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Shiro was gone.
Shiro was still gone.
It was a hole they were building around. As they were strengthening bonds with allies, forming new treaties, and constructing new plans to fight a new enemy. Nobody attempted to fill the empty seat at the table or fill the silence when there used to be a voice. Nobody tried because Shiro was going to come back. That’s what Keith said.
Lance believed him. Lance thought he could believe anything if Keith said it.
Since Shiro’s temporary disappearance Keith had become the black paladin and he was doing pretty good. It wasn’t like he was trying to be like Shiro, he was just standing in. If anything the team was closer than ever before.
But Lance still felt disconnected. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, a lost feeling that sloshed around in his stomach.
He used to distract himself by throwing himself into research. Allura’s quintessence research. Her fight with Haggar and Slav’s ramblings about quintessence involved in Shiro vanishing had started her obsession with it.
He had stopped doing that though. He never felt like he helped much which that didn’t really improve all his insecurities.
Yet he’d picked up some useful things. As the blue paladin, guardian of water, Lance could kind of use his water affinity to connect with quintessence. And on a planet covered in ocean that meant he could connect with the whole thing.
So logically he could, perhaps, maybe, possibly heal a quintessence-less ocean planet.
It was worth a shot. Every experiment with quintessence helped research.
Losing another paladin wouldn’t be ideal, it’d be an annoyance for the team if they had to replace him. But Lance had known since the idea first formed that he was going to do it. He longed to see some kind of ocean again. The beach had always been home.
####
A haven that hid me well beneath the sand
The wide windy waves washed in
But I stayed dry
The great breakers broke again
As I nodded off inside
####
Keith was staring at him again, just a soft tired stare from across the table. He probably didn’t even realise he was staring. He hadn’t been getting enough sleep again, Lance could tell from the circles that yawned beneath his dark eyes.
God, Lance could get lost in Keith’s eyes. Tangled up in every glint of emotion that rose to their surface.
Lance never did though. One glance and alarm bells rang in his ears, anxious shivers up his spine prickling at any hints of closeness.
Untouchable. Keith was untouchable.
After all, fire and water don’t mix.
####
I wrenched the engines off
And drank them down
The depths turned the iron soft
As they swiftly drowned
And I brought the ocean side
To its rusty knees
As I felt the even tide
Deep in my shallow dreams
####
This was his last visit, he was sure, he could feel that this was going to be finished tonight. Everything he’d seen and felt during his little experiment he’d written down but this time he’d left his notes back in his room.
Even now, flying in Blue, he could feel the alien ocean splashing around him, every rusty shipwreck lying in forgotten valleys, each empty city built into the warrens of caves. The empty shell of the planet described centuries of history to Lance, it filled his dreams. He could almost forget about earth.
Hunk had asked him if he was drunk once or twice, laughing. Lance almost wished Hunk didn’t make it so easy for him to laugh off his concerns and questioning eyes.
Stumbling out of Blue, he splashed into the knee-deep water and waded, unfaltering, deeper. Resting his hands on the surface of the shimmering water he closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
The response was immediate, the ocean roared in welcome around him.
Just like the many times before, he imagined pushing light down his arms. It spiralled out, spreading around the planet with him and blue at the heart.
And then
Somewhere far away Blue roared and there was the vague impression of familiar voices. Friends, princess, castle, fire.
When the Empress ran aground
Gasping, his eyes flew open as sparks lit the air around him. He could see the quintessence. It spiralled from him towards a faint glow deep in the ocean depths.
And my eyes turned blue and green
Roaring in his ears. Waves and Spaceships. Lights and voices. Sea.
I heard a gorgeous sound
And that's when it became a dream
A castle landed behind him, different to the empty cities below.
When the sky fell in
Fire appeared behind him, gripping shoulders with burning hands. Cradled in fiery embrace, he choked on water in his lungs though he gasped at air.
When the hurricanes came for me
Dark eyes dripped diamonds onto his cheeks. As he got lost in them, his vision drifted away, tangled up in every glint of emotion that rose from their depths to their surface.
I could finally crash again
Flames danced along his jaw to his lips, lighting his brain ablaze. Yet the ocean cold clung to his legs, calling.
And that's how I became the sea