#nostraen

haggar not honerva, and his anger is like black scars along his face, tar in his mouth. kaiera is soft, forgiving, warm to the touch; sees the past – lotor knows no past – only thousands of years with someone cold and cold still. maybe he should have convinced kaiera sooner, maybe he should have curbed the snapping of his meticulous, calculating mind when kaiera is torn from him, all speckled red.

he doesn’t. there is no mother here, as there was no father – he did not see parents as much as he saw obstacles, as he saw monsters, as he saw creatures twisted in their lack of empathy.

the shock ravages him, though, frigid in the splinters of his bones, and as much as he had a mind to think he never had much of a heart, never really allowed himself to listen. “don’t hide behind the title of mother, haggar. it didn’t save my father, and it certainly won’t save you.” he’s all threats and poison, sword clutched in the whitening of his knuckles but he wants to tear himself away, wants to scream and bury his fangs in her throat, become savage; unbridled, finish the fight before it even begins in order to, to –

kaiera’s crumpled body still haunts him like a burn; a sting. survive, kaiera, survive enough until – prince and witch clash, and lotor scrapes his fangs together, sweat at his brow. i wanted to save you, she says, and his sword stains itself with an open wound, i wanted us to be a family, she wheezes, and lotor’s eyes are almost all gold, all wild and unkind. 

he kills her, he kills her and it doesn’t matter, even when she begs, even when she crumples, collapses, looks faintly like a mother he should have had. dead, she should have been all along, but there’s no time to think of it, no time –“kaiera,” he says, searching, turning, one connecting thought to the next, action to action, there’s no time to analyze, calculate, instead – “kaiera,” he says again, placing his palms underneath kaiera’s body, holding. “kai,” he says more insistently, a beast showing the slightest inkling of softness. “hold on,” he insists, the strength holding in his voice by a thread. “i’ll get you out of here. we’re getting out of here together.”

the numb shake of a head, the rise of a sun the arc of a smile on their face. “don’t be stupid,” he admonishes, and they laugh, pain in the wrinkle of their brow, hand hesitantly reaching out. “it’s fine,” he says, grabbing their hand, cold at its tips, (startling) as he lets it sit on his face, “touch me all you want,” he breathes out, bending his knees and standing. kaiera is too light, too cold. he’s still stained with blood and his sword is discarded, but he figures it can be replaced.

kaiera can’t.

“no i’m not leaving you here,” he growls, and he realizes the weight in his hands brings aches he wasn’t aware of before, wounds he wasn’t aware of until he’s trying, desperately, to get them back to voltron, to the paladins, to anyone who knows more than he does in the way of treating injuries that bleed, and bleed, and just keep bleeding. “don’t waste your breath,” feeling blood seep even deeper into his armor, “you need it, you –”

lotor looks down, sees the paling of already paling skin, smells the scent of death as putrid as the ruins of a battlefield and clenches his jaw tight, eyebrows twisted enough to hurt. one of the pads of kaiera’s fingers touch at his furrow, and lotor’s expression slackens, truth as painful as a festering wound. “you’re not going to make it,” he says, finally, the admission harder to bear than the thought of it. “i’m sorry, kai, i should have planned for this, i should have known –” he’s hushed and he doesn’t like the look of kaiera’s eyes, doesn’t like the way the light starts to burn away to leave way to the dark; like a sunset, inevitable and its rise and its fall, but there won’t be light anymore, no moon. 

he feels the burn on the rims of his eyes, feel it stutter in the wetness of his eyes. no, no, kaiera can’t see him like this. no mourning. he knows this, he’s always known this, but – “kai, you are … i should be the one bleeding out right now.” he sighs, features pinched. “with voltron here, i know i’m not needed anymore. but you … you are so much better than i am. how are we going to make up for your loss, kaiera?”

his voice a shake, a whisper.

“how am i going to bear the loss of you?” 

he’s a killer, and he’s held many lives in his hands – even ones that were hard to lose – but it was always worth the sacrifice.