Disclaimer: I don't own She-Ra!

Title: Diamonds really are the way to an enby's heart

Summary: Double Trouble finds a great profit- and friend- in Entrapta. But they can't help but wonder what she's really planning, tinkering away on machines that get bigger and rounder.

...

In the heart of Dryl, the metal and jagged pillars turn into cobblestone and mortar. A bomb shelter, once stocked with nonperishable foods and even a few luxuries- emergency lights, transmitters, a couple ancient bottles of wine. Entrapta is nothing if not creative, however, and such things were whisked away for yet another laboratory; the once-spacious den had been cut in half by a blast shield riddled with First Ones tech, reinforcing the thick glass. Inside the door is a metal pedestal, cradling a sickly green ball of crackling energy.

Entrapta, mask on, carefully turned the power up.

The light fixtures throughout Dryl flickered in and out before settling. Entrapta's power grid was stronger than the Horde's, able to sustain her massive amounts of robots and then some. Even if she blew through all her cells, the emergency power would contain double the potential. Another twist of a knob and it was almost triple its original form, condensed lightning in green.

"Fascinating..." she cooed, flicking her gear off her face to speak clearly into her recorder. "Week two of the Reconstruction Project has shown great strides in progress beyond my first assumptions. What Dryl lacks in advancement it makes up for in sheer tectonic energy, creating enough power to begin our next stage. I should be able to start beta testing within the next month." Entrapta paused, running her thumb soothingly over the stop button. "Should I get my tattoo before or after Princess Prom, I wonder. My attire will hide the wound, but there's always a chance of bleed through. Is it rude to bleed at someone's party?"

"Entrapta?"

Entrapta perked up, smiling at the orb. "Hordak! Come look."

The tell-tale thunk-thunk-thunk of metal boots on the floor signaled his approach. Hordak stood by her side, arms behind his back. It'd taken them time to synthesize proper dye for his hair to return to blue, and even longer for his teeth and eyes to become red. A side effect of his condition, he'd said. Entrapta hadn't pried- not because she didn't want to, of course, but because Hordak had fallen asleep at that point, and she never had the chance to question him after.

"Preparations are going well?" he mused.

"Much better than we anticipated," she agreed. "It seems the planet's boosted magic capabilities has made the process a lot safer, and we need much less power thanks to being outside of Despondos."

A metallic hand touched her shoulder. "You've done well, Entrapta," Hordak praised, thumb rubbing soothing circles. "I knew you could do it."

Entrapta's breathing hitched. She sighed, closing her eyes, and carefully touched the hand on her shoulder. "Did you sleep well, Double Trouble?"

"Aww, and I was doing so well..." they whined, shifting back to their normal form- and voice- as they spoke.

"Hordak isn't one for compliments," Entrapta explained, swinging her legs from her hair-swing. "He believes in me, I know he believes in me, and he knows I know he believes in me. That's enough for us. Besides, his way of saying things is much more refined than that."

"You mean flowery, darling. What is all this, anyway?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Entrapta stared blankly at them. "It's a power source."

"Aw, that's lame. With all the secrecy I expected something more... grandiose." Double Trouble held up a finger. "Uh-uh! Don't tell me. It's no fun if you're all exposition all the time."

"It's not a secret- I mean, I don't mind telling you or anyone else who asks. They just... never asked."

"Then why keep it all cooped up down here?"

She shrugged. "Gives the electricity the quickest path into the ground in case of errors. Or explosions. I'm quite fond of those."

"Still. I like getting the scoop on my own time. Gives me the chance to really work on your character." Blackness surrounded them as they shrunk into Entrapta's form. This was one copy that'd prove to be difficult- Double Trouble could replicate voices, bodies, even personalities, but the power to move hair was beyond them. "FYI I'm going to dig into every personal artifact I can find and luxuriate in the hot goss."

Entrapta blinked down at them, unoffended. "I think we have more in common than I originally thought."

The neat thing about Dryl is that- besides being a monster of rare gemstones- the regular rock was pitch as well. Entrapta rambled on about the reasons while Double Trouble perused the horde of rubies and sapphires.

"What's this about Princess Prom, anyway?" they asked, holding a large ruby to the light. "I thought those only came around once every leap year."

"Once a decade, technically."

"Exactly. It's only been, what, four years?"

"Mermista's invitation said it was to celebrate the end of the war. Oh!" Entrapta clapped her hands together. "Double Trouble, would you be my date? Platonically, of course."

Double Trouble laughed. "Not allowed to bring tall, dark, and grumpy?"

"That rule was written in bold and underlined, so I get the feeling she really wants me to follow it. You should be a far less controversial choice."

They highly doubted that. But it would be fun to freak out the Alliance by chauffeuring around their tech Princess. "Absolutely, darling. But I do want the first dance."

"Fantastic! I'll get our formal clothes made immediately. Do you prefer a dress, suit, or both?" They opened their mouth, but before they could speak Entrapta had clicked her recorder, kicking her feet cheerfully. "Amendment to past log. Double Trouble has agreed to join me in the upcoming dance! This will make things markedly easier for me, as they understand social conventions I don't."

"I'll take both," they replied as she finished. The more fancy clothes they'd get out of this, the happier they would be. "But I'll probably just wear a dress. I wore something a bit more gender-neutral last time, and I love to keep the audience guessing."

"Perfect! I'm going to have a suit prepared. I went in my usual work clothes last time and got a lot of constructive criticism on appropriate dresswear." Entrapta fiddled with a glove. "A shame, really. I do so enjoy the texture of these."

Double Trouble cocked their hip to the side, eyeing up her form. "You're really lucky, you know that? Your purple hair goes with everything. My skintone only really meshes well with blue and orange. Maybe a dull red? Depends on the lighting."

"Would you prefer turquoise or citrine jewelry to go with? I'm bad at colors, but making jewelry is actually one of my strong points."

"Lapis lazuli. The gold accents my eyes."

"Good point!"

They pass an old photo in the hallway, and Double Trouble can't keep their mouth shut about it. "You know, you left me a little gift in your bedchambers last night. An old scrapbook."

Entrapta seemed a bit baffled. "Scrapbooking's never kept my attention. It's so dull."

"Well, less of a you present and more of a family thing, I suspect. It was all about your folks." They ran a green finger down the side of the painting. "Take one and two."

"Oh! Oh, right. That old thing."

"Would it be allowed to ask what happened? Or will I get shanked?"

Entrapta hopped up onto her hair, dangling. "I don't mind, really. It happened a long time ago. My family used to supply all sorts of gemstones across the kingdoms- I've actually got a few theories that Dryl itself was one big runestone at one point, but it either went defunct or simply never held a charge. When the war started up Etheria had bigger worries, so business all dried up. By the time I was born we were land-rich and penniless."

"No offense, Princess," they said, a bit confused. "I meant how they died."

She cocked her head to the side, thinking. "I... don't really know? But context clues lead me to believe that it was either an assassination or some form of suicide ritual. It doesn't seem feasible for them to die the same night any other way, and the coroner refused to tell me. The staff- we had a lot more back then- all argued about what to do with me. They talked about me like I was just a toy to be thrown around. So I thought to myself... aha! I get it now. Human life is relative. And I built take two."

"That quick?"

"Well, I'd been scrounging around the ideas for my bots for a while at that point. I just had to upload parental protocols. But children should not be coding the understanding of robots without a beta tester. I didn't think to address what it meant when I grew." Entrapta casually shucked off her glove. Her hand was remarkably fancy, Double Trouble thought. The metal was oiled and shiny. Each piece tucked into place with almost no sound. "Robots don't understand what losing a limb means. They don't have pain receptors. So when they tried to 'fix' me, they didn't realize what they'd done. I knew then that my experiment was a failure."

Double Trouble struggled to find a proper response to that. Entrapta was glossing over something they didn't doubt was traumatic. Having creatures you created to care for you casually wound you in such a way. But comforting was not typically part of their job description. "Is... that why you want to study me? To cloak that?"

"Mostly," she agreed. "My prosthetics are mainly cosmetic. My hair does most of the work- when my leg is tired, I can walk with it. I use my hair more than my hands to get into tight squeezes and reach higher on my inventions. In a way, my hair is my real assistance device. This is a way of... customizing, I suppose."

They reached out and took hold of her wrist. Entrapta shuddered at the contact but allowed them to carefully trace the patterns of veins.

"And yet," they hummed, "you've still not taken your samples."

Entrapta shrugged. "You've still not accepted your full payment."

She was right. They'd almost forgotten about that.

Author's Note: Princess Prom is gonna be a BLAST for me to write, honestly. But I felt some context was important.

-Mandaree1