trapped | catra

21 | The Boy With Arrows

Adora takes out her spear and blocks the creature, it flies above them and Y/N yelps.

"What's going on?!" she exclaims. "I don't know!" Adora replied.

Adora tried to shield Y/N from whatever was happening. But then a tall figure jumped at them. Adora held out her spear to stop... a person? It was a woman with mechanical arms!

Adora widen her eyes in shock. "Woah... you have cool arms! How did you— AAH!" Adora was thrown aside by the girl. Adora just happened to bump into Y/N and they both fell over.

"Adora, stop admiring people's arms!" Y/N said, half serious and half joking. Adora scoffed. "What? They looked cool!" she said defensively.

Two other people then appeared. Adora held her spear in front of her and the three people all pressed down on it.

"Who are you people?" A guy asked. "Where did you come from?" The girl with mechanical arms asked. "Do you work for horde prime?" The other girl asked. Adora suddenly pushed them back.

"Which question do you want me to answer? I can't answer all three at once!" Adora said with an annoyed tone. The three of them eyed each other before the guy asked, "Do you work for horde prime?!" They were all clearly annoyed. Then there was just Y/N who was as confused as ever.

"No! Do you?" Adora asked. "No!" They all exclaimed. "Then stop fighting us!" Adora said. After a few moments, they all backed down. Adora sighed.

"We didn't mean to frighten you. I'm Adora," she said, then gestured to Y/N. "This is Y/N." Y/N waved at them with a small smile. "We don't want to fight, we're just looking for fuel crystals," Adora continued.

The three others exchanged glances. "We're here for that as well," the short girl said, smiling. Adora smiled back.

"Then once my friends get here, we can—"

"There's more of you?!"

(With Bow and Glimmer)

They followed the large crack in the ground far enough until it started to get smaller and less deep. Bow suddenly stopped which caused Glimmer to bump into him. Glimmer chuckled.

"Sorry," she said. Bow smiled back at her and then look back at the crack in the ground. "I think it'll be alright if we go down here. Try not to hurt yourself," he mumbled the last part, as if he wanted no one to hear, but Glimmer clearly heard. She frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, a bit defensively. Bow swallowed so loud, that Adora and Y/N could probably even hear it.

"I'm just saying that... y'know... you could get— look, I'm just trying to showing genuine concern for you, okay?" he said. Glimmer raised her eyebrow. "But why would I get hurt? Are you calling me weak?" Glimmer's voice rises a bit as she speaks.

"What?" Bow was quick to respond. "Of course not! I'm just saying that... because you can't use your powers and everything..." his voice trailed off.

"You are calling me weak!" Glimmer exclaimed angrily. "I'm not!" Bow yelled back. "I'm just saying to be careful. Can I not care for you at all? I already lost you once, I'm not losing you again!" You could hear the pain and fear in Bow's voice as he yelled at Glimmer. His words silenced her.

Bow's expression softened and he sighed. "Adora and Y/N are waiting for us, we should keep going," he said. Glimmer was still silent in shock as she watched him. She noticed him starting to walk away and she grabbed his arm.

"Bow wait," she said quickly. He stopped moving but refused to look at her. He refused to look her dead in the eye. He refused to look at her innocent face that stole his heart. He refused to.

"Are you talking about when I was on Horde Prime's ship? Is that what this is? Are you... are you afraid? Are you afraid of war? Of Horde Prime?" That word... "afraid"... Bow hated it. He hated the feeling and the thought of even using that word. But it described exactly how he was feeling at the moment.

He wanted to lie. To refuse that he was afraid. But he couldn't. Glimmer would see right passed him. She knew him too well.

"Yes. Yes, I'm afraid. Afraid of losing the people I care about," he spoke as he suddenly turned to face Glimmer. He stepped closer to her and looked her dead in the eye. "But I'm not afraid of war. I'm not afraid of Horde Prime. I will— no, we will defeat him. Without getting severely injured. Without... losing each other. That is what I'm afraid of."

Bow's words could practically shatter someone's soul. They were so powerful and emotional. You could almost see his eyes water, but he rubbed them almost immediately.

"I thought I lost you Glimmer. But here you are in front of me... because I decided to be brave. I decided to fight against Horde Prime. I... I put my trust in someone who used to fight against us," Bow says, sighing after. "I never thought I'd be here right now. I never thought I'd be anywhere other then Etheria. Everything is changing so fast, I'm afraid I might not be able to keep up," he looked away, suddenly embarrassed by all that he said.

"Hey," Glimmer spoke soft and reassuringly. Bow looked back at her and chuckled. "This is weird, isn't it?" he asked. He clearly looked uncomfortable "No, it's not," Glimmer replied, smiling a bit. "Why didn't you tell me this before, hm?" Bow sighed.

"I'm sorry, I..." he went silent. "It's okay," Glimmer said. "Hug?" Bow simply nodded. Glimmer then wrapped her arms around him and he wrapped his arms around her. You could hear him let out a small sigh of relief, as if he was happy there in Glimmer's arms.

The two just stood there, trapped in the moment. It was just the two of them. Even though Bow didn't say more, Glimmer already understood. She understood how he felt. He was confused and scared. She was sure at least fifty other people were feeling the same thing right now.

The sound of Bow's tracker pad brought them back to reality. Bow took one last breath before pulling away. Glimmer cleared her throat awkwardly. He chuckled softly.

"Sorry," he said. "No, it's fine," Glimmer quickly said. At that, Bow turned to look at his tracker pad. His face changed from embarrassment to curiosity.

"I'm picking up the energy of the crystals again. We should probably get to Y/N and Adora now," he said. Glimmer nodded. "Yeah, you're right," she said, a bit of disappointment in her voice. She wanted this moment to last. She wanted to listen to Bow tell her all his worries. But their people were in danger. She forgot about that factor for a moment.

They both looked down at the crack in the ground then back at each other with confident smiles. Then they slipped inside... totally unprepared for whatever was ahead.

Word count: 1188

I wrote this chapter in like thirty minutes LOL. I'm also starting hs in September so yay! Congrats to the class of 2023! Have a good day/night!

love, clouds <3