When it is over, when they are back in their own lions (don't think about Blue, lifeless and comatose, her mourning loud and clear in their mindspace and only moving by the will of the other four) there isn't a sunset. Only four kids (we were all kids! We didn't deserve any of this) slowly opening their eyes.
"Is this... are we really?" The Black Paladin asks. His companion the green responds after a tick "Yeah… it's our reality."
For a second, they're joyous. Then, they remember the cost.
"She did it." It's the Red Paladin says, his voice breaking. "She saved us all."
And in a second, they're en route back to the IGF-Altas.
The first hour after Allura is the worst (or so he thinks). They have to return to the Atlas. Tell her father-figure and her only remaining friends that even after taking everything from her, the Universe was still not satisfied and, in someone's cruel idea of a joke, decided she'd have to give up her own life as well. Tell them it was done in order to give a witch a "happy ending" that she did not, and would never, deserve after all she had put all of the world(s) through.
The five lions land in the Atlas. An entire entourage comes to visit them, and when the four weary veterans walk out, more than one person falls to his knees in shock of the results.
They end up huddling together like they used to all those months ago.
They end up crying for hours.
Lance can't bring himself to check how he looks until the fourth day after Allura. After yet another uncomfortable night of sleep, he rises from his bed, neck already cranky and back almost moaning. He sighs as he swallows down the ever-present grief. For the first time in forever, he looks at the haphazard face staring back at him.
He's grown a beard. Not just a five o'clock shadow. No, it's grown. Probably longer than any time since he first started shaving. Not a neat, presentable beard either but a mess he probably would have considered a crime against humanity itself only a year ago.
There are bags under his eyes that seem worse than what Pidge would have after pulling an all-nighter two weeks straight. He doesn't even think it's possible to hide them at this point. His eyes are dull, colorless as they look back at him tiredly. And under them, there are –
Cheekmarks?
Touching the blue sickles right under his eyes, Lance's eyes widen, the shock of what he had assumed was only a vision of the Quintessence Field temporarily overcoming the grief. It isn't minutes later until that settles again, and Lance leaves his room with a heavy sigh.
Eleven days after Allura, the mourning ends. No, that's an overgeneralization (the mourning never ends). The open mourning ends and the depression sets in for everyone else. Pidge finds it interesting. Everyone misses her (it's too early not to), but they've come to move past the denial by now. One of these days, she feels, someone is going to explode and let the ugly, destructive emotions they've kept compressing since Arus out. She only hopes its not her.
It is fourteen days after Allura that one of them finally makes the decision.
Surprisingly (or maybe, not a surprise at all) it's Lance.
It's not a speech. It's not a dramatic address. It's just a young man in his civvies, a set of Armor with him.
"I'm done." He says. Few words but enough. "I'm done being a Legendary Defender. I'm done with Voltron. I can't do this anymore."
If any of them notice his Bayard isn't with the armor pieces, nobody mentions it.
Seventeen days from Allura, they discover Daibazaal, the ancient (destroyed) Homeworld of the Galra. Kolivan and his new recruits (The now departed Prince's personal Generals have that special set of skills Marmora needs. To no one's surprise) announce that they'll have to leave. Find the remnants of the Empire and bring stability to the once all-encompassing Empire and finally let it see peace.
Kolivan doesn't say anything, but they all understand. Krolia more than others. She and Keith talk.
Keith sees his exit.
He takes it.
Unlike the rest of them, Shiro is no stranger to death. The Team has seen death before; It's a war, they were not given much of a choice; but it's almost always been from afar. Death, the fact a person could cease to exist, has been alien to the rest of them despite how much they flirted on it. It was always only a conceptual matter. Even Keith had not quite often taken into account what it in actuality meant when a Galra Cruiser was 'defeated' its remains falling out of the sky in colorful explosion.
Shiro has, however. Shiro… he isn't comfortable with it. He accepts it however, and despite how close he and his Blue Paladin had been, it's easier for him to push her to the deeper parts of his mind that he doesn't have to deal with. Even then, it takes him twenty-nine days.
The threat of Honerva may be over, but the world is still not at peace. The Galaxy is still in a state of civil war, and it is up to him to clear it. He can't turn his eyes away from the mission.
Even if it is only by her that he is existing. Literally.
By the Twenty-fifth day after Allura, Pidge has started noticing the changes in Lance. His marks (and it is still not easy accepting them as part of Lance now. Nowhere as easy as accepting Keith's changes after the Quantum Abbys) glow when he is emotional or under mental duress (which is shockingly rare nowadays) His eyes shine sometimes when he feels they can't see him. His ears – His ears might not be elven-shaped like so many Alteans are, but they're not round either. They've progressively lost their shape, becoming sharper and more refined.
He's gotten stronger too. Of course, most of them probably don't know it (him included, probably), but Pidge can see what he does when he thinks he's in the privacy of the training room. She sees what he's done punching bags. More of them than can be counted on a hand.
What Pidge doesn't know, however, is that Lance has started to notice it too. He's started to notice how he can't hide the glowing marks under tons of make-up. He's starting to notice his enhanced senses. He may not notice that he can no longer track his own shooting trajectories while training, but he knows that it's… not supposed to happen.
And he knows who to ask.
It's been ages since Hunk has had the time, energy, and state of mind to do this. He used to do it a lot more back before the Blue Lion found them and took them to Arus, but along the rest of Team, he's had had to stop it. With his unpaid job as a Defender of the Universe officially finished and Voltron over, he has the chance to go back at the basics. Eavesdropping with no care of others' privacy.
It's for a good cause, of course (It always is). Lance, his best (and possibly oldest) friend has been dealing with everything poorly. It's clear to everyone but himself, with how he acts, talks, walks, and even looks. If Hunk can find a way to help him, he will, sanctity of conversation be damned.
This time, it's Lance and Coran. It's probably the third time the two have been talking since that.
"Coran." Lance says, "I need you to test me and tell me everything, my feelings be damned. What is happening to me?"
"I'm afraid I don't follow, m'boy." Their space uncle responds, standing in his room, talking to the grieving man softly. "What do you mean?"
"My cheek marks. The ears, my… everything. That's not supposed to happen, is it?"
Coran says nothing, but he does take the file Lance has in his hands, offering to him. He silently takes a look, turning the pages as they come, hmming as he continues. "And you suggest these have started since-"
"Yes, since that day. Twenty-five days ago. At first I thought I was just seeing things, but after the bags under my eyes up and disappeared a few hours ago I need to-" he suddenly lowers his voice "I need to know what is happening to me."
"Since the Quintessence field… My boy, the things you're describing, Quiznak, the things in your files… they're impossible. If I didn't know better, I'd say-" he pauses, eyes widened as his mouth closes.
"Say what, Coran?" Lance says, suddenly showing a bout of anger he probably hasn't since the clone itself. He leaps forward, grabbing the older man's collar. "What is happening to me?"
"Well, the signs and symptoms look like as if you were…" The Altean slowly tears the human's hands off him, mildly and gently even if he is offended, "as if you were turning into one of us."
"One… of…"
"An Altean. One that's moving through preadolescence and puberty in a matter of days at that, but that's… well that's almost impossible."
"Almost?" Lance asks, eyes narrowed in suspicion, "What do you mean-"
"Can you tell me what happened in the Quintessence field to lead to this?"
"You mean the end of it. We caught up with Honerva. Allura… she cured her, I guess. I could never figure out what- she cured her, but we realized that it would be impossible to fix what she had done without-" he took a deep breath, "We said goodbye to her. All of us. Then she kissed me and left with the witch to-"
Coran's calm figure shattered. "I had suspected your marks were because of some connection with her but I had no idea it was-"
"it was what, Coran? Tell me. Why is this happening to me?"
"It's exactly as it appears. You're becoming an Altean. You're in a "puberty" phase, as it were. You're losing your human physical attributes and… well, you're becoming an Altean."
Losing your human attributes and becoming an Altean.
Not "getting weird cheek marks"
Not "getting cheek marks and human abilities"
Losing your human attributes and becoming an Altean.
"becoming an Altean" Lance repeated softly.
It isn't until the thirty-first day after Allura that one of them breaks. And, as every one of them expects, it's Lance.