#serial fic

“Brandon, dear man, wishing for a wife is no manner of incurring one,” said Mrs Jennings, shaking her head before buttering another slice of bread while tutting with rosy cheeks from the warmth of the room and drink on offer. He smiled at her, a soft but somewhat forced expression, saying nothing. “You know, Colonel, it is not as if a wife shall simply appear from the sky to be swept away.” “Indeed, Mrs Jennings.” He said no more than that, yet the woman insisted on continuing the conversation for many more long minutes, wishing to make connections with single women he was already aware of, and not at the slightest interested in or fond of.

“Oh, come away, Mrs Jennings, my boy Brandon will find a wife when fate allows it,” Sir John said, endeavouring to steer the woman away in thought and conversation, it appeared. “Yes, but she will not be falling from the sky—” she flicked the butterknife about “—by simply being wished upon to appear. It would be grand, for sure, but it simply isn’t the way of the world.” Sir John smiled with mirth at the woman. “You mean it is not the way you shall find him a wife.” They both laughed, continuing their jesting regarding finding him a wife. He saw no joy in the conversation, nor did he engage in their civil mockery.

“Oh, such a grave man you are today, Colonel,” said Mrs Jennings when he did not take a turn in the conversation. “Indeed,” he admitted, and Mrs Jennings laughed so deeply her bosom shook to the extent he wondered if the dress would hold up to her voluptuous curves when in such a laughing mood. “And he admits it himself, oh my dear, what a man you are, Colonel.”

“I shall excuse myself; I must return to Delaford before the storm turns worse.” At that, the whole company looked out the windows. “Have a pleasant evening,” he continued while rising and bowing to the room. “Ride safe, we shall await your Christmas Lunch invitation, Colonel,” Mrs Jennings called after him with a tutting he knew all too well before he had the chance to escape without such a demand being laid upon his shoulders.

Stepping down two flights of stairs, moving through the halls of the grand estate of Barton Park, his heart remained burdened by the void within it. He was not to find a wife, it appeared, and no matter his thoughts on the matter, there was not much for him to do about the situation.

Most found him grave, found him stiff, or even dreary despite his gentlemanly ways. Perhaps it is so, perhaps I have become enclosed and resolved to a life of loneliness, much like in the words of many great poets as they wrote of vast seas and endless skies. Perhaps, such loneliness is to be my life. He did not enjoy the thought, but there was a certain cold solace to be found within the kindred words of poetry from great men and women. Yet, a Christmas wish of true companionship is perhaps not too much of a childish thought to have, when kept private, of course.

A servant pushed the large oak doors open as he reached them, stepping out into the howling wind with fluttering snow obscuring much of the landscape, he drew a steadying breath while the stable boy came jogging with his black steed. “Good lad—” “Waaah!” came the shriek of a woman, and he had but one moment to look up and stretch out his arms before a flurry of fabric came hurling toward him; as if she had fallen from the sky itself.

⩤• YOU •⩥

You had not expected to die before Christmas. But, there you were, falling helplessly toward doom from one simple, meagre, tiny slip of the foot. You shrieked like a ghoul. The snow swished by your face. Your arms flailed out and your dress fluttered between your legs for two endless seconds of free-fall.

The air was knocked out of you the third second. Terror came first, then the force had you losing your breath. You were caught, yet had still plummeted to the snow-covered ground below with double exhales and impacts. “Miss— Miss, are you alright?” came the deepest of voices and your heart — already in complete disarray — decided to skip several beats and nearly end you right there atop the gentleman who had broken your deadly fall with his own body it appeared. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh, dear lord,” you whimpered between sharp inhales and quick exhales as you attempted to rise in a scramble from atop the man you had surely crushed. I’m alive. Heavens. I’m alive.

You managed to roll over, your back only mildly protesting, and your breathing had no chance to even out as shame flooded in while you knelt in the snow with your head bowed. Your glove-clad hands dug into the snow as your arms shook uncontrollably. I almost died, almost died, oh, my lord, I almost died. “Sir, I ap-apolo-apologise,” you stuttered out, endeavouring to stop yourself from the threat of crying. “Miss, are you well? Unharmed?” he asked, the sound of crunching snow telling you he moved. “Y-yes, sir. You broke my fall. Oh, dear lord, are you hurt, sir?” you asked quietly while finally tilting your head back, only to lose your breath all over.

Squatting before you was a gorgeous man with not a single fault to his appearance or posture. His warm eyes claimed yours fully, and the warmth spreading across your cheeks and neck had your lips parting as you drew a deeper breath. “Are you hurt, miss?” he asked while you lost yourself in his shadow. “No. No, sir, I’m-, I’m alright.” You were not truly alright, but more alright than you ought to have been.

“Did my fall c-cause you harm, sir?” you asked, feeling a dread creep along your spine at the thought. He smiled softly as you straightened, sitting back on your heels a your legs trembled too much to stand upon them that second, as he looked down on you. “No. I am well, miss.” “Oh, thank goodness, whatever should I have done had I harmed you,” you whispered with relief. “Surely, that is not a concern as of now? You were near a painful death.” “I— Yes, I apologise, sir.” “It is not every day women fall from the sky,” he said, nearly wishfully so, while his head tilted and his warmth seemed to reach within your ribs by mere proximity. “Tell me, are you well enough to stand?” “Oh, why yes, yes of course, sir,” you blubbered out, rushing to get on your feet when the man’s voice had you so wholly enamoured it made thinking a struggle. “Ahh—”

He grabbed you firmly when your knees buckled. Pain was not the cause of it as much as shock and the remnants of fear; there was some pain in your back, of course, but not to the extent it swayed you. “Gently, miss. Gently,” he encouraged, keeping you up and stable with a firm but gentle hold of your arm. “Do not make haste after such an ordeal. Come, allow me to escort you inside.” Inside? Through the front door? Mrs Raventire will flay me! “Oh, no, sir, please, I can manage on my own. I have already burdened you, in all manners,” you rushed to say as your heels dug into the snow-covered stone stairs.

The man stood tall and straight, his black winter coat made of the finest material and the large hat atop his head with its wide brim kept much of his face protected from the snow, while you had to avert your gaze to wipe snowflakes out of your eyes. Perhaps I did die, and this is some strange form of heaven? Surely, a man such as this does not simply appear out of thin air like a Christmas wish come true? That is absurd. But just the day before, you had stupidly spent the evening wishing — with all your heart — for a warm love to one day find you. But it was nonsensical wishing. It was a way of softening the pain of the dark winter. It was a childish manner of thinking to get through yet another harsh day of servitude and poverty.

He stood in the fluttering snow, backdropped by a magnificent black steed, and he had just saved your life. He was the most handsome man you had ever laid eyes upon, and the voice he spoke with had chills travelling down the inside of your spine as it was beyond perfection. Your imagination had already installed him on a picnic blanket during sunset with a book of poems in his large hand, with the golden light of dusk making that hair of his shimmer. Such a dream…

“Miss? Are you well?” he asked, a flare of worry enlarging his eyes as he stepped closer when your cheeks began to burn. “Yes, yes, sir, I’m so well,” you blubbered, not truly speaking correctly, but he captivated your mind and had you struggling for coherent thoughts when he looked at you so gently, so warmly, and there was not an ounce of disgust or annoyance despite your apparent state of being in servitude and not one of status. “I shall lead you in—” “Oh, no, sir.” Your hands shot out as you took a swaying step back from the kind gentleman.

He stepped closer, his hand reaching out slowly toward you as if wanting to steady you further. “I-, I-, I shall walk myself, sir. I will not take up any more of your time.” You backed up, nearly tripping over some snow before your foot took one step down on the stairs hiding below. “I shall take greater care when removing snow off the windowsills from now on, too,” you continued, not that you hadn’t been taking the greatest care to not fall when leaning over earlier. “You will put yourself in danger once more?” he asked, his eyes widening and his back stiffening as his eyes flicked toward the sky for a second, it appeared. “Why, yes, sir. It is my duty to clear the estate of overhang, sir. I am but hired as a temporary worker for such tasks during this winter season. So as not to put the original staffing in danger, sir.” Your smile was surface-level only, for the value of your life had just been uttered to the man who had your heart in a twist by simply existing — and doing so in a grand part of society. “Goodbye, sir.” You did not allow yourself to linger in the warmth of the stiff, nearly grave appearing gentleman’s eyes for another second…

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKTREE // AO3 // MASTERLIST

A/N: FIRST BRANDON FIC OF THE YEAR! Oh my gosh, I’m already so in love with these two - I can’t wait to continue their story as soon as possible! 😍👏

NEXT PART >

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Shinji had heard that grief had the power to transmute, wine turned back to water, the Dead Sea apple turned to ash on the tongue. The other morning he’d chewed on his usual breakfast cereal at a practically cow-like rate, trying to determine what had changed about the taste. It wasn’t as dramatic as an apple turning to ash, but he thought the principle was probably the same, and the idea had actually made him start laughing right there at the breakfast table. After some more thought, though, it occurred to Shinji that he had come into contact with ashes, the letters he’d cremated and with whose remains he’d dirtied his fingers as he’d wiped them from the sink. What smoke those letters produced had been subtle, but it seemed to have clung nonetheless to everything Shinji owned: his clothes, his hair, his very insides. Now food tasted different, sounds vacillated between being muted and being abrasive, and there was a faint chlorine smell that wafted in and out of his consciousness.

When it first occurred to Shinji that this might indeed be his body grieving, then he had to confront the idea that Kaworu had, in some sense, died to him in this timeline, and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. As far as he knew, he hadn’t decided that Kaworu was dead to him (though he was aware that people hid things from themselves all the time). He still found himself writing little notes to Kaworu in the margins of his notebook during class, and he’d be several lines deep before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be doing that anymore.

What could I have done to stop you from catching their eye? one of these notes read. He hadn’t had a specific “they” in mind at the time he wrote it. “They” only stood for any of the myriad forces who had pried Kaworu’s fingers from his over the years. Then, below this line, another: What could I have done to stop you from catching mine? The answer, obviously, was nothing, short of being unable to see Kaworu at all. “If thine eye offend thee,” and all that. Yet Shinji knew that even if he had been blind, he still would have fallen for Kaworu by the sound of his voice alone; he could have identified it merely by looking at the waveforms of sound it created, he was sure of it. His hands could have recognized even the pattern of Kaworu’s fingerprints after lifetimes of familiarization. Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could almost summon the shapes of their arches, which made him think of the arches of Kaworu’s brows, which made him think of the crescents Kaworu’s eyes made when he smiled.

“Say you were made for me too,” Kaworu had entreated once upon a time, and his eyes had crescented when he said it, because he already knew what Shinji’s response was going to be.

Kaworu, Shinji thought now, I think I was born to meet you, not the other way around, because without you to love, I don’t even know what to do with myself.

Between faith, hope, and love, supposedly the greatest was love, but what was he to do now that love was taken from him?

He imagined Kaworu waking up one morning, humanity all used up after running on empty for so long, and finding that he couldn’t love anymore; his heart had just given out and relapsed back into its original core. Then maybe he’d finally decided to fulfill his purpose and go back to Adam, up in heaven where he belonged. But, Shinji believed, because he had to, that kind of love that existed between them couldn’t just go away; it had to go somewhere. Perhaps love hadn’t been taken from him after all; it was just Shinji’s turn to carry it for the both of them this time. Maybe this whole ordeal was some kind of odd gift that he as a Lilin wasn’t enlightened enough to understand. These kinds of machinations were, after all, supposed to work in mysterious ways.

After love, what was the next best thing? Faith, Shinji guessed. Maybe he ought to start devoting his time to that. In all their past lives, Kaworu had been there to give Shinji his hand and guide him through the wasteland. Now, it was looking more and more like Shinji’s trial this time was to wander through purgatory alone with nothing but his faith to sustain his love, and this constant ache was only the slow burn of his sins being purified. What was my sin, anyway? he asked Kaworu’s spirit, wherever it was. Not trying hard enough for you? Not being grateful enough for our time together?

“If we move Yellow that'll bring down the entire fleet on us,” Hunk said. “And, uh, not going to lie here – I'm not exactly the best fighter pilot in the whole galaxy.”

They had long since put out the campfire, letting the creeping not-dark of night on the moon of Eaphus overtake them. The wings of Galra sentry drones had been sweeping lower and lower as the night wore on, the brief hum of the engines marking the passage of time. Ilianya retreated from her vantage point back underneath the belly of the Yellow Lion, as it was now crouched as low to the ground as it could. That still left more than enough room for them both to walk upright. “We can't stay here,” Ilianya said again, and didn't sit.

“Are you suggesting we abandon Yellow?” Hunk said, affronted.

“It is preferable to being captured.”

“I can't do that!” Hunk put his hand flat against the Yellow Lion's leg. “I'm not going to just let the Galra haul Yellow off like … like some sort of trophy!” The thought of that was actually so distressing it caused a knot to form in Hunk's chest. “There's got to be a better plan.”

“Unless you feel confidant that you can pilot us through whatever barricade the Galra fleet has constructed to ensnare us,” Ilianya said, her voice taking on a cold edge, “I see no other option. I am not waiting around to be taken prisoner.” She turned away, staring out at the dark landscape.

“Well, the Galra can't come down to the surface of the moon itself anyway,” Hunk said, folding his arms. “They can only send down the sentries.”

“What?” Ilianya half-turned to look at him, a frown on her face.

“Yeah,” Hunk said. “Allura told us that there's something in the atmosphere here that makes it difficult for the Galra to breathe. Some sort of chemical that's already present in the atmosphere and yet doesn't affect the rest of us oxygenated beings.” He leaned forward, arms still folded and shoulders slumping. “But I bet they could just wear their masks and be fine, like in space. But … why haven't they done that already? When we were here earlier” he kept talking, more now to himself than Ilianya, working out the problem verbally. “We didn't see a single Galra in any of the cities. Even though the waystation in orbit is a refueling point and entertainment arena. Why is that? Why wouldn't they bother to come down to the surface?”

“It isn't worth the risk?” Ilianya said. “I don't see how that's relevant.”

“But why isn't it worth the risk?” Hunk said. “Zarkon would have been here. The temples are connected to Voltron and he knows that.”

“How would the Emperor of the Galra know that?” Ilianya said, and Hunk gave her a weird look.

“Because he was a Paladin?”

“Of Voltron?”

Hunk blinked at her. “You didn't know that?”

Ilianya shook her head sharply. “We knew that Zarkon was a close friend of King Alfor, and that he betrayed Voltron leading to the death of its Paladins, but...” Ilianya covered her mouth with one hand. “To think that there was a non-Altean Paladin prior to your team...”

“Preeeeeetty sure that Alfor was the only Altean, actually,” Hunk said, and Ilianya stared at him. “Okay, um, but we'll deal with that later.” Hunk snapped his fingers suddenly. “The temples!”

“I'm so lost,” Ilianya said.

“The temples house the memory cores,” Hunk said, moving with determination toward the head of the Yellow Lion. “They're connected to the Lions somehow. By quintessence, probably.” A hatch in the underbelly of the Lion opened, above Hunk's head. He waited a moment, looking at Ilianya, and then when she didn't move he made a step with his hands gesturing with his head toward the hatch well above their heads.

It took another embarrassingly long moment before Ilianya got it, then she smiled at Hunk, put her foot in the step he created with his hands, and jumped up, hooking the edge of the hatch with her hands and effortlessly pulled herself inside. Hunk followed a moment later, thanks to the boosters in his Paladin armor.

Once in the cockpit, Hunk situated himself in the pilot's chair. “Okay,” he said to Yellow, resting his hands on the flight controls. “Can you bring up all systems with no exterior running lights? Zero. We don't want to help those sentry patrols at all.” The interior systems all lit live in shades of gold and Hunk grinned at the readouts. Nothing showed red, the Yellow Lion's self-maintenance systems had repaired all issues in standby. Thank goodness for Altean tech. “So the memory cores are connected to the Lion's quintessence,” Ilianya said, standing beside Hunk's flight chair. “I don't understand how that can help us.”

“The memory cores are some weird and unfathomable bits of Altean technology,” Hunk said, and then winced, glancing over at Ilianya guiltily as if expecting reproach. “I mean, I think they're Altean. We never did figure out who made them and Allura wasn't clear on it, but the tech is insane and it might as well be magic. I mean, it pops us into memories. So I hear. That's some crazy stuff. But, if they're connected to the Lions by quintessence, maybe they're just, like … some weird off-site hardware backups.”

“Like a computer,” Ilianya said, and Hunk nodded his head sharply in agreement.

“Exactly! Like, an external hard drive or something. Pidge was able to hook her computer up to it, even if she wasn't able to make sense of the readings.”

“Okay, great,” Ilianya gestured at the Yellow Lion's console. “So how do we use that?”

“I have no idea.” Hunk lifted his hands from the flight controls and folded his arms, staring at the console lit gold in front of him.

There was silence for a moment. “What do you mean you have no idea!?” Ilianya braced her hand on the back of Hunk's chair. “Can't you get the Lion talking to the memory core?”

“This whole quintessence thing? That's magic too. Magic, is like...” Hunk wiggled his hand in the air. “It shouldn't be a thing but it is. It shouldn't. There are laws to physics, you know, and frankly this whole quintessence thing-”

“Hunk.”

“Magic is science we just don't understand yet,” Hunk parroted, and then made a pained expression. “Sorry.” He looked at the display, then leaned forward to access the console. “I'll figure something out, I guess.”

Ilianya looked to the radar that showed the flight of Galra sentries, flying even lower this time. It wouldn't be long until they were discovered. “Hurry,” she said.

“Man, I wish this thing came with an instruction manual,” Hunk grumbled half to himself as he hunched forward over the console, squinting at a display that had popped up above the gold-tinted holographic keyboard. As he spoke another display popped directly to his left, scrolling quickly and chock full of lines of text in that squiggly Altean script that Pidge was still picking at learning. “In English,” Hunk specified, and the display closed just as abruptly as it opened.

Scanning for weird energy signatures took, well, energy, and he wasn't even sure what kind of energy signatures that the memory cores put out – if they even put out any at all. What he wouldn't give for a direct line to Pidge at the moment, he wished he had paid attention more when she complained about her research into the monolith they'd dragging into the training room. “Can you scan for quintessence?” he asked aloud as he typed, because Yellow seemed to like it better when he actually talked to her.  The Lion seemed almost to purr in response.

The forward viewscreens lit, showing the dark landscape of the moon's forest stretched out below them. Now, however, there seemed to be a filter over the viewscreen, and there were faint color trails underneath the rocky terrain and glittering slightly as they moved. A rainbow array of energy signatures. “Huh,” Hunk said, surprised that had actually worked.

“It's beautiful,” Ilianya said. “The quintessence.”

“Yeah,” Hunk said softly, a little awed. “It is.”

They watched it in silence for a few moments, until the tell-tale rumble of a low-flying Galra sentry seemed to snap Hunk back to business. “If only we could figure out how to pick out the memory core's signature from that mess,” he said, hand hovering above the holographic keyboard. On his words the other colors on the filter faded out and thin golden strands, fainter than the others, became visible underneath the dirt. They looked like gold veins with the filter overlaid on the viewscreen, and they all seemed to flow in one direction, toward the mountains that Hunk knew lay beyond their view.

“All right,” Hunk said. “Looks like we're headed back to the temple of Empedocles.”

#

The Yellow Lion was, by a certain margin, the slowest of the Voltron Lions. It had to do with the sheer amount of mass, the weight of the thick, heavy armor bogging the Lion down – but that being said, she could still haul ass when needed, and haul ass she did well. Hunk kept them as low to the ground as he dared, the Yellow Lion hurtling through the unoccupied, unsettled wilderness of the moon of Eaphus knowing full well that the sentries would pick up the brightly-colored Lion sooner or later. It was only a matter of time, but he could still do his best to keep them off the radar for as long as possible.

It was still night on that side of the moon, where the temple of Empedocles lay in partial, sand-drenched ruin; however it didn't seem like night, the veins of gold running under the surface glowing brighter and bright until they converged underneath the temple, glimmering bright as day.

“I can't believe that worked,” Hunk said, as the Yellow Lion landed in a crouch with its belly close to the ground. “Scan the temple, Yellow, we've got to figure out how to get that memory core talking to you.”

The golden glow through the filter pulsed, and that drew Hunk's attention to the viewscreen. “Oh,” Ilianya said, and Hunk realized at the same time that all the internal systems; the holographic displays and everything that traditionally ran golden in the cockpit had begun to glow even brighter than before.

“It's like the energy is overloading,” Hunk said, pulling the diagnostics up immediately, checking to make sure that that the internal systems weren't about to go sideways on them.

The Yellow Lion shifted without Hunk's input, standing fully upright from its crouch, before letting forth a full-bellied roar.

“Uh,” Hunk said, raising his hands as half a dozen new displays, all tinged with that brilliant shimmering gold, started popping up in the air around him. “That's new.”

There was no response from Ilianya, and Hunk glanced over to her only to find her absent. He twisted halfway around, looking behind his seat in case she was pulling a Lance and picking the absolutely most inopportune time for a practical joke. “Ilianya?” There was no response. Hunk turned back toward all the displays and waved his hand through them, looking for the local low-baud comm, but as he waved his hand the displays did not react to him dismissing them. Instead, the viewscreen of the Lion went dim, but not completely out.

“What the heck,” Hunk said, and waved his hands at the displays again. “Ilianya, where did you go? Yellow, respond, I need to figure out what's-” abruptly, even more so than before, the cockpit of the Yellow Lion seemed to vanish around him. “…happening...” Hunk said in a small voice, into the void.

#

The golden light through the forward viewscreen filter pulsed once, bright as day, before the Yellow Lion lifted the filter from the viewscreen and showed the temple of Empedocles as it was; old and ruined, half-buried in the desert sands. Ilianya had been slightly blinded by the pulse, raising her hand on reflex to block the light, but the moment it faded she realized that all the interior displays of the Yellow Lion had gone from their original gold to a brighter, glimmering hue. “Amazing,” she said, as Hunk hunched forward over the flight controls. “You did it, how?”

Hunk did not immediately respond. Ilianya reached forward to touch his shoulder when suddenly Hunk yanked back on both flight controls simultaneously. The Yellow Lion launched off the ground in a single movement, violently shooting straight up and into the air. Ilianya was flung backwards, totally unprepared for the sudden acceleration, and slammed back against the wall, jarring her injured shoulder hard. She swore violently in Altean, grabbing a handhold on the bar that ran at head-height along the inside of the cockpit and yanking herself forward against the force of gravity even as the Yellow Lion broke out of the lower atmosphere of the moon.

“What the quiznack are you doing!?”

In low orbit the interal compensators kicked in and the g-forces fell off; so Ilianya was able to lunge forward and grab the back of the pilot's chair without having to worry about going tail over teakettle a second time. The Yellow Lion hung in orbit for a moment, the scanners pulsing a bright yellow as several sentry craft rose out of orbit as well, marking their position. There was no time to be angry. “We've been spotted,” she said, and curiously Hunk again did not respond but instead the Yellow Lion seemed to shudder all over and around them before letting out a large, mighty roar.

The cockpit's noise dampeners kicked in very quickly, thankfully. Before Ilianya could react again the Yellow Lion leaped forward and dove after the sentries.

There were four of the craft to a flight, and Yellow tore through them like lizznik paper. Hunk flew straight into their midst and the sentry drones, having zero in the way of particle barriers, simply impacted against the head and chest armor of the Yellow Lion, disintegrating on contact. The other two veered off in opposite directions. “Hunk,” Ilianya yelled, hoping her voice hadn't gone high. Hunk seemed to ignore her, turning Yellow and darting after the first of the drones trying to escape. “Escaping, remember? We have to find the Castleship, can you maybe use the boost from the memory core to break through the long-range comm jammers?”

Hunk lifted his head finally but didn't look back at her. His face in profile looked different, somehow, but Ilianya was too focused on the displays to realize it right away. He didn't respond at all to her voice, but he did pull the Lion out of the pursuit of the drone ship, instead looping the Yellow Lion around and aiming it toward the closest of the Galra battleships, already large enough to see with the naked eye on the viewscreen.

Okay, now she was panicked. “Hunk, no,” she said, as the HUD started to show a mass of red blips spilling from the battleship. The Galra would try for capture first, and they would easily be overwhelmed in moments. “We've got to get out of here!”

This time, when he didn't respond,  Ilianya grabbed him angrily by the shoulder and yanked. It took a moment for the action to register, and when he turned his head to look at her blankly Ilianya's heart froze in her chest.

His eyes were solid gold.

Ilianya's fingers curled, tightening on the pilot's chair. The voice of authority spilled out of her without thinking. “We have to get back to the Castleship,” she said, voice tight. “That's an order, Paladin.”

For the first time the words seemed to properly register. Hunk's head snapped back around to the viewscreen as the first pair of sentry drones from the battleship reached them, doing a flyby. Their linked plasma blasts making the Yellow Lion shudder when they impacted against the armor. Hunk twitched the Lion aside, delicately avoiding the next set of plasma blasts and twisting in the same motion so that the Yellow Lion's tail laser strafed the entire incoming flight, then inverted. Ilianya watched the entire starfield spin dizzingly fast as Hunk ran the Lion parallel to the moon's atmosphere and realized that the drag on the Lion from the outer reaches of the atmosphere was creating a burn that would blast static across the offense's radar, playing havoc with their sensors while still building up enough energy for the Lion to slingshot around the moon and head for the outer reaches of the system.

“Get us home, Yellow,” Ilianya said, as the entire craft shuddered hard at the constant stress of the upper atmospheric burn. The engines rumbled and complained loudly as they broke free of the atmosphere again and using the acceleration boost to blast past one of the Galra battleships faster than it could bring its turrets to bear. The delaying tactic had confused at least half of the drone craft but there was still a cloud of red blips on their tail, and the exit vector that Yellow had picked apparently was the same one that one of the other battleships was hanging out in.

“The entire solar system, and you picked this exit vector,” Ilianya said, when Hunk's hand flung out suddenly and slammed atop one of the holographic consoles. The Lion started to slow, and several Galra sentries that had been about to catch up with them either had to veer off or actually impacted with the Yellow Lion, causing several sensors to the aft to turn red.

In front of the Yellow Lion, between the Galra battleship and them, a wormhole opened.

“The Lions can make wormholes?” That wasn't in the textbooks. Although to be fair, it did look like a highly unstable wormhole, so maybe there was a reason that the Lions didn't regularly make them. The wormhole was already shrinking fast despite the fact that they were still approaching it,  so the Yellow Lion accelerated, leaping forward in space and sailing into the wormhole just ahead of some of the sentry drones. Ilianya didn't look at the rear sensors to see how many made it through the jump with them, concerned more with them making it through the wormhole, all the way.

They spilled out into empty space, the Yellow Lion at half speed now, and the wing of a sentry drone ricocheted off the head of the Lion, making Ilianya jump. There were no active red dots on the HUD, and as the Yellow Lion drifted at half speed, more debris shot past them. “We made it,” Ilianya said,  and then smacked Hunk's shoulder. “If you knew that the Yellow Lion could wormhole, why didn't we just do that from the start?”

His head slowly twisted to look at her again and she had forgotten just that fast. Blank expression, gold eyes. The terror that had sat in her chest suddenly drowned in her anger, and Ilianya grabbed Hunk's face by the chin, jerking his head slightly forward. “I know you're in there,” she said sharply. “You got us out of there, Hunk, c'mon, you can fight this too!”

No response, no expression, and he didn't even try to pull his head out of her tight grip. Ilianya made a noise of anger and tore the helmet to his Paladin armor off his head. He clearly wasn't expecting that, although he didn't fight back, and he expected it even less when Ilianya kissed him.

Hunk's eyes went huge and immediately back to normal. Around them both the bright golden displays shimmered and returned to their normal, more muted coloring; and when Ilianya finally released Hunk he stuttered vocally, completely perplexed. “...what?” he finally managed, as Ilianya looked at the displays around them. “What just … what just happened?”

Ilianya leaned forward, her arm still draped over the back of the pilot's chair. “You got us away from the Eaphus system,” she said.

“I … I did?” Hunk said, looking around the cockpit in confusion. “We were at the temple, how did we – Lance?”

Let me know if I should continue! This style of writing is both fun and weird, lol