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Coran tries to think of what to say as he heads towards Allura's chamber. He doesn't want to fight with her again, it's so emotionally draining. Her father could be stubborn, but she puts him to shame.
Allura sees him in the mirror of her dressing table, and her eyes narrow.
“Come to coddle me like a child again?” she demands testily, placing her hairbrush down with enough force that the mice around her jewellery box jump in fear. He winces.
“No... no, I haven't,” he replies. He folds his arms, keeps his gaze lowered. “I've just come to talk.”
Allura turns at that, studying him. It's clear she's uncertain what his intentions are, and it's painful to think she distrusts him right now.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asks warily.
“Shiro,” he says candidly. Allura crosses her arms and spins on her stool, away from him again. “Not like that,” he adds quickly. He crosses the room to the spare chair and draws it closer to her dressing table, sitting as close to her as he dares right now. “I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into.”
She looks at him, frowning slightly. “Do you think I'm still a child? Do you think I haven't been in relationships before?”
Coran sighs. Yes, sometimes he does still see the little girl. The little girl who'd lost her mother so young, that he'd seen grow up, that had hidden behind the legs of her father when they'd first met. The little girl he'd played tepnik games with, and chased round the castle gardens. The little girl he'd sworn to protect, who'd become like a daughter to him.
He remembers comforting her every time her heart got broken by some fool who didn't know what they could have had was so precious. He remember girls and boys, adolescent fancies he's not even sure can count as relationships, peppered across the galaxy, and sometimes that's all he can see. He knows with his mind that Allura is a grown woman, mature, capable of ruling with strength and wisdom and more than well-versed in the ways of her own heart, but... his heart still sees the little girl in Alfor's arms, smiling at him with radiant joy.
“I... do try not to,” he murmurs. “You're not a child, I know that.” He shakes his head. “I just worry. I don't want to see you get hurt.”
“Don't you trust Shiro?” she asks.
Coran wasn't expecting that question. He looks away, and what barges to the front of his mind, pushing all of Shiro's good traits out of the way, is that time when he returned without her. Coran recalls with cold, vicious clarity the utter horror when the Green Lion had returned with only five Paladins, and no Princess. It hadn't mattered that she'd forced him to leave by throwing him bodily into the escape pod. The thought of losing Allura had been more terrifying than anything, and it hadn't been easy to forgive, even if there had been no fault.
“I...”
And yet... Shiro is still the Black Paladin, and he is not Zarkon. He is brave, and a level-headed leader, an excellent fighter and a capable military man. Also, quite handsome, if Coran had any interest in aliens younger than himself. And this is still Allura's choice. He doesn't really have any place telling her what to do. No, the one man that could do that has been dead ten thousand years, and Coran can't even ask his memories for advice on how to be a father.
There's also one other problem concerning Shiro...
“Have you forgotten how short human lifespans are?” Coran murmurs. Allura stiffens, takes a sharp intake of breath. She's been trying not to think about it, obviously.
“When all this is over, and you've made it through, how long have you even got?” he goes on, and he's horrified with himself for even saying it, because to see Allura's heart broken again when she's already been through so much... He closes his eyes, wills the sorrow away.
He never had anyone to call arlnath, even though, if Alfor had survived... and here is his daughter, her heart completely given to a human, so fragile, so fleeting...
“You know, Shiro told me a story they have on Earth...” Allura says. She reaches out her hand and one of the mice hops into it, enjoying the scratches she gives it behind the ear. “It's about a war, much like this one, I suppose. And there's a man who is going to be king, if he can win the war. The woman he loves is of a race that lives forever, and in order for them to be together, she has to decide whether to become mortal, or leave the land he's fighting for and never see him again.” She turns to him. “I think you can guess what she chooses.”
Coran sighs again. He holds out his hand, and she allows him to press both of his around hers. “What a convenient legend,” he chuckles sadly. Allura smiles.
“I thought that, myself,” she admits. “But... please, Coran, understand that I can't control how I feel.”
“I know, I know perfectly well...” He shakes his head - it's not as if he doesn't know how love works. “You love him, I know.”
She nods. He hears a sniff, and when he looks up, there are tears in the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall. That's the last thing he ever wants to see. She's cried too much already.
“No, no, no, Princess, sweetheart, no...” He gently cups her face and wipes her tears away with his thumbs. “No tears.” He kisses her gently on the forehead. “Your father would kill me if he knew I'd made you cry.”
Allura lets out a watery chuckle. Coran smiles sadly, takes her hands in his now that the tears seem to be abating.
“He'd like Shiro,” he says. “A warrior, a Paladin, a good man... he'd like him a lot.” In truth, there's quite a bit Alfor and Shiro would have had in common. A lump comes to Coran's throat. “He'd be proud of your choice.”
Allura practically beams at him, and it's worth it, so worth it, to see her so radiant. That's when the little girl shines through, the young princess who'd never seen the horrors of war, who ran around the castle and got into mischief, the little girl Coran had grown to love like his own.
“Thank you, Coran,” she murmurs.
Coran finally feels he can breathe again. Seeing Allura sad, knowing she thought he didn't respect her... that was painful. He never wants to see her like that again.
That doesn't mean he isn't going to talk to Shiro as well.
Coran finds him in the training room, tearing a gladiator bot apart with a methodical dedication that Coran sometimes finds disconcerting.
“You should go a little easier on the gladiators,” Coran remarks. “We don't have an infinite supply.”
The robot crashes to the floor in a twisted, sparking mess of broken circuits and dented metal. Shiro has the good grace to look embarrassed.
“Sorry about that.” He flexes his hand, and it stops glowing. He seems nervous, as if Coran's presence is somehow threatening.
Coran clears his throat. “I wish to discuss something with you. If you'd walk with me.”
Shiro hesitates for a tick, but then follows. “This is about Allura, I'm guessing,” he says.
“You'd be correct.”
They walk in silence a moment longer, and Coran doesn't know whether it's because he wants to see Shiro squirm, or because he genuinely doesn't know how to put his feelings into words. To his surprise, Shiro is the first to break the silence.
“I know how important Allura is to you,” he says. “Please don't think I'm trying to take her away, or that I don't care about her as well.”
“I never thought that,” Coran lies glibly. The cold, crippling dread when Allura was captured is still fresh in his gut... but he also knows Shiro. “I'm not jealous, just worried.”
“I'll try my damnedest not to do anything to hurt her...”
Coran cuts him off before he can continue, “Just promise me one thing, Shiro... that you won't abandon her again.”
Shiro's fists tighten. “I didn't want to,” he says, teeth gritted, voice strained. “I would have stayed. She didn't let me.” It is clear that the weight of what he perceives as a failure is still heavy.
Coran sighs. He knows perfectly well how it went, how brave his princess it. “That's my only condition,” he says. Shiro nods, once.
“I'll try,” he says. And though Coran would prefer the platitude a promise could bring, he at least admires Shiro's honesty.
He's very tired. He hasn't set foot in this part of the castleship for a while, and he knows why. Seeing the shattered glass, still strewn across the floor, the glow of memories dimmed forever, is painful. He steps forward, careful to avoid the glass, and presses a button.
Nothing happens. There is no sudden rush of artificial reality showing him the silver and blue thyrox trees in the Forest of Mahorat. And no hologram of Alfor to offer the slightest comfort anymore.
Coran sighs. He sits on the base that once held King Alfor's memories, stares at his gloved hands.
He tries not to let anyone see his own pain. He tries to be strong, not only for Allura, but for the Paladins as well. They're all so young, they need so much guidance, someone older to lean on... but who does Coran himself have to lean on, now that Alfor's shadow is gone?
“I'm trying,” he murmurs, and even though his voice is soft it echoes painfully around the chamber. “I swore I'd keep her safe, and I'm trying. But she's not a child anymore.”
He closes his eyes, and his memory hazily supplies what would have been given by technological smoke-and-mirrors.
He can see the thyrox trees, with their lofty height and their blue leaves strewn on the forest floor, testament to autumns past. He remembers the summer castle, the way Alfor had looked at him, held hands and a sudden discovery of something Coran had never previously hoped for.
He'd never been arlnath to the King, but he had been sheonath, and being a comfort was more than he'd ever anticipated. Just knowing that his longing wasn't one-sided anymore...
“If only you were here to tell me what to do,” he says. “She was never meant to be without you.”
But there is no answer, and there never will be again. There is only silence, and it is into that silence that Coran finally allows himself to weep.
He can seen how the threads of the future are being woven, not only between Shiro and Allura, but between Keith and Lance as well. They're going to fall into place, like puzzle pieces, with the sort of bond only war can forge. And he muses, as he attempts to sew the shreds of his heart back together, for now, to just stay strong for as long as he can, that love is for the young.