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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.
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