A/N: This is my entry for the Voltron Gen Mini-Bang over on tumblr! I had an absolute blast writing this story. Many thanks to the mods for hosting this event!

My partner for this event was the lovely Mishion, who made the most AMAZING art for this fic (which you can check out here: mishion. tumblr image/163528159041 . Seriously, it's gorgeous, and I still can't believe my luck that I got partnered with her! Also, she's such a lovely person, so check out her other stuff here: mishion. tumblr

As always, a very special thank you goes to the wonderful Black Friar for helping me whip this story into shape. You're the best :)

Lance really only remembered flashes of the battle with the Galra fleet that had damaged all the lions.

It was one of the toughest battles they'd faced in the war so far. In trying to liberate planet Samoria, they'd had to take on a Galra fleet equipped with some kind of weapon they hadn't encountered before. A number of the primary vessels had had canons that were able to disable a lion with just one direct hit. They'd discovered that fact right after Keith had thrown himself and Red in front of Shiro and the Black Lion, who'd had its back turned at the time, to take the blast aimed directly at them. The scream that had reverberated through their radios still sent chills down Lance's spine.

Red had been completely dead in the water – or, well, space – and there had only been static on their comms after that. Enraged, Shiro had thrown caution to the wind and charged at the vessel that had taken Keith down, tearing through it with Black's jaw blade like a knife slicing through butter.

But the Galra ships had just kept coming and with one lion down, forming Voltron was out. On top of that, they'd had to protect the Red Lion from taking any more hits or she'd likely have been captured or even destroyed.

Thankfully, Allura and Coran had come to their aid, and together they had been able to take out the fleet – by the skin of their teeth, and thanks to some pretty awesome flying by the Blue Paladin, if Lance did say so himself – but all of the lions had sustained heavy damage and were in desperate need of repairs.

Black had had just enough juice to recover the Red Lion and get her to the castle. By the time Lance had made it to the Red Lion's hangar, Shiro was already helping Keith down Red's ramp – not that Lance had been worried about that idiot or anything, because he hadn't been – Keith's arm pulled across his shoulders and his own arm looped around Keith's waist.

Keith had been alive and conscious, but he'd looked like crap. The blast the Red Lion had taken had apparently been some kind of electrical charge that fried her internal systems. Keith's console had blown up in his face, leaving him with burns and a concussion, but after an hour in a healing pod he'd been back to his annoying self.

The same could not be said of the lions and the castle.

Allura had landed the castleship on Samoria for repairs a few vargas ago, and it looked like they weren't going anywhere for at least a few days…quintents…whatever. The Red Lion especially was going to need some work, but Coran had assured them the damage was fixable. After they'd all rested up for a while, Allura had decided they should put their downtime to good use by meeting the inhabitants of this planet: the Samorians.

Which is why – with the exception of Coran, who was staying behind to get started on the repairs – they were currently on their way to meet the Samorian Queen and her delegates. According to the Altean database the Samorians were a generally peaceful people, and Lance was looking forward to getting the opportunity to exercise his charm muscles again. Seriously, being holed up in a spaceship for days on end with barely anyone to flirt with drove him coo coo bananas sometimes. He really hoped there were some hot chicks on this planet.

Once outside the castle, Lance took in their surroundings. Allura had landed the castle in a large clearing surrounded by dark purple trees. The sky was a light grey color, cloudless, with a pale sun gleaming down at them. It didn't give off as much warmth as Earth's sun did, as the air felt rather chilly, but maybe it was just this planet's version of winter right now. The air was perfectly breathable and there didn't seem to be any nasty flying bugs around, so Lance took off his helmet and tucked it under his arm, the other paladins doing the same.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the coordinates the Queen had given them. The location turned out to be a large square at the foot of a wide, stone bridge leading to some kind of cave or tunnel. There was a large gathering of…uh…people? Lance stared. Holy quiznak, the Samorians were huge! At least two heads taller than both Hunk and Shiro and they were definitely bulkier than the average human.

As Lance drew closer, he realized they were humanoid, but very pale – so pale in fact that Lance could see the veins through their skin. They had cat-like pupils and long, claw-like fingers, which, okay, kinda creepy?

They didn't exactly look like the helpless species Lance had been expecting. Some of the Samorians were dressed in rather formal-looking robes – dignitaries? – while others were wearing some kind of armor, obviously soldiers or guards. Most of them had long, sheer white hair, reaching till about their middle backs, except for the soldiers, who had their hair tied back.

As Lance and the others approached, three of the Samorians stepped forward – two guards and, judging by the lavishly decorated robes the third Samorian was wearing, probably their Queen in the middle. Her hair was bright red.

As was usual in this type of meet-and-greet situations, Allura took the lead. She smiled. "Queen Ditaria of Samoria, I am Princess Allura of Altea," she began, "and these are the Paladins of Voltron."

The Queen looked at each of them in turn before returning the smile, showing rather sharp, yellowish teeth. Which, again, kinda creepy.

"King Alfor and the Lions of Voltron are legendary among my people," the Queen began. "We are honored to have his daughter walk among us, and we are forever grateful to you all for ridding us of the Galra."

And just like that, the ice was broken.

The Queen and Allura exchanged a few more pleasantries before the Queen invited them to her palace, and the rest of the crowd just kind of burst into cheers around them. Lance puffed out his chest and pulled out his most charming smile, waving at the crowd as he followed Allura, Shiro and the Samorian Queen.

There was a snort from behind him and Lance could practically hear Keith's eyes roll, but Lance ignored him. Mullet boy knew nothing about enchanting a crowd or about, well, enchanting anyone really. Which was fine by Lance, because it meant more hot alien girls for him.

It took him a moment to realize that most of the people in the crowd were actually men, and his smile slipped a tiny bit. That was just his luck, wasn't it? Hm…maybe the girls were all inside the palace?

They crossed the bridge and passed through the short tunnel. The sight that greeted Lance on the other side took his breath away. "Holy wow," he muttered in awe as he stared at the palace before him: it had been carved into a mountain. And it was huge, with pillars and turrets and everything! It was absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous.

Beside him, Hunk and Pidge were gaping as well, and Lance caught even Keith and Shiro staring.

"That is- that's like- amazing," Hunk said, sounding a little breathless.

"I wonder how old it is," Pidge was muttering, probably mostly to herself. "It must've taken them years to complete. Well, depending on their technology, of course-"

The Queen turned to Pidge, smiling warmly. "Our ancestors carved this palace into the mountain by hand many, many suns ago."

They did the whole thing by hand?! Holy freaking crow that made the whole structure even more impressive!

"It's beautiful," Shiro said, and the Queen inclined her head towards him.

"You flatter us, Black Paladin," she said. "It would be my honor to show you around the interior of the palace."

They followed her through a giant archway that served as the palace entrance and Lance had just started to admire the architecture inside when there was a sudden commotion behind him. He whirled around and found Keith on his back on the palace floor with a big, hulking Samorian guy on top of him pressing a blade to his throat.

"Hey!" Lance protested at the same time as Shiro exclaimed, "What the hell are you doing?"

Lance heard Shiro activate his Galra tech arm and immediately dropped his helmet and reached for his own bayard. From the corner of his eye he saw Hunk and Pidge doing the same. Lance trained his blaster on the nearest Samorian, but the Samorian in question was now also pointing its own weapon at him. A quick glance around told Lance they were surrounded, and he tightened his grip on his bayard.

What the hell was even happening?

"Let him go," Shiro said, voice hard and commanding.

The Samorian guy that had attacked Keith snarled, and Allura whipped around to face the alien Queen. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded.

"Raznek, hold," the Queen ordered and this time the man froze.

Keith wasn't struggling – which, thank quiznak – but Lance saw the fire in his eyes. He was pissed.

The Samorian Queen turned to Allura. "You have my word he will not be harmed so long as he passes inspection."

"Inspection?" Shiro practically growled, taking his eyes off of Keith and the guy straddling him for only a second to glance at her.

"Your friend set off an alarm that alerts us when a Galra enters the palace."

"Alarm? What alarm?" Lance said. "I didn't hear anything."

"It is a sound only my people can hear."

"Our friend is the Red Paladin of Voltron," Allura said with a scowl, drawing herself up. She looked pretty pissed too.

"He also appears to be Galra," the Queen replied calmly. "The Galra cannot be trusted."

"He is only part-Galra," Allura replied. "He has Galra blood, but his physiology is Terran."

"We would like to decide that for ourselves, which is why he must submit to the inspection. It will only take a moment." The Samorian Queen nodded at the man straddling Keith, who clearly took this as permission to continue the "inspection", whatever that might entail. Lance kept one eye on the armed Samorian in front of him while watching what was going on with Keith with the other.

The alien pinning Keith down – Raznek? – leaned forward, getting even further into Keith's personal space. "He does not reek like a Galra," he reported. Taking Keith's jaw between his fingers, he forced his head to the side, examining Keith's skin closely. "Pale skin. No yellow eyes. Open your mouth," he ordered.

Keith stubbornly refused, glaring at the man instead.

Raznek scowled back and tightened his hold on Keith's jaw, trying to force it open, at which point Keith finally did begin to struggle. He abruptly slammed his knee up and caught the Samorian in the side, earning him a snarl, and Lance watched with baited breath as the knife the alien was still holding to Keith's throat dug in further.

Lance could practically feel Shiro bristle beside him, like a bull getting ready to charge.

"Keith, please," Allura spoke up suddenly, obviously trying to de-escalate the situation. "Let him look. Please."

Keith's eyes flicked over to her, and Lance could read the betrayal in them. Lance didn't blame him. Keith wasn't big on people touching him in general and he was just supposed to let this alien dude invade his personal space like that? Not to mention the fact that the Samorian wasn't exactly being gentle about it. Lance felt his own indignation at the way his teammate was being treated bubble in his throat.

Keith clenched his teeth and stopped struggling, and after a moment unlocked his jaw, hesitantly opening his mouth a little. When Raznek pried Keith's jaw further open and stuck his fingers in his mouth, Lance balked.

"Okay, what the hell?" he exclaimed, anger flooding him now, and he heard both Pidge and Hunk voice similar protests from Shiro's other side.

"Allura," Shiro gritted out, the warning clear in his voice.

"Wait," Allura said, putting a restraining hand on Shiro's human arm.

"No fangs," Raznek concluded, before withdrawing his fingers from Keith's mouth, leaving the Red Paladin coughing and sputtering. The man finally got up off of Keith, but instead of letting him go, he dragged him to his knees, twisting Keith's arms behind him and holding onto his wrists with one big hand. The other he wrapped in Keith's hair, yanking his head back, and Lance winced when he heard Keith's neck pop.

Lance's finger twitched on the trigger of his bayard. It was really freaking hard to stand by and watch as one of their own was being manhandled like that.

The Queen approached Keith, digging her own long fingers into his jaw and tilting his head so she could take a proper look herself. Lance really kind of wished they would stop pawing Keith's face already.

"He is small for a Galra," the Queen said finally, "and I will admit he has a more…aesthetically pleasing appearance than the typical Galra male."

Lance felt his eyebrows almost disappear into his hairline at that. Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Was she saying Keith was… pretty? What the quiznak? The woman looked like she was at the very least middle-aged, skin quite heavily wrinkled. Yeah, that wasn't creepy at all.

The Queen turned to look at Allura. "Princess Allura, you trust him?"

Allura nodded, raising her chin slightly. "With my life."

Finally, the Queen nodded. "Release him."

Raznek obeyed and Keith stumbled to his feet, scowling heavily and immediately putting distance between them.

"Keith?" Shiro called, his eyes on the armed Samorian in front of him.

It took Keith a moment to reply, his fingers touching his throat. The skin there was red and irritated, but no blood had been drawn. "I'm okay."

Shiro nodded and finally lowered his arm, the rest of them following his example and standing down. The Samorians also lowered their weapons.

"I apologize for the harsh treatment, Red Paladin," the Samorian Queen said, bowing her head slightly. "We are a cautious race; we have been fooled before."

Keith folded his arms and looked away. "I get it."

Lance winced because that wasn't exactly how one might talk to a queen, alien or not, and he glanced at the woman, watching her reaction. She seemed to frown a little – it was kind of hard to tell considering she didn't have eyebrows – but inclined her head once more and then turned to Allura.

"Please, let us continue our tour."

The Queen and her delegates led the way further into the palace, and Lance gradually allowed himself to relax a little. The architecture and decoration were impressive and surprisingly modern, but there were also definitely signs of disrepair and he wondered if the Galra occupation had had anything to do with that.

He noticed Hunk was sticking close to Keith, and Lance frowned, wondering what that was about. Ever since Keith and Hunk had returned from that mission where they'd had to collect scultrite from that Weblum thing, the two of them had been on much friendlier terms, which…Lance wasn't sure how to feel about.

As they went deeper into the palace though, Lance caught some of the Samorians shooting Keith openly hostile looks and while Keith seemed to be doing his best to ignore them, his posture was stiff and the hand not clutching his helmet was balled into a fist at his side.

And suddenly Lance understood why Hunk was sticking so close to Keith. He quickened his pace a little so he was flanking Keith's other side.

Lance sighed. This was shaping up to be a very. Long. Day. And he hadn't even spotted any girls yet.