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Chapter Text

Forgiveness

They had just defeated Horde Prime, and everyone was excited and kissing and doing all that loving ‘get together’ happy ending junk.

Spinnerella was kissing Netossa. Mermista was holding Seahawk bridal style. Swiftwind was clopping around excited. Even Scorpia was holding up Frosta like her adopted kid while Perfuma looked on all loving and happy and excited.

Catra stood in the shadows for a bit, scratching her arm. Her heart still felt… ‘exposed’? exploding? Something gushing out and it was warm, and fuzzy, and she couldn’t get this feeling to stop coming out, making her squirm and feel uncomfortable.

She could hardly believe what happened in the Heart of Etheria. It made all this seem worth it… but while she was standing around, trying to find out what to do, basically twiddling her thumbs while She-Ra did her thing…

Watching everyone else be… just as happy…

Her black ears lowered, her tail curling around her leg as she hung back in the shadows. It was good, it was fine, they were all happy and she was happy, there was no reason to go a ‘mix’ those happys together and mess something up…

“CATRA!!” a squealy, happy shout called out and immediately something small and covered in living purple hair latched onto the feline woman, “ITS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU SAFE!!”

“Eragh! Entrapta!!” a fuzzy shiver ran up and down Catra’s spine and she couldn’t help but push the technophile away. She was glad Entrapta was glad she was ‘safe’ but touching outside of Adora was still a bit of a thing for her.

“Oh, right!” the purple haired weirdo didn’t seem to notice or mind being effectively thrown to the ground, just looking up smiling with her magenta eyes. The look on Catra’s face had her heterochromic eyes wide and mouth open, and she seemed to be reaching out to her, but shaking. Entrapta had no idea why any of that was. So, pushing herself up by her hair, she wiped off her grungy coveralls and just smiled at the younger woman, “I always forget you don’t like being touched!”

Catra’s blue eye twitched at that, sometimes dealing with Entrapta’s overly blunt nature was infuriating but… well, she meant well. With a growl and sigh, she put one clawed hand to her head, “That’s… okay, fine, maybe a thing,” she lowered her hands, rubbing the upper parts of her striped arms and trying to force her tail to not curl around her leg so much while looking away with a scowl, “But… I’m… working on it…”

“That’s COMPLETELY understandable!” the manic weirdo seemed to give the widest grin, holding her hands out, “I mean, given all the data I have on you and your upbringing! That makes sense!”

The scowl deepened as those black catlike ears dropped. She tried facing Entrapta, tried saying something, but all she could really do at the mention of her past was recall Shadow-Weaver and her last moments.

Entrapta seemed to lean in, not caring for personal space like always, and looking her straight in the eye, “Is something wrong?” her head tilted the other way, “You usually respond to everything with some manner of sarcastic retort, I don’t get them often, but it is something I have gotten used to from you.”

The blush that spread along Catra’s cheeks was embarrassing, as she tried to lean back and look away from those inquisitive magenta eyes, “I-it’s nothing,” unfortunately her eyes landed on Scorpia and her seemingly new family that just looked so… perfect.

Those ears and tail dropped again.

Entrapta watched carefully, noting the downturn of Catra’s ears, the listlessness of her tail, then followed the line of her gaze and tried to figure out what the pieces of this puzzle were saying.

“You should say ‘hi’!!” She grinned, genuinely hoping that was helpful.

Catra seemed to freeze, tense up, eyes wide and her tail fuzzed out a bit. A further embarrassed blush seemed to follow along her cheeks, and she looked down at Entrapta, brown brows low and barely holding herself back from being scathing, “And why should I?!”

The innocent look Entrapta gave her was enough to burn out any further kneejerk aggression from the feline woman.

Putting her hand to her head, Catra just growled, namely at herself, “I mean… no, that’s not…”

A large lock of strange purple hair came up and pat her on the shoulder, Entrapta was still smiling despite her outburst.

It made Catra sigh heavily, tired of herself, tired of being this way and always just taking everything as an attack, “I’m… I’m sorry… Entrapta…”

“I don’t know why you’re apologizing to me, again!” with a cackle the little weirdo raised her hair to pat Catra’s head, same as she’d done when she first forgave the distraught catlike woman, “I already forgave you! You’ve been doing very well improving your social decorum! I have records that show the marked increase in your social capabilities and ability to adapt as well as ingratiate yourself into the Alliance!” at some point in her speech she had literally pulled out a pad and it showed what Catra could only assume was a graph, showing her ‘improvement’.

Those brunette brows pulled in in the center and Catra wasn’t sure what to think. It was… nice that she could visually see her ‘improvement’, weird as all hell that someone would do that! But it was Entrapta, this was about as normal as she got, Catra supposed.

“That’s… weird,” unconsciously she brought her hand up, nervously rubbing the back of her neck, for once not checking to make sure Prime’s chip wasn’t there. A small, very small, smile started to pick at her lips as her heterochromic eyes glanced away, “But… thank you, Entrapta… I think I get what you’re saying.”

“Hehe!” Entrapta put the pad away, staring obviously up at Catra a moment more, waiting for her to look back down at her, “You can’t continue progress without pushing yourself,” she looked back towards Scorpia, Frosta and Perfuma, the focus of Catra’s odd mood, “I haven’t seen you two have a chance to talk, and since She-Ra’s finishing up doing what she does! I think you should take the moment to say ‘hi’!” again, that bright, innocent smile.

And again, Catra’s ears and tail drooped, “But… what if… what if she doesn’t want to talk to me…”

“Why wouldn’t she?!” Entrapta had her hands out, “You’re friends, right? You should talk to one another! That’s what friends do!”

Catra rubbed her neck harder, looking guilty though she wasn’t sure Entrapta would notice, “I… I don’t think… we’re not friends anymore Entrapta…”

“You’re not?” this time the little tech princess turned to Catra, genuinely confused and curious, raising one purple brow.

Immediately there was something on Catra’s tongue, some harsh and defensive things to blurt out and blunder herself further. Instead she closed her mouth, shook her head and sighed, looking down, “I’m… a terrible friend, I did terrible things to her, and well…” those heterochromic eyes looked up, spotting how happy Scorpia seemed to be around her new friends, “She looks happy.”

“And you look sad,” Entrapta said bluntly, pushing up on her hair, moving to sit in it like a chair so she was about eye-to-eye with Catra. Again, she waited for the feline woman to look at her, propped her chin in hand and just gave her a good, long, look, “You sent me to Beast Island, which was bad, very bad,” her blunt way of talking made Catra wince, before a funny smile crossed Entrapta’s face, “I don’t understand why you did it, but I did discover a LOT of neat things on that island, made a few friends with some old tech, and wound up getting to ride in Darla the first time, IT WAS GREAT!” her joyous shout had her fists up and pumping, completely oblivious to anyone else that looked at them for her outburst.

Catra just seemed to bristle, standing there in what may have been shock as her eyes were still wide, and her hair was standing on end, but she was listening at least.

Bringing her hands in, Entrapta smiled at the younger feline woman, “Now, I know I can be a bit… hard to deal with,” she reached out, with her hand this time, and pat Catra’s head, “But despite how arguably mean you’ve been, you’ve never treated me differently than anyone else. That might be because you have horrible abandonment issues, lack of tact, and wholly self-absorbed outside of Adora, but at least you’re honest,” her thumb rubbed Catra’s hair, noticing as her shoulders hiked up to her ears, “You don’t change yourself to act around others, you change yourself to try and be better for others, and that’s a good thing.”

Catra’s ears wiggled, then perked as she looked up to meet Entrapta’s eyes.

The little tech weirdo was smiling brightly again before withdrawing her hand, “I think, that to keep on this road of improvement, you need to go over there, and say ‘Hi’ to your once-friend.” She held up her hand sagely with her index finger raised, “Even if it’s not to be friends again, it’s something you can do to keep yourself improving!”

“But…” those worried brunette brows crumpled again, Catra’s shoulders slowly lowering as a small pout formed on her lips, “What if… she still doesn’t like me? Is still mad at me… for everything I did?”

“Won’t know until you try!” again, bright smile and hands out as Entrapta tried to be encouraging in her own, weird, way.

It was honest, and earnest, and so Entrapta.

It was probably why a funny smile picked up on Catra’s lips, and before she knew it, she was reaching around the little weirdo and giving her a hug, “Thanks.”

“Nnngah!” Entrapta gave a weird little panicked sound, but seemed to slowly understand and pat Catra’s back back, “You’re welcome!”

The two let go, feeling a bit uncomfortable, or at least Catra did. She kept nervously rubbing the back of her neck, but looked back at Entrapta who just gave her an encouraging smile and thumbs up gesture.

It made the feline woman smirk, before trailing her eyes behind the short odd princess.

A Horde clone was standing some distance away, out of place, and certainly too dour to be Wrong Hordak. Those lime green eyes on his white face were narrow on her, and it made her grin, figuring out who it was.

“Don’t worry Hordak, I’m not gonna hurt her,” that catgrin of hers was wicked a moment at her former boss, before turning gentle on the purple haired weirdo, “Not this time.”

Entrapta clapped her hands and gave a very happy sound, “Good! Now go do what you were doing!!” she glanced back at Hordak, who gave what could only be described as an ‘abashed’ look to the shorter woman, as she grinned back at Catra, “I’m going to go introduce Hordak to Wrong Hordak!!”

Catra could only laugh, shake her head, and somehow feel pity for the jerk that was cause for, arguably, only a small portion of the problems in her life. Hordak looked confused, maybe even terrified, but when he looked at Catra again, his eyes weren’t as narrow.

He wasn’t going to forgive her any time soon, but Entrapta vouching for her seemed to be a lot. Not that she was exactly in the mood to forgive him either for inventing the Horde and basically being the reason she was stuck with that witch her whole life…

But… for Entrapta… for Entrapta she could deal with him. The feeling was probably mutual, honestly.

The little weirdo was strange, but out of everyone Catra had ever met, she was probably the most blunt and honest. Entrapta genuinely didn’t understand being mean to anybody… and that’s probably the only reason she forgave her.

-But I can keep trying, right?- scratching her head, she watched the little weirdo happily drag the former leader of the Horde away, bright smile and animated gestures.

“Well,” Catra sighed, glancing back at Scorpia and her little posse, a little smile on her lips and not as much terror in her bones, “Guess I should get this over with…”

She wasn’t just doing it for Scorpia, or Entrapta, she was going to face her mistakes for herself…

… and at least try to not mess it up.

Chapter Text

Honesty

Adora was pacing.

This wasn’t unusual, hell it was basically her normal state most people saw her in most of the time.

What was strange was that she was doing it somewhere that wasn’t her room, and Catra was nowhere within visual sight. Sure, this may have been because the feline woman was using her space-cat-thing Melog and its illusionary magic to be invisible, but that seemed kind of suspect.

She did kind of promise Glimmer she wouldn’t skulk about invisible and spy on people, because that was a thing that came up for some reason!

Anyway, Adora.

The blonde princess had one arm crossed over her stomach, while the other was propped up and was biting her thumb. To anyone observing her this would be a clear sign she was worried and thinking about something. In fact, she probably wanted to be alone, and think about this problem on her own…

“Hi!” Entrapta was not a normal person.

“AH!!” as noted by the princess of power jumping several feet in the air, just because the short woman with purple hair came up and yelled greetings at her.

Still in a bit of a panic, as Adora hit the ground she turned to the princess of Dryl. What she did not expect was the tall, looming form next to the purple haired princess, in all white and scowling.

“Er, ah-ha, Entrapta!” Adora had to blink and swallow hard, “And… um, Hordak?”

Those still neon green eyes narrowed the slightest and he gave a bit of a grumble, “Yes, it is me, Adora.”

“Eh-hehe…” one light blue eye twitched as the blonde wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Yes!” Entrapta, oblivious and joyful as always, bounced between them, “I’m showing him around BrightMoon! Wrong Hordak is also busy scurrying around in the kitchens, care to join us?!”

“Ah,” it took a moment to process all that, Adora had to blink several times. Eventually she got to a point where the blonde shook her head, then ran her hand over her poof, glancing from the bright cheery princess of tech to the grumpy former leader of the horde, “Uh… sure?”

“Great!” and without further prompt, Entrapta engulfed the blonde in a big hug before grabbing her hand and dragging her off. Somehow just knowing Hordak would be a step behind them.

-----

After several halls, lots of turns, Entrapta going on about the history of BrightMoon even Adora didn’t know, and Hordak gave no sign of interest in, along with several monologues worth on the possibilities of working out the magic of BrightMoon with some tech she’d been working on, Entrapta had dragged the two down to the kitchens.

“Hello!” Wrong Hordak was there to greet them, giving a wink that somehow produced a sparkle with a grin that matched Entrapta’s.

“Wrong Hordak!!” letting the two go by the door, Entrapta whipped across the room and embraced the defective clone with both arms and her hair, kicking her leg out in pure joy.

“Brother!” and Wrong Hordak didn’t seem phased at all, hugging back just as emphatically. Despite it being over a month since Horde Prime’s defeat, no one had been able to get Wrong Hordak to stop calling EVERYONE Brother. At this point it was just considered a weird quirk of the strange clone.

While those two were giggling and in an arguably loving embrace, Adora was stuck at the door, holding her arm uncomfortably as she stood next to Hordak, who, she could only assume, was looking on the elaborate scene quite passively.

Light blue eyes couldn’t help but trail up the tall once leader of the Horde and follower of Horde Prime. It was strange looking at him as he was now, all white with neon green eyes, just like Wrong Hordak and Horde Prime, when every memory she had of catching a glimpse of him in the shadows of the Fright Zone consisted of him with glowing red eyes, blue-black armor, and dark blue hair.

He still mostly growled though, so at least there was that.

Speaking of which, Hordak glanced down at the blonde princess, just for a moment, and Adora had no idea how to interpret such a look.

“Eh-hehe,” nervously, she scratched the back of her hair, and started moving into the room.

“Hordak! Adora! Come in! See what Wrong Hordak’s been working on!!” Entrapta’s smile was bright and innocent, hands out and waving the two of them over.

With a shy smile, Adora glanced back at Hordak, not sure what to do or say, so just wound up giving a shrug and running over to the other end of the room with Wrong Hordak and Entrapta.

“Brothers!” How Wrong Hordak with the exact same voice as Horde Prime and Hordak could sound so adorable and enjoyable, Adora just could not fathom. The defective clone smiled wide, showing his teeth and wiggling his pointy ears as he presented a tray, “I present to you, my latest experiment in FOOD MAKING!!” with a wave he pulled off the lid, steam escaped for some reason and they could all get a good look.

There were several tiny cookies, in weird blocky shapes with irregular amounts of cream and sprinkles on each one.

“Uh, they look,” Adora nervously reached out to pick one up, it may have been a horse? “Nice!”

Wrong Hordak made a squeal that was somehow more adorable then when Bow gushed over Catra’s sneeze.

Not sure what to do, as Hordak was standing on the other side of the table from her, and Entrapta seemed to be looking at her expectantly, Adora shoved the cookie in her mouth.

Now… it wasn’t awful… but it definitely needed work, and probably less time in the oven.

“Its… good?” the blonde princess squeaked, swallowing it was harder then she imagine.

Now Entrapta made a joyous squeal, “Excellent! First test is a success Wrong Hordak!” she pat the defective clone’s arm and he seemed to sparkle up some more, making some cute look and gesture that Adora was having a hard time processing.

Mainly, because standing right next to him, was Hordak, who just seemed to be looming like he always did.

Then something even stranger happened; reaching out a clawed hand, Hordak grabbed one of the tiny malformed cookies and put it in his mouth, biting down with a strange finality and chewed meticulously.

Adora couldn’t help but watch with bated breath because this was probably the strangest, most surreal thing to happen in her life.

“This is,” his flat voice spoke, chewing the cookie some more, “Edible.”

“OH! Big Brother!” then Wrong Hordak glomped and hugged regular Hordak, again with sparkles somehow and some manner of adorable squeal.

Hordak didn’t seem to respond, only swallow and stand there, letting this happen to him.

Wrong Hordak bounced off, hopping twice with his hands up in giddy joy, “I appreciate your critique, Big Brother! I shall endeavor to improve!” and with sparkles and a squeal, he sauntered off into the large fridge of BrightMoon, clearly intending to try making another batch of tiny cookies.

Entrapta, seemingly unfettered by any of this, just grabbed two of the remaining cookies and ate them, “Mm! He really is improving, still terrible, but it’s an improvement from the undercooked ones from last time!”

“Indeed,” Was Hordak’s flat response.

Adora could only stare at them, jaw open and just flabbergasted at their blunt honesty at how bad those cookies were.

The two ate a few more cookies, gave a few more blunt critiques, that Adora was sure Wrong Hordak could hear…

… only the sparkly defective clone just seemed to nod along and hum to himself like this was no big deal.

“What am I watching right now?” came spilling out of Adora’s mouth as she looked from one to the other and not sure how she was supposed to respond.

Hordak just did that narrow look at her, while Wrong Hordak smiled from the background.

Entrapta ate three more of the terrible cookies, squeaked, and smiled at her, “We’re giving Wrong Hordak valuable critique! He can’t very well get any better without accurate data!” she waved her hand, and some hair, at Adora, “Which is why I’m glad you were willing to join the experiment! The more variance in the testing, the more critiques he can have which can help him grow!”

“Ah-but-huh?!” those light blue eyes blinked, moving from one to the other.

Hordak seemed to loom closer, staring at her and she hoped it wasn’t a glare, “Indeed. My little brother has found an interest in this…” he turned momentarily, picking up one of the cookies and examined it with a critical narrow gaze, “Cooking, and as Entrapta has found interest in helping him expand his capabilities, I too wish to indulge and help in his… growth.”

Now that just threw Adora for a loop, “Wait? You,” She openly pointed at Hordak, “Want to help Wrong Hordak grow as a person?”

Those stern neon green eyes turned to her, staring through her seemingly, “Yes,” he went back to looking at the cookie, examining it, “I have spent decades on this planet, under the command of my…” it was probably the first time Adora saw real emotion pass the white face as Hordak’s brows seemed to tilt inward and his lips seemed to form a firmer line, “Brother,” it also helped that his voice dipped, and as he held the cookie, nearly crushing it between his claws.

Entrapta reached up and put her hand on his shaking arm, seemingly calming him down.

Taking her touch as a sign, Hordak seemed to take a breath before continuing, “So I never had the opportunity to indulge in individualism or ego,” when he looked at Adora again, it was that flat, neutral stare she was starting to realize wasn’t him glaring all the time, “I may have had many of my memories stripped of me, but I still know I did all in his name,” Hordak seemed to… deflate somewhat, “It was not my own desires, or choice,” he turned to Entrapta, something almost soft passing his bone-like face, “Not until I met you.”

Entrapta, always the unique spirit, just smiled brightly as she took a seat in her hair, grabbing a handful of the bad cookies and eating a few.

Then Hordak did something Adora thought she’d never see, he smiled.

Not grand, not wide, but it was definitely softer then she expected.

He looked back at her, that stern look, but the slight edge of his lips raised, “I… want… my little brother to never have to experience that,” he looked at Adora directly, something in his eyes she could not decipher, “I wish… I had realized this… feeling… sooner, for you and the rest of the children brought up in my Horde.”

Adora didn’t know how to respond to that.

Was this… was this Hordak apologizing? For her… their rough upbringing in the Horde? Was this him expressing he may actually care about people outside of Entrapta?

Adora didn’t know, her eyes glancing from the arguably sincere look on Hordak’s face, to the blindingly happy grin on Entrapta’s, to the oblivious Wrong Hordak breaking and messing up a few ingredients in the back as he was trying to bake.

“This is a weird situation I am in right now,” light blue eyes blinked, and Adora didn’t even realize she said that out loud.

For some reason, Hordak was smiling again, and Entrapta was grinning ear to ear.

“Well that’s what makes it fun!!” the excitable princess waved her hands out, supporting herself up by her purple hair, as she glanced from one to the other, “We all have our ups and downs! But without others around us to point out and help us gather data, how else are we supposed to improve or understand the world around us!”

“I…” with an incredulous look, Adora nervously scratched the back of her neck, “Don’t think that’s what any of this means…”

“Why not?!” magenta eyes shinned as Entrapta took another cookie, grinning wide, “Wrong Hordak wants to learn to cook, so we’re telling him in crucial detail what’s wrong with each batch!” she waved at Wrong Hordak who sparkled back, and broke another egg, spilling something on the floor. Entrapta looked to Hordak, who looked at her with that oddly soft gaze, “Hordak is trying to figure out the new world around him without Prime telling him what to do!” she reached out and pat his face, it was actually a rather adorable gesture if Adora let herself see it that way. Then those magenta eyes turned to her, “And you’re trying to figure this new, post-war world, having Catra back in your life and what to do next, right?!”

“I-ah-uh-wha-!!” Adora scrambled, nearly tripping standing up, as she stuttered a bit more, heat running across her cheeks that she knew signaled a blush, before finally getting out, “How do you know that?!”

“Well, it’s written on your face,” Entrapta said bluntly, amused when Adora literally started wiping off her face, “Haha, no! I don’t mean literally!” propped up by her hair, Entrapta moved closer to the princess of power, smiling at her, “I’m trying to figure out how to use more colloquial terms and metaphors, since I don’t really get them, but what I meant was everything about you right now seems to suggest that, and my data on you two proves it!”

“Bah, what, data?” light blue eyes blinked.

Without missing a beat, Entrapta pulled out a pad, showing some manner of graph on it, “This is the time you two spend together in a given day,” she flicked it, “This is the time you spend apart,” this graph seemed significantly smaller, “This is the amount of sleep either of you are getting, your general appetites, mood variables, cycles-!!”

“Okay! I get it!” Adora’s voice squeaked as she pushed the pad down, knowing full well that she was bright red and completely embarrassed.

Entrapta just blinked, seemingly not understanding why Adora looked that way or did that, but figured it was one of those things she didn’t quite get, “Anyway!” with a smile she reached out and pat Adora’s head, seeing if this would help her to calm down, “My data suggests a dip in your time together, which I can only assume means there is an interpersonal issue, that is causing various fluctuations in both your normal patterns and that is NOT GOOD!”

Adora could only squeak, unconsciously nodding her head as she squirmed under Entrapta’s hand.

“I can only assume this has to do with your history or personalities,” weirdly, Hordak decided to speak up, almost as if he were trying to help.

When Adora glanced up at the former Horde leader, his looming and stern gaze back in place, all she could do was shudder and nod her head as if being dressed down by a superior, which she supposed he technically was, but… “Y-you could say that, sir-er, Hordak?”

His neon green eyes just seemed to narrow the slightest, but he gave a small nod, “Is it the Etherians?”

That gave Adora pause, surprised he managed to guess so accurately. Letting Entrapta’s hand fall off her, Adora stood up straight and looked Hordak in the eye, “How did you-?”

If anything, somehow that stern neon green gaze of his became excessively flat, “I once ran the Horde, in my name atrocities were done to this planet, then I was the last embodiment of my… brother’s consciousness,” for a moment he had to close his eyes, push down the growl and whatever building fury, “I have done wrong to this planet and its people, I expect they will not accept me any time soon, if ever,” with a forced sigh, he opened his eyes and looked at Entrapta, that soft gaze returning, “But so long as Entrapta accepts me, I have a place in this universe,” he turned back to Adora, “I take it, Catra feels similar…”

“I…” Adora rubbed her wrist, looking down, “I think so…” she openly frowned, sadness showing, finally letting her worry out, and to of all people these two, “She… won’t say anything, least I don’t think she wants to tell me, doesn’t want to worry me, especially after everything we went through to get here, but…”

“But, there’s something wrong?” Entrapta asked, both as an innocent question looking for an answer, and as an observed statement of fact.

Adora just nodded her head, not sure what to do or how to feel about this situation.

“Then tell her.”

The voice was so stern and impassioned, it took Adora a moment to realize that was Hordak telling her that.

When she glanced up to confirm, light blue eyes blinking surprised, the white faced, neon green eyed clone of Horde Prime was looking her dead in the eye, stern as always but something about it wasn’t terrifying.

He meant what he said.

To the side, Entrapta smiled before turning to the blonde, “I agree with Hordak,” she reached out with her hair and seemed to ‘pet’ the former leader of the horde affectionately, he growing a funny smirk at her actions, as both continued to look at Adora directly, “Whenever something is wrong, I want Hordak to tell me because I won’t realize it otherwise, and vice versa, if I think something is wrong or that I miss something, I ask him to clarify.”

“It is very important to be clear and accurate,” Hordak was for some reason standing straight with his arms behind his back, speaking as if this was an obvious lesson everyone should know, “One cannot gather proper intelligence or be capable of improving a situation without an accurate and concise outline of the situation.”

Blonde brows rose wryly, as Adora crossed her arms with a smirk, “Is this why you two don’t spare Wrong Hordak’s feelings and tell him flat out how bad his cooking is?”

“Of course!” Entrapta smiled, leaning over on her hair, and putting her arm around Hordak’s shoulders, “He can’t improve if we don’t!” she leaned over and surprisingly kissed Hordak’s cheek, “Same with us.”

And Hordak smiled, “Indeed, dearest.”

Watching in both fascination and shock, Adora opened her mouth several times, closed it, opened it again, raised her hand, and still no argument could cross her lips.

Keeping their feelings to themselves and not explaining things was how they’d gotten onto opposite sides of the war to begin with…

Moving her hand over her hair, Adora just sighed, “I… I think you’re right.” She smiled, openly, taking one of the cookies that were left, “I’m… I’m going to go talk to her,” a smile spread on her face, as she reached out and took a few more, “And tell you exactly what she thinks of Wrong Hordak’s cookies!”

“We wait with bated breath,” Hordak said flatly, as both of them waved the blonde princess off, as she ran out of the room, cookies in hand.

Chapter Text

Trust

Glimmer was walking through the halls of BrightMoon, flipping through various pages of reports she’d been receiving since the moment she set foot back home. It had been a month or more since Horde Prime’s assault on Etheria and the people of the planet were trying to get back to normal lives and restorations were being put front and center.

There were still criminals, still leftover pockets of Horde soldiers, as in the ones that were born on Etheria and served Hordak, as well as handfuls of Horde Prime clones that were generally causing a muck. Some of them seemed to just… turn off? They appeared to just stop moving and stop doing anything. Others went berserk and well… running off into places with high magic like the Whispering Woods was never a good idea on a normal day, so… yea…

A lot of them were probably dead, though Glimmer thought that the only person on Etheria that would care was probably Entrapta. The strange tech princess of Dryl still kept around Wrong Hordak, and according to her the other clone that was following her around was ACTUAL Hordak.

Glimmer tried to keep this information under wraps, Wrong Hordak had proven invaluable to their infiltration and retaking of several villages, and he openly fought against his ‘brothers’… and he was just so sugary sweet adorable despite looking just LIKE HORDAK! It was honestly just a strange mess…

Wrong Hordak was fine, as weird as he was, but Hordak? The real Hordak?

Mermista had said it plainly on the Etheria’s Day of Liberation, “Are we just… okay? With this?” in reference to Entrapta pulling around another Horde clone. She must have heard Entrapta calling him Hordak because Glimmer hadn’t even known until about a week later!

But it was… so… so weird.

About a year ago having Hordak in the halls of BrightMoon would have sent her mother into a conniption. She’d been bad enough with She-Ra being a former Horde soldier, so the former leader of the Horde skulking about their halls?

Several guards kept tabs on him, understandably, but even Glimmer felt conflicted about that. The guy never seemed to leave Entrapta’s side, and as far as she could tell it wasn’t that he was being overly aware of their attention on him, or him scheming and hiding at her side pretending to be nice… HE LITERALY JUST DIDN’T SEEM TO CARE AND DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE HER SIDE!!

He was honestly as bad as Catra at this point…

-Must be a former Horde Leader complex- a snort and slight smirk couldn’t help but pick at her lips. Catra was also in BrightMoon, hanging around Adora more often than not, though occasionally was found wondering on her own.

Glimmer tried to get her guards to chill out and let the feline woman walk around peacefully, but even Catra seemed to scoff at her attempts to get rid of them.

“They’re just… doing their job,” Catra had told her, in that low, self-pitying voice Glimmer found her using more often than not when it was just the two of them.

The fact that was something possible was also something that threw Glimmer for a loop. She was friends with Catra, and not just friends, very good friends, probably even her closest friend outside of Adora.

Catra, arguably, felt comfortable enough to engage her in conversation, on her own, even if the only reason they started talking to one another was because they had no one else on Horde Prime’s ship… and it just… continued?

Bow tried talking to her, but he’d get distracted by the unconsciously cute things she did, typically angering her and she’d storm off in a huff. Adora was just a pure distraction to the feline former commander, and Glimmer honestly didn’t want to be around them when they started flirting, it was too much man!

But together, just the two of them… it’d be innocuous but poignant short conversations, an honest look or self-pity from either of them and it’d be a comfortable silence.

There were things Glimmer wanted to say, things she knew Catra wanted to say, things she knew Bow and Adora wanted to say, but… it was all, still too raw…

Coming back to BrightMoon reminded Glimmer of that. Of the war, of what they’d lost.

What she’d lost.

-First dad, then mom…- frowning she looked off to the side, into the courtyard where some people were doing their own thing.

Her dad was alive.

That was something… that was also taking a while for Glimmer to adjust to. Her father wasn’t dead, Micah was back and in BrightMoon, only now her mom was gone…

It’d only been a month or more after the war, and both of them were still trying to figure out what to do. Her dad died when she was young and her mother died not that long ago, hell her grief at that had been why she’d done one of the DUMBEST things in the universe…

While her dad… he’d spent all that time on Beast Island, dreaming of coming home to his wife… only she’s gone and his daughter was now grown up and the Queen in her place.

And the only time they met in the war was when he was chipped and beating up her friends, forcing her to fight him and-and…!!

Glimmer had to pause in the middle of the hall, gritting her teeth and clinching the papers in her hands as her shoulders shook. This was all just so…

“Hi!” suddenly a bundle of energy and purple hair appeared before the Queen of BrightMoon.

“AH!!” scaring the bejesus out of her as Glimmer reflexively teleported away in pink sparkles.

“Oh, hmm,” magenta eyes blinked as Entrapta sat back in her hair, rubbing her chin and waiting a few moments to see if Glimmer would return. It didn’t take long as pink sparkly dust appeared and the Queen was standing right in front of her again, scowling down at her. Entrapta just waved her hand with a big smile, “Welcome back!”

“Entrapta,” Glimmer tried not to sound annoyed, she really did, it was just how Entrapta was; excitable and prone to popping up out of the weirdest spots when you least expected it. With a sigh, the pink and purple haired young woman waved the papers in her hand at the purple haired tech genius, before glancing around with her sparkly eyes, trying to find her perpetual shadow, “Where’s Hordak?”

“Oh, he’s over there!” both with her hand and hair, Entrapa pointed to the courtyard not far away. Hordak was standing in the sunlight, seemingly going through lengthy instructions to Wrong Hordak about something that the sparkly clone was vigorously nodding about.

With only a cursory glance, Glimmer spotted several guards keeping the former Horde Leader in view, and funnily enough there was a dark brown tail hanging from one of the roofs that told her Catra was perched and watching as well.

Glimmer let out a long sigh, putting her hand to her head.

“You seem tense around him, so he said he’d stay over there while it talked to you about the schematics for the upgrades to Darla!” both strangely oblivious and oddly aware, Entrapta pulled out a pad and started showing new schematics for what was once Mara’s ship.

Sparkly eyes narrowed, and Glimmer glanced over at the older princess with one flat eye, “Wait, you didn’t tell him to stay over there? He offered?” that… didn’t sound right.

Magenta eyes blinked, glancing up at the distracted Queen, “Oh I don’t mind him following me, we were discussing the new upgrades and what could be salvaged from Horde Prime’s ships to bring Darla up to the MODERN AGE!!” with the excitement of a chipmunk, Entrapta spread out, hands and legs spread wide, while supported by her hair, grin as bright as the sun. Only to go back to her sitting in her hair position while holding up her pad when Glimmer kept giving her that flat look and crossed arms, “But I mentioned you seem nervous around him, which is understandable, he said he’s nervous around you too, what with the whole you both being the leaders of the previous war before Prime so…”

“Hodak has self-awareness?” crinkling her brows amused, Glimmer snorted, passing her gaze over to the two white clones in the courtyard. For some reason Wrong Hordak was doing a handstand, and while Hordak was looking at him flatly, he did raise his gaze enough to meet hers. It made Glimmer tense, blush, and look forward, facing Entrapta again.

“He’s trying,” Entrapta said flatly, as if it were just another observation in her many experiments. She seemed to blink a moment, watching Glimmer’s face, and tilting her head the other, “What about you?”

“Me?” Glimmer seemed to jump, pointing at herself confused.

“Yes,” the purple haired princess nodded matter-of-factly, “You’ve had to deal with a lot since Prime was stopped,” Entrapta held up one hand, counting off on her fingers, “New Etheria, maintaining the Princess Alliance, organizing the restoration, dealing with the people’s outcries for justice, Horde defectors seeking asylum, dealing with your friends all getting together, people like Catra and Hordak in your home, your dad being alive, maintaining the castle, people’s trust,” at this point she started holding up bits of her hair as she ran out of fingers, “dealing with raids, former enemies, clone clean up, the ship, and all kinds of other things I may have missed!” with a bright smile Entrapta held out her hands, and hair, showing just how much she had noticed Glimmer doing, “I’d be surprised if you’ve had any time to relax and be with Bow!”

“I-I-ah-haha…” a bright red blush passed over the young Queen’s cheeks as she quickly shut her mouth. The new possibility for the lifetime friends’ relationship was still a bit… unknown… they hadn’t really kissed yet, like Catra and Adora WOULD NOT STOP DOING!! But they were holding hands, hugging tighter, and had lingering contact more than they used to… sooooo… that was ‘good’ right?

 “Oh,” was Entrapta’s for some reason flat response, blinking at the young Queen.

Internally Glimmer was screaming, externally she whined a bit. If Entrapta thought something was wrong, it must have been obvious, “Oh, what?”

“Hmm,” using her hair, Entrapta rubbed along her chin, leaning in close to the glittery pink and purple colored young woman, “You don’t look very happy.”

“I’m-!!” with furrowed brows Glimmer started with a yell, but caught herself, biting down. Putting her hand to her head, she let out a deep sigh, “I’m not.”

“Is it because of something I said?” Entrapta asked, innocently oblivious but genuinely concerned.

Lowering her hand, Glimmer looked at the older woman, seeing how open she was just staring at her with those magenta eyes, and couldn’t help but deflate more, “No, it’s not you, Entrapta,” crossing her arms and standing a bit straighter, Glimmer chewed on her bottom lip trying to decide how to word this or if she should, “I’m just… overwhelmed, I guess…”

“Well, with how much you’re doing, that makes sense!” again the pad came up and Entrapta seemed to have some kind of pie chart showing what Glimmer could only assume was her current workload as Queen, “Frankly I’m impressed you’re maintaining this level of capacity, but the stress has GOT to be extreme, I would suggest delegating some of these functions to other people…”

With a snort those pink and purple sparkly eyes rolled, “Yea, who?” she waved her hand in a huff.

“Well, Hordak and I have the preparations for Darla underway, Wrong Hordak is working on his culinary skills and physical acumen,” they both heard Wrong Hordak yell from the court yard as he apparently fell over doing something, “Catra has put together a long list of required supplies and general logistics for our upcoming journey-!!”

“Wait? Catra?!” sparkly eyes blinked before Glimmer shook her head again, pressing her hand to her temple, “No, wait again, you guys are coming too?!”

Those magenta eyes blinked again innocently, “Yes!” Entrapta grinned widely, once again hands and feet out in excitement, “Adora asked Hordak and I to come since we need someone to maintain Darla, I know her better than anyone and Hordak downloaded Horde Prime’s database so knows maps and star charts and newer systems we’re likely to find out in SPACE!!” she giggled, bringing herself in, bouncing around her pad, “Also Wrong Hordak intends to be the cook, because all missions require a good cook!”

An almost look of disgust passed over Glimmer’s face as she dared to ask, “Is he any good?”

“He’s learning!” Entrapta said, almost like a proud parent, but also acknowledging that no he was not a good cook.

“Uuugh!!” again, that hand went over Glimmer’s face, “Why?!”

“Because friends help each other!” was the tech princess’ answer without even realizing that was rhetorical.

Glimmer groaned again, but kept most of it to herself, as she took another deep breath, held it for a few seconds and opened her eyes, looking at Entrapta seriously with crossed arms, “What was that you were saying about Catra?” she had to have heard the little tech weirdo wrong, there was no way Catra was trying to be helpful…

“Oh, yes!” hitting a few buttons on her pad, Entrapta pulled up what looked to be a detailed list of supplies and resources then handed it to Glimmer, “She’s been working on calculating exactly the amount of fuel, food, oxygen, and other essentials we’ll need for this journey! According to her calculations, with Darla’s current capacity we could theoretically maintain sustainability for upwards of a year if we stretched our supplies aggressively, six months easily, and partaking in possible habitable planets along the way for bartering could yield us a longer stay out in SPACE!”

Taking the pad with a shaky hand, Glimmer stared at the list. The amount of detail, even corrections for adding ‘three more idiots’ (written in the margins) was astonishing. There were scenarios, calculations, even suggestions about storing food and supplies in different parts of the ship in case of ‘unknown damage’ along with spare parts they could potentially salvage from Horde Prime’s ships and the ways which certain raw materials could be converted into parts if needed.

This was… not something she expected from anyone, let along Catra.

“She…” softly and with genuinely shock, Glimmer pointed at the list, looking at Entrapta, “Did this?”

“Well, yea!” Entrapta grinned, seeming unsurprised, “Back in the Horde, Catra was the top commander, the top general, literally the person running everything! Hordak just oversaw things and mainly stuck to his lab, and while I was working under Catra and was his assistant, I saw her writing up these plans for supply lines, army positions, etc. and they’d be presented to be approved of by Hordak,” scratching her chin with her hair, Entrapta looked to the ceiling, “Though to be truly honest, I don’t think Hordak ever looked at them. He just delegated all the running and maintaining of the Fright Zone and the Horde to whoever was his second in command. When that wasn’t Shadow-Weaver, it was Catra…”

“I... never… thought about that…” sparkly eyes blinked, surprised something like this never occurred to her. Her mother often delegated things to a committee of others, Netossa and Spinerella were part of it, and after she became Queen hadn’t really considered what running a kingdom entailed until she was forced behind a desk and had to do it. It had been horrible but it never crossed her mind to let someone else, someone who was actually good at it, do it!!

Looking at this list… maybe the answer to that problem was Catra…

Glimmer legitimately had no idea how to respond to that thought!

Taking back her pad, Entrapta hit a few more buttons and seemed to be going through more data, “Catra has been trying to prove herself useful, and since Adora plans to leave the planet to help spread MAGIC! Throughout the universe, she said this was her best way of doing it…”

“Since none of us would even think about it,” Glimmer facepalmed hard, knowing that’s probably exactly what Catra said when she decided on doing this, “No wonder she kept berating us and was shocked we were all still alive! THIS!!” pointing both her hands out at the pad, Glimmer let some of her fury and frustration out, “THIS is what we were fighting against?! How did we not lose!!”

Holding her pad close, blinking in silent surprise, Entrapta was thoroughly confused by Glimmer’s outburst. Looking around for a moment, uncomfortable and unsure what to do, she said the most obvious and logical thing, “Well, she joined us, so that’s why!” with a grin, she held up one hand with her index finger raised, hoping that point was made.

Covering her face with both hands, Glimmer grumbled something for a moment before disappearing in a puff of sparkly pink smoke.

Off in the distance, screaming could be heard, but it was so far away no one present could make sense of it.

“What the hell, Sparkles!?!” could be heard from Catra on the roof of the courtyard, as the visible part of her tail fuzzed out. Chances were, with her ears, she was the only one that could make out what that yelling was.

A moment after the yelling stopped, Glimmer reappeared in pink sparkles, and snatched back Entrapta’s pad, frown on her face as she decided to go through the woman’s data to find out what the hell else she was missing.

“Nyaagh!” Entrapta whined, putting her hands out to take it back, “Give me back my pad!”

“I’m trying to see what else everyone’s been hiding from me,” Glimmer seemed to almost growl, flicking between screens. A lot of it was jargon and information she didn’t really understand, but there had to be something.

“Oh,” the bug mask came down and Entrapta seemed to sit in her hair with her hands in her lap as she sat on her knees, “Okay.”

After a few minutes of this eerie silence, a big dark shadow loomed over the Queen of BrightMoon.

“Give. It. back.”

A cold shudder ran down Glimmer’s spine as she seemed to finally realize what was going on, glancing up from the pad and seeing the ominously dark, white face, hair, and glowing neon green eyes of what could only be Hordak.

“I-I-ah…” Sparkly eyes widened, stunned and terrified at the look of a Horde Clone looming over her, making some demand. The only saving grace here seemed to be that the clone didn’t seem to be moving to further threaten or harm her, though the look in his eyes certainly promised something.

“The pad,” he reached out a clawed hand and pointed at the device in Glimmer’s hand, “Give it back to her,” that claw moved, pointing over at the purple princess of Dryl.

When Glimmer looked at her, she saw that Entrapta was still and had her mask down. It looked so… wrong… she couldn’t help feel like she’d committed the worst sin!

“Ah! Entrapta, I’m so, so sorry!” immediately she turned, tears in her sparkly eyes, and presented it back to Entrapta, “I didn’t mean-I didn’t think-I didn’t-!!”

“That’s the problem,” a growling deep voice called behind her.

Glimmer squeaked, turning her head but still holding out the pad.

Hordak, this was definitely Hordak, as he loomed in the shadows of the hall, seemingly towering over her, and sent a chill of fear down every part of her.

But he wasn’t attacking, if anything his hands stayed at his sides apart from pointing out the pad, and his eyes remained locked on hers.

If anything, he looked… disappointed?

“You are very quick to judge, Queen Glimmer,” somehow, the way he said her name didn’t sound spiteful like she’d expected, “Your assumption that your own view of things is always correct has been proven, time and again, to be false, and your inability to relinquish control to allies will be your undoing…” glancing down, it almost seemed like Hordak was ashamed, “Take it from someone with… experience…”

Was he… did he just… make a comparison to her and Horde Prime?!

That had to be it, because Entrapta just told her this guy barely even paid attention to the war his subordinates were running with his barely noticed approval!

Fury was running across her face and her mouth was ready to start THIS-!!

“It’s okay!” suddenly the pad was no longer in Glimmer’s hand, and that bright voice had returned unmuffled. When they both looked, Entrapta had put up her mask and was smiling at them both, “It takes a while to figure out what’s the right thing to do! Believe me! I know all about the laser focused pursuit of knowledge! It’s a strong calling! One can’t help it! That’s why I leave most of the daily running of Dryl to my chefs! They have more knowledge of what’s going on day to day then I do, since I was out helping the Rebellion, then the Horde, then Beast Island, and then the Rebellion again!” she held up a hand, making a point, “But! I keep tabs on everything and leave surveys to see how the conditions are and adjust the robots whenever I get back to try and make things better!”

“Hm,” Hordak seemed to quietly nod, looming not as much now that Entrapta seemed okay again, “What few clones have bothered to accept this new life have also gathered there, helping rebuild the lab and whatever they can. The citizenry may not like it, but at least they don’t see them as an occupation force anymore…”

Glimmer had her mouth open, wanting to argue, but wound up just sighing and rubbing her head, “I can’t believe I’m getting lectured on ruling from you two,” despite her words seeming harsh, she glanced at both of them with a tired smile, “I have… a lot to learn, don’t I?”

“Yep!” Entrapta said succinctly, while Hordak nodded quickly at her side.

Wryly, Glimmer looked them both over, not sure who to ask first, and feeling weird about all of this, “So… suggestions?”

“Oh, LOTS of them!!” Entrapta smiled, holding out her hands, but noticing a hand from Hordak on her shoulder she calmed down, back to sitting pleasantly, just smiling a bit more subdued, “Er, well, first and foremost, ask your dad to run things for a bit so you can take A BREAK!!”

“Buh-I-!!” Glimmer looked absolutely flabbergasted, “I can’t do that?!”

“Why not?” the question was obvious and innocent, “From how you’re reacting right now, you’re not in the right state to be dealing with anything appropriately!” those magenta eyes looked at her seriously, “You haven’t rested since the war ended, you’re still in that frame of mind, still rushing around like there’s battles to be won, when there aren’t!”

“My brother is gone,” the way Hordak growled out ‘brother’ with absolute contempt shouldn’t have been as much of a relief to Glimmer as it was. After composing himself again, Hordak was looking her straight in the eye, almost like they were equals, which was just terrifying, “The war is won in your favor. Take the chance to rest and recoup your energy before the next journey we shall be embarking on. The universe is vast and dangerous, you will need to keep your wits about you, Queen Glimmer.”

That… actually hit home pretty hard. For a moment, Glimmer was reminded of how her mother used to admonish her for rushing in ahead in battle, for being reckless, and… when she really got down to it, not trusting anyone else with the job of winning the war.

Visibly, Glimmer deflated, feeling so tired as everything since the final fight, for her against her chipped father, just washed over her in one big giant wave.

“I’m tired,” the papers, the reports, the notes on everything going on that she’d been looking at but not seeing earlier slipped out of her hands and she just closed her eyes.

Two hands found their way on her shoulders, one large and clawed, the other a big rough glove.

When those dull sparkly eyes opened again, Entrapta was smiling at her wide while Hordak was giving a look that didn’t look so imposing, but overall neutral. She supposed that was as close as he got to decent with her…

“Can you two… handle things… for a bit?” she didn’t want to plead, a Queen wasn’t supposed to…

But Entrapta was her friend, and as strange as this was, Hordak was a peer, sort of.

She could trust Entrapta, in some sense, and she deserved it after she’d been so mean to her earlier. Hordak… she’d just have to hope Entrapta knew what she was doing with him…

There was a funny innocent grin on Entrapta’s face, as her mobile purple hair picked up the dropped sheets and brought them to her hands where she started organizing them appropriately, “Well, I don’t think Hordak and I are the right choice, but!” those magenta eyes smiled at Glimmer, not even phased by whatever she’d done earlier, “We can get these to those that could help! King Micah, Netossa and Spinerella have experience running things here and keeping it under control, I’m sure they can handle it for a little while as you go rest!”

She wanted to argue, she wanted to say something to the contrary, to scrap the whole thing, take the papers back and continue on…

Instead, Glimmer just sighed, nodding her head and turning around, rubbing her eye, “I’m going to go take a long bubble bath then find Bow and just sleep on him until I wake up…”

“Sounds good! Have fun!!” Entrapta was waving her hand and hair, smiling the whole time without a care in the world.

Glimmer just shook her head, wondering what in the world was wrong with her. First Catra, now Hordak? It was ridiculous how she was learning to trust people that were once her mortal enemies…

She supposed it didn’t matter, they’d proven themselves in their own ways. Provided they kept it up, who was she to argue?

-Besides, Adora and Entrapta are there to keep an eye on them- she giggled as she teleport-skipped down the hall. Those two were strange, but they were undoubtedly her friends, and despite how much of a jerk she could be at times, she did trust them.

Glancing up, a funny smile came to her lips, wondering if that meant Bow was that for her.

-Hopefully, he can help me make the right decisions…- glancing down softly, she thought about the conversation she’d just had. About all the people around her, and like always her thoughts came back to the young man who had always been her friend that she had fallen in love with.

-So long as I listen to him, and the others, I can trust them…- landing with a skip in front of her room, she sighed.

Then clapped her cheeks, “Alright! Time to relax! Take a bath! Snuggle Bow! And trust the world won’t be on fire when I get out! Yea!”

It was going to take a lot of effort to trust those around her, but at least she could try.

Chapter Text

Understanding

Off to the side on the BrightMoon palace grounds was a stadium of sorts. It was open air seating and had been a nice place for plays and such… before the Horde came in a wrecked things. It was left in its disheveled state for a long time...

Until the princess of Dryl said she needed a place with enough space for her machines, equipment, spare parts and anything else she’d need to work on Darla.

Seeing as the goal after the war was getting the ship up to snuff to travel through space again, as everyone agreed they couldn’t trust any of Horde Prime’s ships nor his direct technology, but the old First Ones’ ship definitely needed some upgrades to make their mission to ‘Spread Magic throughout the UNIVERSE!!’ easier, Entrapta needed a place to work. This old abandoned stadium was perfect.

What once was a ruin outside BrightMoon was now a smattering of tech and rock.

Darla was held up on large jacks as Entrapta worked all around it, there were ladders, tarps, tools and grease of various kinds strewn about the place. It was a chaotic mess that only Entrapta knew how to make some kind of order of, she knew exactly where every piece, nut, bolt, and laser screwdriver were in this cacophony of junk.

As it was, she was hanging off the bow, her bug mask down, welding something on the end of the ship.

Bow was standing there, holding his tracker pad, looking over the new schematics, and wondering where things were and what the purple haired princess was doing exactly.

“Ah-ummm…?” a dark brown brow quirked on the young man’s face, tilting his head this way and that, “Where is the stabilizer? Don’t you need that to-?!”

“It’s in the back!” Entrapta, hanging off her position by her hair, and pointing with another part, lifted her mask and smiled at the young tech genius, “Not much point to have in the front when there’s only vacuum in space!! Best to have it maintaining the engines and keeping them steady, as one wrong move and BAM!!” she made a weird gesture with her hands like smashing something then opening up wide, flinging it out in pieces, “We get ripped apart in every direction! POOF!! No more mission!” that wide chipmunk happy grin spread on her face before she popped her mask down and turned back to her welding.

A frown made its way across Bow’s dark skinned face, “Oh… yay…” his brow worked itself in knots as he looked over the schematics again, “Have you reworked the circuitry already? Those new fibers from Prime’s old ship didn’t seem compatible, but the way the previous ones were bursting out before was definitely an issue…”

“On it!!” a tendril of purple hair moved, stretching to grab something from the table below her before pointing off in a corner, “Hordak managed to gather some of the remaining clones to strip some parts, they should be over there. He said he was going to check them over for any residual booby-traps or corruption, everything on Horde Prime’s ships had an integrated neural network linked to him, so he wants to make sure it’s clean before trying to integrate anything into Darla!” at the end of her explanation the tech princess hugged the ship, rubbing her face against it and petting it with her hair.

“Uh-umm…” nervously, Bow looked from Entrapta to the way she pointed. Sure enough, Hordak was over there inspecting what looked to be long lengths of cabling, more advanced then Mara’s ship, or Darla as Entrapta called it. For a long moment the young man’s black eyes lingered on the previous leader of the Horde, before seeing him look up with those weird neon green eyes of his and glance Bow’s way. The techy young man obviously yelped, turning back to his tracker pad and going through some other stuff, “S-so… what about-!?!”

Suddenly there was something grabbing the archer’s head and pushing it up. He came face to face with Entrapta’s bug mask, and apparently she’d grabbed his head with her hair.

“AH!!” again, the young man yelped obviously, nearly dropping his tracker pad.

A tendril of Entrapta’s mobile purple hair grabbed it and held it back to him as she lifted up her mask and stared at him long and hard with her magenta eyes.

“Are you alright?” she blinked eerily still before tilting her head.

Taking back his pad, dark skinned fingers tapped along its edge as Bow looked down, seemingly fighting at working his lip, “I… well, I just…” lifting one hand he rubbed the back of his neck, frown tugging at his cute face before he looked back into Entrapta’s magenta eyes with a worried brow, “I don’t know what I should be doing.”

Blinking again, Entrapta took a position of sitting in her hair and holding her chin, “About the ship or something else?”

Running his fingers along the edge of his tracker pad again, those black eyes of his looked down again, “Both?”

“Hehe!” reaching out, Entrapta pat his head before jumping down from her hair and looking around. She grabbed a few tools with her hair, then Bow, and ran into the ship, “Great! Because we need to work on some of the electrical systems! Also there’s some shielding we will need to put into place, at least in one room!”

“Aaargh!!” flailing, Bow got dragged into the ship, up a flight of stairs, into the rooms they had previously used as sleeping quarters, and into one specifically. He just blinked confused as a bunch of tools were thrown into his hands, “What… um, what?”

“Alright!” Entrapta spread her hands out wide, big grin on her face, “So this room has been chosen for a special task!” she zipped over to a crate and started pulling out some large hunks of metal, “Theoretically this stuff should help, Scorpia found some of this stuff in the former-Fright Zone, new name pending! And supposedly it blocks magic!”

“What?!” Bow squeaked, dropping the tools and had a very animated, flabbergasted look on his face, “Why would we even need that?! Why would we have a room that blocks magic?!”

Holding up one piece over her head with both her hands and hair, Entrapta turned her magenta eyes on Bow and blinked, several times, as she seemed to be processing how to state what was seemingly obvious to her, “It’s so Glimmer doesn’t teleport out into SPACE!! While she’s asleep!”

“I-!!” Bow opened his mouth, closed it, raised his hand pointing, opened his mouth, closed it again, and did this several times, apparently unable to process just what the heck this was?! He finally landed on a squeaky, “What?!”

Again, Entrapta blinked, putting the heavy piece of metal down and holding it, “I thought that was an obvious concern?” at Bow’s continued flabbergasted look, she tilted her head and continued, “Last time she was in Darla her powers had been spent and the distance from Etheria prevented her from recharging. This time!!” Entrapta bounded up by her hair in excitement, waving her hands, “She’s going to be coming along, fully charged! And we don’t know how long it will last, so best to take precautions should her powers accidentally go off while we’re in SPACE!!”

Holding up one finger, Bow opened his mouth again, closed it, then seemed to give as close to a frowning pout as he could before sighing, “I… see your point…”

“Good!” with a cheer she hucked the large piece of metal across the room and walked back over to Bow with her hair. Arms crossed, brows a bit low, she looked genuinely concerned as she looked at the young tech genius, “Now that you have the task of putting this stuff up, what was the other problem you were having?”

Surprise passed over the young man’s black eyes.

Purple brows nit, as she settled in a bit too close, but she wanted to keep a good look at his face. Bow had been a good assistant to her with the upgrades, so if there was something bothering or preventing him from working well, she wanted to know, “I didn’t just bring you in here to work on this, but also so that you felt better this was going to be a conversation just between us.”

“Eh-heh,” Bow rubbed the back of his head, glancing to the ground, “That’s… very thoughtful of you Entrapta,” with a worried brow, he pressed his lips together for a bit, before nodding to himself and looking the older tech princess in the eyes, “Truthfully… its Glimmer.”

“Oh! Whoops!” leaning back a bit, glancing around the room, Entrapta rubbed her chin, “Guess this wasn’t a good task to give you after all…”

“N-no!” Bow jumped, waving his hands around frantic, “Its fine! I’m glad! I’m grateful you thought of something like this!” in his flailing haste to apologize, he actually grabbed both Entrapta’s hands and squeezed a bit tight.

“Nnagh!” she gave him this spooked look, but eventually her shoulders settled and realized his physical contact was okay, so she left it. Glancing down, those magenta eyes of hers looked at his hands, to his face, the funny dip of his brow and blinked, “To be honest I didn’t think about it, it was one of Catra’s contingencies, and when I asked Glimmer about it she seemed to have not thought about it either…”

Bow just sighed, putting one hand to his temple and rubbing, “Of course she wouldn’t! Just because she’s fully bonded to the moonstone and she’s learned to control her powers, doesn’t mean in a moment of panic it’s not going to happen!”

“You seem very emotional about this,” Entrapta was watching him carefully, putting her hands in her lap and waiting to see what he would do.

There was a deep groan as Bow let his hand slip, before pushing it up through his poofy black-brown hair and rubbing at the shaved back nervously, “Well… I guess I am,” with a frown he looked to the side, “I… really worry about her, sure, we’ve been in dangerous situations,” he gave a little laugh, probably not realizing it, “Often because of something she wanted to do when we were kids, but now…” he sighed, “It just… feels different.”

“Well, you’re adults now!” Entrapta bluntly pointed out with a smile, holding up one hand with her index finger raised, “Kids can be excused doing stuff that is dangerous and arguably dumb, but adults are supposed to be held to a higher standard,” there was this funny look on her face as she grinned widely, “At least that’s what I’ve been told!”

With a bit of shock Bow looked at her, opened his mouth, then just wound up laughing, rubbing his head, “Sounds like my dads…”

“Hehe,” the princess of Dryl giggled, “I remember them from when I was younger then you! They were always so excitable about old First Ones tech! Or was it the history?” she scratched her chin, looking around before shrugging, “Either way they let me tag along back in the first Rebellion when I could barely walk with my hair!”

“They… did?” Bow blinked, curious to hear something about his dads from Entrapta.

“Oh sure!” she waved her hands out, big obvious grin, “I was just starting out as a princess and they were the only ones that seem interested in First Ones tech, so I followed them around until they left!” with a funny grimace she held out her hands in a shrug, “Can’t really blame them, things didn’t go so well back then!”

There was a sigh from the young man as he fiddled his fingers on his tracker pad, “And that’s why they didn’t want me joining the Rebellion this time…”

“But you did anyway!” another bright grin as Entrapta held up her finger as if making a point.

Bow’s dark brow brows tilted up in the middle, smiling but worrying his lips, “Yea, well…” he looked down, fingers tapping again, “I couldn’t leave Glimmer doing it all herself,” his hands clinched, “No, well, not all herself, she was just… very passionate about fighting and had been doing it most of her life, you know?”

“Not really,” was Entrapta’s blunt response, waving her hair, “But do go on!”

There was a funny look sent her way, but Bow continued, “I liked helping her out, I liked being able to make new tech, new gadgets, in new ways for new scenarios. I liked being useful…”

Magenta eyes blinked, tilting her head as obvious concern crossed her face. Reaching out with her hair, a purple tendril grabbed Bow’s shoulder and squeezed gently, “But you are useful.”

“To you,” the young man pouted, moving out of Entrapta’s immediate reach to sit down on one of the crates. He hung his head, sighing, “I feel like I’m not useful to Glimmer anymore.”

“What?!” a big expression of shock passed over Entrapta’s face, expressed with her entire body and hair, as she moved closer to sit in front of Bow with her hair, “I don’t see how? You’re the most important person to her?!”

Raising his black gaze, Bow just pouted, propping his head in his hands, “Am I?” he shook his head, “I mean, I know, I get it, she’s the Queen of BrightMoon, she has certain obligations and she’s been working hard on fulfilling that role, but…” with a deep sigh he sat up straight, hands clinching at his knees, “I can’t help there, and I feel so left out, and it reminds me of…” suddenly he was frowning.

“Reminds you of what?” head propped in her own hand, Entrapta watched every expression that flew across Bow’s face. He was generally very expressive, so was fairly easier to understand what he meant at any given time. Generally the young tech didn’t hide his feelings, or mask them with sarcasm, so it helped a lot for her research.

His hands clinched tighter, and a frown spread on his dark skinned face, “It reminds me… of when she first became Queen, and her and Adora were fighting, and she wound up…” his brows turned down, obvious anger on his face that just didn’t look like it should be there, “Wound up using the Heart of Etheria and messed everything up, bringing Horde Prime here…”

“You’re still mad about that?” magenta eyes blinked, genuinely surprised to hear that from the normally so bright and bubbly young man.

“I-!!” pushing his hand through his hair, Bow blushed embarrassed and looked to the side, “I don’t know… we never really talked it out, something always came up after we saved her from Prime’s ship, and then Catra, and then Etheria, everyone being chipped and having to save them, and…” he gave a deep sigh.

A tendril of purple hair reached out and pat his shoulder.

Bow just sighed, putting his head in his hands, “Why am I still mad about this?!” confused, he looked up at Entrapta, tears at the edges of his eyes, “Why does it even matter? We said we loved each other, and it’s true, I love her! I’ve done so much to be with her, to help her, just because I wanted to make sure she was okay and support her, so why am I still mad about that one stupid thing!”

“Well for one,” Entrapta held up her hand, index finger pointing out, “It wasn’t stupid, it LITERALLY jeopardized the whole planet and wound up bringing the biggest threat known to Etheria here…” she rubbed her chin, glancing up, “As far as I’m concerned that IS a big deal!” she ‘snapped’ her hair, “But I suppose on the bright side, it made it so we can now travel through SPACE!!” and she was holding herself up, hands and legs out very excited by that idea, before sitting back down and continuing, “Also it made it so everyone on Etheria could see stars! So it’s not all bad!”

Bow wanted to argue, viscerally his gut wanted to argue, it was a strange feeling he wasn’t used to but seemed to be what came up when this topic came up.

But this was Entrapta, not Glimmer…

With a deep sigh, the young tech genius shook his head, “I… guess you’re right,” he worked his bottom lip a moment, almost literally chewing on the idea, not sure what to make of it, “It’s nice knowing there’s a whole other universe out there to explore, and the stars are very pretty at night…”

“See!” Entrapta smiled, holding up her hand and hair making a point again, “It’s not all bad, it helps to look at the positive outcomes of an experiment, not just the negative ones.”

At the way she worded it, Bow had to genuinely laugh, “Guess I’ve still got a lot to learn, huh?”

“Yep!” her grin was bright and effervescent, “There’s ALWAYS more to learn!”

Working his dark-brown brows, Bow looked at Entrapta for a long moment, before asking, “How do you do it?” nervously, he rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, black eyes unable to look at her directly, “I get Adora with Catra, they’re… very intense about how they feel about each other, and they have this long history, so I get she wants to forgive her, but,” for a moment he glanced at the oblivious princess, squeaked and looked away again, “How do you… and Hordak…?” he made some funny hand gestures, trying to say it, without saying it.

Entrapta’s head just tilted, magenta eyes blinking, “Me and Hordak?”

A series of very expressive but ultimately lost on Entrapta looks passed over Bow’s face as he seemed to be trying to find the right words, using hand gestures, before finally giving up with a big sigh, “How have you forgiven Hordak?!” he pointed at her, almost accusing, but that was probably just his own frustration overflowing, “He was literally the guy that ran the Horde! Who have been attacking Etheria since he got here?!”

“Oh, I know,” funnily, Entrapta reached out with her hair, moving Bow’s accusing finger so it wasn’t pointing at her, and only then did she look up at him, directly, eye-to-eye, “I haven’t forgiven him for that, it’s not something I can forgive him for…”

“W-what?!” black eyes blinked, surprised by that.

Magenta eyes looked at Bow directly, she was surprisingly still, and surprisingly serious, “Hordak controlling the Horde is not something any one person can forgive him for, and probably no one should,” her eyes fell a bit, her hands clinching in her lap, “As for what he did to me directly, the worst was he got angry at me at first for tampering with his experiments. I can forgive him for that, because he didn’t understand I was helping him.” Those magenta eyes flicked up, brows low, determination expressing on his face, “He let me be me when we worked together, he respected me for my intellect and technical knowledge, we challenged each other and worked hand in hand those many nights in the lab and it was some of the happiest days of my life.” Her expression went arguably softer, brows flattening, a small gentle smile on her lips, and perhaps even a bit of a blush, “He… he proved me right, time and again, even under Horde Prime, he chose to save me and defied him,” a spark went into her magenta eyes, tilting her head slightly and meeting Bow’s gaze again, “Do you know what that means?”

“I-uh,” Bow was stunned, hearing this side of probably one of the strangest relationships on Etheria was astonishing. It really did almost sound like Hordak was a hero, at least in Entrapta’s eyes, “N-no, no I don’t?”

“Imagine, if She-Ra turned against Glimmer, who would you follow?” her eyes were poignantly looking at Bow, “The hero of legend who has all the power to save planets and is a sworn protector, or the person you’ve known since childhood?”

“I, well,” the tech genius scratched his head, “What are they doing? Why are they opposing one another?” this situation sounded eerily close to what happened with the Heart of Etheria initially…

“Doesn’t matter!” Entrapta waved her hands up, smile on her face, clearly enjoying the thought experiment, “The point is that based on who you know them as, who would you choose?”

“Uuuuh…” Bow had his finger out, pointing between Entrapta’s hands, knowing that wasn’t part of the experiment, but it helped him to visualize the exchange, “I…” his brow knit, finger leaning towards the right, the hand he had mentally put Glimmer on, “But…” his hand went to left, She-Ra was always good and right, right? “No…” But Glimmer was his friend, always had been, and while rash she always had good intentions. His hand wiggled between the two and his brain started hurting, “I don’t know!!” Bow wound up just putting both hands on his head, covering his eyes.

Magenta eyes just blinked, then looked down at her hands. Entrapta wasn’t sure what Bow was doing pointing at her hands, but it seemed her point was made, “That’s basically it.” folding her hands into her lap, she tilted her head and waited for Bow to drop his hands and look at her again, “Hordak had, in the grand scheme of things, only known me a short time, but it was enough that he learned to appreciate there was something more to the universe then what Horde Prime told him,” lowering her gaze, she unknowingly started twirling a piece of her hair as a bit of a blush crept across his face, “But it was enough that he remembered me, despite the brainwashing and memory wipes, and he turned against the person he had been doing everything on Etheria for,” looked up at Bow, the gaze on Entrapta’s face was heartfelt and her smile precious, “He turned against his literal god to save me instead,” reaching out, she pat Bow’s hand, “It might not mean anything to you guys, but it’s important enough to me to give him a chance, a chance to try and be a better person then Prime literally made him to be…”

“Ugh!” Bow squeaked, putting his face in his hands, “That’s so weird! I actually sympathize with Hordak now?!”

Propping her chin on the backs of both her hands, Entrapta smiled at the young man, “It takes a lot to go against beliefs one has had ingrained in them since birth,” she looked up, considering all the possibilities, “Hordak and the rest of the clones were made to serve Prime, they had no identity beyond whatever his whims were. Adora had been trained her whole life to follow the Horde, that Princesses were evil, and groomed by Shadow-Weaver to be a self-sacrificing pawn. Catra was taught the complete opposite, that she was worthless and would never amount to anything,” her eyes came back down, looking at Bow with what she hoped registered as sympathy, “Glimmer and the rest of us princesses have been fighting the Horde our entire lives, we’ve lost family, friends and subjects. I don’t think any of us thought this war would ever end, so now…” sitting up straighter, she held out her hands, a small pouting frown forming on her lips, “What do we do?”

There were tears in Bow’s eyes, a whimper in his voice, “I… well,” his hands gripped at his sides on the crate, not sure what he should say, but knowing what he wanted to. Entrapta had been telling him a lot about the others, and in a roundabout way, herself. It was only fair he do the same, right? “My dads wanted me to be a scholar, to be safe and away from the war,” his shoulders slumped, thinking about how long he’d spent hiding his true self from his parents, “But I wanted to fight, I wanted to help in any way I could, even if it wasn’t the best way,” his hands gripped tighter, “Glimmer inspired me to want to do that…”

“Like you said,” Entrapta smiled at the young man, “And it’s a good thing you did! Your inventions are GREAT!”

“Eh-heh,” embarrassed, Bow rubbed the back of his head, “That means a lot to me, coming from you…”

“But,” again, Entrapta held up one hand with her index finger raised, leaning her chin on the other, “I want you to think about the level or expectations and responsibility for the situation you have compared to the rest of us,” dropping her hand, that odd frown passed over the tech princess’ lips again, “I’m not a particularly good example, I tried to avoid fighting the Horde as much as possible and built up Dryl to be a fortress, but that was how I thought it best to protect the people in my territory.” With a sigh she dropped her hands, magenta eyes looking at nothing in particular, “With BrightMoon being right next to the Whispering Woods and after that only a short ride to the former-Fright Zone, new name pending, it made sense Queen Angella kept fighting. With the Sea Gate constantly under attack for its control of the oceans, it made sense Salineas was always under attack and fighting. Many of us that could, tried to avoid fighting with the excuse of protecting our people, some even joined the Horde in hopes that would save them, while people like me were neutral and isolated.”

With a sigh and halfhearted shrug, Entrapta raised her head to look at the young man in front of her, “No one talks about it, but in the first Alliance, we weren’t really fighting many bots…” unknowingly her hands shook, “We fought a lot of people. People raised to be soldiers like Catra and Adora in the Horde. People whose princesses or princes pledged loyalty for safety from Horde attacks.” Her hands clinched tightly as she looked down to the ground, “A lot of people died… and not just in the Alliance…”

Immediately Bow’s mouth opened, his hand reached out, wanting to say something… but as the moment dragged on, he realized he didn’t know what to say. In the war he never thought about the Etherian soldiers the Horde employed, never thought about how his weapons affected them, just that he needed to do something and would do what was necessary to reach his goal.

A lot of his designs were intended to subdue enemies, not kill them, but what if some had been? He couldn’t count the number of manned Horde bases they had taken out with explosives or other means of grandiose destruction using the powers the princesses could employ.

Glimmer could literally teleport in and out of skirmishes, taking people or weaponry with her, so keeping an eye on what she’d done had never even crossed his mind. He never really thought about what she could do with her powers… or if she had.

In fact, looking back, originally when they met Adora they immediately fought and had it not been for the sword or her not going all out obviously, he doesn’t know what would have happened…

Reaching out, a rough gloved hand landed on the young man’s unconscious fist.

“If we hold the likes of Hordak, Catra, and even Glimmer accountable for everything that happened in the war,” raising her magenta eyes, Entrapta waited for Bow’s black ones to meet hers. She was not blind to the tears now formed in his eyes, the ones falling unchecked, and the look of horror and loss on his face. Squeezing his hand, she tried to give him something of a smile, “We have to hold ourselves accountable as well.” Holding her other hand up to her chest, that not-quite-right smile on Entrapta’s face grew a little bit, “I lost my parents before I fought in the first Alliance, but I don’t hold that against the Horde, not anymore, because there are countless parents I took from the Horde as well…” when sorrow started overtaking the smile, a piece of her hair came up and lowered her mask. The hand from her heart lowered to her lap, and she gripped Bow’s hand tighter, “Blame helps no one. Ignoring it happened, helps no one. I stayed out of the fighting for so long to avoid either side, and that helped no one.”

Opening his hand, Bow held her own squeezing back, “You helped your own people, right?”

“I built bots to replace those that were lost,” Entrapta said mechanically behind her mask, “I didn’t know what else to do, but I didn’t want to continue with what the Alliance had done nor join the Horde…”

“But you did?” those dark brown brows pinched in the center, as Bow tried to get a good look at the older woman in front of him. He couldn’t see past the purple and pink bug mask, but he knew she could see him, “You helped us, then when you thought we abandoned you, you helped the Horde,” Bow’s hand tightened on hers as his black eyes glanced down, “I couldn’t understand how you could so easily switch sides, but I guess this is why? You just… didn’t want to fight either side anymore?”

The bug masked purple princess shrugged, then she reached up and put up her mask, showing a face that could only be described as full of grief but smiling nonetheless, “I built bots, because they can be fixed if they’re broken.”

“But people can’t, huh?” Bow had a similar look on his face, that hard to maintain smile while the rest of him just wanted to cry.

The two were silent for a moment, caught in a shared grief.

“I want to make things right,” A look of determination passed over the young tech’s face, his hold on Entrapta’s hand never loosening, “If I can’t forgive myself for what happened in the war, I’m sure Glimmer can’t either, same with Adora, Catra, even…” for a moment his lips pressed in a thin line, but he looked the older woman in the face and pushed ahead, “Even Hordak.”

Entrapta just smiled, small but bright as she nodded her confirmation. Her words weren’t good enough here, she couldn’t speak for Hordak, but she could support his decision to try and be better.

Bow’s hand squeezed Entrapta’s, “How… how do we move forward? How do we make this right?”

“We don’t,” quickly, purple pigtails waved as Entrapta shook her head, moving her other hand to hold Bow’s with both of hers, “There’s no way to ‘make it right’, it never will be, because that implies things go back to how they were,” holding his hand, she opened it, looking at his palm and just held it between her own, “We try harder, we make things better, we rebuild and we work at it for the rest of our lives, because that’s all we can do.” Holding his hand between her own, Entrapta looked up and gave Bow a bright, honest smile.

Looking at that face, Bow sniffled a bit, tears coming to his eyes and he tried to hide his frown behind his free hand. When the first tear started to fall, and his brows bent low, he gave a shuddered breath, “I’m still mad…”

Letting go of Bow’s hand, Entrapta held out her arms and her hair.

With a bawl, Bow dove in, no question needed, as he hugged Entrapta tightly and let her hug him just as much.

It was weird, a bit uncomfortable, but Bow seemed like he needed it. He was easier to read as his emotions were always so obvious and plain on his face and in his body language. The boy was honest, smart and kind, so this feeling was likely an entirely new experience for him.

It reminded Entrapta of times when she was young, after the first Alliance broke up, after everything that happened in the war.

Maybe she had wanted a hug… but no one was there to give it.

“How do I stop being mad?” came a muffled voice from her around her chest.

“I don’t know,” Entrapta said honestly, just holding the young man, “But understanding both sides helps. Talk about how this, and that, makes you feel. I’m sure Glimmer has things to say as well.”

Giving a nod, Bow pushed up, releasing the hug and wiped his eyes, sniffling, “O-okay.”

Putting her hands in her lap, Entrapta just grinned, “Better?!”

A smile spread on Bow’s face, wiping his eye as he met her gaze, “Better!”

“Good!” and just like that, the bright smile and oblivious attitude was back about Entrapta’s person. She hopped off her hair and walked over to the hunk of magic-resistant metal, and picked it up with her hair, “So, we getting to work, or are you going to go have that talk with Queen Glimmer?”

Bow stood up, gave her this funny look and rubbed the back of his neck, “Um… do you mind if I-?” he pointed out the door, looking between it and the tech princess.

Magenta eyes just blinked, staring at the young tech genius.

“Yea, I’m just going to go have that talk,” Bow nodded to himself, walking out of the room.

“Okay!!” Entrapta waved the young man off with both her hand and her hair, before turning back to the piece of metal in her grip, “Welp, time to get started!” pushing down her mask, several tools appeared in the grip of purple tendrils of hair. She’d get this started while Bow did what he needed to do.

Chapter Text

Self-Worth

The former Fright Zone, new name pending, was a wasteland area with a large volcanic crater. It was said that this crater happened when a meteor crashed there and it is heavily implied that this is where Hordak first crash landed on Etheria. Seeing as the former Horde leader doesn’t really remember and no one from that time is alive, no one can confirm.

There was tech and ship wreckage strewn about the place, buildings were built for utilitarian purposes and there was toxic waste that soiled the land for decades.

Then She-Ra happened and now, even two months after the defeat of Horde Prime, even the former Fright Zone, new name pending, was awash with flowers and greenery. Somehow the new flora was capable of taking root in metal and cleaned up all the pollution, to the point the place was actually quite beautiful…

Though if anyone got Perfuma’s opinion, even she’d say the plants here were exceptionally aggressive. It was probably a better idea that the new plant life in the former Fright Zone, new name pending, stayed in the former Fright Zone, new name pending.

After all, what other ecosystem could feed, let alone deal with metal eating plants? They were hyper effective at cleaning up pollution and other toxins, so they might not be completely bad.

Anyway, the former Fright Zone, new name pending…

“Jeez, can you believe how much this place has changed?” a sassy tail flick accented the words, as Catra leaned to the side, overlooking the strange greenery.

“Yea! It’s amazing!” standing next to the former Horde commander, Adora had her hand over her eyes like a visor, looking out at what had become of their childhood home.

The two shared a look, then smiled, laughing at each other.

“Bet I can get to our old spot before you!” the blonde punched her girlfriend’s shoulder, before taking off down the hill they were standing on.

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Catra yelled after her, nodding her head for Melog to appear next to her, and the two felines started jumping down the branches and mossy rubble.

Adora slid down ungracefully kicking up a ton of dust, rolling at the bottom and kept running, “You cheat all the time!!”

Catra at some point had gotten on the back of her space-cat and made a rude gesture and stuck her tongue out as Melog ran past the blonde princess.

“Argh!! CHEATER!!” Adora held out her hand, summoning a digital magical shinning sword and held it above her head, “For the Honor of Greyskull!!” and in a flash, She-Ra was running faster, neck and neck with the bubbly space cat.

Their laughter, and overall chaos, as the trio ran through the undergrowth of the former Fright Zone, new name pending, could be heard back up on the hill they started at.

“Ah-uh, should we-?” a tall half-scorpion, half-muscular lady, pointed out with her large red claw towards the dust cloud the two were leaving, while simultaneously holding the other claw near her face as if hiding behind it. Scorpia was worried, no doubt about that, having those two running around the former Fright Zone, new name pending, was just asking for some kind of trouble, right?

There was a loud crash, an up kicking of dust in the distance, and one of the few trees that hand managed to grow to a decent size was knocked over, along with a shout from undoubtably She-Ra of “CATRA!!” What was hard to tell from this distance was if it was She-Ra that had hit the tree or if Catra had been thrown off her mount.

The other two who were standing next to Scorpia didn’t seem phased.

“They’re fine!!” Entrapta said cheerily, holding up her pad and after switching a few modes could make out the outline of the former Fright Zone, new name pending, structure and the path Catra and Adora had mostly intended to take, tracking it with an overlay of the new forest and flora.

“Hmp,” it was hard to tell if that was a laugh, especially considering it came from Hordak, but the ever so small uptick on his blanched lips suggested it, “They are capable adults, they can fend for themselves in formally known territory.”

“Y-yes, well, sir,” with a nervous grin, Scorpia rubbed her claws together, “See, the thing is, the new plant life here is a bit, well, weird, and has been making things really strange, making mapping the place out compared to how it was months ago a bit difficult, and certain structures have become wholly unstable-!!”

“ADORA!!” another kick up of a lot of dust, as what appeared to be a hill was actually a former building that just collapsed.

After wincing, and cracking open her black eyes, Scorpia pointed, “See, like that…”

“Hmm,” standing tall with his hands behind his back, Hordak seemed to survey the area apathetically. Then he tilted his head to the side, neon green eyes looking specifically at the tiny tech next to him, “If you do not mind, I shall see if some parts of our lab remain.”

“Hm?!” Entrapta seemed to ‘wake up’ looking up with blinking magenta eyes. It took a second before she registered the tall clone’s words, and when she did a funny squeal released, as she pushed up on her hair to where she was eye to eye with Hordak and kissed his cheek, “Alright! Be careful! If you find any spare parts for Emily, that’d be great!”

An oddly pleased look passed Hordak’s blank white face, before it flattened and he looked at Scorpia directly, “If you do not mind, princess?”

“Oh, oh no!” blinking surprised at being addressed as such, it took Scorpia a moment to realize Hordak was asking her permission to go explore the former Fright Zone, new name pending. With a funny broad smile, she waved one of her claws, as if to shoo him away, “No, yea, yea! Go! Go do your thing Lord-er, ah, uh, Hordak? Just Hordak?” crinkling a black brow, Scorpia tilted her head, not sure how to address her former boss.

The passive look the former Horde leader gave her didn’t help at all, as those neon green eyes just looked at her a moment longer before he turned to take a safer path down to the formerly habited area of the former Fright Zone, new name pending.

Once he was gone, Scorpia let out a long obvious breath, sighing loudly and looking towards the sky, “Wow, that was just surreal,” tapping her claws together a moment, the tall muscular woman looked around her and wasn’t sure what to do. Entrapta was still next to her, fiddling with her pad…

A bird flew overhead.

There was some more yelling in the distance, but at this point Adora and Catra were apparently far enough away, Scorpia couldn’t make it out. That brought an unconscious frown to her lips.

Leaning over the edge, Hordak was already out of sight in the small forest…

Standing up straighter, putting her claws on her hips, that odd frown spread on Scorpia’s lips and she could barely stand it.

Black eyes turned to the short tech princess, “So! This is,” Scorpia waved her claws around making funny gestures, “A thing? Right!” she nudged Entrapta with her elbow, “All the… former Horde members, hanging out, in the Fright Zone, again…”

This was getting ridiculous.

Entrapta seemed to jump at the contact, turning to Scorpia and blinked again.

Scorpia nervously grinned.

Okay, more ridiculous!

The weird tech princess smiled brightly, “You’re right! I didn’t think about it!” facing forward, not really looking out at the forest, more just in the general area, Entrapta tapped her chin, “Catra just said she wanted to scour the place for any useful resources for our journey, Hordak wanted to check his-our old lab, Adora wouldn’t leave Catra alone and we could probably use She-Ra’s muscles…”

“Hey, I can do heavy lifting too!” there was not a pout on the princess of the black garnet’s face, Scorpia swore there wasn’t.

Entrapta just gave an oblivious grin at Scorpia’s input, before continuing, “And I wanted to see if there was any more of that anti-magic material you found…”

“Oh,” scratching her short white hair as much as her claws could, Scorpia looked away, trying to get the pout off her face. It’s not like she had hoped they, Entrapta and Catra specifically, had come by for any other particular reason or anything…

Suddenly there was something moving her other claw, and when Scorpia looked down, a big rough glove was holding her claw and swinging it just a bit. Blinking, her black eyes traveled over a bit and met Entrapta’s magenta ones.

“I also wanted to check in with you!” there was a bright, wide, innocent smile on the tech princess’ face.

Drawing her brows up in the center and lowering her hand, Scorpia was fighting back some tears that were forming at the edges of her eyes. She knew Entrapta could be oblivious about a lot of things, so there’s no way the little princess recognized the disheartened look she had had on her face, though Scopia was pretty sure she’d hid that well anyway.

The larger princess gave a dismissive laugh, smiling brightly, “Well, that’s nice! I’d like to check in with you guys as well!” she wasn’t being obvious, right?

“Great!” Entrapta shot up with her hair, clapping her hands together when she was near eye-to-eye with Scorpia, “So tell me! What has been going on? What are the developments with the former Horde? How’s the name thing going?” sitting back a bit, those rough gloves tapped her chin as Entrapa looked towards the sky, “Former Fright Zone, new name pending is a bit long on the tongue, doesn’t really roll off well even if it’s more accurate…”

“Eh-heh,” with a funny, strained, grin, Scorpia rubbed her claw behind her head, “Wow, well, that’s a lot, um,” moving to stand more comfortably, she crossed one claw over her chest and tapped her chin with the other, “Well, uh, it’s been… good? Yea! Pretty good! Here, I mean,” glancing to the side with her black eyes, she could oversee the greenery that had become of her homeland, “With the greenery this place isn’t as desolate,” absently she scratched her head, “Honestly I don’t think this place has ever been like this in all its history, even before Hordak and my grandfather had that deal. I was never sure if Fright Zone was the original name, no one really around to tell me, but with Horror Hall it’d kind of fit the theme, and I mean…” her voice trailed off and those black eyes turned to her companion.

Magenta eyes just blinked at her, clearly not getting the implication left there.

“Eh-heh,” again, nervously Scorpia tried to brush it off by rubbed her claws together, “It’s, um, it’s nothing…”

“I don’t get it?” Entrapta tilted her head, clearly curious.

Those spikey red shoulders drooped and that frown picked up again as Scorpia looked away, “Well, we’re Scorpani… you know, like scorpions, so…”

Magenta eyes blinked.

Scorpia curled in on herself a bit more, “Scorpions sting, it’s in our nature,” nervously she rubbed her claws together, “I… I don’t think it was all that surprising when my grandfather joined the Horde.” For a moment, the real weight of her frown was obvious, but only a moment, she swore. It just got hard to hide sometimes, “I can’t really remember the other Princesses being excited by my presence, it was always a formal ‘we have to do it’ thing for invites to parties and such,” standing taller, she waved her claws around, trying to act like it wasn’t a problem, “Which, I mean, that’s fine,” one claw went to her hip, the other scratch behind her head, “It’s… It’s fine…” her black eyes stared at the ground, “I mean, who’s going to trust someone that could literally just sting you on reflex? Ha!” raising her claws, Scorpia smiled, looking away, “That’s-that’s crazy…”

“I don’t think you would,” was the immediate response.

When Scorpia put her claws down and looked back at Entrapta, she saw the princess of Dryl looking at her seriously. Her magenta eyes were a bit narrow and her purple brows a bit low with a slight pout on her face.

She meant it, she always would.

It stunned Scorpia for a moment, that honest look. For a second it got through all her defenses and she couldn’t help but curl in on herself. Despite how big and arguably ‘scary’ she was seen as, she felt very small in this moment.

“That’s… that’s very nice of you Entrapta,” nervously, the tall muscular woman tapped her claws, trying not to pout but couldn’t help it, “It’s kind of not true, but it’s nice…”

Blinking away any anger or annoyance, Scorpia wasn’t sure what that emotion had been on Entrapta’s face, the little tech princess was now looking at her innocently, tilting her head clearly a bit confused, “What do you mean?”

With a half-hearted shrug, Scorpia looked away, “Reflex,” she waved her tail, bringing it up on her other side away from Entrapta and jabbed at the air.

Those pink eyes looked from the tail gesture, to the timid scorpani woman’s face a few times, then snorted, “That’s nothing!”

Timidly, those black eyes just blinked, “Uh?”

Reaching out, Entrapta pat a non-spiky part of the back of Scorpia’s shoulder, “Yea, that’s nothing!” another pat as she smiled at her friend, “Catra forgets she has her claws out half the time, so spends so much time at BrightMoon apologizing for the claw marks everywhere, same with Adora. Glimmer gets frustrated and teleports all over the place, even into dangerous places or forgets a height difference and causes a bunch of damage when she falls. Bow started working in a spare room as a new workshop to be closer to Glimmer, and he’s already blown it up twice!” for some reason her smile became exceptionally bright and cheery for that, “And then Adora is still working out the kinks of her new She-Ra form, do you have ANY idea the amount of magical power pumped through her from the Heart of Etheria? She’s still burning off the excess left over!!”

As if to accent her point, there was a yell from off in the distance, followed by more screaming, a laser beam being shot in the air and something else collapsing.

Scopria nervously blinked, “I’m starting to think you brought her here as more than just letting her follow Catra, huh?”

“Oh yea!” Entrapta didn’t even attempt to deny it, “Adora might not realize it, but Hordak and I thought it might be a good idea to get her out of the castle for a bit when she woke up shooting a hole through her and Catra’s room for the fifth time…”

A black eye twitched, “Okay, a lot to unpack there,” and while Scorpia’s brain wanted to linger on certain details, instead she just took a deep breath and let it out. Perfuma had been helping her with some meditation to get through some things, but it wasn’t like she had that many problems, just needed a few relaxation skills, that’s all. Taking another deep breath, holding it for a second, and letting it out, Scorpia looked down at the little tech princess, “So that anti-magic stuff? That’s why you need more?”

“Yep!” Entrapta obliviously nodded, “If it can help make sure Glimmer doesn’t teleport out into SPACE!!” lifting on her purple hair, Entrapta giggled at the word, still amused beyond all reason to think about it, before turning to Scorpia with more serious eyes and her finger raised as if making a point, “Then it might help Adora temper her She-Ra form, at least when she’s supposed to be resting, and less likely to blow a hole in Darla!”

“Uh,” Scorpia shuddered. She did not like the idea of space. Sure, she’d had a conversation with Entrapta, or really listened while the weird tech princess went on and on about the vacuum of SPACE and how her carapace might make her a more suitable person to be out in it, just in case for whatever reason… but no. Just no. Scorpia did not share her friend’s enthusiasm for space!

“But!” the little tech princess waved her finger around, settling down a bit and sitting in her hair more comfortably, “The point I was making is that everyone has some manner of reflex or instinctive reaction they can’t automatically control.” She had set her hands on her knees, fingers flexing for some reason, “It doesn’t seem right you or your people should be judged for something that’s natural to you. Just like the others have their quirks, you have yours.”

“Eh-heh,” rubbing her claws and looking to the side, Scorpia sighed again, “Yea, well…” she shrugged, “It’s not like ‘Horror Hall’ or ‘Fright Zone’ really helped alleviate that aspect, scorpions aren’t exactly cuddly,” she held up her claws, waving them up and down as if to give air quotes, “So it makes sense my ancestors just leaned into their obvious strength…”

“But you’re not?” magenta eyes blinked at the red shelled woman.

With a small frown and upturn of her black brows, Scorpia wasn’t sure what to say to that.

Entrapta smiled, holding out her hands, “You’re Scorpia, you’re a hugger!”

Tears abruptly started forming at the edges of Scorpia’s sharp black eyes and she couldn’t hold back any more, “Aww! C’mere!!” with a squeal of some sort, she reached over and squeezed the princess of Dryl in a tight, enveloping hug.

Entrapta seemed to stiffen for a second, but seeing as she had opened her arms first she knew this was going to happen. Scorpia could never resist a hug, and they seemed to make her happy. Maybe there was more to it, thanks to this conversation it was something Entrapta thought might be interesting to look into for her more ‘personable’ studies, but right now that wasn’t something to worry about.

Her friend needed a hug.

Wrapping her short arms and as much hair as necessary while still maintaining her height, Entrapta fully hugged the large scorpani princess back.

It went on longer than necessary, and Scorpia may have shaken a bit, but this was for her after all. Entrapta pat her side-back as much as possible.

With a little sniffle, and immediately moving to wipe any tears away, Scorpia ended the hug and pulled back with a more genuine smile.

Blinking a bit, and settling back lower in her hair as a chair, Entrapta watched the look on Scorpia’s face for a bit. It seemed… different compared to her normal smiles, and she couldn’t explain why. Perhaps a bit wider, eyes pulled back more, there were a lot of little details she’d have to process later.

For now it seemed Scorpia was in a better mood. Hugs really worked well for her.

Entrapta smiled, pulling up her pad and taking a few notes, “So, figured out any new names yet?”

“Weeeeellll,” standing with one claw on her hip and the other scratching her head, the larger princess looked to the side a bit. Entrapta noticed there was a bit of red on her cheeks but she wasn’t going to say anything, “Perfuma suggested I try naming it after the Black Garnet, since I’m all officially a princess with it working now, but I just haven’t come up with anything good,” crossing her claws, a bit of a frown pulled at her lips as Scorpia leaned to the side, “Black Garnet Woods? Garnetia? Uh, Garnet… wastes? Hrm…”

Taking a look at the taller princess trying to figure something out, then out at the once-barren-now-lush landscape before them, Entrapta tried to see if there was anything that gave inspiration. The Fright Zone had always been a wasteland, but naming it after what it once was sounded too close to the Crimson Wastes, and the point was to get away from its history.

There was the new forest, there were vine bridges and ruins, the large crater was still there, visible from everywhere but was now covered in the new vines and flowers. It was actually quite aesthetically pleasing, the soft glow of lava from where the meteor fell…

Magenta eyes blinked, “Fall…”

“Hm?” black eyes blinked, turning to the odd tech princess.

Pointing out at the crater, where remains of what fell from space was, Entrapta had a bright grin, “Why not name it after that?” she looked up at Scorpia, smile radiant, “Land of the Black Garnet, where Meteors fall,” reaching back, scratching her head, the princess of Dryl chuckled, “Where the Horde fell?”

“Black Garnet Fell?” blinking, Scorpia tried that out, “Nah, that’s not right,” looking up, she tapped her chin with one claw, pouting slightly, “Needs to be snappier, quicker, like Fright Zone, but better, hrmm…” another few taps, closing her eyes, “Black Fell? No, that’s still too dark, um… Garnet Meteor? Nah that doesn’t sound right… hrm, Meteor Fell… Garnet… Fall… Garnet Falls?”

Scorpia’s eyes snapped open.

Entrapta blinked.

“Aw, yes!” with a loud cheer, Scorpia snapped her pincers and held them up in triumph! “Garnet Falls! That sounds great! Haha!”

Magenta eyes blinked as Entrapta tapped her chin, “Garnet Falls… hmm,” she rolled the name around on her tongue, studying it from various angles in her head, before also popping up with a bright grin, “Ah! Yes! It rolls off the tongue much easier then former Fright Zone, new name pending and references to aesthetically important features of the territory-NYAGH!!”

With a yelp, Entrapta was suddenly wrapped up in pincers again.

Scorpia was too delighted and happy to care about proper personal space as she really just grabbed the closest person to her and held her, which happened to be Entrapta. Luckily her friend, while uncomfortable about the sudden touching, understood, and had established, this was just something that was all Scorpia. If you were near the princess of the Black Garnet, expect to get hugged at some point.

The nuzzling was new and not something Entrapta was used to, so some struggling may have occurred.

 “Oh, uh, s-sorry!” realizing Entrapta was trying to leave her embrace, Scorpia nervously let her go. Her smile wouldn’t let up, and she was glad to see the purple haired tech princess was smiling back up at her obliviously as soon as she let go. With a bit of a chided chuckle, Scorpia rubbed the back of her head with a claw, “I was just… so excited!” she literally bounced, tapping her claws, “You helped me figure out a good name! I can’t thank you enough Entrapta!”

For a good second Entrapta just stared at her, one brow curling as she looked genuinely confused, “We’re friends? Why wouldn’t I help you?”

At first, Scorpia opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and instead laughed, straightening up and giving her friend a genuine smile. Entrapta was an odd one, but she always helped out, whether she realized it or not, “You know, I don’t know how to say this,” with an unrelenting smile, Scorpia looked down at her claws, recalling her life and everyone she’d known, “You’re an odd one, Entrapta,” immediately tensing, she turned, waving her claws, “A-and I mean that as a good thing!”

When all the response she got was blank blink, Scorpia figured she could just continue.

“It’s, well, it’s just strange,” her black brows furrowed, and she tried to sort out her thoughts into something coherent. Being open, vulnerable, and honest wasn’t something she was used to, but Perfuma had been teaching her that sometimes it was okay, to let her smile drop and just be honest for a bit. It did, her smile from earlier fell, but didn’t fully drop, it was just there, and small, and felt right, “I grew up in the Horde, just because I was the princess of the Black Garnet didn’t mean I got special treatment,” with a shrug, she faced Entrapta with a strangely small smile, “I didn’t have a connection to the Black Garnet before, and I was always afraid to reveal I was a princess,” she tapped her claws, looking away, “Shadow-Weaver even said it was a good thing I was a failure as a princess once, well, more than once, but you get what I mean…”

“She was not a nice person,” the look on Entrapta’s face was still blank, but if Scorpia wasn’t seeing things there might have been a bit of tilt to the princess’ purple brows and tan lips.

Maybe she was angry, and maybe that made Scorpia feel a bit better.

Trying to push down as her grin spread at the thought and failing, Scorpia tapped her claws together, “She… was not,” she shook her head, “I know she took care of some of the kids, like Adora, Catra, Kyle, Lonnie and Rogelio, but it’s not like she raised me. I didn’t meet her until I was older, long after my parents were gone, but I had wanted to see if I could make contact with the Black Garnet, if I could use the powers I supposedly had to help the Horde, and Hordak sent me to her, and… well,” there was a shrug and Scorpia wasn’t sure what else to say about that, or the few other attempts she’d made, “It just… never worked for me, and Shadow-Weaver seemed pleased by my failure as a princess, so…” another shrug, only this time Scorpia held one of her claws, looking at the ground as her smile started to slip.

It was now that those purple brows on Entrapta did dip, a frown pulling at her lips, “Well, she was wrong!” reaching out, very awkwardly, her rough glove came down on a non-spikey part of Scorpia’s shoulder, “She was a bad person who said bad things,” unknowingly her hand squeezed, drawing the white haired princess’ attention, “You’ve more than proven you’re capable with the power of the Black Garnet, that you deserve it, and you have done wonderful things with it!” a bright smile passed the tech princess’ lips, “Like help us! Against the Horde and Horde Prime!”

Scorpia’s brows wrinkled in the middle and while part of her wanted to refute some of that, especially with how she was chipped and working for Horde Prime for a bit… she knew Entrapta was trying to cheer her up. She wasn’t entirely wrong, and Scorpia was starting to realize it was okay to accept that from people.

With a bit of a laugh, and more of that genuine smile returning, Scorpia scratched the back of her head with her claw, “Yea, YEA! You’re right!” her smile doubled and she put both claws on her hips, posing almost, “I guess if you and everyone else keeps saying it, it’s gotta be right, right?!” She gave another laugh, not sure why, “I mean, even Perfuma’s been telling me this stuff! Like how I got all this positive energy, and I’m just channeling it into making this place all nice and pretty like me-ah, er!” there was a definite squeak as red rushed across Scorpia’s cheeks. She’d accidentally said too much…

Nervously, those black eyes darted to Entrapta, not sure if she noticed.

Of course, this was Entrapta, she just smiled obliviously up to her friend.

With a nonchalant pat on the shoulder, Entrapta spared the princess of the Black Garnet any more embarrassment, “See! You’ve done a lot! Renaming the Fright Zone to Garnet Falls! Taking care of former Horde and helping them adjust! Improving relations with the other princesses of the alliance!”

There was squeak from the large princess, and Entrapta had entirely no idea why.

The odd techy though did tap her chin, looking down at her pad and bringing up some data that seemed relevant to this situation, “Speaking of which…” a few more button presses and some charts came up, “With the projected growth of these new plants that She-Ra caused compared to the growth in other parts of Etheria, it does seem a bit abnormal,” a few more chart changes, and some pictures came up that had been taken the last time they were here, “In fact, have you had some new species introduced? Or has there just been rapid evolutionary changes to some of the existing anomalous plants?”

For some reason, Scorpia’s face was very red and she was trying (and failing) to hide it behind her claws, “T-that’s, um, well, see… Perfuma’s been coming over to help with them… and other things… so…” those black eyes darted to the side.

Magenta eyes blinked obliviously, “AH! That makes sense!” Entrapta just seemed to cheer, putting in the new calculations into her algorithms, “Yes, with her powers it would make sense! Guiding the growth for the toxic and metal eating plants, controlling their spread into further areas, even introducing some native plants to see if they can coexist! NYAAH!!” for some reason Entrapta squealed, tapping her knuckles together with a big happy grin as she wiggled about above her pad suspended by her hair, “Oh! The experiments! It must be so thrilling!”

Glancing to the side and allowing a sly smirk to pass her lips, and ignoring the blush that raced across her face, Scorpia let herself giggle a bit, “It… it really has been…” When she turned back, Entrapta was in her face with stars in her eyes, “Ah!”

“So?” for some reason the weirdly suspended by her hair tech princess held up her pad, showing some kind of graph Scorpia couldn’t make any sense of, “According to my data, this purposeful interaction would indicate romantic interest, when are you going to tell everyone else?”

Some manner of squeal escaped Scorpia’s mouth, probably coinciding with the internal screaming in her head, “W-wha-bah-what?! NO?! THAT’S-?!” somehow she managed to close her mouth, glanced from Entrapta’s starry eyed smile to the weird data on her pad and back a few times before shrinking a bit and tapping her claws, whispering, “Don’t tell anyone! I haven’t asked her or approached her about anything like that yet!”

“Oh!” immediately Entrapta leaned back, putting her pad away somewhere in her hair and put herself down, standing on her own feet. For a minute she stood there, staring up at the squirming Scorpia and just smiled, “Well, I’m rooting for you!” and pat her friend’s leg.

Scorpia released a breath she didn’t know she was holding, “Oh, that actually makes me feel a lot better…” still having her claws up and tapping together, she looked down at her shorter friend with a shy smile, “And, um… thanks.”

“You’re worth it!” Entrapta gave one more pat, smiling before moving to the edge of the spot they were on, “She’ll be lucky to have you.”

“Aw, uh, well…” Scorpia just blushed, rubbing the back of her head, not sure what to say.

“Ooooh?” a certain familiar voice came out of nowhere, “Who’d be lucky to have Scorpia?”

With a squeak from Scorpia, both she and Entrapta turned around, spotting Catra and Melog appear out of thin air, that Cheshire grin on her face.

It still made Scorpia feel a bit weak in the knees, but noticeably less… probably because it didn’t seem as threatening now.

Quirking a brow, Catra turned from one to the other, hand on her hip, “Well, c’mon, tell me~ who’s Scorpia got the hots for?!” when the feline woman smiled, she looked both genuinely curious and happy.

It was a strange look Scorpia wasn’t used to seeing on the woman she used to call Wildcat.

“Well I just said I wouldn’t tell anyone!” Entrapta held up her finger, as if making a point.

Scorpia visibly sighed in relief.

“But seeing as you already know,” the way the wide oblivious grin on the tech princess spread was dangerous, “Since I’m sure you were listening in, it’s Perfuma!”

“Entrapta! Why!” hunched over in betrayal, Scorpia squealed.

Funnily enough, Catra just had her arms crossed, giving the high pitched squealing laugh of hers, tail waving about amused while Melog made happy noises behind her.

Scorpia was stuck staring, she’d never seen Catra like this before.

Raising one clawed finger, Catra wiped away a tear, “Oh, that’s rich,” that cocky smirk was back as she leaned on one hip, glancing over with her heterochromatic eyes at the large princess, “It’s about time you realized it! C’mon! I’ve been waiting for you guys to start something since Adora blasted Prime into oblivion!”

“Uh, what?” dropping her claws and just staring, Scorpia didn’t know what to think.

“Catra was the first to mention you and Perfuma looked ‘good’ together,” Entrapta’s hair made air quotes, “Though I believe she really said you two looked like happy parents with Frosta as your adopted kid after Prime’s defeat which is why she was afraid to approach you…”

“Hey! Don’t sell me out like that!” ears back and tail in a puff, Catra growled at Entrapta, but it was pretty obvious any threat wasn’t real.

Scorpia watched the feline woman in front of her, surprised by how much she seemed to have genuinely changed. She didn’t know what all happened to Catra since she left the Horde, just being filled in after Prime was defeated that Catra had joined the alliance, thanks to Adora of course, and was apparently… better?

With how skittish she had been, with her hair cut short and looking so nervous, when she had approached Scorpia after being de-chipped… its true, she hadn’t seen the angry young woman she had left in the Horde, and it had been an exciting time with everyone happy and celebrating, Perfuma hugging her, and things seeming so good maybe she hadn’t thought about it all and just hugged her old friend because she was there…

And Catra had accepted her hug for once, so it seemed fine…

But seeing this, her getting ‘angry’ but not really lashing out, not having that prickly feeling on the back of her neck like she should be worried and seeing Entrapta laughing at her and not bothered by it…

Maybe she had been working on it.

Pouting, lowering her ears, and depuffing her tail, Catra gave a half-hearted glare to Entrapta first before giving a wry grin to Scorpia, her face had softened so much, “Hey, I’m happy for you,” awkwardly, very awkwardly, she reached out a fist and tried to tap Scorpia’s carapace.

It took the large princess a moment to realized, as Catra skittishly pulled her fist away and tuck it under her arm as she crossed them, that she was testing what she could do. She was aware of what she’d done before and wasn’t sure what was okay now. It was so strange to see…

It made Scorpia laugh, “Well, if you’re happy about it?” the laugh was awkward, made even more so as Catra narrowed her blue and yellow eyes at her and Scorpia realized that also might not have been the right thing to say. This was awkward… it’d probably take them awhile to figure out talking to each other again, “Ah, I mean,” rubbing her head with her claw, she nervously smiled, “Thanks… Catra…”

The smile that passed the feline woman’s face was awkward, nervous and genuine, “Don’t mention it…”

For some reason, Melog had trotted over to Scorpia, and sat down next to her and leaned against her side. The princess of the newly named Garnet Falls had no idea what was with this strange space-cat that had weird magic or why it followed Catra around, but it was cute and seemed really friendly, “Aw, aren’t you cute!” of course, Scorpia had to hug it, and it made adorable purring mewling noises as it happily wiggled in her grasp.

With a blush, Catra quickly coughed into her hand, straightening up a bit and looked between the two of them, “Now, um… I need your help?” those very serious blue and yellow eyes looked at the two former Horde members and made sure they were looking at her, “Adora… kind of… maybe… fell down a hole and I need help getting her out…”

“Oh! Was that what that laser was?” Entrapta blinked, funny smile on her face.

Catra looked pained as she rubbed down her neck, “Yeeeeaaaa…” there was an exasperated sigh, “She thought blowing a hole would make it easier to get out… but that just dropped the ceiling on her,” with a frustrated growl, Catra started making obvious, silly, wild hand gestures as her voice got a bit higher in pitch, “And I know! She’s She-Ra! She’s practically indestructible! But even she should know that’s STUPID! And now she’s stuck and I-AH!!”

Seeing as Catra was clearly worried, and seeing them planning stuff together, instead of feeling anything negative like jealousy, Scorpia found herself smiling with fond nostalgia. Without thinking, she did what she does best.

She reached out, picking up both Catra and Entrapta and hugged them, to the tech princess’ giggles and the feline woman’s squeak.

“Oh! This is so much fun! Former Horde Friends Group back and helping each other out! Yea!” the grin would not leave Scorpia’s face as she held the two.

Catra groaned, running her hand across her face, “Uh, why… why do I do this? I knew this would happen,” for her complaining, she wasn’t at all trying to escape like she used to, instead just accepting it as her tail waved about, seemingly annoyed. Melog was mewling and rubbing on Scorpia’s thigh, and there was no way Catra was going to mention anything about what that meant.

“Oh, yea!” Entrapta, ever oblivious and at this point comfortable enough with Scorpia’s hugs, was already running her fingers through her pad, checking on blueprints for the former Fright Zone, now Garnet Falls and seeing where Adora may have fallen judging by the damage they’d seen earlier, “I know that sector, Emily and I used to run through there a lot, it has a connection to our old lab, so Hordak should be able to help as well…”

“Alright! Let’s go then!” and without prompting, or thinking, Scorpia jumped down the ledge, sliding while still holding her former Horde comrades.

Catra screamed in terror while Entrapta just went “WHEEEEEEEE!!” the whole way down.

It was a strange day, but it made Scorpia feel a whole lot better about seeing her old comrades. Things were different, a lot had changed, and there was still a lot each of them was working on, but for the moment, she genuinely was happy to have her old friends by again. They may not have been the best of friends before, but maybe, with how today went, that was a possibility in the future.