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After Coran left the control room, Allura let out a shout of frustration. Once again, she was stuck waiting on the damn castle while everyone went out and enjoyed themselves. She wasn't fooled - they were here to restock their supplies, but she knew her paladins. The chances of them getting into some sort of trouble which involved throwing things at each other were exceptionally high. She hasn't join in on moments like that since the food fight and she knew that was for the purpose of helping form Voltron.
Why couldn't she just do something for the fun of it? Just because she was a princess didn't mean that she didn't know how to have fun!
The doors slid open, causing Allura to start. She relaxed when she saw Diana and Pidge walk in. The taller girl waved at Allura, "Hey, princess. What you doing all by yourself?"
Allura looked away, her mood soured once again, "No reason. Shouldn't you be going to board a pod with the Paladins?"
Pidge pushed up her glasses, "Well, we were, but we overheard Coran telling them how he was going to stay to perform maintenance and keep you company so Diana and I thought we'd come and see why you would need company."
Allura felt touched that the two girls had gone out of their way to see if she needed assistance. Sighing, she turned back to them and smiled, "I'm okay, thank you for your consideration. I was just... upset because Coran recommended that I should remain on the ship."
Diana frowned in confusion, "Why? Is there something about this planet that he doesn't trust?"
Allura rolled her eyes, "When Altea was at its peak, the Juni'la were known to be run by cutthroat gangs and mobsters. Naturally, Coran objects to the idea that I should go down there and endanger myself. But after your... adventure at the space mall being a reminder that a lot can change in 10,000 years, I wanted to accompany you six this time."
Maybe Lance would still like to get me something sparkly, her mind wistfully reminded her.
Pidge pulled out a handheld device that Allura had noticed the youngest Paladin use quite often nowadays, "I did my research prior to us landing on this planet. The gangs were driven out or underground about 3,000 years ago. Nowadays, the Juni'la are more famous for their holiday destinations and resorts."
Diana gawked over Pidge's shoulder, "Look, they even have space golf!"
Allura rolled her eyes - what was the humans' fascination with putting space before everything? - and folded her arms, "It doesn't matter. Coran has promised to check on me during the duration of your "mission" and it'll just be me and the mice...again."
There was a squeak from the floor, they all turned to see the mice looking up at her with big eyes. Immediately, Allura felt guilty and crouched down to them, "Oh, no, no, I love spending time with you guys. That circus show from last time was really outstanding."
"Hey, Pidge. You think you could make a quick cloaking device for another pod?"
Allura spun around to look at Diana and Pidge, both deep in conversation with each other. Pidge had a pensive look on her face, seriously contemplating Diana's question, "Hmmmm. Give me ten ticks and I think I could. Why?"
A mischevious smile spread across Diana's face, "Well, it's not really sneaking-out if Coran sees what we're doing."
Pidge and Allura stared at her and then Pidge's grin matched Diana, "Ohhhhhhhhh."
"Ohhhhhh what?" Allura's eyes darted between Pidge and Diana
Diana folded her arms, her smile smug, "I'm calling for us to go on a Girls' Day Out."
Allura stared, "You cannot be serious."
"Oh, why not?" Diana gestured wildly, "We just take a pod, with a cloaking device..."
"Go down there for a little fun and then, before the others come back, we snnnneak back on and no one ever knows we were gone." Pidge finished off, grinning, "It should all be quite simple."
Allura's heart beat fast. Sneak out? She's not done such a thing since she was a child. She shouldn't be doing this, she was the Princess of Altea! She was too busy leading a revolution against a tyrant! She shouldn't be squandering her time acting like a teenager.
"I-I'm flattered by your offer, but even if I did want to go, I do not know how you think we could accomplish sneaking out! Coran will be checking in on me."
"Hmmmm, that is a good point." Pidge's green eyes widened and they slowly looked down at Allura's feet, "Unless? We can get their help?"
Allura looked down the mice and they were jumping about enthusiastically, squeaking up at the princess. The smallest one gave her a thumbs up, squeaking the loudest. Despite herself, Allura smiled at her little mice friends, "Are you sure about this?"
The mice squeaked in unison. Yes. Allura looked from them to the other two girls, watching her expectantly. Her mind continued to give points about why it was such a bad idea, but every beat of her heart echoed with 'Do it.'
Allura nodded and she quickly found herself being grabbed by Diana and Pidge, both shouting, "Let's go."
The princess found herself hoping that she wouldn't come to regret this.
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"Why did I have to sit in the back?" Pidge demanded as all three girls exited their pod, stretching her back, "I never get to go shotgun."
Diana rolled her eyes as she waved at the space port workers, "You're welcome to sit on one of our laps next time, if you want."
"Bite me, Ana."
Diana laughed. Just outside the space port, they found themselves smack bang at a market. It reminded Diana of the tourist swap meet things that they used to hold at the harbour back home on Oʻahu. Whenever a cruise ship or something came by, the place was as busy as it was now. It had been irritating, especially when the damn tourists gawked at her when she tried to go to pick up some groceries and she had to push past so many rude Europeans. Americans were worst - sometimes, if they were really bad, she would have stolen their wallets. After a large hog-looking alien shoved past her, Diana momentarily reconsidered reinstating her policy. Probably shouldn't. Sure, she wasn't a Paladin, but it probably wouldn't look good on them if their friend was called a thief.
Besides, she wasn't as small as she used to be.
"C'mon, Pidge, you get to fly a damn Lion of Voltron all the time and Allura drives a castle." Diana paused momentarily to look at a group of pink ethereal looking aliens to the side. They stared at her - probably had never seen a human before - and Diana bit her lip before winking at them. She almost laughed as one swooned into their friend's arms, "Let me just drive a damn pod. Unlike you, I was actually training to be a pilot at the Garrison."
There was an irritable sigh from the Green Paladin, "Fiiine. But why does Allura sit in the front?"
"You wanna argue with a princess?" Diana side-glanced at Allura. She seemed too distracted by the market stalls around them to listen to their conversation, immediately enthralled by the crystal-like jewellery of one stall. Diana found herself interested in them herself - something she would definitely get if she had any GAC.
Pidge shrugged, "She ain't my princess. Also, I saw that earlier. You act more and more like Lance every time we see pretty aliens."
"Hey, they stared at me first, and it's never serious to me. Besides, I'm mainly just keep an eye out for Lance. If he's anywhere, it'll be near the pretty ones"
Diana wasn't lying. Her eyes darted everywhere she saw someone with dark hair walk past or there was a metallic glint that could be a metal arm. She really didn't want to be caught out in her lie that she was laid up with 'women's problems' to go shopping, not when Hunk had promised to make her some equivalent of space chocolate for her when they got back. Role model for the universe be damned, Diana would openly kill someone if they tried to take some of Hunk's chocolate-based food from her.
"Hmmm, that's probably good logic."
"Girls, girls! Come look at this!" Allura popped up next to them, grabbing Pidge's arm and dragging her to the jewellery stall, "These crystal earrings are made from the tears of a Froshtia Nub! They were considered a rarity on Altea-"
Diana smiled as she followed the excitable princess to the market stall. It was good to see Allura have another mood that wasn't 'battle ready'. The only time she saw her any different was the time that she had to stop her father's AI from flying them into a sun. She felt herself scowl at the memory - the haunted castle hadn't been a fun experience for any of them. But Allura had to sacrifice the last remnant of her father - Diana couldn't put her hand on her heart and say she could make the same decision. Who could? Perhaps Shiro, but that's why he was chosen to lead Voltron.
Allura hadn't been chosen to be princess. It was a duty she forced into from circumstance of birth.
"Diana? Is everything okay?"
Diana looked up to see both Allura and Pidge were looking at her. Diana smiled, shaking her head, "I'm okay, just lost in my head."
Allura frowned, "If jewellery is not your thing, perhaps we could find a stall that sell weapons."
Diana shrugged, "That would be nice but I'm happy with my dagger. If I'm honest, I quite like the jewellery. Those crystals look really pretty."
Allura smiled, looking at Pidge, "What about you, Pidge?"
"They're... shiny." Pidge gave her a nervous grin, sighing in relief when the princess smiled and returned back to her shopping. Diana pushed a dark curl out of her face, glancing down the market stalls when something caught her eye. A small gazebo-like stall stood six stalls down, with many aliens gathered around it.
Pidge also noticed, "Huh. Wonder what they're all fussing about."
Allura looked up from the jewellery. After a minute, she nodded, "Let's go find out, shall we?"
As the three girls approached the tent, Diana was surprised to see what looked like video game dance machines in the middle of the tent. The signs and symbols on it were all in a different language, but the concept was very much the same. Two dancers were in the middle of a battle: one was a bright pink tall preying-mantis-looking alien with six legs, hitting the beat with ease. The two-legged one was clearly struggling to keep up, but Diana also noticed that the alien was probably tone-deaf, it had trouble keeping with the beat. Allura watched them with a curious fascination.
"Wow, it looks just like DDR." Pidge commented, pushing her glasses back up her nose, "I wonder if they were inspired by the Earth ones."
"What is DDR?"
"It's a video game. You get points if you hit the little squares with your feet in time with the beat." Diana peered around the crowd to look at their feet, "And I think this one is a bit more advanced, Pidge - it looks like it actually takes dance skills into account instead of just hitting the squares as fast as possible."
Pidge pouted, "Damn, that's all the intensity of a DDR dance off!"
At that moment, the music stopped and the game finished. Judging by how the insect alien cheered and the audience went wild, they won. The two legged one pulled themselves off the machine, looking broken, while the insect alien turned to a large slug alien holding a bag. Diana watched the guy pull a fistful of GAC out of the bag and laugh. Ah, so that's why everyone was gathered around, it was a betting contest. Winner takes all.
"Anyone else brave enough to challenge Squniz?" The slug man bellowed to the crowd, "Defeat him in one game and earn 2000 GAC!"
Diana, Pidge and Allura all looked at each other. Immediately, Pidge raised her hands in surrender, "Uh-uh, nope. I have no dance skills. You'd have a better chance asking a blind duck."
"A what?" Allura frowned.
"It's all good, Pidge. I'm gonna need you to do a different job." Diana shrugged off her black jacket and handed it to Allura, "Do you mind holding this?"
"Huh, what's that?"
"While I'm distracting them, check the integrity of the machines." With that, Diana yelled out, "I challenge Squniz!"
The audience all turned to look at her. Diana walked through the parting crowd, taking the time to tie her hair up in a ponytail, her eyes never leaving the pink alien. Squniz turned to their friend, laughing, before turning back to Diana, "Another two-leg. This should be easy pickings."
Diana smiled back politely, "Oh, I agree."
The two got into place. Diana pulled back her purple and white shirt, using a tie at the back to keep it clinging to her body. Slug Man nodded before turning to the crowd, "Alright, you know the rules. One match - you win, you get the cash. You lose, you add 50 GAC to the pot."
Damn, Diana thought, she should've checked the rules first. Looking back, she saw Allura watching her, holding her jacket, but very much alone. She turned back to the game. Pidge was off doing her thing, now it was time to hold up her end of the deal. She closed her eyes and listened for the beat of the alien music. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but a rhythm was a rhythm and Diana knew she could dance to just about anything. She'd only ever met one person capable of beating her in a dance off, real or DDR, and that was Lance.
Luckily, she wasn't stupid enough to challenge him to either.
"Dance!"
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Pidge crouched behind the Space DDR machines as Diana and Squniz did their thing. Diana making a big deal about volunteering as tribute was all the distraction Pidge needed to sneak around the back and duck under the tent. Sometimes, being small really did pay off. She looked at all the machine connections - it was starting become easier to recognise certain markings, even if she wasn't really close to learning what they all meant. But none were as hard as Altean. So far so good, nothing fishy. But at that moment, Pidge noticed a small red wire hidden amongst the others that was hooked up to Squniz' machine and not Diana's. Following it, she found it hooked up to a small tablet - Pidge watched it automatically complete Squniz' dances for him.
Diana had been right to get Pidge to check, the bastards were cheating.
"Time to fix that." Pidge grabbed took the red wire off of Squniz' machine. There. Now Diana stood a chance.
Pidge looked over at Squniz and his friend and wondered just how many aliens they had cheated out of their money. And 2000 GAC was a loooooot of money. Pidge grinned mischievously to herself. Well, as long as she put it back right after they were done... She quickly hooked the red wire up to Diana's machine and giggled silently to herself. That'll teach them.
Peeking out behind the machines, Pidge watched Squniz get more and more flustered as he realised he wasn't hitting the steps with as much ease as he previously was, while Diana just seemed to be speeding up. Pidge knew that Diana was hitting the steps anyway - Diana did love to dance while she thought no one was watching. Well, when she thought no certain Paladins were watching. It was fascinating watching her dance with such intensity. Pidge made a note that she should give Diana some strong Nunvil and put on some of the music Lance had been able to bring alone from Earth.
Finally, the music ended and the game stopped. Pidge rushed to switch the wire back just as she heard Diana cheer - their audience gasped with shock, some cheered, clearly happy that someone had beaten the two con artists. Once she had him all hooked up, Pidge quickly snuck out the tent just as she heard footsteps coming around. Breathing a sigh of relief, Pidge made her away around the stall and slipped back right next to a cheering Allura, like she had never left. Diana met Pidge's eyes, who gave her a thumbs up.
Grinning, Diana turned to the stunned vendor, "I think I'm owed some GAC."
Squniz was glaring at her and Pidge couldn't help but smirk. They knew there was no way that Diana could have won without cheating but there was no way for them to prove it without admitting that they cheated in the first place. Allura looked down at Pidge, "So, were they cheating like Diana believed?"
"Of course. I fixed it. I think they'll probably think twice before doing that again."
Diana bounced over to them, taking her jacket off Allura and holding up the bulging felt bag full of GAC, "So... who wants to get some earrings?"
Pidge watched as Allura bought herself some nice crystal tear earrings while Diana actually got her ears pierced to get said earrings. Allura also found they sold hampers full of skincare and hair styling stuff and bought two of those. The whole thing cost them both 800 GAC, leaving them with 1200 to spend. Pidge wistfully thought about getting a TV that actually hooked up her damn video game while Diana admired her new earrings in the stall mirror.
"So, where shall we go to next, girls?" Allura asked excitedly, "I'm sure I saw a nice little robotics stall not far from those dance machines."
Robots? Pidge took off like a shot in the direction that Allura was pointing in, ignoring Diana's laughter. Once there, Pidge was so absorbed in the spare parts - holy crow, that looked like a metallic coated motherboard - that she didn't notice when Diana and Allura caught up to her. She didn't turn away from the stall, not even after she bought a whole bag full of parts and was even planning out loud what she could possible do with said parts, until Diana nudged her in the ribs, cutting her off. She turned to her friend, irritated, until Diana gestured to Allura. Pidge finally noticed that the princess was frozen in place, her lips pursed thin and fists clenched. They followed her line of sight and found what had gotten her so mad.
A large statue of Zarkon stood in the centre of the market, shining a dull brown like bronze but it shone like gold. Pidge thought it was an incredible likeness, right down to the twisted smirk on his face. Allura growled under her breath, startling some people passing her by as she looked up at the statue. Pidge gritted her teeth as she looked at this thing honouring the man who had taken away her family. God, she wished she could punch him in that stupid smug face.
"It seems he is inescapable, even on a day we are trying to enjoy." Allura's fist unclenched and she looked away despondently, "I'm sorry, let's return to a more pleasant activity."
Pidge watched the princess' face and a surge of rage swelled within her. This man had taken Allura's homeworld, her people, her family - she spent every waking moment trying to think of a way to defeat Zarkon and protect the rest of the universe from his scourge of death. The weight of their mission showed on all of their faces, but the burden Allura bore was carefully concealed behind the mask of a leader. Today was supposed to be the one day where Allura was allowed to not feel like the fate of the universe rested in her hands, but that she was a normal, carefree young woman who was enjoying her life.
Pidge's eyes darted around the market and made a mental list of the things she saw. Diana looked at her as she did this, "Pidge?"
She ignored her for a moment. Once she had her list completed, Pidge looked back at Diana, "I have an idea for what we can do with the rest of our money. It's probably illegal, possibly dangerous if we're caught and we could piss off a lot of people."
Diana's eyes widened. Allura's head snapped back to look at Pidge. Pidge waited expectantly, a grin crawling up her face, "And it will be so much fun."
A silent understanding passed between Pidge and Diana. The other girl grinned back at her, "What do we need?"
Pidge gave Diana and Allura separate lists and, with 300 GAC each, came back with acidic pest control poison in a spraying can, five dozen large Fernbrush eggs, a can of bright pink paint, what Pidge figured to be superglue and two bags of space bird feathers and what counted as glitter. Together, the three girls attacked the statue with as much rage-fuelled creativity as possible. Allura took the time to paint most of Zarkon's armour bright pink while Diana had the brilliant idea of turning his eyes into giant balls of glitter - Pidge had to take a breather at one point because the eyes just couldn't stop making her laugh. Actually, the three girls couldn't stop laughing the entire time they did this - Pidge didn't believe she had seen the princess laugh this much in the entire time that she had known her.
They began throwing the eggs but at some point, the target for those switched from Statue Zarkon to each other. By the end of it, Diana had glitter all over her black jacket and grey jeans, Allura had pink paint all over her hands, face and the skirts of her blue dress while Pidge's hair definitely had a more bird-like quality with feathers sticking out of it, and all three of them had egg yolk soaked into their clothes, but none of them stopped grinning the entire time.
Eventually, once they had soaked this thing in the yolk of many eggs and glued as much of it in feather and glitter as possible, Pidge decided it was time for the pièce de résistance, scaling the shiny Zarkon to sit on the shoulder and beginning to shake the acid can. Allura wiped a hysterical tear from her eye, "Oh, this has been the most fun I've ever had."
Diana pulled out her mobile phone, "Oh, I need a picture of this. When we get back to Earth, I'm framing it and putting it on my wall."
"Who needs a picture when we're getting a souvenir?" Pidge grinned, finally popping the cap off the spray can. Pulling up her hoodie - wincing at the feel of yolk now being added to her nose - Pidge began spraying the acid at the base of Zarkon's neck. She flinched at how quick it worked, "Wow! Look at that! And they're just selling this in the market?"
"Damn." Diana commented, "How much was that?"
"20 GAC!"
"Ha! I should get some for myself!"
"Dude, I bought like three cans. With how quick this is working, we're gonna have plenty left over."
"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU PIRATES DOING?"
Pidge stopped mid-spray, Allura and Diana turning to see two Galra policemen running towards them. Pidge looked from them back to the neck. But, she was almost done-
"STOP, VANDALS!"
"TIME TO GO!" Diana grabbed the rest of their things while Allura held out her arms
"PIDGE, JUMP!"
Pidge looked longingly back at the head again before grunting. Dammit. Closing her eyes, Pidge jumped and was surprised to be caught in two strong arms. Opening her eyes, she looked up at Allura, who didn't look phased by Pidge's landing. Pidge twitched her glitter-covered glasses in surprise, "Huh. Just how strong are you?"
"NO TIME! BACK TO THE POD!"
Putting Pidge down, Allura grabbed her wrist and ran past, Diana following after them. Aliens jumped out of their way as they came blazing through, being followed by the shouts of the Galra policemen. Pidge heard shouting and turned back to see an over-turned moving cart of - were those cabbages? - rolling down the street and blocking the Galra's path. She jumped as Diana appeared next to her, grinning. The excitement of the chase got to Pidge and she whooped with joy. Allura didn't stop laughing until they got back to the pod.
Upside, Pidge was allowed to sit shotgun on the way back to the ship.
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Sneaking onto the ship hadn't been as hard as they initially thought it would be. The mice had kept Coran occupied by stealing his things and hiding them throughout the ship, so when he finally came to 'check up' on Allura, her, Pidge and Diana all sat in a circle in the lounge room, completely clean, dressed in fluffy bathgowns and nursing cups of what Hunk liked to call his Space Cocoa Surprise. He'd simply smiled and said that he was happy they were having a good time before muttering about trying to find one of his gloves. The moment he left the room, the three girls burst into fits of laughter again. Eventually, when her sides hurt too much to continue laughing, Allura sighed and leaned back on the lounge.
"I must say, today was so much fun. I've never done anything like that before."
"What, cheat a con artist and vandalise a statue of the most feared dictator in the galaxy?" Diana snorted at Pidge's quip.
Allura shook her head, smiling sadly, "You see, back on Altea, when you're a princess... most people are friends with you because you can get them influence, power, benefits. Then when the Galra became a rising threat, going anywhere alone was simply not an option and most people my age didn't want to do things while being constantly followed and monitored by guards. So I never really got to go out and just have a day out, illegal activities or not."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Suddenly, Allura was surprised by two pairs of arms wrapping themselves around her. Strawberry blonde hair tickled her chin while the thicker arm around her shoulder squeezed her in a very comforting manner. Allura bit her lip. When was the last time she'd been hugged like this?
"Hey. I can honestly say today was one of the funnest days of my life, and that includes the day we found the Blue Lion and our trip to the space mall." Diana chuckled to herself at the memory, "Also, that one time Keith and I stole Garrison bikes and crashed them in the desert."
"What Diana is trying to say is that we had a good time too." Pidge pulled back so she was sitting next to Allura, "It was very... uplifting and we all had a lot of fun. Besides, it's not every day we get to almost decapitate Zarkon"
Diana laughed at the pout on Pidge's face, "Don't worry, we'll get it next time."
Squeaks behind Allura's head startled them apart as the mice crawled from behind the lounge and nuzzled into Allura's neck. In her mind, she could hear them all squeaking their joy and platitudes of affection. Oh, goodness, she felt like she was going to cry. Allura smiled at the two girls, filled with gratitude, "Thank you.... You know, we could make this a tradition - find something fun for all three of us to do when we next need to restock."
Pidge and Diana blinked at her before responding with smiles of their own, all agreeing silently with her. Allura clapped her hands together, "Wonderful! Now, what say we take a look at the hamper that we got today?"
When the other Paladins found them about thirty clicks later, they all had face masks on, Allura's now-dry hair was being plaited by the mice - in a far more successful attempt than last time - as the princess painted Pidge's nails a beautiful shade of dark green while Diana was relaxing with fruit discs on her eyes and her feet in a bowl full of bubbling cleansing soap. Hearing the door open, all three girls looked over - Diana lifted up a disc to see - before all chorusing hello and returning to the tasks at hand. Allura didn't miss the stunned looks on their faces, she just elected to ignore them.
"So I can see what you guys got up to today." Shiro commented
"Yes, well, Allura wasn't allowed off ship, Diana wasn't feeling great, we decided it was good to chill out." Pidge shrugged. Allura scolded the young Paladin for moving - nail painting was a delicate art and she didn't want her hard work ruined so quickly.
Hunk grinned, "Aww, that's nice. I'm glad to hear Diana's feeling better. I got all the ingredients to make that chocolate flavoured goo as well. Hope you like it."
"Hunk, you the real MVP." Diana grinned. Allura paused in confusion. What was an MVP?
Pidge noticed her pause and shook her head, "Earth thing, don't worry."
Hunk waved them farewell as he headed off for the kitchen while the others came to make themselves comfortable. Shiro sat himself on the floor next to Allura, picking up the stuff from the hamper and trying to read the labels. Keith walked around the lounges, arms folded and watching passively, while Lance bounced himself on the lounge next to Diana - ignoring her cursing at him and playfully pouting, "I've been trying for YEARS to get Diana in a face mask. She spends like a quintant with you guys and now she's Holly Golighty?"
"That wasn't a 'I hate pampering' thing, that was a 'I'm gonna keep saying no to annoy Lance' thing." Diana smirked as Lance squawked indignantly.
"Wow. Just for that, I'm not gonna tell you about the excitement at the market today!"
All the girls froze. Allura put on a face of intrigue, "Excitement?"
Lance turned his nose in the air, "Nope. Not even for you, my darling prince-"
"Someone vandalised a statue of Zarkon in the markets. We actually got stopped over it." Shiro put down a bottle of moisturiser and picked up some hair gel, "Where did you guys get these?"
"Coran got them from me when you guys went to the mall that one time. I never really had a chance to use them before." Allura lied smoothly, "You can use that gel if you want."
Lance's eyes widened, "Holy crow, we should use it on everyone's hair! Could you imagine Keith's mullet with hair gel in it? He'd look like a Saiyan."
Keith frowned at the same time Allura did, both going, "A what?"
Diana and Lance turned on Keith with expressions of horror. Diana pointed at Allura, "Okay, she has an excuse, but you don't, Keith."
"Anyway!" Pidge intervened before there was another squabble, "What exactly did they do to the statue?"
Finally ripping his glare away from Keith, Lance began to laugh, "Oh my God, it was amazing. It was like someone had dunked him in Hello Kitty and egg yolk. God, I so wanted a picture."
"Then why didn't you get it?"
"Because then Zarkon's head fell off and Lance fell to the ground, laughing. That's the reason we got stopped." Keith explained as he sat down on the lounge
Lance burst into a harder fit of the giggles. Allura turned to Pidge and noticed that her eye had begun to twitch. Oh no. Diana noticed this as she suddenly said, "Hey, Lance, wanna go help Hunk with that choco goo? It's starting to feel very Code Red."
It was like a complete change came over Lance. The laughter left his face, his eyes widened and he was on his feet in an instance, "On it, girl!"
Diana grinned as Lance dashed out of the room, only stopping when she saw everyone else staring at her. She shrugged, "Lance has sisters. He knows how to treat a lady."
Shiro sighed, "I better go after him, make sure he doesn't break anything in his haste."
"Uh-huh." Keith watched Shiro leave the room before turning back to Diana intently. She raised an eyebrow at him, remaining impassive. Allura found herself holding her breath when Keith suddenly grinned, leaning back. Allura wasn't sure she liked the smug expression on the Red Paladin's face.
"I should go do some training."
What? Allura, Pidge and Diana all looked at each other, confused. Keith pushed himself off the lounge and headed for the door, only turning back when the door opened. He pointed at his ear, a big grin on his face, "Nice earrings, by the way. Good work on that statue."
With that, Keith left the room. Diana and Allura both reached for their earrings, eyes meeting in surprise and realisation. Allura grimaced - they were going to have to be more careful next time. Pidge groaned, her head falling into her hands, ignoring both her face mask and Allura's hard paint job.
"All of that bullshit and I didn't even get the damn head."