I have only recently gotten into the Voltron Fandom and my first experience was Voltron: Legendary Defender. A little later I decided to watch some of the older stuff and found myself actually liking Voltron Force, despite everything that is wrong with it.
I will not speak about Voltron: The Third Dimension. I. Will. Not.

This here is set in Voltron Force. Before Allura and Pidge hand over their keys.

Disclaimer: Do I really need one? I mean this is a website for fan work so... Ah, well: I do not own Voltron Force and I make no money writing this.

Well then, let's get this show on the road.

Presents

Her birthday was something Larmina was rather torn about. That hadn't always been the case, but ever since she started living at the castle with her aunt... Let's just say that she enjoyed getting older – one step closer to being off age! Yeehaw! – what she had stopped enjoying were the presents.

Sure there were the occasionally cool things, like the throwing knifes Lance had gotten her last year, or the Red Adder concert tickets Hunk had gifted her with – seriously, she had no idea how he had done it, all tickets for every single concert had been sold within ninety minutes after the sale started. Pidge's gifts, too, tended to be cool once he knew what the presentee liked. So were the ones from the guys. Her aunt's were a little boring, but she did try.
Keith's gifts shall not be talked about. Ever.

No, it surely weren't the presents from the Force that she had problems with, no, the problem was with the rest of the universe. To the rest of the universe she was Lady Larmina Ariella Damania of Illuvia. A girl. Which meant that the presents given to her at the ball that took place in her honour every year were decidedly too feminine for her taste.

When she was younger they tended to be pink or sparkly, decorated with bows, flowers and butterflies or worse: all of the above at the same time. As she got older the bows and butterflies started to vanish – thank the heavens – the pink, the sparkly and the flowers stayed, much to her dismay.

Heck, Nanny had proudly presented her with a pink, high collared, floor-length dress earlier this morning. Her hair colour clashed terribly with the shade of pink Nanny had chosen. Thankfully she did not have to wear it to the ball, having chosen what she would wear several weeks ago. (The process had included a fight with her aunt and several with Nanny. The male members of the Force had not interfered at any moment in time. The cowards.) Making sure that that atrocity never surfaced again would take some time and cunning.

The worst thing about these kind of presents, however, was that she had to smile, thank the giver and pretend to be in love with whatever they had gotten her. That included the pink monstrosity.
She must have given a brilliant performance when she had accepted the dress, Lance had slow-clapped after Nanny, Keith and her aunt had gotten out of earshot.

After mentally preparing herself for the evening, over the course of several hours, she had put on the dark blue dress, let the maids do her hair and make-up and thrown herself into her party.
The guys looked great and even she had to admit that she could see why so many women were taken with Lance. He cut a great figure in that dress uniform.

At this point of the evening she had already crossed out a few important items on the evening's agenda: greeting the guests, making polite small talk, politely declining any offerings to be introduced to any sons or grandsons of her guests and having an appetizer.
Right now she was at the part she hated the most: publicly opening her presents. She could not wait to be old enough for this part to be dropped off of her 'birthday-ball-agenda'. Just two more birthdays like this one here.

So far she had "scored" three gold-framed mirrors, several dozen bottles of various perfumes (did she mention that that stuff was too feminine for her?), a lot of jewellery (the sparkly, really expensive kind, and the worst ones were in flowery shape), what had to be the most hideous sunhat she had ever seen ("Oh, Larmina, that fits so well with the new dress Nanny gave you." – Lance, the traitor... Nanny had practically been glowing with happiness at his comment) and what was apparently a very valuable potted plant.

And so far she had managed to keep her poker face, had smiled and awed and thanked every single guest for their present. However right now she was fighting to keep her expression from showing what she was truly feeling about the gift Count T'umal of Dadalor from planet Epsi 65 was presenting her with. As it was she was just staring wide-eyed at it.

"I see you are speechless, your Ladyship." The green-skinned Epsilan smiled happily.

She wet her lips and swallowed. "I am most certainly... It's just... I have never seen anything like this before."

And that was the truth: the thing in the box was most decidedly an animal. A small one with a lot of fuzzy black fur that held dull yellow markings. It possessed two tails and relatively big ears. She might have called it cute were it not for the six poisonous green eyes and the silent but way too high screeching noises it made.

"Understandable, my Lady. My people call this a Sintok. It is comparable to what the earthlings call a cat. The people of the north care for their ability to hunt Tani – a hairy little pest that steals food and brings about sickness. My people of the south, however, praise their meat as we have little Tani running around. To us they are a fine delicacy." The Count explained readily.

Larmina quickly suppressed the horror she was feeling at the prospect of having to eat this animal. It wouldn't do for it to show on her face. She swallowed again, and when she spoke her voice was higher than she was used to. "You expect me to eat this?"

The Count laughed. "No, my Lady, I don't. I have decided to give you the pet variety commonly found in the houses of the northerners. I thought that you might like a cute little pet to keep you company." Bright blue eyes shone happily at her. "It is a female and still a baby. Do not worry though, it will not grow too big. Sintoks are small animals."

The uneasy feeling in her chest was growing by the second and she wanted nothing more than to be done with this situation. So she pulled herself together and gave Count T'umal a brilliant, happy smile.
"What a lovely idea. Thank you so much. I can hardly put in words just how much I love your gift."

She was rewarded with another happy smile from the Count and the knowledge that she had not caused another incident like the one on her fourteenth birthday.

"Wonderful as it is that you like your gift, your Ladyship, I am afraid that perhaps the little thing would be happier in a calmer surrounding. Would you like for me to take it elsewhere to be taken care of until tomorrow?" Pidge. Her knight perfectly tailored dress uniform... Someone deserved credit for that...

She beamed at him. "Please do. I'll have more time for her tomorrow." With that she handed the box with the ... Sintok, was it? ... to the green lion pilot. Kitten from hell gone, Count still there.

"Count T'umal would it be possible for one of your servants to give me more information on the care for these?" Pidge had turned towards the Epsilan. "I am sure that her Ladyship would like to enjoy the little one's company for as long as possible."

"Of course." The Count now focused his attention on the lion pilot. "I will introduce you to Aw'Nika. She knows all there is to know about Sintoks." T'umal turned back to Larmina and gave her a slight bow. "I am pleased that you like your present and wish you a wonderful evening."

The red-head returned the pleasantries and went on to open her next present. Larmina had never been this happy to receive a lavishly crafted hairbrush.

-0-

The next day Larmina had for once been allowed to sleep in. Last night had been long and tiring. After a good meal she went to speak to her aunt about what to do with some of her new possessions. She had no need for seventy-two bottles of perfume and that extremely valuable plant? With her nonexistent green thumb the poor thing would be dead within a week.

"Those were gifts Larmina. You need to appreciate them."

"I do, Allura, I really really do appreciate the gifts I got yesterday but what am I supposed to do with seventy-two bottles of perfume. I don't even use any."

"Keep them." Her aunt smiled. "You never know when you need a good perfume."

That had her groaning. So much for getting rid of that part of the birthday-loot. "What of that plant? It's rare and very valuable, you said so yourself last night. Wouldn't it be a shame if I killed it in a week's time?" Please, please, please...

For a few moments her aunt looked contemplative, then she sighed. "All right, Larmina you win this one. After you murdered those cacti, it would be irresponsible of me to make you care for that ridiculously rare plant."

Larmina fist pumped, celebrating her success mostly silent. "But you are going to keep the jewellery." Her shoulders slumped. "Do I have to?" The look her aunt threw her told her everything.

"Fighting over what to do with your loot Larmina?" Lance strolled into the room, Hunk, Keith, Vince and Daniel behind him.

She gave him a scowl. "What of it? I don't need all that stuff. Most of it is too girly for me anyway. And where did you leave Pidge?"

"Oh, I'm right here." Came the short man's voice from where he entered the room from the other side, a box in his hands. "I needed to pick someone up."

"Who would you need to pick..." before she could finish her sentence a quiet, high screeching sound reached her ears. "Oh, no." She ran her right hand over her hair. "I completely forgot about that thing."

"What is that anyway? I never got a good look at it, Pidge was too quick to remove it from the ballroom." The red lion pilot mused and stepped closer once Pidge set the box with the Sintok down on the table.

The rest of the Force, too, took a closer look at Larmina's new pet. "I don't know guys, that thing kind of reminds me of my mother." Daniel stated while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"How so?" Vince enquired, beside him Lance already had a knowing look in his eyes.

"Like I said: I don't know exactly." That was when the tiny thing gave another shrill screech. "Correction: I know now." He rubbed one of his ears. Lance's eyes narrowed. "It's that thing's voice: my mother sounds just like that."

"And I think that if you believe that your mother sounds like this." The red-headed pilot told the teen strictly. "Then perhaps it is time that you had a good long talk with her again. I spoke to your mother, remember? And she sounded nothing like the fur ball over here."

"Oh, come one Lance, it was just a little joke. I didn't mean it." Daniel tried to placate. To no avail.

"I'll tell her you want to call her to have a good long mother-son talk. I'm reasonably sure she will want to make time for that. I'll tell you when you get to call her."

"Snart."

Keith's look of Disapproval™ was gifted to him along with Vince's frown. The dark-skinned teen would never talk about his mother like this.

"So again: What is that?" Lance pointed at the black animal.

"The Epsilan call this a Sintok. They are about as popular with their people as cats are with the people on earth. They also pretty much have the same job that cats do: pest-control. I won't go into too much detail but from what Aw'Nika told me they are the Epsilan version of a housecat. They are a little bigger but they behave about the same." Pidge explained readily.

"So in other words, the Count thought Larmina could use a kitten?" Hunk spoke up for the first time since entering the room. "Well, I think you'll have to listen to music at a lower volume now Mina."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no." She protested. "Nothing is going to move in on how loud I listen to my music. Especially not something I never wanted in the first place. Aunt Allura that thing has to go."

"It was a present Larmina."

"Oh, and you kept the Toller-pigs the Duke of Dawnford gifted you with on your last birthday?" Larmina responded heatedly.

"It's not the same Larmina. The pigs stank and were ... visually unappealing. Furthermore they are way happier with the farmer I tasked with their care. The Sintok is..." "Don't you dare say it's cute! Have you taken a good look at it? It has six eyes, Allura, six. And they are the most unreal shade of green I've ever seen." She interrupted her aunt.

"I have to agree with Larmina here Allura, that thing is kind of ugly." Lance threw in calmly and the others murmured their agreement to his statement, successfully stopping the argument from getting worse. Larmina was simply happy to have the backing of the team on this one.

"I think it's cute." Pidge decided to go against the rest of the team. The red-headed cadet just hoped it was because he was feeling like being contrary – rare as it was Pidge had his days – and not because he actually thought the little six-eyed screecher was cute. Larmina was kind of afraid what that would mean for the man's choice in partners.

"You know, in a creepy, hideous sort of way. Like you Lance." Ok. She had not been expecting that. It was one of those days for the green lion pilot, wasn't it? She sighed, already dreading the rest of the day. Pidge was going to drive them all up the wall today.

"Well, if Larmina doesn't want it and Pidge thinks it's cute I don't see why she shouldn't give the kitten to him." Keith finally joined the conversation, most likely due to having read the signs as well and wanting to stall what was inevitably going to happen today for as long as possible.

Allura hastily agreed to Keith's suggestion. Larmina didn't care if it was because she wanted Pidge occupied for as much of the day as possible or because it was Keith who proposed it, as long as she didn't have to care for the screeching thing.

-0-

Several weeks later the Sintok, now named Miwa, seemed to have had some kind of therapeutic effect on the Baltan. Larmina couldn't really explain it but Pidge was a bit different, a good different. The other adults seemed to agree with her on that.
She on the other hand still had work to do: summer was approaching and she still had to find a way to get rid of Nanny's pink nightmare and the universe's ugliest sunhat.

And done. I hope you liked it.
Your thoughts are always welcome.

BlueNightOwl out.