Maledictus Renascentis

Chapter 1: Des Cendres

Pain. Torn apart, reduced to atoms in a final blaze of the deep wells of dark magic she stored inside her broken body.

That was not the way that Shadow Weaver expected to die. It was always something much less flashy, devoured on Beast Island or meddling with a bit too much magic that she shouldn't have. Maybe even having her throat slashed open by Catra's razor-sharp claws in a final act of revenge.

If she had a list of every way she expected she would die, self-sacrifice would be right in-between brain-eating amoebas and being repeatedly bludgeoned by someone wielding a vacuum cleaner.

But, because life wasn't exactly fair, she happened to get the "Hero's Goodbye", something she thought of often with great disdain, and often with Adora involved. That blasted girl was too good for her own well-being, especially once Catra started meddling with her emotions.

It was with those thoughts running through her brain that Shadow Weaver died, scarred flesh exploding into pure magic before bursting out, incinerating the monster that guarded the Heart of Etheria.

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When she awoke, she was at peace.

The sky above her was a bold and beautiful blue. The woods seemed to thrum with deep ancestral magics, ones she had never experienced before, even through her studies with Mystacor's greatest minds. The birds were all singing, and the sun was shining down on her bare face with all its warm glory.

Bare face? Light Spinner panicked. Her veil. Where in Despondos was her veil?

Light Spinner stood up, frantically searching, when she realized an even worse truth. She was completely naked.

Guess I really did have too much to drink at Norwyn's social last night. She thought to herself, ruefully, as she made an attempt to summon her clothing from her drawers in her dormitory. The garment that appeared in her hands was dusty and moth-bitten, as if it had been sitting in that same drawer for thirty years. Light Spinner made a face of disgust, going over to a small pool of crystal blue water to wash it.

She knelt down on the edge of the pool, leaning in to wash the simple white linen fabric off so the dust wouldn't make her feel sick.

That was when she saw her reflection.

Her bare skin was flawless, the small, jagged scar on her lip vanished through some strange magic. She curled up her lip, exposing the razor-sharp canine tooth underneath. Such was to be expected from a halfling like herself. Even miracles couldn't fix the truth of what she was.

For a moment, the reflection seemed to flicker, a horrific, scarred monster with eyes like the devil and hair that seemed to defy gravity staring up at her. Light Spinner dropped her garment, jumping back from the water with a scream. After a moment of hyperventilation passed, she looked back into the water, only seeing herself this time. She breathed a sigh of relief, doing a quick warming spell on her dress to dry it and tying it around her lanky body.

She hoped she was done growing, but her father's kind had a reputation for being built much taller than others, and she doubted that her DNA would make an exception for her. She was lucky that she favored her mother, the human side of her family, in that she lacked most of her father's lizard-like appearance.

Breaking herself from her thoughts, Light Spinner did a quick direction spell, beginning her travels back to Mystacor.

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"Ugh, Scorpia. They're not that kind of beaches." Mermista groaned. "You go swimming there, and you fall off a cliff. Got it?"

"So... I shouldn't bring my swimsuit?" Scorpia held up a bikini in her pincers.

"There's the bathing pools." Glimmer added. "You could probably use it for those."

"I'm sure you'll look lovely in that, sweetie." Perfuma said, pressing a kiss to Scorpia's cheek.

"Ugh, where's Catra and Adora? They're gonna make us late again!" Mermista rolled her eyes.

"They're probably canoodling again!" Frosta piped up. Everyone looked at her. "What? I'm thirteen. Of course I know what that means."

"Sorry we're late!" Adora skidded into the room.

"Yeah, cause someone couldn't find her sword." Catra made a face at Adora. "Not to mention you can summon it at will."

"Shut up." Adora sighed.

"Can we go now? I really, really want to see my Aunt Casta." Glimmer interrupted.

"What's an aunt again?" Catra whispered.

"Her dad's sister." Adora whispered back. "Took me a while to figure that out too."

Glimmer made a teleportation spell, the group vanishing and reappearing outside of Mystacor's castle.

Scorpia's face seemed to turn green, and she leaned over and threw up in a bush. "I will never get used to that."

Perfuma patted her girlfriend on the back, looking down on her in concern. "Are you okay, darling?"

"Yeah, it's just teleportation sickness." Scorpia stood up. Perfuma offered her a rosebud filled with water, which Scorpia downed eagerly.

"Promise?" Perfuma asked. Scorpia nodded.

"Hey, lady!" Bow hollered, seeing a rather weary looking woman approaching. "Are you okay?" The woman was young, with a monochromatic color scheme- green eyes, long green hair, and grey-green skin. She wore a white robe, one that looked to be older than all of them. She looked up, noticed them, then collapsed, unconscious.

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When Light Spinner woke up, she was surrounded by a group of teenage girls, ones who seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't understand why. The oldest one poked at her with... prehensile hair? And babbled to the rest about scientific concepts that none of them seemed to understand.

"Oh, look. She's awake." A tiny girl dressed in all blue said, making gigantic gauntlets from ice.

"There's no need to be alarmed." She stood up, looking around. She was in one of the spare bedrooms in the academy, surrounded by a horde of rather suspicious looking girls. Wait. Horde...?

"Are you from the Horde? You kidnapped me, didn't you? Well, I'm not going to teach you how to use the planet's magic. You'd better kill me while you have the-"

"The Horde's gone, lady." A tall princess with deep almond skin and blue-green hair said sarcastically. "She-Ra finished Horde Prime off two months ago."

"Two months? How long was I unconscious?" Light Spinner thought out loud, then looked up at the Princesses. "My name is Light Spinner. I'm graduating this year from the academy."

At the mention of her name, the princesses took a defensive stance. "Shadow Weaver? But she's supposed to be dead!"