Thanks for the reviews and the follows! You would think I would better express how giddy I feel when a review or a follow arrives, so know that it always makes me bounce a bit in my chair and smile!
This will really focus on the relationship between Hunk and Keith. Allura will appear as she and Keith work on their relationship, trying to find a balance. Other characters may make cameos or appear through discussions.
Kleenex rating: 0. Chuckles expected: one or two.
An nope, I cannot tell a straight line story!
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Keith smiled in a rare moment of complete relaxation as he watched the children playing beside the lake. Cady waved to him to ensure he watched as she attempted to execute a spin before diving into the lake. Keith winced as she did not fully complete the turn sending a large splash of water forward as she clumsily entered the water.
Cady surfaced and looked toward her Dad, "Almost, that time Cady!" he called to her, giving her a thumb's up.
"It is nice to see one area where the other kids compete with the little bugger." Lance laughed as he bounced a child on his knee. "Right, mi amigo?" He addressed the child, "She really needs a few areas where Cady struggles, because no one can achieve perfection like her neurotic Daddy, right little man?"
The group laughed as Lance continued to berate Keith to the small boy, making the boy laugh and giggle by making funny faces and bouncing him.
More comments flew and Keith leaned back on his elbows, watching friends and family interact with laughter and joy.
"I do not care what the manual says! I'm telling you to inverse the damn chip before installing it."
Keith looked over at Tsuyoshi in confusion. He appeared to laugh with the rest, but the words did not fit.
"Because some gods-be-damned idiot did not understand the blueprints and manufactured the insert wrong."
Keith shook his head to try and clear it, but found the scene in front of him looking blurry as though he looked through oil sheen.
"Just stop arguing and do what you are told."
Keith closed his eyes, and the scene starting dissolving, the laughter growing faint.
"I outrank you soldier, now suck it up. Garrett out."
Reluctantly, the ebony haired man opened his eyes, blinking several times to clear his sight. He heard someone moving around and as he moved from the sleeping world to the waking one, heard muttering from his friend about people who needed to return to the womb and this time request some brains to go with their brawn.
Smiling at the descriptions Yoshi gave to each of the people who had complained, he winced as he heard his friend answer the com with a harsh "What now!"
Tuning out the conversation, the King of Arus closed his eyes, and slowly tensed and relaxed each muscle in effort to start his blood flowing again. As his awareness grew, Keith realized someone had covered him with a blanket and lowered the chair to a reclining position. The scent of coffee drifted toward him, causing the man to open his eyes and look over in appreciation. A carafe with two cups waited on the table along with some small savory pastries. Moving his right hand slightly, Keith pressed the button to slowly raise the recliner to an upright position. As he did so, a hand reached over to fill both coffee cups and thunk down again as Yoshi swore into his com.
"You be-dammed idiot! Did you deliberately run into trees in your youth until the brains all leaked out? I would ask if your parents dropped you on your head, but I met them and I could not insult your mother like that. Did I not just specifically say to IGNORE THE FUCKING MANUEL? Did I stutter?" Yoshi paused, listening to the reply and roughly shoved one of the two mugs into Keith's hands and paced around again.
"Well pull the insert and check for damage, of course – don't add moron on top of idiot to your behavior." Another pause, "Then replaced the whole dammed unit. I don't care if you miss dinner, breakfast, and then next two days of sleep. Just get it done and don't fuck it up again. Do I make myself perfectly clear? Do not follow the manual, follow my damned easy instructions and save us all a lot of grief. Garrett out."
Tucking the communicator into his pocket, the large man turned back toward his commander in the chair looking groggily bemused. Running his fingers through his hair, he picked up his mug and took a large gulp. "I tell you cap, these kids just do not know how to listen! Damn kid put the bloody piece in backwards and caused a shortage in the whole bloody system. If he did not fry the damn thing it should only take a couple hours to fix, and if he fried it, there will be hell to pay. I just spent two days putting the bitch together and in two minutes the idiot may have ruined it."
Keith had to hide his smile behind a drink of the coffee as his friend worked himself into a fine show of temper. Yoshi stomped over to the table and shoved a pastry into Keith's hands while taking a second for himself. He took a large angry bite washing it down with a swallow of coffee, then seemed to forget he held the pastry and started using it as a pointing device.
"I tell some of those kids, 'Do it thusly,' but do they listen? Noooo, they have to talk about the bloody be damned manuals." His voice rose to a whiny tone, "But Lieutenant, the manual says. . . Like I have not a) read the manual, b) pronounced it shit, and c) written my own procedures? The brain-damaged cro-magnons who wrote those steaming pile of kaka had no friggin' clue about engineering or design. Over educated, pompus ass-holes who cannot tell a spanner wrench from a screwdriver." Hunk paused and looked over at his friend, "And then there is YOU! First of all, take a bite before I lose my temper and second of all – dodging every conversation for the last two damned months! Leaving me to stew and try to figure out the bitch of a puzzle on my own whilst you sat there with the answers. So do not think you are off the hook this time, oh most glorious king and commander. You owe me answers and by the forty little gods you are going to give them to me! Am I making myself perfectly clear?"
Keith could not help himself any longer and started laughing. He tried to hold it in behind his coffee mug, but the sheer indignation in his friend's voice overrode any control he had. After a minute, he gained enough control to smile serenely at his friends glare and take a large bite from the pastry he held, surprisingly still warm and filled with cheese and greens. The he pointed to his very full mouth and shrugged at not being able to answer the other man's question.
Tsuyoshi blinked a few times and then looked at the sadly mangled pastry still in his hand and smiled. Taking a large bite of his own, he shook his head as his own temper tantrum. The two men looked at each other and both laughed long and loud.
Gesturing to the other chair, the commander invited his friend to join him. The two did not speak but sat enjoying the sunset with their coffee and rolls. Without a word, the yellow pilot bullied his companion into eating three rolls and having two cups of coffee. As they finished eating, the two sat in companionable silence for several minutes.
"When we arrived on this planet, chased by Drules, our transportation lost, communications with Garrison cut-off, exhausted from captivity, escaping to a planet with no discernable population, no known food source, and crash landing in the middle of a barren landscape. . . I could not focus on anything but our survival and finding a way home. I kept Cady tucked in the back of my mind and deliberately pushed away any desperation I felt. Garrison would soon find out about our capture or destruction when the last beacon we sent reached friendly territory and I could not think about what they would tell her and my family." Keith spoke idly, without looking at his friend.
"The Drules came in hot on our tails and it would only be a matter of time before they either recaptured valuable Garrison officers or removed a potential threat. When the natives attacked and Lance took a spear to the leg and Sven to the arm, the chance of ever finding a way to contact Garrison seemed astronomically small. We had no supplies save the little we scrounged from the Drule ship before they destroyed it completely, no indication of where to go, in hostile territory with injured men, survival became everything. We needed to move just a few more klicks. A few more meters. Just one more step.
"When Darrel spotted the castle on the horizon, I gambled our lives it would mean survival. We had no choice. Lance could barely walk, and Sven had started running a fever. It took us days to make the journey and I feared for both Sven and Lance. No medicine to combat infection, no rest to let Lance recover. No knowledge of native plants which could heal." He shook his head to clear the pictures of his friends fading before his eyes.
"Then we entered the castle and the doors slammed shut behind us.
"Looking up, we saw a formally dressed man holding a candle – a candle! In that moment, I realized and accepted the fact this planet would become my life work. The castle still lived, and if the castle lived, then perhaps our mission could succeed.
"Coran had seen us coming, and sent word to the people to guide us to the castle. They put up the blocks which directed us on the path here, but also to the streams and nut trees which sustained us on the journey. I could not feel any anger or resentment toward those people for not helping more; they had too much fear to help us in any other way and nothing else with which to help.
"Then came the lions." The story paused as Keith looked out the window, trying to find the words to explain to his friend the beginning.
The yellow pilot refilled their coffee mugs and quickly sent a request for a fresh pot with some more "small bites" as Magda called them.
Keith absently sipped his coffee for a few minutes before starting his recitation again. "In the academy, we five started as friends, grew together as comrades, and then Cady transformed us into a family. My life had everything and more. Friends who had become family, a good career, and my daughter.
"When I stepped into Black's cockpit, something in me finally knew my destiny in life. Not only my destiny, but Cady's, and our family's. The reason the lions accepted us as their pilots and the reason Voltron continued to grow stronger and more certain; even as first, Cossak, then Lotor brought ever more destruction to bear on Arus; was our bond as a family. Voltron draws strength from his pilots, and for the first time, we brought something never before experienced by him – an unshakable bond between the pilots based on our bond as brothers, friends, and comrades which had grown to something more. For we had gone from stepping to defend our brothers-in-arms to fighting over who would stand in front to take the first hit. There had been other teams, other family lineages who piloted Votron, but that choice to become family, that little something. . . well . . . more; gave us the edge.
"In the months that followed, we fought, built, planned, and more. You and Darrel went flat out constantly with the physical rebuilding of defenses, the castle, and equipment. Sven and Lance went out constantly on foraging missions, trainings, and finding the people hidden in the caves. There was never enough sleep, never enough food, or time. On top of that, we needed to train people to run Castle Control, but that would take time and resources we did not have.
"I started doing more of the night patrols because Black had the longest power supply and the best chance of surviving long enough for the rest of you to come in case of attack. But something started happening. Rather than feeling drained after these flights, I began to feel rejuvenated. The nights became filled with possibilities and peace. In the quiet, I began to see Arus as it could become.
"I started talking out loud to Black about the problems of the day, of my stresses and of our triumphs. When I flew, it felt like someone flew with me offering support and reassurance. For a time I thought I was going crazy, suffering from sleep deprivation, lack of food, and from the injuries we all sustained. Hell, I do not think for the first year we had a time where one of us did not fly without some sort of break, sprain, or other injury." Keith smiled, "Remember the chart Lance made up of trying to predict who would be hurt the worst first? Each scenario crazier than the last?"
The other man nodded as they both remembered the color coded chart Lance had concocted. Yellow stood for 'Why are you crying about a pressure mark;' blue for "Shake it off man, tis only a flesh wound;" green for "tis but a scratch;" red for 'you lopped my arm off!", and purple for 'All right, we'll call it a draw'. He started laughing, "I loved it when he actually started a betting pool with the castle help as more people started arriving. I think Sven and Lance ran neck and neck for recklessness and injuries for a long time. They collected a rather large amount of sympathy those first few months."
Keith grinned, absently taking a bite from the roll Hunk put in his hand, washing it down with coffee. "Contrary to popular belief, I think I had the fewest injuries. Hell, even you and Darrell started collecting all those stars."
Tsuyoshi grunted, "Well, you DO have the most fire power in that lion of yours. And that god-like mantle granting you semi-divinity. We mere mortals just could not keep the pace." The smile faded, "Until that maniac arrived."
"Hnnnn," the dark haired man rubbed his chest where he carried the first scar Lotor had given him. The tabloids had spread the story Keith had accepted Lotor's single combat challenge. Lotor had used it as a ruse to draw Keith away from his lion and leave the castle and princess unprotected. The truth did not make a good story.
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Lotor crouched behind one of the ruined buildings on the outskirts of Aral, not completely confident in the invisibility spell Haggar cast on him. His first forays against the Voltron Force had ended with his retreat. Zarkon had read him the riot act upon his return. Lotor sneered at the thought. Everyone thought him cowed and beneath Zarkon's thumb, but he actually held the tyrant in contempt.
Narrowing his eyes, he watched the scene in front of him. Two of the Voltron pilots worked with the people of the city, using their lions as construction equipment to move large amounts of rubble, making room for new construction. The Black lion made periodic sweeps over the town. He knew the lion patrolled the area around the castle and town, but Lotor could find no discernable pattern to the flight. He grudgingly admired the pilot for the ability to leave no pattern he could exploit for an attack.
The yellow and green lions had yet to make an appearance, but Lotor had watched how quickly they could launch when needed. He assumed the other pilots worked in other sites or at the castle, but assumptions made for poor plans and he would not rely upon them.
As Lotor watched, the red lion moved to a clearing and launched into the air. Within minutes, the Black Lion landed. He watched the lion sink into a crouched position. After a few minutes, a hatch opened in the top of the lion and the dark haired pilot emerged, dropped a ladder to the ground, and climbed down to the ground. The man removed his helmet, tucked in under his arm, and started heading toward the center of activity in the town.
Lotor smiled at this unexpected opportunity, and stood to intercept the man.
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"Black Lion to Red Lion."
"Red Lion here."
"Lance, I need a break.
"Our all mighty commander who does not need to sleep or eat and watches over us like a godling needs a break?"
"Lance. . ." his commander growled.
"Okay, okay. Do not get your boxers in a knot. Give me five."
"Thanks. Black Lion out."
"Red Lion clear."
Keith smiled. Lance would never change and would always skirt the edges of insubordination. Sighing, the man rolled his neck to relieve the stiffness from his long patrol. He looked forward to the chance to stretch his legs and have lunch. On cue, his stomach growled in protest of the long patrol.
Turning toward Aral, he kept alert for any sign of attacks from Lotor. Taking a last loop to the west, he checked in with the castle.
"Cap, I have launched. Take your break."
"Acknowledged." He lets out a sigh, "Thanks, Lance. Appreciate it."
"Well, any excuse to hang with my kitty."
"Clear skies. Black lion, out."
"Red Lion, clear."
Circling around Aral once, Keith landed in one of the clearings large enough for his lion. He ran through the shut down sequence, then leaned his head back for a minute against the back of the chair. Momentarily he considered just sleeping, but protests from his stomach made it clear that he could not skip another meal. With a last thought for some sleep, he exited the crouching lion. He paused to take off his helmet, tuck it under his arm and headed toward the center of the town where he knew a meal waited for him.
One of the town people waved to him as they walked toward a likely tree for harvest. Keith waved back, continuing onward, his mind reviewing the remainder of the week's plans.
Hearing the sound of running foot steps, the black lion pilot paused and tensed. Running feet rarely meant good news. Looking around, he could did not spot anyone other than the group of men prepping the tree for chopping. Blaster in hand, he looked around again for the source of the running feet. Out of the corner of the eye, the man caught sight of a glow. Jumping back instinctively, he fired toward the glow, only to see the shot ricochet off and into the trees.
He heard himself scream as searing pain erupted across his chest and abdomen. Looking down, he saw blood streaming down from a large slash running diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip. Time slowed as he looked up at the sound of laughter. A voice spoke, but the words did not register as he felt the blaster slip from his grasp toward the ground. Keith wondered what had happened and how he could remain standing, only to realize his body had fallen to its knees. Pain spread outward and grey sparkles danced at the center of his vision. The pilot realized he had not stopped screaming. It felt like a thousand years since the assault. His vision closed down to a pinprick, then mercifully, blackness closed around him.
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Trek watched as the Black Lion came in for a landing. He and three other men had come to the clearing to harvest a tree. They would chop the tree into firewood, cording and stacking it to cure against the coming winter. He sighed as he looked at the behemoth they had selected, looking forward to the time when they no longer needed to burn wood for warmth. Even more than that, he looked forward to the time when they did not need to chop down trees by hand!
Laughing with the men, he waived at the captain as they started prepping the tree. A few seconds later, he heard a blood curdling scream. Looking up, the men watched in horror as the captain fell to his knees, blood streaming from a great gash in his chest. Trek found himself running at full tilt toward the man, axe held to attack. His friends followed behind wielding clubs and axes searching for the enemy.
Nothing, Trek saw nothing but a glow near the captain. In horror, he watched it raise as to strike the captain again. Yelling, he paused to take a two handed grip on his axe and throw it at whatever had attacked the captain.
Something, someone, blocked the axe and sent it bouncing to the ground, but the strange glow went with it. Trek heard laughter as he and his friends set up a perimeter around the Black Lion Pilot, who had fallen to the ground, unconscious.
"Save him, if you can!"
The voice came from somewhere behind the group, and they heard the sound of running feet fading into the distance.
"Gralin went for help. Perhaps we can staunch the bleeding."
The men nodded, and quickly tore their shirts for impromptu bandages, the hands of four men trying to hold the life of their defender.
Time slowed. Trek could hear the pounding of his heart and hear the blood rushing in his ears. Blood pooled under his fingers and ran in rivulets down to the grass. It spread among the roots, spilling from blade to blade, clinging for a moment before pushing outward in a widening spill.
Centuries, or perhaps eons later, he heard on of the precious few air cars remaining to Arus land nearby.
The woodsman found themselves shoved aside as medical professionals worked to save the life of their Captain. They stood in a semi-circle, forgotten as blood congealed and dried on their hands and clothing.
Trek did not know how long they stood watching as the medical personnel put in an IV into the captain, pressure bandages on his chest and abdomen, and injected various substances into the IV line. They carefully moved the captain to a gurney, and carried him to the waiting air car. One man paused momentarily in front of the men. "You may have just saved the captain. On his behalf, thank you."
Before anyone could respond, the man ran to the car, which took off even before he shut the door or put on a seat belt. As Trek watched the car leave, he prayed to the God and Goddess Above to keep the Captain safe, and to heal his injuries.
Without speaking, Trek retrieved his axe and walked back to the tree to prepare it for harvest. After all, winter approached quickly.
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