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Acxa hears Veronica before she sees her, but that’s often how their relationship is. Veronica is loud and full of exuberant life, which is most likely due to her large family, as most of her siblings are the same way. Having met all the paladins around the time Voltron returned, she’s able to make the connection between Lance, the obnoxiously extroverted red paladin, and his sister. Really, she’d been able to note them as siblings upon first seeing Veronica. But Acxa finds Veronica’s energy refreshing where Lance’s is, simply put, annoying.
Scanning the fairground gives Acxa the time to think. She is guarding the citizens — fun is foreign to her.
Veronica seems to give no warning as she nearly barrels into her side, stumbling a bit before straightening and fixing her glasses with a crooked smile. “Hey, there you are! Do you want to try and beat some carnies at their own game with us?”
Acxa turns, raising an eyebrow in confusion. “I’m not familiar with what that means,” she responds. To a logical brain like Acxa’s that had been a garble of gibberish.
Veronica blinks. “Carnival games? You’ve never played?”
Acxa shakes her head and Veronica smiles. “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” she says, and beckons for Acxa to follow her.
The desert sands billow up around them as they walk, momentarily obscuring their view of different attractions before clearing and giving way to the beaming, flashing lights of each ride or game. Acxa’s seen them in passing, but she hadn’t taken the time to admire them. It’s unlike anything she’s ever seen before. She’s of course been to this planet before, with Lotor. Having come on a day that wasn’t Clear Day, there had been nothing to see. She’d never been aware of the lively activities that go on on such a day, and feels that familiar guilt slowly bubbling in the pit of her stomach — that feeling of “you almost killed these people like you did the people on so many other planets”.
She’s stopped in her tracks in the middle of it all.
She doesn’t notice, but Veronica does. She turns her head back with concern in her (admittedly beautiful) blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Acxa peers around herself and shakes her head, coming to. “It’s nothing.” she says firmly. “I... was just thinking.”
To this Veronica responds with a smirk. “You don’t need to think right now, you need to focus on having fun.”
With that, she extends her hand and Acxa takes it on pure impulse. It’s queer to Acxa how the contact flutters her heart — she’d thought she was immune to it for the single fact of her short-lived affair with Lotor. That, and her being raised solely for war. As she follows Veronica again to where she figures the other Garrison pilots are, the words of her old advisors blare in her head — “Romance is something one can do without”; “We procreate for the sole purpose of bearing offspring”; “You may not have a playmate, Acxa. You are to be training”. Her resolve hardens, and with it, her hand around Veronica’s.
What plunges like a knife into Acxa’s carefully constructed pillar of being? Veronica squeezing her hand in response.
They stutter to a stop near a stall housing another game that arbitrarily will not let its challenger win. Rizavi is calling to Veronica, waving both her arms, and the dust clears to reveal also Curtis, Kinkade, Griffin and Leifsdottir. Somewhere in the time Acxa’s spent with the crew she’s learned their names — not consciously, and not by choice. Curtis, outgoing but respectful, smiles when he sees Acxa as well. “Hey, Acxa,”
Acxa’s dreary greeting is on the tip of her tongue when she notices Curtis’s gaze stuck on something by her thigh. Lightning fast she whips her head around and sees with terror that hers and Veronica’s hands are still glued together. Actually, they’ve become intertwined without her knowledge.
Veronica reacts faster than her, pulling their hands apart before anyone else can see. It’s queer how alone Acxa feels with the absence of her hand, that warm, slight pressure. It was reassuring, she decides.
A few seconds of silence pass and then Rizavi hugs Veronica around the shoulders, nearly leaping onto her back. Veronica laughs as she swats her away.
“Urghh, I wish I had an older sister like you!” the younger girl groans, pushing up her glasses. “Can you just switch Lance with me or something?”
Veronica crosses her arms. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Not that I wouldn’t be completely in favour of the idea, but my mamá definitely wouldn’t. Plus, you take away Nadia and Sylvio’s favourite uncle and you’re going to have a total meltdown.”
With a pout Rizavi gives up. “Fine. I’m bitter, but fine.”
A loud discussion in front of them draws Acxa’s attention over to Kinkade and Griffin, who are readying the apparatus they are to play with and sneering at each other.
“I am so going to win you a teddy bear, Kinkade. Mark. My. Words.”
Kinkade is remarkably calm, something Acxa has always respected about him. “I think I’m going to win you one first.” he proposes, face level with Griffin’s.
Griffin’s face contorts. “Oh, really? You’re on! And whoever loses has to...”
Kinkade winks. “Has to go on a date with the other person.”
At this, Griffin’s eyes light up. Even Acxa sees this. “Let me up the ante! Look, whoever wins can top the other after the date. Whoever loses has to bottom.”
Kinkade shoves him. Hard. Acxa doesn’t try to help him up.
Griffin leaps up with sand all over him, laughing and fuming at the same time. “Oh, you are *so* on now.”
Acxa fades in next to Veronica as they watch the two fight like children so that one can win. “I always thought there was something going on there, but I could never put my finger on it,” Veronica says softly, cupping her hand around her mouth.
Acxa smiles, finding her mouth is stiff. “I believe it’s called sexual tension.”
Veronica laughs so hard she doubles over. “Yeah, I think I see it.” she agrees.
Acxa can’t help but connect the rivalry aspect to Keith and Lance, although their dynamic has become a bit more respectful and mellow than it used to be. She’d assumed Keith and Lance were an item before she discovered Lance and Allura were now together.
Veronica shoulder nudges into hers then, and she freezes, assuming it’s an accident. But when Acxa looks to the side and notices Veronica smiling at her, it’s clear that she’s simply a fan of friendly contact. Smiles don’t come easily so Acxa turns her face frontwards again to observe the game, now in full swing.
—
Griffin claims he wins, but it’s so close that either could have. Kinkade gives it to him, though he doesn’t deserve it, and Veronica whoops as Griffin’s handed his prize, an oddly shaped stuffed toy. Acxa runs her hand over its fur and finds it’s soft. She bristles somewhat, some part of her wanting it to feel hard, to turn to stone under her fingers for what she’s done. Veronica discourages this kind of thinking but Acxa returns to it again and again. Her hand drops to her side abruptly.
And then Veronica’s there, right beside her. Her eyes are kind and sparkling. “Ok, there’s something I have to show you before we leave here.”
“What is it?” Acxa asks. Her throat is opening back up again.
And then before she can protest, Veronica is clutching her hand and shouting, “Come on!” to the wind. They rush through the fairground for a relatively short time until Veronica leads her to a game with a long queue. Acxa’s eyes narrow. “What is this?”
Veronica lets her hand go. “It’s a tunnel ride!” she tells her, out of breath.
Acxa studies the queue and then the mechanism beyond it — a pod-like thing that seems to move along inside a hooded cave. “It’s a bit odd-looking,” she says, contemplating why anyone would want to go inside it.
“I guess, but people don’t generally care what it looks like outside. They just want to see what’s inside.”
Acxa shrugs. “Alright.”
So they queue up. The line moves inordinarily quickly so that Veronica is only able to recount one anecdote to Acxa about one of the creature companions her family had housed. This one, in particular, she says, had stuck by her younger sister Rachel but detested everyone else. Veronica then showed her a broken scar on the side of her wrist, which she said the creature had inflicted upon her. It’s white now and puffs up against her skin, almost unnoticeable. It makes Acxa think of one of her own scars, particularly a large, jagged one that runs down the side of her torso, still outlined in red. Her mind transitions startlingly quickly to the thought that she might show this scar to Veronica one day. She wills her mind not to physically give her away.
Breathing evenly she moves forward in the line, having realized there are no more aliens in front of them.
The alien manning the ride is an Unilu, to whom Veronica hands two tickets. The ride pulls up alongside them and Veronica leaps in first, followed hesitantly by Acxa. It starts moving once they’re instructed to “have a blissfully burrowful time”, a statement which makes Acxa narrow her eyes.
“What does that even mean?” Veronica whispers loudly, nudging into her as she peers around the dark cavern their ride is entering.
Dull neon lights begin flashing and dancing around the ceiling then, providing a bit of illumination for them before music starts blaring over the speakers.
Veronica looks over at Acxa and shrugs helplessly. “I guess it’s like It’s a Small World?”
Acxa’s leaning back in the seat as if to get as far away from the singing as possible. “I don’t know what that is, nor do I think I want to if this ride is based on it.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Veronica responds, one leg twisted under the other up on the seat. “I remember going to DisneyWorld with my family and going on that ride. I could never understand why people liked it so much. It was always so creepy to me.”
Her point seems to be proven as the ride emerges upon a scene of multicoloured lights and several animatronics on either side swinging picks into the plastic ground. They’re evidently modelled after the planet’s natives and the singing seems to be emanating from them. Acxa’s eyes widen. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Veronica agrees, leaning her chin into the hand that’s resting against the bar. “It’s pretty creepy. Sorry I dragged you here. I thought it was going to be — “
Here she hesitates, and when Acxa turns to look at her, she notices an unmistakeable redness fluttering around her cheekbones.
“What?” Acxa asks. Her hands brace against the bar.
“Well, I thought it was going to be a little different, to be honest.” Veronica finishes.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I. Usually these kinds of rides are more, I don’t know, romantic?”
She shrugs, still flustered. An awkward laugh pushes out of her. “I guess this planet has a different idea of romance.”
Acxa freezes. “Romance?”
“Yeah.” Veronica says. Her gaze is softer somehow, illuminated by the roving coloured lights of the cave. The music is fading. “I-I mean, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable -“
She’s rambling on. Her head is tilted toward Acxa. Acxa’s heart leaps in her chest thinking about how easy it would be to tangle her fingers in Veronica’s hair and pull her gently toward her.
By some insane impulse which is completely unlike her, she raises her right hand from the bar to curl around Veronica’s ear, brushing some stray hair back behind it. Veronica stares awed at her the entire time. Acxa can’t find the strength to move it. Veronica’s hair is softer and silkier than she’d ever expected it to be.
“I’m not uncomfortable,” she says finally, her hand still stuck in Veronica’s hair.
The bright lights of outside wash over them then. Acxa pulls her hand back to herself, suddenly realizing the ride has been moving the entire time.
It stops abruptly and they’re outside again. Acxa makes to climb out but Veronica stills her with a hand on her shoulder, and then before Acxa can even breathe she’s being kissed, Veronica’s fingers digging into her shoulders. Her eyes close and she loses herself. This is better than anything she’s experienced, really. Better than the euphoria she was supposed to feel after her first kill. Better than her entire time with Lotor. Better than anything she’s ever known, because she knows this will have a positive outcome, at least for her.
She sits slowly back down in the ride as Veronica reaches and takes her closer before letting her go and opening her eyes. Those blue eyes beam.
Acxa smiles back.
—
When they go back to the others, hands brushing at their sides, Rizavi is the first to react, wiggling her eyebrows. She’s the first one who knows for the first few years of Veronica and Acxa’s relationship.
A few years into the future, surrounded by the other MFE fighters, Rizavi does some Emmy-award worthy acting as she “finds out” Veronica and Acxa are together.