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Allura stomped her way off the landing deck and into the Castle of Lions foyer. Ripping off her helmet, she plucked the pin holding her bun out of her hair and shook out her straining silver locks. As she ascended the stairs that led to the hallway to her quarters, she threw her helmet to the side; it crashed down the steps and to the floor with an enormous clatter.
“Princess!” Shiro called after her, just arriving from the Black Lion himself. “Where are you going?” The rest of the current paladins shuffled in behind him. “We plan on having the meeting with Lo-”
“I don’t want to talk to him!” Allura spun on her heel and glared down at her team. “Not now. Not ever!”
“None of us really want to, Allura,” Coran said as he came in from the opposite hall from the paladins. A few members of the rebel and Marmora crews that assisted in the battle of Naxzela followed suit. “But he did save us-”
“Don’t tell me what he did or didn’t do.”
Coran sighed, knowing he wasn’t getting anywhere with the situation. He watched Allura turn her back and prepare to leave. He was tempted to shoo the others off and follow her, but a goading voice froze his steps.
“Don’t worry about it, my good man. She’ll go to her room and pout for a while and come out once she sees reason. She’s always been like that, you know-”
Lotor, now front and center with Keith standing adjacent with his blade in his back and hand around his forearm, smirked up to Allura with a knowing glint in his eye.
Allura fumed. She swung and punched the banister. “You dare abuse me with your presence you prideful quiznaking son of a-”
“I see your mouth is still as untethered as your loyalty.”
“My loyalty? What. No mention of your own?!”
“Alright! Alright!” Shiro stepped up and did his best to block the two royals from each other’s view.
Not that it did too much help, but he wanted to at least try.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Princess, nor do I have any clue of what is going on between the two of you, but considering the current circumstances, it would be in the coalition’s best interest to have a-” Shiro quickly eyed Lotor and Keith- “guarded meeting with the prince.”
Lotor enigmatically smiled at him, shrugging his shoulders and fidgeting in his handcuffs. “I assure you, Paladin, I am on your side.”
Shiro sucked his teeth and clicked his tongue. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, and then to Allura, “We will have a diplomatic meeting in the east boardroom, if that suits you, Princess. In about a varga?”
Allura simpered but relented. “Do as you must, but I won’t be joining your meeting unless he is thrown out the airlock chamber… without a helmet.”
And with that she marched back to her room, Shiro’s voice ordering everyone to get ready for the meeting and to stop watching like this was a drama spectacle fading into the white noise.
She barely made it to her room and out of her suit when a light tapping, followed by a much louder banging, sounded outside her door. With a grunt, she leaned over from her dresser and pat her hand against the lock. As soon as the tech registered her handprint, the door slid open, and Pidge and Lance fell over the threshold. She stared at them, unfazed.
Pidge flailed, yelling at Lance to get off them. Lance merely rolled over and blinked at Allura, who was still pulling her corset top dress straps over her shoulders.
“New threads, Princess? Pretty snazzy!” he snapped his usual dual finger-guns at her, which only caused him to apply more pressure on a screaming, squashed Pidge.
“Lance, get off them,” she said, taking her bare foot and kicking him off. He rolled onto the cold, steel floor, and Pidge hopped up, loudly groaning at him.
“Boney piece of-” Pidge muttered before getting a good look at Allura themself. “That is a nice dress, Princess.”
“You two didn’t think I only had one outfit, did you?” Allura asked as she plopped down on her bed to slip on her stockings.
Both Pidge and Lance, who each had changed into their own day clothes, and who each only had one outfit to wear since arriving at the Castle of Lions, glanced down at themselves and about the room, idly avoiding the question.
“So… why the change of clothes?” Lance asked, trying to get the conversation back on track. He and Pidge invited themselves to sit next to her, one on either side.
Allura chuckled, looking down at the pink ruffles of her skirt. “Just felt like it, is all.”
“Are you sure?” Pidge asked. “You were pretty mad earlier. And that interaction between you and Lotor…”
Allura wouldn’t let Pidge finish their thought. “You are about to ask if Lotor and I knew each other. And I want to tell you that ‘no, never met the bastard in my life. I just don’t trust him because he’s the galran royal heir’ but that would be an out and out lie.”
An awkward silence bubbled around them. Allura remained focused on getting dressed, but her fingers slipped as she tied the patent leather boots tight to her ankles. She had to redo the knot a few times before Lance hopped down and took the strings from her hands.
“Bad blood?” he said, keeping his eyes on her shoes. “I mean, obviously. I take it your parents didn’t like each other much.”
“Enemies from childhood,” Pidge pipped.
That made Allura laugh. It was a genuine laugh. It was a sardonic laugh. It sent a worried shiver through Pidge’s spine and caused Lance to clench his grip.
“No, surprisingly not,” Allura said with a bemused sigh. She leaned back on her palms, gaze seemingly traveling across time and space to another world.
“I was a child during the antebellum,” Allura explained. “Lotor and I… Lotor and I grew up together. He was my best friend for the majority of my childhood. His father was like an uncle to me. The palace on Altea had so many photographs of our families together. Those pictures… that friendship between our families was my father’s pride and joy.
“But their friendship began to fall apart when Zarkon and Honerva began to test the bounds of sanity with their experiments on pure quintessence. The tick was he never told me. Lotor… I don’t know if he knew. He had enough issues on his own and I never pried. So, when the alliance between our planets began to crumble, Lotor and I naturally rebelled against it. I thought it was my father’s fault. I thought our families were trying to pry us apart.”
Pidge furrowed their brow, leaning into the story. “What did you guys do?”
“What any two young adolescents would do when they didn’t want their parents getting in the way. Elope.”
Pidge blanched and Lance fumbled so bad he had to catch himself from falling face first into the bedframe. After gathering himself, Lance sat back up and stared her straight in the eye.
“Are you telling me that you got married to spite your parents?!”
“Well,” Allura stammered defensively, flushing a deep red, “I never said it was smart, and there were a lot of other things going on, but we were at the age of consent by both of our empire’s standards.”
“I take it the marriage didn’t last, judging by the lovers spat you two just had,” Pidge said and adjusted their glasses.
Allura huffed. “No. We were too different. And the longer we were outside of the situation, the more we saw of the world we were sheltered from. In the end, I went back home to fight alongside my father.” She looked down and smiled to herself. “I was wearing this dress the last day of our relationship. I may have picked it out because I was making a point of mourning the love I thought I had.”
Pidge snorted. “Kinda petty. I approve.”
Allura rolled her eyes.
Lance fidgeted his hands in his lap. His stomach was full of knots, each one a different emotion he forced himself to swallow.
“Should we tell Shiro?” he asked.
“About…?” Allura responded.
“Yeah,” he said, almost reading her mind, “considering the circumstances, it might be a good idea if we cleared the air of any elephants.”
Allura made a face. “E… ele… elefants… What is that?”
“He’s saying that we might want to go ahead and come out with the situation before there’s an awkward vibe,” Pidge explained. “Already, you two left an impression, and I’m sure the others are wondering what the heck happened earlier.”
“So, an elefant is an awkward… vibe?”
“No, no. An elephant is an Earth pachyderm. There’s a saying on Earth that’s based on a short story written by-”
“Forget the elephants!” Lance said, frustratedly falling backwards onto the floor. He crossed his arms over his chest and proceeded to simper. Pidge huffed. Allura snickered.
“Well,” she said, standing up and brushing down her skirts, “the bastard will probably mention it himself, but I suppose giving a warning will keep Shiro and the others from being startled.”
Allura held out her hand to Lance. He stared at it for a minute, and she had to coax him into taking it. “Now, up princess, we have places to be.”
He took it with an indignant “Hey!”