Thwack!
The blunt staff slammed into Adora's cheek and knocked her off balance. She fell to the ground and growled.
Catra leaped gracefully onto her girlfriend's back. "What's the matter, princess? Can't take me on without your magic?" She launched herself off of Adora and cackled. Adora spit on the ground and mustered up her will, standing in one, smooth motion.
"Two out of three, kitten." She lunged forward with a surprising amount of speed that caused Catra to recoil, barely parrying Adora's strike in time. The feline's eyes went wide at Adora's ferocity as the blonde advanced again and again, two-handed blows threatening to bruise Catra's body if she weren't careful.
"Whoa, what's gotten into you?"
Adora grunted and swung again. "I hate losing as much as you do." She ducked as Catra sidestepped her attack and tried to counter with an overhead strike. "Plus, I don't want to look bad in front of the new recruits."
Catra glanced over at the sidelines, where a number of Bright Moon's soldiers jeered and admired the pair. It wasn't unusual for their spars to have an audience, as Catra was the only person to defeat Adora since before the war with Horde Prime, when the blonde would train and occasionally falter in bouts with General Juliet. These days, Adora's brute force was second to none. Relearning to fight without She-Ra's powers had made her deadly with a staff and twice as bold in combat. As Catra studied the onlookers now, she spotted nearly a dozen newly minted cadets gazing back at the pair in awe. About half she pegged for being Horde defectors, and those faces seemed to stare at her specifically, though she couldn't imagine why. Being the object of their admiration was jarring enough for Catra to drop her right arm long enough for Adora to land a blow against her shoulder.
Catra let out a sharp hiss as she lost her balance. Adora laughed over her. "And that's one for me. Ready for the tie breaker?"
"Princess, uh, General, um, I…" A lanky, dark-haired boy with tan skin approached Adora nervously.
"Just Adora, please." She reached out a hand to Catra, sensing their match would have to be postponed. Catra ignored the hand and made a rude gesture before a rising handspring had her back on her feet.
The boy produced a note and handed it to Adora. "It's a message from the Library, miss, um, ma'am… sir."
"At ease, buddy," Catra muttered amusedly. The messenger took the order to heart, straightening up nervously. "Yes, Security Commander Catra!"
"That's not –" Catra sighed as the boy walked off quickly. "At least he takes orders well."
Adora finished reading the note and turned to her partner. "Sorry, I gotta go see Bow's dads. Another afternoon of translating crystal mining instructions or something… Eh, such is the price of being a preeminent his-tor-IAN!"
"You know the word preeminent but not how to pronounce historian?" Catra crossed her arms.
Adora kissed the feline girl. "Will you be alright alone?"
"Go on, nerdy princess. I'll keep myself entertained." And with that, Catra turned back to the crowd. "Which one of you can fell the Horde's dreaded Force Captain Catra?!" She gave a mock evil laugh, and several hands shot up.
Adora chuckled as she walked away, wishing she could watch the next bout. She glanced back only once and caught Catra diving under a soldier and kicking her into a second attacker. She was outnumbered four-to-one in the training arena and wasn't even breaking a sweat. That was her girlfriend in action.
Inside the Library, Adora worked with Lance and George to translate and categorize various First Ones artifacts. During one of Lance's diatribes on Eternian political theories, she found herself running her fingers over the edges over the artifact shard they'd retrieved months earlier. The faint text shone: In the monthly dark on Eternia's favored, the light shows true.
An idea started to form in her mind.
Lance was still pacing the room. "And it's likely they kept a council of at least –"
"Lance, did the First Ones have a favorite colony?"
He paused mid-thought. "A favorite?"
"Etheria, of course," George answered from behind a stack of books. "It's the reason they installed the Heart here. Some colonies were established just as a show of their might, but Etheria was a planet they considered valuable and inhabitable. Of course, that didn't work out exactly, but…"
"So what's the monthly dark on Etheria?"
The two men glanced at each other. Lance produced a large scroll from a nearby shelf and spread it out on a cluttered table.
"Our fourth moon makes an orbit about the planet approximately every twenty-seven days… But that's one moon…"
"Unless it's not based on our moons' orbits. They would likely still consider a month as a unit of time based on the movement of its moon – or moons – we haven't quite agreed on that one. Plus, who knows how much their moon –"
"Moons!" Lance interjected.
"Or moons, have changed their orbits in the last thousand years."
Adora stood, clutching the shard excitedly. "We don't need to know about Eternia! We just need to know when Etheria is at its darkest."
Lance pulled a second astronomical chart from the shelves. "Twelve new moons on the same night… that we can track." He scrawled furiously on a page of his own notes. George moved to stand behind Lance and corrected calculations as he went.
Finally, the two reached an unspoken agreement. George looked to Adora. "Etheria's darkest night will be in seven months. And if we miss that one, it'll be another fifteen years at best."
Adora held up the artifact again, admiring the shining surface. There was something important hidden in the small object, and in seven months, she would know another of the First Ones' great secrets.