Chapter 7
Adora stared at her blankly but internally she was shocked. What made them think she knew anything of a She-Ra? She didn't even know what that was. What it meant. The longer she was silent, the angrier sparkles got.
"Listen, Horde scum, we've been at this nearly all damn night, you can tell us willingly or we'll draw the truth from your lips by force. Tell us what you know of She-Ra? Where are you holding her?" Adora and Sparkles locked eyes, her simmering with rage, tiredness and frustration. "Why do you look familiar to me?" her teeth were clenched, she had forced the words out between strained teeth.
"This is amazing!" the girl at the computer called out.
"What is?" the woman asked.
"This sword is like a little computer, so much information is stored within it. I can't quite get it all and most of it is in First Ones writing which none of us can read, but the bits and pieces I can get are fascinating!" She seemed overly excited about that. "The sword looks to be infected with some sort of virus, which might explain a few things. I need to keep digging and find a way of stopping the virus."
"Hm." Ice princess stood up, her finger tracing over the green jewel. "As strange as you are, it seems to me that you would know the most about She-Ra, more so than your other teammates."
"What makes you think that?" The scorpion princess said.
"Because this sword," she looked at Adora, "was found to be in your possession." Snowflake went towards her and then bent down to stare at her face up close. "So, why do you have She-Ra's sword?"
She-Ra's sword? What? Poor, little Adora. She had no idea about any of it.
"You can't stay silent forever."
"Maybe she can't speak?" the geek girl said while frantically typing into her computer. The two princesses stepped back and the woman came forward, with a warming gaze, soft and gentle.
She reached a hand out and Adora flinched thinking she'd be hit. But no, her warm hand rests upon her cheek with such a kindness she had never seen before. "Oh, dear child." she made Adora look at her by holding onto her chin. "What has the Horde done to you to make you this way? To keep you silent?" The longer she stared into the gentle grey eyes of the woman, who she assumed was the Queen, she felt more and more compelled to speak. What was it about her that made her feel that way? "We wish only to know about She-Ra. We have information that claims the Horde is holding her, using her. Please break your silence, so you will not have to suffer." She spoke with such a gentle tone.
Adora wanted to speak, for some unknown reason, yet she resisted. And it took a great effort.
"Such a shame." She let go and stepped back. "I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through. I know how the Horde treats my people, how does it treat its own soldiers?" Adora grinded her teeth together. She knew nothing of her upbringing. "Perfuma."
Before Adora could even question what a 'Perfuma' was, sharp stinging pains erupted all over her wrists and legs. Thorns had burst free from the vines. Hot blood trickled down her skin, staining her clothes crimson. Adora screamed. It was a pain she'd never felt before, nor was she expecting something like that. She took many deep breaths, sweat beading down her face.
"Look at me, child," the woman asked, kindly. Adora wanted to resist doing so but she couldn't. Her eyes found that of the Queen and again her tongue itched to speak. "Tell us all that you know of She-Ra." They're going to keep torturing her until she says something, yet the reality was, she knew nothing. It seemed like they knew more than her.
"Nothing," Adora whispered, unable to resist whatever spell she put on her. "I know nothing," she said a little louder.
"Yet you recognise the name," the woman said. "Your eyes sparkled with recognition when we mentioned it. The other's eyes did not. They truly did know nothing, but you have heard the name. You must know something." This was the first she had heard it was even a name.
"That is all I know. The name. Nothing more."
"How did you come upon this sword?" she asked, gesturing to the sword. That same warmth, the light, enveloped her, compelling her to speak. She had thought of a lie to say but when her lips moved, it was the truth that came out.
"It was given to me by Lork Hordak," Adora said. She was ashamed at how she'd disobeyed Catra's orders. She'd never disobeyed anyone in her life and yet here she was, speaking to rebels.
Sparkles scoffed. "She's obviously lying." She still glared at Adora, even from afar. "It's too late at night and I'm too tired for your games!" she shouted at her, getting in close to her face.
"I haven't lied. I honestly don't know anything about She-Ra. Lord Hordak gave me the sword to use in battle," Adora said.
"Wait," Computer geek girl said from the other side of the room, "can you pick this sword up?"
"Uh, yes," Adora answered cautiously.
"Is it heavy?" her long purple hair, done up in two pigtails, moved of its own accord, lifting her mask up for Adora to see her face. Eye's shining dark pink.
"No."
"Oh." She then wrote all of that down, her face the picture of child-like wonder.
"Ugh," one of the princesses said, handing over their face. She must have been the water princess, she was covered in scales, her hair was slicked back, a lovely bright blue. She had on a short top and some trousers, both of which had shell designs on them. Shells and pears. "Entrapta, what does that mean?" she asked, frustrated. Just like sparkles over there.
"Not much, I was just a bit confused. Seen as Frosta reported that the sword was incredibly heavy and she even struggled to lift it onto the table. I, myself, don't have the muscle to lift it. So I'm curious as to why and how it's not heavy for her." Entrapta's hair pointed at Adora. Well, that's weird, Adora thought. Never had hair point at me before.
"Who cares about that tiny detail?" Sparkles said, face grumpier than Shadow Weaver on a good day.
"It's the details that count, Glimmer, pay attention to the small things," Entrapta said, typing away at her computer.
"How do we even use the sword?" Perfuma asked. "Can we use the sword?"
"To activate the sword's magic, there's a password of sorts. I've been trying to figure that out," Entrapta said. "Having downloaded the data from the sword, this same phrase keeps popping up." It came up on the screen. 'Fight for the honour of Grayskull'.
Glimmer took the sword from the table, the tip falling to the ground as she struggled to hold it. "Fine, let's try it then." Glimmer took a deep breath and then said, "fight for the honour of Grayskull!" Nothing happened. Also they had the password wrong but Adora wasn't going to say anything.
A couple more princesses tried but it was no use, the sword didn't activate for them. So why did it activate for Adora? Did Lord Hordak do something with the sword so that it would only react to Adora? She didn't have time to contemplate it. When the sword was placed back on the table, a rush of voices and visions cascaded into her. She cried out from the pain it caused her head, she thrashed around, trying to be free.
"What's happening?" Frosta asked.
"I don't know, I didn't touch her," Perfuma answered. A halo of glowing white light illuminated the dark. A gentle hand on her head made the visions stop, the voices hushed and Adora was left hunched over, gasping for breath.
"I can't see into her mind, not as much as I could the others," the angelic woman said.
"What do you mean by 'see into my mind'?" Adora asked her.
"I can see certain things, images mostly. Not everything, but some things. Like a person's favourite moment. Or their favourite toy. But you are blank. I can't see anything from you," she answered. That was super strange.
"Is that bad or good?" she asked, hoping it was good.
She thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. I don't think it's bad but I'm not entirely sure it's good either."
"We should get back to questioning," Glimmer said. "So, mysterious, unnamed lady. You're from the Horde." She approached Adora.
"Wow, how did you know?" Adora asked sarcastically. The others got a chuckle out of it, Glimmer not so much. She backhanded Adora, causing her lip to burst, blood dripping down her chin.
"I wasn't done. What's the Horde planning?" she asked. "Where are you going to invade next?"
Adora scoffed. "As if I'd know. I'm just a cadet, a soldier. We're given orders and we follow it or be executed. We're told nothing except for those orders. If Lord Hordak tells us to do something, we do it. We don't ask for the context, or why, or what's so important about it. We just do it." Glimmer straightened her back, looking down at her past her nose. "If you want more information you should talk to the Force Captains."
"We already spoke to the Force Captain, she didn't know anything either," the angelic being said.
"Probably because Lord Hordak hasn't given us any information on the next attack."
"She has a point," Frosta said, shrugging.
"Don't agree with her!" Glimmer snapped. "She's lying. She has to know more than she's letting on. About the attacks, the sword and She-Ra."
Adora groaned. "What even is She-Ra? You keep asking me that but I don't know what that is."
"Not what," the woman said calmly. That's something Glimmer doesn't have, calmness. "Who."
"Okay, so who is she?" Adora asked.
"Oh, I'm so glad you asked," Entrapta said, then typed something into her computer. A graphic came up. "She-Ra is a legendary warrior in Etherian folklore." On the screen was a boxy, mural type thing of a woman in a white dress and red cape, a tiara with wings and long flowing golden hair. In her hands was a sword not unlike Adora's, but in different colours.
"How do you not know of She-Ra? Even just as a normal resident of Etheria? Children from all over the place grow up hearing stories of her legendary acts," the water princess said.
"Like I said, the Horde tells me only what I need to know. And they deemed that this was information I did not need to know," Adora answered. She turned back to Entrapta.
"Technically, us as Etherians, we know very little about her ourselves. All we know is that it is her duty to protect Etheria from evil, she is the defender of Etheria and always shows up when Etheria needs her the most," Entrapta explained. "It's said she's a warrior who wields a magic sword, surely you must have seen her murals as you came in? They're all over the walls." Adora wasn't paying any attention to the walls. The graphic on her screen shows the golden girl raising the sword skyward. She clicked a button and the screen went back to showing the data collected from the sword. Words were on the screen, in the form of constellations.
"Frosta, see if you can get her to speak the truth," Glimmer said, slumping over in a chair, so unladylike. Frosta went over and placed a hand over Adora's thigh where frost spread over her skin. It was cold, so cold. She resisted screaming but after a white, the iciness became too painful to bear.
"Speak," Frosta commanded.
"I've told you all I know," Adora said. Frosta's hand tenses and an icicle pierced through her leg. Her throat went raw from all the screaming. Not even the head of her seeping blood could warm her. Her vision blurred, she was lightheaded. Adora leaned back in her chair, sweat pouring from her. Her eyes fell upon the monitor and on it, one word stuck out to her. A word written differently.
"Eternia," Adora breathed and then fell into darkness.
