🎃October 26 - November 1🎃 @loturaweek2025 - Tumblr Blog

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Nov 13, 2025

@loturaweek2025 🎃 Day 4: Emerald - free day

I'm gonna cheat and use the free day prompt again hehe. Fanart of Solaria, Lotor and Allura's daughter created by @moonstance !

Original post here! Hope you don't mind that I gave her Galra royal red and gold colors! Thank you for letting me draw her 💖💜

Explanation of my design choices below!

You guys may already know how much I enjoy character design hehe, so I really wanted to take this opportunity to both pay an homage to a beautiful Voltron OC, as well as add in a bit of my own style! Moonstance gave me permission to pick out the colors, and I felt that giving her the classic Galra royal red and gold was the way to go. My hope is to show her pride in her Galra heritage, something to be regarded positively rather than the legacy her grandfather Zarkon left behind, so now the red and gold can have a more positive connotation behind it, with a splash of blue for uniqueneas. Hopefully the Altean elements shine through as well! Such as the slim silhouette, the cape, the accessory around the waist, and then of course the tiara, which I tweaked a bit to give her something new yet still elegant 😉

As moonstance helpfully explained to me, Solaria's weapons are a scythe and knife, inspired by Melinoe from the game Hades 2 and Death from Puss n Boots 2. I tried to come up with some alien-ish designs for them which was a lot of fun! I think I might enjoy designing weapons as much as I do outfits now 😆 And the knife is very much based off of the sword Lotor uses when he wields the black bayard 👀 Moonstance also explained that the scythe in particular is supposed to be regarded in a positive light as well, with Solaria being a harvester and cultivator, not a destroyer like Zarkon. This further cemented my choice to choose primarily Galra colors for her, so that she can break the cycle and set a new and better precedent for the future.

Lastly, the hair! Since moonstance mentioned that they wanted Solaria not to be only be a fusion of her parents but rather her own person, I felt it was appropriate to try and find a hairstyle that was unique to her. And I found a really cute one on Pinterest! My hope is to capture a blend of Lotor and Allura's hair textures, as well as give off the vibes that Solaria is fierce and free spirited! At least that's how I saw her hehe. I hope that's okay!!

Solaria is such a cutie and I love her already!! If I could just draw OCs and play around with character designs all day I would 😆 Thank you moonstance for sharing this beautiful character with us for Lotura Week!!! 💖💜

#Day 4: Emerald #loturaweek2025 #vld

loturaweek2025

Nov 7, 2025

imhereformysciencefriends

Day 7: Ruby: Supernatural Creatures

Okay I'm late but I have FINISHED @loturaweek2025!!! Some good classic fairytale vibes with curses and creatures, I hope you all enjoy, thanks for the wonderful week!

Read on AO3

~*~

In the forest, there is a glade. And in the glade, there is a moat. And inside the moat, there is a castle, and in the castle, there is a garden. And beyond the garden, there is a chamber. And in that chamber, is a princess.

And on that princess, is a curse.

The curse had been cast long ago, and no one now remembered why. Only that the land suffered without its ruler, the people struggling under the yoke of supernatural misfortune, and that only a hero could rescue her.

Lotor was not a hero. Lotor was, he suspected, about as far from a hero as any man could be. He was a liar, and prone to underhanded tricks to ensure his victory, ready and willing to use any means if he could justify them with the ends. He meant well, but. Well. Every man out for himself, first and foremost, after all.

But no life could be made with the land under curse, he knew that well enough. No matter how he tricked or connived or manipulated or bested or scraped, the best life he could make for himself would still be a miserable one until the blight on the lands was lifted. And that meant rescuing the princess, so.

Surely a selfish motivation could be overlooked, if the deed itself was still a good one, right? What would the history books care if his intentions were noble if all they'd ever hear of was his actions.

So with his short sword at his hip, a bag of rice at his back, and his heartbeat gnawing at his throat, he stepped into the cursed forest.

Nothing assailed him until he reached the glade, where he encountered the first of the princess's "guards." A pair of lovers who were the most recent to have tried to free her, now bound in eternal servitude to the curse and to this castle. A centaur with black hair and a white shock in the front right where a forelock might have been, on an actual horse, and a bolt black coat over the horse part of his body, and a cervitaur with a red deer's lower half and antlers protruding from his long black hair.

Lotor had known these men. They were from the same township he was from. He'd watched them depart, when he was a boy, some fifteen years ago, and they had not aged a day since the one he last saw them. Their sight made him stagger, but only briefly.

"Combat or riddle?" the two said in unison, without preamble. They did not acknowledge nor seem to remember him.

"Riddle," Lotor answered them without hesitation. If he failed the riddle, he'd draw his sword and then see if he could best them with it after, if they attempted to seize him. Unless, of course, his failure meant the magic seized him immediately, in which case he would likely become guard of the surrounding forest, cursed into some bestial form himself.

"One bridge over the moat will lead you to the castle, and the other will lead to your doom. One of us will always lie, the other tell the truth. You can ask us one question," they said again in unison, their tails flicking away imaginary flies behind them, for not even insects drew near the potent curse at this castle's center.

Lotor gave himself time to puzzle over that, then nodded to himself.

"If I were to ask the other one which bridge I would take to reach safety, which bridge would he direct me to?"

The guards glanced at each other, and though the curse kept their faces a blank mask, Lotor swore he saw their eyes both crinkle, slightly. The closest thing to a smile they were likely allowed. It gave him some assurance that he'd picked right.

"He would tell you the northern bridge," said the cervitaur.

"He would tell you the northern bridge," said the centaur.

To the southern bridge, Lotor went.

As he passed them by, he could swear he heard one of them whisper, "Good luck," so strained as though it took all his effort to utter even that. But when he turned they weren't even looking at him, once again patrolling the wide circle of the glade.

He was halfway across the bridge when a giant splash revealed the princess's next "guard." A young man Lotor had only heard of, gone before his time. He had long, slender limbs, tanned and supple and beautiful, befitting of a dancer. He also had the torso and head of a fish.

"Combat or riddle?"

Lotor pretended to cough to buy himself time to stay his laugh at the ridiculous sight of him. "Riddle," he then answered.

"Why couldn't the pony sing in the choir?"

Lotor squinted. Why couldn't the… This certainly didn't seem like a riddle, it seemed more like a—oh for fuck's sake. This was a joke.

Lotor sighed. If he got this wrong this would be the stupidest way for him to get cursed into eternal servitude ever.

"…Because it was a little horse?"

"Eyyyyyyy!" the fishman said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Lotor before diving back into the moat.

Of all the—whatever. Lotor had done it. He proceeded to the castle, and became abruptly aware that this was no ordinary castle. Well, yes, obviously, it was a cursed castle, but more than that: it was a maze. Each door led not to stillrooms and bedrooms and dining halls and cellars and sitting rooms, but instead to more and more corridors, defying the laws of physics and space, endless, ever stretching, ever twisting. Lotor, upon realizing this, made a very swift return to the front door of the castle, so he would not loose its exit, and wished he'd brought a ball of thread. Had he known there would be a maze—but he hadn't, and he was here now, and it was time to figure it out.

He took from his back the bag with rice, and dropped small amounts behind him, marking his path as he went deeper in. Even if he failed, and had to return again another day; at least this way he could leave.

Or that was the idea, until, perhaps an hour later, he turned at the sound of wings, and found the trail behind him picked away by the feathered hands of a harpy. They'd predated him enough he hadn't heard of them in anything more than abstract, a fairly young individual with brunette hair and large, round spectacles.

Lotor sighed.

They looked up at him, and grinned. "Combat or riddle?"

"You couldn't have told me that before I wasted all this rice?"

The harpy shrugged unrepentantly. "Combat or riddle?"

"Riddle."

"If I add 5 to 9, I get 2. I am correct, so what am I?"

Okay, this sounded like an actual riddle. Lotor mulled it over. Five and nine to two. It was a math riddle, and he did like math. Maybe a graph? No… Negatives? No. Five and nine to two, five and nine to two.

"Ah, a clock!" he exclaimed with a snap of his fingers, and the harpy grinned wide and winked at him.

They then spread their wings and took flight with a, "Thanks for the rice!" But they were flying slow enough, and Lotor—took off in a sprint. Wherever this harpy was going, he was willing to bet his life on the fact that it would be better than the endless, stretching halls of the castle.

He was sweating and breathing hard when finally the harpy turned down a hall that ended in bright light, swooping out into the sun and fresh air, and he staggered to a slow as he, too, emerged into the garden. It was lush and bright, near every inch of it flourishing with edible plants, the walls coated in cheerful ivy.

"Welcome friends," a warm voice greeted, the harpy circling once before landing upon the new man's back. He was a warm, broad man, shaped like a centaur but with a capybara for his lower half, reclining on a warm stone and a bubbling cauldron before him.

"Hello," Lotor greeted cautiously.

"Come, sit, you've had a long day," the capybara man ushered him forward, the harpy preening themself on his back and neither seeming to see anything amiss with their situation. "I'd make you choose combat or riddle, but I'm not much for combat, if we're being honest. So you get a riddle, then, but not until you've eaten, come! Sit, sit, let me ladle you out a bowl."

"I am grateful for your hospitality," Lotor said with punctilious manners, unsure if this would be part of the riddle, seating himself next to the two of them carefully.

"Of course, you could always draw that short sword of yours, and I'd not have much choice," the man said with a knowing gleam in his eye, "But still, I'd feed you first. Forgive the thinness of the meal, I grow only vegetables in this garden, though it would benefit from aught else."

Hm. Well, if the game was to be well mannered.

"Here, sir, I have brought rice, and though it is plain to boil on its own, I am certain it would benefit well from your soup, just as well as your soup might benefit from my rice."

"Now there's something," the man said happily, taking Lotor's offering and pouring the remains of the rice one and all into the pot. "And now we may converse while that cooks!" he said as he covered the cauldron. "I am sure you have many questions."

"And if I would be permitted to ask them, my first is why you seem more in possession of your faculties than the others?" Lotor couldn't help but glance at the harpy, whose face was expressive, and who had spoken to him briefly, but did not converse as this man did.

"It's a matter of age. I was the first 'hero' to try and rescue the princess, and every time someone bests us we get just a little more of our senses back."

Ah, so that was why.

"You'd be better off giving up," the man said gently, "more 'heroes' have died in their attempts than getting cursed like we have. The princess does not offer riddles, only combat, and she will kill you as she has killed everyone else who has made it past me."

"I understand," Lotor said with a serious nod. "Even so, I must attempt it."

"Even so," the man said, tinged with pity, or maybe simple sorrow.

"Might I know your name, sir?"

"I am Hunk," he said with a small laugh, "though I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who remembers the name."

"Not at all, sir!" Lotor said incredulously. "Hunk, of the golden aegis?"

"Ah, so I am remembered! And from your tone, not even as a coward."

"A coward? No! You were–you are a hero famed far and wide, known for your care, benevolent as a saint, he who would let no evil past his shield. This is where you met your end?"

And that was… discouraging. That even one of the most famous, most renowned, accomplished, good men could not even break this curse. What chance, then, did Lotor have?

"This is where," Hunk said with a nod and small smile. "My reputation seems to have been exaggerated. I was never so impressive." He lifted the lid to stir the soup, "But I meant well, and I tried my best, and I couldn't ignore a curse like this. Now here we are."

"Sir," Lotor said, shifting where he sat with restless energy, "What can you tell me of the princess? Of the curse? What should I expect when I leave this garden?"

"She has been here longest of all," he said carefully, like he was testing what could or could not be said. Hm. So even lucid, the curse would prevent him from disclosing certain information. "She is larger than you think she'll be, and swift. I told you, traveler, she will not offer you choice of combat or riddle," he looked at Lotor with strange intensity on those words, as did his harpy friend, "Instead, she will attack you outright, and give you no chance to gather your wits or your bearings. She will kill you if you give her the slightest chance, and," Hunk looked askance, "she will grieve over your corpse. She is compelled by the curse, as we all are."

"I see," Lotor mused as Hunk began to ladle it out into three bowls. Lotor took his with a word of gratitude, and sipped from it before remembering that it was currently quite hot. He set it in his lap to cool. "How were you cursed?"

"Failing the riddles means joining her guards."

"Are you five the only guards?"

"For now. There have been many others, but when a would-be hero chooses combat, it is to the death. And so the number fluctuates. 'S why I don't make an offer of it, and unless the combatants bring arrows, a harpy tends to win any fight that gets picked, so the two of us have been here the longest."

Lotor sipped again from the soup and found it drinkable now. The harpy certainly was enjoying their soup with gusto, and Lotor nodded at them, "May I be known to your companion, sir hero?"

"Oh please, call me by my name, and this is Pidge."

Pidge grinned at him before downing the rest of their soup.

"And the princess?"

Hunk and Pidge both went suddenly very still.

"And the princess?" Hunk echoed, not looking at Lotor.

"Her name?"

Hunk and Pidge looked at each other, but not at Lotor.

"No one knows it," Hunk said before drinking deeply from his bowl.

Lotor squinted. Their reactions were more than odd, but if the game was manners he'd not push further. He drank from his bowl and remarked that it tasted quite wonderful, and he'd barely swallowed the last before Hunk slapped a hand down and leaned forward.

"So! You'll be wanting your riddle then. Last chance to leave with your life and your senses and head back the way you came."

"No, sir, even if I could find the way back through that maze, my goal is forward. I'll not take the coward's exit."

"It isn't cowardice to value your own life," Hunk said, eyes softened in something like sympathy or pity. "But very well, your riddle then."

Hunk leaned forward, the heft of his belly falling over his capybara half, hands planted on his sides, eyes intense as he stared at Lotor. Lotor straightened, readying himself.

"Answer honestly: Are you willing to die for this?"

Lotor blinked, then chuckled, a strange melancholy rising in him as well.

"I think you misunderstand what a riddle is, sir hero."

"Just Hunk is fine."

"Hunk," Lotor said, and nodded gravely. When he spoke, he focused hard on the truth of his words, his intent, "I am certain. I risk my life knowingly and with purpose. I must see this curse broken."

"Then she is behind that door," Hunk said, and extended his hand to Lotor. Lotor shook it, and rose. "Your body and mind are as fortified as I am able to see them. Best of luck to you, traveler."

And it occurred to Lotor, as he drew his sword and crossed to the princess's chamber, that Hunk had never asked him his name.

He was dislodged from that line of thought quite rapidly, as the moment he opened the door, he was assailed by the princess and only narrowly dodged being skewered on her thin, piercing leg.

Ah. Of course. All her guards were half beast, it only made sense she too would be thus changed. A spider's lower half was… not Lotor's favorite, though, nor were the mandibles protruding from her mouth, her eight eyes pure-black and seemingly filled with naught but wild rage.

Though his sword was already drawn, Lotor found little opportunity to use it. Instead, all his focus laid purely on keeping his own life intact, avoiding the webbing she'd laced all through her chamber while simultaneously dodging the unfairly swift strikes of her long, thin legs. Lotor was in no mood to get speared, and cut away the webs whenever he had a half-moment to do so.

Frantically, Lotor tried to think of a way to victory here. She was high up, lashing out with her legs but keeping her body far from his sword's length. And even if he could kill her, killing the princess didn't seem the most effective way to break the curse on her—

Hey wait hang on. Yeah, wait, Hunk had mentioned all fights were to the death. If victory in combat meant killing the princess, then the curse would hang unbreakable forevermore, this couldn't be right.

He'd not offered Lotor the choice of combat or riddle, but remarked that Lotor might well draw his sword and force a fight anyway. Then, that meant, the corollary was that the princess would offer no riddle, but if Lotor provided its answer first—and of course, to fail the riddle was to be cursed alongside her.

And Hunk had been the first. He'd tried to break the curse by solving the princess's riddle, but he'd answered wrong, and gotten cursed for it. Of course! If she killed all in combat with her, and Hunk was still alive.

Oh, Lotor wish he'd puzzled through this in the garden and not while she was trying to kill him. Shit, shit shit okay, okay. Riddle, answer, what answer could he give that wouldn't just be wrong and curse him?

He cut away another swath of web, and saw through the darkness of this chamber another door, opposite the one he'd entered through. It seemed like it would be too small for her to squeeze through, or at least small enough it would hinder her pursuit, and Lotor decided it was as good a chance as any. He carved his way there slowly, still having to dance away from her strikes, but finally shouldered the door open and slammed it shut behind him, heaving from exertion and barricading it shut with a piece of furniture so old and dusty he didn't really identify it in the dark.

And it was dark here, as even the maze was not. And there were no doors or endless corridors, only a single spiral staircase.

The princess's legs screeched against the door behind him, and he decided if there would be any clues in all this castle on how to answer her unasked riddle or break this curse, it would be in whatever room was at the top of these stairs.

With shaking thighs and heaving breath, he drew himself at last to the summit, and found himself in, quite fittingly, the highest room of the tallest tower. Damn these predictable curse-casters and their need for pageantry. He would've been just as heroic finding an answer at the bottom!

It was a young woman's room. Books, so dusty he couldn't make out their covers, sat lined along their shelves. Dresses long forgotten hung in the wardrobe. The bed was curtained in a draping canopy. A beautiful mirror, expensively huge, stood proudly against a wall, dusty as the rest of the room.

Okay. A moment's reprieve. Think Lotor. The riddles, Hunk's conversation, if Hunk was the first to fail her riddle than he must know what the riddle is. And that kind man must've tried to tell Lotor of it, even if the curse bound his tongue against it directly.

There had been times he and Pidge had acted strangely. About the choice of combat or riddle, yes, alright, but also—

Names. They'd never asked Lotor his name. They didn't know the princess's name. He kept insisting that Lotor call him by his name, not his title.

Oh Lotor was so stupid of course! There was great power in a name. And he was in the princess's childhood bedroom now, no better place to search.

The light of the sunset filtered through the room as Lotor explored it, getting dust on just about every inch of him as he searched for clues to the princess's identity. It was just as the moon started rising that Lotor lifted the mattress and found a diary stuffed beneath it.

Well, that was as promising a lead as anything he'd found so far. He sat on the princess's window seat, moonlight spilling across the page with deceptive vibrancy, almost as though the very night itself wished for Lotor to have enough light to read by.

First, he skimmed through the pages, seeking a solution swiftly, but the only names his eyes caught were those of family or friends or rivals or travelers, so Lotor started from the beginning, and read slowly through it again, now parsing every word.

She was not consistent, this princess. She did not write every day. As such, the diary did not fill within a year's writing. Instead, Lotor got little glimpses of her as she grew, and more as she matured. A single entry with an uneven, learning hand about how excited she was to receive the diary. Another dated two years later that she was going to journal more, because nobody in all the world understood her and she was absolutely languishing in her unique and adolescent sorrows. Lotor chuckled at that.

He leaned against the cool stone of the window as he read further, watching the princess as she grew from girl to woman, heart aching at the ageless mundanity of her woes, lips quirked into a smile at her times of joy and success. The further he read, the more he began to feel as though he knew her.

He knew she was "indelicate" at art, and quick to anger, but just as quick to forgive and deeply compassionate. He knew she liked shiny trinkets and cherished any gifts she received, for the reminder of who had given them to her. He knew that sometimes, she was so desperately lonely the ache of it lifted off the page and squeezed Lotor's heart in its clawed hand. He knew she was brave, and stubborn, and headstrong.

By the time the moon set and the first hints of dawn colored rosy the horizon, Lotor felt as though he knew the cursed woman downstairs as well as though they'd been friends for all their lives. And then, on the final page, which had not been there before, he saw her bid this diary farewell, for she had filled it. And her signature, revealing her name.

"Allura," Lotor murmured, brushing his fingers over the long dried ink. Just as old and faded as the rest of the book, but hidden away by magic until Lotor had read the rest.

He shut the diary and left it upon the top of the princess's old bed. Should he fail here, it would serve as valuable clue to any who next made it this far. But he knew the answer to the princess's unspoken riddle, now. Fates be kind, all he had to do was provide her the answer.

The stairs were easier on the way down than they were heading up, go figure. He unbarricaded the door and then drew his short sword again, unsure if he'd need it, and took a deep breath. Moment of truth.

She tried to kill him the moment he set foot inside her chamber once again. He dodged, expecting that, and called out to her, "Allura!"

Magic seared through the room, choking him briefly. She also stilled, and Lotor grinned. That was easy—

He only narrowly avoided getting killed by her next blow.

"Allura?" he gasped, but in his haste to dodge the unexpected strike he backed straight into one of her webs.

"Shit!" he hissed, trying and failing to yank himself free. The magic, at his oath, snapped like a broken string, and the princess renewed her assault.

Oh. Oh! Rule of threes! Fuck, okay! He used his short sword to block a strike from a thin, powerful leg with the blade drawing dangerously close to his person.

"Allura! Allura! ALLURA!" he shouted desperately, now pinned against the webbing so only his forearms and hands were still free. Mentally, he was running what he'd do if she struck her next blow somewhere he couldn't block with his newly limited mobility, but it turned out to be thankfully unnecessary, as when he called her name the third time, the magic that swelled briefly blinded them both.

And then, he was laying on his back on naught but a plain, stone floor, without a web in sight. He sat up quickly, and rose so fast he felt a brief flash of vertigo.

Oh. There was Allura.

The princess was much transformed, no longer bearing the parts of a spidery beast, but simple and human and in a white dress that put Lotor in a mind of old columns and statues. Her eyes were two in number, and only the pupils black, the rest returned to blue irises and white sclera. She was blinking, seeming stunned and a little confused.

"Princess Allura?" Lotor asked, because if any magic yet lingered, he'd lay his bets on the power held in names.

"I—oh. Oh! Oh, thank, you, you broke the curse, I—"

"Take a moment to gather yourself, princess," Lotor said with a smile, sheathing his sword. "I imagine it is disorienting to suddenly wake from a curse." And he knew, from her diary, that she was slow to wake outside of wild emergencies, oft complaining of how early her mother would hold court and how her maids herded her upright in the mornings.

"Thank you, I, yes." She rubbed at her face, a charmingly un-princess-like motion that had Lotor's lips tugging at the corners.

But then she rallied her composure, stood upright, and looked Lotor dead in the eye. "I owe you my life, good hero. My gratitude cannot be expressed."

"I am hardly a hero," Lotor said, flustered beneath the intensity of such a gaze. "I had my own motivations for this—"

"Nonsense, a curse you have broken and thus a hero you are. My hero, at the very least," she said, her tone brooking no argument. As she crossed the space of what was once her cursed chamber, she smiled up at him, and proffered her hand. "And may I know the name of the man who saved me?"

Lotor's lips parted, then smiled as he took her hand in his own.

"My name is Lotor."

#thank you for your splendid fic!!#loturaweek2025 #lotor #allura #sheith #vld

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