allura; princess of altea (altean) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2017-12-16 21:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, keith, princess allura |
WHO: Allura and Keith
WHEN: Last week Friday, before the ball
WHERE: Castle of Lions
SUMMARY: Bonding and stuff about feeling out of place on Earth.
WARNINGS: None
Even though he had his own quarters in the townhouse the government had given him and Lance, Keith often found himself at the Castle. True the outside didn’t look familiar in anyways, but the inside was which was soothing, despite being smaller. At least even if it was smaller, it still had some perks. Like the training area which he frequented often in their world and had fallen back into the habit here. The simulations helped to keep him sharp. To burn off all the extra energy that didn’t have very many outlets. To give him something to sink into that didn’t require thinking. He visited the training room so much more than the others that he was surprised to find someone already in a simulation. Walking in and spotting the Altean caught him even more by surprise. It shouldn’t really. She lived her after all and was a skilled combatant even before she became a Paladin. This just wasn’t a place that they’d really ran into each other. Slipping his jacket off, he tossed it against the wall before setting to work on stretching as he watched. Just watch. Except that from his vantage point he saw the combatant circling into a blind spot. “Allura, back left,” he called out before he realized what he was doing. Keith’s voice behind her was unexpected, but Allura recovered quick enough to duck before her opponent could make contact. Her whip made contact with the legs and she sent him down, ending the simulation. Taking a deep breath, Allura straightened up and turned toward Keith with a small smile. “Thanks.” It was all she had been doing to keep her mind preoccupied. Having a temporary break from the fight against Zarkon was not something she was stranger to, but that was usually a very short lived vacation, not Earth weeks. If it hadn’t been for the Earth calendar she had decided to purchase and educate herself with, she wouldn’t have been able to keep track of how long they were here (asides from “really long”). So the next best thing to keep herself from going crazy was to continue training, especially if she expected to come face to face with Haggar again. “Come by for some training, I assume?” Keith returned the smile along with a nod of approval. The fact she’d taken the intrusion in stride was good, considering he hadn’t meant to interrupt. Instinct had just taken over. He shook out his arms before grabbing the black bayard. He hadn’t been sure which weapon he’d go with, but the bayard felt like a safer choice considering the stuff in his history that he couldn’t remember that had already happened for a bunch of them. “Yeah. Seems like I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a good way to pass some time,” he said as he bobbed his head to where the bot had fallen. “How long have you been going?” “Not sure,” she answered truthfully. All Allura could remember was that she’d missed the last mealtime and was now starting to feel it. She could have gotten herself something to eat, either from her own kitchen or from outside, but it felt strange not having Hunk around cooking for them, and also, she was still largely unfamiliar with the foods of Earth. At least she had leftovers to go on. “Lost track of time, I suppose.” Keith raised an eyebrow as he studied Allura. The answer wasn’t surprising. No, not at all. He understood that situation far too well. Especially if there weren’t any solid schedules set up to stick to. Getting lost in the simulations could happen far too easily. He’d done it plenty before. Except… there was always something more behind it when it happened to him, right? Something he was trying to avoid or not think about. Grabbing his water bottle, he held it out to Allura in offering. “It happens.” He paused a moment, wondering if he should ask about the reasons behind the training or not. This really wasn’t his area of expertise… “You looked good out there,” he said instead. Allura took the water bottle, giving him a small nod of gratitude. “Thank you. Looking good isn’t the only thing.” She took a quick swig and returned the bottle before reaching up to do some tricep stretches. “It’s also about feeling good… good enough to beat Zarkon and Haggar if we ever ran into them again. Or Lotor if we must.” She wrinkled her nose at the thought of them, in particular, Haggar. An Altean. Sharing the responsibility in the destruction of so many planets and their inhabitants. Allura needed to be ready when she saw them again, whenever that was. “If…” Keith breathed out in a sigh, his shoulders drooping slightly. He knew Pidge and Matt were working on the portal. Working on finding a way to get those who wanted to go back to their universe. There was no telling how long that’d take though. Or what would happen between then and now. Were they truly cut off from their own world or were they actually here for some reason. And if there was a reason, what was it and who else would follow them to this world? But in the end it was a lot of hypotheticals and waiting. He really hated waiting… He frowned as he looked around the room. “Does the Castle still have sensors? Would they pick up something or…” He glanced at Allura. “Have you felt anything since you’ve gotten here?” Allura hadn’t realized she had uttered the word “if”, twice even, till Keith repeated it. She felt a wave of uneasiness wash over her, the same uneasiness she had been feeling whenever she sat around and thought, in her free time, about how life was too quiet for them right now, and perhaps something was bound to go wrong. It was why she had been using training to fill up her free time: so, she could think less about that. Her expression wavered, slightly, something she wasn’t completely afraid of letting Keith see. They’d seen enough sides of one another during their long journey up to this point anyway, all Paladins probably knew each other better than they gave themselves credit. “Nothing. Just… complete silence.” Keith let out a long sigh, his look softening. He’d known the answer even as he’d asked the question. If she had felt something, they would’ve heard about it already. She would have told them and they would’ve gone off, following that feeling to whatever they were meant to do. There’d still been that slim hope though. Maybe it was the barest of sensations. Something too weak to bring up to everyone else. He knew that situation too after all. It’d been why he’d snuck out his window to go on his grand roadtrip that had ended up as a buddy trip instead of a solo one. But now… Nothing. Looking around, his brow furrowed. He’d been so caught up on trying to find his own balance, he hadn’t realized he might not be the only one feeling completely untethered. Shiro had months to adapt and make friends. Even if it wasn’t their Earth, there were still things here that Lance had missed. Matt and Pidge had each other and their projects. They could all enjoy the rest, but it left Keith searching for something to fill the void where Voltron and the war had been. Allura had to have it much worse. He pressed his lips together a moment in thought. “The waiting is horrible, isn’t it?” he said softly. “Just… not knowing and not being able to plan anything just…” He waved his hand at the training area. “Preparing for a maybe and hoping it’ll help.” “Yeah,” she answered in the same matching soft tone. Allura dropped any pretense of keeping up a strong face, as well as dropping her arms from their stretch position over her head. “I… there has to be more than this.” She raised her hands for a moment before dropping them, as well as bringing herself to a sitting position on the floor of the training room. “We’ve been here too long. Or at least, it feels like too long. Instead of wondering about the Galra’s next move, we’re… shopping for a ball.” It wasn’t the first time they -- or at least some of them -- had gone into a shopping mall, but there had been a purpose the last time, and it wasn’t for something like a winter ball. His head ducked a moment as a knowing smile quirked Keith’s lips. Aside from the accent, those words sounded exactly like the ones that had run through his head many times. Many, many, many times. It was reassuring. Abandoning his plan for training, he plopped down next to Allura. “It feels like years instead of a month,” he admitted, crooking a knee up to rest his arms on. “We’re here, but we’re not. Nobody understands it, but we’re still somehow fighting there even though we’re here.” He took a deep breath. “I keep trying to think that maybe the more is just…” He spread his hands out. “This. Down time. Rest. Just getting a chance to be and not the next battle…” He snorted. “But then we’re preparing for a ball and I’m not sure if that’s just proof or some sign that I should’ve tried staying up in the mountains instead.” Allura felt herself relax some, which came as a surprise but at the same time, didn’t, as she heard the words that Keith spoke and recognized that his skepticism was mirrored in her. She gave him a small smile of solidarity at that. “I’ve never had this much down time before. Well, I am sure I have, perhaps when I was far too young to remember, and my father didn’t have the state of our planet on his mind all the time. I was pretty active in all political matters along with my father. Down time seemed to dwindle as I got older, but… some of it was indeed spent on Altean balls. For diplomacy’s sake, of course.” It probably spoke of how much free time they had that, well, this felt like a first. It wasn’t that they didn’t talk back home. Things just were busy. They didn’t have much time to just sit around and talk about things. Plus… It was a work in progress, wasn’t it? She was a princess. That had set her apart. But now she was a Paladin and walls were coming down more with her part of the team. “I had this much free time before we found Blue,” he admitted. “Never thought I’d come back to it…” He shrugged. “But I’ve never been to a ball. The sort of ball this is, I guess. There’s those meetings with all the people we helped, but I don’t know if those count the same way.” For the moment, Allura’s smile brightened to that of amusement. “They’re not completely awful, you know. As long as you know how to dance. And if you don’t know how to dance? Know how to talk to representatives of other planets to keep them preoccupied and convince them of anything you may have planned.” Keith actually laughed at that as he shook his head. “Oh, well, now you’ve convinced me they’re completely awful. I have no clue how to dance and we both know how well my talking skills are.” Allura’s smile stayed on her face as she tilted her head slightly in thought. “Well, I can at least teach one of those to you! But, your talking skills are not too terrible…” Not including his outburst after Shiro’s disappearance that she remembered clearly. If only because the event had hurt her too, but she kept her focus on how her team had been dealing with it at that time. His eyebrows raised as Keith turned his attention fully to Allura in curiosity. Social skill ‘lessons’ weren’t really anything new to him, but he had to admit that possibly learning to dance from an alien princess hadn’t ever been a lesson he ever expected. If that was the skill she was talking about. “Oh? Which one would that be? Because not too terrible still isn’t good,” he pointed out. “Your dancing skills. Dance can be taught. It’s not difficult, especially if it’s just for one night.” Allura gave him a shrug. She wasn’t going to push it, but she had to admit to herself that the thought of teaching Keith -- really, anyone -- a form of Altean ballroom dance would be a nice way to distract and pass time. However much time she can pass with it. A frown settled on Keith’s face. Not because of the offer specifically, but more because of… everything… Shopping and balls and endless hours of free time to try and figure out to fill which usually lead to more social times. He hadn’t been good at this sort of thing at the Garrison and at least there they had classes and simulations to focus on. Plus he hadn’t known what it was like to be part of Voltron and fighting the Galra. Now… He’d rather start up a practice simulation. But which would actually be more useful here? Knowing some dance moves, even if they weren’t from Earth, or sharpening his sword skills? Plus… The fact that the offering came from Allura made it more appealing. Any of the others, well, it’d just be another one of those Earth things he missed out on and didn’t understand. But with Allura, the dance would be Altean. The Altea of long ago. Something new. Something from their world, even if it wasn’t the alien knowledge he’d felt cut off from completely. He took in a deep breath before blowing it out. “You’d really be up for that?” Allura hadn’t expected that response. She’d expected more of a blow off, actually, albeit friendly, because none of her Paladins had ever treated her rudely before once they became a team. But, Keith’s response was not at all unwelcomed. Her smile broadened and a part of her had to keep some of that excitement contained lest she wanted to scare him away. Divulging into her planet’s culture and traditions was one of her most favorite pastimes. “Yes, I would, actually.” Keith still wasn’t sure if this was a good idea or not. Dancing. Altean dancing. Even though he was curious, he could almost hear Coran excitedly going on about some ridiculous aspect of the matter. Ah, yes, dancing, the great Altean tradition where we strap fish to our feet and spin slide around the room to a tune played by an accordian playing bear. Sounded possible, although he had to wonder if maybe half the stuff Coran said was just to get some reaction out of them. But this was Allura and that bright smile was better than the mopier look before. He nodded before pushing himself up. “Ok, let’s do this. Teach me how to dance.” |