The next evening after dinner Keith called to say he arrived safely and to make sure everything was alright. After making Sven promise to contact him the second any castle alarms went off, he signed off.
"Can you imagine what it'll be like when you have kids?" Lance wondered out loud as they made their way to the rec room.
Allura laughed, "Someday this war will be over and he won't have anything to worry about."
"Nothing to vorry about? You might as vell ask Keit to stop breathing." Sven remarked.
Romelle swatted playfully at his arm, "Be nice Sven. Within a few months you will have a little one to worry about."
"I have nothing to vorry about, ve vill be de perfect parents." Sven threw his arm around his wife's shoulders as they sat on the sofa.
Lance laughed and collapsed into a chair, "You're awful sure of yourself. What if you have a son like you?"
Romelle's face lit up, "That would be wonderful! A cute little Sven."
"Yeah, they're cute when they're little." Lance snorted. "Romelle, how much do you know about Sven's Academy days?"
She looked at Lance curiously, "Not much. He said he spent most of his time studying, achieved high grades, played football and soccer. He and Keith became such good friends because he was always second in class and Keith was first. That surprised me because most people would compete rather than work together. He met you, Lance, when he talked you out of going to an underage drinking party with a loose woman…" Romelle trailed off when Lance, Pidge, and Hunk actually fell to the floor they were laughing so hard.
"What is it?" Allura asked.
"He has you snowed!" Hunk howled.
"Y-you're a smart w-woman, R-romelle! I can't b-believe you fell for th-that bunk!" Pidge was laughing so hard he could hardly talk.
Lance sprawled on the floor gasping for breath.
Sven nudged Lance with his boot, a little harder than necessary.
"You know, I always thought he sounded a little more, um, saintly than he acts now." Romelle said. "What was he really like?"
Sven cleared his throat, "I, uh, I don't tink ve need to discuss dat. It's all in de past. I was tinking of names today and I tink if it's a boy ve should name him Rutger Odin."
Romelle studied the innocent look on her husband's face for a moment, "Very smooth, Sven, but you can't change the subject that easily. I'm dying to know what you were like at the Academy. Besides, I thought we agreed on a boy's name already, Erik Davin. It's a girl's name we need to decide on."
"I don't tink a voman in your delicate condition should be vorrying about such tings." Sven said, lamely.
"Is it that good?" Romelle asked the boys still seated on the floor.
"Did he really say he met me when he talked me out of going to an underage drinking party with a loose woman?" Lance asked when he was able to speak again.
"Yes. You were sent to him when he was volunteering as a peer counselor because your teachers were worried about your behavior." She said.
Lance threw his head back and howled with laughter, "Sven that's brilliant."
Sven shrugged, sheepishly. "Hey, I vas trying to impress a beautiful princess."
"Okay, okay, tell me what really happened." Romelle settled back with her head on Sven's shoulder.
His three friends looked at him, Sven smiled, "Vell, ve are married now, so I guess I don't really have too much to fear."
Romelle looked at him, shocked, "Is it really that bad?"
"Underage drinking, loose
women, almost not graduating. Romelle, your beloved space explorer wasn't always the
upright citizen he is now." Lance began.
"Oh, this ought to be good," Allura said.
"I guess I should begin when we met," Lance settled back into his chair to begin his story. "The loose woman Sven was referring to was his date, what was her name? Kelly? Kara? She was French."
"Karlotta." Sven muttered.
"That's right! Karlotta! Both of them had such thick accents you could hardly understand what they were saying to each other." Lance ducked when Sven threw a cushion at him and continued on. "It was a party held off Academy grounds. Now back then on Terra, the legal drinking age for alcohol was eighteen, we were sixteen."
"Very mature for our age." Sven interrupted.
"Yeah," Hunk added. "You could tell when they mooned the Admiral's house during a dinner party and were seen by half the Board of Trustees just how mature they were."
"That was much later, we were legal then, just drunk." Lance explained.
"Mooned?" Allura asked.
"It's a Terran tradition, where you drop your pants and show your, um, backside."
Allura laughed, "You guys did that? What kind of a tradition is that?"
"It's not really a tradition," Pidge broke in. "It's something stupid kids do when they're drunk or on a dare."
"Keit vas in on it too." Sven said.
"Keith mooned the Admiral's house?" Allura asked, shocked.
"Okay, that's another story. Let's just say it was right before graduation, we had all received our orders and we thought we had nothing left to fear. We were celebrating and got a little drunk. One thing led to another and we ended up dropping our pants in front of Admiral Holwell's house on a dare. His wife fainted and Sven has a nice scar on the back of his left leg from the Admiral's terrier. We almost lost our rights to graduate with the rest of our class, but Keith's spotless record and my parent's generous contribution to the Academy helped." Lance wrapped up the story quickly.
"The Admiral's terrier?" Romelle exclaimed. "You told me you got that scar from a Pit Bull that tried to attack Pidge."
"A Pit Bull?" Pidge laughed. "Snuffles was hardly a Pit Bull."
"When did you turn into a pathological liar, Sven?" Hunk wondered.
"I don't lie, I expand the truth." Sven said.
"Isn't a terrier a rather small Terran dog?" Allura asked.
"Yes it is and it almost got a hold of something rather important to Keit, but he was able to pull his pants up in time. One second more and he vouldn't be quite de man he is today."
Allura burst out laughing, "Oh, that's horrible!"
"Stop trying to change the subject, Sven, we're here to humiliate you tonight. We can get Keith when he's here to defend himself." Pidge said.
"Yeah," Romelle agreed, batting her lashes at Sven. "Besides, I want to hear more about Karlotta!"
"Any way, on with my story," Lance continued. "It seemed that Karlotta was tired of trying to decipher what our Norwegian friend here was trying to say, so she hooked up with me."
"Oh no!" Sven interrupted. "You spilled beer down de front of her dress and took a little too much time trying to dry it off."
Lance grinned, "Yeah, but she enjoyed it, after all, she was a 'loose woman' and rather tipsy. Sven thought I was trying to cop a feel…"
"Cop a feel?" Allura asked.
"He vas putting de moves on my date." Sven explained.
"I was being a gentleman and trying to clean up a mess I made. Well, Sven saw this, misinterprets the whole thing and drags me out to the front yard where he proceeds to beat the living snot out of me." Lance explained.
"Sven, you didn't!" Romelle gasped.
"Alcohol had impaired my judgment and he vas just an obnoxious, skinny kid who annoyed me."
"It took two of us to pull them apart," Hunk said. "And by then Karlotta had hooked up with Grady Malloy."
"So I bought Lance a drink and de rest is history." Sven wrapped up.
"Last I heard Karlotta and Grady had three kids and were living on Planet Edat." Hunk said.
"So you were some kind of violent drunk in the Academy." Romelle said.
"No, that's not true, Princess," Pidge came to Sven's defense. "Lance is exaggerating in his description of Sven, but then it sounds like Sven also exaggerated in his description of Sven."
"Yeah, he was as good a guy back then as he is now, just younger and a bit stupider." Hunk added.
"He was a great athlete, captain of the football team for two years, he played soccer and lacrosse." Lance said.
"And I did come in second to Keit in almost every class." Sven said.
"Well, we've all done stupid things in our lives," Romelle said. "And whatever happened to you and what you've done in your life has made you the wonderful man you are, the man I love."
Sven smiled down at his beautiful, understanding wife and kissed her tenderly.
"However," she continued. "You ever lie again, or expand the truth, as you put it, you will regret it."
"Like I said, I vas just trying to impress a beautiful princess." He muttered.
"Okay, it's getting a little thick in here," Lance stood up. "I'm heading off to bed. May I escort you to your room, Princess?" He held his arm out to Allura.
"Why thank you, Lance." Allura took his arm and turned to her cousin. "Don't be too hard on him Romelle, he now knows you can easily find out the truth and get some great dirt on him."
Lance leaned over and pulled his shirt down over his left shoulder, a rather nasty scar, about two inches long marked his skin. "Some day I'll tell you the story of that one. Let's just say Sven can't always take a joke concerning his accent."
"You had dat coming, Lance and it was more Keit's fault den mine. Maybe you would like to explain dis." Sven lifted his shirt and showed off an odd shaped scar on his abdomen.
"I wondered about that," Romelle said.
"Let's just say Lance vouldn't have that scar on his shoulder if I didn't have dis bite mark on my stomach."
"Bite mark?" Allura gasped.
"Keith had my arms behind my back, my teeth were the only defense I had."
"Okay, okay, that's a story for another night. It's late." Hunk announced.
"We would like to hear more about your days in the Academy." Allura protested.
"When Keith gets back we'll be able to share some better stories." Lance said.
"Was he that bad?" Allura asked, her interest piqued.
"No, he just remembers more because he vas sober more often dan de rest of us." Sven explained.