"We've search both of the likely planets, Keith. He's not on either of them."
"Have them search again Allura. We may have missed him. A person doesn't just disappear."
"We haven't miss him on any of those planets. You and the paladins all did such a thorough search, I'd be surprised if there's even a single stone that wasn't upturned on any of those planets."
"Then….have them start searching the next closest batch of planets. There are three more habitable planets in this solar system. Spread the search out to them."
"No Keith. The paladins are all tired. They need rest. So do you."
"I can't rest. Not with Shiro missing like this. I refuse to believe that he's dead Allura."
"So do I, but you're no good to him half dead. Not long ago Shiro told me to rest when I was pushing myself too hard. Now I am telling you to do the same. Coran and I will continue searching the stars for him while you and the paladins get some sleep."
Allura sent all of the paladins to their rooms telling them to get some rest and that she'd call them when it was time for dinner. The whole day had been spent tirelessly looking for Shiro. It was same thing they've been doing everyday for almost a week since he had mysteriously disappeared from inside his lion. While Keith understood what Allura said about resting, his body was heavy and aching from fatigue, but Keith couldn't sit still and the idea that Shiro was out there somewhere was too much him to bear. He could be in trouble or dying or captured or being tortured and Keith wasn't doing anything to help him. His leg ticked in a restless tapping and he desperately needed to be doing something.
Keith got up off the bed and paced the floor for probably the hundredth time since he returned to his room. It felt estranged to him and almost unfamiliar because he hadn't been in very much lately. He was almost always doing something lately and hardly ever did he sleep. Even when he did, it wasn't always in his bed. Taking a deep breath, Keith tried to force himself to sit on the bed again and relax but it was futile, he was up again within seconds of sitting down. As he paced the room, he noticed that the arrangement of his desk hadn't changed in days because he hadn't used it all and in that moment it didn't really feel like he was looking at it with his own eyes.
The room swam and reaching out, Keith collapses into the desk chair, holding on for dear life to steady himself not fall out of the chair and onto the floor. He held on tight, knuckles aching, until everything calmed again and he looked at the papers he had knocked onto the floor. He didn't pick them up, he just stared at them. It was filled with notes on the planets of this solar system they've been searching for Shiro, including a drawing of the way they orbited the sun. Two planets on the diagram were circled, the ones that had been the closest to the place they fought Zarkon at and where Shiro had disappeared from. Those two were deemed the most likely for Shiro to be at if he were still alive and why the last week had been dedicated to searching them.
The search turned up negative but the idea that Shiro could've been on them became an even more plausible when they found out that one of the planets was home to the Anolean's, a race of powerful mystics who would have no trouble summoning Shiro from his lion straight to their planet for whatever reason. But when questioned, the Anolean's revealed that didn't know anything about Shiro and after searching the planet for three whole days they couldn't find any trace of Shiro. Keith even briefly piloted the black lion to see if it could lock onto him to no avail. The next planet also came up negative of results.
Keith's thoughts started going wild while he stared down at that piece of paper. He was suddenly overcome with the urge to revisit the Anolean's and ask them for their help in finding Shiro. If they're half as powerful of mystics as they say they are, they might be able to use their abilities to look for Shiro more effectively and more quickly, cutting their search time in half. Keith was just starting to reach for his notepad to start formulating ideas when Allura's voice broke out over the intercom.
"Paladins? Dinner is ready. I know you're probably tired and just want to sleep but please do come and eat something."
Keith admittedly is little bit frustrated that dinner was now of all times, just when he thinks he might've been onto something but it would have to wait. Shiro was a capable man and could wait just a little while longer. Besides, his stomach had been complaining for awhile now. When Keith arrives at the dinner table, Its heaped with the usual green goop but there was also a strange larvae dish that he had never seen before. The larva in which were quite fat and still squirming about on the plate.
"Nice of you to join us Keith," Coran greets, dishing himself up a massive amount of the green goop in his usual cheery manner.
"Yeah, no problem but uh….why is that still moving?" Keith asks as he sits down next to Pidge. At the end of the table near him was Coran and opposite of Coran was Allura. Lance was next to Hunk across from him and Keith tried not to think about the vacant chair on the other side of Pidge. He just couldn't handle thinking about it right now.
"Those are Altean Moth Larva," Coran answers, "They're quite big once they transition into moths, about the side of my head—oh you do know what moths are right? Does Earth have any?"
"Yeah. But they're generally small and you could fit a hundred of their larva into one of those," Keith responds, making a face as he points to one of the wriggling creatures trying desperately to escape the plate but it was unable to lift its fat body over the lip.
"Why are they alive if they're dinner?" Keith asks, needing to look away. It was oddly really disturbing for him watch.
"Oh yes! Well that's to preserve their freshness of course. You see, they're considered a delicacy on Altea, known for their rich flavor and juiciness. I once ate over a hundred of these suckers in one sitting and had the runs for a week! It was quite a disaster but I couldn't help myself. They're just so tasty," Coran babbled on and Keith gingerly pushed the plate away from himself. While he appreciated the thought, the Altean's could keep their delicacy. He really wanted to know was where Coran had been keeping these but at the same time, he also really didn't want to know if there was some kind of infestation or if Coran was cultivating them like some kind of crop.
"Ugh, enough about moth's and larva. I want to talk about the Anolean's. Anyone else notice that some of them were huge babes?" Lance chirped and then proceeded to shovel a bunch of the green goop into his mouth, signaling to Keith that dinner had officially started.
"They're reptile people Lance," Hunk chimes in and grabs one of the larvae, hoofing it down as though he feels no fear. Keith has to swallow vomit and look away when a strange blue liquid that's probably blood and larva guts squirts all over the lower half of his face. Keith thinks he's lost what little appetite he had left.
"Mm, this is good Coran," Hunk says, whipping his face.
"I'm so glad you agree—"
"Yeah but not in the sense you'd normally think of reptile people as. I mean sure they have scales in some places but they don't look like alligators or anything like that," Lance interrupts Coran, changing the subject again to talk about the Anolean's and Keith's glad for once to have to listen to Lance talk about alien chicks because right now it's much better than those larvae.
"But they're blue," Hunk responds, grabbing a plate of green goop and inhaling it within seconds before moving on to his second plate.
"Blue's my favorite color. I don't see what the problem is."
"Okay, but what about their knees then? They bend the opposite way that ours do," Pidge adds, "And they're super tall. Like, it'd take two of you to make one Anolean female."
"Yeah but I think I could live with that," Lance says.
"Of course you could," Pidge says with a roll of her eyes and Keith chuckles and he decides to contribute to the conversation.
"You don't even know if they're sexually compatible with humans," Keith says and for a moment the room falls quiet as Lance stares at Keith in a dumbfounded way and that's when he knew Lance hadn't even thought that far yet.
"He does raise up a good point Lance. Not to mention, they could be the type of species that eats their mate after sex," Pidge says, pushing up her glasses before she continues to eat. Lance looks just about horrified and Keith has to suppress the urge to laugh.
"They don't actually," Coran says between a mouthful of larva, "While there are far less Anolean males than there are females, it's not because they eat their mates. Actually, the way they reproduce is quite fasc—"
"Whoa, whoa buddy. I'm sure it is fascinating, but I don't think we really need to know how they reproduce. Right Lance," Hunk says and Lance shakes his head rapidly, and while Coran looks slightly disappointed that he doesn't get to share another story from his knowledge pool, he looks satisfied with that and decides to let it go.
"Well alright. I suppose it wouldn't be appropriate dinner conversation anyway," Coran admits and Keith has to smile. It's been awhile since they had a dinner like this, not since their fight with Zarkon and not after what happened with Shiro. Usually conversations at the dinenr table were short at best and always followed by long, tense silences. It was refreshing to talk like this again with them and it set Keith's mind at ease a little bit. But there was one person who hadn't spoken at all yet and Keith turned his head to look at Allura. She was smiling but looked distracted and worried.
"Allura?" Keith asked softly and she snapped into focus as though she hadn't really been there at all.
"Oh, yes? What is it Keith? Do you need something?" Allura responds, putting on a smile to mask her exhaustion and he wonders if she has eaten anything yet. He forgot to check but her plate looks untouched.
"No, but I do have a question for you," Keith says, knowing her exhaustion from working hard to create time for the paladins to rest.
"Ask away Keith."
"Well, I was thinking….since the Anolean's elder's are said to possess a third eye which can see things that aren't usually able to be seen and at a much greater range than our own, I was thinking that maybe we should ask them to aid us in our search for Shiro," Keith says and a hush fell over the room. It was in stark contrast to the liveliness that had just filled the room with life and everyone, save for Coran and Allura, was all tensed up. The air Keith breathed seemed to be too tick to breath. It's almost as if Shiro's name has become taboo and while logically Keith knows it's because they're all stressed and worried but one nagging part of him feels that it's as though they've already given up on Shiro and are trying to forget about him.
"It doesn't work that way Keith. The Anolean's third eye is purely spiritual and can only be used to do things like predict natural disasters, see changes in a person mood, or use aura to see people who are not yet visible to them. For example, they could tell you exactly what someone was doing in the room next to them. And in theory they could use that to search the entire planet but the third eye's range doesn't spread that far. At most they could check a couple cities at a time. Besides, we can't take one with everywhere we go," Allura explains to him and Keith slumps in his chair.
"That's stupid…I thought they were powerful mystics but it's just a bunch of powerful mumbo jumbo. They can magically transport someone from out in space but they can't find Shiro" He mutters venomously. Maybe it was unreasonable but he felt ripped off.
"They are. They've done great things with their powers and they've saved many lives and they've done so without bias. But even they have limits. They can only reach out to transport someone from within a certain range"
"Well how do you know that they can't? Have they tried? We haven't even asked them yet so how can you possibly know that?"
"But I have Keith. I already asked them for their help, thinking I could spare you the grueling task of such a heavy search if I could but they told me that they cannot do what I ask. I don't know if it's really because of their limits or if they just trying to down play their abilities to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Regardless of their reason, they don't want to help us and we must respect that," Allura says, reaching across the table to take Keith's hand he stands up, staying out of reach.
"Well fuck them then! Why didn't you tell me before Allura? Before I went and got my hopes up again?" Keith snaps and for a moment it feels so good to let the anger and frustration that's been dwelling inside him come out to the surface. But once he sees the flinching in Allura he's filled with regret, drowning in it, squashing down the anger.
"Keith! Don't you be yelling at Princess Allura like that, she was only trying to help," Coran pips up, slapping his hands on the table and bristling with rage, as angry as he'd ever seen him. Keith's face feels hot with shame even though he didn't need help feeling bad. Looking away doesn't help. Lance, Pidge and Hunk are looking at him with shock in their eyes. He wants to slip under the table and disappear.
"It's alright Coran. I'm sorry, Keith. I know I should have told you rather than keeping you in the dark about my movements. I had originally wanted to surprise you if it had worked out but it was a dead end. I didn't want to add more to your burden than there already was," Allura apologizes, her voice soft and gentle and it causes Keith's gut to churn. He feels nauseous again.
"Don't apologize Allura, Coran's right. I'm the one who should be saying sorry. So…I'm sorry," Keith's says, the whole room starts to feel fuzzy and distorted like he's looking at it through a film over his eyes.
"Excuse me, I'm going to go cool off," His legs carry him briskly out of the room, footsteps loud and echoing like gunshots. His concept of time seems to fold in on itself and he's back in his room in record time, turning all the lights off. The enveloping darkness is crushing but not nearly as much as the pounding inside his head, hot and painful bouncing his heartbeat off the sides of his skull. He knew from the start it was grasping at straws to ask the Anolean's for help but it was better than the alternative: acknowledging that from the very start, searching the nearby planets was pointless. Slav was right when he said that the chance of finding Shiro in the nearby solar system was less than one percent. It had all just been one big waste of time of Keith was out of ideas. He collapses onto the bed and buries his face in the pillows.
"Shiro, where did you go? I don't know what to do….."