Thanks again for the reviews and follows. It tickles me pink!
Sometimes characters have more to say than we, as authors, originally think. In this case, Mikko Gorma decided he had more to say and so this scene developed. It did not go exactly as I had originally imagined!
Enjoy and feel free to critique or let me know your thoughts.
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Dr. Mikko Gorma sat in his office, with a glass of wine, contemplating the picture screen on the wall. He did not really see the picture, but watch the colors as the panel cycled through various pictures of his family and of Arus before the first Doom invasion and the rebuilt cities and restored countryside. He believed in never forgetting his family or Arus' past, but also in celebrating the present and the future. Odd how just four years ago, he had no hope of a future for the planet. Mikko believed it only a matter of time before Zarkon returned to finish what he had started ten years before. With the death or capture of so many of his family members, the doctor marked time until his own demise.
Then came those five young men. Boys in so many ways with their youthful energy and ability to play as hard as they fought and worked. Catherine had much to do with that.
Mikko took another drink, savoring the flavor that would be years in coming again. The latest attack had wiped out the vineyard where the grapes grew. Perhaps a small thing in the scheme of it all, but just one more item to add to the list of crimes by those crazed maniacs. Really, Arus had little to offer outside of the lions. The perfect fusion of magic, science, and people; the mighty robot defied copying. Oh, not for lack of trying nor for the amount of resources spent on research, but because of the secrets lost to Haggar and her reaping of our best and brightest minds. No one had given up the secret to her, preferring to rejoin the Goddess and God Above before their appointed time rather than give her the secrets of Voltron. Mikko raised a salute to those who sacrificed all to give Arus a chance. Giving himself a mental shake, the doctor returned to the matter at hand; the upcoming conversation with Commander Garrett.
He needed someone to shake up the king and move him onto a better road of recovery. The queen tried, but managed only to push the king further away. Mikko knew she acted out of concern, but also out of fear. For the first time in her life, something she had dreamed came to pass, and she did not know how to loosen her grip. Perhaps they had pushed the man too far too fast. The proclamation could have waited until he had recovered further. Instead, they had pushed him into something for which he had not prepared or could even anticipate. Mikko mentally kicked himself. Once again, they had not looked at the king's needs, only their own.
No wonder the recovery proceeded at a slug's pace.
Now he could only hope the yellow pilot could turn things around and help bring the king back fully.
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"Excellent, Vilius. I am pleased with how quickly you managed to repair the damage." Tsuyo peered closely at the replaced chip. "I am glad your fuck-up did not fry the whole board. Now, did you throw the error filled piece of shit manual into the recycle bin?"
"Yes, sir. I did, sir. I am very sorry, sir." The young mechanic looked at the ground, mortified that his hero had found fault. "It won't happen again, sir."
"No it won't, lad. You've learned a valuable lesson, engineers may have lofty ideals, but it is us grunts on the ground that transform their dreams into reality. Never forget that. Plus, manufacturing and manuals only take you so far. The rest comes from experience. That you will have in time. Now then. Go home. Have dinner with your mother. Go to my cupboard and take her one of the small sacks of sugar I put aside. I know how much your mother misses baking." The man shooed the other off with his hands. "I am done with you for today. Go!"
A broad smile crossed his face, "Sir, yes sir! My mam is really going to appreciate it, sir!"
"Whatever, I said go!"
Hunk watched the young man scamper off, but did not let the smile cross his face until the lad had left the repair bay at a trot, precious sack of sugar in his arms. There left a better mechanic than walked in the door that morning. Whistling, he put away the last of his tools, and then started down the hallway toward Gorma's office. Thankfully, he had not made a trip to the clinic in weeks. The clean-up phase had move into the tedious part, with much of the rebuilding needing to wait until the spring. The ground would freeze too hard to dig effectively, so the people would spend the winter prefabricating as many parts to use in rebuilding, everything from shelving to furniture, to some of the beams used in construction. They had rushed to build two manufacturing plants before the snows came, and although the people had managed to complete the shells of the buildings, the interiors had not started producing materials. It would require the remainder of the winter months to finish outfitting the inside and for the new machinery to arrive from Garrison. The people had hidden and saved as much as they could, but they had run out of time.
The pilot shook his head and brought his mind back to the meeting at hand. Surprised, he found himself outside of Gorma's office without any recollection of actually walking there. He hoped for a short meeting, Saria asked him to come home at a decent hour, "For once!" she said with hands on hips, and a scolding look on her face. "I would go to bed WITH my husband."
He entered after knocking and found Gorma sitting in front of a screen, a glass of something in his hand, a contemplative look on his face.
"Good evening, again, Lieutenant. Thank you for coming. Would you care for a glass of wine? I am taking the time to enjoy the bottle as the vineyard was razed during the invasion and it will take some years before it will become available again."
"That would be appreciated, Dr. Gorma. I have come to enjoy the Arusian vintages."
Mikko poured a very full glass and handed it to Tsuyoshi, "Mikko, please, Lieutenant. If we are to become co-conspirators, being on a first name basis makes it easier."
"Mikko, then. Tsuyo or Yoshi I answer to."
"Tsuyo." Mikko raised his glass in salute, and the pilot raised his in return, taking an appreciative sip. He leaned back in the chair, crossing his right ankle over his left knee and looked at the series of pictures crossing the screen.
"Saria has ordered me back at a decent hour tonight." He finally said after several minutes.
"We should be quick then. I would not want to bring Saria's, and by extension, Magda's wrath down upon you."
"Appreciated."
"Ok, I have a question. One I have been pondering. You said the Black Lion, for lack of a better word, anchored the King here and prevented him from crossing to the other side. You also indicated Catherine had some kind of communication with the lion and by extension her father. Finally, there was an indication that the lions have a tie to their pilots and to some extent the status of the lions is reflected in the health of the pilots."
"Yes, that sounds correct."
"The reverse correlation is true then, the pilot will have some reflection of the status of the lions."
"To some extent, but from what I have pried out of Keith, a much lesser extent. The lines run more from pilots to lions in only a small fraction of the reverse. Why, I cannot tell you."
"Ok, to take a left turn as I process information, earlier I had the thought that we continue to make demands of the king without taking into consideration his needs, wants, or desires. I admit being caught up in the story of the romance and pushed hard for the Hero declaration. It occurs to me we presented this to him not long after his awakening, and he had not even had time for much recovery. Now that he has been crowned king, it seems we continue to demand more from him which is actively hindering his recovery. I sat down today and reviewed how many people have sent request for meetings, information, or other things to the king that could easily be handled by others. He has done a marvelous job of delegating, but there is not enough filtering happening to reduce his need to sort through what really needs his attention, and what does not." Gorma hesitated for a long moment before continuing. "The queen does not help. She has seen much in the way of loss and most of the people in her life have either died or been captured as slaves and never seen again. I know she has loved the king for years without ever thinking they ever had a chance as a couple. He had already a wife and child, which made him ineligible in the eyes of the law. For her, the declaration brought something into her life that before had only been a daydream. So she clings a little too tightly and does not always see what is before her. Always the king has supported her, but she does not see how he struggles now. She sees through eyes of love and has put blinders on to the reality of his condition."
"So Keith is already treading water and instead of throwing him a rope, Allura is walking out on the ice and Keith is having to not only keep himself up but her as well?"
"That is a very good analogy. She does not see, or perhaps does not want to see just how the captain does not have the resources to continue as before." The doctor paused, "Tell me what you see."
"I see a man who looked long and hard into the face of death and has not completely returned from the journey. I see a man who, physically, lost so much in such a short time, and his mind does not quite comprehend. I see man who struggles to provide what people keep demanding without the energy or desire to engage." Hunk paused to look at the screen showing the first of the new grass growing over a field devastated by a Doom attack and took another drink of the wine. "I think that is the biggest thing. He simply cannot seem to engage in the day to day demands of anything beyond survival. You should see him with Cady. It breaks my heart to watch them interact. Sparring together, pushing each other to go faster, slower, or different has always given me joy to watch. For a seven year old, she moves with such grace and coordination, sometimes it's hard to reconcile that with the fact she still trips over her own feet. Yet he cannot even come close to matching with her and turned her practice sessions over to Lance and Pidge for now. Last week, she landed a blow on him that put him down on the mat. I do not know who was the most surprised in the room, but I do know it left Keith stunned. On a blow from a seven year old. Even with the fact she has worked with all of us since, well, basically since she was born, mostly because we did not know any better. Since she came to many of our PT sessions, she just started copying us as soon as she could walk. But that is neither here nor there.
"The point is that there is no way that blow should have landed, much less sent him to the mat. It worries me doc. Cady did not know how to react, and it was painful watching Keith stand. He moved so slowly, even though he tried to smile and praise Cady, I could just see he was struggling. That is when he called Lance over to spar with her while he went to sit down on a bench. He moved like an invalid or a very old man. Slow and painfully.
"But, that is not the point. I have meandered far from where I started. The point is he seems to drift further from everyone daily. Keith has always been introspective, but lately I count it a victory to have more than ten words out of him at a time. And it's not like someone who has something eating at them. No, it more like . . . like . . . well almost like one of those holy people you read about who go for weeks or months without saying a word. Like they have something to contemplate beyond the physical world we inhabit.
"I guess the short of it is, I think he needs to be back in the air. We need to reconnect him with this world. From the snippets he has let drop, there is some connection between Black, Arus and him. The longer he is away from it, the further he drifts. Ok, going to stop talking now and let you respond. Sometimes, once the words start coming from my mouth I do not know what will come out and sometimes they just don't stop. Really, really your turn now." The yellow pilot took another drink and offered a wan smile to the doctor.
"Medically, I can give you fifty-seven different reasons to keep the king out of the air," Mikko began slowly. "The blow Cady gave him? Cracked two ribs. It should never have happened." He paused and gathered his thoughts, "Ok, let me back up here. I am going to give you some information that, should anyone look in the right places, would be able to find. So if it ever comes up, let's pretend you found it on your own."
"Understood."
"Ok, then. No one, and I mean not a single person in the history of Obreck, survived after taking Agappon for as long as the king did. Some of them managed to survive a few days or even weeks, but their bodies just seemed to shut down. Organ after organ failed, and even with medical technology, they could not keep ahead of the cascading failure of not only the organs, but muscles, joints, every part of the body. In a few of the cases, the person survived long enough to tell the doctors to stop treatment because they just prolonged the inevitable. Agappon users pay an incredible price.
"One of the side effects seems to be decreased healing and brittle bones. The bones I can explain because while using the Agappon, it leaches minerals, vitamins, stored energy and more from every part of the body including bones. Until the body can regenerate the lost stores, the person will bruise easily, be subject to cracked or broken bones on minimal contact, sluffing skin, hair, and nails. So Cady's blow just happened to hit at the wrong angle, and the brittleness of his majesty's bones could not withstand the blow.
"This is the effects before Haggar's poison. We have not discovered all the long-term effects from that one yet. Not only the poison, but the treatment from the poison. Which we cannot separate from the effects of the Agappon. When you add all of it together, it becomes a great morass. Add into that a new marriage, a coronation, and people constantly going to him for advice, decisions, and more it is no wonder that the king is not thriving.
"I have pondered this a lot and feel responsible for pushing the king before he was ready. I think we keep pushing him further away, as we have both said. Going back to the lions. If you think that putting him back in the air would help reconnect him back to us, than I will find a way to make it happen. My primary concern is the brittle bones. Too much force on them can cause fractures, and he just does not have the resources to keep repairing damage. As it is, he does not eat, barely sleeps unless forced, and does not participate in his physical therapies enough. It all ties in together. He does not eat or sleep so he does not have any energy, so his body does not heal, so the therapies are harder than needed.
"Secondarily, I can give him regular doses of the injection you just saw, but that poses its own problems. Firstly, we do not know if the person can develop a dependence on the concoction, but more importantly, it affects the appetite. So another catch-22 situation. By giving him the injections, he is able to do more, focus, but conversely eats and sleeps even less."
Tsuyo grunted and looked at the picture screen, thoughts whirling. Neither man spoke for several minutes until the pilot gave himself a shake and turned to face the doctor fully. "Ok, his physical condition is crap, but his mental one is even worse. Anything we can do to help his mental condition threatens his physical one. Mikko, I do not think it is even a contest. Can you do something to support him in the air to protect him from damage? Or, at least horrific damage?"
The doctor slowly swirled the last of his wine before finishing it. "An exterior bracing system perhaps with some sort of shock absorption. Perhaps Lieutenant Darrell could talk with me and we could build something. You may be right. The mental needs to come first, and reconnecting with the world. Anything else?"
"I think we need to make him unavailable to the council and the general public. They are perfectly capable of dealing with the situations at hand. It's time to push them out of the nest and let them fly. Let Keith concentrate on himself and his family. I think also. . ." here he paused.
"Yes?" prompted Mikko.
"I think I need to have a very serious talk with Allura. And perhaps, you know someone who has been through a similar situation? Someone who can teach Allura how to be supportive rather than suppressive? I watched Keith wince today as Allura entered the room, and how he made a deal with you, probably that did not further his cause with his body in order to prevent a scene. Would that be a correct supposition?"
"Yee-sss," replied the doctor slowly. "Her Majesty, while not hysterical, did become rather . . . intense several times after an episode with the king. I had focused too much on his condition, and did not look deep enough into hers. I will take care of it from this end. I will also pull rank on the council. You are right. They are all adults and can solve their own problems. For the duration, the king is unavailable."
"We have a plan then. Send Darrell the specifications of what you need. I will pull whoever I need off of projects and have a prototype within a day. I think this is too important to wait."
"Agreed. Another glass?"
"No thanks, Mikko, another time. I am going to keep my promise to Saria and go to bed WITH her instead of sneaking in late."
Both men stood and looked at each other, "Mikko, Keith will recover from this, we just need to give him the right conditions to realize how much he has to look forward to."
The doctor held out his hand and the pilot gave it a quick shake. "Til tomorrow, then, Tsuyo."
Nodding, Tsuyo strode out the door to join his beloved Saria. Tomorrow would come soon enough.
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