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Another day of trudging through the arid desert, another moonrise sat around a campfire. Dirty, tired and bereft of her magical powers, the mage known to all of Eternia as Evil-Lyn contemplated just how she had gotten into these dire circumstances. Skeletor had sent her to the city of Aridan, to steal water from the famous Fountain of Life, though she naturally hoped to seize its power for herself. Only the hopelessly naive Teela stood in Lyn’s way, but that shouldn’t have presented a problem. A more pressing concern arose when the entire building that contained the Fountain was magically ripped from its foundations with both women inside, flying into the sky and away from Aridan. The wizard Kothos revealed himself as the perpetrator, swiftly stole Evil-lyn’s powers for himself and dumped the witch and the warrior into the desert to die.
For the past two days, bitter enemies had agreed to a truce and headed for the mountain ridge on the horizon, hoping to find at least some shelter from the sun, if not a way out of this wasteland. Though initially irritated by Teela’s presence, Lyn privately had to admit that she would not have made it this far on her own. There was much to admire about the skilled and determined warrior, even if her talents were being wasted in the service of that fool King Randor.
Earlier in the day, some of the scavenging beasts that called this desert home got too close, their hunger driving them to attack. A hunger Lyn could understand, given that without magic to act as a substitute, lack of food was starting to gnaw away at her stomach. She had resigned herself to being torn apart there and then, but Teela drew her sword and fought off the creatures. The woman who had caused her such pain, threatened her life, imprisoned her in dungeons, hurled every vicious insult imaginable. Yet the fierce warrior took a step to her front and defended the ruthless witch without hesitation. For the rest of their seemingly unending march through the sands, Lyn was uncommonly quiet. Awareness of the debt she owed to Teela, coupled with guilt for how she had treated her saviour in the past, ate away at her insides as much as the hunger.
The first night had seen them sat at opposite ends of the campfire, as if to emphasise the division between them. Tonight, they sat side-by-side, with neither drawing attention to the subject.
Lost in reflection, Lyn didn’t notice Teela looking at her with concern, until she spoke up. “Are you alright? You’ve barely said a word for hours, not even to insult me. What’s wrong…besides the obvious?”
The witch sighed and finally looked at her companion’s weather-beaten face. Despite her disheveled appearance, Lyn was struck by how beautiful the redhead was. Which didn’t make her task any easier. “Teela, there is something I need to tell you, something important. But first, you must swear on your honour that not a word of what you're about to hear will pass your lips.”
Lyn offered her hand to seal the pact. Teela brought her own hand up, but stopped short. “I’ll make you a counter-offer: I will swear that oath, if you will do the same. I’ve got some things to get off my chest as well. Not about Grayskull or the Palace or anything like that, but about you and me.”
Lyn contemplated the proposal for a moment, then nodded. “Very well, I promise to keep your secrets, Teela. I know my word isn't worth much, but I swear: on this, I will not betray you. If only to spite Skeletor”. Thinking to herself that she wasn't going to get the opportunity to break the oath anyway, even if she wanted to. May as well try and cling to some sliver of decency at the end of her wretched life.
Teela grinned and clasped Lyn’s hand. “In that case, I swear to you that whatever is said here tonight is between me, you and the desert.” She let go of the grip. “So what’s on your mind?”
The witch looked away, getting ready to make a painful admission. “Thank you…thank you for defending me from those beasts.”
Teela smiled. “Oh, that. Don’t worry about it. You saved me from that Sand Devil today, and you kept me from freezing last night. Not that I’m keeping score, mind you. When this is over, we’re even, okay?”
Lyn was unimpressed. “You would immediately forgive your debtors? I know I use the word somewhat liberally, but Teela, that really is foolish of you.”
The warrior shrugged. “I’m not the kind of person to leverage debts. I don’t want you feeling like you owe me. Besides, when you get your powers back, it’s not as if I could make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”
Lyn looked at the fire and the darkness beyond. Apropos for the despair that was on the verge of consuming her. “I’m not going to get my powers back, because I’m not going to make it out of here alive. You will, I only slow you down.”
Teela shifted her position, turning to address her partner in survival. “Hey now, don’t you go losing hope. What happened to the woman who was so determined to prove herself yesterday?”
“That was pride talking. Let’s be realistic, I don't have a chance. I’m just telling you all this now so I can die with some small bit of peace.” She hugged her knees tight against her chest. “Admit it, you’ll be glad to see the back of me. Your life will have a lot less danger in it.”
“We’ve been on opposite sides of a fight more times than I can count, Evil-lyn. But I would take no joy if you were dead.”
“You and your friends will all say that, make the right noises. But I know that when I’m gone, Eternia will celebrate.”
Teela’s hand shot out and grabbed the mage’s chin, turning her face to meet the redhead’s determined look. “Listen to me and listen well. I need you. I’ve only survived this long because of you, and I know the only reason I’ll continue to survive is because of you. I am not giving up on you, even if you’ve given up on yourself. We’re going to get out of this desert together, even if I have to drag you the rest of the way!”
Evil-lyn was stunned to hear such a declaration. Her gaze drifted down to the hand on her chin and Teela’s eyes followed. Realising she had potentially crossed a line with physical contact, she let go and looked away.
A moment passed before a rueful smile was on Lyn’s face. Teela’s impassioned speech having brought her out of the miasma of self-pity and self-loathing, at least for now. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a stubborn piece of work?”
The redhead shrugged. “All the time. Mostly my father, not that I ever listen.”
“Hmph, I don’t agree with him on much, but he’s right in this case. So…what was it you wanted to share with me?”
“You remember our little confrontation on the Isle of Tears?”
“I try to forget.”
The memory still caused the mage to wince in pain. She had been enlisted by the island’s ruler Gorgon to smear the reputation of his former servant, the sorceress Sibyline, who had defected to the side of good. Her efforts ultimately failed and Sibyline brought He-Man's do-gooders with her, reinstating the imprisoned King Danton to his throne. The worst part was having to fight Sibyline herself. That stung worse than any defeat. Seeing that the odds were against her, Evil-lyn had teleported out and left Gorgon to his fate.
“Just before we left, Sibyline pulled me aside and we talked in private. She told me…about you and her.”
That got Lyn’s full attention. “What did she tell you?”
Teela kept a wary eye on the mage. Her companion had no spells to cast, but she might throw a punch for what the redhead was about to disclose. “She told me that you were lovers before. That while you were both wicked to everybody else, you were different behind closed doors. She said that your words were kind, your touch was gentle, your kiss was tender, your smile and your laugh held no malice, you were filled with love. She cherished every moment the two of you spent together…”
The witch kept her head turned away, unable to let the warrior see how deeply she was affected. “Apparently, Sibby didn’t cherish them enough to keep them private.” She scoffed.
“Sibyline told me because she knew she wouldn’t get a chance to speak to you again, but I might. She knows that you only acted against her because you felt betrayed by her defection. She wanted me to deliver a message: in spite of everything, she still loves you and she’s sorry that she hurt you.”
Silence from the white-haired mage, so Teela continued.
“She believes that underneath it all, you’re still the good person that she knew. She hopes that one day, you’ll give up on this quest for power and know the happiness that she feels.”
For long moments, there was only the crackling of the fire. Teela wondered if she had just done something unforgivable and lost her only chance at connecting with the witch’s better side.
At last, Lyn spoke. Not bothering to deny the secrets revealed by her former lover, she sounded wistful. Reflecting on happier times. “Did it shock you, then? To be told that a black-hearted villain like me could have that special someone?”
The warrior shook her head. “Not...shocked, exactly. Just surprised." Awkward, she made the same admission that had astounded Sibyline. "I was confused that it was…”
“Was what?”
Teela felt rather sheepish, rubbing the back of her neck. “Well, that the ‘someone’ was a woman.”
Lyn arched an eyebrow. “What’s confusing about that?” She searched the warrior’s face, then it struck her. “Are you telling me you didn’t know two women could…?”
Embarrassed, Teela looked down at her boots and nodded.
She heard a low chuckle start, then keep going, escalating to full laughter. Not the usual malevolent cackling, but a belly laugh of genuine amusement. She looked up in annoyance. “It’s not funny!”
Lyn chortled. “Oh, I beg to differ.”
“Glad my ignorance amuses you.”
Lyn gradually recovered. “Look at it this way: I ought to be furious at you and Sibby for treating my most intimate relations like a canvas to be studied at leisure…but this is just too delicious.” This set off another round of chuckling.
“Finished?”
Evil-lyn grinned at her. “Just about. In all seriousness, how could you not know?”
Teela sighed, realising it was her turn to give up personal secrets. “Guess I’ve just been too focused on my duty. I spent half my life beating up the boys who dreamed of becoming soldiers, and the other half beating up the men who did become soldiers. I didn’t count any girls among my friends growing up. Even now, there are few women in my life that I'm close to. At least, not that kind of close. ”
Sensing a chance to turn the tables, the mage leaned in. “But you live in a city, surely you must have noticed some ladies who prefer the feminine touch?”
“I did see women holding hands and kissing, when I would go down to the city on a day off. I just assumed that’s what girls who were good friends did.”
Lyn rolled her eyes. “How incredibly naïve.”
“Look, I didn’t know then, but I know now, alright!?” Teela snapped, then softened as she admitted "I’ve been…researching.”
“Hands-on research?”
The redhead blushed, hoping the witch wouldn’t deduce how much she wished that were the case. “No, just…reading what I can. Keeping my eyes open.”
Feeling satisfied that she had gotten her own back, Lyn didn’t press any further. Instead, she took another line of enquiry. “You've heard Sibby's glowing review of my supposed 'better side', what do you think? Do you believe that I’m somehow secretly a good person?” Her tone mocked the idea.
Teela finally met her gaze. “Before I believed, now I’m certain. Since we’ve been out here, you could have left me to die a dozen times over, but you didn’t.” Lyn started to protest, but the redhead kept going. “And I know, you have a dozen excuses lined up about how you’re only looking out for yourself by helping me, but I don’t buy it. Your heart is not as black as you want everyone to think it is. I don’t know what it was that led your life down this path, maybe I shouldn’t know. But these past two days, you’ve shown me that deep down, the woman Sibyline knew is still in there, trying to scratch and claw her way out. Please, find it in you to reject evil, just as she did, and join the side of good.”
The witch was again silent, wondering how she had ended up on the defensive again.
“Hmph. Good. Evil. You and your friends talk in such absolutes. Have you ever considered how easily that moral high ground you occupy could crumble? That the road from being so insufferably righteous to being as bad as me, if not worse, is much shorter than you think?”
Teela became agitated. “Are you questioning my honour?”
Lyn was quick with the retort. “Honour is nothing if it is not tested. Last night, you questioned my allegiance and my loyalty. Perhaps you were hoping I might switch sides?”
Teela was taken aback. Was she really that transparent?
The mage was surprisingly understanding. “Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the effort. But if I had to listen to that, then tonight, you have to sit there and take your medicine.”
Accepting that was a fair exchange, Teela let out a breath and readied herself for some harsh truths. “Very well, go ahead.”
“Do you remember when I infiltrated the Royal Palace as ‘Magestra’, and Beast Man impersonated your King?”
“I remember, alright. You turned me into a frog and wanted to keep me as a pet!”
The mage was unrepentant. “You would have been given a good home. The point is, our plan was to use the military might at the King’s disposal to annex Castle Grayskull.”
“But He-Man stopped you.”
A slight scowl of irritation at the memory, but Lyn continued. “Yes, He-Man stopped us, but not one amongst your ranks did. I was in the room when Beast Man gave the order and your father didn’t raise the slightest objection, just went to carry out his King’s will like a good soldier.”
Teela snapped back. “Of course you would find something wrong with that!”
Evil-lyn softened her tone slightly, like a teacher trying to make her obtuse student understand an obvious lesson. “But don’t you see? How easy it was to turn the power of the state to ruthless ends. What if one day the threat came from within? Whether Randor or Adam or someone else, what if your ruler’s heart did lay in conquest? Who could stop him? You think you are secure in your moral luxury, but one man’s whims are all that keep you from being ordered to commit atrocities that would disgust even me.”
Squirming under the witch’s words, Teela lashed out defensively. “I didn’t know you could be disgusted by atrocity!”
“Oh no? I seek power and will use almost any means to acquire it, but I draw the line at brutalising peasants. After all, they already fear me and they have no power to take. There is nothing more to gain from them. But in our little imaginary scenario, any neighbouring kingdom that did not bend the knee would be made to suffer. There would be invasion after invasion, war after war. Before you know it, you’re moving from town to town, slaughtering unarmed men, setting fire to houses with families inside, turning a blind eye as your Guards drag young women into alleys…” The contempt in Lyn's voice for such savage acts was very real.
Teela was horrified. “I would never do such things! Not in a million ages!”
“If it’s gone that far, if your ruler has become a full-blown tyrant, you don’t get to just politely decline. Nor could you just resign your commission and walk away. If you truly are as virtuous as you claim…and I hope…” Such an admission caught the warrior’s attention. “You will have two choices: desert and become an outlaw like me, or stay where you are and very soon your head will decorate a spike atop the Palace ramparts.”
The warrior shivered, though not from cold. Her worldview had just been turned upside down and shaken out for good measure. Her voice small, she tentatively asked “So if it did happen, what would you rather I do?”
“Honestly? I would hope your vaunted goodness would hold true and you would fight against them. I would take you in.” She shrugged. “Of course, I would reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’.”
Teela was confused. "You want me to uphold my honour? All this time, you've tried to persuade me to be evil like you."
The witch rolled her eyes. "Again with the childish 'good and evil' talk. There is no contradiction here, I seek the easiest way to get what I want."
"Which is...besides power, obviously?"
"The same thing you want, as much as you try to deny it."
Teela's eyes widened with realisation, gesturing with her hand back and forth between the two of them "This?"
The witch nodded, "For starters."
The warrior looked away. "I can't deny that we make a good team. Scratch that, we make a great team. If there was some way I could stand with you without having to tear down everything I stand for...then yes, I do want that. But if you're saying it would only happen by condemning Eternos to tyranny and the rest of Eternia to endless war...I'm sorry, Lyn, that's too much of a price to pay."
A disappointing response, but expected. "I'm not saying I wish that to be the outcome, only that you must be prepared for it."
Feeling bold, Lyn returned the gesture from earlier: reaching out to Teela’s chin and bringing her eye-to-eye in order to drill her point home. “That is the true test of your life, my dear. Not some grand cosmic threat, not some slathering monster, not Skeletor…” She smirked. “Not even me. It will be a question: when your liege no longer allows you the privilege of being both obedient and honourable…which will you choose?”
Letting go of her rival, Lyn allowed her to ponder that question. While she didn’t answer it directly, Teela’s eventual response told the witch all she needed to know. “If it was inevitable that I had to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with somebody from Snake Mountain…I’m glad it was you. I can only imagine the scintillating conversation I would get if it were Beast Man.”
Lyn chuckled. “Oh, believe me, if you’d had to put up with his stupidity for even a day, then his pelt would be your coat and the rest of him would be your dinner.”
Despite her protestations that she wasn’t that ruthless, Teela couldn’t help but flash a wry grin at the comment. “I mean it though. In spite of how we got here, I do enjoy talking with you.”
A ghost of a smile formed at Lyn’s mouth, before she laid down on her side and smoothed out her cape against the sand. “Time to get some sleep, I think. We’ll need all our strength for tomorrow.”
Teela nodded. “That we will.”
The witch raised her arm to hold her cape open, inviting her partner in. “Do you still want to be this close to me, now that you know my proclivities? Or would you rather go without?”
The redhead thought back to the act of kindness she received the prior evening, speaking softly and sincerely. “Last night, I almost froze to death until you covered me up and kept me warm. I’m not about to be ungrateful.”
“Well, come on then. One more night and this will be over.”
“Yes…then it will be over…”
The lament in Teela’s voice was shared by the white-haired mage. The warrior maneuvered herself into position and laid down on Lyn’s cloak, her back nestled into the other woman’s chest. The other half of the garment came down to cover both of them. Evil-Lyn instinctively brought her hand down to the young warrior’s waist, before thinking better of it and slowly withdrawing. Teela then reached out and gently brought the witch's hand back into position over her stomach and kept it there.
Lyn raised an eyebrow at such a move. A couple of inches away from the redhead’s ear, she whispered. “Admit it.”
The voice that responded was soft, drowsy. “Admit what?”
“Ever since Sibby told you about our past, you’ve been curious. You want to know what it’s like.”
“...Maybe.”
“No ‘maybe’ about it. Just confess: you told me all of that because you want what I gave her. You do all your research in books, but really, you hope that I will be the one to teach you.”
“Well, would you?”
Lyn sighed. “I’m sure I’ve said it sarcastically a time or two, but right now, I genuinely am sorry to disappoint you.”
“What, I’m not your type?”
“Quite the contrary. If I had my powers back and wasn’t so tired, I would open a portal and take you somewhere nice. Imagine it, Teela: some far, green country. Some running water…”
“Don’t need to imagine. There’s this lake in the Evergreen Forest, at the base of a waterfall. Beautiful place, used to swim there when we were kids. Haven’t been back there lately.”
“I would be happy to rectify that for you. All you need do is ask me and I will take you there. I would help you bathe, and get rid of this sand.” Lyn put her lips right next to Teela’s ear and whispered seductively. “Then I would lay you on the grass and show you things that would curl your toes and make you see stars in the daytime.”
Teela suddenly felt a lot warmer and it had little to do with being covered by the cloak. Still, that little voice telling her not to believe the devious witch was sounding the alarm. “Wait a minute, if you had your powers back, you’d have no reason to keep this truce going.”
“I’ve just described a very good reason to keep it going a little while longer, if you want it. I can be flexible.”
“Can you now?”
“Try me.”
“We get out of this…I just might.”
“We’ll see.”
Teela’s body began to relax and after several seconds, Lyn thought she might have fallen asleep, until the redhead spoke up. “If that’s how you truly feel about me, then I’m surprised you didn’t just have your way with me the last time I was chained up in Snake Mountain.”
“If you truly believe I would do such a thing, that proves you don’t know me at all. I am no stranger to trading in carnal pleasures in pursuit of greater goals, but I merely offer that which is freely desired. I do not force myself on others in such a manner and I will not tolerate it from anyone else. I may have low standards, but that is despicable You may have noticed that every time you or another woman have been taken prisoner, you are treated equal to men. Not well, I grant you, but equal. That’s not because the hot-blooded mammals among our ranks are models of restraint. It’s because they know: if I catch them even thinking about it, I will make them suffer the slowest, most agonising death imaginable. And I have quite the imagination.”
Silence followed, save for the crackling of the fire and the desert winds overhead. Unable to see her face, Lyn couldn’t tell if Teela was shocked by this revelation, or had simply dropped off in the middle of it. Her answer came below the cloak as she felt the warrior's hand move and interlace its fingers with her own. Barely audible, the woman in her arms replied. “I can’t speak for the others…but thank you for protecting me, Lyn…then and now.”
Teela expected the witch to reply with a sarcastic “You’re welcome”. Instead, she felt movement behind, then surprise as a pair of soft lips left a tender kiss on her cheek. More movement, before her partner settled down under the cloak once more and the hand intertwined with hers tightened its grip “No, my dear….thank you. Goodnight, Teela”
As the darkness descended to claim her for yet another night, the warrior's thoughts were jumbled, unable to decipher the meaning behind the witch's ambiguous response. Before the lights went out fully, she settled for a quiet, sincere response "Goodnight, Lyn."