Archive of Our Own

“Um…’scuse me?”

Lance is in the middle of flashing his most charming grin at a pair of lovely ladies across the street when he feels a tug at his wrist. He blinks down at a little Scathardian clinging to his hand, and can’t help but smile.

Like most of her race, she has pale green skin, long bluish-black hair, slightly webbed, fin-like ears, and glittering jewel-bright eyes that shimmer through a number of different colors in in the right lighting. But her features are rounder and more cherubic than most Scathardians he’s met, her fingers stubbier and pudgier, and she’s still quite little, barely up to his waist. Definitely a child, although Lance has no way to know approximately how old she’d be in Earth years.

“Hey there,” Lance says, letting her hang on to his arm. “Did you need something, little lady?”

“I think so,” she says, with all the innocent seriousness of a young child. “Can you help me? I heard those ladies over there saying you’re a…a ‘pal-ah-din,’ “ she mouths the unfamiliar word carefully, “and that you help people. Could you maybe help me?”

Lance blinks at the request, and glances around briefly. As far as he can tell, the little girl is by herself. There aren’t any adult Scathardians watching her, and no one in the area seems terribly concerned. He’s fairly certain she’s not lost, in part because she seems so calm, and in part because these people are very community driven; everyone seems to know everyone in this village, and everyone looks out for each other. It doesn’t seem like there’s an immediate threat to her or anyone else. And he’s curious as to what her request could possibly be, if those older women she points to directed her to him specifically.

So he crouches down in front of her so he’s at eye level. “Sure,” he says, offering his most confident grin. “I think I can do that. What’s your name?”

“Jesselinia Trovantius Listhil,” she recites, with the air of a child who’s practiced it quite a bit. “But my mama calls me Lina,” she adds. “And my mama’s friends, and all the towns people. You can call me Lina too if you want.”

“Okay then, Lina,” Lance says. “That’s a pretty name.” She beams at him, blushing slightly purple at the compliment, and he laughs. “And what do you need my help with?”

The pleased expression on her face vanishes all at once, and the jewel-bright sparkle in her eyes seems to dull. She looks suddenly nervous. “I’m scared of my house,” she says slowly. “I think there’s a monster outside. I want to get Lorik to protect me, until mama comes back. Lorik’s real strong and really brave, he can scare away the monster! But I can’t find him. I think he’s lost in my house, but I’m scared to look for him. What if the monster gets me first?”

She’s frightened, that much is obvious. There’s a tremble in her voice when she talks about this monster. And whenever she talks about this ‘Lorik,’ her little crystal eyes start to tear up and her bottom lip starts to tremble.

“Woah, okay, easy there,” Lance says soothingly, before she gets too over-emotional and works herself into a fit. It’s easy to fall into the same mannerisms he used to use with his younger siblings, and even in an alien child he recognizes all the signs easily. “Don’t you worry. I’m not scared of any monster. Can you tell me who Lorik is?” Imaginary friend, maybe? Pet?

“Lorik’s my best friend!” she explains excitedly. “He’s this big, and he’s a purple korthisk, and soft and squishy and snuggly! My papa made him for me. He sleeps next to me every night and keeps the monsters away. I bet he could keep this one away too!”

Ah. Stuffed animal then. Lance’s heart melts for the poor kid immediately. A lost stuffy was a big deal for any kid. His own mother used to tell stories about how they’d lost his favorite stuffed dolphin when he was two while at the park. He’d refused to sleep without it and cried for days, until a kind-hearted person dropped it off at the police station lost and found. He’d been impossible to separate from it for months after. Logically it was only a mess of cotton wrapped in soft cloth, but to a kid those toys were alive and meant a world of comfort.

“No problem, Lina,” Lance says with a smile. “We can totally help you find Lorik. And we can protect you from any monsters until we find him and he can take over. Sound good?”

“Yes!” the little girl says, delighted. “Thank you, Mr. Paladin!”

“Lance,” he corrects absently, as he looks around the marketplace. He catches the eyes of the two women he’d been flirting with earlier; they’re both staring at him. He winks at them again, grinning. Chicks always dig a guy who’s good with kids, right? Based on the way they cover their mouths with their hands and giggle, he’s guessing that’s a very definite yes.

“Lance is a silly name,” Lina says, without a trace of shame.

“I’ll have you know Lance is an awesome name,” he tells her with mock defensiveness, crossing his arms in a fake huff. “Lance is the name of a fierce knight back on my planet, you know. Well, sort of.”

“Really?” Her eyes widen, and sparkle brightly in the extra light.

“Yup! And of course, I’m a fierce knight in my own right. That’s what a paladin is, you know.”

“Wow. So you really do help people.” Her expression is full of awe.

“Sure do! And I’ve got a friend around here somewhere that I’m sure will help us out too, if I can find him. He’s a paladin, too.” He scans the crowd again, searching the stalls. He can’t have gotten too far; Lance was right behind him until just a few doboshes ago. “Ah! There he is! Hunk!”

Hunk is two stalls down at some sort of baker’s table, negotiating a purchase with the merchant. At Lance’s call he looks up, waves a quick hold on, and finishes exchanging some of the money Coran had given them for a small paper bag.

He looks pleased with himself as he trots towards Lance, and grins excitedly. “Sweetbuns fresh out of the oven! Still piping hot. I can’t wait to try.” Then he seems to notice Lina for the first time, and raises an eyebrow. “Who’s your friend?”

“This princess here is Lina,” Lance introduces her, “and she’s got a mission for us.”

Lina giggles. “I’m not a princess!”

“Knights protect princesses, Lina,” Lance tells her seriously. “If we’re knights, and we’re protecting you, than you’re obviously a princess. I happen to know another princess, so I’ve got this on good authority.”

“He’s not wrong,” Hunk agrees absently. Lina blushes again, clearly embarrassed but pleased. “What’s this mission? Can it wait until we have a snack first? I got one for you too. Although, uh…” He looks down a the bag in bemusement. “I didn’t expect Lina, so…”

“S’fine, she can have mine,” Lance says, waving it aside. “We can always buy more later. It’s a rescue mission. We’re gonna help her find Lorik, and protect her from a monster.” And over Lina’s shoulder, when she’s not looking, Lance mouths, lost her stuffed animal.

Hunk’s expression shifts from confused to dawning comprehension. “Oh! Oh. Yeah, sure. We can totally help with that.”

Lina looks delighted. “Really?” she asks, eyes bright—literally. “Oh, I’m so happy! And…and you’re not even scared of the monster? Not even a little bit?” She eyes them both disbelievingly.

“Pfft, us? Naw, monsters don’t scare us one bit,” Lance says, puffing out his chest. “We’re paladins of Voltron! We scare the monsters.”

The girl clearly has no idea what Voltron is, but her eyes are wide as saucers. “You, too?” she asks Hunk.

Hunk grins. “I’ve fought scarier food goo. I’m pretty sure me and Lance can handle your monster.”

Lina looks relieved. “Thank you! I miss Lorik. He’ll like you. You’re brave.”

“Can’t wait to meet him,” Lance says. “Now, where are we going? I bet we can eat our snacks on the way. And if you ask real nice, I bet Hunk will give you a shoulder ride after. He’s real strong.” He remembers how his siblings wound hound Hunk for piggybacks and shoulder rides during visits, delighted with how tall they could get. Based on Lina’s wide smile, it’s a universally exciting prospect.

“My house is this way!” she says, grabbing Hunk’s hand and tugging him towards a road to the southeast. Hunk follows after amicably, trying to tear open the paper bag with his teeth and one hand while not forcing Lina to relinquish her hold on his other. Lance snickers at the sight.

“Sir?” Lance stands up from his crouch as the nearby book vendor addresses him, and groans slightly when his half-asleep legs protest. “Did you lose something? Can I help you find something?”

“Eh? No, it’s not anything of ours that was lost,” Lance says, waving the Scathardian’s concern away. “But thanks for the offer!” The Scathardian blinks his jewel-bright eyes at Lance in bemusement, but Lance ignores him as he hurries after the other two.

According to Lina, she doesn’t live in the town proper, but rather a ways down the road. “Papa likes it ‘cause it’s far enough away that it’s quiet, but mama can still get all the shopping she needs,” Lina tells them, as she nibbles on Lance’s sweetbun. “And there’s lots of places to play, so I like it too, except when there’s monsters,” she finishes with a shudder.

“No need to worry about those while we’re around,” Lance tells her reassuringly. He’s fairly certain this monster of hers is a garden-variety spook under the bed or in one’s closet—there’s nothing incredibly dangerous on this planet, after all. But even if the monsters aren’t real, that doesn’t make them any less real to her.

Lina looks somewhat reassured by his words, at least, and looks down at him in awe. Her little legs had gotten tired barely outside of town, so now she’s riding on Hunk’s shoulders as she eats, spilling all manner of crumbs in his hair. Hunk doesn’t seem to mind terribly, shaking them free every once and a while as he munches on his own sweetbun with his right hand. He keeps a lose left hand around Lina’s ankle for support.

“You’re really sure you can scare it off?” she asks.

“Sure. I mean, me and Hunk have fought all kinds of stuff before. Spaceships and robots and robeasts…” He launches into the tale of how they’d saved Balmera, rescuing a fantastical planet-sized beast after fighting scores of robots and one ginormous monster. Lina’s eyes grow wider and wider as he artfully tells the story, and she gasps and cheers in all the right places, wiggling in excitement on Hunk’s shoulders.

“I want to meet the big space kitties!” she says excitedly, when Lance is finished. “They sound almost as scary as a korthisk. Is there a purple kitty? Purple is the best color, but blue is okay too. I bet a purple kitty would be really pretty.”

“Maybe we can take you to meet them after, if your mom says it’s okay,” Lance offers, and she squeals in delight. “No purple Lion, though. But I’ve piloted Blue and Red, and they make purple—does that count?”

Hunk snickers. “We’ll have to get Allura to change your armor color when we get back.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Lance says. “I’d look great in any color armor. I’d make an amazing purple paladin.”

Lina giggles at their antics.

But the farther along the path they get, the less animated Lina becomes, despite all of Lance’s best efforts. Maybe half a varga’s walk from the town, she starts getting more subdued, and the color in her eyes dulls once again. She hunches closer to Hunk’s head, burying her fingers carefully in his hair.

“Hey,” Hunk says reassuringly, “It’s gonna be fine. Promise. Nothing’s gonna hurt you as long as we’re here, okay? We’ve got this.”

“You’re sure?” she asks.

“We’re sure,” Lance promises.

They turn down a lane at Lina’s direction, and travel down a dirt road for two doboshes. Although it’s not paved or fit with cobblestones like the village, it’s well cared for, hard-packed without any pitfalls but not gross and dry enough to kick up dust. They eventually turn the corner of the lane to find a neat little home in the center of a wide clearing.

The home is in the style of all the other houses on this planet, perfectly curved and more dome-shaped than boxy or triangular like many Earth homes. Other than that, though, it’s like a cute little cottage at the edge of the woods. The grass in the clearing is well tended, if a bit long, and the home looks sturdy and lived in. At the front door there’s a clever little stack of interlocking stones that form a sort of pedestal or signpost, with the topmost flat stone polished smooth. There’s words carved in it, although Lance can’t make out what they mean—but they remind him of the carved initials in trees he’d sometimes see back on Earth. Maybe it had something to do with Lina’s parents.

Lina clings uneasily to Hunk’s head, practically curling around his skull, almost obscuring his vision with her hands. “Easy there, Lina!” Lance says, reaching up to take one of her hands. “Let the poor guy see! Now, where should we start looking?”

“Inside,” Lina says, eyeing the yard warily.

Lance nods and squeezes her hand once before heading for the front door. He half expects it to be locked, but it opens easily when he turns the square handle. That puzzles him a little. Surely the place had a little security? “Hey, Lina,” he asks conversationally, “How come the door’s open? Is your mama home?”

“No,” Lina says. “Mama’s away at work. But she’ll come back. She always comes back. But maybe too late, and I want to find Lorik now.”

“What about your papa?” Lance asks, frowning. “You’re not all alone in this house, are you?”

“‘Course not!” she says, like it’s obvious. “I’ve got Lorik, he’s brave and he protects me. Papa’s been gone a long time. He went away and didn’t come back. It makes mama cry sometimes. She gets sad after my bedtime.”

Lance’s stomach does a funny flip-flop as her childish frankness reveals something he probably shouldn't have known. He exchanges awkward glances with Hunk, who’s wearing what’s probably an identical deer-in-the-headlights expression. “So, let’s look for Lorik then!” Hunk says hastily. “I’ll let you down off my shoulders so you can show us around, okay?”

“Okay,” Lina says. “But you gotta stay next to me. Just in case.”

“You’re completely safe with us,” Lance promises.

The house is a two-story affair, just big enough to be comfortable and cozy without feeling too big and too empty. There’s two bedrooms and a washroom upstairs, and a kitchen, dining area, study, and what Lance assumes is some kind of den on the main floor. Everything is arranged in a circle, rather than the geometric layouts favored on Earth, and the furnishings and appliances are certainly Scathardian, but other than that it seems pleasant. Lance would be okay spending a night or two in a place like this, where it felt lived-in and homey, after the spartan, minimalist living quarters of the Castle of Lions.

They start upstairs in Lina’s room, where the missing stuffed animal is most likely to be hiding. The girl has a decent sized chest filled with toys of all kinds, and a small shelf with a row of other stuffed versions of the local wildlife lined up on it, but none of them appear to be the missing Lorik.

Lina’s bottom lip juts out in a quivering little pout when the room turns up nothing, and Lance swoops down to kneel in front of her quickly. “Hey, hey! Let’s put that frown away. We’ve only checked one room, princess, there’s plenty more places to look.”

“How about we split up?” Hunk offers. “We can cover more ground that way.”

Lina nods, sniffling a little but thankfully not dissolving into tears, and latches on to Lance’s left wrist. He laughs. “Okay, we’ll team up then, and Hunk will search the rooms we don’t.”

The search goes a little faster that way. Lance can hear Hunk poking through most of the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen—no doubt investigating everything with interest just as much as searching for the wayward stuffed animal. Lance and Lina tackle the study and den, where a few more toys and what appear to be children’s books are scattered, and might possibly hide a missing Lorik.

Lina sticks close to Lance’s side for most of it, tiptoeing around closets and dark spaces warily, and she always lets Lance enter rooms first. Lance doesn’t miss any of it—she might be an alien kid, but she’s still a kid, and he remembers this song and dance with his little siblings. Once his youngest brother Marco had been scared of a monster in his closet for weeks, sneaking into bed at night with anyone else in the family to try and avoid staying in his own room. Lance had finally put an end to it by promising Marco there was no monster in the closet—and then putting his money where his mouth was, by sleeping in it himself. It had been possibly the worst sleep of his life, sitting upright half the night, but he’d made his point—the only thing in his closet was Lance, and Lance wasn’t scary at all, nor was he eaten. It was important, Lance knew, to listen to a kid’s fears—which were real enough to them—but also to show them it was safe.

So whenever Lina skitters around dark corners, Lance makes a point to shine a light in them and investigate thoroughly. And when she circles around closet doors, he opens them up and theatrically takes a look around, before declaring very firmly, “Nope, nothing in there!” She’s still a little nervous, but by the end of the search, she’s more relaxed about the contents of her house, at least.

There’s one thing that’s not part of the contents of the house, though, and that’s Lorik the purple guard-korthisk. Although they search the house from top to bottom, Lina’s stuffy is nowhere to be found, and Lance is starting to see the first signs of trouble. The waterworks he’d barely diverted before are rolling back with a vengeance; he can see it in the way Lina’s jewel-bright eyes water, in the way her lower jaw trembles, in the way her little body rocks back and forth with anxiousness. Hunk shoots Lance an alarmed look, and they’re both aware they only have seconds.

“Don’t worry, Lina,” Hunk says hastily. “We’re not done yet. Do you remember the last place you saw Lorik?”

“We were p-playing in the backy-yard,” she stammers. “I reme-ember we were playing. B-but I saw the monster there t-too…I don’t want it to g-get me!”

“Hey, what’re we here for, princess?” Lance reminds, waving a finger before booping her gently on the nose. “Cheer up. No monster’s gonna get you or Lorik while we’re here, right? Now let’s check the yard, and see if he’s hanging out there waiting for us, okay?”

“Ok-kay,” she sniffles. This time she reaches for Hunk’s hand…probably because he’s way bigger, and looks more likely to pile drive a monster that gets on his bad side. And, well, she’s not really wrong with that assumption. Hunk could definitely wreck a monster if he felt like it.

They head for the back door, the one place Lina has been very careful to avoid the entire half varga or so that they’ve been searching. Lance goes first, pushing the door open with a flourish, and the other two come after. For a moment, everything is still. Then Lina shrieks in fear, and scrambles for the door. “It’s here! It’s here!”

Lance opens his mouth to tell her there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, but the words die on his tongue when he spots the beady, glittering eyes in the tree line at the edge of the clearing. More appear in the shadows of the trees—two, three, four, five—each glittering yellow and staring right at them. Lance feels his heart climb into his throat when a low rumbling fills the air, dangerous and warning.

Oh hell, there really was a monster out here! And not just one—a bunch of them!

For a moment, Lance is frozen in a panic. He never signed on for an actual horror show, here! The Castle of Lions had been bad enough the one time Allura’s dad’s AI went bonkers. No way he wants to die eaten by some nightmare in the middle of a forest! Beside him, Hunk makes a startled high-pitched whine in his throat, and appears to be equally rigid in place.

The monsters, sensing prey, begin to step forward out of the tree line. As they slough off the shadows obscuring them, Lance gets his first real good look at the creatures—and to his surprise, he recognizes them. They’re man-sized lizard-like creatures, with eight scaly iguana legs situated beneath their bodies rather than to the side, so they could walk upright more easily. Their muzzles were more rodent-like, though, and they each had two pairs of long, spiny antennae producing from just over their eyes and at the back of the skull. Although Lance hasn’t seen any this size, he’d seen similar creatures back at the village, half the size of these and in much brighter, bolder scale colors. Those had been in the company of the local livestock owners, used for herding their flocks like dogs.

These things aren’t monsters. They’re wolves. Or at least, the local equivalent.

The thought frees Lance’s paralyzed mind, and suddenly he can think again. Wolves—or space-wolves—are certainly not safe, especially when they’re stalking forward and eyeing you like dinner. But they’re not the terrifying eldritch horror Lance had been expecting, and he can handle a more mundane, tangible threat easily.

Hunk makes a stammering noise next to him, and Lance elbows him hastily in the side. “Stop freaking out!” he hisses under his breath, low enough that Lina won’t hear. “She’s watching and we promised her we’d protect her! The last thing she needs is to see us being scared of space-wolves.”

“Oh,” Hunk goes wide-eyed at the mention of ‘space wolves,’ but then he seems to put two and two together as well—the appearance of these things compared to their tame cousins back at the village—and awkwardly tries to recover. “Oh! Yes! Haha, they just startled me for a second. Yeah. Never seen a monster that looked like that before. But, uh, we got this! Lina?”

Lina regards them from just inside the doorway, eyes wide, watery and terrified as she glances between them and the pack growing ever closer.

“Lina, we mean it,” Lance says, offering his most confident grin. “Give us thirty ticks and we’ll get rid of these guys, okay?”

“M’scared,” is her only answer.

“Don’t be, we’ll protect you,” Hunk says, now much more serious as he falls into his Voltron role of the team shield.

The pack is halfway to the door by then, starting to drool as they scent fresh meat. Lina whimpers fearfully. But by then Lance and Hunk have already summoned their bayards, and the pack barely makes it another two steps before they attack.

It’s almost anti-climatic, really. After all Lina’s talk of monsters, these are just animals, and after the things Lance and Hunk have fought they’re a piece of cake. Lance reduces the setting on his red rifle so that the blasts only stun and scare, not kill. He’s pretty sure killing five animals just following their instincts would not only be needlessly cruel, but would also traumatize the already scared girl hiding behind them. But even stuns are enough to be effective. Lance’s first shot hits one of the creatures in the shoulder, and it yelps in pain, rocking back on its legs. Lance’s second shot smacks a second in one of its forelegs, and it squeals as it recoils. The entire pack halts, suddenly wary.

Then Hunk enters the fray with his own bayard, switching to the multi-shot mode on his laser cannon and churning up the ground at the pack’s feet. He never hits one of the creatures, but the dirt and pebbles he spews at them, and the bright, loud flashes, are enough to startle the entire pack. They scramble backward and, hissing loudly, bolt for the tree line, disappearing once more into the woods.

“How’s that for heroics?” Lance asks, holding his rifle carefully upright, and turning to strike a picture-worthy pose.

Lina’s eyes are wide with awe, and glitter through the whole spectrum of the rainbow. “You…you scared the monsters away!” she whispers, stunned. “You made them all go away! They didn’t get you! Or me!”

“We told you,” Hunk says with a smile, as he dismisses his bayard. “We’d protect you. Right?”

“Yes!” Lina says. “Wow, you’re so strong! You really are knights! Thank you for scaring them away.”

“No prob, princess,” Lance says, as he finally dismisses his own bayard. “Now, I think we were searching for a friend of yours?”

“Lorik!” Lina gasps.

She sticks close to the two of them as they search the yard, which Lance figures is probably a good idea. They can fight off the creatures if they come back easily, but if she gets too far from them it’s possible one could snatch her up before they could react. Fortunately, they’re not out there very long, because they find the missing Lorik fairly quickly.

All three pieces of him.

Lina wails when she comes across what had definitely been the stuffed paw of some sort of local creature, and Hunk finds a torso and a severed head not too far distant. There’s stuffing spilling out of all three pieces, and the soft fur is ground full of dirt. It looks, Lance thinks, not unlike the family dog’s soft toys after she’d played a little too roughly with them…and he has a feeling that’s about what happened.

Lina clearly thinks so too. “The monsters k-killed Lorik!” she sobs. Tears stream down her face and drip off her chin, and her little fists rub at her eyes as she sniffles. “He just w-wanted to p-protect me and they killed hi-i-iiiiim!”

Lance’s heart breaks for the poor girl, and he can see how upset Hunk is for her, too. Her best friend in the whole world is currently sitting in pieces gathered up in Hunk’s hands. He can only imagine how she sees it.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Lance says, crouching down on one knee in front of her. “Don’t cry, little princess! Dry those tears. There’s no need to be so sad.”

“B-but Lorik is de-e-ead,” she wails, sniffling again and rubbing one eye with one little fist. She’s making a terrible mess of her face. They’ll have to find a washcloth to clean her up after.

“Naw, he’s not dead,” Lance says. “And I’m gonna let you in on a secret. I’m not just a knight, okay? I’m also a toy doctor.”

She sniffles again. “Really?”

“Really,” he confirms. It’s not even a lie. He's a decent hand with a needle—with a family as big as his, you were forever patching and fixing clothes, when money was a little too tight to go out and buy new ones. He’d used the same skills for the same reason, to fix precious items for his siblings. Fixing an alien stuffed animal can’t be that much different.

“And I can fix him right up,” he promises. “All I need are the right tools. Some thread and a needle, and a little bit of time. How’s that sound?”

“He’ll be all better?” she asks, voice hopeful.

“You bet,” Lance promises.

“I saw some needle and thread in one of the rooms upstairs,” Hunk says. Which would be the other bedroom, of course, but Lance really isn’t surprised that Hunk went snooping through it. It’s just how Hunk was. “I can go get it for you.”

“Great! We’ll set up surgery at the dining table,” Lance says. “Shouldn’t take long, Lina. In the meantime, let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?”

She sniffles, but nods. “Okay.”

Hunk hadn’t been wrong about the thread. It’s more of a blue shade, and doesn’t match Lorik’s worn purple, but he has a feeling Lina’s not going to be picky. “We’ll call’em victory scars,” he tells her, as he sets to work sewing the creature’s little paw back on, careful to match it against the others to make sure it’s on the right way. “He’ll have plenty of stories to tell. A friend of ours has some cool ones. It means he’s really strong, you know?”

Hunk had also retrieved some sort of stuffing from one of the pillows, and Lance uses it to fill out  the little creature’s limbs after so much of its insides had been lost outside. When he’s done with the leg, he moves on to the head, carefully reattaching it and making sure it’s sturdy enough of a sewing job to last. When he’s finished with the sewing, he wets down a cloth and carefully wipes the stuffed animal’s worn purple fur down, removing the excess dirt. Some of it’s ground into the cloth and leaves a dark stain, but he manages to get most of it free.

When he’s done, he gets his first real good look at Lorik, Lina’s cotton guardian. It looks a bit like a six-legged cat, with large batlike ears and a little nub of a tail. There’s a cute little smile stitched into its muzzle, and all of its paws are big, floppy, and open wide for a hug. He can see an indentation along its middle set of paws where the cloth and cotton has been squished from long hours of being held in the crook of a little girl’s arm, and most of the fur is worn down from years of being held and snuggled. This is a beloved toy, he can tell; no wonder she’d been so distraught.

“There we go. Ready to protect you again,” Lance says, setting the animal down on the table.

Lina has spent the entire procedure sitting in snuggled against Hunk at the table, arms wrapped around his neck and watching the whole thing with all the anxiety of a nervous parent. At Lance’s words she jumps up and leaps forward, nearly falling off the chair and Hunk’s lap as she reaches for her stuffed friend.

“Woah! Careful there!” Hunk yelps, catching her before she hits the ground.

She snatches up the stuffed animal and hugs it close, and its middle arms fit right into the groove of her elbow perfectly. “Lorik!” she shrieks, delighted. “You’re all better! You’re all better! Lance made you better!”

She throws herself at Lance enthusiastically, hugging him with one arm and the stuffed animal with the other. “You helped him too!” she adds, turning to Hunk, and throws herself at him as well.

“No problem, Lina,” Hunk says, patting her on the head. “We were happy to help.”

“Totally,” Lance agrees, cleaning up the table and scraps of stuffing left over.

Lina bounces around them excitedly, alternately holding her newly fixed friend in the air and then hugging him close. Lance can’t help but chuckle at her antics, but then startles when he hears the familiar beep of a paging communicator.

He turns away and groans at his helmet on the table—they’d both taken their helms off to search the house—and slips it back on, triggering the channel open. “Yeah?”

“Where are you guys?” Pidge asks. “We were supposed to meet in the village like ten doboshes ago! Keith and Allura are finished talking with the village elders about getting supplies.”

Lance curses. Right, the pod! They’d left the Lions behind in their hangars, since there hadn’t been much room in the area to land the Castle or the Lions; most of the surrounding area was trees, and the open landscape was herd grounds or crops, none of which could be damaged by jetwash. They’d all taken a pod to get down to the surface, but it meant they were all supposed to leave at the same time, too.

“Sorry,” Hunk says, after squeezing into his own helmet. “We got caught up helping someone. We’ll head back now.”

“Good,” Pidge grouses. “I want to be back on the ship, with an actual computer. What kind of technological age are these people living in?”

Lance shakes his head in amusement. Pidge had gotten better with nature since the Olkari, but she was a tech geek at her core. Hunk could be too, but at least he had other interests to keep him occupied here, like food. “Alright, we’ll hurry. On our way.”

Hunk waits until the communications cut before giving Lance a look. “Not for nothing, man, but what do we do about Lina?” he asks, low under his breath. “You saw those things out there. We can fight them off, but she’s a light snack to them. And her mom is who knows where. I don’t think we can leave her here, even if it’s her house.”

Lance bites his lip. “You’re probably right,” he agrees. “We can take her back to the village, maybe. They’re all about community here. I’m sure somebody would be willing to watch her until her mom gets back from work…or…wherever she is.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Hunk frowns at that. The absence of this mother, especially in an area that clearly had some dangers, was starting to get a little weird. Lina seemed fully confident that she’d return, but she’d also been fully confident about monsters in her closet. Kids had funny notions of things sometimes.

It’s decided, then. They’ll take her back with them, and Lorik too. But when they turn to tell her the news, Lina is nowhere to be seen, and neither is her toy.

“Lina?” Lance calls. “Lina, where’d you go?” He eyes Hunk bemusedly. “Did you see her leave the room?”

“No, but I was looking the other way,” Hunk admits. “Maybe she went into one of the other rooms?”

They search, but Lina isn’t in any of the other rooms, upstairs or down. Now growing worried, Lance and Hunk check outside as well, circling both the front and back yards to look for some sign of the girl. Maybe she’d gotten too bold, with Lorik back, and had gone out to play without realizing the dangers. But they don’t find her outside either, and when Hunk finally does a life-form scan of the property with his helmet, the results come up with only two results: them.

“Maybe she headed back for town?” Hunk asks, uneasy. “That’s where she found us…”

“Maybe,” Lance agrees. “She can’t have gotten far. She got tired out so easy on the way here. We can probably catch her up if we hurry.”

But although they keep a sharp eye out all the way up the lane, and along the road leading out of the village, they never catch sight of the little girl. Hunk even does regular life-form scans again along the way, but although he picks up a variety of wildlife, and one or two other passing villagers, Lina—and her brave little companion—are nowhere to be seen.

They’re in somewhat of a panic by the time they reach the village. The only thing that Lance can think of is that Lina wandered off into the woods by herself and got lost, outside the range of Hunk’s scans. There’s no way she could have outpaced them to the village. But those things are in the woods, and Lina’s defenseless…for all her talk of Lorik protecting here, there’s nothing a stuffed animal will do against creatures like those.

“There you are,” Pidge says, crossing her arms and scowling in a near perfect imitation of Keith’s natural state. “I called you half a varga ago! What’d you do, sight-see?” Separation from most forms of technology has definitely put her in a crabby mood, Lance can tell right off the bat.

“No,” he answers shortly. “We were helping someone, a little girl, but we think she might have gotten lost. We were trying to find her, but we’re not sure where she could have gone. We thought she was looking for her mom, but she didn’t come this way…”

There must have been more panic in his voice than he’d intended for, because the others come over as well. Allura and Keith are followed by one of the village elders, a man so old his bright eyes look more like clouded gems than brilliant ones, and his webbed ears droop with age. But he still looks as alert as ever, and listens with growing concern to the story.

“A lost child is a serious thing,” he says finally. “My people will begin a search at once.”

“We’ll help,” Keith says, to Lance’s surprise. Keith had never seemed big on kids; he was awkward at best around them. Then again, his expression had gone oddly tight at the mention of a lost child looking for her parents, and Lance belatedly realizes Keith can probably relate to that more than most.

“We can probably use the pods to calibrate for finding Lina,” Hunk says. “I saw how Coran reconfigured it for the Balmera. Allura, we’ll just need your override permissions.”

“Done,” Allura says. “I will see to it at once—“

“Lina?” the elder interrupts.

“Yeah, that’s the little girl we were helping,” Lance says. “She was here in town earlier.”

“Jesselinia Trovantius Listhil?” the elder repeats, insistent.

“Yeah, I think that was her full name,” Lance says. “Look, we can talk about her name later—she could be in trouble now. We saw some of those things lurking around the house, but bigger.” He points at one of the nearby herd-lizard-space-dogs. “Way bigger. If she’s alone—“

“Jesselinia Trovantius Listhil,” the elder says slowly, “has been dead for over twenty five decafeebs.”

The words die on Lance’s tongue. His mind goes blank, for just a moment. His heart skips a beat, and for just that millisecond of time, the world is perfectly, frighteningly silent.

“What?” he finally says, stupidly.

“No…no way,” Hunk stammers. “No way! No way, Lina was totally alive. I mean. We talked to her. I gave her a shoulder ride! She ate Lance’s sweetbun! She had weight, she had feeling. That means alive.”

“You must be thinking of a different girl,” Lance says, a little breathlessly. “With the same name.”

“You are a paladin and not of our kind,” the elder says slowly, “so you would not understand our ways. But for a child to die so young is a tragedy…we retire their names, so they may always be remembered, and never replaced. No other would have taken Lina’s name. To do so would be a great offense.”

“But,” Hunk stammers. “But…but that’s not…she was real.”

“Her house!” Lance says, throwing his hand up in the air. “She took us to her house. We can prove it. She’s definitely alive, and then when we’re there, we can look for her, because she’s in danger. Okay? Because she’s alive, and only alive people can be in danger.”

Keith frowns. “Lance—“

“No. No way. No lip from you, not right now,” Lance snaps. “Where’s the pod? We have to go find her. It’ll be faster to get up the road.”

“This way,” Allura says, unexpectedly solemn.

They pile into the pod, helping the elder in next to them on the benches in the back. When they really prove there is a little girl in danger, he’ll need to be a witness so he can organize his people into a search party. Lance pilots, and Keith, surprisingly, takes the front passenger seat.

“You okay?” Keith asks, as Lance takes off. “Stay under fifty miles an hour,” he adds, glancing at Lance’s instruments.

“Like you have any right to lecture me,” Lance grouses. “You drove us off a cliff for your rescue mission.”

“Fair enough,” Keith agrees, “but let’s not give the old guy in the back a heart attack, okay?” Lance reduces his speed with an apologetic wince, and Keith asks again, “Really, though—you okay?”

“She wasn’t a ghost,” Lance says insistently. “She was real. She felt real. She acted real. And she’s in trouble now.”

Keith shrugs. He never actually looks in Lance’s direction, always staring out the window ahead of them down the road. “Real can be weird. A year ago aliens really weren’t a thing, and I was really all human. Reality can be different than what you think it is.”

Lance clenches his jaw. “She reminds me of my little brothers and sisters.”

Keith seems to consider that a moment. “There’s more than one way to help a person out of trouble,” he says, after a long moment. “Keep that in mind before you get yourself really worked up.”

Lance snorts at that, disbelieving. Keith doesn’t push it.

They reach the lane at a record pace, even with Lance slowing down for their extra passenger. Lance sets the pod down at the end—it’s a little too big for the narrow dirt track and the tree cover—and everyone piles back out. Lance and Hunk lead the way down the trail, Hunk helping the elder navigate around several potholes to keep him from tripping.

“Here it is!” Lance says with a flourish, as they turn the corner. “Lina’s house, straight out of a fairy…tale…”

The house is a wreck.

Not ‘destroyed by a freak tornado in the half hour they’d been gone’ wreck, either. It’s a shabby mess, with sagging wood boards, chipped varnish, and a broken front door. The lawn is so overgrown and matted they could lose a small child in it easily. It looks like it might have had the same build as Lina’s house, but the sagging, rotting construction in front of them looks worn from years of abandonment.

Lance stares at it in shock. “Did…did we take a wrong turn?” he asks Hunk after a moment, shaken. “This can’t be right….”

Hunk swallows. “No,” he says after a moment. “Look. The stones.” He points at the stack of cleverly interconnected stones by the front door. A few of the sones look chipped or broken, but the smooth stone on the top still has the same carved symbols it did a varga ago.

There’s no mistaking it. This was the same house. The same house, after twenty-five years of neglect.

“I don’t understand,” Allura says slowly. “You came here? With a little girl? No one could live in this building, surely.”

“No,” Lance says, voice strained. “It…it wasn’t like this. It was nice. Lived in, but not…not breaking like this.”

“And there wasn’t anything weird about it at all?” Pidge asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean…the door was unlocked?” Lance says, voice weak.

“There wasn’t any food in the cabinets,” Hunk says. He looks equally shaken. “When I poked through the kitchen. But Lina said her mom had been out, I figured it was just grocery day…”

The elder shakes his head. “Lina’s story is a tragedy for my people. Her father joined the resistance and had been killed by the Galra. Her mother became…distraught, after that. She tried, I think, but she kept forgetting things. More than once little Lina came down to market to bring dinner home for both of them.”

Keith frowns at that. Lance wants to, but he feels numb inside at the words. Papa’s been gone a long time. He went away and didn’t come back. It makes mama cry sometimes. It…it lines up. He doesn’t want it to, but it does.

Hunk exchanges stunned looks with him, and he knows they’re both thinking along the same lines.

“We tried to have them move to the village proper,” the village elder continues, “but Lina’s mother refused. This home had been built by Lina’s father before he left. It was the last thing they had. And over time, we saw them less and less, and always only little Lina. And then even she stopped coming.” The elder’s ears droop even lower with sadness. “After a spicolian movement we realized something was wrong. We went to investigate. Lina’s mother was gone. We don’t know when she left; we never saw her again. We found Lina’s remains in the woods, what was left. The klegril hungered that season. We think they dragged her from the house, when there was on one left to protect her. A child is such easy prey.”

Lance covers his mouth with one hand, suddenly horrified. We were playing in the backyard. I remember we were playing. But I saw the monster there too…I don’t want it to get me! God, no wonder she’d been so terrified of those beasts. No wonder she’d been so scared of her own home. No wonder she’d wanted her little friend back so badly. If that had been the last thing she’d ever seen, ever felt…even if she hadn’t really remembered it, even if she hadn’t seemed to realize she was dead, she’d still…

Lance is moving for the front door of the house before he even realizes it, and to his surprise, Hunk is right behind him, looking equally horrified but just as determined.

“Lance?” Keith calls after them.

“Wait! The building might not be stable!” Pidge hollers.

It occurs to Lance, very belatedly, that what he’s doing is stupid. Pidge isn’t wrong—this place could completely collapse on them any moment, no matter how solid and sturdy it had been a varga ago.

It also occurs to him that this house is haunted. Horror movie, creepy, impossible levels of haunted. Haunted in space. Buildings don’t swap between functional and falling apart in the span of an hour. It’s unnatural. It’s wrong.

And that should scare the hell out of him, it really should. Alfor’s AI screwing up the Castle of Lions had scared the hell out of him and then some, and that hadn’t even been a real ghost, just malfunctioning data. He should be turning around and running in the opposite direction. Preferably fighting his hardest to not blubber in front of the others as he does so.

But he can’t do it. And it’s not even that he’s not scared. He is scared, just not of finding a ghost. He’d already met one, and hadn’t even known it. He’s not sure what he’s scared of, but he knows he needs to get his answers before he’ll be satisfied.

The door practically falls off its hinges when Lance turns the square knob. Hunk catches it before it hits the ground, and sets it aside gently against the old, rotting walls. He steps inside gingerly, testing each bit of floor as he moves, but although it creaks like straight out of a horror movie, nothing frightening leaps out and nothing sinister happens. The place looks terrible now, old and musty and rotting, but Lance remembers that warm, cozy feeling the place had held just a varga ago, and somehow he can’t feel it in him to be scared of this place.

He goes through the first room carefully, Hunk on his heels. To Lance’s surprise, Keith, Pidge and Allura all follow after, each testing their steps carefully but following without hesitation.

“You guys don’t have to come in here,” Hunk says. His voice still sounds a little shaky, but it’s clear he means it. “I mean…it is kind of creepy.”

“I’d be a pretty terrible leader if I let you walk into a haunted house without backup,” Keith says bluntly.

“We know this place has certain abnormalities,” Allura agrees. “It is best for us to enter as a team.”

“Besides,” Pidge finishes, “We can help you look for…whatever it is you’re looking for.”

“Thanks, guys,” Lance says, surprised at the edge of relief he feels at their words. He’s pretty sure nothing bad is going to happen here, but even so, their efforts mean a lot.

They spread out through the house, testing each step carefully. Other than a brief scare, when Hunk’s foot breaks through a rotting board in the den, nothing particularly frightening happens. They avoid going upstairs after checking the state of the steps—too weak to take weight anymore—and Lance is just beginning to wonder why he bothered and what he’s even looking for when Keith calls.

“Here,” Keith says shortly. “I think this is your sign.”

Lance picks his way carefully towards Keith’s voice, Hunk on his heels. Keith’s at the back of the house, near the back door. This door, too, is hanging off its hinges, and one touch is sure to tear it off.

But Keith’s not looking at the door, or even outside. His eyes are riveted to the floor just inside the doorway, where a six-legged, bat-earred purple stuffy sits, staring out at the world in a quiet, eternal vigil.

Lance swallows, and exchanges glances with Hunk. Hunk shakes his head, looking just as shaken. They both know Lorik hadn’t been anywhere near that door when they’d left, hunting for Lina. Neither of them had seen the toy at all after she’d disappeared.

“Is it the same one?” Pidge asks from behind him, and Lance jumps despite himself.

“Yeah,” Lance says, after a moment. “Look. You can see my stitch-work on the arm and the head.” He laughs, slightly hysterically. “Victory scars, I called them.”

“If the story is as Hunk told us in the pod,” Allura says, stepping in behind Keith, “then this creature is doing its duty after it was repaired.”

“Yeah. Guarding the door. Lina said he was brave, that he’d protect her.” Hunk still looks a little shaken, and exchanges glances with Lance again.

And suddenly, they just know. Both of them, at the same time, that everything’s just fine now. Lance is hit with a sudden sense of peace here, and realizes with a jolt that it was exactly what he’d been searching for.

Lina got her wish. The monsters couldn’t get her anymore; after twenty-five years of being paralyzed by that fear, they were gone, and she had her little cotton guardian protecting her eternal rest. She was safe. She was happy. And she’d finally been able to go home.

“I don’t think she’s here anymore,” Lance says quietly, after a long moment of silence.

“No,” Hunk agrees. “She’s not.”

“I think that’s our cue to go, too,” Keith says, jerking his head in the direction of the door. The others nod, and he leads the way out, clearly confident that there’s nothing here that will injure his team. As he passes, he gives Lance a significant look.

There’s more than one way to help a person out of trouble.

Well, Keith had been right, but Lance is never going to admit it. Wouldn’t do to let Keith’s ego get too big for the Black Lion, after all.

The others file out ahead, but Hunk and Lance remain a moment longer, staring down at Lorik. Lance feels like he should be saying something—funeral rites, or something meaningful or poetic, something important.

But Lance can't quite think of the words. So finally, he just says, “Hey, princess…glad we could help. Lorik will keep guard, so you have a good rest.”

It feels like it fits. And the way Hunk nods, he agrees.

They turn their back on the house one last time, and leave the fierce little cotton guardian, brave and strong and eternally devoted, to his last and greatest vigil.