Chapter 31: Misconceptions on the Dzivia

Adora opened her eyes and groaned, again. Everything still hurt and she had no idea how long she had been out for, but this time, when she pushed up into a sitting position, the room didn't spin and she didn't fall off the bed. She swung her legs around and dangled them off the side, taking careful stock of her equilibrium. Trusting her strength maybe a little too much, she pushed off and her legs thankfully held her weight.

She took shaky, excited steps to the far wall, where she grabbed her runestone bracer and PDA and slid them onto each arm. A fresh set of clothes lay folded neatly nearby and she changed into them. They were loose but comfortable—definitely Kal's clothes, but Adora didn't know how to reconcile her impression of the man with the ridiculous design on the front of the shirt.

She Ra's power bubbled under the surface once more, just like it always had. Adora still hadn't figured out what exactly happened back at the castle that had caused her to lose touch, and she briefly considered going all the way to try to bring her out again. She had done it once, kind of, so she should be able to again, right?

Ultimately, she decided against it after attempting to experimentally 'nudge' She Ra from deep inside and not feeling the reaction she had hoped for. There was none of that 'warming, energizing' feeling she had gotten back when she had summoned the sword. Being able to stand on her own two feet, move about, and feel her power once again was heartening enough already; she didn't want to push her luck.

The entirety of the ship around her hummed, and she heard Kal's voice somewhere in the distance. He sounded frustrated.

Feeling whole once more with her runestone and PDA returned to her, Adora stretched as much as her body would let her from its injuries, and left the tiny infirmary. She tottered along the narrow hallway outside, exposed wires and pipes threading through exposures in the bulkhead. Each footstep rang out, since the floor was actually a patterned metal grate that covered even more wires and tubes.

Kal's voice echoed out again. He definitely was mad about something, and Adora followed his words, growing louder the farther she went, until she came to a closed door in a bend in the hallway. She palmed the reader next to the door and was mildly surprised when the it actually slid open for her.

Beyond lay the cockpit. Gauges and levers and touch screens embedded in consoles encircled a pilot and co-pilot seat at the front, framing an expansive forward viewscreen. Through it, Adora could see they were hurtling down a multicolored tunnel. The kaleidoscope colors of hyperspace reminded Adora of that 'trip' she took the one time she agreed to a meditation binge with Perfuma, and that reminder was all that was needed for her stomach churn. She looked away and tried not to be sick.

Kal stood in the open space between the pilot chairs and the doorway, hunched over a makeshift workbench built into the side wall. Adora saw the giant sapphire crystal—the "apeiron" he had called it, although she decided right then and there she was never going to call it that—floating and tumbling gently in an antigravity well the circular device underneath it was emitting. That device was hooked into another machine, displaying flashing diagnostics and data streams to a holographic display spanning floor to ceiling between them.

"You're awake," he said, his voice tight with irritation. "How do you feel?"

"Fine I guess," Adora said, watching him as he turned to face her. Instead of giving her his full attention, he focused on the holographic display and swiped impatiently at the information displaying between them. Adora stood there and waited for him to say something else. The longer he went without doing so, the more idiotic she felt, until at last she opened her mouth to say something and he cut her off.

"Was there something you—fucking hell, what is that supposed to mean?" He pinched the screen and zoomed into what looked like a birds-nest mass of clustered data points and lines. A significant portion of the center was completely devoid of any data, leaving what amounted to a giant hole in the web. "Where did all of this go? This is such a mess."

Adora couldn't tell if he was talking to her or to himself. When she didn't answer and he didn't repeat the question, she said, "I'm hungry." Her stomach growled, as if her body conspired to drive her point home without her consent, and she tried to stifle the sound with her arms, embarrassed.

Kal seemed to forget about her entirely. He turned back to the workbench and, with more aggressive and irritated movements than before, tweaked more dials and knobs on the panel overhead, muttering dark words to himself.

"You were the one that said let's be civil to one another," Adora said, growing impatient when her stomach complained a second time. "Last I checked, feeding someone in your care is part of being civil."

Kal started smacking the side of the overhead panel, repeatedly calling it a "piece of shit." Adora was about ready to strangle him.

"Fine!" She threw up her arms. "I'll find the food myself. Just don't come complaining to me if I push a wrong button and the entire ship depressurizes or something." With that, she stomped off, not caring to even look back to see if Kal finally paid any attention.

Her irritation only grew as wandered back down the hallway she came and she opened door after door on her way. She stuck her head into each room, only to come away disappointed; nothing she saw even remotely resembled a kitchen or dining area.

Food means a table, right? She thought, as she opened another room and found it completely empty. All of the spacefaring vessels she had toured back on Etheria, starting with Mara's desolate ship out in the Crimson Wastes and ending with the Enclave cruisers and carriers orbiting the planet, had a dining area. Even the tiny corvettes she saw had at least a cupboard for the tandem crew to store nonperishables and a small nook to sit and eat at.

Finally, she came across a room with a modest table anchored in the center. A bench sat on either of the long ends, and the cupboards and countertops lining the far wall seemed to call out to her with the implicit promise of food. Her stomach complained again, and she hurried inside to look for something—anything at all—to eat. Kal said they had been in hyperspace for at least three days, so that meant it had been at least that long since she last ate something.

She threw open the first cupboard above the countertop she saw, and yanked out a dull grey box made of thick plastic. It was heavier than she anticipated. As soon as she got most of it out, she lost control and it fell out of the cupboard, smacking into the countertop with a loud noise and dumping several dozen brown pouches onto the floor.

Adora yelped and stood stock still as her heart pounded in her chest. Her eyes darted to the door she came through. She listened for the inevitable sound of Kal storming down the hall, angry at her for making a mess. Then, almost as if remembering how to breath again, she caught how stupid that sentiment was. Being on a strange ship with someone she barely knew, let alone trusted, must have awoken something primal in her; that part of her that wanted to never make a mistake, never leave a bad first impression, and never break something out of fear of being reprimanded. Adora frowned, shook away what Shadow Weaver had conditioned into her as a child, and reached down to pick up one of the pouches that had dumped out onto the floor.

"Acheron stuffed chicken," she said, reading the script on the pouch out loud. She wasn't sure if she was reading an alien language with She Ra's help (she hoped that was the case) or if the pouches were actually labeled in standard Etherian (less likely). She furrowed her brow and turned the pouch over; there were no other labels. She shrugged, ripped open the top of the package, and scooped out a handful of the brownish-white powder from inside.

"Seems fine," she said, bringing her face closer and inspecting the powder with careful eyes. She gave a tentative sniff and, sensing nothing was amiss, licked some of it off her hands.

It tasted like sand.

Adora spat, hacking and coughing after accidentally dropping the pouch and sending the "chicken-sand" concoction scattering and spreading all across the floor.

"How can anyone eat that?" Adora said after a moment, sputtering.

The taste lingered, and she scraped at her tongue out of desperation to get it to leave. When she could do no more, she eventually turned her attention to the other cupboards. Panic ensued with the thought that all the other cupboards were also filled with the same stuff. That couldn't be all the food on this ship, could it? That stuff was inedible. What was she going to do?

Adora was spiraling with no way out when the far door slid open and Kal walked through, holding the crystal suspended in its antigravity well in one hand, and a small holo-projector puck in the other.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his eyes drifting from Adora, still covered in dust, to the pouches and powder and open case dumped out on the floor.

"I don't know!" Adora said, suddenly afraid of getting a Shadow Weaver-level scolding for making a mess. "I told you something like this might happen. I have no idea where anything is on this ship, and why does all your food look and taste like sand?"

"That's because you haven't made any of it yet." He looked like he was trying to decide between making fun of her, helping, or turning around and walking right back out the way he came. "Did you seriously just eat the raw powder?"

"I. Don't. Know. What. Any. Of. This. Stuff. Is." Adora scooped up armfuls of still-sealed pouches and dumped them back into the case with every punctuated word. She stopped and glared at Kal when she heard him laugh. He had moved further into the room to stand next to the table, placing the crystal and the puck atop it. He was smiling, and that seemed to erase ten years from his face. He still looked older than her, but no longer seemed within the same age range as Shadow Weaver or Micah.

"We can't both be this neurotic at the same time," he said, shaking his head. "We'll end up at each other's throats before we get to Eden. I'll tell you what—let's trade. I'll make the food, and you come take a look at this. Maybe you'll be able to figure something out that I haven't been able to yet.

"Look, I'm going to be honest because, again, you mentioned the 'being civil' thing and I'm trying since, you know, you didn't let me fall to my death…but I have no idea what that is or what I'm supposed to do that you haven't already tried."

"Come here and just touch the crystal," Kal said, leaning down and pulling out a pouch from the case still open on the floor. "You're a magical being. Even if your connection to your magic is spotty, you should be able to pick up something from the apeiron if you reach. Would probably do better than me, actually."

Adora scowled but decided to do as he asked. "You know, no one is supposed to know about me and She Ra," she said, heading for the table.

"You're joking, right? Everyone knows that you're She Ra, even the random townspeople outside the kingdoms. If that was supposed to be a secret then it's a shit secret."

"No, I meant the fact I've been having a bit of trouble getting in touch with her."

Kal snorted. "'A bit of trouble' is putting it lightly." Adora almost said something back, then he turned to her and held up a pouch in either hand. "You want the chicken or lasagna?"

Adora tilted her head. "What's a luh-zahn-yuh?"

"Chicken it is, then." He tossed one of the pouches back into the crate. Adora watched him grab a bowl from one of the cabinets under the countertop, dump the contents of the pouch inside and swirl some water from the far sink into the mix.

"Soooo," she said, staring at the puck. She tapped it and a holographic screen popped up, displaying the web of data points and lines Kal had been staring at back in the cockpit. "What's a member of the Enclave doing hiding from their own people for three years on Etheria? You not get assigned to the planet and decide to sneak onsite anyways?"

"I'm not with the Enclave," he said.

"You're not?" Adora said, narrowing her eyes at him through the holographics. "But you can do magic."

"And you think everyone who can do magic is automatically a member of the Enclave?"

"Well, what else would you be?" Adora asked, watching him shove the bowl of water and powder inside a machine, close the door, and press a few buttons. It powered on and started to hum. "It's not like you're part of the Daiamid."

"Three years on that planet and I forget all you Etherians are essentially hermits," he said. "Just because I can do magic doesn't mean I'm a member of the Enclave."

"Fine, so you're freely admitting to being a rogue mage then?"

Kal sighed. He was in the middle of preparing a second pouch. "By the very strict and narrow definition you have no doubt been fed, yes. I am a rogue mage."

"Are rogue mages supposed to be trained enough to wield magic as well as you though? I was under the impression someone would need a whole team of assistants to do what you did back at the castle." Adora was doing her best to bluff. Salas had needed a team, and so did many of the other Enclave mentors teaching the princesses. Aside from the princesses, who were supposed to be a special case entirely, only Taline had been able to single-handedly do extraordinary feats the one time she had seen her in action. It wasn't supposed to be common, the level of magic Adora had witnessed atop her castle.

"I don't see how this line of questioning is going to help either of us get along better," he said. "Have you figured anything out about the aperion?" He glanced over in her direction in the middle of stirring the second bowl with a wooden spoon. "You haven't even touched it yet, have you?"

Adora gave him a face, then grudgingly reached into the antigravity well to pull the crystal tumbling inside out. As soon as it came free from the threshold, Adora felt the full weight of the thing in her hand and she almost dropped it.

It was heavy.

She turned the thing in her hands, watching how the light glinted off the thousands of facets across the surface, making intricate shapes that seemed like they could easily mesmerize anyone who dared look at it for too long. It was much like the hyperspace tunnel she saw earlier, but strangely more entrancing, if that were possible. All that majesty and wonder, condensed into something so small in the palm of her hand

Then she felt something inside, much like how she often felt She Ra slumbering under the surface when she went reaching. So she reached again, except this time into the crystal. There was that strange sensation again, almost like something was slumbering deep inside. It was fainter, much fainter then even her lowest, most out of touch moment trying to reach out to She Ra, but it was undoubtedly there.

She was about to say as much to Kal when her eyes caught on the holographic web between them first. She looked at this time—really looked—and it finally clicked into place just what exactly that thing was. She had seen this type of data stream before, time and time again when Entrapta had left her screens open—the patterns back then had just been much less complicated.

"This AI," she said, pointing to the screen. "The one with the giant holes missing from it…is this that girl from the castle that helped you turn on Light Hope?"

Kal turned to her with such excitement that all trace of the haggard, sleep-deprived grouch of a person she had seen slinking around Etheria and had fought with in the Crystal Castle disappeared. "Yes," he said. "You recognize it? Don't tell me you got something from the apeiron that showed you what happened to her?"

Adora shook her head. "I saw Entrapta poring over fragments of Light Hope's code for hours on end, you'd think I'd recognize AI neural networks after they're in front of my face for long enough." She gestured to the screen once more when the excitement drained from Kal's face. "Something this complex I fully believe can hack into Light Hope's systems and wake her up. What I don't understand is how you, a rogue mage hiding from the Enclave, has it. Our best scientists, Entrapta included, haven't cracked open Light Hope yet. If you have the expertise to make something like this, why keep it hidden from the Enclave in the first place? Why not help them?"

"She's not an 'it', her name is Pip," Kal said. "And I didn't make her. Not smart enough for that."

"Then who gave you this…Pip?"

"She was a gift."

"From who?"

Kal narrowed his eyes at her. "Not anyone that you would know, and not anyone that could help us now. Now, have you figured out anything from the apeiron or not? Stop changing the subject. I make food, you tell me what you feel from it. Let's start there."

Adora hefted the crystal in both her hands. She hadn't figured out anything useful about it, but she Kal had looked so hopeful thinking she might have gleaned information from it he couldn't. Because of her connection to She Ra? Like how she could read alien languages without ever having studied it before? She wanted to know more about the crystal too, since it was clear he was keeping thing from her. Judging by how he reacted when she asked about Pip, though, she didn't think she'd get a straight answer if she just asked.

Two could play the subterfuge game, however.

"Yes, I've actually gotten a lot from it while we've been talking," she said. "But I want some of my questions answered." Already her hands felt slick with sweat, and she feared he'd catch onto her immediately just from the way her hands and her voice trembled in anticipation.

Kal, however, hadn't seemed to notice. He gave her a sideways glance, as if to say "go on?"

"What is this thing?" she asked, hefting it in her hands again.

"I've already told you—it's an apeiron. It holds information, memories, things. If it holds what I hope it does, then we've got the Beast dead to rights. We won't need She Ra to defeat it."

"It's a crystal, I'm not calling it…whatever you called it." Adora huffed. "And let me guess, you aren't going to tell me what you hope is inside?"

"No use getting your hopes up with speculation. I'd rather say one way or the other once I know for certain what's in there." He gestured to the screen. "Pip was supposed to analyze it, but half her code got corrupted when she started scanning into it, as you can see. I have no idea how to fix her."

"This isn't doing very much for me when it comes to building trust between us, you know," Adora said, grumbling more to herself than anything.

"I am literally about to feed you right now," Kal said. "Are you usually this difficult with people trying to do you a favor?"

"Who was it you were talking to earlier?" Adora asked. She couldn't lose control of the conversation. She had to press him and keep him off balance, just like she did back at the castle. "I heard you talking to someone on the other side of the door when I first woke up."

"You mean right before you fell and ate shit?"

"Who were you talking to?" she asked again, choosing to ignore the swipe.

"My contact on Etheria," he said. "They helped me get around."

"They're the one who got you past all the security?" Adora asked. "Salas mentioned there was a mole. This is the same person who gave you fake credentials and everything?"

"That's the person, yep," Kal said, nodding.

"So, who are they? Why are you being so defensive about this?"

Kal laughed outright in her face, and even Adora had to admit she felt a little foolish with that last question. They clearly weren't allies, so why was she acting surprised about his dishonesty?

"Ok," Kal said, after he had calmed down. "First of all, I'm not about to out one of my allies just because you asked nicely. And second of all, even if I did tell you, what the hell are you going to do about it? You're stuck on this ship with me. You have no way to communicate with anyone on Etheria, and even if you did, the entire planet is locked down tighter than Prime's prison planet on Theranis IV—no one can send transmissions or data to them." Despite the nature of his words, Kal didn't sound angry, just amused. As if he were trying to explain a drunk friend's irrational behavior to them after they had sobered.

"They're going to look for me," Adora said. "As soon as they realize I'm missing they're going to come looking for me."

"No one is going to come looking for you," he said. "At least, not the way you expect them to. Like I said before, it's been days since you've been gone. If they were able to catch us in the first place, they would have done so already. No one is going to start a galaxy-wide manhunt for you.

"And what makes you so sure of that?"

"The planet portals around the galaxy every year just to keep people from finding its location on accident, Adora. You think they're going to file a missing person report for you? For all intents and purposes, Etheria doesn't exist. The entire planet itself is a black-site."

"It's funny," Adora said, giving a rueful laugh. "I've only ever heard that term used in only one context. Horde Empire." That was a lie, of course. She had used the term herself when she spoke to Salas, but Kal had derailed her completely, and she wasn't handling it well.

"This should be good," Kal said. The machine on the countertop with her food beeped, and he turned his back to her to get it. The two bowls he pulled out steamed, inundating the room in fragrances that would have made Adora's mouth water were she not already hell-bent on having her say.

"You know what I think really is going on?" Adora pushed the holographic projector to the side to get an unobstructed view of him. Catra had always told her, both when they were growing up and when they were fighting on opposite sides, that Adora was too trusting a person. That it would her into trouble. Well, Adora liked to think she had finally grown out of that.

"Tell me," Kal said. "I'm dying to know."

"I think your 'mole' on Etheria isn't really on Etheria to begin with," she said. "I think it's Horde Prime, and I think he's using you to sneak around the planet, gather information for him, and sabotage our work. You even said yourself—there's no way for us to contact anyone on the planet anymore, so why were you be able to talk to your contact earlier if they were still there?

"Horde Prime obviously hated the fact he agreed to leave so easily after what we did in his throne room. I think he sent you to spy, and that's exactly what you were doing there for the past three years. Why else would you be in all the kingdoms? All those shift changes and sneaking around? That was for you to gather information, wasn't it?"

"Interesting theory," Kal said, preparing a third pouch of food in another bowl. "Let's say you're right and I'm a spy for the emperor. How would you explain what happened in the Crystal Castle? The whole empire is relying on the Enclave and your people to get Light Hope and the weapon working. But I—someone spying for that same empire—get in carrying an AI advanced enough to solve all the problems Entrapta and the Enclave have had with Light Hope in a just a few minutes. I don't think I would be doing a very good job 'sabotaging' anything if that were the case, don't you think?"

"I haven't figured out how that part fits in yet," Adora said. "But it makes a lot more sense to me that the Empire is capable of far more than a vassal state is. If you can turn Light Hope on as easily as you did, then you probably could sabotage Entrapta's work just as easily without anyone knowing. That's what happened at those ruined dig sites, isn't it? It took you minutes to get in and get those keys, and no one after you had any idea you were in there because they didn't find any traces of tampering."

"I mean, you aren't wrong," Kal said. "I could have done a lot more than what I did without anyone knowing. But why would Horde Prime want to sabotage anything at all if his survival is just as dependent on Etheria as anyone else's?"

"I don't know yet," Adora said. He had poked enough gaping holes in her thought process to make her pause, but something just didn't feel right about him and she wasn't about to cave because she didn't have all the information. "I know you're a spy, I just can't prove it. My guess is whatever this thing is"—she gestured to the crystal—"it's important enough for you to change your mission. No more spying and sabotaging, you've found something valuable and worthwhile no one else knew about. I'm guessing we're on our way to meet up with Prime right now so you can hand it over to him, and you're trying to get me to tell you more about it so you have impressive things to say to your boss."

"Anything else?" Kal asked as he loaded up a platter with the three separate bowls he had been working on.

"That about sums it up," she said, crossing her arms with a stony expression. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, and refused to let the uncertainty she felt show on her face. Admittedly, Adora had reached pretty far at the end there, but she must have taken a page out of Catra's book because she refused to reconsider her own stance. "What are you planning on getting for all this information? Were you going to ask for a System Governorship? Maybe ask to be appointed a Regional Administrator instead? Prime rewards people who perform for him, I'm sure."

"Let me give you some advice," Kal said, stalking over and placing the tray of food off to the side of the table. Adora refused to look at it, despite the smells wafting to her and despite her stomach begging her to just eat already. "Never make life or death decisions off of your hunches. Everything you just said was so wrong, I'd laugh in your face if it weren't so insulting.

"First, I wasn't moving around the kingdoms trying to spy for Horde Prime. When you saw me at the Induction Ceremony? I didn't use that as ruse to get into Bright Moon. Regardless of my thoughts on the Enclave, on Taline, and on her Sentinels, I've made the trip to Narre and Miri's graves every year to pay my respects. To have you even think otherwise is insulting to the people who saved your friend from certain death at Horde Prime's hands."

Adora flinched. She wasn't expecting to hear the kind of emotion coming through in his voice, wasn't expecting to see the anger in his eyes as he held her gaze. She had indeed struck a nerve after all, but it wasn't panning out how she had hoped.

"Second," Kal said. "I travelled across the kingdoms for three years of my life specifically to get the keys needed to retrieve this"—he pointed to the crystal—"from your castle. I didn't trick anyone to get in. If I was playing the part of a guard, I guarded. That day you first recognized me? I was assigned to help deliver Entrapta's things, and deliver her things I did. That's it. I didn't take those assignments because I needed a cover to get into the ruins—I could have done that anyways, any time I wanted. I took those assignments because you guys needed help, and I tried to do what I could while I was in the area."

Adora shrank into herself with every word he spoke. Despite the fact he wasn't yelling, she felt just as bad, maybe even worse, than when Shadow Weaver chewed her out when she was younger. Every word was telling her how disappointed he was in her without ever outright saying it, and the fact she felt affected by that was even more aggravating. She hoped he didn't have a third topic to speak toward.

"And third—"

Oh no, there was a third.

"—I am not a Horde spy. Prime is too self-centered and proud to use something like spies in that way. After what happened last time, I doubt he'd try it again."

"Wait," Adora said, trying to cut in and shift the conversation before she imploded from feeling bad. "What did Prime do before with—"

"That crystal, apeiron, thing…whatever you want to call it," Kal said, ignoring the fact she was trying to get a word in. "It's exactly what I said earlier. If we can fix Pip and get her to read it, and if it contains what I hope it does, then you won't have to worry about whether or not you can get in touch with She Ra again to save the universe. It will already have been taken care of."

Kal took a step around the table and closer to her, leaned down to put his face closer to hers, and Adora actually shrank away from him. He met her eyes didn't blink or flinch as he spoke, his next words each coming out in a measured, focused, intense way, like he was speaking to an unruly child and ensuring they understood him.

"Who gifted me Pip, who my contact on Etheria is, what my hopes are for what's inside the apeiron? I'd only tell those things to someone I trust, and regardless of how you tried to go about it, trust isn't something I give to people because they asked for it. Accusing someone of being a spy is far from 'being civil.' You're back on your feet and have the strength to move around, but I want to leave you on the ship when we arrived more than ever right now."

He grabbed the crystal from Adora's hands, turned off the holographic display full of Pip's code and grabbed that too. His hands shook as he reached for each, then he turned and headed for the exit. "Enjoy your meal," he said, just before the door shut behind him.

Adora turned her attention to the platter and three bowls of food Kal had brought her. She almost couldn't believe her eyes. In one bowl sat an entire roast chicken, steam rising from its crispy skin. Another bowl held some sort of rice in a creamy broth. The third bowl overflowed with vegetables. All of it looked delicious, and when Adora took her first bite, an uncomfortable mix of emotions flooded her.

Kal's actions so far contradicted everything she had believed about him. He fought her and stole from her, but had given her the option to walk away first, and then saved her life when she didn't. Then he asked for her help, and fed her when all she gave in return were accusations. Accusations she didn't even feel fully confident in to begin with. Sure, he was definitely hiding things and she most assuredly didn't trust him, but…but what, exactly?

In the midst of all of this, her mind wandered to Catra. She thought of how her old friend had acted to save her life and the lives of everyone aboard Horde Prime's citadel in the months leading up to their separation. She thought of their last conversation.

"So much for being too trusting," she said to herself at some point midway through the meal. "Three years, millions of light years away, and you're still getting my head all sorts of mixed up, aren't you?"