⚔︎ Sticks and Stones; Chapter Twenty-Nine ⚔︎

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unedited chapter :)

The actuality of being under the radar of someone's vision can put a lot of stress on your shoulders, and it sure does.

Knowing that someone is watching you, tracking every step, scanning every action and monitoring every breath, then reporting anything they find in any way odd to Lotor? It's an even larger addition of pressure, and even though you've yet to do anything insufficient, it keeps you on your toes. Your toes, if so and in elaboration, are achingly sore.

Would he disapprove of a book you read? Could he fret over how much time you spend taking a break between equations? What can you do now, what will he take away, if he takes away anything at all?

How badly are you overthinking this whole situation?

A cold chill runs up your arms and rattles down your spine once another wave of anxious worry breaks through your body, causing a small scribble of marker to drag away on the board. You groan, smudging it with your thumb and moving on. Lotor is with you this time, watching your work, adding on to your desire not to fail.

His hand comes to rest on your shoulder, fingers cold to the touch, making you shudder and jitter your arm out again. Another scribbled line is added that shouldn't be. You huff once more, grumbling to yourself as you brush away the error.

"Did I startle you?"

Yes.

"No." You answer, continuing your work, throat dry and sludgy. You know the answer, you can do the work in your head, you could write down what he needs right now. You just can't help yourself. Failure is sin.

"Y/n, you mustn't lie to me." He says, pulling his hand up to your head, raking his sharp nails across your scalp. You pause, lowering the marker and resisting the urge to shudder in discomfort once again. You only jitter sharply, only once.

Clearing your throat, you tilt your head down, showing your surrender to the argument. "I apologize."

He leans in, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. "Would you like a break?"

"I could use a glass of water-"

"A longer sort of break." He adds, turning you around in his arms, eyes focused and light. "Within the next day or so, we'll reach a planet with hot springs that I only hear the highest boasts about. Would you like to spend a day off-board with me?"

You have to think on that sentence, that offer, a question that sounded too good to be true. "Yes." You grin, feeling a little bit of that weight already rising from your tight, cramped, knitted shoulders. "I would love that."

"Good." He replies, before taking a small stack of papers from the shorter man standing behind him. Although, of course, 'small' around here means the heap is over an inch thick. "These are from my father. I hate to force his unnecessary work onto your plate, but his acceptance is one of my top priorities at the moment." His hand touches your cheek, raising your head. "Do you know why that is?"

"If he's dissatisfied with our work, he won't lift your banishment."

"Smart girl." He replies, lowering his armored hand. "But it also means you will finally be able to rule by my side once my inheritance is restored. If we lose his trust, we lose your future."

My future.

The future.

A cinderblock of pressure smacks you right between the shoulders, sending you smacking into the floor, making your shaking arm reach out to take the papers. "Don't fail." You clench your teeth, feeling them grind in the worst, grittiest way. "Do not fail."

You continue your non-stop work, squeaking your marker along the board until your arm starts to grow tired. Rubbing out your wrist, you accidentally mark a large stripe up your arm, loosing all patience and groaning like a viscous dog.

"What's bothering you?" Lotor asks. "There's something swimming around in that brain of yours, and however brilliant, it's not mathematics."

You sigh.

"Do you know anything about the whereabouts of Voltron?" You ask, finally having the courage to do so. "After the ball, they've left me a little nervous."

Lotor pauses. "I do not know about their locations, I haven't looked into it as much as I should. What did they say to you?"

Setting the stack down, you sit down in a vacant chair, it's plush pillows more of a containment than a luxury. "They kept telling me that I knew them."

Silence.

"That they've always known me, since I was younger, for many years." You say. "Particularly the red paladin. He was especially odd, and he was so. . persistent. Even though I'd never met him before, he was just. . . I don't know."

A huff off wind escapes Lotor's clenched teeth, vain and gritty. "Try to explain it, please."

"It's hard." You say, placing your head in your hands. "The way he spoke, the things he said..."

"Yes?" The galra presses, voice more stern than most other times he speaks.

"I almost believe him."

You look up, curious to see your fiancé's reaction to your statement until you see it. Eyes darker than cloudy moons and anger that's so clear it might as well be chiseled into his forehead.

"Repeat yourself."

"But I don't!" You correct your mistake, cowering into the seat in an attempt to save yourself.

"I told you to do something for me." He says, arms tight, yet almost as intimidating as his scowl. "And I know you're smart enough to know you should do it as soon as I ask."

"I.. I almost believe him. When he says that we were friends, and he tells me things that I don't remember. But I know aren't true." You whimper, tucking yourself into the chair as if the pillows would shield you. You've messed up. You've messed up a cursed, wounding amount. "So I don't. I don't believe him."

He forces himself to buy it. Grabbing the paper stack he had given you earlier, he places it in your hands a second time, with such a grip that you know you shouldn't put it down unless you've finished every last page. Loud and clear, you turn to the board.

"Good." He answers.

Without an explanation for his suspicious behavior, he storms out of the room with an angry aura in his wake. You crinkle up like a stomped soda can, slouching over your work, and for (not) the first time since you woke up at his side, your posture wavers with fear, grumping over the papers to mark them with ink and dampen them with tears.

...

Being in space with nothing but endless sky and infinite amounts of stars in sight means there isn't really a 'night' time, so after sixteen vargas, (roughly the same number in hours), or so of work, you're immediately sent to an eight hour period of sleep to recharge and keep your mind and body in tip-top shape.

Though, lately, you had been getting more and more exhausted. More and more stress piles on your shoulders. Every time you try to think back to your life before the ship, everything hurts. Your mind becomes a searing pan that fries your brain into a short-circuit, and you become too weak to even stand on your own.

The mysterious Keith, the red paladin who stole so much of your time at the ball, and the one who claims to know so much about your past- he isn't much help. He leaves the craving for remembrance in your gut. You want to remember. You want to know who you used to be.

Maybe you were interesting before then. Maybe you were something cool, or popular, or so beautiful that people would try to ask for your time instead of demand it. Maybe that's what you could've been if you weren't Lotor's.

Then, just as the taste of nostalgia begins to fill your mouth, a pain even stronger than your craving for knowledge fixes you back into submission. Every time you try to think of him past the ball, your body catches a roaring heat that feels like an internal flame, broiling you alive.

And then it was all too much. No matter how much your brain could handle, your body gave in.

At some point during your sleep period last night, you bolted up in a hot sweat, every atom of you feeling enflamed. Lotor was already up, a look of worry on his face, his hand on your shoulder. Everything hurt, a pain too throbbing and scorching too describe in mere words.

It was as if every muscle in your body was inflamed, every bone aching to the point of shattering, and every nerve to it's last chittering atom.

Slamming yourself back into the bed, you wailed in agony, feeling most of the unbearable burning in your brain. That was right before it became all too much, and your throat shredded with a cry that rivaled a dying man's.

Lotor lifted you into his arms immediately and carried you out of the room, fatigue written all over his eyes, yet he look hesitant. He shuddered, considering something, eyes fearful. With a deep, surrendering breath, he trekked through a door, which you would come to realize led to a lab.

The one who owned said lab had given you all of the 'gifts' you have today, including your wonderfully confusing prosthetic foot.

Lotor places you down on a cool metal table, a dramatic temperature difference compared to your insufferable body heat at the time. You could hear large bits and pieces of the interaction he instantly initiated with the witch, but the words you could decipher worried you. They worried you real good and real bad.

"It's a direct overuse of the tracking enchantment. Your superior technology is overwhelming it, and my spell is too simple of an incantation. The grand interaction between the two is more than her body can handle. Consider, for example, when a piece of equipment runs too much power for too long; it overheats."

"So how do we make it stop?" Lotor asks, reaching a hand down to touch your cheek, but instead catching a cakey amount of sweat on his palm. The warmth of your skin is equal to the heat of a deep sunburn, hot and merciless. "She cannot die."

"And she won't if I do something about it." Said the witch. "But your options are limited. I can remove the incantation, which means no parties will be able to track her until I can find a way to stabilize her condition."

"Or?"

"Or, I could increase the power of the spell to make her stronger. She'll be able to withstand more interference."

"Can you get rid of the necklace's intermissions with her?"

"That would be the first option, or if all connections to the spell are obliterated completely. In that case, you'll have to re-establish the tracking with another tool."

Lotor groans. "There's no time... what are the risks of increasing the power?"

"Less energy within her to use on every day activities. It'll require more fuel out of the host. She'll need longer sleep periods." Haggar mutters. "If that isn't affordable, minor risks are a slip of stamina and eventual exhaustion."

"We'll work out the kinks later." Lotor says, hand to his chin. "And what is the cause of all of this?"

Haggar grumbles something lazily, tired of the questions she can't avoid. "To name a few,"

"A few?"

"Let me speak." She snaps. "There's an original source tracking her, most likely the necklace, but whoever has it is using it consistently without break. The connection is constant, and it's killing her quickly."

"The Paladins." Lotor sneers.

"Another, the memory blockage. My spell is doing its job, but too often and too well. The memories are trying to wriggle their way back in through a natural human system of imagining plots and ideas in their sleep; they refer to it as 'dreaming', and it's making her try to remember."

Lotor worries his bottom lip. Who could have guessed that with the use of dark magic, dark outcomes such as these would bare the most unwanted of fruit?

You writhe against the table, turning to your side, holding onto your head as if the clench would cure the puncturing pain. Sweat drips like waterfalls down your forehead, dangling off of your nose and eyelashes. It's a burning hell in the cold pockets of space.

"Increase the power of the tracking spell. She can take it, I know she will." Lotor says, holding your head in his hands, looking at you with a look that's calm is a little too forced. At least he's trying to be at peace, no matter if it's to help you or to help himself. "You'll be alright, love."

"And for the memory blockage?"

"What about it?"

"Did you listen to my explanation? She cannot sleep another night and live through it if we keep it the way it is now."

Lotor thinks.

"Is it possible to return memories? Could that improve her condition?"

"I can do it." Haggar says. "And it would help, but there isn't enough time for you to cherry-pick what you want her to know and what not."

Looking at your dimming eyes, he lays a hand on your arm, feeling you shake and whine like you're dying- and you might as well be.

You, to be short and sweet, are dying.

"Just do it. She'll know what she'll know, I can work with it." He says, taking your hand.

"I can put her under, but for how long I do not know." Haggar offers.

"Let me say something first." He says. Haggar walks away to prepare what she needs, leaving you to sweat your own pools into the table and Lotor to talk to you as you writhe. He places a hand on your prosthetic, but it's searing heat burns his hand upon contact.

"Y/n. You do not belong to the Paladins of Voltron. You do not belong anywhere, and you have not had a place to belong until I assisted you. Know that I am the only one who could keep you alive if this happens again." He mutters, placing a kiss to your knuckles. "Do not forget who you stand with. I'll be right here when you wake."

Anything else he said to you wasn't that important, (you hope), for after a moment of ringing ears and otherworldly silence, your awareness began to slip away into a black world of darkness .

And in darkness you sit and remain.

...

Lotor watches you drift into sleep, counting on your steady breath, (however shuddering), to upkeep itself as he stands to leave.

The prince quickly strolls down the hallways and corridors, echoing off of the silent walls and making others clear his path by choice. Lotor needs to let off steam, steam that you didn't know you could make him blow in the first place.

He accesses the private communications desk, already knowing who he'll be contacting quickly. The screen flickers between different mixes of black screen and fluorescent violet text. His fingers clack away as he types the words he hates speaking, scraping at the keys with the need to show a little threat. To threaten to those who threaten him.

His hands fix his hair, combing through it well and keeping it classy as he takes a deep breath, trying to vanish all signs of his worry and stress in his body language. He needs to be the bigger person.

He is the bigger person. He has the high ground, he has Y/n.

He is winning.

..right?

A live call, received by a group in a much lighter living space, consumes the screen. Light blues, specks of every rainbow color here and there, and the all-around blinding nature of whites, marbley grays and pale periwinkle to his dark-adjusted eyes;

The Castle of Lions.

"My, aren't all of you up late. Your princess hasn't given you a proper bedtime?"

"Prince Lotor," A high-accent female voice speaks, low and unamused by his sudden presence. Heads turn, six of them, none having a more disgusted expression than the other. They all look tired and stressed. The one in red has the worst of it, and you can just see it on him. Teeth bared, eyes tired and posture too feeble to show any intimidation.

"Princess Allura." Lotor replies, speaking in a light-hearted tone to stir their pot of displeasure. His eyes remain lingering on the red paladin, wanting to see a reaction out of him. He needs that reaction, anything to fuel his own pride.

He needs to be winning.

He needs to win.

She stiffens, hearing her name being spoken by the likes of him had added to her ever-climbing anger. "What is the purpose of this call?"

"Do you consider it a sin for me to check in on you? I don't see much harm in seeing how my companions of old times are doing."

The blue paladin glares, his patience tightly winded, right on the verge of a catastrophic snap. "I don't know if you've caught on or not yet, but we don't want to be associated with you. Like, at all."

"Oh." Lotor says, playing the part of a victim, blinking with the same fake innocence of a guilty girlfriend. "I'm hurt."

"It was the intention." Allura says.

"A shame, truly. I'd even come to offer you a little wager. I was so sure that the prize would be much to your liking, too."

He notices that the black paladin has to keep a restraining hand on the red and takes glee from it. The same black paladin takes the initiative of the conversation, showing the authority by stepping forward; "What sort of deal are you implying?"

"Nothing but a small, healthy competition amongst yourselves." Lotor says, grinning. "Would you like to hear my rules?"

The green paladin adjusts her glasses, raising a heavy, peeved eyebrow. "And how are we supposed to believe you're being honest? You could be stalling for something."

"Nothing of the sort. By the looks of you, you seem a little desperate. And for me, I'm feeling a little generous and much larger amount of boredom. Your dear friend is having some work done."

"Work?!"

"Call it a 'ladies night' if you must. Haggar is just getting her up to speed with where we need her. Mind, body and soul."

"You trust her with the witch that took her foot?!" Shiro raises his voice, feeling less of an urge to keep Keith at pacifistic methods.

"You mean the witch that cleaned the wound, removed the infection and freely gave her the best prosthetic replacement we have to offer?" Lotor hums. "That would be the one. And I'd say that the whole foot-injury incident is more your fault than anyone you may blame."

"You sick piece o-"

"Civility is key." Allura reminds the group, trying sickeningly hard to remain neutral. "No matter how uncivil our conversationalist may be."

"I'm hurt."

"Good." Keith growls.

"Look; if you never want to see dear Y/n again, I am completely complacent with that. I will let her know of your preference myself. However, I am giving you a chance to see her in a situation that isn't one of my clever traps. I recommend you take advantage of that. Would you like my conditions or would you prefer to never contact her again?"

Keith's head snaps up, hooked by your name's mention. He's suspicious, but hopeful. "Get to it. Now."

"I appreciate the enthusiasm."

"Savor it."

"If you insist." Lotor says, arms folding. "Starting the day after tomorrow, for one full week I will have systems at an all-time low. Unlocked gates, less security awareness, anything that could get you in irregularly fast. I would remove guards, but you can wipe them out cleanly and quickly anyway, no matter who is there."

"Get on with it." The threat in Keith's voice presses on.

"If security senses infiltration using any Altean codes, I will send Y/n to fetch you." He explains. "You will then be escorted to me, where we will have a battle of champions until one of the opponents offers their surrender. If you try to bring in more than one opponent or take Y/n with you under any unsportsmanlike circumstances, you will die."

The group sits in silence.

"Any questions?"

"Why the day after tomorrow?"

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