Collecting the shards

Connected 2

Of winning wars

The thing about fiction is that Akira no longer knows what would qualify as.

There's his past with Koráki, and all he learned about the world of immortals and monsters, a world he wasn't truly meant to know of beyond his clear sight.

There's Voltron, and everything that has happened since getting trapped in space thanks to Blue and Leandro; not that he'd ever regret it, not for a second.

So when Lotor, who'd managed to escape them before, comes back for the last stand off, and demands Leandro be handed to him, it feels less like the plot of a terrible sci-fi show, and more like something that could realistically happen.

He hadn't been there to watch Zarkon's son try every trick in the book to get Leandro to accept courting, to let his walls down, and met nothing but rejection even back when he had the rest of the team fooled. It might have to do with the fact that Leandro's a son of Venus, so Lotor's charms didn't work on him, Pidge offers, but doesn't seem sure.

Akira knows that Leandro has other reasons, but he suspects Venus' influence did play a part in his resilience, however small. He feels something like a tingling in the back of his head at the thought, paired with the expected jealousy but slightly to the left, something he can't describe so easily but recognizes after a bit.

His time on the space whale granted him, if nothing else, the benefit of having his coming of age separate from the fighting. Which was a little unfair to the mother who was now making an effort by him, and who'd been his saving grace during the change.

It's the pulling, the one blades have mentioned all luj generate but Leandro more so than any other, and Akira is affected differently, but with Lotor saying

"There's no need to fight"

And saying

"Join me and we can end the war"

But then Leandro laughs, something sharp and not at all amused.

"Vete pa la mielda"

And he's the only Spanish speaker on Voltron, but Akira's pretty sure everyone understood, particularly when Pidge cuts the transmission a second after, while Hunk lets out a pointed 'ha'. He's grinning himself, the tingling abated for now, but he knows it'll come back, because he knows what it means that he feels the pull on the back of his head as opposed to the bottom of his stomach.

He can't think about it then, because a fight breaks out only moments after, and winning takes priority, especially when loosing would mean that particular connection being severed before it can properly form.

It's clear by everything that happens, that both Lotor and Haggar were expecting Voltron as the only line of defense; sadly, for them, that's not what happens. They have the Argo 2.0 keeping Haggar busy by virtue of their experience fighting old powerful beings, she's never fought a demigod before; and they have the Atlas providing cover fire, and with the Garrison pilots taking care of smaller ships, allowing Voltron to focus on Lotor.

The fight lasts for what feels like ages, but is only a few hours, where both sides play a deadly game of push and pull, until a tendril of darkness makes Lotor's solo robot stumble, and a flash of pure light sends a group of Galra fighters spiraling to the ground, and a dozen other seemingly impossible things start happening, entities spoken only in myth start appearing in the battlefield, immune except to the weapons of deities, they turn their rage towards the invaders. The monsters are fighting on their side, unlikely as it seems, but instead of questioning it they take full advantage of it to finally get ahead.

Everything after that is hazy, Haggar attempts something, and Lance gets the by now familiar feeling of reality altering, but she gets stopped by a group of magic related demis, while Voltron deals a winning blow on Lotor. Only the demis miscalculate, and Haggar's level of corruption means their powers turn her into a quintessence-based bomb, something else pushes back but the world still goes white.

Lance wakes up in a room he doesn't recognize, the starling cleanliness of everything, the faint after-scent of disinfectant, and the monitor beeping softly at his left are clear tells that this is a hospital room.

There's a woman standing by the foot of his bed, directly on Lance's line of view.

She has pale skin, and short raven hair in an artfully messy style, with impossibly familiar violet eyes. If Lance hadn't met Krolia he would think this woman to be Akira's mother, and then it dawns on him who she is.

"Mom"

Lady Venus, and here he's copying Akira, who had stressed he only shared the name because Lance not knowing at all would be too dangerous, even more so than saying the name in the first place. Lady Venus smiles, with her face that looks like the person Lance likes the most, because of course it does.

"Hello little blue"

There are many reasons why Lance's voice shakes with barely held back tears when he asks

"Are you really here?"

And it's a testament to her nature that she knows each and every one of them by heart, eyes softening the way only a mother's do. She's not a goddess of a single kind of love, though she's let her children take over the differing branches.

"Only for a minute, there's a question you need answered"

And Lance knows, and he's guilty of stalling this far, but now that it's all over, and everyone is deciding what to do next, now's the last chance he's got.

"Was it for me or for what I was meant to be?"

Lady Venus smiles, and the shape of it betrays the length of her existence.

"I knew what was in store for you, but I also wanted to grant you the ability to choose it"

It's a half answer, one that doesn't really satisfy him, but rings true. And in the next thought she's gone, and Lance is waking again, in the same room, but this time to his other mother's face.