A/N: Ok, so I went on a rampage and wrote this chapter and the next one literally in one sitting. I got to my favorite hangout, the Rook Pawn board game cafe, and chilled here from 5:30-9:30pm and just wrote this. I honestly thought it would all fit into one chapter, but when I realized it was breaching 4,000 words, I decided to cut this chapter in two. It ended up being over almost 8,000 words total. Wow. I'll post the next chapter (the second half of this) tomorrow afternoon/evening. Gotta keep y'all on the edge of your seats somehow, right? ^_~

Chapter summary: In which Team Voltron prepare for the Galra's arrival, Keith has trouble coming to terms with...stuff, and Lance is oblivious. For the moment.

10: Balmy Discourse

"Paladins!" the princess's voice yelled over the two Lions' communicators. "Return to the Castle immediately!"

"What? Why?" Pidge said, sitting up in his pilot's seat.

"Yeah," Hunk said. "We haven't found either Lance or the Blue Lion."

"I doubt we could actually," Pidge said slowly.

"Paladins," Allura called again.

"We're coming princess," Shiro answered, leaning over Pidge's shoulder. "We're almost to the wormhole. Are you alright?" he asked urgently. "Did something happen?"

"Our long range sensors have detected a Galra ship nearby," she began.

"What?" Hunk gasped, immediately switching on his own long range sensors. "Here?"

"No," Allura replied. "It's enroute to Arus."

"Um," Hunk hesitated. "Where is Arus?"

"The Castle!" Coran cried. "They coming to the Castle."

Shiro stiffened. "Not good," he muttered. "We're on our way. Coran, what's the Galra's ETA?"

"'ETA?'" the advisor repeated in confusion.

"Estimated Time of Arrival," Pidge clarified, fiddling with the controls of his Green Lion.

"Oh, well based on my calculations," Coran said, "I'd say they should arrive here in approximately two cycles. Granted, this is based on knowledge from 10,000 years ago, but it should hold. I hope."

"That's not very reassuring," Hunk said once he passed through the wormhole.

"Yes well, thing about finger counting," Coran said, sounding a bit flustered, "it's more of an art than a science."

"You do realize finger counting is just counting, right?" Pidge said in a flat voice.

Shiro chuckled. "We're here princess," he said. "We'll head to the bridge as soon as we land."

The wormhole closed behind them and the Lions made their way to their respective hangers. When they disembarked, Shiro was again struck by that odd pull he first felt when Princess Allura first assigned him to the Black Lion. What if the pull was the Black Lion locked away in the Castle somewhere?

He froze, eyes wide. Was that what he was feeling? Was the Black Lion at the other end of this pull? If he followed it, would he find the Black Lion? He may not be able to free it, but could he see it?

A soulful longing swept over him like a tsunami, stunning him with its power and almost knocking him off his feet. He could almost hear an answer in the flood. There were no words or images, just the faintest of impressions like a flash of something in the distance bright enough to catch his attention but too quick and far to make sense of it. He wanted to find the source. He wanted to find the Black Lion.

"…ro…"

"Shiro!"

He jolted at the shout, whirling around to see Pidge perched on Hunk's shoulders so he was even with Shiro's ear. His mouth was still open from screaming Shiro's name. Shiro flushed and smiled awkwardly.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said, stepping back and rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. He blinked when he actually noticed how tall Pidge was. A quick glance down brought a goofy smile to his face. "How's the weather up here?" he teased.

Pidge's concerned gaze instantly darkened behind his glasses. He hunched over Hunk's head and glared at Shiro. "Ha ha, very funny," he said.

"Hey," Shiro said with a shrug, "welcome to my world."

Pidge opened his mouth to say something then nodded. "Okay, right, yeah."

Hunk laughed, shaking Pidge with every twitch of his shoulders. "Nice one Shiro," he said, holding up a hand to give the older man a high five.

Shiro's smile softened as he returned the high five and together they made their way up to the bridge.

"You felt the pull, didn't you?" Hunk said when they all stepped into the elevator and rode it up to the upper floors.

Shiro glanced at the yellow paladin in cautious curiosity.

"Don't worry about it," Hunk said with a friendly smile. "We get it. That's how I found the Yellow Lion back on Earth, remember?"

"Yeah," Pidge agreed. "That's how I figured out the Green Lion was hidden in that old ruin. Remember? The giant sloth-"

"Stadig," Shiro offered, fully expecting to be ignored.

"-kept paddling past it to the larger ruins further down the river," Pidge continued, talking over Shiro. "It's like a need. I needed to go there. It felt like something was calling me."

"In the cave back on Earth," Hunk said, "I felt like I would cry if I didn't go into the cave right then. When I started flying the Yellow Lion-"

"Barfing," Pidge coughed loudly.

"I will drop you," Hunk said flatly.

"No you wouldn't," Pidge said with a smug grin. "You love me too much."

Hunk groaned and slumped in defeat. "Yeah, you're right."

Shiro chuckled and shook his head as they stepped out of the elevator and into the hallway. "Pidge," he said, patting the shortest paladin's back in a friendly manner, "let Hunk finish."

Pidge slumped and puffed his cheeks out in a sulk. "Yes dad," he grumbled.

"As I was saying," Hunk said, "When I started flying the Yellow Lion, it was like everything was right. Like I'd found something I didn't even know was missing. It was amazing."

"When you weren't barfing," Pidge muttered just loud enough to hear.

"Pidge," Shiro warned with a mild glare, the amusement still evident in his expression.

"Whatever," Pidge groaned.

"Paladins," Allura said, turning from the panel she had been standing by to face them. Here lovely eyes sparkled with worry. "I'm glad you're here."

"How can we help?" Shiro said, striding across the floor with Hunk hurrying after, Pidge bouncing on his shoulders.

"We need to prepare the Castle for an attack," Allura said. "Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated."

"I'm good with computers," Pidge said, raising his hand. "I'd have to familiarize myself with your tech, but I'm sure I can't at least boost the power and stuff."

"I can help with that," Hunk added. "We can work on fixing my Lion later too."

"Good idea," Allura said with an encouraging smile.

Shiro felt a faint blush in his cheeks as he shifted awkwardly. "If you need anything moved or manual labor, I can help with that," he said shyly.

"Oh good," Coran chirped, flouncing over to the group and snagging Shiro's hand. "I could use a hand with the weapons check."

"But I don't have any-"

"Bah, you have muscles," Coran said, pinching Shiro's flesh left arm, "and some extra strength here," he flicked Shiro's metal arm, wincing and rubbing his sore finger afterwards. "I could use that strength with the heavy lifting while I check the relays and command crystals."

"Oh, um, alright." A smile began to form on Shiro's face as he was affected by Coran's enthusiasm. "I can do that."

"Pidge, Hunk, you two can stay with me," Allura said. "I'm going to attempt to activate the particle barrier and the Castle's defenses. If something malfunctions, we'll troubleshoot the problems while we have the chance. We need to be ready to defend ourselves by the time the Galra get here."

Both Pidge and Hunk gave the princess two thumbs up. "We got this princess," Pidge said smiling proudly.

"You can count on us," Hunk added.

A high pitched squeak trilled from the princess's shoulder and Hunk's smile slipped. "Please tell me I don't have to work with the mice," he said.

"They're actually very useful," Allura said, petting the tiny blue mouse on her shoulder with a proud smile. "They can reach places we can't. They've already helped me rewire the deep space scanners which allowed us to detect the Galra in the first place."

"Really?" Pidge asked, adjust his glasses and studying the mouse with interest. "Cool."

"Oh boy," Hunk sighed.

His first thought was of motion. He was moving. Then his mind began functioning and he realized he was feeling motion. The only way to feel motion was if he was alive.

He was alive.

His eyes flew open and he flailed in shock, crumbling back to the ground when he couldn't catch himself in time. He was moving. He was alive. He was breathing!

He pushed himself back up from the ground only to freeze when his left hand landed on something that gave beneath him. Blinking in the dim red-tinted light, he bit back his apprehension and looked down at whatever his hand had landed on.

It was a body. But not just any body. It was Lance's body. The Altean was still wearing the stolen Galra armor and his skin was still a light purple, but Keithek just knew it was Lance. He hesitantly reached out and removed the helmet covering Lance's face, wincing when he saw the still swollen eye. Lance's chest was moving in slow, shallow breaths. But just to reassure himself, Keithek pressed two fingers to the Altean's neck, breathing a heavy sigh of relief when he felt the fluttering pulse just under the skin. He pulled his fingers back and paled when he noticed the dark, viscous substance coating his skin. It was darker than his usual skin tone and gleamed red in the reddish light of whatever room they were in.

Blood. Lance was bleeding.

Fighting back the panic clawing at the edges of his muddled mind, Keithek scrambled to remove the metal chest plate from the Altean's disconcertingly limp body and undo the two top buttons of Lance's shirt revealing his neck. There, on the left side of the Altean's slender, vulnerable neck was a bite mark that Keithek instinctively knew was his. But… When…?

A flash of darkness and silence suddenly blinded him. He could see Lance flailing uselessly in the vacuum of space, his body a stark contrast to the dark battlecruiser and the brilliant, convoluted strands of the slipstream. They were going to die.

He didn't want to die.

Not alone.

He'd yanked the Altean close to him as the pain from his oxygen deprived lungs began to burn and the saliva in his mouth began to boil. Lance wrapped his free arm around him, desperately seeking something to hold, to anchor them, to stop their inevitable tumble to death and Keithek buried his teeth in the expanse of exposed neck right by his mouth.

He'd bitten Lance.

Jurt, he'd bitten Lance.

He vaguely knew he was hyperventilating and shuddering. His heart pounded painfully against his rib cage and his limbs and face tingled. What had he done? Why had he done it? He'd been so certain they were going to die. They were going to die. They should be dead. So why were they alive? How were they alive? Why did he mark Lance?

His panicked thoughts screeched to an abrupt halt when a deep, rumbling purr drowned out all sound, filling him with soothing calm. Emotions that were definitely not his own flowed into his mind, covering every synapse with a warm, comforting blanket of red-tinted silk. The purr never stopped, vibrating his panic until it fractured and fell away. His breathing eased to slow, deep breathes that appeased his deprived lungs. His heart beat slowed too until Keithek was vaguely aware it was still beating. His shaking stopped and the tingling faded, replaced by an almost euphoric calm.

He only broke himself out of the mesmerized state when he felt his eyelids drooping shut and his body slumping to the floor. He caught himself right before he landed on Lance's unconscious body. Keithek came back to himself stunned but calm. He let out a heavy sigh and pushed himself back up. Lance needed medical attention. If he did wake up, which Keithek sincerely hoped he would, then the last place Keithek wanted to be was hovering over Lance's body like an obsessed mate.

Even though he had technically mated Lance already.

His face burned the moment that thought crossed his mind. He should be ashamed of himself. He'd mated Lance without asking permission. They'd only known each other for a day or so, and that had been in a prisoner-keeper relationship which wasn't the best kind for getting to know one another and courting. Even though Lance had shameless flirted with him.

What if Lance rejected him? It would be completely understandable, but something in Keithek's subconscious knew he probably wouldn't be able to handle it. Lance wasn't a Galra; he was Altean. Keithek wasn't familiar with Altean physiology, but he doubted Alteans had the same connection to their mates as the Galra. If Lance rejected Keithek as a mate, it probably wouldn't affect him. But it would definitely affect Keithek.

The Galra only ever took one mate in their lifetimes. If one mate rejected the other, then the situation would fall apart very quickly. Rejected omegas tended to lose their fertility, rejected betas tended to lose their energy, and rejected alphas tended to lash out at anything any everything. But no matter what status the rejected Galra held, death was the inevitable result whether it was by suicide or throwing themselves into work or some method of distraction and simply allowing themselves to waste away.

Keithek didn't want to die. Maybe his diluted blood would lessen the emotional, mental, and physical impacts of the rejection. Maybe he could recover and find another mate, if any Galra would take him.

He was a fool. Something hot and wet slid down his cheek leaving behind a tickling, wet trail. He brushed his fingers against the wetness and stared at it, his mind trying to come to terms with everything. He was crying.

The soothing purr returned, but this time it didn't completely calm him. It did serve to distract him and draw his attention elsewhere. He breathed in deeply through his nose, willing his tears away and looked around the room he found himself in. It was relatively small and dark. The only light source was from the room beyond and tinted red.

He couldn't make out more because his view was blocked by a chair. Curious, Keithek stood and made his unsteady way to the chair, placing a hand on the back as he leaned around it to get a better look at the lit room. It was a cockpit, he realized. The whole front of the cockpit was a view screen currently showing the familiar black and twinkling points of distant stars. Two other view screens, one on either side of the cockpit, showed a star chart with various signals moving about and an endless rush of letters in a language Keithek didn't recognize.

"Woah," he breathed, stepping further into the cockpit.

He gave a startled cry that was embarrassingly high pitched when something crashed into him from behind forcing him to fall into a cushioned surface. He turned his head and recognized the chair he'd walked around. It was on a rail that allowed it to move back and forth easily between the cockpit and the back room where Lance still lay blessedly unconscious. Keithek may not have known the Altean too well, be he doubted he would have escaped the humiliation of his little scream without some sort of teasing.

The purr returned, this time with impressions, images, thoughts that weren't words so much as they became words when they filtered through his head. The Lion. The Lion was purring, speaking to him. It was sentient and it wanted Keithek to pilot it. Well, if it was sentient, then it probably knew what it was doing.

"Please don't let me regret this," Keithek mumbled under his breath as he wrapped his hands around the control handles.

He knew what to do. It was as if the instructions had been placed directly into his head. Maybe they had been, he though. The Lion was sentient after all. There was the impression of laughter and Keith flushed. The Lion was laughing at him. What even?

Shaking his head, he pushed the controls forwards and felt the Lion ship move forward and ease into a right turn. Something was flashing on the screen to his left, silently demanding his attention. He glanced at it and, although he couldn't read the foreign letters, he got the feeling the Lion wanted to go there.

"Ok," he said. "Let's go there."

He glanced back over his shoulder to be sure Lance was still there, then completed a full turn and flew towards whatever signal the Lion wanted him to go to. Maybe it was a space station or something that had medical services. He doubted it.

It wasn't a space station. It was actually the same gas giant the Galra had been orbiting when this whole mess started, Tefnut.

"I don't get it," Keithek murmured. "Why did you want to come back here?"

There was a groan behind him and the halfbreed flinched. Jurt, now things were going to get interesting.

"What the quizack?" Lance grumbled.

Keithek didn't look back, but he cold heard the soft thumps of the Altean rolling around back there. Lance was probably trying to get up and not doing too well.

"Ow," Lance whined. "My neck hurts."

Keithek did not blush. He did not.

"Wait."

And now the realization.

"Holy frak!"

Keithek blushed. Who knew a member of a formerly extinct species had such, erm, colorful vocabulary?

"I'm not dead! What the- Where- How- Oh Lions, please tell me I didn't hallucinate that whole thing. That would seriously quiznack everything up."

"You didn't hallucinate it," Keithek said over the rumble of the Lion's engine. He didn't look over his shoulder either. If he did, he'd see his Mark on Lance and that would just… No. Just no.

"Keith?" Lance called. "Where are… The Lion. We're- Are we in the Red Lion?!" Lance cried, scampering up into the cockpit until he stood next to Keithek staring out at the main view screen, struck dumb by the sight.

"Yeah," Keithek said, giving his Altean companion a quick glance. "Not sure how, but yeah."

Lance gave Keithek a cursed glance, then did a rather comedic double-take. "Wait. You're flying the Red Lion?"

Keithek winced, his sensitive ears flicking and folding back against his head. "I can hear perfectly fine at a normal volume," he snapped. "And yes, I am flying it. You're welcome."

When Lance didn't say anything for a full minute, Keithek twitched and gave an explosive sigh. "Ugh, what?"

For the first time since Lance had woken up, Keithek looked directly at the Altean. Lance's lone dark blue eye was wide with shock and his mouth was hanging open. His entire body was tense and it was beginning to grate on Keithek's nerves.

When Lance didn't reply to Keithek's question, the halfbreed grumbled, "Look, if you don't like it, get ove- GAH! WHAT IN THE- GET OFF ME YOU IDIOT!"

"The Altean ignored his please and frantic struggles, naturally. In fact, Keithek was ready to bet Lance actually squeezed him tighter to more he demanded to be set free.

"You're a paladin!" Lance yelled loud enough for Keithek to pin his ears against his head again. "HA! I am a frakin' genius! I not only found the Red Lion but I found its paladin too!" He cackled madly. "Take that Allura!"

"Lance, if you don't let me go right this second, I will eject you, I swear!" Keithek hissed.

Instead of letting him go, Lance simply crouched down on the floor by Keithek's right, his arms still loosely clinging to the halfbreed, and smiled brilliantly. "You don't understand Keith," he said. His face glowed with excitement. "We can defeat Zarkon now. We have a chance now. We can do this. We can actually do this."

"What the jurt are you talking about?" Keithek said, totally thrown by the Altean's words. "Look, I can dream about defeating Zarkon. Frell, I can even talk about it," he said, returning his focus to Tefnut growing ever larger in his view screen outside. His entire demeanor slumped. "But it can't happen," he said softly. "Zarkon is a cruel bastard. He's powerful, he's got the backing of the Druids, he controls most of the universal trade routes, his spies are literally everywhere…" He shook his head. "Not to mention he controls just about the whole known universe."

"I know."

Keithek turned back to Lance. The Altean's face was solemn, almost sad.

"Believe me, I know," Lance said with such heavy sincerity that Keithek began to wonder what kind of business Lance was involved in that Zarkon wanted him alive and unharmed so badly. "I know better than most, I think," Lance continued, his eye clouding with memory.

It was Lance who broke their eye contact this time, turning to look out the main view screen. He nodded to the view. "Get me to Khonsu," he said. "If I can get the Blue Lion, then I'll take us to where the others are and we can start fighting back."

"Others?" Keithek asked. "There are others?"

Lance smiled, and Keithek felt the strange sensation of something he rarely knew these days. Hope.

"Oh yeah," Lance said. "Put it this way: have you ever heard of Voltron?"

Keithek scrunched his nose. "It's an Altean tale." At Lance's odd look, Keithek shrugged. "An Altean tale," he reiterated. When Lance still looked mildly confused, Keithek rolled his eyes. "Geez, you're an Altean. How could you not know what… Oh." He flushed in understanding. Fortunately, Lance still looked mildly confused.

"I'm not really sure what you mean by 'Altean tale,'" Lance said slowly. "I get the feeling there's more to that phrase than I'm aware of, but anyway. You have heard of Voltron though, right?"

"Yes," Keithek said, nodding as he flew the Red Lion towards Khonsu in Tefnut's rings.

"It's real."

"WHAT?!" Keithek cried, pulling up the Red Lion abruptly, tossing an unsecured Lance back into the room behind him.

The Altean groaned. "Ow. Some warning next time, fluffy ears."

"Did you just insult me?" Keithek growled incredulously.

Lance sighed noisily. "I tell you Voltron is real and you're worried that I insulted your very fluffy, very cute, twitchy ears. Priorities, Keith. Priorities." Lance waggled his finger at Keithek mockingly.

"Says the pointy-eared Altean with purple skin who believes in myths," Keith shot back, returning his attention to piloting the Lion.

"Bite me," Lance said snidely.

"Already did."

"...What?"

Frakin' frell.