A/N: i've dived face first into voltron hell. also. i am alpha mythology/folklore geek.

Lance has never thought of the castle as, well, creepy . It's a flying spaceship powered by magic and alien technology. It's many things, and creepy or haunted don't even come close to that list.

But, when the green gets replaced with sinister purple and the lights turn off, he finds himself hurrying just a bit to get where he needs to go.

It's really not fair. Before all this, purple was his favorite color.

The ship was still working out glitches from the remnants of the infection. Allura had mentioned something really complicated and possibly made up, but Pidge boiled it down to "the castle isn't gonna kill you anymore, just try it's best to freak you the fuck out."

"Is the castle sentient," Hunk had asked, "because I am so not cool with living in a giant thing ! Is this like that thing with the Balmerans? Is it like that? Because I did not like that. I almost died on that."

"No," Pidge replied, "It's not sentient."

The lights flickered when they said that, cycling through green to red to purple to bright, fluorescent white. This did not help anything.

Suddenly, the hallway rumbled and all the lights turned off, leaving Lance alone in the darkness. If asked, years later, he would pinpoint that exact moment as the second he lost all pretense of dignity. He ran full tilt for the mess hall, screaming his ass off the entire way there.

"You know what we should do?" Keith said, tipping back in his chair. The seven had retreated to the mess hall after Pidge had set up shop (mostly because they were trailing Hunk, and Hunk wasn't leaving). After all, in a glitchy castle with enough rooms to house a couple armies, it only made sense to keep all seven occupants in one place. Well, six. Nobody knew where the hell Coran went.

"You should shut your hell mouth," Lance shot back half-heartedly, also tipping back in his chair.

"Boys," Shiro warned, sounding just as half-hearted.

"We should tell ghost stories," Keith finished, grinning like that idea wasn't going to end in a giant clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Hunk stared, eyes wide. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no! That is a Bad Idea, and can you hear those capitals because again, Bad Idea. That is the kind of idea that will haunt us- "

"What's a ghost story?" Allura cut in innocently. That was the moment everyone knew they'd lost.

"I'll go first," Hunk muttered, defeated.

Alright, alright, so this didn't actually happen to me. But it did happen to my grandma, and she told it to me when I was, like, five, and I've never been the same since. This is my tragic backstory, bro. This story scarred me for li-

Get on with it!

Okay, fine! Jesus , Pidge! Anyways, my grandma's from Hawai'i, and more specifically, Oahu. And when she was a teenager, she'd babysit the local kids. This must have been around when she was fifteen or something, but honestly, I always just pictured my 90-year old granny the entire time.

Anyways , there's this road in Oahu called Old Pali Road, and it's like, super haunted. You can see where I'm going with this, right? Anyways, my grandma didn't believe in shit like that, not really, so she never really cared too much about using that road. But like, she still didn't use it at night. Nana wasn't a fool. But one night, she was asked to take care of this girl for a whole night. There was this whole, village-wide, thing . I can't remember what it was, and well, I can't really ask my grandma anymore, but uh, I think it was a ceremony or something? Anyways, it was like, super adults-only and basically, a gold-mine for babysitters like my Nana.

So obviously, the quickest way to the little girl's house was Old Pali Road. That's how these ghost stories work, right? But, thing is, it was still bright out. When she walked to the little girl's house, it was like, six o'clock. Not exactly the witching hour, huh? But anyways, she walked to the little girl's house, got paid twenty bucks in advance, and together they walked back to my Nana's house.

My great-grandma and grandpa were also out at that village-wide thing, so it was just the two of them alone in that house. Obviously, this is when it started getting weird.

Finally.

Hey, rude! Anyways, the first thing Nana notices is that all the stuff in her cupboards was rearranged. The dishes were a cupboard to the left, the pantry was scattered everywhere, it was weird. She just chalked it up to her mom reorganizing. I guess my great-grandma did that a lot or something, because Nana didn't think it was that weird. Eventually, she tracked down everything and made dinner. And damn, that little girl was in for a treat, because my Nana makes the best food imaginable.

Except not that day. The little girl ate it up just fine, but the first bite of her Poi, my Nana tasted something rotten. Literally. All the food she'd cooked tasted spoiled to her. My Nana dismissed it as her probably coming down with something, since she was pretty prone to sickness as a kid. So she didn't really think anything of it.

Now, it was getting late, but like, not late enough to go to sleep. It's that time between dinner and bed, where it's dark out but you're not sleepy, and it hasn't gotten all quiet yet.

My Nana was cleaning up the counter when she first saw it. A reflection in the window, of a girl with long black hair and a jump rope. Her hair was all stringy and in her face, like she'd been in the wilderness for a bit. And the creepy part? Nana swore she was floating above the ground. She leaned in to take a closer look, and I guess when she shifted she lost the reflection and couldn't see the girl again. A little rattled, she checked back on the little girl she was babysitting.

The girl was still on the couch, curled up with some book or another. She'd looked wide-eyed when Nana mentioned seeing a little girl, and more than a bit confused. Apparently she herself was a fan of jump rope. Which, of course, just freaked out both of them more. Of course, this could still mean nothing, since weird shapes appeared all the time. It didn't need to mean anything, right? Wrong. Anyways, my Nana spread a blanket on her and went upstairs to her room.

Everything was quiet for a bit, until my Nana heard some noises. It was kind of muffled, but it sounded like someone was, you know, baby-talking to someone else. Kinda sing-songish and slurred and stuff. It was quiet, but it sounded just outside her window. Which was, you know, on the second floor.

Nana was absolutely quiet, and she froze up. She had no idea what the hell was outside her window, and she wasn't about to find out.

Then, whatever was outside, rapped on her window. Three times. That was it, she bolted downstairs.

The little girl looked at her, curious and still reading that book. Apparently, she hadn't heard anything. Still rattled, my Nana decided to just stay downstairs with her until it was ten. And when ten o'clock rolled around, Nana had to send the little girl to bed. She decided give the girl the guest room, on the upper floor with Nana.

Now if you think my Nana slept at all that night, you are dumber than a box of rocks! She was freaked out, and more or less home alone. There was a little girl depending on her, and something weird outside her second story window.

Thankfully, nothing happened. That is, until four am. Nana's eyelids were heavier than one of our Lions here, and she was just about ready to turn in for the night. Of course, then exactly is when she felt it. You know that feeling, like you're not alone in your room? Yeah, that. It probably didn't help that she could hear creaking, getting closer and closer to her bed. And, of course, the unmistakable sound of a jump rope dragging against wood.

My Nana froze, again. Slowly, she cracked her eyes open, just a tad. And how she didn't scream, I will never, ever know.

The girl from the reflection was in her room, looking directly at her. Except, this time, her hair wasn't in the way. This time, she could make out the girl's face. Or, what was left of it.

It was completely smooth where there should have been a mouth or nose. And her eyes were twice the normal size, bulging out of her head andlooking right at her .

Apparently, the ghost girl didn't see that she was awake. My Nana shut her eyes, silently prayed because she was about to die , and only opened them once the narrow strip of sun that got past her curtains hit her directly in her face.

The ghost girl was gone, and so was the little girl in her guest room. The only proof that the ghost was there was a noose, made out of an old jump rope. Completely terrified, and probably wondering how to explain that she lost her charge to a ghost , she ran down Old Pali Road to the little girl's house.

And that's when she heard the news. The little girl was found on the beach, drowned and torn apart on the rocks. Thing is, they placed the time of death as two days ago. Long before my Nana ever picked her up and brought her to her house.

So who the hell was with my Nana that night?

Allura blinked. " That's a ghost story?"

"Hey!" Hunk protested. "I thought it was scary!"

"So did Lance," Keith said dryly.

"No! I'm no, I'm just… never going near a little girl ever again! Shut up, Keith!"

"Riiiight," Keith drawled, smirking.

"I thought it was scary," Pidge said,

Allura frowned, still deep in thought. "It's not… real though, right?"

"Nah," Lance waved his hand dismissively. "They're fake. We just tell each other these things to freak each other out."

"Hey! Speak for yourself! I totally heard disembodied drums once."

"So," Allura furrowed her eyebrows, "The purpose is to scare each other?"

"Well, yeah ," Lance said. "Don't you guys have something like that?"

"Actually, yes."

My home planet, Altea, is -was- a technological haven. Cities covered almost the entire surface. But still, there were pockets of land that weren't touched. They were lost to wild jungles, and dangerous things lived inside them. Very few people ever decided to venture out into these reservations.

Once, on a diplomatic mission with my father, I met someone who had. He was old, at least to a young me. In his late thirties, tall and lean, a stereotypical adventurer. My father had left me with him and a group of other natives, so he could talk with their leaders. We were all sitting around a heatpad, kind of like we are now, and exchanging stories. Everyone was pressuring Marmari, the man, to tell his tale. Eventually, I too got curious. He caved in, and began.

He had entered the forest on a quest, to bring a rare flower from its centre back to present as an engagement gift to the man he loved. I thought it was very romantic, young as I was. Anyways, he entered with nothing but a backpack full of his supplies, and his dog at his side.

The first night in the forest, he could barely sleep. He was constantly plagued with the thought that something was watching him. Instead, he busied himself examining the surroundings, calculating his route, figuring out how best to go about his quest. All the while, it had quickly grown dark around him, until only the light of his palmcrystal was left to guide him. And that too, had had to turn off after a bit. Soon, he was enveloped in pitch blackness, darker than the inside of your eyelids.

He had attempted to sleep for a bit, soothed by the noises of the forest. Until, he heard the most peculiar growling. It wasn't quite right, the voice stopped and started at odd times, and it didn't have the sing-song of the original, but it was unmistakably a lullaby. He sat bolt upright, and lit up his palmcrystal, only to reveal nothing in the clearing besides himself and his dog. Suitably frightened, he didn't go back to bed, instead choosing to stay up and plot his course. It would take two more days of constant walking to get to his prize.

In a few hours, dawn broke, and Marmari was on his feet again. His dog, usually loyal and stoic, had quickly taken to barking at everything. Concerned, he took a break a few hours into their trek. At his dog's mouth was white foam, and a second after they stopped, he fell down and died.

Rattled, Marmari took an hour and buried his dog, then continued to walk. He moved faster, and continued through the night, only wishing to get to the flower and leave.

On the second night, the voice returned, as did the sound of something else walking with him. Marmari kept his palmcrystal on the entire night, emitting light around him in a soothing three foot radius. He saw nothing out of the ordinary on his way, but still didn't let up his light until dawn broke again. By now, there was only about half an hour of light left in the palmcrystal, and four days left of his journey.

On the third night, Marmari found what he was looking for. Exhausted, after walking non-stop for a two and a half days, he fell asleep in the clearing right then and there.

He woke to the corpse of his dog standing over him. Its fur was speckled with dirt, and it's insides were torn out. The eyeballs, that was the scariest part. The eyeballs were missing, removed almost surgically.

Marmari grabbed the flowers and fled, running as fast as he could. He ignored all pain and hunger and didn't stop until he got to the edge of the forest. It was there where he collapsed, fainting of hunger and fatigue.

When he woke, attended to in a hospital, he found out what had happened. He had been lost in the jungle for two weeks. He had came out, bedraggled and half-dead, and was discovered by two kids at the edges of the city. He'd been taken to the hospital, with all his clothes torn to shreds, except for his jacket.

When he went home, he found his jacket hanging up on a hook. He took it down, before noticing something inside. The eyeballs and tongue of his dead dog, placed gently in the inside pocket of his coat.

Lance sucked in a quick breath.

"Shit, man. Alteans go hard when it comes to ghost stories."

"I," Hunk declared, "am never sleeping again."

Shiro raised his eyebrows in alarm. "And how old were you when you heard this story?"

"Relax, Shiro. It didn't even happen to me ."

Lance raised his hand. "Is it my turn now? I think it should be my turn."

Alright, alright, so this is a story that took forever for me to get out of my mom. If you're from New Mexico, literally nobody ever gives you any details. All I ever knew about it was es cosa mala, you know, 'it's evil'.

Descriptive.

Shut up, Keith. Anyways , here's the story. There was once a woman whose husband was away. On business, or something like that. And she was super lonely, so she decided to drive down to Santa Fe and visit her friend. At night, because this woman is not a reasonable human being.

So, she's driving down, and then she gets to a crossroads, and a small, dark figure appears in her headlights. Terrifying, right?

No .

Well, shut up Keith, and let me get to the scary part, okay? ANYWAYS, she slams on the breaks. Because, you know, she almost ran over a child or some shit. And she leans over and there's nothing there.

Oh no. Scary.

AND THEN SHE LEANS BACK-

Please don't yell, Lance.

Sorry, Shiro. And then she leans back and breathes like a sigh of relief or something. But something moves to her right, and then, right outside the window, IS A DEMON.

Lance .

Sorry! Dramatic effect! Anyways, there's a demonic old lady outside her right window. Her skin is twisted and wrinkled, and her eyes are red and terrible, and her nails and teeth are short and pointy. She begins to claw at the glass, trying to break it. So like, the woman just fucking floors it. Stomps down on that pedal and goes 100 mph and that demon lady keeps up, running alongside and trying to break that glass. Finally, she drops behind, and in the rearview mirror-

She sees the demon's reflection in the back seat?

No! Shut up, Keith. That's not even how rearview mirrors work. What really happened was she saw the demon growing larger and larger, as big as an abeto , you know, those trees with the needles and pinecones. She didn't stop until she reached her friend's house, you know, and ran inside to tell the whole, terrible story.

Her friend reacted in shock. "That was La Mala Hora ," she said, "The Evil One."

Creative.

Hey, I didn't name it, Pidge! So, getting on with it, La Mala Hora only appears at crossroads whenever someone is about to die. And wouldn't you know it, the next day she got a call, and her husband had died during a mugging.

"That was…."

"Interesting?" Pidge supplied, crossing their arms.

"Creepy as hell?" Hunk added.

Keith scoffed. "Boring. And fake."

"Hey! Who's story are you calling fake!"

"Yours."

"Boys," Shiro groaned, looking to Allura for support. She just smiled and scooted back in her chair.

"Hey, if you think it's fake, I can tell a real freaky story," Pidge said.

"But isn't the point of ghost stories for it to be, well, fake?"

"No," Lance pouted, "They're not fake! They're just about, well, ghosts!"

"Yours was about a demon," Hunk pointed out.

"Not helping!"

" Okay ," Pidge cleared their throat, "Then who wants to hear a real story?"

So, this took place in Kasuya, Japan, about 2008 CE. A man, I don't think he was named, had thought he was being haunted or something. So I guess this counts as a real live ghost story.

Anyways, for about a year then, things had gone missing, been rearranged, moved around and stuff. Someone had been eating his food, so he thought. His friends and family thought he was crazy, going mad or senile. And eventually, he couldn't take it anymore.

He snapped and slaughtered everyone!

No. What the fuck, Hunk?

As I was saying, he couldn't take it anymore. He put up security cameras, all around his house, in secret locations. Which, by the way, I would never, ever do. I do not want to know what goes on in my bedroom at 3 am. I am comfortable in my ignorance, there are things I do not want to know.

Amen to that .

So, after the day was over, he sat on his bed and reviewed the footage. And, terrifyingly enough, he saw a woman step out of his closet. She moved around the apartment, using it like she lived there.

The kicker? She was in the same room as him when he reviewed the footage. Turned out it was some homeless woman who'd been living in there for the last year.

"Hahaha what the fuck," Hunk said, freaked out. "There is no way that's true."

"Nope. Read it in the newspapers."

"Humans are… strange."

"Oh Princess," Lance said desperately, "That's not normal! Most humans aren't like that!"

"It's not like she's got a good sample size to see what humans are like , you know," Pidge said.

"Was that supposed to creep me out?" Keith raised his eyebrows.

"Alright, tough guy," Pidge said, "You're the one who said we should do this. Don't you have a good story?"

"Keith's turn! Keith's turn! Keith's turn!" Lance and Hunk chanted, banging on the tables.

"Why not," Shiro smiled, gesturing at him.

"Fine. My turn."

This one actually happened, okay. It's not fake, or whatever. So, uh, I grew up in Ireland. Nice place, and if Lance makes a single leprechaun joke, I'll punch him in the face.

Not my fault I'm taller than you! You're just sho- ow!

Stop.

Sorry, Shiro. Anyways, uh, when I was little, uh, a new island showed up. Like magic, 'n shit. Just kinda, one day there's nothin' in the ocean, then boom. Island. And it was an island. Not some weird whale or rock or something. It had a coastline, and forests, and everything.

So, I was ten. And ten year olds do dumb shit. More importantly, ten year olds get dared to do some dumb shit. You can see where I'm going with this. My friend dared me to spend the night on that island, and duh, I did it. I had twenty bucks at stake, all for spending one measly night on a small island, that, y'know just popped out of the sea.

I never said I was a smart ten year old.

You're not even smart now!

Lance, shut the fuck up. Anyways, we snuck out a few minutes before ten, and I rowed across to the island in this rickety old canoe.

Everything was going great, I found myself a nice tall tree and just focused on spending the night up there, when I heard growling and snapping and all sorts of noise that just means nasty business.

And I look down, and at the base of the tree, I see the single craziest animal I've seen in my entire life. It's like some mix between a wolfhound- you know what a wolfhound is? It's this great big shaggy dog, and- well you get the picture.

Anyways, it looked like a wolfhound crossed with a crocodile, and was as long as a horse. And it was sitting at the base of my tree, looking up at me with it's fucking evil yellow eyes.

And, I could swear, I heard it singing.

Sounded like a creepy ass folk song, all long and drawn out. And the longer I was there, the more of these things showed up.

I won't ever forget, the second I saw what happened when you got near it.

A squirrel was running across a branch, maybe two feet below where I was sitting. One of those things got up on it's hind legs and jumped . It's jaws clamped around it, and it pressed down until that thing popped . It was the most terrifying few second of my life, watching them descend on that carcass, tearing each other apart to get to it.

And every time I turned my head, I'd swear I saw someone in the corner of my eye.

I have no idea how I ever managed to fall asleep up there. But I distinctly remember closing my eyes and it being dawn. There wasn't anyone around for miles, and all signs of what happened last night were gone. I got down, collected my twenty bucks, and never came back.

The island was gone the next day.

Lance yawned. "Booooring!"

"Fuck you!" Keith yelled back, slamming his hands on the table.

"Well, only one person left to go," Allura interrupted, looking meaningfully at Shiro.

"Yeah! Shiro, you gotta make up for Keith's awful -"

"Fuck off, Lance!"

"Shiro, don't you know any ghost stories?"

"Sure, lots. But I don't think our friend here needs to hear another of them." He gestured at Hunk, who was half-way to a catatonic state.

"How about this…"

There was once an old woman who lived alone in the hills. It was winter, deep in Tsurui, and she had just built a fire for warmth, when she heard a voice calling outside her door. It sounded human enough, so she went to open it.

It was not a human outside her door. It was a tengu . He came inside, and the old woman was so terrified of the monstrous tengu that she let him. He went over to the fire to warm himself.

Then, suddenly, he asked her: "What are you most scared of?"

Now, the old woman was terrified, but she was not stupid. Slyly, she responded, " Botamochi and money. You?"

"Dense brush growing in a thicket," the tengu responded.

Then, nothing more happened, and the monster left. Just to be safe, the next day the old woman decided to stack green borough over her walls so the tengu would not bother her again.

The next night, the tengu found the brush stacked all over the walls, but none on the roof. Angrily, he swore revenge, hissing and spitting all the way.

He threw down little botamochi s from the roof, and the old woman cried out in false fear. Then, he rained gold coins down on her, until he was satisfied with his 'revenge', and left.

The old woman ate all the botamochi , then gathered up the gold coins, and decided that life in the hills was too dangerous. She bought a nice house in the city, and lived happily ever after.

Shiro smiled as he watched the other paladins around the table, staring in confusion. That was his reaction too, when his mom had told him the story about the clever old woman.

"Moral of the story," He said to everyone's groans, "is even when you're scared, think smart."

"Man, only you could give a ghost story a moral," Lance whined, slumped in his chair.

"I liked it," Allura said.

"It was a good end to the day. Speaking of, I think I'm more or less done rooting out the bugs in the system," Pidge added, speaking around a bite of food goo that they'd somehow procured during the storytelling session.

"And time for all of us to go to bed," Shiro said decisively.

Hunk snorted. "Oh man, if you think I'm going to sleep after that, you are so wrong. So, so wrong."

"Yeah, uh, suddenly the silence and darkness of our rooms doesn't sound so good anymore. You know... " Lance trailed off, fidgeting in his seat. Shiro sighed.

"We could just all sleep over in the mess hall tonight," Pidge said.

"Seconded!"

"Thirded!"

"Hah! Princess Allura said so, so it's gotta happen."

"What is this, a monarchy?"

"This isn't even a government," Shiro added exhausted. It wasn't like he was going to win this round. "Pidge, at least turn off your computer. The glare will keep you up."

"Hah! It's a sleepover!"

.

.

.

END

ACTUAL LEGENDS BEHIND THE STORIES

Hunk: The Half-Faced Girl (i took lots of liberties with this one, but the description is the same) and he mentions hearing "disembodied drums", which is a reference to the more famous Night Marchers

Allura: Based loosely on stories of man-eating tigers in the Sunderbans of South Asia

Lance: La Mala Hora, also, the one with the facts I stuck closest to. (aside from pidge's obvs.)

Pidge: A real live case, of Tatsuki Horikawa. All information in this fic is true. Look it up! Get paranoid!

Keith: The Vanishing Island of Ballycotton (but this actually happened in 1878), with some Dobhar Chu for good measure.

Shiro: "What Are You Most Scared Of", also tengu are japanese mountain demons!