#thebookbug

[hanzothebeardie]

Hanzo, if you had magical dragon powers, what would they be?

i would like to be able to charm people so they take care of me!

oh wait, i already do that >:3

[thegoldensoundtwice]

Lotor Has a Terrible Day

This was so much fun to write!!!! What a wonderful first commission to do, thank you so much @thebookbug​ for reaching out to me with your wonderful idea of Lotor just having a really terrible day.

Voltron © DreamWorks

“I am the leader. But, I am not my father.”  

    The words still echoed within Lotor’s mind days after he had spat them at the witch, Haggar. Their conversation, small as it might have been, had been a part of his every waking and sleeping thought. The pressure to keep his goals from failing was slowly mounting into a bigger problem than he had first anticipated. Pacing back and forth in his quarters, Lotor gave a slight shake of his head to clear the unpleasant thoughts away. He had just sent his generals, Acxa, Ezor, Zethrid, and Narti out on a mission to claim the teludav lens. If all went well, he’d have the teludav lens, and Throk would be made to suffer for it. Yet Lotor could not help but feel agitated, especially with the knowledge that Haggar was sending her spies after him. He continued to pace, his mind rapidly playing out different situations and scenarios. He needed to be diligent and observant now more than ever. He heard the footsteps preceding the knock upon his door before it happened.

         “Who is it?”

        “Prince Lotor, High Priestess Haggar requires your presence,” Came the robotic reply. Lotor closed his eyes and rubbed at the small pounding taking place between his eyes.

       “Tell her I’ll be there in sixty ticks.”

        “I was ordered to wait for you until you came, sire.”

Of course you were. “Give me but a moment, I just need to brush my hair.” Not entirely false, he did, in fact, need to run a brush through his hair. But not before he messaged Acxa that he would be away from his quarters, and therefore communication, for awhile.      

     After doing so, Lotor grabbed his brush and mindlessly began to comb through his hair, reading the response Acxa was sending back.

        There was another knock at the door. “Prince Lotor?”

         “I’m nearly finished. It takes awhile to get such luxurious hair combed to perfection, you know.”

      No sooner had the sentence left his lips, did Lotor have to grimace. His brush was tangled in a giant knot in his hair. With a fierce glare at the sheer defiance of his stupid brush, he began to tug.

        “Sire?”

  How in the blazes of hellfire did I manage this? Holding his hair with one hand as if he meant to put it up, he yanked harder at the entangled bristles in his hair. Giving up any thoughts of gentleness, he attempted to rip out the brush. There was a crack, and unamused, he looked down at the broken handle in his grip, the head entangled even further within his white locks. With a frustrated sigh, Lotor grabbed a black ribbon and quickly wrapped his hair up into a low bun at the base of his neck, hair brush and all snuggled tightly. He could have cut his hair, he supposed, as he marched towards the door, ready to rip off the head of the robot continually knocking. He paused in front of the door, taking a deep breath. No. He’d never cut his hair, no matter how gnarly it became. It was his pride of being half Altean. He often imagined how lovely his mother’s hair must have been.

With a final sigh, the door opened and Lotor gave a menacing glare towards the robotic soldier.

       “Show me to the witch,” Lotor did the best to ignore the pounding throb, headache only worsening.  

        Head held high, he followed the robot, passing through countless hallways and passages. It seemed they were taking the scenic route. What are you playing at, witch? Lotor winced as they turned into a very bright hallway, the fluorescent light piercing through his eyes into his skull. He briefly closed his eyes, keeping his pace even. This is neither near her lair nor my father’s bed chambers. The coloring of the lights are different here than the rest of the ship. Is she trying to have me lose face by making me completely lost?

     “Where exactly are you—”

      Lotor’s eyes flew open, spinning as a figure fell towards him. It was a lower ranking officer. A food tray flung loose from her grasp and plopped down in front of Lotor as she thudded down heavily. Back against the wall, Lotor could only shield his face as bowls clattered and broke against the floor. Though he couldn’t feel if the substances were hot or cold, he could still feel liquid slipping down his suit. He wiped pink juice droplets from his face, looking down at the green and orange goo splattered all over him.

     “O-oh! Prince, I am so very sorry, I-I—” she stammered, her hands shaking as she scrambled to gather up the pieces. Her face, shoulders, and even parts of her back, had taken on just as much food abuse as he had. Stepping over her, he swiftly walked around the corner she had emerged from, looking down the vast and expansive hallway. No one could be seen; nor was his guide around. He returned in time to see the officer trying to sneak away.

        “You dare have the audacity to vanish on me, after you’ve splattered your leader with your lunch?”

      “Y-yes, I mean n-no, sire, I just—”

      Kneeling down next to her, Lotor picked up the remaining large pieces of destroyed ceramics and placing them loudly and carefully on her tray. Her ears winced every time he slapped a piece down, akin to a board game he used to play as a youth. It had been a game of warfare and strategy. A game he had always won.

      “Whoever your superior officer is, tell them that I do not take kindly to pranks or childish behavior. If they have a problem with me, the rightful heir to the throne, then they can challenge me to a duel, like a mature adult.” He stood up, looking down at a slight tear in his gloves. Blood began to surface. He tucked away a sample of the broken bowl. An ordinary bowl shard would not be able to pierce this material so easily. This is a far more malicious prank than what meets the eye. He turned to leave, and slipped.

      He barely managed to keep from completely and utterly falling on his back. With a less than graceful flail of arms, he maintained balanced, and wiped the goo from his shoes. He gave the terrified officer a deadly glare.

      “Clean this up.”

    Her eyes widened as his bun came undone, the ugly snarl and brush dangling briefly in the air before flopping against his back. Without any word, Lotor spun on his heel, careful of any remaining traces of goo, and stomped off. He struggled and struggled to wrestle his knot back into a functioning bun, fully aware that both blood and sticky remains of juice were soiling his hair.

      How befitting; an audience. Lotor stalked through the maze he had been led on, not even remotely surprised to see more soldiers and high ranking officers lurking about in the hallways. Whispers and even a giggle or two did not escape his Altean ears, but he continued to march on. His only goal in mind was making it back to his quarters to be near his communication system. He whipped around the corner only to come face to face with Haggar. They glared at each other briefly. She made no mention of having called for him nor of being kept waiting. Her eyes, however, said everything she thought about his appearance. The ribbon slipped off and bun eagerly burst forth, his knot dangled down his right shoulder, the brush head visible. She stared pointedly at the majestic mess before turning away with her druids. Head pounding, Lotor waited until he was in his room before the snarl ripped past his clenched teeth.

      The bowl shard sample was carefully placed on a shelf, his clothes suit torn off and flung into a hamper. No messages for him yet, he eagerly awaited the hot water to soothe him. He was hit with cold water instead.  

        “No matter,” He growled after giving up with the water temperature. “I am not going to let childish behavior coerce me into losing my temper or giving myself away.” He savagely began to yank the brush from his hair, eyes stinging as roots ripped out as he tore the head away. It clattered against the floor, wrapped in matted hair and blood.

         When he was dried and dressed, Lotor couldn’t help but glance towards the bowl shard. The material was certainly a mystery. Perhaps he could he find the robot guide that had taken him on the false journey. It would be simple to dismantle it and hack into the memory core. He glanced at his wrist timer. No, it’s nothing but a distraction. Besides, with this sort of day, a malfunction could easily happen. Images of wires and springs dislodging from the robot, flying into his face, made him shake his head. It seemed ridiculous, but at this point he was willing to bet anything was possible. He wasn’t even certain he could find the robot again. At least, not without the aid of his generals. Speaking of which, it is more than past time to call them. He reached out his hand, waiting for the computer to sense his presence and for the control screen to appear.

        Nothing happened.

     With a slight frown, he clicked for it again. After a few more attempts, Lotor approached the screen closer.

      “Is it a system malfunction?”  He tired several different attempts, all resulting in the same thing; nothing.  “Perhaps if I—no! Not that button!” Too late, his finger had already pressed it. “Wonderful. Now the screen is on lock.”

   The purple hued screen had turned a bright blue. Every button pressed made an unpleasant noise. It reminded Lotor of an alarm; sharp pitched with a heavy after tone.      

        “Why must it make that noise with every click I make? Absolutely irritating.” He snarled. “Is this system jammed?” With a frustrated grunt, Lotor shut off the system and waited a few ticks. “How is it possible that with Galra technology, this sort of thing still happens?”

       Turning the system back on startled Lotor more, the system shrieking as it whirled back to life. “This only made things worse.” Muttering, he walked around the holo screen slowly, marveling at the stupidity of his situation. “Why on Daibazaal are the icons enlarged? System, return to normal.” It only binged at him. “System, I said ‘return to normal’.” Blue lights flickered, followed by another bing. “There are no error or red warning lights going off,” Feeling far more enraged than he had before taking a shower, Lotor now stalked around his room. Is this connected to the bowl incident? No, it can’t be. If it was, the perpetrator would want to hack my systems without my knowledge. Either this system truly is down, or it’s a separate prankster.

       “Computer, I swear upon my life that I will disembowel you if you keep this up.”

       “Prince Lotor, are you there?” Acxa’s voice rang out over the confusion.

        “Acxa? Is that you?”

       “Yes. We are approaching Throk’s base as we speak. Give the word and we will proceed.”

      “Hold back a tick; I’d like to be able to view your endeavors myself, but I must fuss with this system a bit more.” Lotor absently mumbled as he continued on. More beeps and more frustration; but no solutions. “Hang it all.”

      “Have you tried turning it on and off?”

     “Multiple times, Ezor, and sadly to little avail.”

     “Just punch it!”

     “If he punched it, he’d destroy the machine and then nothing would work at all, Zethrid.” Ezor retorted cheerfully.

   In frustration, Lotor slammed his right palm over the computer. The blue screen switched to green and then a neon purple hue. His communication screen with his generals appeared.

     “Huzzah for punching things!” Zethrid cheered. Ezor was staring at Lotor with her head cocked at an angle, eyes narrowed.

     “Lotor, this seems like an odd question, but did you lose a section of your hair?

     “What? Is he balding?”

      “No, it just looks thinner for some reason.”

     “Ahem,” Lotor coughed, ignoring their question “Now that it’s working, back to the task at hand,” Multiple screens appeared before Lotor and he began to run his diagnostics while going over the plan just one more time, making sure it was engrained into Zethrid’s very soul of what their mission was to be.

     “Failure is not an option,” He reminded them sternly. He and Acxa locked eyes briefly, and she firmly nodded her head.

         Sitting and waiting was the hardest part. Lotor desperately wished he could be there as well; to see the shock of Throck’s face in person when his generals burst through Throck’s defenses and utterly destroyed the forsaken base. It would have had some sort of poetic justice to it.

          “Acxa, how is it going over there?” He asked at random, fingers gently pulling through his hair, his scalp still stinging.

         “We’ve…we’ve run into a bit of snag. The Voltron paladins are here.”

          Voltron. Lotor sat up straighter in his chair, frowning. “Acxa, show me what you’re seeing.” A screen appeared, and he watched as the paladins had exited the base and were commuting back to their lions. “Well, this is unexpected, but not terribly difficult to deal with. Ezor, Zethrid, I need you two to use the cargo ship to extract the teludav and get away. Nartri, Acxa, I want you to test our new fighter against Voltron. I want to see what my new ship is capable of, while also distracting Voltron’s paladins enough to escape with the teludav. Attack their castle. By putting it in danger, Voltron will come to its rescue and ignore the cargo ship.”

        Despite feeling pleased over how his new fighter ship, engineered from the comet, was faring against the castle’s particle barrier, agitation slowly began to boil up from the pit of his stomach.

       “Keep Voltron engaged until the cargo ship is out of range.” Lotor reminded them as he watched the mechanical wonder appear, sword forming. “Do not be drawn in. The sword strike is his most deadly blow.”

           Voltron and the fighter did a deadly dance in the stars briefly before the giant head turned away, attention drawn back to the cargo ship beaming up the teludav. Taking a breath to calm the slow panic, Lotor spoke calmly to Acxa.    

        “We have them right where we want them. They can either defend or go after the teludav and leave themselves vulnerable.”  

       Watching the actions Voltron began taking, Lotor narrowed his eyes, understanding what they were thinking. “They’re going to attack the cargo ship,” His voice took on a sense of urgency. “Prepare to fire as the shield goes down.” He watched as Voltron lowered his shield. “Fire now!” Lotor snarled out, only to watch in horror as Voltron shifted and moved at the last possible moment from the deadly blast. The teludav took on the impact instead, exploding into hundreds of irreplaceable pieces. “Fire again!” Filled with rage, Lotor couldn’t even feel any satisfaction in watching Voltron take the blow directly on. Voltron neither exploded nor displayed signs of physical damage, other than drifting listlessly for a few seconds. He watched as Acxa and Nartri piloted through the floating debris to pick up Ezor and Zethrid.  

          Swallowing as much rage as he possibly could, his glare overruled the look of shame and shock Acxa gave him.

           “Your failure is most disappointing. Return before more Galra ships converge on your location.”

           Logging out of his communication link, Lotor pushed out of his chair and angrily stalked across the room. He wound up in the washroom, his destroyed brush still on the shower floor. He picked it up and hurled it across the room, his rage only mildly satisfied as the mirror broke and shattered upon contact.

        “I’ll have to recalculate everything now,” he snarled bitterly, taking a few ragged breaths. Once he had calmed down, Lotor couldn’t help but give the remaining shattered glass in the mirror a wicked grin. “Well. In the meantime, I might as well head over to the witches lair. Hearing Throk scream for his life might help to brighten what has been, quite a terrible day.”

[kaijutegu]

This probably doesn't help with dizziness, but to keep your mind off things, here's a story from my first baby shower: The parents-to-be received a plastic toy that was, I kid you not, called THE AMAZING MAGIC MUSHROOM. It was just something that has a few moving parts and lights up, but the name and box pictures made it sound very drug-like.

THAT IS ADORABLE also it turned out I have a fever and the baby shower was really pleasant and nice. Super low-key and I had some Greek chicken lemon soup which is basically the balm of Gilead.