The forgotten paladin

This was fun

I woke up in a strange room with white walls and medical supplies around me, like before. I assumed it was a clinic and tried to sit up, bad idea. I was over come with wooziness and laid back down. I could move my head around slightly to see what was around me, but I couldn't see much. It looked dark and it was small.

It wasn't small suffocating but small enough to make me feel insecure. I felt the side of my bed and was startled to feel a body. It was the boy with tan skin, Lance (everyone had introduced themselves before the black lion incident). He was asleep, his breathing was even and shallow and his eyes were closed. I decided that I should probably go back to sleep because I was injured, I could feel the dull pain all across my body. Just as my mind started to go into sleep mode, I heard several voices outside the door.
"-just kill him."
I heard a voice say.
"No! He is useful for scientific studies and is a paladin of Voltron! We need him!"
"No we don't, we need a red paladin, not necessarily a complete stranger who's also Galra and came from a Galra infested planet!"
"We can't kill him!"
"We're not killing him Allura."
"Why-"
The person cut off Allura and continued speaking
"Were not murderers and will not become one, he is still a person, Galra or not, and don't forget that he's also part Altea and human. Imagine the hell that he was put through on that Galra ship. Remember how bad he was when we found him, that just doesn't happen out of nowhere."
The group continued talking as they walked down the hall. I was frozen in fear. Allura wanted to kill me? Because I was part Galra? I didn't do anything to her, but she still wants to try to kill me? Why? The questions still floated through my head as I fell into a light sleep.

I woke up to someone shaking me.
"Wha-"
It was Allura.
"Keith! Thank god! You were screaming in your sleep! Are you alright?"
Now she asks, just last night she was talking about killing me.
"Yeah, I must've been dreaming about the ship I was on."
I said calmly, though I put a little malice in my voice. Allura looked a little guilty and faked a smile.
"Good thing it's over now, right? Anyway, it's time for breakfast so I brought you some food."

Allura handed me a plate of green goo and I happily cleared the plate. After I finished eating, Allura looked at me and asked
"What happened on the ship?"
I looked up and stared at her. I didn't want to talk about that place. I've just escaped the nightmare called life on a Galra ship and now they wanted me to recollect it? Not happening.

But, now that she mentioned it, I can't help but remember the horrible times I had on that ship. The torture while they asked who my mother was.
The pain of being pushed away.
The dullness of cutting, never giving me any feeling about if I was alive, or dead.
The words thrown at me as if they were air, but turned out to be as heavy as rocks.
The life aboard a Galra ship was hell.
"I'd... rather not talk about it."
I finally said after a few minutes. Allura only nodded and said
"You can talk when you're ready"
I gave her a timid smile and nodded my head. She wasn't that bad when she wasn't talking about killing you behind your back.

——-

I really needed to stretch out my legs. I've been sitting here for who knows how long without any exercise or stretching and I'm becoming a little antsy. Everyone else was doing something, so I might as well try to walk. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to put weight on them. They held up. I put my whole bodies weight on my legs.

They held up.

I tried to take a step forward, then another, and another. Soon I was able to walk without falling down or getting too tired while running.

I decided to explore. This ship was probably pretty big judging as how it had to house five huge lions along with their paladins and the necessities for them, so might as well start learning the layout of the place. I exited the room and headed down the left corridor, straight into the kitchen.

How I found this place so easily I don't know, but it was a relief to know that I didn't get immediately lost in the maze they call a ship. Inside the kitchen was the big tan man who was whistling while stirring a pot.
"Hello"
I said, startling the broad set man.
"Oh, hey Keith. I was just making a snack, wanna try it?"
I nodded and headed over to where  Hunk was. He handed me a plate with soft circular clumps of food sat.

"I tried to make a cookie with the ingredients here so it may taste a little weird, I hope you don't mind."
I looked in astonishment at the thing called a cookie laying before me. I've never seen anything like it before. When I was still aboard the Galra ship I had only been given scraps of food and the food wasn't really food, it was more like a bunch of burnt things added together to get something slightly edible.

When I picked up the "cookie", my eyes widened at how it was soft and had small little brown things melted on the inside. I raised the cookie to my mouth and took a bite. My mouth exploded in flavor. It was sweet, and gooey, and had a rough texture yet was somehow also soft. The brown things paired perfectly with the soft exterior of the cookies while I chewed the circular cookie.

"Wow... how did you make this?"
I asked in amazement, eyes glued to the food before me. Hunk scratched the back of his neck shyly and said
"Well, I took the substitutes for flour, eggs, vanilla, sugar, chocolate, milk, baking soda, and water and mixed them all together. Then I put the batter into circles on a pan and cooked them for twenty minutes at 350 degrees. I let them cool then gave them to you."

I looked with astonishment to Hunk, the person who actually gave me the time of day to make something then give it to me. It probably doesn't mean much to regular people, but to me, it meant the world.
"C-can I try to make it?"
Hunk smiled a big toothy grin and pulled me up and into the kitchen, completely ignoring my light figure and the sharp claws on my hand.

He gave me some blue ground up glibs, some thind, and several other ingredients and helped me put them together. After a hour of baking we somewhat succeeded in making the small cookies. A smile grew across my face as I looked at my accomplishment, the first one I've ever done.
"Have you ever baked before?"
Hunk asked turning to face me. I shook my head while I tried to pick up and of the hot cookies. I pulled away as my hand started to get burned due to the heat

"Whoa whoa, don't try to eat them yet, we have to let them cool and then we can eat them."
I nodded, now eyeing the cookies in a new light.
"Well, for your first time, I think that you did a great job, not even Lance could make these cookies with me and he lived on Earth all his life. The first time he tried making these cookies he nearly burned this whole place down, it was very amusing."
I looked over at Hunk as he reminisced about his memories on his home planet Earth and his time on the castle.

I smiled when he made a joke, I frowned when something bad happened, and watched with intent as he reanimated his favorite scenes from movies. The small girl, Pidge, walked in just as Hunk finished doing something called "the Naruto run". She calmly walked over to us and said
"Hey Keith, you're awake?"
I nodded, not knowing how to talk to the little one. A word popped into my mind, technology. I smiled, I knew a lot about tech because I was a friend with one of the head engineers, before he was killed when everyone else found out that we were friends.
"So Pidge, do you know how to hack into the Galra headquarters, because i sure do."
Pidge looked up in surprise, a new kind of fire burning in her eyes.
"Holy quiznak, you're actually smart, unlike a few other people in this ship."
She said while looking over at Lance, who had just entered the room.

She pulled on my arm and led me out of the kitchen and into her room, I was amazed. She had all the books I could ever want, Galra and Altean technology scattered around half un-assembled, and computers showing unsuccessful break-ins to the Galra HQ. I smiled and walked over to one of the computers.

It showed that she was trying to get into the camera system and I put an even bigger grin on my face. This was going to be fun.