Life Beyond The Horde

More Than One Type Of Scar

Adora sighed as she stumbled back into her room, sore from being battered around in the fight her, Bow and Glimmer just came from. It had only been a few weeks since The Battle of Brightmoon, and the Horde already decided to launch another attack on a nearby village. Thankfully the alliance was able to defend the village with hardly any problem, but still, it took a lot out of Adora, especially since she was still recovering from her last confrontation with Catra.

Now that was something she hated thinking about, how Catra had so mercilessly attacked her, the girl she grew up alongside was ready to kill her without a second thought. It hurt, of course, almost as much as the deep gashes Catra had left on her back, that still stung and bled when she overexerted herself.

Surprisingly, she was able to hide her injury from Glimmer and Bow, her time in the Horde giving her the ability to effectively hide any and all forms of weakness. But the still healing wounds were barely starting to scab over and become scars, meaning that every time Adora moved to much or a certain way, she risked re-injuring herself. And more often than not, at the end of the day, she'd find the inside of her shirts stained dark red with dried blood.

"Damn it," Adora cursed to herself, wincing as she threw herself on her bed.

It was getting harder and harder to hide the pain, let alone the blood-stained clothes, but Adora wasn't the type to outright ask for help, and besides, if she were to go to her friends, they'd probably be less than happy that she'd hidden a somewhat severe injury from them, endangering only herself with the lie.

"Ugh, why do I have to be so stubborn?" she muttered, pressing the palms of her hands against her forehead as she sighed.

Adora had a few hours to herself before she needed to meet up with Glimmer again, both of them planning to go explore the outer reaches of the kingdom, Glimmer dead set on showing her all the wonders of Brightmoon. She could last until then, and besides, any time she spent with Glimmer was far too enjoyable to even think about pain.

But for now, Adora was left with very few options of what to do with her time. One, she could just wait for Glimmer to finish whatever it was she was doing at the moment, or, and this was her least favorite option, Adora could redress the wounds on her back. The bandages needed to be switched out anyway, but she usually did that once she was sure everyone in the castle was asleep and she was alone.

It was a difficult task, especially to do alone, but she managed fairly well on her own, even if she did do a shoddy job.

The Horde hadn't bothered giving her basic medical training, she never needed it really. If you got hurt during boot camp or training, you were expected to suck it up and deal, the marks of a strong resilient soldier, and if you were to get hurt badly, beyond a scraped knee or twisted ankle, you were kicked from the program, and as far as Adora knew... you were shunned by the residents of the Fright Zone.

She shook her head, not wanting to think about the horrors of the Horde anymore than she needed to. So Adora sighed and sat back up, deciding that she'd rather get it over with now than later. "Alright... let's just do this now so I can think of something else," she muttered again, slowly pulling herself up. Adora honestly wasn't sure how she managed to collect all the medical supplies she had, especially since the guards were still highly suspicious of her, but with a decent supply of gauze and some sort of healing herb mix she got from Perfuma, she was sure that she had enough items to get herself through the injury.

It didn't take too long for Adora to undo the gauze she's wrapped around her back, making sure the scratches themselves weren't getting infected or anything. But thank the gods they weren't, and the flesh surrounding the gashes were no longer an angry red, but a more relaxed, normal looking pink.