward slowly, weapons raised, and gaze around us at the structures. They’re gray stone engraved with Altean runes, some parts of the writing still glowing cyan while other pieces have gone out. It’s all partially reclaimed by nature, but it seems she’s still having a bit of trouble digesting it. Vines consume the parts of the walls where the glowing runes have gone out, but retreat where they remain aglow. Sand has blown in to a few opened doors, making the natural ground blend with the building’s entrance. 

A large lizard scuttles by on one of the walls and Lance startles when it moves, taking aim. He sighs when it passes, and we continue on. Past the entrance to the complex and the first few buildings, we reach a courtyard enclosed by the ruins. I look up at the sky still above us, Hiraeth’s orbit around its star still going on like any other day, just as it did before we arrived. Beside me Lance gasps and I jolt, raising my sword. I watch him bend down and cradle a small bunch of delicate white flowers. “These are the medicinals I’ve been searching for!” he says cheerily, “I knew they would have lasted, the praise for these babies just goes on and on in Altean texts.” He picks a head of them and puts them in his pack, then carefully places a seed-head in an old food pack wrapper. “What?” he says, standing and looking at me. I realize I’m still on high alert and I lower my bayard slightly. 

“Nothing, let’s keep going.” 

I make for the main door, only slightly creaked ajar, reaching for the handle when its within arm's length. I swing the door open, and out flies the largest flock of those damn headless birds that I have ever seen. 

*Lance*

The creatures swarm us and the shrilling sound they make within their chests rings in my ears. One flies towards me, and it’s only the size of a football, but its fuzzy torso opens into a mouth of sharp teeth. I don’t have enough time to take aim, so I just smack it away with my hand. 

They just keep coming and I can’t see enough to get off a shot. I hold my bayard out in front of me and a feeling deep within me like the one I felt the first time I ever held the mystical weapon in my hand courses through me. The blue bayard glows with the transformation and I slice through the creatures in front of me when they open their death trap mouths. The rest of the creatures divert their flight path, then the way in front of us clears. I look over at Keith to check if he’s alright and our eyes meet, then he looks down at the bayard in my hands. 

In my grip is the hilt of a sword, different than Keith’s but just as sleek and powerful. “An Altean broadsword,” he breathes in awe.

“Is that good?” I ask.

“It’s a great sword,” he tells me.

“I have no idea how to wield a sword,” I admit. He puts a hand on my shoulder.

“I can teach you,” he offers.

“Really?” I notice a small cut on his cheek and bring my hand up to his face, carefully tipping his head to get a better look. My bayard retreats.

Keith is looking at me warmly when I realize our proximity with me leaning over him to check on his wounded cheek. He leans up to bump our foreheads together and my heart swells, it’s the cutest thing ever. “Let’s keep going,” he says as he moves away.

“I’m going to have to clean that,” I say. 

“We can do that back at the camp,” he says dismissively.

“I have the supplies in my bag,” I say, following after him. 

The conversation ends when we make it into the dimly lit building, both of us on guard again and looking around. It looks eerily similar to the interior of the castle of lions, if the castle hadn’t been sealed in with perfectly controlled environmental conditions for the past 10,000 years. The walls are a less pristine white, and past the entrance hall there are some dusty rooms with layouts nearly identical to the accommodations on the castle. Otherwise, the rooms are empty, consisting of doorless empty closets, bathrooms with appliances that are in shambles, and dusty desks attached to the walls. There are a few pillows and blankets that had been stowed away in airtight compartments beneath the beds since whenever disaster struck here, but even then, most of them have just within the last few decades been broken into by the bugs, leaving the fabric ridden with holes and the pillows infested. In the last designated room however, which is slightly different from the uniform layout of the rest, there is a single pristine pillow in the drawer beneath the bed which I quickly shove into my bag. 

Next is a spacious common area lit up by a large window facing the courtyard, with the structures of what looks like it used to be furniture. The right wall is open, leading into what looks like a small kitchen. I race in, looking for signs of the food goo I never thought I would miss, but I find none. Maybe the green goo we’d become accustomed to wasn’t standard on colonies, or perhaps it only became the standard in the centuries between when this and the castle were built. 

Keith opens a cupboard and gasps; I rush over to him. In the only non-empty cupboard is a variety of pots and pans. “Do you think there’s anything around here for us to carry these in?” I ask. 

“We can try to rearrange stuff in our bags while we keep looking,” he suggests.

We move the small amount of supplies Keith carries into my bag beside the pillow, and stack three pots and two pans together to fit in Keith’s bag. Once we’ve turned over every surface in the kitchen only to find a few eating utensils, we move on to the last addition to the complex besides a stubbornly locked door. 

The room is the largest yet, and it resembles a lab. There are sleek rectangular tables that remind me of science class, and various broken tools. Keith taps my shoulder. “What?” I ask. I follow his eyes to the far-right corner of the room to see a small case with a gadget inside, then I notice what caught Keith’s eye: a blinking light. We share a look that I think means ‘let’s do this, but be careful’, then we begin approaching the object. 

*Keith*

Lance and I share a look where I try to tell him ‘what the fuck’ with my eyes, then we begin approaching the green blinking light in the corner of the room. It’s only the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, but it has either been going on like that for the last 11,000 years, or someone has recently started it up. Both possibilities are unnerving. We approach it like it might pounce at us if not kept in check.

“Do you think it’s powered by a Balmerian crystal?” Lance asks, “I mean, those things are like crazy reliable. Unless of course they’re corrupted,” he reconsiders, “but I mean like, time wise they don’t really seem to run out of juice, they’re still powering our suits,” he explains, gun still raised.

“Maybe. It’s not like someone recently changed the batteries,” I say. Lance shutters.

“I don’t even want to think about that,” he says, “That someone else having been here all this time.” 

I reach out to touch the case, trying to figure out how to open it, but it’s definitely not made of glass. Whatever this thing is made of, it’s likely impenetrable and has its own environmental control system on the inside, so I don’t want to risk Lance shooting it and having it bounce back or finding out it’s wired with some sort of security. “I don’t know if we can get it open,” I say.

“What even is it?” He leans in to look at it more closely, which makes me nervous. The object inside the sealed case is a sleek black box standing out against the white surfaces, and plugged into it is something that looks like a small USB. Lance brings a hand up and, before I can stop him, he knocks on the fiberglass like it’s his lifetime neighbor’s door. 

A light comes on above us and there’s the sound of a system powering on. Before it’s even finished Lance and I are back to back, him pointing his gun and me brandishing my sword. “Altean presence detected,” a crackly robotic voice says over the building’s comms just before the system seems to fail and shut down again. We stand there for another moment waiting for something to jump out at us, before it looks like nothing will. 

There’s an unsealing sound, like opening a Ziplock, and the casing around the USB port slides open. “You’re Altean?!” Lance asks me.

“What? No. You’re the one who touched the box, it was responding to you,” I argue.

“Nuh uh, I know both of my parents, and my grandparents!”

“Do you know your great grandparents?” I ask, he sputters. “or whatever great descendant that joined your bloodline 10,000 years ago? Huh?” 

“I mean, that would be like my great times 82 abuela,” he retorts, then seems to think about it, “but my abuela did always say that my great great abuela was a witch,” Lance offers, I let out a huff that means I’m done with his antics. “But you’re still the one with an alien knife.”

“It doesn’t look Altean,” I mutter. 

We move towards the unsealed case cautiously, then Lance ruins that and just pokes it. The box ejects the USB and the light stops flashing. He stares at it and I glare at him. “You need to stop touching things,” I say, and he shrugs.

“It didn’t explode,” he says, I glare harder. 

I pick up the small device to examine it. It looks standard, almost Earth-like if not for the slightly different proportions, but we have no way of knowing what’s on it. “The plugs on our helmets are adaptable,” he says with a frankly shocking lack of precaution. “What?” he asks after the way I’m looking at him. 

“And if it corrupts our systems?” I ask.

“Why would someone just leave a computer virus here to be preserved for thousands of years?” he asks, “What if it has more information about the planet, or some way to access this building’s power source, or a communications system.”

“Anyone these Alteans would have been communicating with would be long dead, and this building’s power seems to have failed, I’m guessing that’s why everything is unsealed and decayed.”

“You don’t know that; and what about more in-depth planet logs?”

“They would be outdated.”

“Keeeith,” he groans.

“Why do you need to see this? We already found some pots and pans, let's go home.”

“Because there was an immortal device encased here for thousands of years that opened just for us, and now we have to see what’s on it. Even if we don’t look now, we’ll have to look at some point, it will eat me alive if we don’t,” he insists. I sigh.

“Fine, let’s go find somewhere we can sit and put our stuff down. Somewhere with less bugs and a working door.”

“You’re a tough man to please~” he muses, I can’t help but grin at him. 

“Shut up.”

We go back to the larger crew accommodation where we found the pillow, and close the door behind us. It’s dark so Lance turns on the lights on his helmet. Once settled against the far wall I take off my helmet and set it in front of us. “Probably best for it not to be on your head if it goes haywire,” Lance says. I slide open the compartment holding the plug. 

“If I think it’s going to blow up I’m going to kick it,” I tell him.

“Probably for the best,” Lance agrees, eyes on the device in my hand. With much hesitation, I plug it in. I watch it astutely while Lance leans back away from it, already wincing. 

When a projection pops up on the screen, I kick it away on instinct and it hits the other wall. “My name is Brenarian,” the video file says from across the room. Lance and I both go towards it, quiet so we don’t miss the man’s words. “In light of recent events and failed retrieval efforts, I am on request of King Grogery here to recite the series of events that have led us to this…” he pauses, searching for words, and Lance picks up the helmet, situating it by the wall to the left of the room door. “situation,” Brenerian finishes. He’s Altean, appearing a bit older than Coran from my limited experience with the species, with brown hair, tan skin, and hazel eyes. “As you well know,” he continues, presumably addressing some old Altean official, possibly the king. “Amira is dead.” 

He pauses to collect himself and we look at one another trying to decipher who this Amira is. “When she died, her protection spell around Hiraeth only grew stronger when her quintessence was released into the atmosphere, and it has become volatile.”

“She’s the alchemist,” Lance realizes aloud.

“Her cause of death was ruled infection,” Brenerian says, “It was asymptomatic, but we know it was long standing because it was found in her bones. At first we didn’t know the cause,” I tense, waiting for this long dead scientist to tell me that the air is poison or there’s an insect whose bite will slowly melt your organs. “Now I can report that the infection was present before our team arrived in the Ishtar system.”

Lance and I both huff a sigh in relief. Brenerian goes on about the root of the infection but neither of us are listening. Soon the log comes to an end. There are numerous logs on file. At first, they seem to be more communications to King Grogery and whatever team is planning their crew’s rescue, talking about magical jargon and speaking with formalities. But then the situation starts to deteriorate. 

“My name is Brenerian,” the man says again at the beginning of another log, “I am the head scientist of the crew on Hiraeth. I am continuing to document the situation here in our colony without request.” Lance and I look at one another, we both know how this ends and I think this scientist is beginning to realize it too. He begins to update the log about the survival of his crew, “We’ve run out of rations,” he says, “so we’re going to need to start hunting.” 

There were six Alteans in the small crew, including Amira and Brenerian. Two of the remaining four show up on screen in log six, and there’s a girl with pink markings a bit darker than Allura’s who looks young. They’re going out to the river, spirits still high, to catch some fish that Brenerian provides a picture of on the screen. 

After a day’s work, they catch one. It’s big, with iridescent scales, but not enough for all five of them, so Brenerian doesn’t have any. For a few more days they go fishing, until the youngest of them, the girl with the pink markings, begins to feel sick. Brenerian finds the fish to be the culprit almost immediately as the rest of the team falls ill, and I make a mental note not to eat those from the river. 

While most of the team is bedridden, the tallest and largest of the bunch is still on his feet, and so is Brenerian. The pair plan to go out with makeshift spears to hunt a type of bird they claim to be plentiful, but Lance and I have never seen them before so perhaps they were taken by evolution. In a week they catch three. “They’ll die of starvation,” Lance says quietly, but still louder than the noise of the video log on max volume. 

“Or of the poisoning,” I say.

“Brenerian seems fine,” he says.

“No point in speculating I guess,” I say, turning my attention back to the log.

When the camera blinks on again, Brenerian is silent with his head in his hands. When he looks up we can tell something has happened, and the date at the bottom of the screen shows that it has been at least a movement since the last ‘daily log’. “I didn’t even want to document this,” Brenerian says, “But…” he struggles to compose himself and we brace for the news. “Lina has died of liver failure due to poisoning from the coruscent fish.” He heaves a breath, clearly overcome with grief and struggling not to cry. A door creaks open behind him. 

“Brener,” the tall man says from the doorway, Brenerian looks up. “We’re going out to collect water.”

“Alright, be back by nightfall,” he says, the man nods and shuts the door. Brenerian ends the log. 

The next log switches on and he’s looking at us intensely. “They’ve found us,” he says. Lance tilts his head,

“I thought no one–” Lance starts.

“The king of the jungle, Indomitus.” The picture that comes up on the screen is something that looks like a larger, more ferocious ancestor of sabers, measured closer to the size of a jaguar. Its eyes are closer together horizontally and shaded by a permanently slanted brow, making it look like it’s glaring. And perhaps even more jarring than its size are the bones that protrude from its spine like a single wing, webbed in between with tiny claw-like spikes at the end. When the extra appendage unfurls in the image on the screen, it makes the beast look twice as large. Perhaps this saber of the past had some sort of competition that inevitably lost, foregoing the need for its threatening appearance and massive size. “The rest of my team is dead,” Brenerian announces, stopping my logical thoughts, “two were attacked on a water run,” he says. I know we’re both wondering if it is the same water run that we had just watched them leave for. “And one in this complex’s courtyard. So, I have locked myself in the lab with the scarce remaining supplies to complete the reports on the Hiraeth colony for retrieval by King Grogery the Infirm’s sacred high court.” A few documents flash on the screen that we will go back and read later, and the log ends. 

When the next video starts, I notice there isn’t another one queued up, announcing that this is the last. “The field isn’t weakening,” Brenerian says, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. “The quintessence fields in the Ishtar system, and the entire Patrulian Lledrith quadrant, are more powerful than those in and Rebulon zone, and are unfit for Altean inhabitants,” Brenerian announces. He removes his hand from his face and locks eyes with the camera. 

“My team was of scientists, not warriors, and this was never meant to be an independent colony,” he says stoutly, “That being said, Alteans never should have tried to colonize worlds simply because they don’t have their own intelligent life, mother nature knew what she was doing when she made no such life here and we should never have questioned her. Hiraeth is not fit for any form of colony, even if the field eventually comes down, do not attempt reconnaissance. Stay out of the Lledrith zone. The magic here is too potent, it’s unnatural, that is why Altea formed an entire supercluster away from this quiznacking–” he stops when he hears a noise in the lab. We follow his eyes to see a saber, an Indomitus . It creeps towards the scientist and he steels his face as though he’s ready to fight, but we’ve seen enough to know he’s not a fighter. He’s preparing himself to die. 

I reach to shut off the log because we know it’s the last one and we don’t need to see how this ends, but Brenerian ends it for us on the other side of the screen, and the helmet goes dark. We sit there, just staring at it for a while. 

*Lance*

By the time we’ve finished the logs, it’s nearly nightfall. We’re going to have to sleep here, though it’s going to be difficult knowing what happened in this very place even so long ago and knowing that this was likely Brenerian’s room. 

I volunteer for the first watch. “Are you sure?” Keith asks, “I can take the first watch so you can get some sleep.”

“I’m sure,” I tell him, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep for a while.” He nods understandingly. 

I pull the pillow out and set it on my lap, patting it for him to lie down. He does, and he stares up at me. He’s beautiful, even though his hair is absurdly greasy, all big violet eyes and long lashes. I dig through my bag to find the first aid kit and begin disinfecting the small cut on his cheek. 

“You okay?” he asks as I stick a rubbery herbal bandage over the small cut, we’re almost out so I’m praying that the seeds I found for the medicinal herb will take to the soil back at camp. 

“Ya,” I say, too quickly. He waits for me to try again. “Just a little shaken,” I say, he nods his head in my lap.

“Me too,” he admits.

“I mean, before, I knew it was hopeless, I knew the crew had died and that the barrier had been up for almost 11,000 years, but seeing it…”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, “it’s different when you know their names.” 

“Yeah, it is.” 

“Well, at least we know not to go fishing,” he says humorously. 

“And that this is some freaky magic zone,” I say.

“I’m not sure his opinion isn’t biased,” Keith says.

“What do you mean?”

“This planet killed his team, he’s not going to be singing its praises,” he explains.

“All of the settlements in the Lledrith zone were abandoned after this,” I remind him.

“On his word,” Keith says, “and this Amira person was clearly a big deal, maybe that had something to do with it. You never know with a monarchy.” 

I laugh. “You are a conspiracy theorist at heart, aren’t you?”

“It’s in my blood,” he says, “And I don’t mean my mother’s,” he adds quickly.

“Okay, good to know,” I say. “Now get some sleep.”

“You’ll wake me up at midnight, yeah?” 

“At midnight,” I agree, “or if I get bored of watching you sleep before that.”

“We both know you won’t~” he says flirtatiously, and I snicker, proud of my influence. 

“Should we leave first thing in the morning?” I ask, running my fingers through his hair, he closes his eyes. 

“We should look for the building’s power source,” he says, “then we’ll head back.” 

“Okay,” I agree, “we can try to take apart that USB port in the lab too.”

I continue running my fingers along his scalp as his breathing evens out with sleep, then I take up my bayard and watch the window of the latched door, telling myself I’m ready for anything.

Chapter Text

*Keith*

At the break of dawn, scheduled for approximately ten hours after nightfall, I wake Lance. He groans when I gently shake his shoulder, still not a morning person after all these weeks, months really if you count our time with Voltron. “Come on, time to get up, we’re going to go try to find the generator.” 

He peeks one eye open. “The wha?” he asks.

“The generator, the power source of this complex. Then we’ll go home.” He groans again and still doesn’t lift his head from my lap. 

“Did you fend off any monsters in the night?” he asks, still groggy. 

“No,” I assure him. He starts to doze off again and I flick him in the forehead. His head shoots up out of my lap and his hand goes to cradle the spot where I flicked him.

“What’d you do that for?” he asks, offended. 

“Rise and shine,” I say, grabbing my bag and my helmet. 

He’s frowning at me but there’s no real venom to it, then he grabs his things, stuffing the pillow back into his bag, and gets up after me. 

We leave the room with weapons raised, and find a few headless birds poking around the commons, but not enough to swarm us like yesterday. “You could summon your sword again and try to get one,” I suggest to Lance. 

“I’m not eating those,” he says, “they creep me out.” I shrug and we keep going. The only room we didn’t explore yesterday is the locked door across from the lab, and from the outside it’s certainly a spacious one. With an efficient shot to the lock, the door swings open with the sound of a vacuum seal breaking. We step inside and switch on our helmet lights to see another room, significantly larger than the others, and reminiscent of Allura’s room on the castle ship. On the large bed in the center of the room, there is a Snow White-style coffin holding a half-decomposed body. 

“Holy shit,” Lance says from behind me, “Amira.” I look between him and the body. 

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Who else would it be?” He’s already walking towards it, and I follow him. 

The body is shriveled and discolored but still skeletal. “Even the quintessence rich atmosphere could preserve her,” Lance says, “maybe it was the infection.” 

“Hold on,” I say, “Are you saying that if one of us died here, our bodies wouldn’t decay for thousands of years?”

“I mean we’re not alchemists, nor are we sealed away in a glass coffin, but if we were then I would assume so,” he speculates, “Clearly,” he adds, gesturing to the corpse. 

I sigh, “still no power source.” 

“Unless she’s the power source,” Lance adds ominously, I frown at him. “Or it could be in the ceiling, or the walls,” he suggests. 

I take another look around the room and notice a door in the wall by the bed. I place my palm on the wall next to it and a hand pad appears. I jump back. 

“Well go on,” Lance prompts.

“What?” I ask.

“Put your hand on it, it probably responds to Alteans like in the lab.”

“I told you, I’m not Altean,” I say, though I’m really not sure. He gestures for me to try anyhow, so I place my hand on the pad. Nothing happens.

“Maybe you need to remove your glove,” Lance suggests. 

“Why don’t you try?” I prompt him now that I know the thing isn’t going to eat my hand or anything. He frowns but moves forward. 

His hand approaches the pad, but then he freezes and pulls back. “What if it opens?” he asks.

“Then we’ll know why the prophecies foretold us,” I say, he swallows nervously but puts his hand on the pad. It lights up and the door opens into a faintly lit room.

“Keith,” he says quietly, “Why did the prophecies foretell us?” I’m staring at the open door in shock.

“Because the Blue lion was waiting for an Altean, the descendant of the emissary that went with her and her old paladin to Earth, the one who foretold the prophecies in the first place and drew the petroglyphs in the cave,” I say, “I thought the alien the prophecies spoke of was Allura.”

“You think the Blue lion chose me because of my blood?” Lance asks, looking at me with sad discouraged eyes.

“I think that after hundreds of generations since Blue’s arrival on Earth, the blue lion chose you , chose us , regardless of our DNA. But I think you were born to be amongst the stars, Lance.” His eyes are shining now, both with tears and awe.

“Does this mean I got us stuck here?” he asks.

“No,” I say quickly, “That witch threw us off our path.” Lance nods resolutely, then takes his hand off the pad. The door remains open, and we shine our lights in. 

Beyond the threshold is a Balmerian crystal, nowhere near as large as the one on the castle and glowing only faintly. A few of the spires are cracked.

“How do you think we get this back to camp?” Lance asks. The crystal is attached to a platform, not to mention it probably weighs a literal ton. 

“We could break off pieces,” I suggest, looking over at him. His eyes widen when they meet mine.

“K-Keith,” he says, startled. 

“What?!” I look around us to find what’s shaken him, but his hand reaches for my face. 

He tilts my head to look at me more closely. “You’re eyes,” he breaths.

“What? What’s wrong with my eyes?” 

“They’re yellow,” he says.

“Jaundice?” I ask, frightened.

“I don’t think so,” Lance says, letting his bayard retreat to the plate on his thigh so he has both hands free. He takes off my helmet and cradles my face in his palm. “Your pupils have turned to slits, like a cat’s,” he says.

“Like a Galran,” I correct, devastated, he doesn’t seem fazed. 

“I guess.” 

“I’ve been in the light of a crystal before though, no one said anything.”

“I wonder if the quintessence in the atmosphere is getting to you,” he says. His palm drops from my face and I mourn the loss of contact. “So, we’re both aliens,” he announces, “Makes you wonder about the others, doesn’t it? Like, if we were all chosen for the same reason. Maybe this is how you could sense the energy in the dessert.”

“We’re both aliens,” I repeat miserably, “on opposing sides of a war.” Lance laughs, loud and genuine.

“Keith you dolt,” he says, “This doesn’t change anything. You’re still Keith and I’m still Lance. We’re partners.” I watch him for any sign of doubt or dishonesty, but I find none. “Your blood doesn’t define you,” he claims, “Besides, just because there’s an evil Galran dictator doesn’t mean all Galrans are bad.” He looks away from me, back at the crystal. He’s acting like this isn’t that big of a deal, and I suppose it isn’t. We’ve already flown through wormholes in giant cat mechs, fought robeasts, and been stranded on an alien planet with no hope of rescue, this is just our average Thursday in comparison. Not that we have any concept of what day it is, but I decide it feels like a Thursday. Fuck Thursdays. 

“So, what do you say? Do we break it?” I ask.

“I think we’ll have to,” he says, “but I don’t know if we can even carry that, there’s no room in our bags.”

“So, we come back for it?” 

“That’s my vote,” he says, looking at me expectantly.

“Then I agree, let’s go home.” He smiles at me, and I wish there wasn’t such a sadness permanently etched into his fondness, but perhaps it will fade.

“We’ll grab that USB port on our way out.”

Once we have the port tucked into the pillowcase in Lance’s bag, we exit the complex the way we came. It’s been a long couple of days, even for here on Hiraeth, and I know we’ll still need to hunt again soon. 

We make it over the rushing river and through the trees to the bottom of the cliff. “We’ll have to take it in intervals,” I say, “stay close to the cliff.” He nods and we start on our way up. The added weight to our bags isn’t doing us any favors and I’m glad we didn’t take the crystal. Lance goes to grab the cliff beside me and the rock he steps on falls. He grabs a vine to catch himself and looks back to watch the rock tumble off the cliff side and hit the ground. It’s a long way down.

When we reach the top it’s about three hours back to the lions, and with day-old gashes on the trees it’s perfect for hunting. Though, I seriously doubt my ability to haul a saber back to camp in my current state. We clear the first four miles without running into anything but birds, however, on mile five there’s a saber just off the path, because of course it couldn’t wait until we were closer to camp. We both crouch down and Lance looks at me for confirmation. I nod, and he takes the shot. I give Lance the bag of pots and pans and heave the saber over my shoulders, then we continue on. 

When Lance sees the red lion through the trees he slumps with relief. She’s still entirely unresponsive with no sign whatsoever of waking, not even a hint of static in the back of my mind, and the vines have started to grow over her. But her and Blue mean home now. We pass Red to make it back to Blue and as soon as I drop the saber from my shoulders, Lance is on me. He leans forward, putting his weight on me, and my legs are so weak from exhaustion that we fall. He doesn’t seem to mind. We sit there leaning on one another, exhaustion pulling at our eyelids, until I decide it’s time to get up before the last of my resolve leaves me. “Come on,” I say, “we have to prep the meat for storage, then we can have some fresh for an early dinner.”

“We can use one of our new pots and make stew,” he suggests excitedly. 

We both remove the top half of our armor plating, and I start preparing the saber while Lance washes the dust and grime from the well-preserved cookware. The pots, pans, and cutlery are made from the same white material as everything else in Altean design. Lance starts up a fire while I continue with cutting the meat for the stew and various preserving methods that Lance wants to try with the use of herbs and salt. 

Over the fire, Lance roasts some of the saber bones until brown. Then, in our largest pot, he dumps four of our six remaining pouches of clean water and adds the bones. He covers it and puts it over the fire to boil. Once the water is bubbling, he occasionally skims the foam at the top. “How long is this going to take?” I ask after nearly two hours when I’m getting close to finishing with the rest of the meat. 

“Maybe another two hours,” he says.

“Two hours?!” 

“Patience yields focus, Keith,” he says indignantly, and I scoff, resolutely ignoring the pang of grief in my chest. He lets his concoction be after that and simply tends to the fire.

I wash my hands with some of his liquid soap solution and go to sit next to him by the near unbearable heat of the flames. He starts humming that song again, the same one from the first time I heard him humming something stuck in his head. “When are you going to sing for me?” I ask, bringing him out of his thoughts. 

“Whenever you get me in the mood~” he coos, I blush.

Before the broth is finished, Lance peels and chops up the roots and leaves of the garlic herbs, then cooks them down with a chunk of fat. When the stock is ready, he removes the bones, pours in the remaining water pouches, then the roots and herbs, and adds the meat. If we had plentiful water, he says we would boil the bones twice and reduce it longer, but that this will do. He re-covers the pot, leaving it to braise. 

By then it’s nightfall, and the crackling fire becomes a welcome light and warmth. Lance leans on me again. “I was an island,” Lance sings softly, his voice sweet and smooth, “before you came along,” The nervousness makes his voice waver, but he takes a breath and starts again. “Put your boat in my sand, your hand in my hand, your heart in my songs.” 

He keeps singing, humming through the words he doesn’t remember and getting more confident as he goes along. By the end of the song the sky is dark, and the soup is nearly ready. He looks at me for approval and I kiss him.

Lance finishes the soup off with some sprouts and a bit of salt, then we have a stew. Once removed from the fire we use our newfound cutlery to eat it. I let Lance have the first bite and he blows on a steaming spoonful before slurping at the broth for a taste test. His eyes light up. “It’s good,” he tells me, then it’s my turn to try.

“It’s delicious,” I praise. 

We scarf it down as quickly as we can manage with the small spoons, before removing our gloves and picking up the meat and greens with our hands. I don’t notice I’m crying until Lance stops to wipe my tears away. “It’s just… It’s been so long since we’ve had good food,” I tell him. He nods, understanding.

“It makes me think of Hunk,” he says, and I smile fondly. “I’m glad you made me give this life a chance,” he tells me. I kiss him again.

Once we’ve finished the stew and we’re sitting around the warm fire with full bellies, Lance is on cloud nine. He gets up to dance around the fire and I watch fondly as he starts to sing again. “Cause I’m no good on my own anymore,” he shouts passionately, “What did I do to deserve this? What did you do to me? Baby, come back you know I don’t wanna be free!”

*Lance*

“Come on Blue,” I plead, balanced in the sideways pilot chair in Blue’s dark cockpit. I scrunch my eyes shut tighter. Focus , I tell myself. I try again to reach out with my consciousness, desperately pleading for a response. Nothing.

I maneuver myself out of the chair, then climb out of the cockpit. Outside, the light of dawn is just starting to paint the skies pink. Keith will be awake soon. I walk around the lion to her underbelly, passing the large garden and the chunks of crystals we left at the lions’ feet like offerings to dead gods. The remaining light in them faded quickly after we removed them from the ruins. When I enter our bedroom in the hull, Keith is already sitting awake and waiting for me. 

After six months of this he must think I’m ridiculous to still be trying to wake her, so I hang my head, ashamed. “Lance,” he says in his husky morning voice, “you don’t have to keep things from me.” 

“I know,” I say, and I do. “I just feel stupid, to still be trying.”

“You’re not stupid,” he says, “how many times do I have to tell you that?” 

“At least a few more,” I mumble, sitting down next to him. He wraps his arm around me and kisses my forehead. 

“You’re not stupid,” he says again. “You just have a strong will, and a good heart.” He rubs his hand up and down my arm. My shirt, made of scruffy saber skin, scrubs up and down my bicep; it used to feel uncomfortable, but I’ve told myself it’s exfoliating and have learned to not mind the material. 

“Is Ishtar up yet?” he asks.

“Not yet, it’s just starting to get light.” He pulls me back down under our blankets.

“Then let’s sleep some more.”

After another hour, we get up with the true dawn. I change into a fresh pair of clothes, throwing the dirty ones in the woven hamper, and look around at our home as Keith is brushing out his hair. There’s a slab of wood in the corner which we use as a table and on it our shell collection is presented in a line. 

There’s a big red clam-shaped shell that I found for Keith next to my blue one, then a spiked yellow one shaped like an exotic conch. Keith found a smaller clam shaped one that’s bright green, and a bright purple one that looks like it belonged to a massive snail. I also picked up two orange crab claws and an elegant two-toned shell that looks like a unicorn horn of pastel pink fading to white. They’re some of my most prized possessions.

“You okay?” Keith asks me, I nod. But I can already tell it’s going to be one of those days. The ones where my limbs feel heavy and my mind feels numb.

We sit outside for breakfast, today it’s boiled grains. They were our second greatest discovery from Dr. Brenerian’s files on Hiraeth, they grow in fields all the way on the other side of the ruins. The first greatest discovery being that the Alteans weren’t getting their water from the river, they were harvesting it from within the trees. There are pools of water that the tree roots drink up from deep underground and store in their trunks like cacti. That has made our life just about a million times easier, even before we made it to Hiraeth’s rain season. 

“Take me to the water Cariño,” I say.

“The water?”

“I want to spend the day at the beach. We can sleep there.”

“And by that you mean we can take watch shifts,” he says plainly.

“Well, that’s why I’m asking and not just telling you.” 

Keith laughs, “That didn’t sound like a question.” I raise an eyebrow at him expectantly. “Okay, we’ll go to the beach.” Keith sits down next to me with his bowl of cereal and saber jerky, and I lean into him.

When we’re done eating we pour water over the fire and pack our bags. We haven’t spent the night anywhere but here and the old Altean complex, and we don’t really have anything resembling a tent. We close all the entrances to Blue’s hull, sturdy enough to keep even a saber out unless it’s really hell bent on getting in. Some mornings I hear them walking along our roof or in the cockpit, but most of them don’t put up a fight against us and rather try to steer clear of the camp. 

The daylight today will last almost twelve hours, two more than when we first arrived. We landed on Hiraeth during a transition between its seasons, when the days weren’t too long or too short and the weather wasn’t too hot and wet nor too cool and dry. We’re in the hot season now, which has brought everything into bloom. It’s also mating season for many animals, making them more aggressive, but also allowing us to forage eggs from the bird nests which are a great source of protein.

We set off through the trees to the northeast and take the journey four miles at a time, stopping for our longest break at lunch. For lunch are the bright yellow roots of the zanahoria plant and salt preserved shrew. Back on our way I hear some noises amongst the trees and I start humming. The noise lets the animals know we’re coming and helps avoid confrontation. Today the song that’s been in my head is I Want You by Marian Hill, and I’m sure Keith recognizes it by now, I’ve sung it for him before and he practically melted in my hands. 

When we make it to the beach I take a deep breath of the salty air, then run for the water, dropping my things on the way until I’m in only my boxers. Keith watches me and tidies our things before going to settle in a place on the sand. “Come in with me!” I call. He looks confused like he didn’t hear me so I yell louder, “Come in the water!” 

“Do I have to?” he calls back, I laugh.

Keith comes to the edge of the water, shivering when it washes over his toes, and I pull him in by the wrist. I squeeze his hand in mine and look out over the horizon, taking it all in. It’s beautiful, and it reminds me of home. I don’t have to look back at all the alien trees and the tatters of our clothes, I can let the water take me. I feel the sea spray on my skin and taste the salt on my tongue. Hiraeth’s ocean is still too salty to drink, but the salinity is slightly lower than the Atlantic, though not enough to taste the difference. 

The waves are getting larger at this time of day, and I weave over and under them with practiced ease. Keith, on the other hand, nearly drowns five times in five minutes. Another wave comes to break right over him and I grab him by the shoulders. “Hold your breath,” I instruct, and he quickly does, then I shove him under the water to the sand below. 

When he comes back up, gasping for air, he frowns at me. “Why would you do that?” he asks, offended. I jump up in front of him, letting a smaller wave break over my lower back and carry me forward rather than crashing over me. It shields him a little bit but the water still splashes up and he has to wipe his eyes. 

“You don’t have to just crash through every wave,” I tell him, “you have to go under the bigger ones so that they don’t knock you down.”

“You’re telling me you did that out of mercy?” he asks, still not buying it. Behind me I hear another wave coming and dive under. When I come back up Keith has been carried with it nearly all the way back to shore. 

“Keith,” I call, unable to contain my laughter. He looks defeated when he stands and it only makes me laugh harder. I make my way towards him into the shallower waves. 

Keith has remained stubbornly pale throughout our time in the jungle, though I think that might change today. So, his chest is white, his boxers are red, and his black hair is slicked to the top of his head with his wet bangs hanging limply in front of his eyes. He is the vision of a teenage beach day, and it makes my chest feel light. 

“Are you alright?” I ask him, though I know he’s just fine, and I wrap my arms around his toned waist.

“I can’t swim,” he confesses, defeatedly. 

“What?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m embarrassed,” he says. He looks like a wet dog, completely out of his element, and it’s hard to take him seriously. 

“Oh, baby,” I say pitifully, laughing through the words. I pick up his bangs and slap them onto the top of his head to get them out of his eyes, it’s a bit better. “I can teach you,” I offer. 

“I may be a lost cause,” he warns me.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” 

By the end of the day it’s clear that Keith Kogane is a lost cause when it comes to swimming at the beach. To be fair, there may be hope for him yet to backfloat in a wave-less swimming pool, but for now he will stick to the shallows in the ocean. We’re standing on the shore, our bodies feeling heavy now that the water is no longer helping with the weight, and we let the daylight warm up as we kiss. 

We spar on the sand as our skin and our hair drys, Keith with his now mastered Galran blade and me with my Altean broadsword. 

It will be nightfall soon enough and we will have to make a fire before then, so we take a short break to change into dry clothes and rehydrate before going out to collect wood. Keith digs his dagger into the bark of one of the trees at the edge of the beach, all the way to its core, then lets the water spill out into a pot. He plugs it back up with the slice of bark he cut out of it, letting the tree’s sticky sap do the rest of the healing work. He brings it over to share with me and we sit together listening to the waves in the warmth of our star. 

*Keith*

We collect enough wood for a fire and a lean-to shelter for the night. Once we’re sitting around the flames under the aurora, listening to the ocean in the dark, I can appreciate the water a bit better. The sky is more open than at our camp or at the ruins, revealing a sky full of now-farmiliar stars in a way I haven’t really seen since I left my desert shack. “Did you have a good beach day?” I ask Lance, looking down at where he’s laying in the sand next to me.

“Yes,” he says softly, “Thank you for taking me here.”

“You know I’d do anything for you,” I tell him, and I’m sure he does but I can see the faint blush on his cheeks anyhow. I can only catch it in the dark because of my cat like vision that seems to have been spurred to life by increased quintessence exposure on Hiraeth. 

“I needed the distraction,” he tells me, “I miss them a lot today.” I hum in response. 

“I know, it’s still hard to think about.”

“And hard not to think about,” he adds, I nod. “What do you think is happening to the universe without Voltron?”

“The same thing that’s been happening for the last 10,000 years I suppose.” There’s a part of me that’s glad that we got away, a part overshadowed by guilt. I nearly drown in it when I see the look in Lance’s eyes when he’s talking about his family and praying Zarkon doesn’t reach them, or when I think about all the planets the coalition promised protection, even the planets we never got to promise anything at all. 

“I feel so helpless,” Lance says, a tear slipping from his eye, “I never really thought we’d survive here, even after I agreed to give it a chance. Now that I know we’ll live, it’s like grieving all over again.” 

“I’m sorry,” I say, he laughs through his tears.

“That I’m alive?” he questions, the smartass.

“No,” I say, “that you’re in pain. That I can't make it better.” 

“You do make it better Keith,” he says warmly, his eyes shining. “I’m glad I got stuck here with you.” I stare openly at him. We’ve never said that to one another before, no matter how much we meant it. There was too much pain rooted in it, too many unknowns and misinterpretations. 

“I’m glad I got stuck here with you too,” I tell him, and it’s simple. There’s no one else I’d rather be with. 

“Do you want to be my husband?” he asks, just when I think that he can’t surprise me any further. “I mean, it seems silly not to be married when we’ve already promised each other the rest of our lives,” he continues, as if he has to explain himself. “I–”

“Lance,” I say, stopping him, “I love you,” I tell him for the millionth time, but it’s the first time with words.

“I love you,” he says, crying.

“And I would love to be your husband.”

“Okay,” he says, chin quivering. I lay down beside him on the sand. “And I’d love to be yours,” he says, and I kiss him, trying to put all the words that I can’t bring myself to say into the kiss. 

Chapter Text

*Hunk*

“What does that mean?!” Lance asks.

“It means we have no control over where we’re headed!” Coran supplies. 

The next thing I know Yellow is being pulled out of the docking bay and thrown into the maelstrom. We go flying and the cockpit rattles and shakes around me. “What just happened?!” I cry, but before I can get a response I’m pulled out of the storm and deposited into dark icy waters. 

My stomach clenches and I vomit. 

“Hello?” I call, “this is Hunk of the yellow lion!” 

There’s no response and we continue to fall through the water until yellow thuds into the bottom of the depths. Yellow’s main system is down and she’s running on reserve power, meaning the alarm blares in my ears and the red lights flash, being the only thing lighting up the dark of the deep water. “Okay Hunk,” I say to myself, “we just have to wait it out, someone will come find you.” 

After nearly an hour of sitting and losing my mind to anxiety in the dark while I fail to make contact with anyone on the team, I see movement in the water. I squint out at it and can make out a creature swimming towards me. 

The creature swims closer until I can make multiple of what look like alien mermaids. My hands shake and my heart races as they swarm the waters outside of my lion and I try to ignore their presence and look away. It’s no use as they surround Yellow, and I can’t help but look out at them. One swims ahead of the others, crowded by the merfolk as she hovers right in front of Yellow’s eyes, looking in at me. Alone and with no other options I decide to be brave. I cave, and cautiously venture out into the water.

“Um, hello?” I greet nervously.

“Greetings,” one of them says, “I am Florona, and this is the almighty queen Luxia, keeper of our land,” she says, gesturing to the mermaid ahead of the others. 

“Uh… Hi, I’m Hunk.”

“We would like to take you back to our village, where everyone is safe and warm,’ Florona says. 

“Well, that’s very nice of you but I really have to get back to my friends.”

“I can help you,” their queen says, “Let us treat you to a meal, then come morning we will help you to find your friends.”

“Oh, well, I suppose,” I say, reconsidering as my stomach growls. “Do you guys use magic?” I ask, “You use magic don’t you.” 

They take me back to their village, consisting of a beautiful castle and a magical garden, then sit me down for a meal. I ask again about how they can help but queen Luxia insists we wait until after the meal and entertainment, then the rest goes blank. 

The next thing I know I wake up coming out of a pod in the castle of lions' medical bay. “Welcome back,” Shiro says, sitting in front of the pod next to mine in the same standard medical suit that I’m in and a blanket draped around his shoulders. Pidge comes up beside me and hands me a blanket as well. I look up to see Allura and Coran as I’m pulling the blanket around me. “What happened?” I ask. 

Everyone is silent, refusing to answer my question until Allura steps forward from beside Coran. 

“After the wormhole was corrupted,” the princess says, “you were all flung out across the universe while Coran and I were stuck in a time loop. It wasn’t until Pidge managed to send out a signal that we managed to escape the wormhole and track your lions’ signatures.” 

“Right, Okay,” I say, “and why am I in a pod?”

“You were captured and mind controlled by mermaids, we had to go down there and get you out,” Pidge says. 

“But they seemed so nice,” I say, disappointed in myself for being captured. It’s unnervingly silent and when I look around myself at the others I find that they are all looking down and away from me. “Where are Keith and Lance?” I ask, trying to change the subject, but that only seems to make it worse.

“We are not sure,” Allura says.

“Wait, you’re telling me we haven’t found them?”

“Not yet,” Allura continues, “But I’m continuing to try to track their lions’ quintessence signatures.”

“How long has it been?” I ask.

“48 hours,” Shiro says.

“Every paladin has emergency supplies in their lion’s hull,” Coran says, “There is enough food, water, and medical supplies to last over a week if it’s rationed correctly.”

“Unless they’ve been taken by the Galra,” Pidge says, “most of the known universe has been conquered by Zarkon, what if the reason we can’t track them is because they’ve already been captured?” 

“Well,” I interject, “you said 90% of space is empty right, so that puts the odds in our favor.”

“Not exactly,” Allura says, “places with higher levels of quintessence hold more weight in a spell like this, that is why all of you landed on planets with life.” I look around at Pidge and Shiro.

“Yelmors,” Shiro says.

“I landed in a space dump with a bunch of cute little fluff balls living there,” Pidge explains.

“And I landed with murderous mermaids,” I say, more to myself than anyone else. “Alright,” I say, taking a steadying breath, “so where do we look first?”

***

“We have to keep fighting,” Allura says.

“We need Keith and Lance to do that,” I argue. 

“Look, I hate to say it but, the princess is right,” Shiro says.

“Shiro,” I say in disbelief.

“It’s been three weeks since they went missing–”

“Yes, and they’re out of rations, now is the time to look the hardest.” I turn to Pidge for them to back me up. “Pidge.” They look away from me.

“We have to consider that they’re not coming back,” Pidge says. I don’t believe this.

“So when it’s your family there’s nothing that can stop you, but when it’s Keith and Lance—"

“That’s not the same and you know it!” they yell.

“Fighting won’t help anything,” Shiro interjects, and I frown at him. “No one wants to find them more than me,” he says, and the fury in his eyes makes me deflate. “But we can’t search the universe inch by inch, and we’re not getting any pings on their locations from tracking their lions,” beside him Allura looks ashamed. “I think the best way to move forward is to try and track their whereabouts via intel from Galra cruisers.”

“You think they’ve been captured by the Galra?” Coran asks.

“I don’t know what to think,” Shiro admits, “but we can’t just sit around doing nothing, waiting for them to show up, when there are people counting on us, counting on Voltron.”

“We don’t have Voltron,” Pidge says.

“What are you saying Pidge?” Allura asks.

“I’m just saying that things have changed, so maybe this would be a good time for me to go search for my dad and my brother. Lance and Keith have you guys searching for them, my family just has me, so don’t tell me that I’m being selfish.” I hang my head, helpless and afraid, but not ready to give up. 

“We have to stay together,” I say, Pidge opens their mouth to protest. “Can you search for them from the castle?” I ask. Pidge closes their mouth then opens it again.

“I can,” they say.

“Good,” I say, then look to Shiro, “now where do we strike first?” 

***

Three months after the wormhole incident, the red and blue lions have gone dark. No sign of them from any Galra base intel or boasting of Galra commanders, and still no ping on the lions’ locations. 

“Maybe they really are in voids, and the rest of us just got lucky,” Pidge says, scanning over more data. They didn’t stay away from the search for long, I think they just didn’t really believe that they still wouldn’t be found by now. 

“We have to believe that they’re still out there,” I say. Pidge looks at me sadly.

“Even as we continue searching for the lions, maybe it’s time to grieve,” Shiro says, walking up behind us. He looks like he has for the past three months, tired and grievous.

“Shiro, we can’t—" I start,

“We are allowed to grieve,” he says with finality, “it’s what we’ll have to do in order to keep fighting.”

“We’ve been fighting to hold them off while we search for the lions,” Pidge says, “without Voltron we don’t stand a chance of defeating them. It’s only a matter of time before they send a Robeast that our three lions can’t fight. Then what?”

“We fight anyways,” he says.

“And we die?” I ask.

“And we strategize,” Shiro says.

“We’ve been strategizing,” Pidge says.

“Then we pick our battles,” Shiro says. There’s a silence when we all think about what that means. One day soon, we’ll have to leave a planet behind that needs us and live to fight another day. 

“I know I’ve let you down,” Shiro says.

“No—" I try to say.

“Yes,” he interjects, “I have. But we have to keep fighting to keep the Galra away from our home world and others that they haven’t destroyed. We’ll find a way to beat them alongside the Olkari and the Blade of Marmora.”

“I thought Allura rejected the blade,” Pidge questions.

“I’ll convince her to reconsider,” he says. “We have allies who can help us, who have been fighting for centuries without Voltron. This fight isn’t over, and we still play a vital role in it. So, I hope you will still accept me as your leader.”

“Of course,” I say, “Shiro, what happened to Lance and Keith wasn’t your fault.” Shiro hangs his head, clearly disagreeing.

“We’re with you,” Pidge says, and with the weight of the universe on his shoulders, Shiro nods. 

***

Six months after Keith and Lance went missing, the team has finally accepted that, wherever they are, they’re dead. Even so, I never expected this. “You want us to look for new paladins for the lions that we haven’t even found?” I ask in disbelief.

“We must be prepared to waste as little time as possible when the lions return,” Allura says.

“ If the lions return,” Shiro says, for once disagreeing with her.

“Shiro, how can you say that? I thought you would be on my side about this,” Allura pleads.

“Princess, we need to focus on what we have now, it would be a waste of time to—" Shiro argues.

“We have to hope for the best,” Allura interjects.

“And the ‘best’ is that our friends are dead?” I ask, and I know it’s unfair of me. Allura has dealt with guilt and grief too, but she has a way of speaking so pragmatically about emotional matters or ‘making sacrifices for the greater good’ that just really rubs people the wrong way sometimes. 

“That is not what I meant, and you know it,” she says, looking hurt. 

“I see no reason not to do this,” Pidge says quietly.

“What?” I say.

“The only reason not to start the search for new paladins would be sentiment,” they say, “and I know I didn’t know Lance like you did Hunk, and I didnt get the chance to know Keith like you did Shiro, but even if I wasn’t as close as you guys were I miss them too. We were all bonded together by Voltron, and it’s been hard fighting without them for more reasons than just the obvious.

I know I’m not usually the one to get all sappy and give speeches about these sorts of things, but I think we all need to remember that despite what we’re feeling, and we are all feeling it, we are also still at war.” When Pidge finishes their long speech, everyone just stares at them, remembering how young they are and how much grief they’ve felt. 

“You’re right,” Shiro admits quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re all very brave,” Coran says with tears in his eyes.

When I go back to my room, I stare at Lance's jacket where I have it hung on my wall. Shiro gave it to me two months ago, he had Keith’s jacket on his other arm. I think of Lance’s mother, how kind she had been and surely still is, and how her son is never coming home. The tears come quickly as they always do once I’m alone.

I think of how afraid he must have been out there on his own, and if he suffered. I think of Keith and how he must have stubbornly refused to give in until the very last breath. They were both stubborn. I sob and sob until I can’t anymore. By the time I’m done it’s past dinner, and I don’t feel like cooking so we’ll just have to have food goo for another night. 

*Coran*

They’re falling apart. Alfor, did we do the right thing to push this burden onto these children? Allura is strong but she’s tired. Shiro stands by her side, but he is traumatized, and guilt ridden. I’m watching him lose his nerve as a leader quintant by quintant and I’m not sure how to help him get it back. 

Pidge is the youngest of them, and she doesn’t sleep, which is so important when you’re young. Hunk has such a big, kind heart, and I fear that it’s killing him. 

Lance was my favorite. Not only because he listened to my stories, though with the others’ patience is thin and I’ve had to turn quiet, but I liked him for his spirit. He was bubbly and bright even after everything we put him through. And he was hardheaded like Keith. Those two would have pulled the rest of us out of our downward spiral by now. 

I watch the remainder of our team filter off the bridge with their shoulders slumped, retreating away from the forced acceptance of the death of part of our family. 

The lions are out there somewhere, and though the odds aren’t in our boys’ favor, I have seen them defy the odds before. I can only hope that they are still with us.

*Shiro*

One year. One year since we lost them. Since I lost them. They were so young. Keith was so young. I lost Allura and then I went in blind to fix my mistake, and I lost two more of my team members in the process. 

Adam said I was reckless, he left me because of it. The universe has proven time and time again that he was right. 

We haven’t been able to make any big moves against the Galra and now Lotor has us chasing our own tails. With no sign of the red or blue lions still after all this time, we’re beginning to consider that they could have been destroyed somehow, maybe thrown into stars or black holes. At least that would be painless unlike starvation or suffocation or kidnapping. I just wish I knew what happened to them. And so, I push Allura to keep checking for their lions’ signatures every week, with a small hope that one day it may deliver some answers. 

Chapter Text

*Keith*

“I think we need to go back to the ruins,” Lance says.

“For what?” I ask, my hands stopping their motion as I attempt to warm them over the fire.

“The energy of the crystals faded as soon as we left the compound, even before we made it back to camp, maybe they’re tied to the settlement somehow.”

“Lance,” I say, dropping my hands away from the fire entirely, “It’s been nearly eight months since we found the crystals, more than ten since we landed; what’s done is done. I thought we agreed.”

“I know,” Lance says, face scrunched up in indignation, “And I know we’ve raked through that compound and turned every room upside down, but I still can’t help but feel like there’s something we’re missing.”

I’d be an idiot not to trust Lance’s instincts even if a part of me kind of hates to feed this fire. I huff a breath and pretend to consider it so I don’t seem to give in to him too quickly. “Alright, I’m with you,” I say. 

“Yeah?” he asks quietly, his own doubt creeping into his soft features. 

“Always,” I say despite myself. 

Come morning Lance is up before me, a rarity in itself, and he’s already packing our things. “Couldn’t sleep?” I ask.

“I slept a bit,” he says, not even turning to face me. His little faceless bird, Pip, is sat on his shoulder listening to him rummage around. The little thing still kind of creeps me out even though Lance insists she is our child, but after I accidentally took an overmatured egg from a nest my fate was already sealed as Lance’s soft heart fell in love with it. And now we aren’t allowed to eat bird eggs. 

“I packed some food for us from the garden, mostly roots today,” he says while I’m stretching my arms above my head. I stand and begin to dress and ready myself in the cramped space. Lance sits off to the side while I brush out my hair, staring down at our array of shells and fiddling with the small rounded triangular crystal from the old USB port. He looks more mournful than I’ve seen him in a while, all sullen and thoughtful with his rare but handsome serious face. 

I kick his foot to signal to him that I’m ready and he stands up, crystal in hand and bird still on his shoulder. I won’t push him to speak if he doesn’t want to, so I prepare myself to leave, stuffing a few more things into our new packs. Just as I finish however, Lance comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, nuzzling his face into my hair. I stay still, letting him breath for a moment, until his hands begin to move, pulling me closer. “I don’t want you to think that I’m not happy here, or that I’m still just waiting for the day that the lions wake up or someone comes for us,” he says finally, “I know this is our life, and I’m not trying to–”

“Lance, I don’t expect you to get over wanting to leave Hiraeth. I’m not over it, I never will be,” I admit. Lance stays quiet at my back for a moment, taking in my words. “I don’t think it’s healthy or feasible for our every waking moment to be spent trying to escape, and I’m done waiting for rescue. I want to enjoy our life here together, because there’s a good chance that this is it , and I don’t want to waste our time on being quiznacking miserable for every second,” I continue, “But continuing to hope and persevere and make an effort, as opposed to letting that desire consume you and kill you are two very different things. Do you understand?” I ask. Lance hesitantly nods. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” I assure him, “I’m proud of you.”

At that Lance squeezes me tightly, almost painfully so around my torso between my armor plating. “I love you,” he says breathily, like he’s trying not to cry. 

“I love you,” I say back. 

We make our way through the trees in the direction of the Altean compound and Lance takes a small piece of woven string from his bag. He winds the string around the small dull crystal as we walk in step with one another, then secures it around his neck as a pendant. It falls just underneath his chest plate and I snicker. 

When we reach the cliff we each pull a length of rope from our bags, securing it around two adjacent trees before using it to aid our descent. Pip huddles into Lance’s pack as we lower ourselves down, eventually reaching the bottom and beginning the trek out to the river. 

Once at the compound the building is a semi-familiar sight. More of the runes on the walls have been extinguished and overtaken by various plants, though the ground still seems rich enough in quintessence to be the only place Lance’s favorite medicinals will grow. He plucks some of the flowers on the way in before we wander inside. Pip socializes with the complex’s bird population as we check the rooms, unsurprisingly finding nothing new. But, as we stand in the common room Lance pulls the crystal pendant out of his chest plate to examine it, and it is undoubtedly more alive than it was before. 

“It’s got some of its color back,” Lance observes. 

“Maybe it’s the compound itself,” I suggest, “the workings in the walls.”

“Don’t say that,” Lance says, “then there’s nothing we can do.”

“Maybe we just need to bring the crystals back and forth to transfer the energy.” 

Lance sighs, “Maybe, but I still feel like we’re missing something.” He drops the crystal and walks further into the compound assuming I’ll follow. I do. 

He looks into Brenerian’s room, then the lab ahead of it, but doesn’t go in. Instead, he goes straight for the room where we found the crystal. The corpse of the alchemist still lies on the bed in her glass coffin, and before we can pass her Lance stops abruptly. I run into his back and look up to find him staring down at his own chest. His face is lit with a dull blue light and he pulls on the string of his necklace to reveal the crystal glowing brightly. 

“The main crystal must have been connected to something in the room ahead,” I announce. Lance furrows his brow in that handsome way again and looks up from the crystal towards the door in the wall. Still holding the pendant out in front of him, he walks towards the room, the door left open after we disabled the system power from taking its source. He transverses deeper into the dark and the crystal lighting his way begins to dim incrementally. I don’t notice the small change in its vibrance until I see Lance glaring at it in the minuscule light. He turns around and continues watching it as he moves back towards the main room, and I guide his way. 

Reentering the other room, Lance stops. His attention shifts from the crystal to the deceased Altean beside us. “She really is the power source,” he breathes in awe. I stare with him at the girl frozen in time.

“So what do we do, just take her back with us?” I ask.

“I suppose,” he responds, “We just have to make sure we don’t open her containment, so we don’t risk exposure to her terminal infection,” Lance reminds me. 

“Okay,” I say hesitantly, “then it’s going to be a bit difficult getting her over the cliff and the river.” I step forward to take a closer look at her coffin than I have before. “This has to have been made for transport though, right?” I examine the material that must be sturdier than glass.

“First, we just have to find a way to detach this from its stand,” Lance says. 

The bottom of the coffin is thick and raised, made of what must be impossibly heavy material. “I’m not sure it is a detachable stand, it might just be that thick.”

“I didn’t say it had to be detachable,” Lance says, aiming the laser from the wrist of his suit. He cuts through the bottom half of the stand in a straight line, relieving us of what must have been 100 pounds of weight. 

“I still don’t know how we’re going to get it over the river,” I say when he looks back at me proudly. “Our jetpacks can’t support that much extra weight, they’re not even really made for transport under gravity.” 

“It’ll float right,” he asks obliviously.

“No.”

Lance lasers off even more of the coffin’s bottom layer and we remove it from the bed along with the mattress it rested on. The bed is so big that is couldn’t fit in our lion's hull, let alone fit out the door like this, so we move the mattress and the coffin outside of the complex in two trips. With both outside, Pip rejoins us and we start on our way to the river. 

“I don’t like this plan,” I say.

“But you don’t have a better one,” Lance reminds me, “you wanted to cut down a tree to make a whole boat to float her across the river.”

“Not a proper boat,” I argue, “and I think we should stop calling her ‘she’ and start saying it. ”

Lance contemplates the suggestion then shrugs in what I can’t tell is agreement or disregard. When we do reach the river Lance signals for Pip to fly ahead, and we stand on the bank just the two of us (three). “I don’t like this,” I say again.

“It will be fine,” he insists, “you can swim.”

“Not well!”

“Hey! I am a good teacher,” he protests, dragging the mattress carrying the coffin out closer to the raging waters. The currents aren’t as strong this time of year since we’re still in dry season, but they’re strong enough to still cause us trouble. 

“If it sinks or the water takes it down stream I’m still going to the other side, I’m not going after it,” I tell him.

“Fine,” Lance says, waiting for me at the edge of the rushing water. I mentally berate myself for being such a pushover, then join Lance in pushing the mattress in, south against the rushing current. We each activate our jetpacks and enter the water, Lance makes a noise to signal that it’s cold before I step in after him, and it is frigid . 

“She’s floating!” Lance says excitedly. Disregard then, I think. We kick diagonally against the rushing water and towards the opposite shore, panting from exertion as we’re carried further downstream. The shore nears just as the coffin slips towards us, threatening to fall from the floatation device and take us down with it. I push harder, expending energy and fuel, and we hit the right bank. 

Lance hauls himself out of the water keeping hold of the coffin with a strong one-handed grip. My foot finds the rocky edge of the riverbed and hoists me up with the coffin, jetpack still firing. We let the mattress go and Lance pulls the coffin up, rested diagonally against the soil… And I’m swept away. 

*Lance*

One moment he’s there and the next there’s no sign of him. The water swallows him up and sweeps him away from me before I have the chance to think. “Keith!” I call. There’s scratching on my comms like there is when we’re out of range and in the following fraction of a second, I’m forced to weigh my options. In my hands could be the key to getting off of this planet and it will only take a moment to heave her up the rest of the way onto dry land. In the water is the love of my life who is in danger. The choice is clear, and my death grip on the object in my hands loosens. 

I look up with the passing thought that the coffin could hit Keith if it is carried downstream, only to see Keith, already with a hold on the side of the riverbed, holding on. I strengthen my hold on the coffin again and heave it up to safety before turning to race to Keith. 

*Keith*

It doesn’t take long for me to catch myself on a protruding stone, though it doesn’t do wonders for my hands. Still, I don’t have the strength to pull myself up. 

In seconds, Lance is above me with a hand outstretched, pulling me from the water. He gets an arm around my waist and pulls me on top of him, not enough to warm me as the adrenaline leaves my system, but enough to make me feel safe and alive. He pulls back only to tug off our helmets and start kissing my face. “Strong,” he says, “capable, relentless,” a kiss between each word before ending on my mouth. I kiss back belatedly, still shivering. 

“Did we get it over?” I ask. He nods vigorously with his forehead still against mine. I sigh in relief, the beath still stunted by my shaking body. 

Missing our untorn, space ready suit material, Lance and I are each forced to ring out our makeshift suit replacements (damned saber skin). Then with no other option we continue forward. We reach the cliff and secure rope around either side of the coffin before I venture up to start pulling while Lance pushes from below. He hangs our packs around the cliff-side of the coffin to cushion it against the rough stone wall and we start the harrowing process. 

Working until my muscles begin to snap and his jetpack is nearly overheated, the coffin reaches the top of the cliff and we collapse. “I c-can’t,” Lance wheezes between breaths, “Can’t carry it back.” 

“You’ve finally lost compassion for the corpse,” I say, lying exhausted beside him. 

“What?” he questions.

“You said 'it'.”

“Shut up,” he says, but I know he’d laugh if we weren’t so drained. 

And we really can’t drag it back to camp. We leave the coffin under some trees a few paces from the cliff’s edge and take our packs. 

We make it back home after dark, still damp under our armor, our water supply exhausted, and ourselves deliriously tired. After stripping and redressing we each climb into bed practically on top of each other with our bodies tangled and pressed together for warmth, and promptly pass out. 

The next day we sleep past dawn and awake ravenous. Despite my being ready to venture back out after a hearty meal, Lance insists on a shower and that Amira can wait another day for us after already waiting 11,000 years. Two days later we finally venture back for the corpse and tow her back to camp via ropes. 

“Auuuug,” Lance yells passionately when we finally reach Blue. I fall to the group immediately, lying flat on my back as he celebrates. “We did it!” he cheers. I half heartedly throw a fist in the air in celebration before allowing gravity to pull it back down. “Now what?” he asks.

“We sleep,” I say.

“No, but like where do we put her?” he asks. I huff out another big breath.

“We can bury her I guess. She is dead.” Lance contemplates it and agrees. 

That night we collect water, make dinner and mend our tattered garments with bone needles and string. Lance caught a few vibrantly colored birds on the way back from the cliff that don’t look to be closely enough related to Pip for us to refrain cooking them for dinner. They’re the only animals that seem to noticeably migrate with Hiraeth’s mild seasons and we are now enjoying their first return. 

Come morning we dig the standard six feet hole for the coffin in a space equal distances from Red and Blue. Once we’ve covered her Lance surrounds the site with large stones as a marker, and we return home to tend to the other tasks of the day. We each stop to stare at the crystal fragments that surround Red’s head and power core, with no noticeable difference to their appearance. “Give them time,” I tell him. He nods, eyes still on the crystal by his feet. At dinner we take out some of our rations from Blue's hull and have a larger than normal meal for it still being dry season. Lance stares at the crystals all night until I stand above him, pulling his face to mine to press our lips together. He smiles at me smugly and when I sit back down we lean shoulder to shoulder, shifting our gaze to the aurora in the sky and watching for the flickers of cyan that occasionally join the purple and green dancing across the atmosphere. I look down at my husband beside me and his brow is still furrowed. 

Days turn to weeks and the crystals regain their dim light. Weeks turn to months and the lions remain motionless. It was a longshot from the beginning to simply lay a power source beside them, albeit a weak one, and hope for the best. 

The best doesn’t come, and life goes on. 

*Lance*

I’m lying on my side with my back to Keith. We got in a fight, which isn’t unusual for us, we are constantly together after all. And furthermore, he’s insufferable and short fused. Perhaps he deserves credit for the progress he’s made with his temper since our arrival here, but I don’t feel like giving him any credit now. Keith Kogane is a menace.

To be honest, I’m not sure I really even remember what we’re fighting about. It feels like it’s just every little thing that we’ve ever done to mildly upset one another all built up and exploded out at one another. And now, I can’t sleep and it’s all Keith’s fault for being so petty. Really, I just can’t sleep because he says he’s going to go out hunting tomorrow morning alone. If we’re still fighting, we’ll barely be able to work together, but if he goes out alone what am I supposed to do if he doesn’t come back? I refuse to end up as one of those scorned lovers like in the movies thinking if only I had told him I was sorry when it was all Keith’s fault in the first place. I used to like fighting with him, but now that I know there are better ways to keep his attention it just feels pointless and frustrating. I can’t let him go out tomorrow until we make up.

Behind me Keith rolls over. “Lance,” he says softly.

“What?” I say harshly, “You finally ready to apologize?” He huffs a sigh and the hot air hits my neck. 

“Listen,” he grumbles, “we’re both still upset, we’re both in the wrong–”

“Speak for yourself,” I say resentfully. I don’t know why I’m being this way; it won’t solve anything. Keith sucks in another breath.

“But I hate it when we argue,” he says, “So I’ve come up with a compromise.” There’s a pause and he doesn’t elaborate. 

“Ok, well let’s hear it,” I prompt. 

“I love you,” he says simply. “We’re allowed to be mad at each other for a night, even in this god forsaken jungle, it’s healthy. And I am mad at you, but, before we go to sleep, I want to tell you that I still love you. That way it doesn’t feel like we’re breaking anything or setting ourselves up for regrets.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” I say, turning over to face him. “I love you,” I tell him anyhow, looking in his eyes. 

We’re face to face now but I still can’t really make him out in the dark. I know he can see me and I know he’s staring. I’ve looked at him so much in the last year here on Hiraeth, hell even before that I was always staring at him, and now I don’t even have to see him to know exactly what he looks like in this position. Here, in our bed, in our home, on our planet. I can picture every detail of my husband’s eyes. 

I’m just getting ready to finally get some beauty sleep when, suddenly, my head swims and I’m overtaken by the feeling of dizziness even while lying down. I feel my face contort and I know he can see it. Keith puts a hand on my arm. “Stop,” I say, suddenly overwhelmed. He pulls his hand away but it doesn’t help my focus. I sit up, pushing off the covers because I’m sweating, but I realize I feel cold as well. Keith is sitting up too, and Pip hops over across the hull. 

“Lance,” he says. 

“Something–” I try, “Something’s wrong.” I grab his arm for support even though we’re not standing. He brings a hand to my forehead, checking my temperature. 

“You feel a bit warm,” he says, panicking, “do you feel warm?”

“It’s in my head,” I say, though I don’t know what it is. 

“What?” he asks.

“Something buzzing.” He turns my head and I realize he’s checking my ears. “No, no,” I say quickly, “not like a bug.”

“What is it, describe it to me,” he asks.

“Why?” I ask, “We don’t have any medicine.”

“Do you feel sick?” he asks, his voice rising. 

“Cariño,” I say, trying to comfort him, but it has the opposite effect, “I don’t know. I felt fine and then there was just this sudden noise in my head. Like a–l-like a…” I try to search for any reference for what I’m feeling, any comparable thing that I’ve felt before but it’s like something is screaming in my skull, like something is– “Like a lion,” I say, and the buzzing stops all at once like a confirmation. 

I leap out of bed and Keith stands with me, immediately summoning his purple blade to his hand as a sword. Pip flies to my shoulder. I pick up our shells, putting them in the basket with the ginfruit, then kick the door open to outside. “Lance, what are you doing?” Keith pleads, turning the flashlight on on his helmet.

“Just trust me!” I grab a few more of our food baskets and soaps, not patient enough to move the blankets and hampers and cookware or all the drying racks made of sticks jammed between her joints. “Come on,” I say, grabbing Keith’s arm. 

“Where are we going?” Keith asks. 

“Around,” I say, “We don’t have time to move the fortified door to the cockpit.”

“We’re going to the cockpit?” 

I climb to get to the door on top of Blue’s head, standing on the edge of the pilot chair’s backrest then maneuvering myself into the seat as Pip lands onto my shoulder. I hook my legs under it and grab the controls as Keith climbs in the hatch beside me. “Brace yourself,” I instruct. He does what I say without more questions, it’s a remarkable display of the trust we’ve built here. If I say duck he ducks, if he says run I run, even if we don’t understand, we trust. I close my eyes and try to focus on the other presence in the back of my mind. “Come on Blue,” I plead under my breath. 

Behind my closed eyes I can see a light. And when I open them, I watch the dashboard flicker to life. I laugh a sound of disbelief and beside me Keith watches, frozen still. I feel gravity shift as the lion starts to move and hear the vines that have grown around her snapping. Pip flaps her wings. The hatch on the lion's head and the doors to the hull slide shut and Blue rises to her feet. “Blue!” I cheer, and a feeling like water–like safety– washes over my mind like a soothing balm. “You’re alive!” 

“Does this mean,” Keith asks quietly, “that Red is alive too?”

“Why wouldn’t it?!” I ask excitedly, adrenaline pumping through my veins. 

“After all this time,” he says, his voice flat, “Why now?” 

“I don’t know,” I say, some of my excitement draining, “maybe enough quintessence finally collected in their cores from the atmosphere and the alchemist's crystals,” I suggest. 

“We thought the cores were compromised,” he reminds me.

“Then it must have repaired itself somehow, maybe it has something to do with Amira's presence” I tell him, “don’t you understand what this means?” I ask, he looks over at me with a schooled expression. I know he’s afraid because I am too, and we can’t know what all this means. “We can make it around the planet in a day. We can go farther, we have more tools, we have temperature controls so we don’t have to spend the coldest nights outside by the fire,” I list, “Maybe we even have a chance of making it out of here,” I add quietly.

“We can’t risk the lions going offline again outside the barrier,” he says sadly.

“Ya, but if I can get the barrier down–”

“We don’t even know if you’re that kind of Altean,” he says, “Only sacred Alteans can do magic.”

“You said yourself that you can see Altean markings on me in the light of the crystals,” I say, holding up the small balmerian crystal from where it was dangling my neck. 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” he argues, his voice rising in volume.

“Well it means something to me,” I shout, “You don’t have to be such a pessimist all the time.”

“Oh, give me a break,” he shouts back.

“Give you a break?!”

“I can’t lose you!” he yells, making me go silent, “I’m not risking your life for some stupid what if!”

“Keith,” I say breathily, my voice quivering, “We have to try.” The anger on his face turns to pain and he shies away from me. I reach out and cup his cheek, turning his head to force him to look me in the eyes. “You know that,” I say. A tear runs down his cheek and I can feel when the heat rising behind my own eyes. “Hey,” I said quietly as my tears overflow, “What happened to the reckless Keith I used to know?”

“He fell in love,” Keith whispers, and I sob.

“I love you,” I say through my tears, and he pulls me in for an awkwardly positioned hug with me still sitting in my pilot’s chair. 

“I love you too,” he says, and I pull away to kiss his tear stained cheek. “I’m sorry for yelling today.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” I assure him, “I’m sorry too.” He kisses me on the mouth and sits down on the arm of my chair. “Should we go see if Red’s awake?” I ask. 

“Yeah,” I respond, and we go together.

*Keith*

Two days after Blue woke up, Red’s still not moving. “Do you think we could use Blue to jump start her somehow?” Lance asks.

“And how would we do that?” We’re sitting around the fire for breakfast, just outside of the blue lion’s forcefield. Our baskets of food and clothes can stay outside now within the protection of the lion's defenses, so besides the shells situated on the shelf/bed in the hull, we can use the rest of the floor space to sleep. 

“I don’t know, you’re the handyman,” Lance says, giving Pip a bit of saber jerky. I sigh and look over to where Red lies just a few feet away now. “Unless you want me to try magic again."

“You just make a face like you’re constipated then give up,” I chuckle.

“Hey!” he says, affronted, “it takes a lot of effort.”

“I never saw Allura make that face,” I argue, he huffs. 

“You just need to get injured again, I swear I felt some kind of healing magic urge just beneath the surface when you got that cut on your chin.”

“You want me to ‘get injured’?” I say in monotone. 

“You know what I mean,” he argues. I drop it. It’s not that I don’t have faith in Lance, I really have no way of knowing whether or not this is a dead end. I just don’t want him to go chasing after something hopeless and getting disappointed. 

“We do have access to Blue’s power core now, but that’s from the inside. There’s no way to easily hook up her core to Red’s and we don’t have the proper tools. I’ve popped open every panel I can access on Red, but really, she’s more than just a machine.” Lance hums like he’s thinking. 

“Maybe it’s for the best,” he says, “she might not have enough to share, and maybe Red will still wake up on her own.” 

“Maybe,” I say, though I try not to hope.

The next day, we go to the beach. It’s only a short journey in Blue. Though, Lance screams the whole way as he tries to navigate through the dense forest without destroying anything under Blue’s paws, and he insists we go on foot next time. We sit on top of Blue’s head, overlooking the ocean and the shoreline while Lance gently pets Pip’s fur with two fingers. “It’s beautiful,” Lance says, “a whole new view.” 

“It is,” I agree, but I’ve mostly been looking at him. He has more freckles than he did when he got here with all the time we’ve spent outside, more muscle too. We’re both fit from all the work hunting and gathering and making everything else it takes to survive. We haven’t slacked off on our training either, we spar nearly every day if we can help it and Lance has gotten good with his broadsword as I’ve improved with double sword techniques. It takes coordination to take down as many sabers as we have, it also takes agility and stamina and determination to have survived here for this long. But, none of that will matter against the cold heart of space, or when facing the Galra empire alone. When I said we could do anything as long as we’re together, I meant anything here on Hiraeth. It’s a whole different world out there. But I try not to think too far ahead. Right now, we just need to find a way to wake Red.

“Do you think it’s me?” I ask, “the reason that Red hasn’t woken up yet.”

“No,” Lance says, diverting his attention “something other than her core must have been damaged in the crash.”

“Blue was the one that overheated,” I say, “and yet she woke up first.” 

“And you think I did that?” Lance asks.

“I don’t know. Did you?”

He laughs. “I mean I wished for it, I gave it everything I had.”

“Maybe you doing magic isn’t a dead end after all,” I say, more to myself than to Lance.

“You think I fixed her core magically?”

“Maybe,” I say honestly.

“So… Our next step is me trying to force magic out of me in the red lion’s cockpit until she returns from the dead,” he says jokingly. 

“Like you said, I don’t have any better ideas. So, maybe it’s time I stop doubting you.” He looks a little stunned at the suggestion, but it’s soon replaced by a fiery determination in his eyes. 

“I’ll try,” he says. 

That night I lay curled up into Lance’s side, my head on his chest. Lance’s long fingers comb through my hair and softly he hums a lullaby that he still can’t bring himself to sing. “I miss Earth,” he says.

“I know,” I say, “I do too.”

*Lance*

In the morning Keith wakes up early and makes breakfast, then leaves me with my fruit and cereal to go off to hunt. We didn’t get around to going out the past four days after Blue woke up, and I’m certainly ready for some meat again. 

I’m feeding the last of our jerky to Pip and thinking about what Keith said just two days ago, that Allura never made a face when she did magic. He only meant it as a joke but it’s got me thinking about what it feels like to do magic. In the movies when teenagers find out they have superpowers, it’s usually some freak accident when your life is in danger or you get really angry, but I’ve been in plenty of freak accidents in the last two years. So, that makes me think that you might need real intention to incite magic, that you have to purposely awaken something inside you. Maybe then it just flows through you. Either that or Keith was wrong to believe in me and I really can’t do this. 

I look up at Blue, then over at Red. We’re comfortable here on Hiraeth, but I think we both know that we can’t afford to stay that way. We’re going to have to leave our home here eventually. I turn back to finishing my food but then I hear something. Behind me my helmet is on its side, visor up, beeping red with an alert. I put it on, jostling Pip on my shoulder, and read the blaring red warning. 'Presence detected in atmosphere'. I look up and the detection system locks onto something that I can’t see, it zooms in until I can make out a little blue dot. 

I turn and race in the direction that Keith went just minutes ago and summon my bayard to my hand from the ground behind me. Then above me, with a sound like thunder, the entire atmosphere flickers. 

*Allura*

It’s been a long week and we’re all exhausted. Mission after mission has left us all sleep deprived and drained. I turn to leave the bridge but then think the better of it, opting to do my weekly scan. Stepping back on the platform, I focus, feeling the three lions connected to my lifeforce. Stars spring out in front of me and the locations of the Yellow, Black, and Green lions all show up, pinpointing them here in the castle. However, as usual the Blue and Red lions still don’t join them. 

Frustration is suddenly roiling in me, because after all that we’ve done to fight for the good of the universe just in the last week, it still doesn’t pay off. I decide to push further and search deeper in the way I had to in order to locate the red lion when it was still in Galra hands. It’s exhausting but it’s been months since I tried. I push all of my remaining quintessence that I can spare into the spell, looking deeper within myself for any hint that the other lions still remain alive. 

Suddenly, there’s a flicker of something, a new energy rejoining the other three lions. I open my eyes and the location of the Blue lion lies in front of me among the map of the stars. 

The map retreats and I almost fall to my knees with exhaustion, but I catch myself and run to the console. “Paladins,” I call, “Report to the bridge immediately!”

Chapter Text

*Allura*

Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and Coran all come running onto the bridge. Pidge is already grumbling with frustration that there’s another mission, and Shiro is looking as alert as a man in his condition could be capable of. His eyes are red and there’s stubble on his unshaven face. “What is it, princess?” he asks me, but for some reason I can’t get the words out. 

Coran comes to stand beside me at the console and he puts a steadying hand on my shoulder. The others are starting to notice the state of me. There’s sweat running down my brow and I’m leaning on the console for support; I can feel that my face is twisted into something like alarm. The paladins steel their faces and Shiro asks again, “What are we up against?” I shake my head and his eyebrows furrow in confusion. 

“I–” I start, stopping to take another deep gulp of air before I can continue, “I have a hit on the blue lion’s location.”

The bridge is deafeningly silent. “You know where he is?” Hunk asks hopefully.

“I know where the blue lion is,” I correct.

“Where?” Pidge asks.

“It looks like it crash landed on a planet in the Lledrith zone,” I say, and with a press of a button the information on the planet is displayed in front of us. 

Coran’s hand drops from my shoulder, and he takes a step back from the dash. I look over at him to find an expression of pure horror on his face. “Hiraeth,” he breathes. 

“Is that bad?” Hunk asks.

“That’s why we couldn’t find him,” Coran says. 

“What is it Coran?” I ask. Coran’s eyes divert from the console to me, and he gives me a look that says ‘prepare yourself’. I do. My advisor takes a step back towards the console and presses some buttons. Two files come up on the screen, the first is a report, and the second looks to be a classified video file. 

“This is all of our information on Hiraeth,” Coran supplies. 

“We don’t have time for all of this,” Hunk says, “Shouldn’t we go in right away?”

“We can’t just fly in unprepared,” Shiro says, “Let’s take a look at these files, and then as soon as we know what we’re dealing with we’ll go in in our lions.”

“So the blue lion isn’t in Galra hands?” Pidge asks. Coran shakes his head. He moves the report to full screen. Altean settlement log , it reads. 

“An Altean settlement?” I read in disbelief, “So the planet is habitable?” Coran shakes his head and despite my confusion I look back to the log and read further. 

The first page gives us information about the planet’s name, system, zone, and quadrant, then its environment. Ten thousand years ago it was a dense jungle planet with a large ocean and a habitable atmosphere. On the second page an incident report follows. 

Settlement failed. Head alchemist deceased, cause: infection. 

Additional description: The field put up around the planet by the colony’s head alchemist did not fall when she fell ill or became deceased. Because of the high quintessence concentration in the Lledrith zone and in the Ishtar system, the field increased in strength. Efforts to dispel the field: Failed. No ships have been able to enter or leave the atmosphere intact. 

Updated report: remaining crew members deceased.

“What does that mean?” Pidge asks.

“The Hireath settlement was a disaster,” Coran says, “During the reign of King Grogery the infirm, the leader of Altea before your father,” he says to me, “there was an attempt to explore and colonize planets uninhabited by intelligent life in a place called the Lledrith zone. That area in particular was chosen because the concentrated quintessence levels there were off the charts. It was the zone neighboring our own on Altea and the Patrulian zone on the other side, which is an unexplored ship graveyard where no one that enters ever returns. But with levels so high they should have known that the effects would be… unnatural.”

“I don’t understand,” Hunk says, frowning.

“I want to know more about this ‘field’,” I say.

“The settlements in the Lledrith zone were equipped with a barrier spell put up around the planets that could be controlled by the alchemist who cast them. They were made possible by the high quintessence levels which boosted the alchemist’s power and were put to use not only controlling who came in and out, but also adjusting the quintessence levels on the planets. They were vital because quintessence storms were not uncommon in the area, similar to your average cosmic waves but in the form of magic energy.” 

“And what happened when the caster of the one on Hiraeth died?” Pidge asks.

“The field became impenetrable, and the crew couldn’t leave, while at the same time no one could go in to aid their survival. It was a horrible disaster because the crew was the King’s personal staff and the alchemist who died on planet was the current prince’ wife to be, that prince being our king Alfor’s brother,” Coran explains. 

“But the blue lion’s location is on the planet’s surface,” Shiro points out while I’m still trying to process this information. I remember my uncle told me stories of the alchemist Amira, but he never told me about this.

“Well, that is what I meant by the reason we didn’t find the lion sooner, it was likely greatly damaged upon entry and offline all this time,” Coran says.

Hunk looks like he doesn’t know what to think. Pidge seems to have made up their mind, and I assume that means that this doesn’t change anything for them concerning what they thought happened to Lance. ‘Something terrible’ is what happened to him, they told me one day in tears.

“What’s on the other file?” Shiro asks. Coran brings up the video log and skips ahead past the first of the logs. On the screen there’s an Altean man with green markings and curly hair, sitting at a desk with a lab coat draped over the back of his chair. 

“This is the third to last log,” Coran says. Then the camera rolls, and the log begins.

The man on screen looks distraught at the beginning of the log, with his hands clasped together and silence stretching on. “I didn’t even want to document this,” the man finally says, “But… Lina has died of liver failure due to poisoning from the coruscent fish.” He heaves a breath, clearly overcome with grief, then a door creaks open behind him. 

“Brener,” a taller Altean man says from the doorway, the one recording the log looks up. “We’re going out to collect water,” the other man informs him.

“Alright,” he says, “be back by nightfall.” The man behind him nods and shuts the door, then the log ends. 

When the next log begins the man is staring into the camera. “They’ve found us,” he says. “The king of the jungle, Indomitus.” A picture comes up on the screen of an alien predator. It’s large and blue with yellow stripes and many eyes, and there are yellow spines protruding from its back. I look to Coran, and he is looking up at the image, disgusted. So, this is what the unnaturally heightened quintessence levels created. 

“The rest of my team is dead,” the man announces, “two were attacked on a water run, and one in this complex’s courtyard. So, I have locked myself in the lab with the scarce supplies remaining, to complete the reports on the Hiraeth colony for retrieval by King Grogery the Infirm’s sacred high court.” A few documents flash on the screen and the log ends. 

The last video starts before we have time to process the former one, and the Altean speaks, “The field isn’t weakening,” he says with a hand covering his face. “The quintessence fields in the Ishtar system, and the entire Patrulian-Lledrith quadrant, are more powerful than those in any Rebulon zone, and are unfit for Altean inhabitants,” he declares. He lets his hand fall and locks eyes with the camera. “My team was of scientists, not warriors, and this was never meant to be an independent colony,” he says stoutly, “That being said, Alteans never should have tried to colonize worlds simply because they don’t have their own intelligent life, mother nature knew what she was doing when she made no such life here and we should never have questioned her. Hiraeth is not fit for any form of colony, even if the field eventually comes down, do not attempt reconnaissance. Stay out of the Lledrith zone. The magic here is too potent. It’s unnatural, that is why Altea formed an entire supercluster away from this quiznacking–” he stops when he hears a noise behind him. We look to its origin as he turns to look with us and see the same predator that claimed the rest of his team, creeping towards him. It takes another step forward, its claws clicking against the floors and the spines on its back unfurling as it snarls. It makes me sick to my stomach. I worry that we are going to have to watch this man be slaughtered by the beast, but he reaches back and shuts off the camera.

When the last log ends it’s dead silent. “Lance could take down one of those things,” Hunk says, breaking the silence.

“And this was over 10,000 years ago, right?” Pidge asks hopefully, “Maybe they’re extinct.”

“I don’t doubt those possibilities,” Coran says, “But it is the severity of the crash through the atmosphere that worries me.” The room goes silent once again.

“And he would need to find food and water,” Shiro adds, Coran nods.

“The Altean settlement was placed in the opportune position on the planet, near one of the only large fresh water sources on Hireath. We don’t yet have any way of knowing where Blue crash landed.” 

“Then what are we waiting for?” Hunk asks.

“We need to go to Hiraeth,” Pidge agrees.

“Set a course Coran,” I say, walking up to the podium. 

“Princess, you need to rest,” Coran says, “We’ll need you at full strength if we’re going to get through to the other side of that barrier.” 

“And I’ll be ready,” I say, “There’s a spark in me that I haven’t felt in a very long time,” I tell them, feeling the necessary power building up in my chest like long forgotten hope, “I could move mountains.” Shiro gives me a determined nod and I place my hands on the pillars for the teludav. The wormhole opens ahead of us and the castle thrusters engage to move us through.

“Paladins, get to your lions,” Shiro commands, and with a new sense of determination, we all ready ourselves for the next mission. 

When we come through in the Ishtar system we see the planet in question. It looks unassuming, but we know otherwise, and I stop the castle before we hit the atmosphere. Our three remaining paladins launch out of their docking bays. “What’s the plan princess?” Shiro asks over comms. 

“Coran, do we have a precise location?” I ask.

“The atmosphere must be interfering with our sensors, princess. I can only get an approximate location for the blue lion, and I don’t have a hit for Lance’s energy signature,” he responds. I can feel that it’s a hit to the team morale, but we’re still not ready to give up yet. 

“I’m going out there,” I say.

“Princess–” Coran protests.

“Trust me Coran. Paladins, I’m going to need your help,” I say over the comms, “Hit that barrier with everything we’ve got to weaken it, then I’ll come in and take it down,” I say. 

“You got it,” Shiro says, then, “Paladins, let’s break this field!” 

I make it to an independent flight craft and prepare to launch as the lions fire.

*Lance*

I run as fast as my legs will carry me along the path through the jungle, then crash into something as I’m rounding a tree. Pip flies off my shoulder on impact then lands back down. I shake my head to clear it and look below me to see Keith. “Keith!” I shout right in his face.

“Lance,” he says, still out of breath, “What was that?”

“I ran into you,” I say, getting off him.

“No,” he says, “in the atmosphere.”

“My helmet picked something up before the flicker, something must have hit,” I say.

“Or someone,” he says.

“You think someone found us?” I ask.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happens right after Blue gains power,” he says, “The question is, who is it?” 

“We have to be prepared for it to be an enemy,” I say, getting to my feet and helping Keith up. He nods. “We have to wake Red.”

“How?” he asks. 

“I have an idea.”

We make it back to camp and I load some of our things into Blue, leaving Pip with the fruit basket safely stowed in the cockpit. Then, we make for Red. In the cockpit, I take the pilot’s chair. “I’ve been thinking about what you said and I think you’re right,” I say.

“What did I say?” Keith asks.

“That Allura never had to force magic out of herself, so I’m thinking why not just try and let it flow?” Keith looks hesitant to try this now, but eventually nods.

“Okay,” he says. 

I take his hand and press his palm to the dashboard with my hand over his. Next, I close my eyes and try to focus. I imagine the feeling of magic just under the surface of my skin the way I felt it the last time Keith was attacked by a saber. It had been two of us against three of them, and Keith was tackled while my back was to him. He was on the ground behind me, holding off the beast with his sword, when one of the saber’s claws raked down his face from right below his eye to beneath the junction of his chin. I plunged my sword into the heart of the saber in front of me then turned and shot the saber on top of Keith. With the other already taken care of, I fell to my knees beside him and brought a hand to hover in front of the wound down his face. “That’s going to scar,” he said with annoyance, trying to lighten the mood. And there was this feeling in my gut as I watched the blood pour down his neck. It made my skin tingle and my hands shake and it was right there , in the back of my mind, on the tip of my tongue. 

I feel it now, the desperation turning into a tool. There’s a core in me, where my own quintessence lies in my gut, and I summon it. My hands shake and my skin tingles and my heart pounds. I let the energy flow through me, and with Keith as my converter, I let that energy flow into the red lion. 

The dashboard flickers to life below our hands and I know that I’ve done it. I look at Keith and he’s staring at me in awe, the same way I looked at him the first time I saw his eyes glow yellow. “I did it,” I say. He brings a hand up to my face.

“You have markings,” he says. He brushes a thumb beneath my eye, and I notice the faint blue glow around my face and go cross eyed trying to see what he sees. He laughs. “They’re fading,” he says, “Maybe they’ll only show when you cast like this.” 

Remembering what we’re here for, I rise from the pilot's chair and let Keith take his seat, placing my hands on his shoulders for support. He grabs the controls in front of him and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and focusing on the presence of his lion. Red stands and roars. A new courage pumps through my blood. “What’s the plan?” I ask him.

“If they make it through the atmosphere, we’ll finish them off when they crash,” he says, “We’ll defend our home.” 

“Agreed,” I say, “I’ll get to my lion.” I turn to leave but he pulls my arm. He takes off his helmet and lifts up mine, just enough to kiss me. 

“We can do this,” he says, and I know he’s saying it to reassure himself as much as me.

“Yes, we can,” I agree. 

I race to my lion, grabbing the last few things from outside to stow in my cockpit. Once the lion’s jaw shuts behind me and I’m sat in the pilot’s chair, I grab the controls and Blue stands. Pip flies to my shoulder and flaps her wings. “We should take them from both sides,” I say.

“But don’t go too far,” Keith says.

“Of course not,” I assure him, “We fight as one.”

“Partners,” he says.

“Partners,” I repeat.

*Shiro*

We let up on our fire as Allura nears the atmosphere. The glowing of the sphere lets up, making it invisible once more, before Allura touches down and it comes back full force. She puts her hands to its surface, and she’s enveloped by the light. Then, the field begins to open, shying away from her power. “Go!” she yells over the comms.

Pidge, Hunk, and I fly in towards the ground. “Coran can you give us an exact location now that the field is down?” I ask.

“Sending it to you now,” Coran says.

“Alright, we’re going to have you wait to come in with the castle until we’ve assessed the situation,” I call, “Hunk, Pidge, check the perimeter, I’ll go in on the mark.”

“Got it!” they both say in unison. 

We have to navigate through a canopy of tall trees to reach the forest floor, so it’s a slow descent. Even my scanners can’t see anything through the trees so we’re going in blind with no idea of what to expect for the condition of the lion… or her pilot.

I make ground and look around me, but I see no sign of the lion. “Coran, I’m not seeing any sign of the lion,” I report. Static comes through the comms in response. “Coran, come in.” Still nothing. “Hunk, Pidge, do you copy?” 

“We copy,” Hunk says.

“The signal must be at a limited range, it probably has to do with something in the atmosphere,” Pidge says. 

“Alright, well let’s keep looking. Maybe the reading was off,” I say. I swivel around, and through the trees I see a lion’s eyes, but it’s not Green or Yellow. And it’s not Blue.

*Keith*

I close my comms to be on a private line. “Lance, don’t speak. Switch your comms to private,” I say.

“Alright, done,” he says.

“I have eyes on the black lion,” I say.

“I’m coming to you,” he says, “is it between us?”

“No, it’s on the opposite side of me, north.”

“Okay. Keith, we need to think about this. We know from the files I downloaded from the castle that Zarkon was the original black paladin, so until we know who’s in there—"

“Why do you think I closed my comms?” I ask.

“Right,” he says. Lance comes through the trees just behind me until he’s in sight of the Black lion.

“I’m going to reopen comms and hail the pilot,” I tell him.

“Copy that,” he says, “I’m with you.”

*Shiro*

There’s a crackling on my comms and a voice I haven’t heard in a long time comes through. “Hailing the Black lion,” it says, “Identify yourself.” I realize that I’ve stopped breathing, and I take in a gasp of air.

“Keith?” I ask, my voice wavering and barely there. There’s a pause, and then,

“Shiro?” 

“Keith is that you?!” Hunk yells in our ears.

“Hunk?” another voice asks, but this time it’s not Keith. The blue lion walks through the trees in front of me.

“Lance?!” Hunk yells. 

“Where are you guys?” Pidge asks, “I’m coming to you.”

“They’re with me, regroup on my location,” I say. 

“How did you guys make it through the atmosphere?” Lance asks. 

“Allura took down the barrier,” Hunk says, coming through the tree line.

“Figures,” Keith says. 

“I can’t believe you guys are alive!” Hunk says.

“I can’t believe you guys have been stuck here together for a year and haven’t killed each other yet,” Pidge says.

“I second that,” I say.

“Ya,” Lance says, “I can’t believe it either.” Keith huffs in response. 

“Paladins, come in!” Allura’s voice calls through the comms.

“We’re here princess,” I respond. 

“What’s your status,” she asks. 

“Allura!” Lance calls.

“Lonce?” she says back.

“Oh my goodness,” he says, “I never thought I’d hear your voice again.” Pidge breaths a laugh, half at Lance and half in disbelief.

“It’s good to hear from you, princess,” Keith says. 

“Keith?! Is that you?”

“We have eyes on both the red and blue lions,” I report, “Both intact and with their pilots.”

“I don’t believe it,” she says.

“How did you find us?” Lance asks. 

Black looks up and above us I can see Allura approaching on her one person craft. She lands on the black lion’s head. “We got a hit on the blue lion and came here as fast as we could manage,” she relays, “Coran will be thrilled that you’re both okay.”

“I wonder why we didn’t get a hit on the red lion too,” Pidge says.

“We just managed to get her back online when you breached the atmosphere,” Keith tells them.

“Wait,” Hunk cuts in, “So your lions have really been offline all this time?”

“Yup,” Lance says.

“But then how did you–” Hunk starts.

“We should continue this conversation back at the castle,” I say.

“Yes,” Allura agrees, “I’m still not sure if the barrier will reform,” she informs us.

“Did you take the barrier down completely?” Lance asks.

“I’ve done my best but–”

“The life here has evolved with that barrier for 11,000 years, destroying it could damage the ecosystems,” Lance says.

“So we need to get the barrier back up?” Keith asks.

“Well, we should leave things the way we found them, right?” Lance asks.

“...Right,” Keith says hesitantly. “Have you already loaded everything into Blue?” Keith asks.

“The most we’d be leaving behind is a few firepits and place markers,” Lance responds. 

“Good,” I say, intruding on what seems to be a private conversation, “Let’s meet back at the castle. We’ll stay in orbit until we’ve discussed what needs to be done about the field.” 

“Copy that,” Pidge and Hunk respond.

“Agreed,” Allura says, swinging down Black’s jaw to take refuge in the lion’s mouth.

The blue lion turns away from me, looking off in the other direction, at nothing as far as I can see. The red lion looks with her, then turns to watch Blue. “Copy,” Keith says. Blue turns to meet Red’s eyes.

“Copy,” Lance says. The red and blue lions turn together, walking close enough that their tails intertwine as they sway. They face the rest of us and I know the others are staring too. 

“Shall we?” Keith asks, impatient as ever.

“Yes,” I say, coming back to my senses after the eventful past few minutes. 

I take off in Black and when I look to my right I see Red and Blue flying beside me, while Yellow and Green are to my left. 

“Paladins, Allura, do you copy?” the comms crackle.

“Coran,” Allura says, “we copy, we’re returning to the castle now.” 

“Coran,” Lance says, and his face pops up on my dash, likely the same for everyone else too. He looks a bit scruffy, but otherwise the same as ever. “It’s nice to hear from you,” he says.

“Lance,” Coran cries, “my boy, you’re alright!” 

“Ya, we’re alright,” Lance laughs, “that should be my line.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“Well,” Lance says timidly, “We thought you guys were dead,” he admits.

“Hold your gazurgas,” Coran says, “what do you mean ‘we’?”

“Hello Coran,” Keith says, announcing himself.

“Oh! Number four!” Coran says, “You’re here too!”

“We’re docking now,” I say, and when I land all four of the other lions push into the same bay after me. 

Once we’re cramped in and the doors close, I hurriedly disembark from my lion. I race out to find Allura waiting for me, then we both run for Red and Blue together. Hunk and Pidge both meet us at the lost lions’ feet, the two parked as close together as possible, and it takes another moment for the lions’ jaws to lower. It’s just long enough to make me question if this is all a hoax, all much too good to be true. Then the lion’s lower their heads at the same time, and the jaws open, ramps descending. 

The cockpit doors within their mouths slide open, revealing Lance and Keith.