Lance blinked the lights out of his eyes. He looked up, catching the lions as they took off. For a moment, Blue just sat there, ready to leave. He smiled as he felt the marks on his cheeks light up. They tickled every time it happened.

Blue kicked up into the sky. As she left, Lance felt as though all the energy drained out of him. He fell to his knees, breathing hard. He vaguely heard Shiro and Keith behind him, and looked up slightly as Shiro came into his line of sight. He said some things that Lance couldn't quite catch, then he felt Hunk lift his right shoulder as Keith took his left.

Lance was aware that Shiro was leading Keith and Hunk, who were carrying Lance, to the bedrooms, Pidge following right behind them.

What he wasn't aware of, however, was the Lion's receding forms.

They flew through space,

opening up a wormhole. It wasn't an everyday wormhole, not like the ones the Paladins had used to get to other planets quickly. This wormhole led to an open space with a bunch of strings, like the memory strands in the brain.

The lions gathered in a circle, Blue in the center. She opened her mouth, and suddenly there was a blinding light. It seemed to be emanating from her maw.

The other lions joined her, each mixing their quintessence together.

This continued for quite a while. Finally, for fear of using up all their quintessence, the lions stopped. Blue closed her mouth, and so did the other lions.

There was something floating in front of her face. Blue quickly swallowed the thing up, bringing it into her cockpit.

The thing stirred, as though it were alive. It looked like a human, except she had pointy ears and strange crescent-shaped marks on her cheeks.

The marks were a soft blue, like Lance's. Unlike the pink she had had all her life.

Her skin was a deep caramel-ish color, her hair platinum blonde. She stirred slightly, opening her eyes to reveal what could only be described as rainbow irises.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She remembered Haggar, the paladins, Lance's lips on hers as she-

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She couldn't have died, right? She wouldn't be lying here in the cockpit of the Blue Lion if she was dead.

Yet, she was so sure she had died. She could feel Blue plowing through her mind, putting images of the past year into her.

She saw Lance teaching a group of Altean children something. She saw the paladins as they watched the lions fly away.

"Blue, what have I missed?" She mumbled, still too weak to move.

She felt Blue purr in the back of her head. One message kept coming into her-home.