The Witch

The cloud of inky blackness slowly dissolved away on the wind to reveal swirls of white. The blue cat yelled out a protesting whine, its small paws no match for the fluffy fresh white powder of snow. It began to bound like a rabbit off towards the coffin laying mostly wedged under a snow drift a few hundred feet away. The witch pulled her robes in tightly around her and began to pick her way through the white flakes floating on the air. She squinted at the brightens as she took in the icy splendor of the northern lands of Arus. Towering ices spires shot up through the ice pack all around her, looking much like sculpted ice sentinels, generations of melts and freezes carving them into frost monoliths.

It was in one word, beautiful. The witch grimaced and pulled her robe in tighter. Arus in all things was a place of beauty, its lands, its people, its princess. It reminded her much of places she did not want to remember, of memories of a former life willed to be forgotten, the sooner she could get off this planet and quiet those thoughts the better. She staggered a bit, not so much from the cold or from the soft footing, but from the total exhaustion slowly creeping up on her.

She pushed on, knowing she needed to be resting soon. It had been unwise to come on such a fool's mission to tax her energies so drastically on such a powerful spell. Her lips curled into a cruel smile, oh but to have it backfire on the Prince in any number of glorious ways was just too much of a temptation to resist. The Prince was a spoiled deluded fool, he would have been turned into roabeast lunch long ago if she had her way. He was too much like his father… foolish, short sighted, led by passion over logic, and unaware and worse uncaring of the great costs of their frivolous decisions. Her pace was slowing, now cursing at herself, the cost of this fool's errand and her pride in an opportunity to scorn the prince had gotten the better of her. The coffin was closer now. Just a bit more and she could rest. She made it to the distortion field stone she had set when she landed in the desolate frozen lands of the north. Touching it with her bony hand she pulled forth all the energy she could from it, knowing it was foolish to expose her hidden ship, but also knowing the chances of surviving the trip back to doom, completely drained was far worse of a risk.

The last wisps of energy dancing over her skin the stone faded and with that the snow that was swirling all about dissipated as well as the unseen layer of energy that was bending around the landing site. A quiet fell, a deathly silence, she froze, feeing it before hearing it. The unmistakable sound of the engines of a flying beast. She snarled and spun to see a fast approaching flash of glimmering metal, the sun rays reflecting off it, blinding her sight. She reached into her robe and pulled out a small pebble. "Fear's illusion, illusions might, dream's horror come to life!" She tossed the pebble at one of the tall ice outcroppings where it exploded.

The giant pillar began to creak and groan shattering into something that neither was ice nor beast, but a grotesque combination of the two. It let out an earthshaking roar as ice breath shot forth from its crudely shaped maw. Hagar cackled with satisfaction as the Lion changed course to the creature of dreams letting loose a volley of missiles sending a shower of snow and ice shards into the air.

She couldn't help but to pause and admire the spectacle of it all, her knowing eyes then focusing to see through the illusion that the Lion could not. She watched whimsically as the lion danced around the ice pillar sending volley after volley into the ice. Weak and drunk on her own power she cackled with glee remembering what she had done and the disarray soon to unfold in the Castle of Lions. "Seed's desire passions need, What is her passion? What is her need?" She cackled wildly as her mind ran through all the possible outcomes, none of which involved the Prince of Doom. Her mind landed on one image and she purred at the thought of Allura curled up on her bed longingly admiring her mangy space mice with pathetic devotion. The increasing onslaught of ice shards pelting her body snapped her from her inebriated state. She pulled her cloak around her to shield her from it and turned away, a wave of exhaustion taking her, she dizzily focused on the coffin that lay just a short distance away and made haste to it, cursing herself for her own foolishness.

Almost to the coffin the blue cat who was perched on its lid suddenly arched its back with a vicious hiss. Hagar's head spun to face the hot roar of the Red lion. With a pure instinctive reaction she managed to levitate just out of range as a blast of fire ripped through the snow and over the coffin. The curdling scream of a tortured blue cat bringing forth her last reserves of energy, she raised her staff above her and pushed back with an energy blast that tapped her last magical reserves completely, the now liquefied snow bursting back at the lion and pushing it back with it, the cold water freezing on its cold metal skin. The lion froze in place as she dropped heavily from the sky landing in a heap of cloth and and tumbled her way into the blackened coffin, pulling in the singed and now whiskerless cat with her. She reached up a shaky arm and keyed in the launch sequence to send her back to doom and then fell unconscious within it.

"Fuck Fuck Fuck!" Lance growled as he tried redirecting the power of his frozen Lion again. "Common baby, you can do it. Let's see some of that heat!" He glanced up to see the flash of the doom coffin launching off into space. "Shit!" The earth beneath him suddenly shook as a sonic boom cracked over his head as the Black rocketed over his him and then shot straight up after the coffin. Glancing back down Lance saw the red light flashing on his com that he had muted when is radio had gone out from interference to kill the racket of static. He flipped it back on. "Keith! Get that bitch!"

"Lance!" Keith's relieved but obviously feeling the g-force strained voice rung into Lance's cockpit. "Ughh… don't think… I can make it before… shit!"

Lance looked down to his radar to now only see the blip of the Black, the coffin's blip nowhere to be seen. He slammed his fist down on the control panel.

"She jumped." Keith grumbled.

Coran's voice rang in. "Yes, whatever dampening shield she was using is gone now, I can easily track her from satellite. The ship is now well out of our reach, you would be in Doom space before you could catch up with it. Stand down."

Keith called back as he yoked his Lion around to make a slow atmospheric re-entry. "Allura, Pidge, when you get there I want a full sweep of the area just in case she left us any more surprises."

"On it. We are in the air now." Allura called. "Ten minutes out."

"Ughh I can't believe the wrinkled wart got away from me." Lance's lion began to shift as its core temperature started coming back up, melting out the ice from its joints. "Princess are you okay? She was muttering something about She and a seed, I can only assume she meant you."

"Yes, there was a spell aimed at me but…" Allura's voice cut off overcome with emotion.

Keith answered for her. "Her spell hit Hunk and Nanny, we don't know the damage yet."

Lance took a deep breath. "Dang witch tricked me, some illusion, by the time I figured it out… ughhhh." Lance slumped in his seat and fisted his hands. "If I had figured it out thirty seconds earlier and I would have had her! Thirty godamn seconds!"

"Lance." Keith's voice took on a serious tone. "I need you to remember everything she said, what did she say about the spell?"

Lance leaned forward resting his helmeted head in his hand as he keyed is flight recorder to playback but it was mostly noise and static. "Recording's no good, too much magical interference. I'm sure it was something about a seed? Ughh, or was it need?"

Pidge's voice rang in. "I'll see what I can get off the recorders when we get back, with some passes through the image and audio recovery software I may be able to get more data."

"Sounds good, I was so focused on the fight I didn't register all she said." Lance's lion began to walk, slowly at first and then at full speed, once he was sure all was back to normal he leapt it into the air to joined Allura and Pidge doing sweeping scan passes.

The team regrouped in a large circle as the Black Lion landed from its reentry pattern on the snow in the middle of them, touching down with catlike grace, and stooping into a low crouch. It's hot metal skin turning the snow around in into instant steam sending up an ethereal cloud of mist all around it. It almost appeared to shake as a reaction to it.

Lance watched from his cockpit in awe of the sight, he had never seen any of the lions move so, well, lion-like before, the mist of steam just accentuating the image, softening the metal form so it was half visible half in silhouette. "Keith?"

"Go ahead Lance."

Lance shook his head, must be the snow, and maybe a bit of that illusion spell was still hanging on. He focused his mind back on task. "Scans didn't turn up anything. From the heat the coffin was given off when I found it she couldn't have been here long."

Keith nodded over the screen to Lance. "Let's hope that that spell, whatever it was, was the only reason why she was here. Coran I want to include this area as well as the picnic area in the air patrol's regular route in case we have missed something."

"Agreed Commander. I will see to it now." Coran nodded to them over the screens. "As for now you should return to the castle immediately. I want you and her royal highness fully checked out. I don't what to take any chances where Doom and that witch is concerned."

Keith swallowed then nodded. "Understood Coran, Keith out."

Lance watched the wave of discomfort wash over Keith with amusement, knowing Keith's love for medical procedures but his mind soon wandered to his friend, Hunk, who he really wanted to see with his own eyes right now. "Come on, Hunk is waiting for us!"

"Alright team, back to the castle." Keith agreed as the Black Lion let out a roar and then sprung effortlessly from the ground.

Lance rolled back in his seat as he watched it go. And maybe I'll get my head checked out too. He launched his lion into the air with the rest of the team flying in a tight formation together, then as if on an unspoken cue splitting off to each find its den.

Coran sat atop the control platform as the pilots started emerging from the shoots beneath it. "It is good to have you home." He acknowledged the four pilots once they all arrived and the platform slowly descended. He stepped off it to walk up to them as they fell in at attention in front of him. "Hunk and Nanny are in the medical bay, they are stable but there has been no change in their condition." He scanned their worried faces. "I have summoned a spiritualist to see if she can gleam anything from the residue of the spell." His eyes fell on the Princess now clad in her trademark pink flight suit as none had bothered to take the time to change. He walked up to her to place his hands on her shoulders. "Are you alright, your Highness?"

Allura met his concerned eyes and nodded. "I'm fine, the spell missed." She turned to look at Keith standing at attention beside her. "Thank you Keith."

Keith blinked then looked over to her with a soft smile. He nodded at her and then turned to Coran. "Sir, we would all like to see them now if possible. Pidge will then start analyzing the Red's fight recording chip to see if any data can be recovered that would give us any more information."

Coran nodded and then gestured to the door. "Go on."

The four pilots took off at a run to the medical bay. Coran sighed and then started walking after them. Having a team that was as close as a family was truly a blessing, but then at times like these, watching them worry for each other as if they were siblings was agony for him. He worried for them all as if they were his own. In a way they all were, so young when they arrived here, and still in need of a father figure in their lives, he easily and willingly slid into that roll for the young men. As their surrogate father he could not be prouder of the men they had all grown into, not that he could take credit for it, they were all upstanding young men when they had arrived, so young and yet dedicated their whole lives to a planet and its people they had just met. He reached the medical bay and walked into the ward where Nanny and Hunk lay in a deep magical sleep. Keith, Lance and Pidge huddled around Hunk's bedside, Allura sitting on Nanny's bed holding the woman's hand. He closed his eyes, Ancestors, please help us.

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(( Notes on this chapter: As you may have noticed, I am enjoying taking some time exploring each character to see a little bit into who they are and why the behave as they do…explore those who in the show were just stereotypes and flesh them into more dimension. Thought for this encounter it would be fun to see the world from Haggar's eyes. I wanted to give her magic a serious cost, a reason why she just didn't use her powerful spells all the time and the show end at episode 1 'Space explorers captured and turned into Robeasts.'

I will be visiting the minds of more rarely explored characters as the fiction evolves, including some Doom favorites, as well as when the plot thickens… *drum roll*… the Explorer's team ;) ))