#i mean yeah the underwater environments are probably gonna take up a lot of space but it's still only one region

[tempests-bards-and-birds]

ok just how big is 4.0 gonna be storage wise because i'm on mobile so yknowww aha

[otterknowbynow]

Altean Home Economics (16/?)

Goo is great, but Hunk sure would feel better if they had kitchen access, even if that does mean figuring out some extraterrestrial foreign substances and ending up with a lot more than he bargained for. Set between 2x07 "Space Mall" and 2x08 "The Blade of Marmora," stretching time a little bit.

all chapters in this tag | full work on ao3

“Are we sure about this, Shiro?” Pidge says, seeing the blue lion break through the surface of the water ahead of them, its tail disappearing with a surprisingly small splash for such a large body. Shiro’s standing a bit ahead of her and to the side. She’s asked him three times if he wants to sit down, but he doesn’t seem interested, grabbing the little trapeze-like handle that hangs from the ceiling whenever she does any maneuvering that might otherwise throw him off-balance.

“We’re as sure as we’re gonna get, I think,” he says, shrugging. Pidge sighs. It’s not that she doesn’t think the green lion can handle water -- they’ve just never had to before, and she’s not sure what differences there will be between that and piloting in the air or on land. Not to mention she hasn’t tested the cloaking device in all environments -- which isn’t to say it shouldn’t work, just that she can’t be sure. She’d rather be sure. There’s a prickling sensation in the back of her brain, and though she can guess its source, she’s not sure if it’s meant to be comforting, encouraging, or cautioning -- or some combination of all three. 

“Alright, here goes nothing,” she mutters, and slides her acceleration bar forward, pushing the thrusters to full before she can think of any other objections.

Crashing through the surface of the water, Pidge wonders -- too late to do anything about it of course -- if it was even worth diverting power to the cloak, given the size of the splash she’s sure they just made. Anyone down below is certainly aware something is going on, but maybe they’ll attribute it to the first lion and not realize there might be a second. 

“Hopefully, no one was paying too close attention to the surface,” Shiro says, clearly thinking along the same lines. 

“Yeah.” Pidge winces, realigning her lion to follow the glow of Blue’s tail, a couple dozen meters below their current position. Piloting the green lion in the water feels a bit odd, sort of slow and awkward. They’re still moving -- and moving reasonably quickly and efficiently, she thinks -- but it’s going to take some getting used to. It would’ve been nice if whoever sent that distress beacon had had the decency to call from land, at least if they were going to try to bring them in before Pidge had some time to test out the lions in different environments. 

She supposes it’s not that absurd that there would be a distress signal from underwater, though. After all, Lance and Hunk had been to that whole underground society with the mermaids -- and oh, Pidge wishes she could have learned more about the science of their survival beyond what she’s gathered secondhand -- and it shouldn’t surprise them too much that a planet covered in this much water might have a society living under it also. Although it does strike her as a bit odd that there would be a potentially Altean society living underwater -- but then again, if they’ve been in isolation since Allura and Coran went into the cryopods, who knows what direction they might have evolved in? Is ten thousand years long enough to evolve gills? Are they even sure that when the Alteans say ten thousand years they mean it literally? They never measure time in years otherwise, so -- 

“Hey, uh, guys?” Lance’s voice brings her back from that train of thought, and Pidge shakes her head slightly to clear it, noting that while the turquoise tail light is still visible, it’s gained a fair amount of distance, diving several lion-lengths ahead of them into the dark waters below. Blue really is better suited for this than any of the other lions, Pidge realizes, and wishes once again that she’d had more time up til now to do some further analysis of the lions and their particulars.  

“What’s up, Lance?” Shiro asks, frowning, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“I mean, you gotta see this, probably, but there’s -- uh. I don’t think there are any people down here.” 

“There might be,” Allura’s tone cuts in, sharp and almost pleading. “We don’t know for sure --” 

“Right, right -- I didn’t mean to say -- like, I just don’t think there are any, what with all the...” His slightly panicked voice trails off, probably gesturing somehow in a way that doesn’t translate across the comms. 

“Can you run a scan with the blue lion?” Shiro asks. “That should give us some idea of life signs, shouldn’t it, Pidge?” 

“Yes and no.” She frowns, reaching up to adjust glasses she realizes belatedly she’s not wearing. “It should give a pretty solid idea of the shape of whatever you’ve found --”

“I really don’t think it’s going to tell us much,” Lance says flatly. Pidge opens her mouth to continue what she’d been trying to explain about the difference between the sonic scanner and the BLIP tech they would need to properly track signs of life, but he barrels on, apparently unaware that there are other people in this conversation, and Pidge finds herself tuning him out completely. 

Lance should really run a sonic scan anyway, she thinks, no matter what there is down there, because it’ll help them navigate if they have to bring the lions down into any sort of structure, and give them an idea of whether they even can bring the lions in -- but listening mode clearly isn’t something that he’s gonna activate any time soon, so Pidge turns her attention to piloting her lion instead of trying to turn what’s clearly a monologue into a conversation. She turns off the cloak so the power can divert back to the main thrusters and accelerates toward Blue’s tail light ahead. 

The water she guides Green through as fast as she can is dark, the light from the planet’s sun not penetrating this deep into the ocean, but her headlights reveal a wide enough cone in front of her that she can make out the shape of the blue lion itself pretty easily, without really needing the aqua glow of its tail and pane lights. 

“Whoa,” Shiro breathes as they pull up alongside Blue, and Pidge has to agree. They’ve reached the ocean floor -- or at least, the depth that becomes a floor in this area of it -- and with the lights of both lions, it’s easy to see the stone buildings arrayed in front of them. They look old -- maybe not ten thousand years old, Pidge notes, depending on the composition of the ocean water -- but definitely old and definitely, well, ruined. There are large stones scattered around occasionally that have clearly fallen off of the original structures, though the enormous arch that seems to form the entrance to the city is intact. And while it’s an archaeological marvel, it seems like Lance is definitely right for once. But then…

“Who sent the signal?” she asks.