#I also have Pidge as Green Lantern in this au

[hi-there-buddies]

If you follow me, you know that I’m a crossover au person, like, I LOVE THEM lmao. One I was thinking about recently was a Voltron x DC crossover.

Of course I had Keith as Batman, and I was originally gonna have Allura as Wonder Woman and Lance as Superman. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the while Allura’s personality fit Diana’s, her actual backstory fit much better with Superman’s. This then, in turn, made me think of a crossover where LANCE is Wonder Woman, or well, Wonder Man, and Allura is Superman (Superwoman).

And now I’m obsessed with the idea of Lance as a stand in for Wonder Woman and how fun that would be to write. His backstory could be around the same as Diana’s, being the child of Hippolyta and Zeus, but instead of killing him or something adjacent, as Amazonians would do to their sons (in some of the DC stories), Queen Hippolyta decided to go against the rules and raise him, much to the chagrin of all the other Amazonians. This could then result in a myriad of problems that he would have to face. Or if you look at other DC stories that just say boys are never born of Amazonian mothers, then his backstory could be his mother was cursed by another God who was angry at Zeus to have a son, or whatever.

I just think it would be so fun to write about honestly. Might even draw something about it.

[sp4c3-0ddity]

Water Rescue: Part Two

i return with a sequel!! but first, please direct your attention to the plance mage-and-familiar AU initially envisioned by @rueitae here and here. read, reblog, and rejoice!!

and now that you’re (re)acquainted with the AU...here’s the second part of my take on Pidge’s and Lance’s meeting and [eventual] ‘bonding’, that’s also over twice as long (~8000 words) as the first part whoops. also heavily featuring the Holts and the other Paladins and i’m saving Allura and Coran for Part Three so fear not for them. i hope you enjoy magical shenanigans and cheesy worldbuilding!! <3

Read Part One

Edit:  there’s now a Part Three and an ao3 link

Pidge entered her hometown around sunset, right as mages specializing in fire started igniting the lamps that lined the streets. Shadows bent in odd shapes around the corners of buildings, but despite the time the roads didn’t empty, many people still going about their business.

The leftover tomatoes in a nearby grocer’s stall called to her, and from the words they spoke Pidge knew they grew too ripe. They sought the ground, to either sprout into vines and yield fruit of their own, or to decompose while their matter became a part of something else.

They reeked of the exhaustion that came before rot.

Pidge drifted towards them without thinking about it, already reaching into her money pouch for a few coins. “How much for all your tomatoes?” she asked the grocer.

He had his back to her when she spoke, so turned and regarded her with a frown. “What’re you going to do with all these tomatoes when they’re about to rot, girl?”

“Chop them into salad,” Pidge said, shrugging.

(She might as well save a few to give to her mother.)

The man stared at her, then shrugged and said, “If you take all of them off my hands, you can take them at half price.”

Pidge grinned, though after the grocer finished unloading his stall and left, she realized she had three heavy wooden crates of soft tomatoes and only two thin arms with which to carry them. She sighed and sat on top of a crate, her limbs heavy after traveling and her feet sore.

She tapped her fingertips against the wood, considering that it was unlikely crates of overripe tomatoes would be stolen if she left them unaccompanied. But before she could rush home to retrieve her brother to help her, a sudden and familiar voice startled her.

“I didn’t know you were coming to town, Pidge.”

She stood, wincing when her boot rubbed a blister on her ankle, and faced the perfect person for the task she needed done. “Hunk,” she said, smiling at him and offering a wave. “How’s everything at the shop?”

Hunk scratched at a stubbly chin. “Same as usual,” he said. “Shiro’s on a voyage now, so I have Keith staying with me.”

“That’s great,” Pidge said. “I haven’t seen him in a while either.” She propped her elbow on the topmost crate, leaning against them. “I’m here visiting my family, so—”

“Need help with those?” Hunk nodded towards the crates, then frowned. “You came on foot?”

“I’d rather walk than ride,” she admitted, wiggling her toes in her worn boots. And maybe fly too…

She shook the errant thought from her head, then said, “I can carry one.”

“I’ll get the other two,” Hunk said.

Pidge blinked at him, surprised. “Really? Two isn’t too heavy?”

Hunk smiled. “Pidge,” he said, “I’m a bear.”

Pidge bit her lip and sheepishly muttered, “Right…” She stepped away from the crates and lifted the top one, staggering backwards a few steps under its weight.

“Impressive,” Hunk said…as he bent down and picked up both of the other crates as if they weighed as much as the air that surrounded them.

Pidge scowled at him, already feeling the crate start sliding from her fingers, but led the way to her house.

At least for the first few seconds of the walk. Hunk’s longer stride quickly overtook hers, as comfortably as he carried two tomato-filled crates. He easily probed her with questions - about how she was doing by the lake, about any experiments of hers on the flora, about what the village was like and if she had plans for midsummer - while she struggled to answer, the single crate in her arms proving more burdensome than she’d hoped.

By the time they arrived at her family’s house - the very dwelling she grew up in - Pidge’s arms and legs trembled with the effort. The crate slipped out of her fingers, and she sucked in a grateful breath right as the door flew open.

“So you finally decided to grace us with your presence again, Pidge?”

Pidge rolled her eyes, but a smile pushed at her cheeks as she rushed up the walkway and threw herself at Matt.

He caught her against him, and then with her feet dangling spun her in a circle while she laughed. She felt light and warm, like a little girl she was just a short time ago all over again.

Matt set her down after a few circuits, so Pidge asked, “What’s keeping you from leaving?”

Apparently the lightness in her head affected her ability to speak tactfully.

Her brother’s smile faltered, but while Pidge held her breath and waited for an answer in the form of a reprimand, he glanced past her and called out, “Oh, you’re here for a visit too, Hunk?”

She exhaled in relief and turned to follow Matt’s gaze.

Hunk still stood at the end of the walkway beside the crate she’d dropped, the other two balanced on top of it. His hand was raised in greeting, and the light spilling out of the open doorway glinted oddly against his brown eyes. “I mean, I did just carry two crates full of tomatoes for Pidge, so I wouldn’t say no to at least a meal.” He grinned at Pidge.

She rolled her eyes and gestured for him to follow her up the walkway. “As long as you don’t expect me to do any cooking after traveling and doing heavy-lifting,” she said.

Matt turned to head back into the house - perhaps to warn their mother of the extra guest - but then he paused and looked over his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at her and asked, “Tomatoes?”

Pidge laughed and, suddenly feeling sheepish about her impulsive purchase, tugged at a loose thread on the end of her coat. “Overripe too,” she admitted.

Matt crossed his arms, then chuckled and observed, “Guess living so far away hasn’t changed you at all.”

As predicted, Pidge’s mother found a use for a whole crate of the tomatoes. Between sauces and preserves, she didn’t doubt that her father and brother would grow sick of the fruit within the next few days.

The other two crates were Pidge’s to play with, and after supper she invaded - with permission - her mother’s garden and set to work.

This late in the growing season most of the plants wilted, their leaves yellowed and brown. The ones that survived winters withdrew for hibernation, their life essence already buried so deep into their core that Pidge couldn’t detect it unless she focused. 

A weaker mage than she would think most of the garden dead, but without reaching out to the life hidden away, Pidge could still be fooled into thinking the same.

But when she closed her eyes, she sensed the roots still breathing and feeding under the soil, different systems intertwined and sharing nutrients. They all spoke to each other in their own simple language, one Pidge was only just beginning to understand.

In the city, it was weaker and quieter, and beyond her family there was no warm embrace of life to greet her despite the crowds. It was why she left to cultivate her craft, and why she was willing to endure one kind of loneliness to avoid another.

Besides, as she constantly reminded her parents and brother, she couldn’t write to the network of life that thrived without humanity like she could to them.

Pidge dug shallow scoops into the earth, placing a single sliced tomato in each one. Either a plant would sprout and bear fruit to feed her family or the fruit would decompose and feed the rest of the garden.

She worked silently and by the light of a lantern hanging from a nail driven into the back wall of the house. Candlelight also spilled from the window of the attached potions shop her parents owned, her father there filling orders he didn’t get around to during the day.

Pidge had offered to help when he stood up after dinner, unable to help noticing that his limp grew more pronounced every time she visited, but he’d smiled, patting her shoulder, and told her to relax and enjoy her tomatoes.

Her father retired comfortably from the military after a magic mishap when Pidge was still a small child, so the potions he and her mother mixed and sold served as more of a hobby than a livelihood thanks to the income the crown provided him for his service. But their lifestyle kept them busy, and if they hadn’t been able to spare her support here, Pidge would’ve been stuck in the city, the cultivation of her abilities be damned.

Pidge hissed at a sudden, sharp pain in her hand. She shook herself from the reverie she’d slipped into while planting and frowned at the blood oozing from a cut and staining the knife she was using the slice the tomatoes. She sighed, dropping that tomato before standing and retreating into her family’s home.

Matt and Hunk stood chatting by the lit hearth while her mother sat at the desk in the corner, shop accounts lying open while she updated them.

Pidge approached the hearth, and her eyebrows shot up at the sight of Hunk taking a bite right out of a tomato. The watery juice dribbled down his chin and soaked into his stubble, and she couldn’t help narrowing her eyes at him in mild disgust.

Hunk must’ve noticed, for he smirked at her and said, “I’m hungry.”

“We just ate dinner,” Pidge pointed out.

“That was an hour ago,” Matt mentioned pragmatically.

“Bears also eat a lot,” Hunk added.

“But that’s a tomato!” Pidge argued, gesturing towards Hunk and eying her brother hoping he’d support her. “He’s eating it like it’s an apple!”

“So?” Hunk said, rolling his eyes. “Also, Pidge, a tomato is a kind of berry, and I like berries. Besides, you’re a green mage, so shouldn’t you know this?”

Pidge rubbed her face, wincing at the sting in her hand and the realization that she’d just smeared blood on her cheek. She grimaced, staring at the smudge on her palm, but before she could do anything about it Matt grabbed her hand and brought it close to his eyes.

“What happened, Pidge?” he asked.

“I just cut myself,” she said, sighing. Exhaustion then hit her in a wave, threatening to drag her limbs down. It was almost too much effort to stand, so she collapsed into a chair and grumbled, “I still have so many tomatoes to plant.”

She heard the scraping of another chair’s legs against the wooden floor, and then her mother took her hand and wiped the blood away with a clean rag. “In the morning we can take you to a healer,” she promised. “Matt, get me a jug of water to wash it.”

“Mother, it’s just a shallow cut,” Pidge said, but she didn’t try tugging her hand away.

“And if you keep working in the garden it’ll get infected,” her mother chided with an arch of her brow.

Pidge was spared having to reply by Matt’s return. He cradled a ceramic jug of water in his hands and set it on the floor beside Colleen, who dipped her rag into the water and wrung it out before cleaning the cut on Pidge’s hand.

“Do you know any healing magic, Hunk?” Colleen wondered as Matt passed her a strip of white cloth.

Pidge winced as her mother tied the bandage securely between her thumb and forefinger and around her palm. It tugged uncomfortably at her skin and stuck to the cut, and a few drops of blood soaked into the fabric as she watched.

“I don’t, Madame Holt,” Hunk admitted with a sheepish smile. “A friend of mine does, but he doesn’t live in the city.”

“Allura knows healing magic,” Pidge said, wiggling her fingers. “She could’ve fixed this easily, but I at least know what to put in a poultice to fight infection.” She smirked at Matt, but he crossed his arms, looking unamused.

“Then you’ll have to heal the traditional way,” Colleen said with a sigh.

“It’s just a cut, Mother,” Pidge repeated, shoving down her impatience. “It’ll be healed by the time I leave the city again.”

Her mother frowned at her, then rolled her eyes and stood up. She rounded on Hunk and said, “Do you want to take any tomatoes with you when you leave?”

Hunk stared at her, slow to blink in his surprise that Colleen was almost eager to get rid of him. “Sure,” he said with a hint of caution. “Sometimes the ripe ones have worms—”

Pidge gaped at him, but he ignored her.

“—and I can take some to share with Keith and Shiro.”

“I thought you said Shiro’s on a voyage,” Pidge said.

“He’s due back tomorrow,” Hunk told her. Then his eyes lit up and he grinned at her. “You want to come by the shop in the morning? I’m sure Shiro would love to see you too when I go to port to meet him.”

Pidge smiled and agreed, “I’d love to! I’ll come by in the morning after breakfast.”

“Great,” Hunk said. “I’ll warn Keith, and maybe prepare a pastry for you to bring back.” He turned his glowing smile to Colleen, who didn’t even bother to disguise her impatience.

“That would be lovely, Hunk,” Colleen managed to say pleasantly, right before escorting him to the front door.

Pidge’s heart pounded, and she stared at her bandaged hand with wide eyes, wondering what sort of trouble she got herself into. Experienced adult mage or not, her family still insisted on treating her like a child when she returned home.

Pidge glanced at Matt, who smiled at her. When she glared at him, he raised his hands defensively and said, “They probably just want to talk to you without anyone else here.”

She heard laughter from the direction of the front door as her father returned and bid his own farewells to Hunk, but the obvious warmth exchanged did nothing to put her at ease.

When her mother returned with her father in tow, they settled into chairs across from her. Pidge hunched her shoulders under their scrutiny, feeling very much like a prisoner about to face interrogation.

“Why don’t you move back home, Katie?” Sam wondered.

There it is. “Do you need more help in the shop?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at them.

“No, we’re fine,” he told her. “We’re just getting worried.”

Pidge held her hand up and scowled. “If this is about the cut, I’m not usually that careless.”

“U-usually?” Colleen stuttered, her eyes widening.

Pidge’s cheeks flushed, but she kept her irritation in check. “I meant that I’m careful, Mother,” she said, then muttered under her breath, “Even when I’m cutting fruits and vegetables…”

“We’re just worried that you live alone in the middle of nowhere—”

“There’s a village a few leagues away,” Pidge pointed out, crossing her arms. “It takes only a couple hours to walk there.”

“And what happens when you’re hurt worse than ‘just’ a cut?” Sam inquired.

“Why would that even happen?” Pidge threw her hands up, frustration making her tone shriller. “I don’t do anything more dangerous than fish in the lake when I want something richer than beans to eat! And I’ve only fallen in once!”

That proved to be the wrong thing to say.

“You fell into the lake?” her mother nearly shouted, shooting to her feet.

Pidge raised her hands defensively. “And obviously I made it back out!” she retorted. “Luckily someone else was there and—” She cut herself off when she realized her defense only proved her parents’ point, but the damage was already done.

“This is why you shouldn’t live alone,” Sam said mildly.

Colleen sat back down with a heavy sigh. “And what if there’s an intruder, Katie?”

“You said it yourself, Mother,” Pidge interrupted. “I live in the middle of nowhere. Who will want to break into my cottage? And for what? More plants than they can carry?” She breathed heavily, anger not quite spent, but pinched her eyes shut.

The evening started so well too, between the tomatoes and encountering Hunk and coming home…

Now all she wanted was to go to bed, to sleep away her travel exhaustion and escape to Shiro’s and Hunk’s shop in the morning before this argument could be repeated for the umpteenth time.

“Don’t you get lonely, Pidge?”

She exhaled slowly, bringing her breathing back under her control, and turned her head to look at Matt. “I’m fine,” she grumbled. “I have friends in the village.”

“And all you have at your cottage is your plants,” Matt said with a wry smile. “And how often do you see those friends anyway?”

Pidge bit her lip and struggled to remember the last time she saw Allura and Coran. Sometime during the summer, she thought, when they came by her cottage to pick up a few orders from her.

“You have conversations with your plants?” Matt asked, tone almost teasing.

“Sometimes,” Pidge admitted, ducking her head. “I keep a journal.”

“When was the last time you had someone other than your rare villager friends over for dinner?”

Pidge pressed her lips together, fighting a smile that seemed out of place in this situation. Warmth filled her chest at a memory, at odds with the sinking of her heart since it had yet to repeat.

Matt smiled at her knowingly. “Maybe you should think about bonding a familiar,” he suggested.

Pidge’s eyes widened. “What?”

He shrugged. “Isn’t it a pretty common practice with mages as strong as you?” He nodded towards the door. “Isn’t Hunk Shiro’s familiar?”

“Yes…” Pidge curled her hands into fists in her lap. “But I don’t know if I could trust someone like that.”

She didn’t make friends easily, the ones she did have made entirely by accident. Nature’s energy distracted her too much to properly bond with most other human beings, let alone with a powerful magical creature that would ever consent to becoming her familiar. To share and augment strength, to forge a bond so strong that only death could break it…and break her.

Pidge swallowed, suddenly conscious of how sweaty her palm was underneath the bandage. The very thought of trusting someone - with her power, her strength, her very thoughts and emotions - so firmly, so absolutely, that she’d connect herself to them with ties more powerful and enduring than marriage made her stomach churn.

Lore says dragons make strong and loyal familiars…

She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought before she could follow it too far, then blinked when she recognized Matt had just asked her something.

“What?”

He rolled his eyes and wondered, “So who was the last person you had dinner with that wasn’t from the village?”

Pidge cleared her throat, conscious that even her parents leaned towards her, attentive to her answer. “The, uh, person that saved me from drowning in the lake.”

“What were they doing in the middle of nowhere?” Matt asked.

Pidge laughed. “Swimming in freshwater for the first time.”

Matt quirked a confused eyebrow at her, but before he could follow up with another question, a yawn split Pidge’s face. She covered her mouth with her uninjured hand and rubbed her drooping eyes.

“You’ve had a long day of travel,” Sam said after exchanging a quick glance with Colleen. “You should go to bed, Katie, and we’ll talk about this more while you’re still here.”

Pidge stood. “Looking forward to it,” she said, then escaped to her childhood bedroom before her mother could reprimand her for inappropriate sarcasm.

The room was bigger than she remembered, though that could just be because the bedroom in her cottage was barely wide enough for a bed and a small chest of drawers storing her clothes and more personal effects. And it looked much the same as she’d left it, with the same quilt - one she’d “helped” her mother stitch together - spread over the bed and the same painted ceramic pots arranged underneath the curtained window.

Now they sat empty even of soil rather than full of the life she’d once nurtured in them. She knelt in front of them and picked up the smallest one, colored an eggshell green with her name - “Katie” - painted in white. She’d planted the most experimental samples in this one, flora she’d been uncertain would take to the soil or the city’s climate even with her magic enticing it to grow. The ones that succeeded she’d either transplanted into a bigger pot for further observation or in her mother’s garden if she was confident they’d thrive.

They almost always failed if they made it to the garden, missing something that Pidge couldn’t give them no matter how hard she tried.

Pidge set the pot down, bleakly thinking that her craft would be reduced back to these small pots and the back garden if she let her parents have their way.

But if I found someone to bond as a familiar…

Pidge refused to get her hopes up, but as she washed and dressed for bed, she couldn’t help imagining expanding her family to include someone else, and someone she wouldn’t have to leave behind when she finally, inevitably left the city again.

The fantasy lingered when Pidge closed her eyes, and she dreamed of blue scales and a warm smile.

A bell rang in greeting when Pidge pushed the shop’s door open, but no one stood behind the display case. She crossed her arms, tapping her foot before pacing and wondering if Hunk always left his wares unaccompanied like this.

Crystals and gems, perfectly cut for specific purposes, lay inside the glass cases. Some of the crystals glowed, infused with magic and ready to power anything from a clock to a lantern or for a mage to draw upon them for strength, but others were dun without an external light source to make them glitter. They were all pretty, but the dun ones only served an aesthetic function.

Ironically, the jewelry from here was the less expensive ware.

“Hunk!” Pidge called, growing impatient despite the blue Balmeran crystal that sparkled inside its own case.

“Coming!” she heard him reply from a back room.

Pidge sighed and leaned against the wall. She idly reached out, first towards the magic trapped in the crystals and gemstones - magic with a flexible purpose, unlike that which existed in everything else, harder to find and capture but easier to control - then towards the dried herbs and late harvest fruit stored in Hunk’s kitchen. 

Are those…mangoes? Surprised at the presence of the high-value fruit, Pidge wondered if it would be too forward to ask Hunk if she could have one, perhaps to plant the pit and see if it would take to the soil at her cottage and submit to her care.

Footsteps startled her into standing upright, and her eyes flew open and landed on Keith behind the counter.

His eyes gleamed, reflecting the light emitted by the crystals, as he raised an eyebrow at her. “Since when are you awake this early, Pidge?” 

Pidge rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face as she approached him. She flung her arms around his neck - though it required nearly jumping onto the counter separating them - and retorted, “Maybe I was just that eager to see you.”

Keith’s arms hesitantly returned her embrace, and as he patted her back he said, “Maybe, but it’s less than an hour after sunrise.” 

Pidge pulled away from him, once more standing on the other side of the counter as she straightened her crooked coat. “I’m trying to make the most of what little time I’m here,” she lied…though it wasn’t entirely untruthful.

Oh, she was definitely happy to be visiting Hunk, Keith, and Shiro along with her family - the unpleasantness of the previous night’s argument aside - but she wished she could escape her usual sleeping habits as easily as that. Instead, it took a bizarre, obscure dream that she’d already forgotten to jolt her awake around sunrise and keep her from falling back into sleep. 

Pidge couldn’t tell if the pit of dread sitting in her stomach had anything to do with it either.

“Aren’t you worried someone will steal everything?” she asked Keith, changing the subject as she glanced around the shop.

“Hunk and I set wards,” he replied with a shrug.

Pidge crossed her arms and smirked. “Oh? Real wards, or does Hunk just set a pie out on the porch to make sure any thieves find that first?”

“Like I’d waste a good pie on thieves.” Hunk himself entered the front room from behind Keith, smiling in greeting and with his face freshly shaved. “What brings you by so early, Pidge?”

She sighed. “Not you too.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “What? I wasn’t expecting you until at least midmorning, so I put off cooking breakfast.”

She leaned against the counter and grinned at her friends. “When is Shiro’s ship due?”

“Around noon,” Keith told her, offering a small smile of his own.

“Assuming the weather’s in his favor,” Hunk pointed out.

Keith snorted, his smile morphing into a smirk. “With Shiro, the weather is always in his favor.”

Pidge laughed and in the next few hours began to feel more at ease than she had since arriving in her hometown, but when Keith and Hunk started muttering to themselves, she grew annoyed. “What secrets are you telling without me?”

Keith rolled his eyes - at Hunk rather than at her, she thought - and said, “I have an experiment.”

Pidge blinked in surprise - she’d never taken Keith for the scientific sort - but leaned towards him eagerly. “What?”

Hunk, for his part, crossed his arms and frowned in disapproval. “I told you not to bring that thing here.”

“I needed your expertise with crystals,” Keith retorted. He then nodded at the backroom and told Pidge, “Follow me.”

Pidge did, glancing between Keith and Hunk and wondering what could have the latter so ill at ease that he’d refuse to tag along.

Inside the backroom, where work benches and storage cabinets lined the walls, uncut crystals and tools awaiting Hunk’s attention, Keith led Pidge to a display case in one corner. And at the sight of what lay within, her heart jumped into her throat. 

“Keith,” she said as she approached it and resisted the urge to press her nose to the glass, “is this a corrupted crystal?”

“It is,” Keith said with a sigh. “Hunk doesn’t like it here, even when I told him that I’m trying to heal it.”

Pidge stared at the violet crystal, saturated and pulsing with a dark light that shouldn’t exist in nature. And where she could sense the energy tucked away into healthy blue crystals, this one felt…different.

No, it didn’t feel. It stole feeling, a pocket of emptiness contained inside a small glass box, and if she so much as quested towards it, her mind brushed against an eerie, alien nothingness that extended needy hands seeking something - anything - to fill it.

Pidge recoiled, even taking a step back, and despite her curiosity she understood Hunk’s unease. “I thought they were impossible to heal,” she told Keith.

“Supposedly,” Keith said. He crossed his arms, hunching his shoulders and glaring at the crystal like it personally offended him - and for all Pidge knew, it had. “But if Balmeran crystals can be corrupted, then there has to be a way to reverse it.”

Pidge smiled; she could easily admire and empathize with resolve like that. “Well, if Hunk eventually kicks you and the crystal out, you can bring it to my cottage. I love a good, risky experiment.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at her, as if unsure if she was being serious, but when she continued to smile at him, he laughed. “I might take you up on that some day, but for now, let’s go meet Shiro.”

Pidge’s breath caught in her throat the instant her eyes fell on the bay. 

Sunlight reflected off the crystalline water, ships gliding along its surface with sails full of the warm breeze blowing in from the south, and the road emerging from the city’s center leading down to port afforded them a perfect view of both water and the wide expanse of cloudless sky. It was almost enough to fool Pidge into thinking it was still summer, and it was almost enough to captivate her. But the familiar sight of the bay wasn’t what froze her in her tracks.

Glittering blue scales captured Pidge’s attention when a slender creature shot up from the waves. When its translucent wings spread, catching the wind and carrying it over the water, alarmed and awed shouts rose from the crowded port and the ships.

“Where did that dragon come from?” Keith asked, posture tensed for fight or flight.

Hunk, on the other hand, merely rolled his eyes. “It’s just Lance,” he said.

Pidge snapped her eyes onto him and demanded, “You know him too?”

Hunk frowned at her. “What do you mean too?”

Her cheeks flushed for some bizarre reason, but before she could formulate an explanation, Keith interjected, “Let’s go! I think I see Shiro’s ship.”

Keith grabbed Pidge’s wrist in one hand and Hunk’s in the other, dragging them down the path and into the crowds that always infected port. But with a dragon sighting, it seemed worse than usual as everyone from merchants to passengers to crew members pressed towards the docks.

“Showoff,” Pidge scoffed, but she couldn’t help enjoying the sight of a dragon at play in the bay, wings and feet and snout all sending up streams of water and shreds of kelp. She even spotted crew aboard the ships not yet at port pointing at the dragon, as fascinated as those without a job to do.

Keith’s sharp fingernails digging into her skin pulled her back to earth, and after a quick glance at him to take in his horrified face, she followed his gaze.

Smoke rose from the sails of a ship still halfway out of the bay.

“Oh, shit,” Hunk cursed, tensing. “That’s Shiro’s ship!”

“Can you hear him?” Keith wondered. He held his hands out in front of him, poised to cast a spell - though from this distance it would prove ineffectual.

“There was a mutiny,” Hunk explained, his eyes narrowed and shoulders tense. “When the crew was distracted by the dragon, someone took the captain hostage and now a fight’s broken out on deck over the ship and the merchandise.”

“No,” Keith breathed. “We need to get out there and help.”

“How?” Hunk said. “More combatants will just make it w—” He cut himself off, his eyes wide as licks of orange flame chased darker plumes of smoke into the sky. “There’s a fire mage aboard,” he said, voice low and fearful.

“Then I can help if I’m there, Hunk!” Keith argued. “We’ll commandeer a rowboat—”

“You don’t know the first thing about boats,” Hunk pointed out.

“I’ll dive into the bay and swim out to the ship if I have to!” Keith stepped towards the nearest dock as if to do just that, but Hunk pulled him back by the arm.

“Shiro will be fine,” Hunk insisted with a pointed glare, “and he wants us to stay back. He has the power I can give him through the bond, and then…”

The blood rushing past Pidge’s ears blocked out the rest of the argument as she searched for something - anything - to do. And where once the dragon had attracted the attention of everyone in port, they started to yell and retreat as far as possible from the flaming ship bearing down on them.

A wide stream of water shot out of the bay and engulfed the ship.

Pidge held her breath, leaning forward to watch the dragon poke its head out of the waves and exhale a mist onto the ship. Smoke dispersed, flames snuffing out like they burned on a dragon-sized candle, and for a second Pidge thought the crisis was averted.

A great creak - a moan, a roar - traveled over the water, harsh on her ears and enough to send a shudder up her spine. And Pidge could only look on as the ship’s wood splintered, rending the whole vessel into two pieces that were quickly taking on water.

The ship would sink before it could reach port.

“Send out lifeboats!” Keith had resorted to shouting, likely hoping to catch the eye of the port’s security force.

But as Pidge watched the waves churn in a strange, unnatural pattern under the ship, under the influence of the lurking dragon, her mind quested out, touching the world beneath the surface of the bay.

A whole world teeming with life and energy lay just out of sight, far more than the city itself held even in midsummer. It whispered of sunken ships and drowned sailors, lost before the port flourished, but it spoke even louder of growth and strength and mending.

Pidge could feel the kelp forest, could sense its potential just as easily as she could see that the dragon’s efforts at holding the ship together would fail. It would take more than the water’s cooperation to rescue the ship, but perhaps between the two of them…

With her heart pounding, Pidge pinched her eyes closed and reached for the dead wood that formed the ship. Not even a single breath of life escaped it, but she could still sense its essence and the purpose it served - just like she knew the groaning of the planks were a symbol of mourning at their failure. But like energy fed like energy, and as she channeled all her strength into persuading the kelp - and thank the ancients kelp grew so fast compared to true plants - the lingering purpose within the ship drew the kelp towards it, begging for its help.

Kelp climbed the sides of the ship and wove around it, pulling the drifting pieces and securing them together. Pidge just barely heard the yells of the crew and mutineers, as if through the roaring of a waterfall, most of her focus and energy devoted on a single task.

A bead of sweat dripped down her face, and she was distantly aware of the familiar ache that came with drawing upon too much power at once. But if she let go of the kelp, let it fall back into the bay before the ship could limp back to shore, the vessel would sink while its crew awaited the slower rescue the port’s officials would send.

Waves enchanted by the dragon spurred the ship on faster than even a wind summoned by Shiro could. And where the spellbound water overlapped with the kelp under Pidge’s influence, a surge of energy hit her, rejuvenated her.

Like this, working with the dragon - working with Lance - more power lay at her fingertips than ever.

When the ship finally docked - when the city guard finally boarded it and arrested the would-be mutineers and the rest of the crew disembarked - Pidge withdrew her influence from the winding kelp, gasping at the severing of the connection, far too sudden to be comfortable - and harsher than she’d ever felt. Her chest ached, strangely bereft, as much as her body did, and it took all her willpower to stay on her feet.

But her head spun with dizziness, swaying so violently that Hunk had to tug her away from the edge of the dock before she could tumble into the bay.

“Pidge?” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her eyes and startling her into something resembling alertness.

She rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn before trying to look past him. She squinted at the water, mind sluggish to comprehend what was different. “W-where’s Lance?” she muttered.

“Lance?” Hunk blinked at her, surprised, then glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Looks like he disappeared, and if he used as much energy as you just did”—he spun back around to face her—”he’s probably gone to get some rest somewhere.”

“Right.” Her heart sunk into her stomach, heavy with disappointment, and she stared at the planks of wood beneath her feet. “I-I wanted to talk to him before he left. I k-kind of missed him.”

Pidge barely knew what she was saying, too weary to even care what she confessed to.

Hunk crossed his arms. “Well, thanks to you and Lance, Shiro’s ship made it safely.”

Pidge nodded; it would take too much effort to acknowledge him in any other way.

“Daring rescue like that, the ship’s captain will probably want to thank you personally.” Then Hunk grinned and patted her shoulder before his gaze drifted to something behind her.. “Oh, and here’s Shiro now.”

Pidge turned, and the sight of Shiro safe and on land - or near enough - uplifted her enough that she mustered a smile. She gladly threw herself at him, pressing her face against his chest while he slowly returned her hug, his enchanted right hand rubbing her back.

“Thank you, Pidge,” he said.

“It was nothing,” Pidge said. She stepped away from him, though not too far since her knees buckled without the support of someone else’s arm.

Shiro raised an eyebrow at her. “You overextended yourself, didn’t you?”

Pidge grinned. “It was worth it,” she said, “and it wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

No, if not for Lance’s power overlaying her own, she probably would’ve passed out long before the ship could make port.

The thought alone was exhilarating and enough to make her heart pound in anticipation.

I can’t wait to work with him again, she thought, unable to help the goofy, excited smile that split her face.

A heartbeat later, black spots crowded her vision, and Pidge lost all sense of time and direction when she finally passed out, sinking into sleep before anyone could even catch her.

Pidge mentally reached out to the nearest plant life on reflex as she slowly drifting back into wakefulness, but when it took too long to touch the dormant flora in the garden, she remembered where she was.

She cracked her eyes, shielding them and wincing when the piercing light of sunset hit her through the window. Groaning, she rolled onto her side, thinking she might prefer the view of her bedroom door over a blinding light when her body still ached and her mind was still slow.

A familiar figure stood just inside the doorway, face shadowed until they stepped closer.

Pidge’s heart skipped a beat, her eyes shooting wide open as she slowly sat up, far more alert than she’d planned to be. “Lance?” she said. “What’re you doing in my room?”

Lance smiled at her, the sparse scales scattered over his cheeks shining just as prettily as she remembered. He approached and perched on the edge of her bed, then said, “I wanted to be here when you woke up.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow at him, surprised and…elated. “Oh,” she said. She pinched her lip between her teeth, fighting a smile. “I…thank you.” Then she really allowed herself a good look at him. “Are those the clothes I loaned you?”

Lance plucked at the collar of the wool shirt with a laugh and admitted, “They are, and I think your brother recognized them.” He frowned at her. “You loaned me your brother’s hand-me-downs? I’m so disappointed in you, Pidge.”

Pidge snorted. “I’m sorry I held out on you,” she retorted, tone dripping irony.

“Good,” Lance said. “You should be.”

“Oh, yes, very.” Pidge rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful when perusing my vast collection of men’s clothing.”

“It’s all right, Pidge,” Lance said with a warm chuckle. “I accept your apology.”

Pidge smiled, but when silence descended, she toyed with the frayed end of the bandage still wrapped around her hand, seeking for something - anything - to say. She wasn’t sure what stopped her from bringing up their rescue of Shiro’s ship, but—

Lance’s hand wrapping around hers halted her thoughts in their tracks. She stared up at him in surprise when he brought her hand up closer to his face, reaching with the other to unwrap the bandage.

After examining her palm, he clicked his tongue in disapproval. “What did you do?” he wondered.

“Cut myself slicing tomatoes,” Pidge admitted.

“Oh.” Lance smirked. “I was expecting something a little more dramatic.”

She frowned at him, then suggested, “Like fighting pirates?”

“Or maybe dragon hunters.” Lance shuddered, his gaze briefly flicking up to her face before returning to her hand. “Those are the worst.”

“I’ll remember that next time I need a story behind a mundane injury,” Pidge said.

Lance nodded, most of his attention still on her palm. His fingers were warm cradling her hand, surprising her - but then again, he’d told her he was a warmblooded dragon.

“I’m still practicing this,” Lance said.

“Practicing what?”

Rather than replying, Lance slowly dragged a fingertip along the cut, warmth seeping into her skin along its path. Right before Pidge’s eyes, her skin stitched together until it scabbed over, and the brown of the scab faded into pink before nothing remained of the wound.

Pidge exhaled. “I didn’t know you knew healing magic,” she confessed softly.

“Comes with the water talent,” Lance said, shrugging. He smiled sheepishly, far more modest than she expected, and gently set her hand on her blanket.

Pidge didn’t know why she missed the heat of his hand, why she so badly wanted him to take her hand again, enough to lift her own and reach—

“So how many more times do I have to save your life, Pidge?”

Pidge dropped her hand, the feeling disappearing as suddenly as it came, and scowled. “For the ancients’ sake, it was just a cut!”

“And what if it got infected, Pidge?” Lance waggled his eyebrows at her.

It was obvious he teased her, but Pidge still felt a flash of irritation. She crossed her arms and grumbled, “And now you sound like my parents.”

“What? Why?” He rested his elbows on his legs, leaning a little closer to her.

Pidge sighed. “They’re looking for any excuse to convince me to stay here rather than going back to my cottage.”

(Why was she confiding in him? She barely knew him…)

“I accidentally told them about when I almost drowned, but maybe if I agree to live here during the winters they’ll relent.” She rubbed her face, almost as exhausted as if she was due to sleep, and wished that the winter solution appealed to her at all.

“Would it make a difference if I told them I like your cottage better?” Lance asked.

Pidge blinked at him, confused. “Better than what?” she said. “And why would that matter?”

“Better than this house,” he said, shrugging. “I understand that you grew up here, but it just doesn’t have the same charm as the cottage by the lake.” He smiled at her, then nodded at the collection of empty pots underneath the window. “No plants here, for one.”

“And for another?”

“Your cottage is closer to the lake than your family’s home is to the bay.”

Pidge laughed and said, “Of course you’d notice that.”

Lance smirked and reminded her, “Pidge, I’m a water dragon. Even if it’s freshwater, I’d like to have it close. My life literally depends on it.”

Pidge smiled, but it faltered when she finally processed all his words. Her heart pounded, and she asked, “You’d like to have it close?”

“Well, sure?” Lance frowned at her. “Whenever I visit, of course, if you’ll host me.”

Pidge snorted, but she rested a hand on her chest as her heart dropped in needless disappointment. “As long as you wear clothes,” she managed to tease.

Lance stretched his arms behind his back. “I’ve spent enough time around humans lately to understand the need for clothes.” He rolled his eyes but smiled. “I can’t promise to bother with them while swimming though.”

“You swim as a dragon,” Pidge pointed out, “so it shouldn’t bother me.”

“I don’t know, Pidge.” Lance scratched his chin and averted his eyes as a slight flush filled his cheeks. “I’ve always wanted to try swimming in this human form.”

Pidge waved a finger in his face. “Not around me, you won’t.”

Lance muttered, “Fine.” But then he met her eyes. “By the way, you were brilliant today.”

The compliment filled Pidge with warmth. She rubbed the back of her neck, suddenly uncomfortable under his gaze, and coughed. “I-it was an opportunity to test my limits,” she said in what she hoped was a nonchalant voice.

“Of course,” Lance agreed snidely. “Hunk did mention that you passed out right after.”

Pidge crossed her arms. “How do you know Hunk anyway?”

“Met him my first time in the city,” Lance explained with a grin. “It wasn’t long before I met you, actually…but don’t change the subject, Pidge.” He narrowed his eyes at her and prodded a finger towards her face.

Pidge shoved his hand aside and stuck her tongue out at him. “Now I know never to hold a ship together with kelp ever again,” she said.

Lance then grimaced, the negative reaction surprising her, and said, “That’s…something else I thought we should talk about.”

“What?”

“D-did you feel that too?” Lance wondered, voice pitched lower like they were exchanging secrets. “Did you notice when my magic—”

“—touched mine?” Her eyes widened as they met his, and she wasn’t sure if she imagined the very air between them crackling with energy. “Yes,” she admitted. “I-I didn’t think anything like that could happen except with a familiar…”

“I think it would be even stronger with a mage,” Lance said contemplatively.

Pidge swallowed, scenarios that seemed impossible just the night before swirling around in her head. Could she find a familiar? Could she bond Lance?

She dismissed the thought almost as soon as it took root, deciding it was absurd. She hardly knew him and had only met him twice, which was scarcely a foundation on which to base a lifelong magical partnership. And all her experience observing plants and watching them grow under different conditions taught her that one sample of them working well together did not an experiment make.

She’d need at least three samples, she mused.

(Maybe the meal they prepared together last time would count for the first…)

“How did you feel afterward?” Pidge then asked, raising an eyebrow at him

Lance hunched his shoulders and confessed, “Exhausted.” A yawn split his face, and he reached up to cover it. “Still am,” he said, chuckling.

Pidge smiled. “We have a spare cot in the shop next door,” she said. “I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind you staying the night.”

“Hunk’s already offered his spare bed,” Lance said.

“They have Keith over though,” Pidge said.

Lance crossed his arms, looking sulky. “I know,” he said, “but I guess since your mother’s already invited me for dinner—”

Pidge gaped at him, wondering what Colleen might’ve said to him and why.

“—it’s not a bad idea.”

Pidge shook her head, wishing she could dislodge her worries so easily, but she smiled and said, “Sure. I suppose the longer you stay, the longer they won’t try to convince me to stay too.”

“You have ulterior motives for inviting me then, Katie?”

Pidge’s neck was hot when she said, “Can you blame me?”

Lance chuckled and said, “I guess not. Good thing you make it worthwhile.” He then wrapped his arms around her, his warm body nearly engulfing hers.

Pidge recovered from her shock at the gesture quickly, eagerly returning the embrace and hoping it would be the first of many.

To be continued 

[tokyoteddywolf]

Voltron AU, kind of.

Okay so I own the first volume of Today's Cerberus, and I got this weird idea for the Voltron crew being some of the TC characters. I put all the characters from vol.1 down below so dont read if you don't want manga spoilers!

I might actually make this a story, and if I do I should probably make an AO3 account.....let me know if you guys would like that! :)

The list I have so far is-

Shiro - Chiaki (how the "bite" actually happened was Keith *see below* bit off Shiro's arm as a kid and part of his soul went with his arm and the shock of it gave him that white forelock. So he grew up with two toned hair and a prosthetic right arm and a fear of dogs and the inability to feel sad, which made him an outcast growing up. Yes, sadness not happiness bc Shiro goes through too much shit in the show and the boy needs his happiness.)

Lance - Kuro (because cheerful puppy tailed Lance would be cute okay. Plus Lance would be really into helping Shiro regain his missing piece of soul bc he's a helpful lil cinnamon roll like that and the first scene is Kuro tackling Chiaki in a hug and I totally see Lance doing that to Shiro)

Pidge - Shirogane (Pidge may be smol but she deadly and strong and vvv smart and agile. She's tiny but will kick ur ass into next week if she feels like it. So she shall take the place of Shirogane bc I feel she fits it best and also the fact that Hunk does not fit as Shirogane AT ALL.)

Keith - Roze (for obvious reasons. Can't you just see Keith biting someone's soul? I sure can. Grumpy puppy Keith that's clingy to Shiro. Who also kind of ate Shiro's arm. And now wears a muzzle.)

Allura - Hinata (bc shrine priestess, hellooooo~ also shy-crushing-on-Shiro Allura makes me smile. It's a harem manga, okay? I don't mind Shallura, I find it kinda sweet, but I like the ot3 Shklance as well. Shiro needs the love, man.)

Now for side characters~ *cracks knuckles*

Matt - Chihiro (Chihiro is Chiaki's sister, but in this AU Matt is Shiro's best *only* friend. So yeah.)

Antok - Orthros ( he's just doing his job jfc guys- has to drag the runaway Cerberus back home to guard the gate, but nooooo they have to be so fucking stubborn bc of a stupid human- why does he have to have such an irritating littermate-)

Voltron Lions - Jack O Lantern (they take turns messing with Shiro, like breaking the window *Red's fault*, the paper airplane *Yellow's fault*, the chalkboard note *Green and Blue* and yanking him off of the roof *Black's idea*. They form Voltron to fight Pidge, but get defeated easily by Pidge punching them apart. Once Shiro treats them nicely, they turn into cute, purified little cat spirits and become his little companions, Black especially, and they visit Shiro often just to play or mess with the Cerberus trio.)

Sendak - Vritra (bc why not. Bad guy, is a bad guy.)

And that's all I've got at the moment! (Shopkeeper lady is Shay, Hinata's grandpa is Coran) let me know if you'd like me to actually make this a story, and I'll get right on it! :)