Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron or its original Japanese version Golion. Both are the property of their original creators and/or importers/dubbers. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

The Sindariin

Chapter Twenty:

The Emperor woke that morning by rolling off his sofa and falling face-first on the floor.

"Son of a bitch!" He swore as the feeling of falling punctuated by his nose breaking the fall shocked him to full wakefulness.

Groggily, Sincline climbed to his feet, feeling his nose to see if it was broken. It was not, not even bleeding. He glanced at the trays of datadiscs he'd been reading the previous night and was painfully reminded of last night's revelations. Too much. It was just too much for a person to take in at once, it almost felt unreal, like some sick horrible practical joke. He still wasn't sure if he believed it. Picking up his datapad from where it had fallen when he rolled off the couch, Sincline tossed it on the coffee table next to the discs. He would continue to study them, but later. Having the details of his mother's life described to him in disinterested medical jargon with explicit detail just wasn't something he'd like to do first thing in the morning.

Instead he walked through the bedroom to his bathroom to relieve himself. Stepping back out he glanced at the chronometer over his bed's headboard, noting that it was sixth hour. He might as well go ahead and start his day. Back into the bathroom for a shower he went.

After a shower and a shave the Emperor dressed in simple trousers with a plain shirt. He was not in the mood for anything grand today. In fact, he would have been perfectly content to spend the whole of his day barricaded in his chambers butt-naked, but sadly, such a luxury was not possible for him. Once he was dressed he again glanced at his chronometer and noted that it was now half past seventh hour. Should he wake Fala?

They needed to talk. He had behaved poorly the previous night. Their situation was delicate and needed to be handled with greater forethought and care, he had not used either last night and Fala was the one who suffered the most from it.

It was early, she would still be sleeping. He should let her sleep. She was pregnant now and needed her rest. But they also needed to talk. Sincline sat on the edge of his bed and debated this until it turned to eighth hour, then he decided it was late enough to try waking his slumbering bride.

Fala was lovely, he thought. Laying on her side facing window, her lips slightly parted, one arm resting under her pillow, the other thrown carelessly over the blankets. Sprawled over her bed she looked breath taking, a regular 'sleeping beauty'. Sincline felt the sudden urge to reach out and touch her. He brushed a single stray strand of golden hair out of her face and back behind her ear, stroking his hand down her cheek affectionately.

Fala fluttered to wakefulness at the touch.

…

Fala stood in the royal box overlooking the Arena. Below she beheld herself stripped bare and chained to a solid iron post in the center of the field. All around her monsters, villains and fiends pawed at her. Scratching, biting, gnawing, hacking, tearing, striking, beating.

From her perch in the royal box, the Empress watched Commander Sadak of the Black Army walk up to her Princess-self. The long dead Commander held her face in his massive clawed one and removed the bright red prosthetic eye from his face, a string of wires and tissues fallowing after it. These he wrapped around the Princess' head like a circlet before jabbing the artificial eye in her own. Empress Fala screamed from her balcony box but no sound passed her lips.

Honerva then stepped forward, weaving her way through the throng of vile creatures that continued to cleave her flesh from the bone. She grasped a locked of the Princess' long golden hair in shriveled and wrinkled old claw.

'Pretty… pretty…' She rasped before yanking the golden tresses hard enough to pull it from the root. Her main of flaxen hair was thrown to the ground and quickly trampled by the beasts that were slowly devouring her.

'Stop it!' The Empress shouted but still there was not sound in her voice. Her words fell mute upon her lips, never reaching the rout below.

Sincline then appeared on the field. Dressed in his black and blue price's raiment with the twin-axe battle helmet upon his head. The Empress had not seen him dressed like that since that cursed day upon the Angband, the day of his take-over. As much as she loathed the man, she was relieved by his appearance. He would stop this desecration of her.

The throng of beasts and villains did not part for their Prince, instead he was forced to weave his way through them as the others had. As he stood before her an evil smile spread over his deceptively fair features. She spoke but no sound was heard. He caressed the Princess' cheek with the back of his gloved hand, a soft and gentle action. Yet, where his hand passed her skin was broken and blood welled from it as if he'd cut her. He leaned in to kiss her lips and when he pulled away blood spilled from her mouth. The Prince continued a string of butterfly kisses down her chin and throat, then along her collarbone and everywhere his lips touched blood flowed freely.

'Stop it! Stop it, you're killing me!' The Empress once again roared from the royal box and this time the barest of whispers croaked from her lips. But it was not loud enough to reach the Sincline below.

'Did you say something, my darling?'

Fala turned to see her husband sitting in an ornately carved high-backed chair. He was not dressed in the blue and black uniform of the Sincline below, this Sincline wore a long black tunic with gold patterning on the collar, cuffs and hem, a blood-red cape was lazily thrown over his shoulder and atop his head rested the golden spiked crown of Galra.

The Empress fell on her knees at her husband's side. 'They're killing me, Sincline! You're killing me! Stop it! Please stop it!'

'Darling, these theatrics are hardly fitting for an Empress.' The Emperor replied, uncaring.

Fala sobbed, glass tears falling from her eyes and shattering on the stone floor. She rose back to her feet and glared down at the scene below. She was dead now, Princess Fala was dead now. Her innocents, her naïveté, her childish belief that good always triumphed… was dead. All that was left now was Fala ni Altea, Empress of the Galra Empire.

Another glass tear fell from her dry eyes and shattered on the balcony railing. Fala looked at the rail. She looked at the field below. She looked back at Sincline and smiled.

'What's in your head, dearest?' Her husband asked.

The Empress gathered up her skirts and climbed up onto the railing. She stood facing the Emperor with her back to the Arena and… relaxed.

Fala leaned back with a sigh as the stagnant air of the Arena began to rush past her ears. Her eyes were turned upwards at the eternally bleak cloud cover, a canopy of black and gray over a dead and dismal world. Something not quite dark drifted just behind, like a pale light behind a curtain of grey rain-clouds. But these clouds would give no rain. Her eyes focused on that small fragile light wishing she could fly up and catch it. She stretched out her arms at the light and it began to grow stronger, turning the veil to silver and quartz until it was rolled back and the bleak clouds gave way to a far green country below a bright and friendly noon sun. The Empress drifted down like a leaf caught in a breeze to land in a wide grassy meadow.

Sunshine was all around her and it warmed her heart as it warmed her face. Off in the distance was a castle, not a twisted black tower or a cold metal battle fortress but a castle of brick and stone –the old Castle Gradam. This was Altea, she was home. Fala stretched out on the grass with a contented sigh. Everything was suddenly right with the world again.

'Napping in the middle of the day, I see.' Said a voice that she had not heard in years and Fala opened her eyes with a startled flutter to behold her father sitting next to her.

'Father!' She sat up in a bolt and hugged him ardently.

'Whoa!' King Raimon gasped for breath. 'Whoa girl, I'm glad to see you too.'

Reluctantly, Fala released her hold on her father. 'I missed you so much! So much has happened!'

'I know.' He nodded gravely.

'I… I'm sorry I couldn't protect Altea.' Tears once again fell from her eyes, wet salty tears, not glass that shattered when it fell. 'I tried so hard. Everyone tried so hard. But in the end I… I wasn't strong enough! I let them capture me! I let him force me to marry him! I let him… let him…'

'Shhh…' Raimon soothed his distressed daughter, once again taking her in his arms in a comforting hug. He stroked her hair but offered no words instead allowing her to speak her peace.

'I hate my life. I wish this had never happened to me! It's not fair! My life's not fair!'

Raimon placed his hands on daughter's shoulders and forced her to look at him. 'No one is truly happy with the life fate deals them.' He said gently. 'Most people go through their lives content but that is all, content. Many others live their lives in misery, thinking they deserved more or better or just different. Very few are ever truly happy. Life it not an entirely joyous experience, but neither is it entirely sorrowful either. Good and ill exist in all things, my daughter; life is no different."

'I hate Sincline!' She cried suddenly. 'I hate him! I hate this fate I have been cursed with!'

'"Fate".' Raimon echoed thoughtfully. 'Fate, indeed. There is more than one power at work in this universe, my daughter. You would be with me and the rest of our kin now had he not saved you.'

'Saved me!'

Raimon nodded. 'Raible would have still surrendered had Sincline not taken control of the Empire. Altea would still be lost and the moment that happened, the moment you were no longer useful to him, Daibazaal would have killed you. Better to have you dead then under foot causing trouble. Though it may not be pleasant to hear, Sincline was meant to overthrow his father, and you were meant to marry him.'

Fala wrinkled her nose in displeasure.

'Don't make that face, my dear, its not lady-like.' Raimon laughed. 'Even the very wise cannot see all ends. I was meant to die under Galra's sword, you are meant to rule at its head. And let me tell you: that is an encouraging thought.' He reached over and stroked her cheek affectionately.

Fala fluttered to wakefulness at the touch.

Sincline stood over her; it was his hand she felt on her face. Startled, the Empress gasped and, acting purely on impulse, her hand flew up to smack him across the face. His soft features contorted in annoyance as he grabbed her wrist before she could withdraw it.

"Stop doing that!" He snarled. Fala tried to pull her wrist away but he held her firmly. "I have told you several times already."

"What are you doing here!" The Empress snarled back, sitting up in bed. She tired a second time to pull her hand out of his grip. "Let go!"

To her great alarm, instead of complying with her request and releasing her wrist, Sincline wrapped his free arm around her waist and scooted her over enough for him to sit on the bed next to her. "I did not come here to fight with you."

Fala's heartbeat raced in sudden panic at that announcement. Did he mean he had come looking for a little morning sex? Was he going to force himself on her? The Empress, not wanting to show any weakness before her husband then snarled, "What did you come here for?"

"I came to talk."

"That new." His wife scoffed.

Sincline suppressed the urge to snarl. She always insisted on being so damn difficult, always pushing him into saying or doing something that he would regret for hours (or even days) afterwards. No matter what it was, no matter how trivial the matter or important the detail, she never failed to provoke his ire. But this time he was trying to suppress it. This time the conversation was to important to be forgotten in the throws of a frustrated rage. By nature he was not a man of discipline and control, but on this morning he was really trying. He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly, counting to ten.

"We need to talk." He finally repeated.

"So talk."

"Ah… Are you well?" He began, suddenly unsure of what to say and feeling very uncomfortable about the subject. "The child… ah- our child… is well?"

"I guess." Fala replied, uncaring. She had no love for the creature that slept in her womb that the fact that Sincline was now showing an interest in it only made her loath it all the more. At least when he was maintaining that it wasn't his and cursing it she could have pitied the little monster. She tossed the blanked off her and tried to climb out of bed, but her husband's arm still around her waist pulled her back. "Let me go."

"I should have realized sooner." He said, melding her body against his in an unwelcome hug. "Your scent had changed but I couldn't recognize the implications. I've never really been around a pregnant human before and so didn't know what the particularities of your new scent meant. It's similar to your heat and at the same time very different. I didn't know what the 'very different' meant. Now I do."

"There's something fundamentally wrong if the man can tell when a woman is pregnant before the woman herself is aware." Fala growled. She had never been comfortable with the idea that Sincline could know so very much about her just from smell alone. Her stomach churned. "Now let go of me."

"I like holding you." Her husband said by way of refusal and inhaled the scent of her hair. The shampoo she used made it smell of fruit and flowers but just under the fragrant mask of soap was her delicious feminine body odor, that tantalizing blend of feminine musk and perspiration that he found so alluring, and now accompanying it was a new layer. Something subtle and yet at the very same time bold and unmistakable that (now that he knew what it was) awoke something primal and protective within him.

"We're done talking then? You've said what you wanted to say? Fine. Thanks for sharing. Now will you let go?" She tried once again without success to wriggle from his grip.

"No."

"I'm going to puke on you!" She threatened.

"Oh." His arm vanished from her waist.

Fala bolted from the bed and dashed to her bathroom. Sincline followed after her with a heavy sigh. He found his wife on her knees in front of the toilet bowl, retching violently. He knelt behind her and gathered her beautiful long flaxen hair in his hands to keep it out of her face and away from the danger of being soiled by her gorge.

"Is it always like this?" He asked when she was done.

Fala rested her head on the toilet bowl and Sincline made a mental note to make sure the slaves cleaned it extra well if his wife was going to do that every day. After a prolonged pause she answered, "Now, this wasn't so bad because I didn't eat anything last night."

A pang of guilt cut through her husband, his temper was partly to blame for that. "I'm sorry. I'll order a larger breakfast to make-up for it."

"No cooked vegetables." She muttered, her forehead still resting on the porcelain toilet bowl. "The smell of cooked vegetables makes me sick. So does citrus and most white meats like chicken." Fala said that last one lamentingly. White meant chicken had become her favorite meat since coming to live on Galra. Its flavor could be paired with anything and it was easily identifiable and difficult to confuse with anything else (visually speaking), when she saw chicken on her plate she was sure and comfortable that it was not people she was eating.

"The child likes red meat." Sincline said with a grin him his voice.

Fala inwardly cringed. She had not failed to notice that the majority of foods that made her sick also just happened to be foods her husband generally avoided. It hadn't even graduated out of embryo status and already the little beast was taking after its father. Groaning, the Empress climbed back to her feet and crossed the bathroom to the sink where she promptly began to wash her mouth out. After gargling and spitting several times she grabbed her toothbrush and began as much of her morning routine as she dared perform with Sincline standing behind her.

"By the way," she said around her toothbrush and a mouth full of frothy paste, "thank you for holding my hair back. I hate having to clean chunks out of it in the shower."

"Of course." He replied, stroking a hand through the golden locks affectionately. "I may not have much like for artists, but true art should always be cared for. Whatever god made you, Fala, had a true appreciation for beauty."

She ignored his compliment and finished with her teeth. "You wake me up claiming we need to talk, yet you've said very little of any real importance, Sincline."

Fala began pulling a brush through her long shimmering hair.

"I… mostly I wanted to…" He paused as if this next word caused him some trouble. As if he weren't used to saying it. "I wanted to ap-pol-o-gize for my behavior last nigh."

"What?"

"I'm trying to apologize."

She dropped her brush in shock and whipped around to gape at him. "What! Who are you? My Sincline doesn't apologize for anything. My Sincline is convinced that he can do no wrong."

"Its not so strange." He growled, suddenly annoyed with her again. "I used to apologize to my father all the time. I'm no stranger to either apologies or begging for forgiveness and my life. I've just never had the need to do it in your language before."

"Oh, and I'm the first human you've ever apologized to? I'm honored." She mocked.

"Now that my father is dead, Fala, you are the only person I will ever have to apologize to." He informed her, bending down to pick up her fallen hairbrush. "Turn around."

Obediently, Fala turned back around to face her mirror and watched her husband's reflection as he began to pull the brush through her main of golden waves.

"Your hair's so beautiful." He whispered. "Like flowing sunshine. You know, I didn't see sunlight until I was almost a man. I had just graduated from the Imperial Military Academy –top of my class, I might add- and my father made me come with him to planet Dorieth for some function or another. I don't remember. But it was high noon without a cloud in the sky when I stepped off the ship. Everything was so bright that I staggered blindly and nearly tripped over my father's cape."

At that his wife gave a snort. "I would have loved to see that. My favorite memory of you-" actually the only memory of him she even liked "-will always be you tripping over a stone after you thought you had me cornered."

His face wrinkled in displeasure. "Yes, well… balance and grace are things not easily maintained when one has a raging boner between his legs."

"Isn't that, like, all the time for you?"

He made another face but deigned not to comment. Instead turning her attention back to her hair. "My point is: I don't want sunlight and clear skies to be alien sights to our child. My Empire is vast and any number of planets orbit yellow stars and can have clear weather on occasion."

"Like Altea."

His hand paused for the briefest of moments. "Yes, like Altea. We could take our child there from time to time. Call it a 'family holiday'."

Rather than lifting her spirits as he thought the prospect of being able to visit her beloved former home would do, Fala's expression fell downcast. He had said she could rule Altea with little interference from him after they'd been married for a year but he had forbade her from actually returning to it. He would have thought the idea of being able to go back would have excited her not depressed her.

She rested her hands on the marble counter, her eyes focused on the porcelain sink when she said, "I don't want this baby."

The brush stilled in her hair. Sincline was silent for long moments. Then, placing the brush down, he turned her around to face him, that blank mask of bland indifference firmly fixed over his features when he asked, "What?"

Sensing danger suddenly, Fala twisted out of his grasp and slowly backed out of the bathroom, never taking her eyes off her husband. She had come to recognize that expression on his face (or rather, that lack of expression) as something to be wary of. It was the face he wore when he didn't want his true feelings known, whether they are good or ill. Most often than not, it hid his angry and violent emotions. The Empress had come to equate that face to the calm before a storm or the deep breath before a plunge.

"Its… its to soon for us, ya know." She said, attempting to placate him and sooth the whatever emotion was simmering just beneath the surface of the beautiful mask that was his face at the moment. He stalked after her at the same pace at which she was retreating. "We're both so young, and… and we only just got married… Its just a little to soon for us to have a baby."

The back of her legs contacted with the foot of her bed and Fala cast her eyes sideways at the door that separated her bedroom from the sitting room. She wondered how feasible a dash to it would be. Knowing her husband and his superior speed she decided not to risk it unless necessary. He was a natural born hunter, if she ran he would follow and when he caught her (and he would catch her) she didn't want to think about what kind of punishment he might visit upon her.

"Sit." Sincline barked and the Empress' butt seemed to plunk down on the bed of its own accord. He leaned down low, placing his hands on her shoulders, his eyes staring into hers. "You're full of shit, Fala. Don't deny it. The reason you're not happy with this pregnancy is because this ruins your chances with that irksome knave, Kogane Akira."

His wife gasped. She hadn't heard that name in a month; she hadn't uttered it in a month. But her had still been ever present in her thoughts and in her fears (mostly just in her fears of late). So startled was she at the mention of her beloved Chief that she blurted out, "He's alive then!"

At this her husband laughed. "Oh yes, precious, he is alive; they all are. Alive and well and living it up with your cousin on Heracles. I'm afraid he's replaced you, dear."

He had not called her 'dear' since the faithful night of her final rejection of his claims that they were ardan. But this time, rather than a term of endearment, is sounded almost like a slur. He was just trying to confuse her, to make her think less of herself and sew doubt in her mind. Kogane hadn't replaced her, he and the others had simply fled to Heracles after Raible surrendered in order to come up with a plan to rescue her. Amue must just be helping with that plan.

'But then… what's taking them so long?' Asked a nasty little voice inside her. 'Why hasn't he come yet? It's been over a month, Golion should have showed by now. They don't care about you anymore. He doesn't love you.'

"You're lying!" The Empress snarled.

A wicked smile spread over his exotic features. "Maybe I am… Maybe he's just biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment to whisk you off your feet and away from me. Or maybe he's lost interest and has moved on to another Princess. I hear he does spend allot of time with Amue and, after all, she has always ever only been your understudy."

"You're wrong! Kogane cares about me!"

"Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't." The Emperor shrugged. "But that's a moot point now. What do you suppose he'll think when he find out about this?" He placed his hand over her flat belly, making the Empress flinch. "Whether they're from Earth, Altea or Galra it doesn't make a difference, no man is keen on the idea of their woman carrying another man's child."

"You lie." Fala said again. "I'm sure normal Galran men don't care. Nera said the Galra are a polyandrous people, you can have several partners at a time and no one gives any nevermind. You're just jealous because you're a spoiled, selfish, insecure jack-ass who knows he'll never get a willing woman and will always have to resort to blackmail, extortion and rape to get sex!"

He ignored her unkind assessment of his character (close to the mark though it was). "Ardan are free with their partners, yes." He said softly. "But mating pairs remain exclusive for several years at a time."

This time it was her turn to smile wickedly. "So then, now that I'm pregnant and we're a 'mating pair', does that mean you're gonna quit using your harem and only ever sleep with me?"

At that he sighed, straitening. He glanced sideways at her window which was currently obscured by her heavy pink curtains and looked almost forlorn when he said, "If only you would come to me willing my and I could take you without causing you harm, I would have done away with my harem long ago."

"So, is that a 'no' then? You're such a hypocrite."

"As are you, my wife. We're a matching set."

"I am not a hypocrite!" Fala shot to her feet and glared up at him.

"Mm, but you are." He smiled. "You call me a butcher and a murderer but you have just as much blood on your hands as I do." (An entirely in accurate statement.) "Tell me, how many Galran soldiers have you killing in your Lion? How many capitol ships have you destroyed? How many tanks? How many fighters? Each one of those was manned by living citizens of this Empire. Everyone one of them had family back on whatever planet they called home who grieved their loss and cursed your name."

"At least I'm not a rapist." His wife snarled back.

To this he merely shrugged. "Yes, well if you talk to your Captain again you'll find that we have a different definition of 'rape' than you're used to on Altea."

"I don't here you denying it."

Again Sincline only shrugged. "No point. All this banter is beginning to irritate me and has steered our conversation off topic. I'm willing to entertain tangents, but not let them take over completely."

"Fine, we'll get back on topic." Fala growled. "You're wrong. This baby doesn't ruin anything between Kogane and I, that has already been ruined by his lack of nobility and by my duties as a princess. There never could have been anything between us but 'puppy-love'. No, the reason I loath this thing in my belly so much is not because of Kogane but because of you, my husband. I hate this child because it is yours; your wretched vile demon-spawn offspring."

His mask of indifference cracked and shattered, his face contorting in the most frightening look or pain and rage Fala had ever seen on a man. He raised his hand as if to strike her and the Empress flinched, but the blow never fell. His hand stuck frozen in the air unmoving, the rest of his body shaking violently with unchanneled emotion. His mouth moved but no words came out. His fingers curled into a tight fist, his nails digging into his palm, Fala saw the tiniest drop of blood fall on her pink-carpeted floor. Finally he managed to speak again.

"You're a bitch, Fala." He croaked. "Well, sorry its so disagreeable to you, but you're having that child whether you like it or not! That 'wretched demon-spawn' as you called it is a gift from the gods! You should appreciate it. They did not have to allow the line of Eliindaal to be continued through the womb of a xenophobic little cunt like you, you should feel honored!"

He turned to leave but paused again at the door. "I have to throw a feast as per Imperial custom to celebrate this joyous event. It will take a few days to organize. You have that time to get used to the idea. But you're going to attend and you're going to look happy!"

He slammed the door behind him.

…

It was a several hours later, after Sincline had spent all his rage and frustration on his Collection that he had the calmness of mind to go over their conversation again in his mind. For all of Fala's insults and slanders that she had so freely and passionately flung at him, she had let one compliment, one endearment slip past her rosy-pink lips unchecked. In the bathroom when he had tried to apologize to her, she had been so shocked that she had called him 'her Sincline'.

'My Sincline doesn't apologize for anything. My Sincline is convinced that he can do no wrong.'

"'My Sincline'." He said aloud, earning a number of confused yet terrified looks from his harem slaves (those that were still conscious or had not been hauled off for medical treatment once he was done with them). "Yes, Fala, I am yours. Probably far more than you're mine. But it is a comfort to hear you admit it."

It was encouraging.

…

(A/N: I took a break in writing this chapter to do this little comic: http: / renkonnairu. deviantart. com/art/Sincline-s-Blue-195731116

Shameless self-promotion FTW. )