“So I looked into it and I think I’m going to check out Geliara,” Glimmer said as she and Adora walked side-by-side down one of the sidewalks in the middle of Vallo City. She was currently making her way through a triple scoop ice cream cone that she realized wasn’t necessarily made for winter but still surprisingly exactly what she’d wanted. She’d gotten a blend of mint chocolate chip, strawberry, and coconut and currently had absolutely no regrets.
Well, one regret.
She was starting to feel a little bit like she was just floating through Vallo. She didn’t have a kingdom to take care of, or a war to fight here. She didn’t have a job like Catra and Adora did. She was essentially stuck between spending her time at the apartment that didn’t quite feel like home yet, and wandering aimlessly through Vallo wishing she had money to actually buy all of the things she found on her strolls. She needed something to occupy her time and she’d finally decided that learning more about her magic was exactly what she needed to occupy that time with.
Glimmer glanced up at Adora and raised a brow questioningly. “What do you think? Good idea? It feels like a good idea.”
Ice cream during the colder part of the year might seem silly to some people, but Adora was not one of those people.
Food was still somewhat new to her after a life full of ration bars. She’d gone through a lot more since coming to Vallo, learning through trial and error, but she knew there were endless types out there she still hadn’t discovered. It wasn’t reasonable for anything to have a season. Food was food was food, right? And dessert? Even more so!
Her ice cream was a little more modest than Glimmer’s, though. A double scoop as opposed to a triple - one triple brownie fudge, one strawberry cheesecake - that she was very much enjoying.
She hummed in response to Glimmer’s question. “I think Geliara is more like a high school,” she replied, “but I don’t really know a lot about it, honestly. I don’t have magic the way you do.” She had magic as She-Ra, yes, and she’d learned to heal even without transforming, but it wasn’t like Glimmer’s magic. It wasn’t anything like sorcery back on Etheria, so she couldn’t say. She’d never even considered training when she got here.
“But, our friend Sabrina, she went there before she randomly aged up to twenty-two. Maybe we can ask her about it.”
Randomly aging up. Awesome. Another thing to worry about when experiencing life in Vallo. Glimmer was so excited to find out what else this place had in store for her and her friends. Better to focus on the ability to learn more about her magic here and not dwell for too long on the infinite possibilities of things that could go wrong. She would absolutely drive herself insane. So she took another lick at her ice cream cone and nodded, shifting her thoughts back to Geliara and her sorcery.
“Yeah, maybe! I’ve also talked to the guy who owns that magic shop? Shaun Gilmore? Some of his friends teach at the school and he’s a sorcerer, too, which was really nice to find out,” she replied, lifting a hand to wipe at her mouth before taking another bite. “And I’m still so new to all of this sorcery stuff, you know? Shadow Weaver–” she glanced over at Adora, hesitating over the name. She knew it had technically been years for Adora now but everything was still so fresh to Glimmer. “–I mean, she taught me a lot. More than I knew I was capable of. But I’m still really new. So maybe starting small would actually be a really good thing for me.”
That was a good point. A part of Adora hated it, but Shadow Weaver really had taught Glimmer a lot. She knew Micah probably would have done the same if Glimmer was back home. But without that connection - well, yeah, of course she wanted to learn, and starting small did seem like the reasonable path. And anyone here would be better than Shadow Weaver - not in terms of magic but influence, for sure.
“I know Gilmore, a little. And Dorian.” She’d really been in their shop like, once, when these creatures from Dorian’s world were running amuck and she’d been able to bring some skins in to have armor made. But she didn’t have much use for a magic shop outside of that. “If he thinks that’s best for you, then I think you should do it. You’re way too talented not to keep learning.”
Glimmer nudged Adora’s arm with her shoulder as they walked, a slow smile curving upward at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks, best friend,” she said. She was finally starting to believe it herself, too. She was talented, just like her talented friends. And even if she had to navigate a new world where everything was different, didn’t she deserve to find out exactly what she was capable of?
“I also just think I really need to do whatever it takes to get the hang of my magic and how it actually works here, you know? Everyone keeps saying it’s only a matter of time before something else happens and we’ve got yet another thing to fight and I need to be able to fight with you all. Not almost break my ankle accidentally impaling creepy fuckers.” She smiled to herself. In retrospect, she was still pretty proud of the accidental accomplishment.
But then she sighed. “I just wish I had all of my powers here. It would be nice to have both at my disposal. Don’t know a good fighting spell in the heat of the moment? I’d just pow.” She punctuated the word with a quick jab of her free fist and then jumped with a yelp when a glittering ball of pink and purple energy whizzed between the couple walking in front of them and hit a sign pole.
Slowly, Glimmer’s eyes widened as she looked up at Adora.
Adora shifted to loop her arm around Glimmer’s shoulders while they walked. She was well aware that Glimmer had always had a hard time accepting that she was just as awesome as the rest of the princesses - which was ridiculous because of course she was. But Adora got it. She had struggled fitting in with the Alliance at first, grappling with She-Ra and her powers and what it all meant. She still did sometimes, but hearing it helped, so she always made sure Glimmer heard it, too.
Then, that happened.
Had they still been on Etheria, the blast of power Glimmer let loose with a simple jab of her hand would have been commonplace. Nothing out of the ordinary, occasionally these things happened when she got overenthusiastic. But here in Vallo, summoning up that kind of power had been basically impossible. Glimmer’s powers were very specifically linked to the Moonstone, and without it here, there was a pretty severe disconnect.
There was nothing disconnected about this little blast of energy. It clearly startled the couple it shot between, jolting the two of them in opposite directions to avoid being hit. It would have been ultimately harmless - a sting, nothing fatal - but she could understand the impulse.
“Sorry!” she called out to them as they hurried away. She turned back to Glimmer, mirroring her wide eyes. “Do that again,” she demanded. “We need to make sure it isn’t just a fluke.”
Glimmer suddenly felt nervous like she was being asked to perform something that she hadn't been doing her entire life on the spot. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "Okay, okay." She shook her hands at her sides and looked around for a safe place to test the sudden reappearance of her powers, not wanting Adora to have to chase down half of Vallo to apologize on her behalf.
Her eyes settled on a small alley near them where she could punch at a wall without doing any damage and she quickly moved down it with Adora in tow. She was certain that nothing would happen, that this was a fluke, but she had to know.
"Okay, I can do this," she said, trying to psyche herself up. Finally, she took another deep breath and held her fists up. Almost as easily as she drew breath, her fists began to shimmer purple and pink and she thrust another ball of energy at the wall. It was real. "Adora! I can do it!"
Adora ended up with both ice cream cones in her hands while Glimmer searched for a place to test her powers without scaring any more locals. But neither of those cones lasted long when Glimmer summoned up another ball of energy, and Adoa was so stunned that both of their ice creams dropped to the dirty ground beneath them. She didn’t even blink as she grabbed onto Glimmer’s shoulders with her freed hands and squeezed.
She was bursting with excitement for her friend, knowing full well how off being without access to something she’d literally been accessing since birth felt for her. She’d dealt with it in space plenty and during her glitches in their younger years. Adora hated that she’d had to deal with it again.
“You know what this means, right? The Moonstone’s here, Glim. It has to be!”
It was totally feasible and honestly probably the only explanation. Nothing was impossible here in Vallo anyway - Darla had come through out of nowhere, along with several smaller mementos for her and Catra both. Some people had literal castles here, like Adam and Teela. That had to be what Glimmer’s powers returning meant.
Glimmer didn’t even care about the ice cream at that point. The Moonstone was here! Adora was right – it had to be. She knew Vallo’s could give things to the Outlanders, but Glimmer could feel the certainty of the Moonstone’s presence so acutely now that she wondered how she’d missed it before. This feeling of connectedness was so strong that she ought to have known the moment it had shown up. Maybe she’d been convincing herself that it never would so that she’d never be disappointed when it didn’t, and maybe that had clouded her ability to feel the way the connection to the Moonstone practically vibrated in her veins.
Placing her own hands on Adora’s arms, Glimmer said, “Hold on,” and closed her eyes. She zeroed in on the feeling, the connection. She let it fill her the way it had when she’d accepted the full power of it after– well, when it had become hers to claim.
And when she was completely confident in that connection, she poofed with Adora in tow. When she opened her eyes, they were standing below it. The Moonstone in all of its glory staring down at them as though perched above some invisible platform. As though it was leaving room for whatever else from home might come through next.
Happy tears welled in Glimmer’s eyes as she looked up, still holding onto her best friend. “It’s here.”
“It’s here,” Adora echoed, giving Glimmer another good, long squeeze. She was in awe herself; it felt like ages since she’d last seen the Moonstone in person. It was a little weird without seeing Castle Bright Moon in the background, but this was probably the most sentimental piece of their home she could think of, especially for Glimmer.
“I’m hoping that’s an indication you’re staying,” she continued sheepishly. It sounded selfish to say something like that, when they’d all been taken from their home and brought here against their will, but she had missed Glimmer so much. She could only hope Bow would make an appearance next, but she had been doing her best to step up and be there for Glimmer in that capacity in his absence. “How do you feel?”
Glimmer was completely unable to take her eyes off of the looming moonstone, even as she felt a pang of sadness at Adora’s words. It certainly did seem to indicate that, but she still wasn’t really sure how she felt about staying here. She didn’t want to leave her friends, and she knew she wanted to be a part of the lives they’d been building here, but she missed so much from home that it hurt. This, at least, was some small piece of everything she wished she hadn’t had to leave behind.
“I feel–” Glimmer paused, searching for the right words to answer the question– “whole, I think. Like in the sense that there was this inherent part of me that was missing that I’ve suddenly found again.” She’d felt this feeling before when she’d been cut off from the moonstone the first time, but recognizing it didn’t make it feel any less jarring.
One moment, Glimmer was standing beneath the stone, staring up at it in awe, and the next she was poofing in and out across the clearing. Gleeful laughter rang out around them as she disappeared and reappeared over and over again until she finally stopped next to Adora again. “I feel like me,” she said.
“You deserve that,” Adora replied, gently gripping her best friend’s shoulders and smiling down at her. She knew it was hard - receiving all these things from home, settling into life here, knowing there was no going back until you were sent away the same way you came, if at all. It had taken her a long time to accept Vallo was it for her now, and she still worried about home quite a bit. But if the timeslip they’d been through back in October was anything to go by, she had a good future in store for her here.
She hoped Glimmer and Perfuma would become a part of that now. And with the Moonstone here, it felt like a pretty strong possibility.
Hesitantly, she glanced down off the side, wondering if she’d catch a glimpse of Castle Bright Moon. “I guess it’s on its own right now,” she deduced. “But I bet you’ll get Bright Moon next. That would be so cool.”
Glimmer let out a dramatic sigh, her shoulders sagging with relief under Adora’s touch. “That would be so great. There would be so much space, Adora.” She loved having her roommates. Scorpia and now Perfuma were good people to live with, even if it had been an adjustment for all of them learning how to live with each other. But the apartment had been just Scorpia’s for a while and Glimmer still felt a little bit like she was taking up space. And maybe they would want to come live with her if the castle showed up, which would give Scorpia so much more space for her growing plant collection.
If only it could also show up with all of the things that made Castle Bright Moon home. Like Bow. Or her parents.
This was not the time to veer into and dwell on what she missed, though. The Moonstone was here and Glimmer could feel it again, and that was a really good thing to focus on just now. “We should go tell the others about the new discovery,” she said, letting the giddiness of the reunion fill her. “How do you feel about taking another shortcut?”
Adora knew Glimmer, Scorpia, and Perfuma staying together in Scorpia’s Morningside apartment wasn’t ideal. It was a four-bedroom, but compared to the accommodations they were used to in Etheria, it was small. Even the Fright Zone had more room to roam, and while that was here, it wasn’t exactly anyone’s ideal choice of living space. Castle Bright Moon would be perfect; it would give everyone a sense of personal space and ease the guilt Adora felt for keeping them off Darla.
But anyway, this wasn’t about her. Glimmer had gotten something so good from home, and she deserved to celebrate that! Whether it led to the Caste Bright Moon showing up or not, this missing part of her had been returned. That was amazing.
“Let’s do it,” she agreed with a grin, reaching down to thread her fingers through Glimmer’s. “Poof away, Your Majesty!”