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One of Shiro’s favorite thing of going to classroom for recruiting is the daemon’s behavior.
At first, they stay put, quite, a little bit scared of the stranger man in the classroom. Their appearance is usually small, mouse, squirrels, hedgehog, little birds, and they remain on their person’s desk or shoulder, in silence.
Then, once Shiro explained his reason to be in the class and the all trying-the-flight-simulator-game, chaos explodes in the classroom. The daemon turns into bigger animals, from dogs to horse to lions, filling the space of the classroom both with their bigger bodies and their call, roars, lows, barks are all around.
It’s Shiro favorite moment.
For this reason, he notices immediately the outcast of the class. The boy – Keith, he’ll learn later – doesn’t seem interested at all in Shiro’s presence, looking languish outside the window with his chin placed on the palm of his hand. At a first glare, his daemon isn’t anywhere to be see, but at Shiro’s trained eyes doesn’t escape the glint of yellow on one side of Keith’s black hair.
A butterfly.
Not unheard off, especially from introverted people, but insects aren’t an aspect daemon take often when they can mutate from animal to animal. As youngster, they usually want to be notice. Yet Shiro remembers the day Atlas used to be a scrabble inside his sleeves, because Shiro himself wants to be left alone.
Because he felt alone.
Outside the classroom, Keith’s daemon takes the aspect of a black cat, and Keith plays with him, rubbing his belly and waving a piece of grass in front of it. He stays a little bit far from the flight simulator and from his classmates, back towards them.
Shiro keeps observing him from afar, while he lets every kids try – and fail – the simulator.
He loves fighting.
The simulator isn’t the same of a real flight, of course, but it gives away some of its feelings, like the adrenaline of the fly and the power sensation of the ship moving around at his command. He wants Keith to try it too, wants Keith to feel something.
When he turns to him, Keith’s daemon transforms into a panther, walking around him in a protective stance, while Keith doesn’t move from his position.
“Looks like you’re the only one left,” Shiro says, with a smile. “Do you have what it takes?”
Keith’s face turns to him, surprised. Even his daemon, still in panther form, deflates a little. It’s the face of someone that has been never considered before, and it pains Shiro a little.
The daemon returns back into a black cat and cuddles on Keith’s knees as he sits down on the simulator. His movements are slowly, controlled, but once the simulation starts, the grip on the controls tightens and he moves his hands with confidence. His posture is relaxed, yet Shiro doesn’t miss the moment his daemon transforms into a small hawk, wings that widen open once Keith makes a difficult maneuver inside the asteroid belts.
A smile appears on Shiro’s face.
It’s the first time he loves seeing someone else flying.
Stubborn is definitely one of Shiro’s traits.
If Keith thinks he’s going to let it go only because he stole his car, well, he’s wrong. Giving a chance to young pilot to lear to fly, to love flying, is one of Shiro’s pleasure in life, a building for when he won’t be able to be a pilot anymore.
Keith’s going to love flying, Shiro will make sure of it.
“I don’t understand,” Keith murmurs as Shiro bails him out of prison, his daemon trotting behind him as a turtle. His surprise face is already a rewards.
“Now you owe me one. And trust me, I’ll make it worthy.”
“Why should I trust you?” Keith murmurs, but he takes the visitor card. The daemon slips around his waist as a snake and put is small head against the visitor card, his forked tongue licks one of the corner. “Kosmo, stay put.”
A clear sign Keith is interested, but not ready enough to show it.
“You have great talent,” Shiro says. “What do you want to do with it it’s up to you.”
“I just used the simulator once…” Keith shrugs.
“And you loved it?”
At that, Keith doesn’t answer. Kosmo takes the visitor card with his teeth from his hand.
With a small sigh, Shiro opens a little the jacket of his uniform. Inside it, there is a pocket. With a small frown, Keith looks at the small head of a Japanese squirrel appears from the pocket, watching Keith with his big black eyes.
“Meet Atlas,” Shiro introduces him, using his index finger to rub the daemon’s little head, just behind the ears. Atlas crawls outside the pocket and jumps on Shiro’s shoulder, still looking at Keith intensely.
“Everyone deserve a second chance.”
Shiro knows most people attribute him, wince all his successes, a great Daemon, something scary and imponent. But his Daemon is just a cute, little thing he can put in his pocket. So Shiro is ready for Keith’s surprise expression of knowing that – an information not much people has.
“What is it?” Keith asks instead, as Kosmo immediately turns into Atlas’ appearance. “I’ve never seen an animal like this.”
“It’s a Japanese squirrel, you can only find there.”
Keith caresses Kosmo’s belly and smiles. “It’s cute.” His eyes shift from Shiro to Atlas and back. “It suits you.”
And damn. Shiro is supposed to understand Keith, not the other way around.
Every year, the Garrison received the curriculum and the presentation letters from the students that want to be admitted at the Garrison Courses. They selected the worthier ones, who will be faced a couple of aptitude and physical tests and then they’ll be choose. There are limited spot of the Garrison.
Few luckily people can be exonerated from the tests, and are the students that, for some reasons, are considered worthier from their examiner.
Keith Kogane is one of them, as Shiro recommends him with insistence.
“I don’t know,” Iverson says. “This Kogane kid… his grades are below the average, and for a fourteen years ago, his police records are a little bit… impressive. In a bad way.”
There is a squirrel on the windowsill of the open windows. Shiro leans limply on the wall next to it, and throws some nuts at the squirrel.
“But have you see the record of his flight simulation? It’s superior to every new student, even to some cadets at the first year. And I’m pretty sure he could have done even better.”
“If he didn’t decide to quit for stealing your car, you mean?”
Shiro rolls his eyes. He knows why keith did that, it’s just too hard to explain to people sometimes how it is not having anyone on your side.
“Do you really want to risk losing the best pilot you can have?”
“Better than you?” Iverson inquires.
“Yes.” Shiro doesn’t falter, but his attention focuses more on the squirrel. “And I won’t be around for long, you know.”
“Fine,” Iverson says at last, not wanting to deep in Shiro’s health situation. “I’ll propose this candidation to the higher-ups. I can’t guarantee they’ll accept, though.”
“I’ll speak with them,” Shiro murmurs absently-minded. The squirrel crawls near to take a nut and Shiro takes his chance to rub its head.
A shiver crosses his entire body. The squirrel freezes, just a second, then turns into a dobe and flies far, high in the sky.
It was a daemon all along.
As Iverson keeps blabbering, Shiro looks outside the windows, but the daemon’s owner was nowhere to be seen.
***
It’s been a long time since Keith has learned to not love anymore. People leave, dreams shatter. Loving becomes too painful at a certain point, and Keith just gives up. He can’t say is happy, but not being sad is still better.
Shiro came on his life to destroy all Keith’s belief. It’s not like Keith doesn’t try to prove Shiro will be just like everyone else, but ven Keith and his stoic behaviour wavers in front of a man that took him out of prison like it was nothing.
And it’s hard not to believe it when he has such a cute Daemon (and Keith suspects Shiro hides because of course people are going to judge him for that).
But every wish he has after his meeting with Shiro and his promise to join the Garrison meets with the wall of his classmates’ distruts. Of course they find out about Shiro’s doing, and of course voices about Shiro reccomending Keith (Keith!) of all people spread around the entire school.
James, the jerk, is the first one to jump on the possibility of making Keith’s life miserable again. First, he complains about Keith cheating in some way at the flight simulator, as Keith has any possibilities of hacking in a Garrison system. Then, he confabulates with his friend about the fact that Keith was just a pity case for Shiro, because Shiro is just that good, but that the Garrison wouldn’t never accept someone like Keith with them. They have stardard, he says, implying Keith is far low than that.
Lukily, James’ ego is big enough to get tired fast of Keith’s situation, and the argouments around the class become fast James’ own future at the Garrison as Shiro’s best student.
Without anyone noticing, Keith submits his curriculum and his letters – without any recomendations, of course.
Now, Keith has a secret.
It’s something he discovered later in his life, when his father was already dead. But he still rembered his recomendations: if you feel, or have, something strange, something that humans shouldn’t have, keep it hidden. For you own safety.
So, Keith never reveals to anyone that Kosmo can wander around as he likes, even very far away from Keith.
He doesn’t usually do so, because Kosmo loves being around Keith – he’s the only one, and probably it’s because he’s the manifestation of Keith’s soul. But it has happened in the past tha Kosmo runs away in the desert alone, and returns back in the evening.
No one else, at least for Keith’s knowledge, can do something like that. Daemon shouldn’t be separated from their humans. They can’t, or they lose themselves. Maybe, Keith guesses, I can do this because I already lost mysef.
Despite it, there are some advantages of Kosmo’s ability.
When he’s far away, Keith fakes he’s turned into a scrabble and he’s hiding inside Keith’s sleeve, a light lie everybody believe because Kosmo isn’t stranger to assume insect forms, and he does it often.
Keith can’t see what Kosmo sees, but they can communicate later. It’s thanks to Kosmo that Keith manages to pass tests sometimes, as Kosmo spies the results from the teachers’ offices while Keith is quiet in class.
It’s just a matter of time before Keith asks Kosmo to fly to the Garrison and spy on the students’ admission list. He does want to be prepare for rejection: it’ll still hurt like a bitch, but at least he will know, the day James will come to him gloating about his own admission.
He’s in class, trying to focus on the lesson, while his gaze is outside, looking for the sky, when the shiver hits him suddendly.
Panic surges on his throat and he stumbles from his chair.
Someone touched Kosmo!
“Kogane,” the teacher’s voice is harsh.
“Sorry, ma’ma. I don’t feel very good.”
The teacher looks at him and he probably has something on his face because she nods. “Go to the infirmary, maybe you need some sugar. You’re so skinny…”
Always stumbling and ignoring the chuckles behind him, he gets out of the class.
Kosmo reaches for him when he’s resting in the infirmary’s bed, and informs him of the worst possible situation: it was Shiro who touched him. It was a mistake from Kosmo’s part, but after all he’s part of Keith’s soul, and Shiro lures Keith too, as the entire Garrison deal demostrated.
And maybe everything will resolve for the best.
Shiro shouldn’t know who that daemon is, after all.
And yet, Shiro is waiting for Keith at the end of the lessons. Keith can hears the whispering around him when Shiro nods in his direction. With his head low, and Kosmo turned into a butterfly on his hair, he walks towards Shiro.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hi, Keith,” Shiro smiles. “Want a lift?”
No, should be the answer, but Keith doesn’t feel he can refuse the invitation. So he nods and places himself in the passenger seat, in the same car he stole the day he and Shiro met. Atlas is sitting down next to the wheel.
Has Shiro orders to bring Keith in some secret facility where Garrison scientist sill study his Daemon? For all Keith knows, studies on daemons are forbidden, but…
“I heard you don’t feel so well,” Shiro says, once he drove the car away.
“Just tired,” Keith answers. Then, he adds, “I didn’t expect you here. I mean, you should be a very busy man, right?”
“Not as much as you may think,” Shiro replies. “And taking care of cadets is part of my duty.”
He winks at Keith, with a big smile, and Keith blushes before realizing. “Cadets?”
“Of course. I’ve told you so.”
Happiness springs inside Keith’s heart, and Kosmo turns into a very exciting squirrel running on his shoulders.
“For real? So you’re not bringing me into a secret Garrison facility to study on me?” he blabbers out.
“Of course not. Why should I do something like that?”
“Oh. No reasons,” Keith scoffs, and turns his head.
He’s a bad liar. That’s what his foster parents told him a lot, and why Keith never managed to get away with anything. He hopes Shiro won’t inquire more, as Keith keeps his gaze on the window.
“Today I touched another person’s daemon,” Shiro murmurs.
Keith swallows.
“It was very rude of me. I wish to apologize,” Shiro adds. His tone is calm. “To my defense, I didn’t realize it was a daemon. Still, I’m sorry.”
There’s nothing Keith wants to answer, so he doesn’t. Shiro doesn’t expect him to do. He changes subject and starts to talking about the Garrison, about the fact that it’s a very difficult school but Keith can do it and Shiro is eager to help him in any way. That Keith can come to him as much as he likes.
“Here we are,” he says, as he parks the car in the home’s street.
“Thank you for the lift. And… for everything,” Keith murmurs. Kosmo is again a butterfly on his shoulder.
“Do you think the daemon’s person has forgiven me?” Shiro asks, as Keith gets off from the car.
“I’m sure. More than sure,” Keith answers.
“Good.” And he smiles.
Keith thinks he’s doomed.
Shiro made it: he made him feels love again.
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