Chapter Text
“Of course, I'm being rude. I'm spoiling the ending, not only of the entire book, but of this particular piece of it... I don't have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me. There are many things to think of. There is much story.”
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Their hearts lay heavy with the news of Pidge's success in decoding the data from the recent mission. They have a set of coordinates. They have half a plan. They have one team against an army.
It's not hopeless.
But damn if it doesn't feel that way.
Keith is mostly sure Hunk stress-cooked the entire day, because the table at dinnertime is filled with assorted dishes, most of which are the product of ingredients from recent haul on Vel'it. Despite the fact he knows it wasn't Hunk's intention, it feels like the team is walking into their last meal. It's the type of lavish meant for celebration, but when there is nothing yet accomplished, no battle yet won, good cheer turns to a last hurrah.
Lance tilts his head to glance at Keith, a sad smile playing across his features. He squeezes Keith's hand in his, but Keith isn't sure which one of them is drawing strength from the gesture. He squeezes back anyway.
“This looks amazing, Hunk,” Lance says.
“I might have accidentally cleaned out our stocks,” Hunk admits, and wrings his hands together before he catches himself in the nervous tick and drops them. There's a lingering thought that stays unsaid: that they won't need whatever is left in the pantry if they're too dead to come back.
“Hunk, you've outdone yourself,” Shiro says as he walks in the room. “You convinced Allura to stop stressing over strategy and get ready for dinner because we can smell it from the navigation room.”
Hunk manages a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, I suppose we should enjoy it, right? Before the big day?”
“I can't believe you made all this,” Keith says, taking in the sheer number of plates. There's probably at least twice as many as people in the Castle, and a moment later, Keith realizes his mouth is watering from the scent alone. “I mean, you've been working with Pidge, right?”
“Yeah,” Hunk replies, with a small shrug, the gesture incongruous on such broad shoulders. “But I didn't ruin my sleep schedule for it, and Pidge is basically nocturnal, and they figured out the last bits at some ungodly time last night. I was asleep. So I didn't do anything today.”
“How is Pidge doing?” Shiro asks.
Hunk tosses a thumb over his shoulder. “They're sleeping in the lounge. Knocked out this morning and I figured it was best not to wake them until dinner.”
“I'll go get them, then,” Shiro offers, and strides from the room.
As soon as Shiro's out of earshot, Lance turns to Hunk. “Are you okay?”
Hunk bites his lip, and then sighs. “This shouldn't feel this much like a goodbye.”
Lance stiffens, and Keith can sense how much the words strike him. He drops Keith's hand to go to hunk, palm settling over his shoulder in a gesture of comfort.
“You'll make it out,” Keith says, with determination.
Hunk glances over at him. “Have you seen that?”
Keith opens his mouth to reply, and the words stop in his throat, vices on his neck. Has he? The promise flowed through him with such conviction, because that's what made him who he was. He was instinct and emotion, and Red's power was a way to counterbalance that fact, but also locked him into his actions. Everything he does—all because he knows no other solution, even if he's seen the outcome.
“He doesn't need to,” Lance says, sure. “We're gonna go in there, kick some ass, and then finally go back home.”
Keith doesn't miss the longing that fires through Lance at the mention of Earth.
“All of us,” Lance continues. “Can't you see it, Hunk? We can illegally download movies and finish a pizza each in one sitting. Just like we used to.”
Hunk laughs, and wraps one arm around Lance in a hug. “Yeah, sure, Buddy.”
There's an undercurrent of sorrow in his tone. After this, even if they live and get a chance to go home, there is no return to old times. They've seen too much, been through too much. Keith never intended to fall in love. Lance never asked to be tortured by the Galra. Hunk never wanted to learn how to set broken bones with the weight of watching his friends pain on the battlefield on his shoulders.
Lance glances over at Keith, brow pinched in mild concern. Keith tries to keep his thoughts from wandering so much.
“I'm starving,” Pidge announces, sauntering into the room and making a beeline for the nearest chair. Shiro and Allura follow, holding hands as they laugh at Pidge's antics.
Pidge never thought they'd lose their family, never thought they'd lose Matt twice now. Shiro was never ready to be a leader, forced to become a commander before he'd even legally had his first beer. Allura inherited a war, tasked with the impossible, and she didn't have a choice.
But the rest of them did—and regardless, they chose this. This is who they are.
This is Voltron.
Not the weapon, not the robot, or the lions. It's this: the team, the friendship, the everlasting bonds of experience and pain and happiness found in quiet moments between battles. It's soft touches of comfort and good food after a hard-won fight, and the gratefulness for another day in which they're all okay.
Coran enters, looking forlorn. He opens his mouth to say something, and then glances at Allura and promptly shuts it, moving to take a seat far away from the group at the large table.
Well, Keith supposes, okay as they can be, at least.
Shiro and Lance glance at each other and awkwardly move to sit down, another compliment on Hunk's looking dryly falling from Shiro's lips and landing on deaf ears. Keith moves to hover near Lance's chair, but he can scent the tension in the air.
Allura, across from Keith, stands tall and proud, an angry set to her shoulders, but then she takes in a deep breath and lets it go. She presses her lips together, and then, in graceful movement, takes a chalice from the table and fills it with whatever wine-like substance Hunk managed to get. The sweep of her dress follows her movements as she walks, steps sure, to Coran's side.
Allura drops into an elegant bow, hair fluttering as it follows the action and dress billowing around her. She presents the wine before her with extended hands, like a prayer, asking for forgiveness.
“Father,” she says, and her head bows in a sign of submission.
And Keith realizes, to some degree, that there must be an issue with translation, because Lance quirks an eyebrow, questioning, and mouths master?
But instead of a call for intimacy, a play on Altean familial structure, all Keith hears is sicar. To live and die searching for what you love, Keith had said to Lance once, and he realizes that this is that same devotion in the way Allura drops all pretenses of royalty to kneel at her mentor's feet. To offer him the first serving of the table in a placating gesture of apology and forgiveness in equal measure.
Coran takes in a sharp breath, somewhere between a shocked, happy gasp and a disbelieving sob. His fingers shake as he takes the chalice from Allura's hands, placing it only barely gently on the table, before he's standing and swooping Allura up with him. Instantly, Allura wraps her arms around him, resting her head against his shoulder right where she must have done a thousand times before.
“I don't deserve you calling me that,” Coran whispers to the crown of her head.
“No,” says Allura softly. “But I'm doing it anyway, and that's what matters.”
Coran pulls away, hands sliding to Allura's shoulders to hold her in front of him. He studies her expression, and must find something there, because his gaze softens, emphasizing the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Alfor would be unbelievably proud of you. They all would have been, had things been different.”
“Had things been different, they would not have something to be proud of me for,” Allura returns with a sad smile.
“They would have had you.”
Allura's facade begins to crack, and Keith can tell the way she's blinking back tears. “Let us eat,” she says. “Father, join us.”
Coran traces the back of an index finger across her cheek, fond. “I would be honored.”
Allura's high laughter is something sweet, tinkling bells of relief and chimes of kindness. She leads Coran closer, before settling herself next to Shiro at the table.
“So,” Shiro says, breaking the silence. “Dinner?”
“Is that a green light on digging in,” Pidge mutters, gaze wandering across the table.
Hunk starts filling their glasses with the same wine-like liquid Allura had poured for Coran. “We should say something,” he suggests.
“Speeches?” Lance asks. “I think that really might feel too much like an ending.”
Before Hunk can answer, Coran swipes the wine from where he'd been sitting and raises the glass in the air. “A toast,” he proposes, “To Voltron. To new beginnings.”
Lance stands up, scooting his chair back, and throws his arms in the air, glass raised high in one hand. “To us!”
“To fighting another day,” Pidge adds, before reaching across the table to grab something that might be a roll of some sort and eating half of it in one bite.
“To Altea,” Allura pipes in, grinning wide.
“To friendship,” Hunk says. “To family. To those we left behind.”
“To a better tomorrow,” Shiro contributes, and then all eyes at the table fall to Keith.
Keith swallows, sees the expected gazes, and feels pride swell in him. They've made it this far. Quietly, he speaks:
“To love.”
With trembling fingers, unsure of a future they might not have, they each raise their own chalices.
“To love,” Lance repeats, and then they all tip their heads back.
The sight of Blue taking off into the vacuum of space next to Red is a comfort to both Keith and his lion. Lance's whoop of anxious exhilaration comes in loud over the comms, and Keith huffs a laugh in response.
“Everyone good?” Shiro calls.
“All set,” Pidge announces.
“Wormhole ready in two ticks,” Allura informs them from the Castle. That's the plan, at least: sneak the lions in close with a wormhole, and the Castle of Lions will follow up with reinforcements and to cover the getaway. No one wants to stick around when an empire collapses.
The collateral damage will be indescribable.
“Okay, okay,” Hunk says, rushed. “I just want you guys to know, just in case we all die, that I love you all.”
“They won't get all of us,” Lance says. “But I love you too, bro.”
“We're making it out,” Shiro states. “We all are.”
Keith carefully keeps his dread from leaking across the bonds with the team.
“Catch you on the flipside, Princess,” Pidge quips.
Keith doesn't know what to say. He's not sure if there's anything he can do to help ease the tension in his bones, so he keeps his mouth shut, and nudges Red forward to follow Black through the opening wormhole.
A flash of color in his mind's eye—Red groans around him, metal and mechanical. She's showing him something.
The crack of a whip, though no pain follows.
A cry.
Snippets of conversation: “Useless. Brat. Worthless.”
Tidbits of speech, from the same voice, one that grates against Keith's brain: “You're so beautiful. So pretty. Unique. If you were stronger, perhaps Zarkon would love you.”
There's a sharp growl, pained and animalistic. Keith recognizes it, not in the voice, but in the meaning behind it. It's the sound of someone driven to the breaking point, and suddenly the vision erupts in full view in his mind, a gift from Red in the form of knowledge.
Lotor, back bare and bleeding, hunched over in a room Keith remembers too well, snarls viciously. The fire in his eyes as he looks to Haggar is all-consuming, and he rears up, hands blazing with power enough to rip the chains on him from the wall. He looks down at the Altean fire in his palms, and then coldly meets his mother's gaze.
“I am not your toy to break, and I am not father's pet. If you want my power, then you'll give me the respect I am due.”
Haggar has the decency to look shocked for a moment, and then her expression softens, though her lips curl up into a wicked grin. “Yes,” she purrs. “You've done well.”
Lotor looks taken aback. “You—you planned—you made me and you don't have the heart to raise me?”
“No,” says Haggar, stepping forward and dragging a claw across his cheekbone. “But you were never my child, Lotor. You were a tool. But I do have the heart to teach you. And I have the heart to turn a blind eye when you will inevitably seek revenge from those who hurt you in the ranks.”
Lotor presses his lips together, a thin line of memory: passing whispers of his fair looks, body too weak to fight against the hands that grabbed him, an empire taught to take by his father's twisted methods and twisted mind.
“Fine,” he growls. “Teach me everything.”
“Keith,” Shiro's voice rings through the vision, dragging Keith to the present. “Are you okay?”
“I'm... fine,” Keith manages.
Something happened, Lance's thoughts flow like water towards him, refreshing in their presence even if they're laced with concern.
Red showed me something, Keith tells him.
In the distance, a Galra ship looms, easily ten times the size of the standard fleet ships they often run into in battle. Keith feels his throat tighten.
This is it, little brother, Lotor's voice rings in his head, unbidden but present. Red hums around him, conflicted and nervous and excited all at once. It must be her, Keith realizes, letting them communicate through her bonds with both of them, and part of him sparks with a dark jealousy that Red is willing to pass on Lotor's messages. But he trusts her, and his life has never really been his own. He's always belonged to someone: first the Galra, then Shiro and Red, and now Lance, and perhaps soon to be Zarkon's.
You know your time has come, Lotor echoes ominously.
“We're going to need someone to go in a take down the main shield. We need people on the inside,” Pidge is saying. “I can try and hack it, but they'll see us by then. We'll be overrun.”
“I'll go,” blurts Keith.
“Not alone,” Lance says instantly.
What are you planning? Lance asks.
Keith shakes his head. “We need you on the outside, Lance.” I need you to be safe.
Both of you, Lotor advises. He'll know it's a trap, but the two of you will be too good of a prize to pass up. I'll convince him.
Shut up, Keith snaps at him, unintentionally broadcasts it to Lance too.
“Keith,” Lance warns. “What's going on?”
I'll keep him safe, Lotor says. I promise. You know how this must end.
Keith pointedly refuses to respond.
“We should keep one of you here,” Pidge says. “To communicate. I'm not sure how—”
“No!” Keith cries, louder than he meant. “I—we'll go together. Lance should come with me. We work best together.”
“Keith,” Lance pleads again. Tell me what's happening.
Trust me, Keith tells him.
He feels Lance hesitation, knowing Keith is hiding something, but then he sends a resounding: I trust you.
“Keith, Lance,” Shiro says. “Go in. Try to find a way in. If you get caught, feign surrender or betrayal. Let Lance do the talking, Keith. Try to keep yourself on the down-low. They might believe the druid's tech finally turned Lance against us.”
“Got it,” Keith echoes.
“Okay, okay,” Hunk says. “We can do this.”
“Yeah we can!” Lance cries, though Keith can feel his trepidation.
“Hunk, follow me,” Shiro orders. “We'll see how much damage we can do at the borders until we see the shields go down. Pidge see if you can cloak and get close. Help Lance and Keith where you can but don't give yourself away.”
“On it,” Pidge says. “Comms going off. Good luck, guys.”
“You too,” Hunk says quietly, before Green flickers into invisibility.
“Let's go,” Lance says, and pushes Blue forward. Keith trails after him in a slow glide, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. “Turning off my comms.” There's a click as he's gone, and then Keith follows suit.
Maybe we should have had a better plan, Lance's thoughts drift towards him.
We couldn't know what to be prepared for, Keith tells him.
We have you, Lance says.
Keith shrinks back in his seat, even though Lance can't see him. I... I'm not...
Lotor is stubbornly quiet in response.
I love you, Lance interrupts, because he realizes Keith doesn't have an answer. Just in case.
Keith can't help the sense of distress at the finality of it, but Lance is right. He'd rather have this last goodbye than nothing at all. I love you too.
Ships noticed us, Lance informs him, directing Blue to a halt. Red pauses next to her. I gotta focus.
Keith withdraws his thoughts as much as he can, but the nagging curiosity of wanting to know how things were going prickles across his skin. He waits, holding his breath, as if focusing on that will make time tick faster, until he can hear Lance in his head again, a constant comfort. But some part of him also wants time to stop—he doesn't want this unknown ending—he wants Lance to stay his and safe and loved forever.
You're cute when you're worried, Lance tells him. I got us in. Flawless acting skills.
Keith snorts out of instinct, and he gets the distinct feeling Lance is laughing at him as they pull forward with the lions, now flanked by two Galra ships.
He knows it's a trap, Lotor's voice suddenly bursts into his mind. But he's willing to take the chance. Stay on your guard.
When the tractor beam from Zarkon's ship picks them up, Keith was half expecting it, but that doesn't stop him from instant recoiling from the force of it. Red groans, a sad noise, and shudders under the pull. It's at Keith's soothing that she stills and submits, but he can still sense her displeasure, contrasted darkly with the smug satisfaction from Lotor at the thought of Red being so close within his grasp.
Easy, he seems to say.
Well, Lance muses. I suppose this is one way to infiltrate.
Lance, Keith sends him, because he doesn't know what else to do as the fear begins to set in his bones and the ship looms ahead of them, ever closer. Lance, you're my everything.
Lance's confusion sparks across his mind, soft, gentle.
I'm going to make the bond as weak as I can, because I don't know what they're gonna do to me and I don't want to make you suffer.
Lance's thoughts stick on one thing: to me, to me, not us.
I'm staying with you.
No, Keith tells him. You aren't.
Anger, sharp in love, in concern. He cares, so much. Keith's heart aches.
Ready? Lotor quips.
Keith, you fuck, Lance snaps. Keith, whatever's happening, don't—you're not doing this to me again.
And Keith feels tears sting the corners of his eyes. He wishes he could lie to make the truth less painful. He wishes he could say something like “You die if you come with me, I've seen it,” because that would be enough to dissuade Lance. But this, this fear of changing the future, settles hard in Keith's body, twisting his insides, and at his core, he is selfish. Because he wants Lance to be safe. Safer than he will be inside the ship.
Away from Lotor. Away from Zarkon. Away from the memories of torture.
Be careful, Lance, Keith tells him instead. Please.
You have no right— Lance's thoughts cut off abruptly.
Blue's tractor beam flickers, and then suddenly she's gone, bolting.
Lance's outrage is harsh on Keith's conflicted mind, because Blue isn't responding and his lion betrayed him, too. But while Lance might not be able to see what lies ahead, Blue trusts Red unfailingly. She knows to listen to Red's guidance.
You better fucking come out of there, Lance's venom comes like a stab at Keith's heart. Promise me, you're coming back. I came back for you. You can't just leave me like this Keith.
Keith takes in a deep breath. I will try. Help the others.
Something dark crosses his mind, but not from Lance. Lotor's distress is an obvious warning from Red, but Keith doesn't have enough time to fight against the beam. He's already being taken into the ship, and Red fights against the hold to no avail.
And then, as Red is subdued into a mechanical statue with Galra tech, Keith is forced from her cockpit, and he tumbles out in a heap to the metal floor, cold under his palms.
“Well,” drawls a voice, commanding and deep and far too familiar than Keith would like.
Before him, Zarkon stands tall, suit broadening the cut of his shoulders. At his feet, kneels Lotor—not in submission, but in punishment. His hair is fisted in Zarkon's hand as he's forced down to his knees, shoulders shaking with exertion as he glares down, lips pressed into a thin, stubborn line. Keith slowly gets to his feet.
“It's nice to have my two favorite sons here, together,” Zarkon booms. He throws Lotor's head down, a fluid movement that is followed by a kick to Lotor's shoulder, shoving him over. He regards Lotor coolly, and then turns that icy gaze to Keith, uncaring. “Take them both to the arena. I'll keep the one that lives. We need a new Champion.”
There's no prep time, no warning, and no chance for Keith to get himself together before he's plunged into the arena. He and Lotor are both unceremoniously dumped into the pit, expected to fight, as if they could hate anyone other than Zarkon at this exact moment. The stands are mostly empty, except for a few clusters of Galra here and there, and Zarkon sits at the forefront on one side.
Keith.
Lotor collects himself first, pulling himself up to his feet and setting his shoulders. He draws his blade, the scimitar curved and deadly as he points it at Keith. “Get up,” he orders. “And fight.”
Keith pulls his bayard up but doesn't activate it. “We don't have a reason to.”
Lotor's brow pinches. “Put on a show. It'll be worse for us, otherwise.”
“There's no one here,” Keith protests, though he does stand.
Lotor looks surprised—and then, perhaps, looks surprised that he is surprised. “The lights—how—oh. Right. That.”
“Yeah,” Keith deadpans. “'That.' Quintessence isn't fun.”
Lotor takes a step closer, and Keith backs up one in response. “I wouldn't know,” he says softly. “They never used it on me. I'm Altean, we have far more than one Galra lifetime. Taking the time to heal was fun contrast to the other half-breeds. To watch me suffer through broken bones and a torn body days after they'd tortured me.”
Keith's honestly not sure if he should be envious.
Keith.
“You're Altean,” Keith echoes. “It would make you powerful. If we could get some—”
“As if,” Lotor interrupts with a snort. “Call your weapon. He doesn't like a Champion who plays with their food with chatter and not claws.”
“And if I refuse?” Keith asks, ears pinned back against his head.
Lotor regards him with distaste. “I'll kill you. I won't particularly like it, but I will.”
“Do you need incentive?” calls Zarkon from above them.
Lotor's mouth slips into a barely prim smile, canines poking out against his lips. “I told you to play along.”
“The red lion,” Zarkon begins conversationally. “Has never been willing to work with me. She is too temperamental. But she is bonded to both of you, I know, and would be a mighty prize for the winner.”
Keith feels his blood run cold, bartering Red as if she were a trophy, an object, and not the friend Keith has come to know and love. But he can see the way Lotor's eyes glint at the thought of finally being able to control Keith's lion. He's tasted her power, and wants more, because he, too, thinks Red is a prize, not a deity.
Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he get that Red has never truly been Keith's? All of this, up to this fight, some terrible end, perhaps, has been at her direction. She's been toying with their lives since she found them, influencing and intervening to aim for some greater goal, for better or worse. But even in Lotor's empathy in being half-Galra, he still doesn't understand. He's only been taught to be a tyrant.
They've only ever been pawns. Red was forced to grow up, to care for the other lions when Black was too broken to help them after Zarkon's betrayal. She's been playing this game for a very, very long time now.
But Lotor doesn't know that history, and Keith sees the moment the greed takes over his expression, turning it dark.
Keith.
There's a split second where Keith thinks he won't be able to get his bayard up in time. And really, he shouldn't have been able to, but the clang of Lotor's sword catching on his is a ring in his ears, over the sound of his headband. He shouldn't have made that block, but he did.
Because Lotor is pulling his attacks.
Just play along.
So Keith pushes back, then ducks away from Lotor's next swing, a wide arc that really doesn't reach its full potential because Lotor doesn't extend it completely. On purpose. Keith splits his hook swords into each hand and steps back into a defensive stance. He doesn't get it, either, he realizes. Lotor has no reason to keep him alive.
Lotor could kill Keith, play along with Zarkon's plan until the perfect time to strike, and by then he'd have Red.
“Why wouldn't you?” Keith spits, angry at the fact he doesn't understand.
You fuck, stop ignoring me. I know something is happening.
Lotor hesitates. “What?”
“Why won't you kill me?” Keith demands.
Lotor stares for a moment, and then averts his gaze, tongue darting out to wet dry lips in a nervous tick. “That—”
“Red showed you visions,” Keith says. “You've seen me, alive, past this. You won't kill me because you're too afraid of changing it, too.”
Keith sees the muscle in Lotor's jaw work.
“It doesn't matter,” Lotor snarls. “Just fight.”
And then he lunges, a swift movement that has Keith scrambling backwards to avoid the blow. Lotor's scimitar glances off the guard over Keith's knuckles. The clang of metal rings loud and earth-shattering between them. Another attack, another dodge, and then Keith sees his opening. With a quick step Keith manages to catch Lotor's leg in the hook of his sword and pulls.
Lotor goes down hard, lands on his back. Keith scrambles forward to press a knee to Lotor's wrist until he gives and drops the sword. The movement of Lotor's throat as he speaks brushes against Keith's blade.
“It's not just Red,” Lotor says softly. “It's Black, too. I know what my father did to them. I know what he's doing. I know it's not going to work, and—if I had been your place, or you in mine, our roles would be switched. You do not want to kill me as much as I do not want to kill you, for the same reasons.”
“I don't understand you,” Keith says, and then, in a growl: “I'm not you.”
Lotor tilts his head, just slightly, in a curious move, and presses his own skin into Keith's sword, enough to cut his own flesh. The scent of blood hits Keith instantly.
“Things could be very different,” he says.
Keith, Keith. We're coming for you. Hold on. Be safe, be safe.
“But they aren't,” Keith replies.
Lotor surges up, and Keith goes sprawling.
“No,” Lotor says, standing over Keith as he catches his breath. “No, they're not.”
“Any day now,” Zarkon drawls from above.
“Another day,” Lotor says, and when Keith raises his swords, they're suddenly flung away from his hands by a flick of Lotor's wrist. “But you knew that. You always knew.”
The hilt of his scimitar connects in a dull thud against Keith's head, and pain blooms across his senses.
Without sound, there is nothing.
Keith wakes with a start, legs tangled in a ratty blanket on a cot in a shack in a desert, far, far away from where his dreams had just taken him.
The light of the setting sun feebly attempts to reach him through the window curtains, and Keith tries to slow the beating of his heart. Sitting up, he looks down at his hands: pale, human, nails bitten down to the raw. His muscles still burn with strength they have not yet gained, because Keith isn't a paladin. Not yet.
That all changes tonight.
Everything Red has shown him over the past nineteen dreams has culminated to this. Except that's not quite right, either. Everything Red has shown him begins with this.
And Lotor was—will be?—right. Things aren't different. They aren't going to be. Because Keith, for all his bravery and confidence, is still scared. He doesn't know how it all ends. He doesn't know if he lives past that battle with Lotor. He doesn't know if they ever save the universe. He doesn't know if he should try to change the outcome.
But he fears that if he does, he'll pick the wrong choice. He fears that if he does, he'll cause a worse end to it all.
So when Allura, in less than a day's time, will tell him that Red requires a Paladin that relies more on instincts than skill alone, even she doesn't know the whole story.
Because Red doesn't need a pilot that relies on instincts. She creates one.
She forces their hands. Makes them slaves to the future that only they know. And fear—fear is what keeps them from making any other choice than the ones that, at their core, feel right.
Keith closes his eyes, revels in the fact that his sight isn't limited. That he can pick and choose that which he wants to see. That the colors of the dusk are beautiful and real, and that this is the last time he'll ever be able to see them.
His gaze falls to the jacket slung over the back of a rickety wooden chair. On the coffee table, there's a bandana Keith intends to use as a mask. It's rudimentary, but will have to do since he doesn't want to impair his sight whatsoever. He wants to drink in all that he can while he still has the privilege.
Before him is a choice.
But no, there really isn't.
Because doing anything other than slinging his jacket over his shoulders, tying the bandana around his neck, and stumbling out into the ever-darkening night towards his speeder doesn't sit well with Keith. It doesn't feel right.
So Keith checks his bags, makes sure he has everything he needs.
Takes one last look at the horizon.
Tonight, it won't be empty.