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Weathering the Storm
“Knock knock!”
Bow poked his head cautiously around the half-open door, a gentle smile tugging at his lips. Across the room, half-dazed behind a mountain of paperwork, Adora glanced up to meet his gaze and sighed with relief.
“Hey Bow,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“Thought I’d check in on you,” Bow replied, stepping into the office and shutting the door gently behind him. “Frosta was telling me that no one's seen you for days. Had me a little bit worried.” He paused, uncertain. Adora’s eyes had already slid back down to the papers in front of her. “I brought lunch.”
That got a real smile out of her.
“You’re the best, Bow.” Adora reached for the brown bag and peered in for a moment before pulling out an apple. Bow could see the tension fading from her shoulders as she sank her teeth into it: loud, messy relief.
“Better?”
“Muth.”
Smiling, Bow took a seat across from her, taking advantage of Adora’s bliss-closed eyes to assess… well, everything. Bow wasn’t sure what he was looking for at first, but it didn’t take him long to spot the heavy bags under Adora’s eyes, or the two dirty coffee mugs half-hidden behind stacks of paper.
“You need to take a break, Adora,” he said, bracing himself for a stubborn retort. It was almost unnerving when Adora merely fixed him with a dazed, confused stare. “You’re clearly running on empty as it is. I know this work is important…”
And it was important. Brightmoon had never had much in the way of a prison, so when the war was over they’d retrofitted a large Horde base so that they could keep people awaiting trial, and even Adora agreed that conditions in there were tough. When she was told about the sheer amount of paperwork Glimmer’s staff would have to get through before anyone could be brought to trial, she volunteered on the spot.
“… but have you been delegating this at all? It looks like you’ve got enough paperwork in here to keep you busy for months.”
“I can’t delegate this, Bow,” Adora sighed. “Not any more than I already have. I’ve got Scorpia and Kyle helping me, but there’s no other ex-Horde soldiers I trust who were willing to help.”
Bow tried not to let the slight bitterness he felt creep into his voice. “Any reason why I can’t help? Or the paralegals who were supposed to do this in the first place? Because you know we all would in a heartbeat.”
“I appreciate it, Bow,” Adora smiled, not quite reaching her tired eyes. “But this is about character judgement, y’know? We can get through this faster because we know who needs a trial and who was… well, who was like us, but didn’t have the same opportunities to get out that we did.”
Bow’s eyes widened. “You’re still trying to protect people, huh?”
“It’s a way of speeding up the process,” Adora added hastily. “If there are people who don’t need a trial, best to get them out of there fast. Clears up the space in there and takes the load off the courts. Besides, Glimmer specifically requested for me to look through the list for anyone I thought could be trusted-”
“I think she meant, like, people you knew personally.” Bow cocked an eyebrow. “This was probably meant to be, like, one day’s work tops.”
“And that’s not fair, is it?” Adora fired back. “Why should some people get free passes just because they happened to know She-Ra? That’s why I’ve got Kyle and Scorpia interviewing and assessing prisoners, too. Get some more information to make decisions.”
“And let me guess - staying busy in here means you can’t run into Glimmer, right?”
Adora’s eyes were glued to her desk, ashamed, as she muttered, “Not all of us can run back home when we need distance.”
Bow sighed. “You know my dads would be fine with you staying with us for a bit, right? If you wanted to, I mean. We’ve got the space, and they’d probably pay you to translate for them if you wanted to. It’s peaceful out there, but always something to get done. Just how you like it.”
Adora didn’t reply. She was still staring down at her desk, her breaths shallow.
“I know it’s difficult,” Bow said, changing tack, “but Glimmer knows that we both need some time to process everything now, and she’s doing her best to give that to us. When we’re ready, we’ll talk to her. But in the meantime, you need to look after yourself, Adora. I can’t stand seeing my best friend like this.”
Bow’s eyes widened as he saw tears welling in Adora’s eyes. He reached across the table to rest a hand on top of hers, gently squeezing.
“Hey… hey, it’s okay,” he said, softly. “It’s going to be fine, I promise. We’re going to take this one day at a time, and we don’t even have to think about talking to Glimmer if you don’t want-”
“It’s not Glimmer.” Adora’s voice was quiet and trembled on the air like a leaf in a thunderstorm. Her breath hitched, and with the back of her free hand she wiped at her eyes, before hesitantly pushing the top page of the pile in front of her toward him. Bow frowned and looked down, his own breath catching in his throat as he saw the name at top of the form.
“Oh, Adora,” he half-whispered, giving her hand another squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”
Adora’s breath hitched again, and before he knew what he was doing Bow was striding around the desk and wrapping her up in the warmest hug he could muster. By the time she had turned to bury her head in the crook of his neck, Adora was sobbing.
They sat like that for a while, Bow balanced precariously on the edge of her seat, stroking her hair and whispering gentle comforts as she cried. When at last she was done, Adora looked up and offered him a fragile smile in thanks.
“Do you want to go and eat your lunch out by the bay?” Bow asked. “I can make sure nobody disturbs you, if you want. Or if you want a distraction, I can get the whole alliance to come and-”
“Thank you, Bow,” Adora said. “I think just us would be good.”
Bow nodded, standing and offering Adora his arm. She rolled her eyes, but hooked her arm through his anyway, picking up the brown bag with her other hand. As they stepped out of her office, Bow glanced back one last time at the paper that lay abandoned on top of the desk.
He should have known this would happen. Glimmer should have known this would happen, and should never have asked Adora to take this on in the first… No, there was no sense in getting angry with Glimmer again. They were both just lucky he’d been there when the inevitable storm they’d both missed finally hit shore. And he, at least, would be there to help Adora weather it.
It took around a week, but he and Adora had finally cleared the mountain of paperwork after he convinced her to let him shoulder some of the burden of reading the character references Scorpia and Kyle had put together, and making initial decisions for her to review. It was good that he had, too - at some point in their haze of paperwork, Adora had let slip that the forms needed to be handed in by the end of the month, and even with Bow’s help she’d only managed to finish a few days before the deadline.
To celebrate, Sea Hawk had insisted on getting everyone together for a night out in Brightmoon (well, almost everyone. She might be a princess, but nobody was going to let Frosta into a cocktail bar. She’d made Adora promise to meet her for lunch tomorrow, as a compromise.) At first, Adora complained that she didn’t have anything to wear - her day to day clothes were hardly the bar’s smart casual dress-code, and her prom dress was definitely a little too much - so Bow arranged a last-minute shopping trip with Scorpia for Adora to fill out her wardrobe.
And Scorpia, as always, delivered.
“You know,” Bow said, smiling as Adora squirmed under the attention, “I reckon with a dress like that, every girl in Brightmoon is going to be falling over themselves to ask you out.”
“Half the girls in Brightmoon are straight, Bow,” she replied, rolling her eyes, but Bow caught the redness on her cheeks.
“Details, details.” Bow waved a hand dismissively, then grinned broadly. “Seriously, Adora, you look great.”
And she did. The long sleeves trailed delicate lace down her arms, and despite its tight fit the whole dress had a fragile beauty to it. Her hair was down - Bow had never seen her voluntarily let her hair down before, and certainly never with it styled nicely, and he was surprised by how different it looked to She-Ra’s endless flowing locks.
Adora smiled. “Come on, you. Let’s not keep Sea Hawk waiting.”
When they arrived at the bar, they were waved over by Scorpia, who was sitting at a table with Mermista, Sea Hawk, Netossa, Spinerella, and a girl Bow didn’t recognise. Adora took a deep breath and strode over, and Bow trailed behind her.
“Hey everyone,” Adora said as she pulled out her chair, her eyes eventually settling on the girl next to her. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight, Lonnie! How are you doing?”
“I’m good,” Lonnie said with a smile, as Bow took a moment to put a face to the name. “Kyle’s telling dumb stories over at the other table, so I reckoned I oughta come and make some new friends.”
“Congratulations, Adora!” Scorpia was grinning broadly. “That was a lot of work to get done, and you powered through it like always.”
“Adora, you really are a very talented young woman,” Sea Hawk declared, standing and raising his glass as Mermista rolled her eyes next to him. “I think perhaps a toast is in order, don’t you? To allowing Adora to finally relax!”
The conversation flowed freely, and people came and went between tables. Bow managed to finally get himself introduced to Kyle, who he was pleasantly surprised to recognise as the only nice guard he’d had when the Horde took him captive. Kyle, to his credit, opened the conversation by apologising profusely, before proceeding to gush about his partner, Rogelio, who loomed quietly beside him.
A few drinks in, Netossa decided (and from the surprised look on Spinerella’s face, it certainly seemed to be a spur of the moment decision) to invite everyone to drinks the next month for their four-year anniversary. Scorpia passed on Entrapta’s apologies for not attending, as well as a detailed report on her attempts to de-condition Hordak, and Adora and Bow shared a number of worried looks. Lonnie quite merrily explained to anyone who wanted to hear what had actually happened in any of Kyle’s stories, and even had Adora chipping in for some of the older ones.
“Pretty good evening so far, wouldn’t you say?” Bow said, climbing onto the stool next to Adora at the bar. Behind them, they could hear Sea Hawk and Mermista arguing, even over the general chatter of the crowd.
“Yeah,” Adora said, smiling. “It’s good to see everyone. And after the week we’ve had, I absolutely needed the chance to unwind.”
Adora swung her handbag up onto the bar, and unclipped it, biting her lip as she dove into it, presumably looking for her purse. Bow would have thought nothing of it, if he hadn’t seen the top of a too-familiar sheet of paper as it poked out of the top of the bag.
“Adora…” he began, carefully, trying not to think about the disappointment that was settling in the pit of his stomach. “What is that?”
Adora froze, swallowed, and took a deep breath.
“I know what you’re thinking-”
“I thought we had finished with all of those? Isn’t that why we came out tonight?”
“Bow, please.” Adora said, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Just let me take my time on this one. I can’t… I haven’t decided what to do yet.”
“It’s Catra, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. There was nobody else it could have been. Adora nodded anyway. “Adora, you can’t put this off any longer-”
“I’ve got three days,” Adora said, firmly. “I’ll make up my mind by then, I swear, I just… I just need more time. She doesn’t deserve to be released, I know she doesn’t, but the thought of having the chance to help her and turning it down? It’s too much, Bow.
“And it’s my decision to make. It has to be. So I’ll just keep it on me till then, so nobody accidentally files it away.”
Bow shook his head. “I can’t tell you what to do, Adora,” he said. “Just don’t leave it to the last minute, okay?”
Adora nodded again and paid for her drink, turning away silently and walking back to the table. When Bow made his way back, he decided to join the other table. To give Adora some space, he told himself, as he slid into the space in the corner, next to Perfuma.
“Is everything alright?” Perfuma frowned as he took his seat. “You look worried about something.”
Bow glanced around the table. Opposite Perfuma, Netossa and Spinerella were muttering quietly to each other, smiling; further down the table, Mermista was draped across Sea Hawk’s lap, their lips locked.
“I’m okay. Just a little argument with Adora, that’s all,” Bow said with a sigh. “Are you alright? You don’t have to sit here and be a fifth wheel, y’know.”
Perfuma laughed. “I was talking with Huntara,” she explained. “She’s in the bathroom right now. Although I won’t say I’m not glad to have your company.”
“It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve hung out,” Bow mused. “I think the last time the two of us really talked - y’know, just us - was back at prom.”
“You’re always welcome in Plumeria, you know,” Perfuma said. “I know it can be a little rustic, but-”
“No, rustic’s good.” Bow grinned. “I’d like that a lot. To come and visit, I mean.”
“Good.” Perfuma smiled, her face lit. Not for the first time, Bow was struck by how pretty her smile was; it was warm and welcoming, and filled with an infectious joy, and was so very Perfuma. “Now, what’s this argument you’ve had with Adora? I don’t want to see the two of you falling out.”
“It’s nothing that serious,” Bow said. “I just… keep this quiet, okay, but she hasn’t actually finished all that work. She’s putting off the last form.”
Perfuma frowned. “Why?”
“Catra.”
“Oh.” Perfuma nodded to herself in thought. “Yes, I suppose that would be a difficult one.”
“I just don’t want to see her spend the next few days tearing herself apart over this, you know?” Bow took a sip of his drink, making a face as the sour kick hit. “Or if she spends too long thinking, and misses the deadline? I don’t want her to have to live with all these what-ifs and maybes if she misses her chance to get her old best friend back.”
“You mean like you’re worried you have?”
Perfuma’s voice was quiet, but it cut right to his core.
“I… I miss Glimmer,” Bow said, barely loud enough to hear over the background chatter of the bar. “But I can’t till I’m ready to forgive her. I don’t want to make things worse by snapping at her, or losing my temper, all because I didn’t give myself the time to cool off. But I’m not cooling off, and it’s been months, and I don’t know what to do…”
Perfuma sighed, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Oh, Bow,” she said, and her dark eyes were compassionate and wide and beautiful and sad. “You and Adora, you’re both so hung up on waiting for yourselves to be ready that you’ve stopped living while you wait.”
“Wh-what should I do?” Bow asked.
“What do you want to do?”
And then, almost without thinking, his lips were on hers, and her arms tightened to hold him close, and she tasted like the sweetest of grapes, soft as a petal under his touch. She was a gentle kisser, her lips moving not with a passionate hunger but with quiet, calm certainty. When they pulled apart, Bow wasn’t out of breath, but his whole body felt relaxed.
“I want to live,” he said. “You’re right. I can’t keep putting everything on hold.”
“Is that all?” she asked with a wry smile. He flashed a cheeky grin back at her, feeling the warmth in his cheeks.
“I want to kiss you again.”
And he did.
There was only so long he could avoid seeing Glimmer, he supposed. When Adora told him, a few days later, that Glimmer had summoned her for a meeting about the work she’d done with the prisoner release forms, and Bow wasn’t going to let her go to that without moral support. He just had to keep his cool.
The three of them were sat around the old war table, Bow and Adora on one side, and Glimmer on the other. It seemed to Bow as if Glimmer were very carefully controlling her expression, but she couldn’t hide the disappointment in her eyes.
“Thank you for sorting through all those forms, Adora,” Glimmer said, quietly, after a moment of silence that was too long to be comfortable. “You were much more thorough than I expected. I thought you were just going to look through for people who you’d known.”
“That wouldn’t have been fair on the others.”
Glimmer smiled. “No. And I’m glad you took the time to go through them all like that. It was the right thing to do.
“But I couldn’t help noticing that one form was missing.”
Beside him, Adora tensed, and Bow knew. Of course he knew. Who else could it be? He bit back the urge to scold Adora, and fixed Glimmer with a hard stare instead. She, at least, should have known better.
“I… I couldn’t…”
“Your majesty, what is the point of this meeting?” Bow snapped. “If you’ve just invited Adora here to interrogate her over a missing form-”
“No!” Glimmer’s eyes were wide and afraid, and for a moment Bow’s heart dropped to his stomach. “No, I wanted to help, that’s all. I’d heard she was struggling and I just wanted to know if she’d decided not to release Catra or if she’d missed the deadline.”
“Why does it matter?” Adora asked, quietly, her voice shaking and her eyes glistening with tears. “We all know she did awful things. She deserves whatever punishment she gets.”
“Is that what you want?” Glimmer asked. “Adora, you’ve been through so much. And I know that part of that is my fault, and I wanted to try and make it up to you, so… you have my permission to be selfish, Adora. I should have made that clearer when I gave you those forms.”
Bow turned to Adora, and wrapped an arm protectively around her shoulders. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you,” he said. “I’ll help however you need me. You know that.”
“I want Catra.” The words were quiet, too quiet, too fragile for Adora, but they were unmistakably hers.
Across the table, Glimmer clapped. The heavy doors swung open behind her, and there, flanked by guards and dressed in plain prison clothes, stood Catra. Adora stared up, transfixed, her eyes still damp and her lips barely parted in disbelief.
"We'll give you two a moment," Bow said, shooting a dark look at Glimmer as he gave Adora one last, reassuring squeeze. Glimmer nodded, and the two of them stepped out into the corridor, the guards closing the door behind them.
For a moment, all was quiet.
"I'm so-"
"Did you-"
They both chuckled, catching themselves mid-sentence. Glimmer made a vague gesture with her hands. "After you."
"Did you really expect Adora to let herself be selfish?"
Glimmer sighed. "Yeah. I had no idea what she'd gotten herself into until I spoke with the others a few days ago. She's been avoiding me as much as you have lately, so I didn't even notice she'd locked herself away like that. Not," she added hesitantly, "that I blame you two for that. At all. You both need your space."
"Thank you." Bow took a deep breath. "I think I needed to hear that from you."
"Mmm, Perfuma said that you might," Glimmer said, quietly. Bow's eyes widened, and Glimmer chuckled and shot him a sly smile. “What? Did you really think you could hook up with one of my friends and I wouldn’t hear about it? Besides, she was worried about the two of you.”
Bow felt his cheeks burn. “It… it was just a one-time thing, I wasn’t-”
Glimmer laughed, full and loud and happy, like a peal of bells ringing in celebration, and it sounded like home. “She said,” she managed between breaths. “I was just teasing you, you dork.”
Bow huffed and folded his arms. “This is precisely why I’ve been avoiding you,” he said, before cracking into a wide grin. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Glimmer replied. “Do you think we can try being friends again? Or do you need a bit more space?”
Bow bit his lip. “Can we take it one day at a time?”
And in that moment, Bow could have sworn that there was nothing more precious on all of Etheria than her smile.
Bow poked his head cautiously around the half-open door, a gentle smile tugging at his lips. Across the room, half-dazed behind a mountain of paperwork, Adora glanced up to meet his gaze and sighed with relief.
“Hey Bow,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“Thought I’d check in on you,” Bow replied, stepping into the office and shutting the door gently behind him. “Frosta was telling me that no one's seen you for days. Had me a little bit worried.” He paused, uncertain. Adora’s eyes had already slid back down to the papers in front of her. “I brought lunch.”
That got a real smile out of her.
“You’re the best, Bow.” Adora reached for the brown bag and peered in for a moment before pulling out an apple. Bow could see the tension fading from her shoulders as she sank her teeth into it: loud, messy relief.
“Better?”
“Muth.”
Smiling, Bow took a seat across from her, taking advantage of Adora’s bliss-closed eyes to assess… well, everything. Bow wasn’t sure what he was looking for at first, but it didn’t take him long to spot the heavy bags under Adora’s eyes, or the two dirty coffee mugs half-hidden behind stacks of paper.
“You need to take a break, Adora,” he said, bracing himself for a stubborn retort. It was almost unnerving when Adora merely fixed him with a dazed, confused stare. “You’re clearly running on empty as it is. I know this work is important…”
And it was important. Brightmoon had never had much in the way of a prison, so when the war was over they’d retrofitted a large Horde base so that they could keep people awaiting trial, and even Adora agreed that conditions in there were tough. When she was told about the sheer amount of paperwork Glimmer’s staff would have to get through before anyone could be brought to trial, she volunteered on the spot.
“… but have you been delegating this at all? It looks like you’ve got enough paperwork in here to keep you busy for months.”
“I can’t delegate this, Bow,” Adora sighed. “Not any more than I already have. I’ve got Scorpia and Kyle helping me, but there’s no other ex-Horde soldiers I trust who were willing to help.”
Bow tried not to let the slight bitterness he felt creep into his voice. “Any reason why I can’t help? Or the paralegals who were supposed to do this in the first place? Because you know we all would in a heartbeat.”
“I appreciate it, Bow,” Adora smiled, not quite reaching her tired eyes. “But this is about character judgement, y’know? We can get through this faster because we know who needs a trial and who was… well, who was like us, but didn’t have the same opportunities to get out that we did.”
Bow’s eyes widened. “You’re still trying to protect people, huh?”
“It’s a way of speeding up the process,” Adora added hastily. “If there are people who don’t need a trial, best to get them out of there fast. Clears up the space in there and takes the load off the courts. Besides, Glimmer specifically requested for me to look through the list for anyone I thought could be trusted-”
“I think she meant, like, people you knew personally.” Bow cocked an eyebrow. “This was probably meant to be, like, one day’s work tops.”
“And that’s not fair, is it?” Adora fired back. “Why should some people get free passes just because they happened to know She-Ra? That’s why I’ve got Kyle and Scorpia interviewing and assessing prisoners, too. Get some more information to make decisions.”
“And let me guess - staying busy in here means you can’t run into Glimmer, right?”
Adora’s eyes were glued to her desk, ashamed, as she muttered, “Not all of us can run back home when we need distance.”
Bow sighed. “You know my dads would be fine with you staying with us for a bit, right? If you wanted to, I mean. We’ve got the space, and they’d probably pay you to translate for them if you wanted to. It’s peaceful out there, but always something to get done. Just how you like it.”
Adora didn’t reply. She was still staring down at her desk, her breaths shallow.
“I know it’s difficult,” Bow said, changing tack, “but Glimmer knows that we both need some time to process everything now, and she’s doing her best to give that to us. When we’re ready, we’ll talk to her. But in the meantime, you need to look after yourself, Adora. I can’t stand seeing my best friend like this.”
Bow’s eyes widened as he saw tears welling in Adora’s eyes. He reached across the table to rest a hand on top of hers, gently squeezing.
“Hey… hey, it’s okay,” he said, softly. “It’s going to be fine, I promise. We’re going to take this one day at a time, and we don’t even have to think about talking to Glimmer if you don’t want-”
“It’s not Glimmer.” Adora’s voice was quiet and trembled on the air like a leaf in a thunderstorm. Her breath hitched, and with the back of her free hand she wiped at her eyes, before hesitantly pushing the top page of the pile in front of her toward him. Bow frowned and looked down, his own breath catching in his throat as he saw the name at top of the form.
“Oh, Adora,” he half-whispered, giving her hand another squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”
Adora’s breath hitched again, and before he knew what he was doing Bow was striding around the desk and wrapping her up in the warmest hug he could muster. By the time she had turned to bury her head in the crook of his neck, Adora was sobbing.
They sat like that for a while, Bow balanced precariously on the edge of her seat, stroking her hair and whispering gentle comforts as she cried. When at last she was done, Adora looked up and offered him a fragile smile in thanks.
“Do you want to go and eat your lunch out by the bay?” Bow asked. “I can make sure nobody disturbs you, if you want. Or if you want a distraction, I can get the whole alliance to come and-”
“Thank you, Bow,” Adora said. “I think just us would be good.”
Bow nodded, standing and offering Adora his arm. She rolled her eyes, but hooked her arm through his anyway, picking up the brown bag with her other hand. As they stepped out of her office, Bow glanced back one last time at the paper that lay abandoned on top of the desk.
He should have known this would happen. Glimmer should have known this would happen, and should never have asked Adora to take this on in the first… No, there was no sense in getting angry with Glimmer again. They were both just lucky he’d been there when the inevitable storm they’d both missed finally hit shore. And he, at least, would be there to help Adora weather it.
Prisoner Release Form
Name: Catra
It took around a week, but he and Adora had finally cleared the mountain of paperwork after he convinced her to let him shoulder some of the burden of reading the character references Scorpia and Kyle had put together, and making initial decisions for her to review. It was good that he had, too - at some point in their haze of paperwork, Adora had let slip that the forms needed to be handed in by the end of the month, and even with Bow’s help she’d only managed to finish a few days before the deadline.
To celebrate, Sea Hawk had insisted on getting everyone together for a night out in Brightmoon (well, almost everyone. She might be a princess, but nobody was going to let Frosta into a cocktail bar. She’d made Adora promise to meet her for lunch tomorrow, as a compromise.) At first, Adora complained that she didn’t have anything to wear - her day to day clothes were hardly the bar’s smart casual dress-code, and her prom dress was definitely a little too much - so Bow arranged a last-minute shopping trip with Scorpia for Adora to fill out her wardrobe.
And Scorpia, as always, delivered.
“You know,” Bow said, smiling as Adora squirmed under the attention, “I reckon with a dress like that, every girl in Brightmoon is going to be falling over themselves to ask you out.”
“Half the girls in Brightmoon are straight, Bow,” she replied, rolling her eyes, but Bow caught the redness on her cheeks.
“Details, details.” Bow waved a hand dismissively, then grinned broadly. “Seriously, Adora, you look great.”
And she did. The long sleeves trailed delicate lace down her arms, and despite its tight fit the whole dress had a fragile beauty to it. Her hair was down - Bow had never seen her voluntarily let her hair down before, and certainly never with it styled nicely, and he was surprised by how different it looked to She-Ra’s endless flowing locks.
Adora smiled. “Come on, you. Let’s not keep Sea Hawk waiting.”
When they arrived at the bar, they were waved over by Scorpia, who was sitting at a table with Mermista, Sea Hawk, Netossa, Spinerella, and a girl Bow didn’t recognise. Adora took a deep breath and strode over, and Bow trailed behind her.
“Hey everyone,” Adora said as she pulled out her chair, her eyes eventually settling on the girl next to her. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight, Lonnie! How are you doing?”
“I’m good,” Lonnie said with a smile, as Bow took a moment to put a face to the name. “Kyle’s telling dumb stories over at the other table, so I reckoned I oughta come and make some new friends.”
“Congratulations, Adora!” Scorpia was grinning broadly. “That was a lot of work to get done, and you powered through it like always.”
“Adora, you really are a very talented young woman,” Sea Hawk declared, standing and raising his glass as Mermista rolled her eyes next to him. “I think perhaps a toast is in order, don’t you? To allowing Adora to finally relax!”
The conversation flowed freely, and people came and went between tables. Bow managed to finally get himself introduced to Kyle, who he was pleasantly surprised to recognise as the only nice guard he’d had when the Horde took him captive. Kyle, to his credit, opened the conversation by apologising profusely, before proceeding to gush about his partner, Rogelio, who loomed quietly beside him.
A few drinks in, Netossa decided (and from the surprised look on Spinerella’s face, it certainly seemed to be a spur of the moment decision) to invite everyone to drinks the next month for their four-year anniversary. Scorpia passed on Entrapta’s apologies for not attending, as well as a detailed report on her attempts to de-condition Hordak, and Adora and Bow shared a number of worried looks. Lonnie quite merrily explained to anyone who wanted to hear what had actually happened in any of Kyle’s stories, and even had Adora chipping in for some of the older ones.
“Pretty good evening so far, wouldn’t you say?” Bow said, climbing onto the stool next to Adora at the bar. Behind them, they could hear Sea Hawk and Mermista arguing, even over the general chatter of the crowd.
“Yeah,” Adora said, smiling. “It’s good to see everyone. And after the week we’ve had, I absolutely needed the chance to unwind.”
Adora swung her handbag up onto the bar, and unclipped it, biting her lip as she dove into it, presumably looking for her purse. Bow would have thought nothing of it, if he hadn’t seen the top of a too-familiar sheet of paper as it poked out of the top of the bag.
“Adora…” he began, carefully, trying not to think about the disappointment that was settling in the pit of his stomach. “What is that?”
Adora froze, swallowed, and took a deep breath.
“I know what you’re thinking-”
“I thought we had finished with all of those? Isn’t that why we came out tonight?”
“Bow, please.” Adora said, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Just let me take my time on this one. I can’t… I haven’t decided what to do yet.”
“It’s Catra, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. There was nobody else it could have been. Adora nodded anyway. “Adora, you can’t put this off any longer-”
“I’ve got three days,” Adora said, firmly. “I’ll make up my mind by then, I swear, I just… I just need more time. She doesn’t deserve to be released, I know she doesn’t, but the thought of having the chance to help her and turning it down? It’s too much, Bow.
“And it’s my decision to make. It has to be. So I’ll just keep it on me till then, so nobody accidentally files it away.”
Bow shook his head. “I can’t tell you what to do, Adora,” he said. “Just don’t leave it to the last minute, okay?”
Adora nodded again and paid for her drink, turning away silently and walking back to the table. When Bow made his way back, he decided to join the other table. To give Adora some space, he told himself, as he slid into the space in the corner, next to Perfuma.
“Is everything alright?” Perfuma frowned as he took his seat. “You look worried about something.”
Bow glanced around the table. Opposite Perfuma, Netossa and Spinerella were muttering quietly to each other, smiling; further down the table, Mermista was draped across Sea Hawk’s lap, their lips locked.
“I’m okay. Just a little argument with Adora, that’s all,” Bow said with a sigh. “Are you alright? You don’t have to sit here and be a fifth wheel, y’know.”
Perfuma laughed. “I was talking with Huntara,” she explained. “She’s in the bathroom right now. Although I won’t say I’m not glad to have your company.”
“It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve hung out,” Bow mused. “I think the last time the two of us really talked - y’know, just us - was back at prom.”
“You’re always welcome in Plumeria, you know,” Perfuma said. “I know it can be a little rustic, but-”
“No, rustic’s good.” Bow grinned. “I’d like that a lot. To come and visit, I mean.”
“Good.” Perfuma smiled, her face lit. Not for the first time, Bow was struck by how pretty her smile was; it was warm and welcoming, and filled with an infectious joy, and was so very Perfuma. “Now, what’s this argument you’ve had with Adora? I don’t want to see the two of you falling out.”
“It’s nothing that serious,” Bow said. “I just… keep this quiet, okay, but she hasn’t actually finished all that work. She’s putting off the last form.”
Perfuma frowned. “Why?”
“Catra.”
“Oh.” Perfuma nodded to herself in thought. “Yes, I suppose that would be a difficult one.”
“I just don’t want to see her spend the next few days tearing herself apart over this, you know?” Bow took a sip of his drink, making a face as the sour kick hit. “Or if she spends too long thinking, and misses the deadline? I don’t want her to have to live with all these what-ifs and maybes if she misses her chance to get her old best friend back.”
“You mean like you’re worried you have?”
Perfuma’s voice was quiet, but it cut right to his core.
“I… I miss Glimmer,” Bow said, barely loud enough to hear over the background chatter of the bar. “But I can’t till I’m ready to forgive her. I don’t want to make things worse by snapping at her, or losing my temper, all because I didn’t give myself the time to cool off. But I’m not cooling off, and it’s been months, and I don’t know what to do…”
Perfuma sighed, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Oh, Bow,” she said, and her dark eyes were compassionate and wide and beautiful and sad. “You and Adora, you’re both so hung up on waiting for yourselves to be ready that you’ve stopped living while you wait.”
“Wh-what should I do?” Bow asked.
“What do you want to do?”
And then, almost without thinking, his lips were on hers, and her arms tightened to hold him close, and she tasted like the sweetest of grapes, soft as a petal under his touch. She was a gentle kisser, her lips moving not with a passionate hunger but with quiet, calm certainty. When they pulled apart, Bow wasn’t out of breath, but his whole body felt relaxed.
“I want to live,” he said. “You’re right. I can’t keep putting everything on hold.”
“Is that all?” she asked with a wry smile. He flashed a cheeky grin back at her, feeling the warmth in his cheeks.
“I want to kiss you again.”
And he did.
There was only so long he could avoid seeing Glimmer, he supposed. When Adora told him, a few days later, that Glimmer had summoned her for a meeting about the work she’d done with the prisoner release forms, and Bow wasn’t going to let her go to that without moral support. He just had to keep his cool.
The three of them were sat around the old war table, Bow and Adora on one side, and Glimmer on the other. It seemed to Bow as if Glimmer were very carefully controlling her expression, but she couldn’t hide the disappointment in her eyes.
“Thank you for sorting through all those forms, Adora,” Glimmer said, quietly, after a moment of silence that was too long to be comfortable. “You were much more thorough than I expected. I thought you were just going to look through for people who you’d known.”
“That wouldn’t have been fair on the others.”
Glimmer smiled. “No. And I’m glad you took the time to go through them all like that. It was the right thing to do.
“But I couldn’t help noticing that one form was missing.”
Beside him, Adora tensed, and Bow knew. Of course he knew. Who else could it be? He bit back the urge to scold Adora, and fixed Glimmer with a hard stare instead. She, at least, should have known better.
“I… I couldn’t…”
“Your majesty, what is the point of this meeting?” Bow snapped. “If you’ve just invited Adora here to interrogate her over a missing form-”
“No!” Glimmer’s eyes were wide and afraid, and for a moment Bow’s heart dropped to his stomach. “No, I wanted to help, that’s all. I’d heard she was struggling and I just wanted to know if she’d decided not to release Catra or if she’d missed the deadline.”
“Why does it matter?” Adora asked, quietly, her voice shaking and her eyes glistening with tears. “We all know she did awful things. She deserves whatever punishment she gets.”
“Is that what you want?” Glimmer asked. “Adora, you’ve been through so much. And I know that part of that is my fault, and I wanted to try and make it up to you, so… you have my permission to be selfish, Adora. I should have made that clearer when I gave you those forms.”
Bow turned to Adora, and wrapped an arm protectively around her shoulders. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you,” he said. “I’ll help however you need me. You know that.”
“I want Catra.” The words were quiet, too quiet, too fragile for Adora, but they were unmistakably hers.
Across the table, Glimmer clapped. The heavy doors swung open behind her, and there, flanked by guards and dressed in plain prison clothes, stood Catra. Adora stared up, transfixed, her eyes still damp and her lips barely parted in disbelief.
"We'll give you two a moment," Bow said, shooting a dark look at Glimmer as he gave Adora one last, reassuring squeeze. Glimmer nodded, and the two of them stepped out into the corridor, the guards closing the door behind them.
For a moment, all was quiet.
"I'm so-"
"Did you-"
They both chuckled, catching themselves mid-sentence. Glimmer made a vague gesture with her hands. "After you."
"Did you really expect Adora to let herself be selfish?"
Glimmer sighed. "Yeah. I had no idea what she'd gotten herself into until I spoke with the others a few days ago. She's been avoiding me as much as you have lately, so I didn't even notice she'd locked herself away like that. Not," she added hesitantly, "that I blame you two for that. At all. You both need your space."
"Thank you." Bow took a deep breath. "I think I needed to hear that from you."
"Mmm, Perfuma said that you might," Glimmer said, quietly. Bow's eyes widened, and Glimmer chuckled and shot him a sly smile. “What? Did you really think you could hook up with one of my friends and I wouldn’t hear about it? Besides, she was worried about the two of you.”
Bow felt his cheeks burn. “It… it was just a one-time thing, I wasn’t-”
Glimmer laughed, full and loud and happy, like a peal of bells ringing in celebration, and it sounded like home. “She said,” she managed between breaths. “I was just teasing you, you dork.”
Bow huffed and folded his arms. “This is precisely why I’ve been avoiding you,” he said, before cracking into a wide grin. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” Glimmer replied. “Do you think we can try being friends again? Or do you need a bit more space?”
Bow bit his lip. “Can we take it one day at a time?”
And in that moment, Bow could have sworn that there was nothing more precious on all of Etheria than her smile.
This one's a bit of a doozy. I liked it, and it was a nice exploration of Bow's internal conflict about everything that's happening. Plus Perfuma with the laser-focused commentary.
Some minor editing things, but nothing too bad.
On the whole, I think it was a good piece. What bugged me about it might just be my personal reaction, but it might be useful for you to know what that is, in case it strikes something with you.
First, there's no way to put tags on stories here, so it's up to me to figure out this is AU, though it may take place well in the future after such time as they've triumphed over Horde Prime. It doesn't seem like the tension between Glimmer, Bow, and Adora would persist that long, though, and you haven't hinted at it coming from a different source. So I'm taking this as an AU where Brightmoon defeated Hordak before he ever had a chance to alert Horde Prime where he was, though they must have still triggered the portal in some fashion if Angella is gone. I can buy all that, so no problem.
The romance seems forced. I don't know if you'll end up being someone from the MLP side of the writeoffs, but a common trope there is that a close-knit group of friends all pair up into relationships, though the odds against that are astronomical. At least with She-Ra, there's a much smaller cast of named characters, so you don't have as many options unless you're going to bring in nameless citizens or original characters. I can still buy this, though it's harder. Mermista being so openly and publicly affectionate toward Sea Hawk is a little odd, while Bow asserting the kiss with Perfuma was just a one-time thing might be what's going on there as well? Maybe they're all just blowing off steam after the war? When all the relationships are casual (except the barely on-screen Netossa and Spinnerella), it kind of cheapens the romance angle all around, though. And then there's another thing we see a lot in MLP, and Bow even brings it up explicitly: that a large chunk of the given population is gay.
Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle already being cleared was a little odd, too, since they're still processing captives. They did defect toward the end of season 4, and I can't tell how much later this is supposed to be, but I'm not sure Brightmoon would so quickly embrace them to the point of letting them have free rein of the place and even have some responsibility with the other prisoners.
I don't get why Bow is still angry at Glimmer, unless it's on Adora's behalf. Like I said, the only source of tension I can assume is Angella, and in the show, there wasn't any direct conflict between Glimmer and Bow about that.
When Glimmer claps at Adora's choice to see Catra, I didn't understand what mood you were going for. Did she clap to applaud Adora's decision? Or was it just her alerting the guards to bring Catra in? Showing a little more of her behavior about it would clear that up.
Brightmoon has never been shown to have a judicial system, but that doesn't mean none exists. I'm just curious what function Adora is actually performing and whether she's remotely qualified to, if there even are such qualifications in their society.
Those are a lot of little things, but they do add up. The ending felt a little off, too, and I'll explain why. It's an open ending, since we don't know how things turn out between Adora and Catra, and that's fine. The trick to making open endings work is making it clear what outcomes are possible/likely and what the stakes are attached to each. But let me step back a bit. The story was centered around what Adora was going to do about Catra, then in the last few paragraphs, it diverges from being about that anymore and closes on a sentiment having more to do with this rift between Glimmer, Bow, and Adora. I will applaud you for the way you handled perspective there. Bow is the point of view character, and he's left the room, so the narration can't tell me what's happening in there anymore.
But back to the open ending. We of course don't know what transpires between Adora and Catra, and that's okay, but I need a little more information on what the options are so that I know what emotional stakes to invest in Adora's choice. If she decides to let Catra go free and clear, will Glimmer honor that? Will Adora be pressured to keep Catra under some kind of monitoring no matter what? Basically, I don't know enough about what the actual options are to know how I feel about the decision facing her.
Wow, I didn't intend to write that much, and the way these She-Ra rounds have gone, I'll probably never know if the author even looked at it, but there it is.
Some minor editing things, but nothing too bad.
On the whole, I think it was a good piece. What bugged me about it might just be my personal reaction, but it might be useful for you to know what that is, in case it strikes something with you.
First, there's no way to put tags on stories here, so it's up to me to figure out this is AU, though it may take place well in the future after such time as they've triumphed over Horde Prime. It doesn't seem like the tension between Glimmer, Bow, and Adora would persist that long, though, and you haven't hinted at it coming from a different source. So I'm taking this as an AU where Brightmoon defeated Hordak before he ever had a chance to alert Horde Prime where he was, though they must have still triggered the portal in some fashion if Angella is gone. I can buy all that, so no problem.
The romance seems forced. I don't know if you'll end up being someone from the MLP side of the writeoffs, but a common trope there is that a close-knit group of friends all pair up into relationships, though the odds against that are astronomical. At least with She-Ra, there's a much smaller cast of named characters, so you don't have as many options unless you're going to bring in nameless citizens or original characters. I can still buy this, though it's harder. Mermista being so openly and publicly affectionate toward Sea Hawk is a little odd, while Bow asserting the kiss with Perfuma was just a one-time thing might be what's going on there as well? Maybe they're all just blowing off steam after the war? When all the relationships are casual (except the barely on-screen Netossa and Spinnerella), it kind of cheapens the romance angle all around, though. And then there's another thing we see a lot in MLP, and Bow even brings it up explicitly: that a large chunk of the given population is gay.
Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle already being cleared was a little odd, too, since they're still processing captives. They did defect toward the end of season 4, and I can't tell how much later this is supposed to be, but I'm not sure Brightmoon would so quickly embrace them to the point of letting them have free rein of the place and even have some responsibility with the other prisoners.
I don't get why Bow is still angry at Glimmer, unless it's on Adora's behalf. Like I said, the only source of tension I can assume is Angella, and in the show, there wasn't any direct conflict between Glimmer and Bow about that.
When Glimmer claps at Adora's choice to see Catra, I didn't understand what mood you were going for. Did she clap to applaud Adora's decision? Or was it just her alerting the guards to bring Catra in? Showing a little more of her behavior about it would clear that up.
Brightmoon has never been shown to have a judicial system, but that doesn't mean none exists. I'm just curious what function Adora is actually performing and whether she's remotely qualified to, if there even are such qualifications in their society.
Those are a lot of little things, but they do add up. The ending felt a little off, too, and I'll explain why. It's an open ending, since we don't know how things turn out between Adora and Catra, and that's fine. The trick to making open endings work is making it clear what outcomes are possible/likely and what the stakes are attached to each. But let me step back a bit. The story was centered around what Adora was going to do about Catra, then in the last few paragraphs, it diverges from being about that anymore and closes on a sentiment having more to do with this rift between Glimmer, Bow, and Adora. I will applaud you for the way you handled perspective there. Bow is the point of view character, and he's left the room, so the narration can't tell me what's happening in there anymore.
But back to the open ending. We of course don't know what transpires between Adora and Catra, and that's okay, but I need a little more information on what the options are so that I know what emotional stakes to invest in Adora's choice. If she decides to let Catra go free and clear, will Glimmer honor that? Will Adora be pressured to keep Catra under some kind of monitoring no matter what? Basically, I don't know enough about what the actual options are to know how I feel about the decision facing her.
Wow, I didn't intend to write that much, and the way these She-Ra rounds have gone, I'll probably never know if the author even looked at it, but there it is.
Halfway through this, I thought I had my main criticism: A lack of focus, wandering idly from the problems of releasing Catra to tension between Bow and Glimmer to Bow-Perfuma shipping.
I was completely wrong.
In fact, what stands out about this story is how focused it actually is. Once you see the theme and the emotional tenor, every fits together.
There's nothing superfluous here. We don't need to know the exact nature of Bow and Glimmer's argument, or Bow and Perfuma's relationship. The story is wise enough to know that, and confident enough not to waste time on such matters.
Nor do we need to know what Adora will choose. She's stuck because she has no good choices. And it's that note of melancholy that stops this piece from being saccharine. She will get to talk to Catra again, without all the scrabbling for power and ego that has ruined their relationship since she changed sides. That's not much. But it will have to be enough.
This story is the good-tempered fantasy denouement that S4 didn't give us. It's about healing, reconciliation, the mutual support that comes from community. It's about that theme we see over and over again in She Ra: The difficulty of finding yourself opposed to someone you care about.
I was completely wrong.
In fact, what stands out about this story is how focused it actually is. Once you see the theme and the emotional tenor, every fits together.
There's nothing superfluous here. We don't need to know the exact nature of Bow and Glimmer's argument, or Bow and Perfuma's relationship. The story is wise enough to know that, and confident enough not to waste time on such matters.
Nor do we need to know what Adora will choose. She's stuck because she has no good choices. And it's that note of melancholy that stops this piece from being saccharine. She will get to talk to Catra again, without all the scrabbling for power and ego that has ruined their relationship since she changed sides. That's not much. But it will have to be enough.
This story is the good-tempered fantasy denouement that S4 didn't give us. It's about healing, reconciliation, the mutual support that comes from community. It's about that theme we see over and over again in She Ra: The difficulty of finding yourself opposed to someone you care about.
I think the thing I enjoyed the most about this story was how it tackles the chaos around Bow's life, as a character that has so much empathy, he lends himself easily to be someone that everyone else can really lean into and yet is in a very real sense the glue that keeps them all together.
I'll have to echo Pascoite's feelings of "where and when is this happening again?" I think that's one of the downsides of not having a short/long description before going in, at the beginning its a bit jarring to try and figure out that this is not canon timeline—oddly enough this slight moment of confusion regarding the time/placement is something all three stories seemed to have an issue with.
I guess if I had to offer any feedback it would be the same I need for my own submission to work better (one of two in my case): land the setting and timing really early on to ease the reader into the story. Overall, I enjoyed it!
I'll have to echo Pascoite's feelings of "where and when is this happening again?" I think that's one of the downsides of not having a short/long description before going in, at the beginning its a bit jarring to try and figure out that this is not canon timeline—oddly enough this slight moment of confusion regarding the time/placement is something all three stories seemed to have an issue with.
I guess if I had to offer any feedback it would be the same I need for my own submission to work better (one of two in my case): land the setting and timing really early on to ease the reader into the story. Overall, I enjoyed it!