WHAT: One of the cubs gets swept up in the moat, Adam and Teela come to the rescue WHERE: Castle Grayskull WHEN: During the flooding plot WARNINGS: Some drowning scares, but nothing major STATUS: Complete
Adam wasn’t sure who decided that building the moat needed to be turned into some sort of competition, but whether it was himself or Adora, he was regretting it now. The moat had been dug deep, not quite as deep as it ran back home, and at some point Adam had thought it would be fun to connect the boat to one of the underground rivers tunnel so that it would have a natural source to feed it.
But the sky had opened four days ago, and the rains were unrelenting, and now the moat was nearly overflowing, the water higher than Adam ever thought it could be. And the normally placid current was swift and coursing.
It would have been fine, if Clover and Cheddar hadn’t been playfighting near the edge. Clover had tumbled, and before Adam could react, he was pulled under by a water elemental. Cringer didn’t hesitate: with a wordless cry, the normally cowardly tiger dove in after his son.
Adam gaped at the spot where they’d both been only seconds ago, his heart stopping in his chest. And then, he raised a hand, and called out, “By the Power of Grayskull!”
It was too late to direct the power to Cringer, too late to turn him into Battle Cat. But that didn’t mean that He-Man couldn’t follow them.
Teela had voiced her hesitations about letting the cubs out to play with the torrential downpour that was happening – a downpour that had been happening, continuously, for four entire days now. The moat absorbed a lot of the water, but even that was reaching the brink now. She’d tried to redirect some of the flow magically, but the elementals bringing this upon them weren’t having it, and it was becoming unquestionably dangerous.
Castle Grayskull itself was fine. It was warded inside and out to an extreme degree; nothing had flooded, and the Heart itself, where their lion-tiger family spent most of their time, was perfectly fine. There was plenty of room for them to run and play down there, but they insisted on going outside, banging at the big front doors with their big paws until the humans occupying the castle relented.
That had been a mistake. She had known it was going to be a mistake, but she hadn’t expected it to go to this extent.
Clawdeen stood by Teela’s side, only held back by one of the sorceress’ hands gentle on her mane. She knew the lioness wanted to go help her poor, fallen child, but there was no sense in having three cats and her ridiculous boyfriend diving in the moat.
“Adam, be careful!” she called out. She threw her hands out as the crowd of elementals amassed, yanking them telekinetically out of the water in the hopes of easing the waves created by their presence.
Adam shot Teela an appreciative grin as she dragged the Elementals, struggling, out of the water. “Of course,” he told her, shooting her a wink, his unease and worry hidden underneath his carefree grin, and then, “you too.” And then, he swan dove into the moat.
The water was dark, both because of the black, overcast skies above, and from the silt that the elementals had kicked up, turning the tumultuous water murky. Adam squinted into the depths, but couldn’t make anything out.
He could, he thought, simply clap his hands and clear a space through the water in front of him, but he worried that by doing so he’d hurt either Clover or Cringer. Still, as he swam, powerful strokes taking him further and further into the depths, the temptation grew.
And then he saw motion. He swam quickly toward it, and swam alongside Cringer, who was doggedly paddling. Ahead, He-Man could just barely make out the shape of Clover being borne away, and he sped up.
He sliced his sword through where he thought the Elemental had to be. He felt no resistance, but Clover stopped flying through the water, as if he’d been dropped. He-Man pushed him toward Cringer, just as he felt something wrap around his throat. He dropped the Sword to grab at his neck, though he couldn’t grip anything there.
And then, abruptly, He-Man was pulled away. Cringer hesitated, torn for only a moment about whether or not he should go after his oldest and dearest friend. But he knew he couldn’t. He took Clover in his mouth, and clawed his way through the water to the surface. He broke through into the air with a gasp, and swam to the bank, depositing the cub onto the ground.
“It took Adam!” he gasped at Teela.
Clawdeen immediately jumped for her cub when Cringer emerged with him, taking him into her mouth. Teela turned just long enough to make sure Clover was breathing before the pink lioness made for Castle Grayskull’s doors with Cheddar following at her heels. She would take them back to the Heart and make sure they were all okay. Teela swept the doors shut behind them with a wave of her hand, killing any opportunity for these water elementals to take a shot at getting past her wards.
They were raucous things, and thanks to this damn moat her boyfriend and his sister had insisted on digging, there was plenty of water for them to use against her, even as she’d yanked them out in hopes of slowing the flow of the water. It didn’t really help; they were water and the process of trying to remove them from the moat was getting repetitive. Worse, the earth elementals that were stirring up trouble in the forest had decided to help in their attack, and despite their slow speed, they packed a punch.
“Come here,” she told Cringer. She knelt before her old friend and put her hands on his head; Adam may have missed the opportunity to bring Battle Cat out, but Grayskull and the Sorceress were just as much a source of the Power as his sword. “Stay here and take care of the earth guys. I’ll find Adam.”
Then, without another moment’s hesitation, she jumped down into the pit of murky water.
Part of her training as a member of the Royal Guard was getting by in any possible situation. Her job had been to protect the Royal Family – Adam, particularly – and that meant being able to survive in the worst of circumstances. She had learned to swim when she was a tiny thing, taught to open her eyes underwater despite the sting of salt, and how to conserve her breath from resurfacing. She hadn’t been faced with elementals doing their damnedest to destroy her at that time, but she managed to fend them off well enough with the sword she pulled from her back.
The second she spotted Adam, she was swarmed again. A telekinetic blast with one hand sent them spiraling in other directions, but she knew it wouldn’t last for long. She pushed herself down further, reaching out to take hold of He-Man’s arm.
Adam shot Teela a warm, pleased smile when he felt her hand on his arm. He hadn’t been scared – he could hold his breath a long time, and he hadn’t yet started to feel the prospect of being drowned – but it was nice to have her at his side regardless. He knew that as long as she was with him, there wasn’t any threat they couldn’t take on.
He signalled at her – a hand flat out, telling her to stay there. Then he gestured at himself, pointed down, and spun his finger in a spiral. And, once he was sure that she understood, he dropped like a stone to the bottom of the moat.
His feet touched mud first, and then sank down until he felt the solid stone under it. And then he began to spin, faster and faster, until a whirlpool formed around him. Mud and silt flowed up into the spiral of water, and the air opened up above him. Within the wall of water, the water elementals showed up, clear amongst the muddy water.
Adam, gods. Of course he had a plan; Teela should have expected as much. It didn’t take more than those few gestures for her to understand what he meant and push herself out of the line of fire. She managed to fly out just before the cyclone Adam had created. Despite being soaked to the bone, she stood her ground at Grayskull’s doors and took her sword to every one of the muddy monsters she could see.
It wasn’t necessarily easy to keep his eyes on what was happening above, but after a few moments, he realized he couldn’t see any more of the water elementals within the walls of his cyclone.
He stopped spinning, and the water came down around him; he stayed on the surface more from buoyancy than any action of his own, and when he managed to crawl to shore in time to see Teela disposing of the last of them, he flopped down onto his stomach and rolled onto his back.
“Hey, Tee, did you know that spinning around really fast makes you dizzy?” he asked lightly, watching the churning clouds spinning vertiginously above him.
“I would never have guessed,” Teela sighed, sticking her sword in the rain-soaked ground. She sank down beside him and reached out to clasp his hand. “A little warning about the plan beforehand would be helpful next time, you know. The way Cringer came out of there, I thought they were drowning you.”
Adam took her hand, intending to pull himself up, but then he grinned and yanked, intending to pull her down instead so that he could wrap her in a very wet hug.
“I think they tried,” he said. “But I can hold my breath longer than the average bear. You know that.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Teela replied, although there was no heat behind the words. She allowed him to pull her into a hug, letting her head fall on his chest. “No more letting the cubs outside, okay? Not with all this going on. Promise me.”
Adam wrapped his arms around her, gently pulling her against him. “I think Cringer and Clawdeen will make sure of that. But yes, I promise that I won’t let them out again. We’ll keep the Heart open, and they should have more than enough space to run around there. Is Clover okay?”
“Yeah,” Teela confirmed with a smile. That was a relief, at least. “They’ve all gone back inside, and I think Clawdeen’s going to be on-board with our plan to keep them inside until this passes. She wasn’t happy.”
Pulling out of Adam’s grasp, she pushed herself to her feet and extended her hands down to him. “Come on. Let’s go inside and check on them.”
He-Man shifted back into Adam, and this time when he took Teela’s hand, he let her help him back up onto his feet. “Thanks for always having my back, Tee,” Adam said, leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek.
“Yeah, yeah. Someone has to keep track of you,” Teela teased, lacing their fingers together and grinning over at him. “Wait until I tell your mom what you did, Your Highness.”