And here we are, at the end of another installment of this series! Book ends, so to speak! For now, my immediate plans for continuation involve a oneshot from Allura's POV that covers roughly around this period of time (and probably extending a bit into the second canon episode). After that, I'll be taking a break for awhile while I come up with a concrete plan as to how I want to move forward, because of course, there's always more to write!
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope you enjoy the final chapter!
desert raised
red lion
He felt warm.
Keith closed his eyes, taking a moment to savor the feeling. It wasn't just the rising sun that brought the sensation of warmth with it, banishing away the chill of the night air. It was something else, something far more personal.
Shiro didn't hate him.
Shiro had embraced him, held him tight. Told him that nothing had changed between the two of them. They could have easily been lies, but he knew they weren't.
Shiro had made a pinky promise, after all. He would never lie to him.
"But the one thing I wouldn't give up is having you as my brother, Keith."
He clung to those words like they were a light in the darkness. Shiro was home. He was safe. Cracking an eye open, his ears twitched, making out the sound of water running in the bathroom, the sound of Shiro taking a well deserved and long overdue shower. He had already set out some clothes for him- old clothes that used to belong to his dad once, that he hoped would fit.
There was a knock on the shack door, and Keith opened both eyes. "You can come in."
Seconds later, Pidge entered, Lance and Hunk trailing behind her. He offered them a strained smile, keeping his mouth closed so that he didn't show off his fangs. He didn't think he looked that scary, but he also didn't know how much Pidge had told them.
Hunk gave him a nervous smile back, while Lance just sort of glowered at him. But seeing as he'd been doing that almost since the start, he guessed it didn't necessarily meant anything bad. Besides, this was Pidge he was talking about here- she could be pretty blunt when she wanted to be, but he doubted she would tell them anything that would cause them to be afraid of him.
Or hate him, he guessed. Maybe he should worry about that. But honestly? He'd worn himself out worrying about whether or not Shiro hated him. He didn't have the energy left to do that song and dance all over again, even if it was just with people he barely even knew.
"Where's Shiro?" Pidge asked.
"In the shower." Keith told her. "Figured he needed one before we set out."
Pidge blinked. "Set out?"
Keith nodded. "There's something I need to show you. All of you."
He looked towards Lance and Hunk as said that, but they didn't seem to notice. In spite of himself, he huffed. Right. His pupils were basically invisible now. He'd gotten used to being around people who knew how to read where he was looking in spite of that, so it had kind of slipped his mind that it wasn't always that obvious.
Thinking back on it, it had always been that. Maybe if he'd grown up around other people, he would have learned to overcompensate for the lack of visible pupils, but with his dad, that had never been a problem. He'd learned to adjust instead.
So had everyone else.
Weird. He didn't know why he was just realizing that now.
"Does this have anything to do with that Voltron thing everyone keeps mentioning?" Hunk asked. He sounded... nervous, but no more so than he had before.
"Something like that." Keith told him, giving him a weak smile, again with no teeth. "It's easier if I show you."
"How long do you think it'll take the Galra to catch up to Shiro?" Pidge asked.
"I don't know." Keith admitted, shaking his head. "Everything I know about the Galra comes from secondhand knowledge, some of which is at least ten thousand years old. I'm not exactly the most reliable source of information."
"Wait," Lance cut in, arching a brow, "-I thought you were Galra."
Keith's gaze flickered over towards Pidge, who just shrugged. Heaving a sigh, he had to admit it was probably better to get that out into the air now rather than later, so he guessed he was grateful she had taken the burden of that admission away from him.
"I am." Keith said. "But only half. Like I keep saying, I was born and raised here. On Earth. I'm human."
"But you're-!"
"Lance, buddy," Hunk interjected, resting a hand on his friend's shoulder, "-maybe if Keith keeps insisting he's human, we should just accept what he says."
Lance grumbled, but eventually heaved a sigh. "Okay, fine. You're right. My bad."
Keith blinked, tilting his head. Huh. Maybe Lance wasn't actually so bad.
"I just can't believe that Pidge knew about all this cool alien stuff," Lance pressed on, "-and didn't tell me about it!"
"You made fun of me when I talked about alien radio chatter back on the roof." Pidge pointed out. "Remember? You called me crazy."
Narrowing his eyes, Keith glared at Lance. On second thought...
"And I stand by that." Lance shrugged, indifferent to both his glare and Pidge's dry tone. "But that was then, and this is now. I'm not so small-minded that I can deny the evidence that's right in front of me."
Hunk gave them both a sheepish, vaguely apologetic grin. If everyone gathered here really was meant to be a paladin, then he hoped Hunk was the one meant to fly the blue lion. He didn't know if he could stand the idea of handing his oldest friend over to Lance.
But he guessed it also wasn't his call.
"Hey, just curious," Hunk piped up, "-were you two the ones behind that simulator prank? Because I remember Commander Iverson being pretty pissed about it, and you do kind of have a motive, so..."
In spite of himself, Keith smirked, exchanging a glance with Pidge. There was a downright impish grin on her face, not even masking the pleasure she took in it.
"Yeah," she said, "-that was us."
"What's this about a prank now?" Shiro asked, stepping out of the bedroom, a towel still draped over his shoulders.
He opened his mouth to answer, only to pause, instead staring up at Shiro. Oh. He knew that he looked a bit similar to his father, but he hadn't expected his old clothes to fit him that well. For a moment, he was almost thrown out of time, like he wasn't here, but was back when it had just been him and his dad.
He quickly shook it off. His dad was gone now. He couldn't get him- or that time- back. And if he didn't do something about the Galra, so would everyone else he cared about.
"Well, they put together a simulator run that was a rescue mission for the Kerberos mission." Pidge supplied. "Considering the fact that they were hiding the truth about it, it really ticked the both of us off. So we decided to do something about it!"
Shiro frowned, a strained expression on his face, like he was trying to withhold judgement until he heard the full story. "What did you two do?"
Keith just shrugged. "We put your name on top."
"Shiro's ghost, come to haunt the Garrison." Pidge grinned. "Or at least, that was what the rumor was after everyone saw your name on top of the list of high scores for that run."
Shiro stared blankly at them, like he couldn't quite process what he was hearing, but was sort of wishing he wasn't hearing it. "You what."
"We had to do something." Keith grumbled. That had been months ago now, and he was still bitter about it. "They blamed the Kerberos failure on you. Said it was pilot error. That you crashed."
Closing his eyes, Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. "And when Katie said you helped...?"
Ah. He saw where this was going now. Shiro wasn't mad that they had pranked the Garrison's upper command, at least, not enough that it counted. Shiro was mad because he'd broken into the Garrison (almost) by himself. "Look, I just-"
"Just what, Keith?" Shiro asked. "What if someone saw you? Or worse, caught you?"
"Nobody saw-"
"Uh, I saw you." Lance chimed in.
Narrowing his eyes, he glared at Lance, having to try very hard to fight the urge to growl. "Nobody important saw me."
"Hey!" Lance protested. "I'm very important!"
"You sure are, buddy." Hunk said, patting Lance reassuringly on the shoulder. "But I don't think that's what Keith meant."
"I had my helmet on anyways. It wasn't like anyone could tell." Keith said. "Plus Pidge was with me, so it's not like I went alone."
And as far as he was concerned, it had totally been worth the risk.
"Plus it was a holiday, so pretty much everyone was gone." Pidge added.
Shiro heaved a long sigh, looking between the two of them. "Just... promise me you won't do that again. If the Garrison knows that me and the rest of the Kerberos crew were picked up by aliens, they're going to be on the lookout for anything of that nature. And you're..."
Staring down at his feet, Keith knew that Shiro had a point. He knew that he was also only saying this because he was worried. Still, there was some part of him that couldn't help but chafe at it- just how long was his freedom going to be restricted by his appearance? He thought he would be used to the idea that he couldn't ever have a normal life by now, but somehow with each passing year, it just chafed at him more.
"I know." Keith mumbled. "I'm sorry."
Shiro's shoulders slumped, a faint smile on his face. "And? How did Iverson take this prank of yours?"
"He turned pale like he saw a ghost." Pidge quickly informed him, beaming from ear to ear. "Demanded to know who did it. I'd say you should have been there, but..."
"But if I was there, then there wouldn't have been any need for the prank?" Shiro finished. "Well, I'm here now."
Looking up, Keith locked eyes with him. Shiro caught them, his smile only growing- and he felt one creep onto his face as well. "Good to have you back."
"Good to be back." Shiro said. "So? You said you had something to show me."
Keith nodded, hauling himself to his feet. "You're looking for Voltron, right?"
Shiro's brows furrowed. "I think so. It's all kind of a blur. All I know is that we can't let the Empire get their hands on it."
"Well," Keith began, "-you're in luck. I know where it is."
"...does anyone hear anything?"
Keith froze, silently swearing. Slowly turning on his heel, he stared behind him. Part of him kind of hoped he'd heard wrong- the rest of him knew that his hearing was way too good for that.
"I hear water." Hunk said. "Is that what you're hearing?"
Yes, please. Let it be water. Anything but the-
"No it's something- something else." Lance's brows knit together, like he was trying to pinpoint just what it was he was hearing. "I can't- I can't really explain it."
He could have groaned. He did, actually, just so quietly that nobody heard it but Pidge, who was standing right next to him. She cast him a curious look, but he ignored it.
Lance. It was Lance. The blue paladin was Lance. The one the blue lion had been dutifully waiting for, for ten thousand years. Lance, the guy who according to all of Pidge's stories, had never met a simulator he hadn't crashed.
For four long years, it had been just him and the blue lion. And now he had to hand that connection over to someone who even after being informed that he wasn't an alien, kept insisting that he was? He swore the cosmos had to be playing some kind of joke on him.
(Or maybe Lance wasn't actually as bad as he thought. Maybe.)
Well. At least he knew his theory was probably right. It was no coincidence that five of them had gathered here. If they weren't meant to be paladins, then why would they all be here? Something had guided them all together.
That something had to be Voltron.
Pidge's stories turned out to not be exaggerations.
If anything, he felt that she was being too generous in her description of Lance's... skills as a pilot. There had been multiple occasions in which he thought he was going to die, and absolutely none of them had anything to do with the whole Galra cruiser that had come out of hyperspace nearly right on top of them.
At least they had managed to lure it away from Earth- but now they were out in deep space, with no idea where they were, with nothing but the blue lion to guide them.
And he couldn't hear her anymore.
When her barrier had gone down, he had felt her brush against his mind one last time- calm and reassuring as always. And then just nothing.
But he'd always known this day would come. Besides, it wasn't like she was dead- he just couldn't hear her anymore. That was all.
(It still felt like a loss anyways.)
At least thanks to the blue lion's stories, he had some idea of where they were- once they touched down, that was. He still had no idea what planet they were on, or even how far they were away from Earth. They had gone through some sort of wormhole to get here, which he had his suspicions about, but it wasn't until he saw the Altean Castle that he realized just where they were.
And who they would find here.
In hindsight, he really should have expected a hostile greeting. In his defense, he was in space- deep space, far beyond Earth's solar system. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined getting this far- just a mere hour ago, the farthest he had ever gone was the house up in the mountains, and even that had seemed unspeakably far to him.
This? This just blew his mind.
So... yeah. He'd let his guard down.
Princess Allura of Altea. The daughter of King Alfor, who had built the Voltron lions- and had once flown the red lion. He could feel the stone lion he'd carved for himself burning a hole in his belt pouch, wondering what she would think about the fact that it had been his lion that had called him here.
She definitely wasn't happy to see him, he knew that much.
But he didn't care how she felt about him. She could hate him for all that he cared. All he wanted was one thing- to strike back against the Galra Empire.
They might be his kind, but he was not one of them. They had taken his family from him. Pidge's family. Killed the blue lion's original paladin. Taken Shiro's arm.
He couldn't forgive them. Now he actually had the chance to fight back against them. If he could become a paladin, then...
"The red lion-"
At Allura's words, Keith glanced up. He had been trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, ever since she had lead them all to the bridge. Shiro and Pidge flanked either side of him, as if they were trying to protect him- but he doubted that the princess would attack him again. He didn't know if she believed him, exactly- but she'd at least deemed him as not being a threat, at least for the moment.
He'd take what he could get.
Hell, he couldn't even blame her. He knew what Zarkon had done to Altea. He'd even seen pieces of it, from the blue lion. Not much- but enough. He couldn't exactly blame her for hating the race that had brutally massacred her entire race. Especially not since to her, that had all happened just yesterday.
"-is temperamental, and the most difficult to master." Allura continued, cupping her hands around the holographic image of the red lion, untold sorrow reflected in her eyes. "It's faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable."
"Unfortunately," Allura began- and for just a second, she locked eyes with him, before looking away, "-I cannot locate it. And even if I could, there is no one here fit to pilot it."
No one fit.
No one fit.
It was a bold faced lie, and he knew it. The blue lion had told him that he was the red lion's paladin- maybe not directly, but she had. He didn't think she was lying to him.
But no one else knew that- and somehow, he didn't think the princess would be all that happy to find out that he'd been communicating with the blue lion, even though he wasn't its paladin. So instead he forced himself not react, desperately trying to keep his own emotions in check. He wanted the princess to at least tolerate his presence here, so he couldn't afford to make a scene.
"Princess-"
"The Galra have the red lion." Keith cut Shiro off. He was tempted to look in his direction, a bit curious as to what it was that he was going to say, but he fought the urge. "Or at least, they did around twenty-something Earth years ago."
Allura's eyes narrowed, watching him like a hawk. "And how do you know this?"
"My mom told my dad." Keith shrugged. "All I know is that it's on a ship, or at least, it was. I just don't know where."
Allura held his gaze for a second longer, before she looked away. "Well, it's a start."
He felt Shiro look at him, but he didn't return it. Eventually, Shiro pulled his gaze away, looking back up at the princess. "If the Galra have the red lion, it's not going to be easy to get back. What's the plan?"
"We should concentrate on getting the lions that we can for now." Allura stated. "Hunk, Pidge- the two of you must find and bond with your lions. Fortunately, those coordinates we do have."
"Then it's settled." Shiro said. "Lance, you take Hunk and pick up the yellow lion. Katie, you and Keith go get that green lion."
He half expected Allura to protest, but she didn't. She just set her lips in a hard line, momentarily glaring at him, before she turned sharply on her heel. "Coran, prepare a pod."
A pod? Like a ship? Keith blinked, looking over towards Shiro. He'd never flown an actual ship before! Just the simulator, and even then, only sometimes!
As if sensing the source of his nerves, Shiro rested a hand on his shoulder, smiling fondly down at him. "You'll be fine. Just give yourself plenty of time to get familiar with the controls before you launch."
Keith frowned, looking up at him. "Are you sure you can't come?"
Shiro shook his head. "Someone has to stay behind in case we find the red lion. Not to mention there's that Galra cruiser that's headed our way."
Keith grimaced. He hadn't forgotten. That was why they had to hurry and find the rest of the lions in the first place.
"Maybe I should-"
Shiro cut him off, and for a split second, he swore his gaze drifted towards Allura. "You go with Katie. I know how well the two of you work together."
Keith blinked, his own gaze darting over towards Allura. She was watching them with narrowed eyes, but turned away when he looked. Maybe Shiro wanted to talk to her alone.
Or maybe Shiro just didn't want to leave him alone with her.
It was touching. He didn't think Allura would actually do anything to him, except maybe glare at him, and that he could more than deal with. He wouldn't even be alone with her- Coran was here too, and he seemed alright. Willing to hear them out, at least.
Still, he was glad that he was thinking of him. Even after all this time, even after everything he had been through at the hands of the Galra- he was still thinking about him. So he forced himself to smile, trying to look at least a little confident. "I won't let you down."
"I know you won't, buddy." Shiro grinned, releasing his grip on his shoulder.
"Come on," Pidge grinned, linking her arm with his, seemingly brimming with confidence, "-let's go find me a lion."
Pidge's confidence lasted until they actually got there.
He'd been ready for all possible scenarios, but hitching a ride down a river with some kind of giant alien sloth creature? That hadn't been one of them.
At least Coran was right when he had said that this planet was peaceful. He'd never seen so much green in his entire life- even the lake house paled in comparison. And did he mention the river? Because there was a river.
"Geez, Keith," Pidge quipped, "-look at little more excited, will you?"
Flushing a deep purple, Keith shot her a glare- before he blinked, noticing the way she was fidgeting. She definitely hadn't been doing that when they first got on the canoe. "Everything okay?"
"It's just... what if I'm not cut out for this?" Pidge asked. "I mean... flying a lion? I'm not even a pilot!"
"Neither is Hunk." Keith pointed out. "Or me, for that matter."
Flying the Altean shuttle pod had made his own lack of experience explicitly clear. He'd been fine on takeoff, and had been fine actually flying it. Landing, on the other hand? That was where things had become a little more difficult. The pod definitely had a few scratches on it that hadn't been there before. Hopefully Coran wouldn't be too pissed.
Guess just because he could ace the simulators didn't automatically mean he'd be any good at flying the real thing. Especially not when that real thing was alien.
Being this far out in space had proved both exciting and weird thus far. He was used to being the alien, even though he'd actually been born on Earth and had never so much as left it before. Now he was surrounded by actual aliens, and had now been to a total of two alien planets. Allura's treatment aside, he'd never felt more human in his life.
"Besides, I know you've read dozens of flight manuals, Pidge." Keith added. "Mostly because you read them with me."
As far as he was concerned, if he could (mostly) manage it, then so could Pidge.
"Well, yeah, sure." Pidge said. "But at least you have your hoverbike. I've got nothing! I can't even drive a car! And even if I could, my legs aren't long enough to reach the pedals! What if there are pedals in the lion, Keith? What if there are pedals, and I can't reach them?"
"Allura wouldn't have chosen you as the green paladin if you couldn't do it." Keith told her, ignoring the sting of his own words.
He was so sure that he was meant to be the red paladin, but part of him couldn't help but wonder if maybe Allura was right. Maybe he was just extra baggage.
Pidge just snorted. "The first thing Allura did was attack you. Call me crazy, but I don't exactly have a lot of faith in her choices."
"Well... yeah." Keith frowned. "But she had good reason. Having a Galra be the first thing she saw after getting out of that pod probably wasn't the best idea."
"Good reason or not, you're my brother and I don't like seeing you get hurt." Pidge huffed, folding her arms in front of her. "If she tries that again-"
"She won't." Keith cut her off. He appreciated it, but he didn't really want to talk about it right this second. "Look... I'm sure you'll be fine, Pidge. I mean, even Lance was able to fly the blue lion, right? It can't be that hard."
Pidge blinked, before letting out an abrupt laugh. "Okay, you have a point."
"See?" Keith grinned. "Besides, nobody is more inquisitive than you."
"Also fair." Pidge said, before frowning, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him in consideration. "But what about you? I mean... is it just me, or was Allura lying when she said there was no paladin for the red lion?"
Keith flinched, and then instantly regretted it. That was more than enough for Pidge to know exactly what was going on. Curse her intuition.
Narrowing her eyes, Pidge scowled. "Unbelievable. She was, wasn't she? You're the-"
"Look," Keith cut her off, "-can we just not discuss this?"
"Oh no, we're discussing this." Pidge said. "There's no way this is fair. Just because you're part Galra, she's treating you like-"
"-like I'm part of the race that enacted mass genocide on her people?" Keith finished, and Pidge, as angry as she had been a second ago, couldn't help but wince when he put it that bluntly. "I don't like it, yeah, but... she kind of has the right to distrust me."
If anything, Allura's reaction to him was basically what he had been expecting all along. It was how Pidge and Colleen should have reacted when they found out it was the Galra who had taken Sam and Matt. It was how Shiro should have reacted when he saw him for the first time after spending a year in captivity.
It didn't make Allura some horrible person. It just made her normal.
"It's still not fair." Pidge muttered.
"No," Keith admitted, "-it's really not."
But if there was anyone to blame for it, it wasn't the Altean princess. It was the Galra- the Galra, and Zarkon, who started all of this.
"Besides," Keith added, "-if the lions work like I think they do, then it doesn't matter what Allura says."
Pidge looked up at him, arching a brow. "You'd know, wouldn't you?"
Keith winced, picking up on the mild irritation in her tone. He'd kind of expected it, but... "Are you mad at me for keeping the blue lion a secret?"
"You only kept the coolest possible alien spaceship in existence a secret from me. Me, you know- your best friend. Your sister?" Pidge said flatly. "But no. I'm not mad."
Keith ducked his head, feeling sheepish. He'd had good reason for it, sure but honestly? Pidge's anger was way scarier than Allura's.
"I'm... sorry?" Keith managed.
"Oh, you'd better be." Pidge said. "Because when we get back to Earth, I'm telling mom."
For some reason, Keith felt himself sweating. That shouldn't be an actual threat- Colleen had no real power over him. She wasn't his actual mom. And yet...
"Any chance you could maybe... not do that?" Keith asked.
"No secrets between Holts, Keith." Pidge said. "No secrets between Holts."
"Good, you're back. I assume you were able to locate the green lion?"
"I sure hope so, otherwise I don't know what it is that I just landed in the Castle." Pidge joked, glancing around the bridge. "Where are Hunk and Lance? Shouldn't they be back by now?"
"Sounds like they ran into some trouble retrieving the yellow lion." Shiro said. "But they should be back soon."
Keith hummed, moving to stand by Shiro. He glanced down at him, pausing to lightly ruffle his hair over his objections, before he turned back towards Allura. "More importantly, Allura's been able to locate the red lion."
Keith blinked, looking over towards Allura. "She has?"
"Yes." Allura frowned, her gaze momentarily lingering on him. "Just as you said, it's located on a Galra battlecruiser."
"Specifically, the one that's headed here right now!" Coran supplied. "Saves us the trouble of having to look for it, I suppose."
"Getting the red lion back from the Galra won't be easy." Shiro said. "Once Lance and Hunk come back from getting the yellow lion, we'll need to come up with a plan."
Folding his arms in front of him, Keith frowned. If what Allura said was true, then without all four of the scattered lions, they wouldn't be able to awaken the black lion. And without the black lion, there would be no Voltron.
Not that any of that mattered, he guessed, so long as the red lion didn't have a paladin. He knew he said that it would work out regardless of what Allura said, but he was pretty sure that the fastest way to get the red lion off the Galra cruiser was to have its paladin fly it out. And since he was pretty sure that was him...
...yeah, there was no way Allura was going to let him go onboard a Galra cruiser.
"Princess?" Shiro spoke up. "Don't you have something to say to Keith?"
Blinking, Keith looked up towards Allura. Her gaze was fixed on him, her lips set in a tight line. Maybe Shiro really had talked to her for his sake. Leave it to him to notice. Peeking up towards him, the newly appointed black paladin flashed him an understanding smile.
"I... suppose." Allura reluctantly admitted. "It has come to my attention that my earlier assessment was... incorrect. There is, in fact, a paladin for the red lion."
He tried not to look too eager, shifting on his feet. "Who?"
"You." Allura said, with no small degree of resignation. "Though why it chose a Galra, I have no idea. Our last Galra paladin-"
Keith narrowed his eyes. He'd accept her not trusting him because he was Galra, but he wouldn't take a comparison to Zarkon lying down. "I'm no Zarkon."
Allura flinched, and for a second, he couldn't figure out why. It was only when Shiro spoke that he managed to put two and two together.
"Zarkon used to be a paladin?" Shiro asked.
Oh. Right. They had no idea.
Allura heaved a long sigh, her shoulders slumping. It was obvious that this was something she had a difficult time talking about. "It is a long story, but yes."
A hushed silence fell over the bridge, and it was all Keith could do to duck his head. He hadn't meant to make things tense. It was obviously a sore subject for Allura- even after ten thousand years, it had still been a sore subject for the blue lion. And he'd just blurted it right out.
Smooth, Keith. Real smooth.
"So... which lion did he use to fly?" Pidge finally asked.
"He-"
"Princess!" Coran cut her off. "It looks like Lance and Hunk are on their way back. They found the yellow lion!"
"Wonderful!" Allura almost instantly brightened, and Keith sensed that the subject of Zarkon would once again be buried- at least for now.
Right now, Keith was wishing he actually knew a little bit more about the Galra.
Specifically, he wished he knew the layout of their battlecruisers. After taking a wrong turn and ending up right back where he started for what felt like the fifth time, he groaned, his patience- and his focus- starting to wear thin.
He thought finding the red lion would be easy. Shiro and Pidge would be with him. But not only had Shiro and Pidge gone off on their own little mission- not that he could begrudge them that since this was apparently the same ship Shiro had been taken to after being captured, so there was a good chance she might be able to find clues about her family here- but now he was hopelessly lost.
This place was just so big. He wasn't used to big.
Sure, the desert was mostly just one big wide open space, but that was different. This was a spaceship. The only thing he had to compare the experience to was being inside a building, and the only building he'd been in that was anywhere near this big was Shiro's apartment building- and even then, he'd had guidance!
What he would give for some of that right now.
Maybe... maybe Allura was right. Maybe he wasn't meant to be the red lion's paladin after all.
No. Shaking the thought off, Keith drew in a long breath. She wouldn't have given him the red paladin's armor and bayard if she didn't know in her heart that it was true. It wasn't the exact same armor that King Alfor had once worn- there were differences between it and the armor he had seen in the blue lion's memories.
But the bayard? The bayard had been his, once.
Right now, everyone was counting on him. Probably even Allura, if only begrudgingly. He couldn't let them down.
Closing his eyes, he slowly let out his held breath. As he did, he felt his shoulders relax, his muscles become less tense. It was cold on the ship, so it was a bit hard for him to find his center and focus. It wasn't as bad as the mountains in winter, but... he would have thought it would be warmer. He guessed not every Galra was bred for extreme heat like he was.
The Castle was warm, though.
That thought served almost as a spark- though at first, he thought he was imagining the warmth that brushed up against his back. The second he realized it was real, he turned sharply on his heel, trying to figure out what the source of it was- only to find nothing there. Blinking, Keith stared down the hall, before he slowly turned back around-
-and came face to face with a red lioness.
She was smaller than the blue lion, and her form was less solid. She watched him with yellow eyes, her gaze so intense, that it seemed as if she was looking through him rather than at him. He couldn't help but stand a little straighter, as if she were assessing him for flaws.
Blue's ward.
The voice rang loud and clear in his head. Swallowing, Keith took half a step forward, slightly in awe.
"You're the red lion." Keith breathed.
If it is me you seek, then come. Follow.
Without waiting for him, the red lion turned, heading down the hall. He hesitated, but quickly went after her, trying to keep his guard up as much as he could. Bayard or no bayard, he'd rather avoid being ambushed.
Thankfully, he was able to avoid any of the sentries that he ran into. None of them even seemed to notice the red lion- some of them walked right through her, her form shimmering and flickering every time they did so- but never disappearing. She lead him all the way to a hangar, before she cast one last look in his direction, and vanished.
The red lion was in there.
Swallowing, Keith pressed his hand against the access panel. His dad had told him with a laugh once that all Galra tech was biolocked- which made it super easy for his mom and her allies to sneak on their ships and cause chaos. Sure enough, even though he was only half Galra, the doors opened right up for him.
Inside, still protected by her particle barrier, was the red lion.
Slowly stepping forward, Keith took a second to just stare up at her in awe. She was smaller than the blue lion, but was no less impressive. There was something about her that just seemed to call to him.
He made his way towards her, hovering just inches in front of her barrier. Slowly, he raised his hand, carefully pressing it up against the barrier, just as he had done with Blue's countless times.
Only this time, it let him in.
In turn, he let the red lion in.
It flooded him all at once- thoughts, feelings, ten thousand years of pent up anger and frustration, and loss- loss that ran so deep, that it nearly knocked him off his feet. King Alfor had built her, King Alfor had flown her... King Alfor had made the decision to send her away, and then had never come back for her.
Zarkon found her instead.
Zarkon invoked anger, rage, hatred- and betrayal, betrayal that ran deeper than anything he could have ever imagined. King Alfor had trusted him, the black lion had trusted him, so she had trusted him.
And the red lion's trust was difficult to earn.
The red lion was furious and in pain- and had been held captive by the Galra, the very race that had caused her so much suffering for decades. They used her to try and find her siblings. Had tried to force her to accept paladins that she didn't want. It was with a shudder that he sensed that, and for a second, he expected that she would shut him out, reject him- after ten thousand years of waiting for someone to come along to fill King Alfor's role, what she got was a half Galra child who barely even knew how to fly.
She didn't.
Blue's ward, the red lion purred, as she lowered herself, she has told me much about you. You are for me, she said. Having seen you now for myself, I know it is true.
Keith swallowed, taking a slow step forward, and then another. With each step, he grew more confident, until he had arrived in the cockpit.
It was warm there, just like the desert. He took a moment to just savor the feeling, before the red lion nudged at him, eager to throw herself into battle and avenge her paladin before him. Exhaling, Keith made his way to the pilot's seat, hands brushing over the controls before he took a seat.
They were both lions of Voltron- but the red lion was so different from the blue lion. There had always been a distance between him and the blue lion, one that could never be gapped- he was not her paladin, just her ward. But with the red lion?
It was almost like she had always been there.
He would still miss his connection to the blue lion- but she had her own paladin now. He didn't think she would begrudge him in connecting with a new lion.
She had probably always known that this would happen.
"Good kitty," Keith mumbled, carefully resting his hands on the controls, "-let's roll."