Chapter Text
Since the new paladins arrived, Team Voltron had responded to more distress signals than not, and this day was nothing new. A signal had come on the radar along with a short message that was cutting in and out. It appeared to be an electrical issue when the recording had taken place, and not a second thought was spared before Allura opened a wormhole to the planet Luxus.
The paladins arrived on the scene in their lions to a Galra fleet raining fire on a planet that was flickering bright red and blue.
“Now that’s a scene I haven’t seen in years,” Coran called out into the comms enthusiastically.
Keith rolled his eyes. Sometimes he didn’t know what that man was on about. He was back in the red lion once again since Shiro had been found - which was another story in and of itself. Wishing to make his impatience known, he popped up, red on red in the cockpit light, on the comms screen. “We literally fight Galra fleets every day.”
Coran barked a laugh and said, “Not that, number four. The planet! It’s flickering!”
Keith glanced at the planet on the main display, then back to Coran. “We can see that.” He looked back at the planet. The colors weren’t unlike bioluminescent algae he had seen in textbooks back in the biology classes he had to unfortunately take at the Garrison. Lost in thought, it took him a moment to realize Coran was still talking. He rolled his eyes and tuned out the distraction to inspect the colors a little more. The flickering was inconsistent, but there was a constant undertone of an aqua blue. It was quite beautiful, if he said so himself.
Coran had started in on a story of his youth when suddenly a Galra ship started firing on them, the rest of the fleet following suit shortly. They needed Voltron to solve the problem, and when they were together slicing the ships to bits, Keith felt the same curiosity edging its way from both Pidge and Hunk. They had formed Voltron enough times for Keith to recognize who was thinking and feeling what while they were mentally connected like this. Everyone had their own unique feeling. Pidge was calculating; Hunk was warm. Shiro he’d known for a long enough time to know what he was thinking even when they weren’t connected with a neural transmitter. And Lance… Well, let’s just say what Lance thought stuck out to Keith the most. He had the most vibrant emotions and the most joy, the most concern out of the entire team. It was something that Keith had reluctantly admitted to himself that he loved about the blue paladin, whether or not he admitted it out loud.
Lance, this time, though, was a different story, and it was worrying to Keith. It was as though someone had taken a bucket of gray paint and dumped it on the bright yellows and blues he gave off normally. Keith was never good at words when it came to talking about his emotions, but he knew he would have to talk to Lance about it once the mission was over.
But first, kicking Galra butt was in order.
–
The castle and the lions landed in a clearing outside of the main city, where the Luxians came out to greet and thank the paladins for coming and saving their planet from the grasp of the Galra.
Keith and the other paladins were swarmed by Luxians, and Allura was speaking to the Luxian king, when Keith noticed Lance was not with them. He searched for the blue paladin, sweeping his eyes across the sea of shorter humanoids that looked strangely like Ewoks. He finally looked toward the blue lion, where he saw Lance staring at the ground.
Keith made his way over the Blue, anxiety rising in the back of his mind. Why was Lance not leaving Blue? Did something happen to him during the fight? Was he okay? Ordinarily Keith tried his best to quell emotions like anxiousness and fear, but this was an odd circumstance.
On his way over, he noticed several Luxians looking at the ground where he had walked. Curiosity got the better of him and he looked, too.
His footprints were a violent shade of orange. He looked down at his feet, and there was an increasing pool of orange and red light.
That made his anxiety worse.
As he kept watching, the spot expanded.
He ripped his stare from his feet and refocused on Lance, who was now watching him. The sudden attention made him self-conscious, despite the fact that Luxians had been looking at him for a solid twenty minutes with increasing interest. The pool of light around his feet tinged pink where he stepped now.
Huh, he thought. The ground seems to be reacting to emotions. Funny.
“Lance!” Keith called out, jogging the last thirty feet to stand near Blue’s ramp, where Lance was currently standing in the middle. The ground below the ramp was a blue purple with the spot directly under Lance being a brighter blue, not unlike the color from before when the planet was under attack.
Lance, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of Keith since they made eye contact earlier, was now looking at the ground at Keith’s feet.
Neither of them made a move, and neither of them said anything. But Keith could tell something was very, very wrong.
Before he could say anything, Lance shook his head side to side and wiped his face with a gloved hand before turning to Keith with a big smile - fake.
“C’mon, Mr. Grumpypants,” Lance said a little too loudly, a little too brightly. “Let’s go check out the party!”
Lance confidently - fake - walked down the ramp on his way to where the rest of the paladins, Allura, and Coran were now being congratulated and praised by the locals.
As soon as Lance stepped foot on the ground, the grass, the dirt, the weeds and little plants all exploded into a bright royal blue, almost the color of the paladin’s armor. It spread out along the ground in a great wave, quickly overtaking Keith’s pink and orange footsteps. It spread across the field in mere ticks, and up into the trees ticks after that. The whole of Luxus seemed to take on the appearance of the waves of the ocean, bright blues and teals and a hint of purple here and there.
At this development, Lance showed no concern. He continued walking toward the other paladins. Everyone else was transfixed on Lance, on the bright colors that shimmered each time he took another step.
They finally reached Allura and the king, where Allura, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro were all staring at Lance with wide eyes.
“What?” Lance asked innocently.
After a bit of silence, it’s Coran that speaks up, twisting his orange mustache. “If you’d been paying attention to my tales of childhood piracy from earlier, you’d remember I said this place thrives on emotions. It’s like electricity! It makes everything work! Which is why the transmission was having problems earlier, because people were panicking and that makes it unstable!”
Keith silently watched Lance’s face shift from false bravado to stone. Keith knew that Lance controlled his emotions and reactions in front of others for their sakes, but this time, he didn’t know what he was hiding from whom.
Hunk was the next to speak. “Heh, Lance, I didn’t realize you were that excited about the mission.”
The king stepped forward, up to Lance and where he stood. Keith examined how his eyes changed from curiosity to recognition, and from recognition to pity and sorrow.
He turned around and spoke, his voice grave. “These colors do not mean happiness. They represent anguish.”
Lance turned around immediately and ran back to Blue. If Keith hadn’t been watching him intently, he would not have seen the tears that started to stream down his face.
Yeah, Keith definitely needed to talk to Lance.