Loving You to the Stars and Back // Keith x OC //

The Missing Leader

53

With Hunk and Lance back from planet Puig, we all sat around in the lounge area to hear the updates on their successful liberation from the Galra empire. "They haven't figured out their flatbread situation yet, but what they do with those centipedes is just out of this world," Hunk says with a satisfied grin on his face as he leaned back into his seat.

"And, they're totally ready to join the fight against the Galra," Lance added on. "We also brought back a few of their leaders to join the coalition."

"That's splendid. Excellent work!" Allura praised as she stood by the small steps.

Lance leans back in his seat with his arms spread out on the couch. "You know, I gotta say, this is what it's all about," He says with a relieved expression. "Freein' the people, lovin' the ladies, then bombin' down the road again looking for adventure, Voltron style," Lance shows Pidge the photos that he took from that planet.

I wanted to roll my eyes at Lance's 'loving the ladies' remark, but I've been working on improving my mannerisms, so I've refrained from doing so.

"Which brings up a little issue," Hunk says. "They all want to see Voltron, only --- we don't really have Voltron anymore." The room fell silent remembering what had happened weeks ago.

Even until now, there were no signs of Shiro anywhere. Keith spent hours, days even, going back to that same place where the battle with Zarkon took place. He couldn't find anything, and I couldn't do anything to comfort him. Shiro meant so much to Keith, maybe even more than me. He saw Shiro as an older brother, as did I, but Keith was more determined to find him than freeing the people under the Empire's reign.

"Keith, I know you don't want to give up finding Shiro, but it's been weeks since he disappeared," I said to him as I sat on his bed. Keith was slowly pacing back and forth in his room, making me worried that he was stressing out too much. "You need to take a break and take care of the situation at hand. There are innocent civilians out there that need our help. We can't let the expense of one person affect the entire universe."

"It sounds like you don't seem to care about looking for Shiro," Keith said. Hearing those words come out of his mouth shook me. I was not expecting him to say something like that to me.

"That's not true," I tried to reply as calmly as I could. "I want to look for Shiro too, but we have other things to worry about as well. We need to do our part, and maybe Shiro might appear again."

Keith stopped in his tracks and looked at me with anger in his eyes, "Do you really think if we forget about Shiro, he would just show up? Without Shiro, we can't form Voltron, and without Voltron, we can't defend the universe like we're supposed to. Think about that." It was as if Keith was trying to pick a fight with me.

That was when Shiro's words back on that unknown planet came to me. I remembered it clearly. "I do think about that, but that shouldn't be a reason why we should stop our duty to free the planets." I stood up. "Shiro said that if anything happened to him, he wants you to be the next one to lead Voltron."

Keith snapped, "What makes you think that I would take Shiro's position as the Black Paladin? Shiro is not gone. We just need to find him," Keith pauses for a while as he thinks back on his words. "Correction, I will be the one to find him. No one seems to have any interest."

That was the final straw, "Don't be so ignorant!" I yelled. "Everyone is having a hard time just like you. We never expected that to happen. We want to find him too, but we have other pressing matters, and we need to take action as well. We can't just dwell on finding Shiro."