disclaimer: I do not own VLD.
Her knees quake enough to buckle under her each time she thinks too long about it - even more so when the last of her father's A.I. drive fades out and cool metal bites against her knees instead of the wide and free fields of Altea. It seems wholly lost to her then, all just the distant memory of one planet among countless others that fell from existence on that one horrific night.
A night that passed 10,000 years ago.
Lives were pained and lost while she was safely tucked gently into her cryo-pod.
The anger that wells in her then is enough to blacken the edges of her vision and drives her fist into a column of a castle that haunts her at night. The metal creaks and gives under her boundless strength. It's an anger for being one of two selected to survive. She's making a difference, she's not so blinded by fury and anguish to not see, but it leaves her hollow and restless some nights because it isn't enough.
She is 10,000 years too late and calculating the number of lives lost clouds her thoughts.
She has no idea what she would do without Coran for one day, as much as she wishes her father would have saved himself alongside them. On those days when the castle only serves to plague her as the sun-bleached bones of a life that was full of splendor and strength, he is there. Quietly reassuring her in their native dialect of her bravery and strength and capacity for love in these dark days, to keep moving forward, and that she must not waste a moment of it, if she can try.
If.
His words are as much for her as they are for him - there's a mirrored ache in his words when they indulge in the past and are out of sight from the others.
Allura admires Coran in everything as he steadfastly studies in her father's library where she refuses to enter the wing her parents had lived in and feels relief when he doesn't ask her to enter the rooms that hold the lingering scent of her mother's perfume or the echoes of her father's laughter.
Thankfully, every last one of her paladins silently understands not to search out each shadowed corner of the castle of lions as well.
Because while she may not be physically limited as an Altean, she is still a soul that is broken and hurt and too young to know such pains. They walk through the halls at night, where her hand is tucked into the bend of his elbow and he will shoulder as much as he can and even more to make her heart not so heavy.
But a series of responsibilities settles over the strong slope of her shoulders, ones that cannot be outrun as they passed down to her by birth.
They taunt her.
She must step from princess to queen in manner, without the coronation ceremony her father had gloriously detailed and promised in her childhood. With the absence of her father, she is a solitary queen and unshakeable soldier.
With the absence of a people...She is none of those things. The magnificent dawn of Altea's reign as protectors of peace set before she could even hope to see it at its brightest peak and sets her reeling all over again. When she feels the crack in her exterior, her heart falls to pieces as the paladins share a look to acknowledge they had seen the sliver of doubt flicker in her large eyes.
She's supposed to be the strong one - unwavering at the helm and assuredly charting their course for winning the galaxies' freedom from Zarkon. Her life force is tied to their Lions, to Voltron, there is no room for growing seed of fear that becomes harder and harder to swallow down out of sight.. Her vigil should stay constant and only undergo change to rise up. She is their source of comfort and pillar as they careen into unknown star systems and too many dangers.
"Allura."
Childishly, she bites her lip and refuses to glance up when her name is called. Part of her is relieved it is him that speaks and the other part of her caves crumbles at the voice because it's him. There is wide palm that rests gently on her shoulder and spreads a warmth that relaxes her by just a tiny breadth, but it's enough to feel from the tips of her fingers, down to her toes. Allura hums under her breath and tilts her head toward his hand, taking her time to meet his eyes.
"We can't possibly know what you're feeling, but missing home is something we know a little about." His hand squeezes her shoulder and a sob nearly worms its way from her throat. "It's a bigger world out there than we could have ever imagined, but we have each other. You and Coran have us."
It strikes her then like a physical blow from the gladiator, her home won't be the empty hallowed halls or scorched fields in her last memories before their cryogenic sleep, it is them.
They are her home now.
She is tied to the lions and the lions are tied to them and they've all been amplifying the same helpless pain, but it doesn't have to be that way. She's never been so grateful to be at a constant level of vexation with Lance and Keith's bickering - over training statistics and seats and semantics - or impressed by Hunk and Pidge's knack for being wildly intelligent - adjusting to an advanced level of tech, to meld in their hands to make something new. The admiration and bond they hold with them floors her - the lions are more than just smaller, insignificant pieces of a puzzle, not merely battle ships, that is clear from catching each of them on several occasions in the hangars treating them as long, lost friends.
And she feels it as a conduit.
They are so young but the love and care in their hearts is insurmountable.
Then, there is him.
A link threads through them that she cannot explain nor fully understand just yet, and her heart aches when Coran says that King Alfor would be quite amused by the new paladins and would likely find a great friend in the man that pilots the black lion. She knows that they would have been great confidants in each other if Alfor had lived or his A.I. system had not been corrupted. She can almost hear how he would mercilessly tease his daughter about the overwhelming competition of admiration that swells between her and Shiro.
But his legacy still stays with her and them.
That's where her kingdom rests,
In a place that neither Zarkon, his Galra druids nor Sendak can ever touch.
a/n: originally posted to my tumblr: alluran.