Actions

Work Header

The Lion Touched

Summary:

Almost five years after everything happened, Lance had settled into his quiet farming life. But he's starting to feel restless and the recurring nightmares aren't helping at all. And then one night, he has the worst one yet. When he wakes, the marks on his face are glowing and he knows one thing for certain. Blue has come back for him, and she needs his help.

Notes:

Hi all. This is my first Voltron fic and honestly, my first fic in about 4 years. I have too much planned. This is going to be LONG, and although the burn is slow: Klance is endgame.

If you like this, please let me know! Your comments are my motivation. I'll be adding tags as I go. Please keep them in mind.

I'm gifting this to my IRL bestie who has been my sounding board and editor for this fic. They're amazing and this fic wouldn't be as coherent as it is without them.

Chapter 1: Wake-up Call

Summary:

Lance often has nightmares. This one feels like it might be real.

Chapter Text

Lance would never forget the sound of the last roar of the Lions and the way it pulsed through his entire body, making him feel the most alive he'd been since they'd lost Allura. It had been a summoning. Come and say goodbye. He'd run as fast as he could to follow the beckoning thread of Blue's mind to his own. Red's had reached out to him next and he was both ablaze and soothed at the same time from the twining link of their consciousnesses. He nearly tripped over his own feet in the halls but a hand had caught his arm.

Keith. He'd run up beside Lance without him even noticing. They ran together in near-perfect sync, Keith's hand never leaving Lance's bicep. Lance pulled him as much as Keith pushed. In the end, he was lucky that the hand remained as he had stumbled to a stop in the courtyard, his eyes locked on the glowing eyes of Blue. He could hear the footsteps of the other Paladins around him, could feel a buzz of curiosity and inquiry at the back of his mind that he knew was them.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Blue cut him off.

If you ever have need of me, call, and I will come, Little One.

Blue had always been so gentle in Lance's mind and this was no different. He found his mind flashing through memories of them together. Of sneaking off to talk to her during his downtime, napping on her paw or nose while she accessed his mind and shared her thoughts. She had been gentle waves lifting him up, encouraging him to keep trying, showing him his worth and place on the team. He had flourished under her guidance and love. Anyone who thought that he had out-grown her had no idea who she really was. She knew that he would have been perfect for Red, he'd just needed a little help.

She pulled away from the forefront of his mind and Red took her place, although she didn't speak to him at first. He hadn't had the same connection to Red as he did Blue. Red was direct and succinct, her thoughts sharp and to the point whereas Blue's flowed and ebbed around the points she encouraged Lance to figure out on his own. Red was fiercely protective of all the Paladins, but of Lance and Keith the most. She too had left his mind seared with a goodbye. Take care of yourself, Kit. Motherly warmth flooded his mind and then...

The Lions rose into the sky and Lance had to wonder if the other paladins had had the same brief goodbyes and what their Lions had said to them. He even thought of asking but as the Lions arced off, they took with them the bond. That constant feeling in the back of his mind of his fellow paladins had been suddenly ripped from them all. They'd been linked for how many years now and now... nothing. He'd never felt a loss like it, except maybe when Allura had walked away and saved the multiverse by giving herself to it. It was a great sucking wound in his chest and a hole drilled into the back of his skull all at once.

But even then, he could still feel an echo of Allura within him. The Lions had left them but the faint presence he felt of Allura hadn't. Maybe because her love had marked him permanently.

Pidge had been the one to point out that the marks under his eyes had glowed for as long as the light trails could be seen after the Lions departed. But before they could say more, fat tears started to streak down their cheeks and Lance had pulled them in for a hug. Even though their bond was gone, an aching hole within each of the paladins there, they knew that the others were feeling the same. They came together and held one another.

This moment was how Lance's nightmares usually began.


Little One.

Lance felt little, out in the vastness of the fields at night. He didn't remember coming out here, but he had been sleepwalking as of late. Restlessness had seeped into his bones like a winter's chill that you couldn't shake off no matter how close you sat to the fire. The other ex-Paladins had found their places in the universe and although he thought he'd found his... He loved his family and he loved their farm and all the people who came and learned from them but lately he felt off. 

He walked down the lane, listening to the rustle of his bare feet in the grass and craned his head back to look up at the stars. It was late enough that the fireflies had gone to sleep and the bugs that usually sang on hot nights had quieted. He was alone with the silence of the stars and the whisper of the wind. It was as deafening as it was isolating.

A light flickered across the field and he paused. A frown curled at his lips. It flickered again and pointed at him but somehow it didn't light up the field. He started toward it, glad that it was in the direction of the field lanes so he wasn't stepping over the plants. The sound of his feet on the ground echoed too loud in his ears. A second light appeared next to it, both of them moving in sync enough that for a second Lance thought they were eyes.

So focused on the glowing eyes that were so familiar that his heart ached, he didn't notice the whispering that had started around him at first. It picked up as he moved faster toward the lights and he tried to decipher it but he couldn't understand the words. There were too many voices all at once. He stopped on his way toward the lights to look around and flinched when something tugged on the leg of his sleep pants. There was no one there. He looked down and recoiled at the sight of an inky black tendril plucking at the fabric.

Lance pulled away, his eyes straining in the dim light of the cloud covered moon. The whispers were growing louder and around him the plants were reaching for him, each one gnarled and black with wicked thorns that shone despite the lack of strong enough light. "What the...?"

He tried to step away from the searching, grasping thorns but there were more behind him. They reached for him from every direction. They grabbed at his clothes, the thorns just barely missing his skin. Tendrils tried to trip him up, thorns grabbing and pulling and every cut burned as if it were edged in the energy of Voltron's blade itself.

The whispers' volume rose with Lance's panic, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried twisting out of the grasp, trying to run toward the light. Through it all, he heard one voice in particular. It was clearer than anything else and yet he still couldn't place it.

Little One...

The pulsing ache in his chest grew, each throb in time with the pounding of his frantic heart. He reached up to cup it, rub the ache away, but what he felt wasn't the tee shirt he'd woken up in. He looked down and was granted the visual confirmation of what his fingers had felt. It was like the aftermath of a bonfire, charred and stiff but fragile under a grasping fist. His breath caught and he coughed on the ash that rose from his chest. The black charcoal spread from his heart, his clothes floating away over that mark as if it were ash from a campfire. It felt just like the ache that was always there. The loss of the bond and of the Lions had always felt like a hole in his chest. But he'd never seen it like this.

Little One...

He whipped around, trying to find the source of that voice that somehow cut through the jumble of words assaulting his ears. There was no one he could see around him, just vines and thorns that were growing and writhing around him. He could hardly focus on the voice that sounded so familiar as he fought to get away, to go to the lights that he just knew were beckoning him closer.

Lance...!

The desperation in the voice and the shock of its clarity in his jumbled mind made him lose his balance. The vines snapped tightly around him. He arched with a scream as they dragged him down to the damp earth. The scream cut off as the vines slithered into his mouth. He choked as they pressed into his throat, thorns pushing through his cheeks and lips. It burned, burned, burned. Everything in his body screamed FIGHT! as the plants started to pull him under the soil.

A blinding light flashed through the darkness and with it a roar that woke Lance from his nightmare. His room was too bright and tinged blue, the marks on his face burning with the intensity of the light shining from them.

Little One, this time, we need you.