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The Last Days Of Daibazaal

allawander:

((Written for anyone having trouble understanding how the galra could have turned on the alteans so quickly.))

Let’s say you’re a galra living on Daibazaal right before the shit hits the fan. You’re nobody important, just some low-level soldier. Not powerful, but still respected. You have friends and family living on the planet and a mate and cub at home.

You get off of guard duty and meet up with your friends to chat for a bit before going home. One of them works in the palace and tells you the Empress is still bedridden. Given how long it’s been, she’s may not last much longer.

It’s a shame. She may be a foreigner and not even galran, but she’s still beloved of the Emperor, and you respect that. You wonder whether you’ll be given time off to attend what will no doubt be a lavish and somber funeral. You wonder if the Empress’ death will halt research of the anomaly that splits the crust of your planet.

The rift feels like it’s always been there, though your parents can tell you otherwise. There didn’t used to be so many earthquakes, but then, there didn’t used to be as many powerful ships either. Everyone’s talking about the stabilization project. Emperor Zarkon claims it will stop the earthquakes, and you trust your Emperor.

So you live your life with your job and your friends and your family, and then one day you hear the news.

The Empress is dead… as is the Emperor.

The news is shocking. Even more so as it comes from the lips of a foreign ruler. King Alfor may have been a friend and ally of Zarkon, but it was common knowledge they’d been estranged of late. And now for him to be the one to come bearing news of the death of the royal couple is… unsettling.

What he says next is appalling.

“Daibazaal must be destroyed.”

Daibazaal. Your home. The home of all your ancestors unto the very origin of your species. The earthen cradle that nourished your entire civilization. And it is to be destroyed?

The anomaly, Alfor claims, is at the root of it. It’s too dangerous. It’s grown far beyond its former size. There’s no way to close it except through destruction.

That’s when the whispers start. Because to most people, the rift is something that’s been around for ages. Aside from that one little hiccup with a shadow monster – a monster which their Emperor and the other paladins soundly defeated – it’s been fairly quiet. The Emperor and his Empress had it under control. And now… Now it’s too dangerous? Now when the royal couple is conveniently dead under bizarre circumstances?

In this environment of uncertainty and fear, the planet begins to evacuate. Some refuse to leave, mostly elders. They will die with their home, and there is nothing the alteans can do to persuade them otherwise.

You leave because you want to live. You want your friends and your family to live. So you take your mate and your cub and everything you can carry onto the ship the alteans have provided. Of course, you can’t carry everything. Keepsakes, furniture, the house itself… Much is left behind.

And, of course, there are larger edifices, important to the species as a whole, that cannot be removed: monuments and gardens and great works of architecture. Perhaps someone could work out a way to save them given enough time, but you haven’t been given enough time.

You sit with your family on the evacuation ship and think of the Falls of Zeth. Your parents took you to see them as a cub. You’d meant to take your own cub, but that won’t happen now. It’s horrifying to realize you will outlive a natural wonder that should have stood for a thousand generations to come.

Standing on foreign soil, you hear of your home’s destruction. There are video recordings, but you cannot bring yourself to watch them.

King Alfor hosts a grand funeral for your fallen rulers. It is grand and tasteful and solemn, and it will never be enough to account for what’s been lost.

But then, as you and the rest of your species linger in that terrible void in the aftermath of losing everything, Zarkon returns.

Your Emperor lives.

And the first thing he tells you is that Alfor has betrayed you.

In your loss and your lostness, it is the easiest thing in the world to believe. Alfor was the one who falsely reported the royal family’s demise. Alfor was the one who ordered the destruction of your planet, your home. Alfor is the one who cut out the very heart of your species and your history.

You are a soldier again, and you rally to your Emperor.