Queen Marlena's Story

Dark Moon set and now the only light in Queen Marlena's chamber was the dull glow of the charcoal in the brazier. The queen and her companion Mari-Libana had fallen silent after their long narrative.

Adora's mind was a blur of images and thoughts. Yes, she had just heard the lengthy tale of her parentage and birth, and now had a host of disturbing new facts to integrate into her own life story. But more than that, the power of the circle and the potent herb sorceress' cap had drawn her into their spell. She was not hearing this story for the first time, but remembering it. Just seconds before her mother had related how easily she slipped from the womb, Adora had recalled it for herself. Her first childhood sight was the startled face of the midwife, a much younger Mari-Libana without the cascade of grey hair that now fell about her shoulders. She noticed the snake slithering along the wall long before Mari-Libana saw it in the crib and had directed Adam where to grasp that deadly creature in order to cut off its life. For herself, she filled in gaps in the tale where Adam had spoken, but only she was able to hear. A door had opened in her memory house, and she had just spent the last hours wandering through its long-abandoned rooms.

Her recollections of the time of her birth were crystal clear, but it was one thing to remember what she saw as a child, and it was quite something else to look back at those days with the eyes of a nearly-grown woman. As a new-born, she had trusted her mother with a loyalty beyond reason. But eighteen years later, Adora watched her mother's actions with the clarity of a mildly sympathetic stranger. At last she knew why her mother had apologized so profusely when they were reunited after all these years. She understood why Queen Marlena was now sitting across from her in the darkened room with a heart that was ready to break, although her emotion was not visible in her proud demeanor.

That night long ago, Marlena had traded away Adora in order to protect Adam. The harsh fact of it hung in the air between them. Oh it wasn't fully intentional, perhaps, but even the newborn Adora could recognize her mother's instinctual reactions; in the Queen's fatigue and in the closeness of their birth bond, nothing was concealed. Marlena had definitely been more anxious to keep her son than her daughter. Adora looked at her mother sitting across from her. In the orange glow of the embers, Marlena's face was glass, fragile and sharp as crystal, transparent and hiding nothing.

Was there ever a moment more terrible than that in which a mother had to choose between her children? Was it ever rational to select one or another?

Adora hardened her heart. There had been no need to choose, for her plan to save both babies would certainly have worked. Didn't Marlena love her enough to trust her? Wasn't it clear that Adora was an unusual baby with great powers? Adora's pulse quickened. How might things have been different if this crisis at her birth had forced her to manifest as She-Ra at the beginning of her life? Would Eternia and Etheria still be subject to the Horde? Adora burned with remembered anger at Hordak's cruel hand on her throat. She could have killed him, of that she was sure. And with all of her heart, she wished that she had been given that opportunity those many years ago.

Across the room, Adora saw the eyes of Queen Marlena and Mari-Libana widen in amazement, and she realized that she had begun ever so slightly to glow. She stretched her arm out in front of her, and realized that she was beginning the transformation into She-Ra, but very gradually, and without the Sword of Power. What was the cause? Oh to have that power at her command, to slay her enemies with a mere glance! Was it possible that the key to awakening her power lay in herself? As she summoned her rage against Hordak, her golden aura became even stronger.

In another moment, Adora dropped her hand in horror. It was anger that was feeding her power tonight. And she remembered something else from those moments in the birthing chamber. She had revelled in that burst of energy that killed the snake. It was a sweet victory and she had relished its sweetness before ever tasting a drop of her mother's milk. Not even one day old, and she had wanted to kill Hordak. As Hordak's Force Captain, Adora had slain enemies in the line of duty. As a member of the Great Rebellion she also took up the battle standard. But never before had she recognized how much a part of her that fighting was. Adora recalled that she had wept at age fifteen when she learned that the rebellious Etherians had called her by the ugy name "Hordak's Executioner." That was no epithet for a girl, she had wailed. Now she knew that she would have been rightly called "She-Ra the Slayer" no matter how she had exited her birthing chamber.

What mother would not have thrust such a violent and demonic girl from her side? Adora now felt that she had deserved to be the child to depart with Hordak. In her first moments of life she had betrayed the principles of loving and nurturing that were born in all women. Her fierceness matched the aggressive nature of the Horde. How could the Etherians be fooled into accepting her as one of their own? Adora hung her head in shame and wept hot tears over her long-lost innocent girlhood, for the sweet and loving girl that she had never really been.

But as she lifted her head from her lap, Adora met the unflinching gaze of Mari-Libana. The crone did not move, indeed uttered not a word, and yet Adora could feel her mocking accusation. Do Queens of Eternia ever regret the weapons they have raised for the honor of Greyskull? Do they mourn for those who take up the fight for justice? Should a woman apologize for having power and then wielding it? How could Adora feel two moments of misgiving for protecting her newborn brother from the attack of a serpent possessed by an evil spirit, looking itself only to kill? Every day of her life she had heard praise for the strong men around her. Her brother He-Man had happily devoted his existence to freedom's fight. Why was it a woman's part to stay at home and let things happen to her? It was not.

A new thought occurred to the princess. She herself had acquiesced to the arrangements made that night. What had her childish wisdom known then that the young maiden had forgotten now? That night anyone could see that while Adora might have been the smaller of the children, she was the stronger of the pair. She was a day older and mature beyond any expectation. Perhaps her physical body had not caught up to the strength of her mind, her fragile limbs could scarcely contain her flash of power and her baby gums could not form the words she knew to say. But she was a child to be reckoned with, without doubt. The Queen must have sensed that her older daughter was readier to face unknown dangers than the younger son. After all, while Adam had been communicating with Adora from nearly the beginning of their lives, he had not uttered a sound that was sensible to any adult in that room, while Adora was mind-speaking to both her mother and the midwife. Adam had just been released from the womb, while Adora had been born, cleaned, fed and embraced. Wouldn't Marlena have instinctively reached out for the weaker of the siblings, thinking that it was Adam who needed her help?

Adora was working herself around to a startling new realization. She was the older of the twins. Was it possible that she was the more powerful? Somehow, even being told that they were born at the same time, from the beginning of her adult relationship with Adam she had felt herself to be the younger. Certainly she was smaller. Well, most Eternian women were smaller than the menfolk, for the men had been bred to physical labor, while the women to the life of the mind. And Adam's name, the same as the first human to inhabit Earth, seemed to suggest his priority as well. Adora did not know as much as Adam about their family, or their royal mission on the twin planets. Coming into her own heritage so late, it was almost as if she had somehow been created long after Adam, as an afterthought to his existence. But that wasn't true. She was first, and in the beginning, had made decisions for both of them, and had made sacrifices for both of them. They were a pair, to be sure, but on their own, Adora could claim every bit as much power as Adam, and perhaps more.

Perhaps more? Adora again raised her eyes to survey her surroundings. The glowing embers had all but died, but there was enough light in the chamber to make out the three women who had shared this magic circle throughout the night. The wise old woman had seen much in her long life and knew all there was to know about the flora and fauna of the world around them. Marlena Glenn had not been born to her royal position, and perhaps did not exploit it to its fullest extent, but she was every inch a queen. Adora herself, young woman, strong and freshly out of her own girlhood, had much of life ahead of her, although much to learn. There all three of them sat, united by blood and experience, the full range of womanhood: maiden, mother, crone. However hard won their positions, they sat there that night secure in the knowledge that they carried in themselves the powers of the Great Mother, fully charged with the duties of womanhood, fully competent to exercise their great gifts.

Adora's hands no longer glowed with the magic of Greyskull, but yet she could see them in front of her. The women had now been awake all night and the first light of morning was filtering in through the open window. In her short time as She-Ra, Adora had come to learn that her hands could also heal, and the first adult recipient of her curative touch had been her very own brother. Their mother's hope for them had come to pass: they had both survived to become adults.

She felt a great number of energies surging through her, the cold stone of the castle, the heat of the fire, and not least the aching passions of the two women her companions. In her mind's eye, Adora blended those streams of force into a great swirl of energy that circled the room in a whirling spiral. Faster and faster it spun. With concentrated force, she compressed the whirling into a single vortex, and made it to land on the bowl of water, a tiny cyclone on a miniature sea.

Into that swirling charybdis Adora emptied the anger and despair that she had felt that night, the helplessness and the uncertainty, the loneliness and hate. She drove it to churn the water's surface and then suddenly let it go, creating a small tsunami that lapped against the sides of the bowl and slopped over onto the table itself. In silence, Adora waited as the ripples subsided. In a few more deep breaths, the surface of the water had become still once again.

Now the water was a mirror, and in the growing light of dawn, Adora could contemplate her own clear reflection. Despite her fatigue, her expression was alert, and she recognized that her pale features framed in golden curls created a vision that most creatures would find beautiful. Was not this the same face that had gazed back at her in yesterday's looking glass? Had this new-remembered knowledge really changed anything that had happened all those years ago?

Queen Marlena remained silent in the encroaching dawn. Would her mother ever speak to her again? Yesterday Adora had proclaimed that her mother was "not to blame," and Marlena had vowed never again to apologize. What was left to be said between them? Would the Queen plead again for forgiveness? Not likely. Was the mother steeling herself for the anger of her daughter? Perhaps before, but not now, not now that Adora had spent her passions in the deep water of the mystic's bowl. The Queen waited. Was Marlena ready with her justification, years in the making? About how she was weakened from labor and unable to reason; how she had been trained by years on Earth to value men over women; how she was ignorant of what queens and princesses on Eternia might be; how she was influenced by Randor, by Hordak, by Mari-Libana, by the pain-killers of labor, by fear? About how sorry she was? About how much she would do to fix it?

What did a mother owe a daughter, anyway? Adora had never had a mother and was forced to admit that she had not seemed to need one. She was grateful to have been given life, and she suspected that she would soon discover many small ways in which Marlena's heritage had been passed to her. But how long could any mother keep a child as close to her as in the womb? Adora had always known that she was loved, and now that she could remember her earliest life, she knew the source of that love was in Marlena's fond pregnancy, in her twin brother's comforting presence, and in the name she had been given to carry in the world.

Had Adora been robbed of a more valuable life? Did anyone have a right to a certain kind of existence? Had she ever been hungry or cold? Not at all. She had been raised as Hordak's favorite, in fact. Could she really claim deprivation because she was the princess of the wrong kingdom?

Adora thought of her brother Adam, pampered in the close intimacies of the castle, surrounded by friends in ever growing numbers, as if a new boon companion were somewhere being manufactured for him on a weekly basis. That was not the life for her. A line of poetry came unbidden into her mind:

Perched upon straightness I seek a wilder zone,
My Flying self-on this crystal steed alone-
Drives out to God or else to utter death.
Beware straight lines which do subdue man's pride!

Adora knew that in her life, she was now moving in the right direction and was walking on the right path, her own solitary path. She was gaining in self-knowledge, and struggling so that the same freedom of self-determination would be made available to others. She knew that she might have come to this place by another direction, but she did not hate the route she had taken, however twisted and complex.

At this point, what could Queen Marlena say that would change anything? In her mind she had forgiven the past. More truly, there was no need to forgive the past. All that was needed was to say either yes or no to it. Adora knew that, for herself, she must welcome the knowledge she had gained that evening and make it her own. In recognizing the forces that had shaped her journey she would be better equipped for the tasks that lay ahead.

In those difficult days to come, Adora knew that she wanted the presence of her mother. She yearned to enter the great circle of knowledge, power and love that she felt in the castle. Adora She-Ra knew herself to be a solitary, but she was glad also to have a family and community for support. To this end, she must nourish the relationships forged tonight, whatever might come.

It was now fully day and the sounds of a bright morning filled the room: loud birds, distant traffic. Life was awake again, and the day offered its silent promises afresh. Adora looked first to her mother and smiled, reaching for her hand. As their fingers pressed together, Adora felt a familiar energy, the loving strength that had surrounded her in the womb. Her own wild spirit leapt to mingle with it. She turned to Mari-Libana on her other side and grasped the woman's wrinkled hand. This same hand had been the one to welcome her into the world of air, light and fire. She looked into the older woman's eyes and silently pled for more knowledge of this ever-strange existence. The old midwife's sparkling response shouted assent.

As Mari-Libana and Marlena also joined hands, Adora She-Ra uttered the sacred words, "Blessed Be."

In breaking the long silence, utter confusion entered the room. She-Ra leapt to her feet first to embrace her mother, then the midwife. The three women laughed and then wiped tears from their eyes. Cushions were scattered, limbs were stretched, and a bustle began to clear away the debris of the evening's activities. Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and Mari-Libana opened it to find the Sorceress of Greyskull on the threshhold.

"You have been quite busy this moons day," she proclaimed solemnly. "I was prepared to help had danger approached, but now I want to join in the merriment, if I may, to celebrate the end of a long journey home."

The sorceress had been outside the door all night, Adora realized. What did this woman know, she wondered? But those mysteries could be left for another day.

"Would you please join us for breakfast?" she responded. "Moons day sleepovers work up quite an appetite."

As the quartet headed down to the kitchens, Adora was the last to leave the room. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror, and paused for a closer look. Her long hair was strewn about her head in the girlish fashion, and she impulsively pulled it back into a tight knot like her mother wore. Was this the face of a Queen? After last night's revelations, she now wondered if she might not rule Eternia, in the old way. She looked forward to meeting with her brother again after all she had learned, but the situation might not now be so straightforward as it was before.

"Adora!" Queen Marlena was calling her from the stair.

"I'm on my way," answered Adora She-Ra.

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Last modified April 19, 1999
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