The alien was even cuter in person. The little guy was hiding in the bushes when they exited the castle. Allura leant down towards the foliage.
"Greetings," she said amicably. "We know you're there. We won't hurt you."
The alien took this as permission to leap out of the bushes, tiny sword drawn. His glare might have been fierce if he was, like, four feet taller, but at the moment Lance just thought he looked like a stuffed animal.
"Aw," Hunk said, unknowingly (oh, who was Lance kidding? Hunk knew they shared this opinion) agreeing with Lance.
"Wait!" Keith yelped, sliding in front of them. Lance was torn between aw, Keith wants to protect us and how dare he, I can protect myself! in his head, but he eventually settled on scowling at the boy. "He could be dangerous. Drop your weapon!"
The alien looked scandalised. "No one may take Klaizap's weapon!"
"Keith," hissed Allura warningly, "put your sword away."
His frown deepened but he listened, which was probably good, because so far, Allura had proven a very scary woman.
"My apologies, kind sir, for my paladin's actions," she said.
The alien blinked. "I am Klaizap, bravest of our warriors. Our village is over Gazrel Hill – I come to inquire as to why the Lion Goddess is so angry with her followers."
Lance furrowed his brow in confusion.
"Followers?" repeated Coran, echoing Lance's confusion.
"Lion goddess?" added Hunk sceptically.
Klaizap held out a hand to a carving depicting and anthropomorphic (yes, Lance knew this word, everyone was always so surprised) lion deity – deitess? Was that a thing? – being worshipped by aliens that looked like Klaizap. "The one the ancients spoke of."
Lance and Hunk exchanged bemused looks.
I dunno what he's talking about, Hunk told him with a quirk of his eyebrows.
Lance subtly shook his head to indicate he, too, had no clue.
"What makes you believe she is angry?" asked Allura kindly.
"Destruction is everywhere!" declared Klaizap. "In only the past few suns, a giant has danced in the sky, raining fire from the heavens!"
All five paladins glanced at each other wearily.
Oops, Lance thought to himself.
"I think he's talking about Voltron," Hunk whispered to him. Hunk, of course, was as terrible at whispering as he was at sneaking around, so everyone heard him. Lance sighed.
"Yeah," he said, "got that."
"You have not angered the Lion Goddess," Allura assured the tiny (still adorable) alien.
"How can you know?" he asked.
Lance was about this close to declaring, yep, yeah, she's the Lion Goddess and starting a total Road to El Dorado fake gods thing, but Hunk grabbed his arm disapprovingly, shooting him the I-know-what-you-want-to-do-and-it's-a-terrible-idea look he got rather often.
"Because I am Princess Allura of Altea," said Allura grandly, "and this is my castle."
Klaizap gasped and kneeled before her. "Lion Goddess!"
"Huh," Lance muttered to his friend. "I didn't even have to do anything."
"You're a terrible human being taking advantage of the natives," Hunk murmured back. Lance knew he didn't really mean that, of course, so he gave him his best grin.
"Please, bravest warrior," said Allura calmly, "bring us to your village so we may meet our neighbours."
In Lance's experience, meeting the neighbours was either really awkward (he was referring to you, Davidsons next door) or really awesome (that would be meeting Hunk, easily one of the best days of Lance's short life). He hoped this would fall in the latter category.
Keith looked a bit put-out. "What about our mission to get off this planet and fight Zarkon?"
Lance wasn't entirely sure what Keith's problem was. He didn't have much personal reason to be so invested in this saving the universe thing (I mean, he supposed could go with Guardians of the Galaxy and say it was because they were all some of the idiots who lived in it, but, honestly, Lance found that a bit tacky). Shiro had more reason than any of the rest of the humans – he was the one that'd been kidnapped and presumably tortured by the Galra.
"Part of Voltron's purpose is to spread peace and diplomacy," said Allura. "Arus has hosted us for ten thousand years. They at least deserve our thanks."
Klaizap had risen from his position in the dirt and was smiling up at them, which only made the alien more adorable.
"I can lead you to our village," he said.
"Thank you," said Allura.
As they began to follow the small alien, Lance fell into step behind Coran. Hunk, always loyally by his side, fell in line next to him.
"So did you ever visit Arus back in the day?" Lance asked curiously.
"Briefly, once, I believe," said Coran. "We didn't stick around long. Got into a spot of trouble. Ah, those were the days."
His expression turned sad and wistful. Lance mentally cursed himself for being so tactless. To Coran, he'd only lost everything a couple of days ago. Lance had to go dragging back memories, even if they weren't bad.
"There's lots of vegetation here," mused Hunk. "Hey, if we get time, I want to do a bit of scavenging so we have fresh stuff instead of the food goo."
"The food goo is nutritional!" protested Coran. Lance sent a silent thank you to his best friend for changing the subject so smoothly.
"My dude, after that lunch you made today, I will definitely help you with scavenging so you can cook for us," said Lance.
"So, first, please don't ever refer to me as your dude ever again," said Hunk.
"Why not?" said Lance. "My dude, my man, mi hermanito–"
"Um, excuse you, I am both older and larger than you," said Hunk, "so, if anything, you're my hermanito."
"Sorry, what's a dude and an er-man-ee-toe?" asked Coran.
Lance snorted. "Oh, man, we have got to work on your accent."
"That – that really was sad," agreed Hunk.
"A dude is a guy," said Lance. "A person. Like Hunk. He's a dude, I'm a dude, you're a dude – we're all dudes, except Allura."
"Yeah, she's a dudette," said Hunk.
"Please don't," said Lance.
Hunk threw up his hands. "You started it."
"Well, I'm also ending it, please don't call Allura a dudette," Lance said. "Anyway, hermanito is Spanish for little brother."
"Lance is Cuban," Hunk added helpfully.
Coran blinked at us. "Spanish? Cuban? Aren't you all from the same planet?"
"Yeah, we just have lots of different countries and languages," said Hunk. "Like, my family is Samoan, in Samoa they speak Samoan and also English – Lance is from Cuba, so he's Cuban – they speak Spanish. I learned some Spanish in school. Also from Lance."
Coran looked befuddled. "Altea only had but one language. Now, we learned others in school. I personally took courses in Nalquodian and, well, Galran, before the Galra were evil. And let me tell you – Nalquodian, that is a language to learn! Difficult, yes, but certainly beautiful in its own right. Now, Galran – well, that's just plain difficult."
"Oh-ho, do not get me started on difficult languages," Lance said. "English? English is murder. Flat-out murder. It's anarchy. Other languages have rules."
"English has rules," said Hunk.
"Rules with more exceptions than instances where they're actually followed," Lance exclaimed.
Coran shook his heads. "You humans are so baffling!"
"Yeah," Lance had to agree, "yeah, we really are."
The walk to the alien village wasn't all that far – Lance, as much as he enjoyed chatting with Coran, was rather glad they didn't have to walk too far. It wasn't that he wasn't in shape of anything – Lance took good care of his body as well as his skin. He just didn't really want to walk crazy far for this meet-the-neighbours thing.
The little Arusians were super excited to see them. Lance totally took it in stride, showing off for the little guys until Hunk gave him a scolding glare and he quickly mellowed his behaviour.
An older-looking (although Lance really couldn't tell the ages of these guys) Arusian stepped forward toward them, arms spread wide. "Oh, Lion Goddess! As King of the Arusians, I formally beg your forgiveness. Please have mercy on us and accept our traditional Dance of Apology as atonement for our sins."
Allura looked utterly confused as the King clapped twice and another Arusian rushed forward.
"Commence Dance of Apology," he ordered.
The Arusian began some sort of dance-thing. The poor Princess looked highly uncomfortable.
"Please, please," she said, "there is no need for this."
The Arusians looked alarmed.
"Moontow, stop!" said the King sharply. "The Goddess refuses the apology. Light the sacrificial fire! We must throw ourselves in."
"No!" Lance and Hunk yelped with Allura. Coran had to put a firm hand on his shoulder to stop him from rushing forward – Lance wasn't sure what he would have done, probably gathered as many of the tiny aliens into his arms as possible to prevent them from running into the fire that had indeed been lit.
"No sacrifices," said Allura carefully.
The King looked hopeful. "So we may proceed with the dance?"
"That's – that's a much better alternative," she agreed.
The King clapped and the Arusian started dancing again. It wasn't anything like the dancing Lance was used to. His family was kind of huge on dancing – not necessarily professional, though his sister Leida was actually planning to major in Dance in college. He was used to fast-paced music, small children stepping on his toes, siblings and parents and aunts and uncles clapping and singing to the music. This was a lot slower and simpler – not bad, just culturally different. Lance was biased to prefer what he knew – but he did.
At the end of the dance, all the Arusians bowed. Allura looked simultaneously mortified and flattered.
"Just like her father," Coran murmured to him.
Lance could see that. Alfor never seemed the type to get all uppity about titles and bowing and that nonsense.
"Please, rise!" said Allura. "Thank you for your… lovely dance, but I am not a great goddess worthy of your worship."
"Aw," Lance muttered quietly. "She ruined it."
Hunk elbowed him.
"I accidentally put you all in danger," admitted Allura. "It is I who should be apologising to you. I am Princess Allura of Altea, and these are some of the Paladins of Voltron. Though we come from different worlds – and have very, very, very different traditions… we wish to live alongside you as friends."
Keith scowled and looked about to bring up the whole Zarkon fight again. Hunk elbowed him too, which garnered a dumbfounded stare from the Red Paladin. Lance hid a chuckle; Keith would get used to it eventually.
"The mighty robotic angel," said the King, "has it not come to destroy us for our immoral ways?"
Lance's eyebrows raised; he had a lot of question about what exactly these immoral ways could be.
"What? No!" said Allura, clearly scandalised. "Voltron – the mighty robotic angel – is here to protect you! Let it be known that Voltron will protect every innocent being throughout the universe."
The Arusians all cheered. Lance thought that it was a rather tall order, to protect every innocent being in the universe. It was a beautiful idea, one he'd love to achieve, but it didn't exactly seem feasible.
Coran seemed to notice his wavering smile, because he patted him on the shoulder.
"I expect you'll do a fine job, my boy," he said quietly.
"Heh, thanks, Coran," Lance said.
He smiled. "Of course, Lance. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go mingle! These Arusians are so fascinating!"
"Alright, man, you do that," Lance laughed.
The rest of them spread out. Lance caught sight of one Arusian hugging Keith and stifled a laugh – Hunk was possibly going to take that as permission to surprise-hug Keith whenever he wanted if he saw that, so Lance decided to go make sure he did see that.
He pushed his worries out of his mind – now wasn't the time to be doubting his abilities as a Paladin. It was too soon to know, anyway.
A/N: I kind of let it carry me away... I enjoy writing the team's interactions, so this chapter was a lot of that. I hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading! I love you guys so much! 3