They were sitting around a large bonfire, one of several in the clearing where the other members of the settlement were gathered. Some had retired from the pre-battle feast that the community had just finished celebrating, but many more had remained gathered around the fires. All was aware that if things did not go their way on the morrow this would be the last time they would all be together as free men and women.
“I don’t understand why we can’t just climb into our Lions and blast the walls and the gates open for you,” Hunk said reasonably as he threw himself on the ground. “It’ll save a lot of time, and it’s hell of a lot less risky.”
Zach shook his head. “True, with those powerful Lion ships of yours, you could do that. I’m tempted by your offer, but I’m afraid I can’t let you do it.”
“Why not?” Pidge asked.
Zach frowned, trying to find the words to explain, but before he spoke, the Princess from Arus spoke for him, understanding ringing in her voice.
“I think it’s because the Aidelians want to know that they earned their freedom by fighting for it,” she said with a smile, firelight dancing in her eyes as she looked to Zach for confirmation. “This is their battle, something they have been building up for almost a decade – and we’re just here to help them, not give them their victory. The only way they’ll gain back their pride and respect for themselves as a people is to know that they won this fight on their own merit.”
Zach nodded with a smile, admiring the Princess’ beauty and astuteness. It was no wonder that she had his son wrapped around her little finger.
“And that’s the same reason why I want to be the one sent in to tell Commander Montgomery that the attack has begun. I want to know I’ve earned the right to run such a mission after a year of intensive training and that I’m not just a necessity that all of you are forced to tolerate.” She pinned her Captain with her intense blue glare where he sat across from her, poking at the fire and avoiding her eyes.
Zach had to hold back a laugh at the glib way she led the conversation back to the bone of contention that she and Keith had been arguing over for the past hour. Yes, his son had definitely met his match. She reminded him of his own wife, Katherine.
“I’ve already said no, Princess.”
“And why not?” Allura glared at Keith in indignation, standing up with her hands planted at her hips in a belligerent stance when he didn’t reply at once. “You’re not calling the shots here, Admiral Montgomery is. And you can’t even give one good reason why I shouldn’t be the one to go in there in disguise.”
Keith regarded her, eyes narrowed, speaking through gritted teeth. “I am still your team leader, Allura – and you answer directly to me and not to my father. This is not about your earning our confidence in you to run this mission alone. I’ve been giving you several good reasons for the past hour, but apparently, you haven’t been listening to any of them.”
Hunk continued to lie on the ground, staring up at what he could see of the Aidel night sky through the trees. “Well, Keith – it’s just an in-and-out kind of thing… most of the fighting will be done out here. Maybe she has earned that at least,” he offered, earning a beaming smile from Allura and a glare from Keith. The others wisely held their silence, watching the blooming argument between the Princess and her Captain with mounting amusement.
“You’re not fully trained for this kind of mission, and you have no experience at it. It’s too much of a risk to field you,” Keith said, blowing through his lips in exasperation, pinning Allura with his dark gaze. “Besides that, you’re not an ordinary pilot, you’re Princess of Arus, and you have a responsibility to stay alive... something that you cannot conveniently ignore just because we are not on your planet. Sam doesn’t have that kind of responsibility – and she’s also had years of Academy training behind her.”
“You trained me, and you've said that I’ve picked up the skills like a pro,” Allura countered hotly. “Besides that, the mission is not any less dangerous for Samantha than it is for me – and she can fly the Blue Lion just as well as I can. More importantly – I’ve seen your mother and Samantha hasn’t.”
“You saw her in a picture that’s ten years old – and she’s also going to be in disguise!” Keith said on a near-shout, finally losing his control and raking his hand through his hair in frustration.
“At least I’ve still seen her!” she cried back, then changed her tack. “Please, Keith? It’s a fairly simple task – I go in, notify her that the attack’s been initiated, then sneak out. Besides, you know that no matter how much you try to baby sit me, if something is going to happen to me, something is going to happen – even if you locked me inside one of the ammunition crates until the battle is over. Let me do something useful.”
Keith closed his eyes, evidently trying to reign in his frustration at her missing his point entirely. He shrugged, opening his eyes and staring at the fire. “Fine. I give up. Do whatever you wish.”
“Is she always like this?” Zach asked Lance with a barely hidden grin of amusement as he shifted, his two sleeping sons’ heads cradled in his lap. “She’s a lot like Kat – stubborn as hell and more courageous than she should be. She must tie Keith up in knots all the time.”
“You’re right. And sometimes she’s a lot worse – and he’s in a lot more trouble,” Lance replied, grinning back. He turned to Samantha, whose head was resting on his shoulder. “So, who are you going to side with? You could be the one to tip the balance here, you know.” He brushed off a lock of chestnut hair away from her forehead. “Although if I were Keith, I wouldn’t want you to go either.”
Samantha took out a coin from her pocket and walked to Allura, who was trying without success to read Keith’s suddenly inscrutable mood. “What if we both toss for it? One who wins gets to go inside.” Sam offered as a solution. “That way, Keith can’t say he was responsible for the decision – after all, we’re both qualified for either job and the choice may as well be a random one.”
Allura glanced at Keith again, suddenly uncertain what to do next now that she appeared to have won this hard-earned concession, then tilted her chin up stubbornly. “I am not anybody’s responsibility,” she said firmly, shooting Keith a final glare. “Go ahead and toss away, Sammy. I take tails.”
Sam flipped the coin in the air, deftly caught it, and slapped it back in her palm. “It’s tails,” she announced, smiling at Allura. “So I guess I’ll be the one to flying Blue Lion tomorrow.”
Keith remained impassive, and at the sight of the blank expression on his face, Allura tightened her own jaw. “Admiral Montgomery, where was is it you said they kept the costumes? I’d like to pick mine out.”
Zachary tipped his head the direction of the caves. “It’s inside the cave, among our ammunition. There’s just one, but it will suit,” he said, amusement still gleaming in his eyes. Then he sobered, gently prodding his two sons awake and taking their hands in each of his as they wobbled sleepily on their feet. “We must begin preparing; it’s almost midnight. I’ll put these two to bed with the rest of the children. We’ll be taking our posts soon.”
With a final nod good night, Zachary led his two boys away from the
fire, leaving the rest of the team staring silently into the fire, anticipating
the battle awaiting them on the morrow.
“For all Erinol’s incompetence, their schedule is one thing we can count on. A new set of slave women are going to be brought into the castle by this path today,” Zachary explained to Keith as they hid among the leaves of the tall trees later that morning, at a level just slightly above the ground. “I’ve already given Allura instructions and a map of the castle, including diagrams of all the docking bays and communication centers. She will most likely be brought directly into the slave women’s quarters and meet Katherine there. I’ve given her a description of your mother, but it does help that she’s seen her.”
“She saw a picture that was a decade old, dammit,” Keith muttered under his breath, cocking his laser and keeping close watch on the path leading towards the castle approaching them. Erinol’s slave-catchers were not yet in sight. “If I had known this day would happen, I never would have let her see the damn thing.”
“No one will touch her. They don’t touch the women – especially not Erinol – because they fetch higher prices when they are… pure. We know that for certain or even I would never have let Kat go.” Zachary looked at his son, a combination of amusement, sympathy, and understanding on his face as he shook his head. “You still feel responsible. It was her decision to do this, you know. It’s out of your hands.”
Keith snorted in disgust directed more at himself than at the stubborn princess under his command. “I should have taken her up on the suggestion that I lock her up in one of the ammunition crates,” he said sourly. Then he sighed in resignation. “I can’t even sanction her for insubordination, you know. If she were really under me as an officer on duty, she wouldn’t have been able to contest my refusal to let her go. Unfortunately, the authority relationship between the two of us is so skewed that neither of us knows who should command whom in these situations.”
Zachary chuckled softly, his twinkling eyes trained on his frustrated son’s face. “I don’t think it’s so much the skewed authority relationship between the two of you, but that you care for her – and that she cares for you,” he commented wryly, raising a sardonic brow at Keith’s suddenly impassive face. “You don’t need to hide anything from me, son, I got there with your mother long before I even thought you would ever exist.”
A low bird-like whistle cut the lecture short before Zachary could even deliver it. Both father and son looked towards the tree where Lance and Samantha were standing sentry. Lance appeared to be trying to control his laughter. “The slave-catchers are coming, but they’re still a good distance away,” Sam explained to the two, while shooting a sidewise glare at Lance. “Allura’s already below you, hiding in behind one of the trunks and just waiting for your signal.”
“You can probably see her from there, Skipper, if you’re so inclined,” Lance offered, getting reign on his mirth and grinning baldly. “But I suggest you jump off that branch and take a good view of her from below because we won’t be responsible for what happens to you if you don’t.”
Keith looked to his father, and Zach nodded. “Perhaps it will make you feel better to say goodbye and give her final instructions yourself,” he said with a wise smile. Then he sobered. “But make sure you keep out of sight as she presents herself to the slave-catchers, or they might become suspicious.”
“Hey, Keith, remember to keep your mouth closed,” Lance called out in aloud whisper and a wide grin as he watched Keith jump nimbly down to the ground and disappear behind one of the thick tree trunks where Allura was waiting. “Wouldn’t want the Princess to drown in a puddle of your drool before she accomplished her mission.”
At the sound of someone’s footsteps, Allura spun around, startled to meet Keith’s own surprised dark eyes.
Keith didn’t know what he was expecting to see when he entered the shadowed alcove formed by the huge roots of the enormous tree they were under, but he wasn’t prepared for the sight before him. For a few moments he forgot Lance’s warning not to gape, but when he realized what he was doing, he clamped his mouth shut with an almost painful snap and swallowed hard.
She was wearing a veil over her face, a gauzy square of ivory chiffon that was just transparent enough to give a hint of her generous lips and the tip of her nose. Her wide eyes were startlingly blue above the veil, thickly lashed and the color of wet blue velvet. She was wearing pants of the same material as the veil, also ivory, almost transparent and gathered at the ankles so that the material belled away from her shapely legs and silk underpants the color of snow. The pants rode low at her hips, leaving her smooth white midriff bare, her entire costume completed by ivory chiffon covering a snow-colored top. Her honey-gold mane was twisted into a thick knot at her nape, the shorter strands framing her eyes and cheeks in a delicate curtain.
Allura brought her hands to her throat; self-consciously clutching the sapphire-blue rose pendant nestled there as he continued to stare at her, speechless. “Keith,” she breathed softly, smiling uncertainly and taking his presence to be a sign of forgiveness for her defiance. “The slave-catchers, are they coming?”
He nodded, resisting the urge to find something to cover her with and once more mentally hitting himself for allowing her to do this. “You’ll stick out like a sore thumb with your coloring,” he growled out instead, reaching out to tuck a curl behind her ear, then quickly dropping his hand from her face as if seared by the contact. “Why didn’t you even dye your hair?”
She shook her head at the idea. “It will make it easier for your mother to recognize me this way – you know, because I ‘stick out,’” she explained. Then she gave him a cocky grin that he could see under her veil. “Besides, I won’t be there long enough for me to need being inconspicuous.” She moved her head to one side with an unconsciously appealing expression in her sapphire eyes. “Will I do?”
Keith couldn’t bite back a smile. “Unfortunately, yes. You’ll do too well, ” he finally conceded wryly. He gave her a discreet look-over. “I’m beginning to think you wanted to do this because of that infernal costume. Nanny would never let you out of your room dressed in just that.”
Her blue eyes narrowed at him, and she appeared to be on the verge of saying something when another low bird-like whistle pierced the darkness.
“I must go. They’re nearer now,” he told her quietly. He held her eyes, the worry apparent in his. “You know what to do?”
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
He hesitated, then touched her cheek with a gentle hand. “Be careful, okay?” he pleaded softly. “Promise me that you’ll just get in there, talk to Mom, then get the hell out with her.” He frowned as her eyes began to twinkle with mischief. “No reckless risks and no monkey-business, Princess.”
She shook her head, placing a hand over his against her cheek. “Yes, sir, Captain Mother Hen,” she chided him. “You worry too much. I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“You better be,” he ordered gruffly. Then at the sound of another low whistle, he dropped his hand once more and stepped away, hiding behind a tree trunk a slight distance away from where Allura emerged unto the path of the slave catchers. “You better be,” he whispered again to himself as he heard her being taken away and the sounds of the retinue’s footsteps faded into the darkness.
It was his prayer.