Tossing her head restlessly, Allura shifted in her sleep, trying to outrun the vague nightmarish images that haunted her in her dreams. She ran through a barren dreamscape chased by an omnipresent Haggar, whose cloaked form appeared to block every direction she turned.
Her head swiveled from side to side, looking from Haggar to another as they reached out with hands that resembled the talons of birds of prey. The pain caused by the witch's long nails startled the princess from her uneasy sleep.
Her skin was cold with sweat and her heart raced with nervous anticipation. The dread and fear that had permeated her unconscious mind echoed into her wakeful one. Danger. Danger everywhere. Circling. Stalking. Watching.
Allura got to her feet, determined to meet whatever lay ahead on equal terms. She held herself ready, arms bent and held in front of her, weight balanced lightly on the balls of her feet, the position prescribed by her judo training.
Her caution saved her life. Whirling to one side, she barely managed to dodge as she was set upon by something that looked like a gigantic centipede; its thick exoskeleton glowed eerily in the dim light.
Although the creature was looked wraithlike and insubstantial, there was nothing ghost-like about its serrated mandibles. Gasping with dismay, Allura scrambled backwards as the creature reached for her.
The princess' reaction — feinting to the left and rolling to the right — was a credit to patience and dedication of her teachers, the other members of the Voltron Force, who had spent almost three years training her to defend herself.
Realizing that her constant motion was the only thing keeping her alive, Allura continued to roll. Her sigh of relief was almost a sob as her questing hand touched something that she recognized as a crystal shard.
Grabbing it, she thrust it wildly at the creature, not even noticing the way that the sharp facets cut the palm of her hand. She stabbed at it again and again, miraculously managing to slip her makeshift-weapon between the joints of its milky-white armor.
The centipede screamed in pain and reared up on the lower half of its body, snagging a fold of her long skirt with one of the sharp blades on its mandibles as it did so. Panicked, Allura pulled at her skirt with all her strength, freed it and retreated.
Forcing herself to make a stand when all her instincts told her to run, Allura watched as the maddened creature prepared itself to attack once again. She stood still as the monster rushed at her blindly.
Her eyes were wide with terror, but she found the strength to wait until the last possible moment to dodge. Whirling to one side, she tightened her grip and thrust the crystal carefully into the eye of the centipede. Warm viscous fluid burst over her as the creature twitched and died.
Safe for the moment, Allura looked around her surroundings curiously as she tried to get her bearings. The pillars of crystal were the obvious place to begin and she stepped closer to examine one.
Bright curiosity shone in her eyes as she likened the crystals to the scrying glasses that her mother had often used — but instead of showing events in far off places as her mother's did, they were showing the treasured memories of her life.
Childhood games with the Space Mice. Her father reading fairytales to her. Keith's wry grin. The soothing lullaby of her mother's voice. History lessons with Coran. Waltzing with Keith back on Terra. Nanny baking a chocolate cake. Picnics with the Voltron Force. That last idyllic moment with Keith...
She glanced at another column. It displayed another set of memories — not hers, but connected somehow. A grove lined with worea, trees that could only be found in the cool valleys of Cador. Castle Doom. A gnarled hand stroking Coba, the blue cat. The Pit of Skulls.
Slaves screamed and writhed in agony — their bones lengthened, their joints cracked and twisted, their faces flattened — until their entire bodies were changed into ro-beasts that vaguely resembled the men they had once been.
She was looking at HAGGAR's memories! Allura realized with a horrified gasp. Her knees went weak as she fought to keep down her panic. A tear trickled down her cheek as she watched the death and pain Haggar had caused.
Tearing her gaze away from the crystal with some difficulty, Allura tried to control the nausea that rose up in her stomach... Horror gripped her heart in its tight fist as she remembered the ancient legend Coran had made her read while growing up — some of them told of magical beings who could steal men's souls.
She sank down on the grassy field and stared up at the moonless, starless sky, trying to understand what had happened to her. Her existence had all the qualities of the most terrifying nightmare she could imagine.
The stolen glimpses of Haggar's memories that Allura saw were only the smallest part of what the witch had done to her unfortunate victims. From what little the princess had seen, whenever Haggar took over a host body, she utterly destroyed the host's personality — and possibly even the host's soul.
What was she doing here then? The princess wondered. A vague memory formed — of fleeing before Haggar's power and building herself a small sanctuary while the witch's disembodied spirit was busy stealing her physical body.
With a brief shudder, Allura realized how close she had come to total oblivion. Even if she had managed to escape from Haggar the first time, she couldn't let her guard down. The witch would keep on trying to find her and assimilate her being into the whole of Haggar's memories.
With a pang, she remembered how she and Keith had bickered playfully after their sparring match in the salle. Taking her father's motto as her own, she had laughingly asserted, "The best defense is a good offense."
It worked then and if she were lucky, maybe it would work now. Allura thought, her face set with grim determination. If she concentrated, she could sense the witch's preoccupation — it was as good a time as any to leave the relative safety of her sanctuary to explore the uncertain environment outside it.