All's fair in love and war

While trying to enter an alliance with another planet to combat the Galra, one of the team is looped into a political marriage and it's up to the others to try and stall or derail the kings wedding plans while still sealing the alliance peacefully.

(Set around the beginning of season 3 maybe?)

Quick description of the Maltakians (Just made it up, don't know if it's a real word anywhere so please just go with it) They are a somewhat tall humanoid race with reptilian features, their skin looks somewhat like scales and is patterned with yellow and blue, they have snake like eyes of various colors and they tend to keep their hair long. Their hair also comes in a variety of different colors.

They are a proud warrior race and favour demonstrations of strength over pretty words but are quite good with diplomacy.

King Thanton is young, about equal to a human in their early twenties; he has long dark blue hair that reaches just past his shoulders, green snake eyes and the standard yellow and blue Maltakian complexion. (Hope this helps)

Chapter 1 Fight for the heart

Some time has passed since Voltron had taken down Zarkon but Shiro is still missing and while the team searches for him they travel from planet to planet trying to grow their alliances with other worlds to fight back against the Galra Empire that is still at large.

One such planet that they arrive on is happy to agree to an alliance if the paladins can prove themselves in a battle tournament. The planet Maltak is populated by a warrior based race and they value strong allies in combat and believe that the best way to test new allies is to enter them into a battle tournament to witness their skills firsthand.

As a show of good faith to the Maltakians the team agrees to take part as contestants in this tournament and one by one they are knocked out of the running until only Keith is left.

Each time one of them loses they are sent up into the stands where Allura and Coran sit with the King trying to discuss the forming of an alliance with Voltron.

Pidge had been the first knocked out, though she had managed to make it pretty far, her size didn't do her any favours in battle, so much for the old saying 'the bigger they are the harder they fall' unless one was to interpret 'harder' as difficult.

Hunk, bless him, had done well but like his lion speed was not on his side and though he could take a hit, he wasn't very good with close range battle and his opponent claimed the win.

Lance was still a bit miffed that he didn't get to show off much of his awesome sharpshooter skills because he was stuck with the freakin' ninja guys that he couldn't get a lock on before another was coming at him.

So there they sat in the King's royal box seat watching as Keith swung his sword every which way taking down opponent after opponent like they were nothing.

Stupid mullet and his stupid awesome sword skills… Lance thought as he pouted.

While Lance grumbles to himself the others are talking amongst themselves about how Keith is such a natural fighter and one of them makes a comment about how it's probably due to his Galran heritage and this gets the King's attention

"Galra?" he asks with a curious note to his voice.

Lance jumps in right away trying to explain. "He's not evil or anything! And he's only part Galra, maybe half! Anyway he's probably the only Galra/Human hybrid in the entire universe so I doubt there's anything for you to worry about!" Lance tries to play it cool and make it seem like it's no big deal so that the King doesn't freak out or anything.

"One of a kind huh? That's rare indeed." The King says as he leans forward a bit in his seat to continue watching the arena down below.

Lance doesn't think too much of this since the King seems calm after finding out that one of the paladins of Voltron was actually part Galra and just goes back to watching the battle just as Keith wins the final round.

Allura, wanting to be able to form the alliance with this planet waits for the last member of the team to arrive and they were all gathered around where the King was seated before asking "Alright your majesty, have we proven that we can fight alongside you against the Galra Empire?"

The King rests his head upon his hand that's propped up on the arm of his throne and smiles. "Yes I believe this can be arranged, I just require one more thing to seal the arrangement."

Allura furrows her brow but tries to smile and remain as diplomatic as possible. "And that would be your majesty?" for some reason everyone was feeling tense all of a sudden.

"A bride." The King says simply.

Everyone is shocked.

Lance starts to say that there's no way that Allura is going to agree to marry him when the King cuts him off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Not the Princess," he points at Keith instead. "You shall be my bride!" he smiles joyfully as if the matter was settled and that the deal was already done.

This time even Lance is too shocked for words.

The first to find their voice is Keith. "What?! I can't be your bride!" he yells, feeling flustered and confused by the declaration, or was it a proposal?

"A rare specimen like yourself is definitely worthy of becoming my bride! Not to mention what a great warrior you have proven yourself to be fighting against the best soldiers we have to offer!" the King said as if thinking that Keith's protests were due to feeling inferior or unworthy because he was an outsider, half-bread, or commoner.

"That's not what I meant!" Keith says angrily.

The others try to make the King reconsider.

"Keith can't marry you!" Hunk yells.

"We didn't sign up for this!" Pidge says.

"King Thanton Please reconsider your conditions." Allura tries.

But he seems deadest on his decision. "It's decided! Guards, show our guests to their quarters. And have my bride to be taken to the cleansing room, everything must be prepared immediately!"

Everyone is surrounded by guards and Keith is separated from the others, he's too exhausted from the tournament to put up much of a fight. The others aren't having much luck either.

Not long after being escorted to their accommodations the team minus Keith is joined once more by King Thanton to further discuss the alliance with Voltron.

"Hello again honored guests! Shall we go over the treaty now that we've settled things?" he asked with a huge smile on his face as he entered the spacious room that would have been quite comfortable under different circumstances.

"About that, please understand your majesty that we can't simply let you just marry Keith." Allura tried once again to try and dissuade him but still he continued to insist on the marriage.

"What better way to form an alliance than to have such a strong warrior joined in holy matrimony with myself?" King Thanton asked.

"No, you see back on our planet you can't just say you're going to marry someone and that's it, there are specific rules, uh rituals if you will." Pidge said.

To halt the ceremony the paladins play along and tell the King that he can't just simply marry Keith; there are specific rituals that must be met that are traditional customs on Earth. If they are not met then people can't be legally wed.

King Thanton is all for making this a binding marriage so he agrees to hear them out in order to make this official.

The paladins then end up coming up with any random marriage rituals that they know of, just anything to make this as complicated as possible.

"And so what are these rituals that we must abide by to make this marriage binding?" King Thanton asked.

"The bride is supposed to wear white." Lance pipes up with the first thing that comes to mind.

Pidge and Hunk are standing in the background whispering to each other. "Isn't that supposed to be for virgins?" Pidge asked.

"Is Keith a virgin?" Hunk asked back.

"I'm not asking, you ask." Pidge said.

"I'm not asking, you ask him. You thought of it." Hunk retorted.

King Thanton was watching them with great interest it seemed.

"Shut up you two, you're not helping!" Lance shrieked turning to them.

"Anyway, if the person or people getting married are a part of the military or something then they have a special uniform to wear that they get married in." Lance says thinking back to the dress code part of weddings.

"Of course Keith doesn't have an outfit like that, but then again since we're the paladins of Voltron I guess our armor works for that. Plus it is mostly white." Hunk put in, seemingly thinking out loud.

"Really not helping Hunk!" Lance hissed shooting him a glare.

"Oops." Hunk said sheepishly.

"The bride is supposed to be given away by their father, as a symbol of entering into a new stage of life. Of course Keith is an orphan and doesn't have any family to give him away." Pidge added.

"Well Shiro was kind of like his brother, have you ever seen them together? I called them the Broganes in my head, but Shiro is still missing. Oh and there's Kolivan from the blade of Marmora, he might be like Keith's uncle or grandpa or something. Also there's Coran who's kind of like an uncle for all of us in the castle… sorry." Hunk notices his friends all glaring at him. "Sorry I just get really excited about weddings!"

Even Coran seems on the spot about what to do since he doesn't know much about Earth customs in general.

"And there's the whole 'Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue' tradition! We don't exactly have anything old with us that Keith could use." Lance added as another tradition popped into his head.

"Well there is his kn-"

Pidge covers Hunk's mouth to shut him up.

"Something new has to mean something important to him, something borrowed should come from someone close to him, and as for something blue well, I don't know." Lance said with a shrug as he listed them off.

King Thanton seemed to think this over though Lance wasn't sure he was buying it so he decided to add more.

"Anyway there's also the fact that this is so rushed and definitely doesn't qualify as consensual on Keith's part, he has to agree to marry you or it can't happen. Those are the rules of Earth marriages."

"Can't I just order him to agree? I'm the King after all." King Thanton asked and Lance was sure he wasn't kidding.

"NO!" they all say together.

"On Earth we usually date first before getting engaged and then married." Lance said.

"Although in some cultures they do have arranged marriages for political reasons…" Pidge mutters under her breath.

But the King still heard her.

Lance was really getting annoyed with how good this guy's hearing was.

"Thanks Pidge…" Lance mutters back.

"But even in those situations they usually have an out clause, so again if he doesn't consent then it won't happen." Pidge added to her earlier statement.

"Yes, thank you Pidge!" Lance said, this time meaning it.

"But how do I get him to say yes?" King Thanton asked, really intrigued by how complicated these human marriages were but still wanting to go through with it.

"Well courting usually works." Hunk said since Pidge was no longer preventing him from speaking.

"Hunk!" Lance snapped at the yellow paladin.

The King ignored the two of them and chose to focus on Pidge instead. "How does this courting work?"

Pidge adjusted her glasses and tried to ignore the dirty looks Lance was shooting her way. "Courtship, or dating as we know it, is when a couple tries to woo each other or just grow closer romantically and once they agree that they are for sure in love then they agree to get married."

Lance is panicking because he's running out of ideas to stall this.

Allura sees this and decides to add something as well. "Of course there's still the possibility of a rivalry, in those cases the subject must choose between the two sides to see who they will be with. It was quite common on Altea." She winks at Lance.

"Alright, I see no reason to deny your traditions. After all, I'm sure that in the end my bride will choose me." King Thanton says with full confidence that annoyed Lance beyond reason.

"What if Keith doesn't choose you though?" Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to mouth off to the King of a planet that you wanted to form an alliance with but this guy was so, so… Lance just didn't like how he talked about Keith okay?!

"Oh I'm sure he will. I'm quite the charmer after all." King Thanton said with a cocky smile that really irked Lance.

"Yeah? Well so am I!" Lance shouted feeling really irritated now.

King Thanton looked Lance up and down to study him but seemed to dismiss any possibility of threat. "I see no reason to worry." he smirks and now Lance is really getting mad.

"It's settled then, Lance will compete with your majesty for the affections of Keith! And come what may, we are still going to agree to this treaty, is it a deal?" Allura asked in as best the political manner she could, given their situation.

Lance turned to her with his jaw almost hitting the floor. "What?!"

"It's a deal! You shall all be honored guests at our wedding!" the King said before walking away, clearly believing that he would be the one who wins over Keith.

Look I know next to nothing about weddings so I'm just pulling things from thin air here, anyway as you can see this is going to be Klance mainly with the whole OC trying to win Keith over and all that. Dear God where did this idea even come from I can't remember anymore, this has been sitting on my flashdrive as a 2000+ idea for months now and I'm just now getting to it because this is how my brain works...

Please let me know what you think, chapter 2 might be ready soon but then again never believe me when I say soon because I have a horrifically bad sense of time... Looking forward to hearing from you!

Okay since I posted this at like 4 a.m. there were some things I needed to fix but hopefully it's all good now!

I have a drawing of King Thanton I made posted on my tumblr if you want to check it out it's Fangirl-overload13