Author's Notes: Update! Yes you didn't have to wait another month for the next chapter. I am improving on my speed...somewhat. * laughs * Don't get too used to it! As always, all grammatical mistakes are mine and mine alone. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, owned Voltron. I simply play in their world.
Reviews! Reviews! Yeah, you know the drill...
Chapter 14
part II
"She wore her scars
as her best attire.
A stunning dress
made of hellfire."
Daniel Saint
Allura tugged at the hood of her cloak as the snow began to fall softly around her.
She felt...exposed.
Maeve, that odd woman who had come to help her dress, had managed to convince her to wear that gown of deep midnight and silver. She had not thought she would wear something so...revealing...
"There," the woman had said with a proud smile upon her face, "now tell me I have not chosen wisely."
Allura had turned in the full length mirror to tell her exactly that...only the words could not leave her lips as she finally saw herself in the glass.
The woman before was not one she recognized. She was creature of beauty and subtle sensuality wrapped in an air of mystery.
"I...oh..."
"Indeed. If I might be so bold, I dare say you will have your pick of dance partners at the ball, for what male would dare deny you?"
Her words had the desired effect and at that moment Allura knew she would be wearing this gown to the ball.
"Please hold up your hand," requested an officer stationed at the entrance to the ballroom.
He held a portable scanner that she placed her hand on and instantly it pulled up her name on the invitation list.
"Your majesty, welcome to the Ball."
Allura inclined her head and made her way through the glittering throng. She kept her cloak firmly wrapped about her body, despite the many offers to remove it from her person.
She did not want anyone to see her before she made her entrance.
That way, she thought with a wry sense of humor, I can always make a run for it with none the wiser.
Though she knew she would not, if only to see Keith's face when he saw her in her ballgown.
Never again, she vowed silently as she made her way through the halls and among the other guests, I am never wearing another ballgown so long as I live.
Allura found herself following the other guests to a line where she saw, much to her chagrin, that they were actually announcing the guests to the assembly before allowing them through the double doors.
She was the last in line to be announced.
Surely this is a bit arcane, Allura thought but it seemed that Earth was big on formality.
"My lady? Might I take your cloak? I cannot allow you into the hall with it."
Allura looked to see an earnest face holding out his arm. Damn, she thought with an unlike princess attitude, guess its too late to back out now.
"Yes, of course."
Allura reached up and undid the simple clasp on the black cloak and turned so that the young man might pull the cloak for her shoulders.
It came away with ease as the heavy velvet fell away from the gossamer silk of her gown.
She was grateful that the ball was being held in the evening and that the hall where she stood was not brightly lit.
"My lady? If I might have your name to present to the announcer?"
With a silent sigh she gave him her name and titles and waited behind the closed doors to be announced.
Her wait was not long.
But it felt like an eternity had passed before she heard the announcer.
"Honored guests, distinguished visitors I present to you the daughter of King Alfor and Queen Amarya, Princess Allura of planet Arus and member of the Voltron Force!"
"Stop it Lance." Keith snapped out as he caught the pilot, once again, tugging at the collar of his formal uniform. "Try to act with some decorum, if only for tonight."
"Damn it, I can't help it Keith, this collar is tight. Feels like I'm suffocating in this thing." Lance complained as he yet again, tried to stretch out the collar in order to breathe properly.
"Man for once I agree with Lance," replied Pidge, who was also in formal uniform. "Did they really have to starch the collar this bad? How the heck are we suppose to eat?"
"Well, I see Hunk isn't having any trouble," joked Lance as he pointed at their friend who already had a plate of food and seemed to have no trouble putting it away.
"So where is Allura?" Lance asked as he looked around for the golden-haired woman, "I didn't get dressed up in this monkey suit for nothing! She had better not be standing us up."
Keith gave him an arctic look. "Allura said she would be here. Has she lied to us yet?"
"Whoa!" replied Lance holding up his hand, "it's a joke! I know Allura wouldn't bail on us. What has you so uptight? Don't tell me one of your fancy swords got stuck up your..."
But the rest of Lance's words were drowned out by the announcer. Each member of the Voltron Force had been listening for Allura's name and each time it wasn't called, they went back to milling around.
Or what passed for milling around.
Pidge had managed to squeeze through the crowd and join Hunk for a bite to eat.
Lance, bored and sensing his impending doom if he pissed Keith off even more than what he was, went to go find company of the female persuasion.
Keith...brooded.
He spoke only when spoken to and made no attempt to mingle with the general assembly, even when not-so-subtle invitations were sent his way to dance by passing females.
I'm here, he thought his mood getting blacker by the minute, so where the hell is she?
He did not like being blackmailed into attending formal events like these but it was either attend or give up being the leader of Voltron.
He would give up Voltron only when his body was stone cold and dead and his soul cast to the void.
So here he was, once again, in his dress whites in a place he never wanted to see again.
So why the fuck am I doing this?
He knew why he was doing this and not all of it had to do with losing command of Voltron.
He could still see the bewilderment in her eyes, the hurt when she had turned to him for support and he...he had backed down.
His hand clenched as he hear the announcer proclaiming yet another name that was not Allura's.
His thoughts turned inward as he watched the dancers on the floor, memories once more taking over his vision.
She lay asleep in his arms, her long hair like a silken waterfall across the starch white pillows. She looked peaceful in a way he rarely saw in her. Her breathing was even, the pink of her lips parted as she breathed.
He had awakened to this sight, this woman lying in his arms, trusting him to guard her dreams.
He trailed a finger down the smooth column of her throat, the same throat he had kissed only hours ago.
"Allura," he said softly, "wake up." His digital readout noted the hour was late and if he did not wake her soon, both of them would be facing awkward questions and he would not do that to her.
She sighed but her eyes fluttered open and once more he was drowning in blue.
"Keith." Her voice a sigh, a caress against his senses. She was sleep-tousled and her lips curved up into a winsome smile when her eyes met his.
Every thought about time, about awkward questions flew from his mind as he gathered her once more in his arms and kissed her willing mouth.
In seconds her arms were already about his neck, pulling him closer as he devoured her mouth.
His hands stroked her body, making her shudder, sighing into his mouth as she returned his kisses with fervor...
His mind snapped back from the memory as the announcer suddenly was crying out a name he recognized.
"...Alfor and Queen Amarya, Princess Allura of planet Arus and member of the Voltron Force!"
Finally, he thought his mood still black as he shoved his way through to the crown so that Allura could get a good look at him and he could be on his way.
He wasn't staying a minute past more than what was necessary and he was going to...
His brain disengaged as soon as he caught sight of her as the crowd parted to let the last member of the royal house of Arus pass through the doors.
It didn't matter that he was in a room full of diplomats, royalty from other planets or half the Garrison. Only one thought went through his mind at that exact moment.
Mine.
She stood apart from the glittering throng, like a goddess surveying her domain and deciding if she truly wanted to mingle among mortalkind.
She was dressed in a gown of the midnight sky awash in starlight. The straps of her gown were made to resemble delicate twining vines and leaves with a dangling silver pendant attached to lay nestled between her breasts.
The gown dipped low in the back, nearing the base of her spine, before sweeping to the floor in floating, midnight waves. The sleeves of the gown bared her shoulders, attached to the delicate straps by equally delicate hoops of silver, clinging to her upper arms before flaring at the wrists.
Her skin, when it caught the light, glimmered as though someone had crushed diamonds then used a brush to run over the exposed flesh. Her hair fell behind her in rippling, golden waves held back by only a simple, silver circlet across her brow.
Her arrival had stunned the crowd into an almost preternatural silence, but it wasn't until she began to move across the floor, the sleeves around her arms flaring and her hair swaying gently behind her, that the murmurs began.
"...last of the royal line I heard..."
"...been missing, thought dead after the annexation..."
Their voices beat against her but her expression never altered of that of calm serenity.
"...those scars on her back!"
"...her arms, I heard she was captured as a child..."
She made herself deaf to their words, for they meant nothing to her. Instead she lifted her head to those who stared at her until each and every one backed away or turned away from those cerulean eyes that saw everything and yet gave nothing away.
"Allura."
She stopped abruptly upon hearing her name on the lips of the male she had truly not thought to see here tonight.
He stood there, surrounded by royalty and dignitaries, like a stalking leopard among the bleating sheep.
His military dress whites had been pressed and starched until the edges seemed as sharp as knives. His hair had been combed and smoothed back and still a single, raven lock fell over his forehead and curled around the gold piping of his collar.
His dark, obsidian eyes flashed black fire as she turned in his direction, her hair sliding around her until all he could see, for a solitary moment, was the smooth curve of her spine, a spill of moonlight against the indigo of her gown.
He wanted to rip out the eyes of the males around him who looked upon her with desire.
She was his.
It didn't matter that he was madder than a pissed hornet for being blackmailed into coming here. It didn't matter that the last words spoken to each other were in anger.
She was still his and he would be damned if he let another male touch her.
He held out a gloved white hand to her and gave her the sharp side of his smile when her starry sapphire eyes widened in astonishment at the gesture.
"Dance with me."
It wasn't a request but a demand cloaked only by the thinnest veil of civility.
"Now wait just a minute!"
"You can't just demand the Princess to dance with you!"
"I saw her first, wait your turn!"
But the cries of the males who wanted a chance to hold the Princess of Arus fell on deaf ears.
For Allura and Keith it was as if they were the only two standing in the room.
She stood there, looking at him and except for that brief flash of surprise, her face seemed carved of alabaster giving him no clue as to what was going on behind those lovely eyes of hers.
For a moment something akin to panic passed through him, a fear that she would turn away from him, refuse his hand and take up another offer.
He knew she she refuse him, he would not, could not walk away from her.
He would never know what he would have done had she walked away, for at that moment Allura gave a brief incline of a head, her eyelashes dipping to cover the glory of her eyes before lifting once more to look at him as she moved with ethereal grace to cross the distance between them and lay her hand into his.
He was already pulling her into his arms, using his own deft grace to move them about the dance floor. Such was the ease of their movements that neither broke eye contact as they swirled about the glittering throng of onlookers.
Allura did not speak to him, but merely kept those watchful eyes of hers upon his face. Like him, she too, seemed reluctant to shatter the silence that had enveloped them.
Something in him constricted at the wariness in her eyes and he knew he had no one to blame but himself for seeing it back again.
Despite the harsh words between them and the methods she used to get him here, he knew that none of that would have been necessary had he not simply been honest with her.
"I'm sorry."
Allura blinked and looked about her in confusion.
"Allura?" Keith asked, at a loss for why she looked so confused. "What's wrong?"
"I can't tell if I'm dreaming or not." Her words sounded so normal that it took him a moment to understand the meaning.
"Why would you think you're dreaming?"
"Because you apologized to me, yet I haven't spoke a word. So I must be dreaming because the real Keith would never apologize first."
Ouch, he thought as he visibly winced at the barbed words, I guess I deserved that.
"Allura," he said softly but intently, "you're not dreaming and I did apologize."
But she shook her head. "No, that doesn't help at all. I would expect you to say that in my dream."
Keith growled softly to her. "Does my still being madder than a hornet about being blackmailed by you factor into your dreams as well?"
Again Allura blinked at him with those beguiling eyes but she no longer seemed confused, instead a soft, lilting smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
"Ah, there is the Keith Kogane I know. So, Commander, why did you apologize and for the matter, why did you demand I dance with you? Last time we talked, you seemed to have forgotten I even existed."
Keith turned Allura in his arms and gave his coldest, most lethal look to a gaudily dressed male who had had the balls to try and step between him and Allura.
The other male quickly backed away, not willing to risk life or limb for a single dance.
Allura missed the exchange as it had happened while she was spinning in Keith's arms.
"I didn't demand a dance," Keith said and Allura arched a slender eyebrow at him. Keith let out a huff that might have been a sigh...or an aborted attempt at laughter. "All right, I suppose I did."
"Indeed. But you're evading my questions, so either answer...or let us finish this dance so we can end this...whatever this is."
Keith sighed and once more Allura found herself being swept around the ballroom and abruptly out the doors that overlooked a small balcony.
As soon as the attendants closed the doors behind them, Keith allowed Allura to pull away from him so that they could talk properly.
"Well I await your response Commander."
"Stop calling me that," he said softly yet his voice held a lethal edge that could not be ignored, "It's Keith as you damn well know."
Allura folded her arms beneath her chest, making the fabric tighten and making Keith quite aware that she was wearing nothing beneath the thin material.
His hand tightened into a fist.
"So," replied Allura unaware of the storm she was evoking inside of him, "you tell me to drop your title and call you by your name now, but what about tomorrow? Will you pretend none of this happened as well and go back to calling me 'princess' and pretending I don't matter to you?"
Keith ran a hand through his hair, not caring that he was ruffling it. "I...that's what I was apologizing for. The way I treated you earlier."
She hadn't expected that and it left her slightly off-balance but she quickly found her footing again.
"Why did you treat me so coldly? Is it," she pulled in a sharp breath, "...is it about what happened on the Explorer? Do you...regret what happened between us?"
If he say's yes, she thought as the breath in her lungs seemed to freeze, I don't know if I could bear to here it.
"What?" replied Keith in shock that she would think such a thing, "No! Allura," he came to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, "I don't regret anything about that night."
The breath that had threatened to choke her suddenly loosened its grip and for a moment she swayed, light-headed from the sudden relief his words produced.
Keith felt the strength go out of her and his arms was already around her waist, cradling her against the solidarity of his chest.
"I...I was so afraid you regretted..." she breathed out, burying her head against his warmth, "I..."
"Shh, Allura no," Keith whispered stroking the soft, sleek strands of her hair, "never that. I've done many things that I regretted over the years but that night is not one of them."
"Then why? Why shut me out?"
Keith closed his eyes as the memories came.