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“Allura, report in.”
The familiar pink paladin armour pulls up on the screen, bathed in the cerulean blue light of the second Castleship’s bridge.
“I’m on the edge of the Pylonian system in the Omega quadrant. The meeting with the new members of coalition went smoothly; we're expecting more shipments of aid as soon as they can get an operation running. Hyperjump back to central command is scheduled in the next varga."
“Excellent. Hurry back, love.”
Allura nods with a smile, and the line closes.
Lotor takes a moment.
“Contact the lions. I want an update on the situation in the quantum abyss.”
**
It is the youngest of the paladins, the Green lion’s pilot who responds to the call—only her lion had the capability to send and receive signals through the abyss’ warping of time-space.
“We’ve received a distress call from one of the colonies; apparently there’s been a malfunction in some of the quintessence turbines.
We’re already on our way, but we’re not sure what we can accomplish once we get there.”
She (along with her hair) has grown in the years. Still the shortest, but at least she wasn’t the height of a Galran child anymore.
“Yeah, since none of us are magical girls with the ability to alchemically transfigure things.” A voice adds offscreen; most likely the Yellow lion’s paladin, judging by the tone.
Lotor holds his breath through the twinge in his chest. “Duly noted, Hunk. I’ll make preparations to leave as soon as I can.”
“Power is approximately at 56%. It’s not enough to keep a full protective field running, but most of the inhabitants have been evacuated from at-risk areas. It won’t hold forever though.”
“Excellent job, paladins. I’m counting on you to hold the fort until I get there.”
“Um, Emperor Lotor?” Pidge interjects.
“Are you sure it’s alright to leave Allura out of this?”
The Emperor’s face hardens.
“I will deal with this personally. Allura will not get involved.”
**
The Emperor greets her personally on her way in from the docking bay with a smile and the royal entourage in tow.
She was only heading to her chamber for a quick nap—she wasn’t feeling well (hyperjump travel never sat well with Allura)—but Lotor would have none of it.
“The guards will escort you safely to your chambers, princess.”
“Emperor Lotor, what of the paladins?”
“They’re currently on a mission. I will be rendezvousing with them shortly.”
“I can be of help. Let me come with you.”
“No.” Lotor says firmly.
His face softens at the frown slowly creeping onto the princess’s face. Lotor extends his hand and pulls her in for an embrace, gently kissing her forehead.
“You've only just returned. You need your rest, love.” The emperor murmurs. “We’ll be back soon. The paladins miss you sorely—they’ll be eager to see you when they return.
Until then; rest.”
**
She loved him (and he had a point), but she was not going to sit around in her room, ‘resting’, while everybody else was on their mission. The emperor left shortly, and the guards had escorted her to her chambers as promised—but he had never said anything about after that. Everything was fair game from the moment the guards left.
Including the main control room and the communications log. She wasn’t so stupid to let slide that the Emperor was apparently needed on a mission that Voltron was already on—it had to be serious, and most likely involving something the paladins could not achieve alone. Allura’s hands move quickly across the interface, making short work of finding the latest calls to the paladins.
“…there’s been a malfunction in some of the quintessence turbines…
we’re not sure what we can accomplish...”
The quantum abyss colonies—Lotor had long refused to let her go, or even take her there himself.
It’s far too dangerous. Celestial abominations dwell in that plane; they destroy anything they encounter.
One wrong move and you will be pulled in by the gravitational warping and torn from this very existence.
And that was the last he’d ever willingly delved into details about it—the Emperor seemed pained, speaking or even thinking about it.
“…none of us are magical girls with the ability to alchemically transfigure things…”
Hunk’s sarcasm cuts through the audio—she imagined Lotor wincing, rather than laughing—he’d always been sensitive about alchemy, despite being quite gifted at it.
Allura bites her lip. The coordinates to the abyss as well as a relatively safe path through the chaos had been sent in the transmission.
It was dangerous, but surely, she had faced far more dangerous things than warped time-space, eldritch abominations and high-potential quintessence? She had the key to get through the abyss safely, thanks to Pidge’s broadcast. She had a ship that could make it there and back.
There were lives on the line—and she had decided long ago that was not the kind of princess who did sat back while others risked everything.
**
“Where are you headed, my love?”
The feeble attempt at hiding under a druid acolyte cloak does nothing to hide her. He knew her too well, the way she walked when she didn’t want anyone to see her, the way all her emotions flew across her face when he had denied her request to accompany him on the mission.
The fact that he’d caught her in the ship docking bay did not bode well.
“I just need to clear my head a little.”
“Is it something you can discuss with me? You know I’m always here for you.”
He knows the way Allura’s voice becomes flat when she tries to hide things; the way she hesitates when she tosses up between an argument and a peaceful lie.
Lotor’s eyes narrow at her telling silence.
“You’re going to the quantum abyss to answer that distress call.”
He sounded more disappointed than upset—Allura felt even worse, almost as if to compensate for the anger she’d expected.
“How did you know?”
“For someone who does not bode well during hyperjump, it must have been important enough for you to get out of bed and snoop through my communications.”
“Those people need our help—and I can’t just sit around and do nothing!”
“I specifically forbade you from going.”
“You can’t stop me!”
Allura pivots away from the Emperor with well-practiced speed—she could certainly outrun him, if she wished to.
Lotor’s calm and volume begins to break past the limits of civility.
“Allura! If you take one more step towards those ships—”
“What are you going to do? Lock me up? Put me in stasis for ten thousand years for disobeying you?”
Lotor looks stricken.
“You would speak to your Emperor in that tone?” he asks quietly.
“I would speak to my father…if he would listen to my words for once.”
**
Allura so rarely saw her father, despite his best efforts to put aside time for them to spend together. They would spend long, blissful stretches away from the empire to train, but the time they were apart seemed even longer, lonelier.
She rarely saw him at a loss for words—he always seemed to know the right thing to say. Diplomat that he had to be, as Emperor, she was not surprised at his exceptional control over his emotions.
Rather, it was his loss of said control that shocked her.
He looked afraid, as if he did not have the power of an empire several thousands of years old at his command.
“Allura please…I cannot lose you.” He pleads in a low voice, trying to keep a stern face. His words waver ever so slightly under the deep, guttural tone her father so often used with her.
“Not the way I lost your mother.”
Ten thousand years Lotor had lived; yet he didn’t look a day older than the archive footage of the day of his coronation. His advisors, the commanders of the remaining factions after the civil war that had pledged fealty to him—they all looked so much older than him.
But never had her father looked so young and alone than when the memory of her mother came up in his eyes. Guilt, fear; the struggle to deny the potential eons of solitude hanging over him.
“Is it because I’m the princess?”
Lotor reaches for her, one hand on the princess’ shoulder; the other, tucking the unruly lock of hair atop her head that she had inherited from him behind an ear.
“My love…You may be the sole heir to the throne and the next candidate for the leader of the Coalition. You may be the last true lifeline to Alfor’s legacy and the Altea of old.
All of that is true, and important.
But most important is that you are my child. I cannot allow you to take up a problem born from my mistakes.
I may be emperor, but I am your father first and always.
I implore you to let your father keep you safe while he can, love.
I confess I’m not ready for you to be throwing yourself at the universe with reckless abandon just yet.”
“Why you won’t let me near the abyss? Is it because…Mother died there?”
“That is…part of the reason. She died protecting those colonies from one of my…many mistakes.
If anything were to happen to you…”
Lotor tries a laugh—it comes out as a half-hearted sob instead, decorated with a crooked smile.
“It would probably be a hell that I deserve. Nonetheless, I pray you won’t let it come to that.
There are many things I’ve yet to share with you. Things your mother knew, things that are part of your birthright.”
“Like how to make a wormhole? How to transfigure things the way you do?”
“Among other things. Trials that I cannot fully prepare you for.
I promise all these things to you…in time.
I can only ask you to wait for me, love. Forgive me.”
By the ancients, she had grown too fast for his comfort. He had lost track of the time that had passed, being reminded only when he’d seen how much longer Allura’s hair had become, how much the paladins had grown from the earthling children they had once been. How much taller Allura had gotten (her Altean blood still kept her shorter than most Galra of her age), the way she began to throw him off during their sparring matches. She came to her feet too quickly, picked up his old sword far too fast, fit into her mother’s old armour too easily.
He was proud, so proud, but so bitter was the aftertaste of that pride that he wanted nothing more than to weep.
The terrible feeling that hung over him grew with each passing day, each training match lost to Allura, each time she begged him to take her on a mission.
If she left, if he let her go into the wide worlds; he would lose her in the void.
“I just thought I’d get to be your father for a little while longer.”
**