Thirty-seven
The Drule Guard pushed Lance purposely hard into the cell, Allura nearly buckled as all his weight landed on her as Sven lost his grip from the jolt of pain that rose up Lance as he put too much weight on his leg to keep from falling. Allura gritted her teeth and kept them both upright, they'd all taken care of her, so many times, she wasn't going to let one of them down now. Especially not Lance.
The slaves in the cell had all moved to the back, were now slowly coming forward and one of them gasped. "You, your Voltron Force members," he said stepping forward staring at Lance and Allura. "The Princess of Arus," he whispered as his stare landed on her.
Allura nodded. "We're here to help you."
"Help us, how when you're in the same situation we are?" the man asked, shaking his head. "You shouldn't have come, Princess. You should have stayed on your planet, fought with Voltron. You're making a dent that way."
He sounded defeated, broken, he was looking down on the ground now, no one else had stepped up behind him. He was still shaking his head, Allura now knew why Sven and Romelle had wanted to be among the slaves; she'd understood it rationally but it never really when beyond statements and words to her until now. They knew the slaves would be lost, broken, possible completely defeated. They knew they had to befriend them, speak to them and help them find their spark of life and courage again. The way Romelle had saved Sven on Doom when she'd been tossed in the Pit of Skulls and found him down there, surviving but nearly to the point of never coming back from insanity from it all.
"Hope isn't lost," Allura said. "What is your name?" she asked, thankful for the nudge Lance gave her to keep talking to him, she didn't want to stop but she also wanted to get Lance off his feet. She glanced at Sven and Romelle, Sven nodded at her to continue.
"I am Fin, Princess Allura."
"I'm Allura," she said, unnecessarily maybe, but she wanted to try to be more familiar. To drop her title for him. "This is Lance, could you help me get him to the floor? He's been hurt?"
"It's not that bad," Lance said, Allura rolled her eyes.
"Fin, he says that out macho reflex, it is bad and I'd like to check his stitches," Allura said.
"Oh, yes, yes," Fin said after a brief moment where he slowly looked up and looked at Lance. This time seeing more than just a member of Voltron but the man and the injury. Fin then made some hand motions and three people rushed forward, all women, and Allura and Lance found themselves quickly in a corner of the cell. Allura noticed Sven walked up to Fin, and she felt that was a start and she focused on who was with her now, helping her help Lance.
One of the women, was her age or younger, she gave Lance some water. "I'd give you more but we have to hide and ration it," she explained.
"You don't have to explain," Lance said.
A woman around Nanny's age had already undone his bandage and looked at his wound. She shook her head. "This is a nasty laser wound, it went through your uniform I see. The stitches are tight, but its very puffy and red, probably already infected. Do you have something for that?" the woman asked Allura. "Sorry, I was a nurse on Ebb, for a long time before I was here."
"Thank you," Allura said, opening her utility belt. "This is what we have," Allura gave her the anitbiotic tube from the small kit in her belt. "Sven used most of Lance's tube, already," Allura was worried. "It's not going to be enough is it?"
"Don't," Lance told her.
Allura stared at him. "Don't order me around with one word sentences like Keith tries to do with you!"
Lance raised his hands. "I'm just saying, worry about them, Romelle and you, Allura."
"No," Allura snapped back. "I'll worry about them, Romelle, Sven, you and me."
The other woman poked Lance in the arm then, both he and Allura looked at her, they saw kind grey eyes, which also held extreme sadness. She held a bunch of fabric up and mimed Lance moving up so she could put it behind his head. Lance looked like he was going to say no, so Allura grabbed his collar and yanked. "Here you go," she said. "Thank you," she added but the woman walked away.
"She never talks, but she's always helpful. We don't know anything else," the nurse explained. "Yet, I think she's one of the sanest of us all. I am Rona, by the way."
Allura smiled at Rona. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, Rona. You may call me, Allura," she said.
Rona nodded as she replaced the bandages on Lance's calf. "Try not to put your full weight on it, I wish we had some ice," she said. Then she pressed her hand against his forehead. "No, fever."
Allura realized she'd been holding her breath, as she breathed out harshly then sucked air back in. Rona smiled. "He'll be okay, though from what I've heard the guards say we'll be walking a long way tomorrow."
"I know," Allura said. "Lotor, ran his mouth at us," she explained to the woman, but her mind was really on the pictures she'd seen, of the four of them. She turned to glance at Sven and Romelle. Sven had Fin talking to him, and a few others. Romelle was talking with the woman who didn't speak yet they did seem to be communication, there were a few younger women behind her, waiting to see if she approved Romelle it looked liked.
"For someone who doesn't speak, her opinion matters," Lance said.
Rona turned and she watched the groupings herself, then her eyes turned the rest of the slaves, quiet in their own groupings, watching and she nodded. "Yes. Like I said, she's quite sane, she gets her points across despite not speaking and she's strong. They listen to her actions. Fin, Fin they trust from his actions too, he's very traumatized, he was taken off of Arus a long time ago, Princ-, I'm sorry, Allura."
Allura watched him with Sven, he was shaking his head but at the same time he was looking backward at the rest of the slaves, especially at the younger ones. The ones around Lance and Sven's age, the ones her age and younger. Allura glanced at Lance though when they both heard Fin say. "It's insanity."
"It won't be easy," Lance said, but his eyes were on Romelle and the Quiet Woman. Allura turned towards them again, and watched. The Quiet Woman, nodded, she turned to the young women behind her and she touched, Romelle's stomach and mimed a holding a baby. Someone appeared with a small cup of water, much like what Lance had been offered. Romelle's eyes widened and she started, looking towards Sven.
The Quiet Woman looked like she was laughing, thought no noise left her throat. She then put her finger to lips and pointed to Sven, and shook her head. The three women, nodded, Romelle accepted the water and thanked them. The Quiet Woman, then made Romelle follow her across the room until they were by Allura, Rona and Lance. She told Rona, in the same fashion that Romelle was pregnant and not to tell Sven, then she walked away. Romelle stood there staring at her as she walked away. "I think she's agreed to the escape plan, already, to work on others. I... how did she know?"
Rona shook her head. "She seems to know things," she said.
Allura felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck, she shared another look with Lance, he nodded. She stood up and crossed the cell to where the Quiet Woman had sat down. Sitting down next to her Allura wondered how to go about her conversation with her.
During the attack when I was captured my vocal chords were damaged.
Allura despite herself, started, her eyes wide she stared into the older woman's grey eyes. You're from Arus, then, you are a Seer?
Yes. Fin and I are the only two to have survived since the time we were taken. It was the attack that took your father's life. He knows my secret, he keeps it for me. Other Arusians don't hold back their distrust of Seers. I pray, my daughter has survived on Arus nonetheless.
Allura frowned, she glanced among the slaves, wondering who among them were her people, they all seemed to young. Voltron had stopped Zarkon from taking more of her people.
Fin and I are the only Arusians here. You are here with your King, yet it's a troubling time for the two of you.
Allura looked across the room at Lance at the words. He looked pale, but okay, she was scared though. Scared of the rest of the prophecy. He was talking quietly to Romelle, then motioning to Sven. She wondered if he was trying to talk her into telling him or assuring her he would keep her secret.
"No one knows about that, we shouldn't discuss it," Allura said. "What is your name?"
I was named after a ancestor of mine, a name I believe you know, as you are living one of her prophecies. I only know of it orally, oral family history, the paper itself is still lost. Well, until it's found in the future, the one you went too. I am Altea. I see things about the Queens and Kings of Arus, their loves, their losses, their challenges. If she is alive on Arus, my daughter is seeing it too, only she won't know how to sort it out without my help. And I'm trapped here, a slave with no voice, no paper, no pen.
Allura swallowed. "Altea. You know we went to the future? Do you know we went to the Underground?" she whispered.
No. Why, why would you go to such a place Princess.
"Because I have been kept in the dark about it, Lance was made aware of it, he felt he should check it out. I met two Seers there. One was around my age. She told me it wasn't time for me to deal with the Underground, that the time would come, the Seers are hiding there."
Your age, she spoke of you and Lance? As Queen and King?"
Allura nodded.
Altea smiled. My daughter. I'm sure, I was hoping but I couldn't be sure until I spoke to you. It was grey, things about your own life if you're a Seer, it clouds, it doesn't let you see. The rule is, one can only know about the future if your meant to have say in how it unfolds.
"Lance, Lance and I, we can change our future then?"
Altea looked at her with grey eyes. Do you really want too?
Allura looked across the cell at Lance, his eyes were closed now. He looked too pale to her, he was always pale but he looked too pale. Washed out. She shook her head though at Altea. "Keith. I've always seen Keith as my future."
Going to the future, it only gave you and Lance facts. You two married, you had children. You stumbled on a few prophecies however... This one specifically, it was the point. This moment, these moments. This mission. What happens with you and Lance. It's all about you, Allura."
"Me?" Allura stared at her. "What does that mean?"
Altea smiled. You spoke with your father before you decided to come to this moon, did you not. What did King Alfor, say?
"That only I knew what was right, to follow my heart."
And here you are.
"I can't risk Lance's life," Allura whispered. "I didn't want to hurt Keith, again but..."
As I said, the prophecy about this moon, it's all about you Allura. Following your heart.
Allura felt unsettled, a sudden and instant uncomfortableness in her own skin. She shook her head at Altea, she shook her head and she stood back up. "I, I don't," she didn't finish the sentence because she realized it had no end. "Thank you."
Thank you for letting me know my daughter is alive.
Allura shook head again and realized her entire body shook as she crossed the cell again, then slipped next to Lance agains the wall. He opened his eyes and looked about ready to say hello to her but he didn't say anything when he saw her face. Instead he put his arm around her and just pulled her in.
"Whatever the hell it is, it's going to be okay."
"She is a Seer," Allura confirmed, because she knew he'd been wondering too, when she walked over their to talk to Altea.
"Was she helpful?"
"No," Allura whispered. She called you my King, she added mentally.
Lance sighed.
~~.~~
His leg felt like it was on fire, he was limping along, trying not to lean on Allura but rather use her to steady himself but if he was honest he was leaning. She was strong though, standing tall, arm wrapped around his waist, their arms tangled around their shoulders. He refused to think about the amount of walking, or the fact it seemed to be all uphill; instead he did his job.
Hours ago when they'd first dragged them outside, the first thing he saw much to his disconcertion, was Red hanging from the bottom of three Drule ships being flown over the mountain they - as slaves - would be walking. He felt a surge of hate, at the idea of Red being lugged over the mountain like equipment, yet at the same time he knew it was good she'd be over there. She'd be where they were heading, it made their escape a possibility - or Allura's. If he couldn't, if the prophecy was to set in stone for him, due to his leg or whatever choices... he didn't begin to comprehend half of what Allura tried to explain to him about prophecies or Seers. All he knew was one thing he was focusing on changing was Allura flying off this moon with Red.
He'd counted the guards after getting over the fact Red had been lugged, seven all together. There were about thirty slaves, including the four of them, and seven guards. Two in the front, guiding the walking, two in the middle, with whips and blasters and they used them when they felt the humans started to get too slow. Lance was forcing himself to walk faster than he should, Allura was pissed off about it, she kept muttering he shouldn't be pushing himself so much but she wasn't muttering at him about it so much as at the situation. She knew he had no choice.
He couldn't see them but he could feel the two Drules at the back were just as bad as the two in the middle. Blasters and whips, gasps and screams. Tired humans, and laughing Drules.
Sven was walking with Fin and the Seer Altea, aka, The Quiet Woman to the rest of them. She's spoken to Allura mentally, told her who she was, where she was from and what little she knew. Sven and Romelle didn't need to know that to understand she had a lot of say with the people. Fin was wary, jumpy, but with Altea by him he seemed calmer, Lance was sure she spoke to him, Allura said he knew her secret. Kept it for her. He sighed, he prayed Allura could help the Seers of Arus come out of hiding, he wondered at how a whole planet could turn against half of something that made up their Faith, their Religion. Allura wanted to talk to the Priests, yet life had been so crazy.
"Stop." The Drule's yelled.
They stopped, Lance swore because stopping reminded him that his calf felt like it was on fire. Clenching his jaw, he glanced around where they were, they'd reached some sort of summit of the hill they'd been climbing for the day. He was sure it'd been a full day.
"We sleep here. Now. Leave at sunrise." The Drule's explained.
Then they corralled the slaves into a group while they all stood around them, blasters pointing at them, albeit lazily. Allura helped Lance settled down his back against the rocky mountain the path had been against the whole time. Rona appeared almost instantly, with a bit of water for him, then she was checking his wound.
"How is it?" Allura asked.
"It's red, puffy, infected, it's noone's fault. You didn't have the right tools," Rona explained. "But we'll be gone soon, I believe between your friends and her, Fin is caving. Once he is on board the rest of the slaves will do what the rest of us choose."
Lance nodded, purposefully catching Allura's eye. "It'll be fine. We'll get to where we are going. They'll take over two of those ships they used to fly Red over there. Okay? And you'll fly Red."
Allura held his gaze but her expression remained, worried, unsure and lost. She shook her head and she glanced at Altea. Lance frowned, he didn't know what the Seer had told her, what she had said to Allura about everything. Only that she was a Seer and had called him Allura's King. He sighed and grabbed Allura's hand.
"What did she say to you?" he asked, ignoring the fact that Rona was smearing what they had left of antibiotic onto his wound.
(ITALIC)She said that the prophecy is all about me.
Lance frowned as Allura's voice whispered in his head, she sounded confused and sad. Like she was given into everything and not at all like the strong-willed woman he knew and wasn't in love with...nope, not in love with. "You're flying Red home," he said out loud, he didn't have the focus to try to talk to her with his mind. It was too much with the pain and the exhaustion from walking with it, ignoring it. "You understand me?" he asked.
No.
It was loud, sure and stubborn, okay maybe she wasn't completely lost and giving in to some inevitable something. But still. "No, Allura. Leave me behind."
"NO!" she shouted, out loud this time.
Rona lifted up from where she was using some old rags, she'd pulled out a bag Altea had handed her as a fresher bandage for Lance, and Sven and Romelle both hurried over. Romelle looking a bit pale, from the morning sickness everyone but Sven knew she was fighting off.
"What's going on," Sven said. "We shouldn't be drawing any more attention to us than we'll already going to be getting," he admonished. "Fin's agreed, he's letting people know now what will happen tomorrow."
"Good. Now tell this one, here, that if anything goes wrong with me and my leg, to get her ass in Red and get back to Arus."
"I am not leaving this moon without you," Allura said, this time in a shouted whispered. "I didn't come here to fail you," she added, tears falling this time. "I..." she trailed off, stood up and pushed between Sven and Romelle and walked a few steps away.
"Son of a bitch," Lance muttered and started to trying to stand back up.
"Lance," Rona exclaimed. "I really think you should rest the leg while..."
Lance reached out for Sven. "Sven pull me up, I mean it."
Sven shook his head. "I think you should listen."
"Oh, so I should leave Allura crying over there."
"Romelle will handle it."
"Romelle can't handle it," Lance spat out.
"I'll do what I can," Romelle said her eyes meeting Lance's. Lance met Romelle's darker blue eyes and he shook his head. "When you can't help, you come on back here and make him help me up."
Romelle nodded, then walked over to where Allura stood, her shoulders shaking in a quiet cry.
Sven stared down at him, Lance could feel the dark eyes on him and he sighed and met Sven's hard, studying gaze. "What?"
"Leave you behind?"
"If you have to?"
"Why would that cross your mind?"
"I have reasons."
"Why?"
"I have reasons," Lance repeated.
Sven threw up his hands. "These reasons related to why the Princess is even here? Going against Keith's orders, after making up with him after that gigantic fight?"
Lance shrugged. "Really, I find you do better with women, if you don't try to questions a woman's reasons for things."
Sven growled. "Don't try to be coy to get out of this conversation. I am not leaving you behind, either."
Lance shrugged, thinking Sven was going to find he wasn't going to have a choice and he was going to have to force Allura. He had to get that across. "Sven, if there is no choice, and I mean this. None at all, you will have to bodily force her to leave me. I mean this, toss her in Red Lion, make her fly her home. You have to do this, make her leave me on this moon. If for anything her own safety."
The prophecy she'd shown him, shared with him, what little he saw, it didn't show a rescue. Lance didn't want them both stuck here.
Sven snorted. "It won't come to that."
Lance shook his head.
Romelle stepped back to the men, she touched Sven on the shoulder. "Sven, I really do think it's best he talks to her."
Sven rolled his eyes, he held out his hand.
Rona sighed. "As his nurse, I'm not for this," she muttered.
Lance smiled at her. "I'll rest as soon as I calm the Princess," he said.
"Charm you mean. Young love," she muttered walking away.
Lance felt his heart fly to his mouth as she said that, but then he swallowed it down. It wasn't simple, his feelings for Allura, but he wasn't... he wasn't... He sighed and avoided Sven's eyes and limped, painfully, to where Allura was without even thanking Sven for the lift.
He saw a tinge of too much pink on Allura's cheeks, and knew she'd heard Rona's words too. He sighed. "So, uh, pissed you off, did I?"
"Ordering me around, yeah."
"I am your commanding officer."
Allura glared at him.
"I don't want you stuck here with me, we don't know if we even get rescued," he said pitching his voice down low enough no one else could hear.
"We get rescued. Obviously, there are too many things after we know about. Just in our journals themselves. I've seen other prophecies. That kiss..." she trailed off hugging herself.
"By the bench right," Lance sighed. "Fine, I don't want you risking yourself for me, then."
Allura shook her head. "I have too."
"No, you don't, Allura, you don't owe me anything. No obligations."
Allura shook her head, a few more tears fell and she looked at him, blue eyes swimming with tears. You can't ask me to leave you because the idea of it hurts, in a way a I can't even make sense of, so will you stop it already.
He sighed, then he grabbed her hand and squeezed. She let out a long breath, then turned to look at him and then her facial expression changed from sadness to pissed off. "What the hell are you doing up?" she shouted and the next thing he knew he was back up against the mountain sitting.