COSMIC DUST

He’s very deliberate with his responses to her, picking each word carefully, though his poker face is impeccable. Maybe he’s just being sure not to draw her further down an upsetting train of thought; maybe he’s still reeling from the news. Samuel was his friend, after all. They go way back, they were colleagues, and they worked together well.

(Until they didn’t.)

“ You’re very brave. ” Soft, comforting. Like he’s congratulating a much smaller child for not crying as he wipes the grit from their skinned knee. “ I’m glad you felt like you could come to me with this, Katie, thank you. I…know how much pain you must be in right now, and how many questions you must have… ”

And here he is, withholding all the answers. He sets his phone in his lap, an old Nokia, the keypad of which he’s been blipping away at for the last minute or two. He’s listening, he really is, and he’s been trying to keep it subtle - those bags just need to get inside before it starts to rain. A few seconds later, a man passes, taller than the both of them, lanky and balding, with a mousy brown moustache. He says nothing to either of them.

“ …but I haven’t worked with your father for a good few years, now. ” Not formally, at least. Just little things. Comparing notes. Sharing results. Seeking answers that maybe shouldn’t have been sought. “I wouldn’t know where to start. But I can help you, wherever my help might be needed. And you will be safe under my roof, in the event that anyone comes for you. ”

Pause. Then, a look of concern, directed at Katie.

“ You’re not a suspect, are you? I can’t imagine that you’re guilty, but…well, then again, you never know what people are capable of when they’re pushed to it. ” Sowing a seed, here. Sowing a seed he’s sown before. “ Do you think the authorities might be searching for you, now that you’ve fled? ”

Katie relaxed some more at being called brave. She was brave—not stupid, like her own sense of hindsight had called her while she aimlessly trudged through the mud. She relaxed enough to unfurl her fingers from her clothes, and unfurl herself from her fetal position.

Sinking into the cushions, she noticed his phone sitting in his lap. She had noticed his hands moving in her periphery, too, but those two things never really connected. She was only perceiving things; she wasn’t actually thinking about those things.The unfamiliar man passing by was another thing for her eyes to glue onto, until she was back to glazing over the coffee table nick-knacks.

“I know.” She sounded way too solemn for a girl her age. “That’s why I came to you. Because.. that makes you the least guilty?” She didn’t mean to strike the inquisitive mood; however, she was kinda asking him—if only to assure her own sense of logic.

She might’ve explained more, if not for Pieter’s next line of questioning.

Katie actually gasped, as she snapped her head to look at him with all the terror her eyes could muster, "What!? O-of course not! Why would anyone suspect me? They’re.. they’re my family! It had to be someone that wanted to steal my dad’s work, o-or.. Maybe stop him on working something too revolutionary? Idunno!”

They make their way through the entirety of the foyer like that, Pieter bolstered by the fact that Katie doesn’t once struggle or imply she’d like to be put down. She may be almost an adult, but to Pieter, she’s still the small, curious child she once was - and sometimes, no matter your age, you just need to be held. It’s only once they’re through a doorway, and in the plushily furnished lower level of the ship’s bridge, that Pieter places her down on a sofa.

“Here. I’ll send for your belongings, and have them put in a room. It must have been a long journey, no? Did you do it all alone? ”

He’s not drawing attention to her tears, not laying on any comfort she hasn’t asked for. Warm, but not intrusively so. He doesn’t know Katie as well as these circumstances may imply, and overstepping a boundary at the first hurdle isn’t a good way to establish trust. When he sits, it’s at the other side of the couch, not touching her, but not too far away. 

The room they find themselves in is lit only by the sun outside, and it’s spacious, and it’s bright; six tall, tall windows with a control panel at their feet, overlooking the forward portion of the ship’s deck. And the water, and the trees, and the mountains. The light is cold, but the view steals your breath. Down from the bridge, from the control panel, furniture is arranged in a circle around a low coffee table, every item meticulously matched to every other item. 

It’s friendly. There’s colour. It draws just short of a softly thrumming radio and a crackling hearth. Katie doesn’t see deeper into the ship’s bowels, yet, where the rooms get emptier and starker and bright, bright white, where a man wearing the same colour as the walls and seven electrodes (for the shocks, obviously) and who has forgotten what it feels like to have an arm around his shoulder waits to meet her.

“…Do you know who killed them? ”

She probably should’ve checked on Pieter’s policy about shoes on the couch. That had to be the furthest thing from her mind right now, though, so she curled up on herself without even glancing over at Pieter. This felt almost as silly as getting picked up and carried around, but it was more instincts than indulgence.

Something primordial dictated that small was safe.

Pinching different bits of her clothes to rub between her fingers, Katie soaked in the coziness of the room. She didn’t really notice it on a conscious level, but it was obviously doing something on the subconscious level, as more and more tension melted off her. Her shoulders weren’t as tense, and the peach ebbed back into her white knuckles.

Her face was still puffy and wet. That puffiness was going to stick with her until she finally got some sleep, but her tear-soaked face would be dry in a few minutes. Her crying fit was over as soon it had started, which might look strange without seeing the much longer and louder crying sessions she had, had before even concocting this entire scheme.

At this point, she was running empty on tears.

Sniffling, she nodded and answered Pieter in the same croaky voice before, “Yeah, basically. At least.. since Dublin.”

She doesn’t say anything about the advocates or her grandparents. In fact, she’s not even thinking about them. She was exhausted on all fronts, and her brain was scrambled because of it. Pieter’s question gave her something to focus on, instead of being caught among the need to sleep, to grieve, and to investigate.

"I-- I don’t know. That’s why I came to you.” She whispered that last part, lost to cruelty that was the universe making it so an orphan had to grovel to the very man that had made her an orphan—hiding his true nature just under her nose.

 “You knew my dad, and.. You guys knew a lot of the same people, right? I thought.. maybe.. Idunno..” She sunk into the cushions, shifting her hands to pinch different parts of her clothes while trying to make sense out of her own delusions.

When was the last time he saw this child? Recently enough that Katie thought to come to Pieter before anyone else; but, at the same time, distant enough that Pieter hadn’t accounted for this outcome with much gravity at all. Didn’t she have other family? Friends, even, whose parents might have entertained the idea of fostering a fresh orphan? 

“How awful… ”There’s grief in his voice; grief and surprise. Neither are genuine, but it’s nigh-on impossible to tell, especially from where Katie’s standing. To her, Pieter is a family friend. Maybe, at one point, that was true, and maybe it still is. 

(It’s not, after all, like Pieter enjoys murder - whether the victim be a friend or an enemy. He gets no thrill out of bloodshed. He doesn’t kill because he wants to, but because he needs to; every life taken is carefully considered, no matter how he feels about them. Samuel Holt, a friend, a colleague had been agonised over for not a moment longer than Vaughn Damon - a complete, unfortunate stranger.)

As Katie heaves her sobs into his chest, Pieter casts an eye over her bags, left on the gangplank behind her. He gets the feeling this isn’t just a stop-off, en route to somewhere better. In fact, he gets the feeling that Katie hasn’t thought this through much at all. 

“We have a spare room. ”His voice is soft, and he waits until her crying has calmed enough that she can hear what he’s saying. Katie is hoisted up into his arms like she’s still the child he used to know - Pieter’s deceptively strong, and she’s not exactly heavy - and carried further into the ship. He’ll send for her bags later. “You can stay with us as long as you need to, even if that means forever. ”

Maybe she’ll prove useful. Maybe she’ll work quicker than he does. Pieter’s reassured in the knowledge that he won’t have to introduce the pair of them for a few days, yet - Jean still owes a little more time to the isolation chamber before he’s free to roam.

Katie felt silly getting picked up. She was almost 17, and what’s more, she had braved half of Europe by herself. She had done it in the name of vengeance, too (If only she knew just how close she was to her target), so she certainly shouldn’t be picked up like she was a sad little kid. She didn’t have to words to say that, though, because as silly as she felt, she also wanted nothing more than to be indulged.

Grief stricken into a creature of need, she melted into Pieter’s hold with a whimpering sound. What he didn’t know, and would probably never know, either, was that Katie had made him her only hope. She could’ve taken her spot in the group home until her inheritance hit. And she could’ve done the same at her godfather’s condo in the next state, or at her estranged grandparents’ bungalow in the Irish countryside—which she should’ve arrived at hours ago, by now.

However, it was that drip, drip, drip that drove her to throw herself at anything that might offer her any greater agency than “wait and see.” Even if it meant tracking down one of her dad’s old colleagues, when she could only remember him standing over her like a giant. Even if it meant trusting someone her dad had once described as “overly-ambitious,” as if that had suddenly started being a bad thing.

She had meant to come with a little more bravado, but she’s already overextended that part of herself. Warm, now, and offered a place to stay, too, Katie’s tears started to thin more from their initial crescendo.She wanted to explain that, no, she wouldn’t need to stay for that long—just long enough to get some answers—but even that minuscule nuance was beyond her at the moment.

Instead, she shifted some in his arms, as she watched the sleek walls pass her. There’s a strange comfort in holding onto him the same way she would’ve held onto her dad.

Gilgamesh is a deeply utilitarian thing, large and sturdy in a way that makes her look like she should be struggling to float - let alone fly - but she’s not devoid of style or luxury. It’s not hard to imagine that Pieter might have sized up her wedge-shaped balloons a few pegs just to be able to justify the weight of the hardwood in his office, some sturdier articles of furniture, water storage enough to draw a proper bath every once in a while. 

Then, too, the pair of small-but-not-inconspicuous artillery turrets above the door, the gangplank access to which is already lowered, as though to welcome Katie in. Their barrels don’t move as she approaches, but they’re there, and they probably know she’s there. 

For all the intimidation, it’s warmer inside - in more ways than one - and outside it’s…well. Anywhere north of the Arctic Circle, even this close to summer, there’s going to be a bite in the air. Katie is left out front for a while, seconds eking into minutes, the only sound being the wind in the firs and the soft lapping of the water against the shore. The engines are off. This ship has been docked for a while, and doesn’t intend to leave too soon. There’s likely someone on the other side, trying to figure out whether to let her in. If there aren’t hidden peepholes in this entrance, then there are definitely cameras.

Something on the other side unhinges, and the door slides open, revealing a man. The doorway is far dimmer than the bright light outside of it, and for a good few moments it’s difficult to pick out his features, but he’s not as remarkable as one might expect the owner of this ship to be. He’s just barely six feet tall, he looks to be in his early-to-mid thirties - though he’s already visibly greying at the temples. Clean-shaven, well-dressed, soft terracotta brown eyes fixed on the young woman at his door. 

He looks confused. It’s easy to imagine that he doesn’t often look confused.

“ Katherine? ”It’s said with such a tone of disbelief that the next words could almost be I thought you were dead. “ What brings you here, so far from home, sweetheart? Where is your father? ”

Pieter Gravesen is an excellent actor. When he asks that question, there is nothing - not in his voice, or in his face, or in his body - that betrays the fact that he doesn’t have to ask where Katie’s father is. After all, out here, though, so cut off from the rest of the world, forced to focus on his work and only his work, what reason would he have to know about the murders?

Something caved in her, as those doors opened. She had been standing outside, in the cold, for so long, and after such a difficult journey. She was tired; she was hungry. At this point, after everything she’s done to get here, she really didn’t have any other options. If she had come all this way just to get stopped by some doors, then she wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

Her paranoia-prone brain was sure to come up with all sorts of horrible hypotheticals that somehow ended up with her incarcerated for life or having to live as a bog monster; however, those doors finally opened, and Katie felt a new zenith of relief.

She might as well be looking at the face of God.

It took her a second to realize she was actually looking at Pieter, but when he said her name—her full name—and called her “sweetheart,” too, she broke. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she lunged forward to hug him in a way only a lost child could. She hadn’t meant to cry. And she certainly hadn’t meant to sob. That’s all she could manage, now, though. The pitiful sounds came creaking out of her throat, like someone was twisting her arm.

But it wasn’t torture that made her so pathetic. It was the warm lights, after days of glaring florescents. It was the was the familiar face, after a sea of different detectives and advocates. It was the fact that he said her name so lovingly, after all those detectives and advocates had turned into a code for “burden of the state.”

Of course, anything sounded loving, when all you’ve heard was either detached or snide. She didn’t pick up on his absolute disbelief; she only picked up on the fact that he was here.

She hugged onto him with all the strength her stick arms could muster, and she cried some more until words could squeeze past the lump in her throat.

“He’s dead.” She said, plainly, forgetting about any intention she had to try to explain to her horrible situation.

She kept thinking about how she didn’t have any other option. She did. And it wasn’t even in the metaphysical sense, in which every person has the option to either do or not do something. She really did have other options—a countdown to an inheritance, a spot in a group home, a godfather in the next state, a pair of estranged grandparents in the old country.

But Katie didn’t like any of those options, because it meant inaction. It meant having to bide her time, and letting the trail get cold. The bloodstains were already old (Hosed down, too), but they were still fresh in Katie’s head. She still heard that awful drip, drip, drip when she closed her eyes, and it pushed her brave the airport, train station, and boat docks by herself—tagged as a minor instead of having any father or brother to act as her shepherd. She only had herself to hold as the languages and signs became stranger and stranger to her foreigner ears and eyes.

She was supposed to go to her grandparents, but it was so easy to change her tickets. She had direct access to terminal computers, and their passwords were worryingly simple. At one point she almost considered leaving a note behind, explaining how making your password “1234!” as a major train station was asking for cyberterrorist attacks.

Just like how she was supposed to be accompanied by an advocate, but there were so many switch-offs between all the different international borders. She was just about 17 years old, and each one was less and less interested in holding her hand. One old man had even turned his nose up at her, explaining how she already would’ve been a woman in his day and age.

She had given him the slip, ditching her minor tag, too. She’s not sure whether she was nailing the grown up act, or if the ferrymaster in the next town over didn’t care about her age as long as she was paying him double, but she was on her real mission, now: finding Pieter.

She didn’t know where he was exactly. He had told her about his ship before, though—when she was still small enough to sit in laps and ask for stories. Her dad had said a few things about it, too, and even kept some notes in one of the few journals Katie managed to snag from his labs before detectives took it over.

It was only thanks to her keen memory, the Holt curse to observe any and all things, and a strange mix of investigative work and blind faith that Katie had any sense of direction.

Eventually, those things paid off, and Katie found herself trudging through a bog. Unless, you were supposed to call them something else when you were in the middle of nowhere Scandinavia? Katie was pretty sure bogs were just a Florida thing. Or, was that swamps? Okay, she was getting off track here, because she was finally looking at Pieter marvelous all-terrestrial ship (Which she confirmed by looking between it and her dad’s sketches a good 20 or 30 times), and she was realizing that she hadn’t ever thought of what to say.

What about.. “Hello! I’m the runaway daughter of your murdered colleague, and I want you to help me solve it, because I think the cops are part of a conspiracy.”

Oh god. Just awful. Was that the best she could do?

Okay. She probably should’ve used the 7 hour flight to Dublin to sort her words. Or at least workshopped a few things on the ferry out of that Finnish city she never figured how to pronounce.

If only compelled by the enormous stakes of her stunt, she keeps trudging through the boggy puddles until—in a moment of pure floundering—she knocks at the main doors. As if it were a typical home. 

>  Yeah, sounds great on your end. Let me know when the alarms die down.

[ Call ended. ]

“Max? MAX?!” Her hands are a little too busy making sure the entire mission doesn’t go belly-up, so Katie just makes a guttural, “Ughh,” sound and rolls her eyes. The alarms were starting to get on her nerves, right before Katie finally managed to shut them off. She sighed, then, and pretty up slouched over the terminal, as she called Max back with an earful at the ready.

SARI HAS NO DOUBT PIDGE IS A MASTER HACKER . she’s even fairly sure that she could somehow hack megatron himself . this particular moment however –

blades drawn and mask up , she gives her a look . ❛ sooooo master hacker pidge , is it safe to assume it’s NO TYPE-Y PUNCHY FIGHT TIME ?  ❜

"Wait, give it a minute, give it minute--!” Her fingers were going lighting fast, bulldozing through every firewall she could reach at this access point. Just as quickly as they had started, the alarms died down.

Pidge took a deep breath, then, but she didn’t give herself that much of a chance to relax. She looked over to Sari, seeming a little frazzled by her mistake.

“Listen, I am a MASTER hacker. I don’t need you--”

Suddenly, alarms start blaring, and she starts furiously clicking at her screens.

Katie felt like she had more pit than gut.

Here she was, standing before Zarkon—the emperor of the known universe—asking favors from someone so ancient that he had probably gazed upon the stars of her galaxy as young celestial bodies. She felt the same regret she had seeing Sendak and Haxus strip and shackle her teammates. Katie still tried to stand tall, throwing away all her second-doubts about her deal with Sendak, and focusing on her payout. 

She had already presented Zarkon with her tribute, as Sendak had instructed her (Along with how to bow and salute). Now, she only had to name her reward.

Zarkon rumbled as he spoke, making his words ricochet off the wall and stab into her ears. “And what were you hoping to trade for Voltron, child? Your kind does not know the glory of serving me yet.”

Taking a deep breath, Katie tried to talk in as big of a voice as she could muster,  “I.. I was…I want my family t-to be safe. And my team. I just don’t want any of them to be hurt.”

“Ah,” he droned the same way one does when a child was telling a meandering story. It reminded Katie of the same unimpressed sounds her teachers made when she gushed about the scientific world. 

To her horror, Katie realized Zarkon was bored. She had given him Voltron. She had given him the bayards and the armor, too. She had even given him the other paladins! Her friends! Yet, she might as well be an ant. Katie gulped on nothing as she reeled over her own insignificance.

anonymous asked: “Hmm. Green.”