Deserving

Chapter forty-five

Keith sat at the head of the table, as they had become accustomed to, observing the discussion from the table's pier. He had kept quiet for the most part, only interjecting when no one else looked as if they would bring up his points. 

Lance sat to his right and Shiro sat to his left, the two bringing loud contributions to the discussion in comparison.

Officially, the mission would be in Lance's hands but Shiro was still socially (at least within their group) Lance's superior and his perspective was held in high regards when it came to planning. The same was true for Allura although she seemed to have solidified her opinions throughout the night while Shiro still remained firmly on the fence, constantly playing devil's advocate. 

Lance didn't mind too much, of course. No one had raised their voices yet and no insults or snide remarks had been thrown, it was simply a discussion between friends or - more importantly - a well-rounded discussion between comrades hoping to find the safest route for their mission. In fact, Lance was glad that they had managed to remain so civil and amiable so far - a far cry from the heated arguments many of them had back in the beginning. 

It was both a relief and a point of pride. 

Not too long ago, they had made the transition from conducting meetings in dining rooms and on the Bridge to in war rooms and conference rooms - depending on the size of the meeting. 

This room was slowly becoming the team's private planning room. It lacked the cheery decorations many of their other spaces had managed to accumulate but Lance didn't doubt it would make its way there eventually. 

For now, however, the room was quite plain. A grey, oval table sat in the centre of the room, a polite set of refreshments set in the centre. Lance thought it would benefit from a vase. 

With the curvature of the table, the head of the table was clearly indicated, with Keith being the only person to take up an end. Given their odd number, there was no need for another person at the head of the table, giving the person sat there more meaning. The choices were between Keith, Shiro (both with their respective positions as leaders), Allura (due to her position as the crown princess), and Coran with his seniority and advantage of experience. Between them, for Keith to be almost unanimously decided to be the one most fit for the seat and what it symbolised, it was a significant show of support for his position and status amongst them as black paladin. A show that Lance took note of silently, one that he wasn't certain Keith or even the other paladins recognised. Whether conscious or not, Lance was happy.

As for the rest of them, they had automatically arranged themselves in order of their rank. Lance sat to Keith's right as expected of him while Shiro sat to the left, in the position usually expected of the blue paladin. Allura didn't seem to mind this alteration, taking the seat beside Shiro without complaint. Across from her sat Hunk. Technically, there was no specific order of superiority between the blue, green and yellow paladins, all three of them being equal but Allura's position as princess and Lance's similar position before her had created a status-based bias for the spot. Between Pidge and Hunk, there didn't appear to be any care as to who was ranked where, both demanding and receiving the same level of respect regardless, so it didn't matter to much as to where they sat. Meanwhile, Coran sat to Allura's left in line with his status as her attendant and guardian. 

For the most part, both Coran and Keith had been keeping out of the discussion, only offering their thoughts at the occasional buffering moment or when they thought the plan was somewhat unclear. 

As a result, the seven of them had come up with the following plan:

The goal of the mission was to capture of high ranking druid, one with enough clearance to be able to provide them with knowledge of Shiro's condition (the paladin in question kept noticeably quiet everytime this was mentioned, making the others a little hesitant to bring it up directly) but without high enough notoriety to prove either too dangerous or important enough to warrant retaliation from the empire.