Katie fell asleep before long in the company of the awaited prince.

The medics tried to chase him out but Keith insisted to stay with her the entire time. He felt deja vu as he placed his palm against her burning forehead and she frowned in her sleep.

He hate seeing her like this. He hate that she was always in harm's way and always came out injured but what could he do? He was the one who brought her here in the first place. 

It was his fault every time she got injured but he couldn't bring himself to let her go. Katie would be far safer away from here— away from him, but he wanted her to stay with him. 

She also had a choice and she already chose to become a knight herself. He just wasn't sure if she was staying because she was now closer to finding her parents or because she wanted to contribute to the kingdom as a knight. Either way, she was still here and he was grateful for her.

He wanted to tell her how he felt about her and how she's been making him feel, but he was afraid.

'What if she doesn't feel the same way?' He thought as he ran his fingers through his raven hair, 'what if it makes her too overwhelmed?'

He was caught up in his thoughts until he heard Katie whimpering. Wide eyed, he turned his attention back to her and grabbed her hand.

He winced when she tightened her grip on him, feeling her nails marking his skin.

"Shiro, not you too..." She whispered with a small whimper as beads of sweat formed on her forehead, "please don't leave me."

Keith furrowed his brows as he remained near her, listening to her little mumbles.

Right. He couldn't tell her yet. She would be too overwhelmed and she had bigger things to worry about. So he just waited beside her, holding her soft hands that were now heavily calloused, until she finally calmed down.

He leaned down, kissing her forehead before letting go of her hand. 

He looked up and saw that Mark was looking down at him, blinking in surprise. Keith sighed before putting a finger to his lips and nodding towards the entrance of the tent, "Let's talk outside."

"How are you doing?" Keith asked Mark once they were far away from the medic tent.

"I'm fine, better than Pidge anyways." He responded with a grim expression before looking up at the Prince. He wanted to ask about what he just saw in there but decided to leave it alone for now. Mark knew the Prince held some type of special feelings for the lady knight and he worried for their future.

"So what did you get from your mission in there?" Keith continued, crossing his arms as he pressed his lips together in disapproval, "which was really stupid by the way-"

He was left speechless when Mark pulled out documents and handed it to him. 

"We went to find out how many galra they have in their army and you need to see this." Mark said as Keith read through the multi paged files.

The list of the galra seemed to go on and on but Keith skimmed it all through until he reached the bottom.

Total: 1 million

He read from the paper and he almost dropped it. Keith felt hopeless as he passed the paper back to a grim-faced Mark who had already seen the papers.

With the Emberland knights, Dorian, and his own, they were just outnumbered again. They couldn't invade them or they would be forced to surrender immediately. 

From there, what would happen to him and his family? Katie and hers? His kingdom? The whole country?

"Keith.. I'm not sure how we'll be able to beat them like this." Mark said, his face dejected. 

And Keith agreed. He didn't know how they could possibly beat a whole army with 1 million full beast galra.

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A/N

I'm back to uploading in regular schedule!! (Woo-hoo!)

Thank you all for the birthday wishes a few weeks ago 🥰💗

It looks like no matter that they do, they can't beat the galra by themselves. How do you think they'll beat Lotor and the Galra?

Sorry for the shorter chapter today. I'm really incompetent as a writer on here and I'm always trying to improve so please do excuse some of my flaws.

Thank you for reading and I hope to see you all the next time I upload <3

-Silver 💜