CHAPTER SEVEN: Quicksand

In the five days they had been on Sjarka, it was the first time the entire team was out at the water reservoir. Coran alone had stayed back the castle was being live-streamed their surroundings through the commlink, the Lions casting more shade than the cracked, flat ground had ever seen, and Shiro even saw steam rising from the Blue Lion. Such an aquatically inclined machine wasn't doing too well in the heat, like Lance's skin when a busy bout of missions kept him from exfoliating.

The fortifications were coming along nicely, Shiro was pleased to see, and feeling ever better that they had made it to this point at all. Coming down to breakfast that morning, his hand clasped tightly in Allura's—if things went wrong, he'd never let her slip away again—had made his stomach churn with something other than hunger. He had a sneaking suspicion King Ilvaar knew more than he was letting on, now with the revelation of the surviving Norins, and that the king's temper had a delicate balance between reasonable and madness, given what Sjarkan law subjected marital traitors to. Traitors like him and Allura.

But the anxiety had turned out to be for nothing. Ilvaar had smiled, and seemed in an even better mood than usual due to having gotten more sleep during his monthly Midnight Rest.

"Did you sleep well last night as well?" he had asked, and Shiro's lungs had started working again.

"Fine, Your Majesty," he replied curtly, and the king had little to say after that. Shiro was happy to let Allura do most of the talking at breakfast—she was much better at diplomatic relations than he was—until they all headed out to the reservoir, the princess riding alongside him in the Black Lion, who let out a happy thrum when she entered.

It was for this reason, and the sun, that the two leaders were content to oversee the operations of their team from inside the Lion.

"I think she likes me," Allura remarked, leaning on the back of his chair.

"Of course she does." How anyone could not like Allura was baffling to him, honestly. "I think she would've chosen you as a paladin if I hadn't been around."

"Don't say that," said Allura, surprisingly sharp. "You're a wonderful paladin, and the team needs you."

Shiro looked away from the team, and raised his eyebrows at her. "I know," he said slowly. "Princess? Is there something—"

She twisted her fingers together, brown against the white, pink and blue of her battle suit. "Back when Voltron was built, but after Zarkon turned into something vile," there was a venomous tremor in her voice, "my father had assigned back-up Paladins, if you will. Ones who could take over if the original ones died. My father...when he thought... I was trained to be Zarkon's back-up Paladin. I never actually flew Black, but..."

"She would have let you," Shiro finished, and Allura nodded.

A steady hum flowed through his veins, almost mechanic, electric, and he wondered if Allura could feel it too.

"Coran has said that the Lions can be influenced by their paladin's feelings. And Zarkon certainly didn't, but—maybe Black chose me, because you did." He looked at her, his eyes shining. She was always the most radiant thing he'd ever seen in his life.

"Or because she saw herself in you," the princess pointed out. "She was...violated by Zarkon too. She had to break free. Recover from how the Galra tried to destroy her."

"The Galra tried to destroy you." Shiro got up from his chair, coming around to stand next to her. Their hands were nearly touching, lying on the back of the seat. "I thank God everyday they didn't."

"God?"

"An earthling deity. Sometimes we're not too creative with the names."

"And your name? Is Shiro short for anything? Lance was telling me about knack-names? A few weeks ago."

"Nicknames?" Shiro said with a gentle smile, and she nodded. "Um, yeah, it actually is. My full name is Takashi Shirogane." The only one who knew that was Keith, because he'd been a teacher-in-training when Keith was just starting at the Garrison, and had called him Professor Shirogane before he'd started insisting on being called Shiro for short, and the name had stuck. Even though he knew the Shiro's first name, Keith never used it.

The last person to call him Takashi had been his family.

"Takashi," she repeated, getting used to the way the syllables and sounds fit in her mouth, and he smiled.

The last person to call him Takashi was still his family.

"Maybe just keep this between us," said Shiro. His pinky finger inched towards hers, even if he didn't look away from her face. "A sort of secret."

"Can I have another?" she asked, her voice growing soft. Breathless. It made his cheeks heat up despite himself, as he nodded, unsure of where she was going but trusting. Always trusting. "If Black saw herself in you... then that means I did too. There's an Altean word for that. Aalyn. The English translation would be starsoul."

"Which means?" he breathed, sliding his hand over hers. Her fingers were warm under his.

"It means that you and I come from the same star."

Shiro stepped closer, curling his fingers over hers. "Then it's no wonder that Black likes you, when I like you too."

She let her eyes drop to his lips, and leaned up, just a little. A tiny breath escaped his lips, as he licked them nervously. "Allura—"

"Hey, do we need more trenches or is that enough?" Hunk's voice boomed over the commlink, bursting into life, and the two leaders leapt apart.

Allura cleared her throat, eyes flitting to the cockpit windows and biting on her lip. "Yes, er—" she smoothed her voice over. "That's enough, Hunk. Thank you for checking in. You can go help Pidge create a better scanning device, to get deeper into the tunnels."

"I did that already, Princess." Hunk paused. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, thank you. Well, if you're done that, what do the readings say? Have you deployed the device yet?"

"Yeah, it's going along fine. I can link the feed up to the Black Lion, if you want."

Allura refused to look at Shiro. "Yes, please. Thank you Hunk."

In void of a reply, Hunk hooked up the tech and a fuzzy feed, of dark green and black—night vision—was streamed over on the window's invisible screens. The tunnel the device was in was bigger than expected, but bumpy, with five toed footprints, oddly curved into the dirt. Perhaps the Noorins had claws to help them dig?

Allura didn't look away from the screen, stepping closer, even when Shiro joined her side. She risked a glance, her heart pounding, and saw a crease forming in his brow. She knew that look.

"What are you thinking?" she said.

Shiro took a small step closer to the screen. "It looks like there's something coming up ahead. I can't tell what it is, though. It looks... not like liquid, but—Hunk, Pidge, what direction is this tunnel heading in?"

"Um, north," said Pidge, flashing on screen. They pushed their glasses up their nose. "Why?"

But Allura understood immediately. "Get it out of there, now, before—"

Rocks crumbled, crashing into the camera in a rush of thick, steaming sand, and the screen turning to static. Shiro scowled at the broken feed, now full of fuzzy grey lines.

"The sinking sands in the North," he grumbled under his breath. "The Noorins are craftier than I thought."

"Or at least smart enough to lay a misleading trap," Allura said. "Pidge, Hunk, is there any way you can retrieve the device?"

There was a wince in Hunk's voice. "Sorry, princess. It's probably made more than a few tunnels collapse. We'll have to start over from scratch."

"You and Pidge can go back to the palace, we'll need new supplies," said Shiro. "Check the Castle of Lions in case you need something. And Princess, you go with them. The Sjarkans may not want to give up anything valuable, and we don't want them knowing we're poking around these tunnels, or anything to do with the Noorins."

"Alright. I'll ride in the Green Lion with Pidge. I'll eject in a moment." She cut off the commlink, and then grabbed her helmet from a storage cupboard within the cockpit, tucking it under her arm. "You know, Shiro," she said, almost teasing, "it's a good thing I don't mind going back to the palace. You might want to think twice about ordering me around next time."

He managed a smile, any annoyance from the quicksand setback vanishing. "I'll ask in the future," he promised, stepping forward. He reached for her helmet, pausing. "Allow me?"

She nodded and handed it over to him, barely breathing as he stood and slipped it over her head, and over the large bun of white hair. His body heat bled into hers. When he took a small step back and pressed the pod preparation button, she dismantled the face screen of her helmet. The doors slid open behind them.

"Your pod awaits," he told her.

For a brief moment, she thought he would have made a good Altean knight. "Thank you." And then before she could lose her nerve—funny how charging into battle wasn't nearly so scary—she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, quickly pulling away and turning around before he could catch the furious flush colouring her cheeks.

Her pod landed neatly on the brunt of the Green Lion's head, and the princess easily hauled it into the mouth of the Lion as she entered.

Like always, there was a little bereavement, watching Allura leave without him with such apparent ease, slip through his fingers like sand.

He cleared his mind by clearing his throat. He had a job to focus on, not an alien princess.

"Keith, Lance," his leader's voice was steady over the commlink, the Red and Blue Lions looking towards Black with attentiveness humming behind yellow eyes, "here's what we're going to do next."

There was a Sjarkan waiting for Allura when she got back.

King Ilvaar and his attendants had needed some convincing to allow them the parts they needed, which was where Hunk and Pidge's endless rattling off of technological knowledge, and Allura's ability to make almost anything sound like a good idea had come in handy. The princess had watched the two tinker and poke around with the wires and metal panels for awhile out in a shady part of the main courtyard before retreating inside with the plan to comm Shiro.

That was when a round but tall Sjarkan cornered her in the hallway. "Princess Allura," he greeted, bowing only with an incline of his head. It made the thick white earrings he wore shake, and were blinding in the light; she had never seen any of the Sjarkans wear earrings like that before. Most wore silver or gold. Was there some significance to the colour?

"I don't believe we've met," she said politely.

She didn't like the sharp curve to his smile. "My name is Amli Tyna. I have a few questions for you and your husband."

She internally bristled. What sort of stranger thought they were entitled to an audience with the leaders of Voltron, and so blatantly too? And judging by Amli's rather simple clothes, he was a servant in the palace at best. "I'm afraid he's back with the other Paladins at the water reservoir," Allura replied, hoping the conversation would be over now.

"Really?" Amli arched one heavy brow. "It is unusual for married couples to travel separately, anywhere."

"Not with us," she smoothly deflected. "Separation makes the heart grow fonder. That, and it is an occupational hazard of the lives we lead. I cannot always be by his side in battle, nor can he be by my side when our duties pull us in separate directions."

"I suppose your heart and duties hardly ever align," said Amli. "You'll tear yourself apart that way."

Allura frowned at him. "Only until the war is over, and I do not intend on wasting what time I do have with him not acting on how I feel." Her heart lurched. Wasn't she wasting time? She pushed that thought away, her eyes hardening. "Good day to you, sir Tyna, but I have other business to attend to."

She strode off before he could have another word, not wanting to get wrangled into another pointless conversation. What had all of that been about, anyway? Some kind of test? Did some Sjarkans not buy their story? Or was it about the Norins and what could possibly be in the tunnels?

She ran into Sara, the Sjarkan historian, on her way to an empty corridor, and stopped to say hello. Sara looked pleasantly surprised.

"Is there anything I can do for you princess?"

For a moment Allura considered reporting Amli's strange behaviour, but decided against it. She didn't want to do something that would be too big of a political statement. "I have a question, actually."

Sara smiled. "Ask away."

"I saw a Sjarkan with white earrings. I was wondering if the colour had some kind of societal significance?"

Sara sobered immediately. "Oh. White is a mourning colour, princess. The sign of half of a whole. The Sjarkan you must have seen was a widow or widower."

The princess filed the information away for later use, just in case. "Thank you, Sara. I didn't want to be rude and ask outright. That will be all—unless you see the king. We really must thank him again for his hospitality." It was a lie, but a good one. There was never any harm in buttering people up with praise, especially when you wanted them on your side.

"Of course, princess. Have a good day."

And with that, Allura finally went and found a good place to call Shiro.

It was a relief to hear her voice, Shiro found, when he had been mostly listening to Keith and Lance's bickering for the past hour or so. He'd nearly lost it a few times—half their time until the Galra invaded was gone, and they didn't have any time to mess around, let alone get into pointless arguments that was more about pride than planning.

"Tell me you got the parts."

"Yes. Pidge and Hunk are working on it now, I thought I'd tell you about their progress tonight, once you're back. How are the boys?"

"Fighting, like always. I put them in time-outs, actually, on either side of the Sinking Sands. Well, at least, far away from each other. The Sands are bigger than we thought, it's nearly the size of a large lake. I just don't understand how there could be tunnels underneath all that and now collapse. I'm having Keith and Lance go round on either side, just so we can have a proper perimeter, and see if there are any holes in the quicksand, or something."

"Smart thinking."

He paused, straining his ears. He preferred seeing her face, but just hearing her voice was enough. "Are you alright, princess? You sound a little...off?"

"I had an interesting conversation with a Sjarkan."

"Oh?" When she was done telling him about Amli, he frowned. "That is unusual. Do you think it's anything to worry about?"

"No, although it's hard to tell. I haven't seen the king anywhere since I got back, but that might be part of the Midnight Rest's rituals. I propose we ask the historian, Sara, more thorough questions about the Norins, if you think we can trust her."

He nodded, and then remembered she couldn't see it. "Fair point. I think the Sjarkans are too dependent on us right now to turn on us for anything. They need us until the Galra comes. After that it's a free for all. If we have any questions, we need to ask them now."

"You're right." She sighed.

"Something else wrong?"

"No, no, I..." Another sigh. "Dealing with these sorts of things always seems far more manageable when you're right by my side, that's all. It seems rather silly, I mean, you're right over there and—"

"No," he said softly. "It's not silly."

The line was silent for a moment, and then her voice rose back up. "I'm going to go check on Pidge and Hunk, I'll comm you once I know what they've accomplished."

Shiro cracked a smile. "Something great, knowing them."

"Until I see you, Shiro." He could hear the faint smile in her voice, and it made warmth bloom in his chest. Him. He was the cause of that, of making her day a little bit brighter. After the war, he wouldn't mind if that was his only purpose everyday.

"Goodbye, princess. Love you."

The commlink cut off as soon as the last word had left his mouth, and horrified, he let out a high pitched squeak. God he was an idiot—had she even heard it? Of course she had heard it, their commlink connection was good! It had just slipped out and now he couldn't take it back, and—

Maybe he was overreacting and it wasn't as bad as he thought. Maybe she would take it the same way the rest of the team did. A platonic, brotherly love. Even if the way he felt about Allura was as about as non-familial as you could get it. If he was lucky, she'd think it was in the way friends loved one another. He could explain it away, easily.

Did he want to explain it away?

"Hey, Shiro."

He started at the sound of Keith's voice, and forced his voice into something calm and steady, the way a cool and composed leader should sound. "Yeah?"

"I think we found something."

"We?" Lance scoffed. "I'm the one who found it!"

Shiro glanced over at the sea of sand, and saw the two Lions hovering over a patch near the middle. "I'm on my way over." He switched on the flight gears and steered the Black Lion over, hovering in between the two. "So, what is it?"

"Every two minutes, the sand here starts moving," Keith said. "It should start in 10 seconds. 1, 2, 3..."

Amazingly, the sand started churning, just in a circular movement, like batter being whipped. The patch couldn't have been bigger than one of the Lion's paws. Shiro stared.

"Huh."

"Freaky, right?" Lance said excitedly. "I'm thinking—well, I borrowed the idea from all the mumbo-jumbo Hunk would talk about at school, so—" He cleared his throat, and Shiro could see him puffing out his chest importantly a cockpit over. "Anyway, I think that maybe this thing isn't naturally made.

"What do you mean?" asked Keith, his brow pinching.

"I think that maybe this sinking stuff was put here on purpose. Y'know, like a trap. Or a gate. And underneath is something that keeps it from going all over the place. That's how some of the Norin tunnels could lead here but not get all ruined."

"You think the Norins made this all on purpose?" said Shiro. As crazy as it seemed, it was the best theory that had, and in a lot of ways, it made sense, so long as he kept reminding himself that alien tech was typically way more advanced than anything back on Earth.

"I mean, unless there's some weird gravitational shift on the planet?" Lance suggested, but he sounded doubtful. "But only the locals would know that. Maybe Pidge and Hunk's scanners would be able to get more details."

"Or Allura might know something," Shiro said, already reaching to start another comm-call.

"Or Coran," Keith added with a smirk, and he and Lance snickered.

Shiro rolled his eyes, even as heat rose to his cheeks. "Allura?"

"Shiro?" She sounded surprised he was calling back so soon. He had a moment of panic when he remembered what he said, and quickly hurried on. Maybe if he didn't dwell on it they wouldn't have to talk about it and it wouldn't matter.

"We found something that might lead somewhere," he said hastily, and then forcibly slowed his voice down to a normal pace. "Are you with Pidge and Hunk?"

"Yes, I—"

"Hi Shiro!" Hunk's voice crackled over the commlink, now turned into a group call. "I think you'll like what we came up with, it's even better than the one before."

"I was able to implement some of my failed ideas for an extensive particle barrier into it," Pidge chirped, "by rerouting the diameter's path and three dimensional width, and—"

"Pidge, Hunk, I need you to get a reading on something," Shiro said. Most of what they had said made little sense to him anyway. "I'm going to hook you up to the Lion's scanners, okay?" He flipped a switch. "Can you see what's a couple feet ahead?"

Pidge let out a grunt of frustration, and Hunk said, "Sorry, Shiro. The sand is clogging up your cameras. Can you get a shot of it from your arm's camera?"

He looked at his flesh and blood hand, covered by Paladin armour, and tried to angle it, but just got the glare of the sun off the Lion's windows. He pressed the side button of his helmet, bringing Keith and Lance into the equation. "I'm going to go down to take a closer look."

"Uh, are you sure that's a good idea?" said Lance slowly.

"Yeah," agreed Keith. "That doesn't seem safe."

Shiro was already heading out of the Lion's mouth. "I have my jetpack, and Black is right here. I'll be fine."

He let himself drop down to the Lion's paw, and Black angled it so it would be a flatter line for him to stand on. His boots scraped against the metal, and then he landed neatly. He got out his arm camera, holding it up towards the sand, which had gone still. He moved closer to the edge of the paw, to get a better look.

"You can see it now?" he checked. Allura, Pidge and Hunk all made noises of confirmation on the other end. They must be downloading or projecting the feed on another screen, or as a hologram (although that would probably end up being too fuzzy).

Allura gasped when the sand started moving. "I've seen things like this before. Pidge, Hunk, would you be able to make a scanner that could detect and underground bunker of sorts?"

"Ha!" Lance crowed. "I was right!"

"We'll have to make a few adjustments, but it should only take maybe fifteen minutes," said Hunk.

"Good. You can build it while we fly over. Shiro, we'll be there in a few ticks. This may be the information we need."

"Good job, all of you," he congratulated the team. "See you soon." He shut off his camera, and then moved away from the edge of Black's paw. He was reaching up to turn off the commlink when there was a churning sound of startling volume, and he turned around quickly, to look back at the sand.

Too quickly.

His foot slipped off the edge, and he deployed his jetpack, which only sent him further away from the edge in a spurt of flames, and then smoke as the machine coughed. A red warning flashed across his helmet's screen: FUEL LOW.

Now it tells him.

He let out a yelp as Black's attempt to catch up with her mouth missed, and almost managed to grab the Red Lion's paw, his fingers slipping off the metal. He yelled as he plummeted towards the sand.

"Shiro!" Allura's cry echoed across the comm link.

The sand was surprisingly hard when he hit it, hard like concrete, and then started drawing him in. It rose up to his waist, and then over the pistols of his jetpack. Flying out wasn't an option, and the Lion's couldn't get their mouths close enough to the ground. He glanced up and saw Keith and Lance going to eject themselves out of their Lions, but held up his hand.

"No! You might get sucked in too." And they reluctantly hung back, Keith's eyes blazing and Lance's face long with worry. Shiro checked the shield of his helmet, as the quicksand started rising, to see if there were any cracks. Checked how much oxygen he had, about twenty minute's worth. "Shit."

Would that be long enough?

He vaguely heard Keith and Lance relaying the situation over the commlink, and latched onto Allura's voice like a lifeline when he heard it. As long as Allura was around, he couldn't die. He wouldn't die. She wouldn't let him—and he wouldn't leave her, not again, not unless it was to save her.

"Shiro, we're coming," she said, shaky and panicked, and it tore his heart in two.

He craned his neck upwards as the sand rose up to his shoulders, pressing down on his chest. His armour was tight and cutting into his skin. He clawed at the sand around it, but even with the strength of his galra arm, it only made it worse. He activated it, cutting through some grains with a burst of purple heat, but it only made white-hot sand roll back in its place. Almost like the thing was alive.

He swallowed hard, keeping his face towards the sun.

"Don't worry Shiro, we'll be there soon—"

Her panic gave him something to ground himself in. "I know, princess," he said as reassuringly as he could.

"Just hold on."

The sand started rising over his mask. Pressing down on all sides, he could feel the searing heat. Would the glass of his helmet even hold?

"Allura—"

His commlink went dead as the sand rose over the speaker, and then the rest of his head.

"Shiro? Shiro answer me—Takashi!"

But where Takashi Shirogane had been, there was only sand

Allura choked down something like a sob, and squared her shoulders. Not on her watch. "Keith." Her voice cut across the static leftover from Shiro's broken connection. "Lance. Here is what you're going to do."