Stay Alive

You've Got a Hunger

Lotor's fighter was parked in the middle of the Castle's main, non-lion hangar, right next to the Galra fighter Keith had stolen. So it was rather awkward, at least from Keith's perspective, to watch Lotor work on his fighter—the very one that nearly killed him and his comrades—right beside him. Even while sitting in the Galra fighter's cockpit, Keith couldn't stop himself from turning to watch Lotor.

He'd chased him for months, along with tracking that quintessence supply line. Now that much more "important" things were on the docket, that mission was unnecessary. At least that's what the Marmorans told him when he asked why he had to stay on the Castle ship. Kolivan's order to monitor Lotor had taken him by surprise, although he didn't quite question it. He was a good Marmoran who followed orders, and was going to see this mission to the end.

And yet...

There were several issues on his mind right now, all of which competed for dominance in his thoughts. He wanted to stay on the Castle. He also didn't want to be useless. He wanted to go back to the Blade. He also didn't like how cold everyone was.

He didn't quite have this dilemma before. Before Voltron, he was just some kid at the Garrison; a talented kid who was top of his fighter pilot class, of course. And then he got kicked out after Shiro disappeared. Hearing Pidge's story about her brother and father reminded him about how he reacted when Shiro disappeared. He too insisted that there was no way Shiro could make a fatal error when he was himself a top Garrison graduate. So naturally he was relieved to find Shiro had returned, but also a bit confused. But his stubborn refusal to accept the Garrison's story about the Kerberos Mission wasn't what got him kicked out. No, that was something else.

And then after the Garrison, he was just some loner kid trying to find out what he was going to do next. That was a different dilemma, before he found himself drawn out into the middle of the desert, to that old shack. It was there that, lost in his own confusion, he discovered the Fraunhofer lines and went to work. Since he was alone for most of his life, growing up in Big Spring, Texas, in what was once the heart of the Comancheria. So he drew from those old days, remembering how his dad often talked about how the Comanche lived.

He did know actual Native Americans, and none of them were mystical, nature-connected stereotypes, but actual people. In fact, his pre-Garrison 8th grade homeroom teacher was Comanche himself, and often railed against those stereotypes, because he'd been born and raised in Big Spring, an urban Indian, and because they were just as, if not more dehumanizing than the "savage killer" stereotype of John Wayne movies. He remembered he was also super-stressed all the time, and overheard him complaining about some of the students once. Not him, of course.

He shook his head, remembering what he was supposed to be thinking about. Right. Fraunhofer lines. Wait, where was he going?

Right. Then Shiro crash-landed near the Garrison, near his house, and he ran into Lance, Pidge and Hunk, and... this whole space adventure happened. He never expected to pilot a millennia-old robot cat, face off against a universal tyrant, discover magical/mystical energy sources, discover his true heritage, become a leader and join a millennia-old resistance movement. And nearly died several times over. And suffered a mental breakdown not long after the latest one.

But it felt different this time. He rarely talked to kids at school, preferring to sit alone at lunch or play on the swings. He was really only friendly with Shiro, because unlike other kids, Shiro knew a lot of what Keith was going through, having been raised by his grandparents. And since his own dad split, full of it, debt-ridden after his mother left him, he had no one else but Shiro. It already hurt the first time that he disappeared. The second time nearly threw him into despair. But being all but forced out of the team, by Shiro, hurt considerably, no matter how much he tried to hide it.