Lance wasn't sure why he was wandering the castle this late at night- assuming it was late at night. He couldn't sleep. Exploring seemed like the way to go.
When he was little and he couldn't sleep, he'd wake Javier and they'd sneak out of the house and wander down to the beach to explore in the moonlight. Sometimes they would find all sorts of cool shells, and one time they found like ten crabs in some sort of crab meeting that seven-year-old Lance had figured was very important.
The castle wasn't the beach, and exploring it was mostly leaving him feeling cold and alone. He couldn't go wake his new teammates, and Javier certainly wasn't in space. He was miserably reminded just how far he was from the beaches of Cuba.
He walked into another room. It was a lot emptier than the others, but Lance furrowed his eyebrows in confusion all the same.
"Hello?" he said hesitantly, unable to shake the weird feeling of the room.
There was no response. He shrugged, and turned to leave, when suddenly the room was flooded with light. It was as if the entire room had been replaced with a field of flowers, and in the centre stood a tall, regal looking man with hair the colour of Allura's.
The man looked just as shocked to see Lance as Lance was to see him.
"Aluran?" the man said.
Lance nodded dumbly for a moment, the word so familiar and warm that he just blindly figured the man knew what he was talking about. Then he stopped and shook his head.
"Uh, no," he managed. "It's- I'm Lance. Hi. Sorry. Didn't mean to- to stumble in here."
"My apologies," said the man. "You remind me of my nephew, if he were your age."
"Ah," said Lance. "Cool."
There was a brief, awkward silence.
"You are one of the new paladins," the man guessed.
"Yep- yeah- that's me," said Lance. "Blue paladin. Best of the bunch. Yep."
The man chuckled. "Your predecessor would agree with you."
"Yeah, well, sure she was pretty cool too," said Lance awkwardly. Coran had made it seem that way, at least. "Well, I best go? Didn't mean to disturb you, dude- sir?"
"Just Alfor is fine, my boy," said the man.
Lance blinked at him in shock. "Wait, like Allura's dad?"
Alfor laughed. "Precisely. I take it you did not come seeking my advice as my daughter did?"
"Ah, no," said Lance. "I was just checking out the castle. Couldn't sleep. Do Alteans sleep? I never actually thought of that."
Alfor looked amused. "Yes, Alteans do sleep. Of all the different beings I've met across the universe, most sleep in some way."
"Huh," said Lance. "Cool, cool."
"I do not know what you mean when you keep saying cool," Alfor admitted.
Lance stared at him a moment, and, before he could stop himself, he burst into laughter. "Yeah, that's right, you wouldn't know any Earth stuff. It means- well- awesome?"
"Formidable?" Alfor offered, furrowing his brow and nodding his head.
"It's like- agreement or- it means something's good?" Lance tried again, because cool didn't really mean formidable as far as he knew.
Alfor nodded again. "Ah. Cool."
Lance snorted. "You sound like my tío Antonio trying to fit in with his kids- ah, my uncle, I mean."
Alfor raised an eyebrow. "Is this a good thing?"
"Ehh," said Lance. "Sure."
Alfor chuckled.
"You should probably try to get some sleep," he said after a moment. "If I know my daughter, she will have you up early tomorrow. If it helps, there are sleeping garments you can use. I expect they would be much more comfortable than… whatever it is you're wearing."
"Uh, thanks, your majesty," said Lance.
"Just Alfor," the man said. "And Lance?"
Lance blinked at him expectantly.
"You and the other paladins are as welcome to talk to me as my daughter and Coran are," he said with a smile.
Lance grinned. "Thanks, Alfor."
The next morning, Lance awoke feeling nice and refreshed. He had found the pyjamas Alfor had mentioned, along with some Blue Lion slippers. He wondered how Alfor had known, and if maybe the man had been a paladin in his day, and decided to ask the next chance he got.
"Good morning, everyone," he said brightly as he walked into the control room. "What's going on?"
Allura looked kind of furious. Alfor was probably right, and he probably should have been up way earlier. Coran, at least, looked somewhat amused to see him in the pyjamas.
"Coran and I have been up for vargas," Allura said primly. "We've been getting the castle back in order, and had to test the alarm system. We decided to test you as well. Guess which failed."
Lance, personally, hadn't heard any alarms, but by the others' expressions, he supposed they had been the ones that failed- not the alarms.
"Hey, well, you two got to sleep for ten thousand years," said Hunk. "Monday night, I was still on Earth, and now I've flown across the universe, fought some evil dude named Zarkon, eaten weird space goo in a weird space castle- it's a lot to process in- in like a night. What day is today? It's Tuesday?"
"It's the third quintant of the Spicolian movement!" Coran declared brightly. "Hump day!"
"Yeah, well, it's still a lot to process," said Hunk.
Allura gave them the big-sister-disappointed look. "You must understand the stakes of our mission. While we have been asleep these ten thousand years, the castle has picked up distress beacons from all of these location."
A holographic map filled the room. It was nearly entirely full of red. Dread settled in Lance's stomach.
"We must assume that the Galra have conquered almost the entirety of the known universe," said Allura grimly. "And Earth is here- an attack on it is inevitable."
The paladins exchanged worried looks. They had known and expected it, but it was a lot worse to hear it from Allura as a certainty and not speculation.
"Our mission is to free all these planets," said Allura. "Coran and I have been preparing the castle to leave Arus. While we do so, I need you five to learn to form Voltron so we can begin fighting Zarkon."
Shiro nodded and looked over all of them. "The Princess is right. Let's get to our lions and start training."
"Wait, wait, wait," said Pidge. "I need to talk to those prisoners we rescued!"
"Ah, sorry, no can do, number five!" exclaimed Coran. "Ranked you by height- anyway, the prisoners need to remain in the cryo-replenishers until tomorrow so they can fully heal. Ah, those things are great! Why, I remember-"
"Coran is right," Allura cut in. "Get to your lions, paladins- ah, after you get into your armour."
"Roger that, princess," said Lance, giving her a salute. She scowled at him, and he just grinned back. Coran chuckled in amusement, and Lance ran out of the room to go put on his paladin armour. He then found his way to the control room, and Coran amusedly pointed him in the direction he needed to go.
"Right down that way," he said brightly. "Enjoy the zip-line!"
"A zip-line? Sweet," said Lance, running towards the doors the Altean had pointed out.
"Do not eat the zip-line!" Coran warned him.
Lance laughed. "I won't!"
He'd need to get all three Alteans (Alfor totally counted, even if he was actually dead and some sort of ghost-AI he was pretty cool) together and teach them Earth slang. It would probably be pretty funny.
There was in fact a zip-line, much to Lance's utter delight. In fact, the whole trip to Blue was fantastic, like a ride at an amusement park. Hunk probably hated it.
"Hey, Blue, babe," he greeted, and she purred and let him walk in and situated himself in the pilot seat. "Let's do this Voltron thing. You up for it?"
Her response seemed to be, always, my paladin.
He patted her dashboard. "Yeah, I figured as much. Let's fly."
Leaving the hangar was just as exhilarating as any other time he spent flying. He turned on his comms as he flew out to join the other lions.
"Hey, guys," he said, "where's Hunk?"
There was a brief silence from the others.
"Should one of us go in after him…?" Lance suggested. Hunk really didn't care for rollercoasters. Or zip-lines. And the way to the hangar has somewhat included both, in a way. Maybe Lance should go in after him, just to make sure-
The Yellow Lion shot out of its hangar and joined them in the sky. Lance breathed a sigh of relief that his friend wasn't puking up food goo in the hangar.
"Sorry, sorry, everyone," Hunk said. "Seriously, we should park these guys a bit closer to the bridge. Whew. Wow."
"Alright, team," said Shiro, "let's just fly in tight formation until we're in sync. Remember your position!"
Lance remember his- right flank with Keith, because he was the right leg, because he and Blue were awesome.
Allura's voice filtered over the comms: "Remember to feel the bond with your lions and fellow paladins until five become one and Voltron is formed!"
Lance had no issues feeling the bond with Blue. Her presence was like the waves of the ocean, familiar, warm, constant, relaxing.
Home.
Blue's purr rose and he smiled.
The team shot off, flying forward in formation.
"YEAH!" they all yelled excitedly.
They flipped and started flying the other way with another, "YEAH!"
After a couple more flips and different directions, Lance was getting rather bored and nothing was happening. All of their enthusiasm was fading, even Shiro's.
"Yay," Hunk said despondently. There was a pause. "I'm the only one still pretending to be excited, aren't I?"
"This clearly isn't working," Shiro said. "Let's set down for a bit."
"What if we build Voltron from the ground up?" Keith suggested. "Like- literally build Voltron? Stack on top, legs, arms, head?"
"Like- like cheerleaders?" Lance suggested.
"Got any better ideas?" Keith shot back.
"Woah, dude, chill," said Lance.
"It's worth a shot," said Shiro.
So Lance and Blue ended up on the very bottom of the pile- and where was Hunk?
"Hunk, what are you doing?" Shiro asked dryly.
"Huh- what?" said Hunk.
"You're supposed to be the other leg," Shiro said.
"What?" said Hunk in confusion. "No. No, I called the head. Last time we did, I'm pretty sure I was the head."
"You literally yelled 'I'm a leg!'," Lance said in disbelief.
"I was yelling a whole lot of things," said Hunk.
"Shiro is the head," said Keith.
"Aw, always?" said Hunk in disappointment.
"Let's try it this way, Hunk," said Shiro gently.
"Alright, but next time I wanna be the head," said Hunk. The Yellow Lion flew and landed beside Lance, and Green landed on top of it.
"Arms and legs," said Shiro slowly. "And I'll form the head… feel the bonds with your lions. Channel all your energy into forming Voltron. Focus. Focus…"
Lance was definitely focusing, trying to find the other lions' presences. If he focused hard enough, he could start to make out Red's bonfire or Yellow's steady mountains or Green's forests or Black's fierce winds- but the moment he was distracted by anything it was gone, only Blue's ocean left.
"Is everyone bonding and focusing?" Shiro prompted.
"Ugh!" Lance groaned. "Why was this so much easier before?"
Blue sent him a hopeful image of flying in formation again. He sent back an apologetic emotional equivalent to, yeah, that's not gonna work. Maybe it had for the old paladins- maybe they hadn't had trouble forming Voltron ever, but this Team Voltron wasn't quite as good.
Blue was quick to declare mentally that Lance and her former paladin were both equally wonderful, and Lance chuckled and patted her dashboard as she teasingly suggested that maybe the other paladins needed work but they didn't.
Shiro sighed. "Alright, paladins. Let's take a break-"
And then the castle promptly started shooting at them.
Fantastic.
A/N: Another chapter! Lance met Alfor- I really wanted them to meet, but I really wasn't sure if I'd actually go through with it until I started writing this chapter. I think it'd be nice for AI!Alfor too, to have someone to talk to who wasn't looking to him while hurting or for guidance. I dunno, maybe it's weird. I liked it! XDD
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Love you all! 3