Title:  Suffer Well
Author:  Cheezey

Theme:  Doomite Fic

Characters/Pairings:  Mogor

Album and Song: Depeche Mode – Playing the Angel; “Suffer Well”

Rating/Genre:  K+ / Drama

Summary:  A glimpse into the last day of Mogor’s life.

Author’s Notes:  Mogor is one of the Doomites we get to know the least about in the show, so I thought it would be interesting to tell the story of Lotor’s failed coup at the end of Season One through his perspective.

 

 

He’s insane.  That was the distressingly simple summarization of the situation that weighed on Commander Mogor’s mind as he paced within a stony chamber in the heart of Castle Doom.  He had long known that Prince Lotor was impulsive, hotheaded, arrogant, and headstrong.  He was well aware Lotor had a temper, and that his judgment was often not the greatest.  Because he had known Doom’s prince for a long time, longer than many, he supposed that was why the sudden realization about Lotor came as such a shock once it truly sank in.  Out of all of those who knew Lotor, as his second-in-command and former academy mentor, he should have seen it coming.

 

“It’s my destiny and my right!  It will be mine,” Lotor had declared to him in confidence just two days prior—had it really been only two days?—talking, of course, about Doom’s throne.  At the time Mogor had thought little of it, after all Lotor frequently went on in such tirades, all of which the commander had heard a number of times before and for the most part paid little heed to.  It was no secret that Lotor wanted his father’s position as king sooner rather than later, but it had not been all that long ago that Lotor had publicly challenged Zarkon in the arena and lost.  Furthermore, had Haggar not intervened, Lotor might well have been disowned in the most permanent way possible, so as a result, Mogor figured Lotor would not be quick to challenge his father again anytime soon.  After all, rash and impulsive as he was, the prince of Doom was by no means a stupid man.

 

No, not stupid, Mogor amended as a worrisome frown spread across his face.  Insane.  Mad, with power, greed, and lust.  Though he cast no moral judgment upon those drives—his people were notorious for being those  in the Denubian most driven by such base desires, after all—when impulse control was overridden to the point of foolishness, what else could it be called but stupid or mad?

 

Mogor let out a heavy sigh and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.  If constantly battling Voltron with Lotor did not do him in, he was certain the stress of his position eventually would.  He was a pragmatic man, the type to just do what needed to be done and not go on about it.  He was known as a “quiet” personality, someone who only spoke when he had something to say, and who was easily satisfied as long as he was compensated for his efforts.  He was not prone to the violent outbursts often displayed by his prince, the angry barking temperament of his predecessor Yurak, or the flippant melodramatics of Cossack the Terrible, the man who would eventually succeed him.

 

What Mogor was prone to, however, was anxiety, and the last few months working with an increasingly temperamental Lotor, fighting Voltron in one losing battle after another, had given him an ulcer.  The events of the previous two days had exacerbated it to the point of being nearly unbearable, but unfortunately for him, there were far more important things for him to be concerned about than discomfort at the moment—things like preventing a complete and utter collapse of Doom’s empire.

 

How did it get so out of control?  Mogor reviewed the events in his mind again.  It had started like so many other schemes of Lotor’s.  Fed up with Doom’s string of failures to Voltron, King Zarkon had called Lotor to the foot of his throne and ordered the guards haul the prince to the dungeons.  Mogor had stood silent witness to that scene with a rising feeling of dread.  It was Lotor he primarily answered to, Lotor was the one who had appointed him to the position of fleet commander, and it was an easy guess that even so much as a peep out of him would have landed him in a cell alongside Lotor, or worse.  Naturally, he had not said a word. 

 

At the time Mogor questioned Zarkon’s judgment in publicly removing his one and only direct heir from the court.  Politically it was a dangerous move, to show such weakness, although given how Doom had suffered so many defeats to Voltron he supposed it could have been argued that they looked weak anyhow.  Zarkon had then decided that he would deal with the situation himself, and fortunately for Mogor, left for Arus with Haggar to take on Voltron without even so much as a nod in his direction.

 

Mogor frowned as he thought about that.  Being completely ignored had both relieved and annoyed him.  Although he was certainly glad he had not been thrown into the brig with Lotor, a cynical part of him wondered if that was just because he had been deemed unimportant and therefore not worth the effort, despite all of the hard work and service he had given to the royals.  He was Doom’s fleet commander, but dismissed as little more than Lotor’s lackey.  He remembered having the sour thought at the time that everyone seemed to remember Yurak’s name well enough, and he never seemed to have a problem with being ignored.  While his predecessor’s brutal end was not exactly something Mogor aspired to, at least everyone knew who he was.

 

In retrospect, Mogor supposed it was that touch of personal bitterness that inspired him to do what he had done next.  No sooner had Zarkon and Haggar left for Arus than he was in the dungeon, taking in the sad sight of Prince Lotor behind the bars of the dingy cell.

 

“Mogor!” the prince’s eyes had lit up with hope.  “Mogor, you will help me!”  Even begging, Lotor had a royal authority in his voice that converted pleas to orders.

 

“Of course, your highness,” the words had rolled off his tongue with surprising ease.  To the wrong ears they alone could have been considered treasonous and reason to have him thrown in alongside Lotor, but the king was off planet and the robots on guard duty did not care enough to interpret idle talk beyond blatant escape attempts.  That and challenging a superior, even in such circumstances, was highly counterintuitive to their continued ability to remain operational.

 

Lotor leaned close to the barred hole in the door and indicated for Mogor to do the same, and when he did, he lowered his voice to a whisper.  “Contact the Drules.  Father’s not on good terms with them lately… if you tell them what’s happened, what he’s done to me, they’ll give you backing to get me out of here.”

 

Mogor recalled how his heart had begun to pound at that moment.  “That… could be called treason,” he had murmured back in response, his yellow eyes staring hard into Lotor’s.

 

“If my father isn’t competent to rule then he shouldn’t,” he had hissed back in a low tone.  “And the Drules will see that.  He can’t defeat Voltron, but if I was king, if I didn’t have to go to him for everything, if I was in control…”  His voice trailed off for a moment before he continued.  “Of course, if you’re a coward, I could find someone else, someone more worthy of being Doom’s fleet commander.  Someone who shares my vision for Doom as the ultimate empire in the galaxy.”

 

The insinuation had the intended effect, and Mogor’s posture stiffened in an instant.  “I am not a coward, Sire.”

 

“Then do what I say,” had been Lotor’s arrogant response.  “Contact the Drules and tell them how my father failed, how he cast out his only heir.  They’ll listen.” 

 

“Very well, your highness.”  He swallowed back a fresh wave of anxiety as he felt the prickle of new sweat forming upon his brow.

 

“Hurry,” Lotor urged in that same commanding tone.  While Mogor straightened and gave his liege an obedient nod, the prince then added, “And Mogor… I’ll remember your loyalty.”

 

His only response was to nod back once more and make a hasty departure, and as that memory faded Mogor realized that he had absently begun to pace back and forth.  He reached to wipe his brow—why was the room so infernally hot when there were only two braziers lit, anyhow, he wondered—and shifted his thoughts to what had happened next.

 

Cursing himself for being a fool in retrospect, Mogor recalled the conversation with the Drules he had initiated at Lotor’s request.  Marshall Keezor had been very interested in what he had to tell him, about the Voltron situation and how Zarkon had blamed Lotor for their defeats and subsequently imprisoned him.  Keezor had thanked him most heartily for that information and assured Mogor that he would be in touch as soon as he relayed the situation to the Drule Council.  It had only taken a matter of hours for them to get back to him with what was to Mogor, mixed news.  The good part was that the Drule Council was offering Lotor their full support, and they were willing to instate him as ruler of Doom if Zarkon returned from Arus defeated.  The bad part was that meant the gauntlet had been thrown—Mogor would have to side with one royal or the other, King Zarkon or Prince Lotor.  He knew he could not count on being “invisible” forever, especially now that he had involved himself in the matter to the level he had.

 

And, after swallowing another acid-neutralizing pill and taking a cleansing breath, Mogor had made his decision.

 

It was one that a day later, he grievously regretted.

 

“I should’ve known,” Mogor groused aloud in the empty chamber, pacing faster and shaking his head as he thought about it.

 

The coup had been executed with surprising ease.  Once he had received confirmation of Zarkon and Haggar’s defeat to Voltron, Mogor had summoned the troops and conveyed the order to free Prince Lotor at the request of the entire Drule Council.  When Lotor was released, he lauded Mogor quite heartily for his loyalty and promised him a rich reward for it.  Shortly thereafter when Zarkon and Haggar returned to Doom, Mogor maintained his position at Lotor’s side by greeting the ousted king and his witch with an armed party.

 

Lotor had delighted in lording power over his father and turning the tables on him, the servant turned master and relishing every precious moment of it.  He ordered Zarkon to fight Voltron by piloting a robeast in his image.  Dutifully carrying out Lotor’s orders, Mogor stood with his soldiers holding Haggar at gunpoint to ensure that she complied with their wishes.  Though it was clear that doing so distressed her—not a surprise to Mogor given that he, like everyone else in the court, knew of her fondness for Zarkon—she carried out her role without hassle or rebellion.  At the time Mogor had mused that the old witch probably worked harder on that robeast than any other she had ever made given how personally she was invested in its success, but he had wisely kept that thought to himself.

 

Before long the Zarkon robeast was finished and deployed, and Lotor the new king watched with glee as his father grappled with Voltron in a fight far more spectacular than any witnessed in their arena.  Mogor had been glued to the feed as well, and for a brief while he was optimistic that finally Doom would prove victorious over their most hated enemy once and for all.

 

Or not, Mogor’s sardonic inner voice echoed as the images of the battle’s turn for the worse replayed in his mind.  With the final thrust of the blazing sword into the bellowing body of Zarkon’s robeast, the high of King Lotor’s brief reign came to an equally painful end.  Roaring with rage, Doom’s new king ordered everyone out of his sight and out of his throne room.  Those that did not depart fast enough to suit him wound up departing the mortal coil entirely on the unfriendly end of his blade.

 

Mogor himself had retreated to the chamber in which he still remained, doing his best to sort out what had gone so terribly wrong and what would be the most prudent course of action.  Hours of deliberation had not yielded anything but copious perspiration and feeling as though his stomach was on fire. 

 

Within an hour of the news of the Zarkon robeast’s destruction reaching the Drules, Marshall Keezor contacted Mogor directly, and considering what he told him, it was for the best.  The Drules’ previously enthusiastic support of Lotor was now completely withdrawn and replaced with very angry disapproval and admonition.  It was made clear to Mogor on no uncertain terms that Zarkon was to be reinstated as ruler immediately, and Lotor was to be removed from the throne by any means necessary.

 

It seemed he had picked the losing team after all.

 

Mogor considered his options, although he really only had two: do as the Drules asked, order Lotor off the throne by force, and pray that Zarkon would rank his helping him now higher than his siding with Lotor previously, or he could remain loyal to Lotor to the bitter end and risk losing everything—his job, his station in Doom society, and his very life on the gamble that Lotor would win a power struggle with his father.

 

Maybe Lotor would have been better teamed with someone like that maniac Carp, Mogor mused bitterly, recalling the egotistical mercenary pilot that had sought his five minutes of fame in the war against Voltron some time ago.  Someone like that nutcase would’ve enjoyed the thrill of leading a rebellion of two.

 

“But I’m not Carp,” Mogor said aloud, and clenched his fists.  His pragmatism dictated his choice: slim odds against astronomical ones in such a choice of no-win situations.  “I’m Mogor,” he repeated, that time with more authority.  “Commander Mogor, leader of the armed forces of Doom.”  He wiped the sweat off of his brow one last time and picked up his laser rifle, straightening to a proud height with a determined look on his usually impassive features.  “And maybe this time, if I do get him back on the throne, King Zarkon will remember my name.”

 

It was that thought, which for a brief moment, brought a hint of a smile to Commander Mogor’s face as he strode out of the chamber and on to his final fight.

 

* * *

 

“Suffer Well”

Written by David Gahan

 

Where were you when I fell from grace
A frozen heart, an empty space
Something's changing, it's in your eyes
Please don't speak, you'll only lie
I found treasure not where I thought
Peace of mind can't be bought
Still I believe

I just hang on
Suffer well
Sometimes it's hard
It's hard to tell

An angel led me when I was blind
I said take me back, I've changed my mind
Now I believe
From the blackest room, I was torn
He called my name, a love was born
So I believe

I just hang on
Suffer well
Sometimes it's hard
It's hard to tell

I just hang on
Suffer well
Sometimes it's hard
So hard to tell

 

 

 

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