The labyrinth wasn't real.
Though, Allura mused, pressing her bare feet to the simulated dirt, perhaps real was relative. She had not visited the holo chamber since her father's consciousness had been corrupted and subsequently lost. It felt empty, without him. The insinuation of a warm summer breeze rolled through the room, making her silver hair dance gently around her shoulders. She took a deep breath of recycled air and could almost smell the blooming flowers on the wind. She could almost taste it. Almost. Or was it just the memory of this place that gently caressed her senses? The summer was Allura's favorite time to visit the labyrinth, when the days were long and the lavandula was in bloom.
But the labyrinth had turned to ash ten thousand years ago, along with the rest of Altea.
Allura took another step, trying not to think about this place being engulfed in the flames of the Galra Empire. Instead, she took another deep breath and focused on the warm dirt beneath her feet, between her toes. It wasn't real. But it felt real. And in the big, cold black of space, a little warmth went a long way.
The labyrinth had no walls. The ground was lined with stones, making a path to follow through the dirt that led to a small stone bench at its center. The ersatz azure sky stretched on as far as Allura's eyes could see. This labyrinth was not a punishment, or a prison. This was a labyrinth for quieting the mind. It held no secrets at its center, other than the secrets the walker held within themselves.
While some Alteans had preferred a sojourn to the reflecting pools to focus on their meditation practice, Allura had always been drawn to the labyrinth. Located on the palace grounds, it had been close enough to provide refuge from the daily chaos of life in the Altean court. Even the simulation of this long lost place still gave her peace. Though the Castle of Lions was considerably quieter now than it had been millennia ago, it was just as dangerous. Allura exhaled. She needed this. Needed this moment away from the fray. Allura shook her head. Don't think about what's out there, she reminded herself. Be here, now. Even if here was just a simulacra, and now was just a moment away from total annihilation.
But they had made it this far.
They could make it one more day on little more than hope and a corrupted Galra crystal. One more day. One more step. She put one foot in front of the other, and kept walking. She had to keep going. She had to contemplate their strategy moving forward against the Galra empire, free from the distractions of training and battle. And a certain paladin.
She took another step, and something hard pressed into the flesh of her foot. A bolt of pain raced up her spine. It sent her mind careening down a path that her body could not follow to a schism between the past and the present. The moment she watched the world break from behind the castle windows in space. The instant Altea had died without a sound. She felt it in her spine like a needle, something so sharp it barely even stung, leaving her completely numb. Her homeworld collapsing in on itself was replaced by Zarkon on the comm screen, and it was all over again.
No. The word was a knife in her hands; sharp and relentless. As long as she held on, they could still fight. We can still fight! But her father had refused her plea to form Voltron the day Altea burned. He had saved her, instead.
"Allura."
She was suddenly, painfully present in her body again.
"Father," she whispered, stopping dead in her tracks. "Impossible."
She spun on her heel and the dirt shifted beneath her feet. She scanned lavandula fields for King Alfor's face, but he was not there. Someone else darkened the door.
Shiro gave a quick, shallow bow. "Princess."
"Oh," she said, trying not to sound too disappointed.
From the look on Shiro's face as he rose, she had obviously failed. She paused, and saw her father's eyes in Shiro's, just for a moment. Shiro's eyes were dark, and her father's – her father's were the color of the Altean summer sky. But the pang of regret in them was the same.
"Oh, Shiro," she tucked an errant strand of silver hair behind her pointed ear. "I'm sorry. I thought – " she tried to shake her father's face from her thoughts." I thought you were someone else. Please. Come in."
The paladin of the black lion cut a sharp shadow at the edges of the holo chamber. He stood stiff and perpendicular to the door, arms behind his back, like a schoolboy who had been instructed to touch nothing. Like if he broke something, there would be consequences. Allura smiled and gestured for him to enter.
Shiro took a hesitant step forward, his eyes drifting upward to the cloud dotted horizon of the artificial blue sky. "This is nice," he said, not removing his arms from behind his back and letting them fall to his sides. "Is it Altea?"
Allura nodded.
"Is everything alright?" Allura asked.
"Oh, yeah," Shiro nodded. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, but I thought you should know some of the castle systems are still glitching. We're experiencing some minor power failures. Couldn't reach you on the comm system."
Allura stiffened. "Has there been any change in the life support systems?"
"No, nothing like that. The art grav is out on levels eleven and fourteen, and the comm system is still going in and out. Just a glitch. Nothing Coran says he can't fix," Shiro shrugged. "Or Pidge. If the grav goes out on their level and it wakes them up I'm sure they'll be all over it."
Allura felt the knot in her stomach begin to untie itself. "Of course," she smiled her most peaceable and regal smile. "We're in good hands."
Shiro smiled at her from across the field. It made her feel off balance, but in a good way. It was absurd, of course. After a lifetime of rigorous martial arts training, all this human had to do was smile at her to throw her off? She almost had to laugh.
She smiled instead. "What?"
"You're up awful late," Shiro commented.
"I could say the same to you," she crossed her arms over her chest, adopting a playfully defensive position.
As she was considering changing the holo chamber scene to something that included a reflecting pool and a full moon in the purple night sky, the smile vanished from Shiro's face. The ball was in his court but he wasn't playing. The flirtatious glint in his eyes was gone. There was something else there, now. Something darker. He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
Allura already knew what Shiro saw when he closed his eyes. She knew how he felt, every time he opened them again. That sinking feeling in his gut. Like the world was falling away all around him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing but be dragged down with it. And she knew what followed - the flash of panic that lingered until everything came back into focus. Until the memory faded, no longer eclipsing reality.
Shiro gingerly rubbed the back of his neck with his prosthetic arm. "I don't sleep much these days."
"I understand," Allura said, quietly. "Walk with me?"
She watched Shiro shrink against the doorway. She could already feel the words forming on his lips. I should go. Like he'd said too much. Like he'd broken something.
"I don't sleep much these days myself," she confessed.
Shiro approached with slow and deliberate steps. Allura smiled a sad smile. She was glad for the company, even if they did not speak. They did not need to.
She continued down the path, but she did not look to the ground. Instead, her gaze drifted to the place where the lavandula fields turned to green hills, and the hills became the sky. The illusion made the holo chamber seem like it stretched on forever. A breeze rippled over the hills, making the purple flowers sway. The perfect simulation of the perfect day. Almost perfect enough to get lost in.
Allura's pointed ears perked up when Shiro took his first step in the dirt. Unlike her, he was still wearing his boots. The dirt crunched beneath Shiro's weight with each step, only heightening her awareness of his presence. She folded her hands behind her back and continued. As she rounded a corner, she caught a glimpse of Shiro out of the corner of her eye. His eyes were on her.
Allura felt a little more off balance.
She picked up the pace. It was easy enough. She had walked this labyrinth countless times back on Altea. She knew the path like she knew the Castle of Lions; every curve, every edge, every secret shortcut. But there should be no shortcuts in the labyrinth. Not if you wanted to do it right. In the labyrinth, there should only be a singular path to contemplation. She wondered what Shiro was contemplating, now. Was he thinking about the things that kept him up at night? Or - she bit her lip. Was he thinking about her?
She picked up her skirt so it did not drag in the dirt, even though the dirt was not real. It was a habit that had become second nature after years of storming out of the castle after cabinet meetings, and then, at the end, the war room. The dirt wasn't real. None of this was real. But it felt good.
And Allura only wanted a glimpse of feeling good. After a lifetime of service, was that too much to ask? Maybe it was. Of course it was. Leadership was sacrifice. Allura steeled herself. That was the nature of it. Her father had given everything to keep Voltron from the Galra Empire. His planet. A life with his family. A life at all. And now she would never see him again. A wave of sadness washed over Allura. She took another step. And then another.
Grief was like the tides. It was never really disappeared, only came and went. Even when it seemed out of sight, it was never too far from the shore. But this was not the time for grief. The Galra were upon them, and her father's fight was far from over. But now - Voltron was whole again. She had hope again. Maybe that had to be enough.
But when she was with Shiro, she wanted something more. Something tangible. Something she could hold in her hands. It was foolish and Allura knew it, so she forced her gaze back to walking the labyrinth. That was why she was here. To focus. To find her center once again. Shiro was making that difficult. But she knew she could. She had to.
They weren't going to win this war if she let her distractions get the better of her.
She swept her skirt up under her when she arrived at the center, and the small stone bench that had been there since before she was born. It might still be on Altea now, if the Galra hadn't lit the world on fire. She closed her eyes, dismissing the thought from her mind. Beneath her, the stone was warm from the sun. Be here, now, she told herself silently. That's what matters.
It seemed like Shiro was sitting beside her in the blink of an eye. There was something to be said for his strong frame and long legs. Allura tried not to think about it. Tried not to look at him. She knew if she did, her eyes would linger too long in all the socially inappropriate places. She had lost focus more than once observing the paladins in training, just looking at him. Watching the way his body moved. Shiro was long and lean, swift as a sword and twice as powerful. And that was when he wasn't using the Galra tech grafted to his body.
Coran had commented on how far away she seemed, watching Shiro. Her Altean companion didn't know she was watching Shiro, or if he did, he had never commented on it specifically. She had blamed it on long days, and even longer nights, and he had not probed any further. Coran had lost just as much as she had. He was there when the world burned.
But what had Shiro lost to gain that Galra tech? Allura suspected it was more than just his arm. The scar that lined his face was only the beginning. She had seen his shoulders. Her eyes had lingered on the place where flesh met Galra tech more than once while the paladins had suited up. His body was scored with scars, a legacy of everything he had survived, etched in flesh. She wondered if it hurt - all those reminders of everything he could not remember. Maybe it was better that way. She wrung her hands in her lap, gathering the fabric of her dress between her fingers. Maybe it was better just to forget.
"This place is beautiful," he said, again. As if all of a sudden, he had nothing else to say. "Did you come here often?"
"Yes," said Allura. "It's beautiful this time of year, when the lavandula is in bloom," she continued casually, as if she was talking about something that still existed.
Like lavandula was something that you could just walk outside and see, and touch, instead of something that only existed in this chamber within the Castle of Lions. And even then, it was not real, only beams of coherent light bent just the right way.
She smiled sadly. "The engineers never could quite get the smell right."
"Smells kind of like lavender to me," Shiro said, simply.
"Lavender?" she turned to him.
He shifted his weight on the bench beside her. "It's a plant, back on Earth. Purple, like your lavandula," he smiled, and his scar crinkled at the edges. "People use it for all sorts of stuff. Put it in lotion, that sort of thing. Most people find the smell soothing."
Allura nodded in agreement and dug her bare feet into the red was very soothing.
"Some people like lavender in food, too. Sweets, stuff like that," Shiro continued. "But that stuff always just tasted like soap to me."
Allura burst into laughter then covered her mouth with her hand. "Humans eat soap?"
"Well, no. I mean, they're not supposed to," Shiro cracked a grin. "But stranger things have happened."
"Do you eat soap?" Allura leaned in a little closer.
Shiro laughed, and she felt the warmth of his breath on her neck. It felt like summer. Real summer. Shiro shook his head as his laughter trailed off into a tremulous smile.
"Do you miss it?" she asked quietly.
Shiro arched a brow. "Lavender?"
"Earth."
Shiro looked away from her as a simulation of a gentle breeze rolled through the holo chamber. It was not real, but she savored it anyway. There was no breeze in space, only the suffocating vacuum created by unfortunate instances of depressurization, which were to be avoided at all costs, in Allura's opinion. She decided instead to focus her thoughts on the imitation Altean summer, even if it didn't smell quite right.
"I don't miss it like they do," he said.
Maybe that's a good thing, Allura thought. Voltron had almost come apart because of the paladins' struggles with being separated from their home world. She had almost lost everything, all over again.
"I mean, they all miss it for their own reasons. Just like they all miss different things," Shiro leaned back on the bench. "Pidge's call to find their family is a strong one, but maybe it's a problem solved by a continued assault on the Galra Empire. If we hit hard enough, we could crack the whole thing open."
Allura nodded.
"And Hunk misses Earth, too," Shiro went on.
She nodded again. She had overheard Hunk talking about the ocean one morning, over breakfast.
"But he misses Shay more. Maybe that's enough to keep him here."
"For now," Allura added, quietly.
"But the way Lance talks about the sky? And the rain?"
"Rain?" Allura arched a brow, momentarily befuddled. Then she remembered. "Oh, yes! Rain. Of course. That magic water that falls from the sky," she said, matter of factly.
That made him smile.
"Yeah, there's nothing like it."
"There's nothing like it? Not in the entire universe?" she asked a little cheekily, gesturing dramatically to the holographic lavandula field before them.
"Nope," Shiro said stoutly.
Rain. That could only be found back on Earth. Allura felt knots starting to tie themselves in her stomach again at the thought of the paladins returning to Earth. No. That couldn't be. There had to be other planets where it rained, Allura reasoned. She waited for Shiro to continue, but he just sort of trailed off into the illusion of the lavandula fields. He didn't say a thing about Keith. But there was something about the red paladin's recklessness that told her he had nowhere to go back to. She knew how he felt, and she wondered...did Shiro feel the same?
"Nothing like it in the entire universe, and you don't miss it?" she asked quietly.
"Well, I miss when things made sense," Shiro shrugged his shoulders. "But when I went back to Earth, the Garrison treated me like I wasn't even human. If Keith hadn't - " Shiro stopped to take a deep breath. He did not look at his Galra prosthetic, but Allura noticed how its metal fingers twitched in his lap. "I was willing to give up everything to get back to Earth. But If Keith hadn't intervened who knows what they would have done with me."
Allura placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Maybe it was a good thing. Helped me realize that what I'm looking for isn't back there," Shiro shrugged again. "Not anymore."
Allura withdrew her hand. He was making this too easy and a thousand times harder all at once. The temptation to lean in closer flared up again as if she had been stung by the notion. All of a sudden it was something too hot and too tender to ignore. It would have been so easy. She only had to say the words. What are you looking for, then? The words clamored silently at the tip of her tongue. Was it her? Or was it revenge? There was some small part of her that hoped it was the former, though she knew the feeling was just as dangerous as any Galra fleet. She was loathe to admit that she understood the latter all too well herself. That ache for revenge burned silently inside her, too. The Galra empire had to be destroyed. If it wasn't, Altea would not be the only world to die without a sound.
"Do you want to talk about Altea?"
Allura took a deep breath. "What about Altea?"
"You tell me," Shiro prompted gently. "You're its Princess."
"Princess," Allura echoed before she began to laugh bitterly. "I am no princess. Altea is gone. My people are gone. I preside over no court, now."
"What about your paladins?" Shiro bumped gently into Allura's shoulder. "You're our princess."
Allura raised a silver brow at her companion.
"There's no way we could do this without you," he said.
"Flatterer."
Allura turned to face him and smiled her sad had only been brought together by war. And in the end, all wars were the same. They tore everything asunder.
"It's true," Shiro insisted.
A flicker of hope flared inside her, and Allura almost forgot about war. Shiro was so handsome. It made it easy to overlook his strange ears. She returned his smile, despite herself. "Yes, but you are their leader, Black Paladin."
"We can lead them together."
Allura felt her heart skip.
Something jerked in the corner of her eye. She forced herself to look away from Shiro and watched as the image of the lavandula field sputtered around them. The hologram faltered. Cold metal tore through the image of the azure Altean sky. The lavandula stopped swaying in the breeze and became unnaturally still in an instant, before the long purple stocks became blocks of pixels suspended in midair. And then she was falling. The stone bench that had only ever been made of light turned to pixels beneath them, and then to nothing. Her chest tightened as Altea disappeared again before her eyes. And Allura fell – right onto Shiro.
Allura's eyes met Shiro's. Her heart hit her ribs hard, and even though the warmth of Altean summer had vanished, replaced by the cool metal of the holo chamber dome, she felt hot and flushed.
Her gaze followed the length of the scar across his face, and she stifled the impulse to reach out and run a finger along it. But she knew that could only lead to one thing: more. She knew how quickly a single finger across his face could become a hand cupping his cheek, drawing him closer. She yearned for that closeness, and the contact it promised; something warm and intimate in the unending frigid black of space. The heat rose in her cheeks thinking about it. But she did not have his permission. So she did not touch him. Instead, she leaned back in a reluctant attempt to put some distance between her body from his, her skirts rustling around the both of them.
Shiro coughed. "Guess it's not just the gravity that's glitching tonight."
"We should let Coran know the holo chamber is crashing," Allura cleared her throat. "It may be related to the other system failures."
"Right," said Shiro hurriedly. "Of course."
They began to untangle themselves. Shiro righted himself effortlessly. Instead of letting her gaze drift up the length of Shiro's legs, Allura looked at her skirts. She brushed her hands over her lap to smooth the wrinkles from her dress. And as she gathered her skirts to stand, he offered her his hand.
Allura felt her lips part in a smile.
Shiro was right. They could lead the paladins, together. As her fingers entwined with his, she realized that she had been wrong. Perhaps a distraction was just what she needed, after all.