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It's late, and the stars are stretching endless above Mara's head, resplendent in their glow.
It's late, and she should be heading home to sleep, but she finds herself turning instead towards the Crystal Castle.
It's strange, really. She looks up at the stars and thinks, I wish Hope could see.
The Castle lights up for her, like always. Her voice, her password. She steps inside, through the corridors.
“Mara.”
Mara almost jumps, barely manages to contain her reaction, steady her heartrate. She turns, finds herself smiling, smiling. (Things are going wrong, but Light Hope still makes her smile.) “Hope. You have to stop scaring me like that.”
Light Hope's expression shifts minutely. “I am sorry. I will recalibrate.”
Her holographic body shimmers, fades out. Mara glances around. “Hope?”
“Is this better?” Light Hope asks, disembodied.
Mara restraints a yelp, watches her slowly fade back in, piece by piece. Laughs. “Not really.”
Light Hope's brows shift, approximate a frown. “I am sorry.” A beat. “Why are you here, Mara? These are not training hours.”
“I just...” Mara grins, feels sheepish, suddenly. The whole thing is absurd. Light Hope is an interface. Training Mara is her job. It's just– they feel like friends. Hope smiles at her and it looks real. (And Mara sometimes thinks, what if–) “The stars are beautiful. They made me think of you.”
Light Hope's holographic brows twitch up. There's something on her face that feels terribly mortal. “I do not understand the connection.”
“You're stuck in here,” Mara says. “It's– it was like the flowers. I wanted you to see. I looked at them and wished you could look at them with me.”
Light Hope smiles, minutely. Something flickers over her features, something almost like pain. “I can look at them.”
She extends a hand, and they're standing outside, under the spread of the sky, under the vast sparkling map of stars.
Mara knows they're not really there. It's a hologram too, and they still stand in the Crystal Castle, but it's beautiful. Approximates perfectly what she saw outside.
Mara is used to stars. Has travelled among them, but somehow they still take her breath away. She watches Light Hope watch them and wishes she was someone Mara could touch. Wishes she could see the starlight reflect in her eyes.
“Is this satisfactory?” Hope asks, her gaze switching to Mara, and there's that smile again, small and soft on holographic lips.
Mara looks back at her, feels her own grin spread wide and warm.
(Thinks again, in another life–)
“It's perfect,” she says.
“Would you like me to access my files on the stars? I have information about the stellar classification of each visible star, as well as records on what both your people and the Etherians call each constellation.”
Mara nudges her, her arm fuzzing through static. “I'd like it if you would.”
And Hope, again, almost bashful– “My purpose is to train She-Ra. Will this advance my purpose?”
“You like things,” Mara says. “I know you do. Tell me: would you like to tell me about the stars?”
And Light Hope hesitates, imperceptible, then: “I should not want. It it against my programming. I should not like things.”
“But you do?”
“I am not sure.” Light Hope directs her gaze to the stars again. “Like is a living emotion. It is mortal. I do not understand the definition. But if I were mortal, I think that I would say I like spending time with you.”
And Mara feels the warmth in her chest bubble and overflow, something wistful settling deep as her bones. “I like you too,” she says, makes it easy, casual. (Something is going wrong, she knows. The closer she gets to Hope, the more it'll hurt.) “Tell me about the stars.”
“Of course, Mara.”
Light Hope extends a hand again, finger levelled at a cluster, and begins to talk.
Mara lets the facts wash over her, focuses on how Light Hope smiles. How her voice goes almost soft, the electronic timbre shifting.
The endless stars in her field of vision are finite in truth, she knows. Light Hope tells her exactly how many can be seen.
This night is finite too, short and slipping past. This thing is finite, this tentative friendship.
Something is going wrong.
But Mara pretends, for this moment, that this can be endless.
Pretends, for a moment, that they stand inseparable, under the light of real stars.