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When Coran had been doling out supply-gathering assignments to each of the paladins, Keith had thought nothing of his. Telrov was cold, yes. He wasn’t used to cold climates, sure. But he had his armor, and he had dealt with extreme weather before, so when Coran had asked whether Keith was up to the assignment, of course he said he was. In fact, he was almost insulted that the Altean didn’t think he could handle a bit of cold.
And sure, maybe ‘a bit of cold’ was a bit of an understatement, since it seemed that the entire dwarf planet was covered in a layer of ice that he had to hammer through with his sword in order to get to the fungi growing under the frozen soil that he needed to collect. And sure, maybe after the team’s previous mission yesterday, he should have mentioned that he had taken quite the wallop to the chestplate, but it hadn’t looked like anything had been damaged any worse than a bit of denting, and he had walked away from it with just some soreness and a bit of bruising.
How was he supposed to have known that the temperature control valve had been damaged? There had been no warning signs. Nothing but a few ticks of high pitched beeping started up while Keith was already nearly a varga’s walk through the rocky, frozen wasteland from Red’s landing site. The next thing he’d known, the heating that usually flowed evenly through the armor had disappeared.
He had tried his best not to panic. He knew where Red was, and even without the temperature control mechanisms, his armor and suit were far from flimsy. Surely he could hold out for long enough to make it back. He hadn’t gotten quite as much of the ingredient as Coran had requested, but hopefully he would be forgiven that shortcoming in light of the circumstances.
Shoving the last of the fungus he had managed to collect into the bag he’d been given to store it, he turned to start making the journey back to Red. It should be a shorter walk getting back to his landing site, in terms of time, since he didn’t have to collect anything on the return journey and he’d already broken through the spots where icicles had been thick enough to block his path. Still, despite those advantages, the return trip was slowly revealing itself to be more difficult than he would have liked.
For one thing, it was a lot harder to trudge across the ice while shivering, and that shaking worsened the longer Keith was out in the cold. The boots of his armor gave him some traction, but not enough to always keep him from slipping in places where there was no rock wall or frozen shrub to hang onto for support. More than once he lost his footing and wound up gracelessly splayed across the ice, and each time he dreaded the bruises he was likely gaining from the impacts. During one fall, a slip over the edge of a path and down a good ten feet only to land on his rear, he was certain he heard his loinguard crack – he could feel a particularly biting cold sneaking into that spot as he went on, which he tried his damnedest to ignore.
His helmet, too, was causing him trouble. His breathing, which grew steadily heavier the longer he walked, would fog up the visor with every exhale. It wasn’t completely impossible to see through – the material wasn’t quite glass, and didn’t fog up quite so badly as, say, a window or pair of glasses on Earth would – but he still had to squint through the blur enough to give him a hell of a headache to avoid walking into ice pillars or off of cliffs. He debated simply removing the helmet altogether, but exposing his bare face to the cold didn’t seem like a good idea.
So instead, he powered through, tripping and sliding across rocks and ice. His movements slowed as he grew steadily more numb, not to mention more exhausted by the minute. What he wouldn’t give right now to be back in his room on the Castle of Lions, wrapped up in as many blankets as he could find. Maybe with some of Hunk’s hot cocoa or Shiro’s tea. Not Pidge’s coffee; it was hot, sure, but it was as bitter as Lance after losing a round of sparring during training.
Heh. That was a good one. He’d have to remember it, find some point where it would be natural to use it. Lance always claimed that he had no sense of humor whatsoever, but Hunk actually said that Keith was getting better at –
In his distraction, Keith didn’t notice the thick crack in the ice in front of him until the toe of his boot was already in it, and he was sent sprawling to the ground, his vision whiting out for a flash when he landed on his chin and his jaw was knocked together.
He let out a groan and slowly rolled onto his side, curling inward. He needed to get up, keep walking, get back to Red. But God, getting up was so hard. His muscles were stiff as he could ever remember them being, his hands and feet throbbed. On a whim he tried to curl his fingers – he had no idea whether or not he succeeded, which was concering on its own.
The Garrison had covered first aid pretty extensively, and definitely had at least touched on what to do in extreme cold, considering the low temperatures that could be reached even within their own solar system, but admittedly, first aid hadn’t really been his forte. Especially not first aid related to cold. He was much more accustomed, after all, to weather that was too hot than weather that was too cold. If Telrov was a desert instead of a tundra, he’d surely be having no trouble at all. He knew what to do about overheating, and what signs to look out for.
And he knew that fatigue was a danger sign of heat exhaustion. If freezing was anything like heatstroke, his current sleepiness was probably a bad omen.
The shivering had stopped too, he noticed as he fought to keep his eyes open. Shivering was likely the cold equivalent to sweating. Another bad sign, but he found that he wasn’t quite as concerned as he was a little while ago. He was just too sleepy to be concerned.
He had never noticed before just how pillow-like permafrost was…
His oncoming sleep was interrupted suddenly, with a low, rumbling noise. Not from the world around him – Keith hadn’t encountered a single animal so far on Telrov, and it was unlikely there were any nearby that had managed to hide from him, at least none big enough to let out that low a growl – but seemingly from inside his head, echoing in his ears and worsening his headache.
I’m fine, he thought back to Red. Not because he was, but because that was his automatic, knee-jerk response whenever anyone was concerned enough about his wellbeing to actively check in on him, which the Red Lion usually only did in the direst of circumstances. When he’d spent hours getting beaten up by Blade agents, for example, or when he threw himself out of the airlock of a Galra ship and into the void of space.
He knew, on some level, that he wasn’t, in fact, fine. But at the moment, he couldn’t quite recall what exactly was wrong, besides just being very tired. So he didn’t bother answering any further.
Another growl in his head followed, this one laced with skepticism. It was a weird sensation, having a giant robotic lion inside his brain. Almost humorous. Keith didn’t have the energy to laugh right now, but if he did, he would have.
Red reached out again, this time sending a mental image his way. Well, more a mental sensation than an image. A feeling of icy, sharp and wet and seeping through his skin as if frost were expanding from the inside out and melting into slush to drip off of his fingertips. A sort of questioning lilt at the end.
Cold. Something about cold.
…Are you cold, Red? Keith thought at her.
The frustrated growl that she returned seemed to be as close as a lion could ever get to saying ‘You are an idiot’ in plain English. Rude.
He tried to think of some retort, glad that he could express it telepathically rather than speaking it aloud since he was pretty sure his teeth were frozen together, but before he could come up with anything at all coherent, another sensation was sent his way. At the edges of his mind, he could see the flickering of flames. Not much – the last embers of a fire in a fireplace that hadn’t been properly stoked, but that was still fighting for life.
And just as he saw it in his mind’s eye, he felt it. Sometimes in the heat of battle, Red would send him fire. A heat that would act like a sort of fuel, pumping throughout his body like blood and granting him a boost of adrenaline that could make him feel faster and stronger than he had ever been in his pre-paladin life.
Now, she was giving him that fire again, but it was different this time. It wasn’t a sharp and focused flame propelling him into action. Instead this fire was softer, more diffuse. Spreading slowly from his chest, moving more like water than like fire. Gradually melting the frost in his veins. Warming, but not burning.
Keith shivered, noticing once again how cold the world outside was compared to his insides, but that noticing came as a relief. The aches were returning – he wasn’t numb. As his blood started flowing again, he grimaced at the throbbing sensation that began in his fingers and toes, the skin stinging bitterly where it touched against the fabric of his gloves and socks, circling the silicone of the black and white rings on his middle fingers, always tucked into the safety and privacy of his gloves. He hoped it wasn’t frostbite. He didn’t doubt that a trip to the cryopod could fix it if it was, but he dreaded the way his hands and feet looked right now if they were frostbitten.
Red huffed in his mind, warm breath seeming to hit his face as the sound seeped into his ears. He curled in on himself further before blinking his eyes open, relieved to find that they were no longer stinging from the piercing cold. For several ticks, all he saw was gray, the gray of the sky fogged up by the paler gray of his breath against the helmet’s visor. Even as he watched, though, the fog was clearing, thick water droplets cutting through like rain as he warmed.
And minutes later, the world beyond the visor wasn’t gray anymore. In an instant the cloudy gray was replaced by a mass of red and white, and he found himself staring up at the Red Lion floating above him.
She let out a sound halfway between a growl and a purr, and although the Lions of Voltron had fixed, robotic faces that couldn’t show expression, Keith could swear she was looking at him with that sort of fond exasperation that a parent would give to a kid who had wandered away and later been found. The look his dad had given him as a kid when they’d lost track of each other at a zoo and security had found him trying to figure out how to climb into the hippopotamus exhibit before dragging him to the information booth and reuniting them.
A look that said, “You just did something very stupid, but I’m just glad you’re safe.”
Her mouth was agape, waiting. Not scooping him up on her own, just certain he would climb into her on his own. Keith took a deep breath before finally beginning the arduous struggle to his feet.
It took several attempts to get upright, but once he was standing on trembling legs, the ramp descended from Red’s mouth, and Keith’s hauled himself up it, against all odds making it into the cockpit without falling. Once there, he collapsed instantly into the pilot’s seat. He had never before fully appreciated just how soft the cushioning of the chair was, or how pleasant and soothing the hum of the engine, or just how cozy and warm the entire interior. Never again would he take it for granted.
One more sensation sent his way from Red, a softness added to the weight of his armor and his clinging undersuit, making them feel just a hint more like a blanket. Then she sent one more mental nudge, this one questioning.
“Yeah, Red,” Keith said softly. “That’s better. Thank you.”
With a final purr of approval, and apparently having decided Keith was too busy getting cozy and warm to pilot her himself, Red took to the air, leaving the ice behind.