Chapter Text
“I kissed Lance.”
Matt stopped, hovering an inch off his chair. He’d received an alert from the Red Lion asking him to get on the comms—in private. Allura, Val, and Edi, currently exploring yet another alien city on yet another alien planet in search of a lead, had told him to call if he needed them back at the ship, and Matt had taken off at a sprint without so much as a goodbye.
He had to admit, this wasn’t the way he’d expected this conversation to begin.
Keith sat in darkness on the other side of the screen, ears swiveling toward the hatch at the back of Red’s cockpit. Well, Matt assumed he was in the lion, because he sure as hell couldn’t see anything. He considered Keith a moment longer, then settled himself into the chair.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Congratulations?”
Keith buried his face in his hands, groaning softly. “Matt, please.”
“Sorry.” Matt leaned his elbow on the armrest and plopped his chin in his hand. “You kissed Lance.”
“Yes.”
“He kissed back?”
“Yes.” Keith’s ears laid back. “I think? Wait, yes. Definitely yes.”
“And you like him.”
“…Yeah. I really do.”
Matt nodded. “Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is I don’t know what I’m doing. The problem is I have no clue why I kissed him in the first place. That's not--it's not a thing Galra do.”
Matt blinked. “It’s not?”
“No!” Keith spread his arms wide, his eyes glowing with a fevered light. “I’ve been spending too much time in your head. You and Shiro kiss so I just—I don’t know! I panicked!”
Matt tried not to laugh. He really did. But he couldn’t stop himself. “That’s hilarious.”
“Matt.”
Matt sucked in a breath and bit his lip to contain his mirth. He’d never seen Keith look so flustered, his ears quivering a mile a minute as he tried to disappear down the collar of his armor. “Okay, okay. I’ll behave.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s still freaking adorable.” Keith snarled at him, and Matt held up his hands in surrender. “So you and Lance kissed. Are you dating now, or what?”
“How should I know?!”
Matt wasn’t laughing. He was not going to laugh again. “Well, have you talked to him?”
“About the kiss?”
“I mean, yeah, but now I feel like I need to ask if you’ve talked at all. When did you kiss him?”
Keith turned aside, his expression distinctly petulant. “Yesterday, as we were leaving. And yes, we’ve talked. We kinda had to plan things, and there’s nowhere to hide on a lion. We’re headed for the Galra homeworld.”
Suddenly, Matt’s good humor drained out of him. He thought of the conversation he’d glimpsed inside Keith’s head, of the discomfort and insecurity his mother’s mission had instilled in him. “Oh. Shit. Are you doing okay?”
“Fine.”
"Are you sure? Keith--"
"I'm not doing it for her. I'm..." Keith huffed. “They need help, and we're the only ones who will offer it. I'm not going to do... the rest of it. It's fine, it's--I’m more worried about Lance than about my mom, which I guess is good. Maybe great? It doesn't seem so bad with Lance here. He won't--he won't let me do anything I'll regret."
That was one of the sweetest, saddest things Matt had ever heard, and if they'd been in the same room Matt would have pulled Keith in for a hug. Instead, he settled for a warm smile. "No, he won't."
Keith's lips twitched upward, and he lifted his head "I don’t know, Matt, I’m figuring it out. Just, look, Lance and Thace are scouting this swap moon, and I’m supposed to be doing a sweep of the system to see how many Imperial ships there are. But this is the first time I haven’t been literally five feet away from him.”
“You’re going to have to deal with this eventually.”
“I know.”
Matt shook his head, exasperated. “You’re getting worked up over nothing, Keith. Trust me. Lance kissed you back. That’s great! You both want this to go somewhere, so all you have to figure out is where, and how fast. It’s okay if you don’t know that yet, just… be honest with him, then give him a chance to talk, then… take it from there.”
“Very helpful.”
Matt stuck his tongue out. “Talk to him. That’s the first step.”
“And the next?”
“Knowing you? Combust, probably,” Matt said dryly. “On the bright side, Lance will probably be just as embarrassed and awkward as you, so once you’re past that hurdle, you get to try out all the fun stuff.”
Keith’s hands had come up to cover his face, but the golden glow of his eyes peeked out between his fingers. “Do I want to know what the fun stuff is?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Keith.”
“It’s your mind that put it there.”
Matt… couldn’t really argue with that. “Whatever. You can start with the cuddling and kissing and romantic dinners and, I don’t know, bad pickup lines probably. It is Lance. He’ll probably have some ideas, too. Just relax, enjoy yourself, and see where life takes you. Okay?”
The thin, warbling note that emanated from Keith at that moment said he wasn’t particularly okay, thanks for asking, but he took a deep breath, and that seemed to steady him. “Okay. I should—I should actually do what I’m supposed to be doing right now.”
“Probably,” Matt said. “You’ve got this, Keith. Don’t overthink things.”
"I'll try." Keith gave a lopsided smile as he reached for the button to disconnect. "Thanks for listening to me panic."
"Anytime, Keith. Anytime."
Matt spent the walk back to the marketplace trying to formulate answers to the others' inevitable questions. He doubted Keith would appreciate Matt spreading the story around, but considering how he’d hooked Matt’s attention, it wasn’t as simple as calling it a casual chat.
Allura and Edi were right where he’d left them, talking to the sages who, rumor said, had sheltered the Pygnarat master for some length of time three years ago. Edi kept glancing at Allura and was doing a near flawless imitation of her regal posture, albeit without the carefully guarded expression.
Val, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.
Allura spotted Matt at once, her eyes flitting back and forth as though searching for signs of the apocalypse. Matt flashed her a thumbs up, and she relaxed, turning back to her conversation. They soon finished, and Allura hurried over to him.
“What was it?”
“Just a… personal crisis,” Matt said delicately. “Nothing life-threatening. Nothing to do with Zarkon. Keith just needed a little pep talk. Where’s Val?”
At that moment Val herself reappeared through a side door, staring at her portable comms unit like she couldn’t decide whether it was okay to laugh. She looked up, and her eyes locked with Matt’s.
“Lance?” Matt asked.
Val dissolved into a fit of giggles at once, leaning back against the rough stone wall. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, covering her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing.”
But Matt was fighting his own mirth now, and Allura and Edi were staring at them both like they were high. “They’re trying,” Matt said.
“I know. I know!” Val breathed in and bit her lip to halt another bout of laughter. She wiped her eyes. “It’s adorable, and I’m happy for them. But I called this. I so cannot wait until I get to gloat about it to his face.”
Matt snorted, and immediately tried to smother it as he spotted Allura—arms crossed, lips turned downward in a disapproving frown.
Right. They were here for a reason.
“So...” Matt scratched his cheek, fighting down a grin. “Sorry. Did we find a lead?”
Allura remained stern for three more seconds, Edi mimicking her a few feet to one side, before the mask cracked. “As a matter of fact,” Allura said. “We did.”
This lead took them to a remote planet home to only a few thousand sentient beings, all clustered in the southern hemisphere. The coordinates the sages had provided took them to the north, to a mountainous region populated mainly by flying reptiles the size of a robin and something six-eyed with hooves like goats.
Matt’s heart was pounding as they found a relatively flat expanse on which to land their ship. He hardly dared to hope that they’d finally caught up to the master—but he couldn’t let himself consider any other possibilities. If the old Pygnar had moved on, there would be no one here to point them in the right direction, and if the Galra had already found them…
Positive thinking, Matt told himself, climbing out of the shuttle behind Allura. They needed this person to be here, so they’d be here. (And if they weren't… they’d figure it out.)
It took close to an hour to navigate the steep, rocky slopes to the specified coordinates, which turned out to be a small, lush valley sheltered between two peaks. A solitary stone structure stood at one end of the valley, and a crystal clear stream bisected the greenery before plunging off the cliff at the far end.
Matt froze at the sight of the valley, hair standing on end. Quintessence hung over this place like a mist, tinting everything cyan and sending a sharp stab of pain through Matt’s brain.
“Vrekt,” he muttered, fumbling in his pack for his Olkari-made lenses. “I’d say we’re here.”
Val stared at him, sympathy mixing with anticipation. “Yeah?”
Matt nodded, pulled on his goggles, and they struck out down the last slope with Allura in the lead. She seemed to be following the strongest flow of Quintessence to where the mist was thickest—a shadowed overhang beyond the stone structure.
An elderly alien sat within, back to the approaching paladins. They looked human at a glance, albeit silvery-skinned. Two arms, two legs. Hands with four fingers. Long, scraggly hair the color of crystals. The figure’s veins glowed with ethereal light, but Matt couldn’t tell if that was only his vision.
At last.
The voice slipped past Matt’s defenses, settling into his mind before he had time to recognize it for what it was: telepathy, not unlike the sort Red used to communicate.
The Pygnar elder turned, and Matt struggled not to react to the sight of them. They had no neck, and their head was oddly shaped, too flat for Matt’s expectations. Slits like gills fanned in time with the rise and fall of their chest, and instead of a mouth there was only a thin tube, like a fly’s. The alien had no eyes.
Allura, apparently, had expected this appearance, for she didn’t miss a beat as she stepped forward, dropping into a courtesy. “It is an honor to finally meet you, Master,” she said as she straightened. “You were expecting us?”
Yes, the Pygnar said. Come. I have much to teach you, and our time is short.
Without further ado, they stood, moving with a rolling, fluid gate, and led the way back toward the stone structure. Matt traded looks with the others, dumbfounded. Allura had warned that the Pygnar rarely trained offworlders in their arts. They’d come prepared to lay out an argument, or even to pay for the right to train under this master.
“I… guess that’s that,” Val said. She spread her hands wide as the others looked at her. “Don’t look a gift teacher in the proboscis, right?”
“Right,” Allura said, squaring her shoulders. “Come. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”