Chapter Text
"Adora, can you come out for a second? I want you to meet someone.”
It took Adora quite a bit of willpower not to roll her eyes at the sound of a certain, slightly raspy voice outside her tent. Spy Training 101, Lesson A: Don’t even start with the unnecessary facial expressions when you’re alone, unless you want to risk repeating them unintentionally in company later. Glimmer was the last person she wanted to offend, and especially not for being a little too eager for Adora’s taste about helping her settle in with the Rebellion.
Adora had meant to finish the current personnel lists by this afternoon’s meeting though, so that Angella, Glimmer and she could finally make some progress on the plans regarding urgently needed messenger services and recruitment. Making new friends didn’t hurt, sure; the trips to surrounding villages like Thaymor, following the victory over the Horde at Castle Bright Moon a week ago, had certainly been useful. Although Adora had never been the most sociable person in the past: Given her status as a former Horde soldier and now as one of the most important members of the Rebellion, it was, of course, essential that her face be known in these lands. If only as a shining example.
But if Glimmer wanted to try and hook her up with one of her questionable ex-lovers again …
“Adora! Think you can go back to moping and staring at your sword later?”
“I’m not. I’ll be right there. Just need to change.” This time, they had to hear her grind her teeth all the way outside.
Hectically, she crossed out the last name on Bow’s list of suggestions for new task assignments lest she might forget it later.
Leonn, one of the people who had only recently been freed from the Fright Zone, a former Magnabeam victim … The man in his mid-forties was very enthusiastic and, above all, extremely talkative when it came to the rebels’ goals. Which was exactly why Adora couldn’t send him out there until he’d been properly trained, as much as she liked the guy. He’d be more useful if he told them the last details about his experiences as a slave of the Horde.
It had long become routine to push aside the twinge of guilt that came with such thoughts. Just like the exact circumstances of that very battle, in which so many rebels had been found again and even more new members had been recruited. To think of that confrontation – Adora’s very first on the side of good, freed from Shadow Weaver’s spells over her mind – would have meant thinking of He-Man.
To avoid the risk of Glimmer actually just ripping her tent flap open, she decided against changing her clothes after all and instead threw a simple white cardigan over her bodysuit, which bore the traces of having been used thoroughly the last few days. She hadn’t even gotten around to washing her clothes in the river yet, that was how busy she’d been with meetings with the leaders, with plans and lists, rules, combat training, and weapon smithing.
Sleep and food had also taken a backseat to all that, as Adora realized, contritely, when she pushed off her clothes chest with a little too much force and had to briefly grab the rack bolted to it because colorful stars were dancing before her eyes, almost like when she was changing into She-Ra. Okay, maybe an extra hour or two of sleep tonight. No matter how difficult it was to find it, with the never-fading, ominous glow of the Fright Zone in the distance, which never allowed it to get completely dark in the woods. But perhaps Adora could at least delegate the writing and copying of the lists to the Twiggets …
“Adora! I swear I’ll teleport us right in there! And then I don’t care if you’re standing there naked!”
The strikingly husky laugh of a voice Adora couldn’t place mingled with this rather lame threat. A female voice – so hopefully not another potential mate.
Not that she was particularly picky about the gender of potential partners, but that, Glimmer couldn’t know … hopefully. Otherwise, the number of uninvited suitors in the camp would double soon, no doubt.
Admittedly, now Adora was curious to know who this other person was, whose silhouette stood out in the bright afternoon light through the auburn fabric of her tent, slender and tall compared to Glimmer’s somewhat stockier build.
“I said I’ll be right … What …?” Adora forgot whatever she’d been about to ask before she’d even fully unzipped the entrance, because she was facing one of the most beautiful women she’d ever encountered.
Piercing ice-blue eyes flashed at her amusedly, the same color as the woman’s thick hair, which fell far past her white wool cape, almost to her thighs. The skin-tight leather jumpsuit was also entirely white and blue, exuding an aura of cool elegance, underlined by the woman’s almost snow-white skin, veined with deep blue.
And you could not only see the element that surrounded the stranger like a second skin; it was suddenly several degrees colder near this tent – that Angella and Glimmer had given Adora as a welcome gift – than in the rest of the camp. Yet no shivers showed on the visitor’s skin. Perhaps a magical resistance to temperatures, the same trait Adora’s secret hero identity’s body was blessed with?
Adora promptly wondered if the woman’s skin would feel just as cool – or if it would warm up under a caressing touch … And now it was about high time to yank her eyes back into their sockets and greet the stranger.
Stars, quite apart from the fact that she was in a relationship ... At least in theory, even though she couldn’t remember her encounters with said man in her youth due to some annoying mental block, and since being freed from the Fright Zone hadn’t even found the time to do anything about that, even though she dreamed of the guy every night ... Right now, she simply had other things on her mind than getting laid by the first hot woman walking into the rebel base.
“Wow. Uh, I mean: Hello.”
“Yes, I’m single,” the woman replied so dryly that Adora had to wonder if she’d mumbled something suspicious in her surprise.
But when the stranger saw her embarrassed expression, she took pity on her and repeated that rough laughter somewhere between lust for life and the bedroom. “Just kidding. Frosta. Nice to meet you. Glimmer and I have been friends for a while. After hearing what you guys have accomplished in Bright Moon, I just had to see for myself how things are going here by now.”
“We are allies, even though we’ve never had the chance to fight side by side. Empress Frosta rules the Kingdom of Snows,” Glimmer added.
At least that name wasn’t new to Adora. Now she also knew why the woman wasn’t familiar to her despite her extensive geographical training in Horde school.
The Snows Empire was so extremely impenetrable and sealed off by its eternal winter that Hordak had little interest in conquering it. Basically, 20 years ago, he’d just stuck a flag on some hill at the edge of the ice desert, set up an outpost there, and claimed that the empire now belonged to the Horde, just like all the others on Etheria. The tower was probably still rusting away, unoccupied, if it hadn’t already been buried by snowstorms. Scout teams had never made it as far as to the actual castle; the conditions in those lands were simply too harsh. Which was why no one in the Fright Zone had the slightest idea who actually ruled there.
Which, in turn, was an undeniable advantage for the Rebellion.
And it was a great sign of trust that Frosta had dared to leave her safe home for a visit. “Well, that issue about joint battles is supposed to change soon. Until now, my people haven’t seen any reason to defy the Horde because they’ve left us alone, but we’re not blind to the suffering on Etheria. Now that the Rebellion has finally shown a real sign of life, we too will do our part to ensure victory in this war.”
“I’m very glad to hear that, Empress.” Adora gave a slight bow, relieved that Glimmer hadn’t immediately rubbed Adora’s origins in Frosta’s face. It was exhausting enough, having to constantly make it clear to everyone else that she didn’t want to be seen as royalty. Not as long as she was helping to organize the Rebellion, not as long as she had to put her actual life as Princess of Eternia on the back burner.
“Then you’re on your way to Queen Angella, I assume? Glimmer, why don’t we all get on horseback right away? I’ve prepared the meeting as far as I can. We can …”
“We’ve just left the castle,” Frosta interrupted her, again with that solemnity in her voice that stood in such stark contrast to Adora’s drive that she inevitably had to slow down a notch if she didn’t want to overwhelm their new partner right away.
“Queen Angella now knows she can count on me in case of an emergency. That wraps up the government business for today. Here, I’ve come to have fun with my friends.”
“Which means as much as girls’ talk, followed by music and dancing around the campfire, and Mom wants you to know that she doesn’t want to see you until tomorrow morning,” Glimmer added with a cheeky grin, before Adora could even try and point out how much work they all had to do.
“Uh…” With that, these two had achieved something that had happened very rarely since her youth as an aspiring Horde Force Captain: Adora was speechless.
Which Glimmer took as a chance to make a quick exit, waving cheerfully. “I’ll go see where the others are. The Twiggets will surely sacrifice one of their wine barrels if I give Sprag a little eye.”
Resting her chin on two fingertips, Frosta observed Adora’s equally restless and suddenly clueless demeanor, let her eyes wander over her appearance slowly – which did look somewhat shabby, especially compared to her own clothes – and sighed so deeply that Adora immediately blushed bright red. “Oh yes, we have lots of work to do. Well then, Princess, may I come in?”
Adora had the funny feeling that it wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d said no. “So you do know who I am.”
“Glimmer said you don’t care about titles.”
Frosta looked around Adora’s sparsely furnished tent, wrinkling her little nose. “Have you guys had so many new arrivals since the retaking of Bright Moon that your supplies of furnishings have run out? Glimmer only would have had to say the word, and I would have brought you a few chests of gold until the economy here has stabilized again. I assume the Horde has plundered Angella’s treasuries.”
“Not everything, but that’s not the point. I prefer to earn things rather than accept gifts. The Queen and the Princess know that. I haven’t had time to think about interior design anyway.”
Adora hurried to clear the only stool in the spacious tent of her clothes and settled on the bed herself. She should have offered her guest something to drink, but she hadn’t thought to stock up on such supplies in here either.
Her gaze instinctively fell on the desk when she avoided Frosta’s uncomfortably sharp scrutiny, on the unfinished reports lying there. She sighed silently. The unnecessary banter and that wine bender later would set her back at least half a day in her work, but she didn’t want to be rude. It looked like she’d just have to get a few hours less sleep again tonight after all ...
Frosta must have asked her something, but her senses, usually so attuned to every detail of her surroundings, reacted too late. Not good. A short break was apparently not such a bad idea.
“Sorry, I was distracted for a moment. What did you say?”
The finely arched, slightly raised light-blue eyebrow of the woman across from her made it all too clear that she had Adora under far closer watch than Adora would have liked. “That I don’t get the impression you’re lazy. And judging by the dark circles under your eyes, I’m not entirely wrong.”
Adora pouted. In Snows, tact was apparently considered overrated. “As I said … I don’t value luxury. That’s not how I was raised.”
“And you want to continue upholding the ideals you were raised with?” Frosta asked without the slightest reproach in her voice; it wasn’t even a subtle dig.
She made no move to sit down. When Adora, shaken by the unexpected allusion, looked up at her wordlessly, she held out her hand. “And here I thought Glimmer was exaggerating. Come with me.”
“Where to?” With how shocked she was, Adora was only too happy to let herself be pulled to her feet, even though she wasn’t usually at all enthusiastic about being touched, especially by strangers.
“Away, on horseback. You have two minutes.” Frosta let her gaze wander so provocatively slowly over Adora’s bodysuit that Adora could spare herself the question of what she meant by that.
Reluctantly, she surrendered to her fate. Pissing off an empress was not a good idea, especially when she was an important ally.
At least this way, Adora finally got to try on the white riding leggings trimmed with leather and the hand-embroidered reddish-brown waistcoat her mother had given her during her only visit to her true home so far. She had promised to fulfill her duty here on Etheria as quickly as possible so she could finally live with the family from whom she had been stolen as a baby, and she still intended to devote every minute of her life to that mission. But to consciously think of those people to whom she had sworn this oath from time to time, no matter how much it hurt, and to honor their love and care by actually using their gifts – no shame in that.
“So where are we riding to?” After they’d been on the move without talking for nearly half an hour, the confusing spectacle became too much for Adora.
Except to keep her from doing something meaningful, Frosta seemed to have no interest in engaging with her. Adora found the woman’s company increasingly unpleasant, not only because of her silence and natural underlying arrogance.
She‘d been right earlier: Right next to the young empress, it was indeed quite a bit cooler than anywhere else. So it was probably not presumptuous to assume that Frosta, like so many members of ruling families on Etheria, was endowed with special powers, which in her case undoubtedly had something to do with the conditions of her homeland.
It didn’t exactly make Adora’s teeth chatter, but her idea of a warm meeting, the kind Glimmer had undoubtedly intended for the two of them, was a different one. Besides, they were getting closer and closer to the outskirts of the Harpy Empire. One encounter with Hunga as an enemy, right after her brother had freed Adora from slavery at the hands of the Horde, had been enough for now. “Empress? What’s going on here?”
“You need to actually get to know the world you want to save.” Frosta still barely looked up.
She was more busy with braiding pigtails into her snow-white mare’s mane as she led her to climb a steep, narrow serpentine path. She barely touched the leather reins the same color as her mount.
This rocky area, in the exact opposite direction from the Fright Zone, was one Adora had never been to before. With every passing minute, she felt less and less like changing that.
“I already did,” she retorted irritably. “It’s what my brother told me to do when he was my prisoner, to free me from Shadow Weaver’s spell, if you need to know. And what I saw was enough to help Adam turn me against the people who raised me and abandon my true family on my home planet to join the Rebellion.” It wasn’t meant to sound so accusatory, but Frosta’s unimpressed expression only made her even more upset.
It was quite unlike Glimmer’s daily attempts to distract Adora from her grief with yet another well-meaning, pseudo-fun activity. Unlike Madam’s night watch after Adora’s return from Eternia, when she hadn’t been able to stop crying, and a gentle touch on her back had been the only thing that had saved her from a nervous breakdown – or from changing her mind, against all reason.
This bored detachment was new to her … And it wasn’t exactly pleasant, even if one was a master at convincing oneself that one didn’t need recognition, and certainly not pity, from anyone.
“Glimmer and Bow drag me from one village to another every morning. I know what’s going on in this world. If you guys don’t let me work instead of distracting me, I can’t change any of it.”
“And what have you seen in those places?” At least that didn’t sound quite so indifferent anymore, even though Adora found that amused tone even more disconcerting.
“Poverty. Hunger. Disease. And above all, fear. Right now, the Rebellion’s most important job is to make sure people aren’t afraid to rise up anymore. So they’ll join us. Otherwise, we’ll never make any progress. That is our priority, not picnic trips.” Adora knew she was being a bit unfair, but this woman was driving her crazy.
Especially because she responded to every argument with even more ignorance, not even batting an eyelid at the most devastating reproach of all, the one that had already come to Adora’s mind earlier.
“Maybe you can’t understand that when you’re hiding in an ice palace.”
“Yes, you may be right about that.” Again, that slightly haughty, mask-like smile on Frosta’s small, heart-shaped lips. The venomous darts indeed bounced off her almost as if hitting an ice wall.
“So? What are we doing here?”
“You’ll see.” And with that, the Empress turned her attention back to braiding. Instead of hair ribbons, she was using tiny ice rings, as Adora suddenly noticed. She didn’t spare a second glance for the rock face sloping ever more steeply beside them, and her horse strode over every tiny bump almost as confidently as Spirit. The two seemed to trust each other blindly, which Adora found quite astonishing given this woman’s shady nature.
“Do your powers include turning your horse into a mountain goat?” Adora was starting to become seriously uneasy about this unsecured trail.
“Afraid, Your Highness?” Frosta raised her eyebrow even higher in mockery and winked at Spirit conciliatorily when he snorted in offence.
“Your horse certainly is not. Fancy a little race to the hilltop, Spirit? Elssa so rarely gets the chance to compete with someone who can hold a candle to her.”
“As if you need to ask.” Spirit broke into a few prancing trots, dislodging a few pebbles from the path that rolled down the slope which earned him a little nudge in the side from Adora’s heel, not least because she hadn’t even been asked.
“I’m really sorry, Adora. You know I love you, but if I have to listen to you snapping at the Empress any longer, I’ll have to throw you off.”
“I can see you two have conspired against me. Well then, go.” Adora cursed under her breath but didn’t object; instead, she took as much of her weight as possible off Spirit’s back as a signal that he was allowed to run.
Spirit had barely gotten any exercise the last few days, she had to admit; even their morning rides had been very short. It was only fair that he be allowed to stretch his legs a little. And Spirit was not only an extremely athletic animal but, above all, a very agile and sure-footed one. Him, she trusted blindly.
And the fast gallop up the winding path kept all of them from having the breath to make stupid snide remarks at the other.
Admittedly, when they arrived, and a small village with houses carved into the stone emerged from the light mist in the distance, spreading out in the middle of the rocky plateau – a place Adora hadn’t even known existed –, she couldn’t help but smile.
“Welcome to Rocky Hide.” Frosta stopped her mare beside her and patted the animal’s neck. Both were only slightly more out of breath than Adora and Spirit, as Adora respectfully but silently noted.
“It’s beautiful,” Adora admitted, and it certainly was. Except that these people living back there surely didn’t exactly appreciate visitors, given how hermetically they were hiding out here.
“So are you finally going to tell me why you brought me here? I didn’t mean to be rude, but … I don’t even know you. And you surely have better things to do. Why did you, of all people, get stuck with the shitty job of forcing me to have fun?”
“Because I’m the one among the mutant princesses who’s in charge of entertainment.” There was a hint of bitterness in Frosta’s voice that didn’t escape Adora, nor did the self-deprecating emphasis on the word entertainment. It seemed that despite all the efforts toward partnership in the war, there was still some tension between Snows and the other kingdoms. “Me, they usually call when there’s a stick to pull out of somebody’s ass.”
And just like that, Adora’s fleeting interest vanished into thin air. “You know, if you’re trying to get me excited about spending an entertaining day with you, you’re really doing a lousy job.”
“I don’t have to. You’re coming anyway.” Shrugging, Frosta urged her mare forward again.
“Oh yeah? And what makes you say that?” Much to her annoyance, Adora actually followed her, if only because she had no idea how she would have explained it to Glimmer if she’d come back alone.
And of course, that little bitch knew that very well. “Glimmer and Angella ordered you to take the afternoon off, so it’s your duty. And you don’t neglect any of your duties.”
To this statement, Adora had nothing more to offer in response than silence, now truly pissed-off.
“Can you at least turn off the AC, Ice Princess?” she finally grumbled. Five hundred yards above sea level, it was chilly enough, all without the extra sub-zero temperatures in the air.
“Actually, I can’t.” For the first time, Frosta’s gaze flickered when she looked at Adora, just for a moment. “I can only influence my surroundings, not my own body. Powers can’t always be controlled the way you’d like them to be. Tell me, do you have something against white magic in particular, Horde soldier, or were you at least racist toward your own mutants back in the day, too?”
“If you weren’t an Empress, I’d slap you right now.” Mainly because Frosta was, of course, right, and since leaving Hordak’s army, Adora hadn’t met anyone who could bring out her worst sides within an hour.
Her anger transferred so unfiltered to her body tension that even Spirit, as a precaution, danced a few steps away from Frosta’s mare.
“Well, if you weren’t a Princess, I would’ve punched you in the face earlier already.” Frosta batted her impossibly long blue eyelashes charmingly. “But wait, I forgot – you don’t want to be treated like royalty, right? So why don’t we just find out if we still can’t stand each other by the end of the day? And if not, we’ll settle the whole thing the old-fashioned way in a duel.”
“Why not right now?” Adora asked defiantly, ignoring Spirit’s disapproving snort this time. She had never shied away from a challenge. She certainly wasn’t going to start now because of a disapproving look from Queen Angella.
“Because we’re here.” Frosta thrust her pointed chin forward, where, among the many half-hidden huts, more and more colorful stalls with merchandise, small shows by various jugglers, and even a few rides were gradually being revealed. A fair.
Adora let out one last resigned sigh and reluctantly handed her horse over to a somewhat grumpy stable boy at the city gate. Well, if this didn’t promise to be a cheerful afternoon.