Hey look, we're already at chapter three! This story is getting way more attention on my AO3 account though so honestly I might move all my stuff there instead and shut down here...
When the red lion had first launched out of the Galra ship, Lance had assumed one of the prisoners that Shiro and Pidge had freed was the pilot. He had assumed they were like him, hurting, angry, afraid... and ready to destroy the empire that had taken everything they could from everyone they could. Lance had thought that perhaps they might be friends, might bond over that shared frustration. Lance had thought this right up until the Red Lion had bowed it's head and it's pilot stepped out of the cockpit, dressed in the purple, red, and black armour of the Galra soldiers, a red helmet on his head. The Galra warrior stopped a few feet from them, his expression unreadable.
Oh, HELL no. Lance thought, feeling himself glaring at this person. There was no way that one of those responsible for all of this, for all the suffering in the universe would ever be his teammate. Lance would never accept this yellow-eyed freak as a paladin, and he was in disbelief that Red would choose one especially after the mistake that Black had made ten thousand years ago. Allura and Coran wore similar expressions as his at least, of anger and hate. The humans looked confused more than anything, and the Galra in front of them didn't budge. Or drop dead on the spot, Lance would be okay if he did that too.
"Um... so... this is not... what we expected..." Shiro said slowly, trying to ease the tension they could all feel in the air now. He looked confused, and concerned, but he didn't know who the Black Paladin before him was either. Shiro didn't understand fully that the Galra could never be trusted. The Galra in question pulled his helmet off, revealing larger, more mobile ears, and a lot of fluffy purple on his head.
"I surrender," the Galra said suddenly, dropping the helmet and raising his hands up and watching them. Lance couldn't discern his expression, but he was suspicious of that. Even before the war, Galra warriors prided themselves on never surrendering, never backing down. It had to be a trick of some kind, a trap. Allura and Coran looked like they thought that might be the case too. The humans seemed to relax at that though, accepting it as a genuine surrender.
"Do you have any weapons? You should put them down in front of you if you do..." Shiro said, his tone gentle, but stern. At least the humans weren't totally trusting. It was still a Galra after all, still the enemy. The Galra reached down and pulled a singe knife from his right boot, placing it on the ground before himself, then kicking it away and towards the paladins. He stood up again and raised his hands once more before glancing back at Red.
"Uh... does... the lion count, 'cause I'm not sure I can lay that down in front of me, it's a little big..." He tried a small grin, all fangs, which seemed to unsettle everyone else as much as it did Lance, who glared harder at the Galra. The Galra dropped the smile quickly, flinching just slightly, hands still up as Shiro picked up the knife carefully.
"When I knew the Galra, they had a policy of not surrendering. What is it that you want? Who are you? How do you have the Red Lion?" Allura asked, her voice and expression hard, unyielding. Her voice betrayed her anger too, but if the Galra noticed, it didn't seem too concerned. Either he didn't care, or he was used to being yelled at, and either was possible considering. His bright yellow eyes seemed to stay fixated on Lance, something that irked him even more somehow. The Galra's larger ears both stood tall, pointing towards them to hear them all better, though the left one occasionally swivelled to listen behind himself.
"My name's Keith, I did surrender, I am still... surrendering, so I mean, maybe your info is a little outdated. I got sucked into space and the lion picked me up, it's been calling to me since it came on board the ship a few months ago, but until today it didn't do anything. During the fight it called to me again, so I left my post... and... I want to fight Zarkon. I know you don't have any reason to trust me, but I'm now a traitor to the Empire. I want to help you." He said. Lance snorted lightly. No reason to trust him was right, and Lance didn't. There was nothing that would get him to trust a Galra now.
"Galra don't surrender. Princess, we're not actually going to entertain this are we? They're a Galra warrior and only death or success stop those. They're all loyal to Zarkon anyways, they're probably a spy!" Lance insisted. He would rather shoot this 'Keith' and be done with him now. Allura looked like she wanted to do the same thing too. Maybe he should list that as an option that was open to them. Killing Keith now would save them a lot of grief in the future after all.
"I don't trust them either. But they are the one chosen by the Red Lion, so we can't just send them back or kill them either. We're going to have to confine you until we can determine whether or not you're telling us the truth. If you are, then... we'll discuss you working with us. If not..." She frowned at Keith, a stern look in her eyes. Keith didn't look too pleased with the idea but he nodded once. Lance pulled out his bayard, the gun appearing again.
"Come on, I'll escort you..." Lance said. Maybe he'd hit this guy once or twice too? Not like Allura would be too upset with him probably if he did bump his bayard on Keith's head once or twice. Or Coran by the look on his face, it seemed he hated Keith as much as Lance did, and trusted him about the same too. Lance was a bit dismayed when Shiro spoke again though, an annoying voice of reason when all Lance wanted to do was be as unreasonable as possible.
"I'll come too. Just in case he causes any trouble..." Shiro said. He looked at Lance though when he spoke, and Lance suspected from Shiro's expression that Shiro thought Lance might be more trouble than Keith was. Keith did go quietly though, not fighting them while they lead him through the ship in a tense silence, put him inside an empty room, and sealed the doors for now. Lance breathed a sigh of relief once the Galra was locked up, feeling safer with it confined.
"You all think he's lying huh?" Shiro asked as they walked away from the room that they were temporarily using as a prison cell. He sounded disappointed, like he didn't like the assumptions the Altean's were all making about Keith, and it made something hot burn inside Lance's stomach, twisting itself in knots inside of him.
"Of course he's lying! He's a Galra!" Lance snapped, feeling his hand tighten around his bayard, still in his hand, though no longer holding it's shape for him. Shiro was their captive for a year, he knew how bad they were! Or had he really forgotten everything about his time there? Everything they had done to him? Or maybe humans were all like this, too trusting, too quick to forgive those who wronged them. Altean's held grudges for centuries after all...
"Yeah... he is. Something seemed... familiar about him though," Shiro frowned and shook his head, looking confused. "Might be nothing..." Lance hoped it was nothing. They returned to the main hall together, mostly in silence now, where the other paladins, Coran, and princess Allura waited for them. The lions were all still parked outside, their particle barrier's going up as soon as they were left alone.
"So... how do we question this... Keith guy?" Pidge asked now, frowning in thought. Lance wondered that too... after all Galra were pretty good liars when they wanted to be. If Keith was a spy he would have a background all cooked up for them, and reasons that sounded believable for wanting to flee the Empire himself. Lance had already decided privately not to trust a single thing Keith ever said to him. Lance sat down, glaring silently at the floor for now. His head hurt, he was tired. Lance wanted to lay down and sleep, and try to process everything that had happened to him today.
"We'll have to find some way to make sure he isn't lying to us. If we don't know, then we can't trust what he says either way, and if he's going to be piloting a lion, we need to be able to trust him," Shiro was right there. They couldn't form Voltron if they didn't trust each other after all. Lance didn't really care about forming Voltron right now though. He just didn't want Keith on the team, or in the castle, or anywhere near him.
"The lion chose wrong." Lance said stubbornly. Keith couldn't be the Paladin. Maybe it was just trying to escape, and used him to do it? Maybe Keith or some other Galra hacked into it some how and tricked it? Chose Keith for the fake paladin because he was small and cute, and fluffy? Lance mentally kicked himself for thinking a Galra, of all things, could be cute.
"Can the lions choose wrong? Is that like, is that like a thing that can happen?" Hunk asked, looking a bit surprised and concerned by the idea. After all, it might mean his had chosen wrong too, and Lance knew the thought of being chosen incorrectly was not a happy one for any Paladin.
"It... it has happened before, a few times in Voltron's history. All of the lions have chosen incorrectly on at least one occasion, but only once was that mistake truly devastating in it's consequences. It's possible they tampered with the Red Lion too. We don't know how long they had Red for, after all. It's quite possible that it's been hijacked somehow, and wouldn't have chosen Keith under normal circumstances," Allura said what Lance had been thinking.
"Hey, do the Galra have physiological responses when lying like humans do? Maybe we could build a polygraph test? It's not always accurate, but I think I could make it possible to pick up lies too, once we get a baseline on his readings, and if he tells at least one lie that we know of..." Pidge said and all of them stared for a second at the Green paladin.
"I uhh... I guess that could work, right?" Shiro shrugged, apparently not entirely sure of what Pidge just said. Lance wasn't either, but if they had a machine to detect lies, that was very useful to them, and not just for finding out Keith's true intentions.
"You can have whatever you need to build this machine of yours, Pidge. Let Coran know what you need and I'm sure we can find something that will work, at the very least. Lance, you can help too... though... for the rest of today, perhaps we should rest. It has been a long and... difficult day. For all of us, I'm sure," Allura's voice was strained towards the end, Lance noticed, his right ear twitching lightly at the odd tone it carried.
"Ah, please follow me Paladins. I'll show you to the rooms you can use while you're here," Coran said, standing up and heading down one hallway once the other paladins made to follow him. Lance knew they were being led to the rooms that the Paladin's traditionally used and something in his heart felt wrong about using those rooms, at least, for the time being.
"If... if it's okay, could I stay in the quarters I had before...?" Lance couldn't quite get an end onto his question. Before they went into stasis? Before Zarkon betrayed the Voltron Alliance? Before Lance's home world, his civilization was destroyed? Before everyone and everything he had ever loved was taken from him forever? Allura looked at him with understanding in her eyes and he was relieved to see it wasn't pity. Lance couldn't stand being pitied.
"Yes, of course. If you are more comfortable there, you can stay there, but... let us know if you would like to move at all... or if there's anything we can do or you..." Allura said. He nodded once to her, grateful that there were others on board at least who understood the magnitude of the loss. They had lost it all too but... Allura and Coran had each other, at least, in a way that Lance didn't. He had known who they were of course, everyone on board had, but he hadn't really known them or spoken to them.
Lance walked silently behind the other paladins until they reached the hallway that split off towards the servants quarters, and Lance turned off, grateful to get away from their noise. He normally was a chatterbox, an incessant flirt, and a truly extroverted socialite, but right now all he wanted was quiet. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare. Being a Paladin of Voltron was his dream when he was a child, but it wasn't worth this. It wasn't worth losing everything, and he wished more than anything that he was dreaming something terrible right now, that he'd wake up and not be the Blue Paladin, but on Altea, going on vacation in a week with his family.
When he reached his door Lance paused and swallowed, before opening it up. There was no dust in the room, the castle automatically filtered the air after all. Everything was right where he had left it too. Books, clothing, pictures, letters... the pages on the letters had changed, even without dust. They looked older now, drier and brittle, like if he touched them, they might turn to dust. It made him feel all hollow and alone, to see the paper had aged so much. It was proof that this wasn't some horrible, unfunny prank. Proof it wasn't some lie or a way to mock him for something he'd done. Lance felt horribly empty, horribly alone in the universe in that moment, staring at those papers on his desk, right where he had left them, in the middle of writing back.
A lump formed in his throat, and his vision blurred as tears formed in his eyes as the horrible emptiness inside filled with grief like he had never known before in his life. Lance sank to his knees, the tap of his knees hitting the floor echoing around the room, too loudly before the first choked sob escaped him. Another followed the first shortly, and quite soon he was curled up on the floor, sobbing openly and loudly for the loss of everything he'd ever known.