It hadn't really occurred to any of the paladins to think about Allura's relationship with their Predecessors. When they had first gotten to Arus and met the princess they'd all been a bit distracted, understandably, by their alien pursuers and the giant mechanical lion robot thing. And almost immediately after, they had become the new paladins and were trying to assemble the rest of the lions and figure out how to form Voltron.

During all the chaos, it had been hard to wrap their minds around their own situations let alone the elf-like princess who'd lost almost all remnants of her home world. After the initial attack things cooled down a little and they'd all learned a bit more about each other. For example, the rest of the guys learned that Pidge was extremely strict about his privacy and modesty. No one was allowed into the room he'd been given in the castle under pain of death and he never took his shirt off in the training room. Keith on the other hand, seemed to have no real concept of a divide between his room and the rest of the Castle. Allura often found his jacket or shirt or even his training uniform lying around in the rooms next to his (and on one memorable occasion in the kitchen sink) and he almost never had his door closed completely, as if he took comfort in being able to hear the rest of them coming and going. And the paladins learned that sometimes, very rarely, when she was tired or frustrated, or much more rarely, really happy, Allura would call Pidge, Keith and Lance by the wrong names.

Not each other's names mind you, despite being introduced to all of them in the five-minute period between waking up and sending them out to find the lions, Allura never ever got their names confused. No, the names that she would call them in those moments of high emotion always sounded Altean (or at least this was the assumed thread among the boys, Altea being their only real cultural touchpoint out in space by proxy of Allura and Coran), and when she noticed her mistake (and she did notice, every time) she always looked sad.

So sad that for the most part the boys tried to brush it off, afraid that they would bring up painful memories for their leader, though they all discussed their pet theories for who the names might belong to and why Hunk and Shiro were exempt. Eventually, however, Lance's curiosity and Hunk's concern got the better of them and they approached Coran about the names.

'How can I help you boys?' They'd managed to catch-up to the mustachioed Altean in the launch bay for the lions. He continued working on the console, monitoring the diagnostics on the Black Lion, even as they sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.

They glanced at each other, not sure where to begin.

'Well, Coran, we were wondering if Allura had a lot of family on Altea, besides her father that is,' Lance's voice was uncertain, though he tried as best as he could to pull off his usual nonchalance.

'Oh, the princess had a huge family on her mother's side,' Coran didn't seem to find anything suspicious though, 'her father was an only child, but the Queen was the middle child of nine siblings.'

This seemed like a productive lead so Hunk nudged Lance slightly and nodded at him to continue.

'So Allura was close to the rest of her family as well?'

"Oh yes, she spent every summer at the matrilineal estate. She and her cousins were in and out of each others' pockets all Doodle-berry season, running around and getting into adventures.'

'That sounds nice,' Hunk wasn't sure if either of the Alteans had ever mentioned Doodle-berry season to him before, but he filed it away to ask about later. 'Was one of them called Reyna?'

This got Coran's attention. He stared at them for a moment, his gloved hands hovering above the translucent screen in front of him. Hunk was struck by the expression on his face; while talking about Allura's family (and for that matter most of the time) Coran wore a small, happy smile. Coran managed to gather himself together quickly enough, but for just a moment the jovial advisor looked absolutely devastated.

'No.' He sighed deeply and moved to sit on the floor in front of them. His face was just blank now, it was better than the despair from before, but only slightly. Hunk and Lance glanced at each other and then back to Coran, hoping that he would break the silence without prompting from either of them. As the silence stretched on, however, Hunk took the risk of prompting him softly. Reaching out softly, he tapped Coran's knee softly and then withdrew his warm brown hand. Coran looked up at him and then back at his knees but he started to talk softly.

'Lieutenant Reyna was the original paladin of the Blue Lion.' Lance started visibly at this, sitting up straight and dropping his hands from where they were folded in front of him so that they rested on his knees. Hunk was just as surprised.

'Oh,' he thought back to the names she called the others. 'Was she close to the other paladins?'

Coran let out a small huff of laughter though it didn't sound very much like he found anything funny. 'Close is a bit of an understatement, the original paladins regarded the Princess and King Alfor as family, when she wasn't spending time at the estate, or the palace, she was under their feet somewhere. In and out of their wives' laps, playing with their children.'

He stopped for a moment and reached up to stroke his vibrant moustache. 'I think that I have the picture of all of us together, somewhere.'

He glanced up at Lance who still looked slightly stunned. 'Allura called you Reyna?'

Lance blinked slowly and then opened his mouth and hesitate, working through the shock. 'Uh… yeah, a couple of times.'

Coran nodded his head, and then asked even more quietly, 'And the others?'

Hunk took over at this point. 'We've noticed that she slipped up a few times with Pidge and Keith. Never with me and Shiro though, or at least not that we noticed.'

This didn't seem to surprise Coran, 'No, King Alfor was the original Yellow Paladin. She would never make that mistake.'

Hunk took the time to adjust to the knowledge that he'd quite literally stepped into Allura's father's shoes, but it didn't escape his notice that Coran made no move to explain who the original Black Paladin had been. Glancing at Lance who was looking at him with wide eyes, clearly lost for the next move, he decided that now was probably a good time to stop the conversation for the day. Coran was looking slightly drained and haunted.

It was easy for the rest of them to forget sometimes that apart from the King's hologram, Coran and Allura were literally all each other had left in the word to remind them of an entire society that was destroyed. Now, however, it was occurring to him that this was because both spent a lot of energy trying to be present for both the Paladins and the rest of the Universe. It wasn't exactly like either of them could take a year off to mourn or anything, but, maybe he and the others could do something to help anyway.