Brighter Than the Stars: A Voltron Fanfic (Keith X OC)

Chapter 5

Violet didn't know if she could step out of her cave and into the light. If she could face the truth, face the sky.

But for her friends, she was willing to do anything.

Drawing in a breath, Violet let calmness settle over her like a blanket. She knew the energy, the power of the quintessence was there - she just had to take it.

Violet sucked in another breath, pressing her hands against the side of the ship. The quintessence stretched towards her, reaching for her with greedy fingers.

"He's too powerful!" Lance said. "We still can't match him, not with Vi inside!"

Violet opened her eyes. She knew what she had to do.

Well, Death, looks like you and I have a date tonight. And I don't think it'll end in a kiss.

"Keith," she said softly, "I wish I'd had more time to tell you everything I didn't. I love you all, and I'm sorry."

There was a moment of stunned silence. "Vi?" Lance asked uncertainty.

She didn't say anything - just called on the quintessence. Light shimmered in the air around her, thickening, and Lotor turned back and saw her at last.

He'd trapped her inside the ship.

So Violet had found a way out.

With a blaze of light, she melded with the quintessence, letting herself be pulled into the rift.

-

Violet had never felt so alive.

She was surrounded by the quintessence, nothing between her and it - floating alone in the center of the rift. Violet felt the energy inside her rise to the surface, begging to be free.

So she let it.

Lotor roared and charged. Violet raised her hand, focusing on the mass of power everywhere, and collected it. A whip of pure light formed in her hand; she lashed out at Lotor's monster.

He spun away, dodging the whip; but then Violet had made another in her left hand, cutting through the void and wrapping around the monster's arm. Violet curled the first whip over its other arm, and sliced.

Lotor bellowed as his ship's arms were cut off, bursting at the seams. Violet brought her whips back to her side; they dissolved into glittering energy. Furious, Lotor charged, face wrought with insanity.

Violet brought up her hands, letting him come closer. Raw strength filled her veins, sang in her blood. She slammed her palms outward at Lotor's ship. Quintessence erupted from her hands like lasers, hitting the weapon and enveloping it in light.

The shouts of her friends rang in her ears. Allura was screaming at her, Lance's voice frantic, Pidge dumbfounded. Keith was silent - still unable to comprehend what she'd done.

The trans-reality ship exploded, knocking Violet and Voltron back.

She blocked out the shouts of the other paladins. Forgive me, Keith, Violet thought, shutting her eyes. I didn't mean for it to end this way.

She'd promised never to leave him again. She promised they'd always be together.

She didn't realize she'd have to break that promise so soon.

But Violet would do it again. She'd break it a thousand times to keep Keith and Lance and Allura and Pidge and Hunk alive, and safe, and breathing.

Lotor's ship exploded in a blaze of silver light, obscuring Violet from the paladin's view. The torrent of quintessence knocked Voltron back.

When the dust cleared, there was only Violet, eyes firmly shut, floating in the quintessence field with droplets of the energy coating her skin.

-

Violet was dying.

It was a miracle she wasn't already dead, really. She'd stopped breathing. Her heart wasn't beating.

But she was still there.

It was an odd feeling, being dead. Violet never wanted to feel it again, and yet it was familiar. The sense of death was oddly comforting, like seeing an old friend after a long time. She could see herself, lifelessly drifting in the quintessence field, while the paladins stared, shocked by the suddenness with which the battle had ended.

Violet felt the last scraps of life she was clinging to slip. Was she ready? Yes. But she didn't want to go.

So don't.

There it was, that tiny voice in her mind again. The one that had told her to stay with the paladins, to seek out Keith in the Galra ship all that time ago. The one that had recoiled from Lotor's hand, told her not to be with him. The one that was telling her now not to give up. To keep fighting, for the people that watched over her now - Hunk and Pidge, Allura and Lance. Shiro and Coran, back at the castle.

And Keith.

Violet wondered if there was a word to express the vastness of her feelings for him. He was like a tether, tying her to the world, refusing to let her leave. If Violet had been doubtful of what she felt for him, she was sure now.

She loved him. More than anything she'd ever known.

And he wouldn't be able to go on. Keith would never stop fighting, not even if it killed him, and he'd never stop waiting for her, even if it meant the world falling apart. She'd need that soon, need him to hold on to her. But the universe still needed her. They all still needed her.

Violet was dead, though. There was no coming back from that.

No.

Defiance had been her ally her whole life. Why part with it now?

Violet knew who she was. She wasn't Lotor's former general, she wasn't a girl with the blood of innocents on her hands, and she wasn't the last Altean. She was Violet - no, Vi. She was their friend, Hunk and Lance and Allura and Shiro and Keith and Coran and Pidge. That was who she was.

She was Violetta Idalia, and she would not yield. She defied every law of the galaxy except for death.

And maybe it was time to defy that too.

Violet felt her Altean markings start to glow, to fill with color again. Felt herself grow stronger, felt her body heal as she pushed back against the cold embrace of death, back toward the life that beckoned - the people that beckoned.

And she changed.

Light filled her to the brim, light she used, light that shifted her shape and morphed her body into something bright and glowing and eternal.

Some hidden part of her broke open. And Violet glowed as bright as a fallen star, brighter than the sun itself, as vast as the sea and the sky.