For The Stars

Chapter 18: A New Emperor

"So like, is it a scar?" He could hear Hunk's voice cut through the haze as he slowly opened his eyes. The Yellow Paladin's voice was muffled and, though he was only inches away, it sounded far off in the distance. Keith twitched his fingers slightly and realized with a groan that he had been placed in a healing pod. Why did he always end up in one of these after every mission? It was getting to be a bit ridiculous.

The pod was running through its final stages and preparing to release him. He heard a muffled voice respond, but they were too far away to understand. Hunk spoke again and his words were laced with confusion. "Yeah, I still don't understand." Suddenly the Yellow Paladin's face appeared directly in front of him, pressing tightly against the sealed pod. Keith blinked and tried to scowl at him but the majority of his muscles were still in paralysis from the pod's effects. Hunk's eyes flew wide in shock as he registered Keith's consciousness before screaming and jumping backwards to fall off the small landing. If his muscles were free Keith would have laughed.

A fight broke out as a spattering of tan, beige, and brown fought for dominance and the chance to smash their own faces against the pod. Standing calmly in the distance was cluster of purple. Keith rolled his eyes at the smushed face of Lance, who had won the little skirmish. "Yup, it's definitely still Keith." The tanned boy said, pushing back from the pod. Odd. Keith thought to himself, who else would it be?

The pod released him and Keith stumbled out into the heavily bandaged arms of his Uncle Thace. Wait – bandaged? "What's wrong with you?" He asked before his brain fully caught up, apparently it hadn't finished thawing yet, and he winced before correcting himself. "I mean, what happened?" Thace's responding laugh was comforting.

"The Druid's figured out that I had been the one to lower the solar barriers during your absolutely abysmal rescue attempt of the Princess from Central Command." Keith winced again, muttering under his breath about having been against that one. Thace chuckled, placing his hand firmly on his nephew's shoulder. "You might want to get some rest. Actually, you all might want to get some rest. The other mission teams will be contacting us shortly for a wormhole. Then we'll be setting up plans for the Kral Zera."

"Uh, just gonna jump in here. What exactly is the 'Crawl Zera'? Is there food there? It sounds awful fancy!" Hunk asked, his hands clasped tightly together as he looked off dreamily into the distance, some fantasy of an alien banquet no doubt playing out in his head.

"The Kral Zera is the coronation ceremony at which we Galra choose our next Emperor."

"So what exactly happens at this crawl Zelda?" Lance questioned and it took every ounce of Keith's will power not to turn around and smack the Cuban across the back of his head. It didn't matter though because Krolia did it for him. Stars, he loved his mother. "OWW! What the hell lady!"

"I know what 'Zelda' is and I know you are intentionally saying it wrong. The Kral Zera is an ancient ceremony and not something to be mocked or made fun of." Her voice was clipped and Keith felt himself smirking. The Blue Paladin withered under her intensity, whispering a hasty 'sorry, mam' and receiving a curt nod in return. "It is held on one of the first planets we, the Galra, ever conquered, long before the creation of Voltron and the rule of Emperor Zarkon. Planet Feyiv has been held as a sacred land by our people for nearly 30,000 deca-phoebs." She turned from Lance to address the entirety of the room. "We have already determined our next course of action regarding how the Blade of Marmora will proceed into the Kral Zera ceremony. The Princess, moustache, and rebel -" she locked eyes with Allura, Coran, and Matt respectively "will head for the Altean Colony. The Paladins will join Kolivan, Antok, Thace, Zavin, Fayz and myself to planet Feyiv for the Kral Zera ceremony. The people of the Galra Empire respect power and ferocity more than anything, which is why Voltron will deliver our nominated candidate for Emperor."