Chapter Text
They looked around at the bleak metal walls, the piles of debris huddled in sheltered corners, everything highlighted by the harsh flickering lights.
“Well, it could be worse… probably.” Glimmer said, wrinkling her nose at one particularly suspect piece of scrap.
Scorpia rubbed the back of her head with one pincer. She looked overwhelmed and demoralized. “This was a mistake. We should just go back. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“This is your home,” Perfuma said gently, resting her hand on Scorpia’s other pincer. “It only needs some love!”
Adora and Catra glanced at each other, but held their tongues for Scorpia’s sake. They both knew what the other was thinking, anyway.
“Love, and an army of cleaners. Hey, maybe that’s what we can have the clones do!” Bow said.
Perfuma pursed her lips slightly at this; she had Opinions on the ethics of using the clones for labor. “But once it’s clean,” she continued gamely, “you will be able to put your own touches on it, really make it your own!” She smiled up at Scorpia and brought her other hand up to sandwich Scorpia’s pincer. “And I think you already have some ideas for that, don’t you?”
Scorpia blushed deep enough to almost match her carapace. “I’ve never decorated before…” She started to mumble, but Catra cut her off.
“Scorp, you had the neatest room in the Horde. You just haven’t ever had anything to decorate with.”
Scorpia considered that for a moment. “Well, I had thought… I don’t know, maybe some, uh, flowers? Would really liven the place up? Make as big a change from the Horde as possible, you know.” Scorpia’s blush somehow deepened, but she caught Perfuma’s gaze and held it.
The rest of the group desperately tried not to look like they were smirking at each other, except Catra, who openly smirked.
“Oh I know what you need!” Frosta lept suddenly into the middle of the group. “Ice flowers!” She yelled excitedly and punched the floor with an ice fist. A trail of ice blazed across the floor and up the nearest wall, winding into surprisingly delicate crystalline flowers and vines, all made of sparkling clear or softly frosted ice.
Scorpia and Perfuma broke their eye contact to blink at the ice flowers, both clearly at a loss. Glimmer glared at Frosta and tried to make some gesture that conveyed you’re ruining the moment! without Scorpia seeing, while Bow chuckled nervously, “Wow, Frosta, those are amazing!” His voice cracked with his false enthusiasm.
Frosta threw back her head and laughed, and the ice flowers vanished with a sparkle. “You guys should have seen your faces!” She leaned over and howled for another breath before abruptly stopping. “Seriously though, this place needs some flowers for sure, Perfuma. It is grim in here.”
They were all sitting in a circle around one of Glimmer’s campfire spells: Adora, Catra, Melog sitting on their feet, Glimmer, Bow, Scorpia, Perfuma, Frosta, Micah, Mermista, Seahawk, Netossa, Spinnerella, and even Castaspella. Only Entrapta was missing, because she had predictably gotten distracted in Hordak’s old lab and had told Scorpia, who had gone to fetch her, that they should go ahead and start eating dinner without her.
The Fright Zone creaked and groaned around them. Adora felt strangely comforted by the familiar sounds. It didn’t feel quite right to feel comforted, what with all the bad memories associated with that place, but just then the familiar outweighed everything else. And it helped to have all of her friends there, looking relaxed and at their ease. The utter absence of ration bars on the plate on her lap was a huge plus too.
It was only their first day of cleaning up the Fright Zone, and most of it had been spent assessing the work ahead and taking inventory. The only real work they had done was making sure the barracks and kitchens were habitable and functional for the volunteers. Most of the volunteers were former Horde soldiers putting in their service hours, but a fair number were citizens from across Etheria. Many of those were even people whose families had lived in the Fright Zone before the Horde landed, who now wanted to move back. Between the years of indifferent Horde upkeep, recent battles, and the thick mat of aggressive vegetation courtesy of She-Ra, it was going to take a lot of work to make the Fright Zone somewhere pleasant to live. But all of Etheria seemed to be feeling hopeful just then: Salineas had been fixed up good as new, followed by all of the major villages, and the Fright Zone had felt like the logical next repair project.
Adora balanced her food on her lap, eating with one had while the other was occupied with flipping through her notes from the day. From what she had seen, they had a few different options for where to start the work, but she wanted to first check with Scorpia before they made any decisions. After all, this was technically her kingdom.
Catra’s shoulder nudged Adora out of her studying. “We’ve spent the whole day thinking about this stuff, you can’t take a break even to eat?”
“I am taking a break! I was just checking on one thing…”
Catra laughed. “Adora, you were so focused on your notes that you didn’t even notice you were eating my food.”
Adora looked down at their plates. Hers was still half full, while Catra’s was nearly bare: definitely not the usual course of their meals. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?! Here, you can have the rest of mine.” She tried to switch their plates, but Catra smacked her hand away.
“Don’t be such a dummy, I got enough to eat already. You just put those notes down and finish what’s on your plate.” When Adora still hesitated, Catra rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I would let you take my food if I didn’t want you to?”
Adora narrowed her eyes. “I could take it if I wanted to.”
“Adora, do you have to make everything a competition?” Glimmer cut in.
“I think it’s sweet that you share your food,” Bow added in a too-innocent voice.
Catra glared in mock outrage at him. “I’ll share the rest of my food with your face if you keep that up.”
“But your plate is empty,” Glimmer said with a smirk.
“Adora’s isn’t.”
“It is now,” Bow said.
Glimmer and Catra both stared at Adora’s now empty plate. “Adora, do you even breathe when you eat?” Glimmer asked. Adora shrugged.
Several spots down, Micah set his plate on the floor with a clack and rubbed his hands together. “So, what’s our plan for tomorrow?”
Adora quickly grabbed her notes back up, ignoring Catra’s tail flipping lightly against her back, and angled herself towards Scorpia. “I identified a few areas of attack that we could start with. One, we could continue where we left off today, really cleaning up and out the original living quarters. This would be the best place to start if you’re planning on only doing surface level changes to the Fright Zone. However, if you want to make more significant changes — take it back to what it was before the Horde landed, or do your own thing with it — then I would suggest option two: starting either with the foundries or with the infrastructure. The plumbing and energy grids haven’t been upgraded since the Horde arrived, which means they’re well overdue for improvements. As long as we’re not planning on keeping most of the existing structures — and honestly most of them are in imminent danger of collapsing — we can easily take things down to their foundations and replace the piping and wiring to your needs going forward. Similarly, I imagine you’ll want to get the foundry up and running again. The Fright Zone and the rest of Etheria will definitely need the raw materials to rebuild sooner rather than later. I believe you’ve already been getting reports of metal shortages, right, Catra?”
“A few. Scrap from Prime’s spires and all of the bots have gone a long ways, of course, but eventually that will start to run out, with all the new demand for ships and the like. The Fright Zone has the best manufacturing potential of anywhere on Etheria.”
Adora nodded. “Right. But of course it is ultimately your choice, Scorpia.”
Scorpia dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter. “What? My choice? What do you mean?”
“This is your kingdom,” Perfuma said gently, placing a hand on one of Scorpia’s pincers.
Scorpia looked like she was longing for the ground to swallow her whole.
“I think you should start with the foundry,” Catra volunteered. “We will probably need the raw materials to rebuild the infrastructure. And besides, Hordak and I kind of already did most of the demolition work.” She rubbed the back of her neck ruefully.
“Right. Yes. Okay. Foundries sound good. A good plan.”
Adora gave her an encouraging smile and nod.
“Now that that’s sorted, who’s telling the first ghost story?” Mermista drawled.
“Uh, what?” Adora said.
Mermista shrugged. “We’ve got the campfire spell and the creepy-ass setting, it just seems like the logical thing to do.”
“Creepy?” Adora looked around at the once-familiar walls. Sure, they were starting to rust in places, and most of the lights had developed an irregular flicker, but creepy? She glanced over at Catra, who just shrugged.
“Oh, I love ghost stories!” Castaspella exclaimed. “We have some excellent ones that we tell in Mystacore.”
“You mean like the one about Light Spinner that ended up being mostly true?” Glimmer asked dryly.
“Just so!” Casta said, clapping her hands together.
Micah shifted uneasily next to her. “I don’t think those would be good ones to tell, though.”
Catra snorted. “Shadow Weaver was a whole fucking ghost story on her own.”
“Or maybe we could just sing some songs!” Perfuma suggested, a hint of desperation in her bright voice.
“Ooo, I could teach you all SEA SHANTIES!”
“Nooope.” Mermista pulled Seahawk back down from where he had lept onto a bench. “We are not doing that.”
“Adora, what about those ghost stories you kept telling us about on that one rescue mission to Aldwyn?” Glimmer asked. “The Faceless Princess, or whatever?”
“The Headless Princess? Did you really tell them those stories?” Catra leaned back on her right arm and raised her eyebrow at Adora.
Adora flushed and opened her mouth to protest, but Bow beat her to the answer. “She never actually did tell us the stories, just teased them enough that we were scared out of our skins by every little sound.”
“Perfect,” Mermista purred.
“They’re not too scary, are they?” Spinnerella asked with a sideways glance towards Frosta.
Netossa smirked at her wife. “Are you trying to wimp out?”
Spinnerella frowned, a little primly. “I am simply concerned that we won’t get enough sleep tonight, if we’re all kept awake by scary stories. And we need to be rested for tomorrow.”
“Nah, they’re not that bad.” Catra cut through the impending marital competition. “Shadow Weaver started telling us them when we were, like, six.” She paused and frowned thoughtfully. “On second thought, that’s not actually saying anything, is it?”
Adora chuckled softly while Perfuma and Spinnerella shook their heads solemnly. Melog looked up from their spot on the floor and chimed something to Catra. Catra gave a small smile at whatever they said, and reached down to ruffle their head. “Thanks, buddy.”
Everyone jumped as something clanged loudly in the distance.
“Building falling down, or Entrapta?” Bow asked into the pause.
“I’m honestly not sure which of those to hope for,” Glimmer answered.
The overhead lights suddenly flickered and died in unison, leaving them in only the glow of Glimmer’s campfire spell. “Entrapta,” the group groaned in unison.
“Should… should we try to go find her?” Scorpia asked.
“She has Emily and Wrong Hordak with her. Most likely she’s having the time of her life,” Catra said.
Bow waived his tracker pad. “And if she isn’t, she knows how to get in touch with us in a pinch.”
“Well, now we simply have to have a ghost story, with this lighting!” Castaspella said happily.
Something else in the distance gave a tortured metal groan. “And with that mood music,” Netossa added.
“Come on Adora, tell us about the Headless Princess!” Frosta said, her voice slightly too loud. The last words echoed around the room for a second, a faint hiss clinging to life.
“In a place like this? No, I think you should tell them the story of the Undead Princess.” Catra’s eyes glowed in the dim lighting. She sounded mischievous, but Adora saw a strangely tense look flash across her face as their gazes held. Melog also had a waiting kind of tension. For some reason, it seemed important to them for Adora to play along, although for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why.
Adora narrowed her eyes slightly, still holding Catra’s gaze. “I don’t know, that one might be too scary for these Bright Mooners.”
Catra’s lips quirked in amusement as the circle erupted in a variety of protestations.
“Hey! We have scary stories in Bright Moon too!”
“I’m not scared, and I’m from the Land of Snows, not from Bright Moon!”
“Most of us aren’t even from Bright Moon.”
“Oh man, that one still gives me nightmares sometimes.”
Perfuma looked nervously at Scorpia. “You’ve heard it already? Is it really that scary?”
Scorpia shrugged. “I mean, I never actually heard Shadow Weaver tell it, but it made the rounds of the cadets. Who knows, maybe the real version isn’t as bad!” She frowned. “Or it could be worse. Does the real version have a robot that turns invisible, or a robot that only walked backwards?”
Adora raised her eyebrows. “Um, nope, no robots in the one that Shadow Weaver would tell.”
“Oh good. That part was the worst.”
Adora could feel Catra shaking with suppressed laughter. “What… what happened?” she asked.
Scorpia waved a pincer vaguely. “Oh, the one robot would turn invisible, and then the other one only went backwards. Which, now that I’m saying it, that doesn’t sound scary at all, but trust me it was way scarier in context, when Octavia was telling it.”
Catra wheezed. “Where did Octavia hear that, I wonder,” she said to Adora under her breath.
Adora snorted quietly, then inhaled a deep breath and took the plunge. “You want to know the truth about the Undead Princess?” She pitched her voice to carry, and the other conversations trailed off abruptly.