Author's Note:

Hello everyone and welcome to my first foray into this fandom. This is an AU featuring a mute/street-kid Lance, and it'll probably look more at the 'un-seen' stories and devolve into a one-shot series full of space-family fluff. I hope you all enjoy this opening/AU setting chapter.

I do not own any aspect of Voltron: Legendary Defender.

Chapter 1

Piloting a giant lion through space, with four people he didn't know, and ending up at an alien castle was not what Lance had in mind when he wished for a way out of his situation.

He was born on the streets, lived on the streets and was likely to die on the streets, unnoticed by the best of the world and used by the worst. That was his mother's life and his only inheritance from her, he had no idea who his father was and frankly, he didn't want to know. With no education, no money and no chance of either, his options were nearly non-existent, and he'd burned by 'The System' before, so he had no intention of trusting it again. Finally, there was one other, glaring disadvantage he had.

He was mute.

The one time he'd not been on the streets, doctors had confirmed that his lack of voice was definitely due to physical factors, Lance himself hadn't understood all the complicated terms involved, but he knew that there was no easy fix (not that he'd stuck around long enough to find out for sure).

Regardless, being mute did not make things easy, its hard to make deals with fellow gutter members when you couldn't talk, and hand signals didn't get you much further.

Theft was his main method of survival, along with scrounging off the leftovers of everyone else. He mostly left actual money alone (he had no clue how to use the stuff and most people didn't carry change around with them anyway), but he'd happily swipe food when he got the chance. Outdoor café tables were great places to snatch a morsel, as well as worksites where you could raid unattended workmen lunches, and, if he was feeling particularly daring, maybe pickpocket some passer-by's snack bar. He avoided charity centres and such like the plague, using them had brought him to 'The System', so they were far too risky.

Moving around the dingiest parts of the city, and never visiting the same spots repeatedly, he stayed unnoticed by the Police (more lackeys of 'The System') and scraped out a life alone. Occasionally, he took a bit of a wander out to the 'Garrison', just beyond the city and helped himself to a little something from their kitchens. He'd found a route that would get him in unnoticed and, if he got lucky, he might find one or two of those flat, electronic things that they had there. He could then trade 'Old Sam' those for enough food to keep him going for a week, a rare luxury.

It was one of those trips that led him to flying a lion.

Firstly, something crashed into the desert, attracting his attention, then he'd nearly been run over by some trucks heading for the crash site, then one of the trucks stopped and before he could run, the guys inside had dived out and whisked him inside, saying something about 'being a witness' and 'helping with inquiries'. What followed was a blur of questions, and confusion then, three kids burst in and grabbed an adult who seemed to be a captive. Lance opted for going with them because they had a vehicle that'd get him away from the official looking guys quicker and planned to slip away from them later.

He quickly regretted that decision when they'd pulled him further into the desert and he had no idea which way he'd have to go to reach the city. While he could live on the streets fine, he'd never not been in the city and had no hope of surviving out here.

As such, he was stuck with his new friends for the foreseeable future.

After crashing for the rest of the night, they used a strange machine, the one called 'Hunk' built after finding a frown-line-thing, and they wound up at a cave before a massive blue lion surrounded by blue light.

This was when things got really weird.

He couldn't say what it was, but something pulled Lance towards the lion, towards the light that vanished at his touch. The vision of five of these lions becoming a massive man filled his mind and something stirred in his heart.

Before he knew it, he was inside the beast and sat in its chair, and this seemed to be all it needed.

It threw itself out of the mountain, bounding along the ground, before flinging itself into the air. The other four all screamed and shouted from behind his seat, but Lance was focused on the feelings in his head.

It wasn't like a voice as such, just…thoughts…ideas that he was sure came from the lion, telling him what to do, where to go, so he went with it.

"What are you doing!?"

The panicked voice of one of his passengers pulled his focus, and he snapped his head around to look into the face of the kid who'd been the getaway driver the night before. Obviously, the lion wasn't 'talking' to them, so they had no idea what was going on, and he definitely couldn't tell them.

Great, just great.

Then came the massive ship, a brief fight followed by a retreat, then the appearance of a massive portal thing which the lion wanted to go through.

Lance looked back at the others, eyes fixed on the only adult present, wondering how to tell them that the lion wanted to go into the portal. Before he could begin to even try signalling this information, the man frowned.

"I guess the lion wants to take us through that."

Lance nodded furiously, and the smallest of them stared at the portal nervously, "Where does it go?"

Lance shrugged and continued to stare at the one adult as getaway driver spoke, "Shiro, what do we do?"

The man (called Shiro apparently) answered decisively, "Whatever is happening, the lion knows more than we do. I say we trust it, but we're a team now. We should decide together."

There was brief silence, then those present nodded. Matter settled, Lance, with the lion's guidance, powered them into the portal.

Stood before the huge, gleaming castle, Lance couldn't help but gape, even more so when the doors opened to the lion's mighty roar. However, before they could enter, Shiro stopped them.

"Wait a moment."

All eyes turned upon him and the man fixed his gaze on Lance, "Now, I already know Keith, I remember Hunk from the Garrison before my mission and Pidge has told me who he is, but I don't think any of us really know you, do you mind introducing yourself?"

Instantly, he was the centre of attention, and Lance hesitated.

He really hated trying to act out his name and issue, fortunately he didn't actually have to do it very often because of his circumstances.

He pointed at himself then followed it with a two-handed stabbing motion forward. Receiving only blank looks in response, he repeated the pantomime several times until getaway driver (he thinks that's Keith) growls in frustration, "Why don't you just answer the question!?"

Lance sighed, then tried another mime, pointing at himself, then vigorously shaking his head and finishing with a motion as if something was coming out of his mouth. The big one (Hunk?) exclaimed excitedly, "Oh, you wanna puke?"

He face-palmed.

Shiro stepped towards him, understanding on his face, "You're mute, aren't you?"

Lance flung his hands up in triumph and nodded wildly, sparking sounds of realisation from everyone else. The smallest (he's certain that's Pidge) tweaked his glasses, "Okay then, why not write your name in the dirt?"

He grimaced and shook his head.

Pidge blinked, "Why not?"

He sighed, then shook his head again and mimed writing, causing the boy to stare in shock.

"What! How can you not write!?"

Shiro answered, "I think I can guess as to why, but let's not get into the theories and explanations right now." He looked to Lance, "Try and show us your name again."

The boy obliged, the rest watching him carefully, throwing out guesses.

"Stab!"

"Knife! Sword!"

"Thrust, Push!"

He stopped and stared incredulously…seriously, none of their guesses were even names!

"Lance?"

Once again, Shiro worked things out first, and Lance pointed at him and nodded furiously. The man grinned, "Good, Lance it is. Now that's sorted, let's head inside."

The next few hours were crazy.

They found Princess Allura and Coran, two aliens from a long-destroyed planet, located the other four lions, retrieved said lions, received their armour and bayards (his turned into a gun), fought a massive Galra ship, formed Voltron and finally won the day…barely.

Hence why they were now all collapsed on seats in a lounge like area in the castle.

Pidge, Hunk and Keith lay there groaning, while Lance was silent, his eyes shut from exhaustion, happy to just ignore everything happening around him.

"Paladins."

Allura's voice cut through his blissful ignorance, demanding the attention of them all, and he reluctantly pulled himself up into a sitting position.

She nodded to them all, "Coran and I have assigned you all a room each, I suggest you rest while you can. We'll start your training first thing tomorrow, and it will be hard."

They all slumped at those words, except Shiro who smiled slightly, "Understood princess." He faced them, "Paladins, time to turn in for the night."

They all obeyed, though Hunk did so while muttering about how he wasn't going to wake up for a week, but as they filed out of the room after Coran, who was showing them the way, Allura stopped him, "Lance, a moment please."

He stared at her in confusion and she frowned, "I have noticed that you haven't said anything to the others since you've arrived, not even during the battle. You must communicate with your teammates or Voltron will never be able to save the universe."

Lance grimaced, in all the excitement and craziness of the day, they hadn't told Allura and Coran about his problem.

"Princess, I'm afraid that Lance can't speak to the rest of us."

Shiro had lingered as well and opted to speak up on his behalf.

Allura fixed him with a look of shock, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he physically can't speak to us, he's mute."

Her eyes fell back on him, a hint of pity within them, "I didn't realise." She looked back to Shiro, "We must come up with a way around this, your success as a team depends on communication."

She smiled at Lance, "I'll speak to Coran, tomorrow we can take a look at you in the infirmary and maybe find a way to help you speak. For now, rest."

PS-And there's the beginning, it'll likely be more like a one-shot series after this instead of a fully fleshed out story. Please let me know what you thought and I'll hopefully update soon.