Hi everybody, hope you are ready for chapter 4. Enjoy.
United
The four male members of the Voltron Force besides Keith looked at their commander and friend in disbelief.
"Wait, you are marrying?" exclaimed Lance shocked and surprised.
"Yes," nodded Keith.
"And you didn't tell us before?" asked Sven accusing, "You didn't even tell us that you and Princess Allura were a couple!"
"Because I knew that you and Lance would have teased me mercilessly, Sven," countered Keith, "And do I have to remind you how that behaviour ended with Steve and Wendy?"
Sven had the grace to look ashamed.
"I never wanted that they split up, it was just meant in jest," he replied.
"You sadly don't know when your fun becomes cruel. I wasn't about to let it harm my fledgeling relationship with Allura. And even if you had managed to control yourself, I didn't want that anything got to Coran, while Allura and I were still unsure how it could be that we had these strong feelings for each other, without even getting to know each other before. We didn't know what was happening. Only after the talk today with Father Zeto, we found out that a bond like ours, while rare, is known to happen here on Arus. It is called God's Blessing by the priests. Her maternal grandparents had the same bond.
"But you saw how Coran insisted that Allura didn't have much contact with us. Had he even suspected that we were closer to each other than we let it appear, he would have interfered because he believes in many old-fashioned and overcome traditions. Among them that a princess must marry a prince, that she mustn't consort with commoners beyond basic business relationships and that women shouldn't rule. We weren't willing to risk that when there were much bigger problems to deal with. You know how often Zarkon has his forces attack Arus," pointed Keith out.
"Okay, that's certainly a point in your favour," agreed Hunk, "what exactly does this blessed bond include?"
Keith smiled at Hunk for simply accepting things.
"As far as Father Zeto told us, it isn't fully known how the partners for this bond are chosen, but it is known that it is initiated by an important gesture or action that includes some kind of physical contact. For us it happened when I kissed her hand while swearing myself to help her and Arus," answered Keith.
"That would be a strong gesture," agreed Pidge.
"We felt a jolt going through us when I kissed her hand. After we had defeated the first robeast, we used times when Coran was asleep or otherwise busy to spend time together to simply get to know each other. Nothing inappropriate happened, we mostly talked and learned more about each other's lives and personalities. Like any normal couple does," continued Keith, "From what we were told, a marriage under God's Blessing is always a marriage of equals and true love."
"Suits a romantic like you," acknowledged Lance.
"Will your family give you trouble after they hear about it?" asked Sven.
"What do you mean?" asked Pidge.
"My family is going to either try to use my new station for their purposes or they will rant that I didn't get their permission. I couldn't care less though. They washed their hands off me when they decided that they didn't want to support me more than sending me a pitiful allowance each month at the academy. My sister-in-law arranged that I was out of the way of her children in having any influence in the family. While in the end, it set me free of their control, it wasn't easy for me as a child to suddenly have to take care of myself with minimal support," stated Keith, knowing that Sven had heard about the demands of his family to marry a woman of their choice, which had been prevented due to the laws for officers of the Alliance, "And they don't have as much influence as they think they do. Inside my home country they are among the five most influential families, but on planetary level, they don't count."
"As long as you can live with it," nodded Sven.
"Believe me, I have made my peace with the situation years ago," confirmed Keith.
"So, your wedding will be in two weeks on the weekend," Lance brought them back to the topic.
"Yes. I would like one of you to act as my witness," nodded Keith.
"Wow, that's an honour," stated Lance.
"But who do you want?" asked Hunk.
"I had thought about simply letting you draw lots. I don't want to give any of you preferential treatment and this way it's a fair chance for each of you," suggested Keith.
"Okay, sounds good," nodded Hunk.
Keith pulled out four identical blue balls.
"I have put papers with marks on them into these balls. There are three circles and one star. The star gets to be my witness, okay?" asked Keith.
The four other men nodded, and each chose one ball. Then they opened the balls and Hunk grinned when he unfolded his paper.
"Seems like I get to be your witness," he exclaimed excitedly.
"I'm glad to have you in that position, Hunk," nodded Keith.
"Too bad, but fair is fair," sighed Sven.
"What about Allura?" asked Pidge.
"She wanted to ask her handmaiden Rachel to take the position. She told me that they knew each other since they were children and she was happy to find out that she had survived away from the castle," answered Keith.
"That's great for her," agreed Pidge.
"How will we go about security precautions?" asked Sven.
"One part of that will be not informing anybody but the few guests that we will invite to the event. If nobody talks about it outside the castle, nobody can slip up and the information probably won't get to Zarkon. I also want all lions in positions close to the lake. Even Blue Lion should be outside of the lake. I thought they would also make an impressive background like sentinels," explained Keith.
"I see. And it wouldn't matter if we weren't in our battle uniforms in an emergency. Should the wedding actually be attacked, we would be inside the lions to stop an attack within a minute that way," understood Lance.
"Exactly. Father Zeto said that the ceremony would be done within about ten minutes at most. The celebration will take place inside the castle in the ballroom. That way, we aren't exposed for long. We should manage that part," confirmed Keith.
"Okay, more than manageable," nodded Sven, "What will happen after the wedding? I mean, you at least need to inform Garrison."
"I know. But you know as well as I do that our communication means are limited. We only have a few satellites that can send signals towards Earth. And the next chance to send an update on the situation here is in a month. And to get a reply it will take two more months, as the movement of the planets is unfortunate for the next six months as long as we don't have ways to send more satellites up," reminded Keith him.
"True. Well, they will have to live with the fact that due to circumstances you couldn't inform them earlier. Though some will complain about you getting power hungry," warned Sven.
"When did they not?" replied Keith neutrally, "It's not my fault that by neutral judgement I simply had the qualifications for my rank."
"I know but many disliked how far you were promoted despite your age," said Sven.
"Eh, what do you mean?" asked Pidge.
"You do know that Keith is young for a Commander, right?" asked Lance.
"A bit, yeah, but the Alliance was always about promoting those that earned their rank. I mean, I was processed through the program fast as well," answered Pidge, "but I was kept on normal missions until this one."
"Pidge, how old do you think Keith is?" asked Lance suspiciously.
"From what I heard, I guess about twenty-four, like you," answered Pidge, "I mean, we know he was a trainer in the flight simulations for our training for the space exploration program. While we knew he was younger than other officers that had his rank, he would normally have graduated the program the one turn before ours."
"I'm actually just nineteen, Pidge," revealed Keith.
"Wait, you are younger than me?" exclaimed Pidge shocked.
Keith nodded.
"Now I understand your comment, Lance," nodded Pidge, "I mean, I thought that the leadership of the Alliance just got creative in promoting you a bit higher than normal to justify letting our team of five take on a mission like the one here on Arus to find Voltron. But that's unheard."
"And because of his promotion history, which is without any compare, many officers believe he got special treatment. They will not be happy about him now climbing even higher in station by marrying Allura," pointed Sven out.
"What will that mean for the mission?" asked Hunk.
"The most they can do is transferring command from me to Sven. He is the next highest-ranking officer among the team. But I doubt they will. Currently, we can't expect any backup from Earth or other Alliance planets after all. And even if they decided on that, the lions belong to Arus and they have to accept the decisions of the Arusian leadership in regard to how we use Voltron. Meaning, as I will be king, nothing will change there. And I doubt that anybody would want to risk souring diplomatic connections for such a silly reason," commented Keith.
"That's probably true. Well, nothing to do about it but wait and see," decided Sven.
The others agreed and then started congratulating Keith to his engagement.
It was an impressive sight, having all five Voltron lions sit assembled around the edge of the castle lake. Black Lion sat in the middle, behind the small platform that a few craftsmen had built. The platform was built from wooden planks with four posts, one standing at each corner, giving hold to a halfsphere like roof. The posts and the roof were decorated with flower garlands. It looked really nice. Considering that this was the scene for the first royal wedding on Planet Arus in many years, it seemed a bit too little, but both the bride and the groom were extremely happy with how it had turned out to be.
The maids that worked at the castle had outdone themselves with sewing an appropriate wedding dress for their princess and a uniform suit for her husband to be, the commander of their Voltron Force. It had been a bit tricky to find a place where the couple could perform the cleansing that Father Zeto had told them to undergo before the wedding, but in the end, the volcanic lake on top of Mount Riverstool had been chosen by them, as the water inside the lake had the right temperature. Hunk and another craftsman had built two wooden tubs, which allowed Keith and Allura to keep the water that was prepared with the herbs inside a limited area and the water inside to stay at the right temperature.
To not deal with the situation of the couple seeing each other naked before they were married, they had set up the tubs on opposite sides of the lake. Now the wedding guests, which included Hunk and Rachel as the witnesses for Allura and Keith, Sven, Pidge and Hunk on Keith's side and three young women that Allura remembered fondly from her time growing up before Zarkon attacked Arus on her side, waited for the couple to appear. Contrary to tradition in many countries on Earth, here on Arus, the royal couple didn't step before the altar separately. Father Zeto and two assistant priests that he had chosen among the people in the caves closest to the Castle of Lions, were waiting in front of the small altar like table that had been put onto the pedestal.
Then music sounded, the traditional song that announced the arrival of the bridal pair. Keith, dressed in a uniform that consisted of black dress trousers with black boots over them, a red uniform jacket with a white sash and a white cape connected to his shoulders was leading Allura down the path to the alter. Allura's dress was a white gown with royal blue accents in form of pearls that were sewn around the décolleté. The gown hinted at her great figure without revealing too much. Her hair was styled into an elegant knot that had some strands of twirled locks streaming down her back with two strands framing her face. Going by the look on Keith's face, he certainly loved the look.
Once the couple stood in front of Father Zeto, the guests built a half circle behind the pair, with Hunk standing to the left of Keith and Rachel to the right of Allura. All members of the Voltron Force were wearing dress uniforms that had been found in some storage room of the castle. A few changes done by the skilled maids meant that the uniforms fit well enough to not look bad for a wedding. The female guests wore elegant dresses in different colours.
Then Father Zeto started talking.
"We have assembled here today to unite this couple in one of the most special kinds of bonds. The bond of marriage. Keith and Princess Allura didn't just find their happiness in each other by falling in love, they were blessed by God himself. This bond is sacred on our planet. The partners will lead a happy and equal marriage, which they will need, as they have a heavy burden to bear. Keith and Allura," he addressed the couple, "you have come here to swear your lives to each other. You have come here to promise the other your devotion, faithfulness, love, protection, support and understanding for the rest of either of your lives. I ask both of you, are you willing to take this step out of your own free will?"
"We are," they both answered, looking into the eyes of their future spouse.
"You have performed the cleansing that symbolises that you leave all past relationships that you may have had behind to solely devote yourselves to your future spouse. So, now I will ask each of you for your vow to your future spouse," stated Father Zeto and turned to Keith first. No matter if Allura was the princess of Arus, it was tradition for the man to give the first vow.
"Allura, I promise you to love you and honour you, to be faithful to you alone, to be there for you, no matter what life gives us. I will stand by your side in good and in bad times, I will be loyal to you alone, in sickness or health until the day that I die," Keith spoke clearly.
"Keith, I promise you to love you and honour you, to be faithful to you alone, to be there for you, no matter what life gives us. I will stand by your side in good and in bad times, I will be loyal to you alone, in sickness or health until the day that I die," Allura repeated the vow.
With other marriage vows, there would have been a vow for the woman to obey her husband, but Keith had made it clear that he didn't want that in their wedding vows. If they were to be equal partners, one of them couldn't be forced into a position of submission.
"You have both stated your intentions honestly and clearly," continued Father Zeto and took hold of a silver goblet that had been kept in the royal safe, "To bind your lives to each other, I now give you the purest water to share and represent that your love and relationship is meant to be as pure as this water."
First Allura took the goblet and held it out for Keith to take a bit of the water from her hands. Then he took the goblet and let her drink from it. Father Zeto was handed a long piece of white cloth, which he tied around the right hands of Keith and Allura, which they held together.
"Now, Keith, do you take Allura to be your lawfully wedded wife?" asked Father Zeto.
"I do."
"Allura, do you take Keith to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
"I do."
As they had already given their vows before that question, they weren't asked about the things they had already vowed.
"Then by the authority given to me by the Church of Arus, I declare you to be husband and wife," intoned Father Zeto and one of his assistants rang a bell, symbolising the importance of the ceremony that was now finished. Father Zeto removed the cloth from their hands. He motioned to Hunk and Rachel to hand the bridal pair the rings and they exchanged them by pushing them onto the other's respective ring finger, "You may now kiss the bride."
Keith did just that. He pulled Allura close to him and kissed her gently and lovingly. To everybody's surprise the lions started to roar in approval, even if nobody was inside of them. Still, Keith and Allura didn't stop their kiss. They were happy to now be married and that nobody could separate them anymore.
After a while they separated and Father Zeto asked them to all go into the castle now, as the coronation ceremony was the next part on the day's list of things to do. The path to the entrance was guarded by ten soldiers that stood at attention with their swords held high into the sky. The one to lead the procession was Father Zeto followed by his two assistant priests. Then Allura and Keith walked down the path, followed by all others that had been outside.
The walk to the throne room took fifteen minutes and inside the throne room a large group of people was assembled already. Contrary to the wedding, which for security reasons had been held in a small ceremony, the coronation, which took place inside the fortified castle, could be attended by everybody that wanted to see it. Mainly this meant the staff of the castle and some representatives from the caves in which Arusians had taken shelter. In front of the two thrones of the King and Queen of Arus two low cushioned stools were prepared already. Once the group reached the front of the throne room, Keith first helped Allura order her long gown to manage kneeling on the stools.
Father Zeto motioned everybody in the audience to sit down on the stairs that had been placed in several rows.
"Our princess has chosen her husband and by my authority, they are married now until death does them part," intoned Father Zeto, causing many people to smile at that announcement, "Now, by the laws of Arus, Princess Allura and her husband Prince Keith may be crowned to forthwith rule our planet. Please kneel."
Both did so. Father Zeto's first assistant started singing a song in old Arusian, the second one following after the first two lines had been sung. Once the song was finished, Father Zeto incantated an old blessing for the rulers of the planet. This part took about fifteen minutes in all. Then the two assistants carried the crowns of the king and queen forward. Many in the audience gasped or had to wipe away some tears of happiness, seeing the old crowns in their full glory, safe and protected from being stolen by Zarkon.
"Prince Keith, by marriage to Princess Allura, the sole heiress and surviving member of the royal line of Arus, you have gained the right to rule Arus as King. Now do you swear to protect Planet Arus and its people with all your strength, do you swear to rule just and fairly, do you swear to work for the betterment of our planet and people?" asked Father Zeto solemnly.
"I do so swear," stated Keith firmly.
"Princess Allura, you are the sole surviving member of the royal line of Arus, as the only daughter of our beloved late King Alfor. You have chosen a worthy husband to rule by your side as our new King. Do you swear to protect Planet Arus and its people with all your strength, do you swear to rule just and fairly, do you swear to work for the betterment of our planet and people?" asked Father Zeto.
"I do so swear," declared Allura.
Father Zeto nodded with a smile on his face. He took the crown of the king first from the red velvet cushion on which his assistant priest carried it. He placed it carefully on Keith's head. Thankfully, Keith had been allowed to practice how to wear the crown before the coronation ceremony. Otherwise, this would have been more difficult. Then Father Zeto took the crown for the queen from the cushion of his other assistant and placed it on Allura's head.
"Rise," he told the two freshly crowned couple.
Allura and Keith did so and turned to the assembled audience.
"I give you King Keith and Queen Allura of Planet Arus," announced Father Zeto and the audience stood and applauded. Then the men bowed and the women sank into curtsies.
Keith and Allura smiled at them and returned the bows and curtsies with regal nods. They then went around, took congratulations for both their wedding and their coronation before leading the group to the dining room where a nice feast was waiting to celebrate both occasions.
It was three weeks after the wedding and coronation of the new king and queen when an alarm rang through the castle before sunrise. Keith was up immediately, Allura only little behind him. Both put on their normal clothes that allowed easy movement and possible fighting. Due to the situation of Arus, neither of the monarchs cared for wearing any kind of stately wardrobe. They had some that would fit the description, but they would only wear those if it was needed for important meetings and the like. Most people understood why they cared more for other things, important things, like setting up supply lines for more distant regions, arranging for fields to be farmed again and villages being rebuilt to give the people proper homes again.
"Stay close to me and be ready to cover my back, Allura," instructed Keith his wife, who nodded.
His lessons hadn't been wasted on her and she was a decent shot and had got a good grip on basic and intermediate fighting techniques without weapons. They hurried along the corridors, being careful to always look if something dangerous was located in the next corridor. When they heard a commotion, they carefully closed into the position. They found two guards, Lance, Sven and Pidge standing in front of a corpulent woman with reddish brown hair who was sitting on the floor, seemingly angry about something.
"What is going on here?" asked Keith.
"We captured an intruder your majesty," answered one of the guards.
"I am no intruder!" protested the woman, looking surprised at the address that the guard gave Keith.
"Can we get more light?" asked Keith.
"One moment," replied Lance and took out his communicator and called Castle Control, "We need full lighting in corridor two-zero-beta."
"Roger," was the answer and seconds later the lights were turned on.
Allura looked at the woman in surprise.
"Is that you, Nanny?" she asked.
"Princess?" asked the woman.
"That would be Queen now," corrected Keith, "Do you know her, Allura?"
"If she is who she seems to be, she was my governess when I was a child. She wasn't at the castle when the attack took place, so she might have survived," answered Allura.
"How dare you address the Queen so informally?" ranted Nanny, only to get a sigh from Allura.
"Nanny, didn't you pay attention? This is Keith, my husband and your King," declared Allura.
Nanny looked shocked.
"You are married? And to him?" She asked baffled.
"Yes. We have been married for three weeks now. It was a wonderful ceremony. I only wish mother and father could have been there to celebrate with us," replied Allura sadly, to which Keith reacted by putting his arm around her shoulders.
"I apologise. I wasn't aware of this," stated Nanny.
"Accepted. Now, why have you sneaked into the castle in the middle of the night instead of coming when the sun was up, and people didn't sleep anymore?" demanded Keith.
"I didn't want to risk being noticed by the enemy, your majesty," replied Nanny, much more respectful than before now while addressing Keith, "Travelling at night offers more protection against being spotted and it was a long journey. When there was cover like from the forest canopy, I would travel during the day, but without cover, which is the case around the castle, I considered it safer to not do so."
"While I can understand your reasons, it was stupid and dangerous to sneak into the castle like you did, Nanny," stated Keith firmly, "the guards could have reacted a lot worse than just apprehending you with some force. They could have decided to shoot first and ask questions later. Which would have been an acceptable reaction to an uninvited and unidentified intruder."
Nanny nodded, looking somewhat chastised.
"I will not act like that in the future, I promise," she said.
"Good, now why did you come here?" asked Keith.
"I wanted to offer my services at the castle again. I heard about Voltron being back and a new castle having risen and I know that there is always a lot of work to do. While I am no fighter, I am trained in medicine up to being a professional nurse and midwife, next to being used to leading the service side of the castle and as Queen Allura said, I raised her when she was a child," answered Nanny.
"Generally, I am happy to hear that, but you will understand that we can't simply risk letting a potential spy or sleeper agent of Zarkon into the castle. Sven, I want you to perform the standard assessment of her and check for traces of mind control or drugs in her system. If she is clear, she is welcome to start working as chief of service staff," decided Keith.
"Of course, your majesty, I will take care of it," agreed Sven.
While they were out in the open, the Voltron Force was more formal with Allura and Keith. When they were among themselves, they dropped all formality. Neither Keith nor Allura wanted their friends to treat them like strangers.
While Nanny clearly wasn't happy about the decision, she accepted it, seeing that Keith was just acting out of security concerns. Sven and Lance escorted her to the interrogation room where a lie detector was located, and they had the equipment to test for drugs in her blood and mind control. After Coran's injury, from which he still hadn't woken up, they wouldn't take any risks.
Allura sat in front of the vanity in her and Keith's room, brushing her long hair.
"Will Nanny be a problem, Ally?" asked Keith.
"She might be, but I suggest we don't tell her too much about you not being born a prince. She was among those that insisted that I had to marry another royal when she worked here at the castle. The main reason why I didn't care about that at all was that the people in the caves explained certain facts of life to me. Among them that Zarkon had targeted any royal family he knew about on Arus and eradicated them nearly completely. Some princesses were kidnapped, probably for his or his son's horrible ideas of pleasure." Here Allura shuddered at the thought.
"I knew that my chances to find a prince to marry when I reached an age where I should think about marrying were next to non-existent. After all, you know how much time it will cost until Arus will be ready to receive guests from other planets again. I wouldn't be surprised if any serious attempt to court me would have been delayed until I was in my thirties if not later. And we couldn't count on help coming from the outside after all the years of waiting in vain. It was a miracle that your team managed to reach Arus and found Coran and me at the destroyed castle. It was a long chain of good luck and coincidences.
"Had that not happened, if I wanted to continue my bloodline, the only option would have been men not born into royalty or nobility. After all, few of those will have managed to survive on the planet itself. Some will have managed to escape, but I don't actually fancy cowards. When our bond was created, I felt confirmed in my decision to not wait for a prince to sweep me off my feet. And I don't want any prince when I have you. You are so much better than any of the princes I was introduced to when I was a child," commented Allura with a grin.
"Good to know," Keith returned the grin, "I will set Nanny up with too much work to interfere. She will also get a tracker on her person like every other member of the staff. As you said, your people are used to having a king as the absolute ruler. Well, if they want that, I can play the role when it is necessary."
Allura giggled at the image her mind projected about Nanny being told about the tracking system.
"She will hate that, but sadly, she can't argue about it being necessary and a valuable security precaution. Especially once she finds out about Coran's condition. That should drive home why we put such an importance on not leaving any leaks and openings that the enemy can exploit," commented Allura.
Keith nodded, agreeing with her. They had all learned a painful lesson that day. While Coran's physical injuries had by now been mostly healed, he still hadn't woken up. Sven had taken him off the drugs that kept him in a medical coma but seemingly he wasn't ready yet to wake up again. Nobody knew what to do. Even with the advanced medical discoveries and treatments available on Earth, coma patients were still difficult to treat. They sometimes stayed in their coma for years on end. They only hoped that Coran would not take that long but there was honestly nothing they could do to help him.
"Do we need to consider anything about her interfering with the training you are doing?" asked Keith, "I can see her protesting that part."
"She can't do anything about that, even if she will rant and say that a queen like me shouldn't learn how to fight," stated Allura.
"When did she get up in the past? We normally do your training early in the morning after all. While I couldn't care less about her opinions, if I can avoid listening to such a rant, I will do it. I have more important things to do with my time. And it will probably take a while to make it clear to her that we do things our way, not how they were done in the past. That time is gone and can't be brought back. The reality is different," he pointed out.
"I know. We have a lot of work to do to bring Arus back to a level where the common people can live safely and happily outside of fortified caves again," she agreed, "That alone should make it clear what is at stake here. From what I remember, Nanny was always up early to wake me up and get me ready for the day. That means, she will probably notice that we train each morning."
"I will have to make it clear that she isn't responsible for your daily life anymore," pondered Keith, "She might want to fall back into that role, even if you as queen certainly don't need a minder anymore. You will also need to firmly make her see that you don't need such a person anymore. You are the Queen of Arus, and nobody should dare believe that they have a right to boss you around."
Allura nodded firmly. She didn't want Nanny to have any power over her life.
"One thing that I worry about is her possibly becoming annoying once I get pregnant. I mean, it's not as if we had any way to prevent that I become pregnant and with how much we enjoy sleeping together, I wouldn't even be surprised if I found out I was already pregnant, even if it is still a bit early to tell," commented Allura, "she might believe that with our amount of work, we wouldn't have the time to raise our baby ourselves."
"If that happens, she will be set straight. I know that we need some assistance with that, as I can't rule this planet without you by my side, but I don't believe that we need a governess for our child. We will need one or two nannies that assist you when you need to concentrate on your position. But we are the rulers of this planet. If we keep a baby with us while we go about our daily work then that will work out. And it's not as if we had to travel daily to meet other diplomats or nobles. We work with normal people that are important for the rebuilding effort of Arus," pointed Keith out, "It won't be any different to other parents that work arranging things for their children to be cared for."
Allura smiled at him. This was something she knew few Arusian men would be willing to even consider. That a mother would continue working, just needing some arrangements for the child to be taken care of while she did so. Sure, should they be lucky and soon notice that she was pregnant, some things would need to change, like the kind of training she did, for example sparring would need to be toned down to protect her stomach, but she wouldn't be helpless. And Arusian men wouldn't even consider keeping the child around while the mother worked, if that was unavoidable. She could certainly see many ways how that would work out. As he said, they ruled this planet and if she set up a corner of her office to have a bed for the baby where it could sleep while she did some paperwork, it was certainly no problem.
That's it for today. Until next Sunday :)