Fourth @allurashipweek , we’re halfway there!
Past (Memories)/Future (Legacy)
“What is a legacy,” Hunk read aloud at the foot of the statue of the woman he’d once loved. “It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” He placed a bookmark and shut the book. “Early 21st century American poet, Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
He stared up at the stone. It was a beautiful day. Warm, with a chipper breeze, puffy white clouds racing by miles and miles above him, but that specific texture that made them look close enough to touch, if he just got a ladder and reached out far enough.
“You left a really good legacy, Allura,” he said to her youthful smile. Unfairly young, that her life had ended before Pidge’s voice had even dropped, before she’d gotten to see Lance’s hilarious attempt at a mustache, before she got to attend Shiro and Keith’s wedding, before she could tease Coran for his second encounter with the slipperies, before her body had even stopped growing, fully. Her face held no wrinkles in the stone, her skin did not sag like theirs was starting to. It wasn’t fair.
“The Olkari refugees have finally found a permanent new home,” Hunk said, “Hostilities have settled between Etheror and Voil. Kolivan is still working like a dog, but there’s really visible payout.” The mice darted around idly in front of him, two playing tag, one nibbling at the tall grass, one napping in the sunlight. “Shay and Romelle started dating, recently, and the three of us are still doing our ‘best friends who cook and yell sense into diplomatic leaders’ thing. Got to exercise my old engineering muscles, the other day. Had a minor breakdown in our ship. Easy repair, but it was fun.”
Hunk didn’t know why he kept coming back to this statue, to this place, and these memories. A sensible person would’ve had a hard cry, and moved on. He hadn’t even been 20 when she died, it wasn’t like they’d lived a lifetime together.
Maybe that’s what people meant, when they said “soulmate.”
“The others miss you less,” Hunk said, bittersweet. “It’s good. Losing you hit us all really hard. It’s nice to see everyone, y’know, moving on.” The smallest mouse skittered up his leg to avoid getting tagged, taking advantage of the giant friendly apex predator that doubled as a jungle gym. “Dunno why I can’t.”
Over the wind, it would have been impossible to hear any rustling of cloth, any footfall, any anything, really. Maybe Keith or the other Marmorites could have, but Hunk was just a non-militant human who’d been retired from his robo-lion days for years.
But still, he turned.
“Allura?”
The woman before him had crows feet and smiling eyes. Clothes he’d never seen before and Altean marks that stretched further down her cheeks. Her hair was less sliver and more grey in small patches, just starting to shift, just barely, and her body was softer and squishier than it had been. Not forever youthful. Not carved in ageless stone.
“Hello, Hunk.”
