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sheithlentines · 7 years

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Sheithlentine's Gift Exchange - Lionheart

This is my submission for @lace–prince. I hope you enjoy it. Happy Valentine’s.

“Come on, Little Brother. You know this is the way of things.”

“I honestly don’t see the point. No one will want to serve me, and no one wants me to perform any of these royal duties anyway, Allura.”

Allura sighed, fixing the lay of the cloak over his shoulders, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear so his circlet would show more. “I know, Keith. But you’re nineteen soon, and this is how we do things. And perhaps in fulfilling your duties, the people may come to like you better.”

He had huffed at her, but said nothing. Nothing would change, not even with all of his adopted sister’s love and kindness. It hadn’t with her father’s, and King Alfor was the most loved and revered king of Altea for generations. Keith was no fool: he knew their father had been questioned and scrutinized when he’d decided to rescue a half-Galra orphan all those years ago. King Alfor’s smile could only hide so much.

“Will Papa be there?”

Allura gave him a heavy shake of her head. “No, my darling. The doctors want him to rest, so he is confined to his bed for today. Perhaps you could see him after. He would love the company.”

“I will.”

It would have been easier if King Alfor had stood there with him, too. There would have been more weight to the situation, mild as it was. Allura was formidable in her own right, already assuming many of her father’s duties, already well-loved as the future Queen. But the knights before him weren’t here for her.

“I bet they’re nervous,” Lance, Allura’s knight, whispered to him, voice carrying enough to not warrant leaning closer. For all his frivolous nature, he was well-suited to his role, unwavering and strong. “I was.”

“I doubt they are. You wanted to serve Allura.” Keith sighed, looking over the collection of fine men in arms and armour. It looked as though they’d all spent the last week polishing every last piece to rival the sunshine. Swords shone, leather gleamed, every curve and carve of armour radiant in the throne room. And all of them smart, sharp, powerful men.

Not a one with a smile that reached their eyes.

“These men don’t want to serve me. They’re here for the position and the title, nothing more.”

Because people could barely look at the young half-Galra prince. People could barely call him prince. It had sent shockwaves across the kingdom when King Alfor legitimized him when he turned seventeen, and if he’d had a chance of a kind look or smile then, his rise to princedom shattered all such hope. Altea had been at war with the Galra since before King Alfor’s time, when Altea became a final bastion of defence and reason against the Galra’s insatiable appetite for war and power. Alfor had led the charge to victory, driving them out and keeping them back, but there was little love for the Galra amongst the people of Altea.

Keith had grown up amidst whispers and mutterings, things he wasn’t supposed to hear. But he could, and he did, because that was Galra magic.

And now, he watched the knights as they readied to present themselves at Lance’s call, and he heard whispers among them, too.

But they weren’t about him.

At the end of the group, quiet and alone, stood a knight in shining silver armour and black garb. He was tall, broad, handsome despite the white in his hair and the scar across his nose. He had but one arm, and a sad, haunted look in his grey eyes.

Keith knew that look well, and pushed out soft tendrils of his magic to listen.

“Why is he even here? Why bother?”

“You’d think, given what the Galra did to him —”

“No good knight keeps his honour once captured. He’s wasting his time.”

“Just as well. With only one arm he can get himself and the whelp prince killed —”

“ — brought shame to his family. You know his parents died destitute? Pauper’s graves, both of them —”

Keith knew well the hurt of whispers. He knew what it was to have words whittle away at pride, at honour, at a sense of self.

So he hid his self-satisfied smile at the ripple of disbelief that swept across the room when he announced that he would take Takashi Shirogane as his knight.

“Please, Your Highness. May I speak?”

The young prince stopped ahead of him, and slowly turned around. Shiro caught up with a single long stride, and stood before him, uneasy. It was the first that he was finally able to catch up with everything that had just transpired, from his unlikely and potentially controversial selection as the prince’s knight to their now strident journey to… he still wasn’t sure where they were going. They’d taken a path through the palace, wound down at least two staircases and were now travelling a quiet corridor lined by torches. All the prince had said after choosing him was, “Come.”

And he’d gone along, swept away. He hadn’t even had a good look at the prince, until this moment.

He looked younger than himself, with pale skin, night-black hair and strange, glittering purple eyes. Everything about him seemed knife-like, from the arch of his eyebrows to the corners of his mouth, his cheekbones, his jawline. But all of that softened into something… else, when the prince took a good look at him.

Shiro thought him lovely, even though he knew he shouldn’t think anything like that at all.

“When you are in my company, you may call me Keith,” he said, his tone soft and smooth, so unlike the sharp barking order he gave when he told the other knight candidates to leave. “I am no one’s prince.”

“Forgive me, Your Hi —” there was single quirked brow, and Shiro corrected himself “— Keith, but, I am your knight, and therefore you are my prince. Is that not so?”

A strange look seemed to pass over the prince’s face, and then he smiled, a small melancholic thing, before he nodded. “If that is what you wish. And what shall I call you?”

“Shiro.”

“Shiro,” he repeated, and Shiro tried not to shudder at the way the prince seemed to taste his name on his tongue. “Very well. Shall we move on? There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

He’d already met Lance, Princess Allura’s knight, and was glad that he seemed very amicable and friendly, given that the two of them will be spending a lot of time together when they are not with their charges. It had surprised him: most knights didn’t look kindly upon him, but Lance had welcomed him like a brother, and promised to divulge the prince’s darkest secrets before the day is out. The prince had thrown a grape at Lance’s head, and Lance did nothing but laugh.

So Shiro could not help but be curious as to who he was about to meet, and why the meeting seemed so urgent.

Eventually they came out to a courtyard, sheltered by old trees and the shadow of the palace. Hedges marked out a training yard, and targets and dummies lined the far wall. Set towards the back was a middle-sized building with smoke billowing out from the chimney and sounds of ringing metal. It looked to Shiro like a workshop of some kind. Not one he’d ever seen before. “What is that odd light?”

Almost on cue, green sparks flashed out of the door, and Shiro would have got a face full of it if the prince — Keith; he had to remember: Keith — hadn’t stuck his arm out to stop him moving any further. “Pidge! You nearly hit my knight!”

“Don’t blame me! Blame Hunk! He distracted me!” came a female voice from inside the building.

“Me? I’m just hammering along here!”

Keith sighed, shaking his head, but it was in fondness rather than frustration. “It’s always like this. Come,” he said, gesturing for him to follow.

There were many things that should have taken Shiro’s attention: the wall full of swords, spears, glaives, axes, and daggers; the beautiful furnace, alight with fire; the tools of a blacksmith, worn, well-used, but of excellent make; the books strewn all over a large table where things bubbled and smoked in glass vials, tumblers, and carafes; that tangy, sparking hint of magic in the air.

Instead, his eyes were fixed on Keith, who upon walking through the door, undid his cloak and tossed it casually on to a hook, as if he did it every day. And he could not ignore the long lines of the prince’s legs, the strength of his back, and the precise spot where his hair curled at the ends, just past his shoulders.

Shiro coughed, and hoped no one noticed.

Hunk, a large barrel-chested man with powerful arms, was a blacksmith of some renown, but people disliked working with him because he always wanted to try new things, grew bored of the same old axes and swords. His work grew thinner on the ground once word got around that he was working together with Pidge, an alchemist of some talent who’d learned to imbue metals with magic. Together, the pair’s work was considered untrustworthy, even cursed, and they had nowhere to go until Prince Keith came along and appointed them his personal armourer and weaponsmith, complete with King Alfor’s sponsorship.

“Shiro. How do you feel about having a new right arm?”

He gaped at the notion, but listened intently as Hunk and Pidge talked him through it. An arm made of metal, imbued with magic to make it light but strong. They wouldn’t be able to give him fingers, not as such, but a closed fist at least that will help him in combat. To match, a new sword, forged to complement the arm. Where the arm would act as a shield, his sword would have the lightness, strength, and reach that would equal his skill and stature. Both Hunk and Pidge had heard of Takashi Shirogane, of his swordsmanship and how he had many students once upon a time, but in his absence his students had sought other masters, and those masters poisoned his name to them.

He’d returned to less than nothing, but here Shiro sat now, a new arm, a new life, new friends, and, setting his eyes on the young prince, perhaps, a new purpose.

“I… I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Just… thank you.”

Keith only smiled.

Perhaps he could never be truly whole, not the way he once was, but in time, Shiro’s heart was full once more.

Pidge’s imbuement allowed him to raise his new arm of gleaming metal and magic, roll his shoulder with it, bend it at the elbow. It weighed as it should, the same as his remaining arm, almost as if he never lost it at all. As Hunk had said, they could only manage a closed fist, but they would continue to work so that they could give him fingers and the tiny joints that would make it as good as the hand he’d lost. To match, an elegant one-and-a-half handed longsword, perfectly balanced for his fighting style, absolutely complementing the arm that was now his shield.

Shiro hadn’t wanted to hope: true wholeness would never be his, but this was a close thing. If anything, he felt more in balance again, felt closer to his old self, and with that, his mastery with the sword returned. There was pride swelling in his chest once more, truth in his smile and light in his eyes. He had purpose, and though he will forever be left-handed, he could reconcile his worth as Prince Keith’s knight.

Days were spent training himself back up to fighting as a true knight. Often it was with Lance, who had similar off-duty times as he did, but his best times were spent sparring with Keith himself. He hadn’t expected the lithe young prince to be quite so adept, so elegant, or so deadly in combat. He danced easily with his one-handed sword, and always kept a dagger close, so Shiro learned to never underestimate him. Sometimes they would spar for hours, goading and challenging each other until either duties called, or they were an exhausted pile on the training ground.

Time passed, and they learned a lot from, and about, each other.

Shiro found that when he accompanied the prince, they would be either on the training ground, or in the library. The prince read voraciously, and often earned the praise of his tutors. The extent of Keith’s intelligence only surprised Shiro in how quietly he kept it.

One day he asked what Shiro’s interests were, and he’d admitted that while literate, his education was limited, his skill with a sword more in demand than his intelligence. Keith frowned at that, and asked again.

“History,” he said, at last. “I wonder about the people who were here before us, where we came from, where we’re going. Where we learned what we’ve learned.”

Evenings were since spent in the library together, Keith pushing one volume after the next at him, patiently answering his questions, even teaching him new words he’d never seen before. Shiro cherished those evenings, not only for the education he was gaining, but…

It was during those evenings that Keith wore his more comfortable clothes, dressed only for himself and not for ceremony. And Shiro could not stop himself from admiring the young man. He could not deny what it was. Everything from the way he moved, the lilt of his voice when he spoke, the way his brow furrowed when he was cross, his rare and priceless laugh: Shiro loved all of it.

So he showed it in the one way he could: with his unwavering devotion and loyalty.

Keith hated performing his royal duties, as most of them took him out of the palace, away from his safe places and into the kingdom of Altea that sneered at him and spoke behind his back. But despite his disdain, he went forward as he was expected to. Shiro had spoken to Lance, and Lance had very little to offer. “They don’t know him, Shiro. You know by now he’s a good man, one of the finest. But if not even Allura or the King’s love can convince the people, what can?”

Shiro shielded him as well as he could. Not just from the hateful eyes of the people, but also from their words. He spoke to Keith in low tones, just loud enough for him to hear — and by now, he’d grown to detest referring to Keith as ‘Your Highness’ in these circumstances — so that all Keith would hear were his words, his assurances. If he could, he would try to make him laugh, in the hopes that others would see how lovely he was when he smiled.

It never worked.

Children were the cruelest, acting on their parents’ poison. Shiro grew adept at deflecting thrown stones, quietly bore it when the wet splat of old fruit hit his cloak instead of Keith, because he’d moved just so. His eyes were set firmly on his prince, and nothing anyone said to him or of him could drag them away. If it meant they would curse him, too, then so be it: they would be cursed together.

Still, enough of the whispers made him curious. Keith was half-Galra, and with that, did he have any of their devastating magic?

“I don’t use it much,” Keith answered, one day when Shiro was brave enough to ask, as they walked the gardens. “I have little use for it.”

Shiro nodded, but he was still only partially satisfied. They were friends now; surely he could ask for more? “Is it because of what it does? Steals the life force of everything around it?”

Because Shiro knew about that. When he’d been captured the Galra druid who held him needed to fend off an attack, and they were deep in the lifeless realms of the Galra by then. The druid had grabbed his right arm, and he’d watched the limb shrivel and wither away. So many nights he’d wished the druid had kept going, just taken all of him, because the nightmares plagued him ever since, and he found himself constantly checking for all his limbs, all his fingers and toes. Sometimes he wondered if his sanity had shrivelled away, too.

Keith stilled in their walk, and Shiro fought to bring an apology to his lips. He pushed too far. He should never have —

“It’s because of their greed,” Keith said, not turning to face him, his eyes on the ground. “They could be content with the innate power granted them, content with the natural system that would replenish them. But they weren’t. They wanted more, so they took, until there was nothing left in their kingdom, and so they went to take from others. That is how we are where we are now.”

They were silent, for a while. Only the wind rustling through the hedges and trees, and faint birdsong filled the space. Then: “Will you show me?”

Keith snapped around then, meeting the earnestness of Shiro’s steely eyes, the openness of his smile. Because Shiro did trust the prince, with his very life, and he wanted him to know that. He wanted Keith to know that he accepted all of him, all he was willing to offer and whatever he would give him in the future. He wanted Keith to know that he, too, was a safe haven, not just the training ground or the library.

His heart had broken, the one day they’d returned from the city and he had failed to hide the stains on his cloak from thrown fruit, or the small scratches on his flesh arm from stones that missed their intended target, and he’d watched the way the prince’s face fell, crumpled like a child’s, watched him flee into the palace without a single look back. It had taken hours before he located the prince, and he’d found him at the King’s bedside, face buried into King Alfor’s side and Shiro had felt nothing but envy for the King, who’d gently carded his hand through Keith’s hair.

The prince had been crying.

“— he shouldn’t have to! I never wanted this! I never wanted this for him!”

“He proves to be a good knight for you, my child. You chose well, and it is clear that he, too, has chosen you.”

“He’s so kind, Papa. He doesn’t deserve the hate the people have for me. Let them hate me, I don’t care, but he doesn’t deserve this…”

King Alfor reached a hand down to cup Keith’s jaw, lift his head up so he can see him. “Perhaps that doesn’t matter to him. We do a lot of things out of loyalty, devotion, love, regardless of what others may think. I do not regret raising you, my darling, not for a moment. And I am more than certain that Shiro does not regret becoming your knight, no matter what you may think. Do you see?”

“There is only regret when it comes to Galra,” Keith murmured, low and sad, and the King tsked him for it.

“The child in my hands is no Galra. Just Keith. That is who I see. That is who Allura sees, and Lance. And Pidge, and Hunk. And that is who Shiro sees, too. Your heart is purer than your blood, Keith, and we who love you are more than blessed.”

Keith said little more, but remained at the King’s side.

Loyalty, devotion. Love.

“Will you show me?”

Keith blinked, and very slowly, a corner of his mouth tipped upwards, almost against his own will, and a chuckle escaped him. “Well. I meant for this to be a surprise gift, but I suppose…”

He lifted his hands, so Shiro could see, and he could only watch as the prince’s fingers danced before him, shaping the air until golden tendrils of light leaked from his fingertips. Shiro caught how his eyes flashed like stars, the purple brighter and more vivid, before a small animated lion sat in the palm of Keith’s hand, pacing upon it as if it were real. He barely stifled his laugh, delighted at the spell Keith was showing him, when the lion let out a huge roar — far bigger than expected for its size — and leapt forward towards Shiro’s chest. Shiro had no time to react, and the light hit him harmlessly; when he looked down, there was a black lion emblazoned upon his chest plate, head held high and proud.

It matched the red lion that adorned Keith’s ceremonial armour.

What was more, the garden remained unchanged. Every flower was still in bloom, every leaf remained green, and the wind and birdsong never ceased.

Shiro looked back up, and found Keith blinking almost sleepily, as if he was coming back from somewhere far away. He had to ask. “Keith? Are you all right?”

Keith shook himself then, and nodded. “I’m fine. Nothing that perhaps a glass of wine wouldn’t cure,” he said, smiling easily now.

“You said this was to be a surprise gift?”

“I wanted to show it to you on the sixth moon of your knighthood,” he said with a shrug. “But, as you asked…”

Shiro shook his head, smiling incredulously at his prince. “You should not indulge me.”

“It pleases my heart to indulge you, Shiro.”

It was some moments before Shiro processed Keith’s words, and by then Keith was further down the garden path, and Shiro had to catch up, lock away the bubbling feeling in his chest even as his hand came to rest upon the lion that now resided against it.

Loyalty. Devotion. Love.

The attack, when it came, took them all by surprise, but not so much that Altea could not defend or fight back.

Before the second wave of raining fire could hit, Allura was already at her tower, activating the shields around the kingdom, her priestesses joining her in their towers. Lance was already leading the knights into battle, clashing outside the gates.

None of that mattered to Shiro. The attacking Galra, the defending Altea: none of that mattered.

The first volley of fire struck while he and the prince were out in the city, and the walls trembled and one of the lower watchtowers fell. People scattered all around them, making for the lower shelters, knowing that the more exposed buildings would do them no good. He stuck close to Keith, waited for his instruction, when another tower was hit and came crashing down near the square and Keith disappeared from his side.

“Keith, no!”

His voice was lost in the thunderous noise of falling stone and terrified screams, his vision clouded by dust and debris and confusion. When it all cleared, there were cries of despair, because the square was buried beneath the remains of the tower, and children had been there moments before when they’d evacuated their school building.

Keith had been there moments before.

Shiro pushed through the crowds, refusing to believe. Refusing to admit that he’d failed his prince, that he’d failed his singular duty, after everything Keith had done for him, everything that Keith had given him… everything Shiro had yet to give in return.

And there, between the cracks of the rubble, was a golden glow.

Keith.

“Keith! Keith, hold on!” Shiro turned to the crowd behind him, the crowd who wanted their children to be alive but feared the magic-touched knight and the half-breed prince he served. “Your children are alive under here! Come help me!” When no one moved, he let out a furious roar, and with a single strike of his glowing right hand, a stone block crumbled, scattered around his feet. “Help me!”

With some hesitation, some of the men came forward and began to dig, began to shift the debris, forming chains and levering rock with whatever they could find. Shiro used the strength of his arm to easily smash and shunt pieces of the wreckage until the glow got brighter, until he got closer.

Close enough to see Keith crouched low to the ground, his hands held up and burning fiercely like the sun, holding the remains of an entire tower away from himself and the children with him. The same children who aimed stones and fruit at him now curled and cried beside him.

“Keith! You’re all right!” Shiro couldn’t stop the grin from bursting across his face, willed his heart to stay in his ribcage. His prince was alive.

But Keith only shook his head. “No time, Shiro. You need to… hurry. Take them. Quickly…!” Everything shuddered violently, and Shiro saw the weight of the wreckage shift down but an inch, saw the golden light go brighter, Keith’s arms trembling with the effort. “Please, Shiro…”

Shiro called for the men to come round to where he was, and together they began to dig, close and deep enough for the first child to crawl out from under the tower remain. Then a second, a third, a fourth…

“Wait!”

Keith’s voice stopped everything. Everyone held their breath, and the weight groaned and sagged, the unearthly light of Keith’s power flickering. “Stay… stay,” Shiro heard Keith growl, and he had no idea if he was talking to him, or to himself. He’d fallen from his crouch now, still upright but barely. “All right. Now. Keep going. Hurry.”

Someone had called for the schoolmistress, so she could tell them how many they should be expecting. One by one they appeared, running straight for their parents with barely a look back. Shiro could do nothing more than talk to Keith, keep him steady, assuring him. At the third-to-last child, however, when Keith was visibly paling, Shiro remembered.

Galra magic consumed.

All the children who’d escaped so far were unharmed. Not a scratch or a withered hair. All around them was stone and dust.

A cheer rang from beyond the walls. The Galra were driven back. It meant nothing to Shiro.

“Keith! Keith, you need to get out!” He found himself clawing into the rubble, pushing and hefting and pulling, trying to clear more of the weight away from Keith, because if he didn’t, if Keith’s magic failed — he didn’t want to think about what it meant, if it did fail, because Galra magic consumed…

The prince was gasping for air, his shoulders shaking with exertion that was fast waning. “No… you need to make sure they’re safe. Shiro. You have to.”

The last child slid out from the collapse.

“She out, she’s out, Keith, please, just hold on. I’m almost there.” He was babbling now, he knew it. But he’d tasted the terror of failure not moments before, felt his heart hollow at the very thought of Keith being anything but alive. His right hand gleamed, his left hand bled, and he wasn’t going to give up. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you!”

Keith let out a pained scream, his body buckling. “I can’t… Shiro, I can’t!”

Loyalty. Devotion. Love.

Shiro poured it all into his right arm, watched it glow the brightest silver, and brought it down on the last of what kept Keith away from him.

The arm shattered. The golden light winked out.

In the seconds between, Shiro reached, wrapped his one arm around his prince, before everything that was held aloft came crashing down.

Not once did Shiro leave his prince’s side.

At best, he stood at attention whenever King Alfor or Allura came to visit, but he knew no respectful distance. He hovered, always by the prince’s head, always only slightly behind his royal visitors. He made greater allowances for the King, who willingly rose from his own sickbed to see his son every day, who had stumbled to the palace gates when he’d heard, shouldering away anyone who tried to coax him back to his chambers. Who had wept as he took his son out of Shiro’s arm and cradled him to his chest.

The banner of the white lion, the banner of King Alfor, was lowered to half mast.

The court had visitors. The families that were kept whole, who weren’t mourning their children, asked for an audience. They all came together, a small crowd of people, uncertain but grateful. They asked for the prince, then the princess, then the King himself.

They got Lance. Lance, who stood before them, his fine features marred by the deepest frowns and the darkest smudges around his eyes. Gentle, smiling Lance, who turned to ice and venom when he spoke: “The Prince is dying. Your children are safe. That should satisfy you.”

Perhaps that had been cruel. But Keith had known nothing else from the very people he served, so Shiro could only feel bitter thanks for Lance’s words.

Pidge and Hunk were hard at work rebuilding his right arm, but Shiro could not find it within himself to care. What was an arm compared to his prince? What was the point of being physically restored if his heart was hollow?

“Will he recover?”

Allura’s mouth drew into a taut line, though the tears shining in her eyes betrayed her heartache. “It… is unlikely. He drew from his own life force. He has never expended his power with such urgency and fire. And he is only half Galra, nowhere near as strong as if he were full-blooded.”

“So… he’ll die.”

“Keith will not willingly take the life force of another, from any other,” Allura said, the tears slipping now. She was proud of her little brother, but she did not want to lose him. “And he is too weak now to pull himself back.” She reached for Shiro’s hand with both of hers, squeezing it tight.

“Love him while you can, Shiro. It is all we can do.”

The glittering stars in his prince’s eyes were gone, now. When they were open, they were shadowed pools of indigo, and his smile, the one he reserved for Shiro and Shiro alone, could do nothing to light them again. His breathing was a thin, laboured thing, and cocooned in the pillows and quilts of his bed, Keith was pale, small, young, fragile, and Shiro tended to him as if he were the most precious, delicate treasure.

“Shiro?”

“Yes, Keith?”

“You should not have to stay here,” he rasped, barely above a whisper. But they spoke so often in whispers that Shiro had no trouble hearing every word. He hung on each one, as if they would be the last in that voice he held so dear.

“I would be nowhere else, my prince,” Shiro replied, and he wondered again about his sanity, if loyalty and devotion had now moved on to delusion and desperation. “I am yours, and my place is here.”

Keith hummed, a faint smile on his lips. “My knight.”

“Yours,” he said, with conviction enough to break a heart. “Always.”

The prince reached out then, and Shiro was quick to meet him, curling the small elegant hand in his larger, rougher one. He bent down then, brushing the fingertips with a breath, more daring now than when he thought he had all the time in the world. The tip of one of Keith’s fingers skimmed his lower lip, and he fought the urge to kiss, to cry.

“What would you ask of me, Shiro, if you could ask anything at all?”

A kiss. A night. A forever. Anything. Anything if it meant —

“That you would live.”

Keith tipped his head then, so he could meet his eyes, and Shiro wondered if they appeared as dull and empty as he felt. Keith must have seen something, because he asked, “Is that all?”

“What more could I want?” Shiro said, the cracks now showing in his broken whisper. “If you aren’t here, where am I to be? Who am I to be? I am your knight, and you are my prince. Is that not so?” An echo, and he found Keith staring at him just as he had before, careful, silent consideration. “I pledged my life to you, and I would give it so you would live. So you would stay with me.”

There was a flash, a single star, in the corner of one amethyst eye. Keith’s breath caught; Shiro held his.

When Shiro let his breath go, he stood from his seat by the bed. Took a step back, and piece by piece, removed his armour. It took time, one-armed as he was, but he was a good knight, and he set his armour down carefully, orderly. His leathers, too, came away, until he was left in only the soft linens of his shirt and breeches. Keith’s eyes never left him as he stepped forward once more, and slid into the bed beside him, lying on his right side so he could rest his arm on his prince, pulling him close to his chest.

“Shiro… I could hurt you.”

Shiro shook his head, burying his nose in Keith’s hair. “No. You would not. I know you. I love you. From the moment you called me ‘Shiro’, I have loved you. And I would ask this of you.”

For a moment, he thought he saw another star appear in his prince’s eyes, but it escaped out a corner, and slid down his cheek. Shiro reached up, wiped it away, running his thumb over that cheekbone he thought was so sharp the first time, but was so very soft to the touch.

“Take of me what you will,” Shiro murmured into his hair, bleeding all his promise and love into his voice. “My place is here, as your knight. As whoever you wish me to be.”

Keith burrowed into Shiro’s chest, weak hands grasping at his linen shirt, and even through that, he could feel that smile, that smile that was his and his alone, against his skin.

“And what shall I call you, when I wake?”

“Takashi.”

“Takashi.” And Shiro felt it, then. That first taste, like a hummingbird drawing nectar, the tiniest of sips, testing and cautious. Nothing at all like the druid in his past: this was warm, quiet. He felt himself drift, and in his arms he felt Keith grow heavier, too.

“It would please my heart… to call you that.”

A last act, a kiss upon his prince’s brow, and an answer: “When you wake, then.”

Allura found them, the following morning, bathed in soft golden light in each other’s embrace. Shiro breathed deeply, asleep, and her brother… breathed. There was faint colour to his cheeks, and the smile on his face alone was enough to tell her that her father’s banner would not stay at half mast. Her hand came to her mouth, stifling a laugh or a sob, she was not sure. It made no difference.

“You chose well, Little Brother.”

A week later, and King Alfor’s banner of the white lion rose to its full height. Beside it, another banner rose, a red lion, the emblem of Prince Keith, and all of Altea rejoiced.

#lionescence #laceprince #fic #sheithlentines2018 #submission

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