Ecdysis

The Fright Zone cellars were extensive; miles of poorly-lit and poorly-mapped tunnels and chambers ran beneath and beyond the main fortress like an ant's nest that built fortifications on the surface instead of hills. And less than half were actually in regular use – mostly for barracks. The rest now served as little more than highways for maintenance drones as they went about their endless, unfathomable tasks. They'd been used as dungeons, once, but the central prison with its energy barriers and Panopticon structure was far more efficient and far more secure than the old cells. Some had been repurposed as storage rooms - a particularly dank and narrow one had become what Shadow Weaver had euphemistically called the 'time out' room - but most had been left to gather dust. Which made them perfect for Scorpia's current needs.

Forcing a rusted door open, Scorpia stepped through into the cell beyond and closed it behind her. She'd known this was coming for weeks. That never made it any easier, or less unpleasant. The cell's single item of furniture – if it could even be called that – was a low metal bench which had long ago served as a cot. It had once had a thin rag mattress and thinner blanket, but both of them had been reduced to shreds of coarse fabric by time, damp and rodents. Lifting and tipping the bench, Scorpia shook the remains off, and then moved it to the middle of the cell and sat down. Taking off her shirt, she threw it aside and carefully arranged her tail behind her. It itched. So did most of the rest of her.

With a deep breath, Scorpia planted her feet firmly on the stone floor then reached behind herself to the small of her back, where her tail emerged from the base of her spine. Her claws felt awkward and clumsy, but nothing compared to what they'd be like later. Tail first. Then arms. Carefully sliding the tip of her moveable finger along the edge of the first segment of her tail, Scorpia probed at it blindly for a few moments, then found purchase. There was a small twinge of pain – like picking off a mostly healed scab – before the outer layer of chitin slowly began to come loose and peel away.

Shivering reflexively as cold air hit new carapace, Scorpia continued to ease the old skin away, careful to pull it away from the joints in her tail. Getting it off in one piece was always preferable to having to pick out shreds of old chitin that were hampering her movement. She had just managed to clear the first few segments – the easy ones – when the ventilation ducts above her rattled. Paying no attention to the noise – down here there were all sorts of strange sounds – Scorpia hooked her claws under the next section of her tail. It was one of the larger ones and she had just managed to peel the edges away when a rusted grating fell to the ground with a crash that made her jump, tearing off a long strip of translucent exuviae with a crackle of brittle chitin as she whipped around.

"Hi Scorpia!" Entrapta was dangling upside down from the gap in the duct where the grating had been, held in place by her ponytails. "Have you been investigating the tunnels as well? Can I see your notes?" Pulling an electronic tablet from her hair, Entrapta tapped the screen to bring up an image of what looked like multi-coloured intertwining grids. "I've been mapping them, and the ventilation system, and the sewer system – do you know who built them? Because they do not intersect like I thought they would! Especially not the sewer system, the layout there is a lot more organic like it was made by some kind of tunnelling creature instead of planned. Are there large tunnelling creatures in the Fright Zone?"

"…you were in the sewers?" Between her surprise at the technician's appearance, her embarrassment at being found mid-moult and the barrage of rapid-fire questions it was the only response Scorpia could think of.

"No, Emily helped with that," Entrapta replied as she flipped herself the right way round and used her ponytails to lower herself to the ground. "I don't swim so good, and if Mermista had trouble down there then I'd probably have drowned!" she continued, sounding bizarrely cheerful at that prospect.

"Wait, when was Mermista…" Realising she was getting distracted, Scorpia shook her head. "Never mind. I'm, uh, kinda busy right now so don't let me keep you from your maps or whatever." Curling her tail around to get a better look at it, Scorpia groaned as she saw the ragged edges of the old skin. "Awwww, that is not gonna come off cleanly now. Great."

"Are you moulting? Like an arthropod?" Entrapta had shoved the tablet back into her hair, maps forgotten as she moved closer. "That is fascinating! Do you do it often? Does it hurt?" Her ponytails coiled beneath her, lifting her to sit cross-legged at the same height as Scorpia.

"Yes, maybe, no, and not much." Scorpia carefully picked at the flaking chitin as she replied, trying to get her claws under a large enough part to ease the rest of it off. As she'd suspected, it started to fragment instead. Great, that probably meant she'd be digging it out from the joints for weeks. "And can you please keep your voice down?" she added imploringly. "I don't want anyone knowing I'm down here!" Scorpia was pretty sure she could trust Entrapta - and Catra too for that matter - but anyone else might jump on the opportunity to inform Hordak that one of his Force Captains wasn't fit for duty. Especially if they were ambitious.

"Why not?" Entrapta was circling the bench now, scrutinising the upper parts of Scorpia's tail where the old carapace had been removed. "Ooo, are you changing colour too? That's awesome!"

"No." From long experience, Scorpia knew that her new carapace would currently be a pale, delicate pink. "It's still soft; it gets darker as it hardens. And I pretty much can't do any of my duties until it does, so I have to stay out of sight. Don't show weakness in the Horde. Bad idea." She cursed as another piece of old carapace broke away at a tail joint. "Ah, crud. This is gonna take forever."

Entrapta's hands shot forwards then stopped a few inches from Scorpia's tail, fingers curling back on themselves. "I could help," she offered. "If it's okay to touch your tail that is. And also take notes."

Scorpia hesitated, looking at the other princess doubtfully. "You're… not grossed out or anything?" Entrapta certainly didn't look like she was grossed out; she looked fascinated, her fingers twitching as if she was fighting to suppress the urge to grab Scorpia's tail. Knowing Entrapta, she probably was.

"Why would it be gross?" Entrapta sounded genuinely nonplussed. "It's just old skin. Well, maybe more like fingernails? Sort of? It's not sticky or anything, right?"

"I would certainly hope not." Letting go of her tail, Scorpia let it swing back round behind herself. Entrapta certainly had more dextrous hands than she did – mostly on account of actually having hands – and the only other option involved several hours of Scorpia digging into sensitive tail joints with a sharp pencil. "Okay, I guess you can help. But be careful okay? And no venom samples, because that is personal."

The response was a wordless squeak of delight. Scorpia flinched automatically as Entrapta's fingers brushed the new chitin of her upper tail – it wasn't painful but it was definitely ticklish. The ends of both of Entrapta's ponytails had curled around her stinger to hold her tail still, but Scorpia could barely feel those. Deciding it would be better not to look, Scorpia turned her attention to her shoulders instead. Although the large spiked plates there matched her chitin, they weren't part of it, and she detached first one then the other.

Scorpia had removed the old skin from one actual shoulder plate all the way down to her left claw when she realised that apart from a few light pokes she hadn't felt much from her tail. Trying to be discreet, she glanced back over her unshed shoulder to see what Entrapta was doing and blinked in surprise as she saw that the other princess had nearly finished. It looked like Entrapta had split the old chitin along the largest crack using what appeared to be a tiny metal pry bar, and it was now hanging loosely from Scorpia's tail as Entrapta neared its end.

The technician was too engrossed in what she was doing to notice that Scorpia was staring at her, her face bare inches from the Force Captain's tail. With a few deft flicks of her tool, Entrapta delicately lifted the old skin away from the final joint between tail and stinger then took careful hold of the telson just above the point where it narrowed and curved into a needle point. Scorpia felt a slight tug, then flinched again as the last of the old skin was peeled away.

Scorpia always felt uncomfortably naked with a newly shed tail. Until it hardened the stinger was useless; it couldn't pierce wet tissue paper while it was still soft, let alone skin. And there were more than a few of her fellow captains that would be quick to take advantage of the loss of her primary weapon. At least Entrapta didn't have any intention of trying to de-sting her.

"Hey, good job ponytails," Scorpia commented, starting on her other shoulder. "That was actually pretty quick."

"Oh, I used my hands, not my hair," Entrapta replied absently, detaching a lock from one ponytail to lift the shed chitin and examine it closely. "It's interesting that the colour and the opacity changes towards the tip of your tail… and that the stinger is still sharp!" she added, poking it carefully.

"Actually by 'ponytails' I meant you." Peeling the exuviae away from her right arm, Scorpia flexed her wrists to make sure she'd got it all. Now that the initial awkwardness had faded – and Entrapta had shown nothing but interest instead of disgust – Scorpia felt more at ease. In fact, having someone to talk to that wasn't going to immediately take advantage of the situation had made the moult much less unpleasant than it usually was. "You know, like a nickname?"

"Oh!" Entrapta's expression brightened in sudden understanding. "Like when people say I'm weird?"

"No! Not like that," Scorpia's voice was almost indignant. "That's… not really a nice thing to say about someone."

Entrapta shrugged dismissively. "It doesn't bother me. I like it when things get weird. Usually I learn something from it. Like right now I am learning that I should not have poked the stinger on your tail shedding because there's still some residual venom there. Well, if the spreading numbness in my thumb is anything to go by anyway."

"Yeah, you really shouldn't be poking that." Reaching back to grab the other princess by the collar of her shirt, Scorpia pulled her around to sit in front of her instead. "You won't get a full dose or anything, but definitely enough to make things pretty uncomfortable if you keep doing it."

"Okay, back to my notes then!" Retrieving a notepad and pen from her hair, Entrapta added some more lines to a page that was already half full – since her hands hadn't been free until now Scorpia guessed she'd been writing with her hair. "So, how often do you moult, is it a seasonal thing? Lunar? Solar? Is this why you've been eating my chalk?"

"I did not!" Despite Scorpia's outraged denial, her embarrassed blush told a different story. "Nobody saw me; you can't prove… your robot saw me, didn't it?"

"She did," Entrapta confirmed. "I thought it was a bit strange but then I've seen a lot of strange things in the Fright Zone. It's been great for my research! Anyway, it makes sense now," she continued. "Because chalk is composed of calcite which is a stable form of calcium carbonate and I'm assuming that calcium is an important element in your chitin, correct?"

"Iiiiii… don't know," Scorpia replied, sounding somewhat bewildered. "About once a year, right before the moult happens, I just get these weird cravings, and one of the things I want to eat is chalk. Also limestone, paper, wood, bones… that kind of thing. My mom said that was normal!" she added defensively.

Rather than showing any signs that she thought otherwise, Entrapta nodded in understanding as she wrote. "For your species I'd imagine so; you're a vertebrate but you also have a partial exoskeleton. I can analyse your chitin to get an exact compositional breakdown, but it sounds like exoskeletal renewal requires both calcium and cellulose. Did your mom tell you anything else of significance about the process?"

"That it wouldn't happen so often when I got older, and I'm glad she was right because lemme tell ya once a year is a breeze compared to once a month." Scorpia grimaced at the memory. "That was my life between six and twelve. And it was even worse once my family joined the Horde because it was a lot harder to find somewhere private while I was also supposed to be in cadet training. Oh, that was also something she told me," she continued as Entrapta kept writing. "You should find someplace dark and quiet while you're moulting so that nobody can eat you before your chitin hardens."

"Interesting. Is that a real hazard?" Entrapta asked, sounding inappropriately enthusiastic about the prospect of cannibalism. "Did it happen to anyone you knew?"

"I think it's just an old story now," Scorpia replied. "Though there's probably things in the Whispering Woods that would eat you. Then again, they'd eat you whether you were moulting or not," she added with a shrug. "But I prefer to be someplace nobody can see me. Or poke me. One time when I was really little – I think it might have been the first time I ever moulted? Anyway, I was at some fancy princess thing with my parents and my tail was itching and when I scratched it the skin started coming off and it felt all weird underneath. Then one of the other princesses started poking it to see what it felt like so I stung her in the face, then my parents had to take me home. You know - kid stuff."

"Uh-huh… well, I never actually went to any princess stuff before the prom," Entrapta admitted with a shrug. "The prom's okay because there's so many people there that you don't really have to deal with anyone one-on-one. I'm kinda… not good at that. I would rather be working on projects or research or something constructive."

"So what are we doing right now then?" Scorpia queried as she used her left claw to loosen the chitin on her right. The plating there was much thicker than the rest, which made removing it much easier. "Or am I a project? Or research?"

Entrapta shifted uncomfortably on her hair as she considered that, the ends of her ponytails fidgeting with each other much as her hands were doing. "Friends shouldn't be projects or research," she said eventually. "And you're not! Well, I guess I am doing research but also I like talking to you because you listen and you don't tell me to be quiet or that I'm not making sense. We are friends, right? I can't always tell, I mean I thought the other princesses were my friends but when I think about it they never actually said we were friends they just asked me to join the Rebellion and then come rescue Glimmer. And if they were really my friends wouldn't they have come back for me like Catra said? I mean, we came here to get Glimmer and Bow back which was fine, I'm pretty sure that Bow is definitely my friend, but leaving me here is also fine? Do they just… not want me back?"

There was a long moment of awkward silence as Scorpia tried to think of something to say. She didn't think that 'maybe there's a good reason they left you behind' was a good idea, especially not when she had no idea what that reason might be. Entrapta's notepad and pen were lying forgotten in her lap; instead the technician was twisting a length of purple hair around and between her fingers, her eyes distant and overly bright. She looked up sharply as Scorpia cleared her throat.

"Hey, uh, wanna see something cool?" Without waiting for a reply, Scorpia took a firm hold of her right claw near the base and pulled sharply. The old skin came off as smoothly as a glove, leaving her with a pale pink claw that almost seemed to pulse as she flexed it experimentally, throwing the hollow shell aside. "Ta-da!"

Introspection forgotten, Entrapta quickly snatched the shed claw with one ponytail before it could hit the ground and shatter. "Oooo, does increased density and thickness make the old chitin easier to remove?" she asked as she examined it. The exuviae from Scorpia's tail and arms had been mostly translucent, but the shed claw was darker, the tips and edges of the pincer almost as deep a red as her claws were normally.

"It definitely makes it easier to come off in one piece," Scorpia replied, opening and closing the newly shed pincer to make sure it didn't stiffen up. "This always feels so weird, like my claws are made of rubber or something…" Normally the gesture would have made a sharp clicking sound, but now it made no noise at all, the points of both fingers bending backwards as they met. "Also I shouldn't do this - that's something else my mom told me. If I play with my claws before they dry, that's how you end up with crooked pincers."

"That does make sense," Entrapta observed. Scorpia was slightly disconcerted to see that the technician was now wearing her shed claw like an oversized glove, using her hand to open and close the pincer. "It's interesting that there's still articulation in the shed chitin from your claw, that also must be because it's thicker than the chitin on your tail. How long does the new stuff take to dry?"

"Usually about three hours, though the total time is nearly double that since there's not a lot I can do with this," Scorpia waved her left claw meaningfully, "…until righty's hardened enough for me to get the other one off. Well, I can try and bite it off, but that's more trouble than it's worth."

"Do you want me to get it?" Entrapta asked, putting the hollow claw carefully to one side. "Also can I keep it? And the other one too."

"Uhhhh… sure," Scorpia hoped she didn't sound as perturbed as she felt. "And gross, but also sure. It'll probably just disintegrate after a few days though," she continued as she held her left arm out. "It gets really brittle once it's been off for a while."

"I can probably fix that." Scooting closer to the other princess, Entrapta pulled out the same slender metal tool she'd used earlier and started using it to loosen the old skin at Scorpia's left wrist. "Also maybe make some kind of topical solution you can use to make the new chitin harden faster? I'd need to do some analysis though or that might end badly. Okay, here goes!" Taking hold of Scorpia's left claw, Entrapta gave it a sharp tug, and it slid off as easily as the right had done.

"Something that makes the skin on my tail come off as easily as the skin on my claws would be good," Scorpia replied as she opened and closed her left pincer a few times before carefully crossing both arms over her knees so that her claws jutted out on either side. "Okay, three hours and I'll be good to go, thanks. You can get back to your mapping now."

"Eh, the tunnels aren't going anywhere," Entrapta said, now with a shed claw on each hand. "Do… you want company while you're waiting?" she offered hesitantly. "I mean, it would be useful to observe the curing process - your tail is already changing colour. It looks neat!"

Glancing backwards, Scorpia saw that her tail had darkened to a bubblegum pink striped with a deep cerise that was slowly turning red. "If you think that's neat, you should see it under a blacklight," she responded. "Then it really looks neat. And yeah, company would be good. Just don't tell Catra about this or she'll think we're both slackers."

"No problem," Entrapta agreed cheerfully. "Now what were you saying about a blacklight…?"

A/N: This is what happens when I lie awake at 2am and think "does Scorpia moult like a regular scorpion?" Big thanks to Rinney for proof-reading and suggestions, as always I use far too many commas. If you are wondering what 'Ecdysis' means, it is a specific word for moulting in arthropods. 'Exuviae' is the term for moulted exoskeletons and the 'telson' is the final segment of a scorpion's tail, the part the sting is on.