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calligraphist-artemisia · 6 years

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Marks of the Soul (Chapter 3)

Summary: AU. Everyone has a mark somewhere on their body which corresponds to the moment they realize they’re in love with their soulmate, commonly referred to as a Soulmark or just a Mark. Even in space, so very far from home, the Paladins find themselves dwelling on their own Soulmarks and what their unusual forms might mean for them.

Pairings: Keith/Pidge, Lance/Allura, Hunk/Shay, and Shiro/Matt

Chapter 1 - Previous - Masterpost

Also posted on AO3 and fanfiction.net

Chapter 3

Shiro ran through the darkness, his chest tight as he struggled to breathe. Ahead of him was the outline of a figure, always on the verge of fading from sight. He couldn't think of their name, but he knew who they were.

“Please, wait!” he tried to yell, but his voice came out as nothing more than a whisper. He tried again and there was no sound. His body felt as though it was moving in slow motion; as if there was some unseen force holding him still.

The figure vanished into inky darkness as Shiro reached out to them. And then his vision went black.

“MATT!” he screamed as he woke, jolting up out of bed, his right arm still outstretched. He sucked in gulps of air as he dropped his arm, struggling to get it together.

It wasn't the first time he'd been awoken by a nightmare, nor was it the worst. It wasn't even the first time he found himself crying out for Matt. Most of his nightmares seemed to revolve around his friend more than they did Commander Holt, maybe in part because of Pidge's resemblance to her brother.

Shiro's heart slowly calmed and he laid back down to try and get back to sleep, but after several minutes of tossing and turning, trying to will himself to stop moving around, he gave up. It didn't matter that it was three vargas earlier than he normally started his day. It was clear that sleep wouldn't come easily to him that night. With that knowledge, he rolled out of bed and got straight into his morning exercises.

The routine helped him settle. The familiarity of the movements gave him time to relax and clear his head, letting his body do all of the work.

He had to believe that Matt was alive, wherever he was. His nightmares were just that – nightmares. They weren't real.

Except for when they were, whispered the fearful part of his subconscious.

His time in the cryo pod had unlocked buried memories, so what was to say that his dreams since then didn't also have some basis in reality? Maybe he'd repressed more than he wanted to admit, unable to handles the horrors of what he'd witnessed. Maybe Sendak was right. He really was broken. His dreams were his mind's way of trying to tell him the truth.

“No!” Shiro growled to himself, the idea so abhorrent that he couldn't bring himself to consider it any longer. His arms strained as he pushed himself up and held the position. “Matt's alive. I know he is.”

He was strong. Just like Pidge. And they would find him.

Shiro lowered himself to the floor and then rolled over onto his back, giving his arms a moment to rest. He needed something more productive to do than working himself into exhaustion. Maybe Coran was awake and needed help with something.

Pidge felt time slow to a crawl when she first noticed it. All of her excitement over getting to view the technology used to create the space pocket was sucked from her body in a single swoop.

There was no mistaking the symbol emblazoned on the pommel of Ulaz's sword.

It was the same as the one she bore on her chest.

She wanted to ask. Needed to. But she couldn't find the breath to do so and before she could snap herself out of the daze she found herself in, Keith was asking about it instead.

And then they were under attack.

Shiro ordered them back to the Castle and into their Lions and all five paladins set out to square off against a new, powerful enemy.

Pidge's heart sank when they saw Ulaz take off in his ship, fleeing from the fight, but she couldn't dwell on her lost opportunity for answers. And besides, Ulaz was likely headed to the Blade of Marmora headquarters, which was where they would be going once they found out how Zarkon was tracking them. They would meet again.

For the moment, she had to focus on the battle.

In the end, not even Voltron was strong enough to defeat the Robeast on his own.

Ulaz returned, his tone determined as he flew straight at Haggar's monstrous creation, and Pidge realized all at once what he intended on doing.

“Wait!” she screamed, wrenching away her connection to Voltron, forcing them all to separate back to individual Lions with yells of shock.

“Pidge, what are you doing?!” Keith demanded.

“Ulaz, you can set the activation for the space pocket on a timer, I saw it! Do that and then eject from your ship. I'm coming to get you!” Pidge said, ignoring hr friends as she directed her Lion toward Ulaz as fast as she could.

All she could think was that they couldn't lose Ulaz. He had the answers to so many questions – and not just her own.

“Pidge, come back! You'll never clear the blast in time!” Keith tried to reach her.

Pidge closed her eyes, urging her Lion to move faster. “I have to try,” she murmured.

The Green Lion let out a roar as Ulaz ejected from her ship and she caught him in her jaws before spinning and blasting away from the Robeast as it began to crumple in on itself.

“C'mon, Green,” Pidge murmured.

Keith was right. They couldn't get far enough away in time.

The blast rocked through Green, sending her flipping through space, power knocked down to her reserves. Pidge's stomach tried its best to rebel as she held on, struggling to keep herself from knocking into anything in the cockpit.

“...idge! Pidge!” Shiro's voice was the first to come through as her Lion collided with something and came to an abrupt stop. “Can you hear me? Are you okay? Did you get Ulaz?”

She groaned in response, praying she wouldn't throw up the moment she opened her mouth. “I'm... I'm okay. I'll need some help getting back to the Castle though. My Lion has completely powered down on me. And Ulaz...”

As if on cue, the door behind her slid open and Ulaz stepped into the cockpit. He clutched tenderly at his side, but looked well otherwise. Pidge let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. “Ulaz is okay too. I've got him. He may need a healing pod.”

“I'll make sure one is prepared,” Shiro promised, before moving on to direct the rest of the team. “Lance, Hunk, help Pidge back. Keith, go ahead of us and let Coran and Allura know what's happening.”

Pidge felt her Lion begin to move as she was lifted up by the Blue and Yellow Lions' and towed towards the Castle. Their continued silence spoke volumes about how they felt about her little stunt.

“Thank you, Paladin,” Ulaz spoke up after a few minutes.

“Not going to tell me how 'foolish' I am for risking my life?” Pidge asked, honestly expecting that to be the next thing he'd say. It was what she was about to hear from everyone else at the Castle of Lions – and it was a lecture she knew she deserved. It was a foolish, rash decision.

Ulaz came to a stop next to her, looking pained even as he took it slow. “I could, but I sense you already understand that. I will leave that up to Shiro and the princess. Besides, I cannot help but feel grateful. If not for you, I would not still be here. If my Mate were here, he would thank you as well.”

“Mate? Like a soulmate?”

“Precisely that. Humans have a similar concept, correct? You call them Soulmarks?” Ulaz asked.

Pidge shrugged. “Kind of. Soulmarks are just how we know when we've fallen in love with our soulmate. Or, well... it's more complicated than that,” she tried to explain.

Ulaz nodded in understanding.

So, Galra had soulmates, just like humans. Pidge didn't find that reassuring. If her Mark meant she was destined to fall for someone in the Blade of Marmora, like she was beginning to assume, that meant her soulmate was a Galra.

The thought was... unsettling.

The Blue and Yellow Lions' carefully deposited her in her hangar and then flew off to their own. Even as Green's power flickered back to life, helped along by the energy the Castle put off, the comms remained silent.

The thought of remaining in her Lion was a tempting one, but Ulaz's laborious breathing had her getting up the moment Green lowered her head to let them leave. His health was more important than trying to avoid getting yelled at.

She would get him to a healing pod and then face the team.

Keith waited alone for Ulaz to be healed. He stood near the pod, fighting the impulse to take out his dagger and stare at the symbol on the pommel. The symbol that was identical to the one on Ulaz's blade. The symbol which signified a member of the Blade of Marmora.

There was so much he wanted to ask. So much he was afraid to ask – to finally learn the answers to after so many years of searching. It would change everything.

His thoughts strayed to Pidge and her surprising determination to keep Ulaz from dying. He had questions for her as well. Or rather, one big question.

Why?

What was the reason she decided to disconnect from Voltron like that? He'd felt her brief spark of fear right before then, but why was she afraid of losing Ulaz? Why did she take such a risk? Was it because he possibly knew where her father and brother were taken?

He felt like there was a giant chunk of puzzle pieces missing, preventing him from seeing the whole picture.

Keith sighed as he found himself turning his blade over in his hands. The hilt and pommel were carefully wrapped up to prevent anyone from seeing the symbol there, but part of him knew Ulaz would know what it was either way.

The pod doors hissed open and Keith braced himself, unable to bring himself to do anything else. For a moment, there was only silence.

“I was not aware we had a member as young as you are,” Ulaz spoke, his voice lethargic as he fought off the remnants of the aftereffects of the healing pod.

“I'm not. I... I've had it for as long as I can remember,” Keith said, staring down at the blade in his hands. He heard footsteps approach and looked up, seized by the sudden desperation to know. “How did this get all the way to Earth? Please, I have to know!”

Ulaz held out one hand, his expression as unreadable as ever. “May I?”

Keith reluctantly handed it over and watched as Ulaz carefully undid the wrappings to reveal the glowing symbol of the Blade of Marmora. He looked it over for what felt like a lifetime before handing it back.

“You bear a great resemblance to your mother, Krolia. That blade you carry once belonged to her.”

“My mother,” Keith repeated, feeling faint.

His mother was an alien.

It was something he'd began to suspect shortly after their arrival at Arus and the Castle of Lions, but to hear it stated so matter-of-factly...

“Do you know where she is? Is she alive?” Keith asked.

“I am unsure. My leader would know, but it is not information he will freely give. It will take time for him to trust you with such knowledge,” Ulaz warned.

“I'll do whatever I have to do,” Keith said without hesitance.

Ulaz gazed at him for a moment and then nodded. “Very well. Once we discover how Zarkon is tracking this ship, I will take you to our headquarters.”

Everything was a mess and yet, somehow, still going according to plan. Keith had a moment of panic when he almost couldn't talk Thace into leaving with him, but luckily the undercover Marmora agent listened the moment Ulaz's name came up. They escaped together, with just enough time to avoid getting hit by the explosion they intentionally caused.

Before Keith could start to worry about being stuck floating in space, the Red Lion swooped in and collected him and Thace, whisking them away in time to form Voltron and follow Zarkon's main ship through the massive wormhole.

He honestly thought it would be smooth sailing from there.

Zarkon's fleet was down. His ship rendered powerless.

They had Voltron, the most powerful weapon in the universe. Nothing could compare to that.

Except, perhaps, the excruciating pain of having quintessence drained by use of magic. Or watching that same magic strike the Castle of Lions with enough force to break completely through the particle barrier and strip it of all power, leaving it to drift, lifeless.

Or worse than that, believing the battle to be won, only to return to the Castle and find Shiro missing from the Black Lion after delivering the final blow to Zarkon.

Keith's hands shook as he picked up the black bayard. He held onto it tightly; the only thing remaining of Shiro.

#voltron #kidgemas #allurance #hunay #shiroxmatt #soulmate au #fanfiction #soulmark au #changing up some canon events #kidge

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