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i don't wanna feel anything tonight (i just wanna run)

Summary:

When Adora decides to take her time returning to Bright Moon after Shadow Weaver told her the truth, and instead decides to train for a few hours, Angella, Glimmer, Bow and Castaspella are all worried— so much so, that they decide to have an impromptu family dinner and sleepover.

 

Or: Angella internally signs adoption papers, Castaspella is a little too knowing, and Glimmer is a little shit.

Notes:

TW/CW: implied child abuse because Adora is full of it, briefly described accidentally cutting yourself with a knife (adora is a disaster, but JIC you need a warning), accidental arson

The title comes from Run My Child by Glimmer of Blooms, and this fic is pretty much entirely inspired by this tumblr post: https://a-dauntless-daffodil.tumblr.com/post/189360060012/adora-having-her-first-ever-family-dinner-with

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Angella does not pace the hallways of Bright Moon often. It’s rare that she’s uneased enough to even consider it, to need to move to calm her nerves.

 

But Adora has been gone for hours now, ever since she flew off, and a part of Angella worries she might not return— might leave Bright Moon and try to figure things out on her own, or might get hurt, or… She isn’t sure, really. 

 

It certainly doesn’t help that Shadow Weaver has been tugging at every string she could find, pressing every button Angella has— some even she didn’t know about. If her sister-in-law hadn’t been there, she would’ve ripped Shadow Weaver to pieces.

 

Said sister-in-law is watching her as she paces, narrowly dodging her wings when she flitters them anxiously, all with an expression she can’t read.

 

(She used to be able to, but that was a long time ago, and Castaspella has changed in ways she can barely imagine.) 

 

The guards return and she freezes on the spot, calming herself so she doesn’t look like a mess, and they tell her Adora has returned. She all but runs to check on Adora, Castaspella trailing behind her.

 

“Your Majesty— ?”

 

Adora is already in the embrace of her two friends when she enters the room, and she can’t help rushing to the trio and wrapping her arms around all of them.

 

“Adora, where have you been?” Angella wonders, mentally checking Adora for injuries— she seems in a rougher condition than she was when she left, a couple bruises here and there, but ideally no broken bones.

 

(Not that Adora would tell them. Adora has a disturbing habit of hiding injuries, and refusing medical attention if she thinks others need it more.)

 

“Oh— uh… training,” Adora says, and she seems so… unused to Angella’s presence. 

 

“We were really worried,” Glimmer tells Adora, “We didn’t think you’d be gone that long.”

 

“Sorry,” Adora doesn’t quite meet their eyes, “I didn’t think I would, either. I lost track of time.”

 

“Well, you’re back now,” Bow says, “Soo… since we’re all up so late anyway, why don’t we have a sleepover?” 

 

“Ooh, great idea, Bow! We can raid the kitchen.”

 

“I’m afraid the kitchen staff has been given the night off,” Angella says, “I’m not sure you’ll find much there.”

 

“You really didn’t have to wake them up, too,” Castaspella says quietly, almost a whisper. Angella blushes— she had just been so panicked and on edge. Everyone had been.

 

“Oh… well. Maybe we can cook? That’d be a fun activity,” Bow replies.

 

“Bow, you know none of us can cook, right?” Glimmer asks, “Well, except Auntie.” 

 

She sees Castaspella smile out of the corner of her eye, though the smile seems almost concerned at the lack of everyone’s basic survival skills. 

 

If she’s honest, Angella’s not entirely sure about Casta’s cooking skills— rarely has she ever eaten Casta’s cooking, and the one occasion she did it was a “prank” and she had put in an ingredient that did not belong there.

 

Micah always assured her it was, in fact, just a prank and that she really can cook— but a part of her never really believed this.

 

“Then we’ll learn?” Bow suggests. 

 

“Let’s make sure they don’t burn the kitchen down,” Angella says to Castaspella, amused. 

 

“You have a fire extinguisher, right?”

 

“Well, I would hope it wouldn’t come to that.”

 

“Don’t count on that.”



Angella insists they have real food before their sleep-over desert, and Glimmer invites Casta to make it a family dinner. (Which is great, and Angella definitely wants to flaunt her terrible cooking skills in front of her sister-in-law.)

 

Figuring how to turn on the oven is easy enough. Figuring out everything is else is not— and embarrassing, as her kid watch. 

 

And Castaspella keeps giving advice, which she politely ignores.

 

“Remember to set a timer,” Castaspella reminds her, among other things— like some things she should peel before cutting up, or what temperature. 

 

She tasks Adora with cutting up vegetables, assuming that her swordsmanship will transfer— it doesn’t, and she cuts herself by mistake.

 

(Disturbingly, Adora keeps apologizing for ‘messing it up’ while Angella cleans and bandages the wound. It’s a small cut, and Castaspella gives her a strange look for bandaging it so thoroughly.

 

She attempts to find the words to explain that while it wasn’t ideal for Adora to accidentally hurt herself, it’s fine to make mistakes. She can’t, but Glimmer and Bow do. She smiles slightly. Their friendship is heartwarming, even if the situation was not.)

 

Angella forgets to set a timer for the oven, though she’s not sure how long it would go on for anyways.

 

“Shouldn’t it be done by now?” Castaspella inquires, as the only one with any sense. 

 

“I’m sure the timer will go off soon,” Glimmer says, and Angella is hit with the realization she didn’t set one. She opens the oven, and smoke fills the room. The food is on fire, she realizes, and the smoke alarms start going off.

 

“Is that the timer?” Adora asks, coughing. 

 

“Uhhhh, yep,” Glimmer answers. 

 

“Glimmer, get the fire extinguisher,”

 

“Got it!”

 

“Angella, what temperature did you put it at?” Castaspella asks, putting out the fire with a spell. Glimmer teleports into the room with the fire extinguisher.

 

“Oh, come on,” Glimmer tosses it aside, defeated.

 

When Angella doesn’t say the temperature, Castaspella takes a look, and takes a very deep breath— the kind that in Angella’s experience, usually means she wants to scream but can’t. (Now that— that hasn’t changed much since they were friends.)

 

“Too high?”

 

Castaspella gives her a very unamused look.

 

(They all eat the burnt food anyways, Angella too prideful to admit she made a mistake and everyone else attempting to make her feel better. Except for Castaspella, who just keeps eye contact with her the whole time.)



When it comes time to make dessert for the sleep-over the kids are having, Angella is prepared. She finds the chef’s dessert recipe book, and lets the kids pick out a cake to make.

 

She reads the instructions of the recipe book very carefully in an attempt not to make the same mistakes she made while making dinner, and Adora drops a bag of flour by mistake, getting covered in it.

 

Glimmer chuckles at this, “Now you could blend in in Plumeria.”

 

“What?” Adora asks, “Oooh. ‘Cause it’s flour, and Plumeria has flowers. Haha.”

 

“Yep. You don’t have to explain it,” Glimmer says, “Okay, cake can’t be that hard to bake, right? People do it all the time.”

 

“Glimmer, these instructions have 47 steps,” Angella replies, “Are you sure you wouldn’t just prefer 

 

“...what cake is this,” Castaspella asks, raising an eyebrow.

 

No one answers her, and an hour and a half later ends up with Adora and Bow panicking while Glimmer screams using a fire extinguisher to put out the cake, charred to a crisp. 

 

“So your idea for the first cake you’ll ever make… was to make one you have to set on fire?” Castaspella asks.

 

“It sounded simple… I thought we could roast marshmallows over it.”

 

“My kitchen staff is going to hate this,” Angella comments, glancing over the mess of a kitchen. 

 

“Auntie,” Glimmer slides over to Casta, hands together and ready to do puppy eyes, “...Can you teach us how to bake a cake?”

 

“Of course,” Castaspella pulls Glimmer close to her, hugging her niece, “What kind of cake do you want?”

 

“Not the fire kind, that’s for sure.”

 

“No arson cake, then.”




It turns out Castaspella does, in fact, know how to bake properly, and not in a disturbingly-minty-cookie-centre kind of way. In a genuine this-is-what-a-cake-looks-like way.

 

She assigns them all tasks, namely, Adora cracks the egg and ensures there is no egg shell anywhere to be seen, and she takes it a little too seriously. Then, she has Adora use those diligent skills to measure things precisely, after patiently explaining how measuring spoons and cups work.

 

Glimmer stirs what will be the cake, Bow works on making the icing with Angella, and Castaspella manages all of them while somehow perfectly cutting up the fruit without so much a glance.

 

“Hey Adora,” Glimmer says, after she’s stirred the cake batter, “You probably didn’t have this in the Horde, but while baking, the best part is licking the spoon with the batter on it.”

 

Angella’s eyes widen, and she’s pretty certain that you’re not supposed to eat cake batter— but before she can stop it, Glimmer has already given Adora the spoon and told her to try it.

 

Adora hesitantly licks the spoon, and immediately recoils, “I don’t like it.”

 

Glimmer laughs, “Ha! You fell for it. It’s only for cookie dough. Cake batter does not taste as good as cookie dough. Learned that the hard way.”

 

“I recorded the hard way,” Castaspella comments, idly.

 

“Wait, I don’t remember that,” Glimmer says, and Castaspella just smiles. 

 

“I know.”



Castaspella insists on icing the cake herself, but lets them decorate it. Glimmer adds a horrendous amount of sprinkles and her sister Adora hits herself in the face with a full icing bag. She herself makes some flower designs, and Bow adds some precise heart designs.

 

(Castaspella only adds two decorations, an absent look on her face, and Angella doesn’t think anyone else notices— just two single star-shaped sprinkles, one purple and one green. If anyone else had noticed, they wouldn’t have understood it. She frowns.)

 

The end result of the cake is messy, but delicious— and quietly, she decides she can forgive Castaspella’s prank. And, maybe she should’ve taken her advice. (She wouldn’t admit either of those things, however.)




When it comes time for the sleepover aspect, Angella all but tucks them into bed while Castaspella just watches her with an amused expression, and hugs her niece s before she and Angella leave the room.

 

They walk down the hallway in silence.

 

Castaspella sighs, and gives Angella an amused smile, “You know, you should’ve told me you were adopting Adora. I would’ve made her and Glimmer matching sweaters— they would look so cute.”

 

“What?” Angella asks, ruffling her feathers.

 

“What is confusing about matching sweaters for my nieces?”

 

“I— You know that’s not the part I was questioning.”

 

“Oh, come on, Angella— anyone can see it, if they actually look. You treat her the same way you treat Glimmer. I think it’s wonderful, really— it’s great for Glimmer to have a sibling, and Micah would have loved her.”

 

He would have, but that was beside the point, “I… I admit I may have gotten a little… more attached than usual, perhaps, but— I am keeping it realistic.”

 

“She’ll sign off on it, you know— both of them,” Castaspella says, “I bet Glimmer would be thrilled, and Adora could definitely benefit from this— but I guess you would have to actually talk to them, wouldn’t you?’

 

Angella flushed, ruffling her feathers, “I talk to them.”

 

“Well, let me know when you work it out and sign those papers— I think I’ll knit in preparation. The sweaters will be done by the time you tell them.”






Notes:

I don't know if real cake batter tastes bad or if it's just the instant cake mix, but regardless, it's already written. I just wanted to write something fluffy and Momgella related.