Chapter Text
He had raced out to the field as soon as he saw the signs: a new portal starting to manifest on Etheria, his chance to get away from the backwater planet without a sun and stars. He monitored the entire planet for the amount of energy necessary to create a portal with the small hope of finding one.
He thought he had found one years ago, shortly after setting up the monitors. However, it turned out to be a sorceress who had summoned something from another world; not by a real portal, but through magic. He had no use for that. So when this sorceress came to offer her services to the Horde, he sent her away, still frustrated that it hadn’t been a portal.
This one was a portal. But he was too late. He’d barely entered the field when he saw the green light and only just managed to reach the spot before the portal closed. By instinct he caught what was dropped out of it before it vanished.
It was a small person. Tiny to be exact. Wrapped in a soft blanket with yellow hair and blue eyes staring up at him with a smile on the tiny mouth.
He cradled it in his arms, unsure what to make of it. It clearly didn’t belong to him, so he should put it down and leave, look for another portal and continue to search for a way off this planet. He would probably have to create a portal himself, he realized with horror. This wasn’t where he belonged.
He looked down at the bundle in his arms. This being didn’t belong here either. It had been taken too and was now in the same predicament as him. A feeling of kinship grew in him, the first he’d felt since he was separated from the Hivemind.
It was clearly a frail little thing and seemed unable to do much on its own. Dependent on someone greater than it. He could relate to that as well.
With the small person safely carried in one armored arm, he drove back to the Fright Zone.
Hordak’s army mostly consisted of people who’d been cast out from the surrounding kingdoms, the misfits who were rougher and didn’t have a kingdom to keep them safe. Even the Scorpions had been forced into submission to the other kingdoms when King Scorpio hadn’t been able to connect with their runestone; it demanded a princess and by the time his first daughter was born, it was too late.
The kingdom was weak when Hordak had landed on Etheria, despite now having a princess, as well as King Scorpio’s newly born granddaughter. It was Hordak’s idea to gather all the outcasts, the reptilian people of Etheria, and form an army of them. That action had set off the war. The other kingdoms hadn’t been satisfied that the Scorpions rebelled and attacked before they had time to strategize. King Scorpio and his daughter had been killed, leaving the kingdom - the Fright Zone - to Hordak.
Huntara, one of the youngest members of his army, met him when he returned to the Fright Zone with the little creature. Huntara was a fierce girl around the age of 13 and quite frightening to look at, but so were all the other soldiers. She looked quite nervous when he approached her.
“Lord Hordak, sir! The soldiers have been anxious for your return. They- we weren’t sure if- when you would return.” She looked ashamed, as if it was her job to keep all the adult soldiers in check. He often wondered if she’d grown up under such expectations when she lived in Plumeria where she was used for hard labor.
“Relax, Huntara, I will handle it.” He shifted a little as the bundle in his arm wriggled, making the nervous Huntara curious to what he was holding. Then the little person let out in a shrill wail.
“Is that a baby?” the girl asked excitedly and actually dared to near Hordak, so intrigued by what he was carrying.
“A baby…?” Hordak hadn’t heard this word before, but then again he hadn’t met such a tiny person before either. He allowed Huntara to see the bundle he was holding which made her coo in a way he hadn’t heard from the tough girl before.
“You know, a child.” Huntara started making weird sounds at the ‘baby’, sounds that made Hordak really annoyed, until he noticed how the baby reacted with glee. When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him in question. “Still young after having been born.”
“Oh, I see.” Hordak replied. He had been perplexed when he’d met Scorpio’s granddaughter, Scorpia, a small thing that would apparently grow to be a normal person at some point. And she was growing still, a girl around 8 years old now. She was mostly taken care of by Octavia and even Huntara, but he did see her regularly to provide her education. However, he thought that she had been the exception. Now he was beginning to think that most people didn’t exit a pod fully grown like he had.
“Where are the parents?” Huntara hesitated, seeming worried that he had done something to them. But he hadn’t seen anyone else, only the child.
He shrugged nonchalantly, unsure how much to say. How much would she understand or even believe? “I did not see anyone. The… baby was just lying like this in the field. Is that uncommon?”
Huntara looked sadly at the baby. “Well, there must’ve been parents at some point. But maybe this is another one of Etheria’s orphans.”
“Orphans?” Hordak wasn’t sure he had heard the term before.
“Yes, children without parents. Often the parents leave the child somewhere to be found, hoping that someone will give them a better life.”
“Oh.” Hordak didn’t like the sound of that. To be without one’s family, like he had landed on Etheria without his, sounded painful. He looked down at the child and recognized something of himself in her.
He did not like it.
“Perhaps you can take care of it.” He handed the baby to Huntara, eager to avoid more contact with such a fragile thing, but she held her hands up and shook her head.
“Oh no, I’m too young for that! She’s not like Scorpia; she’s tiny. She needs someone to nurture her and give her a safe environment.” The young woman smiled encouragingly and nodded at Hordak.
Moments passed before he understood her meaning. “Wait, you mean me?”
And so Hordak became responsible for a baby.