hadriel_logs | like a wildfire;

[He grabs her arm and it's like a wave of anger, more potent than she's ever experienced before, and there's a part of her that knows he has her best interests in mind — she trusts him, he's her friend, they've been through so much together — but those thoughts are drowned out but another voice. An insidious, cruel thing that reminds her of when it had been a different hand, when Lotor had tried so gently to take her hand even as he tried to convince her that the blood staining them had been necessary. As if they could just go back to the way it had been, only dobashes before when she'd been blissfully ignorant and happy.

(It made her sick to think of how happy she'd been. Shame at how she'd so looked forward to spending time working on the Sincline ships. Spending time with him. Everyone had been willing enough to write off her infatuation as the fault of Lotor for manipulating her,or at least pretend that it didn't happen at all, but she could not so easily forgive herself. The rest of them didn't know how much she'd relished those moments, not just because of infatuation but because she relished feeling important and needed and useful; like there was a spot in the universe carved out just for her. Had Keith not found Romelle and the rest of the colony, she wondered if she'd still be cozied up and helping a murderer)

So it's with more than a little rancor that she yanks her arm away, hard enough that she stumbles backwards a step, her voice fragile, but more with anger than sorrow,]

Don't touch me.

[At least she didn't throw him into the ground ~~(yet)~~. It's almost dizzying, trying to keep a hold on herself, to see clearly without the hints of red at the edge of her vision, and it's all she can do to clench her jaw, pulling at the smallest thread of rationality that she still had left,]

Just. Go by yourself. You don't need to pretend to be concerned over me.

[Okay so maybe that thread hadn't been so rational.]

[Allura yanks her arm free and for a few seconds, his annoyance with the situation at hand chills with surprise, and just as quickly the flicker of hurt turns into an even colder scowl.. What else could he have expected here. His relationship to the Altean princess had always been turbulent. She never got along with him the way she did with every other paladin. A long buried part of Keith has him clenching his fists even tighter.

Because you're part Galra. Because she doesn't think you should have been leader. All that and she doesn't even know the truth of what you are.

Taking another step closer to Allura, he tries to clear his thoughts because all of them are irrelevant white noise to the threat that the Null present right now. But for the life of him, he isn't able to keep the anger out of his voice. Would Lance or Shiro have to put up with these accusations of not caring? What the hell is he doing so wrong here?]

Seriously? You think I'm some scumbag who'd lie just to get cozied up to you? What do you think I'm gaining from this?!

[Their relationship has always been tumultuous, and even though she considered him as near as family, it always felt just a little bit fragile; fractured and patched over again and again. Like a broken piece of pottery that's been repaired, never losing it's function, but with visible cracks that ran deep. Old fractures, like when she'd first learned of his heritage, or when he first took the role of Black Paladin. And new ones, like the words that haunted her long after they were said.

"Are we really even friends? Is there anything holding us together besides some messed up series of coincidences."

(It's not fair. He didn't mean it. None of them meant what they'd said out there. And yet why can't she stop thinking about it now of all times?)]

That's not what I meant. You're putting words in my mouth.

[Tersely. He steps closer but she doesn't withdraw, her hands clenched into fists. There's more important things at hand, none of what she's upset about has anything to do with the here and now, but she can't stop the thoughts running through her head.]

Then what did you mean, Allura?

[He'd started out this encounter thinking whatever problems she had that they could wait; if he had any semblance of a sense of ironic humor right now, his own insistence on hashing all of this out now instead of telling the others what happened would be deeply funny. Too bad for the both of them that his anger is making self awarenesseven more of a chore than it usually tends to be.]

Why would I waste time pretending to care about you or anyone else?

Because you never had a choice.

[Even if, of everyone, Keith was one of the first to jump immediately in the cause (he’d argued just as much as Allura had when Pidge had initially tried to flee), it wasn’t like the original paladins, with a friendship that was born long before the creation of Voltron. They’d been thrown together and forced to work together. The bonds they forged since then were as strong as any friendship born from other means, they were family, but she couldn’t help but wonder-]

Given a choice, wouldn’t it be different? If the Door opened today and offered to take you anywhere — any reality — would you pick ours? Would anyone?

[Because surely there’s countless realities out there where they are safe and happy. Where the Blades weren’t all slaughtered or the Earth overrun.]

[The question catches him off guard, lodging itself like splinters under his skin. It only takes a few seconds to know that he doesn't want to put as much distance between himself and this hypothetical as possible.]

Allura.

[Her name is spoken through clenched teeth, voice thick with tension. It isn't her fault; she doesn't know -- Keith knows that already, and he knows it's his own damn fault she doesn't know because he never got around to telling her that he isn't exactly who she thinks she is. Truth be told, she's probably the last paladin he'd wanted to tell precisely because they've had issues about who/what he is before.]

Is that what you want to do? Run off to some reality where Altea didn't get destroyed?

[Even if it was her own question being thrown back at her- she's not ready for the question either, and it settles like a rock in her stomach, and just for a moment the rage flickers into something else- something lost. She shakes her head, not as an answer.]

I-

[Would she? It's not as if the thought hasn't come up from time to time. But until now it's never carried a lot of weight. Just the forlorn musings of a princess who misses her family and her people. It could never be anything other than that. She had a vision of the future, a place to be and a purpose that had been driving her ever since that day she woke up on board the castleship. But her vision had grown fuzzy, her place and purpose unclear.

She blinks hard, the rage resurfacing and mixing with her own sorrow to create despair,]

I don't want to talk about this.

[And she'll turn on her heel, intent on walking out on this conversation.]

[The princess starts to leave, and the immediate hypocrisy has Keith wanting to slam his fist into the nearest spiral structure out of sheer irritation. That's just like her, isn't it? So quick to walk away from the things that make her uncomfortable, so quick to demand others open up to her while she just has the luxury of walking away.]
Allura!

[He shouts the name at her turned back, heart racing in his chest. Why does he have to be the one to chase after her? Why couldn't she just listen to him the first time when he said there was danger? And why --

Why is that she can't seem to trust him? If she's like this now, just how the fuck is she going to react to the idea that he's a clone? Keith takes a deep breath, watching and knowing full well the princess isn't going to stop and listen to him just because he asked her to. They're both stubborn in that same stupid way at the end of the day, but it doesn't make it less frustrating. Cursing under his breath, Keith starts walking after her.]

Allura, wait. I'm not gonna judge you -- whatever your answer is.

Edited 2019-04-27 21:48 (UTC)

[They're too much alike, sometimes, and maybe that's the problem. Why she's always had a hard time talking to him. There was always the sort of irrational fear that he could see straight into her; past the brave, compassionate princess and dig straight into the ugly parts of herself that Lance or Shiro or any of the other paladins seemed blind to.

He follows and she keeps walking, although she knows well enough that what she's trying to flee isn't going anywhere.]

I'm not afraid of your judgment, Keith.

[That he thinks she would speaks volumes about what he thinks her answer would be, and as much as she wants to just let it go, to walk away and bury those thoughts back down where they belong, but the thought of being misunderstood — to leave and have Keith believe that she would abandon them for a better reality made her stomach twist in entirely new knots.

She stops.]

I wouldn't go. There isn't a place for me in any of those realities.

[The words were meant to be steady and sure. To leave no question and to, hopefully, let the topic drop. But there's a tremor in her voice that betrays the deep seated fears that are seeping up, clawing at her heart and the sick feeling in her stomach swells as she knits her fingers together in front of her.]

But... I'm not entirely certain there's a place for me in ours either.

[They leave Rage's temple behind them; Keith quick to catch up to the princess with a quick stirde]

What are you talking about? Of course you have a place, you're the princess...

[Of a planet that no longer exists and a handful of refugee subjects that've been drinking generations of Lotor's kool-aid.. Keith trails off, mid-thought. More than likely, this is exactly the line of thought that led her towards these feelings in the first place.]

You're the paladin of the Blue Lion. An integral part of Voltron and the Coalition you're building to help rally the universe against the Galra threat.

[One of us.

It's what he would have said to her if any of those he just said actually applied to himself. But they don't. He isn't Keith, pilot of the Black Lion, head of Voltron and one of the defenders of the universe. He's Keith, the clone whose existence is an anomaly of science. If anyone isn't "one of us" it's him; why would he even consider saying something so laughably deluded?

Keith hangs his head, looking at anything but Allura as they walk.]

You have a place. With them.

[The silences between their words are heavy. He calls her the princess and it hurts to hear — she'd never cared much about what the others referred to her as. Princess was simply part of her identity. Her role and her crown Given to her by her parents just the same as her name. Until it wasn't, and she became an interloper among her own people and it never quite fit the same ever since.

The rest of it should be comforting — maybe it would be any other time, but even with the effects of Rage's temple fading with each step they take, the emotions it had torn open were still raw and open, and she wants to remind him of how much harm she's done. How much ground the coalition lost after they fought Lotor and how much her friends had personally suffered because of her choices and again she asks herself what would it be if only she hadn't helped create the Sincline.

But Keith's next words catch her attention. His phrasing. And she blinks, pulled out of her tangle of thoughts into the present and she looks over at him,]

With them?

[Maybe he misspoke but it sure felt purposeful. Especially with the way he's avoiding eye contact. He's excluding himself, but obviously she's going to jump to the wrong reason:]

How can you be so sure that they would want me there. After all, if you don't want me to return...

What? I never said that!

[The reply quick, his head snapping up to look in Allura's direction with obvious surprise. Incredulity briefly distracts from offense, but they're treading on thin ice.]

Of course I want you to go back with Lance and Shiro! The universe needs you, Allura. You don't belong here in Hadriel. You belong back home with the paladins.

[Breathing deeply, Keith drops eye contact again. None of that's going to make sense and for a moment he's just too frustrated to talk. Too exhausted to explain everything.]

Look. I'm the one who really doesn't belong anywhere. [...Which sounds so stupidly maudlin and like some invitation to have some extended "feels good, cheer up" conversation that Keith scowls pre-emptively.] I'm not who you think I am. [Which only takes the maudlin and makes it exponentially worse. Exasperation intensifiying by the second he just gives up entirely.] I'm a clone.

[Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions, but the mystery only deepens when he continues on. With Lance and Shiro. With the paladins. If there was time to make guesses, she'd assume this has to do with the title of Black Paladin, or any other myriad of things that Keith kept close to his chest, and it's almost kneejerk, the way she's ready to reassure him, that yes the Black Lion chose him for a reason, and that they'd never be where they were without him.

But the bombshell that drops next is nothing like she could expect and it lands with a resounding silence and she stops walking entirely.

She'd accuse him of not being funny — that if this was a joke she wasn't laughing — but there's a finality to his words that has her believing him. It's not as if they don't have a history with secret clones, and she would sooner let the mice pilot Voltron than believe that Keith, of all people, would joke about that.

(To his credit, if he was trying to get her to snap out of it, mission accomplished. Dragged out of her pit of self-loathing and snapped immediately into the now. Her throat still feels tight, but for entirely different reasons now.]

Keith- [She wants to say more- the way she leaves his name to hang in the air suggests she has a lot more to say, to ask, (to accuse). But she stops. Reigns herself in as best she can. Finally, she settles on,] What... What are you talking about?

[Allura comes to a stop, but Keith only pauses in his steps to glance at the princess and sighs.]

It's a long story.

[And as much as he wishes that could be a satisfying explanation, he knows it isn't and that if anyone has the right to know about all of this, it's the people who trust him implicitly. The people he knows are friends. Regardless of what Allura makes of it all, it's better for the both of them in the long run that she judge him for who he is rather than what she thinks he is.

So. So.....

This is the third time he's told this story, but finding the words doesn't come any easier for it. Shiro and Lance had both taken it relatively well -- no accusations of being an evil killswitch clone at least. But he doesn't expect Allura to be so accepting and deep down he knows it's because they're both skeptics, both afraid of getting burned by the ones closest to them.

After all the hell that Shiro's clone had unleashed upon all of them, Keith knows exactly what he'd say if another paladin admitted that they, too, were a clone. And he knows Allura will be in the right to judge him in the harshest way. It's just -- Keith clenches and unclenches his fists, then:]

Let's keep walking. The gist of it is that before I appeared at Hadriel, I was one of thirty people who got cloned to be unwilling participants in a messed up experiment.

[Finding out Shiro had been a clone had been difficult enough. (And at least, then, they'd had his sudden betrayal onto Lotor's side to give them a heads up that something is wrong) and now Keith? The world feels like it's spinning, in the silence between them, and he's at least spared any rash, knee-jerk judgments by the sheer fact that she is caught off guard, still reeling between Keith's revelation and the effects of Rage's temple.

A clone.

Not again Her eyes are wide, jaw set, and the tension in her body is obvious— a fight or flight response. (They'd been taken off guard by Shiro before, if only she'd known in advance, maybe she could have stopped him.) But to Keith's credit, his calm head keeps her from reacting in a throw him across the lawn sort of way.

Somehow, his words are still getting through—parts of it—despite the layers of confusion. But still, before she takes another step.]

Honerva's experiment?

[Said in a tight voice, sharp around the edges. She knows Keith. Trusts him more than either of them probably realize. But if this isn't who she thinks he is-

Wait-]

Where's Keith?

No. It had nothing to do with Honerva. Promise.

[The correction comes quickly, though not in a defensive tone of voice. It'd been so long ago that his biggest concerns had to do with the Galra and Zarkon's witch that he'd honestly forgotten how the word "experiment" might come off. But her follow up question makes him falter. It's the first time he's been asked that question so bluntly, and though he can't fault the princess, the reminder that he's not her "real" friend is bruising in ways it shouldn't be rationally.

He's never met Allura prior to Hadriel -- not really. He's never met any of the paladins. For so long they only ever existed in his head as memories as bright and vivid as sunlight, but it hadn't really been until seeing Shiro and Lance in Hadriel that he'd ever been forced to decide what to think about it all. He doesn't have to be defined by his memories, he could have, in theory, pushed them all away because they're strangers -- logically, rationally.

But he hadn't been able to do it. One glance at those two in the colosseum with the dragons. One glance at Allura in their upside down house. In the end, he's a sentimental idiot that doesn't know how to let go, but the echoes of rage leave a bitter taste in his mouth.]

Nothing happened to him. The people who cloned me took a radial image of his mind. They had technology that let them do that without the subject knowing anything about it. They don't even have to be in the same universe to do it. He's safe. Waiting for you guys to go back home.

[His answers seem to settle her, knowing that he's not one of Honerva's. Knowing that Keith is safe in body and mind. (Knowing that he's not just a soul, trapped inside of the Black Lion) It's entirely possible that he's full of Yalmor dung, leading her astray but something about it seems difficult to doubt. Keith's not a good liar and, moreover, Allura is far too trusting.

But then where does that leave them? A long way from home and Keith — not the person she thought he was moments ago. And yet... one in the same. Even as she looked him over, there was nothing she could find to tell him apart. No scar or scrape nor hair out of place, and every intonation in every word exactly like Keith's. And why shouldn't it be? They'd visited other realities — even without clones the idea that there were infinite versions of themselves out there wasn't beyond her understanding.

She stares at him longer, expecting some kind of disconnect, and while there is a degree of apprehension and fear, looking at him only stirs memories of all the times they've been together. From the first time they met on the Castleship, until now. Her friend.

(And, a thought to digest: she has memories with him that are now separate from the 'real' Keith. All the time spent together in their silly upside down house.)

Realizing that the silence was growing between them, she takes a breath, measuring her words, and considering what she wants to know,] ...Why didn't you say anything sooner?

[~~Predictably, assuming she's the first to know.~~]

like a wildfire;

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he looks so mad in that icon

he makes good faces sometimes... poor allura

:'D

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the hypocrisy in this is killing me

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This tag hurt to write

i'm dreaming mouse bathing dreams...

I guess they'll get... squeaky clean in that thread