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Kova nuzzled her cheek against his leg. Lotor sat, silent, a hand absentmindedly scratching behind Kova’s ear. The throne room bore silence save for Kova’s soft purrs and the ship’s distinct, barely audible hum.
His father’s throne sat large and wide. The surface of its side was cold through the fabric of his shirt. During the day, he could stand by his father’s side – on his left, never his right, never where the witch lingered – and listen to the daily inner workings of running an empire. He was meant to learn, but never to speak; stand tall and straight, but shift so that the red markings shadowing his eyes faded to the purple of his skin.
He sensed her before he saw her: The soldiers aboard the ship whispered that she appeared to float, that the only indication of her presence was that of the faint brush of her cloak against the floor. But they failed to put a name to the ice-chill sparkling amongst the air, that sensation like your stomach was crawling up your ribcage.
“Prince Lotor.”
At the sound of the witch’s voice, Kova shot away. Lotor’s hand lingered in the air of where she’d been for a tick before falling to his lap. He inhaled. Exhaled. The witch’s magic smothered the air around him.
“Yes, Haggar?” He looked up at her. The hood of her cloak shadowed her face, but her white hair, shade identical to his own, hung forward. He asked his father, once, what the similarity meant. There had been no answer.
“You’re not meant to be here when the Emperor is not.” She stopped before him. This close, he saw the yellow glow of her eyes, the hint of red markings on her face. The point of her chin was similar to his own, as was the purple of her skin. When he was younger, he once reached a small hand out to touch her and she flinched as if burnt.
“I know,” he replied, looking down at his knees. His fingers twitched against his thighs. “I found Kova here and she would not leave.”
“She has left now. As should you.” She turned, slightly, as if to leave, but hesitated. The habitual impassivity of her face flickered into the faintest hint of — something that Lotor could not put a name to. “And rest, Prince. The Emperor requires your best tomorrow.”
He wrapped his arms around his knees, fingers gripping the fabric of his pants. His gaze shifted towards the viewing panes. The ship was passing by a blue giant, bright and iridescent in this corner of the universe.
It wasn’t until the witch shut the door behind her that he whispered, “Does he?”
There was a girl amongst the new recruitment group, smaller than the other new pre-selected soldiers around her. A hybrid: half-galra, half a species he could not recognize.
Lotor stood still beside his father. Around other Galra, Lotor was at best small for his age, but next to his father he appeared miniature. A runt. He heard the insult whispered a handful of times among other occupants of Central Command. Never directly to his face, of course. No one would dare insult the Crown Prince directly, but he was his father’s child: keen ears and an ability to fall back and listen.
This girl was as small as him. Were it not for the ridges atop her head and blue skin, he’d say they could be related.
His father said little at his throne. He sat with his elbows resting on the armrests, his fingers steepled before him.
“These recruits,” he said, and the Commander stood impossibly straight-backed, “they are not all pure Galra.”
The Commander — Uslaw, Lotor believed his name to be — glanced at him and then the witch. “No, Sir. But the ones that are not excelled even beyond full-blooded Galran standards.”
There was only one. She stood tall, silent. Her gaze remained steady forward even as though around her began to look her way.
“I cannot have such a taint on what is to be an elite group.” Zarkon leaned back in his throne. The invisible markings on Lotor’s skin burned.
Commander Uslaw opened his mouth as if to protest, but thought better of it before he could. “Of course, Sir.”
The girl remained silent.
“She could work with me,” Lotor said. A miracle, really, that his voice did not crack and waver as it tended to nowadays in the rare moments he spoke. He forced his spine to lock into place, his arms crossed at his back. You are not to speak, the witch’s voice in his head whispered, like a snake. His mouth dried. “You said, before, that soon I could select my own soldiers to work for me. I believe I am old enough now.”
“You are still a child.” Zarkon turned to look at him. His eyes glowed bright violet, sparks of quintessence flaring from the pupil-less stare. “You’ve yet to even reach the beginning stages of maturity.”
His hand gripped at the sleeve of his shirt, hidden behind his back. “Many of the recruits seem around my developmental stage. And how am I to learn without experience?”
Zarkon hummed. He looked to the witch who stood as silent and still as a statue. Without looking up, she inclined her chin the slightest degree.
“The recruit is your responsibility,” his father announced. Lotor’s twin hearts crawled up his throat. “If she fails, so do you. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
Acxa worked best with long-range weapons. A gun, a blaster. Given a sword, she managed to overpower even the best of the soldiers stationed at Central Command, but she shone brightest with her finger on a trigger. She complimented his own fighting; challenged him like none of the others have.
And yet: he heard the whispers that shadowed them when they walked down the violet halls, quiet enough to prevent punishment, but clear enough that he heard it —that faint, harsh hiss. Half-breed.
His claws dug into his palms till they broke skin.
The commander cowered on his knees before Zarkon, fur shaking, ears flattened against his large skull. A pitiful sight by all standards, but none more than his father. He sat straight in his throne without so much as a quirked brow or twitch of the mouth. On his best of days, Lotor could not hope to emulate that impassivity.
“Emperor, you must understand: the planet houses unimaginable, vast food and energy resources for the empire. To battle against the current king would destroy these supplies when they could be used for civilians —”
“Negotiations are not the Galra way,” Zarkon said without missing a beat. Lotor’s throat closed. “The king will bend to my will, as must you.”
“Yes. Yes, of course, my lord, but surely there must be another way —”
“My way is the only way.”
The commander’s eyes widened. Behind him, two sentries stepped forward.
“Perhaps he is right.” Lotor’s breath caught. His father’s head snapped in his direction. At this side, the witch slowly looked up. Yellow eyes glowed within the shadows of her hood. Fear clenched at his twin hearts, but he persisted, voice clear, resolute. “To simply rage war would destroy not only the resources, but this particular galaxy’s socioeconomic and political systems. There should be deca-phoebs invested in this endeavor rather than a couple of phoebs dedicated to battle.”
A long, stilted silence followed, like a bated breath. The commander continued to tremble as if Lotor’s cold, tar-like dread transferred across the air to him.
“And you would understand how to conquer and rule a planet, I suppose.” Zarkon steepled his fingers as he sat back, languidly, in his seat. A drop of sweat rolled down the back of Lotor’s neck. His father turned to Haggar. “It’s earlier than I expected, but it’s time for Prince Lotor to truly begin his education.”
“Father, I was simply—”
“You will speak when you are spoken to,” Zarkon said, his voice measured, precise, like a scalpel. “I am your Emperor, Prince. You will do well to remember.”
“Yes, Father.”
With a wave of his hand, Zarkon summoned the two sentries forward. They reached for the commander’s arms and pulled him to his feet. His eyes widened and his lower lip trembled for a flicker of a moment, but then his face shifted into an absolute blank. Acceptance.
“You will be punished for your insolence. Meanwhile, the prince will assume control of your fleet and complete what you have failed to do.”
It went unsaid: This, too, shall be your punishment.
Lotor raised his chin. He looked to his father, something like relief beating in tandem with his heartbeats, and saluted.
“Vrepit sa.”
It took five phoebs and thirty vargas for Trore to surrender. A once beautiful planet with four great oceans and endless miles of forests, the ground fertile with plants and vegetables to feed some of the only animals close to the original Galra dietary plan, Trore burned. The capital toppled after his fleet finally destroyed the king’s palace and subdued his army.
From his seat, Lotor stared at the feeds, his chin resting on his palm. He watched. He listened to the screams and cries.
“Prince?” Acxa stood to his side. Her brows furrowed. Even outside Central Command, she hesitated to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder. Decaphoebs of friendship reduced to a hierarchy of command.
“This could’ve been avoided.” He thought of the the universe bent at the knee to his father’s will; of the witch silent and brooding, her Druids lingering in dark corners; of Acxa, smaller, thinner, her spine locked straight even as half-breed trailed after her like a knell.
He turned to look at his oldest friend. “We must do better.”
The Grippe system surrendered after Trore. Lotor claimed it in the name of his father. While his fleet celebrated, he stood at the once beautiful center of Trore, Acxa at his right, and imagined them cheering his name.
The Kustrion’s senate invited him in with open arms: an invitation broadcasted to his fleet with the bright, lilac face of the Prime Minister rambling about the benefits of joining the Galra Empire. They threw a lavish festival in the Galra’s honor. A circus was invited, meant to perform during dinner.
The Prime Minister stood from his seat at the head and raised a goblet. “I present to you, the best entertainment this galaxy has to offer!”
The double doors of the dining room opened, revealing a young girl smothered in fine, loose yellow and blue silks. She cartwheeled into the room. Her long, pink antenna trailed after her. When she stopped before Acxa and bowed with a wink, Lotor’s breath caught.
He found Kova curled up against a girl’s leg, purring incessantly. Acxa stood at his side, glancing to and from him and the cat, as if ready to act on command.
“Kitty!” As if emerging from the air, Ezor appeared besides the girl. The smile on her face brightened the room. “Where’d you come from?”
Kova meowed and nuzzled further against the girl’s side.
The girl wore a hood that barely covered her head. A long, lizard-like tail slithered slightly on the floor where she sat, staring at nothing. No eyes. No mouth. Beneath the hood, two small, cat-like ears twitched.
“Kova likes you,” he said. She titled her head slightly in his direction. He crouched down and offered a hand to Kova, who purred and nudged her head against his palm. “She rarely likes anyone.”
“Yeah, didn’t you say she hates Haggar?” Ezor plopped down next to the girl, crossing her legs at the ankle, and leaned forward. “And she sometimes even hisses at Acxa.”
Acxa said nothing. The corner of her mouth turned down into the hint of a frown.
“Don’t mock her.” He grinned and looked back at the girl. “What’s your name?”
Silence followed. The tip of her tail moved just as Kova looked up at him, her eyes glowing. A voice at the back of his head whispered, Narti.
He blinked. He leaned back. The dim, purple lights of the hall played in shadows across Kova’s face.
“That’s…interesting.”
Narti’s ears flicked. Lotor smiled.
In the decaphoebs living aboard Central Command, his tutors spoke of barbaric planetary systems. Species that lacked the advanced technology of the Galra; that waged no wars; whose militaries failed to organize themselves to true perfection. He learned of the original war the begun the empire: Daizabaal’s unnecessary destruction and Altea’s subsequent defeat. There was little left of Altea. Its few mentions were of its savagery, its weakness. No cultural mentions. The Galra Empire thrived, as it should for its strength.
The planets he conquered in the name of his father fell easily: Majority of them were peaceful till his fleet entered their systems and did not understand the ways of war. Many surrendered within quintants.
A planet three-fourths water offered underwater technology the Galra have attempted for decaphoebs to cultivate for its ships. Their food was spicy, yet slimy on the tongue. The queen laughed at his expression and poured him their finest wine. The Clyria Belt gifted their most talented swordsmen for the arena and threw a six quintant festival in the Galra’s honor in the middle of their most ancient desert. The Qoiclite people responded best to various diplomatic meetings in which he charmed the president to a giggling mess till they agreed to joining the empire. He traveled across the Sasworia forests with his generals and the Queen Regent, clothed in their finest armor, till she agreed to bend the knee.
Less deaths, unless they resisted. Only then did his fleet attack. Only then did he command his generals to invade.
His soldiers whispered when he walked down the halls of his ship. They fell silent when he looked back and smiled.
A table shattered against the wall and the soldiers cheered loud enough to summon him from the cockpit. He stood at the door, Ezor leaning against him with an elbow on his shoulder. Acxa wrinkled her nose. Narti retired long ago to bed with Kova, but he was sure Ezor would fill her in with vigorous detail in the morning.
It wasn’t often that he visited this far into the ship. His soldiers respected him enough and trusted him to keep them alive, but to make conversation with them as he did with his generals would be a breach in formality.
A bulky soldier picked up another and threw them across the room. Another wave of cheers rose up. The soldier turned, arms raised, grinning wide and bright. Her pink ears twitched.
“Who wants to try me now?” she yelled.
Lotor shrugged Ezor’s arm off and raised a hand. “I would love to.”
The room hushed. Someone coughed.
The soldier’s grin widened. “Oh, you have no idea what you got yourself into.”
Decaphoebs passed. The Emperor left Lotor to his own devices and he got results: Planets conquered in record time with resources supplied to the empire unharmed; allies forged that squashed rebellion; civilians that chanted his father’s name in reverence.
And then, the whisperings. The rumors.
Voltron.
Hidden by the Pruduphus moons, Lotor looked out the ship’s viewing panes and watched as a sleek white castle flashed into existence from the mouth of a wormhole. It lingered in the system for a moment before another wormhole opened and it disappeared with another flash, as if it never existed.
Ezor tilted her head. “Was that a castle?”
“I think so,” Zethrid replied, brows pinched. She turned to Lotor with a frown. “Should we go after it?”
“No,” he said. He sat in his seat, chin propped in his hand. A memory, unbidden, rose up: Pictures in an old chip from the witch’s lab, the ones that she allowed no one to touch and yet, in a moment of weakness in his youth, she turned a blind eye as he reached into the hidden drawer. “Not yet.”
“Scaultrite?” Acxa settled a hand on the ship’s wing. The word slipped past her mouth hesitantly, as if she hadn’t spoken in phoebs.
“I’ve uploaded the instructions on how to retrieve it onto your ship.” Lotor settled a hand on her shoulder. The gesture was warm, familiar. The curve of her shoulder seemed almost molded to his touch. “I would trust no one else with this task.”
She looked to the ship, her nose crinkled. Since the moment he spoke out on her behalf, he couldn’t recall an instance of her denying him any whim or request from sneaking out to prank a particularly vexing general to quiet assassination of a political leader none too eager to submit to his demands. Still, she hesitated.
“The others do not have your experience.”
“I understand,” she said at last.
When Acxa returned, two phoebs, three vargas, and twenty doboshes later than planned, Ezor all but leaped across the hangar into her arms. Zethrid charged towards the pair only a tick later, picking them both up off the ground in a bone-crushing hug that Lotor thanked the ancients he was able to avoid. He stood off to the side with Narti next to him, scratching at Kova’s ear.
“Oh, we were so worried, Acxa, and Zethrid cried —”
“Hey!”
“She totally did, I swear! We cried together and Narti sulked forever and even Lotor—”
At Lotor’s name, Acxa separated herself from the tangle of arms. Her mouth twisted down into a frown — a sharp contrast to the flustered, pleased smile that had graced her face with Ezor in her arms — and her brows pinched tight, the skin between them wrinkled. When she looked in his direction, it was with shame.
“Lotor, I —”
He crossed the hangar, Ezor and Zethrid parting in his path, and pulled her into his arms. His hand cradled the back of her head. “You can brief me on the details later.”
She hesitated before returning the embrace, hiding her face against his shoulder.
“Group hug!” cried Zethrid, sweeping them into her arms, this time with Narti and Kova somehow in the mix. Ezor laughed, her voice like bells, her cheeks pressed between Acxa and Narti’s. Warmth spread throughout Lotor’s limbs, comforting, safe. Kova purred and nuzzled against his face.
“So two of the paladins are children.” Lotor rested his chin in his hand, frowning.
Acxa nodded. Her arms were crossed behind her ramrod straight back. “Around our developmental stage. And…inexperienced. They trust far too easily. The red one —” Her nose wrinkled. “He freed me and allowed me to work at his side till I stole some of the scaultrite.”
He leaned back in his seat. Steepling his fingers, he stared straight ahead. There were whisperings of Voltron across the galaxy, rebellions rising with its name on their lips, but little about its pilots. There was only one that he had found so far: the witch’s reports on the champion. A member of a relatively unknown species from a planet in a yet undiscovered system. Earthlings. Small, primitive. And yet this one was deemed powerful enough to be considered as a potential weapon and then lost to Voltron.
“Interesting,” he said. “He…spared you, even after recognizing you as Galra.”
“He told the yellow one that it was their duty to protect all.”
He raised a brow. “Of course.”
Acxa shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her gaze flitted to the floor, just as her lips twitched into a scowl.
“There’s something else,” she said. Lotor straightened in his seat. Her stare lifted and met his own, unwavering. “He’s half-galra.”
He blinked, once. Then again.
“Well that’s — certainly unexpected.”
Acxa nodded. Her cheek flexed.
“And yet, that’s not what’s solely bothering you.”
The silence that settled between them was long, stilted. A bated breath. He learned, throughout the decaphoebs, how to interpret Acxa’s quiet; to observe the twitch of her mouth, the movement of her eyes, the stiff line of her shoulders. As she stared back, her jaw clenched, Lotor’s stomach knotted.
“He just…seemed familiar.”
The transmission reached him before the rumors did. Early one quintant, right as he and Ezor entered the command room to check the systems, the feed lit up. A harsh, hiss of a voice spoke into the cold air: The emperor has fallen ill. The empire requires your presence. Report back to Command Central.
Ezor frowned. “What does that mean?”
He stared at the controls, his face blank, stoic. Slowly, a smile curled onto his lips.
“It means,” he said, looking up at her, “that my exile has been lifted.”
Lotor was leaner, taller, smarter since the decaphoebs he’d stepped foot onto his father’s ship. He conquered planets in Zarkon’s name; sparked loyalty and respect in thousands of soldiers and civilians alike. There was little he did not know, now. To speak when the moment struck. To stay silent when the scene required it so. To lean back and observe.
When he saw his father, weak, vulnerable, laid to rest with tubes of glowing, purple quintessence hooked up to his limbs, he tilted his head, considering.
The witch stood to his side. Her arms hung at her sides, the loose sleeves of her cloak hiding her hands.
“Will he live?” he asked.
His mother (never said out loud; never admitted, but known — as obvious as the point of their chins, the red markings marring both their faces) stared down at his father.
“He will.”
Lotor tapped a claw against the metal side of the bed. His father did not awaken to reach out and reprimand the action. There was only silence and the faint buzzing of quintessence. “Pity.”
The arena erupted into cheers, his name loud and revered. He stood in the center, his sword raised, smiling. The warmth in his stomach spread till it seemed to brand him. Finally.
The blue lion was the weak link: this Paladin was the most inexperienced, demonstrated clearly as they continued to stumble and crash into their fellow Paladins’ lions. Separating them required small effort on Lotor’s part.
And yet — They found their footing, took him by surprise.
As the ice beam hit the wing of his fighter he felt it for the first time in decaphoebs, like an itch: respect.
“Well played, Paladin.”
The Strarsen palace erupted into chaos. The lights flickered into epileptic shock until they shut off altogether, drowning the entire building in darkness. The backup generator buzzed to life and bathed the hall into a faint blue hue that did little to illuminate their surroundings.
Strars was a dark, bioluminescent planet dependent upon their technology. Their alliance was forged long ago: the comet ore’s was supposed to be safe here, of all places.
At his ear, Acxa rattled off coordinates. Ezor and Narti were somewhere else, battling the green and blue Paladins (except — Ezor said the blue one held a red weapon).
Lotor was alone. But he sensed a presence nearby — a faint prickling of eyes at the nape of his neck. Hand gripping the hilt of his sword, he turned but there was no one.
Every hall yielded the same results. The twin hearts in his chest beat loud, thumping hard enough to break through his ribs.
“The Paladins are escaping!” Ezor screamed into the comms.
Lotor took off into a run. There was a large, glass window and he smashed it with the hilt of his sword, glass falling two stories below. He could see the blue lion only so far up ahead, its particle barrier raised. The jetpack at his back went off and he flew ahead. There was a small pink figure running towards it.
The figure ducked and rolled when he tried to kick them from behind. He landed with a grunt, brandishing his sword. A helmet rolled away and long locks of white hair fell in disarray, spilling over pink armor covered shoulders, just as they looked up with wide blue and pink speckled eyes. Faint, pink freckles dusted and glowed across the bridge of her nose.
His throat closed.
The Paladin summoned her bayard and without second thought, without pause, the whip twisted round his ankles and pulled his legs out from beneath him. He fell, the back of his skull hitting the ground with a loud crack — hard enough that he shut his eyes and faint white dots sprinkled across the backdrop of his eyelids. His eyes fluttered opened just as she took the opportunity to grab her helmet and sprint for the lion.
By the time he got up, the sore spot of his head throbbing, she was gone.
The Galra still chanted his name, but Lotor felt the ticks sloughing by. His rule was a countdown till his father could stand and walk and lead once more. That he awoke was not enough — yet. But there was a change in the air.
Though his father remained supine, he spoke for vargas on end with the witch. Lotor was rarely let into Zarkon’s chambers, but the one time he was, the witch reached a hand out towards his face and he recoiled as if burnt. She drew her hand back, though her gaze lingered. His markings flickered to life on his face before he shifted them back to the same violet of his skin.
Zarkon smiled, his fangs peeking out, the expression wrong — strange. Lotor’s stomach flinched in hard.
“A family,” Zarkon said, his voice hoarse from disuse, “reunited once more.”