Disclaimer – I don't own Voltron: Legendary Defender. This is written for prompt number 250 of my 2017 prompt challenge. The prompt is to use a piece of art from the Romanticism period as inspiration. For this one, I choose the 1818 painting 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog' by Caspar David Friedrich. This is my second fic for the challenge. I'm working with the Keith and Shiro are brothers theory again, but also the theory that their mother is the former blue paladin.
Coran and the Sea of Fog
Everyone was gone.
Everyone, that is, except for Princess Allura.
At night, however, Coran found himself utterly alone, even the princess having disappeared from his dreams. Instead, he saw in front of him a vast sea, the waves crashing up against the jagged rocks, threatening to break any sailing ship upon their rocky shore. In the distance, he saw large mountains, looming, echoing the lonely, empty feeling cascading down around him.
The royal advisor would close his eyes, taking in the sounds, wondering when one of his companions from his past would appear. Male or female, he wished to reach out to grip their hand, and pull them out of the misty abyss, but the chance to do so never came, as not a single voice reached out to him. Instead, he awoke every morning, letting out a deep sigh, heading out to see the new paladin or the numbers.
The paladins were identified by number, and in truth, he and the princess were not alone, yet he didn't know how to interact around this strange species none of them heard about. He liked number five, as she was rather intelligent. Number two was on the big side but had the heart to match, making him perfect. Number three proved to have an interesting personality.
Number one though was strong, everything one would want in a paladin. While Shiro was still a teen, as the young paladins called themselves, he acted like an adult most of the time, even more than Coran. A strange thought crossed Coran's mind about pairing Allura up with Shiro, what with how much like King Alfor the young man was like. However, this quickly left his mind, he wasn't sure exactly why.
One night, Coran walked through the halls, having woken up from his dream involving the sea of fog. He stopped short, catching sight of the black paladin hanging out in the doorway of a room. Coran stepped up, his lips pushing together. "Shouldn't you be in bed, number one?" Shiro lifted a finger to his mouth, indicating Coran shouldn't make a sound, before turning his head to look back into the room, his arms crossing yet again. The royal advisor noticed the young paladin sleeping on the bed, noticing it was number four. "Oh."
"Something the matter?" Shiro asked as Coran moved a few steps away.
"No. Nothing. Nada."
Coran turned away, a shudder running down his spine. Number four bothered him, not in the creepy kind of way, but in the manner of which one simply couldn't figure something out. The royal advisor spent far more time with the other paladins, even spoke with them more. He stopped, before turning back. "Yes. Yes, there is a problem."
"And?" Shiro sighed. "And please don't wake Keith up, Coran."
"Watching someone sleep. That's kind of creepy, you know." The royal advisor folded his arms across his chest to make a point. "Well, maybe not if you were a parent watching your child."
"Oh. Sorry. I'm actually the closest thing Keith has to a parent. It's been over a year since I've seen him, and I can't exactly approach him during the day when everyone else is around."
"Oh." Coran blinked a couple of times, before heading away. Shiro reminded him of King Alfor because the young man had taken on the parental role, so he pushed the idea away, telling himself as well that it was best that the Altean's end with them, as the princess marrying a non-Altean was out of the question. The Altean's never had problems with other alien races or intermarrying, but the royal bloodline needed to remain pure. "Who am I kidding. If she wants to be with somebody, let her. At least she has that one thing."
He couldn't help but watch number four closer, how he kept away from the others and didn't quite fit in. There was something familiar with him, and yet Coran couldn't place it. One time, Shiro got Keith to react, and the red paladin's facial featured changed. The familiar feeling simply remained, and Coran shook his head, before brushing it aside.
That night, he found himself looking at the sea of fog, and yet this time he wasn't alone. His eyes blinked a couple of times, catching sight of a young female with dark black hair heading out into the sea, one child clutching her small hand, and another small one in her hand. He drew near, reaching out, noticing her ears were pointed like an Altean, meaning she was one of them. A soft song came out of her mouth, drifting across the ocean waves.
And then it was gone.
A few more nights, and then Coran dreamed of something else. He walked on a beach, the hands of two children holding onto his. One looked up, with eyes as bright as the Princess', her dark black locks of hair cascading down around her shoulders. "Uncle!"
"Ah, yes my princess?"
"I'm not a princess," the child giggled. "Auntie's baby is going to be here soon."
"Oh, yes. When I say you're a princess, I mean that you're precious to me, all right."
"All right!" The two children took off, running around. Coran's breath tightened, watching the fog roll in, so he was soon in a sea of fog again, unable to find the children, no matter how much he called out.
Letting out a sigh, the royal advisor prepared to get up that morning. On his way out, he bumped into the red paladin, who reacted to Coran suddenly bumping into him. Another sigh, a deeper one, escaped Coran's lips. Keith piped up. "Oh. Sorry Coran. I'm off to train with Shiro."
"Behave yourself number four." Coran swallowed, heading to the computer system. He drew up his family tree, looking first at his wife and child, before scrolling to his sister's children. "I never got the chance to see my children grow to be old enough to be paladins, but you sister? Aren't your little darlings…"
The royal advisor stopped, swallowing as he did so. He enlarged the picture of his niece, before going to pull up a picture of the red paladin. "Oh…" A few more pulls and the info was there under his fingertips, surprising, to say the least. Coran closed it down, before heading to the kitchen to get something to eat. He must have been some time, as Shiro and Keith were in the room, the red paladin looking rather exhausted.
Shiro noticed that Coran was watching, and spoke up. "Something wrong, Coran?"
"Oh. He looks like…"
"Keith? Our mother, but don't tell him I told you that. He's crashed right now."
"You've not said anything to the other paladins?" The royal advisor took a deep breath.
"About Keith and I being siblings? Not really fair to everyone else really."
"No, I mean…" Coran looked back at Keith, who remained on the table. Allura came into the room then, looking at Keith while the red paladin came to attention, looking her in the eye as a smile spread across her face. Neither talked, and soon Hunk came in to make food, and all of the paladins went in a different direction. The looks Allura and the red paladin gave each other seemed like an illusion, as one or the other had said something which made the other rather cross.
"That's just me wanting something good for the princess."
"Could you possibly not mention the fact those two are crushing on each other to the other paladins?
Coran blinked a couple of times. "Crushing? I think it is very obvious that those two don't like each other. I mean, they're crushing each other with that hate from yet another spat over who knows what."
"Yeah. Never mind." Shiro got up.
The royal advisor breathed a sigh of relief, glad he'd not told Shiro that his mother = and Keith's for that matter - was the former paladin. Neither seemed aware of the fact she was such, or that they were half human, half Altean. That may be one of the downsides of being able to change one's form. "I don't want them thinking poorly of her for keeping secrets like that."
Knowing the truth didn't make the sunlight pierce the sea of fog. Even if he wanted to know the how, it wasn't worth deepening the fog for others.