Karak'nirir - the goddess of creation

Karak'nirir

Keith's PoV.:

Whenever Keith looked at Lance, he couldn't quite believe that merely a couple hours prior, the man had kissed him silly. This was Lance, this was Tailor! The very person Keith had been pining after for so long that he couldn't remember a life when his heart wasn't falling out of loop in his presence. He'd spent so much time wondering and hoping if Lance would ever like him back, spent so much time certain that he wouldn't that now that Lance was there, he didn't quite know what to do with himself.

There was a damper to the story that didn't manifest immediately. Only after days of dating Lance did Keith get the strange, foreign idea that it might not actually be real. Keith didn't know why Lance's mind had suddenly changed. Why his 'I used to have a crush on you' turned to 'I want to be with you so bad that it's crushing me'. Lance had been clear on the subject, had told Keith he liked him and then kissed him and then opened a discussion about boundaries and relationship history and everything. But that was the thing. These were things Lance simply did.
Lance's true feelings were a secret that Keith found himself unable to discern. Doubt sneaked its way into his conscience, into his relief, and painted it all a heavy shade darker. It didn't help that Lance was so distracted lately. There were his powers, there was his mind game with Lotor and even when he'd told everyone about Keith and him dating, he'd said it in a way that made it sound like a joke, or calculated misinformation. No one had believed him and that was because no one had noticed that Lance may have feelings for Keith. What did it mean if Lance's true feelings weren't noticeable? Did that mean that they might not even exist?

Keith gnawed on his lip, feeling guilty and afraid. Guilty that he doubted Lance and afraid that he could be right.

It had only been a couple of days and Keith already felt like he'd never been further apart from Lance. Since their first make out session, Lance had buried himself in research within books which titles Keith couldn't even read because they were in Altean. Keith would sit with him in the castle library and not even be noticed by his boyfriend. Not wanting to disrupt him in his studies, Keith would start drawing and hoping that Lance would eventually notice he was there.

Then there were, of course, Keith's trainings that he held with Lotor, where Lance would focus entirely too much on Lotor, as if Keith were a lab rat whose sole purpose was to find a way through the cracks in Lotor's armor. There were the other paladins who kept sending him pity glances, as if they believed Lance had lied. Even though Lance had insisted that they should believe him, even if he'd told Keith to please never doubt him, that he wasn't that cruel, a part of Keith still felt uncertain. He knew he shouldn't feel this way, but he still did.

Cursing himself, Keith had decided to put in some extra solo training. With his sword in hand, he sliced at the gladiators, wondering if maybe it had been a mistake to date the literal god of creation. He had advised Lance against flirting with Karak'nirir when they'd first encountered her and now he was being a total hypocrite. To be fair, most of Keith's complaints regarding Lance were based on jealousy. Was he desperate, if he still decided to keep up the farce? Miserable, he parried an attack from a gladiator that was technically a level too complicated for him. The weight of the attack nearly put Keith to his knees but he clenched his jaw and tensed his muscles to carry the attack. In a real fight, he would not be able to adjust the enemy's strength to his own liking. Keith willed himself to avert the next attack that hit his sword so hard that the repercussions vibrated through his skull. He jumped backwards, breath fanning and eyes blazing with hatred.
There was so much rage inside him. Always had been. It was so easily triggered too, like his mind was a mine field.

"If I may, you should cover your left side more, red paladin."

Lotor's voice nearly startled Keith out of his reverie. Rage flaring, Keith nearly went feral, and in a swift motion, he beheaded the priced gladiator. Panting, and annoyed, Keith ordered the training simulation to stop. "Lotor-" He said and walked over to the bench to grab some water and his towel to wipe off the sweat that had gathered at the nape of his neck. "What do you want!?" Lotor was, quite frankly, the last person Keith wanted to see right now.