Scattered Stardust

Paradigm Shift

Lotor hovered uncertainly outside of Zethrid's door. It had been hours since their disastrous flight, but he still couldn't tell if it was enough time for her to calm down. He sighed in frustration. He didn't know enough about her in general. What was it that had set her off? The motion? The enclosed space? The pressure to perform?

The fact that she had missed dinner was the most disturbing. Ever since her release Zethrid had eaten everything she could get her hands on. It was clear that whatever she had been getting as a gladiator had not been enough. Surely she was getting hungry by now.

Gritting his teeth and making up his mind, Lotor knocked on the metal door.

A muffled scuffing came from the other side. Then a long silence.

"Zethrid? It's Lotor."

He paused for a moment. He desperately wanted to go in, find out what was making her so upset. But he reminded himself of how important she was. The only other Galra hybrid he had ever met. The only person he knew understood what that was like. He couldn't afford to lose her.

"I understand if you don't want to tell me what's going on. There's still many things I don't understand about your life. You have a right to keep your secrets but... if you ever need to talk about anything, I want to hear it."

Fighting his impulse to push the matter further, he stepped back from the door and placed a small box of ship rations on the floor.

"I've left you some rations outside the door."

The silence from the room continued. Welling with disappointment and shame, Lotor turned away.

"Good night Zethrid."

........................................................................

Things changed after that. Though they never discussed the fighter incident again, Zethrid became more open to him. She began to come to meals again and talked more freely. She grew fierce and confident in their sparring. The stiffness of survival instinct began to fade as she began to channel her immense strength into battle tactics and strategy.

Lotor was impressed and happy at this change.

The crew was not.

It started off subtly. Lingering glares from crewmembers followed the 2 of them everywhere. Where the crew was once satisfied to accept direct orders from Lotor, they now challenged him at every turn. Both his flight and battle training were becoming more and more difficult as his instructors stacked the odds against him. Many conversations between the crew cut off abruptly when he entered a room theses days.

"Eh don't let it get to you," Zethrid advised, scratching Kova behind the ears. They were sitting in the hangar bay, one of the only deserted places on the ship. The cat had taken quite a liking to Zethrid. He lay curled on her lap as they talked, tail twitching lazily.

"I just don't understand why they think they can be so disrespectful now," Lotor fumed.

Zethrid snorted.

"You haven't seen anything if you think this is bad. I've never been treated so well in my life!"

"But I heard Rosk call you a mutt yesterday!"

She shrugged.

"Like I said, could be worse. We've got it pretty good."

Lotor frowned, eyes wandering out over the vacant ships. They were all technically his. This cruiser was his. But he held almost no power over anything. Haggar could order the crew to do anything and they would do it. None of them had any loyalty to him.

His eyes turned back to Zethrid, now dangling a treat in front of Kova. She was loyal. He'd saved her from the gladiator ring and given her a chance to prove herself. She had. She pushed herself harder than anyone here. What if... what if there were others like her?

An idea began to blossom in his mind.