I am so sorry! It's hard for me to stay motivated when I literally have nothing else to do than lay in bed nearly 23 hours a day.. for 4 months straight.. ADHD is not kind on that... Also after playing around with designs while I was drawing I tweaked the description of the tails from last chapter. (Hopefully I will eventually finish that sketch. it includes Galra Keith with his stripes and Lance with his ears)
Lance had crashed again, fast asleep on the couch curled up with Keith. they were tangled around each other, Keith nearly back to human again just his ears left out twitching in his sleep. Lance's tail had yet to leave either, wrapped around Keith's calf possessively.
Blue's idea of a good swim had helped a lot with the soreness and dehydration, but he still had a little way to go it seemed. And after running all around the ship like he had along with bothering the others with their antics for the better of an hour, Shiro finally plucked them up by the scruffs and planted them on the couch with a snap to settle down.
Now however he had the strongest urge to take pictures, if only he had a camera..
Shiro sighs to himself pushing the thought away for now. Maybe he could ask Pidge later, most likely they took some.
He simply walks closer to the couch gripping the two's shoulders and shaking them gently. Keith woke near right away, looking up at him questionably. Lance only curling up tighter with a reluctant whine.
"Come on guys, get up. Allura wants to talk to us."
A few minutes of wiggling, clinging to the back of the couch (Lance) and Shiro physically hauling them to their feet. The three head down towards the training room. Hunk and Pidge were already there glancing into several containers sitting between them and the Alteans.
"Ah good! You're all here now so we can get started!" Coran cheered and began shepherding them to sit in front of specific boxes. Keith and Shiro ended up in front of smaller ones than the other three had.
"Alright then. Now you may remember us talking about channeling the elements of the lions."
"That was literally only yesterday Coran.." Keith deadpanned.
The adviser just carried on unphased. "Yes. Well, today we're going to try a training of a different sort." He moved around the circle opening the various boxes, Pidge had a small collection of plants, Hunk a mound of rocks, sand and clay, Shiro's turned out to be holding a canister of colored gas and Keith's was some sort of stove-top burner. "Each of you will try and connect to your elements. I'm not guaranteeing anything will happen but a thorough test wouldn't hurt.
They all watched as Coran opened the last one, a tub full of water, in front of Lance. Shiro voiced the unspoken concern.
"Are you sure about this..? The last time seemed pretty close to killing him.."
"Which is precisely why we're going to start with a much smaller scale until he gets the feel of it. Its also important to start now in the case of unintentional mishaps. The powers sometimes tend to activate to the littlest things."
Allura giggles a bit, "Father would tell me stories about the paladins sneezing fire or blowing someone across the room if snuck up on."
There was a silent group realization that this had the potential for great hilarity and pranks, but equally the potential for great disaster.
Shiro gave a resigned sigh. "Fine then. Where do we start?"
Allura spoke up then. "Unfortunately, we aren't sure what the best method of bringing out these powers are. It's more of a bond based ability, so we'll just learn as we go!"
"Because the last time went so well.." Pidge quipped. Being shot at for hours on end still wasn't high on the success list.
"Uh.. I might have a suggestion?" All eyes turned to Lance, his usual confidence in his ideas wasn't showing like it normally did. He kind of looked nervous to hear the answer really.
Hunk smiled warmly, Shiro made a 'continue' gesture.
"We could just try asking them? The lions I mean. Like Green made that plant cannon after Pidge tried the Okari thing. I know back on the mer-world Blue kind of seemed refreshed and supercharged by the ocean, so…"
"True, Yellow didn't do well down there but Blue looked like she was having fun. Is that a thing? Does anyone else get impressions of visible emotion on them sometimes..?" Hunk frowns softly on his own thoughts now.
Shiro merely shrugs "It's a fair point, its not like they haven't guided us through things before. I think its worth a try."
"Holy crow I'm a water-bender!"
"Calm down Sokka.."
"Sokka wasn't a bender.."
"Up till now neither were you. Besides you sure aren't Katara."
Lance pouted at Pidge in return. It had been a few hours since Lances suggestion, the team falling into meditation mode as they communed with their respective lions. Pidge had managed to bloom a single extra leaf, the binary coded headset they used before had the same basic ideas, but without it it was far harder to communicate as clearly. Hunk hadn't managed anything but then again Yellow was the slow and steady type so he didn't mind at all. Shiro kept getting riddles made of visions which he was still sorting out. And Red was teasing Keith by taking control of his flaming burner herself and making it dance around like one of those tube people in front of car sale lots. (though he had to admit the bit with the Macarena was amusing)
Despite his face set in its well-practiced Grumpy Cat imitation, Keith still cast side glances at Lance. The water paladin had managed to form a ping-pong ball sized blob of water that clung to and rolled around his hands, but it was clearly straining him to hold it. His hands were shaking and he looked ready to drop out cold again. But the pride and excitement sparkling in his eyes made Keith hesitate to say anything.
In the meantime the mice had gotten bored and were wandering between them, poking around curiously on the teams various projects. Save the open flame of course. Pidge glanced over as Plachu jumped down of their knee crossing over to Keith to watch the flames dance. Lance was between them and Keith catching his eye on the way as well. But the way his eyes followed the mouse then failed to look away made Pidge frown softly. There was something about that look that was oddly familiar, but mixed with a hint of confliction?
The green pilot continued to observe racking their brains to remember where they'd seen it before. It finally clicked with the force slamming in a particle shield when Lance's hand released the water and twitched towards the mouse.
"HEY!" Pidge all but belted, making near everyone in the room jump. Lance snapped his head back towards them in question, along with the rest of the room. Crap…
"Uh.. Isn't it time for dinner yet? I'm hungry. Is anyone else hungry?" There was a chorus of agreement and a round of stretching stiff legs and backs while Coran stored the boxes away again. Pidge leans up tugging lance down to their level and whispered, "What were you thinking just now?!"
"Huh?"
"Plachu! I saw the way you were looking at him!"
"I don't know..? I just saw him go by and suddenly realized I slept through lunch.."
"Ok then were going to have to keep you fed around them then.."
"What? No, I wasn't gonna-" he seemed to pale a bit there.
"Lance. That stare is the same one my dog would give us on steak night.. You were. But know that you know you can stop it from happening again right?"
The taller teen nodded hastily, fingers tangling together out of nervousness. Pidge smiled softly grabbing Lance's wrist and dragging him to the kitchen for a snack while Hunk cooked.
Ok so I've been thinking about what species would represent the other three. Hunk I'm still not sure for. Shiro I want to say would be an actual lion cause otherwise I'd be leaning towards the black panther and that just kinda feels more like picking it for color. Pidge though… Ok so in fifth grade the science teacher had one of those posters with like a bajlion animals from south America on it and we had to pick one to make a report on. I picked what I thought was a jaguar. The teacher said it was actually something called a margay, a species I and probably many others never even heard about. In addition to that she tried to get me to pick something different because there wasn't hardly any data on it at the time. (She was right my report ended up very lacking) but I stuck with it because it was something new to me. Margays are actually pretty small. And they spend a majority of their lives in the canopies. While pidge didn't have their nature vibe before season two, we did see that they do like sitting in high places and can easily climb around in harder to maneuver areas. And now that Pidge is growing into Green's powers I think it fits rather well.
