That… was a bad landing. A bad landing in a lightly-armored Lion who could hit things about a million miles an hour faster than all the others could. Lance groaned and picked his head off the console.

That could have gone better. But it also could have gone worse. Looked like this planet was covered in some kind of snotty green stuff, so he could have landed harder than he did.

So could the fighter at the edge of his vision. Lance reached for the ship's blaster. It didn't charge. The comms were down when he tried them, too.

He probably wouldn't have used it, anyway. The blaster, that is. But it would have been a nice option to have.

"You gonna wake up soon, Red?"

Red stayed quiet.

"I guess you know better than anyone how much of a dumbass that Keith can be," Lance said. "But you know, thinking's not really his strong point. He thought he was doing the right thing."

He wasn't really sure what had happened to everyone else. Things were a little fuzzy after some point. They'd been going after the fighter, you know, the one that probably had Prince Lotor in it. He seemed to have a thought about some kind of suicide move, but he couldn't remember if it had been him or the guy they'd been chasing.

Lance sat up and looked out the front. The fighter was in pretty bad shape, but the guy was probably still in it. Probably. It was a little too far away to see if there were any guts splattered over the landscape.

At least he didn't see any ominous footprints leading towards him in the ooze. Course, maybe the guy had a jetpack. Like, a really good one.

Lance sighed. Space was hard.

He tried the comms one more time. Not even static. That probably didn't mean anything good.

Welp. There was somebody in that fighter, maybe alive and maybe hurt, and it was only them here.

Lance picked up his bayard. He paused, pulled up the med kit, and headed out.

There was an entire wing of the fighter in Red's jaws. Did he do that? That was pretty badass of him.

"Nice work, Red."

Hopefully Red had heard that.

The trudging-through-the-goo part turned out to be a little harder than he'd thought, you know, cause of all that goo. It was knee-deep in some places, and deeper in others. He could have used a set of snowshoes… but maybe they only worked on snow.

He clutched the med kit a little tighter as he walked.

It was weird seeing somebody you'd killed. There'd be that moment of relief, that they wouldn't be coming after you anymore, but then there was that feeling, that darkening realization that this was something you'd DONE, that there was no way to undo it and there was a person there who wouldn't see any more of this vast universe, even though it was infinite, even though there was so much of it being wasted by not being seen, but now there was a person who wouldn't be there anymore even if their BODY was, a whole universe inside of them shut off.

It was way better to fight robots.

His whole body ached.

There were streaks in the ooze where the fighter had skidded to a halt, showing a pale ground beneath. A good chunk of the ship was buried in the… whatever you called the stuff that bunched up when you pushed goo around with a large object. Something-something physics. Pidge would know what that was called.

The ship didn't really look like it was gonna work, but he stayed away from the blaster anyway.

It was easier walking where the goo had been scraped away. He came up to the ship and knocked on the side.

"Hello? You alive in there?"

No answer. Maybe he had to knock a bit louder.

Okay that shouldn't have hurt so much. Maybe he'd done something to that arm.

Well, that aside, if the guy was still in the fighter he was probably either dead or almost dead. Which would mean it was probably safe to open the thing.

However he was gonna do that.

He hadn't really thought about that before he came here. But his head was hurting, he didn't really feel like thinking too much. And he didn't really feel like going back, either.

He tried the other side of the ship instead. There was a loose panel just above the ground. Sometimes the universe did the thinking for him.

He tugged at the panel with everything his incredible muscles could muster. And then he remembered that his arm was broken or something.

"Quiznaaaaaaaaak," he grumbled.

But the panel was off and he was looking inside the ship.

That was… that was a sword. Really close to his face.

And some dude who did NOT look all that happy to see him.

Lance raised his hands and backed away.

"Okay, sorry I came here."

Very sorry, according to his arm.

"Paladin of Voltron," said the guy on the other end of the sword. Who was, like, probably Prince Lotor.

"Yeah, hi," Lance said. "I'm Lance. Are you Prince Lotor?"

"I don't care to tell you."

"You sound like the guy from the broadcast," Lance said.

"Fancy that."

Lance didn't know many princes, but he could totally picture one acting this way. Like, not the Disney kind, but the bad guy kind.

"Can you like… put the sword down?"

"I don't know," Prince Lotor said. "Can I?"

"Probably, it's just us here."

"Why did you come here?"

"Because we crashed?"

"Why did you come to my SHIP."

"I don't know," Lance said, looking back where he'd put the med kit. "Cause I don't know what ELSE to do."

"You've got some nerve," Prince Lotor said, pulling the sword back a little.

"That's a compliment, right? Because I like to think I'm doing something right here."

He thought he saw Prince Lotor smirk. He hoped he didn't.

"You're really a Paladin of Voltron."

"Yeah! Of course I am!"

Wait. That was said as an insult.

"Hey," Lance huffed. "I came over here with the first aid stuff to make sure you were okay, but if you don't want me to be nice, I don't have to be."

The sword disappeared.

"My apologies."

"Right. So ARE you okay?"

The prince guy took a moment to answer.

"I am."

"You sure? You sound like you had to think about that."

Princey-boy sighed at him.

"Well I'm a bit shaken up, you see. Forgive me if it takes me some time to collect myself."

"Yeah, right, I get that. So, do you know what happened to everyone else?"

"They'll find us."

He wasn't really sure how much of this guy's stuff he believed. But he wasn't dead, which was nice in a way, and he also wasn't trying to kill him right now, which made the first part actually not suck.

"Where the heck even ARE we?"

"Planet Krenall," said the prince. "Abandoned by the Empire due to its lack of resources and unlivability."

"Oh. Great."

"You can go back to your ship if you'd like."

"Yeah, Red's asleep right now. And your ship doesn't look like it's doing so great, either. Man, we're stuck here, aren't we?"

"They'll find us," Lotor said again.

"Yeah, I sure hope so," Lance leaned against the fighter. "I don't usually pack FOOD and stuff."

"Of course you don't. And we can expect a storm fairly soon."

"What? How do you know?"

"They're frequent on Planet Krenall. Look at the sky."

That sounded like one of those tricks the bad guys used in movies to get you to look away from them, and then they'd karate chop you in the head so that the next time you woke up, you'd be dangling over their dastardly lava pit and they were doing that maniacal laugh at you and you had to wait for your friends and/or love interest to come get you, before the laser cut through the rope and plunged you into the fiery depths of the lava-gator pit. And Lance wasn't sure his friends could come in time to save him from that.

"I'll take your word for it, it's gonna rain."

"It doesn't RAIN on Planet Krenall. It precipitates a highly cohesive plasma."

"It does what?"

"That green goo falls out of the sky."

"Oh. Like oobleck!"

Prince Lotor didn't ask for any details, which was disappointing because that would've been fun.

"By the way, what the quiznak do you even WANT from us?" Lance said.

"Nothing that would cost your life."

"Then why were you trying to kill us?"

"It's not MY fault that you couldn't handle it."

"So it's OUR fault that you almost killed us? Seriously?"

"Did you come here to help me, or to interrogate me."

Lance folded his arms. This was not an easy prince.

"Yeah, right," he said. "So what should we do until they find us?"

"Staying alive would be ideal."

"Yeah. You have any ideas?"

Prince Lotor looked like he didn't feel like TALKING about his ideas.

"There are some abandoned living quarters on this planet," he said at last. "We could try to find one."

He said 'we.' Lance was doing a thing with the Galra prince.

What a weird day.

He offered Lotor a hand out of the cockpit. Lotor just sneered at him.

Man. What a great sneer. Lance really should work on his OWN, that was a sneer to be taken seriously. Musta been a prince thing. It'd go on the to-do list, after the smolder, of course. The smolder being less of a prince thing and more of a Lance thing.

"Any idea where these little houses are gonna be?" Lance asked as they started through the oobleck.

"They'll be easiest to find in a place with the least precipitate. Which happens to be a suffocation hazard."

"Oh. Great," Lance said. He stopped and picked up a blob of oobleck. "It doesn't look too dangerous by itself."

"That's what the Empire thought when they settled here."

Lance tucked the kit under his arm to mess around with the oobleck. It was kind of the best thing he had ever played with.

"We could probably make a snowman out of this."

"That doesn't sound like it's going to help us."

"Well, we're gonna need SOMETHING to do while we're waiting."

"We're not 'waiting' until we find shelter."

"Yeah, but after that."

"I admire your optimism."

"Thanks. I admire your… sneer."

Lotor gave him a bit of a weird look, and he knew he should have just not said that.

"You know, I kinda forget how we ended up here," Lance said as they walked. "Do you remember who blew up who?"

"I assume it was mutual."

"Oh. You don't remember, either?"

"I remember your crew coming after me."

"Uh, yeah, I remember YOU taking advantage of that."

"Let's not point fingers," Lotor said. "Are we surviving, or aren't we?"

They were, for now. Hopefully that would keep happening.

"Uh, well… I'm sorry if it's my fault we crashed here," Lance said.

"Likewise," said Prince Lotor.

The oobleck clouds were thick and green, kind of weird in how the light came through them. But kind of pretty, too. Like a lava lamp.

"Do they have lava lamps where you're from?"

"No."

"That's too bad. Lava lamps are awesome."

"I'm sure."

Maybe they could make a lava lamp out of the oobleck when he got back. Heck, they could make a BUNCH of lava lamps out of all this stuff.

Lance stretched the oobleck between his hands. Man, this stuff could go FOREVER.

"This isn't really what I planned on doing when I woke up this morning," he said.

"It's an unpredictable universe. One must always have a plan, or else be versatile."

"Yeah, the plan stuff isn't so much my style, but I like to THINK I can roll with the punches."

He threw the gob of oobleck off into the distance. Actually it kind of got stuck on his hand and plooped right to the ground. Hopefully Prince Lotor thought he meant to do that.

"So," Lance said as he shook the goo off his hand. "You don't really look like your dad."

"Well. Thank you."

"Really? I thought you'd be offended by that, cuz like, I kinda thought…" That was probably the wrong sentence to start but now it was too late. "No, I didn't think anything, I'm gonna shut up now."

He thought he heard Lotor scoffing.

"No. Finish that thought. What did you think?"

"First you have to promise not to kill me."

"That's not a promise I'm prepared to make."

"Well, then, I won't tell you."

"I won't kill you for saying it, how's that?"

"Okay, okay… I just sorta maybe think your dad is a tiny little bit ugly."

Prince Lotor put a hand to his face and turned away.

"Look, I really didn't want to offend you," Lance said quickly.

Lotor turned back to him after a moment. Actually, he was laughing.

"No. That's the best thing I've heard in a long time."

"Oh," Lance said. "You think he's ugly, too?"

"I wouldn't much like to talk about him, thank you."

Dang. Cuz it sounded like there was something real interesting going on here.

"Over there," Lotor nodded towards a rise in the oobleck. "That looks like an empty base."

Lance wasn't sure how he'd figured that. It just looked like another hill in the goo. Maybe a slightly squarish one.

"How do you get in?" he said.

"I'll do that."

There wasn't enough residual power for any decent lighting in the base. There was green stuff halfway up all the windows, kinda like being in a submarine, only the water was too thick to see through.

Lotor sat on the floor and pulled off his boot.

"Getting comfy already?" Lance snorted, taking off his helmet.

Lotor didn't look at him, just rolled up his cuff.

Wait. That was blood.

"Oh, jeez. You said you were okay!"

"Well, I might have been stretching the truth."

Stretching it farther than a glob of oobleck apparently, santo quiznakking DIOS that was a lot of blood.

Lance opened the med kit. And that was a lot of bottles with weird alien labels that he couldn't read.

"Fuck, man, I don't know what any of this stuff IS."

"Let me see it."

Lance sat down and handed it to him.

"For your future reference," Lotor said, setting out a bottle, "this one's a painkiller. This's one's a disinfectant. This is a general antivenin that I expect has expired."

Lance squinted at the weird labels.

"Wait… you can read Altean?"

"One learns what one can. This one is for burns, and this one is an emetic."

"A what?"

"Induces vomiting."

"Oh, gross."

Lotor took out a roll of gauze and opened the bottle that was probably the disinfectant, but there were kind of a lot of them and Lance didn't really remember which one was which. Sure smelled like a disinfectant, though. And it looked like it stung.

"Can I help you with anything?" Lance said.

"No, you may not."

"Hey, I don't suck THAT badly."

"Would you want ME to do this for YOU?"

"Okay, okay, fair point…"

There were probably all kinds of weird diseases in most alien blood, anyway. Didn't this kit have any gloves in it?

Lance picked it up and poked through the rest of the stuff. Little scissors, little clampy things, little thread, little needles. But not like, the syringe kind. Like, the sewing kind.

Which bottle was the painkiller again?

Oh look, gloves.

"So. What happens when we get out?" Lance said. "We just go right back to killing each other?"

"I was never trying to kill you."

"Yeah, I forgot. It's just our fault for being in the way and sucking."

"That's really not the case."

"So what IS?"

"Well. You wouldn't like hearing it."

Of course he wouldn't, but this sounded like the kind of thing that was gosh-darn IMPORTANT to hear.

Lance knew from the movies that the best way to get your enemy to tell you his plans was to be hanging by a string over his pit of alligator-sharks while he slowly cranked the winch that lowered you into the water. But they didn't really have any of that stuff and besides, Lance didn't actually feel like doing that.

"Why don't you like talking about your dad?" he said instead.

He saw Lotor's hand tighten on the material.

"I have my reasons."

"Well, yeah, what ARE they?"

"Why are you asking?"

"I don't know," Lance said. "Because you SAY you don't want to kill us and you SAY you don't like your dad, and I also don't want you to kill us and I also don't like your dad, and I'm trying my darndest to understand why we still have a problem if we're on the same page."

Lotor focused on his roll of gauze in that I-don't-want-to-look-at-you kind of way.

"There are things I have to do to end this war," he said, "even if they're unpleasant. I don't want to kill you. I don't even HAVE to kill you."

"But?"

"We needed something of yours. But now…" Lotor made an aimless gesture. "We'll form another plan. As many plans as we have to."

"Why, what did you need? The Lions?"

"Yes. The Lions."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid it's a bit complicated, and I'm not sure I'm up to talking."

Well, Lance was ALWAYS up to talking, so he could at least keep them from getting bored if Lotor wasn't gonna.

"Well, you seem a lot more reasonable than your dad, anyway. I'm sorry he sucks so much, I'd probably hate having Zarkon as a dad, too. Is he like, a sports dad? Like, the kind who makes you be really good at basketball or else he won't love you? I knew some guys with dads like that, it's totally not fair, usually it's because the dads want their kids to do something that they couldn't. I guess the dads aren't really happy with themselves. I'm lucky, my dad's not like that, actually he always used to tell me that whatever I wanted to do with my life would be special. I'm not sure he really meant 'go into space and fight robots' but I don't think he'd be UPSET with me for doing it. Just worried, you know?"

Lotor cinched the bandage.

"My father has never been worried about me," he said.

"Ah, well THAT'S horrible," Lance said. "I mean, I don't LIKE making my dad worried, but it's nice to know he cares about me. I'm sorry that you never had that."

"I appreciate your concern. However, there ARE other people in my life."

"You think they're worried about you now?"

"I do."

"Well, it's nice to have friends," Lance said. "I know mine must be worried about me, too."

He began to pick up and check out the bottles. Maybe he would have liked a shot of that painkiller. But maybe Lotor needed it more.

"Which one was this again?"

"The emetic."

Ooh yeah, the pukey one. Stay away from that.

"That'd be great for a practical joke."

"You have a sick sense of humor."

"Pun intended?"

"No."

Lotor took off his helmet. Dang, he had really nice hair.

"Do you suppose they left any food in here?" Lance wondered aloud.

Lotor shifted.

"It's possible."

"Jeez, man, don't get up. I got this."

Oops. He'd forgotten the don't-touch-the-prince rule. But the guy didn't seem to really care.

There were a couple of crates and things around here. Lance pulled one open because he didn't remember that his arm was doing that stupid thing.

"Ow."

"Are you hurt?" Prince Lotor asked him.

"Not THAT much, don't worry."

"Do you need anything?"

"Nah, I'm good. You look like you're in worse shape than me."

"I'm used to it."

"Oh. Well, that sucks."

There were little packets of something in the crate. If Lance knew anything about space, he'd say they were probably edible. But he'd ask Lotor first.

"You read Galra too, right? Are these little food thingies?"

"Yes," said Lotor.

Well, that was one less thing to worry about. Hopefully there was water somewhere.

"You know, I can read a couple of languages, too," Lance said. "But, they only use them back on Earth."

"Earth?"

"Oh. My home planet."

"I don't believe the Empire has found that one."

"Yeah, I didn't actually know there were aliens until we got thrown into space. But I'd always kinda hoped, you know?"

Lotor scoffed.

"Is it everything that you wanted it to be?"

"Well, only some of it. I like meeting all kinds of people and seeing how they live. And what sort of stuff we have in common, that kind of thing."

"That's true," Lotor said. "That's a benefit of interplanetary travel."

"You like that part, too?"

He looked a little bit sad.

"I haven't been able to enjoy it in a while."

"Why not?"

"I don't feel like talking about it."

"You sure don't feel like talking about much," Lance said. "But I'm sure you'd have a lot of interesting things to say. Do you think there's water in here?"

"It would be stored separately from the food."

"Any sort of specially-marked box?"

"No, unfortunately."

Lance gritted his teeth and reached for another one.

"Don't hurt yourself," said Prince Lotor.

"Aren't we gonna need water?"

"Eventually."

Well. He wouldn't MIND not hurting himself more.

Lance sat down on the crate.

"Is it me, or is it getting dark?"

"The storm is starting."

Lance shut up to listen.

There were little plashes of sound coming from outside. Little falling globs were sticking on the windows.

"You know, it's almost nice," he said. "There's something soothing about the sound of the rain. At least, back on Earth there is."

It began to get louder as the blobs got bigger. The window-globs started to slide down.

"You're not afraid of much, are you?" Lotor said out of nowhere.

"What? Of course I'm afraid of stuff. Like getting sucked out into space and then exploding."

"But you're not afraid of TALKING."

"Why? Are YOU?"

Lotor was quiet again.

Dang.

"Are you telling me to shut up?" Lance said. "Because I can do that. You trying to sleep or something?"

"You can sleep if you like."

"Eh, I'm not all that tired."

Though the sound of the rain might change that.

"It really is just like that book about the oobleck," Lance said.

"What book is that?"

Yes! He asked about it!

"There's this kid's book back on Earth, you know, with pictures and stuff, and it's all about this guy wishing the weather was more interesting so he gets his wizards to do some freaky magic, and then it starts ooblecking like this."

"Did this really happen?"

"No, it's just a story book. Course, then the oobleck starts to become a problem, so the king learns to be careful what you wish for. He was a king, did I mention he was a king?"

"You didn't."

"Well, he was a king, and he kind of covered his entire kingdom in goo."

"That sounds about right."

"They have a lot of goo where you're from?"

"No. They have a lot of poor leaders."

"And now they have YOU, apparently. How's THAT going?"

"I think you know how I'm going to answer that."

"Yeah, you don't want to talk about it."

"It's a precarious position," Lotor said. And he didn't say anything else.

But Lance didn't even think he'd say THAT.

"Why are you so afraid of talking?" Lance said.

Lotor looked at him in a way that he could only think of as 'panicked rabbit.'

"I don't want to talk about that, either."

"Well, that's fine, I guess," Lance said. "Some of the best people I know don't talk much. Like my buddy, Keith, he seems like kind of a jerk before you get to know him but it turns out he's just really bad at small talk. Or like Shiro, he's… uh, actually, never mind."

"Did something happen to him?"

"Yeah… I don't even know WHAT. Sorry I'm getting this way, I just… don't lose a lot of people who are close to me."

"You don't have to apologize," Prince Lotor said. "I know what it's like."

"Funny how that works," Lance wiped his nose. "That's one of those things that's the same no matter WHERE you go."

"It is. I'm sorry to hear about it."

"Yeah, yours too."

"Mine were quite a long time ago. Time is the only thing I've found that helps."

"Well, I guess I can look forward to that," Lance said.

"I wish you luck."

"He was something else," Lance said. "No one's ever gonna be the same again."

"No one ever is."

The oobleck was falling in much bigger chunks now. It was a little scary how big they were. Thunk, plosh, getting loud on the rooftop.

He was glad that he wasn't alone.

"Lance. Wake up."

Huh? Had he really been sleeping?

"Oh. Hey," he groaned, rubbing his eyes. Wow, this was not a fun floor to sleep on. Especially not according to his unhappy shoulder. When did he get that blanket, though?

"I've made contact with my crew," Lotor said, sitting on one of the crates. "They're going to be here soon."

"Oh. That's cool, I guess."

"Are you coming with us?"

Lance almost answered, then stopped.

WAS he?

"What are you gonna do if I say yes?"

"What do you want us to do?"

"Tell my team where I am and let them get me."

"I can do that."

That sounded pretty good. He kind of didn't want to be stuck alone on this planet, anyway.

"Then yes."

Gosh, his friends would never believe what kind of day he'd just had.

Lotor turned away and spoke into his comm.

"I'll be bringing someone with me. He's a friend."