#sorry lance its only because of the blue lion

[pumpkichia]

Blast Off

"I'm Lance. And you're right here in my arms." Lance says charmingly. "Your ears." the woman adds. "They're hideous." she scowls. "What's wrong with them?"

"Nothing's wrong with them! They heard exactly what you said about them!" Lance yells, heartbroken. The woman grabs Lance by the ear, twisting him around so his knees hit the floor. 

"Who are you? Where is King Alfor? What are you doing in my castle?" the woman screams, holding Lance captive. "A giant blue lion brought us here. That's all we know." Lance whimpers.

"How do you have the Blue Lion?-" the woman lets Lance go. "What happened to its paladin? What are you all doing here? Unless..."  she stumbles. "How long has it been?"

"We don't know what you're talking about." Shiro states. "Why don't you tell us who you are? Maybe we can help."

"I am Princess Allura of Planet Altea." she says "I've got to find out where we are and how long we've been asleep." demands the princess, going to the control panel. She places her hands on either side of the panel, making it light up with information. The second cryo-pod emerges from the floor, holding what looks to be a man in his mid-twenties. The pod opens to spill out the liquid and lets the man fall to the floor. 

"Ow..." says the man. "Princess. What is all of this?" he asks as he manages to get up onto his hands and knees.

"Ceran. I'm glad you're okay." says the princess. "Oh no, it can't be." The white haired man stands up with the assistance of Shiro. "What is it, princess?" The man asks. The princess shudders and a wave of concern spreads across the group. 

"We've been asleep for ten thousand years." the princess stutters out. 

---10,000 years ago---

"Zarkon." King Alfor says as his monitor picks up the transmission the Galra fleet sent out. You can see fire surrounding the castle as Galra ships attack it. 

"Your fleet has been destroyed, Alfor. I will be there shortly to claim Voltron." says Zarkon, a large Galra emperor. Suddenly, a Galra ship strikes at King Alfor's castle. 

"Father, we must form Voltron and fight before it's too late!" Allura says, clenching her fists.

"It's already too late. We must send the lions away." demands King Alfor. "We can't risk them falling into Zarkon's hands." 

"We can't give up hope!" exclaims Allura. "I'm sorry daughter. If all goes well, I will see you again soon." says Alfor, as he touches the princess's neck, putting her to sleep. He must've then put both her and her bodyguard in the cryo-pods.

---Back to the Present---

"Planet Altea and all of the planets in our solar system have been destroyed." Allura states angrily. "Ceran, Father is gone. Our entire civilization..." she says shakily. "Zarkon."

"Zarkon?" Shiro asks as he recalls the terrifying face of the emperor. "He was the King of the Galra. A vile creature and an enemy to all free people." Allura states, clenching her dress in her hand.

"I remember now... I was his prisoner." Shiro says as he looks up at the princess. "He's still alive? Impossible!" Allura scowls. "I can't explain it, but it's true. He's searching for a super weapon called Voltron." says Shiro. 

"He's searching for it because he knows it's the only thing that can defeat him, and that's exactly why we must find it before he does." says Allura. 

"Princess, you must eat. It's been ten thousand years." Ceran says, placing his hand on Allura's shoulder. "I'm not hungry..." says Allura. "Man, ten thousand years? That's like one hundred plus ten." Lance says with a straight face. "That's times ten." Keith states. "Whatever, dropout." Lance replies.

"I can't believe your civilization created such advanced technology ten thousand years ago." says Shiro, clearly impressed. "It must have been an incredible place."

"Yes, it was..." Ceran strokes his white hair back. "but now it's gone and we're the last Alteans alive." he looks at Allura. The princess looks away with sadness in her eyes. Ceran walks up to the princess and places a hand on her shoulder. Allura starts sobbing, hugging Ceran. Just then, an alarm goes off, signifying something bad is happening. 

"A Galra battleship has set it's tracker to us!" yells Ceran. "How did they find us?" asks Allura.

"How long until they find us?" asks Shiro. "At their speed? I'd say probably a couple of days." replies Ceran, looking at the control panel monitor. 

"Good, let them come. By the time they get here, you five will have reformed Voltron, and together, we will destroy Zarkon's empire!" Princess Allura states.

"Princess, there are five of these lions. How are we going to find the rest?" Shiro questions.

"King Alfor connected the lions to Allura's life force. She alone is the key to the lions' whereabouts." Ceran states as Allura opens the control panel. A beam of light shines down on her and soon, there are a million particles soaring throughout the air around the group, signifying all the planets, stars, and constellations in their location. Everyone gasps at how beautiful the sight is.

"These are coordinates." Pidge states. "The black  lion looks like it's in the same location as the blue lion."

"Very observant. That's because the Black Lion is in the castle." Allura smiles. "To keep the Black Lion out of Zarkon's hands, King Alfor locked it in the castle. It can only be freed if the other four lions are present." says Ceran in a dark tone. 

"As you have found,  the lions choose their pilots. It is a mystical bond that cannot be forced." Allura states. "The quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his lion. Together, they form something greater than science can explain." Allura scrolls to the black lion's location. 

"The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who's a born leader and in control at all times, someone whose men will follow without hesitation." She says. "That is why, Shiro, you will pilot the Black Lion." Allura scrolls to the green lion's location. 

"The green lion has an inquisitive personality and needs a pilot of intellect and daring. Pidge, you will pilot the Green Lion." Allura scrolls to the blue lion.

"The Blue Lion-" Allura says before she is rudely interrupted. "Hold up. let me guess. Takes the most handsome slash best pilot of the bunch?" Lance smiles while holding his chin. Allura rolls her eyes and moves on to the yellow lion's location.

"The Yellow Lion is caring and kind. Its pilot is one who puts the needs of others above his own." she states. "His heart must be mighty. As the leg of Voltron, you will lift the team up and hold them together." Hunk points to himself in question. Allura nods. 

"The Red Lion is temperamental and the most difficult to master." Allura says while pulling up a picture of the red lion. "It's faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable. It's pilot needs to be someone who relies more on instincts than skill alone. Keith, you will fly the Red Lion." Allura declares as Keith smirks. "What? This guy?" Lance complains, pointing to Keith.

"Unfortunately, I cannot locate the Red Lion's coordinates yet. There must be something wrong with the castle." Allura sighs. "Once all the lions are united, you will form Voltron, the most powerful warrior ever known, the Defender of the Universe."

"Okay, we don't have much time. Pidge and I will go after the Green Lion. Lance, you take Hunk and get the yellow one. Keith, you stay here. If you locate that Red Lion, go get it." Shiro orders.

"In the meantime, I'll get this castle's defenses ready." Allira says. "They'll be sorely needed."

"I'll ready a pod and load the coordinates so that you can reach the Green Lion." says Ceran. As the four paladins leave to retrieve the two lions, Keith is left alone with his thoughts.

---One Year Ago: seven days after Kerberos mission---

---Keith's POV---

"Alex...?" I ask as the girl in front of me stands completely still with her back facing me. On her back was a backpack, her hand grasping another backpack. She drops it to the floor. We were in the hallway of the dorms, my dorm being a few doors down from hers. It was the middle of the night, around 3'oclock in the morning.  

"Keith... It's not what it looks like." She says, slowly turning towards me. Not what it looks like? It looks like you're leaving. What else could it possibly be?

"What then, tell me you're not actually gonna-" Keith starts to say. "What else am I supposed to do?" Alex starts crying. My heart drops. She's not one to break down and cry. Shiro's disappearance really did a number on her. "I need to know." replies Alex.

"Let me come with you." I softly say, inching closer. "No. I can't let you go. You'd be risking your whole career. Everything you and Shiro worked hard on." Alex says, wiping away the tears running down her chin. "But what about your career? You worked hard too." I ask, trying to convince her to either stay or take me with her. 

"Please, my time at the Garrison is practically over, what with my back." I thought about it for a moment. She's right. 

"Okay, then let me help you. You know you can't blast a shuttle into space all by yourself." I say, smiling. She smiled back at me. I can't stand it when she cries. I grab the backpack she dropped on the ground and follow her to the Garrison's launch bay. 

"Which one of these are you taking?" I ask, looking around at the different types of shuttles. "That one." Alex says, pointing with her flashlight to the shuttle that the Galaxy Garrison had set up for two days from now. They were going to use it to fly to their furthest space station. "It already has more than enough cryogenic gas in it to take me there and back. The engineers triple checked that it's functional. It's a clear winner." Alex whispers. 

"You're gonna get into so much trouble when you come back..." I sigh. "That's if they catch me." Alex winks at me. I chuckle. 

"Okay, you ready?" She asks me. I nod at her and give her the backpack from my hand. "Then off you go to the control room." Alex says, pointing to the room above the launch pad. I start heading in the direction of the staircase that leads up to the control room. 

"Wait Keith." Alex says as she puts her backpacks on the floor. She runs to me and gives me a radio, giving me hug in the process. "I'll stay in touch with you the whole time, so don't worry, okay?" she says with a smile on her face.

"Where'd you even get this?" I ask, taking a closer look at the radio. "I stole it." She smirks. 

"Okay, off you go now." she says as she backs up and grabs her stuff. I walk up the steps to the control room, making sure not to trip from how dark it is. Once I make it to the control room, I point my flashlight out the window, looking to see how Alex is doing. She had already opened the door and entered the shuttle, all I could see was a shadow of her person on the inside of the shuttle. 

"All clear." Alex whispered over the radio. "Let's see..." I say to myself as I look around the control room. I pull up the telemetry data to make sure the space shuttle is in good condition. I don't understand half of this shit, but it looks good anyways. I then look to see how to open the roof for launch. I see a lever that says "roof hatch", so I pull it. The roof creaks open pretty loudly. "Well, here goes nothing." I say. "Are you all strapped in?" I ask Alex over the radio. 

"Yeah. I'm ready when you are." Alex says over the radio. Okay, I guess this is really happening. I press the big red button that starts up the launch of the shuttle, as the rocket engines start. At this point, the soundwaves of the expulsion of gas is making the launch heard from the whole Garrison. The shuttle launches, and moves swiftly against the earth's gravity. "What in the hell!" could be heard from behind the door.

"Shit I gotta hide." I say to myself, as I grab my radio and cram myself into one of the lockers placed along the walls of the command room. It'll be a while before I can get out of here and make contact with Alex again.

[ashkazora]

tell us more abt lucao culture!!!!!! (apart from the change in eye color, how does lance look like when over loaded w/ power? is their an aura around him?)

-Happy :]

OKAY so this originally was lucao culture but it turned into a massive quintessence rant. (Also, stuff about lance is down the bottom!)

Luceans are one of the most quintessally active species, being both holding a fair amount of quintessence and being able to channel it. Alteans were much better in both aspects in general however, in the current state of the universe, Lucaens are one of the only advanced, sentient species to have both abilities and understand the fundamentals of quintessence. Hence, why the Galra empire wished to take them over.

Because of this, Luceans are incredibly proud of their abilities, however outside Alchemists, sports, and professions where quintessal manipulation may be helpful, its use is somewhat limited, especially as technology evolves.

Although, touching on quintessence, the ability to use quintessence is based on two things: the depth of the quintessence reservoirs in a species, and their necessary nodes/pores to channel them. (Think, batteries and wires). I imagine quintessence has a metaphysical system similar to the lymphatic system, where there are nodes that store quintessence (almost like pressure points), ducts to conduct it, and additional pores that allow the exit of quintessence from the body or the ability to resonate one's quintessence with something external (which is the cause of external quintessence manipulation).

Natrually, Alteans had the highest in both aspects. Luceans are typically advanced in their quintessence channeling systems, however have only an average reservoir of quintessence. Of course, this varies within population and is kinda like a phenotype.

Humans, on the other hand, have reservoirs comparable (and even exceeding) that of Alteans, but have almost no way to channel it. Galrans have incredibly low of both, while Olkari and Balmerans tend to be higher than average in both. Since the sheer act of summoning a bayard (let alone changing its form, using projectiles on it, connecting with the lions, etc.) requires at least some form of ability to channel, the Lions tend to physically alter the physiology of their paladins so they can do such a thing.

(Side note, this kinda ties into my headcanon that the paladins age much, much slower, and generally don't experience the passage of time as heavily as others because of the Lions.) but YEAH.

OKAY NOW ONTO HOW LANCE LOOKS.

Generally, when using his powers the changes tend to be felt rather than seen. In wirip, Lance grows pale/skin gains a blue tint, and I guess you could say he has a very faint glow around him. Patches of ice/frost cover parts of his skin and hair. He looks frostbitten pretty much.

But post-wirip, the paling effect doesn't occur as drastically (this will be explained in the fic), and eventually, stops all together. There tends to be a lot of static electricity around him. Though, this is when he's normal, not overloaded.

OKAY SORRY FOR THE RANT LMAO HOPE THIS HELPS HJGDWGHWHGDJ. I have A Lot(tm) of ideas about quintessence lmao.

[folded-wings]

Seeing Blue

A blind Lance au that’s been brewing in my mind for a while.

---

The last thing Keith wanted was for another person to join his little ‘party.’ He finally found Shiro - who apparently spent the last year captured by aliens - and he wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax with his brother. But then he was forced to tolerate two strangers, Hunk and Pidge, who had helped Keith rescue Shiro from the Garrison. Pidge demanded answers about the other crew members, but relented when Shiro said he didn’t remember much from the last year. Hunk seemed to just be along for the ride, but without him, Keith would not have found this cave. He was so close to finding that weird energy source that had been calling for him. 

So, yeah, he was going to tolerate them. For now, at least. 

But as they looked at the cave filled with strange lion carvings, they heard footsteps approach from the entrance. 

“Oh man, we are in so much trouble,” Hunk whined, being the last to turn around.

The stranger seemed to be staring right past them, but startled upon Hunk’s voice. 

Keith glanced behind him to see what the stranger had been looking at, but he saw nothing there. Save for a few more lion carvings, but nothing different from the others. As he moved to look forward again, he noticed Hunk was wearing a huge grin.

“LANCE!” he shouted, suddenly running forward.

“Hunk? Buddy, is that you?”

Without warning, Hunk wrapped Lance into a hug, effortlessly lifting him off the ground. Lance squeaked in surprise, before a smile come onto his own face. He wriggled until he got his own arms free, wrapping them around his friend. Laughing, he said, “Yep, that’s you. I’d know this hug from anywhere.”

After another moment, Hunk finally put Lance down. Shiro took that as an opportunity to speak. “Hunk, who is this?”

Lance startled again at the voice, before turning his head in Shito’s direction. Except, he was off by a bit, meaning he was staring directly at Keith. Seeing how quickly uncomfortable Keith had become, Hunk lifted his arm up and pushed Lance’s head, so he was facing Shiro. 

“I’m Lance, Hunk’s certified best friend!”

Shiro gave out quick introductions.

“Wait a second,” Hunk said, interrupting before any more words could be said. “Dude, what are you doing here?” Hunk peeked out around the cave entrance, expecting to see Lance’s family, or someone. A frown marked his features when he saw nobody there.

Lance had the decency to look ashamed. “I, uh... kinda... wandered off...?”

“Dude!”

“It’s not my fault!” Lance protested. Pausing for a second, he continued, “Okay, maybe it is, but still.”

“Lance...”

“Hold up.” Pidge put up his hands. “Hunk, what’s wrong? We basically wandered here.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t blind!” Hunk froze at his own words. “Jeez, I’m sorry Lance-”

“Relax, buddy, I get it. You’re just worried.”

“Wait, you’re blind?” Keith asked, feeling a slight flush of embarrassment. He shouldn’t have felt so uncomfortable when Lance turned towards him. “How’d you make it all the way here?” 

“I walked? Dude, there’s a town my family’s staying at not too far from here.” Lance gestured in the direction he came from. “Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”

“That’s not what I mea-”

“Alright then what are you doing here?” Shiro asked. He knew Lance would get in trouble for wandering off, but that was  so much better than what he had been dragged into. It was bad enough that he was dragging Keith, Hunk, and Pidge into this whole Voltron mess. He didn’t want to take anyone else with them. 

Lance reached up, resting his hand on his neck as he considered the question. “I was following some weird energy? I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s been driving me apples and bananas. This thing was calling to me, I think. It lead me here too, like it gave me some sort of path?”

“You sensed it too?” Keith asked. "And you got a path?" He couldn’t deny that he was jealous, at least a little. Keith had needed Hunk to create the geiger counter to come here, yet this stranger had apparently just been told where to go. 

“Yeah, ever since I got here. Where exactly is here anyways?” 

"We're in a cave with some weird lion carvings all over the place," Hunk explained, temporarily forgetting he was supposed to be angry with Lance. He led his friend deeper into the cave, closer to the others. "We think that energy you and Keith have been feeling might be Voltron!"

"Voltron?"

Hunk rambled off a quick explanation about Shiro's disappearance, and how they had ended up here. As Hunk talked, Lance brought his hand up to the wall so he could feel the carvings Hunk had talked about. He trusted his friend to know that he would want that, and Lance was not met with disappointment.

As his hand landed on the cool stone, the lion carvings suddenly lit up, illuminating the entire cavern. Gasps echoed shortly after.

"They've never done that before," Keith murmured.

"What?" Lance called. "Did I do something?"

The only answer Lance got was a bunch of screaming as suddenly the ground gave out beneath them. It ended a few seconds later with a splash.

"Ugh," Pidge groaned, sitting up. "What just happened?"

"I guess we got deeper into the cave, Hunk," Lance joked, trying to hide his panic. He shook his head, trying to get the water out of his hair. He was starting to feel a little bit of regret with following that energy. His mom was gonna kill him.

Keith ignored Lance, looking around. His mouth dropped, and it took Keith a moment to get past his shock. "What is that?"

Everyone turned to look where Keith was staring at. They could only stare in shock as the blue lion seemed to be staring past them.

"Is that Voltron?" Pidge asked.

Sure, they had all expected Voltron to be a pretty massive weapon if what Shiro said was true, but when actually facing it, it was easy to say they were unprepared.

Keith began walking forward, but to everyone's surprise, so did Lance.

"There's some sort of shield around it," Keith said, turning slightly. He was surprised to see Lance so close without Hunk hovering close by, but he brushed his thoughts away.

Keith put his hands up, feeling the barrier. It pulsed around his hand, but gave no indication that it would allow him to pass. "I wonder how we'll get through..."

"Maybe we just need to knock." Lance pulled his fist against the barrier, knocking twice. He gasped when he felt the barrier fall away.

Suddenly the lion's eyes began to glow brighter than before. No one had a chance to comment on that though as suddenly a vision filled their minds, five lions coming together and forming one robot, a sword in hand.

Lance and Hunk fell back in surprise.

"So Voltron... is five lions creating one robot," Pidge finally breathed, staring in awe at the lion looming over them.

Lance was shaking from his spot on the ground.

"Lance?" Shiro called out cautiously, afraid to startle him anymore. "Are you okay?"

"Holy crow... Holy crow! I saw that!"

"Lance what are you..." Hunk trailed off when suddenly Lance launched himself off the ground. At the same time, the lion lowered its head. Everyone yelped and took a step back, but the lion made no move to hurt them. Instead, all it did was open its mouth, and a ramp lowered itself right in front of Lance.

He didn't even take a second to consider the consequences before he ran into the lion.

"LANCE!" Hunk called following after him. The others decided it would be a good idea for them to come too.

They watched Lance move in the lion with such confidence and familiarity, they couldn't help but wonder if he had been here before.

Pidge had to ask his question out loud. "Lance, how are... have you been inside the lion before?"

Lance paused before a door, continuing when it opened with a hiss. He put his hand on a chair that sat in the middle of the room. A cockpit.

"Nope," he answered Pidge, popping the p. "Its really weird. It's like the lion is showing me where to go. I don't see anything, I'm just... sensing where I need to go?" He sat down on the pilot's chair, yelping when it suddenly moved forward.

"Are you saying the lion is talking to you?" Keith asked, doubt dripping from his voice.

Lance didn't answer him.

Keith glanced at him, wondering what was wrong, before sharing a worried look with Shiro. Lance seemed to be staring out the window into the cavern, but that was impossible. His mouth was open, his shock impossible to misplace.

"Buddy?" Hunk called softly. "What's wrong?"

"...Holy crow..." Lance swallowed down the lump in his throat, and Keith noticed a tear slide down Lance's face when he turned towards Hunk. But he was smiling. Practically vibrating in his seat, Lance turned forward, moving his head curiously.

"Hunk. Hunk! I can see!"

[slothgiirl]

the medic (keith x reader)

17k. something weird’s going on with keith, like alien weird. as the team medic, you’re concerned.

“So he is avoiding me,” you muse aloud, grabbing one of the pink alien food biscuits that were Hank’s latest experiment. Though it had been hours since Voltron had taken out the Galra Empire’s presence on this Balmera, you’d only just seen the last of your patients. Altean medical equipment did wonders.

After a battle, you were hardly surprised to find Hank in the kitchen, grounding himself as he cooked. You were surprised to run into Keith.

“Yeah,” Hank nods, “Probably trying to avoid another dental exam.”

You flush bright red, “His teeth fell out! Sorry for being concerned.” Between you and Lance, you’d managed to get a look at Keith. A fist fight with some alien species that was cooperating with the Galra had not gone Keith’s way, knocking out two of his teeth.

Shiro, predictably, had waved it off and accepted Keith’s insane explanation that his teeth would grow back on their own without question: given his hand waving of the red paladin’s eyes glowing slightly in the dark, more than any human’s should (human eyes didn’t glow at all!). Hindsight was twenty twenty.

The yellow paladin shrugs as he mixes orange noodle-esque things in a bowl.

Team Voltron was full of strong personalities. Add in Lotor and his friends dropping in, there was always something going on.

Hank just wanted to unwind from spending the past few hours destroying heavy duty mining equipment without hurting the planet. “So how are the biscuits?”

You chew on one, still bothered by Keith. Maybe Hank was right and he was trying to hide something from your keen gaze. You hoped not. Knowing the red paladin, and after two years in space, you certainly did, he’d rather suffer in silence until there was no other option than get medical attention. Back on earth with needles and scalpels, you understood, but in the Castle of Lions…

“Kind of like a rice cracker,” you tell Hank helpfully. “In a good got snacks at H-Mart way, not the sad quaker oats rice snacks.”

“Oh H-Mart,” Hunk smiles, “they don’t have those in space. They do have salt though. Found that at the last market we went to.”

“As long as alien food doesn’t poison us,” you comment. It was lucky that hadn’t happened. It was alien food. But not one negative reaction which either made humans some of the most hardy species or you were just lucky.

“Yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing what’s edible and not. I know Pidge said there’s some books, but my Altean is pretty bad.”

“Languages are hard.”

“Wish there was a space version of google translate.”

“Hunk-”

“Yeah.”

“That’s genius!” You look at the yellow paladin, wondering how a universe with speech translators never thought to do the same for written language.

“I know,” Hunk smiles while popping another tray into the oven.

—————

Lance finishes painting your toenails. It was a rare day when there were no space battles or rebel meetings. “Pidge,” the blue paladin whines, “let me paint your-”

“Don’t even think about it!”

“It’s supposed to be team bonding night,” Lance counters.

“Lance,” Allaura frowns from where she’s sitting with Shiro, “the castle’s night cycle has not started.”

“Well we can change it,” he counters, “there’s no up or down in space. OR day or night.”

“You can paint my nails,” Hunk offers. “Won’t last long though between the cooking and the vents I’ve been cleaning. This is a 10,000 year old castle. No offence,” he glances at Allura.

“No offence at all. The battles have taken their toll and I’m sure Coran appreciates the help. He is only one man.” She lets out a sigh. The only other remaining Altean was a bittersweet subject for her.

Hunk kicks off his shoes. “My pleasure. Literally. This Castle is so cool. The artificial gravity alone!”

You watch the paint dry on your toes. Only your big toes had actual drawings on them, strange alien creatures you’d all encountered over your time in space. The others were clear with green and blue swirls. “You’re a good artist Lance.”

The blue paladin winks, “I’m a regular old Michaelangelo.”

You laugh, “of course you are.”

“And I’m not just good with a brush,” he wiggles his eyebrows, more boyish flirting than anything serious.

You roll your eyes.

Pidge throws a cushion at Lance. “Oh please like you’ve got past the first date!”

“I have! Vivian Tran from Calculus.”

“Can you focus on my nails,” Hunk asks, but Lance is busy waving the thin brush in hand as he argues with Pidge.

“And Atticus from Cantonese.”

“Didn’t you drop that class,” Hank asks.

“Well, the hindi teacher was way nicer and didn’t hate me. I was good at drawing the characters though.”

“Can you speak hindi,” you ask, having taken French for your language fulfillment.

“Eh-” Lance shrugs.

“Can you flirt in Hindi is the real question,” you ask with a grin.

“He can’t even flirt in English,” Pidge points out scathingly.

“Hey!”

“My nails Lance,” Hunk grumbles.

“Right. Right,” Lance focuses back on his task, going with a yellow that matches Shay. “What language did you take Shiro?”

“English.”

“How many dialects does Earth have,” Allura asks.

“A lot,” Shiro tells the alien princess. “The Garrison pushes being multilingual in its program. Most cadets were already bilingual to start with, generally covering major languages.”

“Ah.”

“Got bored of the training room,” Pidge asks Keith as he walks in, flopping down on an empty sofa.

“It timed out.”

“Sure,” Lance immediately starts, a dog with a bone, “not like you couldn’t beat it or anything.”  

“You can’t even get past level 9!” Keith growls back, sitting up with a jolt, skin still slick from sweat and his cheeks were flushed with exertion.

Lance gets up, puffing out his chest. Oh boy, here they go again. The rivalry thing they had going on got old fast to everyone around them. While it did push them to be better paladins, it was annoying to hear. “Oh like you’re any better.”

Hunk takes the brush from Lance, finishing off his last toe on his own.

“I am,” Keith bites back, a growl still audible from his chest.

“Only because you cheat!”

“It’s not cheating!”

“How is it not-” Lance stops, furrows his brow, then grins. “You got a little something there.” And like a thirteen year old, Lance points and laughs.

Keith frowns, his hand coming up to his cheek.

Sure enough, Lance was right. Keith had a couple of angry red blemishes on his cheek.

“You have adult acne,” Lance giggles, immature as ever. He was always able to find an angle to everything. It was what made him such an excellent strategist.

“It’s not adult acne!” Keith scowls, scratching at the blemishes.

“Its been three years,” Lance retorts smugly.

You frown. “No. It’s been like two.” You look over at Pidge to confirm, “Right?” You were like ninety percent sure you were twenty.

“Two and a half,” Pidge answers.

“Ha! You’re twenty! Adult-”

“I don’t have adult acne!”

They’d fought over more meaningless things before.

If it was two and a half years, maybe you were twenty one? You frown. How old would you be before you ever saw your family again?

Stashing that depressing thought away, you focus on Keith and the red marks on his cheek like a line coming down to his jaw. “It could be a rash,” you utter thoughtfully. Pidge and you had already encountered a very itchy plant before. “Or space ringworm-ring line?”

For the first time in days, Keith looks at you, meeting your gaze. “It’s not a rash!”

You lift your hands up, “okay. Okay. Geez.” When it came to Keith, you didn’t push too hard. He was too stubborn for it to work.

Lance, however, “hey, it’s okay Keith-buddy, just use toothpaste.”

“Toothpaste makes it worse,” Hunk counters. “Not great for your skin either.”

“It always worked for me,” Lance counters. “Or a clay skin mask.”

“Clay? You mean that green mud,” Keith clarifies.

“It’s clay!”

“Clay would work,” you agree with Lance. “Hey it could be like a spa day!”

“I could go for a spa,” Hunk nods.

Pidge shakes her head, “right. I’m going to try and see if I can get a signal back home.”

Shiro looks over at you, “do you really think it could be something serious?”

You shrug. “No clue.”

Keith huffs, “Just drop it,” he states dramatically, headed for the door. He was over being the center of attention.

“So face masks?”

You nod, “want to try it Allura?”

“I would love to try the clay mask,” she smiles brightly.

——————

Te-Osh’s rebels had sent for Voltron, less fighting than rebuilding.

While you were no paladin, you had spent the majority of the day helping Allura take stock and synthesizing medicine, everything from serums to numbing gels. Just your luck the machine had overheated and given out on the last batch. It was a pretty large machine.

You stick your head inside, waving off the smoke. With your nails, you pry open the hutch and take stock. You were no Pidge or Hunk, still unsure how the thing even worked, but it was clear it needed a new regulator and starter. “Plenty of those lying around,” you utter, scrunching your face at the awful burnt hair smell. Your finger finds the ventilator button on your wrist controls, and there-the smell gets sucked out of the room.

“Is this a bad time,” Keith asks behind you.

Startled, you bang your head on the mental. “Keith,” flushing hotly when you look back and realize you were ass up in front of him.

He doesn’t even notice, grimacing, hand rubbing his nose bridge.

“What’s wrong?” You hurry to wash your hands.

Keith sits down at one of the medbay tables. “My skull feels like it’s being cracked open,” he explains flatly.

You look him over closely, standing right in front of him. “Where exactly,” you ask, frowning when you notice the blemishes had grown to a full blown rash, hot angry skin peeling and cracking like twin marks down his cheeks. You should have pressed. What if it was a parasite? Keith was half galra.

It was easily forgotten given how human he looked. Sure, the signs were there: his unhuman night vision, more strength than he should have, good ears and nose, nails that had torn through metal, but it all faded into the background.

“Does it itch,” you ask, raising your hand, fingertips hovering over the marks on his cheeks.

“Yes,” Keith nods, averting his eyes from your gaze, “mostly it’s hot. And my sinuses…all the way down to my neck. Hurt.”

“Hm,” you turn, reaching for the medical scanner. There was no way you could ever go back to being a medical officer at the galaxy garrison. Earth’s technology was ancient in comparison. “Hold still.”

“Alright,” he says seriously. Keith holds his breath.

You look up at him, in his violet eyes, and smile before laughing. “Keith!”

“You said to hold still,” he points out sincerely, before the corners of his lips turn up. Keith was an expressive guy, his smile lit up his entire being, a lightness in his eyes that made you smile wider.

“Let’s try this again,” you giggle, clicking the scanner and aiming right at his rash first. “Pew.”

He rolls his eyes, snorting. “You too?”

“Mine’s the only right one,” you wink, then look over the reading.

“Not even close.” He scratches at his cheek listlessly.

Whatever reason he had for avoiding you had worked itself out. You’d missed his company.

“Oh yeah,” you challenge, “then what’s the sound?” The readings came up clear. Keith was in perfect health. So not a parasite…space allergies? Those wouldn’t come up on the scanner.

“What is it,” Keith asks, noticing your pensive expression.

“How’s your sense of smell? Stuffy nose?”

He looks up, then takes a deep breath, “now that you mention it…I can’t smell your soap anymore.”

“What?” This was news to you. “You can smell my soap?”

“And whatever planet we’ve been on,” Keith fidgets, blushing as he ducks his head, bangs falling over his eyes, “the soil. It’s all different. But I can’t right now.”

That was worrying. But if the scanner said nothing was wrong…you had to wait and see. It might clear up on its own. You’d give it a day or two.

“Nothing came up on the scanner,” you tell him, “so it should go away on its own. It might just be allergic to something out here.”  

He nods, accepting your diagnosis.

“Let me get the medicine.”

“Mhm.”

You pass him a tube of gel and add that to the list of medication you need to synthesize once you fix the machine. Then grab a weekly supply of pain tabs. “Here.”

Keith pops one in immediately.

“Let me know if it doesn’t clear up in two days,” you tell him.

“Worried?”

“Eh, I can always set Lance on you again,” you snort. Shiro was a pushover when it came to Keith. He was no help.

Keith laughs, looking a little more himself. “I could take him.”

“You could,” you agree, “but don’t tell him I said that.”

He tilts his head, smiling. “Coming? Shay got food for us.”

“I’ve got to fix this machine first.”

“Need help?”

“Might ask Hunk or Coran,” you admit.

“I could-”

“No,” you cut him off, placing your hand on his shoulder, “go eat and rest. That’s an order.”

Keith leans into you. “Are you going to write me a doctor’s note too,” he asks, his delivery always so earnest you had to do a double take to figure out if he was joking or not.

“If I have too,” you stick your nose in the air. “I’ll even send one to Zarkon.”

Keith laughs easily. “Why didn’t Lotor think of that.”

You snort. “I’m going to check your lymph nodes,” you tell him, taking a step towards him again. “That okay?”

Keith tilts his head back, “Go for it.”

“Wow,” you chuckle, “who are you and what did you do with Keith Kogane.” You brush his hair out of his face.

“What?”

“Remember when you broke your arm,” you point out, gently pressing your fingers over the side of his throat, feeling the swelled bean shaped lymph nodes under his ears, behind his jaw. “And said nothing for like a week?” It had been your first year at the Galaxy Garrison.

“It was only a sprain,” Keith grumbles.

“Still!” You laugh, “I’m glad you asked for help.” Because this was still Keith and you didn’t want him to think you were laughing at him.

“Mm,” he closes his eyes as you trail your fingers lower, making sure it wasn’t too bad.

The fact they were inflamed at all worried you. You had no clue what was the space equivalent of antihistamines.

Keith’s breath tickles your shoulder, deepening and evening out like he’d finally relaxed. That was most of your patients once you gave them answers and they knew they’d be getting care and treatment. You liked helping people.

You pull your fingers back, ever the consummate professional. It was like the ghost of your garrison advisor was hovering over your shoulder. “They’re not too swollen if you can still eat. Can you still chew?”

“Hm?”

Keith opens his eyes. His expression is glazed and feverish.

“Keith,” you utter, worried.

“Yeah?” His gaze is heavy as it meets yours.

Your skin warms up because he wouldn’t stop looking at you like that.

“Any jaw pain,” you ask, focusing on the task at hand. You bring your hand up to his forehead. He was warm.

Keith leans into your touch, “no.”

“Good.” You bite your lip. Could it be some weird galra thing? Wouldn’t it have come up? You feel your own forehead. He was for sure warmer.

You were going to have to corner Coran about it.

Keith lets his eyes fall shut again and honest to god purrs, leaning into you.

Add cornering Lotor to your list.

You don’t pull away, figuring it was harmless. Lance, Hunk, and Allura were more prone to random hugs. You were more than happy to indulge Keith as well. He already wasn’t feeling well.

You wrap your arms around the red paladin’s shoulders, hugging him, “I’m looking forward to a break from Coran’s post mission food goo once I get done with the machine.”

“Mm.”

He was completely out of it.

His breath tickles your cheek.

“Though I’m not sure there’ll be any left if I don’t go there? Maybe I should grab a plate and then come back here,” you ramble. Keith had never sought you out for comfort. It was touching that he trusted you now. You’d been friends with the others before, with Keith and Shiro and the Alteans, you had skipped right over friendship and gone right to family.

“Oh.”

You look behind you.

Te-Osh takes a step back, “forgive my intrusion. I was unaware-”

Keith snaps out of whatever was going on with him. Bolting off the exam table. “It’s fine. We’re done here.” He hunches his shoulders and beelines for the door.

You frown, still processing.

“I can come back,” Te-Osh tells you, glancing between you and the door Keith had just escaped through.

You shrug. “No. I’ve got time. What do you need?”

“If you’re sure?”

Nodding, you smile, “yeah, what can I help you with?”

———————

“Here is where we will focus the blunt of the attack on. Keith, Lance, engage the fighters. Hunk,” Shiro explains, “you’ll be with me taking out the communications towers. We want to keep the damage to the minimum. The resistance leaders want the factory intact. Pidge-”

Pidge waves the Black Paladin off, “I’ve got the code written.”

“It really does come in handy,” Lance observes, “all those vents are Pidge size.”

The green paladin grumbles, “easy for you to say when you’re not the one crawling around in there. It’s not your knees getting banging up.”

“Well the galra are all like nine feet tall,” Hunk points out, “the vents probably aren’t that small from their perspective.”

Lance unsubtly glances over at Keith.

His rash had cleared up, but not before spreading. In its place were two purple slash marks running from his cheek to jaw, galra markings. No one had pressed…yet.

You were just glad it wasn’t some weird space parasite.

Her brother ruffles her hair, ��Pidge sized! A micro pidge,” Matt jokes to himself.

She smacks his hand away, “five feet is a perfectly reasonable size.’

“She could still have a growth spurt,” you add, though it was highly unlikely.

“No,” Matt’s eyes go comically wide as he hugs his sister, “not my hobbit,” relishing in her embarrassment.

“Matt!”

“In summation,” Allura calls you all back to attention, “the paladins will take out Galra forces and Pidge will open the weapons factory up to Vexuin rebels to take over. I will be manning the Castle to ensure no fighters target the work camps and coordinating communications with the rebels.” She turns to look at you, “Matt and you will take down the sentries, freeing the people from the work camps.”

“No!”

Everyone looks over at Keith. The horror on his face is easy to read.

What had brought this on?

Shiro clears his throat.

Keith ducks his head, letting his bangs obscure his features.

“Why not,” Pidge asks grumpily, time was running out. You were all just ironing out the details, “your plans suck.”

“Pidge,” Shiro chastises.

The green paladin was right.

Keith fought the same way you played video games, caring about nothing but reducing the enemies stats to zero. He’d gotten great at teamwork, but he was hardly a strategist.

“Keith,” Allura asks, “do you have any legitimate reasons why Matt should go on his own?” And when she phrased it like that…

The red paladin crosses his arms over his shoulders.

Pidge taps her foot on the floor.

“Okay then,” Shiro takes over, “let’s get to our lions.”

“Coms. Come in earthlings!,” Coran chimes in over the system, “remember this planet’s atmosphere is toxic to breath, too much sulfur in the air, not to mention the heat will give you all a taste of the slipperies. And worse! So keep those space suits on Vol-”

“-Tron,” Lance grins back, having taken a liking to having a kooky space alien uncle.

You lock your helmet in place as Matt pilots the pod towards the work camps. They were just as grim as the first time you’d seen them. It was the same all over in many of the Empire’s work planets. They were at the bottom of the totem pole. There were some planets where the native species and Galra coexisted more or less peacefully, this was not one of them.

“So what’s up with Keith,” Matt asks you.

You shrug. “No clue. I keep waiting for Lotor or one of the Blades to drop in so I can corner them but he’s a picture of perfect health so I’m not worried.”

“But the,” he takes a hand off the wheel, motioning to his face.

You frown, arching a brow. You’d never looked at Allura quite the same after the way she had treated Keith upon learning about his heritage. It’s not like he’d been a completely different person, she’d known him for over a year.

Matt might be Pidge’s brother, but you weren’t about to let anyone get away with giving someone you loved shit. Especially not Keith who would just silently take it.

It made your chest ache, thinking about how sweet he looked when he smiled. He didn’t deserve any of it.

“What about it?” You stare back at him cooly.

Matt focuses back on landing the pod just beyond the sentires line of sight. “Nothing. Pidge figured it was nothing, didn’t even seem curious. I figured you might know, you two are pretty close.” He glances over at you meaningfully.

“We’ve known eachother since the garrison,” though you hadn’t really been friends. Keith had been kind of a loner. You’d tried to include him, having shared a couple classes with him here and there, but he’d never taken you up on any offer.

“Right.” He doesn’t sound all that convinced. “Glad to hear it’s all good. I caught the sneazles while in the work camp,” Matt makes a face.

You laugh.

“It was horrible! But also like an episode of spongebob somehow?”

“Space is weird.” You had way bigger problems and had seen stranger things by now. For fucks sake, you were saving dragon looking aliens from the Galra right now. This planet was like a silent hill game!

Thick fog obscured the rocky landscape. Even from within your suit you could smell the stench of rotten eggs. Yet this was home to the Vexuin.

Shiro gives the signal.

You take the safety off the taser gun Pidge had built for you. Anything pilfered off the Galra was too large for your small stature, just a hair shorter than Keith. The gun packed a punch, with enough voltage to take out the robots.

Matt and you get to work.

“Almost got it,” Matt mutters as you take aim and shoot.

Stupid damn biolocks.

“Hurry the fuck up,” you tell him, dodging a shot from another sentry before frying it with your own weapon. One shot, one sentry. You needed to take them down before they got close. The robots were durable and strong. You knew better than to think you could go hand to hand with one, you were a medic not a fighter.

“I am, I am,” Matt insists. “Ah there,” he grabs a taser flash bomb out of his pocket and tosses inside the sentry outpost.

You shoot again, trying to keep your hands steady. It was easy when it was just programmed machines. Nothing to feel bad about.

Matt and you rush inside, stepping over more fried sentries. You take position at the entrance, gunning down anything that makes its way towards the two of you.

“You in,” you ask him.

“Patience my young apprentice,” Matt says, laughing at his own joke, “it’ll take a moment for my worm to work its way through the software and give me complete control.”

The ground shakes as the main part of the battle takes place outside, at a monsterous factory that’s gray, chimney shooting out smoke. You can only see hints of lions shooting and Galra fighter ships lighting up the sky.

The sulfuric fog coats everything.

You taste rotten eggs on your breath.

Inside your suit, sweat runs down your back.

“Okay,” Matt chimes into the coms, “I’ve hacked the camps. Ready to open the gates.”

The rolling low grutal voices of the Vexuin rebel leaders fill your coms, “Good.”

“Go ahead Matt,” Allura gives the order, “Voltron?”

Pidge answers, “dropping in, should override their” static, “ticks.” Then an explosion reverberates in your ear where the communications device is.

“Pidge,” Keith yells out.

“Keith cover Lance,” Shiro grunts out, blasts audible from here. “Pidge?”

Nothing.

Matt’s face goes ghostly white.

“Pidge, come in Pidge?” Allura asks. “Paladins? Are you able to reach Pidge?”

“Negative,” Shiro replies, “Hunk, take the main gate! Time to land.”

“On it.”

“Guys,” Lance yells, “the shield’s down. Pidge hacked them.”

“Keith,” Shiro yells, “wait!”

“Fine.”

You decide to hope for the best. There was nothing you could do for any of the paladins all the way from here. “Turn it off,” you tell Matt.

He steals himself. “Right.”

The lights of the compound go out. Sentries power down where they stand, puppets with their strings cut. Locks disengage, and for the first time in decades, the Vexuin are free to leave the barracks free from Galra supervision.

You and Matt go out to meet them.

“I could get used to this,”  Pidge calls out as everyone meets on the planet’s surface. Rebels come in from the forest slowly, making sure this is for real, before sniffing the air and calling out to their loved ones lingering around the liberated camp complex.  Their vision worked in the infrared, all the better to see on this planet. You’d need at least three showers to get the smell out of your hair.

Keith carries Pidge, careful not to jolt the youngest member of Voltron. She holds a leg stiffly, a sprain or fracture.

Matt rushes to his sister, “Katie!”

She waves him off, “I’m fine.” Then snaps her fingers, “Down.”

There’s a small smile on Keith’s mouth as he places her down on the ground gently.

Lance comes up behind Keith, ruffling his hair, and being every bit himself as he comments with a smirk, “good boy.”

The shorter paladin smacks Lance’s hand away, but it’s too late, Lance is already smothering Keith in a hug that turns into a competition, like always with those two. Keith shoves at Lance’s face while Lance tightens his grip on Keith.

Shiro clears his throat, “paladins.”

“A dobesh in the pod,” you ask Pidge as Matt gets his turn to fuss over her.

“Yeah. Landed right as an explosion went off,” Pidge frowns. “Not my best moment, but my program still did it’s job and,” she pats her bayard, “I took them out.”

“Can’t be that bad if you can stand,” you agree. Nothing serious but you’d be keeping an eye on her all the same. The faster she got into the pod and took weight off her injury the better. You didn’t want to exacerbate the sprain.

“The jet pack helped,” Pidge points out.

“Lucky you,” you grin.

Shiro and Allura are consummate professionals as they go over the last of the logistics with the Vexuin, “It would be wise to stay until your people have situated themselves in case the Galra Empire retaliates,” Allura states, ending her sentiment in a question, “but it is ultimately up to you.”

The Vexuin chatter among themselves for a moment before one speaks up, “we would not turn down Voltron’s help. A few quintants should be enough time.”

“Then we will make ourselves of service to you,” Shiro nods. “Please, let us know anything we can help with.”

A red scaled one smiles, showing off her many sharp and jagged teeth, “our people long to see the camp destroyed.”

Hunk offers, “I could help rig a controlled explosion.”

“Very good.”

“The system inside the weapons factory is down,” Pidge tells them, “but I can reprogram it to keep the Galra out so that you can decide what to do with the place.”

“Oh no you don’t,” you cut in, “Matt can take care of that. You’re going in a pod first.”

“Pod person,” Matt mutters under his breath with a snort.

“Then let us get to work,” Allura dismisses everyone.

Pidge tries to take a step, and almost falls over.

You grab her.

Her face goes crimson from the pain.

The adrenalin must have been keeping the bulk of the pain away.

Keith picks her up.

It’s not until you’ve loaded Pidge in for three vargas that you pull off your helmet, savoring the crisp clean air of the Castleship.

“I can still smell the sulfur,” you comment, wrinkling your nose.

Keith shakes his hair out.

You look at him thoughtfully, “must be worse for you though.”

“Why,” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Because your nose,” you point out, then frown, “your sinuses did clear up yeah?” He never said anything about it so you figured they had and he could smell fine again, but you weren’t sure.

“Oh. Yeah. They did.”

You smile fondly, “very convincing Keith,” you tell him, reaching out to him. He lets you run your fingers right under his ears, behind his jaw. Everything was in order.

A knot of anxiety dissolves in your chest.

“Well,” he asks, “satisfied?”

“Mhm.” You look at the purple markings on his skin.

Keith’s breath hitches. His gaze is trained on you, watching carefully.

“So if not rotten eggs,” you ask, slowly bringing your fingertips over the marks on the sides of his face, giving him every opportunity to pull away, “what do you smell?” You couldn’t help it. It was that scientific curiosity. Everyone at the garrison had ended up there because they were nerdy in some way: devoting themselves to some STEM field while other kids were watching cartoons. You’d had a stutter as a kid, self conscious about it too, so instead of trying to make friends you read your textbooks under your desk, racing ahead.

Keith’s eyes meet yours. There’s a level of vulnerability in his gaze that worms its way into your chest and all of a sudden you’re incredibly aware of how close you two are, the lack of space between your bodies, your fingers caressing his skin.

You look away, focusing on the marks. They were purple, which was obvious. His skin itself had grown purple, perfectly delineated.

“Like wet soil,” Keith explains finally, “when they just added fertilizer.” You wince, remembering the smell of the horticulture center wafting through the garrison’s campus during the spring. “And garlic.”

“I like garlic. I’d kill for some,” you tell him, sounding very much like Hank. You hadn’t expected to be homesick for food. “Best food they served at the cafeteria.”

“That’s not saying much,” Keith mutters, amused.

You chuckle, pulling your hands away from his face.

He leans forward, asking for physical comfort in a very Keith way: unsubtle and wordlessly, putting the onus on you to get the hint.

Pidge must have freaked him out more than he was willing to discuss.

You wrap your arms around his waist, hugging Keith. “Pidge’ll be fine.” Sure, she was younger and short, but she was more than capable of handling herself. “I’m more concerned about how she left the other guys,” you comment lightly resting your chin on Keith’s shoulder.

His shoulders shake as he laughs easily. “They asked to surrender to her personally.”

“That’s Pidge all right.” You glance over at the pod. She’d be back on her feet in no time.

Keith’s breath against your skin feels nice. Your heart flutters in your chest and you find yourself blushing and pulling away, thoughts racing as you realize just how much you liked this boy. You pull away, unsure what to do and suddenly finding it too awkward to be around him at all.

The start of a whine escapes his throat before he smothers it, looking away, as he lets his bangs fall over his eyes, effectively hiding his easy to read features.

“Let’s go help the others,” you say, fumbling to grab a med kit and click your helmet back in place, your face too warm and it must be obvious. You didn’t want to make things weird. You didn’t. But-

“I’m going to stay here until Pidge wakes up,” Keith tells you.

“Oh. Okay.” You nod. “That’s a great idea. It’s always confusing as hell to get out of the pods.” It was akin to waking up from a midday nap: completely confused and exhausted instead of rested.

Your skills would be more useful with the Vexuim than fussing over Pidge at the moment. And having something to do would keep your mind off Keith.

—————

“You know,” Lance comments, sliding up to you as you watch Lotor strut away from you after another failed attempt to talk to him. “If we bottled up whatever galra repellant you have going on, we could defeat Zarkon with perfume.”

You look over at Lance, trying to suppress a smile. “What would you call it?”

“Starlight.”

“That’s-that’s actually pretty great,” you tell Lance.

“I know,” he grins. Then the latino boy sobers up, “trying to find out what’s going on with mullet?”

You nod. “I even tried to corner Acxa,” you admit. For an eight foot tall purple alien, boy could she make herself scarce.

Lance’s eyes widened in delight, “like could and should peg me Acxa?”

You groan. “Lance, sometimes it’s okay to keep things to yourself.”

“I’m just saying,” he laughs, “the ship’s not that big…”

“It’s designed for six thousand people.” You’d learned that fun tidbit while practicing your Altean with Pidge.

“Like for real!”

“Yeah.”

“Ay dios mio,” Lance utters, “you’re screwed.”

You finally hit the motherlode.

Lotor and his generals are in a stately room that reminds you of the socratic lecture halls at the garrison, sofa arranged in a half circle, with Shiro and Allura. The former Prince had shown up for a reason beyond making a nuisance of himself. Allura looks at her wits end with him, as he smiles like a douche, her eye twitching.

She invites you in without hesitation, “take a seat next to me,” and effectively uses you as a human shield against Lotor.

Literally since you and Shiro were the only humans here.

“Everything has been thoroughly discussed,” Lotor comments dryly, snubbing you once more. Normally, you wouldn’t have cared but you were trying to get information out of the man. “Unless either of you have further questions?”

Shiro hums, rubbing his chin, “I know saddling you with a rebel ship or two will slow you down but I don’t see another way around it. A display of size on their part will go a long way to show it is an alliance and not the Galra Empire hy another name.”

Allura nods, a small smile on her lips as she looks over at Shiro, “The black paladin is right. It will be a steep hill to climb to show that you are not the Galra Empire. Their fears would be alleviated with the presence of the rebel alliance.”

Zethrid sucks in a sharp breath, “So that’s it then. We will always be scorned and merely tolerated.”

“Time,” Shiro sighs with a look of gentle understanding at the muscular woman, “they need time. You can’t erase 10,000 years of history. It is hard to extend trust after being imprisoned and enslaved.”

“The alliance has started coordinating with you and the Blade directly have they not,” Allura asks stiltedly. It was by the necessity of time that they had stopped going through Voltron first. Lotor might be too smug for his own good, but his team was effective at sabotaging warships and infiltrating Galra ranks to liberate prisons and cities, enough to turn the tide for the rebels.

Her feelings towards Lotor and the Blade were still tinged with suspicion, her treatment of them lukewarm at best.

Still, Lotor brushed it off and continued to help. “Well then, Princess, Shiro, we have a long journey ahead of us.”

Shiro nods.

They shake hands.

You stand up, ready to corner Lotor.

“But first a word Shiro, it is a private matter.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shiro leads Lotor away.

Your eye twitches.

That snake!

Zethrid and Narti walk purposefully away as Allura pushes in her chair, ignoring the last two of Lotor’s team. “Princess,” Acxa, tries. “Until next time.” She nods at you, “stay safe.”

Allura gives the woman a strained smile, hooking her arm with yours. Human shield.

“You too,” you tell her. She doesn’t wait, already halfway out the door. You sigh.

Ezor giggles, by far the friendliest and easiest to get along with of Lotor’s team. “Stashing food and water will cut down the embarrassment by half.”

“What?”

“Oh,” she shrugs, “I guess Lotor was right. Darn it! Now I owe him one hundred GAC.”

“Wait-”

But she scurries off.

“Ugh,” you kick the wall, tired of everyone being weird. The usual frustration with being caught up in a space war was just the salt on the wound.

Your toe throbs, “fuck,” you hiss.

“They are rather tiring to deal with,” Allura agrees, reading the situation wrong, “but it hardly calls for assaulting the Castle.”

“Sorry,” you flush red with embarrassment. “I just had a question for Lotor and he seems intent on never being in the same room as me.”

“Ah-,” Allura smiles easily, “Lance did mention that you were in possession of a Galra repellent.” The twinkle in her eyes lets you know she was in on the joke.

“Come, let us work our frustrations out with some introspection.” Which was just Altean for weird breathing exercises that supposedly helped you do alchemy. She had managed to rope you into practicing with her before.

“Anything to spare the wall,” you joke.

——————

You walk back from the library. It was a cozy room, especially when you dimmed the lights. The Castle was always so bright, designed with the Alteans sight needs in mind.

Sometimes you just needed some time away from everyone. You loved them, but spending years with the same people while floating through space…you had no clue how Shiro had managed it.

Getting a walk around the ship was also nice. It was easy to forget how big the Castle was when you mainly stayed on the same three floors. Just a couple months ago Coran had rediscovered the greenhouse. The plants were a little piece of Altea, and had quickly become one of Allura’s favorite spots.

The windows were wide portholes. It unnerved you still, looking out and not recognizing any star, any constellations.

A lump of homesickness lodges itself in your throat. It had been over two years, your siblings would have grown so much in that time. You certainly had. The last vestiges of childhood had gone from your face.

Acne cleared up even without Lance’s ten step routine.

You walk across the bridge, trying not to look down. The viewing platform was clear glass in space, you could lay on it. It freaked you out a little.

It was the only constantly dark place in the castle.

You still yelp when you spot Keith, his eyes luminous violet like a glow in the dark t-shirt. That should have tipped all of you off, but alien was not the first thing that came to mind when you previously believed aliens had never visited earth.

He whimpers, curling up further.

“Keith,” you gulp, focusing on him and not the glass separating you from the void of space. “What’s wrong?”

He looks up at you miserably, blinking sluggishly. “I have the worst migraine.”

“And you’re down here instead of getting painkillers?”

Keith shrugs. “It’s not as bad, quiet. Dark.”

You sit down next to him. “I can go get you something,” you offer, your cheeks warming up and it was ridiculous how you can’t even manage to act normal around him anymore.

“Coran already gave me a dose.”

“Oh.” You were hurt. You were supposed to be the medic. That was your role on Team Voltron.

You hug your knees to your chest, and look down at space. It was darker than the photographs back on earth. Not so purple and blue.

You weren’t Matt who was just as good as Pidge with technology or Allura who was the leader and a princess to boot, you’d just planned on having a late dinner with Hunk once he got over the motion sickness before Lance roped you into following Pidge. You weren’t a paladin.

Keith shuts his eyes. “You were with Allura. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“It’s no bother.” You swallow thickly, letting silence fall over you both.

You listen to Keith breathing, looking around the darkness of space for any familiar stars. You knew the space around Shay’s Balmerra, and Arus was at least a little familiar. But the universe was so vast and wide.

There were planets you’d only ever been to once, each with a different night sky. Some of them never even had a night, with multiple suns staving off a night cycle.

“Do you think Allura minds?”

“Mind what,” you ask.

Keith clenches his jaw, rubbing his temples. “That I look more Galra.”

Allura has always been harder on the Galra. For her, it had been such a short time since Zarkon had destroyed her world and her people. You didn’t agree, but you could understand where she was coming from, the pain still there as she continuously wore Altean mourning pink.

You look over at him, the outline of his body against the glass. “I think your marks look cool.”

“Bullshit.”

“I do,” you whisper gently, considerate of his migraine. Those were the worst. “They frame your face. You look nice,” you finish lamely, looking away. You look nice. Lance might say stupid things but at least he tried.

“What if I looked even more Galra?”

“Like completely purple and tall?” You couldn’t really wrap your head around it. It also seemed incredibly unlikely. Could his phenotype change so drastically? On earth the answer was no, but who knows how the Galra work. It was fascinating to see such a wide range of traits in one species.

He was also half human.

You worried if his body would even tolerate such a drastic change.

“Yes,” he says, not waiting for you as he rants in agitation, “the rebels hate the Blade and Allura doesn’t trust them at all and that’s not even mentioning Lotor.”

“That’s not true. Te-Osh likes Acza and Ezor. Lotor’s kind of annoying if we’re being honest, and I’m sure his being Zarkon’s son makes it a little hard to believe he’s on our side,” you try to reason. “And don’t write off the Galra who have changed sides or were in the camps right alongside other aliens.”

Keith says nothing in response, mouth a thin line as he thinks.

You wonder how long it’s been bugging him.

You want to reach out and hug him, but he isn’t Hunk. You’re not sure he’d want to if he’s not initiating the contact. So you don’t.

“Everyone knows how the last Galra paladin worked out.” A low growl in the back of his throat is enough to clue you in to how distressing this was for him.

Your heart hurts. “And everyone knows you’re not Zarkon,” you state evenly back. “We already know you’re Galra.”

Keith snorts humorlessly. You can’t see his eyes; they’re hidden by his bangs.

“The glowing eyes are not exactly subtle dude,” you point out, “not to mention your hair does the poof thing guinea pigs do when they’re eating, but not when you’re eating, more like when you get annoyed.”

“I-what!” His eyes go comically wide as he sits up. His dark hair does the thing, making him look like a character from those old Japanese kids movies.

You giggle, “you’re doing it.”

Keith tries to look at his reflection in the glass.

You blush, grateful that it’s too dark to see, and then realize that wasn’t true for him, so you look away, hoping he didn’t notice. “Yeah. I’m the medic, it’s my job to know these things. Like how Pidge has two webbed digits on her foot and Lance is allergic to flax seeds and bees.”

“That…makes sense.” Then he smiles, “still didn’t put two and two together.”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Reason number three thousand Iverson had it out for him back at the harrison. “And if anyone has a problem with you I’ll kick their ass.”

“You?” Keith snorts. “You wouldn’t even flip me during self defense.”

“You remember that?” You run a hand over your face, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” you always took forever to practice on your partner. And your weak arms didn’t help.

“That’s what the mats were for.”

“Still!”

Keith laughs at your expense.

You smile, taking delight in watching him smile and laugh and you wish it could always be like this and the war would just end.

Then you sober up. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

He doesn’t answer you right away.

“Keith-” you reach out, voice cracking. “You’re going to be okay, giant purple space cat or not, right?”

He takes your hand, squeezing it firmly. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good,” you utter, but tears bead up in your eyes anyway. It was terrifying watching someone go through something unknown that you couldn’t help them through for all your medical training. You knew how to set bones and run a pod…not whatever this was.

You trusted Keith.

He knew himself better than anyone. After all, he’d been right about his teeth growing back.

“You really are worried,” he whispers in disbelief.

“Duh.”

“I can smell it on you,” then he seems to realize what he said, and pulls away, ducking his head. Like he hadn’t meant to say so much.

“Really?” Learning about anything alien biology was pretty cool, you had to admit. Allura had once described colours that you couldn’t perceive. It was a fun talk. And then she’d made you meditate for alchemy stuff or so she claimed. It might have just been payback. “Is that new?”

“Yeah,” Keith admits, still drawn into himself. “Can we not-I already feel like enough of a freak already without,” he waves aggressively at himself.

You bite your lip, nodding. You wanted to say something, to get it through his head how you saw him, incredibly kind and fiercely loyal (to the point of taking on Zarkon by himself) and an endearing smile you never got tired of seeing.

You liked him.

The universe was lucky to have him as a paladin.

But you don’t know how to say it in a way he’d accept. And he asked you to drop it, so you do. “Right, I’ll just go then.” He’d been here first, and the glass made you nervous.

Could it withstand a hit from a galra battleship?

Keith opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but he just nods, then winces, “Argh,” he groans as he curls up on his side, covering his ears with his hands.

You rush to his side, kneeling next to him, “Keith,” you utter softly, not wanting to make it worse.

His eyes are pressed close and for all your medical know-how, you’re at a loss.

So you running your fingers through his hair soothingly and wait for the pain to pass.

He shifts, laying his head in your lap as he whimpers.

You can’t stand to watch him and do nothing. You press your com, pinging Shiro and Coran. This was beyond you. He’d trust Shiro with whatever was going on and he’d gone to Coran. You respected that even if it did sting.

Your pride meant little so long as Keith felt comfortable and sought help.

“Shh, shh,” you whisper gently.

Sweat beads on his brow.

Whines escape his throat.

“Fuck,” he grunts, clenching his teeth.

He’s warm to your touch and that rouses another bout of worries. At this temperature it’s a fever, but he didn’t have the symptoms, the flushed cheeks and chills.

Keith curls up further, muscles stiff.

You’re helpless.

After what feels like ages, Shiro and Coran finally appear.

“Number four, Number five,” Coran claps his hands.

You hold out your hand, motioning them to shut the fuck up as Keith winces at the sound.

His hair is damp near his ears.

“Keith,” Shiro utters much more gently, kneeling down on his other side, “I’m here, I’ve got you.”

He raises his head, blinking groggily at Shiro, trying to concentrate through the pain, “Shiro,” he reaches for his brother who easily pulls him against his chest. Keith buries his head in the crook of Shiro’s neck.

You sit back, trying to get out of the way. Your hands are wet.

You look down and realize it’s blood. His ears-

Oh god.

“Number five,” Coran says gently, helping you up, “I’ll take great care of our Paladin. Why don’t you go get cleaned up.”

You don’t get any sleep that night.

——————

You were always struck with cognitive dissonance walking around colonized planets like Rahiri where the natives and Galra lived side by side. This was not a planet ravaged by the empire. The flora-like aliens in all shades of green with rootish limbs and leaves and petals for hair had assimilated into the Empire, achieving citizenship over generations. 10,000 years deca-phoebs was a long time. That was a huge source of tension in the Alliance, what to do with the world who neither wanted or wished to leave the Empire.

It was also a source of dark humor that no one spared the four of you a second glance despite two paladins of Voltron walking around.

Hunk holds Shay’s hand in front of you as they point and awe and drag their feet on the way to the space port.

“You could always stay with,” Hunk says hopefully, “we could just drop you off. Personal taxi service.”

Shay smiles back kindly, “that would be wonderful but I have been away from home for too long. I am, as you say, a homebody.”

“Aw, yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I feel that. I like the ground. And dirt. Piloting is overrated.”

“Don’t let yellow here you say that,” Keith comments so dry, you think he’s serious for a second. Allura and Pidge had gone shopping for supplies. That was an advantage of a planet that had not seen war.

Hunk glances back, clearly having forgotten we had tagged along in case anything went down. “Yeah well, she’d like a small moon. Or an asteroid. There’s colonies on those.”

“Very true,” Shay laughs. “I think my balmerra is also like a moon. A beautiful creature. We have learned how to ask for crystals so we do not need to cut them.”

“That’s impressive. Did the books from Allura help,” Hunk asks.

As much as you liked getting to stretch your legs, seeing a different planet where the threat was not imminent, you didn’t like being a third wheel, or fourth wheel if you went according to Coran’s favorite numbering pattern. That inch difference between you and Keith mocked you.

You glance over at the red paladin.

His gaze kept flickering back and forth, around the street. The occasional loud noise of crates being unloaded made him jump.

“You good,” you ask Keith, cracking a joke so he’d know you weren’t judging him. “You see la llorona or Davy Jones?”

“Hm?”

“You know…a famous ghost? Do they have ghosts in space?”

Keith snorts, cottoning on. “They don’t even have ghosts on earth.”

You pull a face, “well that’s no fun. Seriously, you okay? Or have we been made?”

He shakes his head, glancing around again just to be sure. “So much for Zarkon’s finest.”

You laugh, following Hank and Shay into the space port. Shuttles were departing pretty consistently. Everything was in orderly fashion. You especially liked how no one was shooting at you.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“What does?” You watch as Keith shakes his head, making his hair fall back from his face.

Shay and Hunk go to the ticket counter, but you decide to find somewhere off to the side, wanting to give them privacy.

“Stuff.”

You roll your eyes at Keith, “you suck.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, looking anywhere but at you. “Lotor explained it to me and Shiro…what’s happening.”

“Oh.” You swallow, looking at Hunk and Shay hugging and saying their goodbyes yet again. They’d said them last night at dinner, this morning in the pod, and again when you’d split from Allura and Pidge. It was cute. They were adorable.

“Sorry.”

“Hm,” you glance over at Keith, not sure why he would be sorry about anything. He was the one getting screwed over by half of his heritage.

“You’re hurt.”

“You can smell that too,” you ask him, holding his deep gaze. There was an intense commitment to everything Keith did; it was reflected in the depth of his violet gaze. He didn’t do things in halves.

“Now I can.” He looks at his shoes, red dusting his cheeks. The red didn’t tinge the purple marks on his skin.

“So this is all,” you’re not sure how to put it, “nothing to worry about?”

“He said it was normal. But because I’m half there’s no way to know what to expect.” He looks away as he says it, stiff as he glances around.

The anxiety that had settled into your jaw since you’d had to wash his blood off your hands eases up. “Giant purple space cat,” you joke, nudging his side.

“Oh fuck no,” Keith grumbles. Even that furrowed expression that crossed his chiselled features made you feel all giddy inside.

Bad timing.

“I’m not hurt I-I just wish you trusted me,” you finally admit. It was silly. You felt selfish, so you tack on, “You know I’m here for you if you need me. We all are. I know Shiro’s your brother, but we’re your friends.”

“I know,” he sighs wistfully, “I do trust you…it’s just-it’s been hard. I don’t know how to feel about any of it and I’m not used to it either.”

“It’s fine,” you tell him, “I’m being silly, making this about me. As long as you know I’m here for you…I’m not trying to force you to tell me anything…” you cringe internally at yourself. The galaxy garrison had been made up of nerds, so it followed everyone was a character. It hadn’t helped anyone’s social skills.

You wish you could just go, I worry about you because I love you instead of stumbling through word vomit.

“Come on,” Keith brings you out of your thoughts, grabbing your hand and pushing through the crowd of people coming and going to different boarding gates, “I think Hunk’s going to need some comfort food.”

You glance around, finding Hunk’s form making it’s way to you both. He was wiping his eyes, bittersweet smile, making no move to really hide that he was crying.

“Let’s get back to Allura yeah,” he tells you both.

“Or,” you go with Keith’s idea, “we can get something to eat. Allura gave us a good hour or so.”

“Varga,” Keith supplies.

“Yeah, that.”

Hunk nods, “that sounds nice. It’s just,” he looks back at the departing shuttle, “it’s hard. It’s war and you never know when your going to see each other again but it’s not like she can just drop everything and I wouldn’t ask her too, if anything I’d like to retire there. Nice and quiet. Maybe open a restaurant…”

“Vrepit Sal two,” Keith offers.

“Could make it a chain,” you add with a smile. Hunk, like you, was not such a gung ho pilot. You had landed the flight simulation without crashing exactly once, for your final emergency protocol exam.

“Thanks guys,” Hunk grins, “but I think I’ll bring some earth out here. Give these people a taste of traditional earthlign cuisine.”

“So your menu’s going to be as long as Cheesecake Factory’s,” you ask with a silly grin.

“Maybe not that long. A burger, ramen, scratch that, pizza instead of a burger.” Hunk rubs his chin thoughtfully sniffing the air and following his nose to a food stand. You trusted him for food. He had a knack for combining goo and exotically colored food that screamed fake and poisonous into pretty great meals.

Keith was still holding your hand, not as a loose afterthought: every now and then he’d rub his thumb against the back of your hand and it sent a thrill down your spine.

You don’t pull away, wanting to savor the feel of his skin against yours even if it wasn’t that deep. You’d hugged and napped with everyone at least once, grabbing each other’s hands in the confusing crowded hovels of swamp malls (actual swamp malls and not places Coran thought of as a swamp mall).

You nab a table outside the stand.

Everything was in Galra which none of you could read. “Damn,” you mutter looking over.

Hunk glances at Keith without subtlety.

You were starting to think only Allura and Shiro could do subtly.

Keith raises a brow.

“Nothing,” Hunk looks down at his screen.

“Point and hope for the best it is,” you shrug.

“I love a good surprise,” Hunk nods, then looks down at his hands, “we’ll see each other again right? Shay…they’re pretty safe. And well…yellow’s got thick armour.” He sighs, resting his cheek against his fist, elbows on the table.

“Shay’s a badass,” you confort Hunk, “she figured out how to communicate with the Balmera and through the Balmera. She’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty freaking amazing,” Hunk blushes.

You order from an alien that somewhat resembles Ezor, all cotton candy color, and twiddle your thumbs, enjoying the rare moment of rest and relaxation.

“I could get used to this,” Hunk comments, savoring the strange dish he’d been served.

“Get a travel food show,” you tease, “I’d watch it.”

“It could be like this all the time,” Keith muses hopefully, “aren’t planets like this proof we could all get along.” He bites into the glowing blue lotus root shaped meal, and blinks widely.

“What,” you ask, looking over at him.

Keith grabs a napkin and spits out his food. “I think I just lost another tooth.”

“You think,” Hunk raises a brow, “how could you not notice a missing tooth?”

“Smile,” you nudge Keith sitting next to you.

He rolls his eyes, before fake smiling which was always so undeniably forced when he did it. You laugh, nodding, “yup, missing tooth.”

Keith frowns for a second, before continuing to eat.

“Oh,” Hunk utters, before he kicks your leg lightly.

You look up, meeting the yellow paladin’s searching gaze.

He looks at you with a knowing smile.

Heat rushes to your cheeks, the tip of your nose burning hotly, you look down, shoving a questionable sticky black slice into your mouth. It was easy to chew despite the sticky-ness, the flavor starchy and nutty.

There was no way this wouldn’t get back to everyone else in the Castle. No way.

They were all so nosy.

Oh fuck.

——————

“It sure is hot in here,” Lance says with a challenging smirk at Keith.

You roll your eyes.

Lance stretches, resting his arms against the back of the sofa, his hand tapping annoyingly against your shoulder.

Keith is unmoved. Or more accurately, Keith’s mouth twists as he tries hard to ignore Lance’s latest attempts to get him to remove his hat, a lime green thing that clashed perfectly as was his fashion sense, or lack of any fashion sense.

Pidge smacks her head, then peaks curiously at Keith: at Keith’s hat.

You flick Lance’s cheek. “Hey hot shot, don’t hug me when you’ve set the thermostat to ninety degrees.”

“Ninety five actually,” he winks, hugging you towards him. Ugh, you couldn’t do it. You’d already done away with your afghan coat, tied your lavender flannel around your waist, what more could you do. You didn’t have shorts in space. The skirts stored in the castle were breezy, but made you feel at risk of tripping over the hem with each step.

“Hm,” Keith voices, taking a seat, “reminds me of home.”

Hunk snorts, “really thought that through,” he tells Lance.

Lance is undeterred. “Could go higher.”

“I don’t think your cow would like that very much,” you point out.

The blue paladin sulks, looking down at you, “you’re just saying that because you like-”

You jab your elbow into his side.

“Ow! What ever happened to do no harm?”

“Technically,” you tell Lance, “I never graduated.”

“She’s got you there,” Pidge smirks from beside Keith. She was taking apart yet another radio. The signal had yet to reach earth.

“Thank you Pidge.”

She shrugs, “It’s true.” Then turns on Keith, “The hat, explain.”

He looks like he wishes he could merge with the sofa at that, slumping in his seat.

You decide to step in, “I’m going to turn the thermo down.”

Lance is quick to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you back onto the sofa, “come on, relax. Like mullet said, it’s homey.”

You throw him a dirty look.

“Keith?” Pidge side-eyes her fellow paladin. He’s sat up, gripping the sofa cushion so tightly he’s ripping hole into the ten thousand year upholstery.

“You okay there buddy,” Hunk asks.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Keith sucks in a breath, and with deliberate motion, pulls the hat from his head.

Oh.

Your eyes widen.

OH.

His ears had changed.

They weren’t nearly as alien as Allura’s, but no one would mistake their shape for human. Keith’s ears tapered up and out, portrudding, but it was more than just a pointed tip, the entire shape of his ears had transformed, resembling a butterfly’s wing. It was still human in color, but…

Hunk breaks the stunned silence first, “so are you going to like to end up purple?”

Keith ducks his head, wrapping his arms around himself.

No one else gets the chance to further interrogate Keith, or hear his own thoughts, because Allura calls everyone up to the bridge.

Lotor hailed the Castle of Lions. Everyone stands around the bridge while Shiro and Allura take the lead as usual. They might as well be twins given how well they got on, communicating differing ideas without undermining the other.

“There are nine warships in the system,” Lotor acknowledges, “I would be much indebted if you would do me the favor of sending Voltron for the aerial battle.”

“The Empire’s presence is still in its early stages,” Acza explains, “but their terraforming development for the planet will cause the destruction of the Talpidae living there.”

“Then we have no choice,” Allura clenches her fist, never one to sit back while there was something she could do about it, “we will provide air support. Sent me the coordinates so that I may Teleduv there.”

Lance is still obviously eyeing Keith’s latest development. It was readily visible, and you were fighting the urge to do the same.

But you weren’t also trying to flick his ears.

Keith growls lowly.

Lance sniggers.

Pidge offers Lance a piece of paper to make paper balls with.

Hunk sighs long sufferingly, having resigned himself to the more childish side of his two friends. They were terrors. Put Pidge and Lance together, and they were gremlins out of a horror movie made for elementary school teachers.

You slip your hand into Keith’s, squeezing reassuringly. It would take some getting used to like anytime someone got a new haircut, but you would. Like his atrocious boots, they’d become an endearing part of him.

Keith squeezes your hand back.

Shiro nods, agreeing with Allura, “have the Talpidae been contacted.”

“Very much so,” Ezor chimes in, “they’re funny little people. And their sensory-”

“The point Ezor,” Lotor sighs, rubbing his nose bridge.

“They sent for help to the rebels. We were closest to their system,” Exor elaborates with a shrug, “they do not have the background to fight head on, and will evacuate most of their people into bunkers, but they have been digging under the new construction and weakening the structural integrity of the Galra outposts.”

“Very well,” Shiro accepts, “Princess Allura and our chief medic will meet with the Talpidae as a show of goodwill.”

“Our only medic,” Hunk points out.

Keith growls, his hand squeezing yours hard.

You all look over at him.

“Red Paladin,” Allura says, trying to look as professional as possible in front of her least favorite of Voltron’s allies, “is something the matter.” She shares a look with Shiro, but otherwise looks unsurprised at Keith’s less than human ears.

Or maybe she’d make a great poker played.

“Can’t you meet with the Talpidae after the battle,” Keith utters harshly.

“They may need immediate tactical support,” Allura reasons, “we should be there in person to provide it.”

“It’ll be fine Keith,” Shiro adds.

Their words do little to calm Keith down. His dark silky hair puffs up. His grip on your hand tightens and you feel miffed. You’d been on the ground working triage before. You might not be a fighter or pilot but you could look after yourself.

You pull your hand out of his. “I really don’t see what the problem is,” you tell Keith pointedly.

“I’ll watch Allura’s back and she’ll have mine.”

Allura nods. “Our chief medic is correct-”

His ears twitch, “You’re not exactly a fighter.”

Shiro covers his face with a hand.

Your brows furrow. You’re livid. “So! I won’t be fighting. We’ll be in the bunkers with the Talpidae. It’ll be safe so it doesn’t even matter.”

“If it’s perfectly safe then you don’t need to be there,” Keith’s voice breaks, a whine escaping his chest but you don’t care, done with the conversation.

“Yikes,” is Ezor’s quiet whisper.

You’re not a paladin so you don’t care, you just stalk off the bridge ready to go scream into your pillow in frustration. Or better yet, go for a swim and scream underwater.

“Wait-” Keith follows you.

You ignore him.

“I just-,” he keeps trying as you stalk down the stairs, deciding your room was better after all if only because you could lock Keith out.

“Listen-,” he whines.

“I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean what,” you round on him, hands on your hips, pissed off and maybe some of its was from being stuck on this stupid ship all the damn time but like eighty percent was earned. You might not be taking on a squad of Galra soldiers, but you could take one on if it came to it.

Keith at least has the decency to look miserable, sad chirrups in his throat as he crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the ground.

“Well?” You tap your foot on the ground.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he finally manages. “Especially if you don’t need to be there.”

“But I do,” you counter, “There’ll be people running into those bunkers having escaped soldiers and sentries and the faster they get treated the better chance they have.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Keith repeats himself. “You-you can hold your own.” He looks up at you through his bangs, still hunched in on himself.

“Obviously.” There’s no heat, the anger having deflated already. It was just white hot ache in your chest, hurt at the idea that Keith thought you would get in the way, that you had nothing of value to add to the Alliance and Voltron.

You bite your lip.

Don’t cry, you think to yourself.

You were being dumb.

He was just being plain stupid.

“I mean it,” Keith repeats, “I’m sorry. I was just looking for an excuse to make sure you were safe.”

“Right, because Allura can handle herself but I can’t.” Your voice cracks.

“No,” Keith says in a rush, “it’s not the same.”

“Because I can’t fight?”

“That’s not,” Keith runs a hand through his hair, “It’s me okay. I’m-I’ve always jumped into things without thinking, but I decided to go for it, like breaking Shiro out but now I’m doing things before I even notice and it’s all these stupid Galra instincts!”

You swallow.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you once more. “I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry. No one thinks you can’t handle yourself. That’s why Shiro paired you up with Allura, because he knows you’re capable of watching her back.”

Your smile is fragile as you look over at him, “yeah?”

“Yeah.” Keith holds your gaze, looking as skittish as a stray dog. Another whine escapes his throat.

What the heck.

You hug him, “you’re such a dumbass.” You understood why he’d worry. This was war. Pidge was on a two man campaign with Shiro to get Matt to stay on the Castle, both scared witless that Matt might die on a mission with the rebels. Ulaz had died so everyone could get away.

You’d had patients in the last decaphoebs you could do nothing but ease their pain. You’d had patients that you couldn’t even administer anything for the pain because of how torn apart they were: guts spilling out, charred people shapes that you were surprised to still find breathing.

The images would never leave you as long as you lived.

“I’m sorry.” Keith buries his head in the crook of your neck, his breath tickling your skin sent shivers down your spine.

You hug him tightly, aware that every battle could be your last: the last time you saw him. “You’ve said that already,” you tease, memorizing the smell of him, stale sweat and something cloying that you had wanted to bottle up from the moment you’d met him and had never found on anyone else. As embarrassing as it was to admit to anyone other than yourself, Keith smelled good. Really good.

Most people smelled like nothing at all.

He stiffens.

“But it’s nice to hear again.”

Keith smothers a laugh.

You kiss his hair. Boys were so dumb.

He purrs.

You smile goofily, warmth building under your skin, and toes curling up in your shoes. You should say something. Right?

At some point?

Or maybe it shouldn’t be said under the looming threat of an upcoming battle.

Fuck.

You can’t decide, so you say nothing at all.

——————

Bombs still pelt the surface.

Your teeth chatter as the ground shakes even deep underground. Even more soil falls onto you. Your spacesuit was more oche than white at this point as you carry an injured Talpidae in your arms. It’s arm had been completely blown off. Sluggish blue blood oozed out.

Allura was last, tailing the group.

You reach the bunker.

The sentries had followed some of the feeling Talpidae into the tunnels, but they’d been sorted out.

The people here were strange, russet in fur colouring, with no discernable eye, just strange pink flagella protruding from their nose and large claws for digging. They stood at about Pidge’s height.

The bunker seals and you get to work.

Tourniquet here, pain patch there. There were so many of them banged up.

The fight continued on the surface.

The paladins had to form Voltron.

You and Allura work as a team, she takes the bruises and broken bones with no immediate risk of death. You triage the worst of the Talpidae, giving away your precious stash of painkillers to those you can’t save and are not in for a quick death, a Talpidae lies twitching, it’s nose blown off but alive. Another holds it’s hand, but shakes their head when they look at you. They weren’t going to make it.

Training kicks in and you focus on saving those you can.

Your hands stain blue from the blood.

Allura works alongside you.

You cauterize a Talpidae named Soedob’s hand, the claws on their right limb were gone, but most of it was spared.

“You smell Galra,” Soedob utters, blinking out of the pain induced haze as the painkiller kicked in.

You half hear, half don’t, so focused on the task at hand. It was easier to not stop until you were finished and could curl up and sleep and not think about blood and war and Zarkon.

“We have Galra allies,” Allura answers diplomatically, leaving the issue of the half Galra paladin alone.

It irked you.

“No, not them,” Soedob notes. “Those had a different aura.”

“Smell,” you guess, finishing off. You hoped the fighting ended soon. You supply was not unlimited. The castle had better facilities.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Our primary sense is sight,” Allura explains, giving you a long look.

You shrug. You hadn’t even seen any of Lotor and his team. There hadn’t been time. It had all been relayed over coms, over video.

“Another then?”

You swallow thickly, flushing with embarrassment because you both spent time around Keith but Soedob was only smelling him on you and it’s not like you had been doing anything intimate…well, it had felt intimate, hugging Keith, but it wasn’t anything like when cadets snuck into each others dorm room, shoving a sock on the door handle in the universal symbol of don’t bother us. “The red paladin is part Galra.” Mercifully, your voice doesn’t shake from the embarrassment, but you can’t look at Allura.

“Ah,” Soedob nods, neither outraged nor pleased.

Then there’s no more time, you have more Talpidaes waiting for medical aid. You give their own healers some of your supplies, freeing up Allura to find the clan leaders.

You can feel Allura’s questioning glance on you.

——————

“Team meeting in the mess hall,” Shiro calls over the coms system.

“Mess hall,” Pidge rolls her eyes, “it’s the dining room.”

You snort.

“I like to think of it as the dining room too,” Hunk offers. “I mean there’s only eight of us. It’s sort of like being home again.”

“Mess hall makes me think of the garrison,” you admit, falling into step besides them. “and the food.”

“Ugh,” Pidge groans. “That was the worst. Matt wasn’t kidding.”

“It does make the space packs easier to digest,” you muse, “maybe that was the point.” It took the garrison two years to get to Mars. It was funny, once you’d thought that was a long way from home.

“I liked the cheese garlic bread,” Hunk allows.

“Food goo,” Pidge grins, “or the garrison space food?”

“Food goo.” Hunk doesn’t even have to think.

“Food goo,” you agree. “Though not Coran’s paladin special.”

“You don’t even eat that,” Hunk huffs, half outraged half amused, “you’re always like well I’m not a paladin so…”

You laugh. “Seeing it is more than enough.”

The rest of the ship’s inhabitants are already there waiting for you. Lance is trying to teach Coran how to play slide, moving very slow as he claps their hands together.

Shiro and Allura are in easy conversation. Her mice scamper around her feet.

Keith looks absolutely miserable next to Shiro, folding himself into the smallest possible size, trying to disappear. It was hard to reconcile the Keith that was quiet with the Red Paladin that shot first and asked questions later.

You smile at him, excited to see him, but also figuring he could use some reassurance, whatever it was going through his head. Keith meets your gaze and the corners of his mouth turn up, before he ducks away.

You know better than to take it personally.

It was Keith.

Your toes curl inside your shoes and you bite back your smile, suddenly aware of how much you might be revealing and not wanting Lance of all people to start a meeting by commenting on it. For him, it might be all fun and games, but you weren’t sure what to do with these newfound warm and fuzzy feelings. You sure as fuck didn’t want to be called out on it.

You weren’t sure what to do about liking Keith so your current plan of action was: nothing.

“Thank you everyone for being here,” Shiro claps his hands together, his leader impression defaulted at awkward dad. He thought he always had to be on. Despite being the most trained out of us, he’d only just started his career during the Kerberos mission.

You wonder if he’d picked up his leadership style partly from Pidge’s dad.

“Where else would we be,” Pidge shrugs, never one to miss a shot.

“All the same,” the older man smiles.

“Yeah, no problem my dude, bro,” Lance flashes finger guns at Shiro.

You snort, taking a seat between him and Hunk.

“But seriously, what’s up,” Lance leans forward. “Or is this some lowkey way to keep us on our toes,” he winks at Allura who smiles indulgently.

“I await the news alongside you paladins,” Allura answers, hands resting in her lap. She looks over at Shiro.

The whole room turns to look at Shiro.

He had called the meeting.

Meetings tended to be informational in nature: updates about the expansive war, rebels hailing Voltron for intervention, the Blade passing on the rare bit of information, and the always popular distress signals. But Shiro and Allura both looked too calm for that.

Keith goes rigid, a spring wound up too tight.

Hm.

You wondered if the elephant in the room would finally be addressed.

Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder, smiling encouragingly the way a parent dropping their child off for their first day of school would, “go ahead Keith.”

The red paladin focuses his gaze on Shiro, his expression more sour than it’s been in a long time.

The past few years had done a lot to get him to open up to everyone on board, but right now, he looks exactly like the stubborn closed off cadet he had been back on Earth.

His ears twitch slightly. He manages to look even more taunt, and you wonder if he’s going to wave this off. Then, he lets out a breath.

His body is stiff, but Keith no longer pulls away from Shiro. He looks down at his hands pensively, nails cut to the quick. “Right.”

You can feel the nervous energy of the rest of the room, leaning in, waiting to see what Keith wants to say.

“Mhm, go on,” Lance says, chin in hand.

Hunk elbows him in the side.

“Hey!” Lance is about to start in on Hunk.

“Guys,” you snap, shoving Lance’s shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” Lance zips his mouth and throws away the key, “shutting up.”

“Looks like that didn’t work,” Pidge snarks.

“Paladins,” Allura’s clear commanding voice rings out. When everyone shuts up again, she nods at Keith, “you may continue.”

He looks up at everyone through his bangs, “I’m going through Galra settling.”

Hunk looks over at Allura, who was far more familiar with all this alien mumble jumble than anyone else.

Shiro squeezes Keith’s shoulder.

“And that is,” you prompt gently, before Keith hastily decided that was all he needed to say and left.

He meets your waiting gaze. Under the ship’s bright rooms, his eyes were obviously violet, heavy on the purple. He’s chewing his bottom lip like he isn’t sure he wants to go through with saying any of this and you wonder if he must be thinking of how weird things were between everyone when he learned of the alien part of his heritage.

Your mouth quirks up into a smile.

You were more than willing to stuff someone into a cryopod if they bothered Keith. He may be part of Voltron, tasked with defending the universe, but you’d make sure there was someone to defend him.

An embarrassing rush of heat bubbles under your skin. You look away, nervous.

“Shiro,” Keith asks.

Shiro nods, wrapping his arms fully around Keith’s shoulder. “Galra settling is when Galra,” he looked like he was trying to figure out exactly what he was talking about as he said it. Aliens were weird. “When Galra reach a certain age their appearance locks in.” Even Shiro looks a little puzzled. He was a pilot, not a biologist. You knew organisms back on earth who could manipulate their genotypes, generally sex changes with the right environmental conditions, but you weren’t sure there was anything comparable to whatever this was. “The Galra are apparently very adaptable in individuals. That’s why there’s such a range of them.”

Huh.

That explained the fur, range of tails, more reptilian looking once, and the eyes.

You wanted a Galra biology course, a full semester long one. What exactly caused such a plasticity in their phenotype? Did the trait have to be encoded in their genotype to appear or was there something freakier, Allura’s space magic, going on?

“-because he’s half human and we don’t go through anything like this it’s more painful than it would be. Lotor said the chameleonic abilities of Alteans helped him when he went through this,” Shiro finishes without a satisfying or thorough explanation.

At least Keith wasn’t dying.

Thank god.

Thank whatever freaky Altean magic existed in the universe.

“So,” Lance starts, “it’s Galra puberty.”

In a split second Keith loses any self consciousness about the situation, “it’s not Galra puberty!” His hair puffs up and you have to fight the urge to laugh, covering your face with your hands.

“There’s…” Shiro glances at Keith, before Lance and Keith could really get into it, “there’s more.”

Keith looks mullish, but ultimately gives Shiro the go ahead.

“Part of these..changes,” the black paladin explains, “have brought out some Galra instincts.” Clearly he was having as much trouble grappling with what this meant as Keith was. Your body suddenly deciding to change was no fun when you had no context for it. “Among them, the need to scent family…”

Pidge tilts her head, “is this like the most convoluted and emotionally constipated way of asking for a hug,” she asks Keith.

Keith smiles wryly, “pretty much.”

“Oh come here dude,” Hunk grins, engulfing Keith and Shiro in a hug.

“Ah number four,” Coran points up in the air, “I am now just recalling the galra that lived on Altea having explained this once, of course it didn’t occur to me because of the apparent dominance of your human genes.”

“So they’re actually co-dominant,” you muse as Lance drags Pidge along for a “group hug!”

“No.no,” Pidge makes a half-hearted effort to wiggle out, being a younger sibling herself, was used to being subjected to affection. She smiles even as she struggles.

“It would seem so,” Coran nods, “though not every gene.”

“Just these.” You wonder if there’s a space equivalent of the human genome project.

“Lance,” Keith yelps, “that’s my foot.”

“Buddy, I am not feeling the love here.”

“Is it working,” Hunk asks, peering at Keith, “are you going to turn purple now?”

“No one turns purple from hugs,” Keith replies, annoyed but makes no move to pull away.

“Thank you for trusting us with this Keith,” Allura smiles, her eyes crinkling.

“Get in on this too Princess,” Shiro motions over, before catching your gaze, “you too. Don’t think you can get out of this. You’re part of Voltron too.”

You snort, and join the group hug.

Pidge’s elbow is a bony thorn in your side and there’s the slight hum from Shiro’s prosthetic, but it’s a good mix of warmth and intimacy with the people you were closest to in the entire universe. Allura’s shoulder presses into you back and it’s sort of ballooned to ridiculous proportions, Keith somewhere in the center of it all, his hair barely visible to you.

“Add cuddling Keith to the chore wheel,” Pidge proposes.

Keith groans.

“How about we let Keith decide,” Shiro proposes.

You snort, knowing him too well. “Are you willing to take that risk? Died-from lack of hugs.”

Lance laughs.

Shiro looks convinced by your stellar argument.

“I’m not that bad,” Keith grumbles.

“You’re a terrible hugger,” Lance argues back. “You’re all stiff, like you’re enduring one of Iverson’s paradox sims. Not as bad as my abuelo but still.”

Keith lunges for Lance.

Someone topples over.

Everyone falls.

You laugh, smothered by limps and someone’s hair in your mouth…maybe Hunk’s? You don’t move, worried about kicking someone’s head.

From somewhere, Keith does that low rumbling chest noise that reminds you of a cat purring happily.

No one makes fun of him for it.

——————

“You should comb your hair before we take the pod down,” you tell Keith. You’d spent your free time before this alliance dinner scrolling through a datapad, trying to learn names, where they hailed from, species, things that may prove useful.

Half a varga ago, Keith had found you balled up on a sofa, and sat next to you, his way of asking for physical comfort. You’d obliged him readily, throwing an arm over his shoulders and spooning him as you both laid on the sofa. He was already in the paladin uniforms that Allura had dug out once the alliance became a reality instead of a loose string of rebel groups fighting the Galra empire.

You’re both short and slight, fitting together perfectly.

You squash any feelings you have, this wasn’t about you, it was about him. You’d done it a thousand times with Hunk or Lance, fallen asleep listening to Allura, why should Keith be any different? (You know why.)

He’s reading the screen with you.

“I doubt they’d notice,” he remarks as you scroll to a particularly vivid color alien race with sensory appendages sprouting from their heads.

“You have a point desert bum,” you tease, “I’d rather be a bum by a beach town. All surfer bro.”

“Can you even surf,” he asks flatly.

“No. Learned how to swim at the garrison,” you admit. “But tanning by the water has to be more appealing than roasting under the Texas sun.”

“I like the desert.”

“I know.” You were pretty sure everyone just liked their homes.

“It’s quiet,” he admits, “and watching how the sunlight transforms the landscape…”

“It’s too big and wide,” you admit, thinking of space. Flat land that went on forever…empty dark space that went on forever.

“Good for driving,” Keith smirks.

You laugh. Or course that’s where his mind went. “Sure, but it all looks the same, everywhere you turn.” It was disorienting. To be fair, you were a city girl. Your background noise was cars honking and people yelling even at four in the morning. The garrison had been a big adjustment.

“It’s really not. You just have to look.”

“I’ll trust my gps,” you counter, “not my sense of direction. I’d probably end up one of those cautionary tales about mirages and deserts.”

“You can’t really get a good signal,” Keith replies lazily, his body slack against yours, “out there. It’s best to mark a trail with chalk if you don’t know the area.”

“But you do, know it I mean?”

“Out past the Garrison? Mhm. All of it. We used to go hiking…before,” he trails off.

You press your lips to his hair lightly, before shifting, “my arms asleep.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.” You sit up, “it’s nice. I used to put my sister to sleep this one year she had nightmares almost every night.”

“You miss her,” Keith states, sitting up, looking at you with his intense expression. Having someone focused one hundred percent on you was a new experience. He wasn’t thinking of a thousand other things, just you.

“I do. I miss everyone, but,” you shrug, “I’ll see them again. Meanwhile you’re stuck with me.” You smile fondly at Keith. “I’m going to change before we have to go to dinner.”

“I’d take fighting Zarkon anyday,” Keith mutters, cringing at the upcoming show of diplomacy. There was so much smiling and hand shaking. It was exhausting to be that extroverted with a roomful of strangers.

Even Lance zonked out after these things.

“Knock on wood,” you laugh.

_____________

Treaties have been signed. A wrecked Galra fleet floats in space above the planet your on today, but today’s battle is won.

One of Lotor’s General’s is here, Acza. She’s wary, and surprised at the warm reception she’d received. She might be Galra, but she’d been crucial in taking down the Galra base’s shields. Biolocks, Zarkon should really rethink those.

You sip at your thick drink, warm and flavored like cinnamon oatmeal, that chases off the chill of the night. The idea had been to sleep, your hands still ached from all the sutures and stitches you’d woven, but Allura refused to hear it, dragging you along. There would be time for sleep on the Castle, she’d claimed, joyous to have helped another besieged planet.

“My congratulations,” a Blade utters from behind their glowing mask.

You jump, not having known there was even a Blade here. They were allies, yet their anonymity that made them so useful in information gathering, created a gap between you. You had no way of knowing who this person was. Their suit obscuring any details, the mask a rank.

You couldn’t even see their eyes.

“For what,” you ask, puzzled. You hadn’t fought. Your skills made you most useful after the battle, trying to save lives and patch up wounds. It was important and emotional draining work, but you hardly won battles.

Because of the mask, you can’t get a read on their reaction. Blades. Spies. Maybe if you could see their eyes…

They nod, and walk off without explanation.

You watch them go, still confused until they disappear among the bodies loitering around, celebrating liberation.

It was a feat to disappear when you were eight feet tall.

First the Galra had avoided you like the plague, the black plague, now they were being cryptic as fuck.

You lean your head down, trying to sniff your armpits without making it too obvious. Was it the blood? Or the space bleach? That tended to linger.

You didn’t smell that bad. Certainly like bleach and rubbing alcohol…

You take another sip of your drink, looking around for a place to sit. You’d been on your feet for too long. You wanted to sleep.

Someone would find you.

You wander around. Smiling when someone notices you, and thanks you and you hurry to get away before they ask you a hundred questions. There were only eight humans in space. Well, seven and a half. You stood out.

They wanted Voltron, but you would do.

“There’s space here,” Acxa calls out.

“Thanks,” you plop down next to her, sagging into the seat. Oh, yeah, you were so freaking tired.

“Of course. You look dead.”

“Yeah,” you look around the rebel camp, “I’ve no clue how they have the energy.”

“It’s like that everywhere. This is their home,” Acza offers, “people fight hard for their homes.”

You nod, before looking over at the alien woman, “not avoiding me anymore then?”

She shrugs, not disputing the allegation. “No need anymore, now that you and Keith sorted yourselves out.” She’s so blunt about it. “Galra are so sensitive when settling. We didn’t want to cause any incidents.”

“Is this about the scenting?” You still hadn’t had time to read through the information you’d gotten your grubby little hands on.

She nods.

You put your drink down on the mossy ground. “Yeah, Keith explained it. Well, Shiro did, really. Lance is over the moon about having an excuse to bother Keith.” Now you really all were a family. You’d named it outloud.

Acxa’s brows furrow, “Lance?”

“I think he just misses his family a lot,” you offer. “We all do and while we’re family too, it’d be nice to see our family back on earth too.”

She frowns. “Keith and you are not,” she asks slowly.

“Me and Keith,” you flush, ducking away from her. “No-I, no. We’re not.” You should’ve gone back to the Castle the moment Allura turned her back. She would’ve never known.

Acxa’s frown becomes tinged with anger and worry, her hand grabs your wrist. “Galra have more than one type of scenting, between families, and between partners.”

“Oh.”

You try to connect the dots but your brain gets stuck between ideas. Scenting. Keith. You. You and Keith. It was right there but-

“Keith isn’t marking you as family,” she explains slowly, “he’s marking you as his partner.” Acxa waits until her words sink in before adding, “to do so without letting the other know…” She makes it clear what a social taboo that is.

But you’re one step behind her.

Did Keith like you?

You think back to all the times you’d been with him in the past few vargas, trying to pinpoint any hint: he’d smiled at you but he was happier now in general so it could be a coincidence…

“If you need,” Acxa offers, “I will help clarify the situation.” It’s an awfully kind gesture.

“No,” you say in a rush. “no. It’s-I think I need to go talk to Keith.” He’d known what he was doing…you could draw a thousand conclusions but nothing would be better than confronting him about it.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” you stand up, glancing around. During parties, Keith tended to find a quiet corner out of the way. He’d opened up, but he was still more of an introvert.

You find Keith lying stretched out in the shadow of a makeshift building, looking up at the stars. It’s his eyes that give him away, reflecting the light enough to be inhuman, nocturnal vision.

“We need to talk,” you wrap your arms around your body. You weren’t angry, just confused. Didn’t he know he could just come talk to you about it by now?  

Keith looks up, startled, then stands. “Alright.” He sounds resigned, a man sentenced to detention for a month which was janitorial duties at the garrison. It kept even the most smartass cadets humble.

You look around.

No one was really here. You could hear the music and people a bit further into the heart of the camp. Here was good enough.

“I talked to Acxa,” you start, “she said-” you look down at the trampled vegetation underfoot. It was embarrassing to your human preconceptions to even think, let alone say, which was why you were pretty sure Keith didn’t mean any harm. Scenting meant nothing on earth, where he’d grown up. “She said you’ve been scenting me, which like I know but not that way?” You look up at him as realization sets in and he ducks his head, looking away. “Is it true?”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I-,” he takes a deep breath before ranting, the agitation and months of buried emotions flooding out, “I hate this. I hate that I can hear the conversation outside and smell which direction  Shiro’s in and how much my eyes hurt on the Castle from how bright it is but I don’t-I can’t say anything because I’m already enough of a freak. Before I was just the weird kid but now I’m just a fucking alien freak! There’s always so much going on and I don’t even know what’s next!”

You wait, wondering if there was more.

It was a lot of changes.

You couldn’t understand, there was nothing in your life comparable to your biology deciding to be a little more Galra after twenty years.

“And I tried not to-,” he admits, meeting your waiting gaze, “I tried to leave everyone alone so you wouldn’t,” Keith swallows, forcing himself to continue with an obvious disgust at himself, “you wouldn’t smell like me or whatever Lotor explained but I couldn’t-it was driving me crazy like this itch, this buzzing under my skull and seeing you guys with others-I thought I was going crazy until Lotor explained. And then when Lance would ruffle my hair or you would check that I wasn’t about to fall over and die and-,” he waves his hands in the air, “I would just zone out.”

“Oh,” you utter, recalling past events with a newfound understanding. Keith had been reaching out, all instinct even when he was trying not to be a bother. It broke your heart, how he always came from the perspective that he was an inconvenience.

“I did know,” he says in a small voice. “That-you…but I don’t know if it’s me or this, or all these things happening to me.”

Your expression wobbles. You bite your lower lip, trying to get a handle on it. How silly to worry about a crush when Keith was going through it.

“I like you, but I don’t know if I like you or if it’s just these stupid Galra instincts messing with my head.” Keith deflates, drawing into himself. “Everything

s…it’s been a lot.”

“I get it,” you utter, “maybe not the situation but I’m not mad. Though Acxa was ready to kick your ass and she totally could,” you try teasing.

But Keith flinches, looking away guiltily.

“I’m joking. I-I get why. It makes sense. It’s a lot to get used to.” You swallow, not sure what to do about anything either.

“Its a huge offence,” Keith utters, “that’s why she was pissed. Made worse because you can’t even tell…I-I couldn’t think straight and I…it took the edge off.”

“Scenting me?”

He nods.

You take a step towards him.

“I-,” Keith’s eyes meet yours, his attention entirely captivated by you. It sends a thrill down your spine. You’d seen how he could be when laser focused: on piloting, on training. “I know they say it’s wrong but you and Lance do stuff like that all the time. And I thought…I figured I could figure out how much of what I’m feeling is me and how much of it are these new instincts.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” you tell him. “I-you’re right, it’s whatever to me. Like, a Blade congratulated me earlier which was weird but fuck them you know? I can ‘smile and nod’,” you smile as fakely as possible to show what you mean, “through it so long as you’re okay.” He’d bled in your lap.

Keith looks a little unsteady, unsure what to do with your lack of anger. “You don’t-”

“So is it like galra marriage then?” You were curious as to what exactly the Blades were going to gossip about you and Keith.

He makes a choked sound. “Sort of. They bond. It can be broken but that generally means someone killed the other.”

“Let me guess,” you reply, “Zarkon fucked even that up.”

Keith nods.

“That guy’s the worst.” Your voice is light.

Keith snorts, smiling for a split second. “I won’t anymore. I’ll-”

“Keith,” your voice cracks as you out your hand on his arm to keep him from rubbing off, “if its really causing you all this additional confusion in too of everything…you can…” the words were too intimate to say, too charged with a sensuality that he clearly was figuring out. You were willing to wait. For him.

He was conflicted enough without you dumping your feelings on him.

“You don’t-”

You raise your hand, caressing the side of his face with the back of your hand, ghosting over the purple mark on his cheek, “I don’t mind.” Sure, you had a crush on him, you could admit that much, but more simply, you loved him.

This was a small ask.

Your gaze flickers to the tips of his ears.

You had washed his blood off your hands.

“Besides, shit’s hard enough. My arm falling asleep is a small price to pay if I can help you.”

Keith’s mouth quirks up in a smile.

You laugh, “come here.”

It finally sinks in that you weren’t just talking bs. You meant it, as you hug Keith, wrapping your arms around his middle. He smelled good in spite of the battle he’d been through earlier.

Without really thinking, you breathe in the scent of him.

Keith hugs you back, cuddling you against his chest, resting his chin on your shoulder.

You yawn. “want to sneak back into the castle?”

“Only if you tell Allura you’re the one who wanted to leave,” he deadpans dazedly.

You laugh.

——————

“Come,” Allura motions as you stand from one of the Castle’s weapons systems, “we must meet with the rebel leadership on planet.”

The planet was a farming camp.

The slaves were overworked and underfed and they had still revolted when they learned Voltron was near. Now, they were free.

“Princess,” Coran calls out, “it appears that number four is heading back to the ship.”

A pained expression crosses Allura’s broad features, her full mouth frowning, before she decides to pick her battles for the day. “I am sure Keith has a good reason for his actions.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.

You don’t want to go down there either.

This entire last week had been spent synthesizing medicine and treating thousands of people made harder by the range of species. The garrison better give you that medical degree immediately.

“I’ll go check on him,” you say automatically, “he might need me to prep a pod.”

“Fantastic idea number five,” Coran believes your excuse.

“Let us know if anything happens,” Allura says, giving you a long look, before heading for the exit.

The central Galra soldiers had been taken out, but small bands of fighters were still fighting to their last breath. It’s why Voltron has remained on the planet.

The lions had roamed the landscape answering calls for aid and hunting down the last of Zarkon’s forces here.

You meet Keith in the red lion’s hanger.

He’s popping his helmet off, running a hand through his flattened hair. “I thought you were headed out with Allura?”

You shrug, suddenly feeling awkward. “I was, but I wanted to check on you first.” That was a normal thing to do for your friends. There was no reason to overthink things.

“I’m fine.”

He sets the helmet aside, working on undoing the armor off. There was dirt and dust but thankfully no blood to speak of, his or otherwise.

“Then I’ll see you there,” you ask.

Keith looks over, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, his smile slight when he replies, “I’m not heading there.” Blunt. Concise.

“It is depressing,” you admit. There was so much resource allocation and need planet-wide.

He raises a brow. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Keith?” Now you’re wondering what the real problem was. “What is it?”

“Does it matter. I don’t need to be there. Shiro and Allura can handle it.” He looks away, suddenly very interested in the wall. Unlike the rest of the ship, the red lion’s hanger was dim, in a permanent night cycle.

Pidge’s work.

“I think the people would like all of Voltron present.” Then you make a face, “oh god, I sound just like Allura don’t I?”

Keith laughs, “just a bit. As long as you don’t make us all meditate…”

“It’s so boring. I fall asleep.” You smile softly, “Seriously, go down for a moment. Then you can hide out here.”

“I-I’d rather not.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Four out of five is is fine.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” you agree.

“I’m sure they’ll be glad.”

“Keith-” you start, knowing he already felt hyper aware of how his appearance had changed. Before, it hadn’t really ever come up outside of the team. No one would tell and if Keith wasn’t vocal about it…now everyone in the entire universe probably knew.

There were rebel Galra, mostly in prisons and work camps. Feelings varied.

“That’s not true,” you say, not sure if it was true, “you helped free them.” You shift your weight onto your other foot, “there’s a few assholes everywhere.”

He gives you a long look. “The Galra enslaved all these people.”

“Pfft,” you wave off, “you look like one sixteenth Galra. And-”

“They stare.”

“Because you’re a paladin,” you reason. “Pidge is also cranky about the attention.”

Keith sighs.

The paladin armor lies in a discarded pile.

You step forward to him, “anyone would be lucky to have you as a pilot. And Voltron sort of lucked out when the red lion chose you.”

Keith’s eyes widen as he looks at you, pink dusting his cheeks.

In for a penny, in for a pound, you lean forward and kiss his cheek, ghosting over his skin, “face marks and all.” You can’t meet his gaze when you pull away, blushing fiercely.

Why did you do that!

God, you were so dumb-

He cups your cheeks and brushes his lips over yours.

Oh! Oh.

“Is-is this okay-,” Keith starts asking.

You feel giddy, smiling before kissing him. Yeah, it was okay.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

We did it! We finished Voltron! My friend and I watched the last 3 episodes and we felt no hype 😅. The whole piercing reality is pretty cool but it feels befitting for someone or something else, yknow? Like too much dimension of quintessence can start distortion of universes because it begins to take from others, teaching people to not be greedy, idk. My friend said that in the past 3 episodes, too much was happening at a fast pace which threw her off when Lotoddler and Zarkon were on screen. And the epiphanies! There were so many! She wasn't expecting Honerva to go from "HAHA I HATE YOU ALL" to "Damn, I'm sorry." In like...an 5 minutes. It was crazy. The scene where Allura was saying goodbye, we didn't really feel anything (until I saw Lotor and I started to cry). She was especially confused about the Altean Markings on Lance 🤣 and I told her "everyone was." She agreed that after S6 she basically didn't know what to think of the show anymore other than downhill too quickly. What do you think? (I apologize for this being long!)

Hi, anon! Wow, congratulations to completing it, as VLD is certainly a lot of episodes to binge back-to-back!

Ahh the final episodes. I agree that it feels like so much happens at once, although I don't think the concept of alternate realities or time dilation is inherently alien to the Voltron franchise? (For example, in a previous Voltron iteration written by Brandon Thomas, Lotor was connecting to other realities to access their Voltron mechas to defeat the rift creatures. And then in an even older Voltron iteration written by Josh Blaylock, Lotor and Team Voltron are thrust ~1,000 years into the past to battle Lotor's own ancestor, Empress Jain.) But, to your point, it does seem like VLD didn't give its version of these concepts proper space to be explored.

(Someone please give me a version of VLD where good s8!Zarkon from the alternate universe discovers what is happening and goes back in time/crosses dimensions to kill main Zarkon and save his son/wife/literally everyone by taking responsibility for himself a;sdlfjas)

About Honerva: tbh, I really think they short-changed Sendak a proper villain arc. I don't think it makes sense at all that s6-s8 made Honerva the ultimate Big Bad. Lotor's mother has never been a big bad, her motivations and actions as a big bad are massively contradictory, and if they really wanted "female villain rep," the franchise had Empress Jain or Queen Merla as major players in that arena (and yet all Merla got in VLD was a weirdly disconnected cameo)....

Regarding Lance's Altean marks, I firmly choose to believe they are a homing beacon so that a very not-dead Allura can get back home to her own reality (given that Lance is the only other character alive with a connection to Allura's lion, Blue). It's the only possible explanation that makes sense to me given what we got, lol. But then this explanation heavily contradicts the development team's statements that Allura died, so do with it what you will a;sdfljas Ultimately, I think VLD was a show reliant on its high-quality animation/character design and talented VA cast to carry a mediocre, meandering plot developed in a rush. That said, I still love certain things about this crazy, controversial cartoon. Best thing to do, I think, is just take the concepts that you enjoyed out of it and then celebrate those gems. 🧡 Thanks for the note!

[im-definitely-not-trash]

Heehoo here’s the first prompt for whumptober! This is the first year I’m determined to complete it on time by posting every day so here’s the beginning of the attempt. Anyway!

Alt prompt #6: Head Injury

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

TW: vomiting, mentions of vomit

Word count: 2591

“-idge! Pidge, come on! Answer me!”

“K… Keith?” Pidge opened her eyes, squinting at the shadow above her.

“Thank god, Pidgey, I was… I’m glad you’re okay.”

“What happened?” Keith pushed her down by the shoulders as she tried to sit up.

“Green got hit, bad. You crashed on this moon and we couldn’t reach your comms.”

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Finishing off the Galra. It took us a while to spread them thin enough that I could come down here.”

While recapping the events, Keith had been checking over Pidge thoroughly for any injuries, and he seemed content. “Okay. Let’s go. The others are surely done and waiting for us. Can you get Green back on?”

Pidge got up with Keith’s help. She stumbled into him once on her feet.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just got up too fast, just a tick.” Pidge used Keith as a support as the blood rushed to her head, trying to find her footing and balance. It took a bit longer than she thought it should, but eventually, she got her bearings and sat in the cockpit chair. “Go ahead and go back to Red, Keith, I’ll get her up and running. Then I’ll meet you guys at the castle.”

“I don’t want to leave you here, that was a really rough crash. And not only that, you were thrown from your chair and were on the floor. Outwards, your body looks fine, but I don’t want to leave you alone until we’re sure everything is fine internally.”

“Keith, I feel fine. I was a little dizzy when I stood up but I had been on the floor for… I don’t know how long, you know better than me, but whatever! I’m fine!”

Keith’s face was still brushed over with concern.

Pidge sighed. “If you’re really that worried, once we get back to the castle we can do a full scan and if needs be, I’ll go into a pod.”

Keith sighed as well, ready to resign his worries. “Fine, but if anything feels off, you need to tell me as soon as you can. Here’s a communicator if Green won’t wake up.” He handed it to her. “Let me know if something feels wrong, with Green or with you.”

“Okay, whatever you say, Keith.”

“Good. I’ll talk to you later.” He waved and ducked out of the cockpit. Pidge saw him running to Red from the windshield. She sat in the pilot’s chair and groaned. Her head killed. Her stomach rolled. She still felt dizzy.

She tried to shake off the feeling to connect with Green, and Green woke up.

“Hey, girl.”

The lion groaned as it stood, sounding much like Pidge felt.

“Okay, we got hit and crashed hard, but we’re fine now. We need to get back to the team to help.”

Green seemed to say, You aren’t well, paladin.

“I’m just as well as you. Banged up but functional.”

You’re worse off then me. You have a fragile body.

“Your mom.”

Green went silent, knowing Pidge wouldn’t listen.

Pidge steered Green to where they could safely take off without damaging the surrounding ecosystem and off they went. Once in the atmosphere, Pidge grabbed the little communicator. “Paladins of Voltron, this is the Green Paladin and her lion.” The sound of her own voice echoed in her ears loudly.

“I hear you, Pidge,” Keith said. “We’re still fighting, and the others don’t have this communicator frequency. We could really use your help right now.”

“I’m not sure if Green is up to it.” She was lying through her teeth. Green seemed fine if not a little banged up. It was her who wasn’t up to it.

“Then stay still, we don’t want the Galra to see you and target you when you can’t dodge or counterattack.”

“No, I want to help! Green is just banged up and can take all the time she needs to recover in the hangar of the castle. I’m on my way.”

Pidge could hear Keith sigh over the comms. “Okay, but be careful. Don’t get hit again.” Static crackled and Pidge knew she was alone again.

Her vision blurred as she looked up to see where her friends were fighting. There were blurs of pink and blue lights, coming from the Galra and from the Lions. She was too far away to see any of her friends clearly, just the lights from the blasts. And assorted explosions.

For once, Pidge was grateful that space was a vacuum, because if she had been able to hear those explosions, her head probably would’ve exploded itself.

Slowly, she crept up on the battle, trying to figure out where she could possibly go in to help. “Hey, Green, activate the reflective shield.” Invisible, she got even closer.

Her comms crackled to life.

“-m on the left, someone get-” That was Lance.

“-eith, where’s Pidge?! We need to for-” Shiro.

“She said she was coming! I don’t know-” Keith.

Hunk seemed to be quiet but active. Coran and Allura were shouting affirmations for everyone from the castle.

And Pidge was sitting here doing nothing. The yells from the comms were louder than they had been earlier, but that was probably just from the little “time-out” she had on that moon.

“All right,” she said to herself. Then she shot Green forward to the middle of the battle and joined all the chaos on the comms.

The whole team was still yelling, but this time more excited that they had a chance to win this now that they could form Voltron.

The lights were closer now, brighter than before.

Every explosion shook Green, and Pidge inside.

For a minute, everything was quiet and dark.

Pidge gagged and vomited.

It wouldn’t stop, she was so dizzy and everything was so loud and she couldn’t stop moving and her head- oh god her head—

She coughed and heaved and she couldn’t breathe and it wouldn’t stop it wouldn’t stop it wouldn’t stop it—

And then it stopped.

But Pidge didn’t know that.

~~~

Keith tuned out everyone’s voices. They were all saying generally the same thing. ‘Pidge, are you okay,’ ‘Pidge, are you there,’ ‘what’s going on,’ ‘is she okay,’ all the same stuff.

I shouldn’t have left her alone, he thought. I should’ve known that she was lying, of course she would, she never wants to feel helpless.

“Keith!” Shiro yelled through the comms. “It doesn’t matter what you should’ve done, stay focused!”

Was he saying that out loud?

“Yes, sorry.” He glanced again at the Green Lion, eyes glowing and standing in ready position, but not moving at all. No pilot to control it.

“If Pidge is incapacitated, we can’t form Voltron! We need to defend her and beat the Galra,” Lance said. “We can’t separate more than we already have, and we can’t run.”

“I’ll go protect Pidge, my lion can take blasts meant for her until we can overpower them,” Hunk said.

“You can’t take them for long, it would be easier to just get done with the Galra.” Shiro sounded exhausted and worried, reasonably.

The team was still trying to plan amongst themselves when Allura bursted into the comms.

“Everyone, get out of the way, and take Pidge with you!”

The Paladins and their Lions quickly left where they were surrounding the Galra ship, and Keith and Red shoved Green out of the proximity.

A huge blue blast came from the castle and hit dead on the Galra ship.

There was nothing left of it.

A collective sigh of relief made it’s way through the team, and then Lance said, “Why didn’t you do that earlier?!”

Allura moaned at his lack of logic. “It took time to charge up to be that powerful, Lance, and with us helping with the smaller shots from the turrets, it took much longer than it could’ve. Be glad it worked at all before anyone got hurt.”

“Thank you, Allura, Coran,” Shiro said. “Let’s get back.”

It was quiet while everyone was taking a couple breaths, finally done with the battle.

“We can’t take more time, guys,” Keith said. “Pidge… Pidge was definitely worse than she let on to me. I’ve got Green, but Red isn’t strong enough by herself to push Green to the Castle.”

The Yellow Lion showed up at the Red Lion’s side, then Blue too. Together, they pushed Green as fast as they could to the Castle.

~~~

Everyone met in Green’s hangar.

“Green, you have to let us in!” Lance was a bit frantic. “We get you’re trying to protect her but we can protect her too, and you probably don’t have the tools to help her if she’s hurt!”

Lance kept pleading with the Lion while the others stood by, worried about their youngest family member. Allura walked to the Lion and put her hand on its leg.

“Please, Green Lion, I can’t lose another Paladin. Please let us in to help Pidge.”

The Lion didn’t answer.

Allura turned to the Paladins and Coran. “If the Lion won’t open… there’s only one explanation.” Her voice broke and tears welled up as she tried to blink them back. “The Green Lion is waiting for a new Paladin to take Pidge’s place because she’s—”

Everyone finished that sentence in their minds.

Coran started working on something to open the Lion in the corner. Lance kept begging, Allura quietly started to cry. Hunk tried to put on a brave face, but his eyes were watering too. Shiro paced.

Keith couldn’t believe it.

Pidge was like a little sister to him. A best friend. She managed to get him to open up when he wouldn’t talk to anyone else. He trusted her with all his heart. If she had said she was fine, she was fine, not…

Not dead.

He’d had enough.

“OPEN UP YOU STUPID LION!!! YOU CAN’T KEEP HER!! SHE’S OURS, SHE’S HUMAN LIKE US, NOT A STUPID ROBOT LIKE YOU ARE AND YOU NEED TO GIVE HER BACK!!! PIDGE IS OUR FRIEND, AND EVEN IF SHE’S YOURS TOO, SHE WAS OURS FIRST! SO LET HER OUT OR LET US IN!!!!!”

Everyone went silent at Keith’s outburst.

“Keith, it’s okay. We’ll get in soon enough.”

“No, it’s not okay!! She was hurt, and I thought she wasn’t, and if she’s still alive, I doubt she will be for much longer! We need to help Pidge now!”

Tears were falling down Keith’s face, along with some snot down his nose.

A thud echoed through the room.

Green’s maw was opened wide.

~~~

Keith was first to reach the cockpit. He turned the pilot chair toward him and saw Pidge. She was quiet, still wearing her suit, but not her helmet. She hadn’t had it on when Keith had first gone to check on her and Green when they first crashed. Had it come off in the crash or was she just not wearing it? And then why didn’t she put it on again.

There was puke all over the front of her suit. A goose egg showed through her bangs. Pidge didn’t have any good tanning abilities, but she was paler than usual. Keith knelt in front of her and pulled off the pieces of her Paladin suit after unbuckling her.

“Pidge?” His voice shook.

She didn’t respond.

Keith put his hand under her mouth and for a few terrible seconds, nothing happened, but then he felt warmth cover his hand as she exhaled.

Breathing. That’s good.

He checked her over for injuries, just like he had done a couple hours earlier, but slower and more carefully.

Nothing seems to be broken.

Then he got to the back of her head.

It was warm and wet.

“Shit.”

Gently, he let her body flop over him. He saw her flight suit stained red all down her back and her hair matted near the base of her neck.

No wonder she was off balance and dizzy. If she had hit her head bad enough to bleed, surely she had a concussion, at best.

Keith picked her up so her arms were over his shoulders and he had grip on her legs. He made sure the back of her head wasn’t going to hit his chin or anything else and carried her out of the Lion.

Allura, Coran and the Paladins stood waiting as he walked out. The room held its breath.

“She’s alive,” Keith said.

It let out the breath.

“But she really needs a pod, like immediately. She must’ve hit her head without her helmet when she crashed. I missed it when I checked her over the first time. She’s bleeding.”

The room then went kind of crazy. Shiro grabbed Pidge from Keith (with his permission [he has attachment issues]) and ran to the infirmary with Coran. Hunk walked over to Keith and talked to him. Lance paced and Allura sat near Keith to support.

Eventually, they all sat in the common bay with each other. Hunk got up and made some food for everyone and they all ate together in silence.

~~~

A few days passed and the whole team had sort of gotten back into a routine of checking on everything. Checking for Galra outposts on planets that needed help, checking in with the Blades of Marmora, checking on Pidge, checking on the Lions, et cetera.

Almost a week later was when the pod opened. It was the middle of the night and Pidge walked out to discover she was alone.

“Guys?” She was bewildered. The last thing she knew was crashing to the moon that was near their battle with the Galra. “Hunk? Allura?” She walked around the castle in the pod suit. “Guys, hello?”

Making her way around the entire Castle, Pidge made it to the common bay and sat down on the couch and she felt a lump underneath her.

“Ow, Lance, get off. No one else has a butt that bony.”

“Keith?”

“I said get off.”

“Keith! What happened?”

Keith finally seemed to wake up and he flipped the blanked off his head. “Pidge??”

“What happened? And why are you sleeping on the couch?”

Keith stood up, throwing Pidge to the floor, and then jumped on her and gave her a hug. “Pidge!”

“Yeah, that’s me. What’s your deal?”

“It’s been about a week.”

“Since what?”

“Since you crashed.”

Pidge’s demeanor changed and she got off the floor. “A week? All I remember was being on my way down to that moon. That’s it.”

“Oh, Pidgey. You hit your head really bad when you crashed. When I got to you, you were unconscious and thrown from your seat. You woke up and complained about dizziness but you got Green up and came to help but then something happened and you were out, unable to control your Lion. We won and brought Green back to the hangar but she wouldn’t open, so Allura assumed you were…”

Pidge’s hands shook as she reached to Keith. “I’m not though.” She smiled.

“You don’t know how glad I am for that,” he said, laughing.

They hugged again, Pidge pulling Keith tight. “Thanks for protecting me.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay. I can’t imagine losing a little sister, especially since you’re my only one.”

“Too bad you aren’t my only big brother. I could have a favorite that isn’t you.”

Keith pushed her off him so she could see his pout.

Pidge laughed. “Just kidding. I already know my favorite is Hunk.”

Keith was about to protest but then nodded. “His food though.”

“Exactly.”

[teatimecrumpetsandsugar]

a decade a century long

Heyo! This story is based on a request from @keefsteefs​ !

How about klance where future Keith and Lance get shot into the past in the castle of lions? Like future Keith and Lance would be married by that point and both would be in the BOM Keith and Lance would be co-leaders Past Keith and Lance wouldn’t be together by that point and maybe they don’t notice they’re together at first but everyone else notices

I’m not sure how well I’m gonna be able to do this, but I really hope I can do it justice for you! I now have an actual ask box on my page now, as I’ve been aided in setting it up by a few very kind people.

Anywho, feel free to let me know if I didn’t hit the prompt correctly- I don’t mind rewriting or adding another part if you feel it necessary because I really want you to enjoy the result of your request! Thank you so much for requesting!

For reference, I imagine this takes place 

/                                                                                                            \

Lance isn’t quite sure how to breathe when Keith is around. That sounds... worse than it is, but it’s definitely really bad in some way, form, or fashion. He isn’t quite sure when it started- when he started to look at those smug, blue-gray eyes and see the entire galaxy reflected back at him, or when he started wondering idly what it’d be like to braid the long hair decorating his broad shoulders.

He just knows that he finds himself transfixed on the battle-hardened, scarred face of the older boy, and it annoys him more than anything in the world. Slacking in his duties and instead watching the way Keith rolls his shoulders stiffly to correct his posture isn’t what he should be doing.

He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it until he realizes there’s a blip on his monitor, moving at warp speed and heading straight for the castle- he calls out to Allura a second too late, the entire ship rocking with the impact.

He looks up frantically at Allura, distress drawing his features tight as she scowls at him admonishingly, “Lance, how many times have I told you to keep your eyes on the screen?” He flounders for a response, gaze flitting to Keith’s face to gauge his reaction before he remembers it’s not the time, “I-”

The bridge begins to flash with bright red lights, a system alert flashing in Altean on the monitor- he knows just enough to make out that it’s a breach warning, heart lurching as he realizes the severity of his error.

Allura heaves a sigh, eyebrows pinched together in irritation as she turns to stare him down, “The breach is down in the shuttle bay. Go find out what crashed into us- take Keith with you.”

He hesitates for a second, deflating as she narrows her eyes at him, daring him to say anything back, “...Yes, princess,” He mutters, shame curling against his stomach as he trudges towards the door.

He grabs his helmet on his way out, slipping it on- Keith strides out ahead of him, spurring him on to walk faster.

It’s quiet- awkward, really, if you were to put a name to the loud silence between them.

Keith doesn’t say anything for a while, lips pressed into a straight line. Eventually, he opens his mouth to speak, before closing it again uncertainly. This goes on for a little while longer, Lance watching quietly as he grapples with the words, letting him work it out without pressure. Finally, he speaks up, voice softer than Lance was expecting, “We all make mistakes sometimes,” He says tersely, eyebrows drawing together as he considers his next words carefully, “Don’t worry about it.”

Lance stops to look at Keith for a moment, face carefully neutral, before a short snicker forces its way from his chest, “...That’s it?” Keith physically recoils, lip curling upwards defensively, a hot flush burning at his collarbones, “...Maybe! I-I don’t know!”

Lance shakes his head frantically, doubling over as his laughter grows louder, easing loose the guilt that had knotted itself in his chest, “I didn’t- I didn’t mean it that way!” Keith relaxes a little, still tense as Lance’s bright, raucous laughter paints the air in shades of blue and gold, a sound as rich as royalty.

Lance isn’t quite sure what he’d been expecting when Keith started speaking, but it was probably something along those lines if he’s being honest. It’s so unmistakably a Keith thing to say, and Lance finds himself laughing airily as he finally starts walking again, knocking his shoulder against Keith’s playfully, “Thanks, Keith. I can always count on you to cheer me up.”

It surprises them both for a second how honest and bold the statement is, before Lance clears his throat, laughing uneasily, “Your attempts at comforting me always make me laugh!”

Keith doesn’t respond, the air between them growing thick with tension as another uncomfortable silence falls between them, both boys trying to will away blushes- failing, unfortunately, but still attempting to anyway.

Before long, they reach the shuttle bay- it’s quiet and dark, the air still and cold and pressure skewed from the large, gaping hole in the side of the room that exposes them to the darkness of space.

Lance catches sight of a pod buried in the wall, hitting Keith’s arm to get his attention and gesturing to it wordlessly. Keith looks at him for a second, nodding his understanding as the two lower themselves in perfect unison, Keith pulling his sword as Lance sets up behind a nearby shuttle, sight aimed towards the pod to monitor any movement. Keith creeps towards spacecraft uneasily, gaze flitting around in the dark before sharpening as he spots a sudden shifting to his left, turning to brace himself to block as he hears a blade slice the air behind him.

Lance grimaces when he hears the blades clash together, quietly sending an SOS to the rest of the paladins- and then a weapon clicks behind his head.

“Hands off the rifle.” A voice sounds from behind him, sounding eerily familiar and yet all at once too wrong and distant to be what it sounds like.

Slowly, he removes his hands from his bayard, watching as it topples over the shuttle and clatters to the floor- the safety of the weapon behind him clicks off, and, counting off from three, he waits until a finger starts to tick softly at the trigger before turning around, knocking the weapon from his assailant’s hands and swiftly turning it on them, narrowing his eyes as the shuttle bay doors slide open just in time for Keith to hit the wall beside them with a grunt.

Pidge turns the lights on the moment she enters the room, her bayard at the ready in her hands as she looks down to check on Keith-

Only it isn’t Keith.

They all pause in confusion as they take in the hooded figure dragging himself up the wall slowly, and Lance barely turns around back in time to catch the sudden movement from his assailant, lean figure tearing across the room to brace the other against their shoulder. It’s oddly endearing to watch as the taller of the two fusses over the one Keith threw against the wall, the other barking “I’m fine!”

They all freeze at the familiar cadence of the words, a hush falling over the room as they turn to look at Keith. He looks more confused than they do.

Oblivious to the tension in the room, the other replies, matching the tone of the first, “If fine is dragging yourself up a wall to get up then yeah, you’re fine!” Everyone turns to look at Lance, now, but his eyes are on Keith’s, the two watching each other confusedly-

Then the other pair look up and suddenly realize the situation they’re in, the four making uncomfortable eye contact for what is definitely way too long before Shiro speaks up, “We... should probably have this conversation away from the hole that leads to dark, empty void of space.”

/ /                                                                                                        \ \

The moment the... other Lance and Keith, he supposes, took off their helmets had to have been the strangest moment in Lance’s life. 

The other Keith had longer hair and looked.. a lot older, really. Both of the other pair looked older, but Keith looked like he’d seen conflict and a lot of horrible things, even moreso than the other Lance. The other Lance, on the other hand, was a lot softer looking- he reminded Lance of one of his Tias back on Earth, probably having grown a lot less severe to accommodate how gruff the other Keith was.

And the two of them seemed close, comfortable, even- it was odd, especially considering that Lance and Keith often can’t sit in the same room for too long without it being awkward.

The other Lance has a softer face than the other Keith, whose face seemed to be all harsh edges and scowls. He sat with a passive and warm smile on his face, even as the entire team stared him and the other Keith down.

Allura is the first to speak, despite how utterly uncomfortable she seems, “Where did you come from?”

The other Keith merely grunts, and the other Lance laughs a laugh that reminds everyone of a melody they’ve never heard before, “Sorry, Keith isn’t much for interrogations. Time with the Blade of Marmora will do that to ya.” Shiro quirks a brow at that, “You came from the Blade of Marmora?”

The other Lance smiles kindly, “Yup! And the future, too, from the looks of it.”

The other Keith doesn’t say anything, just eyeing Keith with a dirty look as Keith eyes him back. If Lance didn’t know any better, he’d swear Keith was glaring at a mirror.

The other Lance seems to notice, too, glancing between the two Keiths shortly, “Keith, honey,” Both of them snap their gazes to him, Keith recoiling at the pet name whilst the other Keith just grunts impassively, “Stop glaring at the child. He doesn’t have any more answers than you do.”

The other Keith huffs in response, looking away before replying, “I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.”

Lance stifles a giggle at that, knowing that the other pair noticed when the other Keith glares at him. There’s a strange, awkward charm to the way the other Keith speaks- not quite as obvious as the lilting, musical tone the other Lance presents, but still there, showing that he really is like their Keith in some way.

Keith scowls, stepping in between Lance and the other Keith defensively, “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me either, old man.”

To everyone’s mild shock, both Lances burst into laughter at the same time, almost identical blues and golds painting the air in the room and melting the tension completely as both Keiths turn to stare in surprise and total reverence.

The parallels are uncanny, at least until the other Keith speaks softly, “It’s been a decade a century long and I still don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that laugh.”

Lance chokes on a small, surprised giggle as Pidge casually speaks up, “So, how long have you two been married?”

Keith whips around to face her so quickly Lance swears he hears a crack, but Lance covers his face as blood rushes to his face, staining his cheekbones and the tips of his ears a bright red that he prays no one notices. Now that he considers it, it makes sense that the two are married- how close they are, the pet name, the way the other Keith listened to the other Lance- but he can’t understand the how.

That is, until the other Lance winks at him, another lilting laugh falling from his lips as it suddenly hits Lance like a freight train that he’s hopelessly in love with Keith.

Well, he wasn’t expecting that at all.

[lil-bumbum]

Shiro x male galra reader

  ×3rd pov×

M/n!! Please it's me!it's Shiro,  your friend! ", Shiro yells begging for his galran friend to respond.  (m/n) ignores his friends plea as he continues working with Haxus on the controls of the ship.  Sendak chuckles evilly.  " He won't help Shiro. ",  he says chuckling more.  "(m/n)! I know you remember me! You have too! You helped me escape!! ", Shiro yells,  now frustrated.  " After he had helped you we punished him and did some.......upgrading.",  Sendak says smiling at shiro's distress.

    "Sir, you should listen to this. ",  Haxus says to Sendak.  " What is it? ",  Sendak says still staring at Shiro, smirking.  " I found a radio signal,  sir.  We think there is another paladin inside the castle, sir. ", (m/n)  says,  catching Sendaks attention.  Sendak walks over to the pair.  There is static but if you listen hard you can hear the fuzzy,  muffled voices. " Make it clear.", Sendak demands getting a nod from (m/n).  The said boys expert hands flying across the controls.

    The signal gets clear enough to where you can clearly make out the words being spoken. "We now know where the paladin is.",  Haxus says smirking. " Follow the paladin,  then kill them. (m/n) you stay on the controls and wait. ",  Sendak orders.  (M/n)  once again nods as Haxus runs to find the paladin.  "You called me space cow because you read books about earth and you said my hair reminded you of a cow!!! ", Shiro yells,  his eyes full of sadness and hurt.

    (M/n)'s head snapped up and his hands froze. The collar around his neck sparked a little bit. Shiro's eyes widened as Lance laughed at the ridiculous nickname despite them being in a literal life or death situation.  'Why didn't I notice that collar before! '.  Shiro thought mentally smacking himself. " WHO SAID YOU CAN STOP!? GET BACK TO WORK! ", Sendak yelled making (m/n) snap out of his daze. " You never called me champion because you know how much I hate that name!"

    "You always said 'You have to fight it. If you let your arm control you then that means the galra wins.' You would steal food so that I can have something to eat! You were never scared of me even though I'm scared of myself! You helped me escape even though you knew that death is one of the punishments!! ",  Shiro yelled at the ravenette/white haired boy.  ((I think galrans only have black, purple or white hair)) . (M/n)  froze again.  All of the memories flooding back.

    (M/n) falls to his knees, clawing at his head. He screams in pain as he remembers his punishment. The knives, the whips, all of the blood and bruises.  Getting beaten to the point where he thought he would die. He whispers,  shaking and muttering to himself. Then (m/n) finally faints as his collar stops sparking and starts smoking.  Shiro and Lance stare, eyes wide.  Shiro's in shock and regret for leaving his friend. Lance's in shock and sympathy.

    Sendak walks to (m/n) 's unconscious body. Shiro eyes now filled with anger.  " DON'T TOUCH HIM! ",  he yells. Sendak ignores Shiro and taps (m/n) 's foot with his own. He growls turning around,  ready to strangle Shiro and Lance.  As he angrily walks toward the two there is a big boom,  echoing through the halls. The lights spasming on and off before finally stopping leaving everyone in darkness. Sendak yells in anger as his plan to take control of the ship back fires.

    The sounds of grunts and hitting reach his ears. The lights turn back on,  this time glowing blue instead of red meaning it's no longer under galran control. Sendak spins around.  The droids on the floor in pieces Shiro and Lance gone. He growls turning back around toward (m/n) 's body to find that he is also gone. He walks over to the controls and punches the table in anger. He now has no choice but to retreat.  Lance and Shiro runs, (m/n) in Shiro's arms.

    Shiro stares as (m/n) and notices his purple skin is paler than usual, his body lightly shaking, his eyes going back forth under their lids, and his breathing shaky. Shiro runs faster wanting to help his friend before its too late.

    ×TIMESKIP×

  Muffled talking echoes through the halls. Hunk staring at the stove ((Do alteans have stoves?)) thinking about what had happened. All of the lions we're almost taken and hundreds maybe even thousands of innocent lives were almost killed. And now there's galran in one of their healing pods. Hunk is snapped out of his thoughts by a sizzling sound. 'Balls, balls, balls! I forgot about the food'.  Hunk rushes to mix the oddly bright, chunky mixture so that it doesn't burn any more than it already has. He tuned off the stove and gets plated for the group and scoops up the bright green goop and puts it on each plate.

    He holds all of the plates on his arms like a waiter and makes his way to where the rest are thinking of what to do. He hears yelling as he walks closer to the closed doors. And almost drops the plates as the big door slams open and Shiro stomps away. Hunk regains his balance and walks into the room, nervously smiling at the tense, cold feeling radiating off of allura. He gives each member their plate and shaking makes his way toward allura, pulling his collar as he sweats. He quickly drops her plate in front her and runs to his spot.

×Shiro's P.O.V×

    I angrily stomp my way to the healing pods. I know I should calm down but I can't help it. It's not their fault that they're not fond of galrans but not ALL of them are evil. (M/n) proved that. He was the first to show me kindness and he wasn't afraid to help me. He gave me whatever I needed and he helped me escape with no hesitation. 'He's my........... friend. If the others gave him a chance the would realize he doesn't plan on hurting anyone'. I start thinking about what I had just thought about. 'What is (m/n) to me? '. I shake my head as I open the door to the healing pods. I walk over to (m/n) 's pod and stop. I feel my anger dissapear as its replaced with sadness and regret. My eyes soften as I look at the scars covering his body.

    'I should've taken you with me', I thought. I look at his face, he looks so worried and sad. I put my hand on the glass that separates us. I see his finger twitch and I jump back as his hand shot up. His hand in the spot where I had put my hand before I jumped back. I cautiously step forward reaching my hand out. I put my hand where his is. (M/n) 's eyes snap open and the pods starts opening. I step back again just in case he's still being controlled. But my caution flies out the window as I reach forward and catch him before he hits the floor.

 

 

×(M/N) POV×

    'Where am I? Why can't I move? '. I try to open my eyes but I'm rewarded with nothing. I slowly start to panic as I can't move no matter how hard I try. I stop as I hear muttering. " I should've taken you with me. ". 'That voice..... I know that voice!,I can't remember who that voice belong too.i have to see who they are!'. I again try to move but get nothing. I continue to try and then I feel my finger twitch. 'Yes! Just a little more'. I think as I slowly gain control of my arm.

    I move my arm trying to feel where I am since Im slowly gaining control of everything but my eyes are still heavy. I raise my hand up and I hit something cold and hard. I hear something shuffle and then I feel warmth where my hand is despite the glass being cold. I struggle to open my eyes and when they do I open all I can see is a blurry black shape. I hear a hissing sound and a mist surrounds me as I no longer feel the glass. I try to walk but instead I fall not being able to feel my legs. I put my hands in front of me to protect my face and they hit something warm and hard. I open my eyes and and notice I was in someone's arms. " (M/n)  are you okay!? ", a panicked voice says. I look up and my vision cleared and I recognized the mystery person as " Shiro? What..... where are we? ", I ask confused.

   Shiro holds me at arms length as i grab hold of his arms to keep me standing. He stares at me as I stare back in confusion. I open my mouth to say something but Shiro pulls me back into a hug. He nuzzles into my hair and holds me tighter to his hard chest. I feel him start to shake and I feel something wet. I look up as best as I can since I'm being crushed into his chest. "Shiro? ", I ask softly.

×3rd pov×

    " Shiro? ", (m/n) softly asks. Shiro looks down at (m/n) seeing his confusion. Shiro gently lifts his hand up to (m/n) 's cheek, softly rubbing his light/dark purple cheek. " I'm sorry, I'm so sorry", Shiro whispers to (m/n). (M/n) looks even more confused. "What are you apologizing for?", the galran asks his human..... friend? " I left you. I left you instead of taking you with me", Shiro says laying his forhead on (m/n) 's. (M/n) huffs. "We both know I wouldn't have left Shiro. Someone had to distract the guards and it definitely wasn't going to he you. ", (m/n) says. Shiro sighs knowing that he's right.

    " But they hurt you. I should've come back for you immediately after...", Shiro's voice cracks. (M/n) cuts him off. "No, Shiro. What's more important one life or millions of others? Besides I'm right here in front of you. In your arms. ", (m/n) says sternly but soft. Shiro looks into (m/n)'s (e/c) eyes. Those eyes that have always read him like an open books, the eyes that seem to be staring right into his soul. The eyes that made him melt and go soft. " I missed you.... so much", Shiro whispers after a moment of silence. "Me too.", (m/n) whispers back.

    (M/n) closes his eyes, leaning into Shiro hand as his fluffy purple ears twitch cutely. Shiro silently watches (m/n)  enjoy all of the warmth he's getting. Shiro hesitantly moves forward as he closes his eyes. His lips connecting with (m/n)'s. (M/n)'s eyes flew open in surprise as his ears rise up, he slowly closes his eyes and purr ((i feel like they would purr idk 😅)) enjoying the pleasant feeling of the humans lips on his. There are no Sparks or tingles but there is definitely love. The two seperate from the kiss and look into each other's eyes. " (M/n), I love you.", Shiro says sincerely. "Shiro,...... ". Shiro looks at (m/n) with hopeful eyes. "... I don't know what that means", (m/n) says nervously chuckling as Shiro sweat drops forgetting the galran boy doesn't know most human terms. Shiro chuckles hugging (m/n) again. " My galran boy", he says breathing in (m/n)'s scent. "My space cow", (m/n) says smirking evilly as Shiro's eyes snapped open and narrowed his eyes at his now lover.

   

[mommymooze]

Anxious Restraint

Sylvain x reader  

Warning: war, death, destruction, sad families, blood, injuries

Its a beautiful day during Great Tree Moon. Your nose is filled with the mixed scents of the flowers that are blooming everywhere, their petals catch in the winds and scatter across the cobblestones. You are strolling quietly through the pathways  of the school having just left one of your classes and heading to your next when you are suddenly joined by a fellow student, interrupting your thoughts about the upcoming battle.

Apparently, you have caught the eye of the school’s skirt-chaser, the notorious Sylvain Gautier. “Hey beautiful, how are you doing today?” He smoothly slithers up to your side, brushing his elbow up against yours.

“I’m fine, Sylvain” you respond listlessly, wishing this conversation was already over.

With his ‘every girl wants a piece of a guy who smiles like this’ look plastered on his face, he continues, “Want to grab some dinner with me today? Such a beautiful day would be even better if we shared a little time together, eh?”

Eyes straight ahead, you keep walking as if he’s not even there. “No thanks, I have to work on my magic and I was going to practice after grabbing a bite in the dining hall.”

“What about tomorrow?” He pushes.

“Tomorrow I have a test.” You just want him to stop. Mother taught you not to be rude, but he is testing every bit of your patience.

“And the next day?” He sounds desperate.

“Working with Felix on my sword skills. And improving my Pegasus riding so I can be a dark flier. I really have to get going.” Your voice getting louder as you run at top speed to anywhere before you lose your temper.

Sylvain is left in the dust, again. You’re in the same class as he is. You haven’t known him long, but Ingrid fills you in on his life history of philandering.  Classes keep everyone busy. You have to study fairly hard, but you are rewarded with great grades. Sylvain is smart, but doesn’t apply himself, he tells you he shouldn’t have to bother to be the best because no matter what, his dad’s just going to make him take his place someday. Seems like every time you see him he has a different girl hanging off his arm. He still asks you out once or twice a month. More out of a force of habit than anything else.

Time flies by with unusual problems happening quite frequently at the monastery. The Church sends the students out to fight their battles for them on a regular basis. Classes are taught, battles are won, then suddenly war is declared. The battle of Garreg Mach leaves everyone numb. You head home to find it is gone, the whole village burnt to the ground. Everyone you knew is gone, you’re unsure as to who lived and who died.  You become part of a mercenary group, continuing to fight and develop your skills and battle techniques. Your group will take any job that will take down Empire soldiers or people allied with them. Yuri hires your group a few times. Most of your jobs are in the Kingdom and Alliance territories.

Five years pass and you find yourself back at Garreg Mach, wondering if your friends will be there for the reunion planned so long ago. You are completely shocked when Byleth appears, fighting alongside a battleworn and feral Dimitri.

Once the battle ends the Blue Lions light up the stove in the kitchen, salvage what they can and cook up food that doesn’t quite go together but gets something in their stomachs for the night. Sitting around a table in the dining hall they each tell their stories of what they have been doing the past five years. Most of them protected their territories, saving their people. Byleth was sleeping, Dimitri is absent, everyone draws their own conclusions on what his time was spent on.

Sylvain finds you alone one afternoon sitting on a bench after having spent the entire day organizing and cleaning the library. “So you became a mercenary? You could have come to Gautier or even Fraldarius. Felix and I would have helped you. You didn’t have to be alone.” He said, sounding sad.

“I guess I needed to find myself after everything I knew was gone. I felt like I had to crawl my way up from the bottom. I refused to give up. I hadn’t planned on being a mercenary. I knew I wanted to keep fighting, keep working to be stronger, needing to make a difference for the right cause. Waking up every day knowing that I would work to improve the lives of the people, sure it didn’t win any major battles. But it made a difference to them. I gave them hope. Stealing supply wagons from the Empire and taking them to those that were starving or had no way to protect themselves kept me moving forward all of this time. I may have lost all of my things, but I gained a true purpose.

The next few days are filled with finding places to sleep, hunting and gathering food, repairing rooms and critical buildings, and greeting others that have returned such as Seteth and Flayn with the Knights of Seiros. You work with Byleth, offering to train anyone in reason magic.

Sylvain comes to your classes. You notice that he behaves himself, having grown up somewhat, and actually studies and gains better control of his magic. He finds you in the training grounds late one night, working with the new recruits and decides to lend a hand, helping them with their incantations, manipulation of runes or simply being encouraging.

Finally, the last student leaves. You wave as you grab your tomes and notes. Sylvain takes a seat on a nearby bench.

“You have your spellcasting mastered. I can really see the improvement since we were students.” Sylvain genuinely smiles.

You have a look of shock on your face. That has to be the sincerest compliment he has ever given you. “Um…thanks.” You weakly smile.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow.” He says waving as he turns.

You stumble after him quickly. “Sylvain, thank you very much for helping me tonight. If you hadn’t, I could have been here until morning. That was really sweet.”

He flashes a grin at you and heads out the door. You are confused. The Sylvain you remembered from before the war was always flirting and shirking work. Now he’s helping with working and training. He actually volunteers. Maybe he really is growing up.

Battles come and battles go. Being the eye in the sky, you are always watching out for your friends. After surviving for this many years of war, it would be heart wrenching to lose any of them now. You throw a Thoron into a group of archers that are terrorizing Felix. You guide Ingrid to help Ashe when someone is sneaking up on him. Always, always you have one eye on Sylvain, making sure he doesn’t get himself surrounded or run through on an enemy’s lance. The fights are all the same, only the names of the places change and the numbers of scars on everyone ever increases.

Reclaiming the Capital is a painful battle. Everyone’s heart breaks seeing the city in such ruin. The people are hiding from the soldiers on both sides. Titanus running amok cutting down everything in their paths. You fly quickly, attacking the Empire from the air, then leading innocent citizens to safety and hauling the wounded back to the rear of the lines to get healed. Fire and smoke is everywhere. Your Pegasus is breathing hard and needs a break. You leave it with the other beasts not currently in the fight and run in on foot to see where you can assist.  You scurry back to where you had seen the heaviest fighting just in time to see the last Titanus fall with a thundering crash. Dimitri, Dedue, Felix and Sylvain are dashing towards Cornelia. As soon as you are in range you hit her two closest archers with Swarm-z, slowing them down as well as injuring them. Felix and Sylvain defeat the enemies quickly. Dedue and Dimitri are facing Cornelia. Angered by your magic, she casts Luna Λ at you.  Normally you have a fairly high magic resistance, however this is a dark magic spell that doesn’t care what your resistance is, it’s going to hit and hit hard. Your last thoughts before you lose consciousness is that your friends can finish this easily and you are glad you’re on the ground and not falling off your Pegasus.

Waking up on a hard cot in the makeshift infirmary of the palace you hear the sounds of people walking softly and whispering all around. You mentally take inventory, wiggling toes and twitching fingers. Opening your eyes you have to blink a few times before you can finally get them to focus. At first you only see oranges and blacks, then you can focus a bit and see Sylvain and Annette standing at the foot of your cot. You see her point your direction and he turns to face you. He was frowning but when your eyes meet his, his face relaxes.

Kneeling down at the head of your bed he says softly, “Hey, welcome back. Think you can take a drink for me?” pulling a waterskin to your lips and lifting your head a bit, helping you take a few sips.

The water is cool and feels amazing on your parched throat. “Mmmm. Thanks.” You whisper as you smile up at him.

“Let’s see. What did you miss? After Cornelia hit you with that spell, she was easily taken down by Dimitri and Dedue. The fighting was over soon after that, we just had to take out a few pockets of enemy soldiers here and there.  As you can tell we took over the royal palace. The people rallied outside and demanded Dimitri to present himself to them. They’re accepting him as king and happy to have him back. Your Pegasus is in the royal stables, Ingrid was able to coax her in there. I had no idea she hates men so much, I almost lost my right hand, gauntlet and all.” Sylvain chuckles softly.

“Sorry. She was probably mad at me for leaving her in the first place. Glad I did.” You take another drink, the fog in your head lifting a little more.

Sylvain looks up at Annette, who is getting some bandages together for another patient. “Do you think she’ll be able to make it to the party tonight?”

“If she behaves. She’ll have to take it easy.” The shorter redhead points at you. “No dancing the night away.”

The cavalier pats your shoulder, “It’s nothing big, just the Lions hanging out together, to relax a minute before the next battle. Gotta take a break sometime, right?”

“I will try to make it. I haven’t even tried to sit up yet.” You mumble.

“When you’re ready we’ll sit you up. If you want to eat we’ll get you some food.” He begins, “After you’ve settled a bit we’ll try to get you walking around and show you to a room so you can clean up and change. I’ll come by before the party and help you get there if you want to go. Sometimes these corridors can all look alike. Wouldn’t want you spending half the night trying to find your way there.”

“Sitting up sounds like a good start.” You propose, knowing that magical wounds take time you recall. There’s only so much healing magic and potions they can pour into you. You weren’t sliced open and didn’t lose blood. Mostly once you wake up, you could go about your business, just treading a bit more carefully.

The cavalier is tall and agile, stepping over a few empty cots with his long legs he grabs a wooden chair and sits it down at the head of your bed. Before you can start to turn to stand up, he picks you up and gently places you seated in the chair.

“Wow.” You gasp. “Um..thanks.” a tinge of red warms across your cheeks.

“I grabbed one with arms so if you’re still tired you would have something to lean on. Are you feeling alright so far?”  He has the tiniest upturn to the corners of his mouth.

He looks adorable, you think to yourself. Wait. Sylvain. Adorable? Um…hey brain, are you going to answer him? “My head is a bit fuzzy.”

“I’ll check on you in a while, in time for lunch, ok?” the redhead says as he pats your hand while he walks past and leaves.

You sit looking around the room. Soldiers mixed with citizens. A woman with her baby is holding hands with a man that looks like he was badly burned. You can see the strength and determination in her face, she is being strong for him. A young boy sitting by the cot of an older man that is sleeping. The clerics are checking bandages, stopping to talk to every patient and giving them words of encouragement. The physical fighting here has ended, now everyone is gathering themselves together, healing, and getting ready to rebuild and make a better world.

You start moving yourself, getting your blood flowing and stretching, kicking your feet for a while then holding them up in the air. Soon you feel brave enough to try to stand up. Putting your feet on the ground you use the chair to help you stand on your own feet. You don’t feel like falling over, no affects so far except for some anxiety. You spy a chair 15 feet away and decide to go the distance. Your first few steps are taken gingerly, but you gain a bit of confidence and make it the last few steps fine. Sitting down your legs gave a bit so you came down a bit hard, but it felt good to move. Now you realize that you are in a simple gown and socks. Not exactly the best clothes for heading out of here, hopefully someone will be by soon to tell you what to do next. After taking a careful stroll back to your original chair, you spy Annette coming down the row of cots, checking on patients. You take a sip of water and wait for your turn.

“How’s your head? Any signs of a headache? Any pain anywhere?” Her bright and cheery smile always makes you smile back at her.

“I feel pretty good. Whoever worked on me did an amazing job. I just have a tiny headache. I’ve even been taking a few steps back and forth between the chairs here. So what should I do next?”

Annette reaches under your cot for a small bundle. ”We have a change of clothes and boots for you.” She shows you to the bathroom to change. You nod happily, “I would love to get real clothes on. It gives you the mental kick like you’re getting back to normal.”

“You have a great attitude! I’ll bet you’re fine in no time.” The redhead bubbles, walking with you to the powder room.

Clothes changed, washing your face and hands, you feel like a gold bullion. No mirrors in here, probably so the recovering wounded are not shocked about how they look after battle and keep concentrating on healing. You feel much more confident walking back to the chair by your cot.  Observing the healers running around, you feel quite useless and guilty for not being able to help them.  Before you spiral too far into a frustrating mindset, Sylvain arrives.

“Look at you, all ready to go!” He smiles. “They said if I take it easy with you, we can get you to the dining hall. Ready to give it a go?” He stands next to your chair, his elbow ready for you to grab it for support if needed.

“Sounds wonderful.” You stand up and place your hand on his forearm letting him lead you out of the infirmary.

The first few times he spies a bench he checks if you want to rest or keep going. The continued movement is a little tiring, but also feels really good getting your heart pumping. Once you really begin to feel tired you are already at the dining hall. Felix, Ingrid and Ashe already at the table with their food.

“Welcome back!” Ingrid smiles, waving with a roll in her hand. Felix does his usual nod in your general direction. Ashe waves excitedly as he tries to chew whatever he has in his mouth faster.

“Great to see you!” Ashe begins, switching to recalling his view of the end of the battle. “I saw Cornelia hit you with that spell, it was so scary. You were taking out her archers protecting her and then Bam! This ball of black and purple hit you and you go down. Dimitri and Dedue took her out and when Felix and Sylvain finished her other archers they put you on Sylvain’s horse and he took you straight back to the healers.”

Sylvain returns to the table with a tray full of food. “So I wasn’t sure what you were in the mood for, so I brought a few things. Doesn’t matter because whatever you don’t eat, Ingrid will finish for you.”

“Hey!” Ingrid puts her hands on her hips, pouting for a second. Then she changes her mind. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

You decide the soup and a soft roll may be a good place to start. Everyone chats about things that happened in the fight, trying to concentrate on good things that happened such as saving a child or protecting a merchant.

“Oh Ingrid! Thank you for taking care of my Pegasus and getting her stabled.” You happily pat her hand in thanks.

“It was nothing. She was being feisty and knucklehead over there tried to grab her reins and she didn’t take to it too kindly.” Ingrid grinned at the cavalier. “they are not the same as horses!”

The redhead puts his hands up, “I get it! I get it!”

Lunch ends and before you get a chance Sylvain grabs everyone’s dishes and piles them on his tray to take back.

You raise an eyebrow at Ingrid, she shrugs her shoulders. Felix and Ashe are already out the door talking about some training they are interested in. Ingrid says she will check on your Pegasus and let you know this evening how things are. You assure her you’re going to try to make the gathering tonight.

Sylvain returns, placing his arm at the ready, you grab on and as he escorts you, talking about his history here, having grown up frequently visiting the palace, how he would chase Ingrid, Dimitri and Felix down the halls until they would get in trouble and their amazing snowball fights in the courtyards.  He leads you down the corridor to your room. Annette and Mercedes are staying in the room next to yours.

“Who am I bunked up with?” You wonder.

“Nobody. This is all for you. The room is huge with a sitting area, a grand fireplace, a huge bed with multiple fluffy pillows and a bathroom with bathtub big enough to swim in. You spy your bags set on tables next to the dressers.

“I am so confused.” You don’t realize you are speaking out loud. “Why this special treatment? I’m just like everyone else. I don’t understand?”

“Remember when we were up against Cornelia?” Sylvain explains. “The person she looked at, the one she needed to stop first wasn’t Dimitri, wasn’t Dedue, it was you. You’re the most powerful mage we have.  Sure, Annette is pretty amazing, but she can’t do the damage you do. Cornelia saw it. I know you can dance circles around me. You’re pretty terrifying. We’re thrilled to have you on our side.”

You’re absolutely flabbergasted. You never compare yourself to anyone else. You go out, do your job. You feel a blush to your cheeks even though you find this hard to believe.

The redhead continues, “Then there’s the fact that you do this while flying on your Pegasus. We’ve seen you do maneuvers on that animal that shock Ingrid. You make some seriously fast dives, then stop. The wind force from its wings is stronger than some of Annette’s spells. I’ve seen enemy archers rolling over backwards from it.”

You could be knocked over by a Pegasus feather. You’re just a regular person in the army and he’s put you up on a pedestal…wait. This is Sylvain you’re thinking about. But it’s not his usual flirting escapades. Where is that flirtatious attitude anyway? You have spent a lot of time with him today and walked past plenty of pretty ladies, but you can’t recall his saying hello or paying a compliment to any of them.

“I think I should get a nap.” You say, not sure if you’re overwhelmed or tired or both.

“I’ll let you rest then. I’ll be back for you to get you to the party in plenty of time. See you in a few hours!” Sylvain smiles widely as he heads out the door, closing it behind him.

You sneak over to the door, hearing his footsteps going off into the distance. You peek out to watch him head down the long hallway. You watch him walk past a few female fellow soldiers without a hitch in his step. He comes to the end of the hallway where a cute maid is dusting a portrait and he just keeps going, not even giving the maid a sideways glance. Who is this guy and what have they done with Sylvain? You’re not sure, but you need to find out.

You decide a bath then a nap may clear your head. There are wonderful smelling soaps with flowers imbedded in them and something that smells fresh and relaxing for your hair. Cleansed and warm, it is definitely nap time. You comb your hair out, braiding it a bit and surround yourself by the fluffy pillows. You are asleep as soon as your head hits the pillows.

Several hours later you wake up, glad to see it’s not dark outside yet. You dress in a soft blue tunic and black slacks with your boots. You let your braids loose so your hair can dry. You head next door to visit Annette and Mercedes.

“Knock, knock, anyone home?” You chuckle.

“Hey! Come in!” Annette’s bubbly voice calls back. You enter, hmm, their room is much smaller than yours. You frown.

“Merci’s in the bath right now. Do you feel well enough to join us tonight?” Annette is looking at two outfits she has laid out on the bed, trying to decide which dress to wear.

“I’m about ready. I need to fix my hair a bit, that’s all.” You pause. “Annie, if I ask you some questions will you answer me honestly?”

“Pssshhh. Of course. We have no secrets.” The blue eyed woman smiles from ear to ear.

You want to ask her the right way, not fishing for compliments, because you don’t want that. “So. I’m just one of the many mages in the army, right? I’m no different than any other Pegasus rider. Just a regular old normal person.”

“Well…” Annette scrunches her eyebrows and puts her finger to her chin. “For Faith magic, nobody can beat Merci. Reason magic I’m pretty good, but you’re better than me, and Byleth too. You’re the only one that can cast Dark magic. Byleth does call on you frequently to do some very tough jobs, being out on the front lines where normally mages are not.”

“You can be quite scary!” Laughs Mercedes as she emerges from the bath in a short tunic and her slips. “A bolt of darkness coming down like a demon on the dark wings of your steed.”

“I guess I’m just confused by Sylvain. Did Byleth tell him to watch over me or something?” You look so flustered.

Mercie puts her hand over her mouth to hide a giggle.

“You should have seen him when he saw Cornelia hit you with her spell!” Annette is leaning so far forward off the bed she’s going to fall over any minute. “You fell over and he tried to run over there. Felix nearly pulled his arm out of his socket. He had to stay and finish the archers. Sylvain insisted on getting you back to the healer’s tent as fast as possible.”

“Why am I in a big room at the end of the hall all by myself? Shouldn’t I be bunked with someone?” You are grasping at anything trying to make sense of today.

“That could be from me.” Mercedes advises. “I did tell Dimitri that you need peace and quiet, healing from a magic injury is impeded by stress like loud noises or bad roommates.”

You shake your head a bit. Maybe you’re just tired and after a good night’s sleep you’ll be better in the morning. You remind yourself not to stay up too late at the party.

The three of you chat a bit, getting into gossip and girl talk. Dimitri and Byleth have been getting closer now that he has been feeling much better. You elbow the red-headed mage sitting next to you on the bed, teasing her about a certain dedicated swordsman. She refuses to admit if they have kissed yet, but by the redness on her cheeks, there is something going on there for sure. Mercedes admits to having a few cooking dates with Dedue. He is showing her how to make some dishes. She’s always felt comfortable baking desserts but not cooking main courses and side dishes.

The two ladies corner you asking if you have your heart set on anyone. Sheepishly you have to shrug your shoulders. You haven’t had time to do much beyond teaching the new mages and their battalions, being sent on a few covert missions, and working with the Pegasus knights training, working the stables and working out with your own steed. You see Ingrid the most of the group, frequently Dorothea would be hanging out nearby waiting for her.

Suddenly you notice the time and need to get back to your room to finish getting ready. You wave goodbye and will see them in a little while. There is a lovely vanity with an adjustable mirror. You take a seat and decide to braid your hair in one of the more intricate braids like Petra had shown you in recent months. Tying it with a white ribbon you leave it on your right shoulder.  Dusting your cheeks with a light rouge and dabbing your lips with a bit of color you’re done. This has probably been the closest you’ve been to being dressed up since the war started.

A knock on the door brings your attention back from staring at your face in the mirror. You walk quickly to the door to find Sylvain there, smiling brightly.

“You look…like you are feeling much better. Did you get to rest?” he asks.

“I feel great, I’m sure tomorrow I will feel even better.” You smile as he steps back to let you exit the room and he closes the door behind you. You grab the crook of his elbow like you had done earlier and he leads you to the parlor where the gathering is taking place.

“It is great to just hang out together for once. It has been exhausting.” Sylvain announces.

“War takes so much out of you. We have come so far, just a little bit more.” You sigh wistfully.

“The end is in sight.” The tall redhead says quietly. After a pause, he asks, “So have you thought about what you’re going to do after the war?”

“I don’t know.” You slow your pace, trying to gather your thoughts as you walk. “I’ve been so busy with the war, its hard to think about it being over. There is still going to be a million things that have to be done. Setting up government, rebuilding, trying to get everyone to work together. The work never ends.”

“Well, let’s not think about all that work for tonight.” He says as he pauses outside the room. “Let’s relax for just a bit before it all starts over again tomorrow.”

Inside the parlor is a large table with many chairs. Tables loaded with foods, fruits, savory treats and desserts. A large circle of comfortable chairs, couches, loveseats and settees with small tables scattered between them is the right, a few seats already occupied by Dedue, Dimitri, Byleth and Ingrid.

Everyone stands and greets you as you enter. You hug them all, so happy to be back together with everyone. Sylvain holds his hands out hopefully.

“Of course, you didn’t get one yet either.” You smile as you place your arms around him for his hug as well. He smells good. He hugs back ever so gently, his touch is feather light.

Byleth returns to the settee that she is sharing with Dimitri and asks you to sit next to her. You take a spot on the loveseat and chat with her about what happened during the battle from her point of view and she shares how proud she is of everyone. The rest of the Blue Lions filter into the room. Sylvain hands you a glass of water with lemon slices in it then walks over to talk to Felix who has found the spicy meatballs.

Once everyone has a drink in hand, Dimitri offers a toast thanking them all for their help in taking back the Kingdom capital. Plaudits of the attendees fill the room.

The conversations are lively. Ashe sits next to you for a while, talking about some new books he has ordered and offers to let you read them after he is finished. Annette also sits next to you for a while, talking about all of the different and delicious desserts. You prefer the peach tart, however you agree that the strawberry cheesecake is simply divine. The redhead then joins Felix on the couch on the other side of the room. Sylvain stands between you and Byleth, talking about differences in armor quality and comparing different blacksmiths. You invite him to ‘take a load off’ has he likes to say to others, as you move to let him sit next to Byleth and you sit on the other side of the seat, patting the loveseat for him to sit himself. He nods and smiles as he takes a seat and continues his conversation with the former Professor. Mercedes bustles through the room, taking your empty plate and another that Annette had left on the side table.

Sylvain finishes his conversation and looks out into the room. You tap him on the hand to get his attention.

“What have you been up to today?” You ask him.

“I had to work on repairs for my saddle, one of the cinching straps had become frayed. I don’t need it breaking and falling off in the middle of battle. I also had to make sure my horse is in great shape, trimmed her hooves and then took her out for a ride. I used to ride a lot out here with Dimitri. It was good to feel the wind through my hair, the sun on my back and simply ride just for the sake of riding.”

“That sounds delightful.” You think wistfully. “Just going for a ride to be riding. Can’t wait to be able to do that again.”

“Any time you are up for it I would be happy if you would like to join me.” Sylvain smiles.

You gently wrap your tiny hand around his much larger, calloused hand. “Sounds great.”

Another hour of chatting with your friends goes by until a yawn suddenly escapes your lips.

Sylvain immediately notices. “Looks like you have had enough fun for today. I should take you back, okay?”

“Mmmm. I agree. Mercedes will tie me to a cot if I don’t rest.” You giggle

Mercedes laughs, “I have ways of making you sleep.” Her voice is much deeper, lower than normal as she squints her eyes menacingly. She wiggles her fingers in a creepy taunting manner at you, making you laugh even more. Sylvain stands and offers his elbow for you to take. Both of you bid goodnight to everyone as you head back out to the corridors of the palace. You are silent as you both walk back to your room. At the door he is preparing to take his leave.

Placing your hand on his shoulder you stop him from moving. “I would like to talk with you, that is, if you want to speak with me as well.”

He gives a slight smile and follows you into your room. You move to the sitting area. You take a seat on a soft cushioned char, he sits on an identical chair next to you.

“First, thank you so much for all of the help you have provided to me today. Bringing water, helping steady me in the hallways, and making certain I was not lost wandering the palace looking for the party.” You say this with all the sincerity you can muster, placing your left hand on your chest to show your heartfelt thanks.

“It was the least I could do. You have given of yourself over and over, it was wonderful being able to help you today.” A tinge of red covers his cheeks. “You really should get some rest.”

You really want to talk to him but he is right, you can barely keep your eyes open. He opens the door to leave, but you hold your arms out to give him a hug goodnight. He gently wraps his arms around yours as you press your cheek into his chest, exhaling with a sigh. You wave as he steps through the threshold and closes the door.

 The early morning war council is held in one of the palace’s meeting rooms. Dimitri shares a message delivered to him earlier this morning. It is a plea for assistance from the alliance, Claude asks for help in Derdriu. Everyone agrees to make the detour to the city then head on towards Enbarr to finish the war.

Arriving at the coastal city, Claude has done an excellent job preparing the city for the fight with the Empire. The battle zone has been evacuated of the citizens and merchants. They only ones involved in the fighting are soldiers. The Kingdom’s army is motivated and strong, overtaking the Empire forces in record time.

There is a meeting between Dimitri, Byleth and Claude. Claude announces he is headed for his own future and wishes everyone well.

The Kingdom marches for Enbarr. The final battle in the war. Edelgard does nothing to prepare the citizens, they flee in the streets as the fight rages around them. The fight is long and bloody. There is no surrendering by Edelgard, she and Hubert fight until their last breath.

You volunteer to stay behind, but Ashe, Ingrid, Dorothea, Linhardt and Caspar remain to start the repairs and healing from the war. The rest return to the north. Sylvian and Felix return to their territories to check on everything and keep their lands going.

Back in the Kingdom capital, your days are filled with rebuilding, not just the buildings, but the mind and bodies of the citizens. You are always amongst the people, one day clearing rubble, the next helping in the orphanages, another day watching a mother’s children so she could take care of business. You explain you are doing this for king and country. If there is anyone to thank, it is Dimitri.

Soon everyone is gathered here again, this time for Dimitri’s coronation. The ceremony is long. Byleth being the archbishop has the honor of placing the crown upon the king. There are so many speeches and the lords of every territory must approach the king and promise their allegiance.

A grand ball celebrating the coronation is held in the evening. King Dimitri is seated at the head table, next to Archbishop Byleth. Felix is next to Dimitri as his chief advisor, Dedue next to him as his Vassal. Ashe and Ingrid are knights, standing guard behind them. They insisted on working, reveling in the honor of being among the first to protect the newly crowned King.

You sit with Annette, Mercedes, Dorothea, Caspar, Linhardt and Sylvain. The conversation is never ending, you haven’t seen several of them for months, so everyone has to catch up. Mercedes and Dedue are engaged. Annette and Felix are officially a couple, as well as Caspar and Linhardt. You have been busy helping restore the school of sorcery. They have been begging you to become a teacher, you are still considering your options.

The orchestra on the opposite side of the ballroom begins to play. The king and archbishop take the floor, starting the dancing for the remaining couples. Sylvain had been seated next to Dorothea and they spoke quietly with each other several times during dinner. You would look up and smile at him and he would always return the gesture.

After the first song ends, it was time for the rest of the couples to dance. You are shocked when he stands and walks over to you, asking you to dance with him. He takes your hand and leads you to the floor. The first few minutes you smile at each other. Then you hear him sigh. You catch his eyes and he smiles at you.

“I’ve missed you.” Sylvain whispers softly in your ear.

“I was hoping you lived close enough that you could come visit here more frequently. Maps can be quite deceiving.” You frown briefly, “How are things in Gautier?”

Sylvain seems to stiffen a bit. “My father is going to step down, leaving me to take his place.”

You try not to frown, “Is that what you want to do?”

He hesitates as the song is ending and he asks you to step outside with him. You stroll through the gardens together, the smell of moist earth and roses fills the air. You stop far enough away that the brightness of the party no longer blocks the light of the stars on this perfectly clear night.

He seats you on a bench, taking a the spot next to you. He leans back and looks up at the stars.

You can’t look away from his face, so you simply watch him watching the twinkling in the skies.

He gently takes your hand in his. “I never wanted to take my father’s place. I never wanted to be like him or like he wanted me to be. I was always such a rebel. I wanted to ruin the world around me, pay it back for all the pain that I had been through. There was nothing that I was looking forward to, being forced to fit in the mold that my father made for me. When they had announced that Dimitri would be executed it made my father physically ill. The kingdom had fallen that day to him. He had no hope left. He stopped pushing me to get married. He couldn’t arrange anything, not knowing who would come out victorious. He didn’t know if he would be keeping his position or would the Empire trample him into the ground. He stopped leaning on me that I would have to be the next margrave, not having any idea how long he was to be the current one. I no longer had anything to defy, to rebel against. I pulled back. I had to learn how to take care of myself properly. Then we came back for the reunion. I had been feeling sorry for myself, then I found out you had lost everything. I saw how strong you had become. Even though you had nothing you had such passion to help everyone else to be better. It was so beautiful. I had never seen anything so beautiful. It wasn’t just a smile, a pretty face, it was radiating from so deep within you. I wanted to be near you, that’s why I had offered to help you, just to be near you. I knew I wasn’t worthy of you. But if I helped you at least I could be close to you. When Cornelia hurt you, I went mad. I thought you were dead. Felix brought me back, telling me we had to finish what you started. I wanted to talk to you after you were recovering, but then we were pulled into Derdriu and went to Enbarr right after that. And then I had to go back to Gautier. After the war, when I went back I thought my father would lord over me, make me continue to do everything his way. But he’s become tired. My parents are going to move to the coast to spend the rest of their days. Managing Gautier is left to me to handle as I see fit. I’ve been working on reaching out to the Sreng, to see if we can find peace between us. Everyone is so tired of the fighting. I know I am. Maybe I could be the Margrave, but I can’t do it alone. I’d like you to help me, teach me to be a good leader, to do right by my people. I would do anything and everything for you.”

You squeeze his hand. “At the reunion I noticed a big change in you. I wanted to talk to you about it but the war never let us have five minutes to ourselves. I noticed you were behaving differently. I wanted so badly to talk to you after we won back the capital, but the war jumped between us again. Maybe the only way I can have an opportunity to speak with you for any length of time would be to go to Gautier with you.” You grin at him.

“I really don’t deserve you.” He puts his arm around you for a half hug. “I know you are so good with the people. Everyone here loves you.” He rests his cheek on the top of your head.

You’re beginning to become flustered. At the moment you miss the old flirty Sylvain. He’s acting..shy? Inviting you to Gautier sounded like a business transaction more than inviting a woman over. “Are you seeing anyone right now? Have you decided what you want to do for yourself?” you ask.  

“Uh. No. I haven’t really thought about it for a long time. Its like once the pressure was off from my father, I just didn’t need to do that anymore. But yeah, I want to get married to a woman that I love, maybe have children, and shower them with as much love as I can muster. Make peace with the Sreng. Make the people of Gautier happy too. What about you? Are you seeing anyone? What do you want?”

“Well, I’ve always wanted to get married and have children. Now that the war is over that certainly is a possibility.” You begin. “And you know I like to help people, help them help themselves. I am seriously considering a job offer that I feel I am qualified for. I’m thrilled to find that someone I have been interested in for quite a while is currently single. So things are looking pretty good.” You look up at his face smiling.

Sylvain looks down at you smiling, but unsure.

Your hands slide up his chest, going around his neck and you pull him down toward you, finally he gets the idea and bends down to kiss you gently.

“That took you forever.” You gasp smiling up at him.

“I thought I had already missed my chance. I thought at least if I could be near you that would be fine.” He smiles, kissing you again.

“Ever since I saw you at the reunion, I could tell you were different in the best sort of way. You weren’t hiding behind a mask, you were acting like yourself. As long as you be your true self with me, I will always want to be near you.” You hold Sylvain tightly under the stars.

 *****Epilogue

The wedding is the following spring. Both of you frequently travel all about Gautier territory, constantly talking with the people and responding to their needs. You find some people that speak Sreng and learn the language and culture well enough to be able to parlay and work towards a peace agreement. You give up some of the Gautier lands that the Sreng say are important to them. In turn they pay for this property with many rare minerals and jewels that are from their lands. You use this money to improve the roads and lives for the people of Gautier. Sylvain does spoil you rotten. You have at least 8 children and have no idea if any has a crest, not that you care. The Lance of Ruin is given to Byleth to do whatever she wants with the horrid weapon.

[halfhappyhooligan]

a voltron au? in 2020? it’s more likely than you think

look. LOOK. i know that voltron is stupid and we hate it but lets be honest: everything up until season 3 was pretty good and had lots of potential !!

today i was rewatching voltron and a thought struck me: what if, instead of shiro being cloned, he was chipped and turned to the side of the galra?

so here it is, i did not blink since i thought of this

(warning, i have not seen voltron in a while and this is just knowledge i have stored in my moss brain and stuff i know from rewatching the first season)

au where shiro goes evil bc of what happens @ end of season one instead of the clone thing bc 1) haggar rly could not have made thousands of shiros after bumping into team voltron like what twice? its hella improbable and 2) just… weird

so instead they insert a chip in him that helps them spy and control him just like kuron (the clone) did minus the unlikely storytelling

eventually after the convo with sendak when he was in the pod trying to temp shirp, he does have thoughts about helping zarkon

(“im already infiltrated with the arm, i could just speed up the process by leaving now. save the team the trouble of investing in a leader that’s doomed to fail from the strart.”)

shiro ends up leaving team voltron in season 2 after zarkon goes crazy w the black lion n stuff

^^ this adds to Keith’s reasoning of joining the Blade of Marmora (shiro is his main stability and one of the main reasons he even stuck around with team voltron, so with shiro gone and keith questioning his place as the leader and paladin of the black lion, he decides the BoM is just.. what’s best for him) 

obviously lance isn’t happy with this (“you just told me that i’m a valuable member, now you don’t think YOU are? what logic is that?”)

ofc keith goes anyways

lance becomes paladin of the black lion

allura takes on the red lion

who has blue lion? ...idk this isn’t that thought out (maybe matt after pidge finds her family) (which will happen earlier in the plot since we can forget about the miniplot of black no longer responding to shiro)

enter lotor only this time he has a sidekick and what omg its shiro wow

shiro has that bigger version of his arm that was once offered to him

he’s stronger and scary, but his eyes aren’t the same, he has the strength of a galra but lacks the passion 

in the fight between lotor and zarkon, (and after, of course lots of self doubt and questioning) shiro comes between them and convinces lotor NOT to kill zarkon

then zarkon kills lotor

everyones like oh shit bc surely someone who’s life was just spared wouldn’t kill the person who seems to have the most power

but he did. bc he’s zarkon. and he’s fckn crazy.

shiro doesn’t go back to team voltron bc its too much too easily

instead he takes the place of lotor in the group of gals 

he convinces them all to rebel against the galra

eventually they teach him all about quintessence and all the shit lotor had planned that they can’t do anymore

(lotor wasn’t harvesting alteans in this universe bc what the heck even was that subplot that had little to no relevance to the main storyline?

instead he was trying to find a way to technologically bring back alteans (kinda like how allure’s dad was originally preserved in s1)

i know nothing about How Stuff Works and i dont remember much about quintessence n shit but the basic idea is that when tying in some of a persons artifacts with technology stuff and some quintessence then boom. a weird route from astral projection land to the team is created and ppl can come back or smth idfk

but lotor was never able to get the comet so shiro decides he and the gals will get that comet and try to bring back as many alteans as they can

^ all this while infiltrating as many galra fleets as possible + saving planets under galra empire

they personally visit every planet that lotor was in charge of and release them from galra control

they are able to bring back an altean (its romelle) and she talks abt her friend who lives on the balmera and they go to the balmera and its revealed that it was shay’s great grandmother so romelle asks where shay is and shay’s family is like with team voltron of course

so

they take her

obviously team voltron, the BoM and the Rebels r very hesitant to make contact but they decide to try it out

keith refuses to meet, instead he’s on the team that stands guard

reunions !! 

romelle and shay hit it off and hunk makes a dinner much like roselle’s past (allura and coran also hang out and they all vibe)

lance talks to shiro abt everything to do with keith and shiro is like dude do u??? like him?

and lance is like what? no ofc not—oh shit.

and keith ✨overhears ✨

pidge matt and shiro catch up n shit

meanwhile keith is like Hey Lance Uhhhhhh What The Fuck

they end up being like hey since we’re all here and we hate zarkon what if we make a plan to end the galra’s reign Right Now

so they do

and y’all.. it’s hella baller plan

except something is going wrong and in the middle of an attack zarkon is able to get the upper hand 

due to haggar’s magic and lance’s mental and emotional instability, zarkon is able to get in his head

everyone is trying to talk him down but they’re all under a lot of pressure

allura is also conflicted bc she wanted to be black lion bc she wanted to rub it in to zarkon’s face that she was stronger than he and that she could beat him at his own game

but the negativity and instability feeds into zarkon’s power and makes him and haggar stronger as they pull in voltron to finally take over the team and regain their status as the most powerful alien race

hunk realizes this and is like okay can y’all stop being negative? its clearly affecting them in a good way and it makes us an easier target

and pidge is like im literally a child pls i don’t wanna die i just got my family back it can’t end like this

shiro realizes what’s going on and he goes to save them

he uses all his energy, pulling in the positive memories (everything: first learning about space, becoming a teacher, meeting adam, meeting keith, first making team voltron, his friends and family--all of it) to push back zarkon and haggar’s powers and battle once more in the astral realm 

in defeating zarkon, shiro loses his life

afterwards keith enters the ship in a hurry and is like where the fuck is shiro where’s my brother what did you do what happened

and team voltron is like hey man.. we are so so sorry

and keith cries because the last thing he ever said to shiro was mean

lance feels like its all his fault since he was supposed to be a good leader

they talk about separately while hunk pidge and allura discuss

krolia is like keith we, ur family, are here for u

and axca is there and shes like um?? hey?? sry for trying to kill u bro

and he’s like i absolutely do not wanna talk i just lost my closest friend

they talk about it later

axca tells keith abt shiro finishing lotor’s work and abt bringing people back and well.. 

they use the methods to help keith visit shiro in the astral realm

shiro is like oh uh hey i was just having a drink w adam we r happy

and keith is like shiro u fuckhead why would u sacrifice urself

shiro sighs bc cmon keith you KNOW why “remember what i always said? we can’t focus on what went wrong..”

“we’ve got to figure out how to make it right” keith finishes

keith breaks tf down crying and screams apologizing

“i love u shiro. ur a like a big brother to me.”

and shiro is like yeah i know and ilyt but hey. everyone’s safe and happy. im safe and happy. & you deserve to be too. you don’t need me anymore.

so the galra rule is over and everyone goes to their respected planets

romelle and the other alteans as well as some galra babes hang in earth

romelle and shay r in an apartment together and have a garden

allura realizes she may not have been the strongest leader for voltron, and  couldn’t stop zarkon on her own but that physical strength doesn’t define her as a whole

her heart is strong enough to care for everyone, so thats what she does

allura starts running an inn for alteans filled with painted sceneries like altea in case anyone ever needs a reminder of home

when lance reunites with his family its a real tearjerker

rachel finally gets her jacket back and veronica is like So.. Axca 👀

the McClain’s host a huge party for everyone and it’s filled with lots of hugs and loud music and even tho lance was way too tired, he danced all night

he wouldn’t trade his family for the world—genetic and chosen

when hunk reunites with his parents they don’t let him out the house for hours, he tells them all about his new best friend shay as well as hundreds of his favorites stories from space

they are so, so proud of him

hunk spends the next days playing minecraft and animal crossing with pidge, giving their brains a rest from being on hyperdrive for 3 yrs straight

when pidge gets home she finally gets grounded by her mom, only being allowed to leave the house to see her old teammates

(same for matt and her dad)

(her mother cries so hard when they opened the door to the home)

the holt family holds movie nights filled with popcorn, cuddles, and tears

keith moves in with the holt family, and finally accepts that he has a home as well as a family

he often goes on trips with the BoM but mostly just stays on earth

after a Team Voltron sleepover in the altea inn keith and lance decide to get an apartment together and live their lives in love and in peace

everyone gets together once a year in celebration of shiro and the sacrifice he made for them

they use the ship to visit Astral Shiro and once they even met adam

everyone laughs and catches up and just... live their lives

everyone is happy

pls ignore any and all errors lmao

again, just a thought !! maybe i’ll write a fic abt it idk for sure but yeah

feel free to add anything <3

[emblem-fire]

Black Eagle!Dedue AU

Dedue starts classes in the Blue Lions House, but he isn’t totally loyal to Dimitri like he is in the canon. In this AU, he is bitter about the Murder of Duscur and about Dimitri’s refusal to do anything in terms of reparations.

Dedue spends two moons in the blue lions and in that time, he is consistently belittled and degraded by Felix and Ingrid for his heritage. He doesn’t get this treatment from his other classmates but they seldom defend him. This refusal to take action leads to a rift between the Dedue and the rest of his class. For a while, he feels totally alone.

One day, Ingrid gets exceptionally racist in the mess hall and it draws attention. Again, none in the Blue Lions stand up for Dedue but to Dedue’s surprise, quite a few Black Eagles come to his defense immediately. This leads to a spat between the the black eagles, Petra, Dorothea and Ferdinand in particular, and Ingrid and Felix. Seteth breaks up the argument but before they leave, the Black Eagles invite Dedue to their table. Dedue thinks on it a minute before he stands with his food and he goes to join them. He starts sitting with and just generally hanging out with the Eagles from then on, but it doesn’t push him to switch classes.

From then, Dedue builds relationships with most of the Eagles.

Petra becomes friends with him first, and they bond over their mutual feelings of homesickness. They become good friends doing cool friend shit like hunting and fishing together and kicking the shit out of racist monks and students. Idk I just want them to be bros, dude.

Dorothea becomes friends with him by asking him about the arts of Duscur. He’s wary of her initially, but he eventually warms up to her and he even sings the songs he remembers for her.

Ferdinand tries to be a protector to Dedue at first but that annoyed Dedue more than anything. Dedue tries to explain that he doesn’t need a defender and that while he appreciates the thought, he would rather not have Ferdinand stick his neck out like that. Ferdinand obliges, albeit a bit confused as to why someone would refuse a noble’s protection.

 Caspar becomes friends with Dedue because of how built he is. They train together all the time, and though Caspar is a bit too rambunctious for Dedue’s tastes, he indulges him anyways and he develops a friendship with him.

What pushes Dedue to leave the Blue Lions is his paralouge. Dimitri refuses to defend the Duscur rebels. He says that there are more important matters at hand, so he turns his back on the people who just want their homes back. Desperate and enraged, Dedue turns to the eagles and begs them for their aid. Without question, Byleth and Edelgard agree to help him and together, they help the Duscari rebels fend off the battalion of Faerghus soldiers. Afterwards, Edelgard offers the rebels a haven in Enbarr, so that they may live in peace. The rebels accept her offer and they go to Enbarr as temporary refugees, but with plans to take their lands back in one way or another.

Dedue is thoroughly shocked that Edelgard was so ready to aid his people who have been seen as lessers for so long and he’s even more shocked when she offers the people of Duscur her protection and a temporary home in Enbarr. It is here where Edelgard confides in Dedue that when she is Emperor, she wants to create a world of equals in terms of rights and protections. It’s vague but it’s enough for him to turn his back on Dimitri all together and join the Eagles because in this one act of aid, she has done more for Duscur than Dimitri has in his entire life.

Ingrid is predictably vindictive about his choice to leave, but everyone else is amicable about it, ranging from sad to indifferent.

When the war rolls around, Dedue doesn’t think twice about siding with the empire.

Dialogue vs former classmates

Dimitri

Dimitri: Dedue!

Dedue: Your Highness.

Dimitri: I don’t understand, how could you side with her? Can you not see the destruction that she has wrought?

Dedue: With her help, Duscur can reclaim what it has lost. She offers a future for my people, whereas Faerghus sees us as little more than a remnant of the past.

Dimitri: Faithless turncoat! Very well, then. If you fight for her despotic visions, then you’ll die too!

Ingrid

Ingrid: Duscari scum! I will rid you from the world for your treachery!

Dedue: No, Ingrid. You will only die trying.

Felix

Felix: Even if you’ve left the boar, you’re still nothing more than a dog. The only thing that’s changed is your master.

Dedue: I have no words for you.

Felix: Good. Come fight me and die.

Sylvain

Sylvain: So, this new world Edelgard wants to build is one where crests are insignificant?

Dedue: Yes. If you lay down your arms, I can promise you that you’ll have a place in it too.

Sylvain: Tempting, but I’m afraid I’ve already found a cause worth fighting for.

Dedue: Your sense of duty will get you killed.

Sylvain: I have the Lance of Ruin on my side, Dedue. I’ll take my chances.

Annette

Annette: I know I should hate you for siding with her…

Dedue: …

Annette: But, I don’t. I really do understand why you did.

Dedue: We don’t need to fight, Annette. Surrender, and I will see that you are treated with fairness and dignity.

Annette: I’m sorry, but I can’t. I will not lose my father again. Prepare yourself, I won’t go easy on you.

Ashe

Ashe: I was hoping we wouldn’t have to fight.

Dedue: As was I. I don’t suppose I can convince you to lay down your bow and surrender?

Ashe: I’m sorry, but no. I have a duty to fulfill. Even if it means I’ll die fulfilling it.

Mercedes

Mercedes: Oh! It really is lovely to see you again. It’s a shame that it’s like this, isn’t it?

Dedue: I don’t want to fight you, Mercedes. Please, stand down.

Mercedes: If only it were so simple, Dedue.

Endings in Crimson Flower route

Solo Ending

After the war finally came to a halt, the people of Duscur were able to reclaim what they had lost and then some. Dedue was widely celebrated as a hero to his people and he became the first leader of Duscur. The people wanted him to rule as a king, but he proposed a more democratic rule. Even so, Dedue was never voted out of office and under his selfless leadership, Duscur was able to bloom into a wealthy nation with rich art and world famous cuisine.

Ending with Ferdinand

After the war had finally came to a halt, the people of Duscur were finally able to reclaim what they lost and then some. Dedue became a hero to his people and together with the aid of Ferdinand von Aegir, Duscur healed from the scars of it’s past and it blossomed into a vibrant nation which was rich in trade and art. Later, after both Dedue and Ferdinand had passed, letters between the two were discovered, the contents of which were described by poets and scholars as the most beautiful and intimate expressions of love and gratitude to ever be written.

Ending with Petra

After the war had come to a close, Petra was finally crowned as the Queen of Brigid. From the very start of her reign, Petra worked hard to establish strong diplomatic relations with not just Fódlan, but with Dagda, Almyra, Morfis and the newly rebuilt Duscur. Dedue, as the new leader of Duscur, would meet with Petra regularly to make sure that their two nations grew strong together, though later, these meetings would become more private affairs. Eventually, Dedue announced that he would not be running for another term and he left Duscur to be with Petra, to whom he was wed almost as soon as he arrived in Brigid. The people were initially skeptical of him but Dedue’s tireless devotion to his new subjects earned him their love and admiration. To this day, Dedue and Petra are revered in both Duscur and Brigid and the two nations enjoy a high degree of camaraderie.

Ending with Dorothea

When the war finally came to a close, Dorothea accompanied her husband, Dedue to Duscur. Together, they got to work rebuilding Duscur, though in two very different ways. Dedue became the first elected leader of Duscur and his policies made sure that the country was built strongly in terms of infrastructure and with its economy. Dorothea, on the other hand, became a patron of the arts and she oversaw the creation of a new Opera company in Duscur which took in talent from all over the world. This diversity of artists effectively revolutionized art itself, and before long, Duscur was known far and wide for it’s wide array of arts. For as busy as the couple was, however, they always made time for one another and it is said that no union was ever as happy and serene as theirs was.

Ending with Caspar

In recognition of his daring deeds during the war, Caspar was offered the position of Minister of Military Affairs, but he declined. Instead, Caspar accompanied Dedue and his people to help rebuild Duscur. Unfortunately, hatred for Duscur persisted in the north of Fódlan. This led to the creation of a military dedicated to the defense of Duscur, helmed jointly by Caspar and Dedue. Thanks to their tireless efforts, Duscur remained safe and in time, the nation was able to heal and bloom into a wondrous country of wealth and formidable military might. To this day, Dedue and Caspar are remembered as the greatest of all of Duscur’s heroes, even being called the sons of the War God by some.

Ending with Bernadetta

After the war had finally come to a close, Bernadetta was granted the Varley territory, but instead of taking over, she chose a more adept successor and relinquished all claims to the territory. From there, she became a traveling artist of great renown. She ventured far and wide, from Brigid to Sreng to Almyra, but eventually, she found herself in Duscur and she fell in love with the culture. Her paintings of Duscur and it’s denizens became beloved by the people to the point were Dedue, the new leader of Duscur, had to beg her to stay. She inevitably stayed and with her help, art museums were established in Duscur. In time, these became among the finest in the world, filled to the brim with the beautiful works of Duscur’s many artists.

This was pretty cool to write haha. If anyone is interested in me writing more endings for this AU or maybe even Dedue’s supports with the Black Eagles and the Golden Deer let me know!

[chaoticevilbean]

Four In One : Chapter Four

With the help of his alien comrades, Lance had a plan of action ready for his big reveal. While Hunk made dinner, Allura kept the other Paladins out of the lounge and Coran and Lance began to work. On the farthest point away from the nest they installed a small platform that would fit Lance when he was sitting down. It was perfectly level with the nest and Coran added a few blankets there despite Lance saying he was fine.

"Nonsense, Number Three. It may be temporary but that doesn't mean it can't be comfortable."

They attached a ladder to the platform so that Lance could reach it and headed out, their work finished. Sort-of. Coran made a beeline for the kitchen and Allura dragged Lance off to someone's old personal quarters without any explanation. She sat him down on a chair and disappeared into a closet, leaving him confused and slightly worried.

"So, I realized while I was waiting that you probably can't use some of the same products that we do," the princess spoke over her shoulder. "So that got me thinking. How are we supposed to groom your wings after this reveal if none of the products do much good? You've obviously taken the time to groom them yourself, and you do it well, but you also know all the techniques and ways to make use of what you've got since they are your wings. And I remembered a certain fellow back on Altea who had wings. He was half Altean, half Gullruck, which is a scaled bipedal race, much like those dragon-borns that Pidge showed me. And he was born with both feathers and scales, because Alteans are primarily feathered and Gullrucks don't have wings, but they always have scales, even hybrids." Allura stepped out of the closet with a large box in her hands, grinning. "So I looked it up rather quickly and found that I was right."

"Right about what," Lance inquired carefully.

"One of the Blue Paladins of Voltron was the Altean-Gullruck. This," she set the box down in front of Lance, "is his old wing-care products. Even after ten thousand years, these will be usable. One of the marvels of the Gullrucks' ingenuity."

Lance leaned forward to gaze into the box, and his breath left him in shock. There were oils and cleaners, and tools for getting under feathers and scales alike, and there were treatments for rotting and for molts. As a teen who valued self-care and had struggled to groom and maintain his wings for his entire life, it was a box filled with treasure.

"Lura," he started, swallowing when his voice came out thick. "Lura, this is the best present ever." For her part, the princess didn't seem too uncomfortable at the new nickname, or at the emotions playing out on Lance's face. In fact, she promptly pulled him into a hug, speaking softly in his ear.

"I'm glad I could help, Lance."

The two hugged for a few ticks more before releasing each other, which started them onto the task of going through the box. Allura explained what each word on the containers meant, since most of them were written in Gullrooki, and Lance was still learning Altean. They sorted the products between scales, feathers, and both, and by the end of it, the conversation had taken a full turn into Lance's nightly self-care routine and how Allura might begin to try it.

"There you two are," a voice called from the entrance. The two turned to see Shiro poking his head into the room. "We've been looking all over for you, and Hunk was about to cry when I told them I heard you talking."

"Sorry, Dad," Lance responded distractedly as he picked up the organized box. "Allura and I were talking self-care and she might do a facemask tonight, so we had to make sure we have enough supplies. She's definitely gonna do it again once she tries it." The Blue Paladin strolled past Shiro easily, once again oblivious to the way his words affected those around him. He went straightaway to the dining room, where he was crushed by a hug from Hunk

~ ~ ~

"Did he- did he just," Shiro stuttered out, unable to form the sentence bouncing in his skull. None of the kids had ever- they joked but none had said- they never directly called him-

"I think he did," Allura hummed as she patted his metal arm on her way out the door.

"He said 'Dad'," Shiro whispered to himself. "I'm a father!"

Another thought came to him of his ex-SO, co-parent of Keith.

"Adam's gonna kill me!"

~ ~ ~

Dinner got all of them into the best moods they had been in since they were kidnapped by the Blue Lion slash woken up 10,000 years after the destruction of their planet. Hunk had made garlic knots and spaghetti, meaning Pidge and Lance both nearly cried at the Earth foods, or the best equivalents they could get. Keith tried to add cheese to his pasta, but it was quickly snatched from his hands by Shiro, who informed the team that Keith was lactose intolerant and it was amazing that this was only the first time so far that he had attempted death by dairy. The Red Paladin had pouted- "It's a scowl!" "I'm pretty sure that's a pout." "Urgh!" -until Lance promised he would get Keith a new knife at the space mall if he avoided lactose 'til then.

When Shiro called for grooming, Lance's stomach twisted a little, and not from eating too many garlic knots. He was about to reveal his biggest secret yet, and he could barely handle his emotions. Nonetheless, he was right behind the others as they rushed into the lounge, only paying small glances at the new platform. Lance separated then, climbing up to the temporary structure he and Coran had built and situating himself among the blankets.

"Um, loʻu uso?" Hunk called, falling back into their old titles now that the others wouldn't question it. "What are you doing over there?"

"Sì, e cosa sono queste cose aliene?" Pidge added, testing her new knowledge of Lance's skills as she looked at the new box. Yes, and what are these alien things? The others stared at her but she waved them off, motioning for the distant boy to answer. Lance was silent for a dobash, allowing his team time to take in his tense shoulders and fidgeting hands. The boy cleared his throat before turning so his side was to the group.

"Hunk, mi hermano, do you think you could groom my wings?" he asked, quiet. Hunk, for his credit, wasted no time in responding.

"Of course, although you probably need to come closer." Lance shook his head, smiling slightly, before releasing his hidden wings and slowly but surely unfurling a bottom one. It made it's way past the edge of the nest and stopped about halfway unfolded as the tip touched the wall. The other appendages were there, and with a lower one extended, it was clear there were four instead of two.

The team was silent in awe, and when he turned his head, the Cuban boy could see that they were staring at the feathers and scales. Only this morning he had brought up someone having all four mutations, and now they recognized that as a test to see if they would accept him. All the times he made sure they knew he wanted them as a flock, but never let his wings show was his way of handling what he probably considered his biggest secret. Shiro was glaring at Coran, who sat next to him, noticing the man's lack of reaction. Keith was doing the same to Allura, though neither glares had heat. It was the sort-of glare that said 'how dare you know this before me'.

"We're gonna need a bigger nest," was the first thing said. It was said by Hunk who was holding a feather brush in his hand and realizing that the wing before him was only an eighth of what they would need to groom.

"You're lucky that Coran and I suspected before Lance showed us," Allura spoke as she fluttered out of the nest with the box that was now easily recognized as Lance's wing-care products. Shiro almost facepalmed at how he hadn't noticed when it passed him earlier, but thought better of it after remembering what Lance had called him.

Lance pulled his wing back in, though no longer hiding them, and leapt from the platform. with just enough of his wings out to glide down gently. His heart was ready to burst from elation as he watched his Space Flock rush to pick up their grooming supplies and as many blankets and pillows as they could. Keith tossed several pieces of bedding at the Cuban, who caught them with slacked movements in his daze. When they had all made their way down, Lance found himself in the center of the bunch, following the now moving Allura.

They were led by the Altean to a nearby room, one that none of them had entered due to lack of necessity. It might've once been a room meant for parties, much like a ballroom, but now it had a floor of pillows and blankets and quilts and rugs and comforters and sheets and cushions. The walls were lined at the bottom with more soft materials, all thick enough pad the hard surfaces. Pidge instantly dropped her load and dove into the nest, sinking into the fabrics with a sigh... and continued sinking until she was barely seen where she was laying on her back.

"Pidge, did you die?" Keith asked.

"Only on the inside." They all gave sighs of relief, before setting up the supplies on the edges of the nest so they didn't sink in. Pidge's brush took a while to find since it had sunk nearly as much as she had, but Coran pulled it out on his first try.

Lance was still on cloud nine when Hunk shoved him into the middle of the nest, which was over 70 by 70 feet squared.

"Spread out your wings, Lance," he instructed, setting down a few of the tools and products from the new supplies. Lance complied, extending all four of his wings out as far as he could. Upon finding that he could do so and have plenty of space on all sides despite his wingspan of roughly sixty feet, he flopped backwards, submerging his torso in pillows and cushions. His smaller set overlapped the larger, warmth seeping into the bedding below.

"Eeyuh," Lance spluttered as something small wriggled its way between his wings. Lifting the lower right just barely, he saw a mess of brown hair and green pajamas and feathers.

"Pidge, what are you doing? We're grooming right now," Shiro deadpanned. Hunk extended a hand to pull Lance upright, dislodging the youngest human.

"Ugh, gosh, you're heavy," the Samoan panted.

"You try having a sixty-four foot wingspan on top of a fifty-eight foot wingspan. I can lift thousands of pounds with these babies because they weigh at least a hundred pounds."

"Let's just get this started," Keith complained. He looked like he was in pain, though Lance couldn't tell why. Coran seemed like he knew, if the amused smile was anything to go by.

"I'll explain what the products are if you need, but I believe Lance can inform you all as well," Allura declared, before plopping down next to his upper left wing and beginning to groom the feathers. Hunk took this as his cue to start on the scales of the left wing, passing Pidge a feather brush so she could help Allura. Keith and Coran joined Hunk as Shiro moved to aid the girls. Lance didn't pay much attention to what they were doing, instead relaxing more than he had in a long time. It was an amazing day and an amazing night, and now he would get to truly join in on grooming. And Allura was going to let him put a facemask on her. The Space Flock had Lance reminiscing once more.

"You know, my family used to do grooming every night," he began, drawing the attention of his flockmates. "We have a lot of people, so we'd set aside an hour or two after dinner to groom. We'd have the younger ones learn to groom on the adults, and they were all really quick students. And afterwards, your wings would be so soft and clean because they were really determined to be like all of us older kids. One person would have two to four people grooming them at once, and we would move from person to person until everyone got a turn. The little kids are always last, and they absolutely loved the attention. And when I came along, I was last as well. Every time, even when I grew up. Every person there would gather round and the kids would cause a little chaos by running between my wings and annoying me enough that my feathers fluffed up. We had a communal nest as well, since no one wanted to move once we were all groomed."

"Sounds nice," Pidge sighed. Lance fluffed his feathers lightly so they hit the littlest teammate in the face. "Oy!"

"Don't look so sad, Pidge. I was telling you what my flock does: grooming every night, teaching each other, working together on each person, and almost never separating to sleep. Sound familiar?"

"Aww, ou te alofa ia te oe, loʻu uso," Hunk cooed. Aww, I love you, my brother.

"Well, you certainly proved we're a family whether we like it or not," Shiro muttered, seeming to forget that the kids always heard his words, no matter what he said or how low he said it.

"Huh, what was that?"

"Nothing!"

"No, no," Keith started wagging his finger at the leader of their flock. "You said he had already proved we're a family, even if we don't want to be."

"What the quiznack does that mean, Dad?" Lance demanded. "I have not once proven that."

"Say what your titles for us are when I point," Shiro sighed. He pointed at Pidge first.

"Mi hermana." Keith was next. Lance smirked as he spoke.

"Mi futuro esposo." Hunk giggled, prompting him to be the next 'victim'.

"Mi hermano." Coran.

"Tio." Allura.

"Mi hermana." And finally, Shiro pointed at himself.

"Padre." Lance's eyes widened, and he attempted to correct himself. "I mean Dad, no, hermano, I meant hermano!"

"I get it," Allura drew out. "He calls us all family, correct?"

"That's right, princess," Shiro confirmed. "I knew it the moment he called me Dad the first time."

"You mean just now?" Pidge asked.

"No, he said before the demonstration," Keith amended.

"No, actually. He said it when I found him and Allura looking at these wing-care products."

"Quiznack," Lance muttered, turning his blushing face away. The others chuckled and continued their work, the six of them onto the lower left wing as they moved together.

"Wait," Keith suddenly piped up. The others once again gave their attention to their flockmate. "You called Pidge, Allura and Hunk your siblings, Shiro Dad, and I'm guessing you called Coran your uncle. But what did you call me? Me futurow espossoh or something?"

"You'll find out when you acknowledge your feelings," Hunk stated, turning back to the grooming after his words.

Keith just turned bright red.

[cacophony-eg]

What if Haggar had no control over Kuron (Kuro)?

This one question started many other questions like What if Shiro didn’t Die? What if Lotor passed the White Lion Test? What if Lotor’s Colony of Altean’s didn’t exist? How all these things could happen in (mostly) the same universe?

First Lets Start with “what if Haggar had no control over Kuron?”

Kuron’s escape was an accident, also Kuron wouldn’t have any memories past his time as a gladiator.

(Cause sorry the fact that his memories were up to date made no sense to me. Because going by the show’s canon Shiro was gone, he died there was nothing left of him. Then given this as fact, how would they have gotten all of Shiro’s memories?

Haggar had shown no ability to see through or control the original Shiro, so there would be no way to have Kuron’s memories or the other clones memories up to date after original Shiro’s escape.)

Kuron would have no idea he was part of Voltron, have no memory of piloting the black lion.

During his escape, he still runs into Varkala and Remdax, whom Kuron has to convince that he is not a spy, that he’s just escaped from one of their labs. Once Kuron helps the two not so coordinative rebels against a Galra attack there wholeheartedly trust Kuron, though they keep saying they’re going to keep an eye on him.

Eventually, Varkala and Remdax catch an old broadcast from the Olkari looking for a male human. The two are like ‘hey we got one of those’ and they have to convince Shiro that it’s okay to contact the Okari about him and tell Shiro about Voltron. Explain how Voltron is fighting the oppression of the Galra, and how Voltron’s a force for good. They explain that most of the Voltron lions are piloted by humans. (and make a side note that it used to be piloted by all humans but something happened to one of them, though neither could remember what happened.)

Vakala gets in contact with the Olkari saying they have a human male on at their station, but their connection is so static and weak that the only thing the Olkari can confirm is that their’s a human male with them, and relay that information to the Voltron crew.

Pidge is the one to go investigate thinking it might be Matt, and to her shock she finds Shiro. Kuron introducing himself to the green paladin as if they have never met before. This confuses Pidge a great deal.

“Shiro don’t you recognize me?” Pidge asks taking off her helmet and Shiro nearly has a panic attack thinking she was Matt for a moment before he realizes the height and her voice is completely wrong.

“Katie?” Shiro says shocked, and they both tightly hug each other, both almost crying as Kuron starts apologizing for not being able to protect her brother and Father. As she assures him it’s alright that she knows.

Vakala asks Remdax if he thinks that little person was Shiro’s family or if all humans greet each other this way? Remdax can only shrug as they watch the emotional reunion.

Kuron than starts asking her a bunch of questions about how she became a paladin and how in the world do metal Lions fly. Pidge’s blood goes cold realizing Shiro has no memories of being a paladin or finding the blue lion on earth and is only calling her Katie never Pidge.

And when she tries telling Shiro that he used to be Voltron’s leader and the pilot of the black lion he doesn’t believe her.

Pidge gets in contact with Keith telling him she found Shiro but that he’s missing some of his memories and that she’s headed back with Shiro to the ship. Keith is so relieved and concerned about hearing the news about Shiro. Keith relays this information to the other paladins, Allura suggesting that the healing pods could help resort his memories as they did help restore some of his memories last time.

When Pidge and Kuron get back to the castle of lions, Shiro and Keith have a touching reunion. Kuron telling Keith that he always knew Keith was destined for greatness, then have a somewhat awkward reunion with Hunk, Lance, Allura and Coran. (one involving the confusion over who has what loin based on their colours) Shiro recognizes Hunk and Lance as Garrison cadets but not much else.

When Pidge tries to guild Kuron to the healing pods, he freakouts thinking they’re the same pods that the Galra had him trapped in. This surprised the group, Keith and Pidge manage to calm Kuron down assuring him he doesn’t have to go in it, they try asking him about what he remembered from being in the Galra pod and he does his best to tell them all he remembers though it’s not a lot.

Hunk and Allura use more traditional medical supplies to fix some of Shiro’s injuries. Lance offering to give Shiro a haircut, and Kuron agrees. Of course, Lance talks as he’s cutting Kuron’s hair, saying he gets why going into an alien pod is pretty freaking, but Lance explains why he’s pretty grateful for them as he probably wouldn’t have survived an explosion without them. This catches Kuron’s attention, as he starts viewing Lance more like a real soldier than a cadet and they talk about Lance’s experience in the pod and Kuron feels a little more comfortable about the pobs but admits he’s still not ready to go in one. Lance is very understanding and tells Kuron it’s okay for him to take his time.

While Kuron rests, the team starts talking and making theories as to what could have happened and how he lost his memory. (you know to begin the mystory of if this is really their Shiro or not.)

Since Kuron isn’t being controlled by Haggar and has no memory of being a paladin or piloting the black lion he’s not particularly bothered that the Black lion doesn’t respond to him. (The Black lion even goes as far and putting up its shield when Kuron approaches.) So there’s no tension between Keith and Shiro over that, though that doesn’t stop Kuron from getting easily irritated by Coran or argue with Allura and the others. Lance usually the one to step in between Allura and Shiro to settle them down and find a middle ground, cause Keith keeps falling into the habit of fallowing Shiro that it feels like Keith forgets he’s now the leader. Lance feels like Allura and Shiro can’t find compromises and is now the one doing his best to build a bridge between the two of them as now theirs a constant rift between the black paladin and the Princess.

Part 2: What if Shiro didn’t Die?

Keith is continually surprised by how Shiro’s reacting and even when Keith tries talking to Shiro about it the black paladin is unusually aggressive. Pidge ever the suspicious one asks to do a check-up on his cybernetic arm and Kuron wholeheartedly agrees, still calling Pidge, Katie more often than not. Pidge discovering that even though Kuron’s arm appears the same as Shiro’s old one it’s actually a new one made to look like Shiro’s old one.

Pidge takes Keith to the side and shows him this evidence, Keith says the galra could have just outfitted him with a new one to put him back in the gladiator rings or something like that. Pidge counters that logic; if the galra were going to do that they would have upgraded his arm not replaced it with a near replica. She also points out Shiro’s different behaviour and how the Black Lion treated this Shiro as if he was a complete stranger or as if an enemy was trying to pilot him. As if this Shiro wasn’t their Shiro.

Keith at first doesn’t want to believe Pidge, he desperately wants to believe that this is their Shiro, but as the team spends more time around this Shiro the more different he feels to Keith. Eventually, he comes back to Pidge and admits that this might not be their Shiro and if that’s the case they needed to find the real Shiro. Pidge glad he’s finally on the same page as her and shows all that she has found so far.

That point forward Keith and Pidge team up to find the real Shiro, under the guise that Keith is helping her to find Matt. Since her persistence is what leads them to find ‘Shiro’, Keith says it’s the least he can do. This in turn causes Lance to spend more time around Kuron since the other two people Kuron feels most comfortable with are constantly busy.

This eventually leads to Kuron falling for Lance and kissing the blue paladin. Lance goes through all the stages of Bisexual denial, before finally admitting to himself after a long talk with Hunk that yeah Lance likes Shiro and that he wanted to try and build a relationship with Shiro.

(Adds montage of fluffy Shlance or Kuance moments along with snippets of fluffy Kidge moments between hunting for the real Shiro.)

It takes some time but team wildfire eventually finds hints about a human male working with a vigilant team along the far outskirts of the known universe. To Keith’s and Pidge’s relief and surprise, they find both Shiro and Matt.

Apparently, the black lion teleported him to Matt when the male holt sibling was in desperate trouble. (flashback episode that also explains why Shiro’s hair is now completely white now maybe for the simple reason that the two-tone hair was driving Matt nuts. Matt thinking all silver hair looked better on Shiro then trying to turn it all black. Along with some other cute Shatt moments)

When Pidge and Keith come back with the real Shiro and Matt, Kuron of course has an identity crisis stating ‘he’s the real Shiro he had to be’. But to prove to the others who the real Shiro was Keith and Pidge have their Shiro go into the Black Lion, and the real Shiro is able to pilot the black lion with no resistance from said lion.

Kuron feels confused and betrayed the two people he remembered the most ( Memories of Katie and Keith were nothing but fakes.) But like always Lance is there assuring him what they have wasn’t fake that their relationship only started with him, not the other Shiro. Kuron finding comfort in knowing what he and Lance have is real and tightly holds onto Lance.

Lance chooses to step down as the pilot of the red lion, saying Kuron really needed him right now and knows Keith can handle red no problem. Lance comes up with Kuron’s new name to be Kuro.

Then the episode where the team almost gets destroyed by Haggar, Kuron’s the one that almost sacrifices himself before Lotor steps in to save everyone. There’s also hints of Lotor and Lance bonding since Lance is the only paladin not going on missions he’s the one that often tends to the locked up Lotor and gives him something to do besides being board all the time. Which also causes some jealousy from Kuro and Lance needing to reassure his boyfriend that he’s being nice to Lotor because he was the one to save Kuro’s life and that his greatest interest towards Lotor is figuring out what he uses for his hair to be so silky and shiny.

They defeat Zarkon in a very similar way to the show, (expect that Keith is also there this time around) though Pidge never fully trust Lotor since he kept information about her Dad a secret. Later on Keith is given a speical mission from the Blades that involves his mom but this time Pidge is there as well. Krolia silently impressed with how good of a hacker her son’s compion is, and approves of how close the two seem to be.

Part 3 What if Lotor passed the White Lion Test?

Lotor finds his own way of passing the final Oriande test against the White Lion. Doing it differently than Allura had but still passes. This leads to Lotor and Allura developing the White lion, by far the largest of all the lions.

The White Lion is so big that it splits into two smaller lions for movability and can fuse back together for massive attacks. Needing pilots that can completely trust eachother and work together, Lance and Kuro are chosen by the white lion, both of them being gifted with a bayard and Kuro becomes the white paladin.

High jinx ensues as Lance and Kuro figure out how to pilot the white lion as both one unite and two separate units. Lance taking on the teacher role as he tries to help Kuro understand how to pilot a lion. (as again Kuro has no memory or knowledge of how to pilot any of the lions.) And after going between Blue to Red lion and now to White, Lance feels like he’s getting pretty used to handling all different types of lions. (giving Lance a nice character arch about adaptability.)

Lotor learns to be the new pilot of the castle of lions though still feels guilty over killing Narti and it takes time to reconcile with his old team. With Coran and Krolia there to help, now that she’s found her son she is sticking around.

(Tough without the two years on the time whale, Keith and his mom’s reconciliation is slow going.) Eventually Keith, Pidge and his mom all go on a mission together and they discover a puppy space wolf. Keith feeling sorry for the pup that just lost his parents and Pidge encourages him to keep him. Though he says he has to give him a name and Keith is very confused why he can’t just call the pup wolf.

The team all do their part to try and have Keith and his mom have some bonding time. through they both seem to really enjoy the digital training sessions that Pidge makes for them. The first time Keith ever calls Krolia mom is when she strongly suggest that Keith should date Pidge while standing right infront of Pidge and the rest of the team. Getting a very embarrassed ‘MOM!’ out of Keith. Lance coeing off to the side going ‘awe their officially family now’.

And Lastly: What if Lotor’s Colony of Altean’s never happened?

The Altean Colony thing doesn’t happen, Lotor never created it. Lotor has a whole new level of self-respect as he now not only proved his abilities as a warrior when he became emperor he also proved himself as an alchemist by helping to create the White lion. So now their main enemy is Sendak and the Galra who follow him and refuse to become peaceful and still want to follow Zarkon’s original plans of galactic domination.

Even Sendak eventually brushes Haggar (or Honerva) aside which leads to his downfall and Haggar’s heightened desperation. So just as the enemy Galra seems defeated (after sacrificing the castle ship in the last battle against Sendak) They all try heading to Earth, as without the castle all their lions are low on power and having trouble connecting to anyone, and Earth according to their maps is the next friendless planet.

They get to earth but have to deal with being treated like an enemies before they manage to get people to listen to them. Thanks to Sam Holt vouching for the Voltron team. All the Paladins get their family reunion. Lance introduces Kuro as his family saying he’s Shiro’s twin brother, Kuro surprised and grateful for the warm welcome.

Shiro and Adam get to have their reunion though it’s bitter sweet. Adam pretty much stated that they would never work, that there was a bigger gap between them, then before and that too much they didn’t understand about each other. That Adam can’t be the one by Shiro’s side, but points out that there’s clearly someone who understands what Shiro’s been through and gets Shiro in ways he never could. Adam glances over at Matt who keeps looking at the reunited ex-boyfriends and shyly blushes and looks away when Shiro and Adam look at him.

Honerva does find a way to split between relatives, entering the reality the team had been in during the Hole in the Sky. And not only does she recruit the Alteans in that reality, but she also becomes their empress. Bringing an army of Alteans that have had 10,000 years to advance their technology and when they take prisoners they turn those prisoners into mindless allies increasing their numbers with each victory.

This pushes the teams skills and abilities to the max, because they can’t just destroy their enemy when many of them are allies turned against them against their will. It makes the whole team have to ask hard questions and this also gives the Galra a way to make up for past sins as they fight these intruding Alteans from another reality and since these Alteans have never fought Galra before as they were wiped out thousands of years ago. They are completely thrown off by Galra’s way of victory or death. Altean’s not used to alien creatures risking their life for victory. 

Lotor and Allura have to come to grips with their views on altean culture and how all of it is not perfect. Lotor becomes a great leader for the Galra and Allura eventually becomes a leader to those Alteans that wish for a different way of life who don’t wish to conquer others and want true peace with compromises not forced servitude.

This then causes the Altean rebels and Lotor’s Galra to team up, uniting the two races in a way that hasn’t happened in 10,000 years. (Giving greater purpose to Allura and Lotor having feelings for each other and becoming co-leaders to their united people.)

And that’s how all these things could happen in one universe.

(Sorry there was quite a few other plot points I didn’t touch on such as Lotor’s generals, Rombelle and many others but this is long enough as it is.)

[klancefics-cache]

canon verse klance fic recs

these are some of my more recent favorites that i’ve been rereading a lot! enjoy <3

hey mom, i met a boy by disasteralex

“Do you think you can love two people at once?”

“I think you can love different people for different reasons but in equal ways. But that doesn’t mean any of those loves are lesser than the rest.”

The war was hard. Its end is even harder. But when Lance breaks, Keith and the others are there to help him heal.

Somewhere along the way, Keith finds his place in the universe, Shiro gets his happy ending, and Lance learns to fall in love again.

sweetheart by jilliancares

“Sorry, babe,” Keith says. He even smiles, no doubt proud of himself.

And Lance knows it’s his fault. He started it, after all, but at least the biting term of endearment made sense when he was the one doing it. Keith had been talking to him like they were some old married couple. The kind who’ve been married too long and don’t love each other anymore and gripe over meaningless shit, only managing to piss each other off even further.

That’s why Lance called him dear. Because it made sense in the situation. It was a calculated insult. A strategic jab.

Keith, on the other hand, is weaponizing the term of endearment without any rhyme or reason, simply to get back at Lance.

Or: Keith and Lance have gotten into the habit of using pet names as condescending insults. They're not really terms of endearment.

Coming to Terms by gtgrandom

Once again, there are six paladins and five lions. As the team makes their way home to Earth, Lance musters the strength to say goodbye to his friends. Klance-centric, minor Adashi/Shadam.

Or - Keith has lots of feelings and Lance wants to leave the team.

(The S7 and S8 that could have been)

+ fanart

Due West by europa_report

“Why did the blue lion choose you?”

Lance’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. He was an expressive boy. He wiped the shock away quickly though, smiling easily as he took a small sip from the drink he held.

“Dunno. We had a connection, I felt it the second I stepped into that cave. You know, the one Keith-“

“I know,” Krolia said tersely. “I found it.”

-

Flashbacks to Krolia's interactions with the blue paladin, as the pair fight for survival on a barren planet, stranded on their way to Earth

in this moment, you mean everything by rosedvst

“You really wanna kiss me, Kogane?” Lance asks, suddenly serious. His fingers twitch anxiously and his teeth gnaw at his bottom lip.

Keith looks at him through the screen, right into his blue-brown eyes. (He can never tell what color Lance’s eyes are--they always seem to be shifting and changing in the light, just like the inside of a kaleidoscope.) “Yeah,” He breathes. “Yeah. You just said you wanted to make me a mixtape in a declaration of your love to me. I want to kiss you so hard right now.”

deadline by jilliancares

Lance receives a prophecy he didn't ask for — one that comes with a countdown on his wrist and the knowledge that he's going to die.

--

A 30-day-challenge written entirely using prompts!

(And in case you're not one to read tags, just know I'm not a sadist and Lance is my favorite character. In other words, you can expect a happy ending.)

review: this one had me FUCKED UP it’s a must read

[headspacedad]

@bozhemoishi​

sorry I missed this.

Not a long rant - if I really wanted to get into this I’d find screenshots and rewatch episodes so that I could give you really solid examples but I just dont’ have the mental energy to go delving right now.  Basic breakdown of the legs being support as @void-tiger​ pointed out - the legs were the ones that not only stabilized the team but also took the team forward (as legs will tend to do).

Hunk showed he was a competent leader multiple times but the one that pops to mind first for me is when the Galra base was attacked by Sendak and Voltron had to quick time fix it.  Jiro did what a good leader is supposed to do and gave charge of things to the team member most capable of knowing what to do and Hunk took over beautifully.  He utilized his team’s strengths, he was clear and concise about what everyone needed to do, he made sure they all had what they needed to do their assigned jobs and he handled multiple situations in a way that showed he was adaptable in speaking whatever language was needed for each group he dealt with (including the Galra one).  No one pointed it out, but in that episode, Hunk really did get to be the head of Voltron (while staying with Yellow) and he did it without hesitation or questioning himself.  This kind of ‘loses his stage fright once he’s actually on stage’ shows up multiple times for him when he’s put in charge - from taking over the food court stand to the whole Shay and the Balmeria story.  I always got the idea that Hunk might question himself and be much more comfortable in a supporting role but he could take a leadership position and do it amazingly well and competently when put into that situation.  And - the team trusts him.  They know he’s going to support them and they know he comes through.  He’s their rock and when their rock says to move or that something can be done, they believe. 

Lance is more mercurial than Hunk is and that’s why I think he made such an amazing Right Hand Man.  He’s show to be amazingly good at looking at something and jumping ahead to what’s next.  People with a lot of siblings seems to be this way a lot IRL I’ve noticed.  Its an anticipation clause in their make-up.  From Lance realizing that ‘Rover’ is actually not Rover and saving Coran to the moment Jiro calls for the team when the ‘trade off’ for Sam goes wrong and Lance says ‘already on our way’ - Lance is incredibly good about seeing a need before its become a need and already moving to fill it before anyone else realizes something needs to be done.  He’s also very good at, like Hunk, speaking to someone in a language they will understand.  The way he talks to and encourages Keith is different than the way he talks to and encourage Allura when both of those two are questioning their ability to do something - and he says it in a way that both of them will listen to and accept.  Like Hunk, Lance’s strong point is support.  But that doesn’t mean he can’t lead and lead well when called on to do so.  Lance is the one that is the first to walk into Blue’s mouth.  In the very first episode he’s leading the Garrison Trio multiple times.  And each time the team is leaderless - Lance is the one that usually steps in and starts calling the shots.  It always seems to be in a ‘temporary take over until the leader gets back on track’ but he’s fast to recognize and respond to what’s going on and just as important, once again, the team trusts him and follows his leadership without question (partially I suspect because they don’t even realize he’s leading, it just feels natural).  I would have honestly not been surprised if the speculation about him flying Black for a time had been real simply because, if he put his ego out of the way and it was about the team instead, I think he had the window of qualities that Black would have responded to.  (don’t crucify me - Shiro is the only true Black Paladin but if we’re playing musical lions, I stand by Lance being a viable fill in, especially a Lance that was allowed to have a maturing character arc).

Support, to me, tends to make incredible leadership.  Think Maria Hill in Marvel.  She’s not in charge most of the time because she fits best as ‘second in command/support’ but when she is in charge, precisely because of the qualities that makes her so effective as support, she’s a great leader.  Support tends to understand the team and how it works and what it needs better and also to see problems ahead in the pre-mindset of ‘this is going to need fixing, how will I do that’.  So to me, while the arms are great for innovative ideas and thinking outside the box, the legs are the best leaders when it comes to Shiro/Jiro/Allura not being there to make a call.

---- salt warning ----- incoming salt ------ salt warning ------

As for self-inserts.  Unfortunately Keith got stuck with Dos Santos putting all his teenage ‘edgy bad-boy’ fantasies into (wolf included) and Pidge got stuck with Montgomery and her ‘not like the other girls’ issues.  Neither character started out that way but unfortunately its easy to watch it creeping in and eventually taking over their story lines entirely by the end.  When you take away a character’s ability to be wrong, you strip away what’s interesting about them as well as any story tension regarding them and by the end neither Keith nor Pidge could do wrong (even when they very obviously did)

[flamingo-writes]

Don’t Tell Dimitri — Claude x Reader

Summary: It was after one of the monthly missions that Byleth had asked you to assist with the Golden Deer. Your lance skills were remarkable enough to have Claude manipulating Byleth into asking for your help. However, Claude’s reasons to do so were others rather than just your strength and skill.    

A/N: I went for F!Byleth instead of Gender Neutral Byleth, as I originally intended. I’ve been playing far too long with F!Byleth, I sometimes forgt M!Byleth is a thing too XD forgive me. Also, I’ve been loving the Golden Deer route, although I’ve got to admit, I miss my Blue Lions :c Anyways, I hope you enjoy this. 

Also! I headcannon Byleth to be a cheeky little shit. Everytime I have the opportunity to answer with any sarcastic/smartass answer, I go for that one. So, my perception of Byleth is heavily influenced by it. I apologize if you eadcanon Byleth to be more of a composed/serious character.  

Posted: 04.21.2020

Word Count: 1.7K

Warnings: curse words. 

How bad things would go if someone ever found out Claude's teeny tiny crush on Dimitri's younger sister? The princess of Faerghus. Being roughly a year younger than both Claude and Dimitri, skill wise, you weren't in any way behind them.

In fact, from a young age, you showed great skill with a lance, despite your lack of Crest. You waved your lance with such precision as if it were both a third arm and your dominant hand. With such grace and skill you waved any lance, making it hard to believe you lacked a Crest. 

That skill was what first caught Claude's attention. However, your laid back personality and sharp tongue amused him like very few things in life did. However, he could see through the cheerful mask you wore to cope with the horrible past you and Dimitri had been through. 

"Say, Teach" Claude said walking up to Byleth who was attentively watching you train with Felix. "Don't you think we'll need a little help for our mission at the end of the month?" 

"I can't believe you are admitting our lack of skill, Claude. It pains me, really" Byleth snapped sarcastically at once "I'm sorry I can't be the Professor you deserve" She continued, knowing it would either annoy Claude or amuse him. 

"Oi, no one said anything about you as a professor" Claude chuckled corresponding to Byleth's sarcasm "I was just merely stating a possibility…" 

"Why are you here, Claude? I know its not because you want to train. I rarely see you doing anything productive at all on a Sunday" The professor remarked as Claude laughed softly.

"Alright, you got me, I'll cut the bullshit" 

"Language, kid" Byleth chuckled rather amused by hearing kids use curse words. 

"Those two are very tough on the battlefield. That first mock battle we had, I swear to the goddess, for a second I thought we were done for when I fought against her…" Claude recalled as Byleth nodded, remembering how Claude barely could dodge your fierce moves.

"You're suggesting that I should ask for their help for our next mission, is that right?" 

"To be honest, Felix kinda scares me a bit" Claude admitted "He's so short fused, I'm afraid he ends up stabbing me instead if I do something to upset him. [Name] however...she's cool, funny, she laughs at my jokes. She's much more laid back than her brother. And at the same time, she's a killing machine with a lance" 

"Is it just me or do I smell your hormones all over me?" Byleth chuckled, looking at Claude, trying to see his reaction, however, the young man simply shrugged. “You could either genuinly care for this girl, or you just want to get on Dimitri’s nerve, which one is it? Or is it both?” Byleth teased. 

"Say what you want, Teach. Tease me to your heart's contempt. But rest assure, you'll remain my favorite lady in this monastery…" 

"Good, I was worried that you might replace me for her" Byleth replied sarcastically. 

"Me? Never! Who do you think I am?" Claude giggled mischievously.

"The Claudster" Byleth smiled back at her student before looking back at Felix swinging his sword swiftly as you effortlessly stopped each and every one of his attacks "Alright, I'll ask for her help after she's done training" 

♤ 

By the end of the month, on your way to the battlefield, Claude and you didn't stop giggling and whispering things to one another. The two of you looked like elementary kids plotting something. But that same behavior helped camouflage Claude's feelings for you, as people thought you two were just friends. Some believed you were close to you just to piss Dimitri off. Either way worked to mask the secret Claude so desperately wanted to hide.

The mission wasn't particularly hard. But maybe it was because you were there giving a helping hand. A very helpful one. However, things of course wouldn't be as good after the Golden Deer had won the war. 

While saving Claude's back while he was busy shooting an arrow, you'd twisted your ankle throwing your lance at a thief running towards Claude, ready to slash his back with a sword. 

Claude helped you walk, holding one of your arms around his shoulders and one of his arms around your waist.

"I definitely owe you big time" Claude said, grateful that you'd saved his life.

"Oh, normally I wouldn't ask you to return favours, but I will ask for this one back" you joked, laughing, trying to mask the unbearable pain on your ankle.

"You better don't tell Dimitri about this" Claude laughed, knowing your brother would be particularly amused with Claude getting his sister injured.

"I don't know, it'd be a good way to blackmail you" You joked.

Once back at the camp, Marianne took a look at your ankle. Working a little bit of magic, it soon stopped aching and it no longer was swollen. 

"I-I'm so sorry, [Name]. I can't completely cure you ankle. It'll no longer hurt, but you'll still need to rest" The shy girl mumbled too fast and too low, it was hard for you to properly listen to her. 

"It's cool. You already did a lot" You tried reassuring her "The pain was the worst part. Thank you Marianne" You smiled.

"Teach, what now?" Claude asked Byleth as she sat next to you, looking at your ankle "It's almost sunset. We won't be able to be back at the monastery before nightfall" 

"We leave tomorrow morning. It is dangerous to wander at night" Byleth answered standing up and walking to her tent. "Especially considering one of us isn't in the best condition to fight if we run into something"

♤

The moon was almost at its highest point in the night sky. The campsite, dark and silent, as only the echoes of Raphael's loud snoring. And Claude was unable to fall asleep. Not because of Raphael, it wasn't the first time they camped, the snoring had never been a problem. 

His mind was restless with the thought of you being asleep a couple of tents away from his. In an in impulsive thought he could not ignore, he left his tent and walked across the camp stealthily until he reached your tent.

"[Name]" He whispered. She's asleep, you jerk...He told himself after whispering your name a second time. "[Name]" 

The fabric shook gently as you popped your head out of the tent. 

"Why the hell are you still up?" You whispered a scream.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" The boy asked.

"Not at all" 

"What?" Claude raised an eyebrow as a smirk spread through his face "Why the hell are you still up?"

"Don't use my lines against me, smartass" You giggled "Wanna come in?" 

Claude tried not to answer right away and instead waited a couple of seconds as if he was considering it.

"Sure" he shrugged.

You sat on your sleeping bag as Claude kneeled inside your tent and sat next to you.

"So? What brings you here?" You said leaning back, resting your weight on one of your arms.

"Couldn't sleep. And I heard noises coming from your tent" he lied, since you hadn't been making any noise whatsoever, but didn't question his words. "Wanna hang out while either of us gets sleepy?" 

"Sounds good to me" You shrugged.

"Thank you for saving me today. Or...yesterday. whatever" He said frowning softly. "Thank you" 

"Don't thank me Claude. I was merely doing my part, thats it" you said as your fingers reached his earring. "I like it, it suits you" 

"Thank you, darling" he smirked leaning into your touch and shrugging softly "You're tickling me" 

"I didn't know you were ticklish" You giggled, smiling mischievously. 

"[Name], no!" Claude chuckled holding your wrist tightly as you tried to sneak it to his neck. "If we wake anyone up we'll be in trouble"

"Since when do you care about getting in trouble?" You snapped as Claude looked at you with a stare you knew it only meant trouble.

"True" He hissed as he moved closer to you.

"No" You said once you noticed his menacingly stare as his hands quickly found their way to your neck and sides "Stop! Claude!" you tried to keep your giggles under control as Claude was the one tickling you now. "We'll get in trouble" You whispered a scream.

"Sorry, don't care" He whispered back at you as his fingers kept roaming, tickling you, trapping you in a torturous laugh.

"Claude!" You cried.

"Alright, fine" He was giggling as he stopped "Whatever Her Highness commands" He chuckled as you caught your breath. 

"Claude?" You whispered, still panting softly. 

"Yes, [Name]?" With a pleased cheeky smirk, he looked at you, his gorgeous green eyes meeting yours.

His heart stopped for a second once he realized what kind of look you were giving him. Your eyes were beginning to look sleepy, and yet, they scanned his face slowly. He noticed the particular way your stare would stop on his eyes and his lips.

Taking the hint, he leaned closer, slowly, giving you time to decide what happened next. At first, you didn't move, and the tip.of your.noses brushed softly, as he kept looking at you. 

In a barely audible  voice, you whispered his voice before closing your eyes. Once Claude saw his cue, he leaned in, closing in the space between the both of you. His lips met yours. 

It started as a shy simple kiss that quickly heated up after you locked your lips with him. At first, the both of you awkwardly trying to adjust to each other's rhythm. But once you managed, the both of you lost yourselves in it. 

With your heart on your throat, you clung to Claude, wrapping your arms around his neck and gripping his hair. At the same time, Claude wrapped one of his arms around your back and squeezed you against his, while he rested his weight on his free hand. 

Finally, you broke the kiss, the both of you breathless, panting lowly. Claude bumped his forehead against yours as the both of you remained motionless. 

"Let's not tell Dimitri about this" You panted as Claude nodded. 

"Agreed" He whispered, looking into your eyes for a brief second before leaning closer to steal another kiss from you.