"I heard you've been trying truth spells on Double Trouble," Adora says to Glimmer, slowly. The air is thick with the tension of past words. Your best isn't good enough. It rings in Adora's ears.
Adora realizes a moment too late that what she said sounds like an insult, a doubt.
Glimmer is… frustrated, glaring, every line of her sharp with tension. Adora knows that look— the one of Glimmer about to snap, maybe shout that she doesn't need Adora of all people to point out that failure, yell about how she isn't perfect so stop expecting that of her—
Adora takes a shallow breath, and before anything gets out of Glimmer, she says, "I'm here to help."
The rage lessens from a bonfire to dull (but still hot embers. "And why would I need your help," Glimmer asks. "You don't even know any magic." Her eyes narrow, and she takes a half threatening, anger-fueled step forward. "Or do you just want to keep me away from Shadow Weaver? Is that it?"
"N-no," Adora stutters at the mention of the name. "I just…" want to offer help in the only way I know how: a tool, a weapon, offer my best even if it's not— "I just thought," she starts, "that if you had someone to test it on, you'll know better when it works."
Adora's eyes trace the ground as she begins to mumble. "I mean, Double Trouble's an actor; they could seem like they were telling the truth, and make it look like the spell worked, and then..." She trails off, and her hands make a vague twisting motion.
Glimmer steps back, standoffish and disapproving— in other words, back to normal. "Fine,", she squints, eyes narrowed, admitting gruffly, "that would be useful."
Useful. Adora allows a small smile, relieved tears faintly pricking at her eyes. That's all she wants to be.
xXx
Adora folds herself to the ground, sitting at rapt attention, looking like the perfect little soldier awaiting orders.
Glimmer, across from her, stares at that posture. It's… inside her, she knows this is Adora's habit, born from the Horde that raised her to obey. At the same time, though… it feels good, seeing her like that. Adora hasn't listened, has been giving orders to her (the queen! The queen!) so seeing her obediently following for once, no protests of it's not safe or what if we do this instead, is… it's nice.
...Glimmer feels a little slimy, thinking that. Another look at the blank faced Adora brings that spark of anger back, though, and it quickly burns off the stinging acid of guilt.
Adora watches Glimmer's spellwork, soaking it up in curiosity as the rune is drawn slowly in the air, calculatedly, swirling circles and marks.
It's beautiful, Adora thinks, she's very skilled. Adora has not the knack for artistry; a brief memory of charcoaled scribbles of two people, one with a jacket smudged bright red with chipped paint of a desk and another with pointed cat ears— looking like it was drawn by a five year old, despite Adora being twelve at the time.
She's distracted enough that she doesn't realize the spell engulfing her until it tingles down her spine.
Glimmer's eyes are nervous, showing vulnerability that Adora has not seen for what feels like forever. "Did it work…?"
"I don't know," she says honestly. "It feels like the spell that was cast on me… in the portal." She refrains from saying the one your dad did, but Glimmer's face darkens anyways. Indeed, the tingle was familiar, and Adora's mouth and mind feel… a little looser.
"I'm going to ask you a question. Try to lie," Glimmer instructs. "What is your name?"
Adora's mouth doesn't work, when she tries— it just gapes around the letters. "L, Lo—" Adora manages, before she doubles over, hands clutching her stomach, and spits out, "Adora."
Glimmer blinks, then cheers, happiness in place of that slow burning anger— for now.
"It worked!" Adora similarly celebrates. She yammers, "I was going to say Lonnie." Adora winces, her stomach twinging, and she quickly, compulsively clarifies, "that's not my name. That's someone else's."
"Indeed," Glimmer snorts, amusement still there at the blunt honesty and clarification. "You don't need to be so surprised at it working, though," she says, a little put out.
Even a lying or misinterpreted impression seems to offend the spell, judging by Adora's next word vomit. "No, no! I'm happy for you, I just know you've been trying and—"
"Yeah, yeah," Glimmer cuts off, amusement returning, albeit the bitterness of past arguments back as well.
"This is weird," Adora says to fill the silence as she squirms. She prods at herself, as though she can poke at the open compulsion itself. "What now? How long does it last?"
"I don't know how long mine will last," Glimmer realizes slowly, "so maybe we should test."
"Good idea," Adora nods, and Glimmer feels that flush of goodness at obedience, as well as something a bit warmer and friendly, that Adora is not lying in saying that. "Uh… ask away," Adora says hesitantly.
"Who's Lonnie?" Glimmer starts.
"Oh, one of my squadmates!" Adora says, excited and grinning. "She could be a raging bull," Adora chuckles, reminiscing the girl's quick temper in a fight, combined with that strength, "but she had our backs. She liked us, even if she never, ever would admit it. Rogelio told me she does, though." Adora pauses. "At least, I think that's what he said."
Glimmer notes the way Adora's face shines with a little sweat, her eyes a little distant.
She's… part of her is a little… she's not sure how to feel. Adora is speaking of the Horde, yet she seems so… fond. Glimmer and Bow— they know next to nothing about that side of her life. Adora doesn't hide her knowledge, giving Horde weaknesses and even sometimes dispensing their mentalities and propaganda (often unintentionally), but she never talks about her own personal life except in vague statements. Catra was my friend, and she's a clever fighter who favors speed. Shadow Weaver is manipulative. The barest of minimums.
Curiosity gets the better of her, and Glimmer prods, "tell me about Rogelio, and the rest of your squad."
"Rogelio is a big lizard," Adora starts, "big and green. There's a lot of 'em in the Horde." Glimmer knows— their land was conquered, after all, leading to conscription. "He couldn't speak Etherian, not like," she taps her vocal cords, "speak it, even if he could understand." Adora makes some crazy hissing sounds, like a rumbling crocodile. "He sounded like that." She giggles, and adds on, "even when he snores. We got used to it, though, bunking with him… it even got to be relaxing." Adora frowns, dazedly sad for a moment, then moves along. "Lonnie understands him best, they're close. Rogelio looks out for us all, though."
Glimmer nods along, bitterness momentarily forgotten as she tries to piece together an image of Adora's Horde life.
Adora continues. "Kyle was there too." For a moment, that's all Glimmer thinks she's going to say; her eyes are distant and her pallor is pale and clammy.
Is the truth spell supposed to do this? Glimmer wonders.
She adds on a little— "Kyle was…" she seems like she's choosing her words, as best she can. "The nice way to say it, the way you'd say it here is not suited for the Horde," Adora explains to Glimmer. "The way we said it was weak." She pauses. "We kept him on the squad, anyways, even if we probably shouldn't've." Looking back, she almost seems befuddled— though maybe more accurately, it's confusion becoming clear, the emotional understanding of the love involved in keeping Kyle on their squad, protecting him.
Glimmer considers asking what would've happened to this stranger if Adora hadn't been kind before she left the Horde.
"And—" Adora frowns, clamping her mouth shut— and suddenly she's sweaty and shaking as she says, "Catra." The word oozes unwillingly from her mouth. "I don't want to talk about that," she chokes, and Glimmer edges closer.
Is this what the truth spell is supposed to do if you try not to talk? She wonders again, unsure. After all, the truth spell is not only a blocker of lies, but also a compulsion to spew all info.
Adora's words keep coming like dry heaves as she curls in on herself. "I miss her," she says, and says it the only way she can: honestly. What follows is a trail of many stories all mashed into a stream— "Catra, who slashed Octavia's eye when her and I stood up to Octavia for her bullying, who snuck me extra food when she felt ill and was hiding it, who slept at the foot of my bed, who I patched up, Catra who I broke the promise of and now she's trying to kill me—"
Adora cuts it off with a simple, blunt statement: "I miss her. I miss them."
Were it a different situation, maybe this wouldn't have even gotten to this point. Maybe if Glimmer and Adora were less tense with one another, Glimmer would've stopped, or maybe wouldn't have left the easy questions of name and color and favorited and least favorites. Maybe it could've turned it into and I share mine - you share yours deal, a mutual give and take of sharing. If Bow were here, perhaps it would have been magically charged truth-or-dare… or he'd at least have stopped Glimmer when Adora had weakly pleaded I don't want to talk about that.
And maybe, at the least, if Glimmer were less tense with Adora, less upset, she would have reacted with perhaps pity, or sympathy.
None of that is the case.
Glimmer is upset with Adora, and she sees these admissions as just another reason to be upset, blinded. The evils of the Horde, Glimmer's own bitterness, her search for issues with the great and mighty She-Ra… they obstruct Glimmer's view.
"You can't miss the Horde," she spits. "We're the good guys, Adora," Glimmer harumphs, glaring, trying to wash away the choked fondness of I miss them and that hurt look in Adora's wide blue eyes. "What you said… it's tantamount to treason." Adora covers her mouth, one hand over her lips and the other braced against her own cheek, running up and down her jawline. Glimmer has noticed that as a nervous habit, though it always seems to distract Adora and serve to make her worse.
"I'm sorry," the ex-Horde member mutters.
Glimmer pulls back. "No," she corrects, "I was… too harsh." She doesn't explain, doesn't say I'm angry because you are constantly usurping my orders, because your best isn't good enough. She's already said that to no change, hence the continued bitterness. "It's not treason to miss family," Glitter says slowly, although she has trouble picturing the Horde in any familial capacity.
"I don't want to not be friends," Adora says suddenly, as she eases herself to the ground, emotionally drained. "I want to be useful." A useful weapon. "I'm not trying to… trying to stop you from anything."
"Except for training with Shadow Weaver," Glimmer points out snidely. She softens a bit, then begins in a mostly genuine tone that comes off as patronizing, "I know it's hard, to not be a favorite, to feel shadowed, but—"
"That's not it," Adora corrects, sitting up quickly, brushing at her sweat-drenched hair. "I'm worried for you."
"I can protect myself," Glimmer snaps, frustrated by this tired old argument.
Adora looks wrung out as she rubs her face. Perhaps under normal circumstances, she would leave it alone, but the truth spell seethes beneath her friend, twitching her mouth open and forcing those words up her throat.
"It's not that, either," she says it slowly, a little rasped. "It's that… Shadow Weaver." Adora's eyes dart around as she pauses, trying to hold the words in order to craft them carefully. "She did… bad things. I don't want you to feel those bad things." Feel like me.
Glimmer's openly curious gaze is enough to make the flood gates open.
"She hurt Catra, even for my mistakes, and made me watch," forces itself out of Adora. And from there, it's another never ending stream of Shadow Weaver's… treatment; the time Adora was isolated for two weeks in the dark she was sick, Shadow Weaver jumping from the dark in a form of training, the pain tolerance sessions, the—
"You didn't say you were abused by her," Glimmer looks horrified. "Adora, I've been letting your— her— oh Eternia."
"It wasn't abuse," Adora corrects, recovering from her panting. She seems confused.
"I'm sorry I didn't— take you seriously," Glimmer hitches, unhearing as she begins to comprehend why Adora was so insistent, Adora's almost extreme avoidance of Shadow Weaver.
"It's fine," Adora shrugs.
Glimmer scrubs her face. "There's other issues, but I should've listened to you," she insists, wiping tears away, then she waves a hand.
The truth spell is removed with that flourish, leaving through a sharp tingling in the small of Adora's back. The relief of that tension sends her slumping.
"I've— I've not been such a good friend," Glimmer admits, slowly. "I shouldn't have let my frustration get to me like that," she crawls over to Adora, "and I should've taken your opinion more seriously, rather than just seeing you as some sort of— competition."
Glimmer pads over on the ground before sitting in a tired criss-cross next to the slumped, sick looking Adora.
"It's what she does," Adora assures, patting Glimmer's leg. "I don't think you were fully wrong. She's here to help, even though she's probably not good," Adora admits.
Adora sighs. "Good job on the spell," she praises, looking tired— and then she slumps over more with a giant yawn, right onto Glimmer, blonde hair flopped over the queen's shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," Glimmer says again, waters of guilt cutting off that unjust acid.
"S'ok," Adora insists, and then she's out, into sleep.
"It's not," Glimmer says slowly, "but it will be."