The Last Aspect

by Spazzcat-Katori

A year into the war, Allura wakes to air filled with blue quintessence and seven human life signatures in a castle that should only hold five. The new arrivals carry dire warnings and desperate hopes, and the paladins of Voltron find that the road ahead is longer and darker than they'd ever feared. WIP, Canon divergent after S2

2. Chapter 2

Finished writing chapter 4, so I'm posting chapter 2 here. Constructive feedback is appreciated!

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As they made their way down the once-familiar corridors of the Castle of Lions behind Allura, Kurogane felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders now that they were away from the younger paladins. He hadn't expected this to be so hard, coming face to face with the ghosts of their past, seeing those they'd lost, and even themselves, standing smiling and scarless and whole. He kept having to remind himself not to lash out, that this was real and not a Druid illusion created to torment his mind and soul.

He felt fingers brush against his and quickly laced them with his own, exchanging reassuring squeezes with his long-time partner. Their arms pressed together, the sleeve of the Altean shirt Coran had provided rubbing smoothly over his skin in a way that made his skin itch, the sensation of any fabric other than his black undersuit unfamiliar and uncomfortable after months of wearing nothing but his armor and years of wearing little else. Everything felt strange, like a waking dream, and he kept expecting to wake up back in the too-cold cockpit of the Blue Lion, limbs tangled with Lance's-Alejandro's while the other kept watch on the distant stars over an airless moon.

But it wasn't a dream, they were here, in the past, having used their last, desperate option to try to avert years of pain and loss and create a universe where things didn't end in tragedy and death. They had only a few months to try to change course before things would start going wrong, and they needed to act quickly. Especially when it came to helping the paladins reach their full potential. As things were now, even with the allies they were about to bring on board, an all-out fight against the Galra empire, Lotor, and especially Haggar would be a slaughter and it would all be for nothing.

"Do you have a plan for getting in touch with the Icebringer fleet?" He muttered quietly, watching Alejandro out of the corner of his eye as they walked. "Because I don't. They found us last time, and there's no telling where their ships might be right now, or what communication codes they're using."

"Not a problem," the taller man answered cheerfully, giving him a lopsided grin. "We don't need to know where they are to get a message to them, because all we have to do is direct our message to Sh'ra H'ressnol, which we do know the location of, and they can pass it on to the fleet for us."

Kurogane blinked. "Clever. So, we'll send off a message to them first, then we'll contact the Blade directly?"

"That's what I was thinking." Alejandro nodded as the bridge doors whooshed open ahead of Allura. Following her in, he looked to her for permission as he stepped up to the main communications panel. Seeing her calm nod, he pulled up the message recording system. "Help me out here, babe? You were always better at the growly languages that I was."

Kurogane laughed, stepping into the camera frame. "Probably a good idea, we're trying to form an alliance, not tell them their feet are pretty."

"That was one time! H'ress'wr is hard!"

"Not that hard, you just have a terrible accent." Kurogane snorted. "Alright, here goes." He cleared his throat, taking a deep breath before hitting the record button and beginning to speak. The language that emerged from his throat, to Allura's visible shock, consisted of pitched snarls and growls, carefully enunciated. "Good trading. My name is Kurogane, and I speak on behalf of the paladins of Voltron. We wish to join our pack with those already hunting against the Galra Empire, for the sake of bringing the hunt to a close. We also desire to trade with the packs, your assistance for our knowledge. We have vital information gained through the final aspect of blue quintessence." That sentence alone should be enough to establish their credentials, and impress the importance of their message. "I ask you to please pass this message to Pack Leader Shiiar'keh of the Long Wind as soon as possible, with this frequency as our communication line. Time is short and storms are gathering. Good hunting."

The recording switched off, and he leaned in to program in the target coordinates the message would be transmitted to. Likely it would take a few days before they would hear back, since the message would need to reach its destination, be listened to and acted on, transmitted again, and then a decision to act reached, hopefully in their favour. A final keystroke send the recording streaking away through hyperspace, and Kurogane turned to Allura. "Can you take us to the Blade's headquarters? This is a conversation best held face to face."

The princess nodded, stepping up to her control pillars. "How is it that you come to speak fluent H'ress'wr?" she asked curiously as she allowed her quintessence to flow into the ship's controls. "As some of the universe's most formidable warriors, the H'ress would have been Zarkon's next target once he finished wiping out the Alteans." Her eyes showed a deep sadness at the painful topic.

Alejandro exchanged startled glances with Kurogane before their eyes widened in realization. This Allura didn't know, Kurogane realized. Of course she didn't. She hadn't lived what her future self had, and they needed to stop forgetting that. He hastily cleared his throat, directing his attention back to Allura. "Actually, about that. Don't believe everything you read in the Galran history books. He may have tried to wipe the Altean race off the starmap, but he didn't succeed."

Allura's breath caught in her throat as she stared at them, hands stilling on the controls midway through the wormhole activation sequence. "You're...you're serious. Some survived?" Her voice cracked with desperate hope.

Alejandro nodded, a gentle sympathy showing in his face. "The H'ress aren't stupid, they weren't going to just sit around and wait for Zarkon to obliterate H'ress'nol like he did with Altea. They loaded their civilization onto massive colony ships and scattered to the stellar winds, and when they did they took any Altean they could get their hands on before the Galra soldiers did. There were enough of your people off-world when Altea fell, and enough H'ress ships got away safely, that both races survived. H'ress and Alteans make up the two largest groups among the races represented in the Icebringer resistance, as well as on Sh'ra H'ressnol. You'll see them once they answer our message." His tone was gentle and understanding, and he stepped forward when Allura stumbled off the platform toward them to throw her arms around his neck in a tight embrace. He held her for a long moment while her body trembled with tears, and neither he nor Kurogane said anything when she finally stepped back to wipe the tears from her eyes and compose herself.

"I...thank you. Both of you." Her smile was so blinding with gratitude that Kurogane had to turn away in embarrassment before she turned to step back up to her control platform. Taking a deep breath, she activated the wormhole sequence to send them plunging through folded space to the star system that held the Blade of Marmora's headquarters.

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Alejandro's mother had once told him that the longer you went without seeing someone, the less you remembered of their flaws. That being said, he was reasonably sure that four years should not have been anywhere near enough time to dull the memory of Kolivan's sheer, unrelenting stubbornness.

They had been going back and forth for a good twenty minutes, trying everything they could think of to convince the leader of the Blade of Marmora that they were, in fact, time travellers and not...whatever the hell the Galra thought they were. Even Allura's assurances were carrying no weight, which, okay, fair, it hadn't been that long ago relative to this point in time that she'd been giving Keith the cold shoulder over his Galra heritage, but still. Finally, out of sheer exasperation, he slapped his hand down on the table.

"Okay, you know what? How about this: Bring Slav out and let us talk to him. If he doesn't believe us either, then we'll piss off. And if he does, you listen to what we have to say."

There was a pause as Kolivan eyed them consideringly from the screen, looking them up and down as though searching for any signs of a bluff. "Very well." He said finally, turning to speak to someone off-camera. Alejandro huffed, crossing his arms irritably while they waited in silence. Silently he hoped that he wasn't making a mistake, that the genius engineer would be able to tell what they were.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for the other Galra to return, Slav wrapped around his shoulders like a living scarf. Even more thankfully, the Bytor took one look at them and all but threw himself at the screen, eyes wide with unadulterated awe and fascination. "Time travellers! That is something that occurs in only 0.000003% of realities! Tell me, what method did you use to travel back?"

The Cuban blinked, then grinned in relief. He should never have doubted. "Good to see you too, Slav. We used blue quintessence."

"Excellent, excellent!" The Bytor's head bobbed approvingly. "Time travellers are 26 times more likely to succeed in their endeavors in realities where they use blue quintessence to make the journey than in ones where they use red." Alejandro shot a surprised look at his equally stunned partner, but before either they or Slav could ask any further questions, Kolivan intervened.

"Thank you, Slav." The genius engineer was hauled away protesting by his escort, and the leader of the Blade turned his attention back to the two battle-scarred paladins. "...You have made your point. What information do you need to deliver?"

Kurogane rolled his eyes, forcing Alejandro to bite down on a laugh. Typical Kolivan, straight to business as though they hadn't just spent almost half an hour trying to prove their credentials to him. "Two things," the red paladin stated firmly. "A warning of danger and something to watch for. The first is that at some point, the Blade of Marmora has been or will be infiltrated." Seeing Kolivan looking at him expectantly, he continued. "We don't know how, who, or when, only that they were able to keep you from learning of a critical development until it was too late, or at least keeping you from knowing enough to warn us. And in a bit less than one and a half Altean cycles, the Blade will be slaughtered to a man"

The Galra sucked in a breath sharply at the news. Alejandro couldn't remember ever seeing the leader's stoic facade crack before, and somehow that reaction was almost worse than all the other responses to the various bombshell revelations they'd been dropping. Even Shiro's sick horror at the knowledge that Haggar could use the arm she'd given him to take him over hadn't hurt this much. Maybe because even until the last time they'd seen him, Kolivan had always seemed unshakeable, a rock of imperturbability in the chaotic sea of war. That he could falter was an uncomfortable reminder that every single person they knew was only human, as it were, and vulnerable.

"The second item?" The alien spoke after a moment, posture somehow even stiffer than usual.

"A weapon, either already or soon to be in development. A planet destroyed, with the final name of Weblum's Breath, that will see its first full deployment at the same time as the fall of the Marmora." The blue paladin's face was pinched and pale at the memory, his tone harsh and his fists clenched at his side.

Kolivan looked him up and down again, saying nothing, and Alejandro suspected that the Galra knew everything he wasn't saying about the where and the why of that deployment. "I will have the operatives I am certain I can trust begin looking for the information you require. Thank you for your warning, and good luck." The connection closed before any of them could formulate a response.

Alejandro sighed, leaning forward and resting his hands on the edge of the panel. "That went...well?" He looked over at his partner.

Kurogane sighed, waving a hand dismissively. "We delivered the crucial information relevant to the Blade. That's what matters. We have other things to worry about."

The blue paladin nodded, lifting his head to stare out at the stars surrounding the ship. They looked just the same as they always had, all the times he'd found himself watching them, pretending he could see Sol from wherever he was, and then later, when watching the stars was a necessity for survival that he hated because it reminded him of what the Galra had done.

"Allura," he said abruptly, straightening. "Do you mind if we make use of the star map for a while?"

The Altean princess gave him a searching look, much like the one Kolivan had given. "Of course." she said softly, touching the controls and bringing up the holographic projection to fill the open space around the three of them. "Take all the time you need. I should go share the good news you've given me with Coran." She gave them a sad, understanding smile and left the room, dimming the overhead lights for better viewing on her way out.

He waited until the bridge doors whirred closed behind her before tapping the screen to bring up the controls for the map. He keyed in the coordinates without looking, a set of numbers that had been ingrained into his very being for the last seven years. The projection shifted, stars and galaxies whipping past until they plunged into a yellow dwarf system and stopped, a glowing blue-and-green marble of a world hanging in front of them, its sister moon moving in a slow circle around it. A world not yet touched by the Galra, not yet shattered into a second asteroid belt littered with the bodies of the dead by the destructive touch of the Weblum's Breath. A world, a civilization, a home that could still be saved.

Alejandro's breath caught in his throat, turned into a sob. He felt Kurogane's arms folding around him and, turning into the embrace, allowed himself to break.

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The rattle of metal on metal was a comforting touch of the familiar as Hunk slid another pan of baked goods into the cooling rack he'd built. Breathing deeply of the intermingling scents, he turned back to the stacks of ingredients spread across the counter, allowing his fingers to choose the next project while he let his mind continue to turn over the event of that morning.

Normally they would have been training at this time of day, but Shiro had been quick to call that off for the time being. Even if the black paladin hadn't been watching his prosthetic arm as though it might jump up and bite him if he took his eyes off it for a second, there was definitely no way any of them would have been able to focus on beating up a gladiator robot after being told that if things had continued as they were, it would have spelled disaster for the entire universe. So after the two visitors had left with Allura to contact the Blade and the Icebringers, Shiro had simply declared "Free day today. Just...make sure you talk to each other if you need to." and left them to their own devices.

Keith had disappeared almost instantly in the direction of the training room, Pidge and Lance were who-knew-where, and Hunk had headed straight for the kitchen and the almost meditative rhythm of mixing ingredients and kneading dough, the smells and textures a soothing anodyne for the tempest of anxious thoughts in his head.

First and most frightening was the revelation that not only had they lost the war, they'd lost everything. Their friends, their family, their homes, and for most of them, even their lives. They knew this was a war, that danger was a fact of life and death always a possibility, but somehow there had always been that feeling of it won't happen to us. All their successful battles had given them a subtle feeling of invincibility, and it was an ice cold wake-up call to learn that it could-would-had? happened to them.

How long had it taken for Kurogane and Alejandro, the future versions of two of the people that had become his family here on this ship, to lose everyone they cared about? What order had they died in? How had each of them been lost? Had their Lions been lost with them, or separately?

Obviously, the war had not been lost quickly. Kurogane and Alejandro were full-grown men, relative to the teenagers that Keith and Lance still were, but exactly how much older was hard to say. At least as old as Shiro was now, maybe older. Their bodies were fit and muscled, if with a leanness that suggested they'd been living on short rations for some time, but their skin, what could be seen of it, was littered with scars old and new, and their eyes carried shadows that made them look decade older than they should. Hunk wondered how Lance was feeling, looking at Alejandro and knowing that could be you one day, if everything goes wrong. The yellow paladin slid another tray into the oven and made a mental note to find Lance and talk to him. If the thought of a future without their families was messing with Hunk this badly, then his best friend must be an absolute wreck.

Then there was the fact that just when they had thought the war was nearly won, it turned out there was an even worse enemy waiting in the wings, on top of the fact that they hadn't even killed Zarkon, just put him on the sidelines for a while. Not even that long, in the grand scheme of things, because Zarkon had been ruling the Galra Empire with an iron fist for 10000 years, so a few years to recover was probably nothing to him. And then when you added Haggar into the mix...Hunk shuddered, hastily busying himself decorating a tray of neon-green cupcakes with purple-and-black icing, spiraling the piping bag in a steady pattern until the wave of panic subsided.

The one piece of really good news, as far as Hunk was concerned as he forcibly shoved his train of thought in a more positive direction, was that Kurogane and Alejandro were unquestionably a Thing. The Samoan had seen enough couples to be reasonably sure that the two had been an item for some time, and were highly unlikely to ever separate. Which was very good news for Lance, who had definitely had a thing for Keith pretty much since his first week at the Garrison no matter how much claimed to hate the "stupid talented mullet-head with his ridiculous soft hair and stupid pretty eyes." Hunk snorted, carefully layering pale orange pastry over a pie filled with some unidentified fruit. Protest too much, indeed. Well, he definitely had a chance with Keith, apparently, and as his best friend, it was Hunk's duty to make sure Lance was well-informed of that fact.

He was pulled from his train of thought by a chorus of squeaks. Looking down, he saw the mice peering up at him hopefully from beside one of the mixing bowls. Hunk laughed, turning to his racks of cooled pastries. "Yeah, yeah, they're ready. Strawberry danish for Platt, chocolate oatmeal cookies for Chuchule, a cupcake for Plachu, and a cinnamon roll for Chulatt. Right?" Hearing squeaks of agreement he set a plate of the appropriate baked goods down on the counter. "Careful, the danish is still kinda hot."

Sliding the pie he'd been working on into the oven, Hunk set to work cleaning up the kitchen. Baking had always been his favourite form of stress relief, and the fact that the results could be used to cheer up other people was an added bonus. He hummed to himself as he washed the various bowls and scoops, neatly packing away the cooled pastries into containers so he could wash the pans as well.

It was as he was boxing up Lance's favourite mango tarts (a violent shade of magenta and not actually mango, but they tasted just the same), that an idea came to him. He looked over at the mice with a smile. "Think you guys could do me a favour when you're done eating?" Chuchule waved a paw agreeably, chocolate all over her whiskers. "Awesome."

Digging around, he produced a smaller container, one that the four mice should be able to carry between them even once it was full. Quickly he filled half the container with mango tarts, then pulled out the tray of Keith's preferred peanut butter cookies and packed the remaining space with as many as he could. Hunk started to put the lid on the container, then frowned. Something was still missing.

Letting his eyes wander around the room, they landed on the notepad he used for jotting down his culinary experiments, preferring not to risk getting grubby fingers all over a tablet. His face lit up and he grabbed for his pen.

A few minutes later the mice were hoisting the container to their tiny shoulders, looking to him for direction. "Take it to Alejandro and Kurogane, okay? Thanks guys, you rock." He waved as they ran off, then turned his attention back to rescuing his pie from the oven.

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Too keyed up to sit still, Lance wandered the hallways of the Castle, letting his fingers trace over the edges of the walls and doors and restless feet carry him aimlessly as he communed with Blue through the mental link of the lion bond.

For the most part, they had been reviewing the morning's discussions, with Blue adding her own rumbling comments on everything. She had been quick to reassure him that regardless of what a future version of him may have done to a future version of her, she and he were perfectly fine and healthy and she was not going anywhere. She also informed him that since Alejandro was, in fact, Lance of the future, the situation must have been truly desperate for him to do as he had done because Lance would not have done something like that otherwise, and that she could not see any version of herself being reluctant to do whatever was necessary to help any version of him, even at the cost of her own destruction.

Lance agreed, although the thought of having to do something like that to Blue, one of the most important people in his life, was agonizing. Her comment about Lance and Alejandro being the same person abruptly reminded him of the time-travellers' odd reaction to the choice of nicknames he'd given them. Why was that? He'd have to ask them next time he saw them.

The blue paladin was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't see the mice scurrying down the corridor until he nearly stepped on them, drawing an offended squeak from Chulatt. "Sorry!" He exclaimed, moving out of their way. A flash of bright magenta in the container they were carrying caught his attention. Hunk's mango tarts? Curious, he followed at a distance as the mice scampered along with their burden. The bridge door opened for them and he pressed himself out of sight against the wall as he heard voices inside, the familiar glow of the star map projection spilling out through the opening.

"Who-oh. It's just the mice." Kurogane let out a sigh.

"What's that they're carrying?" A pause. "This for us? Thanks!" The sound of a container being opened, followed by a sharp intake of breath. "Holy shit, Keith, look!"

"Is that…"

"Hunk's mango tarts and peanut butter cookies? Pretty sure. Hunk always knew everybody's favourites." Alejandro's voice cracked a bit, as though he were fighting back tears.

"What's that paper on top?"

"Let me see…" A rustle of paper, a pause, and then a wet-sounding laugh. "'Welcome home. Love, Hunk.' Fuck…" Lance's future self was audibly sniffling now.

"Oh geez, Lance, c'mere." Kurogane's voice was soft and concerned, and a moment later the sound of crying became muffled as though by fabric and Lance could hear Kurogane murmuring soothingly for his partner to just let it all out.

It took several minutes of muffled tears before Lance heard Alejandro speak again. "Sorry…'s just...hard. They're them but they're not, y'know?" Kurogane must have nodded, because he continued. "They haven't lost anything yet, they still have hope and look at new worlds like they're the coolest thing they've ever seen. But they're still...that note. Hunk would have written a note like that any day of his life, right up 'til the day he died. That never changed."

"Well, he is Yellow."

A shaky laugh. "Yeah. I know. Understanding. It's just...weird. I keep having to remind myself that they don't remember. And I know that's a good thing, but it still hurts that I remember them but they don't remember me. The battles, the pain, the good times in between. This Hunk never spent days helping me plan how to ask you out. This Shiro never spent weeks helping me learn to use my prosthetics after I lost my legs. This Pidge never had me help her make sleep-learning recordings for Spanish so I'd still have people to speak it with." A long, shaky breath. "This Allura never spent months helping me improve my close-combat skills and then laughed when I finally beat her. This Coran never helped me learn to thank Allura in Altean and then tricked me by teaching me a sentence that was actually an insult."

Out in the hallway, Lance's heart ached. They'd been so focused on the dangers to themselves that the time-travellers had warned them about, trying to deal with the revelation that thing would end in despair if they weren't careful, that they'd forgotten that the time-travellers themselves were people too. They'd come back here, forced to look the ghosts of their dead family in the face in order to protect them. Kurogane and Alejandro were putting themselves through emotional agony in order to save the lives of those they cared about, for the sake of their duty as paladins.

"And then there's Blue...I dunno if it's because I still had an active lion-bond when we came back, or if it's because it was Blue that we used to come back, but...I can still sense her presence. I know she's there but I can't feel her and it hurts. Somehow that's the worst part. I felt her die and now she's right there but she isn't my Blue and it hurts so fucking much."

Lance frowned, a grim determination filling him. He couldn't change the fact that his team wasn't the team his future self remembered, couldn't fill in the memories of the years between them, but this, maybe this was something he could do something about. Pushing away from the wall, he strode down the corridor towards the hangar. He would talk to Blue. Maybe, just maybe, there was enough of her to share between two Lance's. He could give his battered, broken future counterpart that much back.