Chapter Fifteen

Captain Teela stood just inside the Royal Garden, watching Princess Adora. The latter was staring intently up at the night sky, as if searching for something. She had been thus engaged for the last four hours. Teela knew this, because she had been guarding the princess for that exact length of time.

Not that Adora knew she was being guarded. Teela imagined the former Force Captain would have been appalled if she had known, so the redhead made sure to keep well out of sight. That decision, combined with the dim torchlight, made it difficult to determine the princess's disposition. Teela had learned, however, that if she squinted her eyes at just the right moment, she could occassionally see Adora's lips moving.

Teela was having a hard time quelling her suspicions of the mysterious newcomer. Who was she talking to: herself, or someone else? Teela knew that there was no one else in the garden- but there were other ways for individuals to communicate. Princess Adora might be skilled in telepathy, for all Teela knew. The princess had been behaving oddly ever since she was resuced from Snake Mountain three days ago. Teela's eyes narrowed. Was Adora regretting her decision not to return to Etheria with Hordak? Was she summoning the tyrant even now?

Unable to control herself any longer, Teela stepped briskly forward from her hiding place. The heels of her boots clicked on the stone courtyard, causing Adora to leap from the bench and draw her sword.

"Who's there?" Adora demanded. Teela walked into the light, and the princess visibly relaxed. "Hello, Captain. What are you doing here?"

"Guarding you." Teela answered. She was oddly pleased to see Adora bristle.

"I do not need to be guarded." The princess said coolly.

Teela shrugged. "That's not what your father thinks."

Adora sighed. "My father.." she murmured, sinking back down to the bench. She went to cover her face with her hands, then remembered Teela. She glared up at the other woman. "How long have you been...guarding me?"

"Four hours."

"Great." Adora muttered.

Teela started to snap that it had not been her choice to guard the princess, and that she had better things to do with her time, but the sadness and confusion in Adora's expression stopped her. Instead, she settled on the other end of the bench and regarded Adam's twin carefully. "Is something bothering you, Your Highness?" she asked gently.

Adora looked over at Captain Teela. She wanted desperately to talk to someone, and Teela might be the right person. Certainly Adora could not talk to her father or Adam, whose hopes would only be raised, then cruelly smashed, by Hordak's lies. Teela, though, was a neutral figure. She had nothing to gain, and nothing to lose, from what Adora might tell her.

"When I was in Snake Mountain," Adora began slowly, speaking to a point beyond Teela's left shoulder, "Hordak told me that my mother was still alive. He said that if I did not return with him, he would kill her." She glanced at Teela, whose eyes had widened slightly. "It was a lie, of course. A last ditch effort to regain my loyalty. But what if..."

"'What if?'" Teela repeated. She waved her hand slightly, gesturing Adora to continue.

"What if he was telling the truth?" Adora said. "What if she really is alive?"

"Is that possible?" Teela asked.

Adora shook her head. "Horde slaves are treated horribly. They're beaten, starved, tortured... The average life span for an imprisoned slave is five years, and my mother, strong though she may have been, would not have lasted beyond that."

"If you know that, then why are you still debating this?"

"Because Hordak said something else. Just before Skeletor opened the portal back to Etheria, Hordak said that my mother was right in front of me the whole time. Which is impossible, because those slaves I was telling you about worked in a different part of the Fright Zone, and I was never allowed to visit the slave quarters. In fact, it was not until after I escaped that I learned of the atrocities committed against Horde prisoners."

"You know all of this," Teela said quietly, "yet here you sit, no doubt trying to find some truth in Hordak's words." She leaned forward and looked straight into Adora's eyes. "For eighteen years, he told you that your mother was dead. Why would he say now that she lived, if not to trick you into returning with him?"

"Hordak never told me that my mother was dead."

"What?"

Adora looked back up at the sky. Hordak's words echoed in her ears: Did I ever tell you anything about your family? "Hordak never told me that my mother was dead." she repeated. "Someone did it for him."

"Who?"

"Lena."

"Who's that?"

"A woman who works for the Horde." Adora answered. "She cared for me for the first seven years of my life. It was she who told me that my family died soon after my birth."

"How did she say they died?"

Adora shrugged. "She never did say. I don't think she was allowed to talk much about them, or perhaps she simply did not know what happened."

"Or which lie to tell you." Teela said darkly.

Adora shook her head at this. She did not wish to believe that Lena, who had cared for Adora as if she were her own child, could have been a willing participant in Hordak's plot.

"So, you were told that your mother was dead, and you never saw her," Teela stated flatly, "Which means one of two things: either this Lena person lied to you for eighteen years, or Hordak was lying three days ago." Teela stood up and said, not unkindly, "Who do you believe, Your Highness? The woman who cared for you, or the creature who stole you from your family?"

Adora nodded. "You're right." She looked down at her hands and sighed. "Of course you're right."

The words should have made Teela happy, but they did not. Instead, for the first time since Adora's arrival, she felt a strange connection to the other woman, for she knew better than most what it was like to long for a mother.

Adora could feel Teela's eyes on her. She looked up and managed a tremulous smile. "I thank you for your help, but I'd really like to be alone right now." Teela frowned, and Adora hastened to add, "I'm not angry at you, and I know you've been assigned to watch over me, but I really can take care of myself."

Teela nodded. "Alright." She turned and strolled away, tossing back over her shoulder, "But if I catch it from your father for leaving you alone..."

"You won't." Adora called back. "I'll make sure of it."

She watched Teela disappear into the palace, then tilted her face to the sky and sighed. Teela was right: Adora had never seen her mother.

She had, however, heard her voice.

Adora gripped the rough edge of the bench and willed herself back to that time, so long ago, when she had hovered between life and death. She pushed away the terror and uncertainty of the experience, focusing instead on the voice that had sustained her, the words that had held back Death itself. This was Adora's only link to the woman who had given her life, and she clung desperately to it. She tried to delay the other part of the memory: the part where she woke up, and her mother was not there. Resistance was futile, however, and when it was over, she opened her eyes and lamented to the stars, "I thought she would be there, waiting for me, but she wasn't. No one was there!"

A cool breeze swept through the garden, and Adora shivered. She looked up at the balconies to Adam and Randor's quarters. The curtains were drawn. Given the moons' positions in the sky, it was most likely that the two men were already asleep. This sounded like an enviable state to Adora, who was suddenly exhausted. She stood and walked unsteadily toward the garden's entrance, struggling to keep her eyes open. She had not slept well as of late. Her dreams were haunted by the sound of a tyrant's laugh, and a woman's wails. "He was lying." she told herself now. "My mother died long ago, just like Lena said."

She took two more steps, then stopped as realization hit her with all the psychic force of a laser bolt.

Lena was there.

Adora lurched forward, falling against a tree trunk. Memory pushed at the edges of her psyche like a child being born, and she had no choice but to relive, once again, the moment of her awakening. There was light, and warmth, and her mother's voice; and then there was Lena, smoothing her hair from her face, murmuring words of concern. Adora maoned, a mournful sound from deep within.

"Lena."

" I've told you before, Adora: your mother is dead. She died when you were born."

"Lena."

"Your mother has been right in front of you the entire time."

Adora was five years old, splashing happily in a metal tub of water. She brought her hands down hard on the water's surface, causing liquid to spray into the face of the woman bathing her. Adora thought the woman would be angry, but she only chuckled. The woman scooped up soap and dotted Adora's chin, making her a foamy beard. Adora shrieked with laughter. She shook her head vigorously just as the woman leaned forward. Soap flew into the woman's hair...her bright red hair...

Adora threw her arms around the tree trunk, looked up into the rustling leaves, at the heavens beyond, and whispered,

"Marlena."