#honestly... characters set in a royalty AU automatically have my heart

[northofneverland]

Happy Birthday @kagejima. You're a wonderful human being who deserves everything and I hope you are having a wonderful day. You constantly spoil me by entertaining the little scenarios I flood your ask box with and turning them into works of art. Since it's your birthday, and our chats have inspired me, despite not being a writer, I thought it only fitting to return the favour.

This collection of little drabbles is based on the Bodyguard!Sukuna HC that @kagejima and I have spent too much time thinking about. I highly recommend reading this and this to get the most out of this piece. (Also just read those posts because Rae creates the best tales from the few sentences I give her and I want her talent to be appreciated by all). Editing is not my forte, so if you see a mistake, just skip over it. *edit* to see the collection of works in this AU, please refer to this post. There is a little something for Bodyguard!Sukuna, Swordsman!Nanami and Blacksmith!Osamu.

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Staring down at the assortment of trinkets and charms, Sukuna’s eyes gravitate to the little sword pendant on display behind the glass case. He’s walked past this stall three times in the past hour as part of his patrol route, and each time, he slows down just a bit to glance at it, telling himself that he’ll buy it if it’s still there at the end of the day. It’s nothing special, and he’s certain you have thousands of other, better, pendants to wear, but he pulls out his coin purse anyways and pays the vendor before tucking the charm into his tunic for safekeeping. 

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Sitting outside your door is not a job that he thought he’d enjoy, and, if asked, he’d deny it, but it’s the time of day he looks forward to most. Sukuna is happy that your seamstress is keeping you company because that means he has a few more minutes to finish up your birthday gift before the two of you are left alone for the evening. The palace is abuzz with final preparations for your birthday ball, with the royal household staff tending to the needs of all the dignitaries that have come to celebrate you, and he’s grateful for the quiet at your end of the castle. It’s been a little over a week since it’s been just the two of you. You’ve been busy entertaining guests, and he found every excuse not to be stationed outside your bedroom door lest his jealousy took over. But tonight, you will not have any visitors; instead, you'll have him, ready to listen to you all night, leaning against your door, never crossing into your room, and wishing, like he has the past few months, that he was more than just a knight. His fingers deftly wrap around the leather cord as he threads the pendant and a small bell onto it before trying it off. It is crudely made, to say the least, but it's the best he can do with what he has. The glinting of jewels catches his eye, as racks of dresses and cases of accessories, made specifically for this event, are filed out of your room for overnight alterations. After seeing this abundance of wealth, his gift for you feels like dead weigh in his scarred hands. A pathetic gift from a pathetic knight, he thinks to himself, as he stuffs the necklace deep into his pocket. Perhaps, giving you nothing is better than the two lumps of metal he wasted his money on. 

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He slides the leather cord over your head, the two charms dangling as they settle at the swell of your breasts. Instead of pulling away, like his mind is telling him to do, his hand slowly lifts the two charms to his lips and kisses them. 

“Happy birthday” he mutters, so softly your ears barely catch it. 

Your hands go to clasp his outstretched one and bring it to your mouth, brushing your lips over each of his calloused fingers before looking up at him with a smile that makes his breath waver. Perhaps his mind is still hazy from kissing you, but he swears that, in this moment, you have never looked more stunning. Standing in front of him, with your hair falling out of its updo, your makeup smudged from sloppy first kisses and your neck littered with faint red marks, you look like all his fantasies come to life.  

“You didn’t have to get me anything” you reply, taking a moment to examine the necklace better. Your fingers gingerly trace the edge of the blade, admiring its fine craftsmanship, before flicking the bell hard enough for it to jingle softly.

“I get the sword is supposed to be you, but what's with the bell?” you wonder aloud, toying with the metal ball again. The soft ringing seems to echo loudly in your bedroom chamber as an unusual silence settles between you two.

“It's embarrassing” Sukuna answers with a sigh; his eyes shift quickly away from your face to look at anything but you.

“And it's my birthday, entertain me. Is it... Is it so you can hear me sneaking out for snacks?” you chortle at your own joke, thinking back on all the times you’ve thought you’ve snuck past his detection, only to find him sitting in the kitchen with a stool pulled out for you. Looking up at your knight, you realize that despite the darkness of your moonlit room, you can still see that his cheeks are flushed.

“It’s so I can always find you if you're separated from me”. The words slip out of his mouth easier than expected. 

“As if you'd let that happen,” you chuckle, your palm cupping his face as your thumb rubs over one of the twin scars on his cheek before pulling him down onto your lips. 

And you both know you're right. He's in too deep. He can't give you the world. In fact, he can't give you much. But, his heart is yours to break.

[bipilots]

sooo i got these very cool questions on anon but im replying on here to make it look neater and to separate them properly, also because they’re gonna get long,,

What's your favorite scene from Voltron? there are a lot of super cute and aesthetically pleasing shots, but im horrible at remembering specific scenes and the first thing that comes to mind right now is the one where lance is about to be shot into space because the Caste is “haunted” and keith saves him riiiight in time. It was thrilling and i screamed a little, i think. Oh, and i like the one where Lance is literally knocked out cold and wakes up for the two seconds needed to shoot the bad guy because big mood and i love him?? I also really like every scene of them training because i dream about having a wing of my house dedicated to fighting with cool murderous robots too. let me dream. In general, the Castle is my fave setting for anything. 

Why did you start watching it? my tumblr dash started screaming about it approximately two days after the first season came out and i got curious about the mecha setting ((after evangelion if a thing has really big robots im automatically sold)). i made a quick google search and binge watched it all in a night and long story short now i’m here, ta da! i stayed for the giant cats tbh (and because it’s light hearted fun and i like space)

about the ships: i realized that i’m actually pretty simple minded about it, and that the only one i really care about is lance and happiness. sooo,, there’s that. i rest my case. but klance is the love of my life and hance is cute and keith and mothman are a match made in heaven

Favorite character? AHHH well i guess it’s no secret that my absolute favorite is lance. I just find him really interesting, both because of his flaws and the glimpses of his deepest feelings we’ve seen; he has a really outlandish/goofy sense of humor, which appeals to me greatly, and he’s stubborn and outgoing but in a kind of “fake it till you make it” way and that’s exactly what i need in my life. also, because liking the “i joke about things to feel better about shit and i’m really sarcastic and brash but have an actual crisis going on 24/7” character has kinda been my thing since forever. I’m really excited about seeing how he’s gonna grow up and evolve during the series, i think he has a lot of potential. the same can be said about every other character too, honestly. I guess my favorite part about anything is seeing the character development unfold, and this goes for other shows and fics and books as well. I have the annoying habit of taking characters and wanting to dissect them (figuratively, cough) to see what makes them tick, overthinking way too much about little things and quirks they might have. A well thought out plot isn’t enough to engage me if there aren’t complex characters to sustain it, i’m picky. 

Galra Keith or Altean Lance? why must you hurt me so?? i don’t think there’s a real reply to this. well, i mean, galra keith is a little bit canon, but i would be lying if i said that him in purple and with giant fluffy ears wouldn’t appeal to me, for aesthetical reasons,, i guess I’m gonna have to go with altean!Lance? because in that particular au he’s royalty, which suits him (im not smitten, what are you saying) and... no, that’s totally just because i’m smitten. My son looks so good in the altean garments, what can I do. It’s also a very cool take on the whole “everyone is an alien someway but they still meet each other and form a great team because of destiny” thing  

Who do you think would take the first step in Keith and Lance's romantic relationship? I would love to think about their romance as them taking small steps towards each other equally to meet in the middle? In a very slow burn way, classic “enemies (in lance’s head) to friends to lovers” trope that you can pry from my cold dead hands. I think they’re both very cautious when it comes to love, for different reasons. Keith is closed off, a little wary about human contact, even if we see him gradually warming up to the team, but he’s also a driven character and seems to me his focus right now is on saving the universe. Which is good, but it’s already a lot on his plate, without adding the whole “half galra” thing which further complicates the situation. Lance is exactly the opposite, he barrels on through human (and alien) interactions and flirts shamelessly, but I think that’s more of an ingrained reflex than real pursuit of a romantic relationship? From little clues, we can guess that he knows his flirting is almost never taken seriously (and just how sad is that wtf lance, baby) and that’s why he does it, because he knows nothing is really going to come from it. The only way I see them going is at a relaxed, almost frustrating pace in which they discover themselves first and then each other, as teammates, then friends and finally lovers.

In the more immediate sense of the reply I think you were asking, it could go both way: once they’ve done their share of self-discovery, Lance may accidentally blurt out something about how he thinks Keith is good at something (his compliments are not often based on physical appearance as much as they are on practical things/personality traits which is very sweet and awesome) and then his babbling escalates in way over the top justifications until he actually confesses the deepest, fluttery feelings he’s hiding in his chest; or maybe it’s Keith to take the first leap of faith, kissing Lance square on the mouth (maybe after a particularly taxing mission where Lance does a stupid heroic thing like trying to sacrifice himself // I’m a fan of clichés and that’s romantic af besides being something that Lance would totally do) because he’s not much of a talker and he’s tired about circling around it. Mark down my words, there’s lots of super cheesy ways it could be done, and I love them all. These two are just the first that came to mind. 

Favorite lion (overall shape+colour)? My favorite color is red and I like the smaller lions merely because of practical/aesthetic reasons; besides, the way Red leaps right into action to protect her baby (Keith) is adorable and,,,, my fav is still Blue. I don’t know what to say, it doesn’t make sense, it’s what my heart is telling me. But Red is a close second, let’s call it a tie so i feel less bad about it.  

Favourite Coran life stage? teenage emo/you don’t get my feelings you don’t know my life and everything I’ve been through!Coran is my entire life

Favourite planet they've been so far? the Balmera, that’s a really wholesome sentient planet, if i do say so myself. I love it.

Favourite episode out of all seasons? again, i’m calling a tie between the “bonding moment” one for obvious, lame reasons and the space mall because Lance is a dolphin and they literally found a cow and fueled a lot of my headcanons where they can totally buy weird things needed for shameless fanfiction-y purposes  

Haggar or Zarkon? Zarkon is a grimy, wrinkly turtle and I really want to get his backstory but Haggar is a pot of unraveled mysteries and she’s way cooler in my opinion

Is Shiro a dad or a big brother? Shiro tries so hard to be a big brother (even if he likes making dad jokes) but he’s just mostly done with everything and overall bad at adulting,, just give him a piña colada, a raunchy romantic novel, put him on a beach lounger with sunglasses and let him rest

Princess Allura or Paladin Allura? both are good. She’s a fundamental asset to the team either way, by backing them up during the battles, piloting the Castle and being their support system (helped by Coran) with stuff they don’t understand - which is a lot because they’re basically going blind into the whole thing. Paladin Allura is something that I love, and she will absolutely kick ass, but I reserve my judgement for when I see what the team is gonna make of it. It surely is gonna change the dynamic a lot and depending on what role she assumes it could be good or absolutely amazing. I’m just really curious about how they’re gonna go about it. But yeah, both are cool. I’ll get you back on what is my fave once I've seen both the options in action.

ooook,, whew, im done. AHH this surely was something. Thank you for asking??? They were super interesting questions, sorry it took me a little while but I tried to reply to the best of my possibilities and hope that you got the answers you were looking for. ♥