Chapter 4:

Halcyon Days

Space yawns above them, the endless black maw of the universe gaping wide as they break atmosphere and plunge into the first of a string of portals designed to confuse anyone who might try to follow (space pirates, apparently, are a Real Thing That Actually Happens this far out and, by Coran's reckoning, they make Rolo look positively harmless). The castle thrums with each jump, humming under their feet, and Keith can't help but feel a little bit sick. He is quietly grateful when the jump cycle is over and they resume normal cruising speed. Typ'ff Prita's sun is a mote of light little bigger than a grain of sand in the distance and barely discernible from the other eight hundred local stars nearby it on the display.

Lance wanders off almost as soon as they're done, yawning dramatically. He hadn't slept a wink planet-side.

Then again, no one really had: those beds were certainly not made for humans or Alteans in the slightest.

Lance is followed by Coran, who also excuses himself for some much-needed shut-eye.

Pidge and Hunk, meanwhile, had become deeply involved in a conversation about mathematics and something about drive mechanics that honestly made Keith's head hurt just listening to it. They walk towards the door together, no doubt on their way to their favorite workshop. Pidge prattles on, animatedly gesturing as she tells a joke that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone not them, and Hunk laughs merrily.

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith catches a glimpse of Shiro and has to do a double-take.

Shiro is watching Pidge and Hunk and he looks like he's on the verge of tears, even though he is smiling. He notices Keith looking at him and blinks, immediately covering his face with his hand and wiping away his tears. "It's nothing," he says, sniffling. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

It sounds like he's trying to convince himself as much as he is Keith and it hurts.

Allura gives Shiro a soft, worried look, and then her face falls as he quickly walks away. At the door, Shiro pauses, looking back at them apologetically, and then he, too, disappears into the depths of the castle.

Keith grips his knife hard and grinds his teeth to damp down on the anger that follows the ache in his chest.

They were brothers once. Then Kerberos happened.

"You should get some rest, Keith," Allura says at last. She turns with a heavy sigh, heading towards the windows and gives him a warm smile. "We have a lot of work ahead of us."

Keith shrugs, absently.

He couldn't sleep now, even if he wanted to. He's still hurt and angry; and he can feel the flames of his Lion feeding on those feelings and growing even stronger. Idly, he wonders if his eyes are flashing Lion-bright.

If they are, Allura has not noticed.

She is now sitting on the sill of the window, gazing out at the darkness of space with a distant expression. Her hand presses against the glass, the dark skin standing out starkly against the vast beyond.

She looks lost, alone and terribly sad.

It's a feeling he knows intimately. And before he even knows it, he's moved to join her, sitting on the other end of the sill.

The Red Lion is a creature of instinct and its Paladin is much the same.

"I knew him," the princess says suddenly, "Prince Lotor, I mean. We used to play together as children."

She pauses, raising her head as she sifts through her memories, and then frowns, her eyebrows knotted in annoyance. "I can't remember what he looked like. It's been so long. My father might have-"

She trails off, grief plainly written on her face.

"It's ok," Keith says, abruptly. "I don't remember my parents."

He had intended to make her feel better, but instead he now feels terribly awkward, like he's crossed some kind of weird social line that he shouldn't have and now his skin feels like it's practically crawling with anxiety.

His fingers wind around the hilt of his knife and he barrels into an explanation: "I'm an orphan. There was an accident – I don't know exactly, it's not – my memories are messed up, ok? I can't remember a lot of stuff from when I was a kid. I used to get flashes – little bits, like impressions, you know, of my parents and stuff – but I don't anymore, not really. So I understand, I mean, not remembering - that's what I mean."

Allura's hand gently closes over his arm and his tongue practically locks up in his mouth, preventing him from uttering another word. "Keith," she smiles kindly, "It's all right. I understand. Thank you."

And she does. He can feel it, like he feels when she and Coran shift in subtle ways, and it's the second time he's ever felt anyone really understood him since he was younger.

Shiro was the first.

"Why don't we try something?" Allura suggests, "I'll tell you about the prince and you tell me what you do remember. That way, we can help each other try to keep those memories alive."

Keith gives her an odd look. He fidgets with the knife, weighing the options. Sharing his past isn't exactly something he's comfortable with.

After the accident, he'd been shuffled straight into the foster system. It was crowded and he had a problem staying put, so he was moved around, given labels like tough case and defiant and all kinds of other things that scream of trouble. Shiro's was the first place in a long time that bothered to really try giving him a reason to stick around long enough to get comfy and Shiro himself was probably the coolest older brother anyone could have ever imagined. Keith hadn't even thought people like him could exist before then, much less that he'd ever feel at home with any foster family.

But he had and it had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. With Shiro's family, he'd even managed to get the scores necessary to shoot up the pipeline to the Galaxy Garrison before the Garrison even had time to figure out he had a squirrel's nest of issues and something drawing him in his head that never let him settle – they figured that out pretty quick after Kerberos. He knows now that it was Blue that was calling him, but back then he hadn't known anything but that need to be somewhere not where he was and that Shiro had helped him ignore it for a while.

Without Shiro around to give him a reason to stay, Blue's calls were impossible to ignore and Keith had washed out in a rather spectacularly disastrous way.

He'd also punched the Commander – but that was honestly very much deserved and he's still not even remotely sorry.

He is sorry about dropping out of contact with Shiro's family, though, but reasons perhaps that he is not their son, not really, so it shouldn't matter (except some part of him insists that it does).

Keith hesitates, fidgeting again, and lets out a concerned hm, his attention wandering back to his knife. The bandages around the knife hilt are rough against his fingertips, but they are starting to fray and come loose. He'll have to find new ones soon.

"It's okay," Allura says and gently gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, as Shiro normally might do, which makes it more awkward and confusing than reassuring, really. "You don't have to. I can just talk about my memories, if that's more comfortable for you."

Honestly, aliens. Still, she's trying and that should be enough, right?

Keith gives her a stiff nod and Allura smiles.

"He was shorter than me," she begins, concentrating on her recollections, "That I do remember because he kept complaining about how short he was for a Galran and that he'd grow into it for sure. And I never believed him, of course – he could have made himself taller, if he wanted to, but he never did. I think he had trouble shifting… or was it one of his body doubles? Oh, I don't know, there were practically a dozen of them, I think. Anyway, I remember that he was two aluet – two hands? No, that's not right… which is left again?"

Keith holds up his left hand, wiggling his fingers: "This one."

"Ah, yes!" the princess exclaims, balling her hands into fists and scooting forward in excitement. "Two left hands. He was two left hands."

"He had two left hands?" Keith manages, in pure bewilderment.

"Ah, no," Allura pauses, pursing her lips as she attempts to explain what is obviously an Altean idiom that doesn't quite translate. She makes a gesture as if dropping something. "Clum-zee? Is this the word?"

"Yeah, yeah," Keith answers. "Being two aluet means being a clumsy person, ok. Got it."

He tries not to think about the day that he'll be more fluent in Altean than English.

He tries not to think about the casual way alien swears slip off all the Paladins' tongues so easily now or how easily the languages seem to come to them with these suits, him most of all.

And he definitely tries not to think about how utterly familiar the Galra sigil on Sendak's ship had been, like he'd seen it somewhere before.

He swallows hard, gripping his knife for reassurance, and tries to pay attention to what Allura's saying. It's important, if they're going to find this guy.

The sigil burns behind his eyelids, choked in a shroud of ash and flame.

All of a sudden, his right hand spasms and he curses, yanking it up and shaking it.

"Are you all right?" Allura asks, startled. She's giving him a particularly scandalized look and it's his fault really; he might not have gotten the grammar right, but he'd just put together a string of curses that could make a space pirate blush.

And apparently mortify space princesses, too.

"I'm fine," Keith answers at last, shaking his hand roughly. "Pins and needles – ah, my hand… fell asleep?"

Allura gives him an incredibly skeptical look – or maybe it's just that she's unfamiliar with the idiom – and finally, she sighs, rising to her feet. "Well, we shall take that as a sign that it's time to get some much-deserved rest. Come on, on your feet, Paladin! It's time for bed."

Keith lets her tug him to his feet with his left hand, grunting a bit as she gently tries to shoo him off to his quarters.

His right hand throbs.

Notes:

Loosely translated, Keith said "Sordid flaming pimp nipples born of a undulating cow."