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Allura thinks of him—the boy she met so long ago and yet not so much, time a deceptive thing—and remembers the arms she fell into, unfamiliar at the time, as were those ears—strange, utterly so—and she thinks of pickup lines, how there must have been an entire part of his brain dedicated to them with often they fell from his lips.
She thinks of agitation, nights spent wondering if these paladins really could achieve what her father set out to, bringing peace to the universe, when most were immature, the blue one especially, so close in age, and worlds apart with everything else.
She thinks of Lance, of everything that he was back then, the face he wore—obnoxious, carefree—and wonders just when this feeling entered her heart, when mild distaste gave way to admiration and affection, something childish and spirited creeping there as if she had time to find someone to fancy, a teenager in a school, and not the soldier princess she is, caught in a war that is more than her own wants.
Wonders when his presence became one she sought out, dear to her this teammate, this friend, this confidant, this Lance who has become everything that fondness can provide.
Wonders when it became something she might call love, so strong in Allura’s heart she cannot deny it, not when it is so obvious now, every beat so clamorous she’s sure everyone can hear it, her feelings stuck on a loudspeaker. Love—she has that in abundance with him, glad to have Lance in her life, to have people like the paladins, to be family where she had lost it. But there’s something different with him, an intensity to it, one that invites risk, in jumping into open space for a life that isn’t your own. Allura has sacrificed, has done so, but the loss of him brought her a terror not even she can quite express, his life something else, cherished in a way that plants buds in her heart.
She wonders, but there is nothing to pinpoint, nothing at all. Just a gradual descent. Allura did not trip and fall as when Lotor had ensnared her with his charms, but walked, walked and oh—how blissful that walk had been, to look around and realise that she wanted him as her destination, hands entwined in a union as one. Because this is Lance, and there is something so genuine to him, his loyalty and kindness such strengths in a universe battered and bruised, and what a gift it is to see that, to experience that, his support a pillar she can lean upon. Allura sees greatness there, and wishes, not for the first time, there could be a way for her father to see him, to realise that that spark is continued in him, a pilot of the same lion who tries and tries and tries to do what’s right.
Allura loves him, values him, adores him, but there is no place for that daydream, not here in the thick of bloodshed. Not now when Earth is hanging in the balance, when Lance could lose the very home that she had lost. Not now when they have a mission.
It comes first.
But maybe theirs is a future that could be fought for, maybe one quintant if what the mice said still holds true there will be time for them, and that dream in her heart can come true. Peace, with him. It sounds delightful.
So—
“I wanted to say, stay safe out there,” she says up to him, face aflame, and hopes with everything in her heart he does.