Will I ever get a grip on my life and move on from Voltron?? Most likely not. And will I stop letting myself get too nostalgic over the times the show was still going and stop getting anxiety over that the fandom is falling apart??? Pfff NEVER.

Okay but like, my obsession over Voltron can't be neither normal or healthy, tf?? How tf do you move on from a show?? Never done it before.

۝ ۝ ۝

My family and all the paladins were seated at the dining table when I arrived to the castle, the food just served and steaming hot, luckily not one of Coran's odd fabrications and actually something edible, but as I stormed in, every head turned to look at me, just like before. I could even hear a fork drop loudly to the plate.

I could understand why everyone was looking at me like that. For a starters, I looked like I had accidentally missed Clear Day and had just been out of a regular storm in Drazan, hair tousled, crown barely on my forehead, but then it was my sudden appearance too, how I had just barged in to such a peaceful ambiance. Allura stared at me in the same way as before, eyes big and face looking confounded. Her mouth gaped around the ghost of what was supposed to be her first bite of the palmagoren fillet, and her chin hung lose like that for a while. Trigel just looked confused upon my arrival, and Gyrgan equally as baffled. Coran was twirling his mustache in wonder. Blaytz was the only one smiling, but then again, he smiled almost constantly, so this was nothing new. Dad was the first one to speak out of everyone in the dining table.

"Son, why so early?" He calmly placed down his eating utensil back on the table, giving me a look of wonder. His eyes looked even smaller from here, like two tiny, bright ovals. He gave out a little chortle, but it was anything but gleeful. "And why do you look like such a wreck? Did you get chased down by a Yalmor?" He chuckled again, and the deep rumbling of his laugh filled the big room like thick syrup, only that it wasn't that sweet anymore and it hadn't been for a while.
Upon the sound, Allura snapped out of her trance and closed her mouth with a smack, placing down her fork in a much less gracious way than our dad. She cleared her throat intently.

"Why do you smell like forest, Lance?" mom asked me, in that little voice of hers, resembling Allura's so much - or, Allura's voice was the one resembling mom's - and she had an anxious look on her face. I gulped.

"Tripped into a bush", I muttered, almost inaudibly, but then I gave my family all a look. "But hey, Hunk hasn't like... I don't know, contacted you or something?"

Dad immediately raised his eyebrow, the steam of his food twirling up to his face. "No, I don't recall receiving signal from Hunk. Is there a specific reason to?"

I internally breathed out, relieved that one problem was out of the way. But now I had another one to handle, and that being to explain my - what they would certainly call - strange behavior, and the reason as to why Hunk would even call them in the first place.

"Well... you see..." I scratched my neck, looking to the side, staring at one of the walls as if it could give me a logical story to use for this situation, but I was disappointed when it didn't. "I um... I..." Quiznack, I should have thought of something to say before I barged in here. Now I would have to take whatever came to mind. "I... There were changed plans, and... my communicating device ran out of energy on my way back home, while talking to Hunk. And then I... tripped into a bush...?" Everyone gave me odd looks, so I quickly added. "You know how my legs can be. Flawless looking but not so flawlessly working."

"Tell me about it", Trigel snarled. "I can't even count how many times you have somehow managed to trip over my equipments. It's like you have a very annoying obsession with the floor."

"That is correct", dad chuckled, and it made me allayed when he wasn't immediately taking me for a complete fool upon hearing my story. "I can still remember when you were a youngster and Melenor had just stitched that new blue attire for you, and you wore it for the first time and tripped over the juniberries, staining and making a hole in your clothes the same quintant." He snickered, looking down as he shook his head, a small smile on his rumpled face. "Your mother was upset for quintants."

Mom groaned in approval.

I gave out a nervous little laugh. "Heh, sorry about that, mother."

"Just go take a shower and come eat", she muttered, but I could still see the littlest smile on her lips, and it made me overly happy.

For the briefest tick, I was living in the very moment, in the smiles of my parents and the other paladins, and the disappointing head-shake of my sister, all laughing at my clumsiness.
For a tick, reality turned into something softer.

۝ ۝ ۝

Allura pulled me off to the side as soon as dinner ended, and yanking at my arm until she made me abruptly stop in a spot that would hopefully be out of range for anyone to hear. It was switched rolls; now I was the one being dragged by my sister as she urgently had something to say to me.

"What happened?" was the first thing she demanded, and she leaned her face close to mine, her eyes bright and wide with wonder. "Spill."

"What...happened?" I repeated, my mind still lingering in the moment of the dinner.

My sister rolled her eyes impatiently, putting her hands on my shoulders, lightly shaking me, and I could feel my my brain was swaying around in my head. "Why are you here so early? Did something happen to Nyma?"

And I was back to present again. Whatever boisterous dinner I had had just now, was now over, and I was back to the constant anguish and pondering, and the cycle of continually lying to my own sister. Something that could only be pure guilt gnawed at my chest, and it must have added to my act when I said:

"Oh...She... I had counted the quintants wrong. She wasn't supposed to come back today. I realized it on my way over to her."

Allura's eyebrows slowly raised, and she let her hands drop from my shoulders, falling to dangle at her sides, and she pursed her lips together for a tick, blinking numerous times before saying: "Oh...I... I'm sorry about that, Lance. How are you feeling?"

Badder than ever. Awful. Horrible. I want to jump out the nearest window. "It's okay", I reassured, but we both could hear the slightest wobble in my voice. I looked away from her. "Waiting for her a little bit more won't kill me. There's nothing more I can do." Call him as soon as you get time for yourself, my mind told me.

"Are you sure, Lance?" She grimaced, putting a hand on her hip, leaning away from me. "You must miss her a loads. You looked so eager to see her today, it's only fair that you're feeling upset."

Of course I was feeling upset, but not for the reason she was thinking. I couldn't care less about where Nyma was, or what she was up to at the moment, but I had to pretend to. But whenever Allura broached that subject, I would constantly see the wrong face in my mind, the face that I shouldn't be seeing, especially not when lying, and especially not now. Not when I was already bothered by our argument we had in the cave, and what would happen from there. Now, the only thing I could see was his sullen face, and his narrowed eyes as the Galra in him got even stronger, the fangs he bared as he yelled at me. I had to shake my head to get rid of the image.

"I'm fine, Allura. Honestly. I appreciate your concern though, but it's really nothing. She will be back soon anyways, so it's alright."

It is. Everything will turn out fine between us again. It has to.

۝ ۝ ۝

Keith wasn't in the cave when I arrived to it the next quintant.

Nor had he answered my 23 calls the quintant before. I had counted, counted every little beep and flicker of light that went through when I waited for him to pick up, to see his angry face take shape as an hologram in front of me, and I would even be happy that it looked bitter. An enraged Keith face was better than no Keith face at all. He could even yell at me, spit in my face about how bad it was for us two to visit each other; all that was better than walking in to a completely empty cave after having 23 calls unanswered and having to lie again about going out.

And when I say completely empty, I really mean completely empty. Not even the fire log was there. Instead, it was just a dark spot left after where it had once stood. The only thing remaining was the memories of what had once been, and if I focused real hard, I could even hear our voices echo in the space around us, and my bubbly laughter when everything had seemed alright, when I hadn't paid much attention to what really was. Now all that was replaced with the loud globules hitting the cold cavern floor, falling from above, and my erratic breathing too.

My first instinct had been to dive forward, to stretch my hand to feel for that camouflaged barrier he had put up when the intruders had strolled around in the forest, and I was so convinced that my hand would collide with something solid, with something that would prove my little theory right, but I whimpered when my hand went right through the air, and I stumbled forward, my forearms hitting the cavern wall in front of me as I crashed into it. My breath stuttered, and I made no attempt to pull back, to keep searching, because deep down I knew.
Instead, I leaned my forehead against the chilly stone, squeezing my eyes tightly shut as I tilted my head downwards, my hands balled into fists against the wall I was leaning towards, firmly pressed against either side of my head. There was a rising pressure in my throat, one that I desperately tried to push down, to trample down, and the corners of my eyes stung, stung as much as my soul did, and I bleated like a wounded animal, my whole body shaking from the upcoming sob.

The smell of smoke, new and recent, sojourned in the air, and our voices from previous conversations kept resounding in my head, his little, rare laughs when I brought up an old goofy story, or when he managed to make me flustered enough that it was worth laughing at. I compressed my eyes harder, squeezing in a picture of his face in my head. It came to the angry expressions, the ones he used whenever an inconvenience happened - whenever he was scared that something bad would happen to me. Idiot. The only bad thing that could happen to me was exactly this, this devoid cave, these omitted 23 calls. This was the only pain that could properly harm me. I began to bawl, my shoulders trembling and my whole core quivering with each shake that my body went through.

He was the one leaving me, not the other way around. This was him taking his own demand into action.

The water dripping from above wasn't the only droplets falling to the ground anymore.

۝ ۝ ۝

It was really hard to see the good intention in what he had done, it really was. What was actually done out of pure care and worry turned into abandonment in my mind, and made my heart want to crawl up my throat, but I always had to swallow it down back in place, which was equally as difficult. He hadn't left me because he'd grown tired of me, that we had established in various ways, but it still hurt. Very much. Because I hadn't agreed to this, this wasn't what was supposed to happen, especially not without my consent. But I knew that was the reason this had happened in the first place. My lack of acquiescence was what had driven him to take this into his own hands, and be the one to intervene, but now it was my task to just come into terms with the fact that is was all a good conation, and not what my head made it seem like. There was this one resonating voice in my mind that told me that this was for the best, that he had eased it for the both of us, that he had done it because he cared, strange enough, but then there was this other, more dramatic voice that kept grumbling that he had become tired of always worrying to be caught with me, and that this was his move to ease it for himself only. I knew that that voice was stupid, but it took up a big part of me, mainly because it was the voice of my vacillation and self-doubt, which my body consisted most of, so it was only fair for me to lay sprawled on my bed for quintants and be dramatic.

It became harder to pretend that everything was fine with me, too, as the quintants went on, especially after I'd have a muffled crying-session in my room for at least ten doboshes, and then proceed to put up a broad smile on my face and crack jokes at the dining table, trying to assure everyone that I was alright, and that everything was like it has always been.

That idiot, that little snarflaf, leaving just like that. I turned in my bed, laying on my side, hands under my head as I stared at my shimmery, translucent curtains at either side of my bed, watching how it varied between arctic blue, light purple and white. 
If only I'd left like he told me to, and maybe he would still be here, and we could have continued to hologram-call each other, because that was better than this, than not seeing him at all, having no idea where he was. But how could I be so certain that he wouldn't have left even if I were to leave and never come back to the cave, at least not in a while? How could I be so sure that this wouldn't happen anyways? 
I couldn't, and that was the most provoking part. Quiznack, I would start crying again.

A soft knock impeded me, however, and I sat bolt upright in my bed, so fast that I could swear that my spine cracked, and I winced, quickly scrabbling for my reading tablet that I had placed on the armrest of my bed, with no intention to actually read it, but it was there for this particular  reason, and that being to pretend that I was actually doing anything judicious than just showering myself with self-pity and crying over the absence of someone that wasn't even allowed to be here in the first place. I cleared my throat and leaned my back against the headboard, patting down my hair that desperately wanted to stick out into too many directions.

"C-come in!" I croaked out, grimacing after. I sounded like I was being throttled.

The door slid open, revealing my sister standing at the threshold, and she smiled in a way that seemed off, in a way that I couldn't really explain. Or, if I were to explain it, she wore that smile on her face that she wore whenever she knew some good news that I didn't, news that she suspected would for sure make me delighted. But the only news I really wanted to hear from her was that Keith was back, but I knew that was never going to be the case, so the smile had no big effect on me anyways.

"Hey Lance, how you holding up?" she asked with a soft intonation, letting the doors whir closed again as she entered my room, standing at the end of my bed, glancing down at the tablet in my hands. But then her eyes moved up to my face and her smile ran off her lips in an instant, worry making her eyebrows twitch. She lightly placed her hand on my one leg on the bed, looking me in the eyes. "What's wrong? Why does it look like you're about to cry?"

Quiznackquiznackquiznack. I dismissively whisked her concern away with my hand in the air, shaking my head, praying to any powerful and magical source that I would be granted a voice that I could properly use in this situation, and one that wouldn't make it sound like I hadn't spoken for a decade.  "It's nothing. Just reading a really emotional book, that's all."

"You're holding the tablet upside down."

I turned the tablet without a word.

"...Well, I have some news for you", she added afterwards, the grin back, bigger and smugger than ever. She tiptoed over to stand beside me, hands grinding against each other in excitement. "News that would for sure enliven your day."

Nothing except for the presence of him could enliven my day, and I hated that I was so consumed by the sadness over his departure, hated that I let myself get so affected by it, not being open for any other positivity that wasn't the sight of his face, and most of all, I hated how I had no one to gripe about it to, no one who would sit and take their time to listen and most importantly not get annoyed with me for it. But it was just that, no one even knew about my struggles, and no one would ever do it, if I didn't want to get both Keith and my prosperity killed, which I never wanted to, so it was a big no-no. 

"Alright", I sighed, placing my pad aside, looking up at her. "Let's hear it."

Allura was already squealing with thrill, and she hadn't even told me the news yet. She clapped her hands happily, biting down on her lower lip as to tone down on her smirk. That smile couldn't be anything else than painful for the cheeks. She opened her mouth, said:

"How would you react if I said that Nyma is back?"

Everything short-circuited in my head, and I blinked, my eyelids fluttering in light speed, and my brain turned into a question mark inside my head, wondering what the quiznack was going on.

"Say what now?"

۝ ۝ ۝

It was with caution that I stepped out into the blind spot of the castle to meet up my "girlfriend" to greet her after her "return from her unfinished mission", and it was utterly exhausting to act ecstatic upon her arrival when I didn't miss her at all and her face was really the last thing I wanted to see now. And I couldn't really replace her face with Keith's, because that would just make me overly sad and I certainly didn't want to start crying out of nowhere in front of my sister and the devil itself. No one would believe it was just because I was happy to see her, so I just had to rely on my acting skills for this one.

"NYMA! YOU'RE FINALLY BACK!" I ran over to her, almost falling in the progress, and it resulted in me colliding into her way too hard, with way too much force, almost tackling us both to the ground. I wrapped my jellylike arms around her torso, pulling her too close to me. It must have really been something wrong with me, because for the first time, I wasn't welcoming the proximity from another pretty girl. Keith leaving must have really destroyed me. 

Nyma returned the hug, too hard for my comfort, and I knew that it wasn't because she wanted to put up a good show, no, this felt more like a I hope this hug will suffocate you - type of hug, and I wanted so bad just to disappear, to evaporate into the air and never return. 
She prodded her chin against my shoulder, so her mouth was really close my ear when she whispered.

"I'm back, and you're in big trouble, rascal boy."

I gulped, my heart stopping when she hugging me even harder, and I could feel how it was slowly getting onerous to breath. If I would only make it out alive.

"I'VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!" I continued with my show, hoping that I didn't sound like I was encountering a murderer in a dark forest. 

Like always, her giggles came out of the blue, orotund and mellifluous, so fake but so goddamn sweet. It just wasn't fair, the way she could switch personalities so effortlessly and leave everyone so befuddled, especially me.

"I've missed you too, babe." Something about that pet name made me redden significantly, even if I knew that there was no affection implied behind it whatsoever, and it would presumably never be. But it still made me blush, and it made me kind of relieved, because that ment that I still had some functions working in my body, and Keith hadn't ruined all of them. But of course it had to be the irrational function.

She pulled back, her violet eyes twinkling innocently up at me, and the smell of cherry and blossoms hit me hard again, something so concentrated that broke through all my senses, and for once, I didn't really embrace it. For once, I smelled just as Keith must have smelled it when I had returned to the cave after my "date" with her, and I could understand what he meant by "garbage". The smell was nice, yes, but the owner of it wasn't.

Nyma peeked over my shoulder, at what must have been Allura standing and swooning over our very forced reunion, and she plastered a shy smile on her yellow face. "Could we please get a little moment for ourselves?" she asked my sister in that voice that couldn't be anything else but innocuous, but I knew the meaning implied behind them. "We have lot of catching up."

I whipped my head, looking over my own shoulder, just in time to see Allura get startled, and she already started to back away. I internally screamed. "Oh! Yes, of course, by all means! I'm sure you have a lot of talking to do..." She made a very not-subtle wink, and I wanted to shout for her to stop, to not leave me with the Beelzebub, to not hand me over to the death itself, but my sister was already half running back into the castle, and it was all too late. This was it. This was my death day.

As soon as Allura had disappeared, Nyma shoved me into the castle wall, and I huffed out at the impact, feeling my spine protested in pain. She had her hand on my chest, pressing me against the metal surface, still meeting me with that smile that definitely didn't match in on this situation

"So...", she began, and I prepared myself for the worst, throat running dry. "Should we talk about how you still haven't fixed my ship yet, and it's gone way too long now?" She grabbed a handful of my cloth in her big hand, her eyelashes batting innocently at me. "And then you proceed to lie to your sister that I was "away on a mission", and that you have impatiently been waiting for me? You're lucky that I'm a good actress and that I could catch on directly what was going on." I was now praying for anyone to save me from this situation. She chortled. "But how do you expect me to be away on a mission when I have no ship to fly? Hm?"

"I-I will get it f-fixed, tomorrow... I p-promise. Just let me inform my friend first, and he'll fix it for you, I promise", I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible, but of course I failed, and it sounded more like I was doing terrible vocal warm-ups instead.

Her little giggle turned into a witch laugh in my head, and I wanted to shrink to the ground and crawl away from her gaze and her clutch on my chest.

But then she released her hold, instead tracing a thick finger over my thorax, her lips glistening in the natural light around us.

"Hm, you see, if you're lying, and not having my ship as good as new by tomorrow, you will be in for a lot of trouble, alright?" She pecked my cheek afterwards, and it felt like my head would explode because of how crammed my head currently was, filled with too many unanswered questions, and too many shrieking thoughts.

"Now I suppose we'll have to" catch up", right? " Nyma said, leaning away from me slightly, but I still couldn't breathe out. "So what have my dereast boyfriend been up to lately, then?"

۝ ۝ ۝

It felt like deca-phoebes, deca-phoebes of pretending, of pretending that I wasn't on the verge of sitting my pants and actually creating meaningless conversations with her that showed no good side of her whatsoever, and made me dispise her even more. But this was just us killing time, to make it seem like we were actually catching up and doing more intimate things that Allura must have guessed we would do, but I shivered at the thought of Nyma's lips on mine again.

Only his. I only want his
Wha-

Finally, after deca-phoebes that was only really eight doboshes, I could return in to the castle, and Nyma was gone, but now I had another problem to tackle, and that was being to put up with Allura's squealing, cooing over how cute we were and how adorable our relationship is, and how desirous she was to have something as that.

"You'll find the right one soon, I can assure you of that", I had to reassure, trying to sound smitten, rather than I had just seen death itself in the eye, and I seemed to succeed, because Allura must have not seen anything wrong with me.

She lowered her gaze with the smallest blush on her cheeks, smiling. We were both aimlessly walking through the corridor. "I hope so."

Just as she had uttered that, something happened; Coran's frantic voice broke through the intercoms suddenly, loud and almost shirll, making me and my sister come to an abrubt stop, listening to our advisor shout out the new information.

"Paladins, report to the control room immediately! We have an incoming call..."

A little pause, shuffling on the other line.

"...from a Galra!"

۝ ۝ ۝

tHe AnGst
It hurt my heart to write Lance this devasted. And a chapter without Keith??? A sIN

Ok but speaking of something completely else, what would you say if I started an Instagram page for my drawings??? Yes?
No?
No answer at all??

Like, I've wanted to do it for such a long time now, and it's now that I regret not doing it when Voltron was still ongoing, and I'm like hesitant to start one now because who would want to see Klance content now?? Like, it seems that everyone is just leaving so...??

If I were to though, I have started a fix it-comic for season 8, and I've already started the first few parts (I will make the backgrounds last):

So I'm basically making it look as if it were in the actual show, and I'll start it off from episode one in season 8, only that what was an Allurance date is now a Klance date.

But of course I would post my own  style too (even if I don't even have one yet welp), and just make it a big fanart page for, eventually, different shows