driftfleet | [ video ]

Current Mood: exhausted

Entry tags:

[ video ]

Who: Keith, Open
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Huntress, Blameless, or Iskaulit
When: starting August 17 and through the rest of the month

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VIDEO

[The feed was a little shaky as Keith got settled. His voice was a little quiet for a moment.]

...how these happened so close together...

[He was definitely muttering to himself. The picture spun until it was facing him. He looked different. Tired, a little bruised up, older... he'd visibly aged further than Lance, Pidge, or Shiro. His hair was longer and even more grown out than before, and, when he turned to face the camera for real, there was a large burn scar along the right side of his face.]

Hey... just letting everyone know I'm back, I guess. It's weird how close this happened this time. But, yeah. In case you guys were wondering...

Oh, and, uh... thanks to whoever looked after Snow while I was gone. I appreciate it.

[And with that, he clicked off.]

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ACTION

[Keith could be found around the Huntress, the Iskaulit, or the Blameless. There might be a stop or two to the Bishop and the Tourist as well to check up on Pidge and Allura respectively. In person, he was a bit taller, and his shoulders were wider. Guess who's jacket didn't fit him anymore. His shirts were all a bit tight across the top now, too. He was going to need some new clothes when they get to the next system.]

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{OOC: Keith is back! Unlike his buddies, returning home dumped him into a quantum abyss that caused him to age two years faster than anyone else on the team. Once he got back from that trip to the team, he fought Shiro, and the two of them are pretty beat up because of it (hence Keith's new facial scar).}

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[That does get her to smile a little bit.] Yeah...

Also being ahead of you guys before pretty much sucked.

[Another sigh and she turns to look over at Keith. It's funny to think about how well he's slipped into the leader role when it became necessary. But at the same time, she's grateful for it.]

Thanks.

[And it only took two years of time slippage to get him into being better a leader...............

Keith was glad to see Pidge looking a little less upset, though.]

Yeah, that was... all the stuff I wanted to ask. Though, really, all things considered, you probably couldn't have answered my questions... just Lance's.

I'm... I'm glad to be back with the team, though.

[He'd finished the mission he'd left the Castle for. And, it seemed like he did just in time, too. Now, it was a matter of getting back involved with the team again. It hadn't been that long for them, but he'd been gone for two years, and it was going to take some getting used to.

He needed this, though. He had missed them.]

[Her smile grows, ever so slightly. It's good that his questions got answered. Out of all of them, Keith had definitely come out of everything seeming a little more centered.

And it's great to have him back.]

Of course, it completely figures that we'd all be back together again just in time to wake up here. I guess we could look at it like a giant bonding exercise if we really wanted to.

Heh, yeah. But, hey... we'll get home. I know we will. It's just... going to take a while.

[A long while. But they could do it. They'd handled worse.]

[He doesn't have to say that it's going to be a long while. Pidge has been crunching the numbers, and... Well, without the castle ship to recharge the lions, it's longer than she wants to think about.]

Guess we're just gonna have to make the best of our time here. Again.

Sounds like standard operating procedure, then.

[He gave her a small smile back, and then turned serious again.]

You gonna be okay?

[Of all the people to be asking that question......]

[That just makes her chuckle a little, rolling her eyes.] Guess so. We really get ourselves into a lot of weird shit, don't we.

[At his question she pauses to take a deep breath, straightening herself up a little bit like that'll help somehow.]

..Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

[Keith almost snorted a little and nodded.]

Yeah... we really do.

[He nodded again as Pidge shifted her posture with her response, and he gave her a small smile.]

Okay. I know it was rough, and we've got a lot coming to us when we get back home again, but we can do this.

[Another chuckle, turning to give him a little smile.]

Wow. You're already starting to sound like Shiro.

[Keith shrugged with a small chuckle, looking a bit sheepish.]

He's the best leader I know. I can't be him, but... I can try to be better than I was.

I think you're doing a great job already. I mean, I know it's all really hard, but... [She shrugs, not sure how else to say it other than how she already did.] Yeah.

[Keith gave her a small smile.]

Thanks.

I know I messed up last time, so... I've got some making up to do.

[She thinks back on that for a moment, lips pursed. It feels like that happened so long ago.]

...Maybe. But I think we were all kind of a mess back then. It probably didn't help you.

[Even longer for him...]

It's fine. You guys weren't wrong.

[Keith had a lot to deal with at the time. Shiro's disappearance and accepting him as gone was kind of the icing on the cake, so to speak. It had set him off in all sorts of bad ways. He'd never been good at accepting loss. And then feeling torn between Voltron and the Blades, it was a lot all at once.]

I'm glad to be back, though. I missed you guys.

[Pidge breaks into a big smile at that.]

We missed you, too. Thanks for coming back.

Of course.

[Honestly, it had always been in the plan to come back at some point. He just hadn't been sure when it was going to happen because they had no idea how long it was going to take to figure out that quintessence supply route.]

Honestly, I didn't really want to leave. But it was really something I believed needed to be figured out, and I couldn't keep dividing my time like that. It wasn't fair to you guys, and it was making the mission with the Blades take longer to finish. So, it was good that, even if it wasn't really Shiro at the time, someone was able to take the Black Lion. I got my mom back, and that was good, too.

[He sighed a little.]

I just... if I'd picked up on things about Shiro sooner, though, I wouldn't have left. And I feel like I missed something. I feel like I should have known.

[Still smiling, Pidge gives him a light nudge with her shoulder.]

Dude, come on. You don't have to explain yourself. It's fine. And as for Shiro...

[Here her expression wavers a bit, turning her eyes up toward the ceiling like she'll find an answer up there or something.] ..None of us could've known that would happen. There was no way to tell. Allura probably stood the best chance of being able to detect something like that, but she didn't.

[He managed a weak smile in response to the nudge, and then shrugged a little.]

I guess.

[He sighed.]

It just stinks all around. I wish I didn't have to do what I did... that I could have found a better way to get him back.

I know.

[She lets out a sigh of her own, letting her thoughts wander.]

...Did we tell you how we kept the castle from killing us?

[Keith's eyebrows shot up.]

Wait... that happened again?

[He only knew about the one time with the residual energy from Sendak's crystal.]

I mean, Shiro mentioned something about a bomb or ... [He sighed a little.] While we were fighting, he said he'd rigged something to make sure everyone was killed... that it wasn't worth it for me to keep fighting him because there was no one else left.

Is that what happened?

[Honestly, Keith had been scared when he made that first call once he was back in the Lion. Had Shiro succeeded? Had the others managed to survive? He had no way of knowing.]

[She nods once before launching into it.]

It wasn't a bomb, exactly. It was a virus. It went through and systematically shut the entire castle down, and then tried to make the teludav explode. It nearly out-maneuvered me because- because it knew me. Because it came from Shiro.

[Here she gets a little quieter. The memory is still fresh, after all.] ..I barely managed to stop it. Only because the first time I'd ever scanned Shiro's arm, I- I made an anti-virus for it.

Using it... Actually having to use it... felt awful.

[Keith hesitated. Part of him wanted to be angry that Pidge would have thought about doing something like that, but, at the same time, she hadn't exactly been wrong, had she? And it had saved everyone's lives. And the fact that she felt awful about it? That said something.

He cautiously reached out a hand, placing it on her forearm.]

You saved everyone. That's the important part.

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