Rip.
"Did I do it wrong?" Adora mumbled to herself, still groggy from waking up. She stared at her sock, or what was left of it, firmly ripped through and stretched around the middle of her right thigh.
She removed the ruined sock and looked apologetically at its now bereft twin. Then, with greater care than normal, she tugged the other onto her left foot.
Rip. The Destined Savior of Etheria looked puzzled at the remains of her handywork. The pair were at least reunited now. She raced over to her dresser and drew out another pair. A few seconds later she was forced to draw out another…and another. With a huff she leaned forward to examine the rapidly dwindling pile in her dresser drawer. Maybe there were moths or something was wrong with the stitching? Her blonde hair fell in her face and she idly set about putting it into a ponytail.
Snap! Her hair-tie pin-wheeled away in a single, sad thread. She reached for her back-up and put that on as well. Snap!
"Stop it," she whined. She blew a strand of hair out of her face with a glum sigh and resigned herself to a day without a ponytail. She hated how her hair looked outside of a ponytail. So messy. Always in the way. She shut the sock-drawer harder than normal. Much harder than normal. An explosion of splinters burst down from behind the dresser and she danced backwards, aware of her naked feet.
"At least I wear my day clothes to bed," she mumbled to herself.
She reached for her boots…her only pair of boots that couldn't be replaced without raiding the Fright Zone. With a groan, she wracked her brain for a solution. A moment later she emerged from her room, head down and face red.
"Good morning," she mumbled at everyone she met, which seemed twice as many as usual, on her way to breakfast. She tried not to think of the way the fuzzy, pink slippers on her feet slapped the ground as she power-walked to the small audience chamber the Princesses used for less formal meals.
She sighed with relief to see the door swung wide open already. She didn't want to explain a broken, three-hundred year old oak-and-iron door to Queen Angella. Adora had made so much progress with the distant, imposing monarch in the last few weeks. She was finally feeling like she, maybe for the first time ever, belonged somewhere.
Ever? A part of her spoke, stopping her in the middle of the hall. Really? The first time ever? She resisted the 'intrusive thought' -that was what Bow had told her they were called- as it tried to guilt her with sad, mis-matched eyes brimming with anger, and confused betrayal.
She was relieved when Glimmer poofed into view and then became very, very concerned. She had bags under her eyes that didn't quite match the manic, joyous grin in front of her. Glimmer's hair was almost blindingly sparkly this morning.
"Glimmer?" She asked.
"Adora!" She hugged her and Adora felt a shimmering sensation as she heard the crackle of energy that usually accompanied Glimmer's teleporting powers. She suddenly found herself in a new room, planted in a seat, across a long wooden table from Princess Perfuma and Princess Mermista, who stared with appropriate levels of surprise, paused mid-conversation. Glimmer stood at her left elbow and then, for no apparent reason, teleported to her right side to speak.
"Just thought I'd get your seat for you," she chirped, taking Adora's glass and plate, "eggs, bacon, and an apple-tart? Hmm. All this stuff looks cold, let me get something fresh from the kitchen!" Before Adora could protest Glimmer blinked away, down several levels to the very heart of Bright-Moon. Adora considered the fine spread before her, all of it piping hot and a delight to the senses.
She reached out for the empty place setting next to her, where Bow would normally sit, and paused with her hand hovering over the fine and most-likely-irreplaceable porcelain dishware. Perfuma gave her an embarrassed smile and Adora, momentarily, pressed her be-slippered feet under the chair beneath her.
"Glimmer," Perfuma said, "has been very…eager….to help today."
"Is she on something?" Mermista asked flatly. "Or off something? What's the deal?"
"She looks tired," Adora allowed, "but... otherwise-"
Glimmer reappeared with a full plate and tall goblet of orange juice. She grinned at the empty seat.
"Bow is such a slowpoke," she laughed, "let me go get him!" She was vibrating with excitement one second, and in the next second she was gone. Adora focused on her food, picking up her fork and knife with the tips of her thumbs and forefingers.
"So," she cleared her throat and pushed her hair back behind her ears with a pinky, "what were you guys talking about?" Mermista nodded at Perfuma as she drummed her fingers idly along a crystal carafe of pure spring water.
"Apparently she caught like a metric ton of Horde soldiers yesterday," Mermista shrugged, "she's been brainstorming what she's supposed to do with them all." The Plumerian Princess plucked an orange from the overflowing fruit-bowl and set about peeling it with her thumbs.
"The Plumerian Liberation Movement's first engagement was a rousing success," Perfuma said with a proud toss of her hair, "We found out Horde soldiers can actually surrender. Did you know that, Adora?"
"Ooh," Adora grimaced, "hope that's... nobody I know. The Horde doesn't like people who submit to capture." Perfuma seemed suddenly contrite.
"Well, if it's any consolation we caught them by surprise, outmaneuvered them, and gassed them with an onion-based crowd control weapon our Research and Development Team came up with."
"Wait," Mermista sat up with a glare, "seriously, you have an R&D Team already. Ugh." She glanced at Adora. "I am totally making an effort to this Alliance, right now, but like its taking a while for everybody to come back to Salineas."
"It's...not a contest," Adora said, shooting a glare at the crumbly, delicious smelling apple tart that just refused to cooperate with her.
"Yeah but if it was I'd be losing," Mermista grumped.
"So, these prisoners," Adora cut in, eyelid twitching slightly as the strip of bacon on her fork crumbled away before she could eat it. She couldn't use her hands, that was what animals and babies did. She was She-Ra. "What have you learned from them?"
"Um," Perfuma said, looking to Mermista for help and getting a lazy 'i-dunno' in response, "learned? Well. I mean, everyone has something to teach someone else. But they haven't been-"
"No," Adora gave up on her dignity and ate her bacon by hand, "I mean you questioned them, right? Interrogated them?"
"Interrogated," Perfuma continued to peel the orange in her hand, "that sounds aggressive." Mermista made a little noise.
"In these mystery novels I like that's usually what they do to solve a murder," she offered, "but like we know who committed 'the attack' Adora, it was Hordak. Case closed." Adora looked between them, jaw slack with disbelief.
"You guys...don't interrogate your prisoners?" Perfuma winced, thumbs digging into the orange enough to spray citrus juice.
"I really don't like the word every time you say it. It just feels like a mean thing."
"By the by," Mermista cut in, "we didn't really have prisoners until recently. I mean, I don't have any. I don't even have subjects right now. So this is kinda new to us. Is this another big 'Horde thing?' What'd they teach about interrogation? You just present the clues and the suspect admits they did it. After you shine a light in their face obviously."
Adora looked at Perfuma's open, hopeful face eager to learn what she had to teach.
"Uh," she said, "it's nothing. Nothing important. We can talk about it after breakfast."
"Dibs on interrogating people," Mermista said, "I have the most experience with it. Nobody will say I didn't do my part for the Rebellion. Honestly, send me everybody. I'll 'interrogate' them til they beg me to stop."
"Yeah, I'm sure they will," Adora mumbled. Suddenly unable to think about anything but explaining thumbscrews to Princess Perfuma. The Princess in question smiled at her colleague.
"And I am sure you will be an excellent interrogator, Mermista, you have a persuasive aura about you." Adora absentmindedly stabbed at her eggs, distracted by the conversation to come. A porcelain crack made her blood run cold.
"No," she whispered. The four silver prongs of her fork hadn't cracked the plate, thankfully, but they had pierced it firmly through to the very hilt. She pulled sharply on it. The tables jumped and everything on it rattled dangerously.
The crystal carafe tipped, landing by a small miracle on the far side of Princess Mermista, to soak the unoccupied corner of the table. Perfuma leapt up from her seat, staring around dumbly, still peeling the orange absent-mindedly.
"Nooooooo," Adora hissed, "pleeeeeease no."
Energy crackled next to her.
"Mmmph!" Bow's brown eyes went wide as he glanced in every direction, a small cup of water in a one hand and a toothbrush shoved between his lips. He was still in his baby-blue pajamas. The ones with the red hearts all over them and Adora envied his unshakable confidence as he turned a glare on his best friend.
"Oh, you were done," Glimmer said, patting him on the back, "I'll go get my mom!" Bow rolled his eyes and turned to the three Princesses around him, stopping short at once and pointing across the table.
"Prrrfma!" Bow tried to say, white foam bubbling past his lips like the world's least-threatening rabid dog. Adora followed his finger and gasped, forgetting all about her own predicament.
The orange Perfuma had been peeling had unspooled to an impressive six feet of long, brightly-colored rind. As they watched, the section she'd already peeled was slowly growing into place.
"Oh, my goodness!" Perfuma gasped, sounding more embarrassed than shocked. She glanced at the table's other occupants and smiled nervously. "I...meant to do that! Ha-ha. What a funny joke I am totally in control of."
"Perfuma, are you having trouble controlling your powers? Does that happen alot? Does it go away?" Adora could've jumped for joy. Perfuma flushed red and Mermista shot Adora a withering look.
"Dude," she said, "we don't ask other Princesses if they 'can't control their powers', Adora. That's super demeaning and personal. How awkward would it be if I asked you what was up with your She-Ra magic acting weird?"
"I," Perfuma snapped, rapidly trying to peel the orange as if it would refute all accusations, "am in perfect control of my powers! Thank you very much! I have been in control of them since I was eleven and-oh, you stupid orange! Deep cleansing breaths, Perfuma, this is a test sent by the Universe."
"Look, just throw it away, Perfuma," Mermista sighed, "we all get caught off guard sometimes." The Princess of the Sea reclined in her chair and the room froze at a loud squelching noise.
Mermista's eyes widened and a faint blush colored her cheeks. She glanced down and then shot an uncomprehending glare at the upended crystal carafe. Adora looked over and then followed, jaw falling open, the long stain of water in the table cloth. The wide, wet, mark of water snaked impossibly to the side and to the edge of Mermista's place at the table.
Adora ducked her head down curiously, aware that all that water had begun to patter loudly onto the floor by Mermista's feet.
"D-don't!" Mermista jumped up reflexively, voice hitting a rare high-pitch.
"The carafe! The water!" Perfuma gasped. Adora winced and covered a reflexive giggle at the dark stain on Mermista's sea-green trousers. Mermista flushed red as a lobster and grabbed a long, dry, napkin to dab at the water-stain.
"How did that even-"
"Mmmmmph!" Bow finger had stopped pointing at Perfuma and was not trembling at the empty glass in his other hand. They all turned to look as the water he'd had floated ghost-like through the rays of light spilling in from the room's high windows.
"No," Mermista growled, glaring, "no! Go away! Stop!" She held out one hand and it flexed with effort. "You're not even sea-water, stay back!" She jumped backwards, whipping at the slow-moving projectile with the napkin.
"Uh, try relaxing," Perfuma said, "that might-ack!"
"Prrrfmmma! Agnn!" Bow was pointing at the healthy sprig of an orange tree that had just tapped Perfuma in the back of her blonde hair. It was already putting forth ripening fruits. The boy glared cross-eyed at the toothbrush in his mouth then grabbed Adora's goblet off the table and took a huge swig to rinse out his mouth.
"Ahh," he cried out, sputtering toothpaste down his front and dancing on his bare toes, "that was orange juice!"
I should help! Adora thought but as she stood she considered the fork standing resolutely from the plate and the table under it. But they're distracted. She used the lightest grip of one hand, wiggling the silverware from side to side slowly. Bow, Perfuma, and Mermista continued to raise a din over her efforts and she grinned triumphantly as she felt the fork slipping free.
Energy popped in the air behind her seat.
"Glimmer," Queen Angella's yell cut the air, "you know I hate it when you teleport people when they've haven't asked for-"
An avalanche of breaking plates, shattering glasses, and clattering silverware drowned out the rest of what she said. It all ended with the heavy, coffin-like thud of the table flipping upside-down.
Everyone leapt back to safety. The water smacked Mermista in her face. The orange tree tumbled from Perfuma's grip and sent its yield spiraling off into the far corners of the room. Bow sprang into the first pair of free arms to save his feet from broken glass.
"Sorry, your Majesty!" He squealed.
Adora held the fork up to her face with a faint hope and found that one tine was, every so slightly, bent out of shape. She sat back in her chair, defeated.
A bevy of white-cloaked soldiers materialized in the room. At the fore was a snake-clan woman with a head like a viper and lime-green scales. Yellow eyes took in the scene and landed on Queen Angella with a flicker of resignation.
"Your, Mmmm-Majesty?" The woman asked. She had a stutter that no one seemed to acknowledge. "Is all, w-well?"
"Yes, Captain," Angella sighed and addressed the young heroes of Etheria, "is everyone, alright?"
"This is water!" Mermista shouted suddenly before lowering her voice in mortification. "On my pants I mean its…I didn't…its just water, ok? Ugh! I'm gonna go change." She stormed out, a living stream of water slithering after her like a loyal pet. The Captain nodded to an older Salineas man with dark skin and long sandy hair.
"Mern," the captain barked without stuttering once, "take New-Girl and keep on eye on Princess Mermista." Mern saluted and so did a small, round human woman with freckles and green eyes. "Would you l-l-like an escort, P-princess Perfuma?"
"Yes," Perfuma muttered, "but…I keep plants in my room and I…I swear, Queen Angella, my mother trained me to control my powers."
"Breathe," Queen Angella said. Perfuma nodded rapidly. The Captain turned to two more of her troops. Adora recognized them from her less than stellar entrance to Bright-Moon.
"Ksana," she addressed a huge, red-skinned and two-horned Tauranian woman, "you and Lysander are responsible for Princess Perfuma's comfort and well-being."
"We are honored," Lysander said. He was a three-eyed man with a thin voice, sporting a hood on the usual white cloak of the Bright-Moon guard.
"Yeah, we got you," Ksana said, "there's no plants down by the barracks."
"Adora, you'll have to tell me all about how the Horde interrogates prisoners later. I'm so sorry about this," Perfuma said with a little bow. Adora became very aware of how many of the veteran soldiers in the room turned their eyes on her at that.
"Sh-sh-She-Ra?" The Captain asked, "W-would you like an escort as w-well?"
"No, she can't," Glimmer suddenly teleported to Adora's side, a distance of less than five feet, "she has to help me convince my mom to let us go to Dryl!" Glimmer's eye twitched and she squinted. "Oh, right! Mom, can we go to Dryl? Bow says Princess Entrapta would love to the join the Alliance!" Angella glanced at the boy in her arms.
"Well," he said, smiling nervously, "when she posts on the Maker Forums, she's always really nice and she believes in free software and open source code. So I just figured, you know, she'd probably be all about rebellion and freedom." Queen Angella stared at the far wall for a moment.
"I didn't understand all of that, but do you mean to say she has agreed to form a military-alliance with Bright-Moon for the aim of defeating the Evil Horde?"
"Yes!" Glimmer shouted, teleporting to three separate levels of the room and back to her mother. "That's exactly right, so let's get going!" The Queen looked at Bow who was valiantly trying not to lie.
"She… well... not…exactly?"
"Ok, fine, then we've got to convince her! Let's go-go-go come one we could be at the Fright Zone with an army by now!" Glimmer grabbed Adora and teleported her back to her room before anyone could stop her. "Shoes and socks! Shoes and socks! Come on not complex. Wow, your sock drawer is toast!"
"Glimm-" a fresh pair of socks hit her in the face, "I can't-" she was shoved to sit on her bed.
Her slippers were gone and replaced with wool socks and her boots in a flash of pink light. Her hair drew back behind her head into a neat tie, complete with a pompadour. Adora materialized back in the solar, flushing at having to be babied at warp speed.
"Your turn," Glimmer grabbed Bow's shirt sleeve. A slender gloved hand snatched her wrist in response.
"Glimmer," Queen Angella's voice so stern Adora snapped to attention on reflex, "teleport one more person without asking, young lady, and I will ground you until the winter stalemate begins!" Glimmer blinked and, to Adora's horror, rolled her eyes. This had to be it. Queen Angella was no Shadow Weaver but she had to have limits.
"Mom," she groaned, "I finally grew into my powers! Finally! I've teleported ninety times since I got up and I don't feel any kind of energy drain. No recharges, no need to pace myself. I can finally do something useful so…c'mon!"
"Glimmer," Angella voice softened, "please?" The Princess frowned under her mother's pleading look before huffing in defeat. "Thank you. Now, ninety times? Surely that's an exaggeration."
"I've been awake since 3AM," Glimmer waved her hand dismissively, "but that's not the point. The point is-"
"Adora," Angella said, "please take Bow from me." Adora saluted sharply and obeyed. Bow weighed less than nothing with her newfound strength. She winced at the way Queen Angella drew herself up and looked down at her daughter. "Glimmer, you have done very little this morning to convince me that I should send you anywhere but straight back to bed."
"Mom!" Angella pressed a finger to her lips and raised her free hand into the air. Glimmer turned an incandescent shade of red. She crossed her arms and glared up into her mother's face.
"Wow," Bow whispered, his breath minty fresh, "haven't seen that move since we were like seven. Queen Angella will hold out longer too. Watch." The Queen was unflinching until Glimmer, after a long minute of muttering and pouting, mimicked her.
"Thank you," Queen Angella said, "now, Commander, if you can hold your peace for a moment, let me explain why I'm letting you go."
"I am not a little kid any...would you mind repeating that, mom?"
"You can go," Angella said, arching one eyebrow, "because I'm significantly impressed with your ability to gather allies to our cause. I'm proud of you, dear." Glimmer flushed again, whining in embarrassment. Angella smiled fondly and cupped her face. "Go. Bring Dryl under the protection of the Great Rebellion and take us one step closer to the end of this pestilential war. And please, for my sake, be careful. And get eight hours of sleep." Glimmer teleported up and kissed her on the cheek.
"You're the best!"
"Why do I only hear this when I'm sending you into danger?" Glimmer turned to Bow and Adora with hands extended, then paused under her mother's scrutiny.
"Adora," she smiled sheepishly, "why don't you run Bow back up to his room? I'll meet you guys at the gate when you're ready." Adora nodded and hustled out. Her magic extended to her stamina and she wasn't winded when she shouldered Bow's door open and right off its hinges.
"You could've put me down on the way here," Bow said with a gasp.
"Yeah," Adora sighed, "I was just thinking that."
"Rrrrg!" The boy grunted, shouldering the old, weighted door backward an inch with a little charge down the hallway. The rusty hinges whined in protest, arresting the door with only a few extra inches of space.
A sigh of air blew dust straight into his grinning face and he coughed until his eyes watered. He sputtered and shook out his long hair as he groped in the dark. His fingers quested until they touched a metal lever.
He pulled it and cried out with delight when dim, flickering light danced through the room to bounce off the curves of metal contraptions laid out in nearly every open space. Pictures and blueprints, crumbling to dust with age, appeared along the walls. All of it was a puzzle the boy had given up trying to decipher long ago.
Most of all he marveled at the light as it crept up the far wall and dazzled inside of pink gem the size his head, set high above an empty metal doorframe. Sometimes, the boy simply liked to look at it and wonder how it would shine outside in the full sunlight. Maybe if he tried to, the Other One could pry it loose. The Other One was very strong.
No. The boy snarled at the voice inside his head. The Other One never let him have any fun. He'd scolded him for climbing the walls earlier and the boy was too bored to sit in the courtyard all day, watching thin clouds cross the sky.
"Hmph!" The boy stormed from the room, wrenching the lever to shut down all the lights along his way. He whistled sharply at his cub, who was too scared to follow him into the Jewel Room, and started for the stairs down into the main keep.
No. The Other One spoke up, reading his intentions before he'd made it five feet. The boy paused a second and then blew a raspberry, long and disrespectfully.
No! The Other One repeated himself, louder each time, as the boy made his way to the gatehouse and looked over the drawbridge. It was huge and made of ancient ironwood that never seemed old or unvarnished, even after all the years of weather that the boy knew it had seen. Great black chains, each link as big as the boy, stretched taught from where they looped around an enormous winch to the pulley's inside the gray-stone walls.
The boy had never seen those chains shift a centimeter, even in the strongest of the badlands' winds.
"Hup!" He leapt up and clung to them, wincing a little at the feel of the heat baked into the black metal from the desert sun.
NO.
"Ahh!" The boy yelped, almost losing his balance and feeling a pit in his tummy. He was being bad. Really bad. The Other One might…the boy hung there for a moment and wondered what, exactly, the Other One could do to him.
"Ha!" he cried and scurried up the chain, deft as a monkey. His cub caterwauled unhappily from the ground. The Other One was disturbingly silent now. But so what? What could he do?
He scaled to the highest link and found himself faced with a few loose stones as convenient handholds. His arms and legs, strong from climbing around the old gray castle, took him to the very top of the gatehouse and gave him a view that took his breath away.
Out across the southern shelf of the badlands, past a natural rock formation that served once as a stairway up to the castle, there was nothing but bleak devastation.
Skeletons. Bones bleached to a high-ivory by the sun, made a sharp contrast to armor rusted black amongst them. The warped, reaching rock formations that framed the castle moat stretched on forever, writhing in the heat glare of the distance as if they were living.
Perhaps this was why the Other One had warned him away from climbing up here. This view only showed him field's of death. A blasted wasteland of carnage that had played out its' sad tragedy long ago.
The ten-year-old grinned and looked around for more to see. Starting with the gatehouse beneath him.
He'd been inside the skull-shaped gatehouse before, and been disappointed to find the main room, which looked out onto the southern wedge of the badlands, such a wreck of rubble that he couldn't even open the door to it. From above, he could finally see why.
The skull had been caved in, as if by a giant's mace. He sat on the very edge of its shattered dome, feet dangling over a drop of fifteen feet onto jagged rubble.
Below that was a fall even longer. The boy had caught glimpses of the moat from the east and west watchtower or peeking through the castle's crenellations and murder holes. Now, he could see straight down into utter darkness. The sun, strong and high in the sky could barely light the depths of the moat twenty feet below.
For a horrible moment he felt vertigo yank him forward. There was nothing down there save for jagged cliffs with almost no purchase. The widest wasn't more than two feet out from the sheer edge of the moat. No chance to climb back up, even if you survived the fall.
A wind rose from the east, tugging his hair over his right shoulder like a dirty flag.
Movement to his left nearly sent him tumbling back over the wall in shock. At first he thought it was his hair's shadow playing across the low sunlight, but it was too long and close to be a shadow.
A cloud passed the sun and that which stalked him was lost from his sight, disappearing into darkness.
Back. The Other One's voice sent a chill down his spine. The Other One sounded scared. The Other One never got scared. Not even when the giant eight-legged crawlers came last summer. Not even when the fire-breather, huge and scaly, had perched itself on the castle wall two winters ago.
The boy should listen. He should turn back. He almost did before the shadow left the sun and the flapping cloth was bathed, briefly, in unrestricted light. It was a dim glimpse, as if the sunlight was loath to touch it, but he saw it.
Then he laughed out loud. A skull. That was it. That was what the Other One was afraid of. He giggled, kicking his bare feet in mirth. For goodness, sake, they lived in a castle that was a giant skull. Or was carved like one, anyway. He grinned back at the skull, sitting on the lip of an endless plummet. It was nothing but a white mask swathed in purple cloth stained almost ebony. It wasn't even facing up at him, it was turned to the right, unmoving in the wind.
"Boo!" he shouted at the skull and laughed aloud.
From the badlands, something laughed back like a hyena. A black shape broke away from the motionless horizon and began loping forward. The boy somersaulted backwards in shock and caught himself on the second link before he fell straight to the courtyard stones. The cub whined and roared loudly.
"Shhh!" He called down. "Shhhhh!" He shook his head, dizziness weakening his grip.
Down! Back! Get down from the gate! Hide! The boy scrambled, quick but careful down to the stones. Over the walls, the sound of howling and laughing grew louder on the wind. His little heart hammered in his chest and he raced inside, stopping only to gather the cub in his arms. His sword was still by the Jewel Room. He ran inside, the cub followed without its previous fear. When they were inside the boy rushed the door and slammed it shut with a throw of his whole body. He gathered the cub to him in the dark, crouched low, and tried to quiet his own rapid breathing and tell himself he was imagining the barks coming closer to the castle.
It couldn't get over the walls. Even if it could, the Other One would fight it. There was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing.
The boy hiccupped once and rubbed at his face. He was safe, he only had to wait and it would be over like a bad dream. Wait. That was all. Wait.
Waiting. Catra hated the waiting. A third butterfly tried to land on one of her ears and she flicked it off with the tip of a claw. Her nose twitched at the heavy perfume of Plumeria. Heady and soporific. Her butt was going to sleep on the tree branch she perched on.
Catra hated everything around her. The waiting included.
She was almost relieved to see Scorpia trundle back through the thick forest, much as she hated to admit that even to herself. The self-appointed 'best friend' had come along with her to Plumeria, of course, because that was simply Catra's kind of bad luck. By a miracle, and her own careful wiles, Catra had lead them both past the spot they'd been ambushed the day before and they quickly found tracks.
Plumerians might be fighting but they weren't thinking like guerillas yet, and that suited Catra fine. Scorpia held up a Horde Trooper helmet, upside and filled with fresh soil, a single bloom, recently potted, standing daintily up from it.
"Flower-pots?" she groaned. That was the equipment lost. She'd never heard the end of that from Shadow Weaver. Scorpia was nodding back the way she came.
"Yeah," she whispered, "you should see what they did with the gauntlets. I think they're bird feeders now."
"So long as our troops aren't feeding the birds too," Catra slid down from the branch, taking the lead once more. After all, if Scorpia insisted on tagging along no reason she couldn't rest once in a while even if it meant ruminating on Shadow Weaver's words.
We will have Adora back very, very soon. And how do I feel about that? She decided it was a mixed bag of feelings. Angry, that was the most prominent one but at the witch or her former-best friend more, she wasn't sure.
If it meant Adora came back, apologized enough times, and things went back to normal then maybe…maybe Catra would be happy. No more looking over her shoulder constantly if she had someone watching her back again. And it'd be awfully nice to see high and mighty She-Ra admit she was wrong.
"Two apologies," she muttered to herself, "for leaving while I was covering you and not coming back. Four. One for each time she could've come back and an extra one because I'm worth it." She grinned. "She has to beat up her two stupid 'friends' when she sees them next. That'd be part of it. And let me film it."
"Catra," Scorpia whispered.
"What? I'm thinking, Scorpia," she snapped.
"We're here." Catra winced at how out of it she'd been. She pressed herself flat to the ground, eyes dilating as she spied her missing troops at long last. Her teeth clenched in fury as she took in the state of them.
"They're ok," Scorpia blew a breath like a steam engine, "oh, man. They're ok."
"They're just sitting there," Catra growled. Forty-four Horde troopers, stripped to their white-and-grays, lounged in the shade of a broad old oak tree. Sipping from their canteens with one hand and rummaging around in bowls overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables in the other. Catra made a mental note of one ginger-haired trooper who had the audacity to rest, arms behind her head, staring up at the passing clouds.
"Diabolical," Scorpia hissed, "they're torturing them! Letting them see freedom but keeping them all too scared to move! Not anymore. The Best Friend Duo is coming to rescue you, guys!" She lunged forward. Catra's claws left little marks on her Scorpia's tail as she it grabbed it below the stinger. "Yikes! Catra! That's a personal area!"
"Shut it and get down," her eyes had picked out two dozen Plumerians, almost blending perfectly into the mulit-colored foliage. They seemed no more alert or aggressive than a party of picnickers. She saw one of her soldiers actually wave at their 'jailors'. Shadow Weaver had sent her out here to die and this is what she was 'rescuing'. "They're gonna wish the Plumerians had been the take-no-prisoners type!"
"Catra, they got captured," Scorpia said looking over the soldiers with watery-eyes, "who knows what they've been through." Her face turned green. "All that fresh fruit they got access too could be poisoned. Maybe its not and maybe they're just...oh, guh, making them eat so much they can't run. Those...this is war but there are limits!" She burped. "Oh,I'm gonna yartz!"
"Scopria," Catra hissed, scrambling away as far as their cover allowed, "barf on me I'll knock you out and do this mission alone! I'm not joking!"
"We gotta take the fight to 'em, now! While my adrenaline is up!" Scopria burst free of the underbrush and charged the crowd. "The Horde is here!" Hordesmen could be stupid, cowardly, and narrow-minded, Catra thought, but they also trained rigorously. As if it had been planned that way, over half the company answered the call. Twos and threes of Hordesmen rushed the Plumerians nearest to them and tried to drown them in sheer numbers.
An dark-skinned man, thin and surprisingly sprightly for his age cupped his hands over his mouth and gave three sharp bird calls.
"Scorpia!" Catra hissed from her spot in the bushes. Behind her, she heard the answering cries of a dozen alerted sentries. She let three pass by and sprang up on the fourth. In total she surprised six of her enemies, half the reinforcements, one after the other, as they rushed in to aid their friends. As her feet slammed one sturdy man into the ground she caught sight of an onion bulb in his hand. She hissed and knocked it away.
"So lucky I don't have more time to spend with you or I would make you eat that," she said, knocking him cold with the heel of her hand. She turned and ran on all fours, lithe as a tigress, into the chaos under the oak tree.
Scorpia was annoying but she was also a six-foot plus wall of muscle and exoskeleton. Anyone who wasn't laid flat by her claws found themselves envying those who had. Her stinger paralyzed four healthy warriors in as many minutes. There was utter pandemonium whirling around her as Catra arrived. She tackled a girl who must've been the old man's daughter -she looked enough like him- and grinned into her face.
"Very pretty," she purred, tracing a pointed claw over the white face markings on the girl's cheek, "mind if I add a few shapes?" A barefoot slammed into her forehead, sole first, and sent her sprawling backwards. The old man grimaced and shifted his ankle once. Catra adjusted her skewed mask with a fresh snarl.
"A square!" She heard Lonnie screaming. "Come on, maggots, make a square! You know what shape a square is?" The insults worked and soon the unarmored Horde troops had evicted their foes out of a small patch of grass. They stood in close lines of five, two rows deep, in the perfect shape of a square. The old man took one look around, finding himself and his daughter trapped, and whistled a three-tone sharply.
"Yarrow," a Plumerian outside the square yelled, "what about you?"
"Just go," Yarrow cried and Catra realized she'd heard his voice before. The Horde troopers stomped in sequence, cheering out for the Fright Zone and Lord Hordak as the Plumerian militia melted back into the forest. Attention turned slowly towards the two remaining Plumerians.
"Dad?" the girl said. Catra drank in the look of dawning horror on her face like a fine wine.
"It's alright, Butterfly," he said calmly, "we'll be alright."
"Not really," Catra said, rising and stretching languidly, "I mean. After all. You're Hordak's victims again aren't you?" The man's eyes widened. "There it is. See, maybe I'd have not bothered with you, old man, but I can't exactly let that go now can I?" She tapped a claw to her chin, nearly purring at the fear on Butterfly's face. "You guys like plants, right? How do you feel about dark, concrete cells with no windows?"
"Please," Yarrow said, "do whatever you please with me. Only spare her." Catra groaned and pulled at her hair.
"Ugh, you Rebels are all so stupid. Its almost no fun," she shook her head, "why would you tell me that? I know what to use against you now! Honestly, you'd think it would be obvious at this point. Lie! Offer her up and save yourself... I am so sick of the same stupid, pointless-"
"It is my truth," the man cut in, "and I will not compromise it. Please, let her go." Catra narrowed her eyes at the old man and stepped up to him. She tapped one claw on his thin chest, over his heart, and searched his creased, weathered face. She pressed lightly, blood beading around her nail to streak down the man's abdomen. He refused to flinch.
"This isn't the first time you fought the Horde, huh?" She smirked. "We got a genuine, original Rebel here, you guys!"
"I stood with King Micah," the man nodded, "I hid for fifteen years after he fell."
"What made you get dumb all over again?" Catra grinned.
"She-Ra showed us the way," Butterfly said, stepping up next to her father. Catra's mouth twitched into a frown for the barest second.
"She-Ra," Catra said, "She-Ra, She-Ra, She-Ra. How would you feel if I told you She-Ra sucked her thumb til she was seven? Would you feel so confident then?" A chuckle ran through her detachment and her tail lashed angrily. Half of the idiots had run screaming from She-Ra at Thaymor and still would've if she'd been sucking her thumb then and there.
"You don't have to do this," Butterfly said, "please, we treated your soldiers as best we could."
"Oh, you don't want to remind me of that!" She cast a withering glare around her. As she did the Plumerians embraced, for what they surely believed was the last time. "Pathetic."
"Dad," Butterfly said.
"You'll be alright," the old man urged, "take care of your mother."
"Excuse me," Catra snapped, "who says either of you is going anywhere? Maybe you'll both come with us. The Fright Zone's big. It needs workers. You could spend the rest of your lives there and never see each other again."
"And if you know your way," the old man said, eyes blazing suddenly, "if you've been there before?" Catra's mouth worked wordlessly. The surrounding troopers rustled as they heard that.
"Traitor!" Scorpia shouted suddenly. "Your one of us?"
"I was, sadly, until I almost died near here twenty-eight years ago and was left to the mercies of the woods," Yarrow strode forward, extending his wrists to Catra, "so, Force Captain, you must of course know what happens to Horde Troopers caught deserting."
"Beast Island," Scorpia hissed at her helpfully, "we covered that in Orientation."
"My daughter is not part of this," Yarrow whispered to her, "bring back one traitor and that is worth ten Rebels. Please. You know what it's like there."
There was fear in the old man's eyes but he seemed almost peaceful. Maybe even relieved.
"You'll die," she found herself saying, "you'll never see her again."
"I have her memory," Yarrow said, "and, to be honest, I want to face him. The Lord of The Fright Zone. I want a chance to look him in the eye and tell him I survived. And fought back." He trembled with fury. Catra understood. The man had a life now. A family. Everything that the Horde would never have given him. She would strip that away with a wave of her hand. No one but an idiot would be furious about that.
It was then that Catra knew that Adora would never come back. Her stomach twisted itself into knots and all she wanted for that brief second was Adora to come home.
"Didn't I say don't tell me what you want? Go," she said, jabbing her head towards the forest, "I'll be back for your kingdom some day, old timer, and I'll deal with you then." The Plumerians blinked stupidly at her and then glanced at each other. "Have you got plants in your ears? Get lost!"
The old man's face went slack and uncomprehending. Suddenly he bowed at the waist.
"Bless you," he breathed, emotional, "the Universe will bless you for such an act of mercy. Thank you, Force Captain. You show rare honor." Catra snarled at them.
"I'll show you the dirt up close if you don't get lost!" His eyes bulged in fear and his daughter grabbed him by the wrist to rush him away. The Hordesmen parted silently and let them go. When they vanished into the forest, Catra rubbed at her face in exhaustion.
"Hey," she turned to find Lonnie speaking, "didn't expect you to come back for us." The detachment clicked their heels together as one and saluted. Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle joined in looking proud. Catra glared at them all.
How many had tormented her in their childhood, she wondered. Any of them might've pulled her tail or hurled insults. Any of them might be the one who stomped on her barefoot, on purpose, during sparring. Now, they wanted to be her friends. Now they wanted to be proud of her. Adora would've winked and nudged her shoulder and told her 'I knew you could do it' all along.
She never would now. Because she was never coming home. Home for her was somewhere else.
"Anybody who pocketed food from the Plumerians, drop it now. You're not bringing that back to the Fright Zone," she glared around as confusion rippled through the ranks and roared, "Right now!" Apples, oranges, and tomatoes thudded to the forest floor. "You're disgusting. All of you. Gorging yourselves in the shade and not bothering to fight back."
"We should've run like you?" Everyone turned to Lonnie. She had her arms crossed and was trying to shoot Catra with the same glare she'd bullied her with when they were kids.
"Or died fighting," Catra shrugged with a mean smile that turned darker as she continued, "I didn't save your lives just now. I'll do that later when I don't tell Shadow Weaver you all submitted meekly to capture and laid around waiting for me." No one liked that, but no one argued about it either. Catra shoved her way out of the square. "I know you all think I'm pretty mean but, hey, at least you can keep the water they gave you."
"Catra?" Scorpia asked as she stomped by.
"Move 'em out," she growled, "I'm not leading these losers anywhere right now." She broke through the tree-line, alone, and slumped to her knees amidst a circle of lilies. They were tall, golden flowers thrusting up towards the sky like a battalion of swordsmen saluting her as she passed. Her chest heaved and her eyes watered but she didn't cry. She refused to cry.
"She's never coming back," she said, voice thick, "she's never gonna come back. Adora's never coming back." Shadow Weaver was fooling herself and Catra, for the briefest bitterest moment, had fooled herself as well.
"She's never coming back," she snarled, she turned her claws on the lilies, ruining in an instant what the forest had spent years cultivating, "she's never coming back!"
That was the moment she resolved to hate Adora for the rest of her life.
The boy's stomach was imploding with unsatisfied hunger.
His breathing was shallow as he tried to listen past castle walls for any sound of the badland monster. He couldn't bear to wait until morning and would chance a quick look out into the courtyard. He needed to get something to drink at least, or he'd pass out.
The cub churred with uncertainty as he rose and wrenched the Gem Room door open enough to squeeze himself out. Night had fallen in the hours he'd been hiding and the old gray castle was dark as the inside of a sealed coffin. The cub led him, cringing with every limping step. Behind him, the sword's broad tip scraped along the floor.
"Shhhh," he soothed, reaching out to stroke the arching back of his best friend, "shhh." They wound through the darkness until the main gate of the keep defined itself in bright moonlight. The boy stepped out into the courtyard, meeting blessed, safe silence and stared up. He smiled when he saw the stars.
A gentle smile softened his face. The stars were alive and numerous in a way that made him feel not quite so alone. Definitely radiant. Every color of the rainbow was sewn into the firmament like jewels into sable silk. He loved the stars. He knew that, whatever horrors lurked outside the walls or in the shadows around him, the stars were the one thing he never had to fear.
They would always be there and would not abandon him.
"Help me."
He bit his cheek to keep from screaming in terror. A voice. A person's voice. He'd never heard another person's voice before. Only the Other One.
"Help me!" It was strained and raspy. Whispering on the empty air that blew up over the gatehouse. He didn't know what it was saying.
"Help me, please!"
Inside. NOW. The Other One was almost whispering with fear in the boy's head. Those words echoed loud within his mind, but the boy refused to move. He couldn't.
Another person. After all these years alone. He had to see. He had to know. Maybe the thing from the badlands was gone.
"Help me!"
You must listen. The Other One said as the boy dropped the sword to the ground and crept towards the giant black chains of the main gate. You must not look. This is a trick.
"Shhh," the boy said. He had to know. He couldn't resist this even if he wanted to.
Wait. The boy paused and then nodded at the thought the Other One sent his way. He plucked a loose triangle of rock from the ground to serve as a last-ditch weapon, stowing it in the ragtag pocket of his tunic before he pulled his hood up to cover his face from prying eyes. He would peer over the lip of the roof and move carefully.
Careful. He crawled up the chain, shivering in the slight breeze. As he ascended he was made to look at the stars again. It would be nice, he thought, to have someone to look at them with. He froze as some of the roof slates nearby shifted and fell in the wind.
"Help me!" He pressed on.
He crested the gatehouse and crawled flat on his belly to the edge of the broken skull. He paused a moment at the very border of it. This was it. When he looked over this spot he would no longer be alone. He peeped, cornflower-blue eyes searching the dark from the shadows of his hood. Nothing on the stairwell. Nothing along the far edges of the moat on either side. The bones and armor sat undisturbed where they had been earlier.
Nothing. The boy wondered if he had not imagined it.
"Help me!" It was coming from the moat. It was like an icy hand had reached into him and clenched his heart. He turned east and looked down.
You must get down now.
"Help me."
Please. The Other One was barely audible. The boy looked, he had to, and saw the skull where it had laid hours ago. It was spookier at night. The violet cloth was deep, swirling black were it hung limp without the wind. The bone had turned a sickly green with the moonlight. He felt like the eyes sockets were looking at him from down there, both staring right into his soul.
It was not facing us earlier. The boy nodded dumbly. He knew that. That was why he suddenly couldn't move for the pure, animal terror running through him.
"Help me," the voice was clear, tinged with mad glee as it spoke, "oh, won't you help me?" The jawbone moved but the cloth unfurling beneath it did not stir with the wind. "Dear boy, won't you come down and help me?" All a skull could do was grin, but this one seemed to do so with malign intent.
Skulls did not talk. Skull were dead. Dead things could not talk.
"Child," the skull called out, a strange, metallic twang in its voice as it crooned, "you must come down and help me. It's too late to go back."
Weight shifted behind him and something scrabbled for purchase on the stones. Hot, stinking breath breathed on him.
"There is nowhere to go but down, now," the skull grew louder, more mocking, "now be a good boy and come help me!"
Move slowly. Get to the courtyard.
The boy turned, heart hammering in his chest. The creature from the badlands loomed over him. It idly snapped an ancient femur like a twig, then prodded a blood-red tongue in search of the marrow.
It was a hideous kind of beast-man. Shaggy orange fur covered its body save for its pale white lips and tall bat-like ears. Yellow teeth the size of a grown man's fingers bared at the boy in a grimace. Jaundice-yellow eyes beheld him from baggy sockets with barely restrained hunger. It breathed air that smelled like death.
"Do not make me angry, you stupid child," the skull suddenly yelled, "there is no escaping this. You will come down here now!" As it screamed, its voice whined like a saw on steel.
The boy's left hand slipped into his pocket and wrapped around the stone. His right came up to his mouth as if covering it in horror and slipped his middle-finger and thumb in.
He whistled sharply. The beast-man blinked in confusion and, when the cub growled in response from the courtyard, spun about with an inquisitive huff. The boy let go and slid through it's crouching, muscular legs, screaming out as he fell into open air. He reached for the chain but at the last moment, felt gnarled fingers snatch his hood.
He nearly slid down out of his tunic, kicking and struggling to grasp the chain in his free hand.
"Do not kill him," the skull roared, every word meaningless to the terrified child, "he has to help me! He did this to me!"
"Ah!" His fingers grasped the chain and his left hand swung up smash the hand holding him. With an ape-like hoot the beast-man released him and the boy wrenched himself onto the chain. In the courtyard his cub was yowling and crying at him, limping in a circle around the sword. The blade glowed sapphire in the moonlight and was inlaid with the reflection of the distant stars.
The chain shuddered in his grasp. He spared a glance back as he scrambled down. The beast-man was gaining, swinging its body from chain to chain with a steady pace. The boy hoped forward to the last three chains and let himself drop the final six feet.
"Ow!" he yelped. The tunic was tough and spared him broken bones. The beast was tough as well and dropped the ground before he could get up. It's huge hand wrapped around him and hoisted him up. Teeth appeared in front of his face and the boy whimpered in terror.
His ears stung as the monster roared at him and the star wheeled overhead as he was hurled across the courtyard. The tunic saved him again.
The sword! The boy blinked and shook his head then cried out in delight. The stupid beast-man had thrown him half-way to his weapon. The beast-man rose up behind him and pounded on its chest as it roared, then flexed its bulging arms triumphantly. The boy scuttled forward, heart quickening.
"By the-" he started to say, his little hand kissed the top of the hilt, when the ground shook with three huge lopes. Fingers on his hood tunic's hem wrenched him away and dragged him, bumping up and down, across the courtyard stones.
"Ah," the boy cried out in frustration, nails digging at the dusty soil, "no! No! Nooooo!"
"Bring him," the skull said, voice resonant even from so far away, "bring him down to me." Laughter followed. Horrible, booming laughter that rang like thunderbolts inside a copper drum.
"No!" the boy shrieked. A blur of green movement and yellow eyes lunged from the dark with a fierce snarl. The beast-man howled. He danced in a circle and released the boy to grab at his back where the cub clung to it with all of its claws and teeth. It growled around the mouthful of the beast-man's shoulder.
Now, the sword! The boy was on his feet, eyes stinging with the air that rushed by him as he ran. He grabbed the hilt of the sword and screamed the only five words he really knew. He didn't know when or how he'd learned them, or what they truly meant. But they, like the sword and the Other One, had always been there.
"By the power…" he bellowed, the sword was suddenly weightless and rose above his head to point at the stars, "of Greyskull!"
Thunder rumbled from the clear sky and lightning burst up around the old gray castle in a curtain of white zig-zags. They crested, joined, and fell to earth where the boy stood panting. He felt only the barest tingling in his fingertips.
And then, the Other One emerged. He took the place of the boy, who sat inside, in the sunken seat of their strange shared mind, where he waited patiently for peace to return.
The beast-man had the cub in both fists and grinned as it began to twist. The sword rose up, weighing little more than a toothpick in the brawny hand of the Other One. He flicked it forward like a small dagger and it whistled as it whirled through the air. The tip grazed the beast-man's right ear before burying itself with a shimmering noise into the wood of the drawbridge.
The beast-man keened in agony as it dropped the cub to clasp at its ruined ear. The Other One surged forward like a heavy wave and slammed himself into the monster, taking them both into the drawbridge. The boy yelped inside as the world seemed to shift and fall with a heavy wooden crash. Then he heard the chains rattling alongside them and he realized the ancient door had fallen open with the Other One's strength.
The beast-man was wide-eyed with terror and he hooted as he scrambled back on his elbows to the very edge of the drawbridge.
"No," breathed the skull, "nooo! You useless, squirming, flea-bitten rug!"
The Other One yanked the sword free and twirled it once as he raised it high for the finishing blow. The beast-man shrunk back further and toppled end over end into the yawning blackness of the moat. It shrieked as it went, making the boy want to plug his ears. The Other One pounded his chest with his free hand and flexed his arm in a mocking sendoff to its fallen foe.
The skull shrieked like a pair of swords meeting.
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! You can't escape justice, you monster! Spawn of conniving oathbreakers! I'll kill you! Kill you!" The Other One stepped to the edge of the drawbridge and rested the sword on his shoulder, staring down at the writhing skull. A shudder of contempt ran through the boy's shared mind. The sword pointed toward the skull and a bolt of lightning blasted forth to scour the cliffside out from under it.
"Wh-what have you done?" The skull chirped, "This isn't right. Not again! You can't win again!"
"Goodbye," a voice like an earthquake came from the Other One. The boy winced, even inside. The Other One was loud. The cliff cracked and began to crumble and the skull rolled away to the edge.
"This isn't over," it rasped, tumbling away into the free air. The purple cloak trailed after it like the tail of a comet. Just before the darkness swallowed it completely, it hissed, loud enough to be heard.
"I'll kill you," the skull promised.
Silence reigned for a long moment as the Other One stared into the moat. The boy could not read his emotions. Then with heavy steps, the Other One return to the courtyard and raised the mighty drawbridge with a few one-handed turns of the enormous wooden winch.
Their home secure, the Other One sat himself against the cistern and lifted the sword up.
"Let the power return," he said. The lightning lanced away into the dark and disappeared. The boy looked into the sword and saw the Other One reflected in its blade.
Through a long blanket of thick golden hair, a pair of eyes like blue suns burned into the his. He squirmed and pulled his hood over his eyes with one
Look at me, the Other One said. The boy did so reluctantly. The Other One's eyes searched him carefully. It's alright. It's over. You're safe. The boy sniffled and growled at the tears that started falling down his skull and the beast-man were gone but his heart was still hammering in his chest. His mouth still tasted like metal. If he'd only listened before, none of this would've happened. It was all his fault.
Don't do that. I'll always protect you. Always.
The boy felt the words more than heard them. They made him look up to his company and smile with a little sniff. He pressed his cheek to the reflection, seeking a hug, and the cool touch of metal soothed him. He frowned when he looked back and now only saw himself within the sword's reflection.
Right here. Always. His cub limped out of hiding and draped over him with a happy, sleepy whuff. With warmth and good company, he managed, somehow, to fall asleep.