Chapter 5: All Tangles Have a Beginning

Hana lost count of how many days it has been since they first boarded Blue and found the Altean castle on planet Arus. Everything in space looked the same without the sun and she knew that it was only because of countless sleepless nights from gaming, her body has been trained to rejuvenate whenever she fell asleep.
Her gaze settles on Lance asleep on the chair beside her. They were all sitting in the control room, Hunk pacing back and forth every so often that it was starting to get on her nerves.

"Hunk, we'll get to Balmera when we get there." Hana says.

He throws her a side glance, "You didn't see the way their people were treated Hana, you'll understand when we get there."

Hana restrains her eye roll and focuses instead on the journal in her hands, she's been carrying the damn thing everywhere hoping to unlock some clue by accident but so far, its yielded nothing. Sitting on the floor, she contemplates the riddle again. A loud beeping noise interrupted her thoughts as she watches Princess Allura stride towards the control panel.

"We're receiving a distress signal." She says.

This cannot be happening.
This. Cannot. Be. Happening.

Hana folds her arms, eyes narrowing as she watches Lance doing his best to impress Nyma while Rolo was discussing with Hunk. The thing is, she didn't know why she was so upset.
It wasn't like she has any feelings for him. There was just…well…something about Nyma that isn't right no matter what Shiro and Princess Allura were determined to believe.

"What's that you have there?"

Hana glances to her side, clearly Rolo had finished his conversation with Hunk. "It's nothing," she tucks the silver journal under her left arm. "-I hope Hunk is able to get everything that you need, to send you on your way. How long did you say you've been here for?"

"A couple of days. We're almost running out of supplies. You guys are really saving us." Rolo says but his eyes weren't meeting hers. Rather, he was staring at the castle with probing interest on his expression.
"Hmm well…you're lucky that the princess believes in you." She says with a cutting tone she hoped would sink in, "Wait…where's Nyma and Lance?"

"Who knows?" He shrugs, walking over to the fire site where the others were gathered. Her frown deepens and she stands up clutching the journal tighter. She couldn't shrug the feeling off her shoulders, her eyes focus on the castle's entrance suddenly sharing Hunk's interest to be off that moon and on their way to Balmera. Lance's glaring absence is also making her uncomfortable.
A loud swoosh from one of the castle's pointed turrets and Blue flying out of it catches her attention.

"Lance…what the quiznack…" Hana mutters angrily under her breath.

"Let them have their fun."

She hears Rolo tell Hunk in the distance. Rolling her eyes, Hana stomps towards the castle determined to put as much distance between herself and the 'distressed civilians' they were supposedly helping.
Entering the control room, she slumps down into the chair that Lance had occupied previously.

She didn't want to admit it, but she is genuinely worried about Lance. They didn't know anything about Nyma and Rolo, and it didn't matter how much bravdo he has if his guards were down.

Or his pants. Stop it. You don't even think of him in that way.

Now that her mind had conjured the image, it was hard to make it go away. Forcing her focus on the journal, she flips the pages harder than she meant to.
The ripping sound resounded in the empty control room.

"Fuck…fuck…fuck…" Hana repeats, crouching down to retrieve the torn page that floated beneath the control panel. She hits her head when she tries to get back up, forcing herself onto her derriere instead. Stars dance across her vision.

Stars. The riddle is referring to stars. The answer is in the stars. The library has stars on the ceiling...it's all making sense.

Hana stands up only to lurch forwards in a sea of nausea. From the corner of her eyes she sees Rolo's spacecraft speed off the moon, evidently fixed. Narrowing her eyes, trying to focus on the moon's surface through her sudden nausea, she couldn't see the Blue Lion anywhere.

Did Rolo leave without Nyma? That rat bastard.

The doors behind her opens with Princess Allura and Coran running in, looking extremely panicked.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Hana asks.

"Rolo and Nyma have the Blue Lion." Princess Allura says while pushing buttons on the interface that Hana couldn't keep up with.
"Is Lance okay?" Hana continues, shaking off the sudden dread that shrouds her shoulder suddenly.
"He's tied to a tree somewhere but he's alright." Coran replies. "We need to get the Blue Lion before they barter it to Zarkon."

On the other side of the universe, sitting in the employee lounge enjoying his peanut butter sandwich when a glaring red light from the glass cabinet caught his attention. Winston curiously walks over to the cabinet and takes out the beeping device bearing the Overwatch symbol.

Hana enters the library by herself, fuming. Of course, Lance would down-play everything, it wasn't like Nyma had successfully duped him. Hana couldn't find anything remotely attractive about her anyway, she is an alien!

She probably has a mouse trap in her vagina for all they knew.

Dropping the journal in the armchair in front of the fireplace, folding her arms. Hana looks up at the ceiling, staring at the constellations. She gets startled by the sound of doors swooshing open behind her.

"Keith? What are you doing here? You should be resting."

He crosses the room, casting glances at the shelves upon shelves of books installed into the wall. "Don't think that's possible. Being out there with Red, I've got adrenaline coursing through my veins."
Hana smirks, "Yeah. I used to get that whenever I had tournaments."

"Tourna-…? Right, Pidge mentioned something about that. You were a gamer?"

"Am. Was. Still?" Hana shrugs. "I'm trying to find the White Lion. I think there's something in the ceiling. The answer to the riddle is stars. I'm positive, why else would they have built the ceiling like this? There aren't any ceilings like this in the castle." She points to the constellations in the ceiling. "The problem is they aren't any constellations I've seen before."

Keith sits on the armchair, looking up to where she is pointing. "Do you think it's hidden on a planet in one of these constellations?"

"Yeah, but there has to be hundreds of them, Zarkon might have already taken over the entire universe by then. We're going to need to find it soon." Hana says. Keith fidgets with something, realizing he'd been sitting on the silver journal. Flipping through the pages, he kept casting sidelong glances at the ceiling.

"Maybe there would be something in the book. The same way the mountains and the radio waves that Pidge collected that night we met."

Hana could feel the warmth on her cheeks forcing herself to look at the ceiling, she wasn't about to let Keith see how pink she was getting.

The night we met.

Hana wonders if he still smells of cloves now that they've been off Earth for a while. She glances at him but his eyes were immersed in the pages of the journal. Hana's heart rate which had been thudding earlier in her ribcage, has been slow and steady since Keith entered the library.

"I think I found it." Keith sits up, finger pointing at a diagram in the book.

"What?" Hana leaps towards him.

"It's been upside down all this while." Keith says, pointing at one of the entries towards the end and handing it over to her. "That one." He gestures towards the ceiling.
Hana sits on the armrest as it suddenly became obvious to her. Keith chuckles, his face suddenly turning a bright mauve when she throws her arms around his neck and places a kiss on his cheek.
"Keith! You solved it!" She grins. Keith smiles back at her, "I try."

Hana storms out of the control room heading towards the zip-line that would immediately take her to the training deck. If she were a cartoon character, she was sure she would have steam coming out of her ears.
Who the Hell is Hunk to Princess Allura?
Who died and made him Captain of the Castle?
Surely the Balmereans can hold the Galra forces for the next couple days while they retrieve the White Lion? It isn't her fault that they're memories have been wiped.

The tears flick off her eyelashes as she zooms through the air. Couldn't they understand that the White Lion is essential for defeating Zarkon?
Why else hide a super-secret weapon if it weren't powerful enough to stop the most powerful being in the universe?
Hana lands on the floor, legs shaking unsteadily on impact.

"Begin training sequence three." She commands, wiping the tears from her eyes as fast as she can. Hunk has no right when his lion is with him.

The training-bot appears behind her and without further ado starts attacking Hana. Dodging out of the way she runs towards the armory wall and grabs the first thing her hands reaches: a sparring sword.
Pretending to take her time, Hana whirls at the last second jabbing at the training-bot which jumps out of the way. The unexpected move threw it off balance and it crashed into the wall above Hana. She rolls out of the way to avoid getting crushed, jumping onto her feet so she could gain advantage over the training-bot. Not that her height helps.

"Aaaaagh!" Hana yells charging at the training-bot and uses her momentum to lift higher off the ground. The blade points downwards got pushed out of the way by the bot's shield, causing jarring of pain to run up her wrist and arm.
"Fuck. This. Shit." Hana mutters through gritted teeth, using the force of the push to her advantage so she gracefully fell into a backwards cart-wheel.

"Command, sequence stop."

Hana stumbles through the air when the bot disappears through the floor. She loses her balance and falls into a crumpled heap on the floor.

"Lance! What's wrong with you?!" Hana yells, jumping back up and grabbing the handle of the sword with a sweaty hand.
"I couldn't help overhearing your…argument with Shiro and Hunk."
"Lance, I really…don't need this right now." Hana says but Lance catches her by the hand to stop her from walking away.
"We'll find your lion." Lance insists.
"You don't seem to understand, Keith and I already found the constellation of where it is! But the Balmerans are more important than saving the entire universe. Allies, what good are allies if we die?"

"What if I told you I need you?"

Hana falters, facing him with a quizzical expression on her face. "What are you talking about?"

"Nyma…I saw the way you were looking at us." Lance smiles. Hana rolls her eyes but did her best to ignore the heat beginning on her cheeks.
"I'm sorry I'd rather have my friends alive?" Hana asks. "You were lucky the only thing she did was tie you to a tree. You could have died."

"Aha! So, you do care about me?"

"Hard not to care about someone you've been travelling with for days across the universe." She says. Lance chuckles, "That's uhh…that's nice to know."

"No, I don't think you do. We could…die. This thing with the Balmerans, we've never taken on the Galra before, we've barely completed training. We got lucky on Planet Arus. I just think we should go in fully prepared. Can you…can you even begin to imagine the strength Voltron might possess if we manage to get the White Lion?"

"And we will, but there are people living on Balmera. Balmera itself is alive, at least that's I'm getting from Princess Allura and Coran. I don't think we can go in there, guns blazing anyway. So once we get everything sorted with the Balmerans we'll space-jump through the portal and get your lion in no time." Lance places a hand on her shoulder. Hana realizes for the first time how tall he is in comparison to her.
"When you put it that way, sure. But it's not going to be that simple, is it? I told you, we could die-"

Lance presses a finger to her lips ceasing her talk immediately. He must have been surprised with his own actions too, quickly he withdraws his hand.

"Stop being so morbid. We aren't going to. We're together and we've got Voltron on our side." Lance says firmly hands on his hips as if to emphasize his point. Hana shakes her head, "I wish I could be as confident as you are. It took me forever to get used to piloting for MEKA. What are we supposed to do? Excuse me, Zarkon, sir, could you give us three months or so while we train?"

"You're a pocketful sunshine, aren't you?" Lance chuckles. Hana raises an eyebrow, "Point is, this isn't a game. There isn't a spawn room."
"Has anyone told you, that you look extremely adorable when you're angry?" Lance asks.

Hana finally decides to walk away. "Oh no, you're not talking to me that way. Not after Nyma."

"Wait…what? Nothing happened!" Lance calls after her.