Chapter Text
FIVE
+20 years from today, First Cosmic Symposium on the Restoration of Magic, Etheria
“Is this seat free?”
It takes every bit of Heliani’s courage to ask the question, and most of her fortitude to keep her voice strong while she does it. The rest of that fortitude goes to keeping her stance strong, too, when the seated woman looks up at her. Which happens slowly, both lazy and accusatory, like Heliani has disturbed her from her very important business of lounging in a spindly auditorium chair with her eyes closed.
The woman is tall - really, really tall, tall enough that she barely has to tilt her head to look at Heliani, even though she’s seated and Heliani is the one standing - and alien, though everyone here is alien to Heliani. She’s one of the ones who look similar enough to Heliani, albeit with less ears...Siderian, then, or Etherian (they are on Etheria, after all), or - ah, buttercups, Heliani forgets the rest. She can tell the woman is older, at least, with lined purple skin and biceps the size of Heliani’s head and sharply pointed ears that have even sharper looking bones or horns or something sticking out of their lobes.
The woman grunts.
Heliani dithers for a moment, which must be a moment too long, because the woman jerks her head sharply at the empty seat beside her. Heliani sits down, hard, and arranges her robes, and tries to reorient herself to no longer rushing. It’s tough, after so much time scrambling from the transport to her shockingly opulent guest rooms (there’s a waterfall) to the presentation hall, though thankfully the clear signposting meant everything was easy enough to find. Now settled, more or less, she lets herself finally look around the room.
It’s a lot to take in. The auditorium is crowded, packed with a riot of colors and shapes and creatures, and Heliani struggles to distinguish between what’s magic (magic!) and what’s alien biology. Behind her sits a pair of old women with long, curling tentacles entwined together, their matching lavender t-shirts emblazoned with the word VOLUNTEER in big black capital letters; an amorphous jelly-like blob oozes its way through the aisle with a name tag sunk just under its surface; a set of bug-like, yellow-and-black aliens hover in front of her, the chairs there replaced with a series of perches. At the front of the room, there’s a raised dais where a blue-haired woman uses nothing more than a gesture to fill five glasses of water - one at the podium, the other four along a long table with four empty chairs. At the back of the room, a large group of dark-skinned, presumably-Etherian men enter, cheerfully greeting a woman in blue and white who keeps adding decorative icicles to the walls with a wave of her hand; while they chat, a middle-aged woman in black saunters in the door and muscles her way through the group, the room's natural light glinting off the rainbow scales of her head. She catches Heliani’s stare and raises an eyebrow, and Heliani - realizing with a start that she’s being rude - blushes hard and turns quickly to look at the program in her lap.
Not wanting to look up again - and wondering when this thing is going to start because there's only so much she can do without making a fool out of herself, here with no one she knows and no one to talk to - Heliani flips the event program open to a random page. Words stare up at her, and she stares back more as an excuse to look busy than to actually read them, because she’s feeling really awkward and looking busy...helps. A little. She’s giving undue scrutiny to the pictures of a mustached man and another with a big, bulbous head, thinking that this may have been a mistake, coming here, when—
“Wouldn’t, if I were you.”
Heliani starts at the sound, giving a short - but mortifying - screech. When she looks up, there’s an amused expression on the face of the woman sitting beside her, the one with the muscles and the sharp things in her ears, and she’s got a brow quirked in a way that’s condescending and also intimidating and Heliani is intimidated but also annoyed, because, “What?”
She cringes internally at the snap of her own voice, but the woman takes it in stride. “That one,” she says, nodding patronizingly at the open program in Heliani’s lap, “would be a bit much for a newcomer.”
Heliani can’t stop herself from glancing down - Weigh Anchor and Light It Up! Lessons in Control with Lumin and Sea Hawk, the program says - but it’s only a glance, and a second later she’s bristling, straightening up in her seat. “What makes you think I’m new?” she asks, as haughtily as she can.
The woman snorts, rolling her eyes, “Oh, kid, give it up. You couldn’t be greener if you tried.”
“I’ll have you know that I—“
“Hey, hey, calm down. Not sayin’ it’s a bad thing, you’ve just got the whole wide-eyed thing going down.”
She doesn’t say any more than that. Which is, Heliani decides, annoying. Possibly rude, too.
Heliani tries to go back to the program, but it’s even harder to concentrate on, now that she knows the presence beside her is judging. Not that she looks like she’s judging - from the corner of Heliani’s eye, the woman doesn’t seem like she’s paying attention to Heliani at all, instead once more lazing in her rickety, institutional chair with her hands locked casually behind her head and her legs straight out in front of her, crossed at the ankle. She doesn’t seem to be looking anywhere in particular, but the way she still radiates amusement makes Heliani think maybe she’s been caught staring again. Or maybe people here are just like that - Heliani doesn’t know.
Heliani doesn’t know much of anything, really. And pride isn’t getting her anywhere - isn’t that what she keeps saying, to the people at home? Isn’t that why she’s here? - and so she swallows hers, and screws up her courage, and ever so tentatively opens her mouth.
“So, uh,” she starts. Stalls out, then forces herself to continue with, “...which ones would be good for, um, for a newcomer?” She chews her lip for a second, and then adds quickly, “You know, if you don’t mind.”
A smile stretches across the woman’s face, broad and still condescending but also encouraging, as though she’s somehow proud of Heliani for asking. She doesn’t move from her comfortable sprawl, but does jut her chin at the program, saying, “Look for the one run by Perfuma. She’s nice, probably’ll do one of those things at the beginning where everyone says their name and their favorite flower or something. Stupid, but you’ll meet some people.”
“Thanks,” Heliani says softly, looking down. She twists the program a little in her hands, and when she looks up she finds the woman waiting patiently, attention idling around the room but still primarily on Heliani. So Heliani volunteers, “It’s my planet, you see. We’re...we don’t have magic, so I’m here to...it’s...I came to talk to She-Ra.” She tips her head up with a confidence she does not feel, takes a deep breath, dares this stranger to tell her that her tiny planet isn’t important enough for an audience with the most magical person in the universe. “I came to see what magic could mean, for us. I’m Heliani. Well, Princess Heliani, actually. Well, to be totally accurate, it’s Third Ancillary Princess Heliani of the—”
“Huntara,” The woman grunts, cutting her off. In the following silence - not a full silence; the hall is loud and busy, but a localized, little silence - Heliani wonders at Huntara. She looks incongruous there: a quiet, solid place in a mass of chattering, moving people, though she doesn’t seem uncomfortable with that fact.
“Are you…?” Heliani struggles with how to ask her question, or really what what her question even is. She’s starting to think it was maybe a rude one, and to regret opening her mouth at all.
But Huntara must guess at Heliani’s thoughts, because she grunts again, a little. “Not my scene, exactly,” she says, “but this is historic and all, and I’ve got some friends I couldn’t disappoint. I’m not about to go turning down a personal invite from the lady herself, no matter if I do know how dumb she looks lickin’ sand.”
“Licking sa—?” Heliani starts, but she’s interrupted by a series of reverberating pops, the tap-tap-tap of finger-on-microphone filling the room.
No, wait, not a finger. Are those pincers?
“Hello? Hello? Is this thing o—ah!” The woman shouts and the room covers their various forms of ears, everyone cringing as a loud, shrill feedback tone zings through the air. It's particularly rough on Heliani, who essentially covers her whole head. “Oh, oh gosh, this did not happen at sound check, I am so, so sorry, oh no, I can stop this, yes siree I can, oh—“
“Dad, I’m off magic duty. Can you...?” Heliani looks to the new voice, and realizes that sometime in her distraction the four empty seats on the dais have been filled. Or mostly filled, at least - one still stands empty, but the others are now occupied by two women and a man, all middle aged. The call was from the pink-haired woman, her eyes as well as the blonde’s and the man’s fixed on someone Heliani can’t see, since the front row is obscured for her by the heads of other spectators. A moment later, a ball of glowing blue light sits in front of the woman with pincers, the microphone nowhere in sight. The shrill sound, thankfully, stops.
The woman with the pincers looks surprised, but not concerned. “Oh, oh that works too.” Her voice carries smoothly over the crowd, magnified. Heliani gapes, as overwhelmed by her first good look at definitely magic as she is by everything else. At the podium, the woman continues, “Uh, thank you, Mic— ah, oh, I mean, your majesty! Uh, former majesty, is what I should say. Is there a special word for that? Like, what about— oh, right, right, sorry, uh, yeah, getting started, right.”
It’s stumbling and messy, and Heliani should consider the whole display unprofessional, but the tall woman on stage is so pleasantly earnest that she can’t be anything but charmed. Even moreso when the woman clears her throat, smiles sunnily, and says in her magically-amplified voice, “Welcome! To the First Intergalactic Symposium on the Restoration of Magic.” She has to pause for a lengthy, booming round of applause, which she even joins in herself. Heliani claps; Huntara slaps her thigh a few times, lazily. Eventually the room calms, and the speaker adds, “I’m Princess Scorpia, one of your event co-chairs, and I get to get us started! We hope you all had okay trips, and…”
The talk continues, but Heliani quickly finds that despite so much that’s new and strange here, introductory speeches are just about the same all over. She barely listens to the enthusiastic prattle about session structure and accommodations and here’s-a-prize-for-the-folks-who-travelled-the-furthest, finding herself instead drawn to the trio on the stage. The woman in the middle is the hardest to keep her eyes from: the shortest, though far from the slightest, with pink-and-lavender hair piled atop her head in an elaborate, glittering updo above an equally glittering gold tiara. She sits straight-backed but not rigid, in a way that Heliani recognizes in herself - the posture of someone who’s been taught to sit-up-straight so long it’s second nature.
Queen Glimmer of Bright Moon, then, Heliani thinks, but unlike Heliani’s Queen Mother, this woman can’t seem to sit still. She’s rolling her glass of water between her palms, and the water inside it jumps and sloshes with the movement. There’s a bit of added sparkle to it, too, in the place between the queen’s hands, that Heliani doesn’t think is a trick of the light.
“...our many clearly labeled signs between sessions! We’ll be in the courtyard, where you can also find water, coffee, tea, a whoooole lot of tiny snacks, mints...”
As Heliani watches, the man sitting next to the queen - King Bow, Heliani’s pre-conference research suggests, bearded and broad-shouldered in a gold-trimmed jacket cut to expose his midriff - reaches out to place a single hand on his wife’s. Heliani focuses all five of her ears on the interaction, but it appears to be a mostly silent one - a single hand, and the queen lets the cup go with a thunk that likely only Heliani hears. Queen Glimmer doesn’t turn to look at her husband, eyes politely on Princess Scorpia, but she does lean towards him bodily in a way that Heliani can’t imagine is conscious. As soon as the water in the woman’s glass has stopped moving, the King Bow picks it up, taking a slow, measured sip.
“...kittens, seven kinds of muffins from a lot of your planets - thank you, by the way! We’re really excited about that! - Plumerian kazoos in the shape of Bright Moon Castle (that’s the surprise giveaway) (Oh no, I was not supposed to say that)...”
The third occupant of the main table - the one between the queen and the empty chair - has the same uprightness of the woman she sits beside, but none of the irreverence. She’s blonde, with hair styled into a bit of a poof at the front of her head and blue-grey eyes, sitting straight up with those eyes fixed politely at the speaker, hands clasped in her lap. She’d look calm, even, if not for the way her eyes flick - once, then again, then again - to the empty chair beside her, then the hall’s main doors.
She-Ra. That’s who this one is. She-Ra, Princess of Power.
“...spelunking equipment, if that’s what you’re into! Plus, I’ll be there, and I’m a great hugger - if you want a hug, that is. Which you don’t have to! But if you do, I’m your gal. So if you have any...”
Heliani can’t stop herself from trying to find the magic in She-Ra. The woman’s expression is set, serious and attentive; the lines of her gold-and-white suit pressed and pristine. The colors are bright, but nothing special, and there are a few flyaway hairs falling out of her coif - just a couple, nothing messy, but the kind of flyaways Heliani gets, or that her mother would. It’s all very...normal.
Almost like a ripple effect, Queen Glimmer leans forward. With her hand that isn’t covered by King Bow’s, she pokes She-Ra in the back. The blonde jolts just a little, and Heliani hadn’t even realized how tense the woman was until she sees just a little of that tension slide away. She-Ra doesn’t turn to look at the queen beside her, just like Queen Glimmer hadn’t turned to her husband, but the blonde woman leans ever-so-slightly towards the prod, cracks the barest hint of a smile.
It’s a kind smile, rueful and genuine, paired with a bit of a head-tilt and a crinkling of the laugh-lines around her eyes. It makes Heliani want to smile, too, but that does not stop it from being entirely mundane. Heliani tries to look harder, tries to see—
“Thank you, Scorpia!” Queen Glimmer says with fervor, her voice booming magically loud across the hall. Heliani realizes she’s missed not only the rest of the opening speech - Princess Scorpia isn’t even on stage anymore - but the panelists’ formal introductions entirely. Queen Glimmer hasn’t moved from her table, leaving the podium empty, but is sitting up forward in her seat at the panelist table with the blue amplification ball dangling nonchalantly from her hand. “And thanks to everyone else here, as well. I cannot stress what an absolute joy it is to see—”
A loud sound interrupts her, carrying from the back of the hall. It’s a metal-on-stone bang, and Heliani turns in her seat along with the other spectators. A mutter rises from the room; Heliani cranes her neck to see around her fellow audience members, many of whom who have started to stand up partially or even all the way. All of them are - like her - trying to get a glimpse of why the Bright Moon hall doors have been thrown dramatically open, admitting a gust of crisp, spring wind.
Also, apparently, a woman.
She isn’t tall, but it takes Heliani a moment to realize that. The illusion of height is twofold - for one, she strides into the room like she owns it, sauntering down the central aisle without concern for the ruckus her entrance has caused. She’s a study in red and black, all sharp lines and sharp claws and sharp eyes, though those come in yellow and turquoise, and her color-matching is further broken by a gold, wing-shaped pin that glitters on her jacket lapel. Her arms remain spread wide from where they’d pushed open the door as if to present herself, and it all makes her seem like the biggest person in the room. The second reason is because of her hair, which - in contrast to the neat press of her suit - is positively huge, a spiky, voluminous mass, dark but scattered with shots of silver. It puffs around a pair of large, triangular ears and cascades down her back like an act of defiance against the careful decorum of the event, making her appear half-again as tall as she actually is.
She’s also barefoot. Her footsteps fall silently as she makes her way down the central aisle, a contradictory subtlety in the midst of what might be the most unsubtle entrance Heliani has ever seen.
“Ugh,” Huntara grunts, lounging lower in her chair. She’s one of the few people who hasn’t turned around - as far as Heliani can tell, she hasn’t even bothered to move, outside her present slouch. At Heliani’s questioning glance, she rolls her eyes, rumbling, “It’s the fluffy one, isn’t it?”
Heliani doesn’t know how to respond to that, so it’s good she doesn’t have to. Because a moment later, the newcomer is speaking.
“What?” She drawls in a voice that isn’t a shout, not at all, but which carries through the hall nonetheless. It’s a commander’s voice, starting from the diaphragm and ending with the full expectation that it will be heeded. Heliani has heard army generals and her mother the Queen talk like that, but she’s never heard it this irreverent and casual. It’s clearly meant as theater for everyone, though the words are directed at the stage, and the woman is smirking when she adds, “Thought I’d show up late? Let you do all the hard parts?”
“That’d be a bit low,” the reply is an amused one, pitched to carry just as well, “even for you.”
Heliani’s turns to see who said it, and finds the blonde woman on stage laughing. She looks...different. Heliani blinks a little, trying to make sense of what she sees. Because she’s not different, hasn’t changed at all, but nonetheless she’s - the only word Heliani has for it is transformed. Not the way Heliani’s heard she does, not with light and rainbows and flowing gold magic...except the way she looks now, how her whole body’s now relaxed confidently into her chair and her eyebrow is arched and her smile sits wide on her face, the way her chin tilts up cockily and her blue eyes flash, it feels like a prelude to all those things. She looks - not younger, because she doesn’t, she looks every inch of her experience and years, maybe even moreso, now. But - brighter.
Ah, Heliani thinks. She-Ra.
The new woman bounds - and Heliani didn’t know there was such a thing as a dignified bound, but apparently there is - her way to the dais, even as the ambient conversation of the audience gets louder, now that the presentation has effectively stalled out. Heliani turns and watches the stage, trying and failing to remember who the fourth speaker was - She-Ra and Etheria’s royalty she’d taken note of; she’s not sure she’d researched further than that. She wishes she had.
She tries to listen in to the conversation on the dais, hoping for a clue, but even her ears can’t make out what’s said over the chatter of the crowd - she can see, though, that some kind of words accompany Queen Glimmer’s stuck-out tongue, and that King Bow is laughing. She watches as the new woman waves them off, stepping over to where She-Ra tips her head up to say something else. The newcomer presses a clawed finger gently onto the center of She-Ra’s forehead and says something back, a soft grin crossing her face.
The moment passes quickly, and the newcomer does not take the empty seat but crosses to the podium instead, waving at someone in the front row as she does. She says something - not pitched to the whole room, but louder than her conversations onstage, so Heliani hears, “No, Scorpia, stay there, you’re doing enough - it’s my fault anyway...” The woman looks around the podium for a moment, clearly confused, then turns when the blue amplification orb bounces off her head, tossed by a smirking Queen Glimmer. When she grabs it and speaks into it, her voice is raspy and retains that edge of command as she booms, “Hey, sorry, kitten emergency, if you can imagine. Don’t worry, I’m fine. So are they. Unfortunately.”
The room begins to quiet just in time to make King Bow’s affronted noise audible.
The new woman gives a high laugh. “Fine, not unfortunately. We’re glad the kittens are okay. Is that nice enough for you? Are you happy now?” Her voice is wry, but well received - King Bow gives a thumbs up, and a smattering of chuckles echo through the room. “Anyway,” she continues, “I understand I missed intros, so I’ll do mine real fast. Catra, Chief Royal Counselor of Bright Moon and the Etherian Princess Alliance, Co-founder of the Universal Magic Restoration Project, Co-chair of this here First Cosmic Symposium on the Restoration of Magic—”
She has to pause here for the same loud, raucous applause that had greeted the earlier mention of the symposium’s title. Unlike the previous time, when the speaker joined in on the cheering, Chief Counselor Catra simply basks in it. Before it has a chance to die down, she raises claw-tipped hands a few times, palms up, a clear challenge to get louder - and the room obeys, Heliani carried away and cheering with it, along with added whooping sounds from behind her and a bizarre alien buzzing noise from in front of her and a full-voiced shout of “GO WILDCAT!” from somewhere in the front row.
Counselor Catra is laughing by the time the room really does quiet, and so is everyone else. She picks up her list as if she’d never left off. “—and current Acting Secretary of the Interplanetary Reconstruction Relief Network. I’d actually really like to kick that last one, so if you’re interested and you’re competent, drop me a line at the reception, will you?” She smiles in a way that shows off too many pointed teeth to be entirely genial, leaving it to Heliani’s - and the rest of the audience’s - imagination what might happen to anyone who dares approach her without full confidence that they are, in fact, what she would consider competent.
There’s another, less intense round of clapping, which sees her sauntering back to the table and dropping cheerfully into the seat next to She-Ra. Heliani notices that Counselor Catra leans inwards, too, just like the other three do, like planets curving unwittingly into each other’s orbit.
Queen Glimmer takes the blue orb, clears her throat into it. “As I was saying, before someone decided to go all high drama—” Heliani chuckles with the rest of the room, notices even Huntara is smiling, just a little. It’s contagious. Onstage, Chief Counselor Catra uses She-Ra’s glass of water to toast first Queen Glimmer and then the audience, then takes a leisurely gulp. Queen Glimmer rolls her eyes in a way that is both affectionate and full-bodied, then smiles at the audience, “—I cannot stress what an absolute joy it is to see you all here, old friends and new. For many of you, this is not your first time hearing from me, and maybe not your first time on Etheria, either. But it’s the first time we’ve had this many people from this many worlds, all in the same room at the same time. For those of you who are used to this kind of thing, we hope you can find an even grander place to share your experiences, to be heard and to hear from each other. For those of you who are new: welcome! We can’t wait to learn from you, too, and we hope we can help in return...”
—
If the opening ceremony was overwhelming, the reception is worse.
“Huntara!” The blond woman - She-Ra - says, juggling her plate of finger food to wave Heliani’s companion over, “You came!”
Heliani scrambles along behind Huntara, making use of her new acquaintance’s presence - physical and otherwise - as it cuts a path in the crowd. Heliani spends the few moments she has before reaching the four most famous people in the room (what is her life) mentally revising her here’s-why-my-planet-needs-She-Ra speech, this time with She-Ra herself as the intended audience. She also takes half a second to revel in a connection well-made, because clearly this Huntara is a good person to know.
Then they get closer.
“Loser,” Chief Counselor Catra calls.
“Fluffy.” Huntara responds, just as dry.
Heliani stops congratulating herself.
“She does have the Waste now, Catra, you know that,” Queen Glimmer says, glancing between them. She has a twist to her lips that puts Heliani a bit more at ease, because she’s clearly trying not to laugh, and she’s unconcerned enough to busy herself by taking a dumpling off She-Ra’s plate. She-Ra pulls the plate away with an affronted look, then pointedly takes a miniature cake for herself.
The Chief Counselor and Huntara eye each other with what seems to be a half-hearted kind of rancor, until the former plucks the cake directly from She-Ra’s fingers - ignoring She-Ra’s protest - and uses it to gesticulate nonchalantly, proclaiming an airy, “Only because I’m busy.” Huntara snorts her skepticism in response, and the Chief Counselor ignores it, asking, “Pick up another stray?”
Heliani feels herself flush, and then Huntara rejoins with, “Worse, a princess,” and Heliani flushes harder.
King Bow rolls his eyes. “Ignore them,” he says, smiling in a way so genuine that she even obeys, “It’s good to meet you, Princess…?”
“Heliani, of Spheria,” Heliani says, then adds in a rush before her nerve leaves her, “We’re small, so you wouldn’t have heard of us, but we’ve - well, of course we’ve heard of you, everyone’s heard of you. And Horde Prime destroyed most all our ancient records, and we know the First Ones did something, so we can’t know if we have magic, and, and I was here to ask, that is, I know you—“ as she loses momentum, Heliani’s mind floods with all the pleasantries she’s just skipped, all the rules of having conversations with people that she seems to have suddenly forgotten, not to mention the fact that all five of these very famous and powerful people - well, four very famous and powerful people and Huntara, who still kind of scares her - are looking at her in various states of patience and amusement. Mortified, she drops into a deep bow, forcing herself to slow down. “I’m getting ahead of myself,” she says, “I am so sorry, it’s...it’s an honor to meet you, Your Majesties, Counselor,” and oh sunshine and buttercups, what the fuck was She-Ra’s title, she know this, why does her head suddenly feel so empty. Princess of Power? Yes. “Princess She-Ra.”
For a moment, the whole group is silent. Heliani looks up tentatively, wondering how she is possibly going to salvage her awkwardness.
Then, Chief Counselor Catra starts to choke.
Heliani starts towards her, concerned, but when the Chief Counselor manages to clear her throat - thumping on her chest a few times to do it - it’s only to break into immediate howls of laughter. It’s a raucous, squeaking sound, and Heliani feels herself flushing yet again - she might as well make it permanent, at this point - as a few attendees in surrounding conversational clusters glance their way.
Worse, She-Ra herself is grimacing a little, though she seems more rueful than angry when she says, “Adora is fine, really.”
Heliani tries to imagine calling the most magical person in the universe plain old Adora. This must show on her face, because She-Ra adds, “No, really, please.” She glares at the Chief Counselor, who is still doubled over with cackles, “I really do prefer— can you stop?”
The last three words are clearly directed at the counselor, who responds by giggling even harder and all but draping herself over Pri— Adora’s arm, jostling the plate of food she’s holding. “I don’t - ha! - I dunno, Princess She-Ra,” another round of laughter and snorts, “is that a royal order?”
Adora - Princess Adora? but no, princess seems to be the problem word here - blushes red and, transferring the plate to her other hand, shakes her arm weakly. It fails entirely to dislodge the other woman, but does spur Queen Glimmer to give the Chief Counselor a bit of a kick. “Catra,” King Bow hisses as she does, “Catra, stop it, you’re making our guest uncomfortable.”
Heliani never finds out if King Bow’s admonishment would have worked, because they're interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing. Heliani’s grateful for the shift in focus, and turns to see an Etherian - older than her by about a decade; heavyset and sharp-eyed with a wide mushroom for a head - standing on the edge of the group and making wide-fingered bursting motions with their long, gill-textured hands.
“Well I’m stumped,” Chief Counselor Catra says through the last of her giggles, ostentatiously wiping away a tear. She turns to the newcomer, “Communicate, Mycel. It’s what I pay you for.”
Queen Glimmer shoots her a sideways look. “I thought you paid them to do your dirty work,” she says.
The mushroom person - Mycel, apparently - smiles blandly and cuts in with, “You’re right, and today her dirty work is getting you lot to talk to other people.”
“They’re right. That is dirty,” King Bow says, taking a muffin from Adora’s plate.
“Scatter.” Mycel says, bursting their hand again, “You are at your own cosmic-level conference. You don’t get to spend the reception hanging out with each other. Talk to your guests.”
“Bu—“ King Bow starts, around a mouthful of muffin.
“Huntara doesn’t count.” Mycel says firmly, then turns to Huntara, “Hi Huntara, how are you?”
“Just fine, kid. Good to see you’re not letting the assholes get to you.” There’s another minor glare-off between Chief Counselor Catra and Huntara, which the latter leaves off with a smirk. “Ah, and here’s Princess Heliani. She’s a guest.”
In the short time that everyone’s attention has been off her, Heliani’s embarrassment has had time to abate; it dissipates the rest of the way as Mycel goes red as their mushroom cap. It’s like there’s only so much mortification to go around, and now they’ve taken the pot of it - which might be an unkind reaction to have, finding her own assurance in someone else’s mistake, and that guilt makes her feel particularly sympathetic when Mycel stammers out, “Oh, oh I am sorry, your highness, I completely missed you. I, uh, I’m not usually so rude. Welcome to Bright Moon.”
Heliani smiles and bows, significantly more graceful than her last attempt. She murmurs her own pleasantries right before Adora speaks up. “Mycel’s right. If Huntara hadn’t brought Princess Heliani over, we’d all still be hiding from our own party.”
There’s something of a note of authority in her voice, however casual, and it startles Heliani to notice it. It shouldn’t - this is She-Ra, after all - but Heliani thinks it’s because it isn’t intentional. Or at least, it doesn’t seem intentional - unlike Chief Counselor Catra’s performative archness or the straightforwardness of Queen Glimmer or even the kind firmness from King Bow, Adora’s authority sits in her voice like an afterimage, like she’s so used to making decisions that decision-making just sneaks in around the edges, whether she means it or no.
No one else even seems to notice. They must be, Heliani thinks, used to it.
“Fine,” Queen Glimmer sighs, then addresses Heliani directly when she adds, “anyway, you may have a more productive conversation with...less of us.”
She plucks a tiny soufflé from Adora’s plate, then leaves them by actually disappearing, which no one but Heliani even seems to register. She’s still reeling from it when King Bow makes his own escape with a charmingly extravagant bow in Heliani’s direction. He grabs a cookie from Adora’s plate as he goes - Adora bats at his hand to no avail - and then he uses his free hand to make a cheerfully complicated movement as he walks away. Heliani realizes it’s directed at an attendee with three eyes and no mouth, and becomes engrossed for a moment in watching the gestural conversation there. She's fully engaged in trying to follow it until she hears Mycel’s voice again.
“Well?”
Heliani whips around, ready with an apology, but she finds that the question - exasperated, expectant - wasn’t for her. Mycel’s arms are crossed and their foot is tapping, eyes fixed on Chief Counselor Catra. She, in turn, widens her own eyes, sharp mouth paused comically around a mini tart. She points to herself with theatrical shock.
Mycel just cocks a brow. “Yes, you. Scatter.”
The Counselor sniffs. “You can’t tell me what to do,” she says petulantly. “I’m your boss.”
Mycel shrugs, and though Heliani can’t hear the words can’t argue with that, she can see it all over their face. They cast Heliani an apologetic look, and she does her best to send a sympathetic one back. Meanwhile, Chief Counselor Catra starts perusing Adora’s plate again, only to realize - as Heliani realizes it too - that it’s now empty. Adora tries to smile innocently, but the effect is ruined by her puffed full cheeks.
An emphatically silent, thoroughly undignified argument of facial expressions erupts between Adora and Counselor Catra, which Mycel interrupts sweetly, “Excuse me, Adora, you see, my boss is—”
“I’m going, I’m going!” Chief Counselor Catra announces. Mycel is clearly aiming for innocence and Adora is smirking as much as she can while chewing, and Catra throws her hands up in surrender. “Before you two gang up on me.”
She nods to Heliani, slides her tail across Adora’s hip-to-arm-to-wrist, and shoulder-checks Mycel as she passes them. Mycel leans into it, knocking her back just as hard, and Heliani catches them flashing each other matching grins before Mycel’s face schools itself back into pleasant politeness, and they leave too.
And then with a jolt, Heliani realizes she’s alone, insofar as it’s possible to be in a crowd, with She-Ra, Princess of Power and—
Huntara is nowhere in sight. Heliani looks around, perplexed and a little frantic, then back to Adora at the sound of her chuckle.
“She does that,” Adora says. “Take it as a compliment; she wouldn’t leave unless she thought you’d be okay.”
“Really?” Heliani asks, unsure.
Adora laughs out loud this time, smiling broadly. “Really. But don’t tell her I told you - she’ll think you’re calling her soft.” She smiles at Heliani, “So, your maybe-magic planet, yeah? We can send a Survey & Research Team down with a Magic-o-Meter for that. Also for the records thing, though I’m pretty sure our historians are all booked - do you have cool buildings? We can probably bribe Teau into a stint if you do. Oh, are you speaking for everyone on-planet, or just a group? Because we usually like to have reps from everywhere when we send down a Briefing Team, and that should come first, though we will carry over members between groups, so you’ll always have a familiar face. There’s an intake form for all that, actually, I should—” She stops, and Heliani is both mortified and grateful knowing what she must see to make her smile go gentle, her voice slower, “Now I’m getting ahead of my self. Hey. What do you say we take a walk?” She nods to a door that opens onto the glittering Bright Moon Castle grounds.
Heliani blinks in overwhelm - just an ongoing state, at this point, really - and surprise. “What?” She asks nonsensically, then gathers herself at Adora’s patient glance. She spares a longing thought for the peaceful-looking, much less panic-inducing garden, as well as her botched plea for her planet, but out of a sense of politeness makes herself say, “I can...handle it. And I’m sure you can’t be away, you must have guests you have to—“
Adora cuts her off with a wave of her hand and a firm voice, “You are my guest, Princess Heliani. I’m here to talk to the representatives of planets involved and interested in magic - surely you are exactly that. I’m stepping out - be back in a bit.”
Her last sentence is nearly a non-sequitur, said with just the same even, cheerful tone as the rest of her statement, but directed more towards the air over Heliani’s shoulder than to her face. Heliani turns to see no one in particular there, and then - following Adora’s gaze - Chief Counselor Catra, halfway across the room. She’s gesturing at a spindly, gray-skinned conversant whose big eyes are set in an even bigger head, and - now that Heliani’s looking - she sees the large, triangular ear closest to them twitch. Heliani’s ears twitch in sympathy, a little. Chief Counselor Catra turns casually to take a drink off a passing tray, and when she does she looks directly at Heliani.
She winks.
When Heliani looks back to Adora, she finds her still gazing fondly across the room in that direction. It’s a long moment, longer maybe than it should be, and Heliani feels almost like she’s interrupting when she asks, “Are you sure? You won’t be needed?”
Adora glances at her, then back to the room. Heliani follows her gaze from Chief Counselor Catra in her conversation to King Bow in another one and Queen Glimmer in yet a third, and then to sweep over the rest of the space. It’s a technicolor burst of countless planets’ worth of peoples, a cacophony of joyous laughter and serious intensity and thoughtful curiosity, scattered with a veritable legion of lavender-shirted volunteers and an undercurrent of random, offhand bursts of spontaneous magic. It’s still overwhelming, but it’s also engrossing and astounding and brilliant, thrumming with welcoming enthusiasm. A whole universe, or the shape of one, waiting for Heliani to notice that she's already stepped inside.
“They’ll be just fine,” Adora says. When Heliani turns, it’s to see her beaming. “Now come, and you can tell me about your planet.”