"Okay, no, I am not going back in there." Lance had his arms folded defiantly, and he wasn't the only one. Pidge and Hunk were united with him on this front,

"Just because you're no good doesn't mean you should give up. How else do you learn?" Allura attempted, once again, to cajole them into getting back into the training room.

"No way, that gladiator is just impossible. I'm a tech geek, not some warrior." Pidge chimed in, one hand on his bayard as if he would fight to not go back into the room. Lance and Hunk looked like they were willing to fight too, as if this was the biggest battle of their life that they couldn't afford to lose.

"Perhaps they could use a bit of a break. I know you said Altean children can do this, but we're not Altean." Shiro said in hopes of getting Allura to listen. Out of the paladins, he was the best at the 'training exercise', but he was often fighting himself more than half of that time. The PTSD had a habit of breaking in at the worst times and messing with Shiro in the worst ways.

"How do we even know this is possible? I haven't seen you guys getting beat up by weird robots that are way too strong to possible be able to beat." Lance pouted. Allura raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? Would you like a demonstration then?" She took a step forward and Shiro felt a bit of the instincts that he didn't remember creating press at him, warning him.

"Now now Princess, there's no need for that." Coran placed a hand on Allura's shoulder. "However, if it's truly a demonstration they'd like, I've be happy to comply." Allura gave a smile.

"That'd be lovely. I think all they really need is to see that it's possible and give them a boost of confidence."

"No, we really don't. Can't we just, I don't know, practice mixing chemicals by mixing cooking ingredients? You, do have ingredients, right? A kitchen?" Hunk suggested.

"No need for that," Coran waved off the suggestion. "I've been getting rusty anyway. A nice exercise would do my bones some good." Shiro traced Coran's gaze as it lingered for a moment on Lance's bayard before he went over to the armory. "Head up to the observation room, I'll be out and ready to spar in just a tick."

Up in the observation room they all crowded around the window as Coran stepped into the middle of the floor. He was wearing armor that resembled the paladins, though its color scheme was more like his usual uniform than the white and black. He was holding what at first looked simply like a staff before the ends lit up with energy.

"Ready whenever you are princess." He called up to them.

"I'm setting the gladiator to the level that any Altean soldier would be able to fight." Allura called down to Coran, who returned it with a smile.

"I would be offended if you did anything lower."

The gladiator sprang to life, but this time it wasn't holding the familiar staff Shiro and the others had grown accustomed to seeing it with. Instead it held a glowing blade. It made a rush for Coran, who easily darted underneath the sweep of the blade and swung his staff into its side. Of course, it was a robot, so it didn't do too much damage and it was quick to kick him, a kick strong enough to fling him across the room. Coran took the chance to land a solid hit on the robot's calf with one of the energized sides of the staff before landing on his feet with the grace of a cat. He didn't allow the gladiator to assess the situation, sprinting back towards it.

That was about all Shiro was able to get before he started being dragged into flashback. The robot wasn't a robot, but a Galra in the arena. Coran was one of the fellow 'competitors' in the arena, face a blur of a person Shiro never knew. The crowd's screams and yells are a single being that desires only blood and brutality. Vaguely, in a removed way in a place that was anywhere but there, Shiro's breath was picking up. But there, he was almost calm.

Shiro was pulled back into the moment by something gently crawling up his shoulder. He jumped a bit and the metal arm flew to grab whatever it was a little too quickly to be normal. Luckily everybody else in the room was too busy looking at Coran to notice. There was definitely something beneath his hand, and for a moment Shiro feared it might have been one of the mice. He gently grabbed it and moved it into his line of sight. It was another flower, but not one of the ones he recognized. This one had only two petals, wide and fat, that started black in the middle but eventually became a bright, neon orange on the very edge. The center of the flower was a yellow and when Shiro brought it closer to his face had a distinctly fruity smell. A bunch of foreign, definitely not Earth-fruits, but fruits nonetheless. Looking up, he saw that everybody else in the room had the same flower on their shoulders, but they were all so engrossed in the fighting that they had yet to notice. Walking close to the window, Shiro could see that Coran was still fighting the metal gladiator. It looked like it wouldn't be able to continue fighting for too much longer, though, sporting several gashes on it and one arm completely lobbed off (no,no, stay in the now Shiro). Coran looked like he was mostly getting bruises from the fight, the worst thing he had being a cut across his shoulder.

That made sense.

Shiro knew that Coran grew flowers when one of them was hurt, but for some reason it had never occurred to him that, like any soulmate, it worked both ways.

In the end, Coran whooped the robot's mechanical butt and they had to endure an extra hour of training that day.

oOo

The conversation happened after Coran evaluated their rooms.

Coran had been going to each of the paladin's rooms in turn to make sure that they had a set up made for battle. It was important that, as paladins of Voltron, they were able to get ready at the drop of the hat… especially when they made up 99% of the Altean fighting force despite being humans. Coran had done this type of thing a bunch back in the day, making sure every new recruit understood the importance that came in preparation. As he went from room to room, of course Coran noticed it. Some of them were a little subtler than others, but it was always there.

Keith had the flowers pressed in a drawer, one of each.

Hunk had them dried and placed around his doorway.

Pidge had a few scattered in her closet.

Even Shiro kept some right by his pillow so that they were the first thing he saw when he woke up.

But Lance, Lance was on a whole other level than everybody else.

The doorway was decorated with flowers. Hanging from nearly every inch of the ceiling were bouquets drying. A corner of the floor and beneath the bed were dedicated to the flower presses that Hunk had built for that exact reason. To put it plainly, it looked like Spring had thrown up in Lance's room and then started to actually grow there. The paladins stood in the doorway, all having already seen Lance's room. Lance himself was on his bed, in a draw-me-like-your-Altean-women pose with a red anemone (still fresh) between his teeth. And Coran? Coran stared around the room for a few ticks before running down the hallway.

"Does this mean my room's good?" Lance asked, pulling the flower out of his teeth. Coran soon returned, this time dragging a very confused-looking Allura along. She looked into Lance's room and outright screamed. But, like, a girly scream. The kind that means you've seen something really cool that you can't get enough of.

"Oh my, Lance where did you get all of these?" Allura gently trailed her fingers across a few petals. Lance shrugged.

"From you guys." She lifted one of the juniberries to her eyes to inspect a little closer. "I had to throw out a ton of anemones and crocuses. Honestly it's mostly habit by now."

"That's so interesting." Allura's hand rested on one of Coran's blooms. "Back on Altea, the soul flowers were only kept if the mate had already died and were usually used for the funeral."

"Really?" Shiro brushed against a few orchids. By now they were all in Lance's (rather small) room. Coran nodded.

"Oh yes. It wasn't exactly considered bad luck to keep them, but why keep them when you could burn them?" Hunk looked shocked.

"What? Burn them? I mean, if you get too many sure, but there's still some stigma against that in some places of Earth." Now it was the Altean's turns to look shocked. "A few early civilizations believed that burning soulmate blooms was bad luck, or like the equivalent of cutting off your connection and stuff. A way to say that you want nothing to do with your soulmate."

"I knew a few people at the Garrison who would do that." Shiro added. "Not because they didn't want their soulmates, but a lot of them feared that on some of their missions they wouldn't come back. They didn't want to die knowing they were letting down their soulmate, so might as well sever your connection."

"Back on Altea, burning was seen as the best thing you could do for your soulmate." Allura looked almost horrified at the idea of burning flowers with such a meaning behind it. "When you burned your soul flowers, ancient legends said that the smoke would travel to your soulmate and aid them in their hour of need. Of course, that was first invented when Alteans were confined to our home planet, but the legend holds… had held on for thousands of years."

"Well, on Earth taking care of the flowers was considered good." Lance gestured to his flowers. "Putting them in vases, pressing them, drying them."

"It's not like it matters all that much." Pidge commented. "I mean, they're just flowers. There's not even any logical sense that's been found behind them."

"Perhaps not on Earth, but Ancient Alteans believed that soulmates were created of the same stardust." Coran looked off into the distance, as if he could see the stars through the walls of the castleship. "Of course, that was disproven long ago, but before Zarkon attacked researches had been looking into whether quintessence was a factor in it."

"Wow. That, actually sounds kinda cool." Lance glanced around at the flowers once more.

"Yes, quite amazing." Allura gave a sad smile. "Too bad Coran and I are the last two to carry on such ideas."

The room gained a moment of soft mourning for the long lost Alteans. Coran broke the silence by proceeding with his inspection of Lance's room, and by the end Lance's room is 30% more organized and a few flowers less than it had been.

While looking over the castleship's floor plans, Pidge finds a room specifically dedicated to burning soulmate blooms.

Keith drops a few flowers into the pit and watches the smoke rise. He wasn't doing anything with them anyway.