Somewhere Up Above The Stars

(Loosely inspired by "Moving To Mars" by Coldplay)
--
When Shiro had once asked her if she could recall a near-death experience, she had simply shrugged. It was a moment out of all their other moments together, her eagerly joining him on small ventures in-between their missions to share what made them distinctively different in their race and origins. This time he had posed his question ever so casually, a hint of a boyish demeanor cast under the last few strokes of light of a setting star on the solitary planet they had visited.

"Near death..." she had mouthed. It was an abrupt leeway into a topic that she felt he was using to seek something out of her, and when she thought she had had an answer ready for him, she didn't.

Allura remembered it being strange, she of all people not knowing what it was like to face death - really face it. She was always at war, always facing the high probability that her efforts could fall in vain against an empire that had such a terrifying presence in the universe. She could still see the day when Altea fell apart, still hear the screams of many through the smoke of warfare before everything became achingly silent. Even then, even now, there was a constant hum of panic of the unknown within her core that had become unnoticeable.

Except that was not it. That was not what Shiro had described after her frustrated attempt to hold the reigns of such a knowledge had failed.

"Have you ever felt it then?" She had asked in return.

"Yeah," he had responded with a soft chuckle. "As a child. I was struck by lightning on my father's farm. It was...a weird feeling. Like I died and came back to life. My father said I looked so terrified that my hair had turned white."

They had both laughed when Allura pointed at the obvious absence of color on the strands falling over his forehead. She combed her fingers through them when he let her, bringing order to an otherwise unruly mass stained and sweaty from battle. It would have been their last attempt at peace, their last rendezvous under the half-lidden horizon before executing their greatest plan to end the war once and for all. His curiosity of death, however, had irked her, and she did not know why.

She did not foresee or fathom what was to come afterwards, or why that moment swiftly crossed her mind weeks later after the impossible became possible and Zarkon crumbled under Voltron's might. What would have been a victory only ended in distress, and as if losing her dearest friend, she had crumbled herself.

On the surface, she could not betray her feelings. But that memory with him - all their memories together - had become a tool to keep her panic at bay. At the helm of her ship, she would scroll through hologram after hologram until her fingers began to ache, and using the mind-melding machine to reach out to the void would drain her incredibly. Each time, Allura felt the dread seep through her sense of rationality and leave cracks on her composure. On days when she felt wholly helpless, she let the tears flow before mustering a spark to continue her pursuit.

She had to find him. She had to find Shiro.

Allura knew she had given orders to the team to reassemble. Ever since the realization had struck her that the Black Paladin had completely vanished from his lion, and from any vessel or space around them, she had to play her role as their commander. As their voice of reason. They had no other choice but to assign themselves new roles to make up for what was lost, and in some shape or form, they had to work together twice as hard. She had faith in the paladins, but in herself, she could not tell. She couldn't tell if she could continue without knowing what had happened to him.