Chapter Four: Ghost story
-Adora-
Adora recognizes the room that Glimmer has chosen for their scary story sleepover night. She remembers not too long ago when they all hunted down the threat of a Horde spy within their ranks. This room had served as their headquarters. The table has been cleared away and replaced with all manner of comfortable chairs, blankets and pillows. The fireplace at the rear of the room is already lit and crackling away, filling the room with warmth and the gentle scent of woodsmoke. All in all the room is comfortable. Almost too comfortable, Adora thinks. If this is supposed to be a night for scary stories, she was expecting things to be a little bit more… scary. At the same time though, she thinks this is an excellent compromise for Catra, who is standing next to her. She has an almost sheepish look on her face, like she feels she doesn't belong here with the others. Adora takes her hand and smiles. Catra gives her a small smile in return and allows Adora to pull her into the room.
As they enter the room Adora can see Glimmer, Perfuma and Mermista in one of the corners. They're chatting animatedly. Across from them, Scorpia, Frosta and Entrapta are busy picking away at a small table that has been laden with tiny snacks. Adora feels Catra hesitate slightly as the different princesses notice them walk into the room. There's a moment of silence before Scorpia uses her free arm to wave over at the pair.
"Wildcat! You gotta get over here and try the tiny cheese puffs! Entrapta says that being tiny is what makes them so good, and like, wow, is she ever right! They're delicious, you need to have some."
And with that, the moment of tension is gone, and Adora breathes an internal sigh of relief. She wasn't lying when she said that Glimmer, Perfuma and Scorpia wanted Catra to join in with them that night. What she left out was that Frosta still had a hard time trusting her, and that Mermista honestly didn't seem to care one way or the other. The giant princess' genuine love for Catra and earnest personality has helped to smooth over any potential bumps Adora could have foreseen. Catra squeezes Adora's hand once more and then heads over to the table with Scorpia, Entrapta and Frosta, the latter of whom shoots Catra a wary look but quickly goes back to shoveling snacks both onto her plate and into her mouth.
Adora heads over to the other group of princesses sitting in the corner. As she approaches she hears Perfuma and Mermista battling it out over something.
"I just don't think you played fair, that's all." Adora hears the flower princess saying as she gets nearer.
Perfuma is staring the sea princess down, though Mermista doesn't seem to notice. Or care.
"Uhh, I don't remember seeing any rules that I couldn't use my powers to make it easier for myself." Mermista counters.
"Mermista," Perfuma is using her conflict moderation voice now. "The whole point of bobbing for appomelos is that you can only use your mouth. It's supposed to be a game of skill."
"Yeah, I know," Mermista says. "And I just happen to be skilled at controlling water to make it do whatever I want, what's the big deal?"
Perfuma and Mermista both turn to face the Queen.
"Glimmer, tell her, the rules are there for a reason!"
"UGH, you're so annoying sometimes. Glimmer, tell her to lighten up."
Glimmer, caught between the two quarreling princesses, starts to stammer something, and Adora sees the look of panic on her face give way to relief as she catches her eye.
"Adora! Hey, come sit with us! Please." Glimmer punctuates her sentence with a smile that's too wide to not be forced.
Mermista rolls her eyes.
"Whatever," she grumbles. "I still won."
Adora sits down beside the three princesses.
"I'm so glad you and Catra both came!" Glimmer says. "Tell me you didn't both just have the best time at the festival tonight."
Adora smiles at her friend.
"Yeah, it was great. I can't believe the kingdoms used to do this all the time." Adora looks around the room again. "Hey, where are Spinnerella and Netossa? I haven't seen them all day."
Perfuma smiles and leans towards Adora.
"It happens to be another one of their anniversaries for… something?" Perfuma says. "I'm not sure what, they wouldn't tell me. In any case, they've gone on a trip to spend some time together."
"Aww, that's sweet." Adora smiles. "Good for them."
Adora wonders what she and Catra would do on an anniversary trip together, and then shuts that train of thought down as her mind begins to wander places not entirely appropriate to be while spending time with friends.
The others make their way back from the table and sit themselves down among their friends. Scorpia settles down on a chair and slides forward next to Perfuma, who leans against her leg and picks a snack off Scorpia's plate. Frosta has assembled herself a giant pile of pillows and is sitting at the very top, which brings her mostly up to Scorpia's eye level. Entrapta is doing… well, she's doing something as she bounds around the circle on her hair, stopping to mutter things into her voice recorder. Adora thinks she hears the tech princess talking about "complex social interaction algorithms," whatever that means.
Catra sits down gracefully next to Adora. She looks around at the rest of the group and breaks the comfortable silence.
"Uhh, so." Catra hesitates. "What do we do now?"
"Now," says a voice that sounds an awful lot like Glimmer trying to sound dramatic, "it begins!"
Adora looks across to Glimmer, who it seems can barely contain herself. There's a soft glow emanating from behind her, and suddenly the lights in the room begin to dim. There are murmurs of excitement from the other princesses, and Adora thinks that the change in lighting has helped to create an atmosphere much more conducive to scary stories. She looks to Catra, who seems a bit unsettled, but is putting on a brave face. She rolls her eyes playfully.
"Ooh, mood lighting," Catra says with a laugh. "That's definitely scary. What's next, is someone going to start making ghost noises?"
There are a few chuckles at Catra's soft sarcasm, but Adora notices that Glimmer's smile has only grown more mischievous.
There's a soft whisper, and the fire in the fireplace is suddenly dead. At the same instant, the lights in the room go out as well, plunging all of the women into a very deep, very quiet darkness.
Adora feels Catras hand clutch hers, and she rubs her thumb over her girlfriend's knuckles reassuringly.
Slowly, an eerie blue light begins to shine from the fireplace. Small blue-white flames are leaping up out of the bed of embers. Before long, a magical blue fire is crackling in the hearth, casting everyone and everything in the room in an unsteady blue pallor. Catra looks around the room, and when she speaks there is a genuine note of admiration in her voice.
"Ok, even I have to admit, that was well done, Sparkles."
"Thank you, Catra."
There's a sense of anticipation in the room. Glimmer shifts in her seat and begins to speak.
"The Harvest Festival has always been about celebrating the end of the season in Bright Moon and the rest of the kingdoms," Glimmer says. "But Harvest is all about the warmth of summer giving way to the cold of winter, the light of day turning to the dark of night. Life to death."
Glimmer has obviously been practicing this speech for them, and Adora feels a shiver run through her body. It's good, and it's really setting the scene for the stories to come. Catra's hand has not left hers, she notices without surprise.
"One of the great traditions of the Harvest Festival has always been the lighting of the pumpkamelons to symbolize that warmth of summer and the harvest, but at the end of the night, the second great tradition follows. We let the pumpkamelon fires die, and darkness reigns supreme."
Catra's hand is squeezing Adora's firmly, but not painfully. Adora looks around the room and sees all the faces, Catra's included, are fixed on Glimmer. Frosta has burrowed herself into her pillow fortress and stares out of it defiantly, but also, Adora thinks, a little cautiously. Perfuma has an arm wrapped around one of Scorpia's legs. Even Entrapta has stopped scurrying around the room and is now seated next to Mermista, both of them staring at Glimmer with eager anticipation. Glimmer has everyone right where she wants them.
"The second great Harvest Festival tradition has to do with the Harvest King." Glimmer drops her voice to a near-whisper.
There are delighted gasps from most of the other princesses in the room. Adora leans forward. She's never heard of the Harvest King before. Surprisingly, she can feel Catra doing the exact same thing.
Glimmer has a small, self-satisfied grin on her face as she continues to speak, clearly loving how into it the other girls are.
"The legends say that the Harvest King returns to Etheria from his kingdom in the Land of the Beyond once a year at the end of the Harvest season. Riding his skeletal beast, he soars through the air when the night is at its darkest, looking to make sure that the people of Etheria have honoured the Harvest by lighting pumpkamelons. If he finds anyone who hasn't left out a pumpkamelon for him, they say the Harvest King marks them with a curse and that the next year's harvest will wither and die."
Glimmer pauses for dramatic effect.
"But there's another legend that says the Harvest King doesn't curse those who don't honour the Harvest. Instead, when he discovers such a nonbeliever, he comes down from the sky and chains them to his beasts' saddle and makes them run after him for the rest of eternity. They say on particularly dark and silent nights following the Harvest Festival, you can hear the jangling of chains and the noises of the eternally damned prisoners the Harvest King drags behind him as he rides across the sky back to the Land of the Beyond."
Wow . Adora shivers in spite of the warmth from the fire. Glimmer is a really good storyteller. The Harvest King legends are perfectly creepy, even though Adora is pretty sure she doesn't believe in them. Pretty sure.
"The other way we honour the Harvest King is by gathering together with dear friends and telling ghost stories!" Glimmer says, letting the tension of her story go. The other princesses in the room shift as if coming out of a trance, which Adora has to admit is pretty much what's happening.
"Or at least, that's what we've always done here at Bright Moon," the Queen says. "When I was little my mother always used to tell me that if the Harvest King came by and heard us telling scary stories, he would leave us a treat for celebrating the season."
Adora smiles at the thought of young Glimmer trying to tell scary stories to Queen Angela. Beside her, Catra has been sitting rapt through the whole legend, and she also shivers as the story ends. Adora leans close to her so the others can't hear them.
"How was that?" Adora asks. "Are you ok?"
Catra leans her head onto Adora's shoulder for a moment.
"Yeah, actually, I am," Catra says with a grin. "That was pretty good."
Adora smiles at her and they both return their attention to the circle.
"So I guess the first thing is to figure out who wants to go first." Glimmer says, and looks around the room.
No one seems to be overly excited to tell a story first, and Adora worries for a moment that maybe everyone will be expected to share a story. She starts trying to remember any of the ones the cadets told in the Horde.
"It's ok if you don't have a story to share, the night is more about spending time together," Glimmer says. "No one has to tell a scary story. It's just more fun if we have a few."
Adora breathes a sigh of relief, and she feels Catra doing the same next to her. There's another few seconds of everyone looking around, waiting for someone to speak up, when Perfuma raises her hand.
"I think I have one to share," she says.
The room settles again and everyone turns their focus to the flower princess. Catra leans over to Adora and whispers quiet enough so that only the two of them can hear.
"This should be good."
Adora giggles and gives Catra's arm a soft smack.
"Shh!"
Perfuma is looking around the circle, her hands clasped in front of her.
"I know a story about a long ago princess who had the most amazing garden. And in her garden she grew everything that could be grown on Etheria and she was very well known for always having the best flowers and vegetables and fruits in all the kingdoms, but one day she went into her garden and she noticed one kind of flower had wilted and died. She spent all day trying to get it to regrow, but she couldn't and the next day another different flower had died, and then day after day another plant would be dead, and she couldn't figure out what was going on, but at night she started to hear weird noises coming from the garden, but she was too scared to see what was making the noise. So one night when most of her plants had died and she was going kind of crazy because she loved her plants, she heard the noise and she decided she would be brave enough to investigate and so she decides to go down to the garden and when she gets there she sees a scary old woman touching one of the plants and it withers under her touch so she starts yelling at the woman, but when the old woman turns to face her she's made out of plants and the princes blacks out. The next day the princess isn't in her bedroom so her friend goes looking for her and when she gets to the garden she finds all the plants are healthy and vibrant but there's a new flower that she's never seen before and it's bright purple."
Perfuma is rushing through her recollection, but Adora is enjoying it enough, even though it really isn't that scary. The others wait for a few seconds for Perfuma to continue speaking. Eventually, Glimmer coughs gently.
"And then what?" The Queen asks, ever so gently.
Perfuma stares at her, confused.
"What do you mean?"
There's another moment of awkward silence.
"What's with the purple flower?" Mermista sounds annoyed.
"That's what colour the princess's hair was," Perfuma says. "She was very well known for her purple hair."
"Uhh, you didn't tell us that." Mermista frowns.
"Sure I did. I told you right at the beginning." Perfuma says helpfully.
Frosta speaks from her pillow fort.
"No you didn't," the young princess states, "You just talked about her dumb garden."
Perfuma looks thoughtful.
"Oh." Perfuma says. "Well, the princess was very well known for her purple hair."
Mermista groans. Glimmer shoots her a look, and then turns back to Perfuma.
"That sounds like a great story, Perfuma." Glimmer says, ever the diplomat. "We'd love to hear it."
Perfuma stares at her, more confused.
"What do you mean?"
There's a noise as Mermista buries her face in one hand.
"Would you like to tell us the story about the purple haired princess?" Glimmer speaks through slightly clenched teeth.
Perfuma looks around the room, then back to Glimmer.
"I just did."
Mermista groans again, but Adora, Glimmer and Scorpia ignore her and thank Perfuma for sharing her story.
"I thought it was a great story, sweetie." Scorpia uses one claw to gently rub Perfuma's back. Glimmer smiles at the couple and then turns back to the circle.
"So who wants to-"
"I DO!"
Frosta emerges from her pillow fort and scampers to the very top.
"It's my turn next," Frosta says with glee. "And I've got a story that's way scarier than a garden."
Frosta is grinning huge and wide as the room's attention turns to her.
"This story takes place on Monday the 16th," Frosta begins. "And it's about a group of stupid teenagers who decide to go to their favourite lake that they used to go to when they were little, but they don't know that the lake is haunted by a CRAZY MUTANT KNIFE WIELDING MANIAC! And the maniac starts to pick off the teenagers one by one because they're all really dumb and like, go off on their own one by one so the killer can take his time and kill them in REALLY BRUTAL AND GORY WAYS, like, they stand in front of a window so the killer can throw an axe at them, or one teenager is sleeping and then he hears a noise so like an idiot he goes to check it out and it's just the wind but then he turns around AND THE KILLER IS THERE AND STABS HIM IN HIS STUPID FACE and eventually there's only one teenager left, her name is Chilla, she's super cool and tough and stuff, and it turns out she's the reincarnation of the serial killer's long dead sister so the mutant serial killer wants to turn her into a killer like him so they can kill dumb teenagers together forever! But she's way too cool to fall for his tricks and she outsmarts him and she leaves the lake, but it's still totally haunted and the mutant killer waits for the next group of dumb teenagers because THEY'RE SO DUMB!"
Frosta is out of breath and standing atop the pillow fort by the end of her story. Her eyes are wide and shining with excitement. Perfuma, Scorpia and Glimmer look horrified. Catra and Mermista, though, are definitely into the story. Adora can't remember the last time she's seen Mermista look so engaged.
One tendril of Entrapta's hair raises into the air.
"Question."
Frosta nods in acknowledgement.
"That scenario seems highly unlikely," Entrapta says. "I can't imagine any group of people acting so irrationally in such a dangerous situation. Why wouldn't they just stay together and use their superior numbers to their advantage?"
"It's because they're teenagers and they're DUMB." Frosta screams triumphantly.
"Oh, well, that makes sense then," Entrapta is nodding her head in understanding. "Does the crazy mutant serial killer ever get the chance to kill more dumb teenagers?"
"AT LEAST TEN MORE TIMES!"
This seems to please Entrapta, who returns to muttering things into one of her voice recorders.
Mermista nods her head as well.
"Yeah, that story was wayyy better than Perfuma's," the sea princess states, before giving Perfuma an apologetic smile. "No offense."
Across the room, Perfuma still seems traumatized by the whole thing. Adora can hear her mumbling something about "so much gratuitous violence" while Scorpia whispers soothing words and strokes her back. Catra is still leaning against Adora.
"I agree, I'm all for dumb teenagers getting offed." Catra looks over at Mermista and grins.
"Ugh, whatever," Mermista groans. "This doesn't make us friends."
Mermista rolls her eyes, but Adora sees her crack a smile all the same. Adora gives Catra's hand another squeeze. Catra looks at her and Adora throws her a wink. Catra blushes and nudges Adora's shoulder with hers.
"Shut up."
But Catra is smiling too.
Glimmer seems to mostly have composed herself.
"Ok, Frosta," Glimmer says. "Thank you. That was… interesting."
Frosta is beaming. Glimmer turns to face the rest of the group.
"So we've got two stories down, does anyone else have one? Catra?"
Adora can feel Catra start. She clearly was not expecting anyone to ask her to contribute tonight. Adora is wondering how she can carefully extract her girlfriend from the situation without giving away her secret when Catra speaks up.
"Uhh, not really? Or… not right now, no. Sorry."
This appears to be fine to Glimmer, who nods at Catra and smiles.
"That's totally fine," she says. "Who's next? C'mon, we have so much more night ahead of us! We can't run out of steam now."
Adora doesn't know who she's expecting to speak next, but she's as surprised as the rest of them when Mermista speaks out.
"I've got a story. And it's way better than both of those other ones."
Glimmer raises an eyebrow.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?"
A dark smirk crosses Mermista's face.
"Because this story is totally true."
A/N: This chapter is pretty short and sweet compared to most of the others, but it's also a nice break before we dive into the darkness (so to speak). Next up is some more motion on the main plot, though I've been dropping some breadcrumbs all along so far. As much as I love plot, lore and exposition, it's so nice to be able to sit back and just let these characters interact with each other for a bit.
But all things serve the story, so I hope you enjoy this interlude before we get back into the thick of things.
Or I'm just being pretentious. It could go either way.
Until next time...