Hello all, back again, with chapter four! I find myself without too much to say to you this chapter, so I'll just thank everyone who has read the series thus far, and hope that you continue to stay with us! Until the next chapter!

cosmic dust

chapter four

legends

"Pidge, dearest and most beloved sister of mine."

"Matt, brother of mine who is obviously trying to pander to me."

"Guilty as charged." Not even trying to deny it, Matt simply nodded his head. "You have got to spill the beans. The Keith beans. I gotta know."

"The Keith beans." Pidge repeated, arching a brow. "You want to know how I met Keith."

"Yes." Matt said firmly. "I'm dying to know how you met Keith."

Things, for the time being, were calm. They had managed to slip away from the Galra fleet with no pursuit in sight, and had even managed to rendezvous with his ship- okay so it was actually Te-Osh's ship, fine. There would be some time before they could return to the abandoned way station that the rebels were using as their impromptu base, which in turn, left them with some downtime.

Downtime that Matt was not going to pass up on. He had questions, questions that needed answers, damnit!

Besides, he was alone with his sister right now. Keith was helping Te-Osh transport the princess' pod to her ship. Something about it being better for her to be there, than on his ship, or something along those lines- Matt didn't really get it.

But at any rate, Keith was gone. And what better time to ask questions about him than when he wasn't here?

"He's Galra, right?" Matt asked, tilting his head back to look up at his sister. He did not know that Galra transport ships had lounges- nor could he have ever imagined how ungodly comfortable their couches were. What the hell. What other secrets were the Galra hiding. Did their commander's quarters have like... full spa baths or something? Waterfall showers? He had to know.

"Mm," pursing her lips together, Pidge leaned back, "...part, I think. He gets called a halfbreed a lot."

"...is that other part human?" Matt inquired, arching a brow. "Cause, just sayin', he gets way too many references to not somehow be from Earth."

"Probably?" Pidge said, sounding uncertain of herself. "He seems really familiar with Earth, yeah, but Keith kind of doesn't talk about himself all that often. If he's at all human, I get the feeling it's something that he doesn't want to talk about."

"Are you honestly telling me, dear sister of mine," Matt began, staring up at her with disbelieving eyes, "...that you've never tried to pry?"

"Oh, I've tried." Pidge reassured him. "It just doesn't end well."

"Yeah?" Matt perked up at that. "He's not-"

"No, not like that." Pidge told him, rolling her eyes. "He just clams up and walks away. He's never hurt me, Matt. Well," pausing, she scrunched up her nose, "...not since the first time we met, anyways."

That caught his attention, causing him to spring right up into a sitting position. "Hold on, back up there a second- what do you mean by that?"

"Held a knife to my throat." Pidge told him with a shrug of her shoulders, as if this was no big deal. "Thought I was someone else. Apologized for it. Can't blame the guy, he had just escaped from the empire-"

"Escaped?" Matt asked. "Like, a prisoner?"

"Not like a prisoner, a prisoner." Pidge told him. "I don't know all the details, but apparently Keith was held captive by the Galra empire for some time. A few years, at least."

Aw, man. He could understand how that felt. Somehow, he got the feeling that being at least part Galra hadn't done much to earn Keith brownie points with his captors. And it sure as hell wouldn't have endeared him to his fellow prisoners. Was he thrilled that he had apparently held his baby sister at knife point? Uh, no, obviously not, but hell, he'd probably be skittish too under those circumstances.

"Before that though... no idea." Pidge admitted. "Sometimes he'll slip up, and say things he didn't mean to, but other than that, he clams up pretty tight. He knows what the Galaxy Garrison is, at least. Knows that their probe feeds are supposed to be classified, too."

That- that gave Matt a bit of pause. There was something about the name Keith that when placed alongside the Galaxy Garrison, felt like it should mean something to him. But at the moment, he was just drawing a blank.

He was pretty sure he'd never met Keith before- he sure as hell would have remembered that face, if nothing else.

"So don't ask him about his past, is what I'm getting here." Matt finally said, flopping back down on the couch again. "Got it. Still haven't answered my first question though, sis. How did you two end up meeting? You said he crash landed in our backyard?"

"Well, in the forest." Pidge corrected. "But yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. I was already monitoring alien radio chatter," of course she was, Matt thought to himself, leave it to his sister to be able to invent something to allow her to do that, "...and it just exploded into a frenzy one night. When something fell from the sky, there was no way I couldn't go check it out, right?"

"Obviously." Matt agreed, giving her a sage nod of his head.

"Anyways, that's how I met Keith." Pidge told him. "I mean, there's obviously more to the story than just that, but that's the basic gist of it."

"Mm." Matt hummed, closing his eyes, before he paused, opening them back up again, his brows knitting together. "So wait- if you're here, what the hell did you tell mom?"

"I told her I was going to go into space with Keith to find you and dad?" Pidge blinked, acting as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Wait, hold up." Lifting up one finger, Matt peered back up at his sister. "Does mom know about Keith?"

"Yeah?" Pidge blinked. "He kind of lived in our house for like, a month or so."

"What." Matt stated flatly. "Keith. Lived in our house."

"Yeah, mom forced him to stay." Pidge told him with a shrug. "You know how she is. Once she got past the whole alien part, all she could see was a scrawny teenager."

"Mm." Considering this for a moment, Matt eventually shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, that sounds a lot like mom."

"Right?" Unable to help herself, Pidge grinned. "She'll be so happy when I tell her I've found you. I can't wait until our next call."

"You can contact mom?" Jolting up for a second time, Matt looked at his sister in what was nothing short of awe. "Really?"

"Yup." Puffing out her chest, she beamed at him. "Who do you think I am? The only downside is that she's the one who has to initiate the contact."

"My brilliant and amazing sister, whom I love dearly." Matt told her, pressing his hand to his heart. "And who has clearly leveled up since I saw her last."

"Damn right I have."

"Damn right you have." Matt echoed, grinning from ear to ear. "So. Space pirate. Tell me about that."

That impish grin he had cause to know so well surfacing on her face, Matt couldn't help but return it with one of his own. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

She was being watched.

It was not with unease that she realized this. The stare that fell on her back was one of simple curiosity. If anything, the most that she sensed from him was hesitation, nothing that could be viewed in the slightest bit malicious.

He'd something he wanted to ask, but was refraining himself from it. She sensed she knew the reason why- but she did not share the sentiments that her counterparts seemed to hold. Not when she had seen what had been entrusted to him, no.

Nor was she at all unaccustomed to Galra halfbreeds. At the center, things were different, but she had come from the borderlands- where the fight was so desperate, they took help in whatever form it came in. If it happened to possess purple fur and yellow eyes, who were they to judge the reason why one of Zarkon's one might have chosen to flee his mighty empire?

It was oft forgotten, as such things were, that the first people Zarkon conquered were his own.

Still, at this rate, he'd never ask his question on his own.

"You have something you wish to ask of me?" Turning on her heel, Te-Osh leveled her gaze with the halfbreed- Keith. Not a very Galran name, she noted, more than likely taken from whatever race he was mixed with. He bore some marked resemblance to Matt's people, but he held himself at a distance from them, so she could not be certain.

Her question seemed to take him off guard- perhaps he didn't realize the intensity of his own gaze.

"You said something," he finally began, swallowing his own hesitation, "...back on the ship."

She'd said a number of things back on the ship, though perhaps not quite as many as Matt had. He was going to have to be a bit more specific.

"Voltron." Keith shaped the word as if it were the first time he'd had cause to speak it. "You mentioned something about Voltron."

Now that took her by surprise, she thought. He piloted one of the lions, she had simply assumed he'd at least heard of the legends, if nothing else.

Most had, though most did not believe.

"You know not of Voltron?" Te-Osh asked, straightening her back. There was no accusation in her tone, merely inquiry.

Folding his arms in front of his chest, Keith's face slipped into a mask of neutrality. Guarding a secret, she thought. Of what kind, she could not know. "No."

"I see." Turning her head, Te-Osh cast her gaze upwards, marveling once more in the sight of the red lion. It truly was a marvel- and to think, she had flown inside of it. She had heard the legends from her mother as a little girl, who thought them mere fairy tales, a fragment of hope to pass along to her child in a world torn apart too long by war.

But she?

She had always believed.

"Then I will ask you this first, young one," at least, she assumed he was young- for a Galra, he was small, barely into adolescence, if that. The way he held himself did not quite match up, so perhaps he was a bit older still. "...where did you come by the lion?"

No accusation to her tone still, but he seemed to bristle at the question regardless. Not the first time he had been asked it, she sensed, in far less kind ways.

"It was on a Galra ship. I stole it."

It was a guarded answer, leaving much of the story out. She chose not to press.

The red lion, the appearance of the Altean princess... they were heralds, she knew, of some kind of shift. And with it, the entire fate of the universe might hang in the balance. It was a fragile thing, and she did not wish to harm it, not in any way. This may very well be the key that she, and so many others, had desperately sought.

"It let you in?" Te-Osh questioned.

His brows furrowed slightly, the limit of what he allowed himself to give away. "Yes."

"And it speaks to you?" Te-Osh questioned again.

"When she wants to." Keith curtly supplied. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything." Te-Osh told him. "For this is a lion of Voltron."

His next words, muttered under his breath as they were, were likely not meant for her to hear, so she pretended not to. "Knew they were keeping something from me."

They, she assumed, were her counterparts in the center. She could only wonder at the fact that they were willing to hire him, paying him no small sum of credits, and yet be so unwilling to share information. Perhaps they felt that he should not possess it- that he had taken it somehow.

Well, she thought, with no small hint of amusement- it would seem that he had, in a sense, taken it. From the Galra, his own kin.

"So?" And his voice was louder this time, meant to be heard. "What is a lion of Voltron?"

"A legend." Te-Osh said simply- and, ah yes, she knew that expression on his face. It was a bit different, with the solid color of his eyes, but she recognized it from seeing it before on Matt's face.

Skepticism.

"A legend." Keith repeated, his tone flat.

"A legend that seems to be quite real." Te-Osh merely stated. "As the red lion is here. And seems to have chosen you as it's paladin."

He truly must have never heard the legends, if the expression that earned her was one of pure bafflement. "Pala-what now?"

Hm. She'd heard that exact turn of phrase from Matt before. Perhaps this one did originate from the same planet as he did.

"Paladin." Te-Osh said. "One who is chosen by the lions of Voltron."

"And we're back to the Voltron thing again." Now his tone was just dry- and more than a little exasperated.

"Perhaps," Te-Osh said, a faint smile gracing her lips, "...I should tell you the story that was passed on down to me."

Their return to the rebel base was marked with a flurry of activity.

None of them, it seemed, had expected the pirates to return. When his sister and Keith had stepped out of the ship behind them, a tension filled the air- and for the first time, it dawned on Matt that they were unwelcome here.

Or at least, Keith was.

Keith, who seemed to take the whole thing with a practiced ease, giving a toothy grin to the guard who stopped him. "Weapons?" He asked. "Or am I just not allowed inside this time?"

"Your companion may enter." The guard told him. "You may not."

Okay, wow. What the hell?

Were they... were they keeping him out because he was Galra? At first he just thought that maybe the rebels weren't thrilled about the whole space pirate thing, but they hadn't blinked an eye at his sister, so it had to be that Keith was Galra.

"But he's-" Matt began, only to cut himself off, Keith fixing his gaze on him. Dropping his own down, he caught Pidge's gaze, watching as she slowly shook her head.

"It's fine." Keith told him, taking a step back, holding up his hands. "I can wait."

"No." It was Te-Osh who spoke up, to the surprise of almost everyone. "He will come with us."

"But-" The guard began, glancing from her, back to Keith- and frankly, Matt couldn't decide which of the two looked the more surprised.

"This matter relates to him." Te-Osh said. "He is the red lion's paladin."

Matt had no idea what a paladin was, not in this context, but whatever it was, it was enough to make the guard shut his mouth. He didn't look the least bit happy about it, but he stepped aside, allowing Keith to pass.

For a moment, Keith stood there, rooted to his spot- before he shook off whatever his thoughts were, almost seeming to trail behind them. It was almost like he hadn't expected anyone to stick up for him- nor thought that they should.

But of course Te-Osh had. Why? Because Te-Osh was totally cool, that's why.

Man though- you could cut the tension in this place with a knife. Were they all this unhappy to have a Galra in the midst? It wasn't like he couldn't understand, he kinda did- he'd been held captive by the Galra after all, and his father and Shiro were still missing because of them. There was no denying that the empire had done terrible things.

But that was the empire- not Keith, who in the short time since he'd met him, had made it very clear that he held no love for it.

Man- if this was how it was to be a Galra that wasn't a part of the empire, then it sucked.

"So what do you think a paladin is?" Matt whispered, dropping down to his sister's level.

"Dunno." Pidge whispered back. "Whatever it is, it must be important."

"Hm." Drawing back, Matt's gaze flickered back towards Keith. He'd been... curiously quiet, ever since he'd gone with Te-Osh earlier. He couldn't tell if this was normal for him or not, but it seemed almost as if he were lost in thought.

Had he and Te-Osh spoken about something? Glancing up towards her, he couldn't help but frown again, feeling once more like he was being left out of something.

"What do you think they're going to do with the princess?" Matt asked, this time loud enough for everyone else to hear.

"No idea." Pidge shrugged. "If she really is a princess."

"Red seems to think so." Keith observed, finally breaking his thoughtful silence.

"I thought you said Red wasn't sure?" Pidge asked, glancing back towards him.

"More like she's not sure why she's here." Keith told her.

"So, what, the red lion is connected to Altea in some way?" Pidge asked- and this time, her gaze darted forward, up towards Te-Osh.

"The red lion was created on Altea." Te-Osh supplied. "By King Alfor, it's final ruler."

"So, wait- are you saying the red lion is like, ten thousand years old?" Pidge questioned, her brows knitting together.

"Apparently." Shrugging his shoulders, Keith quickened his own pace, falling into step beside the Holt siblings. "That's what Te-Osh seems to think."

"It is what I know." Te-Osh said simply. "If the legends are correct, there should be four more like it."

Now that caused his sister to perk up. "Really? Where are they? Do you know?"

Yeah, figures she'd want one of her own. Didn't blame her in the least, since honestly? Same.

A faint smile traced Te-Osh's lips, but she merely shook her head. "No, I do not. We thought them destroyed, for the longest time."

"Until Keith lifted Red from the Galra?" Pidge asked.

"Lifted?" Te-Osh asked, her brow furrowing.

"Stolen." Matt supplied. "She means stolen."

"Ah." Te-Osh blinked. "Yes, indeed. Though I am not certain how the Galra managed to obtain the red lion in the first place."

"Don't look at me." Keith said, giving them another shrug of his shoulders. "I just found it when I was trying to escape."

"Wait, hold up." Pidge said, holding up her hands. "Are you telling me that you stole Red at the same exact time you were escaping from Galra jail?"

"...pretty much?" Keith told her, the look on his face telling, as if he'd said too much. Ah, so that was what she'd meant earlier. "Look, it's not like I intended to steal it at the time. It just kind of... called to me."

"So you're in the middle of this big escape, and you decide now's the time to listen to a voice in your head?" Pidge asked, her tone so dry, it was like being in the desert.

"Well, when you put it like that..." Keith trailed off. "It does kind of make my judgement seem a bit questionable."

"A bit." Pidge repeated.

"A bit." Keith echoed.

"So you just happened to be kept on the same ship as the red lion?" Matt asked- then winced. Oh man, that had sounded a bit like an accusation, which totally had not been his intention.

And oh crap- Keith took it as one too. Oh man. This was bad. Pissing off his sister's (literal!) partner in crime was so not on his list of things to do.

"Yeah?" His tone sharp, and his glare sharper, Keith's shoulders tensed. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"No!" Matt blurted out, shaking his head. "No, I mean- I didn't mean it that way, I swear to god, that's not what I meant."

Keith's glower lasted for a moment longer- before it cooled, seeming to accept his apology. Or at least, he hoped he did- it was really hard to tell with those eyes. Wow Matt, wow. Setting land speed records for shoving your foot in your mouth, way to go.

"Do you know under whose command the ship you were on was under?" Te-Osh questioned- and thank you, for that change of subject, Matt thought. "It may assist us if you did."

For a long moment, Keith said nothing- perhaps he was just going to clam up again, like Pidge had said he was wont to do. Leveling his gaze with Te-Osh for a long moment, it was clear that he was debating the matter- before he finally seemed to give in, willing to acknowledge that however much he didn't like talking about himself, she had a good point.

Drawing in a breath, as if he were bracing himself for the worst, Keith tensed. "Zarkon's."

Matt stopped. Pidge stopped. Te-Osh stopped.

He was pretty sure that he could hear the gears in their heads turning, trying to process that bombshell- all in perfect sync, he might add. They even all said what in chorus, two loud, and one faint.

Because he wasn't just saying that he'd escaped from a ship in Zarkon's fleet, oh no, he was saying he'd escaped from Zarkon's ship. Zarkon. You know, the ten thousand year old leader of the Galra Empire? That Zarkon?

"Wait, wait, wait. Back up." Recovering first, Matt mimicked a rewinding tape with his hands. "You were being held prisoner in Central Command?"

"Maybe?" Keith told them. "Look, to be fair, I didn't know it was Central Command at the time."

"So you escaped." Matt said. "From Central Command."

And there he was, avoiding their eyes again. "...kind of?"

Okay. He'd heard tales of Central Command. Of course he had, he was a rebel! What rebel didn't know about Central Command? Zarkon's main base! The hub of the empire! And everything he knew about Central Command basically told him one thing.

"How the hell are you even still alive?"

"Well," with a light shrug of his shoulders, as if he were trying to downplay the whole affair, "...element of surprise?"

Holy shit, Matt thought. Holy shit. He'd suspected it before, but now he was absolutely one hundred and ten percent certain.

Keith was goddamn certifiable.

"That," he caught his sister whispering, "...explains so much."

He's not wanted here.

He doesn't need anyone to spell it out for him. Even without the suspicious glances cast his way when they think he's not looking- and sometimes when he is- and even without the hushed whispers that aren't so quiet that he can't make out what they're saying, he knows. He knows when he isn't wanted.

It's nothing new. He hasn't been wanted for a long time.

Before being a space pirate, before being a prisoner, before everything- it's always been the same. He'd learned how to read the room, how to tell when people didn't want him there- and usually, he'd oblige.

If they didn't want him around, he sure as hell didn't want to be around them either. Fair's fair.

There was someone who wanted him, once, but he was gone now. He was the one who left first, anyways. Who knew if they'd even looked for him, after that.

(He'd still find him. He had to.)

At least now, people had a reason to not want him around. Before it was different- just one extra cog in the wheel, one too many, a problem that nobody wanted to bother solving. But now? Now he knew exactly what they saw when they looked at him- the enemy.

He didn't blame them. He was.

He'd found someone else who seemed to want him, but he knew it wouldn't last. He wasn't going to fool himself into thinking it would.

(He'd let people in before. It had always been a mistake. Why would this time be any different?)

Something else, too- but the more he learned about it, the less he understood why.

It would have been fine, staying behind and waiting. It wouldn't be the first time. Let Pidge wrap up their business with them, and then get out of here. If they didn't want him here, then he was just fine with leaving, so soon as he got what he came here for. It would be better- easier- for everyone involved.

But part of him also wanted to know. There were answers here, answers that he couldn't get on his own. Answers he wanted to know, yet wasn't sure he wanted to hear. He'd spent his whole life looking for answers, and when he'd found them, they turned out to be nothing that he wanted to hear.

Why would this time be any different?

And yet, he thought to himself, he still wanted them. He really never learned.

Why him? If everything that Te-Osh had told him was true, why had it chosen him? Even before all of this, he'd find it's choice questionable at best, but now... couldn't it tell? Couldn't it tell to the extent with which he'd been tampered?

He truly believed that the rebels had been honest when they'd told him that they didn't know what it was that they would find on that ship. But when the ancient pod had been brought in, they seemed to know at once who it was.

Princess Allura, daughter of King Alfor.

And they were going to wake her. Hoping to find the lions of Voltron.

And that, he thought, was what they had been keeping from him. They didn't want him to know just what it was that he had- didn't want him to have it either, that much was crystal clear.

If that was the case, so be it. Maybe they were right, maybe he didn't deserve it. Maybe it was just like everything else in his life- temporary, a means to an end.

But maybe they were wrong- and maybe he did.

(But no- they were probably right.)