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).}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I had been wondering what happened. Did you guys go back home? That is a thing that can happen here right?

[Hux replied with a nod in greeting.]

It is... I think. We're still not entirely sure. Sometimes, we disappear, sometimes we fall asleep and don't wake up. But, either way, we end up with new memories from home. No one's entirely sure how that works.

That is a good thing to note. Only....I don't like how unpredictable that can be.

But--are you okay? You look as if you've been through a lot in the short time gone.

[He struggled with finding the right words. As Hux rarely showed concern toward others and how they were. This was new territory for him and it was hard showing this side. It made him feel vulnerable.]

I don't, either.

[Keith took a deep breath and let it out slowly.]

Yeah. Me more than the others, oddly enough. I was in an area of space called the quantum abyss... and it had gravity wells that made time move faster than outside in normal space. So, I've been gone for two years longer than the others.

[Which answered his height and build changes, as well as his longer hair.]

But, yeah... we had a rough battle after I got back. Shiro was brainwashed. I was the one that had to stop him.

[Hux blinked back as he took a few seconds to register what was told to him. He had also been surprised by the amount of information that Keith willingly gave him.]

It sounds like your more troubled about your friend Shiro then the entire event. Let's go and sit down so we can talk more.

[Keith looked a little surprised at the offer, but nodded, letting Hux guide him off to a place to sit.]

Shiro's really important to me. It's a long story, but he helped me out a lot when I was a kid. He gave me a second chance when no one else would.

I just don't want to see him hurt. And the fact that I was forced to fight him in order to save the rest of the team... It was hard.

[Hux took him over to the common area of the ship, figuring that would be the best place to talk. It wasn't too crowded and at this time of the day it wasn't occupied.

He did give a rare smile at why Shiro was so important to Keith. He had someone similar in his life who was no longer around. So the fact that he was still with Keith was great.

Having to deal with a personal fight like this took a lot of strength. He could admire that.]

It seems that you managed to save your friend and your team in the end. That's more then what anyone could on average do.

Yeah.

[Keith frowned a little. He almost didn't. He almost doomed the rest of the team just to chase down Shiro. In hindsight, that had been pretty stupid. But, they'd understood. They wanted Shiro back, too. That much was obvious in how they all wanted Voltron to go through that wormhole, not just the Black Lion. So, he'd taken the risk.]

I was lucky. And I had help.

Help? What kind of help?

{Hux was a little confused by this because he thought Keith wasn't with his group when he went to save Shiro. And it didn't seem like anyone else there would help him.]

From Shiro.

[Keith took a moment to organize his thoughts on it.]

The Shiro I fought was a clone. And, up to that point, he was Shiro. We all thought of him as Shiro. He thought he was Shiro. And, yeah, there was some stuff that was different or weird, but we had all just chalked it up to different things like his capture by the Galra and the fighting and the stress. Which wasn't really wrong.

But, when the control that the witch had over him kicked in fully, it wasn't him anymore. He had Shiro's knowledge and memories, but it wasn't him. He was hurtful, and attacked the rest of the team. He said really horrible things about us. He even set up the Castle to self-destruct. The man I fought was Shiro, but he wasn't.

[Keith shook his head a little.]

I found out later, there was a reason for that. Other than the fact that who I was fighting was a clone... the Shiro we knew had died in the battle we had though he had gone missing during. We just didn't know. We never found his body. [This next part was going to need some background.] We as Paladins are bonded to our Lions on something of a spiritual level. They can communicate with us. They know when we're in danger. They respond to us. In order for that bond to truly work, the Paladin's quintessence has to match that of the Lion. Shiro's bond with the Black Lion was one of the strongest. When his body died, the Lion saved him... it saved his spirit.

I was the next one to bond with the Black Lion. So, when I went after the person I thought was Shiro, the two of us almost died in that fight. We were in the cloning facility, and there were... [Keith took a deep breath, because it was a disturbing image in his mind.] ...so many... so many clones in pods. But our fight did damage. The facility started to fall apart around us, and we almost fell... but the Lion saved us. It caught us before we could fall.

But something happened. I blacked out or something as we started to fall, and the Lion pulled me into some sort of spiritual place inside itself. And I found Shiro... the real Shiro. His spirit was still in the Lion, and that's who helped me. He helped me realize that I could have a stronger bond with the Black Lion, that I could get the Lion to do things even he couldn't. I was able to find the Lion's ability to teleport because of Shiro's spirit. He had unlocked it once himself in that last battle. Now, I was able to, also. It got me back to the team in time to help them.

But... I don't think I could have done that without Shiro's spirit... without his help. I didn't believe in myself and my bond with the Black Lion strongly enough.

[It took a while for Hux to digest what Keith just explained to him. It had been quite a lot of information that Hux wasn't expecting. A lot of it was still hard for him to fully understand. Especially the whole bonding thing. In ways it reminded him of the Force a bit, but he barely knew stuff about that mystical power.

He did understand a little bit about cloning and what that could be like. They did have a war involving clones that had happened in the past and why he was opposed to using a clone army.]

I'll admit...that I barely understood what you just explained to me. Mainly because I don't understand how you operate the lions and what they are capable of doing. We don't have nothing like that back at home...save maybe what we call the Force. But even that's on a different level that I can't comprehend.

But this bond sounds pretty powerful if it was able to save your friend's spirit and then help you in the end. I don't think I've seen anything like that in my world.

Yet, it also amazes me that you had accomplished all that in the short time span you were gone from here.

[Quintessence and the Force were probably very similar, but quintessence also had a physical form if gathered correctly. Though, neither one of them would really be able to tell that at the moment.]

Yeah. The Lions are kind of mystery to all of us. It's like, the more we work with them, the more abilities we discover. I'm not sure if it's us or the Lions or the bond that develops. But, it's kind of a psychic bond, I guess. We can sort of hear them in our heads... not words, not actual talking, but just kind of feelings and ideas. It's hard to explain.

[He nodded a little.]

If you bond strongly enough, then yeah. I guess anything's possible with the Lions. I know Shiro had to break the Black Lion's bond with its previous Paladin. Zarkon turned, and his second-in-command for Voltron took the Lions and hid them so Zarkon couldn't use them and Voltron to harm people. When we bonded with them, Zarkon's bond still remained. It hadn't been completely broken. But, when I took on the Black Lion, it was different. The Lion had already let me pilot it once before, and when I found Shiro's spirit inside the Lion, he helped me instead of fighting me like Zarkon had against Shiro. He essentially passed the bond to me.

Even in our world, Voltron and the Lions are unique. There's nothing else like them. [Well, not entirely true. The Sincline ships and the mech that they created was similar to Voltron. But Keith wasn't sure just how similar they were.]

We were gone a lot longer than it seems. It's happened before. We're only gone from here maybe a week, but a lot more time passes back home. For the others, it was probably several months. For me, over two years because of the gravity induced time slippage in the quantum abyss.

I wonder if the lions bonded toward your needs more so then you learning how they operated. This whole thing about the quantum abyss is a bit confusing as well. I don't think we've had something of a time lapse in our world.

[Hux carefully said based on what Keith had explained. Each person was different and if they had another Paladin in the past it probably operated different for them. This also made the technology even more advanced that in a sense it was like an AI system.]

With the knowledge that you were able to go home....has anyone been drastically hurt or had died when they went home and were still able to return here?

I think it's a little of both, to be honest. I mean, we definitely had to learn how to do things with them, but they helped us learn. And I know they adapt to us. Like, Hunk gets really bad motion sickness, but his Lion seems to compensate for that. He doesn't get sick as much in that one than he does when he was first learning back at the Garrison.

[Keith considered the question for a moment before answering.]

Yeah. Ulaz, Shiro... I think from some other worlds, too.

[Hux gave a nod in understanding the explanation. That much he could comprehend. He had heard of AIs being able to do both. Yet, he was surprised by the news that Keith had about how deaths were handled.]

I admit that it doesn't make sense with how they can be alive here and not alive back in their world. Shouldn't there be some kind of consequence?

I think it has to do with time. People can come here from the same worlds but different times. So, they can be brought here from a time right before their death, but others can be after.

Except, well... Shiro's a unique case. He... [Keith took a breath. It was still hard to think about.] He died, but with everything that happened to him back home, we were still able to save him. So, he's kind of... alive... back home, still.

Alright, I can understand the timing of things and how that can work in their favor. I agree that your friend's case is unique. He was lucky to have your group and the bond he had with that lion.

Eventually I will have to meet the rest of your group. They seem to be an intriguing set.

Yeah... Well, you've already met Pidge. I hope that works out better eventually. But, for everyone else, it probably won't be so bad. Shiro's friendly, and so is Lance. Allura's more formal, but she's a princess, so that's to be expected. Ulaz tends to be on the quiet side, like me.

[Keith decided to leave out Haggar and Lotor. It would likely come out at some point that they were from the same place, but he didn't really consider them 'part of his group'. And Hunk... who had been there, but wasn't anymore. He was part of the group, but it seemed a little pointless to bring him up if he wasn't there. Just like he wasn't going to bring up Coran, or any of the others they'd been working with, people who had never been there.]

I've met Ulaz. He's been training me as well in some combat skills. Things will eventually even out with Pidge, but at least for now there's a truce of sorts. The rest of your group seems nice.

[There's a pause as Hux debated even bringing up the bit of information he had. In the end he decided it was safe to discuss/question it.]

Have you ever dealt with people from the same world but different time lines? There are two people here from my world, but they appear to be from an earlier time and not the same time I'm from.

[Keith nodded a bit. Well, he was glad for that, at least.

The question caught him a little off-guard, but he nodded.]

Yeah. It's happened with a few people from home already. For a while, Pidge was from later in time than the rest of us.

Right now, though, Allura and Ulaz are from different points in time, and later than me, Lance, Pidge and Shiro. [He still wasn't really sure about bringing up Lotor and Haggar, so he wouldn't.]

....How were you able to deal with that? It must be frustrating with the people you are close with to be from different points of time. Especially for the ones that have passed away.

It's just... I don't know. Pidge refused to tell us anything. And Allura... well, we had to tell her some of it. For Ulaz, it didn't really matter if he knew the future. He's... He sacrificed himself back home to save the rest of us.

[Keith frowned a bit.]

He knew about it, though. He knew that he wasn't going to make it.

I guess it's more just knowing yourself and the other person. What do you think they should know? And, beyond that, it's not even a matter of going back and changing the past from here. They can't. Once we go back, we can't remember being here.

[He gave a nod in understanding.]

I appreciate the information you were able to give me. I do apologize for having to constantly ask you such strange and somewhat personal questions.

It's fine. [Keith shook his head a little.] I mean, this is stuff we have to think about, you know? This place is weird. Weird questions are going to come up.

I know you were explaining a lot of what happened to you. I didn't mean to take that from you.

Let me go help you find some more fitting clothes for you.

[Hux stated. He had noted that the clothes were an ill fit for Keith now it bothered him to see Keith dressed this way. It was the least he could do for now. He wasn't going to force Keith to wear anything he didn't want to, but just made sure it fitted.]

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