“ I’m impressed by your Blue Paladin. He proved himself worthy of his title despite being mute. I mean, it must be hard when it comes to communicating to others during battles. ”
Those words rang around Allura’s head ever since it left the mouth of the King she was talking to and trying to form an alliance. It was the usual routine that they had learned to live. Receiving a distress signal, answering the said signal, entering the planet giving it, forming Voltron and fighting (pushing) the Galran army away, and finally forming a treaty between Voltron and the current species of alien they had saved for the day.
For the King it was just a normal observation. She could not blame him for this was the first time he meet the Paladins.
But no matter what, the comment cut through her heart for it was another reminder on how she had failed. On how she had pushed a war to just a bunch of teenagers who were peacefully living in their own planet one night and the next they were soldiers fighting an empire who had enslave the majority of the universe. On how she tried to be professional about everything and how she tried to maintained the aura of a general…only to realized it was not just the only thing the team needed but something more.
“ Humans are natural social beings. Keep us in isolation and we might go insane. ”
Shiro explained to her one of the common theory that the human society have. He called it “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”.
Love, care, and feeling of belongingness are one of the factors humans needed to be assured that their life was worth living despite Earth’s harsh conditions both from the environment and the rest of the society. And those very three needs were neglected ever since Allura pushed the role of being Paladins to five earthlings.
Sure, the Paladins handle it themselves. But it still turned out that everyone was being selfish in some degree. Pidge wanted to find their family, Keith wanted to do what was right as a defender and forgetting the feelings of others when he was trying to be a capable soldier, Shiro was being a hypocrite by trying to take care of the team while purposefully hiding his own issues away, Hunk…was just trying to help and Lance was the ever self sacrificing one that they should have paid more attention.
Well, selflessness and selfishness only had a very thin line between and sometime could be seen as the same.
It was also a reminder that Allura was no perfect being and could be an easy prey from the webs of judgmentally. She just met Lance and completely assumed that the Blue Paladin never take anything seriously. It was a fault that made her blind and didn’t see the talent that Lance clearly had and was taken advantage by the enemy.
Things had never gone back to normal in the Castle of Lions. After rescuing Lance, the Blue Paladin was never the same. He mostly spends his time inside his own room, until now he had never uttered a word even once. He was not participating in any group activities and contently just chooses to stay with the Blue Lion. Sometimes they would find him being surrounded by the other lions also. Even the ever temperamental Red Lion appears to be trying to support the… broken human. It was as if, if the other Paladins could not be there then at least the lions would convey what their pilots felt for the Blue Paladin.
Lance was only comfortable in the company of Hunk and Coran. They would talk and talk with him and they would celebrate if they could make Lance to smile, even if it was a small one. If they could make Lance to do something so that he would not be tortured by his own thoughts. Though they eventually found out that Lance didn’t want to learn anything about the mechanics of the castle. He vehemently refused to learn anything that could be related to Voltron and the war against the Galran Empire.
It hurts to see that the very talent Lance had that lead him to meet the others was the very thing he had learned to hate when the Galra used his knowledge against his teammates. When the Galras gave him false information on how his tactics injured some of the Paladins to the point of no recovery.
Allura was not sure if this was a damage they could heal…or just be a festering wound forever…
If I made a roleplay book would you readers join it? Be honest guys.
