#vldaspect

AHHHH! TLA now has cover art!!!

Oh man, going straight for my heart, huh?

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“It’s been a long time since I saw your smile.”

Alejandro blinks, looks down at Kurogane. The starlight beyond Blue’s viewscreen plays across his face, casting just enough light to see by when combined with the dim emergency strips that are all that’s turned on to save power. “What are you talking about? I was smiling just a moment ago.”

“No you weren’t.” Kurogane whispers. It’s the truth, and they both know it. Oh, his lips may have been curved upwards as he traced familiar constellation, but there was no joy in the expression. Only the bittersweet sadness they’ve both come to know so well.

Even back before everything went wrong, Alejandro’s smiles–not his grins, his smirks, or god forbid the fake smiles that he pasted on whenever words cut deeper than he wanted to admit, but his true, soft smiles–had been rare. Once he learned to recognize them Kurogane had treasured them, had taken any opportunity he could to try to bring them to the surface, and basked in the light of them for as long as they lasted.

Now he can’t recall the last time he saw one.

Alejandro sighs, their armor clinking together as he pulls Kurogane closer against his side. “Sorry.” The fact that they don’t have much to smile about doesn’t need to be said.

“Don’t be.” Kurogane leans up to kiss his cheek and rests his head against his partner’s shoulder. Between them, their fingers are laced tightly together. Holding onto the last anchor each of them has in this storm-tossed universe. They both know that eventually the raging tides of the Galra will find them and sweep them away, but when that happens, they’ll go together. Neither of them will face the universe alone if the other can help it. “I love you.” He murmurs. A reassurance and a promise and a vow in three syllables.

“I love you too.” Alejandro murmurs back. 

He shifts slightly, and when Kurogane glances up, he’s smiling. Faint as a ghost, but it’s there. A smile he was beginning to think he would never see again, that makes his heart skip a beat. “Thinking of something good?”

Alejandro nods, his blue eyes reflecting the starlight outside. “The life we might have had.” He whispers. Despite the smile, there’s an ache in his voice as deep as the ocean once was. His hand tightens on Kurogane’s.

Something shifts. Blue roars.

Oh geez. Okay. This gut-punch is payback for the one I sent you, huh?

First off, I’m thinking about how/why this would occur, maybe for some reason Holt needed to stay with the fleet but someone still needed to go look. But obviously this means by the time of the jump, Kurogane is dead. And Alejandro is /devastated/. Holt is like a sister to him, she’s the only family he has left, but she isn’t the other half of his soul like Kurogane is. So by the time of the jump you’re dealing with an Alejandro who is a lot grimmer, more closed off, and generally sharper around the edges. He’d be a lot more fatalistic and less hopeful.

Holt, meanwhile, is similarly sharp, even in the unaltered timeline. She’s lost so much, so many people, and hates the fact that for all her intelligence and hard work, she wasn’t able to save any of them. This would only get worse after the alternate version of the battle where Red died. Green is capable of doing massive damage with her final aspect as well, and while the triggering thought would be different the outcome would still be the same: A destroyed fleet, a dead Lion, and a distraught Paladin.

So when the jump happens, you’ve got two much more jagged people coming back. They’d be blunter, harsher. They might not mesh so well with the past team because god dammit, they’ve got a job to do here and they’re going to do it. I’m not sure Lance would end up connecting Alejandro to Blue in this case because he’s probably not going to see as much of the broken side of his older self right away. Alejandro doesn’t open up to Holt quite the same way, partly because he knows he doesn’t have to state things explicitly so much with her, so that overheard conversation would be different if it happened at all.

One big difference early on, you bet your ass Holt would not forget where her brother was. Before they even went over to the Long Wind the first time Shiro and Pidge would know who was there. They’d also already know about Sam being dead because Pidge probably tried to interrupt Holt’s mission-focus with an interjection about still needing to find her family and Holt bluntly told her that Sam was dead and they’d be seeing Matt once they met up with the Icebringers. So Shiro, Matt, and Pidge would be reunited right off the bat, probably while Alejandro, Holt, and maybe Allura spoke to Shiiar’keh.

In this timeline I think it’d be Matt, rather than Lance, who started to draw Holt and Alejandro into the group, by trying to accept Holt into the family. She’d be snappish and distant because, god, it hurts seeing him alive and knowing he’s not /her/ Matt. He’d wear her down eventually, though, and there’d be a lot of hugging and crying and generally an overflow of grief and pain. Then Matt would work on slowly coaxing Pidge and Holt into being a little closer. One step at a time. After that Holt would start to be the bridge between Alejandro, who’s basically holding everyone at arm’s length because he can’t face losing them again, and the others. It might take a bit longer for them to be drawn into the family, but they would be.

Having Holt instead of Kurogane would also have some interesting repercussions during the visit to Earth. Rosa would be a lot more resistant to letting Lance leave again after seeing what the war did to Alejandro. And just like with the paladins, Alejandro would hold his old family at arm’s length to keep from getting hurt again. There probably wouldn’t be the same bringing him back into the family that happened in the original story. Colleen, too, would be very upset meeting Holt, and there’d definitely be some awkwardness even as she tried to adopt her. There’d be even more protectiveness from Colleen, too which might have some interesting (and painful) repercussions later in the story.

Continuing the meme started by @squirenonny with some Last Aspect teasers! Rules:

1. Share the last paragraph you wrote.

2. Count up the number of words in that paragraph.

3. Open your WIP of choice, count down as many lines or paragraphs as you had words in Step 2, and share that paragraph, too.

4. Tag no one. If you’re a writer and you want to share a teaser, consider yourself tagged. Reblog/make your own post and tag the person who inspired you to share.

Last paragraph (from chapter 41 of The Last Aspect): Matt gave a respectful nod “Can do. Good hunting, Shiiar’keh.” With a wave of farewell, he turned and headed for the door. “Come on, Mom, Xel will skin me if I don’t introduce you to her next.” 

Spoilers for chapter 4 of The Last Aspect under the cut.