Court of Feathers

Twenty

Word Count: 2,230

The silence between them, as usual, was thickening, and, it seemed, at least in Shiro's mind, to be even worse than before they found out about the death of her father. "Are- are you alright?" He asked hesitantly, Shiro made sure to keep his voice soft and low, hoping she would ignore his question if she didn't want to answer, and silently prayed that the princess wouldn't backlash at him for asking if she did hear.

"I'm fine," she replied a little too quickly, and although Allura's back was to him, he didn't miss the swipe of her arm as she wiped away tears from her eyes and the shaking of her feathers as he held in her sobs so no one would hear.

Shiro's heart ached for her at that moment.

"Do you want, to talk? About it?" He asked hesitantly.

She shook her head, "No, I- I'm fine."

"Allura, we both know that isn't true-"

"And how would you know?" She whirled around to face him at that moment and Shiro could see the crystal clear grief in her eyes, tinted with anger and he silently cursed at himself for going a little too far into the conversation. "How can you possibly know what I'm going through? What I've just seen? You can't help me-"

"I do-"

"You can't possibly imagine what it feels like-"

"I do know, Allura-"

"I lost my father tonight, and, and-" She broke down in tears again, legs collapsing as she fell to the floor, and Shiro rushed to catch her, arms fixing around her as he slowly lowered her to the ground as she continued to cry into his shoulder.

Shiro tried to speak up again, biting his lip only for a moment before speaking her name hesitantly, "Allura-"

"No! Don't come near me!" She weakly swatted away his arms as she tried getting back to her feet, but her legs just refused to work and she fell to the ground again, openly sobbing as she went, "Don't you ever touch me again! You don't understand-"

"I do!" He shouted, and the princess shut her mouth and fixed Shiro with a startled stare, looking up at him, the slightest touch of surprise in her gaze at the sudden loudness of his tone.

"I do," he said in a lower voice, grateful that he now had her attention, "I know what it feels like to lose someone you love, I don't think anyone knows it better than me."

She sniffed, rubbing more tears away with her sleeve, her expression skeptical through her grief, "Really? Do you expect me to believe that?"

"I do," Shiro nodded, "I- I lost my father too-"

She inhaled hard and sharp.

"-he died in an apartment fire when I was little, he never got a funeral, or a burial, because there was no one who could pay for it, I was just a kid. I didn't have any relatives to live with, a mother to take me in, or anyone to lean on after it happened."

"What-" she cut off, sniffing, "-what happened?"

"I-" Shiro could see what happened next as the memory played out, the foster center, the new parents, the abusive older brother who would push him around and make fun of him just because of how different his background was.

And then a different house, a different family that took care of him, opened up to him, treated him the same as everyone else and not like the freak his recent foster brother made fun of him for being, and Shiro never truly forgot them when he finally left to be out on his own. He knew that he could visit any time, and he left their home with that spoken promise to him. But, at the same time, he also knew he had a family member to find, still refusing to let those early memories of faded photographs and spoken stories disappear.