[She stays still and quiet until Usagi is finished, heart breaking for this brilliant woman with so much fear and pressure resting on her heart. It's something she has in common; sometimes she's happy for the camaraderie, but it's also something she would be hard pressed to wish onto anyone, especially her. After she stops talking, Allura gently rests a hand on her shoulder, and cold damp shadow begins to envelop her.]
You're not dumb; you can be very clever at times, and sometimes you're one of the wisest people I know. And... honestly, I have no idea what your hair color has anything to do with this, but I think it's a very nice hair color.
And I think I do understand. Most of the Galra Empire still feels the way about ME after all these years... and after I awoke, I felt the same way. My father's best friend had turned on him and incited his people to destroy mine, so I painted every single one of his race with all the fear and rage and grief and distrust I had for him. But there was a resistance cell among the Galra called the Blade of Marmora, one dedicated to slowly dismantling Zarkon's control of the empire from the inside.
[A melancholy smile crosses her lips and a few juniberries begin to sprout around them.]
It's actually thanks to one member named Ulaz that Shiro is alive and a paladin; he rescued Shiro from a year's imprisonment as a gladiator and test subject, and put him in an escape pod to Earth. If it weren't for him, Shiro and the other four paladins wouldn't have come together, and the Blue Lion would most likely still be asleep on Earth, Ciran and I would still be dormant in my castle, and my universe... I know now that the universe owes him a great deal. [She sighs and the juniberries start dying, the dreary aura intensifying.] Shiro wanted to meet him, to thank him and see how the Blade of Marmora could help Team Voltron, but when we did I was openly hostile, expecting him to betray us at any minute, and then later that quintant when he sacrificed himself to save us... I dismissed it as a ploy for the Blade of Marmora to gain our sympathy.
When we finally began negotiations with them, I almost refused what would be a vital component to finally ending Zarkon's rein, and... when Keith was revealed to have Galra ancestry, I treated him very coldly. One of my paladins, my new family, with Galra blood? All that anger and distrust, how could I reconcile that with the bold, practical, passionate, loyal, quietly caring young man that was chosen to literally be Voltron's right hand, the paladin of the Lion my FATHER piloted?
[She turns to Usagi for now.]
A similar principle's in play here, I think, although not nearly as extreme as mine. [Allura points to Usagi's heart.] You may not even be conscious of it, but all that fear and distrust of your past enemies, it might be putting you on alert when facing people of a similar mindset in the chamber, or even just normal confrontation if your stress level is high enough. And since the same tactics you would use on your enemies aren't available to you at the moment, that pressure starts building instead of being released. And I doubt that thinking of your responsibilities as Earth's future queen is only adding anxiety onto that, putting you closer to that threshold at the start. In short, you're in a whole new situation with too much mental pressure on yourself, and your body's building up a fight-or-flight response without need and without proper coping mechanisms.
no subject
You're not dumb; you can be very clever at times, and sometimes you're one of the wisest people I know. And... honestly, I have no idea what your hair color has anything to do with this, but I think it's a very nice hair color.
And I think I do understand. Most of the Galra Empire still feels the way about ME after all these years... and after I awoke, I felt the same way. My father's best friend had turned on him and incited his people to destroy mine, so I painted every single one of his race with all the fear and rage and grief and distrust I had for him. But there was a resistance cell among the Galra called the Blade of Marmora, one dedicated to slowly dismantling Zarkon's control of the empire from the inside.
[A melancholy smile crosses her lips and a few juniberries begin to sprout around them.]
It's actually thanks to one member named Ulaz that Shiro is alive and a paladin; he rescued Shiro from a year's imprisonment as a gladiator and test subject, and put him in an escape pod to Earth. If it weren't for him, Shiro and the other four paladins wouldn't have come together, and the Blue Lion would most likely still be asleep on Earth, Ciran and I would still be dormant in my castle, and my universe... I know now that the universe owes him a great deal. [She sighs and the juniberries start dying, the dreary aura intensifying.] Shiro wanted to meet him, to thank him and see how the Blade of Marmora could help Team Voltron, but when we did I was openly hostile, expecting him to betray us at any minute, and then later that quintant when he sacrificed himself to save us... I dismissed it as a ploy for the Blade of Marmora to gain our sympathy.
When we finally began negotiations with them, I almost refused what would be a vital component to finally ending Zarkon's rein, and... when Keith was revealed to have Galra ancestry, I treated him very coldly. One of my paladins, my new family, with Galra blood? All that anger and distrust, how could I reconcile that with the bold, practical, passionate, loyal, quietly caring young man that was chosen to literally be Voltron's right hand, the paladin of the Lion my FATHER piloted?
[She turns to Usagi for now.]
A similar principle's in play here, I think, although not nearly as extreme as mine. [Allura points to Usagi's heart.] You may not even be conscious of it, but all that fear and distrust of your past enemies, it might be putting you on alert when facing people of a similar mindset in the chamber, or even just normal confrontation if your stress level is high enough. And since the same tactics you would use on your enemies aren't available to you at the moment, that pressure starts building instead of being released. And I doubt that thinking of your responsibilities as Earth's future queen is only adding anxiety onto that, putting you closer to that threshold at the start. In short, you're in a whole new situation with too much mental pressure on yourself, and your body's building up a fight-or-flight response without need and without proper coping mechanisms.