Kehit doesn't have many friends.
The druids live in near seclusion, unless their insight is required elsewhere in the empire- and the ones that stay busy are usually the ones that don't have time for an inquisitive cub underfoot- (he's not underfoot, he insists, he wouldn't be if everyone else wasn't so tall, he just wants to learn.)
They're all so much older than him, older, and wiser, tapped into things he can barely hear yet, and some of them have sharp eyes and sharper words that make them uncomfortable.
He sticks to his mother. To the point that people joke about him stepping on her robes, but he doesn't care. It's comfortable, and familiar, and it works- and there's always something to do. Rituals require setup, and his mother is something of a perfectionist- the circles are never quite oriented right for her tastes, and little hands and little feet are just light enough to make proper adjustments.
He doesn't really think about it- mulls it over on occasion, when people ask him if he'd rather know more cubs his age. It doesn't really matter, is his conclusion. He's happy. Maybe if they were like him, but most of his cousins want to be soldiers- they swing around toy swords and talk loudly and shove each other around, and he's barely the height of the collarbones of the shortest ones- unlike the druids, he feels like they could actually trample him under their feet if he wasn't careful.
He's happy with his mother in the sanctum. It's big, and peaceful, and there's always something to do. He thinks this could last, until his sixth perigee, looking at a map of the galaxy from his father's broad shoulders. There's so much out there.
He doesn't play with the knife he receives- a traditional gift, for the son of a soldier- but the little toy ship rapidly becomes pocked by small claws, turned over as he passes it through the cooling air late at night.
Maybe he would like to see more of space.
Earth is his first planet away from home and he hates everything about it. He hates the way the locals sound, he hates how bright it is, and he hates the newfound flatness of his teeth and fingers.
But mostly, he hates that they can never get his name right.
"Keith,"
No! No no no no no!
He runs out of breath for correcting, runs out of energy, and this becomes his name, Keith. (He hates it. Like everything else about Earth)
(but maybe not ice cream.)
For the first time he's surrounded by cubs his age- kids, they're called on this planet, as in, "all right, kids, it's time for bed."
He still does not make friends. He's too busy hating everything about this planet. And missing home. He sneaks out of his bed and lies on the roof and he can't see any of the stars that he recognizes.
One time there's a girl who follows him out there- she seems nice, and she lies next to him instead of telling the woman that runs the orphanage that he's not in bed. He tries to tell her about the stars he's looking for- Skirmisher's Belt, a set of five bright stars; you were supposed to see it from almost anywhere in the same galaxy as Gal.
She doesn't like the name. She thinks that he should make up a better story, about being a long-lost alien prince, instead of a druid's son. "You're so weird," she says, when he gets angry.
For months afterwards, he swallows an angry knot in his throat when the helpers ask him if he wouldn't like more friends.
Years pass. Keith does not really make friends. Not for lack of effort- his caretakers push him at school sports teams and an astronomy club, both to no real interest. He cleans a whole stack of star charts out of his room one day, and can't for the life of him remember what he was looking for so intently, or decipher the odd, geometric scribbles his past self left all over them. He's divided about throwing them away- but they're meaningless, and other boys are coming and going all the time- a lot of them, now, and he can't be selfish with space. One of the newcomers, bitter and angry, steals his knife, and he's grounded for a week from the ensuing fight. After that he wraps the bright hilt in a gauze bandage, keeps it further out of sight.
Sometimes people come to the home, people who are looking to be parents. Some of them are friendly. Others give him a jangling sense of panic that he can't place, and he tries to avoid them. Mostly, they leave after he's not interested. One time, one of them doesn't- and it's the first time he runs away from home.
He's good at running. Or maybe he's just lucky- either way, they don't catch him for a week. He's less good at managing money- what he has isn't a lot, and his instincts don't save him from fiscal decisions. At one point he's nearly robbed- the mugger doesn't expect him to fight back, nor are they expecting him to be carrying a knife, but he doesn't wait to see if they've given up- he runs without looking until he twists his ankle, and crashes into an older boy nearly twice his size.
The boy's name is Shiro, and he is one of the most unnervingly talented listeners Keith has ever met. Somehow over a bottle of orange juice from a street vendor and a pack of ice on his throbbing ankle, most of his life story comes spilling out- and there are several times where he's convinced that Shiro would say something, only to find it not forthcoming. Not even about running away.
Keith runs out of things to say, and Shiro picks up the slack amicably. He's a student in his first year at the galaxy garrison- training to become a spaceship pilot, of all things.
("Why?")
"There's just so much out there that we don't understand yet."
"Y'know… I used to be looking for something in the sky." ("Really?") "No idea. I guess I felt like it was waiting for me." It's almost embarrassing to say it out loud.
Shiro doesn't seem to think it's a joke. "Well, you might still find it. Space is huge. We've only been as far as Jupiter's moons, and there's still the whole rest of the universe out there."
When Keith returns home, it's in the car of his new friend, and with a pamphlet almost crumpled in one hand. The first thing he does in his room is spread it out and pin it to the wall- he might be too young to enroll directly in flight school, but they have a booster program for potential future applicants, if he can get his grades to a certain point.
He has a goal. And a friend.
Pilots are sorted between fighters and cargo. "We don't expect to be fighting anyone in space for a long time," the teacher says lightly, "but it's the simplest way to summarize the different types."
"Okay," one of the students blurts- he's right next to Keith, "but which one gets all the chicks?"
"Wouldn't being a cargo pilot put you closer to more people?"
"Sold. Put me down as a cargo pilot."
(Well he's weird.)
The one good thing that comes out of flight school is the simulator. In all the haste of exams and paperwork and moving into a dorm, it's easy to forget that there's actually an endpoint somewhere in the stars for this- but the first time he's seated in a boxy little room and the view suddenly fills with stars, something just feels… right.
It's hard to pry him out of the simulator, after that. And the things on paper suddenly make more sense than they ever have, being able to put an equation or a theorem into something he'd be physically doing.
Shiro beams when he hears about it.
"You've come a long ways, Keith. I'm proud of you."
He punches him lightly in the arm. "I'll catch up to you eventually."
"I'm sure Commander Holt would love to have you. Some of the teachers are bragging about you."
"Just the teachers?"
"I might've said a few things."
Sometimes it comes up- with teachers, or classmates, that Keith is an orphan. It's the subject of a lot of condolences- talking about how it must've been hard, being alone.
It wasn't that hard. He had a friend.
A month later, the Kerberos mission is declared a failure and all three personnel dead.
He shuts off most of the news sources. He doesn't want to see Shiro's picture staring patiently at him from the other side of an empty screen.
For the first time in years, he skips class.
The next day, he gets into a fight. He's not even sure what it's about. There's a ringing in his ears and nothing is okay, and everything about flight school is infuriating.
One of the instructors talks to him about potential; warm, soothing words, that might've worked, coming from a different mouth.
"Who exactly am I disappointing?"
They don't have an answer for that. Not one he wants to hear.
Eventually he's given an ultimatum to move out of the dorm.
It's not exactly running away from home. He has a car this time, and doesn't get mugged. He stays in a hotel the first night, trying to figure out what to do.
Who exactly does he call?
(No, he knows exactly who he wants to call about this.)
(That person is currently in a headline, related to the word Kerberos.)
He tries the number anyway, for the hell of it. It goes to voicemail, which proves to be a mistake. Listening to a recording of Shiro is too much to deal with. He turns off his phone and cries until he doesn't have it in him to stay awake.
Keith is seventeen, and his only friend is dead.
The next day nothing feels better; but he knows where to go, and doesn't know why.
It's a year later, and his friend is alive- underfed and scarred and draped on a couch two sizes too small for him, with a metal arm dangling off the side. Sedated, effectively dead to the world- probably for the rest of the night but here and alive and close enough to be touched.
He's been alone with his feelings and alone with his thoughts and sheepishly Keith realizes his standards have fallen to pieces something awful. This is fine- for just him, for just being alone, in a place he found and cleaned up himself, even fixed the water pump and got it to produce something that didn't come back floridly toxic on the tester kit that he bought.
But this is Shiro. Shiro, who's here, and alive, and was just treated like a rabid animal in a way that makes Keith's blood boil- and he wants to give Shiro some kind of mansion, not a shack at the edge of the desert.
"So… you know Shiro. Like. Personally."
Oh, right, and the shack is now full of three other people.
It occurs to Keith that this is very nearly the most human company he's had since leaving flight school. (Worrying? Maybe. Hard to think it's a bad thing because Shiro is alive.)
"…Yeah?"
The guy sitting cross-legged on his floor leans forwards into a sulk, crossing his arms. "Man, if I'd known, I would've asked you for his autograph or something. I mean… before everything happened."
That one's Lance, he remembers. (faintly. They all introduced themselves at the same time.) The not-a-cargo-pilot-any-more.
Hunk- he swears that's not the guy's actual name- looks up from what he's reading. "Yeah, on the topic of everything happening, I just want you to know that technically we just kidnapped a guy who was yelling about aliens, and people are probably going to try and arrest us now."
"We didn't kidnap Shiro." (He's obstinate about that. He did not kidnap his friend)
"Hunk- did you see those guys? They had him tied to a gurney!" (so that actually is his name. Go figure.)
"Yeah, and I'm all for helping out national heroes, but like… just having second thoughts about the fact that we fought the government."
"…Probably inevitable." That's the one with the glasses. P- something. Porter? Pea- no, Pidge. Right. Weird name.
Why did he bring these people to his house? Because they helped, he supposes, but after being alone for most of a year- it's… weird, having other people here. Not Shiro- but now three other people. He doesn't really have a reason to dislike them, though.
It's an uncertain number of weeks later and a Galra fighter is dedicatedly lighting up the atmosphere behind his tail.
"Could really use some backup right now!"
"I told you, just wait a little bit!"
A hit glances off Red's flank- it's not enough to actually mar a Voltron Lion, but it sends the whole machine rocking in the air, a synthesized growl passing through Keith's mind more than his ears. "I'm running out of waiting time!"
It looms into view, a bristling dark purple spike of a craft, out of the corner of his eye- Red's eye- his eye, as he banks around a sharp turn- and then a bulky, mustard-yellow shape barrels into it like a runaway freight train. Galran engineering hits the full force of the Yellow Lion, and buckles inwards like a plastic bottle.
He can practically see Hunk settling back contentedly into his chair, not acknowledging or realizing that he was on the edge of it a moment earlier. "Sorry. That other guy bottlenecked me in one of the mine tunnels. Guess he thought it was a good idea to bury the earth lion." He trails off, cooing to Yellow like it's his firstborn.
Keith shakes his head. His hands are trembling on the controls from nerves. When they get back to the castle the other three paladins are waiting- Pidge's hair is glued to their forehead with sweat, and Lance is mostly visible by a pair of plate leggings and threadbare socks sticking up over the back of a chair. Shiro is sitting properly, his helmet in his lap, but he looks tired. They're all tired.
Hunk breaks the easy silence, peeling off pieces of his armor. "So… that wasn't exactly the walk in the park it was supposed to be. Where's Allura?"
Shiro groans faintly. "Don't say that too loudly. I talked her into taking a nap, she was practically dead on her feet, and she still wanted to wait for you guys."
"Nothing we haven't dealt with before. Though-" Keith stifles a yawn. "Honestly, a nap doesn't sound like a bad idea."
Lance's voice floats in a dreamlike haze. "I don't really wanna walk right now. Can we formally nominate a sleepover in the bridge? Coran's awake, right? He can bring blankets and stuff."
At the speed of an arthritic elephant, Shiro eases to his feet. "We should at least take our armor off first."
A blue gauntlet clatters to the ground in the general direction of the boots. "Done." Lance declares.
Somehow, they manage. Coran helps them drag mattresses- he seems to be mildly bemused by the concept, but willing to participate. Keith half wonders if there isn't an Altean counterpart, or if they're just doing something particularly strangely for Coran's tastes. But none of them can really care about alien culture for very long- rapidly, there's nothing in the room but the sound of breathing.
Lying on his back, Keith looks up at the stars. They're so different from the ones on Earth, different here from even the views on various planets. He picks out a cluster of five bright stars, lined up together- he's seen that one from a few of the planets they've been on now.
He looks over at Shiro- untroubled, seemingly too tired for nightmares- and his eyes slide past, to Pidge- or rather, the tiniest visible sliver of Pidge, protruding from a cocoon of blankets. To the right he can feel Hunk, sprawled, content, and Lance- Lance is dreaming about home.
Home. He hasn't really thought about that in a while. It's hard to understand what about Earth Pidge and Lance miss so much- the food hasn't been nearly so weird, since Hunk started cooking, and weren't they all going to go to space, anyway?
…He supposes that it's easy for him to say. Everyone he's really cared about is right here and accounted for.
Actually, a lot more people than he's ever really thought about. He closes his eyes and listens, feels. Across the castle, two floors up, Allura is restless, turning in her sleep. Closer, Coran picks his way across the paladin-strewn bridge, treading soundlessly. One of the mice has snuggled under Lance's blanket; the other three are scattered throughout the castle.
These people mean a lot to him. With all the aliens and explosions and giant robot fights going on, he hasn't had much time to really place it in those words, but, there it is.
Keith Kogane is eighteen and he has a lot of friends.