Chapter Text
Keith was seven when he first heard about soulmates. He’d grown up in White Willow Orphanage and whilst everyone treated him decently they had a lot of kids to look after, so Keith wasn’t a top priority all the time. He had always been an adventurous kid anyway, so he welcomed the freedom he was given. Unfortunately, the cost of being an adventurous kid was the near permanent bruises, cuts, and scrapes that littered his body. Jackie, (a woman who worked in the orphanage) was forever telling him to look after himself more.
“For God’s sake Keith, people are going to think we beat you here!” Six-year-old Keith gave her an unimpressed stare,
“But you don’t.” Jackie gave up.
Anyway, by the age of seven, Keith was pretty used to the injuries - you had to make sacrifices if you were going to be the best tree climber in the orphanage. And that’s why it took him very little time to notice that they’d stopped appearing. It started with his leg; he’d looked down at it, knowing that the previous day he’d fallen off of a log, yet where there would normally be a large pinky blue bruise, there was nothing. Just smooth unblemished skin. This anomaly carried on for two weeks and Keith steadily grew more and more uncertain. What was he supposed to do? He’d watched all the X-Men films and he was honestly a little terrified.
Finally, after the third week of no bruises, Keith mustered up the courage to speak to Jackie. She was the only one he trusted with that information. To his immense surprise she neither screamed nor phoned the X-Mansion - he was a little disappointed about that second bit. Instead, she laughed at him before launching into a twenty-minute talk about soulmates; how your soulmate has the ability to take away your pain and you have the ability to take away theirs.
In Keith’s opinion, it was stupid. Why would he want someone else’s pain? He already had his own. Plus, he’d never even met his ‘soulmate’, he didn’t know what kind of person they were, what they liked to do, how did he even know if they deserved it?
For the next year, Keith pretty much ignored his ‘soulmate’. It was weird at first, having injuries fade away almost as soon as he received them but he got used to it quite quickly. In fact, it pushed him to new and greater heights, removing his already underdeveloped sense of self-preservation. Yet he wasn’t stupid about it, even if his soulmate was. He didn’t want to hurt them too badly, so he tried not to do anything too reckless.
Until he fell out of a tree.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. It hurt so bad he repeated a word he’d heard the older boys say when they hurt themselves. He was so loud he attracted the attention of some of the younger kids that were playing nearby. They came over in a flock and looked down at him with varying levels of disgust, eyes focused on the way his leg twisted unnaturally. Keith had seen it too, but only for a few seconds. It looked really bad. He knew his leg wasn’t supposed to bend that way. Faintly he heard the kids whispering to each other, as his vision and hearing swam in and out. Everything around him was beginning to get pretty fuzzy and Keith had an overwhelming urge to fall asleep.
Until, like a switch had been flicked, everything sharpened and he felt wide awake.
That was odd. Even the pain in his leg seemed to have died down. Wait, scratch that. Vanished.
Feeling a lot better then he had two minutes ago. Keith struggled to sit up, only half aware of the horrified faces of the kids around him - what’s their deal? Their deal was his leg. His completely undamaged, lily-white leg. The children exchanged quick, frightened glances with each other, then scampered off like the cowards they were.
Keith got up in a more measured way, head still spinning from his brief bout of unconsciousness. Slowly he made his way back to the Orphanage where rumours about ‘That creepy boy with the purple eyes.’ were already circulating. Keith was told to speak with the nurse but once she gave him the green light, he was free to return to his shared room.
No one spoke to him that night.
The next day everyone in the Orphanage was given a talk on soulmates. Keith thought it must have been the staff’s way to prevent the flood of nasty gossip that had been shared during the past twenty-four hours. It was nice of them, but it didn’t work. Despite the schooling, everyone was still uncomfortable around Keith. They had all realised simultaneously that Keith never seemed to be injured anymore, despite his impulsiveness. This then prompted the unspoken question of, ‘Why not me? Why hasn’t my soulmate taken my pain?’ It wasn’t a mature reaction, but children weren’t mature. Keith had to deal with the repercussions. He decided then and there that he didn’t like his soulmate. Out of pure spite, he vowed never to take away their pain. He had been right. They didn’t deserve it.
The next few years were like a depressing helta skelta of negativity. The Orphanage's opinion of him changed from fear and unease, to jealousy and rage. Turns out, not everyone had a soulmate as ‘nice’ as Keith's. He hated it. His attitude didn’t help matters. All the other kids saw was a guy who had the perfect soulmate being an ungrateful bastard about it. Ha, perfect. What did they know?
This brought about a new problem - no matter what the older kids did to him, there was never any evidence. After all, what’s a better incentive to beat up someone you dislike than, ‘Hey, this boy has any injury inflicted upon him taken away. No matter how much you hurt him there’ll be no proof!”
To combat that kind of reaction, Keith isolated himself, breaking ties with the half-hearted friendships he’d formed in the orphanage and retreating into his own shell. It was depressingly easy to do so. Jackie had left three months ago.
It didn’t really help. Now he could just add ‘lonely’ to the list of adjectives that described his life.
When he joined middle school it got worse. Even Keith was surprised by that, he wasn’t sure how that’d be possible, but someone from the Orphanage let slip that Keith had a soulmate that took away any kind of pain he received. And, well, what more do kids love than a challenge?
Possibly Keith’s lowest point was sometime during seventh grade. He was just so tired, of the bullying and the people around him. Of his life. He stole a knife from the kitchen and locked himself in the bathroom. The first cut of the knife felt horrifyingly good, the pain and the control he had. It was his. His thigh burned but it was his pain and he’d done it himself. Then, slowly, it ebbed away leaving Keith with a bloody knife and a pleasantly tingling leg. He’d wanted to scream. It was HIS PAIN! He had EARNED it. His soulmate had NO RIGHT to take it from him.
But there was nothing Keith could do. He tried again and again for the next couple of weeks, longing for that feeling of self-control but it did not come. His soulmate must have been getting by on little to no sleep, cuts disappearing seconds after they were made. Keith had never felt a stronger hatred towards anyone before.
The anger Keith harbored probably didn’t help matters. As time passed by he grew more and more aggressive in response to the bullying. He got into fights almost daily and by the time he joined high school, there was an alarmingly long list of people out to get him.
In hindsight, he should have been more alert. A group of four boys tagged him on his way back to the Orphanage, dragging him behind a closed up Subway. Keith struggled and kicked out against his captors, fear bubbling in his throat. He half recognised the sandy blond in the middle but the others were unknown. Despite his struggles, the boys held fast, four against one leaning heavily in their favour. The guy holding his left arm muttered to the sandy blond,
“How fast does it go?” Sandy smirked,
“Wanna find out?” Lefty’s response was in the form of a switchblade lightly trailing across Keith’s left bicep. Keith went rigid as soon as the cool metal touched his skin, air leaving his mouth in short exhales. His heart was thumping erratically inside his chest and his hearing had started to feel muffled, like a blanket had draped across it.
A dark-haired boy on Keith’s right scoffed, the sound muted in Keith’s ears.
“Don’t be a pussy.” He snatched the blade up and scratched it across Keith’s other arm, a far deeper cut than the previous. Keith tried not to show how much it hurt by clenching his jaw so tightly he could taste blood. Until, as quickly as it came the flavour vanished, along with the cuts along his arms. Lefty gave an amused laugh, prodding the skin of his forearm,
“Now I really want to test this out.”
Looking back, Keith wasn’t entirely sure how he lived through the following half hour. It felt like days to him, the panic and helplessness of his situation consuming him. Cuts of all lengths and depths crisscrossed up his arms, only to vanish before he could properly see them. Keith soon gave up trying to put up a front, tears soaking his cheeks and sobs wracking his body. He had never wanted to die more in his life.
When they stopped it was from boredom. That was how little Keith’s life meant to them. He didn't think he could ever forget that.
The dark haired boy yawned,
“This is dull. We can’t hurt him ‘cause his soulmate takes it away. I want to do something fun.” There were murmured agreements around the group and with that, Keith was dropped to the floor with one final kick to the stomach. By the time he was able to acknowledge it, the pain had already faded away. All he had to show for that half hour of torture was dusty clothes.
Keith felt mechanical walking back to the Orphanage. He watched his hand pushing the familiar door open but couldn’t for the life of him remember getting there. No one questioned his movements, he didn’t speak with the other kids. Not even when he left the kitchen, half concealing a sharp knife. He kept the blade clenched in his hand as he ascended the stairs, entering his small but private bedroom. He locked the door behind him and sat high up on his bed, leaning against the headboard. It felt like everything had slowly been building up to this; the bullying, the abandonment, the loneliness. And it was his soulmate’s fault. All of it. Every bruise. Every scratch. Every trauma.
You see, it didn’t matter that they took it away if it was their fault to begin with.
He barely felt the pain at first, as he began to slice letters deep within his arm. And when he did he decided it didn’t matter. His soulmate would take it away anyway. He carved out words with careful deliberation and allowed himself a cold, satisfied smirk when his arm briefly shone the words, ‘I HATE YOU’ in ruby red ink. Watching this too vanish before his eyes was what pushed him over the edge. Like he was suddenly possessed, he drove the blade deep into his opposite arm, slicing in a downwards arc. He wanted to scream but he couldn’t because then someone would investigate.
It was HIS pain! Why couldn’t he feel his own pain? Why was someone he had never met taking it away from him? Did they feel obliged because they were his soulmate? It had to be that. There was no other reason to. But that in itself was sick. Keith refused to have the only love bestowed upon him to be from someone that had no choice in the matter. Because that sure as hell wasn’t love and he hated it. He hated it. He hated the lack of control, the lack of possession, being unable to control his own FUCKING body! It was horrific. It was wrong. He was wrong.
For two weeks Keith dared to hope. Bruises dotted his skin, weaving between scratches from the most mundane of things. For a short while Keith allowed himself to entertain the thought that his soulmate had given up.
Then one morning he woke to clear, unblemished skin.
The pain in his fist from punching the wall disappeared as soon as it came.
Maybe a week later Keith met Shiro. He had come into Keith’s school to talk about The Garrison; some flight school in the middle of the desert. Keith hadn’t been interested until Shiro presented them with a scarlet hoverbike that he flew. He was hooked. Shiro must have noticed his enthusiasm during the lecture as he happily spoke with Keith afterward.
“How do I get in?” Shiro snorted at his bluntness,
“The exam is in a couple of months, if you want I can give you the material you’ll need to study but there is also a physical examination-” Keith cut him off,
“I’m fit.” Shiro nodded.
Keith ducked his head before speaking again, exhibiting the first signs of shyness Shiro had seen so far,
“Could you- could you help me?” Shiro wanted to say no. He had a lot of work he needed to complete for the Kerberos mission and he couldn’t afford distractions. However, Shiro had always been soft-hearted towards kids and the boy’s demeanor screamed of someone not used to trusting or asking for help. Now that he had the courage to ask, Shiro couldn’t deny him.
“Sure thing kid.” He ruffled the boy’s hair, remembering seeing it done in one of his soap operas.
“No!” From that day on Shiro non-officially adopted him.
The following weeks were a frantic mix of mental recall, physical endurance and… research. No matter how exhausted Keith felt as he crawled into bed each night, he always took time to continue his private study on ‘how to remove a soulmate bond.’
There wasn’t much to go on and for a while, the only guaranteed method he could find was to kill them. There was no way in hell Keith was doing that. It didn’t matter how much he hated them. How much they had screwed up Keith’s life; there was no way he could take theirs. Also, he didn’t know where they lived.
Unfortunately, if he wasn’t going down that route, there were scarce few other options. It seemed that no matter where he looked, there was no information to be found. Eventually, it appeared luck was on his side and he stumbled across a paper concerning a small, government-led project regarding a new invention called a ‘soulmate repressor’.
They had been created for people working in high-risk jobs who had yet to meet their soulmates and thus didn’t wish to accidentally harm them. The repressor supposedly created a blockage through the soulbond and therefore prevented either person from feeling or taking the others pain. However, the project was still incredibly confidential and it would be years before repressors hit the mainstream market. Only those with good connections within the government could get their hands in one. Otherwise, repressors were rare and hopelessly expensive and it would be fucking impossible for Keith to look at one, never mind own one.
Or so he thought.
His success happened entirely by chance. As a result of his pursuit of further soulmate knowledge as well as his affinity towards conspiracy theories, he’d accumulated a wide range of online connections. Therefore, upon expressing his intense desire for a soulmate repressor, it was not long before he received a message from one of his followers. Apparently, due to the nature of their job they had been given a repressor but had no use for it as they had already met and spoken with their soulmate. This meant they were willing to pass it onto Keith, in exchange for the photographic evidence Keith had boasted proved the existence of Mothman. Keith didn’t have to think twice about it and once they had both set up bugs to make certain neither of them got cold feet, Keith was down three blurry photographs and up one piece of tech that would change his life.
Putting the thin black bracelet on for the first time felt incredible. Like he was taking back his own body. For the first time he could remember, he was in full control of himself. Keith was unashamed to admit he let loose a few tears. It was the happiest day of his life.
That’s not to say the following weeks weren’t the most challenging times of his life. Shiro was quite concerned about Keith’s sudden dip in training. Where before he’d sprung up after each knockdown, heedless of injury, Keith now required extra rests of longer times. That’s not to say Shiro wasn’t relieved by Keith’s newfound cautiousness, it was just odd after so many weeks of rash, impulsive fighting from the boy.
It was indeed tricky, at first, to cope with handling his own pain. He’d never realised before just how reckless he was with his own body. Another thing to blame on his soulmate. Sustained pain was the worst. Keith was no stranger to the initial hot rush of a cut or scrape, but never before had he had to endure the days, or weeks, of recovery. Suddenly, overexertion in Shiro’s training bore consequence and Keith was forced to suffer the resultant pains. However, every time the wandering, malevolent thought that - maybe his soulmate wasn’t so bad after all - wormed its way into his head, he clenched his teeth and sucked it up. Getting rid of his soulmate was the best thing to ever happen to him and if he had to struggle a bit to make it work, then so be it.
Soon enough, Keith was able to balance advancing in training with maintaining his health. Shiro was immensely pleased with him. The two of them had grown closer during the time Shiro spent instructing him. Keith had never had a proper family but he was fairly certain if he had, that was what it would have felt like. Shiro was the older brother Keith had always wanted - intelligent, supportive, and perfectly willing to put him in a headlock if he acted too bratty.
The day before the exam Shiro was fretting around, waving paper notecards and spitting out random pieces of advice, ranging from practical to pointless.
“If they ask you to shade a box, shade it. There’s no point being lazy. The machine that reads the paper uses optical mark recognition, so if the shading isn’t clear, it won’t mark it right”
“Shiro.”
“If you don’t know an answer, don’t panic. Just write something sensible and move on. Don’t waste time on it.”
“Shiro.”
“And if you drop something, don’t bend down and pick it up. The invigilator can do that for you but, if they see you move they can disqualify you as it could be seen as an attempt at cheating.”
“Shiro.”
“Actually, don’t move around at all. Just keep your head down and focus on the paper. That way there’s no way that you can be accused of anything.”
“SHIRO!”
Shiro broke off from his ramblings to stare at Keith. Keith gave him a rare smile, something that only Shiro could receive.
“Don’t worry so much. I’m going to ace this test. Seriously, there’s no way I could have had a better tutor. So stop panicking.” Shiro gave an awkward cough.
“Right. Sorry. You’ll be fine. Good luck.” He reached and ruffled Keith’s hair fondly. Keith pulled a face but didn’t move away.
Keith got in. Of course he did. Top in both the written and practical exams, meaning he was automatically placed in fighter class. Shiro had cried when he’d found out and Keith refused to stop teasing him about it for weeks. The two of them celebrated in Shiro’s small apartment with party poppers, streamers, and a children’s cake with a cartoon rocket on the top. Keith savored the time together, knowing Shiro was going on the Kerberos mission soon.
Still, at least for a short period of time, Keith could enjoy having a family.
Three months into Keith’s time at the Garrison, he lost that family. Shiro was gone. For days he locked himself in his room, refusing to leave. During that time he flew through the stages of grief in entirely the wrong order, swiftly transitioning from denial and sorrow, to rage. Four days after bolting his door shut, Keith stormed from his room and approached every person of importance he could find within the Garrison to demand an explanation for Shiro’s disappearance.
He was refused information by them all. As he was not a relative and held no power within the academy, he had no right to the information. The final straw was the response given to him by Iverson, telling him to calm down and that, ‘Whilst Shirogane will be missed, I’m sure there are plenty of suitable cadets that will be able to fill his shoes.’
Keith had punched him. Hard.
How dare he have the nerve to suggest that Shiro was nothing more than a pilot. That he was so easy to replace and that no one should miss him because of it. The academy had had a single day of mourning, then continued like normal. Like that had been enough and that everything was alright now and everyone could move on with their lives. Keith felt sickened.
The Garrison expelled him at once. Said they had a no-tolerance policy for that kind of thing. Keith was glad. He would have left anyway. The romanticisms he had had about the place having vanished along with Shiro. He quietly packed his bags and left on Shiro’s prized red hoverbike. He figured no one else was going to be using it.
Keith couldn’t return to the Orphanage. He had grown as a person too much. He was afraid if he returned, all of that would be undone. Instead, he remained in a hut he’d found close to the Garrison on the day he’d left. He used his internet connections and hacking abilities to keep an eye on the happenings of the Garrison, as well as any and all information regarding the Kerberos mission.
For months he scoured the web, building machines in his spare time to monitor energy readings and the like. Until one day he was alerted to a massive wave of unknown energy emerging from a nearby cave formation. The caves in question were decorated in a range of coloured shapes and symbols that Keith could make no sense of. They just added to his suspicions about the mission and whilst Keith came no further to unraveling their mysteries, his list of unsolved puzzles grew longer the more he investigated.
Weeks turned to months as he continued searching for answers, until one night every machine he had went haywire, showing huge energy spikes around the Earth’s atmosphere. The size and shapes of the energy flow differed but they all dipped down in the same movement - towards the Garrison. With that information, Keith was on his hoverbike and moving towards the area.
The next few hours were a blur; running from the Garrison, meeting Pidge and Hunk and Lance and finding Shiro.
Finding Shiro.
Seeing him again and being able to talk to him again felt like a dream. In fact, it felt more unreal then the following experiences of entering a giant metal cat, leaving earth and discovering two human-like aliens called ‘Alteans’.
Luckily Keith had always been adaptable and as a result, he just ended up rolling with it. The universe was in danger. Got it. The reason being; a race of purple, furry cat people. Sure. Keith was supposed to fight these aliens inside of a metal lion and alongside two aliens, three strangers and someone he had thought to be dead for a year. Sounds fake but okay. Keith managed.
When it was revealed to the team that Allura and Shiro were soulmates, Keith was extremely happy for them. Considering Keith’s views on his own soulmate, people might be surprised but Keith was no monster. Just because he had his own issues, didn’t mean he would trample on someone else’s happiness. And those two, perhaps more than anybody, deserved happiness. Shiro, Keith knew, had spent a great portion of his life being a prodigy. Strong, handsome and unattainable. People unknowingly ostracised him, seeing him as more of a comic book character than an actual real-life person. They raised him high onto a pillar of his successes and left no room for anyone to join him. Shiro had told Keith, back on Earth, how he sometimes wished he had never joined the Garrison. How lonely he’d felt and how much he wished people would treat him normally.
Allura, however, was a princess. She wouldn't hero worship him for his accomplishments, only respect him. She had been brought up amongst aristocracy and nobility, so a talented pilot from Earth wouldn’t rose-tint her vision. That was what Shiro really deserved - someone who would stand with him as an equal, high on their own pillar rather than clutching to the base of his.
Allura too deserved this happiness. She had spent ten thousand years inside of a cryopod, only to find her planet has been destroyed and she was one of the last of her people. Keith couldn’t even imagine the kind of crushing loneliness and sorrow that would bring to a person. Nobody deserves to feel that. Therefore, the fact that the two of them had found one another was enough to shake Keith’s animosity towards soulmates and briefly allow him to bask in their shared joy.
Yet, it was another thing altogether when Allura suggested they should share information on their soulmates as a way of bonding. At her words, Keith had felt his blood run cold. This was a topic he had successfully evaded for years. Shiro had tried prying once, but when Keith had clammed up at the subject, he had stopped and not mentioned it again. This was a part of himself that not even he was ready to deal with and it certainly wasn’t something that he was willing to share with people that he was still getting to know.
The walk to the training room went too quickly and soon they were seated in a circle. Keith found his hearing phase in and out, as one by one the people around him spoke about their soulmates. Hunk had one, Pidge didn’t. Coran wouldn’t and Shiro and Allura had one other. Then it was Lance’s turn and Keith chose to focus his attention on that, rather than the blood pumping through his ears. Lance would, predictably, go into a lengthy spiel about their soulmate and how great they were, hopefully giving Keith the time to get his head straight.
However, the metaphorical rug was yanked from his feet when, instead of doing any of that, Lance laughed and waved the idea off. Keith narrowed his eyes as Lance did that dumb, Lance thing of milking the attention on him for all it was worth. It was so irritating that, for a second, Keith forgot that that was exactly what he wanted from Lance. Yet, when Lance said something along the lines of, ‘I just really don’t want to talk about my soulmate, thanks.’ Keith had to call bullshit. As if Lance would ever not use an excuse to yap about himself. He was just doing theatrics for more attention. In fact, Keith more or less said that to him, fed up with his narcissism.
“Since when have you not wanted to talk about yourself?” At his words, Lance scowled and flushed angrily.
“Since this was not any of your business. Talk about your soulmate, mullet!”
That really threw Keith. What was he supposed to say? What lie could he tell? Then, it occurred to him, he didn’t have to lie.
“I don’t have a soulmate.” He was unable to completely mask the note of glee in his voice as he realised that that was, really, the truth. Keith watched Lance’s lip curl into an expression that he had never seen before on his face.
“Of course you’d be happy about that.” The accusation in his voice was surprising. It left an unpleasant feeling in his gut and Keith wanted none of it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lance let out a laugh that was so unlike his usual one. It was a hollow sound that was a grim echo of what it should have been. It was cruel and bitter and Keith hated it.
“What, lone wolf Keith? Top pilot of the Garrison. Talented. Gorgeous. Bet you can’t think of anything worse than something as pathetic as a soulmate dragging you down. I’m sure you love being above it all!” The words hit harder than Lance could have ever known they would. And he was right, in a way. Keith did love the solitude that came from the loss of his soulmate. Yet, the way Lance spoke; accusing Keith of something he had no evidence for, made Keith see red. How dare he so flippantly make assumptions on Keith’s life when he had no idea of the sufferings Keith had endured?
As the team questioned Lance on his soulmate, Keith felt his face grow dark. Any outrage the others had felt on his behalf vanished, as soon as Lance let out a few crocodile tears and choked out a little sob story and that was so fucking typical. Then, to find out that Lance did in fact have a soulmate and that the whole thing was just a grab for attention, Keith was a little pissed.
At least the others somewhat shared Keith’s disdain for Lance’s melodrama. Pidge laughed whilst Shiro tried to placate him,
“Lance, Hunk’s right. Are you sure you’re not just being dramatic?” Lance’s head snapped up from Hunk’s shoulder so quickly that Keith was afraid he would get whiplash, before he spoke to Shiro in a shaky voice.
“When I was fourteen my soulmate tried to kill me.”
As Lance flounced from the room, the paladins stayed in frozen silence, absorbing this new information. Finally, Keith gave a slightly forced laugh,
“I knew he was going to be dramatic about it, but that was ridiculous.” Hunk snapped out of his shock and turned to face Keith,
“Keith, can’t you see he was really upset? Having something like that happen to you must be horrifying!” Pidge shook her head in disbelief and echoed Keith’s laugh,
“You don’t seriously believe him?” Hunk frowned, mentally squaring up in order to defend his best friend,
“Of course I believe him, why wouldn’t I?” Pidge rolled her eyes,
“Because his story makes no sense? How could his soulmate ‘try to kill him’” she made air quotations with her fingers,
“if they’ve never met? First he tells us he has a soulmate, then that he doesn’t and now that he has again. Face it, it’s just Lance being Lance. Sure, it got a little out of hand, but I think he was just trying to make a joke, except no one found him funny. Don’t let him get to you, Hunk.”
Hunk frowned again and opened his mouth to retort, but Shiro stepped forward, cutting him off.
“Guys, please. Don’t argue about this. Hunk, Pidge might have a point but until we’ve spoken to Lance, I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions. We are a team and we should be able to trust one another. Yes, it might just have been a badly received joke or exaggeration but I, personally, don’t believe that Lance is the type of person to say something like that without a good reason.”
One by one the paladins nodded to Shiro’s words, some more reluctantly than others. However, before they could proceed any further than that, the Castle’s alarms sounded loudly, scaring everyone but Shiro and Allura.
“Quickly paladins!” Allura’s voice rose above the noise,
“To your lions.” Without any more delay, the group scrambled to suit up and enter their lions. As they ran, Keith half wondered whether Lance would show up.
When they radioed in, Keith was slightly ashamed of the presumptions he had made regarding his teammate. He should have known Lance well enough by now to realise he would never abandon the lives of the innocent because of personal problems. Keith felt a little sick by the realisation that he, in that position, might have. Shaking that last thought off, Keith dedicated himself entirely to the flying of his lion. Allura was feeding them information from the castle.
“Okay Paladins, this is not an offensive battle. The planet beneath you is named Li-huil and the Castle’s records of it show only that its surface sinks to incredibly low temperatures during its secondary planetary rotation. This is aided by the planet’s ice core. However, those were records from ten thousand Deca-Phoebs ago and tell a vastly different tale to the scans the Castle has just taken; implying Deca-Phoebs of surface tension from the intense cold. As a result, Li-huil’s surface is incredibly unstable. You can see the cracks coating the planet’s surface from here. The dark marks are from areas where the land has broken up completely and disintegrated.”
“Understood Allura, what can we do to help?” Keith felt a surge of pride at the authority in Shiro’s voice. He had really grown into his role of leader.
“Currently the people of Li-huil are evacuating to its twin planet, which is already inhabited by two-thirds of the people’s overall population. Unfortunately, they are not capable of mass transit and do not have the resources to transport everyone. Luckily, the planet is not in critical condition yet and the Castle has calculated that it has two to three Movements left before it becomes entirely uninhabitable. I would like you all to use your lions to ferry the people across, whilst myself and Coran will do the same with the Castle. Li-huil has a relatively small population so I do not think it will take longer than a Quintant or two, as long as we work efficiently.”
“Got it.”
Privately Keith thought there had to be a better way to do it. Some alien, Altean way that wasn’t so boring Keith wanted to bash his head onto Red’s dashboard. However, seeing as no other options presented themselves, the team soon got into a swing of picking up and transporting as many of the creatures as they could, in the shortest amount of time possible. It was dull work, especially in comparison with what Voltron was usually needed for. Nine times out of ten, all that was required was a few hours of fighting before they could all collapse in a sweaty heap on the Castle’s floor. This, on the other hand, required patience, something Keith was willing to admit was not his strong suit.
The creatures, Keith was told by Pidge, were called Vuhm and were extremely appreciative of the Paladin’s help. They spoke in high chitters that, for some reason, their Universal Translators did not work on and many stroked Keith’s hair upon entering and leaving. The first time it had happened, Keith had half raised his bayard before he was even aware of what was happening. The Vuhm in question had immediately removed its hand and stepped backward, despite Keith’s muttered apology. After that, he made a conscious effort to not react negatively when a Vuhm ran a clawed hand through his hair. At first, he’d been unsure of the gesture’s meaning but short glances around his lion showed him that the grooming was a common thing.
All of the Vuhm carried large manes of feathers that flowed from the tips of their heads to low on their backs. Although shapes and colours varied, every creature sported the sleek, soft looking feathers. Watching the Vuhm between trips, Keith concluded that the stroking was a comfort thing. The people did not appear to split into groups of friends or family, and instead mixed freely amongst one another, exchanging affectionate touches as naturally as breathing. Or whatever the Vuhm equivalent to breathing was.
It only took a couple of doboshes for each group to be transported but there was limited space inside of the lions and castle and a lot of Vuhm to be moved. However, after more Vargas than Keith could be bothered to count, the lions deposited the last remaining Vuhm. Allura had told them over radio that they would be staying for the next few days to negotiate an alliance but first, they were all to return to the Castle to rest.
So, after speaking to the leader of the Vuhm for the briefest amount of time possible, the team withdrew to the castle, allowed Shiro to give them a debrief no one listened to and then retreated to their rooms. Less than three seconds after entering his room, Keith happily collapsed onto his bed without changing out of his Paladin armor. That was a problem for Future Keith to deal with. In his sleep-hazed mind he knew that Lance would bitch at him for not changing and as that thought occurred to him, so did the idea that he had forgotten to do something important. However, for the life of him he couldn’t remember, so it was with a slightly uneasy mind that Keith drifted off to sleep.