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Chapter Text

Sweet

Strawberry is something Adora learns about in Bright Moon. Strawberry, and blueberry, and apple, red and green and crisp and tart and sweet. She barely knew what sweet meant before, it was just a word people used for the vaguely acid-tasting energy-boosting concoction served before a major training simulation, but that was nothing like this, this —

“What is this?” Adora cries, or tries to, but her mouth is full of sticky golden sweetness and her hands might be stuck to her face.

Glimmer grins from across the table, watching the Princess of Power wallow in stickiness. “Honey. Bees make it from flowers.”

“What are bees?”

Pie she learned about in Thaymor, but it turns out that what she had in Thaymor was gooseberry pie and there are other kinds of pie, pumpkin and cherry and shepherd’s and cheese and others, maybe hundreds of others. Maybe thousands. Adora spends an afternoon with Bow, taking notes while he tries to think of them all, and when he can’t think of any more he takes her to meet half a dozen bakers in Bright Moon who are all too happy to smother She-Ra in pie samples. “We didn’t even talk to the palace cooks!” Bow laments as he half-drags her home, blissful and stuffed and spattered with filling. “I have so much to teach you, Adora. So much.”

There are so many things in the world, so many delicious things, and Adora is determined to learn about them all. But nothing can take the place of strawberries. When she makes obstacle courses and training hurdles now, she ties a piece of fishing line from a lamp or a bough and dangles a single perfect strawberry at the end, as a reward.

The taste of strawberries changes through the spring and summer, from tart to sweet to even sweeter (and mushy), but it always tastes like victory.

* 

Soft

Soft means you're getting weak. Soft is what you're called when you're sloppy or sentimental,  vulnerable to the tricks and traps that Princesses use to undermine good soldiers. Softness is the opposite of discipline. It gets you shot, demoted, isolated, pinned. (When Catra had Adora pinned she'd always lean in, smiling with a hint of fang exposed, claws pressing into Adora's belly, stopping just short of tearing through skin. Not going soft on me, are you? she'd always tease. An insult, a joke. But sometimes Adora can't help but wonder if even then, somehow, she'd known --)

(Glimmer's hands are soft, smooth where Adora's are callused, and she punched Shadow Weaver in the face with a bare fist.)

*

Free

Before Adora ever saw the Horde as evil, she saw it as a bastion of Order. (And they're not the same thing. She refuses to believe that they're the same thing. Having a well-thought-out organized battle plan is not evil, and the firebombing of civilian homes so that the flames catch nearby greenery and reduce whole intricate ecosystems and swaths of forest to ash is not orderly.)

Life in the Horde was certainly ordered, organized. You knew when to go to sleep and when to wake up, when to eat, when to run, when to fight. Everything and everyone in its place. Aside from limited simulated tactical decisions (advance/retreat; stealth approach/frontal assault; acceptable casualty ratios), it was possible -- even encouraged -- to live for weeks and months in the Fright Zone without thinking at all.

In the forest Madame Razz says "Nobody is going to make this easy for you, dearie," and Adora thinks sometimes that it's the closest she's heard to an accurate mission statement for the Rebellion. In Bright Moon there are no schedules, no simulations, no alarms. They barely even have clocks. Nothing is commanded that could be decided by committee, and everyone just comes and goes as they please. It's called "freedom". 

"Freedom" isn't just disorganization, she knows that. There's something else underneath it, something that Glimmer and the Queen talk about like it's too big to be contained in one word, something that Adora doesn't quite grasp but that feels empty and uncaring and dizzingly vast, like the sky at evening. Something as insubstantial as air but deep enough to drown her. She knows she's supposed to like being free. She isn't sure yet if she does, or even if she can.

Since swearing allegiance to the Rebellion Adora has received exactly one iron-clad order, one imperative command. "Because I greatly love my daughter, I am willing to give you a chance," Queen Angella said. "Do not disappoint her." 

Not much of a mission directive, but it’s something. Somewhere to start.

*

Soft, Part II

The first time Adora climbs into Glimmer's bed, it's because she's destroyed hers. The second, third, and fourth times, it's because being kicked in the shins periodically is better than lying in that gigantic bare room alone, and Glimmer's faint whistling snores are much more soothing than the unchanging tinkling music of the waterfall.

(It's also because sleeping in Glimmer's room is probably less weird than the only other way to get comfortable that Adora can think of, which would be to climb out her tower window every night and sleep on the cold, hard ground like a proper soldier.)

After that first time, Glimmer isn't even surprised to blearily crack one eye open and see Adora next to her. Usually, she grumbles something unintelligible and goes back to sleep. It isn't even until the fourth or fifth time that she wrinkles her nose in confusion and says, "How do you keep getting up here, anyway?"

Adora rests her hands behind her head and stares up at the crystals hanging from the ceiling. "I climb."

Glimmer snorts without opening her eyes. "Since when're you so good at climbing?"

"Well, Catra's the best climber in -- that I've ever seen, and she liked to…hang out in high places." It feels like betrayal, talking about her, but Adora figures she's got to get used to that feeling sooner or later, and Glimmer's probably too drowsy to read much into it anyway. "I got a lot of practice."

Glimmer doesn't answer. The silence stretches, and guilt rises from a cold hollow in the pit of Adora's stomach to gnaw at her heart. "Are you, is that -- I mean -- is this okay?"

"Hmm? Sure." Glimmer yawns, stretches and rolls over, tucking herself against Adora's side. "You're warm," she mumbles, and then she's out again, snoring.

Nothing in the Fright Zone is soft -- it's all lean muscle, metal, horn and bone. Even Catra's mane, when she used to let Adora get close enough to touch it, was bristly and coarse. Another line of defense against the world.

Glimmer's hair is like a cloud. Glimmer's head is resting on Adora's chest, and Adora can feel it brushing her cheek -- it's not just sort of like a cloud, but like an actual cloud, the kind she's touched from Swift Wind's back, so fine and fluffy you can barely tell when you're feeling it and when you're not. She can feel Glimmer's body pressed up against her, so completely relaxed that it's terrifying. This is what the Horde always meant when they sneered about soft -- vulnerable, defenseless. The Horde could attack right now and Glimmer would be taken unawares, utterly destroyed. She has no armor, no weapon. She couldn't wake up fast enough to teleport to safety. The only thing that could possibly save her is Adora, and that's no guarantee. What if Adora really was a dedicated Horde soldier? What if she'd been playing a long game this whole time, getting close to the Rebellion just to betray them? What if Shadow Weaver gets into Adora's mind? Glimmer wouldn't stand a chance.

Adora's heart is pounding so hard she's surprised it hasn't woken Glimmer up, but she doesn't dare move. It's foolishness for Glimmer to let her guard down this way. She's a Commander, a warrior, she should know better. Sleeping in a room with someone else is one thing but this total trust, this snuggling is unconscionable, it's --

-- it's the most comfortable Adora can ever remember being in her entire life and it's causing a strange warm fizzy golden feeling in her solar plexus that she doesn’t trust and she never wants it to stop and that's no excuse!

Eventually Adora falls asleep, lulled by Glimmer's snores, and wakes up feeling the best she has maybe ever. Clearly the whole subject of softness and weakness and trust is a lot more complicated than anyone at the Horde ever realized.

Obviously. Honestly, at this point, she doesn't know why she's even surprised.

*

Bright

Glimmer charges with a roar, staff swinging, and disappears. Adora's already turning to catch the staff coming down at her head from six feet above and two feet behind. With her free hand she grabs Glimmer's ankle and flings her to the left. Just before she hits the ground, Glimmer vanishes.

Adora backs up slowly, heavy practice sword sweeping in a wide arc. The attack could from any --

For a moment Glimmer's right in front of her, one hand full of blinding light and the other wielding the staff like a spear. Jab, parry, dodge, blink and Glimmer's gone. A flash to the right; Adora spins and knocks the staff away before it can jab her shoulder. Blink, gone. Adora's heart is pounding, the roar of the waterfall so loud in her ears she almost doesn't hear the grunt as Glimmer appears again, behind her this time. The clack of sword and staff raises a cheer from Bow on the sidelines. Blink, spin, parry, leap, blink --

-- a burst of displaced air and the staff is swinging down to knock Adora's knees out from under her. She clears it, but while she's looking down Glimmer grabs her wrist and the world dissolves in a rush --

-- they're falling from the top of the waterfall, the crash of it deafening, Bright Moon spinning, water and sky changing places with a dizzying speed that tears a shriek from Adora as Glimmer lets out a whoop of excitement --

-- cold clear water engulfs her, like a tidal wave from every direction at once, pushing the breath out of her lungs. In the heartbeat before she tries to breathe, Adora has time to see terrified minnows darting away and Glimmer's face, grinning up at her from below --

-- and they're back on the field, dripping and coughing, drenched in lakewater. Glimmer lets her go and falls back onto the grass, laughing. "See? Told you I could take you!"

Adora lets the sword fall from her hand and peels off her soaked jacket, collapsing with her. "That was amazing! Teleporting into the lake --"

"It's like you said, use the environment to your advantage, right?"

"And you were so fast!"

"Well, we can't all be eight-foot-tall hunks of solid muscle," Glimmer says, but she sounds smug.

Bow is jogging toward them from the other end of the field, waving two flags, one with Glimmer's face painted on it and one with Adora's. He'll get to them in a minute, but in the meantime Adora stretches, letting the sunshine warm her.

Glimmer tries to stand, but huffs out a breath and sits down again. "I'm fine! It's fine," she says quickly as Adora reaches to steady her. "That was just -- a lot of teleporting. I'm fine, look." She summons up a half-dozen pearls of solid light and starts linking them together. "I've been practicing," she says, and leans over to set a glowing diadem in Adora's damp hair.

Glimmer conjures up another diadem for herself, and by the time Bow gets to them she has one for him, too. "You honor me, my lady," Bow says, formal as any prince, then grins and tackles Glimmer. She flails at him, then teleports three feet away, laughing as he falls facefirst in the grass.

The spray of the waterfall turns the sparkles in her hair to flecks of rainbow. Adora closes her eyes and she can still see it, more perfect than any training sim; the Princess, crowned in light.

Chapter Text

Wild

"We first noticed them after you left," Princess Perfuma says. "I showed Bow a clipping at Princess Prom, and -- well, things got a little hectic after that, of course. But he said you'd want to see them. Over here!"

The Horde's Plumerian installation is overgrown now, nothing left but tumbled piles of mossy stone and vine-strangled hunks of twisted metal. Perfuma pats the rusted shell of a toxic waste tank as she passes. "The plants wanted to totally obliterate it, but I didn't let them. It's nice to have something to look at to remind you of vanquishing your enemies! But you know all about that, don’t you, Adora?"

“Uh. Sure,” Adora says. Her foot connects with something solid that clanks, and a Horde helmet rolls away into an exuberant rosebush. The insignia is battered but visible, and the all-environment-proof containment visor is shattered, pierced by some kind of tough woody stem.

“I find nothing enriches the soil quite like victory. This way! Oh, careful,” Perfuma adds to Glimmer, who’s engaged in a spirited tug-of-war with a toothy pine shrub that’s taken an interest in her cape. “They’re easily excited, having bloomed in battle and all.” 

Bow leaps to Perfuma’s side, bending back another shrub to clear her path. “I love what you’ve done with the place.” He flashes a smile back over his shoulder. “And you guys are going to love —“

“Aha!” Perfuma stoops and sinks her hands into the matted tangle of vines that cover what Adora recognizes as the remains of a weapons control panel. Where there used to be an indicator light for the external defense grid, now there’s a stem like the ones she’s seen on every flowering plant they’ve passed since they got here. Then Perfuma tilts it so that it catches the light, and something glints along the surface; twisting veins of glass, woven in among the ordinary wood and greenery.

“Hang on, let me see that,” Adora says, already reaching for it. The smooth strands are cool against her fingertips and the glass isn’t clear, it’s a bright unnatural yellow-green, the same shade that tinted the visor she just kicked into the bushes. “This comes from the Horde’s armor, this color —“

“The plants are taking it up and using it! I’ve never seen anything like it before!” Perfuma coaxes aside a clump of vaguely apricot-like fruits and shows Adora the stem they’re growing on; it’s veined with steel. “And you haven’t even seen the most wonderful part!”

“Found one!” Bow shouts from off to the left, in a grove of miniature smokestacks that are growing into trees. He trots out to join them, holding something in his cupped hands that flashes and glows. “Look, Adora!”

She looks. The thing in Bow’s hands looks at first like the bizarre offspring of an acorn and a stun gun’s power cell, rounded at one end and flat on the other, covered in a fibrous dark green skin. Set into the skin are irregular diamond-shaped patches of light, changing colors like the beat of a heart, red, pink, purple, blue.

Bow drops the odd thing into Adora’s hands, and she’s so busy examining it that she barely notices his grip on her elbow, towing her into the grove. “Look,” he hisses in her ear, and she looks up at the close, gloomy space under the canopy, at the stems climbing all around, twining and twisting, glinting in the light of dozens of berries flashing their simple color patterns over and over again, half orderly machine, half riotous life.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Perfuma sighs. “There’s never been a plant like this before! And it wouldn’t have happened if the Horde hadn’t come! It just goes to show, the universe is never really completely against us. There’s always a wonderful surprise in store. I call them She-raberries!”

“I voted for Adorapples, but, you know, she’s the Princess,” Bow sighs.

A faint pink glow announces Glimmer, arriving thorn-gouged and capeless. “The Horde made these?”

“Nature made them!” Perfuma says proudly.

“Not the Horde or the Rebellion,” Adora says, and realizes she’s grinning. “Something different. Something new.”

 *

Affection

"There she is," Bow says, propping himself on one elbow and waving up at the two sparkling silhouettes stepping out of the palace into the brilliant afternoon sun. "Hey, Glimmer! Over here!" 

Glimmer waves back, then turns to her mother, who bends forward to embrace her. Glimmer squirms, and the Queen laughs, her wings lifting as she presses her lips to her daughter's forehead. She's still laughing as Glimmer teleports away. Adora can't remember the Queen ever laughing before. It's nice -- like hearing the bells ring for a festival.

"Ugh, I hate when she does that," Glimmer announces, flopping onto the grass next to Bow. One hand scrubs fruitlessly at the faint glowing mark on her forehead. "It's so embarrassing!"

Adora thinks about it, then asks, "Why?"

Glimmer sits up and filches a chestnut from the small pile Bow is determinedly cracking open with a spare arrowhead. "Why what?"

"Why is it embarrassing? Does it imply that you're weak?"

"No, not really, I guess, it's just that I'm not a little kid anymore, you know? And she never cares that half the Rebellion is watching, I'm a Commander--"

Bow rests a hand on Glimmer's shoulder, cutting her off, and narrows his eyes at Adora. "Hang on. Adora, do you know what a kiss is for?"

"Ye-es…? Uh. No? Not really." 

Bow gets that look on his face again, the one that's equal parts suffering and determination -- like when he found out she'd never danced, or had a birthday, or had her hair braided. "It's for people you love. To show them that you love them."

Well that clears up some things, at least. "Oh. That's why you kissed Perfuma? To show her you…love her?"

Glimmer whips around to Bow, eyes wide. "You what? When?"

"I kissed her on the cheek, at the Ball," Bow says hastily.

Glimmer flops back down with a sigh of relief.

Adora glances at her uncertainly. "Is that different?"

"There are lots of different kinds of kisses," Bow says. "You can kiss someone on the hand, like a Princess, to show you respect them, or that you're happy to meet them. Kisses on the cheek are for friends and family, and if you like someone -- uh -- like-like them, then you can…" he takes in Adora's riveted but uncomprehending stare, glances at Glimmer, sees that she won't be any help, and gives up. "You know what? We'll… talk about that when you're older."

Adora blinks. "Okay. Then what's it mean when you kiss someone on the forehead?"

"It means that… you care about them very much. And you're going to protect them. Take care of them. Like Queen Angella does for Glimmer."

"Oh," Adora says.

Glimmer has an entire campaign against the Horde to re-plan, and she completely forgets about that conversation until, a week later, she turns a corner on her way to the morning strategy meeting and bumps into Adora coming the other way. "Sorry," she starts to mumble, still half-asleep, and tries to move aside, but Adora’s still there. Then Adora's hands are on her shoulders, which wakes her up at last, and she starts to say "What are--" but before she can finish the question Adora leans down and brushes her lips against Glimmer's forehead. It's a brief kiss, efficient and precise like everything Adora does, and it starts a roaring in Glimmer's ears that doesn't subside until she's sitting in her Council chair fifteen minutes later, face hot, heart hammering against her ribs, bewildered and dizzy.

Adora takes her usual seat and applies her full, solemn attention to the meeting, just like she always does. Glimmer glances helplessly at Bow, slumped over in his chair with his chin resting on his folded arms, looking about as gobsmacked as she feels. She can practically see the hearts shining in his eyes.

"You too, huh?" he murmurs. "She got me in the stables. She kissed Swift Wind's horn."

"Of course she did," Glimmer sighs, but she can't stop smiling.

 *

Imagination

The crystals hanging from the ceiling of Glimmer's room bob very gently back and forth in the cool breeze from the open window. Adora watches them swing and spin and gleam, unsupported in space, each alone but all together almost seeming like dancers in a wide, slow pattern that goes on forever. It almost reminds her of --

Something ancient. Something lost.

She lays back on Glimmer's bed, hands tucked behind her head. "Those crystals, what are they for?"

Beside her Glimmer stirs, grumbles, looks up. "They're not for anything, they just look pretty. What are you doing in here?"

"I couldn't sleep." There had been crystals hanging in Adora's room, too, but she took them down. The way they winked and glittered reminded her too much of the cold eyes of bots and shadowspies hovering over her in the night.

Glimmer shoves her head half-under a fluffy pink pillow. "Adora, it's barely even sunrise. Go punch a tree or something, I'll see you at breakfast, okay?"

"I already ran the obstacle course in the courtyard twice and did some diving practice with Swift Wind. Your mom told me to stop punching trees, apparently they're all super ancient and sacred or something. You should really talk to her about putting signs up. I mean, how are people just supposed to know something's super ancient and sacred if there's not any documentation?"

Glimmer pulls the pillow off her head. Her eyes are narrowed, not so much concerned as suspicious. "Are you okay?"

“I’m fine.” It’s even mostly true.

Glimmer considers, then flops back down with the deep resigned sigh of someone who isn’t getting any more sleep this morning. The silence spreads over them like a blanket, soft and close. The bed itself rocks gently, like a rowboat adrift in a calm clear sea.

“That one looks like the Moonstone,” Glimmer says at last. She points to one roundish whitish crystal, one of the ones nearest the window. “When I was little I used to imagine they were all Runestones, and make up stories about their Princesses and kingdoms. It was silly,” she adds hastily. “You know, normal dumb kid stuff. Uh, well — maybe you don’t know. I just meant —”

“What kind of stories?”

Glimmer glances sidelong to see if she’s serious. When she sees that Adora is wide-eyed and enraptured by possibility, Glimmer’s embarrassment softens into something else, something Adora doesn’t have a name for. “Happy ones,” she says. “Monsters attacked, but the Princesses fought back and always won.”

Adora nods. She understands war stories. “With Commander Glimmer leading the charge?”

“Sometimes my mom helped! And sometimes —“ 

She stops before she says my dad, and instead shifts a little so her hand brushes Adora’s. “I guess you never had bedtime stories in the Horde, huh?”

The memory somehow seems hard to dredge up, like it's farther away than it should be, like it wasn't only a couple of months ago that she had lain awake like this in the barracks, in the gloomy green-paneled dark, whispering with Catra and the others late into the night. “We had stories. About winning battles, what it would be like on active duty.”

Maybe hearing something in her voice, Glimmer rests her hand over Adora's. It's a light touch, but strangely grounding. “Our stories weren't that different, then, I guess.” 

“I don’t know,” Adora says. “Tell me one of yours.”

The suspicious sidelong glance again. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

Adora frowns, puzzled. “Why would I laugh? Is it funny?” 

“No! No, it’s — okay.” Glimmer points up at a thin spiral of gold glass, now infused with the pink blush of dawn. “That’s the Sunstone. It’s at the heart of the Golden Mountain, where the Princesses ride dragons…”

Adora listens, and watches the crystals catch the light.

 *

Home 

“Adora,” Queen Angella says. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

The Queen, Adora’s learned, has a disconcerting habit of dropping suddenly out of the sky, soft and silent as a dandelion seed, only to loom over you with all of her centuries of wisdom and presence. Even in broad daylight, in the middle of the half-repaired village, she somehow manages to maintain the element of surprise.

Luckily, Adora was raised by a terrifying sorceress who could emerge silently from literally any shadow. That experience is all that saves her from dropping a boulder on her foot with an undignified yelp in front of half the Rebellion. (Someday, she vows to herself, she’ll serve a commanding officer who actually makes noise.)

She-Ra carefully sets down the heavy rough-hewn block of stone she’d been carting on one shoulder and snaps to attention. “Ma’am! Your Majesty!”

“At ease,” the Queen says. She-Ra lets fall the salute. The Queen smiles faintly. “All the way at ease, if you don’t mind. I’d prefer this talk to be less…professional.”

“Oh. Uh, yes, Your Majesty.” Adora draws in a breath, letting She-Ra fall away on the exhale. She’s used to the shift in perspective that comes with the change, but she always misses that extra two feet of height and muscle in the presence of the Queen. It makes her feel more secure.

Angella rests a hand on Adora’s shoulder. “Walk with me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Adora falls in step with the Queen’s long stride, heading west towards the new defensive wall that’s rising from heaps of piled stones. “The rebuilding’s going well, Your Majesty. A lot of homes have been destroyed, but there are enough structures standing to house almost all the villagers, and we can take the rest into the parts of the palace that weren’t crushed —“

“I’m aware of the state of the reconstruction,” the Queen says gently. “I came down here to thank you, Adora. It’s been brought to my attention that I haven’t yet done it properly.”

“You did after the battle, Your Majesty, and anyway you don’t need to — as She-Ra and a sworn member of the Princess Alliance, it’s my duty to defend kingdoms from the Horde —“

“Not for your part in the battle, although we are immeasurably in your debt for that as well.” The Queen’s gaze grows distant, and though she hides it well it’s clear she’s seeing a darkness past the rubble and crowds. “I never thanked you for bringing Glimmer back.”

A pause. At last Adora says, “You shouldn’t. It was my fault she got captured in the first place, ma’am.”

“Really? All the reports I received indicated that you made every effort to stop the Horde’s plot at the Ball, even before you knew what it was. Glimmer is in danger from the Horde every day, Adora, simply by virtue of being my daughter.” She hesitates for a moment, then adds quietly, “That’s why I’m fighting this war. So she can finally be safe.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I find that assigning blame is rarely productive in these matters,” the Queen says, which is so far from Shadow Weaver’s command philosophy that to Adora it sounds faintly ridiculous, like so much of the Rebellion’s optimism and sparkles. “You told me that you would bring her home, and you did. Your service to Bright Moon and the Rebellion has been extensive, but for that act above all else you have my personal gratitude.”

Adora remembers the question Will you vouch for her and take responsibility for her? answered with a ringing Yes!, and she remembers waking in terror on the peaceful shore of Mystacor with a soft voice saying Right here, Adora, and she says, “Your Majesty, I — you don’t have to thank me. She’s my friend. I’ll do everything I can to protect her, no matter what happens.”

“I know it,” the Queen replies. “And I want you to know, Adora — Adora the former Horde soldier, not She-Ra the legendary warrior — that as long as there is one stone standing that can be called the Kingdom of Bright Moon, or one soldier living in a Rebellion that I command, you will have a place with us.” 

Adora starts to stammer an inadequate response, but before she can put her protest into words the Queen stops and turns to survey her, hands on her hips, wings akimbo.

It’s barely perceptible, but she’s smiling. “Glimmer is impulsive, but she’s never been a fool,” the Queen says. “Her father was the same way. I think one of the wisest things she’s ever done was bring you home.”

*

Weakness

“Found her!” Glimmer calls as she pushes aside a pile of rolled-up moth-eaten old tapestries. Adora groans as the light creeps into her nest. Then Glimmer’s hand closes around her wrist, her entire body flushes with a buzzing pink warmth, and she’s sinking into the familiar softness of Glimmer’s bed, where she can choose between lying still or falling twelve feet to the flagstone floor.

Glimmer probably wouldn’t let her hit the floor, but that’s not the point. Adora lies still. Just to be sure, Glimmer sits on her.

Adora shifts a little and sighs, closing her eyes against the pounding ache in her head. Her throat feels like it’s been chewed on by First Ones security spidercrabs, but she makes a valiant effort. “Physical displays of weakness —“

“Were discouraged in the Horde, I know,” Glimmer says. “Was being a total numbskull and thinking you could hide on the enemy’s home turf not also discouraged in the Horde? Cause your hiding spots are terrible. I’ve been teleporting around this castle since before I could walk, I know it better than you ever will.” 

“Oh,” Adora croaks, realizing that Commander Glimmer of the Rebellion has also been through (probably less ruthless than Hordak’s, but still war-oriented) combat training, spurred on by her need to prove herself to a mother worried for her safety. Really, it’s a wonder Adora managed to evade capture as long as she did.

There’s no shame — well, not much shame —in admitting defeat by an opponent as stubborn as Glimmer. For the first time since she started getting sick two days ago, Adora lets herself relax.

Perhaps sensing the change, Glimmer strikes. She tugs the Sword of Power out of its sheath and tosses it over the side of the bed. Adora yelps and tries to reach for it, but she’s too weak to throw Glimmer off and too dizzy to move much. She winces as the sword clatters to the floor.

“It’s fine. Bow will get it,” Glimmer says, sounding remarkably unconcerned about an artifact that could determine the fate of all Etheria. She brushes her fingertips against the back of Adora’s neck, then presses her palm to Adora’s cheek. “Why are you still so hot? Mom said the fever shouldn’t last that long, and it’s been days! They should be here by now, I told them I’d bring you here, I don’t know what they think is more important —“ 

The door bursts open. “Glimmer! I brought your mom — hey, is the sword supposed to be down here? Cause I almost tripped over it, that’s super dangerous. Do we need to have the sword safety talk again?” 

Adora squirms over to the edge of Glimmer’s bed and peers down at Bow, who’s cradling the sword in his arms. “Hey, Adora,” he calls. “How do you feel? You look…really, really tired.”

Adora tries to answer, but her breath catches in her throat and she coughs instead, a harsh, racking spasm. The weight on her back disappears as Glimmer scrambles off and pulls her up, letting Adora’s head rest on her shoulder. Weak, Shadow Weaver’s voice hisses deep in Adora’s mind, and she wants to pull away, but she is weak. Leaning on Glimmer is the only way to stay upright, where her chest doesn’t ache so badly. 

The soft sound of wings fills the room, and the bed shifts and settles. Adora looks up blearily and blinks at the dimly glowing purple silhouette of Queen Angella’s face, and the white halo of her wings.

Adora feels Glimmer’s arms tighten around her, as though to protect her. “She’s not getting any better, Mom! You said she’d get better!”

“Hush, Glimmer.” The Queen’s cool hands cup Adora’s face. “How do you feel, Adora? Tell me the truth.”

The truth. Weak, Shadow Weaver sneers, pathetic, useless vermin, but that’s no excuse to disobey a direct order from a commanding officer. “Tired, ma’am. Your Majesty. Very tired, and achy. And cold.”

“Cold? She’s too hot! We have to do something! If you let me take her to the Moonstone, maybe it could heal her — it always works for me! We can’t just sit here and let her keep getting worse!”

Gently, Queen Angella says, “The Moonstone can’t help Adora fight this illness. It replenishes your energy because you, as my daughter and the Princess of Bright Moon, are attuned to it. There’s nothing it can do for Adora.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Glimmer demands. “We can’t do nothing! The Rebellion needs She-Ra, and I —“ she breaks off. Adora looks up and sees her angrily wipe away tears. “I can’t just sit here and watch her die!” 

“She’s not going to die.” Queen Angella rests a hand on Glimmer’s shoulder. “I know how frightened you are, Glimmer. I used to feel the same fear when your father would get ill. But mortals are stronger than we give them credit for — and I’ve rarely seen anyone, mortal or immortal, stronger than Adora.” Queen Angella gives her a reassuring smile. “My healers assure me this is a minor illness. All she needs is rest.” 

“Tell her that!”

“Adora,” the Queen says in what Adora is coming to think of as her Royal Voice. “When you pledged your allegiance to the Rebellion, Glimmer vouched for you and took responsibility for you. As your Queen and Commander, I am ordering you to keep her informed of your whereabouts as long as you’re ill. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Adora croaks.

“Good. No more hiding,” the Queen commands.

No more hiding. Adora closes her eyes to keep from getting dizzy as the bed rocks with the Queen’s departure. She gets dizzy anyway, the world tilting and spinning as Glimmer aggressively tucks blankets around her, and Glimmer and Bow talk quietly somewhere close by and a cold damp cloth touches her forehead and her neck, easing the edge of her throbbing headache. She opens her eyes sometime later to see the room dimmed, and Glimmer sitting beside her, reading by a soft pink glow. 

She must have made a sound, because Glimmer looks down and in a voice heavy with something she can’t name says “Rest, Adora.”

“Kay,” Adora rasps, and the pink glow lights her way down into the dark.

Chapter Text

fire, flames, excessive heat

The air gets hotter and less breathable the farther down in the Fright Zone you go, as the cold surface breeze dies like a trapped bird in the stairwells and corridors. In its place rises exhaust from the vast underground engines that run every aspect of Hordak’s great machine. When she was a child, Adora sometimes used to think of the entire Fright Zone as a single animal — a massive dragon, asleep, but still moving the skiffs and keeping the Black Garnet lit with its warm, smoky breath. She used to imagine herself curled up in its heart, safe behind its metal scales, protected.

Being force-marched into the Black Garnet chamber with the pinpoint agony of a stun baton crackling against her spine, she doesn’t flinch at the engines’ rumbling exhalations against her skin or the hot pulse of the Black Garnet itself, red and raw and painful like a heart ripped out. She grits her teeth and imagines a sword sinking into that heart, and imagines that the hand on the sword is hers, and that grim satisfaction drives her right up until Shadow Weaver’s dark fire sears her brain to ash.

When she wakes the hand on her cheek isn’t burning; it’s soft like water, cool as moonlight. The dark voice of Shadow Weaver’s working hisses moonlight? what is moonlight, you have never seen the moons, but another voice is saying “Do you know who I am?”

And she does. She can breathe, she is not burning. She remembers.

under cover of darkness

Adora wanders over to the edge of the Moonstone chamber and sits with her feet dangling into nothing, her toes seeming to nudge the new defensive wall around Bright Moon that she’s spent all day building out of the rubble of abandoned houses. She watches torches and hearth-fires flicker to life, then looks up at the clear indigo infinity overhead, free of red lightning and unnatural clouds, and says dreamily, “I wonder what it was like when there were stars.”

Glimmer covers a yawn and rolls onto her stomach, so the light from the Moonstone’s mirror throws sharp shadows over her cheekbones and tangles in her hair. “What are stars?”

“I’m not… totally sure. Something precious, I think, something the First Ones had that we…lost.”

“Well, if anyone can get them back, She-Ra can,” Glimmer says, blithely confident for no reason at all, and a small bright something ignites inside of Adora. It’s as insignificant as the Moonstone is against the dizzying hugeness of the sky, but just as constant, and (she will come to find out) just as necessary.

(Later she learns the name for it, which is faith.)

a moment’s respite

She-Ra remembers a plasma burst, huge and green and obliterating, and she remembers falling, and after that the battlefield dissolves confusingly into a rapidfire bombardment of pink fireworks that she can see even with her eyes closed, and it feels like she’s being dragged across rocks without moving. Then maybe she passes out for a little bit, because when she wakes up she’s laying flat on her back at the bottom of a ravine and Glimmer is sitting on her.

“Adora!” Glimmer cries when she opens her eyes, and Adora’s vision is engulfed in pink again as Glimmer throws herself forward in a hug so fierce it could subdue even She-Ra, warrior of legend. Adora tries to ask what happened, but all that comes out of her is a wheezing sound like “whzztnd”, which must still be enough because Glimmer sits up, scrubbing furiously at her eyes.

“Sorry for dragging you all over the place like that, but I had to get you away. Catra saw you go down and sent this robot with like eight swords for arms, it was going to kill you and I couldn’t destroy it. But we’re safe down here, at least for a while — I don’t think they know about this place.” She hesitates, then adds, “and we’re stuck down here for a little anyway because I don’t really know if I have enough energy left to teleport us back up. But it’s okay! You’ll be okay in a little bit, right? And we can just climb!”

“Give me a minute and I’ll carry you,” Adora says, or tries to say, and thinks she must have succeeded, because the last thing she sees before she passes out again is Glimmer’s smile.

subtle kindnesses

Adora is not a subtle person, and never has been. Catra is subtle, which is probably why Adora never understood her (but thought she did) and why, after the First Ones temple, there are nights when Adora sits bolt upright as if from a nightmare, suddenly understanding some soft brush of Catra’s tail or some languorous glinting smile from years ago that seemed at the time so insignificant, so meaningless. But nothing, she realizes now, was ever meaningless.

She never said, Adora thinks in those moments, ashamed, furious, feeling like Catra’s claws and fangs and smile are embedded in her still and she’s bleeding from the wounds. All those years, she always felt — and she never said —

When she’s alone, those moments of painful clarity keep Adora up all night, pacing and punching the air. It’s better when it happens in Glimmer’s bed, since Glimmer generally inspects Adora critically with one half-open eye to make sure she’s not panicking, then grumbles, yawns, and throws one arm over Adora to pull her back down. Usually she growls go to sleep, it’s not even sunrise, and Adora, ever the perfect soldier, obeys.

(Glimmer’s not subtle, either, for which Adora is grateful.)

sharing a drink

“Would you like some tea, dearie?” Madame Razz asks, already filling an alarmingly ornamented golden goblet. The tea is deep blue and fizzy, smells like rain and doesn’t look like any tea Adora’s ever seen.

Madame Razz is so busy inspecting Adora over her spectacles that she sloshes some over the rim of the goblet, almost drenching them both as she plonks it down on the table. “There! Now drink up and say what you’ve come here to say to Madame Razz.”

Adora, who admires efficiency above all things, can’t help but smile. “I need you to do that thing again, where you tell me I’m smart and I should trust my instincts. See, there’s this Princess — I mean, she’s my friend, but sometimes I think, you know, there’s this thing Bow told me about called a ‘crush’, and I thought maybe —”

“Ah, a girl!” Madame Razz throws back her head and cackles in a way that isn’t at all unsettling. “Mara dear, it is good you came to see Madame Razz! For this you may actually need my help. Your greatest challenge awaits you. The sword was nothing compared to this!”

an absent look or touch

Dear diary, Glimmer writes, things have been… different since the battle.

Sunlight pours in through the window, catching on crystals and glass jars and curtain-tassels, playing in the high vaulted rafters the way she likes best, but she barely sees it. Every time she looks up from the page she finds herself glancing out at the courtyard. Adora’s doing drills with Swift Wind; sometimes fencing horn-to-sword, sometimes practicing running mounts and dismounts. There’s one breathtaking drill they keep doing where Swift Wind climbs and climbs then turns and plummets, wings like two halves of a rainbow, mane a flare of fire, and Adora runs to meet him and leaps onto his back just as he snaps out of the dive and hurls them both back up into the sky.

For She-Ra it would be simple, but this isn’t She-Ra. It’s just Adora, with the sword at her back but no armor, wearing one of Bow’s weird shirts with the sleeves cut off, her arms bare. Her silhouette is all lean muscle and skill and precision, her hair shining like the sun even though it’s not even magical right now. Even though she’s too far away to see it, Glimmer can’t stop imagining the look Adora gets every time she successfully completes a drill, does it right; that faint triumphant smile and the quiet confidence, the certainty —

— and also she can’t stop thinking about Adora’s arms (because they’re incredible) —

I think, she writes carefully, it has something to do with Adora? Maybe it’s just that it’s so nice to see her finally happy. Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing, it will totally be fine. 

someone’s greatest fear

There was a training accident, Shadow Weaver tells her. Something about Kyle’s overzealous attempt to save the squad from a droid whose safety parameters were malfunctioning; the details are very fuzzy in Adora’s mind, which is really to be expected, since she took a serious blow to the head and has been in a coma for the past month. It will be hard to remember things, Shadow Weaver says, and she might remember things that never happened — dreams, visions. But she doesn’t have to worry. Shadow Weaver will take care of her, like always, and everything will be fine.

And everything is fine. While Adora was asleep, Catra led a mission and captured the Princess of Bright Moon, an invaluable prize and the key to turning back the Princess scourge. Shadow Weaver graciously lets Adora get back into the swing of things by interrogating the prisoner, but being in the same room as the Princess seems to make Adora’s constant headache worse, and after listening to her lies and begging Adora has strange, disjointed dreams about flowers and robots and moonlight. Luckily, Shadow Weaver recognizes the effects of the Princess’ devious magic before it does any serious harm, and Adora leaves the interrogation to Catra, who shows more enthusiasm for it than she has about anything for as long as Adora can remember.

The Queen of the Rebellion turns herself in as an attempt to secure her daughter’s safety, and after that the Princesses isolated in their chaotic little kingdoms don’t stand a chance.

Etheria falls entirely under Lord Hordak’s control within six months. After a year, Adora is Force Commander overseeing the peacekeepers in every province, Catra is Hordak’s personal assassin, and Shadow Weaver has her spies firmly entrenched in every hollow and darkness, watchful in case any new Princesses should arise to threaten the order of things.

It’s everything Adora ever wanted.

feathers

Glimmer’s wings, when they finally come in, aren’t spun-glass sheer and ethereal like her mother’s; they’re real, solid and soft, with delicate arched bones. The feathers are longer and broader than Adora’s hand, pearly gray at the base and fading to mother-of-pearl with a faint blush of pink at the tips, like clouds at sunset.

“They’re so weird,” Glimmer groans as she throws herself facedown on Adora’s bed after shedding tufts of sunset-cloud down all over the castle halls for two weeks. “And they itch, and they’re useless and they take up so much space all the time—”

Adora obligingly scratches around Glimmer’s shoulder blades, then gently combs through the pinions, pulling away handfuls of sparkling fluff. Glimmer relaxes, sighs, and with uncharacteristic shyness murmurs “What do you think, are they —?“

Adora thinks of thin red lines, stylized wings rippling on banners and gashed like wounds into wood and stone, cloth and skin; then she looks back down at the majestic glossiness unfolding under her hands and says, “They’re beautiful.”