#blazerought

     Docked no more than an hour, their company besieged by grateful waves of imposing crowds and wordless chants of veneration following them well into the Garrison’s safety, Shiro sought refuge in the high walkway overlooking the bay housing the Atlas. Worse for wear but in tact, his ship had finally come home to stay.

     The hollow thud of bootfalls on metal grating turns his attention from the crew milling about below to a fellow Paladin he’d half expected to lose track of the moment the crowd had surged upon them. Lips twitch in a familiar greeting and he sidles closer, leaning heavy on the bone of his elbow to sigh.

keith: 👀 👀 👀

there’s a huff that escapes him, all exhaustion with no bite to it, the shadows of lotor’s eyes the surface of an ocean -- endless, blue, and depthless -- he’s tired, all posturing useless; empty and aimless. “as much as i am grateful to you paladin,” lotor says, the surface of his eyes a glaze, looking out, “it is lamentable for you to judge a situation you don’t know or understand.” there’s a trace of lotor’s usual haughty smirk on his lips, but it is left in fragments -- as distant as the dream he had to pick up again in the aftermath of his rescue. “everything i have done was to achieve the future i wanted. we wanted.” he labors at the ‘we’, critical in the use. “just because you all had the luxury to stay on the right side of things,” his gaze finally falls away back to keith, “doesn’t mean i wanted to do the same. sometimes, the lines aren’t so clear-cut, and you have to live with decisions you regret -- decisions i will always regret -- but i did not lie to your team paladin, i did not deceive, and i did not intend to hurt. i wanted --”  

4:15pm [ msg > the red one ]: The air circulation in this place isn’t good enough for it to burn down completely.

4:24pm [ msg > the red one ]: I took the tree outside so don’t worry about it.

4:25pm [ msg > the red one ]: I may have burned myself just a bit though.

txt; are you kidding me???? you’re literally, idk, like 2 years younger than me now? 1? thanks, keith

      he couldn’t help a chuckle of his own, despite the look that was shot across the room by one of the other staff members. he just shrugged partially, hoped they thought it was a clearing of his throat, and glanced at the phone screen again.