#v:paladin

[cosmicxblade]

continued from here with @azurenaut​

He should have just stopped.  Not said anything at all.  Just kind of casually changed the subject.  But Keith wasn’t good at subtle or casually doing anything, and there was an awful moment of panic as he spotted that sly look on Lance’s face. 

Yep, Keith was royally screwed. 

Keith rolled his eyes, arms crossed over his chest as he looked away, hoping the other boy hadn’t spotted the flustered flush on his cheeks.  It was stupid.  Nothing even worth being embarrassed about.  His hands tightened their grip on his arms.  The thought only irritated him more.  

“I really don’t need to hear about your adventures in romance,” he said dryly, shooting the other paladin a withering look.

[cosmicxblade]

continued from here with @allurastarlight

Keith had never stopped fighting.  Not from those early days when he’d realized there was nobody he could trust.  Not when Shiro had stepped into his life and changed that.  Not when the man had vanished.  And certainly not when Keith and the others had found both Shiro, the Blue Lion and gone barreling off into space.  

With a grim determination in his eyes, he hadn’t stopped fighting when the Galra had dragged him from his cells.  He wouldn’t give them anything.  Would die before he gave them anything.  A cold voice promised he’d wish for death before the end.  

After that, everything was a blur of pain and fear.  Pain and fear and eventually a hazy, indistinct figure with warm, worried blue eyes that swam in and out of his vision.  Keith could barely croak out a response, voice dry and raspy, hair hanging limp in his eyes as Allura half-carried, half-dragged him through a desperate escape.

And then the pod.  Everything awash in red as the emergency readings flared powerfully strong, the hull battered, as the cosmic storm raged around them.  Keith groaned softly, violet eyes dark with pain, his pupils dilated, breathing short and raspy.  He couldn’t focus his gaze on her at first.  It wavered up there, over her shoulder.

Here now, with their pod being slowly battered apart out in the middle of nowhere, things were finally making sense to him.  “The others?” he rasped out, one hand catching Allura’s shoulder in a weak grip.

[cosmicxblade]

continued from here with @leaderchosen​

“I’m pretty sure you just hit a new low, Shiro.”  Yeah.  It had been that eye-rollingly bad.  Still, that hint of a smile that followed was fond, if exasperated.  

“Just...24 hours with no puns.  Can you manage 24 hours?”

[cosmicxblade]

😶 - Quietly lean against my muse

Touch Starved Meme [Accepted]

Keith had to look away from the tablet a moment, rubbing his eyes, everything just a little blurred.  Exhaustion tugged at him, but he was determined to get through this mission intel before he crashed.

Only to pause as a sudden weight shifted against his side.  Keith arched an eyebrow as he looked over at Lance.  Ugh, he was too tired for this.  “I’m not a pillow, you know.”

[cosmicxblade]

@argentplated

He hadn't wanted to come.  Had told Kolivan that he had upcoming mission parameters to review.  That his time would be better spent prepping for the infiltration job that he'd been assigned.  But the leader of the blades had been insistent, and for all of the time Keith had spent avoiding his old team, he had a good idea just why the Galra had made sure Keith was on board that ship before they'd left to rendezvous with the Castle of Lions.  

And so there he was, arms crossed over his chest, listening as the others hashed out the last details of another planned strike based off of Lotor's intel.  His eyes were distant, turned away even as he listened to every word.  As near of a disaster as Nazxera had been only a few weeks before, it had marked a major victory for the Coalition.  Given them a momentum against the empire that they couldn't afford to squander.  But the meeting was drawing to a close and as the conversation turned to more personal matters, Keith took the opportunity to slip out the door.  His escape didn't go unnoticed, though Keith never turned to catch the disappointed look on Hunk's face.  

For as much as he had been avoiding returning here as much as he could, focusing entirely on his new duties and everything he was learning about himself, his heritage, and the world his mother had come from, he couldn't quell that pang of homesickness as he wandered the familiar halls of the Castle of Lions.  It was a fuzzy sensation in his chest, one that rose nearly to his throat, feet carrying him instinctively forward through the memories of a life he had left behind.  The people he had left behind.  Shiro.  

It was better that way though.  

A fact he told himself again and again, to remind himself of why he left.  Why things couldn't be the same.

So why was it that his feet carried him all the way into the depths of the Castle, through the hangar doors?  His feet slowed, Keith raising his head as he tugged down the hood of his blade uniform, the Black Lion looking silently down on him.

[cosmicxblade]

continued from here with @starfirechan

Missions were never simple, but with all the work he'd done with the blades, it had been one of the more straightforward ones.  Infiltrate the Tamaranean ship, extract the data from their computer systems that tied them to Galra activity, and deliver that invaluable intel to be analyzed and used by the Coalition.  

He hadn't counted on a prisoner on that ship, another Tamaranean.  The mission objectives had been clear.  Get in and get out again, wait for pickup from another agent hiding their ship on a nearby asteroid.  Rescuing a prisoner should never have been on his mind.

Kolivan had always lectured Keith about mission priority.  

Of course it ended disastrously.  Keith groaned, vision swimming as he slowly came to, sprawled out on the floor.  His masking device had broken, leaving him with his face bared, hood falling back around his shoulders.  Muscles protested as he slowly pushed himself up.  His wrists felt heavy, and he grimaced, looking down at the heavy cuffs wrapped around his wrists, chains extending from the backs of them.  

"Not my best rescue attempt," he rasped out, glancing back at the girl behind him.  His eyes followed the chains, brow furrowing as he saw how they linked to her's.  His gaze slid up to the wall behind her, the ceiling above.  It wasn't the same decor as the ship.  "Where are we?"  Keith was already struggling to his feet, the short length of chain between them making each of his arm movements pull on her own cuffs.  

[cosmicxblade]

continued from here with @tarnishedluminary​

“No, I can’t,” he bit out, broken and lonely.  Lonely even with that image of Shiro right there in front of him as Keith sat slumped on the floor, back against one of the Black Lion’s consoles, legs sprawled out in front of him.  He’d come here to be alone, to escape the others’ expectations, their concerns, and now he was caught up in some delusion or dream, seeking out comfort from a man who was gone.  

“I’m just screwing it all up.  I’m trying, but I’m...”  He grit his teeth, hands shaking as he dropped his head.  “It should be you here.”

[cosmicxblade]

@goofbcll liked this for a birthday starter!

Keith had never planned to stop by the kitchen on his way to training.  But a strangely frosty smell struck his nose, drawing him in.  With a growing sense of trepidation, he found himself wandering into the kitchen.

And there was Hunk.  And something that looked suspiciously like frosting being spread on something that was kind of cake-like.  “Who told you?” he blurted out.