AN AHEAD
hey i dunno if you guys noticed but i write in passive voice, a lot, and its really gross sometimes so i attempted to correct that in the ahead chapter. it was really weird to do cause the only time i don't is when i'm in first person so,,,,,,,lets see how this goes. if you know some tactics that may help me please let me know! i'm a needy young writer who hates blog ads. also just note that i'm aiming for anything between 3,000 and 5,000 a chapter just so i can get these posted efficiently and also refrain from becoming excessively wordy. classes have begun to get in the way of this a bit but i am doing a monthly challenge where i write 700 words a day on any project so lets see how this goes! again comments and pms always accepted, and i'm so glad many of you are interested in following the story!
Keith was upset Leda called his name ugly, making what she considers ugly reactions to go along with his anger. His eyes nearly bloodshot, as though this were the highest offense. Again, the red-colored blade appears in his hand seemingly from nowhere as he took a stroke at the barrier between them, eliciting a hiss sound every time he did. "THERE'S" hiss, "NOTHING" hiss, "WRONG" hiss, "WITH" hiss, "KEITH!" the final blow did not hiss, instead sending his sword flying behind him, smashing against the rock of the planet. Keith lets out a grunt as he goes to retrieve his weapon; Leda chuckles, sitting down with her legs crossed. He must get that a lot…
"How many of you are there?" she asks when he gets back, digging her nails in the ground to tally each of the color-spotted suits she's seen so far. Black, red, and a glimpse of blue, each a basic color in itself—the simplicity of it all made her smile, but barely and for a second. When she looked up from her marks, Leda was met with a nearly scowling Keith, eyes narrow.
"You're not the one who should be asking me questions right now, or did you forget that you physically transformed into someone else and then proceeded to attack me five seconds ago?" still visibly upset, though less than his name-induced temper tantrum, the retrieved blade in Keith's hand disappeared allowing him the freedom to cross his arms over his chest. Leda tilts her head at the light shining from the disappearing weapon, pointing to where it was.
"What's that?" Keith doesn't say a word. "Does it run off of mental commands or is it a button?" silence. "What about that shield, where does that come from?" nothing.
Leda puffs her cheeks with an exhale. It was a lot to take in; the rush of possible freedom, the sudden mental entanglement with a piece of technology she could not understand, and now a sudden entanglement with an operator of said machinery that did not start off on the right foot. She was now in territory that was foreign in so many ways, but she had to keep going. The lion in her head still there, lingering with a will that she wished was all hers.
"Have you ever been to the Demeter quadrant?" Leda didn't expect an answer to her question and still didn't receive one. "There's a planet in the far corners of three moons, close enough to the edge of the edge of its galaxy that some think it might just… Fall off…" For a second, she thought about her father telling her the same joke in her childhood, how their home was one so small and yet so large it fell into two separate realms of sorts. When he showed her this he used a small rock by the end of a pool of water, submerged enough that you could say it drowned yet close enough to the tilt in the landline that, under the right conditions and in the right light, it was still a part of their dry earth.
Leda looks up, but still no response from Keith whose eyes watch her with the same harshness they had in battle. She looked down—she couldn't blame him.
"You're not from this planet, are you?" Keith's question was subtle in its softness, still holding onto the upset feeling not far behind him though curt in a way that wasn't truly rude. Leda merely shakes her head in her reply; when she mutters how she's from nowhere near there, Keith finally sits at his side of the barrier and, surprisingly, slouches. "Who else is on this planet?" he asks, and again Leda shakes her head.
"Not a who, a what."
"I don't understand, there's debris of ships all over how can that be?"
"Solitude kills."
Keith shut up at her final word, his left eye nearly twitching though Leda couldn't guess if it was fear. It was as if he was lost in thought. putting everything he witnessed in the past hour together to make sense of the situation. For a second, Leda thought he couldn't, that he would just get lost in his own mind, but he spoke; "If there's no one else here… Who could've taken Shiro?"
"The mammals…" Leda responds as her nails begin to pick at the ground. She was somehow comforted by the fact that she was having some sort of conversation with someone able to respond, but the topic of the planetary woes not her favorite to consider. The relationship between predator and prey something she's witnessed too many time in her cycles spent on the planet, and something she thought she was lucky to leave behind. "They're drawn to sudden sounds if you're close enough, and there's no need for a trap with speed like theirs. If your friend made it out of his ship there is no guarantee he made it too far with them nearly patrolling the debris."
Leda looks up in time to see Keith's eyes grow wide, his pupil falling into the whites of his eye. If she looked closer, she would have seen the way his chest rose too many times a second, his nose expanding along with it, but the shock in his eyes was enough for her to feel his worry and quickly she looks away.
"Look, this Shiro must've—,"
"Don't."
"Wha—?" Looking back up, Leda watches the large whites of his eyes nearly disappear as the deep dark hues of his iris enlarge and his look of worry becomes more volatile.
"Don't you dare say his name!" he completes his statement with a yell. Leda immediately taken aback, nearly scared at the look in his eyes though instead clenches her jaw. "You, you, you take him over as yourself and then act like its okay to tell me he's dead?" Keith now stands, jutting out an accusatory arm by his side before flailing it over his head with the other. "You don't deserve to say his name!"
"What, Shiro?" Keith nearly yelps at her voice as she too stands to meet his height. "Shiro your friend, Shiro your comrade—,"
"Stop!"
"Shiro the one you pretend to be worried about when you can't even tell the difference between him and an image of him!"
At her last words Keith lets out another loud yell, and the red blade once again appears in his hand. He thrashes against the barrier between them as if he really believes he could cut it open, while Leda readies her elongated weapon behind herself, willing the Lion to lower the barrier and let her have at it at the stupid red kid. The minute the words pass her mind, however, there's another loud and vicious growl from behind her; again Keith stops his attacks, and after a reluctant exchange with the presence in her head Leda drops her staff back into the small stick it was before. Keith, though still enraged, looks completely confused.
"She said I can't fight you."
"She?" Keith was baffled in his expressions, blinking in confusion though eyes still enraged.
"The lion," Leda soon adds, looking back at the mechanical animal while narrowing her eyes. "she's one of your ships, you can't hear her?"
"She?" Keith repeats, curt this time, and still avoiding all answers according to Leda's interpretation of events. She sighs, leaning back on her heels for a few seconds and planting her feet back into the rocky earth with a small hop. The back and forth the two were getting either of them nowhere, especially her when she came to this part of the planet to go directly somewhere.
"Okay," she starts with another exhale, back still to Keith as she stares at the Black lion in her dull yellow eyes. "my name is Leda." the Keith she faced now was a bit more relaxed at the introduction, clearly expecting more shown with a nod nearly approving of her new direction of conversation. "I am one of the last surviving members of the Grecians, a planet-hopping species destroyed by the Galra in my childhood. I ended up on this planet in escape from the captivity they held me in for revolutions, and with your help, I can finally leave—…" Leda swallows, Black felt in the back of her head again with a still strong presence. She digs her feet further into the ground to keep herself stable, wanting to chastise the being for free-floating though ending up chastising herself for forgetting the most important part of her new life mission as revealed by the Black Lion herself. "With your help, I can find the rest of my people."
With her final word, the particle barrier disappears, rising from its hold in the ground and back into the lion herself. The strength Leda fells disappearing along with it as she realizes she now stands bare to the red suit in front of her; the stick she uses as a weapon fallen on the ground feet ahead of her, and the act of picking it up sure to only light the fighting fire in her foe. Leda swallows instead, standing still, standing her ground, waiting for the other to act whether that be in a response or attack. When that takes too long, she clears her throat quite irritatingly, and ahead Keith is seen exhaling.
Keith takes a step forward, outstretching his hand and nearly encouraging Leda to fall backward onto the lion until she realizes no weapon is called, neither a shield. "Leda," he says her name in a way that sounds reluctant. Her fear of being exposed is now replaced with a near offense to his odd behavior—so this was how he felt when she called his name ugly…
"Shiro was—is—my teammate, and I don't know what happened to have us end up here but it seems like I survived and he… He's lost out there. If you help me find Shiro, I promise to help you find the rest of your people." Keith's hand remains between the two of them, oddly placed though not cold from the lack of contact as she notices how his suit manages to cover every crevice. Leda hesitates at this, as if the armor itself is a barrier between him and his promise should she shake his hand, yet when she looks up his eyes no longer seem caught between confusion and anger and a sheer will to push through—his eyes instead seem genuine, whether that's apologetic to her case or pleading for her assistance. Leda couldn't decide which exactly he depicted in his face, instead connecting her hand with his, and with one strong pull, she shakes his hand, her thumb squeezing his as if to assert her dominance. Keith clears his throat as she does, a signal for them to stop as he again assumes his skin is bruising beneath her pressured touch. They soon break contact, Leda grinning for her own self-importance.
"So,' she breaks the tension as she plants her hands at her hips, narrowing one eye to take in Keith a bit closer with the other, specifically eying the odd curve if his ears, "what species are you?"
As soon as the lion landed safely, Pidge ran out, bypassing all the bells and whistles between the hanger and the main deck of the castle ship, nearly tripping through the opening doors while calling out the princess's name.
"Allura!" Pidge was breathless from the tired jog, short legs running out of steam causing the small paladin to slowly fall to her knees and eventually roll onto her back, heaving a low "one second—, catch… breath…" or some other string of words the Alteans couldn't exactly place. As the castle pulled into a near stop, both Allura and Coran ran over to her tired figure on the floor, Coran the one to pull her up and wake her from the daze with a gloved snap. Allura chews her bottom lip, nothing to say except for holding out a hand to rest on Pidge's arm.
"Pidge, are you okay? We could have met you in Green's hanger there's no need to run…"
"Puffles… Trash paladins… Lion signals…"
Though she continues to try and speak, the Alteans continue to hush her down, allowing her a small rest on the cold floor. As Pidge nearly snores, Coran looks up from her now secure figure to face Allura, his expression a bit puzzled.
"How long were we in that wormhole?" he asks carefully, aware of the princesses tiring body as her arms nearly shake propping herself from her kneeling position on the floor. He couldn't guess the actual cause—a fear rooted deep within her ten thousand-year-old memory.
"Not long, I think, or maybe too long…" the words seem stuck in her throat, voice quiet as Allura nearly spaces out looking into the many reflections of light across the shining floor. Coran hums in response, the two remaining in their seated position, presumably watching Pidge's sleeping figure on the floor as if she were the ghost. Coran swallows and slowly rises to stand.
"It's not safe to stay here too long," he brings up, walking back to the control panels and beginning his many taps to the air commanding a diagnostic run of the castle from the integrated cooling systems to the complex workings of the teleduv. "Princess, you need to rest, we need you at full strength to find the rest of those lions…" no response. "Princess…?" Coran turns towards the silence, now watching as Alluras seated position has changed into a crouch, soon standing and visibly holding the green paladins sleeping figure.
"Rest, yes…" she echoes, slightly smiling in Coran's direction. "We all need rest…"
Shio was nowhere to be found. Abandoning the Black Lion, whose presence still remained alongside Leda in her own mind, Keith and Leda trekked across the rocky terrain as difficult as ever—the word meant to describe both the planets rough surface and the pinnacle of conversation between its two current inhabitants. Leda, despite Keith's constant comments against it, still believing Shiro to be dead and that their journey was towards his carcass rather than his unconscious body (which she considered to be the best outcome).
"I know he's out here, okay!" he would yell, kicking dirt and flailing his arms in the air. When their formal introductions began Keith mentioned how he wasn't that emotional of a person, how he was closed off, yet with every gesture and even every will to not say a word Leda felt as though he was an emotional mess, exposed despite all best attempts. Perhaps it was just a human thing.
"If we find him what will you do?"
"Leave this planet."
"And how exactly?" was he to call for help with another one of his odd mind-controlled suit functions, or would he or this Shiro be able to pilot the large black lion to safety? Would the lion even be able to take them? Was their a capacity, a functioning issue—?
Leda continued her tirade before she looks at Keith beside her, his face falling at her question as if he was thinking the same.
"Honestly," he eventually begins, "I have no clue." Leda frowns, expecting a better answer but not pressing further. His friend, after all, was likely dead.
At the thought, a snarl echoes beyond the rocks around them. Before they could turn, Leda finds herself armed with her staff in hand. "We need to move faster," she tells Keith the same time as he speaks, his question of "What is that?" now jumbles with another echoed yell that was louder this time.
"Mammals…" at her word, in slide a strange purple figure, first standing at the top of the rocks to which they were below and projecting a loud growl, it's tail whipping in the air behind him and nearly breaking the stone it collided with. Leda grits her teeth, recognizing the cry as a signal for others. When Keith begins to expose his sword she lays a hand out to stop him. "If you attack you'll end up just like your friend." his expression was practically aflame at her choice of words yet he lowers his fighting stance, and before the other called creatures could come into view the two break into a sprint.
A thud was felt at the ground where the slithering mammals may have jumped, but Leda couldn't care to look back. Keith, on the other hand, nearly had whiplash.
"They're like salamanders!" he yells, though Leda doesn't take the time to explain that she has no clue what a salamander is, instead directing him into the curve of an oncoming mountain.
"There!" she yells, gesturing with her free hand to a hole in the rock that, from where they currently were, looked like the size of a pea. Though she managed to fight one of the beasts off before, she was not planning to do so again, the shelter of a cave likely better as their large figures kept them from burrowing too deep into the rock. Their feet continued to hustle towards the growing hole but the thuds behind them only got closer, each holding onto their weapons for dear life as the snarls were literally in their backyard.
They would make it, they were really going to make it! Leda felt her heart jump in her chest as the escape came nearer, her steps never faltering though her guard dropped making the land of what Keith called a Salamander in front of them all that more frightening. She would have stopped, fallen, tripped onto her knees had Keith not grabbed her by her wrist and pull her upwards; the technology in his armor amazing her as she watched a jetpack fly them across the creature. It still jumped up, attempting to catch them as if they were prey on a crane, but Leda gouged her staff into its flesh—er, rather the eye. Her attempts to pull it back out with the one hand, unfortunately, faltering as the mammal screamed.
The rest of them began to group together as the two practically drop into the cavern, rolling deeper into the darkness with the animals cries long behind them. If they came after their hovel they were too far in to tell, the sounds of blood pumping in Leda's ears all she could focus on as she catches her breath.
"Thank you…" she mutters between quick breaths, dropping her head to the cold floor as she lay on her stomach. Keith responds with a low hum, likely catching his breath as well, though as she looks up she realizes he's already standing, a light coming from his hand in his armor. The sight makes her groan and drop her head back to the ground.
"He's not in these caves, you know."
"Someone was in them."
"No one was in them." Leda finally stands, correcting him as he begins to wander further down the darkness. "You're just going to hit rock." she informs him with a tired voice, one that was laced with the defeat of traveling down the darkness of countless caves and hovels just like the one they were in. Keith, noticing the giving-up tone of hers, groans, turning to now shine the light in her direction. Leda practically hisses as she brings her arm up to cover her eyes.
"Look at the walls." he directs plainly, her eyes drawn to follow the light upwards and all around them to lock at the rock. But it's not rock, she realizes, and even if it were the inside was smoothed out in a way nature could not make without water pressure—all water streams limited to the far side of the planet, a good cycles walk from where they currently stood. "Someone's been here, Shiro or not," Keith adds the last words with a sense of hope though his expression is still a bit pained, angered, determined. It's these very qualities that make Leda slowly exhale before silently following him on his journey further into the cave.
"You owe me a new staff," her reminder is quiet yet she could still hear the small, stifled chuckle Keith lets out in response.
"Let's get off this planet first."
At the words, a small purple light appears ahead of them. Leda stops in her tracks at the sight, Keith slowly doing the same.
"Galra." the two mutter simultaneously, trading suspicious looks before deciding to go ahead.
Keith, currently the only one with a weapon, arms himself as they near a pair of slate doors. A few steps ahead, however, and they realize that the doors are busted off their own hinges, the light from the inside what gives off the purple glow, though once they bypass the broken door they realize that, too, flickers into nothing every couple of seconds.
"Must be abandoned…" Leda speaks though utterly confused. Never has she seen a Galra cruiser come into the planet's atmosphere, let alone land. She considers it being old, but the Lion whose remained quiet in her head seems to flare at the thought. No, she realizes as she recalls the last few images the lion showed her, this is not old.
Further down the dimly lit halls and nothing comes out, Keith's sword at the ready every corner they turn and Leda's fists balled as though they could do severe damage. If it's not old, where are they? Her question lingers with too many thoughts, too many fears colliding with them in the back of her mind.
"Follow me. Their control room should be this way." she continues to abide by Keith's succinct directions as they eventually pull open another pair of slate doors. His assumption correct as they are met with rows and rows of technology. Leda stands back to gape at the view, the room more sophisticated than any Galra base she was held at, but Keith runs straight to a keyboard getting the screen to pop up within seconds.
"I don't like this." Keith is now tapping away at the symbols while Leda nervously fidgets with her thumbs on her fists. Sounds play and she pops her head out the door. "Keith, this is a really bad idea," she repeats while looking down the halls, her accomplice merely shushing her as he continues to tap random buttons setting off a plethora of sirens. Leda grits her teeth. This is really bad.
"Keith!"
"One second!"
"We're gonna die in one second, let's go!"
At the word, the whole base seems to shake, an image of an incoming ship now sprawled across the screen that previously displayed chaotic symbols. The ship, she realizes, beyond anything she has ever seen—Galran or Grecian.
"Keith!" a voice is heard through the static allowing Keith to sigh. "Keith you're all right!"
The two eventually find a way above ground, both them and the lions retrieved by the ship awaiting new and odd introductions. The oddest occurrence, however, still on the unnamed planet, deeper into the Galran compound where the helmet of the Black Paladin was left rolling on the floor,