Hello all, here's chapter eight! I actually rewrote this one like, three times, so that's a thing that definitely happened. Sometimes you can nail em in one go, and sometimes you just can't, and that's just how life works out in the end. Anyways, as always, thanks for reading, and until next time!

cosmic dust

chapter eight

green lion

Grunting, Pidge stumbled on her feet as the ship was pitched forward, barely able to grab the handhold in time to keep herself from falling flat on her face.

How Allura managed, she'd never know. The Altean princess didn't so much as lose her balance as the ship violently rocked, barely batting an eye as it pitched underneath their feet. It might have just been a princess thing, but Keith had impeccable balance too, so maybe it was just an alien thing.

"Would it kill you to keep this thing steady, Matt!?" Pidge yelled, much louder than she actually needed to.

"I'm trying!" Matt's voice came over the com link. "I've never flown this type of ship before!"

"Well try harder!" She shouted.

Okay, granted, it wasn't all Matt's fault, she knew. This ship just wasn't made to fly at this kind of sustained speed for so long- it would have been tricky for anyone, much less someone who had never flown this type of transport before. The fact that they were trying to outpace a pair of fighters, which had a top speed that was much faster than that of their own, was doing them no favors at all.

Keith could probably do it, but then again, Keith was also completely insane, so comparing him and any normal person was just outright unfair.

So much for a relaxing trip to pick up her lion, she thought to herself.

Her lion. She was still trying to wrap her head around the whole idea. Part of her was thrilled- ever since she had first flown in Red with Keith, she'd wanted the chance to be able to fly something just like it. But that was before she knew what the lion was, before she knew what kind of destiny it carried with it.

Maybe to the rest of the universe, Keith was as terrible a choice for a paladin as you could get- but she knew better. No, when it came to the two of them, the choice that sounded more like a joke was her. She was no pilot! Sure, she could fly, and sure, she'd always wanted to be a pilot, but she wasn't the kind of natural at it that Keith was.

Not to mention, she hadn't even come out here to fight a war. All she wanted was to find her father, and go home- that was it.

But here she was, on her way to find the green lion of Voltron, to embrace what apparently was her destiny.

(If her father and brother getting captured by a ten thousand year old alien empire was part of that destiny, she was going to file a protest. Or at the very least, send someone a strongly worded letter.)

If she hadn't felt what she had when she'd connected with Allura... then maybe she would still doubt it. But although she couldn't explain it, she knew what she had felt then had been the green lion's energy- its quintessence.

She had called out to it, and it had called back.

Just like Keith calling to Red.

Or well, probably. She'd never know for sure, not unless she got the chance to get into Keith's head.

Which... yeah, unlikely.

The ship jerked forward again, and she gritted her teeth, nails digging into the handhold. Dragging her gaze towards Allura, she tried to shift her weight, cursing her small frame and hoping that maybe she could find a position that wouldn't have her being nearly thrown off her feet every time the ship so much as made a sharp turn.

"I don't mean to rush you, princess, but if you could maybe hurry it up with the whole energy sensing thing?" Pidge asked.

"I am trying, Pidge." Allura told her. "But I have never done something like this before."

"Yeah, we've all kind of gathered that." Pidge said, her tone probably a lot more dry than it needed to be. But who could blame her? This wasn't exactly a walk in the park here!

Just then, the ship pitched forward violently, and with a loud yelp, she lost her grip on the handhold. Pitching forward, Allura wasted no time in throwing herself forward, catching her with one arm before she managed to tumble right out of the hangar's open hatch.

"Are you alright?" Allura inquired, helping her right herself.

"I've been better." Pidge remarked, grabbing the handhold again. "Matt, steady!"

"Sorry, sorry, we just took a hit!" Matt told her, his voice crackling over the com link. "No big deal, skirted off the particle barrier, but man, these guys are persistent!"

"They tend to be that way, yeah!" Pidge called back, casting a glance over towards Allura, giving her a strained smile. "Princess, anything?"

"I... believe so." She said after a moment, frowning as she seemed to consider her own words. "Is there perhaps a river somewhere on this planet? Wherever the green lion is, I can sense water nearby, and quite a bit of it."

"A river?" Matt responded. "Yeah, big one, too! Want me to head in that direction?"

"If you could, please." Allura told hm.

"So what, we'll just follow the river until we zero in on the green lion?" Pidge asked. "Because that would be a great plan if we were leisurely taking our time here, but in case you haven't noticed, we've got two fighters on our tail-"

"-one!" Matt supplied over the com link. "Managed to shoot one down!"

"-a fighter on our tail," she continued, "-and Keith is facing down a whole fleet of them. Alone."

"M'not dead yet." Keith's voice crackled over the com link, and as if to illustrate her point, she was damn sure she could hear a cacophony of laser beams in the background.

"Believe me, Pidge, if I had a faster method, I would use it in a heartbeat." Allura told her. "I wish to assist Keith as much as you do."

Do you? She couldn't help but think. Do you really?

Because she wasn't stupid- she'd seen the way Allura looked at him when she thought that nobody was watching her. Oh sure, she didn't seem to be under the impression that the princess actively hated Keith- she doubted that she would give him the time of day were that true- but she was definitely wary of him.

It wasn't that she couldn't understand where she was coming from. The Galra had taken literally everything from her- her home, her people, even her own father- a feeling that she could sympathize with all too well. So to have a piece of her people's legacy in the hands of one of them, even a halfbreed... it wasn't so unrealistic that she would have apprehensions about it.

But it still didn't change the fact that it wasn't fair.

That was judging Keith based on the actions of his race- not on those of his own. The Keith she knew would never go along with the Galra Empire- and not just because he hated it, which god, did he ever, but because he had something they didn't- a moral backbone. A sense of right and wrong.

"You know, you should be able to sense the green lion too." Allura told her, her voice jerking her from her thoughts. "If you call to it, I am certain it will call back."

"I don't know about that, princess." Pidge told her, lips twisting into a frown. "I'm more about hard facts and numbers."

"So I have gathered." Allura observed, a twitch of a smile to her lips, looking unfazed even as the ship lurched sharply to the right. "But you were able to do it before. And it is your lion, so in all likelihood, you should be able to sense its presence far better than I could ever hope to."

"Look, we both know last time was different." Pidge told her. "And I know what you think you sense in me, and maybe you're right- I mean, you are a princess after all, so you're probably right, but I'm not-"

"Pidge." Allura stopped her. "It was the red lion that sensed the spark of it in you. And it would have cause to know you far better than I. You should have faith in it- and in yourself as well, for that matter."

"Yeah, sis," Matt's voice piped up, and it was only then that she remembered that Matt was currently able to hear everything they were saying. Damn com link. "It's like what dad always says. If you get too caught up in worrying about what could go wrong, you might miss the chance to do something great."

Her father's words, his favorite phrase.

How long had it been since she'd last heard it?

Not since he'd left for Kerberos, which felt like a lifetime ago. In some respects, it was a lifetime ago.

But just like they always had, even if he wasn't the one saying them, they calmed her down. How was she ever going to find him, if she backed out here?

Maybe together with Voltron, she could do what she had been yet unable to do. If she had to tear the Galra Empire apart to find him, then she'd do it, without hesitation.

"You're right." She said, nodding her head. "I'll try, princess."

"That is the spirit." Allura told her, giving her a firm nod of her head. "And you may call me Allura, you know. I might be a princess, but I am not your princess."

"Allura." Pidge said, testing out the name. Yeah, that was... that was definitely better. She'd never been much of one for formality to begin with, something which her past half year of space piracy had done nothing to help.

Drawing in a long breath, Pidge closed her eyes. Drowning out the way the ship rocked and pitched around her, she tried to recall the sensation that she had felt before. It bubbled up within her, that alien, yet somehow strangely familiar energy that had called out to her across galaxies, responding to that of her own.

So she called out to it once more.

This time, it came at once, sending a vision back to her. A stone temple, one that had all but been absorbed back into the jungle in which it sat, so long ago that the vines that engulfed it look as if they were always meant to be there, flanked at its entrance by two stone lions.

And something deep within, waiting for her.

I am here, it said. Come, it said.

Snapping her eyes open, she let out a gasp of breath, hand gripping onto the handhold all the tighter. Swallowing, she fought back the urge to shudder, though not, she thought, in a bad way- before she righted herself, steadying the pounding of her own heart.

The green lion.

Her lion.

"I think... I think I know where it is."

"That's wonderful, Pidge!" Allura told her, her smile growing bright. It was so genuine, it nearly hurt. "See? I knew you had it in you."

"That's great, sis!" Matt chimed in. "Now if you could maybe fill me in on that part, that would be even greater."

"Well, I mean, I don't know where it is exactly, it's more of a feeling, but-" Pidge began. "...I think it's at the mouth of the river?"

"So basically, keep following the river until we get to the end of that, and hope we're not going in reverse." Matt remarked. "Yeah, okay, good plan, I can do that."

Ah, stressed sarcasm. She knew it well.

"How is the situation with the fighter?" Allura asked- and just as if it wanted to prove it was still back there, the ship rattled again, a burst of laser fire just skirting off the edge of the particle barrier. "Ah."

"Yeah, yeah, he's still there." Matt said. "Just- just hold on for a second, I've got an idea."

Oh, she did not like the sound of that- she knew that tone he was using. It had gone from stressed sarcasm to this is probably a bad idea but I'm going to do it anyway, damn it. Using both hands to grab onto the handhold, she didn't miss the way that Allura almost seemed to follow her cue. Maybe the hyperdrive jump had gotten to her more than she'd first thought.

Hold on was right, as it turned out. As if his own words had given him inspiration, Matt pulled the ship into a hard reverse- using not it's weapons, but the ship itself to take down the fighter that was still in hot pursuit.

It was such a ridiculous move that the sentry probably wasn't even programmed to counter it, and if the ship were smaller, it probably wouldn't have even worked. If it weren't for the particle barrier, the explosion that rocked the ship would have likely torn a hole its hull. And while she was pretty sure both of those points had doubtlessly occurred to her brother, neither of them had done anything to stop him.

Ugh. Maybe Keith's crazy was infectious.

"Phew, that was a close one." And she could almost visualize Matt wiping sweat from his brow. "Alright, we're all clear down here. Proceeding to locate the drop zone."

"Roger that." Keith's voice came in over the com link. "I'll try to keep Sendak from sending any more fighters your way, but no promises. So yeah, you might wanna hurry up with the whole drop zone business."

"Copy that!" Matt replied. "I'll come give you some backup once I drop these two off. Pidge, you got that?"

"We're all on the same com link, so yeah." Pidge pointed out. "I got that."

"Right, right, just making sure." Matt told her. "Alright, I think I can see the mouth of the river coming up. Uh, have I been going in the right direction or do I like, need to turn this ship around again, because I can-"

"No." Pidge cut him off. Exchanging a glance with Allura, she almost hesitated for a moment- before the Altean princess nodded her head, giving her an encouraging smile.

So she could feel it too.

"This is it."

There really was a temple.

She'd almost been expecting to find out that it wasn't real, that she had merely imagined what she had seen. But it was real- the temple was real, down to every last detail, every bit as overgrown as she had pictured it.

And the low rumble in the back of her mind... that was real, too.

Drawing in a long breath, Pidge exchanged a glance with Allura.

"It will be fine." She said. "Go. The green lion is waiting for you."

Swallowing, as if to swallow back all of her residual nerves with it, Pidge took a step forward, and then another. Walking speed became a run- and before she knew it, she was mounting the steps of the temple, barely having the time to register the lion carvings that glowed green as she passed.

She had called to it, and now it was calling to her.

Inside the tangle of vines, she could sense it- and when one massive, golden eye flared to life within them, she felt a tingle run up her spine- one of excitement, anticipation. It was as if all of her hesitation had cleared away at once, vanishing into the ether, as if it had never existed.

This was her lion. Hers.

She was the green paladin.

Drawing in a long breath, a triumphant smirk on her face, she leapt forward into the vines, where her partner waited.

Now was the time to show the Galra Empire what Katie Holt was really made of. They'd taken her family from her- and damned if she wasn't going to make sure that they'd regret it.

In the back of her mind, the green lion roared.

The sensation of flying the green lion was like nothing she had ever experienced.

It was enthralling, exhilarating, the controls seeming to hum underneath her touch. In the back of her mind, the green lion let out a low rumble, showing her without words what it was that she needed to do, guiding her like a patient teacher who had known her all her life.

It was incredible.

By the time she remembered Allura, landing the green lion to allow her to enter the cockpit, she was all but beaming from ear to ear. If there had been any lingering doubts, they had been banished the moment she had touched the controls, the lion almost seeming to shift to accommodate her small frame.

It must have shown on her face, because Allura didn't even ask. She could not say the same for the Altean princess- there seemed to be a rather complex array of emotions playing out over her face, as she stepped foot into the green lion.

Nostalgia, she thought, but also a great sense of loss, a deep sorrow. Perhaps she was recalling the one who had piloted it before her, mourning their loss, fresh and new. Perhaps it had yet to truly strike her, up until this moment, that they- whoever they had been- were truly gone. Beyond that, she couldn't even begin to guess at what the princess was feeling right now.

Pushing it from her mind, she instead focused her attention on the task at hand. Now that they had the green lion, they would be able to get out of here. She could contact Keith and-

No sooner than she had thought that, did a display screen pop up on one side of the lion, nearly startling her. It took her a moment to process that the person on the other side of the screen was Keith- whose expression shifted from that of a fierce battle grin, to one of marked confusion as he took notice of it on his end.

"Wha- Pidge?"

"Yup, it's me." Unable to help herself, she grinned. "Looks like our lions can connect to each other."

And marked confusion quickly became clear understanding- and with that, the battle grin returned. "Understood."

"Catch you soon." She told him, the screen popping out of existence just as suddenly as it had appeared. Drawing in a long breath, she steadied herself, feeling the low rumble of the green lion in the back of her mind, softly telling her what to do.

And did it.

The green lion broke through the atmosphere of the jungle planet with a roar, flying faster than she had ever flown before. It wasn't long before she caught sight of the Galra cruiser- just in time to watch it's hull be torn apart by the red lion's railgun.

On his end of the com link, she could just make out Matt's exclamation of holy shit. A perfectly understandable reaction to what had become their trump card.

(She couldn't wait to find out what her own lion's trump card was. It had to be something super cool.)

It sank, a fiery explosion ripping the ship in half.

See ya later Sendak, she barely knew you, and couldn't say that she was sorry to see your purple ass go.

"Alright," Keith's voice came over the com link- the normal one, this time, "-let's hurry up and get out of here. The longer we stay here, the bigger the chance is that they'll send someone else after us. Matt, open the hangar bay doors to let us in. You might want to change the ship's transponder code while you're at it."

"Hopefully we both fit." Pidge observed. "We might need to invest in a bigger ship."

The visuals on Keith's end hadn't come back again, their communications still audio only, but it was easy to imagine his nose scrunching up with displeasure. "Matt?"

"Don't ask me, this ship is already bigger than anything the rebels have." Matt told him. "Hangar bay doors are open, by the way. According to my readings, you should both fit. It just might be a little tight."

"So I guess finding all five lions is out." Pidge remarked, arching a brow. "Unless we want to steal something even bigger."

"I always have kind of wanted to steal one of those cruisers." Keith remarked.

"Is that like, a thing that we could actually do?" Matt asked. "Because oh man, I am so up for stealing an entire Galra cruiser."

"Do we really need to steal anything?" Allura interjected, making a valiant effort at trying to play the voice of reason. "Perhaps we could simply search for the Castle of Lions instead."

"Okay, first of all, we're pirates, so stealing is kind of what we do." Pidge pointed out, glancing back at her. "And second of all- what's the Castle of Lions?"

"The Castle of Lions was my father's flagship." Allura told her. "It had a hangar for each Voltron lion. Not only that, but should we manage to find it, I should be able to locate the remaining three lions with far more ease than we located the green lion here. It could become a valuable asset to the rebellion."

"Sounds convenient." Keith remarked. "Any chance you know where it is?"

"No. Only that it is unlikely to have fallen into Zarkon's hands." Allura admitted, shaking her head. "I had been hoping that the red lion would be able to tell me where it was located, but that did not seem to be the case. Perhaps the green lion...?"

Realizing that the question was directed at her, Pidge jumped a little. Right. When Allura had spoken to the red lion, she'd needed to do so through Keith- and she was the green lion's paladin, so it made sense that if she wanted to ask it a question, she'd have to do so through her.

"How about it, girl?" Pidge asked.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, like a spark had ignited, space itself seemed to warp. For the span of a moment, she felt herself tense, wondering if yet another Galra cruiser was about to leap out at them- only to find herself drawing in a sharp breath, almost in awe of what she saw.

"Is that... is that a wormhole?" She heard Matt whisper.

"It is!" Lurching forward, Allura's eyes shown in wonder- wonder, and hope, sparkling vivid and bright. "One created by a teludav, no less!"

"Teludav?" Keith asked, his voice uncertain, as if unfamiliar with the word. "Are you saying we should go through that thing, princess?"

"Yes!" Allura insisted. "It must lead back to the Castle of Lions."

Home, the green lion seemed to rumble, a deep sense of longing filling her chest, one that she recognized as not being that of her own, and she wondered if Keith could feel it too.

"I think she's right." Pidge said. "At least- that's what my lion seems to be telling me. Keith?"

"I- I don't know." He admitted, and she couldn't help but frown- though he tried to mask it, she didn't like the tone that she picked up on in his voice. "Red's not telling me anything like that."

She didn't miss the slight way that Allura's grip on the back of her chair stiffened at that. Narrowing her eyes, she couldn't help but wonder if she'd decided to take that as a sign that Flos had been right- that Keith was no paladin after all.

Bullshit, she knew. Total and complete bullshit.

"So are we going through the wormhole or not?" Matt asked.

"Keith?" Pidge asked.

"This is your call." His tone was... strangely curt, guarded, and she could tell without needing to see his face that something was clearly on his mind. It wasn't hard to guess what, she was wondering it herself. Why did only her lion know where to go, when his didn't?

Maybe it had, once. But if it had found itself in the hands of the Galra Empire, then there was a chance it could have made the choice to erase any such knowledge from its memory. From the way Allura spoke about it... there had to be something more to it than it just being her father's flagship.

Perhaps there was something on the Castle of Lions that Zarkon could not be allowed to find. Or perhaps the Castle itself was something that would be dangerous if allowed to fall into enemy hands.

That was her line of thought- but she knew Keith, and she knew that whatever he was thinking, it probably wasn't that. Oh, he'd probably considered it- but he'd probably also just as quickly dismissed the idea, instead defaulting to something far darker, more full of self-loathing.

They could talk about it later, she thought- that is, if she could get his stubborn ass to talk. Getting Keith to talk about his feelings was like trying to draw blood from a stone.

She thought of him as a friend, but she could never quite tell what he truly thought of her. Though he was at ease with her, having become a familiar constant in his life, she could tell that there were still plenty of walls up between the two of them.

Walls that she had no idea how to even begin breaking down.

"Alright," she spoke, gripping the controls of her lion tight, sensing that he was still waiting for an answer, "...let's go."