It was late, far too late. Allura was sure Nanny would chastise her if she knew, but the princess didn't care. Her pilots had given her a stack of books, extremely rare Terran books, and they included so many stories she had never heard before.
Nanny would know if she had her lights on for any reason not deemed 'appropriate,' so the princess had snuck candles to her room and was using them to read by. Many of the books were very old, some published hundreds of years previous, so using candles of all things to read them made it terribly romantic.
And terribly romantic were some of the stories inside! Most were novels, of dashing heroes and fainting damsels. Allura found a few silly, but others stuck out to her. One that was not romance was of a time when science and technology was still so new, and they used electricity-and only electricity- to reanimate a dead man! She had read it all, voracious to find out what happened next.
Picking up one of the thicker books, Allura heard a noise. Her heart felt like it stopped; the noise was in her room. She suddenly regretted only reading by candlelight. She glanced up, and saw nothing. She started to think she had imagined it… then she heard a scuffing noise on the other side of the room… near the window.
Allura picked up the candelabra and held it towards the sound. Light glinted off a pair of golden eyes and her heart sank. She continued to stare as she shakily set the candles back on the table without looking. When she grabbed the edge of her blanket so she could fling it off to run, she heard rushing towards her from the dark. She threw the book at where she thought the intruder might be, but heard it slam into the floor. When she went to scream, the wind was knocked out of her as she was pinned to her bed.
"Beast!" she managed to hiss.
Prince Lotor laughed, his breath tickling her nose. Something seemed off to her.
"Greetings, Allura! I decided to pop in and say hello. Why, what are you doing here in your magnificent technological lion castle, using candles of all things? Is your power cut off? Shall I assist you to restore it to your castle?"
Allura was unnerved by his jovial attitude and how talkative he was, especially when his hands had hers pinned to either side of her face. One of his knees was holding her legs sideways, trapping her under the blanket.
"Get off me, Lotor! If you don't leave this instant I will scream."
"Now that would be a shame, my sweet, I came all this way to see you," he said as he started nuzzling into her hair.
The princess realized what was off, even for him. He was drunk! With the speed and amount of his speaking, quite possibly very drunk. She was incredibly alarmed.
"Lotor, will you please get off of me." Allura decided to use a very diplomatic approach to a situation that somehow seemed more dangerous than usual. She had no idea what the prince was like intoxicated.
He hummed into her hair in response. She tried to remain as calm as possible while he ignored her request for a solid minute.
"Prince Lotor, plea-" she started, but he interrupted her.
"What were you even doing, Allura?" The softness in his voice at the question startled her.
"I… I was reading." She couldn't help but be a little snarky. "You do know what reading is..."
The way he laughed next to her ear was unexpected; it was a genuine one, nothing like she had ever heard from him before. Not a hint of malice or villainy.
"Yes, my sweet, I do know what reading is." He paused and pulled his face from her hair to look at her. "I don't read human books, is this a leisurely actively that is done when one should be asleep?"
The fact that the drules might not read for pleasure was not something she had ever considered. Meeting his eyes, she blinked at his confusion. Or was that sarcasm?
"Yes, it is. Perhaps…," she paused and reconsidered diplomacy with the prince once again. "Perhaps, Lotor, I could read some of a book to you. Maybe you will like it…?"
The prince's eyes widened, realization that she had offered to spend time with him, speaking to him in a manner that wasn't screaming and running away. After a moment of watching her for any suspicions, and seeing none, he narrowed his eyes and grinned.
"I would like that, Princess Allura."
She wasn't sure if she had made the right choice.
"Perhaps I could do that now. You'll need to get up, then." she forced a smile, hoping this would give her the freedom to move. Allura then realized she would have to make a choice; continue in this vein, or run for it. If she ran, she might damage his willingness to trust her words moving forward. It wouldn't be the first time she had used the tactic, it might be bad if she continued to be deceitful towards him...
He hummed and continued to watch her, clearly considering his options. His eyes flashed.
"I could… or I could just kiss you, my sweet," he said and moved a little closer. The smell of the wine on his breath was very obvious to her now.
She frowned dangerously at him, and it actually caused his grin to fade.
"If you do that," she spat out, "then there will be no reading and I will be sure to kick and scream until you are either taken to my dungeon in chains or run off my planet by Keith and Black Lion." His expression had darkened as she had continued to speak.
"Well, we don't want that, now do we?" he said to her with some bitterness.
"No, we don't want that, so unhand me." Allura realized she was being a bit forceful, but felt it would work with him at the moment. When he complied, she instantly was sitting up, backing away from him a bit.
Lotor stood and disappeared away from the candle's light, moving in the direction of the book she had flung at him earlier. He returned, materializing out of the darkness, and handed it to her.
"You can.. see in the dark?"
"Yes, drules have excellent eyesight. You never wondered why we don't care that we have such darkened hallways and ships?"
She shook her head, and he sat back down. He turned, and was fiddling with his boots. She was confused until she realized he was taking them off. After a moment he turned back, lifted his legs, and readjusted himself to be sitting cross legged and facing her… on her bed.
Allura stared at him. This was too normal for him, too… human. She was mildly concerned that this would become too comfortable and it would cause something bad to happen. She tried to ignore the feeling.
"What sort of story did you want to hear about? I have many genres…."
"What about the one you threw at me?"
Allura looked back at it. Lance had told her it was a much praised social commentary; the struggles of an olden terran society where women were unable to live how they wished, of judging someone harshly before knowing anything about them or their motivations, and of learning to allow oneself to freely fall in love. Reading this book to Lotor felt incredibly awkward. She hadn't even read it herself!
Making a cautious glance over the top of the book at the prince sitting on her bed, she made eye contact with him and blushed furiously. He grinned
"I want that one. Let's read that one, Allura." His eyes were glinting, and she couldn't be sure if it was amusement or the low lighting.
She swallowed and leaned back into her pillows against her headboard. "I suppose…."
Opening the book and setting it in her lap, she read the first sentence to herself. She felt her stomach drop.
"Lotor, I think we should read something else. There's another one about sailing on oceans and pirates-" she started to say but he interrupted her.
"What's wrong with this one? Weren't you about to read it, anyway?"
"I just… don't think you would enjoy it, is all." She tried to appear as non sheepish as possible. This was clearly going to have intense romance and to read that with him was mortifying.
"Why?"
Allura cautioned a glance up at him. He seemed a little irritated, but curious. Without warning, he reached out and plucked the book out of her hands. Turning it to himself, he skimmed the first page. He looked like he was concentrating on something difficult before he turned the book back around and held it out in front of her.
"Let's read this one, Allura." He smirked at her, and she became aware of the fact he was going to be incredibly difficult in all of this, and she might as well give in to her fate.
"All right," she said, and looking down at the page, she took a deep breath before she began.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife…."