Collecting the shards

Colored cubs 2

Never easy love for her spawn.

Lance doesn't understand why Shiro insists on the mind-meld exercise, like sure, it tells them things about each other, and helps keep the 'Voltron-link' steady; but it's been a while, Lance likes to think they know each other plenty by now.

Only, that's not true.

Every other time they done this, they start by thinking of things they related to their lions; Lance always thinks about his family and the beach. Keith, for whatever reason, always thinks of that dessert shack he'd been staying at; only today, that's not all there is to the thought.

In front of the shack stands someone, short and dark-skinned, someone who grins directly forwards, something wild that feels like Keith himself; they're dressed weirdly, an almost black purple cloak, and what looks like a gigantic hammer on their back, and Lance swears, for a moment, that their hair is on fire. The picture doesn't stay long, Keith clearly realizing the slip if the panicked look on his face is anything to go by; he looks around and it's only then Lance realizes he's the only one to have noticed.

Keith's eyes find him, and his pupils are thinner than they ought to, and his irises are bright violet for a second, even though Lance swore they were black before, and human. Because that is the thing, the reason why his breath catches, Keith no longer looks human, not entirely.

There's the eyes, obviously, not just the color, but now that they're staring into his Lance can see that the pupils are cat-like, and when he opens his mouth to say something, his teeth glint and show sharper fangs than is normal.

The others still haven't noticed Keith, but they have noticed Lance, because Hunk has an arm to his shoulder, and he wonders what exactly he's sending through the mind-links. So he takes the thing off his head and says something unthinking, before promptly speeding away.

It's not the first time this has happened, he knows by now that he's not meant to say anything, not meant to bring it up, because all he gets are wary looks, and lists of pills; or worse, that look on his mom's face, the one where it almost feels like she doesn't recognize him.

He finds himself in the lion's hangar, soft purring slowly taking over the static in his brain, like a wave crashing and changing the scenery. Blue lowers herself for him, mouth already open, and it's a testament to their bond that Lance doesn't hesitate before entering; and he could have, because he knows what her stance is in this.

Still, he's weak, and so desperate for someone to tell him he's normal, that these moments are something other than insanity, and something other than terrifying. Blue indulges him, not out of some displaced sense of duty, but because she genuinely believes Lance.

It'd be easy to scratch off as her being built by aliens and probably having seen weirder things, but she had spent the last 10 centuries or so stuck on earth; how much could she have seen?

The cavern had been protected by someone, or something, if the drawings had lit up only under Lance's touch, even though Blue had been calling to Keith.

Something pushes against his mind, Lance recognizes blue immediately and closes his eyes in order to let her in. She shows him a beach he doesn't recognize, pristine sand and impossibly blue water, but despite not knowing where he is, the place is still familiar, somehow.

He gets the feeling he isn't alone in here, that there's another presence just behind him, but when he's about to turn Blue rumbles in the back of his mind, telling him someone is trying to get in. The image shatters at the seams, and Lance feels a sense of lost for it, but he still allows Blue to lay down and let whoever it is in.