#list format

Bit by bit, the universe slips through Voltron’s fingers. A planet here, a system there, an outpost every so often. Before they know it, they’ve lost half their reconquered territory.

One by one, their allies stop answering comms.

The breaking point is a planet called Hojj. Matt Holt and his forces accompany them planetside, but they do not return with them.

Sam Holt is mentioned in the records of some backwater prison, a mere footnote in their execution logs.

Status: Deceased, since two months after his disappearance on the Kerberos mission.

Pidge’s already fragile psyche breaks.

They’re just kids.

They splinter and snap under the pressure of an intergalactic war on their shoulders.

Their eyes are razor blades. Their voices are broken glass. They are sharp and unforgiving and will never again be soft.

They’re not just kids.

Hard battle after hard battle ravages their allies and leaves them bruised and bloodied. Unlike their first few months out in space, getting back on their feet gets harder and harder.

A heavy blast hits the left arm of Voltron, and the bond splits apart. In the resulting chaos, no one notices the lack of Pidge’s voice in the comms.

The green lion does not return to the Castle.

Pidge doesn’t answer her comms.

She is freshly 16.

Colleen Holt never finds out.

They hit a sharp downward spiral. They start losing more battles than they win.

Keith and Lance find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place on a mission. While running for safety, they make a snap decision.

It’s a bad decision.

They find themselves in an airlock.

The airlock shuts. Sentries assault the interior doors.

A voice begins to count down in Galran.

Lance’s helmet is cracked. They are weaponless. The castle is far out of reach of their comm systems.

Lance gathers Keith in his arms and whispers something in his ear over and over again. Keith droops in his vice-like embrace, shuddering, desperate to feel that familiar heartbeat pound against his for at least a few more seconds.

The exterior airlock door opens.

Hunk puts himself between a group of alien children and the Galran forces overrunning the entirety of this planet’s surface.

He can give himself over to the Galra, or let the city’s civilians suffer even more.

He was always a selfless person.

All that’s left is the black lion and her pilot. They are practically defenseless.

Distress beacon after distress beacon flickers out as populations are decimated and leaderships overturned. Sickly violet seeps through the very veins of the universe like a plague.

Allura is stubborn. Allura is young. Allura is foolhardy. But, any great leader knows when a war is fruitless.

She marches into Zarkon’s throne room, head held high and Galran soldiers flanking her on all sides, and meets Zarkon’s eyes with a fiery gaze. She reaches up, yanks off her golden circlet, and throws it at his feet.

Zarkon laughs.

She spits in his face.

The suffering of innocents is at least lessened.

The Green Lion finds eternal peace on a planet of lush forests and fertile lands.

Her pilot finds her resting place there as well.

Over the decades, tree roots and vines creep and grow over a body too small to be that still.

The smallest bodies are always the heaviest.

That forest is lauded as the home of a great goddess of life and her massive steed for centuries to come. Lost travellers tend to find paths to the fringes as though they had grown out of the very forest itself. Animals living there have a strange green glow in their eyes, and in the cracks in treebark pulses an emerald heartbeat.

The Guardian of Earth hears his heartbeat roar in his ears, almost drowned out by the roar of crowds above him. His fellow gladiators reach out to touch him. Certainly, as a former paladin, he must hold some good luck for them as well.

The gate opens.

His fists tighten on the mace in his hands.

He enters the ring.

Two bodies drift in the void of interstellar space.

They hold on tight, hands and bodies clutched together, as close as they can possibly get.

Their faces are peaceful and their bodies relaxed. They could be sleeping.

Lance’s face is covered in a thin sheen of ice. His armor is stained with blood from an unseen wound in his stomach. His eyes are half-lidded, unseeing. The faint hiss of escaping oxygen vestiges can be heard from the crack in his helmet.

The Altean medical log of human biology states that it only takes 15 minutes for a wound in the stomach to lead to death.

Keith’s eyes are shut. His oxygen tanks are empty.

That must have taken hours.

In the vacuum of space, there is little to aid in the decomposition of corpses. In fact, a corpse without oxygen can stay in a pseudo-mummified state for hundreds of years.

There is no life around for lightyears.

Shiro falls to his knees, blindfolded, on a stage in front of a crowd of thousands.

“Behold, the Great Champion of Voltron.”

Six firearms point at the back of his head.

He hears the whine of charging shots.

He does nothing.

Coran clutches Allura to his chest as alarms blare all around them. Their aid beacons have blared for hours now, but no one is coming. No one will. No one can. They’ve been imprisoned in the place that had been their home for hundreds of years.

‘Particle Barrier Integrity At 25%.’

‘Particle Barrier Integrity At 10%.’

‘Particle Barrier Integrity At 1%.’

It is silent.

Altea, and hope, die with them.

Earth stays blissfully ignorant until the day alien warships blot out the sun.

Voltron, Defender of the Universe, is gone.

September – December. 11 years old.

It’s her birthday and she has to spend it at school, which is terrible up until the point Frederick from the other class hands her a bunch of wildflowers, and after that it’s actually kinda nice. They don’t talk too much, mostly make out in front of their respective classmates whenever they can the next few weeks. Elisha has always liked showing off, though she never thinks of it like that. She has something she enjoys so she flaunts it.

---

Some months later, Frederick breaks up with her over text message. He says he’s grown tired of her. She’s pissed off thoroughly, and spends a lot of Christmas break ranting about it at her friends through the phone, at Uncle B, and even her parents a little, if just a little bit. She’s outraged at the pure nerve, offended at the dismissal, and inwardly delighted at the chance to be justifiably angry.

She never really misses him. As she grows older, she realizes that she always cared more for the feeling of infatuation than for the boys on the other end.

 April – July. 14 years old.

She’s the one who asks Nemuel out. She sees him, falls in love, and two days later they’re dating, because it really is that easy, isn’t it? Because if she wants something, why shouldn’t she get it? Because if she likes someone, why shouldn’t they be perfect? Dating is what people do, what they’re supposed to be doing, and she sees no reason to doubt her choices.

---

He is cheating on her. He kisses another girl behind the school building, and she breaks up with him immediately, and she is appropriately outraged, because that is what you’re supposed to be. Because love is blind, right? It’s hardly her fault if she didn’t expect it.

 February. 15 years old.

Her relationship with Teodor is exciting and short-lived. There’s something thrilling about it, maybe in the way he doesn’t want to tell anyone, or in the way they ‘borrow’ his parents’ car to drive to hidden places to make out. She wonders later, after the customary shouting and bitch slapping, if she should have realized. He wasn’t strictly cheating on her of course, because he was cheating on someone else with her. She stays friends with Jeanne for a few years, so at least something good comes from it.

And really, why should they blame themselves? He was the one who was a prick, and no one can expect them to constantly look out for prickishness.

 July – August. 15 years old.

She and Daniel get together through mutual attraction. He’s the alpha-male type, she’s one of the prettiest girls in school, it was bound to happen.

---

He blows off the third date in a row because he has something important to do. It annoys her, but hey, if it’s really important, she shouldn’t judge.

Instead of staying at home and grumbling, she takes her uncle up on an earlier offer of his, and they go to a car race together. There’s never anything quite like a fast car to raise her spirits. It would probably work a lot better if she hadn’t seen Daniel on the spectator stands below her, and the ensuing argument makes her miss most of the race. The worst part is when he tries to break up with her, because he doesn’t want to date a girl who likes cars, it’s not girly enough (as if she isn’t the girliest person he knows), and she retaliates by smacking him down five steps of the stands with her purse and shouting that you can’t break up with someone who isn’t dating you anymore.

To add insult to injury, her favourite car ends up in a six-car pileup and she doesn’t even get to see.

 September. 15 years old. – April. 16 years old.

Chad asks her to go to the homecoming dance with him, and she happily agrees. Why would she not? Chad is good-looking, popular, and he knows how to treat a woman. She has a great time on the dance, and just as good a time on their later dates, and he never gives her a reason to say no to the thrill of infatuation.

---

Catching him cheating on her is one thing. Catching him cheating on her with a guy is another. Listening to him begging her not to tell anyone because his friends would kill him makes it clear enough that he’d never really liked her to begin with. He’ll probably feel the slap she administers for several days, but she does keep the secret, if nothing else then because she knows his friends and she thinks he might not be exaggerating.

 March – June. 17 years old.

Her relationship with Alex feels different, more adult than her earlier ones. It probably has something to do with him being older than her by a few years. Maybe a few more than most people are entirely comfortable with, but why should that matter? She’s still sure that love really is the only necessary thing in a relationship, and she knows she loves him, and she’s sure he loves her too. He tells her all the time, and he makes it obvious that he really is attracted to her. She enjoys the attention, she enjoys the gifts he gives her, and she even enjoys passing a certain milestone or two with him, even if the actual experience is underwhelming at most.

---

It takes her a while to realize how secretive he is about their relationship. He’s a lot subtler about it than Teodor was, and if she was someone else she might not notice at all, but eventually she recognizes the pattern and decides to investigate. She doesn’t know what she’ll find, but if there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s navigating search engines, social media, gossip, and people to find what she’s looking for, and it takes her less than a week to find five other girls who claim to be dating him.

They meet up, compare evidence, schedules and pictures and experiences, gather more evidence, formulate a plan, and then they let it all loose at once.

Social media is merciless.

Alex deletes every account he has anywhere within two days, but the girls doubt he will ever truly be able to outrun the reputation.

One of the girls get Elisha a job at the local hairdressing salon.

 August. 17 years old. – November. 18 years old.

Dennis is gorgeous. His family has some sort of higher spirit ancestry, and it shows on his face, in his voice, in the way he presents himself to the world with absolute confidence, as if he already knows how it should shape itself around him. She falls for him like her blood’s on fire, her skin tingles every time she’s near him, and she screeches into her pillow the night he says he’ll go out with her. It’s been years since the last time she was this much in love.

---

There’s no big event to mark their break-up, no shouting match or great betrayal to precede it. He just takes her just as much for granted as he does everything else, and she could deal with that if she was getting something from it, but she isn’t. They go on dates, they hold hands, they tell people they’re together, but there’s nothing else between them. She likes being in love, and she likes him, but she’s grown up a little, and she wants a little more than just someone pretty to kiss.

So she breaks up with him, and maybe she secretly enjoys the fact that for the first time since she met him, he seems genuinely shocked.

 March – May. 18 years old.

Kenny is the only guy who works at the hairdressing salon. She is not stupid enough to think he is anything but amazingly brave, doing that in a town like theirs, not to mention he dresses well, keeps his hair immaculate at all times, and shares actual major interests with her. They become friends quickly, and no one is surprised when Elisha falls for him. Some people are a little surprised when he likes her back.

---

Romance is very much frowned upon in the workplace, so they keep quiet about it. Because of this very good reason not to announce their relationship, it doesn’t make her suspicious. Of all her boyfriends this far, Kenny is the one she talks to the most, the one she likes the best as a friend, which is part of why she feels so betrayed when he goes the path of four of the previous ones and cheats on her. He’s not even very creative about it.

He is brave enough to show up to work the next day, despite the black eye, and the next few months at the salon are marked by a carefully hidden, biting chill.

 November – January. 19 years old.

Martin has more confidence than anyone she’s ever met. He says exactly what he feels like saying to anyone at all times, no matter how embarrassing anyone else would have found it. Sometimes, he makes her laugh until she cries, and sometimes he just hugs her close and kisses her with a smile on his lips, and she loves him.

---

He isn’t cheating on her.

He hasn’t hurt her, or betrayed her, or even lied to her, not really.

No. It’s drugs. Of course it’s drugs. Half the town is doing drugs of some sort so it really shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does, and she can’t believe she couldn’t see it, couldn’t see he was that kind of person. It’s not like he ever even tries to hide it, so why couldn’t she see?

She never speaks to him again.

 July – August. 20 years old.

It is midsummer and Elisha meets Lasse at a party at a mutual acquaintance’s place. They’re both pretty drunk, but they chat, he asks for her number, and she gives it to him. The next morning, she wakes up with a headache and several very drunk texts from a contact designated “lasiee.” on her phone. They get together.

---

She finds an old and beat-up car in Uncle B’s garage. When Lasse shows he doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself, it proves its worth by running him up a tree. Elisha deletes “lasiee.” from her contacts list, but she keeps The Car.

 December. 21 years old. – February. 22 years old.

Charlie is the best guy she’s dated yet, in several ways. She knows how many girls have been pining after him, knows how many guys look up to him, and out of everyone, he picked her. She is beside herself with joy. It’s great. They match. He understands her, and she understands him in turn. They fit together like two halves of a puzzle, and she is so very much in love with him.

She loves the way his hair looks after waking up, the way he smiles, the way he throws an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close whenever they walk together like he wants only to keep her to himself, and she is so very, very happy.

---

It’s been over a year, and she doesn’t smile anymore. The arm across her shoulders doesn’t really make her feel warm and tingly anymore, and she is so tired of being scared, so tired of feeling trapped.

They find him three miles down the river, and something loosens in her. Something has changed, and she doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about any of it. She just wants it all to go back to normal, but she knows she can’t do it here.

 September. 23 years old.

Her 23rd birthday is spent packing all her belongings into the back seat of The Car. She would have used the trunk, but she still isn’t sure what she’ll find in there when she opens it. Either way, she has few enough belongings that the back seat is enough. Most of what’s in her room belongs to her parents. Her wardrobe takes up at least half of the things she does bring.

Speaking of her parents, they say whatever goodbyes they feel the need to say and let her go. Uncle B spends a little more time on it, even crying a little as he hugs her and asks if she’s really sure she wants to go, and Elisha answers that yes, of course she is. It always had to be like this. And then she leaves, hoping in a way that she’s leaving her past behind with the town.

She meets a group of people on the way, whose names and faces she only remembers because she never forgets a name. It’s quite an interesting meeting, true, but she doesn’t have the faintest inkling of the effect it will eventually have on her life.

 March. 23 years old.

She isn’t in love with Thomas.

Why would she be? He’s about as far from her type as it’s possible to get.

She isn’t in love with him at all, and she would know, she has been in love a lot of times, and that might be why she can step back and think.

She knows how it feels to be in love and to run with it, she loves that feeling, and she knows what happens when she does. She has tried, again and again and again, and she knows better than anyone how love can make one blind.

Thomas, she can see clearly, without the rose-tinted fog of infatuation, and she does like what she sees.

She’s tired of making stupid choices. She’s tired of being hurt and betrayed. She’s tired of being scared of being led astray by her own emotions again.

She’s tired of being alone.

So she says yes.