#I don't think any Allura whether DotU or VLD would idly stand by and let someone she loved get hurt so

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Could you write a little bit more on Endurance

Hey, thanks for your prompt! Endurance is getting to be quite the old DotU lotura one-shot, but it seemed like a good challenge for writing in past tense again. So, here we go!

Endurance Part 2

Princess Allura stood in the entryway of the large room, holding her sleeping baby tight in her arms, face tense, her golden hair straggling curls down her shoulder. “Are you sure the Garrison is…safe?” she asked quietly.

On the walk through the Galaxy Garrison, various officers eyed Allura with a mix of horror and pity as she carried the bastard child of Crown Prince Lotor of the Drule.

Keith turned back to her, waving his hand. “These are quarters for royalty and ambassadors,” he said. “Fortified against airstrikes, earthquakes, and especially evil Drule princes, alright?” His face softened. “We won’t let anything get to you here.”

Her heart sunk, even as she managed a weak smile. “Of course, but, um. But that’s not what I’m worried about.” She stepped in, daring to pull back the blanket around her sleeping baby, revealing his chubby lavender cheek. “I’m worried someone will take my son from me. Maybe from the Alliance, or—or maybe even King Zarkon will find us.”

Keith sat on a chair beside the large bed, tiredly leaning his jacketed elbows on his knees. “Princess,” he said gently. “No one’s gonna take the kid away. People here are just, you know, concerned about your health.”

“I’m fine,” she retorted shortly, breath hitching. Her wrist still crinkled with a bandage from her IV, her eyes bagged with exhaustion. “The hospital released me, didn’t they?”

“It’s not just your physical health we’re all worried about.”

Allura’s eyes burned with tears as she held his gaze before breaking away to ghost toward the well-built, white-painted crib by the bed. “You don’t think I can do it,” she said. She leaned over to settle the snoozing baby on the crib bed, tucking in his little arms with the blanket before pulling away. “You don’t think I can emotionally handle being a mother and coming back to Team Voltron, after…all that has happened.”

Keith bit his lip. “I don’t know, can you? I mean, this is a lot to work through for anybody.”

She ran a hand absentmindedly over her still-slightly swollen stomach, the empire waist of her dress wrinkling beneath her fingers.

She knew Lotor would want her to play weak. To play the innocent, helpless victim, to save herself instead of speaking the truth—that they had willingly loved, willingly created life together.

(But maybe there was a third way? One that would give her power to help Lotor escape from prison?)

And then her eyes hardened, her fingers clenching into her dress with determination. “Don’t worry, Keith,” Allura said. “My fever made it hard to think for a bit, but Lotor didn’t break me. I’m ready to prove to him and the rest of the Drule empire that Voltron still stands.”

---------

Several days passed in the whirlwind of settling back onto Earth, with Princess Allura more confidently carrying around her sleepy, giggly baby son. He leaned his heavy cheek against her shoulder as she held him tightly to her.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Hunk whispered to her as they walked down the darkened hallway, with a set of guards trailing behind them. “I mean, it’s Lotor, you know?”

“I know who it is, Hunk,” she said, eyes determined. On that day, she wore full royal regalia, the color returning to her pale skin as it flushed with health. Her long, pink skirts slid quietly against the stone floor. “But I need to do this. I need it for me, you understand?”

Hunk glanced over at Keith, who flanked Allura on the other side.

Keith raised his hands helplessly, waving to Allura, as if to say, She has a mind of her own, don’t look at me.

Allura’s heart skipped beats as they passed cells with various Drule warriors crouched in the corners of their cells, yellow eyes trained on her curiously and inspecting the baby in her arms—clearly of Drule heritage.

The closer they approached Lotor’s cell, the greater the security. Hunk called out, carrying a blaster, “Look alive, people. This here is Princess Allura, and ain’t no one allowed to even look at her the wrong way, you got that?”

Garrison soldiers flurried around them, raising additional weapons to circle Princess Allura protectively.

And then they stopped at the final prison cell, cloaked mostly in darkness save for a glimmer of light from a flickering, nearby fluorescent light.

“Okay, princess,” Keith said tensely. “This is his cell. Whatever you wanna say, you can say it, and then we’ll get you back upstairs for dinner, alright?”

“I’m okay, Keith,” she said distantly, readjusting the baby in her arms.

And then she stepped forward, peering into the cell, skin chilling in the damp cold.

Her heart stopped.

Lotor sat on the dirty floor, his powerful limbs heavily shackled and simple tunic streaked with dried mud. His matted white hair streaked against a sweaty, bruised cheek as he glanced up at her. His yellow eyes widened, the cat-like pupils dilating in relief at the sight of her before tightening in fear. “Allura,” he whispered.

Her voice wavered as she stood before him, skin chilling in the damp cold. “That would be Princess Allura of Arus to you,” she said, voice wavering as she raised her chin. “Kneel before the mother of your child.”

Lotor exhaled, a mild horror in him that she would visit his prison cell, and he slipped forward, his bound wrists crunching against the stone to drag himself toward the bars. His voice broke hard as he rasped to her, “I cannot bow to you properly in these chains, for my waist is anchored to the wall. Release me, and I will bow to you then.”

She pressed her lips together tightly before narrowing her eyes. “You are not to be released,” she retorted. She hid her trembling fingers in the thick blankets around their baby, who cooed in his sleep, his white curls ticking her chin. “You are to stand trial for your many crimes, against not only me but also against the Alliance. It is unlikely for you to receive anything less than the death penalty.”

Lotor tilted his head, searching her eyes to understand her ploy. An old mischief rose in him. “Would you mourn for me, princess?”

Yes, her heart cries.

“No,” she said shakily. 

“Then why do you appear to me now?” he demanded.

Allura licked her bottom lip before saying as if in royal decree, “It is so that you know what you do not have, for I remain the Princess of Arus, and this child of mine will be raised in Arusian ways of peace and diplomacy. He will never know that his father was a son of Zarkon, and the legacy of your bloodline will never corrupt his heart.”

As she spoke, her words growing with fervor, she enacted her plan. A key—a single key to a scout ship she’d filched from the flight deck of the Garrison—slipped down the inside band of her skirt, falling onto the floor. For his eyes alone, she darted her gaze to the stone, stepping forward to slide the key just under the bars, where no one but him would see.

In his chains in the corner of the cell, Lotor’s eyes brightened with tears. His fists clenched with anticipation. “So, you have come to deliver news of my impending death, then.”

She swallowed hard before backing away, eyes burning. “In twelve hours, your trial will begin. And I will not be there. Instead, I will sit upon the great balconies of the Garrison, dining on my favorite dishes and reveling in the peace and finery due my station—all the things you denied me while I was your captor. And I will not see your trial or your death. So this is a goodbye, once and for all, Prince Lotor of the Drule.”

Allura turned away, eyes burning in want to turn back around and wrench open the jail cell—unchain Lotor and hold him just as tightly as she held their son—

Lotor’s voice rose with a halted laugh, his chains clinking as he secretly grabbed for the key while wrapping a hand around one of the heavy cell bars. “Oh, you wicked woman!” he called to her in a ragged boom. “Whether in chains or circlets, you still order the very stars of my universe. I will die a happy man, knowing that I am reflected in our child. I will live on, through you.”

His scarred fingers tightened upon the additional key, clamping down as hard as his mind held to the additional information she had given about time and location.  

Keith gently grabbed onto Allura’s shoulders. “Come on, princess, let’s get you out of this terrible place.” He leveled a hard glare at Lotor. “And away from this trash.”

Allura managed a brief glance backward in worry as the guards guided her away, a slight hope rising in her as Lotor leaned his forehead against the bars, staring back with earnestness.

And his old, tell-tale calculation.