As a general rule, Alfor liked to test his new inventions as soon as possible. That had, admittedly, caused a number of problems in his life, but he still held to the idea that the sooner he found the bugs, the sooner he could fix them.

That was why he was going out to test his new (and hopefully improved) teludav model against both Coran and Fala's advice. If it worked it would, first of all, be something he could maybe install in the Lions, and, second of all, make travel a lot easier in general. Only the largest ships had teludavs, after all. Something that could be fitted to a small pod like this would be incredibly useful.

"Alfor, this isn't the same as one of you little, generally harmless normal inventions," said Fala worriedly. "What if this blows up your pod or something?"

"Relax, my love!" he said brightly. "It won't blow up the ship. I'll be back in time for dinner."

"Alfor, I really don't think you should risk this," said Coran. "Let me run the numbers again. Give it a movement and look again."

Alfor was already climbing into the cockpit of the pod.

"It's going to be fine," said Alfor. That didn't make them look any less worried. Alfor leaned out to kiss his wife's cheek, then Allura's forehead. "Be good for your mother, little one, I'll be back very soon."

Allura giggled and waved to him as he sat down and closed the cockpit. Coran was still scowling at him, and Fala held tighter to Allura as they both backed away from the pod.

Alfor powered up the pod and took off. He waited until he was a bit away from Altea to power up the teludav, just in case it did somehow backfire horribly (which he didn't think it would, but he couldn't be too careful).

"Alright," he said to himself. "Let's just use the coordinates for the other side of Daibazaal. Far enough to test this, not too far to get home if everything powers down."

And he was talking himself. He'd gotten used to chatting with the Lions as he worked on them; they were strange and sentient and wonderful in their own way. This pod was not, and it could not speak to him, but that didn't mean he wouldn't end up speaking to it.

He readied the teludav and focused power into it. He was decent at teludav travel; as one of the lucky Alteans who had the magic (though he would argue fervently against such a word, it was merely quintessence, merely science) to power the teludav, he'd had lessons from a young age.

The wormhole appeared before him. He grinned. At least that much worked.

He piloted the pod into the wormhole. It felt – more unstable than usual, which wasn't a good sign, but it could have been worse. Alfor kept an eye on the pod's power as he travelled through. Losing power in the middle of a wormhole would be very bad.

The constellations were familiar as he exited the wormhole. His coordinates read the other side of Daibazaal, where he meant to end up, but his power was already starting to sputter and die. Alfor sighed and glanced back at the Galran home-world.

He froze.

"By the Ancients," he whispered.

Daibazaal – or, what had been Daibazaal – was utterly decimated. It was certainly still the planet, but a chunk had been blown apart at the centre, leaving the whole thing looking like an empty, broken shell.

This was not recent.

He should have heard about this.

Why hadn't he heard about this?

The pod was almost completely powered down; he still had oxygen control, and some communications, but no way to fly. Alfor numbly turned on his distress beacon, unable to turn away from the ruins of Daibazaal.

What had happened? Why wouldn't Zarkon notify him?

Unless–

No. That was a bad thought process to follow. Surely Zarkon and Honerva were fine.

With shaking hands he typed in the hailing address of the Castle. When nobody answered, he furrowed his brow and tried again. Then again.

"Coran, Fala, this isn't like you," he murmured to himself, trying once more. Once again, no response.

He gave up on that and instead tried calling Blaytz. This, too, received no response the first three times he tried, and he moved on to Trigel after that. When this failed too, he tried Gyrgan, only to be met with more failure.

"Okay," he said aloud. "So. Maybe communications are not working, after all. That is alright. Someone will pick up my distress beacon soon. Probably Coran. I expect he is on high alert right now."

So he waited and tried to ignore the destroyed Daibazaal behind him. It was no longer than a couple of vargas before anyone showed up, and his pod still hadn't powered back up. To his surprise and relief, it seemed to be a Galran vessel. It activated a tractor beam to pull him inside.

He exited his pod and turned around to see soldiers staring at him. He blinked and waved awkwardly. A tall, glowering Galran pushed his way through the soldiers. He looked mildly surprised.

"An Altean," he said.

"Yes," said Alfor. "An Altean. That's me."

The Galran stalked forward and narrowed his eyes, before a sinister-looking smile crossed his features. "Oh, Emperor Zarkon will want to see you."

Zarkon. That was good. That meant Zarkon was alive, okay. Alfor was about to respond, but the Galran wasn't done.

"Knock him out," he said, and Alfor stiffened in alarm. "We don't want the little Altean to fight."

"Wait-" Alfor started to say – too late. Something hard made contact with the back of his head, and the world went dark.

A/N: Hey guys! I know, I know, I shouldn't have started a new fic. I wasn't even going to post it here, but I decided I might as well. This idea just won't leave me alone.

So some background info for this fic and AU:
Alfor is about twenty-seven years/deca-phoebs old. Yes, I made a little timeline of his life for my other story. So for this, he has built Voltron, but they haven't fought the creatures yet. Allura is like three when he pulls this stunt. After Alfor's disappearance, he is eventually declared dead and Fala reigns until Allura is old enough. She ends up taking his place as the Red Paladin, and the whole downhill slope thing still happens. Daibazaal and Altea are both destroyed, Coran and Allura are sealed in cryopods Ten thousand years later, guess who pops up and gets taken prisoner by the Galra?

Anyway, yeah. After thinking of the fic, I kinda just had to write it. So it is here! I hope you guys enjoyed, and I will go work on Light Years from Home now. XDD Updates will be just as sporadic here as with my others. Love you all!