Chapter Two - "Surrogate Resolution"

The portal opened in the heart of the Crystal Castle and Queen Marlena stepped out, her green dress flowing about her as she did. As soon as the portal closed, Light-Hope flashed, and bellowed out a greeting. Marlena's eyes widened at the entity before her.

"Queen Marlena!" cried Light-Hope. "Welcome to the Crystal Castle!"

"Thank you," she replied, a little nervous. "Where is Adora?"

"The Princess is in her quarters. Up those stairs to your left."

Marlena bowed a little, then made for the large set of stairs. When she reached the top, she glanced down and saw Light-Hope shimmering form waving in the darkness. "Adora?" she called as she neared a door.

The door opened and Adora sat up from her bed. "Mom? What - what are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

Marlena studied her daughter for a long moment. "No, sweetie. Nothing's wrong. Not, at least, an attack or anything like that."

Adora gazed at her mother curiosity. "Then what is it?"

"It's you, Adora. I'm worried about you."

The daughter of Randor just sat there, expressionless. And then, a frown appeared on her face. Tears began to well up in her eyes. Marlena rushed over and threw her arms around her. Adora began to cry.

"I know, sweetie, I know."

"I just . . . I just didn't want to let him go . . . it's so stupid that I feel this way. So stupid. He wasn't my child, but . . . I wanted him to be."

Adora began to sob and Marlena just held her daughter as she did. "It's okay, honey, it's okay," Marlena whispered to her daughter a number of times. "I know."

Marlena's eyes began to water herself, just knowing her daughter was in this much pain.

After a few long minutes, Adora pulled back and began to calm down. "I . . . I've been really irresponsible. I should be with the Great Rebellion. It's just hard, you know? And I wanted a chance to lose all of this baby fat. Which I have."

"I don't think it's irresponsible at all, dear," Marlena replied, and put her hand on her daughters. "In fact, I don't think you're doing anything wrong or stupid."

"I feel stupid. It's just . . . having something living inside of you . . . and then taken so quickly and - " Adora stopped and looked at her mother.

Marlena was frowning, looking at Adora sympathetically. She nodded. "I know what that feels like. It's like someone just took a big piece of your soul."

Adora gasped. "I didn't even think . . . it didn't even occur to me that you and I . . ."

"I did for me. But I got you back, Adora."

"Yeah."

"And I have something for you that'll help."

Adora brow furrowed. Marlena reached into her pocket and retrieved two scrolls. She handed them to Adora and the princess opened them both up. One was of Alluray, the long-abandoned village of Dwarves. The other was of the Mines of Alluray, which reach all the way into the heart of Eternia.

To Procrustus.

To Adora's surrogate son.

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The next day, Adora stood in the shadow of a very large mountain. Before her were small stairs that led up to a huge platform, at the other side of which was the entrance into the mountain. Two busted statues stand shattered at either side of the entrance. Adora, for the first time in weeks, lifted her Sword of Protection.

"FOR THE HONOR OF GRAYSKULL . . ." A weave of energy splashed over her, changing her physical body. Power coursed through her, making her stronger. She-Ra now stood where Adora once was. ". . . I AM SHE-RA!"

When it died down, She-Ra stood and faced the mountain. After adjusting the straps of her pack, she walked up the stairs and into the entrance. Two of the three doors she came to were collapsed, leaving only one obvious answer - the middle one. With the Sword of Protection shining brightly as her beacon, and the map tied on her belt, She-Ra walked down the stairs that laid beyond that door.

The stairs were small, not unlike the ones outside, obviously suited for a Dwarf and not a human. It all smelled murky and moldy, despite having visitors here not two months ago. But She-Ra did not fear it. She walked right forward, keeping check for an broken steps.

It took her five hours to reach the end of the stairs, and that was when she arrived at a great hall filled with broken and abandoned tables, bed, and chairs. Doors lined the walls, some of which were collapsed and destroyed. The huge hall went on endlessly, and by the time She-Ra found the correct door to journey through, an hour had passed.

Within the door was a long and winding corridor, which randomly intersected with other corridors. She-Ra kept the map, but as continued further down, she could hear scuttling about. She remembered what she was told of. Borebugs.

All at once, these beetle-like creatures appeared, beaks snapping, hissing and scuttling. She-Ra lifted her Sword of Protection. "Sword to Beacon!"

The Sword of Protection practically exploded with light. The light flowed through the entire corridor, sending the Borebugs into frenzy. She-Ra ran, legs pumping, sending her sailing down the corridor. The Sword of Protection continued to illuminate, but She-Ra ran into a problem. A fairly big one.

The Borebugs were still scuttling behind her when she came to the entrance of what was supposed to be a fairly big stairwell. However, it seemed that Ram-Man had neglected to smash the wall they put there. She-Ra had little she could do. She stepped three feet to the side of the door.

"Sword to grappling hook." The light was suddenly gone and the Borebugs charged towards her.

And then, she threw her fist against the wall, blasting a decent-sized hole in it. She-Ra leapt through, and sent her grappling hook towards the stairs. It caught hold and She-Ra climbed to the stairs. At her rudimentary entrance, the Borebugs hissed and snarled some. A light from a cylinder that Man-At-Arms had left kept them at a sizeable distance.

Brushing herself off, She-Ra continued down the stairs, thinking deeply about what she would do once she reached the center of Eternia. Just drop in and ask for a hug? Give Procrustus milk? How in the world do you act motherly to a being so old, so ancient, so powerful - to a being that's literally holding a planet together?

A voice in the back of her head told her to just take it one step at a time. It told her that she would know what to do when she got there. She-Ra soon reached a huge chamber like the one she had come to before, only longer rather than high. The sounds of her boots against the wall echoed throughout the room. Soon enough, She-Ra arrived at a door to a long, descending tunnel.

Still determined, She-Ra walked down it. It took hours to make the journey across its incredible length. At the end of the tunnel was what was designated as the 'Rest Area' by the map.

She laid here, a light from her beacon/Sword of Protection filling the general area. She-Ra slept and didn't dream.

When she woke up, She-Ra went down yet another tunnel. After hours on end of walking, She-Ra came upon the gigantic shaft that led deep into the mines. She was quite far from the surface at this point and felt a pang of fear at this distance. However, she pushed it away went forward.

She unpacked her climbing gear and spent the next twelve hours traveling down into the shaft among dead machines that sat unused for thousands of years (and were most assuredly faster than what she was using to get down). At long last, She-Ra arrived in the mines themselves. The minerals shimmered from the light of her beacon/Sword of Protection.

The Princess of Power loaded the climbing gear back into pack and then got out the hoverboard. She rode it across the vast mines, over the broken bridges and shattered platforms. After a little while, She-Ra came to the mine entrance she had been looking.

Once more, she rested and had no dreams.

Upon this, the third day of her travels beneath the ground, She-Ra entered yet another mineshaft. She journeyed down it, thankful it only took half the time that the previous one did. She entered into another array of mines. As she did with the previous, She-Ra retrieved her hoverboard and traveled through it.

This entire time, she thought of nothing more than reaching the chamber that haunted her restless nights since that day nearly a month ago. This being . . . whether it was really her son or not . . . was her only goal. Her only determination. Her only mission.

And so . . . she traveled on. Through another tunnel that took her even farther down from the surface so high above. She came to another rest area, but kept moving beyond it. She-Ra entered yet another mineshaft, using her climbing equipment to reach the final mines. Despite being exhausted, a fearsome yet powerful spark was kindled within.

This final set of mines were over 80% flooded. Other than that, the correct entrance was untouched. She walked to it after she used the hoverboard to get across the water.

She stood there at the entrance for a long moment, studying it. And then . . . she ran. She ran as fast as she ever had in her entire life. She-Ra, Princess Adora, the former Force Captain, the heir of Eternos, the champion of Castle Grayskull, keeper of the Crystal Castle, the lieutenant of the Etherian Great Rebellion . . . ran hard and ran fast and ran true.

She-Ra fell then.

And everything went black.

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"She-Ra?"

Her blue eyes began to open, starting to take in what was before her. It was a smeared image that she was gazing at, but soon began to focus. As it did, She-Ra gasped.

Procrustus, huge and mighty, towered above her, smiling. His massive, rocky body was mere feet away from her, four large arms chained to the walls of the chamber here in the center of Eternia.

"Are you okay?"

"I . . ." She-Ra stood up and brushed her white dress off. "I don't know."

"I'm glad you're here. I never had the chance to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"Yes! Of course! If it were not for you, I would have been dead!"

"Oh . . ." She-Ra replied, feeling disoriented. "Yes. Yeah. That's why I came here, I guess . . ."

"Hang on. Let us speak at a better level."

Right before her, Procrustus began to shrink, his chains doing the same with him. When the metamorphosis was complete, Procrustus was the size of regular man. He walked over and hugged She-Ra, his rock-hard body feeling strangely fleshy against her. She-Ra just stood there, and patted her hands on his back a little.

"It is good to see you again, my dear."

He sat down on a rock across from her. She-Ra noticed one right behind her and sat down as well. "It's . . . yeah . . . it's good to see you again too."

Procrustus let out a heavy breath. "I have a feeling there's a reason you came to see me."

"Yes," She-Ra returned, almost yelling.

"Speak then, woman."

She-Ra nodded a little, biting her lower lip and looking down. "Well, it's just . . . I've been depressed. I never got . . . it's that . . ."

Much to his shock, She-Ra began to cry. Tears came rolling from her eyes, her face turned crimson, and a sad ripple came from her mouth. Procrustus sat there and watched as she continued to try to compose herself. It took a little time, but the heroine was finally able to pull herself together.

"I'm sorry . . . the past few weeks have been hard." She-Ra paused, sniffling into a handkerchief. "It's just that . . . oh gosh . . . I just need to talk here."

"Go ahead."

"Thank you." She-Ra pulled out her tiara and held it dully in her hands as she talked. "It's just . . . that . . . okay. Before all of this happened, I was . . . I never really gave motherhood much of a thought. I mean, I wanted kids. I wanted lots of kids. All my life, I did. But being mom . . . it's never something I wanted that badly. It wasn't a priority. It was something I wanted, but not for a long time."

"And then this happened."

She-Ra looked up, the tiara hanging from her fingers, a little startled. "Yes," she answered after a brief pause. "Yes, this happened. It was . . . in the beginning, it was only another mission, I guess. More physically taunting . . . but it was only a mission."

Procrustus nodded in understanding. "Of course."

"But as time went on - " She held back a few tears. "- and you . . . the baby you . . . started to grow and there was more . . . closeness and intimacy involved, it started to change. It began to become something more than just a mission. I started to like the way it all felt, and even though I denied it with every aspect of my being, I began to fantasize about being a mother to . . . well, to you. At night, I would have these dreams about nursing you, about teaching you how to walk, how to talk. Dreams about having you as . . ."

The mask she wore shattered. The tiara in one hand and the other one on her face, she began to sob once more. A few seconds later, she spoke again.

". . . as a son. A little boy. My little boy. And I hate feeling this, I hate so much, but it's how I feel and I just want to hold you against me and send you off to sleep, and nurse you and just have you as mine."

She sobbed.

Procrustus sat silently and pensively, listening to her cries as they echoed throughout the chamber. As she began to calm down, he spoke to her.

"I had the same dreams. As I grew accelerated in your womb, I had dreams of having you as my mother."

He reached out with his top right arm and touched her free hand.

"What do you mean?" she questioned.

"We dreamed the same dreams, do you understand? In the world that rests in our dreams, as mother and child, we were bonded. Our lives were shared here." He tapped his forehead. "And here." He tapped his heart. "Not in blood, most assuredly. Not in life, and not in love. But in the bond that a child has with its mother, yes. And in spirit, yes. In those things are we bond by."

She-Ra nodded in understanding, her tears slowly ceasing. "Yes, that's it."

"She-Ra, I can not be your son. But I am honored to have been with you and to have experienced you as a mother and child do experience each other."

She smiled, genuinely, the stress and weariness fading from her at last. "Yes. And I am honored to have had you."

The two hugged. They hugged and hugged and hugged. The cord was cut, then, and She-Ra felt good. She felt better than good. She felt great.

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After She-Ra (as Adora) returned to Eternos and feasted with her family, the princess had a long, special talk with Queen Marlena. It was a talk that daughters and mothers have, their own special likeness and special words and feelings coming together. It was a talk that will not be written here for this talk is personal.

When it was over, Adora returned to Castle Brightmoon. She walked the corridors after having Spirit returned to her from his home beyond the waves. When Adora entered the Throne Room, she was greeted warmly by her best of friends - Bow, Kowl, Madame Razz, Broom, Glimmer, Queen Angella.

"Adora!" exclaimed Bow, smiling widely. "You're back!"

Adora returned the smile, glowing in her own way. "Yes," she told them all. "Yes, I'm back."