Work Text:
“Now approaching the Hundarian System. Keep the new scanners Pidge put in place with you at all times, and if anything’s out of the ordinary, a couple of blips anywhere , say something. We’re not leaving until we figure out what’s been going wrong.”
Lance sighed. “All right, Wolf Boy. On it.”
Romelle blinked sleepily, rubbing the blurriness out of her eyes. Coran was still quietly snoring beside her, his mustache wavering with each breath, and Allura was in the cockpit, her eyes slightly glazed over, but she was blinking hard to rid her vision of the grogginess. It didn’t seem to work, as the Blue Paladin’s head was repeatedly slumping against her chair and springing back up.
Balancing along the side of the lion’s walls, Romelle made her way towards the cockpit, careful not to trip over the other passengers as she dragged her blanket behind her—and then she heard the muttering.
“... nofus, afus, jibely-way, kay, mai-ox, leeum, ruu, joodum, ree-- quiznack! ...no, joodum ruu, ree ... joodum ree floodum... ancients, that’s not even a letter in the alphabet…”
“— pledum, nacto, jaydus, flee, ceedus, plexis, exus!” Romelle finished, startling Allura out of her trance.
“Oh! Romelle… I-I’m sorry, I thought you were still asleep.” She hesitated for a moment. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
Romelle beamed and leaned over the pilot’s chair, nearly resting her chin on Allura’s head and floofing the blanket she was carrying over both sides of the armrests. “Don’t worry about it.”
The young Altean blinked and yawned, possibly in submission.
“All of this is certainly very exciting, isn’t it—I wouldn’t want to miss a tick!” Romelle’s eyes traced across the many buttons and panels strewn across the ceiling of the cockpit. “Oh, ancients! Could I try some of these out?"
Allura mumbled something—which, to Romelle, sounded like a 100% bonafide agreement— before leaning her head back in the chair and closing her eyes. The Blue Lion was free.
Romelle pressed a button.
The lion’s claws extended.
She pressed it again, and they retracted.
Extend. Retract. Extend. Retract. Extend, retract, extend, retract—
Keith’s annoyed voice crackled over the comms. “Blue Lion, what’s going on? Allura?”
Allura shot out of her pilot’s chair, swiveling her head around wildly for a moment, spotting Romelle wrapped in a blanket before groaning and pressing the comms to reply, her words slightly slurred with exhaustion. “S-sorry, would you repeat that?”
“I asked what was going on.” Keith was somehow audibly frowning, and the princess shot a tired eye towards the paler Altean, who hastily mimed her fingers going in and out. Allura stared for another long moment, then shrugged.
Hunk’s voice joined the crowd. “Is your lion malfunctioning? Uh oh, that’s not good. What if all of our lions start malfunctioning! Oh god, they’re all gonna spontaneously combust! Lance, I love you buddy! It’s been good!”
The red lion glowed slightly; all the reply Lance was willing to offer, until thirty seconds later he moaned, “Ask Pidge, she’ll fix it.”
“No way,” Pidge snapped, her voice high and surprisingly alert, “I’m not going all the way over there to fix some quote-unquote ‘malfunction’ every time you want the butt-warmer turned on... LANCE.”
A loud bark sounded through the Black Lion’s comms, and the paladins all cringed and stopped shouting. Keith sighed. “Thanks Kosmo. Look, guys, I get it. Tensions are high, excitement is low, but we gotta keep it together. Hunk, we are not going to spontaneously combust, and Lance, don’t ask Pidge every time you want the butt-warmer!”
Lance yawned over the comms, his voice muffled and dead tired. “... you’re a butt-warmer.”
Keith snorted. “Not for your ass.”
“Not yet, you mean.”
“Lance, I know you’re tired, but is my hair so long that you really think I’m a hot alien girl to hit on?”
“Yes and no. Wait, no and yes. Wait, no. Yes. Oh, it’s a quinznacking mullet ,” Lance whined, “That’s why I call you by your hair. Take a hint.”
Allura shut off the comms, fingers gripping the armrest of the chair with frightening urgency. “I swear, if I hear those two arguing for one more dobosh, I’ll—”
Romelle rested a hand on the princess’s shoulder. “You’ll let them. That’s not even close to a real argument. Lance just needs to challenge someone, and Keith just needs to be challenged. They were arguing about warming each others butts! If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were flirting.”
All the hostile air seemed to rush out of Allura, and her cheeks dipped in a weary frown. “I-I’m just so exhausted , Romelle. We’ve been travelling for days, and if I could just get a varga of rest…” she trailed off wishfully, letting her chin loll onto a propped up hand.
Romelle plopped down on the ground next to the chair, folding her elbows on the armrest next to Allura’s head, absentmindedly throwing some of her sheets over her in the process. The silence was immensely relaxing, and for a moment Romelle could believe it was just her, the lion, the stars, and Allura, wrapped in a pastel salmon blanket. “How’s this,” Romelle whispered into the stillness, “We do relax. Just for twenty doboshes.”
“Fifteen,” Allura insisted.
Romelle nodded, having successfully perked up the Blue Paladin’s interest, “We are...out on a calming expedition to an Olkarion outpost. Lush green, pale blue skies—we could scale the trees or experiment with technology never before handled by Altean hands.”
Allura hummed in agreement, smile shining as if it were truly the most magical thing she could imagine. “Olkarion is beautiful.”
“You’ve actually been to Olkarion?”
“Sometimes,” the princess mused, “I forget you and the paladins have spent your lives on only one planet.”
“ Stars, I hated that colony.” Romelle gasped, and Allura giggled—a sound that sent tingles down her spine. She smiled, savoring this rare moment of Allura’s happiness before continuing. “No Galra, no Earth even, just the constellations above us, weaving a different eccentric tale with every system we pass.”
“Mm,” Allura managed, her eyes closed as she continued to wrap herself in Romelle’s blanket. “And...what are those tales?”
Romelle pointed out the window towards a cluster of glimmering lights. “Those...are...the...stories of the...great Karlatzian warrior... Nortell. He could take down a yalmor in one strike.”
“A yalmor, huh?” Allura mumbled absentmindedly, “How heroic.”
“Yalmor was the first thing I could think of. Anyway, Nortell would attack anything anyone would pay him to attack. He only had two rules: always take down a yalmor, and never take down an infant.”
The corners of Allura’s mouth twitched downwards disappointingly. “What about an infant yalmor?”
Romelle huffed. “Don’t spoil the story. Oh, I’ve bet you’ve heard this one before.”
“No no no, continue please. What of Nortell? I promise I’ll be quiet.”
So Romelle spun the story of Nortell the Karlatzian, a wild warrior who discovered an infant yalmor in the creek and ended up living among a horde of yalmors and becoming their leader, only to be betrayed by the original infant yalmor—whom she’d appropriately named Romalmor.
Allura was fast asleep after barely ten doboshes, curled up in the pilot’s chair under the soft blue lights of her lion. Romelle could only stare. It was so strange to see the princess so...unburdened. Free from the responsibilities her waking world had thrown upon her. Free from the all the worrying and grieving she’d never had the chance to properly do.
Free from the confines of others, and free from the many many confines she’d placed for herself.
Romelle brushed the dashboard of the Blue Lion, and it purred in content, the sound echoing in her ears. She didn’t really know if the lion would understand her if she talked, or if it only read Allura and Lance’s minds, but she bent down, staring into whirling screens she didn’t understand.
Take care of her.
The words were on the tip of her tongue.
On her lips.
Ready to be said.
She swallowed them down with enormous effort that would have been easier if not for the lump in her throat. Somehow, though, she figured the lion understood. So instead she opened her mouth and breathed, “Thank you,” into the cockpit.
Allura wasn’t ready to move on after Lotor, and Romelle didn’t expect her to. She was patient, and she would wait, and if Allura’s heart ended up belonging to another, that would be fine. Romelle would stand on the sidelines and keep the princess happy, keep her alive, keep her away from the darkest corners of herself, and try to keep her distance.
But that wouldn’t stop the pale Altean from, in the very present, planting a soft kiss on Allura’s forehead and tucking the blanket a little closer. It didn’t stop the red that erupted her cheeks when she lay back down in her bed.
And it definitely wouldn’t stop her from loving someone who didn’t love her back just yet.
Romelle frowned.
She was going to need to talk to Lance and Keith.