Work Text:
Shooting star on the night we first kissed
Like a sign, if I blink, you’ll be missed
The portal was gone. Hordak growled for the 2,147th time this week and hurled his work from the bench. He sat in his chair, his head falling to his clawed hand.
How could it have all gone so wrong? His hand then fell to the crystal at his throat. Entrapta. Catra’s exclamation had been hard to take in, but he understood. He was a defect, she was a princess. There was no way for them to be together, companions or…more.
He had almost halted the portal project altogether. He may have had his second-in-command not come back from the Crimson Waste with Adora and the sword. No. Prime awaits.
He stood up, deciding to walk around The Sanctum. Most of it had been destroyed as a result of the portal imploding in on itself, but Hordak could not be bothered to clean or repair much of it. Prime would come for him soon; there was no point. He crossed to Entrapta’s workbench. He had given it to her to conduct her experiments, on her own time, of course. He heard her laugh in the back of his mind, haunting him, forcing him to relive his memories. Clones had astonishing recall; all he had to do was blink, breathe, or feel, and something would come up.
In his Sanctum, everything conjured memories of Entrapta: the monitors where she projected her data for him to review and comment on. The vitrine she pushed him into and demanded to know what he was. The chair she sat him down in after he fainted in front of her.
Imperfections are beautiful. He thought she must have been a siren sent by the Rebellion to trick him, to learn of his plans. She had done it well; her smiles and touches were genuine and light.
In my mind, you and I still exist
It’s a thought that is dangerous
He almost missed it, but the memories of her betrayal rang louder than any of these memories. She left him and discarded him, not unlike Prime, but her light had become tainted by it, whereas His was still bright in his mind. However, a part of him could not help but long for her.
‘Cause I’ll wait forever
I won’t look for better
I’ll find signs for you and I
Oh, for you and I, well
Her light was brighter than Prime’s ever was. Her laughter filled the space that he had occupied alone for so long. Being alone was not something he was used to. He was a part of a hive of millions, one voice always buzzing in his ear. He was never alone when he was with his brothers. Silence was a luxury, and when he landed on Etheria, the voice was silenced; he did not know what to do with that. So, he built his army to be able to speak to something and do what he was programmed to do: conquer.
It worked for decades, until her. The droning in his mind became her. Her ideas. Her laugh. She was fixing the issues he was struggling with, from the uninsulated cables to his loneliness.
He sat at her bench, looking at the experiments she left behind: several incomplete circuits, scrap metal, written formulas, nothing she did not already have recorded.
Then, he looked behind all that and gazed at a green object surrounded by a plexiglass dome.
He picked it up, examining it. It was life, a plant, a little thing of flora and fauna. It had four leaves, resembling the drawn version of a heart. He stared at it for a long while.
There’s wishbones and clovers and numbers from heaven
Shapes in the stars to invent our connection
As much as I act like I want to forget it
He thought of throwing it, his anger drawing up, but then he thought about it deeper. Entrapta had created life inside his manufactured zone of steel and machines. His mind simply could not do it.
Prime, how weak I have become.
He stood from the table and returned to his own, placing it gently in the corner. He looked up at the ceiling.
I still wish for you at 11:11
I still wish for you
He sighed at his thought, a growl suppressed. All the anger, all the pain he endured in this past week because of her, made him sick. He was a member of Prime’s army, an extension of the god he followed. These thoughts were impure, yet he could not shake them.
He sighed, then got back to work. He needed to conquer the planet before Prime arrived, else he would be seen as weak. And weakness was not tolerated in the Galactic Horde.
–
“I conquered this world, for you. To show you that I am worthy, so that I may retake my place by your side. I have bent it’s people to my will-”
“To your will?” Horde Prime, the Emperor of the Known Universe, was on him in a second. “Why can I not see your thoughts?” His hands were placed on his cheeks, and he felt an overwhelming pressure on his mind. “I see now. You have given yourself a name. You tried to create an empire of your own.” Hordak would be lying if he said he wasn’t pushing back against the pain and intrusion he felt. “There was even a time you wished I would not come for you, is that so?”
“No, Brother. I did it, all of it, for you.” Horde Prime looked at him, smirking slightly. When His taloned hand removed itself from his face, Hordak thought he was safe.
But then Prime gripped his face tighter, His voice rising. “You have forgotten who you are. You truly think you are worthy to stand beside me, could be equal to me?” Hordak was lifted from the floor in a second, helpless to Prime’s might. “I made you in my image, but you have become an abomination. And so, you must be reborn!” Prime’s tendrils reached out and plugged themselves into Hordak’s back ports.
The pain was excruciating. It shocked every ounce of his body, his mind. He felt his eyes become not purely his anymore. Then, he fell to the floor like a rag doll. In his mind, he felt his memories leave him.
He forgot how he was stranded on Etheria and how he built an army. How he conquered the better part of Etheria, squashing it under his boot.
Entrapta. Entrapta. Entrapta. Entrapta. Entrapta. Lilac tendrils and magenta eyes were gone to him.
Imperfections are–
He arose in a vitrine, anew.
‘Cause I’ll wait for nothing
Pretending we’re something
My mind lies for you and I
Oh, for you and I
The clover remained tucked away in the Fright Zone, dying in the destruction.