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As Color Fades Away
Chapter Six
Lance wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or not. He swore the door to his cell had just opened. It had not opened in...
In forever.
He blinked at it.
Yup.
It was open and a bright purple light that stung his eyes was filtering in. He moaned and closed them.
Heavy footsteps sounded and that prompted Lance to reopen his eyes.
Just in time to see a blurred purple hand descending for him.
He didn't have the strength to move and it latched onto his head and Lance definitely remembered that action. As he was dragged to sitting, his body screaming as it was pulled from where his limbs had become locked, he caught sight of the burn scar above this Galran's right eye.
The commander.
Which meant that yes, all of this was very real.
Someone was actually here, even if that someone was dragging him by his hair and sliding his body across the floor without any mind, faint red streaks smeared behind from where Lance's blood had congealed in his huddle.
Which meant…
"Water," he croaked, the word literally filling his mind. Somehow, someway, if he could just have water things would be okay.
The Galran ignored him.
Lance closed his eyes and offered no resistance as he was dragged through the halls. No stairs at least, he thought wryly, supposing he should be grateful for the small things. His head was aching as his entire weight was dragged by it, but he had no energy left to cry out. All he could manage were pathetic whimpers that the Galran paid no heed to, except to tighten his grip every now and then.
He must have blacked out at some point during their journey, as when he awoke he was being strapped into a high-backed chair and Haggar, he definitely recognized her, was placing small probes all over his arms and chest.
Even in his muddled state that got a reaction and he tried to pull away, going nowhere thanks to the restraints holding down his wrists and, an attempted kick later showed, his ankles, with a strap pulled tight across his chest for good measure.
He wasn't going anywhere.
"Awake, are you?" Haggar chuckled next to his ear.
He shut his eyes in reply.
"Now now, that won't do," she clucked. And then there was something cold and wet bumping against his nose and Lance's eyes flew open.
"There are your pretty blue eyes," she murmured but he was looking not at her buat the glass of water she was holding in front of his face. Water. He almost started crying at the sheer relief that finally he was going to get a drink.
Haggar chuckled. "I have something for you, Paladin. But first you must do something for me."
And just like that all of Lance's dreams of having a sip – scratch that, chugging the glass – went up in smoke.
Lance knew a bribe when he saw one. Growing up with a bunch of siblings would do that. And no matter how much he wanted a drink he would not, absolutely not, do anything for the witch.
As exhausted as he was Lance narrowed his eyes into a glare and leveled it at Haggar. It probably wasn't intimidating in the slightest, evidenced by Haggar's amused smile at it, but it was all he had.
Well that and...
He swallowed thickly and forced out with all the conviction he could manage, "No."
Haggar hummed response nodded at something over his head. The next second his body was alight with literal fire as the probes all over him let up a sickly Galran purple.
And although Lance hadn't thought he had any voice left, somehow he found enough strength to scream, throat tearing at the abuse and he swore he tasted blood. Haggar let whatever it was continue for what seemed like eons before it ended and he was left panting and sagging in the chair, only the restraint holding him up.
"You will deliver a message," she continued as if nothing had just happened. "If you do this, you will be rewarded." She shook the glass of water. "If you fail, you will be punished."
Lance said nothing, concentrating on getting air back into his lungs as his heart beat out a staccato that was much too fast to be safe.
"You will repeat what you hear word for word," she instructed. "Do try and look at the recorder as you speak."
At that Lance jerked his head up, just noticing now that yes indeed there was a recording bot floating a few feet away from him, and paled.
Dios. His team was going to see him. Like this.
Haggar seemed to sense his train of thought and gave him a dangerous smile. "Your fellow Paladins will see it, of course," she said. "I do hope you put on a good show for them."
Lance shuddered. This was exactly what Haggar had wanted. She'd said as much in the throne room. She wanted the others to see him in pain, his torture, to make them agree to the trade. The trade that would destroy the universe's last hope for peace.
Well...
Lance couldn't do anything about the being tortured bit, but he could do something about his reaction. She wanted to see him in pain? He grit his teeth. He would hold out for as long as it took. He wouldn't let them see him scream.
He didn't want that to be their last memory of him.
Lance raised his chin at Haggar, a challenge as much as a promise to himself. He would not be a part of her game.
"Repeat after me and you will be rewarded," Haggar said instead, not reacting to his challenge, "and if you fail you will be punished." She paused and then continued. "Greetings, Paladins."
He kept his mouth in a firm line and narrowed his gaze at her, determined to not look directly at the recorder.
"Greetings, Paladins," she repeated.
He replied in silence.
And although he knew it was coming he still couldn't prepare for the burst of agony that flowed through him. He choked on his tongue, trying to tamp down the broken scream.
The pain increased.
And he realized how foolish he'd been to think he could fight back at all.
A cry was torn from him a few ticks later and he he threw his head back and smashed it into the seat, hoping it would be enough to knock him out and end this. It did not but the shocks did stop, leaving him shuddering and listing sideways in his restraints.
Haggar gave him about twenty ticks to recollect himself and then said, a cruel twist to her lips. "Greetings, Paladins."
"Qu-quiznack you," he snapped instead, his voice barely recognizable to his own ears.
More shocks and screams followed.
They continued that pattern for much much too long.
And, Lance learned, there was no end to it.
He had blacked out, whethr he'd finally knocked himself unconscious or the pain had overridden his senses to the point where his body had to shut down to save itself.
But somehow he kept waking up.
He'd finally realized they were drugging him with something, waking up once to a needle leaving his neck and a flare of ice cold fire left behind.
The entire time the recorder blinked.
His friends were watching this.
Hunk was watching this. The thought curdled his stomach. Hunk, who didn't like violence of any kind who didn't even like to watch first person shooter video games was seeing him tortured on screen.
If... if Hunk were in his place (and Dios, no, please no, never) then he would want Hunk to speak to save himself the pain.
"Greetings, Paladins," Haggar intoned, interrupting Lance's thoughts. He weakly shook his head, his eyes closed. He didn't even know what he was saying no to. The torture, the words or his own pride.
He could end this for all of them. His pain, the suffering of having to watch.
He supposed...
He supposed he could take his own advice. Just this once.
"Greetings, Paladins," Haggar said again, surprisingly not having shocked him in the interim.
Lance swallowed, tasting blood. "Gr-greetings," he rasped, eyes shut tightly closed and head slumped down. He didn't want to see Haggar's glee or his friends to see the shame painted on his cheeks at his decision.
"Paladins," Haggar prompted like a schoolteacher to a nervous student.
"Paladins," he whispered. His voice was hardly audible to himself, he had no idea how the recording was picking it up. But no shock followed so he supposed it was good enough.
"I bring a message from Emperor Zarkon."
"I bring a... a m-message," he stuttered, breath failing him mid-sentence as a cough overtook him. Haggar was kind enough to let him catch his breath instead of shocking him. He could feel her gaze on him though as he didn't continue. "From Emperor Zarkon," he rushed out, praying he wouldn't feel the pain to follow.
"He is willing to negotiate a trade."
"He's w-willing to…" Lance trailed off as his body pulsed with pain and he moaned instead. Shocks were quick to follow and he didn't even make a sound save a low groan as they wrapped up. Screaming took too much energy now.
He had nothing left.
"Negotiate a trade," Haggar prompted.
"Trade," Lance managed instead. Haggar seemed to realize that was as good as she was going to get and continued. His tongue didn't seem capable of forming such long words right now.
"The life of the Blue Paladin for the Black Lion."
Lance shook his head. No. He wouldn't say that.
He would never say that.
"No," Lance whispered, the word tasting like blood.
Haggar repeated the sentence over the sound of the torture, this one seeming to carry on for longer than the others.
"The life of the Blue Paladin for the Black Lion."
"No," he gasped, jerking his head up and looking straight at the camera. It was a plea, a wish.
A shattered hope.
"No, Shiro no-"
They couldn't come. They couldn't.
He was rewarded with another bout of shocks.
"The life of the Blue Paladin for the Black Lion."
"Please, no," he pleaded. He wasn't sure who he was addressing that to. "Por favor."
Pain was his answer.
Lance choked on his next breath as he came around.
His body begged for him to repeat the words. It was nothing they weren't going to learn anyways.
He couldn't keep doing this.
At this point there would be no life of the Blue Paladin because he would be dead.
But Lance knew it wasn't going to be that simple. They wouldn't let him die unless it was on their terms.
This was going to keep going and going.
"The life of the Blue Paladin for the Black Lion."
A dry sob was pulled from him. "The l-life of the… of the…" His head lolled as fatigue and pain pressed in on him. "Me," he whispered. "For the Black L-lion." He managed to pick his head up then, trying to look in the direction of the camera. "No. Sh-Shiro no, you c–"
He broke off with a barely there scream for going off script.
Only once he had stopped, head angled back down, and quiet did Haggar continue.
"You will locate instructions for surrender at the following set of coordinates."
Lance gave a slow blink as he stared down at his thighs, which kept going in and out of focus.
They wanted him to say that? All of that?
Of course they did.
He summoned up the last of himself. He had to end this.
He couldn't let them watch this any longer. "You will l-loc-cate the instruct… ions… f-for surrender at…"
"The following set of coordinates," Haggar reminded as Lance coughed up blood.
"Following coor-coordinates," he panted, praying this was the end.
"Hodgkin quadrant sixth nebula."
"Hodgkin qu-quadrant… sixth… neb... nebula."
His head felt like it was going to break his neck as it hung heavily against the chair. He could feel himself slipping away all on his own.
"Seventeen point six degrees north and two hundred and five point four degrees west."
"Seventeen… Six… north…" his mouth struggled to move. "Two h-hundred… five… p-point…" What was the rest of it? He didn't know the rest of it.
He couldn't think anymore.
His body lit up with shocks for the disobedience. He wanted to cry. He was trying. She had to see that, right?
She just didn't care.
"Four degrees west," Haggar said, rough voice piercing through the fog.
"F-four. West." Dios, was it over now? Please, please, please let it be over.
She was talking again though and looking at him expectantly. He blinked back at her.
All he could hear was a dull ringing in his head.
She didn't shock him then, to his surprise, but instead the Galran commander came around and Lance couldn't even try to pull away as a syringe was injected into his neck and the icy fire prickled through him.
Haggar became audible again.
"We look forward to your arrival," Haggar finished, raising an expectant brow.
Last one.
He could do this.
Lance wasn't even sure what he was saying at this point, the drug doing little to help with clarity. He sounded out the syllables, each one taking all of his effort. "We l-look for..ward… your ariv-val," he mumbled.
His eyes widened when he realized what he'd said.
No.
He jerked his head up then, a "no" on his lips, but the recorder had already been shut off.
He slumped back in the chair, his heartbeat pounding in his ears and chest heaving from what it had just been put through.
It was over now, right?
Even though...
Even though he knew this was only the start.
A taste of what he was sure he was going to be forced to endure as they interrogated him.
And unlike here... he couldn't give into their demands. It wasn't for his friends' benefit then (or so he was telling himself). He needed to hold out.
Just...
Just until they killed him.
Of which such a thing had to be coming soon as he could feel how dehydrated he was, that cotton-mouthed agony and heavy limbs reminding him of how much they too hurt now that the shocks had stopped.
Water.
Haggar had promised him water.
He lifted his lashes to find Haggar's face inches from his own.
She smiled at him and one of her hands moved to cup his cheek, tilting his chin up and he was too weak to even try and struggle.
"You put on an excellent show," she whispered, caressing his face. "And now you shall be rewarded."
Her other hand waved across his eyes and Lance knew no more.
xxx
"Lunch is ready," Hunk said, placing a large, steaming platter of mint green looking potatoes on the table. His voice lacked the usual excitement though at the prospect of food and he slumped down into his chair and made no move to serve himself. He couldn't. He'd made the food to distract him from thinking the hundreds of things Lance could be going through while they were all just sitting here, useless, but it hadn't worked.
He'd even forgotten the salt.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd done something like that.
It was why he had stopped trying to cook any more. A kitchen was no place for a distracted mind, especially one with alien ingredients.
"It looks very tasty, Number Two," Coran said in an upbeat manner, even as his moustache seemed to droop. He took up the serving spoon and ladled some onto his plate and then onto Pidge's, who had her head on the table next to him. "Eat up, everyone. We need to keep up our strength."
"I wonder if Lance is hungry," Pidge whispered, voice muffled by the tabletop. "I hope…" She didn't finish her thought, but Coran placed a gentle hand on her shoulder in understanding.
It had been two and a half days since the trap and Lance's capture. Following Shiro's proclamation that they would rescue Lance, they'd all been filled with hope that they would retrieve their friend soon from the Galran's clutches.
However, they had found themselves quite literally stuck as they had no idea where they were to go. The message had said instructions would follow but follow when?
The tricky part about having an enemy with no home planet was that they had no guaranteed location of where to go. Lance could be anywhere. Literally anywhere in the vast universe and they didn't even had an idea of where to start.
So they had to wait.
They'd busied themselves as they could, with Blue's repairs at the top of the list. They figured they could at least scout out down on Xinsthes, see if there was anything to be gleaned from the item that had been left behind.
Hunk, Pidge and Coran had taken to repairing the sliced open hole in her flank as best as they could while Shiro, Keith and surprisingly Allura, who had appeared with her sleeves rolled up and a grim resignation in her expression, had taken on the task of cleaning up the cockpit so the tech team could then move inside and begin to patch up the sliced controls.
Shiro was impressed by both Keith and Allura's fortitude as they cleaned up blood – Lance's blood he'd thought, stomach clenching, and the only comfort being that he knew that Lance was not dead as he'd been requested alive but the idea that it was by Haggar's order had negated most of that relief – and removed the body of the Galran soldier and ejected it into space. "Good riddance," Keith had muttered as it floated away, but Shiro hadn't missed the tremors that worked their way up his frame and had pulled the boy into a tight hug, one of the first since they'd been reunited and although Keith stiffened at first he had softened within a few seconds and just as tightly returned it. And if Shiro's shirt was slightly damp when Keith composed himself and pulled away, he said nothing, except to give him another squeeze of his arm.
And although he hated to see Keith upset he was relieved that Keith was displaying such a reaction. In light of everything that had happened he'd never had that talk with Keith about his attitude towards Lance but he didn't think at this point it was needed. He had the proof that Keith did care, even if his way of showing it was more prickly and affronted than Shiro would have hoped. Still, he would take what little sliver of silver lining that he could.
They had all hurried with the repairs as quick as they could, made easier as the Blue Lion had settled after Shiro's promise to her and she had pulled back on her emotions, making it so they weren't all constantly hit with loss guilt pain fear anger every time they stepped foot inside. Allura said she could still feel them at the back of her mind due to her bond with the castle, and had spent time sitting on the Blue Lion's paw and stroking the metal foot in a measure of comfort.
But despite that understanding from Allura, she had been blunt about the situation. They could not, under any circumstance, turn the Black Lion over to Zarkon. It would mean the utter destruction of the universe.
"So you're going to abandon Lance?" Hunk had roared, the closest to rage any had ever seen him, and it was terrifying. "You know what they'll do to him!"
"You think I do not know?" Allura had asked, voice cracking. "I will do everything in my power to get the Blue Paladin back! But we cannot sacrifice the Black Lion!"
It had ended with Shiro intervening and assuring Hunk they would get Lance back, no matter what. "We rescued Allura from their base once already," he'd said. "We will do the same for Lance."
No one commented on the fact that at that time they'd had the ability to form Voltron and Allura was worth more to the Empire alive than dead. Lance did not have that luxury.
It was a point that lingered, sick and dark, and no one yet had the courage to ask over it.
They had determined the best course was to wait for the Empire to contact them, to see if there was anything they could use from the message for a different way to go about retrieving Lance.
It was the only hope they had.
But that was two and a half days ago and in this case it was unlikely that no news meant good news. That was a long time for Lance to be a prisoner to the Galra and none had any idea what he was being forced to endure in that time.
They tried not to think about it.
Blue had been patched up in that time and she had allowed Allura to pilot her while Shiro joined her in the cockpit to return to Xinsthes. Everyone had wanted to come, but Allura said it was important that most remained behind in case this was another trap. She had wanted to go alone, but Shiro was insistent on coming, refusing to allow anyone else alone out of his sight.
He would not lose anyone else.
"This is not your fault," she told him as they descended through the water towards the item that had started this entire nightmare, slender hand lying atop his own in a measure of comfort. "None of us could have anticipated such an outcome"
"It is," Shiro had insisted." I'm the team leader and I made the call for this mission." His hand had clenched then, prosthetic creaking. "I know what they can do, Princess. What they are going to do to him."
"I know," she said, voice quiet. "I know. But Shiro," and his name had given him a pause, "We cannot give them the Black Lion. We cannot. No... no matter what they say or do."
She could not let every sacrifice made by her people be for naught. The universe could not afford to lose their last chance for hope.
No matter the cost.
"I know," Shiro had sighed, repeating her words, and voice as heavy as she had ever heard it. "I know."
"But I promise I will do whatever I can to see Lance safely returned," she continued, eyes straight ahead and hoping it was a promise she could keep. For Lance, Blue Paladin he may be, was a child still and involved in a war his kind could not even begin to imagine at her request. This was her responsibility too. "We will not abandon him. You and the other Paladins give me hope. We will find a way."
No helpful answers though were yielded in their underwater search. The item was still there, and Blue kept a safe distance away, but scans showed that it was as Pidge had suspected; a pulse designed to knock out all signals, controls and transmissions.
A piece of bait that they had swallowed hook, line and sinker.
The only interesting piece of note was a disturbance of the soft floor of the planet, indicating that something once rested there. It was quite large and Allura quietly guessed a ship of some design.
Zarkon had been busy.
The Galrans had likely lied in wait until Lance and the Blue Lion activated the pulse and had swarmed in then before taking off and exiting on the opposite side of the planet out of sight of the Paladins' eyes. It would not have been difficult as they had learned from the transmission the entire exchange had taken place in minutes leaving the Galrans with a large chunk of time to make their escape.
A few minutes of horror had now gone on to almost two and a half days of torturous waiting.
And it was getting harder and harder to have hope.
Shiro had not been lying when he had expressed his fears to Allura over what the Galra could do. He didn't remember much of his time there, just snippets of thought and memories and whenever they attempt to come to the surface he did all he could to push them back. He didn't want to remember. All that existed there was pain and hurt and fear and glowing yellow eyes.
But even then he knew what horrors awaited Lance. His arm throbbed, a reminder of what Haggar had done. And he knew that it was not just what she could do to the body but to the mind.
It was why his had shut down, had locked away those memories. It was to protect him, or at least he thought that might be it. The idea that Haggar had messed with his memories, had been the one to do it was too awful to consider and so Shiro chose to go with the option that give him less nightmares.
He still had plenty, imagined or based on memory, to keep him company most nights.
Nightmares may not have been plaguing the team yet, but they certainly weren't sleeping well. Pidge had moved into Hunk's room, Shiro had noted, her mattress taking up a swath of his floor, and the two of them had been spending any downtime not repairing the Blue Lion either in the kitchen or the lounge and not sequestered away in their individual workshops.
Safety and comfort in numbers.
Shiro had been pleasantly surprise too to see Keith joining them; oftentimes lingering on the outside of the duo's circle but still in the same room. He hadn't trained once either, which was more than telling as despite Shiro's orders that none of them were to utilize the training deck – if someone got hurt it was an injury and time they could not afford in case the Galra contacted them – Keith normally didn't listen.
This time he did.
But despite the fact the team was spending more time physically together as a whole than ever before, Shiro could feel them splintering apart.
It was irony at its worst that you don't realize the worth of something until it's gone. And Lance...
Lance had been so much more to this team than just their sharpshooter.
He was their glue. He was the one who generally instigated what he called "family dinners," literally prowling about the ship to pull Pidge from a project or Coran from a repair and even a few times Keith from the training deck. He organized movie nights with the Paladins and games for them to play during downtime; everything from some of the Altean ones he'd found and adapted to 'would you rather' questions that could get a little crazy at times and Shiro was always surprised by how much he found himself laughing at the ridiculousness.
Lance was a bright spot in this dark universe; a reminder of laughter and smiles.
And yet...
Yet most of the time they had not seen in that way. Lance could come off as annoying, as shallow, of too willing to pick a fight with Keith and rile the other boy up (of whose temper Shiro had noted had grown shorter since he had been away and he hated to think of what had caused that and hated more that he was sure he was a part of it). Shiro had heard it all from nearly all of the team save Hunk: Lance was immature, Lance was annoying, Lance was bothering them, Lance had no concept of personal space, Lance never took anything seriously.
But now that he was gone they were all realizing, Shiro too, just how much they had taken that slice of normal for granted.
Lance was only seventeen years old, after all, and thrust into a situation and war that Shiro still regretted exposing them all to. They were all so young.
And now Lance...
Lance was at the mercy of the Galra Empire.
It made Shiro want to both equally cry and blow things up.
Because this was all about him. He was the Black Paladin and it was the Black Lion Zarkon wanted. He should be the one in Lance's place. He had gotten them involved in his crash to Earth, he had pulled them all into this fight.
And yet here he was, safe, while an innocent boy, a child really, was in the hands of monsters. Shiro had the utmost faith in Lance; for all his outward immaturity and lackadaisical approach, Shiro knew beneath that there was a very strong, very compassionate individual. But beneath that there seemed to be another layer, one that Lance had not willingly shared and Shiro had caught but glimpses of. Shiro had seen too the way Lance would grow quiet after being snapped at a bit more pointedly than normal, withdrawing with a quiet "sorry" and disappearing for a few hours before coming back with either a tentative smile or a loud, boisterous one.
It was the way his voice would drop sometimes when talking about home, the clear longing and homesickness darkening ocean eyes that would get a tad overbright before a smile would work its way onto his face and the moment was gone. It was the way, Shiro was now realizing, that Lance talked about himself as compared to the others; constantly praising them (even Keith, in a roundabout fashion) while putting himself down.
It was also the way Lance was always too eager, too willing, to put himself in danger to protect the team. It was a noble thing, to be sure, and point Allura stressed regularly that they had to protect each other to protect themselves, but Lance took it to sometimes dangerous levels. There was a reason why he was the only one of the Paladins to have ever gone into the pods and it was because he would literally put himself into the line of fire.
He'd take a hit, a shot a tongue lashing from Allura... anything to make sure no one else had to. He didn't like to see them hurt.
Shiro was afraid what that would mean if the Galra discovered just how deep Lance's loyalties ran. Lance would do anything to protect them and...
And Shiro didn't know what that meant for Lance's own safety.
He prayed it wouldn't come to that.
If they could just receive word from the Galra so they could go about formulating a rescue...
Shiro scowled to himself and shoved one of the bland tasting potatoes into his mouth (not Hunk's best but he had no right to complain as his attempt would have been inedible), mechanically chewing as Coran was right though and they needed to keep up their strength and he needed to lead by example.
His bite seemed to be the cue everyone was waiting for and gradually the soft clink of cutlery sounded about the table, but that was it. Shiro was just grateful they were eating, even if he'd been in libraries louder than this.
The sudden beeping coming from the datapad Coran had brought down and he gasped, almost knocking it off the table in his haste to reach for it, and Allura's eyes had widened as well.
"A transmission," the princess breathed.
"Indeed," Coran said, silencing the beeping and raising jeweled eyes up from the datapad. "It is from the Galra."
They were finally reaching out.
Lance.
"Let's go," Shiro said, pushing back his chair with a screech and the others hurriedly joining him as they made their way to the bridge to accept the transmission.
It was finally time to get some answers.
Author's Notes:
I apologize for the delay on this chapter! All of you are amazing and at this rate I pretty much plan to update weekly, but I was out of town at a convention (my side job :D) and forgot to upload the chapter to the site before I left (I was running on three hours of sleep so my decision making skills were not all there).
On a more serious note... so it begins. -insert evil laughter here- We are all terrible people, aren't we? xD I kid, we just love this sort of thing because we all love the "comfort" part at the end, right? Right?
We've also touched base with the rest of the Paladins, and I know quite a few of you have been asking after them. They'll get even more next chapter (but still plenty of Langst abound, never fear).
This has been one of my favorite chapters so far to write, so I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you've got a second to drop a review (I love them all, long or short!) I would super appreciate it!
Super special thanks to these lovely people who left a review last chapter (and a few comments because I am a failure at actually replying xDD): FanaticFangirl2602, Guest, LishaChan, wingedflower, KarleighH, Eeveecat1248, SonoSvegliato, Swirly Rainbow, fandomspotatoes, WinchestersBananas, Alexa, QuintessentiallyEccentric, StrawberryFever3, ravioli ravioli,Remi Rukh (Sorry you got scolded, dear! I imagine this chapter might have some similar reactions though xD Tell your mom it's Langst; I'm sure she'll understand!), exaigon, Jackson Cipher Overland Frost, PaintedWings45, Guest, ShinyKeysXIII (I'm so glad I'm not the only one who types 'Aaaaa!'), PineappleKiwiMango (Your name is making me so hungry!), Marionette Ame, rodeocat (I was so excited when you came back and did a little happy dance at your review! Hope you had a lovely vacation!), Guest, and Dragon Queene Layla St Gabriel. Thank you all so much!
Until next chapter! Please do hit that little review button with your feedback on the way out! Thank you!