Until I Get There (Part One)
Title: Until I Get There
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defenders
Pairing: Keith/Shiro
Summary: The day after Keith's father died, a strange group of aliens came to collect him to take him to his mother. This is a look at how things might have happened, if Keith had been raised by the Blade of Marmora.
The day started like any other, but Keith would never forget it. He would never forget the heat of flame or the smell of smoke that clogged his throat and that would forever rest on the back of his tongue. He would never forget the news that his father had been called out to a fire while Keith had visited the fire station to join them for lunch, or that he had run, his 8-year-old legs too short and too weak to get him there quick enough.
Flames danced higher into the sky as the building let out a haunted groan, and then part of the roof collapsed in on itself. Keith screamed, and in an outpouring of strength he wasn’t known for, he pushed past the police officer who was holding him back.
He rushed into the house and managed to make it through the front door. Heat seared his clothes, and he could smell the stench of singed hair even if the flame had yet to touch him. He raised one arm up to cover his eyes as best he could as he shouted, “Dad!”
He could barely keep his eyes open for all the debris in the air and the heat that sucked the water from his eyes, but he pressed on. He had to find his Dad. He was all he had in this world and Keith would never give up on him. He couldn’t.
“Dad! Please!”
There was another loud groan, and Keith looked up in time to see the ceiling beam above him snap. He would have been crushed, except strong arms pulled him back and away.
“We can’t stay in here!” A voice screamed over the fire. Keith didn’t know who it was, but he felt fire sear into his back, and he screamed as flames raged everywhere. Arms wrapped around him, picked him up and carried him out, even as Keith fought to free himself. The pain in his back was unbearable and it hindered his desperate attempts to flee back towards the burning building where his father was.
He was on the grass then, surrounded by onlookers and the fire and police force his father had worked with. The young man who carried him dropped to his knees with Keith still held in his iron grip. Keith sat, straddling the man’s thighs, his arms reaching past as if he could get back to his father.
“Dad!” Keith screamed with the last of his breath.
“I’m so sorry,” the young man said as he held on.
Keith screamed wordlessly until he was hoarse, but the young man didn’t let go. He held tight, as if he knew Keith would rather plummet into the fire, to certain death, than be without his father. And he was right. Keith didn’t know what else to do, how else to love.
When he was too exhausted to fight, he realized medical personnel were circling them, trying to pry Keith from the young man’s arms to attend to both their injuries. Keith stopped struggling and he felt the arms around him loosen, but there was a stiffness to the body under him that made him think he would stop Keith if he ran for the house again.
A large crash startled them both, and Keith was turned slightly as the young man twisted to look at the house. They both watched as it collapsed completely in on itself.
Keith dropped his forehead to the young man’s shoulder, and he didn’t care who saw him cry. He didn’t care what happened next. Everything in his life had just been taken from him. At least for a moment, there was the comfort of someone who wasn’t afraid to hold onto the wild boy Keith had always been known as.
Strong arms held him and stroked his hair. A litany of comfort was offered softly into his ear until Keith was too exhausted to even shed tears.
When he sat back, he realized the young man wasn’t even a man. A Garrison student by the uniform he wore, but still a teen. He looked at Keith with sympathetic gray eyes and the kind of understanding that came of shared experience. Whoever he was, he’d lost before too.
“Keith, let me check you out,” one of the EMTs from his Dad’s firehouse said softly as he knelt down beside them.
Keith looked at the young man and realized he was still sitting on him. He stood up and waited as the young man got to his feet and followed him over to the ambulance. Keith sat on the end of the truck and let them run tests, and the young man stayed at his side. When they tried to load him into the ambulance, Keith grabbed the Garrison student by the hand.
“Go,” the young man said with a gravelly voice but a kind smile. “What’s your name?”
“Keith Kogane,” he said, his voice a hoarse rasp to what he normally sounded like.
“Go to the hospital and let them check you out.” The teen turned serious then and he took both of Keith’s hands in his own. “I’ll come find you.”
Keith swallowed against the lump in his throat because he was cried out and he shouldn’t have any more tears left, but somehow, leaving this other man seemed to be too much.
“Keith, we need to check him out too,” the EMT reminded him.
Keith saw then, the ash smears on his face and the uniform that was burnt in places. He thought of the voice too rough for a man his age - a boy, really. He thought of the fire on his back that no longer seared, but ached seemingly all the way to his heart and through his lungs.
“You’ll find me.”
“I will,” he said with a solemness that Keith believed.
Keith let go of his hands, but before he could move the young man pulled him into his embrace and pressed a kiss to his temple. “I will find you, Keith Kogane. Take care until I get there.”
The teen was pulled away then by another EMT and Keith was bundled up and strapped into the back of the ambulance.
He never knew if the young man looked for him or not. When he woke the next morning, he was surrounded by aliens, all claiming to be his mother’s people, and he was taken on an adventure to the stars.
On long nights and through rough missions though, Keith often thought of strong arms, gray eyes, and the promising press of lips against his skin.
“I will find you, Keith Kogane,” he whispered to himself on those nights. “Take care until I get there.”
***
“What’s she like?” Keith asked. He stood with his back straight and his eyes forward, but Ulaz nudged him softly in the side and Keith relaxed a little.
“What would you like to know, Yurak?” Ulaz asked.
“Anything. Besides-“
“She’s a good warrior,” they said in unison.
Keith laughed, and Ulaz gave a small, half smile that was almost the same as a laugh from the older Blade. In the four years he’d been under Ulaz’s care, he’d only seen him laugh once, and Keith preferred not to remember the circumstances. He still refused to go into the third-tier training room, two years later.
“She’s very proud of you, Yurak. Just because she hasn’t been able to be here doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you, or that she doesn’t ask about you.”
“I just … I don’t want to disappoint her. I mean…” Keith shrugged as he looked down at himself. “Look at me.”
And that was really what had him so nervous. He’d never seen his mother. Well, he must have when he was a baby, but he didn’t remember her at all. His father never said much about her, just that she’d had no choice but to leave.
When Keith was taken away from Earth after his father died, he’d expected her to be waiting. After Kolivan brought him to the base though, Ulaz was there instead. He took care of Keith and train him in their ways while his mother was under deep cover against the Galra Empire.
Would she take one look at his human appearance and hate him? Would she walk away and decide he wasn’t Galra enough?
Ulaz and Kolivan wouldn’t make him leave the only home he had, but Keith wanted her acceptance. He’d worked so hard for it. He was only 12, but he was already a good fighter and Antok had promised to start training him with weapons, now that he wasn’t likely to trip over his own feet during maneuvers. He knew he could make her proud if she just gave him a chance.
“Are you ready for this, young Yurak?” Kolivan asked. He stepped through the bay doors behind them as a fighter ship was flying into the station. He put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and Keith nodded at the leader of the Blade of Marmora.
He was an important man, the most important in Keith’s mind with the way he was leading them to break the Galra’s hold over all the other races of the galaxy, but he always had time for Keith. He’d been like a father figure to him, almost as much as Ulaz.
“As ready as I can be,” Keith tried to be glib about it, but he was sure both the men could read his nervousness.
The fighter came into the bay and Keith was impressed by the smooth landing. He hadn’t been in one of those ships yet, but he was training to fly them someday. All his trainers said he could be one of the best pilots in the galaxy if he kept his training up. Keith intended to.
Kolivan gave him a smile as he let go of his shoulder and walked past him. The fighter door opened and a woman stepped out. Keith was still, frozen with emotion he couldn’t even name. He had pictures of her, but he never realized how beautiful she really was. Tall and strong, with a fierceness to her that he could see in the way she carried herself. She was ready for a fight, but there was none of the tension that showed she meant to start one.
Kolivan stepped up to Krolia and embraced her quickly as a crew began working on her fighter. Krolia stepped away, speaking with Kolivan but in just a moment her eyes began to search the hangar. A large smile crossed her face as her gaze locked in on Keith.
The few pictures Keith had were old training photos, and while she was an attractive Galra, she had looked hard and unyielding. When she smiled at him, everything changed.
Kolivan stepped away from her even though Keith knew they couldn’t possibly be done yet. Krolia didn’t seem to notice that she was dismissing the leader of their organization as she ran across the bay towards him. She fell to her knees in front of him, and before he could think to say anything, she pulled him into her arms.
He buried his face in her neck and nuzzled his nose against the base of the markings on her cheek. Of all the ways he’d imagined her reacting, this was never one of them.
“Keith,” she said softly as she pulled back and looked at him. Her eyes glanced over him and he tried to hold his head up, to puff out his chest and look bigger than he was. He’d been small even for a human. He hated that he was a runt among the Galra too.
“Keith,” she said again, this time cupping his face in her gigantic hand.
“Yurak,” he corrected. She tilted her head slightly as if asking for an explanation and he smiled. “Keith isn’t a very Galra sounding name. Dad used to tease that you were going to name me Yurak. I thought it was a joke until I came here.”
“The Blade can call you what they want,” she said as she pulled him close again. “You will always be my Keith. I love you so much. I’m so sorry I had to leave you. When I heard about your dad,” she paused, and Keith could see the pain in her eyes. “I wanted so much to come to you, but I was undercover. The best I could do was contact Kolivan and send him to get you, to make sure you weren’t alone.”
“I know,” Keith said with a smile as he stepped back. “Kolivan told me how he knew to come get me. Dad wasn’t a soldier like the members of the Blade, but he died protecting people from a fire.” It mattered to him that she knew. He had died a hero.
She smiled sadly. “There are many different battles to face in this universe, Keith. Your father was a soldier in a different war altogether, and as brave as any Blade I’ve ever met. Even if I hadn’t known and loved him, I would have known for how he raised you.”
Keith felt a lump in his throat, but he swallowed hard against it. He didn’t talk about his dad much. The Blade of Marmora was filled with kind, caring individuals, but they were soldiers. Sometimes loss was too close. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes, it had to be pushed aside to get to the next mission.
“Krolia.” Keith turned to look up at Kolivan as he stepped up beside them.
“We still need to finish the briefing,” Kolivan reminded her. “Once we’re done, I believe Yurak has been given the next two days off his training to spend time with you.”
“I could come to the briefing,” Keith offered. “I’ll stay quiet, out of the way. Then I could show Krolia our quarters.”
When he had moved in with the Blade, Krolia had lived in a small room with few personal items. Ulaz had moved Krolia’s things to two-person living quarters next to his own so that he could keep an eye on Keith and so that he would be able to live with his mother when she was on base.
Kolivan looked at Ulaz for a moment before the other Blade nodded his head slightly. Keith smiled because he knew then that Kolivan would allow it. Ulaz was his guardian, after all, and if he believed Keith could sit in on the meeting, Kolivan would trust in his opinion.
“Alright then. That makes sense, Yurak. I’m sure Krolia would appreciate the help finding her new quarters, especially after such a long flight.”
Krolia had watched the interaction between the two and Keith could see she was trying to put the pieces together. Who was in charge of her son, where was the authority, and who was responsible?
She smiled at him when she caught his eye again.
“Let’s get this over with then. I have other duties to attend to once we’re done,” Kolivan said.
Krolia followed him out the door and Ulaz smiled at Keith, who decided walking a step behind the two Blades with Ulaz was a better idea than trying to gain his mother’s attention just yet.
“I told you,” Ulaz whispered for Keith. “Nothing to worry about, Earth-Child.”
He smiled at the pet name but rolled his eyes and tried not to let on just how happy he was to have his mother with him.
***
“Keith, what is that?”
Keith stopped halfway into the pool as he looked back at his mother. He wasn’t sure what she was concerned about, but he could hear the worry in her voice as plain as he could see the marking on her face.
“What?” he asked.
It was a small stop on their mission, a few days before they had to meet a contact. Keith had heard about the Bathing Pools of Atswahana too often to pass up a chance to enjoy the warm waters. He didn’t know how good a swimmer his mother was, but she’d seemed pleased with the idea so she must at least be able to keep afloat.
“Your back,” she whispered the words and Keith realized that in the past three years she’d never see it. He always dressed in his Blade uniform or in casual clothes that covered the mark. He’d been teased too often when he was younger about the strangeness of the design on his skin.
“My soulmark?” he asked. “I don’t really know anything about it. The Blade said it was there when I joined them, but I didn’t realize I had it until a year later. I don’t know when I got it.”
“Do you know what language this is?” she asked.
Keith shrugged. His soulmark was a majestic lion’s head with an Earth flower below. Strange lettering trailed underneath it but no one had been able to decipher it or tell him anything about it. “No one knows.”
“It’s an earth language, not one I know but I recognize the letters. Japanese, I believe.”
Keith frowned. “But I’ve never been to Japan.”
“No, but apparently your soulmate has.”
“So, I didn’t have this when you were with us?” Keith asked.
They didn’t talk about her time on Earth often. They had little enough time together that they left their mutual grief alone. After their initial meeting, Kolivan had done his best to keep her at the base. After six months though, a mission had come up and he had needed to send her undercover again. Keith had been left to Ulaz and Kolivan’s care again. It had been a hard good-bye, but Keith had learned how to let her go, and their subsequent visits weren’t marked with the dramatics of that one exit.
“Not everyone gets a soulmark, Keith. Some races don’t. I wasn’t sure if you would,” she said softly as she came closer. He could see the question in her eyes, and he smiled.
“You can touch it,” he said.
She reached a hand out towards him and Keith felt warmed by her touch, as if the soulmark was connecting with another person who would love him no matter what.
“It’s beautiful. The flowers are the lotus flower. This mark is stunning, Keith.”
“So how do you know someone is your mate if you can’t see their matching mark?” Keith asked.
She smiled and she took his hand and pulled him down into the warm waters of the pool. The Bathing Pools of Atswahana were healing and just being in the water seemed to rejuvenate him. He felt a flush of contentment and well-being that was far deeper than any bath had any right to make him feel.
“You know,” Krolia remarked unhelpfully. Not that Keith planned to return to Earth. Ever.
“How did you know Dad-”
“I didn’t, at first. I admit, I missed the signs and thought it was attraction based on the situation. I was stranded on a planet full of humans, and he was the only person I had to talk to. It seemed pretty simple. But when he touched my mark, I felt it to the bone. I belonged with him. And he felt it too. His soul recognized mine in that moment.”
It was a romantic notion, one that Keith had no time to contemplate, but it was comforting to know his father had that sort of love in his life.
“You’re sure you don’t remember when this happened?” Krolia asked, pointing to his back.
“You’d think I’d remember something that painful happening to me,” he said.
“Yes, it is painful. And if you had it before you were eight … perhaps you got it after I left and you were too young to remember. I can’t believe your father wouldn’t have found your soulmate though.”
“Maybe he knew, but if he did, he took it to his grave,” Keith commented.
She frowned at him, but she always did when he spoke of his father’s death. The Galra were extremely dedicated to their soulmates. Ulaz had used the word protective, while Antok has whispered “obsessive” in Keith’s ear. Antok was another half-breed like Keith, but he’d never gotten a mark. He believed he wasn’t Galra enough. Keith was holding out on him meeting his mate and getting hit so hard by it that he never recovered. Then he could laugh at the bigger Galra who had always laughed at Keith’s mistakes, even while he helped him train with Ulaz.
“Don’t worry so much, Krolia,” Keith said. “If it’s meant to be then it will be, right? For now, let’s just enjoy the swim.”
Krolia’s smile was devilish. “Race you to the other side.” She took off before Keith knew she was going. It wasn’t quite like training, but he knew her well enough to know she was testing his abilities. At least this way was fun. He dove after her and started a game of water tag that only ended when they’d both gotten too hungry to stay in the water any longer.
On to Chapter Two
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defenders
Pairing: Keith/Shiro
Summary: The day after Keith's father died, a strange group of aliens came to collect him to take him to his mother. This is a look at how things might have happened, if Keith had been raised by the Blade of Marmora.
The day started like any other, but Keith would never forget it. He would never forget the heat of flame or the smell of smoke that clogged his throat and that would forever rest on the back of his tongue. He would never forget the news that his father had been called out to a fire while Keith had visited the fire station to join them for lunch, or that he had run, his 8-year-old legs too short and too weak to get him there quick enough.
Flames danced higher into the sky as the building let out a haunted groan, and then part of the roof collapsed in on itself. Keith screamed, and in an outpouring of strength he wasn’t known for, he pushed past the police officer who was holding him back.
He rushed into the house and managed to make it through the front door. Heat seared his clothes, and he could smell the stench of singed hair even if the flame had yet to touch him. He raised one arm up to cover his eyes as best he could as he shouted, “Dad!”
He could barely keep his eyes open for all the debris in the air and the heat that sucked the water from his eyes, but he pressed on. He had to find his Dad. He was all he had in this world and Keith would never give up on him. He couldn’t.
“Dad! Please!”
There was another loud groan, and Keith looked up in time to see the ceiling beam above him snap. He would have been crushed, except strong arms pulled him back and away.
“We can’t stay in here!” A voice screamed over the fire. Keith didn’t know who it was, but he felt fire sear into his back, and he screamed as flames raged everywhere. Arms wrapped around him, picked him up and carried him out, even as Keith fought to free himself. The pain in his back was unbearable and it hindered his desperate attempts to flee back towards the burning building where his father was.
He was on the grass then, surrounded by onlookers and the fire and police force his father had worked with. The young man who carried him dropped to his knees with Keith still held in his iron grip. Keith sat, straddling the man’s thighs, his arms reaching past as if he could get back to his father.
“Dad!” Keith screamed with the last of his breath.
“I’m so sorry,” the young man said as he held on.
Keith screamed wordlessly until he was hoarse, but the young man didn’t let go. He held tight, as if he knew Keith would rather plummet into the fire, to certain death, than be without his father. And he was right. Keith didn’t know what else to do, how else to love.
When he was too exhausted to fight, he realized medical personnel were circling them, trying to pry Keith from the young man’s arms to attend to both their injuries. Keith stopped struggling and he felt the arms around him loosen, but there was a stiffness to the body under him that made him think he would stop Keith if he ran for the house again.
A large crash startled them both, and Keith was turned slightly as the young man twisted to look at the house. They both watched as it collapsed completely in on itself.
Keith dropped his forehead to the young man’s shoulder, and he didn’t care who saw him cry. He didn’t care what happened next. Everything in his life had just been taken from him. At least for a moment, there was the comfort of someone who wasn’t afraid to hold onto the wild boy Keith had always been known as.
Strong arms held him and stroked his hair. A litany of comfort was offered softly into his ear until Keith was too exhausted to even shed tears.
When he sat back, he realized the young man wasn’t even a man. A Garrison student by the uniform he wore, but still a teen. He looked at Keith with sympathetic gray eyes and the kind of understanding that came of shared experience. Whoever he was, he’d lost before too.
“Keith, let me check you out,” one of the EMTs from his Dad’s firehouse said softly as he knelt down beside them.
Keith looked at the young man and realized he was still sitting on him. He stood up and waited as the young man got to his feet and followed him over to the ambulance. Keith sat on the end of the truck and let them run tests, and the young man stayed at his side. When they tried to load him into the ambulance, Keith grabbed the Garrison student by the hand.
“Go,” the young man said with a gravelly voice but a kind smile. “What’s your name?”
“Keith Kogane,” he said, his voice a hoarse rasp to what he normally sounded like.
“Go to the hospital and let them check you out.” The teen turned serious then and he took both of Keith’s hands in his own. “I’ll come find you.”
Keith swallowed against the lump in his throat because he was cried out and he shouldn’t have any more tears left, but somehow, leaving this other man seemed to be too much.
“Keith, we need to check him out too,” the EMT reminded him.
Keith saw then, the ash smears on his face and the uniform that was burnt in places. He thought of the voice too rough for a man his age - a boy, really. He thought of the fire on his back that no longer seared, but ached seemingly all the way to his heart and through his lungs.
“You’ll find me.”
“I will,” he said with a solemness that Keith believed.
Keith let go of his hands, but before he could move the young man pulled him into his embrace and pressed a kiss to his temple. “I will find you, Keith Kogane. Take care until I get there.”
The teen was pulled away then by another EMT and Keith was bundled up and strapped into the back of the ambulance.
He never knew if the young man looked for him or not. When he woke the next morning, he was surrounded by aliens, all claiming to be his mother’s people, and he was taken on an adventure to the stars.
On long nights and through rough missions though, Keith often thought of strong arms, gray eyes, and the promising press of lips against his skin.
“I will find you, Keith Kogane,” he whispered to himself on those nights. “Take care until I get there.”
***
“What’s she like?” Keith asked. He stood with his back straight and his eyes forward, but Ulaz nudged him softly in the side and Keith relaxed a little.
“What would you like to know, Yurak?” Ulaz asked.
“Anything. Besides-“
“She’s a good warrior,” they said in unison.
Keith laughed, and Ulaz gave a small, half smile that was almost the same as a laugh from the older Blade. In the four years he’d been under Ulaz’s care, he’d only seen him laugh once, and Keith preferred not to remember the circumstances. He still refused to go into the third-tier training room, two years later.
“She’s very proud of you, Yurak. Just because she hasn’t been able to be here doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you, or that she doesn’t ask about you.”
“I just … I don’t want to disappoint her. I mean…” Keith shrugged as he looked down at himself. “Look at me.”
And that was really what had him so nervous. He’d never seen his mother. Well, he must have when he was a baby, but he didn’t remember her at all. His father never said much about her, just that she’d had no choice but to leave.
When Keith was taken away from Earth after his father died, he’d expected her to be waiting. After Kolivan brought him to the base though, Ulaz was there instead. He took care of Keith and train him in their ways while his mother was under deep cover against the Galra Empire.
Would she take one look at his human appearance and hate him? Would she walk away and decide he wasn’t Galra enough?
Ulaz and Kolivan wouldn’t make him leave the only home he had, but Keith wanted her acceptance. He’d worked so hard for it. He was only 12, but he was already a good fighter and Antok had promised to start training him with weapons, now that he wasn’t likely to trip over his own feet during maneuvers. He knew he could make her proud if she just gave him a chance.
“Are you ready for this, young Yurak?” Kolivan asked. He stepped through the bay doors behind them as a fighter ship was flying into the station. He put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and Keith nodded at the leader of the Blade of Marmora.
He was an important man, the most important in Keith’s mind with the way he was leading them to break the Galra’s hold over all the other races of the galaxy, but he always had time for Keith. He’d been like a father figure to him, almost as much as Ulaz.
“As ready as I can be,” Keith tried to be glib about it, but he was sure both the men could read his nervousness.
The fighter came into the bay and Keith was impressed by the smooth landing. He hadn’t been in one of those ships yet, but he was training to fly them someday. All his trainers said he could be one of the best pilots in the galaxy if he kept his training up. Keith intended to.
Kolivan gave him a smile as he let go of his shoulder and walked past him. The fighter door opened and a woman stepped out. Keith was still, frozen with emotion he couldn’t even name. He had pictures of her, but he never realized how beautiful she really was. Tall and strong, with a fierceness to her that he could see in the way she carried herself. She was ready for a fight, but there was none of the tension that showed she meant to start one.
Kolivan stepped up to Krolia and embraced her quickly as a crew began working on her fighter. Krolia stepped away, speaking with Kolivan but in just a moment her eyes began to search the hangar. A large smile crossed her face as her gaze locked in on Keith.
The few pictures Keith had were old training photos, and while she was an attractive Galra, she had looked hard and unyielding. When she smiled at him, everything changed.
Kolivan stepped away from her even though Keith knew they couldn’t possibly be done yet. Krolia didn’t seem to notice that she was dismissing the leader of their organization as she ran across the bay towards him. She fell to her knees in front of him, and before he could think to say anything, she pulled him into her arms.
He buried his face in her neck and nuzzled his nose against the base of the markings on her cheek. Of all the ways he’d imagined her reacting, this was never one of them.
“Keith,” she said softly as she pulled back and looked at him. Her eyes glanced over him and he tried to hold his head up, to puff out his chest and look bigger than he was. He’d been small even for a human. He hated that he was a runt among the Galra too.
“Keith,” she said again, this time cupping his face in her gigantic hand.
“Yurak,” he corrected. She tilted her head slightly as if asking for an explanation and he smiled. “Keith isn’t a very Galra sounding name. Dad used to tease that you were going to name me Yurak. I thought it was a joke until I came here.”
“The Blade can call you what they want,” she said as she pulled him close again. “You will always be my Keith. I love you so much. I’m so sorry I had to leave you. When I heard about your dad,” she paused, and Keith could see the pain in her eyes. “I wanted so much to come to you, but I was undercover. The best I could do was contact Kolivan and send him to get you, to make sure you weren’t alone.”
“I know,” Keith said with a smile as he stepped back. “Kolivan told me how he knew to come get me. Dad wasn’t a soldier like the members of the Blade, but he died protecting people from a fire.” It mattered to him that she knew. He had died a hero.
She smiled sadly. “There are many different battles to face in this universe, Keith. Your father was a soldier in a different war altogether, and as brave as any Blade I’ve ever met. Even if I hadn’t known and loved him, I would have known for how he raised you.”
Keith felt a lump in his throat, but he swallowed hard against it. He didn’t talk about his dad much. The Blade of Marmora was filled with kind, caring individuals, but they were soldiers. Sometimes loss was too close. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes, it had to be pushed aside to get to the next mission.
“Krolia.” Keith turned to look up at Kolivan as he stepped up beside them.
“We still need to finish the briefing,” Kolivan reminded her. “Once we’re done, I believe Yurak has been given the next two days off his training to spend time with you.”
“I could come to the briefing,” Keith offered. “I’ll stay quiet, out of the way. Then I could show Krolia our quarters.”
When he had moved in with the Blade, Krolia had lived in a small room with few personal items. Ulaz had moved Krolia’s things to two-person living quarters next to his own so that he could keep an eye on Keith and so that he would be able to live with his mother when she was on base.
Kolivan looked at Ulaz for a moment before the other Blade nodded his head slightly. Keith smiled because he knew then that Kolivan would allow it. Ulaz was his guardian, after all, and if he believed Keith could sit in on the meeting, Kolivan would trust in his opinion.
“Alright then. That makes sense, Yurak. I’m sure Krolia would appreciate the help finding her new quarters, especially after such a long flight.”
Krolia had watched the interaction between the two and Keith could see she was trying to put the pieces together. Who was in charge of her son, where was the authority, and who was responsible?
She smiled at him when she caught his eye again.
“Let’s get this over with then. I have other duties to attend to once we’re done,” Kolivan said.
Krolia followed him out the door and Ulaz smiled at Keith, who decided walking a step behind the two Blades with Ulaz was a better idea than trying to gain his mother’s attention just yet.
“I told you,” Ulaz whispered for Keith. “Nothing to worry about, Earth-Child.”
He smiled at the pet name but rolled his eyes and tried not to let on just how happy he was to have his mother with him.
***
“Keith, what is that?”
Keith stopped halfway into the pool as he looked back at his mother. He wasn’t sure what she was concerned about, but he could hear the worry in her voice as plain as he could see the marking on her face.
“What?” he asked.
It was a small stop on their mission, a few days before they had to meet a contact. Keith had heard about the Bathing Pools of Atswahana too often to pass up a chance to enjoy the warm waters. He didn’t know how good a swimmer his mother was, but she’d seemed pleased with the idea so she must at least be able to keep afloat.
“Your back,” she whispered the words and Keith realized that in the past three years she’d never see it. He always dressed in his Blade uniform or in casual clothes that covered the mark. He’d been teased too often when he was younger about the strangeness of the design on his skin.
“My soulmark?” he asked. “I don’t really know anything about it. The Blade said it was there when I joined them, but I didn’t realize I had it until a year later. I don’t know when I got it.”
“Do you know what language this is?” she asked.
Keith shrugged. His soulmark was a majestic lion’s head with an Earth flower below. Strange lettering trailed underneath it but no one had been able to decipher it or tell him anything about it. “No one knows.”
“It’s an earth language, not one I know but I recognize the letters. Japanese, I believe.”
Keith frowned. “But I’ve never been to Japan.”
“No, but apparently your soulmate has.”
“So, I didn’t have this when you were with us?” Keith asked.
They didn’t talk about her time on Earth often. They had little enough time together that they left their mutual grief alone. After their initial meeting, Kolivan had done his best to keep her at the base. After six months though, a mission had come up and he had needed to send her undercover again. Keith had been left to Ulaz and Kolivan’s care again. It had been a hard good-bye, but Keith had learned how to let her go, and their subsequent visits weren’t marked with the dramatics of that one exit.
“Not everyone gets a soulmark, Keith. Some races don’t. I wasn’t sure if you would,” she said softly as she came closer. He could see the question in her eyes, and he smiled.
“You can touch it,” he said.
She reached a hand out towards him and Keith felt warmed by her touch, as if the soulmark was connecting with another person who would love him no matter what.
“It’s beautiful. The flowers are the lotus flower. This mark is stunning, Keith.”
“So how do you know someone is your mate if you can’t see their matching mark?” Keith asked.
She smiled and she took his hand and pulled him down into the warm waters of the pool. The Bathing Pools of Atswahana were healing and just being in the water seemed to rejuvenate him. He felt a flush of contentment and well-being that was far deeper than any bath had any right to make him feel.
“You know,” Krolia remarked unhelpfully. Not that Keith planned to return to Earth. Ever.
“How did you know Dad-”
“I didn’t, at first. I admit, I missed the signs and thought it was attraction based on the situation. I was stranded on a planet full of humans, and he was the only person I had to talk to. It seemed pretty simple. But when he touched my mark, I felt it to the bone. I belonged with him. And he felt it too. His soul recognized mine in that moment.”
It was a romantic notion, one that Keith had no time to contemplate, but it was comforting to know his father had that sort of love in his life.
“You’re sure you don’t remember when this happened?” Krolia asked, pointing to his back.
“You’d think I’d remember something that painful happening to me,” he said.
“Yes, it is painful. And if you had it before you were eight … perhaps you got it after I left and you were too young to remember. I can’t believe your father wouldn’t have found your soulmate though.”
“Maybe he knew, but if he did, he took it to his grave,” Keith commented.
She frowned at him, but she always did when he spoke of his father’s death. The Galra were extremely dedicated to their soulmates. Ulaz had used the word protective, while Antok has whispered “obsessive” in Keith’s ear. Antok was another half-breed like Keith, but he’d never gotten a mark. He believed he wasn’t Galra enough. Keith was holding out on him meeting his mate and getting hit so hard by it that he never recovered. Then he could laugh at the bigger Galra who had always laughed at Keith’s mistakes, even while he helped him train with Ulaz.
“Don’t worry so much, Krolia,” Keith said. “If it’s meant to be then it will be, right? For now, let’s just enjoy the swim.”
Krolia’s smile was devilish. “Race you to the other side.” She took off before Keith knew she was going. It wasn’t quite like training, but he knew her well enough to know she was testing his abilities. At least this way was fun. He dove after her and started a game of water tag that only ended when they’d both gotten too hungry to stay in the water any longer.
On to Chapter Two