Voltron universe isn't mine. If it was, I'd ditch Pidge's outfit, poor guy.
113- Shivering
Keith was relieved that the errant ex-prince had been located. He was still frustrated with his meeting with hollow discoursed diplomats, and Lotor presented a nice target. He stomped to the drule's quarters as soon as Lance reported the campanule was in.
Lotor was shivering. The warm shower dry clothes had helped, but he was still freezing. He sat on the bed, wearily passing a brush through the wet strands of his hair, when the commander barged in.
"You are supposed to report yourself twice a day," he began angrily. "We have big wigs all over the place and you choose that precise moment to disappear on us. Give me one good reason not to completely confine you! Whatever possessed you to do that anyway?"
The ex-prince put the brush on a desk and looked at the floor a long moment before answering.
"Commander, we have ever been rivals in everything," he began. "In war and in love. I'm a finished man and you..."
He looked up at him with disgust before continuing, speaking with a deadly soft tone of voice.
"You're still as sickeningly dashing as ever. You know I want the princess for myself. I'm nothing but an exile now. I can offer her no riches, no power, and certainly not beauty. About the only thing I can offer her now is the freedom she asked for. And above all I wish for her to be happy and worry free."
Lotor's voice became a sad whisper.
"That desire is so strong, Commander, that I would rather let you win her love... instead of that obsequious sycophant. At least I know you'll do everything to insure her happiness. But him?" Lotor continued furiously, finding some hidden reservoir of energy, "I wish I could slice him to ribbons. I swore to my mother I would try to live by your standards, and that I wouldn't try to... I'm bound to that promise. It was either flee or murder the oily court tramp. I didn't know where to run and Khiara seemed the best way to work out my fury."
Lotor sighed.
"I'm an enemy forced into cooperation. You don't trust me and you would never take my doubts seriously. Your Coran is fawning over the idiot as if he'd found a rare gem. They are all so disgustingly happy to see an 'eligible' candidate drool over Allura at last. Oh, he's a prince all right. But you of all persons should know that this is not a quality."
Keith was impressed in spite of himself. He looked at the exhausted drule, his yellow eyes still blazing with frustration. There was an embarrassing silence as Keith calmed down and Lotor picked yet another blanket to wrap himself in.
"If that's any help at all," Keith said at last, "for once I agree with you. There's something about this man... I don't trust him either. But we're both biased... And Allura seems to really like him. Maybe we're just jealous, prince."
"Don't call me prince." Lotor's eyes narrowed. "I'm just a defeated half-drule now. I have nothing left but my Khiara code. The sycophant is alive; that should satisfy you. I won't divide him up in quarters, even though I sure wish I could."
Just then there was a knock on the door, and Lance, Pidge and Hunk came in, carrying mugs of hot chocolate and toasted sandwiches for everyone.
"So," said Lance. "We have our two Romeos united for almost half an hour in a closed room and they are still both alive! They say war makes strange bedfellows, now I see the same can be said of romance..."
"Shut up," said Keith and Lotor in a surprising unison.
Lance laughed.
"I rest my case... Anyways, we thought it was important to have a little pajama party here. You hate this Nikolai fellow, don't you, blue boy?"
"That should be obvious by now."
"What's not so obvious," said Pidge, "is that we all feel the same. The man gives us the creeps."
"Point is," Hunk added, "that the next time you think something fishy is going on, don't assume we'll necessarily disagree with you."
"You... you doubt his sincerity?" Asked a perplexed Lotor.
"We sure do!" Answered Hunk.
The big man handed him a mug and a sandwich.
"Take that before you die of hypothermia. Listen. Destiny kind of forced us to work together, and that means it goes both sides."
"If you'd come to us instead of dashing out like that," added Pidge, "you'd have found out that we share your opinion. We're all afraid for the princess, even if we don't have Pavlov's reflex like you two when we see her..."
Keith scowled. Lotor looked blank. What the hell was Pavlov's reflex?
"They are actually making fun of us, Lotor. Har har har," groused Keith. "But seriously, what will we do about this? We cannot stick to Nikolai like shadows, he's a royal guest... plus he's got diplomatic immunity."
"Well..." began Lotor hesitatingly.
"What?" Inquired Pidge.
"I had this idea for a spying device."
"Your butterflies?"
"Not a butterfly, that would be too conspicuous in the castle. But a crawling insect..."
Lotor got up, not caring that all his blankets fell to the floor. His caftan hung sadly on his frame, he was as thin as a reed. He rummaged through piles of papers.
"I hate inaction. It makes me think too much. I had those designs in my head for a long time now, but father doesn't like small machines. The bigger the monster, the better. I always thought exactly the opposite, and I've been using my free time here putting all those old ideas on paper."
Paper? Pidge raised his eyebrows in surprise but immediately remembered that the rules their prisoner was bound to included a ban on anything electronic.
"Here's the schematic," Lotor said, presenting several sheets to Hunk. "Could you build that? A centipede spybot. It could follow everywhere. It has composite eyes that analyze hundreds of points of light to rebuild an image. Its only black and white, otherwise it'd be too big, and the radius is wide. There is some distortion, but we can write a script to rebuild the image onscreen."
"I can do that," said Pidge, observing the plan.
"And I can build the critter," added Hunk. "It's a rather cool bug, at that. We could use the same material your mask is made of."
"That's what I thought. It would make the plates supple and they'd glide on one another noiselessly."
"Yeah! That'd make it virtually identical to the real thing. And it could crawl like a real centipede, and stick on the ceilings."
"It's truly fiendish, that thing, guys," said Pidge. "I could devise a way to program some autonomy, and add to that a way to command it by remote. It really could go anywhere. And I could program..."
They became immersed in the creation of the spying centipede. Keith and Lance looked at each other in amazement. The three were discussing this new spying device with enthusiasm, and between sandwiches they added features, finding new functions. They looked like kids engaged in a fascinating game. Suddenly Lotor sneezed. He went back to his blankets, shivering violently.
"Ok, guys, said the commander, It's late and we're all tired. Since you seem to think this spybot will work, let's do it... But tomorrow."
"If our engineer is still alive in the morning," said Lance.
"By the way, Lotor," Keith asked, "did you get it?"
"What?"
"Sequence seventeen."
"Of course not. Khiara never works when I'm mad. I made it to sixteen, though. When seventeenth failed, the tree paid for it. Master Kovak will kill me. Losing it like that and breaking my swords..."
"I think he'll understand."
They went out and the ex-prince just curled on his bed, loosely draped the bundle of blankets over himself and was asleep in seconds.