Chapter Text
Bidding a heartbreaking farewell, she followed Honerva toward her father, the old paladins, Zarkon and him. He looked perfectly at peace as he immediately grabbed his mother’s hand gently and began talking to her. She found herself gazing at him, almost as if she was hoping he would turn to talk to her. He never did and she almost felt as if she was intruding in a family moment. She quickly looked back to see that her dear friends where already gone from where she had left them. They were already back on Earth, safe. She really was stuck here now to help rebuild the rest of the realities. She given her life, just like she told the White lion back in Oriande. She kept standing at the same spot unsure of what to do, for some strange reason she felt out of place. She could have sworn she saw Lotor quickly looked at her before looking back at his family or maybe it was her vision that was messing with her. Suddenly, she felt like her breathing was getting cut off. She was already dead, so why was she feeling like this . looked up to where everyone was, they all seem to be walking ahead somewhere. Her father seemed to be signalling for her to follow him. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him at all and her head was ringing the same way it did when she came into contact with that dark entity. Placing her hands on her head to try soothe the enormous pain.
“Father what is happening to me,” she croaked in pain as she fell into a fetal position on the cloud like ground.
However, before she knew it everything went into a blinding white color. She was now alone and the pain becoming stronger than before. She screamed in agony that just echoed back. Her tearful eyes looked around to see everyone had disappeared in front of her.
“No, no, no. I can’t- where is everyone?! Please, anyone...,” eventually her voice became hoarse from her repetitive screams of plea toward no one.
“Princess Allura of Altea,” a booming voice rang around the empty space Allura found herself in around her. Allura nodded and desperately tried to see where the voice was coming from in the white abyss she was stuck in.
“Dear child, you gave your life as promised, didn’t you?” that was enough to clue in Allura to who it was.
“White Lion?” she softly spoke through her tears that were calming down. Suddenly, the grand White Lion appeared before her, much to her surprise. She was too shocked to move and to too tired to move. It kept walking toward her with much grace with every step it took. Graceful, yet powerful.
“Please tell me where I am? I was just with my father and everyone else. Can’t I just rest?” she tiredly whispered the last part making eye contact with the powerful creature before her. The lion said nothing, until he was just in front of her.
“You’ll rest soon, child.” his cryptic words perplexed Allura wondering what they meant. She didn’t have time to give much thought as she immediately felt her eyelids close and everything went dark.
An alarm went off in a dimly-lit room. Allura carefully opened her eyes feeling as her energy had been all sucked away from her, remembering the last thing she saw was the White Lion who had told her that she would ‘rest soon’.
“What the?” she found herself in what appeared to be her room, a room that was exactly like the one she had on the Castle of Lions. She was wearing her sleep outfit and the mice were currently asleep on a side of her pillow. She got up from her bed causing a small noise in the process, but it wasn’t loud enough lot to wake her small friends. They looked so much as peace and she felt tempted to pet them, but she did not wish to disturb them. At this point, Allura was wondering if she was in a sort of dream state because she was suppose to be dead and the castle of lions was long destroyed. Nothing was adding up and an idea of what was occurring what creeping up her mind, but it seem all to bizarre.
Opening her room’s door she walked outside to see everything was quiet. It almost felt like those horror movies that Pidge had shown her on Earth. Uncanny appearance of her surroundings made her feel uneasy, but she has been through worse she told herself. She found herself with chills which each step she took down the hallway.
“I can’t have been possibly be sent back in time. Could I?” her hands began to shake in fear of the worse situation. Everything pointed toward that being her current situation.
“Princess, what in the world are you doing up and about at this hour? And even worse barefoot! You are gonna catch a cold, but not on my watch!” she knew that voice too well! It belongs to one of the special people in her life that she never got to say goodbye to. She felt she had no control because tears where already streaming down her face, alarming Coran seeing the distress princess.
“Oh my! I didn’t mean to make you cry Princess! It’s just I didn’t want you to get sick at all,” Coran’s voice soften seeing the crying Princess who was trying to compose herself, but those attempts worsen her control over her tears.
She was making herself too suspicious crying out of nowhere, “Oh Coran, it’s not that I just been stressed lately and it seems that the stress has finally unleashed itself and finally got to ,” she was 100% sure she was the worse liar in the whole universe, but thankfully it appeared that Coran believed it. Then again, she wasn’t entirely lying about being beyond stress. She then roughly used her hands to wipe the tears from her face.
“It’s alright to feel that way princess, you don’t have to carry everything on your shoulder. Remember, you have your friends and me! No one would dare to hurt you while I’m here! You know what I’ll prepare you my favorite tea passed down by generations, I’m sure it will cheer you up!”
“Thank you, Coran. I do indeed miss your special tea blends,” her mood had begun to lighten up a bit, but she was still unsure how true this was all. She had somewhat an idea of what was happening, but no proof that she was in the right. After all it didn’t feel like forever that she was off fighting Honerva and gone with her to the cosmic heavens to restore realities.
“Ah before I make your tea, I have to clean the dishes use to feed our prisoner,” informed Coran who softly whacked his head remembering what he was doing. Allura eyes widen and and indeed saw Coran holding the dishes he was referring to.
“Prisoner?” Coran raised in eyebrow at the princess repeating the word “prisoner”. He shrugged it off and proceeded to instruct Allura.
“I’ll deliver your tea to you room, You need all the rest you can get,” he ushered her to move along to her room before he left toward the kitchen in the ship. Allura found her heart beating when Coran had mention prisoner.
If she wasn’t mistaken and if she truly did go back in time; the time she found herself in was along the time when Lotor had turned himself in to them. Meaning Lotor was here! He was here, thank the White lion she could see him! Disobeying Coran, she found herself running barefoot with her hair flowing freely as she ran toward the direction she remembers the prison cell that housed Lotor was at.
She had longed for him for so long and there was so much she wanted to say. Tell him what she was unable to tell him due to her hesitation to approach in her short lived time in the cosmic heavens. To apologize to him and ask for forgiveness for not listening him and not judging him by his actions as he told her when she interrogated him back then in her time. She continued to run along the dim gray halls to reach an elevator that would take her to her destination. Stopping in front of the elevator, she walked in and quickly pressed the button to get the elevator moving descending to Lotor’s location. The time in the elevator felt eternal as she waited for the elevator to come to a stop, but when it finally arrived to her destination, Allura found herself panicking on how to approach him. Was she ready? Would he push her away?
The doors to the elevator had open, alarming the prince behind the glass. Allura looked at him and he looked back at her with his tired eyes. All of a sudden she found herself running toward him rapidly. She quickly reached the controls that powered the prison cell. With a sense of urgency, she quickly entered the passcode to permit her to enter Lotor’s cell.
The worries that housed her head before, escaped from her mind as now she didn’t care at all, he could push her back, shout at her, be angry at her all he wanted. She just wanted to be in his arms one last time and ensure Lotor wouldn’t succumb into the influence of the quintessence field or maybe avoid that event altogether. Lotor who had been staring at the girl in front of him, didn’t have much time to process that the princess before him was opening the glass wall separating them. The princess gave off a desperate vibe as he had seen her rush in to the control panel of the cell.
The glass wall finally opened for her to get and she promptly, ran into him. She was sure that she might be hugging him to hard, but she never wanted to let him go. Tears furiously ran down her face and her hug became even tighter.
“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she kept apologizing over and over again as she hid her face on his chest. What she didn’t expect back was for Lotor to hug her back with the same strength she was hugging him with.
“Lotor?” softly she said his name while he lowered himself to be leaning his head on her shoulder.
“Yes, Allura,” oh how she missed him saying her name. Her name sounded so sweet when he said it.
“I’m so sorry, I’m probably not making any sense at all. But please, just hold me tight,”
“I wasn’t planning on letting you go, after all it would be a waste to let a second try slip away from us. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Lotor removed his head from her shoulder and backed up a bit while holding her hands to get a good look at Allura. She was still as lovely as ever, a beauty not worthy in this damn universe they lived in. Allura studied his face that was now in front. She noted that he had been crying as well with teary eyes and tear stains on his cheeks. Soon enough her Alteans marks began to glow and so did his. They both stood in awe in what was occurring between them and Allura quickly realized something and broke into a a loud sob while Lotor remained holding her hands with a sad smile.
The Lotor before her was her Lotor, her beautiful prince. She removed her right hand from his grasp to gently caress his face while removing the tears that began to fall from him. He closed his eyes hoping this wasn’t a dream, he missed her so much and was scared that if he opened his eyes she would be gone.
“I’m sorry for not listening to you, I’m sorry for throwing you, I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m-,” he had place a finger on her lips to stop her from continuing,
“You are forgiven, but not forgotten,”
“I don’t deserve to be forgiven by you at all, Lotor. If only I had listened to you, then things would have been different,”
“I can’t say you are wrong, Allura. But we are together now and you seen your error, and my own failure was to submit into the quintessence,” she sadly nodded. What he said was true, but it still hurt a bit Though, she didn’t blame him for falling into the field’s influence, she left him emotional broken with her retort that he was like his father and even the paladins had began to be influence if it weren’t for her. However, the most important question of the moment she had to ask him.
“Wait a minute, how did you get here Lotor?!” she asked in her wobbly voice from all her crying. He was with her and both of them seemed to be from what would have been the future according the the current place in time they were placed in. They were reunited and were a hugging mess on the cold floor that housed Lotor.
“I wish I knew as well, all I remember is seeing you fall before I fell too,” he explained to Allura. They, then decided that it was more comfortable to sit on cell’s bed to talk as they still held hands.
“I think this was the White Lion’s doing,” Allura spoke carefully, “before I woke up here, I saw him and he told me that I would ‘rest soon’,” Lotor place his left hand on his chin thinking about the White Lion’s word to Allura.
It all felt to surreal for Allura, she couldn’t believe that what happened was like a soft reset that has appeared to have taken both Lotor and her back in time. Back in time to avoid the mistakes made, back in time to save lives.
Lotor felt Allura’s grip on his hand tighten and he looked to see her deep in thought with a light scowl on her face. He had only seen her like this a couple of times, she was definitely deep in thought.
“We can start over, Lotor. We been granted this opportunity to undo mistakes done. Think about it Lotor!” Allura let go of Lotor’s hand and got off the bed to stand in front of him as if mimicking the way the White Lion stood in front of her prior to these events. Lotor remained sitting thinking to himself a bit. Thinking of his life up to the point he was currently in. It he wasn’t wrong, he had turned himself in after his generals had betrayed him and supposedly Acxa had made a deal with him to remain on his side as she pretended to side with the other side, gaining information from Hagger, or Honerva. He still didn’t feel comfortable in addressing her as his mother, it felt a bit too soon to call her mother and all he was willing to do was greet her with a weary smile as he had done so when Allura and his mother appeared in the heavens.
“Lotor?”
“Huh, sorry I was just jogging through memories. Recalling, how I had turned myself in and anytime soon we will receive a message from my father about the green paladin’s own father,” he then got up to be with the standing Allura who was attentively watching Lotor’s actions.
“About what you said, I do agree that this opportunity presented to use needs to be use to fix things done wrong in our own time as we shall call it. So, let’s shake on this,” he then placed his hand in front of Allura who was smiling at Lotor’s agreement. She took hold of his hand, affirming their agreement to do things right this time. She would eventually need to know his intentions with the colony. Something she never gave him to chance to explain due to her jumping into conclusion and quickly siding with Romelle. A leader was suppose to listen to all sides of a story and she had failed at that. She had let him die as a result awaking a mother’s wrath for her son.
She stifled out a yawn and Lotor also yawned. She guess it was true that yawns are contagious as Hunk had told her before.
“I think we should get some sleep. As much as I hate to see you go, it would be rather suspicious and indecent if you stayed to sleep here,” throwing a devilish grin toward Allura that got her flustered right away.
“Oh quiet you. Go to sleep and I’ll try to see you again later. If everything is following the original events we should be receiving your father’s message as you said. So we need to be on the lookout for that.”
“Indeed, princess. I’ll let you go to your own room to rest,” he approached Allura making her think he was going to kiss her, but it was only a small peck on the forehead. She understood it was too soon for them, he needed time and so did she. She gently smiled at him and walked out of his cell, he gave her a worn out smile before laying on his bed with his back facing her. She then closed the glass wall.
“Good night, sweet prince.”
She was back in her room and saw the cup of tea that Coran had promised her. Picking up the cup and placing it next to her lips to drink some of it. Despite, it being cold, it still held a sweet fruity taste. She didn’t know how much time has passed, but everything felt as if happened within a varga. She was dead, met the White Lion, woke up at the time near Zarkon’s demise, saw Coran, and reunited with Lotor who was granted a second chance along with her and who would help her.
Tomorrow, she would see her friends who she believed that she would never see again. A smile made its way to Allura’s face from thinking about it. Wait, minus Keith as he was with the Blades she quickly thought. But, she would also see Lance. Her smile then faltered into one of regret. She really tried to make the relationship between them work as Lance was kind guy, but she knew better than to lie to herself that he was the one. She wasn’t ready to move and Lance deserve someone that truly loved him. She would make sure to be honest with him, if he ever asked her in this rewind of time as it wasn’t fair to him nor her.
The light in her room had begun to flicker a bit and Allura glanced around to figure out the cause, but all she found was a note on her bed. She picked up the note with elegant writing.
“An erase and rewind was my gift to you. My dear child, may you trust yourself and take the steps you fail to take in your previous time,” all that was sign was a golden paw print in the bottom right corner of the note.
“I won’t fail you,” she clutched the paper near your chest, determination clouding her heart. She wasn’t going to lose anyone now and they wouldn’t lose her. She got under the warm covers of her bed. Tomorrow, she would need to be up early to deliver Lotor’s food. She just hope it wouldn’t make her seem odd, but it allowed her to manage more time with Lotor.
She gave a big yawn and drifted into a sweet slumber, hoping that things wouldn’t be as complicated as she thinks they will be.