#adora having a normal relationship with people? during canon? adora having a normal relationship w ppl? AFTER canon?

[blonde-and-cat-suc]

28. three's a crowd

rating: g 

wc: 1.5k 

cw/tw: domestic violence isolation tactics (implied), past physical abuse (implied) 

desc: Glimmer, Bow, and Adora arrive in Bright Moon on a high note, excited to have She-Ra joining the Rebellion. Adora is skeptical of their welcoming attitude. Three friends is one too many to be true... 

(Canon Compliant) 

///

"Adora! Show me how you threw that punch again!"

"Well, alright", Adora agreed easily, a golden dapple of sunlight coming through the trees giving away the pinkish-red of her cheeks. She was clearly the type that liked to show off—Glimmer had been privy from the beginning. The freshly new rebel had proven herself to be an ally to them with a sort of flashy, grandiose act of solidarity...

She-Ra.

Glimmer couldn't help her giddiness.

Yes, She-Ra's defense of Thaymor was awesome—yes, Glimmer loved every second of it. Beneath her initial disbeliefs, Glimmer was beginning to understand that it didn't matter where Adora had come from. Only where she was going.

Presently, Adora was set to go to Bright Moon, sitting on top of the wayward horse they had fled Thaymor with. Adora couldn't have been much younger than Glimmer or Bow, but she had not been out much. Everything amazed Adora in one way or another.

I had no idea that we had this many moons in the sky! Adora exclaimed yesterday, staring into the violet-blue deepness enfolding various moonlight hues. And then, hours later, when the daylight moons had rotated to their positions: Where'd they all go? Why did they leave...? Adora was genuinely regretful. So certain that the moons themselves had moved on from her, specifically, and would not return intentionally, somehow. Bow had to reassure her that the moons would return, (and sometimes they wouldn't, when they got into a New Moon phase). She'd perked up instantly, relieved.

Their first few hours of retreating Thaymor had been spent explaining basic information to Adora that she may not have already known. What Bright Moon was like, the Rebellion, Queen Angella's pitiful alliances across civil Etheria... Adora had no trouble accepting these truths with only the occasional inkling of doubt.

It should have been more obvious before, but Glimmer had only caught on to Adora's true merit when she'd talk back to them with her own insights, pressing them for more information, more analogies, more new philosophies and ideas and morals... and then, more.

Adora was a truthful hero who was also eager to learn and explore the world around her. Glimmer couldn't have asked for a better gift to the Rebellion. She-Ra was going to give the Rebellion the advantage that they had needed all of those years ago when her father...

When the Horde had made their worse offense on Bright Moon to date.

It was all Glimmer could think of when she looked at Adora. Even when they had become comfortable in each other's presence, even when Adora was guiding Glimmer's hands to throw a punch that those calloused, cruel Horde soldiers used—Glimmer knew that Adora herself was ultimately the upper hand the Rebellion needed. With each other's full cooperation, they could protect Etheria from the evil that had grown in its darkest corner. They would burn the Horde back into the ground. Once and for all.

...But for now, the three of them were only lucked-out travelers escaping the Horde's latest brutality. They were all exhausted and each of them had admitted to the group that they were still sore from the day before. Regardless, they kept steady pace, and soon, Glimmer recognized the thinly trekked dirt roads cutting through the trees... They were close to the outskirts of Bright Moon's city. Bow had realized too, flashing a huge smile, "I can't wait to shower and eat and sleep!"

Adora instantly made a skeptical sort of expression. "All at once?"

"Huh? No! But, well... I could definitely try."

"Are you allowed to do that?"

"Probably not", he laughed. "How does anyone shower and eat and sleep? I understand showering and eating—and sleeping and eating. But all three? No, I'm not sure. Sorry, Adora!"

Then, she'd only frowned at him. "You're...joking?"

"Only a little bit", Bow laughed again. "I'm sorry. Really. This is the kind of joke that my dads would tell. It's funny. I haven't been home in a while..."

"Dads", Adora tested the word on her mouth. "Daaaaahds. What is a 'Dads'?"

Wide-eyed and open-minded, Adora absorbed what Bow had to tell her about his family and all of his brothers. She got around to prying him for information on the word "brothers", eventually.

"Do you have 'brothers'?" Adora looked at Glimmer expectantly.

"No, no. I'm an only child."

"Me too. Well... I assume so. I don't have a 'Dads' either."

"It's just a 'Dad'."

"Yeah, it's not such a big deal not having one." Adora smiled. "I turned out okay, I think."

Glimmer didn't bother correcting her anymore after that. The dryness of her mouth and lips was starting to get to her, now that she knew that Bright Moon was close. All she cared about was drinking water, and doing those other things Bow had listed. And of course, recruiting Adora to their cause. Giving her someplace to sleep. Making sure she knew how to take a bath when they found time for that.

When they'd broken out of the wooded trails, Adora had climbed on top of their horse just to get a better view of the sight—Bright Moon Castle, and the Moonstone, opalescent and shimmering gold hues in the daylight. "Wow", Adora sighed under her breath, fingers clutched in the horse's mane.

Glimmer beamed up at her. "Welcome home!"

"Home." Adora seemed to cringe around this word. She examined Glimmer and Bow, and even the horse beneath her. "You guys are sure that you want me to live here? With you?"

"Where else would you go?" Bow asked with an equal amount of sincerity. "I couldn't bring you home."

"Because of your 'Dads'..." Adora nodded to him in understanding. "Right."

"Well, Bright Moon has space for you", Glimmer promised.

"Um", Adora had only looked between them again, frowning. "Are you sure...?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's just... Well. Um. I really do want to be friends with you guys."

"We want to be friends with you, too!" Bow reached up and touched the side of her arm, but withdrew as soon as she stiffened, knuckles white, contrasted in the hazel-brown of the horse mane caught in the pressure. If Adora noticed that she'd frightened the horse, she did nothing but gesture it to keep trotting. Bow muttered a quick apology, and Adora accepted it quietly, but it wasn't enough to get them away from the topic.

Not that Adora seemed to want to stop talking about it. She eventually managed to hold Bow's eyes, shoulders rounded, knees pressing into the horse so that it swung its head back and forced her to relax again. Delicately, Adora petted the horse's neck, voice soft but leveled, "I'm not sure that I could be your friend. I mean. Maybe it's a Horde thing. But... there's already two of you..."

"And three's better", Bow said plainly. "You're not in the Horde anymore, Adora. You can do what you want about that, now."

"Oh...? I mean. I heard that—that those kinds of friendships always end up bad. That's why it's sort of banned in the first place. Not totally banned. Just... You get flack for having too many friends... Is that true for the rest of the world?"

"Not at all. If everyone stays very good friends. And talks to each other a lot. The more, the merrier!"

"What does the Horde know about friendships, anyway?" Glimmer shook her head, ready to go into grave detail on why Adora should probably disregard whatever it was that she knew about friendship—and to prepare herself to learn some new things about it—but Glimmer stopped herself. Adora suddenly had a startlingly distant look in her eyes.

"I've only ever had one real friend", Adora told them. "And—I wasn't allowed to have other ones. I-I mean, they were friends. But not friends friends. She used to want to have me to herself all the time. It made sense. Our other friends were opposition to me as her friend. And that's no good for friendship. So, I understand if you guys don't want to be my friend and ruin a perfectly good—"

Bow had stopped the horse with an assertiveness that had Glimmer stopping in her tracks, too. He was silent for all but a moment before he went on with the same tone he had used when he was explaining his Dads to Adora. "This isn't the Horde anymore. You can have as many friends as you want now, Adora! Even if it's not with us."

Glimmer nearly butted in because they kind of needed to be friends with Adora if this was going to work between them all. Maybe not best friends but... something close to it. Maybe Adora was thinking the same way because she'd only nodded at Bow, suddenly unwilling to probe him any further than that.

"Adora, um. I'm sorry about your friend", Glimmer added into the silence.

Adora only gave an uncommitted hum, rubbing the side of her cheek as if recoiling from a strike that never hit. But when she moved her palm and the daylight reached her cheekbones, the rigid, perfect cuts were obvious. Three lines, tapered off down to her jaw. They were long scarred over but... still there. Adora didn't seem to notice it when Glimmer's mouth flattened into a neutral grimace, and she shrugged, lifting a brow, "Nothing to be sorry for. It's just... Uhm. What if we start hurting each other because of that?"

"Hurting each other?" Bow blinked. "Over what?"

"Well... Each other...?"

"We're not going to do that", Glimmer said carefully. "That's... That's a little extreme, no?"

Adora paused. "Do you think it's extreme?"

"Yes", Bow and Glimmer blurted almost together.

Another pause. Adora thumbed at her scarred cheekbone, absentmindedly. "Oh."