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It was an easygoing, peaceful afternoon in Bright Moon. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and it was a beautiful day to be outside. Unfortunately, Adora, Catra, and Glimmer were inside in the war room.
Glimmer because it was tax day, and as Queen, she took in taxes from all of her subjects. Catra and Adora lived in Bright Moon and thus paid taxes to Glimmer. Normally, Catra would have totally wanted to mooch off of Glimmer and have her declare them tax free, but Adora wouldn’t have it. They were going to be upstanding citizens! She-Ra didn’t cheat on her taxes, and neither should the kids who found her to be their role model!
So Adora and Catra were stuck with Glimmer on tax day because they had completely put off doing taxes until the last moment. Catra because she thought they weren’t going to even be doing their taxes, and Adora because thought Catra was doing it because she said she’d “take care of it”.
In Adora’s defense, Catra was better at math. Sure, she usually cheated and found shortcuts, but how would she know Catra would cheat on her taxes?! Was it really cheating if the Queen gave them the okay? It was nepotism at least, and that was probably bad. It was considered bad in the Horde at least.
So there they were, indoors doing taxes. Glimmer hated tax season. It was terrible when her mom made her help out, and it was made worse when she found out that legally, her dad couldn’t help! Nor could anyone else! Why? What was the point of a royal accountant if they didn’t do the kingdom’s taxes?
For Catra, she would rather be napping, and the sunbeam near the window was looking very tempting. Too bad Adora kept her busy trying to understand all the jargon. At least the documents made great paper airplanes.
“Why are we doing this? It’s not like we made money this year.” Catra yawned and leaned back into her chair, her feet propped up on the table and her arms behind her head.
“It’s because we bought a house, and we therefore pay property tax, according to tax law 90, paragraph 8, subsection 87,” Adora said.
“Why do we have a house again? We usually just stay in the castle,” Catra pointed out.
“It was your idea.” Adora mumbled.
“Well too late now. Let’s just stick with it and do our taxes I guess.” Catra groaned.
“You two better.” Glimmer finally said, after finishing up her latest document. “You have until I’m done with this stack, after that, I’m going to enjoy the day.”
“Ugh fine.” Catra sidled up next to Adora and snuggled in close, before nipping at her neck and kissing along her shoulder bones. Adora leaned into the snuggles and blushed, making dorky kissy faces.
Glimmer coughed into her hand, getting Adora to stop being distracted by Catra’s attempt to bone in public. This made Catra growl slightly before going on to read whatever Adora was reading. “That’s a 32% reduction for us.”
Adora shook her head. “No, it has to be 22% because we’re filing jointly.”
“Yeah, but we’re married, so it adds up to 32%. The other one is only if you live together but aren’t married,” Catra explained.
“Right.” Adora nodded. “But we are filing together as a married couple, so that means—“
Glimmer slammed her hands onto the table. “You’re what? ”
Catra snorted. “Married, Sparkles. You know what marriage is, right?”
Glimmer turned to Adora and ran up to her. “When did this happen?”
Adora coughed, suddenly feeling pressured and awkward. “I don’t know, six months ago?”
“You don’t remember? ” Glimmer gasped. “I can’t believe you two eloped! And didn’t tell anyone! We could have had a big party and ceremony and reception! Gah, every princess on Etheria would have wanted to come to your wedding! I wanted to come to your wedding! Why didn’t you invite me!?” Glimmer started tearing up as she grabbed Adora by her shoulders and shook her violently.
Adora was starting to flail as Glimmer kept shaking her, she desperately looked to her wife, Catra. Her wife decided to snicker and savor the manic chaos for a moment before pulling Glimmer back.
“Sheesh, Sparkles. Don’t get worked up. It’s just a wedding.” Catra patted Glimmer on the shoulder.
“What about commitment tokens? I know I went over this with Adora!” Glimmer asked.
Catra looked confused but then Adora blushed. “Whoops forgot. We were so busy and all.”
“What’s a commitment token?” Catra asked.
“It’s a tradition where couples who are committed to each other give each other something valuable to show they’re committed to each other, marriage or not. I can’t believe you two skipped that step!” Glimmer yelled.
“Riiiight. This is one of those things involving ‘valuables’.” Catra made air quotes with her clawed fingers.
Adora coughed. “Well uh, we can do it now.” She reached for a clip on her belt and passed it to Catra. “Here. I use this to hold my belt together, but you can have it. I’ve got spares.”
“Cool.” Catra put the clip on her top. Then she reached into her pockets and rummaged around, before pulling out a smooth and shiny rock. “Here.”
“Ooh. That’s a very nice rock,” Adora said.
“I know right?” Catra puffed out her chest and smiled like she was proud. “I found it outside the castle last week.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Adora pouted as she picked the rock from Catra’s palm.
“Bow called us for that emergency, remember? I completely forgot about it.”
Glimmer frowned. “What. You guys, that was one of the most important traditions on Etheria!” She pointed at Catra in particular. “You gave her a rock.”
“It’s a very nice rock though,” Adora said. “I think I’ll wrap it in some napkins to keep it from getting moldy.”
Glimmer was just. Not amused. “If this is how you two treat one of the most important moments of your life, maybe I shouldn’t have attended your wedding anyways.”
Catra snorted. “Why would you even want to watch? It’s boring as hell.”
“Why would watching my two best friends getting married be boring?! It’s a huge occasion! It’s only one of the biggest moments of your entire life!” Glimmer shouted.
Adora and Catra looked at each other for a moment in confusion before Adora realized something. She put her fist into her hand. “Oh! Is this one of those weird uh…” She made some hand motions before getting the right word. “Cultural miscommunications? Something different between the Rebellion and the Horde?”
Catra snorted. “Don’t tell me weddings are a big deal for princesses. Who would want to watch Hordak sign a paper and then throw a huge party?”
“Hordak what?” Glimmer asked. She took a deep breath, centered herself, and realized she should have started from the beginning. “What… what exactly do you two think a wedding is?”
Adora and Catra looked at each other again. Adora answered, “You print out a form declaring intent to marry, you both sign it, then you get a superior officer to sign it. You submit it to Hordak, and once it’s approved, you get the option to fill out a form so you two can share a bunk bed.”
Catra nodded. “Nice and simple. For us, since I was second-in-command before Prime invaded, my only superior officer was Hordak. So he signed and approved it. All it took was a trip to Dryl.”
“And then we filled out the form for sharing bunk beds,” Adora said. “We didn’t need to since it’s moot, but I really wanted to.”
“You’re such a romantic.” Catra laughed and gave her wife a peck on the cheek. Adora blushed.
“It was your idea,” Adora laughed too, before bringing Catra in for a bigger kiss on her lips. This time, Catra blushed.
Glimmer meanwhile, was having an emotional breakdown. Her hands were on her head as she realized the insanity of what she had just heard. “No rings? No gifts or friends? No family? Just a piece of paper? And a bunk bed? ”
“Hey, don’t diss the bunk bed,” Catra argued. “It saves a lot of travel time, and we get to drape our blankets over it to make a downtime fort.”
“A downtime what? ”
Adora blushed. “A place for married partners to be together in privacy.”
“You just drape it over and that’s it? But there are other people in the room! I’ve seen your barracks! That’s crazy!” Glimmer was going to explode.
“It’s a sign of our love! In private! It’s bad form and poor manners to peek inside a downtime fort,” Adora said. “Besides, how else do you decide who’s top and who’s bottom?”
Glimmer’s blood froze. “ What. ”
“Top and bottom bunk, Sparkles.” Catra rolled her eyes. “You know, who is the dominant and who is the submissive in the relationship.”
Glimmer was having a stroke. That was the only logical explanation.
“So, in the Horde, the top invades the bottom’s bunk, that’s why you have the downtime fort covering the bottom bunk,” Adora made several completely incomprehensible hand gestures. “And then they have fun, snuggly, sexy, fucky times.” Adora blushed.
“That is insane. The Horde is insane.” Glimmer was developing a dangerously strong headache.
“No more insane than having hundreds of people attend a form signing,” Catra pointed out.
“We don’t do that in Bright Moon! We have an officiant! We tell each other our vows! We affirm our love for each other in front of everyone we love! We throw a celebration!” Glimmer waved her hands manically.
Adora and Catra looked at each other. “Yeah, but why? Aren’t relationships sort of, private or something?” Catra asked. “Well obviously your SO should know about it for scheduling purposes, and also for medical records.”
“Don’t you declare your love for each other in private? It’s what we did at the Heart of Etheria,” Adora added. “Declaring it to people unprompted sounds embarrassing.”
Catra shivered. “Ugh.”
“Because we all want to be happy now that you’re happy and found love for the rest of your life!” Glimmer was fuming and frothing at the mouth. “And don’t you start being embarrassed! You two make out in front of literally everyone!”
Adora and Catra looked at each other. Catra said, “It’s just PDA. We have to show strength in our relationship, otherwise others would find it weak and try to drive us apart.”
“But not in an evil way,” Adora added. “They’re testing us, just so we’re absolutely sure this is the relationship we want.”
Catra snorted. “And also because it’s fun.”
Glimmer was fumed. “Well, the two of you are not in the Horde now, are you? You’re in Bright Moon, you joined the Rebellion, you eat normal food and don’t spend all your time doing military exercises!”
Adora and Catra looked at each other. “We can throw a party to celebrate?” Adora provided.
Catra nodded. “But we’re not inviting more than ten guests.”
“Thirty,” Adora countered.
“Twenty. No weird strangers,” Catra rebutted.
“Deal.” The two of them shook hands.
Glimmer was dying on the inside. “Fine. A private ceremony then. Just to reaffirm your love and all that. We’ll just tell everyone this is the first time you’re getting married and pretend this was all a joke.”
Catra and Adora frowned. Catra said, “Sparkles, don’t be a Shadow Weaver.”
“ What? ” Glimmer was dead now.
“Oh yeah, so as second-in-command, Shadow Weaver had veto power over any marriages. And she loved to use it, because apparently she found the whole thing ‘frivolous’ if we didn’t seem like a good match in her eyes.” Catra scowled. “Adora and I probably would have gotten married years ago if it weren’t for her.”
Adora gasped. “Would we have gotten a divorce after I became She-Ra if that had happened?”
Catra laughed. “Totally. I would have thrown the form at you when we fought in the crystal castle the first time.”
“How. How does divorce work in the Horde.” Glimmer’s voice was monotone. It was just morbid curiosity at this point.
“So you sign a form—“ Adora started. Glimmer groaned and teleported back into her seat. She was exhausted, spent, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
“We sign a form, and get two force captains to sign, then we get approval from Hordak or Shadow Weaver.” Catra finished for her.
“Wait, I think I’m still technically a force captain,” Adora said. “You’re a force captain too, and you took Shadow Weaver’s position, which means…”
“We can divorce ourselves right now. We just need the form!” Catra gasped.
“We could get divorced and remarry every time we see Hordak!” Adora gasped.
“And they say the first invasion after marriage is the sexiest.” Catra purred.
“Oh it definitely was.” Adora’s expression was a seductive one. “And we can have our first again and again.”
Glimmer realized that she was witnessing hell forming before her eyes. Which was itself a feat since before that very moment, Etheria didn’t have a concept of hell. She materialized her scepter. Glimmer gripped it in her hands and took a deep breath.
—
“Buy a house, you said. It’s like the Bright Moon equivalent of having a downtime fort, you said,” Catra grumbled as the two of them made their way across Etheria, walking towards Dryl.
“It was your idea.” Adora swatted a boulder with her sword as they made their way across the barren, rocky mountainside. “And you were the one to mention our marriage to Glimmer.”
“How was I supposed to know she’d react like that? Sheesh, Bright Moonians are frickin’ prudes.” Catra hopped into a nearby rock and surveyed the land ahead of them.
“I think it was just us hiding the news from her for so long,” Adora swung her sword at a wandering monster, launching it across the sky. “And I think the correct term is Bright Moonites.”
“Whatever. Hopefully, we can get Hordak and Entrapta to help,” Catra said. “And get us remarried. I can’t believe you panicked and got us divorced when Glimmer attacked us.”
“I didn’t panic, she just surprised me, that’s all.” Adora pouted. “We just need to lay low and wait for Bow and Micah to talk some sense into her, and get the bounties she placed on our heads removed.”
“Do you think it’s because we didn’t specify our invasions were consensual?” Catra wondered.
“Maybe? I think Glimmer just doesn’t like invasions, consensual or not,” Adora said. “Which is weird. It’s not like we’re invading Thaymor.”
“It was one time!” Catra groused. Then she realized. “Okay maybe twice. Or three times. I might have lost track how many times I’ve actually invaded Thaymor.”
“I think it was four, depending on how you count liberating Thaymor from Prime.” Adora blinked. “Huh, I guess I did end up invading Thaymor after all.”
“And it only took like three years.” Catra grinned. “Come on, let’s try to get there before night falls.”
—
“Actually, the correct term is Bright Lunatics.” Entrapta smiled as a bot served Adora and Catra tea in tiny cups. She got closer to them and whispered loudly. “It’s a derogatory term.”
Hordak was with them, packing supplies into a bag. “You’ve caught us at an awkward time. We plan on traveling to Plumeria in a few hours, as Scorpia intends on proposing and marrying Perfuma.”
Catra whistled. “I’m morbidly curious to know who’s the top in that relationship.”
Adora giggled and punched Catra in the shoulder. “Shut up, that’s private. But it’s definitely Perfuma.”
Catra remembered something. “Oh! Hordak, that reminds me, Adora accidentally panic-divorced me while we fought Glimmer. Can you sign our marriage form again?”
Hordak nodded. Then he realized. “How did you two… Oh I see. You have Shadow Weaver’s position. Very well.”
—
As the five of them (Emily included) journeyed across Etheria towards Plumeria, dodging bounty hunters and other opportunistic miscreants, Hordak took Catra aside. “I want to request a… favor from you.”
“Shoot.” Catra shrugged.
“I plan on proposing to Entrapta. Since I am the leader of the Horde, I would normally be the one officiating, but that feels too… informal for a wedding, even a Horde one. Since I have no official superior, at least one still alive, I wanted to ask you to do so.”
“Me?” Catra was shocked. And, honored. “I… I’d love to.”
“You have my thanks.” He growled. “I suppose that means that everything we’ve done to each other is forgiven?”
Catra nodded. “Yeah, ‘course. Unless you want me to talk about it at length with Entrapta.”
“Do not.”
“Gotcha. Are you going to have the bunk bed form too?” Catra asked. Hopefully curiosity doesn’t kill this cat.
“No. Neither of us have any of that sort of… inclination. Frankly, I only included that perk to improve efficiency.” Hordak admitted.
“Huh.” Catra felt weird learning the origin of, well, the very basis of sex in her home culture. Said origin created by an asexual clone, now that she thought about it.
The two of them regrouped with the rest of their party, and Catra couldn’t stop thinking about Hordak’s future wedding. She felt giddiness in her stomach. She wanted it to be special! To tell everyone and invite everyone, to make it the best wedding ever.
Oh. Oh no.
Sparkles was right. Damn it. She must never know.
—
Queen Glimmer mumbled, “I was wrong.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.” Catra put a hand over ear. “Could you repeat that but louder? Preferably so that the acoustics of this great hall of Bright Moon castle carries it throughout the entire kingdom?”
Glimmer clenched her fists and ground her teeth. She took a calming breath to soothe the headache she was once again developing, lest it turned into another cerebral hemorrhage.
“I. Was. Wrong.” Glimmer grit her teeth, but still vocalized loud enough for Adora, Micah, Catra, Entrapta, Perfuma, and Scorpia to hear. “I am very, very sorry that I insulted your cultural heritage and valued traditions. Especially that of the princess of Plumeria’s wife, our dearest, dearest allies.”
“Aw, thanks!” Scorpia proudly beamed as she held her new wife’s hand in her claw. Perfuma kissed her wife on the cheek, making Scorpia turn red and giggle.
Glimmer’s eye twitched. “You’re welcome.”
Perfuma manifested a small flower and placed it in Scorpia’s hair. Scorpia kept giggling. “Look guys, my SO gave this to me!”
Adora elbowed Catra and whispered. “I told you.” Then she said louder. “Aw, it’s great to see you two happy!”
“Wait ‘til after the honeymoon phase though, then you’ll be complaining about your SO getting on your case,” Catra said to Scorpia. “‘Oh no, my SO’s annoyed by my recent exercise habits’, or ‘getting on my case about my recent invasion performance’.”
Adora snorted and elbowed Catra again. “She’s just complaining because I’m the current SO since she lost the last invasion.”
“Am not!” Catra grinned and the two of them began laughing and play-fighting. In public.
Perfuma sheepishly asked. “I’m afraid I am a bit lost. What’s going on exactly?”
Entrapta, who was there too, answered while looking at her pad. “In Fright Zone vernacular, SO can mean your ‘superior officer’ in the literal sense, but it is also a euphemism for ‘significant other’. The dominant one in the relationship is usually the de facto SO, but is interchangeable and can be used to refer to the submissive one as well. It has the same implication that one’s marriage partner or partners is their ‘better half’.”
“Huh.” Perfuma said.
Catra and Adora stopped to listen. Adora said, “I didn’t know that. We just… do it.”
Entrapta nodded. “It’s fascinating how different Horde culture is from the general Etherian culture, especially since the divergence was only in the last thirty years. The massive influence Galactic Horde culture has had on the Scorpion Kingdom has created some of my best anthropological work. I’m having them published soon, after Bow finishes proofreading it.”
“Bow is what? ” Glimmer asked.
Entrapta explained. “I’m barred from publishing in certain journals due to my ‘crimes against Etheria’, but Bow is helping me appeal. I’ll probably be able to submit my research sometime next year. Give him plenty of time to read up. I have mountains of notes from my time in the Horde.”
Glimmer took a deep breath and made a hand gesture. Then the guards placed handcuffs around Adora and Catra’s wrists, snapping them in place.
“Hey!” Catra growled. “I thought we were done with this!”
Adora looked at the shackles on her wrists. “When did you get these? I don’t remember Bright Moon having handcuffs.”
Micah coughed. “They’re imported from the former Fright Zone. I thought importing from there would stimulate their economy.”
Catra nodded. “Yeah that makes sense.” Then she remembered. “Wait, why are we in handcuffs?!”
Glimmer gave an impassive look at the two of them, then spoke in her regal queen voice, “You two are under arrest for tax evasion.”
“What? But we were submitting the form to… you…” Adora realized that she and Catra never actually finished the tax forms before they fought Glimmer. On the last day before they were due. And then they went on the run. And got political asylum from Dryl.
Adora sheepishly raised her hand. “Can we request political asylum from Dryl again?”
Entrapta looked up from her pad, barely paying attention to anything happening. “Hmm? Oh, no. Denied.”
“What?” Catra asked.
“Tax dodging is bad.” Entrapta didn’t look up from her pad that time.
Catra raised her own hand. “Can we request political asylum from Plumeria?”
Perfuma silently looked at Adora and Catra. Then looked at Queen Glimmer and her passive, queenly expression, holding her scepter in one hand, at the steps of her throne. She didn’t want to get in between an argument between her friends! And dodging taxes sounded like a pretty big deal. Perfuma wasn’t actually sure, Plumeria didn’t have taxes. Oh, if only she understood how big of a deal this was! She glanced at Entrapta. If even she thought it was bad, then surely…
Perfuma coughed. “Uh, I don’t grant asylum. Plumeria does not have a, uh, system in place for… tax crimes?” She wasn’t sure what the actual term was.
“This is why we didn’t invite you to our wedding!” Catra screamed.
Perfuma’s lip began to quiver. Scorpia patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, Catra doesn’t mean it. She’s just in a bad mood.”
“I am going to jail, Scorpia! Again!” Catra screeched.
“Don’t worry Catra, dungeons in Bright Moon are pretty nice,” Adora tried to comfort her wife.
Micah coughed. “Actually we remodeled the spare room to resemble a Horde cell with the leftover imports.”
“Why would you import a Horde prison cell?!” Catra yelled. “That’s literally the worst part of the Horde! We had technology, industry, skiffs, and stun batons!”
Glimmer coughed. “Because somebody already imported all of the skiffs and manufacturing equipment before us.”
Entrapta didn’t look up from her pad, but she nodded nonetheless. “It’s going to be great. Imagine, bots riding skiffs!” She pulled up a diagram on her pad, showing Emily carefully balanced on top of a floating vehicle far too small for her body.
Adora and Catra had to admit, that would be baller.
So, they silently and resolutely walked to jail without further protest.
At least Micah led them himself. “Glimmer will accept your marriage in time, and other Horde marriages too. She’s just upset because she really wanted to be your maid of honor.”
“For the maid of honor of Grayskull?” Adora asked.
Micah blinked. “Maybe? I haven’t been to a wedding in twenty years. I think this whole situation has just put more pressure on her to have a good wedding with Bow one day.” He stroked his beard.”Good lad. This will make an interesting story when he comes back from his dads’ place.”
Catra snorted. “Yeah, if we’re out of chains when he gets here.”
Micah coughed. “Anyways, here is the dungeon. We tried our best to make it like a prison cell, but we also had to add some things for you know, human rights.”
Adora and Catra entered the way-too-big-to-be-a-cell room, with metal walls placed up to block out the sunlight, save for the window. Instead of being chained to the wall, Adora and Catra had free reign, which was probably a bad idea for future prisoners. At least the door and window were reinforced with a force field.
And in the center of the room was a bunk bed. With a lot of pillows and blankets.
Catra and Adora looked at each other and smiled. Well, it was about to be their first invasion after getting remarried.
“I call top bunk!”