"May I come in?"

Blinking in surprise at Lotor's words, she reluctantly nodded her head but watched him as carefully as if he'd had a knife hidden behind his back as he entered her bedroom. He stood just a few feet away from her, even as she awkwardly pointed to a spare chair in the room that she was attempting to offer to him as a seat.

Politely declining the offer with a simple shake of his head, he cleared his throat. "Princess."

Raising a single hand in front of her as she stopped Lotor in his tracks, she gave a soft shake of her head. "It would feel most awkward if I kept referring to you as Lotor, yet you refer to me with my title. Please, just call me Allura, as all the other Paladins do."

Though her smile was warm; an attempt to be friendly despite their past interactions with one another, it did little to ease the tension that was apparent in both of their shoulders.

She coughed, lifting a fist to her mouth, she repeated the same action with a sheepish look upon her face as if she was too afraid to ask why Lotor was standing in her room.

"I came because I wanted to simply talk."

"Talk?" The word fumbled from her lips as if Allura had just heard it for the first time in her life. Her brows were pinched together, eyes icy pools of water that reflected Lotor's face back to him.

"Yes, talk," Lotor repeated himself, much to the consternation of Allura who simply continued to stare at him.

"About…?" She trailed off, her eyes flickering to her bedroom door as if she was considering either kicking Lotor out or running out the door herself.

"How you've suffered because of what...the Galra Empire has done to you personally."

Those icy pools of water only seemed to grow colder as Allura fixed him with a stare that was equal parts distrust and uncomfortableness to the topic that had the mice perched on her shoulders arch their backs at the topic as if it personally offended them as well. Reaching up, she ran a single finger along the spine of the yellow one. It seemed to calm down as it relaxed under her minute gesture as Allura scratched at its head with a single finger. "Forgive me if I seem rather...uneasy around this topic, Lotor. But this isn't something that either of us has brought up in our battles against each other. So forgive me for being impolite when I ask what your aim is behind asking me such a question?"

"I have no ulterior motives to it, Allura." Sighing softly through his nose, Lotor debated whether even attempting to converse with her at this moment was even an acceptable usage of his time. "Everything I do is because I want to learn about the suffering and pain that the empire—my empire—has left upon planets, cultures, and entire races that we have oppressed and exploited for our own selfish and exploitative desires."

Drawing in a single sharp breath, the tension in Allura's brows never relaxed even in the slightest. The distrust in her eyes was like a stagnant pool of water; it didn't take an intellectual to see that Allura still distrusted Lotor. He doubted she would ever trust him, in her eyes he was the son of Zarkon. A dark mark that was already cast upon him the moment he came into the world. Even if some time passed and she came to give him some degree of trust, there would always be that little nagging voice in the back of her head that would remind her of who his parentage was and he felt like nothing he would do would ever dissuade that little nagging voice in the back of her mind.

There was a subtle shift in his facial expression. Slight enough that one wouldn't notice it, but in his own mind Lotor was beginning to question whether taking Lance's idea was even a good thing; how it might have been better to ignore his advice after all.

Allura raised a brow a singular brow however, as if she picked up the subtle change in Lotor's behavior. She cocked her head to the side.

"Forgive me, for wasting your time, Allura, but maybe it's best that we don't have this conversation." Lotor attempted to make his way to her bedroom door, in an effort to leave, but Allura called out to him to wait.

"Did Lance put you up to this?" That single question had Lotor turning on his heels to face her; her distrust of him was still apparent on her face, but there was another unreadable emotion just layered beneath it. "I don't exactly know just what it was you did to him when you had him captive, but he—he doesn't distrust you as much as the others do."

"Why would it matter if he had a hand in why I chose to pay you a visit, unarmed and without a single weapon on my person?"

She looked taken aback by Lotor's words. There was something cold and shriveling in her eyes, like a spider web of cracks that raced across the murky surface of the ice. You didn't know what was beneath it, whether there was frigid water below your feet or a predator lying in wait. "Because he's not the same. Not anymore." There was a harsh edge to the whisper that left her lips as she glared at him.

"He's hardly going to ever be the same. Lance changed the moment he was whisked away from the Earth and dragged into the midst of a war that my father may have started, but yours continued."

Taking in a hissing breath, Allura quickly rose to her feet, causing the mice on her shoulders to squeak in annoyance before hopping off of her shoulders and down to the dresser below. With a single finger, she pointed it in Lotor's direction. Her eyes narrowed as fury burned dangerously in them. "A war that my father continued!? My father was trying to put an end to Zarkon's reign of terror before he was cruelly murdered."

There it was. That same naive, idealistic side of Allura that nearly drove Lotor mad with frustration. She would never view her father as some man who was capable of terrible actions just as much as Zarkon or any other Galra was capable of committing good ones. To many Zarkon would always be seen as an oppressive, dictator, but Lotor knew many Galra who viewed Zarkon as a benevolent saint. His methods may not have been just, but they were necessary in their eyes to bring about a prosperous future for their race who had just lost their planet, eons of culture, and history with a single blast of energy. Lotor knew his mother's notes as much as he knew his own memories. He could recall words written down in her diaries of times before Altea had aligned itself with other planets and planetary trade. A time when Altea had been what the Galra were now. A time when Altea had been militaristic, a time when planets had run red with blood all in the name of peace that Altean leader's had so heartily preached for. It drove him mad as the corner of his lip turned upward into a snarl. "Just because your father was king, Allura. Doesn't mean that he wasn't incapable of making decisions that even now you wouldn't agree with; that even now paled in comparison to the worst things that you have seen the Galra capable of doing. Sometimes even the most righteous of kings wet their hands with blood and become monsters."

"You have no right to besmirch my father's name like that." She hissed, her fingers curling inward to the palm of her hands, her entire body shaking as if she was ready to leap across the small distance that separated her from Lotor and strike him.

Eyes narrowing, he simply whispered back. "I have every right to criticize the late King Alfor, Allura. I lived and watched the tolls the action of your father had upon my people. You didn't. You slept for 10,000 years in a cryopod; you were shielded, coddled away from the actions that your father committed—"

"Be quiet," Allura whispered. Her eyes darkening until they resembled turbulent storm clouds.

"Face it, Allura," Lotor continued, his voice rising slightly as he gestured at her. "You're a naive, idealist. More afraid about confronting whatever atrocities her people may have committed during war—"

"Quiet." There was a vulgarity in her tone that crept into the way she spoke to him. Never in a million years would she have allowed herself to speak to another without some decorum to her words. But it seemed that anger made her tongue looser and her words harsher.

"—more afraid of discovering that her father wasn't some perfect saint that she built up inside of her mind—"

"Quiet!" Allura roared, her words bouncing off the walls of the room as Lotor clamped his lips shut. His eyes flickered over her slightly reddened face as he took in her anger, her fury, that swirled inside of her as he pictured a chess board in which he had wiped away all of her pieces and left a single solitary king upon the board that belonged to him.

Coran was stubborn and it took all that it had from Lotor to drag everything out of the old Altean before Coran spilled all of his emotional sorrows and fears into his lap. Lotor guessed that Allura would simply be the same way and now where he stood, facing a red-faced princess who looked more ready to punch him than spill the unshed tears that prickled at the corner of her eyes, he knew that he'd had pushed her right where he wanted her to be.

"You don't know what I'm afraid of," Allura whispered harshly.

Striding across the room, until he was standing mere inches away from her, Lotor peered down at her face and spoke so lowly that no other would be able to hear them, even if they craned their necks to try. "Then what are you afraid of? If not for the truth?"

Allura let out a guttural yell of frustration as she lashed out, with enough force that she could muster, she pushed Lotor away from her. "I'm afraid of forgetting who I am!" Lotor raised his brow at her words as her hands dropped to her sides, her shoulder slightly sagging at her sudden admission. "I'm afraid I've already forgotten things I held so dearly to my heart." Reaching up, she buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders slightly shaking as she pulled in halting breaths to try and steady her emotions. Moments seemed to pass before she pulled her hands away from her face. Her head was still bowed, allowing Lotor no glimpse of her features. "Do you know how painful it is to be one of the last only two Altean's to exist? My home is gone. My people are gone. Years of Altean culture and history wiped away from the universe in a matter of moments. My parents—" she trailed off, the mention of her parents seemingly too overwhelming for her to talk about as she gave a small, sad shake of her head. "There are times I wake up at night. In a cold sweat, because I can no longer remember how my own mother smelt or how my father's eyes would crinkle whenever he told me an old, sappy joke from his boyhood."

She lifted her head, allowing Lotor to see that something had shifted inside of her. Instead of staring at a princess, a warrior, who had experience battling on the front lines, forging alliances and treaties of peace. He felt that he was staring at a frightened, little girl, who was more used to hiding behind her mother's skirts with a doll clutched tightly in her hand instead of a strong, wizened leader that Allura projected herself as. Without a single word, Allura made her way over to her dresser and took a seat on its bench. Her mice scuttled close to the crook of her elbow, bumping at her limb with their noses which caused a wonton smile to spread across her face as she turned slightly to scratch behind their ears as she attempted to placate them.

"You worry about him," Lotor remained still where he stood. As he felt he understood the princess more now than he had mere moments ago. Images of his own generals flashing in his mind. "You worry about Coran. The Paladins. Your own memories and past. You worry about it all and yet—" he trailed off, letting the silence eat his words as Allura laughed bitterly at his ability to see through everything.

"I worry, so much," the bitterness made her voice raw and scratchy. "I've prepared all my life to eventually ascend to the throne. To lead my people when my father became too old to do so. But I am nothing like him." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she turned her head to stare at Lotor as she said this. "I may not know everything he ever did during the war, but I'm not prepared to lead. I'm not prepared to lead anyone, not my fellow Paladins, not this Coalition. I don't even think I was prepared to lead my own people. Instead, I feel like I'm just that scared little girl again; that scared, frightened, little girl who watched her father place her into a cryopod as Altea came under attack." She drew in a shuddering breath as she reached up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "Everything felt so different when I stepped out of that cryopod. To know that the entire universe changed with a single war, to know that there were people who had been hurt and abused by an entire race of people—"

"It was never an entire race," Lotor cut her off, an annoyed edge apparent in his words.

"—I know," Allura nodded. "But I think my hatred, my anger, my confusion, my own hubris led me to paint everyone the same with a single brush stroke. I knew that all Galra weren't bad. I was raised amongst them, were friends with many of them, treated them like the siblings I never had. But that fear that I felt, to learn that the same people I had considered friends and family had readily turned their weapons against me and my people, it simply pushed all the good that I knew the Galra to be capable of. The good that I had witnessed myself to the back of my mind. So now, every single Galra that crosses my path, I can't help but feel a glimmer of irrational fear everytime a Galra crosses my path. It's a fear that I'm trying to overcome, but—" her gaze flickered to Lotor, a glimmer of an apologetic look burning in her eyes. "—I know I have a tendency to be naive; to be idealistic, but it's all I know. I will admit that I felt uneasy around you—I still do—but fighting alongside you, Keith, and the Blade of Marmora has me recognizing that my volatile words and actions can truly leave the same wounds in others that I sought desperately to repair in myself."

Lotor simply raised his brow at Allura's admission that one of her own Paladins had Galra blood inside of him. He filed that information away for later use as Allura reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She chuckled wistfully as a forlorn smile tugged at the corner of her lip. "And Lance was trying to get me to see the good sides of you too." Lifting her gaze, she stared straight at him as she spoke. There was a slight pause before her words as if she was fearful of even speaking them aloud, but did so anyway. "When Zarkon offered us that deal of trading you for Sam Holt, he was the only one to speak up on your behalf when all of us had already made up our minds." There was that forlorn smile again, painted across her features. "And I suppose I no longer deserve even a single word from him, not after everything that happened with Zarkon."

Observing her from head to toe, Lotor felt that he had a greater understanding of Allura now than he did mere moments ago. Then he had believed her to be a naive princess, who'd had the world handed to her, a silken cloth perpetually placed over her eyes that prevented her from realistically seeing a harsh, brutal world that Lotor had had to claw his way through—still had to claw his way through. Pain and terror had been his wet nurses from the moment he'd been born, but for Allura, it had been different. She grew up knowing love and affection when Lotor had been starved of it, so of course, their outlooks on life would be so wildly different. But it had only infuriated him to know that Allura, was nothing like he'd expected her to be. A sharp, wizened leader had been washed away and replaced with the image of a princess who was thrust into a role that was too big to be placed upon her shoulders. A princess who was prepared to lead her own people, not an entire coalition.

He'd expected anger and fury to be like companions on his shoulder when it came to her. But instead, all he felt was pity and empathy. To now know that she felt like she didn't deserve to be in Lance's good graces. To have one of her trusted Paladins refrain from talking to her because her judgment was clouded by years of distrust and hate…

He nearly surprised himself with the reassuring words that fell from his lips. "He doesn't feel the same way." Allura's eyes studied his face, her features slightly relaxing, but still equally puzzled. "Lance, that is." He clarified. "He's rightfully upset, but it would do the both of you no comfort to refrain from speaking to one another. You should seek him out, talk to him, and cast away whatever harsh feelings you have for one another. Even though Lance may not look like it, he's a great listener, with the ability to be empathetic as well."

A genuine smile graced her lips as she pressed a hand against the center of her chest and let out a warm chuckle that reminded Lotor of soft, tinkling bells. "I suppose that's true." She breathed in. "You know, Lance once called me the 'heart of Voltron' often times I can't help but think that he was wrong. That instead of me being the heart that keeps this team together, that it isn't him?" As quickly as the warm, jovial look flashed across her face it dissipated yet again. "But he's changed. We all have. I think that's what concerns me the most; the fact that Lance changed when he was held captive on your ship and refuses to talk about it. He never wants to talk about what he went through with Zorak—" Lotor winced, unable to help the unbidden memory that flashed in his mind of Lance's punctured, bleeding skin as he peeled away his undersuit to expose the torture that Zorak had put him through. "—and I think that makes me more concerned than anything else."

Surprise flickered across her face as Lotor crossed the few strides that separated them. Her mice eyed him warily, but for the most part, perched themselves behind her body as if it was a barricade that separated him from them. Reaching out, Lotor placed his hand upon Allura's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "When Lance is truly ready to tell his entire story, he'll come to you. He'll come to you all."