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Keith wasn't one of those people that enjoyed landscapes and extravagant colors. Of course, he held dear the sunsets and sunrises, the only moment in the day that the desert became alive in vibrant reds and exquisite golds, the sky dyed in orange and melting in blues. But the combination of colors that were too attractive were almost like cloying, the absence of opaque or neutral colors making him miss the subtlety and calm of the desert.
That planet they were resting in now was a landscape full of prairies and forests, the greens and violets intercalating and opening an unbelievable view of diverse colors.
Coran had called it the Flora Planet, and just as its name said, it had all the flowers capable to grow in all the universe, other plants being diverse but not like the flowers.
“It’s beautiful,” he heard Allura murmur while everyone was trying to take in the view, “Oh, Coran! Maybe there are gullibelles here!”
Coran nodded, looking methodically at the open space, and he heard Lance trying to repeat the name Allura had said, accomplishing just an unintelligible mumble.
“Gullibelles,” the princess repeated smiling at Lance and then advancing through the prairie, stopping between some flowers with five petals each one to exanimate them.
Immediately, everybody went exploring nearby where they left the lions, the prairie clear and wide enough for them to walk to the edge of the forest and still distinguish the colors from the lions seated in the grass.
Keith ended up walking through a few flowers, trying to find one that he could recognize, and he heard Hunk say he would pick up some of them to try and do crown flowers.
“Aren’t those orchids?”
He turned to Shiro, leaning down beside Hunk to see what he was showing, and they exchanged some words before Shiro seated down beside him and Hunk started him teaching how to tie the stems into a crown.
“It’s extraordinaire,” he heard by his right with a sigh, finding Pidge seating down in front of some flowers that looked like blue sunflowers, “Every single flower in the universe, growing here. It’s... incredible.”
He didn’t think that Pidge would be one of those people that liked flowers. He even thought that she shared the same thought he had about exaggerated colors. But seeing her analyzing the petals with a serious expression, adjusting her glasses while her mouth quirked in that gesture that she always did when she thought deeply, made him realize something very important.
Pidge looked like she belonged there, surrounded by flowers just as cute as her.
“Look, Keith.”
He flinched at the little red flower, with purple in the center, the petals ending in something alike needles while its stem turned white between Pidge’s fingers.
“It’s you.”
He lifted a brow at it, irritated, and seeing her laugh made him relax his frown, a smile escaping from his lips, and Pidge took a seat again, taking the little flower to her ear and putting it in her hair while she collected more specimens.
Or that was what Keith was trying to convince himself seeing her fist full of flowers he had never seen before, the red one that she related with Keith fondly put in the orange hair.
He looked away, sighing, and something orange very similar caught his attention a few feet away, walking to it until finding a flower that was extremely familiar. It looked like a dandelion before wilting, a little bigger and more orange that its yellow color. And the petals were numerous and bent over themselves, making some kind of half a sphere above the stem, like if it was a little ball.
He tilted his head, looking into the color more closely, and he tried to remember the name, although he remembered that it was really difficult to pronounce.
“Oh, cempasúchil.”
He turned to Lance, standing beside him with a bunch of white, red and violet flowers in his arms, his feet pointing to where Hunk a Shiro were making the flower crowns.
“Cepa- what?”
Lance scoffed.
“Cem-pa-sú-chil,” he pronounced with unnecessary slowness, Keith glaring at him, “It’s a flower that my abuela harvested in her garden. She got the seeds from a friend since they don't grow in Cuba naturally. There are yellow and white, too, I think.”
Keith didn’t care about the yellow and white ones.
“Oh.”
He stared at the flower, hearing Lance huff before continuing his way, yelling about he would teach everyone how to make the best flower crowns in the world, and Keith sighed exhausted, doubting for a bit to take the flower even though he already reached for the stem.
“It’s you.”
Pidge gazed up to him, many flowers already trapped in her fist and collected in her lap while the red one was safely in her hair. Keith swallowed looking her analyze the cempasúchil, a little smile forming in her mouth before she left the flowers in her hand with the ones in her lap and pulled his wrist, making him seat down beside her in the ground.
“Stay still,” she ordered softly, taking the flower from him and leaning over his space, the stem sliding on his ear and the petals caressing his cheek, “There.
Keith blinked, reaching up to the cempasúchil with his hand and touching the bunch of petals in the center.
“What?”
“Now you have me and I have you,” she commented with no importance, whatsoever, taking the flowers once again and turning to Keith, “You know the cempasúchil it’s used in Death celebrations?”
Keith went pale.
“W-what?”
Pidge chuckled, and Keith didn’t know if she was telling the truth. But seeing her smile with so much happiness and familiarity made him forget about that immediately.
Pidge was as beautiful as a flower.