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It’s not that Ezor doesn’t understand the concept of family. It’s not a hard idea. A group of people connected by blood shared or shed – she’s seen it in every place she’s been to as a dancer on a leash, seen it in eyes dimming when she returns to those places later as a mercenary, their life running in scarlet tributaries down her arms.
She understands it. Family means protection. Family means safety in numbers. It’s why she joins Lotor at all. He offers power, strength, riches –
-but she doesn’t want it. She’ll work with him. She’ll work with the other three. But she has no interest in a family.
---
The new ship has three parts instead of Voltron’s five, and Ezor stares up at it with a fear she can’t place. She doesn’t work well as a team. Lotor’s told her off about it before, and she can’t help but wonder if this is his way of getting revenge on her.
“Nervous?” he asks from behind her, and she can hear the purr in his voice.
“I don’t get nervous,” she taunts back. “I think you’re just worried I’ll be better at it than you.”
“Hmm. I doubt that.”
Ezor catches the look on his face. It’s somewhere between teasing and concerned – “Seriously! I’m fine.”
“Of course you are.” There’s a small nudge in the small of her back. “You always are.”
Zethrid pulls a face at the ship. “Good riddance. I’m not getting back in that thing.”
“What? Really?” Lotor smirks, standing up straight. “I’m offended, Zethrid. You don’t like my handiwork.”
“Your handiwork is fine. It just talks more than you do.”
“Wh-what?” Ezor looks back at Lotor, startled. “It what now?”
“Oh, Acxa didn’t tell you?” he drawls. “Yes, it talks. Although Zethrid is exaggerating.”
“Exaggerating, my arse. There’s only one person allowed to nose around in my head and that’s Narti.”
Narti glances up with an expression Ezor could only interpret as surprised happiness, her cat winding around her shoulders, and Zethrid pets Kova on the head with a small smile. Ezor tears her eyes away – there’s something nervewracking about their casual intimacy.
“So it’s you, me and Acxa?” she says, looking back at Lotor and ignoring the other two behind her.
“That’s right. We did pretty well against Voltron, but we can do better.”
What if I don’t want to? She wants to ask. But she’s never directly challenged Lotor before, and she doesn’t want to find out what happens when she does. Besides, Zethrid is probably just driving herself crazy. So she slides into the ship.
Acxa is already inside, sliding her hands over the interior of the craft. “Ezor,” she says with a quiet nod. “Ever seen metal like this before?”
She shrugs. “I don’t see a lot of asteroids from other universes, no. Come on, stop wasting time.”
“We’re in no rush. Besides, I want to know what kind of ship I’m flying.”
“I don’t,” Ezor snaps despite herself, and quails as Acxa’s eyes land on her, bright and questioning. None of them, she knows already, are questions she wants to answer – so she makes her escape, fingers twitching with the urge to disappear. It’d be easy. Like breathing.
She remembers walking through the hallways where they’d trained her to be a dancer and singer for the first time after she came back. The dead lie outside; their chains of command are hanging around her neck, different shades of metal for different positions in the hierarchy she’s now toppled. She’ll exchange them for her payment later.
But the hallways are so silent without her compatriots, long since sold off or killed or gone. She’s invisible, chameleonic body shimmering even to her own eyes, and it still feels like an invasion.
She is not supposed to be here. Not anymore.
She settles into one of the three pilot seats, fitting the helmet over her head and flicking her long tentacle out of the back with a humph. Lotor went to the trouble of designing one for her, which she appreciates; all the same, it’s still not comfortable.
<You alright over there?> Acxa asks, and Ezor doesn’t want her concern. These days, it sounds almost too genuine. Maybe it’s just her reacting to how long Acxa was trapped in the Weblum without them knowing. Maybe it’s just Ezor being strange.
<Fine,> she says into the receiver. The ship powers up underneath her, and the feeling in her stomach gets worse and worse –
She takes the controls.
<Ezor? Are you alright?> Lotor this time.
She can’t respond. She’s frozen, head to toe, fingers clasped around the controls, and a voice whispering, who are you I don’t know you who are you –
And now Ezor knows what Zethrid was talking about but it’s worse, so much worse than she thought, because she can feel it – she can feel that this being or creature or whatever it is, is functioning on pure, raw curiosity. And Ezor has so much – so much – she doesn’t want anybody to know.
It noses around, turning over rocks and hidden places, and then a memory Ezor never wanted to acknowledge again surfaces – a piece of a puzzle, a buried secret –
The scream rips itself from her throat as she tears her hands away, and the noise stops. She lurches backwards, world spinning, and Lotor’s there a few seconds later, but somebody else bats him away and it’s Acxa who lays a gentle hand on her forearm.
“Ezor. Ezor, it’s me.”
“I know that.” Already the embarrassment is setting in. Ezor glances up – and suddenly there’s nothing to say. The pain written on Acxa’s face tells her everything she needs to know; that the same thing happened to her, and Ezor can’t help but wonder what kind of secrets Acxa has buried. Suddenly the concern isn’t quite so galling – or out of the blue.
Acxa squeezes her arm gently, then gets to her feet, turning to Lotor. “So – fearless leader – want to tell me what exactly is going on?” she asks, rage rising in her voice. It’s more than a little entertaining to watch how he quails under her gaze.
“I didn’t know it was going to be that bad-“
“Did the same thing happen to Zethrid?”
“No! She just got a little startled-“
“Did you ask?”
“It’s not like this is your first time flying it either!”
“No,” Acxa sighs. “But I think it’s my first time flying it – or trying to – with Ezor. It’s a psychic link, isn’t it?”
Lotor drops his eyes. “Not…quite.”
“Lotor.”
“I’ve told you Voltron is sentient! I don’t know what you all expected –“
“Not all of us are as incredibly smart as you! I should not have to yell at you every single time to give us a little bit of a road map as to what to expect!”
“Yeah, yeah –“
“Don’t give me that,” Acxa snaps. “Do better.”
And Lotor actually looks sincerely sorry when he nods. Acxa sighs, then turns back to Ezor. “How are you feeling?”
The memory still sits in the front of her brain. The murdered masters of the dance-hall, and the one dancer who had stayed, out of fear; the way she’d stared at Ezor before the blade had slid through her heart, the way she’d whispered, “You came back,” – a benediction as her last words. Ezor had hoped that memory was finally consigned to oblivion. Apparently not.
She doesn’t cry. But her heart beats a rhythm against her ribs, and she won’t even look up at Acxa and Lotor.
“Give us some space,” Acxa murmurs to Lotor, and she breathes a little easier when he’s gone. She loves him; they all do. But he’s still a prince, and just as overambitious and cocky as he is loving and considerate.
Then Acxa sits down next to her, shoulders brushing. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Oh, fuck, no.”
“I figured. Me neither.” There’s a small smile on her face. “The less people know about me the happier I am.”
Ezor starts at that. It never occurred to her that she was the only one deliberately keeping things close to her chest. But for all that she watches the others treat each other like a family she hasn’t the slightest clue about their pasts except for the small hints here and there. The odd crush scar on Narti’s throat. The whipmarks on Zethrid’s back.
“Are we all like this?” Ezor asks, and hates how desperate and sad her voice sounds.
“Mostly,” Acxa breathes. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
“I’d rather it was just me,” Ezor says, and she can’t help how bitter her voice sounds. “I can carry it. I don’t want anybody else to.”
“That’s surprisingly selfless.”
“Surprisingly?” Ezor teases, and Acxa gives her a punch on the shoulder.
“You know what I mean. You don’t seem like the type.”
“I’m not,” she shrugs. “I just – I don’t know.”
The memory’s faded a little now, and she can breathe a little easier. She yanks off the helmet, and then with a hesitation that has her skin vibrating with anxiety, leans her head over onto Acxa’s shoulder. She’s never been close with somebody like this before, and it’s – strange.
But Acxa doesn’t mind. She leans into it, her steady breathing evening out Ezor’s uneasy, rapid heartbeat.
Ezor supposes it doesn’t matter whether she wants a family or not. She’s got one anyway – and it could be a whole lot worse.