The jarring sounds of the castle alarms ripped Serenity out of her nightmarish slumber. Her eyes had been racing side to side underneath her eyelids, searching for her mother and Shura within the fallen remains of her Lunarian empire. As her consciousness slowly rose to awaken, she could not help but feel that there was something amiss. The ghost of Shiro's embrace haunted her. How her body already missed the way his arms had wrapped around her as if promising that he would forever shield her from all dangers.
'No!' Serenity slapped her cheeks, ejecting such indecent thoughts from her lovesick mind. They were in the middle of a war against the deadliest empire in the universe. There was no time for love games. No time to gain something and risk losing it in the next second.
Plus, that was only a one. Time. Thing.
'Whyyyy?" her heart whined.
'Because!' her cold-hearted brain tried to say. 'Of reasons!'
Serenity stopped her thought process in its tracks. Best to get out of bed before she hopped on that train of thought and could never get off. After quickly going through her morning, Serenity stepped through the doors of her room. Allura had placed Serenity in a guest room closer to the Altean princess's quarters instead of the more spartan rooms of the Paladins. When Serenity insisted that she couldn't possibly accept such a kind offer, Allura insisted until the blonde gave up.
"Princess Serenity, there's this huge castle for just the seven of us. Trust me, there are many rooms to fill." Serenity's heart swelled at the kindness the Alteans and the Paladins were showing to her, a stranger they found in a heap of Galran scrap.
Closing her eyes to feel for everyone's aura, she identified a group of several auras huddled in a space not too far from her. Her feet brought her to the viewing balcony attached to the training room. She saw Allura looking down on the Paladins going through battle simulations with a critical eye. "At this rate, they would fall faster than a wiffle-snaffler under the slightest of wind."
The reference flew past Serenity but she gleaned the implication from the metaphor. The blonde Princess couldn't help but search for Shiro's form within the chaos of the simulator. He looked right where he belonged-like he was born on the battlefield. He easily predicted each attack and he countered as such without skipping a beat as if it were a practiced dance.
"Shiro seems to be doing quite well." Serenity remarked, hoping that she sounded more casual than she felt.
"Shiro is the only one who is. Keith and Lance seem to be purposely stepping on each other's toes. Hunk is scared of his own shadow and Pidge doesn't even care!" Frustration was radiating off of the Altean princess in waves.
"Well perhaps you should give them a couple of more days to get the hang of it. Hadn't you told me that they only discovered they were Paladins of the Universe's Only Hope less than a week ago?"
"The Galran Empire has been at it for more than ten thousand years! We have ten millennia of battle prowess to catch up to so every moment counts!" Serenity was taken aback by Allura's impassioned and desperate declaration. This mission sounded like what it was: a war.
Serenity couldn't help but feel a overwhelmingly powerlessness in that instant that realization settled over her. She quickly excused herself, not wanting to burden Allura with her insecurities while the Princess was busy fretting over the Paladins' progress.
If only Serenity knew how to help. The Lunarian race seemed like cowards now for choosing not to fight, but she quickly shook such a thought out of her head. There was no way she would ever call her late mother, Queen of the Lunarians, a coward. It was the best decision at the time. The kingdom was too small to defend themselves. The Lunarians had also committed to a life of peace so their mindset was not on weapons. A tear fell from Serenity's cerulean eyes, thinking of her mother's last moments defending her people.
But this adherence to peace meant that Serenity never learned to fight. Neither her mother or Shura would ever allow the clumsy princess near anything sharp. She couldn't even fly a spaceship. She'd probably crashed into the only asteroid in empty space. She didn't have a mind for technology like Pidge and Coran did-speaking tecno-lingo like it was another language. The hapless princess couldn't cook, or possibly be let in the kitchen. It was simply impossible! She couldn't think of anything to do to contribute to the castle. She wished there was more to being a princess than simply smiling or looking pretty. Serenity never cursed her royal status more so than in that moment.
What was a princess with no people or treasure worth now? Such a depressing thought really brought her mood down, sending her mind to dark places. Before she could sink further into these dangerous waters, Coran popped out of the corner.
"Ah Princess Serenity! Glad to see you're up and about! Would you like to help me with something? We need all the hands we can get!"
Serenity's mood brightened immediately. It was like the sun had peaked its bright head from behind some stormy clouds. Coran perked up even more, mirroring Serenity's joy. "A castle under a ten millennia slumber certainly needs its own tune up. The dust building up is hindering some of the castle sensors, so I hope it wouldn't offend you as a princess if I asked you to help me clean some rooms."
"Of course not! You have graciously welcomed me into your home! I will do anything I can to help!" exclaimed Serenity with all sincerity. Coran smiled in return, sending Serenity to the castle's fighter jets room at one of the highest parts of the castle.
"I hope you don't mind heights, Princess Serenity! Some parts of the castle is self-cleaning so I'm opening all the ports to air out the dust. Just be careful of the landing dock! It's a pretty huge fall from there."
Serenity gulped down the stone of fear settled at the top of her throat. The room storing all the fighter jets was huge with a gaping entrance to a blue sky. The once-prisoner never thought she would see any skies like this. Even on the moon, only the dark abyss sprinkled with stars greeted her day and night. From her position, she could see the vast earth placed at the castle's feet. It was so wonderful to have such a scene fill her vision. Serenity quickly drew herself from her thoughts to start cleaning the fighter jets of the castle. She started daydreaming as she saw her reflection in the glass-maybe one day she could fly such a machine and help the Paladins in this war.
The twin suns were high in the sky by the time Serenity noticed that her stomach was growling. Just as Serenity was about to call it quits and head out to lunch, an unknown feeling within her jolted her out of her stupor. This odd feeling pulled her feet towards the edge of the dock, urging her to look over. Her eyes left the horizon to fall towards to the ground hundreds of feet below. What was this feeling? Jump? What?!
It was different from those whimsical thoughts she had as a little girl, curious about the lack of gravity of the moon. And it wasn't as if she had suddenly transformed into an adrenaline junkie overnight. This odd feeling kept pushing her feet one step forward until the feet lined up with the edge of the dock.
"Woo-wie," the sound of someone whistling appreciatively drew Serenity from her daze, "these fighter jets seem light years ahead of the ones back at the Garrison. Of course, nothing compares to Blue." Serenity drew herself towards the voice, distancing herself from the edge and the disconcerting desire for her to jump.
Lance stood next to Keith, inspecting the build of the aircrafts. "Keith, how much do you wanna bet that I can leave you in the dust in this thing?"
"I leave you in the dust with the Red Lion, so I think the odds of you doing that are next to nothing."
"Oh come on! That ain't fair! Red was built for speed. Blue was built for style. That's like comparing apples and oranges!"
Serenity crinkled her eyebrows in confusion at such an odd statement. The duo heard her footsteps approaching. "Hey it's our pretty Moon Princess! Hope Coran hasn't been making you work too hard up here!" Lance suddenly reached for Serenity's hands to place a chaste kiss.
Keith shot a laser-beam glare at the tanned flirt out of irritation and elbowed him in the ribs.
"Ow! Keith! What the quiznark?!" An even more annoyed glare met Lance in return. An eerie sense of déjà vu hit the helpless flirt. This was the same look of unhidden displeasure that Shiro had on last night! 'Ah… I see what's going on. Serenity is off-limits.'
The blonde royal looked between the Red and Blue Paladins, watching them communicate with simple glances. It was simply amazing! And a little bit humorous. At first glance, they seem to be constantly at each other's throat. But in actuality, these two worked to the beat of the same drum. But it seemed that they themselves didn't even know it yet.
"So you two are very well trained in the aerial arena?" Serenity inquired.
"Yes! I'm the best, but I got sharp-shooting as a pretty nice side gig."
Keith rolled his eyes at such a haughty brag. "Maybe 'the best' in terms of cargo piloting. But I'm second only to Shiro at piloting jets like these."
An idea popped into her head. "I have a favor to ask of you two!"
"Anything for you, Princess!" Lance replied without missing a beat.
"'Anything for you, Princess!'" Keith mocked in a false-bravado voice into the communicator. "Do you ever think before you speak, Lance?! Or is there a monkey with a harmonica in the place of a brain in that thick-skull of yours?!"
"Geez. How many insults can you fit into a breath?" Lance said with decreasing patience. Logic was slowly returning into Lance's bloodstream as his mind washed itself of the pretty moon princess's charm.
Somehow, through no fault of his own, the two got wrapped up in Serenity's death plan. She wanted to jump from the highest platform of the castle with the two Paladins waiting at the bottom to catch her. Keith floated with his jet pack about twenty feet from the ground ready to grab the princess on her call; Lance stood at the bottom with an anti-gravity gun to shoot the two mid-fall to stop their descent into their deaths.
"Even if the fall doesn't cause any fatal casualties, Shiro definitely will once he hears about this!" Keith screamed into the receiver. "We have to call this off!"
The threat involving Shiro sent a chill down Lance's spine. Sense finally made its return home to Lance. "Serenity, on second thought, I think we should put a pin in this plan before we-"
"She's jumping!" Keith's yell cut Lance short.
"This is not what I meant when I said I wanted pancakes today!"
Serenity took several soothing breaths. Except they were doing the exact opposite of calming her. Each breath gave her more time to think of the disastrous consequences that her harebrained plan entailed. Why was she risking her life for a weird feeling? But even as her muscles seized in fear of her impending descent, a part of her felt like it was right—this part born from her frustration of being able to do nothing to truly help the Paladins win this war to save the universe.
'Take a leap of faith' her heart cried out to her.
So she did.
With one foot so quickly in front of another, there was no time for her to hesitate. There was no time to think. She was simply a body whose destination was a hard, unforgiving ground. The wind whistled as it carded through her silky, glistening golden locks. Tears spilled over as the cruel wind dried her eyes up. Her white dress fluttered above her, feeling like a thousand birds taking flight against her skin.
Serenity's short life flashed before her eyes. Her short childhood as beholder of the blue marble of the Earth. Her escape attempts from Shura as she dragged her to her lessons. Her mother's constant sermons about the duties of a princess. Her last moments on the moon before the Galra tore their kingdom asunder. Shura's wounds that didn't even have the time to become scars as she fought for Serenity. The time where she balanced precariously on the edge of death and barely living at all.
Wait! Within that all consuming darkness in the Galran prison, she had discovered a faint light. Now matter how many times she tried to throw it away, it came back to her. No matter how much she tried to run away from that small, glittering light, she came back to it. How could she have such a light within her as she was drowning in hopelessness?
It was the same light that called for her to take Shiro's hand-to finally take a stand and leave her prison.
Shiro climbed up the stairs leading to the hangar where the castle kept the extra jets. Since Coran had turned off the castle's communication network to reboot it, Shiro volunteered to go get Serenity for lunch. This was just something a comrade did for one another. Nothing seemed too odd about it, right? So why did Shiro feel like a teenager asking his secret crush to prom in front of the entire school.
As he stepped through the doors of the large garage, his eyes scanned for a blonde head. It wasn't too hard amidst a dark steel grey room. Looking for Serenity in a dark room was akin to searching for a piece of fallen moonlight. When he couldn't find her among the fighter jets, his head turned towards the platform opening up to the outside world. His eyes strained against the bright sunlight, but finally he could distinguish her white form from the clouds outside. What was she doing on the edge? It was too dangerous for someone with no gear on to be that close to the edge. Was she looking down? No. No way. Was she-?
There wasn't any time for Shiro to wonder what Serenity was doing. In the blink of an eye, her glistening, golden and pearl form was no longer part of the horizon. Through muscle memory alone, Shiro sprinted across the hangar as desperation seized his throat, not even allowing him to scream her name. He jumped off the edge, diving after her frail, fluttering form.
'Please, please let me reach her in time,' he sent a prayer to whichever deity loomed closest in this vast expanse of the universe. He activated his jet packs, increasing his acceleration towards the plummeting Serenity. 'Please.'
Shiro reached out and in several heartbeats, wrapped Serenity protectively within his arms and the moon princess graciously returned the favor. Even as they were falling towards to what could be their end, Shiro couldn't help but feel that being enwrapped within Serenity's arms was the only place in the universe he wished to be. His eyes focused on the ground, which was approaching them at an alarming rate. Perhaps he could kick off the castle and his jet pack could accelerate with enough energy to stop their impending fall. But Shiro didn't have to do such a thing.
Because in that moment, bright wings radiating a familiar warmth enclosed Shiro. He turned his focus to the girl in his arms and felt feathers sprout from where he was hugging Serenity. The wings unfurled themselves and within a heartbeat, they beat against the rushing air, stopping their hasty descent into the underworld. The refreshing wind caressed his face as he felt his body slowly descend onto the ground. His limbs were still tingling as they hit the ground, in shock that his body had survived such a fall. Instead of marveling at the wonder of Serenity's wings, he immediately crushed her to his chest, not daring to let her go with the memory of her disappearing figure so fresh in his mind. He had to make sure she was real. That he was real. That they were both still alive.
Softly whispering into the crook of her neck, his words trembled with fear. "I thought you had-" Serenity tightened her embrace in response. Understanding the heavy implication of his statement.
Finally reaching a calm enough state of mind to assess the situation, he unreluctantly pried himself off of the beautiful lunar princess. He placed his hands upon her shoulders, still unconsciously seeking a physical connection with her to prove to himself that she was real. "What were you thinking?!" he asked as his eyes bore into her shining cerulean ones.
Serenity held her hands close to her chest as if trying to protect herself from Shiro's imploring gaze. "I wasn't" was her soft, inane reply as if that answered all the mysteries in the universe.
"Hey Serenity! Glad to see you're alright! But did you seriously just sprout wings?" Lance shouted as he emerged from the other side of the castle with Keith in tow.
Shiro turned his head and looked down at Lance with the crushing weight of a planet. "Wait a tick. Are you telling me that you two were apart of this?" Shiro said with no hidden amount of severity. Lance was very quickly learning what it meant to have a target on his head.
"Wait! No! I dragged them into this!" Courage slowly returned into Serenity's voice. Taking this as their cue to leave, Keith grabbed Lance haphazardly by the collar and unceremoniously dragged him away from the scene.
"Trust me," Keith said to Lance under his breath, "better leave it to Serenity to tame the beast before he gets his claws on us." Lance immediately quieted down afterwards.
"Serenity, why in all the worlds would you risk your life like that?" Shiro asked as he crossed his arms, seemingly in frustration. Secretly, he did so as he couldn't trust to keep his hands to himself, desperately yearning to wrap his arms around her soft form and never let go.
"I hate feeling so helpless," Serenity head dropped, avoiding Shiro's intense gaze. "You're always on the front lines so you'll never feel what it's like to be the one left behind." Shiro flinched at her statement.
Tears burned at the back of Serenity's eyes. "I had to watch Shura leave to fight to protect me as I sat there powerless, chained to the walls of the Galran prison. I couldn't even be in the front lines as my home crumbled under the Galra."
"Serenity…" her name fell as a whisper as Shiro brought his non-Galran hand up to her face, feeling a warm tear wet his fingers. "Shura and I protect you because we want to. You are not forcing our hands."
The blonde princess raised her hand hand to place atop Shiro's, pressing his warmth into her tearful face. "I want to fight."
Determination strengthened her voice. "I don't want to be locked away like some precious treasure as more planets fall victim to the Galran Empire."
The blues in her eyes hardened into smoldering sapphires. "I want to fight alongside you, Shiro."
A wave of pride crashed into Shiro even as his limbs hung paralyzed in shock at the implication of Serenity's words. He never saw the blonde Lunarian as weak in the little time that he had known her. It could only take strength to last under the torturous hold of the Galran hands. But to find the courage to rise up against the monsters that crushed one's spirit, that was a kind of strength that could only be found within oneself—not learned on any training field. For the first time, Shiro saw himself reflected in the stalwart eyes of this moon princess he found, trapped within the wreckage of the Galran ship.
"Alright then," Shiro said in affirmation and Serenity let out the biggest sigh of relief, finally allowing her heart to relax in her chest.
"There are better ways to train than throwing yourself off the castle though." The Paladin smiled down the princess who never failed to surprise him. Shiro moved his eyes to the wings proudly spread high behind the beautiful Lunarian. The sight took his breath away. The wings reminded him of the swans he would see take flight on the lake he would go to on his days off from Garrison life. Feathers were still softly raining down around them, giving the scene an ethereal feel to it. His mind could still barely comprehend where he was-millions of lightyears away from Earth about to take a literal angel under his wing.