with your shield or on it | #sheith | galra!Shiro, galra!Keith, fantasy-ish au | cw: violence

Trope Bingo prompt I-5: I am ur bodyguard. I am bodyguarding you for reasons. I should not love you oh no oh shit i have feelings

Requested by @/existence_proof & @/akaiikowrites

When the Galra empire elects to send Shiro as an emissary — and sacrifice — to their Altean enemies, he is given a ship of his own and no honor guard. Instead, the leader of the Blade Elite elects to send only one warrior with him, their smallest.

Keith is little, especially for a Galra, but he is fierce; when he vows to protect Shiro from any evil they encounter, Shiro believes him. He doesn't necessarily think Keith will be successful, but that’s not a reflection on Keith’s ability.

It’s more knowing that two soldiers, however well-trained, aren’t much when pitted against an entire army.

The Altean castle is white and sleek, and it rises up from the earth like a tooth from a jaw. Like the maw of any beast, it’s neutral; Shiro has fought and killed as many creatures with fangs as he has befriended.

“Here goes nothing,” Keith says from beside him. Keith’s a fatalist. Shiro finds it refreshing.

“Put on your best sword, it’s rude to keep an oligarch waiting,” Shiro tells him.

Keith flicks a triangular ear in Shiro’s direction, unimpressed. “‘S gonna take more than my blade and some armor to make me look dressed up enough for that kind of company.”

Keith’s unusual for a Galra, it’s true, but the Alteans might like the way his fur curls pale around his face, darkening from white-lavender to the color of crushed fruit, interrupted by his stripes.

They might admire Keith’s eyes, which are only faintly yellow at the sclera; his eyes are nearly as purple as his fur ought to be.

Shiro finds himself quite fond of how Keith looks, so lean and poised. His black hair is a stunning contrast, braided back so severely at the temples that it’s easy to miss the rank the style indicates.

Only the Blade Elite wear their hair that way, to keep it tamed in battle.

“I’d offer you something from my wardrobe, but we’re not the same size.”

“It’s not me that’s supposed to impress,” Keith says.

He doesn’t hold the joke about his size against Shiro. Instead, he helps adjust the drape of Shiro’s sash — not the purple-blue of a Blade, but a rich, patterned grey interwoven with red and gold — and redoes one of Shiro’s flyaway braids

Shiro’s braids are done from the nape of the neck up, and finish in a knot at the back of his skull. It’s less tidy than Keith’s arrangement by design, to indicate that Shiro, at least, is not primed for war.

He can plait them himself, but it’s easier if he has help. A true warrior never goes into battle with his hair unbound, Kolivan always said, and the same is true for (alleged) diplomats;

the underbraid denotes delicacy, and honor, and trust that your enemy will not assault the vulnerable line of your neck.

It’s a trial; when Shiro was his empire’s Champion, he’d never have worn such a braid. The fine hairs at the nape of his neck, where Galra fur lengthens, have a tendency to slip out of the twists.

They look handsome, at least; Shiro knows he’s something of a specimen. His fur is a deep purple with a little blue in it; the color only deepens at the furred edges of his ears, and his hair is mostly dark, only a little white creeping in. The braid shows it off nicely.

Shiro doesn’t have stripes, not like Keith, and he’s more fashionable for it. An ideal Galra, his emperor said when he selected Shiro for this task. Shiro wonders if he was chosen because he is unblemished, the way other civilizations sacrifice their most cherished possessions.

When they enter the castle, the Alteans treat them with courtesy, if not honor.

Shiro and Keith surrender all but their ceremonial daggers and are lead to the throne room, where they are herded each into his own warded space on floor:

the length of a Galra body—Shiro’s size, not Keith’s—is between them, and two more lengths between where they stand and where the empress sits.

She looks down on them, both because she is seated high above where they stand and because Allura d’Altea is a thousand years old and more magical than any druid.

Her skin is polished bronze, her hair is whiter even than the pale fur around Keith’s strange eyes, and there’s a translucent particle barrier surrounding her head, like some sort of misguided halo.

“State your purpose,” the empress says, and her voice is so hollow it could hold the entire galaxy and still have room for more stars.

Allura’s power, Shiro had thought, was a story for kits in their den; he was wrong.

“Why have you come before me, a half-breed in tow? Is he some half-hearted tribute?” She gestures absently with one hand. Shiro does not touch his dagger; he is too busy wondering why the empress does not know why they have come before her.

The Galra announced this visit, Shiro would never have been sent without warning — what is the point of a sacrifice if the recipient does not know when it has come?

When he realizes Allura’s gesture is directed at Keith, Shiro stops wondering. Now he wishes he had his sword in hand.

Keith is enrobed in the light of Allura’s quintessence as it lifts him off his feet. It casts a bluish-pink light over him, turning his fur the color of a sick sunrise, and he is struck mute by its power.

“Keith!” Shiro runs full-tilt to the edge of the warding circle and crashes into a wall of power. His fur bristles and sparks, and he can feel his hair begin to slip free of its braid.

The quintessence is filling the room like lightning, caged about Keith, and the rush of that energy hurts to witness

Keith’s mouth is open wide, his lips drawn back from his fangs. He must be screaming, but Shiro cannot hear him.

If this is a test, Shiro will fail it.

“What a funny little half-breed,” Allura says.

That doesn’t make sense; yes, Keith is strange, and no one knows quite where he came from — the Blades adopted him as a child — but Keith fights like a Galra, serves the Galra.

Shiro has known Keith for years. Surely he would have learned this small, insignificant thing, if it were true.

But the empress does not know Keith. She’s walking toward the edge of her throne, now; her gaze is fixed on him. “There’s more than Galra blood in you.”

In all of this — as her wild energy strips the armor from Keith’s body, as his clothing turns to ribbons, as a deep wound opens on his face — Keith’s braids remain tightly bound.

Shiro is meant to be a diplomat, but that duty no longer signifies. He draws his dagger, and though it may hasten his own death, he awakens the blade.

He throws his considerable strength against the wards surrounding him until they splinter apart. A shard of quintessence hits him in the face, and he feels the line of a wound opening across the bridge of his nose.

It stings, in a way he knows will hurt very badly — but that will come later.

Right now, Allura is standing before Keith. She’s taller than Shiro expected. Even suspended in midair, suffering, Keith is smaller. Shiro rushes towards her and she steps away; his sword-arm crashes against the barrier holding Keith prisoner.

Now Shiro is the one who is screaming; his arm is on fire.

He should never have worried about facing the Altean army; their empress is beautiful and terrible, and she is killing them.

It appears to cost her little or no effort; through the pain, Shiro can see the serene curve of her face, her eyes half-lidded; the lashes are long, extremely so, and white, white, white —

The barrier surrounding Keith falls apart then, or dissolves; the quintessence drips across the floor in a rude shimmer, like water mixing with oil.

Keith hits the ground and rises to one knee. He lifts his own dagger and calls out the blade, and he holds it aloft with both hands.

Keith has always been an odd sort of Galra, too small and pale-furred and so sensitive to the workings of the druids; there was a reason Kolivan sent him into battle instead of into an apprenticeship where he might learn magic.

Shiro wouldn’t know that by looking at Keith now.

He's wielding quintessence of his own, haphazardly, with none of the empress’ lethal elegance. The energy settles about him, forming new armor — armor made of light, glowing the same deep purple as his hair and the markings on his face.

Shiro can’t move for the pain in his arm — the flames will not go out, and the hurt is dazzling; he’ll fall unconscious if it continues much longer

— but then Keith forces himself to his feet and steps sideways, away from Allura d’Altea’s outstretched fingers, until he’s standing over Shiro.

Keith puts his foot gently on Shiro’s burning arm; it’s more of a tap. Quintessence dribbles insouciantly down his ankle and begins to extinguish the fire.

It’s cold, too cold to save Shiro’s skin, but the sharp bite is almost enough to distract Shiro from the way Allura’s magic is still tunneling into the meat of his forearm, his bicep, his shoulder.

For a moment, all is silent, save for Shiro’s own ragged breathing and the sluggish hiss of that fire going out.

“Very good,” the empress says. She is smiling. “What a clever little diversion you promise to be.”

“If you wish,” Keith says. His voice has gone low and raw, the cartilage in his throat vibrating over the words: that’s a warning. “I’ll be your diversion, as if it does either of us any good. Just grant me a favor in return.”

“Impertinent.”

“Oh, come on,” Keith’s tone is just the opposite side of a jeer; he sounds desperate.

Shiro manages to lift his uninjured arm and wrap his claws around Keith’s ankle; Shiro’s hands are so big his fingers can touch, and he doesn’t have the strength to apply any pressure.

Keith ignores him. “You know the Galra are not without honor; you have bargained upon it. You called the Galra here, and we came.”

“Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn’t,” Allura says. “One grows very forgetful of trifles. But you aren’t Galra, my pet, and I didn’t make a bargain with anyone but your emperor and his wife.”

“So make a bargain with me now!” Keith shouts. “I’m Galra enough to fight for them. Just let my comrade go.”

No, Shiro thinks. Allura wasn’t supposed to kill them — wasn’t supposed to kill them outright, rather; there’d been a funeral tone to the command when Shiro had been bid to go. He'd known something was coming.

But not this, and not like this, helpless on the floor of a throne room while his guard bargains for Shiro’s life. It’s not a trade Shiro wants Keith to make.