Chapter Text
Large, blue waves crash against the cliff he stands on. His clothes flow through the wind, making him feel almost weightless. The sun heats his skin pleasantly, bringing a genuine smile to his face. A figure walks up next to him, radiating heat and calm, instantly expelling all the tension from his body. As they stand hand in hand, watching the sunset from the cliffs, he realises that he finally found it – home.
“Rise and shine, Your Highness!” a voice chirps, accompanied by the sound of scurrying footsteps.
The young prince groans as sunlight suddenly floods his room, straight into his closed eyes. Maybe if he lies still enough, he can convince this traitor he’s actually dead. It seems to work, as the feet that have been running around his quarters still. He almost accepts his victory until he’s being levitated off his bed and onto the floor, falling flat on his ass.
“Allura, what the heck?” he whines, rubbing his back.
“My apologies, Prince Lance, I was simply making sure you were still alive, as per my duties as your caretaker.”
Lance hates how well she knows him, having been his unofficial nanny and alchemy teacher for over a decade at this point. Allura is the best healer and alchemist in all of the Altean Kingdom, making her the royal family’s first choice in teaching their heir to control his abilities.
Lance developed his powers at age nine, when he discovered he can connect to the minds of living creatures. Whether it be animals or other people, Lance, with Allura’s help, learned how to create a sort of mental bridge between his own consciousness and others’. It’s not mind reading or telepathy, but closer to an emotional connection – two minds melding into one, sharing feelings, motivations, ideas.
Allura flashes him a perfect, innocent smile, turning to place his robes in a neat pile on the bed. As always, her mind remains closed off to Lance outside of their lessons. Not that the prince necessarily wants to invade her mindscape (although, he has to admit he had a bit of a crush on her as a young boy), but he likes how his mind link allows him to feel closer to people.
“You can tell I’m alive from two kingdoms over,” the prince mumbles and pulls himself off the floor with a groan. “Alright, I’m awake. Now get out so I can change,” he says, already taking off his silky blue pyjamas in favour of his royal garments.
“As you wish,” she singsongs. “Breakfast is ready in ten doboshes.” And then she’s rushing out, leaving Lance to get dressed.
His everyday robes consist of a periwinkle blue high-neck vest with gold seams, matching fitted trousers, dark blue sleeves that go past his elbows and boots of the same colour. It’s nice, comfortable and it compliments Lance’s eyes, if he does say so himself.
He eyes the capelet, still folded neatly, untouched. He’s not the biggest fan of it, if he’s honest, thinking it makes his arms appear lankier than they are, but he wants to avoid getting scolded by Allura again, so he succumbs to throwing on the smooth material.
As he does every day, he scrutinises his reflection in the mirror before turning to the earrings carefully laid out on top of his vanity. Its jewels glisten as they catch the morning rays. Lance fastens them to his ears with practiced hands: blue studs in his lobes and two gold rings on his right ear. He smiles, almost subconsciously. He will never forget the day he got them, the way the giver looked at Lance, cheeks darkening, ears burning as the soft glow of the moon illuminated his face…
A loud knocking suddenly echoes through the room, startling Lance out of his reverie.
“Oh, heavens,” he whispers to himself. “Come in!” he says a little louder, walking towards the door.
Speak of the devil.
His personal guard enters, body stiff and poised for battle at all times. Lance really thinks he should learn to relax every once in a while.
“Your Highness,” the guard bows deeply, but Lance can see the subtle upturn of his lips even with the way his hair falls in waves in his face, obscuring his expression. Lance snickers.
“Please rise, my good sir,” the prince drawls in an exaggerated posh voice. “What news hath you brought me this fine day?”
The guard’s eyes glint with amusement as he stands to his full height, only a hair taller than the prince himself, his bulky black armour adding to the effect, making him appear even bigger. Lance quivers in his capelet.
“I have come to escort His Highness to the dining room as per His Highness’s request.”
Lance bristles.
“Hey, now! I did not ask you to walk me anywhere, Mullet. I am making sure my favourite guard doesn’t die of starvation while protecting me from enemy assassins!” He eyes the man wearily, already knowing he probably skipped dinner yesterday in favour of training late into the night again. He’s been doing that a lot recently, so Lance vowed to himself to make them eat together from now on – clearly a necessary precaution.
“Aw, I’m your favourite?” His grin pisses Lance off, and he rolls his eyes.
“Ugh, of course, that’s what you focus on. Let’s just go, Keith, I have a meeting soon and if we’re late again, Coran will have to give us that super boring lecture on ‘responsibility’ again.” The prince moves towards the door, Keith trailing behind him.
“You’re right, that was excruciating.”
“Not as excruciating as your hair!” he can't help the childish jab tumbling out of his mouth.
“That doesn’t even make sense, Lance!”
“You don’t make sense!”
They continue bickering through breakfast. They were, in fact, late to the meeting.
The laminated wood of the ornate table splinters where Lance digs his nail in between its filaments. Listening to the incessant droning of his court circling the same issue on corn scarcity for the fifth time this week is not how he wanted to spend his day. Distracted, he glances past Allura’s cascading silver locks through the large window that opens into the castle’s courtyard. Dancing expertly through different fighting stances, Keith spars with Shiro, – their head military commander. His feet are light on the grass as he weaves in and out of each jab, looking as graceful as he does deadly. It’s always been hypnotic to watch him in his element.
Someone clears their throat, snapping Lance out of his trance. He whirls around to see Allura staring at him with a teasing glint in her eye. She nods her head toward the rest of the table, where ten pairs of judging eyes scrutinise him.
“Prince Lance,” a member of the court calls to him.
Lance straightens in his seat as much as he can, putting his best regal face on. He knows some of them still underestimate him, given his young age, but he’s a grown-up, okay? He’s nearly twenty-two! That’s marrying age! He can handle this stuff, it just…bores him sometimes. Sue him for not wanting to be stuck in meeting rooms for the rest of his life discussing corn.
“Yes?”
“What is your position on executing the Galra rebels we spotted outside city walls last night?”
Allura tenses next to him.
Someone scoffs off to the side. The prince whips his head towards the person – Lord Something-or-Other – with a barely restrained scowl. The man briefly adjusts his collar, which is obviously too small on him, his neck bulging between the fabric. Talk about someone who never grew out of his “glory days” and now thinks he’s smart enough to know what’s best for Lance’s kingdom.
“Are you certain you want to ask him? You know his personal guard is one of them. He’ll probably have the rebels pardoned,” he gargles, the chair creaking as he sits back in masked mockery. Lance prays the chair collapses under the weight of his overinflated ego.
The prince clears his throat, and everyone shifts their focus back to him. Some look vaguely nervous to hear his response, while others subtly lean forward, eager to catch him slip up in his loyalty to the Crown.
“Firstly, that is His Highness to you, Lord. I suggest you use the same level of respect for me as I do for you, unless you want my guard to extract you from the Castle of Lions,” Lance grits, fingers clasped tightly together in thinly veiled restraint.
Lord Dickface’s constrained neck turns a bright shade of red at the reprimand.
“And second, my guard does not belong to the Galra Empire. He belongs to the people of Marmora, who, might I remind you, have been invaluable in our war against the Empire.” He feels a wave of annoyance and shame emanate from the man that nauseates him. People with particularly unpleasant auras tend to have that effect on him.
“Apologies, Your Highness,” he mumbles between his teeth, clearly displeased, but not willing to argue the point to treason.
They move on to other matters after that, and the meeting swiftly ends before Lance gets the chance to claw his eyes out.
When the nobles filter out, Lance slumps back in his seat at the head of the table, lolling his head dramatically to look at Allura, who hasn’t stopped frowning since the Lord’s stunt earlier.
“Well, that could’ve gone better,” he says, sight drawn to the window again.
“Could’ve gone worse, too,” she responds, trying to smooth over the freshly picked scabs of the meeting.
Tensions have been rising the past year between Altea and the Galra Empire, and Lance somehow found himself lost in the centre of it all. Following the death of his mother, and the worsening illness of his father, Lance was thrust into the complicated political climate between the two kingdoms with little time to prepare. He knew his time to rule would come one day, he just wasn’t expecting it to come so soon.
More and more Galra spies were being discovered within the city, and an even greater number of rebels lurked outside its limits with every passing day. His people were growing anxious, rumours damn near painting him as an Empire sympathiser, and his own inner circle of politicians are restless to fight back the encroaching Empire forces.
Prince Lance, with his charming looks and charismatic manner of speech, used to be the people’s choice, frequently going into town to mingle with the locals. These days, he rarely leaves the castle grounds, in part, unfortunately, because of Keith. Even though he didn’t outwardly resemble a purebred Galra, his heritage was somehow leaked, and the news spread quickly through the kingdom once he was appointed as the prince’s personal guard three years prior. Let’s just say, people were not immediately receptive to it. Now, Lance could almost feel something terrible brewing, and the inevitability of it blowing up in his face was palpable.
Vexed, Lance groans and moves towards the windowpanes to watch Keith slouched on the grass sipping water. Even from up here, he could see the small rivulets of sweat cascade down his muscular arms. As if Keith could hear the lustful direction the prince’s thoughts have turned, he looks up and easily meets Lance’s gaze. A self-satisfied smirk graces his lips when he spots his admirer, and Lance feels the smugness radiate off him even at this distance. Almost teasingly, he slowly rolls his shoulders before getting up and walking out of sight. Lance’s cheeks burn at being caught staring, while his chest seizes in excitement.
But it wasn’t always like this.
When they first met, Keith and he were constantly at each other’s throats, and Lance could barely stand five doboshes in the same room as him without goading him with some immature insult. But even he couldn’t deny the inexplicable connection the two immediately shared. Perhaps it scared Lance a little to feel this deep of closeness with someone he just met, to have it thrive without him even needing to use his powers. And perhaps that fright led him to push Keith away at first, to be rude and condescending.
His efforts quickly backfired, however, once the hurt and disappointment Keith expelled began overwhelming his senses at all hours of the day and the guilt did its best to keep him awake at night. So, with his tail between his legs, Lance called a truce, and he’s not too proud to admit (at least not anymore) that it was the best decision he’s ever made. Their connection fused them together perfectly, made them unstoppable when they teamed up against rookie soldiers during training and earned them frustratingly suspicious looks from their friends.
Letting out a measured breath, Lance looks over his shoulder at Allura, whose attention sat already on him, attuned, as always, to his moods, and he knew she could sense the shift in his lovestruck spirit to one of embarrassment. Thankfully, she chose not to call it out this time, but Lance has had years of teasing from her to make up for it, so he’s less appreciative of her silence than he, perhaps, should be.
“Would you like to join me for tea?” she asks with a gentle smile instead, snatching his hand without awaiting his response and leading him towards the door.
His shoulders untense, and he follows her out of the room with a chest lighter than it’s been all day.