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-Three:

Within my veterinarian practice I have dealt with many pregnant humans, so I like to believe that I could be considered an 'expert' on the subject. Of course, veterinarians deal with all slaves on Galra, not just the human ones, but I have dealt with homo-sapiens the most in my professional life and like to think that I have a clear understanding of them. That being said, I find myself confused by the Emperor's harem slave.

Yes, a human conceiving a Galran offspring is perplexing to say the least and while I am utterly dumbfounded by the reality of it, that is not what confuses me about this particular human. No, what gives me pause is not that she is pregnant with an impossible human-Galran hybrid but rather the way in which she approaches said pregnancy. Most all of the human females I have dealt with in the past had been (for the lack of a better word) excited by the prospect of becoming mothers. Slaves though they were and their children the product of selective breeding rather than whatever version of arda the humans have, the women were still content (and sometimes even happy) to bring a new life into the world.

The Emperor's harem slave, however, this Nienor Hurin woman is not.

She is a truly unique creature and worthy of study as a member of her race, not just as the vessel for what could only be an act of the gods. While animal-psychology is not my field and I only ever took what courses in it that were needed for my veterinary license, it is my personal opinion that a psychological study of this woman could provide remarkable insights into the human-animal.

She views her pregnancy not as joyous blessing as I have seen other human females view their own, but rather a vile curse. She displays nothing but an aura of loathing and contempt for the developing fetus within her and has said (I was amazed to find that she spoke rather proficient Galran), said that were it not for the fear of the Emperor's wrath, she would have aborted the unborn prince the moment she learned of it. –

Sincline shut off his data pad at that point.

Somewhere around the second or third month of his mother's pregnancy (those where Galran months, by the way) his father had become annoyed with the head-scientist in charge of his mother's… 'case-study' (the term left a vile taste in his mouth), and had replaced him. Sincline, whom had had to read through almost three months worth of charts, diagrams and reports, was happy for the change. This new head-doctor, in addition to those same reports, charts, etc., also added some personal journal entries or musings on the project which (for a layman like Sincline) were a welcome reprieve from all the cold medical jargon and made things much easier to understand. However, he was finding some of those same passages difficult to read for other reasons not academic.

While this new scientist's journal entries made things more digestible for one without medical training, they were also hard for him to read because they confronted him with the fact that his mother had not cared for him, had not wanted him and would have killed him had she not feared what his father might have done to her if she had. How strange that he should owe his life, not to the woman who bore him, but rather the man whom had been ready to execute him just a few short months ago.

Intellectually he understood it. He had been the unwanted product of what any human would call 'rape'. She had not wanted his father and she had not wanted him. These facts were perfectly understandable, a regular textbook case. Sincline, however, was not a textbook. Contrary to his charming wife's belief, he was a living and feeling person just as susceptible to emotional pain as any other sapient creature.

And his mother wished he had ever existed…

With a self-pitying sigh he tossed the datapad down and reached for the open bottle of yarbara that had been placed on his coffee table for just such a need. The young Emperor had long since given up the pretence of a glass of any sort and had been drinking strait from the bottle almost since he reached the second disk on the files. The wine did little to sooth his miserable mood, however, and only seemed to make his mind wander.

'The reason I loath this thing in my belly is because of you, my husband.' Fala's words echoed through his mind and stabbed at his heart like a lance. 'I don't want this baby.'

It seemed that history was repeating its self. Fala had taken the place of Nienor and was playing out the same drama for the gods' amusement. And he… 'You're a bitch, Fala… You're having that child whether you like it or not!' …He had taken up the roll of his father (though he didn't know how accurately he was playing it). It seemed the stage was set for their great tragedy to be played out, the gods had seen to it.

Sincline stood and began pacing his sitting room. How would it end? he wondered. Would he kill Fala as his own father had killed his mother? What scenario could the gods possibly throw at him that would drive him to kill his xenophobic little wife? Most of the incentives he could think of ended in him killing someone else or himself. No, the gods had already done the whole father killing the mother thing they would want something new. A different tragedy to watch from the Otherworld… Perhaps Fala would come around to her child and raise it poisoned against him? Perhaps he would be killed by his own child? No, that gods had already done that one too. He had killed Daibazaal in the public Arena. Besides, patricide was no bog deal. Certainly not anything the gods would find entertaining.

He took another long swig from the bottle.

Standing here trying to second-guess the gods wasn't going to get him anywhere. Instead of imagining a horrible fate he should be trying to build a happy ending. Just because he and Fala were paralleling his father and mother did not mean that they were doomed to the same fates. No! Perhaps this was the gods' attempt to 'redeem' his parents' folly. Either that or they were just sadistic bastards that loved watching mortals suffer.

'No, stop that.' He told himself. He did not like to think himself a pessimist; Sincline much preferred the term 'realist'. But every now and again he had to catch himself and force a slightly less pessimistic and more 'real' outlook.

So some things were similar between his parent and his current situation with Fala. That meant nothing. They were completely different people in a marginally similar situation. Whether or not they ended in tragedy still remained to be seen and greatly depended on how they handled themselves now.

With this thought fixed firmly in his mind, he went to see Fala.

The Emperor found his wife in her bedroom. She was standing in front of the large full-length mirrors of her closet, studying her figure from the side. Sincline took a step back before she could notice him and stood lurking in the doorway between the bedroom and sitting room, just watching her. She leaned backwards with her hand on the small of her back and watched how her flat belly curved outwards. Sincline watched as she ran her other hand over the fabric of her dress and sighed.

Was she testing to see what she would look like fat? 'No, not fat.' He quickly back-peddled. Rather, what she would look like a few months from now when her pregnant condition began to show. Yes, that was what she was doing. Looking into the future, in a manner of speaking. Was she worried about how she would look? He had never pegged her as being particularly vain (in fact, Sincline was fairly certain he had more vanity than she did). Why then… Or was this just some thing that all women did?

"You look beautiful." He announced his presence and stepped away from the doorframe.

She wheeled around in alarm, as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn't have. "Sincline!"

She looked as if she wanted to ask what he was doing here in her bedroom, but the question would have been a rhetorical one. He knew she had already assumed he was here for some licentious reason. Though he hadn't touched her since first learning that she was carrying, she still always assumed he was about to pin her down and start riding her at any moment. (Damn you, Pavlov!) An awkward silence settled over them and they stood there doing nothing more than just staring at one another for a long moment.

Then, hoping to break the tension in the air, Sincine began, "I, uh… I was just reading and wanted… a break. I wanted a break from reading." He finished lamely.

"Oh." She was unconcerned and uninterested. "That book about your ancestor?"

"Er, no…" He placed his hands in his pockets and kicked at nothing, feeling suddenly very foolish. "It was… it was something much more heavy than that. But, uh, but what I really came her for was to ask… I wanted to know… I'm just curious if your opinion has changed. About the child, I mean. Our child. Do you… do you still not want it?"

Her eyes hardened, her body language rigid yet vibrating emotion and her voice was cold and unforgiving when she answered, "No, Sincline, I do not want this child."

"Because its Galran?"

"Because its yours."

"Because of me…" In his pockets his hands suddenly clenched into fists. He felt himself shaking and wondered if it was noticeable to Fala and what she might interpret it as. "I… its not the child's fault, ya know. This child didn't choose to have me as a father any more than I chose to have my own father." He began pacing back and forth in front of the door. "I don't get you women. You can't hold the child responsible for who its father is… was… its not… I…"

He stopped in his pacing and looked up at his wife suddenly and Fala gasped to see his eyes glistening as if with tears, but none fell.

"My mother wanted to kill me." He said, his voice overflowing with desolation. "For no other reason than I was my father's son."

He looked so mournful, so wretchedly disconsolate that something inside Fala broke and for a brief moment did not see the face on an enemy but just another tortured victim of the late Daibazaal's cruelty and she had the inexplicable urge to actually offer him comfort, but all she said was, "What?"

"And now you want to do the same thing to my child, for no other reason than its mine." He continued his pacing, avoided further eye contact. "I though you Alteans were all about love and light and forgiveness and all that hippie bullshit. But I guess that's all it is, bullshit. Or maybe it only applies to other humans, maybe it doesn't extend to people with Galran blood!"

She waited for him to continue, but he did not, just kept pacing back and forth in front of the door separating the bedroom from her sitting room, effectively trapping her in.

"I never said I wanted to kill it." She ventured finally, voice soft and gentle, fearing the wrong infraction would send him into a violent rage. It was a lie, of course. She had wanted to kill it; she had begged her doctor Naisha for an abortion the moment she learned of her pregnancy. But Sincline didn't know that and he didn't need to. "I just said that I don't want it. I wish this had never happened, but I don't want it dead."

The Emperor once again stopped his pacing and looked at her, his gaze overflowing with a vulnerability she never would have thought he would have, let alone show.

"I wish this had never happened." She repeated. "But is has, so we've got to make the best of it. I'm not happy about it and I probably won't every be, but…" Here she paused, a though occurring to her. She had the insane feeling that she should finish her sentence in Galran. He still didn't know she could speak and understand it. She had originally started learning the language out need, under the belief that it would help her escape. But she had since accepted the fact that there was no escape for her now. "… but this is the fate I have been dealt."

Sincline gaped at her. "What did you say?"

Thinking that she had misspoken and fearing that she had instead said something very offensive the Empress quickly apologized in her own language. "I'm sorry! Were my words not correct? I meant to say-"

"No, say that again."

Taken aback, Fala repeated the one sentence she had spoken to him in Galran.

"You speak my language!" He crossed the room and lifted her up in his arms laughing and twirled her around. "When did this happen?"

Fala reeled in utter confusion. He had just been hysterically upset a moment ago and now he was smiling a laughing. His moods were so capricious and mercurial it was hard to keep up! "I've been… learning."

"Say something else!" He put her down but continued to hold her. Casting his eyes about the room, he pointed at a heavy-looking marble bookend and said, "That. What's that?"

"A bookend?" She ventured unsure.

He smiled down at her before pointing to the mirrored doors of her closet. "And those?"

"Looking glass."

He then turned them around and pointed to the wall.

"Barrier."

The large four-poster bed.

"A bed."

The door.

"Portal."

He laughed and once again picked her up and twirled her around. "This is great! Now say something else. Say a full sentence! Say… say 'the walrus was Paul'."

"What!" She blinked at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

He only nodded. "Go on."

"The tusked-beast is Paul?" There were, of course, no walruses on Galra and Fala was not sure if they had a word for them since they were foreign animals, neither did she know if they had an equivalent animal here, so she substituted the word 'walrus' for a description of one.

He giggled again in approval. "Oh, you are so wonderful!" And then leaned down to kiss her.

Fala did not try to struggle away from it this time. She had grown tired of trying to fight him and with everything else that had already happened to her, what was one kiss?

"But where did you learn all this?" He asked when their lips finally parted.

"Here and there." She shrugged meekly. "And Nera's been helping me too."

Here his look suddenly changed from pleased to suspicious. "Funny, she never mentioned any of this in her reports."

"I- I asked her to keep it a secret!" She quickly explained, not wanting to get her only Galran friend in trouble. "Because I wanted to surprise you!"

"You wanted to surprise me?" He asked skeptically. "You did this for me? You would learn my language for me, but you would scorn your child because it came from me…?" He glared at her and released his hold, stepping back. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: You're a lying bitch, Fala. You didn't learn my language for me, you learned it for yourself. That's fine, you're going to be spending the rest of your life here, you should know the language. But don't you dare try and pass it off as something you did for me!"

"Sincline, I-"

"Stop! Just stop." He cut her off. "Don't say anything else, you'll just dig yourself in deeper. By the gods, Fala! I know how you feel about me, but you've been living here for the past few months. Haven't I done anything in that time that didn't make you hate me? Haven't I done anything that you might have liked? Can't you at least try to warm up to me? I mean, you're carrying my baby for the gods' sake!"

"Everything you did to me while I was drugged, I enjoyed." She reminded him. "While you were doing it, at least."

"That doesn't count."

She demurred and was silent. Sincline lapsed into a silence of his own and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

"There was… one thing…" Fala finally said in a voice barely above a whisper. Her cheeks colored a dainty rosy pink and Sincline knew that it must have been something sexual she had enjoyed. That cheered him. Sex was one of his favorite pastimes and while he had promised himself he would not touch her while she was pregnant for fear of damaging the child within her, he was looking forward to resuming their nominal congress the moment her doctor gave the O.K.

"Go on…" He urged.

"On… on our wedding night of all times…" The blush on her cheeks deepened, spreading color up her ears and down her neck. "On our wedding night, you did something that was really nice. You, um, it felt like you might have been… licking me? Whatever you did, I liked that."

Here Sincline was torn between smiling and cringing. While he was happy that his wife was pleased by one of his bedroom skills, cunnilingus was his least favorite act to preform. It was kinda… gross, and he found it to be more of a chore than anything else. A means of getting the woman wet and ready for him to take his pleasure from her, not something he himself derived pleasure from. But then again, hadn't he vowed not to take pleasure from her while she was carrying? He could still give her some without taking any for himself, couldn't he? And it wouldn't run the risk of harming the child because he would never mount her, bite her or scratch at her with his claws…

"Would you like me to do that again?" He offered.

"What?" She blinked. That bright blush now reached all the way to her breasts and disappeared under the collar of her dress.

Sincline crossed the distance between them for a second time and, lifting her up in his arms, carried her to the bed where he laid her down gently.

"Would you like me to do that for you again?" He repeated.

"I… I don't know." She stuttered.

He began to push the material of her skirt up over her legs, slowly sliding it over her knees and bunching it around her waist.

"If you want me to stop, just say so." He grinned.

"I don't know…" She bit her bottom lip.

Sincline pulled her panties down her legs, slipped them off her feet and tossed them to the side where they rumpled on the floor next to the bedpost. Placing his large clawed hands on her knees he gently spread her legs and bent down between them.

"No! Stop!" Fala gasped the moment she felt his warm breath on her nethers. She reached her hands down to cover her most intimate region and sat up to look at him. Her face was alight with that same deep blush and she averted here eyes the moment she looked at him. "I… I'm to embarrassed."

"After everything we've already done together and everything I've already done to you, this is what makes you feel uncomfortable?"

She fidgeted, wanting nothing more than to close her legs but finding it impossible to do so with him sitting between them. "I… I don't know…"

He sighed. "Lay back down, Fala. You have no reason to be embarrassed."

Reluctantly, the Empress relaxed back against her pillows and attempted to ignore the feeling of indecency she felt. She didn't know why she still felt that way, it wasn't like she was a pristine virgin anymore and besides, Sincline had done much worse to her in the short time they had been married already. There was no reason to be nervous or embarrassed or uncomfortable. Fala took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she felt her husband's tongue on her skin and she gasped.

He started away from her feminine orchid and instead began caressing the inside of her thigh with his skilled and practiced tongue. Lightly, he flicked it across the soft and sensitive flesh of her upper leg working his way ever closer to her center. When he reached the still closed lips of her delicate core he moved his attention to the other leg and, beginning at the knee, followed a similar trail of licks and kisses and caresses up the inside of her thigh.

"Why…?" She began in a shuddering whisper, but trailed off. She didn't know why he was bothering with her legs at all and not simply just pouncing on her exposed womanhood, but she decided it was best not to question his motives lest he change his mind and forego this gentleness for his more characteristic and hurtful impatience.

Having reached her center a second time, Sincline gently parted the curly golden strands of her pubic hair and flicked his tongue over her ever so slightly moist slit. A soft moan escaped from Fala and her legs relaxed ever so slightly. Her husband flicked his tongue over her again before delivering a much longer lick up her slit. He was rewarded with a tiny wave of wetness and the lips of her labia finally parted enough for him to gain access to her inner-layers and her most sensitive clitoris.

Sincline lapped up her wetness greedily, flicking his tongue up her slit and over the sensitive bud that crowned it. This only elicited more moans from his wife and another fresh wave of wetness.

He shifted his focus from her slit as a whole to just that most delicate and sensitive bud that crowned it. Sincline devoted all his attention to pleasing her suddenly aroused and erect clit. He ran circles around the tiny bud with his tongue, every now and again pausing to gently press into it with the tip of his skilled pink tongue.

Fala bucked her hips involuntarily, as if trying to urge him onwards and he had to smile at the sheer level of her abandon. The sound of her whimpers and moans as he practices his ministrations were music to his ears. And then, a though struck him. Why not just go ahead and take her? She was aroused. She was wet and open. And she was so deliciously wonderful.

His own stiff and needy arousal pressed against the constraining fabric of his pants as if trying to break free to get at his moaning and writhing wife. She was so beautiful and she was so horny… and so was he.

He pressed his tongue between her lower lips, delving into her core and lapping up the sweet nectar that waited there for him. She gasped and sighed and writhed in pleasure and he wondered exactly why he was doing this and not mounting her properly and pressing himself inside her like he wanted to.

"-huff- Sincline…" She gasped with pleasure.

Waves of sensation traveled up her body radiating from her center and Fala felt her nipples harden into tight pearls beneath the fabric of her dress and she suddenly and inexplicably wished to be naked. She clawed and pulled at the material of her collar, trying to pull it down and offer her confined chest the freedom is so desired. Sincline continued his ministrations on her nethers sending waves of pleasure flowing up her stomach and beyond and she moaned with the feelings.

Those wonderful waves paused, however, when he raised his head to look at her. She met his eyes and saw the same misty lust that she was feeling reflected in his golden cat-like orbs. She paused in her own action of pulling at her dress to stare at him. He was so beautiful, his mixed alien and human features giving him an exotic and almost ethereal look, like a Silvan elf from Tolkinian myth. Look at his beautiful face and still feeling the slightest echoes of pleasure whispering through her, Fala found it easier to forget all the horrible things he had done…

She reached her hand down to him and brushed a single strand of silver hair back behind his pointed pinnacle ear in what might have been called 'affection'. Her husband gasped when her hand lightly brushed the pointed tip of his ear and a shudder traveled through him.

"I'm sorry." Fala whispered quickly, thinking she had done something wrong. She pulled her hand away but he grabbed her wrist, drawing her up into a sitting position.

"No." He soothed. "Do that again."

Cautiously, her whole form radiating reluctance, Fala gently brushed her finger over the pointed tip of his ear a second time. Sincline let out a second sigh that just might have been a soft moan of pleasure. This left the Empress even more confused than she was before.

"What did I do?" She asked.

Instead of answering, he reached up and gently stroked the curved top of her own ear. "You don't feel anything?"

Fala only shrugged. "I feel your hand."

Her husband sighed in disappointment and lowered himself back down between her legs to resume his ministrations. She was about to ask what he meant but the though was cut off before it ever reached her lips as those deliciously wonderful waves of pleasure returned and sent her reeling backwards on the surf of the sensation. She felt his tongue dart in and out of her entrance and then slide up her slit to run circles around her clit before darting back inside her. Her back arched at the feeling and she moaned with abandon.

This was nice. Why couldn't he have always done this before?

"Fala…?" He paused again, his voice deep and throaty when he said her name. Sincline once again raised his head to look at her, an almost pleading gaze in his eyes. "Would you… do something for me in return?"

The Empress watched with apprehension as he raised himself up onto his knees and began to unlace the fly of his pants. She drew her legs closed and shuffled back away from him until her back came in contact with the bed's headboard.

"I… I don't like…" She protested lamely. But what was the point of even protesting in the first place? He would just force whatever he wanted from her as he always did and she would have little to know say in the matter. He might be asking, but asking from him was just a polite command. As he often reminded her, Sincline did not take 'no' for an answer. "I don't like sex."

"Oh, no, not sex." He quickly assured her. "Well, I mean not real sex. Its just you're so very very sexy and… well, look at me."

He finished unlacing his fly and slipped the pants and his underwear off his narrow hips just enough to release his stiff erection from its fabric prison. Fala gazed at his member that had become uncomfortably familiar to her. Long and thick and hard, its shaft textured with irregularly pattered bumps and ridges that no human penis should have. A main of thick curly silver hair crowded its base and two big blue and slightly hairy balls hung just below it. The Empress swallowed a lump of apprehension that had suddenly formed in the back of her throat.

"What do you mean, 'not real sex'?" She asked.

"I mean…" He paused. "I mean, not penetration sex. I won't mount you. I… I admit that I can be very… rough at times and I hurt you and… and I don't want to run the risk of damaging the child inside you."

"Oh." She wasn't quite sure what to think of that. Once again she found his concern for the little creature inside her to be a little unsettling. It almost felt like he cared more about the thing than he cared about her (which was not all that surprising considering his past treatment of her). Fala suddenly found that she was no longer in the mood for… whatever they had just been doing. She moves to get out of bed. "I'm done."

"What?" Sincline watched her right her skits and adjust the collar of her dress before she stood and reclaimed her discarded panties from where he had thrown them. "You can't be done. You were so wet! You didn't cum yet! You can't just turn off, just like that!"

"Apparently, I can." She shot back. "What? Are you going to force yourself on me again? Like you always do. You can try, but I'll fight you and you'll probably end up hurting me like you always do. And that'll just run the risk of hurting the thing inside of me that you seem to care so very much about."

"You…" He pulled his pants up just enough for him to climb out of bed and stalk towards her without tripping. "You're a manipulative little bitch!"

"Maybe. But if it keeps you away from me, I intend to use this pregnancy for all that its worth." She glared back at him suddenly confident that he wouldn't hurt her so long as he was concerned for his offspring. "Now, I suggest you leave before you do something you'll regret afterwards."

"You…" He sputtered helplessly. "You're a bitch!"

Sincline pulled his pants the rest of the way up and laced his fly before storming from her chambers in a rage. And Fala was left in her rooms, alone and unharmed.

…

The Emperor selected a slave whom resembled his wife. They were of a similar height and build with similar coloring of the skin and hair. The woman's face, however, looked nothing like his Empress and the eyes were the wrong color, but the slight resemblance was enough for him. He pinned the harem slave beneath him, holding her down by the wrists.

"Do not speak." He ordered.

Her voice did not sound life Fala's, neither did she smell like his wife. But if she kept silent and he focused his eyes on the waves of her golden hair or the feel of her slight frame beneath him, he could pretend that.

And that was just what he did. Sincline took his pleasure from the slave beneath him, pretending she was his wife and wishing it were so…

…