Title: Favored Part 1
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author
EMail Address: [email protected]
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.
Spoilers: Anything goes
Summary: Before joining her new unit, Adora recieves
lectures, orders, and a going-away present. Sequel to
Mission Report.
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their
owners who I'm too lazy to list.
The Ambassador, Adora thought, was a Frog.
He drooled. He was slimy. He made lewd jokes. He also had
an overinflated ego. None of these traits endeared him to
Adora. But he was also Hordak's guest, so Adora couldn't
just clock him no matter how much he annoyed her.
When Adora was younger, Hordak had been careful to forbid
her from attending his many political or diplomatic
parties. Hordak had told her that she was too young, that
she might impulsively do something that would embarrass
him. At the time, Adora thought he was being unfair.
Now that Hordak had deemed her old enough and disciplined
enough, Adora wished Hordak still forbade her to attend
these parties. But since she had officially become an
officer of the Horde, Adora was required to attend. She
had never imagined these parties could be so boring.
The Ambassador, for example, was lecturing her ear off on
a subject that held absolutely no interest at all for
Adora: his people's ideology. In the distant past, the
Ancients had taken his pure animal ancestors and uplifted
them to full sentience by giving them human traits. In
Ambassador's eyes, this made his people special, favored
in the eyes of the Ancients.
If Adora could have gotten in a word edgewise, she might
have debated the Ambassador on this point. There were at
least two other such uplifted species. In fact, the
Ambassador's people and these others called themselves
"mutants" and had once formed an alliance against their
enemies, a people whose human ancestors had traits from
different cat species grafted into them by the Ancients.
The mutants had viewed these cat/human hybrids as
"devolved" in contrast to their being "evolved".
Frankly, the distinction was completely lost on Adora.
The Frog Ambassador's monologue came to a blessed end
when the Hyena Ambassador intruded. The second was fairly
drunk and challenged the Frog to a duel of insults. The
Frog accepted gladly. Of course, this quickly degenerated
into the physical as they tried to choke the life out of
each other. Since the cat people's homeworld - the name
escaped Adora - had been destroyed, the mutants' alliance
had fallen apart as they turned on each other, each
determined to prove their own "superiority".
After a few token tries at calming them down, Adora just
took each Ambassador by their shoulders and shoved their
heads together with a satisfying crack. Both slumped to
the ground unconcious.
"Ooh! I'm gonna tell Hordak!" said someone behind Adora,
his whiny voice accompanied by the fast fluttering of
wings.
"Get bent, Imp," Adora replied, unruffled. She didn't
even bother to look at the little pest.
"I'll tell him you said that," Imp told her nastily as he
fluttered around Adora. He sighed dramatically. "And
after he sent me to fetch you, too! How ever will he
re-ACK!" Imp was so caught up in his own melodramatics
that he forgot to keep an eye on Adora.
"Well why didn't you say so?" Adora demanded, shaking the
little guy by the throat. "Lead the way."
***
"You wanted to see me, Father?"
They met on a balcony offset from Hordak's throne room.
It offered a modicum of privacy from the party going on
inside. The balcony also offered a breathtaking view of
the Fright Zone's rocky landscape from the top of Doom
Tower.
"Yes, I did, Adora," Hordak replied, not turning from the
view. "Imp, you may go."
"Ack!" Imp acknowledged.
"Adora, please release Imp," Hordak sighed.
"Yes, Father," Adora obeyed. Imp scurried away. Adora
joined her father in admiring the scenery.
Hordak wasn't really Adora's father. In fact, Hordak
wasn't even human. The pure white skin and the glowing
red eyes signified him as a True Hordesman, a race
originally created by the Ancients to enforce their will
upon all other races. Before they left for parts unknown,
the Ancients had told the Horde that they were leaving to
make room for the lesser races.
Since they had been the enforcers of the Ancients' will,
the Horde thought themselves as the true heirs of the
Ancients' domain. Of course, others disputed the Horde's
claim, usually by trying to resist Horde conquest.
But there was a stumbling block. For whatever reason, the
Ancients had not seen fit to grant the long lived True
Hordesmen the ability to reproduce. With their numbers
dwindling due to battlefield casualties while their
territories were expanding at the same time, the Horde
had to start conscripting grunts - and eventually
officers - from their conquests.
Inevitably, some True Hordesmen began adopting and
raising youngsters of conquered races on the theory that
the adoptees would make better officers than off the
street volunteers. Adora liked to think of herself as an
excellent example of this policy.
"Adora, perhaps you could explain to me why you just
assaulted my guests?" Hordak asked. "I thought you
understood that that kind of behavior was unacceptable."
"Father, your guests were brawling with each other,"
Adora replied evenly. "I understood that that kind of
behavior is also unacceptable. So I stopped them in the
most expedient manner possible. Was I wrong?"
"Hmm, no," Hordak chuckled. "In fact, it was a joy to see
you do that to those two fools. Putting up with them has
been wearying."
"So why do you tolerate them at all?" Adora asked. "We
should conquer the lot of them and be done with it."
"I approve of your zeal, Adora," Hordak approved, "but
that just isn't... practical right now. Besides, do you
want to spend all your time on a planet full of Frogs? Or
even the Hyenas or Babboons? Believe it or not, those two
Ambassadors are actually representative of their people."
"By the Ancients, no, Father," Adora said, shuddering at
the thought.
"Just so. Besides," Hordak continued, "I make a tidy
profit selling weapons to all three of them since they
seem bent on wiping each other out."
Startled, Adora looked at Hordak wide eyed. "I thought we
did that to weaken the mutants for eventual conquest,
Father," Adora said slowly. "This talk of making a profit
seems...well, sordid."
"Ah, Adora, ever the warrior," Hordak said fondly. "You
should never blind yourself to all the benefits of any
activity. Of course we're sofening the mutants up for an
easy conquest. In the meantime, why shouldn't I benefit?
There's no negative impact on the long term strategy,
after all."
"I...see," Adora said, taken aback at the idea.
"In any case, that's not why I originally called you out
here," Hordak continued. He held up a sealed message. "I
believe I have something for you."
"Thank you, Father," Adora said, relieved at the change
in subject. She took the message. "Is that what I think
it is?"
"Open it and find out," Hordak teased.
Adora broke the wax seal and unrolled the message. Her
eyes read the fourished text. "I've been assigned to
Bright Moon?" she asked, looking up at Hordak. The former
kingdom of Bright Moon was a recent conquest, the last of
Etheria's major kingdoms to fall to the Horde.
"Yes, General Sunder thought you could use a little
experience after what happened on E... on your last
assignment," Hordak told her.
"Father, I did the best I could," Adora protested. "If
I'm to be punished with garrison duty..."
"Adora, don't look on this as punishment," Hordak soothed
her. "Look at it as a learning experience. Bright Moon is
still a hotbed of resistance. There should be more than
enough glory to go around. Besides, we're not conquering
any mew places at the moment."
"Alright, Father," Adora said dubiously.
"Now, before you report to your new unit, I have a going
away present for you."
***
"I want that one," Adora declared, pointing.
"I should have known," Hordak mused. "You always did like
horses."
By tradition, Horde infantry officers rode live mounts
into battle. Motorized vehicles were simply too rare and
expensive to serve as personal transport. The Horde's
limited vehicle production went primarily to producing
support craft like gunships and the occaisional troop
transport.
The exception was the air scooter, but no officer would
pilot the ridiculous looking things. The air scooter was
little more than a cicular antigravity pad barely big
enough to stand on. A control yoke was mounted on one
side. Aside from appearance, piloting an air scooter
required the use of both hands. This meant the pilot
couldn't fly and use a weapon at the same time.
For live mounts, Horde officers favored a variety of
animals. There was eveything from bulls to giant cats.
Flying creatures were not unknown but quietly discouraged
since their mobility had a tendency to seperate the
officer from his troops. At the Academy, the Chief
Instructor for Adora's cadre had ridden a rare wooly
mammoth.
Having the run of Hordak's stables and corales outside
of Doom Tower, Adora's gift was that she could choose any
animal there to be her mount. Adora's choice was a
beautiful white stallion with a pink mane and tail. The
horse prowled restlessly around its corale.
"That one? Oh dear," Hordak's stablemaster said, dismayed
by Adora's choice. "Mistress Adora, are you sure?"
"Yes, he's perfect," Adora answered. She noticed the
stablemaster's nervousness. "Why? What's wrong with him?"
"Yes, what?" Hordak echoed threateningly. "If your duties
have become too onerous..."
"Oh, no, no, no, Master," the stablemaster fretted. "It's
just that this horse was just freshly captured from the
wild. He's still mostly untamed. Why, he injured two
slaveboys in the past week since I recieved him. Surely
he would do Mistress Adora harm."
Studying the stallion, Adora smiled. "Saddle him up," she
ordered.
"Mistress? That horse won't let any of the slaveboys
close enough," the stablemaster protested. Quietly, he
added, "It takes time to train them, you know."
"Adora, perhaps you should consider a different mount,"
Hordak said thoughtfully. "It simply wouldn't do to have
you injured before you even report for duty."
"No, I want this one, Father," Adora said stubbornly. She
smiled reassuringly to Hordak. "I know what I'm doing.
I'll be fine." She turned to the stablemaster. "Give me
all the gear. I'll saddle him myself."
"What?!" Hordak and the stablemaster exclaimed at the
same time.
***
As she approached the stallion, Adora was peripherally
aware that she had attracted an audience. There was of
course Hordak and the stablemaster. Both were afraid for
different reasons that the horse was going to hurt Adora.
But neither was prepared to forbid Adora this.
Then there were the slaves who tended the animals in
Hordak's stables. Word had spread rapidly and they were
gathering around the corale to watch Adora make a
spectacle of herself. The slaves were also apparently
making bets among themselves, although Adora had no idea
what they had to wager. Now that she thought about it,
Adora really had no idea what a slave's lot in life was
like at all; they had always just been there.
She banished such distractions from her mind. Adora's
foremost audience now was the stallion himself. He had
stopped prowling the corale when Adora had entered his
domain. He eyed her, pawed the ground, and did other
horsey things to indicate nervousness.
Nervousness was bad. He might do something Adora would
regret.
"Nice horse," she said soothingly to the horse, holding
out a hand for him to sniff. "That's a nice horse. I want
to be your friend. You want to be my friend? I know you
do."
The stallion threw his head that looked sort of like a
nod and shake at the same time. Adora decided to ignore
the ambiguity. He hadn't bolted. That was good enough for
her. He took a good whiff of Adora's scent and seemed to
relax.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Adora," she continued,
close enough now to pat his hide and stroke his mane as
she moved to his side. "You're the most wonderful horse
I've ever seen. Yes you are. Would you let me ride you?"
As if he really understood her, the horse turned his head
to look at Adora better. He eyed the saddle and other
riding gear that Adora was carrying with what she could
have sworn was skepticism in his eyes.
"Now this won't hurt you at all," Adora told the horse as
she held up the saddle. "It's just to help me, okay?" She
set the saddle on the horse's back.
Startled, the stallion reared up on his hind legs with a
loud neigh. Holding one hand onto his mane and one on the
saddle, Adora was lifted off her feet. Acting more on
instinct than anything else, Adora let the saddle go
flying into the dirt while she swung her self onto the
stallion's now bare back. This induced him to cavort some
more in an attempt to dislodge Adora.
After what seemed like forever, he stopped bucking. He
didn't seem exhausted to Adora. Maybe he actually liked
her up there. Now, all Adora had to do was persuade him
to wear all the riding gear. But that would require her
to actually get off her horse's back, something she
didn't want to do just yet.
Of his own will, Adora's stallion trotted around the
corale, practically snarling a dare at the onlookers to
get in biting range. No one seemed incline to take him up
on it. Two onlookers in particular caught Adora's
attention.
"I don't believe it," the stablemaster said, gawking at
girl and horse.
"Ha! That's my girl!" Hordak laughed proudly, slapping
the stablemaster on the back hard enough to almost send
him tumbling into the corale. Luckily for him, Adora and
her ride were on the other side of the corale at that
moment.
"You've certainly got spirit," Adora told her mount as he
glared the now dispersing crowd. "Hey, would you like to
be called that?"
Adora's new stallion whinnied a reply.
"Okay, 'Spirit' it is!"
***
Next: In Part 2, Adora joins her new unit, meets friends
and enemies, and has trouble telling them apart.
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author
EMail Address: [email protected]
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.
Spoilers: Anything goes
Summary: Before joining her new unit, Adora recieves
lectures, orders, and a going-away present. Sequel to
Mission Report.
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their
owners who I'm too lazy to list.
The Ambassador, Adora thought, was a Frog.
He drooled. He was slimy. He made lewd jokes. He also had
an overinflated ego. None of these traits endeared him to
Adora. But he was also Hordak's guest, so Adora couldn't
just clock him no matter how much he annoyed her.
When Adora was younger, Hordak had been careful to forbid
her from attending his many political or diplomatic
parties. Hordak had told her that she was too young, that
she might impulsively do something that would embarrass
him. At the time, Adora thought he was being unfair.
Now that Hordak had deemed her old enough and disciplined
enough, Adora wished Hordak still forbade her to attend
these parties. But since she had officially become an
officer of the Horde, Adora was required to attend. She
had never imagined these parties could be so boring.
The Ambassador, for example, was lecturing her ear off on
a subject that held absolutely no interest at all for
Adora: his people's ideology. In the distant past, the
Ancients had taken his pure animal ancestors and uplifted
them to full sentience by giving them human traits. In
Ambassador's eyes, this made his people special, favored
in the eyes of the Ancients.
If Adora could have gotten in a word edgewise, she might
have debated the Ambassador on this point. There were at
least two other such uplifted species. In fact, the
Ambassador's people and these others called themselves
"mutants" and had once formed an alliance against their
enemies, a people whose human ancestors had traits from
different cat species grafted into them by the Ancients.
The mutants had viewed these cat/human hybrids as
"devolved" in contrast to their being "evolved".
Frankly, the distinction was completely lost on Adora.
The Frog Ambassador's monologue came to a blessed end
when the Hyena Ambassador intruded. The second was fairly
drunk and challenged the Frog to a duel of insults. The
Frog accepted gladly. Of course, this quickly degenerated
into the physical as they tried to choke the life out of
each other. Since the cat people's homeworld - the name
escaped Adora - had been destroyed, the mutants' alliance
had fallen apart as they turned on each other, each
determined to prove their own "superiority".
After a few token tries at calming them down, Adora just
took each Ambassador by their shoulders and shoved their
heads together with a satisfying crack. Both slumped to
the ground unconcious.
"Ooh! I'm gonna tell Hordak!" said someone behind Adora,
his whiny voice accompanied by the fast fluttering of
wings.
"Get bent, Imp," Adora replied, unruffled. She didn't
even bother to look at the little pest.
"I'll tell him you said that," Imp told her nastily as he
fluttered around Adora. He sighed dramatically. "And
after he sent me to fetch you, too! How ever will he
re-ACK!" Imp was so caught up in his own melodramatics
that he forgot to keep an eye on Adora.
"Well why didn't you say so?" Adora demanded, shaking the
little guy by the throat. "Lead the way."
***
"You wanted to see me, Father?"
They met on a balcony offset from Hordak's throne room.
It offered a modicum of privacy from the party going on
inside. The balcony also offered a breathtaking view of
the Fright Zone's rocky landscape from the top of Doom
Tower.
"Yes, I did, Adora," Hordak replied, not turning from the
view. "Imp, you may go."
"Ack!" Imp acknowledged.
"Adora, please release Imp," Hordak sighed.
"Yes, Father," Adora obeyed. Imp scurried away. Adora
joined her father in admiring the scenery.
Hordak wasn't really Adora's father. In fact, Hordak
wasn't even human. The pure white skin and the glowing
red eyes signified him as a True Hordesman, a race
originally created by the Ancients to enforce their will
upon all other races. Before they left for parts unknown,
the Ancients had told the Horde that they were leaving to
make room for the lesser races.
Since they had been the enforcers of the Ancients' will,
the Horde thought themselves as the true heirs of the
Ancients' domain. Of course, others disputed the Horde's
claim, usually by trying to resist Horde conquest.
But there was a stumbling block. For whatever reason, the
Ancients had not seen fit to grant the long lived True
Hordesmen the ability to reproduce. With their numbers
dwindling due to battlefield casualties while their
territories were expanding at the same time, the Horde
had to start conscripting grunts - and eventually
officers - from their conquests.
Inevitably, some True Hordesmen began adopting and
raising youngsters of conquered races on the theory that
the adoptees would make better officers than off the
street volunteers. Adora liked to think of herself as an
excellent example of this policy.
"Adora, perhaps you could explain to me why you just
assaulted my guests?" Hordak asked. "I thought you
understood that that kind of behavior was unacceptable."
"Father, your guests were brawling with each other,"
Adora replied evenly. "I understood that that kind of
behavior is also unacceptable. So I stopped them in the
most expedient manner possible. Was I wrong?"
"Hmm, no," Hordak chuckled. "In fact, it was a joy to see
you do that to those two fools. Putting up with them has
been wearying."
"So why do you tolerate them at all?" Adora asked. "We
should conquer the lot of them and be done with it."
"I approve of your zeal, Adora," Hordak approved, "but
that just isn't... practical right now. Besides, do you
want to spend all your time on a planet full of Frogs? Or
even the Hyenas or Babboons? Believe it or not, those two
Ambassadors are actually representative of their people."
"By the Ancients, no, Father," Adora said, shuddering at
the thought.
"Just so. Besides," Hordak continued, "I make a tidy
profit selling weapons to all three of them since they
seem bent on wiping each other out."
Startled, Adora looked at Hordak wide eyed. "I thought we
did that to weaken the mutants for eventual conquest,
Father," Adora said slowly. "This talk of making a profit
seems...well, sordid."
"Ah, Adora, ever the warrior," Hordak said fondly. "You
should never blind yourself to all the benefits of any
activity. Of course we're sofening the mutants up for an
easy conquest. In the meantime, why shouldn't I benefit?
There's no negative impact on the long term strategy,
after all."
"I...see," Adora said, taken aback at the idea.
"In any case, that's not why I originally called you out
here," Hordak continued. He held up a sealed message. "I
believe I have something for you."
"Thank you, Father," Adora said, relieved at the change
in subject. She took the message. "Is that what I think
it is?"
"Open it and find out," Hordak teased.
Adora broke the wax seal and unrolled the message. Her
eyes read the fourished text. "I've been assigned to
Bright Moon?" she asked, looking up at Hordak. The former
kingdom of Bright Moon was a recent conquest, the last of
Etheria's major kingdoms to fall to the Horde.
"Yes, General Sunder thought you could use a little
experience after what happened on E... on your last
assignment," Hordak told her.
"Father, I did the best I could," Adora protested. "If
I'm to be punished with garrison duty..."
"Adora, don't look on this as punishment," Hordak soothed
her. "Look at it as a learning experience. Bright Moon is
still a hotbed of resistance. There should be more than
enough glory to go around. Besides, we're not conquering
any mew places at the moment."
"Alright, Father," Adora said dubiously.
"Now, before you report to your new unit, I have a going
away present for you."
***
"I want that one," Adora declared, pointing.
"I should have known," Hordak mused. "You always did like
horses."
By tradition, Horde infantry officers rode live mounts
into battle. Motorized vehicles were simply too rare and
expensive to serve as personal transport. The Horde's
limited vehicle production went primarily to producing
support craft like gunships and the occaisional troop
transport.
The exception was the air scooter, but no officer would
pilot the ridiculous looking things. The air scooter was
little more than a cicular antigravity pad barely big
enough to stand on. A control yoke was mounted on one
side. Aside from appearance, piloting an air scooter
required the use of both hands. This meant the pilot
couldn't fly and use a weapon at the same time.
For live mounts, Horde officers favored a variety of
animals. There was eveything from bulls to giant cats.
Flying creatures were not unknown but quietly discouraged
since their mobility had a tendency to seperate the
officer from his troops. At the Academy, the Chief
Instructor for Adora's cadre had ridden a rare wooly
mammoth.
Having the run of Hordak's stables and corales outside
of Doom Tower, Adora's gift was that she could choose any
animal there to be her mount. Adora's choice was a
beautiful white stallion with a pink mane and tail. The
horse prowled restlessly around its corale.
"That one? Oh dear," Hordak's stablemaster said, dismayed
by Adora's choice. "Mistress Adora, are you sure?"
"Yes, he's perfect," Adora answered. She noticed the
stablemaster's nervousness. "Why? What's wrong with him?"
"Yes, what?" Hordak echoed threateningly. "If your duties
have become too onerous..."
"Oh, no, no, no, Master," the stablemaster fretted. "It's
just that this horse was just freshly captured from the
wild. He's still mostly untamed. Why, he injured two
slaveboys in the past week since I recieved him. Surely
he would do Mistress Adora harm."
Studying the stallion, Adora smiled. "Saddle him up," she
ordered.
"Mistress? That horse won't let any of the slaveboys
close enough," the stablemaster protested. Quietly, he
added, "It takes time to train them, you know."
"Adora, perhaps you should consider a different mount,"
Hordak said thoughtfully. "It simply wouldn't do to have
you injured before you even report for duty."
"No, I want this one, Father," Adora said stubbornly. She
smiled reassuringly to Hordak. "I know what I'm doing.
I'll be fine." She turned to the stablemaster. "Give me
all the gear. I'll saddle him myself."
"What?!" Hordak and the stablemaster exclaimed at the
same time.
***
As she approached the stallion, Adora was peripherally
aware that she had attracted an audience. There was of
course Hordak and the stablemaster. Both were afraid for
different reasons that the horse was going to hurt Adora.
But neither was prepared to forbid Adora this.
Then there were the slaves who tended the animals in
Hordak's stables. Word had spread rapidly and they were
gathering around the corale to watch Adora make a
spectacle of herself. The slaves were also apparently
making bets among themselves, although Adora had no idea
what they had to wager. Now that she thought about it,
Adora really had no idea what a slave's lot in life was
like at all; they had always just been there.
She banished such distractions from her mind. Adora's
foremost audience now was the stallion himself. He had
stopped prowling the corale when Adora had entered his
domain. He eyed her, pawed the ground, and did other
horsey things to indicate nervousness.
Nervousness was bad. He might do something Adora would
regret.
"Nice horse," she said soothingly to the horse, holding
out a hand for him to sniff. "That's a nice horse. I want
to be your friend. You want to be my friend? I know you
do."
The stallion threw his head that looked sort of like a
nod and shake at the same time. Adora decided to ignore
the ambiguity. He hadn't bolted. That was good enough for
her. He took a good whiff of Adora's scent and seemed to
relax.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Adora," she continued,
close enough now to pat his hide and stroke his mane as
she moved to his side. "You're the most wonderful horse
I've ever seen. Yes you are. Would you let me ride you?"
As if he really understood her, the horse turned his head
to look at Adora better. He eyed the saddle and other
riding gear that Adora was carrying with what she could
have sworn was skepticism in his eyes.
"Now this won't hurt you at all," Adora told the horse as
she held up the saddle. "It's just to help me, okay?" She
set the saddle on the horse's back.
Startled, the stallion reared up on his hind legs with a
loud neigh. Holding one hand onto his mane and one on the
saddle, Adora was lifted off her feet. Acting more on
instinct than anything else, Adora let the saddle go
flying into the dirt while she swung her self onto the
stallion's now bare back. This induced him to cavort some
more in an attempt to dislodge Adora.
After what seemed like forever, he stopped bucking. He
didn't seem exhausted to Adora. Maybe he actually liked
her up there. Now, all Adora had to do was persuade him
to wear all the riding gear. But that would require her
to actually get off her horse's back, something she
didn't want to do just yet.
Of his own will, Adora's stallion trotted around the
corale, practically snarling a dare at the onlookers to
get in biting range. No one seemed incline to take him up
on it. Two onlookers in particular caught Adora's
attention.
"I don't believe it," the stablemaster said, gawking at
girl and horse.
"Ha! That's my girl!" Hordak laughed proudly, slapping
the stablemaster on the back hard enough to almost send
him tumbling into the corale. Luckily for him, Adora and
her ride were on the other side of the corale at that
moment.
"You've certainly got spirit," Adora told her mount as he
glared the now dispersing crowd. "Hey, would you like to
be called that?"
Adora's new stallion whinnied a reply.
"Okay, 'Spirit' it is!"
***
Next: In Part 2, Adora joins her new unit, meets friends
and enemies, and has trouble telling them apart.