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WHO: Lauri-Ell and You
WHERE: All Around
WHAT: A Day In The Life of a Security Woman
WHEN: Mid April
WARNINGS: small possibility of a structural collapse and getting trapped under it.

1. Queen of Fitness | Civics Center Fitness Rooms

Dawn. Lauri-Ell returns from her patrol routine to the specific place she always to be found in the early morning. The former soldier had been taking care to restore the fitness focused areas of the Civics Center in the past months, and the space definitely showed it now. The time on Coruscant had been helpful in fitting her place better to her tastes. Now instead of worked stone weights for training, she had a few sets of heavy, plasticized dumbbells for people to work with. Nothing compared to the massive wooden log, almost three feet thick and five feet in diameter that she had worked into a shape meant for lifting the edge and flipping for core training, but they were useful anyway. And while there weren't workout machines, she had managed to weave ropes into grids for agility training, long ropes for resistance, and she'd even started the process of building an obstacle course. There were plenty of options for fitness.

The pinnacle of her creation, though, was a room she had taken over off to one side of the main space. The whole floor had been covered with sand hauled all the way from the beach, carefully run through a mesh sieve to keep the larger particles out of. The whole place had been worked down into a nice, relatively soft area for sparring, and there was even a few bags of sand hang from the ceiling for punching. Now if only she could figure out how to make proper mats instead for her sparring space.

Anyone entering would be met with Lauri-Ell there, smiling widely and waving at them.

"Welcome. Do you wish to work out? Spar? I would love to provide assistance."

Billy had said she should find something she wanted to do, wanted to be. And protecting others in every way she can come up with had won out.

2. A Glownie In Need Is A Glownie Indeed | Area of Pink 4

Part of life for Lauri-Ell had always been patrolling Temba. Part of it had come from the fact that, when she had arrived, she had her future Emperor and his Prince-Consort to protect. The rest of it came down to the fact that she was a genetically engineered soldier, and she really just didn't know what to do with herself if she wasn't walking patrols. Which was what she was doing, fully clad in her Accuser armor, the Universal Weapon in hand, and one of the Agrii Security Point guns hanging from a strap at her side. Surely she was kitted out for battle.

What she was not expecting was the distressed noise she heard while walking toward the hangar, or how the noise grew louder and more distressed noises buried under some rubble of the less stable buildings in the area. And that's when she realized what she was hearing.

"A glownie!" the woman gasped, shocked and moving toward the rubble to try and get to where the source was. "I will save you little beast!"

3. Exploring The Ghost of the Past | Pink 25 - Transport Station

Lauri-Ell loved plants, there was no denying that. There was beauty in the fragility of a flower, there was strength in the twisting of a vine, and there was wonder in the wash of green. But here, this place, it was wrong. Lauri-Ell's patrols often led her through this part of the city, eyes watching out for dangerous creatures encroaching in. Today, though, the silence and overgrowth was too much. Too like what she had seen in that New York City where her sister had hidden her during the war. Like the beautiful structure of glass and metal that housed plants where a Cotati had taken a captive little girl named Kit.

It was wrong here. It hurt her to see.

With a sigh Lauri-Ell moved further into the overgrowth, working her way through it. She wanted to see what this structure was, and the plants did not seem to want to let her through.

"I am not your enemy," she told the plants around her. "I wish merely to explore and see what this place was. What it could be. Please, i do not wish to damage you."

They weren't likely to listen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Keith nodded. He wouldn't press. Others might argue that not speaking of a thing prevents learning from history, but Keith wasn't the type to force someone to talk about a thing they didn't want to... mainly because he was a lot like that himself. He didn't like to talk about a lot of things himself, and hated being pushed.

"I hope you can succeed," he said. "Change can be a hard thing to bring about." Keith was fighting his own battle with being accepted among Galra because he was a half-breed, but then, at the same time, also trying to hopefully bring them from a ten thousand year long lifestyle as a conquering empire into a race that can peacefully coexist with others in the galaxy. It was an uphill battle.

"Yes, I believe it must be a thing that can succeed, that it will be brought about."

It was sad, she thought, that Teddy and Keith could not have come to know each other. Perhaps they would have connected. Two mixed-bloods raised on Earth as if they were full humans, who had lost their parents, who found they were more than they had believed. SUre they were very different in the details, but in the big scheme, perhaps the Emperor would have benefited from having another to speak with.

"I have been told that the hard battles, to change the heart of a people, are worth fighting."

Keith considered that for a moment, and then nodded.

"Yeah... they are." He smiled a bit. But... enough of that, right?

"For now, though, we're here. In this place. Care to show me around what you built?" He was curious about everything she had set up. And he really wanted to give that obstacle course a quick run, too...

Show him around? Lauri-Ell nods and beams, moving first to the corner where she had taken and woven vines into ladders for agility training, or had particularly springy ones to do tension exercises with. She explains as she moves how those were particularly hard to do before moving on to the weights and picking up the heaviest of the free weights, which in this case was an overly large one marked as 100 pounds.

This she lifts easily.

"I bought these on Coruscant. They have been very helpful. Previously I gathered and shaped stones for this."

Seeing her heft the 100 pounds wasn't as impressive to him as her comment about how she used to get free weights was.

"You shaped your own stones?" That caught his attention. After all, he'd seen Allura, who looked no different in size and build than an average human female, do similar feats of strength. Seeing a larger woman who was more like a Galra than a human do the same thing wasn't out of the ordinary for him anymore. But hearing that someone actually made their own free weights out of local rocks... that was pretty cool.

"It was not an easy task," Lauri-Ell assures him. "But I had my hammer to assist me."

The thing was more resistant than the rocks here. So mostly it had turned into a task of smacking and shaping carefully. It had been slow, but days were long and she had enjoyed the time.

"That's really cool," Keith said. "I've never done any rock carving or anything like that myself. It was a good idea to think of doing it, too."

But, by now, he definitely wanted to try that obstacle course. He grinned a little.

"I'm gonna give that a go," he said. "You're welcome to join me."

"I wished to stay fit. It is the duty of any Kree soldier to be prepared for combat at any time. And there are those here I mean to protect."

So of course she's going to make what she needs to achieve that. AS for the obstacle course, she smiles and gestures for him to go ahead.

"I do not believe it would be suitable for two to run at once. We believe in challenge, and to evaluate others to improve by their performance. Though I do not know if you would surpass my time upon this. After all, I built it. I know the way of it."

Keith nodded.

"Yeah, sounds like you'd have a definite advantage there." Still. After a few quick stretches, he gave her a nod. "Time me anyway." He liked a good challenge, and even looked downright excited by the idea of jumping into this figuratively blind. Smirking, he crouched at the ready, and then took off to race through it as best he could once she indicated the timer was running.

Keith was definitely fast and agile, more so than the others on his own team back home. His smaller size made it easier for him to move faster, too, and he could slip through and under things easier than climbing over, which he did when faced with a choice. Not that he couldn't climb when he had to. He had decent strength and his agility helped him as far as giving him a free-runner type of style for getting up and over walls by running part of the way up before he had to start really focusing on an actual climb.

"Of course," she agreed, pulling out her communicator to watch the time. She offered a gesture and then started the timer. Once it was running she watched him with a true intensity, for why should she not? She wanted to see his performance.

It was interesting, to watch someone smaller than her perform the course. She had done her best to calibrate it to the size of more average humans, but constantly she had feared she had made walls too high, ropes too long between knots, and bars too spread apart for easy human reach. Still, Keith seemed to be doing well, especially in the crawling sections, because, well, he had more space to work with there than she did.

Keith was probably not the best person to judge how an average sized human could handle an obstacle course that might have been made for someone bigger than him. He was used to dealing with Galra-made items, and most Galra seemed to be in the seven to nine foot range when it came to height. However, he was only short when it came to that side of his family. While his father had also been kind of tall, Keith was pretty average in height for a human male at around 6 feet tall himself. The hybridization of his two tall parents had oddly resulted in a somewhat shorter offspring, but it didn't seem to effect him negatively, and he'd clearly figured out how to deal with items made for larger people.

That said, the course was still new to him, and, while he dove in with gusto, he did have to slow down in some areas to better navigate without potentially falling or injuring himself. Keith was very impulsive at times and didn't always think before acting, causing him to have to change strategy for overcoming an obstacle after he'd already started working his way through it.

Lauri-Ell watched, pleased, amused. This was definitely a bit of success that she hadn't been expecting. In fact, he was quite pleased by the performance she had been having. He's good, right from the start, and Lauri-Ell finds herself doing the traditional Kree thing to cheer him on. She stomped her foot in rhythm, trying to inspire him to greater feats.

"Keep going. You're doing well."

The rhythm actually did help, surprisingly, and set Keith into a pace for the last section as he made his way to the finish line. He didn't even start to slow down until after he crossed, then took a few extra paces to come to an easy loping stop before coming back to see his time.

"Okay... so what's my baseline?" Now he could see where to improve from.

Lauri-Ell smiled and looked down at her phone to check the number on it. Rather nice.

"Rather impressive," she admitted, offering the timer over to him to see the time on it. "I am very happy to see you do so well. It tells me it was well made."

Keith leaned down, bracing his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, but he smiled. It had been a good workout. He wasn't too heavily winded, but enough that it felt good.

"Thanks," he said. "It was fun." He noted the time, and then nodded. "We'll see how fast I can get that over the next few months." He gave her a little smirk, clearly ready to take on a self-challenge.

"I am glad. Miss Clarice has also offered to help me make another that is similar to what she has seen from her world and trained in," Lauri-Ell said with a smile. "I will happily tell you when we start work on that. In the mean time, I will be happy to help expand this one with your guidance if you wish."

"Yeah, sure," Keith said. "I've worked with a couple, too. Back in the Garrison at home... and then we had something like it on the training deck on the Castle of Lions. And we had stuff with the Blade of Marmora, too. I can give you ideas from those."

Blade of Marmora? Castle of Lions?

"I ask forgiveness, but would it be possible for me to ask about some of those words you used? What is a lion? What is Marmora and whey does it have a blade? I know what a castle and a garrison are, were you a guard of your cities?"

If so he would be like her, a guardian fighter. She liked that idea.

Keith looked a bit surprised for a moment, but then remembered that, yeah... not everyone here was going to know about all that. He had gotten used to people knowing back home. He nodded.

"Uh, yeah. I don't mind." He nodded for her to come with him, and then headed over to grab some water before sitting down to rest a bit after his run. "A lion is a large cat, actually. The Castle I'm talking about is actually called that because it houses five large robot Lions that are spaceships. Together, the five ships can transform and combine together to create a larger robotic man called Voltron." He took a sip of the water. "I'm a part of the team of Paladins that pilot the Lions."

Seeing as how he introduced a few new things there, he decided to hang on a bit before explaining the Blade of Marmora to see if she had any more questions about Voltron.

Oh what an interesting idea.

"So it's a palace that is also a military site," Lauri-Ell said. That she could understand. But transforming ships sounded so weird that she didn't know what to do with that. Other than move along.

"And so you are defenders of your people?"

Keith nodded.

"You could call us that," he said. "Defenders of the universe... peacekeepers, liberators. We used Voltron to free people from the control of the Galra Empire, which had been enslaving and taking over other worlds for over ten thousand years." Which was where the next part came in.

"The Blade of Marmora is a group that helped us with that. We met them later. It turns out that my mom had been with them. They're a group of Galra that were working in secret to undermine the control the Empire was forcing on other people." And, yes... he had said his mom was a member... which meant he was half Galra.

Oh dear. A history that almost sounded Kree.

"That is a very noble cause, to bring justice to so many people. You are very honorable."

Because if he trained with them, it followed that he was one of them.

Well, that was a first. Keith wasn't sure he'd call himself 'honorable', and he was pretty sure there were plenty of people out there who had other opinions on that matter. Still...

"I was just doing what I thought was the right thing," he said. "Voltron, the Blades... those sort of happened by accident, as odd as that might sound." He took another sip of his water. "Because of how much the Galra had infiltrated through the universe, Voltron had been hidden from them so the Emperor couldn't use it for himself. When we found the Blue Lion, and then the Castle, we knew what we had to do. So, we sought out the other Lions, and reformed Voltron. It was just what needed to be done to save all those people.

"And the Blades... well, that ended up being sort of an accident, too," he continued. "I didn't know my mom. She left when I was still really young because she had to keep us a secret. The Blue Lion was hidden on my planet, so she went back to the Empire to try and hide that information to keep the Galra from finding Earth. Not only was it to prevent the Emperor from finding the Lion and possibly finding Voltron, but it was also to keep me and my dad safe." He frowned a bit. "I don't have it here, but she left behind her weapon. Every member of the Blade of Marmora receives a special sword that's bonded to their quintessence. Because of that, I was also able to use it because I'm her son. It was through that I was able to prove who I was, and also become a member of the Blades myself."

Well, it was a lot more complicated than that and involved a really long and difficult fight that almost killed him, but Keith didn't really want to get into that right now.

Plus, he still had that third part... the Garrison...

"You followed your sense of justice," Lauri-Ell observed. It was how she interpreted following what one thought was right, especially to help and protect others. For freedom, for protection, yes, he was noble by her metric.

But not an Accuser.

"In my place, my version of Earth and the universe, you would be sought out by the Nova Corp. You are noble of heart and deed, and seek to protect others, even when it puts you at risk. The Nova Corp were once the greatest protection offered to the universe."

"Sounds like the Garrison, then," Keith said. "In a way, I guess. At least, what the Garrison had to become. The Galra did eventually get to Earth. When I first joined, they were explorers first, fighters second. Not that we didn't know how to fight, because we needed to be prepared for anything we might meet in space, but they were mostly scientists and engineers." He chuckled a little.

"Not really my thing, but I got recruited by Shiro when he came to my school because I aced his piloting sim. I was the best one in the class." Keith said that naturally. He wasn't bragging. It was just a fact. "So, they recruited me for that initially. But, after he and I were with Voltron, the Galra came to Earth because they were trying to hurt us... it was a revenge tactic by one of their higher ranking generals." And it kind of worked. Lance and Hunk almost lost their families to that invasion, and it really threw them both for a while.

"We still had to do rigorous physical training, though, with the Garrison," Keith explained. "For humans, space was still a new environment, and dangerous for us. We had to be in top physical shape to handle it." It was an argue Shiro faced several times because of his condition, and Keith remembered trying to help him overcome some setbacks with Sanda and Iverson a few times with Sam Holt's support, especially after he and Adam had broken up. Keith had believed in Shiro like Sam did, though. He could do it... and he did. He overcame a lot.