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Far away from Earth’s winter, Keith was dreaming of Christmas.
One year, long enough ago that his age meant little, except that he was little enough to be light luggage, the family he had been staying with took Keith to spend Christmas with relatives. They went to Yellowknife, Canada. Of the meal and the people, he remembered little, except that there had been a Scot and a diamond miner, and it had been very warm, and very comfortable, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost believe that he would never be hungry again, and that, at the time, had been the most comfortable thought of all.
After dinner, the family had all gone out into the snow. Maybe the miner had claimed that they could show their American cousins a thing or two about real diamonds, pointed up to the sky with a certain Christmas-liberated sentimentality and said something about stars and snow. Whatever had happened, they had managed to gesture to the sky at precisely the moment a green-gold curtain of northern lights had fallen over it, in a broad, bright rippling river.
It hadn’t taken Keith’s breath away, but he had fallen into the snow on his backside, spilling an over-sweet hot orange chocolate over his mittens that had soaked the red wool with a smell that wouldn’t leave it for years.
So when he dreamed of Christmas on his Blade bunk, he dreamed of lights – green, gold and wonderful behind his eyes - and woke to the smell of hot chocolate, dosed probably with Irn-Bru bootlegged to Yellowknife by the Scot, clinging to the back of his mouth.
The smell stayed with him all the way to the bridge of the ship, where Kolivan was looking out of the window, deep in thought.
The Blade ships had been grounded now for a day. A call of interest in allying with Voltron had brought Keith, Kolivan and two small units of Blades to a planet in the Ardit-7 system. Unusually, the call had come with a specific request to speak with Galra supporters of Voltron, the reason for which became clear once Keith and the Blades had landed and a hidden community grown from deserters of the Galra Empire made themselves known.
The planet was unnamed. Its people believed that whilst unnamed a thing could be invisible and unfound. Maybe it wasn’t far from the truth. There was no easy way for visitors to speak of an unnamed planet, especially when it was one of Ardit-7’s several hundred and coordinates weren’t easily delivered in conversation. Point to proof, these people had remained secret for millennia.
Meeting the Galra here had gone smoothly enough. Leaving the planet, however, had coincided with a volcanic eruption, the likes of which hadn’t been seen for three thousand solar orbits. Thankfully, the closest of the planet’s Galra were far enough away to be unaffected, but the eruption had pumped the sky full of ash, and such pleasant volcanic debris as molten glass and rock. As sturdy as the Blade ships were, Kolivan had decided that flying them in through this atmosphere was a needless risk.
Their talks with the deserters had finished sooner than they had expected, so they had two universal standard days spare before their absence would cause anybody trouble. They had the supplies, the fuel, and peaceable surroundings. They had everything they needed to quietly wait out the volcanic cloud.
Beyond the bridge’s window, the unnamed planet’s gentle slopes of long thin giant grasses were pale, pearlescent grey. Ash was falling in slow, sticky, drifting spots.
A small voice at the back of Keith’s mind chanted: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
The low-power emergency lights in the ship were green-gold.
“Any change?”
“We’ll be seeing an eastwards wind in three vargas,” Kolivan replied, eyes on the pale shadow of the volcano in the distance, a thin column of smoke rising from its cone. “According to the monitoring team, it’ll give us the window we need for an unimpeded atmospheric breach. We’ll begin preparations in two. Until then, you can be at ease, Keith.”
Keith didn’t know about that. He thought of the Castle ship, of Shiro, Allura, Voltron, everyone waiting for their return to report on what they had found here. Then with the smell of chocolate and orange still in his mouth and the green-gold emergency lights running the length of the ship, he thought of being small and cold and full of wonder. He thought of Earth, and what could be lost with every second that they didn’t keep pushing forwards. Even if they had good reason to stall, he didn’t like it.
“That’s easier said than done.”
Kolivan turned and to Keith’s surprise, smiled. “Some would say that in the times most difficult, whatever is difficult is most necessary.”
“You mean, like finding air when we’re suffocating?”
“Seeing hope when despair blinds us. Making light and warmth, when it’s dark and the winds are cold.” Kolivan looked to the window again and lowered his voice, “You’ve found me in a strange mood, Keith. I apologise.”
Keith could have said the same for himself. He opened his mouth to say as much, but there was no refusing an apology from Kolivan, even if they were both ‘at ease’ until the winds shifted, so he closed it and stayed by Kolivan at the window instead.
They watched the ash fall in its thick, gently flurrying storm in quiet companionship.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful, definitely took on a whole new meaning when there was a volcano erupting on the horizon.
“Keith,” Kolivan broke the silence, “do they celebrate anything like Pipegrass Night on Earth?”
“Like what?”
“It’s a festival from the old times, when the Galra were still planet-bound. On the longest night of a solar orbit, its peoples would make lights, gather about them and pool their supplies, to eat and drink well together, and keep warm in both body and spirit.”
“Oh.” The memory of snow soaking through the back pockets of old jeans touched Keith with its chill. He smiled. “Yeah, we have a few of those. Different peoples do different things, but, they kind of…tell the same story, on the whole, I guess.”
“What kind of story do they tell?”
“About lights. Usually. And people.”
He didn’t add that in the years after Yellowknife, looking up at emptier skies from the windows of less welcoming families, Christmas had felt more about being painfully aware of how the universe could be very dark and cold and that somewhere, deep down, everyone was a little frightened of being alone at the mercy of it.
“I see. We Galra, too, were many peoples when we were planet-bound, and for each people there was a variation on the same theme, much as it seems on Earth, but only Pipegrass Night endured when the Galra took to space,” the set of Kolivan’s mouth turned wistful, “although perhaps it will be forgotten in another generation or so. Most Galra your age, Keith, have never celebrated it.”
“What happened?” Keith asked, filing away ‘most Galra your age’ to think on later. To be included in that way still raised hairs over his skin. “Did Zarkon ban it?”
“He may as well have.”
Krolia stepped quietly up the steps to the bridge, carrying a steaming steel flask. She nodded ‘good morning’, and Keith and Kolivan did the same. It was far from cold in the bridge, but Keith found himself accepting the flask when she thrust it at him, grateful anyway. “Why?”
“Pipegrass Night needs pipegrass, but, pipegrass only ever grew natively on Daibazaal,” Krolia replied, unfolding a stool from under the control panel. She watched Keith pour himself a bright blue cup of the Galra’s favourite comfort beverage into his mess tin (its name, to Krolia’s amusement, still unpronounceable to him) and, eyes glimmering, carried on. “After Daibazaal was destroyed, the only source we had for it in the entire universe were the commercial plantation ships. When Zarkon turned all the Empire’s resources to his so-called ‘universal peace’ effort and the Empire’s expansion, those ships were repurposed. They were spacious. Large. Had top-notch climate control. Zarkon provided financial and sociopolitical incentives, and people did the rest. Eventually, we had a universe with productive factory communities and effective mega-hospitals, and pipegrass so rare that most Galra couldn’t afford it, until one day pipegrass was simply gone – and Pipegrass Night with it.”
“Couldn’t you use alternatives?”
“Some did try with substitutes discovered from new worlds, but the new propaganda was that it tied the Galran spirit too closely to the past, specifically to Daibazaal, a dead world, and so against the glorious advance of the culture into space, the forward momentum of the Empire and the future of our people.” Kolivan poured himself a cup then returned the flask to Krolia, his expression winter-wind bitter. “There is no punishment for celebrating it, but it is discouraged from being taught, and if our young are not taught it, it will die.”
“And so we’ll have a generation, who grow under the quintessence-fuelled light of our ships, light available at the flick of a switch, warmth at the turn of a dial, who never stop for a moment to remember that light in the dark,” as if to punctuate her point, Krolia turned on the holographic monitor, its red glow expanding in front of her, “is nothing short of a miracle.”
“And one that we’ve neither earned nor deserved, because there’s no earning from an ungiving universe.” Kolivan swirled his drink in his tin. “We have to fight for it. We must hope, or dare to hope, and hoping or daring to do so is a dangerous idea when that hope may have little to do with his Empire. It is better to erase any activity that would encourage hope as a habit.”
That sounded like Zarkon. Keith sipped his drink. It was hot, tasted of mint-infused cream and popped lightly against his tongue with tiny bubbles. “What did pipegrass look like?”
“Very tall. Thin. Dark blue and bendy. Narrow leaves.” Krolia squinted, peering through the haze of memory. “Oh, and they had these…knobbly segments, like ripped out spines – “
“They looked like the giant grasses on this planet,” Kolivan cut in, taking pity on her.
“That’s right! Just like those over there.” Krolia pointed at a tall stand of grass, their tips bending under the weight of ash, then frowned. “Oh, I see. That’s why everyone’s thinking about Pipegrass Night.”
“Everyone?” asked Keith and Kolivan together.
“Pexhar and Greiva were singing the old songs over the comms. Hrethen was making jokes about ‘crowning a princess’, after she caught Ordri drawing lantern patterns on his mess tin.”
“Ah,” said Kolivan. “I see.”
Ash that had stuck to the window was sliding slowly sideways. An invisible force-field wiper was sweeping over the glass.
“So…” said Keith. “What’s the story behind Pipegrass Night? Is there a story?”
Kolivan and Krolia looked at each other. Neither of them were the best of storytellers, but then Krolia looked sheepish and said, “I haven’t done a Pipegrass Night since I was six,” and Kolivan sagged, resigning himself to the responsibility.
“Well, now,” he said, gruffly, “I suppose the first thing to do is to…er…all settle down. Yes. Let’s all take a seat.”
A moment later, when they were all settled and had their hands wrapped around replenished tins, Kolivan cleared his throat and began. “There was a princess – “
“Once upon a time,” said Krolia swiftly.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s how all the proper stories start.” She sipped from her tin. “If you’re going to teach my son the old ways, do it properly.”
Kolivan scowled but Krolia had pulled up a weather chart showing hyper-colourised clouds in motion and took no notice, so he returned to Keith.
“Once upon a time,” he restarted obligingly, and Krolia nodded, satisfied, “there was an old couple, who were very happy together. The pair were pipegrass merchants, who spent their days cutting pipegrass on the mountain slopes to carve and sell as tools at the market. One day – “
“They should have names,” Krolia interjected.
“…let’s call them Cutter Unit One and Cutter Unit Two.”
“And there’s got to be a couple of ‘lo’s and ‘behold’s, in the telling,” Krolia added with an air of authority. “With exclamation marks.”
“I shall endeavour to do my best.” Kolivan conceded, and Krolia turned away, apparently content. Keith wondered if something had been lost in translation via the universal babel nano-cloud. “One day, Cutter Unit One was wandering the forests when – lo! – they spotted a pipegrass stem, shining gold with an inner light. “What could it be?” wondered Unit One, and so, in the true Galran spirit of scientific curiosity and investigative endeavour, Unit One took up their laser axe and chopped the pipegrass open. And – behold! – “ Kolivan ground his teeth but battled on, “inside the hollow stem of the pipegrass was the tiniest of creatures, who called herself a princess of light.”
Distantly, Keith remembered a second or third hand picture book his father had once read to him, involving many pictures of bamboo. “This story sounds kind of familiar.”
Krolia smiled. “Your father said the same.”
Kolivan tapped his claw on his tin, getting their attention. “For the benefit of this telling, let’s call her – “
“Unit Three?” suggested Keith.
“Zero,” decided Kolivan, looking pleased with himself, “the most mysterious of all numbers, and most fitting for this princess. To cut a long story short, Princess Zero Unit was taken in by our pipegrass cutters and grew from pocket-sized child to eight feet tall, charming but diminutive woman in six primary moon cycles - the exact time of which is now under much dispute, so I will refrain from conversion to universal standard – but it was around about this time that the stars about the world began to go out.
“One by one, as the nights passed, it became clear that darkness was falling across the universe. The peoples worried that it wouldn’t be long before the bright star that illuminated Daibazaal too was gone, but what was causing it? Lo! It appeared in the sky – “ Kolivan raised his hands, sketching something vast over their heads in the bridge, “- a great mouth without a body, gaping and screaming silence! The Dark Consumer, its teeth made of dark ice that burned like fire, and now that it had come, Princess Zero Unit had to tell the pipegrass cutters the truth. Far, far away, in another tale, the princess had fought the Dark Consumer elsewhere and lost, and she had washed up upon Daibazaal in a weakened state, almost dead, but crucially not, hoping to hide away and eventually regain her strength.
“She was not yet at full strength, but with the Dark Consumer above them, she had no choice but to act, and for the sake of the kindly old pipegrass cutters, she would have it no other way. Lo! She ventured forth into the sky – “
“That ‘lo!’ was unnecessary,” said Krolia under her breath.
“- and fought the Consumer for seven days and eight nights. But on the eighth night, all of Daibazaal could see that the princess’ strength was waning. Her light was almost faded, and it was then that the pipegrass cutters went into the forest, urging everyone whose lives the princess had touched to join them. Carving a thousand and one lanterns from a thousand and one stems of pipegrass, they lit them against the darkness in the hope that those the tall pipegrass stems would carry those lights up to the sky to the princess.
“And by the warmth of the fires the people lit in the pipegrass, the pipegrass was tricked into believing it was springtime. Lights were seen throughout the forest, created by the pipegrass itself. The luminous gases needed to propel the pipegrass seeds out of the plants had gathered in their stems - and then the burning seeds were shooting out into the sky! The pipegrass forest and its people had come together to give Princess Zero Unit the light she needed to defeat the Dark Consumer, and so it was. She defeated the Dark Consumer, she used the light of the pipegrass seeds to replace the stars, and the thousand and one lantern lights guided her gently home to Daibazaal, where she died.”
“Oh.”
“And turned into the light of hope that could reside in the hearts of those who lit lamps for her, so that we may fight the darkness that would consume us from within our own hearts…” Kolivan blinked quickly and looked up to the lights over the panels. “How are proper stories meant to end, Krolia?”
“’And they all lived happily ever after’.”
“And they all lived happily ever after. Except for the princess, who fought and died honourably for the universe, so that we could all live in light.” Brusquely, Kolivan set aside his tin. “So it is, Keith, as you said it was on Earth, a story about light, and people, and warmth in darkness.”
“And fighting for what’s worthwhile,” Keith said, he thought to himself, but Kolivan heard and nodded.
“And in the cold time of the year when it’s easiest to forget what is worthwhile, it does good to be reminded of it. That was what Pipegrass Night was for. We carved lanterns out of pipegrass stems to light up rooms, villages and forests, crowned ‘Pipegrass Princesses’ to light ceremonial fires and re-enact the relighting of the stars, and ate puddings of kalhei blood, fat and pipegrass seeds, baked in moulds made from pipegrass halves.”
Krolia wrinkled her nose. “I have to admit, I don’t miss the puddings.”
“But Pipegrass Night is missed,” Kolivan looked out of the bridge window again, at the pale grey hills, “and I miss it all the more to know there are those who do not know that there is something out there to be missed. Who forget that cold darkness is to be fought, not endured.”
He poured himself another tin of fizzing mint, passed the flask to Krolia who did the same and poured for Keith as well, and then they all lapsed into silence, which although not uncomfortable struck Keith as grey, and a little fuzzy about its edges, just like the planet outside painted in ash, shadow and the green-gold glow cast by the ship on its immediate surroundings.
“What if,” Keith said, looking out over the rim of his tin, “those grasses over there really were pipegrass?”
Kolivan almost smiled but he shook his head. “The chances are so unlikely I’d rather not contemplate them.”
“But the Galra here said their ancestors deserted the Empire on a large ship. What if it was a pipegrass plantation ship? It would have taken longer for one of those would be missed than a fortress or a factory, and if its crew wanted to save its pipegrass and knew Zarkon were coming for their ship,” Keith thought quickly as he spoke, “maybe it would have made sense to find a planet where they could grow carry on growing pipegrass in secret, and wait out the Empire until Zarkon was done.”
Both Kolivan and Krolia looked back out of the window, contemplating the grasses.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a little hope somewhere, hidden away, like a little princess in a stem of pipegrass.
A little light in the dark of the forest.
The clouds parted. The wind was finally blowing eastwards, and through the silver ash dropped a bright shaft of light, and though Keith didn’t know it, on Earth, millions of light years away, it was Christmas morning.