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“Again.” Even wracked with pain, within the cavernous violet heart of his flagship, Zarkon’s voice fulminated with command. “Again. With all your power.”
Haggar felt the wary eyes of her druids upon her, but was silent. Her silence was sufficient. The Emperor’s word was law, to defy it was death, and they yet had power to spare besides. But even she could appreciate their hesitation – for the being who was the pillar of their empire could now barely stand. The last pulse of Quintessence had driven him to his knees, and though his empty eyes did not slim under a wince, Haggar could tell the effort had awakened those deadened nerves in his body to a pain so brutal that a normal being would be robbed of the ability to speak. A normal being, at least.
But the Emperor’s chalice was full, and he called for a flood. So she would give it to him.
Grimacing, Haggar reached a skeletal hand the air. Her fingers crackled with power, and she spoke words in a language long dead. The planet in whose orbit Zarkon’s ship was poised began to bleed, and so deeply and fully that it never heeded the passage of time – it was visible to the naked eye, even thousands and thousands of miles above its surface. For its very heart, the source of itself, deeper than even the supermolten heat of its core, was being tapped and harvested by energies superior to even time and space. Haggar felt its reverberation through her own husk of a body, an echo of mortal feeling. It was close as she came to remembering the feeling of strength –
Let silver and steel be the essence.
“Aah-?!”
The voice arrived with a bang like the making of the universe. Haggar fell to her knees, as did her druids, and Zarkon, already heeled, howled in agony. Haggar felt as if a hand of impervium had seized her throat, crushing it to the last atom of life. She clawed at it, Quintessent voltage chewing at the corners of her eyes. What – what was happening –
Let it be declared now; your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
If she could remember any gods she had once known, Haggar would have sworn to them. The pain was instant, and that made it worse – a memory of life, fierce and burning, and it razed beneath her flesh, reminding it of everything it wasn’t. Zarkon’s voice raged in her ears, a roar of anguish that never seemed to settle on a peak. Desperate, weak, cringing, Haggar clasped her hands together and willed all of the shadow of her heart into a last surge of Quintessent summoning…and there, in her mind’s eye, she saw, in the planet beneath them, something was coalescing…something like a cup, a chalice, a –
A grail.
No sooner had it appeared in her mind than they were all felled by an airburst, a sudden shockwave of energy that left Haggar and her druids sprawled upon their platforms. Zarkon alone held his ground, enraged by pain and confusion. Blearily, Haggar could see his jaw had set so tightly that blood started from his gums. His eyes had never closed, still pale violet and burning with unlife.
“What…” He gasped, his breath rattling in his chest like a serpent’s tail warning. “What was that? What has happened, Haggar? Answer me!”
Haggar barely had the strength to right herself, so she willed herself to have it. “I…I I know not, sire,” she breathed, hissed, fumed as she found her feet. She laid a palm on her brow, trying to remember what she had perceived and chasing after its meaning. “Some power…some presence has asserted itself. I am trying to sense what it is, but…I should warn you.”
From even as far below her as his platform stood, Zarkon’s fury burned like the mouth of a furnace. “Warn me? Warn me, witch? Warn me of what?!”
Her druids had gone deathly silent, but Haggar paid their fear no mind. Her eyes narrowed as she pursued the thought, the force that had crystalized in her mind. It was near, but the next moment, far, and the next moment so much farther that it gleamed less than the most distant star of Altea – and then she realized that distance was a useless metric. Because it was everywhere. In every place, in every time, its presence pulsed, with an outreach that made playthings of time and space. A hollowness settled in her stomach, the dread of one who has glimpsed the eternal…and Haggar gripped the rails of her platform, and stared down at her Emperor with eyes touched by their first true fear in centuries.
“That war is upon is, my lord,” Haggar said. “Holy war.”
---
This team, Shiro reflected, was full of surprises.
With the way to Zarkon’s flagship open and the fight of their lives on the horizon, he’d called the briefing with the expectation – or just the sense of duty – that he’d be the one giving the pep talk. Instead, the minute he stepped off the lift and onto the bridge of the Castle of Lions, Shiro found both his arms, Galran and flesh alike, seized between Hunk and Lance’s grips. This alone had him blinking surprise, then dread as he recognized the two of them wearing those types of grins, and then –
Well, and then Coran popped up and blew a kazoo in his face.
“SURPRISE!”
“Aagh! What the-” Shiro’s head rang in a way that had him suddenly missing that right hook from Sendak. Then there was a huge assault on his senses by an army of music, streamers, confetti, strobe lights from somewhere and all four of the mice jumping on his head, and when he finally got his eyes open and realized what was really going on – there was Allura, flanked by a smirking Pidge and a seriously smirking Keith, and holding a giant chocolate cake with, of all things, a lit lion-headed candle.
“Oh…” Shiro couldn’t have been more astonished if Zarkon had burst out of that cake in a red cocktail dress. He looked back and forth between Lance and Hunk, an eyebrow raised high, trying to decide whether he should be alarmed or touched. “Guys, I…I mean, that’s not really why I – I don’t – that is, I’m grateful but we really should – and my birthday isn’t until next week!“
“Shiro. Let me, uh, let me just stop you there and explain something to you.” Clearing his throat, Hunk won the tug-of-war with Lance, and Shiro found his head dragged against a broad Samoan chest in an extremely vulnerable noogie position. “Shiro, Shiro, Shiro. Do you know how hard it is to find the right kind of chocolate on this side of the universe? Chocolate anything?”
“To say nothing of how many secret infiltrations into the Space Mall that required!” Coran’s voice was almost as shrill as the kazoo. “Life-threatening adventures, skullduggery and espionage, exotic spice rack flash sales, Pidge almost being elected Warlord of the Zorr-Don Moon-People!”
At this, Shiro stared at Pidge with the most baffled expression his face had ever worn. She scuffed the back of her head, trying to look innocent. “H-he’s exaggerating…it was more like they gave me their business card. Um. You had to be there.”
“How did you guys even find the time to-“
“Never you mind that!” Lance cut Shiro off with a brotherly tug of his other arm. “Sorry, fearless leader, but we had a Paladin Summit on this last month and, let me tell you, it’s been a saga to keep you out of the kitchen long enough for Hunk to slave over this cake in secret. I know, we have the fate of the universe staring us in the face, but more importantly, Hunk baked a cake. We’re having a party, man! You’re outvoted.”
“And if that’s not sufficient, I will gladly invoke my station as the Princess of Altea and command you to blow out this candle and eat your cake.” Smiling, and with a touch of mischief in her star-patterned eyes that told Shiro she’d clearly been warming to Lance’s jokes, Allura brought the cake closer – close enough that he could no longer deny that it smelled amazing. “Please, Shiro. I know, we all know, how important it is to put an end to Zarkon’s schemes, and we’ve all worked hard to prepare…but we also know how hard you have worked, too. It’s for the best that you all face this battle not merely as Paladins of Voltron, but as friends.”
It was Keith’s turn to chime in, finally. He stepped in, took advantage of Hunk’s iron grip, and gave Shiro’s white forelock as rough a noogie as he was expecting, until Shiro was caught somewhere between a wince and a grin of his own. “We’re not missing your birthday even for this one, you big idiot,” Keith said, that rakehell smile pulling at his lips. “So save the Captain Kirk speech for tomorrow. We want to see our fearless leader relax and pig out, for once.”
And, after a moment’s hesitation…Shiro started to laugh. Hunk finally let him free, and he straightened up to his full height (after a moment to stretch feeling back into his neck). He looked around the group, every one of their eyes trained on him and matched with a smile, and felt the past few years and their tension and trauma suddenly stripped away. It must have shown on his face, because Hunk was suddenly this close to sniffling. Shiro looked down at the cake, its candleflame almost statue-still in the calm bridge air, and put his hands on his hips.
“All right…I’ll admit, I was hoping I’d spend the big day with you all.” Hoping I’d be here to. He pushed that thought aside, and more easily than he might have guessed, because looking at that candle flickering and this unlikely family gathered around him, Shiro thought nothing of doubt or dread anymore. He took in a long breath, and felt more alive than he had in a long time. “…I want to just say, thanks, everyone. I know I push us all hard. I know our next battle is the most important. But I wouldn’t face it with anyone else. I’m…I’m grateful to have all of you.”
“Whoa, Shiro,” Lance piped up, “let’s take it slow, I don’t want to get pregnant- OW!” Even Shiro winced – that elbow from Pidge looked like it came one erg short of cracking a rib. “W-wow, Pidge, my liver’s…really pleased to meet you…ugh…”
Keith had dropped his face into his palm, but even he was still snickering. He gave Shiro a nod. “We feel the same, Shiro,” he said, “but we got you a card and it says what we feel a lot better. Now blow out your candle and let’s do this.”
Shiro smiled so widely his face hurt. Allura hefted the cake toward his face, and he filled his chest with a breath. “All right then, team. My only order is...” And he let that breath out, and made a wish, and the candleflame winked out into a trickle of smoke. “Let’s party!”
Six fists (and four mice tails) pumped into the air all at once. “YEAH!”
---
And so, they partied. There was the richest slice of chocolate cake he’d ever tasted, and Altean barbecue courtesy of (a very panicked) Coran, and some sort of fizzy Altean drink that, while not strictly alcoholic, had Hunk giggling like a schoolgirl and Lance openly reminiscing about a past life where he was the king of a mermaid empire and his daughter had it bad for some dopey prince. Shiro, through a mouthful of cake, wryly pointed out that he was probably confusing that with a well-known Earth movie, and Lance had just started to object when he slumped over on Coran’s shoulder and started snoring. That debate would have to wait for another night, it seemed.
Over laughs and Altean coffee and Lance’s snoring, though, the team gathered around and Shiro found himself fighting back some mist in his eyes over a pile of presents they’d all somehow managed to gather for him. “Tell me this isn’t all from the Space Mall, okay?” He set his drink aside and picked up the very large red bag with Keith’s name on the card, flashing him a lopsided grin. “So what am I going to find in this one? “
“Juuust open it.” Keith took a bite of his slice of cake, oblivious (despite Shiro, Lance’s and Allura’s snickers) of the chocolate he had clinging to the corners of his mouth. “It’s old, but tried and true, and straight as an arrow, and kind of cool. So, in other words, you.”
“Gee, thanks.” He wasn’t sure about one of those things, but nevertheless, Shiro pulled out the wrapping, then the gift itself…which was some effort to pull out. Because Shiro had to put his whole flesh arm into the bag, and take out a –
It filled his hand as soon as he wrapped his fingers around it. Blinking surprise, and sudden understanding as to why this gift bag was so stupidly long, Shiro reached in and grasped something that sent an inexplicable tingle up his arm. He pulled it out, his eyes flashing at the first touch of light on a pommelstone, his fingers settling into the carefully wound knots of a handle…
He held it aloft, blinking wonderment. “Keith…you went to a mall and bought me a sword for my birthday?”
“Ten credits off because I cooked them spam musubi,” Hunk chimed in, beaming with pride. “Blew their minds.”
“You don’t have the Black Lion’s bayard,” Keith said, nearly a grumble, “so, I just figured, maybe we give you something else, yeah? It was in one of those Earth gift shops, just collecting dust, but…I don’t know. You can say you hate it, it’s okay.”
Shiro laid the sword across his lap, studying it. It did look Earthlike, or at least from a point in their planet’s history – a cruciform guard, the blade slightly thick and shielded with layers of steel above it but curving rather than tapering into a long, double-bladed body clearly meant for unbridled use on the battlefield. Not like Keith’s, Shiro thought, feeling the weight of the blade in both his hands. No use for a shield. This is a blade for winning the battle – for littering the battlefield with the dead.
“It rather becomes you, Shiro,” Allura said, her eyes as taken with the blade as his were. “Do you dislike it?”
“I don’t,” Shiro said, staring into the blade’s flat with a faint, grim, and genuine smile. “It feels…right, I guess. Thank you, Keith.”
“You’re welcome.” Keith had looked abashed before, but he must have seen Shiro’s obvious awe of the blade, because his smile was far more genuine – and he stabbed his fork in Shiro’s direction. “Now eat that last slice of cake before you get all Conan on us, huh?”
Shiro laughed, and laid the sword back down on his lap, tucking into another plate of birthday dinner. “You got it. No promises once the sugar rush hits, though.”
“If my math is right…hazily remembered math anyway,” Pidge said, covering her mouth just in time for the burp, “you should start feeling that in seventy seconds. Or whenever, I’m really full so math isn’t working…”
---
Despite that evening and all its earnest cheer, sleep never came. Shiro felt some regret for that. He laid on his cot, wrestling with the urge to sleep and gaining no ground. He turned to one side of the pillow, then the other, finding no comfort. Half an hour passed, where he tried vainly to let Hunk’s distant snoring carry him off, and then Shiro even tore his sheets off, stripped his shirt off his body, and forced himself into fifty pushups. Then fifty more. Then another fifty, until sweat broke on his brow and his heart galloped against his chest…but still, exhaustion couldn’t touch him. He kept thinking about what lay before them. How much of it depended on things going right for him.
He eased up from the floor, slumping against his bunk, and wiped sweat from his brow as he gathered his breath. Was this really happening? Was he going to really lead an interstellar strike force against an immortal warlord in the morning? Eight years ago I was just a kid, stressing over my cover letter to NASA, Shiro thought, a corner of his mouth quirking at the memory. Trying to make sure I had everything spelled right, calling my dad to see if things read the right way. A lifetime ago, it felt like.
Shiro swept a hand through his hair, white locks and black both tumbling over his fingers – and, for whatever reason, his eyes fell upon the sword he’d laid on the wall. He studied it from across the room, and felt something…something that insisted against being dismissed, even this late in the night. It was like the feeling of staring into Black’s eyes for the first time, seeing the glare of life touch its sockets, draw him in.
No, it wasn’t just like that feeling. It was the same feeling – a compulsion so powerful it seemed to root itself in his muscles and make him stand.
Shiro walked to the sword, frowning, feeling spellbound. Then, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he knelt by it…and looked into it. Had he really, back on the bridge? He reached out and traced his fingers along its edge, mindful of its sharpness, but his eyes only for the pure, inviting sheen of its flat…
And as he watched, something began to move inside the sword.
Shiro started, a gasp in his throat. Reflected in the flat of the blade were images depicting…warfare? He blinked, watching them flash rapidly before him, reminded of the Catholic Stations of the Cross back at home. Timeworn and distant as the images were, they remained legible. Warriors with swords and shields, clashing here, vowing there, standing amassed, then divided - the rise and fall of a kingdom? He wondered why that meaning came to him so easily. There was battle, furious battle, and his heart began to race, because somehow he knew this was more pivotal than even the battles of Falkirk or Normandy or Sekigahara.
His fingers felt the edges of the blade, deadly sharp, and a name started to form in the depths of the steel. Shiro looked at the letters, felt something resonate beyond him…and spoke the name spelled before him.
“Mordred.”
Haggar felt the wary eyes of her druids upon her, but was silent. Her silence was sufficient. The Emperor’s word was law, to defy it was death, and they yet had power to spare besides. But even she could appreciate their hesitation – for the being who was the pillar of their empire could now barely stand. The last pulse of Quintessence had driven him to his knees, and though his empty eyes did not slim under a wince, Haggar could tell the effort had awakened those deadened nerves in his body to a pain so brutal that a normal being would be robbed of the ability to speak. A normal being, at least.
But the Emperor’s chalice was full, and he called for a flood. So she would give it to him.
Grimacing, Haggar reached a skeletal hand the air. Her fingers crackled with power, and she spoke words in a language long dead. The planet in whose orbit Zarkon’s ship was poised began to bleed, and so deeply and fully that it never heeded the passage of time – it was visible to the naked eye, even thousands and thousands of miles above its surface. For its very heart, the source of itself, deeper than even the supermolten heat of its core, was being tapped and harvested by energies superior to even time and space. Haggar felt its reverberation through her own husk of a body, an echo of mortal feeling. It was close as she came to remembering the feeling of strength –
Let silver and steel be the essence.
“Aah-?!”
The voice arrived with a bang like the making of the universe. Haggar fell to her knees, as did her druids, and Zarkon, already heeled, howled in agony. Haggar felt as if a hand of impervium had seized her throat, crushing it to the last atom of life. She clawed at it, Quintessent voltage chewing at the corners of her eyes. What – what was happening –
Let it be declared now; your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
If she could remember any gods she had once known, Haggar would have sworn to them. The pain was instant, and that made it worse – a memory of life, fierce and burning, and it razed beneath her flesh, reminding it of everything it wasn’t. Zarkon’s voice raged in her ears, a roar of anguish that never seemed to settle on a peak. Desperate, weak, cringing, Haggar clasped her hands together and willed all of the shadow of her heart into a last surge of Quintessent summoning…and there, in her mind’s eye, she saw, in the planet beneath them, something was coalescing…something like a cup, a chalice, a –
A grail.
No sooner had it appeared in her mind than they were all felled by an airburst, a sudden shockwave of energy that left Haggar and her druids sprawled upon their platforms. Zarkon alone held his ground, enraged by pain and confusion. Blearily, Haggar could see his jaw had set so tightly that blood started from his gums. His eyes had never closed, still pale violet and burning with unlife.
“What…” He gasped, his breath rattling in his chest like a serpent’s tail warning. “What was that? What has happened, Haggar? Answer me!”
Haggar barely had the strength to right herself, so she willed herself to have it. “I…I I know not, sire,” she breathed, hissed, fumed as she found her feet. She laid a palm on her brow, trying to remember what she had perceived and chasing after its meaning. “Some power…some presence has asserted itself. I am trying to sense what it is, but…I should warn you.”
From even as far below her as his platform stood, Zarkon’s fury burned like the mouth of a furnace. “Warn me? Warn me, witch? Warn me of what?!”
Her druids had gone deathly silent, but Haggar paid their fear no mind. Her eyes narrowed as she pursued the thought, the force that had crystalized in her mind. It was near, but the next moment, far, and the next moment so much farther that it gleamed less than the most distant star of Altea – and then she realized that distance was a useless metric. Because it was everywhere. In every place, in every time, its presence pulsed, with an outreach that made playthings of time and space. A hollowness settled in her stomach, the dread of one who has glimpsed the eternal…and Haggar gripped the rails of her platform, and stared down at her Emperor with eyes touched by their first true fear in centuries.
“That war is upon is, my lord,” Haggar said. “Holy war.”
---
This team, Shiro reflected, was full of surprises.
With the way to Zarkon’s flagship open and the fight of their lives on the horizon, he’d called the briefing with the expectation – or just the sense of duty – that he’d be the one giving the pep talk. Instead, the minute he stepped off the lift and onto the bridge of the Castle of Lions, Shiro found both his arms, Galran and flesh alike, seized between Hunk and Lance’s grips. This alone had him blinking surprise, then dread as he recognized the two of them wearing those types of grins, and then –
Well, and then Coran popped up and blew a kazoo in his face.
“SURPRISE!”
“Aagh! What the-” Shiro’s head rang in a way that had him suddenly missing that right hook from Sendak. Then there was a huge assault on his senses by an army of music, streamers, confetti, strobe lights from somewhere and all four of the mice jumping on his head, and when he finally got his eyes open and realized what was really going on – there was Allura, flanked by a smirking Pidge and a seriously smirking Keith, and holding a giant chocolate cake with, of all things, a lit lion-headed candle.
“Oh…” Shiro couldn’t have been more astonished if Zarkon had burst out of that cake in a red cocktail dress. He looked back and forth between Lance and Hunk, an eyebrow raised high, trying to decide whether he should be alarmed or touched. “Guys, I…I mean, that’s not really why I – I don’t – that is, I’m grateful but we really should – and my birthday isn’t until next week!“
“Shiro. Let me, uh, let me just stop you there and explain something to you.” Clearing his throat, Hunk won the tug-of-war with Lance, and Shiro found his head dragged against a broad Samoan chest in an extremely vulnerable noogie position. “Shiro, Shiro, Shiro. Do you know how hard it is to find the right kind of chocolate on this side of the universe? Chocolate anything?”
“To say nothing of how many secret infiltrations into the Space Mall that required!” Coran’s voice was almost as shrill as the kazoo. “Life-threatening adventures, skullduggery and espionage, exotic spice rack flash sales, Pidge almost being elected Warlord of the Zorr-Don Moon-People!”
At this, Shiro stared at Pidge with the most baffled expression his face had ever worn. She scuffed the back of her head, trying to look innocent. “H-he’s exaggerating…it was more like they gave me their business card. Um. You had to be there.”
“How did you guys even find the time to-“
“Never you mind that!” Lance cut Shiro off with a brotherly tug of his other arm. “Sorry, fearless leader, but we had a Paladin Summit on this last month and, let me tell you, it’s been a saga to keep you out of the kitchen long enough for Hunk to slave over this cake in secret. I know, we have the fate of the universe staring us in the face, but more importantly, Hunk baked a cake. We’re having a party, man! You’re outvoted.”
“And if that’s not sufficient, I will gladly invoke my station as the Princess of Altea and command you to blow out this candle and eat your cake.” Smiling, and with a touch of mischief in her star-patterned eyes that told Shiro she’d clearly been warming to Lance’s jokes, Allura brought the cake closer – close enough that he could no longer deny that it smelled amazing. “Please, Shiro. I know, we all know, how important it is to put an end to Zarkon’s schemes, and we’ve all worked hard to prepare…but we also know how hard you have worked, too. It’s for the best that you all face this battle not merely as Paladins of Voltron, but as friends.”
It was Keith’s turn to chime in, finally. He stepped in, took advantage of Hunk’s iron grip, and gave Shiro’s white forelock as rough a noogie as he was expecting, until Shiro was caught somewhere between a wince and a grin of his own. “We’re not missing your birthday even for this one, you big idiot,” Keith said, that rakehell smile pulling at his lips. “So save the Captain Kirk speech for tomorrow. We want to see our fearless leader relax and pig out, for once.”
And, after a moment’s hesitation…Shiro started to laugh. Hunk finally let him free, and he straightened up to his full height (after a moment to stretch feeling back into his neck). He looked around the group, every one of their eyes trained on him and matched with a smile, and felt the past few years and their tension and trauma suddenly stripped away. It must have shown on his face, because Hunk was suddenly this close to sniffling. Shiro looked down at the cake, its candleflame almost statue-still in the calm bridge air, and put his hands on his hips.
“All right…I’ll admit, I was hoping I’d spend the big day with you all.” Hoping I’d be here to. He pushed that thought aside, and more easily than he might have guessed, because looking at that candle flickering and this unlikely family gathered around him, Shiro thought nothing of doubt or dread anymore. He took in a long breath, and felt more alive than he had in a long time. “…I want to just say, thanks, everyone. I know I push us all hard. I know our next battle is the most important. But I wouldn’t face it with anyone else. I’m…I’m grateful to have all of you.”
“Whoa, Shiro,” Lance piped up, “let’s take it slow, I don’t want to get pregnant- OW!” Even Shiro winced – that elbow from Pidge looked like it came one erg short of cracking a rib. “W-wow, Pidge, my liver’s…really pleased to meet you…ugh…”
Keith had dropped his face into his palm, but even he was still snickering. He gave Shiro a nod. “We feel the same, Shiro,” he said, “but we got you a card and it says what we feel a lot better. Now blow out your candle and let’s do this.”
Shiro smiled so widely his face hurt. Allura hefted the cake toward his face, and he filled his chest with a breath. “All right then, team. My only order is...” And he let that breath out, and made a wish, and the candleflame winked out into a trickle of smoke. “Let’s party!”
Six fists (and four mice tails) pumped into the air all at once. “YEAH!”
---
And so, they partied. There was the richest slice of chocolate cake he’d ever tasted, and Altean barbecue courtesy of (a very panicked) Coran, and some sort of fizzy Altean drink that, while not strictly alcoholic, had Hunk giggling like a schoolgirl and Lance openly reminiscing about a past life where he was the king of a mermaid empire and his daughter had it bad for some dopey prince. Shiro, through a mouthful of cake, wryly pointed out that he was probably confusing that with a well-known Earth movie, and Lance had just started to object when he slumped over on Coran’s shoulder and started snoring. That debate would have to wait for another night, it seemed.
Over laughs and Altean coffee and Lance’s snoring, though, the team gathered around and Shiro found himself fighting back some mist in his eyes over a pile of presents they’d all somehow managed to gather for him. “Tell me this isn’t all from the Space Mall, okay?” He set his drink aside and picked up the very large red bag with Keith’s name on the card, flashing him a lopsided grin. “So what am I going to find in this one? “
“Juuust open it.” Keith took a bite of his slice of cake, oblivious (despite Shiro, Lance’s and Allura’s snickers) of the chocolate he had clinging to the corners of his mouth. “It’s old, but tried and true, and straight as an arrow, and kind of cool. So, in other words, you.”
“Gee, thanks.” He wasn’t sure about one of those things, but nevertheless, Shiro pulled out the wrapping, then the gift itself…which was some effort to pull out. Because Shiro had to put his whole flesh arm into the bag, and take out a –
It filled his hand as soon as he wrapped his fingers around it. Blinking surprise, and sudden understanding as to why this gift bag was so stupidly long, Shiro reached in and grasped something that sent an inexplicable tingle up his arm. He pulled it out, his eyes flashing at the first touch of light on a pommelstone, his fingers settling into the carefully wound knots of a handle…
He held it aloft, blinking wonderment. “Keith…you went to a mall and bought me a sword for my birthday?”
“Ten credits off because I cooked them spam musubi,” Hunk chimed in, beaming with pride. “Blew their minds.”
“You don’t have the Black Lion’s bayard,” Keith said, nearly a grumble, “so, I just figured, maybe we give you something else, yeah? It was in one of those Earth gift shops, just collecting dust, but…I don’t know. You can say you hate it, it’s okay.”
Shiro laid the sword across his lap, studying it. It did look Earthlike, or at least from a point in their planet’s history – a cruciform guard, the blade slightly thick and shielded with layers of steel above it but curving rather than tapering into a long, double-bladed body clearly meant for unbridled use on the battlefield. Not like Keith’s, Shiro thought, feeling the weight of the blade in both his hands. No use for a shield. This is a blade for winning the battle – for littering the battlefield with the dead.
“It rather becomes you, Shiro,” Allura said, her eyes as taken with the blade as his were. “Do you dislike it?”
“I don’t,” Shiro said, staring into the blade’s flat with a faint, grim, and genuine smile. “It feels…right, I guess. Thank you, Keith.”
“You’re welcome.” Keith had looked abashed before, but he must have seen Shiro’s obvious awe of the blade, because his smile was far more genuine – and he stabbed his fork in Shiro’s direction. “Now eat that last slice of cake before you get all Conan on us, huh?”
Shiro laughed, and laid the sword back down on his lap, tucking into another plate of birthday dinner. “You got it. No promises once the sugar rush hits, though.”
“If my math is right…hazily remembered math anyway,” Pidge said, covering her mouth just in time for the burp, “you should start feeling that in seventy seconds. Or whenever, I’m really full so math isn’t working…”
---
Despite that evening and all its earnest cheer, sleep never came. Shiro felt some regret for that. He laid on his cot, wrestling with the urge to sleep and gaining no ground. He turned to one side of the pillow, then the other, finding no comfort. Half an hour passed, where he tried vainly to let Hunk’s distant snoring carry him off, and then Shiro even tore his sheets off, stripped his shirt off his body, and forced himself into fifty pushups. Then fifty more. Then another fifty, until sweat broke on his brow and his heart galloped against his chest…but still, exhaustion couldn’t touch him. He kept thinking about what lay before them. How much of it depended on things going right for him.
He eased up from the floor, slumping against his bunk, and wiped sweat from his brow as he gathered his breath. Was this really happening? Was he going to really lead an interstellar strike force against an immortal warlord in the morning? Eight years ago I was just a kid, stressing over my cover letter to NASA, Shiro thought, a corner of his mouth quirking at the memory. Trying to make sure I had everything spelled right, calling my dad to see if things read the right way. A lifetime ago, it felt like.
Shiro swept a hand through his hair, white locks and black both tumbling over his fingers – and, for whatever reason, his eyes fell upon the sword he’d laid on the wall. He studied it from across the room, and felt something…something that insisted against being dismissed, even this late in the night. It was like the feeling of staring into Black’s eyes for the first time, seeing the glare of life touch its sockets, draw him in.
No, it wasn’t just like that feeling. It was the same feeling – a compulsion so powerful it seemed to root itself in his muscles and make him stand.
Shiro walked to the sword, frowning, feeling spellbound. Then, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he knelt by it…and looked into it. Had he really, back on the bridge? He reached out and traced his fingers along its edge, mindful of its sharpness, but his eyes only for the pure, inviting sheen of its flat…
And as he watched, something began to move inside the sword.
Shiro started, a gasp in his throat. Reflected in the flat of the blade were images depicting…warfare? He blinked, watching them flash rapidly before him, reminded of the Catholic Stations of the Cross back at home. Timeworn and distant as the images were, they remained legible. Warriors with swords and shields, clashing here, vowing there, standing amassed, then divided - the rise and fall of a kingdom? He wondered why that meaning came to him so easily. There was battle, furious battle, and his heart began to race, because somehow he knew this was more pivotal than even the battles of Falkirk or Normandy or Sekigahara.
His fingers felt the edges of the blade, deadly sharp, and a name started to form in the depths of the steel. Shiro looked at the letters, felt something resonate beyond him…and spoke the name spelled before him.
“Mordred.”
