I do not own Voltron. Next chapter will be current times and longer.
When Lotor was born, Honerva had a period of time when the corruption of the Quintessence wasn't poisoning her mind. The screaming of a baby, her son, had brought back a sliver of sanity. He was a sickly baby, reflecting the problems of her pregnancy. Everytime she nursed him, he would become sick and spend hours screaming in pain and discomfort. She wasn't sure how long he would live, since he was unable to keep any food down. She tried treating him with Quintessence, but that only made things worse. As a last resort, she tried a formula milk, and for the first time, she was able to feed him and he was able to keep it down and sleep for several hours. There was no crying in pain, no whimpering. Just contentment. It was the first night in months, since she had gotten pregnant, that both her and Lotor slept through the night.
She spent the next few days studying the differences in the formula compared to her own and discovered the only difference was the formula had no quintessence it it. It didn't take much after that to realize that Lotor's sickness, the difficulties during the pregnancies, was all because of the quintessence. How it made him sick but healed others, she didn't know. But she began to slowly remove it from his room, carefully extract it from any food. When he was stronger, she tried to add a little bit to his diet, to see if he could build an immunity. But no, every time they tried, he would get sick again.
As he got older and Zarkon demanded that Lotor begin training, Honevra began to drift away. Haggar became dominate again, though a small part of her still held onto the mothering instincts that Honevra had. A part of her still watched as Lotor grew, as he fought his way through the many training courses that Zarkon had set up. Every day, he was trained on ships, how to fly them and build them and fight in them; he was taught the history of the Galra, the way Zarkon wanted it taught; he was taught the art of swordsmanship, of hand-on-hand combat, and various other forms of combat and science. Whatever the allergy to quintessence was, it only ever seemed to affect him if he ate an unnatural amount of it.
One day, while having a very rare meal with both Zarkon and Lotor, that small part of Haggar that was still Honevra noticed something in Lotor that was different than the other Galra she had seen over the past few years, since their planet had been destroyed. Irises and pupils. Lotor's eyes were not a solid yellow, but had blue irises. And that's when she knew, when that part of her that was still fighting the corruption of the Quintessence, that Lotor might just be the one to save them. Maybe there was still hope of restoring peace in this universe.
And that night, as she walked the halls of the ships, unable to stay asleep for a full night. She found herself outside the door that lead to Lotor's room. Entering in, she found her son stretched out in bed, white hair fanning over the pillow and mouth slightly open as he slept. He was small, so small. Not even taller than her yet, though she knew he would be tall soon. He would without a doubt be much taller than her when he finished growing. She ran a finger down her son's face, a few moments of clarity granting her the time she needed.
"Be brave, my son. It won't be easy, but no matter what happens, my child, be brave."