Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith honestly believed that he was a little bit of a genius. 

After six months of him being on his best behavior —meaning that he had kept the tantrums only for his mom’s eyes, only let his bratty side show a little bit, and had kept his pranks away from them all— the blades were all a little bit in love with him. He had buttered them all up with stickers, drawings, and the occasional animal cracker because he did not share his food. The blades thought he was a walking angel who could do no major harm and that all accidents that happened around him were just that; an accident. They rarely said no to him, and he held back his urge to yell at them when they did say no, so they all really liked him. 

Well, Keith was actually quite proud to say that they were all wrong. He was not, in fact, an angel. 

His mother could easily back this up; she had, after all, been the one who had taken away the slappy-hand toy he had when he was four after he used it to pull his cereal box out of the cupboard. She had also been the one who confiscated the five frogs he almost stuck in the microwave when he was three, and she was also the one who hid his jelly beans when he tried to stick an entire glass jar of them into his dad’s open mouth while he slept. Keith Kogane was not an angel, and he knew his mother was either wondering when he was going to let that part of him shine or sighing with relief because she thought he had grown out of it. 

He hoped it was the latter because that was what his master plan relied on today as he clung into her leg, paper and crayon box in one hand and his other arm wrapped around her thigh. 

“Momma, I wanna go to the meeting!”

“You know you’re not allowed in the debriefing room, Keith.”

“But I’ve been a good boy!” Keith pouted. “I haven’t been mean to Kolivan in days and I know how to be as quiet as a mouse! You won’t even know I’m there!”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but rules are rules,” Krolia said, prying his arm off with a raised brow. “Perhaps when you’re older. For now, you’re just a kit. You don’t need to know about war.”

“Fine,” Keith grumbled, throwing himself backward on the carpet with a loud “oof.” “Go without me. I’m just gonna stay here and die.”

“Keith, that’s not good boy behavior.”

Keith’s only response was a grumble, and Krolia sighed before picking her blade up and fastening it in her belt. “I’ll be back in an hour, and then we can play with that new board game Arblex brought back when she returned from her last mission. Will you be okay for an hour, Keith?”

Keith grumbled again, and he could practically hear the way Krolia rolled her eyes before she was walking out of the room. 

Almost immediately after she left, Keith slipped out of the room with his whoopee cushion hidden in his red sweater pocket, a smirk spread wide on his face. 

He walked through the halls with his hands tucked in his pockets, smiling cutely and deceptively at blades that passed him. Each one of them nodded at him or smiled, and Keith felt his confidence grow as he approached the debriefing room. 

A large hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he spun around to stare at Antok straight in the eye. 

“Kit, where are you going?”

“I’m on my way to the lounge!” Keith replied easily, already having practiced his lines in case he was caught. “I just said bye to momma and now I’m gonna go color! Wanna go with me?”

“I have to go to the debriefing,” Antok said with a rueful smile. “How about I stop by later and you draw me another…cow, was it?”

Keith sighed loudly, and dramatically drawled out, “fineee.”

Antok ruffled the top of his hair before slipping into the room, and Keith wasted no time slipping in through the crack before the door could fully close. He was glad Antok was so big, because he easily avoided detection and slipped under the long table, smiling wickedly as he crouched and walked slowly past all the standing blades. 

“Are we all here?” Kolivan asked, and Keith wrinkled his nose as he stared at his legs from where he was crouched under Regris’ chair. “Very well. You may all take a seat.”

Keith grinned widely, and with all the speed he could muster, he threw the inflated whoopee cushion onto the seat before Regris could sit down. With glee, he stared intently as Regris sat down on the whoopee cushion. 

The result was instantaneous; a loud farting sound ripped through the quiet room, and if possible, the silence grew even louder. 

It was Kolivan who cleared his throat first. “Regris. If you need to step out and go to the bathroom, please do so now so we can avoid any further…distractions.”

Keith but his tongue, cheeks wide from smiling so much when he heard the telltale snorts coming from Yaxel, who of course was sitting next to Regris. 

“Yes, Regris. We can’t have any more distractions.”

“That wasn’t me!” Regris spluttered, foot tapping rapidly on the floor. “I swear, it wasn’t me!”

“The sound came from your direction,” Drugis said from his place at the opposite side of the table. 

“Don’t be ashamed, Regris,” Arblex said, her soft voice full of amusement. “It’s a natural part of existing–”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Then who was it?” Vanix deadpanned. “Yaxel?”

“Do not blame me for his atrocities–“

“–it was not me–!”

“Alright,” Krolia snapped, standing up. “Whoever it was, the bathroom is open for you to go to at any moment. Now, let us turn our attention to the actual important part of our debriefing today, which is far more important than farting.”

“Well said, Krolia.”

“Well said, Krolia,” Keith mocked under his breath, sticking his tongue out at Kolivan’s legs. He did not like that man, not one bit. 

Kolivan thought Keith was just a kit, but just because he was a kit it didn’t mean he didn’t have eyes; he could see that Kolivan had a soft spot for his mother, one like his father had for her before he died and she brought them back to space. There was no way in space that Kolivan could ever replace his dad, there was just no damn way! Maybe he could place the whoopee cushion under Kolivan’s seat next, just to embarrass him. 

He frowned, glaring at Kolivan’s legs. Kolivan didn’t even have a chair to sit on during meetings and debriefings, choosing instead to stand and speak loudly. He would never sit on a whoopee cushion, no matter how much Keith wanted to place it under his seat to embarrass him. 

He needed a different plan. 

Once the debriefing ended, Regris stood up, and Keith quickly reached out to grab the whoopee cushion before he could be seen. Regris didn’t see him, but Vanix caught his eye, and with a raised brow she shook her head. Keith didn’t worry too much about that, though; Vanix was his favorite blade —apart from his momma, that is— and he knew she wouldn’t rat him out. Regris, on the other hand, deserved the whoopee cushion torture for bailing on his and Keith’s play date for “a mission.” Yeah right, a mission. How dumb did he think Keith was?

Keith slipped out of the room unnoticed and made a mad dash for the lounge. Once in there, he turned the holoscreen on and pressed a few buttons, looking for a movie to pretend he had been watching all along. Eventually, he landed on a movie Arblex had brought back and already transcribed from the CD into the digital version. 

Pressing it, the movie came to life, and Keith’s troubles over finding a way to embarrass Kolivan disappeared and were replaced with awe as the characters on screen —a girl with long blonde hair and a thief— filled his mind with singing and dancing. 

“What are you watching, kit?” Vanix asked halfway through the movie when she slipped into the lounge, holding Keith’s afternoon snack in her hands. 

“A movie,” Keith mumbled, never taking his eyes off the screen.

Vanix took a seat on the couch beside him, passing him his juice pouch and animal crackers that he took without a glance at him. She seemingly got the hint that he didn’t want to speak, so she sat quietly until the end of the movie when Keith jumped up and grabbed her hands, eyes sparkling.

“Did you see, Vanie? Did you see how cool that movie was?!”

“I did,” Vanix said with an amused grin. 

“What was your favorite part, Vanie?”

“I liked the part when they fought the guards while trying to escape,” Vanix replied, patting down a stray strand of hair on Keith’s head with her right hand. “What about you, kit?”

“I liked the part when Flynn Ryder stole the crown!” Keith eagerly replied, sticking an animal cracker into his mouth. “He looked sooooo cool!”

Keith watched as Vanix raised a brow before settling into a smile. “I agree. He was very cool.”

Keith hummed in agreement before standing up to look for another movie to put on, chewing slowly on a zebra shaped cracker. 

“Kit, let me ask you something.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you put a toy under Regris’ chair to make him fart?”

Keith nearly choked on his cracker, bursting into loud giggles while he turned around to stare at Vanix, a cheeky smile on his face. “Do you have any proof it was me?”

“There isn’t anyone else on base who has such a toy capable of causing such chaos,” Vanix said, brow raised and look knowing. “You’re lucky your mother didn’t catch you, kit, or else you would’ve been in serious trouble.”

Keith pouted in response to her words, furrowing his brows. “You’re not gonna tell her, right?”

“Nope, only because I found it a welcome distraction from Kolivan’s droning voice about doom,” Vanix said with a wave of her hand. She flashed Keith a cheeky grin, shaking a finger as she continued, “but if you try that trick with me, I will tell her that you snuck into the debriefing room without asking for permission.”

Keith narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Hm. How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Have I ever lied to you, kit?”

“Fine,” Keith sighed, holding out his finger with his lips in a pout. “But you gotta pinky swear to keep this a secret!”

“I pinky swear,” Vanix said with amusement, connecting her and Keith’s pinkies.

Keith nodded, satisfied. “Good.”

Keith honestly hadn't planned on ever trying to prank Vanix. Mostly because he knew she would have no problem telling his mother on him, but also because she was the one who spent the most time with him while everyone else —including his mother— trained or went away on missions. Krolia had only recently started to go on tamer missions, a day or two at most, and during that time, Vanix was always the one she picked to take care of Keith.

Vanix was his favorite babysitter out of all of the rest of them. She was cool and let him eat double the cookies he wanted, and she didn’t send him to bed at ten. She was super cool, so Keith didn’t see a reason why he needed to prank her.

Kolivan, on the other hand, deserved to be pranked and made fun of. Or at the very least, deserved to be bothered, and now that Keith had watched this movie, he had a plan. But in order for that plan to work, he needed to get his mother away from the blade base for a day. 

“What do you want for dinner today, sweetheart?” Krolia asked him later that night, pouring him some juice into a cup. 

Keith tapped Mr. Wiggles’ paws on the table, staring curiously at his mother. “Not food goo.”

“Thank you, Keith. That really narrows things down for me.”

Keith giggled at that before patting Mr. Wiggles’ head, kicking his feet back and forth under the table. “Momma?”

“What’s up, honey?” Krolia asked, pulling bread out to make him a sandwich. 

Keith kicked his feet back and forth more aggressively, eyeing his mother’s back carefully. “I want new paints!”

Krolia raised a brow and turned her face around to look at him. “Didn’t you get new paints for your birthday?”

“ ‘Ris spilled them on accident last time he was in the lounge,” Keith lied, petting Mr. Wiggles. “I wanted to paint you a pretty picture for your birthday, but now I don’t have any paint! Do you see what the problem is here, momma?”

Krolia huffed with amusement. “I do.”

“So can you go to the space mall and buy me some paints?” Keith asked hopefully, making his eyes wider as he batted his lashes and stuck his lips out in a pout. 

Krolia fixed him with an unimpressed stare. “Keith, you know that doesn’t work with me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Rolling her eyes, Krolia chuckled lightly before turning her attention back to the sandwich she was making. “I’ll ask Kolivan about taking a quick trip to the space mall tomorrow morning. You probably won’t get your paint until next week though, so don’t throw a tantrum over it. Momma has to help train new blade recruits this week.”

“Yes! Thank you, momma!” Keith said, pounding his fists in the air as a cheer. 

Krolia laughed, probably thinking Keith was cheering about getting his paints. Little did she know that he was cheering because she would be gone for a day, and that was the day he would strike before Kolivan even knew what hit him. 

In the meantime, though, he was going to have some fun with the new recruits. 

“That was some beatdown, huh.”

Keith perked up where he stood pressed flat against the wall, the 80’s boombox Vanix had found at the space mall and brought back for him clutched tightly in his hands. His sharp indigo eyes glanced to the left, his breathing quiet and his concentration all on the new blades that were walking down the hall towards the corner he was hiding behind. 

“Indeed,” another blade, a woman, replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt such heaviness in my muscles before.”

“That woman, Krolia? She’s intense,” another woman complained. “I thought I was a pretty decent fighter, but she disarmed me in two seconds flat and pinned me down in three!”

“How embarrassing for you,” a different male said mockingly. “At least you weren’t told to fix your act or else you’d be put on the janitorial role.”

“I didn’t even know a secret organization like the Blade of Marmora had janitors.”

“Well, if they have different alien races as members, then how far fetched is it to believe that they have janitors?”

“How does that even correlate?” The first male asked, completely baffled. 

“I don’t know, it just does!”

Keith’s fingers twitched slightly as the voice drew near. When the first person turned the corner, Keith jumped out, shouting, “HEY! BLADE DUDES!”

The first blade shrieked and jumped backwards into the rest of the five blades with him, all glaring at him and shouting at him. That is, until Keith aggressively stomped his foot on the ground, catching all their attention. 

“Yeah, that’s right! Look at me!” Keith huffed, eyeing the first blade up and down before wrinkling his nose. “You scream like a girl.”

“Who is this kit?”

“My momma is a Blade of Marmora,” Keith said with a glare while the blades stared at him like he had grown an extra head. “She told me to train you guys some more after your first training sessions!”

The first male fixed him with an unimpressed look. “That won’t work on us, kit. Run along and go play with– ow!”

The blade hissed when Keith kicked him in the leg, the rest of the blades stifling their gasps. 

“Do you know who I am?” Keith demanded, ignoring when the blade grumbled, ‘no, that’s why I literally just asked who you are.’ “Do you? Do you know, little sad man?”

“Alright! Who are you, kit?”

“None of your business,” Keith replied with a smirk, and one female blade let out a loud snort of amusement before clearing her throat at the male’s glare. 

“We’re not in the mood for any games, kit. We need to rest for be fully prepared for training tomorrow– OW!”

The male blade hissed when Keith kicked his leg again, glaring at the six year old, who stared back at him with a glare. 

“Do you think Zarkon is gonna give you time to rest when you’re out there?” Keith demanded, pointing at the male blade fiercely. “Do you think he’s gonna stop fighting to let you catch your breath? Huh? ‘Cause he’s not!”

“But we’re not fighting Zarkon tomorrow–”

“Jandex, let him speak,” a female blade said, amusement clear in her voice as she looked down at Keith. “What is it you want us to do, kit?”

“I told you, my job is to train you after your blade training!” Keith huffed. “I’m half human, so I’m an expert at training people like they do on earth. I’m gonna turn you all into real warriors!”

“Aren’t you a little too young to know what it means to be a warrior?” Jandex snidely asked, to which Keith replied sassily, “aren’t you a little too old to be arguing with a six year old?”

Jandex snapped his mouth shut, embarrassed, while the rest of the group silently laughed at him. Keith smirked, glad his insults had shut the blade up. 

With a snap of his fingers, he caught the blades’ attention. He then lifted the boombox up and nodded at the training room that the blades had come out of, his lips curled up into a smirk. 

“Let’s get to training!”

The group of blades mumbled amongst one another, one asking, “is he allowed to do that?” while the other replied bitterly, “I don’t know, but I don’t want to go against him before he insults me.” Keith liked that blade. He was obviously the smarter one between him and the other male blade, Jandex. 

Keith was relieved to find that his mom and Kolivan were no longer in the training room, most likely having gone out the other set of doors across the room. The training room, however, still remained lit as it always did, welcoming anyone who wanted to train and whichever hour of the day when they were back in base. 

Keith led the group of blades to the center of the room, ordering them to line up in a straight line. They obliged, following his orders with a variation of amusement and bitterness. As soon as they were arranged in a straight line, Keith nodded, satisfied, and set the boombox down on the floor in front of them. 

“Alright! On earth, humans train while listening to music. It makes the blood flow faster, and that helps them move faster, so we will be listening to one song while we train. Understand?”

The blades nodded, and Keith grinned. “Alright!”

With a press of his finger, the music began to play, and the opening drums of I’ll Make a Man Out of You began to play, intriguing the blades. 

“Let’s get down to business! To defeat…Zarkon!” Keith sang loudly, pumping his left fist in the air. “Copy my movements, you lazy lumps of purple!”

“I’m not even purple,” one of them —a dark pink skinned man— said as he mimicked Keith’s actions. 

“Did they send me wusses when I asked for sons?” Keith continued to sing, changing it from ‘daughters’ to wusses because daughters could be pretty tough. His momma and Vanix were very tough fighters, after all. 

“You’re the saddest bunch I’ve ever met, but you can bet before we’re through,” Keith sang, doing jumping jacks, “wussies I’ll make a man out of you!”

I’ll Make a Man Out of You played on loop for an hour, and Keith was very proud of what he accomplished in that hour. After having the group of five do countless sets of jumping jacks, high knees, push-ups with him on their backs, pumping their fists in the air, (trying and failing) splits, trust-falls, and arm wrestling, the entire group was sweating buckets, panting and begging for water. 

“Do you think Zarkon is gonna give you water?” Keith demanded, hands on his hips. “No, he’s not! So no water!”

“But we’re not fighting Zarkon right now!”

“Five hundred sit-ups, Janturd!”

“That’s not even my name!” Jandex hissed as he dropped down to start his sit-ups while Keith smugly smiled. 

“You all did great today!” Keith said with a wide smile as he looked at the rest of the hopeful group. His smile then dropped into a scowl. “For baby wussies! I think even I could’ve done better at two years old than you at your ancient ages! You’re all wussies, so give me two-hundred push-ups!”

The group groaned before dropping to do their push-ups, and Keith took the opportunity to sit in front of them with his legs sprawled out in front of him. In his hands, he held a water pouch, sipping it in front of the thirsty group, loudly and obnoxiously to taunt them. He only wished he had a phone to take a picture of how ridiculous everyone looked. 

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Keith’s smile was wiped clean off his face and replaced with a scowl when he tilted his head backwards and was met with Kolivan staring down at him, eyes blank. 

“Kit. Why are you here with these recruits?”

“I’m teaching them how to defeat Zarkon.”

“By having them do sit-ups and push-ups?” Kolivan deadpanned. 

“Momma says core strength is the backbone of a good soldier,” Keith recited with a glare at Kolivan. “Don’t you agree, Koleman?”

Kolivan blinked. He looked at the recruits who stared at him with pleading eyes, and then he looked back at Keith, left ear flicking to the side. “I see. Continue then.”

“That’s what I thought,” Keith mumbled smugly to himself as Kolivan walked away, leaving a group of heartbroken blades in Keith’s merciless hands. 

Keith turned to them, a sharp glint in his eyes. “Come on! Faster before I tell Kolivan to kick you out through the airlock!”

“Yes, Little Blade!”

“I told you, my name is Keith!”

(Vanix threw another fistful of Keith’s puffs into her mouth, observing the training deck below with watchful eyes. Regris stood at her side, watching amusedly at the group of recruits on the deck being yelled at by Keith. 

“Why do you think Kolivan let him keep torturing the recruits?”

“If they can live through the Keith Experience, they can live through anything,” Vanix said, grinning when she saw Keith kick Jandex’s food. “Including a fight with Zarkon.”

“I don’t think that’s correct.”

“Fighting with Keith is like fighting with a wall; neither is ever going to move,” Vanix replied with a snort. “He’s stubborn. If they can live through whatever it is he’s putting them through, they’ll have stronger willed minds in the event they’re ever found out by the empire.”

Regris raised a brow. “We’re putting the will of our fully grown soldiers in the hands of a six year old?”

“To be fair, he has a point. Sit-ups and push-ups build core strength and his exercises will improve circulation, which will help their reflexes improve,” Vanix countered easily. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is all a joke he’s pulling because he’s bored, but it’ll actually help them.”

“And you think that’s why Kolivan is letting him have his little tyrant moment?”

“No, I’m one-hundred percent sure that he’s doing that just to get in Krolia’s good graces so one day she’ll date him.”

Regris blinked. “You think?”

“Kolivan would let Keith get away with murder if it meant keeping Krolia happy.”

“You know what? I wouldn’t even be surprised at this point.”)

Keith’s lessons lasted for an entire week, and Kolivan never once put a stop to them, which was very suspicious in Keith’s not so humble opinion. 

The man had walked in on Keith throwing water buckets at the recruits heads when they failed to follow directions —which, he was proud to say, were less frequent as the days passed— and didn’t do something fast enough. Kolivan had also walked in on Keith calling them ‘idiot sandwiches’ and ‘wussies that only a mother could love.’ He had promptly left the room after that, and Keith scowled when he saw the telltale beginning of a smile on Kolivan’s face because his scolding was not something to laugh at; it was very serious business! 

The day his mother was scheduled to leave to buy his paints was the same day the trainees had their final exam scheduled, something called “The Trials of Marmora” or some funny thing like that. 

Keith was led into the observation room above the training deck, watching curiously as each individual recruit stepped in for their trials. Krolia also stood in there with him, holding Keith in her arms because he insisted he was ‘too tired to stand up, momma, please! I’m gonna die!’ Kolivan was also there, watching with a serious expression as the blades rose out of the ground.

“You are not meant to go through that door.”

Keith frowned. “Then what’s the door for?” He whispered to Krolia, who only grinned before pressing a kiss to his forehead, saying, “just watch, sweetheart.”

Keith did watch. He watched for what was probably hours as each recruit tried to get past the group of blades, desperately trying to get to the door until they realized they really weren’t meant to go through the door. Instead, the trick was to escape through the openings in the floor that the blades rose up from, a task all the recruits managed to find out later rather than sooner. 

Much to Keith’s joy, however, all the recruits passed the trials. He couldn’t help but feel proud of himself for that; it was his training, after all, that had helped them pass. If it weren’t for his core training they never would have had the strength to get through the hours long trials. He told them this much when he was let into the room after his mother and Kolivan had given the new blades instructions for joining the weekly blade debriefing at the end of the week. 

Keith paced back and forth in front of the new blade recruits, hands folded behind his back, his blade onesie hoodie hanging over his head. 

“You wussies have proved to me today that you don’t entirely suck,” Keith said, glancing at the blades out of the corner of his eye. “Kolivan says you’re ready to fight Zarkon. I think you could use a bit of work, but…”

Keith turned around, facing the startled looking blades with a smirk. Sticking out his thumb, he said, “congrats! Now come watch a movie with me, it’s almost my bedtime.”

The blades all sighed with relief as they followed Keith out the door, muttering amongst themselves about their stressful day and how they wanted to sleep, Jandex mumbling, “we should tell Krolia about this obnoxious kit.” The group only stopped when Krolia turned the corner into the hallway they were in, a tablet in her hand, a bag slung over her shoulder and a frown on her face. 

Looking up, she stared at them. “Why are you all still here? Kolivan and I dismissed you an hour ago.”

“It was the Little Blade who stopped us!” Jandex said, pointing at Keith, who was innocently looking up at Krolia with his hands behind his back. 

Krolia blinked, looking down at her son. “Keith? Were you in the training room?” Frowning, she said, “you know you’re not allowed in there.”

“I couldn’t help it! I just wanted to tell them they were so cool and amazing for passing the trials!” Keith gushed, smiling back at the bewildered blades. “They are my heroes.”

“More than me?” Krolia playfully asked, raising a brow. 

“No one is a bigger hero than you,” Keith said very seriously before scuffing the floor with his heel. “Sooooo, are you going out?”

Krolia let out an amused huff, kneeling down to his level. “I was just coming to find you to tell you I’m leaving. It’ll be a four day journey and back, so Vanix and Yaxel have promised to look after you while I’m away. Promise me that you’ll be a good kit for them.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “I’m always a good kit.”

“Keith Akira Kogane.”

“Fine!” Keith huffed, “I’ll be a good kit. Can you bring me back some more movies? And snacks?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Sensing the confusion in the blades behind him, Keith grinned before dramatically throwing himself into his mother’s arms, hugging her tightly while she laughed. Looking through the corner of his eye, he gushed loudly, “oh, thank you, momma!”

Jandex loudly sucked in his breath, and the other blades stared at Keith with mixed looks of horror. Keith only grinned as he snuggled his face under his mother’s chin, making her laugh as she tilted her head to kiss his head. 

“Alright, sweetheart. Go find Vanix. She should be in the lounge.”

“Okay! Bye momma! I love you!” Keith called out as she walked away, glancing over her shoulder at him with an amused smile. “I love you too, sweetheart.”

Once she was out of sight, Keith turned with a cheeky smile, aiming it at the shocked blades. 

“So, movie time?”

The first day of Keith being on the base without his mother was like every other time she had left; he woke up in the morning to Vanix sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag, and when she woke up, she took him down to eat his favorite breakfast which was Oltribel Puffs, a cereal made on planet Oltribel. They were the closest things to Cocoa Puffs, anyway. 

Vanix ate breakfast with him, going over the agenda of their day and how she needed to train for two hours that day like she usually did and how Keith was allowed to sit in and watch. Keith, of course, agreed to this very quickly because he liked watching the blades train. He wanted to be like them when he grew up. She also told him that they would have the afternoon clear to watch movies together, which Keith was excited for.

He was more excited, however, for his upcoming prank on Kolivan. But in order for that to happen, he needed to start putting his plan in action right now. 

“These puffs are so good!” Keith gushed around a mouthful of cereal. “I just gotta sing about it!”

Vanix’s wide smile shrank a fraction. “I’m sorry, did you say you’re going to sing? ”

“This cereal tastes so goodddd!” Keith sang, stuffing another spoonful in his mouth. “Super cool, cool, cool!”

“Why are you singing?”

“I miss momma, and she likes when I sing, so I’m gonna sing!” Keith lied before singing, “I’ve got a dream! Singing is my dreammmm!”

“Quiznak, which animal is being killed here and making so much racket?” Regris asked as he stepped into the kitchen, eyes full of disdain. “Is it a boar?”

“Space boars for space sandwiches!” Keith sang loudly, making both Regris and Vanix wince.

“The kit is in a singing mood,” Vanix whispered to Regris, who scoffed before replying, “well I’m in a dying mood now. Tell him to knock it off before Kolivan hears him.”

“I will do no such thing! He just misses his mother,” Vanix replied with a frown. “This is his way of coping through her absence for these few days, so we should just play along.”

“I’m not singing along if that’s what you’re trying to get me to do.”

“You’re ruining my jam!” Keith said, glaring at Regris. Then he blinked, tilting his head curiously to the side. “What’s that funny word you said? Quiznak?”

Regris paled and Vanix slapped the back of his head, glaring daggers at him. Regris then turned to Keith and with a weak smile, said, “Quiznak is the Galra word for ‘apple juice,’ but let’s just forget about that and focus on your singing which, by the way, needs some improvement, kit.”

“Your sword work needs some improvement!” Keith retorted, glaring at Regris before continuing in song form, “you suck more than quiznak!”

“Don’t say that word.”

“Quiznak!” Keith sang loudly, and Vanix facepalmed while Regris mumbled some excuse about needing to go train. 

“Please don’t say that around anyone else,” Vanix pleaded with Keith, picking his plate up and placing it up on the counter. “Now come on, I need to go train and you are going to color in that new book Gurhisk brought you. Alright?”

“Training rules!” Keith sang as he followed Vanix out of the room before continuing with a wide grin, “but I rule more!”

“Alright, kit. Let’s get that coloring book.”

Keith spent his entire time on the training deck writing out lyrics for Vanix’s theme song, and felt pretty pleased with himself when she saw them and laughed before patting his head. It had taken two hours, but the lyrics, “Who’s the blade on the case? The blade with the cool face? Vanie! Vanie!” were some of his best work so far. Regris asked for one of his own, but Keith decided that because the blade had said his singing sounded like a dying boar, he wouldn’t give him any theme song and would put the whoopie cushion under him at the next blade debriefing. 

The first and second day passed by relatively easily since Vanix knew all about babysitting Keith and knew how to keep him out of (most) trouble. The third day, however, was Yaxel’s babysitting day, and he didn’t know how to keep Keith out of trouble.

That meant that this was Keith’s time to shine. 

“Yaxel!” Keith huffed as he tapped his foot aggressively on the floor, hands on his hips. The blade was five minutes late to their agreed meeting time in the lounge after breakfast, and Keith was not impressed. “Yaxel, come on!”

The sliding doors opened and Yaxel appeared in the room, rolling his eyes with his arms folded across his chest. “You bellowed, kit?”

“We have an important job to do today!” Keith said, pointing at his badly written list on a piece of paper. “Don’t you see? We gotta play hide and seek, tag, pretend to be spies, and that’s just before lunch! After lunch we have to watch The Lion King!”

“Alright, alright.” Yaxel sighed, cracking his neck with a slight twist of his neck to the right. “We can play hide and seek now, but remember that I have to train for at least one hour today. I’m assuming you want to hide?”

“Yep!” Keith popped the letter ‘p’ when he answered, giggling to himself when Yaxel rolled his eyes with amusement. “Close your eyes and count to five hundred!”

“Alright. One, two, three…”

Yaxel continued to count with his eyes closed, and with a smirk, Keith booked it out of the room in his blade pajamas, small covered feet slapping on the floor as he made a beeline for the central control room. 

Just as he had expected after watching the Blade movements through the hallway leading to the central control room, there was no one patrolling right now, the Blades most likely out getting a quick cup of space coffee. (The real name was too difficult for Keith to pronounce– eeffocexth? Something like that.)

The lack of Blades in the hallway made it easy for him to sneak into the control room using Yaxel’s credentials which he had stolen while sneaking out of the lounge. With a silent giggle, Keith locked himself alone in the room. 

The room was void of any people, and Keith immediately zeroed in on the microphone used to broadcast news throughout the Headquarters. With a wicked grin, Keith climbed up onto the chair in front of the microphone, and pressing the button on the side, he said, “Hello Blades of Marmora! This is Keith, and I have a new song I’d like to share with all of you!”

(Unbeknownst to him, upon hearing his voice, Yaxel swore loudly before making his way to the central control room, Vanix nearly decapitated a new Blade member she was training on accident, Regris stopped drinking his space coffee, the rest of the Blades stopped whatever they were doing, and Kolivan narrowed his eyes as he turned his attention to the speaker in the training room. Somewhere in space on a mission, Antok shivered.)

Keith cleared his throat, inhaling loudly before loudly singing, “KOLIVAN WANTS MY MOMMA! KOLIVAN WANTS MY MOMMA! AND SHE DOESN’T WANT HIM OR HIS UGLY EARSSSS! NO NO!”

“Keith, get out of there!” Yaxel hissed through the closed doors, unable to get in due to Keith having stolen his credentials. 

“NO, NO UGLY EARS FOR MOMMA, NOOOO!”

The door then slid open, revealing a less than amused Kolivan, a red faced Yaxel, and a very entertained yet slightly peeved Arblex and Jurtek, the two Blades in charge of guarding the control room today. 

“Kit, unless you want your mother to find out the trouble you’ve caused, I suggest you get down from the chair immediately and get back to the lounge,” Kolivan said, lips in a firm line. 

“You’re not my dad,” Keith sassed back, nose wrinkled with disgust. “You’re never gonna be my dad, either! So stop trying to smush faces with my momma!”

“Keith, please get down from the chair,” Arblex asked in a soft voice that made Keith feel calm. “We won’t tell your mother of your rule breaking if you go with Yaxel back to the lunge.”

“You promise?”

“Absolutely.”

Keith huffed before jumping off the chair and padding over to Yaxel. Once he came to a stop in front of him, he stared up at his face and bluntly said, “you’re a bad babysitter. Vanie never would have let me out of her sight.”

“You–!”

Keith shrugged before walking out of the main control room with his head held high like he hadn’t just embarrassed Kolivan in front of all the Blades present in the Headquarters, but inside he felt like an absolute boss. That would show Kolivan to think twice before trying to make a move on his momma!

Pausing, Keith turned to look back at a flabbergasted Yaxel, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Come on, Yax! We’ve got a lot more fun things to do today!”

“Please, no.”

(When Krolia arrived back at the Blade Headquarters two days later, she was met with Regris and Jurtek trying to get Yaxel off the ceiling due to him being super glued to it for the past six hours. She was also met with snickering everytime she and Kolivan stood together, though everyone and Kolivan refused to tell her what it was about. Then, she was met with Keith stashing super glue under their bed and giving Kolivan the stink-eye, and she immediately decided that Keith would not be receiving those new paints she was beginning to suspect he never needed.)

Keith lost his first tooth when he was six years old on Christmas Day, and it was one of the most awesome moments of his life. 

Christmas wasn’t a celebration that the Blades or the Galra celebrated or even knew about. When Keith excitedly told them about what Christmas was while watching a funny movie about a kid being left home alone for Christmas, the Blades seemed more worried than excited at the prospect of Santa bringing them presents in the middle of the night. 

“So he’s a big fat man who sneaks into your home to bring you gifts?” Regris scoffed from his place perched on the arm rest of the couch in the lounge. “It sounds more like he’s an intruder with harmful intents covered up by deceitful packages.”

“I agree,” Antok said with a serious nod. “We need to be on our toes. We cannot let that man into the base.”

“Guys, guys!” Keith cried out horrified, putting his hands out. “No! We have to let Santa come here or else I won’t get any presents for Christmas! Momma already said I was a bad boy for bullying Kolivan so she isn’t gonna get me a present, and you guys don’t even know what Christmas is. Santa is my last hope, guys, and I don’t even know if he delivers stuff all the way up here!”

“Sure he will, kit,” Vanix said with a smile and a ruffle of his hair. “If he has…flying animals, then I’m sure he’ll make it here for you.”

“But what about breathing?! Space air is gonna kill Santa and then I’m going to be put on the naughty list when the next Santa comes in!” Keith screeched, pulling on his cheeks with his fingers. “Stop laughing! This isn’t funny!”

“You’re right, it isn’t,” Regris said with a smirk. “What is funny is that you think you’re still on the good list when you’ve been the opposite of a good boy this past year.”

“You know what’s funny? The way you always fart at meetings!” Keith retorted hotly, pleased by the way Regris flushed red. “But come on, this is Santa, guys! I need my presents!”

“Your mother already spoils you rotten when she brings you back a present from every trip she takes,” Yaxel said with a flick of his tail. “You don’t need anymore presents.”

“A boy can never have too many presents,” Keith said with a cheeky grin before shaking his head. “Come on! Don’t you guys want presents too?”

“We’re warriors,” Antok said, confused. “What use could we have for presents?”

“Ugh. You guys suck.”

“You know, I wouldn’t mind a present,” Regris said while they were training the next day, Krolia training off to the side with Arblex. “I could use a new pair of bed sheets.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing!” Vanix said from where she was stretching on the ground. “Do you think this ‘Santa’ might bring us something too?”

“Given that he’s failed to bring us presents before, I highly doubt it.”

“Given that he’s not real, I can confirm it won’t happen,” Krolia deadpanned from where she stood a few feet away from them.

“What?” Regris nearly fell, staring at Krolia with wide eyes. “He’s not real? Then why is Keith so insistent on receiving a present from him?”

“His father instilled a love for Christmas and Santa in him when he was young,” Krolia said with a faraway look in her eyes. “Christmas reminds him of the good times with his father. That’s the only reason why I still haven’t told him the big fat man isn’t real.”

“Are you ever going to tell him?”

“I’m sure he’ll figure it out when he realizes that it’s impossible for reindeer to fly.”

“So if Santa isn’t real, how is he going to get any presents?” Regris asked, brows furrowed. 

“The same way he gets them for his birthday,” Krolia said with a shrug. “I have to buy them myself. But Santa isn’t real. It’s just an earth lie.”

“I feel so lied to,” Regris whispered, and Vanix nodded with a small sad frown.

Krolia scoffed as she turned back to spar with Arblex. “Children.”

Keith spent the next week writing his Christmas list, adding on every single little thing that came to mind. The Blades, oddly enough, gave him ideas of what he should ask for. He never understood why his mother would shoot them glares everytime they suggested a new expensive toy, but he found it funny. 

“Momma, why are you so mad about me wanting a shrink ray? Santa’s rich! He can bring me anything I want!”

“Santa is not rich and he will not buy you everything you want,” Krolia said with a twitch of her brow. “Don’t overwhelm the man, Keith. Make your list reasonable.”

“Ugh, fine! I guess I’ll take off the shrink ray and just ask for a shrink crystal.”

“That is not reasonable, Keith.”

“It’s like you don’t want me to have a good Christmas!”

“Keith Akira Kogane, do you really deserve a shrink ray after the stunt you pulled with Kolivan?” Krolia asked, a brow raised while the Blades in the kitchen silently watched the conversation play out between mother and son. 

“Yes!” Seeing Krolia’s frown, his smile fell and he glared at her. “Fine. I won’t ask for a shrink ray. But I want that bike I saw on the holoscreen last week!”

“Good boy. I think Santa will greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness, Keith.”

Keith only beamed up at her before counting to write what he wanted in his page-long list to Santa. He had to give it to his mother tonight so she could teleport it to Santa at the North Pole, and because it was so far away, she needed it a whole month early and Keith was not about to send a list without absolutely everything he wanted on it. He didn’t want to have any regrets. 

When Krolia read over the completed list that night at a late night meeting with a few head blades while Keith slept, she resisted the urge to sink into the uncomfortable conference room chair. 

“Krolia? Is something the matter?” Kolivan asked, momentarily pausing his debriefing on the month-long mission Antok would soon be leaving on. “Is there something wrong 

“I’m sorry, Kolivan, ignore me. I’m just going over Keith’s Christmas list.” Krolia sighed, ignoring the way a few of the senior blades snickered at the table. “I’m not sure how I’m going to get more than half of these.”

“Why spoil the kit more than he already is?” Thace asked from his place at the end of the table, brows furrowed. “He already has our undivided attention when it should be applied to much more important things than presents, such as this meeting. Don’t you agree, Kolivan?”

Kolivan’s left ear twitched, and Krolia shot Thace a chilly glare that left the laughing blades sucking in their laughter. 

“Is that so? Well, then, if you don’t want me to talk about my son’s wishes for an important holiday, then I suggest you pitch in and help me buy some gifts for him from this list. Only then will I be able to give this meeting my undivided attention.”

Thace’s mouth moved but no words came out, and Antok snorted. “Krolia, don’t fret over the kit’s list. Most of us had already planned to help you out with it, in addition to buying small presents of our own.”

“When did this mission meeting turn into a Christmas shopping meeting?” Thace mumbled to himself, earning a small grin from Ulaz. 

“We’ll be more than happy to help you give the kit a memorable Christmas. Even if we don’t exactly know nor care for it.”

“Yes, everyone will help give Keith the Christmas of his dreams,” Kolivan said with a nod at Krolia, who flashed him an appreciative smile. With a cough, he turned away from her. “Now, back to the mission.”

Keith remembered that when he was four, he went Christmas tree shopping on a Christmas tree farm somewhere in California because Arizona had sucky trees. 

He remembered finding a beautiful tree year after year, beautiful pine trees that smelt like heaven comforting him. Now that he was in space, however, he should’ve known that Christmas wouldn’t be as simple as it was on earth. 

“What is that?” Keith asked, looking up with aghast at the six feet tall glowing yellow tree standing in the corner of the lounge, clunky neon colored rocks and chipped green, blue and red ornaments hanging off of the thin branches. 

“A Christmas tree,” Yaxel said, pleased with himself. “That was the prettiest looking tree on the planet I found nearby, anyway. It looks nice enough to last until the end of this odd holiday, doesn’t it?”

Keith stared up at him with big eyes. “Who hurt you?”

“No one!”

The tree was only the beginning of the weird space version of Christmas. 

After the tree incident, Keith realized that the lounge had no fireplace. Upon bringing this up to Krolia while they were watching a film together before his bedtime, she only sighed before taking Keith’s hands into her own. 

Squeezing them, she said, “Santa knows that Christmas works differently in space, sweetheart. He knows we don’t have a fireplace, so we have to guide him from the launch bay to the lounge with Christmas lights. That’s what he told me in the letter he wrote to me.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and he also said that you can leave some snacks out for him but not too many so the space mice don’t eat them before he can get to them.”

“Oh. But what about the stockings for the Blades?” Keith asked, frowning deeply. “Santa needs to bring them all presents, too! Except Kolivan. He can get coal.”

“The Blades are too old for Santa to bring them presents, sweetheart.”

Keith frowned, clearly distressed. “But they deserve presents!” He then brightened up. “Momma, I’m gonna get them presents!” 

“What are you going to give them?” Krolia asked, visibly amused. 

“You’ll see in two weeks,” Keith said with a sly grin, and Krolia only laughed before they settled in to watch a movie about a talking clown fish. 

Next was the Christmas dinner celebration itself.

“What do you mean we’re not gonna have a big feast?!” Keith screeched, tugging on his hair in despair while Vanix stared down at him worriedly. “Christmas is all about having a big feast!”

“I thought it was all about presents,” Vanix said while she continued to hang up a string of multi-colored lights on the walls. 

“It’s also about parties with music and karaoke!” Keith said, his arms held out with exasperation. “It's a family holiday!”

“I’m sure you will have a big feast with your mother,” Vanix assured him with a small confused smile. “She is your family, after all.”

“But you’re all my family,” Keith said with wide eyes, bottom lip trembling. 

Vanix fell silent at that, her hands stilling. “We are warriors, kit. Kolivan would never give us the day off for something like this. This holiday is meant for you and only you to celebrate with your mother.”

“It’s not gonna be a real Christmas if you guys aren’t there,” Keith said with a dejected pout, walking away with Mr. Wiggles’ butt dragging on the floor. 

“Why have you requested a meeting with us, Vanix?” Kolivan asked, standing at the head of the packed table. 

All the Blades on base were gathered in the large room, amounting to about fifty people including Krolia. Some Blades looked disinterested, others looked excited, and others looked confused. After all, Vanix was a low ranking Blade at best; she had no title, yet she had called a meeting. 

She had once dreamed of earning all their respect. Tonight, though, she was willing to let all her hopes for their respect go down the drain. 

“Yes. Well, as you know, the earth holiday that we’ve been preparing for around the base is in two days,” Vanix said, hands folded behind her back. “Christmas.”

“We’re all painfully aware of it,” Thace cut in with an irritated flick of his ears. “The main hallway looks terrible with all those lights. Did you really bring us here to tell us what we already know?” 

“No, I came here to ask that we celebrate it too,” Vanix snapped, glaring at Thace. At the silence in the room, she turned to a blank looking Kolivan. “The kit told me that the proper way to celebrate Christmas is to celebrate it with family, which is what he considers us to be. I can’t bear to see him so sad at the fact that we won’t all be celebrating with him.”

“We are warriors,” an older Blade said with a frown. “We are fighting a war, Vanix. We have no time for this nonsense.”

“I’m not saying we should all drop everything! I’m just saying that it would be nice for some of us to celebrate with him to make things feel more normal for him.”

“Are you a warrior or a babysitter, Vanix?” Thace snapped. “If you were a warrior, you would realize that our mission is far more important than pleasing a child with a nonsensical celebration.”

“The universe has been fighting this war for thousands of years!” Vanix snapped, leaning forward to glare at Thace. “ We have been fighting for thousands of years and not much has changed! One day off would not hurt our cause–”

“That is enough, Vanix,” Kolivan finally said, holding a hand up to silence her. At his side, Krolia was trying to hide her smile, but Vanix could see it. It made her feel better. 

“Yes, Vanix. That is enough,” Thace sneered. 

“That is also enough from you, Thace,” the Blade leader said, and snickers rippled through the room. With a glare, Kolivan silenced them. Then, sighing, he said, “Vanix is correct. We have fought this war for many years with no reprieve. However, Thace is also correct in saying that we are warriors. Our job is to fight for freedom for the universe, not to throw parties.”

Vanix but the inside of her cheek, angry. “But sir–”

“I will not give you the go ahead for this, Vanix. But I will also not hold you back.” Kolivan sighed. “The world cannot stop for one kit. However, those who are not scheduled to depart on any mission within the next week may celebrate with the kit.”

Vanix blinked, and holding back a wide triumphant grin, said, “thank you, Kolivan!”

“Yes, well. This meeting is now adjourned.”

Vanix walked out of the room and as soon as she was outside, she cheered silently with her fisted hands in the air, jumping up and down. When Krolia came out and saw her, Vanix stopped jumping, blushing furiously. 

“Krolia, I–”

“Thank you for advocating for a celebration,” Krolia said with a small warm smile. “Thank you for being such a wonderful older sister to him.”

“Of course, Krolia.”

Just like he had done when he was back on earth, Keith woke up at six in the morning on Christmas Day and jumped on the bed to wake his very disgruntled mother up. 

“Do you have to do this every year?”

“Momma, come on!” Keith whined, tugging on her arm. “I want to see the presents Santa got me!”

“Can’t you wait until later?”

“No!”

And just like every year, Krolia got out of bed upon Keith’s insistence and walked with him to the Christmas tree, ready to cover her ears to protect herself from Keith’s shriek when he saw the mountain load of presents. 

“Holy crackers!” Keith shrieked when he entered the lounge, eyes positively shining. “Santa came to space! Momma, Santa came to space!”

“I can see that,” Krolia said, rubbing her eyes. 

Keith couldn’t believe his eyes; there were at least fifty presents littered throughout the lounge, all wrapped in ribbons and boxes. Some of them, however, were wrapped in really obvious ways like the yellow with purple polka dots covered hoverboard hovering in the air beside the weird Christmas tree like an odd ghost and the pail and shovel under the tree. 

“Santa got me a hoverboard!” Keith screeched, immediately making a beeline for it while Krolia mumbled, “Santa is going to get a blade to the face for this,” under her breath. 

After unwrapping the hoverboard, Keith tore into his other presents and discovered with delight that Santa had not disappointed this year; he got the two-hundred pack of crayons from Zantharion he’d been asking his mom for ages , five invisible ink pens, toy boats and ships, a regular scooter, a tricycle, balloons, a bucket and a shovel, a little cute bumblebee backpack, fireworks, a bubble wand, a bag of puffs, twenty different coloring books, a hula hoop and an alien mask, cool glowing rock from Heapitoux, diapers, and most incredible of all, a foam model of a luxite Marmora blade that even glowed. 

“Momma!” He gasped, shaking it aggressively over his head, “look! Santa gave me a blade just like yours!”

“That’s lovely, sweetheart,” his mother said as she glared furiously at the hoverboard he was standing on. “Watch your footing. There are no doctors in space.”

“I’m gonna show ‘Ris!” Keith smirked as he leaned forward. “He’s gonna be soooo jealous ‘cuz he wanted one too!”

When he didn’t move, Keith frowned and tapped the “plus” button for speed on the hoverboard. The hoverboard shook, and grinning, Keith leaned forward with his knees bent, arms bent at his sides. “Let’s go–WOAH!” 

“Keith!”

Keith screamed as he blasted out of the room on the hoverboard and down the hall, blasting past the blades in the hall who stared at him with shock. Only after registering what happened did they run after him, shouting at him go stop, but Keith didn’t stop until he crashed through the training area doors and hoverboard went in circles in front of the bewildered training blades, and he was then flung backwards and subsequently caught by Kolivan like a cat. The hoverboard then stopped moving and hovered freely in the air while Keith stared at it with wide starry eyes. 

“I wanna do that again!”

“Please don’t,” Kolivan said, and Keith shrieked when he realized that he was the one holding him. 

“Put me down!” he hissed, wriggling around like a kitten while the other blades and Krolia burst through the doors with wild eyes. “Koleman, I said let go!”

“Keith, he just saved you from that thing!” Krolia scolded. “Be nice!”

“His nails are hurting my little suit!” Keith wailed, “he’s ripping a hole in it!”

Huffing slightly, Kolivan set Keith down and the kit wasted no time in running away to hide between his mother and Vanix, glaring at Kolivan. 

“Thank you for saving him,” Krolia said, smiling gratefully at Kolivan. The man only nodded before turning back to the blades he was instructing, and Keith blew a raspberry at him before tugging his mother out of the room. 

“The feast, momma! What are we gonna eat tonight?”

“You can leave that to me, kit,” Vanix said with a wink as she walked past them to get back to the kitchen. “We’ll give you a meal worthy of a Christmas dinner.”

“A party?” Keith asked, eyes wide. 

Vanix winked, and Keith screamed and cheered, stomping around the hallway excitedly in his Marmora pajama, Krolia following after him a small sigh and an amused smile on her face. 

To pass time, Keith spent the entire afternoon going through his gifts in the playroom, putting them away in boxes at Krolia’s insistence. Regris and Yaxel even stopped by at one point, and just like Keith predicted, Regris was completely jealous that he had gotten the hoverboard. 

“You don’t even have time to play with it,” Keith taunted with a smirk. “But I do!”

“Watch yourself, kit. One day that board might just end up missing.”

“You are arguing with a kit, Regris.”

“He started it!”

A good chunk of time passed when his mother forced him to take an afternoon nap like she did every Christmas, knowing all too well that if he did not take that nap he would crash before midnight and cry about it for the rest of the year. It had happened before. And just like every year, Keith protested and stomped his feet, demanding she let him stay up, and just like every Christmas past, she put him to sleep by watching a movie with him pressed up against her side, effectively knocking him out cold fifteen minutes into The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. 

When he woke up, it was to the delicious scent of food wafting in through the doors. Pulling himself up off the couch, he walked out of the room, hair disheveled and everything, following the scent with anticipation in every little bone in his body. 

Upon arriving at the kitchen, he let out a loud shriek, saying, “Our Christmas feast!”

Vanix had prepared what looked like a space boar, which sat in the center of the table looking oddly delicious, and a few vegetables and space beans spread out. There was even a pie out, a pie that reminded him of the one he and his father used to share with his mother after the feast, a tradition that made him tear up on the spot because his mother had remembered and she hadn’t forgotten his father. 

“Keith?” his mother asked softly, lifting him up into her arms. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I miss pops,” he said through his tears, aggressively wiping them away with his fists. 

“You made him cry!” Yaxel hissed to Vanix, who hissed back, “he’s happy crying, you moron!”

Krolia sighed into his hair, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head with her arms holding him tightly against her. “Me too, sweetheart. But let’s try having this feast in memory of him, okay? I’m sure he would want us to eat all the boar we can.”

Keith giggled at that through his tears. “Okay momma. We’re gonna eat space boar and pie for pops!”

“That’s my boy,” she said with a kind smile as she set him down. “So? Does this pass for your Christmas feast?”

“It’s alright…” Keith said with a mischievous grin. Then, he sprinted to the cupboard and laughed out the big boombox he had hidden in there after the last time his mom took it away from him, and pressing play, he shouted, “let’s get this part started!”

Christmas music began to play, and Vanix sighed with relief, sagging against Regris, who looked at her with wide eyes. 

“Vanix?”

“He likes it!”

Keith ran up to her and proceeded to give her legs a bear hug, gushing, “thank you, Vanie! This is the best feast in space ever!”

“You’re welcome, kit,” she said as she leaned down to awkwardly hug him back, smiling fondly at him. 

There were maybe only twenty Blades in the kitchen, all stiff and moving awkwardly like they didn’t know where to stand. It took an hour for them to begin to relax, and Keith was absolutely having the time of his life watching them laugh more than usual and stumble about like they were newborn babies. He suspected it had something to do with the weird water Regris poured into their cups, but they looked funny walking like that so he only giggled and skipped up to Antok, who was busy devouring a space boar leg. 

“Tok!” Keith called out, tugging on his sleeve. “Dance with me!”

Antok licked his lips as he ate the last piece of meat, looking down at Keith curiously. “Why me?”

“ ‘Cuz I wanna dance with you, duh!” Keith tapped his foot impatiently on the ground. “Come on! It’s not Christmas unless we dance!”

“I’m starting to wonder about what traditions are actually real or not…”

Keith gasped loudly. “Would I ever lie to you, Tok?”

Antok flashed him an unimpressed look, but sighed nonetheless. “Alright, I’ll dance with you. But I’ll have you know I won’t be very good at it.”

“Yay!” Keith cheered, tugging Antok forward with his hand and trying to pretend it was easy. “Dance! Dance! Dance!”

He stood on Antok’s feet, and when the music began, Keith began to jump up and down on his feet like a jumping bean and Antok snorted at that, all too amused. 

“Spin me, Tok!”

“You might fall, kit.”

“I never fall!” Keith said, overconfident, and shrieked with laughter when Antok lifted him up and spun him in the air like an ice skater. “I’m the king of the world! Wooooo!”

Antok laughed, then put Keith back down. Two songs later, they were being cheered on by the drunk Blades as they both spun around, held together by their connected arms. Keith shrieked with laughter and Antok loudly laughed, and when Regris chanted, “go faster, faster!” he spun faster, and Keith laughed even more because this was the best dance ever. 

Two seconds later, he shrieked when his hands slipped out of Antok’s, and screamed when he was thrown backwards. He rolled over in a circular motion then landed face first against the floor. Hard.  

“Quiznak!” Antok cursed as he rushed towards him, picking him up by the shoulders to look over him with worried eyes. “Keith, are you alright?”

Dizzy, Keith flashed him a wide toothy smile and said, “thuper!”

Vanix gasped loudly when she stepped forward from the crowd of Blades, face drained of anger color. “ Quiznak, Antok, what did you do?!”

“ It was an accident! ” Antok replied in Galran, confusing poor Keith who only understood the ‘what did you do’ from Vanix because his mom always used it on him. 

“Whas wrong?” Keith asked, head tilted to the side in confusion. 

“Your tooth is gone!” Regris shouted, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Woah!”

“This was your fault! You told me to spin him faster!”

“Teeth are supposed to fall out!”

“Humans don’t lose their teeth until they’re eight,” Vanix hissed as she hit Regris’ head. “He’s barely six years old! Krolia is going to kill you!”

“What am I going to do?”

Keith turned to his mother and flashed her a toothy grin, and immediately her jaw dropped. “Momma! They thay I loth a toof!”

“ What did you do? ” Krolia demanded in Galran, looking at Antok, Regris and Vanix with sharp eyes. 

“He bit into the boar bone and his tooth fell out!” Antok lied, shaking in his suit while Keith tried to remember when he ever bit the boar bone. “We tried to warn him, but you know kits. They never listen, right Regris?”

Regris stood up straight at that, nodding aggressively. “Yes, that is exactly what happened. He was so curious and who are we to stop that curiosity? It was all him, really!

Krolia glared at them before turning to look at Keith, who was still trying really hard to remember when he had bit that bone. “Keith, sweetheart, is that what happened?”

“Booone,” Keith said, sounding out the word to make sure it didn’t sound weird. “Booooone. Bone!”

Krolia pinched the bridge of her nose before looking at Vanix. “Did he actually do that, Vanix?”

Vanix was sweating, and her eyes darted between a desperate Antok and Regris. She then nodded stiffly. “Yes, that is exactly what happened. I must have not cooked the boar right–”

“Don’t worry,” Krolia said, sighing as she pat Vanix’s shoulder gently. “All you did was cook the boar. Keith is the one who bit the bone.”

“Booooone.”

Crouching down, Krolia took Keith’s face to inspect his mouth with a critical eye. “Well, there’s nothing but a hole here now. I guess this means you’re meeting the Tooth Fairy a lot sooner than we anticipated meeting her.”

Keith blinked slowly. “Whooth the toof fairy?”

“She’s a magical fairy who comes to take your teeth in the middle of the night,” Krolia explained with a small smile. “She takes your tooth and leaves you money under your  pillow.”

Keith gasped at that, fear filling his body. “She takes teef?”

“Well, yes, but only the ones that fell out–”

“I’m never getting my toof back?!” Keith shrieked, horrified. “Ith she gonna make a necklace wif my teef?!”

“No, sweetheart–”

“She’s evil!” Keith shrieked, shaking his head with fear in his wide eyes. “No! I don’t wanna meet her!

“Keith–”

“Evil!” Keith shrieked before picking his bloody tooth up and running out of the room with it, his poor mother calling out for him and the rest of the drunk Blades worried about the supposed Tooth Fairy coming in the middle of the night to steal their teeth. 

Keith’s first Christmas in space was a successful and memorable one, for that was when he lost his first tooth and celebrated a holiday with his new family. He even gave them gifts, which Krolia realized were mostly stolen when she caught Vanix walking around with a familiar blue turquoise earring in her ear that looked suspiciously like the one she had brought back from earth and found her bed stripped of all its sheets and her pillows gone when she returned to her room from the Christmas dinner. 

(It was also the holiday where he learned of the Tooth Fairy and grew to hate her, a fear he would never outgrow even twenty years later, as his future husband would eventually tease him endlessly about.)

After Christmas, there were barely any holidays to celebrate. New Years was barely celebrated by the blades, but Keith and his mother celebrated by watching a movie and eating cookies together. After that, there was only Kolivan’s birthday, and Keith didn’t consider that a holiday. Since the old Blade didn’t care about it, why should he? He still got him a present, which was a drawing of him with horns and a devil’s tail with a pitchfork in his hand, signed ‘Keith not kit’ that he slid into his room through the door crack. 

Krolia was not pleased with that one when she found out. 

A year passed quickly, and before he knew it, he was blowing out his candles while Vanix, Yaxel and Antok, along with a few other Blades and Kolivan celebrated his seventh birthday. 

A year passed quickly, but not quickly enough for the Blades who had to put up with a growing up kit in their midst. Keith constantly pranked them —Regris sat on the whoopee cushion so much that the Blades all thought he had chronic stomach problems— and gossiped about them, stepping over their toes every time they trained. He asked too many questions that they didn’t really know how to answer, questions about the planets other than earth, questions that were better answered on the actual planets and not on the base. 

The Blades adored him, but there was only so many pranks and pent up energy released through his tearing through the training room on his hoverboard that they could handle. 

“I have a present for you,” Krolia said that night as they walked back hand in hand to their room, Keith’s feet covered with blue socks that replaced the onesie feet that he had long outgrown padding on the floor. 

“What is it, momma?”

“I am going to start going on some extended missions,” she said, flashing him a smile. “That means I will be gone most likely for a month.”

“Momma, that’s not a present! It stinks!” Keith glared at her. 

“Would it stink less if I told you that you are coming with me?” 

Keith gasped, eyes shining as he looked up at her. “Where?!”

“Wherever my missions take me,” Krolia said with a chuckle. “We are going to visit planets like the ones you keep asking about. Does that sound fun?”

“Are we going to Druitus where Regris says there’s good food?!” Keith asked excitedly. 

“Maybe. If I have a mission there, we will certainly go. So? Does this present still suck?” Krolia teased. 

“It’s the best present ever!” Keith paused. “Well, after the super cool tablet Tok gave me. But I’m super excited! When do we go?”

“Next week,” Krolia said with a chuckle. “Rest up this week, sweetheart. The universe will be yours to explore soon enough.”

“It won’t know what hit it!” Keith cheered as he jumped up and down, grinning wildly because he was finally going to get to see another place that wasn’t the base.

Sure, he would miss it and he would miss seeing everyone daily, but space was starting to be less and less scary and he was ready to explore. And he was seven now, practically a big boy who was ready to explore. 

“Happy birthday to me,” Keith whispered to Mr. Wiggles that night as he went to sleep, ready to dream about the future space adventures he would have.