-
.
“I’ll go.”
Shiro stood up in the middle of the Ecclesia, the javelin already in his hand.
“You can’t.” Sanda’s voice was steady from the other side of the room. “In your condition, you have no possibilities again that beast.”
“If there someone that has a possibility, that’s Shiro,” Sam defended him. “He already defeated a beast and saved me and my son.”
“And we’re grateful for it. But he isn’t anymore the man he was back then because of that fight. Sending him will mean killing him.”
“Sending someone else, you mean.”
The discussion between Sanda and Sam continued, but Shiro wasn’t listening anymore. Teeth gritted, he could recognize the pity behind the gaze of others Athenians. They could respect him, and they’d envied them once, but now they looked at him and thought about the money they reserved for cripples.
He left.
From his house, he took all the weapons he has: his dagger, the small knife, the hammer, anything he could use with one arm. The sun was still high in the sky when he marched towards the forest, following the path of destruction the beast caused.
From the higher spot, he could see the gigantic hole in the middle of the wheat field, and the olive trees fallen by the fury of the beast. In the far, the white roofs of Athens. Shiro understood it was just a matter of time before the beast would move his attention on it.
In the deep of the woods, the only rumor were Shiro’s steps as he trampled the brushes and leafs. It was dark, only small sunray pierces through the branches.
Then, he became darker, a purple fog glided and swirled around the woods.
Shiro tightened the grip on his dagger in his left hand. He turned around himself, fearing for a surprise assault.
“Where are you? Show yourself!”
“I do not desire to fight against you.”
The voice was deep, rough but warm, it curled around Shiro’s ears and he was unable to understand where it came.
“Are you the beast that’s bringing havoc on the Athens’ lands?”
“I am.”
“Then I have to stop you.”
Shiro’s back was now against a log, the sword in front of him. Brute force wouldn’t work, he knew, and he felt naked without his shield. He didn’t have an arm for it.
“There is no need to fight,” the beast murmured. “I have a deal for you.”
“A deal?”
The beast Shiro’d met in the past, the one sent to kill Sam and his family, had been a cruel, senseless monster; this one sounded almost human, or at least, intelligent enough. It was dangerous.
“I want you,” the beast said.
“Duly noted.” Shiro snorted. “If you want to kill me, I’m right there. But I’m not going down without a fight.”
“I do not want to kill you.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want you,” the beast repeated, “to become my groom.”
“What?” Shiro’s blinked.
He didn’t expect that.
He definitely did not expect that.
“I won’t haunt Athens anymore if you accept.”
“And if I don’t?” Shiro dared to ask. The grip on the dagger was so tight, his knuckles were almost white now.
The purple fog trembled around him, frantic, before settling again.
“The ruins will continue.”
“Then I’ll have to stop you.”
“I already told you, I won’t fight you.”
Shiro lashed through the purple fog: it turned and twisted around the blade, with no damage.
“Somebody else will come,” he said, even if it was a lie.
“Nobody else can defeat me but you,” the beast replied. “And I won’t fight you.”
“Smart move.”
But Shiro was somehow flattered. After so many people looking at him as he wasn’t able to do anything anymore, having a supernatural, terrible creature admitting a weakness it was somehow refreshing.
“I’ve observe you,” the beast continued. “You’re a good man. You want to do good in this world.”
The thought of a beast studying him was unsettling. “You don’t know me.”
“I don’t,” the beast conceded. “But I can say that you’re not that kind of man that’ll let someone in danger, not if he can avoid it.”
It was true, Shiro admitted. Marrying a beast wasn’t the dream of his life, and it wasn’t what he imagined ending up with. But he could save Athens like that, and what life has remained for him in the city after the accident? Even Adam’d said he wouldn’t be there anymore at his return.
“If I accept, you promise Athens will be safe?”
“You have my word.”
“Fine, then. Looks I will be your hus-beast.”
“Is it a joke?” The purple fog brightened around, the voice sounded amused.
Oh, well. The beast had some sense of humor. Or at least he appreciated Shiro’s, something he couldn’t say of most of the people he knew.
He lowered the dagger and the fog curled around him, brushing his skin. It wasn’t cold as Shiro thought. He let himself be culled by it, his body weighted down. He slowly closed his eyes.
***
He opened his eyes in a queen size bed, white silk sheet, a room with marble floor and green and pink florae decorations around the walls, blue sky with stars on the ceiling.
And the gaze of a definitely not human girl upon him, with her pointed ears and the marks on her cheeks.
“You woke up finally!” she exclaimed, and her voice pierced Shiro’s ears. “It’s almost midday.”
Midday meant it had already passed a day. At least a day. Shiro groaned, recalling from the fog of his mind the last events he recalls. With relief, he noticed he still had his clothes on.
“I’m Romelle, nice to meet you.” She shook his hand vigorously. “Come on, sleepy head, let’s get up.”
She headed for the door and Shiro hurried behind her. At least, one of them seemed to know where they were. As he followed her outside, he paid less attention to her blabbering and more about the vines on her pink dress and hair, that moved around as they had their own life.
Their destination was the terrace, which gave Shiro a better idea of the place they were. The two floors palace stood at the top of a hill, big, thick white marble walls. The entrance was traditional of temples, with the porticate with columns and sculptures in the tympanum, who depicted the born of the Goddess of love and lust.
The hill climbed down sweetly in terrace and flowers bed, vineyards and olives and fruit trees, in a multitude and colors in the bright green. It looked like there wasn’t only one season in the park. In the far, Shiro caught the sight of a stadium.
“There isn’t anybody else here?” he asked.
“Who else should it be?” Romelle replied.
Maybe the beast that apparently was Shiro’s husband now. Instead, he said, “I don’t know, farmers, servants…”
She sucked a finger stained with juice. “The human world needs human to live on. Here, things just happen naturally.”
“And where is here?”
“Like… nowhere and anywhere?” Romelle looked puzzled. “It doesn’t have a concrete place, it just exists.”
The explanation was as confused as Romelle’s expression, but one thing was clear. “So you can’t escape from here.”
“Escape?” If possible, Romelle became even more confused.
“Yeah, like, turning back in the human world. Meeting some old friends, things like that.”
“Oh, that!” She brightened, finally understanding. “Keith said you can take Black.”
“Keith?”
The puzzled expression came back. “Your… husband?”
“Oh. Sure. My bad.” Shiro didn’t know beasts had such mundane names. “Where is it now?”
“Around, I guess.” She returned at her grapes. “He doesn’t spend much time at home during the day.”
That was an interesting information Shiro had to keep in mind.
“So… about this method to return to the human world?”
It turned out Black is a young black stallion with intelligent bright yellow eyes. Shiro hadn’t ever own horses, even if he was able to ride, and he became charmed by Black. A smile surfaced on his face when Black pressed his muzzle against his palm and let Shiro caressed it.
“It can bring you everywhere you want,” Romelle explained, as she sat down on the wooden gate. “Just come back before sunset.”
“What happens if I don’t come back?”
Romelle tilted his head. “Why shouldn’t you?”
“Just asking.”
He freed Black from his stable and used his left hand as leverage to jump on it. Black let him without even flinch.
“I just have to think about where I want to go?”
“Yep. Pretty nice, eh?” She smiled.
“Yeah, it is.” Shiro rubbed Black’s neck. “Let’s go, bring me to Athens.”
Black neighed and stomped his front hoofs on the dusty ground, before galloping forwards.
“See you later!” Romelle greeted him from behind.
They climbed down the hill, between the flowers and the fruit tree before drowning in the dark of the woods. When the forest opened again in the open fields, Shiro found himself in the ground around Athens.
Of all the destruction the beast – Keith - had brought, no traces remained. The golden wheat bright in the sun and the olive leaf branches are up towards the sun. So Keith did respect his part of the deal.
He wondered what decision the Ecclesia had taken, and what they had thought of his disappearance. He would have found out a day later, for today better returning to the beast's home.
It was dark when Shiro arrived, and Romelle wasn’t around. Black could see enough to return to his own stable, while Shiro had some problems to find the stairs to climb back in the palace, and he had no idea to find back his room. The complete obscurity didn’t help either.
“Here.”
A deep voice pierced the dark and a soft grip curled around Shiro’s arm, guiding him in the hallway.
“Thanks.”
The touch was delicate, the pad smaller than Shiro imagined. It was a concrete figure, unlike the purple fog in the woods, but Shiro couldn’t distinguish anything, not even a blurred silhouette.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Keith said, as it didn’t believe it. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes, I do.” Shiro lies.
“Oh.” Keith stopped and Shiro almost stumbled in it.
“My friends offered me.”
“Sure. It’s fine.” It sounded disappointed. “Shall I accompany you to the bedroom? Don’t worry,” he hastily added, “I won’t touch you. Not until you’ll let me.”
“I appreciate that.”
Shiro didn’t really understand its intention. He couldn’t forget it is a beast that bring destruction around, but he had been nothing but kind to Shiro. It was angry about the all marriage deal, but, giving the beast’s behaviors, it looked more a clumsy attempt to know Shiro better than a real, forced marriage.
Maybe it was just because beasts didn’t know how to flirt.
To be honest, from Shiro’s side, totally relatable.
“Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Eating.”
“No, not yet.”
“I can make you company. If you’d like.”
Keith’s tone brightened. “This will be very kind of you.”
Its grip was still on Shiro’s arm, so Keith guided him into a large room. Shiro couldn’t see the dishes on the table, but the smell of cooked meat fills his nostril. Keith moved a chair for Shiro and then sat down on the opposite side of the table.
“Where’s Romelle?” Shiro asked.
“Sleeping somewhere,” Keith answered. “She’s a sunflower nymph, she’s only awake when the sun is up.”
“She’s your friend?”
“I guess? She likes living here, and I don’t mind her presence.” Rumors of chewing. “I hope she doesn’t bother you.”
“Oh, no, she’s been nice. Thank you for Black, by the way.”
“I imagine you want to come back. Sometimes,” he added, as a remember that it couldn’t be a definitive return. “Do you like in here?”
“It’s a beautiful place.”
“If you need something, anything, just ask,” Keith said. “I’d like you to be comfortable here.”
“Well, a couple of lamps may be nice. Unlike it’s a preference of you seeing be smashing my face against every wall.”
Shiro chuckled, but Keith didn’t appreciate his humor this time.
“I can provide you lamps,” Keith said, “but you can’t use them when you’re with me.”
“That’s fine, but why?” Shiro asked, with sincere interest.
“Shiro.” Keith’s tone was serious. “This is part of our deal. You can’t, under any circumstances, look at me.”
***
Like the day before, Shiro woke up in a big but empty bed, covered with silk sheet. Keith was nowhere to be seen, just like Romelle. Shiro found the table laden in the terrace, but ignored it in order to go out with Black.
He enjoyed a simple breakfast with fruits as he rode back to Athens. The Ecclesia was already gathered when he arrived, but everyone went still as he entered. Shiro ignored the gazes on himself and, after a brief nod towards Sam, he wandered to take his seat.
“Shiro,” Iverson called him. “Come here.”
Unwilling, Shiro reached the center of the assembly. Iverson seemed happy to see him, at least from the light in his eyes.
“Sam told us what happened, but since you’re here, we’d like to hear the story from you.”
So Shiro told them again, told them about the beast and their agreement. His eyes passed on the audience, meeting shocked and worried faces. When he crossed his gaze with Adam, Adam turned his eyes away.
“That is it?” Sanda asked, once Shiro finished his tale. She remained sitting down in her chair.
“That’s it,” Shiro confirmed.
“So how come you’re here, now?” Sanda continued. “Didn’t the beast bring you into his lair?”
“It did.” Even if lair didn’t apply much to Keith’s residence. “But you missed out the part where I’m its husband, not its prisoner.”
“Oh, yes, husband. I wonder why the beast took this decision…”
“Beasts don’t think like humans.”
“Surely don’t,” Sanda agreed graciously. “How does it is?”
“I can’t say. I can’t look at it, it’s one of the rules.”
She snorted. “Convenient.”
“Are you insinuating I’m lying?”
A frown appeared on Shiro’s face. He could admit he wouldn’t have believed himself for that kind of conclusion, but the disappearance of all the destruction the beast’d caused should be proof enough of Shiro’s success. If Shiro could call that a success.
“Of course no,” Iverson said, anticipating whatever Sanda wanted to add. “We are worried about you. You sacrificed a lot for our town. We wish to understand if we can help you.”
“If you need any help at all,” Sanda mused. “It doesn’t look you’re doing bad. How’s the beast in bed?”
Sam stood out from the crowd. “That’s enough!”
“It doesn’t touch me,” Shiro answered, calmly.
“Like I said.”
“There is something wrong with it?” Shiro replied. “The beast stopped. Isn’t it the important thing?”
“So you like being married to a beast?”
“I haven’t said that. I did what was right.”
Slowly, Sanda stood up. She turned to the audience. “Can we really trust this? We didn’t know anything about this beast and its motive. It could change its mind.” She walked towards Shiro. “We need the beast dead.”
People whispered around and Shiro caught just some words, enough to understand they agreed with Sanda. She was now in front of him and she drew out an iron knife and waited for Shiro to take it.
“Do you want me to kill it?”
“You’re its husband,” Sanda replied. “You’re the only one that can catch it off guard.”
“I made a promise.”
“A promise to marry it, not to not kill it, right?”
Shiro didn’t have to look around to know that everyone was waiting for him to take the knife. Refusing it would have proved that he was something against Athens. Sanda was still there, still waiting.
Shiro took the knife.
“Very well,” he said.
Sanda seemed satisfied by it and Iverson took his change to move the attention to the audience to the next argument. Shiro took his seat next to Sam and tried to ignore the weight of the knife as the meeting continued.
“I may not like Sanda, but maybe she’s right this time,” Matt told him once the meeting is over. “The beast did force you into marrying it, right? It isn’t fair!”
“Yes,” Shiro admitted. “But I still accepted the deal. I don’t know if this is right.”
The urge of answers brought Shiro asking Pidge’s advices. She worked at the temple in the island property of Athens, and even if her role and the God she served weren’t tied up to Shiro’s situation she was still the only one with a bigger knowledge about curses and about the word of the Gods. She would know the consequence of Shiro’s decision.
Black took very little time to bring Shiro there.
Pidge did expect him. Not in the way she’d predicted his arrival, but voices about his marriage with a beast had travelled fast and far, so she guessed he could ask her for help, being the smart girl she was. She didn’t know about Sanda’s request, though, and she frowned hearing that.
“What do you think?” Shiro ended his explanation.
“What do you want to do?” Pidge replied.
“I don’t know,” Shiro admitted. “Killing Keith doesn’t feel right, but at the same time… It is a beast. It could turn in any moment, or wanting more. I had to stop it, whatever the cost is.”
“Looks like you already took your choice.”
“I’d like to know if I may cause more distress for Athens.”
“I d0n’t have an answer for this.” Pidge sighs. “But I can tell you why this is happening.”
“What do you mean?”
“The beast that you defeated was send by Honerva, to kill my family.”
“I know this.”
“But you don’t know that after you killed her beast, Honerva turned her anger at you,” Pidge continued. “You saved my family, and I’m very grateful for it. But you paid a great price, and you’re still paying it.”
“The beast attacked Athens because of me?”
“The beast attacked Athens so it could marry you,” Pidge corrected him. “Honerva saw you defeated one of her beast, so she wanted to punish you by fell in love with another beast.”
“But I’m not in love,” Shiro pointed out.
“No, you’re not.” Pidge nodded. “But you’re married to the beast now, so does it make any difference?”
“It does. It means I still have a choice over it.”
Pidge understood. “If you kill it, you’re defeating Honerva a second time. Who knows how she’s going to react.”
“But I don’t like to lose.”
Shiro left Pidge with a little more resolution that he had before. Sanda put him in a bad mood, but she wasn’t wrong about Keith being a possible danger. The fact that he hadn’t treat Shiro badly didn’t mean he couldn’t do it in the future, or being a danger to other people. Especially if it was under Honerva’s orders.
Before returning to the palace he returned to Athens to take back cheese and beef jerky for dinner. Romelle wasn’t around as expected, but this time there were lamps around to show Shiro the way to the staircase and the hallway until the dinner room.
Shiro knew the dinner is served from the smell before even reached it. Half of the room was completely in the dark: Shiro guessed Keith was there, and he wasn’t wrong.
“Welcome back.”
“Thanks.” Shiro sat down and placed his package on the table. “I brought my food.”
Keith hesitated. “You didn’t like anything here?”
“It’s not that.” It was very hard to not like a dinner when he served the same amount of food that it was usually too expensive for anyone and it was used only during festival.
“Then what is it?” Keith pressed.
Shiro decided to give an honest answer. “I don’t want to eat anything here because I don’t want to be trapped like it happened to the Goddess of Spring.”
“Oh.” Keith sounded truly surprised by Shiro’s statement. Then, a small chuckles erupted from its throat.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” Keith said. “I was just thinking… If Lotor would have pull a stunt like that, Allura would have kick his ass in no time.”
“Do you mean… it’s not true?”
“It’s not.” Shiro felt Keith is was smiling. “They married out of love. But of course mortals can’t be aware of everything that happens in our realm, so it’s understandable. I apologize for not thinking about it. I thought to be nice with all this, but of course you’re free to keep eating your food if it makes you at ease.” A small pause. “I won’t mind eating something brought by you,” he added, shy.
Shiro hesitated. The knife hidden in his tunic gave a burning sensation on his skin. He cut a slice of cheese and passed it through the table. He couldn’t see the paw that took it, but the small hum of appreciation.
“It’s pretty good,” Keith said. “You made it?”
“Yeah, I have a small farm outside Athens,” Shiro explains. “A family is taking care of it for me when I’m nor around. We also produced oil and honey. I can bring it next time.”
“That would be nice.”
It was hard to understand lies when it was impossible to look at the person, but Keith’s tone sounded nothing but sincere.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“All this… Are you doing it because of Goddess Honerva’s orders?”
Silence followed the question and Shiro tried to imagine Keith’s expression behind the dark could. Surprise, anger, annoyance?
“Partially,” Keith answered at last. It sounded regretful.
“She wanted me to fall in love with you,” Shiro pressed.
“To fall in love with a beast, yes,” Keith corrected him. “But being married to one satisfied Honerva the same. She feels it’s enough punishment.”
“She isn’t wrong,” Shiro snorted, and he regretted it a second later because Keith shifted uncomfortably.
“It’s not ideal,” it admitted. “But I didn’t lie to you. I like you, Shiro. I didn’t want your free will to be strip from you by a love arrow.”
“So… you saved me?”
“I’m being selfish. Like I said, I like you,” Keith answered, honest. “But if you’re asking me if it’s a better arrangement that what Honerva planned at first, then yes, I think it is.”
Shiro thought the same. Stories about people and their craziness caused by a love arrow didn’t end well. Love could be such a powerful but destructive force, and Shiro guessed he wouldn’t have kept his mind like he did now.
“I should thank you then.”
“Don’t. This is not ideal for you, so I can understand your pain.”
He shouldn’t trust a beast, yet Keith hadn’t been anything but kind with him. “Aren’t you afraid of my free will?” he asked. “I can try to kill you. You said I can.”
“You can,” Keith confirmed. “But I trust you. You’re a good man. That’s one of the reason I like you.”
“Thank you for having been honest with me.”
Keith didn’t answer to that statement.
They went to bed soon after, and Keith placed itself on one side of it, very far so Shiro wouldn’t touch him, not even by mistake. Shiro undressed in the dark of the room, and the knife remained abandoned with the clothes on the ground.
***
Since their honest talk, Shiro settled better in his life as a married man.
His people, with the lucky exception of the Holt family, didn’t take his decision to stay faithful to Keith in a positive way. The better ones were people that suspected Shiro having secret motives behind his marriage, or they doubted this marriage had happened at all. While Shiro despised the pitied look others threw at him as he walked the streets of Athens.
He wouldn’t even imagine it would arrive the day he would prefer Sanda’s attitude over some of his own friends.
For this reason, he started spending less and less time in Athens. He still participated in the Ecclesia, but he didn’t stop to chat with the others. His habit changed in a way he slept more in the morning so he could stay more with Keith at evening, talking in the dark. In the afternoon, he took care of his land, or went hunting, so Keith could eat something brought by Shiro.
Keith had his secrets by being a beast from a world Shiro wouldn’t understand, but his company was nice, respectful. Shiro found himself showing him more than he did with anyone else, even Adam.
It was a simple life. Happy, even.
Still, Shiro was restless.
He wasn’t used to a simple life.
He was a soldier before Athens reached peace with the neighbors. And one of the main reasons Shiro had found involved with the Holt family was because of the adventures and the thrilled they brought. Shiro wanted that life, the feeling of making something important out of his own life.
After their meeting with the beast Shiro’d killed, the Holts tuned down their adventures, and even if Black could bring Shiro everywhere, there’s nothing to do for real.
Keith understood it even if Shiro haven’t said it loudly.
“I think you should participate.”
“What?”
“The Olympics.”
Shiro had been Athens’ champion four year before, but he didn’t expect they choosing him again. In the history of the Olympics, only the youngest and healthies men of Greek participated. Beautiful inside and outside, it was said about them.
Something Shiro wasn’t anymore.
“They probably already chose someone else,” he minimized it with a wave of his hand. “I’ve heard about a James who’s younger than me…”
“You could go as independent participant,” Keith pointed out. “You don’t have to be your city’s champion.”
He didn’t add anything about it, and Shiro was grateful for it, but he could sense Keith’s disapproval of Athens’ citizens about Shiro’s treatment.
“I’m out of shape.”
“I can help you train.”
“You won’t let it go, will you?” Shiro smiled, and he was playful.
Keith wasn’t. “Only if you tell me you don’t want to go.”
But Shiro wanted to go, and Keith knew it.
They trained, and Shiro realized how much he missed it. How much he missed doing something active, something with a purpose. He also realized that in the past he’d done a lot of things to not think about his disability and at the same time he avoided things that actually forced him out of his safe zone. He faked himself he was used to have only an arm.
Now he faced a situation where being without an arm, surpassing the problem of being without an arm is the difference between win or lose.
Running and long jumping were the easier one. With javelin and discus, Shiro learned how to throw it with his left hand, and having worked with it a long helped.
Wrestling was the hardest one. It was hard both because he had a side of his body completely exposed to any attack and because he lost half of his power to pin the opponent on the ground. He needed to stone his body enough to pin himself on the ground and the pushed and lifted his opponent with only one arm.
Training with Keith was hard, since they did it in the dark, with Shiro unable to see Keith clearly, but it helped him to improve.
And when finally, Shiro managed to pin Keith on the ground, there was a big, satisfied smile on his face.
He was going to the Olympics, and he was going to triumph.
And even he couldn’t see it, Shiro was sure Keith was smiling too.
Having someone so trusting helped Shiro through the days before the actual competitions, days when he had to endure the look of his fellow citizens (entirely unhappy he’d decided to participate without their permission), of other participant (mostly amused) and the audience (pity and laughs).
Everyone except the Holts, of course. Sam’d told him he’d fought for Shiro to be chosen as Athens’ champion again. Matt was even more direct: “I bet all my money on your victory, so don’t let me down.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
And he didn’t.
His winning at the stadion run was brushed off like pure luck. Someone even hinted he was faster because he had less weight than the others without an arm.
After the javelin and the discus throw, people started to realize the mistake they’d made, and the whispering around Shiro increased but changed in admiration and surprised more than pity.
When Shiro won the long jump match too, half of the audience was sure he would be the Olympic Champion. Again.
The other half still bet on his opponent, Sendak from Sparta, the one Shiro’d defeated four years before. They were sure being without an arm was too much for winning a wrestling competition.
They were right, in a way. But Shiro was ready, and he trained for it. And to be honest his advantages was everyone underestimating him. Even Sendak himself.
“You fought well, I give you that,” he said Shiro. “For this reason, I want to be merciful. I give you the opportunity to retire now.”
“Are you afraid to lose against a one-arm man?” Shiro replied, with an amused smile.
Sendak bared his teeth. “Just be sure to not lose your other arm here.”
As Keith predicted, Sendak went after Shiro’s right side, the side Shiro couldn’t defend. But Shiro trained for it, trained to resist to the hits and trained to resist to being lifted and then smashed on the ground.
And what he learned during is training was that, if the opponent was too focused on one particular action, he often forgot to protect others part of his own body.
Like the legs.
Shiro let Sendak landed some hit, then he bent a little on one side, one of his knees bowed. It gave Sendak the wrong idea that Shiro was losing; instead, Shiro put himself in that position so it was easier for him to hit Sendak on his legs.
Sendak tripped back, losing his balance. Shiro sprung in action immediately and body slammed him on the chest: Sendak fell on the ground and even if he managed at first to avoid touching the ground with his back, it was a weak position that allowed Shiro easily to land his final blow and pinned him on the ground.
The stadium exploded with cheering while Shiro placed his left hand on his heart. “I’m rich!” Matt yelled from somewhere in the audience. Sanda’s incredulous look was a plus of Shiro’s victory.
He didn’t remain for the ending party, letting Black bringing him back before evening.
Romelle welcomed him with all the honor and with her usual cherish attitude. Shiro realized there was a part of him that considered that place home, a place he was happy to return.
Night was too slow to come, the night when he could meet Keith again after his victory. And Keith appeared in the dark of their bedroom a second later the sunset, showing he was eager to see Shiro as much as Shiro was eager to see him.
“You were wonderful,” he murmured, and meant it.
“Did you see me?”
“Well, I couldn’t be in the audience but yes, I saw you.”
There was an unease silence between them, as Shiro realized why Keith couldn’t be there, and how Shiro would like Keith to be there. He didn’t care about any of the look they could throw him, Keith did for him more than any of them.
“I have a present for you.”
The lamp turned the light on and in the dim light Shiro saw a metal arm placed on the sheet. It was incredibly well done, with a metal Shiro recognized as iron, rare and expensive. With his point finger he brushed the arm, touching the metal palm and the fingers.
“Put it on,” Keith said.
With a frown, Shiro lifted up the arm – it was unexpectedly light. Feeling strange, he put it next to his right shoulder. By itself, the arm attached to the remaining of Shiro’s arm. A small shock passed through his body, startling him.
And then he realized he could move the metal arm as it was his own. With awe, he watched the iron fingers moving as he wanted.
“I asked the God of craftsman to make it, then Allura gave it life,” Keith explained. “Do you like it?” And there was a little hesitation on his question.
“It… it feels great,” Shiro exhaled.
Keith took a relieved breath. “I’m glad.”
“Why were you afraid?” Shiro asked.
“Because… I don’t want you to think you’re somehow wrong,” Keith answered. “You don’t need an arm to be awesome. But I feel you deserve it.”
And that was it. The essence of why Keith was good, better than people.
Shiro reached for him with the metal arm. Even if he could move it, he couldn’t feel anything with it, not the fur or the scales that Keith might have. But he could touch him more without fearing to reveal his form, and he drew him nearer, not enough to see him at the dim light, but enough to actually feel his presence, his breath.
“Thank you.”
There was a small moment in where Shiro thought – hoped – Keith would kissed him.
“You should be tired,” Keith said instead, and pulled off. “Better sleep now.”
Shiro found himself disappointed when he lied down on the bed next to Keith, something he couldn’t ignore anymore.
Sleeping was hard that night, and Shiro got nightmares, dreams about beasts eating him alive, while the right arm weighted him down so he couldn’t escape.
It was a while since he had the last one, at a point Shiro almost forgot how it was.
He woke up in cold sweat, breath and heart fast and out of control. Frantic, Shiro searched for a lamp and grabbed it. The lamp lightened up and Shiro kept it near his hear. The small light gave him a chance to see he was still in his bedroom, safe. A sense of warm and security.
Slowly, his breath and heart stabilized.
He was about to put back the lamp, when by accident his gaze fell off on the figure lied down next to him.
Shiro froze.
Saying he hadn’t tried to imagine Keith’s appearance would be a lie from his side. But in those fantasies Keith was a giant beast, sometimes covered in fur, with a big mouth with sharp fangs, yellow eyes and pointy ears. With a tail sometimes.
But the one next to Shiro… was actually the most beautiful man Shiro’s even saw. Small and slender, but not thin, with delicate features. Long and soft raven hair framed a delicate feminine face, with long eyelash and a small, red mouth.
Without noticed and with his mouth widen opened, Shiro leaned forward to look better.
The only thing that betrayed Keith’s not mortal nature were the two white feather wings on his back.
Shiro hesitated one second more, looking at the beautiful man as he slept peacefully, his head placed on the soft pillow. That second costed Shiro a small drop of wax that fell from the lamp to Keith’s shoulder.
Keith’s eyes opened, just the time for Shiro to noticed their color, a strange and wonderful violet, before Keith disappeared in the thin air, as he hasn’t been there at all.
The promise was broken, and Shiro lost what he just gained. -
.
Part I
At the time, Shiro was still a rookie, even if he’d graduated with the highest grades.
Yet, when Professor Montgomery showed the Monet’s painting at the Impressionism congress for the White Collar division agents, Shiro couldn’t stop himself by standing up and affirming, “it’s a fake”.
“It was authenticated by the museum curator, Agent Shirogane,” Montgomery replied, with a little embarrassment.
“It’s a fake,” Shiro repeated. “The direction of the brushstroke is slightly wrong. Monet put them around 45° degrees, while this painting has them almost vertical.”
Montgomery frowned. “It’s a far fetcher conclusion. There are other evidences about the authenticity of the painting, like the cracks caused by age…”
“Cracks can be faked too. We saw a method just last week with Commander Holt. But brushstrokes don’t like, not even the best con can fake them entirely.”
In the end, Montgomery asked for another check on the painting.
It was Shiro to find out the signature of the con artist, a small red lion impossible to notice with naked eyes, and hidden between the flowers on the painting,
That was the reason the con artist’s surname became “Red Lion”, at least until Shiro discovered his real identity between a sea of nicknames and alias.
Keith Kogane.
There are two folders on Shiro’s desk. One contains all the information about the case Shiro’s working on, also said the Flying Dutch case. On the other side, Adam’s lawyer’s request about the divorce, that Shiro is supposed to sign to make it definitive.
He doesn’t know why he’s so affected by it: Adam and he broke up almost a year ago and none of them seemed to have second thought about it. At that point, the divorce is just a formality to confirm in front of the law a situation that was already stabilized.
With a sigh, he leaps thought the divorce papers. The Flying Dutch case is a dead end at the moment, so better clear the head with something more mundane.
He’s about to sign the first paper, when Allura opens the door of the office, a serious expression on her face. Shiro knows she wouldn’t have disturbed him if the situation wouldn’t have been serious.
“What happened?”
“Keith Kogane escaped this morning.”
“Do you know someone from Connecticut?” Adam asked.
“No?” Shiro didn’t lift his head, keeping the hard work of wrapping presents in red paper. “Why?”
“A Christmas Card for you, with the postal stamp of Connecticut.”
This time Shiro looked at him and, with a frown, took the card from Adam’s hand. It was a simple one-page card, with a very short “Merry Christmas” on the white side; the other showed the image of a reindeer in the middle of a snowed forest, with a star sky above it. It looked handmade, with watercolor.
And then Shiro remembered.
“Keith’s prison is in Connecticut.”
“It came from Keith?” Adam screeched, and teared the card from Shiro’s hand.
“What?” he protested.
“It may be dangerous. Maybe it was made with poison or something.”
Shiro rolled his eyes. “Keith isn’t like that.”
“He’s a criminal.”
“He’s a con artist, not a killer,” Shiro replied, as he tried with a tired effort to take the card back.
“Still,” Adam said, taking his cellphone, “you arrested him. He may have some grudge against you. It’s better if we have this thing checked.”
For saving his marriage life, Shiro agreed. Turned out the card had nothing strange, it was just like it seemed, a Christmas card from Keith, and Shiro managed to keep it.
Keith was convicted for a three-year prison sentence, and he has another five months before he can gain his freedom back. There is no reason in Shiro’s mind why a smart person like Keith should have escaped in that moment. Besides, Keith assured him that he’d like to try to live an honest life.
Something must have happened.
“Maybe he just got tired,” Lance comments behind him, while the head of the prison is showing him the video of Keith’s last visitor. “Criminals can’t really change, you know? Not by themselves, not if they have other possibilities…”
Shiro ignores him to focus on the head’s explanation. “Kogane didn’t receive any other visitors after this one, and after this he started growing the beard, as you saw.”
“Whatever happened, it’s because this visit.”
The head nods. “We made a script of everything they said, but it’s a really mundane conversation about books.”
“It was the first time this woman came to visit Keith?” When the head nods, Shiro nods at the screen and comments, “she wore a wig.”
“And her passport was fake too,” the head adds. “We haven’t understood yet how she managed to surpass our software for the identity control.”
“She’s a professional.”
Shiro lifts a hand to stop Lance, that was about to formulate one of his conspiracy hypothesis, and returns his attention to the video. She also kept her head in a titled position, so they haven’t a cleat image of her face despite all the camera. Not even the facial recognition software could have helped them find the woman’s real identity.
But she communicated Keith something. Something as important that force Keith to escape. Shiro looked at the video with great attention and he sees it: the way the woman’s finger taps on the table at a certain point.
Morse code.
“Give me a piece of paper,” Shiro orders, and then scribbles the Morse code on it.
Knowledge or death, the code says.
“I know where Keith is going. We must hurry.”
“Hello, Keith.”
The room is dark, but Shiro sees clearly the shadow stopping his research inside and startling.
“The Morse code?” Keith asks.
“The Morse code,” Shiro confirms. “You should have known I would have remembered the motto of the Blade of Marmora.”
“I did know,” Keith replies. “I just hoped to have a little bit of time before you found out and reach me in my last shelter.” In the dark, he slumped a little against one of the pillar of the room. “You have to let me go, Shiro.”
“You know I can’t.” Shiro takes a step forwards.
“You’re armed?”
“Should I?”
Keith shakes his head, then look behind him, at the window. “We’re surrounded, aren’t we?”
Shiro nods. He takes his communicator and contact his men, confirmed the target is inside and that they can come. “Why did you do this?” There isn’t disappointment in Shiro’s voice, only desire to understand.
“How much before they arrive?” Keith asks instead.
“One minute, more or less.”
Keith kneels again and rums in the box, as he was doing before Shiro’s arrival. When the agents arrive and grab him by the shoulders, pushing him back with his arms behind his back, something fell from Keith’s hand. He doesn’t fight against the agents as they handcuffed him, but he turns his head towards Shiro. For a second, in the light and over Keith’s gaze, Shiro feels naked and the scar on his nose twitches a little.
“I can help you, Shiro,” Keith yells. “Let me go. Find a way to let me out of prison and I’ll help you. I know who are looking for. The Flying Dutch. I know who he is.”
Shiro hesitates a little, but the agents drag Keith away without giving him the time to ask for more.
“The metal you found out in the safe, Shiro!” Keith yells again. “It’s the metal for the Canadian banknotes. Check it! And then come for me.”
“We should search this place, sir?” one of the agent asks, once Keith’s voice disappeared in the far.
“No, I don’t think it’s necessary,” Shiro replies.
When he’s left alone in the room, he kneels down and picks up the object Keith was looking for: a small figurine with the form of a lion.
“I checked,” Shiro says as Keith sits down in front of him in the visitor room, eager.
“And?”
“You were right, it was the metal for the Canadian banknote. How do you know?”
A little, confident smirk appears on Keith’s lips. “I made a trip to Canada once.”
Shiro lifts an eyebrow. “Should I checked the local museums for fake painting?”
“Better not.”
With a smile and a shake of his head, Shiro lets it go. He puts the hand on his pocket and places on the table the small lion figure. “You need to wait five months. Only five months. Instead you risked another two-year of prison just for this. Why?”
There is a visible relief on Keith’s face when he sees the figure, but then his lips tighten. “I will tell you everything, I promise,” Keith says. “But only if I’m out of this.”
“I’ve spoken with Procurator Sanda,” Shiro affirms, as he looks straight into Keith’s eyes. “She’s not your biggest fan. And not really mine, to be fair. But I managed to convince her to give you a chance.”
“A chance?”
“You could spend the last part of your sentence, which she still has to establish how long, with an ankle bracelet and being a consultant for the White Collar division.”
“Working for you?” Keith asks.
“That’s the idea, yes. But,” Shiro warns him, “before making a final decision, she wants proof that you can really be useful for us.”
“She want the Flying Dutch.”
“Yes, and soon. She gave us two weeks.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, I can do it.”
Shiro lets a relieved smile. “I’ll tell her to prepare the documents for you then.”
Just when Shiro is with his hand on the handle of the door, Keith calls him. “Thank you for this, Shiro.”
“I really meant it when I said that I wouldn’t have given up on you.”
Keith lowers a little his head. “Then why you stop visiting?”
The grip on the handle tightens. How do explain it? How to explain how Shiro had problem – still has – to seeing himself in that new body, with the prosthetic and the scars? How to you explain the look of friends and colleagues, that tried to be sympathetic but, for Shiro, ended up to pitied him, to treated him like he was made of glass, not very different that when he was a child and people were scared because of his illness.
But Keith is still there, waiting, with a puppy expression on his face, and Shiro realizes that until now he hasn’t asked or commented or even looked at him like Shiro is different.
“Because I didn’t want you to look at him like this,” he answers honest.
“There’s nothing wrong in you, Shiro,” Keith answers immediately. “It’s good to have you back.”
The weight disappears from Shiro’s shoulder. “It’s good to be back.”
Part II
Their first con brought Hunk and Keith more money that they’d seen in all their life. Hunk was so moved he cries, and in the same moment he made plan how to use it. And how to open bank account in very far land where they could escape and live happy forever. Keith grabbed a good amount of it and did as every reasonable con artist would do: he bought a bike.
A red one, fast. He’d always wanted one.
He drives around and outside the city all day, all his worries about the future gone. In his way back, he returns to the same auction they sold the copy of the painting. A man in a suit was talking with the director. He smelled of cop from there.
It was impossible they’ve already found him. He stood there, like an idiot, too inexpert to move. He freezes when the agent moves towards him.
“Nice bike,” he said, with a sincere smile. And damn, the man is gorgeous. It was unfair, but at least it gave Keith the perfect excuse to be out of himself.
“Thanks…” he whispers. “Uhm, hey, I saw you talk about the audience… there was something wrong? A friend of mine bought something there yesterday.”
“Oh, no, just routine, to check that nothing suspicious happened at the auctions. Rookies like me are sending to the most boring mission.” He smiles again, and it’s an attack at Keith’s heart. “But, for everything, don’t hesitate to contact me.” And he offers Keith his card.
Takashi Shirogane.
A name Keith wouldn’t forgot.
“I still think it’s not a good idea,” Hunk whines. “Robbing from an Embassy is bad enough. And then we have to trust Acxa?”
“We talked about it. We need someone to get the statue inside the Embassy and she was the only one that could do it,” Pidge replies. “None of us could.”
“Yes, but… It’s Acxa. The same Acxa that has already left K. alone? And I’m just going to remember you that it was the same exact object we’re trying to steal now? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…”
“Your complaining has been noted,” she comments. “I’ll put them in a box named: it’s too late for it. Since, you know, K. is inside the Embassy right now.”
“It calms me down, okay?”
“But it unnerves me.”
“Guys,” Keith whispers in the coms. “I think I’m inside the office.”
He hears Pidge tipping of her computer. “Affirmative. Just wait two seconds… okay, all clear. You can go out.”
Keith takes the hammer and uses it to break the pottery statue he’s hiding inside, as a modern Troy horse offered to the Embassy so Keith can sneak inside unnoticed. Not the most smoothly of plans – hiding inside a not so big statue hasn’t done wonder for his muscles.
“The safe should be under Dalì’s painting,” Pidge informs him. Keith takes off the paiting from the wall with care and places it on the ground.
“Found it.”
“Are you sure there wasn’t any alarm on the painting?” Hunk asks.
“Yes. I checked.” Pidge’s tone is annoyed.
“But are you sure? I mean, hacking an Embassy can’t be so easy, not even for you…”
“I’M SURE.”
“Guys, quiet! I can’t open the safe with you screaming in my ears.”
They mutter a low excuse while Keith places his ear on the safe and turns around the handle to digitate the combination. It’s a new model, but he used to have a sixth sense for combination that the prison didn’t cancel. It takes two attempt, but he opens the safe.
“Is it inside?” Hunk says, excited.
Keith takes off the cloth that cover it and here it is: the Voltron Carillon. “Yes.”
“Go out of it,” Pidge says. “Acxa should be ready for her distraction in two minutes.”
“Gotcha.” Keith sneaks out of the office: giving the party in the main hall, no one is surveilling the private quartier. Smoothly he climbs down the stair and reaches one of the windows on the first floor. They’re automatic close for security reason.
He waits for Acxa’s diversion, and he has to wait ten minutes over the agreed time.
“Something’s wrong,” he mutters to his coms.
“She’s being discovered?” Pidge asks. “Let me check… I can’t see her anymore in the main hall.”
“I’m going checking on her,” Keith says. He places the carillon on the ground, in the corner behind one of the library. He brushes off his suit so he can pass for one of the guest and walks steadily towards the main hall. A guard is approaching him and Keith immediately tries to think of a credible excuse.
The guard doesn’t even reach for him, because the diversion takes place: the sound of something breaking and then white smoke filled the room, to fake a fire or, even better, an explosion.
Ready for it, Keith covers his mouth with his sleeve and takes three steps behind. People screams in the hall and the guard turns to the confusion. Keith runs back to the window, now automatic opened so the smoke can rush off.
“The carillon is gone!” he coughs
“Acxa,” Hunk murmurs. “I know it! He used you to steal it and now…”
“No time for this,” Pidge says. “Keith, you have to go out from here now!”
As planned, Keith jumps off the window. Most of the attention are on the main door, from where the guests are escaping. With fast steps, but not so fast to be suspicious, Keith takes a secondary street. Of course his bike, the one is supposed to use for escaping, is gone too.
“Damn,” he swears, while he takes of the coat of his suit and ruffles his shirt trying to get a casual look. “How many time I have until my ankle bracelet start working again?”
“Twelve minutes,” Pidge informs him. “Will you make it back in time?”
“I must.” He looks around and, since no one is paying attention, he gets out the street and takes the metro.
Shiro offers him a beer to celebrate the ending of their first case. They caught the Flying Dutch thanks of Keith’s leads and actions, which makes their agreement about Keith being a consultant definitive.
“So.” Shiro places the Black Lion figurine on the table. “You promised me to tell me everything. Start from this.”
“It’s a piece of a carillon named Voltron. It was owned by Catherine the Great.”
“You stole it?”
“The carillon, no. I tried, but failed. The figurine… Zarkon owned it.” Keith doesn’t miss the way Shiro stiffs a little. “It was common knowledge in the Galra gang that Zarkon owns the key to find an enormous treasure, and that hid this secret inside the carillon, but you can access to it only if you put back the figurine where it belongs.”
“And how this figurine ended up in your last hideout? You were in prison when Zarkon died trying to kill me with that bomb.”
“Inside the Galra gang, there are two different movements. Not the Blades – they’re an independent group that left the Galra years ago. Those group were still under Zarkon’s control, but they disagreed on their objective. The first one is leading by Lotor, and they’re more in artistry cons and cyberattack. The second is called the Fire od Purification, they’re into robbing. And killing.”
“Who prevailed now that Zarkon’s dead?”
“No one, for now. But the only way for one faction to surpass the other is to find Zarkon’s treasure, so they’ll try to collect the carillon and the figurine. In the meantime, they’ll obstacles one another in order to prevail.”
“Why are you in all this? You aren’t a Galra anymore.”
“But I was a Blades. Even if they’re con themselves, they disagreed with the Galra methods. Their plan was to keep out of the Galra at least the figurine, so they wouldn’t able to find the treasure. And in the war for the supremacy, maybe the Galra will destroyed themselves.”
“A good plan. I still don’t understand why you have to escape.”
“I won’t tell you who the woman is,” Keith states. “But she realizes someone from the Galra found her… and I was the nearest person to entrust the figurine.”
She looks at Shiro, trying to understand if he’s lying. Shiro nods solemnly. “That’s all?”
“That’s all you need to know.”
“Well, I guess now the figurine is safe. The Galra won’t take it from the FBI storage.”
The ankle bracelet forces Keith to walk only in the restricted area around the FBI building. A big problem for someone like Keith that loves quiet place and not the big city. Yet, even inside the area there are small place Keith likes to walk alone and think. Especially when he needs to think.
Especially when he failed so incredible he probably condemned everyone.
With a sigh, Keith shakes his head and leaves the park behind him. Sulking won’t help. Finding Acxa, on the other side…
“Hello, Red. It’s nice to see you again.”
Keith stops and lifts his head. It isn’t Acxa, but close enough.
“Lotor,” he grits behind his teeth at the man on the other side of the street. “What are you doing here?”
“You know very well what.”
“Acxa.”
“You two are very good friend,” Lotor recognizes, with a smile. “But her loyalty will still be with me. We both believe in my possibility for a new course for the Galra gang. A course even the Blades can approve. A course even you can approve.”
“I have no intention to go back in the gang. Not even with the Blades.”
“This is your idea, or Detective Shirogane’s?”
With an eager of rage, Keith takes a step forwards, and his ankle bracelet starts ringing: Lotor chose to appear at the limit of his area.
“Look at it,” Lotor smirks. “They put a collar to you and use you like their personal guard dog. They don’t deserve you, and you’re better than that.”
“That’s not like it.” Keith thinks back at Shiro, and in his mind Allura and Lance appear too. The start wasn’t the best, but now he feels some affection towards them.
“I’m sorry for you, it’s clear you care,” Lotor says. “But they don’t.” His tone hardens. “Acxa doesn’t betray you because of me. She was forced to. By your Detective.”
“That’s not true.”
“She was arrested,” Lotor continues. “They trade her freedom in exchange of the carillon. Convenient, don’t you think? You would still loyal to them, and would hate us even more. Everybody lose but them.”
Since Keith is unable to answer, Lotor adds, “go check it. I’ll be waiting for you if you’d like to return.”
And he leaves, with Keith unable to follow him because of his ankle bracelet.
He returns home with a spun of thoughts in his mind. Believing Lotor is easy: he’s manipulative, but he said some truths. Shiro betrayed him once in the past, even if Keith expected it. He’s ready to almost everything to arrest bad people. And to be honest, Keith acted behind Shiro’s back too. It is just fair if Shiro moved on his own.
Before he has a chance to settle down his thoughts, or even finding out if Lotor is right about Acxa, Shiro is here in his apartment, sat down at his table.
“We need to talk.” He smiles, and Keith shivers. “But before, can you convince the people hidden in the secret hideout behind the library to get out? I’m not here to arrest anyone.”
There’s no point to hide anymore. “Guys,” he calls.
The library moves: Hunk and Pidge appears, both of them with their head low.
“Nice to meet you, I guess you’re Keith’s partner and… Pidge?” Shiro’s mouth opens. “You worked for the Insurance! You testified about Keith at the trial.”
“Yeah, well,” she murmurs, embarrassed. “Looks like fighting to destroy a secret criminal organization and look for a mysterious treasure is more interesting that dealing with clients. Besides, Keith promised me to reveal where he hid the Tiziano painting.”
“Oh?” Shiro raises an eyebrow.
“No comment,” Keith says. “This is…”
“No name!” Hunk squeals.
“Fine, no name,” Shiro chuckles. “We have a work to do.” He puts his hands in the bag at his feet and places the carillon on
“You have it?” Pidge and Hunk exclaims at the same time and they have no restraint anymore to reach for it and examines him without asking permission.
Shiro’s eyes are still on Keith. “I have to take it without permission to the proof storage.” In his hand, there is the Black Lion figurine. “I’m here to help you, Keith. I want you to trust me this time.”
With a long breath, Keith sits down in front of him and nods. Hunk gives him the carillon and Keith takes the figurine and puts it in place at the center of the lid. Then he opens the lid and, at the same time, a secret small drawer appears and the bottom of the carillon. Keith push in out and takes off the piece of paper inside it.
“What is it? What is it?”
There are strange formulas on the paper, and all four of them look at it with a frown on their face, until Pidge exclaims, “I know what is it! It’s a fractal.” And she blabbers an explanation about how the formula can allow her to build a specific geometric form that some time ago it’s used as a tracker for particular frequencies.
“Ah,” Keith realizes. “I know now what Zarkon’s secret treasure is.” Three pair of eyes are on him. “During the Second World War, the Germans stole as much arts as they could from the conquered land. Most of it was recovered at the end of the world, but there were still some pieces missed. Legends said they all were on a submarine that sunk in the ocean, and the soldiers on board were able to signaled their last position to a soldier that keep that position secret.”
“If that’s true…” Shiro exhales.
“We’ll be finding one of the richest art collection of all time,” Keith ends. He turns his gaze to Hunk. “Can you build-”
“Yes! I can!” Hunk doesn’t even wait for the end of the question and rushs to take back his instruments. In a second, he and Pidge are immersed in their calculation. Shiro shakes his head and smiles. He stands up and goes in the terrace. Keith joins him.
“Listen, I-”
Shiro lifts a hand to stop him. “I know in the past I made action that should make you distrust me,” he says, “but when I said I wouldn’t have given up on you, I meant it. Please trust me on this.”
“I do. I’ve always trust you.”
The feeling that something is wrong hit Keith when he opens the door of the house. It’s dark inside.
“Thace?” he calls. The answer is a low groan, enough to lure Keith’s attention to the figure laying in the ground behind the sofa. Keith reaches for him: Thace looks fine, but disoriented, with a bruise on the right side of his head.
“What happen?” he asks, fully realizing he won’t get an answer back. He grits his teeth and fear descends upon him: while Pidge should be at his house, Hunk basically lives in Keith’s attic, checking his fractal communicator to find the submarine’s frequencies.
He jumps towards the stair of the attic, but the phone rings. The suddenly sound startles Keith, and his senses are out of rage. With his breath hard, he answers it.
“Go outside,” a rude voice orders.
With steady steps, Keith returns to the door: there is a purple limousine outside, with dark windows that makes impossible to see inside. A guard opens the behind door and Keith sees Shiro inside, his arm behind his back.
“Please,” the guard says.
Shiro shakes barely his head, but Keith has no choice. He gets up on the limousine and sits down next to Shiro. In the seats before him there is another guard with a gun pointed at both of them. The other guard joins them, closes the door, ties up Keith’s arm with plastic strap and then sits down next to his colleagues, with his gun in his arm.
“Where are you taking us?” Shiro demands, but he gets no answers.
They travel in silence; the only comfort is Shiro’s leg that brushes his own. The dark windows make impossible to realize where they are, and counting the time isn’t helpful either to understand the direction. Keith suspects they’re out of the city when they limousine stop.
The guards drag outside the limousine and push them forwards a hallway until they reach a production hall. Keith’s heart misses a beat once he sees the hall is occupied entirely by an old submarine with the symbols of the Third Reich. The scales that cover the metal are a sign of the long time it passed in the water.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” A voice attracts their attention. “Recovering it hasn’t been easy, but luckily our affairs are going great recently, since the Blade stopped being a pain in an ass.”
“Sendak,” Keith growls.
“The head of the Fire of Purification?” Shiro asks.
Sendak smirks in his direction. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Champion. I hoped to face you in a more neutral field, but well, you played dirt first allied himself with this traitor.”
Shiro frowns. “How do you call me?”
“How do you find the submarine so fast?” Keith moves in front to Shiro. “And what did you do to Hunk?”
“Oh, your little partner. It’s not worth enough of my attention, I just wanted his fractal.” With a smirk, he places his hand on the submarine. “About this… Don’t you realize? You played right in my hands. I’m the one that revealed Acxa where to find the carillon, so you can steal it for me. I intercepted the signal of your fractal so I can find the submarine. I had you do all the works for me and you didn’t even notice.”
“And you brought us here just for gloating?” Keith growls.
“That would be fun, but not.” He nods at one of his man, who cuts Shiro’s and Keith’s restraint. “Unfortunately, I can’t access at the submarine. Zarkons found him back then, you know, so before sinking him again, he put a defense mechanism on it.” Sendak places in front of them a box. “Either you know the secret code, or you disable the dynamite. Otherwise, the entire submarine will explode.”
“Do you want us to find a way to disable it?” Shiro asks, a frown still in his face.
“I just want you to end your work. Good luck!” Sendak and his men leave the hall, closing Shiro and Keith inside it. They reappear on a window at the same height of the upper part of the submarine – Keith suspect the window is strong enough to resist at any explosion – and give orders from them. “There is a trap door just next the submarine entrance. Go there.”
“Well, better getting start.” Shiro takes the box
Keith shots him a look, worried. There is no way Shiro doesn’t understand Sendak will probably kill them once they give him what he wants. Still, it’s not like they have other choices. He follows Shiro climbing the ladder and they sit down on the metal.
While Keith opens the trap door, Shiro looks at him with a little smirk. “What?”
“Well, beside the fact we’re prisoner of an evil mastermind that plans to kill us and we’re at risk of blowing up in an explosion, this is pretty exciting, isn’t it? We’re about to discover a lost treasure.”
Keith isn’t so eager to indulge in Shiro’s black humor. Still he says, “I’ve always thought you would have been a great partner in crime. There is some anarchism in you.”
“Guess that’s true,” Shiro chuckles. “But me too… I thought more about you being my partner. And now you are. We’ve been a pretty good team, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Keith admits. “I don’t want this to be over.” He opens the trap door and takes off an old typewriter connected with caves at the dynamite. There is a mechanism that can be stop with a four-letters sequence, but there aren’t any clues how to find out the code.
“Then cut off the caves!” Sendak isn’t a patient man.
“I’m not a bomb-disposal expert, but I’ve followed some courses about it,” Shiro says, grabbing a scissors from the box. “I can recognize which caves can be cut without risking the dynamite to explode.” Still, Keith holds his breath as Shiro operates.
For a second, it seems fine. Then, the mechanism activates and a countdown of five minutes appears on the screen. Keith swears. They’re gonna dies and there’s nothing-
“Keith.” Shiro places a hand on his shoulder. “You’re the greatest art history expert I know. And you’re incredibly smart too. If someone can understand Zarkon’s code, it’s you. I trust you.”
His eyes stings by the sweetness of Shiro’s belief in him. He bits his lips and focuses on the typewriter, while his mind wanders back at his time with the Galra gang and then with the Blades, and how the spoke about Zarkon’s secret. If there is someone that knew that secret, it was Zarkon’s wife, who he loved dearly. But she died, and her name was longer than four letter… but she would love to have her son Lotor to inherit Zarkon’s empire, and the only thing she left Lotor was…
“I know it!”
K-O-V-A
The countdown stops. Shiro’s grip, still on his shoulder, tightens. “You did it.” Keith relaxes and feels suddenly tired.
They don’t have time to rest. Without speaking, they turn to look at the hatch. They open it and slide inside. It’s pitchy dark, but Shiro’s torch is enough to show all the painting, the jewels, the statues they’re preserved inside. Keith’s mind is in a blank state in front of all the artistry he can see.
“This is fun,” Shiro murmurs, with a childish joy.
“Good job,” Sendak’s voice arrive behind them. “I’ll take it from now.”
Keith returns in front of Shiro. They can’t fight in that tight place, and with two gun pointed at them. “There’s no reason to kill him,” he says. “You won. Every Galra will accept your leadership since you had Zarkon’s trasure. You don’t have to prove anything.”
“Nice try, but you know it’s not how it works,” Sendak says. “Lotor and his little group won’t surrender so easily, and I’ll have my hands full of dealing with him. I can’t have the Champion on my tail too.”
“I don’t like this nickname,” Shiro informs him.
“You gained it when you defeat Zarkon,” Sendak explains, with a smirk. “Since that you’ve become a prize for us Galra. And I want that prize.”
There is no need to contact Hunk. He knew about Keith’s failed escaping and his consequence agreement with the FBI by himself, and he presents himself at Thace’s house, in which attic Keith lives without being invites, with homemade biscuits with him.
Keith hasn’t betrayed him at the process and never lets Hunk coming to visit him. He protects him because hes what Hunk deserves to have being his friend for so long.
Still, Keith misses him, and he lets Hunk hugging him for long.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Hunk says, at the end.
“I know. Thank you for sticking with me.”
Hunk smiles. “Let me see that thing.” He examines the ankle bracelet and sentences, “high technology, I can’t disarm it for more than twenty minutes. Maybe they can be enough if we plan the escape carefully…”
“No,” Keith states. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“What, why?”
“You know why,” Keith grits his teeth. “The Galra are at war.”
“It’s not your business anymore. Even if the Blades…”
“This is not about the Blade, this is about Shiro,” Keith snaps. “He went that far to almost arrest Zarkon, and Zarkon killed himself trying to kill him, while Shiro survives. He’s a target for the Galra. Do you know how they called him?”
“The Champion,” Hunk murmurs. “But… The Galra are at war. They’ll be focused more on the carillon than on Shiro.”
“But that’s the problem. If one of the factions get their hand on Zarkon’s treasure, the other will need something big in order to survive. Killing Shiro may be that something big.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I’ll take Zarkon’s treasure and let the Galra destroy himself and protecting Shiro in the meantime.”
Hunk looks sad. “You’re not superman. And to be honest, you don’t owe Mister Detective anything. He may have been nice with you, but he’s the one that arrested you. He tricked you. Just warned him about the danger and-”
“I’m doing this with or without you, Hunk.”
“You’re so stubborn,” Hunk complains. Then, his expression softness. “You love him.”
Keith lowers his gaze. “It’s stupid, I know.”
“It’s not. Mister Detective is handsome, and gentle, and witty, and funny. For an FBI, is cool. And to be honest, we owe him at least the fact that he agreed to not looking for me after your arrest.”
“So you’re in?”
“Of course I am, you big idiot.”
Keith hates being drugged.
It leaves his mind groggy, and making his brain working slowly. He ears someone calling him and he blinks trying to regain his consciousness.
“Sorry to wake you up, but I can use a hand here.” Shiro nods at their situation.
They’re laying down at the bottom of an empty floodgate. They’re tied up ankles and wrist with plastic strap; the ones at the ankles connect a chain to a block of cement, so they can’t escape not even by jumping around. And the water is now flowing from two opening in the floodgate, towards them.
Sendak is being extra.
“Any ideas?” Shiro asks.
“Well, I have a file,” Keith says. “We can use it to cut the restraint and escape.”
“Sendak’s men searched you.” Shiro frowns.
“It’s inside the stitching of my jeans, next the zip. An old trick,” Keith explains. “Usually I’ll try to take it myself, but maybe it’s easy if you do it?”
“Okay.” Shiro coughs, his cheeks pink. “Okay.”
He crawls towards Keith and pushes his head on his lap. His mouth is on the button of the jeans to open it when Keith realizes it was a bad idea. Shiro’s head in that position evocates imagines that aren’t adequate to their situation. He holds his breath until Shiro lifts his head, the file between his lips. He passed it to Keith’s hand and he swiftly frees himself and then Shiro, just like when the water is reaching them.
Sendak’s men notice their escape and they start to shooting them. From that distance, it’s easy for them to run and avoid it. They move forwards the stairs to climb up the floodgate when the shooting increases, but it isn’t any more aimed at them. Once they reach the top, they see the shooting between Sendak’s men and Shiro’s team: Lance and Allura are there, covered behind one of their cars.
“They find us,” Shiro murmurs with a relieved smile. Lance lets Allura covering him as he jumps forwards and shot perfectly two men, disabling them. He tries to shot the other cars’ wheels, but Sendak manages to get inside and run.
“He’s escaping.” Shiro re-enters in his cop mode immediately.
“Shiro!” Lance exclaims, moved. “And Keith… why are your pants opened?!”
But Shiro doesn’t let the moment stopping him, even if his ears are red. “No time! Sendak’s escaping. Allura, Lance, in the car with me. James, Nadia, follow us with the other car. Ryan, Ina, arrest those people and then bring the other safe back.” Then he jumps on the first car near to him and barely waits for the others before driving on Sendak’s trace.
In that moment, Keith’s attention is focused on Hunk, that gets off one of the car, his fractal communicator in his hand. Relief descends upon him knowing that Sendak didn’t harm him. Hunk let the communicator fells and grips Keith in a hug.
“I was so worried!” Hunk cries. “I went out just for five minutes and when I returned Thace has been attacked, everything in your attic was destroyed and you didn’t answer the phone… Pidge remembered the fractal so we built it back and we followed the signal to the submarine but you weren’t there and I felt it was too late…”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Keith murmurs, patting his back. “But we have to go now. I need to help Shiro-”
“Nope, guys,” Ryan says. “Shiro will kill me if I don’t bring you back. Come on.”
He pushes both of them in the car to drive them back at the office. Keith doesn’t fight back, but his hands grip his legs and he grits his teeth. He doesn’t want Shiro to fight alone.
“Keith,” Hunk whispers. “Look.”
A red biker – Keith’s biker – approaches the car at the traffic light. Keith understands: he lets the car starts, then he opens the door and throws himself out of it, rolling on the pedestrian. The bike stops in front of him and Acxa gets off.
“This is my apology,” she says, handling him the helmet.
“I know you’re doing this for Lotor too, but thank you.”
He takes the bike: it still has his modified radio where he can hear the police’s communication, so he knows where to drive: the port. He parks the bike next to Lance’s car, which had blocked Sendak’s limousine. Nobody is around. Carefully, Keith enters in the container’s maze.
He hears shooting and runs in that direction. His feet stumble on a gun. At a couple of meters from him, Shiro and Sendak are fighting in the ground: Sendak has a knife in his hand and he0s trying to stab Shiro, who kept the other’s wrist to disarm him.
Keith has never shot anyone: as con artist, the Blades of Marmora are subtler. Yet, he takes the gun and shots at Sendak’s back without a second though. The shoot rings in his ears. Sendak startles, blood spreading on his shirt. The knife slips from his hand and he fells forwards. Shiro moves him from himself and then lifts his gaze, seeing Keith with the gun in his hand.
“Keith… you save me. Again.”
“We save each other.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“You think all my ideas are bad, Hunk,” Keith pointed out.
“Well, it’s not my fault if you’re eager to get killed. Or arrested, in this case. You’re going to save the man who’s trying to catch you!”
“I know, but I can’t let him. He’s my fault he got caught by those criminals.”
“He followed you in there, I’d say at least fifty percent of the fault is his!”
“Hunk, shut up. I’m entering.”
The abandoned warehouse was silent and dark. Keith didn’t have a gun with him, but he kept his hand on his knife hung at his belt as he walked inside. His eyes adapted at the low light. With his back at the walk, he moves fast but with attention.
He startles when he hears a muffled sound. It came from a room at the end of the hallway. The door was half open, so Keith peeks inside: the room looked empty except for a man sitting down on a chair: Shiro. His arms were behind his back and a cloth was in his mouth.
He pushed the door a little. Shiro lifted his head and widens his eyes, but he didn’t gesture at him to escape, so Keith guessed the room is safe. He opened the door entirely.
“Don’t worry, I’m here,” he said as he rushed towards him.
But Shiro’s arms were free, and Keith found himself face on the ground with a swift movement, handcuff closed on his wrist.
“Keith Kogane, you’re under arrest for forgery and conning. Everything you say…”
He stopped listening, his breath accelerating and the heart that beat strong in his ears. It was a trap. Shiro used himself as bait to lure him out. Keith should be angry, should protest, should yell and complain and fight back, just like Hunk was screaming in his ears in that moment.
Instead, there was relief upon him. Shiro was safe.
“I got him, you can come,” Shiro said to the coms, and Keith crawled a little away from him taking change of his distraction. But there was no point into trying to escape: Keith could be impulsive sometime, but he could accept defeat. He turned to look at Shiro.
“Keith… you…” Shiro murmured. “Why did you come back?”
“You were in danger… I thought so, at least.”
“I…” Hunk’s yells were so strong that Shiro noticed the earphone at his right ear.
“Please let him stay,” Keith plead. “It’s all my fault.”
Gentle, Shiro took off the earphone and stomped on it to destroy. “I won’t,” he assured Keith. “I…” he tried again to speak, but his colleagues arrived in that moment and Keith got dragged away from him.
The opening day for Keith’s first exhibition as an artist, Shiro reaches him before the opening, while Keith is finishing to settle all the paintings.
“Are you here to arrest me, Detective?” Keith jokes. “Those are all mine.”
“I know. I’m so proud of you.” His smile is soft. “You deserve this.”
“It’s all you,” Keith answers. “For pleading the judge to reduce my sentence… and to believe in me.”
Shiro shakes his head a little and pretends to look at one of the paitings. “I’miss you as my partner in crime.”
“I’ve never said I’ll stop working with the FBI,” Keith points out. “But you were never my partner in crime. I wished it, you know. Our little challenge when you’re trying to arrest me was fine but… I wished you on my side.”
The hand of Shiro are on his coat and he stiffs. “That would be nice. But…”
“I know, I know. You’re Detective Shirogane. Even with the Blade… not matter our morality, yours will be always different from us. That’s fine. And no,” he hurries to add when Shiro looks intensely at him. “I’m not turning back to that life. I’m glad of what I have now.”
“Keith,” Shiro says. “I’ve never told you… about the day I arrested you-”
“I’m not angry at you.”
“I know, it’s just…” Shiro sighs. “I loved you. I still love you.”
Keith is dead, he’s sure. Because his heart just stops beating.
“When Allura proposed the plan of faking my capture, I thought it was stupid. As much as we could call ourself a sort of strange friends, you would never have risked yourself for me. And that was the reason I accepted. I wanted the proof I was wrong about the tension I felt between us. Instead, you came.”
“What you were going to tell me there…” Keith understood. “But you were married!”
“My marriage with Adam ended up long ago. We’re still together for sense of habit, I guess? I wonder if Adam had realized it before me… My accident gave us the ideal excuse to take a decision we should have made years ago,” Shiro murmurs, and he was sad. “I loved him, but with you… it was different. And then I had to arrest you and I was so sure I lost you… I was so happy when you wrote me that Christmas card… and after the accident…”
His blabbering was interrupted by Keith’s lips on his one, Keith who grabs him by his tie and keeps him near, his hand that paws Shiro’s shoulder. Keith feels he starts breathing again after a long time.
“You have a very bad timing,” Keith chokes on himself by crying and laughing at the same time.
“I know, sorry, I’m very bad at this.” Shiro reserves him an apologetic smile. “Maybe I should leave, the opening time is near and-”
“Don’t you try,” Keith warns him, his hand still on the tie. “You’re going to be my performative art.”
Shiro laughs. “Well, you’re the artist.”
“Con artist.”
But there isn’t any falsity in the way they kiss again. -
.
Officer Takashi Shirogane was a legend at Garrison.
The youngest pilot to circumnavigate Earth, the first man on Europa, the record breaker with all kind of flight simulators.
For such a legend, wasn’t strange that rumors spread around, both good and bad. And, of course, the main one was about Shiro’s daemon.
Name’s Atlas, but nobody has ever seen him, cadets and officers alike. The commanders could be aware of him, but they didn’t spill the secret around.
Someone said Atlas was actually very small, ridiculously so, like a cricket, and Shiro kept him in his pocket, because daemons couldn’t stay away from their humans. But most people considered Shiro such an unreal person that he could be able to keep his daemon very far from him. Atlas had to be big, said someone, like an elephant, that’s why Shiro keeps him away. This isn’t worthy of Shiro, someone else said, a great pilot like him had definitely a bird. An eagle, majestic. What about a lion? Someone else guessed.
Lance – who proud himself of being Shiro’s bigger and best fan – knew better.
His stalker’s tendency, about Hunk complained a lot, turned useful for once, because Lance actually saw Shiro’s daemon.
To be fair, he hadn’t mean to. He’d been late for his lesson, so he’d took the faster route, crossing the hallway where the offices were. Shiro’s laugh’d lured Lance away from his destination, and he couldn’t have helped but stop and turned to the room where it’d come from.
The door was half-closed and Lance peeped inside, Jigen at his side with the form of a ferret.
Immediately, annoyance’d felt upon him. Keith Kogane was there too, sitting down in front of Shiro’s desk, talking confidently to him.
Rumors said Shiro’d been the one to recruit him, and there was no doubt Shiro regarded Keith on some extend. Lance wasn’t sure of the reason: sure, Keith wasn’t so bad as a pilot – not good as Lance, though – but that alone wasn’t enough reason for Shiro to lose his time with him.
And by the way, Keith wasn’t so good if he needed private tutoring, was he? At least that was Lance’s guess, since there were open books on Shiro’s desk. They’ve lowered their voices, but Lance felt they’re talking about flying and space ships.
Keith moved a book and his daemon jumped down the desk. Usually Keith’s daemon assumed the form of a red cat or, more often, of a small robin that he kept on his shoulder. But when he was in Shiro’s company – something that unfortunately happened a lot – he’s always a bizarre fluffy, fat rat. Cute in some way, with big dark eyes, but still a rat.
Lance didn’t understand why Keith’s daemon chose that unimpressive form – Jigen turned into a big, loyal dog every time Shiro was around, to show friendship and strength.
Yet, he ended up following the daemon as he jumped on the floor, and in that moment… he saw him.
A big wolf with dark, long fur with some blue streaks laid on the floor next to the desk, eyes closed, at ease, his head placed on his own paws and his belly exposed.
Atlas. It had to be Atlas!
Lance left with a big smile on his face, almost forgiving the fact that mullet-boy was there with Shiro. He now saw Shiro’s daemon’s form, and that’s huge.
He didn’t know still how to do with that information, but first he was happy to know something about Shiro most people didn’t, and second, it would be useful. Probably. Sometime.
Like when he and Hunk follow Pidge in his research at night despite the Garrison’s prohibition, when they find out that a space ship fell from the sky. And Lance can recognize Atlas as he tried to go nearer the Garrison’s structure where they held Shiro’s prisoner.
Just before the bombs explode.
“I don’t understand why mullet can stay with Shiro and we can’t.” Lance taps nervously the fingers on the table.
“Maybe because this is his house and we’re guest,” Pidge comments with too much reasoning than Lance may like.
“And he’s the one that actually saved Shiro,” Hunk adds.
Lance snorts. They speak like that because they’re not boring: since they arrival in Keith’s shackles, they focused their attention on Keith’s equipment, and how it gives similar result of Pidge’s own researches. But Lance isn’t smart as them, so he doesn’t find it very interesting. He would be more interesting on talking with Shiro, but Keith brought him in the bedroom and closed the door, and he hasn’t returned yet.
He takes a last look at Pidge and Hunk, too much focused on the papers spread in front of them, both of their daemons in the form of small mice so they can run around the papers. Then he stands up, Jigen as a lion next to him, and slips next the door.
He opens it barely and peeps inside. There are soft voices around, and Lance realizes Shiro is awake. He’s still in bed, a glass of water in his hand. Keith is somewhere in the room, where Lance can’t see him, but his daemon is flying around in the usual rat form. Atlas has his muzzle placed on the bed, checking on Shiro.
Then Keith gets near the bed, clothes in his arms. After giving them to Shiro, he moves towards the door. Lance returns to the table and Jigen turns into a dog and jumps on his lap. They both pretends to not have moved from there.
“How’s Shiro?” Pidge asks. Both he and Hunk lift their head when Keith appears in the room. He shrugs in a very tired way and he sits down in a chair next to them.
“I don’t know,” he says at last.
As proof of his words, Shiro emerges from the bedroom, he doesn’t even look at them and leaves the house in a hurry. Both Shiro’s and Keith’s daemon are on the bedroom’s door, with a sorrowed expression They all look at the door Shiro left open behind him, before Keith nods a little. Atlas moves to follow Shiro outside, while the fat rat flying and places himself on the table next to Keith.
“Let’s give him some minutes,” Keith says, and Lance isn’t sure he’s talking to his daemon or to each other of them.
“This is your daemon?” Pidge asks, while her own takes the same appearance. “He’s cute.”
“Yeah, Keith, he is soooo cute.” It’s childish from Lance’s part, he knows it, but he isn’t so able to control his envy at the thought how close Keith is to Shiro.
Keith blinks at him, understanding his sarcasm. And then, he tries to hide a smile. “He’s not mine. He’s Shiro’s.”
“WHAAT?” Lance doesn’t restrain his surprise, and Pidge claps his head. Keith frowns a little. “Then what about that beautiful wolf who’s with Shiro?”
“Kosmo,” Keith says, as a matter of fact. “My daemon.”
“Oh. Well, this doesn’t make…”
No, it actually makes sense.
Of course Keith wouldn’t have let Shiro outside and alone, and let his daemon stay with him, in a way Shiro can have his space but at the same time feeling that someone is there for him. And at the same time, Shiro lets his own daemon with Keith, to reassure him he isn’t going anywhere.
Keith stands up to reach for Shiro outside, and Atlas – the real one, the fat rat that it isn’t actually so bad now – follows him. -
.
Keith appeared at night, into the relic of a destroyed space ship. He was five, and he didn’t remember much of his life. He didn’t have anything with him except for his own clothes and a dark blue knife.
At that time, Shiro was ten and it was an accident he was on the rescue ship – he was there as the son of the Earth ambassador, traveling towards the colony. Curious as he was, he ignored the crew’s orders and sneaked out to see what they’ve found.
He was surprised to see Keith, with his dark mess hair and his pale skin, but the thing he noticed most was the knife. There was a symbol on the knife – a pirate symbol. The crew members haven’t noticed it yet, too worried into transfer the possibly wound boy into the infirmary, so Shiro sprung in action. He slipped the knife under his jacket before his father called him back in his quarter.
There was no reason for Shiro to do so, except for his not so secret crush for pirates. As much as he knows most of them were criminals and assassins, there still was some romanticism in the life they faced, being free to fly towards the space as they wanted. And the idea Keith could have one pushed Shiro to protect him, for now, until Shiro decided if Keith could be trusted.
During the years, Keith showed some rebellious tendencies, but mostly he was a nice, sweet boy that Shiro is proud to consider one of his closes friend.
If Keith do remember the knife, he never mentions it. Shiro keeps it as a personal secret, and it’s still in the bottom of his drawer. Shiro looks at it sometimes, to remember the time he did a crime, he stole something to protect someone and didn’t respect the rules.
“Shiro, are you ready?” Commander Iverson calls from outside the bedroom.
“Yes, coming!”
In a swift decision, Shiro puts the knife in his pocket and closes the drawer. In the day of him becoming a Captain, it feels right to remember what he did in the past. He breathes hard in the white, ceremonial uniform and reaches Iverson outside.
“Nervous?”
“Should I be?” Shiro smirks.
He’s happy. He works hard to reach his position, and because of his illness first and his disability later, harder than everyone. He feels he deserves it.
“We should hurry,” Iverson informs him. “We need to stop by to Sal’s before the ceremony.”
Shiro smiles: even if he knows it’s for collecting the special sword for the ceremony, it’ll be nice seeing Keith before it. And he isn’t disappointed: Keith is there, knelled in front of an engine, his usual red jacked abandoned on a chair next to him.
While Iverson speaks with Sal about the sword, Shiro gets near. Keith notices him and stands up, his mouth opened a little.
“You look good,” he says, at last.
“Thanks. I really feel like a sausage because this thing is thigh.”
Keith coughs a little. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Then he smiles. “I’m so happy for you, Shiro. You deserve it.”
It’s good to have someone like Keith on his side. “Will you be at the ceremony?”
“No.” Keith rolls his eyes, annoyed. “Sal wants someone to keep the shop open. I tried to tell one that everyone will be at the ceremony, but he’s stubborn. He insisted that because every other shop is closed, we can lure more clients.”
“This is so illogical it makes some sense,” Shiro laughs, and even Keith can’t hold back a smile.
“You’ll be great,” he says. Iverson compares behind Shiro and Keith hurries to add, “Sir.”
Shiro doesn’t really mind, they’re friend, but Iverson really care about formality, especially when Shiro is on duty and especially when he’s about to be nominated Captain. So he reserves an apologetic smile to Keith and a small wave, because turning to Iverson. He accepts the sword, thanking Sal for it, and hung it at his belt before leaving the shop.
The ceremony passes in a blur. The discourses of the higher-ups are boring, and Shiro loses count of how many people he shakes his hands with, and thanks for their presence. He’s pretty sure he’s going to forget all their names within the evening.
He’s glad when Adam manages to snatch it out: with two glasses of wine, they find themselves in the terrace outside the headquarter palace. With a sigh, Shiro leans on the parapet, and admires the light blue sky that reflects itself on the small artificial lake below them, where mostly of the Garrison spaceship are parked.
“I was thinking,” Adam begins, as he sits down next to him. “Now that you’re a Captain, maybe we can think about settling down for once.”
Shiro blinks and turns his head at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, your new position comes with more responsibility, and probably you may ask for more time here at the base instead of going around like when you were just a lieutenant.”
“That’s not why I wanted to be a Captain,” Shiro points out, with a frown. For him, being a Captain means having more freedom to fly around the space, definitely not being stuck at the base.
“You deserve some rest, and you don’t have to prove anything more to anyone,” Adam continues. “Your health may be good now, but you still…”
With a sigh, Shiro turns back looking at the sky. He should have known that Adam wouldn’t have understand. They may be friend, there may be some affection between them even, but they search something different in life, and Shiro doesn’t know how to reject him gently.
“You know I like you a lot, Takashi,” Adam continues, but Shiro’s attention is now on someone else.
There is a small blink on the sky, a small flash, and then a white pod falls with a cough into the lake. Whoever the pilot is, he’s not half bad, because not only manages to not crash the pod despite the evident problem with the motor, but he also directions the pod in one of the free space of the port. The pod half sinks in the water, but it’s in the right spot.
And that’s when Shiro notices the symbol of pirates on the right side of the pod.
“It’ll be the right time for a marriage, so we won’t have to be separate for so long because of our mission…” Adam is still talking.
“Sorry, I have to go,” Shiro interrupts him in a very harsh way, as he basically throws himself over the parapet and jumps in the water below them. He emerges back on the river in time to see the pilot as he’s talking with the guards of the port. At a first glance, he doesn’t look armed, but Shiro has been in battle long enough to recognize people that hides guns and swords behind their clothes.
He reaches the groups, in time to hear the pilot says, “what about I pay twice for the parking spot, and you don’t make any other question?”
“Sorry, sir, but that’s no possible,” Shiro says. “Please, introduce yourself.”
The pilot scrutinizes him. “And you are…?”
“Captain Shirogane, a pleasure, mister pirate.”
“Ah.” The guards step behind, leaving only Shiro and the pilot on the jetty. “I’m Captain Lotor Sincline, my pleasure.”
Shiro’s hand is already on the hilt of his ceremonial sword, so he’s ready to draw it and shield himself from Lotor’s slash. Lotor is almost taller as Shiro, but less broad, which doesn’t make him less strong, the same way Shiro’s body doesn’t make him slow.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” Lotor says. “It’s beneficial for most of us if you let me go.”
“I can’t do that,” Shiro replies as he pushes Lotor behind, not enough to have him falling in the lake.
The sword clashes again, and Shiro hears a small cracking sound. He realizes the ceremonial sword wasn’t made for a fight, and it won’t resist for long. So he let the left hand slide on the pocket, and presses more to force the sword to break. The blade snaps, Lotor avoids to stumble and turns his sword around but Shiro is fast to clash it with Keith’s knife.
A shiver passes through Shiro’s body, and Lotor’s eyes focuses on the symbol on the knife. “Where do you find it?” he demands, with cold voice.
“Stop immediately, pirate!”
Adam has reached the jetty with a group of soldiers, all of them with their guns already on their hands.
“I couldn’t have handled it,” Shiro mutters behind his breath.
Lotor passes his gaze behind Shiro and the group. With a slowly movement, he lets his sword falling on the ground, then jump behind Shiro. “Will you risk to shoot and hit him too?”
“Takashi, move aside,” Adam advice, but Shiro snorts.
It’s too late: Lotor’s sword is on Shiro’s back, pressed through the thigh uniform. He still doesn’t let the knife go.
“Drop your weapons,” Lotor orders.
Adam grits his teeth, but then looks at Shiro and nods at the soldiers. They don’t look happy, but they place the guns on the ground.
“It’s been a pleasure, Captain Shirogane,” Lotor whispers in his ears. “Until next time.”
Shiro understands what’s going to happen, but from that position he isn’t able to resist to stumble forwards when Lotor pushed his back with both hands. The movement is enough to distract Adam, and Lotor jumps on a ship parked in the near and then on the river, surpassing the soldiers.
“Are you okay?” Adam asks, but Shiro refuses his hand.
“Fine. We need to follow him.”
Lotor is annoyed. He realizes that coming in a port that hold a Garrison division may come with some inconvenient, but there isn’t another place near enough to steal a ship – a decent one, not like the last pod that abandons him in a matter of days.
Still, he hopes to have a little bit of time more, at least the time to hide himself in the small street of the town, and to be worried only about escaping with the ship. Instead is on the run the very second he stepped on Garrison, and with the knowledge that he couldn’t leave very soon, at least not before finding out more about the knife.
Garrison is a disappointed city. Most of the street are deserted, a positive thing for someone who’s running, but civilians are usually a good distraction for the soldiers, and make them more prudent before shooting at Lotor. And the shops are mostly closed, so no place to hide inside before the soldiers reach him.
But luck is still on his side, because finally there is an open door, and of a blacksmith/mechanic of all things. There, he can find back a sword, having been forced to abandoned the previous one, and maybe a lead for a good ship. He enters and closes the door behind him.
The place looks empty. With prudence, Lotor puts his gun away with the idea of passing as a normal client, and reach for a barrel full of sword. He weights some of them, unsure of what is the best one, when he hears a small creak behind him.
He turns in time to have the tip of a blade at his neck, hold up by a boy with raven hair and intense blue eyes, cheeks spattered with dark dust and oil.
“Are you the pirate that fought against Shiro?” the boy demanded.
“It’s better if I say he was the one to start it?”
The grip on the sword tightened. “You threatened him.”
Lotor sees the weakness and hit. “A little,” says, with a smirk.
The boy breathes hard and grits his teeth. The anger obfuscates his sense enough for Lotor to grab a sword and tries to disarm him. To his surprise, the boy has good reflex, and he’s stronger than he seems since he small and slender body. Lotor can’t believe to have meeting two incredible skilled swordsmen in the span of few minutes.
As much as he enjoys the fight, he has other plans for the day. The boy is strong, but he lacks delicacy. Lotor drags voluntary him back, faking a weakness under his string lash, then he turns around so he is again in the direction of the door. He takes a jump forwards and then kicks a pile of boxes, that fell on the ground and free all the metal objects they contained.
The boy steps behind to avoid being it, and Lotor rushes towards the door.
“Don’t worry, I haven’t hurt your Shiro too much,” he yells, and he doesn’t see that the door is opening, and it hit him right in the face.
Shiro is disappointed. He’s first day as a Captain hasn’t being great. A petty part of him consider that he could have beat Lotor if Adam wouldn’t have interfered, still. The fact that in the end it was Sal, even if by mistake, to catch Lotor was a pretty wound on Shiro’s pride.
The positive thing, Shiro thinks while looking at the knife, was that Adam didn’t notice it, neither did the other soldiers. Adam especially were too focused on Shiro’s well-being, allowing Shiro to hide back the knife in the pocket.
Well, what’s done is done, Shiro shrugs. He’s about to put back the knife in his drawer, when the symbol on the hilt glows. White light erupts from it: it lasts just five second before disappearing again, but Shiro isn’t mistaking his sight. It never happens before, and he puts Shiro on an edge.
That day was also the first time Shiro ever used it in battle. Usually, he doesn’t even bring it around. Shiro remembers clearly the shiver he felt when the knife’s blade stopped the slash of Lotor’s sword. Now he’s chilling, but a different kind of chilling, like the feeling that something bad is about to happening. Like the knife is trying to warn him.
Iverson is in his own room, and Shiro feels it’s not use to disturb him over a feeling. He takes his coat and leaves the mansion, the knife safe in his pocket. His intention is to reach for the guard tower next to the port and checks the defense system. Garrison Town has one of the best of the universe, so probably even if they’re under attack they will be able to repel it.
He doesn’t manage to arrive at the tower. He hears a whistle sound, then the entire town is hit by a shock wave that caused a blackout. Shiro observes with wide eyes as the light in the house around turns off one after another. The stars above him become brighter and, even in the dark, it’s impossible to miss the light of the giant ship that is slowly descending on the port.
Hoverbikes flying out from the ship, and screams and yells and gunshots can be heard around. Fires starts sprouting around.
“Pirates!”
Shiro changes his course, running towards the headquarter with the idea of helping with the defenses. He isn’t armed, so there’s few he can do against the pirates alone. Yet, he stops when he sees a pirate jumping off his hoverbike and trying to attack an old man that slowly is trying to reach his house.
Using the dark and the pirate’s distraction at his advantages, Shiro strikes body slamming against the pirate. He lets the gun fell, so Shiro grabs it in a second and shot the man in the chest, the adrenaline pushing him into shooting ten times, with the body of the pirate that winces against the hits.
Silence fells in the street, and Shiro breathes hard to calm himself. Then his ears rings, and he can hear again the screams above and around him. He’s about to turn to ask at the old man if he’s okay, when the pirate stands up. His shirt is plasters with holes, but not blood in there.
He cracks his head and smirk at Shiro. The old man screams and Shiro shots again, this time in the head. The pirate stops, but doesn’t fell.
“The legends… they’re true…” the old man whispers.
“Impossible,” Shiro says, the gun still pointed to the pirate. “Pirates aren’t immortals.” Yet, the knife seemed to have some sort of power related to them… it couldn’t be a coincidence that the pirates arrived the day Shiro used it the first time.
“No… they’re true… I’ve seen the symbol on the ship… it’s the Black Lion…”
The Black Lion is a legend among sailors: a mysterious ship that navigate space for hundred years, with an immortal crew of pirates. Nobody has been able to testify it, because there haven’t been survivors in the towns the Back Lion attacked. Shiro knows of the legend, with the curiosity about space stories he has as a child, but he never believes them.
Not until his gun finishes the shot and the pirate is still alive, still upstanding in front of him. And with no regards, he leans his hand towards Shiro, towards his pocket…
“Parley,” Shiro says suddenly.
“Par…don?” the pirate startles.
“What, you don’t know the parley?” Shiro comments, while the old man behind him trembles. “The pirate cone. Sure someone that lives for so long knows about the right of a person to ask for a meeting with the Captain. You know, to negotiate a deal.”
The pirate frowns. “We don’t need to negotiate.”
“What’s your name?” Shiro asks, surprising the pirate.
“Haxus.”
“Well, Haxus, you can do what you want, but are you sure your captain won’t be disappoint of you disrupting the pirates’ code?”
“Fine,” Haxus says. “If you want so bad to speak with the captain, you will. Your loss.”
They reach the ship with the hoverbike, and Shiro can’t help but enjoy the fly, and also the chance to admire from above the Black Lion. It’s a gigantic ship, with three black sails and a silver lion head as a figurehead. The pirates are still around the city with their hoverbikes, but the attacks have stopped, and some of them are already on board, to check the situation.
Shiro remains next to the parapet, even if he knows he can’t jump from that height: the pirates have been smart enough to not land on the surface of the lake.
“So, who’s the man who asked for a parley?” a deep, loud voice says, sounding like a roar.
The Captain is an imposing man, taller than Shiro, with a big mouth and teeth that looks like fang. Just like Shiro, he has a prosthetic arm, but his own hasn’t the dimension of a normal arm, and instead of a hand it ends with a blade.
“I’m Captain Takashi Shirogane,” Shiro introduces himself with a step forward, to show confidence.
The Captain eyes brighten. “Oh, you’re famous around space. The Champion.”
Shiro doesn’t like that surname, and the way he gains it in war, so he doesn’t answer. “Who have I the pleasure to speak with.”
“I’m Sendak, the Captain of the Black Lion,” he answers with a grin. “You’re here for the parley, so… speak.”
“I want you and your crew to leave the town and not coming back.”
Around here, the pirates snicker, but Sendak looks at him with interest. “And why we should do that?”
Slowly, Shiro puts the hand on his pocket and he takes off the knife. It’s a lucky guess, but he smiles a little because he doesn’t miss the slight way Sendak’s eyes bulge. And the way the pirates stop laughing.
“In exchange, I’ll give you this knife.”
“Why should we turn down an entire city over a poorly knife?” Sendak tries to show indifference.
“Oh, well, if you don’t want it I can always…” He puts the arm over the parapet and opens his head.
“No!” Sendak yells.
With a swift movement of his prosthetic, Shiro grabs back the knife and smirk with satisfaction.
“Fine,” Sendak spats, realizing there have no way to negate his interest in the knife. “You have your deal.”
“How can I know you’ll respect your part?” Shiro asks.
“The pirates’ code is sacred for us. Otherwise, I wouldn’t ever have talked with you.”
That is true. In all the years Shiro navigate in space, the parley and the sanctity of it is something that everyone agrees with. So he puts back his arm and delivers the knife to Sendak.
He passes it at Haxus, before turning to his man. “We’re leaving! Ready to set sail!”
Shiro looks around, guessing how they will be returning him to the ground. But when the Black Lion starts lifting to the ground, he realizes they have no intention of letting him go.
“What about me?”
“Oh?” Sendak purrs. “You haven’t say anything about you in your parley.” And then, with a satisfied smirk, he adds, “you’re not as good as you think you are, Champion.”
A bucket of water wakes Keith up. He passes out the night before, fighting against the pirates, and he’s still on the ground, in the dirt, with his body that aches everywhere. He doesn’t know how he managed to survive. He doesn’t remember much of the night previous except from the fact those pirates look immortal like the legends his father told him as a child, before dying.
Stumbling and with a hand on the wall, Keith stands up and walks with the intention of returning to his small apartment and sleeping all day, ignoring the fact that he has to work at Sal’s. Damn, maybe Sal was killed by the pirates. He has to check he’s okay before resting.
He has to check Shiro is fine before taking care of himself.
The city isn’t destroyed as Keith feared. There are burned house around, but the fire has been stopped, and apparently most people are fine enough to take care of the reparations.
Keith grasps fragments of conversation as he walks towards the blacksmith. Most people discuss about the fact that the pirates left without destroying the city, or even attacking the best house, the mansions of the nobles. The soldiers admit they were losing, but the pirates run away by themselves.
And then, Keith hears something that freeze his blood in his veins: Shiro has disappeared. Nobody has seen Captain Shirogane around and, it seems, a person testified he left with one of the pirates.
Immediately, Keith’s pain disappeared, substitute by the worries for Shiro’s situation. He changes his course and runs towards the headquarters, a place he hasn’t visited anymore after he was expelled a couple of years before. He ignores the complain of the guards and jumps on the railway. The time he has spent there as a cadet there allows him to know the best route to reach for the higher-ups’ office: and they are all there, around their table, with their maps in front of them.
“Where’s Shiro?” he demands.
Iverson looks at him with annoyance, but before he gets the change to kick Keith out, Adam intervenes. He places his hand on Keith’s shoulder and, despite his protest, he pushes him outside the room and closes the door behind them.
Keith escapes his grip. “He was kidnapped by the pirates, wasn’t he?”
“Listen,” Adam says. “We’re on their tail. The entire army is ready to fight for them. They probably took him for a ransom, and we’re getting ready for that too. We’ll bring him back.”
“I know how it works. You’re there discussing by yourself while Shiro’s outside in the hands of the pirates!”
Now Adam is annoyed. “What Shiro always tell you? Patience yields focus. We have-”
“Don’t,” Keith snarls. “Don’t use this against me.”
He turns his back at Adam, who doesn’t follow back. While he walks, he takes a decision. It’s a stupid one, reckless, but it’s the best idea Keith has at the moment to reach Shiro.
So he moves towards the cell block.
Since most of the guards are in town to help with the damages, Keith sneaks in without being spotted. Lotor is the only prisoner in the cell block, and in the silence of the area it’s impossible he hasn’t heard Keith’s steps, still he doesn’t lift from the bed he lies on.
“Hey,” Keith calls. “What do you know about the Black Lion?”
“And why do you want to know something about the Black Lion?”
“They took Shiro.”
“Ah, Captain Shirogane. A pity but, well, what’s done it’s done,” Lotor replies, with a brief shrug. “If he isn’t dead already, he’ll wish to be soon.”
Keith’s fist clatters the cell bars. “I’m going to save him. I just need to know where the Black Lion is now.”
“You’ll die,” Lotor affirms, and this time he stands up. “Why does he matter so much to you?”
“Shiro is the only one who never give up on me, so I won’t give up on him.” He looks at Lotor, at his impassible face, and the snorts. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll do it alone.”
He’s about to leave when Lotor calls him back. “What’s your name?”
“Keith.”
“Keith and what?”
“Keith and nothing.”
“Well, Keith and nothing,” Lotor smirks, “what’s your plan? You’re going around looking for any trace of the Black Lion and then, just, fight everyone? An army of immortal pirates?”
“That’s the plan, yes,” Keith answers between his teeth. It’s not like he has any other ideas.
“Okay, my plan. I’ll give you not only a way to find the Black Lion, but also a hand to take your Shiro back without dying in the meantime. If you bring me out of here.”
Keith blinks and looks at the metal bars. “I can’t take you out.” Lotor’s eyes widen, and Keith adds, “the lock is a magnetic one, it can be open only with the fingerprints of the guards.”
“Then what, you really came here hoping me, a pirate, will give you information for free?”
“That was my plan, yes.”
“Unbelievable!” Lotor turns around and lies again on the small mattress.
Keith smirks. He takes off his screwdriver and opens the small box below the lock. He takes off the caves, cuts out of them. The lock frizzles a little and then the bars open. Lotor turns around surprise.
“But I have a back plan,” Keith says. “My boss helped to build this locks.”
There is a satisfied smile on Lotor’s face. “Glad to know you’re not as naïve as you look. We may be able to do it, after all. Now let’s go before someone catch us back. But, one last question: how good are you as a pilot?”
His time in the pirate ship was boring than Shiro expect: he basically spends all his time in the small cabin they reserved to him, and for a prisoner he feels he’s be treating good. But he’s bored nevertheless, so he accepts with enthusiasm Sendak’s invitation at dinner. A good chance to find more about the knife and why they wanted it so bad.
The dinner was served in Sendak’s private cabin, and he and Shiro are the only guest inside. Sendak doesn’t eat, but Shiro is hungry and Sendak doesn’t seem the type to indulge in poisoning. He seems more inclined in decapitation or some other gruesome methods.
“You’re not scared,” Sendak says, after Shiro ends the first chicken wing and starts the second one.
“There’s no reason to be,” Shiro replies calm. “If you want me dead, I’ll be already. And to be fair, I’ve been in worse situation.” He waves his prosthetic just to make a point.
“Fair,” Sendak admits. He takes off Keith’s knife and stab the wooden table with it. “You’re an interesting man, Champion. But before deciding what I’ll do with you, I need to know where did you find the knife.”
“It’s mine,” Shiro replies immediately. “I’ve had it all my life, even if I don’t remember who gave me.”
There is no way Shiro will bring Keith in this: the less Sendak knows about Keith’s connection to the knife or to Shiro himself, the better. Hoping that Keith didn’t get killed in the attack. But no: Shiro needs to hope Keith is safe back at the town.
“I see,” Sendak hums. “Are you interesting in its story?”
“You’re going to tell me, just like that?” Shiro is surprised.
Sendak shrugs. “Why not? I can assure you, there is nothing you can do with it.”
“Except to finally satisfy my curiosity.”
“I suppose so.” Sendak touches the knife with his finger. “This story started a lot of time ago, when Captain Zarkon was still the captain of the Black Lion, and a man I’ve been proud to follow. He was a great, blood lusting pirate, you know, but he was mortal like every human.”
“You don’t look mortal to me.”
“It wasn’t always like that. The first time we ever heard about the possibility of being immortal, it was when Zarkon fall ill. His wife, well, she was a strange one, always focused on strange rituals, like a witch. She said his illness was fatal, unless she found a way to make him immortal. So she left to find the source of this immortality. Oriande, she called it.”
“But they’re supposed to be all legends, right?”
“Most of them, probably. But the space is huge, so some legends end up true in the end, in some way.”
“Like this one.”
“That’s what Honerva believed, at least. But when she returned, Zarkon was already dead.”
“The illness got him.”
“Not the illness. His own son killed him.” Sendal almost growls his last words, before his face returns impassible. “Honerva was desperate, and to calm her down, we accepted to follow her to Oriande. None of us believed the story of the immortality, but we hoped to find some treasure there. A place no one knows where it is? That’s something.”
“And did you find something?”
Sendak shakes his head. “Nothing except for those kind of knife, that were embedded in the rock of a cave. We didn’t know which metal they’re made off. Honerva called it luxite, and she said they’re magic. They were, sort off. In the hand of the person that took them off the rock, they can turn into a sword. But that isn’t their only secret.”
“What also they can do?” Shiro asks, a little too exciting.
“Since the knife were the only thing there, we took them, with the idea of selling them around.” Sendak smirks at Shiro’s disappointed expression, then he continues, “we didn’t gain much money, to be honest, but soon after we realized that we couldn’t be killed. We were so amazed, at first.”
With a sudden movement, Sendak takes the knife and stabs his neck with it. Shiro looks in awe when the two hem of skin and human meat are surrounded by small, round dark creatures, that moves with a metallic sound. They cover the wound entirely and then disappear inside Sendak’s body, leaving his neck intact as nothing happened to it.
“Nanomachines, probably created by a very advanced society,” Sendak explains. “The knifes were the key to this kind of technology: once we removed them, the nanomachines escaped their container and parasited us. I felt there some magic in them too, since how able they are to repair our bodies.”
Shiro is amazed, in a weird and sick way. “So that’s your secret. But what about you get decapitated?” Sendak misses a limb after all.
He doesn’t answer. “We spend years to collect back every single sword and bring them back in the cave of Oriande. Searching all the legends about it, we were pretty sure that putting them back in the rock with a small blood sacrifice will be enough to put the nanomachines back in their container. And finally, we found the last one of them.” He stabs back the knife in the table.
“I don’t understand,” Shiro murmurs, honest. “I thought you want to be immortal.”
“It was great at first,” Sendak admits. “Before we realized what did it mean for real. The nanomachines treat the human body like their personal puppet. They heal you only because they want to continue to use it as a vector. They steal all of your feelings. I can eat and drink, but they’ll be the one getting it, while I’m condemn to be hungry and thirsty forever. There isn’t a human desire I can’t satisfy anymore.”
“It did sound like a shitty life. No offense.”
“It is. But it’s almost over.” Sendak stands up and walks around the table. “When I took my place as the rightful heir of Zarkon, there are a group of us that didn’t approve. They wanted Lotor as a Captain,” another growls behind his teeth, “despite what he’d done to Zarkon. We threw them out, but we didn’t realize that one of them remain behind, to spy on us. She was with us at Oriante, and she took a knife too. And then she escaped.”
“Will I sound smart if I guess this knife was hers?”
Sendak grins. “Once we found out, we pursued her, and then let her rot in the emptiness of the space. That was before we discovered that we need the knife and the blood of the person that took it. But we are luckily: the blood of her son should be enough.”
There is a predatory look in Sendak’s gaze. Shiro sustains it, even if there are a lot of thoughts spinning around his head. Keith had the knife with him, and didn’t remember his mother at all, just his father. It made sense with Sendak’s story. Shiro is glad Keith isn’t there to listen to the story.
“You don’t look much like her.”
“I haven’t ever met her.” And it isn’t even a lie.
“You will soon,” Sendak affirms, with an amused smirk. “Like I said, we need a bloody sacrifice for the ritual to work. It doesn’t matter for us because we’re immortal, but you. Well. It’s been a pleasure, Champion. Enjoy your meal for me too.”
Lotor considers himself a good judge of characters. And, by the brief time he knows Keith, he deduces Keith isn’t good at following orders. He may do it only if the trusts the person he gave the order, or if he finds the order reasonable enough. It’s obvious then that Keith doesn’t work well with Lotor, being unable to understand the finesse of his plan, and Lotor doesn’t have time to explain things to him.
“So,” Keith says. “I hope the fact that they’ve surrounded us it’s part of your plan.”
“Your mistrust hurts me,” Lotor informs him, as he throws a quick glance around.
They’re on the top of the biggest ship in the port, the Atlas (the fact that Shirogane was supposed to be its captain doesn’t help Keith’s humor unfortunately). They were spotted soon enough by the guards and now the soldiers are on their boats all around, anchored the big ship on the lake.
“Keith,” calls a man who Lotor recognizes like the one that came in Shirogane’s aid the day of Lotor’s arrival. “I understand you’re worried, but that’s not the solution. Come down quietly and I’ll speak with Iverson about it.”
Lotor looks at Keith, who snorts. “So? What’s the plan?”
“Well, now that ship is free,” he nods towards a red ship at the near end of the port. “It looks fast, and we should be able to pilot it by ourselves.”
“Red?” Keith asks. “She’s the fastest ship of the fleet. Still, I fail to say how we can reach her since we’re, if it isn’t clear enough, we’re surrounded.”
“You claimed to be a good pilot,” Lotor says. “It’s the moment to prove it.”
“Unbelievable,” Keith comments.
Without another word, he disappeared inside the ship. Lotor doesn’t stop it: to be fair, he has a plan to escape from the siege, but he needs to see Keith’s ability first. They’re going to fight the immortals, and they’ll need to be prepared for it. Keith’s being the key of everything may be not enough for Sendak, and in any way Lotor doesn’t intend to use it unlike he needs to.
He keeps the gaze on the soldiers and he notices that they’ve started the boarding. He doesn’t have much time left, if Keith doesn’t manage to find a way… and then he hears it, the roar of a hoverbike’s engine. Instead of coming out by the hangar’s door, Keith passed towards the hallway of the ships and emerges from the same door he used to enter.
“Get on!” he screams as he passes next to Lotor, and he has to jump on the running hoverbike, with a big smirk on his face.
Keith flies the hoverbike behind the soldiers that are about to jump on the ship and then lets the hoverbike falling towards the lake. He turns on again the engine just a second before they crash on the lake, and the air of the engine splashes the boats with the soldiers around. Then, with the push, they spring towards the ship of their choice.
Lotor doesn’t even have to order Keith to take the helm of the ship. With a smirk, he confesses, “I’ve always wanted to pilot Red.”
“You didn’t lie when you said you’re the best pilot around,” Lotor comments.
Like mother, like son, he thinks. Krolia would be proud, but Lotor can’t tell Keith. Not yet, at last. Maybe, once he gets the Black Lion back, he may think of recruiting Keith.
If Shiro wouldn’t be in danger, Keith would have enjoyed the ride. Red isn’t supposed to be maneuver by only two people, but she’s little enough to let it works, so Keith can stay on the helm and see her as she drifts towards the waves.
Truly an amazing feeling.
“Hey,” he calls for Lotor. “There is the island! The Black Lion will be there?”
“No way,” Lotor answers with a yawn. “That’s Olkari, the town of pirates. They would never stay in such a spotlight.”
“But I thought…” Keith frowns.
“Listen, if you want to save your Shiro, we have to be prepared. Only two of us won’t work. But I have friends here, and I can create a small crew in no time. Then we’ll be ready to go to the Black Lion’s den.”
“It can be too late!”
“The Black Lion is a big ship, slower than us. And I know a shortcut to the den. Don’t worry.” Lotor pats Keith’s back. “Just be careful when you moor.”
Keith grits his teeth, but at the moment he doesn’t have other choices but to follow Lotor. He’s not a pirate expert (not as Shiro is) and he can’t just go around hoping to intercept the Black Lion; especially with the Garrison on his tail. At least, in a town of pirates he may found some other leads if Lotor isn’t enough.
Surprisingly, he feels at easy in the town. There are looks in his direction, but they seem more because he’s a new pirate in town than the usually pitied and annoyed expression he got back. And the absence of rules actually turns the place into something really free: there are machineries and engines and ships that wouldn’t have allowed under Garrison’s jurisdiction but that Keith would test for sure if he had the time. Without even notice, it has a small smile in his face.
“Can you look more…” Lotor whispers to him “… I don’t know, threatening?”
Keith frowns. “What do you mean?”
“That’s it, perfect! Keep that expression.” And he pushes open the door of a tavern.
The inside isn’t very different from the outside, save for the fact that the people are busier into drinking and betting that paying attention to them. Lotor looks around until he spots a beautiful woman with white hair cupped in a high chignon.
“Allura, my dear. It’s a pleasure to meet you again.” He leans towards her.
She smiles, a pleasant but dangerous one. Then she grabs Lotor by one arm and she throws him around the room: he falls right next to Keith, who is still at the door. He raises an eyebrow.
“I like you,” he says to her.
“Thank you.”
“I’m not sure I deserved it,” Lotor complains. He stands up again, brushes his dirty pants and sighs.
“Believe me, you did,” Allura replies. “What are you doing here?”
“I need your help,” he says sincerely. “I need a crew, a small, trustful one. To get to Oriande.”
Allura rolls his eyes. “Again? Listen, I understand you, and I’m the first one that hate that my faith was used but-”
“Sendak has the last knife,” Lotor interrupts her, and Allura’s surprised expression turns into a sadness one in a second.
Keith remains silent, but he listens every word. What knife was Lotor talking about? Who is Sendak? Was Oriande the pirates’ den? Lotor was in prison at the time of the attack at the town, so he definitely knows more than he says. And despite that, he may be the right person for Keith in that moment.
“Maybe that’s for the best,” Allura says. “If they revert the course, the world will be a better place. You’re too involved because of the Black Lion.”
“The world will be safe only if Sendak will stop being the captain of the Black Lion,” Lotor retorts. “And in the moment they revert the course they’ll be vulnerable. We need to hit them!”
“Your name is Allura, right?” Keith intervenes, at last. “The pirates of the Black Lion kidnapped a friend of mine. I want to save him, and I’ll do everything to do it. If you could help us, it’ll be really appreciated. If I lose Shiro…” It’s the first time he admits loudly that not everything could be fine in the end, and it’s so hard he almost chokes in himself.
Allura’s expression soft. “I’m sorry for your friend, but I really…”
“Please,” Lotor says. “I haven’t been the best person around, and you’re right to be angry… but this time we can do something good. Saving a life…”
“Fine,” she spats. “Give me three hours. I should be able to recruit someone crazy enough to follow you.”
“Thank you,” Keith says sincerely.
They return back to Red and waits. Keith is restless so he trains a little on the deck with a sword, while Lotor looks the horizon in silence. There are some questions Keith has for him, but he isn’t sure Lotor would have answer. And to be honest, he doesn’t not care as much as he cares about Shiro.
As promised, Allura joins them after four hours, and five girls are with her: Keith remains on the deck and studies all of them. They look tough, which is probably what they need.
“All woman?”
“I can pay them less,” Lotor jokes, and he jumps on the moor to greet them. “I’m happy to see you, and I thank you for-”
Before he can finish, the woman with the long blond hair grabs him and throws him in the air. Lotor lands with his ass back on the deck of the ship.
“Let me guess, you don’t deserve it,” Keith comments. Sometimes his decision to follow Lotor wanders.
“No, I probably deserve this one.”
“Let’s go, girl,” Allura says, “we have a work to do.”
Flying Red with a more numerous crew is easier, and lets Keith more time to dedicate only at the navigation. Lotor gave him direction, and Keith drives with more energy because this time, finally, they’ll go to save Shiro. The others are expert sailors, unlike Keith, but they seem impressed by his ability to keep the ship, and he can trust her for the other duty.
Again, Keith feels an easiness he isn’t used to. And that he wasn’t supposed to, since they all were pirates and Keith… Keith isn’t sure of what he is.
“You can rest, you know,” Allura joins him next the helm. Her tone is kind.
“I can’t,” he replies. “Not until we save Shiro.”
“You care a lot about him, don’t you?”
“I thought is pretty obvious, since everything. I mean, I’m following Lotor.”
Allura chuckles. “Fair point.” Then, her gaze becomes serious. “Lotor isn’t a bad person, but you have to be careful. The Black Lion is a sore spot for him, and it happened in the past that he ended up hurting people because of it. It doesn’t matter if his intentions are good, someone is going to suffer. And I truly hope it won’t be you.”
“You don’t even know me,” Keith replies.
“Maybe,” she says. “But you remember me of someone.” She doesn’t add anything, and Keith doesn’t ask.
His top priority in that moment is Shiro, and Lotor can bring Keith to Shiro. That’s all. He doesn’t feel any attachment to Lotor, so if he has to let Lotor behind for Shiro’s sake, he will.
This probably makes him a worse person than Lotor. A person who’s more likely hurting someone of the crew than Lotor.
“You don’t have to worry about me, but I hope we all get out of this unscattered.” -
.
Si ricordava, da bambino, la sensazione delle mani rosse e screpolate. Quando nevicava in Hokkaido, l'aria diventava gelida, pungente. Bruciava sulla pelle, bloccava le articolazioni.
Suo nonno aveva provato a regagargli un paio di guardi di lana, neri e soffici, ma Shiro non poteva regolare bene il telescopio così, aveva bisogno delle dita libere per muoverlo in modo da orientarlo seguendo le cordinate precise fornite dalla Garrison. Così usciva la notte, quando l'aria era ancora più gelida, e poggiava in equilibrio il treppiedi in mezzo alla neve alta e morbida, nel giardino. Quando la neve smetteva di cadere, lasciava il cielo completamente sereno. Era il momento migliore per osservare il cielo, e lo era anche maggiormente da casa dei suoi nonni, isolata, in modo che nessuna luce disturbasse le stelle brillanti nel cielo.
Odiava la neve che gli lasciava le mani rosse, ma amava il sereno che portava con sé.
Era terribile, invece, quando pioveva. Non solo non poteva uscire a giocare, ma il cielo era completamente coperto, scuro. Anche quando smetteva di piovere, il sereno non tornava se non dopo diversi giorni, frustando Shiro. La pioggia ticchettava sui vetri della sua stanza, come a prenderlo in giro per la sua impossibilità di guardare il cielo.
Stupida pioggia. Stupida.
Adesso, però, gli mancava la piogga che gli avrebbe dato la scusa per non dover uscire. A dire la verità, non sapeva nemmeno se su quel pianeta piovesse qualche volta, la sua cella non aveva finestre per poter vedere al di fuori. L'unica cosa che conosceva oltre a quella era l'arena, e il cielo, un cielo scuro e popolato da stelle e costellazioni che non conosceva, era sereno sopra di lui.
Scoprì di rimpiangere il dolore che gli procurava la neve, perché era piacevole, e passava solo con la pomata che sua nonna gli spalmava dolcemente.
Scoprì di rimpiangere la pioggia, la speranza che piovesse in quel posto, e che un giorno di pioggia in più gli avrebbe portato un giorno in meno di combattimenti.
Scoprì di odiare il sereno, perché non significava le nottate passate col telescopio, mentre suo nonno lo sorvegliava dalla finestra. Significava la lotta per la sopravvivenza. Il sangue, il dolore, e le mani screpolate dai tagli per poteggersi dai colpi avversari. -
.
The Soulmates Countdown is a pain in the ass, Keith thinks.
There was a time in his life when he’s like everyone else, looking at the numbers on his right wrist and thinking that it wasn’t running fast enough. A time he could remember his parents’ story about their meeting with happiness instead sadness.
Now, the slowly ticking of the seconds unnerves him.
Two minutes, says the Soulmates Countdown. In two minutes, Keith is going to meet his soulmate, the person destined for him. Everything that Keith wants is to ends his work shift fast, returning back to his small apartment and sleep into the oblivious.
“Kogane-san,” his boss calls, startling him. “Bring a Sapporo draft beer to the client at table five.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the surprise of nobody, his soulmate is one of the client. He takes a bottle and a glass mug as the orders says and, with a sigh, he walks towards the table.
One minute.
He takes every steps with calm, enjoys his time to look at his Soulmate before meeting him.
It seems he gets luckily. Despite the oddity of the white tuff of hair, the scar across his nose and the fact he’s wearing a jacket in the hot air of Miyagi, the man at the table is gorgeous: tall and broad, with a square perfect jaws and dark, big lips.
Their eyes meet for a second: Keith can notice the grey color, and their sadness, before he’s invested by the tickling sensation of good expectation, the feeling something great is about to happen. Suddenly, the world seems brighter, louder.
The Soulmate Countdown has ended.
“Your drink, sir,” Keith manages to say, as he places the bottle and the mud on the wooden table.
The man adjusts better the right sleeve of his jacket, and that’s the moment Keith notices it.
The prosthetic.
Because of the jacket Keith can’t see how far the prosthetic goes, but it’s not far-fetched saying that it definitely surpasses the wrist, where the Soulmate Countdown is supposed to be.
Keith’s Soulmate doesn’t know that they just met, and he seems more interested in the football match on the TV screen than Keith himself.
Disappointment and relief falls upon Keith, as he hides his right arm behind his back. He returns to the counter, ignores the frowned gaze of his boss and reaches the bathroom. He washes his face and looks at the mirror.
Nothing has changed, and he’s free from the uneased feeling of expectation from the countdown.
After all, that man was a client, and he looked like a tourist too.
Meeting him again will be unlikely.
Instead, the man is back the next night, in the same table, with the same order.
Keith finds himself lured again by his presence, not because he’s his soulmate, but because of the strange aura he emanates. Like a wave of sadness, like something his broken inside him. Keith feels like the are similar on that regard. Well, Keith says to himself, maybe it’s what soulmates are.
“You didn’t seem to like the beer very much yesterday. A cup of iced water to force it down.”
If the man is creeped out by the fact Keith noticed his antics the evening before, he doesn’t show it. He seems embarrassed, mostly, as he coughs out a thanks.
“Hey, it does its job. As long as you get over the rancid taste.”
He leaves with a last smile. Despite working as a waiter, Keith isn’t good with people. Clients in his Izakaya aren’t picky about him – him bringing them drink is enough for them. It’s not habit of Keith having conversation with them, let aside remembering something to be kind to them next time.
That man – his Soulmate – is dangerous.
And easy to talk to.
The more Keith thinks about it, the more he realizes he actually wants to keep talking to him. He isn’t a curious person by nature – everyone has his secret, and the right to not be pestered about him – but there is a pull towards the man he decides not to fight.
The man doesn’t know they’re soulmates. Until Keith doesn’t tell him, he’ll still have a way out.
That’s why he accepts to prepare Onigiri for him when the man reaches the Izakaya in the morning instead of his usual evening time. That’s why he introduces himself to him, and now he has a name for his Soulmate too – Takashi Shirogane, Shiro in short, after a long time spending in America. That’s why he jokes with Shiro about the Onigiri and how they are cheap made, and that’s why he makes conversation with him, asking him things Shiro doesn’t really answer.
His mother used to joke about Keith being very blunt, yet with Shiro he finds an unusual sweetness. Shiro doesn’t talk much about himself, and Keith doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need it to understand Shiro is facing some personal demons, whatever they may be.
Keith guesses the prosthetic has something to do with it, in the careful way Shiro still tries to hide it from the gaze. Keith doesn’t ask, and Shiro doesn’t press about Keith’s personal life either.
Their conversations are mostly casual, mundane even, but they’re genuine, and Keith finds himself looking forward them more and more.
He learns Shiro is a huge nerd, with a passion for occidental stories like Star Trek, but he also can sing by memory Neo Genesis Evangelion opening sequence. He isn’t good a cooking and his favorite food is mac and cheese. He never watches Lord of the Rings movies because “it won’t never be as good as the book”. His family comes from Hokkaido, but he lives for four years in America.
In exchange, Keith tells him about his voluntary job at the local shelter – he hasn’t able to adopt a dog for himself yet – about the fact he used to surf, about his favorite quiet park in Miyagi. He even shows him some of the drawings he does in the free time.
Keith didn’t expect to lead Shiro inside his life more than that, but Shiro was there, and became a constant present in his life that inviting him over was something Keith does without even thinking. Shiro arrives at the Izakaya later than usual, and twice in a day, in a moment Keith doesn’t expect him anymore.
That’s probably the reason Keith doesn’t miss his chance.
“If you’re not busy later… We should hang out.”
Shiro doesn’t expect it, clearly. He still says yes.
Keith’s apartment isn’t made for guests. It’s just a one-room apartment, with a couch slash futon, a small kitchenette and a table Keith uses for everything else. But it’s his, something he earns with his work and his money, something he can call home without feeling a sour taste in his mouth.
There is an easiness in the way Shiro makes his way inside too – he doesn’t look like the man who waited until Keith’s ended his shift at almost two o’clock in the morning. A small smile lingers in his lips as he looks around.
“Would you like some tea?”
Since Shiro nods and takes place on the red cushion at the round table, Keith takes the kettle and starts boiling the water. The room gets filled only by the water’s gurgle and by their breaths. It’s relaxing, Keith find out, as he prepares the two cups of tea.
He places the cup with the hot tea in front of Shiro, who blinks. Keith takes his spot on the other side of the table, and blows on the tea to cool it down. Shiro hasn’t pick up his cup yet, too focused on the gold lines that keep aside the broken orange cup.
“It’s…” Shiro starts.
“Kintsugi,” Keith confirms, the Japanese art to repay object with gold. “That’s what they do. Broken things, while broken, still retain their value. There’s no way to erase the cracks, and I-” he pauses, and turns his eyes away from Shiro, scared of revealed too much, “one has to live with it. Accept it.”
It’s to be expected that Shiro is surprised by it – Kintsugi is an old art not used anymore for domestic objects, and it’s easy to say that the cup isn’t worthy of the golden used to repay it. Most people would have just bought another set of cups. But Keith isn’t most people, and these cups weren’t ordinary people.
“There must be very important cups for you,” Shiro says. The tone suggests he doesn’t want an answer, and Keith isn’t ready to give him one, not yet.
But it doesn’t take long for Keith to decide otherwise. They’re spending the rest of the night drinking tea, without even talking to each other. Shiro’s presence has become cumbersome in his life, in the good way that Keith is ready to accept Shiro knowing everything about him.
“They belonged to my father’s favorite tea set. He used it every day.”
Shiro remains silent, letting Keith deciding how much he’d like to share. In his eyes there is a hint of compassion and understanding, a silent encouraging for Keith that, whatever he may say, Shiro will be on his side.
“I evacuated onto higher ground with my high school when the tsunami swept over Natori,” Keith says then, his eyes already wet. He lowers them, focused on the cup on his hand, but he can hear Shiro’s little gasp. “My father was a policeman. My mom, an elementary school teacher. She, along with her students, was carried along the currents as they tried to cross a bridge.”
Keith doesn’t receive any pity, not any “I’m sorry” like he hears too much in the day back then.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Shiro says at the end, and it’s everything Keith needs to.
“You looked like the type to understand loss.” Keith defuses the tears in his eyes with a small laugh.
Shiro’s lips form a small, sad smile, but he just sips tea from his cup, with an incredible delicateness. “I have to apologize,” he says then.
“I told you because I wanted to,” Keith points out.
“I know. It’s just…” Shiro hesitates. “I thought your loss was about your Soulmate.”
Keith has almost forgot about it. His wrist aches a little and without thinking he turns it to hide the Soulmate Countdown. Talking and staying with Shiro is so nice, and so easy, he starts to think it isn’t everything because of that.
“No, it’s…” Keith takes a deep breath. “You are my Soulmate. The Countdown reached zero the time I served you your first Sapporo.”
“Oh.”
Shiro’s eyes widen just a little, but the most visible reaction is the way he grips his prosthetic. Then, he takes back the cup and empties it.
“Can I have another one?”
It’s ten o’clock in the morning when Shiro rings at his apartment. Keith notices immediately two oddities: the first is that Shiro left the same apartment around five the same morning. Keith has the habit to sleep only until nine o’clock, so he’s up, but they said goodbyes only five hours prior, yet Shiro is there.
The second thing is that it’s raining, and Shiro is covering himself with his own jacket: the first time he bares entirely his prosthetic and the t-shirt is wearing shows that it goes almost until his right shoulder.
“Sorry,” Shiro says, with a little, soft smile.
“Would you like breakfast?” Keith manages to say. Then, he adds with a smirk, “and dry clothes maybe?”
“That would be nice, thank you.”
Once he gave Shiro a couple of old clothes that should be big enough for him and pointed him the bathroom, Keith cooks up eggs and rice. He already had breakfast, so he does it for Shiro too. His focus is still on the kitchenette when Shiro’s voice calls him.
“I was supposed to be a pilot,” he says, as he sits down at the round table, confident as it was his own house. “They obviously won’t let me back into a plane now, so I’d best figure out a new career path,” he adds, with a sad smile.
“Do you come here this early just to tell me this?” Keith asks, with no taunt in his voice, just honest surprise.
Shiro nods. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone about myself since the accident.”
“Thank you for trusting me.” He doesn’t comment further, not until he places the plates with the breakfast in front of Shiro. “I’m glad you’re not mad at me.”
“Why should I be?” Shiro stops the stick midair.
“Because I haven’t told you early about the all Soulmate thing.”
Shiro swallows his breakfast. “No, I… got it. I’m quite the predicament, and it’s entirely understandable you didn’t want to weight me with that too.”
“And I also think I wouldn’t have seen you again,” Keith confesses.
“Looks like things always go different from what we expect.” Shiro has a bittersweet smile as his eyes feel on the orange and golden cups in the sink. “Without my accident, I doubt I would have found myself here in Miyagi to drink. And I wouldn’t have chosen Miyagi either if it wasn’t for the fact that the tsunami destroyed it… The same tsunami that took your parents from you.”
“What are you meaning with this?”
“Soulmates or not… our own tragedies were what brought us together.” He looks straight into Keith’s eyes, and Keith understands.
“We aren’t objects. We can’t be repaired, not even with gold,” he says immediately, with a harshness he doesn’t expect. “I didn’t… came to you because of it. I’m not trying to fix you,” he states. “And don’t try to fix me either.”
“I won’t,” Shiro assures him, while his breakfast cools down, mostly untouched. “I don’t think that what it happened to us can ever be amend… but since I met you, I’ve started thinking there may be something better waiting for us. And no, don’t even try to pin it to the all Soulmate thing, because I didn’t know until… five hours later.”
“I don’t want to believe it either.” Keith’s eyes itches, and he closes his eyelids to shield himself. His throat is dried. “You’re a tourist.”
“I’m a broken man, just like you,” Shiro replies. “Do you want me to stay? Here in Miyagi.”
“I can’t ask you-”
“Do you want me to?” Shiro repeats.
Keith swallows, the happiness he has felt in all the days he spent chatting with Shiro flows inside him at once. It swims through him, revealing the secret desire that Shiro can be more than just another small tragedy in his life, a passing joy Keith would have remembering with sadness in a couple of mount.
“Yes.”
Yes yes yesyesyes-
Shiro’s lips are on his own before Keith has the time to register it, and they taste of cooked egg, soft and warm. Everything fells to place, like the gold in the cup’s cracks. It can’t be so easy, Keith thinks, but it embraces the feeling nevertheless, arms around Shiro’s torso.
“Then I’ll stay.” -
.
Garrison’ roofs are all inaccessible but one, the one where the solar panels that power the entire facility are. There is a stair that brings towards a trap door to the roof. Only the maintenance men have access to it, and the stair is hidden to the eyes.
But if your name is Takashi Shirogane, you’re the best pilot around and the golden boy of the Garrison, well, people uses to close both eyes and let you have the key of the trap door, so you e can go there wherever he pleases.
To be honest, Shiro has stopped doing it since his first mission. He learned to be mature enough to respect the security measures of the base. But Keith is still a cadet, with the same unrespect of rules of younger Shiro, and the same desire to have a place where he can look at the night sky alone.
“How do you find me?” Keith asks when Shiro’s head pops out from the trap door.
Shiro grins. He jumps on the roof and crawls towards Keith, to sit down next to him. “This was my secret place once,” he says.
Keith isn’t looking at him, so Shiro leans his back better against one of the solar panel and lifts his head to the dark sky.
“When I was a child back in Japan, I used to stargaze on the roof of my grandfather’s house. The first years here… I wanted to keep back a legacy with what I was, and why I was there.”
Still no answer from Keith, but he shifts nearer.
“Even if the stars aren’t as much brighter as they were back then. Too much artificial light here.”
“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?” Keith asks, changing sudden the argument.
“Uhm?” Shiro bends his head a little. “You mean, the fact that you rocked all the mid-semester exams and got the highest scores in eight subject on ten? Because I already knew it. Besides, you didn’t punch anyone in the process too.”
A small chuckles erupts from Keith’s throat and he places a hand on his mouth to stop himself. He put his head on Shiro’s shoulders.
“I know how you felt,” Shiro continues. “I was like you. I’m still like you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“People envied me just like they’re envying you right now. They don’t realize how many efforts we made to get there. But they will.”
“Uh-uh.” Keith presses his lips together. Then, he murmurs, “you can’t really see the stars from here. But space is different, right?”
Shiro passes an arm behind Keith’s back. “It is. You’ll see.”
“Can we wait?” Keith asks, stopping Shiro to get on his hoverbike. “Until it’s night.”
Shiro frowns, but he takes off his helmet. “We should be back before eight. Garrison’s rules.”
“I know.” Keith smirks. “But don’t tell me the Garrison’s Golden Boy can’t make an exception to the rules.”
“Okay.” Shiro crosses his arm and leans against his hoverbike, a smile on his face. “Give me a good reason for it and you have your excuse.”
“I want to show you the stars.” Keith turns his head to the sky who is turning from light blue to bright orange as the sun falls down. “Here in the desert they’re better than at the Garrison.”
“You cheated,” Shiro laughs. “How can I say not to this?”
Keith throws him an amused look and jumps on his hoverbike. He gestures at Shiro to sit down next to him.
“I trust you on this, desert boy,” Shiro jokes, as he settles down. “Did you stargaze often here?”
“Not really, not like you,” Keith replies. “But when I lived here with my Pa, it was hard to not notice the sky. It was dark yet bright, just above us. And somehow I was always lured to it.”
“I think I get it.” Shiro’s eyes looks up, where the sky is already blue and the first stars appear, small, bright fire burning on the void. “You see those stars? That line of three?”
“That’s Orion,” Keith says, with a smile. “I know that much, space nerd.”
“Okay, but you also know that the first deception of Orion is around 40.000 years ago, in a prehistoric cave in Germany? And it was also listed in a Babylonian star catalogue?”
“Like I said, space nerd.” But he’s smiling again.
“And proud of it.” Shiro grins. “And you love it, admit it.”
Keith’s eyes are firm on the sky. “I do,” he whispers. Then, louder. “Tell me more.”
With the battle they face every day, and their life on the line, it’s hard to find some moments of peace. Still, Shiro has the habit to remain alone on the ship’s bridge. When Keith is too tired to train, he remains with him. They usually stand in silence, enjoy the brief peaceful moment.
“Sorry,” Shiro says. “I’m not really useful here. I can’t recognize any of this constellations.” His gaze passes on the big glasses that show the space they’re navigating.
Keith shakes his head a little. “Have you tried to ask Coran or Allura about it? They may have some records of the constellations here, given all the altean knowledge.”
“I did,” Shiro admits, with some shame. “But they only have the ones one can see from Altea, and it doesn’t exist anymore. Besides, we’re in space moving around, so it’s impossible doing so much stargazing.”
“And we’re fighting an evil space dictator.”
“That, too.”
A long sigh erupts from Shiro’s lips. “I can’t believe I’ve always wished to go farthest than humankind had and now… be careful about your own wishes.”
“Let’s do it.” Keith grabs Shiro’s arm, and the sudden movement forces Shiro to turn his head to look at him. Keith’s eyes bright, a fire on them. “Let’s look at the starts. Let’s nominate them, as the first ones in mankind. Be the first to create new constellations.”
Shiro smiles. “It would be nice.”
“But…?”
“It’s not the time.” Since Keith is still looking at him with a little pout, he adds, “but thank you. We should do in the future.”
Keith’s lips tighten, but his gaze softness. “I’ll hold you on that.”
They don’t manage to go stargazing again, not before the end of the war on Earth.
And even then, they have to find that time for themselves, between a Shiro’s meeting in his new role as captain and a Keith’s training with the other paladins.
And even when they do it, when they take the Garrison’s hoverbikes like the old times and they race to the desert towards they old spot, there is some uneasiness in them, like they are children doing something behind their parents’ back.
They aren’t so naïve and innocent anymore.
“It’s different, isn’t it?”
Shiro turns away his eyes from the dark sky.
He sits down on the sheet they brought with them, now placed on the hard ground of the desert. At his side, Keith lies down, hands behind his head and his gaze on the sky, his eyes reflect the brightness of the stars.
“It is,” he confirms. “A little disappointing.”
“Yeah.” On Shiro’s face appears a little, sad, smile. “There was a time I was so sure I wouldn’t never see Earth again… and I dreamt of this, I dreamt of what the sky meant.”
Keith’s head moves a little to look at him. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Shiro shrugs. “I should have expected that I wouldn’t have abled to see the star like the old time, not after… everything.”
Since Keith remains silent, Shiro adds, “I’m sorry you lost this feeling following after me.”
The grip on his human arm is sudden, it makes Shiro startles a little. Keith’s face is near his own, lips press together and eyes firm.
“I will follow you everywhere,” he says. “If the price of it it’s not being able to enjoy the sky anymore, so be it.”
“I know.”
Things are different now: behind the stars visible from Earth, there are more stars, planets and aliens, a fallen Empire and a witch searching for revenge. And there is a man, once a boy looking for the star, broken and scared. And there is another man, once a boy lured by the stars, who said “as many times as it takes”.
“I’ll never regret what I did,” Keith adds.
“I know.”
Shiro’s lips are on Keith’s before he even notices it. After that, it’s like everything put into the right places. Like everything they lost and everything they faced was to bring them to that exact moment.
There’s no need to word, just lips against lips, kiss on the skin, hands brushing the hair. And there is Keith upon Shiro, cheeks red, shining eyes, mouth slight open in a half smile as he breathes hard. His hand his on Shiro’s white hand, and Shiro is slowly undresses him.
“You can’t see the stars from here,” Keith says, as he drops his head just a little, a small chuckles erupts from his throat.
“No.” Shiro uses to fingers to lift Keith’s head again, and he kisses him, and then he looks straight into Keith’s eyes. “I can see the stars from here just fine.” -
.
https://twitter.com/Re_Voltron/status/1162469332900864002 -
.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAftqKnVAAIF4f...=jpg&name=small
https://twitter.com/keithbday/status/1153925999228100609
https://twitter.com/redluxite/status/1154450140490416128
https://twitter.com/kittykittymoon/status/...297002788597761
https://twitter.com/epiproctan/status/1159974674580852737 -
.
https://twitter.com/lovemydownill/status/1157365107426394112
https://twitter.com/kittymill5/status/1155790171998019585 -
.
https://twitter.com/goldentruth813/status/...987123865153538 -
.
https://twitter.com/pejaposarambi/status/1152824815599923200
https://twitter.com/blackpalaladin/status/...636497662750722
https://twitter.com/scrapskape/status/1151616307504324609
https://twitter.com/RixanDeveroux/status/1150580069854789633
https://twitter.com/Seliipi/status/1149885627556597761
https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic/status/...584213873278976
https://twitter.com/RixanDeveroux/status/1148795505163558912
https://twitter.com/thorstbench/status/1149691847138324481
https://twitter.com/kittykittymoon/status/...717407864381440
https://twitter.com/RoseRoyaly/status/1090675428040368130 -
.
https://twitter.com/ILLocust/status/1149033625003929601
https://twitter.com/littlewhitetie/status/...695189457899520
https://twitter.com/keithbday/status/1148210547654946817
https://twitter.com/sepiacigarettes/status...141800447201281
https://twitter.com/blackpalaladin/status/...791493404889088
https://twitter.com/existence_proof/status...858383526666240
https://twitter.com/littlewhitetie/status/...004626116743169
https://twitter.com/birdmanbirdplan/status...891460342706176
https://twitter.com/saucerfulofsins/status...357118870118405
https://twitter.com/B1ackPa1adins/status/1143712627836817408
https://twitter.com/sheithpocalypse/status...520915143663616
https://twitter.com/birdmanbirdplan/status...104454700814336
https://twitter.com/DropsofAutumn/status/1140566324692828160 -
.
https://twitter.com/kibathecryptid/status/...405862023647234
https://twitter.com/RixanDeveroux/status/1137518721243779072
https://twitter.com/epiproctan/status/1138214596509151233
Posts written by Akemichan |
