Chapter Text
Day 1 in Brightmoon.
Queen Angella suggested I write a diary. And, honestly? I don't really get what for. I even tried to turn her down when she offered me a notebook and a quill, but she didn't take no for an answer. Believe me, I'm used to receiving orders that make absolutely no sense, but... nothing to do with expressing feelings. (More like the opposite, actually).
So I have no clue what I should be writing about! Yay! And Glimmer is watching me from the slit of the door (I can hear her breathing and the creak of the boards when she shifts her weight from one leg to the other) and I just know what will happen if I give up on this: she'll teleport right beside me without prior notice and she'll lecture me on how important it is to express your feelings! and on how she always does it in her own diary and it helps her feel better! (yeah, she's already done that a while ago). Bow suggested she gave me some space instead of overwhelming me, but being honest here, I don't think it’ll work either way.
All of this is... weird. I mean, in the span of a single day, I've left the Horde, I left Catra behind and basically everything I ever thought I knew is now far behind me. I feel... I don't know. Nothing about this feels real? Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and all of it will be just a dream. A really strange one at that. But I'll wake up and I'll simply be in my sack, with Catra sleeping on my feet, and Shadow Weaver will come fetch us in an awful way and she will scold us for being late to our training. And I'll go back to the certainty of a pre-established future and goals that seemed more than reasonable!
To be fair, just thinking about it makes me sick. About going back, I mean. All those kids... they were "saved" by the Horde and raised as soldiers, convinced that destroying villages full of innocent people is the right thing to do. And I was gonna be one of them… Maybe? I don't know. What if I had never found the sword? Would I have hesitated to burn Thaymor down? That village, I was gonna lead that mission, I would have been the one in charge... Catra was there, and she didn't think twice before attacking without mercy. Who knows I wouldn't be like that too? Shadow Weaver would have gotten in my head again, she would have reassured me that all of that was fine and that the village deserved to be destroyed. We were the good guys, and the rebels were bad. They were rebels for a reason, right?
And now it so happens that everything was the other way around! and they planned to make us do terrible things! I've been through all of this with Razz, that crazy old woman in the woods (finding her was the least weird thing that happened to me today, which is saying a lot), but isn't all of this kinda crazy? Am I just supposed to stomach this right away? And Catra is still there. Lonnie, Rogelio, Kyle... all of them, are they aware of what they're doing? I have to get them out of there. Maybe, if I can get through to them, I can convince them to join the Rebellion - it's not too late. Maybe Angella can make room for them in Brightmoon, or in some village, or...
Hah.
Who am I trying to fool?
We're not welcome in the Rebellion. Not even me, having a magical sword and a legend that precedes me. Even after Queen Angella publicly acknowledged me, I can still feel the hatred in their eyes. They look at me and see tanks, destruction, death. And I understand why, but... This just isn't fair.
Either way, I need to get my friends out of the Fright Zone. Next time I see them, I’ll do it. I’ll get Catra, at least - she has already suffered enough.
It’s still in my head, the look on her face when she said I only knew these people for some hours, yet I’m throwing everything away for them. And she’s right. The worst of it all is that she’s completely and utterly right. But, in just a few hours, everything’s changed. Scratch that, I only needed the living image of Thaymor in flames, ruins and ashes spreading out on the Horde soldiers’ boots.
I know Shadow Weaver isn’t enjoying any of this - I would be pretty worried about that if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m more concerned that she’s taking it out on Catra. Hah… is it too late to go back? To give in? I don’t want any of that, I don’t want Catra to have a hard time on my behalf… She should just escape with me.
And yet, she didn’t seem surprised at all when I told her we were being manipulated. She spoke like it was the most natural thing in the world! Also like any of that (the manipulation, the annihilation of rebel villages, the indiscriminate violence against innocent people) was okay.
But…
This can’t be what she really wants, right?
I need to talk to her.
It hasn’t been one single day and I miss her already. She always has things clearer than me.
I… I think I kinda hate this concept of a diary? My chest has shrunk at least three times while I wrote this. And I don’t feel like myself, at all, I don’t know what any of this I’ve written means nor why it was inside of me.
I just need to focus on being a good She-Ra, on gaining the Rebellion’s trust and on creating a plan to stop the Horde. Even if that means going against everything I’ve ever believed in.
I’ll be fine, right? I just need to stop overthinking.
There’s no going back now.