It's funny how often many grasped for things so close, and yet remained far out of reach. That was how all of this felt to Glimmer. Sitting at the head of the Council. Leading it. Leading all of Bright Moon for that matter. She couldn't help but wish, not for the first time, that she had listened to her mother; a common regret she found herself struggling with these days. She lost them both, and she wasn't prepared, could not be prepared for the hole it left inside her. The memory of beating wings and sad smile still haunting the edges of her mind.
"Your Majesty?"
The young queen blinked, sitting straighter in her chair. Everyone was staring. In another time, she would have been flustered, or simply blinked away in a buff of light and magic. But she was Queen now, and she had to set an example. She had to lead. Staring down at the great display via a web of holographic imagery, she pieced it together the question she had missed.
"We'll bolster our forces at Plumeria, we can't afford to lose any more than we have; we're already low enough on morale and running out of space for the refugees." When did it become second nature to make decisions like this? Was this what it had been like for her mother? To make the hard calls? To pretend that it didn't bother her to think about all the little settlements that they might lose in the west now? To think about all the innocents that might very well lose their lives? No, she couldn't think like that. Couldn't let such things consume her. "With that, I conclude this Council meeting dismissed."
Glimmer didn't bother to wait around for the inevitable question, the very question that was burning in her own mind. Where did Adora go? Letting that question, the quiet stabs of envy that always seemed to accompany that name direct her to her room, the only place that seemed to offer her any solace these days. She couldn't bear to move into her mother's rooms, the Queen's Chambers. It wasn't right. It would be like admitting that she was really gone, as if the Trials hadn't proved that enough. As if seeing her magical hologram hadn't proved that enough.
Flopping back on her bed, Glimmer covered her gaze with the back of her hand, feeling the soft material of her glove against her closed eyelids. A soft and familiar knock sounded at the door, Glimmer forcing herself into a sitting position as Bow made his way in with a soft smile.
"Thought I would find you here. It's nice to see that there are some things that being Queen hasn't changed. " he said, helping himself to the seat beside her. Bow leaned back on the heels of his palms, a silent question on his face. He didn't push, knowing that she would open up whenever she was ready.
"I'm...so worried, Bow. What if I'm not as good as she was?" Glimmer said, squawking out the words as they clung to her throat like hooks.
His expression stiffened.
"Everyday there's a new issue, a new plot of land that we lose to the Horde, and it feels like there's nothing we can do about it! It feels like it's eating me alive!" Running her hands through her hair, Glimmer rose to a standing position, followed by pacing. A lot of pacing. "And I know I'm not alone, I have you and Adora in my corner, which I appreciate because I really don't think I do this alone...but where did she even go?! She just got up and left without a word to anyone! I need you guys more than ever! Her shoulders shook a little, and Bow stood almost immediately, crossing the distance between them, wrapping an arm around her.
"You and I both know that it must have been something very, very important. Adora doesn't so this kind of thing on a whim." he said.
Glimmer grumbled.
"Well, whatever it was, it better be a matter of life and death."
"Ta-ra-ra-doo-day~ Doo-doo-beray!" Madame Razz could be heard singing on repeat at varying volumes all throughout the whispering wood as she laid out the table, ignoring the fact that there was still a rather large hole in her wall.
Swift Wind, to his credit, was doing his best to remove some of the rubble from the little hamlet. She had always been kind to him, and surprisingly, seemed to remember him quite well. He came to check up on her often, considering she was an old lady who lived on her own, in the middle of the woods of all places. Adora, on the other hand, was honestly feeling rather nauseated as she eased herself into a seat. Which was a shame really, because those jam sandwiches looked really good.
"Good!" Madame Razz said as both she and Swift Wind also made their way to the table, the slightly eccentric woman continuing as she proceeded to pull out some more chairs, "Now that everyone is together, we can have lunch!"
Adora looked concerned, but honestly she knew that she really ought to be more used to Madame Razz's...inability to properly discern the two timelines she seemed to be stuck in.
"Madame Razz, we're the only ones here." she said, resting her arm against the table, still sore from the encounter with their ferocious, and infected, foe.
"My, my. This dear woman seems to have sight beyond sight."
"GAH!" Adora reeled, Swift Wind sharing in her shock, only tenfold.
"Oh-ho, you're such a charmer! Please, do go on," Razz said with another little laugh as she helped herself to one of the sandwiches.
"Who was that!? Adora, is this the same voice as before?!" Swift Wind shook his head back and forth, his front hooves stomping a little as his wings fluffed out a bit in distress. "I mean, I know I definitely didn't sign up for this, did you sign us up for something more when I wasn't looking? Didn't I tell you those door to door sales were scams?!"
As Swift Wind spoke, more voices flooded in, and Adora found herself cradling her temple in her hands, the sensation seriously starting to sting, as if she had just gone a few rounds with some Horde tanks - right to the face
"Wait, who are you? Does that horse have wings? Is that winged horse talking?!"
The questions seemed to overlap everything, becoming of echoes, one hammering along the landscape that was Adora's mind, to the extent that she was clutching her head in agony, the makings of a scream slowly breaking out.
"Stop. Stop it! Everyone...just...SHUT UP!" she howled.
The ground around her splintered, uprooted, her eyes flickering with light. Over and over. Building. Burning. Too much. Her skull threatening to snap.
"Raven, perhaps it would be best if everyone was granted some breathing room?" Iroh's voice broke though, cutting through the noise.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
Calmness, almost eerily so, settled in her headspace. Adora had opened her eyes, only to be greeted by the sight of fog, with shadows dancing at the edge of the gray mist.
"What's going on? What is this place?" she asked. As she spoke, the fog started to clear, making a pathway, as if it was silently beckoning her to follow. Taking a steadying breath, Adora started to walk, glancing around her as she did so. As the fog started to clear, she saw that the shadows of before were the outlines of mirrors. Some whole, even radiant, while others were broken, and emitting small tendrils out of the darkest black. As her eyes tried to catch her own reflection, Adora was met with sights that were not her own. Shapes, people, places, scenes of a life that was not her own. Smiles and screams. Pain and triumph. The fog that surrounded her started to wrap itself around her ankles the further she went, and the higher it climbed. Just when she was tempted to call out for answers again, she found herself stopping, or rather forced to stop, in front of three full-size mirrors. Only this time, the people inside were staring back at her.
One of them held up a hand.
"Um...hello?"
Adora's fight or flight response instantly kicked in. She whirled into a high kick her heavy boots landing against the glass. A river of cracks formed, but there was no shattering.
"Please don't do that again, unless you would like your psyche to splinter," Raven spoke as the mirrors reformed once again, her tone offering nothing but cool boredom.
"Quick thinking, young Raven. This is more than adequate for what we need." Iroh said, a chirp in his voice. Unlike the others, his form was much more spectral in appearance, and he didn't seem to be confined to a single mirror, rather choosing to appear over the shoulder of all three girls; who in turn, had much more solid images.
"I wasn't given much of a choice. We're all lucky that something this corporeal was even possible, considering the circumstances."
"Circumstances "What are you saying? What in the name of Etheria is going on here?!" Adora asked, quite literally the last to the party.
Raven gave one of her signature sighs. "This," she said with a small gesture to the area around them, "shouldn't be possible. We all are currently connected through a psychic tether of my own creation, and that tether in turn, created this...nexus, a pocket dimension if you will, of the new hive subconscious that we all share. This space allows us to all comprehend each other without any accompanying interdimensional agony, despite our actual bodies being literal worlds apart." She paused briefly, as if to let everything she said so far sink in. " I can only imagine that this is possible due to the sliver of the Avatar's power that I'm borrowing, otherwise this would be even more unstable than it already is. Even meeting like this is incredibly dangerous and not at all worth the risk." Raven's piercing gaze seemed to meet Iroh's where he hung over Adora's shoulder, who was quick to respond.
"Dangerous as it may be, it was quite necessary. The situation that we face requires the mind of a powerful sorceress, the spiritual connection of the Avatar, and the magical force of a warrior princess." As he spoke, Iroh flashed behind each of them in their respective mirror. "Gathered together here, are the three pillars left to preserve peace across the worlds."
All three shared a silent look.
"I understand that it is inconvenient for the three of you to be plucked from your lives and duties, but this threat cannot be ignored." With a wave of his hand, the fog in the shared open space in front of them swirled to form a fourth mirror, it's glass belly illuminating the previous battle between Korra and Azula. The latter's flames threatening to spill out of the frame
Raven raised a brow as she watched the scene dissolve in another wave of blue fire. "You totally lost that fight."
"Don't remind me." Korra replied, no mistaking the underlying tone of guilt and self-disappointment that coated her words.
"If the Tree of Time is not healed," the imagery in the fourth mirror instantly shifted; reflecting a smoking and seemingly lifeless husk of a tree, "calamity will follow, ebbing into each and every world until all come to ruin" Iroh's voice was grave, though there was an underlining warmth to it. "Fortunately, you have all taken the first step to restoring it. All of you have succeeded in recollecting shards of the tree."
Having been called upon, each of the shards appearing before them, floating and bobbing lightly in the mist.
"This is just three out of what could be a possible thousand pieces." Raven commented with a shake of her head.
"Normally, yes, that would be a bit of a hurdle, but we have already have a solution. As you see, the Tree of Life is no ordinary plant, is it Korra?" Iroh said as his gaze turned to the Avatar.
She paused before just a moment, readjusting herself, before reaching out to her shard, a look of intense focus in her gaze, even through the fog and glass.
"What is she doing?" Adora asked.
"Probably something weirdly useful," Raven said.
Locations, noise, people, spirits, and everything in between, it all swirled around Korra like a whirlwind, flickers of moments in time and space, plucked out and paused before carefully placed back into the vortex while Korra continued her search. Reaching out into the aether as only the Avatar could, grasping out, honing in, hunting for the sensation unique only to the Tree's essence. One second became two. Two became ten. Ten became twelve. Twelve lights appeared before her mind's eye, swirling together at nauseating speed before joining; a brilliant flood of light bursting forth, only to take shape once more and become roots, spiralling into the splendid form; a canopy of life and endlessness.
It took a full heartbeat Korra to fully comprehend what she saw.
"They're not just pieces!" she said. "They're central components, like a core! The pieces we have, they're like...beacons, reaching out to every scattered piece of bark and branch."
Raven looks puzzled for a moment. "They're keystones?"
"Exactly. In order to both protect and restore itself, the Tree flooded as much of its essence into a select amount of fragments. Should these be gathered, it will likely cause the rest to seek out and complete the whole. Of course, this isn't a perfect system, as you have all seen. Even the smaller shard can act as a double edged sword, for those without the sufficient means or abilities to handle the shards such as you three, will inevitably all prey to the sheer excess power that the Tree offers. Which is why I sought to bring you three together, to safeguard the tree's recovery and those who may fall prey it's undoing."
"So how many of these core shards are there?" Raven asked.
Korra rubs the back of her neck in thought, "Well, I saw twelve lights, so I guess twelve parts?"
"So no pressure then." Raven said, rolling her eyes.
"The other nine must be recovered as quickly as possible. We are fortunate that those remaining are drawn to one another. Before long the missing shards will reveal themselves across your respective worlds, and you must be ready to reclaim them...no matter what."
The interruption of Adora's fists slamming down on the mirror before her drove conversation to a standstill. Her face writing in bitterness.
"I...don't know about your worlds, but mine? Bright Moon. My home. It's in the middle of a war. The Horde is getting closer to our doorstep every day, and as She-Ra, it's my responsibility to put a stop to them. If Hordak and Catra get their way, that's it! No more Bright Moon, no more Princess Alliance, no more magic, no more anything! " Adora's shoulders shake, but her features, her expression, remains steadfast. Defiant in the memory of all that had been lost. "Look, I want to help, I really do; but Etheria needs me. My friends need me." Her voice cracked. "I...can't let anyone else die."
There was a single moment of pause of hang silence.
"Cat-who?"
"What's a She-Ra?"
Adora blinked, only for a pink shade to coat her cheeks "C-Catra is my best friend! Or well, she was, she tried to kill me a few times. Okay, she tried to kill me plenty of times, and she's part cat. But that's not the point! And She-Ra is this eight-foot tall warrior woman...princess? She's the Princess of Power, and everyone looks up to her and has these prophecies about her and she's me and I'm her and–" she rambled, any sense of eloquence long abandoned.
Raven looked Adora up and down with a single glance before raising a brow. "You turn eight feet? How?"
Adora looked little chagrined. "It's the sword, it's magic. It's a relic of-"
Raven cut her off, again. "So the sword grows eight feet? That doesn't seem practical."
"No, it's–"
A second interjection, this time courtesy of Korra. "What kind of cat friend are we talking about here? Because my best friend is a polar bear dog, though most days she's acts like a noble steed and-"
"What?!" Adora and Raven's harmonised in confusion
"What? You two don't have polar bear dogs?" Korra asked, arms folded.
"That sounds all kinds of messed up," Raven said.
"Naga is not messed up! You take that back!" Korra snapped back.
"You're the one that's apparently breeding dogs with polar bears."
"Huh?! That's -"
"What in Grayskull's name is a polar bear?"
And on and on it went. A cycle of rebuttals and witty retorts, mostly on Raven's part, to which Korra eventually gave an exasperated look towards Iroh, her eyes lined with the clear question of "did you really may the right choice?" To which he simply gave a knowing smile, and gesture to the others, as if to tell Korra to keep listening.
Adora, who seemed to be more embarrassed at the fact that there were more things the Horde kept from her and how she looked more foolish in front of these strangers from other worlds, gave an exasperated yell. "Okay! That's enough, listen and no more interruptions!" she barked, straightening herself like a soldier would. "She-Ra is more than just a sword, or a person, she's a mantle, a title that's been passed down from one person to another. Her role is to protect Etheria, in fact she's the sole protector of Etheria! I have to do this, I have to be She-Ra. I was chosen. And if I don't live up to what Mara and the others did, then my friends are...they're still in danger. I...I can't let anyone else get hurt." She felt like tearing out her hair. "You could never understand what it means to - "
"I'm the same!" Korra's echoed out, suddenly and sharply, like she was barely able to contain herself. "I'm the Avatar. I'm supposed to protect the people and the spirits of my world, to bring balance to all things. I'm the latest in a long line, and...I might just be the last. I...didn't have a choice in becoming what I am, but I understand doing this for your friends, for the people you love," she paused. "What we're doing right here, this mission, these shards...retrieving them is going to save everyone. We have to do this. And I promise, Adora...She-Ra, I will protect your friends and your world too. You won't be alone."
Adora's eyes glossed with a new light, and for the first time all day, she felt her heart start to elevate a little, almost to the point she wanted to laugh. "Jeez...what a weird way to make friends," she smiled. "But, all the same...thank you. Same goes for me, wouldn't be much of a Princess of Power if I ran away from a fight. Even one as ridiculous as this. So...count me in."
And then all attention fell to Raven.
"...Seriously?"
Adora and Korra didn't bat an eye.
"For Azar's sake," Raven groaned, before removing her hood to finally reveal her ashen face to the two strangers in the mirror. "Unlike the two of you, I was born from darkness. I was born to destroy, to unmake, to pave the way for a greater evil to unbalance all things. My powers, they come from a dangerous place. If my emotions ever escape my control, the demon side of my heritage, the one in me, will bring about pain unimaginable."
A moment of thick silence.
"Did she say demon?" Korra asked.
"That's hardcore." Adora responded.
"Shut up." Raven said, rolling her eyes. "I've always fought as part of a team for that exact reason, to find those that could help keep me centred, in check. My team, the Titans, support me regardless. In spite of everything, of what I am, they still stand by me." She glanced up from her hands to find the other two all staring at her with smiles. Raven held on to her stoic expression for as long as she could before relenting "Well, it's certainly not traditional...but I guess this isn't a traditional problem. So I guess that makes us...a team. Of sorts."
"That's what I'm talking about! You aren't so bad after all Rae!" Korra grinned.
"Never call me that again."
And just like that, Adora found herself back at Madame Razz's table, with both the eccentric witch and Swift Wind staring at her; the latter struggling to look concerned as he had an entire mouthful of jam sandwiches stuffed in his mouth.
"How are you dearie?" Razz questioned.
How long had she been in that...mirrorscape? On the one hand, she supposed that wasn't the most pressing matter. She took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly as she turned the question over in her mind. "I...I don't know." she said finally.
Razz chuckled softly. "Well Mara dearie, you look ready." A knowing smile pulled at the corner of her lips.
Adora returned the smile, before picking up a sandwich and shoved it into her mouth, thanking the woman with her mouth full, motioning for Swift Wind to follow her as she hurriedly chewed and swallowed thickly.
"Where are we rushing off too?" her winged companion asked as they made it outside, lowering himself slightly so that Adora could climb up onto his back, who subsequently directed him into the skies above.
"We've got worlds to save Swiftie!"