For Lotor, home was always a place of fear, sadness, and pain.
Lotor had never known his mother. He did know that while the witch lived within her former body, they were not the same woman.
His mother wouldn't have ignored him until he was needed for experimenting on.
His father was never around, always too busy with running his empire to busy himself with pointless matters such as his own son.
And so, Lotor had been raised by his governess. She wasn't... the kindest woman, to say the least. But she trained Lotor to be an intelligent and disciplined young man. She taught him to care about his subjects, and she taught him about the history of the Empire.
Lotor was sure that she was, in her own odd sort of way, fond of him.
When Lotor was put in charge of his own colony, he was ecstatic. His own planet! He swore to himself that he would run it well alongside their current ruler.
He was so proud when he told his father about how successful he had been at taking the resources the planet could supply while working with its inhabitants.
He was devastated when it wasn't enough to please his father, and angry when the planet was destroyed for the sole reason of punishing him, with no regard for those on the planet.
Planets are for conquering, Zarkon had scolded, your subjects are for serving the Empire.
Lotor blamed himself for the planet's death for a long time.
For a while after his banishment, home was the Altean colony. He had spent centuries searching for remaining Alteans, and was so happy to have found them. But staying there would endanger them, and he would be damned if he was at fault for any other innocent people's deaths.
Then, his home was with the ragtag team of half Galra women he had found around the galaxy. Narti, Ezor, Acxa, and Zethrid were his best (read: only) friends and confidants. They understood him like no one else ever had. He trusted them. When he was with them, he finally had felt safe and loved.
Even still, when he was declared an enemy of the Empire, his generals turned on him. He didn't hold this against them, but he did miss them terribly.
When he joined Voltron, he was given about as warm a welcome as he expected. A cell in the castle's dungeon with glass walls and a security camera.
Despite Lotor's cooperation, the paladins refused to trust him. It was frustrating. He had given them target after target, and they still handed him over to Zarkon in exchange for the Green Paladin's father.
They said he only wanted them not to hand him over so he could 'save his own skin.' Upon hearing this, Lotor scoffed internally. Of course he wanted to stay alive. The green paladin acted as if he had made a ridiculous request.
He had warned them that Zarkon would double cross them, but of course they didn't believe him. (The fact that they trusted Zarkon would keep his word, but didn't believe Lotor would, was quite frankly, disturbing.)
Lotor won the fight with Zarkon. He killed his own father. He knew the Empire wouldn't mind (most of the empire, anyway,) patricide nearly as much as they cared he was a hybrid. Under his father's rule, non-Galra blood was considered weak. But Lotor was determined to change that once he became Emperor.
It was upsetting to find out that the paladins didn't want him to be Emperor. After all he had done to help them, they still didn't trust him. He tried to tell them that all the other options for emperor were far worse than him (and that he actually had a plan for bettering the galaxy.) but they wouldn't listen.
To Lotor's relief, the Champion (who went by Shiro now, and was a lot less violent than Lotor had assumed he would be based on the rumors he had heard,) (but a lot more identity issues than Lotor had possibly imagined. The whole way to the Kral Zera he talked about how he didn't feel like himself,) took his side.
When a small Blade of Mamora agent tackled Lotor to the ground, Lotor was offended that anyone dared attack him. When he realized why he had been tackled to the ground, he was grateful to the small blade agent.
The Blade later identified himself as Keith, the former red and black paladin. Just like Lotor, he was a hybrid, and just like Lotor, he had no real home.
"Maybe," Lotor had said to him, "We could make a new home together."
Now, years later, home is bloody knuckles and forehead kisses. Porcelain skin and ebony hair. Play fighting with swords and knives turned into violent make-out sessions. The most adorable ears (human ears, despite what the princess said, are adorable,) and the softest lips.
For Lotor, home is Keith.
