Chapter Text
“Happy birthday, Adora!”
A cloud of sparkles accompanied Glimmer’s sunny-sounding greeting. Within seconds, Adora’s body was crunched together in the hydraulic press that was her friend’s arms. All she could hear was laughs bubbling from the short girl’s mouth.
“Thanks, Glimmer.” she croaked and pulled up the corners of her lips shakily. She was thankful Glimmer never noticed she was awake.
If she noticed, she would have wondered why Adora was awake with the blankets over her head, why she faced away from the door. She would have asked why Adora didn’t want to be greeted by her best friend on her birthday, and she was not ready to have that conversation.
Adora forced her grin higher up her cheeks as Glimmer gripped the white spandex on her shoulders and moved her face from Adora’s chest so she made sharp eye contact.
“This is your first birthday in Bright Moon!” she shook the bewildered jock’s shoulders before she suddenly released her grip.
“You of all people need to get used to sleeping in,” Glimmer’s cape flicked as she sprung off Adora’s bed, “but today’s not the day, Adora!”
The blonde slapped her hands around her bed in search of her customary red jacket. She glued that same dumb grin on her face, commanded it to stay still for her friend, who hopped and spun and waved her hands like a hyperactive puppy.
After she swung the jacket through each of her arms, her world turned dark as she rubbed the sleep dust from her eyes. Glimmer’s hand swiped one of her own from her eyes, which left her one hand to continue her spring cleaning. Her chiding voice rambled about Bow waiting in the castle’s kitchen as her hand pulled Adora from her dark room and into the hallway stuffed bountifully with natural light.
As Glimmer blabbed about a ten-foot-tall mascarpone-cherry cake and an endless buffet table of delicacies from kingdoms as far as Salineas, Adora lost herself in the blurry vision that followed after she opened her eyes. She wanted to shuffle back into the dark of her room, for it was her friend: it wouldn’t judge her for crying on her birthday. It wouldn’t ask her prying questions because it already knew what was wrong, it already knew what was missing, and it knew what Adora needed was some fucking silence.
She wanted to forget She-Ra for a goddamned minute so she could take the time to hear little old Adora screaming bloody murder in her head. That is, if Adora was still in there. God knows what could’ve happened to her once Catra left her for dead in the First Ones Temple.
Adora had a single birthday party in the Horde. She never had what Glimmer and Bow organized for her—a cake, streamers, an awkward crowd of loved ones singing a song for her—but she had something else, something that she often replayed in her head, when she allowed herself to.
As Glimmer’s fiery excitement lit ablaze the spacious corridors of Bright Moon, her hand dragged a reluctant Adora to the professional chef kitchen.
She-Ra gave herself permission to spend some time with Adora; gave Adora permission to replay that ‘something else’ in her head.