When Keith learned they were heading to a planet full of tech-geniuses, he was expecting a sprawling metropolis filled with incredible feats of science. He didn't expect the distress signal to come from the forest. He also didn't expect the team to be ambushed by a bunch of 'tree-people,' as Lance put it.
They encountered lots of things Keith wasn't expecting, but these were nothing compared to the biggest surprise of them all.
While Pidge expressed displeasure and disappointment at heading into the forest instead of the cool city, Keith didn't mind at all. He'd missed the outdoors – the wild, open spaces with nothing around for miles. Being stuck in a spaceship with artificial gravity, regulated temperatures and vacuum-sealed packaging had begun to wear on him. Even if the landscape was alien, it was still refreshing.
When the Red Lion touched down beside its companions (quite gently, considering they were, essentially, shot down), Keith opened the hatch and took a deep breath as the earthy, damp smell only a forest can produce came wafting in. Pidge was already on top of her lion, hailing their mysterious ambushers, who were gathering in droves at the Lions' feet.
Once it became clear that this was Voltron, the Olkari became quite friendly, and welcomed the paladins with open arms and much celebration. Keith slid down the leg of his lion and landed smoothly on the ground. Lance and Hunk followed suit, a little less gracefully. Shiro and Pidge were already stepping forward into the clearing, where a crowd had gathered. Keith wrinkled his nose as the mob swarmed around them, voices chattering with excitement. He'd always been somewhat socially awkward, and crowds – human or alien – made him uncomfortable. The paladins were funneled along by the excited crowd of Olkari to a figure who seemed to be their leader. Once they were all there, the excitement seemed to die down a bit as the leader motioned for the crowd to hush.
"Welcome, Paladins of Voltron."
The voice startled Keith a bit, as he wasn't expecting a kind, motherly female. Now that the commotion had stopped, he was able to get a good look at these people.
They were all wearing gray uniforms with orange markings and triangular-shaped ponchos with hoods. Their faces were oval-shaped, with grayish skin, large bluish-green eyes, and teal fins at the top and sides of their heads that reminded Keith, absurdly, of a child's pigtails.
The female addressing Shiro was a little taller than the rest, and wore a sash over her uniform. Her face was kind and open, and there were more than a few wrinkles around her eyes, suggesting she was an old and wise matriarch.
"Judging by your reaction, I'm guessing you sent the distress signal?" Shiro was asking.
The woman nodded. "Indeed." She said, bowing graciously, her long sleeves sweeping across the forest floor. "I am Rhyner, acting leader of the nation of Olkari."
Shiro cleared his throat. "I'm Shiro, and I pilot the Black Lion of Voltron. We're very pleased to meet you."
Pidge elbowed her way to the front. "So why aren't you in the city?" She asked brusquely. Keith bit back a sigh. Pidge had a huge curious streak, and once she got onto a matter she was like a charging bull. Blunt and to the point. No wonder she'd been able to disguise herself as a boy.
Rhyner didn't seem at all off-put by Pidge's rudeness. She merely smiled graciously. "Let's head back to the village and we can get better acquainted. We've been waiting for so long! Everyone is very excited to meet you."
Great. Keith thought. More attention.
Before anyone could move or say anything else, there was a pattering of feet and presently the crowd parted to allow a short, cloaked figure to scurry forward.
"Oh, there you are, Vreekaya." Said Rhyner.
"S-sorry. I came as soon as I heard. Marcha and I were just- "
The clearing went deadly still. All five paladins froze in shock, staring slack-jawed at the newcomer.
Keith's brain momentarily shut down. He blinked in surprise, wondering if he was really seeing this. Staring out from beneath a simple headdress of twisted branches and a curtain of messy, shoulder-length hair was a pair of brown eyes in a face of honey-colored skin. She had a slightly pointed jaw and a small snub nose, and was unmistakably human. But that was impossible! What was another human doing so far out here?
The girl herself seemed just as surprised. Her eyes, about the same shade as her skin, were wide and her lips were parted in astonishment. She flicked her gaze over each one of them before turning to Rhyner, her rather bushy eyebrows raised.
"Th-this is Voltron?" Her voice was almost a whisper, as if she couldn't believe it to be true. Keith didn't fully hear Rhyner's reply. He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. It had been a long time since he'd seen another human face other than those of his teammates.
Shiro was the first to recover. He frowned, then said in a very tentative voice:
"Hope? Hope Iverson?"
Iverson? Keith wondered. Wait – that couldn't be –
"T-Takashi Shirogane?" The girl whispered, her eyes even wider.
"I take it you know each other?" Said Rhyner, completely unfazed. "Oh, splendid. I was hoping someone would come someday who knew you, dear."
"Well, not really well." Said the girl. Keith still wasn't certain of her name. Was it Hope? Rhyner had called her something else. Vree-something. "I remember he was important at the Garrison, though." She said.
"And you're the daughter of Commander Iverson, if I'm not mistaken." Said Shiro, still sounding amazed.
"Wait – what?" Lance sputtered. "She's Commander Iverson's daughter?"
"Can we talk about this later?" Hope asked. She sounded uncomfortable, but her gaze never wavered.
Rhyner seemed to sense the tension in her voice. Patting the girl's back affectionately, she offered a small explanation.
"Vreekaya here has been living on Olkarion with us ever since her ship crashed several decaphebes ago."
"Rhyner-" Hope began, but was quickly cut off.
"I've always hoped someone from her home planet would come and find her, and here you are! The new Paladins of Voltron are humans from Earth! What an incredible coincidence! Providence must be watching over us, guiding our fates to this moment." Rhyner finished by raising her hands and gaze to the sky, an uplifted expression on her face.
Keith heard Lance chuckle nervously at this. Hope shifted uncomfortably on her feet, seemingly anxious to get away. Her eyes flicked back and forth amongst the Paladins, and it was all Keith could do not to drop his gaze to the forest floor whenever her eyes lighted on him.
Without warning, she turned on her heels and darted away, footsteps muffled by the dense foliage on the forest floor. Keith watched her as the crowd parted and she vanished into the forest.
He didn't hear or comprehend much of what happened after that. He was aware that the group was moving off towards the trees, and that Rhyner was speaking again, but his mind was unable to focus on anything but the mysterious girl. The shock of meeting another human this far out in the universe was still affecting him. Then there was Shiro's apparent recognition of her, and her puzzling reaction.
Had he heard right? Was she really Commander Iverson's daughter? Keith wracked his brain, trying to recall everything he knew about the grim-faced leader of the Garrison – a figure whose stark, no-nonsense approach had clashed frequently with his own stubbornness. Any other information he'd collected about the man was fuzzy from disuse, but he did seem to remember something he'd heard on his first day at the Garrison. It was a rumor about Iverson's son being held back a term because of disciplinary issues – issues strikingly similar to what would ultimately cause Keith's dismissal from the program several years later. He remembered wondering why they hadn't discharged Jedidiah from the Garrison altogether, and Shiro had said something about his being the Commander's son.
Keith had thought back to that piece of information when faced with his own expulsion, wondering bitterly if things would have gone differently if he'd been related to anyone important. He'd even said as much, which, of course, did nothing to help matters. The Commander had leaped from his chair and yelled with such rage it made Keith's heart skip a beat, despite his defiance. As Keith was forcibly removed from the office, the last words he heard from the Commander were fueled by loss and hurt as well as anger.
"Did family relations keep my daughter safe?"
Like a cobweb being cleared away, the pieces all fell into place. Jedidiah Iverson's disciplinary problems. The Commander's rage. Shiro's recognition of Hope. Rhyner's words about a crashed ship. It all made sense now.
Keith was in the Garrison program for just under two years before being expelled. Jedidiah, who was a year younger than Keith, would have been in the third-year program for fourteen-year-olds. Instead, he was held back while his twin sister was advanced to the next program. Keith hadn't known Jedidiah had a sister – he'd never seen the girl until the news of a special test program reached his ears. This was to be a test run of a newly engineered space craft, and the crew would consist of one faculty member and two students who showed exemplary discipline and potential. It was big news, but amidst the disturbance of Jedidiah being held back, the information that his twin was to be one of the crew members was somehow lost on Keith, who hadn't paid much attention to the whole matter anyway.
Then, near the beginning of Keith's second year, the Garrison was once more thrown into uproar. All Keith remembered of that whirlwind was a faculty member coming into the middle of class and telling the students they were all dismissed. He'd gone back to the dorm in a bewildered blur to find Shiro watching a news reel. Apparently, the test craft had suddenly gone offline, and all the crew members were lost. Nothing was known about the craft's whereabouts, and scientists were baffled by the sudden disappearance.
It was this incident, and the failed Kerberos mission less than a year later that led the Garrison to come under fire from the government for potential safety violations, unfollowed procedures, and other charges. All the current students could feel the heat. Rules were more heavily enforced. More regulations were put in place. Half the faculty disappeared, and government officials prowled the corridors, taking notes on their observations. Commander Iverson had gone from bad to worse, railing on students and faculty alike for even the slightest fault and pressuring those with the most potential. It was under this pressure and chaos that Keith finally snapped.
He'd been so caught up in his own problems, especially the disappearance of Shiro, that the information he'd heard on the Iverson twins had been lost, until now.
Keith's mind whirled. The test craft was supposed to go into orbit – nothing more. When it appeared to vanish without a trace, no scientist could explain what happened. How in the blazes had one of its crew members ended up here? More importantly, where was the rest of the crew? Rhyner had mentioned something about a crash. Based on that, he had a rather morbid suspicion he already knew the answer.
When Lance elbowed him in the shoulder, saying something about paying attention, Keith was thrown from his train of thought and left reeling in its wake. He had to manually shut down that thought pattern in order to fully shift his attention to what was going on.
Rhyner was in the middle of explaining to the group what had happened to their leader, Lubos. Keith glanced around him at the forest village, taking in the bizarre mix of nature and technology. What looked like a dragonfly made of twigs and branches buzzed into his face and he slapped it away amidst a chuckle from Lance.
Ignoring the Blue Paladin, Keith instead took in their surroundings once more, hoping to catch sight of Hope. The girl was nowhere in sight. For some reason, he felt a pang of longing, but it was quickly swept aside as he focused his attention fully on the task at hand. His hands were itching for action, but he was also curious. He hoped they'd get another chance to talk to Hope. He had a feeling this was the start of something bigger.
·
Hope didn't appear again until after they'd destroyed the weaponized cube and exposed Lubos's crimes. She appeared from the crowd of insurgents that had retaken the city from the Galra, yelling wild war whoops and celebrating along with everyone else. At first, Keith didn't notice her amongst the crowd – she blended in so well despite her height and obviously different physique. It was only then, when his eyes finally lighted on her honey-colored skin amidst the sea of teal and gray faces that he noticed with some amusement that her hair was done up in four ponytails at the back of her head, no doubt to mimic the fins of the other Olkari. He hoped they'd get a chance to talk to her. He wanted to know why she'd run off after meeting them. Judging by what he'd pieced together from his memory and from Rhyner's words, he'd thought she'd be thrilled to meet someone of her own kind after living with aliens for so long.
Rhyner and Shiro were still talking, and Keith realized he'd missed most of the conversation. He tuned in just as the two shook hands, with Rhyner promising they would be ready when Voltron called on them.
As Rhyner turned to speak to Pidge, Keith noticed Lance edge away from the group. He had that stupid grin on his face and Keith sighed, guessing what Lance was about to do. He was right. Lance sidled up to Hope, who had been organizing the still-celebrating Olkari to begin a cleanup of the city. She jumped when Lance approached, edging cautiously away towards one of the groups. Keith could hear Lance's frustrated sigh from halfway across the courtyard.
Feeling a sense of spiteful satisfaction, he turned and began to listen to the conversation once again. There was something he wanted to ask. Shiro beat him to it.
"And, forgive me if we're intruding," he said, "but I think we're all curious about Hope. The girl from Earth who's been living here with you."
Rhyner smiled. "I understand. But it's her choice if she decides to talk with you. As you've probably observed, she wasn't very receptive."
"Do you know why?" Hunk asked. "I mean, it's not every day we meet another human being this far away from Earth. I would think she'd be happy."
That's what I thought, Keith thought to himself.
Rhyner sighed. "I'm afraid it isn't that simple. Vreekaya has had a difficult time. To her, we are her only people."
"Huh?" Asked several people at once. Lance had finally given up and come back over to join the group. He stood beside Hunk, scratching his head in confusion.
"I'm not sure how much to tell you." Said Rhyner gravely. "I will tell you some, but it's her decision whether or not to tell the rest."
"I understand." Said Shiro, looking sadly over at the group where Hope was. Everyone else followed his gaze, watching as she sat with a small Olkarian child on her lap, her back to the paladins.
"When she first came to us," Rhyner began, "she was with two others on board a vessel that came out of hyperspace and crashed onto the planet's surface." Rhyner paused a bit before continuing, sorrow filling her voice. "She was the only survivor. Even then, she didn't escape unscathed. She took a very nasty knock to the head. When she finally woke, she could only remember bits and pieces. Everything else was gone, lost in the ashes of her crashed ship."
Feeling everyone's eyes on her, Hope turned, her eyebrows raised quizzically. Handing the child back to his mother, she rose and glided gracefully across the courtyard to the little group of Paladins in matching colored armor.
"Yes?" She asked, sounding slightly miffed, as if she could tell they were talking about her. Keith didn't blame her one bit. He'd experienced this scenario multiple times in the Garrison, and the feeling was something he knew quite well.
Rhyner put her hand on Hope's shoulder. "We were hoping to make a more proper introduction." She said, gesturing to the Paladins before her. "There wasn't much time before."
Hope actually smiled then, a warm, gentle expression that bore no resemblance to the steely gaze Keith remembered her father wearing back at the Garrison.
"Sorry." She said quietly. "Guess I was just a little overwhelmed, is all."
"We understand." Said Shiro. He offered his hand. "You probably already know me by sight, but I'll introduce myself all the same. I'm Shiro."
"Everyone calls me Vreekaya." Said Hope, shaking Shiro's hand. "But I guess you know me as Hope."
Lance elbowed his way to the front, grasping Hope's delicate hand in his and kissing it. "I'm Lance." He said smoothly, his eyes narrowed in what he likely assumed was a suave look.
Hope wrinkled her eyebrows, but tried not to look too off-put. "N-nice to meet you."
Pidge was next, then Hunk, and then Hope turned to Keith. In that short time, she'd visibly relaxed, becoming friendlier and more jovial. She offered her own hand to Keith and shook it firmly.
"Keith." Was all he said. Her bright stare, when turned on him, was suddenly uncomfortable.
"I'm guessing you're all wondering why I'm here." Said Hope, turning serious again.
"Only if you're feeling up to talking." Said Shiro kindly.
"How much did Rhyner tell you?" She asked, shooting a pointed glance at the woman, who bit her lower lip and looked almost sheepish. A sort of unspoken communication seemed to pass between the two. Hope sighed and looked at her shoes.
"Then there isn't much more to tell. I've lived on Olkarion for the past year and a half. I don't remember much from before my ship crashed."
"Maybe once we defeat Zarkon," Pidge piped up, "we can take you back to Earth so you can see your family again."
Hope smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling up as she did. "I'd like that."
A series of short beeps from Shiro's helmet, which he had tucked under his left arm, signaled an incoming call from the castle. Shiro excused himself and stepped away, no doubt to fill Allura and Coran in on everything that had happened since they'd left.
Rhyner drew Hope aside then, and the two stood with their heads together, talking in hushed voices. Keith, who was standing closest to them, managed to pick up on their conversation.
"I'm only thinking of you, Vreekaya." Rhyner was saying.
"And I think you're overthinking it." Hope replied. "Olkarion is my home! My place is here!"
"But these are your people, dear! You have a chance to-"
"The Olkari are my people!" Hope said, now very distressed. "I don't understand! What could I possibly have to offer them?"
"You have our prowess with technology;" Rhyner said, still speaking slowly and carefully, "something no one on Voltron currently possesses. You could be our ambassador, our go-between."
"But what if I don't want that? What if I don't want things to change? What if I'm happy here?"
"Vreekaya, you know I love you like a daughter. And it's because I love you that I'm suggesting this." She gently placed her hand on Hope's cheek. "Let's face it, dear. This is your chance to discover who you really are! You're getting nowhere here."
"Why are we even talking about this?" Hope asked. "I'm not going to just invite myself onto the Voltron team."
"Just promise me you'll think about this?"
"I can't make any promises." Said Hope, reaching up to brush away a tear. Looking up and behind her, she noticed the paladins watching her, though it was clear she didn't know whether or not they'd overheard them. Awkwardly, she brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face and cracked a half-smile. "Excuse me." She said, before turning and gliding away.
·
After Shiro finished briefing Allura on the situation, she agreed to come down to speak with Rhyner about forming a proper alliance. Several hours later, they sat at an impromptu supper in one of the previously Galra-occupied tower rooms in the city. There were bits of debris lying here and there and one of the windows was destroyed, but nobody cared. Hope picked at her food, engaging with Hunk and Pidge as they joked and ignoring Lance's flirting, but she remained distant. Keith didn't blame her.
"And I should very much like to know more about you, Hope." Said Allura, effectively startling the girl out of whatever train of thought she'd been following. She looked up and bit her lip once she realized everyone was looking at her. But at a nod from Rhyner, she shrugged and repeated what Rhyner had told the paladins earlier.
"Rhyner's been like a mother to me." She finished with a sigh. "I don't remember much of my family, but I'm glad to have people who care about me. Maybe someday, if possible, I'd like to go back. But I'm not the same person I once was. I need to put the past behind me and move forward."
"On that note," said Shiro, glancing at Allura, "we'd like to offer you a place on our team. You've dealt with Galra tech firsthand, and can work with metal and technology in ways that none of us can. Your skills would be a great asset to our team." He paused and looked around at each of the paladins before continuing. "So what do you say? You want to join the fight against the Galra and work to take down Zarkon?"
Bit over the top, Shiro, Keith thought.
Hope set down her spork deliberately, pausing to take a breath before answering. "Thank you for your offer, but I'm afraid I cannot answer you at the moment."
"Of course." Said Shiro, nodding. "You can give us an answer in the morning."
With that, the dinner was at an end. As the paladins left the room, Keith drew Shiro aside. "Do you think she'll join us?" He asked.
Shiro scratched his chin. "It's hard to say. What do you think? You think she'll be a good addition?"
"Sure, if only to keep Lance busy and off my back."
Shiro smirked.
"But what will she be doing?" Keith continued. "The lions are all taken, obviously, and only Alteans can move the ship."
"Are you saying you don't want her with us?"
"I'm only thinking she might have some trouble finding something to do. Trouble fitting in."
"You may be right about that." Said Shiro. "Look, I know it's a lot for all of us to process, but it's her decision, after all."
Looking over at Hope, laughing as Pidge did her best impressions of all the paladins, Keith could tell things were about to change.