they meet up with keith's mum in monster club... how does it go down?
you know, i don’t think we’ve ever talked much about the BoM in the monster club? maybe we’ve mentioned it before but they’re probably important for understanding Krolia’s situation in the monster!verse.
so, the BoM. and Fae courts. Fae magic is tied to blood and bloodlines, just as Hellmagic is, which is why Keith’s blood is so funky--he’s got both types of magic in his blood and sometimes they just duke it out and he dies for a bit, you know how it goes. the thing with Fae magic, though, is that it ties Blood to Nature, often in an almost literal way (hence why there are nyads and dryads and all kinds of nature spirits that are almost One with their habitats). Allura and Coran are tied to the Castle, which is itself a living thing. Allura inherited the crown title of the Altean Court when her father died, which means she has an INCREDIBLY strong connection to the Castle, and through the Castle, to any remaining members of the Altean Court (there are only a handful of them. I think at this point Slav has become an Altean, and there are a handful of teeny spirits, aka the mice, still around) (whoa okay just imagine if the mice are lil will-o-the-wisps tho???) (ahhhh wisps holding onto the castle nd they just appear sometimes either to be playful or helpful depending on their mood) (shit that’s cute)
the Galra Court is similar--Zarkon has a very strong connection to the underground cavern system that houses the Galra. the system used to be much larger, but Haggar destabilized a lot of their home in search of the source of the magic and it had to be destroyed, which is what prompted Zarkon to start seeking out more power outside Galra territory/Fae land. Zarkon ALSO has a very strong connection to every member of his Court, enough to bend them to his will. in order to escape the Court, you have to swear yourself to a different Court and unbind yourself from the previous Court, which requires a lot of Big Magic that can usually only be granted by a Court King or Queen. Zarkon refuses to let go of anyone sworn to the Galra. Allura is, generally speaking, too weak to do it on her own--she has to prepare a special ceremony and it drains a lot of her energy when she tries. So it’s very rare for a Galra to leave the Court.
that said... there are two important things to remember. 1) blood binds, but even someone BORN Galra like Keith has to go to the Court to be officially claimed. Keith’s Fae powers are only loosely tied to the Galra Court, and as such are weak, which is part of the reason he never knew he was Fae. 2) additionally, the farther you get from what is essentially the Holy Land, the farther you are from the source of the Court’s magic. Fae that go to the human world are magically weaker, because their connection to the Court is strained. which is both good and bad--Zarkon has less control over the Galra in the human world, but they also have less magic to do things like heal themselves.
there are strong BoM Galra who are still in Fae Land, but it’s incredibly dangerous because the moment a glamour slips or Zarkon looks too closely, they’re as good as dead. they still managed to get Shiro and Matt out of imprisonment tho, so good on them. most of the BoM ran and hid in the human world for a long time, which is where Krolia was when she met Papa Kogane. she was taking on missions to infiltrate the groups of Galra being sent into the human world in search of power, so as to help dismantle their attempts to A) take over the human land as well as the Fae land, B) find the Lions, and C) report back to Zarkon and give him everything he demands. she went waaaaay deep undercover after Baby Keith came, probably on a mission specifically to keep a Monster out of Zarkon’s hands.
on one of their frequent hops from the Fae realm to the human world, the Paladins and the Lions found the BoM and worked parallel to them for a while. Keith, as an unclaimed Fae who is Galra by blood, can walk undetected on Galra land, so he starts to take on more missions with the BoM (they probably have a different name in the verse lmfao). there was probably a Thing with shiro clones, because Haggar undoubtedly kept some of Shiro/Kuro’s DNA and started growing copies of him, so there was probably a Lion Swap equivalent in there somewhere, but ANYWAY. moving on. at some point Keith is told to go extract the Blade who is deep undercover at the Monster’s Den.
bam. Keith, Krolia, meet. i imagine that it’s something like in canon--a dire situation, some moral confusion, Krolia lets some Galra get eaten by a Monster. all in a day’s work. as for after that.... well, idk what’s going to happen in canon, it might mirror that or it might not, but what MIGHT go down is a Feels Trip.
i mean... she left him at a church, of all places. glamoured to hell and back, the wards so thick on his skin that he never saw EITHER of his true faces, Demon or Fae, until he was basically fully-grown. she’ll tell him about her duty, and how she almost couldn’t leave him to go back to the fight against the Galra, and how no one knew what would happen to a little Demon/Faeling baby with the Hellfire and Fae magic fighting in its blood. maybe they’ll fight side by side. who knows.
but Krolia... she never had a choice when it came to her baby. her options were to either die with her child in her arms when the Galra caught up to her, or leave her child behind to fight the slow, painful fight of a force stretched so thin it was nothing more than lace just in case she could make the world a safer place for Keith and his father, wherever he went.
like, maybe they coulda picked a better spot to leave their little changeling (a church?? really guys???) but in the end, they both agreed that leaving Keith behind was the best way.
