[ Allura's fortitude in the face of this fleet's sensible-yet-hard-to-reconcile shifting of responsibilities is no less than admirable. While Coran is of course absolutely not old, he's made his rounds of acquaintances (or... did, back before everything went sideways), and he can say with confidence that handling circumstances like these takes a certain natural grace.

Allura has grace in spades, and he's not about to begrudge her a frustrated sigh where one makes sense. She's still here and actively trying, after all.

Many a dignitary would've thrown a fit about being downgraded to sample collection. ]

I do think so, Princess. [ He crouches down to dig a little at a suspect spot in the sand. Look, there could be plants anywhere on this weird hot rock. It's all part of the mystery. ]

You can't even outline a treaty without communicating! It takes days of paperwork and discussing terms, drafting things up in front of the right witnesses... Without communication, it would be an awful lot like two species conveniently deciding to leave each other alone for a while, for no particular reason!

[ And who ever heard of that kind of nonsense? ]