The story of us (Shance Fluff Week 17/18)

Cold snap (Day 5: warm/cold)

"Why are we doing this again?"

For what felt like the millionth time, Shiro sighed, leaning back against the tree trunk behind him in as the fire finally caught. "We need emergency training," he repeated, watching as Pidge deflated where she sat, "incase we crash or something, like when we all got split up from the corrupted wormhole-"

"Or if the lions break," Hunk chimed it, sitting back from the now roaring fire with a satisfied smirk, "and y'know, we can't fix them or something."

They had been in this forest for barely a day, and Shiro was already tired.

Allura has sworn it was important, prepping them with survival skills for the worst case scenario, but sitting in a snow covered forest, heating crystallised ration bars over a fire that was hardly enough to heat one of them, let alone six, wasn't exactly how he thought the training would go. Sure, he was okay with the cold, and could deal with it surprisingly well, but listening to his teammates complain about the cold for the past twelve Vargas was starting to get grating.

"Well let's just hope our lions never crash," Lance snapped with a shiver, tightening his arms around his middle, "because this? This is hell."

Next to him, Keith rolled his eyes with a huff, jabbing the fire with a long stick he'd found out of boredom. "We know, Lance, you've been saying that since we got here-"

"Because it's true!"

"We know it's true," Pidge growled, and Lance raised an eyebrow sceptically, "but can you like, shut up about it? It's really-"

"Guys!" Shiro interrupted, before sitting back and rubbing at his temples with a huff, "we're here now, and we're going to have to stay here for the next day or two, so can we all just stop complaining and deal with it?"

A silence fell across the group, only punctuated by the crackles of the fire in the middle of the ring.

"Oh crap," Hunk joked quietly, "boss man snapped."

The snow had started to fall again, at some point between Hunk starting the fire and Lance and Keith arguing, thick lilac flakes falling from the sky and setting on branches and the top of their tent. It had started covering their tracks already, sole patterns indistinguishable from snow drifts.

"Did we work out why the snow's lilac?" Keith mused, putting his hand out to let the flakes collect and pile on his palm.

"The rivers get dyed purple from a chemical in the bedrock," Pidge replied quietly, eyes watching a flake slowly tumble to the ground, "it meets the oceans, and dyes them in the process."

"I just wanna' know how the chemical enters the precipitation with the water," Hunk said with a breathy laugh, moving back to sit on the log next to Pidge, "like surely it should have a different boiling temperature? It's a salt, right?"

Pidge shrugged in reply, mounding some snow in her hands to pat into a ball-like shape. "Maybe it's not, alien planets are weird."

Lance jerked, suddenly looking horrified as he snapped his head away from collecting flakes in his mouth. "It's not poisonous, right? I'm not gonna' die?"

"I think you're safe, Lance," Shiro replied, letting a small smile grace his face at his boyfriend's antics, "just don't choke or something."

Across the circle, Lance shot him a wide grin, before tipping his head back again.

"Y'know," Keith said quietly, leaning down to trail a gently shivering finger through the snow, "I've never seen snow before - is this like it is on Earth?"