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Altean-Human Hybrid Lance

So there's some awesome Altean Lance fic and headcanon out there. But it’s usually either an AU where Altea still stands, or if it’s in the VLD ‘verse, it’s being frozen with Allura and Coran(such as in the Warmth series on Ao3) or from modern Altean rebels out in the galaxy(Altean rebels verse by @thatgirlonstage). But @powerfulweak got me thinking about Altean-Human Lance, as a way to explain Altean Lance, but still with all the charming Garrison and Hunk-best-bros backstory and family that real Lance has. So I have another fun head-cannon ‘verse to throw out there for people to play with if they want. It starts with answering two questions I had from season one.

What does Blue even look for in a paladin, why didn’t Allura ever go back and explain Blue’s preferences after Lance interrupted her with his theory that he was chosen for his handsomeness?

What happened when Blue ended up on earth, 10,000 years ago?

(Warning it got a teensy bit out of hand at this point in my head, so...here be a wall of Sad Blue and lost paladins and baby Lance text.)

So what does Blue want? Why did Allura let Lance throw off her arguably important presentation?

Allura didn't tell them why Blue chose Lance because she didn't know. She was in the middle of her generic spill about what each Lion wanted, as it had been taught to her, and as Lance interrupted her, she had time to think about what she was about to say, and how it would be taken. Because, unlike the other four lions, who have each have wandered far and wide from Altea in search of a paladin of any species who might have the traits they seek, Blue has never chosen a non Altean. She has never even deviated from a particular Altean family, whose founder was the head engineer of those who built her. He always considered her part of his family, and his children loved her as one of their own. When not in the Castle of Lions she was at their family palace, her home on Altea, a home crawling with generations upon generations of HER Alteans. A palace with giant entrances and wide open courtyards sized for a giant metal lion to mingle with every aspect of their lives. A place where the youngest of her family grew up climbing in/on her, while their uncle or father or mother or sister or cousin, whoever was Blue’s current pilot, watched with an indulgent smile. A family that took its meals with her, that celebrated its holidays with her, that entrusted their children to her, knowing they were safe scrambling up the metal giant. Not knowing they were eager to play with her, knowing one day she'd select from one of those children, and only from among those children to fly her. A family that knew she was as much theirs as they were hers. Allura didn't know how to finish the explanation to Lance because she realized the only answer she had was that Blue chose for family, HER family, for someone who valued closeness, who treasured her as she treasured them. How could she finish by telling Lance that Blue had chosen him because there was no one for her to choose, and Allura had no idea WHY she even had chosen him in first place? In her mind the only possible explanation is Blue had no one left to pick with her entire Altean family of choice gone and telling Lance Blue had picked him because, he was there, was hardly a message to instill confidence in one of her new paladins. Better to just ignore his response, throw a disdainful glare, and move on as if insulted, without ever bothering to explain the important role the Blue Lion carried for Voltron, as she had for each other Lion.

So that answers question 1, but what about the other. In this headcanon, Blue crashed on earth 10,000 years ago. So what was going on with earth when Blue landed and where? I think with the Garrison and Keith's shack, in this theory they are located in a desert in North America, probably Arizona/Nevada. She would have crashed in 9-8000 BC. It was the tail end of Earths most recent glacial ice age. In North America the Lithic Stage was in progress, a time of stone tools and cave painting and previously nomadic migration of Paleaoamericans, slowly turning into sedentary tribes and giving rise to population increases. And it’s near one of those not quite nomadic, not quite sedentary groups that often settles in a series of caves, that Blue lands.

Blues last paladin accompanies her on her mission final mission from Alfor. Alfor had been clear that Blue was to be sent to hide, to wait for who knows how long, and her Paladin couldn’t stand the thought of any one member of their family, even if that member was a sentient ship, being abandoned alone. So her Paladin joined her and now it’s the two of them, alone together. The paladin may possibly be the last Altean for all they know. It was all unclear, the imminent fate of their kind, when their king had sent them away from a losing war. There are too many Ifs. If their king hadn't managed to save his daughter no one may ever find Blue and the other Lions. If the Galra aren't merciful, Altea, their home may be destroyed. If their people didn't flee, if they didn't hide, their species may be obliterated. The only near certainty is that the Paladin is almost surely the last of their family. Save for Blue. Zarkon knows everything about his paladins, about his Lions, his Team. Zarkon knew Blue’s preference, her strength, and her weakness now that they are opposed. The paladin knows, that their family estate would have been the first place Zarkon sent his people when they took Altea. It would be the first place razed when Zarkon finds no trace of Blue. And if Zarkon couldn’t find Blue, then the Paladin knows that their family will be the first Alteans Zarkon hunts down. That even if their siblings and cousins and nephews and nieces hide, bounty hunters will chase down and wipe out every berry and branch of their line, to make sure that if the lions are ever reassembled, there will be no pilot for at least one of the lions.

But Blue’s paladin and Blue aren’t alone. There are bipeds on earth. They aren’t advanced but they are sentient. So Blue’s paladin shifts forms and joins them, when the silence gets to loud. Trades stories and tales with them. Adds their own carvings to the caves where the bipeds tell their own tales. Falls in love with one of them who stares at the stars with a reverence that reminds Blue’s paladin of nights spent on the Castle of Lions, watching the galaxy pass by the windows outside. With a human whose curiosity for knowledge and all the stories the Paladin can tell is unending. And eventually they have a child. Only one, for Alteans are not fruitful, they never have been, Perhaps that’s why even with the age of their race, even with the fact that they are more ancient than most other aliens, their numbers are fewer than the Galra, their worlds number only one, and when that one is conquered, their people fade so fast. So as their first, and only child, is introduced to Blue, the Paladin is overjoyed to see that Blue recognizes their child. That even if the blood is diluted, even if only half the quintessence within is Altean, Blue stills knows family and still recognizes the next generation. After all of her paladin’s fears, Blue would be left alone, at long last there is hope. There are small hands, climbing Blue just as countless Altean children’s hands have in generations past. And if the hands are shaped blunter, if the arms and legs are shorter, and the small ears that lay against Blue’s arms, falling asleep to the rumbling purr of her content engines, are rounder than the ears of children past, if all of it is not-quite-the-same, Blue seems not to care. It’s the first time Blue’s Paladin feels hope that with their passing Blue won’t be the last of their family, left alone.

And the Paladin does pass. And for a second Blue wants to claim her new Paladin, the small, rounded eared child that mourns their parents passing even as Blue does. Even with the countless miles from Altea, Blue knows there is only one being left alive to be her Paladin, and that child is as alone as she is. But Blue knows the other Lions slumber. That Zarkon still hunts and if Zarkon finds her now, Zarkon will find her alone with a half-Altean babe as her Paladin, a babe with no understanding of the knowledge and heritage of their race, or the weight of an entire empire that would fall upon them with only the stone weapons and Blue herself to stop them. So Blue doesn’t choose. Blue mourns her last Paladin and climbs into the deepest recesses of the caves and sleeps. And her only family left spends more time with their people, forgets some of the stories of their Paladin parent. They have a child, still only one, though they try for more. And they try to share some of the stories they learned from their own parent. And stories of their own childhood, of climbing a lion made of shiny stones that were warm, not cold as other stone, and that had a light of its own, not reflected white-bright l from the sun or orange from a fire, but Blue. Sometimes the child dreams of other things, things their parent hasn’t told them. Of Battles against mountains of metal floating in a sea of black, of spheres of colors, worlds filled with creatures and things they’ve never seen. Dreams of battles and wars and different family long lost but never forgotten, and not the same, but family still. Dreams from Blue herself, hidden deep in the mountains below the caves, half asleep, but still close enough to what remains of her family to know them, for them to know her on some instinctual, quintessential level.

As generations pass, the stories from parent to parent fade, the quintessence that is Altean becomes sporadic, flaring strong in some children and weak in others, but as long as they remain in the same caves, some of them still Dream, they add their carvings of things Blue has remembered from eras past or even things her quintessence feels of times to come.

Until something drives their tribe away. The seasons, the weather, a shortage of food, an interceding tribe, something sends them away from their caves to head south, deeper into the deserts, where the sun is hotter and the seasons warmer. And when they go, some of them go easily, remembering their nomadic roots and eager for the adventure and chance to explore a new home. But a few, a small few that are slightly taller, slightly leaner in frame, longer of leg, and higher in cheek, than the rest of the tribe, are hesitant. They run hands that are longer in fingers across slightly sharper ears and over slightly wider eyes, as they try to fend off the headaches they’ve been getting, the ones that have started since they began to prepare their migration from the caves. And when they finally leave, they cluster together in a pack, hands and eyes anxiously counting each other, and their loved ones, heavy in the heart and certain, somehow, that they even though they count true every time, that they are leaving someone behind.

Eventually what makes them different fades with enough generations. Their people move south, intermingle with new tribes, and move on, past other tribes. Sometimes they settle for generations, before moving, but some core of them can’t quite settle for good. Some small portion always feels there’s something missing, something they’re still looking for. And so some portion, those most in tune, carrying the most of Blue’s last Paladin, eventually they move on. When the sea to the east gives way to coats and mountains, and the lands stretches longer and longer they follow it. When the land at last gives way to ocean again, they go north, into the inviting blue of the sea, along the island chains that stretch across the Gulf. That thing that many of them now carry is diluted, it doesn’t always breed true even between two parents who both carry some small bit of that ancestry thousands of years back. But every now and then some of them are born a little taller and leaner than the rest, sometimes a birthmark appears under one eye or both of a child, a crescent like the waning moon. Sometimes an ear is round, but long, and eyes are shaped just a bit sharper on the outside but rounder on the inside then the others. But it’s just a lanky frame, a birthmark; long legs; strange eyes; sharp ears. This far from Blue that’s all it can be. There aren’t anymore Dreams about strange worlds and battles and flying beasts. There aren’t any more yearnings for missing family and a feeling of incompleteness. Not with her having slumbered so long. And when new travelers come from across the sea to their islands, bringing new illnesses and new peoples and new weapons, their numbers diminish, and so the number born different decreases as well, until it’s just a random genetic quirk, an anomaly that barely expresses itself.

And that’s all they can be. All they might ever have been until the first time Blue feels something stir her slumber. The technology has changed in 10,000 years. But even in her state some small portion of her can sense the signature of a Galran vessel, a small one, approaching the same planet as her. And for a few years her slumber is lighter, troubled. She feels a need to seek out her family, to protect them even though she doesn’t know where they are. She could feel her Altean kin from across the galaxy, felt them snuffing out one by one so long ago, till all she had left was Her Paladin, and then only child, and the grief hastened her to her sleep. But there are others now, a thousand times diluted but still carrying a trace. And they aren’t as far as Altea was. But even sharing the same planet, the quintessence is too different. She hasn’t known them all their lives, they haven’t climbed her sun-warmed back as children, and laughed and loved beside her as adults, they haven’t rested weary shoulders against her legs in their brittle old age, and passed away in their slumber under her shade as her Alteans did. They are family, but distant, unknown, and it makes them hard to sense. Still she reaches for them in her slumber to warn them that their ancient enemy, her ancient enemy is here. And far from her cave, across the dessert, across a sea, on an Island she’s never seen, some people start to Dream. And for two such people, among those who carry the gene strongest, the Dreams become impossible to sleep through, send them waking, into the night to stare at the stars and wonder what calls to them about those distant points of light. They wonder why they feel so alert on guard and full of adrenaline that they can’t even sleep a full night through. And during those restless walks, along the beaches of Veradero, the two of them meet, time and again. They give each other privacy for the first few times, but eventually they talk, of their shared admiration of the stars, of their shared love of the color blue, of their lives, and eventually in embarrassed voices they speak of strange Dreams and learn that those too they share. And in time they come to share something else. Love. And a son. They name him Lance. He is their first, but won’t be their last because amongst the things they’ve talked about from their shared Dreams, are dreams of stone walls filled with family and love. They’ve dreamed of the patter of small feet and childish voices raised high in laughter. Of little hands with long tan fingers climbing, resting, grasping against surfaces of shining blue and white. The Dreams have brought with them a longing, a yearning, burning need for family to hold, to protect, to cherish, to fill a loneliness they didn’t even realize existed. So they’ve discussed it and agreed and there will be more, eventually. And their first, Lance, is born while the Dreams still plague their nights and the quintessence in their veins is as close to burning as their human souls can manage. And Lance is a lean baby. Leaner than both his parents think any of the babies in their families have been, and sharper in his cheeks even through the little baby fat he has. He is longer of ear and finger than the other babies, and softer of eye. Compared to the other infants he looks just different enough, slender and delicate compared to the roundness of the others, different enough that he seems out of place, like the delicate changelings in fairytales left behind in cribs when the fae come to steal the human babes away. But these aren’t the most alarming difference. What worries his parents most is the presence of two crescent birthmarks, faint moons, one below each eye. They are almost bluish, like fading bruises marring his tan skin. Those cause worry, but the doctors assure them that sometimes children have them. While it’s a genetic rare condition it is not unheard of, at least not in Cuba. Some an ancestral quirk that can be found in rare occurrence all along the western and southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Usually it fades. If it bothers them too much there are surgeries that can be considered, when the boy is older, harmless but not recommended. They agree to wait and watch and soon their worries are lost in the delight that is Lance. Lance is a curious, noisy child, cooing and laughing at the oddest times, bright and friendly. He is capable of chattering in nonsensical baby talk non-stop with too-bright eyes and an excitable smile. He doesn’t even need his parents to talk to, he’ll talk to the stars, to the ceiling, to his stuffed animals. Sometimes, when the Dreams that stir them from their sleep are the saddest and loneliest, they’ll wake before his nightly feeding, they’ll wander in to find him mumbling and chatting in an almost consoling manner, muttering soothing sounds even in his sleep, his hands spread wide as if he’s reaching long, tan fingers out to something just beyond his sleepy grasp. And the doctor was right all along, the birthmarks did fade not too long after his birth. And even more fortunate for them, around the same time, the Dreams that have plagued them for years, stop as abruptly as they started. Blue has at long last relaxed back towards her deeper slumber as the threat has left at last. A few short years after it landed, the small Galran craft departs, taking with it its sole Galran pilot, but unknown to Blue it leaves behind a lover, a babe, and a blade.

Blue returns to her deeper sleep, not to be disturbed again till near two decades later. The edge of the solar system is far, too far for instant detection by human sensors. Far even for Altean sensors, or at least Altean sensors of a half asleep ship buried in a cave and out of use for almost ten millennia. But a Galra warship is no small thing. Even if they come no closer than the farthest planetoid in the system. Even if they stop at a small rocky planetoid that the Humans have named Kerebros and depart shortly after they came. She doesn’t notice what they’ve taken, and they are gone too quick for her to have awoken and stopped them, but her sleep is truly restless now. Not the sleep of an idle machine, but the calm tranquil state of a Lion entering its seeking state. Waiting for the right Paladin. But the first mind she senses to come close, is not Hers. She stirs, because the quintessence is bright, fiery bright, blazing hot, and it reminds her of her other Family, her Lion family, of Red. It has everything that might sync with a Lion and be worthy of Voltron, but still it is not hers, and there is Nowhere else left in the galaxy that Hers might be than here on this world, where the last of her organic family remains. And there are other things that cause her concern. This paladin is not of this world. Not wholly. There’s Galran in it and part of her senses that and thinks, enemy. Part of her remembers by whose hand her Altean family fell. But she also remembers other Paladins. Other Lions have chosen Galran before, and they were not always enemy. And this one is also half human, and in that way is unique, is as alone as her last Paladin’s child. Caught between two worlds but belonging to neither. He isn’t hers. He can’t ever be hers. But she is lonely, and he is lonely, and she recognizes the feeling, singing in his veins. She knows what that feeling is, of having someone you care for, having family taken away from you. So she reaches out some nights when he sleeps. She tries to soothe the mind and share the pain of the would-be-Paladin in the desert. He senses it and when he wakes he seeks out its source. He wanders mountains at the deserts edge, finds the ancestral homes of her Last paladin’s adopted tribe. Wanders the caves carved out by her first Altean-Human kin, filled with glyphs and stories of her past exploits and echoes of things to come carried back to her along the mystic flow of quintessence and fate that she was forged from. Sometimes he comes closer to her cave, but she grows quiet then, hidden. Keeps the carvings from singing out and glowing in accord with the strength of his quintessence. And he wanders away frustrated and confused at the silence in is mind. He knows there is something and he knows on some level its hiding from him and his frustration grows. But he is NOT Hers. And she will not leave without Hers, Not even to bring this one, so perfect, to her Red sister. She will get him, she won’t leave without him once she has Her Paladin, but she cannot, will not leave this cave, this place, till her family finds its way back to her. They left her here 10,000 years ago and she knows it’s here where they will find Her again.

Still, she is alert now and soon she feels another Alien ship racing towards the earth, towards the very desert she resides within. Her hackles rise when she feels the burn of Galran quintessence, a touch of druid magic woven into metal, but at the same time it is soothed by something else, something that reminds her of the leader of her Pack, of black metal and red wings. The combination of Galran and something that reminds her of Black is too much. Too reminiscent of Zarkon who betrayed them all. She reaches out to the would-be-Paladin in the Desert, the only one she knows. She warns him as best she can of what her sensors have seen. To warn it of danger. But the message is garbled through their incompatible bonds. The image is clear, a ship crashing in the desert, but the warning…the warning is lost. Or perhaps it senses the warning but rather than fleeing, rather than keeping safe, it runs towards it. If that is true, it truly is Red’s, and Red will weep for having lost the potential of this one, if it is harmed. But She can’t leave yet. It’s not the right time and her Paladin isn’t here.

Red’s would-be-paladin’s mind returns to its home unharmed, with the one that makes her think of Zarkon. That is concerting at first, but it grows less so. Away from the ship she can distinguish now, between pilot and vessel. There is still a touch of Galran there, but less than even is in the one who would be ‘Red’s’, and far less than would be in Zarkon. It still makes her think of the leader of her Pride, but now she recognizes it for what it is. This one would be Black’s she thinks. She isn’t sure. The Druidic taint and weapon leave it’s quintessence raw and exposed, open to reading even to her untrained sensors which have never sought beyond Altean quintessecnes. Still its’ difficult. But with the possibility of two potential Paladins, she is growing excited, she knows…she hopes, that this means that Something is Happening. That Her time may be coming at last. Half hopeful, half afraid she reaches out to the other organics with Red’s, there’s no maybe about that after its reckless race to the falling ship, and Maybe-Black’s. But they are human and their quintessence is different. Strange. If she was like her sisters, if she’d traveled far among the stars and the other races each time she had to search a new paladin, she might be able to read them. But every time, she sought only within Her family. When it came time to find a new Paladin she could only think of the hands she knew and loved, could only trust the quintessence and minds that had treasured her, loved her for as long as she’s loved them. Their alien quintessence twists and vibrates and glows and sings and reaches out to her in all the ways quintessence can be sensed, but she just doesn’t understand it enough. The only Quintessences she knows that well, understands intimately enough to read and KNOW, are Altean and Galran. Her Family and the race who she fought so hard so long ago, the race who took her Family from her. It’s frustrating…after 10,000 years she should have learned something of the humans, should know them well enough to look into their quintessence for the sorts of things her other sisters might seek, the kindness and curiosity that Yellow and Green have always craved, but she was asleep for so much of it. She only knows the trickles she’s sensed during her Dreams, when she feels the echoes of what her Family has become, in its time here, and even then she mostly feels the part of it that is Altean, and that part has become so diluted over time. For the first time in her wait she despairs, she wonders if she would even be able to sense Her Paladin at all, if enough of her first Family’s essence remains after 10,000 years of waiting, that she’d even know how to resonate, talk, and bond with one of Hers if they came right up to her. Will she ever again be as close to them as she was to all her Altean family, even those not chosen as Paladins, so long ago? While she despairs, the organics rest. At least the quintessence of Red’s calms and from that she assumes that the changes coming over the others is how a human’s quintessence shapes in rest. And just as she starts to give into to the worry and despair now that she doesn’t even have Red’s to watch over, she feels something. It’s light, soft…it’s a Dream but it’s not hers. At least she’s not dreaming it right now. It’s the sound of ocean waves through an open window, and tiny tan hands straining towards a ceiling above them. Towards the stars beyond that. It’s filled with the sounds a baby’s words, talking non-stop chattering and soothing, so bright you can hear the smile even if you can’t see it. And she realizes now, as she hadn’t when she’d been asleep two decades before, when she heard this last, that she can understand the intent, that the quintessence vibrating along with that voice had just enough of her family in it that she could understand the meaning. The infant during that time had been responding to Her. Her alarm. Her worry. To the alarm she’d been broadcasting to her family about the Galran scout ship. That the stream of nonsensical words and grasping arms had been reaching for her, to soothe her worries, with an infant’s drivel and a bright soothing smile in its mind. And it soothes her now as it had tried to do back then. Reminds her of other infants, resting or climbing her under an Altean sun with laughter and love. Remembers a half-Altean half-human baby, dressed in furs, dusting sand from her form and resting a pointed-yet-round ear on her forearm to laugh at her purr while her Last Paladin smiled at them both. In the desert beside her, amongst the three organics that accompany Red’s and Maybe Black’s, one of them is Hers. One of them is Family, and has been Family all its life. Knew her at its birth and on some level knows her still, knows her enough that in its sleep it recognizes her alarm and is trying to reach her the same way it did as a child.

She can’t contain her excitement. She tries to reach out, broadcasting the best way she knows, wants Her Paladin now. But she hasn’t done this in a very long time. And she’s never tried to form the bond with someone who wasn’t wholly Altean. The mind is willing, but overwhelmed and too far away, and she is hesitant to harm it. Frustrated, she tries to focus in, tries to narrow down which organic it is, but even as she sharpens her focus the signal fades. With her initial sorrow fading, the Dreamer has already receded into a deeper dream content that it has soothed her worries. It’s not acceptable. She’d fly to them, but that’s not how it’s done. That’s not how she’s ever done it. Red might. She could see Red breaking tradition and chasing her potential Paladin down and demanding a Bond, but Blue has always done things one way, one Family. And that way is simple. Blue waits at Home. Waits where Family knows to find you and calls them to her. Always before that was enough, in her home, in her manse, the Family members that knew her best, that loved her best, and heard her sorrow over the last paladin’s passing would hear her first, would always answer first, even as the rest of the Family came after to mourn the loss and celebrate the new. But Her Family doesn’t know her enough here and she doesn’t know them enough to reach that far. But this cave is where Her Family left her, and should know to find her, surrounded by carvings her first Human-Altean children made for her. While she struggles to contain herself, the sun rises. And still the organics sleep. And that’s Not Acceptable. Not enough. She might not know human Quintessence well-enough to reach out to them yet, but she knows Galra, and she knows Red’s, and maybe she even knows Maybe Black’s, whatever the druids did to it, the quintessence is responsive, has been forced to respond to some gadget or machine of druid make. And the sun is up, and Her Paladin is near, and they need to be AWAKE. And while the three she doesn’t know sleep on, Red’s and Maybe Black’s toss and turn, and feel the full weight of her attention, the insistent thrumming of her call, and awaken at last.

She is gleeful in her success at first, but too soon she is frustrated. The other three haven’t changed. Red’s and Maybe Black’s are awake, talking perhaps, but they haven’t woken the others. She tries again to press the urgency. Maybe Black’s doesn’t feel anything, but Red’s does. Or Blue thinks Red’s does. But Red’s isn’t paying enough attention. She tries to send images of the caves, of her cave, the one she’s always kept him from before, but Red’s mind is too excited, too distracted. She’s never tried to reach out to Red’s when they were this aware before. Always before it was when they were tired or despairing that she soothed their mind. When Red’s was awake and focused she was always subdued, hiding from his search.

So She waits. And She waits. And She is fast becoming fed up with Red’s. He has Her Paladin. He has Maybe Black’s. He has two other organics that may or may not be Yellow’s and Green’s. It can’t be coincidence that there are five of them, and three of them at least should be Paladins. It’d be interesting to wonder at the fates, to try and figure out the why’s and how’s of this moment. If she had any care for wondering. If any iota of her wasn’t burning with the fact that Red’s has Hers. This is more important than fact that he has her other three sisters Paladins. Even if he also had Zarkon himself captured, and perhaps had brought with him Alfor’s daughter, who even know she feels a tie to stringing into space, none of that would be more important that the fact that he has Hers, and he’s NOT bringing her Paladin to Her! She’s been sending him pictures of the caves he’s explored countless times, and he’s not listening.

At last she feels them come closer and as soon as she is soothed by the fact that they are headed straight towards her as unerring as a homing missile, she at last has time to grow anxious. It’s been over 10,000 years since she’s had a Paladin. She’s been in this cave a long time and She is not how she used to appear. She was always the best cared for of the Lions. The cleanest, the smoothest, the most polished and loved. While the other Lions had their Paladins to look after them, she’s always had an entire Family of willing hands to clean her and polish her, and care for her. Even those who weren’t paladins became engineers, tuned her and smoothed her. Caring for her was a task children fought over and elders took too with fond memory. She took pride in looking the best, because it was a sign, a visible symbol of how well loved she was. And now, Her Paladin is so close and she is in a cave. She is not polished. She is not in peak shape. Her joints are not well greased and there may actually be cobwebs and spiders in her head. There are certainly some between her body and her right foreleg. With a hasty movement she shakes her paw, disrupting the cobwebs. A shake of her head and a shimmy tries to get the most obvious dirt off. There’s a stream nearby, it’s part of why her Last Paladin chose this place for her to wait, water has always been her element. With a quick move she slips into the water, slipping out again as quick as she can and giving a shake. In the back of her head she senses they are getting closer, and she turns to the water again, letting her optical camera examiner her reflection. As satisfied as she can be she creeps back to her resting place. Laying down on all fours in a regal resting lions pose. A second later she changes her mind, she doesn’t want to look like She’s resting. She’s been doing that for 10,000 years. She wants her Paladin to see her looking Fierce. They weren’t raised on tales of her valorous battles as all her previous Paladins. She should make it clear how fierce she can be. Pushing her front half up on her forepaws she raises her right in an aggressive pose, metal claws exposed in a talon that has sliced countless enemy craft to ribbons in the past. She holds it until they are almost to her cave and then she changes her mind again. This pose is something Red would do always choosing aggression first. What if it sets the wrong tone? She’s not Red. She should look regal. Poised. A Guardian. Family is protection. Comfort. Pride. She lowers her right paw so both now rest in front of her and straightens her back, curling her tail, precisely and neatly. There’s some wet dirt visible on her front, from where her chest had been touching the ground after her hasty bath, and with a mechanical growl she shimmies as best she can, picking at it with one forepaw till the worst is off. She looks at the water a moment, tempted to dip in again and clean her front better, but there’s no time. They are in the cave. A hand trails the carvings, it is Red’s. She dismisses it almost petulantly. She didn’t let the quintessence in the carvings wake for him before and she’s certainly not going do it for him now. Not when he had had Her’s all morning and only just now, finally brought her Paladin to her. A metal hand runs along the cave wall, and the carvings, close enough that the druidic tech pulses, reaching for the quintessence left in the carvings that carries the echoes of her Last Paladins quintessence and that of his child and his child’s child, and all the first tribe of her Family. She stubbornly lashes back at the druidic magic, protecting the remnants of her family’s quintessence instilled carvings from its tendrils. Two more hands touch them in rapid succession and this close, she can feel their natures more clearly. The half-human nature of the quintessence in the carvings of Her last Paladin’s child helps translate what she senses when those hands touch, it gives her some understanding of them. But they’re not hers. She was right about them being Yellow’s and Green’s though. And that’s good, it’s nice to know that even as She won’t be alone neither will her siblings. She would have felt guilty if one of them was incomplete after all this time while she and Red both had-- A fifth hand touches the carvings on the wall and all thoughts of her Sisters fortune falls away.

She doesn’t have to tell the carvings to respond. She doesn’t even think of telling them not to. She’s not sure they’d listen to her if she did. The quintessence in them recognizes the quintessence in that fifth hand even better than she did. It recognizes the tiny Altean parts, and through it, at last so can she. But the quintessence instilled in the carvings recognizes more than she does. It also sings out in joy at the Human parts, knows that this Human is part of it, and belongs to it as much as the Altean parts. And somewhere inside, on some instinctual level, her Paladin knows it too. His hand is tracing the lines of a carving with familiarity. As if some part of him was there when it was carved, remembers the story, in truth some part of him was, some part of him does. And as they sometimes did for their original carvers, the carving lights up. And soon the others do to, they all resonate. They’ve been still so long and Blues been alone so long, and her joy is reflected in them, carried by them. And even as Her Paladin reels back in surprise she feels it. Some part of him is dancing too. Is resonating with the same joy, the same welcome, the same sense of Belonging. Her Paladins knows what is to watch little ones with guarding affection, to hold family close, to find those you care for them and treasure tem. Like calls to like, and Family knows Family. And she is Done Waiting. There’s a path, it curves along the cave, down to her, and she could easily light the carvings along it to guide them to her. That had been her Last Paladins intent originally. Of course that could also take forever. Red’s has proven to be slow in picking up cues. So has Maybe Black’s. They took all morning to get this far. And Blue finds she is not as patient as she should be. There is a faster way. It’s safe. Safe enough at least. And anyways, there will be healing pods at the Castle. The floor caves in as soon as all five are standing on the rocky floor that sits above the stream, plunging them into the waters that run right to cavern.

She’s not worried. Water has always been a friend of hers, and if they are Paladins they are durable. And this will get Her Paladin to her so much faster. And it is worth it when She sees Him at last. He does not look exactly like her Altean Family, he carries his humanity in him, on him. But seeing him beside other humans, she can see the similarities. She sees the echoes of his Altean ancestry, HER ancestry. And this close his quintessence dances and sings to her with as much familiarity and longing and friendliness as any of her Altean family ever did. She is so Grateful to have him. And is so Lucky to be His at Last. She has to hold back from abandoning her pose and leaping to him. She has to remind herself that there are other paladins in the cave that she could harm in her haste. She has to remember to follow protocol, meet him as she has met her past Paladins, with all the poise and dignity and honor he deserves. They both deserve this after so long. She should have all the pride of a Lion of Voltron, and he of a Paladin, show him how good she is, and how Good she will be for him just as she can already tell he will be so Good for her. He already has been, she remembers now how he tried to be Good for her before he even knew how to speak real words. The others stand up. At the last minute she breaks her attention from Her Paladin to realize others have moved closer to her …might reach her first, and that’s just…unacceptable. The shield is up in an instant. Just in time, as Red’s approaches her first. She can hardly believe Red’s has the audacity to attempt to reach her before Her Paladin after being so difficult all morning. He truly is Red’s paladin, unrepentant and poking his nose into the sacred meeting between She and Hers. He is fortunate she flashed the shield so quickly. Part of Her would have been amused to throw it up just as he reached its threshold, watching him fall back from the impact. She has a suspicion it would have pleased her Paladin if she had, she’s already getting better at understanding him, she has been from the moment his quintessence and hers started resonating through the medium of his ancestors carvings. She thinks from what she’s gathered, that he might have laughed if she’d humbled Red’s. That’s good. Her Family was filled with laughter once. That makes her regret her haste in flashing the shields even more. She would like to learn the feel of her Paladins amusement. To learn the way his quintessence moves and vibrates with each emotion, and the way his laugh sounds to her audio sensors. It has been a long time since she’s had a Paladin to feel the emotions of, since she’s had a family to share in joy and amusement with. He turns to Red’s, strutting and proud, moving past Red’s. She almost rips the shield down before he even reaches it, but she gets a hint of something from him. Intent. A desire to show off. A need to have Red’s acknowledge him. As if he would ever need Red’s acknowledgement, when he has Her. But Blue understands the need. Just like laughter, her family has always had its pride. Pride as the ones that Blue cared for most, chose from exclusively. But more importantly, her family has always bene proud of the fact that that no one else could care for Blue better than them. That no one else could lover Her better. So she understands the pride, and she thinks, she gets a sense of what he wants. Of how he wants the shield to come down. So when he reaches out one hand and makes some strange gesture, then at last she drops the shield, smoothly and instantly, in response to his actions, as if they were already perfectly in sync. She is glad they did it this way. It made it abundantly clear to ALL potential Paladins present that might want to rush forward and get their hands on her first, that it is His presence she’s responding to, and that He is the one that belongs to her. And She lowers her head, and for the first time in 10,000 years, Blue is whole.

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