love and grief // allurance

Chapter 4

The Beginning

Allura could see him. Lance, sitting round a campfire, smiling. It was a bittersweet smile; a mask to cover the emotions that were really raging inside. The blue lion roared, and began its journey. Allura could feel her heart pounding. She would never get over the feeling of connecting with her lion; it was beyond everything she'd ever felt before, and made her adrenaline pump like crazy.
"I'm coming Lance." She muttered to herself, her voice filled with determination, "I'm coming to bring you home."

A couple Vargas later, Allura had reached the planet. The feeling of being one with her lion, and their hearts beating as one, had worn off long ago. Now she was just sat in her lion, counting stars.

The planet was on the edge of its galaxy, and so far away from Mettatopia that Allura felt it had been years since she'd left it behind. The planet looked relatively new. It had green grass, beautiful hills and rivers, and was so small it could be mistaken for a moon. Slowly, she flew down, and landed.

The planet felt homely. It reminded her of Altea, and after seeing photos of Lance's home planet, Earth too. If she was here for any other reason, she would have wanted to stay longer.

Up ahead, Allura saw a fire; the same fire she saw through the blue lions eyes. She picked up her pace, eager to see the red paladin again. As she approached, she could hear chanting and drums. Then, dancers came into view. Lastly, Lance. He was watching the dancers do the haka, smiling softly as he watched them.
"King of the Fire! King of the Fire!"

Allura hesitated before calling out,
"Lance?"
The music stopped, and the dancers stopped in their tracks at the loss of a drum beat, all turning to face the princess. Lance must have recognised her voice, twitched when his name was called. Slowly, he turned around. Though when he turned, it was a sight Allura had not expected.

He was wearing a deep red flower crown, and matching red warrior stripes beneath his eyes. His skin was decorated with pretty pictures of fire and flames, and he had exchanged his paladin armour for traditional tribal clothing.
"Oh, Allura."

A couple awkward seconds passed by.
Naxebul stepped closer to the princess, and smiled,
"Who might you be, traveler?"
Allura stepped closer too, smiling at the tribe.
"I am princess Allura of Altea. I'm here for my friend Lance."

Unexpectedly, the leader turned to face her people,
"Yes!" She cried out, "The Queen of the Water has arrived!"
Everyone in the village cheered. Lance chuckled.
"I'm sorry, what?" Allura tried to protest, but she didn't get a response. She had already been whisked away and sat down next to Lance.
"You know," He leaned in, smiling, "It's a lot of fun if you get into it."

Allura couldn't believe what was happening. The rest of Voltron could be in a battle right now, and here she was, getting crowned Queen on a planet she had only been on for five dobahes. But, she tried to roll with it.

Even more Vargas later, the ceremony was complete. The sun had gone down, and now the fire was even brighter than before. Allura took a deep breath and turned to Lance.
"What are you doing here?"
"What? You're here too."
"Lance, please. Why have you come here?"
"Listen, I returned the red lion. I'm perfectly happy here!-"
"Lance." She took a deep breath, "Voltron can't go on without you. You must understand the importance of being a paladin, you can't just flee whenever you like."

Lance stood up, and began walking to his tent.
"Lance please."
He stopped, and turned around. Shamefully, he came and sat by Allura again.
"Voltron needs you. And not just the lions, we all do," She placed a hand over his own, "I need you."
Allura saw something in Lance's eyes that she'd never seen before. A mixture of regret, love and grief, all combined into one.
"Alright," He quietly muttered, "I'll come back with you."

Lance felt strange sitting in the blue lion. Not only was it his old lion, he felt as if he had betrayed it a little bit; betrayed all the lions for that matter. Even the paladins. Now, because Allura wanted him back, he was going to have to face them all again. Lance sat down on the lions floor; it was going to be a long journey.

A part of Allura wanted to ask Lance about all this, about why he fled so far away, like he didn't want to be found again. Yet, another part of her didn't. His planet, his people, and his family were all gone. All people grieve differently, I guess Lance's way of grieving is exiling himself as far away as possible.

"Hey, Allura?"
The princess, who had been staring blankly at the stars passing by, responded tiredly.
"Yes, Lance?"
Lance turned away for a couple seconds, stalling for time, and scratching the back of his neck.
"Are you mad at me?"
Suddenly, Allura turned to face him, confusion and concern apparent on her face.
"No, I'm just," Allura didn't really know what she was feeling right now. She'd only been worried while she was looking for Lance, now that she'd found him, she didn't even think about how she felt about it.
"I'm happy I found you."

At first, all Lance could muster up was a simple 'Oh.' She probably just meant because he's a paladin, right? He couldn't get his hopes up. Home was his only hope left, and we know what happened to that.

The princess took a deep breath,
"Lance, why would I be mad at you?"
The boy stretched his legs out across the blue lion's floor; Since coming to space and fighting for two years straight, he'd gotten a lot taller.
"I dunno. Maybe because as soon as my planet gets destroyed I run off to some weird planet and join a tribe."
Allura giggled. When Lance wanted to make light of a dark situation, he could do it well.
"After all, when your planet got destroyed, you didn't run, you stayed and fought, and-"
Allura flinched.
"Sorry."

—
1045 words
finally a chapter with over 1k words how astounding.
but this chapter is pretty shit so u win some u lose some u know