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To Saralinda: Part 2 |
Allura is in the meeting room, gazing wistfully out of the window. I pause at the entranceway to study her for a moment. Eventually she becomes aware that I’m standing there and turns her head in my direction.
“Hello, Lance,” she says, and returns her attention out the window.
“Princess.” I walk over to the window to see if she’s studying anything of interest. And yes, she most certainly is, as far as she’s concerned. Keith is down at the castle entrance, addressing a bunch of new recruits for the Academy. But Allura doesn’t have the usual gaga look she gets for him when she gazes after him from afar. In fact, she seems kind of depressed.
“Princess? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, right. That wasn’t even a good lie.”
She turns away from the window and folds her hands in front of her. “Do you know what tomorrow is?”
“Of course I do. Who’s going to forget your birthday?”
She sighs heavily again. “And do you know what happens on my birthday?”
“Sure. Nanny cooks this huge meal, Hunk wipes it out along with half your cake and gets a lecture from Nanny about table manners, you open the half-ton of presents you get...”
“Presents.” She spits the word out in disgust. “All sorts of presents. Always unique, and lovely, and just the thing I wanted.”
“Isn’t that what presents are supposed to be like?”
“Yes, they are. But that’s not what I want this time. I want...” She gazes out of the window again. “I want Keith to kiss me for my birthday tomorrow. Just once. I’d settle for a peck on the cheek if that’s all he could bring himself to do.” She regards me with sad, blue eyes. “Is that terribly much to ask?”
“Not really, but you have to understand how Keith’s mind works. He -”
Allura frowns a little. “I already know how Keith’s mind works, Lance. I’ve seen it working for over four years now. He’s the Captain of the Voltron Force, and when I flew Blue Lion I was a member of the team, and he could beat on me during sparring practice and correct me if I wasn’t flying properly and scold me if I was out of line. But any other time it’s like I’m up on this golden pedestal a thousand feet high, and he just stands at the bottom of it and stares up at me.
“Well, you are a Princess, so he’s expected to give you a margin of respect, you know.”
She nods. “Yes, I know. All too well. It reminds of me of something that happened a very long time ago…” She trails off into a sigh, hesitates for a moment before she resumes speaking.
“When my parents were still alive, on my fifth birthday the Duke of Jenharsa came all the way to the castle to present me with this antique doll that had been made by a famous dollmaker in his country years before I was born. It was so very pretty, that doll. Her name was Saralinda. She was one of a kind, and very valuable.
“Father had a special glass case made for her, and all I could do was sit and look at her where she sat on the shelf. I could never play with her. But before she became an antique she was a toy once, and some other little girl must have played with her and hugged her and combed her hair and put it in ribbons and invited her to tea. And in her little doll mind she was happy, because she was living the life she was made for.
“But now she could do nothing but sit and look at a little girl that also wanted to hug her and play with her and put ribbons in her hair, knowing it would never happen. I used to imagine how lonely she must have felt, looking at me with her big, sad eyes. And poor Cheddar! He wound up being the recipient of all the ribbons and dresses and tea parties. But he took it all in stride, as well as a mouse can, I suppose.
“When Zarkon first came to attack Arus and we had to flee for the shelters, I decided that I was going to rescue Saralinda from that glass case. Mother chased me all through the castle trying to catch me, but I got away from her and ran into the toy room, and I snatched the glass dome off of the pedestal and threw it as hard as I could, and I grabbed Saralinda and took her with me.
“Father left the safety of the shelter to lead his forces against Zarkon, and he never returned. Mother went topside to see if she could learn what happened to father, and she didn’t come back. Coran was so busy trying to maintain order in the chaos that followed that Saralinda was my only companion for awhile until the mice found their way to the shelter to keep me company too. But I digress.
“To make a long story short, I’d like just once for Keith to break through the glass that separates us and be a plain old guy and I’ll be a plain old girl, and he would kiss me, and then we could go back to playing the Princess and the Captain again.”
She looks down at her hands. I swallow tightly to dismiss the lump in my throat.
“Let me see what I can do about it, Princess.”
She gives me a skeptical look. “And how, pray tell, do you think you’re going to manage that?”
I give her my trademark smirk. “Hey, this is me we’re talking about - Lance the Magnificent. I can pull it off, trust me.”
She returns my smirk. “To quote the words of Mister Magnificent himself, allow me to say, ‘Yeah, right’.”
“Don’t believe me, huh? Wanna bet on it?”
Now she’s amused. “Sure. State your terms.”
“If I pull this off and Keith gives you a kiss before midnight tomorrow, I get that hot red motorcycle I was checking out during the gang’s last excursion to the mall.”
She nods. “Done. And if you lose...?”
“Pick the most embarrassing thing in the world you can think of for me to do, and I’ll have to do it.”
A slow, dangerous-looking sort of grin spreads across her lips. “Oh, the potential of that one sentence...”
“So, do we have a bet?”
“Yes, we do. Now we shake on it, right?”
“Right.”
She extends her hand, and I grasp it firmly. She smiles sweetly at me as she gets to her feet.
“Can you sing, Lance?”
“Umm, I’ve been told my voice doesn’t sound too bad. Why?”
“I just thought of a lovely Arusian ballad you could serenade Nanny with...”
“What?”
“And I’ll even throw in the tuxedo free of charge.”
“Allura....!”
“You said I could pick the most embarrassing thing I could think of. If I don’t get a kiss out of this, someone will.” She walks around me and heads for the doorway, humming happily to herself.
Hoo boy, did I dig a hole for myself or what?
A question suddenly comes to mind as she’s leaving. “By the way, Allura, whatever happened to that doll?”
She pauses at the doorway, turning thoughtful. “Saralinda? We had to move to a different part of the shelter during a bombing raid, and I lost her in the fuss. The mice tried to find her for me, but they couldn’t. I have no idea where she got to.”
She shrugs and disappears through the doorway.
I have twenty and a half hours to achieve my goal. Got to think of a strategy here. I know Keith is going to be stubborn about this. I just have to use the right approach.
Allura looks up at me as I enter the dining room for breakfast and stifles a giggle. Keith looks from her to me and quirks an eyebrow. I shrug and take my seat.
Nanny is setting a plate in front of Allura. Allura promptly begins to hum this catchy little tune. Nanny stops and turns to look at her.
“Catching up on your music lessons, Princess?” Nanny asks.
“Yes I am, Nanny. Do you remember that song?”
“Oh yes, that’s ‘My Heart Has Wings’. That song was very popular when I was your age. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine too,” Allura replies. She gives a wink and makes a kissing motion at me. Keith takes it all in with a frown. I glance in his direction and shrug again. He scowls at the plate in front of him and pushes his eggs around with his fork.
Sven, Hunk and Pidge enter the room and seat themselves. Hunk immediately sets to work on the basket of muffins sitting between him and Pidge.
“Do we forego practice today like we always do, Chief?” He asks.
“No,” Keith replies. “Shorter session than normal, but we will have maneuvers today.”
Oooh, he really misread that exchange between Allura and me. The gears kick in immediately. I could make good use of this...
I look at Allura and waggle my eyebrows at her. She studies me with an expression of curiosity. I turn my attention to breakfast.
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To Saralinda: Part 2 |