Guest: Thank you! Oh, that's a relief! Some are able to figure out what will happen next in my books, and so I'm trying my hand at being unpredictable. I guess it's working! XD I laughed my head off throughout the episode. I'm glad I was able to live up, to an extent, to the greatness of the episode. No problem! *Insert thumbs-up emoji here*

It was about noon. The next day the Paladins would arrive at Berk, and were all having their passengers do a inventory check. Save Hunk. Poor guy had to wait for the passengers to be completed checking the other lions to summon them using the power of Keith's wolf, who had gotten better in a significantly short amount of time. Then the passengers could check the Yellow Lion for all the needed, and wanted, supplies.

Shiro was, of course, doing an inventory check of the Green Lion. Since Pidge was, for the most part, unresponsive, reserving her days for resting, the Green Lion only housed backup equipment and the smallest Paladin's personal items.

Such as figurines of each of the Paladins. She most recently made some of Krolia and Romelle, and the wolf was half-completed and was shoved off to the side. She had scattered the statues throughout the lion.

Lance's was in a storage closet, Hunk's was in the kitchenette, Coran's was in the Green Lion's mini-library, Allura in the cockpit, Shiro's was in the largest cargo hold, where the two Paladins slept and mostly spent their time, Romelle's was pushed into a spare box, and Krolia's was in the medical closet, shoved into the far end. He had yet to find where Pidge had shoved Keith's when they were evacuating the castle. Shiro knew where most of these were only because Pidge had directed him where to put them from her bed. There wasn't much she could do in her bed except build statues in her lap, and then have Shiro put them in the proper places. Shiro wondered what she'd do when the wolf was complete. The mice, maybe? Start on people they had met during their many adventures? Matt, perhaps? He already was aware that she had requested that he had to bring her all the junk that he could find on Berk, so that she could continue on her newly-discovered hobby.

Needless to say, Shiro was positive that the Green Lion would become the community 'Junk Lion'.

"Lunch time!" Hunk's voice chimed, and the wolf appeared from thin air, a bag draped around his shoulders.

Truthfully, the mass suddenly appearing where the air had been a second before would normally have caused a ginormous explosion from the air particles being shoved out of the way. But the quintessence that appeared a moment before the wolf spawned in the air's place acted almost as fans, shoving the air away so that, for a millisecond, the space where the wolf would appear had literally nothing in it. Then he would spawn again in it's place, and the explosion was avoided.

Shiro pulled out the two containers of food from the pouch of the wolf, best as he was able with one hand, then set them on top of a crate, patting Kosmo before he disappeared in a flash of light.

Oh, also the quintessence held back the air once he disappeared, and eased it back into the area so it wouldn't cause an explosion by rushing back into the empty areas.

Pidge was better at explaining such things.

"Is that lunch?" Speaking of the child, Pidge propped herself onto one arm, blinking at him curiously.

"Yeah. I thought you were asleep." Shiro tossed her the bag, mentally kicking himself as he remembered that she probably wouldn't be able to catch it.

However, she fumbled with it for only a moment before properly securing her grip on it. "The smell of food woke me." She told him, drawing herself into a proper sitting position like Krolia had shown her. "Also, the wolf's teleporting isn't exactly quite."

Shiro sent her an exasperated look.

"I'm kidding!" Pidge shrugged, taking a drink from the cup.

Shiro held the tablet, scrolling through it. The only thing they really needed was more spare parts for repairs.

"Shiro…?" Pidge sounded hesitant, as if she really didn't want to ask whatever was on her mind.

Shiro didn't really pay attention to her tone, though, too busy pondering which parts to get. "What's on your mind?"

"I just…" Pidge ducked her head sinking into herself. "Um…never mind."

Shiro blinked, done resorting everything to memory. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"Eh, it's nothing important." Pidge took a bite of the food, as if trying to get a reason to not answer. "It's not important, anyway."

'That's not important right now, Pidge!'

'Whatever it is, it can wait; we have more pressing matters.'

'Pidge, not the time.'

'Pidge, if you can't talk like a normal human, then you can stow it.'

Shiro winced, recognizing the clone's memories instantly. He had been so harsh with all the Paladins, and had tended to shut down Pidge whenever her mind even slightly drifted. The clone hadn't just reserved such treatment for the youngest Paladin, but had discarded Keith's ideas, yelled at Lance, ignored Hunk, shoved away all respect for Allura, and was just generally an evil clone controlled by Haggar. Since his arm wasn't completely destroyed, Shiro could have sworn that he heard the witch whispering in his mind sometimes. His mind would also scream at him whenever he was alone with a Paladin, ordering him to kill them. He had nearly succumbed to the clone's programming once when Pidge slept, but had resisted in the nick of time. He really hoped Pidge didn't noticed the way he kept his distance from her.

"Pidge, I'm sorry." He said, almost without his consent.

"Why?" Pidge asked, starting suddenly at his question. Shiro had a feeling he had zoned out for longer then a few ticks.

"Everything." He looked down at the cup in his hands, swirling the contents. "The clone…" he pressed to fingers to his temple. "He was so awful to all of you. You all didn't deserve it."

"Shiro, really." Pidge assured him, putting down the cup gently. "It's fine. The clone was created for evil purposes; it was out fault for not seeing through it. Besides, it's all in the past. No need for worry." She sounded like she needed to convince herself more then Shiro, but unfortunately, neither really believed her words.

Shiro, however, didn't push the subject further, emptying the empty packets and cups and other dishes into the bag when the wolf returned, picking up all the junk from the meals to return it to Hunk for him to wash.

"Everyone." Krolia's voice carried across the coms, voice distant. "How is the inventory check-through going on?"

"We need a few spare parts." Shiro told her, sending her the list with a swipe of the thumb. "Other then that, we're mostly good."

"We're running low on meat and fluto beans." Hunk told her, voice surprisingly cheerful.

"No beans!" Lance interrupted, voice rising with every syllable. "Don't you remember what happened last time?!"

"Indeed." Allura shuddered. "I do not care for the beans. The konsizlian oracles were clogged for a full week after that incident."

"Oh-no!" Romelle gapped. "Those are important in the design of all Altean architects!"

"Indeed!" Coran hummed. "And that was just a small fraction of the catastrophe that occurred."

"I'm adding beans to the list." Krolia deadpanned, ignoring the onslaught of protests. Shiro couldn't help notice that Keith let out a pleased chuckle at her announcement.

"Star child." Pidge mumbled darkly underneath her breath, crossing her arms.

"Only child." Keith correctly, hearing her words amplified through the coms.

Krolia coughed into her hands at her son's words.

Silence lapped through all the lions, everyone staring into nothing.

Finally, Keith interrupted the quietness that filled the air. "What."

"Don't Earthlings still make 'jokes'?" Krolia asked, probably frowning in confusion. "They did when I met your father."

"Um. Yeah." Keith confirmed, though his voice was still laced in confusion. "We do still make those…"

"Well. Then I was making a 'joke'. A single child was enough."

"Ouch."

"Another probably would have come out deformed."

"Right."

"Hey, Keith, I've been meaning to ask…" Lance's voice trailed off, as if he already regretted what he was about to say.

"Yeah? What?"

"What was your dad's name?"

Keith was miffed, shocked to the point of speechlessness. "Like, we all know that my parent's names are Martha and Thomas, Pidge's are Sam and Colleen, Hunk's are Jordan and Cathy, and we know your mother's name is Krolia…but what about your father?"

"I don't like talking about it." Keith snapped, his voice coming out harder then he meant to. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Keith." Krolia's voice came out gentle, yet commanding.

"Alright, sorry, Keith." Lance apologized.

There was a few minutes of silence from all the Paladins.

Shiro was about to turn off his connection to the coms when Lance spoke again.

"Guys! I have a fun something we can play!" His voice had an eager edge to it. "It's called…"

"-please don't say The Game, please don't say The Game-" Hunk murmured.

"…The Game! It's really fun. Basically, you win once everyone knows what it is."

"Hmm." Keith reluctantly agreed to play. "How do you lose?"

"By thinking of it!"

"Oh my Galra." Keith sighed. "This is going to be…'fun'."

"No, it's not." Krolia huffed.

"Sarcasm, Mom."

"Oh."

"So, you have to lose to win?" Pidge grunted. "I'm sick of this game already."

"Sorry, Pidge!" Lance sang. "But now that you know how to play it, you're not allowed to stop playing it! You can lose every half-hour."

"I really hate you." Pidge cursed.

"Ooh! This game is already intriguing! I have lost!" Romelle clapped her hands in excitement. "Oh! I just lost again."

"Um…you can loose every thirty doboshes, minimum." Lance told her.

Romelle's clapping slowed considerably. "Oh. What's another game?"

"No!" Everyone collectively yelled, not wanting to deal with Lance's game ideas.

"Well, maybe we can do some ice breakers." Hunk decided. "With just Krolia and Romelle, I mean, they're new and stuff…"

"I don't need an ice breaker." Krolia huffed. "I can break ice easily with my hands."

"Um…okay, this might not be good game for Mrs. Kogane…" Hunk mumbled, twiddling his thumbs.

"I am sure that my son introduced me as 'Krolia' so I intend for you to call me that.." Krolia sniffed, cracking her knuckles. "Also, my last name is not Kogane for I didn't lawfully married Keith's father."

"…oh."

With that "happy" note, the Paladins lapsed into silence, awkwardly fidgeting. If these were the type of conversations they were going to have for the next 1.5 years, they were in trouble.

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