Wow, I'm so single :')

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"Come on, Allura!" I shouted over my shoulder as I bolted out the castles backdoors. I could hear her trying to keep up with my pace, but it didn't seem to go so well for her.

"Lance!" she whined. "Why the hurry? Slow down!"

"Just eager to beat you again", I lied as I ran over to the "sycamore tree" in the middle of the garden, where we always started our round of hide and seek. My avidity and rashness I had both yesterday and today was driving me crazy, and it drove me even more crazy when I tried to supress it. The thought of him was dangerous, and it thrilled me. It shouldn't had, but it still did. The impatience was something I could never get rid of.

When I reached the tree, I waited for Allura to sprint over to me, doubling over and panting loudly when she arrived. Her face was red from running.

"What happened to your fettle?" I laughed, the fact that I was about to see him again exciting me. I would get my answers today.

"Try running in a dress, Lance", she hissed, gaze sharp as she looked up at me.

"Just start counting", I urged, and she lifted her eyebrow, but said nothing about my eagerness. Instead, she stood properly, keeping her eyes on me as she walked over to the tree, but then turned her head away from me to press her forehead against her forearms that rested against the tree bunk. As soon as she started counting, I turned around and ran.

Running seemed easier today, like I knew my destination, and I settled for it. I flew over the rocks, gracious and precise steps. My hands worked automatically, pushing aside all the branches like they were nothing, dodging the bushes like they weren't even there. This time, it felt like I ran for a second, rather than ten minutes.

The cave was as dark as it was the first time I saw it, and I stopped for a second to listen if any sound came from inside. Nothing. Maybe Keith was on guard, afraid that I were someone else.

When I stepped inside, it smelled musky and smokey, like a fire had just been extinguished. Maybe that was the case, but I couldn't see anything nevertheless. I walked in deep enough to be surrounded by darkness completely.

"Keith?" I called softly, hoping that the benevolence in my tone would lure him out from whatever shadow he was hiding in. Was he even here? 

The leaves outside rustled in the light breeze, and for a second the cave was filled with a soft windy sound. I stood completely still, as if to radiate that I were no danger to him - I couldn't be even if I wanted to. I was no match to him.

Before my body had begun to be filled with disappointment that he didn't appear, a low voice said from somewhere: "I'm the only Galra here... for now."

I spun around, trying to find where his voice came from. "Keith? Is that you?"

"I'm no rebel, I'm in an organisation. Called the Blade of Marmora. We're all Galras trying to take down Zarkon and the ones following him." This time his words came from another direction.

I turned around again, blinking a million times as if that would better my sight. It didn't help one bit. "Keith, where are you?"

"They're out in space right now. My mom is out there too, collecting information for our advantages. They will be there for awhile, but they left me here to complete my part of our mission. What that mission is, I won't tell you." I heard the hint of a grin at the last sentence. 

"Where are you?" I repeated, a little bit more irritated, frustrated that I couldn't see him.

"And one more confession..."

A light wind blew past me, followed by a piquant smell, and this time the voice was right behind me.

"I'm half Galra, Lance."

I twirled around with a high-pitched scream, and Keith balked by the loud noise. 

"What the hell, Keith?!" I clutched my chest like I was having a seizure, and my heart thumped somewhere in my throat, giving me a very sudden vertigo that made the boy in front of me look blurry for a second. I exhaled loudly.

"What scared you?" he asked and put his head slantwise, his eyebrows raised in obvious wonder. 

I glared at him, annoyed that he was so oblivious. "Oh, I don't know...maybe that you just pulled a jump-scare on me and flew around here like a wannabe Dracula?"

The blue light my attire radiated shone up the honesty on his face. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Oh, so now you didn't?" I snarled, but immediately regretted it after. It was just the aftermath of the fear, that's all. I would calm down very soon.

Keith gave me a stern look, but didn't say anything else.

I sighed, running a quivering hand through my hair, flitting a look sidewise. "Sorry. Can you just... I don't know... put up the fire again, or something? The darkness is freaking me out."

His eyes twinkled with mischievousness, and I had time to see a small smile form on his lips before he walked past me in a nimble movement that could almost go unnoticed if you looked away for only a second. The same piquant and zesty smell slithered in to my nostrils, and I inhaled sharply, trying to identify the smell.

I winced at a sudden sound from behind me, and the next second the cave lay in the same warm light as before. I whirled around again, looking down at Keith sitting in front of the fire he created in such a short time. I had time to see him put down a little box beside him, something I didn't notice last time I was here.

"What's that?" I asked as I slowly stepped forward, sitting down on the other side of the fire.

Keith seemed confused, but then followed my eyes and picked up the little object I was looking at. He turned it around in his hand. "Oh... This? It's matches."

"Ma...tches?" I repeated gradually, eyeing the little box in his hands with wonder. 

His eyebrows flew up, like he was really surprised I didn't know what it was. 

"Yeah. Matches. Sticks to create fire." He opened the box carefully, before taking out a little wooden stick with a red tip. Then he closed the box again, before stroking the stick against the side of the box in one rapid movement. I flinched, but then relaxed when I saw the little flame engulfing the tip of the stick, oscillating in a way that made it impossible for me to look away. My jaw hung slightly open as I stared.

"They're very handy. If I didn't have them, I would be forced to try putting up a fire using two sticks, and it would take an eternity." He looked at the little flame, watching it go down the rest of the little stick.

I blinked, looking past the burning commodity in his hand, and at his adamant face that stayed completely still. His whole body was still, and for a second I worried that he accidently turned into a statue.

"You said that you're half Galra", I mumbled, and Keith tore his gaze from the flame, fixating it on my face instead. He lowered his hand as I spoke. "What's the other part of you?" I pointed at the stick in his hand. "Which planet does this... come from?"

His hand was fully lowered, and he looked at me with a half-hearted apathy, but still I saw the different emotions behind. He averted his gaze from mine, looking like he was contemplating if he should tell me or not. I was a stranger to him after all, and the situation he was living in must have made his actions very limited. He couldn't do whatever he wanted; it seemed like anything could put him in danger. I didn't know what I would do in his situation, so it was hard for me to calculate his next move.

I watched him shift under my gaze, and I froze when he threw the burning stick into the fire in front of him, watching as it swelled a little before returning to it's regular size again. He bit his lip.

"I'm half human", was all he said. His eyebrows contorted in an emotion I couldn't perceive.

The assertion he just stated couldn't quite fit inside my head. I knew how humans looked, and how some of them behaved, and it was hard to picture Keith in that category. Maybe because I saw him in just this form, in the form of a Galra. I tried to imagine him like human, but my imagination wasn't that vivid.

"Human?" I breathed, and he sulked. "You have no human characteristics."

He rolled his eyes, turning his palms up towards the cave roof, examining the patters across his hands. "The Galran side of me is dominant. I could change into a human form if I wanted to, but with difficulties. It's not easy. It really hurts to change form." His face calcified, as if remembering one of those painful moments.

I didn't say anything, sensing that he had more to confess.

"You know... sometimes I wonder if the human part of me is the only thing keeping me from being like...like them." He spat out the last word, like it was a disgusting thing to say. "Like the other Galras, the one your people and everyone else hates. Maybe if that human part of me wasn't present, I would have killed you by now." His eyes darkened.

I tried to gulp discretely, but I knew that the action didn't go unseen by his observant stare. "You wouldn't even be here, in this cave, if that was the case."

He snorted, but I saw the smile appearing on his lips. "That's true."

Silence. The crepitate of the fire was the only sound for the moment. Both of us sat and let our thoughts leap free, and where it would end up none of us knew. I spectaculated, made up conspiracy theories that I wished didn't have a chance of becoming true, all the time while staring him, not aware that I was, or at least I didn't do anything about it. His smile wavered, before he uncomfortably tore his eyes away from mine, his face turning into a darker shade of purple.

"It's weird", he murmured, and his low voice send foreign feelings into my stomach. "That I'm telling you all of this. You, out of everyone. This cave must be really driving me crazy. I can't be sure that you'll snitch on me and send me off like King Alfor." He chewed his lip in skepticism.

I grimaced, quickly defending myself. "I'm not like him. I'm not like any of them. I seem to be the only one to realize that not all Galras are bad." I tried to soften up my face. "Like you."

He still refused to look at me, but his face got darker. "You sound sincere."

I grunted. "Because I am. Don't you see it? I have no intention in hurting you. Even when you threatened to kill me. I knew you were just afraid. You may have thought my intentions were otherwise when you first encountered me. But..."

"I know your intentions are good", he interrupted, and I slammed my mouth shut. "I sensed it as soon as you came running to the cave today. Since you left yesterday, I was beginning to think that I scared you off, and that you ran off to tell your family about my whereabouts. So I hid today as soon as I heard someone nearing..." He paused, opening and closing his hands. "But then I sensed just your smell, and I was convinced enough that you meant no harm." He made a sloppy gesture around us. "And now we're here. And I'm telling you all this stuff when I really shouldn't. How crazy isn't that?"

Piece by piece, everything started to make sense in my head, and a more complete picture formed in my mind.

"So now you know... what my intentions are", I uttered gently, leaning forward without really meaning to.

Keith leaned back. "Your intentions are still a mystery to me... All I know is that they're not bad." He picked up the tiny box beside him, tracing a long claw across the smooth surface thoughtfully. The scraping sound echoed between us.

"I now know for certain, that yours isn't too." I smiled.

He looked up, but didn't return the smile.

Instead he reminded: "Princess Allura will get worried again. Don't raise her suspicions." He tapped three claws on the object in his hand, waiting for me to leave. "You must go."

My smile dropped. "Already? But it hasn't even five dobashes." My whine must have surprised both of us, and I tried to quell the imminent blush.

"It's been eighteen dobashes, Lance", Keith told me, and I must have been desperate enough to imagen the disappointment in his voice, too. He sighed. "It's time for you to leave."

His words didn't hurt me as much as the current situation did. I didn't want to leave, and I didn't know for what reason. Maybe it was because something different was happening in my life for once, and it wasn't something necessarily bad, or maybe because his presence was just that entertaining. Whatever reason it was, it made it hard for me to stand up, and I kept my eyes on him all the time, secretly hoping he would ask me to stay a little bit more. But it disheartened me when he didn't even look at me.

I started to back away. "I'll come tomorrow, too. Will you be here?"

He exhaled quickly through his nose, picking up a stick that had fallen out of the log fire to poke at the other bigger sticks that hadn't caught fire yet. "Where else will I go?"

I counted that as a promise, and I smiled, turning around to run back to the castle.

I had time to see the tiniest smile form on his lips just as I spun around.

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Yaass, it's the middle of our autumn break, and I'm in a stress crisis :D

Okay, if you've read my other book you must have seen that I had breaks and holidays like ALL THE TIME, but yeah, I can admit that Sweden has many holidays. We have Autumn break, sports break (whatever the hell that's for), Easter holiday and summer/winter holiday. I'm not complaining, tho :))))