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When she was a child, her mother brought her often to see the stars.
From their little shack in the desert, it was easy to look at an endless blue sky, without the light of the city, and she pointed to Allura all the constellation that she knew.
“Your father is right there,” she said, pointing to a casual point in the scar.
As a child, Allura thought she meant he was an angel, or an astronaut, a great space explorer, that would come back with his space ship to brinng Allura together with him ina space adventures. It was only when she started the school that she realized that what her mother truly meant was that his father had died.
But apparently reality was even worse: his father left them both.
Yet, she was always lured by the star, by the endless bright points so far and so bright upon her, maybe because the child fantasy about his father has pushed her in that direction.
From that point of view, the Galaxy Garrision has been the obvious choice as high school for Allura.
Apparently, not for her mother: after talking so much about the star, suddendly she looks scared about the actual possibility of Allura going to space. They fought, she begged her and screamed about it, but Allura was stubborn.
“You brought me there,” she accused her mother. “You made me believe my father was a space explored. But I won’t leave you like he did.”
In the end, his mother agreed, but “only if you managed to get a scolarship”.
She did. She got the best grade in the entire first year and she’s welcomed like a new promise of the Garrison together with a nice boy named James Griffin.
It was only when she entered in class for the first lesson that she realized: I’m going to become a pilot and I’m going to go to space.
She didn’t know yet how much right she is.
Galaxy Garrison isn’t bad for a school. Teachers are strict and they pretend a lot for students, but Allura isn’t scared by their methods. She studies hard, and she always gets on their right side. She’s pretty popular with both students and professors, even if sometimes she’s so harsh on herself that the others admires her only by far.
Her rivaly with Griffin is an amicable one, and she suspects in many occasion he may likes her. After all, she realizes pretty soon biys like her a lot (he has expecially an obxius suitor named Serrano than isn’t even on his class, even if apparently he declares himself James’ rival), but she’s too focused on her career to care about dating at the moment. For some reasons, all the boys around look too immature for her, and that caused him some problems with both boys and girls jealous of her popularity.
Allura is popular but alone. She has some friends – James, Ina, Hunk – but overall she is so focused on her dream she doesn’t spend much time with them.
Then, the Kerberos accident happens.
Allura doesn’t know well the people that died in that accident – he knows by name Takashi Shirogane, of course, everyone know him in the Galaxy Garrison, and he also attended some of her flight lessons, and they spoke something, just nice words about Allura’s talent as a pilot and how to cultive it.
Yet, the entire accident shakes the Garrison on the ground. “Pilot error,” they called it, and they makes it aver more scarier. If even the best pilot the Garrison has ever seen can make error, and can die, in the space alone, how can they succeed?
For the first time in his life, Allura is scared by space.
Luckily for her, the month after the Kerberos accident is also the moment Pidge Gungerson enters in her life. She doesn’t like him in a romantic sense, but Pidge turns out to be like her – a loner. She sees her in classes, in the way he fails the test when he looks instead so focus in something else entirely, and without even realizing she becomes her friend.
Pidge is diffident at first, but it’s clear he needs friends too, allied. That’s the reason he reveals her, once, the fact that he’s investigating on the Kerberos’ accident, because he doesn’t believe it was a pilot error at all. He isn’t sure they were aliens abducting the crew or something else, but they may be still alive.
It’s not like Allura truly believe her, he’s been there once as a child and he stopped, but she finds herself interested on her investigation, they give her a sort of normalcy, a hope that maybe being a pilot isn’t so dangerous a sit seems, t ogive her back her dreams.
She was wrong, of course, being a pilot is fucking dangerous, especially if you pilot in a space war against an evil empire that wants to conquer the universe.
It’s only then, when Allura finds herself there, following a space prince with magic in his hands, a piloting a Red Lion that can combined with other four, alongside with the only and one Takashi Shirogane and even his annoyed suitor Serrano, that Allura finds out that Pidge is actually a girl.
But this is a story for another time, because in space Allura finds something that, after all, has been searched for long: the truth about his father.
She’s right alla long after all: he was a space explorer.
Allura considers helself a smart girl. Not spar as Pidge, of course, maybe not even as Hunk, but smart enough to realize that two if Ulaz said that the symbol on his sword is the symbol of the Blades of Marmora, and she has a knife very similar to his with the same symbol, well, that knife must be a Galra’s one.
Why she has it, that’s the problem.
It’s a present from his father, the only thing he left behind. With a shiver, Allura realizes a valid hypotesis is that is father is Galra (the good side of Galra, at least) and he went to Earth for… looking for the Blue Lion, maybe? Yes, and the he left again to tell his comrades about it. By Shiro’s telling, Ulaz knew about the Blue Lion, so it can be.
But there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to believe it, doesn’t want to believe she’s truly part alien, and even worse part alien of a group of space nazi. So maybe his father was killed by the Galra, or maybe he was kidnapped by the Galra, and the knife wasn’t his own, it was of one of the people that attacked him, and he managed to disarm them.
It’s definitely another valid explanation.
Yet, she can’t negate, not even to herself, that the knife is Galra, and that may be the reason Zarkon is finding them so easily recently. Pidge proposed the Black Lion, and prince Keith himself: Allura can’t bring herself to confess, but deep inside she’s scared to be guilty.
She needs to prove it first. So one night she put on her paladin armor, takes something or her belongings, and goes to the hangar to take one of the pods.
She’s about to get on, when a voice from behind calls for her.
“Allura? What are you doing here?”
She falls behind, slipping outside the pod for the surprise. Two arms appears between her and the ground, stopping her fall.
“Prince Keith…” She blushes a little and she jumps from his arms. “What are you doing here?”
He licks his lips, his glare serious as usual. “I have to verify I’m not the only one Zarkon’s tracking,” he admits. “Kolivan wouldn’t let me do this, but I have.”
Allura understands him very well. “Then let me come with you.”
“You?”
“Why not?” she smiles. “It must be lonely around in space, with the fear of Zarkon appearing at every moments. And I’m a good pilot, I can help.”
“That’s true,” he admits. He narrows his eyes to look at her: in that moment, he doesn’t have the Terran aspect he takes from time to time to put them at ease, and his violet eyes seems able to look directly at her soul. “You were about to do the same thing.”
“Me?” She’s about to lie, to try to find an excuse, but at what point? “Yes. I fear I may be the one Zarkon’s tracking.”
“Why?” He blinks. “You’re just a Terran like the others.”
She knows he doesn’t mean to look insulting, so she just sighes. “Well, this only Terran kept up with Zarkon one to one while we’re saving you last time.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he says immediately. “Just, I can’t find a good reason why you should be the track towards Zarkon.”
“It’s just a feeling, okay? Call it a woman’s intuition.” She turns and throws her bag on the pod. “We want to lose much time more, or we’re leaving.”
“Let’s go.”
He lets her drive, something Allura appreciates because she gives her a sense of power, a sense she has a hand on the situation and that she isn’t prey of the events. It’s night when they leave, so they have some hours before the others notice their disappearance.
They remain in silence for a while: Prince Keith, she knows, he’s prefectly fine with the quiet. She saw them sometimes in the dark of the deck, sometimes alone, sometimes with Kolivan or Shiro, without talking, just look at the space around them.
But she’s tensed, and she needs to vent that tension somehow.
“What do you think about the Blade of Marmora?” she asks.
Kolivan has been pretty critical about them (it doesn’t seem they manage to do much, since Zarkon is always stronger), and he also fears that trusting a Galra may led to something dangerous, just like the fact that Krolia trusted Zarkon brought demise on Altea. Prince Keith was a little more caution, trusting a little more Shiro’s intuition in that, but he doesn’t seem he likes the Blade at all.
“I really would prefer not counting on them,” he says, after a moment of personal reflection, at the point Allura thought he hasn’t hear the question. “But the truth is that we need allies to defeat Zarkon. Voltron may be the only hope of the universe, but the Castle and all its informations are centuries old, and I’m pretty sure Galra’s technology developed during this time. Let’s aside the fact that, except Shiro, you all don’t have any real experience in fighting or piloting, so there’s that.”
She restrains a bad answers about them being unesperience. Again, she’s pretty sure Keith doesn’t mean it in a bad way, but it’s pretty pratical in his thought, and he made clear since moment one that there was a reason the Lions choose them, but that doesn’t change the fact they’re just cadets, with no knowledge of the universe. And it is true after all.
“So, the Blades may be our chance,” Keith finishes, “because they should have what we lack: knowledge of Zarkon’s empire. I don’t like them, but we all need to put aside out problems for the greater good.”
“You don’t like them because they’re Galra?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You don’t think there could be good Galra?” she presses. She has to know if he will see her differently.
“That’s not it,” he says. He takes a long breath. “I know, deep down, that they’re good people. They are fighting against their own, because they think it’s right. It’s probably hard for them.”
“And Ulaz sacrificed his life for us.”
“That too.” A shadow passes on his eyes. “But I can’t help it, every time I saw a Galra I think back at what I lost, my mother, my people… my home. It’s not their fault, but I can’t see them.”
She doesn’t find the word to reassure him.
They both get a talk when they’re back. Allura has never seen Kolivan so angry, and he definitely has a very scary face in that moment. Prince Keith looks a little bit regretful, but Kolivan’s attitude brought him to answer back and efendi their choice. It’s only when Shiro speaks about it, that he finally gives up and accepts he’s been a reckless thing, even if it’s the same decision that confirmed that not Allura neither him are what Zarkon’s tracking.
Allura just apologizes for the decision. She’s tired, she piloted a lot and she even remained in the space floating until Red came in his aid, so she didn’t want to argue more, especially not with Shiro. She just wants to sleep a little.
“Allura,” Lance calls her for behind when she’s about to enter in her room.
“What?” she snaps. She’s harsh, but she’s tired and she definitely doesn’t find about beraring Lance’s shameless bad flirting, or not even his jealousy because she went alone with Prince Keith (apparently, Lance took it like a romantic trip, like she has time to be romantic during a space war, when she hasn’t even had a boyfriend back at Garrison.
Instead, he looks at her serious. “What’s the problem?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something wrong to you, since the day we met Ulaz,” Lance continues. “It may sounds a little creepy, but I look at you a lot.”
“It’s creepy,” she confirms, even if she’s a little impressed he has enough sensibility to see her discomfort during those past days.
“But I’m not the only one that noticed that,” Lance continues, even if his cheeks become a little pink, sign he was embarassed by his attics. “Pidge is worried too. You two… well, you used to be closed at Garrison, and she even revealed you about her researches, but now she felt you’re getting far from her, and she doesn’t under stand the reason.”
“She told you that?”
“Pidge is also my friend, you know. But the point is that we’re worried about you. Maybe Shiro doesn’t notice because he’s too focused on Prince Charming, but we did.”
She takes a deep breath. “Come inside.” His face brightens suddendly, and she feels the need to glare at him and clarifies, “don’t get strange ideas.”
“I won’t. Of course I won’t!”
Inside the room, he’s dark, and Lance jumps around, not sure how to settle down. Allura turns on the light and sits down on the bed. Then, she rummages below her pillow, and takes off the knife.
“You sleep with a knife behind your pillow? Sexy.”
She ignores him. “It was my father’s. I never met him.”
“Oh, I’m really sorry…”
“It’s okay.” She shrugs. “The problem is the symbol.” She taps on the hilt of the knife, and Lance comes closer to observe it. He frowns, so she tells him, “Ulaz has a blade with the same symbol.”
“You mean…” Lance’s eyes widen. “It’s a Galra blade?”
“I think so. And it may not be the only Galra thing around.”
This time, Lance is faster to read between the lines. “Oh, no. No way.”
“But why not? I didn’t know my father, and to be honest, by the way my mother spoke about him, he could be an alien. And he had a Galra knife.”
“Yeah, but Galra are like…” He makes a gesture with his arms to indicate broadness, “big, furry and scary. You’re beautiful.”
“When Prince Keith turned into a Galra at the facility, he wasn’t so furry, and he looks a lot more human that some other Galra like Sendak.” She ignores his snort at Keith’s mention. “So that may be the reason why I look entirely human.”
“Maybe,” he agrees. “But Allura… you know this doesn’t change anything, right?”
She doesn’t believe it, but smiles, appreacing the thought. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“But…”
“For now. Please.”
She can’t really say why she decided to tell Lance about her secret, maybe it was the need to tell someone before exploding, and Lance was there in the right moment, or maybe since his obvious overexageratting crush on her, he wouldn’t judge her. Or maybe he would stop to pester her if he knows she’s Galra.
Whatever her reasons was, it turns out to be a good idea. Since that moment, Lance stops with his flirting, and tries to be good friend, including her in his attacks alonside with Hunk, and tries to return her a little bit of normalcy with Pidge.
And, she finds out, she has a good allies in him.
“I think you should bring Allura with you,” Lance says, once the Blade of Marmora ordered that only two people can access to their bases. “Out of our four, she’s the best pilot.” And he throws a look at Prince Keith, like to challenge him to answer.
He doesn’t, but Allura suspects it’s because he knows that Kolivan wouldn’t never allow him to enter only with Shiro in a Galra base, even Galra allies.
“It’s a good idea,” Shiro says. “We’ll be careful.”
So they take the Red Lion, and Allura pilots them inside the base, who is not only hide between two black hole, but even behind the ground of the asteroid, in a underground secret bases. They were welcomed by all masse guard just like Ulaz.
“Welcome, welcome!” A man with a cheerful voice exclaims to them. He taks off his mask, revealing a long orange fur, who looks like two mustaches under his nose. “I’m Coran, the leader of the Blade of Marmora.”
“Nice to meet you,” Shiro says. “I’m Shiro and this is Allura, we’re Voltron Paladins.”
“We know about you. It’s a pleasure for me.” He shakes both of his hand vigorously.
“You also know it was Ulaz that brought us here,” Shiro says, a little overwhelming.
“Oh, yes, I know.” Coral murmurs with grieve voice. “A dear loss for us. He will be missed. But I’m glad he brought you here.”
“We’re glad too,” Shiro says, a little sad. “For this reason, I hope we can become allies in this war against Zarkon.”
“We can talk about this later,” Coran says, and his smile looks a little bit menacing now. “But first, we need to settle something.” And he turns towards Allura. “You don’t have anything to say, young lady?”
She feels the gaze of everyone, including Shiro, upon her. With tremule hand, she puts her hand on her back and takes off the knife. Shiro frowns at the sight, while the others around start whispering to themselves.
“It’s one of our blades,” a voice says.
Coran takes the knife out of Allura’s blade and esamines it, passing it around his hands and looking at it from various angles. “This is definitely one of our blades,” he confirms. “Where did you steal it, young lady?”
“I didn’t,” she says immediately. “It was my father.”
“And where did he steal it?”
“He-” she starts, but then stopped. He has no idea where his father took the knife, so she has no chance to defend him, and to be honest his father didn’t ear her defence. “I don’t know. I never met him.”
“You may under stand, young lady, that this is a big violation of our trust,” Coran murmurs. “We asked you to come unarmed, and you’re here with a knife, and one of our own.”
She hasn’t the courage to look at Shiro. “Yes, and I apologize for this. But I need answers. I need to know why my father had one of your knife, and why it was on Earth.”
“She’s lying,” the same voice of previous says.
“Come on, let’s not jump to conclusion.” Coran hums to himself. “Surely we can give a Voltron Paladin the benefit of the doubts. But we don’t have answers for you, young lady.”
“Oh.” She’s disappointed.
“The Blades of Marmora have only a way to get answers, the Trial of Marmora. Knowledge or death.”
At that sentence, Shiro intervenes for the first time. “No. Allura, let it go. We’re here for an alliance, and you’re a paladin, you can’t risk your life for this.”
“You’re right, Shiro,” she says, “but I need to know. I can’t go on without knowing the truth.”
At the end, Shiro agrees. “But I’m going to stop it if it become too dangerous,” he warns her.
She doesn’t know if Shiro ever does that, or if the trial ends naturally and she wins or she loses.
The trial is confusiong, and she doesn’t know if she takes the right decisions, or if she’s just falling into despair. She doesn’t know even what he’s searching exactly.
At first, she fights the other blades, because she thinks that surronding the blade isn’t the right thing to do. The fights become harder and harder, and she’s so tired than at a certain point she almost decide sto give up the blade and resign, but then she sees an escaping room and she finds it.
Then, in the next room, she sees James Griffin. She’s so tired at that point that she doesn’t even ask herself what the hell he’s doing into a rebel Galra base. He looks like he remebers him, with his cadet uniform and the shit-eat grin. But he’s here to remember her what she lost – the popularity of being the best pilot of the Garrison, the popular girl everyone envy and everyone want to imitate.
“You can be that girl again,” James says. “Do you really want to know about your ancestors? What good could you bring?”
“I need answers.”
“For what?” James says. “To give you a reason for becoming that? You’re better than thatm, better than a woman that thinks he can save the universe alone. Not knowing is the best answer.”
“Because you won’t like the answer,” Allura realizes. Being a Galra isn’t a mark of pride, those time, and she definitely won’t be the popular girl anymore. Better be the orphan that the daughter of a Galra. “But I don’t care about it. I’ll keep do what I believe even if I’m Galra.”
“I wonder if they let you,” is James’ last remark before disappearing.
And then Allura is back at home, in his shackles, with his mother. She has to know about his father, after all she met him! She saw him!
And then she realizes she left her mother. Her mother didn’t want for her to go to Garrison because she feared Allura would have followed his father’s step, and, even if unwillingly, she did. She’s now in the space, and her mother doesn’t know.
“Welcome back, Allura,” her mother smiles at her.
“Mom… I’m so sorry,” Allura murmurs. “Leaving you… has never been my intention.”
“I know. Of course I know.” Rationally, Allura should under stand that woman isn’t really her mother, yet she can’t feel to recognize so. “You’re just like your father.”
“I need answers, mom. Who was my father? Was he Galra?”
Her mother shakes her head. “You already know that.”
“I don’t. I have suspects, but… please tell me.”
“I tell you and then what? You’ll just leaving, following him,” her mother says. “And I’ll be alone.”
She closes her eyes. “I’m sorry, mom. But you’re right. If my father is a rebel Galra fighting the Galra empire, then I won’t mindto be like him.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“Then I’ll make my own path,” Allura says. “My father won’t create my path.”
“Then the answer is yes. Your father was Galra.”
She knows Shiro’s there helping her standing up.
“Did I make it?” she murmurs, as her vision put Shiro’s face into focus.
“I think so? It has been all very confusing,” Shiro smiles. “But you’re safe and at the moment it’s the only thing that matters.”
“Congratulations, young lady!” Coran’s high-pitch voice arrive at her ears. “You made it. You should habe your knowledge now.”
“I have?” She nods. “I guess it’s right my father was Galra.”
“Is,” Coran corrects her. “He was still alive the last time I checked. At the moment, he’s undercovering in the last quadrant of the universe.”
“You know my father?”
Coran smiles softly, then he tilts his head to gesture at her. She looks down, and she sees that now, in her hands, instead of a knife there’s a fully blade, very similar to Ulaz’s one.
“You awoke the blade, something only people with Galra’s blood can do,” Coran says, “but even without it, I recognized that blade. I apologize for not having telling you before, but the Trial was essential for you to accept it.”
She stands up with fatigue, Shiro still helping him. “So who is my father?”
“Alfor is his name,” Coran says, and the other blades bow their head as a sign of respect. “My best friend. He helped me to create the Blade, and he’s a blade himself.”
“Can I meet him?”
“Like I said, he’s undercover, and we can’t contact him. But when we defeca Zarkon, we may.”
Allura nods, a little sad, but ready to accept it. “Do you know I was his daugher?”
“No, and it saddens me.” Coran shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t tell me to protect you, and he’ll probably sad you ended up in thsi war anyway. But I’m pretty sure he’ll be also very proud of you.”
“Maybe,” she murmurs. “But I’m not doing this for you.”
“Of course,” Coran smiles. “But now that it’s settled, weren’t you here to talk about an alliance?”
They return to the base with Coran and another Blade named Merla. The others are waiting for them at the hangar, eager to under stand what happened in the base. Allura doesn’t miss the small started gaze Prince Keith does when Coran spots him and immediately kneels in front of him, Merla at his side doing the same thing. Kolivan moves a little bit next to him, as he’s afraid that despite the gesture, the two Galra may attack at every moment.
“Prince Keith,” Coran says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Legends said you are still alive, and we searched for you so long. Now that you and Voltron are back, we have a way to defeca Zarkon.”
Prince Keith’s face lightens up. “For real?”
“Yes. We spend centuries to analize Zarkon’s power and possibilities, and we know we can’t take him down alone, but we have a plan that may, and it involves all of you.”
“So you’re going to help you.”
“Absolutely.” Coran stands up and gestures at Allura with his arm. “I would have done it anyway, but it’s even better now that I know Alfor’s daughter with you.”
Allura finds herself at the center of the attention of everyone, and she feels the need to explain, after a brief look with Shiro, “My father is a Galra Blade working with Coran. He’s not here right now.”
She helds her breath, her eyes fixed on Prince Keith. Kolivan hasn’t move or say anything, but he’s a man with no emotion on his face. Prince Keith is blunt both in his words and his reactions, and in that moment he’s looking at Allura with wide, shocked eyes.
“Do you have a problem with it?” Lance is the first one to move, and he puts himself between Allura and Prince Keith, as to protect her somehow. “This is our Allura, under stand? It doesn’t change anything, and you better accept it.”
Prince Keith frowns. “I think Allura can speak for herself.”
“Yeah, he can, but…”
“Lance, is okay,” Allura says.
“But…” he sighes. “I just want you to know that you’re still my beautiful Allura, okay? It doesn’t change anything.”
“She’s not yours.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “But he’s right. You’re still Allura for us.”
“You were worried about that?” Hunk adds. “I’m glad it’s just that. I mean, it’s weird, true… it’s weird, right?” has asks, around, a sto have some help. “But we love you, Allura.”
She nods, face down, overwhelming for such affection. Then, she finds the courage to look at Prince Keith again. “We talked about it,” she says. “And I hope that sometimes, in the future, you may see me stilla s Allura and not one of my ancestors. I won’t follow their path.”
Prince Keith looks at him intently. “I hope so too, Allura.”
But he turns his head and starts talking with Shiro, and Allura knows that in someway, she can’t escape to what her ancestors are. She has to accept it and prove herself to be different.
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