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INTERLUDE TWO – The War of Magic and Technology
Castaspella was... everyone’s golden standard. She was the kindest person you’d ever meet, a model citizen. She always did volunteer work, she ran the Mental Health Awareness Club on a weekly basis, which she was in currently. Always helping people, talking whenever anyone wanted to talk, being a friend whenever anyone needed a friend. Oh, and also she was the Head-Sorceress of Mysticore, the Academy of Magics. In fact the only academy of magics. Big deal. Every magic wielder on the planet had been taught and serve at Mysticore. Both because only 0.01% of the population is capable of using magic, and because BrightMoon did not want the liability of trained superhumans running around the continent uncontrollably. So, all magic-users who signed onto the programme had to swear a oath to Mysticore, an oath of non-violence (against the royal Queendoms).
Casta may have become the leader of the greatest magical Queendomly establishment at a younger age, but she didn’t seem like it. She was down to earth, always smiling, and always had time for others. She was just a good person, and those were rare these days.
Casta wore an armour of gold and purple, the symbol of Mysticore was present on her chest, a ring orbiting an eight-pointed star. Her traditional robe was long, covering her legs and the arms, with a hood flipped down. Castaspella was an Asian woman, not old, not young, and extremely beautiful. Black lipstick applied to her lips and tiara ran around her head brandishing that same star symbol.
Now, back to that therapy club, Casta wanted nothing but to give back to society, give people a helping hand. She completed a degree for psychology just for this. There were many souls in need of counselling, especially now, at the end of a three-decade long war. And she offered help to both sides, both Alliance-soldiers and Horde-troopers. However, she usually attempted to keep the two categories separated as interaction between them usually led to violence.
01:30pm-Session1-Catra.
She booked a session with a Horde-trooper, Catra. One of Casta’s most prominent patients. A fascinating woman she was. Scared, a scared woman. “Greetings, Catra. I’m so glad to see you here again.”
“Yeah... you’d think you maybe want to see me less, whole point of therapy, right? You go so that you stop going.” True. Therapy was a curious concept.
Casta didn’t know how to respond to that, she figured she probably should’ve been offended, but she was better than that. She simply remained silent, she knew Catra well, the MagiCats had mood swings, it would only take seconds for her to apolo-
“I- I’m sorry. That was dumb, what I said. I’ve had a rough day.”
There we go.
“So, let’s start with that, tell me about it.”
Catra adjusted herself in the armchair she sat on, she folded up her legs under her bum, then back down, and then two legs over the arm rest, then one on the floor and one over the arm rest. Casta just waited patiently, one leg over the other, her pink furry glittery pen in hand, and taking notes on her puppy-themed notepad. Casta knew from experience that patients often got anxious when a second party was taking notes on them. Especially those with trust-issues. Casta found that it helped if a little silliness is introduced into the environment. And she always showed her notes if her patient requested to see them, establishing trust was a priority. She wanted to seem as non-threatening as possible. Even though with her magical abilities she could summon thunderstorms and cut mountains in half... well maybe not ‘mountains’, maybe like hills, but ‘hills’ don’t sound as cool as ‘mountains’.
Catra’s face morphed from expression to expression, each indescribable and vague, she was clearly looking for the right words, trying to structure the story in her mind. “Sooo... The Forever Gala is coming up.”
“Yes.”
“So, Adora and I have been preparing for the ball, Adora has been helping with preparing and planning the actual party, ball, whatever... And... And I’m the worst... We got into an argument, not an argument, more like a disagreement. Because I’m dumb, and stupid and the worst.” She covered her face with her hands, and gestured the motion of clawing her face off as she groaned.
“Go on.” Casta jotted something down on her notepad. Catra noticed that, but didn’t comment on it, she just took note and filed it in the back of her mind.
“The Gala is happening at Dryl. And it’s hosted by Entrapta. I don’t know why they switched the location from BrightMoon to Dryl, but whatever, who knows what goes on inside Glimmer’s mind. But anyway, ‘Dora signed both of us up to help with the prep. That’s not the thing that- I don’t have a problem with volunteer work, Hel, all I do nowadays is volunteer work with the whole Community Service programme. But...” she sighed, “Lord, I just can’t set foot in that place. I- I just can’t. I can’t!” Catra began to breath heavily. She was pulling her hair, something Casta has witnessed her do countless times in these sessions, she found it was quite common for Catra to inflict pain on herself when she did something wrong. The habit of punishment.
“Catra, please. Hands down.” It was a dangerous habit, one that she and Adora tried to help her abandon. Luckily it never got too serious. Catra loosened her grip and her hands fell and began to brush her fur. Her fingers and palms ran through her forearms, she looked like she was attempting to stay warm in a cold winter.
“Sorry.” She didn’t need to apologise to Casta, she hurt herself. ‘Sorry’ was definitely the most commonly uttered word by the cat woman.
“You can’t step into Castle Dryl. Do you want to tell me why?” Catra folded her arms, she often didn’t. If there was an option of not talking about her feelings, she would not talk about her feelings. Over the course of those months they had together Casta managed to dig up some of those thoughts and feelings, and though Catra never admitted it, getting that all out, having someone to talk and rant and vent to, it made her feel better. Casta pushed the issue, “Do you believe it’s tied to your time in The Horde?”
“...You know it is.” Catra answered quietly.
---
02:33pm-Session2-Lonnie.
Lonnie was a beautiful, charming, and caring woman. But only caring towards her tribe. But Lonnie was also a warrior, a soldier, and a fighter. Pray to your deities if you happen to cross her.
She/They were now sitting across from Casta with a black eye and her arms folded and her right leg crossed over her left leg. Her head was turned away from her therapist, her chin high. Casta sighed, “Lonnie come on, we can’t just sit in silence for an hour. This session is mandatory. I can’t count the hours unless you talk.”
Lonnie was a dark-skinned black woman, her dreadlocks were tied back into a ponytail. She was wearing her old Horde armour, much of its pieces were missing or destroyed. Her chest-plate and other plating on her legs and shoulders were incorporated into her regular-wear.
Lonnie flared her nostrils and sighed long and hard, “Fine.” They got into trouble earlier in the week and was assigned a month-worth of therapy and counselling sessions. And obviously she wasn’t happy about it. “What? What do you want me to talk about?”
“How about we begin with the incident. Okay?” Casta asked with a smile, she wanted to be as accommodating and warm as possible. She knew The Horde-trooper wasn’t a fan of her, many Horde-troopers weren’t, she was a sorceress, a magic-user, everything they fought against.
“You mean when a bunch of jerks jumped me and my friends, and I defended us!? Do you mean that? Is that it? When some of you royal-heel-suckers decided to rough us up! BrightMoon, the Queendom of Dreams and Wonders, come one come all!” She flung her arms up into the air, and she mocked the land they were in.
“L-”
“Why am I here?! Are those jerks sent to ‘assigned sessions’ too? They better be! They’re the ones who started it! And I, for defending my friends, am the one who gets into trouble?!”
“Lonnie, you hospitalised them: missing teeth, broken arms, internal bleeding. Your violent outburst is something to be worried about, that is the subject of this discussion.”
“I-”
“I get it, you’re angry. You’re a fighter. Your friends are safe thanks to you. You believe that you gotta fight the world to keep the people you care about safe, it’s you against the world. But the reason you’re here is not because we want to punish you. We brought you here because we saw a bright, talented, young woman who has great potential and a bright future ahead of her. And I am here to tell you that...”
Here came the shoe-drop, she hoped this would go okay, “The war is over.” Their eyes widened at the statement. “You can stop fighting. I know that it has to be hard for a soldier, especially one who was born during wartime. I’m here to tell you that you are more than that, you’re more than just the fight, more than what The Horde made you.”
“...I am The Horde.”
---
03:45pm-Session3-Juliana.
She was one of the rabblerousers who got into a confrontation with Lonnie and their friends. Casta found ‘Jewels’, as her friends called her, far more talkative than the rest of her patients. She wore her traditional Guard armour, she clearly ironed it just for this meeting. Jewels was an Asian woman, black long hair in a ponytail at the back, and bowl cut at the front. Jewels was all smiles and all gossip. She was actually talking so much Casta could barely keep up with her notes. Eventually, she gave up as most of the information leaving Jewels’ mouth was irrelevant.
She commented on the notepad and pen, on the colour of the room’s curtains, on Casta’s hair, what she had for breakfast, about which of her friends and co-workers were dating and or cheating on each other. Amongst all that she did manage to mention one important detail, “-Yeah we all went to have drinks after my Induction Ceremony, The Castle Guard has this tradition that they buy each rookie a drink and then they ambush you with an ice-bucket, it’s kinda hilarious. Too bad the vibe had to be ruined by some clone freaks behind us, ugh, skull-faces make my skin crawl-” She was a recruit for The Castle Guard for BrightMoon.
Threw her rambling she also managed to convey the name ‘Reve’ most likely Reve Lare, the Captain of the Guard. Casta met the woman once or twice, she was usually in charge of security at Castle BrightMoon, so she frisked her down on a number of times to make sure the Head-Sorceress of Mysticore didn’t try to smuggle any illegal magical contraband. Apart from that Casta had briefly spoken to her during dinners with the late-Queen, they often bonded over their dislike of clones.
The woman seemed kind enough, but she knew there was a hardened side to her. That side had clearly influenced Jewels to respond to conflicts with violence. She remarked, “-Yeah, Cap Reve, my mentor, great woman, she had some lame paperwork to do, but managed met us in the bar afterwards, you should’ve seen those skull-faces when she messed them up-”
“So, Jewels would you say that your mentor Reve Lare has inspired you to act more violently towards others?”
That put a pause on Juliana’s ranting, she just looked at Casta with a raised brow. All the rambling, it was all filibustering, she wanted to tire Casta out, run out the clock, smart. “Is this about Lonnie and her wimps?”
“...? Yes...”
“You’re still on that?”
“That’s what this whole session is about.”
Juliana snickered to herself, “I- I- heh, what? You serious?... They’re the enemy.”
Now Casta got it, “They’re not the enemy anymore Juliana, they’re just lost souls.”
“You’re Castaspella The BrightBringer. You and your sorceresses stood with our glorious Queen at the frontlines. Fought tooth and nail with them. Against The Horde! Your arch-nemesis, the disgraced sorceress, Shadow Weaver, the scourge of Mysticore, was the right hand of Hordak The Terrible! You are a hero to so many of us at the Guard. Out of all of us, I thought you’d understand.”
“They lost the war, Jewels. They’re purposeless. They’re lost, homeless. They’re just trying to find their way in the world, and we should help them. They’re our siblings, we’re all Etherians, we’re all on this planet together. We’re all cut from the same cloth.”
“These thugs fought against us for three decades, and now Hordak and Catra gave up, and- and what? We just stop? Shake hands? Hug it out? ‘Sorry about all the years of death and destruction, see you on Tuesday.’ Is this supposed to be a joke? The Horde brought their evil technology that polluted our world! You’re a champion of magic, you should hate these machine-worshippers the most!”
Casta had stopped taking notes, her expression hardened, this was serious, “Juliana, do you not understand? The Horde-troopers like Lonnie were ‘cadets’, they were born into The Horde, their parents were the founders of The Etherian Horde. They were indoctrinated into its belief. The Horde is the only thing they ever knew, all their lives. People like Lonnie come to me because I want to help them unlearn all those things. I want to help those children to assimilate back into society, we should all want that, help them have a normal life for once.” Casta hoped she could reach the rookie Guard.
Unfortunately, that did not seem to be so. Juliana looked disgusted with Castaspella’s words. Juliana stood up from her chair and began to walk out of the room, but stopped in the doorway. Casta pleaded for her to stay, but Jewels cut her off, “We were wrong about you. I thought you were on our side.”
“There are no sides anymore.”
“They burned our villages, took our lands, they fought against the word of the Queen and rejected the hierarchy of the royalty. I hope you know, that their horrors, their technology, makes you obsolete.” And then she turned around and walked out.
That last comment left Casta speechless.
---
02:37pm-Session2-Lonnie.
“Excuse me?” Casta asked confused.
“I am The Horde. We are all The Horde. I don’t want- None of us want to be ‘more than what The Horde made us.’ We don’t want your stupid help. The Horde stood for something. We all believed in something. And what now? We just forsaken everything our parents fought and stood for?”
“Lonnie, Hordak and Shadow Weaver lied to you, all your lives. They didn’t believe the things they taught you, and they abandoned The Horde in the end. Perhaps you can too.”
“Hordak may have abandoned The Horde, but many of us still believe The Etherian Horde means something, like it did when it first rose on this world. Hordak’s wish-washy religion never mattered, he brought the people of the outer-Queendoms technology from beyond the stars, and we could finally stand up to you Houdinis, and not only that, we could surpass you.”
Casta tried not to get offended by ‘surpass’ remark, she sighed, she looked at them into the eyes, “Lonnie, please, I’m trying to help you. Please, I want you to see that! I don’t want to be your enemy. I need you to know that proudly singing The Horde’s praises paints a target on your back.”
“What else is new?” Lonnie folded their arms, “My father told me what it was like in his time. Magic-users like you and your immortal Queen livin’ it up in luxury, on your thrones of pillows and peas. While the rest of us were left out to dry. No food, no infrastructure, no money. You, all of you, so high and mighty with your magics, you kept everything in ‘order’, kept it from changing. And you were surprised when we found a way to fight back, you were surprised when you realised there was something out there that could be your equal and opposite. The Horde made you rich pricks feel fear for the first time in your lives, we put you in your place.”
Casta was devastated to see how far the brainwashing indoctrination went, she hoped they weren’t beyond saving. She had to have hope. BrightMoon was kind, their late-Queen was kind. There was no chance what she said was true, it couldn’t be.
The session lasted its mandatory hour. At the end of the session, the last note Casta had written down was a motto Lonnie uttered again and again during their talks. It was the buzz-phrase she kept cycling back to in all her monologues. It was the chant of The Horde.
‘The Horde is not one, for we are The Horde.’
---
01:41pm-Session1-Catra.
Catra’s foot was nervously jittering up and down rapidly. Her left leg crossed over her right one, and then seconds later the right leg crossed over the left. Casta just jotted another thing down on her notepad. Catra narrowed her eyes. “What are you writing down? Can I see your notes?”
Casta turned the small pad around to face the cat. It was just doodles of stars and flowers, and other random shapes. The lower the doodles went down the page the more it faded away, “I ran out of ink.” Casta said.
Catra sighed, she was too paranoid, she leaned back on her chair, “I’m sorry, I- I’m the worst.”
“It’s okay, Catra. I get it. Let’s get back to the topic at hand.”
“Okay.” Catra sighed, it was exhausting just to remember, but she knew that was why she was there, to open up. Catra was a volatile, slightly unstable person, she had a history of out bursts and anger issues, a history of hurting friends and loved ones. And she wanted to get better, all she ever wanted was to be ‘fixed’.
“I was raised in The Horde. In the Fright Zone. Unlike most of the kids there I never knew my parents. I was dropped onto the doorstep of The Fright Zone. Shadow Weaver took me in and groomed me to be her soldier. Hit me a couple times too.”
Catra’s abusive childhood was the topic of many of their sessions there was much to unpack there. But today the topic changed slightly. Catra continued, “Everything I ever did I did to impress Shadow Weaver, and Hordak who we worshipped like a god. All I ever wanted was to be noticed, and loved. Blah Blah Blah my future wife-to-be runs away from The Horde, becomes The Chosen One, we fight, I take Shadow Weaver’s place, I serve directly under Hordak Blah Blah I told you all this before, but... I didn’t have a lot of friends. But Entrapta, she was the best. She always had my back, saved my life a couple times, she put in a good word for me to Hordak. She was a mother to me at a time when I had no concept of what a mother was... and I never appreciated her... And then I betrayed her. Stabbed her in the back. My friend, who trusted me. How could I?
And you know what? You know what the funny thing is? What the f--ked up thing about it was? I just lied, I just lied to Hordak, I knew he cared about her, but I was jealous of her, she was getting too close to him, she was taking my place as his right hand. I felt threatened, I was losing my footing. I incapacitated her sent her away, and I told him that she betrayed them. And when he found out the truth, when they reunited, you know what he told me?
‘No matter what you do, no matter how much time passes, I will never forgive you for what you have done to my beloved.’
“Then perhaps ‘Lord’ Hordak is the one who should he here with me, you aren’t the problem, Catra.”
“Heh, he’d never go.”
“I was kidding, buuut do you know anyone who could persuade him?”
“Heh, I could get Adora to convince him. He has a soft spot for her. He thinks he owes her after she saved his life from Horde Prime. Or at least that’s what she keeps tellin’ me.”
“So, you’re afraid that Hordak could hurt you. You know he can’t harm you. He’s in the service of the Queen, if he as much as sneezes in the wrong direction he’ll be seeing the inside of a cell forever. Or worse, if the Queen so wishes.”
“Am I afraid that Dak’s gonna break me in two? Heh, no. I could kick that sad emo’s butt with my hands tied behind my back, hehehe... No... No, I’m terrified of looking Entrapta in the eyes. I don’t know how she’d react to me walking into her home. I just- Every time I see her I’m paralysed with shame. How can I ever show my face in her own home?”
Casta just smiled at Catra, she spoke in a soft warm voice, “Oh, Catra, darling. I feel like you need to hear this, and you need to hear this often: You’re a good person. For a whole year you’ve been doing nothing but helping others: helping the rebuilding efforts, helping war-survivors adjust to their new lives, supervising food transports along trade roots. You’ve been working so hard to gain others’ trust again, as well as regain trust in yourself. You’ve made exquisite progress. And I’m here to tell you that you’re a good person, Catra.”
“I wish I believed you.”
End of Interlude Two