[A nod. He'll settle on the grass more comfortably to pet the space wolf. If he's going to have to deal with skeptics, he'd at least rather be doing it while close to someone from home.]

You got it. The lions have their own quintessence and have minds of their own and can communicate with their paladins through a mental connection. I know it's tough to believe, but it's true.

[There's nothing funny about that or about the situation they're in that's causing her to adapt, but it gets a bit of a hollowly amused laugh.]

If it makes you feel any better, I have a had time believing my life sometimes, too.

No, I got kicked out of the Garrison a year before any of that happened.

[There's a pause, smile fading as he leans against Cosmo. He drops eye contact.]

I was pretty lost.

[After their last conversation in the bakery, he's a little surprised that she's sitting down with him, but aside from a raised eyebrow he doesn't call any further attention to it.]

They made the right call. I punched out a senior officer.

[There's a longer pause at that.]

When Shiro disappeared on the Kerberos mission, the Garrison said that he and the crew were dead. They'd made an error -- or something to that effect. Shiro was the best pilot in the Garrison, the Holts were the best engineer and mechanic in the Garrison. I just knew that wasn't it.

Shiro's boyfriend tried to get me to accept that he was dead. So ...I punched him.

Like I said, they made the right call.

[That's not the kind of quality you want in a cadet. Definitely not a quality you'd want in a leader. Again, it's all the stuff that makes him question how leadership over the paladins ever fell to him. He sighs.]

I was right about Shiro though, so...

[So. It's not really a defense or anything, so he lets that sentence trail off and die.]

[That gets a pause, but for a different reason entirely.]

...I don't think Adam ever found out actually.

[Kinda messed up, but all the same...]

Probably better that way. He wanted to move on anyway.

The Garrison knew all along that the crew on the Kerberos mission had been abducted by an alien ship. They covered it all up because they didn't want to cause a global panic. When Shiro managed to escape and return to Earth, they were going to cover that up too. I had to bust him out of quarantine.

[His brow furrows.]

Some kids from the Garrison happened to be there when I got him out. The next day, we found the Blue lion hidden on Earth and she immediately took all of us to planet Arus -- millions of light years away from home. That's how we all got involved in the war.

[A beat. There's a slightly defensive edge to his tone as he looks up at Natalie.]

If Shiro could've told him, he would've. I know that.

[Keith has to think about this for a moment.]

He was trying to warn everyone that there were hostile aliens out there in space. People thought he lost his mind.

Well obviously he wasn't crazy.

[Did Keith actually have a way of knowing that before breaking him out? Absolutely not. It just didn't matter.]

Either way, I wasn't going to leave him there. He was the only family I had then.

[There's another long pause.]

I didn't actually know Shiro was going to be there. After I got the boot, I ...uh... kind of got lost in conspiracy theories. It was like some weird energy was calling me. I started looking up legends about a Blue lion and somehow that led me to a prophecy about something or someone coming to Earth the same day Shiro returned.

[He can already hear the "that's weird" in response, so he shrugs.]

Must've been. But Blue chose Lance as her paladin, not me.

[There's a very faint, nostalgic smile on his face as he says that.]

He's a paladin. Second-in-command.

[A sigh.]

Dunno about friends. Had a bit of an argument.

[And in afterthought, he adds:]

Don't want to talk about it.