Work Text:
Hordak looks around his new lair and workshop, it's taken him since the sun came up but it's finally clean, this place must have been abandoned for years.
He'll still need to fix it up, seriously, this place is a dump, even for a backwater planet like Etheria. Oh well, he can do that while working on the next step.
The next step, of course, is to conquer the entire planet in the name of Prime. A small voice seems to whisper at the back of his skull, about how he ended up on this backwater planet. He shakes his head, no! He is loyal and Prime will reward him when he brings this planet into Prime's light.
Before he can argue further with himself, a small person runs past the workshop's doorway. "How did you get in?" Hordak snarls after them, is he already under attack? "My lair is supposed to be impenetrable!"
A tiny voice, presumably from the small person who ran past, yells back, "Door was open!"
Hordak blinks and decides that one of those swears he has overheard in the marketplace is extremely appropriate to this situation, "son of a bitch!” Wow, that felt good, he already feels a lot better! Now to go shut the door and evict the tiny intruder.
“Swear jar,” a small, raspy voice pipes up from down by his feet.
Hordak slowly looks down towards his feet. There's a small feline, that he thinks is a magicat, a kitten if their size is anything to go by, is standing there, holding up a jar, almost the same size as they are. “How the fuck did you get in?" He is starting to think that Prime might actually be wrong about something, because swearing has relieved so many feelings, and in such a short time too.
“Swear jar, you said another bad word,” The magicat kitten snaps, frowning at him and shaking the jar, which is mostly empty except for a few small, round objects rolling around in it. "You owe the jar two scorpion dollars for the bad words."
"Cool it with the fucking swear jar! Now, how did you get into my lair?" What even is a swear jar? Do you really have to pay to swear? If so, Prime's ban on swearing would make a lot more sense.
“The doors open, duh, like Dora told you, did you forget already? Now put the money in the jar,” the kitten waves the swear jar at him again.
Hordak breathes in, trying to calm down. He didn't know who Dora is, unless they're the little person who ran past the door? “Did you shut it after you came through?" He asks, trying to be patient, children not being something he's ever been assigned to work with while in Prime's service.
"It's too big for me to shut on my own,” the kitten hisses, tapping their claws on the glass jar, "and besides, Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio were still coming in, I wasn't going to shut it on them, even if I could."
“Prime damn it!" There are even more of these little nuisances. This might be worse than an attack.
"Swear jar.”
“I swear if you keep that up, I am going to do something that I'm going to regret,” Hordak growls, trying to loom over the magicat child, but they just scoff. "Do you doubt me, child?" Hordak drew himself up to his full height, ignoring the twinge in his spine and legs, glowering at the magicat kitten.
"Leave Catra alone!" A shrill voice yells from the doorway, drawing the kitten and Hordak's attention. A small, dirty, yellow-haired child is glaring at Hordak from the doorway. Peering around the blonde are three more children; a green lizardfolk hatchling, and two human children, one scrawny with sandy hair and the other with deep brown hair and brown skin.
"I'm fine, shitheads," Catra rolls her eyes, her ear flicking in an odd pattern, Hordak presumes she's using it to communicate, if he wasn't incensed over this invasion, he might try and study it more.
His eye twitches, "Oh, for fucks sake, why don't you all come in? It's not like this is supposed to be my sanctum or anything!" Hordak backs up and sags down into his rickety chair. He glares at Catra and mimics her voice, "Swear jar."
"Hey, that's my line!" Catra hisses, her ears pinning back.
'What is going on? Did you see a sign outside that said, ‘orphanage; stray children welcome’?" Hordak groans
"Well, actually," Adora starts, holding up one of her small fingers.
"Please don't tell me there's a sign out that says that," if so, how had he missed it when moving into this dump? Is he losing his edge? Is that why Prime banished him?
"Okay, we won't," Adora nods solemnly.
Hordak feels happier for the two seconds it takes him to notice Catra rolling her eyes, "let me guess; there actually is a sign out front, isn't there?" Hordak asks tiredly, arching his eyebrow at her.
"Duh, I mean, it's damaged and faded, but I don't know how you missed it," Catra awkwardly tucks the jar under her arm and pats Hordak on the knee, "there, there, it'll be okay, this too will pass."
Hordak stares at her, he thinks that's supposed to be comforting. He decides not to dwell on why an orphan thinks that he needs comfort. "Well, if this is an orphanage, then what happened to the person in charge?" Hordak asks, looking between the children, "or have you just been living by yourselves?"
"You don't want to know," Catra mutters ominously, the effect undercut somewhat by the fact that she's so small, and if Hordak is being honest, kind of adorable.
"Haha," Adora laughs nervously, "Catra's just joking! Nothing happened, they just left very suddenly," she looks at the brown-haired girl still near the door, "right, Lonnie?
"Yep," Lonnie nods, "she just left, right Rogelio?" she elbows the lizard boy next to her.
Rogelio nods solemnly, the little human boy behind him shyly nods as well after the girl child gives him a look.
"Fucking fantastic, so what now? Am I expected to take care of all of you?" Hordak slumps down into the chair, something he never would have considered doing while on the Velvet Glove.
"I mean unless you want to just 'leave'," Catra extends and drops two of the fingers on her free hand, which Hordak has no idea of the meaning of, is it supposed to be rude or is it used for emphasis? "Which is always an option," she shows her teeth, still clutching the jar. Hordak wonders idly if she ever puts it down.
"Which, of course we had nothing to do with," Adora hurriedly cuts in, "she just you know, left, as we said, ya know, before," she carefully sidles over to Catra's side.
Hordak gestures to his brand new but falling apart lair and sanctum, "does it look like I have enough food for myself let alone all five of you?" He glares at the little ones, feeling an odd twinge in his chest, almost like the protective urge he sometimes felt towards his brothers.
"Oh, we're used to scrounging," Adora says brightly, "don't worry we'll show you how to as well." Catra nods in agreement, or so Hordak hopes.
"Wait, if you used to live here, where have you been since before yesterday? And also, this place was and frankly," Hordak shudders as he looks around, "it's still a dump, did you actually live here?"
"We were out getting stuff," Lonnie says, dropping the bag she had been carrying on the floor, "and yeah, it's a dump, but it's our dump, with a roof that doesn't totally suck."
"We had to get Catra a new jar after that old witch broke hers," Adora mutters.
"Not just that," Catra says solemnly, "we also got some supplies over at Serenia's temple."
Hordak shook his head in despair, so far his conquering of this world is not off to a good start. He supposes you could call these five urchins his army but it seems like he might need a few more and bigger minions to actually defeat anybody.
Hordak jerks awake at the knock on the door, what now? He had just gotten back to sleep after cleaning up after Kyle being sick. He carefully sits Kyle back on the bed, next to Lonnie and Rogelio. Catra and Adora are sleeping in the bed on the floor, again, despite there being a free bed.
Hordak takes all of 3 steps away from the bed before Kyle is whimpering again. He sighs, turns around and picks Kyle up, awkwardly patting him on the back, fortunately this settles him down. Shaking his head, he tiredly makes his way to the door, navigating around the stuff that's mysterious made its way to the floor. He has come to the conclusion over the last few days that children are forces of primal chaos.
He cracks the door open cautiously, mentally he slaps himself, he installed that peep hole for a reason! On the other side is a scorpioni with a giant s on their tabard. Instead of something useful, like how can I help you or what do you need, his tired brain asks, "what's the s stand for?"
"Uh, " the scorpioni woman blinks at him, "it's the symbol of the scorpioni royal guard?" A smaller scorpioni giggles from behind her, as does the human next to her.
"Right, right, I'm sorry," Hordak rubs at his eyes with his free hand, and decides that maybe leaning against the doorway would be a good idea, "how may I help you, officer?"
"I'm Sergeant Ryoni and we're investigating your royal script that king Clawdius gave you," the giant scorpioni smiles thinly at him as she introduces herself.
"Do you need to see it?" Hordak tries to stifle a yawn, hopefully he's not about to be kicked out, finding someone for himself and the children would be a pain in the ass.
"Can we come in? Princess Lynda has some concerns that you may have misrepresented what your intentions to his majesty," Ryoni frowns, this isn't the sneaky snake that her highness has been fearing, in fact, he looks exhausted and is even carefully cradling the small human child he's holding.
"Alright, but please keep it down, the children get cranky without sleep," Hordak turns around and stumbles to the table, carefully sitting down and rubbing Kyle's back.
Sergeant Ryoni gingerly sits down in the chair across from Hordak, while the chair is of scorpioni make, it appears to be old and she doesn't want it to break under her, "lets start with introductions, shall we? My name is Ryoni, lead sergeant of the Arid Plains royal guard, investigative branch."
The brown-haired, or brunette, as Lonnie informed it's called, human beams at him, "my name is Micah, I'm here on a diplomatic mission from Brightmoon while also looking into reports that my former mentor is hiding here."
"I'm Scorpia! I'm following Ryoni as my mom's representative and to see if I want to join the royal guard!" The scorpioni girl blurts out.
"I'm Hordak, exile." Hordak states, wondering what exactly else he's supposed to say, "I did ask the king for help building an army to secure his lands, but as you can see, that's not going according to plan," he gestures at the building, "for one, I have no resources and two, this building he gave me was apparently some form of orphanage, and I've been busy taking care of these children."
Sergeant Ryoni frowns, "I saw the old sign, but I don't have any records of an orphanage at this address."
"Do you know who was running it before you got here?" Micah inquires, leaning forward.
Hordak yawns, he wishes they'd shown up in like two hours, after he'd gotten a bit more sleep, "other than what the children have told me, no."
"What did they tell you?" Sergeant Ryoni inquires.
"Just that it was some spooky woman, who was neither very nice nor," Hordak glares at the dirty wall, "very good at cleaning. I've been trying to tidy it up but well, the children can only do so much to help with that, and I don't have a lot of supplies or much experience. I don't suppose I could apply for some?"
"And what are your intentions for the children?"
"Right now? For them to get a good night's sleep so that I can rest too," Hordak growls, "I didn't even know they were here until after I had moved in and they showed up. One of them, Catra, keeps trying to get me to do something with a swear jar whenever I swear."
"I believe you're supposed to put coins in the jar," Micah offers, "have you had any trouble getting food?"
"I've made great strides in learning how to make stew," Hordak says tiredly "thankfully Rogelio knows how to do the basics. Catra, Lonnie and Adora know where to get food from the temple"
"So yes," Sergeant Ryoni shakes her head, "I'll talk to their majesties about getting the orphanage licensed so you can get some money for food and other necessities."
Hordak wonders idly if he should protest this or just keep quiet and try to use this to his advantage. Right now, he's so tired that conquering the planet is fairly far down his list of priorities.
Micah shares a look with Scorpia and leans towards the Sergeant, "how about we go talk about this in the other room?"
Hordak yawns again, while Kyle starts whimpering, Hordak stands up, "I'll leave you to discuss this, while I go get Kyle some broth."
Watching Hordak walk off to the kitchen, "so, he doesn't seem very dangerous," Scorpia says, "or at least, he does seem to care somewhat for the children."
"We should probably talk to the other children before we make a decision," Micah suggests.
"Agreed," Sergeant Ryoni clicks her pincers together, "considering that the child he was carrying seemed comfortable enough with him to fall asleep and it seems to be keeping Hordak busy, putting him in charge of a new orphanage might be the best way to keep him out of trouble. We'll obviously need to keep an eye on him in case that changes of course."
"And how do you feel about staying here with him?" Micah asks Catra, who is currently sharing a chair with Adora.
"He's leaps and bounds better than that witch who was here before," Catra mutters, her tail wrapping around Adora's leg.
"So I've heard, but what I mean is, do you think he will continue to take good care of you?"
"Sure and if he doesn't-"
Catra is cut off by Adora sticking her finger in front of her lips, "if he doesn't, we'll tell someone!" Adora says brightly, doing her best to give off 'we had nothing to do with anyone's disappearance' vibes. Catra rolls her eyes and licks Adora's finger, "eww, gross Catra!"
"You're the one who put your finger in my face!"
"That doesn't mean you have to lick it!"
"She does that every time, Adora, when are you gonna learn?" Lonnie snickers beside them.
"And how do you feel about staying here?" Micah asks Lonnie, hoping to move this interview along.
"It beats living on the street," Lonnie shrugs.
Micah sighs and shares a look with Sergeant Ryoni, "and you feel that you would be safe here?"
"Yeah, he's pretty harmless, makes a lot of noise, rawr rawr, but folds like a piece of wet paper," Lonnie cackles, leaning over to hear what Rogelio is whispering to her, "Roge says that he's really nice to Kyle and you know, not everyone is, since Kyle tends to be whiny and clumsy."
"He won't put money in my swear jar though," Catra whines, "and he swears a lot!"
"I see," Micah sighs, this is going to take a while.
This is considered a punishment on this planet? Weak. Hordak is sure now that he can conquer them easily.
"Hordak! Kyle threw up again!" Lonnie sounds slightly hysterical.
Oh, fuck, Kyle is still sick, Hordak groans and heads for the kitchen to grab the old, faded purple towel, again. Maybe this is a harsh punishment, after all, this would never have happened when he was with Prime.