a/n: is anybody even reading this. am i screaming into the void? does this hyperspecific combo of mythology, space aliens, and history, actually appeal to anyone? are we all just trapped in an isolationism of our own making, screaming to be heard?

The world can be separated into two categories of people.

There are people who hear strange noises in the middle of the night and dismiss it as the house settling. They see weird shadows walking home at 3AM and decide it's the trees. Sometimes they might call the police if they see something extremely weird, but they certainly wouldn't investigate police sirens , especially not in the dead of night.

Then of course, there were the dumb assholes that ran outside to poke at whatever fell from the sky. Shiro and Allura fell squarely into that exact classification. On the positive side, these are the kinds of people that get written about. Heroes and what not.

Speaking of whatever fell from the sky, currently, the sky was green and blue. It was the wrong kind of blue for sky, the kind of blue that belonged in jellyfish and algae and copper fire. It lit the deck with the unearthly coloring, strangely reminiscent of being underwater. Like pool lights, shimmering in a distinctly fake but not unpleasant way.

There were men on the deck. None of them spoke. They looked like they were made of smoke, but whenever the light hit them, it didn't go through like a flashlight through mist. Rather, it lit them from within, leaking bright blue-green from the orifices of their face, rendering them uniquely terrifying for the few seconds before the light passed over them and they were wreathed in shadow again. It was hard to tell if the men had any coloring of their own, too washed out in wavering blues.

They were lined up like infantry, like terra cotta soldiers, like men with purpose. Long neat rows of smoke turned human, all arranged around a single figure.

He was tall, and though his clothes were unfamiliar to Shiro, they certainly weren't to Allura. The crown on his head, however, had unmistakable significance.

Shiro sunk to his knees and performed the most formal bow he knew.

He was in the presence of royalty.

"It is nice to finally meet you, Paladin," said the ghost king.

Shiro glanced quickly between him and Allura, who was the only other person he knew in this situation seeing as the ghost disappeared somewhere in this mess. She looked shocked, still as a statue. Then, she breathed deeply, and asked the man:

"Paladin?"

At least, Shiro thought it was a question. He didn't really know Allura that well, but their entire acquaintance had been 85% her asking him questions, so he would hope he could pick out her tone by then.

The king tilted his head slightly, just like Allura. He asked, kindly, "Did you not know?"

"No, I-" Allura finally met Shiro's eyes for a half second before glancing away. "I suspected. He called me Princess."

"I'm sorry," Shiro blurted out. He felt distinctly like he should maybe apologize for that.

"Why?" asked the ghost king, suddenly focused completely on Shiro. It was a little unnerving. He was so much more in focus than all the other ghosts. The only other person he'd seen that looked like that was the ghost who followed Allura.

"I don't know," Shiro answered honestly. "I am."

The ghost king walked forth. There was no click when his feet hit the ground, a fact Shiro's mind had trouble with. It threw all his senses off, and the king was in front of him before he had realized. Shiro stayed in his bow.

"You are the Black Paladin. You are entrusted with the power of Voltron, and the well being of my daughter. Destiny has brought the rest of your companions to the port city of San Francisco. You will find them there."

Then, he turned on heel and blinked out of existence, taking his ghost army and mood lighting with him.

The kitchen was, on a close inspection unimpeded by shock, surprisingly cluttered. Shiro supposed that was the fault of the ghost man, who was apparently named Coran. It was about as strange a name as Allura.

There were pots and pans everywhere, and across the counter top were books in various languages, strewn and stained with abandon. Jars of ingredients lay about in various states of sealed, and something in one of the cabinets was leaking slowly and steadily onto the wood-paneled floors. Speaking of, the floors must have been enchanted or something, because even in his bare feet, Shiro had yet to feel the rough texture that warned of imminent splinters. It was smooth, like walking on stone floor in a temple.

It certainly wasn't as clean as a temple. Stained with years of taking beatings from sea-salt air and failed cooking, certain spots were possibly permanently discolored. In places, the wood had warped into small hills.

If Allura was to be believed, the ship was over fifty years old. The furniture certainly matched. Scattered around the kitchen were a motley assortment of chairs and tables, each plucked from a different place and era.

Allura herself was far older than fifty.

"We called ourselves Atlantians, and God had tasked us with keeping the peace. Xe gifted us with magic and power. We could translate for others. We could talk to others. We could even look like others," she began. Shiro didn't miss how her eyes were studiously fixed on the mug of now-cold tea before her.

"It worked. It worked for thousands of years. And then, one day, my father created the greatest weapon anyone had ever known. He found five people all over the earth, and gave them part of his power. They were called the Paladins.

"Each one had a single realm of control. The Black Paladin, the leader of the five, had dominion over night. Or- not dominion. Understanding. You understand creatures of the night. And, when you understand them, they understand you. They will fight for you.

"It was never meant to be a weapon, not at first. But my father was a smart man. He wanted to keep a legacy, to ensure cooperation, because he thought our days were numbered. And he was right. With the last of his power, he ensured his rules. His failsafes. First, the creatures of myth and story are bound to humanity, and must serve when called. Second, custody of the planet must be transferred from the Atlantians to humanity. Finally, nobody may take control of the Earth so long as a human still lives, or the planet will wither and die."

Allura choked. She didn't speak for two minutes.

"The Galra came. They came in search of a new planet, because they were burning through theirs, and Earth was the closest substitute they could find. And they decimated us. Burned us to the ground. But they were too late. Even if they killed me now, the still wouldn't be allowed to live on Earth. Even so, my father put me in stasis and asked Coran to watch over me, and even in death, Coran watches over me."

"Just doing my job, Princess."

"You've done so much more than your job. But, where was I? Oh- I woke up fifty-ish years ago. The British were willing to give me a decent job alone on the seas, so I took it. It was easy to switch from piracy to merchantry, and I've been waiting ever since. The Galra haven't done anything, but until I found the Paladins, we've been in stalemate. We know what they need to do. I've been waiting for you."

Shiro looked up. "Princess-"

"Nobody but Coran has called me Princess in ten thousand years," said Allura.

"Okay, Captain . What are we going to do next?"

Allura smiled as she looked out the window. Right over the horizon lay the malignant grey dot of the metal Galran castle.

"Seven days to San Francisco," she said. "Seven days until we find the rest of the paladins."

The day was the kind of hot that had you sweating through even the most indecent clothing. It was, Lance reflected, the epitome of why some people hated heat. He personally, was more of a warm-weather person himself, but he preferred the "fuzzy blankets and not yet sweating" kind of heat. This, he thought, was just excessive . America was showing off .

Cuba didn't show off. Cuba was fucking perfect, and didn't have anything to prove, and the heat was almost certainly getting to Lance.

He groaned and stretched at his desk. The incomprehensible tax forms he was supposed to be filling out for City Lights Bookstore were unsalvageable and crumpled, converted instead to an inefficient fan. Too damn hot for doing anything. Even the wrist movements to keep his fan going were too much effort.

Everybody sane stayed home and didn't go shopping today, except Hunk. It gave the place a slightly eerie feel, of too many shelves and sharp corners, and not enough people filling in the spaces. Bookstores tended to have an air of elitism to them, the cold academic aura of too many books with no humans to soften the edges. No humans, except for Lance and Hunk.

Because, of course, Hunk was there. Curled in the corner with the book he certainly wasn't going to buy, the other boy was hurriedly skipping through the cleanly printed pages as if on an urgent mission. It was probably mostly for show anyways - the kid had been there for months, and nothing had changed.

"Hey, Hunk! Hey, hey Hunk!" Lance said, shifting in his seat and - ugh - feeling his shirt stick to his back with sweat. He might as well engage in conversation while he was in the middle of not doing anything.

"Hm," Hunk replied noncommittally, nearly tearing a page from flipping by it so fast. Lance winced.

"It's hooooooot," he whined, slumping onto his desk.

At that, Hunk looked up. "Prop open the other window," he offered, then looked back down to his riveting book on 16th century plagues.

"I already opened ooooooone," he whined. "What's another one gonna doooooo? Too much effoooooort."

"It'll create an air current between two opened points and allow for cross ventilation."

"What."

Hunk blushed - an amazing feat through his dark skin. "It's just some engineering and physics stuff I read somewhere. Just try it?"

Lance dutifully tried it.

"Huh," he remarked as a breeze picked up in the room. "You're pretty smart, Hunk."

Hunk's cheeks took on a red tinge. "It's not that great. What would be smart would be if I could finally figure out this dumb disease stuff."

"Studying to be a doctor, huh?" Lance teased.

"Yes," Hunk replied.

Shiro had tripped over nothing seven separate times over the course of one day. Allura had gotten completely over the "we barely know each other" awkwardness, just in time to unabashedly laugh at his pain.

"Oh, you just haven't got your sea legs yet! Don't worry, it'll come!" Coran bubbled cheerfully, ghost-perched on the railing near where Shiro had stumbled and leaned on in an attempt not to fall overboard. He still wasn't sure if he was going to mark that down as a failure, or just a pyrrhic victory.

"Soon, you'll be walking normal in no time!"

"Thanks," he muttered, which in this case meant something a bit more along the lines of death is coming for me and I have accepted my fate .

Shiro was not a fan of sea travel.

Lance narrowed his eyes, watching out the window like a hawk with their prey.

"There he is, Hunk," he intoned dramatically at his apathetic audience. "My arch nemesis."

"Does he know that?" Hunk asked, placidly flipping the page.

"No."

Keith Kogane was standing outside the rival bookshop, Books Inc. , doing… something. He was doing something, and it was sketchy. He didn't look around furtively or anything, but Lance knew the guy, and Lance knew he was up to something. He looked calm, but that didn't mean shit. Kogane was always calm the way black licorice was always sweet. It was undeniably sweet , but in a peculiar and unsettling way that nobody could ever quite describe. It gave the impression of being faked, that it would disappear in an instant and leave you with nothing but a slightly minty bitterness in your mouth.

In simpler words: he didn't talk much, always scowled, and was Asian, so white people and Lance were suspicious of him.

In Lance's defense, his misgivings weren't racist in nature. He'd just seen the guy talk to aliens a few times, and that kinda weirded him out.

Speaking of aliens: "Hey, Hunk, does it look like he's talking to himself?"

Hunk didn't look up from his book. "No."

No, but, as Lance looked closer through the slightly dirty windows, it did seem like Keith was talking to someone . There was a distinction between talking to yourself, and talking to someone . People were freer in facial expression and tone when they talked to themselves. They scrunched up their faces more than was socially acceptable. Their voices modulated as much as they wanted to. Lance knew this, because his littlest sister liked to read her books aloud to herself. She didn't do it to impress anyone else, and she didn't react to anything but herself.

Keith was reacting. Keith wasn't making funny scrunched up faces. Keith wasn't talking to himself at all.

He was talking to someone Lance couldn't see, and that was strangest of all, because the entire narrow street between the stores was empty and devoid of all life.

"Allura," Shiro said, "are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Why wouldn't I?" She asked, brandishing a screwdriver and a magnifying glass. In front of her were several parts of Shiro's hand, presumably non-essential.

"I can't feel my pinky finger."

"Oh. That… that might be a problem."

The metal hand made a slight humming noise as Shiro flexed it again, and sure enough, the pinky stayed jammed in its position.

Now that the metal covering was mostly off, the actual hand underneath peeked through. The prosthetic seemed to have been built around a real human hand, or at least something meant to resemble the skeleton of Shiro's fist. He couldn't decide which option was creepier.

The bones were held together, not by tendon and muscle, but thick wires of metal. They were all manner of colours, bronze and gold and grey, and they didn't so much shimmer in the light as they did glint dully, as if someone had liquidized or oozified a grey filter and coated it on the hand. Above the bare bones ran another skeleton, made of a thick copper-esque material. It was strangely reminiscent of the rib wires of an umbrella, spiky-sharp, simple, and wholly responsible for all movement. The rods were separated and attached to thick bronze studs at each knuckle, allowing all his fingers a normal, human range of movement. All except the one over his pinky, which was sticking out at a bit of an odd angle.

"Oh dear," Coran started to fret. "I do hope the thaumaturgical accelerants haven't blown!"

Both Allura and Shiro ignored him for the moment. Shiro furrowed his eyebrows, curiously examining his hand. Using his much more carbon-based left hand, he tried to manually unstick the metal finger.

His hand beeped out a loud warning noise, startling all three occupants of the table. "Oh my," Coran said faintly.

"If nothing else, it would be very surprising in battle," Allura said, evidently amused.

"Do you think you can magic it back together?" Shiro asked, still fiddling with his hand. Allura slapped him away after the third warning beep. She would swear before her Lords, the blaring beep got noisier with each accidental jam.

"No, because magic doesn't work like that. I can, however, screwdriver it back together."

She picked up her tool and began poking anew at the behemoth of wires.

At some point a few minutes ago, a man had come to relieve Lance of his duties and boot Hunk out of the store for sampling but not buying. Lance had utter conviction that his boss has been truly destined by God to be a soldier in some army or another, and some accident of fate or another had left him in charge of a bookstore. Accident of fate or no, Iverson both hated his job and took it very seriously.

So, Lance got an hour to hang around and stalk stake out the rival bookshop across the street. Keith was let off work at six, which seemed like an eternity away to the two bored teens sitting out front.

"This is so dumb," Hunk muttered, sinking lower in his wooden chair. "I should be studying right now, not encouraging your dumb choices in life."

Lance wholeheartedly disagreed with that sentiment. Hunk studied entirely too much.

"Lance, we're staking out a bookshop , harassing some poor kid who doesn't even know you , and wasting an hour in the sun during summer, because you think he's sketchy."

Well, when one put it that way…

"Fine, we can move to the shade. There's an alcove in the alley right there," Lance got to his feet, maneuvering his way to the side of the building with the easy confidence of someone who'd lived in the city their whole life.

In actuality, Lance had arrived in San Francisco about six months before Hunk, albeit much less memorably. Lance was just one of the many people taken by horseback across the vast expanse of America. It had been months of journeying from the New York port his family had seen him off at, compared to the two and a half weeks of sailing Hunk did from Moloka'i to the port city. However, arriving at the docks in a ship built with your own two hands certainly had style .

Hunk, it seemed, was full of that style. Lance had always admired how determined Hunk was, in stunning contrast to his own directionless free-fall through life. Hunk had goals. Hunk wanted to know things. Hunk was going to be an engineer, or a doctor, or something amazing just like that.

Lance's goals in life were more like 'figure out what's up with that weird Korean kid from the other bookstore'.

Speaking of, Kogane was leaving. He shut the door behind him softly, before abruptly striding into the exact alleyway Lance and Hunk were hiding in. Immediately, they stood stock still.

If they had been scared before, it went doubly so when a man materialised at the other end of the alleyway. It seemed as if the winds themselves tied together to form him, knotting themselves into the shape of a man in a thick bodysuit. He (?) was tall and terribly thin, with the oddest outline, like someone had taken his skeleton as he was being made and shifted the bones just the slightest bit. His arms started a little too far down for his shoulders to allow. His hips were just the slightest bit dented in. His spine was a touch too long. His skin was purple and his eyes were yellow.

Also, his face looked like someone had sewn a pug's face on and stretched it to fit the confines of an adult human male's. That was a bit disturbing too.

The alien man shuffled forward, passing Lance and Hunk without so much as a glance. Maybe he had really bad eyesight, 'cause of his yellow eyes? Lance would have to ask Hunk about that, if they, you know, survived the next five minutes.

He moved with more grace than Lance had thought he would have, and it seemed there were muscles on his frame that accounted for the bone structure - they stood out in thick cords as he walked. It looked like a vine had grown inside him, throttling his skeleton.

" Siśu ," it greeted Keith.

"Asshole," he shot back.

The alien man snarled slightly, revealing unkempt black snaggleteeth. Black teeth, purple skin, yellow eyes. A stunningly scary palette. Whatever god made him had taken color theory in college.

"The venerable and eternal Dainee Hagaar, right hand to the Lord, has tasked you, Siśu . A woman will come to the docks in three days. She will be beautiful, and she will call to you."

"That's dumb," Keith snorted derisively, which broke the air of mysticism that the alien man had been carefully cultivating. He glared, and kept going.

"Sneak onto her ship, rob her of her diamonds. That is all."

The alien vanished the same way he came, exploding into the wind right in front of Kogane's face.

"Jackass," he muttered. Then his eyes flicked over to the two other occupants of the alley. They may have widened, but Lance wasn't too sure because he sort of stopped thinking after a knife was thrust in his face.

More specifically, it was held to his neck. Again, Lance wasn't thinking clearly. It was also curved fancily and had a weird design at the end, and came out of nowhere, which was kind of all he noticed about it.

"What ," Keith hissed in a way that didn't seem particularly natural, "did you see ?"

"Nothing!" Hunk yelled at the exact time Lance said, "Everything."

There was a long pause. Hunk felt his anxiety attack coming.

Then, Keith flicked his wrist. His knife cut a thin scratch into the side of Lance's neck, blood beading up immediately. He drew it up, settling it against the side of Lance's face. The pointy bit was a bit too close to Lance's left eye for both his and Hunk's liking.

"Keep your nose out of my business if you want it on your face like it belongs."

Parting with that stunning bit of dialogue ripped from an 80's action film, Kogane shoved Lance at Hunk and turned, slipping his knife back into his sleeve as he left the alley.

Lance carefully removed Hunk's clenched fists from his clothing, shouting after Keith, "That line is so cliche, Victor Hugo wants it back!"

"Lance, let's just leave this alone," Hunk said in a voice of reason that was about two octaves too high. Lance definitely wasn't going to leave this alone

"But now I'm curious!" He whined.

"We are going to die. There's a scary purple man who is going to eat and kill us. We are so dead."

The castle had been steadily becoming clearer the further into their voyage they got. It almost served as a marker, how close they were. You didn't strike a borobaagh until you could see the whites of its eyes, and you didn't dock in San Francisco until you could pick out the thorns on the castle's spire.

It had been years upon years, thousands of them, since she'd seen this castle. And yet, she knew. She knew, even without consulting her starmaps and sextants, that they were a day away now. She knew with absolute certainty, the second she could see the malignant purple of the apse, read the carved designs of the turrets, smell the stink of Galran magic, there wouldn't be any stopping this. There wouldn't be any more aimless wandering of the seas. There wouldn't be any more biding her time. The prophecy would begin the second they stepped into the city, and there wouldn't be any stopping it.

She heard Shiro step out onto the deck, a soft shuffle of feet still unused to its own gait. He still had no practice with his own hand, turning what used to be a soldier's walk into an ungainly struggle to stay upright.

Speaking of his hand, he had fitted the metal encasing over it again. The bones were covered completely by the black-armor gauntlet he had come with. It added another few pounds to the total, but the alternative was letting the sharp metal framework of the mechanical component catch on every piece of cloth he had on, which was the much less dignified option. The covering was especially helpful, considering Shiro's brilliant disguise involved keeping his hands covered by thick wool gloves. Gloves in a California summer would draw only marginally fewer questions than Shiro's unusual prosthetic, but Allura really didn't have any better ideas.

He came shuffling forward, then leaned both his hands heavily on the railing.

They stood together in silence for a bit before Shiro opened with, "I've never been outside Japan before."

Allura leaned against the railing as well, mirroring his position. "Well, I haven't been to San Francisco in ten thousand years. We can be clueless together."

Shiro snorted when he laughed, and it utterly ruined the aura of serenity and calm he'd attempted to keep. It was infectious, and Allura found herself giggling a bit herself. She noticed Coran out of the corner of her eye, smiling a bit fondly. He broke eye contact and looked back at the castle.

"Princess," he said softly. Allura understood.

"Coran," she said back, "I'm not scared."

It was Shiro's turn to watch from the side, quiet but present. "They took a lot from us," Coran said, something like regret in his voice. "They took us all." They took your father.

"Not all," Allura said. "And they won't take Earth."

"We'll get justice, Coran," Shiro said, conviction in his voice. "Your people deserve it. The Galra deserve it."

They stood together and watched the sun set behind the citadel.

Keith Kogane was standing outside the rival bookshop, Books Inc.

Books Inc. is the oldest bookstore in the West, having been opened in 1851. It's a chain now. I've been kicked out of one of them before! Multiple times! (city lights, lance's bookstore, actually opens for the first time 100 years after this fic takes place. if you have an issue with that, i'm very sorry. it's a pretty bookstore tho.)

শিশু - Sisu.

A Bengali word, meaning "infant". Not particularly derogatory.

Dainee

Also Bengali. Means "witch", and fittingly enough, it was believed that they kidnapped children and killed them, sucking their blood to live for hundreds of years. Very much a thing women in Bengali villages were accused of, especially if they knew any witchcraft. i really cant wait until the chapters involving haggar bc. listen. i know so much abt bengali ghosts and witche to talk about tis

borobaagh

bengali! "large tiger", though i'm sure there's some terrifying altean equivalent.

a/n: reviews water my crops and clear my skin, so please leave them. talk to me at dreampunk on tumblr!