Chapter Text
Today is a day of celebration, one for the books. The latest generation of Paladins of Voltron would be retiring, and a new wave of paladins would take up the mantle. The applications had just opened today. Whenever Allura had been in the castle, she had sensed a buzz in the air, everyone wore smiles and she had tried to replicate their happiness. Truth be told, this was a heavy weight on her shoulders.
She was expected to apply. After all, every generation of paladins had a member of her family in it (they were paladins or helpers) and her father had been an incredibly famous one. A few generations of paladins ago, her father was the right-hand man in Voltron, the Red Paladin and the last one who discovered something new that the lions could do.
The parchment lying on the table in front of her mocks her. Two words have been done. She dips the pen back into the ink pot and goes to write the third word. The word slips from her mind and she ends up pressing the pen to the paper for far too long. The ink spreads across the parchment like blood flowing from a wound and she tosses her pen, spilling any ink left in it onto the pristine table. Regret fills her like water flowing into a cup. And then the parchment is thrown away, tossed into the bin with all of the other failed attempts. None of them got past a sentence.
By the Gods, she felt so pathetic. Her room is a mess, her table has ink stains sullying its purity and her drafts are all used up and scrunched up into the bin. She pads over to the door and peaks out of it, mentally preparing herself to ask a servant for more paper, when her mother spots her. One look at her mother’s mischievous smile and the glint of curiosity and every instinct told her to duck her head back in and bundle in blankets. And her mother has the extraordinary ability of being extremely fast.
“What are you doing out here, Allura?”
“Just getting some more parchment. I accidentally spilt ink over it.” She’s resorting to lying now. over such a trivial thing.
Her mother doesn’t make any indication that she knows about her daughter’s stupid lie. Instead, she beckons her, “It’s no use in getting parchment now. Dinner will be ready in 15 Doboshes.”
“I could write up the application in those 15 Doboshes.” Allura retorts. Her mother snorts.
“You took a Dobosh to ruin ten pieces of parchment. Come to dinner.” Allura gives in, sagging her shoulders. An extra ten minutes of talking with her family. Her mother is as graceful as ever, posture straight, shoulders back and head held high like a regal peacock. She trails behind her like an injured pigeon. Oh, Evaa, her clothes are crumpled, she rushes to smooth down her clothes and mimic her mother.
“Will Uncle Klendfor be there?”
Her mother’s smile fades into a purse of the lips. “Yes. He will be there.”
Klendfor was her father’s older brother. His hatred and envy still burned all these years later. Alfor and Klendfor had both put their applications to the Galaxy Garrison, each with the dream of becoming a Paladin (Alfor had put his application in when he just turned fifteen on the last day that the application was open). One was accepted, became a Paladin of Voltron. Who returned a hero, claimed the crown, and married the most beautiful woman in all of Altea. The other one wasn’t accepted. Who didn’t get to even have a taste of the crown while his brother was a Paladin, who was second favourite and only had failed relationships. His anger and jealousy grew as a weed does.
Klendfor is still very bitter.
The room is long with the same white walls as everywhere else in the castle, lit up by small lamps that line the walls, giving a cold, blue hue. Big overhead lights give a harsh white light to the room, making it feel so cold. It gives everyone long shadows and any conversation in this room feels like an interrogation.
Her father is sitting at the very end of the table, the seats beside him are for his wife and his daughter. After sitting down, her father turns to her, gaze boring into her. “Have you done your application?” she shrinks under his gaze, fiddling with a utensil as she tries desperately to not look away. “No. I’m still in the middle of drafting…”
He nods as the food is brought out. “Bring me your draft and I will check it. Then you can tweak it and send it to the Galaxy Garrison. And send it soon.” Allura nods. Her grandmother chuckles.
“Alfor, applications have just opened today! And she has a month left to complete it. You worry too much.”
He shakes his head. “Time speeds up when you don’t think about it.” Her uncle bursts in and her father places a glare onto him. Her grandmother turns around from her seat next to her mother and glares at her son. “You were almost late. Not a second more and I would’ve locked you out. I thought me and your father raised you better than this.”
He turns away, perhaps ashamed. His anger is renewed when he spots his seat…on the left side of her father. (For Alteans, the right side is the most important side. Where at first the partner of the ruler sits. The first person on the left is the eldest child. The rest of the people on the right are family members and trusted people). He takes his seat next to Allura, fuming at her father.
She wishes that the ground would open up and swallow her. “Am I not even seen as your family anymore? To place me on the left side- I’m behind your daughter!” her father shoots him a puzzling look, darting between him and his mother as she readies herself for another verbal torment. “Are you asking me to not place my own mother after my wife? The woman who gave birth to me and helped to raise me? And Allura is my heir. Next in line.” What a lovely reminder. He grumbles but says nothing more.
“Let’s turn to a better topic. Like Allura applying to be a Paladin just like her father did.” A great smile encompasses her grandmother’s face, warmth a light in her features. “Although I think it would be better if Allura was one of the helpers rather than a paladin…”
Her father grunts. “Why not? Being a Paladin is the ultimate honour.” She huffs and sends a glare to her son. “It’s also far more dangerous. It would be better if she were one of the helpers like I was.”
Allura tried her best to block it all out. Not even being chosen was out of the question.
~
She stares at the little button. Send. Her father had approved of what she said on her application. She had filled in the application online; her father had assured her that it was perfection. It would make it even worse if she didn’t get accepted.
And so, she waits for two months. Her grandmother and her father go back and forth on whether or not she’ll be a paladin. Other members of the family guess and discuss what paladin of which lion she’ll be. Only her uncle says, snarkily that at best, she would be Paladin of the Blue Lion. Whilst all paladins were respected, the Lions all had an ideal sort of Paladin. The Green Lion wanted an inquisitive and curious and intelligent paladin. The Black Lion wanted a leader that the people trusted. However, the Blue Lion didn’t have an ideal type. They took whatever. The scraps, one would say. But being a paladin, even of the Blue Lion, is better than not being a paladin at all.
That was if she was even chosen to be a paladin.
She tries to turn away, faces the window, and sees Altea’s two moons in their full glory. They glow ethereally, silent but forgiving and compassionate and understanding. She watches their reflections ripple and change in the lake in one of the courtyards of the palace’s expansive gardens. She smiles and relaxes as the shapes morph eternally. How nothing is stagnant, for as long as time roams, any and everything will change. That one day her insecurities wouldn’t swallow her whole, one day she would be able to actually disagree with her family. It was just one phase. One phase that she’ll move on from.
~
“Hunk, come up here. I’d like to have a word with you. Class dismissed.” Lance waits outside his friend, Hunk’s classroom. Everything around him is a sterile white, meant to give the feeling in doctors’ and dentists’ offices that they were clean. In offices and the Galaxy Garrison, this white was a sign of sophistication. It had only ever made Lance feel cold and uncomfortable and the winter became unbearable as it seemed to be able to make the cold seep into his bones further and easier.
He shivers just thinking about it.
A steady stream of engineering cadets pours out of the classroom, chatting about their latest assignment or whatever else. Hunk was not in sight. But as more cadets filter out, he’s able to hear muffled words clearer. “Wow…I can’t…thank you, sir! I won’t let you down! I- uh I’ll apply tonight!”
Mr Sibari chuckles softly. “You can send me your application once you’re done with it so I can check it over.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah of course. Bye, Mr Sibari!” Hunk speeds out of the room to a waiting Lance, clutching a sheet as if his life depended on it. Lance has always been jealous of Hunk’s engineering teacher Mr Sibari. He was a relaxed teacher, one of the ones who did something fun at the end of the semester and year. He was kind and understanding. All of Lance’s pilot teachers had a stick up their ass, they couldn’t care less about why the assignment was delivered late. Only that it was late and what the punishment would be. Even if aliens kidnapped you, they would still say “Detention on Friday.” Hunk got lucky.
He came to him, star-gazed and with a wide smile. “What’s got you so happy, bud?” He thrusts his crinkled paper and starts gushing. “Well, you know the Paladins of Voltron?”
“Duh, who doesn’t know them?! Those guys are my heroes. Especially Takashi Shirogane! That guy’s my hero! He’s the only human to ever become a paladin. I also like Xuun as well…” he took a look at the paper finally.
“Well, they’re retiring and uh, they’re opening up the applications for it. And, um, Mr Sibari thinks that I should apply…” Lance’s jaw dropped. Teachers didn’t give that out frivolously. Only the best and brightest and sometimes the hardest working got recommended for this. As far as Lance knew, Takashi Shirogane was the only human to ever become a Paladin. Not to mention that it was all due to coincidence.
And Hunk had been recommended. Lance put on his best and biggest smile. “That is so cool, dude. What paladin do you think you’ll be?”
“Lance, you know I probably won’t get past the first trial…If I could, I would love to become the Green or the Yellow Paladin.”
He gives a grin. “You’d definitely suit it. Your heart’s as big as the sun and your brain is as big as the moon. You’ll definitely become a Paladin. At the very least a helper. And I, Lance also known as the Tailor because of how I thread the needle, will be your aide. I’ll be your fellow Paladin.” Or a helper. Rung in his head.
Hunk got flustered, appreciating the compliments but he adds jokingly, “You’ll make a great Paladin once you learn to stop crashing.” They both start laughing. It dies down when they see a small crowd up ahead. They surround one guy, and multiple people sing his praises about how ‘talented’ he was, that fate had chosen him.
James Griffin.
James was the one at the top. People called him a great leader. He was a talented pilot but also someone who preferred to stick to the book. He sometimes lashed out at others when they did a different way to his method. He never intentionally caused harm. He unintentionally caused harm. Usually by using his stupid mouth and saying his thoughts without a filter. There was a smidge of cockiness that came with James. People had high expectations of him. It could be expected. Good looks and high grades and great leadership. People expected him to be an admiral. And now it seems that people expected him to be a paladin.
James was an above-average pilot, in Lance’s humble opinion. He wasn’t a god, delivering water in times of droughts, he was just a pilot. Just a human. In comparison to Keith…well, he was an amateur. Any manoeuvre he did became nothing special when Keith did it. He would execute it perfectly and James’ version made it look like he was halfway through learning it. Keith was the perfect pilot.
Except for the fact that Keith was very unsocial and had a discipline issue (as Commander Iverson put it) and had a mullet, so he wasn’t that popular. (Although it seemed as though only Lance didn’t like his mullet, and some said that it wasn’t even a mullet). Keith was the perfect pilot. He was not, however, a perfect human being. When he was expelled, James took up the empty space with his slightly above-average piloting skills, with a little more charm and no record of fighting with another student. The people sucked it up immediately.
They overheard a sentence or two as they stuck to the outskirts. Neither of them wanted to get sucked up by this black hole. “Yeah, Captain Barnett recommended it to me.”
“What paladin do you think you’ll be?”
“I may not become a paladin y’know. But I could become the Black Paladin. It would be an honour if I could.” James shrugged. As the people lauded him as though he were a saint delivering news that would save them all.
Lance looks away and keeps on walking. “We’ll sneak out later. To the kitchens, if you want.” And Hunk looks as though Lance gave him the universe. And he smiles and raises a metaphorical glass to his friend’s happiness.
~
They return from their rendezvous, Lance even helping Hunk start off his application before bidding him goodnight. Now, Hunk lay in bed, deep in sleep, oblivious to Lance still being awake. He sits in their dark dorm room, the only light obvious is from a bright screen as he begins writing his application.
Before he clicks send, he thinks of sending it to a teacher. They would most likely have a sort of pitying look, an “Oh, you’re thinking of applying here…” sort of vibe. Perhaps a little warning statement about it, that he should be ready to accept failure. As if that wasn’t what every teacher had ever told him in the Galaxy Garrison. That he should prepare for failure. That it was inevitable.
If he sent it via email, depending on the teacher, they could easily ignore him. That it was buried beneath the flood of emails and that they would respond soon.
Fuck it.
He sends it and leans back in his chair and looks up at the dark ceiling with swirling monsters hidden in the darkness. Pidge had also gotten a recommendation from his teacher. He gets that Pidge and Hunk are super geniuses and all and they do work hard in lessons, but he also works hard. Sure, he wasn’t Keith’s level or even James’s level, but he still works hard.
And then his mind flashes a memory from the previous week to him.
“I thought I told you to study, Lance.”
“Mrs Stanton, I-I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve bee- I’ve been studying every day ever since you told us about the test…”
She looks down at his test, being gripped tighter the longer she stares at it. She looks away and huffs. “And what is your definition of studying? Because it’s not studying for five minutes and then playing with your mates. I refuse to believe that you did actual studying just to get a D.” Lance shrinks in, he’s just a child at that moment who’s full of ignorance and naivety that’s being scolded for something he did wrong. He promises that he’ll study more, that he’ll do better.
At least she had never outright told him that he would fail. She had thought that this problem was a quick fix. Just get him to study. Lance swore up and down that whatever study method he tried never worked: his mind had a different way of memorising stuff and forcing it through some of these methods of studying didn’t work very well.
And so, he changes into his pyjamas, pushing down the painful memories to the back of his mind. He relives some of the better memories of his time at the Galaxy Garrison. Like whenever they snuck out and didn’t get caught…one night he was able to find a great gift for his mama in the city nearby. Lance had done his facial routine earlier (he’d never miss it on purpose), under the guise of going to bed. So, he lays in bed and tries desperately to sleep and to dream of nicer things, not of a mullet or lions or his friends leaving him behind as they soak up glory while he remains a nobody.