Burnt gunpowder and Petrichor sweet

8. Eave.

I actually don't know why I wrote Antok's inner monologue like that either. Also, this is the least Jason-like Jason I've ever written, but it makes sense contextually, so.

To be read before BRnSG Chapter 21: The prince of two thrones.

8. Eave.

Antok has had many odd missions and tasks he's had to perform during his time as a blade, though perhaps to someone else they might be less odd, and more just plain out gross.

This one in particular starts like a very standard spying mission, following Voltron without being seen by them or that which they were sent to fight, in order to keep the kingdom informed and distracted. That part was handled by a whole group of blades, the other, odder, part was handled by him alone.

To retrieve the source of the infection.

Now Antok had been a blade for just two less suns than Captain Kolivan, so he was amongst the group that had the 'honor' of caring for one Leonidas Valdez. And if he knew anything about the boy turned admiral, it was that he seldomly formed a wrong plan.

He had been taken under the blade's wing as a political chip of sorts, both for his possible connection to Voltron, proven wrong very painfully, and for his blood ties. And he was the biggest shit they've ever trained bar his somehow more impulsive protegee.

Fire wings, Antok had long since decided, were all bastards. Literally, in the case of the pair he knew personally.

But bastard or not, Leo had only ever been wrong once about a battle. And so, if he said there would be something in the field worth retrieving, then Antok would bet on it with gold.

And, true to matter, it is what he finds in the aftermath that turns the mission odd.

After the dust settles, and their sun wing has shot off into the distance to tell the good news, and their team of earth and water drakes have taken the riders and drakes on the trip back, all that's left of the beast is a single white human skull.

See, the thing about drakes is they don't do feelings like humans do, they don't really grow the regret of ghosts, but they can and will be resentful, and that resent always presents itself as a natural disaster.

But in its lasts moments, fighting to hold on to the accursed plague it had created, it still chose to save its rider.

So, here Antok was, carrying someone's skull back to Altea, flying over miles of the Galra's aftermath, as though they had cleaned it away with the entire combined drake forces, instead of just five flyers.

Voltron, for all the legend had been wrapped, was still an incredibly powerful thing, to be able to do this.

And better for it to be gone.

There are no more true bloods under the Esevrian flag, not since the regent of storms had taken over the throne.

He'd dodge and weave his bride, leaving countless bastards up for the line. And then falling to the plague like so many before him.

There had been a true heir once, but he too had failed, as his father before him, to provide a true blood heir. Though he had already been dead by the time his half-royal spawn made it to Esevrian soil.

And so when the Queen became regent, she looked down on the litany of bastards left under her reluctant care, and chose the one she hated the least.

Jason would never know what it was that he had done to acquire her interest, much less her favoritism. But here he was regardless.

Sitting upon a throne, with a crown that should've never been his own, as the shadow wings took everyone in the queen's court under custody, her royal highness included.

In his hands, a letter from the man he had thought lost to the plague, much like Jason's father, or his brother.

Of the many things he had come to regret in the last twelve years, the disappearance and death of Leo Valdez haunted him the most.

Perhaps it was because they were the same age and could have shared training had he not been held back due to his Altean ties. Or perhaps Leo's other ties, to his own family, that meant they could have been close, even friends, in a different world.

With his privileged position, Jason had not been able to join the search, nor talk with the many people affected by the disappearances. Not even to deal with the fallout from the drakes that had been left behind.

But now, the Queen regent in cuffs waiting trial, and the words from the parchment he'd received. He might finally get to atone for it.

Both Esevrian and Altea would need new rulers, Leo had written as much, and had even been kind enough to invite Jason to the trials. Jason could not miss the occasion, not when it was the future of his kingdom on the line, but there was no reason for Leo to invite him.

Not when, by all terms and accounts, he was the rightful heir. Not when Jason's presence might rob him of that crown once again.