Chapter Text
Push and pull.
His fingers were nearly numb from the biting cold, but he still held onto the floating metal for dear life. He wasn’t sure why the metal slab wasn’t sinking, like most of the ship had done at this point, but he was far too grateful to wonder too hard about it. He keeps his chin above the water- water that tastes salty when it gets in his mouth, that stings at his eyes and his wounds and is so, so cold.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here. What could have been thirty dobashes feels like hours. All he really knows is the light of the moon and the rhythm of the body of water he's in.
He listens to the waves as it both grabs at him, trying to pull him down into the water, and pushes him away. They're trying to drag him out further into the still black night, and he couldn’t fight against them like he wanted to. Farther and farther he goes, left at the mercy of this strange planet he's fallen onto. He feels so small and insignificant compared to the darkness beneath him, and the dark night sky above him.
However, it also comforted him. The stars twinkle across the water, as if he's surrounded by the universe. It felt better than being alone, felt like if he ignored the hurt and aching, he was still where he was supposed to be.
His vision had become fuzzy, as if a veil was placed over it. Lost somewhere in between being awake and asleep, a perpetual dizziness twists his stomach. He holds back his sickness, sniffling and trying to gain his bearings. He's pretty sure there was some type of shoreline ahead of him, though it is far away from where he is. The little lights of- hopefully- homes blinked out at him like it was watching him, waiting for him to do something.
It was like they were telling him to swim for it. He only had one lesson before, never really going near it again. He had been thrown off the dock and the ice had crunched in his ears as he fell under. The cold burned at his skin, and he barely made it up to the surface to pull himself out.
This feels the same. Thrown into the water without a semblance of a chance, having to fight to survive. This time, he wondered if he should.
He's just... so tired.
That tiredness hung on him, made his body feel so heavy. He can barely move, his breathing ragged from the smoke he had inhaled. Where his legs floated in the water (only able to get half of himself on the metal slab), they felt weightless. But the rest of his body felt too heavy to carry. His head pounds, the pain between his eyes unrelenting as he lay there. Gravity like he was being pushed him down, the water whispering in his ear to slip below the surface. It begged him to fall asleep already, told him it'd be okay.
But he knew it wouldn't be, he knew...
He knows he shouldn't give up, but he's so exhausted. Everything hurts, and nothing will ever be the same again.
He wants to go home, but he doesn't know where that is anymore.
And it is his fault that he doesn't know... It's all his fault, how could he have been so stupid? He's just as foolish as his training coach said he was. His father had been right- he's a monster, and was always meant to be their downfall. And Adalin-
No... no, he can't give up right now. Adalin would be upset to hear him think like this. He has to make things right, and he can't do that while wallowing in self pity. Don't fall asleep, don't give up. Those lights told him to swim... can he make it? If he started now, would he reach the shore?
He grips the metal close, fighting to keep his eyes open as they hang heavier and heavier. The black of the water and the white moonlight on the waves wobbled around him, serving to make him feel all that much more off balance. Falling asleep might mean he’ll let go of the metal, and drift into the waters, so he tries to focus on anything else besides the comforting sound of the waves.
He's far too injured for swimming, he'd get nowhere like this.
His right leg had likely been pulled out of its socket, since it feels stuck in one place. His shoulder stings each time a sharp wave rolls over it. It's an odd sensation he doesn't understand about this water. Why is it salty, what makes it different from the lake water he knows? Is it like sweat? He's sure that the shoulder is the biggest injury to blame for the lightheadedness and the urge to sleep, because it had been bleeding profusely ever since earlier and it hadn't stopped.
Earlier.
Towers crashing down into the city, the crowd panicking, dragging him back. He lets go of someone's hand, he has to get to the center again. He can't let him die, he can't do that-
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to rid himself of that awful feeling as it hits him all over again. His stomach reels and he almost loses it. He's seen death, and war, but nothing like this. Nothing like that. Where the city was almost leveled in one fell swoop, the ships that took up the view of the sky.
Unfortunately for him, closing his eyes like that meant it was hard to try and open them again, and he doesn't have any more strength left to try. He listens to the water around him instead, begging it to give him something to focus on rather than all of the hurt, and all of the fresh memories in his mind. The waves rock him back and forth, reminding him of someone.
If he could just fall asleep here... maybe he won't be so tired when he wakes up...
Yeah... just fall asleep...
His ears perk up at the sound of something unusual that he had not heard yet from the waters.
He attempts to lift his head to see what could be causing this noise, but it falls lamely back onto the metal slab. His mouth hangs open and more of that salty water hits his lips. He slows down his labored breathing, his ears twitching as he listens. He thinks the sound might be getting closer to him, but he isn't sure.
Something... skidding along the top of the water somewhere far out to his left. The only problem: is it rescue, or is it danger?
Could he even protect himself right now?
He grits his teeth, grunting in pain as he tries to lift himself up higher. The joints on his fingers freeze up, locked in one place in either fear or because of the cold. He's used to the cold, used to absolute freezing temperatures, so it shouldn't be a problem. But the cold combined with the injuries he has, and with the very little sleep he's gotten in these last few quintants... It doesn't look good for him if this is danger after all.
The noise and object slow and eventually puts to a stop, not close to where he floats.
He forces himself to pry open his eyes and looks out at the top of the water. The moonlight here is nothing like his planet's. Not nearly as bright as his moon, nor as golden, and it made it all that much harder to focus... But there in the distance? An unmistakable white mass.
He tries again to focus his vision. Nothing changes, and he stifles the pathetic noise he almost made out of fear. He must have hit his head when he crashed, or maybe the blood loss is getting to him. Or maybe this salty water stinging at them isn't helping. It drips off of his brow and over his lashes, and he has to blink it away.
Flashes of light skim across the water, pointed down at it like they were scanning the water for something.
Or someone?
It's certainly risky, considering he doesn't know if these people were going to be helpful, or if they were going to kill him for entering their planet without permission. But there's nothing else to do except risk it.
He achingly turns his head to look at the debris scattered around him in the water. He's holding onto one part of his ship, a metal slab that was a little more than half his size. All around him were what was left of his pod- broken bits of scrap that weren't all that recognizable anymore. It had already crashed into a couple ships, then careened into the side of a damned wormhole, so the damage was already done. But then it had hit this water and turned from boulder into pebble.
He had to leave the main cockpit because it had started to sink into the water, along with the rest of his ship. The front had fallen apart and he had seen it sink down, disappearing after seconds in the black. Now, there were only the lighter bits of his ship bobbling along the surface, some of the pieces washing away from him, scattering out. Upon first look, it didn’t appear that there was anything he could use to get their attention. There were only other broken pieces of metal, and those were sinking lower into the water, enough so that he could watch them get swallowed by the darkness too.
He was about to give up when he spotted a small pink light, floating just within his reach. A few seconds later and it would have been gone.
He painfully unstuck his fingers one by one from the slab, and reached for the pink light with one hand, praying that it wasn’t a secret monster under the water trying to lure him in. His hand wraps around a metal piece and he brings it up out of the water. It's the only thing he had, but with as small as it was, he doesn’t hold hope that they’ll see it from their distance.
Perhaps their eyesight was even better than his should be.
He arm aches as he reaches overhead, hand trembling.
Straining his ears again, he waits, resting his forehead against the metal slab. He can’t lift his head to see anymore. It was taking all he could to keep his arm above the water. As a small blessing from Lanaya and Cera, he hears a small put put put sound kick up again from where that mass was. He would hold his breath again, but his lungs ached for air.
The sound was definitely drawing closer still, but his arm gave out when he tries to wave the light. He drops it into the water, praying that they saw it clear enough to find him.
Please, he begs. Please, see me.
Worries that they hadn’t wash away when he hears the- the ship? Hears it come up somewhat next to him, still keeping a distance. Panicked, muffled voices shout out for him, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. That's alright- he's okay with not knowing what they're saying for now. As long as they're here, he's not left to the darkness.
They draw closer once more, then stop again, as if afraid to get too close. He hears a huge splash, then a few more smaller splashes as someone starts swimming out towards him. They have to weave around the debris still in the water, so it takes longer to reach him. A couple times, the stranger had either kicked or hit the metal as they were swimming, letting out noises that sound like cussing.
But finally, strong hands land on his shoulder and back, and he bites down a cry of relief. They are helping him, he thinks.
He hopes.
“Oye, ¿estás despierto? ¿Puedes oírme?” A low voice of a young man. It sounds like he’s asking him something, but he can't answer in their language. He tries to anyways, but no sound comes out of his mouth except a short cry.
The young man manages to scoop his hands under his chest and pull him closer to the man. His head flops uselessly as he's set on the man’s back. The man reaches the boy's arms around the man's neck, and even though the grip is loose, it's good enough. He gasps in pain when his leg is jostled, pain shooting up his nerves like an electric shock. The man swims around the debris, going fast and trying not to splash a lot, like he didn't trust the water completely.
Eventually they reach the the ship. More hands grab at his back as they pull the two of them up, whispered voices in the unknown language bouncing around back and forth. He’s aware of a light in his face when he’s placed on the floor of the ship, and a shocked yelp from one of the people on board rips through the air.
“Oh, Dios mío, ¿es siquiera humano!?” A younger boy asks in panic. He flinches away from the noise, trying to block out that awful light in his face but unable to move his arm properly.
“...Eso no importa, está herido y necesita ayuda.” Another man says sternly, much quieter that the boy. “Llame a Veronica y dígale que deben preparar los primeros auxilios. Pon la mesa en la cocina.”
Someone starts to shake him. He groans, squinting now as he tries to peek his eyes open. Three figures stand above him, one of them shifting around in the moonlight. Wet hands from the first man press against his injured shoulder with a cloth. The boy who shook him touches his leg, muttering to the man that was driving the boat he was on. After a moment, the boy holds something against his ear and talks rapidly into the device. A transmitter? A radio?
He can’t see features, only vague outlines... but he tries to make out anything he can.
The young man above him is smoothing his hair with gentle fingers, and it feels familiar. His eyes start to grow teary at the comfort, and he finds himself leaning into the touch without thinking about it. A few strands of dark hair falls out of a loose ponytail from the man, and his heart soars, wondering if he knows who this is.
That must be it- he did, actually, make it to the right place. He just got bounced around in the process. It's all going to be okay, because Adalin is here. There's a lot he wanted to say, but his voice is too course to say it all. Adalin knew he was out there, he came to save him. He was waiting for him, just like Ada said he would be, here on this planet. They weren't separated after all.
That was good. He can't imagine doing this on his own. Adalin would know what to do, how to take back their home.
"I'm sorry, Ada," He whispers hoarsley, reaching up to grab Adalin's hand.
It's all his fault it happened. If he hadn't spoken up to their father like that, Adalin could have made a proper plan. He screwed it all up, and he hurt everyone in the process. He knew he'd be the one to do it. He's never been smart like his brother, never been as brave. Why did he pretend he was?
“Estará bien, chico. Estás a salvo ahora. Te arreglaremos.” Adalin says, and he feels alone all over again.
That voice was just different enough, that while it may sound similar, it wasn't the same. He thought that maybe he just hit his head too hard and was hearing a different language for no reason. But it isn't Adalin after all.
Though he doesn’t know what the man is saying, he knew they were words meant to help, were to calm him. He bit his lip as he squeezed his eyes shut once more, letting his head rest against the floorboards. The ship is skidding along the water, jostling them around unsteadily.
Adalin isn't here. Which means he isn't where he's supposed to be, just like he thought. He messed up, somehow, he was-
Another ship collides with his from the front. His entire body jerks forward, his head slamming into the controls, and the sound of crunching metal is all he can hear. Before he can properly gain his bearings, he looks up to see light all around him.
There's a yank at his gut as his ship is sucked into the wormhole, and his ship speeds towards the side dangerously. He can't stop it-
He sucks a sharp breath through his teeth when his leg is jostled by the ship rocking over a wave, and there's a low 'lo siento' from the boy. He takes a few deep breaths, feeling more out of control here than he had in the water.
Click click.
Something taps together, and he feels his entire body freeze. His mind slips backwards, the noise around him disappearing and his heart beating fast in his chest, so fast that he thought it might run out of him.
Get up.
What the hell is he doing?
He can't just sit here. He has to make sure everyone is alright, he has to help Adalin. He has to keep moving forward, he can't stay here.
He tries to do exactly that- tries to sit up. But the man and the boy both make the same noise, and eventually force him back down onto the floor. The man smooths back his hair again, getting closer and whispering, "Todo va a estar bien, chico. Te prometo que te cuidaremos."
The ship slows down, but the waves keep this ship rocking all sort of ways. There's a little more light above him- yellow, like those blinking dots from the shore. A tree canopy hangs above them, swaying in the wind. The leaves rustle, and his ears twitch as he listens to the new forest. There's... small creatures trying to sleep, some of them awake and rustling around. There's the slither of some sort of serpent, and...
The chiming of bells, far away. He's never heard that before, outside of ceremonies. They sound much smaller than the ones he's heard before.
The branches are unfamiliar from any type of tree he knows about in their solar system. A bright gray bark with white spots... His vision swims as he tries to focus on the branches. This isn't good, not a bit. He doesn't recognize the shape of the trees, doesn't remember any planet with a white moon, and he thinks he only remembers a body of water this large from stories Adalin and Edith told him from the next system over.
...Just how far away is he?
The oldest man jumps out first, a rope in his hands that dangles from the side of the ship. When he yells out to the others, the two younger men get to work. The young man scoops him up as gently as he can, shifting him to be on his back again. The other boy helps them both out of the boat, onto what appears to be white sand. The young man almost loses his footing when he tries to wrap his arms around the young man's throat again.
He tried to hold on, but his fingers are numb. He shakes as their group begins to run, the warm night air a welcome feeling after being shivering in that water. The unfamiliar tree branches shake and taunt above them in the wind, the smell of the air thick with water and some new plant. His eyes droop every few seconds as he fights to stay awake. He can't fall asleep here, surrounded by strangers.
That, and he knows if he slips out of consciousness, he won’t be able to point to where he was hurt. If they are helping him, they’d need him to help them do that.
“Mantente despierto, niño, tienes que permanecer despierto.” The older man pats his back as they trudge through the forest.
But his eyes do close once again, and he is forced to just listen to what's around him. It's mostly hushed whispers and grunts as they hurry along a path in a forest, but there are calls from some kind of creature every few feet or so. A warm light appears through his eyelids as he thinks they leave the forest. And a woman’s panicked shout cuts through the quiet hustling. “¡Es tan joven!”
There's the shuffling of feet as they jog carefully up some wooden steps and towards her. He opens his eyes a bit to try and see her, and her hands rake through his hair as she leans close to check his shoulder injury first. She's an older woman with a soft, round face. Her eyebrows furrow in worry, and she pats his cheek gingerly as they enter a home. Bright lights make him close his eyes again.
The woman’s hands start working on pulling the fabric away from his shoulder to see the injury better before he’s even set down onto a long, hard surface. “¿Sabes lo que pasó?”
“Estaba entre los restos de lo que vimos, en el agua. Luis saltó sobre él para ayudarlo.” The young boy tells the woman.
The woman must have decided already what she needed to do with his shoulder, because she moves on to examine his injured leg. Her hands press onto his hip to check, and he hisses in pain, instinctually moving away from her.
“...Dislocado. Tengo que resetearlo.” She says quickly. “Consígueme a Verónica, Marco.”
Rough hands check his temperature, leaning over the bright light above him and blocking it out. He’s vaguely aware that he’s sniffling like a little kid, but he can’t exactly help it anymore. The older man is holding his uninjured shoulder now, where the younger man had been earlier. The man is clearer in his vision now. He has a few white hairs in both his dark hair and his wispy beard, rectangular glasses hanging off of a chain necklace.
“Necesitamos calentarlo," He says to someone across the table. "Todavía tiene frío."
The woman approaches him again, speaking directly to him- asking him questions- but he still can’t understand her. Her face becomes blurry again. He tries to gain even a small sense of where he is versus where things and people are in the room. There are more people around them, either working or hanging by the doorway and watching... He listens to their footsteps, counting in his head. One, two, three...
Six people in total, save for him.
“Papá, ¿Puede siquiera entendernos?” The boy asks from somewhere in the room.
That is the one called Marco, he thinks. Someone else is called Veronica, she's somewhere near the door at the moment. It was a little hard to keep track, especially with the bouts of ringing in his ears that accompanies the dull, thudding headache.
“Eso explicaría por qué no puede respondernos. Eso y…” The younger man trails off.
A blanket falls over him, and he grabs at the fabric instinctually. The older man tucks the fabric around him, specifically grabbing the fabric around his hand, holding his bigger hands around his to help warm them up faster.
“Sé que puede que no me entiendas, pero esto va a doler.” The woman states seriously, leaning close to his face. She was speaking directly to him, even though they both knew he couldn’t understand her. She was trying, at least. She was also gesturing to his leg, so he believes that was what she was talking about.
He nods to let her know he understood that part and her eyes sparkle when he does.
She nods and then moves her hand upward. She takes one hand into a fist, the other straight, and connects them. She makes a snapping motion with the flat hand, and he thinks he starts to get what she’s trying to communicate.
Disconnected.
He nods once again, letting her know he understood. His leg is dislocated, as he feared.
The woman’s expression lines into that of worry, and kindness. She touches his arm, squeezing it as if to reassure him, then starts to direct someone. A girl comes into his vision, her hair pulled back and away from her face. Her eyes linger on his, moving to his ears curiously. She looks afraid to touch him.
He knows, to some extent, that he looks different than them, though there are, strikingly, a lot of similarities. (It's something he hasn't seen before, when he met people from other planets. And again, he's struck with a fear: where in the universe is he?)
His eyes, they probably noticed, are a deep gold, and from what he sees from them when they're close enough, they do not have the same features. Their eyes are all dark, he can't tell what color from here. Some look brown, others a deep blue. His ears are different from theirs also; they have flesh ears on the sides of their heads, where he does not. There are no fangs in their teeth like he has, though some look somewhat sharp.
They must be just as afraid, if they don’t know what he is or where he's from. They might not have seen someone from another planet before. He doesn't blame her when she flinches, how she tries not to look too long.
He might be like a monster in their eyes.
Wouldn't be the first time.
The woman is back again, her hands examining his hip gently at the joint with his leg. The girl that is afraid to touch him is instructing the boys to do something. They quickly follow what she says. The boy, Marco, comes around to the other side of the table to hold his other leg, and the young man places his hands on his uninjured shoulder. The older man grips his hands tighter, looking at him instead of where the woman and Veronica are.
What in the universe are they doing?
He shakes off their hands and sits up on his own, not about to let them guess on how to put his leg back into place. He already knows how to do this for himself, and now that he's getting some strength back from being warmer than before, he knows what to do. He slaps away their hands, bending down to grab at the joint. The woman reaches over to pry his hands away and the others try to set him back on the table, but he yanks his leg back into place with one quick movement.
He's done this before, so he's getting used to it. But the pain is still nothing to laugh at.
It pops back into place with the first push, and fire spreads across his nerves, all over his body. He bites down in his tongue to stop himself from making a noise, and he sinks back down on the table he's on, releasing a slow breath.
Everyone in the room has their hands up in front of them in shock. The woman is the first to come out of her stupor, and is the most vocal about what he'd just done. She smacks him on the shoulder with a rag, pointing a finger in his face.
"¿Estas loco? ¡Eso podría haber ido tan mal! ¡Podrías haberte lastimado más!" She tells him, hitting his shoulder again. He flinches from the fabric weapon, blinking away the rest of the pain.
"¿Cómo hizo eso y ni siquiera se inmutó?" Veronica asks, looking at the others with wide eyes, a bead of sweat on her neck.
"Guau, eso fue increíble..." Marco grins despite the rest watching him like he's insane.
“Marco, déjame ver ese hombro suyo.” The woman moves Marco out of the way by shooing him. Her hands reach to pull at his shirt once again, clicking her tongue when she sees the damage to his shoulder.
Now that one, he couldn't do on his own. This was a rather nasty gunshot... the reminder made him feel nauseous again. The woman raises a brow at him, and he feels like he's being tested. He shakes his head and looks away from her, not daring to move again. That rag kind of hurt. The woman nods and clicks her tongue, so he must have made the right decision. “Rápido, necesito agua-”
“Ya lo tengo, mamá.” The young man interrupts. A bucket of water comes crashing down on the table they had set him on, rags thrown over the young man's shoulder. Trying to clean the wound... was the water he was in infected or something?
It didn't taste or feel like the water from the lakes where he comes from. When it had gotten into his mouth, it was bitter and sharp. And the young man was trying to get out of it quickly...
Oh, Cera help him, did he dunk himself in poison? But wait, the young man was fine now, apparently. There might be something he's missing.
"Gracias Luis." The woman pats his arm, then takes the rags from his shoulder. She dips her hands in the water with the rag and pulls it out. She rings the rag once or twice as someone else starts pulling things that he can't see out of a white and red box on the table.
“Tiene los dedos fríos. Creo que nos habría llevado una hora y media llegar hasta él.” The man informs the woman, grabbing his hand again to warm his fingers up. The man turns to him with a tender smile, nodding along to his own words. "Eres bastante duro, ¿no? Ella va a limpiar tu herida, así que trata de quedarte quieto para ella."
The white and red box is moved next to his head, and he can see various tools and bottles inside, and something like bandages. The woman sets the rag down on his shoulder, grabbing the other tools she needs. He doesn't really want to watch this part of the process, so he turns his focus instead on the rest of the room, trying to connect their names to their faces.
Marco was probably the second oldest, and the young man that has been carrying him since the water is named Luis. He looks like he's the actual oldest of the kids in the room, somewhere in his twenties. Veronica was around Marco's age, though now that he looks at her again she might be older? The only people he didn't know the name of in the room at the moment was the youngest child, who appeared to be around his age, and the two parents.
When the woman starts to actually work on cleaning the wound, he might have bitten through his tongue if he didn’t want more pain. He instead clenches his jaw so as not to make any more pitiful sounds like he has been. Only, the quiet makes it ten times worse, because everything was rolling through his mind.
This is so unbelievably bad.
He doesn't even know just how bad it turned out to be, not yet. They had to waste too much time rescuing him when they could have been evacuating citizens. The screams of panic from the people of the capital as they tried to get away or attempted to follow Edith from the destruction. The towers falling, the rubble, the fire.
That smoke had been unbearable, it had stung in his eyes as he tried to get closer to where Adalin was. Faces swim in his mind, and he wonders if they got out safe. All the people he was responsible for, all the people he had hurt with this mistake. They would never forgive him for this. He wouldn't- He won't forgive himself for this.
He knew how bad it would be if he spoke up to his father like that, so why did he do that?
Focus on the room. Stop panicking.
This must be their kitchen. There is a suspicious lack of pots and pans, but it's a table, and he can see spices on a rack behind the older man. Won't it be lovely for them to eat here later? As soon as they're done washing the blood off the wood, it could be pretty nice.
...Bad joke, it didn't even help him get his mind off of how bad this situation was.
"Rachel, ¿puedes traerme más agua?" The mother mumbles. The youngest nods and grabs the bucket from the table in a hurry to get away from him. Rachel, then...
He needs to see his star map. It might still be in his pocket, he thinks he can feel it. He has to figure out how far away from his system he is. He recognized nothing, from the water to the trees. But it can't be that far, right?
...Right?
This happened because of those fighter pods that crashed into him. He went spinning and got too close, ended up getting sucked into that wormhole that he had been trying to go around, and he went right through the side of the warp. That's never good, he heard from Adalin just how lost you can get from that type of thing when they visited their neighboring system.
So he's surrounded by strangers, on a strange planet that could be far, far, far away from where he needs to be, without a ship to get him back... and his planet might not even be there anymore.
His headache sounds like it's mocking him as it pounds against his skull. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The woman works for quite a while longer, long enough for his hands to get warm again. The man doesn't let go of his hands even though he doesn't need it anymore, and he keeps checking to make sure the blanket is around his knees. Slowly but surely he starts to feel less dizzy. His vision clears out, his throat dry even with all the water they keep giving him, and he's still very tired... but he's wired to be awake.
How can he even fall asleep when he knows just how terrible everything is for his people right now?
The woman leans over to shine a light in his eyes. Only, she hesitates, mumbling, "Estoy bastante seguro de que es un extraterrestre. ¿Funciona este truco? ¿Tiene la misma biología que nosotros? Uf, esto me duele la cabeza..."
She notices him watching her, so she grins at him, trying to help him feel at ease. Her smile is sort of lopsided. It reminds him of...He doesn't want to think about it, but it comforts him just the same. Deciding that it must be fine, she checks his eyes with the light again. He feels better now, and she nods her head, okay with whatever she'd been worried about.
She helps him sit up, rubbing circles into his back and standing close with her arms out, as if she would catch him if he fell. She must work in healthcare, or have to have experience if she can work so well with this... he knows he'd be panicking about biology if he worked with someone from another planet and they got injured. Every now and then, the man would squeeze his shoulder silently, a far-off, worried look cast over his eyes, but now he's got a growing curiosity.
The woman must be the mother, and the older man the father. They're around the same age, probably older than his own father, and talked calmly to each other despite the confusion of the situation.
The younger man, Luis, is a gentle giant. He might look a little intimidating, but when he spoke, it's hushed as if afraid to scare him. Rachel set herself to work cleaning rags and other equipment, but her eyes would dart over to where he sat on the table every now and then. Veronica and Marco were talking in hushed whispers across the room in the corner, not knowing that he could hear them clearly.
Luis pulls a chair from the corner, where all their chairs were out of the way, and sets it next to the table. He sits down, leaning forward to get closer to him, his elbows on his knees.
Are they about to interrogate him?
He knows he's weak right now, maybe that's what their plan was. Offer him aid to gain his trust and then ask him some questions. He doesn't know if the Galra had gotten here yet... They could be waiting for him at any moment.
“Mi nombre es Luis. Luis. ¿Tú?” He points at himself, then him.
A name?
“...Lance.” He replies, his voice very small and coarse.
“Lance.” Luis affirms, pointing at him.
Lance nods, and points to himself. “Lance.” He then points to Luis. “Luis.”
“Si.” Luis smiles a little wider in relief.
Lance nods to the other boy in the room. “Marco?” Luis’ eyes widened, as does Marco’s, at the realization he knew their names. Luis nods as answer, and Lance sighs smally. He looks at the older girl, and she tenses expectantly. “Veronica?”
She nods too, her eyes locking with Luis’ in an attempt to gauge the situation. Lance turns to the other girl, who was attempting to hide behind a rag.
“Rachel?” He guesses.
“Si, Sí, ella es Rachel.” Luis clears his throat. Rachel scoots behind her mother to hide from him, and Lance looks away. He didn’t want to scare them, not more than they already were. Apparently they weren't even planning on interrogating him like he had thought they were, but just asking questions. That's not a very sound practice, because they have no idea if Lance is a nice guy. Well, he's not gonna attack them, but they don't know that for sure. They hadn't even tied his arms down.
“Lance, ¿Puedes entendernos?” Luis asks him, and Lance bites his bottom lip.
He couldn’t understand much besides the names- not yet, anyways. After a moment of silence, where Lance tries not to look around awkwardly and instead keep eye contact with Luis, Luis sighs in exasperation. It seemed to be the answer to his question because Luis nods to himself.
“¿De dónde es?” Luis asks something again.
The father squeezes Lance’s shoulder and interrupts. “Marco, ¿puedes sacarme el mapa de la pared de mi oficina?”
Marco stiffens, then throws his arm out lamely to gesture towards Lance. “Obviamente vino del espacio exterior, Papá. No hay forma de que sea humano.”
“Aún así, consíguelo.” The father insisted, and Marco slinks off somewhere inside the house, throwing a curious look at Lance over his shoulder.
“¿Crees que hay una posibilidad de que estemos equivocados?” Luis asks the father, who simply shrugs. "Vimos su barco, vino del cielo."
“Es una forma de confirmar nuestras sospechas con él, al menos.” The father says. "No vimos si era un barco. ¿Quizás sea del gobierno?"
Veronica clicks her tongue in disagreement.
Lance doesn’t miss how the hand on his shoulder starts to pat his back. Normally, he would insist he was fine, but the action was so comforting, he didn’t have to heart in him to move away. The action reminds him of Adalin, and that was what he really needed right now.
He's tough, always has had to be. But there's a difference between what he handled back home and what he was dealing with now. This was nothing like he's ever faced before.
He's lost.
Marco returns shortly, a large paper in his hands. He stops right in front of Lance and unrolls the paper for him to see on the table with a bit of a dramatic flourish. It's a map, and not one he recognizes. Two large landmasses on the left and right, then white land masses on the top and bottom, with scattered smaller ones around. And, bizarrely, the rest of the map is filled in with blue... indicating that most of their planet is water. His stomach sinks as he understands: he's never heard of a planet like this before.
“¿Vives en algún lugar aquí?” The father points to the map, his hand circling some areas, but Lance shakes his head.
His chest hurts, he realizes, as he stares at the map. It burns, even. The pain is aching, and his eyes sting hot.
He points upwards, not at the map.
Marco nods knowingly. “¿Ves, Papá? Te dije. Es un extraterrestre.”
Lance digs into his pocket, then. Luis and Marco flinch, worried Lance is about to pull out a weapon. Lance slows his movement pulls out the star map. This time, it's his turn to wince. The star map s busted, hanging on for dear life at that point. It's a hexagonal object with a screen at the top. It's waterlogged, the screen busted and flickering weakly. He still attempts to turn it on.
It takes a second, but the light on the side flickers on, thankfully. Lance doesn't relax though. He turns on the holo-map portion, and the image lights up in front of him with his current location.
Except, with the tiny little star map he has, it's barely enough to tell him anything. All it can tell him is nothing. It didn't have a name for the planet he was on, nor a population- nothing.
This was a planet off record. They likely haven't even heard of the Galra yet.
This is already the worst... But...
He enters the coordinates for his home. The map begins to zoom out, then shifts to the left to go towards his planet. Only, it keeps going.
And going.
And going...
-
They had let Lance into their lounge room, setting him up on a couch. The mother had insisted he sleep with multiple blankets and pillows- despite his protests, because he saw how small their house could be.
(She was having none of it. Lance had ended up accepting it because he was sure that she'd get upset otherwise).
She had also insisted she stay in the room with him, setting up a bed and sleeping on the opposite couch for the rest of the night. Lance guesses no one wanted to leave him by himself, because there is a round of people who check on them during the night.
The father, the most. He would bend down to check on Lance, who would pretend to sleep, and check his forehead with his calloused hands. He would then go and kiss his wife’s head, and leave the room. More surprising was that the second most frequented visitor was Rachel, the one who seemed the most on edge around him. She would enter quietly, and if she saw a pillow had fallen to the ground, or that a blanket was slightly moved, she would fix the bedding and retreat fast.
Lance hadn’t gotten much sleep, despite the headache he had begging him to do so. It was the guilt that kept him awake.
In the dark of their lounge room, Lance laid. In between when the people in the house came to check on them, Lance would cry.
He could still hear the screaming in the capitol square, his mind wrapped in it. He could still feel the burning sting of the shot when it hit his shoulder, he could still see Adalin's hand reaching out towards his from the platform.
He could still see his father grinning ear to ear like a madman from where he had stood, watching it happen with a terrifying gleam in his eyes. He could still see Adalin's back as he ran from Lance, to go help more people. When he left Lance with that ship, and told him to be careful.
He can see, and hear it all, and it's all just so much that he thinks his heart is going to fall right out of his chest.
All the people he let down... there's no telling how many people died tonight. There's no possible way Lance can contact them, there's nothing he can do to get off the planet right now.
He tries to drown out the voices in his head by putting the pillow over his ears, turning over on his side and staring out their screened in door that faced the body of water- the océano, Lance had learned that word from them- that they had fished him out of.
They had probably been sitting right there and saw his ship falling from the sky and landing in that dark. It would explain why they had come to his aide, but Lance doesn't know how long he was out there in the first place. How much time has passed since he left? A few varga like that, and there was no doubt that it would already be over.
So much can happen in a varga, and because they hadn't had time to prepare- a few quintants at most... Most people were probably dead. Or captured now.
He stared up at the moon that isn’t his, and he felt so small and pathetic.
-
The daytime came all too soon after he had finally fallen asleep. When he opened his eyes, he had found there was a gray light outside.
He's seen a few other planets before, and seen that they are close enough to the sun that they thrive on it, but he's never seen it so bright during the morning alone. On his planet, they were too far from the sun to see it other than as a fairly large star.
When the mother woke up shortly after he did, she came to check on him first before doing anything else. She had bent down to his level, adjusting the blankets to wrap around him tightly. When she kissed the top of his head, Lance hadn’t known how to feel about that. She was gone as quickly as she had come, and after a moment Lance could hear clinking noises coming from the kitchen.
He's never been coddled like this before, even with Adalin around. This family are... very casual about it, he has seen. It was their first instinct, to reach out like that. To hold someone, even a stranger. It makes him feel much safer around them than he'll admit. He could have gotten the opposite, with his luck.
Marco came to check on him next, standing over the couch with a blue cup in his hands. He looked right down at Lance, his head titled with curiosity. Lance stared back, trying to decide if Marco was planning to fight him or something. There's a certain intelligence in his eyes that Lance knows: Marco is sizing him up, trying to figure him out.
Instead of a fight, he hands Lance the cup he was holding and sits down on the couch next to Lance, at his feet. He grabbed some kind of remote and turned on the black box that sat above their bookcase. Again, casual, even though they're apprehensive about him. They're kind of...
Weird.
Lance had stared at the contents of the cup for a long minute while Marco watched the screen. A show is on, and it's odd to see a home that looks so... Not made for harsh winter. (He knew other planets had this sort of thing, but on his, this had never been allowed outside of plays. His father had always been strict with that sort of thing.)
The drink is an orange-yellow, and when Lance finally brings himself to taste it, he couldn’t decide if it's sweet or bitter. Still, though, it tastes... actually kind of good. He drank it in little sips, sitting up properly in order to observe everyone.
The next person to come and check on Lance was Luis. The man looked like he had gotten little to no sleep, and his hair was raised on one side in a bad case of bed head. Luis is the one that Lance had briefly thought was Adalin last night with his impaired vision. Now with more light and less dizziness, he can see where the mistake was made. They looked similar in the dark, especially with the long dark hair.
When he saw Lance was awake, he smiled greatly and patted his head like Lance was his little brother. He had then settled into the couch where his mother slept.
...Very weird.
He doesn't know anyone who would meet an alien this way and not be a little... what's the word... wary? His people are kind to the people they are loyal to, but war makes it hard to trust strangers. Especially strangers from off planet, who could be working for the Galra that had been encroaching on their planet for most of Lance's life.
Marco and Luis were watching the screen, so Lance tried to as well. He finds that he can’t understand a thing. Marco glances at him, a wide smirk crossing his lips. In some form of amusement, he points at the screen. “Eso es un televisor. Televisor.”
“Tele...visor.” Lance repeats softly.
“Si. TV.”
“TV?” He tilts his head at the televisor… TV, as if it will help him see it better. On the screen, a woman was speaking dramatically in their language.
“¡No! ¡No me puedes amar! Si lo hicieras, ¡seguramente no querrías quedarte!” The woman exclaimed loudly, throwing her arms around her shoulders to hold herself. “¡Estoy... embarazada!”
Apparently, what she had said caused for Luis and Marco to gasp.
Lance can’t help but feel a little left out of the conversation once again. He wanted to know what was going on too, but this language barrier would be a bit of a hassle for a minute. He needs to do something about that quick, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Someone flops onto the chair behind Lance, startling him as his focus had been on the TV. Veronica is now paying close attention to the tv as well.
“¿Embarazada? Pero ella estaba bebiendo vino el último episo-”
“¡Shh! ¡No puedo oírla!” Marco hisses, eyes glued to the screen.
Lance stares, trying to gain clues from body language. There was a bit of a pattern to their sentences, which makes learning their language all the much easier. Languages on other planets can get hard to learn when they were combo-words and based on feelings rather than definitions.
The woman and man on screen are arguing to each other, but over what, he can't tell. Eventually, the woman grabs the man by the collar after he speaks.
Lance waits in anticipation, leaning forward a bit to see better and hear as closely as he could, paying attention to the words.
"Si me amas de verdad, prometerás quedarte. Deja tu trabajo, viaja conmigo".
Veronica clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “No puede dejarlo, ¡se está haciendo Rico! Si fuera inteligente, sabría que casarse con eso es mucho mejor que casarse con Rico.”
Lance turns between her and the tv, lost. She's definitely criticizing something. Some of the words he recognizes from their speech, he hears more often than others. No, se, si, que, con, es-
“Oye, Mamá dice que el desayuno está listo.” Lance peeks over the couch to see Rachel. When she spots him she ducks behind the wall shyly, leaving the room as fast as she had entered. She's like a ghost.
“Tomaré el plato de Lance por él.” Veronica says, standing up to go into the other room. Lance perks up at the sound of his name.
Tomaré was a new word, but 'el' and 'de' were ones he's heard. He thinks Veronica might have used this sentence to mean she was grabbing something for Lance? He’d been smelling something cooking, so perhaps that room actually was a kitchen, like he thought last night.
Lance studies the tv with renewed interest. If he wants to communicate, he needs to learn.
Learning languages comes easy for him, but it still takes time. He guesses he’ll have to take less time if he doesn’t want to be out of the loop anymore.
By simply listening, he can start finding patterns in the way they speak to each other. Adalin told Lance before that it was a gift of their family to be able to do that, and that not many other planets could. But with this gift, Lance found it easier than others to detect changes in language, to be able to pick it up faster than others.
What he really needs is a dictionary or something like it, so he could use those words and start placing them in sentences.
"¿El niño de Rico? Pensé que odiabas a Rico?" The man on the screen accused the woman.
'Niño' seemed to be the way they referred to kids, but other times he had heard niña in reference to the daughters. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so hard to learn...
Lance was so enraptured in the TV, that when Veronica set a plate under his nose, he jerked his head back and almost slapped it away. The smell is divine, but he stares at the plate like it could bite him. He's been mocked one too many times by foods from other planets on visits...
The others stared in surprise for a few seconds as Lance takes the plate from her carefully. And then Marco spoke up, gesturing to Lance’s ears with an amused smile.
“¡Tus oídos se mueven! ¡Como un cachorro! Como un doggy!”
He uses his hands to mock the motion of Lance’s ears, and though it didn’t seem like he meant harm, Lance thinks he's being made fun of.
His ears must have moved in surprise. Lance feels his face flush, and he covers them with his hands in embarrassment- he's never really been embarrassed over something so silly before. Marco giggles, and Veronica fusses at Marco, who waves her off with an "Ahhhhh."
Lance studies their appearance again while he holds the plate. Marco tries to get Lance to eat by showing him how he's supposed to hold the food, still smiling like he's teasing Lance.
Their ears were different from his, which were on top of his head and moved around, and blended in with his hair. They had flesh ears... with little folds...? And now that there was so much light, Lance could see their dark eyes were, for most of the family, dark blue. The father's eyes had been dark brown, and so are Veronica's. There were also these little brown dots all over their tan skin, but Lance doesn't know how to mimic dots...
And the last difference between them: no fangs.
Veronica had got her own plate and sat back down by the time he had finished his observations. He takes a bite of the food he was given before he decides on anything. And immediately he has to stop himself from stuffing his face with it.
It was delicious and sweet, and nothing like the food he had been given on other planets before. Even on his planet, he didn't eat much that wasn't prepared in the field or in the capitol. He wasn't allowed to eat outside of those places, his trainer's orders.
So when Marco catches his eyes once again, Lance feels his face heat up. In his excitement, his ears had perked up, and Marco was not subtle about how it amused him.
Well that decides it.
Lance squeezes his eyes shut, and vigorously starts to shake his head. Focusing on thoughts of what they looked like, Lance feels his appearance started to change. When he opens his eyes to take another bite of food, he stops mid-bite at Marco's silly expression. His eyes bugged out of his head and his jaw on the floor.
Not that Lance blames him for being so shocked. He had changed his appearance to look more like them.
He hopes so, anyway. Glancing at the reflection in a flower pot on the little table in between the two couches, he sees that he succeeded.
He had made his eyes a darker shade of blue to match Marco's, and his ears are replaced with the fleshy ones they had. Again, he couldn't match the little dots because he can't change his skin tone, but he looked just like they did now.
He fit right in to their little family if someone were to glance at them, and Lance felt a little smug seeing the way Marco's face falls.
“¿¡Usted puede hacer eso!?” Marco blurted out as he sat up as if he sat on a tack.
He started inspecting Lance’s face curiously, touching the ears to see if they were real. Lance lets him mess his face around, but Veronica slaps Marco’s hand away once again like she had earlier. Marco scowls, telling her something more, as Lance takes a bite of the food.
In sweet victory, he watches Marco realize Lance’s ears no longer move with his emotions.
“Furtivo...” Marco points at him knowingly.
“Furtivo.” Lance repeats, then takes another bite of his food. He doesn't have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to assume what that one means. Sneaky. He gets that quite a lot.
“¿Supongo que le gusta?” Veronica stares at Lance as though she were studying him, pointing at the plate. Lance tilts his head, wondering if she’s talking to him, and Luis answers her.
“Parece que lo hace.” Luis snorts.
“Parece que lo hace.” Lance repeats, his eyes roaming back to the TV. He doesn’t need to see to know they were studying him, wanting to know more. But he's just as interested in them.
Most planets would have not been as nice as they've been so far, should Lance have crash landed there. Not many people want anything to do with people who've ran away from the Galra on their planet, which further leads Lance to conclude he's landed somewhere where they don't know the Empire.
“Lance,”
Lance returns his attention to Veronica, blinking expectantly at her. She leans forward in her chair, trying to find the words. When she does, she gestures vaguely to herself and the others. “Nuestro idioma es el español. Lengua española.” She emphasizes, pointing to everyone.
“Español?” Lance repeats quietly.
“Si."
Lance sits up a little straighter. Pointing to one of the books, he says, “Español... uno?” That does mean one, right?
Veronica is surprised by this, but stands up, her plate now forgotten. “Si, libro. Libro en español?”
“Libro en español?” Lance repeats. Book? Book in their language. Yes! Give him the book! “Si.”
Yes. I want a book! Give it to me please!
Marco is the one to grab a book from the shelf and passes it to Veronica. It has a shiny blue cover and a little man dancing on it. Veronica nods in agreement when she inspects it, then passes it to Lance. Marco starts grabbing more books from the shelves to hand to him.
My Party, Mi Fiesta, Zapata: Colors - Colores, Imagina were some of the ones that Veronica was stacking next to Lance. Then, the books started getting bigger, heavier, with each read. Lance does want to know why they have what appears to be baby books in a house where there have been no babies, but he doesn't ask just yet.
He just moves on to the bigger books, slowly gaining the knowledge he needed and picking up the patterns. When he had trouble with a certain word, Lance would look it up in the book titled "Diccionario".
Veronica and the other two seemed to sense he wanted to study and left him to it, but he could see them glance at him and his ever growing stack of books every now and then. When he wanted to read another, he would ask Marco to grab him one (Marco would grab two, every time, even though Lance just wanted one).
The other three watch the TV together even when it changed shows, every now and then starting up a conversation. Rachel at one point ended up next to Luis, keeping her distance from Lance, but was caught up on the situation.
The mother and father would check in every now and then, mostly the mother checking to see if Lance needed anything, and Lance insisting he was okay.
He's learned the phrase, "Cariño, ¿estás segura de que estás bien?" by heart. He figured out it meant Sweetheart, are you sure you're okay? after the second book.
Eventually, Lance had worked his way through the bottom of that bookshelf, through what he thinks is just educational books for kids 1-slightly younger than Lance himself.
The upper shelf was full of knick knacks rather than books, so Lance decided to just read the dictionary itself. By the time he had reached halfway, he was starting to pick up full sentences when they spoke.
“So,” Marco starts, ranting once more about the TV show. “Esmeralda convinces him that she wasn’t the killer, but then admits it to the police? How is that going to help her?”
“She probably plans on escaping,” Lance says, “She was smart enough to get rid of the evidence where the police wouldn’t be able to touch it.”
All eyes turn to him in a stunned silence. And then:
“Oh my god!”
“That was like, two full sentences.”
“How did you do that? You aren’t even done with that book!” Veronica jolts out of the chair in shock and looms over his shoulder to look at the dictionary.
“Is that some alien thing you can do?” Marco asks excitedly. “All we needed to do was give you some books?”
“...Yes.” Lance replies simply, shutting the dictionary with a snap and setting it on the table.
“That is so cool.” Marco whistles. “So you’re like, a super fast learner? What else can you do?”
There is an amount of things Lance can do- and though one reason is that he really doesn't want to list them out, the other is that it would freak them all out and possibly ruin this like, nice thing he has going where they aren't seeing him so much as a threat than someone who needs help.
So Lance just shrugs and tells him, "Not a lot." Like a liar.
Luis stands up from the couch with a grunt, looking down at Lance with a small frown. "This means that we can ask you questions properly this time, right?"
Questions and answers.
Lance felt really small compared to them, in this room. But he had felt small before, and he hadn’t let that stop him. They weren't the only ones with questions that needed to be answered.
Lance needs to know everything he can, as soon as possible. Including if there is a way off of this planet. If there is, he needs to get there as soon as possible. He can't waste even another second here like this. He needs to find Adalin and go home, so they can save everyone.
Lance stands up from the couch too. "Yes, let's do that now."
“Um...I’ll go get Mamá and Papá.” Luis says, and shuffles out of the room.
"So, like, what kind of alien are you?" Marco asks.
"Excuse me?" Lance stares at him, unamused.
"Marco, maybe you shouldn't ask questions. We don't know what could be offensive or not." Veronica reasons.
"I just wanna know if he's the probing kind or the murderey kind." Marco argues, pointing at Lance as though Lance were not a person, but an object not to be included in the conversation.
"What in the universe is a 'probing' alien?" Lance huffs.
"So you are the murderey kind."
"Well-" Lance hesitates. "I mean, I don't go around just, you know, killing people. It isn't fun."
"Wait, you've killed someone?" Veronica's face pales.
"I'm in the middle of a war." Lance crosses his arms. "My enemies do not stand long in my path. But I don't kill people for fun, or just to do it. So I'm not a murder... murderery alien- There's got to be a better word for that."
"I don't think there's a better word for being a murder alien." Marco climbs up from the couch and puts some distance between them. "If you're going to kill one of us, kill Veronica. She's bossy."
"I do not plan on murdering anyone." Lance sighs in frustration. "...Here."
"See, you know what, kid? You can't just say things like that."
What's going on?" Their Papa enters the room first, Luis and his mother not far behind. "Marco, you're not starting anything are you?"
"He just said he's murdered people," Marco defends himself. "Can't blame me for being a little nervous. And skeptical- are you sure you're killing anyone? You're like, eight and skinny like a twig."
"I am twelve moon cycles and I've been trained since birth- this is not even important, why are we talking about this?" Lance huffs.
"Marco has that effect on people." Veronica shrugs at him.
"Um, well-" Luis tries, but he falls short. "Papa?"
"Marco, I'm sure Lance isn't going to kill you, or any of us. Are you, Lance?" Their mamá grabs Marco's arm in hers and walks towards the other couch with him. She looks pointedly at Lance, and he wonders if the wrong answer here meant danger from her instead of the younger ones.
"N-No ma'am. That is not my intention." Lance stands tall. "I am Lance Cadderin, Prince of Planet Candosia. I don't kill civilians or people from other planets. That would be rude.”
"Hold your horses, kiddo," Luis holds up his hand to stop Lance. "You're a prince?"
"Why did you say it like that?" Lance asks.
"What?"
"You said it with a tone like why am I a prince, rather than being surprised about a prince. That implies something, what was it?" Lance raises a brow.
"No, no uh, nothing, you know, I just-" Luis stutters how, trying to find the words. "...you're just so young, you know. Didn't expect it."
“Are people not also born into royalty on your planet?”
“Well, they are, but like, you’re an alien.” Marco explains from his seat, eyeballing Lance. “So I guess we didn’t believe it for a second... but you got the air of pomp and circumstance, so I guess you're telling the truth. What do you do as a prince?”
“But that is not important right now?" Lance frowns at him. "Are we planning to discuss my validity as a prince or are we here to discuss the part where I'm on your planet?"
"Fair point." Marco shrugs. "But-"
“So why are you here?" Veronica asks now, interrupting Marco’s next comment. “Why Earth?”
Towers crashing, smoke in the air, people screaming and running away. His shoulder hurts, it's so dark here, is he really just supposed to leave? Adalin walking away from him, the world is spinning around, metal crashing and screeching, spinning, unable to stop, hitting the water-
“It was an accident.” Lance tries not to deflate in on himself as he explains. “I was sucked into a wormhole in the heat of battle and the other side led me here, to your planet.”
“Battle?” Their Papa grunts nervously. He sits down on the couch next to his wife, holding her hand.
Lance is the only one left standing, facing all of them. He wishes, selfishly, that Adalin was there with him instead of him being alone. Adalin could explain it better, they would not even doubt him.
“You mean to tell me there’s more life?”
So that means Lance was right, these people are untouched by the outside universe. But... if they've never met other planets, does that mean their ships aren't good enough to get Lance out of here?
How is he supposed to get home now, if they don't have the technology? His only way to get back to Candosia, maybe, has sunk deep into that ocean outside their house, and would be impossible to get now.
“The universe is endless." Lance says, now more aware of it than ever. He recalls just how small he felt when the star map just kept going, and going, and going last night. It had given up at some point, and that star-map no longer worked properly. "The known area reaches billions of lightyears, far beyond what you can imagine... It is also mostly conquered by the Galra.”
“The Galra?” Luis shakes his head. “Who is that?”
Lance stiffens in anger, dread... helplessness. If only he hadn't been so stupid, so naïve and childish. He should have let Adalin handle it, not him.
“They are destroyers of worlds, led by their Emperor, Zarkon.” The pit in Lance’s stomach grows more with white hot fury.
The tension in the room couldn’t be cut with a knife.