Journey

By Kim Smuga

The following story is set half way through the first season and it assumes that the team has enough time on their hands for random conversations. Bonus points for anyone who catches the homage to one of my all-time-favorite comic series.

[Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Voltron characters]

Katie Holt was not, and had never been, the type of girl who was afraid of mice. And most definitely not the type to scream.

But, when you've been hacking code for the last three hours and are reaching into the bowl of nebursh seeds that Hunk has managed to cook so they almost, but not quite, taste like popcorn, only to have your hand wrap around something warm, furry, with a heartbeat, you can be forgiven for an instinctive reflex.

"Eeeek!"

The space mouse went flying. Pidge jumped straight up. She heard the thump as it landed.

She gulped once and scanned the room for the creature. It was lying a foot away, not moving. A closer look showed it was sleeping and Pidge felt a bit better. But only a bit. Where there were space mice, there was often a princess, and lately, meeting up just the two of them had been … awkward.

"Pidge?" the voice was refinement mixed with concern, "is that you?"

Pidge glared at the sleeping rodent and hissed, "Rat." She could hear the princess's footsteps approaching.

"I heard a scream," said Allura, "is everything okay?"

"Oh, something startled me, nothing to see here." Pidge gave Allura an innocent-girl-smile, the one that she'd use when her parents would catch her and Matt fighting. Allura must not have had any babysitting experience because it seemed to work.

"Oh good," said Allura. And then in a casual way that seemed rather polished, she added. "Actually, I was looking for you. Do you have a moment?"

"Um," Pidge glanced at her monitors in the hope that something would be blinking. No help there. "Sure, I guess."

"Lovely, come with me."

Allura had changed out of her battle uniform and back into one of her casual ballroom gowns. Whatever it was made of flowed gracefully down the princess's figure and swished gently as she walked.

Pidge had grown up in a progressive household and had spent most of her childhood playing with Matt's blocks and Lego. Still, there had been a six month period just after she started kindergarten when she fixated on princesses. She liked the empowered, defiant ones who, while they were singing and falling for their true love, also had adventures and took down the bad guys. She'd outgrown those fantasies. And yet, except for the musical numbers, Allura was all that.

Allura led Pidge to her sleeping quarters - Lance was going to have conniptions when she told him. They were significantly larger than any of the paladins'. They entered a parlor or some sort of sitting room with doors leading to a bedroom, bathroom and private study. They had actual furniture, with decorative elements like table cloths, vases, and accent lighting. This being a battle class spaceship, everything was bolted down to the floor, but tastefully.

"Here," Allura presented Pidge with a small box with pretty stones inlaid on the lid. "It's moisturizer made with oil from a Marsuvian mollusk from the Tervuvian system. It's amazing at getting rid of callouses and it has the most divine scent."

She unscrewed the top and held it up to Pidge's nose. It smelled of honeysuckle, the ocean, and … carrots? Actually it was kind of nice.

"I'm not even sure if the planet exists any more, but father used to stockpile it for me and I thought I'd give you one."

"Thanks, but if you have a limited number then-"

"Nonsense. If we run out, we'll find something else. I'm asking you to put your life on the line to defend the universe, the least I can do is share some comfort items. Oh, and do Earthlings partake of aroma therapy? because I –"

Pidge held up her hand. "Princess, this a very nice gift, thank you so much. But I just realized I had a test queued up to run and I need to be there. Sorry."

"Oh, of course. You should take care of that." Pidge swore Allura's ears dropped slightly, and she felt mildly bad ducking out. But also relieved.

Later that day, as Pidge walked down the corridor, she heard the faint swishing of fabric. There was a utility closet a few feet down the hallway and in a momentary rush of panic she leaped inside and quickly closed the door. The closet was smaller and more tightly packed than she initially judged, and there was a crash as a tower of buckets fell on her head. It was a loud crash.

A moment later the door opened and Coran peered inside. He blinked a few times and had what Pidge thought of as his bemused Jeeves look.

"Hello, there?" he said, "Have I interrupted one of your strange but culturally important Earth customs?"

"Not exactly," said Pidge as she extricated herself from the pile of buckets, "I thought you were the princess."

"Hmm," Coran twirled his mustache and peered into the closet. "Are you two playing a game of Hide and Find?"

"We humans call it Hide and Seek."

"Not a very ambitious game then, is it?"

A short pause followed as each regarded the other's weird alien-ness, before filing it away as just one of those Earthing/Altean "things."

"I'm not playing a game with the princess," Pidge admitted, "I'm kind of avoiding her."

"Really? What did she catch you doing? You haven't been customizing the palace's warning alarms again? She's very particular about the pitch."

Pidge sighed. With Coran, the truth was easier - not necessarily less painful, but over sooner. "No. It's just that, ever since she found out I'm female, I get the feeling she wants to do girl stuff with me."

"Girl. Stuff." Coran repeated.

"You know, painting toenails multiple colors, paging through fashion magazines, watching romantic comedies late into the night and confessing your secret crushes." At least, that's what the girls at Pidge's old middle school had been up on those rare occasions when she'd hung out with them.

"So you prefer to emulate the male societal norms of your race."

Pidge considered her teammates, "Hopeless Romeo, repressed Hemingway, or lovable goofball," she counted them off on her fingers, "Nope, I think I'll give that a pass as well."

Coran was nodding, as if agreeing with Pidges assessment. But as usual, the hamster gears in his head turned out to be running in a different direction. "It's fascinating how different races of aliens divvy up gender roles and expectations, even amongst those with a binary mating biology. For the Milrusee's, the males tend to the children's needs while the females bash in the heads of anyone who has the misfortune of wandering close to the nesting circle. With the Norokzt, the females handle all aspects of society, politics, war, family households and business, and just keep the males around to look pretty. There's the Llaveracs, where all members adopt a female persona, including the males. And the Galra segregate completely, except during ritualistic mating ceremonies."

"How about the Alteans? What are their expectations?"

"Altean women are noble, pure of heart and resourceful. Altean men are valiant, chivalrous, intelligent and exhibit a sophisticated sense of humor." Pidge raised an eyebrow. "Or, that's what we aspire to, with varying degrees of success."

"Noble, pure of heart, and resourceful, that's Allura, alright." Pidge agreed, "guess I wouldn't make a good Altean female either."

Now Coran was raising an eyebrow. He regarded the smallest paladin and her turned down face. "I wonder," he said slowly, "If the attention Allura is showing with you, has to do with her pleasure of having a female paladin again."

Pidge perked up. "One of the old paladins was female? Which lion?-no don't tell me." Pidge wasn't sure how she knew, but she was certain the green paladin had been male. And red too, unless she was a Milrusee. Now blue … there was a smoothness, a graceful and delicate aspect to the lion's fighting style. "I'm guessing blue."

"Wrong!" shouted Coran, "Deogan was definitely male. Although, if any one of them could pull off a drag- nope, not going to go there ... Arrggg, no, too late." Coran's face crumpled, as if he was experiencing an ice cream headache. After a visible tremble, he continued. "Lithelia piloted the yellow lion."

Now it was Pidge's brain that needed a mental flossing as she failed to avoid imagining Hunk in a fluffy dress. "Wait, I remember now, when Allura was assigning us our lions, she said the yellow paladin was caring and kind."

"Yes, no one had a greater heart than Lithelia." Coran assumed a far-away smile that was both tender and sad. "She was an amazing woman. And yet, she never wore a dress, or fancied up her hair, or painted her toenails."

Part of Pidge wanted to ask press Coran about the old paladins, but there was something that had been bothering her. When she had revealed herself to them the other day, only Lance had been surprised. Allura had found out through the mice, and Hunk and Keith were around her enough to sense her privacy issues were more than just a shy bladder. But the fact that she couldn't fool the male alien continued to irk her.

"Coran, when I, err, came out to the group, how did you know I was a girl?"

"I believe I said that I hadn't realize you were trying to mislead us about your gender. Alteans are natural diplomats and quite good at spotting deceit. Your conduct was altogether natural and genuine."

"And like a girl's," Pidge concluded.

"I've only just met the human race. How do I know what are feminine traits, as opposed to say, short person traits?" asked Coran, "Do you behave differently when you're Katie Holt?"

"I …" her brain raced for a convenient, short answer, and couldn't find one, "I never thought about it that way. When I was infiltrating Galaxy Garrison, I kept to myself, but that was mainly so I didn't accidently give myself away. But otherwise …" Pidge considered her personality traits, "I've always been a motor mouth, always been a smart aleck, always been confident that I could solve any problem with enough CPU, always been particular, eclectic and a bit of an oddball. Basically, a geek nerd. But…" it was suddenly clear, "when I was Katie, I was the girl geek nerd."

"And that's different?"

"Totally. It's like every time you meet up with a new set of guys, you need to establish that you're not faking it and you really can program them under the table. And once you've shown off your skills, they either expect you to be their manic pixie dream girl, or their egos take a hit and they go sulky. And not being better means you're treated to mansplaining, nerd mansplaining which has got to be the absolute worst, pedantic and condescending. No matter what you do, you're the token girl, constantly having to prove that one doesn't need a y chromosome to speak Klingon or recite the scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or rattle off the first 50 digits of pi."

"I didn't understand one wit of what you just said," said Coran, "But I'll assume that whatever you said that had happened in the past, did not happen when you assumed the persona of Pidge."

"Exactly! When I met Lance and Hunk at the garrison, they just assumed I was some snotty genius. They gave me heck for not wanting to hang out with them, but they never were offended or questioned the fact I was smarter than them. And when we became paladins, Keith and Shiro just assumed I was a pilot with a lot to learn, no dismissal, no special hand-holding. You know how uncomplicated it is to be just one of the guys?"

This was why she kept the non-prescription glasses, why she kept her oversized shirt, why she still answered to Pidge.

"I like complications, keeps you noticing things," said Coran, "like, for instance when you first meet an alien, it's critical that you identify if they're the type to sit down to a meal with you, or sit down to a meal of you – very important distinction. Or, perhaps more relevant to our current conversation, when you meet an alien of a race you are familiar with away from their home planet you need to figure out how much of their culture they've packed with them. See, there are individuals who, upon seeing the wild diversity of life in the universe, will cling to their own race's ways and values to the point that you can barely distinguish between them. And then there are those who see all that chaos as a form of freedom and a chance to change themselves, grow into something new.

With the former, you know to a T exactly how they will act and react. But for the latter, you can't make any predictions, and even if you figure them out, there's no guarantee that when next you bump into them, they won't have changed some more. Once you leave your culture's expectations, you don't have to have a destination, you just have a journey."

"That's quite profound, Coran." Pidge admitted.

"Enjoy your journey, green paladin. And, should you choose to temporary detour to do girl stuff with the princess, I hope you enjoy that too."