Season of Mists

Intro and notes: This is the first chapter of the continuing adventures of my favorite Voltron characters, in a universe all their own… it picks up almost immediately after the events in Black Lion, after the last big battle, in chapter 25 of My Life in Your Service, but before the very last chapter, which, as I explained then, was really an epilogue. At this point, my intention is to write a shorter story than MLiYS, focusing on events around the castle and on Keith and Allura's quest to find the Water Tribes of Arus. It's intended to explore the growing feelings they have for one another, in order to make way for a fuller, mature expression of that love. So expect a lot of love. Does that need a warning? Warning: Much love following… just kidding. But it is Voltron, so there will have to be some big guy action too, among other things…

Playlist: Twilight soundtrack (again!), Moby, 18, and Zero 7.

All disclaimers apply: I do not own Voltron, etc. etc.

Chapter One:

Castles in the Sand

A single, white-clad figure lay on the sand, reclining back on her elbows, one leg bent, one pointed straight out in front of her, her toes dangling into the edge of the ocean's foam. She turned her tanned face upwards, towards the sun. Her eyes were closed and she had pulled her hair free of the usual bun she wore underneath her helmet so that her long blond hair brushed the surface of the white sand beach underneath her. The heavy, humid salt sea air had conspired to turn her normally wavy, well-behaved tresses into a tangled mass that whipped around her shoulders in time with the ocean breeze. The white of her uniform was whiter, even, than the sand she reclined upon; the sun, only a few hours from setting, sparkled across her tightly clad body, making it seem almost as if she glowed. Her white boots lay discarded a few feet behind her. Her legs were bare up to her knees, the bottom part of her uniform rolled up just below them, and her bare feet were covered with wet sand. She looked serene and peaceful, from a distance, the perfect image of a beautiful girl relaxing on the beach, not a care in the world. The only thing missing was a swimsuit. Allura didn't wear a swimsuit. She wore the blinding white uniform of the Voltron Force, and, just beside her boots, she had also dropped her belt that had two blasters and a comm. unit attached.

Keith sighed. She was so beautiful. His heart twisted and throbbed almost in exact rhythm with the pounding waves, watching her, her hair waving gently in the ocean breeze. She had a beauty that went far deeper than just her outward features, which were glorious enough; she had a fiercely protective and loving spirit that had refused to give up, after spending almost her entire life watching as almost everyone around her was ruthlessly exterminated by the most heartless demon in the universe, and the bare handful that was left retreated to the caves underneath the Castle of Lions to live, as she said, like rats, for a decade while her planet crumbled to ash above her. Things that would have driven others mad had only made her stronger. She had the deepest capacity for love of anyone he had ever met. And, in spite of everything, or maybe because of it, he didn't know, he felt within her a purity of soul, an almost holy kind of innocence, that shined as blindingly white as her uniform.

He wanted to pretend that she was just any other girl relaxing on the beach, not a care in the world, but the dark shapes of her twin blasters, lying within easy reach of the reclining princess, reminded him that it simply wasn't so. It couldn't be so. Not yet. One day, it would be. He had promised her. A safe, green Arus where she didn't have to worry about being kidnapped or bombed or assaulted by magic, Robeasts, or the forces of Planet Doom. A safe, green Arus where she didn't show up at places on her planet that had once been settlements and estates, before Zarkon's attacks had begun over ten years before, to find only the abandoned ruins of a destroyed population. He kept his hands near his own blaster. He would keep watch over her as she sat by the sea. He could give her so little, but he would give her this one stolen moment by the sea, shining in the sun, alone, but safe under his watch and in his care.

He crouched against one of the outlying pillars of the bombed out estate that lay behind them. If he turned his head to the left, he could see the grisly reminders of Zarkon's war for universal dominion. The large courtyard had once been beautiful. It was paved in red brick and inlaid with tile mosaics that had been largely destroyed. He had kicked away some of the debris covering one of the mosaics, and had been able to make out about half of it. Stones and decorative tiles of various hues of blue depicted a kneeling woman, clad only in her long hair, holding up a blue bowl, as if in sacrifice, to a being with an outstretched arm. Whoever the being might have been had been erased by some kind of explosion; the rest of the mosaic, and the surrounding ground, was blackened and burned.

There had been a huge marble fountain in the middle of the courtyard, as well; Allura had stared at the cracked and ruined statue in the center mournfully when they had discovered it soon after landing in their Lions. "It held fish, all kinds of small, pretty ones. It was to Count De La Mar what my mother's garden was to the Castle of Lions." She smiled bitterly at the image of the past. "They were so quick, and so colorful, those fish. I used to sit on the edge of this fountain and stare at them for hours, and when I thought no one was looking, I would try and grab them with my hands." Her eyes were haunted. There were no fish there now.

"Did you? Catch one, I mean?" Keith asked, trying to draw her back to him, out of the past, and into the present, where he stood there, waiting for her, guarding her, desperate to see her smile again on this mission to find the Water Tribes that had so far been disastrous.

The bitter smile twisted a little but did not disappear. "No," she said solemnly. "I fell in, and had to be fished out myself, by one of the gardeners. I was six, and my father was furious. But Count De La Mar just laughed and laughed. He was very fat. Life here was slow and lazy, then." Her eyes narrowed as she whirled on him. He realized he had succeeded in drawing her back to him, and the look in her eyes made him wish, fleetingly, that perhaps he hadn't. "Where were you, when you were six?" Her chin jutted out defiantly. "I just told you one of my most embarrassing moments. Now you have to tell me one of yours. What kind of troublemaker were you when you were six?"

"I never have been much of a troublemaker," he hedged. It was true. Most of his life had been unbelievably mundane, punctuated by moments of fierce insanity and unreality, like giant robots and magic and fierce metal lions and intergalactic warfare… he cleared his throat, determined to give the waiting princess something. "Well, let's see… when I was six… I was in kindergarten, and there was this little girl who liked me. Her name was Marianne, I think, and she followed me everywhere. It got to be so annoying. One day, I was minding my own business, playing in the sandbox, and she started bothering me again, and when I asked her to leave me alone, and she wouldn't, I…" he blushed, amazed, suddenly, that he was still embarrassed and ashamed at something that had happened sixteen years ago. Allura leaned forward expectantly, her lips slightly parted, and he almost abandoned his story, distracted. "I started a fight with her," he admitted, dropping his voice to a whisper and his gaze to the ground.

Allura's mouth gaped completely open. "Keith Kogane! You started a fight with a girl?"

"Mmm hmm," he mumbled.

"I can't believe you! What did they do to you?" she asked, caught between amusement and horror.

He looked up at her sheepishly. He looked so human, so vulnerable, in that moment, his shoulder-length shaggy black hair whipped wild by the ocean winds. Gone was the fearless leader of the Voltron Force; gone was her ever-vigilant protector, and for just a brief, glorious moment, Keith looked exactly like an embarrassed six-year-old boy. "Not much," he admitted, his blush deepening. "She beat the ever living daylights out of me. My father decided the humiliation alone was probably enough."

Allura gaped at him even more, the destruction around them momentarily forgotten. "You got beat up by a little girl?" Her mouth twitched as she tried unsuccessfully to hold back her laughter. He laughed with her, glad to have brought her out of her bad memories, even if it was at the cost of a little of his pride. So what, he thought. I'd give her so much more than that, if I could, if she'd let me…

Count De La Mar's sprawling plantation had been the third set of coordinates they had tried on their quest to find the Water Tribes. The previous two, the first of which had once been the bustling port city of Damaris, and the second, a plantation owned by a nobleman, similar to De La Mar, had both been deserted and destroyed. It had been beyond depressing, for both of them.

The large main building of De La Mar Plantation, or what was left of it, reminded Keith of a Spanish Hacienda back on Earth. The building surrounded a courtyard on three sides, and the courtyard blended into stone steps that led down to the sand and the sea. The main building had once been surrounded by fields and outbuildings, which were nothing but blasted ruins and ash now. The main building itself was structurally unsound, with large parts of the red-tiled roof entirely gone, and other parts of the roof looking suspiciously precarious. This was their third stop, he thought, frustration rising as he looked at the princess. The sun would set in a few hours, and they had come nowhere close to finding any marker of the Water Tribe's continued existence on Planet Arus. He forced his frustration down. They had other coordinates to check, other places to visit, and they would do so. They had too. Both he and the princess remained blocked from any kind of mind magic, and Kiari, Clan Leader of the Fire Tribe, had been firm that it would take a healer and teacher of Allura's own element, water, to fix the situation. We'll just have to keep trying, he thought, determined. Looking back at the reclining princess, her toes being kissed by the waves, gave him an idea. Perhaps the was something he could do to lift their spirits…

He flipped on his comm. unit to contact Castle Control. "McClain here," his second-in-command, now first in command of the Castle of Lions in his absence, answered quickly. He smiled, glad to hear his best friend's voice. It felt like an anchor in the midst of insanity.

"Lance," Keith said, quietly, not wishing to disturb the princess. "We've landed at De La Mar Plantation. I'm afraid the trend continues, my friend."

A brief silence ensued. Keith heard Lance sigh. "I was afraid of that. It's looking like the Water Tribes were hit pretty hard."

"Affirmative. This place looks like it got hit less hard than the previous two, but then, it's less strategically important than the other two were. We started with what were the biggest and most important settlements, and are working our way down. It seemed logical."

"How many more coordinates do you have to check, Keith?" Lance asked, his frustration breaking through.

"Just two more," he answered grimly. "Another plantation, and then an isolated estate on an island in the Northern Seas. It's a long shot, but we can't afford to leave any possibility out."

"No," Lance agreed. "Kiari is insistent that there is someone out there, someone who can help." His friend lowered his voice. "I just wish she could be equally insistent about where this help might be…"

Keith smirked. The fiery tempered Clan Leader must be close, he decided. She hasn't been far from him ever since he decided he wasn't coming…. But Keith cut that thought off quickly. He wasn't ready to think too closely about the events that had led Allura to him in Black Lion after the last battle… he wasn't ready to examine, too closely, the ways their mysterious bond might have changed. "Listen, Lance, I want to let you know that we're going to have to settle in soon. Sunset is only a couple of hours off, and although we could come back to the castle, that's going to put us back several hours starting out tomorrow."

Lance snorted. "Don't worry, buddy. I'll cover for you with Koran and Nanny. But are you sure you'll be safe out there?"

"Are we safe anywhere, Lance, really?" Keith answered morosely. Lance was silent. "The thing is, there's something to this water element thing. If you could just see her…" he trailed off, watching Allura. She had rolled over on one side, facing the sea, actually motionless as the surf flowed all around her and the tide rose. She was going to be soaking wet, and she either hadn't noticed, or didn't care. "She's been heartsick. There's so much progress around the castle, it's easy to forget… and she knew these last two plantations, had been here as a child… she's been shell shocked again, retreating into herself, and the ocean, being near it…" he took a deep breath, frustrated, wishing Lance could read his thoughts again. "It calms her. Just being near it is… healing, in its way. I don't know. I wish I could explain."

"You don't have too," Lance said, with a sigh. He could hear it in Keith's voice. "If it's good for Allura, then it's a good thing. Necessary, maybe even." He tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the hint of despair and confusion he wore like a shroud these days, ever since leaving Allura at the tunnel to Black Lion, out of his voice. "Just take care of her. I know you will," he choked out.

Keith didn't even need to respond. They both knew he would. Either of them would. With their very lives. "Of course," he said softly, carrying his own brand of hurt and confusion as well. "Take care of yourself, buddy."

"Sure," Lance said, with an unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance. "Listen, someone has to drag Hunk and Pidge up at the crack of dawn to practice with those Lions. We're not all on beach vacations, you know," he said with mock severity.

Keith looked at the ruins around him, and at Black and Blue Lions, just visible beyond the top of the collapsing roof. "Yeah. Beach vacation. Good one."

"Just bring me a nice souvenir," Lance said.

Keith chuckled. "If you're good. Kogane out."

He looked at the princess, now completely soaked, one last time before heading quickly to Black Lion to grab a few supplies.

VVVVV

Princess Allura closed her eyes as the world around her seemed to breathe in one great, essential rhythm. Without realizing it, she had matched her own breath to the beating of the waves and the whispering of the ocean breeze. The thick, foamy surf tickled her toes and the soft white sand underneath her ground not unpleasantly against her exposed skin. She knew she would have sand everywhere. It was already in her hair and had wiggled its way into the strangest places underneath her uniform. How can sand get into my uniform when I haven't even taken it off? she wondered. But she didn't wonder long. It was strangely difficult to hold a thought, here at the edge of the sea, with the ruins of Count De La Mar's once opulent plantation behind her. De La Mar Plantation had grown the most marvelous fruits and vegetables, including firefruit, and had some of the most skilled glassmakers on her planet. All the plantations on her planet had been run as collectives, on a profit sharing system, and as such, resembled the old plantations of Earth in name only. She had explained patiently to a horrified Keith, who had associated the word with slavery, that Arusian plantations were more like artist and farmer's collectives. She remembered a set of iridescent rainbow hued glasses that her mother had used for special state dinners. They had come from here, from the artisans who lived here… She looked at the frothy foam of the surf. No, her mind insisted. Look here, at the sea. Breathe with it, princess. Forget, for now…you are safe with someone who loves you… and she smiled at the sea, the destruction behind her forgotten for the briefest of moments, and she rolled on her side, directly into the water, gasping at its warmth, not caring that she had just soaked herself to the skin.

Sometime later, perhaps a minute, perhaps an hour, a shadow blocked the gentle late afternoon sun, and she looked up to see Keith standing above her. She smiled up at him, wet, filthy, and covered with clumps of sand and foam and bits of seashell and the goddess knew what else, and she had never felt less like a proper princess than she did at that moment. It felt wonderful. She opened her mouth to ask him if she looked as unprincesslike as she felt, and the treacherous tide took that exact moment to swell over her forcefully, filling her mouth and throat and lungs with a huge dose of saltwater. As she lay there on her side, gagging and red-faced, Keith was with her in an instant, pulling her to her knees, supporting her around her waist with one hand while pounding on her back with the other. As she continued to choke and gag, he muttered darkly to himself, and slipped both hands around her abdomen, applying a sharp upward pressure with his interlocked hands just above her navel. Saltwater suddenly poured out of her nose and mouth, and she gagged. Keith continued holding her that way, arms around her waist now, pressing her back loosely to his broad chest, until she got a good, deep breath into her lungs, and rasped out, "Well, I guess that answered that question."

"What question was that?"

"Whether I looked as unprincesslike as I feel."

He laughed quietly, but she could hear fear in his voice. "I don't know about unprincesslike, but you are definitely trouble. I leave you alone for maybe two minutes, and you try to drown yourself in the surf…"

She whirled around to face him, sitting down heavily in the sand. "Yes," she agreed solemnly. "I have it on good authority I am the most troublesome woman in the whole damn galaxy."

Her words reminded them both of Lance, and the fact that he wasn't here. No one was, in fact, except the two of them. And miles of ruined, bombed-out plantation.

"Thank you," she whispered, sitting just beyond the circle of his arms. "Thank you for giving me a moment by the sea. I almost… almost…forgot everything else."

"No problem, princess."

"Allura," she corrected automatically. "Unless you want me to go back to calling you Commander Kogane all the time…" she grinned, impishly, still beautiful despite her soaking wet uniform and sand-encrusted hair. He could almost forget she had just almost choked and managed to soak him, as well…

"Ok, Allura. I just like calling you princess, sometimes. It's cute." He didn't catch her quick glare, just pulled her to her feet with him in one smooth motion. He pointed at the sun, slowly sinking into the sea. "We only have a little bit of daylight left. I called the castle and let them know we were going to stay here tonight and travel on to the next settlement tomorrow."

Her face lit up like a child's. "Truly? Nanny and Koran? It's ok?"

"It will be," he hedged.

"Did you bring a tent?"

"Well, yes, but… it's so temperate out, and it's supposed to be good weather…" He watched her closely, wondering if his guess about her was about to be proved right. "Princ…I mean, Allura, have you ever slept out under the stars?"

Her eyes got huge. "Can you do that?" she asked, her excitement palpable.

"I've done it more times than I count. On Earth, of course. I've run several scans, and done a little exploring, and I think we'll be perfectly safe right here on the beach. The castle is keeping a close watch on this region, as well." Her excitement was contagious. "We'll gather some wood, and have a fire, and listen to the waves. And, I have surprise for you, for later." At her look of fierce excitement and curiosity, he laughed. "It's nothing, really. Please don't get too excited. It's not like a present, or anything." She merely nodded at him, eyes shining nonetheless, as he set down the enormous pack he had dragged out of Black Lion. He quickly divided up duties as the sun sank ever closer to the watery horizon. He and Allura both scouted for firewood. He didn't want to leave her to wander out into the abandoned fields that were quickly being reclaimed by the jungle, so they gathered armloads of wood together in companionable silence. He set to digging a deep pit while she gathered stones to line it, and then he watched her carefully while she skirted the edge of the jungle looking for long, smooth sticks. He refused to tell her why when she asked. Finally, after things were as ready as he could get them, he looked at her uniform with a critical eye.

"It's going to get a little cold, you know," he said doubtfully.

"You're just as wet and horrible looking as I am," she countered.

"And whose fault is that?"

"Immaterial," she sniffed.

With a sigh, he rummaged in the huge pack and came up with two sets of gray Academy sweat suits, the kind that had hoods. "Here," he said, handing her one. "We can let our uniforms dry by the fire."

She looked down, shy, suddenly. "We can change over in the main building… it's probably safer where the roof is gone…" She looked at him, nearly tongue-tied with shyness. "Will you…stand guard…while I change?" she asked, slipping back into that maddening innocence that broke through her many guises sometimes, making him want to fight armies to protect her, when he knew she could protect herself in most cases. He had trained her to be able to do so himself.

"Of course," he said softly, matching her shy gaze with a straightforward one of his own. "You are completely safe with me, Allura. If you don't know that already."

"Of course, Keith," she nearly whispered, the nearly setting sun hopefully masking her fierce blush. I know I'm safe with you, she thought, with a tinge of frustration. But what if I don't want to be? She remembered back to their time in Black Lion, after the last big battle, and she flushed scarlet. Her gentle Keith had come back to her that day, and his black wall of rage had abated, but she remembered his fierceness, his primal bite at her neck, and the answering fierceness she felt within herself, a passion she instinctively knew only he could bring out in her… There will be time, she assured herself, as she followed him back to the ruined structure of what had been a great, thriving plantation.

He led her to a room where three of the sides still stood. It had once been a changing room, because it was ringed with wooden partitions and empty, sunken baths. He waited patiently while she ducked around one of the partitions. The sky, darkening rapidly as the sun sank, already showed a star or two. She placed the sweat suit carefully on the ground. Keith realized he could see her from the mid-thigh down as well as the top of her blonde head. He heard her uniform unzip with a nervous start, images of her in her nightgown the night Lotor had tried to cut it off her suddenly forcing themselves to the forefront of his mind. When the wet uniform dropped to the ground with a plop, he saw her legs, pale in the moonlight, step out of the white wet fabric. She gave it a little kick and bent over to retrieve the sweat suit. He watched, entranced, as her long blonde hair fell in heavy strands over her bare outstretched arms and legs… he was only inches from her, separated by a wooden partition, as she stood, skin-clad, underneath the gathering starlight…

Get a grip! He yelled at himself. I'm supposed to be watching over her, not gawking at her… He remembered her coming to him in Black Lion and flushed. He had been so out of control… he would not lose control with her, not again. He would show her she could trust him, remembering the bite on her neck with shame. He never wanted to hurt her again. He would wait for her to be ready for him…

"Here I am," she said, twirling lightly, as if showing off a beautiful new gown. The sweat suit was his, and it dwarfed her enormously. He laughed his approval.

"Just give me a second," he told her. "Don't wander off." He stepped back behind the same partition she had used and stripped himself of his soaked, sand-encrusted uniform quickly. He had just slipped his sweat pants on when he heard a scuffling noise from around the partition, and Allura shrieked. He barely had time to turn around, blaster in hand, when she came barreling around the partition, throwing herself against his bare chest. He gripped her tightly with the hand that was still holding his hooded sweatshirt, moving her protectively to his side, his blaster aimed steadily ahead. "What is it?" he whispered, feeling her shake against his side.

She buried her head against his side. "I'm sorry," she said tremulously. "It's nothing, really. It's just… there was a snake…" she wrapped her arms around his waist as he relaxed slightly. "I'm so sorry, I know it's silly, mice don't scare me, but snakes…"

He was still gripping the blaster, still clutching her tightly. He had relaxed slightly, but not entirely. Snakes in the tropics on Earth were the deadliest kind… "Where?" he whispered, moving with her as she pointed. He moved her behind him, pressing his shirt into her hands. He was barefoot, they both were, and whatever had scared her had moved into a pile of debris on the far side of the room. Keeping his blaster aimed straight at the pile, he felt around the floor for a stone or piece of wood… at that exact moment, a thick, undulating form launched itself from the pile of debris, slithering furiously towards his exposed feet. His blaster cut it neatly in two, but it continued to twist, a gruesome reaction of its central nervous system. Allura shrieked softly into his sweatshirt, pressing herself tightly against his back.

"Do you recognize it?" he asked her, squinting in the darkness.

"I think it's a sand serpent. I can't tell for sure, but that's what it looks like. A big, nasty one." The thing had to be four or five feet long. "If I'm right, we're very lucky. They're very aggressive. And very deadly."

She was still trembling. He turned and gathered her into his arms. "Ssshhh," he whispered. "It's a good reminder. Even in the most beautiful places we need to stay on our toes. That was a good catch, Allura." She nodded into his bare chest, unconvinced. "Come on," he said into her hair. "Let's go light that fire. Fire tends to keep them away." She nodded, grateful, for the millionth time, for this man who seemed ready to protect her from even the most ridiculous things, and allowed herself to be led towards the camp he had prepared for them.

VVVVV

"And that one?" Keith asked, pointing a cluster of stars with his stick.

"The Lover's Knot," she said dreamily. She had wished on it, a time or two, as did every girl on Arus…

"And that?" he asked, pointing to another one.

"Lyssa's Bow," she said, gesturing with her own stick, which still had half a hot dog stuck on its end. "The Warrior Maiden." She rolled over to look at him, pulling the last of the hot dog off her stick and shoving it in her mouth. "This was a great surprise," she said, mouth full. Very unprincesslike, she thought smugly.

"I'm not done yet," he answered, a bit smug himself. He stood in one fluid motion and rummaged in the pack, pulling out a bag of marshmallows and a few other ingredients. She watched, amazed, as he stalked towards her. He was so… graceful. Feline, even. "Dessert," he said, plopping down right beside her.

"Huh?" she said, distracted. He had not bothered with the sweatshirt, after killing the snake. His muscles rippled in the firelight. He rolled his eyes.

"Dessert. You could at least pretend to be excited. I had this imported here from Earth at great peril, you know. Not to mention the trouble I had keeping this from Hunk and Lance…" As he spoke he speared several marshmallows, talking the whole while, and before she knew it, Allura was eating the gooiest, messiest, most delicious concoction ever. "Smores," he told her, laughing as she covered her face with marshmallow and chocolate.

"Mmmm," she replied, eating greedily.

He sighed. "Just a second," he told her, running lightly down to the water's edge to dampen a towel. "Here," he told her, wiping at her face. "I was afraid you'd drown yourself again…."

She squealed in indignation, mouth still full, and tossed the cloth back at him. He laughed, his heart light, watching the Princess of Arus in the firelight under the stars, her face relaxed and happy, and something else… As the night breezes of the ocean rolled over them, he knew he had made the right decision. She looked truly peaceful for the first time in two days, since they had begun this heartbreaking journey.

She watched him, too, out of the corner of her eye, as she faced the darkened ocean, her hair whipping wildly behind her. He held himself carefully, not quite relaxed, as if ready to spring at a moment's notice. His weapons belt was right beside him, and she wondered if he realized he was running his fingers across the hilt of the Sword of Altaire. He did it often, actually, and Allura suspected it had become a subconscious habit. His own unruly black hair, grown way past Galaxy Garrison regulation length, whipped about in the ocean wind. He seemed content to watch over her, making her laugh, learning the names of the Arusian constellations, from his side of the fire. She frowned. She wished he was closer. Did she dare? After Black Lion, he had been so careful with her, and she had been unsettled, still, by his fierce passion and Lance's sudden retreat… Lance…she closed her eyes with a brief stab of pain. Her fire-hearted friend still held a place in her heart. Maybe that's why Keith was maintaining this distance. Maybe it had something to do with their absent friend…

"Thank you," she whispered. "For bringing me here. For doing all this." She smiled. "For saving my life twice in one night already, from snakes and drowning…"

"Just don't make it a third time, ok?" he whispered back. She nodded.

"Keith?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you so far away?" she whispered softly, so softly he almost thought he was imagining her words.

He felt the bond between them suddenly, pulling on his heart until he thought it might explode. "Allura…" he breathed, feeling his body, his treacherous body, leaning towards her of its own accord.

She was on her knees, staring at him across the fire. "I'm cold," she barely whispered as she crawled around the fire and climbed into his lap, twining her arms around his neck, burrowing her head underneath his chin. "I can hear your heart," she said. "It's beating in time to the ocean," she whispered, as if she had discovered a secret.

He said nothing. He had no words. He just held her closer, burying his nose in her hair. It still smelled like flowers, but with salt, from the ocean. When she pulled him gently down to meet her lips, holding himself perfectly still as she kissed him lightly, almost shyly, he could taste the salt from the sea. As her kisses grew bolder, he groaned, low in his throat, and broke contact between them.

"What?" she asked, hurt. "Do you not want to kiss me?"

It took him a minute to respond. "Of course not. I mean, of course. Yes. I do want to kiss you." He frowned slightly, dazed. "You have no idea how much."

"Then why?"

He took another few more seconds to take deep breaths. "I don't think I have the control right now," he said, watching her carefully.

"Oh." She thought about it. "Why is that bad?"

He groaned and collapsed on his back against the sleeping bag that separated him and the sand. How can I explain this? I don't even understand it myself, not really…but you have to try, Keith…

He took a deep breath and pulled her down next to him, wrapping both arms around her tightly. "I love you," he told her.

"Mmm hmm. Me too," she answered, snugly against his side. He was amazed at how perfectly she fit there.

"I'm bad with words, Allura. But I'm going to try to explain." He curled into her, gathering his thoughts. "You know I was engaged before I met you, right?"

"Yes," she whispered, aware of how painful a subject this was for him.

His voice dropped to a whisper even lower than hers, his lips right against her ear. "Beverly was the only woman I had ever… been with," he admitted. "It's something I take very seriously. Most guys my age from Earth, well… let's just say I'm not the norm." She lay still, her arms going up around him, as if it was her turn to comfort him. "And I know it's different here on Arus. If Beverly and I had been from Arus, we would never… we would have waited…" his voice trailed off, and she could tell she was losing him in a haze of painful might-have-beens.

"Keith," she said, running her fingers lightly across his chest. "This is hard for me to say, but I'm going to try." He stiffened slightly, listening. "I love you. I can't ever imagine that changing. I love Lance too, I know we both do, but that's… different. That's not what I want to talk about." She gripped him tightly, fiercely, terrified she was about to make a terrible mistake, dredging up the painful past. "What you had with Beverly was love, and under Earth custom, I understand that a betrothal is even more binding than the bonds many partnered couples have. But what happened in the caverns… at the city of the Fire Tribes…" she felt him go rigid, and almost stopped herself. But she plunged ahead, heartache plain in her voice. "I want to be careful with you, too. I think you have deeper wounds than you realize." She raised herself on one elbow to look at him, stroking his rigid jaw with her free hand, tracing his frozen lips, her heart shining in her eyes. "Do you know what you would have called it if Lotor had done to me what she did to you?"

He looked at her then, pain in his eyes, but amazement too, that she could ferret out wounds so deeply buried even he didn't know they were there. She was still moving her finger across his lips, down his face. "You would have said he forced me, and you would have killed him for it," she whispered, the heartache in her eyes blazing into a deep, boiling rage. "I want to help heal you, love. I think you are wounded, still. I feel it here," and she laid her hand across his heart. "I will wait for you, as I hear you say you will wait for me. But know this, as well: I know where this is leading, and never doubt that it is you I want, and you I wait for, and that nothing can change this. It was written in the stars, before we were born."

He shivered in her arms, amazed and afraid at the same time. She was right. He could feel the wounds, still, buried deeply, so deeply. "I love you, Allura," he said simply. "Thank you."

"My element, water, is the element of healing, Keith. Did you ever wonder why you don't have your own elemental Tribe? The rest of us do. Lance is Fire, of course, and I am Water. Pidge is Air, and Hunk is Earth. But you, you are Spirit, Keith, and a part of you touches us all." She snuggled down next to him again. "We must find the Water Tribes. They are out there, somewhere. And then," she yawned hugely. "I can help heal you." She pulled at the sleeping bag underneath them. "Can I please sleep beside you? I'm cold, and afraid of snakes… and I'm troublesome, I hear…"

"I'm not letting you sleep anywhere else," he said, pulling the sleeping bag over them both. "There is no telling what kind of trouble might find you…" he kissed her gently; she was already falling asleep. "Goodnight, my princess," he whispered, looking up at the stars, his mind too full to sleep. He would watch over her until dawn. He had planned to already, but she had managed to remind him, yet again, how precious she was to him, how lost he would be without her… and realized, with a smile, that he might have been kept awake no matter what his intentions. The beautiful, amazing, bewitching, brave Princess of Arus snored.