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“Pssst. Glimmer.”
Adora poked the sleeping Glimmer in the cheek.
That got no reaction, so she did the most logical thing and poked some more.
“Glimmer, wake up. Time to train.”
“Rrrrgh.”
The sound was somewhere between a groan and a real honest-to-Hordak growl, and immediately Adora was grinning.
“Come ooon.” She wheedled, tone calculated to be way too cheery. “Those bumps and bruises aren’t gonna collect themselves! Up.” Poke. “Up, up, up!” Poke poke poke.
Slowly, grumpily, Glimmer eyelids ratchetted up high enough for her to squint.
“...If you weren’t so cute, you’d be in big trouble right now.”
Adora frowned. Her? Cute?
“I am not cute.”
Being cute was the same as being soft which was the same as being weak which wasn’t allowed in the-
Oh. Right. This wouldn’t be the first time the Horde had been wrong about something, would it.
She gave the idea a try. “Or, I guess I could be cute?” …It still sounded weird.
“Mmm.”
Meanwhile Glimmer’s eyes were falling shut again.
“Adora’s… adorable… Heheh…”
Smiling she snuggled back down into her pillow, asleep in less than a second.
Looking down at the tightly curled, fluffy-haired, determinedly snuggling lump of blankets, Adora decided that whatever level of ‘cute’ she herself might be, Glimmer had to be whole ranks ahead of her.
Glimmer also had no problem going up against giant monsters with nothing but teleportation and a fist full of sparkles, so apparently cute and weak weren’t things that actually had to go together, and cute and badass was a thing that people could be too. Huh.
It was a revelation best saved for later.
“Come on!” Since poking hadn’t worked Adora escalated to shaking Glimmer’s shoulder. “It’s almost dawn! We’re gonna miss the best practice time before the day starts getting warm!”
Instead of doing better than the cheek-poking, operation shoulder-shake just made Glimmer burrow deeper into her blankets.
Adora sat back on her heels. Okay, what was one sure-fired way to wake someone up?
She looked at Glimmer. She looked down at herself.
She smirked.
And then she pounced.
“Get up, Glimmer!” Blankets and bedding went flying. “Get up or your morning shower’s gonna be a dunk in the sea!”
“Gah!”
The bed swung crazily as she wrestled Glimmer, who put up good fight for someone disorientated and undertrained in close combat. Adora had already managed a fully awake Glimmer once before though and could tell this would end the same way.
Unless they rolled right out of the nest-like hanging bed.
“Oops-”
“AAAAH!”
A twist, a flip, a deep bend in the knees to absorb the shock of landing with roughly twice her normal weight, and then Adora was straightening up with a flailing, wide eyed princess bundled safe in her arms.
“Sorry.” She flashed a sheepish smile. “You awake now?”
“I’m awake!” Glimmer yelped. “I’m-”
Her eyes flicked from Adora’s grin to her arms and then back again. Suddenly Glimmer face was a lot redder than it had been a moment ago.
“….I’M AWAKE I’M AWAKE I’M AWAKE! YOU CAN PUT ME DOWN!”
“And you’ll come train with me?” Adora asked hopefully.
Glimmer nodded so fast the sparks in her hair blurred into streaks. “Yeah sure training whatever! I promise I’ll be there, just-”
Dropping Glimmer’s legs, Adora bent a little to make sure her friend could reach the ground.
“-oh.” She blinked as Adora steadied her with one arm. “Right. Thanks.”
She still looked kinda red, though. Cute. It was hard not to give into the urge to poke her in the cheek again.
Adora pulled her arm away to remove the temptation. “So. Training grounds in ten minutes?”
Glimmer nodded. “Training in ten. Just let me get-”
Looking around she spotted the windows, which still looked dark compared to the rest of the brightly lit room.
“-dressed, wait, is it seriously not even light out yet?”
“Ten minutes!” Adora called over her shoulder as she slipped out into the hall. “And if I come back and find you in bed again I really will take us for a dunk in the sea!”
A low Glimmer-growl followed her out of the room. Adora grinned.
Today was gonna be a good day.
“Throw me.”
Glimmer looked at her, then glanced over at the archery field.
“Funny thing, Bow’s not even here and yet I can still hear him telling us this is a bad idea…”
“Ignore imaginary Bow. Throw me instead.”
“I could break you neck.”
“You won’t.” Adora promised with her best earnest smile. “I’ve had people try to actually do that when they tossed me around and look, still zero percent on the broken necks.” She wiggled her held-out hand enticingly.
Still the other girl hesitated.
Which was Adora’s cue to bring out the big guns.
“Come on Glimmer, you know it’d be cool.”
Got her.
“Fiiine.” Grabbing her hand Glimmer sank into a lower stance. “But if you end up dead or injured I’m gonna be pissed at you…. One two three GO!”
There was a tug. Adora flew forward, up and over, gave herself just the right amount of spin-
And landed right behind Glimmer, forearm pressed gently to the princess’s neck.
“Told you not to worry~” Adora was pressed so close she barely needed to whisper, words shivering through short sparkly hair as they rushed past Glimmer’s ear.
Glimmer’s eyes went huge.
“Adora-”
The flush was rising in her cheeks again too, even redder than it had been earlier.
“-You- you have GOT to teach me how to that.”
“Definity.”
With her free hand Adora positioned Glimmer’s over the restraining forearm.
“First try flipping me this way though. If a Horde solider sneaks up behind you then this is the classic grab, and there’s nothing nastier than being taken surprise by someone you were trying to ambush. Ready on three. One, two, three- Oof!”
There was blur of grass and sky, and suddenly Adora was lying down.
“Know what?”
A beaming Glimmer swam into view above her.
“I’m starting to think this might actually be worth waking up at five in the morning for!”
Adora smiled dazedly as she waited for her breath to come back to her. It took a little longer than usual. Maybe because she’d never seen Glimmer looking so happy.
Slumped over the dinner table that night, Glimmer buried her head in her arms and groaned.
“This was the worst day of my life.”
“No it wasn’t.” Soothed Bow.
Glimmer was not soothed. “Yes it was.” Lifting her head she dropped it on her forearms. And then did it again. And again.
“You were fine over at the archery range. You didn’t have to try throwing your friend slash crush while she was whispering taunts in your ear! You didn’t get so flustered that you ended up teleport on top of her while she was trying to teach you how to break a hold!”
“You impressed her! She said she was impressed!”
“I wasn’t supposed to teleport, Bow!” Wailing might have been a bit dramatic but gods Glimmer felt like it. “The whole point was to learn how to fight WITHOUT draining my powers all the time!”
Sighing she let her head fall one more time and left it there.
“I let her down…”
“Hey.” A hand landed on her shoulder as she heard Bow’s chair scrape closer.
“If there’s one thing I know for sure in this world it’s that there is no way Adora could ever feel let down by you. Realistically it’s just not happening.”
Glimmer snorted. “And yet I’m pretty sure that’s what I spent my whole entire day doing.”
“Did she looked disappointed at the end of the training?”
“…no.”
“Did she look super ridiculously happy and make you promise to do the same thing again tomorrow?”
“Yes, but-”
“Is she still grinning now, over an hour later?”
“How would I-” Realization hit Glimmer like a shock of ice water. She jerked up just in time to see Adora stride into the dining hall, the ex-Horde soldier’s normal unease with the room completely upstaged by what was in fact a brilliant grin. “-know. Oh.”
Bow smirked like cat who’d fallen into the cream pitcher. “Adora!” He waved, which was totally unnecessary seeing as they were the only three people in the entire room. “Over here!”
She spotted them and started over, face somehow even brighter than it had been a moment ago.
Glimmer’s heart skipped.
Etheria’s defender sure didn’t look like she’d had a disappointing day.
Sitting up Glimmer tried to cover the fact that she’d just been moping around like an idiot. Her own sudden smile probably helped with that.
“Hey guys.” Sliding into the empty chair next to Glimmer, Adora picked up the conversation they’d left off at the training grounds. “About tomorrow, I was thinking maybe we could try mixing the close-combat stuff with some team mobility. Glimmer- A shorter the distance plus less baggage equals an easier teleport, right?”
Glimmer barely had time to nod.
“So even when you’re away from Bright Moon, if you focus on just moving yourself or one other person and have someone else to act at a distraction, you could save on power and control a whole crowd of opponents even in an open field. You weren’t kidding back in Plumaria!” Adora laughed, happy as a kid at the height of the Moons Celebration. “A few dozen Horde soldiers should be NOTHING once you learn the best ways to hit them!”
“Thanks?” It was the nicest, most strangely worded compliment Glimmer had ever gotten. “You’re, you’re really good at hitting people too. And like, getting thrown without breaking your neck and stuff.”
And THAT was the clumsily most awkward compliment Glimmer had ever tried to give. Not that she’d had much practice…
It still left Adora beaming, though.
Okay. So maybe today hadn’t really be the worst. Maybe, in at least one way, it’d actually turned out to be one of the better ones she’d had in a while.
“Cough.” Came a very fake cough from her other side. “CoughflirtingCOUGH-cough.”
… though it would have been even better if a certain know-it-all childhood friend of hers could have just not.