Technicalities - A She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Story

*click click click*

Hordak moved on to the next bolt and began turning it counter-clockwise.

He was interrupted by a knocking on the chassis around him. "Hey, do you have the six-sided hex driver?"

He paused. "Yes, I shall be done with it in a moment."

"'Kay."

He resumed working on the bolt, until *click click click* it was done. He continued on to the next bolt, with seven more to go after it. This was the fifth time he'd reassembled the inertial damper. This time, he hoped, it would actually keep working once he finished closing it up. He'd grown tired of having to repeatedly dismantle the sensitive yet critical component that seemed to want to work only until it was fully in one piece again.

After he had finally finished the last bolt, he sighed and slid out of the chassis. "I am finished. For now, anyway." No sooner than he'd said that did a lock of Entrapta's hair appear before him, a "palm" held open expectantly. He placed the tool into the "hand" and it immediately pulled away.

"Thanks sweetie!"

Hordak gave a little smile as he stood. He ran a gloved hand through the tuft of blue hair atop his white head. "Darla," he said, "Run level 3 diagnostics on inertial damper."

"Running Level 3 diagnostic on inertial damper."

He watched the holographic display as it brought up bar graphs and a diagram of the ship, an elliptical aura around it. He watched as the bars rose and fell, a few of them moving into red zones. He squeezed a fist and clenched his teeth...and then watched as they slid back into the green.

"Level 3 diagnostic complete. Result: Pass."

Hordak let out a long sigh. "Finally!"

"Good job, partner!" Entrapta said, not looking away from her work. "We can finally check that one off the list!"

Hordak picked up a clear bottle, filled partway with a thick green liquid, from the console next to him. He popped the top, drank a mouthful, and then closed it again. Yes, off the list. He gazed around at the engine room, taking mental stock of the things he and Entrapta, and her small army of helper 'bots, had repaired, rebuilt, cleaned up, and even outright invented out of salvaged parts over the past few months. And as spectacular as Entrapta's genius was, he could proudly say that his had also been exercised and, he believed, strengthened. He had discovered things, imagined things, built things that, back before he had met her, he never would have thought to do on his own.

Entrapta had brought out things in him that he'd never known he had. She hadn't just tested his intellect. She had shown him, really shown him, what it was like to be a person. He turned his gaze to her, her bottom half all that was visible outside the chassis of the hyperwarp engine. He could hear her muttering as she tinkered, her wrench clicking periodically, her legs shifting as she adjusted her position to reach some other component inside. He watched as her hair reached out, grabbed her fizzy drink, and pulled it back inside the chassis with her. There was a slurping, and then she set the drink back outside onto the floor.

Never, in his wildest dreams, could he have expected feeling this way about any being. For so much of his life he had been so obsessed with serving Horde Prime, and then obsessed with returning to him after he was cast out. He'd thought he was fulfilling a purpose, but in the end, it had all left him empty, alone. Longing.

And then he met Entrapta. At first she had shown him that this "backward" world had the capacity to understand and manipulate technology that, he'd thought, was far beyond them. That had intrigued him, but not prepared him for what came next.