A shuttle roared through the sky, climbing steadily toward orbit and the interstellar transfer stations waiting invisibly beyond the planet's atmosphere.

Below it, city streets teemed with life, ordinary beings going about their days. The weather was clear and calm, their lives peaceful despite the loose overlordship of the Galra Empire that surrounded them. The planet's usefulness to the Empire was minimal, and aside from occasional labour drafts, they were largely left to their own devices provided they behaved.

On a rooftop, a metal hemisphere about a foot across sat silently.

Across town, a clock struck the eighth varga. A seam appeared on the surface of the hemisphere as it slid silently open.

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"-And then she just flipped him right over her head into the wall! It was the best thing I've ever seen!" Krolvesk exclaimed, to the appreciative roars and laughter of his listeners. "You should've seen the look on the idiot's face!"

Allura's cheeks glowed with the force of her blush, but she couldn't keep the pleased smile off her face at the praise. "Krolvesk, please. All I did was exercise a basic self-defense technique. It really wasn't that dramatic."

The Icebringer Galra raised an eyebrow at her. "Princess, he took you hostage, held a knife to your throat while spouting lines like a bad movie villain, and you just went 'Excuse me, I don't believe I gave you permission to touch me,' before beating the shol'k'ar out of him! I'm going to be telling this one for cycles!"

Alejandro snorted and choked on his water pack. "Oh my god, Allura, you actually said that?"

"It was an impulse." She admitted, hiding her face in one hand in embarrassment. "I've been roped into one too many movie nights with you all, I think." No matter how much she enjoyed the ones in the 'action' genre, as Pidge called it. There was something immensely satisfying about seeing villains get their comeuppance. "They're a terrible influence. I shouldn't be delivering dramatic one-liners in the middle of a serious mission."

"Hey, if you're kicking ass, you can do what you want. I take it you've been doing well, then."

Allura nodded, flexing her wrists thoughtfully and looking around the main cavern belonging to the Kral'nai's Mountain Pack, currently crowded with people unwinding after another successful mission, their third in as many rotations. "So I've been told. I'll admit, it's nice to be able to contribute more directly, to actively assist with rescuing prisoners of the Galra Empire and putting a stop to their tyranny, in a way beyond simply providing support from the Castle of Lions and wormholes for transportation."

Now that they had other people learning to fly the Castle, Shiro had suggested that these easy missions would be a good time for Allura to finally get some practice using her quintessence manipulation abilities in the field, rather than in the training rooms or in sparring matches. She'd been surprised and found herself unexpectedly hesitant, but Malrento confidently informed her that she was more than ready, her skills naturally powerful and with a natural talent. And so she'd been assigned to one of the Interior teams, fighting her way through sentry robots and helping to capture Empire soldiers for later release.

Now, three missions later, her teammates seemed...impressed, although she wasn't sure why.

Voicing that thought to Alejandro, he laughed softly. "They have reason to be. Remember, I was on your team today. You're good at what you do, Allura, believe in yourself."

Frowning, she twisted a lock of hair between her fingers. "I...suppose you would know, wouldn't you." She admitted.

"Mhm. Remember, I've seen you do this before, too." He held up two fingers, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and she startled slightly at the reminder.

The two time-travellers didn't often discuss their old companions, which she could hardly blame them for after the losses they'd endured. But at the subtle reference, she couldn't help her curiosity. "Altea...she had longer to learn than I've had. Do you think I'll be able to measure up?" Would she be able to protect herself, when her counterpart hadn't?

Alejandro blinked at the question, his expression becoming more serious as he regarded her steadily. "Allura...you're already doing better than she was. Trust me, you'll do fine."

Now that she hadn't expected. "Better? But..."

"Altea didn't have a chance to be fully trained by Malrento. He'd barely gone over the basics with her when he was killed on a mission." His words were blunt, but she could hear the pain in them as he looked down at the floor, avoiding her gaze. "The rest of her training was under one of his senior students. That late in the war, with the way things were going...there just weren't enough skilled warriors to go around, to spare one for teaching anymore. Not to mention she didn't have enough time to devote to her training the way you do, not when the Lions were the fleet's first and strongest line of defense, and with the way they kept hounding us..."

He was defending his teammate, she realized too late. He'd misunderstood her surprise and confusion for disappointment in the version of herself with whom he had fought. Hastily she put a hand on his shoulder. "Of course. That makes a great deal of sense, and it's a pity she was spread so thin." She smiled softly, trying to reassure him. "I hope to do her memory proud, then, show the universe what she-and I-are capable of."

Lifting his head, Alejandro gave her a searching look, and she met it with as steady a gaze as she could manage. Training or no training, Altea had fought her hardest to protect her team, her family. Allura would do the same, with every skill she had available to her. Her determination must have showed in her face, because after a moment Alejandro smiled. "Give 'em hell, Princess."

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"So? What's the verdict?" Shiro asked, leaning over the back of the couch where Hunk was inputting the data from the bayard combinations they'd tested on that day's mission while Pidge dictated measurements and statistics from her wrist computer about the specific functionality of the weapons. "We have a pretty good idea now on how the bayard merge forms work?"

Hunk grinned without looking up or slowing the pace of his fingers across the keyboard. "Sure do. I was right, there's a pattern. I mean, I had a pretty good idea of what the pattern was, but the tests we've been doing the last couple days just confirmed it. Each bayard contributes specific things to the end result, and the contributions are derived from the base form." He noticed Shiro's puzzled expression and held up one hand, ticking off one finger at a time. "Look, Lance's bayard is a rifle, right? Pretty much every combination we use it for ends up with a result that has a projectile component."

"Oh! Right, that makes sense." Shiro moved around the end of the couch to sit down beside him. "And Keith's bayard results in either melee weapons or a bladed component, if I recall correctly?"

"Exactly. Put them together and you get something like the bow and arrows from today's test." Hunk paused to jot that down in the red/blue slot in his list. That one he'd actually predicted, and it was an incredibly satisfying feeling knowing that he'd guessed correctly based on their research so far.

Humming, Shiro nodded. "Okay. And Pidge's bayard?"

"A flexibility component." Pidge put in without looking up from her laptop and wrist computer. "Chains, cables, wires, grappling hooks-even the burning whip from the first day's mission."

"Right, okay. But Hunk, your bayard is also a projectile weapon. How does that work?"

"I wondered about that too, at first." Hunk admitted, jotting down the burning whip in the green/yellow/black spot. "Pidge figured it out before I did. Lance's bayard is a rifle, but mine's a cannon. Instead of contributing directly to form, like the others, mine increases the power magnitude of the combination. That's how we went from bow and arrows to a crossbow, or from the blue-and-green harpoon combination to the-what did you call them, Pidge?"

"Spikewire cluster."

"Right, that." He marked it down. Little by little, they were filling in the gaps on their list. "Which is a little bit of a problem, unfortunately." Hunk huffed, blowing his bangs out of his face.

Shiro winced. "The control placements?" He asked.

Hunk nodded, grimacing. They were still trying to work out a reliable way of predicting which cockpit the controls for the combined weapons would end up in. So far, it usually seemed to be the lion whose base bayard form was most similar to the combined form in question-any bladed melee weapon usually ended up in Red, wires and cables in green, and the lighter projectile weapons in blue. Unfortunately, that meant that Yellow usually got the heavier projectiles, like the grenade launcher and the energy bolts. And, as they'd discovered during the battle for Earth, he just wasn't able to split his focus effectively between making use of those weapons and keeping an eye on the battlefield with his BLIP sense. Focus on the former, and people might die because he didn't warn them of an incoming threat. Focus on the latter, and that left them without some of their most powerful weapon combinations. Hunk clenched his fists in his lap, frustrated just thinking about it.

"Hey." A hand on his shoulder brought his head back up and he let out a slow breath. "You don't need to feel guilty over that, okay? We got this far without those weapons in our arsenal, we can do without going forward, too. Your BLIP sense is more important overall. But," Shiro added, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Don't be afraid to tell us if it's too much for you. I can't imagine it's easy."

"...No, it isn't." Hunk admitted quietly. He heard the rattle of Pidge's keyboard stop, then felt his arm being moved as she tucked herself against his side in a partial hug. "I can feel it when they die, and I don't like it. But more of them will die if I don't, right? So I can't just...I have to help."

Shiro sighed, putting his own arm around Hunk's shoulders. "I know you feel that way, and I want you to know I'm proud of you for it. But don't be afraid to lean on us, okay?"

Hunk nodded and changed the subject. Even with Shiro's reassurance, he didn't want to admit just how much it bothered him, how many times he'd had nightmares lately about being surrounded by little sparks of life and feeling them go out one by one by one and not being able to do anything about it. It was just anxiety and paranoia playing games with his head, anyway. "Right, anyway, then there's the black bayard. That one's an odd one. Pidge?"

She straightened, grabbing her laptop again. "Uh, right. That one...as far as we can tell, the energy shield base form usually translates to an elemental component in the final combination, derived from which other bayards are involved. The electrified spike wires, the burning sword, the ice needle gun you said was called a strakkaker...those were all black bayard combinations. But we can't figure out how to predict which element a combination will have when there are three or more bayards involved. Sometimes it's the dominant bayard in the physical form-again, the electrified spike wires-but sometimes it's the least dominant, like the burning whip." She threw up her hands in a frustrated gesture. "We just don't know. Only commonality is it seems to be fire, ice, or electricity, so far, probably because those are the ones that actually contribute shape to the base form and the yellow bayard doesn't."

"Hence why black and yellow together make a grenade launcher." Hunk pointed out. Pidge had had more than a few disgusted comments to make about that one and irregularities in the theory, at least until he'd pointed out that it might just be the bayard combination table's equivalent of the lanthanide series so at least there was a precedent. "Rather than something earth-based."

"I see..." Shiro mulled that over thoughtfully. "You guys have done a great job on this. Nice work!"

Hunk blushed at the praise and offered him a thumbs up. "Thanks, Shiro. We're just about done with this for the day, is there anything we can do to help with the search for Alfor's records?"

It was Shiro's turn to sigh, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know. We've been exhausting our avenues of research pretty quickly, and no luck. Nothing in the passenger manifests from the original ships, no anomalous rooms or carvings in any of the the Pack caves anywhere on the planet or any other caves on record so far as a physical search has turned up, and nothing weird in any of the resource usage records that couldn't be explained away as something else. We're stumped."

Pidge tapped a finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Huh. Those are all the first places I can think of to look, unfortunately. We know there has to be something, the trick is figuring out how to find it."

Hunk frowned. Something about that plan of attack didn't seem to feel quite right. "Maybe we're going about this wrong. We know there has to be some kind of cache of information somewhere, right? But Holt didn't. She was looking for information that could help what was left of her team in some way..." He paused. "Do the Icebringers have records on things like quintessence manipulation and combat strategy? Maybe something was added to a file somewhere."

"No, that doesn't make sense." Pidge interrupted, holding up a finger before Shiro could say anything. "I thought of that too, but there's a problem with that logic. Alfor and Fiorin couldn't have known who would come looking for the information, when, or why-they didn't look any further into the future than when they thought we'd won, remember?" Hunk winced and nodded, and she continued. "They might have assumed the war would be over by then, so why would whoever came go digging through files on tactics? Wherever the clues are, they must be somewhere more...generic, for lack of a better word."

"Yeah, but where? It can't be somewhere too obvious or it would've been discovered a long time ago, or lost, or something." Hunk tugged at his bangs in irritation. "Man, remind me to tell Coran his husband is a sneaky bastard. Don't suppose he's having any more luck figuring out Alfor's twisty thinking?"

"Not that I'm aware of." Shiro seemed to be trying not to laugh, then abruptly sobered. "Honestly, I think he's still kind of rattled by the fact that Alfor kept all this from him. I get the impression they didn't have a lot of secrets between them, as far as Coran was aware, so even though we know why Alfor hid the whole targeted-future plan from him, he's still a bit..." He trailed off and gestured helplessly with his free arm.

"Yeah...hopefully once we find this information, it'll clear things up and he'll have some closure." Hunk sighed, setting his tablet down in his lap. "Pidge has a good point about the tactics files, I guess. Nevermind that idea."

"No, we'll check anyway. It's a possibility we haven't tried yet. I'll talk to Shiiar'keh and we'll start having people reviewing any digital archives that go back that far, in case of a hidden message in one of them." Shiro pushed himself to his feet and stretched. "In the meantime, you two might as well relax for a bit. Maybe go see what Keith and Lance are up to." He offered the two of them a mischievous grin.

Hunk blinked, then lit up at the implication. "Oh man, they're finally talking again?"

"Go see for yourself."

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"Ahhh! Keith! Save me!" Lance yelled dramatically, waving an arm in the air as he started to disappear under a pile of shrieking children.

"Sorry, no can do." Keith gestured to the two small Galra cubs curled up in his lap. "You wouldn't want me to wake these guys, would you?"

Lance responded with a theatrical choking noise and disappeared completely, only to burst up moments later roaring and swinging a delightedly-screaming child in each elbow.

Being volunteered ('voluntold', Lance had called it with a pout) for nursery duty again to free up locals for an exhaustive search of the cave system was once again turning out to be not that bad. Lance certainly seemed to be having a good time, easily matching the boundless energy of their temporary charges, and with so many to look after they were both too busy to be awkward around each other the way they had been since they'd finally started talking again. Instead, Keith found himself feeling unexpectedly comfortable in Lance's presence, more relaxed than he had been in ages.

He stroked the hair of one of the kids in his lap, drawing a contented purr, unable to keep the smile off his face as he watched Lance and the rest of the kids chase each other back and forth across the room, the other teen pausing occasionally to scoop one of them up and wrestle with them. He was so good with them, always making sure no one was left out, even the shy or awkward ones hanging back at the fringes of the room. Lance seemed to have an instinctive gift for children of any species, always able to tell what they needed to feel comfortable and welcomed. Being an older brother came naturally to him, and he'd probably make a great parent someday, good enough to make up for even Keith's shortcomings.

Keith's cheeks burned abruptly and he shook his head, trying to get rid of that thought. Talk about getting ahead of himself. They weren't even a couple! No matter how much Keith wanted to be. Lance had said he liked him, and Kurogane had said Keith could trust Lance with his heart, and yet...the doubts stayed rooted deep in his mind, whispering to him, and tying his tongue whenever he tried to work up the courage to try again. Telling him that no one would truly want him, no matter how much he wished it so.

Someone poked his cheek and he yelped, startled out of his thoughts, nearly dumping the cubs onto the floor with the violence of his flinch. Beside him, Pidge lurched back in surprise, eyes wide. "Whoa! Sorry! Didn't mean to scare you that bad!"

"I-It's fine. You just startled me." Keith took a deep breath and looked down at the little kids who were staring up at him in confusion. "Sorry, guys, didn't mean to wake you up."

One of the cubs seemed mollified by the apology, yawning and exposing tiny white fangs before closing her eyes and resuming her interrupted nap. The other, apparently deciding she'd slept long enough, stretched and flicked her tail, then scaled up his arm to peer around from the vantage point of his head.

Pidge muffled a laugh in her hand. "Man, they really like you, huh?"

"...Just a bit." Keith said awkwardly, trying very hard not to move for fear of dislodging the kid's precarious balance on the collar of his armor, despite the fact that she was using his hair as a handhold and kept tugging painfully on his scalp as she moved around. "I have no idea why." The cub was now trying to pull herself up onto the top of his head and he winced. "Help, please."

"Now why ever would I do that?" Pidge shot back in a sing-song voice. She had opened up her wrist computer and was-

"Are you filming this?!"

There was an exasperated sigh behind him before the cub was suddenly lifted off his head with a squawk of protest and one last vicious tug at his hair. "Pidge, be nice." Hunk scolded, setting the little one down and shooing her in the general direction of the toy chest.

Pidge pouted, shutting down her computer. "I would've helped in a moment. It was cute!" She paused, then a devilish grin spread across her face. "Bet Lance would've thought so too."

Keith choked and fought to suppress the blush he knew for a fact was rising up on his face. "I don't see what that's got to do with anything." He muttered. "What are you guys even doing here?"

She simply hummed, letting the lie slide. "Well, we finished our analysis of the bayard forms we've tested over the last couple days, and apparently the search for Alfor's information is at a standstill at the moment. So Shiro told us to go hang out with you guys. Having fun with the kiddos?"

"Lance is. I'm...not the best with kids." Keith admitted. Most of the kids he'd been around growing up had been foster children like himself, wary or aggressive or traumatized, and he'd never been around any of them long enough to form close bonds with the few that hadn't immediately rejected him for his own issues. He'd ended up closing off behind his walls, watching from a wary distance as other children formed friendships and alliances and he remained alone. Even when Lance's family had come with him to the Castle back on Earth, he hadn't known what to do with them. Lance made it look easy, but for Keith it was anything but.

Hunk frowned, giving him a searching look, and Keith ducked his head in discomfort. "Hey, man. Just because that," he waved a hand at Lance, who was now stomping around like some kind of monster with a delighted Balmeran on his shoulders, "doesn't come naturally to you doesn't make you bad with kids. You're just good at interacting with them in a different way." He smiled, reaching over to stroke the soft head-fur of the cub still sleeping in Keith's lap. "See? You're doing just fine with these ones."

Keith's cheeks reddened again, and he brushed a thumb lightly over the kid's cheek. "Thanks, Hunk."

"No problem." Hunk smiled warmly, then got to his feet. "Rawr! I am the evil giant Hunk, coming to aid my brother in battle!" He roared playfully as he waded into the mass of kids, who shrieked gleefully and immediately swarmed all over him.

Watching in silence as his two friends had fun with the kids, Keith turned Hunk's words over in his head. Different. He'd always been different, and it had never been a good thing, not once.

He glanced down at the sleeping child in his lap, and couldn't suppress a small smile. Except maybe this time.

After a while Lance flopped down beside him, breathing hard. "Okay, okay, I'm done. Tagging out. Dios, those kids have a lot of energy."

"Coming from you?" Pidge smirked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I didn't sleep well last night." Lance admitted, biting his lip and closing his eyes. "Alejandro's nightmares keep leaking through the bond and we can't figure out how to stop it." He made a disgusted noise, throwing one arm over his face. "It's not every night, but man...I dunno how he deals with it. I'm exhausted."

Pidge made a sympathetic noise, and Keith couldn't help reaching over and stroking Lance's hair, drawing a sigh as the other relaxed slightly. "Which memory was it this time?" Pidge asked, leaning closer to rest her chin on Keith's shoulder.

"The one from when he lost his legs, apparently." Lance waved his free hand downwards without looking. "I mean, I couldn't actually see anything, I just remember darkness and feeling trapped and terrified, but we talked about it after we woke up and apparently that's what it was. He woke up pinned to the pilot's chair in the dark and couldn't feel anything below his thighs."

"That sounds terrifying." Pidge shuddered. She crawled around Keith to grab Lance's hand and give it a squeeze.

Lance nodded, letting out a deep breath. "He told me more-about Kurogane and Shiro cutting their way through Blue's hull to get to him, and how Holt saved his life that day." He pulled his arm away from his eyes to give Pidge a weak smile as she blinked owlishly at him in surprise. "Crawled under the console in a puddle of blood to find out where it was coming from, kept the others from moving the console that was pinning his legs and kept him from bleeding out, and was the one to tie on the tourniquets to what was left of his legs. You're a badass, Pidge." He squeezed her hand in return.

Pidge swallowed hard, looking a little green at the description, but squeezed his hand back. Keith frowned, not quite believing the forced lightheartedness of Lance's tone. "We'll make sure it doesn't happen again, okay?" He promised, running his fingers through Lance's hair again. "I promise."

Startled blue eyes glanced over to him, but after a moment Lance smiled again, softer and less brittle. "I know. Thanks guys. I-oof!" He was cut off with a wheeze as a small dog-like alien landed on his stomach. "H-Hey there! What can I do for ya, buddy?"

The alien's ears pricked happily. "Tell us a story!" They demanded, echoed by a couple others that had followed them over to the seated group of Paladins.

Lance blinked. "A story?" He caught the small child in his arms as he sat up, and they nodded. "Okay, what kind of story do you guys want?" He addressed the question to the rapidly-forming cluster of children attracted by the word. Doing so proved to be a mistake as they all immediately started arguing, throwing out suggestions and disagreeing with each other.

"The Brave Little Balmera!"

"No way, that one's a baby story!"

"Omar-tai and the Chieftans!"

"You always ask for that one, Morel!"

"The Six Hunters!"

"Oooh, yeah that's a good one!"

"Six Hunters! Six Hunters!"

"I, uh, don't actually know that one." Lance blinked, grimacing at the hopeful expressions turned his way. Then he lit up and grinned. "Actually, how about this? Since I don't know it, how about you guys tell it to me?"

This was met with a chorus of approval, and some debate as to who should be the one to tell it. After a moment a young H'ress was pushed to the front, ducking their head shyly and clearing their throat. Lance smiled broadly and gestured for them to go ahead when ready. Finally they took a deep breath and settled back onto their hindmost pair of limbs, splaying the fingers of the other four and starting to drum their claws against the floor rhythmically. "When the Icebringer came and set the sky ablaze brighter than the brightest roaring mountain, the six hunters were born in a lonely cave high on the top of the world. They grew up together, hunted together, were pack together. But as the light faded and took the warmth with it, they found no more to hunt and no more trees grew. They knew they must leave the cave, their home, and search for a way to bring back the trees and the sh'ohl and put the world in balance again, just as it had always been."

The words had a sing-song chant quality to them as the youngster recounted the journey of the six hunters, one learning to predict the path of the storms and another learning to use the sun and stars to guide them, one learning to read the ice beneath their feet to keep them from danger and one to feel the warmth in some of the mountains to keep them safe at night, one learning to craft tools from the stone and one learning to guide what animals they found to better grazing so none would go hungry. Keith wasn't the only one listening with rapt fascination, but he found there was something about the story that had an odd familiarity to it...

"Oh my god." Hunk breathed in his ear. "It's an oral tradition."

Keith blinked, looking over. "A what?" He asked, keeping his voice low so as not to interrupt the storytelling.

"An oral tradition. A way of passing down information-laws, history, all kinds of important things. Samoa's goes back over a thousand years, but this is way, way older! This sounds like it's a retelling of the founding of H'ress civilization!"

The founding of a civilization? Now that Hunk pointed it out, the journey of the hunters did sound like they were developing technology, from tools, to farming, to navigation. He listened with new appreciation as the hunters founded a new pack and taught them all they had learned, and when those children grew up and went off to find new packs they took the knowledge with them. "That'd have to be, what, at least twenty thousand years ago, though, wouldn't it?" He pointed out. The H'ress had been an advanced, galaxy-travelling race even before the war started ten thousand years ago. "It can't possibly be accurate, can it?"

Hunk grinned, turning slightly to face him. "You'd be amazed. Oral traditions use all sorts of tricks to make sure the information doesn't get changed from generation to generation, from mnemonics and alliteration to word and syllable patterns. There are Hindu religious texts that have been passed down orally over 4000 years that even preserve the accent the language was spoken in back then. Honestly, oral tradition is probably even better than written for making sure information doesn't...get...lost..." He trailed off, eyes wide but unseeing as his jaw went slack. "...oh my god. That's it."

Keith eyed him warily, unsure what to make of the sudden change in demeanor. "...what's it?"

"I know where the clue is." Hunk breathed.

"What?"

"I know where Alfor's clue is!" Hunk smacked at Lance's arm excitedly. "Guys! I know where it is!" He scrambled to his feet, dashing out the door. "Come on! I need to talk to Shiiar'keh!"

"Oh my god! What are we waiting for?!" Pidge struggled to her feet as well.

"Guys, we can't just leave the kids here alone!" Lance yelped, looking torn, while the kids looked confused.

Keith settled the matter by hoisting the sleeping cub up in his arms and reaching down to pick up the other one who'd been climbing on him earlier. This was too important to wait, but if Lance said they couldn't leave the kids, then they couldn't. "Then I guess it's time for a field trip."