Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere in the Crimson Waste

Etheria

Three and a half Years After Catra's abduction

The only difference between a retreat and escape is a plan.

Lonnie resisted the urge to wipe her face again. It wouldn't do any damn good. And any water she tried to choke down would taste like grit.

Dust rose around the column of tanks, skiffs, and deserters as it rolled slowly across the Crimson Waste. The low hum of tank engines and the muted screech of skiffs buzzing along overhead drowned the mournful echo of the wind.

Blistering light poured down on the parched, cracked ground as they resolutely trudged forward, a seemingly endless line of former Horde soldiers and civilians, deliberately trekking across the desolate landscape in desperate search for what could very well be their last stronghold.

Or a new beginning.

Lonnie stepped back from where she walked next to the column to stand next to Duncan. He wasn't her second in command, but he might as well have been. He wasn't anything official in their band of exiles, but he'd helped her keep people organized and moving.

In the ten days since leaving the Fright Zone, Duncan had turned into her strong right hand, and the only person other than Kyle she could confide in. Everyone else looked to her to have a plan, solve problems, and point at things they needed to shoot.

They'd been pursued for the first two days, until they'd whittled their pursuers down enough to convince them to turn back and fought their way through two Horde outposts on their way to the Crimson Waste. Somehow, they hadn't lost anyone.

Duncan took a swallow from his canteen and held it out to her. She knew better than to argue. He would make a big deal out of it if she didn't drink. She took a swallow of the tepid water and passed it back.

"How is it you're the oldest here, but you're the least bothered by this damn desert?" She scowled at him. He was getting used to her moods faster than she was getting used to him seeming not to have moods.

"This place reminds me of home." He had the audacity to grin at her. Bastard. "Except for the whole 'day and night' thing. I've been on Etheria over four years, but I'm still not used to it."

She looked out across the barren landscape. There was sparse vegetation here and there as hungry vermin and lizards darted about. There were other, larger predators in the mountains and under the sand - older, stranger things under the sand she could feel and hear but never saw.

Thankfully, they left the Bulwark well enough alone.

The nights were sharp and cold as the heat bled away, Etheria's moon painting the sand in waves of dappled color as the winds whispered around them, but it was not silent as hunters stalked one another.

There were settlements. Sparsely populated towns and farms where hard-eyed and stiff-backed refugees from the rest of the world battled the ground and the sky for sustenance.

There was a rough solidarity between the people of the Crimson Waste. They didn't get along with each other, but there was an understanding between them of how far someone could press. How much you could steal from your neighbor. Where and who you could raid. The criminal gangs of the Waste were led by beings who were warlords in their own right and were as close to government as the untamed Waste had. The tribes of beastmen and hybrids roamed the Wastes, migrating through it, driving herds of strange livestock and horrific warbeasts.

The rare oases were protected by settlements or war bands, but no one dared fight close to one, lest the blood and ruin of battle taint a precious supply of water. She respected that; no one in the Horde wasted or fouled good water. Water discipline was a way of life in the Horde just as much as it was in the desert.

There was so little in the Waste the Horde hadn't bothered to conquer it - turning it into a last, brutal haven for those who wanted nothing to do with the nations or the war. As long as they had the strength and skill to survive the barren, terrible land.

"Where you came from sucked, then." No day and night? How did that work? And terrible or not, he was twitching to get back. Scorpia and Adora were heading there.

Kyle had managed to intercept enough transmissions from the Horde that they knew Scorpia and Adora had made it out and were in the wind. They had a head start on Duncan, forcing him to meet them wherever it was he'd sent them.

The transmissions had blamed the magic light show burning in the skies over the Fright Zone on Shadow Weaver. Lonnie wasn't convinced it wasn't Adora - or the result of Adora somehow doing the impossible and beating Shadow Weaver with magic, guts, and guile.

Duncan looked up at the sky, squinting at the sparse clouds. "Eternia has its charms, I promise you, but it is very different. Half the world is eternally light and the other half is eternally dark. Ancient powers and monsters of legend, sorcerers and wizards - even dragons. You have much the same here."

Lonnie snorted. "If you say so. Does Adora know you want to take her into a place as nasty as this?"

Duncan laughed. Asshole. Nothing happening was funny. "I came from the deserts. Grew up in them. Learned to fight in them. The kingdom I serve - Eternos - is on the edge of one. But Eternia has as many regions as Etheria does. Seas and forests and hills and plains. Even a dark underworld, much like your subtheria is said to be. My lady would do well on Eternia."

Lonnie pulled her tablet off her belt and pulled up her map. Her map of the Crimson Waste was hard won from one of the lizardfolk bands who migrated through the Fright Zone. She'd traded things she really shouldn't have for it.

Totally worth it now. She hadn't been sure back then.

At the time she'd traded for it, she hadn't even admitted to herself why she had. She'd trusted her gut and found a way to make the trade. But if she were being honest with herself, she'd always known she needed a contingency plan to leave the Horde and the map was the key to her plan. And the longer she spent building the Bulwark, she realized she wouldn't be leaving with just her few people. Her. Kyle. Rogelio. Ideally Adora and maybe Scorpia. Maybe. But almost certainly the irritating old man who had become so important to her former captain. Who had now become almost indispensable to her.

(That was going to be a problem. She needed to find a way to do without him, because Duncan wasn't staying. He'd never pretended otherwise.)

Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine how many would come with her when she left or how much would be riding on her contingency plan. She'd thought it through well enough. She'd gone so far as stealing survey reports from Shadow Weaver, mostly on the particular set of ruins she hoped would make a good home base. She had her map.

She'd used the sparse intel the Horde had on the Crimson Waste to sketch out a basic long term plan. She'd made sure to steal the equipment they'd need on their way out - she'd had a list.

She had never expected to be in charge of over five hundred Horde deserters. But in the frantic, tight, chaotic hours before leaving, everything had turned into an avalanche, one thing falling into another until the main Horde complex had turned from a contained battle to pin their group down for capture and summary execution into a full on rebellion and escape within the ranks.

It had started with a lot of the rank and file troopers she'd trained and worked with on roving patrols realizing the Bulwark was leaving and jumping into the firefight on their side. Because Lonnie had trained them with the same tactics, they had slotted in with her fire teams and skirmishers easily. It had bolstered her numbers and given her tactical options she hadn't expected to have.

Because not all of the Bulwark had been fighting.

Her unit had been split into three. One group handled sabotage, planting bombs, and clearing the way for Scorpia to rescue Adora. One group was responsible for robbing the Horde blind, and the third group was with her, fighting Grizzlor's hastily assembled strike force.

The first group had turned into recruiters and organizers as they had gone about their grisly business of making it too much trouble for the Horde to pursue her the way they would want to. Lonnie had spent years building the Bulwark - and building the network the Bulwark needed to do their job.

The investment had paid off during the frenetic scramble to pull together their violent departure from the Horde.

Everyone Lonnie had spent the last few years cultivating into an ally or asset wanted in. Technicians. Janitors. Supply clerks. Medics. Kyle's friends from Research & Discovery. The small lizardfolk tribe that had formed on base and had considered Rogelio a tribal leader.

Which meant they'd left the Horde with far more people and materiel than she'd ever dreamed. Poor Hendricks from Supply - the clerk Shadow Weaver had terrorized back when she'd found out her special group of special cadets hadn't gotten all their gear - had mustered his entire squad to clear out the better part of a warehouse and load it into cargo skiffs.

Technicians had sabotaged hangers and as many vehicles as they could - at least, the ones they hadn't stolen outright. They crashed any system Kyle hadn't already taken apart. The R&D crew had taken most of their data with the simple expedient of removing the drives they were on and packing them. Medics had taken medical supplies and equipment. If it wasn't bolted down, it came with them (and in some cases, even if it was.)

And her people had - with the extra help - managed to steal tanks, combat skiffs, personnel transports and cargo skiffs. Far more than Lonnie had accounted for in the hasty plans she'd made once she'd found out Grizzlor had taken Kyle.

On top of that, everyone had grabbed their best friends. Their lovers. Their children - either registered and official or illicit - and brought them. On their way out of the Fright Zone, under heavy fire, Commander Cobalt had met them with three dozen cadets and their gear. (And everything they could steal on their way out.)

It was insane. Absolutely insane, and she'd been trying to wrap her head around it ever since. In ten days, they'd managed to cobble together a rough command structure, assignments for people, and create a semblance of organization as they trudged towards the stronghold Lonnie had so carefully picked out.

No one in the Crimson Waste dared raid them or start a fight. Even the boldest roving warbands wouldn't try it, because they were a Horde convoy. Unlike other exiles and refugees forced into the Waste, almost everyone in their column knew how to use a weapon and they had heavy artillery to spare.

And every time Lonnie paused long enough to think about the scope and scale of what they had done, her guts turned to water and fear clenched her heart.

"I keep meaning to ask you." Duncan was holding out the damned canteen again. It wasn't like they were short on water, and if Lonnie was right about the ruins, they might never be, but the man was as bad as a damn creche-captain at making sure she ate and drank.

She took another swallow. At least she wouldn't be dehydrated.

"How long have you known you'd have to abandon the Horde?"

Lonnie clenched her jaw. He would have to ask that, wouldn't he? Dumbass. Didn't he know you didn't talk about some things? Almost everyone had a secret plan to get out if the Horde collapsed or the princesses invaded or they got the chance to desert. Unless someone was a true believer or had started to hate the damned princesses, they wanted a way out.

True believers or scum like Grizzlor and Octavia, who got the chance to be the kind of horrific people they so desperately wanted to be stayed. The people who reveled in it. Who the war had turned into heroes or the let them be the kind of villains they were born to be.

"Too long. Not long enough." It was as close to a real answer as she had, and it had the virtue of being honest. If she were being honest with herself (and she tried not to do that too often - it was depressing), she had started to seriously think about it after Shadow Weaver had taken Adora into her damned Temple and she had realized Shadow Weaver wasn't going to let her keep Kyle and Rogelio.

She'd done her best to make sure her boys got moved places they would do well at by bringing it up to Shadow Weaver before Shadow Weaver brought it up to her, but that was all she'd managed to. Rogelio was still dead and Kyle had been turned into Hordak's pet mad scientist. She'd picked up the map once she realized leaving the Bulwark behind would hurt too much. She'd broken every sane rule about leading Horde units and gotten invested and attached. Like an idiot.

She'd started seriously planning when Rogelio died. That's when she'd stolen the survey reports from Shadow Weaver. While she'd been excoriating some subtherian force captain who had to prevent some kind of enemy supply run, Lonnie had downloaded everything she could find on the Crimson Waste to her personal tablet. The one Kyle had made for her back right after he'd been transferred. The one the Horde couldn't track and could splice itself into any data system.

She handed the canteen back to Duncan, half-realizing she'd taken a few more swallows. The man was a tyrant about water. As if Lonnie didn't know how to take care of herself? He clipped the canteen back to his belt and stared at the column as it trundled past. Did he have two canteens on his belt? One he was making her drink from and his of own? Asshat!

"Do you know what you're doing? Really know?"

Lonnie bit back a frustrated growl. Of course she had no idea what she was doing, which didn't mean she wasn't doing it anyway. The dumb face knew that! She was starting to figure it out, bit by bit, day by day, and it scared her more the more she figured out!

Building her own settlement out of dust and desperation wasn't her plan!

It wasn't a bad plan, if she could actually manage to pull it off. What did she know about building a settlement? She was a soldier and had grown up in the Horde, and she wasn't going to use them as a blueprint for anything she built!

Her plan had been for the Bulwark to hide in the ruins until they could find an established settlement, ally with them, and trade them a skilled militia in exchange for the right to move in. There were a few well-located settlements in the survey reports that had both the size and the resources to support them and could use an influx of strong backs and skilled fighters.

With the equipment she'd planned to have, they could have turned a struggling settlement around and been a part of building something. Something that someone already had a plan for!

None of the settlements or communities in the survey reports could absorb over five hundred exiles, no matter how much gear and expertise they brought with them. Now, she was hoping she wasn't about to lead her column of desperately hopeful deserters right into an even worse situation. Or into a disaster, because none of them had any idea how to build what they needed to build.

She glared at Duncan some more. It wasn't very satisfying, because he wasn't afraid of her at all. He respected her, which she would make do with. But if he could ask questions, so could she.

"How long have you known Adora was a princess?"

That should change the subject.

"Since the moment I laid eyes on her. I could hardly believe it, to tell you the truth. Everyone hoped, but most of us thought she was a long dead. There's only so much I'll tell you, because she deserves to hear it first. But there's no mistaking her for anyone but who she is, and there is no way even Shadow Weaver could have hidden that from me. Not without changing her face and changing her heart."

Lonnie resisted rolling her eyes. Shadow Weaver loved to change people's hearts. There was a standard procedure for it, and the cybernetic ones were a lot harder to break than flesh-and-blood hearts. But his maudlin romanticism aside, Lonnie couldn't deny that Adora stood out wherever she went. She couldn't help it, and disguising Adora's true nature would be impossible without Shadow Weaver messing with her mind way more than she did with most champions.

"So you said back in the Temple. I've also had Kyle tell me she transformed into some kind of magic warrior and old Cobalt is spinning a story about Adora healing Catra when we were all kids."

Commander Cobalt had been their first teacher. Their first leader. The closest thing most of them had to a parental figure. (Except Adora. She got Shadow Weaver, and Lonnie wasn't nearly as envious now as she had been as a kid.)

He kind of grunted at her and took a sip from the other canteen on his belt. "All true. I was there for her transforming and I heard about her healing her friend."

Friend. Lonnie almost spit, but she wasn't going to waste the moisture. Adora had been Catra's friend, but it hadn't gone both ways. Catra had used Adora for protection and favors. Especially the year or two before she'd up and left, she'd run hot and cold with Adora, unable to keep up the pretense of affection.

None of them had been very good to Adora in those years, but Catra had been the worst.

"Yeah," Lonnie waved her hands around. "I get it. Adora has magic. Weaver never stopped telling everyone she had magic. I've seen champions do weird shit after they get their powers. So whatever. Adora got champion powers. Good for her."

Duncan shook his head. "It is like no power I have ever seen before, but ancient legends - very ancient legends - speak of D'vann Greyskull, one of the first kings on Eternia, having powers similar to hers, but not a transformation. No mystic warrior of Greyskull since has had such powers."

Lonnie did roll her eyes that time.

"I have no idea what that means. She's special, yeah." Lonnie tried not to squirm. All of them had known Adora was special, and not just because Shadow Weaver said so. She wasn't even a true believer like many in the Horde were. She had believed in the ideas of what the Horde said it wanted to be. Not just 'princesses are evil' - but 'people need protecting.'

Shadow Weaver might have nurtured that idea, twisted it and used it, but the core of it had come from Adora. Some intrinsic part of her had already been that way, maybe?

Lonnie had never understood. She protected her people. Stood for her people. Not everyone in the whole stupid world. Who wanted that kind of responsibility? That kind of guilt?

"But Adora being a princess?" She shook her head. "You might as well say Catra's a damn princess. Adora might be some kind of heroic crusader or other nonsense, but you have me worried with this 'princess' thing."

She hadn't planned to ask him until they'd made it to the ruins. Until her plans were more solidified. She wouldn't tell him, but she needed him until they got settled. He knew how the desert worked and the rest of them didn't. He was better with people than she was, and that was a problem she would have to solve, but at the moment, he was the best solution she had.

Apparently, she was asking now. Maybe it was better to get it out of the way. Get him thinking about it. He was probably wrong. He'd still go save Adora and Scorpia, but he needed to face reality. Adora wasn't a princess, much less his princess. He had to have doubts. Why would he have told Scorpia not to tell, otherwise?

The implications of Adora being his princess were huge. The implication was Adora was from this 'Eternia,' and even if Duncan hadn't expected to find her, he was planning on taking her back there. Did Adora get a choice?

"Okay, old man. Tell me this. Why did you come here, and how does Adora fit into it all? And what if you're wrong and you drag her back to your country? What then?"

Duncan looked - uncomfortable. Good. It was his turn to squirm. "Explaining might be hard, given you were raised without magic - and with a hatred for it. What I say might sound like madness."

The man was infuriating! Couldn't he answer a simple question? Magic didn't make sense to the people who used it! It was never going to make sense to her. "Most of what I've heard, seen, and done in the last ten days has been madness. Lay it on me, Eternian. You won't be sticking around long. You have people to meet. I also get the feeling none of you will be returning anytime soon once you take them home with you."

He smiled grimly. "You're not wrong. I do need to be about getting home to meet the princesses. But I will walk with you until you get where you need to go. I don't plan to abandon you when you need a strong arm and an experienced hand as much as you do now. As for my lady Adora - there is only so much I can tell you and I am only willing to tell you some of what I can before I tell Adora. But yes. She is as much as princess as Scorpia, though she would never have inherited a throne."

Never inherited the throne? What was the point of being a princess if you didn't get to become queen? The magic powers and having a target on your back surely couldn't be worth it.

Lonnie huffed. "I'm not ungrateful for the help, old man. I'm not opposed to helping you get home - wherever that is. But don't make me ask again. You know things about Adora. Maybe even what she is. Obviously, who she is."

Duncan stared ahead across the flat, sandy landscape; the cracked and desiccated ground crunching beneath his boots as he shifted. He watched their stupid-long column roll past a bit more before finally deigning to answer her.

"I am not wrong about her. But if I were, with the skills she has - magic notwithstanding - she would be offered a place amidst the warriors of Greyskull, fighting for Eternos. Or she would be returned here, should she wish it. We would not keep her against her will."

Lonnie nodded sharply. Adora had a choice. Good. And he was willing to think about maybe being wrong. Better. He wasn't going to stick a crown on her head, tell her she was his princess, and ask her to fight the Horde or something equally as stupid.

"My mission was to come to Etheria and investigate the Horde. To find their connection to one of the darkest, most evil warlords on our planets. A man named Keldor, who calls himself Skeletor. He is a foul creature, now - an unholy, unliving abomination who has given himself over to black magics and dreams of conquest. It was never my intent to try to kill Hordak, but I encountered him and Shadow Weaver during my investigation of the Fright Zone."

'Encountered them?' How did he simply 'encounter' two of the most powerful and dangerous people on the plant? He wasn't dead, which was impressive. Even if they'd wanted him as a prisoner, fighting either one was an awful way to end up dead or worse. Fighting both was usually a death sentence.

"Hah. That's a bad day. They beat your ass and took you prisoner?"

He never would have been able to skulk around the Fright Zone if she had been running security at the time. She might be done with the Horde, but she was still proud of what she'd done there. Her old plan had been good too. The Fright Zone hadn't been secure if someone like Duncan had wandered in and gotten the chance to look around. He wore green and copper! How did no one notice him?!

(Also: Skeletor? What kind of name was that? How was that a good warlord name? Who named themselves 'Skeletor?' Grizzlor had done better, and he was an idiot!)

"They did." He sounded frustrated. She guessed he wasn't used to losing, but he'd picked a fight no one could win. "She used truth spells and locked me in those damn magic shackles."

A terrible fate for anyone, but Lonnie wasn't sure 'winning' is what Hordak and Shadow Weaver had done. They should have killed him instead of giving him time and space to find a way out.

"They never got from me what they wanted, which was for me to go back to Eternos and tell my King and Queen the Horde had little interest in Eternia - which is likely not true. They also wanted me to hide all I had learned about the Horde, which I would not do. They already knew much about Eternia, proving the connection between Hordak and Skeletor, but they never broke me. They never got the information they wanted, and Shadow Weaver decided to keep me around for reasons she never made clear. At least, not until she brought Adora to me."

His voice was hoarse, haunted at the end. When he talked about never breaking. She couldn't imagine the kinds of things Shadow Weaver and Hordak would do to break a prisoner and the kind of strength or magic it would take to resist it.

"My mission was given to me by the sorceress of Greyskull. I was bound by geas not to speak of certain things - and that is not the first magical oath I took. It limited what I could say, even under magical influences. When Shadow Weaver brought Adora to me, I knew who she is just by looking at her. How could I not recognize her? I felt the magic of my oldest, most sacred oaths stirring and I knew there was no way I was wrong. She bound me not to speak of Eternia or her, much less my people or her family. But she erred."

His fierce grin was predatory. Triumphant. "She commanded me to teach Adora as I would any of those I was sworn to teach - and I did! She was already honorable. Eager to learn. She wasn't as broken, as twisted, as hurt as Shadow Weaver thought her to be. She learned. She became more than Shadow Weaver will ever understand. You'll scoff, but you'll also understand. She already had her purpose, was already a warrior. I helped her learn to focus it, to think, to direct all of that untapped purpose and potential."

Lonnie did scoff. She also understood, but she wasn't telling him that. He didn't get to know he was right about that, too.

"You subverted her." Lonnie's voice was flat. She wanted to be angry. Part of her still thought she should be angry for him turning Adora against the Horde, but she'd left - suddenly, violently, and all over the place. She'd had a contingency to leave the Horde for a long time. She could claim it happened because Adora had been subverted, but Adora's treason had little to do with her treason. The way the Horde had treated them had radicalized her long before Adora had turned.

It had happened because Shadow Weaver and Hordak had allowed Octavia and Grizzlor to attack Kyle. And come after her. Vengeance for something that had happened years ago. Lonnie and Kyle hadn't been involved. They hadn't even been there when Catra clawed out Octavia's eye to protect Adora.

Adora adopting some princess-lover's warrior ethos wasn't a factor. Octavia and Grizzlor would have done it regardless. Rogelio would have been killed regardless. Adora had given her the opportunity to make her escape count.

One more thing Lonnie owed her.

"I did." There was no apology in his tone. Why should there be? He was an enemy combatant imprisoned and tortured and then given his own lost princess to teach. What had Shadow Weaver expected to happen?

It didn't make any sense at all. Nothing made sense anymore. Catra leaving had broken Adora and had broken the entire world. Lonnie might not thank her, but at least the stupid catgirl had managed to set the stage by being as treacherous and manipulative as Shadow Weaver.

"I get it, in a 'being petty' sort of way. But what did gain by turning her against the Horde?"

"Everything." He turned to face her, his eyes bright. Fervent. Just like there were true believers in the Horde, the Princess people had their own true believers. He was definitely one of them.

And like any zealot, their belief gave them a strange sort of power Lonnie had never understood. She never wanted to understand the madness that overtook them. Their dedication to a cause, an idea, a person - it drove them and let them overcome things that would have crushed warriors unlike them. Warriors like most of the Horde were.

Lonnie was their equal; her strength wasn't a strength they could understand, because it wasn't a belief. It was an understanding of herself and her desire to find her own way. Even in the Horde, she had found her own way. Her desire to protect her people, because no one else would, and they had put their faith in her- they had to, because she was in charge.

What did princess believers have faith in? Their kings and queens and princesses? In magic? For all its duplicitous nature and strangeness, it was powerful and constant. Did they believe in some ethos or code like the one Duncan said he taught to Adora? It couldn't be the same thing the true believers of the Horde believed in, because what the Horde's zealots did in the name of Lord Hordak and a 'free' Etheria were almost too terrible for her to stomach. It was part of why she'd wanted to stay stationed at the Fright Zone. She'd never wanted to commit atrocities for a cause she didn't believe in.

"The moment I saw her, she became my mission." His voice was quiet, thick with emotion, but it carried on the harsh breeze. "My oldest friend's lost child, returned? After so long? We hadn't dared hope. Not after - what happened. We swore never to speak of it. Never to leave - well, certain people bereft of -" He shook his head. "I'm very close to saying too much. But bringing her home, any chance I had to let her discover who she was born to be, who she still is to so many? Any possibility I could reunite her with - "

Duncan turned away. "She deserved better than what was done to her. She deserved more. All of you do, don't get me wrong. But for me, what she lost is very personal. What we all lost is very personal."

Lonnie stole the canteen from his belt. "I get it. Personal. Painful. Girl alive after thinking girl was dead. Adora being a princess feels ridiculous to me. I grew up with her. I saw her when she couldn't figure out how to braid her own hair and it was a mess for weeks. Or the time Catra tried to groom her. Yeah, that was a fuckin' hairball, let me tell you. But what I don't get here is what's really in it for you. Not the personal aspect - but the oaths, the 'Master of Arms' stuff. The princess nonsense."

She might never have another chance to learn how princess people thought. What drove them, and what made them do the things they did. What they believed in.

"Long ago. So long ago most have forgotten it. Even most Eternians don't know the stories. Long ago, the First Ones walked among us. Among you. They ruled without ruling. They had cast us into their eternal, infernal war against beings from the deep black of night. They came from the skies, and they came from what we used to call stars - pinpricks of light that burned like flickering candles in the night sky. We fought for them. We fought because of them. They used great powers, great magics and fearsome technology to fight their war. Some of it, they left to us. It is said - it is said that those they gifted, and those who opposed them - the mighty of our worlds who stood between them and us at the end, when they left. That they swore oaths binding them and their lines eternally to the magics of our worlds to hold the worlds together when the First Ones left and when their war ended. A thousand years ago."

He laughed and took a swallow from his canteen. The column still passed them by, rumbling along. Soldiers marched alongside tanks and skiffs buzzed overhead. Everyone who could use a weapon was armed and everyone who couldn't was hidden away behind armor.

"Those same families are still sworn to that. It's a burden. It's a cost they and their children have to pay. I don't pretend to fully understand it, but - they lead us and protect us. They sacrifice all they are, all they can be and we stand with them. They allow us to live our lives. To be as free as we are, to be a people and to be individuals, though they are under no obligation to give us that much." He shook his head. "I'm explaining this all wrong. But we swear fealty and service to those leaders who are faithful and serve us. Those who give up much and are given little choice in who and what they are."

"Yeah." Lonnie capped the canteen and stuck it back on his belt. "It's a great story. You tell it well. It doesn't make any damn sense and you're right. It sounds like madness. I served Hordak because I was raised by the Horde and I grew up knowing I would be a cadet. Then an officer. I would be a soldier, and most of the time I did my best to be a good soldier. Because that's what you do. Now I have to be a good leader, and that means leaving the Horde and taking my people - those I chose as my people and those who chose me - away from the Horde. Because they attacked us and that won't be a one-off."

"You are what they made you." Duncan whispered the words, remembering what it was Scorpia had told him Adora had said during their talk, when the Scorpioni princess had told him Adora was finally ready to abandon the Horde.

"Sure. If you want to put it that way. I wouldn't. I made me. They just gave me some tools. If I was what they made me, I wouldn't be doing this." Lonnie shrugged. "You're insane. Well, probably. At least a little. But it's okay, because the crazy is on my side."

She froze. Realizing if she was going to keep him on her side long enough to get away with all, she would have to tell him something, too. Admit to a few things.

"You asked me if I know what I'm doing earlier. I sort of answered, but it was an honest answer. I have no idea what the outcome of this will be. What I'm doing right now is finding a way to take care of my people and get us safe and into someplace we can defend. What happens after that isn't up to me, not really. It's up to the Horde. It's up to the people in the Crimson Waste. It's up to the people who chose to follow me out here. What do they want it to be? Who do they want us to be? Will the Horde leave us alone? Will the people out here help us, hinder us, or ignore us? I can't answer that. I can't decide that. All I can do is plan for every possibility I can see and a few I can't, and try to get as many of us out of it alive as I can."

Duncan clapped on the shoulder. "Good. That's a good starting place. If you're going to build your own settlement - your own freehold - out of desperation and dust, that's the best place to start."

Lonnie choked. On the air, obviously. It was full of dust. "That wasn't my plan! I never wanted to be in charge! I was supposed to find someone we could sign up with and let them be charge!"

"That never would have worked." Duncan shrugged. "You're too a good a leader. As soon as whoever you signed on with got stupid, you'd usurp them. This is better. Whatever you build will be better than where you came from. I trust you to do the right thing, do right by your people, and build something worthy."

Lonnie stomped her foot. "That - that is a terrible thing to say to someone! Absolutely unfair, you - !"

She was running out of things to call him. How lame was that?

She would have shaken her fist at him, but Duncan was already walking towards the end of the column, looking smug. The asshole! How did he keep doing this to her?!

Chapter Text

Old Ruins

Far out in the Crimson Waste

Etheria

Three and a half Years After Catra's abduction

"Tomorrow." Lonnie stood next to him, pointing at the moonlit ruins.

Duncan saw them in the distance. There were tall building built into the side of the mountain - carved from the red-brown stone. If they were ever pained or decorated, that facade had been worn away by a thousand years of wind and dust.

There was a semicircular wall jutting out from the front of the mountain, wrapping around the ruins. The gates were eroded and hung precariously, but he had no doubt Lonnie's crew could fix that.

In fact, Duncan was fairly sure they could fix almost anything they found broken in the keep. In the fifteen days since escaping the Fright Zone, he had seen what the Bulwark had pillaged from the Horde stores.

Not all of it was weapons and armor or food and supplies. Some of it was drilling equipment and ground penetrating radar. Some of it was construction equipment and tools. Raw materials.

"Tomorrow." Ideally, they would be able to send in scouts first, but the survey notes she had purloined from Shadow Weaver suggested otherwise.

Tomorrow, they entered the ruins. They would have a fight on their hands, but not a fight they couldn't win. If they were right, the ruins would be perfect for the exiles.

No one else in the Crimson Waste wanted the ruins, and Duncan couldn't blame them.

They'll be safer. Safe enough I can go home.

He'd been with Lonnie's exiles too long now. At this rate, the girls would be on a boat and halfway to Eternia by the time he got out of the Waste! He had to hurry, but he couldn't abandon Lonnie or her exiles. Not after having come so far with them.

Honor called - and duty demanded. Who he had chosen to be - the man he had shaped himself into was no coward and not callow and selfish as to walk away from duty or dishonor himself, even though he alone would know of his dishonor. Any debt he owed Lonnie for helping him escape was being repaid with his knowledge of how to survive and thrive in the Crimson Waste. But it wasn't enough. Not until he was sure his leaving wouldn't doom them.

Lonnie stood next to him at their makeshift camp, a day's travel from the front gates of the ruins, the daymoon setting slowly and the chill of a desert night creeping up on them. Fries crackled around them as various groups set up their camp. The sound of generators humming almost buried the sound of fire, but it echoed off the metal of the tanks and skiffs parked in a circle around their camp. Soldiers walked the perimeter and stood atop the tanks and the skiffs, watching for predators. For potential enemies.

For the Horde troops that had to be following them across the desolate land they hoped to claim as their own.

"What will you do if the notes are wrong?" He had his suspicions about what Lonnie would do. And why. Technically, the exiles were invading, and if Shadow Weaver's survey notes were wrong and the ruins were inhabited by more than ancient, automated defenses. But finding out for sure before they moved in gave him a chance to her talk her out of it or at least consider alternatives.

The exiles were the invaders. Displacing the native population from their home wouldn't make them good neighbors, but the exiles had very few choices open to them.

Few enough they might decide making a few new enemies was the better plan. It was the path of least resistance in the short term, and the short term problems were nearing 'crisis' level. They had escaped the Horde - for now. But not having a defensible position would cost them their freedom and maybe their lives when the Horde inevitably caught up with them.

"Negotiate first. Ask for an alliance. To share the space. There's no clear signs of inhabitants right now, but I reckon we'll find at least a few hunkered down in places the defenses aren't active or can't get to. We know there's water. We know there's supplies. Tech. And a power source of some kind."

Duncan breathed a small sigh of relief. At least negotiation was on the table. He didn't want to be a party to an invasion and takeover, but if the natives weren't willing to ally with the exiles…

None of them had time for protracted negotiations. Or willingness to camp outside the ruins and wait while those negotiations happened.

The nature of war never changed. The nature of war didn't often allow for compassion or kindness or lengthy discussions. The Horde had declared war on the entire world of Etheria, and that war didn't respect boundaries or cultures or rules. War spread like a terrible virus of violence to every part of the continent. Hordak would not be satisfied until the magic and people of Etheria were under his rule.

He would not reward the betrayal of the exiles with escape. Even if it took him time, he would send troops to destroy them. To maintain his power, he couldn't afford not to make an example of the exiles.

"I don't want to displace anyone. I really don't want to start shit with anyone out here. We're moving in and pissing off all the neighbors is stupid." Lonnie pulled up the map of the ruins and the survey notes on her tablet. "The roving warbands and hybrid clans avoid this place because of the defenses, and because a thousand years ago, some group called the 'first ones' built it. You mentioned them before. Who fuck are they?"

Duncan frowned at the map. "I'll explain in a moment. If these are First One ruins, why would the Horde not take over or at least garrison them? Or clean out the tech?"

Shadow Weaver had been obsessed with the First Ones. She had demanded all of Duncan's knowledge of them. As with most things, he had refused to tell her anything, relying on the protections the sorceress had imbued him with and the power of Greyskull to protect him from her spells.

The information might have seemed harmless to share, but he had no idea what someone like Shadow Weaver would do with it. The technology of the First Ones interested Hordak - he had standing orders that any Horde unit who came across it was to seize it and bring it back whenever they could.

It made no sense for them to leave a massive set of ruins untouched.

Lonnie tapped through several screens. "Supply lines, for one. It would be a huge investment in troops and materiel to get any tech from here back to the Fright Zone. To say nothing of being raided by warbands. We haven't had any raids because we're big enough and mean enough to hold them off, especially with the artillery on tanks and skiffs. But it would take a dozen convoys our size to move the tech in and out. Much less supplying a long term garrison here, assuming it could handle the defenses first."

Handling the defenses was one of the things Lonnie was worried about for the exiles. Swarms of spider bots. Energy shields. Mines. Electrified walls and floors. Oddly, no gun emplacements, but plenty of cameras. Pacifying the ruins was going to be a slog.

"It was initially scouted with the idea of being able to move supplies and people through Subtheria. Shadow Weaver wanted this place bad about ten years ago. Risked the scout units to get what little information she has on it. But this mountain might have the only cave system on the planet not connected down to Subtheria. Without an easy way through, Hordak told Shadow Weaver she had to wait until the Horde had taken the Waste."

Duncan nodded. Now it made sense. Even the Horde's resources might be stretched thin by the long trek through the Waste, and multiple convoys would compel the warbands to attack. Or swarm the ruins and force the Horde out. Taking the ruins would mean taking the Waste, and opening another front in his war on Etheria that would require more supplies and more war machines would require more than Hordak wanted to commit to a region that gave him very little but access to one set of strange ruins.

"The First Ones." Duncan sat down in one of the camp chairs, unwrapping a ration bar. He very much wanted to get home. Three and a half years as a prisoner, eating ration bars and drinking tepid, fouled water? He craved good meal. Real food. With flavor and substance - hot and fresh. A mug of cold summer ale. A long, hot shower!

To see his daughter again; to see she was hale and healthy and alive, and to beg her forgiveness for being gone so long. To see his prince and find out how he had fared under Dekker's teaching.

To see her again. Just for a few moments. They had never been allowed much. They had never had the chance. The rules governing who they were meant all they had were stolen moments. A night here and there. An hour or three hidden from the world.

She deserved so much more than he could give her. She deserved so much more than she had been allowed to have. She deserved choices that had never been hers to make. But oh, he loved her and had missed her.

But duty was duty. And his duty now was to help Lonnie figure out what they were walking into. The level of power and technology that could await them inside the ancient fortress she hoped to claim.

"They were an advanced people who came to Etheria and Eternia thousands of years ago. They came with knowledge of magic and with technology far beyond our understanding. They taught us, certainly. Helped us, true. But with their help, we became dependent on them, I think. They all but ruled both Etheria and Eternia - and it's not like we could fight them or force them to leave, even if we had wanted to! They moved entire populations around. Built massive cities. They were not alone in the universe. They were fighting a war. Their war followed them here, and we were forced to fight with them. For them."

He'd told her some of this a few days ago, but in the context of trying to explain his loyalty to Marlena and Randor. Horde indoctrination was deep - and effective. Even those who left the Horde never truly stopped being members of it. They were a nation and a people like any other. And those raised by it had no good frame of reference to understand something like the First Ones.

He barely understood them and he'd been raised knowing about them.

"A thousand years ago, they left. They vanished. Some say in a single night, when the stars went away. Our legends speak of a great battle and of great sacrifice to protect us from the horrors of the war they had brought upon us. They tell of First Ones sacrificing themselves to save those peoples dependent on them. But little else. The things they left behind - ruins, magic, technology - are often useful. Incredibly so. Bots, for example, are said to be from the First Ones. But what they left behind is also often incomprehensible, dangerous, and deceptive."

Lonnie, leaning against a tank, rolled her eyes. "So, old race. Now gone. War. Got it. Left behind fancy tech and big magic. Got it. The ruins might have both. Got that, too. I have a bunch of the R&D folk. They'll help with that. I have a bunch of people with armor and guns and explosives. We can deal with spider bots and traps. That place, if it does have water and power, is our best chance to dig in out here. For us, not connecting to Subtheria is a feature, not a problem."

Duncan's private theory on why the ruins were cut off from Subtheria was that the First Ones had cut it off. A sufficiently motivated and equipped group would be able to find and re-open a way to the subterranean part of Etheria.

He got the feeling that much like Eternia, Etheria didn't like it when people messed about with the natural order of things. The world might someday rebel much as the princesses had.

But the war to subtheria being sealed meant the Horde had one less way to approach the ruins. Ducan doubted Lonnie would have a reason to find it, much less break it open.

And with the firepower Lonnie had with her and the training she had made sure her entire unit had, he didn't think a lot of the chances of the automated defenses. The First Ones were also likely the originators of the weapon technology both Etheria and Eternia used and their long abandoned defenses wouldn't be proof against them.

They had to hope they wouldn't be fighting both natives and the First Ones' defenses.

"Tomorrow. We'll get ourselves set up, and you'll be able to leave soon after."

Duncan nodded. He would miss Lonnie and her exiles, but both duty and honor compelled him to go home and guide Adora and Scorpia through their next steps. Scorpia and Adora both needed to learn to be princesses and take their proper places leading their people.

Adora would never inherit a throne, but she would inherit the seemingly endless struggle to protect it and her people. She likely wouldn't ever become Adam's equal in rank, either. She would be one to serve him and help ensure his reign.

But Adora deserved the chance to be a princess. To meet her people. Her parents. And to see the world she came from. The right to choose her path once she was there. To know she wasn't alone in the universe (though Duncan did admit to second thoughts about her being Randor and Marlena's lost child upon learning of her biology. Were there secrets about his oldest friends he didn't know?)

Duncan patted the pocket on his shoulder where the magitech device he and the sorceress had crafted for his journey was safely nestled. "I'll need to borrow Kyle and some workspace before I head out."

Lonnie rolled her eyes. "I'm aware. He's been excited to work with you ever since you asked him. We'll make sure you're well supplied and Kyle will make sure your gadgets work right. I don't know how you plan to get from here to there, but I can't imagine it's not going to suck."

Duncan chuckled. There was no need to give away secrets that weren't his to give away, but Lonnie wasn't wrong. "I have been told I will be able to find the path if I look for it."

Lonnie rolled her eyes a second time. He couldn't blame her. "Ugh. That sounds very mysterious and magic-y. How you princess people deal with that nonsense, I'll never know. You do you, I guess. I'm going to find Kyle and try to sleep before tomorrow. I don't want to sleep through our triumphant arrival at our safe haven that will almost certainly try to kill us."

Somewhere in the Crimson Waste

Etheria

Three and a half Years After Catra's abduction

Duncan was very glad it wasn't a dark and stormy night.

Desert storms were rare, but miserable. The rain was either ice or nearly hot enough to make tea. Or a sandstorm could kill him if he stayed out in the open. And there was no shelter anywhere near the flat, rocky expanse he flew over.

But traveling by night was better than traveling by day. He was hopeful he would find a good spot soon, though. Despite the provisions Lonnie and Kyle had given him, he really didn't want to have to make his way all the way back to the border of Horde territory. Fighting and sneaking his way through until he found the right kind of place.

And the goggles he and Kyle had constructed let him see perfectly at night - and let him find what he needed to find.

The Crimson Waste rushed passed him as he flew the single-seat skiff Kyle had modified for him. His blaster was recharged. His gear was repaired as best as he was able with the materials they had.

Twenty-seven days after escaping the Fright Zone, Duncan was finally on his way home.

There had been a few people in Lonnie's ruins, along with what felt like an endless number of spider bots. The few living there were mostly old scholars, political refugees, one semi-mad archaeologist, and a very confused sorcerer. None had minded the exiles setting up shop in the old ruins.

Or helping her clean them out. Kyle had eventually figured out the power source - a very large crystal somehow generating power. It wasn't a RuneStone, but it might have been modeled after them. (Or so said the sorcerer.) But they were able to connect up most of their equipment to it. There was a supply of the nucleonic crystals the Horde used as fuel cells and a mine with plenty more. There were several springs in the bottommost level of the ruins central citadel. Scans and investigations showed it was clean, fresh water coming from a deep and vast reservoir underground. There was even an aqueduct system to get it through most of the ruins - which the archaeologist thought was probably originally decorative. The old plumbing had long since degraded, but fixable with time and labor. He'd helped Kyle figure out a plan for restoring it fairly quickly.

He figured they would be discovering new things about their ruins for a long time to come, but they were set enough they didn't need his help. He and Kyle had spent a few days building what he needed and modifying the skiff.

He'd bid them 'good journey' and sped off.

He'd used his time well. He'd eaten more. Drunk more. The days he'd spent in what Lonnie was calling her Freehold had let him rehydrate and bathe. He'd repaired his armor and much of his gear, but he'd lost a lot of what he'd normally have on him. The one thing he needed the most had been sheltered by magic stronger than Shadow Weaver's - and had remained hidden.

He had to admit. Kyle was good at what he did. The goggles did exactly what he needed. He'd done most of the work himself, but it was Kyle who understood how Horde sensor technology worked. It was just a matter of explaining to him how - exactly - to scan for magic.

In this case, ley-lines. The heads-up display on the goggles wasn't as clear or crisp as he was used to, and with far fewer colors and none of the overlays he was used to, but he'd only had so long to program it. Mostly, from memory.

The Crimson Waste was not just a desert. It was a magical desert! There was magic, but it was buried deep underground, almost as if it were being pulled downward by some kind of greater magical force.

But there were a few places he could see that would work.

It was mere hours before dawn as he found one such spot. There was an outcropping of rocks with another small mountain about another half hour away from him - the rocks were probably leftover from a long-ago avalanche. There was a small spring burbling away, but he could smell the bitter taint to the water - something leeching in from the ground was poisoning it, leaving only sparse, hardy vegetation.

Vegetation that was likely just as toxic as the water. No wonder it wasn't marked as an oasis on the map Lonnie had given him.

Duncan puled the small wire-wrapped crystal globe out of his pocket. He stripped off the goggles and his helm, letting the cool night air run through his ragged hair. He knelt, uncoiling three of the wires. He stuck them gently into the hard-packed sand and waited.

It didn't take long. Even more than Eternia, Etheria had magic to spare. Flowing around, ambient in the air - magic was everywhere and in everything here. While Eternia had a lot of magic of its own, it was closer to the Crimson Waste than it was the rest of Etheria.

The crystal began to glow with a faint flicker in the center - just a silver spark. The spark grew with brighter and brighter flashes, until the entire globe was dimly lit.

The glow grew, brighter and brighter until a faint, wispy stream of silver light curled out from the top of it, rising into the air to slowly drift and form into an oval. Silver lines reached inward from the edge of the oval until it was filled with mist and a web of silver light.

His heart hammered in his chest. It had been so long!

Gradually, her face began to take shape; the high cheekbones. Pert nose. Wide eyes. Her voice echoed, as if the magic acknowledged the distance between them.

"Duncan!" She wasn't pretending to calm or serenity; her voice was eager, anxious - an exhale of waiting for so long to hear from him.

The sound of her voice released the tension in his chest and he sucked in a shuddering breath, quietly laughing at the sound of her. The sight of her. Joy, love, longing - yearning - ached and burned and his eyes stung.

He smiled, his hand reaching up. Tears streamed down his face as his fingertips touched the edge of the image of her face.

"Zoar…" His voice caught, but he didn't care. It wasn't her true name; she had given that up when their daughter had been born. Passed it along to their child - the child she had only been able to hold for a moment. She had kissed their daughter on her brow and given her to him to be raised never knowing he was anything more than her adoptive father. Never knowing her mother. Never knowing her heritage.

It wasn't their choice, but the choice of the Council of Elders, the ancient beings who had first established the need for guardian over Greyskull and the power it represented.

Zoar was the name she had chosen for herself, so long ago. It was the name he used now, though he had first known her by her true name.

The sorceress of Greyskull smiled, wiping at her eyes. The image of her slender hands brushing over her face, pulling away the tears made him want to reach out and hold her until they had both cried themselves out.

"You're alive. You're alive and free!" She half laughed, half sobbed. "I was so afraid. So afraid I had sent you to your death - or worse…I'm so sorry. So sorry. I never should have asked you to - "

Duncan shook his head. "No! None of that, now. You know better. I was the right choice, love. I really was. I failed to find the answers to the questions about Hordak and Keldor, but…"

He steeled himself. He drew in a breath and let it out, centering. Steadying. What he was about to say would change everything. Forever.

"…I found her, Zoar. I found Adora."

They had promised each other. They had promised Marlena and Randor. They had all sworn, because the King and Queen had been heartbroken the night it happened. They didn't speak of it. Of that night. Of her.

Zoar gasped and he knew the sudden movement in the image was her stumbling. She had blamed herself for so long for not being able to protect Adora. To save her from the portal that had reached out and taken her.

They had blamed Skeletor and Evil-lyn. They had been at the castle that night; a last ditch attempt at reconciliation. To end the war that had raged so long by inviting them to the celebrations of Spring's Tide, and the announcement of the twins. To find some way to make peace.

Eternia was tired of war. They had not wanted to raise their children under the specter of war.

But it was not to be. Skeletor had tried to strike down Randor. While Randor and others - including him - had battled Skeletor, Evil-lyn had slipped away. She fought Marlena, but Evil-lyn's cultivated dark power was far more than Marlena's innate magics could overcome. Marlena had made her last stand outside the twins' room, holding a shield around them all.

Adora had vanished into a portal that shattered Marlena's shield; even Evil-lyn had been shocked into stunned silence and retreat.

Zoar had told them all the truth. Evil-lyn had not taken Adora. Nor had Skeletor. The magic was different. Old magics drawing on a deep well of power.

No sorcerer or scientist could track the portal. Ancient lore and modern knowledge both failed to provide a clue as to who could have taken her. Or where she might have gone.

Zoar stared at him, struck silent.

Duncan slowly nodded.

"You're sure? Duncan, my love, please! Was it a trick...or wishful thinking? How can you be sure?"

He'd long suspected an Etherian connection; ever since he had learned about the other world in their quest to defeat Skeletor. He had been thought mad - or a gullible fool. Convinced by Dekker's student before him, a qadian named Askar who spoke of another realm called Etheria.

Until they had intercepted one of Skeletor's couriers, carrying ancient data crystals and books from a dig far down in the darklands. In those notes and lore, they had found the truth of Etheria. The sorceress had spent years translating and untangling the knowledge, proving Etheria existed - and discovering more, hidden deep in the catacombs of Greyskull. The knowledge of guardians past who spoke of Etheria.

"She lives. It's her. The Horde captured me - Hordak and his dark witch Shadow Weaver set a trap for me. They knew about Eternia. About Eternos! They knew more of us than we knew of them, but I have learned much in my years here. But it is proof there is some connection." He stepped forward, getting closer to the image of her. "Shadow Weaver brought her to me, a year after I was captured. Cackling with glee, smug with triumph, she brought her to me. Called her by name and ordered me to train her as I would my own prince or princess. Her foul shackles wouldn't let me tell the girl anything!"

His voice rumbled with rage and his hands curled into fists at his side. He looked at Zoar. "It's her. She looks just like him! She sounds like Marlena! I know why they took her and not Adam - her magic! She has magic the like of which I've never seen. Transformative power, but it seems always imbued in her. I did as the witch bid, and I taught her. I taught her everything I could. How to think. Why to fight. Her and her friend Scorpia - another lost princess, if you can believe that."

Laughing through her tears, Zoar stared at him through the image-spell. "Of course you did. How could you not? Where is she? Can I bring you both home?"

Duncan shook his head. "She's safe. I know that much. We were separated when we broke free of the Horde. We were ambushed by a champion who wanted to get revenge on her for something her friend did when they were children. We defeated the ambush - Adora finally manifested her magic! - but Shadow Weaver came and took her away after Adora stood up to her."

He was leaving a vast amount of detail out of his explanation. How could he not? He had been on Etheria so long now. There was so much to say and so little time to say it.

"Scorpia and I had to separate to rescue her." His laugh was bitter. "I told them what you told me. To sail across the Growling Seas to find Eternia. I have to get home before they get there!"

Zoar bowed her head, red hair falling over her forehead. "Duncan…"

"Scorpia's people are enslaved here. I told her - gave her my word - we could help. We would help. Randor and Marlena owe me enough favors, and it would get us the foothold on Etheria we need to keep Hordak and Skeletor apart - and access to what we want to know about whatever their association is."

And if his King and Queen couldn't? Well, he knew retired soldiers and old warriors who would want to help. Who would want a purpose again! But he had faith in them. He had faith they would let him take at least a small force back through and help the scorpioni. All volunteers, of course - Marlena and Randor were loathe to command troops to missions like this, but they would let volunteers go, supported by Eternos.

"Duncan."

He stood taller, grinning fiercely. "You'll have to help Adora with her magics, Zoar. She has rudimentary control, I think. She's terrified of magic. Shadow Weaver and her damn crazy apprentice used it to terrorize her far too long. It will take time for her to trust you, but I'll be there. She trusts me, I think. I hope! I have tried to be there for her, but - she's grown up in such misery. Lost so much…"

"Duncan!"

Her shout got his attention and he shook his head to clear it. He needed to get home - and he needed Zoar's help to do it. He looked back at her and saw the sadness in her eyes.

"Duncan, they can't get back here! Not without you! Eternia and Etheria are separate planets! They are not what you were told - or what I was told! I found an old map built into the catacombs, and records of what the Old Ones did to exploit the links between our worlds. There are thirteen portals still active between our worlds, and what I did to send you there is an artifact of my magic! It is because of what I am and who I am that I can reach between worlds."

Duncan froze. He raked his hand through his hair. "What?"

Zoar leaned closer to her crystal. He could see it as her face shifted in the image. "Duncan. Etheria and Eternia are not part of the same world, as we first thought! My spell to send you there only worked because I am the guardian of Greyskull! I have - magical dispensation, you might say. But the path home we thought existed, across their Growling Seas to our own seas, is one of the thirteen portals! Another, we think is on Qadia. There is at least one in Subternia and another near or in Snake Mountain. You would have been lost at sea had you tried to take that route back unless you knew precisely where it was. I was to tell you when you contacted me, but we started to think you were…"

"No!" Duncan gasped. He staggered back. "But I told them - I told them to take a ship across the Growling Seas to reach Eternia! I have to find them! Before they set sail. Before they become lost!"

He turned, looking back at his skiff. He had the maps Lonnie had given them. Which port would they go to? Salineas was further away, but had more (and better) ships, but Seaworthy was closer. It was in the kingdom of Bright Moon, which the Horde feared more than the others. Their military was strong and their queen was powerful enough she was considered a demon of storm and light - a mercurial huntress who killed without mercy and commanded terrible magics.

He could -

"Duncan! My love. Breathe. All is not lost! The mariners of Etheria - will they take them across the Growling seas? Do they know of the portal?"

Duncan shook his head. "I don't - I don't know. I never saw any recognition from any one when I mentioned Eternia or Eternos. The only ones who said anything spoke of children's stories and legends. Mocking me for my jokes. I don't - I don't think so. No."

His first months in Etheria was spent traveling. He had walked through several countries in his search for the Fright Zone and the Horde. He had spoken to a lot of people, grateful for Zoar's magic letting him speak with anyone he needed to. The mystic strength and endurance given to him by his oaths gave him the ability to offer labor and aid to many, but his mechanical skills were just as useful. He'd learned so much about Etheria in those months, but other than jests, no one had recognized Eternia. He hadn't thought about it much - he had been with the Horde for so long, and both Shadow Weaver and Hordak knew about Eternia.

Which had proved the need for his mission. He had failed in his mission, but he who he had found made it all worth it.

"Then you can still find them. Protect her. Duncan, I am bringing you back now. I am bringing you home, my love. We cannot tell Randor and Marlena - and Adam cannot know, not until Randor and Marlena are ready to tell him. But we will send you back again, through one of the portals. You will find her, and you will get her home."

He ached. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his daughter. See Zoar again. He missed the smells of home. The sounds. The feel of the air. He missed everything about his home.

But honor called and duty demanded. He had a duty to the Princess of Eternos. He was the only one from Eternia currently on Etheria who would help her. And the Horde was allied with the snakemen, now. How long until one of them made the connection?

Already, Elieth had sensed her connection to Greyskull - to Eternia. Had known the flavor of her magic. She and Scorpia were on their own, on a fool's errand to find a path that didn't exist to a place that would welcome them.

He had to find them. Guide them. Protect them. Help her get home and help them both discover who they were meant to be.

Duncan couldn't go home. Not yet.

He knelt, bowing his head. He couldn't bear to look her in the eye when he told her was choosing his duty - his oaths - over even a moment with her. "My lady, I…"

The words caught in his throat. He could not leave a girl as hurt, as alone as Adora to face Etheria on her own, not without a path to safety. Not without a safe direction. His ignorance had possibly set them on the road to disaster or worse. It was his responsibility to help them.

She was lost, and it partly his doing. She was his princess - the girl his best friends had put in his arms just after her birth. One of the children he had sworn his life to protect and teach. His own ahran stood by Adam and his daughter.

Only Scorpia - as lost as Adora - was stood next to his princess. And as far as he knew, everyone on Etheria saw them as the enemy. Everyone on Etheria would want them hurt or dead or worse, because of who they had been. Who they had been forced to be.

Would any on Etheria give them a chance to be who they could become?

"Look at me, Duncan of Eternos. Do not hide your face from me, my love. I do not condemn you for following your honor, your calling. It is why I could let myself love you. Because you understand the sacrifices duty demands and thus - you can live with what my duties have called me to be."

He slowly raised his head to face the woman he loved; her smile and her eyes were sad, affectionate, warm. "Tell me what I can do to help you."

He smiled, her image blurring through his tears. She was - magnificent. After all these years away, she still loved him. She still believed in him. And she understood. She, who had given so much of herself for a world who didn't know anything of her - she continued to give of herself for him. For those he served and protected.

"Money - gems work well here, but gold will do in a pinch. Supplies. Food and water, mostly. Any gear I might have left at Greyskull. Tokens, maybe, for Adora. Something…"

His voice caught again, but he cleared his throat. She smiled, soft and gentle. Her voice was a caress, even across the vast distance between worlds. "Easily done. Wait here. I will return."

It was terrible, but right to speak of what he needed to save them. To ask for things, when he had already been gone so long. Had spent so long away from them. From her.

She returned quickly. Her magic would let her summon most of what she needed, but she would need to pick something for Adora. Her voice was teasing. "I don't think you realized how much you've left here over the years, my love."

"I suppose not!" They had been together for over a decade. He knew he had a lot more equipment and useful tricks hidden at Greyskull than he remembered, but she would know what he needed. Maybe better than he did.

She closed her eyes. Breathed out. And the air next to him twisted, shimmered and distorted into a spiral of light and lambent fog. When the magic retreated, there was a small pile of things for him.

She sagged a bit. He couldn't imagine how much energy it took to create a path between worlds. What had it cost her to send him here? How could she think of bringing him - and two others! - back?

"Please tell me you included a map to the thirteen portals. It might be easier to travel through one of them, I think."

He could make their return trip easier. Once on Eternia, he could find his way home from anywhere in the world. (Of course, where those portals came out on Eternia did matter - Snake Mountain would not be a good place to return to.)

She rolled her eyes at him. "You can't fool me, Duncan! Yes, it is tiring to open a way, but sending you, sending these things, was far more taxing, as I wanted to do it undetected. When I bring you home, I will not worry about such! Yes, there is map, in case you cannot contact me, but I would rather you trust my magic rather than a portal of the Old Ones. They were often less then wise and they were often less than kind."

She would never say it, but she would want to see him. She would trust only herself to protect him. And she would want to see - to meet - Adora. To know with her own senses the princess lived.

He could give her that.

"You are always my first choice." It was as true as it could be; duty came before all, and then their daughter. But she understood his meaning, as he understood hers. They had been together for too long not to.

"I love you, Duncan of Eternos. Good journey - and may magic stand between you and harm in the dark places where you must walk."

He stood as the image of the Sorceress of Greyskull vanished in a swirl of silver.

He looked up at the moons of Etheria and let the cool night air brush over him. He had to check - and load - the supplies she had sent him. He would return to Lonnie's stronghold and tell her what he could. Just in case.

And then, he had a princess (or two) to save.