The trip to restock the castle-ship's larder, Allura had been pleased to hear, had gone perfectly smoothly. Hunk had been able to get some new ingredients, and Pidge had been waiting with Allura in the docking bay to go over some of the discounted antique equipment Coran had discovered from a local junk dealer. They'd gone off with their prize immediately, so she'd volunteered to help Hunk unload the rest of the supplies. Coran deserved a break from the grunt work every now and then, and a bit of light exercise had sounded appealing.

However, neither of them had counted on there being a stowaway aboard the pod.

Allura let out a most unladylike yelp when the dratted thing buzzed straight for her ear, bouncing off her head before circling a stack of crates.

Hunk jumped about a foot in the air at her shout. "What!?"

"A…" She traced the tip of her ear, searching for damage, but fortunately there seemed to be none. "Well, some sort of insect. It collided with my head."

Said insect was making a noise that, now that she'd noticed it, was impossible to ignore: a sort ascending and descending whine. It looked as though it might have a stinger of some sort, but there was no way to be certain without knowing more about the species. Allura glimpsed her mice taking cover in a nearby corner, the biggest shielding the others while tracking the intruder with angry eyes. She couldn't blame them; including the wingspan, the bug was about the size of the smallest of them.

"Oh. Wow. Uh." Hunk took several steps back, eyeing the thing warily. "How did that get in here?"

"I assume it stowed aboard while you were loading the pod," Allura said. "Did you really not notice it on the—"

She was interrupted by the thing flying straight at Hunk, who immediately began to panic. He doubled over, hands raised over his head. "Ahhh get it off get it off get it off—"

She rushed over, hand raised. She wasn't exactly sure what she could do without hurting Hunk, but she was determined to try.

Luckily, she didn't have to; the thing flew off again a moment later. "It's all right, it's gone!" she said, grunting in disgust as she threw herself out of its path. It seemed to have no further interest in either of them after that, and landed without further ado on a nearby wall.

Allura spared a glance at Hunk. He was shuddering in disgust. Apparently he hated flying insects as much as she did.

"Ugh, that was the worst," Hunk said. "What is that thing's problem?"

"We need to kill it," Allura said firmly. "There's no knowing what mischief it could do to the ship's systems otherwise."

They stared at the bug together for a long moment.

"It's…not exactly in easy reach," Hunk said. "I don't suppose you could…?" He pantomimed getting taller with one hand.

"I…could…" Allura admitted. The truth was, though, she didn't want to.

She was being ridiculous. It was an insect a mere fraction of her size. She could kill it with a twist of her fingers. But even so, being stung was never pleasant—even if it was likely less dangerous to her than to a human—and something about Hunk's cringing had resonated with her. She didn't want that thing near her any more than he did, and she didn't particularly fancy angering the creature if she failed to kill it on her first try.

Besides, she had her hair down today. She already considered herself lucky that it hadn't gotten tangled in it the first time.

"…Maybe a bayard would be better?" Hunk said eventually. "Mine would be overkill, so I'll…I'll go get Keith. Or Lance, if I can't find Keith."

Shooting the thing with Lance's bayard wouldn't be much less overkill than Hunk's, but she'd take it. "Please do," Allura said shortly, eyes fixed on the spot the thing was currently occupying. It had begun to climb slowly further up the wall. "I'll keep an eye on it."

There was a hurried set of footsteps down the hall. Allura could hear the mice squeaking worriedly to each other, but she refused to be distracted. The last thing she wanted was to lose this dratted bug before it could be dealt with.

She heard two sets of footsteps coming back a few minutes later, but the voice that carried towards her wasn't one of the ones she'd been expecting.

"You want me to…what?" Shiro was saying to Hunk.

"I brought Shiro," Hunk said unnecessarily. Allura caught sight of black out of the corner of her eye.

She pointed. "Kill it."

"…Sure." A quick running head-start, and Shiro took two steps up the wall. The first shallow slice of his arm only took one set of wings off the insect; a downward slice delivered the killing blow, cutting the thing neatly in two. The halves smoked slightly as they fell to the floor.

Allura and Hunk breathed a combined sigh of relief.

"Thank you," she said. She forced herself to meet his gaze as she said it, holding on to the few remaining shreds of her dignity.

Shiro had a good poker face, but his polite smile didn't quite mask the amused glint in his eye. "Anytime."