The moment that her particle barrier goes down, everyone sees it. Feels it.
The roar of a pride, the rumble of a ship, and a million lights blinking before them, white and spotless against the dark background.
Space, and Voltron.
And Lance, Lance sees it, too, but when it settles, when they die and there's a general consensus of whoa, Lance can still hear the pale ripple of an ocean, of waves against the sea and water on sand.
He doesn't question it because somehow, he understands, in the dimness of the sound, that it's Blue.
Hey, there, beautiful, he says, and the ocean rumbles, peaceful but alive.
Riding her feels like a tidal wave, powerful and complete and Lance wonders how he's lived like this before.
"It's amazing," Lance tells Hunk, "You're going to feel something like that, too, I know it."
"So, it's, like, in your head?" Hunk asks uncertainly. He gnaws on a nail, "I don't know, man, that sounds kind of scary. Like a weird, giant, alien lady lion in my head with sounds of nature in the background? How do you ever pay attention to anything?"
"It's just, it's part of you," Lance makes vague, unhelpful gestures, "You'll love it. Promise."
"Okay," Hunk lets it slide, and when they go to get Hunk's lion Lance is excited for him then the rocks fall and Lance can barely hear the sea over the din of his own panic screaming, clawing through his skull, and the ocean pushes, forcing calm.
Lance presses his hands against Blue's controls, "He could be dead," he whispers.
There's a sound in his skull, like rocks rubbing together, grating and harsh, and the sea swirls and it all forms something strong and powerful, like the foundation for a house.
No, it whispers.
And Hunk comes out, lion roaring, the rocks and stone, jagged but smooth, firm and constant and there, feel like Hunk, and Lance smiles a bit.
No, he thinks, Hunk isn't dead.
And he feels a bit ridiculous for ever thinking that. "Hey, buddy," Lance laughs, "Didn't I tell you that the sound would be great?"
Hunk loves the sound.
He thought that he'd hate it, honestly, because okay, seriously, the way that Lance described it was like creepy to a factor of a million. Alien lady lion tech in his brain making nature type sounds? It sounded like the beginning of some story where the robots took over and destroyed mankind by possessing their bodies or something. Serious chills.
But he loves it.
Yellow gets him, she's firm in a way that he can only hope to be, she's firm as stone and as grounded as cement. When Hunk panics, she's there, and Lance was wrong, it's not quite a sound, it's more like a feeling like she reminds him of the stone beneath his feet and the air on his skin and says this is me.
She is in the stone, the metal, she is there when he touches her and Yellow is physical, she is the support and the ground and the foundation where Blue was the lightness and laughs and temporary little touches that strayed easily.
When Hunk worries and fears, Yellow doesn't give him anything but awareness.
Focus.
Riding Yellow feels like he's put goggles on, he stares and understands and the world before him is an exact, precise combination of mechanics and gears.
"She's what everyone else builds on," Hunk explains to Lance. "Blue is her balance."
"Of course Blue's her balance," Lance grins, "You're my balance."
Hunk rolls his eyes.
"Too flirty?" Lance's apology.
"You literally call me Hunk," Hunk reminds him.
"That's not flirting," Lance winks, "That's just the plain old truth."
Hunk shoves him, "You're just like Blue," he huffs.
"No, I'm not," Lance laughs, but he's serious, Hunk can feel it in the way that he's more aware of the waves, aware of them pushing against rock and slowly smoothing it over. "Blue's more... more."
Hunk gets that. He gets it in when he rams into something and feels something flash in his eyes like a shield, strong and harsh and like stones jutting out. He saw Stone Hedge once, and it's like that, strong and tall and powerful.
It's like all he can focus on in those moments is that single, pure feeling of awe.
"You're right," Hunk admits to Lance as he tries out one of his new recipes, "The lion in my head is pretty amazing."
He sounds so crazy.
(He can't find it in himself to care, though.)
"Red is like fire," Keith says to Shiro, waving his hands vaguely in the air, but she isn't, not exactly, because fire burns bright and dies slow, but Red is a single, burning, eternal flame.
"I'm an eternal flame, baby," Lance winks when he overhears Keith trying to describe it, and Keith stares in confusion as Lance sighs and goes, "Oh man, when we get back to earth, there is a lot that we need to talk about."
Keith frowns at him for a moment, tilting his head to the side as he asks, "Why can't we just talk about it right now?"
Lance looks thoughtful, now, "Well, it's not quite talking, per say..." he drums two fingers against his thighs, "You'll see." He smiles brightly, "We'll have lots of time to figure this out once we get back to Earth."
Keith thinks about trying to listen to Lance's waves, the water in the back of his head, but he decides that Lance has put out what he has chosen to so he doesn't.
He respects Lance's privacy.
(He has to if he wants the others to respect his. Or else he would just be a hypocrite, and if there is anything that Keith cannot be, it is a hypocrite.)
"She's passionate," Keith continues when Shiro prompts him to talk more about Red in his head, "Like, she pushes you? But she doesn't?"
"Like she's motivating you?" Shiro asks thoughtfully, pressing a hand against his chin.
"Like..." Keith tries to come up with the right words for it, "Like she reminds me that I'm alive."
Yes.
That.
Keith has lived in the desert for almost a year, he understands the shades of the world, the saturation of the golden sand against purple-blue skies and the blinding white outline of the sun as it burns in his eyes but never has the world been so saturated with colour as when he has Red.
"She makes things clear," Keith says, "Every colour looks a bit brighter with Red."
Lance laughs, "You sound like you're in love with her," he teases.
Keith flushes, "Doesn't Blue make you feel like that?"
Lance shakes his head but makes a thoughtful, humming noise in the back of his throat. "Maybe this is what the Princess meant when she said that each Lion is tailored to their pilot," he muses.
"I don't know what Green sounds like," Pidge muses. She had always thought that Green had sounded like a computer, beeps and bobbles, clear and thorough, her words straightforward and clear.
Listening to Green was like listening to a textbook.
Then she had met the Olkari, and she realized it didn't quite beep or sound like the hum of a computer, it was just life.
The world.
Green connected her to things, she thought.
But now, she thinks, Green just sounds curious.
Pidge touches something and Green sounds like a question mark.
What's inside?
What's it made of?
Green is like everything and yet nothing, endless questions and an endless gap waiting to be filled with knowledge.
Green is the rustle of leaves and Green is a raised hand in a still classroom and Green is so much and yet not enough.
And yet, in the end, Green is a connection.
"Green doesn't make sounds," Pidge tells Hunk as they work with the oven to try and make it more Earth-like, "She's more like a touch? Like when I see something, she ties a thread connecting it to me."
"Lance said that Red made Keith see the world more clearly," Hunk taps a wrench-type contraption against his cheek, "We haven't really talked to Shiro about it yet but it seems kind of like the legs feel more the lions themselves and the arms sort of help you connect to the rest of the world?"
Pidge takes a moment to drink in that explanation, to think it over, and then she nods, "Yeah. Like she's a wire, and I'm the electricity. She's sort of just guiding me to where I need to be, you know?"
"Yeah," Hunk nods, "Kind of like a mom."
"Yeah," Pidge laughs. A giant, alien, sentient-robotic mom. "Like a mom."
When they ask Shiro, he doesn't give a straight answer. Instead, he licks his lips, thinks it through.
"It's not really a feeling or anything..." Shiro muses, "She just sort of is, you know? A presence. Like space. It's always there, and you know that it's always there, but it doesn't really impact you. Kind of beyond you, but also kind of part of you? She just sort of is."
"Weird," Pidge laughs.
"Space is pretty cool," Lance muses, "But Blue is still the best."
"Sorry to break it to you, man," Hunk wiggles his eyebrows, "But Yellow's the best."
Keith shakes his head, and there's a flicker of fire on the edges of their minds, "Second best."
"Are you implying that..."
"Paladins," Allura cuts in, half-irritated, half-amused, "Your lions aren't all powerful individually. They are equal, and it is when they're together and form Voltron that they're truly at their best."
The paladins all stared at her, and after a moment, began mumbling.
"Legs are best," Lance whispered.
"Team Legs," Hunk agreed, fistbumping Lance.
"The arm holds the sword!" Keith protested, "Obviously the arms are the best."
"Um, I hate to disagree," Shiro raises an eyebrow, "But I get to be the head. And most of the body."
They all conceded.
And then Pidge: "Yeah, but, like, without limbs, isn't the head and torso kind of useless?"