#vldtenyearanniversary

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 7: Black Lion

Time for a Classic for @vldtenyearanniversaryfest Day 7!

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~*~

It was different, having Shiro back. The real Shiro, all of him, the one that had grown up on Earth and the one made in an oversized test tube merged together, all of his rough edges and kind smiles, his strong leadership and his vulnerable nights. Keith loved each part of him, of course, and was all but too happy to have him back, whole and in as close to one piece as anyone could ask him to be.

Still, it left the question:

If Shiro was the pilot of the black lion, and Keith was the pilot of the black lion, then who was going to actually do the act of piloting the black lion?

The lion itself was of no help, rejecting neither of them when they sat at the controls, the deep and low toned purr of its conscious brushing up against both of theirs and utterly willing to fly for either of them. The team was no help either; all of them could think of both pros and cons to Keith and Shiro's leadership, Keith's quick reflexes and Shiro's calm head in the face of adrenaline-inducing foes both valued, both necessary.

Keith and Shiro were likewise unable to settle the argument between themselves, each of them insisting that the other was clearly the best suited for the role.

"Keith, the black lion chose you. And I'm proud of you! It's just the way things are now, I'm alright moving on."

"Shiro, the black lion is your lion, its your bayard, I'm not going to take your spot on the team, I'm the loner remember? The unreliable one, always off on Blade missions, and the black lion chose you first!"

It wasn't until Matt visited that the solution, which seemed fairly obvious in hindsight, became apparent.

Matt could copilot the green lion with Pidge. They were the one at the controls, sure, but Matt was in the cockpit, in a chair the lion seemingly manifested specifically for him, so he could work alongside his sibling.

"…" Keith looked at Shiro.

"…" Shiro looked at Keith.

"…you know," Keith said, rubbing at the back of his neck, "with the lions' ability to psychically link the pilots, and both of us being so close to Black…"

Shiro set his hand on Keith's shoulder and smiled. "We could probably figure out how to copilot, like we do when we form Voltron."

They smiled silently at one another for a long moment, feeling that synergy even without the lions' help.

It was interrupted by Pidge making a loud gagging noise and Lance calling for them to "get a room!" but Shiro just laughed that off. Obviously copiloting was the solution. He marveled all over again at the feats the Voltron lions were capable of, and the even stranger feats that he and Keith could accomplish, together.

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 5: Favorite Ship

Today is @vldtenyearanniversaryfest day five, and ngl I struggled with what to do for today! Not because I don't know what my fave vld ship is---obviously that is sheith---but because so many of my other prompt days are sheith fills, I didn't know what I wanted to do for The Sheith Day.

So I decided instead I'd just talk about how and why I like them!

A fun fact I've shared before but that not everyone might know is that I actually went into vld PRIMED and ready to like klance. A fave author from my homestuck days, @qpenguin98, had flipped from johndave to klance before I ever watched the show, and I'd skimmed some of their fics. So, naturally, I assumed that since we had such similar tastes in homestuck ships, I'd follow suit when I joined vld. Not the case. The NANOSECOND I saw Keith gently turn Shiro's unconscious face and tear down his handkerchief so he could whisper his name with wonder and distress I knew I was gone. Then they had their touching little reunion on the mound outside Keith's shack in the sunrise and Oh Boy Oh Boy.

I love the trust between them. How Keith doesn't trust ANYONE initially but he does trust Shiro. How Shiro tries to shoulder the entire world on his shoulders (like atlas, one might say) but he allows Keith to take care of him and watch out for him. How Keith never hesitates when Shiro is in trouble and, to quote, would save him "as many times as it takes." How neither of them ever give up on the other, no matter how dire the straits or how hopeless the circumstances may seem. I love the homoerotic shoulder touching. I love the black/white motifs. I love the sunshine/raincloud. I love how Allura and Hunk and even Lance and Pidge had bad reactions to learning Keith was half Galra but Shiro, who'd been kidnapped, enslaved, disfigured, and tortured by the Galra, never treated Keith differently or even doubted for a moment that that was still his best friend.

I love how we get to watch their relationship develop over years. We get flashbacks to when they were two punk teens (just one of them better at hiding it than the other) being friends and watching out for each other in ways they both desperately needed at the time. We get to see Keith supporting Shiro at his lowest points post-abduction and we get to see Shiro be the calm and steady hand that guides Keith. We get to see them fight alongside one another as brothers in arms. And we get to see them fall slowly and undeniably in love as the show progresses, their relationship and their care and respect and trust for each other blooming into something deep and abiding.

I also think they're hot as hell ;)

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 4: Post-canon/Home

Okay and actually on time today it's @vldtenyearanniversaryfest day 4! What Pidge (and Matt) are up to post canon time

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~*~

"Mail for you," Matt mentioned, mug of coffee in hand and his long hair an absolute mess, not having brushed it yet.

"Oh, sweet, probably my name change papers," Pidge said, leaning back in their office chair and taking the envelope from their brother.

"You really are going through with it huh?" Matt asked warmly, taking a seat at the computer terminal next to theirs and smiling fondly at them. They kicked him in the ankle for posterity's sake, an absent gesture.

"I mean, the only people who really call me 'Katie' anymore are mom and dad," they said as they rifled through the small mountain of stuff they'd piled on their workstation. They really needed to clean this thing sometime. Or at least declutter it. "Might as well make it official." They found a novelty pen Keith had given them, the tip shaped like a knife, and y'know what it'd work as a letter opener in a pinch. Sure enough, it was the court order, signed by the judge, with Pidge Holt's brand new government-recognized name staring back up at them.

"Sweet," they mentioned, setting the paper aside and returning to their computer monitor.

"You're gonna lose it if you leave it there," Matt pointed out, sipping at his coffee.

"Mind your business," Pidge countered. They were researching whether light's property of self-torque was what made interstellar communications work the way they did. 13,000 years ago when near-instant communications across lightyears' worth of distance had been developed, people had found something that worked, but hadn't actually discovered why it worked. It was the acetaminophen of Pidge's field, and they were damn well going to be the researcher who finally cracked the case on it.

N-7 joined them with a hairbrush and pressed a robotic kiss to Matt's forehead before she started in on his unruly bedhead, Matt closing his eyes and humming contentedly, leaning into her touch. Pidge, once again for posterity's sake more than anything, made an ugly gagging noise at their gooey romantic sappiness.

"If you keep making that face, it's gonna stick like that," Matt mumbled without opening his eyes.

"Good," Pidge returned bluntly, not bothering to point out that he couldn't see what face they were making, or even to look away from their computer screen.

"Allura still swinging by tonight?"

"As long as being the beating heart that pulses the lifeblood of all things through this and every other reality doesn't take too much out of her, yeah," Pidge said. Which was mostly sarcastic, since that was Allura's every moment, and it wasn't like a long day could match up against the cosmic equivalent of what was essentially a goddess at this point. She'd make herself and Lotor a pair of physical forms and the two would pop into the material plane from time to time, always happy to come visit their friends and catch them up on what was going on elsewhere in reality. It was a good excuse to get the gang together; Lance was always so busy being an interstellar celebrity, spreading the legends and the facts of Voltron far and wide with Coran as his manager, Keith and Shiro were always out roadtripping around space with Kosmo, and Hunk was renowned far and wide for his diplomatic expertise, uniting essentially the entire known universe under the coalition's banner with good meals and warm company.

"That'll be nice," Matt said, getting up with a stretch and pressing an absent kiss to N-7's cheek.

"Yeah," Pidge agreed, still fiddling with the communications' technology, "I'm looking forward to it."

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 8: Coran Observes

Whoops I made it sad. @vldtenyearanniversaryfest

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~*~

Altean funerals were supposed to be large.

A formal procession, with everyone who'd known and loved the deceased, a pyre, a scattering of ashes. Modern cremation made the pyre symbolic rather than functional, but it was built the same size as pyres of old, to keep the gravity of it all, and provide more ashes for scattering. Then a mourning period would be observed, all donned in pink and white to grieve their fallen loved one.

Coran had no body to cremate, and neither the space nor wood to craft a pyre. His pink garments were stored at home, not in the castle, and like the rest of Altea, were gone now. And with the Galran Empire continuing their wretched work, there was no time to observe a mourning period, not in its formal length.

He should've invited Allura. She was the only person left who could understand him, after all, the only person left who could understand this. But she was young, and with youth brought anger. She didn't want to grieve, she didn't want to mourn, she didn't want to sit with the overwhelming emotion and cry and process it. She wanted to fight, she wanted to strike back against the Galra who had taken everything from her, she wanted to kill Zarkon and all of his.

Coran couldn't and wouldn't fault her for it. He'd been young once, too. But he was older now, and ten thousand years older than he felt.

So he lit a candle alone, in his room, with the smoke detectors of the castleship temporarily disabled in a tinkering he would've called one of the ongoing repairs of the ancient vessel, had their been anyone who spotted him in the act. Someone should have. There should've been staff bustling to and fro, important ministers and diplomats on their way to meetings, petitioners here to take the ear of the king wandering through the magnificent halls while they were in the area anyway. But all those people who should've been here were dead and ten thousand years gone, and so Coran had disabled the smoke detector alone.

He didn't have any of his own mourning clothes, but he did find a large pink blanket in storage, and had gathered it around his shoulders like a shroud, fastened over his heart with the royal family's pin. Technically, it wasn't his to wear. But technically, King Alfor had always, always told him he was part of the family, and everyone who could take issue with him wearing it was long dead—save one.

He really should bring Allura with.

Maybe he'd do another "funeral," later. Once she'd calmed, a bit. Once that horrid rage had burned out of her, at least in part. Once she was able to sit with him, and watch the candle burn, and share in this quiet, heavy grief.

Until then, however, Coran cried alone.

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 6: Wanderlust

And @vldtenyearanniversaryfest day 6! Featuring some lovely post canon for the soulmates.

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~*~

Shiro had spent his entire youth saddled with the knowledge that anyone who wanted to get out into the stars would have to do so, so, so much math to get there. Would have to train and practice near relentlessly, would have to be a pilot and a scientist and a mathematician and an engineer, regardless of which of those things he actually, officially was on paper. He'd known he would have to follow the chain of command precisely, that he would have to be better than good, if he wanted to touch the stars, he would have to be the best.

And then he'd gotten into a giant robotic magical lion, and the universe expanded exponentially.

Well, okay, first he'd gotten kidnapped by aliens and forced to fight as a gladiator slave in their coliseum, and then escaped said aliens in a dinky little escape pod, but Shiro didn't really count that as him touching the stars. More like the stars had suddenly and abruptly picked him up by his shirt collar and rattled him around.

Point being: he no longer had to be the best of the best. Earth was in contact with the countless other worlds that made up the Voltron Coalition and what had previously been the Galran Empire, and Shiro had been one of the fate-chosen few to save all of them. If he wanted, all it'd take would be one call and he could have the best space cruiser alien tech could build, outfitted and ready to take him back up into the stars and out wandering wherever he wanted, no limits, no strings attached.

And the longer he was the admiral of the IGF–Atlas, the more that hunger to get out, to go go go, to reach for the stars, hadn't he always reached for the stars, hadn't he always yearned for the stars, itched for them? He felt it underneath his skin. Felt it in every conference room and debrief and council meeting and little nitpicky speed bump the chain of command liked to put in his way. There were other people who could be admiral of the Atlas, surely. It had created an almost-psychic link with Shiro, but Shiro had piloted the Black Lion before. He knew what a real psychic link felt like. And this wasn't it. It was just the ship responding to the psyche of its pilot, and pilots could be changed, new pseudo-bonds forged. That awareness nagged at him. Pulled at him. He could leave. The universe was saved. Atlas didn't need Shiro, not like Shiro felt a growing, cloying, choking need to get the hell outta this place.

"Keith!" he greeted, delighted by the arrival of his partner.

"Hey, Shiro," Keith said, arm reflexively outstretched, immediately clasping Shiro's own and pulling him into a hug, fitting perfectly against him. Kosmo sniffed at Shiro with tail a-wagging, bouncing back and forth on his front paws, and Shiro laughed as he pulled out of the hug to ruffle his fur between his ears.

"Still training new recruits for the Blade?" Shiro asked, noting how tired Keith looked, the bags under his eyes. He wasn't bruised anywhere on his face, but Shiro was willing to bet he was sporting more than just a few underneath his Blade armor thanks to all the constant training he did.

"Kind of," Keith said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "Most of them have reached the 'practical experience' stage, which, has been almost nice for me, but it also means someone has to babysit them on missions so they don't do anything stupid."

"And you're the man for the job," Shiro said warmly, so proud of how far Keith had come.

"The thing is; I really don't have to be," he grumbled, and Shiro chuckled, slinging an arm around him.

That made two of them.

"…Say, Keith…?"

"Yeah, Shiro?"

Shiro would feel stupid for this, he was sure. But Keith was his closest friend, and had always provided important sanity checks for him, even when they were just two punk kids from Arizona sneaking out to go hoverbike racing in the desert.

"I've been thinking about quitting the Atlas," he said, and found himself surprised by just how good it felt to say out loud. "They don't need me here, and I miss exploring the stars. Would it be crazy if I just," Shiro felt the nervous impulse to clam up, to shut himself down, stay put, be dutiful and responsible and follow the system, "got a cruiser and went roadtripping through space?"

"That sounds amazing, actually," Keith said.

"Yeah?" Shiro looked at him hopefully, his arm around Keith's shoulders, Keith's arm around his waist. Then, because it was the day for voicing daring wants, "It'd be lonely, after too long."

Keith met his gaze for two long seconds, then smiled, just a little smirk that still had Shiro's stomach doing loops.

"Better not let you go alone, then. We'll need to make sure the cruiser is wolf-proofed. He likes chewing on things."

Shiro felt himself break out in a grin, vibrant as the day is bright.

"We can do that."

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 3: Pre-canon/Space

Aaaand @vldtenyearanniversaryfest day 3! I GOTTA give Shay some love <3

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~*~

Shay sometimes liked to disobey her elders. Well, she did not like to disobey them, the act of disobedience brought her no pleasure, truly. But she liked the deeds that could only be done in a state of having skirted her Gran-gran's orders, her brother's protective gaze, and her family's cautious warnings. When it was just her and the Balmera, who loved her without condition, and seemed, in its way, to delight in her tiny mischiefs, harboring her secrets for her with a tiredness beyond its age, but with also fondness.

She trailed her hands along its walls, her oldest and truest friend (as the Balmera was to all its people, their friend always, the mother of their mothers, their home). It nudged her gently where she wished to go, and she smiled as she crept past the mouth of its tunnel into the great tower of the Galra's mineshaft.

It was laced with beams of metal from foreign planets, which pierced the Balmera like splinters it could not work free of itself, and which its people could not move, lest they risk the Galra's ire. The shaft was crooked, also, likely for ease of the Galra's ships to fly in and out of, always moving forward in some direction, though she often wondered if the beams would not act as hindrance to the same people who'd put them there. But those very beams were also the things which gave Shay what she needed, and so, here when all Galra were either asleep or guarding their night shift, and Shay's family was likewise resting, when her actions were known only to her dearest friend, she climbed.

It would've been easier if Rax were here. The two of them could lift one another upon their shoulders and climb easily from beam to beam, and catch one another should either of them fall. But Rax was not here, on account of how he was too governed by his fears, and would worry that the Galra would find them and punish them for feeling even the thinnest shred of joy. And so she climbed without him! Let him remain as joyless as the Galra who controlled them. The beams which were to far apart to leap from (which were most beams, to permit the Galran ships), she navigated by climbing the rough edges of the Balmera, crouching on the beams to rest her hands and flex her fingers. It often seemed that the Balmera itself had grown those bumps and ridges for her to climb upon specifically, which would have been a silly waste of its energy, when already they mined it beyond what it could offer, but Shay knew, too, the power of small joys. And who was she to begrudge her truest friend this little joy alongside her, when she was the one skirting all her family's wishes to take it?

She climbed higher, higher, higher still. Past the bend in the mineshaft. Up higher still. As high as she could possibly go, and perched on a beam, and settled her hand against the Balmera's rocky wall, and looked up.

She let her legs dangle off one edge and her tail off the other, still short but growing longer. She was not a woman yet, but on nights like this, neither did she feel like a girl anymore. Up, up, up, up, up the mineshaft, past the metal beams and twists in the Balmera's rock, Shay could make out small glimpses of the sky.

She leaned her head against the Balmera, feeling its warmth beneath her palm and cheek, and felt its deep, old joy echoing back at her. Her accomplishment at having climbed so high. Her wonder at those little scraps of sky. It shared those joys with her, and together they two settled into this quiet moment. Just the two of them, and the sweat of Shay's brow, and the stars, so far away, but still there. Just waiting for her.

"One day," she told the Balmera, a quiet whisper meant only for the two of them, though they already were alone. "One day, I will find a mineshaft which best suits my needs. I will discover what none else in my lineage have found, and I will go all the way to the top, and I will see the sky in its fullness."

How she would find the strength for this after a full day of mining crystals for her Galran overlords, or how she would escape their gaze while on the exposed surface of the top, she did not know, nor did she have a strategy for. It was reckless dreaming. She knew well how thoroughly the Galra quashed any sense of happiness in their conquered subjects, the savage glee they took with purple whips of pulsing energy and the beating of their own metal-clad fists on unarmored skin. She had seen it, and borne it, and heard it echoing down the tunnels, and felt it transmitted by the Balmera's silent and cavernous grief.

But she wanted it. She wanted to reach the top. She wanted to see the sky. And, beneath her cheek, beneath her palm, the Balmera echoed her wants, her whispered promise, and they watched the silent slivers of that distant sky together.

[imhereformysciencefriends]

Day 2: Blue lion/Earth

Okay hi hello @vldtenyearanniversaryfest!! I am late but y'know life.

Anyway introducing my self insert/canon rewrite/fix-it fic character Kit! In a verse I've had banging around in my head for.... ever, lol.

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~*~

Kit hadn't been sure what their aim was, when they dragged Hunk out on the roof with them and found Pidge bent over a mcgyvered deep space scanner. They liked Hunk! They kinda just wanted to hang out with him somewhere he wouldn't be anxiously freaking out all the time, though doing so after-hours had maybe hamstrung them a little in that regard. But then they'd seen the crash, so of course their curiosity meant they had to go check it out, especially since Pidge was also going, and then Keith (Keith!) had set off the explosions, and then the crash had turned out to be Shiro (alive!!! Shiro!!!!) and Keith had been trying to drag him outta there so naturally they'd wanted to help, and now they were in Keith's(?) shack in the middle of the Arizona desert, and Hunk was talking about Fraunhofer lines.

The part of them that desperately wanted to please their parents and had been a straight A student with almost-perfect attendance grew quieter and quieter the deeper they got into this. Shiro! Aliens! Keith was back! Weird energy? Yeah, Kit felt like the energy was weird out here, but that could just as easily be attributed to playing hooky, the confirmation of alien life, and the oatmeal packets Keith had begrudgingly let them all have for breakfast (he had, like, a billion of the things, Kit did not feel bad bumming one off of him).

"Look at these ruins!!!" Kit gasped as they entered the ancient cave. They hadn't even had to unearth it or anything, it was an open-air cave, and Kit absolutely would've known about it if there was a historical site this close to the Garrison, so it made them wonder why nobody had ever documented a cave like this. "The markings look old," they mused, further adding to their confusion.

And, look, they'd been to museums, they'd been to historical sites, they knew they weren't supposed to touch the incredibly important very delicate ancient stuff, but!!! In their defense!! This wasn't a historical site, officially, and the cave markings were just right there.

"Uhm!!" they called to the others when all the markings in the cave suddenly started to glow, everyone caught off guard by that, and they shrieked when the ground suddenly gave way beneath them. They clung to Hunk and Pidge, the three of them landing in the shallow water at the bottom with triple "OOF"s, Keith and Shiro landing with much more agile grace than their little trio.

"What was that?" Hunk groaned as they got up, and Kit's skin was crawling.

"I… think we found it," they mentioned, because the weird feeling from the shack absolutely had to be this. And as their group moved further into the luminescent cave, they got their confirmation.

She was beautiful.

She was a towering figure, painted blue that chipped around her hard angles, bubbled in…somethin'. They didn't know what the bubble around her was made of, but it sure as hell wasn't soap.

"Wh-what do you think it is?" Hunk mused timidly, hanging back.

"This must be the 'Voltron' the Galra are looking for," Shiro answered confidently.

"Okay, well, how do we get it?" Keith asked, banging the side of his fist on the bubble, testing it to find absolutely no give.

"Maybe there's some kind of passcode? Or puzzle we have to solve?" Pidge suggested. Kit giggled. Like she would give them some kind of video game trial! They couldn't blame Pidge for thinking that way, though.

"Or we could just," Kit suggested as they approached, Keith sidestepping and eyeing them cautiously, "try asking nicely."

Kit placed their palm on the particle barrier (particle barrier? Why would they know that that's what it was called?) and smiled up at her. "Hello! I'm Kit, and these are my friends. May we come in?"

The particle barrier receded with a hexagonal cascade, and she rose abruptly to life, startling the other four and making them hastily back away as she lifted first onto all fours, and then crouched down on her front paws, mouth mere feet away from Kit, and opened her maw to permit entry. Kit remained planted where they were as the rest skittered back, grinning with something that felt manic beating alongside their heart, the thrill of doing something so exciting intertwining seamlessly with the reckless joy of finally having found a pilot, of finally being able to leave this cave, to go and to do and to fight and to win and to explore and to fly and to fly and to fly again!!

"Come on!!" Kit called over their shoulder, their hand resting on the metal of her jowl and a broad grin on their face, wind tossing their hair about and one foot in her jaw, "You guys, let's go!!!"