In the small hours of the morning Adam focused on the little spark of magic the Black Garnet had gifted to him. There was a tickle of energy through his whole body and a strange scraping sound filled his ears.
Adam…the Other One growled weakly before the sound overpowered his voice. Adam dug a finger into his ear but scraping noise grew louder, more real. The wan green light of the night-time fluorescents began to cower under a newer, softer glow. The ceiling turned orange and Adam experienced vertigo as he felt himself suddenly standing up.
"Oh," he whispered. A story. He was living the story the Black Garnet gave him.
Underfoot there was sand that grabbed greedily at his legs with every step. His throat was blasted dry with thirst. An alien despair swept into him from the the other mind that was reaching out to his across centuries of distance.
We're almost there. The Black Garnet whispered. Soon. I promise, Princess, we'll be there soon. The next dune blocked the horizon and Adam was terrified to imagine another hundred miles of sand waiting beyond it.
"Can you be a Princess if you have no Kingdom," Adam muttered, shocked at the voice coming from his throat, rough and tired and saying words he didn't even know, "I don't think I can do this…I can't just keep pushing them on with nowhere to go."
They believe in you.
"Maybe they shouldn't'," Adam replied. He…no, she…Adam decided, that's what she felt like for now and it didn't bother her at all. She was in a stranger's body. Using a stranger's voice and feeling a stranger's gnawing guilt. The stranger's eyes turned and Adam beheld a long trail of figures almost to n, following in single file up and down a scorching desert of high dunes.
They were all scorpion-people. Scorpioni. The word was their in her mind all at once. Adam felt a tail at her lower back twitch and two giant claws in place of her hands. This was very cool. Claws. Claws felt like having shovels instead of fingers. She wanted to play with them. Test them out. But the memory went on without her input.
"Princess Ishara?" A man…Karnak was his name Adam knew that through the borrowed mind…looked up, bald scalp burned red from harsh desert daylight. "Are you alright?"
Karnak's broad torso was covered by a leather harness, a steel ring on the back pulled a thick leather cable taut. Three dozen other sturdy Scorpioni clustered around him, each one bearing a cable, straining to pull a huge black sled. The wood was carved with strange, angular hieroglyphics. They depicted Scorpioni blasting lighting from their claws. Something enormous lay atop the sled but it was covered by a ragged canvas.
The scraping sound he heard was the sled's slow progress over the dune.
"Checking our bearings," Adam, Princess Ishara, lied, "it'll be dark soon." Dark was bad. Dark meant freezing cold. Dark meant one less person in the line tomorrow and one more little mound of sand on their backtrail.
"'Clear eyes," Karnak intoned sagely, "'see the dark of night as the herald of dawn.'" Adam smiled at her old friend. What response she wanted to make never left her lips. There was a growing cry of alarm from further back over the dunes. Her people stayed disciplined and began to move faster in line. Warriors, little shapes in red armor, broke away to guard the civilians.
"Raiders again? Harpies maybe?" Karnak snarled, struggling in his harness. Adam's frustrations became a fiery ball of battle-ready anger. Scavengers and cruel, desperate creatures of the desert had been picking them off the whole journey.
No! The Black Garnet called out. Bigger, angrier! Princess, to me! Hurry!
Adam leapt into action and pulled her armored feet free of the sand. The wood of the sled was almost painful underfoot, so weary where her legs after weeks of desert travel.
Adam's claw pressed into the canvas and tore away a long strip. The reflection in the runestone was not of a small, blonde child but a sturdy woman of about thirty. Her hair was white and shorn almost to her scalp, complimented well by a red-iron circlet that matched her armor. She looked like Scorpia but older, harder. Less happy and more world-weary.
Her claw touched the stone.
Magic leapt up her arm and found her heart. It followed her blood to the ends of her body and filled her with new strength. She was a lightning strike on a mesa. She was a clap of thunder over the badlands. She was a Princess and her people were threatened.
"Karnak," Adam yelled, "over the dune! Get to level ground!"
"First Ones keep you, Princess!" Karnak cried back. "Heave-ho, comrades! I refuse to die on this blasted sand!" The bearers abandoned their methodical climb and began to expend all their energy on huge, desperate lunges but the sled still moved upward with stubborn slowness.
"Come on," Adam shouted down into the little dip of the sand below them, "everyone up-and-over the dune!" She slid down the sloping side, red electricity crackled between her claws, making jagged red bolts run up and down the vectors.
"With the Princess!" A warrior yelled.
"No!" Adam barked. "Stay with the civilians, all of you! Get to level ground and huddle up!"
She cursed the sand and swore she'd turned it all to glass with her magic if she ever got the chance. She crested the next dune and her mouth dropped open at the sight below. Her people, thank the First Ones, were safe but scared. Along the eastern edge of their column a huge hump of sand was moving rapidly towards with a jarringly liquid grace.
"Oh, jeez," she muttered, "come on already with this…"
Behind her she heard a cheer of triumph and turned in time to see the sled slip rapidly down the far slope and toward safety. As if in response the hump surged forward, driving the whole line of her people west-ward in fright. It spared them but headed with new speed towards…
"Ishara!" Adam yelled at herself, "you big, red idiot!" She reached out to the Black Garnet as she threw herself back down the dune, nearly stumbling as she hurried.
Princess?
"Tell Karnak and the others to break off! Get away!"
Princess, you know they wouldn't hear me! Oh! It's coming for me, isn't it? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! When I looked ahead to find the new place I must've been felt by something-
"I'll hate you for it later," Adam screamed, taking the next dune at its lowest point as the hump-shape burst through the last one in an explosion of sand. "Blast the air with sparks or something, please!"
A red lightning stroke spilt the world over the next dune and Adam, Princess Ishara, threw out a prayer to any gods who'd listen. She and the creature hit the back of the dune at the same time.
A chittering sound ground her eardrums at the same moment the dune exploded under her feet. The sky drew closer to her and wind roared in whistled in her ears softly for a second before she came crashing down. The tightly packed sand caught her with the gentleness of solid stone but her magic shielded her. The precious time it cost her was not so easily made-up. A chitinous black shape slid suddenly out of dune, sand trailing from it like water.
"Oh…wowzer," she whispered. It was a huge beetle. Gigantic. A teardrop-shaped body angled forward by a set of crooked legs. Two forelimbs cocked under a busy mandible that could've swallowed her whole.
The sled-bearers had scattered, trailing smoking leather cables that connected to nothing. The sled had been obliterated and the Black Garnet, its canvas burnt to ash, lay naked on the ground.
Wait! Adam managed to think. Ground? Oh my goodness, ground! To anyone else the badlands before her might've been uninviting, even discouraging, but in Adam's eyes the hard rocks ahead spoke of a new beginning for her people and an end to their desert exile.
Now, however, a huge monster stood it their way. The beetle leered at the Black Garnet, its compounded black eyes filled with a hundred red pupils as they reflected the runestone's light.
Adam pulled herself out of the sand and raced forward as the forelimbs began to grasp at the runestone's edges. A figure crawled onto the Black Garnet and threw itself at the lowered face. Old Karnak's claws bit deep into a mandible and his stinger jabbed wildly at the nearest eye.
With a single shake of its monstrous head, the beetle sent her brave friend flying through the air to crash heavily-far, far too heavily-onto the rocky edge of the badlands. She roared a challenge and blasted lightning from either claw. A back-leg withered and crumbled into dust under the touch of her magic. The body tumbled onto its side, forelimbs slipping off the Black Garnet and punching weakly at the air.
Adam clawed her way to its underbelly. Her carapace plinked audibly against the black shell underneath her. She reared her tail up over one shoulder, putting all of her remaining power into it. But alone it might not be enough.
You aren't alone. A bolt of red lightning lanced down from the sky to strike her stinger. With a thunderstorm of energy focused on the point she brought it down with a wrath, shattering through the hard shell underneath. The body twitched, bits of carapace exploding outward as the insides turned to steam that crackled with electricity. Red flashes lit the darkening sands around them as the day-moon began to slink down behind the horizon.
She didn't stop to catch her breath or acknowledge the wild cheering of her people around her. She left the giant carcass smoking there and raced towards Karnak. She went to her knees once, shaking legs overwhelmed by solid flatness of the stony badland soil. Karnak had landed a hundred yards away, then crawled forward, leaving little bits of cracked red carapace behind like shards of blood-red glass.
He turned onto his back with a horrible wheeze.
"The Queen," he coughed, "your mother, Ish, I was supposed to…to say something to you but…oh, I can't remember now. You were grieving and the road was so long I never found the right time to say it and now I can't remember."
"Over here!" Adam yelled at the column. "Help!" She knelt to Karnak, afraid to touch him lest she hurt him further. "It's ok. I got that big bug for you."
"The ground is so rough," he muttered, he offered a weak smile, "not on the sand? Good."
"Karnak," Adam felt months of emotions coming up into her throat, "Karnak you can't…not you too. I'm not ready to lead them on my own."
"Princess," his voice was almost gone, "look." No. She couldn't see it happen. She couldn't watch him go. If she'd been faster. Claws with failing strength pushed her up and Karnak nodded his bald head towards the horizon. "The moon…the way…clear your eyes and see…"
She looked towards the horizon, after so long in the unchanging desert it seemed to go on forever.
A maw of stone fangs opening up towards the sky devouring the day-moon as it began to set. Light shone in shifting waves off a long blue line to the south. The sea. They'd reached the shores of the Sea of Sighs. Adam laughed even as the tears ran down her face.
"Good eyes, Karnak," she smiled at him, "good…" his eyes were looking at the distant network of canyons and high cliffs.
But they didn't see anymore.
Princess, the Black Garnet's voice was soft in her mind, I'm so sorry.
"You showed us the way," Adam said, "you found us a place." She closed Karnak's eyes. "Karnak. The others. They got us here."
The first of her people approached a few moments later. Adam couldn't grieve now. Later. When her people were safe. Night was still coming and there was a long march to those cliffs that would, one day, be called the Fright Zone.
"We'll bury him there," Adam pointed, "and when we get our strength back we follow the backtrail and we bring everyone else we've lost there too."
"Shelter at last," the warrior breathed. Adam sighed and felt a smile touch her face.
"Not shelter," she said, "home."
"Home," Adam mumbled, sitting up in his bunk. He yawned so hard he squeaked.
"Aw," a voice purred, "isn't that cute?" Adam squeaked again, from fright, and raised his fists. "Easy, killer, it's just me." Catra's eyes glowed at him upside-down. She somersaulted off the top-bunk and landed at a crouch next to him. "Whatcha doing down here, booger? Your bunk is up top."
"Um?" Adam shrugged. He'd been so tired and sad the night prior he'd collapsed into the first bunk he found. In the full light now he realized it had been badly damaged. The blanket was torn up. The mattress was almost gutted of what little fluff it had ever had in it. He caught sight of a pair of drawings to his left and leaned towards them.
Two little cartoon faces. One had three claw marks through it and…Catra's hand grabbed his chin, a little rougher than usual, and turned him away.
"Hey," she said, something dangerous entering her voice, "don't worry about it. That," she cocked her head upwards, "is your bed. Not this one. Ok?"
"O-k," Adam mumbled. She sent him off to get ready for the day ahead and his stomach twisted at the thought that he'd have to see Shadow Weaver again. He wondered if there were any great heroes like Princess Ishara still in the world. Maybe one of them could help them. Somehow, Adam doubted it.
The Archmage, the Head Archivist, and Adora, the She-Ra, were crowded in the top of a small tower that branched away from the main library. There they were surrounded by the learning of a hundred generations. Every book was irreplaceable.
"Not just from Mystacoar," Castaspella had said as they passed the least protected shelves, books still hardy enough to be handled normally, "we are proud to help preserve knowledge from all over Etheria." Castaspella indicated a small, humble little square of leather inside a glass case. "That's a diary from the Scorpioni Commander Hex, who fought in the War for the Sky. She was on the front, battling the Harpies and their Slave-Soldiers. She mentions Queen Angella in there but does my sister-in-law care to sit down and offer her first-hand account of history? Nooo. No time."
Adora had been too dumbfounded to offer a comment. The Horde propaganda that had so recently been her truth intoned that Rebels had no use for history or higher learning. The Horde alone would write the story of Etheria from the safety of their absolute rule over the whole planet.
When they'd reached the very pinnacle of the tower, Adora had been handed a cloth mask and fine silk gloves. A white-robe had been thrown over her clothes from her neck down to her boots.
"We guard the oldest, most fragile works in this room," Nadiya, the Archivist, had whispered, as if her voice risked the rare literature with its volume, "works over a thousand years old." Adora's heart raced with the promise of answers. They entered darkness, Nadiya whispered a spell and a single lamp at the focus of the ceiling came to life. It was a strange off-white color and gave off almost no light.
"Quartz," Castaspella said, "with just the smallest touch of oil inside it. Horn Whale blubber like they used to use in the old, old days. It gives off only a little light but it lasts very long."
"Dangerously combustible," Nadiya muttered, "I've spent half my life trying to find a safer option but magic light is simply too strong for the old tomes. The writing fades rapidly." By that meager light Adora barely made out the room around her. It was like being inside a large closet. There were no shelves. Only a series of floor-to-ceiling drawers carven from a white wood Adora didn't recognize.
She let herself be ushered to sit at a small table with a strange contraption on it. It was clearly a stand meant for a book but it had a collection of a little arms branching off of it.
"We have three items to show you," Castaspella said with pride. Adora's wonder came to a crashing halt.
"Three?" She said. "Three to start with?" Nadiya hummed behind her cloth mask.
"Three in total, my lady." Adora didn't have time to hide her disappointment, even with her face half covered.
"It's the largest collection of authentic First Ones' Writing in this hemisphere," Castaspella said, sounding desperate, "and it's been carefully preserved for nearly six centuries. A worker uncovered it inside an old strongbox deep under the ruins out by Castle Blackmoor. The ruins sank into the swamp and these items are all that remain."
"Oh," Adora said, then rallied, "well, that's good. Three. Let's get started."
"These are very old books," Nadiya said, warning in her voice, "relics would be a better word. Artifacts from a time before the foundations of Mystacoar were even carved from the quarry. We are putting a great deal of trust in you, Lady Adora. I hope you appreciate that."
"Oh, Nadiya," Castaspella sighed, "really she is She-Ra after all. The relics might even belong to her from a certain perspective." The Archivist's eyes narrow in a way that implied Adora's ownership began only after the books were pried from Nadiya's dead fingers.
"I won't bother you two as you work," Castaspella squeezed Adora's shoulder, "happy hunting, Adora. Do let me know what you discover."
"Sure," Adora said, forcing a smile and wondering how exactly she'd uncover her destiny off of three books.
The first item wasn't even a book. It was a half-rotted pamphlet with about four pages, of which two were legible. Nadiya set them up carefully across the podium, using two of the arms to hold it flat and open.
"This piece," Nadiya began, "is very interesting. See those faded indentations?" She pointed at something that may have, once-upon a time, been the scribblings of a pencil. "First Ones shorthand."
"I can't read it," Adora said, as she looked at the main body of the work. The words were spelled out for her in common Etherian and she read them aloud. "Upon establishing outpost follow…" the sentence was interrupted by an ancient stain, "…if protocol fails…the rest are just single letters." She was downcast. Nadiya, however, looked like she was having a heart-attack.
"You…you can really read it?" She was staring at Adora in wonder. "Centuries. Centuries of my predecessors staring at these hieroglyphics. Lady Adora." She bowed deeply. "I had not wished to ask this of you…but please, consider helping us decipher these pages. If we could establish an alphabet…it would be the most significant anthropological discovery of the...well...of ever!" Adora winced and tried not to let the woman down too hard.
"That might not work."
"No," Nadiya looked up, eyes shivering, "no that can't be. Simply tell me what you see and where and I'll make notes." Adora shuffled in her seat. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"They're not hieroglyphics to me," Adora said, "they're words."
"I…I don't understand," Nadiya said, "you can read them. Can't you?"
"I can't tell you how to read them," Adora's fingers locked together and settled in her lap, where she stared at them, "I looked through a book yesterday and I realized that I…I can't read them the way they're written I just…get them. Sorry."
"Just 'get them'," Nadiya was staring off into the dark, thunderstruck, "to be so close."
"I'm sorry," Adora said.
"No," Nadiya shook her head, "read on, my lady. Perhaps we'll learn something of equal value?" She didn't sound very hopeful.
Another grand victory for She-Ra. Adora thought bitterly. The rest of the pamphlet was as unhelpful. Ultimately Nadiya declared it an all-purpose information booklet for military or diplomatic outposts and seemed to at least try taking some happiness in that fact.
"Though," she mentioned, "without evidence. With just your word…never mind." She began bustling about the space, having great care with the relic even at her quick speed. "We must take a break now. The lamp can't burn for more than an hour at a time or it risks exploding."
"Exploding?!" Adora resisted the training that told her to get behind the nearest sturdy wall.
"I did say I was searching for a new solution," Nadiya sighed, "why not take lunch now, my lady? We should give it two hours to cool. It's safest that way."
"I'll brainstorm," Adora offered, "maybe I can think of something to help translate the next book?"
"Don't trouble yourself," the archivist muttered.
Adora ruminated on the woman's disappointment as she made her way out of the library, shrugging out of the robes and removing her cloth mask and silk gloves. She passed child acolytes rushing to class and older apprentices carrying themselves with a kind of an endearing haughtiness.
As a mage in a black robe brushed her shoulder, she felt a strange, sudden thought whisper in her head.
Such a disappointment. As always. She frowned hard and felt herself stop, an ache of anxiety coiling in her gut. It'll get better. She tried to tell herself. It has to. Right?
"Soon, my dear," Shadow Weaver watched the image of Adora ripple away in her scrying bowl, "soon you will be home." She turned the knife in her hands, admiring the keenness of the blade. She heard a raspy burst of laughter in the hallway and pivoted to face the door of the Black Garnet Chamber.
She had not slept last night but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the lesson she planned to teach that day. She growled at the heavy, self-assured knocking on her door.
"Enter." The arrogant girl strode in as the metal door cleared her short height, her smug smirk vanishing as her eyes caught the object in Shadow Weaver's hands. The girl's left hand moved out to stop the boy from sneaking in around her side. He looked apprehensive already and at her touch became downright suspicious.
Children, Shadow Weaver seethed, a pair of foolish little children.
"Do come in," Shadow Weaver said, "I promise not to bite."
"What's…that for?" Catra asked. Shadow Weaver twirled the knife deftly.
"I intend to murder the both of you, of course," she said, chuckling darkly, "really, Catra, it's a guilty mind that sees so much danger in the world. Adam, sit." She stabbed the knife towards the stool then turned away from them both. A small metal table had been wheeled in and on it sat a cutting board. On that cutting board sat a plump Gala apple.
It was gold and crimson. Plucked from the tree she tended in the broad expanse of her quarters deep below the Black Garnet chambers. The prize trophy of her garden.
She enjoyed making cider from them and each sip reminded her that she could, with her will and intellect, coax even a flavorful fruit to grow in a place as inhospitable as the Fright Zone.
"Has the boy eaten?" She twisted the stem until it broke neatly away and placed it on the cutting board.
"He had lunch," Catra said cautiously, settling herself in her usual spot near the door, "a ration bar." Her voice rose a little to mask her insecurity. "I always feed him." Shadow Weaver was so tired of Catra's defensiveness. So tired of her complaints and diatribes and self-consciousness.
"A ration bar," Shadow Weaver glanced at Adam from the corner of her eye, "why that's not nearly enough, is it?" The knife bit straight through the apple with a wet chop. "A boy his age is growing all the time. Nutrition is paramount to proper growth. To a productive yield."
"I don't remember getting any…whatever that thing is," she heard Catra sniff loudly at the crisp, sweet smell in the air. Shadow Weaver carved out the center and began to cut the halves in fours.
"An apple," Shadow Weaver said, "and there aren't many apples in the Fright Zone. The tree these came from took eight years to even begin bearing fruit. You were simply…born at the wrong time, my dear."
"So," Catra asked, "what's the plan today?" Shadow Weaver moved the slices onto a little white plate. The core she skinned open further to pluck out each seed and place them in a line on the cutting board, toying with the idea of planting another tree. Perhaps with enough time she could make a whole orchard.
"On the table," she gestured, "you will find a list of items that I have signed my name under. Please take it to the places listed and retrieve them."
"No." Catra stepped away from the wall, arms crossed and eyes flashing.
Shadow Weaver approached Adam and bent slightly to offer him the plate. The boy leaned back from her until his nose twitched at the smell of freshly cut apple. His eyes honed in on the fruit and his tongue slipped out to moisten his lips. Eight perfect, glistening white wedges of fruit entranced him.
"They're for you, dear boy," Shadow Weaver said, "for all that you've put up with the last few days." She pressed the plate into his lap and moved backwards. Adam wiped drool off his chin and picked up the first slice. Any lingering caution vanished the moment pressed the slice between his lips and got his first taste.
He made a muffled sound of surprise and delight as his small teeth snapped off a piece. He grinned, chewing unashamedly with his mouth open, enjoying the texture and crunch of the fruit as much as its cool, clear flavor. He pressed the rest of the slice into his mouth and turned it to mush in an instant. Shadow Weaver pretended to notice Catra.
"Where my instructions too complex?"
"I'm not leaving him alone with you again," she said, "you made a deal with me you gotta stick to it."
"The boy is enjoying a snack currently," Shadow Weaver said, "though at the rate he's going that won't be long. This is a small inconvenience for you. I was preparing that list up to the point you arrived. If you want to learn as much as we can-"
"You think I'm a total idiot don't you," Catra growled, "you think I can't see what you're doing?" Shadow Weaver had intended a soft-handed approach. A few minutes alone with boy and a little treat to lower his guard but...a part of her was eager for a fight. It had been a long time since she demonstrated her power with an audience.
"It is in your best interest," Shadow Weaver said, smiling under her mask, "to do as I am asking of you." Adam wasn't listening to them for once, so distracted by the apple slices he was wolfing down. He'd gone through four already.
"Tough," Catra spat, "maybe you're my boss. Maybe I'm your lackey. But right now? Right now we have a deal and I've upheld my end of the bargain." Shadow Weaver fanned her hands out and gave the smallest shrug of exhaustion. "What?"
"I'll have to adjust my plan," Shadow Weaver said.
"Poor you," Catra growled.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Shadow Weaver's upheld hands began to slowly draw inwards, "I wouldn't say anything right now if I were you, Catra." Catra's eyes narrowed and she flattened against the wall, hissing slightly and bracing for the red magic.
It was not lightning that began to appear in Shadow Weaver's hands. Long snakes of black smoke began to thread between her fingers.
"Ah!" Adam yelped. She heard the plate shatter as Adam jumped to his feet, shards of glazed clay spun by her feet in the space between them. Shadow Weaver shook her head slowly at Catra.
"It did not need to be this way," she said, "it did not need to be this difficult." The shards of broken plate shivered and sank into a growing puddle of dark magic. Red dots emerged from the black ooze and started rising up, pulling the darkness into curving humanoid shapes.
"You…you wouldn't…you can't!" Catra's bravado started to evaporate as the shadows stretched out their arms and flared their spindly fingers. Shadow Weaver felt a pair of small hands shove hard at her side. "Adam, don't!"
"Oh, it is far too late for that," Shadow Weaver curled her fingers, feeling her rage peaking with the dark magic ripping its way through her, "I have stomached many insults in my life, Catra. So many from ungrateful little brats like you and this boy. You're children, I make certain allowances. But I cannot conscience being lied to. This is your fault…partly."
Catra darted to the door, fumbling for her badge. Shadow Weaver's incantation broke briefly to blast the control panel with a bolt of red lightning. Catra cringed away, shrieking, and found herself penned in, the grasping hands of the shadow figures reached out for her.
"Stop!" Adam shoved her again with all his minimal strength.
"Really, you stupid boy," Shadow Weaver snapped, "you can lie to me but you can't figure this out?" Through her terror Catra's eyes focused on Adam and Shadow Weaver laughed. "Yes, Force Captain, your little soldier is a little liar. And it's his fault you are being punished."
"Good!" Adam cried desperately, fingers curling into her robes. "P-pleeeee-ssssss! Stop!"
Good? You'll only be good when I punish you." Her eyes drilled into Catra. "Always the same. 'Good' so long as you get attention. Time. Well, boy, not today. If you want to stop this you must do so on your own! Or watch this and learn from it." Adam's hands left her and Shadow Weaver urged her minions forward.
"By the Power of Grayskull!" There was a flare of power in her mind, the unbearable draw of someone taking her power. She'd gambled it all on this moment but she felt certain her bets would pay off.
And so they did when Adam launched himself not at the mage but at the dark creatures she'd summoned. A tiny body, dressed in purple, swimming through the dark magic and swinging wildly in every direction. He growled and hissed, watching his hands pass harmlessly through the creatures. They turned their attention on him, gibbering quietly and reaching out.
"Rah!" Adam stomped at the puddle of dark energy around his feet and a long seam was cracked across the concrete floor as his incredible strength vented itself. The creatures were plucking at his tunic and the shortened strands of his blonde hair. His courage curdled and he started to squirm as the danger became apparent.
There was a whisper from the Black Garnet and understanding flashed across the boy's face. The shadow creatures hemmed him, blocking him from sight. Catra was frozen stiff beyond them and made no move to assist her charge.
"Llllet," Adam said, struggling with the unfamiliar words, "the…power…reeee-t-t-t-re-t-urn-ah!" There was a flash of lightning from the center of the dark creatures and Shadow Weaver cawed loudly in pain as they were blasted into oblivion, their destruction scraping the front of her mind with the boy's power.
This boy…if he were trained properly and raised right…the things I could do with that strength! She reached out with her reserves of dark power and flexed her hand.
Adam stood, thin chest heaving and eyes fading from sapphire to a more mundane shade of blue. Shadows appeared under the door, Catra yelped and dashed away on all fours. The magic did not give chase, instead it forced the metal upwards with a disturbing screech. The hallway lights dared not illuminate the floor more than a few bare inches.
"You…you…," Catra's shaking voice refused to strengthen, "you could've…"
"You," Shadow Weaver said to Adam, her voice an acidic hiss, "lied to me yesterday, child. I detest being lied to." Adam glared at her and backed up, raising his fists. "And how will you threaten me with no magic, little one?" Adam tensed as if the thought were occurring to him at the same instant. His eyes flicked to the Black Garnet. "It is intoxicating, yes? The promises of power."
"What…he," Catra was slowly coming back to herself, "Adam can take power from…from the Black Garnet?"
"He didn't try to tell you?" Shadow Weaver said. "Perhaps he's not so trusting as I thought," she steepled her fingers. She glanced at the boy, ready to spring if he made a rush for the runestone again. "He seems to be making new friends now."
Hasn't he? She thought towards the runestone. Silence met her at first and then, a little voice, ghostly and petulant.
I hate you.
I will try not to sob over that, she answered in her mind, but you should mind what you say, little ghost. I'll have to come up with your punishment soon after all. How dare you defy your tether.
"Adam," Catra said, drawing her attention back, "did you… lie to me?" Adam's childish stoicism vanished, and he was, once more, a ten-year-old boy. "You did. You lied." Catra's face fell.
"Um? L… .lie?" Catra forgot Shadow Weaver and pointed at the Black Garnet at Adam and then at herself. She pressed a finger to her own lips, her eyes accusing him.
"You didn't tell me. When I asked you what happened you didn't even try." That Catra was hurt Adam seemed to understand perfectly. He refused to look at her.
"Perhaps he knows what I have always known," Shadow Weaver said, "that you are too weak to be trusted."
"If you say one more thing-!"
"You'll what?" Shadow Weaver snapped.
"Hey!" Adam leapt in front of her, between them both, and scowled up at Shadow Weaver. "Stop!"
"Adam!" Catra shouted, humiliation coloring her face a dark red. "I don't need your help!" The boy spun to look at her contrite and confused. Shadow Weaver swooped in and clasped his shoulders tight.
"Look at how eager he is to defend you," Shadow Weaver said, "see how he risks my wroth to steal some of my power all to keep you safe? And when this child leapt into danger to save your mangy hide what did you do Catra?" Catra's voice caught in her throat. "You tried to save yourself." Catra growled, then looked ready to cry from frustration, then settled for a roar of wordless despair. "Like an animal. Small wonder the boy can barely speak."
"Catra!" The silk palm of Shadow Weaver's fingerless gloves sealed his mouth shut, her free hand held him firmly in place.
"Weeks with you and what has he gleaned? He's learned insolence. Lies. And how to get himself into trouble far past his own strength to escape." Shadow Weaver looked down on her. "Just five minutes without you gave him a chance to use his powers and look what he's accomplished!" Catra stared at the seam cracked into the floor where the shadow minions had been banished. "Whom doesn't need whom?"
"You," Catra's voice was thick suddenly, her eyes moist, "you're wrong…"
"And you wonder why I didn't want you lingering near Adora," she tightened her grip on Adam, "have I driven the lesson through your thick skull this time?"
"We're done here," Catra growled, "let Adam go now!"
"Or what, Catra? What will you do if I refuse? Run to tell Lord Hordak?" Shadow Weaver laughed. "Do you imagine he'll appreciate being interrupted because you aren't getting your way? The boy is fine. I have made progress in discovering his powers. What I do," she considered Catra with mocking eyes, "whoever gets hurt along the way does not really interest him so long as I produce results and follow his instructions."
Catra gave voice to a scream that was more animal roar than speech. Shadow Weaver's fingers tightened as Adam struggled to free himself.
"Don't think you can frighten me, child," Shadow Weaver said, "why should I fear such a cowardly creature as you?" She felt the hard edge of small teeth worrying at the silk of her gloves. She pressed her thumb and forefinger under the boy's cheekbones to still his snapping.
"That's not true!"
"By all means," Shadow Weaver said, "prove me wrong. Challenge me further. You want the child to leave with you, Catra?" Shadow Weaver felt the headiness of dark magic seeping into her mind, awaiting command and shaping. "Take him from me."
Catra took a single step forward, bristling with fury, and Shadow Weaver raised her hand, curled into position to cast a spell but simply held it there. Catra froze at the movement.
"Ca-tra?" A small voice asked. Catra's ears swiveled up to hear it and then began to sink slowly back to her scalp. She pressed them tightly to her head and squeezed her eyes shut.
"You'll regret this," she promised in a quiet, desperate way, "I'll make you regret this."
"Empty threats," Shadow Weaver said, lowering her hand, "from a scared little girl. Get out of my sight, Catra, before I become angry with you. The boy will stay with me for the remainder of the day. Return for him later." Shadow Weaver gave a harsh scoff. "Or do not. I know you like to sulk after you've been punished."
"Catra?"
There was a small flicker of something strong in Catra's eyes when Adam broke in again. It was a spark that found no fuel to ignite and it died away inside her pupils. Catra crossed her arms then gave up pretending and hugged herself tight. She growled low in her throat.
"If you just listened," she said, "if you just did what she wanted…thanks a lot, Adam." Her tail flicked the air once as she left. Adam stilled in Shadow Weaver's hands, when she looked at his face she saw silent tears welling in his eyes. She touched his chin and forced him to look up. She admired the short cut of his hair and smoothed it neatly down with her hand.
"Poor Catra," she said to him, "you've really done nothing but bring her misery, little Adam." She pointed to the little black stool like a judge directing a criminal to the guillotine. "Sit." Adam did so without fuss and when he wiped his forearm across his eyes, his tears vanished like magic.
Adora's mouth twisted awkwardly as she found the correct words to say.
"Its…unreadable." Nadiya's wrinkled face fell in defeat. They'd hardly looked at the second item. A document of some length, heavily decayed. The letters were there, half formed and shimmering on the page before Adora's eyes but they were ghosts of old thoughts.
"An outpost instruction manual and an indecipherable page." The archivist sighed. "Well. The last is our best-preserved item and may provide better answers." She reverently put away the damaged page, no less careful now than she had been before she knew it would never give up its mysteries.
She moved to a drawer and withdrew a thin book. Pausing as she balanced it between her silk covered fingers. The material of the cover may have once been sturdy but now it was wrinkled as a dead leaf. Adora couldn't even get her hopes up any longer.
She felt foolish. She felt tired. She felt as suffocated, isolated, and out-of-time as the relics surrounding her. Her answers were not here, she'd made peace…no…no she hadn't. She hated it. It was gnawing at her and making her feel ready to scream. She wanted to punch something. To fight. To get her anger out through the physical action the Horde had taught her.
Ever the soldier. She took a deep breath through her mask, trying in vain to dispel the voice in her head. You only ever belonged in the Horde. The book settled in front of her and the words translated themselves.
"The…" her voice caught in her throat, "the Great Houses of Our Empire…537th Edition." Nadiya made a noise behind her mask.
"I…excuse me?" She asked. Adora sat up, hands reaching out a second before Nadiya shouted. "Ah! My lady, please don't!"
"Sorry!" Adora's apology was almost petulant. She curled her fingers back into her palms and considered sitting on her hands. Nadiya set about opening the precious book to its first page. Adora read aloud.
"It is paramount to proper Imperial Protocol that each citizen familiarizes themselves with the descendants of the great houses upon which our history was founded. Contained here-in are the recognized Royal Bloodlines of those systems who pledge their allegiance to the Empire."
"First Ones!" Nadiya exclaimed. She blinked. "I mean…my goodness! Instructions for establishing an outpost. And a late edition of an aristocratic register! Do you see what this means, Adora?"
"Yes," Adora said, "but…tell me anyway."
"There's been debate to why the First Ones came to Etheria from…wherever they came from and here's a clue!" Nadiya was shining with excitement. Her earlier disappointment was forgotten and her doubts about the validity of Adora's translation had disappeared into thin air. "Before the Dark Ages after the collapse of the First Ones Outposts there were legends of other worlds. Other systems like our own. If the First Ones chose Etheria as another addition to their Empire…"
Nadiya looked at the book with growing wonder.
"Perhaps some later edition would've counted the Princesses of Etheria in their numbers." The archivist remembered herself with an embarrassed laugh. "Oh my. I'm forgetting myself entirely, my lady. We haven't even read the second page!"
"Well," Adora grinned, "would you do the honors…since I'm not allowed to touch it."
Fingers nearly trembling with excitement, Nadiya slid a wooden stick up from the podium and between the delicate pages. The paper whispered open and Adora's eyes twinkled in wonder.
A coat of arms dominated the top half of the page. A reddish flag with a perfect ring of silver at the center. Below it was a list of names. Adora read the first absently.
"Joel, Prince of Antares. Served faithfully by Robo-Friend 3200…what's a Robo-Friend?" Nadiya's eyes broke away from studying Adora's face and searched the ceiling.
"I…cannot begin to explain how much I do not know that, my lady…"
"Right, sorry." She read off names rapid fire. Finishing with a paragraph that briefly summarized the origins of House Antares. "'The inventor Antares created the first robots in the system's history, changing the course of their civilization for millenia to come. Thusly was balance restored to Antares.' Wow."
"Wow," Nadiya parroted, "'wow', indeed!" She chewed the tip of her gloved finger. "My lady, it is most impolite and unprofessional to leave you here with the works and no assistance…but…I must gather ink and paper." She shook her head. "What am I saying? I must go wake up the junior archivist! This information…please do I have your leave?"
Adora glanced at the book and almost asked if she could read while the Archivist was gone. Her mind was fully awake and it hungered for input. If she didn't ask…she couldn't be told no. She smiled sneakily under her cloth mask.
"Yes, in-deed, Arhc-I-vist, Nad-iya," she said, perfectly imitating a smart person, "I would be honor-ed to assist your re-search!" Nadiya leaned backwards as if Adora would infect her.
"Are you feeling alright, my lady?"
"I am feeling quite wond-er-ful, fellow schol-ar. Please, make hast-ee with your ass-is-tant." Nadiya weighed the choice she was making carefully and took a deep breath. The stoic Head Archivist returned briefly to instruct Adora with great care.
"The lamp," she gestured to the quartz light overhead, "it can't be left unattended. If you need to leave this room for any reason," she gestured upward, "you can take it down and unscrew the bottom to blow out the flame. We've been using it all day, my lady, it will be quite hot. Am I understood?"
"I will most ass-sured-lee, hand-el the laa-m-p-"
"Yes or no!"
"Yes," Adora squeaked, "sor-ee…er…I mean 'sorry'." Nadiya's white robes flapped as she hurried out of the tower. Adora, when she was certain the archivist wouldn't return, began to page through the entries before her. The book was very thin, but if every page represented a whole system, and the house that represented it, that would still be a mind-boggling number.
Those are the ones that submitted, a dark voice spoke in her mind, the rest do not signify in this or any history. Why do you think that is? Tyrant. Murderer. She reached the 'D' systems with a huff.
"Denebria," she began reading to herself, "the Overlord Flogg and his Liberation Army now rule the remains of House Gorn in Gorn on the moon of Nordor. Before failing in their duties, House Gorn had ruled since Gorn the Strong had brought together the Fog Tribes. Thusly was balance restored to Denebria."
Adam made no sounds when her fingers began to feel at his sides and her eyes glowed with magic. She pierced the privacy of his body and cataloged everything she found within. When she finished she was pleased to find she had a few hours remaining to test the extent of his magic.
There was no defiance as she worked save for a single moment when, after removing her hand from his bare stomach, feeling the power enter and leave him, she saw him calculating the Black Garnet with scrunched-up eyes. She whispered a spell.
A huge, humanoid shape of black magic curled around the runestone, one red eye daring Adam to touch its prize. Shadow Weaver flinched as she felt a soft weight settle on her shoulders and sweat-soaked hair probing at the edges of her mask.
She'd overtaxed herself. But that endearing little look of fear on Adam's face made the weakness bearable. She shook her hair away from her face and rose to her full height before approaching her scrying bowl.
She saw the libraries of Mystacoar, felt the slightest twinge of what, once, she'd have been brave enough to call regret, and found a twilight image of Adora as Dark Dream stalked her steps.
"Take her tonight, child," she said to the eager monstrosity, "and bring her home by morning. I've prepared the way for her return." She had final preparations to make in the room she'd selected in her quarters. Movement in her vision. An old mage in white robes was bustling out of the library. Dark Dream felt thoughts flickering by and grew hungry.
"Carefully, child," Shadow Weaver felt pride at the cleverness inside her creation, "Mystacoar is filled with weak-willed fools but the mages are still formidable. Especially that buffoon Castaspella. Be quick. Be efficient." She released her hold on it as the shadow gave chase after the unsuspecting old mage.
She felt something crunch under her foot.
"Ah, yes," she directed her words to her unwilling student, "you will now clean up this mess, Adam." She swept a hand at the shattered plate from earlier. "Piece by piece."
It took a bit of extra direction, but the child learned enough to fold his arms and snarl at her. Shadow Weaver settled in her oak chair and entwined her fingers, meeting his stare with nothing more than a slight tilt of her head.
Silence expanded the distance between them by a mile. As Adam's shoulders began to rise, made to look larger by his bulky tunic, she suddenly shouted.
"Now!" Adam scooted off his seat and knelt, wincing as the first piece nicked him. He sucked at his pointer finger and made no complaints as he reached for the next shard. Shadow Weaver found watching him obey her oddly relaxing.
"Just listen to me," she said, "and there is no need for any unpleasantness." She smiled at the open doorway and the empty spot next to it. "This could be quite a beneficial arrangement. Provided you listen to me."
Adam mumbled wordlessly as he searched for more broken pieces.
"Eronia," Adora heard herself yawn the word, "ruled by Count Kalif Marzo of House Marzo. Marzo the Animator first gave rise to this great house when he gave life to the Chimera, an army of living sculptures, to bring about peace and order to his war-torn planet. Thusly was balance restored to Eronia."
She'd read a dozen such stories already in the little book. Always they featured singular heroes who 'thusly restored balance' to nations riven by conflict. She leaned back in her seat, considering the heraldic symbol of House Marzo. Three strange, statuesque figures with glowing yellow eyes, Chimera she assumed, hoisting a huge black crown up into the air.
Was this it? What she was for? What She-Ra was meant for? Restoring balance. Bringing Etheria into a new age of peace and prosperity seemed decent enough.
"Tyrant," she whispered to herself, "'Murderer'. Why? Why would someone say that?" She turned the page.
Adora's thin restraint broke as she beheld the page. She ripped the cloth mask off her face in a fit of emotion, desperate to prove that it was not some trick of her narrowed vision.
Atop the page a bronze eagle spread its wings on a pink field. The symbol that the dream-warrior, Duncan, had carried on the front of his shield. She knew it well. He'd panned her in the face with it several times before the strange dreams stopped.
"Eternos," she breathed the word underneath it, "the High House of the Empire. Who does not rule but remains the honored custodians of our Empire's heart." Her eyes followed the words with almost supernatural attention. She felt like she was dreaming again. "Of Eternia, the Heart of the Galaxy." A word she'd said to open a door. So mundane a function for so monumental a revelation. 'Eternia'. At last. An answer.
"Eternia," she read, licking her dry lips, a distant, responsible part of herself scolding her for removing her mask and risking the artifact, "the Heart of the Galaxy. The Birthplace of Our Empire." She looked below and read a pair of names. The most recent rulers. Dead for over a thousand years.
"King Randor," she said, "who was not Of the Bloodline adopted by Queen Miro of the Bloodline, after the death of Prince Eldon. Shares rule jointly with Marlena Glenn-"
Her voice caught in her throat suddenly, so overcome with the moment.
"Marlena Glenn," she said, finding she liked the name, "of…wait what? Earth? Marlena of…Earth?" Adora frowned. "Like…like dirt? She was from a place called 'dirt'?" Adora shook her head and read onto the origins of the house.
The King and Queen of Eternia were forgotten in an instant, framed as they were by the dream-warrior's symbol and the words beneath them. Adora's fingers gripped the arms of her chair until the wood squealed.
"The…the House of Eternos," she stuttered, "claims descent from the warrior-queen who unified Eternia in the Time of the Ancients. Of whom legends are many. Savior of the Gar. Commander of the Gorgon. Destroyer of Dark Mountain. Who was crowned Queen-of-All-Hives by the Andreenids. Who was crowned Avatar of the Ocean-Sea by the Aquaticans. Who was proclaimed 'Chosen of the Goddess' by Sorceress Veena. Founder of Eternos. Liberator of Allenar. Defender of the Innocent. Protector of the Weak."
Adora shut her eyes and worried that when she opened them the next sentence would simply be gone. Her imagination toying with her. She summoned her courage and read on.
"Of whom no name is recorded save for…'Grayskull'."