#Shadiyart

[materassassino]

Three Merging Currents

Shallura Week Day 2 - Names

Again, late at hell, but I’ve resigned myself to this by now. I’m not good at this, lol.

One quintessence, two quintessences... and then three. Allura and Shiro have made something special, but Altean pregnancy is its own special thing.

It was pretty awesome that both @yliseryn and @shadiyart had the same idea as me!

Allura sat cross-legged on the bed, wearing Shiro’s nightshirt. She’d been sitting there all morning, one hand on her belly, the other limp beside her. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was feeling, there were too many emotions writhing around each other to decipher them all, and the dried tears on her cheeks were testament to that.

Slowly, she lifted the hem of the shirt, looking down at her stomach. When the markings in the divots of her hips had started glowing, she hadn’t thought much of it: hormone imbalances came and went in space, after all. It happened. But then they had kept on glowing, and she hadn’t dared to hope.

Shiro had said, years ago, that he wasn’t sure what the Galra had done to him in that long year of darkness. “Maybe I can’t even have children anymore,” he’d murmured, eyes closed. “We could adopt?” she’d replied, reminding him of how many orphans the Galra had made. That had made him smile.

And then the third day, that day, had dawned – as much as there could be a dawn in space. Her markings had still been glowing. And then she knew.

Shiro had left the day before, with Keith, on some mission that seemed painfully irrelevant at that moment. He wouldn’t be back until the evening, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. She had duties, of course: meetings to set up, treaties to sign, requests to hear, lists of potential future Paladins to sift through… And yet here she was, unable to move.

Part of her wanted to pull up a commlink straight to him and scream the news across space. Part of her felt like crying again. Another part felt like running through the castle and telling everyone. Unable to make a decision, she kept sitting there, hand on her belly, overwhelmed by the knowledge there was another life growing inside her. A life she and Shiro had made together.

There was a squeak, and Allura looked down to see Chuchule sitting on her thigh. The mouse’s nose twitched curiously, and she inched forward until her snuffles tickled the glowing marking on Allura’s right hip. Allura tried to stifle a small giggle. She failed. She laughed again, harder this time, and before long she couldn’t stop herself. She fell back on the bed, eyes shut tight, kicking the mattress as she shrieked with laughter.

She was exhausted by the time she stopped, her mouth aching from the stretch of her grin, her chest heaving.

“Oh, Ancients,” she whispered, “thank you.”

When Shiro emerged from the elevator to his Lion, Allura was standing there. Her expression wasn’t one he’d ever really seen on her before: there was nervousness, anticipation, and a slight sort of electric tension on the air as soon as he stepped out.

“We need to talk,” she said in lieu of greeting, her voice thick with emotion.

For a moment, Shiro felt nothing but dread. He couldn’t think of a reason why for the life of him, but the cold claws of anxiety hissed it’s over at him insidiously. He swallowed.

“Yes?” he said. She took his hand, which did a little to assuage the roiling, slimy feeling of fear in the pit of his stomach, and she led him to their quarters. She then sat him on the bed and stood in front of him, eyes closed, taking deep breaths.

His dread turned to confusion where she began to remove her gown – pleased confusion, but confusion nonetheless. She ceased undressing, however, when only her torso was revealed. She was looking at him meaningfully, and he felt lost at sea.

“Allura, what…?” He frowned when he noticed the soft glow of the markings on her hips. Her markings glowed at strange intervals, it was something he was used to by now, but if she was showing them to him, it meant it was an important glow, and not a random one. He raised his hands, and she took them, pressing them to the marks. Their glow brightened, creating a spot of colour through his left hand. When he looked up, she was beaming at him.

“I don’t understand,” he admitted. He looked back down at their hands, and moved his, enough to see the glowing marks, caressing them gently with his thumbs.

“Take a guess,” she murmured, and he could hear the elation now, the barely-contained joy.

His brain supplied an answer. He dismissed it as ludicrous.

“Are… are you…?”

He looked up again, and she nodded.

For a moment, Shiro’s mind went completely blank. There were no thoughts to be had, either voluntary or intrusive, and he felt like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

“We’re gonna be parents,” he murmured. “We’re gonna have a baby.”

Like water rushing back into a void, his mind went into overdrive. He felt tears rolls down his cheeks, drip from his chin, and he covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head.

“Oh no, my love, don’t…” Allura said, winding her arms around him and drawing him closer to her, as his shoulders shook with half-stifled sobs.

When he finished, he felt drained, but the emptiness was immediately filled with a sense of almost incredulous wonder. Ever-so-gently, he touched Allura’s belly, wondering at the cluster of cells that was going to become their child already growing within.

“Wow,” he breathed. “I can’t… I can’t believe it.”

Allura’s hand pressed against his.

“You should,” she said. “We tried hard enough.”

That made him laugh.

They lay side by side on the bed, their hands gently touching between them. The lights had dimmed now, heralding the shift to the castle’s nightcycle. Neither felt like moving.

“I want to tell Coran first,” Allura said.

“Oh yeah, I wouldn’t have that any other way,” Shiro replied.

Allura’s free hand remained on her stomach: she hadn’t moved it since lying down. It was hard to know what to feel, but she decided to focus on the overwhelming happiness.

“I still can’t believe it,” Shiro went on. She could hear the smile in his voice. She chuckled.

“You’ll need to,” she admonished teasingly. “Our child needs a father who believes they exist, you know.”

She felt Shiro nuzzle at her hair, kissing her temple softly. She let her eyelids flutter shut, and fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Allura found Coran on the bridge.

“Do you want some tea?” she asked.

“I should be the one making the tea, Princess,” he said with fond bemusement. She giggled.

“I want to,” she said.

She sat him down in the kitchen, and busied herself with boiling the water and steeping the mari-mari flowers until the water turned a delicate pink colour. She added a drop of Earth mint essence to Coran’s cup, just how he liked it. She found some of Hunk’s biscuits and laid them on a plate, and set everything on the table between them.

Coran picked up his mug, the one Lance had gotten him that said I moustache you a question, and blew the steam away. “So, I’m assuming we’re going to be talking about something important,” he said, cocking an eyebrow. Allura took a deep breath.

“Yes,” she replied, but once she’d said that, she had no idea how to go on. She wished she could somehow magically make him understand without having to find words to say it. She could create speeches off the top of her head, forge treaties almost poetically, but this… this was a thousand parsecs away.

Coran waited patiently as she inhaled the sweet aroma of the tea and let the breath leave her lips to steady herself.

“I’m… Oh, Coran, I’m going to have a baby.”

His fingers slipped on his mug, and it nearly clattered to the table. Tea sloshed over the rim, falling to the table, soaking his gloves. His eyes were wide, and she realised his hands were shaking. He placed his mug down and removed his gloves, still trembling, placing them to the side, his movements methodical, as if to ground himself. She could see the tears in the corners of his eyes.

“The dimash have started?” he asked, voice quivering.

“They just dimmed this morning,” she replied, a smile spreading over her face.

Coran rose from the table and threw his arms around her. “Oh, Allura!”

He was laughing, joyous and infectious, and she joined in. He squeezed her tightly, enough to make her squeak, and pulled back, cupping her face. He was beaming, his eyes so full of happiness Allura felt like she might burst with it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile so.

“We’re not the only ones anymore,” she murmured. Coran took a deep breath, closing his eyes as a flicker of pain passed over his face.

“I wish Alfor were here to see this,” he said. “He should have been.”

“But you’re here, Coran. You’re going to be a grandfather.”

The tears began to fall, then, streaming down his face even as he still smiled. She wiped them away with a laugh, and pulled him back into her embrace.

Shiro looked at the four other Paladins seated before them. Lance practically lounged, his arm stretched along the back of the couch behind Keith, ankle propped on the opposite knee; Keith was next to him, barely any space between them, arms folded as usual; Hunk sat on the other side of Lance, leaning forward, cupping his chin with his hand; finally, Pidge, legs crossed on the sofa, sitting up straight with their head slightly tilted to the side. They all wore equal looks of curiosity, and Shiro realised how old they looked now: none of them were kids anymore.

“I guess you’re wondering why we asked you all here?” he said. It wasn’t, granted, much different to any other informal meeting between them, but he felt fifty times as awkward. Allura squeezed his hand encouragingly, and he allowed himself a moment to compose himself.

“Are we going after another remnant Galra cell?” Pidge asked. “Because I was about to suggest a better strategy for that…”

Hunk shook his head. He was giving them a shrewd look, eyes narrowed. “I think I know what this is about,” he said. Of course Hunk would have his suspicions.

Shiro sighed. “Well then, uh… Allura and I…”

Lance straighten up, face lighting up. “Oh my God, we’re gonna be uncles!” he blurted, pointing at them eagerly. Allura groaned in exasperation. Shiro was pretty pleased that his glower made Lance wilt and sink back into the couch, attempting to hide behind Keith’s back. Hunk whooped and punched the air, Pidge clapped their hands delightedly. Keith just looked shocked.

Shiro sighed. “Yes. Yes, Allura and I are going to have a baby.”

“This is incredible! The first human/Altean hybrid in existence, they’re gonna be so fascinating to study as they grow!” Pidge babbled.

“I can knit baby clothes!” Lance murmured ecstatically. “Little bobble hats and booties! Plushie lions!”

“Congratulations,” Keith said, a smile finally spreading over his face. He stood and pulled the both of them into a hug, as awkward as every Keith hug was, but sincere.

Shiro relaxed, releasing tension he hadn’t even know he’d been holding onto. Keith squeezed his arm and nodded, as if he was proud of him, and Shiro grinned back.

It took a couple of weeks for anything to really start to change with Allura, and it happened almost overnight. She crushed the handle of her hairbrush and tore one of the towel racks from the wall in the bathroom. She took the glass Shiro handed her at breakfast and it shattered. She gave Pidge an encouraging pat on the shoulder and they buckled under it. When she moved a chair, she tossed it away from her, narrowly missing Keith and sending it crashing into the wall.

She stared at her hands while the others stared at her. “Coran… what is going on?”

Coran tugged on his moustache. “It seems we’ve started the Crushings!” he said cheerfully. Allura just stared at him in confusion. “You did enjoy skipping the part of your education that taught about pregnancy,” he said, chastising her teasingly. She flushed and went to elbow him fondly, but thought better of it.

“So what are the, uh, Crushings?” Keith asked, sitting down quickly before Allura could accidentally lob anymore furniture in his direction.

“The Crushings tend to start about two to three weeks into the pregnancy,” Coran explained. “And last about four, until the parent learns to control their strength.”

“So-called, I assume, because of all the crushing things that goes on?” Shiro said dryly. Allura offered him a sheepish shrug.

“Precisely! The parent’s strength doubles or even triples in some cases, to protect the embryo in its most delicate stage.”

“Oh dear,” Allura said. Lance chuckled.

“Given how extra you are, Allura, your strength’s probably quadrupled.”

“I would advise you to… not touch anyone for a while,” Coran said with a grin. “Or anything. I don’t fancy having to mend the control columns.”

“No holding my prosthesis, then,” Shiro joked.

Allura pouted and glared down at her belly. “You are troublesome,” she mumbled at it. Of course, it didn’t answer. It hadn’t developed ears yet.

Allura learnt to control her strength quite quickly, something which Shiro was grateful for – he’d come close to a broken hand more than once. The Crushings were over soon enough, and though Allura was still even stronger than normal, it became more of an asset than a setback, especially since Alteans didn’t take it easy at all during pregnancy.

They compared Altean pregnancies to human ones, and although none of the humans were very well-versed in that field, they did their best with one of Pidge’s databases and Lance’s memories of his mother’s formidable cravings and mood swings.

“I wonder if we’ll see any human behaviours,” Pidge wondered. Allura made a face.

“I don’t think I’d like to vomit whenever I wake up,” she said. Her markings glowed through the pale fabric of her gown, something everyone was getting used to. Her marks had started lighting up at irregular intervals all the time, and not just her hips ones: her cheeks would become a beacon whenever the slightest thing happened, and the marks on her arms liked to glow right in the middle of important meetings with alien diplomats, which led to brief explanations (and lit-up cheeks).

“Well, if you get any cravings, I can help!” Hunk said cheerfully. “I’m good at matching tastes.”

“My mom got a really bad craving for coal,” Pidge mused. “Apparently it was an iron deficiency.”

“Explains why you’re obsessed with robots,” Keith said, earning a stuck-out tongue from Pidge.

“I don’t think it’s very likely we’ll see any human pregnancy symptoms,” Coran said briskly. “Allura is Altean after all. The child’s genes shouldn’t contribute that much.”

Of course, he’d spoken too soon. Almost as soon as the next morning, Allura was prowling the halls of the castle, sniffing like a predator on the hunt. She cornered Hunk, who looked positively terrified.

“I want,” she said, her voice as heavy as a granite slab and leaving no room for protest, “ice cream.”

“W-what flavour?” Hunk asked.

“Any.”

Soon she was seated on the couch in the recreation room, using Shiro as a backrest, surrounded by empty bowls of ice cream, licking the spoon and purring like a cat. The purring Shiro had encountered before, if rarely, but she radiated heat like a furnace.

Coran measured her temperature, and it was 55 degrees Celsius, according to Lance’s quick mental conversion from Altean tamaks.

“That’s normal,” he said. “She’s a couple of tamaks lower than the Altean average, but that might simply be the mixed genetics. What isn’t normal is the desperate need for ice cream.”

Allura narrowed her eyes at him and growled, the spoon buckling beneath her teeth until the handle was a perfect mould of her bite. Coran raised an eyebrow.

Do you want more?” Shiro asked, wiping sweat from his top lip. His shirt tuck to him uncomfortably, perspiration dripping from his nose. She nodded.

“Mango,” she hissed.

She got her mango ice cream.

The cravings evened out after another couple of weeks, and though her temperature descended enough that it wasn’t like touching a hot stove whenever he went near her, Shiro now had to deal with how clingy she was. She liked to cuddle. A lot. She even shifted into a bright pink Bytor once, just to coil herself around him, which gave him uncomfortable flashbacks to Slav, enough that he had to tell her to stop (and she did, after apologising profusely). And she purred whenever she wrapped herself around him, growling if anyone dared to come close except for Coran, the mice and Hunk. Keith even got lashed out at, earning himself a bloodied hand from some quickly-shifted claws. She seemed very proud of herself after that.

“Is that normal?” Lance asked tartly, wrapping Keith’s fresh wound and giving Allura some nasty side-eye.

“Unfortunately it is,” Coran said. “And unfortunately every Altean who gives birth goes through it. We’ll probably have it for a while yet.”

They wisely cancelled any upcoming meetings.

That night, as the light from her hip markings made the room a subtle pink, Allura sighed.

“I’m sorry about this, Shiro,” she murmured, pressing her forehead to his back. He blinked and rolled over, wrapping his arms around her.

“Don’t be silly, Allura,” he said. “Why are you apologising?”

She shrugged half-heartedly. “I don’t know… this seems like such an inconvenience.”

Shiro cupped her face, tilting it gently so she could look at him. “Allura,” he said, “I wouldn’t have this any other way.” He reached down, to her stomach, where, he realised, the slightest of bumps had appeared. “This is more than worth it. Just… maybe don’t scratch Keith anymore.”

She groaned. “Now that is something I need to apologise for,” she mumbled. Shiro let a warm silence fall, and she sighed again. “Thank you, my love.” She reached up and pressed her lips to his, deepening the kiss when he happily reciprocated.

She started purring as her hands wandered over him, down his bare back, stopping just shy of the waistband of his sleep pants. He blinked, making a surprised noise when she tugged them down to squeeze at his ass.

“Ok, so this is happening,” he muttered with a smirk, and her responding laugh was low, dark and full of promise. He let her roll him over more than willingly, until she was straddling him, the simmer in her eyes making Shiro burn with anticipation.

She pulled off her nightgown, pressed his hands to her with a hungry moan, and kissed him again, deep and slow and needy. Shiro responded eagerly, squeezing her breasts and letting her do whatever she wanted. It wasn’t anything he didn’t want, after all.

Keith accepted her apology easily, waving it away as if she hadn’t drawn blood. Things settled once more, into the not-quite-normality the pregnancy had brought to the castleship, until it was time to warp to another part of the universe.

“Ready to go, Princess?” Coran asked, entering the coordinates for their next wormhole jump.

“Ready!” Allura replied, and imbued the teludav with her energy.

The sudden, sharp feeling of movement was too much for everyone on board. Coran was knocked to the floor with a yelp. Shiro felt as if he had no bones anymore, plastered to the back of his seat, but also being squeezed through a space that was far too small for his body.

They came to a stop so sharply everyone was pitched forward from their seats to the floor. Shiro’s head was swimming, he heard groaning and the unpleasant sound of Hunk retching.

“What happened?” Allura asked. “Why are you all on the floor?”

Shiro used his seat for leverage, peering over the back to stare at her dazedly. “You didn’t feel that?” he said incredulously. She shrugged helplessly.

“I think,” Coran croaked, dragging himself up by the console, “we’ll be travelling a bit more slowly for a while.”

Allura looked down at herself, frowning. She turned to the side and studied her reflection, smoothing a hand over her belly. It wasn’t huge yet, but it was certainly bigger, a soft dome that was getting larger by the day, she felt. It wasn’t a sight she’d ever expected to see, and while it was certainly peculiar, she didn’t hate it at all.

“You ok?” Shiro asked. She saw him in the mirror, smiled at him.

“Of course,” she said, beckoning him closer. He obeyed, winding his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

“I never thought this would ever happen,” he murmured. He placed his hands on her belly, and Allura held them there, taking in their reflection: the contrast of their skintones, the colour of their eyes, their hair, their features, especially their ears. She had no idea what their child would look like, but she wanted his hair, so thick, rich and dark. He’d told her, years ago when they were still waging a war, that he wanted their child to have her eyes. She couldn’t wait to see them, when they did arrive – whatever combination would be breath-taking, she was certain.

“We should think of names,” she said. She didn’t miss the slight intake of breath from Shiro. “Something wrong?”

“No, I… I just realised we have to give them a name,” he said, laughing at himself. “I’m kinda dumb.”

She giggled. “It’s fine, my love. Did you have anything in mind?” She kept her ideas to herself, deep down. They’d decide together, no matter what she wanted.

“Not, really. I mean, beyond, you know… nerdy things.” He looked a little embarrassed at that, flushing slightly. She laughed again, shaking her head.

She led him to their bed, settling between his legs when he laid back, his arms still around her.

“Did you have any ideas?” he asked, kissing behind her ear softly. She bit her lip.

“If it’s a boy,” she said, “I… I would like Alfor.”

Shiro hummed. “I like that. I like it a lot.”

“Prince Alfor of Altea,” she murmured, and she had to bite her lip then, screwing her eyes tight to stop any threat of tears. She wished, more than anything else, that her father could have been there, could have seen his grandchild. She could almost see it, if she closed her eyes: Alfor with his grandchild in his arms, smiling happily, eyes as full of love as when they looked at her.

“And for a girl?” Shiro prompted, drawing her from her imagination.

“I’ll leave that to you,” she said.

“Um… don’t laugh?” he muttered. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“What?”

“I kinda like… Varda.”

“Varda?” Allura said. He dropped his head on her shoulder and groaned.

“It’s… it’s the name of the queen of the stars in The Silmarillion,” he mumbled. She could feel the heat of his blush on her skin and she laughed, long and hard.

“I like it! I like it a lot!” she said. “Varda,” she repeated, drawing out the syllables as if she was tasting a fine wine. “It’s pretty.”

“Well, it was either that or Leia,” Shiro said with a grin. That got him a pillow in the face.

“Hey… do Alteans have godparents?” Shiro asked. He was leaning against the kitchen table, arms folded over his bare chest.

Allura looked over at him from where she was digging in the freezer for some ice cream. It was late in the nightcycle: Lance and Keith were out, and everyone else was asleep but for them. She pulled out the half-full tub of Hunk’s stracciatella and hummed.

“I don’t know what a godparent is,” she admitted. She opened the tub and fetched a spoon, allowing Plachu a sample of it (apparently, Altean mice weren’t lactose intolerant).

“It used to be, um, a religious thing? I think it was something to do with the child’s religious education? And the baptism? Lance would know more than I do.” He wandered over to the counter and stole her first spoonful, earning himself a glare. “But I think it’s more about bestowing the name now.”

“Oh, a charandahl!” Allura said. “The name-giver. They’re responsible for the child if something were to happen to the parents.”

“Kinda!” Shiro agreed. “Who was yours?”

“My maternal grandmother Tilanda,” she said. “She died before my mother did, so Coran informally took the role, I suppose. Yours?”

“One of my dad’s Air Force buddies and his wife,” Shiro replied. “I never really met them, though. They fell off the radar when my dad died.”

“Did you want to choose a… god-parent?” Allura asked.

“I was thinking… maybe Keith?”

Allura thought for a moment. Then she nodded. “Keith is a good choice. He’s very strong, and very loyal, and he loves you dearly. I also think Lance will curb any recklessness.”

Shiro blinked. He hadn’t really thought of Lance, but it made sense. Lance was excellent with children, and after all, if you got Keith, Lance was part and parcel.

“Thanks,” Shiro said. Allura frowned slightly.

“No need to,” she said, her kiss ice-cream cold on his cheek.

Allura sighed happily. Using Shiro’s chest as a pillow meant she could comfortably lay on her side now her belly was that much more burdensome, and there was the added bonus of hearing his heartbeat and his breathing. His arm was a comfortable weight around her. Just the day before, her hip markings had started to softly glow in time with a tiny, newly-formed heartbeat. The markings, for a few months, now, had only glowed when she reached inside with her quintessence and felt a flicker, like a tiny, bright flame, respond within her. They would react to Shiro’s touch as well, glowing whenever he and Allura exchanged their quintessence. Allura had never experienced anything so intimate or humbling in her life.

And now they were gently pulsating, one-two, one-two, which meant…

“Two more months,” she murmured. Shiro’s hold tightened slightly, and she let herself drift to sleep, three different currents of quintessence merging into one.

#shalluraweek #voltron #shallura #allura #shiro #pixie writes #day 2 #pregnancy