"I just need to stop by my room for something before we leave," Hawk told Adora.
"Okay," she agreed and they headed toward the guest quarters together, but when they reached his room, she was surprised that he barred her way into it.
"After what your father said, you'd better not come in, just to be safe," he reasoned, but the truth was that he didn't want her to know that he was retrieving her ring. He wanted to surprise her with it once they were at the lake.
"Alright," she agreed thinking that he was probably right.
While she waited, the Sorceress entered the corridor heading toward her own room and Adora couldn't help noticing her tear-streaked face. "Sorceress, are you alright? You look like you've been crying."
Teela Na pasted on a smile, "Just happy tears for my daughter's big day," she lied.
"Oh, good. I was worried that you might have had another scary vision." Adora recalled her mother's suggestion to ask the Sorceress about her future daughter, but hesitated in bringing it up.
"The answer is yes," the Sorceress answered before Adora could ask the question just as Hawk exited his room.
Adora blinked in surprise. "Yes, what?"
"Yes, Sea Hawk will be the father of your daughters."
"Daughters?" Hawk questioned as he and Adora shared a look.
"Yes, twin daughters," she nodded. "But I'm afraid I cannot tell you when."
"Oh," Hawk sighed in disappointment.
"You don't know when?" Adora questioned with a frown, knowing Hawk already wanted a baby.
"When it's meant to happen, it will, but I cannot say anymore. It can be dangerous to know too much about your own future because sometimes to make a prophecy come true, you may inadvertently prevent it from happening or sometimes the reverse is true that attempts to prevent a prophecy from coming to pass will actually lead to it happening."
"Thank you," Adora replied warmly.
"You're quite welcome, Adora. Now, I really must go wash my face. I can't appear at the wedding rehearsal looking as I do now." She hurried off.
Adora breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Come on, let's go get Spirit some exercise.
Adam and Teela were in the sitting room of their new home, sorting through boxes and deciding where things should go.
"Ugh," Teela as she picked up a framed photo. She lobbed it at the trashcan and nodded when she heard the satisfying smash of shattering glass.
Adam jumped at the sound. "What are you doing?"
"Throwing out the trash," she answered.
Adam glanced down and picked through the broken glass, retrieving the photograph. "But this is your class photo from the City of Wisdom. You shouldn't throw that away, especially when you got an award for being the best in your class."
"But look who else is in the picture." She tapped on it. "Right there in the back row."
"Marius," Adam nodded in understanding. "But still, that's part of your achievements. You should keep it."
She shook her head. "I just – I just don't think I can look at it anymore after what happened today. Why did he hate me so much to do what he did?"
"I don't think he hates you. In his own twisted way, I think he believed he loved you."
"No. He couldn't. He called me some horrible names today and tried to destroy my happiness by aligning himself with Skeletor and letting him try to destroy our wedding. A person who loved me couldn't do that to me."
"I think it's me he hated, Teela, not you. He hates me because I have you and he doesn't."
"That's selfishness, not love. If he really loved me, he'd want me to be happy and see that you make me happier than I've ever been in my life."
"I did say it was in a twisted way. I don't think he really knows what love is, only thought he did. Can I ask why you broke up with him in the first place?"
"He treated me like his personal property as if just because I gave him my body, he owned me, but you, you treat me like an equal;"
"You're kidding."
"It's true. He tried to tell me what I could wear, who I could spend time with, he even tried to coerce me into quitting my job as your bodyguard even though he knew how hard I worked to earn that spot. He kept saying it was because he saw the way you were lusting after me. I tried to explain to him that you were just a fourteen-year-old boy."
Adam laughed. "Well, he was wrong to treat you the way he did, but he wasn't wrong about me lusting after you. I was."
"Oh, stop!" she laughed "You were not! You were just a boy then!"
"I'm afraid it's true. You have no idea how often hormonal boys that age have lustful thoughts in their heads." He planted a quick kiss on his lips and grinned at her. "And now I have what I always wanted."
Teela reflected on how Adam had told her that he'd loved her his whole life. "Okay. Maybe you did want me even then, but that still didn't give him the right to try to control me. And you're right, you got what you wanted. I do belong to you now."
Adam looked at her sideways. "I'm so confused now. You dumped Marius because you say he tried to control you and acted like he owned you, but you're perfectly willing to say you belong to me. That doesn't make any sense."
"Let me explain then. I belong to you, not because you own me or control me, but because I choose to give myself to you completely. Yes, I gave him my body once upon a time, but with you, I give my friendship, my hopes, my dreams, my heart and my soul and you give me those things of yourself in return because you also choose to belong to me. The marriage ceremony we're getting ready to rehearse is all about giving yourself wholly to the person you choose to spend your life with. I will willingly do that tomorrow when we exchange vows to be together until we die."
"You seem pretty sure of yourself," Adam said. "You're not even a little nervous?"
"A little," she confessed as she went back to pulling things from boxes. "I didn't really think I would be because I want more than anything to be your wife. But up until now, I've been so swamped with everything leading into the wedding, I haven't really had time to stop and think about what all this means for my future. I was talking to Sea Hawk today about you and your sister and your secret identities and it really hit me then, that starting tomorrow I'll be Teela, Princess of Eternos and people will be looking to me more than they ever did as just Captain Teela of the Royal Guard. And someday, I'll be queen and our children will be heirs to the throne and it will be my job to prepare them for that. It's a lot of responsibility that I'm not sure I'm ready for. I don't know how my father did it all. He always knew I was destined for this and he did his best to train me in every way he could, from working on machinery, to flying, to combat training, to court protocols and-"
"I think we have to just take it one thing at a time," Adam cut off her worried ramble as they continued to unpack. "The big difference is that you won't be doing it alone as he did. You'll have me by your side every step of the way and I'll have you just as we always have." He approached her with a photo album he'd just retrieved from one of his own boxes. "Look at this."
"What is it?"
"You'll probably think this is weird, but it's something I've been putting together for years. It's every picture I could ever find of you and me together going all the way back to when we were babies."
"I don't think it's weird. I think it's sweet actually." She opened the book and on the first page was a picture of her at age two holding a newborn Adam and kissing him on the head. "Look at that, even as an infant, you were getting attention from girls."
He slipped an arm around her waist and said, "The most important girl. You're the only girl I ever wanted attention from anyway." As she turned the page, he pointed at another photo. "Look, that's when you taught me how to use a bow and arrow."
"And five seconds after this picture was taken, you chucked the bow at me when. I told you that you were holding it wrong," she laughed.
She turned the page again and he said, "I love that one when we were taking dance lessons."
"You just liked that I kept stumbling in those damned high heels and crashing into you so you could cop a free feel," she laughed.
"Oh, you mean like this," he moved his hands to rest on her bottom and gave it a gentle squeeze.
She turned to face him and kissed him tenderly. "As much as I love your touch, we'd better not start something we can't finish."
"Who says we can't? We still have time." He nipped at her earlobe. "And there's that great big bed right in the next room."
"You mean the bed that's supposed to be saved for our wedding night?" She pushed on his chest. "I know it sounds crazy when we've already spent several nights together, but I would like to keep it that way, make our wedding night something special."
"You're right," he nodded in agreement. "We should save it and we need to get back to work. This stuff isn't going to do itself."
When Teela put the photo album aside, an envelope fell out of it. "What's this?" she asked as she picked it up.
"Don't open that." He hurriedly took it from her.
"Why? What is it?"
"It's embarrassing, that's what."
"Come on, I thought we agreed to have no more secrets between us."
"It's not exactly a secret. It's just stupid and you'll laugh at me for it."
"No, I won't. Promise."
He sighed and confessed, "It's a love letter. I wrote it to you when I was sixteen right after I became He-Man for the first time while you were off studying in the City of Wisdom."
"You wrote me a love letter?" She smiled warmly at him.
"Yes. I missed you so much while you were gone and I knew you saw me as just your goofy friend, but with all the changes happening to me at the time, I wanted to confide in my best friend, but more than just my big secret. I poured my heart out telling you how much I loved you. But I never had the courage to mail it because I thought you'd just make fun of me."
"Or maybe we could've been together sooner instead of spending another six years dancing around each other." She lightly caressed his face. "May I read it? It was intended for me."
He clutched the envelope tightly and shook his head. "Not just yet. Maybe sometime, but I'm not quite ready for you to see how pathetic I was back then."
"I would never think you're pathetic, but I understand. I can wait."
"Thank you for understanding," he tucked the letter back into the photo album and put the whole thing away, and then turned back to the task of unpacking.
Adam laughed as he opened another box and pulled out a toy spaceship. "I forgot I still had this."
"How could you forget? Didn't you just pack all your stuff this week like I did?"
"Not this one. This box has been crammed in the back of my closet for ages. It's my old toys. I remember playing with this with my mom for hours and she'd use it to reenact the crash that brought her to Eternia and then she'd tell me how my father dug her out of the wreckage. I never got tired of that story."
"I'm thinking that and all the other toys should go in the nursery for our future children to play with. I've got a box of my old dolls around here somewhere too." She glanced around looking for it. "There it is." She grabbed it and said, "Let's get these in there."
Adam hefted his own box and followed her into the nursery next-door. As Teela balanced her box on one arm while using the other to switch the light on, Adam felt a sudden tightness in his chest as he saw the two cradles against the far wall as he recalled his conversation with his father last night. He took a deep breath to ease it, but still found himself feeling a little overwhelmed. He was snapped out of it by Teela.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed as she dropped the box of dolls. "What was I thinking? I can't do this!"
He dropped his box as well and reached for her hands. "Teela, breathe. It's okay, just breathe."
"No, it's not okay! I'm not very good at any of this domestic stuff. You saw how much help I needed just getting my room packed up. There's no way I'm going to be the right kind of wife for a future king. And I don't know what I was thinking when I wanted to have a baby. I can't be a mother. I'm a warrior with no maternal instinct at all."
"Teela stop, you're making yourself crazy. First of all, you seem to have forgotten what my father said earlier, you are the perfect wife for this future king because you're a warrior. I don't want the kind of wife who just sits at home taking care of the house and the kids. I love that you have the strength and skill to fight by my side; that's exactly where I want you. As for having no maternal instinct, you're very wrong about that. As my bodyguard, you've always done whatever you can to protect me, you've taught me things I needed to know to protect myself, scolded me when I needed it to correct my mistakes so I could learn from them. Those are things a mother does too. And you have an amazing heart full of love to give. You're everything I could ever want in the mother of my children and our babies are going to be so lucky to have you. I'm the one who's going to be a disaster."
"What? No, you're not."
"You're not the only one feeling nervous, you know. By this time tomorrow, I'll be your husband and I don't have the first notion of how to be a good husband to you. I'm terrified of letting you down. My father and I had a good, long talk last night and he was telling me about all the things having these babies was going to do to you, all the things carrying twins did to my mother and I've been so wrapped up in my own joy at the situation that I never once thought about you in all of it, just about how much I wanted you to be the mother of my children, how much I wanted you personally. I didn't even think about how you're the one who's going to have to do all the hard work of bringing our babies into the world. We're not even married yet and I'm already failing you as a husband."
"If it's any consolation, I have no idea how to be a good wife to you either or how to be a princess. I may have grown up around the royal family and learned the protocols of the court, but that's a whole lot different than becoming a part of it. Maybe your aunt was right and you should be marrying a real princess, someone who's a girly girl and not a soldier like me."
He shook his head. "No, Teela, you're wrong. For once, I actually agree with my father. We are a family of warriors and you are the perfect princess for me because you're a soldier. Only a fellow warrior could possibly try to understand my role as He-Man and how I have to balance multiple responsibilities. You've done something similar for years as my bodyguard and serving as Captain of the Guard simultaneously. There is no other woman on this entire planet that I would've trusted with my secret." He softly brushed his lips against hers and added, "Besides that, I could never love anyone else the way that I love you."
"I just don't want to disappoint you by being a terrible princess or a terrible wife or a terrible mother."
"Forget about what my bitchy aunt said. She was dead wrong. Look at my parents, my father didn't marry a girly-girl. My mother is the queen and she's a warrior too and a pilot and an engineer and she knows Judo and they have been happily married for twenty-four years."
"I know and I'm trying not to let it bother me, but maybe she's right about the queen stuff. I really don't know what I'm doing."
"Yes, you do. How many diplomatic missions have we been on together? For instance, you were right there by my side helping me negotiate the treaty between the two moon colonies. And in Arcadia, even though it wasn't meant to be a diplomatic mission, it turned into one and together, you and I got Queen Sumana to change her sexist laws and allow men and women to be treated equally. That was a big deal."
"But I feel like there's so much more I need to know."
"I know, I feel that way too, but maybe it's like everything else we've learned throughout our lives; we'll learn it together."
"I love you," she whispered softly.
"And I love you." They shared a soft kiss. "Now, come on, let's get this stuff put away for our children.
Adora and Hawk reached the lake and he dismounted first and then reached for her to help her off Spirit's back. "It's such a nice day." She led Spirit to a grassy area where he could graze freely.
"It's beautiful," Hawk replied as he gazed longingly at her.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Can we sit?" He gestured to the shade of a nearby tree.
"Sure," she nodded and sat beneath the tree while he dropped to the ground facing her.
"Adora, I-" He faltered when he didn't know how to begin.
"You're thinking about it too, aren't you?" His nervous fidgeting was making her nervous too. "What the Sorceress said about our future children."
"No."
"No?"
"No. I mean, yes, I've been thinking about it since she said it, but that's not the main thing I was thinking."
"So, what were you thinking that's got you looking so nervous?"
"I was thinking how much I love you and how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I said I didn't want to do this until after the wedding, but after that big battle today, I realize that I need to do it sooner rather than later because with as much as we're in battles like that at home on Etheria, either one of us could be killed at any time, which makes that whole 'until death do us part' thing seem that much closer and I don't want to die without having some time with you as your husband."
"Does that mean what I think it does? Are you trying to say you want me to have that ring after all?"
He pulled the ring box out of his pocket, removed the ring from it and reached for her hand. "Yes, Adora, Princess of Eternia, will you marry me?"
"Yes!" She launched herself at him, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him firmly. He slid the ring onto her finger and they shared a long, lingering kiss.
When they come up for air, she said, "I love you so much, Hawk and I'm so happy, but I thought you wanted to talk to my father first."
"Oh, I did," he informed her. "This morning. Both of your parents actually and they gave me their blessing to propose to you."
"Even my father?"
"Yes."
"Did my mother have to talk him into it?" she asked warily.
"Not a bit. He said he was impressed by how I met all his challenges."
"Wow, that's wonderful so we have nothing stopping us now."
They cuddled up against the tree. "So about these twin daughters, don't you think it's weird that there are so many twins in your family?"
"I guess I never really thought about it because those things tend to run in families, but you're right. Besides Adam and me, Uncle Stefan and Aunt Leonora are twins and there's Teela, who is carrying Adam's twins."
"And someday soon, you'll be carrying ours." He ran his hand across her stomach.
"Who said anything about someday soon?"
"Well, don't you think that's what the Sorceress meant when she said all that stuff about prophecies and that she couldn't tell us when we'd have our baby girls?"
"No, I thought she was telling us the opposite and not to try to force her prophecy of our twin girls to come true and that she just didn't know when it was going to happen."
"See? I thought she meant that she knew when but wouldn't tell us and was advising us to just let it happen naturally."
"Now, I'm really confused by what she meant, but she always has been a little bit cryptic."
"We could always try to make it less cryptic," he crooned into her ear as he nuzzled her neck.
"With everything else going on, do you really think now is the right time to start trying to have a family? I mean, we only got engaged a moment ago."
"I guess you're right, but I was just thinking about what you told me last night, that our daughter will have your powers – wait, now that we know there are two of them, what does that mean?"
"I don't understand your question. What difference does it make that we'll have two daughters instead of one?"
"What I mean, is how does that work with this Grayskull stuff? Does this mean Etheria will be in even more danger in the future where the planet will need two champions?"
"I just had an even worse thought," Adora exclaimed. "What if our twins end up separated as Adam and I did? There are many more worlds under Horde rule than just ours and until we can get to the source and take out Horde Prime, these wars won't end."
"Maybe that's all the more reason we should have our babies sooner, rather than later since we already know at least one of them will be a powerful warrior like you." He ran a hand through her hair and leaned in to kiss her softly before lowering his lips to her neck again.
Adora sighed at the touch of his mouth on her skin. She shifted into his lap to sit astride him. She kissed him tenderly, but then said in a warning tone, "As much as I love what you were doing, you'd better go easy. I'm still a little blotchy from last night and I'm the Maid of Honor. I can't look a mess at the wedding tomorrow. With the way my dress is designed, there's no way to cover it without a lot of makeup."
He lightly fingered the pinkish spots on her neck. "I'm sorry I did that to you. I guess I got a little more aggressive than I should have, but we just hadn't seen each other in a while and I-"
"I know," she cut him off with a finger in his lips. "You don't have to apologize for it. I loved every second of it." She ran her hands through his thick, red hair and brushed her lips against his while he ran his hands up her thighs to rest on her hips.
"I love you," he said softly.
"I love you too," she replied and was leaning on for another kiss, but they were interrupted by the sound of shouting further down by the edge of the lake.
Adora and Hawk scrambled to their feet and hurried toward the sound.
"Jeremy, no!" Prince Dal shouted at his little brother. "You're scaring him!"
Adora saw that Jeremy was waving a stick at Spirit who kept backing up toward the edge of the water.
"I have to slay the dragon!" Jeremy brandished the stick like a sword while Spirit was snorting angrily.
"Stop it!" Adora shouted at her young cousin. "Leave my horse alone!"
Hawk grabbed the boy around the middle and pulled him away from the stallion.
It's okay, you're safe, she told her horse using her abilities to commune with animals as she cautiously approached Spirit, while speaking soothing words to him in her mind.
Sensing he was calmer, she reached out to stroke his flank, but the horse snorted again in pain. With one hand on the hilt of her sword and one on her horse, she closed her eyes and focused on the calling the power of Grayskull.
Hawk watched in amazement as a glowing light emanated from her hand as she healed her horse.
"That's better, isn't it, my friend?" She lightly patted him and he nickered happily in response.
Now that the potential danger has passed, Hawk released his hold on Jeremy and turned on him angrily. "What were you thinking?"
"I-I was just playing," Jeremy sputtered.
"An angry or scared horse is nothing to play with. You could have been seriously injured."
"I'm sorry," Prince Dal offered. "I tried to stop him." He turned on his brother. "You've been around horses your whole life and you should know better!"
"I'm sorry. I just wanted to have some fun," Jeremy apologized.
"Fun?" Adora questioned, fuming at her young cousin. "You think hitting an animal with a stick is fun?"
"I-I was just pretending like I was fighting a dragon. I didn't mean to hurt him."
"Well, you did and he could've killed you if you'd kept it up."
"Listen, Jeremy," Hawk added in a calmer tone. "I know it's got to be very dull for you around here with you being the only child here in a sea of grown-ups, and being brought here for an event that doesn't interest you, but you must find a safe way to entertain yourself. I don't want to see you or anyone else get hurt. Do you understand?"
Jeremy nodded.
"Jeremy, Hawk's right," Adora said. "You have to find a safer way to play, one that doesn't involve hurting or scaring animals. Why don't the two of you go back up to the palace and have Orko show you some of his magic tricks? That could be fun for you."
Both princes nodded and scampered off.
"Are you sure you still want to have children after that?" She sighed.
"More than ever, because we just showed we can work together to handle a misbehaving child."
"We should walk Spirit back to the stable," she said to change the subject.
"You really don't want children anytime soon, do you?" he asked as they walked back toward the palace gates.
"The truth is that I just don't know how I feel about it. I'm conflicted. I know that I feel much better knowing for certain that you're going to be the father of my future children and from what I just witnessed, I think you'll be a wonderful father, but I'm just not sure I'm ready to be a mother. On top of that, I have no idea how that will work with She-Ra. If I'm hugely pregnant with twins, will she be too? That could easily give away my secret. And how will I be able to fight like that? Adam having a family is different because he's not the one who has to carry the babies inside him."
"I guess I hadn't thought of that. Maybe we need to ask the Sorceress some more questions while she's here." He sighed. "Speaking of She-Ra, what was all that you just did with Spirit?"
"What? You already knew I can talk to animals and that I have healing powers."
"I know, but I thought you could only access those powers when you transform."
"Some powers, yes, like She-Ra's strength and speed, but the more passive powers that require empathy and compassion I can use as long as I have my sword with me to access them. Those things come from within me and my own desire to help those around me, the power of Grayskull simply makes it easier."
"Wow, just when I think I've got this whole thing figured out, I learn something new."
"I know the feeling," she nodded. "I never have understood why I have powers my brother doesn't. He doesn't have those two abilities for instance. But even though She-Ra is strong, he's even stronger and he has the ability to repair broken objects that I don't. For instance, he was telling me about an incident that recently happened when Skeletor broke the dam in the farming community and He-Man was able to repair it just by pushing the broken pieces back together. I can't do that and I don't understand why our abilities are different when the magic comes from the same source."
"It may not be all that strange. The powers the Sorceress has are different from yours as well and her magic also comes from Grayskull."
She nodded. "As for children, I very much do want to have those baby girls with you, but not until I can get some of my questions answered and figure all this out."
"I guess we'll just have to figure those things out together."