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It's your mother 's.
He couldn't even remember her. Not the hair, or the eyes, or even her voice. The woman Dad would talk about momentarily whenever a shooting star lighted the night sky was invisible in his mind.
All Keith Kogane knew was that his mother had left, leaving behind a blade that never went dull and mirrored his reflection.
You have your mother's eyes.
The blade was familiar to his hand in every aspect: the well worn handle of what he once thought was leather, it's lightweight feeling on his fingers, and the silver glint it emitted even if unpolished for long periods of time.
Yet it told him nothing.
Keith tightened the grip around the weapon, feeling a concerning amount of frustration flood his veins.
Lance may call him emo but there’s a good reason for the coldness. The blue paladin had dozens of cousins, nieces and grandparents to miss back at Earth. So did Hunk. And Pledge was looking for her own family, but they sure once existed in a family with a history of science.
Even Shiro once had parents, people kind enough to accept him as their own during a few Christmas Holidays.
Keith had no one to learn about. No one to get answers. Nobody knows who he was or his point of existence (no matter how much Shiro showed him self value).
He didn't notice he was clutching it too harsh until the humming croaks of the ship broke his trance. The blade was still intact, shining in his palm more than ever with its purple symbol, and blood trickled down his palm from a small, nearly invisible cut..
His eyes flowed down from the sore skin down to the base of his palm, where there was a thinner, nearly invisible scar. He vaguely wondered how nobody had noticed its existence- but perhaps it was so old that one would only find it if specifically told where to look.
The memory of its origin swallowed him back again, forgetting about the sounds outside the room.
“What happened?”
Tex Kogane wasn't mad, though his eyes widened when arriving home and finding his kid sobbing with a bloody hand clutched against his chest. Keith had looked at him in the eye with those passionate eyes and showed him the knife, already crusted with dry blood.
He had explained slowly, swallowing the sting of disinfectant alcohol that coated the palm as Tex gently patched up the wound.
“I was trying to learn how to use it.” he’d explained.
Tex smiled, though in his eyes a flash of tragic nostalgia appeared. Keith never saw that in his father ever again, but it was present throughout the rest of the evening. After a thin white bandage was secured around his palm, Tex had taken off his coat and opened the door for him.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to teach you how to use it.”
The pain became less significant from his brain quickly, beaming up at his father and trotting outside.They spent the rest of the afternoon training- Tex with the blade and Keith with a duller, less dangerous kitchen knife.
By the time Tex carried the kid on his shoulder back inside and the sun had completely set, Keith had forgotten all about the cut. He could only think of his new ability, and ponder about the previous owner of the knife.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The soft knocking on his door nearly made him fall out of the bed, swiftly hiding the knife under his pillow as if his life depended on it. He wiped the blood from his hand, trying to conceal it as best as possible.
“Keith? You in there?”
Shiro.
“Yeah- just a tick!” he called out, glancing at the pillow again before opening the door.
Shiro smiled at him in his odd brother-like warmth, leaning against the doorframe momentarily. “We’re about to arrive. In about fifteen minutes- if I understood Coran correctly.”
Keith nodded, sticking his hands into his pockets and trying to hide the panic he’d felt earlier. “Is Pidge still upset about the video game?”
Shiro laughed. “Killbot Phantasm is a really good game, Keith. But no- she’s fangirling about the place where the headquarters are located.”
“Oh?”
“Something about a black hole- don't ask me about it.”
He nodded again, turning his back as if in cue for Shiro to leave. He didn't.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
Well that's never good.
“... are you okay?”
Keith managed a questioning smirk at a rather concerned Shiro. “Yeah just… got a lot on my mind.”
Shiro offered him a sympathetic glance. “Yeah. If you ever want to talk about it-”
“Your door’s open, I know.”
A flash of warmth passed through Shiro’s eyes, one that reminded him too much of his father. He placed a hand on his shoulder right shoulder, squeezing gently before stepping out.
“You coming?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Just give me a minute.”
As Shiro kept walking down the hall- encountering a probably annoyed Lance, Keith couldn't help but throw a look at his pillow. He could just leave the knife there- no one would notice.
No.
A feeling of comfort flooded over him after he secured the blade on his belt.
Whoever it belonged to, wherever it came from, the familiar weight on his lower back meant something. And perhaps one day, he would find out.