Lorelei 'Lana' Marina Sanchez McClain had always known that she was different. She didn't have the same skin tone as everyone else, never had the same body type or way of thinking as other girls. But she never understood why, since she didn't know who her true parents.
Lana woke up on Varadero Beach in uncomfortable armor-like clothing, no memory of what had happened to her. She had blood seeping through her shoulder and clothes. She was scared and alone, and had no idea where she was. She wandered that beach for hours, just looking for anyone who could help her, or even tell her where she was. She only knew bits and pieces that came back to her: Her full name was Lorelei Marina Altea, she wasn't from wherever the heck she was now, and she was 14 years old.
She did eventually find a kind woman and several children who were kind enough to hep her out. They wrapped her in what they called a towel and led her back to a small house, which was strewn with clothes and toys and food. Lana felt right in with these loud Cubans, and they accepted her almost immediately as one of their own.
"What's your name, dear?" The pompous woman asks, setting down a cup of tea in front of Lana.
"Lorelei Marina." She managed. She cupped the tea in her hands, letting the warmth soothe her.
"Such a beautiful name. But I don't think all the others will be able to pronounce it... how about we call you Lana?" She says sweetly, and Lana nods. "Now then, let's look at that wound of yours, huh?"
Lana grimaced and removed her plates of armor, leaving her in a black, form-fitting shirt and leggings. The blue and white armor stained red with her blood were discarded on the other end of the kitchen table. Lana peeled off her undershirt, leaving her in a pale bright blue sports bra, stained red as well. She had a long gash across her back, and a stab wound a few inches from her heart, right under her collarbone. She inhaled sharply as the woman ghosted her fingers over the sensitive flesh.
The woman cleaned the wounds quickly and bandaged Lana, before grabbing her purse and speaking quickly in Spanish to the other children. She dragged Lana out to the minivan in the driveway and took her down to the local medical clinic. Begging for anonymity, the woman was able to get Lana in to the see the most experienced doctor. The doctor didn't say anything either, just stitched Lana's stab wound back together and gave instructions to care for it.
"Now that that's taken care of, Lana... do you speak Spanish?" She asks. Lana nods firmly. Lana had been taught Spanish, English, Altean, and French... but she didn't know when or how without her memory to help her. "Alright. Do you remember where your family is?"
"I... no. I don't even know if I have a family. I don't even know where I came from." Lana responds sullenly. The woman nods knowingly.
"Well, until we find your family, if we ever do, how about you become part of ours. I'll introduce you when we get home, but you can call me mama." She smiles at Lana, who grins back.
"Thank you." Lana responds happily.
"Now then, I'm Gloria Sanchez McClain, so you're now officially Lorelei Lana Marina Sanchez McClain. What a title might I add." She smiled, and the two walked into the small house to greet Lana's future siblings.
"Lana, you might want to come read this, dearie." Her mother says with a smile. Lana runs over to her mother and took the torn envelope from her mothers open hands. She smiled knowingly as she watched Lana read over the letter.
"Mama!? I got in!?" Lana exclaimed, jumping up and down in joy.
"Yeah, ya did honey." Mama smiled, tears running down her face in pride. "You're the first female to ever be accepted into Galaxy Garrison."
"I can't believe it!" Lana screeched. "Mama... I might find my other family..."
"I hope you do, dear. You've been through too much to not find them." Mama smiled as the girl ran to her room to pack, a small smile on her face. She knew that Lorelei would leave eventually to find her family, but she wasn't ready for how much she wanted Lana to stay. She was like a daughter to her, the only one she would ever have, and she didn't want to let go this easily. But she had to.
The next week, Lana was dropped off in New Mexico to study at Galaxy Garrison, and Gloria knew that Lana would do fine. After all, she had Gloria to raise her.
"Hi!" Lana said, popping her head into her dorm room. There was a tall, muscular man in the room, putting clothes into drawers.
"Hello!" He smiled, turning around to face her. "You must be my roommate."
"Yuppers. I'm Lana, and you are?" Lana asks, pulling her small suitcase into the room.
"I'm Hunk." Hunk says, setting down the pair of shoes he was holding. He held out his hand to Lana. "It's really cool of you to be here. I heard you're the first girl to ever join Galaxy Garrison..."
"Yeah, that's what I heard too. It's not too intimidating though, rather exciting." Lana says, taking Hunks hand and shaking it. She then lifted her suitcase and unzipped it. She didn't have half the amount of stuff Hunk did, but after all, she came from a poorer family. And she only lived there for two years, and had god knows what the first 14 years of her life.
"Cool, cool. Need help unpacking?" Hunk asks.
"I'm good. How about you?" Lana asks. Hunk shakes his head. They both turn to their sides of the room and get to work.
Hunk was turning back to putting his clothes away and Lana got to work.
She quickly made her bed, putting the light blue bed sheets over the bare mattress and pillows, covering the bed with her darker blue comforter. She hung up her brother's jacket in the closet and put away her folded clothes. Shoving her extra sneakers in the closet, she put the suitcase under her bed. She put the three books she owned on top of her nightstand. Two of them were in Altean, something that Lana had no idea why she could read, and one in Spanish.
Finally, she put her old armor she came to Earth in in the back of her closet.
She sat down on her bed and turned on her phone, immediately noticing her mother's texts to her, as were her brother's (Luca). She smiled and threw the phone down lightly on her bed, and glanced over at Hunk, who was still unpacking.
"Hey man, you wanna grab some food?" Lana asks. Hunk nods and the two walk to the dining hall, chatting about the classes that started the next day.
Lana had been in classes for a couple months, and things were going alright. She was promoted from cargo pilot to fighter pilot, giving her a better chance of finding her family, so that was a plus. And she made two friends. Hunk and Pidge, who were on her team during simulators and designated to be with her throughout their careers.
The three stepped out of the fighter simulator they had just failed, and watched Iverson's angry glares reach each of their faces. Lana gulped, ready to hear the shpeel.
"Hunk, you threw up again. You gotta stop, man, your team is going to get sick of cleaning up your barf all the time." Iverson says, and Hunk looked down.
"Pidge, you gotta stop arguing with Lana. She's wrong most of the time, but listen anyway. It's going to be the only way that Lana is ever going to get anyone to pay attention, anyway, is if I make them." Iverson grunts, turning to Lana.
"Lana, where do I start... ?" Iverson groans. "You gotta stop the chatter. I know you like the hear yourself talk, but you're going to kill someone. You need to bond with your team, you were all a mess. Try it sometime. I don't care if you're a girl, or a hyena even, but you gotta get better at this piloting thing. The only reason you're even in fighter class is because Keith dropped out. Remember that."
Lana gulped back to tears threatening to spill, and nodded solemnly.
"I don't even know why the school board accepted girls." Iverson says. "Class dismissed."
The class filed out, and Lana walked straight to the dorm room, ignoring anyone else. Hunk and Pidge hung behind, talking while Lana did whatever she needed to do. Which was cry. Lana sat in her emptied closet and quietly cried, trying to finish up so she could go eat dinner.
And after dinner, she went up to the roof to try and find more about Voltron. She took up her equipment and wore her old armor, just because it brought nostalgia and helped her think. She could've sworn she had remembered something about Voltron from her past, but she couldn't put her finger on it. So she went up again.
But this time Hunk and Pidge followed her.
Lana felt strangely in place when she sat in the pilot seat of the Blue Lion once again. She had taken off her armor and shoved it in the back, leaving her in her casual clothes just because she started to get a flashback when she was in the armor, and she was scared of it. But no one questioned her having armor on or having it in the back, everyone was too tense with what was currently happening.
She had opened a... wormhole... with the Lion. She knew what she was doing, somehow, probably getting help from the Blue Lion sitting beneath her. And then, just like that, she was confronted with a billion memories as soon as she saw the castle of the lions. She blacked out and immediately heard screams from her friends in the cockpit, but she was out. But was immediately sucked into a memory.
Lorelei sat at the vanity in her sister Allura's room. She was getting her hair brushed and pinned up along her head, and was giggling about something with her sister.
"Lorelei, I'm sure you'll be fine." Allura recovered from her giggle fit, looking at Lorelei through the mirror. Lorelei blushed and looked down at her folded hands in her lap.
"But don't you think father's starting a little bit young with me?" Lorelei asks her older sister.
"Well, that's what I thought when I started training for the castle pilot position, but it's good to start young." Allura says to her baby sister. Allura was ten years older than Lorelei, and much more experienced in the piloting field.
"Well yeah, but... you're training was safer. I don't even get training, I'm just going straight into piloting her. What if I'm bad? What if other ambassadors don't trust me because I'm a girl?" Lorelei worried, putting her hand on her sister's.
"Then we'll deal with it. You're ready, Lei, I can feel it." Allura says. "And don't worry too much about this meeting. It's just with the Olkari, nothing to worry over. They're like, the nicest people ever."
"True." Lei nods.
"And you might see that one servant you've taken a liking to~" Allura sang, walking away from Lorelei.
"Shut it, Allura!" Lorelei laughed, picking up a throw pillow and throwing it at her laughing sister.
The past memory bled into the next. She couldn't even wake up before the next memory sprung on her, making her gasp a little in surprise at the quick change of scenery beneath her eyelids.
"Lorelei!" Allura yelled for her sister, knowing she couldn't hear. "Be careful!"
Lorelei watched as Zarkon betrayed the Paladins around her, stabbing Trigel and the others with no remorse. Lorelei was next, she knew. She saw Zarkon prowling nearer to hear, and felt her breath hitch in her throat.
"Zarkon, this isn't you. It's the Quintessence exposure, you're corrupted!" Lorelei shouts, backing further away from her former leader.
"Lei, you and I both know that Quintessence rules the universe. With the rift exposed, I could rule the universe! Galaxies would be under our control." Zarkon says. "But I need to take you out first."
"NO!" Lorelei shouts. She watched Coran get Allura into a sleeping chamber safely before looking back at Zarkon with hatred in her eyes.
Zarkon snuck behind her and slashed across her back quickly and painfully. She screeched in pain, turning around to slap Zarkon across the face. She made the hit, turning around to run to her Lion and escape. She heard through the comms that her father was telling the Lion's to hide at rendezvous points across the Galaxy, and nodded solemnly. But that was her moment of weakness. While running to Blue, Zarkon threw a small blade at Lorelei, nailing it home right below her collarbone and straight through her chest. She gasped in pain, but made it to Blue and flew away.
And then, Lana woke up. She blinked, gaining her bearings and glancing around. Keith had taken over flying the Lion into the Castle's Lion Bay, and Hunk was holding Lana's limp body princess style.
The group walked out of the Lion and into the Castle, Hunk putting Lana down with concern. They were classified and ushered into the main deck by the castle itself. Lana would've smiled at the Castle's pushiness if not for the dire circumstances they were currently in. Shiro walked over to the sleeping chambers and unlocked them accidentally, sending Allura tumbling out of the pod. Lana gasped. she remembered... Allura, her sister, the memories of them playing in the yard, her sister taking care of her when her mother couldn't.
"Lorelei!?" Allura gasped as she fell out of the sleeping chamber. "Where's my sister!?"
"What?" Shiro asked, catching Allura in his arms.
"What? What year is it?!" Allura asks, just as Coran stumbles out of the other chamber. Lana catches him instead.
"Princess-er-Queen? It's been 10,000 years." Lana informed, feeling eyes fall on her weirdly. Coran and Allura gasped, and Coran straightened in Lana's arms, looking straight at her face.
"Lei?" Coran whispered. Lana pressed a finger to her lips frantically, and Coran understood immediately.
"Where's Voltron?" Allura asks. She pulled up historical records from the last 10,000 years and gasped.
"Princess, it seems that we have our new team right here." Coran informed.
"I guess we have some explaining to do." Allura says, smiling weakly.