Author's Note: Update! Yep another one! Feast or famine with me, I know! Hopefully you are still enjoying the story even though it's super long. I promise, I will finish it. Eventually.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, owned Voltron. I simply play in their world.

Reviews! Reviews! Many, many thanks to everyone who had taken the time to post a review! Your words fill me with inspiration.

"She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward

into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the

slow dance of the infinite stars."

Neil Gaiman

Allura walked along the halls of the ship they had 'commandeered' for this mission and still she felt a chill go through her.

Never thought I would willingly go back onto a drule ship again.

Never mind that the ship was from the seventh kingdom and not the ninth. It still had the power to remind her of that endless journey she took as child to the Korrinoth...

None of that now, she told herself sternly locking away the silent screams of that small, terrified girl deep into the dark corner of her soul.

Her footfalls made no echo, no sound as she moved towards the cockpit. She didn't encounter another soul until the door slid with silent efficiency and she saw Keith at the helm.

As I thought, none of the others are here. Either by his order...or their own volition.

"Keith? Can I sit with you?"

"Sure Allura."

She frowned at the distance in his voice. She had a suspicion that if it had been one of the others, say Pidge or even Lance, his reply would have been the exact same way.

As she took the chair next to his she could not help but notice the small grooves around his eyes, the way his lips were pressed into a hard line and the white-knuckled grip on the chair's armrest.

Her gloved hand closed over his and though he did not jerk away, she felt his muscles coil beneath her touch.

"Keith," she said softly, "you're not still beating yourself up over this...are you?"

She was, of course, referring to the debate that had been hashed out on Arus before their abrupt departure.

"What makes you think that?"

He turned his head to look at her, his tone flat, his eyes like chipped ice.

She did not flinch at the hardness in his eyes, nor did she removed her hand from his.

Instead she met that hard gaze with her own understanding one. There was no judgment in her eyes, no accusation.

Just acceptance of what needed to be done.

It was that look that cracked the ice forming around his soul. He let out a long sigh and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

"It's just," he began and stopped but when Allura simply sat at his side, waiting as though she had no where else to be but there with him, he found his words, "if I was back on Earth if this was the Marine's, there would be no debate. If a man defects, he gets taken out. No questions asked."

"But?" she asked gently, knowing she needed to draw this out of him or it would fester like an untreated wound.

"But this isn't Earth, this is Arus and everything is...complicated. We weren't just some military unit on a mission, this was...is...personal. I just don't know..."

Her gloved hand squeezed the top of his and though they were both protected by the thick insulation, he could still feel her gentle warmth.

"What about you?" he asked, lifting his head to look at the beautiful woman. "Have you ever..."

"Had a similar situation?" she finished for him and when he nodded his head, she withdrew her hand from his and clasped them together and turned so that her profile was only the only thing facing him.

"Yes, about four years ago. We were forced to execute one of our own. I was only sixteen at the time."

"Allura..." Keith heard the surprise in his voice and something in his heart squeezed at her soft, clipped words.

She turned then and gave him a wan smile. "It's ok for you to ask. I do understand what this must be like, having to be forced to decide a fate of a friend...versus the fate of a people."

Keith swallowed and gave himself a mental shake. No time to back down now Kogane, you asked the question, see it through.

"What happened?"

Allura crossed her arms over her chest and allowed her mind to wander back to the memory.

"One of our sector leaders had been hoarding all the food and supplies we had managed to scavenge and save on our few forays above ground. As you are aware our tunnel system is vast and with my people scattered, it was prudent that we set up sector leaders to make sure everyone was taken care of."

Her mouth curved into soft frown as the memories unfolded. "Deacon had been nothing more than a low-level guard. Not skilled enough for the ranks of the palace, he worked in one of the smaller towns that bordered the castle. But he had survived the purge and because he had military knowledge...I left it to Coran to choose the sector leaders."

There was something in her voice, a hint of rage that had Keith setting the auto pilot and turning his full attention to her.

"He did more than hoard supplies."

Allura gave him a hard, searching look and gave a short jerk of her head.

"Zarkon's forces wiped out most of our skilled guards. As you know Arus was a diplomatic planet, our focus was peace, not violence. We had little in the way of true warriors. So I'm sure it will come to no surprise that when Deacon decided that he would crown himself 'King' of his sector, there was no one strong enough to challenge him. All the people under him were elderly, children...and the surviving women who had not been captured for slaves."

Keith reached out gently and took her elbow, forcing her arms to unlock so that he could capture her hand.

"What did he do, Allura?" His voice was mild, he made sure of that as his gut and years of experience in the military giving him an idea of what was about to come out of her mouth.

She swallowed hard, but did not take back her hand. The warm strength of his hand on hers anchored her to the present and made it bearable to to tell him this dark tale.

"He had been...forcing the women to give him 'favors' in order to feed and cloth the children."

His grip tightened but there were no cries of outrage from him.

She gave him peculiar look and her returned her wan smile with one of his own. "Stories like this are not unknown on Earth. My days in the Marine's showed me much of humanities cruelties. Whatever you tell me will not shock me Allura."

She gave a short jerk of her head. "Yes. I suppose that's true. So, as I said, he was raping the women and forcing the children to go above ground to look for signs of Drules. The youngest was only four."

Her fingers clenched around his and her anger was palatable, even after the years had passed. "It was one of those children who managed to sneak away and find their way to the main tunnel where we held our meetings. Our supplies, at the time, were doled out once a month and food once a week. The child had come midway between the two meetings. It was lucky that one of Coran's men had been patrolling the area and took the child directly to Coran and myself."

"So Coran executed this Deacon?"

Coran being a military leader and with Allura only sixteen at the time, just barely a teenager, it made sense to Keith that he would be the one to terminate the man.

But her next words surprised him.

"No, I did. I ended his life myself."

Keith sucked in a sharp breath. "Allura, why? You were but a child..."

She turned and looked at him, allowing him to see the memories in her eyes, her strength of will.

"Because, even at sixteen, my people looked to me to be their leader. They had trusted us, me, to keep them safe and instead one of our own brutalized the women and children on top of what they had already suffered. I could not look away and allow Coran to take this burden from me. If I was to truly lead my people, I knew I had to be able to take the good with the bad."

Keith could only stare at her, wondering how a girl of sixteen could have that much steel, that much strength of will to do what was necessary. To take a life, no matter how easy it may look, was not a small matter.

To take a life changed a person, as well he knew. He would not balk at killing someone, not if it meant saving the lives of those who were put in his care, but that did not mean he relished in spilling blood.

"Keith?"

He snapped out of his contemplation and realized he had fallen silent after she finished telling him her story.

There was worry in her luminous eyes and it was then Keith realized that she must believe that he was shocked to learn someone had died at her hands.

"I'm not shocked," he assured her and watched as some of the tension left her body, "I am angry that at sixteen you were forced into a decision that even grown adults would hesitate to enforce."

A delicate shrug of her shoulders. "Such is the way of war. You either crumble in the ruins, or rise above the ashes stronger for it."

Keith gave her a hint of a smile, the first he had felt in several hours. "I..." he began but was unable to continue when the com chimed and Pidge's voice came over the system.

"Commander, I mean Keith," Pidge said quickly, "that signal we picked up is closing in. ETA in about fifteen minutes."

"Acknowledged," Keith replied, his voice once more the cool assurance of a commanding officer, " began the cycle on the engines and prep the lions."

He turned to Allura, who was already on her feet and gave his shoulder a brief squeeze. "We will get through this and we will bring back Sven. Alive."

He gave only a brief incline of his head to her words before turning off the auto pilot and going back to his duties.

Such is the weight of leader, she thought as her eyes lingered on his strong, silent profile, to be willing to bear the burdens of others, even if those burdens cause you to cover yourself in darkness.

Allura watched with little pleasure as the Voltron Team took apart yet another Drule ship. All bore the electrical signature marking them as belonging to the seventh kingdom. Merla's people.

According to both Keith and Pidge with each ship we disable we can use their own computers to track Merla whom we believe Sven is with.

But each ship was only a single piece of the puzzle. The Drule queen was very good at hiding where she had gone with Sven.

This last ship makes seventeen. Seventeen ships that, if we are caught, could be considered an act of war from Arus.

Her fingers tightened unconsciously as she once more walked the halls of their stolen ship. She had been searching for Keith, but he wasn't answering any of the hails nor was he in his assigned room.

She knew, for she had checked there first.

She was now making her way towards the cockpit, figuring he would once more be at the a helm.

But she stopped as she heard several voices from behind the door, none of them belonging to Keith.

"...we haven't killed anyone yet. That's got to count for something, I guess."

Allura knew the voice, it was Hunk.

"Yeah, sure. But you know, attacking seventeen Drule ships isn't going to look good for us either."

That voice belonged to Lance.

When Pidge didn't chime in, she assumed he was elsewhere, trying to decode the seventh kingdom's computer system.

She knew she should go in, say something to ease their minds but she hesitated.

What do I tell them? That this is our only recourse to find Sven? To remind them that Hawkins can only let V-25 stand watch over Arus for thirty-six hours until they're pulled?

Everything sounded like an excuse to her mind, but it was the truth. They had but thirty-six hours to find Sven before her planet was left defenseless and should the Drule's find out that it was Voltron attacking their people...

She shuddered at the repercussion that would fall, should she not be able to prove that Merla was behind all of this.

Again voices lifted and she once again hesitated, paused at the threshold of the doorway.

"...never thought I would get homesick for Earth..."

Allura felt her stomach tighten at his words, her heart like dead weight in her chest.

Does he regret coming to Arus and staying? I thought I knew the team, all of them, but have I only been seeing what I want to see? Do they resent Keith for his decision? Do they resent me as well?

"...miss that for the both of us!" Lance threw out, once more the traces of the irreverent, cocky pilot that he was in his voice. "Nothing I want to ever go back to! Besides, you're forgetting one main thing in all of this."

"Oh," replied Hunk, a touch of curiosity in his usually quiet voice, "what's that?"

"Keith. He'll find a way out of this. He always has a plan and knows what to do."

"True. There is that."

Allura felt the corners of her lips pull up in smile. The grip around her heart eased, if only a fraction.

Despite the arguments both males had made against Keith regarding Sven, they still had faith in him as a leader.

That was good enough for her.

Moving so that she didn't set off the motion sensor in the door, Allura left the two males alone, once more on the hunt for the erstwhile commander.