"Wait, wait, wait. Shiro got half-eaten by a what?!" Lance squawked.
Keith grinned. "By a spider the size of a bus with the tentacles of an octopus."
He carefully maneuvered his crutches—well, alien versions of them, at least— to sit down in the lounge cushions. His arm was in a sling while he waited for Coran to finish helping Shiro into a pod, then he was scheduled for a visit himself.
Pidge pushed her glasses further up her nose. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?"
Keith just smirked and sipped his space juice as Coran walked into the room. "How's he holding up?"
Coran's mustache twitched into a fond grin. "Shiro's doing mighty fine now, thanks to you and Allura. He's recovering quite nicely— should be out of the pod in a few more vargas. That radiation poisoning is a serious threat."
"Radiation?" Hunk asked. "I bet that's why we weren't able to contact anyone in the city to ask about your location."
Keith blinked. "Actually, yeah… How'd you figure that out so quick? It took us forever."
"He's a genius," Pidge said proudly and punched him in the arm. Hunk didn't hide his smug grin.
"Hey, is Allura back yet from that ceremony thingy in the city?" Lance asked Coran. "Why couldn't we go again?"
"Yes, she's back—"
"How'd it go?" Pidge interrupted.
"—and you couldn't go, Lance, because she was already there by the time Keith called us from the capital building."
"Aww." Lance pouted. "But I like parties."
"Trust me, you would've hated this one." Keith took another sip of juice. "It's basically a council meeting that lasts four hours and lectures you on every legality and custom of their people. I barely got out of it, and that was just because I had to bring Shiro back here and get him in a cryopod."
Lance grumbled. "You're just saying that 'cause you hate parties. There were probably some really pretty blue-skinned girls in attendance and you just wimped out." Keith was too tired to come up with a comeback, so he settled for simply rolling his eyes.
"Pidge asked how the ceremony went?" Hunk cut in.
"Well," Coran said, "Let's just say that, although the Laxuriz are now officially part of the Coalition—thus the mission was a success—it will be quite a while before Princess Allura will have the patience to visit them again."
A/N: And that's it! Thank you so much for reading this. If you liked it, please feel free to leave a comment, or come drop by my tumblr (sonderquill. tumblr. com) and say hi! If you want to see the art embedded in the fic itself, follow the link on my bio to AO3 and you'll find this story cross-posted there as well :)
Many thanks, again, to my artist LittleWhiteTie for being such a great partner this mini bang! You can go check out her fics here on FF or on AO3 (same username), or you can go see more of her wonderful art on her tumblr: littlewhitetie. tumblr. com!