Ocean Blue

Chapter 33

Allura frowned at the map. "Can any of you read this?"

Keith leapt onto the table, stalking towards the map, and shook his head. Shiro also frowned.

"No. Too many words."

Pidge sniggered. "It's in Latin, guys. Don't you know the difference between Latin and English?"

Keith hissed at her and jumped away, head high with disdain. Shiro smiled apologetically. "Keith can't read. And neither can I. I'm assuming you can't either, Allura?"

"Of course not," she snapped, "Who would teach a slave to read English?"

Pidge blinked. "None of you... can read?"

"I can," Hunk volunteered.

"I can't," Lance said gloomily from the tub that they were keeping him in, "We don't need to under the ocean."

Pidge sighed. "I can't believe this."

"Hey, there's no reason for fishermen to learn to read," Shiro protested, "Matt and your father were just the odd ones out!"

Pidge looked up sharply. "You leave them out of this."

"Pidge?"

Pidge looked at Lance. "What?!"

Lance sighed. "I didn't know this was important, Pidge. I swear I didn't. But I was just thinking about it... y'know, because Keith's got the brand on his arm, and Shiro says that means you're going to be eaten..."

"What is it, Lance?"

"Pidge, I'm pretty sure that your brother had the mark on his arm when I saw him."

"No. No, Lance, shut up."

"But—"

"Shut up! Don't talk about it. I'm going to find him. Alive. So just... shut up. We're going to get the amulet. We're going to find it. Then we're going to find my brother. So I need to start translating this map. Go away."

Hunk blinked. "You know Latin?"

"A bit. Give me time. Coran, are there any Latin books on this raft?"

"A few. But I have memorized a Latin dictionary. You can simply ask me."

"Great. You stay. Everyone else, scram."

Three hours later, Pidge swore under her breath, shoving her chair back from her desk and slamming her head down on the table. "This is stupid. I can't get any of this! Half of these aren't even words! And the half that are are in the wrong declension!"

Coran shrugged. "Go take a walk and clear your head."

Pidge walked outside, grumbling, and saw Hunk whittling something. "What're you doing?"

He grinned. "I'm making a code-breaker! A letter corresponds to a number, and you can spin the wheels so you can see what each of the numbers makes and—"

"That's it!"

"What?"

"Coding! Caesarian code! You move the alphabet three letters down! Makes sense, since it's in Latin, right?!"

"Um... yeah. Sure."

"Thanks, Hunk!"

Pidge raced back down to where Coran was waiting and erased her slate, moving each of the letters of the coding three Roman letters over. Now the words were making sense, and she flew through them.

"Fantastic! Great! Of course it can't be easy, ever!"

Coran peered over her shoulder. "Well?"