Chapter Text
“ – can’t keep doing this. I just told you the consequences – “
“Do not presume to tell me what to do; Voltron is the Universe’s only defense and answer to all threats.”
“Voltron is leading us all to an early demise. The Lions – “
“Are simple machines. We are their Paladins, we are meant to use them as they were intended to; to free the Okumushu.”
“The Lions are much more than simple machines. They have their own thoughts, their own minds. You would disregard their concerns and fear?”
“These Lions are highly advanced technology, yes. But not to the point of self delusion.”
Silence.
“You will not change your stance, my old friend?”
“My stance has never needed to change. Our work must continue if we wish to see the Okumushu’s grace and power shine upon us.”
“You are willing to bring death and destruction to all life for glory of a species that may no longer exist.”
“Your ignorance shows how little you know of their greatness. Not death. But life, hope. The very things Voltron represents!”
“Voltron is a war machine.” A deep sigh. “A war machine used to enforce justice based on personal standards.”
“Those personal standards are the universal standards of the age.”
“War is inevitable then. I warned you when we first brought out the Lions to quell the slave rebellion.”
“So be it. The Paladins would not waver from their duty. You clearly do not see yourself as a Paladin any longer.”
“You are being a fool, old friend. Without me, Voltron will not be available for your use.”
“A new Paladin can always be found. Forming Voltron is the Lion’s prerogative, they will not delay in the task.”
“I think you will find that they will. But you no longer listen to my counsel, so I suppose my words mean nothing to you.”
“You would be correct. Voltron will lead to the return of the Okumushu. You do not wish to see the ancient species grace the galaxy with their presence once more. How can I trust your words to align with mine if our goals differ?”
“Then next I see you will be on the battlefield.”
“It shall not be much of a battle when Voltron comes out to decimate your fleet.”
Silence.
“Do not underestimate my people. We fight until we win… or we die.”
“Lance!” the door leading into the room hissed open. The human draped on the chair was frowning at the desk in front of him, bright green and white headphones covering his ears, and twirling a pencil he found stuffed in his jacket pocket from Earth in his hand.
In the doorway, Keith scowled. He had been sent by Shiro, otherwise known as the only adult in his life who could order him to complete menial tasks that had nothing to do with training or making battle plans. Like look for his fellow Paladin to call for dinner. This is not what he imagined being a part of the universe’s only defense would be like. When Allura had named them paladins of the great magical mechanical lions, Keith had thought everything would be like in the Garrison: strict routines, classes, and constant training. Granted, the Garrison had never prepared Keith for the possibility of being drafted into a war against a 10,000 year old Empire with six other people. But the only routine in the Castle of Lions was the team training that took up most of the day with a break for lunch; a few hours before dinner was free time for all the occupants of the Castle, Allura graciously allowing them to do what they wished. Pidge and Hunk could usually be found in the labs tinkering with multiple devices and engines, shouting at one another about tools and ideas to try. If Hunk wasn’t there – Pidge never seemed to leave the workrooms – he could be found in the kitchen, experimenting with the space goo to make it taste like anything but space goo. Coran would usually be hovering nearby in the kitchen, or elsewhere in the Castle performing maintenance, sometimes with Lance assisting him. Allura would usually be with Shiro researching the Galra and looking up the latest news to catch up on 10,000 years of tyranny.
Apparently now, if Lance wasn't helping maintain the castle, Keith could find Lance hiding away in rooms of the unused hallways, just fiddling his fingers. A surge of irritation welled in his chest; Keith could have still been training with the bot, improving himself so he could pass the current level he was stuck on. Instead, he had been requested – and finger quotes were so being used in his own mind, thank you Lance for explaining what those were – to stop early and roam down dark hallways.
“Lance!” Keith called again from the doorway. Lance continued to ignore him, his pencil scribbling against the desk, his other hand pressing a button on the device in front of him. Keith stomped into the room, yanking the headphones off of Lance’s head and ignoring the shriek the other teenager gave as he toppled off his chair in shock.
“Holy fudges with quiznak! Don’t sneak up on people, you sneaker!”
“Well, then maybe pay attention when someone is calling your name. Then I wouldn’t have had to sneak in.” Keith added finger quotes to the word sneak; he really hadn’t been quiet coming into the room, and anyone not blasting music in their ears should have been able to hear him coming from a mile off.
“You are so abusing the finger quotes these days.” Lance pulled himself off the floor, grabbing the headphones from Keith to place them on the desk. “I regret ever teaching you the sacred art.”
Keith snorted. “It’s just moving your fingers up and down when being ironic, what’s so sacred about that?”
Lance gaped. “What’s – what is sacred? Irony? Do you even know what ironic is?” Keith shrugged. “You, I suppose.”
“Wow, I am so lucky Pidge was not here for that burn.” Lance shook his head. “Anyways, what did you need little old me for?”
“I don’t need you for anything?” He didn’t need Lance, right? He was just looking for him? “It’s dinner time so Shiro sent me over to get you since no one knew where you were.”
“It’s time for dinner already?” Lance yelped, pushing away from the desk.
“A little late for dinner, by now. What were you doing all the way back here?” Lance flailing around was amusing; Keith watched as his gangly limbs moved each and every way except the direction Lance wanted to go. It wasn’t long before he ended back up on the floor.
“I was listening to some old Altean recordings to try and improve my language skills. There’s some translator magic thing in the air so everyone can understand what someone else is saying for the most part, but that doesn’t apply for recordings or readings.” In a flash, Lance was back on his feet, headphones and pencil left on the desk as he walked out of the room, Keith right on his heels. “So I figure, since I learn best while writing things down, I’ll listen then write it out. And I’ve mostly gotten the Altean language down while hearing it; writing is still a challenge so I keep having to rewind the recordings and I think I’ll need to ask Coran what a few words mean again. And see if I can hunt anything down that’s paper because writing on a desk is so lame.”
“Wait, you’re writing on the desk? Why can’t you just use a datapad?” The room the team was using to eat together wasn’t far now, just another few turns to the main hallway. Hopefully there would still be food – and when did space goo become his only diet? – piping hot for them when they would arrive.
“Ugh, I hate typing for projects like this. Writing it out is so much better, but there isn’t a piece of paper anywhere on this ship. Coran didn’t even know what paper was, let alone a pen!” Lance groaned. “I mean I get it, amazing alien technology, but would it kill them to have something not powered by magic crystals?”
It almost killed you, is what Keith wanted to say. Wasn’t it bad that everything on the ship could break down just through the malfunctioning of a single crystal? Did Alteans never have to think of contingency plans? Keith let Lance ramble on about a lack of paper and pens, content to just let his words wash over him as the two paladins headed to the room dubbed as the dining hall. He’d have to think more on finding some sort of first aid kit later; maybe Hunk could help him put one together. The team couldn’t rely on magic crystal fueled healing pods forever.
“-ith. Keeeeeeith.” A finger poking his cheek had Keith slapping a hand out to push the offending object out of his face. Lance just grinned as his fist nearly flew back into his face. “Aw, did I interrupt you from your spacey dreams?”
“Spacey dreams?” Whatever irritation had been eased away from the walk came crashing back in a tidal wave. “Can’t you think of anything not stupid sounding to say?”
Lance gasped in mock horror. “That was not stupid sounding, Mullet-head! It was clever and a classic. Don’t diss the classics, Space Cowboy.”
“Space cowboy?” Keith muttered.
“My poor heart can’t take your lack of knowledge on classic shows and memes to even…um…. Well it can’t bother to tell you!” Lance looked pleased with himself. “Anyways, I had a reason for poking your face,” the blue paladin turned and took a few steps towards a closed door before stretching his arms outward. “Tada! We have arrived at the dining hall! Food awaits us!”
If Lance was expecting a response, Keith didn’t give him one. Unless not bothering with a verbal answer and simply pushing past the other boy to open the doors was the response Lance was looking for.
“It’s about time you two got here.” Hunk was passing a bowl of the space goo to Pidge, the smallest Paladin taking a large portion to slosh on their plate. “Where were you hiding that it took Keith like twenty minutes to find you?”
“Twenty minutes is like 900 ticks, right?” Pidge stirred the goo with their spoon.
“Well, I’m still not sure about the exact measurement of your Earth minutes,” Coran swept into the room with two more plates. “But it has been approximately 912 ticks since Shiro asked Keith to look for Lance.”
Pidge smirked, “Fuck yes. Still the master of math even in space.”
“Language, Pidge.” Shiro ate as calmly as ever, the goo spread around his plate evenly.
“Shiro, I can totally say the word fuck if I want to.” With a stubborn glint in her eye, Pidge shoveled a spoonful of goo into her mouth.
Shiro blinked. “I mean, I was talking about the M-A-T-H word, but I suppose you can’t say fuck either.” Pidge nearly choked on her goo trying to contain her laughter.
“Alright, settle down Paladins.” Despite Coran trying to look stern, his mustache twitched in clear amusement. “And Lance, please don’t feed half of your food to the mice. You need to eat everything on that plate.”
“Aw, Coran,” Lance dropped into his designated seat, Keith taking his place on the chair to Lance's right. “I have a delicate stomach and can only eat so much. Besides, the mice love it!”
“Paladins need to be completely healthy and that means eating all of the space goo on their plates!” Coran waved a spoon in Lance’s face. “I will be watching, don’t think I am not!” Lance pouted, his brow furrowing deeper as the plate was pushed in front of him. Beside him, Keith had already started eating; he had been training for hours and his stomach was set on reminding him to refuel if he wanted to keep moving.
“But don’t we have anything other than space goop to eat? I would kill for a bowl of cereal right now.” Despite Coran’s squinty glare, Lance fiddled with the spoon instead of using it to spoon the food in his mouth. Keith kicked him under the table. “Ow! Que demonios, gilipollas?”
Keith knew maybe three phases in Spanish, all of which were either about numbers or shrieks of admonishments; none of the words Lance used were recognizable. Nonetheless, he could guess.
“Quit wasting time and eat the food.” Honestly, food was food. What did it matter that it was green goo or rice and beans?
“Nah, Lance is right.” Hunk sighed. “I miss having actual solid food to munch on. Like chips or carrots with peanut butter.”
Pidge perked up. “Peanut butter? Where’s the peanut butter? Give it to me.” Her hands were outstretched towards Hunk, fingers making little grabbing motions.
“Sadly, no peanut butter, whatever that is, on this ship!” Coran pulled his moustache. “However, we may be landing on a planet with some vegetation if you blokes and ladies want to scavenge for food that’ll perish within the week.”
“Oh my god, yes.” Hunk’s eyes brightened. “Can you imagine the things we could make with edible alien food?”
“Empanadas!” Lance shouted.
“Malasadas.” Hunk looked ecstatic. Not for the first time, Keith wondered at how weird the other Paladins were.
“Bunuelo!”
“Snicker doodle cookies!” Pidge chimed in.
“Edamane sounds delicious to snack on right now.” Shiro sighed.
“Now, now Paladins. We all want some food that isn’t goo, I know. But we won’t be landing on that planet for some time, so please settle down.” As was the norm, Allura was the last to arrive at the dinner table, changed from her flight suit to an Altean dress and hair let loose.
“Apologies, princess.” Keith wasn’t surprised that Shiro was the first to offer condolences to the Princess of Altea, who naturally fell into the role of the group's commander. He had always been that way for as long as Keith had known him. Everyone around the table muttered their apologies, Pidge and Lance the softest. Keith knew they hated how Allura kept them from reminiscing about Earth to keep them focused on the goal of defeating the Galra.
“Hey Coran! Before I forget,” Lance made a face at the bite of goo he swallowed. “What’s Okumushu mean?”
“Okumushu?” Coran leaned back in his chair and hummed. “Okumushu, Okumushu. I know I’ve heard that word before.”
“That’s okay,” Lance shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll turn up so-“
“Did you say Okumushu?” Allura interrupted, eyes wide. Her pronunciation of the word held more emphasis on constants than Lance’s attempt, not that it mattered to Keith; it all sounded like mumbled letters either way to him.
Lance blinked at the princess before breaking out in a grin. “Why, yes, princess. You can educate me anytime about the – Ow!” Hunk smiled sheepishly at Lance as he lowered his hand away from the Blue Paladin’s head.
“Thank you, Hunk.” Allura shot a smile at the Yellow Paladin. “The Okumushu are legend among the Alteans, my father especially loved them. He would always tell me tales about them before bedtime when I was younger.”
“Ah! I remember those tales. The species that founded the major governments for the known galaxy ages past. Spectacular warriors and magicians, they were. The very first Paladins too.” Coran added as an afterthought.
“They were the first Paladins?” Keith hadn’t thought much of where Voltron had come from or when it began as the defender of the universe. But if Allura and Coran knew about the original Paladins, then maybe the team could learn more about the Lions and what it actually meant to be a Paladin. Quiet whispers resonated in the back of his mind, saying that he had only scratched the surface flying Red these past few months.
Allura nodded excitedly, noticing how all the Paladins seem to grow more interested in the subject. “Yes! If I remember correctly, they built the Lions to traverse the galaxy before they all vanished. It was my father who figured all the Lions could form together 10,000 years ago. Before that they had been in separate quadrants of space, each a protector of their area.”
“Why did your father decide to bring the Lions all together if they were literally light years apart?” Why did Lance look apprehensive as he spoke? There was a tingle of excitement curling in Keith’s insides; he wanted to know everything about this species.
“I’m… not sure.” Allura looked at Coran. “Regardless, it was an excellent decision, otherwise the Galra would have taken over everything by now.”
“Not true.” Pidge tapped the side of her face. “Zarkon has been expanding his empire for the last 10,000 years. We’ve only been piloting the Lions and fighting the Galra for a few short months, I highly doubt just with the seven of us managed to stop them at all.”
Keith sighed. “At the very least, we’ve managed to divert their attention away from the bits of the universe they haven’t touched yet.”
“Wow, guys. Way to bring to optimism down to the ground floor.” Hunk sighed. “Besides, if these Okumushu are real, they sound awesome. Where did you even hear the name, buddy?”
“I found some old data files in one of the back rooms.” The mice were chittering around Lance, waiting for the human to hold out his spoon full of goo. Keith didn’t say a word when Lance obliged, letting the mice scurry around his plate to lick off the spoon. Lance was just lucky Coran hadn’t noticed yet. Or maybe he had, but wasn’t saying anything? Which was weird; why bring it up if he wasn’t actually going to do anything about it? “Don’t you guys have a handy dictionary translator around so I don’t have to keep bugging you about these random words?”
“What is a dictionary?” Allura and Coran both asked at the same time.
“Does anyone even use a dictionary anymore?” Shiro wondered out loud.
The table erupted into a flurry of activity, as Pidge explained to the two non-humans the function of a dictionary – “Collection of the definition of all the words in the language in one book. Also good for hitting older brothers in the face with.” – and Hunk and Shiro groaned at Lance swooning in his chair, one hand dramatically clutching his chest as he moaned about Shiro’s betrayal for not understanding the wonders of the dictionary. Keith ignored them all to eat his space goo dinner. These people were as ridiculous as some of those old Korean dramas his foster family used to watch when he was very young.
“Ah, something like a word bank then!” Coran said excitedly. “The program used back in the day may still be running, although I imagine that it would be 10,000 years out of date.”
Lance righted himself in the chair, subtly feeding another spoonful of goo to the mice. “That would be great to have, thanks Coran!”
“Think nothing of it, Paladin.” Coran was always so animated; Keith couldn’t help but feel comforted by it. He was positive the rest of the paladins, and maybe even Allura felt the same way.
Keith must have blanked out of the conversations happening around him, because the next thing he was aware of was a sharp sting in his shinbone. Keith hissed, leaning over the side of his chair to rub the skin where he was sure to get a bruise.
“What the hell, Lance?” No one else but Lance would have kicked him; if only because Lance was the closest to him and the others would need to reach around the Blue Paladin to touch him.
“What?” Lance had the gall to blink innocently at him, although the grin he wasn’t able to completely mask gave Keith ample reason to scowl at him. “Allura asked a question and you were completely spaced out, man.”
“That doesn’t mean you needed to kick me!”
“Uh, yeah I think it does.” Lance raised his hands. “Busy eating here, Keith. Can’t use these perfectly manicured fingers to shake you when I’m eating.”
“You’re feeding most of your food to the mice!” Keith accused, pointing at the mice who were now curled up sleeping next to Lance’s plate. Lance’s grin faltered a bit; Keith knew without a doubt he was trying to refrain from sneaking a glance at Coran. The Altean was highly vocal about Lance eating a full plate of food, no matter whether or not it had been too much. When the other Paladins found they had far too much goo on their plate, they would sneakily pass it on to Keith – who was a food garbage machine according to Shiro – instead of the more conspicuous method of feeding to the mice. That was strictly a Lance method.
“I ate most of my food, thank you very much Keith.” Lance sniffed. “Which you would have known if you were paying attention.” Eyes wide in disbelief – how could anyone believe that? – Keith looked incredulously at Coran, who was squinting at Lance with a steaming teacup in his hands. Lance shrank back in his seat, his grin faltering just a bit more, now that he could guess Coran would come after him at a later time.
“Boys, if you would?” Allura’s voice was strained with forced patience.
“Sorry.” Everyone at the table was far too used to these outbursts between the Red and Blue Paladins. When they had first arrived at the Castle of Lions and Lance and Keith fought at the dinner table, Keith had felt a pang of embarrassment from Allura’s admonishment. Now, it was normal and it was almost comforting having the same routine day after day.
“Now that we’ve all calmed down…” Allura took a sip of her own drink, “what are your plans after dinner? I know Pidge is going back to her laboratory instead of actually sleeping at a decent time, -“
“I sleep exactly how much I need to, Princess.” Pidge interrupted. “Besides my experiments are helping us learn a lot more about the Galra, which is something we need!”
“And Shiro has said he’ll be going to the library and then checking on Pidge in a few tocks – “
“I don’t need a babysitter!”
“I’m not saying you do, but Paladins should be getting a healthy amount of rest!” Allura glared at Pidge from her seat.
Keith rolled his eyes as Allura and Pidge went off arguing with one another about Pidge’s habits. Their fights were as common as the arguments between Keith and Lance; usually Allura trying to get Pidge to sleep earlier and the green paladin arguing that she worked best in the dead of night.
“I’m taking Hunk to see the old data files I found about the Okumushu.” Lance said to Keith. “He’s interested to see if there’s more data files on them. Want to come with?” Keith considered it. He had been planning on returning back to the training room to go a few more rounds with the bot before heading to bed. From the corner of his eye, Keith saw Shiro nodding at him, gesturing at him to go with the other two boys.
“I guess?” Keith shrugged.
“Great!” Lance clapped his hands together. “Then let’s get going now, seeing how dinner is done, and I still want to get my eight hours of beauty sleep every night.”
“Don’t lie, Lance.” Hunk laughed. “You just want to escape before Coran can track you down.”
“Hunk, my best buddy in the entire world, well universe, please hush that lovely face of yours and let’s get going.”
“Keith, you sure you want to tag along?” Hunk slung an arm around Keith’s shoulders. “It’s going to be a lot of staring at electronic screens and headphones blocking any conversation.”
Keith shrugged, careful to keep Hunk’s arm lodged around him. It brought a sense of comfort he couldn’t really explain, but Keith knew it was pleasant. “A lot of writing directly on desks, you mean?”
“Writing on – who’s been writing on desks?” Keith nodded towards Lance and Hunk rushed forward, his momentum causing his arm to move upwards to Keith's neck, to drag Keith along for the ride.
“Hunk!” Lance screeched and Keith wheezed as Hunk tackled Lance, Keith falling into a tangle of arms and legs.
“Bad, Lance! No writing on furniture, how many times do I need to noogie you into remembering?” Hunk used his free hand to rub against Lance’s hair; Keith couldn’t see very well with his face pressed into Hunk’s shoulder, but he could hear Lance swatting at Hunk with his arms and cursing at him in Spanish. Keith tapped Hunk’s back, hoping he would get the message and let him go.
“Alright, alright! No more writing on desks, got it Hunk!” A pause before, “Dude, you better let Keith breathe, I think he’s about to pass out.”
“Oh shit! Sorry, man.” Hunk immediately removed his arm and Keith shook his head. “Didn’t realize I was still holding on to you.” Hunk said sheepishly.
“It’s okay.” Keith rotated his neck, enjoying the cracks his vertebrae made as he completed a full circle. “You’re really strong; we should spar sometime.”
“Are you serious right now?” Lance muttered from under Hunk’s hand, which had moved down to cover his face. “Do you think of anything but training, Mullet-brains?”
Keith pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand for Hunk to pull himself up. Lance could pick himself up without his help.
“Sometimes I think about knives.” He stated dryly.
“Dios mío,” Lance muttered as he jumped up. “Por favor, alguien ayuda a este niño.”
“I don’t need any help.” Hunk laughed as Lance sputtered. Keith crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“When were you going to tell me you knew Spanish?” Lance demanded as he started down the hallway.
“I don’t really, just a few phrases and words.” Keith admitted. “My last foster mom was very fond of that phrase with me. Especially since I wouldn’t stop jumping from high places and giving her pseudo heart attacks.”
Lance cackled in glee. “Flying Keith: star of the home circus! Oh, I bet that was glorious!”
“I don’t see why you’re laughing so much, Lance.” Hunk waggled his eyebrows as the paladins turned a corner, only a few feet away from the room where Keith found Lance in before dinner. “If I remember the stories in our bunks well, you did the same –“
“Shhhhhhhh, Hunk. Those are words spoken between brothers, not shared outside of our dorms!” Lance shoved his finger in front of Hunk’s lips. Keith couldn’t help but grin at the antics. This familiarity and joking was something he had always vaguely seen in other kids growing up; it was nice to be a part of it.
“Keith is our bro now, bro.” Hunk pushed Lance’s finger away. “Secrets are for malihini.”
“Quiznak you and your loving personality.” Lance pouted and pushed open the door in front of him. Nothing had changed in the hour Keith had last been in here. Lance’s headphones and pencil were still on the desk – Keith could see the faint writing of Lance’s scribbles – in front of large terminal with the program still running.
“You got the portable screen, Hunk?” Lance strolled over to the desk, cracking his knuckles.
Hunk held up the monitor with a hum of agreement. Lance clicked a few buttons on the terminal, sending what data files were available to the smaller screen for Hunk to read. Lance beckoned Keith over to the larger desk after tossing the headphones to Hunk.
“We can listen to audio files on speaker.” Lance explained, pushing Keith on the chair and jumping onto the table. “And since Hunk is mean and won’t let me write on the table,” Lance shot a glare to Hunk, who responded with a wink before placing the headphones over his ears to listen to music. “I got some napkins to write on.”
“I don’t mind writing on a datapad.” Keith pointed out. “If you want, I’ll type up what you wrote on the desk to the datapad so you won’t forget about it.”
Lance looked surprised. “You will? Thanks, man. I was going to type it all up later…but thanks.” Keith said nothing, just turned away to hide the warmth he felt in his cheeks to pull out the datapad he kept in one of his packs.
Keith had always been able to tune out the surrounding noises when busy with a task. Writing down Lance’s notes on the desk was the same; he was only mildly aware of the voices coming out of the speakers. Hunk was off in his own world, the music he was listening through the headphones blocking out all extra noise that would distract him from the data files he was translating.
Lance was entrapped by the audio, hands quickly writing out what he had heard, a few lines at a time, crossing out words here and there as he rewound the audio to listen again. Just like the first few audio files he had listened to, the subject discussed by the voices intrigued him.
Lance would need to thank Blue again for suggesting this pass time.
“This is the first day of recording this journal.” A female voice this time.
“It’s been so long since I’ve kept a journal, at least 36,000 years. Well, 36,000 rotations around a dead sun that no longer exists.”
Silence for ten ticks before a heavy sigh.
“Some days I think it may have been better if I stayed behind and perished with the rest. Maybe I could have made those music boxes I always liked before the Okumushu destroyed Elphegrot. I could have left Elagar to guard the seals herself.”
Another sigh.
“No matter. By the time I record something new, we will have already arrived on Altea. Another monarch wanting the Lions for their own use.”
The transmission ended there. Lance frowned at his notes on the napkin, the Altean alphabet rapidly written out as he caught the words. Next to him, Keith was still busy typing the notes on the desk and across the room Hunk was peering at the screen, a frown on his face. Lance clicked on the next journal entry audio file.
“Altea is as boring as I remember. The only fun is the downpour of flaming rocks that comes every season to scorch the soil to prepare for the new crops. I now have my own room with a sophisticated terminal to store all the data I have.”
It was the same voice as last time. Lance wondered who they were, especially since it sounded like they assumed the original purpose of the Lions wasn’t to defend the universe.
Lance knew deep down that it couldn’t have been the case back when Allura first explained Voltron to the group. Voltron was a weapon of mass destruction, and the thrill Lance got from flying Blue through space didn’t hide the fact that she was a mechanical robot with enough firepower to destroy a town. He didn’t know if the others felt the same way, so he never brought it up to them. Only to Blue who hesitantly directed him to specific audio files located in the databanks of the castle terminals for more information.
“I do not believe we shall be leaving Altea for some time. Elagar has found a new toy to play with. Alfor the King of Altea and the pilot of the Yellow Lion. I do not like him."
Something smashed to the ground.
“What has gotten into her? Bring all the Lions to one location? Preposterous.”
“Haggar, what are you doing?”
A door slams as someone new enters the audio.
“Elagar. I see you have time to speak with me now.”
“What can I say? I've been busy. Organizing all the Lions to be on one planet is rather tiring work.”
“So you decide to barge into my chambers to continue regaling me with a plan that I continue to advise you is terrible. How considerate.”
The footsteps echo loudly through the audio file.
“Oh, my darling Haggar. You are still my favorite younger sister, have no fear. I’ve just found someone new, is all.”
“I have had cycles upon cycles to spend with you. My concern is of the Lions, seeing as we have lived immortal lives thus far to make sure the Okumushu are never released.”
“Yes, but I have had a thought. Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, but why must we continue monitoring the Lions? Let the Okumushu be free, it’s been enough time.”
“Sister, you know why we can’t. They want the destruction of all life, just as their dimension was destroyed.”
“Precisely.” A cold laugh rang out. “Haggar, who cares any longer? I’ve spoken to Alfor and he agrees. Let there be a new galaxy. Let the disease the Okumushu carry spread to all corners and sow the seeds of destruction. Levia already speaks to Alfor and the words they weave is glorious!”
“I cannot. I chose to stay with you as a Druid to keep watch, I will not turn my back on my duty.”
A gasp as something hard hit the first voice, Haggar, and then a crash. Static buzzed in the background.
“You are too set in your duty, Haggar, and it has made you blind. Preservation has done nothing but waste time. The Okumushu were right when –“
Static covered anything else Lance could have heard.
“What was that?” Keith was staring at the screen in shock, his face pale. Lance didn’t feel much better.
“I got most of the translation down, if you didn’t catch all of it.” Lance slid over the napkin he had been jotting his notes down on, the Alteans symbols shaky and some areas ripped where his pencil had pressed down too hard.
“So it did say Haggar.” Keith’s eyes were wide, hands curling in and out of a fist as he looked at the napkin. “I wasn’t sure, thought I might have been hearing it wrong… but they also said Druid…”
“Do you know something about it? I know the Druids are now working for Zarkon, but they couldn’t have always been evil.” Still, it had not been a fun transmission to listen to.
“Haggar was the name of the Druid who experimented on Shiro.” Keith sounded pained. “When he’s having one of his flashbacks, he’ll sometimes shout out their name. And he sounds so scared.”
“Hey, hey. It’s probably not the same Haggar druid person. It sounds like that Elagar lady hit her pretty hard, even though they're sisters.” Lance took a deep breath.
Being from a big family, he knew that sometimes getting hurt was inevitable; there was always a brother or sister or parent who would cause you pain. But that crash at the end… It sounded bad. Zarkon had been alive for 10,000 years, and this Haggar even said she was around for much longer than that. It wasn’t a stretch to think that this Elagar was still alive and kicking. If they had no qualms with hurting their own family in order to bring about the destruction of the galaxy – assuming all of that was true – then they were someone Lance very much did not want to meet.
“Anyways. What do you think about the Lions part? That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.” Maybe Lance should have actually thought before letting Keith see his doubts about the integrity of Voltron. Second-guessing a mission was the Galaxy Garrison's big no-no on soldier conduct, and Lance knew Keith lived by the mission code.
Keith frowned. “I read the notes for the earlier audio you translated, with the two male sounding aliens? It’s definitely matching up with what you just wrote with Haggar and Elagar.”
Slowly, one of his hands moved to hold his chin up. It seemed thinking about something else eased his fear for Shiro and of his old tormentors. “And it seems there’s at least two accounts so far that these Okumushu aren’t regarded highly. But they were the first Paladins? So if they had been so terrible, wouldn’t they have destroyed the Lions and Paladin concept all together?”
“That would be logical, wouldn’t it?” Lance stretched out on the table, rolling onto his stomach. “I mean, Allura and Coran seem to think the Okumushu are basically heroes or Gods, not harbingers of disease and destruction.”
“And the Druids were there to keep them in the Lions? Also strange.” If Keith could scowl any more in confusion, his frown would fall off his face. Lance refrained from laughing at the thought.
“Hunk!” He called. A third opinion may put things in perspective. “Huuuuuunk!” The headphones were top notch at blocking out all sound; Hunk didn’t even react. Lance balled up an unused napkin and threw it at Hunk’s head. With a sigh, Hunk looked up and removed the headphones.
“Find anything interesting? I've got some files on the Okumushu, not a lot but a few. And the things they’ve done, wow.” Hunk whistled.
“Could use your magic eyes, buddy.” Lance snagged Keith’s datapad and the napkin and held them out to Hunk. “I can play the audio files while you read if you want.”
“Sure thing, Lance.” Hunk said distractedly, already skimming through the notes. “Are you sure you translated these right?”
“Am I – of course I’m sure!” Lance sounded offended. “I’ve been working on my translating skills for weeks now. I’ve been conversing with Coran whenever I can and asking him about the words I don’t know. How could you even question that, Hunk?”
“I’m just asking because whatever these guys are saying is a direct contrast to the documents I just read.” Hunk shook his head. “Just play the audio, let’s see if it matches up.”
Lance couldn’t hide his hurt expression fast enough. It was rational to question a translation, how often had Lance done the same with his siblings back home when learning English? And Lance had just started learning a few weeks ago, and though he had always been good with languages on Earth, and the grammatical structure of the Altean language was similar to the Westernized Latin based languages from Earth, he could still have made mistakes in the translations.
But still, it hurt to have Hunk doubt his skills. Doubt this one skill Lance knew he had and didn’t boast about to hide his insecurities. He opened the audio files.
Both Hunk and Keith listened intently, Keith’s eyes closed as he listened to the male voices discussing the Lions.
“Whatever he’s saying, it’s wrong.” Hunk announced. “Again, everything I just read literally clashes with that negative nonsense he’s spouting.”
“Could you back that up again?” Keith asked, his eyes still closed. “There’s something familiar about that voice.” Lance obliged, starting the audio over.
“Hang on, that’s Zarkon’s voice!” Keith stood up from his seat, shoulders shaking as he stared at the monitor. “"We will fight until we win or we die," that’s a line one of the Galra used with Pidge when they tried to take over the Castle.”
“Are you sure?”
“You believed something Zarkon had said?” Hunk exclaimed. “You know, the big bad we’re trying to take down? That Zarkon?”
“I didn’t know it was him speaking!” Lance cried. “Besides, this is from 10,000 years ago, and he used to be the Black Paladin. Just because he’s evil now doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth.”
“That’s definitely Zarkon. I can’t believe it took me so long to recognize the voice.” Keith hissed.
“But then, who is he talking to?” Lance jumped off the table.
“One of the other Paladins? Who really cares. How could you believe such negative things about the Okumushu regardless?”
“Dude, two hours ago, neither of us knew anything about the Okumushu. Why are you already in love with them?” Worry laced Lance’s tone.
Hunk shrugged. “It’s like a little voice in my head telling me to trust them. Sort of like with the Lions, except with words instead of images and feelings.” He brought over the mini-screen, showing Lance and Keith the documents he had been reading. “These weren’t too hard to find, it was right on what would be the Earth equivalent of the data server without any firewalls.”
Lance grabbed the datapad, leaning towards Keith so he could read the text as well. “The Oldest demanded to learn the runes of the Druids, the most knowledgeable of all the stars,” he read out loud. “denied by his show of force and might, the Oldest hung himself from the lowest branch of the Tree Above the Well That Knows All for 13 cycles, staring into it’s depths so intensely that his right eye never left the Well. With the knowledge at his disposal, the Oldest learned the secrets of the Past and Future, of events that would yet pass. All others bowed at the Radiance of the Oldest for this dedication to pursue the Truth and bless the rest of the worlds with his words. What the actual quiznak is this?”
“One of the stories of the Okumushu.” Hunk replied. “Don’t they sound impressive?”
“Are you sure this is about the Okumushu?” Keith grabbed the datapad from Lance. “I don’t see that word anywhere in these texts.”
“Not to mention that this story sounds vaguely familiar.” Lance’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to remember.
“Now you’re just nitpicking.” Hunk sniffed. “Come on, Lance. Just admit the Okumushu should be back in the universe, imagine how helpful they would be against the Galra!”
“Well, I mean…. They sound impressive?” Keith was right. There was no mention of the Okumushu anywhere in the text, just that Oldest character. Which could have been a name for the Okumushu in an earlier text that Hunk read and he forgot to mention it?
Something was up, that much was clear.
“Snorri Sturluson!” Keith shot up, nearly stumbling with his speed.
Hunk and Lance glanced at each other before staring at Keith with matching confused stares. “Who?”
“Snorri Sturluson?” Keith looked at them both. “The dude who wrote the Prose Edda? And the Younger Edda? The Norse mythology books back in the – what was it? – 12th century, I think. How have you not heard of him?”
“12th century? Keith, that was like,” Lance wiggled his fingers up and down to help with the math. “Over a thousand years ago? How do you know this shit?”
“Assuming that we’re still following a relatively close time pattern as Earth.” Hunk said quietly.
“Yeah, assuming a – yeah that.” Lance sighed. As much as he loved Hunk, the yellow paladin’s ability to give out practical and reasonable points was sometimes not needed, nor wanted. Lance didn’t want to think of how maybe Earth was spinning faster as they were traveling farther and farther away. If – when – Lance ever got a chance to go back, would his family still be there? Would Varadero Beach still look the same?
“Um… the History Channel?” Keith said after a long awkward pause. “They would put on documentaries about the end of the world, Ragnarok from Norse Mythology was a regular and always mentioned the guy. So I read the books.”
Lance was grateful to Keith for breaking him out of his thoughts. “The History Channel has documentaries? I thought that was all conspiracy theories filmed with actors?”
Keith nodded. “Yeah, documentaries. I mean, they were right about the aliens, weren’t they?”
Lance gaped as his mind struggled to make a comeback. Because Keith was right? The History Channel, which he had only watched a few times here and there when one of his family members had it playing in the living room, had been right about the aliens. Or at the very least, the existence of aliens. He was still doubtful about the aliens having a hand in the “similar” pyramids across South America and Africa.
“He’s got you there, Lance.” Hunk crowed.
“Thanks for your undying support, buddy.” What else could Lance say? Comebacks were so difficult to come up with these days.
“Not a problem.” Hunk slapped a hand on Lance’s shoulders. “But back to Snorri, what about him sounded familiar Keith?”
To his credit, Keith dropped the smug grin expressed at Lance’s expense. Lance was back to only considering putting glitter in his mullet. “Not him personally, but one of his stories.” Keith frowned. “It was one with Odin, the Allfather of all the Norse Pantheon and how he wanted to learn the runes of the other race…I can’t remember what they were though.”
“The Vanir?” Lance jutted in. “That was the myth of the Well of Mimir, right?” Now it was Lance’s turn to be gawked at.
“What?” Lance said defensively. “Just cause I hated reading text books, doesn’t mean I hate reading. Honestly guys, I read tons of myths from all over as a kid. Do you know how long I would have to wait for the Space Mag to send a new issue?”
“But you didn’t know who Snorri Sturluson was.”
“Oh, shut it Keith. I know stories not the people who wrote it.”
“…Okay?”
“Ahem.” Hunk coughed. “Still not sure how this tale of the Okumushu is anything like an old Earth myth. Anyone want to cue the engineer in?”
“Well, in the myth,” Keith explained, “Odin was the figure who hung himself on the tree to learn the runes, aka the alphabet from this other race, the Vanir.”
“Which were like elves, but not Tolkien elves, but also sort of like Tolkien elves.” Lance interjected.
“Yes, thank you Lance. Anyways, the Well of Mimir or the Well of Knowledge was like this well that had a severed head in it or something that had access to all knowledge in the realms. So Odin hung himself in the tree for nine days, sacrificed his eye to the Well so he could be omniscient, and learned the alphabet.” Keith shrugged. “Basically, that story you showed us is the almost exactly the same as the one from Earth over a thousand years ago.”
“Huh. Weird.” Hunk looked doubtful. “Maybe this group came to Earth and influenced a story?”
“How though?” All three of them were facing each other/one another, Keith to Lance’s right and Hunk to his left, the screens and data tablets put aside as they collaborated. “According to the scarce data we have on the Okumushu, they vanished tens of thousands years ago. Any written stories on Earth began earliest five thousand years ago.”
“Guys, maybe we should ask Coran?” Keith said hesitantly. “He may know more?”
“Ugh,” Lance threw his hands up in the air. “It’s times like these when I wish I had a Well of Mimir so I could know everything.”
“That’s a lot of things you don’t know, you sure there’s enough room in that well?” Keith teased.
“Not if I throw you in it first! Then maybe you would learn how much you don’t know.”
“Okay seriously, you guys really need to –“ Alarms rang out in the hallways and rooms, horns blasting loud enough to wake the entire castle if it were full of people.
“Paladins! I need you at your Lions immediately! The Galra have found us! I repeat, the Galra have found us! Defensive maneuvers are to be utilized as soon as you get in your hangars!”
“Princess! It’s an entire fleet with a Battle Cruiser! We’ll need to move out of range as quickly as possible!” They could hear Coran shouting in the background.
The Paladins were still only for a moment, just to process the message, before they all sprung into movement at once.
The worst part about being a Paladin – for Lance at any rate – was that any downtime they tried to have would usually be ruined. The Galra really just had the worst timing.