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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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VLD - Revolutionary

Notes: So, finally, after a good deal of struggle and melodrama, here is my entry for Day 8 of @keitor-universe‘s Keitor Week, the prompt being “What If . . .” This ended up exponentially longer than I had originally intended it to be, although considering what idea I decided to go with, honestly, I’m not entirely sure what I expected.

Nonetheless, here it is. Dear god do I hope it was worth it.

(And as one final, small note, there is a little part in here that should be attributed to @kcgane, because she was the one who brought that headcanon to light. I don’t want to say it is because that would spoil it, but it’s in there nonetheless.)

Summary: Everything seems to be proceeding as usual, until a visit from five Paladins flips Keith’s reality on its axis. [takes place in S4] [AU]

(AO3 Link)

The universe---their universe, anyway, their reality---was dotted with a number of rifts in space-time. There were none greater or more dangerous than the one that still resided within the ruins of the planet Daibazaal, but other rifts and wormholes did exist throughout the universe, varying in size and energy. Some were too tiny for anything to fly through. Others were so large that nothing of significance could be by them for long without being destroyed. All of them were too dangerous for normal travel; whether it was the sheer force of quintessence emitted from each rift, or the pressure of traveling between realities, normal ships were destroyed within ticks of making the attempt. Nothing short of Voltron itself or the ship they had crafted from an inter-reality comet they had secured had a chance of making it through a rift, and even then, the journey was tricky.

The rift the Castle of Lions hovered before now was about the same size as the comet rift, Keith thought. Not exactly, but the diameter was close enough in size to be comparable. He pulled his eyes from the viewport to look back at the readings on his workstation’s console. Even now he didn’t have enough technical knowledge to understand exactly what it was he was seeing, but he thought the quintessence readings looked similar to how they had when they went to the other rift to secure the comet. From what he could tell, this one was exactly like that one. Voltron---or the comet ship, at least---should be able to make it through. He leaned forward a little so that he could twist around in his seat and say so (and ask if they should take Voltron to go get a closer look), but he was interrupted before he could.

“Hey,” Ezor said, and while Keith still did turn to look behind him, he turned his eyes to her workstation instead of central command as he had originally planned. But instead of looking back at him, her eyes were trained on the viewport. “What’s that?”

Keith looked back to the viewport---and more specifically, to the rift. Whereas it had existed idly in space before, glowing blindingly golden but not causing any disruption otherwise, now a distortion had appeared in the center of it. Keith stared, unable to look away, as the distortion turned to a series of ripples; and from the center of those ripples, pushing its way through as if it was merely pushing through clothes stored in a closet, was---

“Is that . . . Voltron?” Zethrid asked.

“How can that be Voltron? We have Voltron,” Ezor said.

Keith wanted to agree with her, but there was no denying what was right in front of his---right in front of all of their eyes. Voltron, comprised of all five Lions, was floating through space right in front of the rift. As Keith watched, each of the Lions separated from one another, shooting apart before regrouping in a loose semi-circle staring directly at them instead.

“It appears that’s a Voltron from another reality,” Lotor said. Keith tore his eyes away from the Lions at last and looked back around to see that Lotor had braced his elbow against one of the central control units, his cheek leaning against his curled fingers, a little smirk on his lips. “Fascinating. I didn’t believe it possible.”

“How is it possible?” Acxa asked. “I thought Voltron’s sentience came from the void between realities. Even if another reality mined the same ore, how did they manage to recreate Voltron’s sentience?”

“That’s a question I unfortunately don’t have an answer to, though I’d love to find out,” Lotor said.

“Do you think they’re us?” Ezor asked. “Like, another reality’s version of us? That’d be kinda cool.”

“Maybe,” Zethrid said, “but only if my alternate reality self wasn’t disappointing.”

“How could she be disappointing?”

“Well, could she beat me in a fight? If she’s a total wimp, I have no need to know her.”

“But if she beats you, doesn’t that make you the disappointing wimp in her eyes?”

“All right, that’s enough,” Acxa said, just loudly enough to cut across Zethrid’s reply and draw their attention back to the matter at hand. Not for the first time, and he was sure not for the last, Keith was grateful for Acxa. “Lotor, what do you think we should---”

“Keith,” Lotor said suddenly, and Keith raised his eyebrows to show that he heard. “Close visual communications between the Castle and the Lions, and mute our end of the audio teleconferencing.”

“On it,” Keith said. He turned back in his seat and pulled up the communications channels on his console. He couldn’t help but feel another flash of gratitude as he did so; ever since Narti had figured out how to rewire the bridge’s front console so that all of its controls could be accessed from the Black Paladin’s workstation, all of their lives had gotten so much easier. He disconnected the visuals and muted their end of the audio was requested, and no sooner had he finished doing so did a voice break over the audio communication channel.

“Coran? Coran, are you there? Can you hear us?”

Keith blinked, and glanced at his console before he looked back up at the viewport. His console said that the transmission was coming from the Blue Lion, but while the voice was female, it was a far cry from Ezor’s bright chirp.

As if she had borrowed Narti’s abilities to read his thoughts, Ezor proved his point by saying, “Who’s Coran? And who is whoever’s asking for him? And what’s she doing in my kitty?”

“I would assume she’s that reality’s Blue Paladin,” Acxa said.

“Then what happened to me?” Ezor demanded, indignant.

“Coran? Hello? Is anyone there?” The same female voice broke through the communications channels again, and Keith frowned. She sounded . . . a little familiar, somehow, as though he had heard her voice somewhere before, a while back ago. It might have been her accent---it was similar to Lotor’s---but he didn’t think that was it. There was something else about her voice. Something---

“Patience, Ezor. I expect we’ll have our answers soon enough. I don’t believe our alternate reality friends will want to wait outside for long,” Lotor said.

“You think they’ll try to come inside?” Keith asked.

“Undoubtedly. Differing realities aside, from their perception, this is their Castle. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Zethrid said, and Keith didn’t have to look back to know that she was grinning as she said, “for them.”

Kova yowled from her place on Narti’s shoulder, her voice rippling with protest. Keith glanced over to see that she had arched her back and was flexing her claws, and that her tail was lashing in the direction of the Green Lion’s hangar.

“Oh, yeah,” Ezor said, blinking. “That’s a good point. Our kitties are still in the hangars, so---”

“There are other entrances, provided they’re comfortable with leaving their Lions outside,” Lotor said. “Just give them---ah, here we go. Right on time.”

Keith turned back to the viewport in time to see all five Lions bolt toward the Castle, light streaks like comet tails trailing behind them.

“Narti, notify Auxiliary Team One to be on standby in the portside wing. They’re to remain there, unseen, until our guests have entered this room. Then and only then do I want them in the corridor outside,” Lotor said. Kova meowed to show that Narti had heard, even as Narti busied herself with her console. “In the meantime, I am going to ensure their route.”

The central command console flickered to life before Lotor, and his fingers danced along the light screen as he locked down doors and corridors within the Castle. The elevators from the hangars to the bridge were the first to be locked down, just in case the alternate reality team tried to use them, making them use the primary rear door into the bridge instead. Next, Lotor worked at blocking off corridors that would lead them to the auxiliary teams’ wings (and especially the portside wing, where Auxiliary Team One was going to be on standby), corralling and shepherding them through a specific route to the bridge. Though the sensors indicated that the alternate team did still enter through the hangars (Lion-less though they now were), they were forced down a very linear path that would bring them straight to the bridge, and nowhere else.

“That should do it,” Lotor said, and he smiled like a satisfied cat at his handiwork. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

They didn’t have to wait for long.

Though the Castle’s sensors indicated that the alternate team tried to stray off their set path multiple times over, they realized quickly enough that there was only one path they would be permitted to take. Before they arrived, Keith rose from his seat to stand to Lotor’s right, just as Acxa stood to stand on Lotor’s left. Zethrid and Ezor rose as well; since their workstations were nearest the door, although they still stayed near their consoles, they still stood like sentries, appearing casual to all who didn’t know them. Only Narti remained seated, perched on her chair just as Kova was perched on her shoulder, but she was turned toward the door and Keith could tell by the twitch of her tail that she was attentive.

They only had to wait roughly fifteen dobashes before the rear entrance’s door finally slid open to admit five alternate reality Paladins. The first thing Keith noticed was that they had swapped one color for another; rather than any one of the Paladins wearing red armor, one---a girl about his age with dark skin and white hair---wore pink instead. But he had no time to comment on this before all five of them dropped to combat-ready stances, Bayards in hand. As one, Keith and Acxa took steps forward to place themselves a little in front of Lotor, who (Keith was unsurprised to see) looked far more amused than concerned.

“Is that really necessary?” Lotor asked. “We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet.”

“Who are you, and what are you doing in our Castle?” the one in the pink armor demanded. Keith blinked. She was the one who had spoken to them from the Blue Lion. But if she was the Blue Paladin, why wasn’t she wearing the blue armor instead of the lanky guy to her right?

“I suppose alternate realities can be confusing,” Lotor said, “but in case the presence of our Lions in their hangars, as well as the armor we’re wearing, didn’t make it apparent enough, let me clear your confusion: This is our Castle.”

The---Pink Paladin, Keith supposed, opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, their Yellow Paladin said, “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Haven’t we seen these guys before? At least, some of these guys.”

“They’re Lotor’s generals, aren’t they?” their Green Paladin asked. His---no, her? Her---eyes swept over them, looking at them each in turn. But when her eyes fell on him she went rigid, and her eyes widened.

Keith’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. He couldn’t say why, but he didn’t like the look she was giving hm.

But her teammates seemed to realize whatever it was she did in the same beat. Their Blue Paladin’s eyes widened just as their Green Paladin’s had, and before anyone could say anything he yelped, “Keith?! What are you doing here?!” He turned to their Black Paladin, then, and said, “I thought you said the Blade of Marmora didn’t have any ships that could make it through the rift!”

“I . . . didn’t think they did,” their Black Paladin said, frowning as he, too, turned his eyes to Keith. “What are you---how did you get here?”

“I live here,” Keith said, and he balled his fingers into fists in the crooks of his folded arms. “How do you know my name?”

“What do you mean, how do we know your name?” the Blue Paladin demanded. “We’ve only been putting up with you for months now. Get over here, you’re on the wrong side.”

“The wrong side?” Acxa said.

“Keith, are these friends of yours?” Lotor asked, and though he raised his eyebrows as if he was genuinely curious about the answer, there was something about his smile that told Keith that none of his amusement had faded.

Unfortunately, Keith didn’t share in his humor.

“No,” he said flatly. “I’ve never seen any of these people before in my life.”

It was if an errant electric shock rippled through the alternate reality Paladins. Most of them took a step back, and even those who didn’t faltered.

“What?” the Pink Paladin said.

“Uh, guys,” their Yellow Paladin said quietly. His eyes kept darting around the room, looking at each of them in turn, “I’m getting a really bad feeling about this.”

“I want to know what’s going on. Keith, what do you mean when you say you’ve never met us?” their Black Paladin asked. A strange look crossed over his face, then---something caught between unhappiness and surprise---and before Keith could answer his first question, he added, “And why are you wearing that armor?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ezor said, once more before Keith could get a word out. Keith huffed. It would be nice if they would give him a chance to respond. He could talk for himself. “It’s because he’s the Black Kitty’s pilot. Well, sometimes, anyway. He shares it.”

Zethrid smirked. “It gets real cozy in that cockpit sometimes.”

Keith gave her a flat look. “Really? You’re going to do this now?”

She only continued to grin at him.

As the other team’s Green Paladin said, “Black Kitty?” in a tone caught halfway between disgust and disbelief, their Black Paladin asked, “Who does he share it with?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Lotor asked, and he gestured to his own armor as he said, “Me.”

“You?” the Pink Paladin repeated, her eyes widening.

“Well, the colors on your armor are inverted, so maybe it’s not so obvious,” Ezor said, turning in Lotor’s direction. “The lights are the same, but the black and white parts are all switched.”

“It’s still close enough,” Zethrid said.

The Pink Paladin stepped forward, her chin raised a little, even as her hands curled into fists. “But aren’t you Prince Lotor?”

“But that doesn’t mean anything,” Ezor said, still clearly speaking to Zethrid. “I mean, look at these guys. The one who apparently flies my kitty is wearing pink armor, so who knows what the one wearing the blue armor has been flying.”

“I am,” Lotor said to the Pink Paladin, and the color left her cheeks.

“Wait a second, hold up!” their Blue Paladin said, loudly cutting across whatever Zethrid’s reply to Ezor was going to be. “Are you telling me that in this reality Lotor, his goon squad, and Keith are the Paladins of Voltron?”

“Goon squad?” Ezor repeated, all of her casual friendliness gone, replaced by a glare.

Their Blue Paladin said, “You heard me,” in a slightly defensive tone as he raised his Bayard between them.

Insult aside, Keith bristled at their Blue Paladin’s exclusionary language. “I’m part of this ‘goon squad,’ you know,” he said.

Their Yellow Paladin frowned at him. “Don’t say that about yourself, man.”

Keith gritted his teeth, and threw his hands up. “Why wouldn’t I say I’m part of my own---?”

“That’s impossible,” the Pink Paladin said, cutting across him. “There’s no way---” She cut herself off, took a breath, and glared hard at Lotor as she demanded (in a voice that was commendably stronger than it had been just a second before), “What happened here? How did you come to be in possession of this Castle?”

“I would be happy to explain, but I fear we’re skipping a crucial step,” Lotor said. He took a step forward, standing level with Keith and Acxa (and after exchanging a glance with her, both Keith and Acxa readied their own Bayards just in case), before he said, “It’s customary to introduce oneself to others before demanding things of them, isn’t it, Princess Allura of Altea?”

Keith’s eyes widened as realization and remembrance clicked in his head.

Oh.

That was how he knew her voice.

It was no wonder he had forgotten. It had been a decaphoeb and some change since they had first arrived with the Red Lion and had taken the Castle, and the time he had spent around her had been very brief. Though she and her servant---Coran, Keith guessed his name was, given what she had said over the communications channel earlier---had resisted, between the six of them it hadn’t taken much effort to get them both into the detention cells until they could be transferred to the planet Hauli in the Alosa system. Once she was detained, there was no need to spend any more time around her. Zethrid, Ezor, and Acxa had stood guard while Lotor, Keith, and Narti focused both on getting them to Hauli, and locating the other Lions. And once Allura and her servant had been dropped off on Hauli, well . . . out of sight, out of mind. They hadn’t heard from either of them since then.

“We have no need to introduce ourselves to you,” Allura said coldly. “Tell us how you came to be in possession of this Castle.”

“We don’t want to have to ask again,” their Black Paladin said in a hard voice, and Ezor tried and failed to bite back a sputtered laugh.

“Besides, if you’re going to tell someone else to introduce themselves, shouldn’t you introduce yourself first?” their Blue Paladin demanded.

“Lance, that’s really not the point here,” their Black Paladin said.

Their Blue Paladin---Lance---scowled. “And I thought we were supposed to be keeping our names secret, Shiro?”

“This is going so well,” their Green Paladin deadpanned.

“Nonetheless, I do suppose Lance here has a point,” Lotor said, and while they had both looked a bit sheepish at the fact that they had revealed their names without intending to, both Lance and Shiro (along with the rest of their team) looked back at Lotor. “It is only polite for us to introduce ourselves first. Very well. I am Prince Lotor, commander of the Castle of Lions, and part-time pilot of the Black Lion.”

“How?” their Yellow Paladin asked, before Keith could introduce himself in turn. “This Castle’s still Altean, right? And you’re Galra. How do you fly it?”

“I am as Altean as I am Galra,” Lotor said, and every member of the other team looked some degree of appalled. “I assure you, this Castle’s technology is not at all beyond me. Any other questions?” When he was met with silence, he said, “Good,” and waved one hand in Keith’s direction.

Keith folded his arms again. “My name’s Keith. I also pilot the Black Lion.”

“Yeah, we know,” Lance said, and he shot Keith a dirty look as he said it. Keith glared back at him. Before Keith could retort, however, Lotor gestured to Acxa.

Acxa shifted her stance just enough so that the eyes of the other Paladins were drawn to the Bayard she still had in a tight grip. Though she held it by her side, she turned her wrist just so to indicate that she was ready to use it on a tick’s notice. “Acxa,” she said. “Red Paladin.”

Lotor didn’t have time to gesture to Ezor before she spun her own Bayard in her grip and said, “I’m Ezor, and I’m the Blue Kitty’s pilot. And that’s,” she pointed across the room to Narti, “Narti, and she pilots Green.”

“Shouldn’t she introduce herself?” the other team’s Yellow Paladin asked. In response, Kova hissed loudly, arching her back as every strand of her fur stood on end. Their Yellow Paladin raised his hands in a placating gesture as he said, “Okay, okay. I was just asking.”

“Try asking less rude questions next time,” Ezor said. The look their Yellow Paladin gave her was nothing short of offended.

But before their Yellow Paladin could say anything more, Lotor caught Zethrid’s eye, and she stepped forward before the group. She wasn’t holding her Bayard, but when she flexed her arms, the lights above glinted off her armor.

“The name’s Zethrid,” she said, “and I’m the Paladin of the Yellow Lion.”

“Funny,” the other team’s Yellow Paladin said, looking her up and down, “because that’s my Lion, and I don’t think he’d like you very much.”

Zethrid grinned, baring her teeth. “Wanna bet?”

“What I want,” Lotor drawled, bringing their attention back to him, “is for our remaining two guests to introduce themselves.” He eyed the other team’s Green Paladin and Yellow Paladin, the former of which raised her chin defiantly. “Care to share now that we’ve all done the same?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” their Green Paladin said.

“Yeah, me too,” their Yellow Paladin said.

Lotor shook his head, but he was smiling. “So be it. Your commitment to your decision is commendable, even if it is futile. Narti?”

She was so quick that Keith was sure the other reality Paladins didn’t notice. Both the other team’s Green Paladin’s and Yellow Paladin’s eyes glazed over as Narti---turned completely in their direction, both of Kova’s ears up and her eyes unblinking---sifted through their thoughts. Yet it only lasted for a tick; both of them blinked as she left their minds, and Kova leaped off her shoulder as she bounded out of her chair and crossed the room to Lotor. Keith stepped back as Narti stepped forward, but it only took another tick for her to brush her fingers across the back of his hand and deliver the information he needed. His eyes briefly closed as he “heard” what she had to tell him, and when he opened them, he smiled.

“Thank you,” he said. Narti nodded before she returned to her workstation. Kova jumped back on her shoulder the moment she sat down.

Lotor, on the other hand, turned back to the other team. “It seems your name is Hunk,” he said, looking briefly at the other team’s Yellow Paladin, before he turned his eyes to the other team’s Green Paladin and added, “And do you prefer to be called Pidge, or Katie?”

Their Green Paladin’s---Pidge, or Katie, or whatever her name was---eyes widened. “What---how did you---?!”

“Okay, that is really creepy,” Hunk said. “What---what just happened? How did you know that?”

“Narti told me,” Lotor said simply. He raised his eyebrows at their Green Paladin. “Well? Which is it?”

“Pidge,” she said shortly. “But how---”

“She must be a telepath,” Allura ground out. “It’s the only explanation.”

“For real?!” Lance said, and he shot a furious look at Lotor. “That’s cheating! And what are you doing asking us to tell you things when you’ve got a freakin’ telepath on your team?!”

“I have a reputation for good sportsmanship, and I wish to keep it,” Lotor said, and Lance scoffed as Pidge rolled her eyes. Keith glared at them both. “I thought it only fair I gave you all a chance to introduce yourselves first before Narti did it for you.”

“Did Narti also figure out what’s going on with their armor?” Ezor asked. “Because I really wanna know.”

“What I want to know,” Allura said, anger rising in her voice, “is how you all came to be here. We’ve completed your pleasantry song and dance, Prince Lotor. Tell us how you came to be in possession of the Castle, now. As Shiro said before, we will not ask again.”

“If you won’t ask again, then it’d be really unfortunate for you if we decided not to answer, wouldn’t it?” Ezor said.

Though the other Paladins glared at her, Lotor decided to not follow through on her taunt.

“I should think the answer would be obvious,” he said, and when they looked back at him, he explained, “We took it.”

“Took it?” Shiro repeated. “How?”

“We found the location thanks to the Red Lion,” Keith said, and all eyes turned to him. “After we arrived---”

“Don’t you mean the Blue Lion?” Lance interrupted.

Keith frowned. “No. I mean the Red Lion. We didn’t get the Blue Lion until we went to the planet Earth to pick it up.”

“But you’re from Earth,” Hunk said. “Aren’t you? So how did you end up out here, with these guys?”

Keith furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about? I’ve only ever been to Earth once, and that was to get the Blue Lion. We were there for a few vargas at most.”

“That isn’t true,” Shiro said, and Keith gritted his teeth. “I know it’s not, even if this is another reality. Hunk is right, Keith: You’re from Earth. I met you when you were---”

“I’ve only ever been to Earth once,” Keith repeated. He couldn’t keep his voice from rising any more than he could keep his heartbeat from picking up speed, urged on by a sudden rush of adrenaline. “And I’ve never met any of you before today except for Princess Allura, since we met her when we took the Castle.”

Shiro glared at him. “This is ridiculous---”

“The only thing that’s ridiculous is that you refuse to take him at his word,” Acxa interrupted coldly. “He said that the only time he visited Earth was when we went to get the Blue Lion. We have every reason to believe him. You should try doing the same.”

Shiro turned his glare to her, but he closed his mouth and didn’t respond. Keith looked over to catch Acxa’s eye, and when he did, he mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ She nodded once in response.

“I still don’t understand how you managed to ‘take’ the Castle,” Allura bit out. Keith couldn’t blame her for wanting to get back to the original subject. “Surely we would have never allowed you to---”

“You and your servant had been cryo-sleeping for ten thousand years,” Zethrid said bluntly. “And on top of that, there were six of us and two of you. You didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“So, what,” Hunk began, “are the Allura and Coran of this reality . . .”

“. . . dead?” Pidge finished.

Lance cast a horrified look Allura’s way for only a moment before he turned on Keith, fury and accusation all over his face. “You killed them? You killed them?! What is wrong with you, how could you do something like---?!”

“Of course we didn’t kill them,” Keith snapped. “Who do you think we are? We put them in the detention cells until we could get them to Hauli.”

“What the heck is Hauli?” Hunk asked.

“It’s a planet in the Alosa system, about 450,000 light-years beyond the Empire’s borders,” Acxa said.

“It’s a really nice planet,” Ezor said. “At least, from what we saw of it. The beaches were pretty, and so was that resort we dropped them off at. So really, you could think of it as less of an exile, and more of a . . .” She grinned, and waved her hand through the air. “Prolonged vacation.”

“More importantly,” Lotor said, “since it’s so far beyond the Empire’s borders, neither my father nor his witch will see much of a point in pursuing this reality’s Princess Allura or her devoted manservant. While neither were particularly happy with the arrangement, I assure you that we did them no harm.”

“No,” Allura only said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You only invaded their Castle, took them hostage, and then exiled them far beyond the reaches of any galaxy they’ve ever known. But since you didn’t take it one step further and hand them over to Zarkon personally, I suppose we’re meant to forgive you.”

“We tried to reason and form an alliance with them,” Acxa said. “But they took one look at us and refused.”

“Of course they did!” Allura said. “You’re all Galra, and Lotor’s the son of Zarkon himself.” She turned to Keith, then, and he felt his throat constrict at the resentful look she threw his way. “And you, Keith. I would never have expected this from you.”

“Why not?” Keith demanded. “Why do you keep acting like---I don’t even know you!”

Allura looked away. “Clearly.”

Keith balled his hands into fists. This was---why was he being singled out? They had seemed to recognize the others, too. Allura had identified Lotor, Hunk and Pidge had indicated that they recognized Acxa, Narti, Ezor, and Zethrid. So why did they keep focusing on him? Why did they keep accusing him of things he had never done? Why were they acting like he had personally betrayed them? Why were they so insistent that he had come from Earth, that he knew them---what had happened in their reality?

He closed his eyes for a tick to try to get himself under control. That wasn’t important right now. None of that was important right now. Whatever had happened in their reality---whatever reason they had for continuously singling him out---it didn’t matter. The only thing that did was the here and now.

So rather than respond to the personal slights Allura threw his way, he said, “Look. We needed Voltron. In order to keep Voltron, and in order to find the other Lions, we needed the Castle. You refused---or, the you of this reality refused to let us use it, so we took it. We had no choice.”

“You know what?” Hunk said suddenly. “I take it back. I don’t like Galra Keith anymore. I want our old Keith back.”

As Zethrid growled sharply and Kova hissed (and Pidge muttered something that sounded a bit like, “Our Keith is Galra, too”), Keith glared at Hunk.

“Too bad,” he said, “because part-Galra Keith is the only Keith you’re going to get.”

Hunk opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Shiro cut across him.

“You said you needed Voltron,” he said, and once again his eyes were narrowed in Keith’s direction. Keith returned the stare in kind. “What could you possibly need Voltron for? The Galra Empire has already dominated half the universe. Zarkon’s ships are powerful enough to destroy any fleet. Why do you need Voltron at all?”

“You really are good at missing the obvious, aren’t you?” Ezor asked. Shiro glared at her.

“It’s to neutralize the threat,” Allura said, ignoring Ezor. “Zarkon wanted control of Voltron so that it could not be used against him. Now that he has it---”

“But wait,” Pidge said. “Wasn’t Zarkon obsessed with the Black Lion? He wanted it for himself. So if that’s the case, why’s he letting Keith fly it?”

“Zarkon’s not letting me do anything,” Keith said, disgusted. “We don’t answer to him, and he doesn’t have anything he didn’t already have before we found the Castle.”

Shiro looked back at Keith. “Then what are you doing with it?”

“My father and his Empire have ruled this universe for ten thousand years too long,” Lotor said. He smirked a little as all eyes turned to him. “We seek to change that via revolution.”

“Uhh, nu-uh, no way,” Lance said, and he raised one hand in a stop gesture toward Lotor. “There’s no way you can stand there and try to tell us that you’re the good guys when we’re the good guys. That’s not how this works.”

Lotor gave him a disdainful look. “I was under the impression that we were discussing a war, not a children’s game of Police and Rebels. Please feel free to rejoin the conversation when you’ve matured enough to understand that.”

Lance looked scandalized, but Allura spoke up before he could defend himself. “You cannot possibly expect us to believe that you have turned against your own father in order to use Voltron in a form of rebellion,” she said.

Lotor shrugged. “You’re free to believe whatever you wish. It has no effect on the truth either way. That being the case, I believe we’ve answered all your questions. How about you return the courtesy and answer some of ours?”

Allura raised her chin, defiant. “Such as?”

“What reason do you have for visiting this reality?” Lotor took another step forward, and every member of the opposing team took a step back, raising their Bayards defensively. Lotor was unperturbed. “We were examining that rift for our own purposes, but I’m curious of yours. I assume you came to our Castle because you believed it to be yours---”

“It is---” Allura said, but she cut herself off mid-sentence, as if she had spoken without meaning to.

“No, it’s not,” Zethrid said, having caught Allura’s meaning anyway. “It’s ours.”

“Maybe not for long,” Shiro said. Keith and Acxa both took another step forward, once again standing on either side of Lotor. Narti hopped lightly to her feet, Kova gracefully dropping down to the floor.

“Uh, that’s a nice thought and all, but um---maybe you don’t know, because you were still in the Castle with Coran at the time, but the last time we fought these guys, we . . . kinda got our butts kicked,” Hunk said. “And that was when there was just four of them, and we had Keith.”

Keith’s heart jolted unpleasantly in his chest. That wasn’t---there was no way. He wouldn’t---even in another reality, he would never fight Acxa and the others . . .

. . . would he?

“Yeah, but now we have Shiro,” Lance said. “Shiro can take Keith.”

“Okay, but that still leaves the four who kicked our butts last time, and Lotor,” Hunk said. “I’m just saying, this situation does not look good for us.”

“Well, it definitely doesn’t now that you’re giving us such a big confidence boost,” Ezor said, and she flashed her teeth in a grin.

“Not that we needed it,” Zethrid said, and she scoffed. “I could take half these chumps on my own.”

“Oh, you wanna come over here and say that to my face?” Lance said, and he stepped out from around Shiro to face Zethrid properly, his arms spread wide. He was posturing, and very obviously so, but that didn’t stop Zethrid’s lips from splitting in a manic grin wide enough to reveal each of her teeth as she started toward him.

“Gladly,” she said, a fierce growl in her voice, and Lance’s eyes widened as he took a step back.

“That won’t be necessary,” Lotor said. Zethrid stopped in her tracks and sent a frown Lotor’s way, but even as she did, he said, “Narti?”

Without turning, Narti gave her workstation’s console a few quick taps with her fingers. That was all it took; in the next tick the rear door opened once again, and each of the alternate reality Paladins were forced to scramble back, closer to the center of the room, as all twenty members of Auxiliary Team One filed in, weapons drawn.

“What is---who are these people?” Allura demanded.

“These are the members of Auxiliary Team One, one of several teams of part-Galra we’ve been training to assist in our revolution,” Lotor said.

“So you have an army living in this Castle?” Hunk asked. “Okay, now things look even worse for us than they did before.”

“Unbelievable,” Allura said scathingly. “You have Voltron, and yet you’re training armies no differently from your father---”

“Uh, you heard the part where he said that the people on the auxiliary teams are part-Galra, right?” Ezor asked.

“It makes no difference,” Allura said coldly.

Ezor narrowed her eyes. “Take it from me, a part-Galra: It makes a big difference.”

“Voltron is a powerful weapon,” Keith said, feeling it best to change the subject to something Allura and the others could hopefully understand. “There are few things in the universe that can rival it, and it’s vital to taking down Zarkon. But all Voltron can do is defend and destroy, and we need to do so much---”

“Voltron is more than just a weapon,” Allura interrupted, and she glared at Keith. “It is a symbol of hope, of victory and eventual peace, and it inspires all who see it. The fact that you do not recognize that is proof enough that you do not deserve to have it.”

“While Voltron may indeed be the symbol you speak of,” Lotor said, “the fact remains, Princess Allura, that symbols do not win wars. Soldiers do. Your words are beautiful, but in the face of an Empire that has ruled for ten thousand years, they are easily crushed. And if you arm the revolution with nothing more than ideals and empty promises, then so, too, are they.”

“The promise of Voltron is not empty,” Allura said fiercely. “And giving people hope when they’ve had none for ten thousand years---giving them something to believe in when they’ve had nothing, is not---!”

“We are giving them something to believe in,” Keith said, and though she turned her scowl back to him, he didn’t back down. “Themselves. Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe, but it’s also only one weapon, or five if you count each Lion separately. Voltron can’t be everywhere at once. It’s not possible. While none of the Empire’s fleets can match Voltron in terms of raw strength, that won’t stop them from going back to planets we’ve brought to our side and crushing them while we’re on the other side of the universe trying to help someone else. So we’re teaching them---we’re training them so that they can defend and protect themselves. We’re giving them the strength they need to hit back against the Empire when Zarkon’s commanders come knocking on their doors. We’ll help them when we can, but we won’t always be able to. Voltron won’t always be there. They need to be able to believe in and defend themselves when the time comes.”

“That’s just an excuse to get out of helping people,” Lance said.

Fire lashed through Keith’s veins. “No, it’s not!”

“It’s all right, Keith,” Lotor said, and he raised one hand to show that the conversation was finished. “It’s clear they won’t understand regardless of what we say. We have differing strategies for how to deal with my father’s Empire; no matter how long we stand here and argue about it, it’s clear that won’t change.”

“Right,” Hunk said. “Good call. So, uh . . . can we go?”

“No,” Lotor said, and he smiled broadly as the other Paladins stepped back into a tight knot, their backs together as they faced the opposition that surrounded them on all sides. “I still have many remaining questions about your Lions, as well as the Voltron of your reality. If I let you go, I won’t get the answers I seek.”

“You won’t get what you want if you keep us, either,” Shiro said. “We aren’t going to tell you.”

“I’m aware, but your cooperation isn’t necessary for Narti,” Lotor said, and Shiro’s face blanched. “Nonetheless, I don’t believe you have the knowledge I seek regardless. It’s your Lions themselves I wish to study.”

“Well, you can’t have them,” Lance snapped.

Lotor smirked. “It isn’t a matter of whether I can or can’t. It’s a matter of whether I will or won’t, and I assure you: I will. Auxiliary Team One, take them.”

Auxiliary Team One didn’t wait for Lotor to finish giving the order before they pounced, and the skirmish was over in dobashes. The alternate reality Paladins were outnumbered four to one, and that wasn’t counting the actual Paladins that surrounded them. Ezor tripped Shiro as he jumped back to try and put distance between himself and the four auxiliary team members that went after him, allowing them to dogpile him in less than a tick; Lance raised his Bayard to fire at those that came at him, but Acxa’s shot was faster, and the blast that hit his wrist dropped his Bayard from his hand; Pidge tried to jump back, away from the auxiliary team members that went after her, but her attempt to put distance between them did nothing more but send her crashing back into Zethrid. Before Pidge had time to put distance between them again, Zethrid locked her arm around Pidge’s neck in a chokehold, and lifted her clear off the ground.

“Take her Bayard and then put her down, Zethrid,” Lotor said, raising his voice to be heard over the struggle.

“Why?” Zethrid asked. Pidge swung her arm to slam her Bayard against Zethrid’s leg, but before she made contact, Narti darted forward and snapped her fingers around Pidge’s wrist, twisting it as she pulled Pidge’s arm up and back. Pidge tried to pull her arm free, but from the way she was kicking back against Zethrid (something Zethrid didn’t seem to notice) and her cheeks were tinting blue, it was clear she was more concerned about breathing than keeping her Bayard, which allowed Narti to pull it from her hand. “Bad enough you called in the auxiliary team to take out the rest of these stooges; at least let me take care of this one.” She looked down at Pidge, whose kicks were growing weaker. “I wonder if her head’ll come off.”

“Put her down,” Keith said.

“We don’t want them dead, we want them captured,” Lotor said, “so I would prefer it if her head remained on her shoulders for now. Release her, Zethrid.”

Zethrid rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. You guys are no fun.”

She dropped Pidge to the floor, and Pidge landed on her hands and knees, gasping and coughing for air. This made it more than easy for two of the auxiliary team members to grab her, wrenching her arms behind her back before binding her wrists in cuffs. With the number of auxiliary team members needed to restrain Pidge reduced to two, the remaining two were able to aid the four subduing Hunk. And once his Bayard had been tossed to Zethrid and his hands, too, were cuffed behind his back, the battle (if it could be called that) was over.

“Thank you. You all did marvelously,” Lotor said, drawing mingled reactions of pride and bashfulness from Auxiliary Team One. “Take them down to the detention cells, and assign two guards to each. We don’t want to take any chances.”

“Yes, sir!” the auxiliary soldiers chorused.

The alternate reality Paladins, even handcuffed, did not go quietly. Pidge tried to duck around the auxiliary team members shepherding her, so that one of them---Birken---had to hoist her up and toss her over his shoulder as he carried her, swearing despite the rasp in her voice from being choked by Zethrid, from the room. It took all six of the members who had pinned Hunk to begin with to herd him through the door, and while Lance was easily restrained by two members alone, his shrieking could be heard echoing easily down the hall even after they pushed him through the exit. Neither Allura nor Shiro resisted much physically, though Shiro did jerk free every time the auxiliary team tried to put hands on him, and he shot Keith a disparaging look just before he exited the room. Allura, on the other hand, paused in the doorway just long enough to deliver a scathing look back at Lotor.

“This is not over,” she said.

Lotor smirked in kind. “I would be disappointed if it was.”

Allura threw one last baleful look to Lotor before the door closed, muting any sounds of struggle from the corridor and leaving their team alone in the bridge at last.

Ezor sighed in what sounded like both amazement and relief as she leaned back against her workstation, one foot kicked up against her chair, and folded her arms loosely against her stomach.

“Well, that was certainly something,” she said, and then she looked over at Keith. “Wonder what their problem with you was, though.”

Keith grimaced. “You noticed?”

“It was impossible not to,” Zethrid said. “It was like they couldn’t keep their eyes off you. What the hell did you do in that reality of theirs?”

It wasn’t just Ezor and Zethrid; Lotor and Acxa were watching him as well, and even Narti and Kova were turned in his direction. Keith hadn’t felt calm since Pidge’s eyes had first focused on him after the alternate Paladins had entered the room, but though he had hoped things would calm down and return to normal once the alternate reality Paladins were carted off to the detention cells, he could see now that wasn’t going to be the case. Every nerve in his body felt jittery, and he crossed his arms over his chest in an effort to quell the sickening tumble of anxiety in his chest.

“I don’t know,” he said. “How should I? I’ve never been there.”

Ezor shrugged. “That’s fair.”

“It’s also not the most pertinent topic of discussion right now,” Lotor said, drawing their attention back to him. “As much as I am still interested in testing the rift to see if constructing a gate over it would be possible, examining the Voltron Lions that came from the other reality is more important. We need to see what similarities they bear to ours, both in terms of whether it would be possible for us to pilot them, and---as Acxa mentioned previously---if the sentience within them remains the same.”

“Would you like us to go take a look?” Acxa asked.

Lotor nodded. “Yes. Report your findings to me when you have them. I’ll continue to collect data on the quintessence frequency of the rift so we don’t lose too much time with regards to our original project.”

“Understood,” Acxa said. She caught Keith’s eye briefly before she started toward the rear exit, Narti, Ezor, and Zethrid all following suit. Keith hesitated for only a tick; he could feel Lotor’s eyes on him, and there was a twinge in the back of his mind that Lotor was about to ask him something. Keith, unlike Narti, had no way of knowing what question burned on the tip of Lotor’s tongue, but considering what had just transpired, he had a feeling he didn’t want to find out. So instead of lingering behind, he met Lotor’s eyes only long enough to nod and show that he, too, understood what Lotor wanted them to do. He then turned and jogged to catch up with the others, slipping through the rear entrance just before the door slid shut.

“. . . why pink?” Ezor was saying as Keith caught up to them. “I mean, it’s a nice color. It complemented her well. But she was flying my kitty, right? So why was she wearing pink armor?”

“I don’t know, Ezor,” Acxa said, in the same soul-weary tone she often used whenever Ezor became hooked on a particular topic.

“And which kitty does the guy wearing the blue armor fly? Hey, Narti.” Ezor skipped a few paces ahead, and elbowed Narti lightly in the side. “Did you figure out what was going on with their armor when you rooted through their minds?”

Kova loosed a low croon as Narti shook her head. Ezor sighed heavily.

“Great. Now we’ll probably never know, since they don’t seem willing to tell us.” She paused, and then spun on her heel so that she could walk backwards down the corridor, looking at Keith. “What do you think, Keith?”

Keith blinked. “What do I think about what?”

“Which kitty do you think the guy who was wearing blue armor flies?”

“Uhh . . .” Keith was about to repeat Acxa’s answer from before (“I don’t know”) when a flash of memory from back in the bridge sparked in his mind. “He was holding the red Bayard, so I guess he pilots the Red Lion.”

“What?” Ezor gaped at him. “Then why wasn’t he wearing the red armor? It’s not like anyone else was wearing it. Unless . . .” Her eyes widened. “Do you think he and Princess Allura swapped armors? Although, her armor isn’t red, either . . . maybe the Red Kitty is the Pink Kitty in their reality?”

“It looked red when we saw it through the viewport,” Zethrid said.

Ezor waved her hand dismissively in the air. “That could have just been what it looked like through the viewport, though, and we only saw it for a few ticks---”

“It was several dobashes at least.”

“---so who knows, it could’ve been Pink.”

By this point they had reached an intersection in the Castle’s corridors. Straight ahead would lead them to the exit that Acxa was planning on having them use so that they could slip out without their Lions to go check on the Lions the other reality’s Paladins had brought with them. To the left was an elevator that led down to the second to last level, where the training rooms were located. Keith paused at the intersection as the others calmly walked through it, and after deliberating for a moment with his eyes on the elevator, he said, “Hey---I’m going to go get some training in instead.”

Acxa, Narti, Ezor, and Zethrid all stopped, and turned back to him with varying expressions of bewilderment.

“Huh?” Ezor said.

Keith jerked his thumb in the direction of the elevator. “The training room should be free right now. I’m going to go take advantage of that. You guys can check out the other Lions without me, can’t you?”

Acxa frowned, her brow pinching together in the middle. “Lotor said he wanted us all to check them out.”

“Lotor just wants to see how similar their Lions are to ours. If Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow all match up, there’s no reason why Black won’t,” Keith said. “You don’t need me to verify that.”

“Yeah, but why should you get to train when the rest of us have to work?” Zethrid said, and she grinned as she punched one fist into her opposite palm. “Let me come spar with ya.”

“No,” Acxa said sharply. “We can’t all blow this off. Lotor’s counting on us to examine the Lions.”

Zethrid scowled at her. “You know, if Keith’s the Fun Police Deputy, you’re the Fun Police Sheriff.”

Keith and Acxa frowned, and as one they said, “Hey.”

“And Lotor’s the Fun Police Chief,” Zethrid added, ignoring both of them. “Sometimes, at least. Not as consistently as you two. But definitely back there when I was choking out that little one.”

“That’s because we had no reason to kill her,” Keith said. “That’s not what we’re about.”

“Whatever you say, Deputy,” Zethrid said. Keith rolled his eyes

Evidently feeling it better to change the subject than continue the one they were on, Acxa turned to Keith. When their eyes met, she asked, “Are you sure this can’t wait until after we examine the Lions?”

He should say no. Keith knew he should say no, that he had a job and a responsibility to do---that they all did, and that personal matters didn’t justify getting in the way of what needed to be done. It was a reasonable conclusion to reach that the Black Lion would be the same if the others were (or vice versa), but that didn’t make it definite. It didn’t make it certain. The only way they would know for sure is if he managed to get into the cockpit. If he didn’t even try, then whether the Black Lion remained the same or not would remain a question none of them could fully answer.

But as he looked back at Acxa, the word no lodged in his throat. They didn’t seem to be treating him differently. Ezor had still tried pulling him into the conversation, and Zethrid was teasing him as per usual. Acxa looked concerned, and Kova’s tail swished slowly along Narti’s back as Narti turned fully in his direction. But every nerve in his body still felt like it was tingling with restless, anxious energy; he couldn’t help but feel that something had been slammed between them, wedged in there by the other reality Paladins’ accusations and questioning eyes. They had known him---they had seemed to know him, even if nothing they said made any sense. What did that mean? What could have happened? There was no way of knowing---Keith had never been to their reality, and he had no intention of visiting---but the fact that it was a question at all made it hard for him to sit still, or play along as if everything was normal.

So instead of agreeing with Acxa that his training could wait, what he said instead was, “The training room is going to be booked later with the auxiliary teams’ training sessions. This is the only time it’s free.” He paused, and then---because of a look in Acxa’s eyes that told him she was about to counter---added in a lower voice, “I . . . need this right now, Acxa.”

Acxa held his gaze for a moment more, yet then nodded.

“All right,” she said, her voice just as quiet as his had been. “I understand. We’ll talk later.”

Keith nodded.

“Zethrid, Ezor, Narti,” Acxa said, her voice at a more conversational volume now as she turned to continue heading toward the exit, “Let’s go.”

Narti turned and started back down the corridor without complaint. Zethrid grumbled a little, but similarly followed after Acxa and Narti. Ezor, on the other hand, paused before she followed after the others, and grinned right before she swiftly reached out and tapped Keith’s nose with one finger.

“See you in a bit,” she said. “We’ll let you know how the Black Kitty looks when we get back.”

Despite his mood, Keith smiled a little. “Thanks.”

Ezor shrugged, her smile unwavering, before she turned and headed down the corridor after the others. Keith watched them go for only a moment before he turned to head toward the training rooms instead.

He wasn’t lying when he said the training rooms were always booked solid. At the moment, they had three auxiliary teams of twenty soldiers apiece they were training. Sessions were broken up not only by teams, but also by method of combat. Swordsmanship lessons were with Keith; marksmanship with Acxa; conditioning and strength training with Zethrid; agility and stealth with Ezor; and hand-to-hand combat with Narti. The eventual goal was to find two or three qualified captains within each auxiliary team that could continue to train the rest; once that was accomplished, the auxiliary teams could stay on planets they convinced to revolt against Zarkon to train the civilians that lived there, arming them not only with weapons, but also the expertise to put those weapons to good use. It was all well and good to find planets that were supportive of Lotor one day taking the throne (and turning the Empire into more of a galactic federation while he was at it), but it would do them no good if those planets were swatted by the Empire the tick word of their changed allegiance got out. Training the auxiliary teams so that they could train (and protect until they were trained) the civilians of those planets was crucial. If they failed this step, their revolution would never go anywhere.

That meant, though, that the training room was kept under a rigid schedule. Even when there weren’t lessons being taught by one of the Paladins, the auxiliary teams all had their own individual training sessions. And when they weren’t training, the actual members of Team Voltron all had scheduled blocks of training so that they didn’t fall behind in their own skills. It was rare to see the training room free, and though he had chunks of time in the training schedule blocked off for himself (mostly late at night, when the others were sleeping), Keith still felt it worthwhile to take advantage of the fact that the room was free now. It felt welcoming, anyway, when he stepped into the training room to find it blissfully empty and silent. He shed the top piece of his armor and tossed it against the wall by the door (he didn’t mind fighting in full Paladin armor---it was easy enough to move in---but he wanted to relax, and full Paladin armor wasn’t exactly the best for relaxing in), and once he had rolled shoulders to work out some of the stiffness in them, he called, “Start Training Level Fo---Three.”

Considering his preoccupation, it was probably best to start off slow.

A hole opened in the ceiling, and the requested training A.I. dropped down. Its singular eye glinted, and in the next tick it charged at Keith, sword drawn. Keith met the strike head-on with his Bayard’s sword, the clang of steel on rift ore echoing through the training room, the A.I. pushing back hard against the opposition Keith threw against it.

Keith smiled, a little of the tension that had taken root in his chest loosening.

Good.

This was good---natural, normal. This was where he belonged. He shoved back against the A.I. to turn their lock into a parry, spinning on the ball of his foot so he could sweep his blade toward the A.I.’s waist in a wide arc. The A.I. leaped out of the way, putting enough distance between them so it could try to strike at Keith again from a new angle. Once again Keith caught the A.I.’s blade on his own, and pushed both swords up so that he could quickly spin his Bayard in his hand, and go in for a forward thrust instead.

It was stupid to think he could be anywhere else---to think the situation could be anything else. Anything went in an alternate reality, he guessed; it’s why it was an alternate reality. Keith didn’t know the specifics of how all the different realities worked; they had only briefly visited one once before to retrieve the comet. But although that reality had presented a history in which Daibazaal had never been destroyed and the Galra Empire had spread its borders much farther than they presently had, nothing about it had prepared him for the possibility that somewhere, in another reality, his history was . . . completely different from what it was here. He supposed he didn’t know what had happened to him in the comet reality; none of the Galra commanders they had encountered had recognized him, and it had taken them time to recognize Lotor. Maybe the fact that they didn’t recognize him was a bad sign, one he hadn’t considered. Maybe he and Lotor hadn’t known each other in that reality, either. But there was a difference between not knowing each other and being enemies, and from the way the alternate reality Paladins had made it sound, in their reality, they were---he was---

He ducked under the A.I.’s blade and spun around to put himself behind his robotic opponent. Before the A.I. had a chance to turn, Keith jumped, and swung his sword down in a strong vertical arc. His blade crashed against the A.I.’s shoulder, but while a normal soldier would have dropped his weapon and crumpled in an instant, the A.I. pulled back so that Keith was forced to flip overhead. Keith spun the tick his foot touched the ground, and it wasn’t a tick too soon; he had to hastily raise his sword to block the counterstrike the A.I. leveled against him, and he skipped back a few steps to put more distance between them.

He couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t imagine what could have possibly unfolded in that reality to make him change allegiances like that. But then, was it even a question of changed allegiance? What was it they said---Hunk and Shiro had said he was from the planet Earth, right? Keith scoffed, even as he once again parried the A.I.’s strike. Earth. He couldn’t say very much about the planet. He hadn’t been lying when he said they had only been there for a few vargas at most. The most he had seen of it was the view of it from a distance (most of it was covered in water), and the desert terrain where they had excavated the Blue Lion. But what he did see was . . . he couldn’t imagine growing up there. Not because there was anything wrong with it, really, but because it was so . . .

Keith narrowed his eyes, his fingers constricting around the hilt of his Bayard. When he slammed his sword against the A.I.’s, he did so with more force behind the blow than necessary.

It was so unlike Revender.

Not that that was a bad thing. Revender had been---but that didn’t matter. No matter how it had been, Keith didn’t regret the years he had to spend there. It was because he had grown up there that he met Acxa. It was because he had grown up there that he met Lotor. He wouldn’t be where he was today if not for that. Whatever he had gone through, it was all worth it in the end.

But apparently, his alternate reality self couldn’t relate.

The A.I. once again danced around him in a futile bid to attack him from behind, and Keith pivoted on the ball of his foot to meet its blade. But while he followed the A.I. with his eyes as it tried to skip into his blind spot, he failed to notice that he was no longer alone in the training room until he saw Lotor’s blade swinging in a vertical arc toward his face. Reacting on instinct, Keith swung his own sword up to meet Lotor’s in a clumsy block that forced him backward on unsteady steps. He hardly had time to regain his footing before Lotor pounced on him again, swinging his sword in a diagonal, upward strike. Keith was forced to transfer his Bayard to his left hand to block it, yet even as he threw his momentum into a spin to force Lotor back, Lotor merely smirked at him as he pulled his sword away from Keith’s to stab it behind him instead.

The A.I. that had been about to run Lotor through jolted to a standstill as Lotor’s blade pierced through its abdomen, and it fizzled out as the training program ended.

“Well, that is unusual,” Lotor said, and as he sheathed his blade, Keith returned his Bayard to its dormant state. “I haven’t been able to get the jump on you in decaphoebs. Mind telling me why that is?”

“Because I usually expect you to be in the training room with me,” Keith said, and he wiped the sweat from his brow off on the back of his hand. “This time I didn’t. You surprised me. How’s the rift doing?”

“The rift is the same as it was before,” Lotor said, and he followed Keith as Keith started back toward the door of the training room to collect his armor, “but that isn’t what I’m here to discuss. Yes, Keith, I’m perfectly aware that I surprised you. My question is why. You’re normally far more attentive than that.”

Keith shrugged. “I was just . . . thinking about other stuff. Focused on the fight. It took concentration.”

“That was Training Level Three.”

“I know.”

“You need to be on at least Four, if not Five, to be challenged.”

Keith pressed his lips together in a tight frown as he retrieved his armor from where he had thrown it. He had nothing to say to that, because Lotor was right.

“So,” Lotor said, with the air of one who had been tasked with beating a circle into the dirt around a bush, and was not at all happy with it, “mind telling me what caused you such distraction during your training session?”

Keith looked at Lotor askance. Lotor was watching him, staring at him in that way he so often did, as if Keith was a puzzle that was both fascinating and frustrating all at once. He wanted to know---genuinely wanted to know what was on Keith’s mind. Yet although the thing Keith couldn’t stop himself from dwelling on tangentially affected Lotor as well, Keith shook his head and exited through the doors.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I was just . . . thinking about nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Lotor followed him through the exit, and fell into easy step beside him. He was quiet for a few ticks as the two of them headed toward the . . . lounge, Keith supposed, that was as good a place as any. Yet when they stepped onto the elevator to return to the main floor to go to the lounge, Lotor dropped his voice to a calm, observational tone as he said:

“Yet although assurances that all is well fall from the young general’s lips, his brow creases in deep and troublesome thought, worry swirling like dark clouds in his eyes.”

Despite himself, Keith couldn’t help but sputter a laugh. He shut his eyes, and leaned his head against the wall of the elevator as he said, “Okay, I get it. Good one.”

“. . . he says, but fatigue borne of stress sags his shoulders and leaves him slumped against the side of the elevator, head bowed.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Lotor, seriously---”

“The young general lifts his head at last; it is evident that agitation quarrels with the anxiety within him,” Lotor continued, blatantly smirking now. The elevator doors opened, and Keith---not waiting for an invitation---made his way through them to head toward the lounge. Lotor fell into step beside him once more, and his commentary didn’t miss a beat. “His strides are long and purposeful, yet tense. It is clear that he is intent on combating an external problem in an effort to mask the internal strife that rages within.”

“Okay, seriously, that’s really enough,” Keith said, as they entered the (thankfully empty) lounge at last. Keith dropped down onto the sofa, depositing his armor on the floor beside him, and leaned his head back against the cushions. “You’ve more than made your point. I’ve got it.”

“Hmm.” Lotor took a seat on the sofa as well, leaving just enough space between them to be comfortable. “If that’s so, then I assume you’re ready to confess what’s on your mind?”

“It’s really nothing,” Keith said, but he regretted it the second the words left his mouth and he saw the glint in Lotor’s eyes.

“But despite his insistence that nothing is amiss, the young general’s---”

“It’s just,” Keith said, loudly enough to be heard over Lotor’s narration, though once Lotor stopped talking, Keith lowered his own voice, turning his eyes to the floor. “I’m just . . . thinking about what those other Paladins said. The ones from the other reality.”

“Those are the only other Paladins I’m aware of, yes,” Lotor said. “What in specific did they say that concerns you?”

Aware that it was dangerously close to becoming the catchphrase of the day (though it wasn’t as if they hadn’t had worse), Keith turned back to Lotor and said, “Isn’t it obvious? They . . . knew me, Lotor. They were convinced I was part of their team, or that I should be. Apparently in their reality . . . I am.”

“Yes,” Lotor said. He was seated on the sofa so that he was turned fully toward Keith, his elbow resting on the back cushions. He leaned his cheek against curled fingers, his eyes never leaving Keith’s face. “I’m aware.”

Keith stared back at him, his brow furrowed. “And doesn’t that . . . bother you?”

Lotor shrugged. “Not particularly.”

Keith’s heart skipped a beat in his chest, as though he had missed a step while walking down stairs. Given how he heard and, logically, understood the words Lotor had just said, yet didn’t understand how they made sense given the context, he felt like he had missed a step processing things in his head, too.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Their reality is only that: their reality. It has no bearing on ours, save for this little jaunt they’ve decided to make across the rift,” Lotor said. “Whatever occurred in their reality is inconsequential to what we’ve accomplished here. Whatever occurred in their reality is inconsequential to what we will accomplish here. Imagining a reality where you and I are in opposition isn’t pleasant, but it also isn’t necessary. In this reality---in our reality---we are together. That is all that matters.”

Keith was quiet for a long moment as he turned Lotor’s words over in his head. Everything he said made sense---it made perfect sense. Knowing what they now did about the other reality, it was unlikely they would try to cross the rift themselves, even if they still tried building a gate over as a preliminary test for the rift in the ruins of Daibazaal. If they never crossed this rift, that meant they had no reason to worry about the reality on the other side. Whatever that reality’s version of him was doing, it didn’t matter. Whatever reason that version of him had for opposing Lotor, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t think of a reason why he would change allegiances now---couldn’t think of anything short of Lotor flipping on everything they had worked so hard for that could drive them apart. Whatever had happened in the other reality to make them enemies---if anything had happened to make them enemies---it more than likely didn’t have a place here.

“You’re right,” he said finally, and he looked over to meet Lotor’s smile with his own. “I was worrying over nothing.”

“Yes, I know,” Lotor said, and though Keith rolled his eyes, he couldn’t really wipe the smile from his face. “Though I have to say once again that it is a bit surprising. You’re ordinarily so grounded in the present; it truly is unusual for you to fret over something so abstract.”

“I’ll do my best to keep myself together better next time,” Keith said dryly.

Lotor shrugged. “As you wish. But should you encounter difficulty, know that I’ll never have any qualms about setting the record straight.”

Despite the light notes of teasing and boast in his tone, Keith recognized Lotor’s support for what it was. As turned back to meet Lotor’s eyes once more, he couldn’t say it was surprising. This was how they had always been. He had agreed to lend his support to Lotor’s cause---had agreed to believe in Lotor as worthy of the throne---and Lotor in turn had agreed to lend his support to (and believe in) Keith. In the decaphoebs they had known each other, this had become less of a decided upon agreement, and more of an implicit reality. Regardless of anything that had happened in Keith’s life before he and Lotor had met, the fact that they supported and believed in one another without faltering was true now. The bond they shared was unbreakable, unshakeable, even in the face of another reality that threatened to contradict everything they understood about one another.

Before he had time to process or organize these thoughts, Keith blurted, “I’m glad that we’re together, in this reality.”

Lotor blinked, yet then smiled. It wasn’t one of his typical smirks or grins of amusement, and there were no traces of mirth in his eyes even as his smile seemed to light them.

“As am I,” Lotor said, his voice as soft as his smile. “You are invaluable to me, Keith.”

Oh.

Keith felt as though the air had been knocked from his lungs.

Invaluable. That wasn’t a word Keith had ever thought of in relation to himself. There were others he could name, other ways he could think of to describe himself, but something like invaluable never made the list. But it wasn’t only that Lotor had said it that mattered; it was that Lotor had said it, and seemed to mean it. There were no traces of insincerity in his gaze, no hints of teasing or mockery. Keith’s heart was hammering now, for a completely different reason than it had back on the bridge. He swallowed, but that didn’t make it easier to breathe. Nor was it easier when he scrunched his hands in the fabric of the sofa cushion, trying to force his brain to come up with something for him to say.

“Me---uh---I feel, also, that you’re, um---” Keith’s voice shook a little with his hands as Lotor raised his eyebrows. “That you’re, um---you’re---!”

Screw it, Keith thought savagely, resisting the urge to bury his face in the couch cushions out of shame. Words weren’t going to cut this one. Words weren’t good enough. Words weren’t needed to get the point across. He took a deep breath to steel himself, and then---with no hesitation, no deliberation---he closed his eyes, leaned forward to close the distance between them . . .

. . . and immediately had to jump back as a third person suddenly joined them on the sofa, dropping her camouflaging ability as she wedged herself between them, one arm thrown over each of their shoulders.

“We’re back!” Ezor said brightly, as Keith put a hand against his chest and over his rapidly beating heart. For once, Lotor looked just as startled as Keith felt. “All kitties checked out and accounted for.” She glanced between them, a coy smirk on her lips. “What have you guys been up to?”

“Nothing,” Keith said, but he felt the tiny crack in his voice probably betrayed him. Lotor had already recovered; he scooted back a little on his side of the couch, putting just enough comfortable space between himself and Ezor, while Acxa took a seat on Keith’s other side.

“Mmmhm,” Ezor said, as Narti, Kova, and Zethrid sat down on the opposite ends of the couch. “Okay. Anyway, we checked out the other reality kitties.”

“That sort of thing is usually more successful in private,” Acxa said in an undertone to Keith, as she pretended to examine her nails.

“Were you able to use them?” Lotor asked Ezor.

“You don’t say,” Keith hissed back, glaring at Acxa as a little smirk curled her lips. “You couldn’t have held her back for another couple ticks?”

“Yup!” Ezor said brightly, heedless of the conversation Keith and Acxa were having right next to her. “Blue let me in right away. She knows I’m her one true Paladin.”

“Blue’s also the friendliest of the Lions,” Zethrid said, and Ezor stuck her tongue out at her.

“I thought you’d appreciate being stopped from validating Zethrid’s full course servings of jeering and innuendo,” Acxa said. “But if not, I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Keith’s face flushed hot. “There won’t be a next time,” he said, and then---although he wasn’t exactly happy about admitting she was right on this one---added, “. . . Thanks.”

Acxa elbowed him in the side. “You’re welcome.”

Keith grinned, and elbowed her back.

“What about the rest of you?” Lotor asked, also heedless to how Keith and Acxa were now pushing each other with steadily increasing force. “Were you able to pilot your Lions?”

“We didn’t try to pilot them,” Zethrid said, “but they let us in, yeah. Blue didn’t even have a shield up for Ezor, and Green and Yellow dropped their shields for Narti and me fast enough. The Red Lion---” She paused, then said loudly, “Hey, do you two have a problem? Do we need to split you up?”

Keith had been leaning as far to his left as possible, using his weight to push Acxa down into the sofa cushions, while Acxa twisted her arm around his so that she could press her hand against his face to push him off. But when Zethrid interrupted her report to very obviously call them out, both turned to see that Zethrid, Narti (through Kova, but Narti was turned in their direction), Ezor, and Lotor were all staring at them. Keith immediately pulled back from Acxa, who ran her hands down over her stomach and to her lap as though she was wearing clothing that could be wrinkled instead of Paladin armor.

Acxa cleared her throat and said, “No, of course not.”

“Sorry,” Keith said, and he cleared his throat as well. “Won’t happen again.”

“Please continue,” Acxa said.

Ezor broke into a fit of giggles that were badly muffled by her hand, and Lotor was smirking a little. Zethrid shook her head.

“You two are unbelievable,” she said. “Ninety percent of the time you’re all, ‘Lotor said no, Zethrid’ and ‘don’t snap their necks, Zethrid,’ but we take our eyes off you guys for two dobashes during a briefing and you’re like a couple’a kids.”

“Yeah, okay, we get it . . .” Keith said, and though he knew he probably shouldn’t, he couldn’t resist adding, “. . . Fun Police Beat Cop.”

The look Zethrid gave him was nothing short of indignant, even as Acxa grinned and flipped her palm for a low-five. Keith indulged her immediately.

“As amusing as this is,” Lotor said, still smirking, “I really must insist we return to the original topic of discussion. Acxa, were you able to access and control the other reality’s Red Lion?”

Acxa sat up straighter, once again schooling her expression into something more serious and professional, but just as she opened her mouth to answer, the Castle’s alarm blared. Kova shrieked, and jumped so badly she tumbled off Narti’s lap and onto the floor. Ezor, too, sat up, staring up at the ceiling of the Castle in alarm.

“Are we under attack?” she asked, and then---seeming to realize that her question had an obvious answer---added, “By who?”

“Bridge,” Lotor said. All traces of casual amusement were gone. He got to his feet in the same moment Keith and Acxa did, and in lieu of walking around the couch to head to the exit of the lounge, he stepped up and over it. “Now!”

Keith snatched his armor up from the floor and tugged it on as he ran. By the time he hit the exit to the lounge he was sprinting, tearing down the corridors so that he (along with Lotor, Acxa, and the others) could burst onto the bridge. The red emergency lights were flashing along with the blaring alarm, and they didn’t need Lotor to take point at central command in order to see why.

“My father,” Lotor spat, glaring at the viewport. A mass of Empire ships were surrounding them, with Zarkon’s own right in the middle. “Of course.”

“How did they find us?” Ezor said, a note of panic in her voice. “There’s nothing out here but the rift---there aren’t even any nearby planets.”

“Do you think he could have sensed the other Lions?” Keith asked. “He used to be the Black Paladin ten thousand years ago, right? He can’t connect to our Black Lion, but maybe he connected to theirs?”

“It’s a possibility,” Lotor said tersely, “but not one we have time to discuss. We need Voltron. Take to your Lions, now.”

Acxa, Zethrid, Narti, and Ezor didn’t need to be told twice. The four of them scattered, all but leaping into the shafts that would take them to their Lions’ hangers. Only Keith paused long enough to ask, “Do you want Black?”

Lotor’s lips quirked in a mirthless smile. “As much as few things bring me greater satisfaction than rubbing the Black Lion in my father’s face, he’ll be expecting it. It had better be you.”

Keith nodded. “Right. See you out there.”

Without wasting another second, Keith all but threw himself onto the floor exit from the Black Paladin’s workstation to head to his own hangar. By now, he was more than used to the speed (slowness) of the descent, but with Zarkon’s forces right outside and others no doubt already fighting, every tick it took to get to the Black Lion’s hangar felt like a tick too long. But as long as it seemed to take, in reality it was only a few dobashes before he was finally in the Black Lion where he belonged, and he put his speed boost on maximum right out of the gate as he shot free of the hangar and into the battle.

“Which one have we got this time?” Ezor asked over the communicator.

“It’s me,” Keith said, as he surveyed the field. Zarkon’s fleet was spread out like a minefield around them, with his battle cruiser in the very back. Keith glared. Coward. “We’ll be here all day if we engage them like this. We need to take them all out at once.”

“Agreed,” Acxa said. “Got an idea on how to do that?”

“I think so,” Keith said. “Try to herd them in a cluster. We can come together and form Voltron above them, and then use the sword to take them out then.”

“I like the sound of that,” Zethrid said, excitement in her voice.

“Good,” Keith said. “Let’s do it!”

The plan wasn’t as easy as it sounded conveyed over communicator. Though each of them ducked and wove around the Empire fighters that hounded them the moment they made their way onto the battlefield, the fighters were not so easily shepherded despite the fire, ice, and laser beams that were fired right back at them. But though it was a struggle, and though they still had to spend at least twenty dobashes taking out a number of Empire fighters to thin the numbers before it was possible, they finally managed to push at least most of them back into a defensive knot.

“There!” Keith said, and he shot toward the group before pulling the Black Lion up into a vertical ascent. “Form Voltron!”

His team didn’t need to be told even once. Keith felt the mind sync occur even before the word Voltron left his lips. The Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow Lions met him in the center above the crowd, clicking together as though they were always meant to be one. And the moment that he felt the last Lion click into place, he said:

“Acxa!”

“On it!”

Acxa shoved her Bayard into the Red Lion’s Bayard port, swift enough so that Voltron barely had time to hover poised above the enemy fighters before its massive sword was in its hands. As one, Keith and Acxa swung the sword down (Narti, Ezor, and Zethrid maneuvering their Lions just so to give them the needed momentum), and spun in a sharp arc, ripping the blade through the fighter ships.

“Yeah-ah, hell yeah!” Zethrid crowed, as the enemy fighters exploded in a burst of fire and scrap metal. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

Voltron’s sword disappeared as Acxa disengaged her Bayard. As she did, Keith frowned. They had taken out most of the Empire fighters by this point, save for a few that had been hanging back that shot toward them now. All seemed calm in their immediate vicinity, almost as if the battle was over, but---

“Why isn’t Zarkon firing at us?” Acxa asked.

---that. Exactly that.

Zarkon’s battle cruiser was still on the field, but it hadn’t made a single move toward them. Instead, Keith noted in confusion, the battle cruiser was turning away from them. He urged Voltron forward, toward the cruiser, but even when Zethrid and Ezor took the hint and applied the boost to give Voltron a real charge forward (and Acxa and Narti swatted the enemy fighters that tried to engage them like errant flies), Zarkon did not acknowledge them.

Keith furrowed his brow. It made no sense. Why wasn’t Zarkon paying attention to them? What was he---

‘I believe,’ Narti said, taking advantage of the Voltron mind sync to communicate more directly with them as she typically did, ‘that Emperor Zarkon is looking at them.’

Keith followed her mental nudge to look at a point beyond Zarkon’s battle cruiser, closer to the rift. When he saw what Narti had spotted, his heart dropped.

The other Paladins.

“They escaped?” Zethrid said, outraged. “What the hell was Auxiliary Team One doing?”

“Getting themselves benched or demoted to Auxiliary Team Three, it looks like,” Ezor said, dismayed. “Do you think he thinks they’re us?”

As Keith watched, the other team’s Red and Green Lions reached the rift first. Yellow and Blue weren’t far behind. But though the other team’s Black Lion was following them steadily, it stopped suddenly, and turned back to face the battle cruiser.

Keith’s heart had dropped before, but it felt like it had been stabbed through with ice now.

“We can’t let Zarkon get that Black Lion,” he said. “We can’t let him get anywhere close to that or any other Lion. If he gets Voltron---”

“We know,” Acxa said.

“Good,” Keith said. “Separate!”

Once again, they followed through before he had a chance to finish giving the command. Acxa, Ezor, Zethrid, and Narti sped toward Zarkon’s battle cruiser, engaging another group of Empire fighters that had decided to join the fray. Keith, meanwhile, tore hell for leather across the battlefield to reach the other team’s Lions, and when he arrived, he swung around so that he was poised between Zarkon’s battle cruiser and the other Black Lion.

“Hey, Zarkon!” Keith said, though he doubted Zarkon had a way of hearing him. “You want a Black Lion? How about you come try mine?”

“. . . Keith?”

The voice that broke over his communications channel didn’t belong to his teammates, nor did it belong to the ten-thousand-year-old emperor he had just challenged to a dogfight. Instead, though it took Keith a tick to place a name to the voice, he recognized that it belonged to Shiro.

Well, it made sense, he supposed. They were all in the same Lions, just from different realities. It made sense they’d be able to connect to one another’s communication channels, just as Allura had been able to connect to the Castle earlier.

“Go!” Keith said, as he swerved the Black Lion out of the way of a blast from Zarkon’s battle cruiser. The absence of a scream from Shiro told Keith that he, too, had managed to avoid taking a hit. “Take your team and go back through the rift!”

As Keith fired a blast back at Zarkon’s battle cruiser, and shot forward to close the distance between them and draw Zarkon’s attention away from Shiro and the other reality Paladins, Shiro said, “You’re fighting Zarkon. We can’t just---”

“This is our fight,” Keith ground out, and he ducked under another blast from Zarkon’s cruiser. “It’ll create more problems for us if you stay and he gets any of your Lions.”

“He won’t---”

“Just go!”

Keith didn’t have time to look back to see if Shiro followed his instruction. Apparently having had enough of Keith’s interference, Zarkon fired three of his battle cruiser’s cannons simultaneously. Keith ducked and wove through the blasts, coming out over top of the battle cruiser. He stared down at it with a sense of grim satisfaction. The battle cruiser, despite its size, didn’t seem that tough. And if he could take it out . . . if he could end the battle here . . .

“Hey,” he said to the Black Lion, “how would you like to take down your old Pala---?”

He had no time to finish his thought before his Lion was blasted in her left side by a cannon that was in one of her few blind spots. The Black Lion rocketed through the air, and slammed down hard on top of Zarkon’s battle cruiser, tumbling the moment she made contact.

“Ow, okay, okay,” Keith said, as the Black Lion finally rolled to a stop and he felt a flash of outrage from her, interlaced with the pain she felt from the attack. “Sorry about that, that was my bad. Won’t happen again. Let’s get back up---!”

The words died stillborn in his throat.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, given that he was too busy focusing on his Lion being shot down, but the moment he hit the battle cruiser, a glowing purple shield resembling a web sprang to life above him. He could see the turrets that were maintaining the shield just beyond it; yet even when he fired one of the Black Lion’s cannon blasts in an attempt to break through the shield, his attack did nothing more but ricochet off it and slam back down to the top of the battle cruiser.

He was trapped. The whole thing was a trap.

Damn it.

“Guys?” Keith said, and as he noticed that not only was there a shield above him, but that the roof of the battle cruiser was lined with cannons aimed directly at him, he said a little more urgently, “Hey, I could use some backup over here!”

He jammed forward on the Black Lion’s controls as the first sets of cannons fired, leaping out of the way, but the cannon blasts collided with one another in midair and exploded. Keith was still near enough so that the Black Lion was caught in the blast, and he was once again thrown across the rooftop of the battle cruiser, the Black Lion hissing in pain along with him.

“We would love to give it to you,” Acxa said, and as dazed as he was, it took Keith a moment to process what it was she had said to him. “But unfortunately, Zarkon called for backup first.”

Keith looked up, and through the haze of the shield that was trapping him on the battle cruiser he could see Acxa surrounded by four Empire fighters, and just beyond her, Ezor being pursued by three more. He tore his eyes from them to look back at the cannons that had, against all odds, pivoted to face him once more. If he knew anything about Galra Empire weaponry (and he did), then the slowly increasing glow of the red light on top of the cannons told him they were getting ready to fire.

Keith gritted his teeth.

For someone who supposedly wanted “his” Lion back, Zarkon was doing a damn good job of trying to destroy her.

Once again the cannons fired, and once again Keith pushed the Black Lion forward. He pulled back on the controls to bring her into the air just before the blasts connected. The blasts shot beneath them, slamming into the shield on the other side. Like before, they ricocheted off, shooting like errant stars back toward the other side of the battle cruiser. When they connected with the shield this time, they fizzled out.

Keith considered his options.

They didn’t have a lot of room to work with. The shield wasn’t pinning them to the rooftop of the cruiser, but it also wasn’t allowing him nearly enough room to fly out of range of the cannons. Even if he tried to get the cannons to shoot each other, since they all fired at once, that would do nothing but cause their shots to collide in midair. Though maybe---

“All right,” Keith said under his breath. “Let’s see how you like this.”

As the cannons fired once again, Keith jumped to the side, then up. The rebounded cannon fire missed him, and once it had fizzled out against the shield, he took the Black Lion back down to the rooftop. Before the cannons had a chance to reorient themselves to try firing again, he pivoted on the Black Lion’s paws and loosed her own cannon fire, directing it through the entire line of cannons on the right side of the cruiser’s roof. By the time the Black Lion was done, all that remained were smoldering piles of molten lead.

Keith smirked. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

That was the first set of cannons. The second fired immediately after Keith quietly celebrated his victory, and it was only through the grace of good instinct that he managed to bound the Black Lion out of the way. He felt a quiet little growl in the back of his mind---a pay attention reminder if he had ever heard one---and he rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ve got this under control.”

She snorted, and he could almost imagine her lashing her tail. You had better.

Keith resisted the urge to roll his eyes again.

Instead, he waited for the left row of cannons to fire on them once more. When they did, and he avoided their blasts just as he had previously, he unleashed the Black Lion’s cannon even before touching ground. Once more, her blast was more than enough to reduce the cannons to rubble. They all but melted against the rooftop of the battle cruiser, and Keith breathed a sigh of relief.

That was one problem down. Now he just had to solve the other.

He tried (though he knew it wouldn’t work) another blast against the shield above him. Nothing. It didn’t give a centimeter. Keith took to the air again, flying right alongside the shield. Acxa, Narti, Ezor, and Zethrid were all still engaged with Empire fighters; the number of reinforcements looked as though it had thinned some, but each of them was still outnumbered, and without him, they couldn’t form Voltron to easily wipe them out again.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!

Keith spun in the air and flew down to touch base again. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He had to calm down. He had to focus. He wouldn’t solve the problem by getting worked up and frustrated. He opened his eyes, and looked back up at the shield.

The Black Lion’s weapons couldn’t penetrate it. But maybe . . .

“Hey,” he said, and when he knew he had the Black Lion’s attention, asked, “Exactly how tough do you think you are?”

The Black Lion didn’t answer him directly, but the attitude he sensed from her felt a little insulted that he would even ask. Well, good. That was the answer he wanted. Keith readjusted his grip on the controls. If he hit the shield at the right angle . . . if he took a running start---

He never got the chance.

Just before he was about to send the Black Lion careening up into the shield, the shield shattered. Explosions rippled alongside the outermost boundaries of the battle cruiser, shattering the turrets that had held the shield in place. And just when Keith was about to ask which one of his teammates had helped him out, he saw not a Lion, but the comet ship, arc away from Zarkon’s battle cruiser.

Lotor.

“Doing all right, Keith?” Lotor called, and Keith grinned as he took to the air once more.

“I am now. Thanks for the backup,” he said.

“Any time,” Lotor said. “But as things are now I believe it’s time for us to return to the Castle. I can create a wormhole to get us out of here.”

Keith frowned. “What about the rift? And Zarkon?”

“There are other rifts. That isn’t the only one we can study,” Lotor said. “And considering he keeps bringing in more reinforcements, I believe prolonging this battle will only lead to negative consequences for us. We’d be much better advised fighting him when it is our ambush that begins the rout, not his.”

Keith closed his eyes for a tick, considering, and then nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Lotor, thanks to the comet ship’s speed, had managed to get back to the Castle before the rest of them. Keith and the others had taken out the remaining fighters around the Castle while Lotor prepared the wormhole, and the moment it was operational, they had each darted into their hangars while Lotor took the Castle through. Zarkon had tried to fire after them---apparently he had finally decided that being more aggressive, rather than hoping a Lion would come to him, was the only way he was going to win the fight---but he was ticks too late. The wormhole closed, and their team was transported halfway across the universe. They were far away from any rifts they could study, now, but they were also far from Zarkon. For the time being, that was enough. And since he didn’t find them again in the vargas that followed, they figured they were likely safe.

The ten members of Auxiliary Team One who had been on guard duty were found unconscious outside the detention cells, and when they woke, the most they could say for themselves was that the locks had disengaged without warning, and that they were jumped by the alternate reality Paladins before they had time to prepare for combat. A look through the Castle’s security logs found that the locks on the doors had been purposefully disengaged, and when Narti had investigated further, she found that they had been disabled not by any actual resident of the Castle, but by the other team’s Green Paladin, Pidge.

“But how’d she do it?” Ezor had asked. “We took her Bayard, and there isn’t any tech in the cells at all.”

“She must have had built a method of interfacing with the Castle’s technology into her Paladin armor, allowing her to hack the system remotely,” Lotor had said. He had smiled in a way that was nothing short of admiring. “That is quite clever of her. I’ll likely never see her again, but if I do, I’ll have to remember to give her the credit she’s due.”

But Pidge’s cleverness in disabling the detention cell locks didn’t excuse Auxiliary Team One’s inability to stop the alternate reality Paladins from escaping. Even if it did work out for the best in the end (they hadn’t been able to stay near the rift, and it wasn’t as if they could keep another set of Lions floating outside their Castle forever), the fact that they had been so easily jumped and taken out was inexcusable.

“No matter how confined or trapped the enemy may appear, you never let your guard down in their presence,” Lotor had said coldly, and each member of Auxiliary Team One had looked suitably chastised. “The fact that you would be so careless so as to not only not notice their Green Paladin hacking our Castle’s systems, but also to be caught by surprise when they escaped their cells and attacked you, is most disappointing. You’re all demoted to Auxiliary Team Three until you can prove yourselves worthy of promotion again. Dismissed.”

A few of them had looked as though they had wanted to argue, yet thought better of it at the last tick. One girl looked as though she was about to cry. All of them had shuffled off to their quarters, and not a single one was seen for the remainder of the night, even when it came time for dinner.

Figuring out their next course of action was paramount, but after everything that had happened that day, Keith quietly agreed with both Ezor and Zethrid when both complained of being exhausted. So after a brief, post-dinner meeting to not only conclude their earlier briefing (the details of which were still interesting even if they no longer had an alternate reality Voltron in their possession), but also outline at least the basics of what their next steps were going to be, each of them retired for the night. Keith made his way to his room in something of a trance, not really paying attention to where he was going, and by the time he stepped inside and the door slid shut behind him, he felt as though his head was spinning.

It felt, he thought, as he stripped off his Paladin armor, as though he had just lived through a phoeb rather than a quintant. It was hard to wrap his head around the fact that, less than twelve vargas ago, five Paladins from an alternate reality had breached through a rift in space-time to confront them and accuse him of being someone he wasn’t. Even as he thought on it now, a laugh borne from a mixture of exhaustion and disbelief escaped him. Had someone told him last movement that such a thing was going to happen, he wouldn’t have believed them. Yet now here he was, pulling a shirt and pants out of his closet to sleep in less than a half a quintant after five Paladins from another reality had done just that. Amazing.

But Lotor had been right when he had said that those accusations---that the other reality---carried no weight. Lotor’s reassurances aside . . . Keith’s room wasn’t anything special, really. It was no different from his teammates’ rooms in terms of size, furniture, or lighting. Yet although he kept it neat, his things packed away where he could easily find and retrieve them later, there was still one thing of note that was easily spotted the moment someone entered---one thing that Keith hadn’t even put there himself.

As he finished tugging his sleep clothes on, Keith made his way over to his bed. There, taped up along the wall, was a collage of photographs. Ezor had gotten her hands on a small tablet camera during one of their visits to the Space Mall, and had gone on a photo taking spree. She had not only snapped all manner of candid photographs of all of them, but had insisted on taking hundreds of selfies with them, too. And when she learned via a spontaneous visit that Keith hadn’t decorated his room with anything, she had disappeared only to return thirty dobashes later with a stack of printed out photographs and tape, which she had then attacked his wall with. At the time, Keith had been exasperated, but now he smiled as he examined them. There was one of him and Acxa simultaneously drinking pechaya juice while using their other hands to try and block Ezor’s camera; there was another of Zethrid lifting him off the ground in a massive, full-body hug as he gasped out that he had ribs she was breaking; there was one of him and Narti having fallen asleep on the sofa together, Kova curled up on his chest; one of Ezor herself pouncing on his back so she could take an impromptu selfie with him; one of him and Lotor playing a game of Crowns & Claws, Keith’s brow furrowed in concentration as he studied the board before him, and Lotor smiling at him from across the table; and other snapshots of the rest of his teammates, from one the many selfies Ezor took of herself dancing with Narti, to one of Acxa after she had fixed new barrettes in her hair to keep her bangs out of her eyes, to one of Zethrid arm-wrestling Lotor. The wall by his bed was covered in photographs, arranged in a messy collage by Ezor, which chronicled the time they had spent together. Whatever had happened in the other reality, he was staring at hard evidence of everything that had happened in this one. Lotor had been right with what he had said before: This was all that mattered.

A sudden knock at his door pulled his attention from the photo wall. He clambered off his bed (saying, “Come in,” as he did so), yet even though he knew that there was only a handful of people that it could be, he still felt a little thrill of surprise when he saw the person standing in his doorway.

“Lotor?”

“I hope I haven’t woken you,” Lotor said, yet though his words sounded apologetic, there was still a little smile on his lips. Keith couldn’t help but smile a little himself.

Typical Lotor.

“No, you didn’t,” Keith said. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to speak with you about what happened during the battle against Zarkon and his fleet,” Lotor said, as he stepped over the threshold and allowed Keith’s door to slide shut behind him.

Keith didn’t know what he had been expecting Lotor to say---he hadn’t had even a thought as to why Lotor might have come to talk to him. But he realized, as he found himself caught off-guard for the second time in less than three dobashes, that whatever he had been expecting, that wasn’t it.

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean? Are you talking about how the other Paladins escaped? I had to let them go through the rift, Lotor. We couldn’t let Zarkon get his hands on another Black Lion.”

“No, I’m fully aware that once Auxiliary Team One allowed the other Paladins to escape the Castle, we had no choice but to allow them to return to their own reality,” Lotor said. “You made the correct call. I would expect no less from you.”

It was a nice compliment, but it did nothing to alleviate Keith’s confusion. “Then what---”

“You distracted Zarkon long enough for the other reality’s Paladins to successfully escape, which I grant you was a necessary, albeit dangerous, course of action,” Lotor said, and it was in that tick that Keith realized where this conversation was heading, even before Lotor finished his thought with, “But you continued to engage him even after their Black Paladin had turned back toward the rift, despite the fact that Acxa and the others were unable to offer you support due to the Empire fighters that had engaged them.”

“I didn’t know that he had turned back to the rift. He was arguing with me until that point. He wanted to stay and fight Zarkon,” Keith said. “I was just trying to keep Zarkon occupied until their Black Paladin came to his senses and got out of there. That’s all.”

Lotor narrowed his eyes. “You do us both a disservice by lying to me, Keith.”

Keith glared back at him. “I’m not---”

“I tapped into your communication channels shortly after you flew closer to Zarkon’s battle cruiser in order to advise you to disengage,” Lotor said, cutting across him. His voice was hard. “I heard you begin to ask the Black Lion if she wished to take down her former Paladin just before you were shot down.”

Keith bit back a wince, but when Lotor continued to stare him down, waiting for a response, he sighed heavily.

“All right,” he said. “I was going to continue the fight against Zarkon. But originally, I really was just trying to keep him away from the other Black Lion. I wasn’t lying about that.”

“I’m aware,” Lotor said, “and I have no qualms with that. I do, however, take issue with you trying to challenge Zarkon on your own. You do realize that’s an incredibly reckless move that could easily get you killed, don’t you?”

Keith crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow. “So is flying a ship, even if it’s made from the same ore as Voltron, into a sun. That didn’t seem to stop you three phoebs ago.”

Lotor rolled his eyes. “I did not fly into a sun. I flew along the surface of a sun. There is a difference.”

“I’m not seeing it.”

“And what I did was, at that time, a necessary course of action taken to escape Empire hounds,” Lotor said, locking eyes with Keith again. “That is markedly different from choosing to fight Zarkon single-handedly in the middle of an ambush we could easily leave.”

“If I had taken Zarkon out there, you would be on the throne right now,” Keith said. “This entire war would be over. It was just as necessary, just in a different way.”

“No,” Lotor said, “it was not. I will have the throne, Keith. Whether in this decaphoeb or the next, my father’s time as Emperor is coming to an end, and I will be there when he breathes his last. It isn’t necessary to oust him today. It certainly isn’t necessary to do so at the cost of your life.”

Keith bit the inside of his cheek, trying to quell the pulse of annoyance rising within him. It didn’t work; exhaustion had a tendency to make him irritable as it was, and being called too reckless by the same guy who flew comet ships into suns did nothing to help that. He exhaled another sharp sigh before he turned back to his bed to yank the covers back.

“Whatever,” he said. “If you came here to lecture me, message received. I’ve got it, so you can go.”

“I assure you, it wasn’t my intention to lecture you,” Lotor said. Keith didn’t turn, but he could tell that Lotor had made no move to leave. “I only wished to say that . . . I meant what I said before.”

Keith frowned. “Before when?”

“Before Ezor interrupted us in the lounge.”

Keith froze in the act of dropping his comforter at the edge of his bed, his heart jumping---and then seizing---in his chest.

You are invaluable to me.

His fingers constricted around the hem of his comforter. Lotor had been sincere when he had said that. Keith had been able to tell. Yet though he had meant what he said, that didn’t mean he was . . . Keith had been too swept up in the moment to think on it before, but now . . . he slowly released his grip, and let the blanket fall back on the mattress.

“That . . . isn’t exactly true, you know,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not invaluable,” Keith said. He turned back to Lotor at last, and was this time unsurprised to find himself on the receiving end of narrowed eyes and a sharp frown. “We’re equals in terms of swordsmanship. You could teach the auxiliary teams just as well as I can. You can also pilot the Black Lion just as well as I can. Even if something happened to me, the revolution would still have Voltron. And since Acxa---”

“I wasn’t referring to your contributions to the revolution, though until now I thought you recognized how fortunate it is that we are both able to pilot the Black Lion without complications,” Lotor said.

Keith furrowed his brow. “Then what---”

“When I said that you are invaluable to me, I was speaking only of my own . . . personal feelings,” Lotor said. “Prowess with a sword, mastery in the cockpit---these are skills that are impressive, yes, but they are also skills that are taught. They are skills that can be learned and mastered by others. These abilities alone do not make any of us special.”

“I know,” Keith said. “That’s why---”

“You are invaluable to me, Keith, not because of what you can do, but because of who you are,” Lotor went on, and though he had raised his voice a little to speak over Keith, Keith’s own voice died in his throat. “Your presence by my side has been instrumental in my---in our success. Yes, you have aided me in battle. Your piloting abilities have natural grace few could ever dream of achieving. But I’ve come to value your companionship more than any of your skillsets. I want you by my side not only for what we can accomplish in our revolution, but also for the time we spend together outside of it.” Lotor paused, and then added more quietly, “There may be others who are capable of training the auxiliary teams or piloting the Black Lion, Keith, but they could never mean to me what you do. For that, above all else, I do not wish to lose you.”

Every nerve in Keith’s body felt electrified. His heart was bashing itself so forcefully against his ribcage that he was not only acutely aware of every rapid beat, but it was actually a little painful. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard, but---Lotor had said it. He said it. Keith did hear every word. And there were no traces of humor in his tone, there was no light of laughter in his eyes. The stare that bore into Keith’s own eyes was not only serious, but sincere. Lotor meant every word. And Keith, his hands shaking---Keith, his out of control heartrate making it a little harder to breathe---Keith---

Keith cupped Lotor’s face between his hands and pulled him down into a fervent kiss.

Despite how suddenly he had acted, it only took a tick for Keith to feel Lotor smile against his lips. Lotor looped an arm around Keith’s waist to tug him closer, and Keith combed his fingers up and down through Lotor’s hair, so that he could wrap his arms around Lotor’s neck instead. As their mouths moved in tandem, Lotor raked his fingers through Keith’s hair, and Keith pulled Lotor more tightly against him. Their embrace was so close, he could feel both their hearts beating.

When the kiss ended and they drew apart, they did so only by a fraction. Keith kept his arms around Lotor’s neck, and likewise, Lotor only released the grip he had on Keith’s hair to loop both his arms around Keith’s waist instead. Their eyes met, and in that moment, with his smile reflected in Lotor’s own, Keith blurted the only thing that came to mind.

“I’m so glad I met you.”

Lotor’s smile widened, causing Keith’s to do the same, and as the two beamed at each other and Lotor huffed a little laugh, he allowed his forehead to bump against Keith’s.

“As am I,” he said.

(Ko-Fi)

#keitor #keitorweek2017 #voltron #prince lotor #keith kogane #fic fix #acxa #ezor #zethrid #narti #princess allura #pidge #lance #shireplica #hunk

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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Oh my god. With my Animorphs nostalgia revived (and my urge to re-read the series increasing), I just had an epiphany. I can’t believe I never realized it before. I’ve been so blind this entire time.

Shireplica isn’t a clone. He’s a Controller.

#Haggar slipped him a Yeerk. it all makes sense now #(note: this is a joke)#///#////#/////#animorphs #voltron #shireplica #no but in all seriousness honestly . . . i think Animorphs is why i expect more from VLD at times #like . . . more complexity #bc Animorphs was not afraid to Go There™ in any way you care to name #not just with the violence and whatnot #but with all the trauma and what war does to people. how it changes them.#how none of the protagonists were perfect ESPECIALLY by the end #and I think part of the reason why I'm still so suspicious of the Alteans - and why 3x04 feeding into my suspicions was so On Point™ to me #is bc of the Andalites. like in Animorphs the Andalites were built up as the Big Good for so long bc of Ax #(and Elfangor ofc)#but it turns out that the Andalites just wanted to destroy the Yeerks. they dgaf about ANYONE else #they had as much shady shit going on as anyone. not that the Yeerk Empire was good -ofc not! - but the Andalites were not that #stellar either. they were an empirical force themselves #but they were also still PEOPLE . . . and yet so were the Yeerks and just #it was all so COMPLICATED and good #and i wish that VLD had more of that depth. i keep trying to claw that depth out of VLD #but it's just not THERE . . . not as much as it should be #and the fandom adamantly trying to see things in terms of black and white - ''they are evil and they are good'' - just . . .#doesn't help either idk

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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VLD - Days Unlike Any Other

Notes: This morning I had a fic idea for Keith’s birthday, and so---since today is the day, and I didn’t want inspiration to leave me---I went ahead and wrote it up real quick. This spans from pre-canon all the way through to the present, so be warned that there are spoilers for season four in the last two sections.

As an additional note, Ryuuga is what I named Keith’s father, and Mezri is what I named his mother. That will probably be obvious, but I figure it’d help to get it out of the way upfront. Additionally, I do headcanon Keith and Shiro as seven years apart (as per the guidebook), so Shiro is about 20/21 in that little friendsheith section.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. Here’s this.

(AO3 link.)

The problem with forging a birth certificate was you had to know what date to write down for the birthday.

Well, Ryuuga thought wearily, that probably wasn’t the only problem with forging a birth certificate. He pressed his palms into his eyes and tried to rub the sleep out of them so that the text on the (stolen) laptop screen on the motel table in front of him would look less blurry. When he blinked at it again and found that the light emanating from it was as harsh as it was before, he yanked the AC adaptor free from the port, and let the cord fall on the floor.

Keith’s bassinet was on the other side of the room, but his head turned at the sound. God, his hearing was sharp.

The problem, Ryuuga thought, was that he didn’t know exactly how old Keith was. He knew Keith was a baby. That was obvious enough---anyone could tell he was an infant. But how long had they spent in space after Keith was born? He remembered all the units for time he’d heard while they were up there---vargas this, and quintents that---but he didn’t know what they meant. He hadn’t ever figured out the conversion. Even when he and Mezri had tried to puzzle it out---

God. Mezri.

Ryuuga put his face in his hands again. He was so tired. It was only 9:30 at night, and he was so tired. He guessed there was a reason why there was a stereotype that new parents were always exhausted, but the truth was Keith didn’t cry that much. He cried sometimes---all babies did---but Keith was pretty quiet, at least as far as babies went. At least, Ryuuga thought he was. He’d never spent that much time around babies before, so he couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought that as easy as it was to look after Keith in some ways, it would’ve been easier if Mezri was around to help.

Ryuuga scrubbed his hands down his face, and turned his eyes to the ceiling. The stucco on the motel’s ceiling was patchy, and the paint was yellowed. He couldn’t see the stars, but Mezri probably could, wherever she was, provided she hadn’t gotten herself killed yet.

He heaved a sigh. After a moment, he pushed himself up from his chair to go to Keith’s bassinet, and with ease that came only from however-long of practice, he gently lifted his son into his arms, and took him back over to the little table with the laptop and chair.

“How old are you, boy?” Ryuuga asked. Keith, naturally, didn’t answer. Instead, his head supported by the crook of Ryuuga’s arm, Keith stared at Ryuuga with grey-purple eyes that looked far more piercing than any infant’s had a right to. Keith had inherited those eyes from Mezri, and Ryuuga held him a little bit closer.

No matter how close or how long Ryuuga held Keith, though, that wouldn’t solve the birth certificate problem. There was no telling exactly how old Keith was just by looking at him, much less how the day he was born in space translated to the Earth calendar. Ryuuga sighed again, and lightly touched Keith’s nose with one finger. Keith blinked the moment Ryuuga’s fingertip connected, yet just as swiftly swung one tiny hand up to grasp Ryuuga’s finger in a little fist. Ryuuga smiled.

“Can’t get one by you, can I?” he asked. “You’re a quick little guy. Gonna be sharp as a whip as you get older. God save me when you start walkin’.” Although, depending on when Keith reached his toddler years, maybe that would help Ryuuga figure out a more exact age for him.

Keith considered Ryuuga for a moment, and then he smiled back.

Ryuuga looked at the date displayed at the bottom right corner of the laptop screen. It was November 27th---few days past Thanksgiving. Ryuuga wasn’t sorry about missing Thanksgiving---it wasn’t like he had any relatives anymore to spend it with (besides Keith, anyhow, and Keith was too young to care)---but . . .

He glanced back down at his son, and then looked back at the birth certificate he was forging.

Keith was a few weeks old, at least. Maybe a month. He could pass as a month old, couldn’t he? It wasn’t that big of a difference. Didn’t need to be that exact. Aside from his and Ryuuga’s names, practically everything else on the birth certificate was a lie, anyway. Even if his birthday was just an educated guess, well . . . at least it was educated. It was better than what the government or any foster agency would give him, if they ever got a hold of him. (Which they wouldn’t. Over Ryuuga’s dead body, maybe, and if he had his way, not even then.)

Ryuuga shifted Keith in his arms to make it a little easier to use the laptop with his free hand. And then, after consulting the calendar built into the laptop’s time and date system, he typed October 23 on the birth certificate.

It was as good a date as any.

It didn’t rain on Keith’s tenth birthday.

It should have, he thought. It would have been more fitting. It would have been more fitting had it rained, had it stormed---if a hurricane somehow reached the Midwest and devastated the entire city, so he could make his escape while everyone was distracted with the relief efforts. But it didn’t rain; instead, it was unseasonably warm and sunny. Despite being so late in October, the only clouds in the sky were cirrus, and all Keith needed was a light jacket over his t-shirt to keep warm.

He hated it.

He shouldn’t have hated it. If anything, he hated that he hated it. His birthday had always been one of the best days of the year. There hadn’t been many bad days in the past nine years---weird days, sure, like the time he woke up to find an opossum sitting at the foot of his bed, staring at him, or the day when he and his dad’s truck broke down, and the only guy they could find to help them was an old man who was convinced they were his son and grandson and had returned home to help run the family’s pie business---but even so, his birthday had always stood out as one of the best.

When he had been really small, like around five or six or so, his dad used to start off every day by scooping Keith up onto his shoulders and spinning him around in a birthday helicopter ride. Once that was over (and even in years where that didn’t take place), Keith’s birthday breakfast was always a stack of chocolate chip pancakes nearly as big as him. After that, they would do whatever. His dad never made him go to school on his birthday. Instead, they’d usually go somewhere cool. Some years his dad took him to whatever local attraction happened to be in the area. Weird museums dedicated to the paranormal (but that were really filled with hoax things like “authentic photographs” of Bigfoot and Mothman), or supposedly haunted mansions. Other years they went to the movies, or to a dirt bike racing park, and it wasn’t like they never did these things on normal days---they did---but there was always something special about doing it on his birthday. On his birthday, they could do whatever Keith wanted, and his dad never said no. Keith’s birthday was his day, his dad always said. It was a day to celebrate the fact that Keith was there, alive on Earth. So whatever Keith wanted, he got, just on that day. If he wanted the world’s biggest sundae for dinner that night, he got it (and trust in the fact that Keith had cake and ice cream for dinner on his birthday every single year).

Keith topped off the candles of the tiny birthday cake he was doodling in the upper corner of his math notebook with little flames, and then scowled as he harshly scribbled over it.

This year was different.

It had been three months since his dad disappeared---three months since Keith waited, and waited, only for his dad to never come back to the motel room. And he was going to come back---Keith knew he was. He said he would be back, and Keith believed him. His dad had never let him down before. But no one had listened. The motel manager hadn’t listened when Keith told her that his dad would be back soon. The police hadn’t listened when they had dragged Keith out of there. They hadn’t listened when working with child protective services to set him up with a stupid foster family, and the foster adults (Keith refused to call them his parents) hadn’t listened when he told them he already had a dad, and they needed to send him back, or at least help him find out where his dad was. It was worse than just not listening; the foster woman had actually gotten angry with him for saying they weren’t his parents, and had said that they were his parents for as long as he lived in their house, so he needed to respect them.

Keith glared at his notebook, and dug his pencil deeper into the paper.

He’d respect them when they earned it.

That morning, he woke up to nothing aside from the sound of one of the other foster boys whining about having a stomachache so they wouldn’t send him to school. There wasn’t anything for breakfast aside from toast, but Keith didn’t want it anyway. He never ate breakfast anymore. No one said anything to him aside from the foster woman snapping at him that he needed to get in the car to go to school, like he didn’t already know that. He went to school every damn day, it wasn’t like he skipped. Not that he’d be missing much even if he did---not that missing one day of school was bad---but---

He pressed his pencil so hard into his notebook that the tip snapped, the lead skittering off the page and over the edge of his desk. He looked up, but his teacher was still droning on with her lesson, explaining how fractions worked with long division. No one else noticed, either. Keith stuffed his broken pencil into his desk (it wasn’t mechanical and he didn’t have a personal sharpener) and grabbed another from his backpack.

No one knew it was his birthday. Maybe the foster adults knew, he didn’t know, but it had been three months and they weren’t any fonder of him than he was of them. Even if they did know, probably they weren’t going to say anything. And that was fine. He’d rather they didn’t. He didn’t want to celebrate his birthday with them. He didn’t want to celebrate his birthday with anyone but his dad, and his dad wasn’t there, and probably he wouldn’t be there even when Keith got out of school. There would be no one waiting for Keith after school but the jerks from Ms. Patterson’s class (egged on by the same foster boy from Keith’s home who had broken Keith’s toy lightsaber) and the foster woman.

Keith rubbed the palm of his hand into his eye, swallowed hard, and drew the head of a T-rex before he scribbled that out, too.

It didn’t matter. It was stupid. It was just a stupid, normal day, like any other. It wasn’t anything special.

One of the foremost lessons at the Galaxy Garrison was emergency preparedness. Space explorers---and commanding officers in particular---needed to be able to think swiftly and accurately on their feet. Panic would help no one in the case of an oncoming comet, or an alien abduction. Keeping a level head and laser sharp focus was paramount. As the youngest captain the Garrison had ever produced (promoted straight out of graduation, previously unheard of), Shiro prided himself on his reflexes. He knew his focus was his gift. He was always 100% prepared for any situation life could possibly throw at him. He absolutely knew what he was doing, 100% of the time.

This was why, when Keith opened Shiro’s front door five minutes before he was scheduled to arrive, Shiro whipped toward the front door (and away from the banner he had just finished pinning to the wall) and yelled, “BIRTH!”

Most people would freeze upon having someone shout at them the second they walked in the door, but in the seven or so months Shiro had gotten to know Keith through the Garrison’s prospective cadets program, he had learned that Keith was not “most people.” Case in point, Shiro hadn’t even finished speaking before Keith took a step back, his weight on the ball of his right foot, both of his hands raised in a self-defense gesture. How a thirteen---fourteen, Shiro corrected himself---year-old had gotten so vigilant Shiro wasn’t sure, but it was one of the things that made the other officers at the Garrison so excited and especially determined to recruit Keith into preliminary training as quickly as they had.

As vigilant as Keith was, it also made him sharp. It took him only a second to realize that there was no threat, and as he lowered his hands and stood up straight again, he said, “What?”

“Happy birthday,” Shiro said, and he smiled as Keith’s eyes swept over the decorations in the living room (not that there were much, given that Shiro hadn’t had that much time to prepare, but there was at least a banner over the entryway leading into the dining area). “I know it’s a few days late, but I wanted to throw a little something together for you anyway.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” Keith said. He finally stepped over the threshold and into the house, and without turning back he knocked the door shut behind him. That was a first, Shiro noted with a little smile; usually Keith always checked over his shoulder, as if cautious about being followed, before he shut and locked the door. “And you didn’t have to do anything at all.”

“I know,” Shiro said, “but I wanted to. Now come over here; I got you something.”

“What?” Keith said. The initial shock that had struck him when he had first encountered Shiro’s sudden greeting and had caught sight of the decorations had faded, but instead of following Shiro’s instruction to walk to the kitchen to get his birthday gift, he remained rooted to the spot, his eyes wide.

Shiro couldn’t help but smile; in honesty, it was almost hard not to laugh. “Come on,” he said, and he gestured for Keith to walk over to him. “I have something for you in the kitchen. You can leave your backpack by the couch.”

That seemed to enough to kick Keith’s head into gear. As instructed (and as always) he dropped his backpack on the floor by the couch on his way to the kitchen. The moment Shiro saw Keith was going to listen, he turned to cross the threshold into the kitchen himself, and picked up the neatly wrapped gift (courtesy of the woman at the bookstore---Shiro was no good when it came to wrapping presents himself, and never had been) he had waiting on the table. He turned back to see that Keith had already walked up to him, and with another smile, he held the box out for Keith to take.

“Here you go,” Shiro said. “Happy birthday.”

Keith’s brow knitted together over his eyes, a little frown tugging at his lips. By now, Shiro was pretty sure that expression on Keith’s face was one of confusion rather than displeasure. True to form, Keith gently took the present from Shiro’s hands, but he stared at it for a long moment instead of unwrapping it. Finally, he mumbled, “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I know,” Shiro repeated, “but I wanted to. Everyone deserves to get something for their birthday.”

Keith looked up at him, still frowning, and then asked, “When’s your birthday?”

“February. 29th. Leap Year, technically, but I celebrate on the 28th on off-years.” Shiro grinned. “Of course, if that doesn’t count, I guess it gives a whole new meaning to calling me the youngest captain the Garrison has ever seen, huh?”

Keith rolled his eyes, but the corner of his lips twitched. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re the first toddler they’ve ever had pass their flight simulator.”

“And proud of it,” Shiro said. Keith huffed a little laugh, definitely smiling now, and Shiro nodded toward him. “But go on, open it.”

Keith’s smile faded, but he nonetheless slipped his finger under one of the flaps on the wrapping paper. Any illusion that he was going to tear it neatly was gone in the next second as he used the opening he created to rip the paper off, and as it fell to the floor and he revealed the DVD box set collection within, his eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.

“You like Star Wars, don’t you?” Shiro asked, and Keith tore his eyes away from the front of the box set to stare up at Shiro instead. “You made a reference during training a few weeks ago, when Iverson had the high ground over that cadet.”

“I . . . yeah,” Keith said, and he looked back down at the box set, turning it over in his hands so he could see all six DVD cases lined up neatly inside, before he looked back up at Shiro. “I do, but---Shiro, how much did this cost? It had to be expensive---”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a birthday present,” Shiro said, thankful now that he had the foresight to remove the price tag before he had the saleswoman wrap it. The last thing he wanted Keith to worry about on his birthday was money. “I know that the prospective cadet dorms don’t have TVs or DVD players, so you can keep it here to watch whenever you want. Actually, I figured we could have a marathon this weekend, starting now, if you wanted.”

The look on Keith’s face suggested that was exactly what he wanted to do, but also that he felt he shouldn’t. The conflict in him seemed to win out as he said, “I’m supposed to be studying---”

“We can study later. Your homework and training materials will still be there when we’re done,” Shiro said. “It’s your birthday---or at least, it was. You deserve to have a little break. As your mentor, I’ve decided and am saying that you’ve earned it.”

It took a second, but finally, Keith smiled again. “Thanks, Shiro.”

Shiro smiled back, and clapped Keith on the shoulder. “Don’t mention it. Go put Episode I in the DVD player, and I’ll grab us some snacks.” For it was still too early for dinner, and the birthday cake, Shiro felt, was another surprise best saved for later.

Keith nodded, and turned to head back into the living room, but he took no more than two steps before he paused and said, “Hey---”

“What is it?”

Keith turned back, frowning once again as he asked, “Did you shout ‘birth’ at me when I first walked in the house?”

A hot flush spread across the back of Shiro’s neck, and he rubbed at it in an effort to make it go away. “Ah, uh---yeah. That was supposed to be ‘surprise’. You caught me off-guard.”

Keith stared at him for a second, as if unable to make sense of what Shiro had just said, before he asked, “How do you get ‘birth’ out of ‘surprise’?”

“I was thinking about your birthday and it just came out,” Shiro said. There was something about Keith’s expression, which looked somehow both deadpan and baffled, that made Shiro feel more than a little judged, as if Keith was suddenly second-guessing whether Shiro was a qualified mentor or not. Shiro huffed, and said, “Just go get the movie started, okay? Do you want a soda or Capri Sun?”

Keith shook his head, and started in toward the living room again, but as he did he called over his shoulder, “What flavors have you got?”

“Dr. Pepper and root beer for soda, and strawberry-kiwi for Capri Sun.”

“I’ll take a Dr. Pepper.”

As Keith prepared their movie in the living room, Shiro grabbed a can of Dr. Pepper from the fridge for Keith, and a strawberry-kiwi Capri Sun pouch for himself. He still didn’t know what they were going to do for dinner---pizza, maybe, because pizza was always a safe bet---but as he gathered a selection of snacks from his kitchen cabinets, he figured that was all right. He had the cake, and Keith liked bingeing on snacks as much as Shiro himself did. Belated or not, as far as celebrating Keith’s birthday went, Shiro thought they were doing all right.

“. . . aaaand done!”

Pidge punctuated her words by punching one of the keys on her workstation. The moment she did, her screen was filled with raining numbers and words that scrolled too quickly for Allura to easily catch. It was an impressive enough sight, but even as Allura gathered around Pidge’s workstation with the others, she wasn’t entirely sure why they (or at the very least, Lance, Hunk, and Matt) all seemed so excited.

“In just a few seconds, the conversion process will be complete,” Pidge said. She sat back in her seat, her arms folded, a proud smile on her face. “Of course, I would have never been able to figure it out if it wasn’t for Matt supplying the algorithm---”

“Are you kidding? You’re the one who designed the code that allows the program to run in the first place,” Matt said. He leaned against the back of Pidge’s chair, but as he spoke, he reached over it to ruffle her hair. “My little sister, the genius.”

“Yeah, yeah, we all know Pidge is the smartest girl in the known universe,” Lance said, and he waved one hand in the air. “But can we just---”

“Wow, thanks, Lance,” Pidge said, and it might have been Allura’s imagination, but she thought Pidge’s cheeks looked a little pink. Her nose crinkled when she smiled. “You really think that?”

“Think it? Uh, no. I know it. It’s pretty obvious by now. Everyone would agree with me,” Lance said. If anything, that only caused Pidge’s cheeks to darken, and Allura didn’t miss the way Matt’s eyes narrowed at Lance. “But that’s not the point right now. The point is I want to know what the date is.” Lance thumped his fists against the back of Pidge’s chair. “Tell us the date!”

“If it’s the date you want to know, why didn’t you just ask?” Coran said, and as all eyes turned to him, he threw his shoulders back and stroked his mustache. “Today’s date in this quadrant of our present galaxy is---”

“No, no, no! That’s not what we’re after,” Lance said, and he held up his hands in a clear ‘stop’ gesture.

“Yeah, uh, sorry, Coran, but the date in this part of the universe is not what we’re curious about,” Hunk said, smiling sheepishly.

“It isn’t?” Allura asked, and when Lance, Hunk, and Pidge all shook their heads, she asked, “Then what is?”

“Earth,” Pidge said simply. Her program gave a soft ding, and as one every person gathered around her workstation turned to look at the holographic screen. Pidge continued speaking, even as her eyes scanned the data. “We know how long we’ve been gone by Altean time, but that doesn’t give us a frame of reference for how much time has passed on Earth since we’ve been gone. So with Matt’s help, I created a conversion program that allows us to input the current date in this quadrant of the galaxy, and convert it to whatever date it is on Earth right now. It might not be exact, but it’ll be close enough.”

“I see,” Allura said slowly. “But I’m afraid I don’t . . .”

“What?” Matt asked.

“I’m unsure of how useful this information will be,” Allura said, and as Matt, Lance, Hunk, Shiro, Coran, and Pidge all turned to look at her, she smiled apologetically. “I’m sure it is very interesting, and you’ve certainly done a marvelous job creating this program. But our current battles are very far away from Earth. Even if we know what day it is there, I’m unsure how that will help us combat Zarkon’s forces.”

“This isn’t about Zarkon,” Pidge said. There was a tone in her voice Allura couldn’t easily identify; her expression was caught somewhere between a smile and a frown, so faint it was hard to tell which one it was. “It’s about our families.”

“Your families?”

“We’ve been gone a long time . . . we think,” Hunk said, and he cast his eyes to the floor. “And we left kinda suddenly, you know? We didn’t even get a chance to tell anyone goodbye.”

“Didn’t so much as give the Garrison a leave of absence demand, much less request,” Lance said. “And if we didn’t tell them that we were flying off into space in a giant, beautiful, amazing Blue Lion to fight in an intergalactic space war against the Galra Empire, there’s no way they could tell our families that’s what we did.”

“So we’re just kind of wondering how much time we’re going to have to apologize for,” Hunk said. “Because my mom? Is not going to be cool about this. Not even a little.”

“And my mom already thought Matt and my dad were dead,” Pidge said. “All this will have done is make her think she lost her daughter, too.”

“Mom’s tough, Pidge,” Matt said gently, and he placed his hand on Pidge’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “She’ll understand---”

“When we come home, she will,” Pidge said, and she looked back at the data on her screen. Allura wasn’t sure if she truly saw it or not. “But until then, she doesn’t have any idea of what happened.”

“I see,” Allura said. She swallowed, then cleared her throat to try and get past the obstruction suddenly lodged in it. She had known that her---that her fellow Paladins had left lives on their own planet behind in order to defend the universe. She had known that, but somehow it hadn’t truly hit her before that moment just how much they must have left behind to help fight this war. She had always been grateful for their presences in her Castle and life, but in that moment she was suddenly struck by just how fortunate she was that they were the ones there when she woke from cryo-sleep. “Well then, by all means, please continue. What day is it on Earth?”

“Let’s see . . .” Pidge scrolled through the data, scrolling too quickly for anyone save her to keep up with, and finally settled on one piece, glowing green. “Looks like it’s October 23rd.”

“Is there a year?” Hunk asked, trepidation in his voice.

“And what month did we leave again? Was it May?” Lance asked, and then his eyes widened. “Wait, have I had a birthday?!”

“It’s Keith’s now,” Shiro said.

Just as they had before when Pidge’s program announced that it had finished its conversions, everyone present turned to look at Shiro, Pidge twisting around in her seat so she could look up at him properly. Shiro blinked, as if just now realizing that everyone had turned to him, but when he offered no further explanation, Coran said, “Sorry, Shiro, but could you repeat that, please?”

“It’s Keith’s birthday.” Shiro nodded back toward Pidge’s workstation, where the words October 23rdwere still present on the screen. “October 23rd. It’s his birthday.”

“Well, that’s . . . that’s wonderful!” Allura said, and she clapped her hands together. “We’ll have to do something to celebrate! We could have a party---something small, at least---”

“I could bake a cake,” Hunk said. “Hey, Shiro, do you know what kind of cake Keith likes? Does he like chocolate? Wait, does he even like cake?”

“Who doesn’t like cake?” Lance said, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Everyone likes cake. Even that mullethead has to like cake.”

“Some people don’t,” Hunk said. “My grandma refused to touch it.”

“Get out of here!”

“It’s true! She wouldn’t eat any dessert but cobbler. Said everything else tasted like soggy shoes. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t have it.”

“What the heck, who compares cake to soggy shoes?!”

“My grandma!”

“I think Keith liked chocolate cake,” Shiro said, and he raised his voice a little to be heard as Lance opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal.

“Okay, good,” Hunk said. “Now, if I can just figure out where to get some chocolate . . .”

“Uh, guys?” Pidge said, and when she saw she had everyone’s attention, continued, “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourselves? Keith’s not here right now. He moved out. He’s with the Blade of Marmora now, remember?”

“Oh . . .” Allura’s shoulders slumped, and took her heart right along with them. “That’s right, he did. I . . . I got a little carried away. I apologize.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Shiro said. “It can be easy to forget, especially when things crop up like this. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Allura tried to smile, but she didn’t have to see herself to know how weak it felt. No one was looking at each other now; Pidge had gone back to looking at her workstation, though she wasn’t scrolling through the data, and Matt was similarly pretending to examine the information on the screen. Hunk was awkwardly staring at his feet, and Lance was casting his eyes around the main room, as if trying to find something else to catch his attention. Shiro was looking across the room, out through the main observation window, and Coran was watching her.

And Keith . . .

Well, it was as Pidge had said. Keith wasn’t there.

But nothing would be accomplished by standing around, feeling despondent and awkward. Allura had always been averse to inaction; wallowing in her feelings had never changed anything, nor had it allowed them to lessen. She took a deep breath, forced her brightest smile, and said, “Well, even if he can’t attend a party, that doesn’t stop us from giving him birthday wishes, does it? Coran, could you please establish contact with the Blade of Marmora? If nothing else, I’m sure Keith would like to know he’s another decapheeb older.”

“Certainly, Princess! Just a tick,” Coran said, and he spun on the ball of his foot before he darted over to the communications control panel.

As Coran set about getting in contact with the Blade of Marmora (and as Hunk, Matt, Pidge, and Lance all relocated to standing in front of the primary communications screen), Shiro turned to Allura with a frown. “I’m not sure we should be contacting the Blades for something like this.”

“I agree that social calls aren’t generally what we want to use these communication lines for, but this is a special occasion,” Allura said. “I’m sure they’ll understand, particularly if we keep it brief. Besides, I . . .”

“What is it?”

Allura smiled, and shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s go join the others. Coran will make contact with the Blade of Marmora any tick now.”

The look Shiro gave her suggested that he wanted to press the issue. Ever since his return, he had seemed more reluctant to let things go. But Allura turned away before he had the chance, and strode over to join the others in front of the primary communications screen.

It wasn’t a big deal, really. If Shiro or anyone else really wanted to know, Allura would tell them. But it felt a little awkward to do so, as if she was sharing information that wasn’t hers to share. And she wasn’t---that wasn’t the case at all---but . . .

She laced her fingers together over her stomach as it gave an anxious little tumble.

If she closed her eyes now, she could remember clearly how taken aback Keith had looked in their travel pod when Allura told him that without him, they couldn’t form Voltron. If she closed her eyes now, she could remember clearly the downcast, dubious expression on Keith’s face when she told him that they could not go on without him, even though the Blade of Marmora could. If she closed her eyes now, she could remember clearly how Keith wouldn’t meet her eyes if she asked him if he was pulling away from them because he felt Shiro could take his place---could remember how his voice had cracked as he told them about the mission he had to leave on.

All things considered, Allura felt that it was . . . important that they wished Keith a happy birthday, that they told him they were thinking of him. It was the least they could do for now.

The communications screen flared to life, and while they were greeted by a dark hood and glowing mask at first, the hood was lowered and the mask fizzled out to reveal a dark purple face and glowing golden eyes. Allura’s heart, as it always did when she found herself staring into eyes like those, picked up its pace. She twisted her fingers more tightly together and did her best to ignore it.

“Paladins of Voltron,” the Marmorite on-screen said. His voice was neutral, as the Marmorites’ voices usually were. By now Allura could at least pick up distinctions in Kolivan’s tone, but the rest . . . she wished Kolivan had answered the call instead. “We weren’t expecting a communication today. Is something amiss?”

“No,” Allura said, and she took a step forward, forcing a little smile as she addressed him, “and we apologize for anything we may have interrupted. We were wondering---is Keith available?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Marmorite answered, and for the second time in less than half a varga, Allura’s heart sank. “He’s on a mission with Kolivan and a few others. We have no way of reaching him.”

“I see,” Allura said. She did her best to keep her voice as level as the Marmorite’s. “Do you know when he will be back?”

“Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing that now,” the Marmorite said.

Allura blinked. There was something about the way he said that---

“What do you mean, you have no way of knowing that now?” Shiro asked.

The Marmorite hesitated, but only for a tick. Then he said, “They were supposed to return two quintents ago. They haven’t, and signal interference around the mission site has blocked all forms of communication and contact. We have no way of knowing when---or if---they will return.”

Something akin to a flood of icy water rushed through Allura, and froze her to the spot.

“Wait---wait, wait, wait, hold on,” Hunk said, and he raised both hands in a gesture that would have looked placating were it not for the worried knit of his brow. “You’re not saying that---are you saying that---that they’re . . . that Keith is---that he could be---”

“Captured?” Pidge asked. Her tone suggested it wasn’t the first word that had come to mind.

The Marmorite’s expression did not change. His tone was perfectly even as he answered, “We have already begun preparations for the worst-case scenario. Rest assured that our contribution to the war will not be---”

“Where was the mission?” Allura demanded. Only now did the Marmorite blink, as if truly taken aback by her sudden interruption. “Send us their coordinates. We will take our Lions and assist them with Voltron---”

“No,” the Marmorite said.

Allura curled her fingers into fists by her sides. “Excuse me?”

“As secure as our communication channels may be, they are not foolproof,” the Marmorite said. “We have reason to believe that certain communication channels we use throughout the coalition may be compromised. We cannot risk relaying information that sensitive over these communication channels.”

“This is the first we’ve heard about potentially compromised communication channels,” Shiro said, his voice hard. “When were you going to share this information with us?”

“When it came up, as it has now,” the Marmorite said, his voice equally as hard.

“More importantly, what are you doing to ensure the safety of Keith, Kolivan, and the others?” Allura said. “You claim that you are unable to trust us with their coordinates---”

“That is not what I---”

“---yet you don’t seem to be doing anything to assist them with their mission. If something has gone wrong, then they need help. We will gladly provide that assistance if you will not.”

“It is not a matter of will, but a matter of practicality,” the Marmorite said. He was glaring at her now, and Allura returned his glare in kind. “The mission comes before the individual. Right now, the most important task we have is to carry on with the mission, and take the necessary measures to ensure the mission’s continued success even in the event Kolivan does not return.”

“And Keith?” Hunk asked. “What about him?”

The Marmorite turned his eyes to Hunk. “Keith was one of our youngest, rather than our leader, but the same holds true for him.”

“No,” Allura said. “Keith may have temporarily joined the Blade of Marmora, but he is still a Paladin of Voltron. He will always be one of us.”

“Yeah!” Lance said. “You can’t just stand there and expect us to accept that one of our guys is stranded off on some mission somewhere, captured or maybe even . . . even . . .” He swallowed and flailed a hand, delivering his point without saying a word.

But whether the Marmorite they were speaking with understood Lance’s point or not, he didn’t seem impressed. “Keith is one of ours. As a member of the Blade of Marmora, he understood the risks he was taking when he agreed to this mission. He understood that the mission comes before the individual. He understood that there are things worth dying for. He would not want us---any of us---to jeopardize the universe’s freedom on a rescue mission for him which may be in vain from the start.”

“. . . That’s true,” Allura bit out, and she turned her glare to the floor. She couldn’t stand to look at the Marmorite any longer. “But---!”

“I apologize,” the Marmorite said suddenly, “but I am afraid I have other duties to return to. If Kolivan or Keith return, I will be sure to have them contact you.”

“We understand,” Shiro said, before Allura had a chance to reply. “Thank you.”

The Marmorite nodded, and then the communication screen went blank.

Silence reigned in the main room. Allura’s voice felt stuck in her throat. She thought that she should have been the one to say something---that, as before, she should have been the one to nudge the others into action. But all she could hear in her own head was the Marmorites’ voice, saying that Keith was due back to quintents ago . . . that there was no way to contact him . . . that they were already making preparations in case Kolivan didn’t return, and that if Kolivan had perished, then it was likely that Keith . . .

“We should prepare for our next patrols,” Shiro said, and Allura looked up as his voice broke through the static in her head. “Coran, can you plot a course through the east quadrant? I want to make sure the medical supply ships in that area make it to the next base.”

“I---yes, of course,” Coran said. He gave his head a little shake and looked back at the keyboard, as Matt frowned at Shiro.

“Is this really okay?” Matt asked. “Are you really okay with this?”

“Okay with what?” Shiro asked.

“With just . . . leaving things like this.” Matt gestured back up at the dark communication screen. “Keith’s . . . gone somewhere. He could be captured, or worse. Are you really okay with just . . . leaving him?”

Shiro stared at Matt for a long tick, and then he said, “I would like to go after him as much as anyone else here, but we have no coordinates and no leads. Instead of spinning our wheels searching the galaxy with nothing to go on, our time would be better spent doing what needs to be done to free the universe from Galra control. Keith would feel the same way.”

Matt pressed his lips together, yet turned away without further argument. Pidge exchanged a look with Lance that Allura couldn’t read; her eyes were narrowed, even as Lance shook his head and shrugged. Hunk walked over to Coran, and asked him in a quiet voice if he needed help.

Part of Allura wanted to agree with Shiro. As uncomfortable as the idea was, the mission did come first. In her own words, the mission was greater than any one individual, no matter how irreplaceable. They all knew that. Keith in particular had always been on the same page as Allura herself when it came to this.

But she remembered all the days and nights that Keith had spent searching for Shiro after his disappearance. She remembered how Keith ran himself ragged between searching for Shiro, and still trying to accomplish his duties as a Paladin of Voltron. She remembered how, even after he accepted that he would need to pilot the Black Lion, that he kept a radar running, searching for even the faintest ping of Shiro’s whereabouts. Even though Keith had accepted that the mission had to continue, he still hadn’t given up. He had refused to, and as said as much, because he knew that Shiro would never give up on him.

Allura watched as Shiro crossed the room to stand by Coran and Hunk, looking over the map that Coran had brought up on the screen.

Shiro’s logic was sound. There was no doubt about that. His logic was perfectly sound. But all the same, something about this . . .

Something about this didn’t feel right.

One and a half vargas after they returned from their mission, Kolivan called for Keith to meet him at the observation deck.

The mission had been a disaster. It was yet another trap---another ambush. If Kolivan had suspected that their communication channels were compromised somehow before, he was certain of it now. Somehow, they were either being fed false info, or their plans were being leaked to the Empire. Where the leak was, Kolivan was not certain; all he knew was that it had to be patched, and quickly. This past mission had cost them three more lives, and Keith’s had nearly been among them. That he had survived at all was nothing short of a miracle; Kolivan could not think of another Marmorite who would be small enough to hide in the engine compartment of an abandoned ship for two quintents, and there were few Kolivan could think of who would have the fortitude to even if they were small enough. Yet Keith had managed---his determination to survive had won out---and for that, he was able to return safely once Kolivan cleared a path to get him out. Not that Kolivan should have, per se—the war was greater than any one individual, and remaining behind for Keith had put Kolivan's own life at risk, meaning that the Blade (and resistance) could have lost them both—but much as Regris had in an earlier mission, Keith had intel on him that would have been foolish to leave behind. Trap or not, the mission hadn’t been a total failure. Kolivan made sure Keith had the intel when he was rescued. No protocol was broken when it came to getting Keith out of that engine room, and Kolivan made sure Keith knew it.

If Kolivan was honest with himself, it was not the only reason he had waited for Keith. But Keith didn’t need to know that.

When they finally made it back to their base, they did so with the sort of bone-deep exhaustion that rivaled the sheer force of a black hole. Upon arrival, Keith gruffly dismissed himself to his own quarters before Kolivan had a chance to say much of anything to him. Likewise, though Garus called out to him, Keith didn’t so much as twitch to indicate that he heard. In absence of Keith’s attention, Garus had told Kolivan instead that the Paladins of Voltron had called to speak to Keith two quintents ago, and that they wanted to speak to either Keith or Kolivan himself as soon as possible.

“Understood,” Kolivan said. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course,” Garus said, inclining his head.

“One more thing,” Kolivan said, and when Garus raised his eyebrows to show Kolivan had his attention, he said, “After Keith showers, make sure he eats and drinks something. He has gone a few days without food and water. Then ask him to meet me on the observation deck.”

Garus smiled. “Understood.”

With Garus tending to Keith (who Kolivan knew was going to protest eating and drinking instead of sleeping, but of all the Marmorites, Kolivan knew Garus to be one of the most insistent when it came to nurturing, and the news that Keith had gone for days without food and water would make him not back down from following through on Kolivan’s request), Kolivan returned to his quarters. He needed to call the Paladins of Voltron, given the message that Garus had relayed to him, and he would. The alliance the Blade had formed with Voltron was an important one, and not one that Kolivan was willing to lose. But calling the Paladins was not mission critical. They could wait, at least for another few vargas. Keith---and the photograph that Kolivan retrieved from his quarters to show Keith---came first.

That was how Kolivan came to be on the observation deck as Keith walked up to join him one and a half vargas later. In the light from the stars outside their one-way window, Keith looked more exhausted than ever. Though he had showered, and thus his hair had regained its usual fluff, there were dark circles beneath his eyes, and his face looked worn. There was a tension in his stride that came only with having gone without sleep for so long that he was putting extra effort into appearing alert. When he spoke, his voice rasped, and though the rasp was a little better now than it had been two vargas ago (no doubt due to the water Garus made Keith drink), it was still rough with exhaustion.

“You wanted to see me, Kolivan?”

“Yes.” Kolivan patted the floor next to him. “Please take a seat.”

Wordlessly, Keith followed Kolivan’s instruction, and while Kolivan thought that Keith was probably attempting to be graceful, he dropped to the deck with more heaviness than grace could sustain. Nonetheless, he crossed his legs sat down, and placed his hands in his lap. Once he was situated, Kolivan held the photograph out to him, and Keith took it from him with a surprisingly gentle grip.

Keith stared at the photograph in silence for a moment before he said, “She’s pretty. Who is she?”

“Her name was Mezri,” Kolivan said. Keith didn’t remove his eyes from the photograph. “She was a friend of mine in childhood. We knew each other for many years, and joined the Blade of Marmora together.” Kolivan let this information sink in for a tick before he said, “She was also your mother.”

Keith looked up so fast Kolivan heard his neck pop. “What?”

“She---Mezri---was your mother,” Kolivan repeated. Keith’s eyes were wide, and the hand that held the photograph was trembling now. When he looked back at the picture in his hands, all traces of fatigue were gone from his expression; his eyes (so much like Mezri’s) raked over every inch of the photograph. “You were born in the infirmary of one of our bases. Not this one; one much farther away from here.”

“I---wait.” Keith looked up again, his brow knitted together. “I wasn’t born on Earth?”

“No,” Kolivan said. “You were sent to Earth with your human father roughly thirty quintents after you were born. Mezri was concerned for your safety. She thought you would not survive the war if you remained here with her.”

Keith looked at Mezri’s photo again, staring with an intensity that suggested he was trying to burn her image into his brain. Finally, he asked, “How long have you known? Why didn’t you ever tell me?” He turned his eyes on Kolivan again; they were burning. “I asked you when we first met. I asked you how and why I had that knife, and you---”

“I wasn’t certain then,” Kolivan said, and Keith closed his mouth. “I suspected. I couldn’t think of another possible answer for why a human would have one of our knives. But suspicion alone does not warrant trust. I could only reveal the truth to you if you revealed yourself to be her son. By the end of the Trial, you did.”

“I almost died.”

“And yet, you didn’t,” Kolivan said. “Despite the impossible odds, you persisted, and you survived. You have Mezri’s tenacity. I had confidence that if you were her son, you would survive the Trials as she had. You answered my confidence proudly.”

Keith looked back at the photograph. “Her tenacity, huh,” he said. “She was tenacious . . .”

A few ticks slipped by, quiet and contemplative, before Keith looked to Kolivan again. “Then why are you telling me now?” he asked. “Even if you didn’t tell me before the Trials, you could have told me any time after. Why not?”

“There wasn’t very much opportunity,” Kolivan said. “Between the battle against Zarkon fought shortly after our alliance, as well as Shiro’s disappearance, and everything that came after while you fought as a Paladin of Voltron, no opportunity presented itself. And after you joined us . . . I felt that it would be better to wait until---until ideally a few quintents ago, but better belated than never.”

“Belated?” Keith furrowed his brow. “Why a few quintents ago?”

Kolivan smiled. “I thought that the answers to your questions about your heritage---and that a photograph of, and information about, your mother---would make for fitting birthday gifts.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “Birthday?”

“Nineteen decapheebs and about four or five quintents ago, you were born in the infirmary wing of one of our bases,” Kolivan said. Keith was staring at him, his eyes the size of wormholes, and just as bright. “You were small enough so that I could hold you with one hand, and completely pink. Your mother thought you were the most beautiful sight she had ever laid eyes on.”

“What . . . was she like?” Keith asked. His voice still had a rasp, but it was different now. No longer exhausted, but . . . awestruck. “What was my mom like?”

“Tenacious, as I said, though stubborn to a fault may be a better way to put it. Obstinate. Bull-headed. Passionate about her beliefs and willing to argue herself hoarse with anyone who disagreed. Rather,” he said, affecting a stern tone as he inclined his head to look severely at Keith, “like a certain someone else I know.”

Keith’s lips twitched, but he fought a smile Kolivan knew was there as he ducked his head and said, too casually to be believable, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Kolivan smiled. “She was brave. Valiant. Curious, too, also to a fault. It was a combination of all those things that landed her on Earth in the first place . . .”

(Ko-Fi)

35 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 7 years ago

Conversation

preview of S5:

KEITH: "So again, your story is: Your remaining three generals turned on you and tried to turn you over to the Empire after you took down the one who was being mind-controlled by Zarkon's witch, you flew into a sun in order to avoid the Empire soldiers who---on orders from your father---were trying to kill you, and now you genuinely want to form an alliance with and join the coalition."

LOTOR: "Well yes, if you say it like THAT it doesn't sound believable."

KEITH: "Oh hey, Kolivan, did you get my report on the last mission?"

KOLIVAN: "Yeah, I looked it over. Nice work."

KEITH: "Good. Thanks, Dad."

EVERYONE: [stares]

KEITH: ". . . Why is everyone staring at me?"

PIDGE: "You just called Kolivan 'dad.' You said, 'thanks, Dad.'"

KEITH: "What? No, I didn't! I said 'thanks, man.'"

KOLIVAN: "Do you see me as a father-figure, Keith?"

KEITH: "No! If anything, I see you as a BOTHER figure, 'cause you're always BOTHERING me."

SHIRO: "Hey! Show your father some respect!"

KEITH: "I didn't call him 'dad'!"

KOLIVAN: "No, no, no, no, Keith. I take it as a compliment."

HUNK: "It's not a big deal. I called Yellow 'mom' once, and she's my Lion."

KEITH: "Guys, jump on that! Hunk has psycho-Paladin issues!"

ALLURA: "Old news! But you calling Kolivan 'daddy' . . ."

KEITH: "Hey, 'daddy' is not on the table, here."

LOTOR: "But you did call him 'dad'."

KEITH: "You shut up. You've done nothing but lie since you got here."

LOTOR: "All right, I was lying about sincerely wishing to join the coalition. But the 'dad' thing? That happened."

KEITH: "Ah-ha! He admitted that his sincerity was a lie! It was a trap! All part of my crazy, devious plan."

KOLIVAN: "I believe you."

KEITH: "Thank you."

KOLIVAN: "Son."

KEITH: [frustrated growl]

KOLIVAN: "Do you want to talk about it later over a . . . game of catch?"

KEITH: ". . . I'd like that."

#voltron #vld #keith kogane #kolivan #incorrectvoltronquotes #source: b99 #prince lotor #pidge #takashi shirogane #shireplica #hunk #princess allura #look i couldn't resist ok #let Keith and Kolivan be found family plS #marmora fam

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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I have to say I'm learning a lot about my self from loving Keith. I've learned that I would be the type of parent to yell at anyone who hurt my son, including the other children. I'm so salty at team Voltron right now, and I will continue to be until i see them apologize. I kinda hope Keith and Lotor get along though.

Fam, you have no idea how salty I am at Team Voltron right now. I’m pretty much Done™ with every single one of them at this point.

Let’s make one thing clear right off the bat: It’s clear that Keith, however much he is expressive and is pretty blunt and honest with what he says, has difficulties connecting with others and communicating with them therefore. I’ve talked before about how Keith seems to have C-PTSD, and how this is more than likely the root cause of difficulties he personally has communicating and connecting with his teammates (and regulating his emotions), given that difficulties forming and keeping interpersonal relationships is one of the symptoms of C-PTSD (as is difficulty with emotional regulation, which doesn’t help things either). If he does have C-PTSD as a result of past abuse / neglect (which as I talk about in that post, has been implied by Steven Yeun at the very least), then it would also explain things such as his tendency to be extremely independent, his tendency to close himself off, et cetera. It would especially explain if he doesn’t realize that he’s doing these things in the moment, and that it really only occurs to him if he takes the time to reflect upon it later. (At which point he’s completely overwhelmed and overcome by this trauma that he has no tools to deal with, i.e., his vlog.)

All of that said, I have difficulty blaming Keith for his “part” in this, because while it is true that he isn’t great at communicating or working with others, the reason he isn’t great is because he has a metric ton of childhood / adolescent trauma that he is dealing with and, as far as we know, has never received help with. There is so much of Keith’s backstory that we don’t know, and part of me wonders if we’ll ever even find out (something tells me Dreamworks won’t allow Joaquim and Lauren to show child abuse on screen, but we’ll see), but at the very least, the Galaxy Garrison doesn’t really seem to be the type of place to have therapists on staff (and since they’re a U.S. based military organization, and mental health care is not something we do for our vets … yeah, I highly doubt they do), and we know that there aren’t any therapists at the Castle. I mention in the linked post above that Shiro seems to have helped Keith at least with the emotional regulation part of it by teaching him the “patience yields focus” mantra, and either Lauren or Joaquim have mentioned before that, on top of being an older brother figure for Keith, Shiro was Keith’s “grounding pillar,” which also lends to the idea that he has done his best to help Keith recover and heal from his trauma, despite not being a therapist himself. (But he was a teacher, a commanding officer, and a mentor to Keith at the very least, on top of probably being found family, so he was still able to help some.) But despite Shiro helping some, that doesn’t change the fact that—again, as far as we know—Keith never received any sort of professional help in recovering from his trauma. This is trauma that spanned adolescence, through his formative years; this is trauma that shaped who Keith is as a person, and how he views the world, and while it is possible to learn techniques that can help one overcome the barriers that C-PTSD hardwires into their brain (speaking from experience), if Keith—an eighteen-year-old boy—has never been taught those techniques, I find it really goddamn difficult to blame him for the difficulties he has communicating and forming relationships with others, especially when it is blatantly obvious that he is trying very hard with what he has, that he’s doing his fucking best, and the others aren’t even trying to meet him halfway.

Because that’s the thing: they aren’t, or at least, most of them aren’t. Shiro did in the first two seasons, and presumably the time that they spent together pre-canon. We see Shiro reach out to Keith with genuine care and support multiple times in the first two seasons, just as Keith reaches out to Shiro. (We also have some choice words from Keith to hint at their relationship prior to canon: “If it wasn’t for you, my life would have been a lot different.” […] “Shiro was the only one who never gave up on me …”) Allura was also the only one who was able to reach Keith when he was grieving Shiro at the start of S3; she was the only one to offer him true support and encouragement for being the new pilot of the Black Lion at multiple points in S3 (and was the only one, iirc, to not berate or drag him in 3x03); and she was also the one who tried to reach out to him at the start of S4, both when she told him that they needed him, and when she questioned—sounding aghast—if the reason why he was pulling away from them was because he didn’t feel fit to be a leader. Both S1/S2!Shiro and Allura have, at the very least, seemingly tried to reach out to him.

But as for the rest? Lance is the absolute worst; I’ve talked about it in other posts before and so I won’t go on and on about it now, but Lance has hated Keith from before day one based purely on an image of Keith he had built up in his head as an arrogant, cocky rival. He has never tried to actually understand or get to know Keith, instead preferring to view him as an obstacle standing between Lance and his desires (which are to be the best, and to be acknowledge by Shiro). The only time this even starts to change is in S3, when Shiro is gone (and Shireplica hasn’t really settled in yet); only then does Lance start to wash away his image of Keith as an obstacle and rival, and start to truly treat him as a comrade and potential friend. However, thanks to Shireplica coming back (and everyone believing that Shireplica = Shiro), that seems to have been completely rewound (again) in S4. Once again, Keith is someone Lance grouses and complains at, someone he doesn’t want to get to know or support. Everything Keith does is automatically wrong, in Lance’s eyes. In fact, there’s a Parks and Recreation quote that works perfectly as an incorrect Voltron: Legendary Defender quote. Here we are:

LANCE: “I wasn’t listening, but I strongly disagree with Keith.”

Building on that, it’s fair to say that Lance’s insistence on viewing Keith as an antagonistic obstacle, someone unlikable and unworthy of getting to know, also strongly influenced Pidge’s and Hunk’s perceptions of him from the get-go. In fact, we know for a fact that this is the case with Hunk, because Tyler Labine said so in an interview following S2:

“I think before I kinda took the side of Lance where I was like you’re … you’re kinda a hotshot, hothead, whatever, you know, and Lance doesn’t like him so I don’t like him, right?Not don’t like him, we get along because we have to, but you know he’s not our favourite person.”

Hunk straight up disliked Keith from the outset because Lance disliked him, and it wasn’t until 2x09 that Hunk’s opinion changed (and even then, he rationalized it by saying that it was Galra!Keith that he liked, rather than just Keith, according to Tyler). While we don’t (as far as I know) have a similar quote on Pidge, it’s worth it to note that Pidge and Keith have never really been shown bonding on-screen, but instead, Pidge was one of the most vocal in S3 and S4 when it came to berating and yelling at Keith, responding very harshly to his leadership when they first fought Lotor at the end of 3x02 (“We need an actual plan!” she screams, when this is Keith’s first official attempt at leadership, they were ambushed, and she doesn’t have a plan either), and never letting up throughout the rest of the episodes, either. On top of this, there have been numerous hints throughout all of the seasons that Pidge has a crush on Lance. Therefore, I think it’s very possible that Pidge—who we know thanks to her, “Wait, who’s Keith?!” remarks in 1x01 never met Keith before the first episode—has taken the approach of, “Lance doesn’t like Keith, but I like Lance, and Lance must have a good reason for not liking Keith, so I’m going to view everything Keith does through a lens of ‘why doesn’t Lance agree with this’.” It’s not the most mature approach to take, but Pidge is a fifteen-year-old girl with a crush on a boy. Even teenage prodigies can be a bit childish and illogical at times.

So right from the get-go, Lance didn’t like Keith because he had built up an image of Keith in his head as being some terrible obstacle that he had to overcome, and Hunk and Pidge never gave Keith a fair shake either because Lance didn’t like him. Considering the fact that Steven Yeun has said that Keith is the only one whose “difficult family history” has affected the way that he is, we can reasonably assume that none of them have the same C-PTSD-induced problems with emotional regulation and forming interpersonal relationships that Keith does. In fact, we know they don’t, or else they’d have the same difficulties connecting with others that he does, and they very obviously don’t. So instead of having their brains wired in a way that makes it actually difficult for them to reach out to and connect with others as a result of prolonged trauma throughout childhood and adolescence, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are refusing to make attempts to bridge the gap and connect with Keith because they simply don’t want to.

Then we have the others. As established, Shiro did make these attempts in the first two seasons. However, in S3 and S4, “Shiro” doesn’t. He’s dismissive of Keith, uses emotionally abusive language (“I’m sorry I had to step in back there”), and even when he seems like he’s going to support him, he takes it back almost immediately (e.g. “Yes, you can [be a leader]” … “You’ll get there someday” — like, which is it? Make up your damn mind). Rather than trying to talk to Keith about why he’s spending more time with the Blade of Marmora in S4, he instead just scolds him for it like he’s a disobedient child, because Keith’s feelings and motivations don’t matter to him (anymore). Keith’s results are all that matter to him. And yes, this is a stark contrast from how Shiro used to treat him previously, because in 2x08 Shiro asked Keith why he yelled at everyone back at the Castle. (“What happened back there?”) He cared about Keith’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations then. Now, he doesn’t. He says he’ll support Keith, but he doesn’t exactly care to listen to Keith’s reasons. Half the time he won’t even spare him the courtesy of looking at him. This is why I find it so immensely difficult to believe that this is the real Shiro, and why I say “Shiro would never treat Keith like this,” because it is a direct contrast to how Shiro used to treat him. And if Dreamworks comes out and says that this is the real Shiro, and that this is supposedly IC? First of all, that’s nonsense, but second of all, I’m livid, because of all the people in that Castle, Shiro is the only one who (presumably) knows Keith’s history, and therefore should know how to talk to Keith, how to reach him, and why it’s important to do so. Hell, even Shireplica supposedly has Shiro’s memories, so he should know as well. The fact that he knows and apparently doesn’t care is a huge problem to me, and a huge impediment to me liking him, but regardless, I’d rather it be Shireplica than Shiro. I’d rather not believe that the real Shiro cares more about results than reasons, that the real Shiro cares more about piloting the Black Lion than he does whether or not Keith feels like he’s part of the team. Either way, the “Shiro” in S3 and S4 clearly doesn’t want to try to reach Keith, either. He makes absolutely no attempt to truly reach out to him, at all. Because trust me, if he did? If he did genuinely try to listen to Keith instead of shutting him down time and again? Keith would have responded. In fact, Keith tried multiple times to talk to “Shiro” and was rebuffed every time. The problem wasn’t Keith in this particular relationship. The problem was “Shiro”.

As for Allura and Coran, well, I can’t remember ever seeing Keith and Coran so much as have a conversation, much less bond. Allura did try, as mentioned above. Even in that fake af goodbye scene (more on that in a second), she questioned if the reason why he pulled away was because he felt he wasn’t worthy of being the leader. She wanted to hear what he was thinking and feeling. She tried to reach out to him, she clearly did care (as also demonstrated in 4x01 when she saw him in the crowd and her face just falls with sadness and worry) … but because their relationship has been on such a slow burn, Allura still doesn’t know him very well yet either. This is particularly true since they went through such a rough patch in S2, when Allura’s prejudices made her act coldly toward him for a while after she found out about his heritage. (Though before anyone starts hating on Allura, remember that she learned and grew from that, so don’t hate on her, thanks.) Thus, though she does try to reach out to him in S4, she can’t do so from a standpoint of a strong and familiar bond. She’s not someone that Keith has really opened up to yet. He does answer her question genuinely, but it’s too late, and she recognizes that.

And yeah, that goodbye scene was fake as hell. Pidge says that they’re going to miss him, but since when? Again, we’ve never seen Keith and Pidge bond, and Pidge was one of the most vocal team members when it came to shredding him for his leadership decisions. Lance says, “Who am I going to make fun of?” as if that would ever be a reason to get anyone to stay, and as if Lance himself didn’t make it pretty clear near the end of S3 that the only reason why he’d choose to spend any time talking to Keith alone is because Keith was the leader, not because they were friends. “Shiro” says that they’re always there for him, and Keith does accept this with a smile, but considering the fact that “Shiro” has been shutting him down and refusing to listen to him ever since his “return”, I find that hard to believe (especially since Keith himself feels that he’s not needed, and didn’t remember any of them when he was about to sacrifice himself in 4x06). And while I can’t say anything about what Hunk and Allura said (and Coran didn’t say anything), I can point out that not a single goddamn one of them missed him AT ALL in the episodes that followed. Setting aside how they were all very willing to let him go off on a mission that could last for weeks or more without a fight, we didn’t get one single instance of them thinking about or mentioning Keith in the episodes that followed. Pidge didn’t mention him at all to Matt when she was showing him around the Castle (when a, “Oh … and this was Keith’s room” downcast moment would have put more truth behind her “we’re really going to miss you” statement from the goodbye). Allura seemed genuinely disgruntled about having to play Keith in the stupid show, and Coran said “just be really moody” as if that summed up Keith’s entire personality. None of them said anything to him (and he didn’t have any dialogue either) when they were talking to Kolivan and Keith in 4x05. Like, say what you will about the four episodes that Shiro wasn’t present in S3, but he was constantly being brought up, the team was constantly talking about how they missed him. By contrast, not a single damn member of Team Voltron gave a fucking fuck that Keith was gone. Allura, Coran, “Shiro”, Pidge, Lance, Hunk—none of them missed him at all. And yeah, all things considered, that really pisses me off.

Because again: I can understand why Keith has difficulties communicating and connecting with the rest of the team, but he also tries regardless. In 1x01 he says “it’s been an honor flying with you boys” despite barely knowing any of them outside of Shiro. In 1x05 (I think—might have been 1x04) he was genuinely upset when Lance walked back their “bonding moment” because he thought they were really going to make progress as teammates and potential friends. He genuinely and warmly welcomes Pidge back to the team, he tries to protect Allura from the Arusian’s “strongest warrior”, he laughs with Hunk at the party, he encourages Hunk in the Weblum (despite Hunk making microaggressions against his galran heritage for the entire episode), he seems genuinely disappointed when Lance says that he has only come to talk to Keith because Keith is the leader now in S3, and so on and so forth. Yes, Keith has difficulties connecting and communicating as a result of prolonged trauma in his formative years that have shaped how he has grown as a person, and yes, as far as we know he has never been taught how to deal with this. However, he’s still trying, he’s still doing his best, he makes legitimate efforts to connect with Team Voltron.

But they do not give him that same courtesy. Lance refuses to like him right from the start, and Hunk and Pidge follow his lead. Allura tries to balance friendship with being the princess / commander, and her relationship with Keith hits a brief rough patch when she learns of his heritage (that she then tries to work through). Coran and Keith are never in the same room alone together from what I recall, and while Shiro did try in S1 and S2, when he “returns” in S3, that effort is completely gone. He no longer wants to listen to what Keith has to say until Keith says he is leaving, and only then does he decide not to argue it (whereas all of Keith’s attempts at leadership were met with disagreement and shut downs, hmmm …).

So yeah, I’m pissed as all hell at Team Voltron. To be quite honest, they don’t fucking deserve Keith at this point. Especially considering the farcical nonsense in 4x04, he’s too good for them, and I hope he stays with the Blade of Marmora for a while. At least Kolivan shows him some basic respect and consideration. And I, too, hope that Keith and Lotor end up getting along. The last thing I want is for Lotor to join the coalition since the coalition seems to have Shireplica in the commander’s seat, but I do think it’d be neat as all hell to see him join the Blade of Marmora, and to have Keith be one of the Marmorites testing him. That would finally give us our Keith vs. Lotor swordfight, too.

We’ll have to see what happens, but yeah. At this point, I think Team Voltron owes Keith six apologies. They sure as hell better line the fuck up.

(don’t reblog this, please. I do NOT want Discourse™, at all, thanks.)

#starlightprincess17 #this got so long but fam i'm SO mad at them rn #SO FURIOUS #literally fuck all of them for real #they better beg for him to come back #i'll accept nothing less #meta #voltron #voltron spoilers #vld4 spoilers #keith kogane #takashi shirogane #shireplica #princess allura #coran #hunk #lance #pidge

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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I said it before, and I’ll say it again:

Shireplica (Kuron) is here to destroy shirt sleeves and Keith’s self-worth, and he’s all out of shirt sleeves.

#i saw the S4 trailer and i'm not even surprised #i expected this #///#////#/////#voltron #shireplica #keith kogane #god that Coalition looks fake and plastic af #it's all flash and no substance #Lotor's going to chew them up and spit them out

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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can i thank you for your analysis of the awful 'apology' the shiro clone gave to keith? i felt like i was the only one who thought that little speech was nasty and manipulative bc a lot of people, after the first NOT MY SHIRO outburst seem to be viewing the clone as entirely a sympathetic victim but...he is awful to keith? like that bit was basically him validating keiths insecurities while building himself up,i hated watching it. it bothers me that ppl dont see how subtly shitty that was, idk

You can, and I thank you for your support!

Yeah, that … that whole exchange bothered me, like I said. Shireplica “apologized”, but the problem is that it wasn’t an actual apology. It was a non-apology. Rather than apologize for overstepping his bounds, or apologize for hurting Keith, Shireplica instead said that he had to do it.

His act of “stepping in” completely undermined Keith as a leader, stressed him out and distracted him in the middle of a mission, called for Keith to allow Voltron to take the hit, didn’t actually solve the problem (instead, Keith’s quick thinking solved the problem), and completely railroaded over Keith’s ideas / plans and dismissed them utterly, treating Keith like he was incapable and incompetent in the process. Whether that was Shireplica’s intention or not doesn’t matter; that’s what happened. And yet, instead of apologizing for any of that, Shireplica instead apologizes for the fact that he “had to” do it. There is a stark difference between:

“I’m sorry for stepping in back there.”

And

“I’m sorry I had to step in back there.”

The first one apologizes for the action taken. The second one apologizes for the necessity of the action taken. The second one blames Keith for Shiro’s action. To use a very drastic example to get the point across, it’s the same difference between:

“I’m sorry for hitting you.”

And

“I’m sorry I had to hit you.”

Obviously Shireplica didn’t actually hit Keith, but his non-apology is a non-apology all the same, and it’s a common emotional abuse tactic. By non-apologizing like this, emotional abusers can play the “I said I was sorry” card while still using subtle enough language to make the victim feel that it’s their fault—which, if you notice, is exactly what happens. Look at the screencap above; Keith doesn’t defend himself. He just takes what Shireplica is saying. And the exact phrasing is important here, just as it is with Shireplica’s line, because someone could say that Keith is defending himself, but he’s not. There’s a stark difference between:

“I had it under control.”

And

“I thought I had it under control.”

The first line is an assertion of confidence. If Keith said he had it under control, then he would be telling Shireplica that Shireplica didn’t need to step in, and that what Shireplica did was wrong. But by saying he thought he had it under control, he’s saying that what Shireplica did was not only okay, but right, because clearly he (Keith) was wrong. This belief of Keith’s is further cemented by Keith going on to say that he’s no good at being a leader. Because of Shireplica’s actions, and helped along by Shireplica’s non-apology, Keith tears himself down so that Shireplica doesn’t have to.

And yeah, it really bothers me because … I’ve lived this. I don’t want to get into too many details, because it’s not a happy topic or one that I feel strangers on the internet need to know the details of, but I’ve spent the vast majority of my life being abused, particularly emotionally. This is something that stands out to me, something I recognize, because I’ve lived it. So when I saw this scene, the alarm bells went off in my head immediately, even though I didn’t recognize why at first. And when I analyzed it later, it clicked. It’s right there in the dialogue. Even Shireplica trying to smooth things over at the end by telling Keith that he’ll “get there someday” and that he’s proud of him is just … emotional abusers do that, you know? They smooth things over and lay on the praise, sometimes even going so far as to say they need that person and they love that person, all so that the victim will stay with them (and also think, well, but they said they’re proud of / they love me, so they don’t mean to hurt me, and I must be the bad one, I’m the one that’s screwing up, that’s the only reason why they hurt me, I just have to do better next time so they’ll be proud of me again …). That entire scene, especially when paired with everything Shireplica did to Keith prior to that point, and what we saw in the S4 teaser, really screamed of emotional abuse to me. And I think that things are only going to get worse before they get better (especially, again, going by the teaser, where we see that Shireplica is not at all receptive to what Keith is saying to him).

As I said before, I don’t know that Shireplica is intentionally / maliciously emotionally abusing Keith. I think that he lacks compassion, so that even if he mentally knows that he should care, emotionally he’s just not there. And that could be the entire problem, that because he lacks compassion, his behavior is coming across as abusive. But whether he’s intentionally being emotionally abusive or not, that doesn’t change the fact that he is, and I’m not okay with it at all. I’m not cool with it at all. Keith had built up some confidence in himself as leader between 3x03 and 3x06, and Shireplica tore all of that right down again, leaving it in shambles on the floor. And like I said, I feel like things are only going to get worse before they get better, so the future does not look very bright at the moment.

That said, and I just want to reiterate this for anyone reading, it’s important to remember that the emotional abuse we see here is clear proof that this is NOT the real Shiro. Like, honestly, the way Shireplica treats Keith is the biggest red flag. The real Shiro would NEVER abuse Keith. Not ever. So before anyone tries to use this as an argument against Shiro, please remember that it’s not possible to do so because this is not Shiro, this is Shireplica. There’s a huge difference between the two, and I’m not talking about the haircut.

But yeah, thank you for the support, my friend. I appreciate it. :)

#theblacksmudge #shireplica #voltron spoilers #vld3 spoilers #meta #keith kogane

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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My guess is that The Rift™ is going to be caused because Keith doesn’t think they should be wasting time doing things like that Blue Angels-esque air show that we saw in the S4 trailer, and that they should instead go after Lotor (remember, we saw him practically pleading to Shireplica in the S4 trailer that, “[Lotor] hasn’t been seen in months. This might be our chance to track him down!”), but Shireplica disagrees and thinks that the Blue Angels-esque air show is more important (“Forming the coalition is Priority One”), and the rest of the team agrees with him (Lance: “They’re loving us! Razzle-dazzle!”). Keith is going to continue pushing back against Shireplica’s decision to continue the air show, Shireplica is going to snap something akin to how Keith is not behaving like a leader / being a poor leader, Keith is going to quietly agree with him and leave (probably in a space pod, because let’s be honest, he wouldn’t separate one of the Lions from Voltron). And as for Lotor, well . . . he’s going to strike while the iron is hot.

#voltron #voltron speculation #shireplica is here to hack off his shirt sleeves and destroy Keith's self-confidence #and he's all out of shirt sleeves #keith kogane #shireplica

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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Keith and Leadership

Now that I’ve watched all of season three, and also now that I’ve seen posts of varying opinions across this website, I want to go ahead and write up a quick post on my own in reference to Keith, leadership, season three, and what season four might have in store for us. This isn’t going to be a super detailed, intensive meta (mostly in the sense that I’m not going to boot up Netflix to grab screenshots right this second), but I feel pretty passionately about this issue and so I at least want to write up a quick post on it. (Of course, I say “quick”, but this post is long so buckle up.) As a disclaimer right off the bat, please note that ALL relationships written about in this post are PLATONIC in nature. I am not writing this from a romantic shipping standpoint in any capacity, so please leave your (romantic) shipping goggles at the door, thanks. (And I say this because I talk in-depth about Keith’s relationships with several different characters in this post, including the two he’s most often romantically shipped with, and I just do not want shipping Discourse™ to occur as a result of this post. Shipping Discourse™ is not the point here. Keith is the point. Please remember that.)

And with that said . . .

Keith’s Attitude:

The first item on the agenda is Keith’s attitude---or, more specifically, his reluctance to lead. Ever since Shiro first suggested that Keith lead the team in 2x01, Keith has shown a reluctance and even fear of the idea. He has repeatedly (in both 2x01 and 2x08) questioned why Shiro would decide that, and why he would want it. In 2x08 he says that he thought Shiro was delirious with pain the first time he suggested it in 2x01, and goes on to question why Shiro would choose him of all people as the conversation continues.

Now, from this, it might seem like Keith’s reluctance stems from a lack of belief in himself to be leader, and I will say that Keith does have insecurities and low self-confidence when it comes to being leader that does play into his mood throughout season three. However, it is a mistake to think that Keith’s primary reason for not wanting to lead the team is a lack of belief in himself as a leader. While Keith, particularly after the events of 3x03, doubts his capabilities as far as leadership is concerned, that is not his primary reason for not wanting to lead. Instead, Keith’s primary issue for not wanting to be leader is the fact that he has an extremely difficult time coping with the idea that Shiro could be gone for good.

Consider 2x01 once again. Shiro’s life was in danger for the majority of the episode, and Keith raced across the planet to save him. He appealed to the Black Lion to allow him to pilot her in an effort to save Shiro. (Note: The Black Lion accepted Keith far more quickly than the Red Lion did back in 1x01. The Black Lion also accepted Keith quite readily, showing that she was not broken, and since we know that the Lions can act independently to save their Paladins, and the Black Lion refused regardless . . . foreshadowing, everyone.) At the end of all of this, Shiro---having been awed by the sight of Keith piloting the Black Lion---tells Keith that if anything happens to him, he wants Keith to lead Voltron. And how does Keith react?

He tells Shiro to stop talking like that, because he’s going to be fine.

In 2x01, it’s not the idea of leading Voltron that frightens Keith; it’s the idea of losing Shiro. And this makes sense; as far as we know, Shiro is the closest thing Keith has to family, and he has already lost him once before. Losing Shiro before led him to a spiral of grief that resulted in him being expelled from the Galaxy Garrison for “disciplinary issues”, which then led him out to the shack in the desert. And while it’s good that he ended up there for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that it laid the foundation for Pidge and Hunk to help find the Blue Lion), he himself says that he was “lost” after being booted from the Garrison. Losing Shiro once was not a good time for Keith, even though he of course managed to get back on his feet after a time and take care of himself. The idea of losing Shiro again is not one he wants to entertain, much less in any sort of permanent capacity.

So then we get to 2x08. Shiro once again brings up the idea of Keith leading Voltron, and Keith tries to brush it off. He does ask why Shiro wants him to lead (and we see during his hallucinations during the Trials of Marmora that he’s not confident about Shiro’s opinion of him, which no doubt was his motivation behind his question), but then he quickly shuts the conversation down by saying that nothing is going to happen to Shiro, so they don’t need to talk about it. Again, the point at which Keith shuts the conversation down is the point where he has to start thinking about something removing Shiro from the picture, permanently. It’s not an idea he wants to entertain. It’s not that he has a problem with leading, it’s that he has a problem with losing (and then replacing) Shiro.

And I really have to emphasize that Keith has no problems leading the team, because in seasons one and two he does so multiple times without issue. In 1x01, although it was an unofficial “mission”, Keith was the one who led the Garrison trio + Shiro out of the Garrison medical facility and back to his shack in the desert. He not only managed to adjust his plans on the fly to account for the added weight of the Garrison trio on his hoverbike, but he gave Hunk instructions on how to shift his weight to help him steer, and knew that he would be able to make the leap off the cliff with all of them safely in tact. In 2x09, Keith is the one who takes point during the Weblum mission despite the fact that he and Hunk take the Yellow Lion. Make no mistake, Hunk contributes to the mission greatly and has some fantastic ideas, and Keith himself says that if they’re going to make it out of the Weblum, they’re going to need Hunk’s brain. But that’s just it: Keith, as any leader would, recognizes Hunk’s strengths and what an asset Hunk is to the team, and knows how to calm him down so that they can focus and complete the mission. Keith was also the one who decided to free Acxa, as well as the one to convince Hunk that it was the right move to make. (Which, I mean, she’s Lotor’s top general, but Keith had no way of knowing that at the time.) And lastly, in 2x11, when Shiro was knocked unconscious, Keith was the one to rally the remaining three and set them on a course of action, and they listened without hesitation. Keith’s natural instinct in that situation was to take point, and the others responded. It is no wonder that the Black Lion decided he would be the one to pilot her.

So what we see from Keith in the first two seasons is that he is very afraid of losing Shiro again, to the point where he doesn’t even want to think about it (much less plan for it), but that he isn’t afraid of taking point in missions when need-be. In fact, given how headstrong and independent he is, this is not surprising. While Keith can certainly support others when necessary (and does so), and while his absolutely open to advice from others, he’s far more of a leader than a follower. He always has been. But what must be understood is that these two aspects of his character---that he is afraid of losing Shiro, but not afraid to lead per se---carry into season three and deeply inform his opinion when it comes to taking over the Black Lion and leading the team into battle.

In 3x01 and 3x02, we see him repeatedly lash out at the idea of replacing Shiro. First, in 3x01, he explodes whenever the others start talking about finding a new pilot for the Black Lion, and further lashes out at the alien diplomats at the diplomacy dinner before storming out entirely. “Shiro is the Black Lion,” he says. “Without him, there is no Voltron.” The mere idea that Shiro could be replaced chafes Keith, and while I do think part of it is a respect thing (he was resentful of the fact that none of the others seemed to be grieving Shiro as he was), I also think that a huge part of it has to do with the fact that if they replace Shiro, it means accepting that Shiro is gone, and he wasn’t ready to do that. After all, 3x01 opens with Keith searching fruitlessly for Shiro. He says himself that Shiro is “the only one who never gave up on [him]”, and that he won’t give up on Shiro therefore. Finding a new pilot for the Black Lion means accepting that Shiro is gone, and that’s something that Keith is extremely averse to doing. It hurts too badly.

But he does accept that they must find a new pilot for the sake of the mission by the end of 3x01. So then, you wonder, why isn’t it that he wants to take the helm, then, if they’re going to find a new pilot anyway? If it’s not that he lacks confidence in himself, what is his hang up?

Look back at that respect thing.

Truth be told, Keith doesn’t want anyone to replace Shiro. In his mind, no one could. But more than anything, he doesn’t want to replace Shiro. It feels wrong. It feels disrespectful. And yes, there is a little knot of self-confidence issues there as well, in that he knows that this is what Shiro wanted for him, he knows that this is what Shiro expected of him, but he doesn’t think that he can fill those shoes. He says himself in the Black Lion that “[he] can’t lead them like [Shiro] can.” In Keith’s eyes, Shiro is irreplaceable both as a person and a leader, and Keith doesn’t feel that he can adequately live up to the example Shiro set. Keith doesn’t think he’s there yet. And I think that, in Keith’s opinion, no one else is there, either---but he especially doesn’t want to step into the Lion himself, because he feels that he certainly isn’t, and he doesn’t want to taint Shiro’s legacy and let him down by proving that in battle.

And we see this rear again and again throughout the season. Before his first time in battle, Keith says, “This is for you, Shiro.” At the end of the season, when Shireplica (as I call the Very Obviously a Clone Shiro) is on the scene, Keith repeatedly backs down and steps aside in order to allow the person he thinks1 is Shiro take command. There are times when he argues, of course, because he has been doing this for a while and has slipped into the role, but by and large he still steps back and down because he thinks that Shiro is an irreplaceable leader and knows best. Furthermore, he did just get Shiro back, so he doesn’t want to do anything to rock the boat now that a good thing happened. He lost Shiro twice now . . . no need to lose him again (literally or figuratively---remember his worst fear from his hallucination during the Trial of Marmora was Shiro ceasing to care about him).

So when it comes to Keith’s reluctance to lead, it’s important to note that it’s really not about him hating leading the others, particularly since he loves his team. It has far more to do with the fact that he doesn’t want to lose Shiro, certainly doesn’t want to lose him for good, and (to some degree) has insecurities about his capabilities and whether or not he can actually lead the team effectively.

(1 I believe that Keith is suspicious of Shireplica. His body language and facial expressions around Shireplica in the back half of season three don’t speak of someone who has their most important person back, yet instead seem doubtful at best, and even more depressed at worst. This is particularly apparent at the end of 3x06; Shireplica tells Keith that he is proud of him, which should make Keith relieved and happy, given that Keith has wanted to do right by Shiro this entire time. However, Keith looks anything but happy. His lips don’t even start to twitch into a smile. It could be that Shireplica’s pride means nothing in the face of Keith’s own perceived failure (particularly since, although Shireplica apologized, he has been undermining and dismissing Keith since he arrived) . . . or it could be that Keith has serious doubts that this is Shiro, and that the pride of a stranger means nothing to him. Either way, I think that Keith is suspicious of Shireplica even if he can’t place why, but since he can’t place why, he is going with the belief (at the moment) that this is Shiro, hence his genuine surprise when Shireplica couldn’t pilot the Black Lion.)

Keith’s Actions

Both the good . . . and the bad.

It’s no secret that Keith got off to a very rocky start. To begin with, his first mission as Black Paladin was one that none of them had even a sliver of a chance to prepare for. Lotor decided to attack them in 3x02, to draw out the Voltron Lions and see what he was dealing with, which meant that they all had to jump into their Lions asap before they had even finished figuring out the Red Lion situation. (And that sucks, because the Red Lion is arguably the most outright offensive Lion, just like the Yellow Lion is the most outright defensive Lion.) This means that Keith had no time to train, nor did he have time to prepare himself mentally for what he was going to have to do. This, on top of the fact that he is still grieving, means that he was in no way prepared at all for his first mission as the Black Paladin.

And let’s take a moment to talk about that.

I’ve discussed it before in other posts, but it should be obvious nonetheless. While the team tries to comfort Keith at the end of 3x01 by assuring him that they all miss Shiro and understand how he feels, the truth of the matter is that, when it comes to Shiro specifically, they can’t understand the grief he is feeling. While we don’t know the exact details of their history, what we’ve been told so far tells us that Shiro and Keith are, in essence, found family. They knew each other before the Kerberos mission, and more importantly, they knew each other personally. Pidge “grew up” hearing stories about Shiro, and how he was a legend, but knowing him as a legend is far different from knowing him as a person. The same goes for Lance and his hero worship. And while all of them have gotten to know Shiro as a teammate and a friend, that still doesn’t compare to knowing him before the war, and being as close to him as Shiro and Keith obviously are to each other. In Keith’s own words, if it wasn’t for Shiro, his life would have been a lot different. Shiro is the only one who never gave up on him. They’re family in everything but blood, which means that Shiro’s disappearance has hit Keith the hardest out of all of them, by far. Allura understands this. She does compare it to her own loss (that of her father, I believe, which Keith picks up on), because she knows how much he is hurting. Not because she misses Shiro as well (though she does, just not to the same degree), but because she knows what it is to lose someone “completely irreplaceable”.

So to that end, Keith is grieving more painfully than the others are over Shiro’s loss. And the thing is, grief . . . is not pretty. And that’s such a simple way of putting it, but when you lose someone that you cherished that much, it’s . . . devastating, for lack of a better word. Having experienced it, having lost someone that meant everything to me, I can say that it’s kind of like . . . you have this sensation that the world shouldn’t really exist anymore, but you also have the very vivid and tangible knowledge that it does. The rest of the world still exists, and it’s going on as it should, even though you feel, in some way, that it shouldn’t. And you don’t care---you don’t care what happens, anymore, except you do, because you have to. You still have a job to do, you still have responsibilities to take care of . . . but you don’t want to do any of that, particularly since you’re crying every hour on the hour (or at least I was in the first few days, and then it tapered off to several times a day for months, and slowly waned out from there until I could go an entire week without breaking down, which felt miraculous). But you still have to, so you do, even if you’re forcing yourself through the motions, trying to pretend like you’re okay, nodding along to the people who tell you that they’re sorry for your loss because you know they mean well, but you can only hear “I’m sorry for your loss” and “I understand how you’re feeling” so many times without wanting to claw your own brain out. And there’s anger too, of course; anger (and guilt) at yourself for not doing more, irrational anger at others that you know is unjustified and wrong but you still can’t help but feel. What I’m trying to get at here is that grief on that scale is almost inconceivable for someone who has never experienced it. It’s not soul crushing so much as it is soul shredding. And Keith? Keith has experienced this over Shiro not only once, but twice, and the second time can rather quickly after he had---against all odds, hopes, and expectations---gotten him back.

Can you even imagine what he must be feeling? Because even I, having once lost someone that important to me, am having difficulty. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like if I miraculously found out that she was alive and mostly well, if I got her back, if we were together again and I was doing my best to protect and take care of her . . . only to have her taken from me again, less than a year later. I can’t even imagine how badly I would fall apart. I can only stand in awe at how well Keith has kept it together.

And really, he has. He has lashed out, he has exploded, but for the most part he has tried to keep it together well enough to search for Shiro in his free time. He has a Lion now---he isn’t stranded on Earth like he was before, helpless. Even if he feels guilty for not doing more to protect Shiro in that battle against Zarkon---even if he has replayed the battle over, and over, and over, and over, and over again in his mind, wondering if there was something he could have done to prevent Shiro’s disappearance---he’s still trying to make himself do something productive, because that’s the kind of person he is. He’s doing that, and trying to deal with his grief, trying to not fall apart all over his team, particularly since he knows that they need and expect him to keep it together . . . and then the Black Lion chooses him, and the entire team knows it, and they’re congratulating him for replacing Shiro (and he probably feels a bit of anger he knows is misplaced because they’re happy at something that is only happening because Shiro is gone), and then shortly after that Lotor attacks and he has to go out and defend the Castle against Lotor’s ship whether he’s ready to do so or not.

And the truth is---he isn’t.

He isn’t ready to accept that Shiro is gone, potentially for good. He hasn’t had time to fully process the reality of taking over as leader in Shiro’s stead. He hasn’t had any training in the Black Lion, and though he did pilot it once before, that was for a very brief time against wild animals (alien animals, but still), whereas this is a fully-fledged battle against experienced enemy combatants who far outnumber them. And worst of all, Pidge and Hunk (and later Lance) are screaming at him for a plan and idea of what they should do, even though he has had no time to prepare and they barely know who they’re up against. “We need an actual plan!” Pidge shouts, but in Keith’s defense, none of them had time to come up with one. And yes, the leader does need to be able to think on the fly, and Keith has shown over, and over, and over, and over again in the past that he is capable of doing exactly that. However, at that exact moment, Keith had so much on his mind (grappling with Shiro’s loss and its potential permanence, grappling with taking over with Shiro, dealing with the internal conflict of wanting to do right by Shiro while also not replacing him, a brand new adversary with tons of experience and a metric ton of ships, et cetera) that it is more than a little understandable that he had a difficult time coming up with a plan. Pile all of that on top of the fact that the Black Lion is a vastly larger and slower ship than the Red Lion (which is, I believe, what Keith meant when he said the Black Lion wasn’t responding to him; he wasn’t referring to the psychic link, but rather the fact that he is not used to Black’s controls, particularly coming from the Red Lion, who is much much faster and “the most agile” of the Lions, thus allowing Keith to get used to dodging instead of blocking), and it’s no wonder that he seemed so clumsy in that first fight, that he got agitated and aggravated, particularly since both Lance and Allura were also in new Lions, meaning that the only two people on the field who were in Lions they were comfortable with flying were Pidge and Hunk.

So with all of that said, it is no wonder that the battle in 3x02 was a mess. Most would agree that the team needed time to regroup, train, focus, and plan. I think that, in seasons one or two, Keith would have agreed with that assessment. The problem, however, is that the circumstances are vastly different in season three than they were in seasons one or two. Keith is dealing with a lot more in season three than he was in seasons one or two. When you consider everything that he was dealing with in that first battle, as well as the fact that it went so horribly despite him saying “this is for you, Shiro” before he set out, it is little wonder that he tried to take matters into his own hands by placing that tracking device on Lotor’s ship so that they could go after it, particularly since they had no information on Lotor whatsoever, and Keith, even in the best of times, is not one who likes to sit around and twiddle his thumbs while he waits for information to come to him. (Remember, when he picked up on those energy waves in the desert pre-canon, he did not just sit and study them from his shack. He went spelunking in caves, exploring and researching. He was proactive. That’s just the kind of person he is.)

Now, Keith had another motivation for chasing after Lotor like this other than wanting information. As explained in-depth above, Keith does not want to lead Voltron, because leading Voltron---and, more specifically, flying the Black Lion in Shiro’s stead---means accepting that Shiro is gone and “replacing” him. Moreover, if they have some new conflict with Lotor brewing, that means that Keith will no longer be able to canvas the galaxy looking for Shiro. The team just suffered a brutal defeat at Lotor’s hands; Keith is dealing with a maelstrom of emotions, the vast majority of which are negative. And he wants this to end. Specifically, he says, he wants this conflict to end, something that he feels he can make happen if they take Lotor out. However, I think that subconsciously, Keith was wanting all of this to end. He has been undergoing an immense amount of emotional suffering since even before Shiro disappeared. Remember, he learned about his Galra heritage in 2x08, a mere three episodes before the season ended. I don’t remember the exact span of time over those episodes, but I know that it was very short, because everyone (and particularly Allura) was very determined to take Zarkon out as soon as possible. Time was of the essence. Keith’s heritage wasn’t touched upon this season, but nonetheless, Keith struggled with his fear, uncertainty, and (to some degree) self-loathing over that for pretty much the entirety of season two. Allura accepting him at the end of season two helped a lot, but then immediately after that happened he watched Thace sacrifice himself, and then he lost Shiro. Considering how long Keith has been struggling emotionally (despite trying to keep it under wraps so as not to bog down the rest of the team), it makes sense to me that when Keith was vehemently pushing everyone so that he could “bring this to an end”, part of him was also---again, subconsciously---referring to how it has felt like his world is collapsing in on itself like a dying star for the longest time now. He wants this to end. He wants to stop worrying about being part-Galra (or rather, stop feeling upset over it). He wants Shiro to come back. He wants to stop thinking about having to pilot the Black Lion. He wants . . . so many things, all of this, all of these things to end. But most of those things are beyond his control. He can’t help that he is part-Galra. He can’t, despite his best efforts, find Shiro and bring him home. But this? This, he feels, he can do. He can find Lotor. He can end Lotor. And if he does that, then at the very least he won’t have to pilot the Black Lion again any time soon. If there is no adversary, they won’t need the Black Lion, and they won’t need Voltron. Maybe he can even go back to looking for Shiro. If he can end this now, he can put an end to the team’s need for his leadership before it even gets started.

Of course, this was a mistake. Keith says that he is thinking about the mission, that the mission is bigger than any one of them---and I think that, to be fair, he was thinking of the mission to some degree. But what he was thinking about was how he, personally, wanted it to end, because he doesn’t want to deal with everything that he is dealing with. And Keith being Keith, he can’t just sit there and be miserable, not easily. He has to be doing something. And so what he did was chase after Lotor in an attempt to solve at least one source of some of his problems. This led to him being reckless, it led to him putting the team in danger, it made the entire mission such a disaster that I, personally, had to keep pausing the episode because good god was it painful to get through. I could see exactly what he was doing wrong, and I wanted to take him by the shoulders and hug him and tell him to please desist for at least two seconds, but I couldn’t. All I could do was watch as Keith made mistake, after mistake . . .

. . . and then learned from them.

Because that is the thing: While Keith understandably is dealing with a lot and, as a result, understandably got swept in the maelstrom of emotions that is weathering right now, he was able to recognize that when the entire team got separated and they got stranded. Rather than pinning the blame on Allura’s inexperience, or Lance’s clumsy handling of Red, or Pidge and Hunk’s reluctance to go forward, Keith says, quite plainly, “This is all my fault.” He goes on to explain that it is his fault for pushing the team so hard, for rushing in unprepared. Lance agrees with him, but then says that now they have to fix it . . . which Keith agrees with, and they do.

Here is the thing: No one is a perfect leader from the get-go. Keith has a great many leadership qualities, which he has displayed over the first two seasons. But even if he hadn’t lost Shiro and he had, for whatever reason, been promoted to team leader in better circumstances, things were still bound to be a bumpy ride, because it is a challenge stepping up into a leadership position when, previously, you were in more of a supporting role. Even in ordinary circumstances it’s hard, let alone in wartime, and let alone in wartime with a brand new adversary who is, quite frankly, far more intelligent than your previous one. (And note, this is not just me being mean to Zarkon. Look at the official VLD website. Lotor’s intelligence is maxed out, whereas Zarkon’s is . . . considerably less than.) That Keith made mistakes because he has extenuating circumstances that make it even more difficult for him to step into this position is more than understandable, it’s expected. It doesn’t reflect poorly on him as a person, or, in my opinion, as a leader. And the reason why it doesn’t reflect poorly on him as a leader, even setting aside how understandable his circumstances are, is because he learns from his mistakes in that very same episode.

Think about that.

Keith’s problems have not magically disappeared. He is still grieving Shiro. He is still struggling with the internal conflict of needing to lead, while at the same time feeling reluctant to take Shiro’s place. He now, thanks to the spectacular mess the mission in 3x03 was, has had a massive blow dealt to his self-confidence when it comes to being leader, and has a huge mess of insecurities that he’s trying very hard to hide so as not to unsettle or burden the rest of the team. But Keith knows that letting himself fall into his emotions---letting himself feel and act on those emotions---the way he did before put the team in serious jeopardy. They could have died. And Keith, as much as he was closest to Shiro, loves this team and has since day one. Even when it comes to Lance, whom he has had difficulties bonding with (though they made great strides this season! Contrary to everyone’s expectations, I actually think that having Keith in the leadership role helped this), he cares, and he cares a great deal. The idea that any one of them could have died because of him---the idea that he could have lost someone else, too---shook him. So he recognizes what his mistakes were, he sees what he did wrong, he listens to Lance when Lance agrees with his assessment of his mistakes, and also when he says they need to fix it. He listens to Allura when she uses the Blue Lion to find Pidge and Hunk. He unites them all, they form Voltron, and while they don’t take Lotor out, they live to fight another day and regroup. The fact that Keith was able to recognize his mistakes, as well as the fact that he was able to listen to input from the other team members once he realized those mistakes, as well as the fact that he took decisive action to rectify his mistakes and not make the same mistakes going forward (to the point of even offering similar advice to Allura, warning her of a potential trap and then later telling her to think things through instead of rushing ahead in 3x04---i.e., he was trying to advise her away from making the same mistake he did, for similar reasons) shows that he absolutely has the necessary qualities to be a leader. Leaders are not perfect. They are people. People make mistakes, but what differentiates a good leader from a terrible one is that a good leader is able to recognize when they make those mistakes, and then work to both fix the mistakes they made and not repeat them in the future. Keith, in season three, demonstrated his ability to do just that, in a time when he was still wracked with emotion and in an extremely charged, very dangerous situation. 3x03 was a mess for the majority of it, and yes, Keith messed up. But Keith recognized he messed up and worked to fix it, and so while he still has a ton of growing to do, I say he’s already a damn good leader, even if he’s still a masterpiece in the making (as is literally everyone else on the team, mind you).

To that end, Keith’s relationships with the other team members moving forward are significant as well. In particular, though, I want to focus on Allura, Lance, and Shireplica. (Not that I like to acknowledge Shireplica as a member of the team, per se, but for the time being . . .)

When it comes to Allura, I feel that Keith and Allura are on more equal footing than Allura and Shiro. Both Allura and Shiro were co-leaders of the team, with Allura standing as the commander of the Castle of Lions and Shiro standing as the Black Paladin. However, there were times when Shiro took a more . . . I don’t want to say authoritative role, but rather, when Shiro seemed to (try to) take point with Allura just as he did the other Paladins. Namely, there were times when Allura would have an idea to do something, and Shiro would shoot the idea down because it was “too dangerous.” He would tell her, flat out, that she could not do a mission because it was too dangerous. One specific time I remember she had to tell him, “I do not need your permission” before she decided to do it anyway (I think that was 1x10, but I’d have to double check), but the fact remains that Shiro would often at least try to veto Allura, acting as her leader as well, despite the fact that they were really supposed to be co-leaders. (Another good example of this is in 2x06; Shiro ordered both Keith and Allura to return after they had left in the pod, treating them both as Paladins under his leadership rather than regarding Allura as a co-leader and suggesting she return.)

But with Keith, it’s different. By all rights, Keith should have the ability to veto certain things, given that Allura is now technically a Paladin. However, as we see in 3x04, Keith doesn’t do that. Perhaps it has something to do with his reluctance to be leader in the first place, but Keith does not pull rank (at least, not off the battlefield). Instead, he suggests to Allura that the Altean distress signal they pick up could very well be a trap (which it is), and then later suggests to her that things in the alternate reality may not be what they seem, that perhaps she should think things through instead of rushing ahead. And later, at the end of the episode, rather than chiding Allura over the mistakes she made or telling her that she now knows better for next time or whatever else, Keith just comforts her that she couldn’t have known what Lotor was planning, and that they’ll find a way to fix this (with the together implied, though not outright stated, I don’t think). Keith knows what Allura is feeling, after all; he himself made some pretty terrible mistakes just an episode ago in 3x03. But more to the overall point, rather than honing in on that one specific situation, Keith and Allura more readily approach each other as equals, which makes it easier for them to speak to each other more frankly. Note, I am not insulting or attempting to diss Shiro and Allura’s dynamic here; I am only pointing out that it was a different dynamic, and that I think that Keith and Allura have a more naturally equal footing, particularly given the present situation. Both of them, after all, are new to their jobs; Keith is leading the team for the first time, and Allura is flying a Lion for the first time. Both of them, too, lack confidence in themselves when it comes to their new jobs, and they both take perceived failures incredibly hard. I’ve written in other posts about how similar these two are in terms of personality, and I think that shows in how similarly they’re dealing with the present situation, as well as how they know precisely how to comfort and encourage each other, things we see them do at multiple points throughout this season (3x01, 3x02, 3x04 . . .). Keith and Allura approach each other as equals and naturally understand each other, which allows for a connection and familiarity that I think is helping them both ease into their new roles and position. Allura feels that she can relay her insecurities to Keith, because she knows he has many of the same. And I think that, now that she is new to being a Paladin, that’s pretty crucial.

Next, Lance. I said above that I think that Keith taking on the leadership position this season has helped improve their relationship, and I firmly believe that. At the start of the season, just as we all could have guessed, Lance was vehemently opposed to Keith becoming the leader. (Which, coincidentally, so was Keith.) Lance has imposed a rivalry open Keith since 1x01, or really even before that. Despite Keith not remembering who Lance was, Lance had spent so much time obsessing over Keith back at the Garrison that he recognized Keith’s hairstyle from a hundred yards. That’s . . . impressive. But what’s less impressive is the fact that Lance’s personal insecurities and need to see Keith as a rival prevented him from seeing Keith as a person, and getting to know him as a comrade or friend. I’m not saying that he hated Keith, because that’s a little extreme, but I am saying that he had a truckload of preconceived notions about Keith that he refused to let go of. His comment to Allura in 3x02 about how he bet that Keith trained the Red Lion to “bite [his] head off”, despite the fact that Keith would never do any such thing, proves this. Lance was so focused on the image of Keith he had built up in his head that it blinded him from seeing the Keith that was right in front of his eyes, which put a serious dent in their relationship.

On top of this, as mentioned earlier, Lance hero worshiped Shiro from the get-go. This means that, throughout the first two seasons, Lance tried extra hard to impress Shiro to get his approval. (And this also added to his vendetta against Keith, because every time Shiro praised Keith, it made Lance rather jealous.) Both of these things---Lance’s preconceived notions of Keith, coupled with his desire for Shiro’s approval---made progressing their relationship virtually impossible. So long as he craved Shiro’s approval and insisted on seeing Keith as his rival, Lance was never going to let down his barriers enough to actually get to know Keith as a person. Worsening matters is the fact that Keith does not have very much experience when it comes to socializing or making friends, and with Lance antagonizing or otherwise acting hostile toward him for reasons he can’t understand (think back to season one; when Lance walked back their “bonding moment” and pretended that it never happened, Keith was genuinely confused and upset because he thought that they were finally going to get to start being at least on decent terms, if not friends, only to find out that Lance was going to continue to antagonize him anyway all of their progress was for nothing), that wasn’t about to change any time soon. Keith is the type of person to accept that Lance is going to be, well, like that and try to ignore him rather than try to break through that wall that Lance has set up. Hence, for the first two seasons, their relationship went absolutely nowhere.

But now, that has changed. Shiro has disappeared, which means that he is no longer around for Lance to seek approval from. He no longer has to strive to get the approval he so desperately craved, because it is completely beyond him now. And what’s more, Keith is now the leader, as chosen by the Black Lion, which means that Lance . . . can’t really look at him as a rival anymore. And I know that burned him a bit at first, to realize that the person that he had insisted was his rival was now his leader. But not only did Lance get a “promotion” as well (there is no real hierarchy among the Lions, no Lion is better than the other, but the Red Lion is the hardest Lion to master and is the right arm of Voltron, so I’m sure that to Lance, it feels like a promotion), but he quickly comes to realize in 3x03 that Keith will listen to him once things calm down. Keith did listen to him. When Keith admitted, with no holds barred, that he screwed up and knew why and Lance said, “yeah, you did, but now we need to fix it,” Keith listened to him. And I think that really got through to Lance, really opened his eyes. Keith isn’t trying to show off, Keith isn’t trying to “one-up” him, Keith isn’t going to pull rank over him. Keith’s going to listen to him and value what he has to say, when it matters. And for Lance, who has a lot of insecurities of his own that matters.

Because the thing is, Shiro was supportive and encouraging and wonderful (I seriously love Shiro, so much), but for Lance, he was also a hero. He was someone that Lance wanted to impress. And it can be kind of stressful, having your hero also be your leader, because you want to make them proud and impress them, so you try extra hard to do just that, which can lead to mistakes, which can lead to disappointment. But Keith is not someone that Lance sees as a hero. Keith is someone that Lance formerly saw as a rival, but now is starting to see as . . . a person. Keith makes mistakes. Keith tries to fix those mistakes. Keith is good at a lot of things, but he also listens to what the others have to say (and, again, off the battlefield, doesn’t pull rank). He values the strengths of the team, Lance included, and Lance, I think, is starting to see, realize, and recognize this, which is why he seems to have warmed up to Keith considerably by the end of the season. We went from him begrudgingly accepting the Black Lion’s choice in 3x02 to saying, “I’ve got you, buddy!” in 3x06, grinning at Keith all the while. More importantly, we went from him begrudgingly accepting that Keith was the leader in 3x02 and grousing about it throughout 3x03 (not without reason, but still) to him willingly going to talk to Keith about his insecurities and worries in 3x06, something that even Keith points out as strange in a bemused tone.

(And as a note on that: Keith sounded downtrodden and said, “I guess” when Lance pointed out that it was because Keith is the leader now, but I think this was for two reasons. One, Shireplica was there, and I think that Keith was partly expecting, and partly hoping, that Shireplica would take command back again . . . but at the same time he felt conflicted, because of those suspicions he has that I mentioned earlier. I think another reason, though, goes back to how Keith does not like to pull rank, especially off the battlefield, and more importantly, I think that he would like to think that perhaps Lance was coming to talk to him as a friend, rather than just because he’s the leader. Again, with no bias goggles in place, their relationship was not good in the first two seasons, largely because Lance put up that block due to his own issues that Keith did not understand. Keith wanted to move past that, and has wanted to move past that since season one. I think he was hoping they had, but Lance (unintentionally!) dashed that hope when he said it was just because Keith’s the leader now, hence Keith’s disappointment.)

Moreover, as a direct result of Lance’s attitude toward Keith changing (and him even calling Keith team leader in a slightly teasing, but mostly positive, tone), so, too, has Keith’s attitude toward him. In the scene where Lance comes to talk to Keith about potentially benching him, we get several attempts from Keith to cheer Lance up / dash his fears:

“What are you talking about?” <---Directly showing that he has never once thought of Lance as someone who gets in the way or needs to be benched.

“Stop worrying about who flies what, and just focus on your mission.” <---Something that Keith would use, and perhaps even has used, to help himself, because focusing on the job at hand, in the present is something that Keith uses to get by.

“Oh, and Lance? Leave the math to Pidge.” <---When Keith saw that Lance was still worried and depressed, he tried to tell Lance to leave the math to Pidge as a way of telling him, once again, that he needn’t worry about this. And he smiled while he said it, which got a smile out of Lance, and reassured him. Finally, Keith found a way to get through to him, found a way to make it work.

And Keith took it a step farther as well. Later on, when they’re about to go on the mission, rather than kicking Lance out of Red and benching him (or kicking Lance out of Red and Allura out of Blue), Keith chose to bench himself so that Lance could still go on the mission, but that Shireplica (who, remember, Keith thought was Shiro, despite suspicions) could also take Black. By doing this, Keith showed that he had faith in Lance to fly Red and take care of the mission successfully. Although we don’t see Lance’s reaction to this, I’m positive this did not go unnoticed. Although Lance joined the rest of the team in taking Shireplica’s side and ganging up on Keith later, I’m sure that Lance took notice of this and appreciated it.

So all in all, I really do think that Keith becoming the Black Paladin (while Lance took Red) did massive favors for their relationship. They actually started to act like friends in this season, which is a huge step-up from how they’ve been previously. It was exciting.

And finally . . . that brings us to Shireplica. By the time Shireplica enters the picture, Keith has already been acting as leader for the team for at least a couple of months. He has grown used to it. And while he is not happy (more on that in the next section), he has at least gained enough confidence in himself to be able to come up with plans and put them into action without second guessing. This comes into play when Shireplica is in the picture, because when they realize that the comet has been taken to a cargo ship that Lotor is messing with, both Keith and Shireplica step up and start to tell the team what to do. When they realize they’re speaking over each other, they both stop . . . and then Keith apologizes and steps back and down. Shireplica, without even acknowledging Keith’s apology, plows straight on, right over him.

There are a lot of clues and hints that Shireplica is, well, a replica rather than the actual Shiro, but his treatment of Keith is a major red flag. Whereas Shiro was always encouraging of Keith and believed in him---whereas Shiro always listened to his comrades’ ideas, or at the very least would acknowledge they had them---Shireplica is consistently dismissive of Keith at best, and railroads right over him at worst. Shireplica outright yells at him during the mission, shouting at him about what he needs to do and what decision he needs to make, more or less ordering him to take a direct hit for the sake of hitting the cargo ship. (Fortunately, Keith is able to work with that and have Acxa’s attack hit the cargo ship instead, but still.) Shireplica does apologize later, but his apology means little when he’s apologizing for Keith making him take point rather than the actual act of taking point, and when he’s been railroading over Keith since the very beginning, showing a complete absence of the faith he had in Keith in season two. And this, as we see, affects Keith greatly; by the end of 3x06, whatever confidence he had built up in himself insofar as his leadership abilities is completely shattered. He’s convinced he’s terrible, that he can’t do it. Even when Shireplica tells him he can, Keith can’t believe him both because of past experiences and Shireplica’s own behavior (not to mention Keith’s doubts that Shireplica is even actually Shiro). Shireplica has, in just a couple of episodes, completely broken whatever assurance Keith had built up in himself, in no small part by demonstrating just how quick the rest of the team is to listen to someone other than Keith (telling Keith that, well, they must not really have trusted him very much anyway, right?).

But even setting that aside, I think it’s important to note how Keith reacts to Shireplica, even outside of his implied suspicions about who Shireplica really is. At the beginning of the season, Keith made it abundantly clear that the only pilot for the Black Lion is Shiro. He also made it clear that he does not think he should be the leader of the team, and that he cannot replace Shiro. So you would think that, with Shireplica on the scene, Keith would jump at the chance to step back . . . but he doesn’t. As mentioned above, he still talks to Lance as if he is the leader despite the fact that Shireplica is on board (and note, too, that Lance still goes to Keith as the leader, rather than also assuming that “Shiro” would be taking point once again), and when it comes time for a mission brief, he starts to give said mission brief before realizing that Shireplica is there and stepping back. Moreover, when Shireplica tries to take charge of the mission later on, Keith outright argues with him over it. (We see more of the same in the season four preview.) Now, this could all be tied up in Keith’s subconscious suspicions that this isn’t Shiro, but I think it’s more than that. I think it goes back to the fact that Keith has grown confidence in himself, he has been fighting this battle against Lotor for months, he cares so deeply about the team and the mission and always has, and that taking point on missions does come to him naturally. The way that he clashes with Shireplica is no doubt in part due to the fact that this is not the real Shiro; but I also think that a good deal of it comes from the fact that despite his reluctance to lead at first, he truly grew into the position over the past few months that he has been doing it, and that’s not something that’s easily shaken off. The fact that he butts heads with Shireplica like this, despite how he was willing to step back and also tried to send Shireplica off in the Black Lion, proves that Keith likely is not going to slide so easily back into a purely supporting role, even when the real Shiro returns.

(And on that note: I’ve seen some suggest that Keith might have sent Shireplica to the Black Lion as a test. However, he seemed genuinely surprised when the Black Lion would not accept Shireplica, so I don’t think that was the case. I think he sincerely tried to send “Shiro” on the mission, and was more unsettled than anything when that didn’t work.)

All of that said (and boy, this is long), I’ve got one more subject I want to touch on.

Keith’s Mood:

Multiple people have correctly pointed out the fact that Keith seems depressed as all hell this season. And with everything explained above, it’s little wonder. Keith is grieving, he’s under an immense amount of stress and pressure, and he has his self-confidence broken twice over the span of seven episodes, once by a replica of the most important person in his life. Keith has, contrary to popular belief, always been a somewhat expressive person, if you pay attention to him. Unlike the Garrison trio, who openly and plainly express their feelings, Keith’s feelings tend to be expressed in quieter ways, such as through body language or facial expressions. Make no mistake, he is brutally honest; but he also tends to be a quiet person, meaning he’s not going to rail off about his feelings like, say, Lance. Nonetheless, although Keith has always had a habit of keeping personal stuff private (see: all of his fears about his Galra heritage in season two, which were not shared with the group---not even Shiro---until the Blade of Marmora revealed it), he still hasn’t made a point of being stoic or trying to conceal his feelings in the past. And even when he did try, he usually did a poor job of it (see: trying to tell Shiro he was “just tired” at the beginning of 2x06 when Shiro asked about his anxiety).

In season three, however, Keith’s body language seems more muted, more closed off. It’s evident that he is doing his level best to keep everything under wraps and bottled up. And again, looking at what I’ve already written out above, it’s easy to see why. Keith learned the hard way in 3x03 that if he gives himself into his emotions, it puts the rest of the team at risk. Of course, I think he’s taking it to the other unhealthy extreme now---he needs to find a positive outlet for what he’s feeling, or a confidant, or something---but nonetheless, I think that he’s making a concentrated effort to keep what he’s feeling buried down deep so that it a.) can’t distract him, and b.) won’t put the team in jeopardy. He’s focusing wholesale on the mission right ow so that he doesn’t explode like before.

But what I want to address here is not the fact that Keith is depressed (though he is), but why he’s depressed. I’ve seen quite a few people saying “leading the team makes Keith miserable!” and while I can understand why they feel that way, I think---going back to the first section---that they’re missing the why of that. Again, Keith does not hate leading. In fact, as we see with his clashes with Shireplica, this is something that comes rather naturally to him and that he’s used to. It’s not being leader that depresses Keith. It’s not piloting the Black Lion that depresses Keith. What depresses Keith---what has him appearing so downtrodden all the time---is the same thing that has made him so unstable since 3x01:

Grief.

Keith managed to get his grief “under control” after the events of 3x03 so that he wouldn’t jeopardize his teammates’ lives again, but that doesn’t mean that his grief has magically gone away. Keith misses Shiro terribly, not just as a leader and teammate, but as a friend / found family. And just as much as anger is a part of grief, so, too, is depression. Grief does not follow a linear checklist of stages, but there is some truth to the “five stages” theory, at least when it comes to the fact that grief can manifest in both anger and depression (and sometimes both at the same time!). Keith, as we saw when he realized that his radar wasn’t picking up anything even remotely resembling Shiro in 3x01, has been in despair about Shiro’s disappearance since it happened. The fact that he had to take a step closer toward accepting that Shiro is never coming back didn’t help. The fact that things went so horribly at first didn’t help. The fact that they can’t seem to get a grasp on Lotor doesn’t help. The fact that they keep losing doesn’t help, but the root of this is the fact that Shiro is gone, and will remain that way for the foreseeable future, and Keith is not in a position where he can do anything to change that, adding a heavy dose of helplessness on top of everything else. Yes, Keith is depressed, but it’s not leading the team that makes him depressed (especially since active missions are likely one of the few times in which he can be focused on something other than how badly he misses Shiro). It’s the ever-persistent grief that makes him depressed.

And you may wonder, then, why Shireplica hasn’t improved his mood---well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Keith seems suspicious of Shireplica. He smiled when he and Black first found him, but I think he quickly came to get the sense that something wasn’t right, which has prevented him from being happy to see Shireplica. Couple that with the way Shireplica has been treating him (again, dismissive at best, harsh at worst---honestly, there was a point where Shireplica was reminding me of the Shirologram from the Trials of Marmora hallucination), and it’s no wonder that Keith’s grief and depression has not lessened one iota. Either way, his depression is far less “I don’t want to be leader, this sucks,” and more, “I want Shiro back, I want Shiro to have never disappeared, please don’t let Shiro be dead, I really wish Shiro was here right now.”

Conclusion:

I want to type a long, eloquent conclusion to this massively long, “quick” post, but I have been working on this post for about four hours and I’m not sure I have it in me. So, in summation:

Keith’s issue with being leader was never that he thought he would be incapable, or because he thought he’d be terrible at it (though he does have some insecurities), but rather because he didn’t want to accept Shiro was gone;

Keith has made some mistakes, but even in this season he has shown fantastic leadership qualities and still has room to grow, which he will. He is doing his best, and is doing a goddamn good job despite the circumstances. The Black Lion chose him for a reason, and trust me, the Black Lion was not wrong;

Keith’s relationships with the rest of the team, particularly Allura and Lance, have really shined with him at the helm, and I have a feeling they’ll continue to get better the longer he holds the position;

Shireplica is being an asshole and while I want Shiro to have a nice, relaxing rest and vacation, I do hope that he uses his metal arm to punch Shireplica in the face first;

Keith is miserable, but that’s because grieving the loss of a loved one makes you miserable, moreso than because he doesn’t want to be leader, and finally

As one final, final note: Please have some respect and civility and do not use this post to start Discourse™. I understand everyone has their own opinions, and believe me, I have seen a lot of them, but I don’t wish to argue with anyone or engage in any Discourse™. If you must make a negative post, please do that on your own post, on your own blog, in your own time. And for that matter, please do NOT reblog this post to hate on Keith, or I’ll just block you on sight. Thank you for the respect, and time if you read, because I know this was a monster-length post. But really, thanks. ♥

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