Acre


"…So what are we supposed to do with it?" Lance asked, swinging his legs over the lip of the crater.

"That was going to be a school… and an orphanage… and a playground… and a day-care for the children while their parents were rebuilding… and the children's flower memorial garden…" Allura mumbled slowly as she surveyed the damage.

"Yeah… we even designed a flower clock," Pidge added. "Now look—the entire section is one big crater, Lance!"

"Hey!" Lance snapped. "Can I help it that Lotor got behind me? If it were any of your lions you would have burned up in the atmosphere. All right, so we lost an acre of land to the crater, but you could've lost me!"

"But the point was that you were in Red Lion. It could take the heat—maybe even thrive in it. You should have maneuvered," Keith scolded, folding his arms.

"I did maneuver. Instead of crashing on its nose I made Red Lion crash on its side. Hence the acre-wide crater instead of the somewhat lion shaped heap of red scrap metal."

"That flower clock was going to really be something…" Hunk grumbled.

"Hey! I came back for the main battle. That's something! Reentry and exit again in ten minutes!

"Lotor cornered the princess twice while you were gone!" Pidge said, throwing a rock into the crater, where it made pitiful progress before it stopped.

"How is that my fault? I'm not the official guard or anything!" Lance said, standing up. "And how does he corner anybody in space?"

"There was an armada," Princess Allura sniffed. "But about the acre of land—?"

"Isn't there anywhere else? It's not like there's a shortage of land on this planet. It's not some kind of city planet with no undeveloped land left," Lance said.

"But this land was perfect," Hunk said. "It was just were we needed it. Central location, great shelter, fruit trees to pick lunch off of, underground spring, and some really soft grass for the kids to nap on." Hunk chucked a rock far past where Pidge's had stopped. It started a miniscule landslide of imperfect glass in the bowl of the crater.

"Well, at least he didn't crash here when there was something other than land," said Pidge in a depressed tone.

"That's right," Allura agreed, turning away. "I guess all that remains is figuring out what to do with the site…"

"How about we have Lance fill it in so we can still use the site?" Pidge asked brightly, turning around.

"What?" Lance asked. "Hunk's lion is the earth one—get him to fill it in."

"I'm not the one who made the crater!" Hunk pointed out.

"Boys—" Allura said, already attempting to head off the coming argument.

"Stop it," Keith ordered. "There's no sense in sitting around here staring at it. Lance will just have to spend the rest of the afternoon searching for another acre of land, all right?"

A mock salute answered Keith.


Word count minus notes: 500 words.

Author's Note: The story gets much better as you go along, I promise. Words randomly chosen out of the dictionary that you have to look forward to include hibachi, marshmallow, and votive; so you have a lot to look forward to.