"Allura?" Keith paused outside the door to Allura's bedroom and knocked. "Are you decent?" He cautiously opened the door and peeked in. He couldn't help but smile at what he saw.
Allura was still asleep.
He crept into the room and allowed himself the luxury of watching her sleep for a long moment. Curled up under the blankets, with her golden hair tumbling free, Allura looked like an innocent little girl. She radiated life — glowing, pure and exuberant.
He reached out and touched her cheek in a gentle caress. When he realized what he was doing, he jerked his hand back, as though touching her had burned him.
Allura stirred and snuggled more deeply into her pillow. Luckily for him, she did not awaken, although a faint smile played around her mouth at his touch.
Keith exhaled the breath he didn't know he was holding in a sigh of relief. Enough was enough. He had to get her up and it didn't seem proper for him to be standing around watching her while she slept.
He sat down on the bed.
"Hmmm." Allura grumbled in protest from beneath a mound of blankets, as she felt the bed shift beneath her. She burrowed further into her cocoon and hugged her pillow closer to her.
Keith smiled in gentle amusement. She looked so peaceful lying there that he was tempted to let her sleep a little more. But he knew that he had to wake her up. He shook her shoulder. "Princess, it's time to get up."
Allura threw the blankets over her head. "I'll be up in five minutes, promise."
Keith grinned tenderly and shook his head. "Sorry. That doesn't work on me anymore. Hunk and Pidge have tried that stunt on me once too often." He gently tugged off the blankets that covered her sleepy form.
Allura moaned in protest and tried to grab her disappearing blankets.
Keith's mouth went dry. He should have been prepared for this, but he wasn't. Allura was wearing the sheer white nightgown that he had seen the night before — without the matching robe to cover it.
His eyes traveled over her involuntarily, even though he felt like a voyeur taking advantage of her sleepy state. Her nightgown didn't hide anything at all, in fact, it highlighted her numerous assets.
He cleared his throat and glanced around the room, unable to erase Allura's image from his mind's eye. She was slender, but her breasts were surprisingly full, her waist tiny, and her legs were long and shapely.
Catching sight of Allura's robe lying discarded at the foot of the bed, he reached for it like a man reaching for salvation. "Umm... Here. It's a bit chilly today. Maybe you'd should put this on."
"Thank you." Allura accepted it and put it on, stifling a yawn and stretching as she did so, much to Keith's discomfort. She sat up in bed and hugged her knees to her chest. "What are our plans for today?"
"We're meeting Captain Newley on the bridge in an hour. He's invited us to lunch," Keith paused on his way out the door. "I'm just going to go take another cold shower and dress up."
"Captain Newley," Allura greeted the Captain with a gracious smile as she entered the Explorer Bridge with Keith at her side. "Thank you very much for agreeing to transport us to Terra and back. We appreciate your generosity."
Robert Newley smiled, charmed by Allura's brilliant smile and sparkling eyes. "The pleasure is ours, Your Highness. As I told your husband yesterday, my crew is looking forward to meeting you."
Keith laughed quietly as he watched the normally dour captain fall under his wife's spell. "Allura has never been on a starship like this, Robert. If you're not too busy, maybe you could show us around now?"
Flattered by their interest in his ship, Captain Newley agreed. "Of course, Keith. I mean... Your Highness."
Keith rolled his eyes. "Please, Robert. We've known each other for years. I just added another title to my name, so I'd really appreciate it if you could forget about the Your Highness routine and just call me Keith."
"Of course, Your... Keith," Robert Newley replied.
Keith smiled politely, but his eyes glinted with worry. Despite his confident words to Newley, he knew that something had changed and that people were going to start treating him differently again.
The SS Explorer was a grand old ship. Keith mused as Robert Newley took them around to all the sections of the ship and introduced them to the men and women who served on it.
There were quite a number of them — scientists, space explorers, command staff. After having spent years on Arus and its wide-open spaces, he was amazed by how everyone could manage to exist in such close proximity to each other without going insane.
He couldn't imagine why he had once wanted a life like this.
He had been in such a hurry to go places and do things. The promise of adventure appealed to him, as had the excitement of exploring new worlds. It was why he had chosen to specialize in Far Universe Operations in the Space Exploration Corps instead of Garrison Command Section that his instructors had urged him to join.
Life on board a starship had been fascinating experience. For the first time in his life, he had been completely free. A starship was a world on its own – a place where family connections didn't matter. All that mattered was getting the job done, or at least, it was all that mattered until he had gotten senior enough to merit his own strategic command.
His aversion to the political environment that a strategic commander operated in was one of the reasons he had chosen to command the Lion Force instead of Hawkins' job as strategic commander of the Vehicle Voltron Team when both positions were offered to him.
Hawkins' job promised more career advancement, but it also meant being grounded permanently and being bound closely to Galaxy Garrison. He would also have to endure the constant comparisons to his illustrious grandfather.
The Lion Force seemed like the perfect solution at the time. If he took it, he would be the senior ranking officer in the Diamond Galaxy, with minimal interference from the pencil-pushing bureaucrats at Galaxy Garrison.
He had jumped at the chance, even though it meant that his rank would be frozen at Captain until it was time for him to return to Terra and to the next posting Galaxy Garrison assigned him to.
Suddenly, Keith realized that Terra wasn't home anymore. For several years already, home had been the towering spires of the Castle of Lions on Arus, where the pristine beauty and simple lifestyle calmed the restlessness in his soul.
The tour ended at the space lounge where the Vehicle Team spent their off-duty hours and sat at a table near one of the huge picture windows where they could watch the stars.
Allura's eyes sparkled with fascination, as an ungainly robot with a baseball cap perched on his head appeared to take their orders. "Greetings, Your Highnesses, Captain Newley. In honor of your presence today, Sammy has prepared his Special Surprise. I hope that you enjoy it. He has been preparing it since this morning."
Newley blanched. Special Surprise? Sammy's dishes were never very predictable - his cuisine could best be described as Greasy Spoon - and he didn't want to cause a diplomatic incident by accidentally poisoning the Princess Royal of Arus on her wedding trip.
Newley nodded weakly, "No thanks, Hardware. I'm not very hungry today." He mentally began to prepare his statement to Space Marshal Graham about the incident and tried to swallow the unease that rose within him.
All of Captain Newley's fears were for nothing. Sammy had surpassed himself. Sammy's Special Surprise was actually a delicious stew, the likes of which he had never tasted onboard the Explorer.
He sighed in satisfaction and turned to Keith, murmuring in a low undertone. "You know, Sammy isn't that bad a cook after all. At least now I know what to order when I want to eat well."
"I heard Allura offer to send Sammy some of Nanny's recipes," Keith answered, with a grin of his own. The inedible food on the Explorer was legendary in the Space Explaration Corps. "You can surprise Hawkins and the others with some edible food during your next staff meeting."
Newley laughed, "Well, that shouldn't be long from now." He glanced at his chronograph, "We should make Terran orbit in approximately one hour. Hawkins is due to board shortly after that."
Keith smiled politely, "I guess Allura and I should go pack then." He turned and tried to catch Allura's eye so that he could signal his desire to return to their quarters.
Allura was engaged in what appeared to be a stimulating conversation with Professor Page, the chief scientist of the Explorer. He was attempting to explain why Vehicle team could not form Voltron for more than five minutes.
He doubted that Allura could understand anything that the scientist was saying — she had never sat through a single lecture on engineering and robotics in her entire life — but she looked fascinated nonetheless.
He found himself once again impressed by her chameleon like ability to adapt instantly to her surroundings and wished that he had the same talent.
As though sensing his desire to speak with her, Allura's eyes sought his out. She broke off her conversation with the scientist and turned to Keith, with a question in her crystal-like blue eyes.
"We should go pack now. Robert says that we should make orbit in an hour," Keith explained in a low voice. Allura nodded and laid a gentle hand on his arm.
Keith stood and snapped a brief salute at Captain Newley and Professor Page. "Thank you very much for the dinner and our compliments to the chef. We appreciate all the hospitality you've shown us and we hope you will visit us on Arus so that we can return the favor."