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Because I'm emotionally unstable, I've been writing two alternate sequels to Champion's Chains. There's the "True Ending" in which Lance tries to readjust to life as a Paladin and navigate his relationship with Keith.... and then there's the "Bad Ending" in which Lance is never rescued and must survive his new life as Lotor's consort.... and because I'm normal I'm having more fun with the bad ending lmfao

Anyway pls accept a little snippet of writing from the bad ending as I work towards finishing Champion's Chains. Thank you for your patience!

From the VIP suite, the arena looked like a jeweled mechanism turning itself on spectacle. Sand raked smooth as silk, gates gliding, pyres breathing on their cues. The oculus’ light washed the pit in purple and gold.

Lotor had the best view on the Paragon and wasn’t using it. He reclined on his favorite couch, long legs crossed at the ankle, a datapad balanced on one knee. Schedules, briefings, ad sets; color-blocked calendars and ministerial messages slid past under his thumb. He moved with the economy of someone who had trained his attention to be a blade.

Lance had asked, very sweetly, if he could play with his hair.

Lotor, after a show of reluctance that fooled no one, had relented.

So Lance perched on the back of the couch, one knee over Lotor’s shoulder, the other foot dug into the cushions for balance. He separated luminous white strands and fed them into a pattern that doubled and crossed on itself. Two braids laddering into a fishtail, then vanishing under a twist. His fingers worked on instinct now; he’d taught himself the language of this hair because it pleased Lotor to be adorned and it pleased Lance to be the one to do it.

A roar rolled up from the pit, sudden and vast. Lance looked up and thumbed the holoscreen out across the window. The image telescoped: Cindrel standing bare-shouldered over a downed opponent, blades crossed in a win that would replay well. He waved to the crowd; his antennae perked with that friendly little bounce that made the audience love him.

Then, impossible, his face angled toward the VIP glass. For a breath, Lance felt the weight of that gaze like a hand on his sternum. No one could really see in from down there. At most, they got impressions of silhouettes, a suggestion of presence. Still, it felt like being seen. Cindrel dipped into a flourish of a bow and held it, then stepped backward to his platform. The stage swallowed him; the floor closed.

A sigh huffed out of Lotor, audible enough to make Lance jump the tiniest bit and look down. The datapad glowed with a fat block of Galra in formal script. It was too dense for Lance’s growing comprehension. He undid the end of the braid and smoothed it, buying himself a second.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly, starting another pattern with the same strands.

Lotor’s mouth turned wry; his eyes didn’t leave the text. “Politics,” he said, almost grumpy.

Lance hummed as if the word itself were an unseemly bruise. “I already feel sorry for you,” he murmured, and, because it was allowed in these moods, dropped a small kiss onto the crown of Lotor’s head.

A sound that was half-laugh, half-huff escaped the prince. He flicked through two more screens in quick, precise motions. Lance breathed with the cadence of his scrolling, fingers moving, braid blooming.

“Wanna talk about it?” Lance tried, careful as if approaching a ledge.

Silence for a beat. The pad’s scroll ticked in little staccato bursts under Lotor’s thumb. Then he tipped his head back against Lance’s lap, chin lifting until he could meet Lance’s eyes.

“Can you get pregnant?” he asked.

Lance blinked. Heat climbed up his neck before meaning fully arrived. “Wh— Pregnant?” He stalled, cheeks burning, brain hopping from the word to the man to the window and back. “Where did that come from?”

Lotor didn’t blink. One hand, idle and proprietary, stroked Lance’s calf where it rested along his shoulder. “Answer the question,” he said, less kind.

Lance swallowed. He shook his head before remembering the rule and gave the answer out loud. “No. I… I can’t. I’m not, uh, equipped for that.” A nervous laugh arrived and died on its feet.

Something unreadable moved through Lotor’s gaze. He made a neutral sound, an acknowledgment without weight, and turned the pad back up. His fingers went brisk, purposeful, as if a column on a ledger had just reconciled.

Lance’s nerves hummed under his skin. He leaned and tried to read the screen over Lotor’s shoulder, but the words ran formal and bureaucratic, packed with the kind of vocabulary that kept doors closed. “Why do you ask?” he said, and hated how thin it sounded.

Lotor typed a line, another, and another. When he did speak, it was without looking up. “It’s time to plan the next steps of our relationship. The public is growing bored of your illness.”

The sentence slipped a cold hand under Lance’s ribs. He paused with a strand looped across his fingers. “But… I really am sick,” he said, small, baffled. “It’s not a performance, I… what do you mean they’re bored? And why does that matter?”

Lotor’s humorless scoff landed like a closed door. “Do you think they care? They crave spectacle and newness. You should know that by now, Lance.”

The scold cut; it always did. Lance bit his tongue. Arguing never changed the contour of a speech like that; it only made sharper edges for later. The question of pregnancy, though, echoed with a delayed horror. If he’d said yes, if he could have… Lotor would have already been setting those wheels in motion. The relief that he’d answered as he had arrived paired with a nausea that had nothing to do with fevers.

He tightened the braid, found the rhythm again. “So then… what’s the next big spectacle, you think?” he asked, keeping his tone even. Better to be ready.

“I have a meeting with PR this afternoon,” Lotor said with a faint shrug. “We’ll decide then.”

That didn’t soothe. Lance did what he knew worked. He made himself useful and charming in the same breath. He finished the braid, pinning it with a neat twist, then built its mirror on the other side and fed both into a woven crown that sat elegant and precise. “Finished,” he said, letting pride warm the word. “Want to see?”

Lotor handed the datapad back without being asked, already unlocking the camera. Lance angled it, framed the work against white hair and violet skin, and snapped the shot. He handed the pad across. Lotor studied the screen, a small, genuine smile pressing at his mouth.

“Lovely,” he said, and turned to press a quick kiss to Lance’s knee.

The compliment lit Lance up from the inside. It always did. He leaned forward, folding himself over Lotor’s shoulder and peppered his forehead with soft kisses, a handful of quick, delighted pecks. Lotor tipped his head back farther to catch Lance’s mouth with his own. Lance grinned into it; Lotor’s smile went feline, content.

Down in the arena, a new match spun up, the crowd’s roar blooming. Up here, the suite held its curated hush. The datapad chimed; Lotor’s thumb found it without looking. Lance settled back into his perch, fingers slipping into white strands again, and told himself he could live on the small sweetness of moments like this for a long time.

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