Lion’s Last Roar

Part Two

By Cheezey

As the two Doomites aboard the Drikelm-Skor had predicted, the final shots from battle had indeed turned the tide of the ground fight against the powerful robeast.

Both the Voltron pilots and Lotor noticed the departure of the Doom battleship, but neither was terribly concerned with it given their preoccupation with the out of control robeast in front of them. Lotor had not engaged in any communication with the lion pilots, but he noticed that they were working in tandem with him to help the princess, and he decided that he would deal with them after he was assured of Allura’s safety. As his ship fired relentlessly through the tentacles tearing the now severely damaged blue lion apart, he could almost hear his father’s disapproving voice in the back of his head, calling him a lovesick idiot that was unfit to be even a prince, much less a future king of an empire, but he ignored it. All the agitated prince could think about was Allura—his beautiful Arusian treasure, the one he wanted for his bride, his love, and his amusement—the one destined, in his eyes, to be his.

The Voltron Force meanwhile had no time to question the motives as to Lotor’s sudden switch in tactics from evil to heroic, as they too were more concerned with Princess Allura’s safety than anything else. When the robeast’s head exploded from the last shot from the battleship, the green and red lions had attacked the beast’s feet, causing it topple over with a loud crash that brought about more explosions. The AI controlling them damaged beyond use, the tentacles flopped and sparked randomly and without direction, making them still hazardous and treacherous to navigate around but not nearly as dangerous as when they were actively being controlled. Lotor’s ship and the black lion aggressively cut through the tentacles still holding blue lion captive, while yellow lion maneuvered in to help drag the unresponsive blue lion away from the downed robeast and to safety.

As soon as the yellow lion got the blue lion safely out of range, the green and red lions opened fire on the damaged and thrashing robeast on the ground to blast it apart one and for all. Letting out one final painful roar of defiance, the half-sentient and half-machine creature succumbed to its damage and rolled over silent before its power core exploded in a brilliant display of sparks.

Unfortunately for Lotor, his ship was not quite as durable as the black lion, and as it and black lion made haste to land beside the fallen blue lion to check on her safety, a fireball from the explosion caught the prince’s ship and damaged its back end beyond repair. Lotor struggled to remain in control of his vessel, but to no avail, and it crashed to the ground in a hard impact, twisting into an ugly and unsalvageable hunk of metal as it scraped across rock and grass to a standstill.

Ignoring the fallen ship of the prince of Doom, the Voltron force pilots climbed out of their lions and immediately went to blue lion to see if Allura was all right. “Allura!” Keith exclaimed, pulling on the hatch. “Hang on!”

Hunk shoved his way over alongside Keith. “Let me give you a hand,” he offered, and with Keith’s assistance, pulled the bent metal open so that they could get inside.

“Please be all right, Princess,” Pidge said plaintively, peering into the opening and simultaneously hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

“Man, that robeast did a number on it…” Lance murmured, noting how severe the blue lion’s damage was up close. “Even if she’s ok, I don’t think this thing will ever fly again.”

Keith slipped in through the hatch and found Allura unconscious in her chair, but to his immense relief still breathing and from the looks of it, not suffering any life-threatening wounds. “She’s alive,” the captain called out immediately, bringing an equally relieved breath from the other members of the Voltron Force. “But I think we ought to get her to the castle and to the med bay right away. She looks ok for the most part, but she might have internal injuries.”

“If he hurt her bad, I’m gonna tear Lotor apart myself,” Hunk grumbled as he helped Keith hoist the injured princess out of the damaged lion.

Lance glanced over at the wreckage of the prince’s ship. “Karma might’ve already done that for you, Hunk. That crash doesn’t look like it was a soft one.”

“And the crazy thing is, he was helping us at the end there,” Pidge said, shaking his head.

“Helping to fix a mess he created with that robeast,” Keith said, an angry edge to his tone.

Allura stirred groggily in the captain’s arms. “Keith?” she murmured. “What… what happened?”

“You’ll be ok, Princess,” Lance told her, leaning over her with a reassuring smile. “That robeast did a number on blue lion, but we took him down.”

From beside him, Pidge nodded while Keith pulled off her helmet to make sure she had not suffered a head injury. He was relieved to see nothing out of place aside from a few strands of her golden hair. “We were worried about you.”

“I’m okay,” the princess said softly, blinking as if trying to focus and get her bearings. “Just a little tired. Dizzy.” Keith eased her to the ground into a standing position, and when she stumbled both he and Hunk held her upright.

“Easy there, Princess,” Hunk told her, keeping a firm grip on her shoulder.

Allura glanced around, and it was then that she noticed the downed Doom ship in the distance with the smoldering remains of the robeast behind it. “What happened? Is that one of their ships?”

Nodding, Lance knelt beside her. “When you charged in there to free my lion, the tentacles got a good grip on you. Things got a little heated, and best we can figure is Lotor came out to stop them from hurting you.”

“He must’ve ordered something like that,” Pidge added, “because their ship started firing on the robeast too before it took off.”

The princess blinked and stared at the ship, feeling a strange mixture of emotion at the idea that Lotor had nearly succeeded in a serious attack on their planet and her castle, but had stopped it all and intervened when she had been in harm’s way. It had not been the first time he had acted in such a way, and it made her wonder just how deep the prince’s feelings for her ran. She knew he claimed to love her, but she always assumed it was because he wanted to possess her. But to take such risks for a mere possession…

She sighed. “Is he all right?”

The four other Voltron pilots looked back at her blankly.

“You did check on him, didn’t you?”

“You were our first priority, Princess,” Keith told her, surprised that she was already concerned about Lotor’s welfare when he was the one responsible for what had happened to her. He knew, all of them did, that she was compassionate and would likely insist on checking on Lotor—in fact, they eventually would have themselves, without her prodding, given their own consciences—but to do so that soon was unexpected, even from one as kind-hearted as Princess Allura.

“We had to make sure you were all right,” Hunk added.

Allura looked over and winced, both at the ugly sight of the crash and because of her physical wooziness. “Please check on him now,” she urged her teammates. “He did go out of his way to save me. We owe him that.”

Lance frowned, but he got to his feet anyway. “I don’t think we owe him much of anything, but all right.”

Joining the red lion pilot’s side, Keith sighed. “No, she’s right. Much as I hate to do it, we should make sure he’s alive. If we let him die we wouldn’t be any better than he is. Pidge, you stay here with her. Princess, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be walking around just yet.”

“I for one hope Lotor’s alive and well,” Hunk said with a frown, “so I can put my boot right up his blue ass in person.”

“Hunk!” Allura exclaimed, getting uneasily to her feet as she did so. “He helped save my life!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Hunk assured her, and smiled ruefully at her as he left her with Pidge to join the others on their way to the crash site. “I’d just like to, that’s all.”

Ignoring Keith’s warning, Allura followed after the guys, and Pidge trailed behind her. “Princess!”

“I’m fine, Pidge,” Allura replied. Keith looked back at the two of them, and the princess met his gaze with an unyielding one of her own. “I want to speak to Lotor myself.”

The group fell silent as they made their way over to the ship. They were within ten feet of it when the hatch came open and Lotor stumbled out. The prince of Doom was not in bad shape considering the wreckage he had emerged from, thanks to his helmet and the sturdy build of the pilot’s seat of his ship, but he had also seen better days as well. He had a number of minor abrasions and his clothes were scratched and dirtied with blood from superficial cuts. His entire body ached from the force of the crash, but he had been fortunate enough to suffer no broken bones or internal injuries. He noticed the Voltron Force approaching, but his eyes fixed on the princess in the back immediately. “Allura…”

“Don’t touch her,” Keith warned, not advancing toward the prince aggressively, but standing protectively in front of the Arusian princess.

A scowl crossed Lotor’s face when he heard the Voltron Force captain’s words. “I wasn’t addressing you,” he informed him coldly before returning his gaze to Allura. “You’re unharmed,” he said, his eyes brightening unmistakably as he met hers. “I’m glad.” He took a step toward her, and immediately the rest of the Voltron force took a step in front of her to keep him from her.

Frowning at what she considered their misguided over-protectiveness, Allura gently pushed past Lance and Pidge and stood in the center of the group, facing Lotor. “He’s not going to hurt me,” she told them pointedly. “He’s in no shape for that. You can see that, can’t you?” She looked back over at Lotor. “Are you all right?”

Lotor nodded, while the men of the Voltron force exchanged dubious looks. “No offense, Princess, but this wouldn’t be the first time Lotor’s lied and pulled a fast one about what kind of state he was in to get to you,” Lance pointed out, eyeing the prince with heavy suspicion.

Pidge nodded in agreement with the red lion pilot. “He could be lying about this as easily as he lied about turning good or about wanting to marry Queen Merla when they led us to that fake planet Doom.”

“I’d sooner believe that Merla changed as opposed to Lotor, at any rate,” Keith asserted, also eyeing Lotor warily, and preparing to leap in front of the princess if need be. He noticed that Lotor still had a sheathed sword at his side, and he knew that Lotor would not be above feigning injury to lure her close enough to take her hostage, even if he didn’t have a ship to get away in.

Lotor’s glare at the Voltron force pilots hardened. “If I wanted to see Allura hurt, I would have let Haggar’s beast finish the job it did on blue lion,” he snapped haughtily. “I certainly wouldn’t have left my ship behind and destroyed my own just to stop it,” he added, before taking another step toward the princess. “I’m sorry if I caused you pain.” His voice softened considerably as he addressed her. “You must know I didn’t want that.”

Hunk made a face at what he considered the biggest line of bull yet to come from the prince. “Funny, Lotor, I would think attacking her planet would cause her a lot of pain.”

Casting a disgusted scowl at the yellow lion pilot, Lotor reached for Allura’s hand and took it in his as he addressed Hunk’s remark. “I invade this planet on my father’s orders, my father who once dueled for this planet and was met with resistance when he stepped in to claim it as his. He wants Arus in his empire, not destroyed. It’s your resistance that destroys it. The only part of Arus with any personal meaning to me is right here.” Lotor looked to the startled princess’ eyes. “You know that I would never allow harm to come you.”

Allura frowned and wrenched her hand away from him. “I wish I could believe that, Lotor.”

The prince’s eyes clouded at her harsh words. “Don’t you? If you truly meant nothing to me, wouldn’t I be on that ship claiming victory on this planet over your downed lion and dead body?”

“I—I believe that you care, Lotor,” Allura admitted finally. “At least in that you care as deeply as someone like you could.”

“As deeply as someone like you could.” Her words sliced through Doom’s prince like a knife, and her gentle voice cut him more deeply than any blade. She believes me incapable of love, Lotor realized, and the ache of his battered body suddenly felt quite intense, nearly unbearable. In the back of his head, Lotor could almost hear his father’s cruel laughter, taunting and insulting him with all of the insults and insinuations of weakness he had been subject to over the years and especially since he had fallen so hard for the Arusian princess. It mingled with the bitter laughter of Merla’s, calling him a fool as she had when she had last seen him, and it drained the last bit of the prince’s strength.

“I care more than you know,” Lotor managed to reply through the shroud of unwelcome emotion that welled up inside him. “More than you’ll let yourself know. Someday, I will prove that to you.”

Before Allura could answer, a sarcastic remark came from Lance’s direction. “He’s breakin’ my heart over here,” the red lion pilot muttered, giving quiet voice to the sentiment shared by the male pilots of the Voltron Force.

“And he is breaking the law here,” Coran’s stern voice cut in from the side. Both Lotor and the Voltron Force turned around in surprise, and saw the Arusian diplomat standing there with a heavy armed force of castle guardsmen behind him. “Arrest that man,” he ordered, pointing to Lotor. “Bring him into custody immediately. He’s a danger to this planet and everyone on it.”

Immediately the guardsmen surrounded Lotor as ordered. The prince stood in protest and went to draw his sword on them to fight, but in his injured and battle weary state he was easily overpowered. The glowing sword fell to the ground quickly when six guards surrounded and subdued Lotor with several blasts from stun guns. Distressed by the violent sight and with the knowledge that Lotor was there because he had intervened to save her, Allura ran between the diplomat and the captured prince of Doom. “Coran, wait!”

Coran shook his head, making it clear he would hear no argument. “After nearly losing you in battle today, Princess, I’m taking no chances with your safety.” He turned to the guardsmen. “I want this man brought into the castle, placed into holding, and heavily guarded.”

“But he’s injured!” Allura protested, as the men began to drag the fallen Lotor, still struggling as best he could in their grasp fruitless as it was, toward the Castle of Lions.

“I say let ‘em bleed, he’ll live without a band-aid,” Hunk muttered.

Allura shot a glare back at Hunk, but continued to argue with Coran. “I know what he’s done, but he did save—”

“I too know what he’s done. I know what he nearly did to you, what he did to the blue lion that may very well never fly again, and what he’s done and tried to do to our planet,” Coran cut the young princess off sternly. “If you feel that this scoundrel should have medical attention, then he will have it. In his cell and under heavy guard.”

Lotor looked over at Allura as the guards hauled him away, the gaze of his yellow eyes heavy upon her as they hauled him off. She waited for him to say something, but he remained silent. As a result, so did she.

“This isn’t right,” Allura murmured softly as the prince was taken away, and Coran stalked off staunchly behind them to ensure that his orders were followed out exactly.

Pidge looked up at Allura reassuringly. “They won’t hurt him.”

“Yeah, here on Arus, we treat prisoners a lot better than his people do on Doom,” Hunk asserted. It was his thought that imprisonment was too good for someone like Lotor, but he had the taste to keep his sentiments to himself knowing how the princess would react.

A cloud of uncertainty settling over her, Allura started for the castle. “And what do we do then, once we have him?”

Keith eyed the princess curiously, wondering exactly what it was that she was thinking, and feeling a touch of unease in the way she looked at the captured prince’s retreating form. “That’s up to you,” he said quietly, and then softly added, “Princess.”

* * *

It was over two hours later when Lotor awakened, having passed out from exhaustion shortly after being hauled into the Castle of Lions. As Coran had ordered, the captured prince of Doom had been placed in a cell—a moderately sized incarceration area with a cot, sink, and bare necessities, and a barred door that seemed to Lotor more like a cage than the sort of cell he was accustomed to. Back on Doom, as Hunk had pointed out earlier, prisoners were rarely treated with such comparatively luxurious surroundings. As per Princess Allura’s orders, Dr. Gorma, the castle physician, had been sent in to check on Lotor shortly after he was imprisoned. After declaring Lotor’s injuries minor and treating what scrapes he had topically, the doctor had left with the note that the enemy prince would be fine with a little rest—which of course, was all Lotor could do given the circumstances.

The time passed quickly for Allura as well. Almost as soon as Lotor was taken into custody, the Voltron Force had brought the lions back only to find that the blue lion was severely damaged, far worse than any of them realized. The black and yellow lions had been used to haul the non-functioning lion back, and once it was placed on its pedestal in the bottom of the lake, a crew was put to work immediately to begin repairs.

The report came back quickly that although they had not had the time to go through every inch of the broken lion thoroughly, by appearances it was irreparable. The fine circuitry was torn to shreds and melted from the shocks and heat of the liquid tentacles, and the power cells were damaged beyond repair. None of the lions had ever suffered such extensive physical damage previously, and none of them really had any idea how to repair it, as technical experts on Arus were a rarity. Of the ones that had not died during the years of the war fighting off Doom, those that remained still had no knowledge of the Voltron lions. Even Marianne, the Caspian robot expert Coran knew and who he had contacted immediately about the matter, said she would come and look at it but had little faith that she could repair something as advanced as one of Voltron’s lions. The lions were things of legend, after all, and part of that legend was that they ran to an extent on magic. Marianne had told him it was her experience that when something run on magic broke, more often than not, no matter how well it might be repaired physically, the odds were that it would never be the same again.

The worst implication of all of it, one that worried all of them at the Castle of Lions a great deal, was that once again they were without Voltron to defend them, much like they had been when Sven was injured years ago. Unfortunately that time it was not a pilot that could be replaced, but a lion itself—ironically, the same lion. Allura found herself wondering if her blue lion was cursed in some way. The Arusian princess prayed that she would get some kind of guidance or help from her father, but none came. She then worried if the destruction of a part of Voltron somehow cut her father’s tie to the mortal plane, and if so, if that meant that all hope for restoring Voltron was lost. She hoped not, but even if that was the case, she knew that she could not depend on her father to fix things from beyond the grave, and another answer would have to be found.

Allura hoped that answer was Lotor. Although she had not discussed the matter of the prince at all with Coran or any of the Voltron Force members during the chaotic hours that followed the prince’s arrest, he had been in her thoughts constantly. Normally she valued their input, but they were so distrusting of Lotor—and rightfully so, she supposed—that she had a feeling that they would refuse to listen to a thing he said. Allura, on the other hand, was not so quick to dismiss the possibility. Lotor did have decency in him, even if it was buried under years of evil and cruelty, and she was willing to see if it could be brought out.

The prince lay awake in his cell silent and still when he heard Allura’s voice down the hall dismiss the guards posted outside. Brightening at the prospect of a visit from her, he sat up as she approached. “Allura,” he greeted her, climbing off the bed. “You came to see me.”

“The doctor told me you weren’t hurt badly in the crash,” she said softly, feeling a measure of compassion as she looked over the defeated prince in the cell.

Lotor walked over to the cell door, not taking his eyes off of her for a moment. “Does that disappoint you?”

“No,” she protested. “I mean, I’m glad you aren’t hurt. I don’t like seeing anyone hurt, Lotor… even someone like you.”

“Someone who loves you enough to risk his very life to save yours?” he challenged.

Allura found herself uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze, wrestling with a feeling of inherent distrust of the man who had visited such ravages on her planet, and guilt for the fact that she knew his words to be true—at least, as true as anything Lotor said could be. But that was the source of the conflict, wasn’t it, the princess realized in the silence that followed his remark. “Thank you for that,” she said finally, and sincerely.

A small smile tugged at the captive prince’s lips. “It was nothing I wouldn’t do for you whenever you were in danger,” Lotor replied. “And nothing I haven’t done before… but it is the first time I’ve heard you tell me it meant something to you.”

“Of course it did,” Allura assured him softly, and she leaned closer to the bars, searching Lotor’s blue face for a hint of anything that would give her insight into understanding him or his true motivations since she was not quite able to trust his words. She knew firsthand how deceptive those could be. “It did when you pulled me out of Merla’s machine a few months ago, too,” she admitted after a thoughtful pause. “I suppose I never told you.”

Lotor’s smile widened despite his circumstances. “You didn’t,” he confirmed as he reached a hand through the bars to take her hand, “nor after I stopped Merla from poisoning you by warning Captain Keith.”

Allura frowned, but allowed Lotor to hold her hand. “What?”

“The poisoned mead that Merla had sent to the Castle of Lions for his birthday some time ago,” Lotor told her as he caressed her fingers gently. “I was the one that warned him that it was laced with poison. He did tell you that I was the one who told him that, didn’t he?”

The look on Allura’s face and her uncomfortable silence answered Lotor’s question for him. His face darkened as he realized that his good deed had gone unnoted. And my latest has not gone unpunished, the captive prince thought sourly as he noted the bars that held him there and separated him from the lovely princess in front of him.

“I suppose you probably don’t believe that I had anything to do with that,” Lotor said finally, his tone icy with bitterness. He released her hand and turned away, trying to keep his emotions in check. “After all, I’ve lied to you before. Why would I stop now? Perhaps you think it’s just a ploy to gain your sympathy.” He sighed. “You’d have no reason not to think it, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” Allura protested. “I do believe it, Lotor. I don’t know why Keith didn’t say anything, and I’m sure he had his reasons, but I do believe you.”

Lotor turned around and faced her again. “But you still don’t believe me capable of loving you as I do.”

“Lotor… I,” she sighed uncomfortably, “I can’t talk about that.” Allura turned aside for a moment to collect her thoughts. “I need to think about my planet, and my duty to it.”

When Lotor said nothing and only nodded, a disappointed look evident in his yellow eyes despite his silence, the princess continued. “Your attack destroyed blue lion,” she admitted to him. “It may never fly again. That leaves us without Voltron, which I’m sure your father will be quite pleased to learn, if the crew of that battleship you brought here hasn’t told him already. We only have one tool to bargain with to keep him from razing this planet to rock and dirt, and that’s you. I might be able to grant you a measure of amnesty if you help us, Lotor, but—”

A cold and bitter laugh came from the prince upon hearing her words. “You mean so well, Allura,” Lotor said quietly, and with a note of genuine admiration in his voice. “I believe you would give me sanctuary if I helped you. But that won’t happen. For one, I’m worthless to my father. I don’t mean enough to him for him to barter or agree to peaceful terms with Arus for. And even if he did agree to some sort of exchange, he’d turn around and have me attack as soon as I was free. You and I both know that.”

Allura frowned. “I also know that you do have honor in you somewhere, Lotor. You don’t use it, but you have it. If you didn’t, you would have let me die, like you said. I would like to think that if I helped you…”

“Do we define honor the same way, Allura? I’m not sure. I think you and your space explorer friends would call my motivations self-serving ones. After all, I only spared you because I care for you. Do you think I would have given the matter a second thought if it was the red lion that was torn apart instead of the blue one?”

“So you’re saying you won’t cooperate? That you won’t accept any offer of amnesty if we give it to you in exchange for helping to fight off your father?” Allura argued, straightening. “You’d rather stay here, locked in a cell for the rest of your life?”

Before Lotor could give the princess an answer, the door to the holding area opened, and the princess turned to see Coran, Nanny, Keith, and Lance standing there along with the two guards that she had dismissed. Immediately Nanny charged over and grabbed the princess’ arm. “This is no place for a nice girl like you,” the governess lectured. “And you,” she said, glaring hatefully at Lotor, “you stay away from my baby, you swine!”

“Nanny!” Allura exclaimed angrily, “I was negotiating with Lotor! Let go of me!”

Coran frowned disapprovingly. “I’m sorry, Princess, but she is right. This is no place for you. He is not worth the breath you waste speaking with him.”

“I should consider myself lucky that she disagrees,” Lotor snapped, eyeing the intruders with cold contempt.

Lance rolled his eyes at the prisoner. “You should consider yourself lucky that she thinks you’re worth giving the time of day to. If it was up to us, you’d still be lying in that wreckage where you belong.”

Lotor narrowed his serpentine eyes at the red lion pilot. “Then it would seem you space explorers aren’t quite as honorable as you like to pretend you are,” he said, and then cast an equally disgusted glare at Keith. “But that comes as no surprise to me from someone who would misrepresent his role in saving his dear princess’ life from poison.”

Keith’s eyes went wide with shock, and he glared back at the prince defensively. “Hey, now wait a minute—”

“Enough!” Coran declared, cutting them all off. “We’ve wasted enough time with this man and his lies and insinuations,” the diplomat said staunchly, casting a wary glare of his own Lotor’s way. “Besides, he will not be a pest and distraction to us much longer.”

“What do you mean?” Allura asked.

“That’s what we came to tell you, Princess,” Keith explained as he joined her side by the cell. “We were looking for you to tell you the news, and one of the security guards said you came down here to speak with Lotor.”

Allura looked from Keith to Coran. “What news?” she demanded, while the imprisoned Lotor also looked on, but remained silent.

“We just got off the horn with Galaxy Garrison and filled them in on what happened,” Lance informed her. “They’re sending someone out here ASAP, probably to arrive sometime tomorrow, to take Lotor off our hands and into custody. They plan to try him for all the war crimes he’s committed against Alliance planets.”

Lotor’s blood ran cold at that news, knowing that was a very dire circumstance indeed for him, but he refused to allow any of his enemies to see any that he felt any sort of fear or weakness. Instead, all he did was look silently at Allura, at the beloved princess he had risked everything for. Allura, I saved you. You have the power to save me, he thought powerfully, almost projecting the thought. Had he had any telepathic abilities at all, it would have sounded in the Arusian princess’ mind like a heartfelt plea laced with desperation.

Overwhelmed where she stood, Allura felt the heavy gaze of Lotor on her again. So many conflicting thoughts went through her, as she found herself alternately wishing that the prince would have just saved her and run away as he had before, or that he would have had nothing to do with rescuing her from the blue lion’s crash, so that she could feel no urge to hold back, no sense of guilt, at letting him go. After all, this was Lotor—crowned prince of Doom, son of and conqueror for ruthless King Zarkon, the same man who had unleashed untold horrors on her planet and who was responsible for countless innocent deaths and even more innocents’ suffering—and yet she could not bring herself to hate him. Not that man who had spoken to her so gently, who assured her of his love, who even acted and showed it in his corrupt and twisted way, and who had literally thrown himself at a monster, all for her.

“Try him…” the princess murmured, her eyes shifting from Lotor to Keith and Lance and finally to Coran.

The keeper of the Castle of Lions nodded. “Galaxy Garrison will give him a fair trial and a just punishment if he is found guilty.”

“If,” Lance snorted sarcastically, “like there’s any question!”

Allura glanced from Lotor to her companions uncertainly. It sounded like the right thing. The fair thing. Galaxy Garrison would be fair, of course, justice was everything the Galaxy Alliance and its planets stood for. Surely they would take Lotor’s heroic treatment of her into account and give him a fair sentence. “A fair trial?”

While Coran nodded in assurance to the young princess, Nanny glared once again into Lotor’s cell. “It’s more than a rascal like him deserves!”

“It’s for the best,” Keith told the princess gently as he took her hand. “We don’t have the means to hold Lotor here indefinitely. Zarkon wouldn’t bargain for him anyway, and if he does want his son back, he can just as easily negotiate with Galaxy Garrison as with us. In fact, he’s more likely to cooperate with a force like them rather than just us here on Arus, especially without Voltron.”

Allura nodded, although it was not as assured as she felt it should be. She believed she was making the right decision, yet…

“You do understand why this is the best way to go about things, don’t you, Princess?” Coran prompted Allura.

Taking one last long and meaningful look at Lotor, her blue eyes filled with a genuine concern that both delighted and crushed the captured prince all at once, she turned back toward her advisor and the Voltron force with a slow nod. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good,” Nanny said, putting her arm around Allura’s shoulders. “Now let’s get you out of here. You’ve had a rough day and need your rest, and this place is not fit for any princess, not at all.” She began to usher her toward the stairs, but Allura halted and turned back to Lotor for a moment while Keith, Lance, and Coran headed back out.

“Lotor, I—”

“Goodbye, Allura,” Lotor said abruptly, cutting her off, unwilling to hear the words spoken as to why she had decided what she had.

On some level the prince understood her decision. After all, it was perfectly logical, and more than fair. Lotor knew that Allura genuinely believed that Galaxy Garrison would treat him fairly, but what the naïve and compassionate princess considered fair and what a military conglomerate considered justice were two different things, and he knew that. Still, it did not change his feelings. If nothing else, maybe she will finally believe I’m capable of it in the end, Lotor mused sadly, before he called out three final words to the princess’ retreating form.

“I love you.”

With one last long glance, and a haunting expression of beauty laced with regret that the prince would never forget, Allura disappeared up the stairs.

The End

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