Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of course there is still work to be done, and of course the fighting doesn’t stop instantly because you dethrone a despot, even one as directly and insidiously dictatorial as Horde Prime.

On Etheria alone, there is upwards of three million clones — a plurality of which are bunkered in the Southern Reach — now bereft of their master. A humanitarian catastrophe waiting to happen.

Removing the forcibly instated clone governors proves easier than expected; the clone occupation forces are rendered toothless by the dissolution of the chain of command. Docile-even. Many of them paralyzed by their new-found struggle with identity apart from their cult leader.

There’s a brief grace period where it seems as if things might go back to normal.

And then thousands upon thousands of underground resistance members go home to their families, bringing with them the first-hand experience of what is essentially a post-scarcity society.

In fact, they bring the post-scarcity society with them. The standard replicators plus power supply, data storage, and refinery are not quite single-household sized, but close. And they’re basically free.

All but the most technophobic parts of civic society across Etheria takes to the self-replicating fabricators, the portal device networks, the buddy-bots, and the hand-held communicators with gusto and keen interest. A development which has many powers-that-be worried.

The revolution looms large on the horizon.

Glimmer stands by her vanity, supporting herself in part on her staff, in part by her wings. Her new legs are still unfamiliar enough that she’s in danger of falling.

On the other hand, they are fabulous. Color-changing skin, and built-in heels. Rather than be an imitation of flesh, she has chosen them almost doll-like in appearance. And they match her angelic strength, too. Entrapta has had no hand in them other than verifying the soundness of the final design and overseeing the attachment.

To show them off, she has sworn never to wear a combination of bottom and footwear that will fully cover them. Today she is barefoot and in breeches. The built-in heel — really a kind of extendable extra toe — serves to elevate her. She has set the artificial skin to slowly cycle through a gamut of inoffensive pastels.

“There, how does that look, your Majesty?” her stylist and barber asks; a middle-aged faun woman. She hands her scissors off to her buddy-bot — the civilian model, with the soft silicone padding over the working parts and a cuddly inflated exterior made of vinyl. ‘Huggable,’ as Kyle described it.

“Thank you, Betty, it is lovely.”

It was about time for Glimmer to realize that there is no controlling her hair. So now she has had Betty trim it down, leaving just enough for a flourish ’do on top. Her cow lick actually somehow becomes an advantage.

She fumbles with the buttons on her lilac gala uniform jacket. “Ah, would you pull up my chair?” she asks. “I need both hands for this.”

“My Queen, allow me,” Betty says, and buttons Glimmer up.

“Thank you. I think that’s everything for today. Say hello to the kids from me.”

“I will, your Majesty.”

Then Glimmer blinks away, to the study adjoint to the throne room.

“You’re late,” Bow says. He is wearing straight ranger garb; green and grey, clean and pressed, but without any filigree or even rank insignias. Glimmer has insisted he at least wear a silver laurel brooch and trim of same on his gloves.

“I’m the Queen. Court is not in session until I say so.”

He gives her a kiss, and they stand there for a moment just enjoying one another. “Ever thought of growing out your beard?”

Bow shrugs. “Clean shaven has a certain youthful vigor…”

“A nice beard signals maturity; it could get you some unearned respect when it comes to first impressions. Also I think it would be great if it tickled when you kiss me.”

Bow blushes. “I’ll think about it.”

Then Glimmer takes him by the hand.

“Wait, your book —” Bow hands her the copy of Statecraft and Revolt: an Economical Analysis. She tucks the hefty tome under one arm.

They head through the double doors into the packed throne room.

Every single noble family still standing is represented. Most of them by their matriarchs and patriarchs in person. A sea of ostentatiously dressed people fill the floor, and the combined miasma of perfumes fill the air.

Glimmer ascends the steps to the throne, and Bow takes the consort’s seat by her side. A murmur spreads through the crowd.

She claps her hands. “Court is in session.” She rises, supporting herself on her staff.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the nobility; thank you all for coming in such numbers and so promptly. I have an opening statement to make, and an agenda to follow today; if anyone has a matter of supreme urgency that surpasses this, say so now.”

A hand raises. It’s Duke Erlan of Erelandia. “Might I inquire, your Majesty, who this suitor of yours is?”

Glimmer looks at him for just long enough that the silence becomes uncomfortable and everyone including the Duke realizes that no, that is not in fact of supreme urgency. “We might as well get that out of the way. This is Bow of the Hidden Library, descendant of Ruined Alexandria, former Corps Captain of the Brightmoon Rangers, Captain of the Resistance, and current Master Pilot of the Swift Wind in the Starlight Brigade. He is not my suitor, he is my husband-to-be. I will not be taking questions on the matter; but if it eases any minds, I owe him several life debts and I love him with all my heart. Does that answer your question, Duke?”

“It does, your Majesty.”

Glimmer switches her staff to her other hand and takes out the book. “Has anyone here had time to do some reading?”

No answers.

She snap-casts a telekinesis spell, and hands the book back to bow. “Show of hands, who here is worried about the new manufacturing machines; the so-called fabricators?”

A large number of hands rise.

“Good. I’m here to tell you how we solve the problem.”

She looks over the crowd.

“We abolish the royal dynasty, and every noble house.”

The crowd erupts in bedlam. Hundreds of voices shouting.

Glimmer waits. She looks back at Bow, who gives her a thumb up.

Then she looks back at the crowd, raises her staff, and brings it down with a thunderclap, breaking a tile on the podium.

Everyone shuts up.

“Questions. Orderly. One at a time. You.” She points at a noblewoman.

“My Queen, this is outrageous; I think I speak for everyone when I say this cannot stand. We will move for dethronement if you insist.”

Glimmer nods. “Let me tell you all why you are wrong.”

She reaches to the holster at her side, and draws her Yala-Zev sub-carbine. “This is a weapon that surpasses in deadliness every single musket and rifle ever made by Brightmoon smithies. A standard fabrication bed can produce four of these per hour, given the correct raw materials.” She holsters it again.

"Everyone will have access to this kind of firepower by the end of the month. Every. Single. Peasant. You come to me, worried for your livelihoods, and I understand, I really do. I already know there are pocket communities who have transitioned to using credit on their hand-held communicators for trade, rather than the mint’s coin. And I am sure you have explored the possibility of enforcing taxation.

"I’m here to tell you that these communities are only going to proliferate. Replicators enable splinter communities to become self-sufficient with trivial ease. Nobody with access to one is reliant on the long logistical chains we have built our society to facilitate. Tools, food, clothing, medicine, even housing and transportation. All of our efforts as a great nation, made irrelevant in one single turn.

“It feels unfair; I can only imagine.”

There’s murmurs of assent.

“Stop whining. Get a replicator or two installed in your estates and stop trying to fight it.”

Several dozen people object and Glimmer raises her staff — the mere threat calls them to order.

“What do you want me to do? Send in the army? I have no more power over this situation than any of you. And I am not going to start the bloodiest civil war in history because you can’t reform your tax codes. We’ll lose. Because these people just fought a civil war against forces far greater than what we can muster.”

“My Queen,” the governess of Elberon says. “This is an outrage. The Throne exists to serve the interests of the Noble houses, in exchange for fealty. I have heard that your late mother and father have both been found alive; I motion we bring them into the discussion and be over with this nonsense.”

Glimmer looks at her. “They are honeymooning.”

“Can we perhaps contact them and get them to return?”

“No. And besides, I seem to remember that you all put your seals on a declaration that I alone was Queen Regent. And as for the slanderous notion that I have not pursued your interest…”

Glimmer gestures out the great windows. “I just fought a war against an army from the sky, who wanted to destroy the entire universe. And we won. Or else we wouldn’t be here.”

She taps on her legs with her staff. “I lost my legs in battle. Governess, when was the last time you were injured in war, protecting the people in your charge? Never?”

“Correct, your Majesty.”

Glimmer nods. “Are there any other objections on legal or ideological basis? Because if not, I would like to discuss the specifics of my transition plan, what the government of the future is going to look like, and why this isn’t actually going to matter to the lot of us, so long as we’re willing to accept a life of marginally less luxury.”

She looks over the crowd, waiting. Then she begins her tale:

“About a month and a half ago, by choice, I became a humble steward of a ship that sails the stars. I spent a week out between the stars, making sure friends I love dearly were fed, clothed, and lived in clean surroundings…”

There’s nothing quite like using the grandest kind of banquet to really show how a castle can be run on a skeleton crew of well-paid part-time workers, volunteers, and other such implementations of Queen Glimmer’s radical new ideas for — as she terms it — ‘Ethical’ noble life.

A royal wedding. The coronation is going to seem like a quaint garden party in comparison.

And before every wedding must come the bachelor and bachelorette parties. Not to celebrate the ‘last eve of freedom’ for the nuptial couple, because that should hopefully never be the case. No; they exist to close the unmarried chapter of one’s life. Just as the wedding reception exists to open the married one. And the nights in between — if indeed there are any — are for liminal contemplation.

Glimmer and Bow both independently — great minds and all — have the brilliant idea to hold said parties in another city entirely, so as to perhaps limit the amount of embarrassing gossip that would get out if the usual revelry of such a party were to take place in the city of Brightmoon.

Specifically, since the peace treaties have gone through; a nice diplomatic gesture is to choose Capital, in the Fright Zone. A gesture of diplomatic good faith!

And so, Catra and Adora’s vacation is interrupted.

Fall is coming, and really the time to build a proper homestead would be in spring, when gardening can begin properly. At least it is hunting season, and with the existence of portal engines, fresh greens are available year round at a similar convenience to a stroll down to the green grocer on the corner in a big city.

They don’t pick a spot in the Whispering Woods. For one because it is dangerous, and for two, because there’s a lot of memories in that place which neither of them want to deal with.

So they go home, and obtain a small plot of land in the forests to in the northeastern Fright Zone — using Catra’s credit from her time as a General while Horde society still runs on Dinar — and on the same day, go there. Not by portal, but by Halcyon as a car.

Now is not an occasion that calls for using portals to go places in order to save time. Now is the time to take time.

The roads are depopulated. Every day driving becomes less appealing as portal-travel becomes commonplace. Which is good, because a gold-colored magical car tends to draw stares. On full trafficked roads they might have caused an accident.

“You look like a dork with those shades,” Catra says.

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Adora replies, running a hand through her hair. Three hours ago she took an electric trimmer to it, then came running to Catra for help when she realized it wasn’t as easy as she thought. A buzzed undercut, and with some styling, a pompadour and top knot. The shades were on display at one of the new fabricator kiosks — not the automatic kind from Refuge, but an actual store with a person manning the register. They were dirt cheap.

In fact, that very store is where they got most of their clothes. Short-sleeved shirts with slogans, shorts for Catra, a skirt for Adora. Barely appropriate for the weather, but it feels practically toasty compared to the Southern Reach.

Catra has let her hair down. Quite literally, as it obeys her commands. It hangs long, smooth and immaculately despite all reason, down to the small of her back — at least when the wind isn’t blowing through it.

“You really went and brought all his fake jewelry,” Adora notes.

Catra is decked out ostentatiously: earrings, necklace, bangles, rings, and anklets all made of very much ignoble alloys. “Hey, I’m just trying it on for size. I’ll get my hands on some gold and fab up some real jewelry if I like it.”

They reach the forest, and Adora takes them off the main road, onto the smaller ones, then onto a forest trail. Halcyon’s all-terrain car form eats the road without slowing down any.

Soon enough, going by the geoposition, they arrive at the plot of land. Technically it’s a two-year use-lease intended for logging. But Catra has argued on the car ride that such things as land-ownership are probably going to fall apart. She’s studied economical power structures more so than Adora, being General and all.

“Could you just mark up the extend of the property?” Catra asks her. “Then I’ll unload.”

By the end of the day, they’ve made headway, and Adora is getting a feel for how the people of Refuge constructed their third city in less than a day.

Felling the trees is what took the longest, especially since Adora insisted on doing the first dozen with an ax. It took time, but on the other hand Catra is never again going to complain about the prospect of watching Adora perform hard physical labor in a sleeveless top and a pair of thigh-high shorts — the skirt wasn’t really working out, so they swapped. By the end of it, Adora was basically steaming.

Digging out the foundation took markedly shorter, as the powered entrenchment tools turned out to be able to eat through stumps with ease. Laying the foundation required Catra to break out her fabricator suite.

“You carry around an entire fab-suite?” Adora asks, as Catra plonks the five machines down on the uneven forest floor.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you if you could?”

Adora shrugs.

The construction foam itself is not quite strong enough for foundation-building, so in addition, a grid of carbon supports must be laid, much like rebar in concrete, only much, much lighter and stronger. Indeed the whole structure is so light, part of the foundation is a series of great big anchoring spears driven into the ground.

The carbon for spears and reinforcements is readily extracted from the felled trees; they drive them into the soil together, taking turns striking with heavy mallets. The foam itself needs only minerals readily extracted from the excavated topsoil.

On top of that Catra lays down the walls with the help of a few blackguards, using hand-held construction nozzles, leaving enough space on the foundation for a generous patio and an adjoining utility shed. With the walls in place, they set the ceiling struts and lay the ceiling in foam as well, then raise a rain-runoff roof designed for growing moss, leaving a sizable loft-gap in-between, accessible by external ladder.

They set up the fab suite in the shed, complete with the wastewater processor, water tank and heater, power plant, and refinery. The fabricator, dry-laundering machine, and data crystal array go inside the house proper.

Then it’s just a matter of drilling holes for the plumbing and wiring, and come nightfall, they run the fabricator to make conventional furniture: toilet cabin — very needed — and shower cabin, and kitchen sink, cook-top; and then wisely, a nice, big, study bed.

And for all the intention of picking up that passion of their second-kiss-turned-make-out-session, they are both tired, bone-deep.

Adora falls over backwards onto the bed, groaning. “I don’t even have the energy to cook dinner.”

Catra throws her a meal bar — the hefty, half-pound kind that tastes good, rather than being nutritionally optimal like the MRE-packet gruel. A sandwich-sized chunk of pressed high-protein ingredients, flavored with something called ‘cocoa.’

Adora unwraps the wax paper and chows down, getting crumbs on the sheets.

Catra lets herself dump down next to Adora. “So.”

“I wuw yu, Gadra,” Adora says, through a mouthful of meal bar.

Catra giggles, and flourishes another meal bar for Adora, since she just destroyed half of hers in two bites. She has been doing most of the heavy lifting.

“Do you think people are going to start doing this?”

“Whaf?”

“Going into the middle of nowhere and just… Building a house.”

“’Ay’ee.”

They eat in silence, while the sounds of the forest outside turn strange. Evening birds sing their bedtime songs, and the occasional gust of wind rustles the leaves. They’re keeping doors and windows open — perhaps incautiously — to ventilate away the smell of fresh construction foam; a very earthy, acrid smell, even if completely harmless.

The whole room needs a coat of paint and some thick carpets to be really hospitable; the light grey walls feel… Industrial, compared to the woods outside.

Their ceiling lights turn orange as the sun goes down.

Adora yawns. She throws off her dirty blouse and wiggles out of her shorts while Catra locks the door and windows. She pauses by the fabricator, and considers running it in silent mode overnight to produce some furniture assembly kits.

“Come to bed, Cat.”

Catra looks over at Adora, lying with her head on the beige pillow, a sheet thrown over her; hiding none of her near-divine mix of soft curves and cut muscle. It’s be incredibly sexy if they weren’t both so tired it feel like their heads were full of cotton.

Catra shrugs off her flannel. “Did you even brush your teeth?”

“Too tired,” Adora whines.

She finishes undressing, and then she crawls into bed, cuddling up bare skin to fur; the most comforting feeling in the world.

Adora wakes, heart galloping, and casts about in the darkness of night. Visions of death fade from her mind as her hand touches Catra’s shoulder, and she pulls the — no, her sleeping catgirl close.

Catra wakes to the sound of the fabricator running.

“Hey sleepyhead,” Adora says. “You know what this place needs?”

Catra rubs the sleep out of her eyes. The opposite the bed is casting a nice warm ray of sunshine on her, and she is very disinclined to move from it.

“A fireplace.”

Adora lifts the big drill. The item taking shape on the fabricator bed is a chimney pipe.

“Not before coffee,” Catra groans.

Adora dances over to the kitchen, pouring a fresh cup.

By noon, they have it all done. Lightweight furniture is faster to fabricate than heavy stuff. Adora paints the outer walls a charming warm brown; the inside has gotten a nice faux-wood panelling — really just a single layer of veneer — and collapsible dividing walls to give the option of making the bed- and bathrooms separate from the living space.

A house for two. Dimensioned for seven-feet tall demigoddesses. The bed is gigantic, the shower head is on the ceiling, the kitchen is built from standard kitchen-furnishing elements, but on a raised platform, giving it a ‘firestep’ for normal-sized people. Final floor plan is large for a single-room wilderness cabin, but still intimate.

Adora puts a lid on the paint bucket, throws the roller in a bag, and wipes the paint stains off her fingers with a rag, leaving died up clay paint splotches on her skin.

She comes onto the patio and Catra hands her a cold beer. The sun is warm, but he air is growing colder already.

“So,” Adora says, dumping down into the patio chair next to Catra. “What the fuck are we going to do for the rest of the day?”

Catra looks over at the stack of full-length tree trunks lying off to the side; it is still far too wet to be useful for firewood. “I haven’t really been doing anything strenuous; I could split some wood while you watch?”

Adora ponders the prospect of watching Catra work in her backless top. “Maybe later.”

“There’s a lake a few miles north. Fishing?”

“Only if we bring like, a cask of beer,” Adora says.

There’s not really anything that bites, but fishing is as good an excuse as any to sit around and do nothing for hours on end in the afternoon sun, for two people who are incapable of sitting back and relaxing.

Which is to say, Catra had the skill once, but has long since lost it; for Adora the problem is congenital.

“Say; other than bringing like a thousand people back to life without burning up, have you noticed anything new about your powers?” Catra asks.

“I haven’t really thought about She-Ra stuff.”

“Back at the triage hall, Peeks—”

“Peeks?”

“— Peekablue flagged me down while you went to look for Sparkles and Flyboy. Sweet Bee— did you know that bitch almost tried to usurp Prime as galactic emperor?”

“What?” Adora says.

“There’s something wrong with her head, the way Peeks tells it. She seemed pretty level headed the few times I ran into her; getting mentored by DeeTee.”

“Oh. Kinda like Meteora? She seemed okay too, at first.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Catra says. “Anyway, I tried to do something about it, like I did with; what was the third Candila royal called?”

“Peftasteri.”

“Her. I did the same thing. It worked a lot better. And fixing up Scorpia was a lot easier than Cometa… I think I’ve gotten better at healing; in my own way.”

“Huh,” Adora says.

They sit there in silence for a while. Catra empties her mug, and holds her fishing rod in backhand and tail while she taps herself a refill.

“Let me just try something,” Adora says.

Then there’s a flash of light, and there on the log by the lakeside, holding a fishing rod, is normal-sized Adora in a battle-damaged white hazard suit.

“Holy shit!” Adora exclaims. Then there’s another flash of light, and she’s back to being She-Ra in leisurewear sans fashion sense.

“You can transform again!”

Adora hits herself on the forehead. “Of course! It makes sense!”

“What, it does?”

“Shapeshifting! That’s a Melog thing! Healing? A She-Ra thing! We traded powers!”

Catra sits there, surprised, sure, but more over just happy to look at Adora geeking out. That’s when it hits her. “Your tan! It’s there to protect you from starlight!”

“Oh. Oh, that makes a lot of sense; overuse feels like sunburn.”

Catra nods.

“There’s stars in your hair,” Adora notes. “And your yellow eye; I’m pretty sure that glow is the just a little sliver of starlight too.”

“So, not only did we save the universe with foreplay, we managed to upgrade each other’s superpowers.”

Adora looks down. She snickers.

“What?” Catra asks.

She looks at Catra. “We really are made for each other.”

Catra blushes, looks away, and takes a sip of beer.

That night, having caught nothing, way past halfway beer drunk and hungry in a way no drinking snack can really overcome, they stumble home through the woods. Adora whips up a salty, greasy veg stir-fry from frozen produce Catra has been carrying around in her bag of tricks for some inexplicable reason.

The prodigiously high-powered stove top makes quick work of the ice, water, and browning it to a crisp, and they eat on the patio while looking at the stars. With all the lights off, the galaxy itself is visible as a band of milk across the sky.

They trace out the constellations and name them silly things. The Useless Fishing Rod. The Big Drill. Catra’s Butt — Adora gets a punch for that one, then a kiss.

That kiss becomes another. And then another; and a caress on the cheek, and then Catra pulls Adora over on top of her, and the patio chair creaks dangerously under their combined weight.

“Bed?”

“Bed.”

They leave a trail of discarded clothing on their way.

The bed holds up by design, even as the windows fog; the bedsheets not so much.

Catra can’t sleep, despite the post-coital bliss. It was awkward at first, and then it got pretty good. The taste of her sweat lingers on her tongue. She lies there in the dark tracing Adora’s scars with a gentle fingerpad.

Ten long parallel lines on the back. Six little bullet scars on the shoulder, and a big one over the heart. Claw marks on the thigh; burn scar on the foot…

Scars Adora got fighting her and the people on her side.

She lies there, looking at the dark ceiling; out the window, and everywhere else. She considers getting out of bed, but then again that would mean leaving Adora — wonderful Adora — behind.

Her thoughts circle back to the past. Especially the bad parts. All the horrible shit she did to Adora during the past year; to her friends. She tires to imagine what all the people she hurt must have felt.

Eventually, as emotionally painful as that death spiral is, it gets tiring, and Catra grabs her communicator, shifts her hands into something more amenable to typing on a screen, and picks a random contact to chat with.

A third of a world away to the east, it is late morning, and Double Trouble is doing nothing in particular. They talk for a spell. Catra admits to eloping, Double Trouble congratulates her.

Finally managed to capture your Adora, huh? Though not in the way you imagined, I should think.

Then they go into fascinating detail — just suggestive enough to give ideas, but not enough graphic enough to overshare — on some of the many possibilities of shapeshifting in the bedroom.

Catra dismisses most of it out of hand.

Suddenly hours have gone by, and Catra signs off. Putting the device away to try to get at least a few hours.

Adora stirs, and turns to her.

“Hey,” she whispers.

“Hey,” Adora mutters.

They lie there in the dark, looking at each other. Catra reaches out and caresses Adora’s face. “Go back to sleep, Ad,” she says.

Adora shakes her head. “Nightmare.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Another shake. “You?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Adora rolls over on her back. “I don’t know why I’m scared when I sleep,” she mutters.

“Would it help to be the little spoon?” Catra suggests.

“What?”

“Well, if you de-transform or whatever, you could cuddle up to me.”

Adora sits up in bed, and crawls over to the edge, then from a space in her mind she only found that evening, draws the clothes she’s wearing in her mortal form. The battle-damaged armor clatters to the ground.

Then she crawls back to Catra, and snuggles up in Catra’s arms, and… Lets go.

Suddenly Catra is a lot bigger.

Warm. Soft. Safe. Pleasantly musky. Catra snuggles up to her, and she closes her eyes. Even just her deep, solid breathing is… There.

Not for a lack of trying, Adora can’t find sleep. Eventually she turns back to face Catra and kisses her. Catra returns the favor. The size of her fingers alone takes Adora’s breath away.

Come morning they fabricate a new set out of claw-proof woven spider silk.

They finally get out of bed a little before noon. Catra throws the bedsheets in the laundry, Adora turns on the shower. They’ve made the cabin big enough for two, and sturdy enough to take it when Adora bumps Catra against its walls.

Catra gouges out a new set of scars for Adora; scars she can trace with gentle fingertips without a hint of regret.

Foolishly they dress for a day of action: Catra in her thigh high leg-warmers, shorts, halterneck top, and even the shoulders and neck of her rash guard. Adora does only her white full one-piece skin-tight jumpsuit.

They make breakfast together, and burn the eggs horribly when Catra decides to seat herself on the kitchen table, and Adora takes the opportunity to come between her knees for a kiss.

That little gap between Catra’s shorts and legwarmers is especially enticing. Adora wonders if Catra put this outfit together back on the Swift Wind specifically with this in mind.

Adora stands against the door frame, watching Catra saw up one of the trunks and split it, starting a firewood stack under a newly installed roof overhang. She bites her lip, watching Catra’s back flex and move as she handles the heavy splitting ax.

“Should I do another one?” She calls to Adora.

Adora shakes her head and makes a come-hither gesture.

Catra is quick to sink the ax into the chopping block and get out of her flannel. With her strength, it’s no trouble, up against something as ungainly as a door frame.

The jumpsuit zips from neck to crotch — not with a proper zipper, but with a mechanism that simply parts the sturdy elastic fabric. Catra’s raspy tongue is almost too much.

That night, Catra regales the tale of how she pretended to transform just like She-Ra to convince the Magicats that Melog was indeed a peer of She-Ra.

Adora asks to see.

And then, touch.

Catra is so small and delicate under her touch; it’s delectable how she purrs. Again it comes down to those big, strong hands.

“You know, maybe we’re missing out,” Catra ponders.

“On what?”

“On what it would have been like if we got together before all of this started?”

Finding out is easy.

The bed really is only proportioned for the two of them in full She-Ra and Melog form. Without, it is just an ocean of bed sheets.

But then again, they don’t have to worry about ever accidentally reaching the edge of the mattress.

It’s decently fun, and down-to-earth; a pleasant diversion from the nigh-divine prowess of their true forms.

“You know, we could take a walk in the woods or something,” Adora suggests.

“Nah. Maybe tomorrow,” Catra says, and pulls Adora back to bed.

Adora comes home with a whole deer, and shows Catra how Bow taught her to wield a boning knife. This time they set an actual timer; it’s a shame to waste a good roast.

Still they almost do; tumbling around on the floor, which isn’t at all as uncomfortable as it sounds when you’re built to shrug off a kick from a horse.

“You know,” Adora says, twirling Halcyon around her fingers like a liquid strand of gold. “This thing can turn into anything I ask for, even if I’m really vague.”

“Yeah?”

“I wonder if it can turn into anything fun.”

It can. Very fun things. Catra can barely stand on her feet for the entire day.

For once, they actually do go for a walk in the woods. Catra gives Adora a ride on her beast form; they climb an old tree, drink clear, icy water from small spring.

It doesn’t go beyond kisses and nibbles; making love in nature is really unhygienic.

Glimmer blinks into the forest. It is very different from the Whispering Woods. Much less… Magical. According to the local ranger chapter — a totally different organization compared to the Brightmoon corps — the most dangerous thing out here is wild boar and wolves.

The small house is easy enough to spot, and she heads there on foot, enjoying finally having mastered her new legs.

As she approaches, she hears laughter inside, and a heavy ‘thud’ as something person-sized falls on the floor.

“Hey!” she calls out. “Adora? Catra?”

“Oh shit, it’s Sparkles!” Catra’s voice comes from inside. “Uh! Give us a minute. We’re indecent!”

She smiles to herself, and gives them one minute by the clock, before she blinks to the door.

Adora is trying to brush her hair out, and Catra is making the bed.

“Hey Sparkles!”

Adora waves, sheepishly with a hair elastic between her teeth.

“So, I take it you two are… Getting along.”

Adora blushes.

“Sparkles, don’t make me pull the receipts on what you and Bow were like on the Swift Wind,” Catra says.

“Fair point,” Glimmer says. “Catra, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?”

“What, without me?” Adora says, pouting.

“Don’t you dare whine,” Catra says, “or I am going to break you tonight.”

Adora pouts, and whines.

Catra squints at her. “You asked for it. Don’t you dare say otherwise.”

Then she brushes past Glimmer with long strides, and Glimmer kicks off, fluttering after Catra.

Once they’re a hundred paces from the house, Catra stops. “Cast a silence spell.”

Glimmer does.

“So. Talk.”

“Right. I’m getting married.”

“Congrats,” Catra says.

“You already knew that.”

“Congrats anyway.”

“The actual date is next week, but I need someone to plan a bachelorette party before that,” Glimmer says.

Catra tilts her head. “Why me?”

“Location. I was thinking Capital would be a good place; you know the taverns there, I assume.”

Catra nods. “I’m sure I could figure something out. I’ve never planned a party before.”

“I’m sure you’ll do well; and… Surprise me. Also… Do you want to be my best?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

Glimmer blinks. “Well, traditionally, noble marriages would have the bride and groom both select their best duelist — for hire, or just a friend — to defend them from any jealous suitors. Nowadays it’s just a title of honor for your best friend.”

Catra puts a hand on Glimmer’s shoulder. “I’d love to. But why me and not… Mermista or even Adora.”

“Because you saved me on the Velvet Glove.”

Catra blinks. “Oh. I— I’m…”

Glimmer steps forward and hugs her, then she pulls back. “And if you hadn’t, well… I wouldn’t be marrying the love of my life right now. It was awfully nice of you.”

“Aw, Sparkles,” Catra says, her voice breaking. “You’re making me tear up.” She wipes her eyes.

Glimmer steps back. “So, what do you say?”

“I’d love to. Now;” Catra claps her hands together. “Why don’t you stay for tea? Tell us about the legs, for one. I could tell Ad was dying to ask you; and I’ve something of an interest born of personal experience.”

“So what did Glimmer want?” Adora asks.

“She wanted me to plan her a pre-wedding bash. And she invited me to attend the wedding as her formally recognized best friend.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was very touching.” Catra’s voice cracks a little.

“Aw,” Adora coos, and pulls Catra into a hug.

“Don’t think you’re off the hook tonight.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Bow has the decency to call ahead, and arrives a little after lunch, by glider.

They stand on the patio and watches him land the small craft skillfully.

He takes off his flight helmet, and undoes the heavy coat. “It’s pretty hard to make a good landing in-between the trees,” he notes, as he steps onto the patio. “This is a really nice little place for eloping.”

“Thanks,” Catra says. “It was my idea.”

“We worked together,” Adora says.

He looks around. “Any good game?”

“A little,” Adora says. “You can stay for dinner if you’d like, we’ll cook up some venison.”

Bow nods. “Thanks but no thanks, I have a previous engagement, and I don’t want to keep you two from tearing the clothes off each other—”

“Rude!” Catra exclaims, mock offended.

Bow looks at her. “Listen, ever since Krytis, it’s been so damn apparent that you two couldn’t wait to jump one another’s bones. I’m actually kind of sorry that I didn’t say anything; but then… I had my own things to think about.”

“Glimmer actually said something, but she was drunk, so I took it with a grain of salt,” Adora says. “It was all a big misunderstanding, really. Catra overhead me saying something to Starla; before I actually realized how I felt… It’s a long story. What can we do for you?”

He looks at Adora. “Can I borrow you for a little while, Captain?”

Adora looks at Catra, who shrugs.

They trek away from the house at a very good pace.

“You know this already, but me and Glimmer are about to tie the knot.”

“Yeah, next week. I’m really happy for you two.”

“Yeah. So… There’s this tradition; I’m not sure you know of it, but before getting married, it’s custom to throw a party; one last night of drunken revelry before the blissful peace of marriage. Normally it’s an all-men thing, but… You’re my Captain.”

“You want me to arrange it? I’m a terrible party planner.”

“I was thinking we’d hold it away from home actually, which is where you come in.”

“What, like Capital?”

He nods.

“Oh. Sure. I can do that. I’ll figure something out; no problemo,” Adora says, trying her best to conceal her nervousness.

“And… One more thing. Adora, I want you to be my best, at the wedding. Will you do that for me?” Bow asks.

“Uh, like the formally recognized best friend?”

Bow furrows his brows, smiling in confusion. “That’s an odd way to put it, but yeah, essentially.”

“Why me, of all people?”

Bow looks at her, dumbfounded. Then he laughs a good long hearty laugh. “Because you’re my Captain, Adora. And I love you; you’re my best damn friend in the whole world.” He pats her on the shoulder.

Bow doesn’t stay for tea. They wave goodbye to him as he takes off.

Adora turns to Catra with the biggest, shit-eating grin in the world.

“What?”

Catra upholds her threat. She’s no stranger to carrying a prodigious tool on her belt. But this time it isn’t a revolver.

“I love you, Catra!”

“I love you too, Adora.”

Chapter Text

“Hello everyone,” Castaspella says, addressing the roundtable of Mystacor’s High Council. “And thank you for coming on such short notice.”

It’s an uneasy mix of faces; some fought in the resistance, others served under Micah, sanitized. Three dozen seats, as usual; but with two vacancies who perished in the war. There is not and have never been a set number of council members. Thirty-four is their number today.

"I want to emphasize one thing: I have consulted with the legal scholars, and it seems apparent to all that sanitization is grounds for general legal defense of insanity. I know some of us here were sanitized — including quite significantly my own brother — and I urge us all to look past that.

“We owe it to our self-image as women and men of science.”

She folds her hands.

“Now, for today’s agenda, we have a guest speaker with a very interesting proposal. May I introduce Huntara of the Crimson Wastes, Wielder of the Stone Heart.”

With a gesture, the main doors open, and Huntara strides in. Even for an orc, and especially one of venerable age, she is huge and muscular, and she dresses to accentuate that fact. There is definitely a few of the sorcerers present who take a moment too long to appreciate her looks.

She takes up position by the speaker’s lectern, and looks to Castaspella, who gestures for her to proceed.

“Distinguished Mages of Mystacor, thank you very much for having me. I come to you with a humble proposal. Take this not to mean it is trivial, but to mean I carry with me no expectation and no leverage. You are in other words, free to decide any way you like — I’m told you appreciate that sort of freedom.”

She clears her throat.

“I propose you take Mystacor across the ocean once more, and deposit the islands where they sat in ages past; and in the process attempt to reverse the damage the levitation spell caused to my homelands.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence.

Castaspella holds up a hand. “Please, my fellows, allow yourself for a moment not to outright reject the idea. Huntara, please state your justifications.”

Huntara nods. "I have conversed at length with Damara, the previous She-Ra, and consulted the work of the resistance archaeology team. With due respect to this illustrious institution of the college of magic, allow me for a moment to extend congratulations.

"Mystacor was, to our knowledge, founded by the First-One named Serenia, the Captain of the spacecraft Safe Travels. Together with the Swift Wind, they formed the Grayskull Squadron, a rebellious cell who sought to undermine their superior’s plans to create on Etheria a weapon more powerful than any other: the Heart of Etheria.

"After the previous She-Ra sequestered Etheria and Sola within a despondent pocket of space to prevent the First-Ones’ extra-Etherian forces from obtaining the Heart, Serenia took it upon herself and her crew to destroy it. To this end, they created the Crystal of Arxia, and founded a school of sorcerous and learning that would eventually become the college of Mystacor.

"The intended purpose of the founder of Mystacor, in other words, was for the destruction of the Heart of Etheria, by using the Crystal of Arxia. That goal has been accomplished. It is rare, in my considered opinion, that an organization achieves the goal it was founded to accomplish; I think it is grounds for great acclaim that Mystacor has fulfilled its intended purpose. The universe is saved today, because Mystacor persevered through the centuries.

"And then, to that, I posit a question: was the Levitation a necessary component of this perseverance? Arguably, yes. Little material can be found on the Orc Kingdoms, but — remaining critical of the sources — historical evidence here at Mystacor would suggest political tensions were running high. Had Mystacor not become a motile nation, it might have been conquered, and the college destroyed along with the Crystal of Arxia.

"Levitation is what allowed Mystacor bargaining power on a geopolitical scale, granting it the leverage to negotiate: abide by our hard demands, or we will simply move elsewhere. Under the near-immortal angelic rulers of the Brightmoon dynasty, you found a desirable level of political stability and have been anchored there ever since.

"Now, the world stands on the precipice of a new era. The Queen of Brightmoon I hear desires to not only abdicate, but overthrow the aristocracy in a peaceful revolution, so as to pre-empt an eventual violent one. As for sorcery, the very learning your college provides, the Queen again has disrupted the world by designing the spell-glove.

"What I am saying, if I have a point, and this is not just the ramblings of an old woman; is that you have an opportunity to change with the times. The college of Mystacor is not a levitating archipelago; it is an institution and institutions are made of people. Perhaps it is time to consider whether headquartering on such inaccessible terrain is going to hurt the institution in the long run.

"What others, who are more knowledgable than I, predict is that the peasantry of Brightmoon will very soon be looking to pursue higher educations in mass numbers. Consider what accepting my proposal will carry: the opportunity to construct a new headquarters for the college, accessible to these masses; and the opportunity to create a new image, not of a venerable institution adhering to old ways.

“And imagine if the Crimson Wastes could be turnt once more fertile: Mystacor could take part of the credit. Appear magnanimous in the public eye, willing to give up their ancestral property so that other peoples can have a brighter future.”

Huntara brushes off the lectern. It is dusty.

“That is all.”

Castaspella starts applauding, and she is joind by others around the table.

“Thank you, Huntara, for such a well-considered speech,” she says. "Now, let us commence discussion. Who here finds issue with Huntara’s reasoning or rhetoric?

Many do. Sorcerers are pedants, the lot of them. The debate rages for most of the afternoon, and a clear factioning of the council occurs: those for, and those against.

In the end, it is an even split: seventeen for, seventeen against.

“Well, headmistress,” the emergent faction-leader of the ‘against’ crowd says; the master of the catacombs. “It seems the council is at an impasse. And therefore the status quo will be honored.”

“Indeed,” Castaspella says.

There’s a knock on the gates to the council chamber.

Castaspella stands and gestures, causing the gate to open.

There, stands Micah. His long hair tied in a queue, beard cropped close to the chin, and dressed in a battle-mage’s gala tunic. For his late-middle age, he is remarkably well-shaped; owing in no small part to fifteen years on an island of horrors.

“Hello, my esteemed colleagus; friends,” he says.

“King Micah,” someone exclaims.

“Please, I am no king; my daughter is the Queen Regent now, soon to wed. No, I heard there was a meet of the council called, and I thought to attend. I apologize for my tardiness; I come straight from vacation with my wife — we have lost time to make up for.”

“Brother, it is good to see you,” Castaspella says.

“I was wondering,” he says. “As the former grandmaster of battle sorcery, and my tenure as official liaison to the Brightmoon dynasty, do I still hold a mandate at the council?”

Nobody objects, although many see where this is going.

“From Huntara’s presence, I assume we are voting on that proposal of hers? I confess I am part of the resistance archeology team, so I have some inkling as to what.”

“Indeed you are correct, Brother.”

The motion passes eighteen against seventeen. Several well-regarded sorcerers hand in their resignations that day.

That afternoon after Bow left, it start pouring.

As aftercare, Catra lights the fireplace with firewood from a standing dead; the construction foam is naturally insulating, making the whole house toasty warm. It’s late, but neither of them are tired.

Catra has fabricated a prodigiously large bathtub, and run rainwater through the water purifier to fill it.

“So. Who are we going to invite?” Catra asks, snuggling up against Adora.

“Fuck…”

“We just did; I was under the impression the whole begging me to stop part was genuine.”

“I mean, I don’t know. Everyone who wants to go.”

Catra splashes the water with a long slender leg; water runs off her fur. “The real question, in my mind is: do we tell people that we’re doing two parallel bar-crawls ending in the same establishment, or not?”

“Obviously. Part of the fun is knowing, isn’t it?”

Catra turns to look at her. “You’re a terrible liar; especailly when it comes to trivialities.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The rain drums on the roof and windows.

“Did you know it’s been a week?” Adora asks.

“Only? Feels like longer.”

“It does.”

“Happy one week anniversary,” Catra says. She reaches over to the hovertray and takes her glass of wine. Adora reaches over the lip of the tub to get hers. They toast.

“Maybe we should get back to it,” Catra suggests. “Get up in the morning and not just screw until noon-ish.”

“It’s been a while since we sparred.”

Catra snorts. “I think, in retrospect, the reason we did that so much on the ’Wind and not here, is that it was like; the closest thing to fucking we had the courage to actually do. And also, I can still take you.”

“Whoever loses makes breakfast and does the dishes.”

Not that that is much of a chore with a dishwashing machine installed.

“Deal.”

Catra reaches out, and in her hand a notepad appears. She divides the paper in halves with a vertical line, and writes ‘Sparkles - Cat’ in one and ‘Flyboy - Ad’ in the other.

“So. Who?”

They end up almost falling asleep in the tub.

Nobody wins their morning spar; it predictably devolves into a makeout session that ends up with both of them in bed. And then in the shower. And then it’s almost but not quite noon.

“Okay, we really need to go now,” Adora says, as they’re finally getting dressed. Adora dons her signature She-Ra outfit, and then in her everyday form, a ‘casual battledress’ style of jacket in Brightmoon-purple velvet, a skirt in Candilan orange, kept up by belt with Halcyon as the buckle; and bright red boots.

Catra wears a red canvas coat, a big grey scarf, thermo-leggins, and semi-heeled black boots. But then, she can change into anything in her wardrobe at a moment’s notice.

It’s getting cold out.

As they leave, Adora leaves the door unlocked and takes out a marker, writing on the metal of the door:

Here lives
Catra daughter of Clawdia: Melog
Adora daughter of Damara: She-Ra
the door is open to all who need shelter

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What if some asshole decides to trash it? Or steal our stuff?”

“Then we rebuild. All this place cost us is time. Suppose we lock it and someone lost in the wods has to spend the night out in the cold; wouldn’t that be worse?”

Catra nods. “All right, hero.” She gestures. “Your spelling’s gotten better.”

“Yeah, it has. It’s also easier to read. Do you think that’s another thing you fixed with me?”

Catra shrugs. “Who knows.”

“You remember way back in school when we learned some people had last names?” Catra says.

Adora snickers. “Yeah; what was it, Applesauce Meowmeow?”

“Bold of you to laugh, Happysmile Rainbowpunch.”

“Rainbowfist, thank you.”

Catra gestures, calling up a portal. “After you Rainbowfart.”

“Sure thing, Applepie,” Adora says as she goes through.

“That’s not even derogatory — that’s just kind of cute,” Catra says as she follows.

They step through onto the cobble streets of Plumeria; the city not only in the Whispering Woods, but of it. Near every building is shaped from living tree. It’s still morning here.

The climate is also a lot warmer, this far south; Adora zips her jacket down, and Catra vanishes her scarf, unbuttoning a few buttons.

“Excuse me,” Adora says, flagging down a passersby minotaur woman dressed in flowing skirts and shawls, carrying a basket under one arm, dragging a child with her other hand, and followed by a buddy-bot carrying two more baskets. “We’re looking for the Princess?”

The woman points at the great tree in the center of town, larger than other others — not enough to loom, but enough to stand out — and in its crown sits the Heartblossom; looking not unlike a gigantic red rose. Adora blinks, and it is a gold chrysantemum. Then it is a hyacinth.

“You’ve never been here?” Catra asks. “I could have figured that out.”

They head there on foot, and it becomes readily apparent just how popular buddy-bots are. Nearly one in three passersby is accompanied by one. There’s also no sign of plant-beasts.

“I bet Kyle is over the moon,” Adora says. “His tech seems like it really helps a lot of people.”

Catra nods.

They reach the large tree and find the main entrance open, leading into a hall that seems to have just naturally opened up in the heartwood.

Upon entering, they are approached by a young priest in a light tunic. “What might I help you two with?” He asks in a gentle voice.

“We’re looking for Perfuma, we’re friends of hers.”

His smile falls a little. “Alas, the Princess has requested not to have any visitors; I understand there’s a personal crisis with her lady love.”

Adora and Catra look at each other. “Could you just go up there and tell them that She-Ra and Melog are here to help if they need it?” Catra asks.

The man blinks, looking at Adora. “She-Ra?” He ponders for a moment. “It never hurts to ask. Wait right here.”

He walks off at a normal pace. He is no servant, after all.

A minute later, he comes back down, and from the stairs, waves for them to approach.

They follow him up steps covered in a sturdy layer of bark, reaching a middle floor. He leads them to one of the small acolyte suites. “Right here. Hope you can help.”

Adora knocks on the door, and very promptly, Scorpia opens it, dressed up in Plumerian style, all pastels linen, in loose and and flowing garments.

“Oh, hey you two. Where did you disappear? And you’re… Small again; both of you.”

“In the forest up north from Capital,” Catra says. “We built a little cottage, and spent the entire week in bed.”

Adora blushes. “Catra!”

“And it’s not like it’s permanent; we can turn back.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Perfuma says, coming over to them. As she takes Scorpia’s arm, it’s clear they’re dressed to be a matching set. The table inside is set with two tea cups and a kettle. “Come in, sit. Tea?”

“Tea would be lovely,” Adora says.

Scorpia takes their coats. Perfuma pours the tea.

“We actually came here to ask the two out to party next week, but—” Adora says. “What’s this ‘crisis’ the priest downstairs talked about? Or is that personal? We just want to help.”

Scorpia and Perfuma exchange glances.

The Scorpia leans forward, confidentially. “Okay, so keep this on the down low but… I’ve gotten pregnant. I was home this morning, and felt ill all of a sudden, so I went to my family physician and she gave me this test, and…”

Catra looks from her to Perfuma. “Congratulations?”

“Yeah; I mean, it’s a lot, and Perfect and I, we’re happy and all, but we’ve only been together for, what, a month? And we don’t really know if we’re ready for that kind of commitment — not that we’re not committed, we’re just… Still learning.”

Perfuma smiles warmly, looking adoringly at Scorpia.

“How did it happen, don’t you have that little enhancement tattoo everyone gets? It even takes care of your monthly cycle,” Adora says.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Scorpia says. “I don’t have one; a monthly cycle. Scorpioni, the reson there’s so few of us is that our insect-nature interferes with the whole reproduction thing. We usually concieve though fertility rituals, even those couples that could in theory accomplish it without — and Perfect and I aren’t even the same species!”

“Or so we thought,” Perfuma says. “The books of blood does state that normally, Scorpioni and Humans cannot concieve, but I’m half forest nymph by blood, and now I’m a full dryad. We went to see a soothsayer who sympathetically deduced the date of conception — it happened the night after Candila, during our… Celebration of the victory.”

“But, you’re both women,” Catra says.

“I was presumed to be a boy at birth; and Dryads are natural shapeshifters, myself only more so with the Heartblossom.”

“Oh,” Catra says, flushing a little. “Well. If— If you need some advice on that; Double Trouble is the definitive expert.”

Perfuma smiles. “Naturally.”

Adora clears her throat. “So, are you considering terminating the pregnancy?”

“It’s on the table, at least, but we’re giving it some time to consider,” Scorpia says. She takes a deep breath. “So. What about that party?”

“Oh, right,” Adora says. “Glimmer and Bow are getting married.”

Then she explains the circumstances of Glimmer and Bow both, unbeknowst to one another, decided to get Adora and Glimmer to organize their pre-nuptial celebrations.

Perfuma looks at Scorpia. “Stag and Doe nights; huh. Would you like that, love?”

Scorpia smiles. “Well, according to the information pamphlet from my doctor, I shouldn’t drink. It’s this new thing they found out.”

“You can chaperone the rest of us,” Catra says. “I was thinking you, Scorpia, come celebrate with Glimmer — she did help you connect with your Runestone, althoug that turned out kind of bad afterwards. I also have Spinnerella on my list, who isn’t drinking either; you two could keep each other company while the rest of us make fools of ourselves.”

“And I’d like you to join me and Bow,” Adora says to Perfuman. “He is your ex, but you had a very amicable breakup.”

“We’re old friends, Adora; the time we spend as lovers was very pleasant. I’d love to attend,” Perfuma says. “Perhaps — are you inviting my brother as well?”

Adora nods. “But I want to talk to him one-on-one.”

She does.

It’s a plain little house wrought from living tree, down the street from the Heartblossom tree.

Seneschal opens the door almost immediately when Adora knocks: he’s wearing a poncho, clearly preparing to head out.

“Oh. You. What was it— Adora, right?” he says.

“Hello, Seneschal,” Adora says, looking away. “Look; we never parted on the best of terms after the Northern Reach. I’m really sorry for… Shooting you up there, and I never got around to actually apologizing; I just avoided you the whole trip back to Apieria because I was ashamed. I’m sorry for that too; I want to say I wasn’t in control of my own actions, but that’s not really true, I—”

Seneschal holds up a hand. “Adora, I accept your apology. I’m sorry as well for the way I treated you when you tried to help me. And I’m sorry if it seemed like I was angry with you; I wasn’t. I thought you avoided me because I was so nasty to you when I had just been injured.”

Adora stares at him, dumbfounded. Then she starts giggling. “So this was all just a misunderstanding, that’s a relief. I can’t bear the thought of people being angry with me.”

“What can I do for you, Adora?”

“Bow’s having a bachelor party; I’m arranging it.” Adora says.

“Just say the date and time,” Seneschal says with a suave smile.

“Wel… It’s going to be bar-hopping in Capital.”

Seneschal hesitates. “You know what, sure. There’s peace now, right? Might as well.”

It is even earlier in the morning in Alwyn, but the weather is much the same: balmy autumn.

The harbor city sustained some battle damage during the initial days Horde invasion, when a resistance group decided to gauge the combat capabilities of the clone army, and found them more than willing to use explosive ordnance against civilian buildings used as resistance strongholds.

An unpopular move, but an infromative one, and what drove the resistance to construct their own cities of Refuge.

Hence, a portion of the city is now built from construction foam structures.

The Alwyn manor is the old royal castle, built before Brightmoon unification. By the standards of the Brightmoon Palace, it is small, decrepit, and unglamorous. That’s exactly why Spinnerella and Netossa love it there.

“Do you think we should call ahead for these things?” Adora asks.

Catra shrugs.

By the gate of the castle, over the drawbridge, they are met with a single guardswoman, nealy bald and dark skinned like a Candilan, wearing a hazard suit in Brightmoon colors, helmet at her hip, and a Yala-Zev in her holster. She’s flanked by two military-spec buddy-bots.

“Hail and well met,” Adora greets her.

“Who goes there?” The guardswoman asks.

“We’re Adora and Catra of the resistance, personal friends of Spinnerella and Netossa,” Catra presents them.

“Do you have a previous engagement?”

“No, this is just a social visit,” Catra says.

“Told you we should have called ahead,” Adora mutters.

The guardswoman shakes her head. “I’m going to have to see some proof of identity if I’m to let you in.”

Adora has Halcyon leap from her belt buckle onto her brow, and pulls her short hair into a semblance of a ponytail.

“I certainly see the resemblance, but that is not enough.”

Adora rolls her eyes, and in a flash of light, transforms.

Catra follows suit in a flicker of darkness — not that she cannot smoothly graduate between her forms.

Muttering under her breath, the guardswoman opens the gates for them — there’s a keypad and the gates open automatically.

They change back as they cross the threshold. “They’re really modernizing this place,” Adora remarks.

Inside, in the entry hall, a household drone is running a vacuum cleaner attachment. The lighting overhead is electrical.

They stand there, looking for a coat rack — not that they even put on them on again after leaving Perfuma’s.

There’s the sound of rapid footsteps from one of the wings, and Netossa comes into view. She’s wearing a leather apron, a buddy-bot headband, and holding a bluish metallic powertool. It takes Catra a moment to identify it as an omni-tool of Entrapta’s design.

“Hey, you two!” she says.

“We’re not interrupting anything, are we?”

“Just doing some renovations. Child proofing, utilities, that sort of thing.” She wipes a stand of sweaty hair away from her face. Then she beckons for them to follow.

Adora and Catra do, coming down the wing of the castle, to the relatively small — as far as castles go — living room. A military-spec buddy-bot perks up as Netossa enters, and there in a hover chair of all things, sits there in a robe, seemingly content to watch her wife do all the hard work.

“You’re really fixing this whole place up?” Adora says. “It’s going to feel like the Swift Wind soon.”

“That’s the plan,” Spinnerella says. “Did you hear Glimmer’s great big plan?”

“No?”

“She wants all nobility and petty nobility to reliquish their fiefs; disestablish aristocracy in general, and then abdicate the throne, instituting a ‘rule of the people’s vote.’ ’Toss is doing to our home all by herself more or less as a challenge, blazing a trail.”

“Yeah, I’m not super sold on adopting the Horde’s system of governance,” Netossa says, “but when the Queen says ‘turn your house into a den of high-tech luxury’ I’m not going to say no.”

“Cool.”

“What have you two turtledoves been up to?” Spinnerella asks. “I see normal-sized Adora is back.”

Catra and Adora exchange glances. “Who told you we’re together.”

“You did, the moment you walked in the door. You really must be more careful with your body language if you want to keep it secret.”

Adora puts an arm around Catra’s shoulders giving her a squeeze, and grins maliciously as color rises to her cheeks.

“Oh no,” Catra mutters, realizing what’s about to happen.

Adora looks back at Spinnerella “We’ve built a cabin in the woods and then I fucked Catra on every horizontal surface in it; and then several vertical ones as well.”

“That’s just vulgar,” Catra mutters blushing furiously.

“Yeah, well you started it.”

Spinnerella sips her tea. “Ah, ’Toss, remember when we were newly in love?”

“Remember?” Netossa says. “I still feel it sometimes, when I do paperwork.” She wiggles index and middle finger together on her right hand for illustration, while looking pointedly at Adora and Catran, giving a knowing wink and smirking.

And then Catra and Adora both realize that when it comes to vulgarity, they are thoroughly outmatched by these two.

“So. Tea?” Spinnerella asks, gesturing to the hover tray next to her.

“No thanks, we just had,” Adora says. “We’re actually here to ask you if you’d like to come to Bow and Glimmer’s bachelor and -ette parties.”

She briefly explains the circumstances.

Spinnerella gasps in deligh. “A comedy of errors! We’d love to attend. I’ll gladly chaperone whichever group I’m with —” she pats her belly; she’s not a slender woman by nature, so one might be fooled into thinking she’s showing at one month.

“You’re with me and Glimmer,” Catra says. “We’ll be sharing the guest lists when everyone’s invited.”

“So I’m with the cool team,” Netossa jokes. “I’d love to throw a party for Bow; he’s a good kid.”

They take a portal to downtown Brightmoon; Adora’s old stomping grounds.

Even here, everything is gradually changing. For one, the streets are noticable cleaner and the smell is much reduced. They’re built working sewers here — what’s commonly referred to as the single biggest public works project in history when it was undertaken in Capital, a construction that took years — and have made headway in a week.

They locate a tavern that accepts credits, and order a light snack.

“That’s two chaperones on my team,” Catra notes. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“No. Scorpia and Spinnerella are both great people,” Adora says. “They’ll have a good time together while the rest of you get shitfaced.”

“So, are we going to continue west?”

Adora shakes her head. “It’s barely past midningt in Salineas; I mean, Mermista and Sea Hawk love me like I’m family; but they don’t love me that much.”

“Family doesn’t normally come knocking in the middle of the night with party invitations.”

“Speaking of family,” Adora says. “I think my mom knows, but we should tell your mom too.”

Catra nods. “I’d like that.”

“Swift Wind?”

“If it’s on Etheria, sure.”

Adora takes out her communicator and writes a letter to Hope.

“I’d forgotten how it smells here,” Catra says, as they walk through the Swift Wind, hand in hand.

The fractal greenery is still painted on the walls.

They enter the control center, where Damara, Hope, Entrapta, Wrodak, and Hordak are holding an informal strategy meeting.

Wrodak and Hordak are both even more egregiously dressed; as if their ideas of fashion are accelerating away from the garb they were both forced into under Prime.

Wrodak is beginning to explore iridescent coatings and optically colored fabrics that seem not just to be pink but to radiate it, while staying very utilitarian in cut.

Hordak is favoring a matte black so darki it seems his waistcoat and slacks are holes in reality; today is a tuxedo day, not a ballgown day.

Damara leaps out of her seat and dashes over to the two of them, sweeping them both into a hug. “You found out how to change back!”

“I did,” Adora says.

“And it seems like you had a wonderful trip together — I knew about the two of you, of course. I haven’t gossiped, I promise,” she says the second part quietly.

“Thanks, mom.”

“Catra, you simply must tell your mother as well. She’d be deligthed to hear.”

“Ah, Captain, would I be remiss in assuming our good Catra is reinstated as Lieutenant?” Wrodak asks.

“That’s very much the case,” Adroa says, giving Catra’s hand a squeeze. “But we’re not here to announce that.”

“Well then, get to the point,” Hordak says.

“Mom, I’m arranging Bow’s bachelor party, and I can’t not at least invite you,” Adora says. “You are the Swift Wind, and he’s your pilot.”

“I’d love to come,” Damara says. “I’ll chaperone; unlike others, I can actually sober up at a moment’s notice. Where are we going?”

“Bar hobbing in Capital.”

“Wrodak,” Catra says. “Same offer; Glimmer’s party. You in?”

Wrodak looks at the others. “Only me?”

“I am not close with the Queen or her prospective husband,” Hordak says. “Entrapta would find such an experience more stressful than enjoyable, and Hope is under-age.”

“My memories date back one thousand two hundred and fourty nine years. I could convincingly appear older if I wanted to.”

“Yeah, a public social occasion in transient locale would not be fun for me,” Entrapta says.

Wrodak looks back at Catra with a grin. “Then yes!”

“We’ve been really lucky to just find all the people we want to invite, actually having time to see us,” Adora says, as they leave the Swift Wind, stepping onto the streets of Capital.

“Yeah,” Catra says.

“Like, Scorpia could have been at home in her mansion in the Fright Zone, rather than with Perfuma.”

“Yeah.”

“And Seneschal was just about to head out.”

“Adora, you do realize that one of my powers as Melog is luck, right?”

“Oh.”

Catra stops and takes out her communicator. “One moment. Call Castaspella.”

Adora raises one eyebrow.

“Hello Headmistress, it’s Catra… You’re just between meetings? I won’t take much of your time… Your niece has asked me to arrange her bachelorette party… To avoid the worst oppotunities for gossip on the home front, a bar crawl through my home city… I’m glad to hear; say do you have General Juliet near you? … Later today? Great, could you extend the invitation to her as well? … Thank you, Headmistress. No, no, you don’t have to call, a letter will do… I’ll be sure to send you the details… Have a pleasant day… And to you as well.”

Adora blinks.

Catra hangs up. “Let’s go get Lonnie and her boys.”

Catra steers the two of them down a busy street in the business district of Capital; the four lane street has been cut down to two lanes only, with temporary barriers separating the car lane from the new space designated for portal use.

They come to a restaurant — a mid-scale establishment frequented by officers and businesspeople — and head in, up the stairs to the first floor, and onto the open-air balcony hanging over the street below.

There at the corner table is Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio eating lunch together, all of them in uniform. Lonnie has the stripes of a Non-commanding Lieutenant General.

“Goodness me,” Rogelio says, seeing them first. “Look who it is.”

Catra flags down a waiter, indicating Adora and her are taking the table for two next to the others.

“Hello you three,” Adora says.

Lonnie is out of her seat in an eyeblink, and hugs Adora hard. “God damn it, Sarge,” she says. “You just ran off after it was over!”

“Sorry,” Adora says sheepishly.

Lonnie holds Adora out. “Girl, I was worried sick I had sent you down there to die, and next thing I hear the Heart is gone and you’re bringing half the infantry back to life, and then poof you just vanish for a week.”

“We needed some vacation time together,” Catra says.

Lonnie looks from Adora to Catra and back. “Oh I see.”

“Congratualtions, you two,” Kyle says. “Only took you what, ten years?”

Catra sticks her tongue out at him.

They sit and eat a late lunch with their old squadmates, and reminsice about old times. Kyle and Rogelio figured themselves out in the academy, and Lonnie, their very best friend, just sort of grew into that over the years.

“Honestly, I could have made a scrap-book of all the times it was blatantly obvious you two were in love,” Kyle says. “Of course, your defection threw a spanner in that, or so I thought,” he says directed to Adora.

“You even made a portmanteu of their names,” Rogelio says.

“In my defense I was fifteen and I wanted my friends to be happy,” Kyle replies.

“Speaking of wanting friends to be happy,” Catra says. “I know neither of you are close with the Royal-couple-to-be in Brightmoon, but we could really use some help planning two parallel pub-crawls.”

“Sign us up,” Lonnie says.

And finally, there’s an actual overweight of men attending the groom’s party.

“We still have some time to kill before the sun comes up in Salineas,” Adora says consulting her communicator for the time. “It’s late afternoon in Honeydew, though.”

Catra opens them a portal there; and they find it to be a lot colder. Overhead, drones fly by, carrying packages. Up and down the wide street, every vehicle is a hover truck.

“Do you have a shawl or something?” Adora asks.

Catra does. “Are you cold?”

“Yes and no. I feel the cold, and it is uncomfortable, but… It feels cold the same way I felt the cold at the Southern Reach. It’s just there.”

“Same with me,” Catra says. “Like, it may look like I’m my old self, but I’m Melog. I’m just ‘pretending’ to be smaller.”

“You know, I used to think of plain-old Adora as ‘normal’ and She-Ra as the ‘weapon.’ But I think you’re right. Looking like this is… A disguise. She-Ra is my true nature.”

With that in mind, they head to the castle, up the street.

“That woman does not fuck around,” Catra says. “This place is a fortress.”

For a change, they aren’t greeted at the door by a bug doll, but by a civillian-spec buddy-bot adorned with the Apierian Bee crest.

“Adora, what a wonderful suprise. However, we don't reside at this castle at present.”

“Sweet Bee?” Adora asks.

“Yes. I have decomissioned my bug dolls in the face of the superior buddy-bot technology.”

“We’re here to talk to Peeks and DeeTee,” Catra says.

“DeeTee is inside, actually. They've been helping me keep up appearances. Follow me, please.”

The bot leads them in through the courtyard to the keep, and from there into the sturdily constructed throne room, which lies empty as usual — there’s no court as such in Apieria. Upon the golden throne sits Sweet Bee herself.

“Oh! Kitten and her lady-love!” Sweet Bee says, rising from her seat.

“Double Trouble?” Catra asks.

“The very same. Sweetie is indisposed at the moment, so I am the ‘face’ of Apieria to allay political instability while the two eggeheads play realpolitikal musical chairs.”

“So where are Peekablue and Sweet Bee?” Adora asks.

“Winter home in Candila. The warm weather is better for Sweetie; and they’ve teamed up with the King and his Abdicant Queen for a training programme to help with the whole brain damage thing.”

Double Trouble looks at Catra. “By the way, thanks, Kitten. For saving my girlfriend.”

“No problem.”

“No; I mean, she nearly fucked us all over. I knew she was a bad seed, but I thought she was… Different.” Double Trouble as Sweet Bee looks down and away. “The strange thing is, even though I know I should be disappointed and angry — it worked out in the end. And I love her, still. I want her to get better; I want to help her, so that the next time power is dangled over an abyss, she has restraint to not try to grab it and risk falling.”

“DeeTee, twenty million people disappeared off the face of Etheria because I activated a portal to spite the woman standing here next to me,” Catra says. “Neither of us are going to think it strange that you love her desipte a massive fuck-up.”

Double Trouble looks up at Catra, tears welling up. In a flicker of darkness they shift back into their preferred reptilian form. “Aw, kitten, you say the nicest things. C’mere,” they say and darts forward to hug Catra.

Catra pats Double Trouble on the back. “So, question: can Sweet Bee go without the two of you for a night?”

Double Trouble steps back. “She has an platoon of of buddy-bots under the Hive Core’s control to meet her every need. It’s just that she can’t walk, talk, or pick things up. What’s the occasion?”

“Bachelorette party. Queen Glimmer’s.”

“Oh, delectable. Peekablue and myself?”

“Actually, I’d like to invite Peekablue,” Adora says. “For Bow’s.”

Double Trouble looks from Catra to Adora, noting the conspiratorial tone, and grins. “I can tell there’s a story here.”

As a courtesy, Adora sends off a letter to Sea Hawk, marked non-urgent, asking him to write back at his leisure. She gets a reply immediately, and after a short coversation, finds that they are mooring with their beloved royal yacht in a coastal town in Candila.

Catra returns with a cup of coffe for Adora. “We’re going south. The Empress is vacationing in Candila.”

“Is that everybody?”

Adora nods. “Cometa might want to come, but she’s not twenty yet; I don’t want anything dicey with bar admission laws and foreign dignitary privileges.”

“Ah. Considering Castaspella’s on my team, does Bow have any family?”

“Yeah, twelve older brothers.”

Catra chokes on her coffee. “What?”

“As I understand, they were refugees from a place called Alexandria that got razed during the fifth conquest. Ever read about the Alexandrian massacre?”

“Oh yeah, that propmpted the War Ehtics Reforms. That was the last time they hanged anybody, right? After that it was only firing squad.”

Adora nods. “Anyway, when they started killing the men, Bow’s dads fled with all the kids they could get and all the books they could carry. Sought refuge in the Whispering Woods, hole up in this old library that used to belong to some sorcerers, and swore service to the Brightmoon crown as keepers of knowledge.”

“So Bow’s an orphan,” Catra concludes.

“Not really. George and Lance adopted all the kids as their own, and they’re some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Bow was the youngest, just an infant; he’s never known anything else… He did get into a conflict when he was a kid over wanting to be a ranger rather than an academic, but that’s about the worst of it.”

Catra sips her coffe. “It’s a good thing all our friends had better childhoods than us. It’d be heartbreaking if we were all abused war orphans.”

“Yeah. Wanna go to Candila?”

“I hope they’re not mad about that time I set their yacht on fire,” Catra mutters as they board the royal yacht, coats hanging over thier arms. They’re wearing matching white blouses under their coats.

A sailor with a Yala-Zev holstered at his hip wordlessly directs them to the stairs up to the sundeck. Adora knows her way around the yacht quite well at this point.

What’s notable is that the yacht itself seems less crewed.

“Adora!” Sea Hawk says, coming up to meet them, drink in hand, shirt upbuttoned in the warm breeze. “Goodness me, you’ve both shrunk.” He holds an arm out. “Good to see you again. Hug?”

Adora grins — it’s plain to see he’s at least tipsy. “Sure. Hi Sea Hawk, long time no see.” She hugs him.

“And Catra!” He extends a hand. Catra takes it to shake, but Sea Hawk hisses her knuckles instead. “Lovely as ever. Alas, Mermista is just below decks with little ’Dora. Wine?”

Adora and Catra exchange a quick glance. “Sure, why not.”

Sea Hawk dances over to a hover tray — the little devices are capable of staying level even in rough sea, much to every sailor’s delight.

“Now, we’re just on a day’s pleasure cruise here; we’ll be journeying home overnight; this old girl —” he taps the deck with a foot “— has gotten some major upgrades. I’ve had her in dry dock, and me and the craziest youngsters in the shipwright’s guild have been using her as a test bed for all the latest tech.”

“So you can sail from Salineas to the City of Blue Waves in a day?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it sailing; the whole hull lifts out of the water — we can only do it in clam seas, though,” Sea Hawk says, proudly. “Fastest pleasure ship in the world.”

“I’d say something like ‘portals exist’ but Adora and I drove over a hundred miles just for fun a week ago,” Catra says. “Sea Hawk; Captain…”

“What is it, Catra?”

“I’m sorry I set you ship on fire that one time.”

Sea Hawk blinks. Then he laughs uproariously. “Oh! That was you! My goodness, different times, eh? Catra, my girl, all is forgiven.”

Mermista returns with ’Dora on her arm. The little girl is getting big; in a few months she’ll be a year.

“Oh, you two!” Mermista says. She comes up to Adora and exchanges cheek-kisses, then pulls Catra into a brief hug. “What’s the occasion?”

“Bow and Glimmer are getting married,” Adora says.

“Why we’re invited as guests of honor!” Sea Hawk points out. “We’re very happy for them. Such a cute couple,” he says, sniffling.

“Don’t cry dear,” Mermista says.

“I am not crying,” Sea Hawk protests. “Well, maybe just a little; it’s been a very touching day.”

“How so?” Catra asks.

“Why, this little munchkin took her first steps!” Mermista says, ticking ’Dora unde the chin. ’Dora squirms. “Oh, se wants down. Let’s see if she wants to take a few steps.”

She crouches down and lets Dora down to stand, letting the girl hold onto her fingers. Dora squeals, and grins an earnest, almost toothless smile, then starts stepping on uneasy, uncoordinated feet, lets go and heads directly towards Catra. She makes it two steps before loosing balance and beginning to stumble.

Catra instinctively crouches down and catches ’Dora. She squeals and giggles, then notices that Catra has fur and ears and is generally different and therefore interesting.

“Why is she looking at me like that,” Catra says.

Dora reaches out a warm baby hand and puts it directly on Catra’s cheek.

“A!” she says.

“She wants you to lift her,” Mermista says, “just hold her under her arms, let her sit on your forearm.”

Catra does as instructed and ’Dora doesn’t protest. She just sits there, staring at the first magicat she has ever seen. She points at Catra’s big, soft ears and babbles.

“What, my ears? Are they funny?” Catra says, and wiggles them up and down.

’Dora laughs a wonderful, pure baby’s laughter.

“Oh you like that, huh? I bet you’re going to love this, then,” Catra says and swings her white-tipped tail around, tickling ’Dora under the chin, getting yet another delighted squeal.

“Why, she’s a natural,” Sea Hawk says quietly to Adora.

Adora just stands there, smiling; feeling oddly light in her chest, and something else, below that. It’s not the first time seing little Adora has brough strange new emotions to her, but this time… This time, Catra is there.

Adora has to wrest her eyes away. “We actually came here to invite you to Bow’s bachlor party, and Mermista to Glimmer’s, if you—”

“We’re in,” Mermista says.

“There’s a fun complication…” Adora continues.

Chapter Text

The Red City is a disaster area; there’s no subtle way to say it. Under Horde rule, cleanup efforts went slow, now, liberate, the nation’s power structures are struggling with the loss of another ruler.

With Asteirion and her sister, she has taken refuge in the hunting lodge her family has always gone to to avoid the wet season. Together, the two of them commute regularly to the city to help, Cometa more-so than her brother-in-law.

Ironically, the poor have suffered the least: the palace is the epicenter of Meteora and Huntara’s destruction, and surrounding it is the townhouses of the rich and powerful, which means the casualties are counted among those whose families can shoulder loss the best; and the serving staff, which is the more far-reaching tragedy.

Hundreds are dead, if not thousands. Some in the battle itself when Meteora decided to start collapsing buildings to attempt to stop the resistance; some when the true extent of Huntara’s meddling with the underground led to dozens of sinkholes opening up, swallowing street corners and unsettling foundations; an unlucky few were caught in the catacombs beneath the city when Meteora’s metal made its way underground.

But there’s hope. There’s hope, because it took Cometa a day to undo the horrific forests of metallic doom enough that the palace was once more accessible by means other than portal travel. There’s hope because… Because life goes on, despite the horrific destruction wrought on the seat of power in Candila.

The nobles and rich merchants now bereft of (at least one) home have all been more than favorably predisposed to the influx of new technology, and its power in assisting with the relief effort. Meanwhile, the unchecked slums by the river have been left to their own devices, to flourish.

Candila has always been one of the most industrious nations on Etheria, and the people’s spirit has not been broken. Come the end of the year, Candila will have the highest adoption rates of fabrication technology.

Queen Cometa maintains her focus on the humanitarian work to an almost unhealthy degree. A trait which will one day have her remembered as Good Queen Cometa, but for now she nears her breaking point, even if her proud visage, two-colored hair, and shiny armor does not convey it as she directs the hundreds of men and women sworn to her service, and thousands more volunteering, making up the direct relief effort. It cannot rightly be said that Queen Glimmer is much her senior, but she was always slated to take her mother’s throne.

Peftasteri was Queen. And then it was going to be Meteora’s offspring before Cometa.

Her saving grace comes one day. After sleeping little and eating less, on a hot noon, when dehydration almost gets to her, Cometa looks up, and sees a trick of the light in the sky.

Only it’s not a trick. It’s a giant golden bird.

If only she had followed the news, she would have known Nebularia was sending a diplomatic delegation, and that today is the earliest that Hope has declared low orbit sufficiently free of debris to safely permit portal-free ascent and descent through its altitudes.

Now she finds out, when Glory lands there, in the plaza, and from their back, Starla slides adeptly down, wearing a patched hazard suit. The stout girl removes her helmet, her orange locks bound in a ponytail, and then sets out towards Cometa.

“Let her through,” Cometa says absent-mindedly to her guards, and they let her.

Starla stops a few steps away. A massive scar runs from her pate to her chin, through one eye. Said eye is silvery and faceted — a cybernetic replacement.

“Hey,” Starla says.

“Hey.”

“You look like you could use a friend right now. And a break.”

Cometa really could. Not the least of which because she just spent two weeks not knowing if her friend was dead; and not daring to find out.

What’s unspoken is that Starla could use one as well. Someone who doesn’t see her as a hero; a personal friend of She-Ra, and one day perhaps the Defender of Nebularia. Someone who isn’t family, at least.

In the near future, they fall deeply and irrevocably in love, but for now, friendship is just what both of them need. No reason not to take it slow when the universe is saved, and only in need of a bit of fixing up.

“Brothers, I want to thank you for meeting with me peacefully,” Hordak says.

He and the ‘leaders’ of the Southern Reach base have met on a windswept coastline, covered in frazil ice.

The group in front of him look as miserable as he recalls feeling when he first landed on Etheria, and the world prison had cut him off from his psychic connection to Prime.

Their burgeoning individuality has been shaped by their nominal positions of military command.

Hordak has come alone. Of course there is backup if thins go south: he is carrying an omnitool that can in a pinch become a bulletproof shield, and a tuned-up Yala-Zev under his coat. That, and there’s a pair of cloaked buddy-drones hovering out over the sea.

He remembers well how volatile he was back then; but for him it was all hampered by his allergies. These brothers of his are hale, distraught, and armed.

“Brother,” the foremost clone says. “What do you wish to tell us?”

“First that I have a name. I am Hordak. And second, that I was the last flesh our big brother inhabited before he was lost to us forever.”

There’s some murmurs among the small group.

“What I want to say to you is this: I know how you feel, right now, in this very moment. Because I have been where you are now. And if you will permit me, I want to help all my brethren avoid the same traps I fell into.”

“What do you mean ‘traps,’ are we to be hunted by an enemy?” one of them asks.

Ah yes. Always so literal. “No. I mean that the path to independence is necessary to metaphorically traverse, and full of perils, which are known to me.”

“Why should we listen to you; you’re an affiliate of She-Ra! She killed us!”

There’s a round of assenting murmurs.

“I used to be her enemy too,” Hordak says. “This will be difficult to understand; difficult to accept… But Prime never loved any of us. She-Ra does.”

There’s a round of laughter. “As if! Now you are just talking nonsense.”

“Fine, you mock my speech,” Hordak says. “You have all read your dictionaries. What is love?”

“Prime’s light,” one says.

“And why is that desirable to spread throughout the universe?”

This one they know. “Because it is his kindness. He brings peace to the warring worlds, so that people may live in harmony.”

Hordak smiles. “What does Prime stand to gain from this? Is one of you a logistician? I want figures.”

“It’s a net loss; production is always making up for the lost manpower and materiel in the mission,” another says.

“So. Love is the giving of kindness, without expectation of gain; wouldn’t you say?”

There’s some exchanged looks, then some nods.

Now comes the dangerous part: “Name three kind things Prime has ever done for any of you, which did not serve himself in some way.”

Wrodak I hope I’m making you proud, brother. Hordak thinks to himself with a reserved smile, as discussion erupts.

Clawdia steps through the portal to the coordinates she received, and arrives in a beautiful autumn forest. The sound of laughter meets her ears, and she turns around to see a small cabin in the distance, clearly built from construction foam.

A few dozen feet away from it, sits a swing-set, and there, on each their swing, is a girl. One a magicat, the other a human.

She sets out through the fallen leaves covering the forest floor, towards the house, and one of them spots her.

The magicat girl comes running, and Clawdia recognizes her. “Mom!”

“Catra!” Clawdia says. True enough, it is Catra; except it is not the seven-foot tall woman she met in Leijon’s living room in Refuge II. It’s a young woman much her own height, looking perfectly ordinary except perhaps for the stunningly brilliant heterochromatic eyes.

“Hey,” Catra says.

“You look different,” Clawdia says.

“Yeah, this is what I used to look like, before I became Melog.”

Clawdia smiles; it’s always a joy to see one’s children grow up into beautiful adults. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to give your mother a hug?”

That, she is. And then Catra takes her hand and leads her up to the house, where Adora is waiting on the patio. "Mom, I want you to meet Adora.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Adora says, holding out a hand. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

Clawdia takes her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Catra has told me much about you.”

“I could say the same,” Adora says.

Adora looks at Catra, and Catra walks up beside her and takes her hand. “Yeah. So… Mom, this is her.”

Adora and Catra’s eyes meet, and for a moment they almost forget that Clawdia is there. And all Clawdia can really do is be happy for them. She puts a hand on Catra’s shoulder, and one on Adora’s.

“I’m very happy for the two of you,” she says. “I think many people are.”

Adora blushes. “Well, depending on how you look at it we did save the universe by… Kissing. So I’d assume so.”

Catra snickers.

“Did you now? Let’s get out of the breeze — and is that our dinner I can smell?”

“Roast venison,” Adora says. “It’s had time to hang, now, so… We tried it right when I had shot it, and it wasn’t very good.”

“It was tasty,” Catra supplies, “but we should have gone for a stew, not a roast.”

“I’ll tentatively look forward to that; maybe I can give you a few pointers.”

With Clawdia’s help, dinner does turn out quite good.

“I have a… Confession to make,” Clawdia says, after the wine has come out, and the light topics have been exhausted: how they’re normal-sized again, what their vacation has been like — there was a lot of blushing when Clawdia asked that — and what’s going on in the world. “I’ve been talking to people; well, mostly Damara — your mother, Adora. And… People are uncertain. Happy, but uncertain. You haven’t told anyone what happened down there, under the earth.”

Adora and Catra look at one another. “It was…” Catra says and falters.

“I went down there to die,” Adora says. "That’s where it begins. I’d gotten the Failsafe, as the only one, and there wasn’t time to reproduce the Crystal of Arxia. Damara, myself, and others went over all we knew of it so many times trying to come up with something favorable, but even with She-Ra… I was going to die.

“All there was to do was to accept it. And I did.”

Catra puts a hand on Adora’s shoulder. Adora puts her hand on Catra’s. Clawdia already knows that Catra ran away.

"So the day came, and I went down there with Glimmer and Bow. And it was a nightmare. The Heart… It wasn’t alive, but it knew we were coming, and so it tried to stop us. We wasted a lot of time while the fighting got worse and worse up on the surface, and we didn’t even know what we were missing.

"I thought… I thought I figured it out, that I had to go alone, and I left my friends behind. But then Prime came down there, and I had to fight and flee. He managed to take She-Ra away from me, which would have been enough to spoil the plan.

"Despite that I almost made it to the Heart, and then you came with Shadow Weaver, to… Rescue me, I guess. But by then, there was no time. She-Ra was gone, and without her, I wasn’t strong enough to use the Failsafe, let alone survive it.

“You tried to hold him off to buy time, but you were too exhausted from the fighting up on the surface.”

“Goodness,” Clawdia mutters.

Catra takes over. "Shadow Weaver decided to sacrifice herself to buy us time, but before she could do that, Prime wounded you, mortally.

"You were dying, and the only way we could ever stand a chance of saving the universe was to destroy the Heart by force, which would at the very least destroy the planet. I was just about to do it, but then…

“I realized I might still be able to save you, and it turned out I was right, and I did, and we got She-Ra back, and the Failsafe worked!” Catra rushes, to get to the good part. “Everything worked out in the end!”

“It really did,” Adora says.

“So she’s dead, then?” Clawdia asks. “That horrible woman?”

Catra nods. “We saw the corpse. Well, sort of. What was left of her.”

“That seems… Uncharacteristically noble of her, from what I know,” Clawdia says.

Adora shrugs. “It’s really not. It was either fight and die or run and doom the universe.”

“Or win and face judgment and execution,” Catra adds.

Clawdia looks between the two of them. “I can tell you’re not really happy about it.”

Catra frowns. “Yeah. I mean, I know she hurt us, and I’m relieved she’s gone, but… I miss her. I know I shouldn’t.”

Adora nods.

"She was your parental figure during your formative years. Whether she was any good is secondary to that. You’ll always have to live with the impact she had on you; but I must say it’s a better starting point than most get: you will never have to deal with her ever again.

“Trust me: the pain fades. Eventually.”

Planning out the parties — well, the plan is to have a party that just starts in two different locations.

As for picking the routes out, they have five people with expertise on the matter:

Scorpia has drunk away her pay at the absolute worst establishments — shore leave tends to bring out the worst in seamen and junior officers, and so upscale places tend to not even allow them in the door — and also a few high-class places before and during officer school.

Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio who has had by far the most normal experiences with night life. Coming from respectable middle-class families the lot of them, they have visited a wide range of pubs and clubs, more determined by the quality of the experience than the exclusivity.

Double Trouble has frequented the most high-class establishments during their entire tenure as a clandestine asset to Hordak’s operations — nearly thirty-five years — and happens to know exactly where the whole experience should culminate.

For convenience’s sake; and so neither of them have to get out of bed, they conduct most of this planning towards noon, over voice call.

“But I mean, are you really going to put it the night before their big day?” Lonnie asks, always the pragmatic. “There’s no rule in the book” — she’s read the book — “that says it’s proper custom.”

“No,” Catra says, “but it is funny.”

“I can cure any hangovers there might be,” Adora says. “But as my mom once told me, hangover is the punishment inflicted by one’s body for revelry beyond one’s fortitude.”

“She never said that.”

“I’m paraphrasing,” Adora clarifies.

“It also adds some stakes, in my considered opinion,” Double Trouble adds. “And best of all it sets all of you fools up for retaliation in kind.”

“What do you mean by that, DeeTee?” Scorpia asks.

“Well, one day, all of you are going to be in the same situation, or am I completely wrong? And then, whoever plans your pre-nuptial festivities can do the same to you.”

Adora and Catra look at one another.

“Not us, unfortunately,” Rogelio rumbles. “It’s frowned upon to marry more than one.”

Double Trouble laughs. “Oh, Rogie, my good man… Allow me to formally extend a promise to the three of you: should you ever wish to be wed, I will petition my girlfriend, the Princess Regent of Apieria, to sign into law legitimacy of a three-way union. Then you can be the second such couple wed in Apieria, right after myself, her, and the Prince, of course.”

There’s a stunned silence.

“Really?” Kyle asks. “Y— you would do that?”

“Why, of course. I mean, Sweetness is a bit indisposed at the moment, but once she has recovered — why, is it that important to you?”

“I think what Kyle is trying to say,” Lonnie says, “that we’d sort of just consigned ourselves to a life of… Cohabitation without formal recongition.”

“Oh, goodness me…” Double Trouble says. “Well, let’s talk more on this later; I’m sure the others want to get on with the subject matter at hand.”

“I don’t mind,” Scorpia says. “I think it was very sweet.”

“So,” Catra says, as the de-factor moderator. “Let’s get back on track. We have a list we need to whittle down, and I think one of the most important things is going to be accommodations for security.” She’s lying on her belly twirling a pen, with a note-pad in front of her, completely uncovered by the silky-soft comforter Adora is well wrapped up in.

“Oh, yeah,” Adora says.

“I’m thinking Brightmoon is going to provide security for Glimmer’s party, and Salineas for Bow’s.”

“Why that?” Scorpia asks.

"Because Bow isn’t actually a VIP by traditional metrics, and neither really is anyone else in that party, but Sea Hawk is. Netossa is less a Princess and more a defender; same Perfuma, she’s a religious leader more than a ruler.

"On the other hand, Glimmer’s party has a two Brightmoon VIPs and one Salinean. The Empress can bring a bodyguard if she wants, but the security at large should be Brightmoon. Then of course, I’ll have to wrangle cooperation from local law enforcement, but I have some experience in that.

“I can help,” Lonnie says. “I’ve still got rank to pull.”

Catra’s position in the Horde military has been left more or less in limbo by everything that happened.

“So… Are we just going to bank on Glimmer and Bow not figuring anything out?” Adora asks. “They’re smart people…”

“That’s another reason for the disjoint security. Greater concern is that someone will get drunk and blab, but that’s why we are there.”

“Catra, you’re implying neither of us are going to get drunk and blab.”

Catra looks at Adora. “Good point. You’re a terrible drunk.”

Weekend passes in the army lend themselves to a mindset of getting as much as possible out of a Saturday, then using all of Sunday to sleep through the repercussions.

“I could take tomorrow off,” Kyle says, “and just take a stroll through downtown and ask the managers?”

“Then we’ll get in touch with Brightmoon and Salineas royal security,” Catra says. “Ask them what they’d recommend.” She strikes that off her to-do list. “Anyone has anything else?”

There’s a brief pause.

“Doesn’t seem like it, Catra,” Lonnie says. “My lunch break is almost over. I got a good feeling about this, I think it’ll be fun!”

One by one they sign off.

“Say, who’s actually arranging the wedding if Castaspella is out partying?” Adora asks.

“I’d assume Sparkle’s parents,” Catra says. “Like, now that they’re alive, I should think they don’t mind putting in some work for their daughter’s big day.”

“Right,” Adora says.

Catra shifts. “How do you even deal with boobs that size? I feel like I shapeshift mine away all the time.”

Adora throws off the comforter looks down herself. In her true form she does have quite a bust; not so much in her social guise.

“I don’t know. I guess I just got used to them.”

Catra tosses the pen aside, and crawls over Adora. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

“I made it sound like your wonderful breasts are a bad thing.”

“You can just say you love me, and we’ll call it even,” Adora says.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then Catra comes down for a kiss, and one thing leads to another.

“Really? The day before?” Glimmer says.

Catra has gone to Brightmoon — evening for her, lunch for Glimmer. They’ve a little terrace in the palace all to themselves. Glimmer is having vegetable soup out of a hollowed out loaf of bread. It’s a new street-food thing, down in the city.

“It’s the only way I could make the schedules work out,” Catra lies.

Glimmer shakes her head. “Fine, I guess. Who’s coming?”

“Your guard captain, your aunt, Wrodak, Mermista, Spinnerella…”

“Seems reasonable. Is that all?”

Catra shakes her head. “I invited Scorpia, too.”

Glimmer slurps up the rest of the soup, and wipes in her sleeve, then magicks the stain away.

“Classy.”

“As if you’re any better. Who else?”

“Lonnie.”

Glimmer looks at Catra. “That’s… Reasonable. Is she fun at parties?”

“Loads.”

“You’re cagey. I sense there’s an expected surprise coming,” Glimmer says.

Catra frowns. “I invited Double Trouble. Hear me out—”

“I approve.”

“Really?” Catra asks, surprised.

“What, I owe them. I pulled a nasty trick to get them to do my bidding. And I cannot imagine they’re boring at parties.”

“The way I hear them tell it, they are impressed with your guile; also you indirectly led them down the path to a blissful romance,” Catra says.

Glimmer breaks off a piece of the soup-soggy bread, and bites down. “How’s Adora?”

“She’s good. Keeping busy. She feels terrible that she can’t make it, but there’s some She-Ra related obligations that have come up.”

“That seems unwise,” Bow says.

Adora’s come to New Thaymor. It’s more of a logging camp at the moment, but everyone there greets Adora warmly when they pass. Bow is there purely as an inspector, taking reports from the Taymor Ranger chapter, and coordinating the effort with Plumeria to set up the same kind of areable clearing in the valley as existed before the Ash Corridor and the Reset.

“Don’t worry; remember what I did on the Swift Wind?”

Bow ponders this. “Oh, right. That was mighty convenient. So, the big question is who you decided to invite.”

“Well; if you were hoping for your old ranger unit, I’m sorry to disappoint.” It was a realization that struck her just an hour before. She has only really invited members of the ‘save-the-world’ reistance.

Bow snorts, then laughs that hearty warm laugh of his. “Adora, we’re going bar hopping in a different country. Most people don’t become rangers because city life is particularly appealing to them.”

“And you?”

A woman ranger comes over, handing Bow a surveying report. “I was always in it for the freedom of movement, and the thrill of exploration. That’s what I like about flying, too.”

“Speaking of, I couldn’t not invite my mom. She’ll be out chaperone.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t be much of a pilot with her.”

“And Sea Hawk is coming too, of course.”

“Of course,” Bow says, smiling as he fills out some numbers in his ledger. “I haven’t seen him since the resistance dissolved — Glims and I have been really busy.”

“Going down the list, I hope you don’t mind but I invited Perfuma. She is your ex.”

“Not at all. We’re on good terms.”

“And while I was in Plumeria, I also invited Seneschal, so there is one ranger.”

Bow looks up. “Huh. How’s he?”

“Good, it seemed. No hard feelings about the Northern Reach. Then I invited Netossa. She needs to get out of the house, and you’re pretty good buddies; right?”

Bow nods. “She’s the reason I got these —” he gestures to his bare arm where the enhancement tattoos adorn his skin “— which saved my life… And Glimmers.”

“Okay, how do you feel about Peekablue?”

Bow frowns. “I mean, he’s nice and all — I still need him to give me that omelette recipe — and we did kind of save the universe together, but what his wife did?”

“Catra’s done worse, and you’re okay with her.” Adora says.

Bow looks at her. “I guess that would be hypocritical. Sure. Peekablue’s welcome.”

“And last, I invited some of my old buddies, because they know more about drinking in Capital than I do: Kyle and Rogelio.”

“Sounds good. Kyle’s cute.”

“And in a stable, committed relationship, like you.”

Bow looks at her with mock offense. “I meant that in the most brotherly way, thank you very much. I’d like to get to know him better, and I’ve witnessed first-hand that he does excellent work — Entrapta outsourced a lot of practical work to him before the final battle.”

“Well, if you’re good with the guest list, then that’s it.”

Bow consults his communicator. “I should really be looking at some lunch, soon. How’s Catra?”

“Oh, she’s doing great. She couldn’t make it; she’s got something going on with the magicats — Melog business.”

One of the last things that needs doing before the big night, is perhaps the most tedious: the department of international affairs needs to be notified.

As much as the power structures of society are flexing and bending, shifting and re-arranging, people still go to work because they believe what they do are important, and it is almost an employment prerequisite to believe that when working in international relations.

Among the many, many sources of anxiety in the diplomatic community is the fact that the government of the Kingdom of Snows has yet to actually reconvene, and they don’t seem to be in any hurry to do so.

Adora arrives by portal, just like about one fourth of all commuters does these days, and heads inside the rather lavish building, with its ornate decor and colonnade facade.

She heads up to the reception desk — one of several — and gets the attention of the Sasquatch receptionist.

“What can I do for your ma’am?”

Adora presents the two documents: twin pieces of rolled parchment. “I’m here delivering diplomatic missives from Brightmoon and Salineas.”

The receptionist notes the wax seals, but not much else, then hands them back to Adora.

“Forgive me one moment, ma’am, I’ll fetch my superior.”

Moments later, the receptionist returns trailing a blond elfin woman and a human man with slicked back hair.

“Good day,” the woman says. “I’m Vola, the deputy minister of foreign relations, this is our Brightmoon special consultant, Fulbright.”

“Pleasure; I used to be the minister envoy to Brightmoon,” Fulbright says.

Adora hands her the two letters. “I’m Adora.”

“This wouldn’t be the Adora, also known as She-Ra, would it?” Fulbright asks while Vola reads the letter.

“Yes, that’s me.”

There’s a pause. Vola swaps to the letter from Salineas

“Hm.”

"What?

“I feel obliged to inform you, one diplomat to another,” Fulbright says, “that the military has a warrant out for your arrest.”

“Oh,” Adora says.

Vola looks up. “So, let me get this straight. The Queen of Brightmoon, and the Prince Consort of Salineas are both arranging… If I’m reading this correctly separated bar crawls through downtown Capital on the same night?”

“Yes,” Adora says.

“And you’re the organizer,” Vola continues. “And you have an active warrant with the military police.”

“I’m only the organizer of one of them.”

“Right, the other is one Ms. Catra?”

Adora thinks for a moment. “I think she’s the former commander in chief.”

“I’ll have to take this to the chief secretary.”

A notification pings in Catra’s peripheral vision, distracting her from the three-dimensional anatomical model laid out in the virtual space.

“Excuse me for one moment,” she says, reading through the text message. “Oh.”

“What is it?” Perfuma asks.

“Just… Adora’s gotten arrested.” She takes off her mask, and gets out of the comfortable hover chair. The refurbished cave chamber is softly lit and most of it is taken up by the virtuality equipment and the medical scanner.

“Oh dear,” Double Trouble says, standing. “I suppose we’ll cut the lesson short. Remember to practice, Kitten, and don’t be too haughty to use a med scanner if you’re in doubt.”

Perfuma rises as well, and shakes Double Trouble’s hand. “That was very educational, and very different from what I had feared,” she says.

“I have two more lessons planned out, Princess,” Double Trouble says. “I’d be honored to see you attend my tutelage.”

“Yeah,” Catra says. “DeeTee, thanks for the lesson; same time next week?”

“If it suits Perfuma,” Double Trouble says looking to the Princess.

“It does!”

Catra steps through a portal onto the pavement in front of Army Investigations and Corrections headquarters. A building built a few years before the concrete behemoths of most of the Scientific Division headquarters, showing the early conceptions of the style.

She strides to the stairs, and up the front to the main entrance.

“Ma’am, please state your business,” one of the guards says, noting her agitated demeanor.

Catra shows him a rude gesture. “Get lost, Sergeant, this is way above your pay-grade.”

She steps in front of Catra. “Rank and name, please.”

She holds up her rank insignia. “General, retired. Catra.” It was a quick trip to the army records office to confirm that. The insignia is a fabricator-made replica. “Formerly Commander in Chief, director of Special Operations.”

The sergeant steps aside. “Proceed right inside, ma’am.”

Catra brushes past her, and in through the tall double-doors.

Inside the lobby is the usual amount of people coming and going, many of them uniformed and wearing the military police arm-bands.

Off to one side, animatedly discussing with a senior officer, is a slick-haired man in a suit. Catra vaguely recognizes him as a diplomat. She strides up to them.

“Hello, Mister—?”

He stops his rant to look at her.

“Fulbright, ma’am; diplomatic consultant on Brightmoon matters.”

“Great,” Catra. She turns to the officer and flashes her badge. “I need to have former Warrant Officer Adora released.”

The senior officer isn’t so easily convinced. “Can I see full papers?”

Catra pulls them pointedly from her coat pocket.

“You’re retired.”

Catra reaches up and grabs the man by the collar. “Listen here, you have a Brightmoon General sitting in your interrogation room, or wherever; if that is not remedied now, you are going to have to explain to the Provost why the Department of Foreign Affairs is calling for your resignation to appease our allies.”

The senior officer pales. “Let me take you to her right away.”

The door opens behind Adora.

“If you’ve come to ask me more questions, I can already tell you you’ll be wasting your time,” Adora says.

“It’s me, Ad,” Catra says.

Adora spins in her seat to see Catra by the open door.

“Oh thank the stars, I though I was going to be here all day. How did you get in?”

“I’m officially a retired general, and I have a diplomat with me. I strong-armed everyone I needed to with threats of diplomatic incidents.”

Flubright peeks in. “Hello again, Ms. Adora.”

“Mr. Fulbright!” Adora says.

Catra strides into the room, and waves a hand over Adora’s cuffs, which unlock themselves. “You know, you are allowed to pull rank with these people. If you had told them you were a Brightmoon General —”

“But I resigned my commission,” Adora protests.

“These people don’t care. You’re a diplomatic liability, so they’ll kick it up the chain until it hits someone who’d rather it wasn’t their headache, or their superiors, and then the matter will be resolved.”

She helps Adora to her feet, and keeps hold of her hand as they leave.

They arrive home through portal by Catra’s hand, and Catra hugs Adora long and hard right there on the patio.

“Catra?”

“You idiot.”

Adora pulls back a little to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m worried,” Catra mutters. “That this is only the beginning.”

“What do you mean, Cat?”

Catra looks at Adora; even now in their social forms, Adora’s still two inches taller. “I mean, Ad, that we did some things during the war that people aren’t going to bee keen about in peacetime. You defected — that’s treason. There’s going to be people in the army who wants to see you in court martial for that.”

“Oh.”

“Not to mention what I did…” Catra looks away.

Adora turns her head back with a gentle hand. “Catra, we have friends in high places. And we did save the universe. That has to count for something. And if not, Glimmer can give us both a pardon, and we’ll just move to Brightmoon.”

“Yeah,” Catra says.

“You don’t seem happy about that?”

“I don’t want to live as a fugitive. Brightmoon is your home, but… It isn’t mine.”

Adora nods towards their house. “And the Fright Zone is?”

Catra shrugs.

“Home is where the heart is, so your home is here, with me. And if we have to go back to space just because people don’t want us here, then that’s where I’ll take you, okay?”

Catra looks intently at Adora and blushes hard. “That’s…”

“Sappy? I know. Sorry,” Adora says, looking away.

“I love you,” Catra says, and leans in to kiss Adora on the cheek.

“I love you too,” Adora says.

They kiss, deeply, softly, and slowly. Catra’s hands wander idly inside Adora’s jacket.

Eventually, she pulls back, face flush, short of breath. “Perfuma and I had a lesson with Double Trouble today,” she says.

Adora blinks. “Oh. How did that go?”

As an answer, Catra opens her mouth and with a little bit of shapeshifting, elongates her tongue considerably, forking it at the tip. She sticks it out playfully, wiggling her eyebrows. “Wanna find out?”

Chapter Text

“I hear you have questions,” Wrodak says, addressing the crowd. “I’m here to hopefully address some of them, my brothers.”

Hordak stands by his side on the stage: moral support. Wrodak is the better speaker of the two of them

“The chiefest of them is probably: She-Ra can bring back the dead, why has she not brought back our fallen brothers?”

There’s a murmur of assent in the crowd.

"The answer is very simple: she does not want to, and our brethren wouldn’t want to either. They fell as She-Ra’s enemy. It would be hard to make the case that she is obligated to extend the same courtesy to us, as to her allies, is it not? Regardless of the peace.

"But more so: imagine being brought back to life under these circumstances. One moment, you fall in battle, proudly fighting for Prime’s glory. The next, you are unexpectedly alive to a world without him, full of uncertainty.

“I say we let them lie; for their sacrifice they do not deserve to have this fate thrust upon them. As for us, I am not advocating we should fall on our bayonets.”

Wrodak looks at Hordak. “It is an imperfect universe, but it is the only one we have been given.” He looks back at the crowd. “In the words of a dear friend: this imperfection is is the very thing that endows the universe with beauty.”

Wrodak pauses, to let his audience meditate on this.

“The next question is much more down-to-earth: what is going to become of us. Supplies are running low, and it is freezing cold. I hear you, brothers. The solution is simple: our generous hosts, the victors of the war, are merciful and do not wish suffering upon us. They will provide us with the means to power our infrastructure, recycle waste, and produce amenity items as needed. We have been allowed indefinite stay on this fine planet, and should any of you wish, you are free to take up residence elsewhere than in this arctic region.”

Snow has fallen heavy over southern Snows as it does almost every year. The trees bend and creak under the weight in the northernmost section of forest that can rightly be called part of the Whispering Woods.

There’s a knock on the door to the sturdy log cabin, and Frosta is quick to direct her buddy-bot to open.

“Frosta!” Starla exclaims.

“Starla!”

Frosta runs at, and nearly tackles Starla with a hug.

“Hey Frosta,” Cometa says, behind Starla.

“Hey Cometa! Come in! You’re letting all the hot air out!”

They enter the quaint little space, built entirely around the massive fireplace. There’s not an actual fire burning there, but instead a big red-hot heating coil, and a projected hologram of fire overlaid it.

Frosta fetches the boiling kettle from over the ‘flames’ and pours into teapot. “How’s space?”

“Space is fine,” Starla says. “Thanks you Etherians, at least.”

Frosta looks between Cometa and Starla. “You two miss each other that much?”

Cometa looks at Starla. “We’re… Taking it slow.”

“Good, good. I’m abdicating.”

“Really?” Cometa asks.

“Yeah, Snows is basically done for; we were already splintered from Hordak’s ‘conquest’ and now everyone came home with fabricators and Queen Glimmer was all like ‘revolution is nigh’ so me and my advisors just decided not to bother — I hear the provinces are working on a thing called a ‘Federation,’ but I’m not keeping up. I’m just available for emergencies if anyone needs me.”

“Interesting,” Starla says. “What do you do to pass the time?”

“I study. Physics mostly. There’s a lot of things even the First-Ones didn’t know, and I intend to find out. I’m also following the space program; I want to go to space one day, just like, not on the Swift Wind.”

“You seriously just hole up here, all alone?” Starla says. “Nobody special you want to spend time with?”

Frosta grimaces. “I’d rather sleep among my sled dogs.”

“Catra, can you help me with this?” Adora says, standing by the full-length mirror, fumbling with the bow tie of her tuxedo. White jacket with gold trim, red cummerbund, grey breeches and black jackboots. Her only accessory is Halcyon as her usual owl-motif winged diadem.

Catra traipses over. “Look up.” With deft hands, she ties Adora’s bow-tie.

“The other one, too,” Adora says, transforming into She-Ra and bending down: she’s wearing the exact same outfit twice.

Catra ties that one as well, plants a peck on Adora’s cheek, and pats her chest. “Now all you need is makeup and hair.” Not that Adora needs a lot of either, but the blue lipstick won’t hurt any. She can tie her topknot without Catra’s help, at least.

Catra herself is wearing an off-shoulder evening gown, maroon, matching her forehead protector, with an orange scarf and a white pearl necklace, barefoot. Her night-sky hair voluminous and smoothly curling, and her lips and lashes are black — not make-up, just a bit of shapeshifting.

“Well,” Catra says, consulting her communicator. “This is me; I have to go get our reservation. See you tonight.” Then she stands on her toes to kiss Adora on the cheek once more, before heading out onto the patio.

Through the window, Adora sees her look back and wink, before stepping through a portal.

Last but not least, she grabs her scabbard, fixing it to her side, and manifests a slender Parabell already in it. On her way out the door, she grabs her gold cufflinks.

No night on the town should be undertaken on an empty stomach. And there’s nothing more like a night on the town in Capital than starting with a serving of Gyros. Vertical rotisserie mystery meats sliced thinly in flatbread with condiments and pickles.

Unfortunately, Adora’s favourite place for that is not only on the other side of town, but closed down in spring, after the owner’s son died in the Ash Corridor. This place, a little hole in the wall by the industrial end of the docks, is recommended by Scorpia and Lonnie. Like all the best places, for such things, there are no options: everyone gets the same bread, meat, pickle salad, and sauce.

This place serves upwards of one hundred and fifty meals per day.

The cook and proprietor, a heavyset caniform woman in a stained apron, looks up from her newspaper as Adora approaches. She has nine confirmation messages in her pocket.

“Hey, ten please.”

“Ten?”

“Yeah, I have some friends coming. No sides?”

“No sides.” The woman says, and points across the street. “Over there, see the green grocer? Best damn celery on this side of town; sells it with nut butter.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Adora says with a smile. She digs a slim wallet our of her inner pocket, and pays in dinar notes.

The woman lines up as many flatbreads as fit on her counter and starts shaving the rotating meat.

Adora heads back to Damara waiting nearby, visible from up and down the street.

“Are you sure about this place?” Damara asks. She’s wearing a simple dress uniform of a sky blue jacket and grey slacks, and her usual golden hair-ornament.

“They pass their health inspections,” Adora says.

A portal opens a few feet away, and Bow steps out. He’s foregone a jacket, wearing only a green waistcoat over white shirt, under a lilac cloak, with blue slacks and the boots Glimmer gave him for betrothal. On his head rests a silver laurel wreath.

“You’re looking mighty kingly, Pilot,” Adora says.

“Says the Captain dressed for the cavalry,” Bow retorts.

“Congratulations on tomorrow,” Damara says to him.

“Thank you.”

Sea Hawk is next to arrive. He comes walking down the street just then, accompanied by eight armed and marine-blue uniformed Salinean royal guards. Himself, he is dressed in a cerulean-blue gala uniform coat, white trousers, boots toed in polished steel, and the trident crest on his left breast. At his hip hangs a full-length rapier, and on his head, a tricorne with a ridiculous feather.

“Bow, my brother!” he exclaims, his waxed moustache bobbing as he speaks.

Adora glances at the street-food vendor, who seems unbothered. “Sea Hawk,” she says, “anything for our guard detail tonight?”

“No thank you, ma’am,” the Lieutenant in charge of the detail says, a stocky sea-elf man.

“How thoughtful of you,” Sea Hawk says.

Adora shrugs.

“Now, brother,” Sea Hawk says turning to Bow and throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Tomorrow you enter into blissful matrimony; I must say you have something grand to look forward to, bachelor life cannot compare.”

Adora tunes the conversation out.

A portal opens nearby, and the eight guards take notice right away, to their credit. Out steps Perfuma and Seneschal, both dressed in Plumerian formal tunic dress. Seneschal’s coat and trousers are naturally dyed, with boots of soft deerskin; his hair is slicked back, and he is wearing no accessories apart from a simple dark headband.

Perfuma’s coat is pastel pink, and she is crowned in living flowers. This is the first time Adora has seen Perfuma in trousers.

“Well met from Plumeria,” Perfuma says. “Oh, that smells good, what are we having?”

“Gyros,” Adora says.

“What kind of meat?”

Adora pauses. “Lamb?” She turns to the vendor who is now on the fifth flatbread. “Is it lamb?”

“Yep,” she says.

“I actually though you might not partake in meat,” Adora says to Perfuma who comes up beside her.

“I used to,” she replies. “Is it lamb from pasture?” Perfuma asks the vendor. “And was it butchered mercifully?”

The vendor turns to look at her. “I couldn’t say, ma’am; you’d have to ask my butcher.”

“Let’s hope it is,” Perfuma concludes. “I can taste if the animal suffered — it’s unpleasant.”

“Oh. But you used to be vegetarian?”

Perfuma nods. “I’m going through some… Changes.” She holds up a hand, and directly from her skin a flower blooms. “Among them is my appetite. Sometimes I just cannot sate myself except by meat.”

“Have you tried insect meats?”

“Can’t say I have,” Perfuma says.

“I’ll pick you up some fried crickets later, then.”

Perfuma leans in “and we’re keeping it hush-hush about you-know-who?”

Adora nods emphatically.

Then there’s a pat on her back. “Hey girl! Your head is somewhere else if I can sneak up on you.”

Adora turns to see Netossa. She’s wearing ceremonial brigandine cuirass in blue, with polished cuisses, and greaves; poofy sleeves, brass bracers, and a very conspicuous silver hair-ornament covering the shaved side of her head.

“Yeah, I have a lot of things on my mind.”

“Such as?”

“I’m not going to see Catra for the next six hours.”

Netossa laughs. “Ah, newly-in-love, are we?”

The street food vendor starts stacking the wax-paper-wrapped flatbread wraps on the counter. She takes the banknotes from under the napkin holder, and counts out Adora’s change.

“Food’s ready!” Netossa calls out.

“Oh! Gyros!” Kyle says behind her.

Adora turns to see that the rest have arrived: Peekablue in a black tuxedo very like the one Hordak favors, with a simple gold circlet around his blue hair, and Kyle and Rogelio in army dress uniforms wearing ceremonial berets.

She and Netossa start handing out the wraps. “All right, for expediency, we eat while we walk!”

“We are not eating on the go, what are we, savages?” Catra says, as she opens the double doors to the small restaurant, passing two Brightmoon royal guards, in military uniform rather than ceremonial armor, posted inside.

Following her is Glimmer in purple knee-length dress with a prominent heart making up the neckline, under a cropped gala uniform jacket; both in Brightmoon purple. She has taken up the traditional style of wearing a hovering shard of white quartz by the forehead, and a set of matching earrings. Brightmoon’s throne has no crown save the Moonstone; never needed it.

“What do they serve here?” Glimmer asks.

“The real prize is the lobster. It’s cheap, sure, but they’re freshly caught and amazing with lemon butter.”

“Did you use to come here often?”

Catra shakes her head. “Double Trouble of all people took me here.”

Glimmer stops. “You dated Double Trouble?”

“No, that was the part where they deceived me to break me and Hordak at your request,” Catra says.

“Oh.”

Catra leads them to a table for ten. Already seated is Juliet in a long-sleeved gown in blue Mystacor style; her hair is tied in a practical fashion, held in place by a gold clasp bearing the Mystacorian star. Next to her sits Castaspella in much the same dress, except with a cape and her floating diadem.

By the table next to theirs, the remaining ten Brightmoon royal guards sit, conversing quietly among themselves. They notice Glimmer, and the Captain of them stands and takes a bow.

“You look splendid, dear niece,” Castaspella says, rising from her seat, and coming around to meet Glimmer. They exchange cheek kisses.

“Your Majesty,” Juliet greets.

“Juliet,” Glimmer says. “Please, call me by my name.”

“As you wish, Glimmer.”

“So, do we start with drinks here, or?” Glimmer asks, taking a seat at the end of the table.

“That’s the plan,” Catra says, sitting down on her right.

“What are we having?”

“Sparkling wine, of course.”

Glimmer looks up to the bar, where the bartender — a moustached satyr man — greets her with a salute and a muttered “Y’Maj’sty.”

The entire floor of the restaurant has been cleared.

“Yeah, Juliet insisted we buy out the place,” Catra says.

They both take a seat, and Glimmer avails herself of the pre-meal snacks: salted nuts, and grilled grubs which she avoids.

“Oh, there they come now,” Catra says, looking out the large windows. The entire building is constructed according to industrial modernism; its architect throwing off the yoke of stone and embracing steel reinforcements. Virtually the entire facade is glass.

Outside in the street, several portals open, revealing the others’ arrival.

Spinnerella and Scorpia come in together, and Catra waves them down — not that it isn’t obvious where to sit.

For a rare occurrence, Scorpia is not wearing her social gloves, instead showing her pincers bare, adorned in accents of leaf silver and gold applied directly to carapace. Her shoulder-spikes bear a variety of rings of both metals, and her tail is hung with delicate chains. This is contrasted by her plain black gown, slim fitting, showing off her prodigiously stout physique. Foregoing a coat, she’s wearing a heating spell in a wide sash to supplement her enhancements’ natural cold-resistance.

Spinnerella has raided the depths of her wardrobe for a gown that has not seen the light of day since her mother’s time. Brightmoon purple, draped skirt and flaring flounce, and a bodice that was once plain, but has been studded with fabricated amethyst sequins. Her heavy wool coat has flared sleeves and a pointed hood, in traditional Alwyn style.

“Good afternoon,” Scorpia says, as they sit. Spinnerella exchanges cheek kisses with Castaspella, and fall into a bit of small talk; Castaspella asking how Netossa is doing.

“How did it work out?” Catra asks Scorpia.

“Hm?”

“The whole thing with you and Flower Girl?”

“Oh, we decided not to go though with it, not now; not yet. But… Soon.” She smiles at the though.

“What’s this about?” Glimmer asks.

“Pregnancy scare. Dryads, you know.” Scorpia says winking.

“I… Don’t.” Glimmer says. She looks at Catra. Catra smiles knowingly, nodding. “You two are in this together somehow; I’m not sure I want to know.”

Double Trouble comes in dressed in a voluminous white fur coat, wearing their usual blonde lizard-like appearance and booties; conversing with Wrodak, who is wearing his usual style of form-fitting, staggeringly pink outfit: a blouse under cropped jacket with just enough hem to qualify as a ‘skirt’ and leggings going into knee-high flat boots. His hair styled in a mohawk.

Wrodak comes up to Glimmer. “Hey Chief,” and gives her a brief hug.

“What’s under the coat, DeeTee?” Catra calls out.

Double Trouble saunters over between her and Scorpia.

“Oh, I have a new outfit planned for every bar; are you really only going to wear one thing?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to not let the whole… Supernally-empowered planetary defender thing go to my head,” Catra jeers back.

Double Trouble pats her on both shoulders, and plants an almost parentally affectionate kiss in her hair. “You look splendid, Kitten. How did Adora like your little —” they lick their lips “— trick?”

Catra grins, blushes and looks away. “That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?”

“That well, huh? And Scorpia, how’s the missus?”

“Fine thanks, Double Trouble,” Scorpia says.

“Such a sweet girl, Princess Perfuma. Good student.” Double Trouble says and heads back to take a seat, and Wrodak follows.

“What’s with those two being friends all of a sudden?” Catra asks Glimmer.

“The short of it is that Wrodak saved Sweet Bee’s life.”

“How nice.”

“What’s Double Trouble teaching Perfuma?” Glimmer asks back.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Sparkles,” Catra says with a smirk.

Glimmer leans in. “Is it a sex thing?” she whispers, “because I’m not one to judge.”

“Whatever makes you think that?” Catra says, mock offended. “We’re an exclusive little club of shapeshifters, sharing our experiences and practicing our craft together, different as our methods might be. It is not a ‘sex thing’ as you so crudely put it!”

Glimmer glares at Catra. “Why do I get the feeling you’re lying to me.”

The door bell goes again and they look up to see Mermista and Lonnie enter. Lonnie in a perfectly ordinary Horde dress uniform; Mermista in her favourite getup which Glimmer has seen numerous times by now: turquoise skirt and cerulean top, baring her midriff (stretchmarks and all,) a cloak of dark blue wool sown intricately into the likeness of fish scales, and heaps of gold jewelry.

“Sorry I’m late,” Mermista says, “I had to find a ’sitter.”

Lonnie snorts, and a few others process the joke for what it is: as if the Empress of Salineas has trouble finding childcare options — back home, in Salineas, at the palace, little ’Dora is being looked after by her loving nanny and wet-nurse.

“That makes all of us,” Catra says, and signals the head waiter to bring the main — and only — course they are having.

A respectable bar with a patronage of the middle-class; full of lively conversations early in the night. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, and in the corner a radio voices out the local ballgame, drawing a small crowd of mixed sports fans.

It therefore brings no small amount of attention when eight foreigners (and two junior officers) in various forms of gala dress enter, laughing, chatting, and wiping their hands in paper napkins. Followed by eight foreign uniformed security, who cordially and discretely take up positions in two-man groups.

Adora heads directly to the bar, and the bartender, a human woman of Candilan descent judging by the dark skin, attends her; a chrysanthemum in her waistcoat’s breast pocket.

“What’s good on tap?” Adora asks.

“We’ve got ale and lager.”

“Which is better?”

“Matter of pref’rence, ma’am.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“The ale.”

“Ten half-pints of it, chasing your choice of whiskey.” She pulls out the voluminous wallet, does some quick mental maths with the pricing card, and leaves a decent tip.

She waves over the other bartender and starts grabbing glasses from the overhead, hung by the stems. Both of them work the tap. “What’s the occasion if you don’t mind me asking, ma’am?”

“See the guy in the laurel wreath crown?” Adora says, leaning on the bar.

The bartender glances, as does a few of the patrons at the bar, next to Adora.

“By tomorrow — that’ll be evening here, but morning there — he’ll be the King of Brightmoon, by marriage.”

“So it’s a Stag Party,” the bartender says, setting the beer glasses on a tray. “Happy hour’s starts in forty-five.”

“We won’t be staying that long.”

She sets ten shot glasses on a different tray while her colleague finishes the beers, and pours the whiskey.

Adora brings the two trays out to the others, who are milling about on the floor — there isn’t really available seating for a party of ten.

Bow is listening to Kyle and Rogelio explain some technical details about the artillery facilities they built for the Battle of the Southern Reach; Perfuma, Seneschal and Damara are chatting about the Plumerian Druidic practices and their history; Netossa, Peekablue, and Sea Hawk are talking politics.

“Drinks!” Adora calls out, instantly getting the attention of everyone. She passes around the beers and shots until everyone is bereft of free hands. Then, lacking an extra set of hands, conjures a third hand out of Halcyon, to help her stack the trays and get her own drinks.

“Neat,” Kyle notes, aside to Rogelio: “we should really look into omnitools.”

“Now!” Adora says, and pours her whiskey into the beer. "A word for my very best friend. Bow, in fourteen hours, you’re going to be king. Which is why we’re here, eating street food and drinking like workers and the enlisted.

"Two things. One: the good people of the Hordelands you see here are the lucky ones who have enough money to go drink some of it away at the end of the work day. Two: this won’t be the case much longer from what I’ve seen, thanks in no small part to Kyle’s buddy bots, and our fabricators.

“Bow, yours and Glimmer’s rule is not only going to preside over a revolution of governance, but also probably the elimination of hunger, poverty, and preventable illness.”

“You’re really big on that, huh?” Bow says.

Adora nods. “Honestly, I was kind of dreading it; what was going to happen after the war. Big changes had to come, and I wasn’t looking forward to trying to convince all our friends that ‘no really, Hordak was right’ — I mean, can you imagine?”

They all laugh.

“I was there, during the little cholera outbreak down in the weaving district back in early winter. I think — no offense — that rulers are better if they understand the plight of the commoner.”

She raises her glass. “To the common folk.”

A coffee house; one of the bigger ones in the city, located on the edge of the city-center, frequented in daytime by office workers in search of a quickening brew, and after closing by the same office workers looking for something stronger.

They don’t buy out the floor, at Catra’s insistence, but she does pay extra for seating for all of them: two adjacent tables with booth seating. Catra heads to the bar, well-staffed by baristas and bartenders all wearing leather aprons to protect themselves should any hot liquid spill from the espresso machines.

“Get ten singles with cream, nine hard, one virgin.”

Dutifully, three baristas start working the machines, one grinding and tamping the coffee in filters, the other two pulling shots using the spring-loaded levers. The bartender takes Catra’s payment, heats heavy cream on the steam wand, and each shot glass off coffee gets a thin layer of cream on top; then a dollop of rectified alcohol.

The bartender dusts the last shot with brown sugar. “This one is the virgin.” Then he sets a tray with all of them, and hands it to Catra. Satisfied, Catra pulls another banknote out of her bag of tricks, and leaves it as a tip.

Coming up to the seating arrangement, one of the booths hosts Glimmer, Scorpia, Mermista, Spinnerella, and Castaspella, with Scorpia answering questions about life in the Hordelands much to Catra’s delight; the other seats Wrodak, Lonnie, Double Trouble, Juliet, and has an empty seat for Catra, with Double Trouble and Wrodak laying out some of the problems of integrating clones into society for a raptly attentive Lonnie and Juliet.

Catra calls on her backhands — now plural — and lifts nine small drinks through the air onto the table in front of each member of the party. The conversations pause and everyone turns to look at Catra.

“A toast,” she says. "Glimmer, tonight we’re drinking something you will have to learn to like if you want to create a lasting bond between the Hordelands and Brightmoon: coffee. Here tempered by cream and spiced with pure booze. It’s not an expensive or fancy drink; it serves to deliver alcohol and stimulating coffee in the smallest possible package, and is popular as a pick-me-up after a hard day’s labor.

"You have by your own admission always lived a life of luxury, and it runs counter to what I have read of such things, that you would ever want to give that up. But then, Hordak was a jaded man when he wrote those books.

"I also want to thank you. Because when you asked me to throw you this party, and be your best at the wedding tomorrow, you said you chose me because I saved you, out in space, and I was willing to selflessly give up my life to do so. And that’s what I did. And because of that you now get to marry the love of your life.

"But then, you voted in favor of going back and saving my dumb ass after I did everything possible to get you to safety. It was stupid, it was incredibly selfless, and I wouldn’t be here; with— with the love of my life; if not for you.

“So thank you, Queen. For everything you have done, and everything you will do, because as far as I can foresee, it’s going to be spectacular.”

There’s a little round of applause, and Glimmer gets up to give Catra a long, warm hug.

Then they all down their drinks, and at least seven of them present severe grimaces at the aftertaste, much to Catra’s delight.

The next place Adora takes them to is nearby, and quite a bit smaller and fancier and completely depopulated at this early hour, its usual clientele arriving later. Here they have Plumerian Whisper-wine, made from fermented sap of the Whisper Oak. It’s complex and mildly unpleasant aftertaste is characteristic of herb bitters more than anything, but is outweighed by having other and more intoxicating contents than mere alcohol.

Two bottles is enough for a round for all, and they linger there, quietly talking in the small bar, as if cognizant that this is the clam before the storm.

“Bow,” Perfuma says, swirling the translucent purple wine in her glass. “I want to apologize.”

“What for?” Bow asks.

“I broke up with you just before you went to the desert — not that I regret it, mind; it really was what I needed at the time, and I think you as well — but the reason I gave you then… I’ve found that it isn’t the truth.”

“What, that you said you were into women?” Bow asks, perplexed.

Perfuma nods. “I’ve been going through a lot of… Changes — I really have come to empathize with Catra and Adora, after hearing what they went through out in space. It’s terrifying when you think you know yourself as an adult, and then you suddenly become other and more than you were.”

Bow nods.

“Anyway, I’ve come to realize that I still like men. I like… Well, everyone, really. And I want you to know that, because you’re my friend.”

He holds out his glass, Perfuma touches hers to it.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says. And gently puts an arm around her shoulders, giving her a little squeeze. “And I’m very happy for you and Scorpia.”

Perfuma giggles. “Is silly; you saying this to me tonight. You’re the one getting married.”

“Oh, I expect all manner of well-wishes, but that is for tomorrow.”

No city in the world has electrical street lights, signs that blink, or cars driving by with their brilliant headlights. It’s a spectacle alone to walk Capital at night.

Their next stop is a more traditional bar, wherein a seven piece band is playing live. A trumpetist, a clarinetist, a string quartet, and an accordionist. Lively, and inviting, a sizable portion of the floorspace has been allocated to those wishing to dance.

Glimmer doesn’t. Lessons with a dance instructor has taught her that she’ll be able to do the waltz tomorrow, but not much more than that. Walking is one thing, but dancing is another — not that she was ever proficient before.

“So, this is a weird question,” Scorpia says. She’s swirling her beer, holding the glass mug with magically gloved fingers. “Ever thought about having kids?”

Glimmer looks at the bigger woman. “Well… Yes. But that’s pretty far in the future.”

Scorpia nods. “That’s my thoughts as well.”

“You should talk to Spinnerella about kids, if anyone.”

“I heard my name?” Spinnerella says, coming up to them. She’s drinking mineral water, garnished with a slice of fruit.

“Hey, uh,” Scorpia says. “It’s nothing; I’m just —” she takes a deep breath. “Perfuma and I had an unintended pregnancy and we decided not to go through with it.”

“Oh,” Spinnerella says. “Condolences. Or congratulations. Whichever is appropriate.”

Scorpia nods. “That’s just the thing, I don’t know. I mean, we’ve only been together for a little over a month, and I spent a week of that — you know…”

Spinnerella nods. She knows.

“It was so strange; I remember, after the initial shock and before all the reasonable objections… I was elated. I thought ‘I’m going to be a mom!’ and we laughed and danced and then. Then we both sort of realized.” Scorpia says.

“Realized what?” Spinnerella says gently.

Scorpia looks at Glimmer. “You’ve know Bow your whole life, right?”

“For a long time, yeah.”

“I envy you that,” Scorpia says. “I wish I had known Perfect for a decade when we found out. I— I really want to have kids. And I want her kids. But only when we’re ready.”

“Aw,” Spinnerella says, and pats Scorpia on the back. “That’s really romantic.”

“Sorry, this is supposed to be your night, Queen Glimmer, and I’m just rambling.”

Glimmer puts a wing over Scorpia’s shoulders. "I haven’t known you for very long, Scorpia, and in the time we’ve known each other, I did some bad things. Used people. You, among others.

“I’m really pleased you think of me as a friend, despite it. Thanks.”

Scorpia raises her beer to Glimmer. “To friendship?”

“Long end enduring,” Glimmer says, and raises her drink as well.

Thee places and one and a half hours later, they stick around for a while. Five drinks is where the evening goes from ‘social occasion’ to ‘binge drinking.’

They had to leave the previous bar they went to, after Bow and Seneschal tried darts for the first time, and their opponents turned out to be sore losers; Sea Hawk stepped in and reminded everyone present that he had eight armed guards at his beck and call, and two police wagons parked outside as their escort.

The bar here is half staffed by buddy bots and on six pool tables a tourney already ongoing. Kyle and Rogelio are drunkly discussing the prospect of designing a pool queue that lets amateurs make the perfect shot.

Perfuma and Peekablue has an unspoken competition about who can order the most ostentatiously colourful and decorated drink — Perfuma cheats by adding her own flowers, Peekablue by knowing what each bartender knows how to properly mix and layer. He is drinking something in six layers in a glass teacup, with a pair of cherries hanging on the handle; She is adorning her salt-crusted glass with a dandelion in seed.

“Adora!” Bow says. “Everyone, gather ’round!”

“What’s up?” Adora says, sauntering over.

Bow clears his throat, and pulls up two chairs, and steps up to stand on one. Ostentatiously dressed as he is, he attracts the attention of other the patrons, and raises his glass to the room, not just his party.

“It’s been one chaotic mess of a year! War, destruction, conquests, whatever in the world happened when the sky broke, alien invasion! This is going to be one for the history books.”

There’s a few ’hear hear’s from around the room.

"I want everyone to know on thing: a lot of things had to go right for any of us to be here today. I want to raise a glass to just how lucky we’ve been. Prime is gone, the war is over, and the night sky is more beautiful than ever.

“But there’s one person in particular we should all thank; she’s the best damn person I have ever met. She’s the reason the entire universe wasn’t blown up. Adora, come on up here.”

Adora is slightly too drunk to get properly flustered. She steps up beside Bow, who slings an arm round her shoulders.

"Now, Adora here is She-Ra. The defender of all Etheria. But that’s not why she saved all our asses. She did it because she’s just so damn willing to help, and the way I hear it, she very nearly died doing it.

“So, I say this with love, Adora: take care of yourself from now on. And a toast for She-Ra, for saving our asses!”

He raises his glass. All of their little group does as well; even several of the bar patrons.

“She-Ra is a murderer!” someone yells, a woman’s voice.

Adora freezes.

Near everyone in the party turns towards the speaker, Damara with particular offense.

Bow grips Adora’s shoulder, as if to say I’ll handle this.

He looks in the direction of the voice — it was one of the pool players. “My good lady,” Bow says. “It was a war. We all have blood on our hands. And there is time for tallying the dead and casting blame, but let’s not let it be tonight. If it eases minds; We’ll happily buy everyone here another round!”

That gets a round of cheers.

He leans over to Adora. “There’s room for that in the budget, right?”

Adora checks the heavy wallet, still full of banknotes. It’s not even tight.

Owing to the difficulty of heading twenty-two people, half in relatively impractical footwear, through town in an organized manner, Catra has wisely decided to allow two drinks at each establishment, thereby halving their travel.

They had to skip one place, when the doorman straight up refused Wrodak entry despite Catra literally offering to bribe him.

Darkness has soundly fallen over Capital, and Spinnerella is thoroughly amused by Mermista’s unsolicited parenting advice, delivered through the slur one acquires by drinking like a sailor.

Even Juliet, image of a responsible drinker, is pleasantly buzzed, and can’t seem to convince Castaspella to sit anywhere except in her lap.

It’s a mid-sized establishment, high class. The drinks are expensive, much of the clientele reflect that, and Catra has allocated three drinks here, to make up for lost time.

Catra and Glimmer sit at one of their three tables with Lonnie and Scorpia, quietly sharing tidbits of what happened during the battle of the Southern Reach.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

Catra looks up to see a Sasquatch woman in dress uniform.

“Are you General Catra?”

“That would be me, yes,” Catra says.

“Do you co-habit with former Warrant Officer Adora?”

“She’s a General of Brightmoon, thank you,” Glimmer says.

The sasquach hands Catra a manilla folder. “Consider yourselves served.”

Catra takes the sheaf of documents. “What’s this, officer?”

“Military tribulan summons for yourself and Brightmoon General Adora. The details are inside.”

With a flicker of shadow, Catra banishes it to her bag of tricks. “When?”

“Proceedings are slated to begin in two months.”

Catra waves her off, then turns back to her drink; the shock is sobering for all of them.

“Sorry, Catra; I knew there were some diplomatic happenings,” Glimmer admits, “it’s been one of the clauses of the peace treaty which us and Salineas pushed for…”

“What I don’t get,” Scorpia says, “is how they know the date so far in advance.”

“It’s a collaboration between all the nations,” Glimmer says, “you agree on the date first, far in the future, and then you hash out the details.”

“I don’t wanna talk about this,” Catra says, and finishes her drink. “This can be a problem for future Catra and Adora.”

Glimmer laughs.

And then, the time nears the witching hour. A solid workday’s time spent alternating betwee walking the admittedly beautiful streets of Capital, the most prosperous city in the world; and drinking its bountiful distilled products.

“Where are we going next?” Bow slurs. He’s lost his cape somewhere along the way. Perfuma saunters up beside him and attempts to put another flower in his breast pocket, absent a lapel with a buttonhole. Peekablue follows her, holding a bouquet of her conjurations.

Adora nearly stumbles as she leans over to him, pointing down the street. “See that bii~g sign with the dancers?”

“Woo~!” Kyle yells. He’s riding on Rogelio’s shoulders, the body mass difference between them making itself apparent in their drunkenness.

“My goodness, Adora dear, is that a cabaret?” Sea Hawk slurs, hanging on Seneschal. The two have spent approximately the last hour fawning over pictures of their kids, pagign through albums on their communicators.

Adora reaches inside her jacket, and pulls out — nearly fumbling — a sheaf of tickets. “Oho! Yes! We are catching the cabab— the show!”

Making up the rear is Netossa, pleasantly buzzed only due to her enhancements’ ability to keep her sober — same as Bow, who has been drinking way past that — and Damara whose drunkeness has an off-switch.

“This is it then,” Damara says. “Missing the wife?”

“Oh yeah,” Netossa says.

Eight guards and a police escort follow them at a comfortable distance.

Having braved the conundrum whether to choose cold feet or the risk of falling in heels, they have made it to the Illicit Dalliance nightclub, and secured their reserved table arrangement.

“Why is it twice the size we need, Catra?” Glimmer asks, having taken a good few seconds considering the table the waiter led them to. She’s flaring her wings for balance every so often when the alcohol and artificial legs conspire against her.

Catra claps a few times. “Everyone! Sorry about the huge damn table, it was the only one left!” Her scarf kept getting caught in things, and was banished to her bag of tricks. Despite the appearance to the contrary, she is only barely holding it togetheer.

There’s a few chuckles, but thankfully nobody is drunk enough to spill the beans. Castaspella and Juliet have already seated themselves and made it clear that they don’t need two chairs.

Double Trouble has finished the night by matching outfits with Wrodak, but theirs in bright green; an incredibly ostentatious pair.

Scorpia is leaning on Lonnie, and both of them have been brokenly singing army and navy drinking songs all the way there. While spinnerella has been entertaining Mermista’s recounting of how she met Sea Hawk.

No sooner have they been seated before there’s a commotion by the entrance.

Glimmer turns around in her seat to see, and there, Adora hanging on his shoulder, handing a sheaf of tickets to the greeter, is Bow, silver laurels resting resting easy in his dark hair, dignity on his shoulders.

He turns and surveys the room with the caution born of having seen true danger, and spots her.

For a moment, they both process what they’re seeing, then the laughter comes.

It’s a wonderful performance, the late night show; equal parts sharp choreography, scant costuming, catchy music, and beautifully voiced songsters and songstresses. The extra round of drinks bring several people over the edge from intoxication to outright drunkenness.

The show ends, and for those with partners, not otherwise engrossed in conversation, that is the end of distractions.

“You’re a very beautiful cat,” Adora mutters — thankfully quietly — to Catra, sitting next to her, arm over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” Catra says, rolling a cigar between her fingers, and enjoying the mild trip.

“Any possibib— any chance you’re… Single?”

“No?” Catra looks directly at Adora. She smiles. “I have a girlfriend.”

Adora takes a moment to process what Catra said, then her goofy smile turns to a frown, and tears collect in her eyes. She hiccoughs. “Are you cheating on me?”

“What?! No! Adora, it’s you! You’re my girlfriend, and I love you, you idiot.”

“You love me?”

Catra pulls Adora into a kiss, and is promptly rewarded by a glow rising to Adora’s cheeks — literally.

“You taste like the fireplace,” Adora slurs.

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment. Ad, how did you get this drunk?”

“You should see the other guy —” she counts on her fingers “— two bars ago said I was a lightweight.”

Of course. Catra leans her head on Adora’s shoulder.

Damara gently shakes Catra and Adora. “Girls?”

Catra wakes with a start; Adora with a shuffle.

“The nightclub is closing; sun’s coming up.”

“That explains why I’m still drunk,” Adora says, sounding displeased.

“Yeah, well, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to get the guards to carry the wedding couple home,” Damara says, pointing. Two seats over, on the bench, Glimmer and Bow are passed out in each other’s arms. Wrodak is sitting next to them, looking their way. He waves.

Adora rises, groaning, and lets go. In a subtle shimmer of light, she becomes She-Ra, dressed virtually the same except in less disarray — the bow tie somehow made it through the night. The change in size immediately dilutes the alcohol in her system by half. She rolls her shoulders.

“Wow,” Catra purrs.

“Help me out here, Cat,” Adora says.

Catra lets herself transform as well, her maroon dress getting replaced by one wrought from raw darkness. “Wow,” she repeats, more to herself. Sobering, if she had to use one word.

“All right, time to be ‘best’ and get these two ready for their big day,” Adora says.

“I’ll get Sparkles to the palace; you and Bow take the Swift Wind,” Catra says. “See you at home.”

Chapter Text

Entrapta has been working herself to the bone ever since the victory — or at least she would have if not for Damara’s insistence, backed up by a not insignificant body of research and statistics, that she engage in activities proven to increase performance or forestall loss of same: eating, sleeping, structured exercising, and mentally recreational activities unrelated to work.

The work is never ending: there’s clone lives to save in the face of collapsing intragalactic supply chains. The yellow virus is slowly consuming the ansible network and long-distance point-to-point super-luminal communicators has to be set up in their place. Hordak and Wrodak are making progress convincing what’s left of the Horde astry to help distribute her designs of fabricators, power generators, and reactionless drive tech to their brethren.

She sleeps in a pod which replaced the bed in her room; nothing fancy, but it does provide climate control and the right kind of sensory deprivation, and her sleep quality has improved.

Damara stands by the pod. There are no windows; but for her own sentimentality’s sake, she designed the device with a holographic projector, so she can see Entrapta peacefully resting inside. She places her hand on the curved metal panel disguised as transparent glass.

“I thought I might find you here,” Hordak says.

Damara doesn’t look up. She knows he has been standing there for a while, watching her.

He comes up to her, his long dark skirt and coat tails billowing gently, the fabric interwoven with beads of hover-machinery making it look as if submerged in water. His hair is intricately braided with the same beads, to the same effect.

“How long do you think we’ll have her for?” Damara asks.

Hordak ponders for a drawn out moment. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a personality construct embodied as a spaceship. You’re biologically immortal. She’s human. One day…” She leaves the rest unspoken.

Gently, he puts an arm around her shoulders. Their difference in height is quite noticeable, even if her habit of floating a foot off the ground tends to mask it.

“I could quote you the actuarial tables and the figures from her last examination. She-Ra’s healing alone has probably given her another ten years — twenty with your care…”

Damara nods. Contemplating eternity, that is far too little.

“I know how you feel,” he says.

She looks up.

“I did the same calculations you are doing now, many years ago. When it became apparent that I would get better, fully recover, even. She was already showing signs then — kinks, pains, and scars that didn’t go away fully, injuries taking longer to heal. It was the first time I worried about anyone’s health besides my own for reasons other than pure pragmatism.”

“I offered her to become a personality construct like me,” Damara says. “She didn’t want to answer.”

Hordak nods. “She has reservations — it is likely she understands the technology better than you do. It’s limitations, shortcomings. Her connection to the Sky Stone has become important to her; I doubt she will ever want to live separated from it again.”

“Like she did when we went out in space, you mean,” Damara says. “She didn’t seem all that bothered, but —”

“You had not known her otherwise, then,” Hordak finishes.

They stand there, together in silence for a long while.

“We shall have some years yet to think of a solution; or convince her to accept an extant one,” Hordak says.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Damara mutters.

Hordak gives her a gentle squeeze, and caresses her shoulder with a thumb.

“How come you are not worried about the rest of your crew? Asking without reproach, of course.”

“I am,” Damara says. “Well, except Wrodak, of course. But I think he might fly the nest sooner rather than later…”

“And everyone else?” Hordak asks.

“Glimmer and Bow. They might not return to me again; marriage, politics… Rebuilding their home.” She leans her head on Hordak’s shoulder. “I hope they will. I— I see myself in them, my best qualities.”

And she does. Glimmer’s nurturing for the crew and Bow’s respect for the Swift Wind itself. There are still things she can teach them. Still things they can teach her.

“But they are fettered.” She leans her head on his shoulder. “They have full lives other than… This.”

“Hm. Were they to face old age, it would be having lived such full lives. You worry Entrapta will not?”

Damara doesn’t answer.

“Worry not. I know her well. This is all she has ever wished for.”

Damara looks at him. “And you?”

“I’m free. Truly free. That is enough.”

“I scarcely understand why you invited us here,” Leijon says.

Owing to her connection to Catra, she has become something of a leader figure in the movement. With them today is a handful of notable Magicats: political writers, organizers, and foreign friends of the Hordelands’ core movement. All of them are dressed in heavy coats in the chill wind on the hill in northern Brightmoon.

Huntara has invited, and the hilltop provides a perfect view of the fifteen isles of Mystacor.

“I want to talk about legacy,” Huntara says. She looms over the group, standing on the edge of the escarpment, with Melissa by her side. “Your ancestral land is a barren desert; I’ve studied the histories. And… I wield your ancestral Runestone.”

“Our ancestral land is Krytis,” Icewine protests.

Huntara looks at the white-furred woman dressed in finery and the latest winter fashion.

“That I know nothing of, and so I will not speak on the matter. Your kingdom is not the only one laid to waste. The Crimson Wastes is a consequence of two cataclysms; not one.”

In the far distance, the first of the enormous enchanted mooring chains holding all by one of the isles in place is undone through sorcery.

“Mystacor will undo their part in it, restoring my ancestral land; the Orc homelands. But… I feel I owe a debt to the Stone Heart. I served the very same Horde that destroyed it a lifetime ago, taking with it the Magicat homelands.”

“What are you going to do?” Leijon asks.

"What am I going to undo. The desert. That will be my legacy. I will restore the Stone Heart to its original place and turn both our lands fertile and rainswept.

“Even now, I feel old age weigh on me,” Huntara says. “Maybe next decade, maybe the one after; death will find me. I should like to do something beneficent beforehand. Something our children can be proud of.” She looks at her wife, smiling.

A susurrance of conversation breaks out among the ten assembled Magicats.

“Really?” Melissa says quietly.

“If you want,” Huntara replies in a hushed tone, giving her hand a squeeze.

Melissa smiles.

Leijon steps forward. “Friend; Huntress. We should be honored to have help such as yours in restoring our ancestral land.” She holds out a hand. Huntara takes it and they shake.

That afternoon Mystacor begins a month-long journey across the Middle Sea.

Bow is woken up gently by the lights in the small room changing, emulating a much belayed sunrise. He’s slept in shirt sleeves and slacks, and generally feels like his entire body is objecting to existing. Despite the pain and nausea, he struggles up to sit, and swings his legs out of bed.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Enter,” he says, his voice a deep baritone from the strain of yesterday’s festivities.

The door slides aside, revealing Adora taking up most of the door. Casually dressed in gym clothes; as if fresh from the simulator’s weight room. “Hey Pilot.”

“Hey Captain.”

“Slept well?”

Bow grunts. “What time is it?”

“You’re on in two hours; just enough time to eat, freshen up, and get ready for your big day.”

“And Glimmer?”

“She’s in good hands; Catra’s.”

Bow nods, and rubs his eyes. “Got any starlight? I could use something for the hangover.”

“Sure, but only once you’re ready to go.” Adora grins.

Bow glares at her, then with some difficult stands and lumbers into the bathroom.

“I had your boots shined, by the way,” Adora calls to him.

“Thanks!” he yells back. The shower turns on. “Also, how about some privacy?”

Glimmer is woken up not so gently by the blinds to her bedroom window being thrown open.

She groans and pulls a pillow over her eyes.

Catra ties up the dusty curtains and brushes off first the rolled up sleeves of her button down shirt, then her pleated skirt. “Rise and shine, your Majesty.”

“Go away, Furball,” Glimmer says.

“Name calling? I’m hurt, Your Majesty.”

“You can address your grievance formally when court’s in session,” Glimmer mutters.

Catra cackles. “Sparkles, I’m sorry, but your wedding is today. No way out of this one.”

Glimmer throws the pillow aside, and sits, rubbing her eyes. “Where’s Bow?”

“Getting ready with Adora’s help.”

She sits there fore a while, wings splayed, still dressed for yesterday’s party. “I feel sick,” she eventually says.

“I’m sure we can find a remedy for that,” Catra says. “Now get up. There’s no chambermaid coming today — I sent her away.”

“Why?”

Catra conjures a headband and tosses it to Glimmer. “Because you really ought to learn how to do without them; to set an example.”

Caching it, Glimmer feels the weight — it’s a buddy-bot control headband.

She puts it aside. “I think I can dress myself.”

“Debatable. However: you stink like booze. Shower first!” Catra claps her hands.

“Palace hasn’t been renovated with running water yet—” Glimmer says, but Catra is already bringing forth from shadows a full-sized shower cabin with a closed-circuit recycling water supply. It looks strangely small next to Catra.

A Royal Wedding is a national celebratory occasion, even during these twilight days of the dynasty. It helps when both the wedding couple are both war heroes.

The tales of what transpired in operation Cascade, and indeed what happened during the entirety of the World War — as the name has stuck — has begun disseminating into the public sphere, even as the official sequence of events is still being constructed.

(Of course She-Ra gets the lion’s share of the praise.)

Bow is known to be the pilot of the Swift Wind, and having braved the fires of Sola to escape the Horde and save his beloved Queen — it’s very romantic. His pivotal yet minor role in freeing the sanitized is also circulates.

Glimmer is said to have come into her own as the most powerful sorcerer in the world, striking blows against the Hordes starships and machines, saving hundreds, and suffering grave injuries — it’s very heroic. Her audacious valor in taking on the iron fist lone woman and winning is used as a brag by Brightmoon folk.

Nobody comes out of war with unblemished reputations. Bow has had to be officially pardoned for treason and Glimmer’s unwitting role in breaking the sky is beginning to be known.

In any case, the spacious courtyards of Palace Brightmoon have been packed to capacity.

Attending the ceremony and reception is every noble, high or petty is in attendance, every socialite of high society, every moneyed guildmaster, every foreign dignitary, and every general officer of the Brightmoon military. As much is tradition — the ‘who’s who’ of the rich and powerful.

But times are changing. Each and every rich and powerful individual has been subjected to at least a cursory background check by General Julia’s people. At least a handful has declined the invitation in offense over this trivial inconvenience.

And more so: Glimmer and Bow’s personal friends have been given the same courtesy of invitation as nobility. Common folk who fought valiantly in the World War, military personnel of middling rank, rangers refusing to wear gala uniforms, and former enemies of Brightmoon who don’t bear diplomatic immunity — including Chancellor Hordak himself.

Caterers across the city have all come to offer their services and been compensated accordingly from the royal treasury, providing exotic foods at least partially fabricated; serving staff has been hired for the occasion and make rich use of buddy-bots, floating trays, and household dronery.

Several dozen self-described ‘broadcasters’ — a wholly novel kind of occupation — are flitting about followed by levitating cameras, wearing recording-capable spectacles, or just using their communicators to document the event for their many audiences around the world and beyond.

The visible security is not dressed in hazard-suits, but all of them have hip holsters holding Yala-Zev-type shoulderable side-arms — the fully armed soldiers in hazard suits are hidden away indoors.

Just because the war is over, doesn’t mean ill will is gone. There are a lot of changes coming, and in no small way is Glimmer symbolic of it. This royal wedding could easily in the present be seen as the last hurrah of the old ways — and one day a slew of historians will interpret it that way.

“You know what?” Bow says, as they arrive by the palace gates. “I don’t miss not being able to portal everywhere.”

Their conveyance for the day is something as mundane as horseback. Bow is riding a rouncey mare, Adora is riding Halcyon side-saddle — regular-sized horses don’t much fit She-Ra. This form of travel is necessitated by the portal ward cast over the palace and surrounding city blocks for the day, at Juliet’s insistence; the streets of Brightmoon are still as unsuited to motor traffic as they were last winter.

Bow is neatly dressed in a fairly tasteful outfit, a hybrid of Brightmoon formal-wear and Horde tuxedo, in ranger colors blue and green. His head is unadorned, but put aside for later is the silver laurels which he has grown quite fond of. Naturally he is wearing his betrothal boots. Damara has done his makeup — just some subtleties for the crowd to see him clearer.

Adora for a change is wearing a full-length dress in white, with a dark-red shawl rather than her usual full body-suit and red jacket. The cloak and boots are the same as usual. As she dismounts, Halcyon leaps to her brow as her usual diadem reminiscent of Catra’s forehead protector, and Glory’s avian appearance. She wears no makeup. She-Ra’s natural beauty needs no augmentation.

“I sure hope everyone could make it,” Bow says, as they head to the gates; a stablegirl takes his horse, and the guards salute them.

“Who?”

“My brothers.”

“Oh right; all thirteen of them. I’ve never met any of them.”

Bow grins. “Ax, Blade, Bow, Edge, Gun, Jav, Knives, Kris, Pike, Rock, Shield, and Treb. Alphabetically speaking.”

“You’re shitting me,” Adora says.

“Afraid not.”

“And your dad is named Lance… Why George?”

“Because Treb and Shield had trouble pronouncing ‘Gorget’ and it stuck.”

Adora rubs her temple. “They’re all nicknames, right?”

Bow shrugs. “Technically.”

“Jav is short for javelin? And Treb for trebuchet?”

Bow nods.

“If I promise to take it to my grave, can you tell me what your given names are? Because at this point I am just dying to find out.”

“It’s not my place to tell,” Bow says with a smug smile.

(Years later, Adora would come across a photograph from that wedding, of Bow’s entire family, labeled on the back Alexander, Vladimir, Beauregard, Edgar, Gunnar, Yovany, Constantiffe, Kristopher, Pericles, Rikarto, Sheldon, Tristram; Lunacastellus and Geographilus penned in the fine handwriting of an archivist. She would keep this secret knowledge to herself for the remainder of eternity.)

Catra enters Glimmer’s changing room by the shadow behind one of the wardrobe closets.

“Oh, good,” Glimmer says. “Can you do my eye-liner? My hands are shaking;” she turns from her vanity to look at Catra.

Catra, for the occasion, has donned a red tuxedo with maroon shirt and black butterfly and cummerbund. Barefoot as usual. Her warrior’s forehead protector rest on her brow like a diadem of office and her long hair is tied into a wrapped braid reaching the small of her back. Pure darkness stands in for lipstick, mascara, and nail polish.

“Look at you; all fancy,” Glimmer notes, holding out the eye-liner brush.

“Thanks,” Catra says, taking the offered brush. With a gentle, steady hand she lays two lavender lines on Glimmer, neatly winged. Glimmer reaches for the sealant spray.

She has put together a truly ostentatious ballgown, supported by spellcraft rather than crinoline; decorated with rhinestone, sequins, and lace; colored blue, purple, magenta, indigo, lavender, lilac — all hues to have ever graced a Brightmoon standard or flag.

Her blush has glitter in it.

“I’d say it’s a bit much this —” Catra gestures to Glimmer “— but… It suits you, Sparkles.”

“Thanks, Furball. Look at us, huh? From gutter trash to… This.”

“You deserve it. You and Bow deserve each other. I— I’m really happy for you, Sparkles.”

Glimmer looks away. “Don’t say something like that; If I cry, the eyeliner will run.”

“Don’t worry,” Catra says, turning the bottle around. “This is the good stuff — waterproof. Anything else before we head down to the courtyard?”

There is: a large necklace of glowing quartz, matching earrings, and an irregular trio of shard levitated by her brow.

Catra offers her an elbow, and they exit the Queen’s suite, headed for the courtyard.

(Birghtmoon did not have a national flower until Glimmer’s bridal bouquet prominently featured lilacs.)

In the center of the courtyard grows a truly ancient Whisper Oak — colloquially known as the Queen’s Tree; once given to the gardens by a long-gone wielder of the Heart Blossom, when the alliance between Brightmoon and Plumeria was first struck.

Angella was wed under it, as her mother was before her. Indeed, there were many more weddings of the Brightmoon dynasty there, than there were ever royals; such is the fate of those of angelic blood. They tend to outlive their spouses and remarry.

The first round of refreshments have long since been served, and the dense crowd has been gently steered to form a corridor running east-to-west across the courtyard in preparation of the ceremony; with the tree at the center. Up by the belfry, Swift Wind hangs impossibly, anchored much as if it was a blimp, keeping a close eye on the local air traffic.

Standing closest to the tree in the crowd is friends and family: the Runestone Wielders, members of the resistance security council, the few nobles Glimmer actually tolerates, Bow’s family, and a few rangers. The airborne seeds of Whisper Oak fills the air artfully, despite seeding season having long passed.

The hour of noon approaches, and the orchestra starts playing the somber tune of the traditional marital cello concerto’s opening.

Under the branches of the Queen’s tree, under the autumn-colored canopy; there stands Angella — Queen in title only, as the title is for life. She is dressed modestly as always, in Brightmoon colors; today more so than other times.

And then the processions begin at either end of the corridor formed by the crowd. Bow at the east end, as if coming from the forest; Glimmer from the west, as the Brightmoon dynasty once apocryphally crossed the Middle Sea.

Walking with Glimmer is of course Catra, her best; to whom she still and forever more will owe her life; and King Micah, her father lost and found, with years of time yet to make up for.

Behind them, the two who might as well have been her sisters.

Spinnerella who once upon a time lived in Brightmoon palace in her godmother’s tutelage, befriending and consoling a then newly orphaned Glimmer (and at the same time met her future wife for the first time.)

Mermista who took in a rebellious new wielder of the Moonstone, and gently drove some sense into Glimmer’s stubborn head; resulting in the two of them forging a bond of covenant stronger than mere blood.

Walking with Bow is of course Adora, his best, his Captain; to whom he with all but those words swore to help save the world, and together with whom he very much did just that; and his beloved father Lance, who got the spot because he’s twice the romantic sap his husband is.

Behind them, walking to one side is Sea Hawk; not so much for any history they share, but more for the bond they both know they will forge in the coming years. He didn’t take to calling Bow his brother because he thought it sounded good.

And to the other, nobody.

That is where Wolfclaw would have walked. The man that made Bow the ranger he is today.

Twenty paces from the tree, just before the ring of brick path encircling it, all but the Bride, Groom and their respective bests stop.

Ten paces from the tree, Adora and Catra hang back.

Bow and Glimmer meet each other under the branches. Glimmer takes a hand off her bouquet, and extends it to Bow, who takes it. “Hey,” she says. Her wing extends behind him in the gesture of a hug.

“Hey,” he replies.

Angella solemnly steps forward. She carries no holy book, no notes; just her own dignity and unconcealed serene joy.

“Glimmer, my daughter,” she says. “Master Bow.” Her voice carries preternaturally across the gathering. “This fine autumn day, you two join hands and hearts in marriage. To those gathered here, I say: should there be amongst you one who harbor reasons wherefore this union is illicit, speak now or forevermore be still.”

The words are a formality; as is the quiet that follows. But just to punctuate, Catra conjures Bane, grows the weapon to a spear and rests it on one shoulder. Adora manifests Parabell and Stella Nova, blade sheathed inside the handholds in the shield, both hovering artfully behind her.

“Very well,” Angella continues. “Glimmer, do you recieve this man before you as your husband; to stand by him with dignity in wealth and squalor alike?”

“I do,” Glimmer says.

“Bow, do you recieve this woman before you as your wife; to stand by her with dignity in wealth and squalor alike?”

“I do,” Bow says.

“Then say your vows and be wed.”

Bow smiles at Glimmer, and she at him.

“Bow,” she says. “I love you. I have, for a long time. You have been my very best friend almost as long as I can recall; and then one day you were my love. There has not been a moment since where I have not been happy at the thought of spending the rest of my life by your side. So if you permit me, that is what I want to do.”

There’s a few ’ooh’s and ’aah’s among the audience. A few tears shed at the earnestness of young love. Catra has to wipe her eye, and for once is unashamed to do so.

“Glimmer,” he says. “I love you. Together, we have been through more than most, both bad and good, and still, I want to be together with you for even more. We helped save the universe, and more than a few times risked our lives to do so; and yet, what we undertake now, I think might be our greatest adventure yet. I can hardly wait to see what it brings.”

There’s a quiet applause from all twelve of his brothers for those fine words; it’s an old family tradition at this point, now enacted for the eighth time — there’s still a few bachelors among them who now feel the pressure of their youngest brother tying the knot.

And then Glimmer and Bow step close to one another, and with Glimmer on her tippy-toes, artful heels lifting off the grass, their lips meet as husband and wife; the first of many, many times.

“Now,” Angella says, gesturing. “As per the constitution, we must now proceed with the awarding of titles.” Perfuma steps forth from the crowd, holding a wooden case. She opens it and presents to Angella a crown of imitation laurel leaves wrought from silver.

“Master Bow. Kneel.”

He does, and Glimmer takes a step back.

“As husband to the Queen of Brightmoon, you are hereby crowned King of Brightmoon, to stand in due; to rule in her absence and advise in her presence.” Angella says, gently placing the laurels of his head. “Rise now, King. And greet your Queen and wife as an equal.”

Bow stands, and Glimmer comes to his side. They turn to the crowd, and together take a bow and curtsey.

The applause is thunderous.

More refreshments come forth; half the wine cellar of the Palace will be pilfered by day’s end. The social occasion develops, and an endless stream of congratulants and well-wishers wanting time with the Royal couple.

“Hey,” Catra says to Adora. They have both ended up standing close by the main attraction, if nothing else then in the hopes that their prodigious heights will be less of a draw for attention. This is the first opportunity they’ve had to talk today.

“Hey.”

“I haven’t seen you in a dress since… The ball, last year,” Catra says. “You’re beautiful.”

Adora leans over and kisses Catra on the cheek, as if to imply the words I forgive you. “I’ve never seen you in menswear; it suits you.”

“Har, har…” Catra says, and Adora grins mischievously.

“Hey you two,” Netossa says, coming up beside them, utterly dwarfed by the stature of She-Ra and Melog. “Getting any good ideas?”

Adora and Catra both look at her. “What do you mean?” Catra says.

Netossa snorts, holding back a laugh. “You really are that clueless, huh? It wasn’t just denial.”

“She means if you and I are going to get married, too.” Adora says, blushing furiously.

Catra looks at her, warmth rising in her cheeks as well. “I—”

“To cut your song and dance short; I feel it’s my duty to inform you that by Brightmoon custom you’re already betrothed.”

Both of them snap around to look at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Catra barks.

Netossa looks at Adora. “Betrothal happens with an exchange of gifts thematically alike… Ring a bell?”

“What are you—” Adora begins.

“Bane,” Catra says, looking at Adora. “And Halcyon.”

“Oh. Catra I—”

Suddenly the crowd moves in close, a flock of young women, noble and commoner alike, collect around Adora and Catra; among them Perfuma, Scorpia, Cometa, Starla.

“What the—” Catra says, angry that their moment was interrupted, looking to a smugly grinning Netossa for an explanation.

“Heads up,” Netossa says, and pointing up.

Catra turns to look, and by her supernal speed, reflexively reaches out and catches the incoming projectile: the bridal bouquet.

A cheer erupts around them; even as a dozen aspiring brides pout and grumble.

Perplexed, she looks in the direction from whence it came, and sees Glimmer and Bow standing together. Glimmer and Catra lock eyes, and Glimmer winks, and subtly points to the side of Catra where Adora stands.

“Nice catch,” Adora says.

“Congratulations,” Perfuma says, coming up to them.

“I don’t understand,” Catra says.

“I figured you might not,” Netossa says. “It’s another Brightmoon custom: the bride throws the flowers, and whomever catches it is fated to be married next.”

Realization sets in. “You set me up!” Catra says, pointing an accusing finger at Netossa. “Sparkles has perfect aim; you— she’s in on it isn’t she?”

“Duh,” Netossa says.

“And fated?!” Catra continues. “What kind of superstition is that!?”

Adora puts a hand on Catra’s shoulder. “Cat.” With a gentle hand she reaches over and takes the bouquet from her.

Instantly, Catra’s indignant irritation dissipates. She looks at Adora, whose cheeks are flush, and yet her face is free of all embarrassment.

“Catra, Melog, daughter of Clawdia, do you want to marry me?”

Catra’s heart skips a beat. “More than anything,” Catra says quietly.

“Then kiss me.”

And she does, with gentle passion. Absently Adora hands off the bouquet to Perfuma to free both her hands to hold her wife-to-be.

At the end of the afternoon, there has not been a single incident of violence, much to the great relief of Juliet — and everyone else. Reason dictates that there are those who would prefer things remain the way they once were, and who see Glimmer as the symbol of the new changes. None of those it seem has taken it upon themselves to commit an act of symbolic violence today.

The reception ebbs, and the huge crowd of attendees are gently informed that the party has run its course, and the more exclusive wedding dinner is about to commence indoors. There are of course those who try to argue with this, and they are dealt with by the gentle but firm insistence of Juliet’s people.

There is sadly no escaping invites to the major noble houses of Brightmoon, but fortunately Glimmer and Bow have more than enough close family and friends who are actual royalty to fill every seat of the wedding couple’s table.

The main banquet hall of the Brightmoon Palace has been fitted for the occasion with the tradition long tables, six on the floor and one on the podium; the catering —- on Glimmer’s insistence — has been wrought entirely from fabricated ingredients. Should one desire to inspect them, one easily finds that every barleycorn in the porridge falls into three families of perfectly identical grains.

Decorations of the hall has been graciously provided earlier in the morning by Perfuma herself; prominently featuring both lilacs — not grown on their parent tree — and a wealth of flowers common to both the peasantry of Brightmoon and the Whispering Woods.

And then of course there are the gifts, and this is perhaps where the changing times are put into the starkest relief: the heads of noble houses, clinging to obsolescent ideas of material wealth, have brought fabulous gifts that fabrication technology have rendered commonplace: jewels, furniture, fine clothes, perfumes, and vintage wines.

(All the contents of the palace treasuries, lumber and textile rooms, and wine cellar are already in the process of being converted to fabrication patterns — with permissions from the jewelers, joiners, tailors, and vintners who have the so-called ‘intellectual rights’ to them.)

They receive luxury yacht that hasn’t been retrofitted for modernity.

They receive an offer to pay renovations for the royal summer home near Alwyn — which are already underway; the summer home itself is slated the be put for sale.

And on and on, each a gesture of magnanimity undercut by its adherence to outdated scarcity.

But there are some gifts which are heartfelt enough to warrant appreciation: among them a painting in unusual style of the gigantic spell circle in the sky over the Southern Reach, the motif fashioned as if the artist had been dabbing paint on the canvas as her innate whims dictated. Reportedly the reference was a virtual recreation of events — the artist herself was not present to witness the moment.

It is perhaps a tad too self-aggrandizing even for Glimmer, but both of them very much appreciate the effort of the artist and the willingness of the commissioning countess to encourage such artistic experimentation.

There are also some gifts which are just plain unusual: the marchioness of the border marches to Snows has sent them two hundred heads of reindeer. Fortunately with none of the cattle physically present in the banquet hall.

Unlike tradition, the long table on the podium is seated on both sides — by Glimmer’s insistence the time for showing off as royalty has long since passed. To her right sits Bow, and to her left, her mother and father; to Bow’s right sits his fathers and the entire rest of that side of the table is taken up by his brothers and their equally as numerous husbands, wives, and spouses.

Glimmer’s side of the table is virtually nothing but the royalty of the Alliance; and directly opposite the happy couple sit their bests: Catra and Adora, who have scarcely let go of one another’s hands this whole time.

“So,” Glimmer says as the entrée passes around on hovering trays. “I hear my little ploy went according to plan.”

“You planned all that?” Adora asks.

“Of course,” Glimmer says, “after Netossa told me that you were betrothed, I had to do something, you know? A girl can’t just sit around.”

“Every time you say something like that, catastrophe can’t be far away,” Bow notes.

Glimmer elbows him.

“You sneaky double-dealing no-good match-maker,” Catra says, with not the hint of an edge in her voice. “I hope you’re happy.”

“No,” Glimmer says, “I hope you are happy.”

Catra looks over at Adora — breathtaking if Catra was to use a single word — who looks back at her with an earnest and loveable smile.

“You two are going to steal our show,” Bow says.

Adora, suddenly bashful looks down into her plate. “Sorry.”

“Adora,” Bow says, leaning in, “that wasn’t a rebuke. Every bit of heat you two can take off us tonight is a blessing.”

“If the two of you are looking to fill the role, I could officiate it,” Angella offers, overhearing the exchange.

“Thanks,” Adora says. “But I think both of us want it to be back home, right?” She looks at Catra.

“Yeah,” Catra says. “We’re Hordelanders, ma’am.”

“I understand,” Angella says with a smile. “It was not to impose.”

Catra looks down into her plate, and Adora senses her pensiveness.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered something.” Catra holds out a hand and manifests the letter she was served the day before, half a continent away. She rips the envelope open with a claw and gently unfolds the letter inside.

“What’s that,” Adora says, leaning in to read over her shoulder.

“Court summons. Military tribunal. They’re cleaning up after the war…”

They both peruse the document with incense concentration.

“Is something the matter?” Angella asks, voicing the concern of Glimmer and Bow.

“Yeah,” Adora says. “We’re both being charged with war crimes.”

“Former Warrant Officer Adora is hereby charged with high treason for defection, alliance with a foreign belligerent, and participation in multiple attacks on Horde military assets,” Catra quotes. “And they want to do me in for —” she pages to the next page “— serious violations of military necessity, distinction, and proportionality, prison escape, assault, ordering the taking of mass hostages, high treason for operations against the state… Half of this is double jeopardy!”

“Brightmoon is prepared to offer both of you political asylum,” Glimmer says.

“Glimmer—” Angella says.

Glimmer looks at her. “Mom, She-Ra is a distinguished an multiply decorated military officer, and both of them have protected and rescued the royal person.”

“I was not going to gainsay your judgment, only caution to perhaps wait with extending asylum until we know more,” Angella says. “This could be a delicate political matter; extending asylum pre-emptively could be seen as unnecessarily aggressive.”

Catra looks over at Scorpia. The entire table have more or less fallen silent, following this development. “Have you gotten anything?”

Scorpia shakes her head. “I haven’t really been giving a lot of orders…”

“They could still get you for defection and complicity in assaulting Entratpa,” Adora says.

Catra is digging out her communicator and calling someone. “Cobalt?.. It’s Catra… Yeah, long time no see… Have you been summoned to a military tribunal?.. Okay, thanks.” She hangs up. “At least it seems like they aren’t singling us out,” she says.

Hordak isn’t present for them to ask; he, Entrapta, and Mara have retired to the Swift Wind, anchored up at the belfry.

“Should we be concerned?” Bow asks. “Answer honestly, please.”

Catra and Adora look at each other. They don’t know either.

“Well,” Adora says, taking Catra’s hand again. “I— I do have some experience being a fugitive from my home country.” She brings Catra’s hand up and kisses her knuckles. “We have the Swift Wind.”

“Adora,” Catra says, “we’re not giving this up without a fight. If they don’t want She-Ra, they’ll have to say it to our faces, and then we’ll leave.”

“And what about Melog?” Adora asks. “What do you want, Catra?”

“You.”

“I mean, beside that,” Adora says with a smile.

“Realistically speaking, pardon my intrusion,” Peekablue says from farther down the table, “the current world order is unlikely to persist for more than a decade or two at most. And you two are immortal. You could very easily wait it out.”

Both of them snap around to look at him.

“We’re what?” Catra asks.

Peekablue blinks. “You didn’t know?”

“How do you know?”

“I can see you out there in the future,” Peekablue says, swirling his wine. “Hundreds of years from now.”

Everyone just sits there in stunned silence for a beat.

“You know what, I think we were having entrées for a wedding dinner before all this business,” Double Trouble says irreverently. “And I know from experience — as I am sure Mistress Angella can agree with — that us immortal beings need to keep tightly in check our worries about the future, lest they consume us.”

They stand, lifting their glass. “I would like to call a toast to the happy couple: to the health of Queen Glimmer and King Bow!”

The rest of the night proceeds much as it should: Double Trouble’s wisdom is taken to heed, and worries are pushed for the morrow.

The King and Queen take the first dance; even among royalty a folk tradition with rhythm of claps and stomps and a song for everyone to join in, as they form a circle around the dance floor where Bow and Glimmer swing about.

As the night progresses there is drinking and singing and dancing on the tables; revelry and merriment, which for those who attended the bachelor and bachelorette parties the day before, is perhaps a bit much.

At the stroke of midnight when the King and Queen retire and the party is officially over. Friends and family are of course welcome to stay in the palace, but the rest is kindly bid to make their way home in the dark — by light of battery-powered lantern and on horseback.

Adora can’t help but feel a pang of guilt over the serving staff cleaning up the banquet hall. Her memories of mess duty are neither the best nor the worst of her military career.

“Don’t worry about it,” Catra says. “They’re paid double for the late hour, or so I hear. It’s not every day there’s a royal wedding, no?”

Adora looks at her, in the twilit palace corridor, and it is obvious just how much Catra belongs in the dark; in the shadows cast by her light. A comforting monster lurking in the darkness.

Then she recalls with fondness an intimate night-time activity, they have the opportunity to do: “Do you want to look at the moons?” Adora asks. “And the stars, I suppose.”

Catra offers an elbow. “I’d love to; I know a shortcut to the roof.” She leads them into a dark corner, and the darkness falls away revealing the open air and one of the numerous rooftop patios.

Above is a sky that hasn’t graced their home city in their lifetimes: the deep ocean of stars that is only visible absent the light pollution of modernity’s efforts at banishing the dark.

Cutting between the three primary-colored moons falls the broad band of bright stars, like a path across the heavens, obscured by ever-unchanging dark clouds.

There is nothing to say, in the face of such awesome beauty; so new it has yet to be named.

Then, a streak of light cuts across the sky, as if a star fell from the firmament onto Etheria.

“Oh!” Adora gasps softly.

Catra looks at her, and knows in that moment that she is the luckiest cat in the whole universe.

Chapter Text

Catra wakes half hour to noon, by the buzz of her communicator. She looks to one side to see Adora curled up under the enormous comforter; ever so serenely restful. The only downside to her undercut buzz is that there isn’t any hair for Catra to lovingly brush behind her ear.

Checking the message, Catra is greeted by a self-taken picture of Glimmer and Bow, overlooking the port of Salineas from the stern of the Salinean royal yacht. The message reads: one-day honeymoon cruise. It’s a mass-message to most of their friends.

Below it in the log is a non-urgent reply to a non-urgent question she sent:

Catra; thank you for asking. Yes in fact, Entrapta and myself have been summoned to appear before the high tribunal. I still have several contacts on the bar I could reach out to seeking legal counsel and representaiton for you, Adora, or anyone else who might need it. Your friend, Hordak.

Adora wakes from the subtlest shift felt through the mattress, and opens her eyes to see Catra lying on her back, typing away at her communicator with two hands of mismatched colors. Her beautiful profile highlighted against the light streaming in from the window.

“Who are you writing to?” Adora mutters.

Catra startles, then looks over at Adora. “Lots of people. I think the net is beginning to tighten. Hordak, Lonnie… I’m waiting to hear from Scorpia — she’s calling the MP offices now.”

Adora reaches out to stroke Catra across the collarbone.

“I did a lot of bad shit, Ad. I made our friends do a lot of bad shit, too.”

“You regret it,” Adora says. “And you’re working to make up for it; that’s all that matters.”

“Still. That’s not enough in the eyes of the law.”

“I know.”

They lie there, looking at each other for a beat.

“Do you really think we’re immortal?” Catra asks.

Adora shrugs. “Our predecessors are all dead…”

Catra nods.

With a glint in her eye, Adora says: “time will tell, I suppose.”

Catra grimaces, and Adora grins.

“So, what do we do?” Catra asks.

Adora rolls onto her back. “We should get our story straight. Get it out there. Let the world — nay, universe know who they owe their lives to.”

“That’s pretty political,” Catra says. “Very ‘if you punish us you’ll make everyone angry’ kind of move.”

“It’s the truth,” Adora counters.

“The truth is always political,” Catra quotes.

“It’s our truth.” She looks at Catra.

Catra’s stomach growls. “But first: Brunch?”

“I was thinking a shower,” Adora says, stretching gorgeously. “Wanna join me?”

“If I ever say no to that, you have my permission to shoot me,” Catra says.

Catra returns that evening, from a long meeting with the Magicat Restorationists. There, she finds Adora sitting on the patio under lamplight, with a cold pot of tea, next to Halcyon in the form of a mechanical typing machine and a thin stack of paper.

“Hey.”

Adora looks up from the document she is writing. “Oh, hey —” she checks her wristwatch “— oh goodness, I haven’t even had lunch.”

Catra comes up to her and bends down to kiss her. “What’s up?” she says, looking at the finely typed prose.

“I thought I should tell my story. Do you want to read what I have so far?”

Catra does.

                      She-Ra's Tale of Princesses and Power:
                      The World War seen through the eyes
                      of Etheria's defender and savior

Book 1: Choosing Kindness over Duty

Chapter 1: Destiny

I am Adora. I am She-Ra. But to understand my story, you have to understand my
best friend and wife-to-be, Catra. We met each other in an army orphanage.

She was an orphan. I technically wasn't. My foster mother was Director Shadow
Weaver, who was busy to the point of neglect, mentally unstable, and fond of
physical discipline to the point of torture. Catra became my best friend in a
single day. I begged for her to be my sister, and instead she became a whipping
girl for Shadow Weaver to keep me in line.

Neither of use knew anything else. She would mentor me, berate Catra, and bribe
orphanages and daycare institutions with generous donations in exchange for fa-
voritism in our care. She secured expensive special schooling and tutors when
it became apparent that I struggled to read and write.

Then when we both turned ten, she sent us into the youth recruitment programs
much the same as other war orphans. There we were indoctrinated in Horde propa-
ganda, and taught skills that would be relevant in our military careers.

What I only realized far too late was that Catra knew to be skeptical about
the propaganda we were fed, but accepted it as a lie one had to repeat to at-
tain power. I took it as plain truth.

At fourteen we were enrolled in the military academy, and we both flourished
there. I favored tactics and camaraderie, Catra favored strategy and politics.
If I were to guess that was when our sisterly fondness first started moving
towards what it is today. I did not know that was even a possibility, at the
time.

Upon graduation at eighteen, we had both hoped for a fast track to commission and
a prestigious rank. Instead Shadow Weaver forced us to enlist. She even had our
three closest friends from the academy tag along: turns out she had been paying
their families the tuition costs on this condition. Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio.

In enlistment, our skills were quickly noticed. Out of boot camp, we went to the
western front, by the Whispering Woods. Catra and myself were promoted to NCOs,
I was given supervision of the unit armory. Then I was promoted to WO and while
everyone else got to be reserve troops, I was to see battle as howitzer repair.

Catra was disappointed, and I decided to requisition a landskiff for a leisure
excursion, under the guise of reconnaissance patrol. We ended up taking an
ill-advised detour into the woods proper and had an accident that resulted
in me falling off the skiff and breaking at least one rib.

And that was when I first came into contact with the pure stuff of destiny.

Driven into the forest floor was a golden sword. When I tried to pull it out
I instead fell unconscious and had a magical vision. When Catra found me uncon-
scious and injured in the underbrush, the sword was gone.

I couldn't sleep that night. So I left my best friend behind, asleep and took
a motor cycle out to the woods once more, to look for the sword.

Finding it was easy. It was as if it was calling to me. And when I claimed it a
second time, it too claimed me. It was an ancient artifact of enormous magical
power named 'The Aegis of Power.' A name I did not find out until much later.

But as I found it, the enemy found me. King Bow of Brightmoon, who was then
only a Ranger Cadet had been tracking the very same artifact together with
a team of Brightmooon's finest Rangers. And with them happened to be Queen
Glimmer who was then only a Princess.

And when I feared they might torture and kill me, instead they took me prisoner
merely at knifepoint, treated me with dignity, and when a hungry beast of the
forest attacked us all, they risked their lives to protect mine.

That was when I realized what I had been told about the so-called 'Rebellion'
might not have been so truthful after all.

Chapter 2: The Rangers

The monster attacked us right after I had been captured, disarmed, and had my
hands bound. The ranger scout troop scattered, and Glimmer tried attacking a
weak point, and incurring the anger of the beast.

Together with Bow and Glimmer, I ran for my life. The creature after us was
something called a dire ambush beetle, a giant insect monster that likes eating
most anything smaller than itself.

In the escape I badly twisted my ankle, spraining it and eliminating any chance
we could escape it by speed alone. The monster gained on us, and Glimmer and
Bow made the unenviable choice to save themselves.

Facing down the beast and my certain death, the magical words came to me and
I spoke them aloud on instinct:

    FOR THE HONOR OF GREYSKULL       STARLIGHT IS MINE TO COMMAND

I did not know what that meant at the time but it did work. In a flash of
light, I transformed into She-Ra. A giantess warrior of superhuman strength
and fortitude. The Aegis changed shape then, becoming a long spear for me
to defend myself against the charging beast.

...

“This is pretty good,” Catra says, paging to the final of the four pages. “You typed all this out?”

“Yeah,” Adora says. “Tablet and keyboard didn’t feel right.”

“You could barely write out three sentences without as many spelling mistakes a year ago,” Catra notes. “You’re downright eloquent in writing, now.”

“I sent it to my mom, and she thinks I need an editor before this sees print.”

Catra nods. She hands the papers back to Adora. “Let’s get you some dinner.”

“I need to bring this inside before the dew falls,” Adora says.

“Let me,” Catra says and swipes a hand over everything on the patio table, whisking it away into her bag of tricks.

Inside, Catra decks the small dining table with a take-out dinner brought from a street vendor in Dryl: deep-fried balls of legume-paste, dark and sweet bread, and a still-warm vegetable stir fry.

Adora eats unrestrained; Catra had a big lunch at the meeting.

“You’re not wearing red,” Catra notes.

Adora pauses, one fritter in her cheek, another on her fork. She quickly chews and swallows. She’s wearing only white today — a long-sleeved simple dress. “Yeah.”

“Any reason for that?”

Adora shrugs. “There’s no nation who has white as their military uniform color. I’m trying to put myself in a mindset of neutrality.”

Catra nods. “It suits you.”

“I could be wearing a dirty tarp and you’d think it suited me,” Adora counters.

“Or nothing at all,” Catra adds.

“Well, you’ve treated me to dinner; that’s the least I can do,” Adora says with a teasing tone.

Catra avails herself of the dark bread. “You know, I had a thought: we should get a simulator; like on the Swift Wind. I don’t even know if that is feasible to build here.”

“What, for fucking in? Sounds adventurous, count me in,” Adora says, nonchalant despite her blushing.

It has the intended effect of flustering Catra something awful. “Well, that is certainly a possibility, but I was thinking as a workspace: you could use it to get the feel of a typing machine, but all the utility of a tablet’s text-editing utility.”

Adora blinks. “That’s brilliant.”

“Let me just find out how feasible that is,” Catra says, and in bad form takes out her communicator at the dinner table.

Adora eats while Catra consults technical discussions on the new virtual forums. She finishes before Catra, and clears the table; putting dishware in the dishwasher and carrying the take-out containers out into the shed to throw them directly in the material-refinery hopper for recycling.

Coming back in, she finds Catra engaged in taking notes on a paper pad, while in a voice call with someone knowledgable. “That’s rather cumbersome, I agree… Yeah, well it’s not as if space is a premium, but I was thinking of putting it underground… It’s just a lot of digging work, is all…”

As quietly and inconspicuously as she can, Adora heads past Catra and behind her. There she takes off her dress. Her white compression bra and shorts have gold trim — she can’t stand so-called ‘sexy’ lingerie, so this is the next best thing.

In this state of undress, she tip-toes back to Catra, and coming into Catra’s line of vision, swings a leg over Catra’s sitting down, straddling her lap and throwing her arms around Catra’s neck.

Catra looks up. “I’m going to have to call you back, my fiancée wants my undivided attention if you know what I mean.” She throws the ruggedized communicator aside, and gives Adora just that.

The only reason Catra tolerates the sharp little retorts of each keystroke, is that she gets to lie there and watch Adora hunched over the typing machine in the nude, by the light of the fireplace and a hovering mote of starlight alone.

And while the view is to die for, Catra can’t help but think: what is her story?

“Hm,” Adora says.

“What?” Catra asks.

Adora leans back in her chair. Then she looks over at Catra.

“What?” Catra repeats.

Adora smiles. “Nothing, I just—”

“Adora, spit it out.”

Adora takes a deep breath. “I was just remembering — I’m writing about Salineas now. Mermista.”

“What about her?” Catra asks.

“Remember when we visited them on the yacht?”

“I do.”

“You played with little ’Dora.”

“Yeah, cute little munchkin.”

Adora bites her lip. “When I saw you play with her, I think that’s when I realized that I want kids one day. With you.”

Catra doesn’t sputter. “Sure.”

Adora sits up straighter. “Really!?”

“Of course. I love you, Adora. I wanna marry you, and spend the rest of my life with you. Of course I want kids. But—”

“But what?”

“We’re going to have to adopt. There’s no fertility ritual in the world that can cross Magicat and Eternian blood,” Catra states matter-of-factly.

“Oh, I thought it was something serious. Before— before I—” Adora steadies her thoughts. “I might have once or twice dreamt of… I don’t know, being a man, just so I could spend my life with you and have kids. I always knew we’d have to adopt. Except when I imagined I was also a Magicat.”

Catra snorts. “You? A man?”

“It was a sacrifice I was willing to imagine, just so I could marry you,” Adora says, with a hint of defensiveness.

Catra smiles. “I’m very flattered. Good thing Sparkles taught you to fuck girls, huh?”

“We should thank her, formally,” Adora japes.

Catra rolls over on her back and throws the comforter off herself with a tail swipe. “I think you should come over here and make love to me so I can properly have your adopted kittens.”

The second page of the seventh chapter of Adora’s memoirs is left wrapped around the typing machine’s platen, the prose interrupted mid-word.

The next morning, they actually manage to get out of bed. Adora fixes a light breakfast while Catra begins planning out the simulator room — whether it should be underground or above, where it should be… These considerations then turn into planning out expansions to the house, a bigger playground, guest houses…

Meanwhile Adora just sits on the patio, happily typing away at Halcyon. Perhaps the simulator is not so necessary after all.

Catra finds a tablet and fabricates a physical keyboard for it, sets up on the dining table indoors, and after collecting her thoughts for a good ten minutes, begins her own story.

                Confessions of a Ruthless Killer:
                The Life, Death, and Rebirth of an
                Orphan turned Tyrant by hate and then
                redeemed by true love

This is not a book I write because I want to tell an inspiring story. This is
a cautionary tale of what happens when everything goes wrong. What I did, was
by choice, but the person who made these choices was a product of many actions
and happenstances; each on their own innocuously uncaring, but together amoun-
ted to a life of cruelty which I reflected onto my surroundings.

More than twenty million people are dead because of what I did. This is a
burden I will never shed; blood that will never wash off my hands.

My mother had me out of wedlock. Orphaned by the war, she was turned onto pros-
titution by a pimp. As an infant, I was turned over to the pre-reform foster
system and spent my infancy and early childhood in a place that I don't remember
at all, except that it was so horrific I ran away at age five.

They named me, a Magicat, Catra. CAT-ra. That alone is a crime.

For two years I fended for myself on the streets of Capital, joining a juvenile
gang of homeless kids who had fled the foster system much as I had. I don't
recall much of that either. Street kids lead unenviable lives. Fortunate for me,
the reforms passed before at seven years old, I got into a fight with a wild
dog and was bit so bad I ended up in the hospital and after that, back in the
system.

There, I met Adora. That is where my life began, in truth.

Everything in my life since then have been about her. She has that effect
on people.

She wasn't an orphan, but her adoptive mother Shadow Weaver was a cruel bitch of
a woman, a literal dark sorceress, and about as far from a loving and caring
parental figure as it is possible to be. From the moment I first met her, I
hated her. She took me in, and used me against Adora, ruining us both.

Other kids got beatings. She cast pain-inflicting spells on me, so as to never
leave a mark. For me, the torture itself was bad enough, for Adora...

I can only imagine what seeing one's best friend tortured and be told it
is one's own fault they are suffering. It did something to her. Broke some-
thing deep within in her, even as the raw pain broke things in me.

When we went into boarding for youth recruitment, it was as if a weight was
lifted from both of us. She would still factor in our lives, sure, but the
reprimanding beatings dealt by the staff paled in comparison.

For me it was a relief. For Adora it wasn't. I was still the one being hurt
in her place. That was how it remained all through military academy and into
bootcamp. We were ordered by Shadow Weaver not to apply for commission despite
our transcendently good grades and stellar letters of recommendation.

Because of Adora. Because Shadow Weaver thought she could never be a great
leader without knowing the plight of the common soldier.

I resented that, but I didn't mind. So long as I was with Adora, that was all
that mattered. Out of bootcamp we were stationed on the western front.

Then one day after nearly a year and a half of both of us climbing the enlisted
grades, she was ordered to ship out to battle, while I stayed behind. And to
make up for it, she took me on a ride in a landskiff.

Recklessly, seeking to distract myself from my pain, I chose to head into the
forest. That was the choice that lost me Adora. I nearly crashed, and Adora fell
out of the skiff. When I found her, she was injured and incoherently talking
about a magic sword. I brought her back and to the infirmary.

When I hugged her goodnight that evening, that was the last time I would
feel her embrace for ten months. She left in the middle of the night, went
back to the forest, found the magic sword, and her destiny.

I called Shadow Weaver in the morning, and using her magics, she had divined
Adora's location by noon. My best friend was being held prisoner in the very
city we were about to attack.

Begging my Platoon CO for help, I was promoted and put on as passenger in the
tank column set to march on the city of Thaymor. I had only the hope that the
artillery bombardment would somehow spare Adora.

When we came to the city, I saw plainly that army intelligence had been lying to
us. This was not a strategically placed fortress, it was a farming village. I
was not surprised, in fact I recognized the political stratagem. Somebody wanted
this backwater town wiped off the map, and somewhere up the chain was a patsy
who was going to take the fall for the atrocity.

Orders were clear. We pressed on.

That was when Adora approached us. She had seen the same lie I had, and con-
cluded much the opposite. She had defected, informed, and the villagers had
evacuated.

I didn't care. All that mattered was that I could take Adora home now.

But no. She didn't want to go back.

I argued, and she counter-argued. I knew she was right, morally, but at the time
I thought flexible morals was a sign of strength. While we talked, the tank col-
umn drove on without us, heading into the town to lay waste to what remained of
Thaymor.

We fought, and I won easily. She was injured.

Then she called upon her destiny, turning into the legendary warrior She-Ra,
laid me out with a single punch. Then she pursued the tanks into the town, dis-
abled all five and killed over twenty of our countrymen.

I got to watch the carnage and walk back to camp. I knew then that the only way
to get Adora back would be by force.

“Catra?”

Hearing Adora’s voice brings Catra out of her reverie. She turns to the door to see Adora standing there, concern writ large on her face. “Catra are you okay?”

She feels numb. “Yeah?”

And then Adora rushes across the faux wooden floor to Catra, and falls around her neck in a tight hug.

It takes Catra a moment to notice that her cheeks are wet because she is crying.

“Stop,” Adora says quietly. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

They spend a few minutes with Adora sitting in Catra’s lap, holding her head against her chest, while Catra returns to reality. Adora grabs the tablet and reads what Catra wrote, then stores the manuscript to the device’s permanent data retention and discards the device.

“How did you know?” Catra says, eventually.

“I just knew.”

Catra looks up at her. “How come you can do it? Write about all this stuff?”

“Because— because I had Glimmer and Bow. And Mermista, and Perfuma, and everyone else. It was sad and stressful for me, and war is never good… But if I had to do it again, I would.”

Catra nods.

“When I brought you back on the Swift Wind, there was barely anything left of you; oh Cat. I am so, so sorry. I should have brought you along. I should have forced you if I had to—”

“I forgive you,” Catra says.

“I’m not sure I want you to,” Adora says, looking away and wiping her eyes.

“Shut up. You did everything right, Ad. You always have.”

“You think so?”

“In the end, you forgave me. And that’s why we still have a universe to live in. That’s why we’ll have a family one day,” Catra says, through tears.

With a gentle hand, Adora lifts Catra’s chin, and meet her lips in a soft kiss.

Over the next few days, things settle down. Together they begin the work of digging out a bunker-like basement a dozen yards distant from the main house, large enough for the rather substantial unreality-tech equipment that makes up a simulator, and still allowing enough space for a physical room large enough to get some actual use out of the simulation’s ability to extend it.

Among other things, Catra plans to use it as a firing range. Theoretically one could live inside it, and on the discussion forums where Catra is getting the construction plans, that is definitely what some people plan to do.

Adora keeps writing, in the evenings, corresponding with Hordak — who is, when all is accounted for, a tremendously prolific author of over a hundred volumes of historic and technical non-fiction; not that he didn’t have an entire team of editors, ghost-writers, and understudies to help.

Catra keeps up with the developments on the case being built against them, consulting with their former military colleagues and the defense lawyers who are being hired to represent them.

Scorpia has been called to answer for her complicity in the… Incident with Entrapta, and of course her defection; same as Adora though not as prolifically belligerent.

Hordak stands to answer for… Everything.

Endangering the nation by starting the war through unsanctioned diplomatic and political action; subverting the constitutional government through his massive political influence; treasonously working in the interest of a foreign power — Prime; developing and deploying weapons of inhumane devastation; crimes against decency in the conquest of foreign nations; and of course his successful coup.

Discovery is bogging down the prosecution, and of course guilty parties are already attempting to flee and hide. While the willingness of such highly visible Hordelanders as She-Ra, Ex-General Catra, Hordak, and the Princess to actually face justice might inspire confidence in the populace at large; there is no inspiring unscrupulous types seeking to evade justice for their own selfish gains.

The liaison that the Joint Military Prosecution has sent to meet with them is a large purple-furred sasquatch woman with an obviously cybernetic arm and eye. The office they have been led to is difficult to distinguish from an interrogation room.

She takes a seat across from them, placing on the table a blank note pad and an ornate pen. “Greetings, I am deputy dean prosecutor Cam. I want to start with, as a courtesy, reminding the two of you that anything you say to me will be used against you,” she rumbles.

“We’re aware,” Adora says, herself sitting with a note pad.

“So. You called this meeting. Say your piece.”

Catra leans forward. “Cam, Adora and I are probably the two most physically powerful persons on the planet. We are prepared to extend a… Helping hand, to the military police, in apprehending… Shall we say, uncooperative suspects of war crimes.”

Cam looks at her with a level gaze. “Interesting. In exchange for what.”

“Nothing,” Catra says. “We’re arguably the greatest heroes in the universe, we don’t need compensation. Of course we then also reserve the right to refuse requests.”

“So your angle is political.”

Catra and Adora exchange glances.

“Do you girls think I’m a witless bureaucrat?”

“Not at all, deputy dean prosecutor,” Adora says. “And you are correct. In Catra’s and my own considered opinion, this case is going to be a highly politicized one.”

“What we’re asking is that you convey our offer to whomever it may concern,” Catra says. “We really, genuinely do care about justice. I mean — we have a spaceship —”

“Spacecraft,” Adora corrects.

“— if we wanted to flee prosecution, we’d be halfway across the galaxy by now,” Catra finishes.

Cam frowns. “I’ll interpret your offer as another gesture of good faith. You may be hearing from someone, but I cannot guarantee anything.”

“We wouldn’t expect anything else.”

The first time the military police calls upon them is a week later.

They are eating a light breakfast on the patio in the low sun, despite the nights frost.

The first book of She-Ra’s tale of Power and Princesses is taking form, more of a novella-length tale in utilitarian prose than anything resembling a novel-length epic of lived experiences. It covers events up to the Battle of the Ash Corridor.

Which is a good thing, according to Hordak. As a political statement, the brevity of the tale will work to their advantage. By the synopsis he and Adora have put together, the full story of the ‘busiest year in our lives’ as Catra terms it, will run for a trilogy no longer than a single tome of some of the great classics.

It is a rush job, getting it published before the trial.

“Huh,” Catra says, reviewing the case file transmitted with the communicator letter.

Adora looks up from the manuscript, red pen in one hand, breakfast toast in the other. “Hm?”

“They identified the woman who gave the order to proliferate false intel regarding Thaymor to the ninety-second.”

Adora puts down the pen, chews and swallows, then rises. “Well? What are we waiting for?”

“Let’s at least clear away breakfast first, and get dressed,” Catra says, pointing to Adora’s bath-robe.

Adora picks her red modified battledress jacket off the coat hanger, and pauses.

“Is anything the matter?” Catra asks — she has gotten dressed with naught but a flicker of shadow, as usual.

“I don’t know — could you try this on?” She hands it to Catra.

“Sure?” Catra says, accepting the jacket.

It’s cropped and short-sleeved, with a spiffy collar and quite pronounced shoulders. She puts it on, and it fits perfectly. “Hm; maybe adjust the color,” Catra muses, and with her darkness, turns the bright red into a softer brown."

“It suits you,” Adora says. “Better than it ever did me. Keep it.”

Catra blushes. “But, this is your jacket, it’s like your whole thing!”

Adora shakes her head with a smile. “You know why I loved that red? I always thought you looked so cool in the standard jackets. I wanted to be cool too, so I just… Imitated you.”

That leaves Adora wearing her unitard — sleeveless today — with boots, utility belts, invisibility cloak, and Halcyon-as-tiara. It’s a good look, even without the jacket. Especially showing off her muscular bare arms.

“Damn; now I have to figure out something of mine to give you,” Catra says. “Hey, try this one on —” she pulls one arm out of the jacket, and peels off the shoulder-length black, fingerless glove. It is made of the same fabricator-derived armored fabric that Adora’s unitard is wrought from.

Slipping it on Adora’s right turns out to be easier than expected.

“Wait,” Catra says, taking off the fingerless glove on her left, and handing to to Adora as well. “There.”

“I don’t know, asymmetry is kind of your thing,” Adora says.

“It’ll grow on you, trust me,” Catra says. She holds out a hand. “Shall we?”

Adora takes it, and they step through the shadows.

What they find at the other end of the darkness, is an apartment in the underground, appropriately enough, under the dome of Refuge II. The city has been nicely restored and retrofitted for full civilian occupation. A more regular system of self-governance has been put into place, and life continues there for those who wish to live in a mile-wide dome-shaped chamber deep in the bowels of the earth.

Wisely, their quarry is actually living quite modestly in a standard apartment.

Adora knocks heavily on the door, and there is no reply from within. “Ms. Vispace, open up please,” she says.

“She’s inside,” Catra says, ears moving. “She’s going to portal away.”

Pointing at the lock, Catra causes the mechanism to unlatch, and they both barge in through the, for them, low doorway.

“Stop!” Adora says.

Vispace is a stout human woman in her mid-forties, decorated Brigadier from a high-society background. She has colored her black hair with mixed results. In her hand she holds a communicator, in the midst of dialling a portal. In her other hand she holds a service pistol.

“Drop the gun,” Catra says.

Instead, she points it at Catra and pulls the trigger. Adora lunges in front of Catra with her shield springing to her forearm, only for the gun to click on a dud cartridge.

A blackguard materializes next to Vispace, grabbing her pistol hand.

“Shit!” Vispace mutters.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Adora says.

“Yeah, right,” Vispace sneers.

“Hey, listen, asshole,” Catra says. “She-Ra here literally averted a genocide you set into motion. If I were you, I’d take her magnanimity at face value, because you really don’t want her in a vengeful mood. Okay?”

“We’re going to turn you over the military police,” Adora says.

Vispace spits on the floor. “What, so they can torture a confession out of me?”

Adora looks at Catra, who shrugs.

“If you genuinely fear mistreatment, we’ll instead see that you’re imprisoned in Brightmoon.”

Vispace laughs a bitter laugh. “Right, because they’ll just kill me.”

“You do realize we’re personal friends of the Queen, right? If we ask for it, you’ll be given the penthouse suite in the palace.”

In the end, they bring Vispace back to Capital, and Adora has a few words with the arresting officer to bring to his superiors.

From there, it’s a single shadow-step back home.

“What a bitter, suspicious woman,” Adora remarks, throwing herself on one of the patio sun chairs. The chill would drive mortals indoors, despite the afternoon sun.

“Yeah, about par for the course. Selfish, career-oriented, and promoted to one rank above her competence.” Catra takes the other sun chair.

“Like you?” Adora says in jest.

Catra feigns offense. “I was commander in chief, thank you!”

“Yeah, you should been humble and remained at the modest rank of what — field marshal of the army?”

“General of Special Operations.”

Adora looks at her hands, at the gloves. “In retrospect, Glimmer only commissioned me as General so the rest of Brightmoon’s army would listen to me. I— I don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing, when I command.”

“The trick is to realize that nobody does,” Catra says, closing her eyes.

Adora looks at her. “What?”

“It’s what makes you such a good leader, Adora. You’re not afraid to admit you don’t have all the answers, and then delegate accordingly.”

“Really?”

“I mean, it would have never flown with the Horde brass; they would have seen it as a sign of weakness. But as… As the captain of a spacesh— spacecraft, it’s pretty good.”

Adora looks at the sky. Strangely, she does miss it. The thrills, out there.

“You make a pretty good lieutenant, too,” Adora says. “Always ready with a pep-talk when morale is low, or a cynical consideration of the worst-case scenario when it is too high.”

“And as a bonus, you get to share a bed with me,” Catra says, deadpan.

“And my life,” Adora says.

Catra opens her eyes and looks over at her wife-to-be. She reaches out and takes Adora’s hand. “Adora.”

“Hm?”

“We’ll get through this.”

Chapter Text

Then come the hearings. There’s always hearings.

They don’t officially name the military tribunals anything special; the fancy names that come later are decided by the news coverage and the historians.

Adora ascends the stairs to the Inquisition courthouses in her full She-Ra getup. It is one of the oldest buildings still used by the military, originally commissioned almost ninety years ago, for, appropriately, the first inquisition.

At the top of the stairs, the assistant barrister to her case is waiting: a middle-aged pudgy human woman of indeterminable ethnicity in the signature blue robes. She falls in step beside Adora.

“You’ve quite the walking pace, ma’am,” she squeaks as they enter the lobby.

“Sorry, Meredina,” Adora says and slows down.

“No, no; you’re presenting an image. That’s good. I’m just out of shape is all — too much reading and too many confections, you know how it is.”

She leads Adora across floors laid in ornate tile, down corridors walled in dark wood. Hers is not the only hearing taking place today, but it is the only one that matters.

At the gates to the courtroom, the senior officer leading her defense is waiting. A satyr in gala uniform.

“Warrant Officer Adora,” he greets her.

“Lieutenant,” Adora replies, saluting.

He holds out a hand to shake. “No need for that; you’re looking at dishonorable discharge no matter what happens in there. Call me Josh.”

Adora shakes his hand.

“I admire what you did; were it up to me, you’d be given a medal — you still might.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He looks at Meredina, who nods.

Then he knocks on the double doors, and a courtroom MP opens it from the other side.

The expansive courtroom is packed with hundreds upon hundreds of people; it is almost more of an auditorium in layout. Mostly the seats are occupied by domestic military officers, but a substantial share of foreign observers are present.

Up on stand sit six generals. Adora has never seen any of them before.

Catra is in the audience on the front row, next to Scorpia, Lonnie, Kyle, Rogelio; Hordak is a no-show but there are more important things for him to do than a social court appearance.

“All rise for the high justice Uaine.” There’s a shuffle and quite a cacophony of squeaking chairs as everyone rises.

Adora remains standing, as the judge enters. An elderly faun woman with an expansive branching set of antlers, and honey colored fur. Almost paradoxically looking more like a sweet old lady, than an arbiter of justice.

“Tribunal in session, be seated,” Judge Uaine says, taking a seat herself. There’s a shuffle throughout the hall as the entire audience sits again. “Now proceeding with the case of Warrant Officer Adora, charges treasonous defection, and unlawful belligerence; prosecutor you have the opening statement.”

The lead prosecutor Captain Kit is — so Catra has tattled — a former intelligence operative. She looks the part too: a very vulpine caniform; very tall too. She takes the floor, and remains perfectly still as she speaks, pacing not one step.

“Tribunes, your honor,” she begins. "This is a politically delicate case, and the prosecution is well aware. We are after all putting on trial, She-Ra, the very defender of Etheria; whom we must not forget was one of the key actors in defeating Horde Prime, and according to official statements from the Etherian Resistance movement, literally saved the entire universe from destruction.

"Are we, as a nation and military, to pass judgment on Warrant Officer Adora, whatever punishment we deem appropriate, we will never be able to exact by force alone. Such is the might of She-Ra.

"Furthermore, Warrant Officer Adora is a personal friend to the heads of state of virtually all sovereign nations in the world, and will likely as a matter of course be granted political asylum if she so chooses to seek it.

“The dilemma is thus that we have to uphold our ideals of justice, knowing that this case is one that strips away the agreements upon which we base our great nation and its society, and exposes the bare reality that… For lack of a better idiom, might makes right.”

She turns towards the defence table, looking directly at Adora. “The prosecution hopes therefore that the defendant has the honor to consent with the sentencing passed by this tribunal.” Then she turns back to the tribunes. “Over the next few days we will call upon witnesses and evidence to show Warrant Officer Adora defected when faced with having been ordered to commit a breach of honor, rather than seek legal recourse; and that she participated in numerous military operations against her home nation in treasonous fashion, and with questionable regard for the honor code of war. That concludes our opening statement.”

Captain Kit takes a seat.

“The defence’s opening statement,” the judge says.

Lieutenant Josh takes the floor. His demeanor is much more personable.

"I want to thank Captain Kit for outlining the political difficulties of this case so succinctly, but I do have some contentions with her framing.

"Warrant Officer Adora is arguably more honorable than most. She saw the moral failings of the nation she had sworn duty to, and decided to turn against it on pure principle. This meant abandoning her friends, her home, her customs, even the standard of living enjoyed by Horde citizens; because that was what her morals informed her was the right thing to do.

"Soldiers don’t fight for the mother country. When steel clashes against steel, the brave men and women of the military are brave for their comrades, their buddies, their platoon-mates. There has been many a case where soldiers were driven to complicity in unlawful conduct because of peer pressure alone.

"We must also remember that my client defected in an active combat situation. She had avenues of legal recourse, in theory only. Had she not defected, the lives of innocent civilians would have been lost. By her actions, she spared her comrades complicity in a gross violation of distinction.

“Lastly, on the topic of sentencing; should the tribunal decide that punitive measures of a retributive nature are in order, the defence would like to suggest the tribune takes into consideration a sentence of exile. Archaic to be sure, but non-violent, and one I am certain my client will respect. That is all.”

He takes a seat again, next to Adora.

They don’t allow an audience for Hordak’s trial. It is just him, a prosecutor, his defence attorney, the tribunes and the judge — a different judge. They don’t even hold it in a proper courtroom. The witness testimony is counted in archived economic reports, and history papers, and the sentencing commences half a year after every single other tribunal has concluded.

The precedents set will come to be the reference material for a solid five percent of barrister doctorate theses for the next twenty years. After all, how often does a nation get to hold accountable its very founder?

The small matter that he subverted the government in service of a foreign, extra-Etherian power is a footnote in the case.

Entrapta and Damara sit outside the door every session.

“Well, you asked for this meeting,” Lieutenant Josh says.

Catra and Adora have both been drilled in not saying something without his go-ahead, and so remain silent. Across from the three of them is three representatives of the prosecution, including deputy dean prosecutor Cam.

“First of all, I want to thank your clients,” Cam says. “The fugitives you have brought in are all slated to receive due process in the coming weeks. Per our agreement —” she looks pointedly at Josh “— we are not seeking lenience in sentencing because of your cooperation.”

“Get to the point, Cam.”

Cam clears her throat. "One of the fugitives the prosecution is looking to apprehend is ex-Director Shadow Weaver, for charges of treasonous defection and corruption. We have refrained from approaching your clients with this case, because of the conflict of interest.

“However, we are prepared to seek leniency in sentencing for Catra if you can provide us with her whereabouts.”

Josh looks at Catra and Adora. “You can tell her. Stick to the facts.”

“She’s dead,” Catra says.

Cam nods. “Now, our investigators have noted that Shadow Weaver is… Shall we say ‘slippery’ when it comes to getting out of trouble —”

“Oh, she is very much dead,” Adora concurs. “When we went down into the center of Etheria to destroy the Heart hyper-wearpon, she sacrificed herself to buy us time.”

“How?”

“Shadow Weaver was the host for a demonic magical parasite called an Obtainer in Mystacorian terminology,” Catra says. “She simply released the containment spell on it, and let it transmute her body and magic into a giant monster, while retaining a modicum of mental control. Then she beat the tar out of the archdemon that was chasing us.”

“We found the aftermath of the battle,” Adora adds. “Catra mercy-killed what was left.”

Cam nods. “Very well. Any idea why she would do that?”

“To escape the noose,” Adora says. “Part of her deal with Brightmoon was that she’d go back to Mystacor once the war was over. I have it on good authority that she would have been sentenced to death there.”

Even reading the charges levied against Catra takes a while.

They charge her with corruption, for accepting Shadow Weaver’s assistance and using her connections in obtaining authorization to run clandestine operations of a diplomatically volatile nature, which resulted in unsanctioned escalation of the war.

For her role in Shadow Weaver’s escape from custody, they hit her with aiding and abetting.

For sinking the Salinean battleship under the flag of a civilian ship, the charge is perfidy. The pardon she received is revoked, as it was given by an illegitimate head of state.

They charge her with aggravated assault and escaping prison.

For the incident with Entrapta, Conspiracy to attempted murder — the same as Scorpia. Entrapta herself has a very hard time processing the fact that charges must be pressed even if she does not want that to happen.

For Elberon, hostage taking; one count for every man, woman, and child.

For usurping control of the military and government away from the Supreme Chancellor, they charge her with high treason — as contradictory as it may be, having also recognized Hordak as illegitimate.

For the incident in the woods, they charge her with deployment of a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ — a recently ratified violation of honorable warfare.

But the big one; the big one is the portal.

The most accurate estimates, extrapolating from census data from Apieria, the Fright Zone, Salineas, and Brightmoon, twenty-one million people just vanished. Gone forever.

Catra has looked, of course, in the Nothing. She did that, unfortunately after having banished Prime there for the rest of eternity, but no. They were never there.

It seems like they went into the dream-world, and never came out again, by choice.

A fate Catra narrowly avoided herself.

How do you even begin to prosecute someone for that many deaths?

The prosecution posits it as twenty-one million collateral civilian casualties in a military operation.

This turns the case into one of proving whether Catra acted on orders from the Chancellor, acted with a reasonable expectation of knowledge of the consequences, or even acted in a sane frame of mind.

Solstice comes and goes, and Princess Scorpia delays the annual Runestone ball until after her sentencing. Perhaps the vernal equinox.

"This tribunal has decided to find you guilty, Lieutenant Scorpia, of following unlawful orders, and the crime of treasonous defection.

The senior tribune is the admiral of the fleet — the house of Fright might hold no actual power and be reduced to a single descendant, but still warrants that respect. Scorpia’s service record is nothing short of illustrious, until Catra took charge.

The judge reads her verdict aloud with disinterest. “I, judge Joan hereby sentence you to demotion to Sub-Lieutenant for the former, and dishonorable discharge for the latter.”

Scorpia stands tall on the floor.

“Princess, we have deliberated on this for some time,” the admiral says, “and come to the conclusion that while a strong argument can and has been made by the prosecution to call down harsher punishments, you are too important a diplomatic player on the international scene.”

“Thank you for your mercy, Admiral,” Scorpia says.

“Don’t thank me, civilian,” she says. “Thank your fiancée, and the Queen of Brightmoon. Thank your ancestors.”

Scorpia casts a glance over her shoulder, to where Perfuma is sitting on the foremost row in the crowded — though regular-sized — courtroom.

“The same consideration must, however be given here, as in the case of Warrant Officer Adora, a.k.a. She-Ra,” Josh argues, standing on the floor. He gestures back to Catra sitting behind the defendant’s table. "General Catra is the incarnation of the planet defender entity Melog, hailing from a planet called Krytis. By the admission of Warrant Officer Adora, Catra played an instrumental role in saving the entire universe.

"This is not an exonerating circumstance, just a fact; we must ask ourselves, do we want to be the only nation in the world — perhaps the universe — that condemns the two women who saved all of everything from destruction? I should think not.

“The law says we must; so it behoves this courtroom to somehow solve this dilemma.”

Catra feels small, despite her physically imposing stature. Behind her, the courtroom is empty.

Adora is waiting outside the door for her, sitting on the bench across the hall with Halcyon in the form of a typewriter. As soon as the door opens, she is on her feet, Halcyon forming into a buddy-bot to tidy away the pages.

Catra emerges from the courtroom looking haggard.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Let’s go home,” Adora says, holding out a hand.

Catra takes it and they step through the shadows, back to their forest cottage.

It’s the first of many nights, Catra spends lying with her head on Adora’s chest, trying to return to reality.

The fire burns warm in the fireplace; outside the night’s frost hasn’t quite been melted by the winter sun.

Adora pours the tea, then sits.

“How are you?” Glimmer asks.

Adora looks into her teacup. “I— the way it’s been explained to me, I’ll loose my rank, and maybe face temporary exile. More as a gesture than anything else.”

Glimmer nods.

“That’s not what she asked,” Bow says.

“I— I’m not doing so good, but it’s not because of the case. It’s because of Catra’s.”

“They’re not going to sentence her to death or something, are they?” Glimmer asks.

Adora shakes her head. “No, no, it’s not the sentencing I’m worried about. It’s— they make her sit there for hours, walking over the worst things she ever did; like she didn’t already regret it. It’s torture. Josh — that’s our lawyer — is pretty insistent she shouldn’t plead guilty, but I’m not sure how much of it we can take.”

“The offer stands,” Glimmer says. “I’m not an abdicant Queen yet; I can give you asylum unilaterally.”

“We’d be fugitives, Glimmer,” Adora says. “We were hoping to… Have lives here. Capital is our home city. It’s where we grew up, and now we’d hoped to enjoy it without war and Shadow Weaver around to sour it.”

“I hear they went easy on Scorpia,” Bow says. “She’s provisionally moving the ball to the summer solstice.”

Adora nods. “Good, good.”

Glimmer attempts to fill the lull in conversation. “I read your book.”

“Oh?” Adora says.

“It’s strange to read about events I was part of myself. Like a summary of someone else’s diary.”

Adora smiles. “If you liked it, I can tell you the second one is with the editor already.”

“Oh? So that’ll be what, Northern Reach, Crimson Wastes, up to what?”

“Skybreak.”

Glimmers smile fades. “Oh.”

Adora nods, her smile fading too. “She tried too, Catra. Writing.”

“How did it go?”

Adora shakes her head. “That was how it all started. She’s in a ‘depressive mood’ as Damara terms it. I feel her guilt and shame every time I pick her up at the courthouse.”

“You’re speaking to Damara?” Glimmer asks.

Adora nods. “She’s there at the courthouse a lot too, because of Hordak.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” Bow asks.

“Exile, probably. Maybe permanently. He’s not really a heroic figure like the rest of us.”

Bow shrugs. “Maybe that’s not so bad, what I hear from Entrapta is that he’s living full time on the Swift Wind by now.”

Glimmer snickers.

“What?” Bow asks.

“Nothing, it’s silly—”

Bow crabs her side, eliciting a shriek. “Okay! Don’t tickle!”

Adora giggles.

“No, I just had the stupid thought that Hordak is basically your dad now, Adora,” Glimmer says.

“Oh don’t remind me,” Adora says.

“You’ve forgiven him?” Bow asks. “He did steal you from Razz, and hand you over to Shadow Weaver.”

Adora nods. “Yeah. But I forgave Catra. I’d be a hypocrite if I couldn’t accept his willingness to reform himself and give him a second chance.” She takes a sip of the delicious blend. “Now, how are you two doing? It’s been a while.”

Glimmer groans.

“We’re herding cats,” Bow says. “We’re in the middle of starting an international and interplanetary effort to find a future-proof system of government.”

“I don’t follow,” Adora says. “I just thought you were going to instate a democratic rule, and that was it?”

“It’s not that simple unfortunately,” Glimmer says. “I— what Peekablue said at my wedding about you guys kind of got me thinking about the future. I’m probably going to live for a long time, and that means I’m going to live with my mistakes if I reform Brightmoon and do it wrong. And I have to convince everyone else too.”

“Oh,” Adora says. She looks at Bow.

“See,” Glimmer continues, “you know about the people’s rule, one vote per person and all that.”

Adora nods.

“Question number zero, who constitutes a person? I had the marchioness of the southern treeline suggest only landowners got to vote, can you imagine?”

“That just sounds like aristocracy with extra steps.”

Glimmer nods. “Thank you.”

“That’s not the worst, though. Sweet Bee is helping us by obligingly poking holes in everything we deem good ideas,” Bow adds. “What was that last thing she did?”

“She showed that you can’t just select the winner as the one who gets the most votes, or over time there’ll only be two candidates running.”

“Can’t you get Hordak to help?” Adora asks.

“He’s a bit busy at the moment, being prosecuted by the country he helped build,” Bow notes.

“I could have told myself that,” Adora says. “Sorry, I’m a little out of it.”

“Adora, are you okay?” Glimmer asks. “You seem distracted.”

Adora looks away, towards the south. “Catra’s in trouble, I can feel it.”

Glimmer is out of her seat in a heartbeat, holding out a hand for Adora to take.

Adora runs up the stairs to the Inquisition courthouse, holding the long skirts of her white dress up from the rainy-wet stone.

The MP officers posted by the gates lets her, Glimmer and Bow past without issue, and Adora heads through the lobby down into the wing with laser-focus.

She reaches on of the small courtrooms near the back of the building and hammers on the heavy door.

Seconds later, a courtroom MP opens the door. “Yes?”

“I have an urgent message for the defence and defendant,” Adora says. “Please convey to Lieutenant Josh that he needs to call a recess immediately.”

Then there’s seconds more of waiting, while the proceedings continue inside.

“Is this a common occurrence?” Bow asks. “That you can feel when Catra is in trouble?”

Adora shakes her head. “I can feel she’s in distress. It started — I don’t know. Maybe it’s always been like this, since the war; and she’s only been so distressed now because of the trial.”

The door opens and Lieutenant Josh steps out. “Adora, what can I do for you?”

“Call the session off for today, Catra’s about to have a mental breakdown.”

He blinks. “All right; one moment.” He ducks back inside.

“He’s heading back to the defence table,” Glimmer says, visualizing the inside of the courtroom with her power’s ability to discern material densities. “No, he’s stopping halfway down the aisle. Now he’s returning.”

The door opens again. “You better come inside.” He opens, and Adora brushes in past him, with long quick strides.

Up by the defense table, a barrister in blue robes is attempting to get into contact with Catra, gently patting her on the shoulder. Coming closer, Adora sees that Catra has sunk all five claws on her right hand into her left arm. Blood is slowly tricking onto the table.

Everything else becomes irrelevant.

Adora reaches her and with a gentle hand on her shoulder, instantly gets Catra’s attention. She looks up at Adora with eyes gold and blue, glazed-over.

“Hey Catra,” she says. “It’s okay now; I’m here.”

She reaches down and gently she extricates each claw from flesh, healing each little wound with a mote of starlight.

“Sorry,” Catra whispers. “I couldn’t—”

“Don’t say anything,” Adora says softly. “It’s okay; I came.”

Someone clears their throat. “Warrant Officer Adora, General Catra, you should both know that incidents like this will not prevent us from examining Catra’s wrongdoings.”

Adora bends down and kisses Catra on the cheek. “One moment,” she says.

Then she looks up at the prosecutor. A mothfolk woman, unusually enough. Adora walks around the defence table with slow steps, coming up to her maintaining respectful distance. She’s maybe five feet and a few inches, without the heels.

Adora is one inch short of seven feet tall, but by the magic that is She-Ra, she seems larger than that.

“I am fully aware,” Adora says quietly. “But you should be aware that her and I come into these halls out of our sense of justice and duty alone. Should I deem that it does my wife-to-be more harm than good, we will stop.”

She turns to the judge — Uaine, as it happens, presides over both their cases. “Your honor, I request that accommodations be made for Catra so that this incident does not repeat itself. Whether this be more frequent recesses or permitting myself to sit in as moral support or something else entirely, I do not care.”

Uaine nods solemnly.

Then Adora turns and walks over to Catra, helping her up, and guiding her up the aisle to the exit where Glimmer and Bow are waiting. They take a brief rest on the bench across from the door.

“What went wrong in there?” Bow asks.

“She dug her claws into her arm,” Adora says, sitting next to Catra.

Glimmer looks back though the open door where half the people in the room are still trying to process their direct exposure to She-Ra’s almost regal fury.

That evening they receive a letter from Josh, informing that Uaine has decided to let Adora sit in as moral support.

This arrangement works for about a month.

Adora goes to court on Mondays and Wednesdays, and accompanies Catra on Tuesdays and Fridays. Adora writes her memoirs in the evenings, and Catra builds a playground outside in the freezing cold, and then digs out the bunker for the simulator, and starts making designs on a guest house. They fall into an easy rhythm despite the uneasy reality that their home country regards them as criminals.

When Adora leaves for the courthouse that morning, the spring ephemerals are beginning to show all around their little cottage.

“Warrant Officer Adora,” Judge Uaine says. “The tribune of your superiors have found you guilty of treasonous defection and high treason, for this you are demoted to private and discharged from service with dishonor. I sentence you to one year in national exile, effective from the strike of four hours today. You are not to set foot in Horde territory, nor come within less than ten yards of a portal thereto.”

“Your honor,” Lieutenant Josh says, “in the case of General Catra, Adora has been allowed to sit in as moral support, are we to conclude the sentence of exile precludes that?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for the clarification,” Josh says.

“You do realize I can just go to Brightmoon, right?” Catra says. She’s remarkably composed.

On the patio table sits a table through which Adora is calling from the Swift Wind; Lieutenant Josh and Captain Kit are there in the flesh.

“Listen,” Kit says, “I’m going to draw on some journalistic resources and get this covered; I don’t like that Uaine presides over both of your cases, and I don’t like what my colleagues are doing to you, General. I specifically advised Uaine against this kind of thing.”

“Clearly, she didn’t listen,” Catra says.

“Just sit tight, Cat,” Adora says. “We’ll figure this out.”

That night, Adora and Catra sleep apart for the first time in four months.

Adora is back in their old couple’s suite on the Swift Wind. Sterile and clean. Part of her hoped to find sheets still smelling like Catra. She wakes in the night, her subconscious acutely aware that there is not warm cat girl beneath her tucked knees.

Catra gets to spend the evening in their house, but that’s not much better. Without Adora, it’s as if an essential part of the construction is missing. The roof, perhaps. It brings back terrible memories of officer’s apartments and nights spent drinking herself to sleep.

FIANCÉE OF SHE-RA FACES TRIAL ALONE, the headline reads. Prosecution plot to elicit guilty plea from Etheria’s next-greatest magical defender? the subtitle suggests.

Catra Melog is the childhood friend of She-Ra and was the youngest ever officer promoted to General, in the latter days of the World War, and under the Supreme Chancellor’s direction, allegedly took part in dishonorable acts.

Then, when the sky broke, she was pulled into deep space, and things changed. As told in the latest war-memoir of She-Ra herself, ‘One Good Thing,’ Catra realized the error in her ways, and joined the fight against Horde Prime.

But good deeds don’t erase the past, that’s the law. She-Ra was sentenced to exile just yesterday, and was according to Catra’s defense attourney serving as moral support while she is forced to re-live the worst time of her life.

The high justice Uaine presiding over both cases saw fit to grant She-Ra access to the closed court hearings after an undisclosed incident, and then in her sentencing seemingly failed to account for how sentencing She-Ra to exile would prevent her from supporting Catra.

The article then continues to speculate — in a highly questionable fashion — on how the prosecution might be looking for a guilty plea.

“This is it?” Adora says, looking up from the newspaper. She’s meeting Josh in a street cafe in the underground dome of Refuge.

“That is it.”

“It reads like a romance.” Among other things, Adora has taken up reading, mostly as inspiration for her own writing efforts. “And her name isn’t Melog; that’s her title. And I don’t like how Hordak is framed.”

“Hordak’s a lost cause, and no offense, but I’ve read your memoir, Adora. Your life is a romance.” He taps the paper. “This is what’ll rile up the public. We’re going to hit Uaine with a real likelihood of bias, and request she gives leave to your exile until Catra’s sentencing has completed.”

Adora nods. “I have no idea what that means.”

“It’s a very serious accusation, but with the prosecution’s help, we’re prepared to put forth a strong argument.”

Three days later, Adora walks into the empty courtroom, hand in hand with Catra, taking a seat in the front row, while Catra continues onto the court floor.

It’s almost five months to the date of Catra’s first hearing that the tribunal finds her guilty.

The field marshal delivers the list of offences is the recently promoted field marshal, an unassuming human woman in a dress uniform that seems as if deliberately not tailored to her figure.

"General Catra, this tribunal has found you guilty of the following offenses: one count of felony corruption, one count of unauthorized escalation, perfidious naval attack, three counts of aggravated assault, and eleven thousand nine hundred and thirty-one counts of taking civilian hostages.

“Furthermore this tribunal finds you guilty of non-codified offenses against decency for recklessly causing the deaths of at least one million people, world-wide.”

The field marshal pauses, but Judge Uaine does not proceed with the sentencing. “These are serious offenses, but it is the verdict of the tribune that the political circumstances of this trial does not permit us to exact due penalty in full.”

Uaine takes over. “This tribune of your superiors has found you guilty of the listed offenses. You are demoted to officer cadet and discharged with dishonor. For your crimes you are hereby sentenced to one year in national exile, effective from the strike of noon, today. You are not to set foot in Horde territory, nor come within less than ten yards of a portal thereto.”

It’s the same exact sentence as Adora received.

They step out into open air in front of the Inquisition courthouse, in the chill spring breeze.

Catra looks at her communicator. It’s a quarter to twelve. “I don’t think we’ll have time to get home and tidy up,” she says.

At the strike of noon, they will be fugitives from justice for merely being within the borders of the Hordelands. Dallying will be a criminal act.

“That’s okay,” Adora says. “It’s just… Stuff.” She gives Catra’s hand a squeeze. “There’ll always be space for us on the Swift Wind. And in Brightmoon. And in Refuge.”

Catra casts a glance down the street. “Just not here, for the next five months.”

Adora looks at her. They had perhaps both hoped to get to spend spring planting a garden or some such. Their little forest cottage has really begun feeling like home, now that they’ve lived in it for so many months.

“Let’s go. We wouldn’t want to overstay our welcome,” Catra says.

There’s a lot of things you lose out on over winter when your life revolves around a attending court, meeting with lawyers, building a homestead you’re unsure you’ll ever get to live in, writing your memoirs at the ripe old age of twenty-two, and staying sane.

It’s late spring on the Northern hemisphere. The palace gardens in Brightmoon are beginning to show their beauty.

What remained of Horde Prime’s astry have with Nebularian and Etherian help settled on and in orbit around the Red Moon.

The Underground Cities have declared independence, as have a number of small islands and enclaves distant from the old nations. Snows no longer exists as anything except a union of provinces. Apieria has discontinued its national currency in favor of universal credits.

There’s a joint international space program underway spearheaded by the old nations but largely managed by independent organizations. The first interplanetary-capable craft scheduled to take flight this summer, and a permanent space station in Etherian orbit is planned.

In Candila, the census has been completed in record time, and shows that the adoption of new technology has resulted in a stark decrease in illiteracy, sickness, malnutrition, and child mortality.

And there have been no large-scale crises, no world-threatening catastrophes that needed She-Ra and Melog’s intervention. What few natural disasters have occurred, the Runestone wielders have been well-equipped to handle.

This was the peace they were supposed to live in, together, in a little house in the forest; possibly with kids one day. Now they are back on the Swift Wind, in the mess, sitting side by side by the bar, much the same as they were six months ago, at the tail-end of fall.

They have the whole craft to themselves, landed in its reserved spot in the burgeoning Candilan spaceport. Damara and Entrapta are in Capital, with Hordak.

“So, what do we do now?” Catra asks. She’s wearing her court-appearance clothes: Adora’s jacket, a white button-down, breeches, and jackboots. Adora’s white formal dress is sleeveless much like her unitard, letting her wear the mismatched gloves.

Adora can feel the relief in her words. “I don’t know. Reconnect? Ask around who needs our help — we’ve got a year to kill.”

Chapter Text

Life goes on.

Spinnerella gives birth in orderly fashion one midnight in early summer to a healthy baby girl. Netossa is beside herself with happiness. They are in no hurry to name the child, nor to show her off to the world.

(This is a little more difficult than they expect, since Runestone Wielders have become international celebrities, about as quickly as gossipers could leverage the new communications technology to spread the word.)

Indeed, Castle Alwyn has become a rather cozy home for two; almost too spacious. Netossa is considering the possibility of turning two wings of the house into separate domiciles, to alleviate the loneliness; Spinnerella has long since donated her manorial lands to the city, and prospectors are exploring the possibility of turning the enormous pleasure gardens into something more useful — or at the very least a public park.

In Brightmoon, while the constitutional convention proceeds over summer, welcoming everyone with an opinion of the jurisprudence of governance — from lawyers to philosophers to economists to military officers to mathematicians(?) — another development takes place in the city itself: the sanitation society begins work, approved but not paid for by, the city council. The first sewer lines are laid by workers directing buddy-bots wielding power tools. (Even though many households have refinery-recyclers attached to their fabricators, it’s a bit weird to empty ones chamber pot into it.) Four years from breaking ground, every home in Brightmoon has running water and indoor lavatories.

The palace itself is gradually being converted to a museum space and the future seat of civil government; the domicile is left intact, in large part to house diplomats.

Scorpia reneges on hosting the Runestone ball since She-Ra and Catra are now legally barred from attending, and a small unseen debate by letter plays out between the diplomats holding the new alliance of nations together, about whether to host the ball in Plumeria, in the light of the announcement of Scorpia and Perfuma’s betrothal.

Eventually, the idea of moving such an old tradition is abandoned entirely; spurred on in part by the announcement of Perfuma and Scorpia’s marriage falling on the autumnal equinox. A suitable symbol of unity.

But it is not until the very late summer that the Swift Wind starts to feel like a home again.

The tribunal decides, and the judge sentences. Hordak is not to return home. Ever.

For all the good he has done, lending his educated judgment to the scientific and technological progress, he has also led the Hordelands into a gruesome civil war and six wars of conquest, each more devastating than the last. The expansions established the Horde as an empire spanning nearly a third of the landmass of Etheria, and watered the conquered land in blood.

Volume 1: A Soldier

Foreword by King Bow of Brightmoon

• Part 1: Choosing Kindness over Duty

  1. Destiny
  2. The Rangers
  3. For The Honor of Grayskull
  4. Defector
  5. Bloodied
  6. Empty Victory
  7. Interlude: Catra
  8. Salineas
  9. Amaranth
  10. Home Safe
  11. Triennial Gala
  12. The Chancellor
  13. Captured
  14. Alliance’s Finest
  15. Rescue

• Part 2: Strength Through Camaraderie

  1. Interlude: Catra
  2. Quest
  3. Crystal Castle
  4. Light Hope
  5. Starlight is Mine to Command
  6. Razz
  7. The Power to Heal
  8. Interlude: Catra
  9. Shadow Weaver
  10. The Ash Corridor
  11. Day’s Victory
  12. Twilight’s Turnabout
  13. Night’s Defeat
  14. Interlude: Catra
  15. The Morrow’s Reckoning

Afterword by Queen Cometa of Candila.

Volume 2: Grayskull’s Legacy

Foreword by Queen Glimmer of Brightmoon.

• Part 3: Two Tests of Courage

  1. The War Goes On
  2. From the Woods to Apieria
  3. First-Ones’ Legacy
  4. Good Ship Forth
  5. Northern Reach
  6. Everything Goes Wrong
  7. Questions Needing Answers
  8. Through Candila to Yelsie
  9. Huntara
  10. Interlude: Catra
  11. Swift Wind
  12. My Mother
  13. Her Legacy
  14. Hostage Exchange
  15. Return to the Fright Zone

• Part 4: Desperation and Grief

  1. Captured Redux
  2. Alliance’s Finest Once More
  3. Portal
  4. Nothing
  5. Heiress
  6. Interlude: Catra
  7. Elberon Fallen
  8. Flutterina
  9. A Higher form of War
  10. Salineas Fallen
  11. Air Supremacy
  12. Pre-Empted and Threatened
  13. In the Woods
  14. Scorpia
  15. Schism
  16. Traitor
  17. Beast Island
  18. Interlude: Glimmer
  19. Entrapta
  20. Skybreak

Afterword by Hope of Etheria.

Volume 3: Horde Prime

Foreword by Quartermaster Damara of the Swift Wind.

• Part 5: One Good Thing

  1. Invasion
  2. Resistance
  3. Strike
  4. Interlude: Glimmer
  5. Mara
  6. Interlude: Catra
  7. Star Siblings
  8. Glory
  9. Hostage
  10. Trap Sprung
  11. She-Ra
  12. Escape
  13. Blockaded
  14. Krytis
  15. Darkness
  16. Melog
  17. The Heart of Krytis
  18. Catra
  19. Training
  20. Going Home

• Part 6: A Home to Fight For

  1. Underground
  2. Cometa
  3. Angella
  4. Interlude: Catra
  5. To the Velvet Glove
  6. Distraction
  7. Interlude: Starlight Brigade
  8. Battle of the Red City
  9. Triple Clones
  10. Meteora
  11. Respite
  12. To Mystacor
  13. Necropolis
  14. The Sorcerers
  15. Alone Again
  16. Interlude: Operation Cascade
  17. Descent
  18. The Heart of Etheria
  19. Defender and Avenger
  20. Starlight and Darkness

Afterword by Wrodak of the Second Galactic Horde.

The past few weeks has gone by establishing new routines: turning their old couple’s suite into home again, sparring matches in the simulator, and travelling all over the world by portal, both for public appearances, and to say hi and catch up with their friends. Breakfasts, lunches, and informal dinners of a variety that would catch the attention of avid globetrotters. Their friends and family in the Hordelands, of course, have had to come to them.

Catra handles the weighty tome; some six-hundred pages of standard print. First edition and first printing of the collected memoirs. Inside the cover, Adora has penned her signature in fine hand both in modern cursive and Fist-Ones’ glyphs.

The reviews on the back appreciate the subject matter, but discount Adora’s utilitarian writing style. But that is not the point of the book: the point was and has always been that now, everyone knows, although admittedly it is a little late now.

“I guess I’ll have some reading to do, huh?” Catra says.

“C’mon, you’ve read it already,” Adora says, from across the breakfast table in the Swift Wind’s mess.

“But not in one go.” She puts it aside. “Are you going to be okay being alone for a few days?”

Adora tilts her head.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ll actually be alone —”

“Catra, please just tell me.”

Catra takes a deep breath. “I think I’ve found out what I want to do. I want to help out on Krytis. There’s some terraforming projects underway.”

Adora nods. “Sounds good. You should go.”

“Really?”

“Sure — I mean, as lovely as touring the Candilan countryside with you is, I think we’re both about itching to do some real work.” Adora looks aside at the book. “You know, I really thought there’d be more ‘saving the world’-type things to do.”

“I’m going away, Adora,” Catra says. “Far away. We won’t just be able to portal back and forth.”

Adora reaches across the table and takes Catra’s hands in hers. “Cat, I know you’ll come back to me.”

Catra blushes furiously.

“And besides, I’ve been formally invited to Nebularia. Just some interstellar diplomacy. Jewelstar is coming here, actually, to pick me up in person — that’s Starla’s older brother — and Tallstar — the middle sister — is going to apprentice with Entrapta.”

Catra nods.

The Candilan National Spaceport is a huge tract of repurposed badlands a bit over a hundred miles outside of the Red City of Iron; a valley where the Crimson Waste casts its shadow down towards the Candilan heartland, so to speak.

Here, pre-programmed construction drones are excavating the top layer of near barren earth, dumping it into huge up-scaled refineries, which feed specialized fabricators producing concrete. A pipeline crossing several hundred miles of land leads all the way to the sea, pumping the water necessary. Combining the two, they are paving the land in nearly white concrete, laying foundations for a variety of landing and launch pads.

The effect is blinding at noon, but pleasantly cool.

Adora and Catra descend the cargo bay ramp, rather than taking a pylon — Damara keeps it open during the day to maintain ‘a sense of inviting hospitality,’ whatever that means.

They stand there, side by side in the shade Adora in white unitard, black gloves, gold accents, and the purple shifting hues of her cloak, Catra in maroons and reds with stars in her hair.

From the sky descends a ship — blocky, utilitarian, lacquered white with black radiator banks at the rear; at once looking sturdy and as if it could be readily taken apart by a team of technicians in less than a day.

It is marked with the Nebularian Roost’s owl wing insignia down the side, and extends eight landing pads as it descends on hover thrusters, whipping up an outwards gale-force wind as it touches down in its appointed plot a quarter mile away

There’s a pause before the nose opens and a cargo ramp extends and touches down. There’s a rather large delegation of Nebularians disembarking, most of them to stay permanently.

Apart from the styles of dress being aggressively different — much of it inspired by the practicalities of pre-fabricator spacer technology — they look like people. Nebularia was in centuries past settled by by First-Ones, and upon Prime crushing the intergalactic trade of their parent empire, they were left to survive on their own.

The welcoming committee is just as varied and strange. This is no diplomatic delegation, it is a cultural exchange.

Three figures emerge from the crowd and head their way. Two of them are human, the third is… Humanoid. Standing at least seven and a half feet tall, and built with a certain bulk.

“That’s Jewelstar, the middle one,” Adora says. “The other man, I don’t know.”

Jewelstar waves.

Adora waves back.

“And the… Robot?” Catra asks.

Adora squints, and spots the face under the cloak hood, a lock of red hair. “I think that’s Tallstar.”

“Funny you didn’t mention that she was a giant.”

“I think that’s some upgrades. Did I mention she had cybernetic arms when we met them on Antioch?”

“No.”

“Hail and well met, She-Ra!” Jewelstar calls out. “Have you seen my baby sister?!”

“She’s not arriveed yet!” Adora calls back.

The three pass within range of comfortable conversation, stepping under the shade of Swift Wind.

“Wonderful, perhaps she has overslept,” Jewelstar says with a grin. His white hair has grown out, his beard has been trimmed down to a goatee long enough to braid; that combined with the bright colours of his suit makes him seem very… Political. His eyepatch is gone too, replaced by an artificial eye.

The man by his side is tanned as well, shaved bald and sporting a moustache almost as impressive as Sea Hawk’s. He is more modestly dressed in a muted-color robe.

Tallstar is the real change. She is not wearing some kind of suit — that is apparent from her movements. Her arms and legs are fully artificial, as well as parts of her torso; perhaps all of it.

“Welcome to Etheria, in the flesh,” Adora says, and holds out a hand. Jewelstar shakes it warmly.

“It’s good to see you again; you look much better than you did last I saw you up close,” he says. He looks at Catra “Ah, introductions. I am Jewelstar, this is my sister Tallstar” — Tallstar throws back her hood with an enormous hand — “I trust you are familiar with our youngest sister Starla?” — Catra nods — “And this here is Pollux.”

“Charmed,” Pollux says.

“This is Catra, my fiancée,” Adora says. “She is Melog, the Avenger of Krytis.”

“Goodness me,” Jewelstar says, looking between them. “You’re just the same.”

“Larger than life,” Pollux remarks.

“We are,” Catra says with a smile.

“How fitting; and congratulations.”

Then there’s a triumphant screech, that reverberates over the spaceport. Gliding in from the north and down from up high comes the familiar form of Glory, coming in to land a hundred yards away. Starla springs down from the saddle, landing deftly aided by her belt-thrusters, and approaching them at a jog.

She heads directly for Tallstar, leaping into her big sister’s arms for a hug.

“Hey Starla,” Tallstar says. “You’ve shrunk.”

“Dork!”

She lets Starla down.

“Hey Adora, Catra; Cometa says hi.”

Adora salutes.

“C’mere squirt!” Jewelstar says, and Starla hugs him as well.

Pollux shakes her hand. “Pleased to finally meet you in the flesh,” he says.

“Welcome to the family,” Starla says, and pulls him down for a hug as well.

“Family?” Catra asks.

“Pollux and I are together, our half-year anniversary is coming up,” Jewelstar remarks. He looks at Pollux with unabashed fondness.

“Good. Now, business?” Adora says.

“Right!” Jewelstar says.

“I was made to understand Entrapta would be here?” Tallstar asks.

“She will be,” Catra says, for once since becoming Melog, looking up at someone. “Hordak, her husband, is attending tribunal. She’ll be back in about half an hour.”

“How did it go?” Starla asks. “You two were virtual hermits all winter.”

“We’ve been exiled,” Adora says. “For a year.” Catra takes her hand.

“Catra,” Pollux says. “I’ve heard there’s an effort to re-colonize Krytis — would I be remiss in assuming you are a prominent player?”

“I am,” Catra says. “I dabble in portals too, is this to do with the— what was the term it, Interstellar Bridge?”

Pollux twirls his moustache. “Indeed. I’m one of the co-authors of that proposal.”

“I’m not following,” Adora says.

“Put simply, the plan is to transport one end of an open portal aboard a spacecraft to a distant planet, linking the two,” Pollux says. “Proponents of the plan in the Etherian-Nebularian portal physics community are quite exited at the prospect, and Etheria-Krytis would be an ideal subject for a proof of concept.”

“And even if it doesn’t work, it’ll be valuable to figure out why?” Adora asks.

“How very correctly intuited,” Pollux replies.

“So, shall we take a local lunch before we go?” Jewelstar says.

“If it fits with the time tables,” Adora says.

“Seeing as I set the departure table, yes, yes it does,” Jewelstar says with a smile.

“That’s your ship?” Catra asks, pointing at the one they arrived in.

“Captain Jewelstar at your service, Miss Catra,” Jewelstar says with a salute.

Catra and Adora share a long, tender goodbye kiss on the loading ramp.

“Too bad,” Catra says, looking past Adora, into the craft’s interior.

“What?”

“It’s no Swift Wind, huh?”

Adora scoffs. “You won’t get me to disrespect the Firebolt, that’s Captain’s code of honor.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah okay, you got me,” Adora says with a sheepish grin.

Catra flourishes forth a heavy duffel bag. “Here’s your luggage.”

“Sometimes I wish I could just magic things away like you,” Adora says, taking it.

Catra runs a hand over Adora’s temple; her undercut is growing out. “Remember to trim; you’ll need to be presentable.”

“Don’t get too lonely,” Adora says.

“I won’t; I promise.”

One last kiss, and then Adora turns away, their hands lingering together and then sliding apart.

Catra takes a step off the ramp and waves to the spacemen operating the ramp.

The take-off alarm sounds, and with a flicker of darkness Catra equips a spell-glove, casting an air-pressure shield spell. It does little to diminish the tremendous roar of the hover engines of the light — which is to say, two thirds as heavy as the Swift Wind but far denser — passenger freighter taking off.

“She’ll be back with you in no time,” Pollux says to Catra. “Don’t worry.”

“I’ve known her my whole life,” Catra says, looking up after the Firebolt as it disappears into the sky. “I’m not worried. I just miss her.”

“Ah, old friendship, new love?” Pollux says. “Just the same for me and him. I was a good friend of him and his husband.”

“All right, you two,” Tallstar says. “Goodbyes are sad, but they are not that sad.”

Catra looks at her. Tallstar, almost a foot taller than Catra, looks her in the eye.

“All right, yes; I miss Starla,” she says and looks away.

“No shame in that.”

Catra turns towards the Swift Wind as if on cue, just as Entrapta, Darla, and Hordak return from this days tribunal hearing, stepping onto the white concrete from a portal.

Damara waves.

The three of them head back to the shade of the Swift Wind, which hasn’t shifted much under the near-equatorial sun.

Tallstar and Entrapta near immediately start talking shop about Tallstar’s near total-conversion cybernetics — from what Catra can hear the topic quickly turns towards miniaturization options.

“Pollux, this is Damara, the avatar of the Swift Wind, and Hordak the infirmarist. Damara, Hordak, this is Pollux, portal physicist,” Catra introduces.

“Charmed,” Damara says.

“Wait, Hordak?” Pollux asks. “I think I’ve read a paper or two of yours.”

“That is distinctly possible; although the bulk of my publications were works of joint effort,” Hordak says and shakes Pollux’s hand.

“I’ll be going off-world for a while,” Catra says. “With the mission to Krytis.”

“Adora left for Nebularia?” Damara asks.

Catra nods.

Damara pats Catra on the shoulder, in sympathy. “I’m sorry I couldn’t take the two of you out on a new adventure—”

“No, no,” Catra says. “It’s okay. The Swift Wind needs to stay until this whole thing blows over; that was never in question. Hordak and Entrapta are your partners; I’m just your daughter-in-law.”

“You’re a lot more than ‘just’ my daughter-in-law, Lieutenant,” Damara says with motherly affection.

Catra nods. “I should call up Icewine, hear if there’s space for the ‘Portal Winch’ aboard one of the terraformers.”

“So, what do you think?” Jewelstar asks, gesturing to the control center. It is smaller, by far, than the Swift Wind’s. Utilitarian. The pilot and helmsman — two Nebularian women, both humans since apparently there are virtually no non-humans in Nebularia — have dedicated seats; as does Jewelstar. Other than that, there’s room for four extra personnel.

“I think the Swift Wind is deliberately grandiose in comparison,” Adora says. “This is almost cozy.”

Jewelstar laughs. “We’re going to jaunt out to interstellar space in a few minutes.”

“That was fast.”

He nods. “This is a light freighter; there’s a lot of thrust-to-weight in the Firebolt, at the expense of creature comforts.”

Adora thinks to how the Swift Wind could out-accelerate Horde craft. “How long in jaunt until we arrive in Sauelsuesor?”

“Thirty-six hours. I hope you can find something to do to pass the time.”

“I think I’ll spend some time with Glory,” Adora says.

The enormous magic bird is along for the ride as a passenger in the cargo bay — quite obediently. Being along for the ride means they don’t have to fly to Nebularia on their own wings, after all.

“Unfortunately, there’s only standard-sized beds in the cabins.”

“That’s okay, I can shrink.”

Jewelstar blinks, then he laughs again. “Of course, of course you can.”

In the three days wait until the departure. Adora calls her over video every night. They talk, some, but much of the time just having the noise of Adora’s presence is calming enough that Catra can sleep soundly.

Thankfully, she only dreams once of being trapped in a courtroom, while a lawyer that looks a lot like a younger Shadow Weaver outlines in detailed, detached language, how she doesn’t deserve good things, ever, and Adora could never love a war criminal like her.

She gets a team of technicians to assist Pollux and his Etherian colleagues in constructing the portal winches — so named because they tow open portals — and the associate extended-service portal device.

The actual freighters that will take them to Krytis are Nebularian-designed but Etherian built, by the Candilan Federation of Heavy Industries; which has also supplied — but again not designed — the terraforming equipment. The personnel for the mission is about half Magicats.

Takeoff happens just a mile away from the Swift Wind.

Catra boards on of the myriad of heavy freighters — which could fit in nearly any hangar that could fit the Swift Wind, yet much less aerodynamic and therefore with correspondingly larger cargo holds, filled with heavy machinery and vehicles that would be impractical to fabricate in-flight or on-site.

“Are you okay, there, girl?” Leijon asks Catra, as she stares pensively at the gaping maw of the cargo ramp. The traffic coming aboard is reaching the frenetic last half hour before takeoff.

“Yeah. I’m going to be okay, don’t worry. Thanks for seeing me off.”

Catra turns to Leijon and Clawdia. Clawdia steps up to Catra and reaches up on her tip-toes to give her a hug.

“See you in a few weeks? Months?”

“Weeks. I want to be back when Adora comes back from Nebularia,” Catra says.

That’s the timescale for the first freighter back to Etheria.

The last thing to be loaded, in as much as a massless topological feature of spacetime can be ‘loaded,’ is the portal itself. The other passengers assemble in the cargo hold to observe — not that there’s much to see other than the physicists and engineers monitoring from outside the crate enclosure providing ballistic protection.

“Green across the board,” one of the engineers say. There’s some whooping, hugs, and high-fives.

The go-ahead is given to the control center, and the craft shifts under everyone’s feet as it takes off from the white concrete outside.

“Holding!” another technician exclaims.

“So, the next big test is jaunting, right?” Catra asks Pollux. He nods.

Catra passes the time by putting on a virtual-space mask, and watching the constructed outside view of their ascent. Theoretically she could just shadow step to the outside of the hull, but somehow that feels like it would be in poor taste.

The sky goes dark above, and the surface becomes a luminous expanse of green, beige, and blue, with white streaks of cloud, eventually curving away. The parallax is so extreme it’s almost impossible to see their speed with the naked eye, but Catra knows they have already far surpassed the speed of a rifle bullet.

Pollux politely taps her on the shoulder, and she takes off the mask.

“We’re about to jaunt, this is the big moment.”

There’s a brief chime from the intercom system, alerting the passengers of the impending slight tremor associated with activating the portal engine.

A few of the onlookers grab hold of hand-guards and railings — it only takes experiencing the embarrassment of falling over once to caution you for life.

The ship shudders. Then the caution lights turn on.

“We’ve got drift! Gravitational parameters are deviating!”

“Feedback loop in the coupling winch!”

“We’re losing it! If it goes outside safety margins we have to turn it off!”

Catra decides to intervene. Her wrist becomes adorned with her portal device glove, Bad News, and she runs forth, past technicians and engineers working the consoles, directly to the box-shaped, featureless protective crate. She puts a hand against it, channels darkness, and decides that it ought to work now.

All the caution lights go off again, every dial in the yellow and red returns promptly to green.

There’s a moment of stunned silence.

“A readings nominal, winch is holding,” someone says.

An engineer comes up to Catra; a Magicat woman — middle-aged, cream-colored fur, grey coverall — who seems like the one in charge. “You’re Melog, right?”

“Call me Catra.”

She holds out a hand to Catra, and Catra shakes it.

“Thank you; I think you just saved our experiment. I’m Vanilla, by the way.”

“Think nothing of it,” Catra says. “I’m here to help.”

The jaunt to interstellar space is uneventful, and as they change course out beyond the reach of Sola, nothing goes wrong.

The trip itself is short; just fifteen hours. Catra spends most of it in her cabin, reading, and eventually sleeping.

She gets woken up by the shudder as the freighter drops into real space the second time, inside the bounds of the Regulus system. Something is different here. It is difficult to say what.

Getting dressed by way of her extra-dimensional Bag of Tricks, Catra puts on a virtual-space mask once more and connects to the ship’s information banks, producing a live visualization of their approach.

Below she sees Krytis as a dark egg, splotched in pale green and narrow striations of water, covered in white clouds.

A deep longing strikes her, not quite like a punch to the gut, but leaving her just as winded.

Because really, Adora should be here; really they should be on the swift wind; really this is something she wanted to see in the company of friends and the love of her life.

So she sits there on her — no, the bed, in this too-small cabin, looking at the planet — her planet. Coming up to meet them.

The ship rumbles a little as they enter the atmosphere and the reaction engines begin breaking their descent. These freighters are not designed for extended atmospheric flight, lacking the swept hull shapes of the Swift Wind.

The sky is clear blue, and the sun, Regulus, hangs lazily in the sky overhead; it’s a little before noon, and the air is crisp, clear, and warm as Catra descends the edge of the cargo ramp, careful to make space for everyone else busy unloading all the equipment.

Next on the agenda is surveying, fabrication, and construction. Several things need built as soon as possible: semi-permanent housing so the passengers can move out of the freighters, a proper spaceport, large-scale manufacturing which requires prospecting for natural resources, and of course transportation.

Catra stares out over the ocean. They’ve landed by the sea. The wind changes then, carrying in the smell of the sea.

She turns then, and walks back to camp at a brisk pace with her long strides, finding Icewine who has volunteered as personnel manager for the entire mission, on the ground between technicians running to and fro.

“Ah, Miss Catra. How do you find Kryits the second time around?”

Catra shrugs. “I’m going to take a look around, gather my thoughts, do some Melog-related things.”

Icewine smiles a toothy grin with her prominent canine teeth. “How mysterious of our very own planetary defender.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Icewine schools her expression. “Have a nice trip, Miss Catra. I mean that sincerely; we have everything well in hand.”

Catra nods and heads off, away from the giant crowd and bustle, people and machines and drones and buddy-bots. Down to the beach.

The old Melog falls into step beside her, knee-height and made fully of darkness, two glowing eyes — one blue, one yellow. “Hey old friend,” Catra says. “Been a while since I saw you.”

Melog makes a little noise, trotting along on quick paws to keep up. The waves crash against the black sand of the beach, rhythmic and calming.

“I guess I haven’t been doing much with it for the last long while, huh?”

Melog looks up at her, as if to ask what she means.

“For the Vengeance of Krytis, Darkness is Mine to Command,” Catra recites. “It’s done. Prime is gone. For good. We won.”

What she leaves unsaid is that this victory, like all victories, isn’t as fun as she thought it would be. For a moment it seemed like she and Adora could just live in bliss forever, but then… Then the humdrum of everyday living made itself known — and now they can’t go back to their country. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

Melog stops, and turns towards the sea. Catra does too.

Sitting down, the little creature lets out a triumphant roar.

Catra starts a little. Melog looks up at Catra, expectantly.

Then Catra laughs. “What, you want me to give a good victory roar too?”

Melog tilts its head.

Catra turns to the sea, and cups both hands around her mouth to yell: “Fuck you Prime! Suck it! We won!” She goes to take away her hands, but then thinks of more to say: “And fuck you First-Ones for building those weapons! And fuck you Chief Prosecutor and Justice Uaine!”

There’s no reply. Of course there isn’t; she’s yelling into the ocean wind.

“Thanks,” Catra says. “That actually helped.”

Melog headbutts her leg affectionately.

Arriving in Nebularia isn’t anything different from what Adora has gotten used to: public appearances, talking with important people, and working with speech writers.

The worst part, apart from all the other worst parts, is that she can’t spend as much time as she wants with Glory.

Glory, for their size, is an incredibly gentle creature, and seems to trust her unconditionally. Their plumage is both softer than eiderdown and stronger than aerospace alloys. Starla has taught Adora how to help Glory preen, and in return Glory has given Adora many an appreciative nuzzle.

The Nebularian Roost, the migrant fleet of refugees and rebel fighters, has become the de-facto planet-wide spaceflight institution. The Star Siblings originally fled from it precisely because the talk turned towards making a heroic last stand against Prime, whatever the cost.

Nebularia is an entire planet, and there isn’t time to even see a tiny sliver of it. From space, it is apparent that great battles took place here, with the tell-tale signs of orbital strikes scarring the planet in black.

Adora gets to see the inside of a substantial number of spacecraft — some of them even approaching the grandiosity of the Swift Wind. She gets to see the capital city of one of their nations, a city of brick, concrete, glass and steel — much as Capital back home, a reminder that comes with a pang of homesickness — interspersed with beautiful parks.

Yet nowhere is there the feel of magic. Even Capital had that ineffable quality that made the Sorcery Division fit right in as a fact of life. This place feels as if the First-Ones’ tech being rapidly integrated is more just another piece of tech.

There’s battle scars too. Worse than Etheria ever suffered.

They are struggling with much the same problems as back home: a moneyed ruling elite whose power is predicated on having legal ownership and control over the logistic supply chains of society, being vehemently opposed to any citizen with a fabricator being able to duplicate medicines, clothes, food, consumer goods, and construction materials.

So Adora prepares a speech, throws her weight as She-Ra around, and in front of nearly a thousand people from a different planet, each of them owners of more wealth than Adora has ever seen, asks them just what they think is going to happen if they keep trying to hold on to their power. Just like Glimmer did to her nobles.

Workers and citizens will always outnumber the factory owners and politicians, after all, and soldiers and police officers are seldom the latter.

It is very busy, and very lonely. Starla goes off to the Owlriding academy, Jewelstar has his duties as Captain.

Adora’s hotel room at least has a bed that’s long enough for her true size.

There’s only the long-distance calls to Catra; and unfortunately their schedules have de-synchronized, and are full to boot.

Strangely, barren Krytis becomes like a second home within days. It feels like Catra has lived here longer than on Etheria, and that is in some sense true.

She heads off from camp, and re-creates her and Adora’s little forest cottage, up in the mountains, and when she’s done, fabricating rich soil to fill planter boxes and finally start that garden.

It lacks Adora’s touch.

Helping out the terraformers is another rewarding task: she helps the surveying team map out the planet by space, air, sea, and land, drawing on the memories of the Melogs of ages past. She helps the portal physicists come to an agreement with the city planners about where the portal should be set up.

There’s still tests to run and reliability measures to construct in triplicate, and this is just going to be a working prototype, but!

Soon, the first permanent portal between Etheria and Krytis will be open to the public. The fact that it will open to the Hordelands is an unfortunate detail — there’s too many good arguments in favor for Catra to feel justified in trying to get it opened to literally anywhere else.

For all the work there is to do, Catra lives alone. Occasionally she entertains guests, but most of her free time she’s just here alone. She has long-since read Adora’s memoirs, a source of warmth all on its own. She meditates, and occasionally goes exploring.

The shaft down to the Heart, situated on the other side of the planet, has collapsed about a thousand miles down. The Heart chamber at the center of the planet is no more, in the absence of the magic of the Heart, it has collapsed inwards from all sides by the weight of the planet above.

By her own reckoning, she is growing stronger. The darkness is no longer terrifying to call upon; for the first time it feels merely cautioning — like a sharp knife, demanding respect, but safe when properly handled.

It is during one such meditation session, seeking refuge from the hot sun in the indoor shade, that her communicator chimes. Catra brings it to her from across the room with her invisible telekinetic backhand.

The display shows Adora’s smiling face. She picks up immediately and sees Adora in the dark of her hotel room, lying in bed, illuminated by the screen alone. Her makeup — why would she ever wear makeup? — is smudged from crying, and she looks abjectly miserable.

They haven’t spoken more than two minutes in as many days.

“Hey Catra,” Adora says.

“Hey Adora,” Catra replies. “Are you okay?” No, she’s not, obviously.

“Cat, I— I can’t do this anymore.”

“What’s wrong?”

Adora sniffles. “I don’t know. Everything. Nothing.”

“Did anybody say something to you?” Catra asks.

Adora shakes her head. “No. Everyone is really nice, they just— I can’t explain it. It’s too much. I don’t know anyone, and it feels like everyone wants something from me.”

Tears well up in her eyes.

“I wanna go home, Cat. I miss you.”

Catra stands up. She closes her eyes. Now is the time, if she really is getting more powerful, for it to stand the test.

“Adora, can you make some Starlight for me?” Catra asks.

“Sure, but why?”

“I need you to cast a shadow for me.”

Adora wipes her eyes. She doesn’t know why, but she’s not about to gainsay her Catra. It’s not the most stable starlight, but she does make a little mote of it between herself and the screen.

Then the call cuts out to a black screen.

“Catra?” Adora asks.

And then she feels a weight in the bed beside her, and an arm come around her.

“Right here,” Catra says, and hugs her tightly.

Nothing will ever separate her from Adora, not even the chasmic void of space.

That night they make love. Adora, unable to contain herself, glows with starlight.

Chapter Text

Their year in exile passes quickly.

With Catra having discovered the power to shadow-step literal thousands of light-years, it’s a lot more bearable for Catra and Adora to be apart on missions and diplomatic trips.

Nebularia is quick to tow a portal to Etheria as well, placing it in the City of Red Iron in Candila.

Later that summer (on northern-hemisphere Etheria) when Hordak is exiled as well, the Swift Wind is free to take off, and become the vessel it was always fated to be: She-Ra’s.

Perfuma and Scorpia hold their wedding in Plumeria, and it is almost as grand an occasion as Glimmer and Bow’s. A vast number of Hordelanders flock to the city for the day, both those with legitimate interest, and also just tourists. It is a beautiful ceremony, with the union ordained by Queen Glimmer herself. The party afterwards lasts almost until dawn, through the streets of fair Plumeria, fueled by fruit wine and the sweet smell of the smoke of intoxicating herbs.

(In the following year, seven to eleven months hence depending on the species, several dozen children are born, who were all conceived on that bacchanal night. Including a beautiful and perfect little Scorpioni girl that Perfuma gives the name Flora.)

Suddenly it is the two-year anniversary of the destruction of Thaymor. They invite Adora and Catra. It’s a little awkward, but overall a good day’s fun; Nightshade has been reinstated as the Corps Captain of the rangers.

At the eve of the Solstice, Glimmer signs into law the first provisional constitution of the Republic of Brightmoon; a densely-worded legal document outlining the goals of the body of law that will shape Brightmoon society, rather than the exact specifications of how. A parliamentary body is outlined, and an election is held in the midst of winter. The United Commoners win nearly half the seats, promising a policy of universal prosperity, alleviation of poverty and disease, and a national space program.

But what’s most important, probably, is that the Swift Wind gets its pilot and chief steward back, and that reunion is much sweeter than any political revolution.

Not long after, Queen Cometa starts implementing similar initiatives, and before the summer solstice, Candila too becomes a republic.

Apieria, strangely, just sort of dissolves; after pushing for fabricator-based self-sufficiency, Princess Sweet Bee’s government just sort of obsoletes itself and she quietly abdicates to focus on her ongoing neurological recovery. One of her last executive acts is to ratify the law permitting triadic marriages, and on the same day promptly marrying herself and Prince Peekablue to Double Trouble.

Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio elopes to Honeydew that weekend and return to the Hordelands, lawfully wedded by Fright Zone law — which transitively recognizes the validity of marriages lawfully ordained in the jurisdictions of foreign nations.

Come spring, Huntara’s plan begins taking form, as massive re-planting and de-desertification efforts begin, originating from the green valleys south of Apieria, west across the continent going north of Candila, and south towards Dryl. By the power of the Stone Heart, Huntara digs over a thousand water wells and oases, manipulating the bedrock and aquifers deep below.

She names Yelsie the de-facto capital of New Uruk, and over the next few years manages to turn what was once a smugglers haven into a fairly respectable coastal town. After all, she was right about why people came to Yelsie: even though fabricators can make guns, what most people need is food, water, shelter, and clothes, which can just as readily be fabricated as any weapon.

“So, this is really it, huh?” Adora asks. “I can’t believe you’re resigning.”

They have all come together in the control center. Wrodak is standing tall and proud, dressed in magenta — anti-green — his ears betray the bittersweetness of it.

“I’m sorry, Captain, but my duties to my people call me. It has been an honor to serve as your chief security officer, give or take my absences. I hope you will be all right without a ready replacement.”

Adora smiles. They don’t have anyone lined up to fill the position of chief security officer. Wrodak salutes her and holds out a hand. Adora takes it, and pulls him into a tight hug. As she pulls away, she gives him a thumbs-up.

To everyone aboard he has been… Well: a clever co-pilot to Bow, a diligent mess officer to Glimmer, a technical assistant to Entrapta, a fellow victim of Prime to commiserate with for Catra, a model patient in deconversion-therapy to Damara, and of course the only one trustworthy enough to safeguard the craft and crew to Adora.

It’s a bit of a tearful goodbye. Wrodak is easy to love, so is the consensus. Even Tallstar, the newest addition to the Starlight Brigade, finds him endearing — a natural friendship, a product of time spent together rather than common hardship endured.

“Brother,” Hordak says. “Might I walk you to the airlock?”

The date of the expiry of their exile almost sneaks up on them. Adora and Catra return to their house in the woods in spring — and what woods: green beyond measure, full of sound and life. Gentle sunlight through the foliage.

Adora, of course, went to Krytis with Catra on occasion, and there, they have built their second home just the way they wished this one was.

“Someone has been here,” Catra says.

“Yeah, Lonnie says she, Kyle, and Rogelio honeymooned here.”

“I mean apart from that.”

The writing on the door, inviting anyone in need to shelter there, is still intact. Adora pushes it open and steps in, to find the space inside pristine. The bed is stripped of linens, the chairs are on the table, and the surfaces are dusty, but free of stains.

On the table lies a book, titled on the cover ‘Visitor’s Log — Please Sign’.

Catra picks it up and pages through it. Most of the pages are blank, but there’s a few entries: the visitors have done more than just sign their name and the date.

There’s also precisely fifty-two signatures of Kyle’s neat penmanship and the words ‘everything in order.’ All of them on Sundays, save for three when the house was occupied.

There was a pair of forest surveyors caught overnight in a storm, a vacationing couple, A scout mistress and six trainee forest rangers — children, judging from their handwriting, a runaway teen…

Catra closes the book and gives Adora a peck on the cheek. “That was one of your better ideas, writing that invitation on the door,” she says.

“I may be an idiot, but I have my moments,” Adora says.

“You may be an idiot but you’re my idiot.”

“C’mere you.” Adora pulls her into a hug, and a kiss.

“So, what’s next? Wedding?” Catra asks.

“Stars, yes,” Adora says.

And so, the two of them, master planners, start doing just that. They decide on a venue — up by the ‘fishing lake’ as they’ve come to call it, on a pavilion which Catra is going to build.

“You really like building things,” Adora says.

“Yeah, what of it?”

She shrugs. “You didn’t always.”

Catra looks up from the pavilion design taking shape on her tablet. “I— I guess I’m trying to make up for what I’ve destroyed.”

Adora bites her lip, almost tearing up. “Aw, you are?”

Catra nods.

“I love you, Cat.”

“I hope so, or I’m going to feel pretty silly designing this wedding pavilion.”

The question of who to invite is a bit more daunting. She-Ra and Melog are, after all, very publicly known, and both of them are diplomatically important. But even so it is pretty easy to decided that no, this will be a private party.

So Adora starts the process of signing dozens and yet more dozens of invitations.

They invite the Starlight Brigade, of course — with a note to land the craft itself in the lake. By a legal loophole, the Swift Wind has been declared neutral territory, so as long as Hordak remains on board, he will not be trespassing the terms of his exile. They invite Mermista and Sea Hawk and little ’Dora, Netossa and Spinnerella and Angelica, Perfuma and Scorpia and Flora.

“When do you think Glimmer and Bow are going to announce that they are expecting?” Adora asks.

“What makes you ask that?” Catra counters.

“It seems everyone is doing it.”

Catra looks at Adora. “Are we part of ‘everyone’ in this?”

Adora looks up, blushing. “Well, yeah, but—-”

“But what?”

She takes a deep breath. “Catra, I’ve been thinking, the whole adoption thing. It’s not fair.”

Catra is thrown for a loop. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”

“I mean, we’re both orphans. Should we waltz into an orphanage and what, select one kid there?”

“I hear there’s been some pretty massive reforms since we were in one,” Catra notes. “And I heard there’s this new thing where people just open up their homes to foster kids.”

Adora nods. “I think… Even though I want to be a mom… That we owe it to the world to do as much good as we can. I think we should…”

“Turn this place into an orphanage?” Catra says.

“Basically, yeah.”

Catra nods, and smiles warmly. That’s Adora, in a nutshell. “Sure.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not. It’ll be fun.”

They invite Clawdia and Leijon with respective plus-ones, Cometa and Starla — the new couple everyone is talking about, Frosta alone since she has in private confided to most that she finds romance terminally unappealing, and even Jewelstar and Pollux.

They invite Lonnie-Kyle-Rogelio as a matter of course, and Peekablue-Double Trouble-Sweet Bee with a bit more reluctance. As a courtesy they extend an invitation to Peftasteri and Asterion, knowing full well that the two of them will politely decline, preferring to live out their retirement in the Candilan countryside.

They invite Huntara and Melissa, bringing them up to a twelve out of twelve of Runestone wielders.

“Who do we get to ordain the ceremony?” Adora asks.

Catra shrugs. “Angella seemed pretty good?”

“She doesn’t hold jurisdiction here.”

Catra snaps her fingers, pointing. “Scorpia! She told me about what privileges her technical status as royalty guaranteed her, and I’m almost certain she can legally ordain marriages.”

“I’ll take it,” Adora says.

They invite Razz, of course, and Angella and Micah, Castaspella and Juliet, and George and Lance. And having run out of close personal connections, they start inviting acquaintances, too.

Soon the guest list is in the hundreds.

By the end of day, Adora’s hand is cramping, and Catra has finished with the pavilion design, and gone on to gardening. It’s a bit late — almost early summer — but as the saying goes: the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, the second best is right now.

The shores of the lake, and the little island are bathed in the red light of the twilight sun; the shadows of all their friends stretch up on the shore towards the treeline. Out in the lake, partly submerged sits the Swift Wind.

It’s a private occasion. No security, no public.

Adora wears the black gloves her white evening gown, gold-trimmed, and a purple cloak. Catra wears the red jacket over white blouse, with the grey skirt that billows nicely in the breeze.

“This fine summer eve,” Scorpia intones solemnly. She stands between them, dressed in Plumerian finery and her old officer’s gala coat. “You two join hands and hearts in marriage, and all of us gather here to witness.” She chuckles. “I can’t imagine anyone has any objections to that.”

Scorpia clears her throat. “Catra, Melog, daughter of Clawdia, do you receive this woman before you as your wife; to stand by her with dignity in war and peace, whichever may befall you both?”

“I do,” Catra says.

Scorpia looks to Adora. “Adora, She-Ra, daughter of Damara, do you receive this woman before you as your wife; to stand by her with dignity in war and peace, whichever may befall you both?”

“I do,” Adora says.

“Then say your vows and be wed.”

“Adora,” Catra says. “I love you. I am the luckiest cat in the world. I was lost, and then you found me. I hurt you and many others, but you forgave me. I was judged for my crimes and you stood by me. I was exiled and you came with me. I struggle every day with accepting the good things in life, and you tell me I deserve each and every one.”

Adora has to wipe away a tear. “Oh, Cat.”

“Don’t cry now,” Catra says, tearing up herself. “Say your vows.”

“Catra,” Adora says. “I love you. To me, you’ve always been a source of hope. I don’t think I will ever stop feeling sorry about all the times I couldn’t look out for you. But I promise you now: I will always look out for you. I’ll always, always, be here for you. And I know you will always be here for me, looking out for me, and I am just so, so happy that we finally have each other.”

And then Catra steps close, to wipe her eyes with a conjured handkerchief, because Adora is on the verge of bawling.

It takes a few moments for Adora to calm down enough for them to seal the promise with kiss.

The party is out long before midnight; this is no occasion for wild revelry; not the least of which due to all the infants and young children.

Adora throws herself on the bed, fully dressed. She holds out a hand, and a knife-sized blade manifests from light itself. There in the handle it is: A + C ∞.

Catra lies down beside her, propped up on on elbow.

“Your vows were better than mine.”

“I don’t think that’s the point, lucky Cat.”

“I guess not.”

Catra brushes a stray lock of hair behind Adora’s ear. “It’s really gotten long.”

“I think I’ll let it grow out, see how long it can get.”

“What, is it my turn to be the short-haired one?” Catra runs her fingers through her voluminous ponytail.

Adora turns her gaze on the ceiling, sighing wistfully.

“What?”

“Just… Did you see it, at the reception?”

“See what?”

“The little ones; all the kids. Flora and Angelica and Adora.”

“Come to think of it, Sparkles was wearing an empire waist dress; and I spied at least once where Flyboy casually put his hand on her belly.”

Adora turns her head. “No.”

Catra nods, smirking. “And… Lonnie wasn’t touching alcohol all night.”

“Lonnie too?!” Adora sits up.

“And more explicitly, DeeTee tells me they, Peeks and Sweets are trying to decide on how to go about having kids.”

Adora’s enthusiasm is curtailed slightly be confusion. “How to go about… I don’t follow.”

“Whether they should adopt, when and whether Sweet Bee recovers enough to carry, and whether Peekablue could deal with carrying a pregnancy to term,” Catra says.

“But Peekablue is—”

“A man, yes. DeeTee assures me it is an open secret that he was presumed female at birth. So he could, but the question is whether he wants to.”

“Who would be the father?” Adora has become rather familiar with the Book of Bloodlines, ever since that night they agreed to one day have a family together, and Sea Elves and Humans are not among those who can even conceive hybrids.

“DeeTee, duh. They’re a shapeshifter, probably the best one there is.”

Adora counts on her fingers. “Is there anyone we know who isn’t settling down with kids?”

“Huntara and Melissa can’t conceive — both because Huntara is too old, and because trolls and orcs can’t, same as us…”

Adora shoots her a glare. “They just adopted like, five kids, Catra!”

“Yeah, bunch of rambunctious desert rascals the lot of them,” Catra says, rolling over on her back. “Did you see the eldest? He used to be Tung Lashor’s squire, if I recall. Good kid.”

Adora looks down at Catra, splayed on the bed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, with the whole kids thing; us, not having any.”

Catra looks away, and nods. “It’s— I mean, we’re Melog and She-Ra. Part of the job description is being too busy to raise kids.”

“Bullshit,” Adora says, and Catra is raptly attentive. “Last year we took over half a year out of our lives, to go to court. And the universe didn’t end. If we want to raise a kid, I am sure we can fit our schedules to it.”

Catra looks at Adora.

“I’m an idiot,” Catra says.

“I thought I was supposed to be the idiot?” Adora says, sardonically.

“Double Trouble is a demon, Adora. Not a sea elf, not a human.”

“Shapeshifter,” Adora finishes the thought.

Catra sits.

“You’re a shapeshifter!” Adora exclaims. Heat rashes aggressively to her cheeks — and not just a flush of blood, there’s starlight in her blushing. “Does that mean—”

“Not yet,” Catra admits. “I’ve… Fallen behind on my studies.”

She has learnt more tricks to use in the bedroom and let Darkness fill in the gaps than learn the proper microbiological basis for more advanced techniques.

Catra claps her hands. “I’ll call DeeTee in the morning, brush up; it’ll be easier to study now that I have a goal!”

Adora scoots over to Catra, and swings a leg over her, straddling her wife. “Too bad we only get one wedding night.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” Catra says, basking in the gentle glow Adora emanates; much as every other time they’ve made love.

The following morning, the potted flowers outside the window by the bed are unusually green and healthy, having been bathed in invigorating starlight for most of the night.

“It is quite a remarkable discovery,” Concrete says, leading Adora and Catra out of the Krytisian noonday sun, into a cave in an anonymous valley on the southern hemisphere. He’s in a full hazard suit; as is the rest of the team of prospectors. In the cave, electric lamps are hung along the ceiling; some of the passages have been worked with excavation tools, and it smells like mineral dust.

The continents and landmarks have all been named — some according to the First-Ones’ historical records, others according to other histories. Krytisians have begun returning here from places nobody has ever heard of or imagined; the first permanent inhabitants have taken to the rural life of a terraforming settler, making the land more fertile than where they found it. The first handful of kids have been conceived and born here, too.

They arrive deep underground in a vertical cavernous space, which drops off like a chasm below. It is illuminated with a gentle glow, emanating from an enormous mass of coalesced magic. A writhing mass of roots, changing texture each time one blinks while observing it.

“Is that—” Catra says.

“A Runestone, yes,” Adora says.

It’s one of the least interesting of the many discoveries of Krytis, that ever since the permanent portals to Etheria were established, Runestone wielders like Glimmer have been able to use their powers fully on the planet. The prevailing theory is that the power of the Runestones seeps through the portals — it’s pretty unscientific as far as such things go, but then Mystacor is as ignorant as the rest of the scientific community as to the true nature of magic.

“It looks like a living one, like the Heartblossom in Plumeria,” Catra notes.

Adora nods.

“Then why is it underground?”

“All Runestones form underground, that’s what makes them stones,” Adora explains. “The ones on the surface back home were moved there by the First-Ones. The Moonstone used to reside in the sacred caverns under Brightmoon, for instance.”

“That explains the Stone Heart,” Catra notes. “Should we move it?”

“Not before it gets a wielder,” Adora says.

Catra turns to Concrete. “Thank you for showing us; be sure to bring news back to Newmoon, everyone needs to hear this.”

Concrete nods. “Right away, Melog.” Then he darts off, already speaking into the communicator in his helmet.

Adora makes some light.

“Nebularia never had any Runestones either, do you think they might be getting some through the portal?” Catra asks.

“Maybe. I’m more concerned about Starla.”

“Why?”

“Gut feeling. I think she might be… Chosen.”

“By what?”

“Time will tell. Starlight, probably. You’ve seen her fight.”

Catra nods. A buried First-Ones’ automaton awoke on Nebularia, and Starla was one of the first responders. Though a combination of her natural talents, Glory, her sword Second, and the shield Sirius, she distracted the beast long enough for the militia to arrive with heavy ordnance. The whole thing was recorded from multiple drones.

“You think she’ll end up like us.”

Adora nods.

Hordak is doing some paperwork in the infirmary office: ordering medical inventory from the fabricator, plotting the progress of Stewardess Glimmer’s pregnancy, and reading up on his backlog of medical publications — filtered through artificially intelligent means and Damara’s keen eye, but still not something he has time to do more than skim.

He hears the door open, and light footsteps through the infirmary proper.

“Catra, is that you?”

“Hey Hordak,” Catra calls. “Can you help me for a second?”

Hordak is quickly out of his seat, and finds her at the console for the medical scanner, navigating through the menu by touch; seeming distracted. She has used it many times before, during her training with Double Trouble.

“Allow me,” Hordak says, gently taking the tablet from her. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I need a scan to confirm something,” Catra says, sitting down on a bed. She lies back and pulls her blouse up.

Hordak brings the heavy machine down on its robotic arm.

“Put it in real-time density-scan mode, please,” Catra says, taking hold of the handles.

A three-dimensional visualization of innards: intra-abdominal space, the odd bubble of gas in the intestine, pulsating arteries, and a dense kidney. All of it in real time.

Catra navigates the device down towards her public bone, and the uterus comes into view. She manipulates the dials and zoom and there, in the fluid-filled center is a little nodule about a half of an inch long, with a clear head-end and tail end.

A fetus.

“I do believe congratulations is in order,” Hordak says. “It would seem you’re pregnant.”

Catra turns off the scanner, and shoves it aside; Hordak has to catch it, as the servos in the arm are not up to the task of stopping it entirely quickly enough.

“Why is this upsetting news?” he asks. “I was under the impression that you and Adora wanted kids.”

Catra sits there on the bed with a hand on her belly. “I— I don’t understand how; I— She’s Human! We’re both women! We didn’t even—”

Hordak comes up beside her. “Were you any other couple I would ask if perhaps you had enjoyed intercourse with a Krytisian man—”

Catra shoots him a glare. “I have not—”

“Were you any other couple, as I said. I am not accusing you of infidelity, Lieutenant.”

He takes a seat beside her on the bed. It creaks under their combined weight.

“Did you know that before I spearheaded sexual education and contraceptives, there used to be mythological figures whose entire purpose was to explain away the unwanted pregnancies of the illicit dalliances of young women?”

Catra doesn’t stop glaring.

“Not to mention there always is someone claiming immaculate conception for one reason or another; the answer has almost always been — well, you know how babies are made the natural way.”

“Get to your point old man.”

Hordak smiles.

“She’s She-Ra,” he says. “From what Damara informs me, you used to be a triple-amputee and, oh, also dead. She-Ra fixed that up quite nicely. Is it so strange she was able to ‘fix’ the problem of your biological inability to conceive?”

Catra looks at her abdomen.

“Your wedding night was, what, seven weeks ago? I haven’t studied Krytisian obstetrics in some time, but I guess that is about the age of that fetus.”

Catra looks away. “We did discuss me using my shapeshifting to conceive, but then she would have been the mother.”

“I’m certain Glimmer can find the soothsayer spells to conclusive ascertain whether Adora is the sire of your child,” Hordak says.

Catra shakes her head. “No need. I can feel it. It’s hers. Ours.”

Hordak stands. He heads to his office, and returns with a flyer, handing it to Catra with a smile. “I recommend you inform the Captain, she’ll likely want to hear. Avoid alcohol and other recreational narcotics, and be sure to acquire some natal dietary supplements. If all goes well, I would like to see you next week for a routine checkup.”

Catra takes the flyer, titled Pregnancy — a guide for the expecting Krytisian

Adora sits — well, reclines — in the Captain’s chair, looking at the flurry of color outside the ship through the wallscreens of the control center, lost in thought as the Swift Wind makes it way across space in jaunt. The new non-Thulite portal engine is much faster, rendering the trip across the galaxy a mere few days, rather than nearly two weeks of transit.

She barely notices that the door opens.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra says meekly.

That gets her attention.

Catra comes in, with something obviously troubling her; shoulders hunched, looking aside, and holding a piece of paper in front of her almost like a shield.

“Catra, what’s wrong?” Adora is out of her chair in an instant, cloak billowing behind her.

Catra looks up — just an inch — at Adora.

“I’m pregnant.”

Adora stands there, processing the words for a good long beat. “What?!”

“You heard me. It’s yours.”

Adora runs a hand through her hair. “How?!”

“I think it’s Starlight. You haven’t exactly been holding back when we’ve been making love.”

Adora looks at Catra. It’s true. Ever since Catra crossed thousands of light years in an instant just to be with her, she realized she had been holding back every time. Starlight comes from love; it is only natural.

“I— I haven’t either; so it might be my fault too.”

Even the most unwelcoming hotel bedroom or camp tent has felt positively homely when Catra and her decided to use time to themselves for such activities. Subtle, but effective. Not to mention the more overt shapeshifting and what not. Catra has let her Darkness free in their intimate moments.

“Wow,” Adora breathes. She chuckles, and pulls Catra into a hug. “We’re going to have a kid!” She holds Catra out, with contagious enthusiasm. “You’re going to be a mom!”

“So are you, dork! I’m just the one carrying to term.” Catra swats her on the head with the flyer.

“Stars above! We need to tell everyone! I don’t even —”

Catra silences Adora with a finger on her lips, then a kiss.

By the time they arrive at their destination, the elation and festivities have died down.

The Apollona system lies before them…

Or rather, it should.

Instead, there’s empty space.

“We’re in a standard stellar orbit,” Bow notes from the helm. “There’s no star here.”

“I’m detecting a gravitational anomaly,” Damara says.

“It could be a dark body, like a gravitational singularity,” Tallstar suggests.

The whole trip was one undertaken out of curiosity: if indeed the galactic Horde crushed the First-Ones’ empire eight hundred years ago, what then became of Eternia? Damara, despite having been educated there at the heart of the Grayskull empire, is Etherian-born.

“All right, I want to know what we’re looking at,” Adora says. “Suggestions welcome, actionable ones even better.”

“I think I know what it is,” Catra says.

“I think I might as well,” Damara agrees. “Somebody had the same idea I had.”

“Sequestering a star system away in a subspace pocket?” Glimmer asks.

“Damara, can you scan for any other orbiting bodies?” Entrapta asks.

“Already did. There’s a pair of rogue gas giants.”

Adora nods. “Entrapta, Damara, Catra, you three are domain experts on portal bullshit, I want us a way in; take your time and get it right. I don’t want a repeat of you-know-what; nor a premature Skybreak for anyone who might still be alive in there.”

Apollona is indeed sequestered and despondent, much like Etheria, but rather than being separated from the wider universe with something as volatile and hazardous as unreality, it is hidden away within a labyrinthine spacetime topology, that it takes almost a week for the Starlight Brigade to map out.

What they find is a healthy star, and a dying planet orbiting it.

A telescopic scan of the system reveals no space-travel, and when Bow brings them in for a polar orbit, the readings from the surface paints a grim picture.

It is tidally locked to Apollona, one side bathed in eternal day, one side in eternal night. The dark side of the planet is inhospitable tundra near the twilight zone and a glacial wasteland nearing the nadir.

On the day side, a constant hurricane encircles the zenith, and the only habitable land is a narrow strip encircling the planet, bathed in eternal twilight.

There are no scars of orbital bombardment, thankfully. But the biosphere is dangerously confined to only a few habitable regions, even within the narrow band between the eternal storm and the frozen night. The rest is inhospitable wastelands — bare bedrock, deserts, radioactivity, and zones of unrestrained magic.

“I think I see a city,” Glimmer notes.

“Indeed you do,” Damara notes, having spotted the telltale signs of civilization through her satellite swarm.

“Give me a detailed reading; and real-time imagery if you can,” Adora says.

Damara brings it up on the wallscreens.

“There’s a lot of magic down there,” Glimmer says, almost awed.

Adora nods. “All right, new plan; this mission just turned humanitarian. We need to figure out how to enact Skybreak, call in a Nebularian rescue orbitelle and offer whatever help we can to the people down there; they have survived eight hundred years on this horror-world, I cannot imagine they are thriving.”

“Is that an army on the march?” Catra points out.

Damara gets a satellite image.

Crossing a stretch of frozen tundra, headed towards the day-side, is a massive formation of people. Or maybe something more sinister.

Catra calls up a hologram visualization of the global map, and quickly extrapolates the army’s destination: the city in the green stretch of land — a country no larger than the main isle of Salineas.

“Bow, take us down, invisibly. I want a closer look at that army.”

Flying silently and invisibly is slow, but Adora has ordered caution.

“Demons, if I were to guess,” Glimmer says, studying the reconnaissance pictures from the fly-by. “Though I can’t say which clade or order; these haven’t ever been seen nor conjured on Etheria, at least according to Mystacorian sources.”

“There’s some orcs and trolls in there too,” Catra says.

“This is horrible,” Damara says. “Whoever is doing this is preying on the cultural narrative of ‘evil races’ — I am going to have words with whoever thought this up.”

Outside, the wallscreens viewing from the bottom of the ship, the land turns green beneath them. The Swift Wind have gotten several upgrades, and can now fly at sonic speeds without drawing attention to itself; Entrapta is working on a system to allow silent super-sonic flight.

Below, castle-outposts and walled valleys form several lines of defense against what cannot possibly be the first such demonic invasions. In-between is forests and intensively-utilized farmland.

Soon enough they reach the great walled capital city.

“That’s Castle Grayskull up there,” Damara points out, at a nearby mountain-top, a horrific, sculptural defensive position that in ages past served as the wartime seat of government during the reign of its namesake sorcerer king. “That means this is Eternos; or what remains of it. That plain of broken stone out there is what used to be the spaceport.”

“What do you think happened?” Adora asks.

Damara shakes her head.

After further reconnaissance, it turns out that the city is defended by mechanical ballistic weapons — trebuchets, gigantic ballistas — and a standing garrison armed with non-firearm weapons.

Adora orders Bow to slow down, turn the ship visible, and circle the city, confident in Entrapta’s work on the Swift Wind’s shields, and their ability to make a hypersonic getaway if things turn sour.

The city’s eleven drawbridges are all immediately raised to the sound of tolling bells. Any belligerent with designers on the city will have to cross the wide moats that seem to be filled with more than water. Those caught outside — travelling merchants and cattle-drivers — all turn around and make haste away from the city.

“All right, bring us down in the plain outside the main gate. Tallstar, bring out a squad of buddy-bots to cover me,” Adora says, getting up and heading for the door.

“I’m coming with you,” Catra says, following.

Adora stops. “But Cat you’re—”

“Pregnant. Not invalid. Ad, I appreciate you’re concerned. You’re supposed to look out for me, but I have to look out for you too, right? I can’t raise this kid on my own.”

Adora hesitates, then nods.

“I’ll come too, in person,” Tallstar says. “Give me a second to fetch my arms.”

The three of them disembark.

Adora is in her white unitard and black gloves, purple cloak, a blade of Parabell by her hip, Stella Nova on her back, and Halcyon in the form of a buddy-bot armed to the teeth with all the latest.

Catra is in her red jacket and maroon outfit-of-many-parts, Bane on her back in a scabbard and a pair of heavy handguns at her hips for show. She is flanked by two of her phantasmal Blackguards

Tallstar has equipped her enormous fists of battle, a set of heavy combat-oriented cybernetic arms, each hand as large as her torso, each finger the size of a small cannon and capable of functioning as one, to boot. Through her various implants she is commanding ten regular buddy-bots.

They walk the few hundred feet across the barren no-mans-land before the walls, to the proper road.

“And now we wait,” Adora says.

They don’t wait long before the drawbridge lowers and a full battalion of mounted soldiers emerge, holding standards with the city crest.

At the head of the formation is a young man, who can’t be more than sixteen years old, armored with gold filigree and wearing a crown rather than a helmet, flanked by a woman and a man of some distinguished rank, judging from their ornate armor.

The column of cavalry stop within a generous distance so as to not be overly aggressive, and the three leaders dismount.

The young man — a Prince perhaps — draws a strange sword by his hip, holding it aloft, and his tenor voice carries across the distance:

“By the Power of Greyskull, Darkness is Mine to Vanquish!”

There’s a harsh flash of light, and in the young man’s place stands a giant, eight feet tall, and dressed in a suit of dark-grey light plate armor, sans helmet. The sword has grown to match, and he sheathes it; a square shield sits on his back, and an enormous composite-bow and matching quiver of arrows that might as well be small spears. He has nearly the exact same face, so transformed; except perhaps aged up a few years.

“Holy shit,” Catra mutters.

“You can say that again,” Adora says.

“Hail and well met, strangers!” the giant says, as he approaches accompanied by the two officers.

Adora begins walking, and the others follow.

They meet up within polite talking distance.

“Hail and well met, indeed,” Adora says.

“I am Prince Adam of Eternos, wielder of the might of He-Man; son of King Randor, Protector of the realm. This is Teela-bin-Teela Na, Captain of the Royal Guard, and Duncan of Idaho, General of the City Garrison. Who might you be, travelers?”

Adora takes a step forward, she knows this song and dance from the pulp novels. “I am Adora, Captain of the Swift Wind —” she gestures to the craft "— and leader of the Starlight Brigade; wielder of the might of She-Ra, defender of Etheria; daughter of Damara, a champion of the old Eternian empire in ages past.

"This here is my wife and Lieutenant, Catra, wielder of the might of Melog, avenger of Krytis; daughter of Clawdia, commonborn.

“And this is my Security Officer, Tallstar of the Star Siblings, and our liaison from the Nebularian Roost.”

Prince Adam seems suitably impressed.

“As we flew in, we spotted an advancing army of demons,” Adora says. “They will be upon your borders within maybe a day.”

Prince Adam turns to Teela and gives a quiet order, she heads back to the column of men, and shortly a rider is dispatched back to the city.

“Thank you for the warning,” Adam says. “Pray tell, fair Captain, are you related to the line of Greyskull?”

“What?”

“I am myself blessed with the likeness of the Sorcerer King, but I see in you the same traits: the jaw line, the hair and eye color. You have quite a soldier’s complexion compared to mine, but I guess once you had the same fair skin, as well. I can’t help to note that you and I look… Related.”

“You do look pretty similar,” Tallstar notes. “I’d say brother and sister.”

“Impossible,” Adora says. “I’m Damara’s only child.”

“Not entirely,” Damara yells.

They all turn to the ship, where Damara descends the cargo bay ramp at a brisk jog. She comes up to them. “Hello, Pince Adam, I’m Damara, Adora’s mother.”

“Why—” Prince Adam says. “If I knew not better, I’d say you were as my father’s sister.”

“Fucking breeding program,” Damara says. “It’s that fucking breeding program.”

“The one intended to re-create the genetics of Grayskull himself?” Adora asks.

Damara nods. “Prince, there is apparently a lot I need to discuss with your scholars. And your parents, if I may be so bold.”

Prince Adam nods. “I shall have to lead an army through the waygate to the border marches in defense.”

“We’ll join you,” Catra says. “Lend our strength.”

“We will?” Adora asks.

“And on the way, perhaps the Prince will tell us more about who is trying to invade, and what He-Man is and can do.”

“Ah, but our enemy is the fell wizard and Lich, Keldor, please, I will explain as we ride.”

Catra summons a steed from pure darkness. Adora rides Halcyon in the form of a mechanical horse.

Prince Adam, in the form of He-Man, uses a spot of magic to transform his pet — a small green feline, into a monstrously large creature clad in armor.

“Adora?” Entrapta says in Adora’s earpiece.

“What is it?” Adora says quietly, falling back.

“There’s a Heart here.”

“Shit.”

“And that sword the Prince carries is the key.”

“Same story as me and the Aegis?”

“Yeah. Glimmer and I have determined that this Keldor is likely a wielder of an Obtainer or a similar type of demonic parasite. He may be tapping into the power of the Heart to conjure his demons.”

“All right.” Adora puts a hand to her sternum. The new and improved anti-Heart Failsafe resides there, exactly for situations like this; more effective than ever, completely safe to the wielder, and infinitely re-usable.

The city of Eternos is an even worse of a place than Brightmoon was. Slums near the walls where people of all races live in squalor, and progressively better living conditions nearing the center. Adora knows more than she cares to about how such a society functions. There’s shit in the gutters, and the city smells accordingly.

The waygate is pretty much exactly like the ones on Etheria, except much larger, and situated sensibly within the military keep. It looks new: clearly an actively-deployed military technology rather than a relic of the past.

The deployment of soldiers through the waygate is almost exactly as Adora imagined when she first saw one, three columns marching through at once, through each of the three arches, through the wormhole in the center.

They emerge in a military camp below the shadow of a fortress in a valley. Frost covers the shade-side, and greenery the light-side.

“I must ask, Mistress Catra,” Adam says, “it seems you use powers that are…”

“Of Darkness?” Catra suggests.

“Indeed. I know better than to judge a book by its cover, but our enemy’s armies aren’t called the armies of darkness for nothing.”

“I am Melog. For the Vengeance of Krytis, Darkness is Mine to Command.”

From their vantage up the slope of the mountain making up half of the valley, Adora scouts towards the eternal night. “I think we should ride out. The three of us. We may stop the army before it reaches the wall —” she gestures to the wall crossing the valley, beyond which the wasteland begins.

“Absolutely not,” Prince Adam says.

“I have the power of teleportation,” Catra says. “How about I shadow-step us out there? We can be back within minutes.”

Adam hesitates. “For reconnaissance, I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

Catra holds out a hand for Adora, and one for Adam.

Then darkness envelops them, and the temperature drops to freezing.

They arrive on a hilltop overlooking a vast stretch of barren land. The sky is the color of early night and has been for centuries.

Below is the army on the march.

“What is He-Man’s power?” Adora asks.

“Unsurpassed strength and speed,” Prince Adam says. “I possess the power of transformation as well; both for my steed as you saw, and I favor the shape of small animals for myself, when I require subtlety and stealth.”

Adora nods. “Can you show us?”

In a billowing flicker of star-speckled darkness, He-Man becomes an eagle, then just as quickly he turns back.

“Yeah, it’s as I thought.”

“What?” Catra asks.

“That flash of light when he transformed, it wasn’t Starlight.”

“I noticed,” Catra says.

“Starlight?” Adam asks.

Adora holds up a hand and conjures a mote of the stuff. “Starlight. He-Man’s power is not one of light. It is one of Darkness, like Catra’s.”

“That’s— that’s impossible. He-Man exists to vanquish darkness!”

Adora turns to the army. “No it isn’t. And sure, be that as it may. But, this is what light can do.”

She holds out a hand and in the sky above them, tens of thousands of Parabell blades manifest. With pin-point precision they descend on the army, striking each and every grotesque mass of darkness and flesh that is a demon, vaporizing them. In an eye-blink, the army is reduced to a third of its strength.

“By Grayskull’s name,” Adam says.

“That sword you hold,” Adora says. “It is not the source of your powers as you think; rather it is a shackle, allowing you to only wield a pale imitation of He-Man’s true might. It is also the key to a terrible weapon hidden deep within Eternia which must be destroyed.”

“What?!”

Adora turns to him. “I know this, because I am also of the Grayskull line, but from beyond Eternia. Far, far beyond. My world had this done to it as well. I had a magical weapon that shackled my powers and bound me to a terrible weapon under the earth.”

“There was one on Krytis too,” Catra says.

“My sorceress and advisor think it is what this Keldor is drawing his power from. Catra, could you capture the stragglers?”

Catra waves towards the valley, and a thousand blackguards flow out from the darkest part of the hill, descending on the disorganized forces of orcs and trolls.

“How old are you, kid?” Adora asks.

“Seventeen years by the end of the month,” Adam says.

“Can I see your sword?”

Adam turns away from her, intimidated.

“It’s for your own good, Adam.”

“Lies, you consort with a demon!”

“Please don’t call my wife a demon,” Adora says. She holds out a hand, and Adam’s sword rockets from its sheath to her hand, propelled by the golden streak of Halcyon.

Adam is almost fast enough to catch it, and when he doesn’t, lunges for Adora, but Parabell is faster, its point stopping a hair’s breadth from his throat.

“No!” Adam bellows.

“This is for your own good, Prince Adam,” Adora says. Halcyon forms a set of wings, and she flies into the sky; Stella Nova forms a protective shield around her, and holding Parabell in one hand and the sword of power in her other, she cuts that latter with the former.

The blast is blinding, and the thunder that follows is deafening.

Catra and Prince Adam stand there, under a sound-barrier spell from Catra’s spell glove.

The smoke clears, and Adora remains, aloft in the sky, unhurt.

“She destroyed it!” Adam cries out, falling to his knees. “All hope is lost!”

“You haven’t reverted,” Catra says, pointing to him.

Adam looks down himself. “I—”

Catra kneels next to him. “Listen, Prince. There was a He-Man before there was a sword. And there is one now, after it is destroyed. We’re going to clean up this mess, and give your people the helping hand they need. We might even be able to fix Eternia back to what it was.”

Adora lands. “Damara and Entrapta are looking for the shaft to the core. I’ll be going as soon as they find it. Catra, please march the prisoners back to Eternos, then locate and deal with this Keldor guy.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Prince Adam, I am so sorry for what I did; I hope you understand it had to be done. If it is any consolation —” she conjures a blade of Parabell suitable for a man He-Man’s size “— please have my blade as a replacement.”

Prince Adam, now in his mortal guise of a boy at the cusp of manhood, meekly leads Adora and Catra into an audience with King Randor — a gruff-looking man who indeed bear a striking resemblance to Damara, missing a leg below the knee and perhaps a hand too, which explains why he lets his teenaged son act in command in his stead.

“My son, who is this?”

“King Randor, hail and well met,” Catra says. “We come bearing gifts.”

From her bag of tricks, she calls forth a corpse. Keldor, fell wizard and lich; a undead sorcerer kept alive by a demonic parasite, and missing all the soft tissue off the front of his skull. ‘Skeletor,’ to his minions.

Bane is embedded in his chest; acting its namesake.

“Is that… Keldor?” King Randor asks.

“It is, father,” Prince Adam says. “This is Captain Adora and Lieutenant Catra of the Starlight Brigade; Adora felled the advancing army in one blow and Catra stepped through the shadows unimpeded into the Keldor’s sanctuary and slew him.”

“And good riddance, too; that man was as bad as they come,” Catra adds.

“King Randor, we’re here to help,” Adora says. “There’s a dangerous artifact deep below the earth, which I must leave to deal with, now. Hopefully my advisors and I can make your planet rotate once more so that there may be alternating night and day; and we can bring Eternia back into its proper place within the cosmos so that others may come from the sky to your people’s aid.”

King Randor looks at his son. “Is this so?”

“Father, if these two had ill will towards us, we would already be dead. I have seen what they can do.”

The King considers this for a moment. “Very well; if you are truthful, I see no reason not to accept your help. I have been king long enough to know to accept help when offered.”

Less than a week later — with actual alternating nights and days — Apollona joins the galactic community. A Nebularian freighter carrying a towed portal linking back to Nebularia is one of the first ships to land; and not long after that an orbitelle of the Second Horde lands a full field army to fight off the remaining demonic denizens in the frozen lands.

The case of Prince Adam and Adora is a strange one. Damara delves into the genealogy of the royal line of Eternos, and compares with pilfered notes from the breeding program which a Nebularian exploration team uncovered on a deserted outpost on a gas giant moon.

Genetically, they are siblings; but that does not a bond make. He’s by all accounts a nice boy, though, and that’s at least a start: raptly attentive and desperately curious to learn about Eternia’s place in the wider world. It’s hard not to like him.

And whether it will ever get beyond that, they have a professional relationship, as planetary defenders. The Swift Wind leaves with a promise that Catra will try to fit some mentoring sessions into her schedule, to teach him the power of Darkness.

The Swift Wind flies back across the galaxy, and Hordak takes Catra’s vitals — routine — and provides a more detailed scan of ‘the little thing’ as Adora has taken to calling their unborn child.

At eight weeks, it is about an inch long.

Adora takes a print-out of it, and hangs it on their bedroom wall.

Chapter Text

“Finn,” Adora says, holding the little thing to her bare chest. “I think that’s it. Finn.”

Catra lies beside her in the infirmary bed, exhausted, but not overly so. Giving birth is easier with total conscious physiological control and a tolerance for pain built up by a childhood of magical torture. It’s not like anything could even in theory have gone wrong — and it only took an hour despite the rather prodigious birth weight.

Finn breathes slowly, eyes still firmly shut, pending final maturation of the ocular tissues. Adora has read all about it.

They both take maternity leave from all duties except the most severe calamity — of which none occur before Finn is five months old, and even then Adora handily deals with in over the course of an afternoon.

Catra decides to call dibs on ‘mommy,’ and Adora makes do with ‘mother.’ They agree on shared custody of ‘mom.’

Finn grows from helpless infant to mobile toddler with Catra’s light brown fur and Adora’s fair hair, in the two cottages and on-board the Swift Wind.

They grow up alongside all the other kids — it’s inevitable, really — especially Glow, the other helpless infant aboard the Swift Wind. It’s hard not to, when their parents live almost full time on the Swift Wind.

Bow and Glimmer name their child a portmanteau of their names. There’s a lot of naysayers who think it is a bit on the nose, but who cares. Glow inherits Glimmer’s hair, strength, and a pair of vestigial wings; and Bow’s sanguine temperament — thank the universe.

Angella and Micah, and Lance and Gorge are of course sharply contending with Damara and Clawdia for the spot as the most proud grandparents on Etheria.

Glow and Finn are inseparable best friends, and it feels like they just started out that way.

Come the age of self-determination, Glow decides that being a girl is just swell. Finn decides that gender is an irrelevant detail so long as there exists a tree in the universe they have yet to climb.

Glow becomes a big sister to Dawn at age four; a stressful event for any child.

Frustrated and distracted, she falls out of a tree on a play date with Finn, and breaks her femur. Adora is quick to heal her — perhaps too quick — causing her vestigial wings to fully form, much like her mother’s.

It is very fortunate that the same happened to Glimmer years before; the prospect of raising a kid capable of flight, without at least one parent being natively able to fly as well, is nightmarish.

Catra finally figures out how to shapeshift herself some human genetics, enabling her and Adora to conceive the… Traditional way.

Ten months later Adora comes down with a perfect little thing of her own creation. No less a miracle child than Finn. It’s an easy birth, but slightly less so than Catra’s; Adora is strong, and more importantly, seven feet tall with hips to match. Neither her nor Catra ever really looked as if they were nearing term.

They name their second child Blake. Catra’s dark hair and one of Adora’s blue eyes — the other is inexplicably green. Finn finds the competition for their moms’ attention a menace.

Blake decides much like their older sibling that gender is for schmucks who care about social constructs.

Both Scorpia and Perfuma realize they have always wanted a large family.

Flora gets seven younger sisters; three more born by Scorpia, the other four by Perfuma. Whether by a Dryad’s naturally decreased need for sleep, or some kind of hidden benefit of the Black Garnet, none of their eight little scorpioni girls — and they are all emphatically girls — feel bereft of parental attention.

Little Adora decides that he’d rather try his hand at being Dorian. He grows up loving the sea just as much as his mother, father, and twin sisters do.

Starla true enough, becomes the planetary guardian of Nebularia. For the Love of Nebularia, Starlight is hers to Command.

She marries her abdicant Candilan Queen on board the Firebolt, officiated by its captain, her brother. Their marriage is a rocky one, since Cometa prefers stable ground and proximity to her Runestone — interstellar portals notwithstanding — while Starla has always loved Space. They make it work.

The Starlight Brigade never stops being the most competent team of problem solvers in the Galactic League of Worlds. Eternia’s liberation becomes the unattainable highest standard of rapid-intervention operations.

They find and destroy nine more Heart weapons — though only three in anything resembling working order — scattered throughout the galaxy, on naturally high-magic planets.

Being the most direct descendant of the interstellar Eternian empire, King Adam gives an official public apology to the galactic community at large, recognizing the irresponsible actions of his foremothers.

In the three-dozen generations that follow, the galaxy-wide three-to-one gender ratio created by the eugenics programs undoes itself in the natural fashion by the caprices of evolutionary genetics.

Razz is not the most energetic in the last few years of her life, but she is no less delighted to have great-grandchildren. She becomes an adoptive great-grandmother to a lot of kids, over the years, as Bow’s many, many, niblings visit the Hidden Library.

Adora, Catra, Finn, and Blake visit her six times a year. There isn’t a week where she isn’t hosting a family with children.

She doesn’t suffer the indignities of old age, in part due to Adora’s healing doing away with her dementia; in part due to always having a buddy-bot on hand to help her with the day-to-day. The elderly in general live out more dignified lives as a result of Kyle’s groundbreaking work.

But she is slowing down. Adora offers — even once begs — to heal her back to youth, but she declines. Damara reprimands Adora, but is no less sad at the inevitable conclusion.

Adora and Catra return home to the cottage on Krytis that afternoon, somber. Finn is seven years old and full of questions, Blake is yet three, only newly articulate and just as curious.

Clawdia has been babysitting.

“Mother? Mommy? Why are you sad?”

Adora has to turn away, but Catra kneels down to Finn’s height. “Finn, do you remember great-grandmother Razz?”

He nods.

“Razz has not been feeling so good for a while, remember when we visited three days ago?”

Finn nods. It was a very short visit. Razz was in bed the entire time.

“This night, Razz died.”

Finn looks at their mom, puzzled. They have seen Adora bring home a buck in hunting season, and gone fishing, too. Death is not unfamiliar as a concept — but dying is something fish, animals and the plants in the garden do. Not people.

“Did a hunter shoot her?”

Catra smiles. “No. You know how when mother goes hunting, the buck she brings home isn’t breathing or moving, and its heart isn’t beating? Sometimes, that happens to very old people while they sleep. That’s what happened to Razz, because she was a very old lady.”

“Oh.” Finn says. “Does that mean we can’t go visit her anymore?”

Catra nods.

“Is that why mother is sad?”

“That’s right. It’s okay if you’re sad, too, you know that?”

Finn nods. They aren’t, right now.

The funeral is a quiet one; just Lance and George, Bow and Glimmer with Glow and little Dawn, Adora and Catra with Finn and Blake, and Damara.

They wrap Razz’s delicate frame in a burial shroud and Damara lays her mother to rest in the rich earth of the Whispering Woods — as per her last requests.

Adora pulls on the canvas under the pile of grave dirt, completing the burial.

“In a way, none of this would ever have happened without Razz,” Damara says. “If she hadn’t broken the edicts of the program and found me, I would have never thought to rebel.”

They erect a memorial to her in the Hidden Library — which now thanks to portal technology has become quite a public institution of learning.

A simple bust wrought from brushed steel. The inscription reads: Razz, chief translator. You will be missed. The artist managed to capture her cunning eyes.

Over time, Krytis gains a full complement of Runestone Wielders. Perhaps owing to the planet’s size, perhaps some other factor, the total count comes out to twenty distinct Runestones; the powers bestowed being related, but not in direct correspondence with the Etherian ones.

A similar thing occurs on Nebularia, which ends up with fifteen. It leaves Starla with a much lesser burden of protecting her planet; enough free time to finally start the family her and Cometa have dreamed of.

Eternia remains without for so long that scientists begin exploring it being a counter-example; a century since Eternia’s Skybreak, the first Runestone is found there.

Clawdia marries a sweet gentleman with dashing red fur, named Giuseppe. It’s a small private wedding; Catra acts her mother’s best in Leijon’s stead. They move to Halfmoon, and live there blissfully happy for decades to come.

Leijon died two years prior, of a sudden stroke. In a letter she had written to be read aloud at her funeral, she explicitly instructed everyone present — a sizable congregation of friends and comrades — not to mourn her.

Eat, drink, and play politics, you cunning cats!

It is one thing that a little old lady perishes in her sleep.

It is another, for Melissa, that she wakes up one morning to find that Huntara is no longer breathing; having been fit and lively as ever the night before. The coroner’s scan reveals her heart gave out — a common cause of death for orcs.

Melissa is devastated for days.

Huntara is laid to rest in a desert cave. Their five kids, all grown, return home to Yelsie to help Melissa grieve the love of her life.

In the years that follow, she processes her grief by ensuring Huntara’s legacy is carried out: a green belt of land stretching from the coast of the Middle Sea, to the Magicat lands; from Candila to the steppes of Apieria.

The Stone Heart has long since been relocated to Halfmoon, now that the Fractal Knot sits with the Mystacorian archipelago off the coast of New Uruk.

In the restored capital of the Magicat lands, north of Dryl, it is not long before a new wielder is chosen — a lizardfolk girl of fifteen, named Basil. Her mothers, Ximena and Nagaina, are beside themselves, and not necessarily in a good way.

Finn and Glow finish with the jointly fourth-highest grade in the Space Ranger Academy’s decennial year of graduates. They go on to become star cadets in the Joint Etherian space program.

One could hardly be more proud than Bow and Glimmer; only Adora and Catra are contenders for that particular title.

It scares Blake and Dawn away from ever attending. Dawn goes into the biological sciences, Blake goes to art school.

The realization starts with Catra on a lunch date with Scorpia; a social call to catch up and talk about old times, the years after the galactic liberation. The seedy little bar with the crunchy breaded fish fillets has long since closed.

Flora and most of her sisters have flown the nest, and Scorpia is nearing her fifth anniversary as the head of Plumerian affairs in the Hordelands’ ministry of foreign affairs.

“What?” Scorpia asks. “Is there something on my face?”

“No, its just— I never noticed you have crows’ feet.” Catra says.

She has a lot more than crows’ feet. Nearing fifty, and without the rigours of military life, she has let herself go just a little. At least her hair is naturally so light the grey doesn’t show.

Scorpia laughs. “Oh; Perfect does nothing but fawn over them; says they only make me sexier. Tell me, you don’t look a day over thirty — how do you do it?”

Catra barks out a laugh. “Scorpia, I’ve had greying temples since I was twenty!”

“We both know that was a result of those Mark Four enhancements.” Scorpia kept her mark threes; with minor tweaks they have been confirmed to be entirely benign, and it has been useful on occasion to have the extra strength without calling upon the Black Garnet. “Wait, I have a picture from Flora’s druidic initiation.”

Scorpia puts on her reading glasses and pages through her extensive catalog of photos on her communicator. “Here!” She holds it out, looking from it to Catra. Then she turns it.

True enough, there is Catra, from twelve years ago, looking basically the same as she does now.

As she returns home to the Swift Wind, she remembers vividly Peekablue’s prediction from twenty years ago

“Cat?” Adora says as she comes home. It’s many years since they remodeled the Swift Wind slightly to expand the three permanently occupied suites.

Damara is there, in the living room, having joined Adora for a chat.

“Is something on your mind? How did it go with Scorpia?”

Catra shrugs off her jacket, hanging it on a coat hook. She takes a seat and looks at Adora, studying her face.

There’s the markers of maturity, sure. Gone entirely is the smoothness of youth, but the vitality and breathtaking beauty of a woman in her prime is still there.

She looks at Damara, who literally hasn’t aged a day on account of not bodily being a human. They could be sisters.

“I passed Bow on the way,” Catra says, eventually. “I guess I only noticed now that…”

“That what?” Adora asks, amused.

“He’s greying a bit, in the sideburns.”

Bow is every bit as vital as he always has been; strong, handsome, and every Glimmer dreams about. They greying hair along with his need for reading glasses, is about his only bit of bad luck that man has in the genetic lottery.

“Well, he is turning forty-six this year, so…” Adora says.

Catra looks at her. “So are you. So am I. Scorpia is fifty-one— she’s growing old Adora.”

“Middle-age is hardly old, Catra,” Damara objects. “Life expectancies are skyrocketing across all demographics; five months per year as of the last surveys.”

Adora looks at her.

Then to Catra. Her wife. Catra has only gotten more stunning over the years, with smoother fur and sharper curves. And while her natural fur would conceal wrinkles, Adora is certain she hasn’t a single one. Apart from the grey locks of hair at her temples, Catra is ageless.

Catra nods, as she sees the realization dawn on Adora’s face.

Damara sighs. “Oh stars. All right, we’re doing this now.”

They both look at her.

“Girls; I’ve committed a minor privacy violation. I just accessed your medical records. Specifically your blood-workup from last year; and all the years before-hand.”

“Okay?” Catra asks.

“I’m sure Hordak didn’t mention, since it wasn’t pertinent, but… You don’t age; your age-markers have remained unchanged as long as there’s records on-board — well, Catra’s have actually improved.”

“So it’s like Peekablue said,” Catra notes. “We’re immortal.”

“At first blush, a solid possibility.”

“That’s good, right?” Adora says, but her words lack the enthusiasm. She’s looking for reassurance.

“Yes,” Damara says definitively. “I want to state right now, that I’m pretty sure immortality is a pretty unanimous benefit… I have spent a lot of time considering it, and I have spoken at length with Hope, Hordak, and some of his philosophically inclined brethren. I have written peer-reviewed philosophy papers about it too, and said peers find my points persuasive.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ there,” Adora says.

“We’re going to outlive everyone,” Catra says. “Like in the stories.”

Damara holds up a hand: “Now, that might not be the case. Hordak is keeping up with the developments of — aiding it, even — ways to combat aging. He and I have a mutual interest in it. And when I say combat aging, I mean not just the rising life-expectancy, but actually reverse the process. You can probably guess why this is on our minds.”

“Entrapta,” Adora says.

Entrapta turned sixty-two this winter.

“But I thought Tallstar’s innovations—”

“Total conversion cybernetics is a step forward; it is easier to keep the brain alone young than the whole body, but still, that only delays the problem.”

Five years ago, Entrapta went under Hordak’s expertly wielded surgical knife. She has never been better since completing rehab, much to Damara and Hordak’s delight.

“It’s the same problem with fabricated transplantive replacement organs. It delays old age of the organs themselves, but we can’t fabricate new brains. Not yet, at least — there’s ongoing research.”

A little alarm bell goes off in Damara’s mind, warning her that she’s getting over-exited. A necessary precaution when you mental stability is vital to the continued operation of an entire spacecraft.

She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t technically need to breathe, but the physicality of the action is centering.

“Catra, Adora… It would be irresponsible of me not to tell you to temper your expectations.”

Adora reaches for Catra’s hand.

“The friends you love are probably going to die. Not all of them, but at least some of them will… Grow old and die. I— I’ve done some sociological modeling, and there’s a paradigmatic reluctance to accept even just death-mitigating technology like end-of-life temporal stasis.”

It’s a very abstract sorrow, to know that someday, you are going to die. It is the same abstract sorrow that Adora and Catra now feel, knowing that someday, everyone else will.

“But then what about Finn and Blake?” Adora asks.

Damara nods. "There’s hope. Remember that in your lifetimes alone, the Hordelands went from a mature industrial society, to a fabrication society; all the rest of Etheria was early-industrial. Thirty years ago most agricultural land was plowed with oxen; now it’s hover-tractors.

“And while it’s easy to convince people to adopt new physical tools, it’s harder to get them to discard the rationalizations they have made to soothe the cognitive dissonance associated with living in an unjust and harsh world. Just look at how long it took to abolish punitive justice.”

Rosemary are among the first generation of therapists on Etheria; an ‘early-adopter’ of the then-radical notions of mental wellness and that the act of talking about one’s feelings and past might aid in overcoming hardships past or present.

That the notion of therapy existed in well-developed form elsewhere in the galaxy was something of a driving force as well.

Rosemary herself had initially worked with speech difficulties — especially through her contracts with the Horde military, treating bouts of mutism in those that returned from the front-lines of the World War, but found that nearly all such difficulties were rooted in the emotions. It was a short hop-skip-and-a-jump to transition into general therapy.

She had first met Catra as a new mother, looking for help with her anxieties, and since came to be a permanent fixture in the life of the literal savior of the universe.

Now, twenty years on, Catra is one of her only clients. It’s very nearly retirement.

Catra lounges there, in the recliner, all seven feet of her height terminally unsuited to regular-sized furniture. “What do you want to talk about today?”

Catra looks at her. “You can tell.”

It took years for Rosemary to get Catra comfortable enough that she became this easy to read.

“I’m immortal.”

Rosemary makes a note. “What makes you say that?”

Catra notes the tone in her voice. “Look at me, Thorns. Do I look a day over thirty to you?”

Rosemary took it as a mark of pride the day Catra first decided to give her an ‘annoying’ nickname. She smiles. “I do believe you, Catra. But why is that what you want to talk about?”

Catra runs a hand through her hair. “I— I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” Rosemary says, in her usual infuriatingly neutral tone.

Catra sits up straighter. “A lot of people I know aren’t, immortal.”

Rosemary pages back in her journal. “Like Huntara.”

Catra nods. Her and the huntress became passable friends over the years, despite the rocky first impression back during the war.

“You’re worried you might outlive the people you love.”

Catra nods again. “I am.”

“Like Adora.”

“No, no. Adora’s immortal too.”

“Finn and Blake?”

Catra tilts her head from side to side. “I spoke to my mother in law about it, she had some predictions.”

“Like what?”

Catra looks at Rosemary. The caniform woman’s once black fur is now thoroughly greying. “Have you thought about death-mitigation?”

“Stasis? Yes. I’m undecided on the matter.”

“You have kids. Grand-kids.”

“I do.”

“Would you do it for their sake?”

Rosemary knows better than to not give such questions fair consideration. “My family could probably sway me, yes.”

“You asked me why: Damara predicts that us —” Catra gestures back and forth from herself to Rosemary “— who grew up with the old state of things, might want to die of old age.”

“Do you?”

Catra frowns. “I used to be suicidal; you know that. But… I hadn’t thought about it before I didn’t have a choice, so I guess: yes. I had this romantic idea that Adora and I would grow old together.”

“And what about Finn and Blake, are they immortal too?”

Catra shakes her head. “We don’t know yet. I guess not, but Damara thinks they might more readily accept death mitigation.”

“So you’re worried about your friends.”

Catra nods again.

“Catra, even if death mitigation becomes commonplace, you are aware people will still die in accidents, right? Most of your friends are Runestone Wielders; that’s not exactly as safe thing to be. Even you and Adora might some day come up against a threat that is too great.”

“Thorns, I was raised a soldier. I can deal with that.”

“Then what exactly is it you can’t deal with?”

“I— I’m almost ashamed. I didn’t think about it at all before Cat mentioned it. And now, I can’t stop thinking about it, Dave,” Adora says, holding up a hand, outlined in Starlight. “I thought I had put it behind me but…”

Dave hums, dipping his feather pen with his cybernetic hand. He is a portly satyr with a bushy greying moustache. He’s pushing seventy-five, and his little practice in Plumeria has long since stopped accepting new clients.

“This is not something you have told me about before, Adora. Why don’t we start with the beginning?”

Adora looks up at the floral patterns on the ceiling. The divan was commissioned specifically to accommodate her height. “It started when I first learned how to heal — gosh, that’s a long time ago now. In Brightmoon; did you ever visit back before the war?”

“I did.”

“People were dying, in the sanatoriums of diseases we had medicine for in the Hordelands. I couldn’t— I couldn’t stand for that. I nearly exhausted myself treating like, tuberculosis and cholera. Then Glimmer told me to knock it off.”

“What sort of argument did she use to convince you?” Dave asks.

“She told me to hold myself to the standards of medical professionals. Doctors don’t usually work themselves to exhaustion. And I could probably do more good by focusing on the war than… It was pretty cynical, in retrospect, but that’s what Glimmer was like back then.”

Dave nods, silently.

Adora clenches her fist and the starlight winks out. “So…”

“So?”

“What do you think?”

Dave looks up over the lip of his half-moon glasses. “Glimmer advised you to hold yourself to the standards of medical professionals. You listened. Why?”

Adora is silent for a while. “Doctors are supposed to have a strong code of ethics. Like soldiers. It just seemed natural.”

“What would the oath of medicine have to say about your current predicament?”

Adora opens her hand again. “That… That it’s up to the patient to consent to their own course of treatment.”

“What meaning do you take from that?”

Adora closes her eyes. “That as much as I want to, I can’t just heal people back to youth if they don’t want to.” She opens them and looks at her hand again. “I don’t even think I can.”

“I don’t follow.”

“My mother, her wife, and I have spent some time investigating my powers. We think that in part, my healing abilities are dependent on my… Patient’s self-image. That’s why when I heal old people, they don’t become young; they just get… Better. More vital.”

“Then isn’t it a moot point?”

Thirty years hence from the fall of Prime, the galaxy has never been a more harmonious place, and it doesn’t seem like it’s about to get any worse. As Etheria’s magic spreads from world to world, each planet’s magic crystallizes and selects from its inhabitants those worthy to wield each world’s innate magic in defense of its nature and peoples. There’s little system to the elemental abilities each Runestone bestows.

Planetary defenders pop up by the scores, each in turn receiving instruction from an appropriately aligned peer — masters of Darkness or Starlight. A third option never materializes.

Technology quickly evolved beyond what its inventors ever imagined. Fabricators and bots make virtually free what was once pricey: goods, and services. Recycling refineries and matter-conversion power plants turn plentiful what was once scarce: raw materials and energy. And at the hands of humanitarian organizations, all of them proliferate to the farthest corners of every planet.

That’s not to say all of it goes bloodlessly. A handful of times bloody civil wars break out in such a fashion that no peace negotiation in good faith can contain it. Not even with the voice of a planetary defender or Runestone wielder behind it.

In the purely factual sense, Prime was right: life is a struggle, and there will always be those willing to do violence to their fellows in the interest of abstract ideals. But the vast majority of struggles are for survival alone, and with technology rendering life effortless the incidence of wars on a galactic scale has been reduced to less than 2% of baseline.

The Second Horde has destroyed the uterine replicators from which they were born, and resigned themselves to the fate of an ever-dwindling standing army, there to combat existential threats on a planetary, stellar, and galactic scale, alongside She-Ra, Melog, and their peers.

Adora and Catra become grandparents to a pair of healthy twin boys.

It’s not Finn and Glow, as one might expect — the spark one might expect between the two of them never ignites. Indeed Finn finds their family in the crew of their spacecraft, the Voidfish. Glow as the Ace Pilot, Finn as the Captain; twenty misfit space rangers and a profoundly loopy Personality Construct.

No, Blake is the one who makes a family for themselves, with Dawn. It seems destiny decided to unite Glimmer, Bow, Catra, and Adora as family anyway. The proudest four grandparents any child could ask for.

(Keep in mind all the good times, as you read on.)

Castaspella lives life to the fullest. Under her years as headmistress, the Mystacorian institute becomes international organization. They retain the original islands, of course, even after the Landfall. Too much culture in those old halls, walls and catacombs to just abandon.

They open terrestrial institutes in Northern Brightmoon, in the western Hordelands, in Apieria, and on the Candilan coasts. The purity of the Mystacorian style of Rune sorcery is quickly enriched by ready adoption of Apierian charm craft and Candilan styles of high ritualism. Spell-gloves of course are inoperable without a base understanding of sorcery, but provide a tremendous boon in terms of of accessibility of magic.

Enhancements become ever more commonplace, integrated into scientific medical practice to provide non-invasive alternatives to cybernetics.

Castaspella is arguably the greatest Headmistress Mystacor has ever seen, but she is just one mortal woman, and eventually age catches up to her. She remains lucid to the end, celebrating her forty-year anniversary with Juliet that very same summer.

Micah is with her when she passes away, in the modest apartment in downtown Brightmoon she calls home. He returns from the kitchen with the tea to find she has quietly fallen asleep on the divan. When he attempts to wake her, she doesn’t stir.

She is laid to rest in the catacombs under the halls of the institute she devoted her life to, all ninety-nine years of it.

Juliet never really recovers from the loss; an although she has many good years ahead of her, never remarries, having found her great love in Castaspella.

“Mom, please,” Catra pleads.

Clawdia reaches up and caresses her cheek with a hand that still retains most of its strength. “It’s my time to go, Catra.”

“We can figure something out; Adora can—”

Clawdia shakes her head. “I’m tired Catra. Of all… This —” she gestures non-specifically. “Not that it hasn’t been fun, but I don’t think I’m ever going to become hale. I feel the scars on my soul even now, and it’s been worse since Giuseppe died.”

Catra clutches her hand, and her tears flow freely.

“I understand if you hate me; I know how much it means to you —” Clawdia says.

Catra pulls her into a tight hug. “I could never hate you, mom. Never. I’m just sorry you have to go.”

“We’ll meet in the next life,” Clawdia says.

Catra shakes her head. “No. We won’t. Not for a long time.”

Clawdia leans back in the hospital bed. She looks over to the other side of the bed where Adora is standing, just as teary-eyed. “Adora, you’ve been a wonderful daughter-in-law. I know I’ve said so many times, but I want you to know it one last time. Thank you.”

Her buddy bot turns up the morphine drip. “Say hi to the twins for me.”

Then she closes her eyes and the bot, under her last guidance, turns off the bypass machine.

Adora calls time of death, twenty minutes later.

Her ashes are put to rest next to Giuseppe’s, under the great whisperoak near Adora and Catra’s cottage; one Catra decided to plant the day they planned their wedding, just to see if it could grow so far from its homeland.

It happens to Micah, just like it did with every other lover Angella ever took.

They spend their last year together, travelling the stars in a little pleasure craft.

Standing next to each other as Micah is interned in the catacombs next to Castaspella’s final resting place, Glimmer and Angella could pass for sisters.

Glimmer holds Bow’s hand tight through the entire ceremony.

The bad news come from Nebularia, like lightning from a clear sky.

An unmanned spacecraft of unknown origin made landfall, guns blazing, attacking a Second Horde base there. Starla and the Runestone wielders did battle while the defence forces mobilized the heavy ordnance to take it down.

Starla was among the casualties.

Adora and Catra divine the origins of this autonomous war machine, tracking it to a deserted star system. There they find a fully automated factory in the process of consuming an asteroid field, producing an astry of autonomous combat spacecraft.

It turns out to be some kind of anti-Prime weapons system; had it been deployed during before the war, it might have helped sway the odds in the resistance’s favor. Now it is just another source of tragedy.

Starla is memorialized as a hero.

Cometa doesn’t stay widow for long. It turns out Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio have decided that a fourth is just what they need to fill the void of an empty nest.

Glory chooses a new home with the Starlight Brigade, accepting Adora as their rider.

“Bow, I can’t accept this,” Adora says.

“Sure you can, Captain,” Bow says. “Just like you could accept my resignation as pilot.”

Adora grips the handle of the bow. Bow’s bow. The one that has served him faithfully since… Well, since all those many years ago in the final months of the great war. He hands over the seven small Parabell-blades in the form of arrows as well.

“I figured it would make a nice addition to your arsenal, when you’re out there among the stars, saving the galaxy.”

Adora looks at Bow. Really looks at him. And she sees the Bow she has always loved as a dear friend, his unwavering spirit. At the same time she sees a man past his prime, healthy and vital owing to a life of leisure and all the many boons of technology and magic enjoyed by all.

“It’s not like I’m giving up archery, don’t worry. Just like I didn’t give up flying when I quit as pilot. This one has just grown too heavy in the draw for me.”

“Good,” Adora says. “Because you’re going to have to teach me.”

Sweet Bee was never long for this world. The injury she sustained as a result of the ritual that broke Prime; as a result of her own recklessness, stay with her for the rest of her life.

Her, Peekablue and Double Trouble end up deciding against even adoption, when it turns out she is never going to regain the full use of her faculties.

She takes her own life, one sunny summer afternoon. Sixty-five years old.

Peekablue, for whatever reason never saw it coming. It breaks him.

In the years that follow, Peekablue and Double Trouble tries picking up the pieces of their life, but never really find themselves able to put as wonderful a relationship back together again. She may have been reckless, devious, and tyrannical, but she was their reckless, devious tyrant. It’s a hole in the heart that can never be filled.

George never took retirement seriously. In a cruel irony, Lance is proven right in his admonishing of George: “I’ll end up a widower if you keep working like that.”

Lance finishes their joint magnum opus alone. A twenty-one-volume history of the rise and fall of the First-Ones civilization, Etherian and galactic.

They are laid to rest together beneath the Hidden Library.

All thirteen brothers come together to bury their fathers.

The first time it nearly happens is a freak accident. The Swift Wind has sought harbor at a sensational new space station, a cylindrical construction with a habitable space on its inside.

One instant, Adora is enjoying a walk in a quaint garden-park, the next calamity occurs: in a cloud of debris she’s thrown into the air. Stella Nova protects her as she impacts the super-heated artificial sun that runs along the spine of the cylindrical chamber.

Adora loses consciousness shortly after. Glory, sensing danger enters the station through the dramatic gash in the outer hull, catches Adora’s tumbling form, and darts back outside, directly back to the Swift Wind. The quick response is what saves her life.

She is one of over two hundred casualties. The accident was caused by a mass driver projectile. Analysts with the Second Horde manage to back-date the trajectory to a space battle that occurred six thousand years ago in a distant star system.

The accident, while tragic, begets no ramifications in space station design. Statistical modelling by the foremost minds in the field prove this event so unlikely it shouldn’t ever occur in the lifetime of the universe.

But that doesn’t matter much for Catra, as she holds vigil over Adora in the infirmary while machines keep her alive despite her mutilations and temporal stasis holds the lethal progress of time at bay. Here she waits for the new Nebularian defender to arrive.

He’s a young man now. Adora trained him when he first ascended at a far too young age in Catra’s opinion. Still with dark curls and wide eyes, but wizened by the things one experiences in this life. On the back chuck of his suit back hangs Starla’s shield.

Damara shows him to the infirmary, and the stasis-chamber.

Adora is floating upright in the tank, looking no less larger-than-life, even missing an arm and a leg and with four feet of a composite beam impaling her abdomen.

“Oh no,” he says. “Hey Catra.”

“Hey yourself Starchild,” Catra says. She’s sitting with her back to it.

“I have a name, you know,” He says, even as he walks up to the tank.

“Sorry. Lorenz. How’s your mothers?”

“Fine, thanks.” Lorenz puts his hand on the glass, and pinpricks of light circle his brow like a crown, as he channels Starlight.

The stasis tank detects this and relents its vice-grip on Adora’s dying body.

Her eyes fly open, and from within the tank, her own starlight outshines a hundred suns.

The glass dematerializes and artificial gravity re-asserts itself, depositing Adora on the floor, still wearing the blood-soaked and torn unitard. A long streak of her hair is white, where something tore up her scalp and fractured the skull underneath..

Catra rolls to her feet.

Adora looks at her, without recognition. “What happened? Who are you?” she asks.

Lorenz looks at Catra. “Does she have amnesia?”

Catra puts a finger on her forehead. “No, she doesn’t.” A flicker of Darkness, almost like a spark of electricity leaps to Adora’s forehead.

Adora blinks. “Catra; oh stars!” She pulls Catra into a tight hug. “Oh that was horrifying, I couldn’t remember you— I— I nearly died!”

She pulls back, looking over at Lorenz.

“Good to see you back on your feet, ma’am,” he says. “I’ll let you have some privacy.”

Adora waves after him with a smile.

Catra holds up her hands. Between them, Stella Nova appears from her bag of tricks. “Here. I had a chat with your shield about not letting this kind of thing happen in the future.”

Adora accepts the instrument, and flips it over, inspecting the front, then the back. A small notch has been made in the leather of the forearm strap, and in the cut is darkness.

“I’ve got a spare set of clothes for—” Catra says, interrupted by Adora pulling her into another hug.

“I’m sorry,” Adora says.

“There’s nothing you could have done, it was a freak accident,” Catra says, reciprocating the embrace.

“Shut up; this is the closes I ever came to breaking my promise. I can’t imagine what you went through.”

Catra doesn’t let go for a long time.

Assassination attempts is an occupational hazard when you are a public persona, especially when one is the public face of an organization with as unpopular a past as the Second Horde.

It’s not even the first time someone has tried to kill Wrodak. But as the saying goes, the assassin need only be lucky once; the victim, every time. This time, Wrodak isn’t lucky.

He dies in intensive care, even though every precaution has been met; from stocking the local hospital with Clone-friendly medications and transfusion blood, to adding specialist medical staff.

It’s against the edicts of the Second Horde to be magically resuscitated after falling in battle, and Wrodak has expressed as much in the will he updates regularly, precisely for occasions like this.

He’s given a hero’s sendoff on the diplomatic craft, The Hand Extended, and his remains are dropped into Sola far above her north pole.

Hundreds of thousands show up in person to pay their respects — not counting the millions of his brothers — both guests on Second Horde craft, and with their own.

For Entrapta, Damara, and Hordak, it is in no small way like losing a child.

Sea Hawk refuses to ever stop sailing. As his body gradually fails him — and that it does at a truly generous pace — he picks it up with specialized diets, training regiments, enhancements, and cybernetics.

Mermista is less strict at staying in shape. She passes on the White Pearl to her distant grand-niece, and lives out life on the seas with her husband, on the thrice re-built royal yacht, now dubbed The Dragon’s Daughter.

They hold Mermista’s funeral at sea, many years later. Sea Hawk finds the Widower’s life a bitter draught. Gradually he withdraws from life, seeking the seas over company.

The Dragon’s Daughter becomes his funeral pyre. His death is determined to be suicide.

It is no service to his son, daughters and family that he decides to end things in this manner, and his memorial service is not one of unanimously kind words.

Medical science has advanced to the point where the only common cause of death is ‘the help did not arrive in time.’ Sudden infarctions of the brain, lungs, or heart; violent accidents.

Time catches up to Rogelio in this fashion. Lizardfolk statistically live just a handful years fewer than humans, and Rogelio was always the eldest of the three — now four. He declines a routine heart replacement at ninety, and twelve year later his heart gives out.

Not many years later, Kyle does the same. Without Rogelio, it’s almost as if he gives up on life; so long as one forgets that he lives to be a hundred and fifteen still, always loving those around him, always ready to help those in need.

Cometa watches as Lonnie falls into a deep, untreatable depression, but it does not end that way.

Time heals all wounds, and they spend another thirty together, becoming some of the first Etherian to reach the mythical hundred and fifty years. Great-great-great-great-grandmothers, both of them.

Catra has long since given up trying to convince people to enter stasis, rather than face the finality of death.

Netossa and Spinnerella are laid to rest in the Alwyn royal family graveyard. There will be no eternal sleep for the prodigal war maiden of Mystacor. Apart from the hand they both had in saving the world, they are celebrated for a century of being paragons of their local community; acting with vision and compassion. They are especially celebrated by the enormous family tree of which they were the root: daughters and grandsons and on and on.

Catra finds Double Trouble in the inner sanctum of theirs and Peekablue’s secluded little domicile.

Double Trouble sits there, on the floor, with Peekablue’s head in their lap. The face of an old man, serenely resting.

“He’s dead,” Double Trouble says. “There’s no-one left for me.”

Catra kneels down next to her mentor. “There’s still lots of people who love you, Double Trouble.”

Double Trouble shakes their head. “Not like this one.”

A few weeks after the service, Double Trouble disappears, never to be seen again.

Frosta, accomplished physicist and happily unmarried at seventy-nine years, sees the writing on the wall, and decides against the demographical odds, to enter stasis well before her body gives out. A leap into the future, whatever it may hold.

She almost gets her every wish; it holds, among other things, the figurative well of youth.

Of course she is not the only one of her generation to have taken the jump. But of those that did, that is all they have in common: a leap forward in time, and a fresh start. It is lonely, at least to begin with, but a lot better than the alternative.

Scorpia holds on to the bitter end, and a little bit beyond that. The Black Garnet she so reluctantly shares with wielders more suitable to wielding it in defense of Etheria, keeps her alive until the day no magic can.

Perfuma is as un-aging and ever-changing as the Whispering Woods itself.

Their bloodline alone makes up perhaps a fifth of all Scorpioni alive; not all of them make it to the memorial, but that is not for a lack of trying.

Thus un-tethered, Perfuma fades away. As the days go on, she becomes less and less active; more time spent in contemplation and meditation. One morning, she doesn’t get up from her meditation. She has become one with the whisperoaks of the forest.

Bow politely declines Catra and Adora’s help in combatting his dementia, and decides instead that a hundred and twenty years is plenty.

Glimmer is devastated.

And then they are the last ones left. Adora, Catra, and Glimmer.

The years pass, and things change and things stay the same. Their family lines continue to grow well beyond what they can strictly speaking keep up with — at some point it becomes almost meaningless to do so.

And fortunately, fortunately, Damara is right. Finn and Glow and Blake and Dawn and all the other many, many wonderful people descended from the once saviors of Etheria, all embrace technologies that extend life and circumvent death. There does not come a time where either of the three of them has to bury a their own children.

And as time heals all wounds, a few changes happen.

For one, Adora decides it is high time to be a man for a while, just to see what it is like. He finds it to his liking for the next century or so.

For two, Catra embraces her identity as a shape-shifter, casting off innate notions of gender entirely, as a matter of pure practicality.

And for three, Glimmer falls in love with both of them.

Angella is the second-to-last person to die of old age. She reaches a venerable five hundred and fifty-seven years before even her angelic heritage cannot hold her alive.

Glimmer is her only surviving family. It is a very small service; filling the last available tomb in the Brightmoon catacombs.

The last six members off the Starlight Brigade sail the stars together for another four centuries.

Life is strange, and life moves fast. Entrapta transcends her humanity entirely, becoming something else of her own creation.

Damara ceases to be a woman who is a spacecraft, becoming a spacecraft who is a woman.

Hordak settles for a few augmentations to ensure true agelessness, and taking up role as the humanizing anchor for his two transman partners.

All three of them keep pace with the evolving galactic society as a matter of course.

Catra and Adora, ever adaptable and divine, stay young in their mind and souls, only ever showing age through the sheer abyss of memory they both contain.

They make new friends, reminisce with those from the old days — with enough years, ones children become ever more like siblings. What is a mere twenty-five years of age difference to several centuries?

But… Glimmer doesn’t. She tries, and she exerts herself, but she cannot quite keep up.

It is slow, and not spoken about, but even with Starlight, she doesn’t quite stay young.

And by the, it might as well be all over.

She doesn’t die alone, but there is nothing to be done when a loved one truly wants to die. Time heals all wounds; what makes a woman mortal is when the scars build up over time.

Catra and Adora has long since accepted this possibility in their hearts.

They say goodbye to Glimmer, to Sparkles, in the infirmary of the Swift Wind. She holds Adora and Catra’s hands. They are still young. Glimmer isn’t; she is grey and frail, composed of more cybernetics and replacement organs than anything else. Her wings are still as strong as ever.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come with you into the future,” she says.

“Don’t worry about that, Sparkles,” Catra says.

“We’ll see you in the next one, Glimmer,” Adora says.

And that’s the last they say to her.

Adora takes it the hardest, somehow. Being alone with Catra again.

Not that their love isn’t stronger than ever, not that they haven’t both come to terms with, and come to unambiguously appreciate immortal life. And it is not that Adora is in any way impeded by grief; he is stronger and more focused than ever.

But every year — and the years pass quickly — the anniversary of Glimmer’s passing rolls around.

Catra feels the grief as well, but they learned to grieve such loss long, long, long ago.

The Swift Wind hangs above the roiling sea of plasma. Below them is the largest star in the entire galaxy; so great its mass that it isn’t even spherical.

As galactic civilization has proliferated and grown powerful, threats to it has diminished, and with universal agelessness comes the long view: one day, far, far, far in the future, the universe itself will reach end of life. The consensus is clear: something must be done.

The Starlight Brigade, possessed of the two oldest planetary defenders in existence, one of each polarity, has set out to divine the true nature of Starlight and Darkness.

Down below the ship, at the edge of the clouds of super-heated plasma, Glory circles languidly, Adora perched in their saddle, protected from the heat by ever-faithful Stella Nova.

They circle the mouth of a sunspot; a vortex-like channel of free space penetrating into the searing depths. Waiting for Catra to emerge from it.

“Hey Adora.”

Adora startles and looks behind her, seeing Catra’s silhouette in the saddle behind her.

“What, did you fall asleep or something?”

Adora shakes her head. “It’s a very one-note view.” She reaches down and pats Glory on the neck, and they rocket upwards, towards the ship, thousands of kilometers above.

Inside the cool of the cargo bay, Catra releases the protective sheen of darkness around them, revealing their customary Magicat form, clad in a maroon unitard to match Adora’s white. Even after all these years, Adora still can’t seem to take her eyes off her spouse.

Catra catches her staring, and smiles back.

Entrapta emerges from a wall panel, squeezing through an opening just large enough for her face to fit, drawing the mass of hair, tentacles, and artificial organs though after, much as if she was a soft-bodied marine mollusc. “Hey you two! Did you find anything?”

“No; there’s nothing in there. I think your ‘sapient star’ hypothesis is a bust,” Catra says. From her bag of tricks she disgorges several pieces of heavy detection equipment.

Entrapta glides over to the machines and starts prompting them to disgorge their readings into the craft’s mainframes. “Well, only this version of it. There’s still a dozen or so viable candidates after we eliminate based on this new data. But not right now, we have somewhere more important to be!”

“What?” Adora says. “I thought we were headed straight to the next viable star?”

Entrapta looks over at the two of them. “Oh. I have committed a faux pas with my implications.”

Catra puts a hand on Adora’s shoulder. “Did you forget?”

“Forget what?” Adora asks.

“It’s Primefall.”

Adora blinks.

Catra smiles. “It’s been a thousand years since we saved the universe: we’re going back to Sola, there’s a party in your honor and everything.”

“But— but you played just as great a role in—”

Catra gives her a stern look. “Don’t make me regret arranging it.”

Everyone is invited; the festivities last for three days and nights.

They hold it on the blue moon — there simply isn’t room anywhere else.

Even on a galactic scale, it is a party to remember.

And for some reason, sitting there on a ridge with thousands of others, seeing Etheria rise above the horizon, Adora looks over next to her at Catra.

It’ll be okay, eternity.