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Scorpia is not quite a year by the stars that were and the moons that are and the Fright Zone isn't yet. The moons haven't fully waxed and waned since her last moult, when she first realised there was a world beyond her mama and her curiosity is as vast and deep as the desert. She knows not to venture onto the sands in the killing heat of the day, and that the dunes will reflect enough light for safe travel in the cool of the night, that there were once brilliant lights, like the sparks of a thousand thousand campfires, in the dark spaces between the moons, and that her mama's shoulders, broad and safe, are the best place to sit while her mom sketches out the patterns they made in the sky with one chela. The cat, the sword, the archer, the scorpion she was named for, all passed down from their foremothers for a hundred generations.
She isn't sure why it's so important she knows these things, just that it is, the same way she knows to avoid the sharp tip of her mama's tail when clambering over her like a vast, warm mountain, her laughter an earthquake, that she likes being around the dark red slab of crystal kept in the tent next to theirs almost as much as she does spending time with her mothers (and she loves spending time with her mothers), that when her mama tosses her in the air, so high Scorpia feels like she could fly, her arms will be there to catch her and snuggle her tight. It's important, so she watches and listens and remembers as her mom explains how their people have lived in their home as long as anyone can remember.
And when the night sky is lit by a new light, one growing vaster and brighter by the second until it's almost like it's day, she points out the star in delight.
Scorpia is a year by the stars that were and the moons that are and dangling from her mama's tail when the scouts bring Commander Hordak to their camp. The star was actually a ship (her mom explains what a ship is, and Scorpia is entranced by the idea of a place where water is a common as sand, begs her mom for more stories about lakes and the sea), now broken, half buried in dunes turned to glass, and Commander Hordak, his skin as pale as Scorpia and her mama's hair, asks for succor, sanctuary (her mom explains what those mean too), a place for him and his crew.
There is no question of the answer, the desert is home, a beloved one at that, but already Scorpia knows it can be harsh, especially to people who haven't lived here as long as theirs have. That their oldest laws and oaths reflect this, open fires, guest ties, stars' light, water right. Her mama tells her that trust is survival, that to refuse aid to one in need, friend, stranger or foe, is to be complicit (her mom also explains what complicit means) in their fate.
Commander Hordak and his people will stay in the desert, and he tells her mama they will be great allies. (That's almost the same as a friend, her mom tells her.)
Scorpia is nearly two by the stars that were and the moons that are and there are more visitors at the camp than she can remember from more places than she knew existed. Her mom says they're like her mama, watching over the lands that aren't the desert the way she does, that they usually only met like this for a celebration, but there's nothing festive in the air. Everyone seems worried or mad and no one smiles.
Well, except the sparkle man, who sits with Scorpia while the winged lady he came with talks with her mothers, lets her tug on his beard (it's fascinating), creates shining shimmering lights for her to pounce on, try to catch in her chelae, and when Scorpia draws out the patterns of the stars that were in the sky for him like her mom would, he places his sparkles there, too. When the winged lady, lean and grim and grave, finds them she smiles like her mothers do at each other, ruffles his hair, and Scorpia thinks she's the prettiest lady she's ever seen.
The smallest moon has waxed but not waned before Commander Hordak visits the camp next. Her mama has been quiet and sad since their visitors left, but she still smiles for Scorpia, so Scorpia does her best to keep her smiling. When the scouts tell her mama that Commander Hordak is coming, she snuggles Scorpia close, scatters kisses across her forehead, her cheeks, all over her face, and tells her to go with Shaula and Lesath, stay in their tent.
Scorpia likes Shaula and Lesath, they're almost as tall as her mama, with bright ochre patterns marked out on their chitin, and just as happy as her mothers to let Scorpia clamber over and climb on them, but it's the first time she's never been with her mama to greet a visitor to the camp (it's one of those things her mom says is important) and who's going to make her mama smile if she's not there?
Scorpia is somewhere between two and three by the the stars that were and the moons that are and having the nightmare again. She hasn't had the nightmare the entire time since the shadow lady came into her mothers' tent while Shaula and Lesath were napping, took her by one trusting chela, and brought her to this place that was once desert but is becoming something else, just since the shadow lady started making her sit with the crystal.
It's not like Scorpia doesn't like spending time with it.The crystal is the one familiar thing here, and if she leans against it, she can feel its warmth chasing away her homesickness, but the shadow lady doesn't talk to her or answer her questions except to order her about, the closest she gets to a hug is the shadow lady's hands resting lightly on the sides of her head, the days blur into each other, she's tired all the time, and she misses her mama so badly it hurts. She misses her mom too, her easy affection, the way she knew everything, could answer all her questions, even the ones she was still figuring out how to ask, but when she thinks about her mama there's a deep, aching emptiness inside, a hole that no amount of pressing up against a crystal can fill.
The crystal is in the nightmare, wrapped like whenever they struck camp, and her mama too, standing next to it. Her mama looks so, so mad though, which is wrong, because her mama's never, ever mad, not even that time Scorpia accidentally stung her, and she couldn't move for hours. In the nightmare, Scorpia is sitting on Lord Hordak's knee like she would on her mama's when people came to the camp, and for a moment her mama looks so happy, but also like she's going to cry, but when Scorpia tries to run to her, make her smile properly, Lord Hordak's hand falls on her shoulder, holds her still. He says something, her mama goes still, and she doesn't just look mad, she looks terrifying. A crackling red light knocks Lord Hordak back, and Scorpia is in her mama's arms and for that moment, the nightmare isn't a nightmare, because in her mama's arms she's safe, nothing bad could ever happen to her there, but then come the flashes of green, the smell of smoke and burning, and her mama trips, curls her body around Scorpia as she falls, and Scorpia screams, is still screaming when the shadow lady looms over her mattress, hands reaching for her face, and then, for a time, Scorpia forgets.
Scorpia is four by the stars that were and the moons that are and everything hurts. Her ears are ringing, her head throbs like it's about split open, her mouth is sour with sick, when she tries to scrub the taste out dried blood flakes off her upper lip onto her chela. Someone is screaming, and though her throat is raw, it's not her. The lights are out, but in the dim red unsteady glow of the Black Garnet she can make out the source of the high-pitched wail stabbing into the space behind her eyes.
It's a baby. A tiny pink and gold thing kicking and flailing and howling, and Scorpia can't remember anything except a wall of red and dark and pain, but she thinks she wasn't here before. She croons out a half-forgotten lullaby, tries to hush the baby, make the noise stop. She reaches for the baby, with some vague notion of snuggling her like her mama would've, but before she can scoop her up, there's a streak of brown, an ear-splitting yowl, the not-pain of a dozen needle-sharp somethings scraping along her chitin.
"Kitty?" Scorpia pulls her chela back in surprise more than anything else, and the kitty, crouched between her and the baby, fur puffed up, tiny claws on tiny hands still extended, glares at her. The baby stops crying, burbles happy nonsense instead, pudgy fists reaching towards the kitty. Scorpia holds still, utterly charmed, and the good kitty, with one final yellow and blue glare, turns and bounds over to the baby.
What little light there is goes even dimmer, and Shadow Weaver is grabbing her, demanding to know what she did, and Scorpia doesn't mean to do it, knows she shouldn't, but Shadow Weaver is so loud, and the baby is screaming again, and so's the kitty, and she just wants it all to go away. Her tail flicks out instinctively, and Shadow Weaver topples like a badly secured tent.
It's only when the room is quiet, the only sound the kitty's loud purring as the baby gums at one fuzzy ear, that Scorpia realises that the Black Garnet is also silent. The warm, bone-deep thrum she's been hearing her entire life is completely gone. She doesn't really have time to think about this though, since the floor is rapidly rising to meet her.
Scorpia isn't sure how long she stays in the medwing, isn't allowed outside to check the moons, but it's long enough she goes through a moult. Which makes today even more frustrating. She wants, needs, to be moving, flexing and stretching her limbs and tail and chelae as her new chitin hardens, not sitting in front of Shadow Weaver, hands on the sides of her head, absolutely nothing happening except the Black Garnet (otherwise a dull, dead rock) glowing in the background. She can't even ask about the kitty (or the baby, but mostly the kitty) with Lord Hordak standing there, not that Shadow Weaver ever answers any of her questions.
It seems Shadow Weaver finds this as boring and useless as she does, because finally she throws her hands in the air, speaks to Lord Hordak, who doesn't seem happy at all. Lord Hordak tells her to wait outside, go find Octavia, and Scorpia's happy to go, but, still, she would've liked to see the kitty again.
Scorpia is five by the stars that were and the moons that are when she finds the sparkle man.
She's not supposed to be in this part of the base, but Octavia, while gruff, and quick to anger, and rarely kind, doesn't really care if Scorpia gets where she shouldn't, so long as she doesn't get caught and she's where she's supposed to be when she needs to be.
He's thinner than Scorpia remembers, his beard greyer and shaggier, but he remembers her, apologises that he can't play right now. He says her mom misses her. (He doesn't mention her mama, Scorpia doesn't ask, and isn't sure why she doesn't want to.) He says other things too, things Scorpia doesn't quite understand, but he invokes open fires and guest ties, stars' light and water right, oaths as old as the desert Scorpia is still a child of, so she listens, buries his words deep in the secret places in her heart.
He's not there the next time Scorpia tries to visit him, she tells herself he's gone home to his pretty winged lady. At least she hopes he has. One of them should get to.
Scorpia is ten by the stars that were and the moons that are, or maybe eleven, the smaller, darker moons are getting harder to see in the Fright Zone. A message arrives for her, exciting enough in itself, even if the woman delivering it, stern and armour clad, looks like she'd rather be throwing punches than handing scrolls, but it's for a party. None of the other kids in her training cohort seem to get what's so great about that, but Scorpia remembers the camp growing to twice its size, music, food, dancing that shook the earth.
She's so excited by the idea of it all that it completely knocks the wind out of her when she finds out she can't go. Shadow Weaver delivers the news, strokes her cheek, tells her Lord Hordak is only thinking of her safety. Scorpia tries to explain how no one would violate hospitality like that, it'd be the wrongest kind of wrong, surprised she didn't already know one of the earliest lessons her mothers taught her, but Shadow Weaver says the princesses don't respect the ancient laws, why they hadn't made their disdain and dislike for her family so clear that her mother had begged Lord Hordak to safeguard the future of their kingdom, attacked them just for aiding the Horde?
Something about what Shadow Weaver says doesn't seem quite right, but Scorpia vaguely remembers a gathering of mad, sad women, and it's not like Shadow Weaver has any reason to lie to her. Besides if her home was safe, wouldn't she be there?
Scorpia is twelve by the stars that were and the moons that are and she sees her mom for the first time in years when she visits the Fright Zone.
It's something to do with how long her family's kingdom have been part of the Horde. Octavia, who is still gruff and quick to anger, but who also makes sure she gets extra rations when she moults (which seems like all the time, lately) and sometimes ruffles her hair and mutters at least she's not like those two menaces (whoever they are) and very occasionally (like now) wraps a tentacle around her shoulders in something like a hug, says that between training and politics she can't actually see her mom. At all. Scorpia tries not to cry, be as tough as Octavia is, but she's not and she does.
Octavia relents, sneaks her up to the lookout post so she can at least watch her mom arrive. She almost doesn't recognise her at first, she looks so small, something almost broken about her, but then she does and only the fact that Octavia'll get in trouble if they get caught keeps her from shouting and waving her claws to get her mom's attention, from leaping down and flinging herself at her. She's so quiet and so still that it almost hurts. Her mom's head turns in their direction and even though it's impossible for her to see them, she straightens and for a moment looks exactly like Scorpia remembers.
Scorpia knows by now that when she asks questions they'll probably just be ignored, but she wants to know when she can go home so badly. When the Horde brings order to Etheria, Octavia says. She says that Scorpia can help with that. Scorpia likes being helpful, likes the idea of making sure other kids can stay with their families. She tells Octavia that, and there's a weird expression on her face for a moment before she gives her one of those rare tentacle not-hugs and tells her she's a good kid.
Scorpia is sixteen by the stars that were and the moons that are and she has a very important job, the most important job a Force Cadet can have if you asked her (not that anyone does).
There's a new batch of recruits, war orphans the Horde has taken in. Too big for the creche, too little to go straight to training, it's Scorpia's job to watch over them while a place is found for them. They're a little scared of her at first, (they always are) she's taller than all the other kids her age, and more than a few of the adults, and they've never seen anyone with her claws or tail. But she sits with them, lets them poke and prod and climb over her (keeping her stinger out of the way of curious fingers, that never ends well) wins them over. When she shows up they swarm her with hugs, tell her about their day.
That's important too, because that's the other way she's supposed to look out for her kids. Shadow Weaver tells her to keep an eye out for anyone having nightmares, anyone who's a bit confused. She says that her kids went through a trauma when the princesses destroyed their homes, before the Horde rescued them, and some of them might be a little mixed up, might need help like Scorpia did when she first came to the Fright Zone. Scorpia can't even remember having nightmares as a kid, so clearly Shadow Weaver's really good at helping, and she wants what's best for her kids, so she lets her know about anyone who needs her help.
The kids Shadow Weaver helps sometimes don't seem quite themselves when she brings them back, but Scorpia gives them a little extra attention, a little extra care and they settle back in easy enough.
Scorpia is twenty by the stars that were and the moons that are, when she first meets Catra.
It's pretty much the best day ever. Especially when she finds out they're going to get to go to sea. On a boat.
Weirdly enough, Catra doesn't seem that enthused about the whole idea. But maybe she just doesn't know what a boat is, though Scorpia's sure that's covered in Force Captain Orientation.