One year later

"I want it noted on the record that I think this is a terrible idea," Lotor said, frowning fiercely at his wife.

"It is so noted, love. As it has been noted every time you have said it since I initially proposed the idea."

He tamped down his instinctive reaction to order her to comply with his demands—which, sadly, never worked on Allura, despite his position as head of her army—and opted for sarcasm instead.

"It's good to know that my opinion holds so much weight with the empress of Galra."

"It does," she said, patting his arm patronizingly. "When your opinion is valid."

Wonderful. Now he was annoyed as well as worried.

"You may have very little regard for the risk you are taking, but the rest of us are harder to convince. Healing a dying Balmera is not at all the same as healing an entire planet. A long-dead planet, I might add."

"A Balmera is a planet."

"It is a creature. A creature that was still alive when you healed it. The relative size difference alone should make it obvious how foolish this is to even contemplate. Not to mention the vast differences in biodiversity and climate and magnetosphere. The Rylthnor mountain range alone would take an unimaginable amount of power to—" Lotor stopped himself as he realized Allura had wandered off to gather more samples from the planet's atmosphere-less crust. "Are you listening to me?"

"Of course, Lotor," she said. "Blah, blah, henpecking, biodiversity, blah."

Lotor fought a smile. He would not let her divert him from getting his point across. She was being completely unreasonable.

"You are being completely unreasonable."

"You say that as if you didn't already know that about me," she answered. "It's been years now, darling. Keep up."

She handed him an armful of sample canisters that had already been filled so she could scrape a droplet of ice from a space-weathered crater into an empty container. She was wearing her paladin suit, which reminded him so strongly of when she'd come to retrieve him from the alternate Sala that he had the odd simultaneous sensation that he should drop everything and confine her until she gave up this ridiculous plan, but also that she could literally do anything and he really should stop worrying.

In the end, he ignored both impulses. Allura was powerful, but she was hardly invincible. And she never let anything go either. Not when she had settled her mind on it. So, it seemed Lotor was stuck with worrying.

"Can you at least explain to me why you are determined to do this? Why you are risking yourself for a past that no one even remembers, let alone asked to be resurrected?"

Allura straightened, tilting her head to stretch her neck and shoulders. Her expression was at least thoughtful as she took a few of the canisters from him and headed back toward the shuttle. His earnest question had finally chipped through her deflection it seemed, though she had yet to respond.

Once they had stowed her spoils, they climbed into their seats and shut the hatch. As Lotor prepped for flight, Allura took off her helmet, smoothing loose strands of her hair back into her juniberry clip.

"I do have a reason," she said at last. "Several, actually. And none of them are 'just to see if I can.'"

Lotor sighed and took off his helmet as well. "What reason could possibly be worth risking your life?"

She fiddled with her helmet as Lotor set the autopilot to take them from the far side of the fractured planet back to the Castle of Lions.

"Symbols are important, especially now. Healing the planet represents healing the rift between friends that shattered the universe. If we can undo some of that damage, the universe can start to heal as well."

Lotor stared at her. "You're not serious. A symbol? You're going to attempt something that's never been done for a symbol?"

"The juniberry was a symbol, remember? And it ended up saving us both. Symbols are powerful."

"There are other symbols besides this lifeless pile of rock, Allura. Symbols that require far less sacrifice."

"The greater the sacrifice, the more powerful the symbol," she said with a knowing smile. "Or was it just that you had nothing else on hand from which to carve my birthday present, other than your irreplaceable trans-reality ore?"

Lotor had to concede the point, though in his mind, it still wasn't reason enough for what was at stake.

"Why this planet, though? If you must heal something, why not Altea?"

Allura's expression turned sad, and Lotor almost regretted asking.

"Because there are no more Alteans. Coran and I are the last." She took his hand in both of hers. "But there are billions of displaced Galra. Some have settled in other systems, but most roam the galaxy in starships, because there is no place for them to land. They need a home, Lotor. We need a home."

He stared at her again. "I…" He trailed off, not knowing what he intended to say. He cleared his throat and tried again. "You're right."

"I'm always right, love," she said, with a teasing tone underlying her serious expression. "I'm the empress."

Then she kissed him.

Lotor let the matter drop, though he continued to have reservations as he observed (and occasionally assisted with) preparations for the task ahead.

The Balmerans, it turned out, were part of the equation. Hundreds of thousands from Balmera all over the universe had responded to the empress's request for aid, bringing thousands of power crystals with them to act as both focal points and amplifiers for Allura's quintessence-fueled power.

As the event approached, Balmerans flooded the halls, guest suites, conference chambers, and every other space fit for habitation. Coran was wearing himself to a shadow keeping everyone fed and entertained and organized. But the Balmerans were such a peaceful people that no one complained if the food was a few degrees cooler than the ideal temperature or the rooms were a little full.

Allura spent whatever time wasn't taken up by preparations with her guests, eating meals with them, conversing with them whenever possible, and doing everything in her power to convey her appreciation. Lotor helped Coran whenever Coran would let him. Lotor didn't feel entirely comfortable around the Balmerans, since his parents had been responsible for so much of their suffering.

Nevertheless, he came across Shay one night while he was attempting to deliver a message to Coran.

"Prince Lotor," she said, stopping him in the hallway. "I am pleased to have this chance to relay my thanks."

"Thanks?" he asked, uncertain. He had been occupied with the ministers of the Mneme for most of the quintant, discussing shipping avenues for the Galra supply line, so he couldn't imagine what she had to thank him for.

"For your part in securing freedom for the universe," she said smiling. "Freedom for us Balmerans especially. The decaphebes of living in subjugation to Zarkon were a very dark period for my people."

Lotor wasn't sure how to respond—he didn't want to appear ungracious, but neither did he wish for her to harbor any misconceptions about what had happened.

"I hardly deserve thanks, Lady Shay. It was my family's transgression, so it was my duty to find a way to put it right."

"Perhaps," she said. "But many would not have done what you did. And so, I am grateful. As are all Balmerans. We will do what is in our power to help restore your home world."

"For which I am grateful," he said with a formal bow, though his voice betrayed his concern.

Shay laid her hand on his arm. "It is a risk, but not as great a risk as you fear. If it becomes too much, we will simply stop. And you will be there to ground the empress."

"I will?"

"The empress has not informed you of your role in tomorrow's proceedings?"

"No," he said, curious. "How can I assist her? I have no power."

Shay shook her head. "I have already revealed more than I ought. The empress should be the one to explain."

"I suppose I will go and ask her, then," Lotor said with a sardonic smile.

"Of course. I look forward to seeing you planetside," she said, and passed him to enter the council chamber.

A few doboshes later, Lotor found Allura conversing with Slav near a display panel in the castle's biometrics lab.

"May I have a word?" Lotor asked as he stepped into the room.

"I was just leaving," Slav said, gathering up a few spools of copper conductor from a stack near the door. "Remember," he said to Allura over the tops of the spools. "For there to be even a 58 percent chance of success, we must start tomorrow at the precise declination of 13 degrees, or the libration of Daibazaal's moon will—"

"Yes, I know. Thank you, Slav," Allura said, smiling briefly at the theoretical engineer as he left.

"I just had an interesting conversation with Shay," Lotor said after Slav was out of earshot.

"About?"

"Apparently, I have some role in this undertaking of which you have yet to inform me."

"Ah, yes," she said, blushing. "I was working up to talking to you about that."

"Well, now seems to be an opportune time, given that it is scheduled to begin tomorrow."

Allura turned back to the panel, tapping obviously extraneous data into it to avoid meeting his gaze.

He gently pulled her around to face him. "What is it? And why does it make you uneasy?"

"I was hoping not to involve you at all," she admitted. "I know you have reservations. And apart from that, you are right that it is risky. I wanted to…"

She trailed off.

"You wanted to protect me," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "You are entirely cavalier about risking your own life, but you draw the line at mine? That's unusually hypocritical of you, Allura."

"I know, I know," she said, her nose wrinkling in chagrin. "I didn't say it was fair."

"What is it you need me to do?"

Allura sighed, giving in. "It's Daibazaal. Ten thousand years is apparently long enough for people to have nearly forgotten what it was like. There are stories, but only bits and pieces, legends mostly. Your mother ordered all records of the planet scrubbed after it was destroyed. I don't know why she would—"

"She didn't want our history to show us a different path. She wanted us to have been Zarkon's empire always. Rulers rewrite history to suit their own ends."

"Oh," Allura said, softly, her eyes full of sympathy.

"It doesn't hurt me anymore," he said just as softly, stroking her cheek. "You have healed me already."

She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes and smiling.

"Anyway, what does this have to do with your plans for me tomorrow?" he asked, reluctantly steering the conversation to its initial purpose.

She sighed again, stepping into his arms and wrapping her own around him. From where she leaned against his shoulder, she said, "I need you to show me Daibazaal. You are the only one alive who was there. Well, the only one who is alive and still sane."

She was referring to his father, who had miraculously managed to survive the last battle, only to stare, silent and unresponsive, at the walls of his holding cell.

"How do I do that?" he asked, resting his cheek against her hair.

"I must bring you in with me," she said somewhat awkwardly, which Lotor had learned to interpret as there being no words in their language to more accurately describe what she meant. "I need to see Daibazaal through your eyes so I can recreate it."

"That is not so hard," he said. "But I must warn you that I do not remember everything. There is likely to be both flora and fauna that I had never known in the first place, in addition to those I have forgotten about over the millennia."

"It's all right. I'll follow as much as you remember, and then leave the rest for the planet to sort out on its own. It will be enough."

"How do you know it will be enough?"

She grinned at him. "Because it has to be."

"You just love throwing my own words back at me, don't you?"

"It puts a smile on my face, I will admit."

The next morning, they dressed silently in the dark, touching occasionally as they passed each other. They were greeted without fanfare by Kolivan, Slav, the other paladins, and the heads of the Balmeran teams. They had intentionally kept those informed of the attempt to heal Daibazaal to a bare minimum. Allura didn't want to disappoint anyone if it didn't work.

The Balmerans had stationed themselves strategically around the largest chunk of planet as well as on several of the pieces hovering near the main. Each team oversaw one or more battle-class crystals, which would act as touchstones for Allura when she needed power.

As Allura and Lotor took their positions several degrees north of the sealed gate, she explained the process. "First, I will draw the fragments close, weaving them together where I can. Then I will call in the atmospheric gasses. The challenging part will be reigniting the core. Without that, the planet cannot sustain life. Without that, we fail."

She pulled him to the barren ground, sitting cross-legged opposite him. He mirrored her, holding each of her hands in his.

"Close your eyes, and picture the Daibazaal you remember. The land, the water, the sky. The plants, the clouds, the insects. Remember the light, the smells, the space between. It's all right if it isn't perfect. The planet itself will help you."

Lotor did as ordered. He summoned what he could remember, starting with the easy things, the grounds around the castle, the trees he used to climb, the river with its silver-backed fish glistening in the moonlight. As he rifled through memory after memory, he could tell that they were becoming somehow clearer, sharper in his mind than they had been in eons. He also managed to call to mind things he shouldn't have been able to remember, like exactly how many shell segments a yul-beetle had, or the precise feather pattern of a jikka.

And surprisingly, he recalled emotions he had never had as well, emotions that made no sense but felt exceedingly real. Too real. Like the haunting melancholy of wind through a needle-bush, the exultant I AM of crystal formation in a sealed cavern fathoms beneath the mantle, the quiet pride in a perfectly rotted log, the playful slam of waves battering a rocky shore. He sailed over mountains, buried himself in bogs, drifted with ice crystals on a bitter wind that reminded him of Sala, boiled in the bellies of ocean-floor volcanoes. It all felt so real.

But something was still missing.

He ran with wild edra through old-growth forests, searching for whatever it was. He tumbled into canyons layered with more colors than he could count, searching for the lost thing he knew he must find. He sifted through oceans of sand with scuttling plyms, digging for it. Everything depended on it.

After what seemed like both a thousand years and yet only a handful of doboshes, he returned to the place where Castle Daibazaal once stood. There was nothing but a grassy valley there now, but it was how he remembered it—every blade, every petal, every leaf.

He remembered running through the grass when he was small enough that the fallow fields in summer grew fronds as tall as he was. And just as he thought that, he saw it. A small boy—himself—with short, neatly trimmed hair that made his ears look enormous, running through the tall summer grass. Not running, actually—ducking and dodging, as if eluding pursuit.

Lotor followed the boy in the way of memories, bodiless and omniscient. The boy had been crying, and he carried something small in his hands. A kitten. No. A kitten's lifeless body. And suddenly Lotor recalled the incident in its entirety.

Lotor had found the kitten abandoned, hungry, and as lonely as he was. He had taken it in as a companion, the way his mother had Kova. When he showed Honerva, though, she rejected the kitten, as she had anyone or anything that Lotor had bonded with, insisting that any attachment was a distraction from his training. She had ordered Lotor to get rid of it. Lotor pretended to do so but hid the kitten in his room, until one morning, Kova found him and killed him. Whether it was an act of territorial dominance or at the behest of Honerva, Lotor had never known for certain.

But he had run then, vowing never to return. He'd made it all the way to this grassy field when he tripped—the boy tripped—and he'd lain in the grass—the boy laid in the grass—and he'd realized with cold conviction that he couldn't leave, that he would have to go back.

He dug a deep hole for the kitten with his bare hands, whispering to the soil to keep him warm, to the grasses to stand guard over him, to the wind to sing him lullabies so he wouldn't be afraid. Then the small boy got to his feet and walked slowly back to the castle, head low, ears large enough in the waning light to cast their own shadows.

Lotor hadn't noticed when it happened, but he noticed now the land's reaction to his childish entreaties. The soil warmed around the kitten's body, the grass knotted itself into an impenetrable mat over the grave, and the wind wept a requiem of unknown measure. Daibazaal had grieved with him.

A great vibration thrummed through him, clattering his bones and jolting the synapses in every nerve in his body. Across from him, Allura cried out, nearly crushing his hands in her grip.

His eyes popped open. "Is everything all right?"

She released his hands so she could take off her helmet.

"Look around you," she said, her face wet.

Again, he did as instructed, removing his own helmet and standing.

Everything was exactly as he had seen it in his mind. Grassy fields, a small rise to the foothills of the mountains just beyond the valley. Stands of trees dotting the hills. A light wind ruffling his hair. And the smells… He inhaled as much as he could hold. He had forgotten what home had smelled like. The smell itself brought back memories he hadn't known were buried, both good and bad. But it was all there. The entire planet. He could still feel his connection to it.

In fact, something was pulling at him now, calling him to walk toward it. Something not far, but important. He registered Allura's curiosity in the back of his mind as he walked toward the thing that called him. He sent her reassurance as he followed the trail to its end.

He recognized it at once when he arrived, though the grass was not the tall summer grass from the memory. And the thing he found sitting on top of the kitten's grave was a long-legged, brindle-coated cat, the opposite in coloring of Kova, the same coloring as the kitten he had lost.

The cat trotted up to Lotor and rubbed against his outstretched hand as if long familiar with him.

"Who is this?" Allura asked from behind him. "A new friend?"

"An old friend," Lotor said, his throat feeling close.

"Hey, um, you guys…" came Hunk's voice from the communicators in their helmets. "You might want to look up."

Lotor and Allura took his suggestion. The once empty space around Daibazaal was crowded with more Galra ships than Lotor had seen in one place since Zarkon's final battle.

"What happened to keeping this low profile?" Shiro asked.

"I didn't tell anyone," Hunk said. "Did you tell anyone, Lance?"

"I didn't tell anyone," Lance said. "Pidge?"

"Nope, not me."

"I told them," Acxa chimed in.

"Acxa, when did you get here?" Lotor asked. "You were supposed to be overseeing the dismantling of the mines on Xahnu-B."

"I may have disobeyed orders. Just this once."

"I guess it's a good thing it worked," Allura said, smiling up at him.

She looked exhausted. And was he imagining it, or were there new, tiny lines at the corners of her eyes?

"You are beyond miraculous," he said to his wife, kissing her gloved hand. "I will never question your ability to do anything ever again."

She laughed. "That is not true, Prince of Galra. Or at least I hope it isn't. It's your job to question me."

"You have a point," he said, smiling back. "Will you heal Altea as well?"

She sighed, leaning heavily against his arm. "I don't know. I'll think about it."

"So, like, can we come down there? Or…?" Hunk asked.

Allura laughed again. "Yes, you can come down."

"I have a feeling we're not going to be the only ones," Keith said.

"Tell Kolivan to communicate the plan for settlement," she responded. Then she looked back at Lotor and said, "Now the real work begins."

"Perhaps," he said. "But I think the harder part will be convincing my cat not to eat your mice."

"Oh, quiznak," Allura said, burying her face in his shoulder.

o~o~o~o~o

Another year later

Allura had been avoiding Lotor for the entire quintant. Not that he'd noticed right away. She had been absorbed in a trade dispute negotiation with Kolivan for most of the morning, which was far from unusual, and Lotor had been validating troop deployments to the Uliazlund quadrant, so it wasn't as if he weren't distracted.

But when she had not shown up to their usual lunch, and she was missing again at supper, he began to suspect she had more than trade disputes on her mind. So, he searched for her in her usual haunts. He debated whether to reach out to her through their telepathic link but decided to wait to see if he could find her by looking first. He didn't want to have a difficult conversation through their link if indeed a difficult conversation was what awaited him.

He finally found her in her favorite thinking spot near a waterfall not far from castle grounds. He almost didn't see her at first, she was so well hidden by the boulders that lined the pool below the falls. She didn't look up when he approached, seeming lost in thought. But he could tell she knew he was there and wasn't acknowledging him, which meant something was definitely wrong. She was many things but never reticent, and certainly never with him.

Rather than push her to talk, he simply climbed up to her perch, sat next to her on the flat, moss-covered ground without saying a word, and waited for her to speak first.

"We have never talked of having children," she said, apropos of nothing.

"Children?" he said, puzzled. Whatever topic he might have imagined was troubling her, children was not it. "As in, our own children?"

"No, Lotor. Other people's children," she said flatly. "Of course, our own children. Why have we never…you know…discussed it?"

"We have been a trifle busy resettling a planet and keeping the peace and a few other things I could mention."

She sighed heavily, and then said, "That is your excuse for everything."

"Well, aside from it being a perfectly valid point, I suppose I hadn't thought about it. If it has been so much on your mind, you could also have brought it—"

"Lotor, I'm pregnant."

Lotor blinked at her dumbfounded, her words not really registering in a way that made sense.

"I'm sorry…what?"

"I'm pregnant."

Lotor's vision speckled around the edges, and Allura's voice seemed to be coming from the bottom a long access shaft.

"I'm just as surprised as you are," she went on, dropping her gaze. "By normal Altean biological standards, I shouldn't be fertile for another decade or so, but I think that the effort to heal Daibazaal aged me a little prematurely, and it's not entirely unheard of for a pregnancy to occur earlier than norm—"

"Wait, wait," Lotor interrupted, his mind struggling to parse what she was saying. "You are…carrying a child?"

Tears brightened her eyes, her expression troubled.

"I am carrying our child," she corrected him.

He stared at her stupidly for another full dobosh before mentally shaking himself. His reaction was hurting her. That realization forced all his faculties back into working order at once.

He pulled her into his lap, throwing open the floodgates of his emotion and pouring it directly into their mental connection. He would allow no misunderstanding between them.

She gasped, clinging to him under the onslaught of his tumultuous joy and adoration.

As she wept from the overload, he murmured into her hair, "Am I nervous? Of course, I am. I have no experience with healthy familial relationships, and I am scared to death I will muck it up. But there is nothing, nothing I want more than to raise this child—our child—with you."

She trembled in his arms as he continued.

"You have to forgive me if I do not react properly when you tell me these things. I had never, not in ten thousand years, been happy, until I met you. It still catches me unawares sometimes. Not only because I am unaccustomed to it, but also because I know I don't deserve it. Not this much happiness, this persistently. Thus, it continues to surprise me. Every time."

Stop, she said in his mind. No one "deserves" happiness. Just as no one deserves misery. We work toward happiness. Ours and others'.

If that is so, he thought back, placing a careful hand on her abdomen, then I look forward to our next happiness.

She smiled up at him briefly, but then her expression turned uncertain again.

"There's more," she said.

"There's more?"

She took a deep breath, as if preparing to tell him something she suspected he wasn't going to like.

"If it's a girl…" she said and stopped.

"Yes?" he prompted, after a few ticks of silence.

"If it's a girl, I want to name her Honerva."

With that single sentence, he felt completely bewildered again.

"But…why?" he asked, almost amused by her preternatural ability to throw him completely off balance at every turn.

"For a number of reasons," she said. "It is Altean tradition to name the first-born daughter after her father's mother. But beyond that, Honerva was a brilliant and dedicated woman, before the rift corrupted her. She cared deeply about her people, both those of her birth and those she adopted when she married your father." She paused, lacing her fingers through Lotor's. "She was so much more than what she became, but the universe only remembers her as Haggar. I want to honor the brave explorer she truly was."

Allura—his miraculous, pregnant wife—was not wrong. Honerva had been more than the wretched creature she became. But the idea of naming his child—his child! (it still shocked him to think it)—after her left him uneasy.

He greatly appreciated Allura's intent. She was the most magnanimous person he had ever met. That she could put aside her own family's deaths at his parents' hands long enough to even consider such an act was mindboggling. And it meant a lot to him that she valued him and his history enough to entertain the idea in the first place.

But Lotor struggled to find a single positive memory with his mother in it. The most he could manage was the smallest shred imaginable with just a ghost of a smile from a time before he understood the concept of words to name it. Did he want this precious new life to be forever shadowed by such a compromised eponym?

"I am not sure how I feel," he said finally. "May I think on it?"

"Of course, love," she said, looking relieved. "And no matter what we name her, she will be a shining beacon of justice and service and wisdom."

"She has you for a mother, so I don't doubt it."

"And you for a father," Allura reminded him.

"Well, then, at least she will have some sense of self-preservation."

Allura punched his arm. "More like she'll chase you through some gate leading nowhere without any kind of plan for getting back."

"Or that," he said, smiling.

She twisted in his lap so she could face him nose to nose. "I love you," she said, cradling his face in her hands.

"I love you, too," he said, his heart full.

"And I should warn you that there is a slight side effect to Altean pregnancy," she continued, a mischievous expression flashing across her face.

"Oh, really? And what's that?"

Instead of answering with words, she used their connection to inundate him with feelings of relentless, unquenchable desire. His body responded instantly with a craving that rivaled hers as she destroyed him with a hungry kiss.

For half a tick he fretted that someone might come along and interrupt them, but Allura's tongue was curling around his own, her breath hot, her body pressed against his, her hand sliding across his hip, and her voice in his mind describing in detail all the things she was going to do to him and all the things she wanted him to do to her. Had he been thinking anything, he couldn't remember or care what it was.

She pushed him down onto the bright yellow moss, tugging her hair free of the juniberry clip as she pushed aside his shirt to nip at the skin beneath his collarbone.

"Want to try an experiment?" she whispered breathily into his ear.

With you? Always, he answered…and it was his last cogent thought for a long while.

They didn't return to the castle for another two vargas, long after the sun had set beyond the ridge. Kolivan was probably wondering where they were. Slav probably wasn't.

Lotor brought Allura's hand to his lips and kissed it as they walked. He pushed away the thousand worries crowding his brain. The Azlunders and the Ulians were still fighting over territory. There was a growing faction among the Galra bent on destroying the peace they had thus far managed to instill in the universe. And Hunk still hadn't finished refining his cookie recipe. There was far too much to accomplish over the next year to make the universe perfect for its soon-to-be new inhabitant.

"What are you thinking?" Allura asked.

"I'm thinking about cookies," he said, smiling. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we may need about a dozen."

"Cookies?"

"No. Children."

"I'm sorry…what?"

o~o~o~o~o

Eight years later

The spring melt had come late in the year, so no one at Castle Daibazaal seemed able to contain themselves indoors when the sun finally reappeared, Lotor included. He had been feeling restless for weeks, a new development that seemed to be getting worse with each passing quintant. So, he had taken the morning off to get out of the castle and away from the never-ending loop of prioritization and evaluation and compromise that went along with managing an empire.

He had wanted a walk alone to settle his mind and discover the source of his restlessness, but it wasn't more than a few doboshes before he ran into his daughter, who had somehow slipped her tutor and abandoned her lessons.

"Honerva," he said, holding off on judging her a truant until he'd at least asked the question. "Did you finish your lessons?"

"All but quantum physics," she admitted, her expression sheepish, triggering a shadow of a memory in Lotor's mind.

"Let me guess," he said unsmiling. "Eigenstates?"

Honerva, sensing an opportunity for commonality, said, "I don't get why we can't measure the values of every particle's position and momentum. Why can we know for some but others are probabilities?"

"You'll have to ask Slav if you want to debate theory. I never truly figured out the why of it—just the how."

It was then Lotor noticed the unfamiliar sword clutched in his eldest daughter's hand, and understanding dawned.

"I see the paladins have arrived," he said, crossing his arms. "Which one was it this time?"

"Uncle Lance," she said, unable to contain her enthusiasm. "Isn't it beautiful?" She swished it experimentally in the air. "Acxa said she'd show me some new moves this afternoon, and I…"

"…couldn't wait another dobosh," he finished for her.

She scuffed her boot in the dirt, looking exactly like Allura in that moment, with her chagrined yet somehow calculating and still altogether adorable expression. He knew he should tell her that she could train with Acxa only after her lessons were complete. But it was such a beautiful quintant, and she was such a dutiful child, that he couldn't bear to crush her spirit. Kolivan would tell him he was going soft, but he fully accepted that he had done so long ago and was rather better off for it.

"All right," he said, finally allowing himself to smile. "But we will reconvene on quantum physics tonight after supper. I can show you some of the shortcuts that helped me when I was first learning."

She beamed at him, catching him around the waist in a quick hug.

"Thanks, father! I promise I will be…"

But whatever promise she had meant to convey to him was lost on the wind as she trotted down the hill toward the training facility to the east of the castle. He smiled after her, his heart lighter for a moment before turning restless again. The outdoors was not improving his disquiet. If anything, it was underscoring it, as had his interaction with Honerva.

"She is your 'spitting image,' as Pidge says."

Allura had come up behind him without his noticing. She still moved with the stealth of a warrior when she wanted to, even this late in pregnancy when her middle was as round as the moon.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that she looks just like you."

"I find that amusing," he said, turning to offer her his arm. "Considering I was just thinking how much she resembled you."

"Either way, there is no mistaking her for someone else's child."

"Certainly not," he agreed.

"You seemed somewhat pensive this morning during the briefing," she said as they strolled the grounds near the west wall. "Is there something on your mind?"

Lotor supposed he should know better by now than to think he could keep anything from his wife for long. Not only did she know him better than anyone ever had, she was also keenly observant, a trait that made her a phenomenal ruler. At which thought, the restlessness grew, as if pointing him in the direction of its source.

"I think I need a change," he said. "I think we all do."

"What kind of change?" she asked, curious rather than defensive.

Lotor shook his head. "I'm unsure. I just feel that we are becoming too complacent. Are we doing what is best for Honerva and the twins? We are shut up in meetings nearly every quintant. We barely see them. And they've experienced little of what lies beyond Daibazaal. How will they lead in a universe they have such limited personal understanding of?"

As he spoke, it felt obvious that this had been the source of his agitation—not the long, bitter winter cooped up indoors, not the endless, repetitive tasks required to govern. His family felt disconnected, moored to a place rather than to each other. As important as that place was, as much as they had sacrificed to resurrect it, it still wasn't the most important thing.

"Perhaps a vacation would be in order?"

But Lotor shook his head again. "I think it needs to be longer than that."

"How long exactly?" she asked.

"Long enough to show them the universe."

Allura considered this, her expression introspective. Lotor could almost hear her thinking through the logistics, the potential ramifications, the risks and rewards.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" she asked finally.

Was he sure? He had only just thought of it. He'd even started the conversation by saying he was unsure.

But as he questioned himself, he only grew more certain. It wouldn't be immediate. There were assurances to be made, preparations, and Allura should have the baby on Daibazaal first before they left. But soon. It needed to be soon.

"The only thing I've ever been more sure of is my love for you. And I discovered that in a single moment, on Sala, as I was carrying you across the snow. You awoke in my arms and said my name. Do you remember?"

"I do," she said. "And in case you're curious, I first discovered I loved you when we were arguing over whether you would use the castle encryption code to message me. Remember that? I wouldn't admit it at the time, even to myself, but I knew."

They came to a stop at the edge of the garden veranda, a short wall separating them from the rolling hillside dotted with tiny shoots of flowers and shrubs. Lotor pulled Allura against him such that they were both facing south toward the now interred gate, his arms circling her, holding her close. The sight of his home world on the brink of new life filled him with both satisfaction and a wistful ache. He would miss this, even if leaving was the right thing to do.

"I believe in and value all the work we have done to make the universe a better place. I am sure that we will continue that work no matter where we are and what we are doing. But we owe it to each other to put our family at the center of our attention for a while. There is no purpose without the people, remember?"

She smiled up at him, resplendent as the sun.

"Excellent point," she said. "But just so you know, you had me at 'I need a change.'"

Lotor chuckled at that.

"You do realize," Allura continued. "That several of our friends, Coran especially, will insist on accompanying us."

"I can live with that," he said. "As long as we are together."

"All right," she said. And then, "I love you."

He kissed her starlight hair.

"I love you, too," he said.