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Keith folded his arms and shivered, the damp seeping in even through his armor. The palace of Senna was beautiful, for sure: built at the crown of a tree hundreds of feet tall and thousands wide, the structure woven out of the living wood, vines, and leaves, which formed walls and pillars as well as a series of tubes and slides that funneled the falling rain to the eaves where it sprinkled musically to the ground.
Like he said, beautiful. But also god awful wet and cold, especially after having to stand in the same spot for five straight hours.
Luckily the lengthy negotiations seemed to be coming to a close. Allura stood from the table where she’d been sitting, casting a confident smile to the standing Paladins. Keith hadn’t really been listening, but he took that as a sign that their torment would be ending soon.
Not a moment too soon, either. Lance looked like he was about to die from boredom. Pidge had probably programmed Doom into her armor by now. Hunk was almost asleep on his feet. And poor Shiro was cradling his prosthetic in his other hand, the cold and damp not being kind to the metal appendage.
At least none of the Sennan nobles looked like they were enjoying it, either.
A few excruciatingly long minutes later, the Sennan ruler rose to stand alongside Allura, taking her hand in one of theirs, large and coarse and brown like bark.
“My people,” they said in a sweet, melodious tone. “I am pleased to declare the official alliance between the Voltron Coalition and the forest of Senna.”
Quiet applause filled the room. Keith, unsure if he should join, kept his arms folded.
“I invite you all to join us in the pavilion for our celebration.”
Internally, Keith groaned in annoyance, and judging by the way Pidge was biting her lip, she was too. He’d been hoping that there wouldn’t be a party and they could just go home, but apparently not. And they were going outside, where they’d get even colder and wetter.
Great.
“Bear up, guys,” Shiro murmured to them as the team fell in together, preparing to follow the flood of alien nobles to the pavilion. “We’re almost done.”
“At least we’ll get food now,” said Hunk, ever the optimist. Lance seemed significantly cheered at the promise of festivities. Pidge and Keith exchanged an exasperated look.
Outside, the storm was bearing down on the palace with more force. The wind was stiff and strong, making the forest of other trees planted around the palace dance and sway, leaves crackling together like static.
The nobles seemed unbothered by the weather, moving in an unerring group towards the pavilion; a great wooden structure with a high roof, festooned in soggy ribbons.
There were more people waiting for them there. Keith wasn’t sure exactly who they were, but they were less restrained than the others, letting out a raucous cheer when they emerged from the palace.
“God,” Pidge grumbled at Keith’s side. “This is gonna suck.”
“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “If we’re out here much longer moss is gonna start growing on our armor.”
That got a laugh out of her. “I know I’m technically the green Paladin, but that’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?”
Keith smothered his chuckle in his fist.
When they reached the pavilion the action had already begun. Instruments were playing music that sounded like whale songs. People were pairing off to dance on the stone floor. Large platters of food were being uncovered on tables lining the edges of the area. Everywhere silver candles were being lit, casting flickering white shadows under the gloom of the rain.
As parties went, pretty low key, which Keith appreciated. He may be cold, but at least he wouldn’t get overloaded. Not quite worth it, but almost.
Pidge split off from him, heading for the food tables, the same destination Hunk was moving towards. Allura and Lance had disappeared into the throng of dancers, and Shiro made polite conversation with one of the principle officials on the sidelines.
Keith stuck to the outskirts. Simply observing, noting little details and people who stuck out, not actively keeping watch but still paying attention.
Time passed in a gray, drizzling haze. Almost meditative. He had no idea how long he was just standing there, watching, until a tiny tug on his armor drew him back to reality.
At first he didn’t know what it was. Then it came again, a little tug on his belt, and he looked down, blinking in dazed confusion.
It was a child. At least, he assumed they were a child, since they were so much smaller than the other aliens, barely reaching Keith’s waist. They looked like a little log, like the other natives, but instead of long, flowing screens of leaves they had for hair, this kid only had tiny green sprouts on the top of their head.
“Uh,” said Keith, “can I… do you need something?”
The child tilted their head. “Are you one of the Paladins?” they asked in the smallest, squeakiest, most adorable voice Keith had ever heard in his life.
“Um, yeah. Yeah I am.”
“And you help people, right? Do good things?”
He nodded, and the child gave him a wide, wooden smile.
“Will you help me? I lost something.”
Shifting on his feet, Keith spared a quick glance around the pavilion. His paranoia whispered caution, but that was ridiculous, this was a child, for God’s sake. He hesitated a split second longer, wondering if Allura would get mad at him for wandering off, but eventually decided to bite the bullet and turned fully towards the child.
“Alright. What did you lose?”
The child grinned and clapped their little twig hands in excitement. “Yay! Thank you, Paladin!”
Keith summoned up a smile that he hoped didn’t look as awkward as it felt. Then that smile dropped in surprise when the child reached up and grabbed one of his hands, holding on tightly.
“It was my oros-- come on, I’ll show you where I was playing.” With that the child began to pull. Keith, bemused, allowed them to lead him away from the pavilion and into the surrounding forest.
The wind and rain was louder out here. Keith’s boot splashed into a puddle, and almost on instinct he raised his arm, swinging the child over the water. They gave a squeal of delight that made him smile without thought, so he did it again on the next puddle, and the next.
The child kept leading him deeper and deeper into the woods, until the pavilion disappeared from view. Occasionally there were blue and red flashes in the clouds overhead, followed by low rumbling Keith took to be thunder. Perhaps it was ball lightning, but he didn’t pay much attention to it. He was focusing on the rain running over his helmet visor in rivulets and dripping onto his chin, making it difficult to see what was in front of him.
“Jeez,” he said after a while. “Do you normally play this deep in the forest?”
The child giggled. “Yes,” they said, a teasing lilt to their voice. “There’s nothing to be scared of here.”
Keith had never known a place that didn’t have at least one thing to fear, but he kept that to himself.
Scarcely a moment later the child cried, “There it is!” and let go of Keith’s hand to run ahead. Squinting through the rain, Keith watched them scoop something up from underneath a scraggly bush before turning and running back.
“Look, we found it!” they said, holding it up for Keith to see. To him it just looked like a 3D infinity sign made of wood, but the kid seemed happy, at least. “Thank you, Paladin!”
They threw their arms around Keith’s hips, capturing him in a tight embrace. Keith froze, as he tended to do when suddenly confronted with affection.
Several things happened in the next few seconds.
Still looking up, Keith caught a glimpse of another blue flash of lightning in the gray sky. He saw the split second when it arched from the clouds to the tree they stood beneath, releasing a burst of smoke.
The resounding boom of thunder was deafening. The child cried out in shock and fear and let go of Keith to put their hands over their ears, but Keith’s own were ringing too loudly for him to hear it. What he did notice was the slight tilt of the tree trunk as it began to topple.
Keith didn’t think. He just grabbed the kid around their middle, turned, and tossed them a good ten feet out of the way. He saw them land, on their hands and knees, thankfully, right before a great weight knocked the breath from his lungs.
The world spun, he hit the ground, and everything went black.
God, Shiro was tired. They’d been on Senna all day, the party showed no signs of slowing down, and he was running out of small talk to discuss with the lead minister.
The storm had gotten significantly worse over the last few hours. He was concerned with getting the Lions back to the Castle, especially with the lightning he could see in the clouds. He was just about to excuse himself to go discuss it with Allura when a sound just barely caught his attention over the pounding of the rain.
It was a tinny sort of sound, like a wail, or an infant crying. At first he took it to be part of the strange music that was being played, but it grew steadily louder, until suddenly the music cut off and a ripple of murmuring went through the crowd.
“What is this interruption?” the minister wondered. Shiro wasn’t paying attention-- he’d already caught sight of the “interruption”.
It was a child. They were crying, the type of crying a human toddler would do where it was more of a scream, dashing through the crowd in mud-stained blue robes.
“Miette?” The Queen stepped forward, kneeling down to intercept the child in her arms. “Miette, little petal, what’s wrong?”
“Th-th-the Paladin,” Miette sobbed, burying their face into their mother’s shoulder. “H-he got hu-urt and it’s all my faul-l-lt!”
“Paladin?” the Queen questioned. “What do you mean?”
Shiro was already moving. The team congregated in a tight, tense ball near where the Queen knelt, and his eyes leapt from face to face, moving down the checklist.
Allura. Pidge. Lance. Hunk.
No Keith.
“Calm yourself, little petal,” the Queen was cooing to her child. “Tell us what happened.”
With a despondent sniffle, Miette answered, “He helped me find my oros, but the luxor hit a tree and it--” their voice broke, and they struggled to put it back together as Shiro’s heart began to race. “It fell on him.”
The Queen looked up at them with wide eyes. “Pidge,” said Shiro, looking away. “Pull up Keith’s armor tracker.”
“Ten four.” Pidge had a tense set to her mouth, copied on all of the other faces around them. Allura pulled out her own communicator, hiding her worry behind a stern expression as she called Coran on the Castle and told him to prepare a healing pod.
“Of course Mullet managed to get hit by a freakin’ tree, of all things,” Lance muttered to himself, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed his concern. Shiro’s arm flickered with pain, but he ground his teeth and ignored it.
“Got it,” said Pidge, already turning in the proper direction. “It’s not far, maybe a half mile.”
“Should we get our Lions?” Hunk asked anxiously as they began to move away from the pavilion as a group. “Depending on how big the tree is--”
“No,” Shiro answered. “The tree cover is too dense, we wouldn’t be able to land without knocking down a bunch more trees.”
“Which,” Allura added as she kept pace with the Paladins, “our hosts wouldn’t appreciate.”
As soon as they were out from under the cover of the pavilion the rain came down in a solid sheet. It washed over Shiro’s visor, turning everything wavy and indistinct, and he couldn’t resist cursing under his breath. The lack of visibility would only make it harder to find Keith, and (Shiro realized with a rapidly increasing heart rate) they had no idea what his condition was. Even if he was miraculously unhurt from the impact, being trapped in weather like this for hours could get him sick, especially if his suit was compromised.
“Wait,” said Pidge, “I got it, just hold on--”
A moment later orange lines lit up on Shiro’s helmet display. He still couldn’t see anything besides hazy brown and green, but the lights formed an arrow, pointing him in the right direction and self correcting with every step he took.
“Good job, Pidge,” Hunk said. “But, wait, what about Allura?”
“I’m fine, I’ll follow you, just go!” The Princess’ tone brokered no argument, so the group complied and picked up the pace to a jog, following Pidge’s arrows. With every passing second the panicked screaming in Shiro’s head got louder, but he shoved it down with all of his strength, even as the phantom pains in his arm tried to distract him.
Patience yields focus, he reminded himself.
The next few minutes were silent except for the pounding of rain and their feet on the ground. Shiro focused on the rhythm, trying to bring himself under control. If things were going to be ok, he needed to be calm.
Calm. He was barely hanging onto it by his fingernails.
“There!” Pidge shouted, snapping everything back into focus. “Just ahead!”
Through the darkness and driving rain, Shiro still couldn’t see anything. But Pidge’s program could, and a second later an orange highlight appeared, outlining the shape of a fallen tree trunk-- and the figure lying prone beneath it.
Shiro went from a jog to a sprint, pulling ahead of the group. Once he was close enough he tapped on the light attached to his helmet. Not so useful during movement, but up this close it easily illuminated the bark of the tree, finally giving him something solid to focus on. A problem he could solve.
The first thing he did was turn on his comms, hoping Keith’s were still working.
“Keith? Keith? Can you hear me?”
Shiro strained his hearing, trying to detect anything over the static sound of falling rain and the splashes of the puddles as the others caught up with him. For a long, sickening moment there was no answer. Then there came a faint groan.
Shiro let out a relieved breath. “Sit tight, ok? We’re gonna get you out.”
He took a step back to survey the situation. The trunk was long, pinning Keith lengthwise, holding down his whole body, which made their task even harder.
“Pidge,” he said, “do a scan, make sure nothing’s broken.”
“Got it.”
“I can help,” said Allura, taking up a position at the foot of the log, next to the torn, splintered stump from whence it came. “Hunk, take the other end. Shiro can pull him out when it’s high enough.”
“No broken spine,” Pidge reported as the scan ended. “Some broken ribs, but it’ll be fine to move him.”
“Ok, everybody get in position.” Shiro knelt at Keith’s side, pressing his lips into a determined line. Almost as an afterthought he lifted Keith’s hand from the soggy ground and threaded their fingers together.
“Hunk, are you ready?”
“Y-yeah, I’m ready.”
Shiro squeezed Keith’s hand. He might’ve imagined it, but he thought he felt Keith squeeze back.
“Three, two, one, lift!”
It was hard to see, but the shifting of the log was loud and clear with Pidge’s Garrison orange lines. The moment the lines on the log diverged from the ones outlining Keith, Shiro slipped his hand between the trunk and the jetpack, gripped it, and pulled with all of his strength.
The muddy ground let him slide free easily. Allura and Hunk let the trunk fall again with grunts of effort. The light on Shiro’s helmet reflected off of Keith’s armor, allowing him to see the spiderwebs cracking all through the jet pack that made him cringe. Thank God for the armor-- that much force would’ve definitely damaged his spine otherwise.
Keith groaned again and shifted a tiny bit. Shaking his head to clear it, Shiro carefully pulled one of Keith’s arms over his shoulders. Before he could stand he heard a splash beside him, and when he turned he found Lance kneeling there, taking Keith’s other side.
“On your count,” he said. They didn’t have time for Shiro to give a ‘I’m so proud’ speech, so instead he just gave a grateful smile.
“Ok, on three. One, two, three.” They stood in unison, Keith’s body hanging between them, almost entirely dead weight. His head moved a little, but he obviously wasn’t conscious yet.
“Be careful,” Pidge reminded them as they started to move back towards the Lions. “His ribs--”
“We know,” Lance answered, half reassurance and half tense snap.
“He’ll be ok.” Hunk wasn’t visible to Shiro, but his voice came from behind him and to the left. “The healing pod will fix it.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.”
Shiro clenched his jaw and tried to move a little faster.
They were dripping, soaking wet when they returned to the Castle, the group of them leaving a river behind them as they headed towards the infirmary. Keith had begun to come around while Shiro was flying them back in Black and was now able to take some of his own weight as long as Shiro helped him, but he still seemed dazed and hadn’t spoken a word.
That was concerning-- what if there was brain damage-- but as before Shiro kept himself calm. It was easier to manage now with Keith right there and all of them back home in the Castle, rather than the terror of trying to find him in a dark, rainy forest.
As promised, Coran was waiting for them with the pod open and ready to go. Pidge rattled off the list of injuries from her scan as she ported it to the pod computer, and not long after Allura and the others were asked to vacate the premises while he and Shiro got him ready to go in.
Pidge seemed reluctant, but Lance laid a brotherly hand on her shoulder and bent down to murmur something in her ear. Whatever it was made her eyes water, but she let Lance and Hunk lead her out regardless.
“Right then,” said Coran as he sat Keith down on one of the cots. Shiro kept one hand on his shoulder to keep him upright as the Altean began to remove his armor; helmet first, revealing hair sticky with damp and mud, then the pauldron and vambrace. “You’ve given us quite a scare, Number Four. Though I suppose we hadn’t had one yet on this mission. We were due one, eh?”
Keith didn’t respond to any of his words or the manipulation of his arm. Shiro cast a nervous look up at Coran, but he didn’t take his eyes from Keith, merely waving for Shiro to circle around so Coran could get at the other arm.
That set too was removed without response from Keith. But, when Coran moved to pull the chest plate up and over his head, Keith finally made a sound: a slight gasp of pain. Coran immediately ceased his movement while Shiro leaned forward to get a look at his face.
“Keith? Hey, are you with us?”
Keith blinked a few times, then his mouth twisted into a grimace. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Fuck.”
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get Shiro and Coran both smiling.
“Ok,” said Shiro, “that’s good. You have a couple of broken ribs, so it’s going to hurt, but we need to get this chest plate off of you.”
Keith went a little paler, but all the same he nodded and clenched his jaw in anticipation of the pain. Shiro gave Coran the go ahead, and between the two of them they were able to get the piece off quickly, though Keith did release a few more strained grunts as they did so.
As soon as it was gone Shiro sat back down beside him, letting Coran get at the leg pieces while he asked Keith, “Do you remember what happened?”
He frowned in answer, and his eyes lost focus as he tried to remember. “I think so. I think… there was a kid. They said… um, they said they lost something, and I went to help look, but then we were in the forest and the lightning hit--”
Suddenly Keith’s eyes widened and he jolted, nearly kicking Coran in the chest with the motion. “Wait, the kid! What-- what happened to them?” He turned his frantic gaze on Shiro, who held up his hands in a calming, ‘whoa now’ gesture.
“They’re just fine, Keith. They ran back to the pavilion and let us know what happened. They were a little scared, but otherwise perfectly fine.”
Keith’s eyes lingered on Shiro’s face for a moment as he processed, then he abruptly slid to the side and leaned on Shiro’s shoulder, the adrenaline surge passing as quickly as it had come.
“Good,” he said breathily as Coran pulled off the last piece of his armor. “That’s good.”
“There we are,” said Coran as he got to his feet and began gathering the various pieces of muddy, and in some cases cracked, armor. “I’ll get these all cleaned up and repaired. Think you can handle the rest, Shiro?”
Shiro nodded and gave him a small, appreciative smile. Coran nodded in return before leaving the infirmary, leaving Shiro to get Keith the rest of the way into the proper suit and then into the pod.
Keith didn’t complain much this time. He didn’t mumble crossly to himself as Shiro turned him to get at the zipper of his flight suit, he didn’t insist that he could do it himself, which along with his general hazy demeanor, Shiro blamed on a possible concussion.
“That was a kind thing to do,” he said as he pulled down the zipper, distracting Keith from the uncomfortable moment. “Helping Miette.”
“Was that their name?” Keith murmured. “I never got it.”
Shiro couldn’t help but wince as the zipper slid downwards, revealing more and more of Keith’s skin, mottled black and blue with hours old bruises. He only got glances of the ones around his ribs from this position, but that was enough for Shiro.
“Yeah, that was it. Turns out they were the child of the queen.”
Keith’s spine stiffened under Shiro’s hands.
“They were royalty?” he asked, gobsmacked. “Oh, God. And I went and got them almost smashed by a freaking tree--”
“It’s ok, Keith.” Shiro tugged on the left side of the suit, signalling Keith to hold his arm closer to his torso so it could be pulled from the sleeve. “No one is mad at you. You were just trying to do something nice for a kid, that’s all. It was a freak accident.”
Keith sighed and went back to slouching. “God forbid I be nice for once.”
“You are nice.” Left arm successfully extracted, Shiro tugged on the other side. “You’re just quieter about it, is all.”
To that Keith responded with a grumpy hmph. Shiro shook his head to himself and continued the task of getting the flight suit out of the way. “Well, you know what they say. No good deed goes unpunished.”
Keith hmph ed again. “They also say only the good die young and that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Ever get the feeling the deck is stacked against the good people?”
“It is,” Shiro acquiesced quietly. “But it’s still worth it, right?”
For a moment there was silence. Then, so softly it was barely audible: “Yeah.”