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First there is only pain, the mildly confusion of a mind trapped in a body shutting down for the torture and the morphine, a buzz around the air and the inability to see behind the unfocused lights upon him.
“Go away,” he’s finally able to hear, from a low, but steady voice. “You made too much mistakes.”
A growl, dangerous. “That were the High Priestess’ orders,.”
“No,” the voice replies. “Her orders was to keep him alive. As soon as I do it, you don’t have to interfere.”
Silence, again, in a way Shiro fears he’s losing consciousness again, then, the growl says, resigned by angry, “fine, do as you wish. But be careful, mutt, because no error will be tolerate.”
Shiro realizes just in that moment that he almost holds his breath during the entire exchange. There are movements around him, sound of things moved and step, yet Shiro, still trapped on the bed, looks at the light upon him, trying to regain his consciousness and his sight.
“Champion,” a voice whispers. Shiro startles as two hands cup his face, and someone enters in his vision, leaning his face towards Shiro’s. “Champion, can you hear me?”
“Wow, you’re beautiful,” Shiro says, in a suddenly spring of honesty without filter.
The man immediately moves backwards, with a little cough of embarrassment. “At least, you seem awake.”
Other rumors, and then Shiro feels the restrains be opened. He can move his arms and legs again, and he does it immediately, but slowly, trying to let his body adapted again. Then, always with careful movements, he stands up and sits on the metal bed: he is, he realizes, in the surgery rooms, a place he’s at that point awfully familiar, in the way he ends up there after every fight, so they can patch him up and get him ready for another fight.
Unlike the usual, there is only another man in the room, and no sentries. His first thought was correct: the man is beautiful. His skin his purple, but not furry, and he has yellow scales and fangs, and pointed hear, but his features are delicate, his face almost human, and there is a sort of kindness in his eyes. He has long white hair and two marks on both cheeks.
He wears a clothes Shiro only sees on druids’, the strange, masked creatures that worked for the scary woman called Haggar that has taken such interest in Shiro. That’s the first time he sees one of them without their masks.
“Are you sure you can keep me here unrestrained?” he asks.
“In the condition you are in this moment, you’re no match for me,” the man answers, not looking at him, to focus on his things. “And even if you do, there’s no place you can escape, we’re too deep inside the Headquarter.”
He doesn’t seem to say that words with cruelty, but they hurt Shiro nevertheless, they give him the reality of his situation as a prisoner.
“What is going to happen to me?”
“That’s the high priestess to decide,” the man answers, calmly. “For now, I got orders to let you live, and be healthy, and I’ll do it at best of my possibility.”
“What’s your name?”
At that question, the man turns, looking surprised by the question. Then his eyes narrow: “why do you want to know?”
“You’re the first person here to treat me like a human being,” Shiro replies. “You answered my question, and you did it in a kind way. I thought it may be nice to know each other.” And then he adds, with a little smile, “I’m Shiro.”
“You shouldn’t give away your name so easily, Champion,” the man replies. “Names are dangerous around, and you’re already in hands of others.” He comes closer, and takes Shiro’s left arm, starting analyzing him with just the point of his claws fingers, with gentle movements even if it tickles. “But it’s true I think it’s better treating people with kindness, even if they’re prisoners. And you did look like you deserve some.”
Shiro doesn’t answer, but he looks at him carefully, at his delicate features as he keeps on his checkups on Shiro. “You don’t look like other Galra,” he says at last. “But I feel you already know that, that I’m not the first one to tell you that.”
The man nods. “That’s because I’m only half Galra. My mother was a traitors of the Empire, and she had a story of some inferior person in a far planet.”
“And this isn’t a good thing,” Shiro realizes, by the tone he said that.
“No, it isn’t. In the best way, I should have ended in some labor camps.” The man ends up his checkups and stands up again. “Luckily for me, I have a very strong quintessence sensibility, so the High Priestess took interest on me. As soon as I do my job, I should be safe.”
“And so you accept to do things against your morality?”
“We all need to survive.”
“There should be some limits.”
“Should be?” The man turns towards him, eyes narrow. “Then why do you still kill in the area for their enjoyment? Don’t you want to survive?”
And Shiro realizes the man is right, and he shouldn’t have assumed things.
“I apologize,” he says, and he means it. “You’re right, we’re probably not much different.”
At that admission, the man’s eyes softens. “You looks like a good person, Shiro,” he murmurs. “I can’t do much for you, unfortunately, but at least, as long as I’m here, I’ll try to treat you as a human being, and not like a weapon.”
Shiro smiles at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re fine, by the way, the pod healed all your wounds already. I’ll call the sentries to escort you back to your cell, so you can rest. I’ll have them bring you food later.” He doesn’t add anything, just reaching the door, but then he stops and says, without looking at Shiro. “My name is Yorak.”
***
“You already took my arm, what do you want more?” Shiro screams, trying to escape from his restraints and from the grip of the sentries. There is a time where being in the surgery room was a blessing, a prove he was still alive. Instead, now, it’s a scary thing, with the certainty that they’re going to experiment on him, treating more and more like a weapon.
“Let me go!” And, with his surprise, the grip on himself loosens.
Black thunders cross the room with a creaky sound: the sentries cortocircuited themselves and fall in the ground clinging, while the garla guards are pushed against the wall like ragdolls. The only druid there, just next Shiro face, growls.
“What are you doing? The High Priestess won’t forgive this betrayal.”
Shiro tries to lift his head, as much as the restraints allow him to do, to understand what it’s happening, but he only catches glimpse on the druid’s mantel that swirls around, and the dark electricity that wanders around, until the druid fall on the ground with a dark thud.
Another druid is immediately at Shiro’s side, opening his restraints. “We don’t have much time,” he says, agitated. “The guards will be here soon, and then Haggar will know what I did.”
“Yorak,” Shiro recognizes the voice immediately. He has been his guard druid for a lot of time, before the time Haggar decided to cut off his right arm and put a prosthetic on. Since that moment, he hadn’t see Yorak around, and he was worried about him. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Yorak startles a little about those words. “That’s not time to be worried about me. Come.”
He helps Shiro standing up from the bed, the opens the door. Shiro follows him in the purple hallway of the base. They aren’t so luckily to not meeting sentries along their way, but the thunder Yorak can emits from his fingers are enough to stop them. But it tired him too, Shiro notices by the way his steps become slower, and how his back is a little bit curved when they reach the hangar.
“This is yours,” Yorak points at a little pod, with its back door already opened. “I put inside the coordinates for your planet, and enough food and fuel for you to survive during the journey. Go.”
Shiro steps inside the ship with a little bit of uncertain, incredulous that he has this chance of escaping, being free again, going back home. He stops and turns to Yorak.
“Why are you helping me?”
“There’s no time now,” Yorak replies. And the understands Shiro won’t leave without an answer, so he says, “I learn to like you in the small periods we were together. You’re a good man, Shiro, and you don’t deserve to become their weapon. Maybe you’ll die, but at least you will be yourself.”
“Then come with me.” Shiro can’t see Yorak’s face under his mask, but he can imagine the surprise, the widen look.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Shiro replies. “After what you did, there is no place for you here in the empire, and the kind thing that will happen to you is death, and I don’t think you deserve that too.” He leans a hand towards him. “Come on.”
“I’ll become a prisoner back on Earth,” Yorak points out. “Even if I offer my knowledge about the Empire, they won’t trust me. And I will understand.”
“I’ll vouch for you,” Shiro assures. “And if it doesn’t work, well, I’ll ask to be your guard so we’ll be even.”
There’s a little, amused huff under the mask, but any conversation is interrupted by scream at the entrance of the hangar: guards and more druids are coming.
“Come on,” Shiro repeats, and this time Yorak grabs his hand and Shiro drags him inside and closes the backdoor of the pod before the guard start shooting at them.
“Let me do it,” Yorak says, as he jumps on the pilot seat. They are closing the gate, but Yorak grabs the controls and let the pod swipe out before the gate shut behind them. They are shooting and them now, but Yorak seems to have eyes everywhere, or maybe a sixth sense, because he’s able to sense where the shot will come from, and move the ship accordling, still accelerating it, so they are fast in the empty space, far from the headquarters.
“I’ve put some interferences in their system, so they shouldn’t be able to follow us,” Yorak says, with a little sigh of relief. He puts the pod in autopilot and stands up. “But let’s be still very careful about it. And they know where you came from, so they may follow us there.”
“So maybe we shouldn’t go back there.”
“What?”
“I want to,” Shiro clarify, “want to warn them and everything. But there is a war out here, and I’m sure we can somehow help.”
Yorak takes off his mask and smirk, amused. “You really are a good man,” he whispers. “You never lose yourself, not even when… they tried to turn you in a monster. I envy you for this.”
“You’re just like me,” Shiro replies. “You didn’t become like them, no matter what you had to face. I like you a lot, Yorak.”
There is a little blush on Yorak’s purple face. Then, he says. “Keith.”
“What?”
“Call me Keith,” Yorak says. “It’s the name my father gave me.”
“It sounds like a Terran name,” Shiro smiles a little.
“Because it is,” Yorak informs him. “My mother was Galra, but my father was Terran. I’ve never been there, tough.”
Shiro takes a little while to recover from that information, and Yorak taking off his mantle and remaining with a very thigh under suit doesn’t help at all.
“Let’s go back together, then, Keith,” he says, at last. “Let’s go to save Earth the entire universe from the Galra, then I’ll bring you there. Let’s do it together.”
And at Shiro’s excited expression, Keith smiles. “Together.”
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