Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron or its original Japanese version Golion. Both are the property of their original creators and importers/dubbers. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
(A/N: Ya know, a while ago -for like, chapter 3 I think- someone posted a review wondering why and how Sincline had managed to control himself enough to not bend Fala over and take her the moment he could. It didn't occur to me until just starting this chapter that most Voltron/Golion fans seem to believe that he would dismiss his harem once he got her. In almost all of the fictions I've read on this site he gets rid of them in one way or another almost as soon as the story throws he and Fala/Allura together. Either that or they just sort of disappear altogether without the author ever mentioning them at all. I more than understand authors' reasons for doing this, having extra women hanging around complicates a story. But I've seen nothing in the Golion series to suggest that he would do this. Swinging back to the review I got a while back, the reason he was able to "control" himself was because, while he was not getting any sex from Fala, he was still getting sexed-up by his obedient little Collection. )
The Sindariin
Chapter Seven:
Emperor Sincline stormed through the halls of his castle once again angry and frustrated. He snarled at passers by in the halls, noblemen and slaves alike, on his way to the rooms given to his harem, his Collection. The double doors of his harem were thrown open with enough force to make them slam against the stone walls causing a frightening loud bang. There was a startled rustling of fabric as a room full of women suddenly bolted to their feet to present themselves to their master. Sincline slammed the doors shut again behind him, producing a second resounding bang. HIs eyes focussed on the woman closest to him, a terrified looking brunet. Her hair was dark and strait, not wavy and golden like Fala's; her figure short and curvy rather than tall and lithe, her eyes dark and slanted instead of blue and round. In short, she looked nothing like Fala and that was exactly what he wanted at that moment, a woman whom did not remind him in any way of his beautiful bride-to-be.
"On your knees." The heterogeneous hybrid snarled.
The trembling brunet sank nervously to kneel before her master and glanced back up at him in fear of what was to happen next.
Sincline slowly unbuckled his belt relishing the look of unmasked terror on the girl's face and the scent of fear that wafted about the room. He enjoyed the power he had over these women, how onely and wholly he could control them with just the knowledge that he could hurt them if he wanted to. That was what Fala needed to learn, that he could hurt her more than she dared dread he could, but that he wouldn't so long as she was obedient and did as she was told. If she submitted to him as this brunet was so readily doing right now. The Emperor unlaced the fly of his pants and slid the fabric down his narrow hips just enough to allow the girl access to his partially stiff member.
"Now suck!" He commanded.
...
The Slusvaan ship yard was constructed on top of a wide mesa several latitudes from Demon Castle. A company of dark figures flitted from shadow to shadow moving ever closer to the yard's massive landing platform. Princess Amue and Ryou along with a small regiment of their rebel troops slunk towards a squat Galran freighter. The freighter they had decided was the best of the ones available to steal for the Golion Team. It was large enough to be equipped with its own distortion field, the device that allowed ships to pass through the energy barrier that surrounded the planet Galra; but it was not a combat ship and wouldn't be seen as a threat to whatever Alliance planet Amue ended up rendezvousing with the Golion Team on.
Ryou halted the party behind a storage building that stood between the control tower and the main hangar. He turned to Amue, placing both his hands on her shoulders. "You be carful."
"Don't start treating me like a fragile little doll again!" The princess shot back in irritation.
"I just... I worry about you." The restless warrior admitted. Then he composed himself and returned to the collected and confident rebel leader he was supposed to be. "You head for the ship while we take-over the control tower. Once you and your crew have cleared the atmosphere we'll blow the complex to hide the theft."
"And piss off that bastard SIncline." Amue grinned back. The destruction of one of his ship yards would deal a decently sized blow to the fell Emperor's war effort. But then she remembered who the heterogeneous hybrid held as his captive and she sobered. "I just hope he doesn't take it out on Fala."
"She'll be fine." Ryou assured her in a voice that did not hold the confidence his words were meant to carry.
The party divided itself into two groups, one slinking with the Princess Amue toward the targeted freighter, the other followed Ryou to the base of the control tower. Amue flattened her back against a vacant service vehicle, her eyes on Ryou's team as they fitted a wad of blasting jelly to the locking mechanism of the tower's only door. He turned toward her and silently signed a count down, the moment the door was blown she and her team were to rush the freighter in the confusion while all the Galran personnel would be running toward the under-siege control tower. 'Three... Two... One!'
Amue didn't wait to hear the loud resounding explosion, she launched herself sprinting toward the freighter the moment he had signed 'one'. The rest of her crew was hard pressed to keep up with the princess' motivated pace. She slammed the heal of her hand down on the hatch release button of the freighter's main hatch and a loading ramp slid down from the main entrance.
"In!" She shouted at her crew. All around her she heard shouts in the harsh language of the Galran people and out the corner of her eye Amue saw the short light-bursts of shots being fired and she looked back to see Ryou and his men ducking for cover inside the doorway of the control tower. Her heart jumped into her throat at the idea of him being injured or killed in this fight but she couldn't worry about that right now. She had a mission to complete as did he, they both understood the stakes and so with was with a heavy heart she turned back to the freighter and sprinted up the gangplank.
The bridge was smaller than the slaver she had stolen in her first failed escape attempt from Sincline's evil clutches but the controls looked similar enough. Amue sat down in the captain's chair and called up a status report of on the ship. She scrolled through diagrams of various ship's parts and features briefly explained in short paragraphs of Galran text. Amue was no great language scholar but between her time as Sincline's prisoner and her time as a rebel leader living on Galra she had learned enough to understand what it was she was reading. Everything checked out flight-worthy.
"Helmsman, take us up!"
"Aye aye, ma'am."
As the freighter began to rise the princess pulled up a live view of the battle going on in the ship yard below them. Ryou's skirmish seemed to have moved from the door of the tower to inside the tower itself where she could not see him. Amue didn't know if this knowledge was another worry or a comfort to her, but she reminded herself that she couldn't think on it now. The freighter's sudden movement had not gone unnoticed and some Galran soldiers had broken off from the group attempting to subdue Ryou's team and were heading toward their yellow hooked T-fighters.
"We'll have company soon. Be ready for some fancy flying. What's the maneuverability on this thing?"
"We'll find out, Your Highness." The woman at the helm answered gravely.
The fighters were of course much faster and much more maneuverable than the bulky freighter but the freighter had better armor and stronger hull reinforcements. The woman piloting smashed the first of the hooked T-fighters with the side of the ship and sent poor broken grunt fighters puttering backwards and sideways to collide with two of his buddied in a brilliant display of pyrotechnic idiocy. Upon seeing this little maneuver the fighters hung back from the ship itself and attempted to disable its engines instead. The freighter rocked and shook as Galran lazers and missiles began chipping away at the thick carbon-fiber plating that protected its rear thrusters.
"Take evasive action!" Amue shouted while calling up a schematic of the engines to see just what damage was being done.
The pilot pulled up sharp of the stick-wheel and the freighter began to climb skyward, their own little parade of T-fighters still on their tail blasting as they ascended. The pilot did a few zig-zaggy turns and twists, making the moves more elaborate as they rose higher and higher into the atmosphere. Her plan was to stay alive until they reached the cloud bank and then louse the fighters in the haze. Suddenly, they heard a nearby explosion and brassed themselves to be once again thrown about the bride, but the ship wasn't buffeted in the least.
"That didn't hit us!" The pilot exclaimed. "What was that?"
Amue switched her screen from the engine readout to a live feed of the battle outside and gasped in relief. The ship yard's control tower was firing on its own fighters. That could only mean one thing. "Its Ryou! Ryou's taken the tower!"
Releif bubbled up from the pit of her stomach calming tense nerves and soothing away the fear and concern she had hidden in her heart for the ebony haired rebel leader. If Ryou and his team were now in control of the tower's main control room then she had nothing to worry about. She leaned back in her captain's chair and gave the order, "All ahead full! As soon as we clear the planet's gravity well plot a course for Heracles, the moment we're past the energy barrier punch it."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
Amue listened to the harsh sounds of the battle that was quickly becoming a rout all around the ship and felt safe and guarded. Ryou was providing cover fire for the freighter so that she didn't have to worry about both commanding a battle and an escape at the same time. She closed her eyes and saw him in her mind's eye, standing in the center of the control room shouting orders at his gunners to destroy all the enemy fighters but be carful to leave her freighter untouched. She saw him turn to another few members of his team and ask for a report on rigging the bombs to blow-up the installation. She imagined the strait set of his jaw and calm calculating eyes brighten with a smirk of triumph as one of his men would give him a favorable report. He could be quite dashing when he was happy.
The ship's comm. buzzed, alerting the bridge that they were being hailed. Amue called it up on the main screen fully prepared to begin trading insults and threats with one of the Galran pilots. Instead Shirogane Ryou's handsome face appeared. He stood in the center of the tower's control room, as she had imagined he did only second before. Behind him two members of his team were hard at work rigging a remote detonator to a large wad of sticky blasting-jelly that had been set at the junction between the floor and wall. The princess could see that he was pleased but none of the feeling showed beyond his eyes. Ryou was collected and commanding when he said, "We've cleared away most of your tails and the rest are coming back here to bother me. As soon as you clear the planet punch it and get the hell out of here."
This Amue already knew and she didn't need him to tell her but she supposed giving obvious orders like that helped him feel like he was in control of what was otherwise an uncontrollable situation. And so she humored him and said, "Roger."
Now he shifted uncomfortably. "This might be the last time we get to talk with each other for a long time. It might even be the last time we see each other at all." The young rebel leader averted his eyes, then looked back at her uncertainly then looked away again when he said, "Incase we never meet again I just wanted to tell you... I want you to know that... that I love you, Amue!" He focused his attention back on her, waiting for a reply.
All eyes on the bridge suddenly forgot whatever it was they were doing however important and focused instead on the Heraclesian princess.
Amue sat frozen in her seat, her response on her lips but refusing to be spoken aloud. Her heart was hammering against her chest and she couldn't tell if it was adrenaline from the battle or the confession that she had just received. She wanted to respond in kind, to tell him just how much he meant to her, that she adored him, that she liked nothing more than to just be around him, even when they were arguing, even when he exasperated her to the point of wanting to tear her hair out. She wanted to say 'I love you too'. But the words stuck unspoken on her lips. Instead she said, "I know."
"Oh." He blinked in crestfallen disappointment. "Good. Um.. That's good. I..."
One of the rebels that had been rigging the bomb came up to tap him on the shoulder. "Sir, we're all ready here."
Grateful for the well-timed distraction but suspecting the soldier had done it more out of pity, the young rebel leader turned back to Amue once again collected and confident. "Good luck on your mission."
And with that the transmission was ended.
The freighter climbed higher into the thick black and brown cloud cover of the Galran skies before finally breaking through in the upper atmosphere. Warm golden sunlight spread out before them like soft creamery butter over toast burned to a blackened mess. It must have morning, the sun was just over the horizon in the East, rising over the depressing grey world that would never see its light or appreciate its warmth. As they continued to rise the sun became less of a warm glow and more of an independent sphere shining over a dirty brown marble, the Planet Galra.
"Its a shame really." The pilot was saying. "Galra might have been pretty if it weren't for the clouds."
Amue chose not to comment, she could not ever imagine Galra being anything but what it was. Dirty, depraved and deplorable. A veritable den of iniquity ruled by a cruel and monstrous villain that was as vile and repulsive as he was beautiful and alluring. "Cut the chatter and plot our course."
On the planet's surface far below her where the sunlight could not reach the shipyard's control tower exploded in a burst of glorious orange and gold flames, sending plums of black smoke up to join the already repugnant cloud cover that blanketed the planet. Bits of shrapnel the size of full grown me went flying in all directions and Ryou and his band of rebels took cover in a near by gully to watch the fruits of their labor and pick off whatever Galran soldiers that might have escaped the blast.
When the flames subsided and the shipyard became nothing more than mangled shadows on the already marred Galran landscape and the rebels were sure that not a single Galran soldier had escaped Ryou gave to order to move out. "Let's get back to base. I'm sure we're all tired."
...
Sincline stepped out from the double doors of his harem completely relaxed. It was really amazing what a few hours indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh could do for a man's nerves. He sauntered throughout the castle halls with the slightest of springs in his step, not an actual spring in his step mind you. No, His Eminence was far to dignified to ever actually skip, but the feeling was there even if it's observable action was not. When the Emperor reached his office he found that the dead aide had been cleaned up, the carpet had been replaced with a newer one (this one with a pattern in shades of burgundy that would more easily hide blood stains) and the datadiscs that Gibra had picked up for him had been reorganized with their tray placed in the cue of all the other documents he had to survey. Sincline was not looking forward to the work but he was pleased that his staff had managed to organize everything so efficiently without his supervision.
He was about to sit down and get to work when there was a tentative knock on the office door. One administrative aide had already been killed today, so naturally all the others were going to be on their tip-toes around him and not dare enter the Imperial Office without permission first.
"Unless the Lions are attacking, I don't want to hear it!" He snapped at the closed door.
It opened a crack and a meek faced attendant poked his face in. For one brief moment Sincline feared he was going to tell him that Kogane and the Lions were at the gates here to rescue the princess. That idea was dismissed the moment it surfaced in his mind. If the Lions really were attacking he would have realized it long before anyone had to tell him, a full frontal assault by gigantic wild-cat mechs was a hard thing to miss.
"I... I have your nuptial contract, Your Eminence." The terrified aide stammered in a voice barely above a whisper.
Oh, well that was different! The moment he and Fala signed the nuptial contract she would be his wife, his Empress, all nice and legal. Galrans didn't really care about marriage all that much, it was a contract to be entered into for financial or political reasons. Altea was already a planet within his Empire and Fala subject to him, she no longer had any financial or political powers to be bringing into their marriage. The other reason for marriage on Galra was if a man wanted to acknowledge the offspring of one woman as his heirs over the offspring of any of his other lovers. Fala was to young to have her beauty spoiled by motherhood, no to mention he highly doubted he could reproduce in the first place. By all the marks of his own society, marrying his lovely Lioness was a useless and pointless endeavor. But marriage was a big deal in her society and so it was for her that he wanted to do it.
"Bring it here and put it with the others." Sincline motioned to the cue of datadisces all neatly arranged in their trays, organized by order of importance.
The administrative aide slipped in the rest of the way and crossed the dark new carpet tentatively as if afraid His Eminence might kill him for any moment for no reason. He paused at the cue of datadisces, unsure of where to place it in the cue. How important was this to the Emperor?
"Just set it down and get out!" Sincline snarled.
The aide dropped the disc on top of the tray without placing it in any slot and got the hell out of their as fast as his legs would carry him. The door closed carefully and quietly behind him so as not to disturb the volatile young Emperor.
Sincline denied the petition he'd just been reading with out even finishing the document, signed it, saved his signature and ejected the disc placing it in the stack of completed documents. He picked up his marriage contract and slipped it in the datapad to read it over before presenting it to Fala for her to sign. After he had confirmed that it had been written up exactly as he had specified he ejected the disc again and reached for the comm. link that was built into his desk. He dialed the extension for the person he wanted and had to wait a moment or two for the signal to travel from his office to the War Room four floors down.
"This is Gibra, go ahead." The General's crisp voice answered with little delay.
"Gibra." Sincline's cool tenor crooned.
"Ah, Your Eminence, you'll be pleased to know that preparations for-"
"I'm not calling about that." Sincline cut him off, sure that his earlier orders to the General were being carried out just fine. The Red Army was, after all, his best fighting force. "I need someone to stand up with me."
"Uh, sure." Gibra responded, always willing to fulfill any request his sovereign made of him. "Who are we fighting?"
"No. I mean I need your signature, as my witness for my nuptial contract."
There was a prolonged pause on the other end of the comm. and the heterogeneous hybrid wondered if the General thought him to be a sentimental fool. "I... I'm honored, Your Eminence."
"Good. Be at my private study within the hour."
"On the Royal Residential floor?"
...
Fala had retreated into her bedroom, the inner chamber of her suit, after Sincline's odd and impromptu visit. Truth be told she wanted to get away. She didn't like that he could come into her rooms whenever he liked, she didn't like the power he had over her, she didn't like the freedom he had here on Planet Galra, the freedom to do as he pleased whenever he pleased.
She walked over to her window, the curtains were already pulled back offering a wide view of the dead landscape. Fala examined the window sill and frame. There were no hinges on the window, Fala had already noted that (aside from those on the ground floor of the castle) no windows opened on Galra. She assumed it was because the air higher than a certain altitude was so putrid that even the natives couldn't stand to breath it. She was afraid to ask, however, because she didn't want the answer to be something along the lines of 'To keep people from escaping'. Because that was exactly what Fala was hoping to do.
The window was fixed in a polished black carbon fiber frame set into the black stone of the castle wall. Carbon fiber, once forged, was impossible to break. The 'glass' of the window was also most likely not really glass but rather transparasteel. There was no hope of her actually breaking the window, not in a million years. Maybe if she had a lazer cutter, but how was she going to smuggle something like that up here? The only plausible idea was to pop the window out of its setting in the wall and that was no easy feat. The princess was running through scenarios in her mind of how she could possibly escape through her window when there was a quiet nock on the door dividing her bedroom from the sitting room.
Sincline would never knock or request permission before entering a room so it had to be one of her maids, perhaps Marisol since she was the one that attended her the most. "Enter."
It was not Marisol, the Captain of her guard walked through the door instead.
"Princess," she began, her Altean heavily accented, "His Eminence, requests your presence in his private study."
"Sincline does not request anything." Fala shot back snidely.
Her Guard Captain did not respond. The Altean princess supposed that she just didn't know what to say to such blatant disrespect for her ruler or else she didn't want to say anything for fear of making a remark that could be interpreted as 'treasonous'. Fala had been on Galra for almost a week and she had been attended by the Captain for all that time but she still hadn't gotten a clear gauge of the woman's character.
"Still, I suppose we shouldn't keep him waiting." The Altean princess stood with court trained grace and brushed past her Guard Captain with all the snobbish pride and contempt that she thought was characteristic of Galran royalty.
The door to Sincline's study was open, the first time Fala had ever know the study to be unlocked the entire time she'd been living on the planet. She stepped in tentatively, her Guard Captain entering after her and shutting the door behind them.
Sincline was leaning against an antique desk made of highly polished dark wood of a type she'd never seen before. He looked pleased about something and Fala was none to anxious to find out what it was so she turned her attention toward the rest of the room. Gibra was there also, the General of the Red Army stood examining a shelf of books against a far wall, not the datadisces that she's seen everywhere else in the castle but actual bound books. As she turned about the room she realized that every wall was covered by a floor to ceiling bookshelf and each bookshelf was packed with bound books of every possible size and description. It was really a wonder the window and door hadn't been blocked by bookshelves. They were all packed and organized so fictitiously that she could even see where one was missing, a perfect single book sized space was left empty in the middle of a collection lined up on one of the shelves by the window. Fala never would have pegged Sincline as a great reader. But then, she reflected, just because he had a million books didn't mean he had actually read that million books.
The heterogeneous hybrid cleared his throat, bringing the princess' attention back to him. "Fala," he said, "its time."
"Time?" She echoed. "Time for what?"
Her heart was suddenly thumping against her chest and she quickly reappraised the situation. The Altean princess suddenly found herself trapped in a room with Sincline and two of his henchmen. Her mind realed with scenarios of Gibra and her Guard Captain holding her down while the perverse young Emperor had his fill of her body. Fala wrapped her arms about her shoulders as if doing so could protect her from them and glanced from the General to the Captain and back again as if expecting them to pounce on her at any moment.
"Oh, do calm down." Sincline huffed. "I can assure you, its nothing as terrible as you might be imagining. Though... I am curious to know what you were just imagining. No, my dear, its time for us to be married."
Married. The word hit Fala like an out-of-control semi-truck packed with dynamite and crude-oil being driven by a homicidal Doraimon. She had agreed to marry him, to keep Altea safe she had agreed to be his wife. At the time she didn't want it to happen any more than she did now but then she had been optimistic that Kogane would come to rescue her just in the nick of time. It was time's nick now and the princess peered out the study's wide wondow examining the brown sky of clouds looking for any sign of the Lions. There was none. They weren't coming. She began to cry.
Silent tears spilled down her cheeks at the realization that she was actually going to marry Sincline, that this thing was actually happening and that the Lions hadn't come to rescue her. The world blurred and she blinked to clear it. She was her husband-to-be push off of the desk against which he was leaning and walk towards her. She didn't want to be touched by him, but at the same time she needed comfort, she wanted comfort, even if it was the comfort of an enemy. He wrapped his arms around her and she leaned into his chest, burying her face in the soft black fabric of his tunic. He shifted her in his arms to free one hand which he reached into his pocket. The Emperor pulled out a clean white linen handkerchief, an item that Fala never would have imagined a Galran (let alone Sincline) carrying. It was plain, unpatterned and unadorned except by the letters 'N.H.' in one corner. Who or what NH was supposed to be she had no idea, but the character's were Altean and not Galran and that alone made it suspicious.
He used it to gently wipe her eyes. It was such a tender gesture coming from him that her tears ceased from shock and she blinked at him with eyes shining from her recently dispelled tears.
"I realize this is a rather dramatic life change for you." Sincline soothed, voice soft and reposeful. She didn't know he could speak in such a voice. "But I refuse to delay this any longer."
He refolded his handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket before leading his reluctant bride-to-be over to the desk and presenting her with a datapad. The Princess took the document reader mechanically and examined it without really seeing it. Three fourths of the device was taken up by a crystal screen that was currently displaying a contract of some sort. At the bottom of the contract were spaces for four signatures, bride, groom and two witnesses. One of the spaces was highlighted in yellow but she didn't know what that meant. The princess placed the datapad back on the desk.
"I don't know what to do." She confessed.
Sincline gently took her hand and guided it to the lower fourth of the pad that was occupied by a small keyboard and a touch-pad of some kind. "Place your thumb here."
He gently placed her thumb over the touch-pad, applying just enough pressure to activate the sensors beneath the it. Fala's thumb print appeared on the screen next to the highlighted space and then her name seemed to type itself on the line; 'Fala of Altea'. Sincline released her hand and repeated the process for himself, removing his black glove to reveal a sinewy blue hand with slender fingers tipped in long sharp almost claw-like nails. He pressed his thumb to the pad and his thumb print also appeared next to another blank line with his name following soon after; intricate and complicated characters that Fala could not read but was sure read 'Sincline (unknown family name)'.
He replaced his glove on his hand and passed the datapad to Gibra. "Witness."
The General likewise removed his glove and pressed his thumb to the pad. When he was done he passed it to the Captain of Fala's guard. "Congratulations, Your Eminence, Your Majesty."
He bowed to Sincline and Fala in turn as did the Guard Captain once she was done signing. They left once their business was concluded, Gibra holding the door open for the Captain in almost Altean-like gentlemanly fashion. He closed it behind them and the newlyweds were now left alone together.
Sincline ejected the disc that contained their marriage contract and Fala glared at the hateful document as if doing so would cause it to melt and be destroyed under her intensity. It didn't.
"So that's it?" She asked.
"That's it." He confirmed, placing the disc in a plastic case and locking it in a small drawer of the desk.
"No ceremony?"
Now he looked up at her in sheer and utter confusion. "What for?"
"Uh, a wedding ceremony." The princess, ney, the Empress attempted to clarify. "On Altea when people get married they have big ceremonies to mark the occasion. In a church, the bride is lead down the isle while the groom waits at the alter. A priest oversees their exchange of vows and rings and pronounces them married before the eyes of God."
Her husband raised one chalky white eyebrow. "Well if you want... I'm sure I could arrange something with the High Priest at Menagroth's main temple in Nargothrond. But it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for something that is essentially meaningless. My time would be better spent on more pertinent matters."
Fala was about to argue that marriage ceremonies were not meaningless but then realized that he just wouldn't understand. Instead she asked, "So... what happens now?"
Sincline wrapped his arm about her waist, pulling her into him. He caressed one hand down the side of her cheek in a soft intimate motion that sent a tingling sensation down that whole side of her body and the Empress suddenly remembered the claw-like nails he had under his glove.
Her heart leapt back into her throat. "H-here! Now!"
His touch was so bold and intimate. They were married now, was he going to try to consummate their marriage here in the study? Could he really not wait until they got to a bedroom? Panic seized her again.
"No." Her husband whispered softly and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Go back to your rooms and try and calm down. Have a glass of wine, read a book, scream into a pillow if you like. I have some work that I've been putting off all day that I need to finish. Come to my room later tonight."
...