Chapter Text
PART 1:
In the time of strife
Will rise the Goddess
Who can speak the old tongues
And who bears the Sword
Who can walk through fire
And who commands the Moons
The night moons are past zenith when Princess Glimmer of Bright Moon leaps from her bedroom window and into a slate-blue sky. She crashes ungracefully into the crown of an ancient keyaki tree, its supple branches bending but not snapping beneath her weight, and clings tight until the tree stops shaking. All of Bright Moon Castle is fast asleep, save for the guards, but there’s a breeze from the land above the clouds this morning, the chill breath of Etheria’s northern mountains. If anyone did hear her jump, they’d think it was just the wind.
Once she’s certain no one is coming to investigate, Glimmer carefully untangles her cloak from the net of leaves and twigs that’s caught her and shuffles to the ground. Up-close, this tree might seem unremarkable, but in fact it’s the eastern-most sentry of a formidable line of defense that stretches west from Bright Moon all the way to the sea, half a continent away. The Whispering Woods. Home to dark spirits, and dark secrets.
Bright Moon’s enemies, the self-named ‘Horde’, consider the Woods nigh impassable, and to them it is so. But this is not the case for the Princess, who knows the ancient paths, though entering is still a risk, especially if she enters with her vision clouded, with fear or hate in her heart. Like all Bright Moon’s children, Glimmer has been raised on stories about the Woods, and of those who’ve disappeared in them, or who have come back… different. There is little magic left on Etheria, not like during its golden era, the era of the First Ones, but what remains can be found deep within the Woods, wild and wary.
To enter the Woods and return whole, Glimmer must be strong. She must be brave.
A streak of cloud obscures the face of a moon just as Glimmer steps through the treeline, and she flinches at the sudden change. Night is never truly dark on the world of Etheria, not dark like the inside of a cave, or like the cellars of Bright Moon Castle with all the torches put out. There are always moons in the sky, their pastel surfaces blessing Etheria’s people with a sliver of the universe’s radiance. Most nights are graced with sky-storms, vast pillars of light that fold and ripple like curtains in a breeze, or with meteors, though astrologers say these are becoming rarer over time. Glimmer had once suffered through an impromptu, half-hour lecture from Princess Entrapta of Dryl about why this might be the case, the contents of which she remembers not at all.
The interior of the Woods is no less illuminated. Red jellies sprout in clusters near the base of trees, their fan-like lobes dotted with luminescent pustules, blue as the Salinean Sea. Random pillars of crystal erupt from the soil, their tapered pinnacles collecting rays of moonlight spearing through the canopy and diffusing them throughout their translucent bodies. A murmuration of fireflies come and circle Glimmer’s head as she walks her path, curious and unafraid. She shoos them away gently with the back of her hand and watches them spiral upwards into the woodland air, warm and heavy with the myriad scents of life and rot.
After an hour of walking Glimmer stops for a breather, dropping her knitted shoulder-sack onto a rock under the leaves of a giant frond. This frond is still young, only up to her shoulders, but at maturity it will become a green cathedral, as high and wide as the ceiling of Bright Moon’s throne room. A fallen log next to the path bursts with little white mushrooms, the kind that are bitter raw but take on a delectable nutty flavour once cooked. On a different morning, Glimmer might fill her sack with them, deliver them straight back to Bright Moon’s kitchens for serving at the Queen’s table that night. Somewhere high in the canopy, an owl emits a mournful hoot.
The path forks beyond this point, and Glimmer marks the turn back to Bright Moon with the slash of a knife over the bark of a tree. Golden sap oozes from the heartwood and pours down the bark like water over a weir. Glimmer lays her hand on the tree and sings apologies until the bleeding ceases.
I pick only what I must
And leave the rest to Etheria
I cut only what I must
And leave the rest to Etheria
I burn only what I must
And leave the rest to Etheria
I build only what I must
And leave the rest to Etheria
Glimmer runs a fingertip through the sap and brings it to her lips. The taste is honey-sweet on her tongue, light and foamy like fresh-brewed ale. The Princess licks her fill and then, hands clasped together, thanks the tree for its sustenance.
Brother tree, sister tree
Today we become one
Tree of my bones
Tree of my blood
I carry you in my heart forever
She gathers up her things and continues on a westward path.
Her journey to this point has been relaxed, even pleasant, but no longer. She reaches for the staff clipped to her belt, finding comfort in its presence. The staff is long, with a crescent moon-shaped head, but has a telescopic design, its shaft collapsing down into something that can be easily worn or concealed. It had once been her father’s. Her knife is a tool but the staff is a weapon, one she is well-trained in.
Glimmer will need to be on her guard now. There are creatures in the deep Woods that she has only ever sensed, never seen, and their natures are quite unknown to her.
Plus, there are the Horde scouts.
And perhaps also… her.
Glimmer has never personally encountered Horde along the ancient paths, but she knows they know of them. She’s found their garbage – Horde soldiers have no respect for anything.
It’s no secret why they’re out here. They’re looking for the path that will lead them to Bright Moon. Looking for Rebellion safehouses and supply caches. Looking for lost First Ones’ tech.
The Horde believes that military strategy and advanced technology will win this war. So too does Queen Angella, Glimmer’s mother, and all the other leaders of the Rebellion: Spinerella, Netossa, Juliet, even her best friend Bow.
Glimmer does not.
Glimmer believes in She-Ra.
Glimmer believes in the Sword.
And Glimmer believes that one day, when the time is right and when the Sword is found, then the Crystal Castle will open, its guardian will awaken, and all the magic of Etheria will be restored, bringing peace and balance to the world once more, just as the Legend of She-Ra foretold.
-----
The first hint of pink in the east sees Catra drop silently from the branches of her sleeping tree and slink deeper into the Whispering Woods.
Dawn and dusk are Catra’s ideal reconnaissance hours, when her low-light vision give her maximum advantage over the typical Rebellion soldier, and her large ears make even distant noises audible. These are the times when she is most likely to see without being seen, to hear without being heard, to find without being sought. A lifetime of Horde discipline has taught Catra to rest during the darkest hours of the night, even though she never quite feels sleepy, and to train and study during the day, even though her motivation is at its lowest ebb, but at dawn and dusk?
At dawn and dusk, she feels perfect.
Catra should favour the Woods. With her sharp claws, her vision, her lithe tail for balance, her superior vertical leap – she holds the Cadet record! – her body feels made for climbing trees. Something about being up high just feels right; right and fun and powerful and safe. Up high, no one can touch her. But Catra does not love the Woods, because the Woods are wild, and that is where magic lives: in the wild.
Magic is unpredictable, uncontrollable, unknowable.
Magic is, in a word, unsafe.
From the moment she’d first stepped into the Woods, Catra had wanted to leave and never come back.
She cannot leave.
Besides, if anyone can find the path to Bright Moon, it’s Catra. That was what Lord Hordak had written, when he’d given her this mission. She’d been specially chosen for it. He’d read her instructor’s reports; been following her progress from afar, ever since she was a child. In the Horde, everyone had their use, he’d said, and this was to be hers. Whether she liked how she was used, it did not matter; and what mattered was that she play her part in bringing order to Etheria. He was counting on her. All of Etheria was counting on her.
When the Horde was victorious, there would be no more wildness, no more magic. Only reason and science: predictable, controllable, knowable.
Safe.
For that, Catra must endure.
Some distance into the Woods, Catra finds the nearest path and begins to follow it up a steep incline, grateful she’d kept her pack light today. The paths through the Woods can be tricky. Some are ancient, kept open at all times by Rebellion rangers and the odd forest hermit, or worn so deep into the dirt by generations of feet that they’ve become part of the landscape, the surrounding greenery linking to form a tunnel overhead. These paths take you exactly where you need to go, provided you know where you are.
Other paths are impermanent, however, raw and treacherous. A pack of deer or a lumbering boar might carve a route through the trees, and you think you’ve discovered a path to a new part of the Woods, only to return a few hours later and find the Woods have swallowed it, like it never existed. Or worse, you think you’re following one of the ancient paths, only to realize you’re wrong just as you step off a cliff, or wander into a lair of bug-monsters.
Catra is too observant for such mistakes, though. There are always signs, if you’re looking for them, revealing who made what path. Animals and people think differently, want differently, make different decisions, know different fears.
One thing Catra has learned is that animal paths always curve away from the Crystal Castle. Whether of their own will or otherwise, the animals of the Woods refuse to approach it. Catra knows the path she’d found today is an ancient one, because that is where it takes her.
The Crystal Castle is a pyramid of blue stone veined with lines that glow rose-pink at all hours of the day or night. Taller than the tallest tree, its pinnacle is topped by an odd, wishbone-shaped contraption, which Catra can barely begin to guess the function of. Some sort of monument, perhaps? A beacon? An antenna? The metal hatch covering what Catra assumes to be a ramp down into the castle is etched with First Ones’ writing, unreadable to her or anyone else on Etheria, not for countless generations.
The only thing Catra knows for sure about the Crystal Castle is that it looks pristine, as if it were built only yesterday. Somehow, it has survived the immensity of time that has weathered and ruined all other First Ones’ structures. The roof has not caved in, the metal door has not rusted, the walls stand tall and strong, the lights are still on… but nobody is home.
There are rumours, of course. Rumours of a guardian of the castle, keeper of some great treasure, the last First One. But no one has ever personally encountered such a figure, or gained entry to this castle she supposedly dwells in. And the rumours are... confused. Somehow, they’ve mixed and merged with other myths, equally old and strange, like the Legend of She-Ra, or the Tale of Serenia. Only a goddess can live forever, and so the guardian must therefore be one. Or at least, Catra supposes, that is the logic. If you can call it that.
Lord Hordak denounces all such rumours as superstitious nonsense – proof of Etheria’s backwardness, and of the Horde’s need to save its people from their own irrationality – and in the abstract Catra is inclined to agree.
… Until she gazes upon the Castle, that is, and then she gets a creepy, itchy feeling all over her body.
The Castle is awake. It’s watching her.
And it has a purpose, one it has not yet fulfilled.
Catra goes off-path on the northern side of the Castle, following the terrain down into a valley she has a hunch might lead her to distant places east. The Woods in the valley had looked close to impassable when she’d first scoped them out yesterday, but that was why she’d been given this mission. With her physical attributes and superior senses, Catra can traverse places others can’t. If she can’t find a path to Bright Moon, one fit for an army to march down, then perhaps it will prove easier to find a path from Bright Moon?
The light beneath the forest canopy is beginning to turn grey and clear, and Catra dismisses her anxieties about the Crystal Castle. This is no time to dwell on old myths or eerie mysteries. She has a purpose of her own to fulfill.
Whatever the Castle is waiting for, it certainly isn’t her.
-----
Glimmer has a problem. She’s lost.
Her plan had been a simple one: follow the ancient paths until she reached the Crystal Castle, then search the surrounding Woods. If the Sword exists anywhere – if it exists at all – it will surely be near the Castle. The old stories say it was lost in these Woods, and the Sword is supposed to be the key to the Castle. Maybe it’s like that time Glimmer had gone out into the castle gardens to play with Bow, and somehow the key to her bedroom had jumped out of her pocket and into a flower-bed? It had taken all day for her to find it, but the Woods were so much bigger than a garden! It makes sense that no one has found it yet.
Of course, a sword is much bigger than a typical key. Kind of a hard thing to lose. But that is what the stories say.
At some point this morning, though, Glimmer had chosen the wrong path, one that curved away from the Castle rather than towards it.
In fact, she’s pretty sure this isn’t one of the ancient paths at all, but something fresh and temporary. This path is too shallow and rough-spun; some of the buds on the lowest tree-branches look moist and deer-nibbled, their damaged leaves still wafting out an odorous alarm call to their nearby kin, and the path takes strange, wandering detours. She hadn’t been paying attention until recently, but Glimmer also thinks she’s gone downhill, whereas the Crystal Castle is near the centre of a plateau, one of the highest parts of the Woods between Bright Moon and the Fright Zone, home base to Lord Hordak and his Evil Horde.
The trees look thinner on one side of the deer path, and Glimmer rambles through them until she comes to a rocky precipice, granting her a panoramic view of the surrounding Woods.
Sure enough, she’s near the bottom of a wide, flat depression, a gentle east-facing valley. The night moons are fading, and the day moons are rising to take their place, their light painting the eastern sky in streaks of peach and puce and lavender and lilac. Glimmer hums the dayrise song to herself while she works out what to do.
Rise, o lanterns of Etheria
Colours of my heart
As an excuse to delay her decision, she shrugs off her sack and sits down on the rocks. Legs dangling over the precipice, she sips cool Bright Moon spring water from a gourd and eats some dry crackers.
“Curses,” Glimmer says, throwing in several of said curses for good measure, words she’d never say in front of her mother or the royal court. All this time and risk, and she’s accomplished nothing. This was a waste of time.
If only she’d told Bow what she was planning to do this morning. Her best friend would have insisted on coming with her, and he has a level head in stressful situations. Maybe with him at her side, she wouldn’t have taken a wrong path at all. But Bow doubted the stories and she hadn’t wanted to explain herself, nor risk getting him into trouble in case anything went wrong, and so she’d kept her plans to herself.
Now things had gone wrong, and he wasn’t here to help. She smacks her temple hard with her palm, admonishing herself for the error. “This was such a stupid idea! Stupid!”
Obviously, she should just turn around and go home. If she turns back now, she might arrive at Bright Moon late enough to earn no more than a rote telling-off from her mother about sleeping in, assuming she can climb back into her room unseen.
But, if she crosses the valley and climbs up the other side…
Based on how long and far she’s walked, the Crystal Castle should be on top of the opposite hill. Maybe not close by, but up there somewhere, yes, definitely. If she crosses this valley, which she’s never seen let alone explored before, maybe she’ll find something interesting? She can find her way home from the Castle easily enough, and it won’t be any slower than retracing her exact steps. In fact, it might be faster.
And imagine if she does find something!
Bright Moon might be safe behind the thick green wall of the Whispering Woods, but of the other three remaining free kingdoms, two – Plumeria and Salineas – are desperately vulnerable. The Horde is closing in on them and there’s no help coming. What kind of life will her citizens live when they are a lone island amidst a horde of, well, Horde?
Safe? No. They are not safe.
The Horde’s victory looks inexorable, unless something changes. Something extraordinary.
Standing up, Glimmer makes a snap decision. The deer path she’s mistakenly followed will close up quickly, and she might never see these parts of the Woods again. It's today, or never. If she’s doing this, she needs to go now.
She goes.
It doesn’t take her long to regret her decision. The Woods in the valley bottom turn out to be some of the wildest Glimmer has ever encountered. Tree boughs swoop thick and low in all directions, blocking her way both left and right. In the undergrowth, brambles form vicious thickets, their spiny branches pawing at her cloak and tearing it. The ground itself is broken and uneven, with large boulders littering the forest floor. It’s as if every loose rock in the Woods has rolled downhill and ended up here. A straight route to the opposite hill does not exist, and Glimmer begins to suspect that even a winding route might take all morning to navigate.
No wonder there’s no path through this part of the Woods. No wonder she’s never been down here before. In all likelihood, no one has, not since the Woods had formed.
With each enforced change in direction, her frustration builds. Another minute wasted. The light in the forest turns milky, meaning that day is fully upon her, though the canopy here is too thick to see the sky. Soon, now, very soon, her mother, or one of the Bright Moon royal guards, will be knocking on her bedroom door looking for her. Looking, and not finding.
A low bramble somehow finds its way underneath her cloak and hooks around her calf above her boot, raking its teeth through tender skin.
“Ow!” Glimmer whines, on the verge of tears. “This is impossible! What was I thinking? The Woods don’t want me down here. I should have just gone back. My Mom’s gonna kill me.”
She unhooks the bramble from her leg and pivots direction again, pushing her way through a curtain of moss hanging from a tree-branch.
The light that pierces her vision on the other side is agonizing. Silver-bright and thin as gold leaf, it slices across her eye in an instant, leaving blindness and pain.
And then, just as quick, it’s gone. Glimmer blinks the spots out of her eyes, and when she looks again, she sees what caused it.
It’s a sword.
No, not just a sword. The Sword. The one from the legends.
The Sword has a golden hilt, shaped to match the capstone at the top of the Crystal Castle, and a giant blue opal embedded in its centre. With a blade polished to impossible smoothness and etched with First Ones’ symbols, there’s no doubt in Glimmer’s mind this is the Sword of Protection, the Sword of She-Ra, Key to the Crystal Castle, the one that will unlock the ancient magics and restore balance to Etheria.
And it’s cradled in the hands of a Horde soldier, who looks just as shocked about it as she is.
-----
Catra has a problem. She’s not lost, exactly, but she is in danger of becoming stuck.
The valley on the far side of the Crystal Castle might dip eastward, but it’s some of the worst terrain she’s ever encountered. A canopy so thick she can barely see, even with her excellent low-light vision. Sharp rocks, jagged rocks, rocks too big to climb. Brambles everywhere. Even some of those awful, three-leaf plants that give you blisters if you touch them with bare skin.
The further she journeys downhill, the more arduous getting back up to the plateau becomes. If she can’t manage it, then the only way out is through. Potentially, all the way to Bright Moon.
Well, that was what she wants, right? To find a way to Bright Moon. Yes, but getting to Bright Moon isn’t really the problem, she reminds herself; it’s finding a route they can march an army down. This valley won’t do for that.
She should turn around now, but then she will have wasted the morning. At least if she crosses the valley to the other side, she will know there’s no extant path, and then she can leave and never return. She’ll have something to report to Shadow Weaver when she gets back to her home tree, on her chunky, battery-powered, not-so-portable radio that all Horde scouts are provisioned with.
Catra goes on.
The ground at the bottom of the valley is pitted and broken. Blue-leaved trees grow sideways from dirt-filled cracks in the exposed rock, their branches forming an obstacle course of loops and twists, and Catra finds herself going over them as often as under them. She starts clawing each tree she passes just in case she gets turned around, angrily wiping their disgusting sticky sap on the side of her uniform whenever one retaliates by gushing hatefully at her. One tree looks much the same as another in a place like this, and she can’t see the moons to orient herself.
Even her magnetic compass is failing her, here; there’s metal under the ground, apparently, under the high plateau. Or at least, that’s the rational explanation. If the animal paths always curve away from the Crystal Castle, sometimes it seems like her compass is always pointing her towards it. Just another reason to mistrust the Castle.
At long last, Catra pushes her way through a curtain of moss dripping from a tree-branch and finds herself at an impasse. The ground beyond sinks into a deep, circular hollow, almost a cave really, its rocky walls overgrown on all sides with masses of roots and vines. At the bottom, so dark she can barely see them, a few scraggly tufts of grass grow amidst the rocks and dead leaf-litter, proof that life can survive just about anywhere on Etheria.
“Well, that sucks,” Catra mumbles. “Dead end.”
She sits down on the nearest rock and pouts. There’s little point in trying to find a way around this place she’s stumbled into, as the terrain is likely to be just as impassable no matter which direction she goes in. She hasn’t brought enough supplies for an extended excursion, anyhow; just a chunk of unfinished ration bar wrapped in a blanket, a canteen for water, and her useless compass.
Oh well, Catra sighs to herself, nothing to do but take a break and then trek back to her camping tree, if she can manage it. At least for the moment she’s hidden and safe. No Rebel patrol or sympathetic forest-hermit will ever find her here.
She turns to unshoulder her backpack, thinking to eat and drink, and that’s when she sees it. An unexpected glint of light in the corner of her eye.
“What the…?” Catra mouths.
There’s something unnatural down there at the bottom of the hollow, something shiny. Catra sets her backpack down where it won’t fall and shuffles gingerly down the shallowest side of the hollow, careful not to trust too much of her weight to any one hand or foot. She leaps the last few feet and lands lightly, tail swishing with anticipation.
At the far end of the hollow, she kneels next to the object she’s spotted. It’s a kind of golden ball, round and solid, with tiny grooves etched into its surface. She brushes away the loose soil and leaves around it, exposing more of the object. The ball is attached to a scaled handle pointing into the ground, where the rest of the object is wedged between roots and rocks.
Catra wraps her hands around the handle and works it, rocking it this way and that. It’s heavy, and she has to put her whole body into the movement, but eventually the object slides out of the ground with a metallic scrape.
“No…” Catra whispers.
It’s a sword. And what a sword!
The blade shines brightly in a thin beam of light filtering through the forest canopy. It’s mirror-smooth, lustrous as polished silver. Catra knows it can’t literally be made of silver, since silver is too soft for weaponry, but whatever the metal is it must be something special. Somehow, the sword has survived being buried in this hollow for Hordak-knows-how-long without the slightest scratch or tarnish.
The flat sides of the blade are etched with some kind of circuitry, a line down the middle that splits into three and then converges again, routing through a diode on each outer line near the point. The blade is too broad to be functional, too heavy for any ordinary person to wield in battle, but the edges look sharp enough to cut Catra in two. A blue gemstone embedded in the centre of the hilt catches the light curiously. She turns the sword this way and that, watching the gem-light shimmer and dance. It’s beautiful.
Catra cradles the sword reverently in her arms and gets to her feet. She’s never in her life seen such a magnificent weapon. The craftsmanship is beyond compare. Nothing like this sword exists in all of Etheria, of that she’s most certain.
This is no primitive weapon; no cheap tool fit only for pirates and rebels. This? This is a First Ones’ masterpiece. A once-in-a-lifetime find. Hordak will make her Force Captain for this!
Then she looks up, and every cell in her body freezes.
Standing above her at the top of the hollow is a person. But not just any person.
Catra has seen this person before. Studied her. Every Horde Cadet is forced to. Her face, her ancestry, her choices of weaponry, the units under her command. Every little thing about her.
The person is Glimmer, Crown Princess of Bright Moon, heir to the Moonstone Throne, Commander of the Rebellion against the Horde.
And from the look in her eyes, which perfectly mirrors Catra’s own from just a moment ago, she desperately wants the sword.