Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is going to be another losing battle in a long line of losses for Catra.

She surveys the area from the trees, usually using them to move around the territory they’re battling for in the Whispering Woods to give directions to her squad. But now she’s not moving any longer.  She just watches and it’s a heavy, sinking feeling to see how easily the other side cuts through the territory they’re defending. Her team is failing, easily beaten back by the rebellion.

Catra knew this was all but inevitable and she never shows up to a fight without a backup plan. Now that they’re losing, she has to wait to get Adora alone.  Right now Rogelio is trying his best to get a decent shot at her, but he’s too slow for her and too direct.

“You can’t try a direct hit,” she groans, rolling her eyes, watching him.  A direct hit against She-Ra is laughably ineffectual. Catra is the only one that comes close and you have to move quickly.  She-Ra, while powerful, is slow and the only thing that works is to use her size against her and outmaneuver her. He won’t get a shot at her like this.  Catra settles in to watch and wait for her to send him running.

Sure enough, one too many crushing blows with her sword snaps his weapon in half and now he’s retreating, well aware that defeat is imminent.  Catra looks around. No one else is close to her. Now’s her chance.

Catra leaps between the trees and drops into the clearing behind her.  Adora normally wouldn’t hear her, but She-Ra’s senses are powerful and she whips around and swings without hesitation.  Catra dodges, moving in circles around her.

“Catra!”

“Hey, Adora,” she grins, avoiding a particularly reckless swing. Adora is still very easy to distract.  

“You’re not winning this one!” she hacks at her again, and she nearly hits her this time, shearing a tuft of hair off of Catra’s head.

“Depends on your definition of winning,” she shrugs.

Catra keeps dodging endlessly as Adora keeps trying to hit her.  Her blows get more and more unfocused as she gets frustrated and tired.  She finally hits the ground, lodging her sword in the earth beneath her, sending shockwaves out from it and Catra grabs on to a low-hanging branch to steady herself as the earth trembles.

Adora yanks the sword out of the ground and pauses for a moment, sword raised, calculating her next strike.  Catra watches her eyes scan her surroundings, mild confusion setting in as Catra watches her as well without moving or striking.  She tests her, thrusting at her and when Catra sidesteps her again without counter striking, jumping from the tree. Adora narrows her eyes.

“Why aren’t you fighting?” she asks, eyebrows furrowing, and she lowers her sword, giving Catra a look somewhere between unease and concern.  Catra doesn’t answer. She stands, arms down, claws sheathed, looking at Adora.

“What are you doing?” she scowls darkly, tightening her hands around the handle, waiting for Catra’s next move.

“Oh, I don’t know.  Winning?”

“Is this a trick?”

“Duh,” she laughs, standing there in front of Adora with her hands on her hips.  Adora stares for a moment, thinking before her face clears.

“Oh my god.  You’re trying to get captured, aren’t you?” Adora asks, eyes wide in disbelief.  

Catra cackles.

“You haven’t changed.  Still slow on the uptake.”

“Why?” she murmurs, dropping her sword entirely.

“I have pretty good reason to believe things are about to take a really nasty turn for me back in the Fright Zone.”

“You really are trying to get captured,” she repeats as if trying to convince herself.  She blinks rapidly, confused. “You know you could just ask to join us, right?”

“No one else but you is going to believe me even if I do do that, Adora,” Catra quirks an eyebrow, crossing her arms.

“I’m not going to capture you if you’re coming willingly,” Adora shakes her head.

“Then I’ll get your friends to do it.  They’ll do it as soon as they see me, all I have to do is put up a convincing fight,” she answers as she turns to leave and Adora sighs.

“Wait.  I don’t want either of you to get hurt in the process.  I’ll do it if you want me to. Are you sure, though?”

“No, I’ve just been waiting here for my own health,”  Catra quips and Adora pouts a little, annoyed. “Are you going to do it or not?”

Adora huffs, transforms her sword, and gently binds her wrists together behind her back and Catra rolls her eyes.

“I could slip out of these right now.  At least do a convincing job.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she murmurs.  “And I don’t understand why you won’t just talk to them instead of this.”

“No one is going to trust me that quickly. I’m not a magic sword lady and we’ve got a little more bad blood between us than you did when you joined.”

Adora reluctantly leads her away.

“This feels wrong,” she murmurs to her.

“Just let me do this my way, okay?” Catra mutters and Adora sighs deeply.

They crest the hill to find Bow and Glimmer resting, looking worn and a little scratched up after their encounter.  

“Did you...capture Catra?” Glimmer asks, cocking her head.

“I guess in a technical sense,” Adora explains.  “But she came willingly.”

“Why not just ask to join the Rebellion, then?” she scowls.  “Is this some scheme to get us to trust you?”

“Even if it’s not, I’m not going to be able to convince you it’s not and I’m also not going to be able to convince you I want to join by ‘just asking.’ So I just figured getting captured was easier in the long run-” Catra explains.

“Or just easier not to admit outright you changed your mind?” Bow grins and Catra growls under her breath.

“So what do we, like, do with her?” Adora asks, helpless.

“Take her back to Brightmoon, I guess,” Glimmer shrugs.

“She’s not even struggling,” Bow peers at her, too close, and Catra growls at him louder, a warning, and he jumps back.  

“Still the same Catra though,” he laughs nervously.  

“I guess let’s go?  This is weird,” Glimmer shakes her head.

“I mean, you’ve captured her before?” Adora offers.

“Well, yeah, but it took like a lot,” Glimmer exclaims.  “Look, she can even get her wrists out of this and she’s just going to come with us?”

“Seems like it.”

“How do we know she’s not going to go off as soon as we get her to Brightmoon?” Glimmer narrows her eyes.

“I guess we don’t.  I don’t think so, but I don’t know,” Adora admits, eyeing Catra with that impossible worry that makes her both grudgingly grateful and angry with her at the same time.

“We’d better take the precaution.  I’m sorry-” Glimmer gives Adora an apologetic look and turns to tighten the rope tying Catra’s wrists.  “We just can’t risk it.”

Adora nods, somber.  They clamber onto Swift Wind with Bow in the lead, Glimmer at the back, and Adora in the middle holding on to Catra.  Catra’s stomach drops as he takes off, fists clenching.

“Are you okay?” Adora murmurs.

“I’d really love to hold on to something and I can’t,” she mutters.  “So I’m just trying not to look down.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Relax, not everything is on you, Adora,” Catra rolls her eyes.  “I knew what I was getting into.”

“Still-” she protests.

The landing is even worse than the flight.  The horse lands into a gallop that jostles Catra but everyone else seems used to it. He slows to a canter, turning toward an entrance in the side of the palace at Brightmoon, partially hidden by the waterfall.  Catra flinches as the mist hits her just before they go inside.

“So when do we get to get off the horse?” Catra mutters, tired of what’s been a rough ride here.

“We’re almost there-” Adora murmurs before the horse tosses his head, indignant.

“When the horse says so,” he huffs.  “I have a name, you know.”

“Great, so he talks back.”

“Says the cat that talks back.”

“We try not to talk about Swift Wind like he’s not here or like he doesn’t understand,” Bow explains brightly and Catra rolls her eyes.

“Sure.”

When they stop, Adora half lifts her off the horse and Catra is glad for solid ground under her feet.  Her legs shake a little but she tries to play it off. Swift Wind snorts in disapproval as she walks past.

“I’m not carrying her again, Adora, I don’t like her.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to again.  I’m sorry. Thanks for helping out anyway,” she reaches up and scratches his ears affectionately.  He blinks, mollified, and turns back the other way. They lead her into a room lined with doorless cells.  There are relatively few compared to the Fright Zone. They’re also bigger and cleaner than the ones there too.  

“You guys actually have cells? I’m surprised,” Catra snickers and Glimmer is clearly unamused.

“We didn’t always.  When the Horde landed, it became a necessity.”

“It doesn’t even have a door.”

“It does,” Glimmer scowls.

“Sorry, Princess,” Catra grins, slipping out of the ropes binding her wrists and walking into the first one she sees, sitting on the ground, reclined back against one of the walls.  Glimmer huffs, but can’t protest when Catra has willingly placed herself inside. She places her hand along the side and the light from her palm ricochets against the walls at the entrance, spider-webbing into something resembling bars.  They’re uneven but also connected, like cracks in glass, an irregular network of glittering purple that creates a barrier all the same. When Glimmer moves her hand they stay, glowing.

“Of course it glitters,” she observes.

“Right.  I’ll be back.  I’m going to get my mom,” she tells Bow and Adora and they nod, staying behind.  

Catra looks around the little room she’s confined to.  It would be considered almost cushy by Horde standards.  The mattress is small and not unlike hers back home. The ceilings, like everything here, seem impossibly high to Catra for a place that’s supposed to be confining.

When Angella sweeps in almost a half hour later, she doesn’t immediately say anything.  She peers at Catra. She looks right back at her, feigning something between calm and boredom.

“Why are you here?” Angella asks, scowling lightly.

“I was captured,” she answers, simple and avoidant.

“Yes, with a suspicious lack of struggle.  I’ve watched you fight for years now, Force Captain, and I’ve never once seen you surrender.  I’m not sure whether it’s a real one or whether you intend to try to gain our trust to betray it again later.”

Catra just lets her tail swish, agitated. She isn’t going to convince anyone they have to trust her and she isn’t going to beg.  She’ll take whatever happens with her dignity intact.

“You understand that you’ve grievously wronged us in the past and that there will be consequences for it?”

“Duh.  Ask your daughter, I went in here myself,” she gestures around her at the cell she occupies.

“Yes, she told me that as well.”

She surveys Catra for a few more minutes, severe.

“Glimmer?  What do you think?” Angella asks, turning to her daughter.

Glimmer starts in the corner.

“M-me?”

“Yes.  What do you propose?”

“I…” she pauses and looks at Catra through the bars.  “She seems sincere, but I don’t know-”

“I think she actually is,” Adora interrupts, but Angella puts up her hand.

“Adora, I know you believe she’s sincere.  I also hope you understand why those of us that have had our trust betrayed too many times can’t believe that as readily as you can.”

Adora nods, steps back, and picks at the seam of her sleeve.  

“I think a month here in case she has any immediate plans,” Glimmer says, slow and deliberate, thinking.  Adora swallows hard. “After that, I’d say six months in the palace followed by six months of no trips outside unsupervised.  No military participation at all.”

She looks at Angella, questioning.

“Fair,” she nods slowly.  “A little lenient for me, but if you believe she may be sincere, it’s fair.”

“I don’t want to say for certain, but she seems different,” Glimmer offers.

“Alright.  I’ll trust your judgment,” she answers and Glimmer looks both relieved and stressed.  

Angella turns to leave and Adora raises a hand, hesitant.

“C-can I stay here and talk to her?” she stammers, giving Angella a hesitant and pleading look.  “If that’s allowed? Is that allowed?”

Angella surveys her for a long moment and then nods once without a word.  Adora sighs, relieved, shoulders drooping a little.

“I’ll...meet you upstairs later?” Glimmer asks and Adora nods.  Once everyone has left, she sits, back to the wall adjacent to Catra’s cell.

“Sorry you’re in here for a month.  I still think you could’ve just talked to them,” Adora sighs.

Catra shakes her head.

“I thought a couple of years of war would make you at least a little pessimistic.  It’s a cute idea but not realistic.”

“I find the opposite, actually,” Adora murmurs.  “I’ve kind of had to be optimistic. I’d go insane otherwise.”

“Hm.  Well, either way, it’s not on you.  I knew what I was getting into.”

“What happened?” Adora asks, worry etched on the planes of her face.  “Not that I’m not glad you’re here, but you never left before. What changed?

“I messed up too many times for Hordak,” she answers with a shrug.  

“But I thought you were his right-hand.”

“Yup, I was.  When we were winning.  But then I started losing.  My team was dropping like flies.”

“So, you just left?”

“Not really.  Let’s just say this-” she gestures around at the cell she occupies, “is an improvement over what was about to happen back in the Fright Zone.  Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t have as much choice in the matter as you think. I was warned that another loss wasn’t going to be good for me. I was losing and I had to make a plan b.  I was saving my own skin as usual,” she grins.

“Oh my god, what were they going to do?” Adora whispers, wide-eyed. She's gotten softer in her years here. She would never have hesitated or stumbled over difficult things like this before.

“I wasn't sure if it was going to be life imprisonment or whatever else terrible,” Catra shrugs. “I just knew it wasn’t going to be pretty and I knew you all would be too mushy to kill me, so I figured life on the other side had better odds. Lucky for me you're way softer than I thought. A month here and six months inside a cushy palace is almost criminal.”

Adora scowls lightly.

“It's because Glimmer has faith in you. I do too. But don't betray it. Trust me, neither of us will be 'soft’ again.”

“Relax, Adora. I'm not going to 'betray your trust’ or whatever. I'm here to save my own skin, simple as that.”

“Then why not just tell us what you just told me? We'd protect you.”

“Because I'm not going to beg anyone for anything,” Catra answers, tail thrashing as annoyance starts to take hold.

“Translation, you want us to save you but you don't want to apologize for anything you did to us along the way.”

“I don't have anything to apologize for.”.

“Uh, yeah you do?” Adora huffs.  “Like everything you did the last few years? Staying with the Horde?”

“And whose fault is that when you’re the one who left me there?”

“You still could’ve left.  That hardly excuses the fact that you hurt people, Catra.”

“And you didn’t?”

“What? N-no!”

“Oh, so I don’t count?” Catra starts to raise her voice.  

“I never said that,” she scowls darkly.  “But you’re avoiding the fact that people got hurt and are still getting hurt and you were leading the charge for a while.”

“You keep talking about all these people who got hurt.  Meanwhile, you left me there in the first place and didn't care then about what would happen to me. You didn’t care about leaving me alone with Shadow Weaver and you were perfectly happy to ask me to cover for you. You didn't care that I was pretty much guaranteed to get hurt then.”

“You’re just ignoring everyone else in this and talking about yourself,” she tells her and the calm, measured way she says it makes Catra bristle.

“Yeah, because I didn’t have a choice!”

“You always have a choice.”

“That’s really easy for you to tell me to just leave when you spent all your life as Shadow Weaver’s golden child.  Maybe I’m talking about myself so much because I had to save myself by myself. There was a good chance I was as good as dead as soon as you walked out!  Shadow Weaver almost had my head way before Hordak threatened me because you left and she had free reign to do whatever she wanted to me!”

Catra is standing now, claws brandished, and Adora frowns stubbornly up at her from the floor. “Not to mention that she blamed me for the fact that you left.  Even as she was being banished, she still blamed me, not you. I’m not apologizing for trying to make something of the situation you left me in. I’ve already been apologizing for everything you did wrong my entire life and I’m not going to keep doing it now.”

“Are you serious?” Adora sputters, “I even just vouched for you in front of the entire Rebellion.  I just endangered everyone for you! A-and I offered to let you join so many times! You could’ve come with me in the first place and you just refused!  Do you even care about the people you hurt while you were working for them?”

“Do you even care about the fact that you hurt me when you left?  There’s no way I’d come with you after realizing I didn’t mean anything to you.”

“Yes, you do!” Adora pleads, somewhere between desperation and righteous anger.

“Then why did you just leave me at the drop of a hat? Were you even going to try and come find me or tell me at all?  Or were you just going to disappear and let me wonder if you were dead? Did you even care that I might be dead?”

“Catra, I was captive until about fifteen minutes before you found me! I always meant to come find you, you just found me first! I didn’t even have time!  You’ve never even given me a chance to try and make it right! I never said I didn’t mess up, okay? “

“Yeah but you never said that you did mess up until right now after I brought it up.  You talk about me needing to apologize?  You’ve never apologized either!”

“Yes, I have!  And you dropped me off a cliff right after!”

Adora finally stands, fists clenched.  They stare each other down, arguing as close to the bars to one another as they can get.

“Yeah, coerced to apologize on pain of death, that seems like a sincere one.”

“Maybe it’s because you never told me half of that stuff until you had to! I didn’t even know I’d upset you because you’re so cold and closed off you won’t talk to anyone!”

“I shouldn’t have had to tell you! You saw most of it! Come on, Adora, Shadow Weaver threatened to kill me right in front of you and that wasn’t enough for you to leave but a couple of strangers was?”

“God, we were eight, Catra! Where were we going to go?”

“It’s not like it got better after that! I almost left a million times! Anything would’ve been better than there, but I stayed because you told me you had my back just to turn around and swan off into the woods the minute a shiny sword caught your eye!”

“You never think that maybe I didn’t notice because Shadow Weaver was messing with my head too?  I’m not saying what happened to me was worse, but everything you did that she didn’t like was because I didn’t keep you in line. The fact that you were still alive was on me and I had to keep it that way.  Everything came down to what I did! Whether I was good enough to do my job and keep her happy and you happy and everyone else happy and keep her off your back all at the same time! You don’t think that maybe that was a lot of pressure?  I felt like I had to be perfect! I didn’t even have the headspace to question it!”

“Are you kidding me?!”  Catra snarls. “You’re trying to act like being Shadow Weaver’s pet was so hard you couldn’t pay attention for a second to see that she tried to kill me? And that you didn’t blame me for it and tell me it was because I was ‘disrespectful.’  You really don’t give a shit at all about me, do you?”

She turns her back to Adora, crossing her arms and Adora’s voice goes shrill and shaky.  Catra can hear the threat of tears in it.

“Yes, I do!  I wouldn’t waste my time arguing with someone I didn’t care about!  I love you, Catra-”

“Don’t lie to me!” Catra whirls, snarling with a violence that surprises even her.  Adora jumps. “Don’t you dare tell me you love me when you haven’t even been there for three years!”

“I’m not doing this,” she shakes her head, tears evident in her voice, and it makes Catra so wildly angry she can barely hold it.  “I’m sorry. I have to go-”

“At least I’ll be used to it! Adora’s leaving me by myself to go have fun with people she barely knows, that’s never happened before.”

Adora clenches her fists, face tomato-red and tears spilling over now, and barrels out of the room.

“Oh! Adora, you startled me,” a voice sounds a little way down the hall.  “Are you alright?”

Adora unleashes a tirade somewhere between yelling and sobbing that’s completely unintelligible.  

“Woah, slow down.  Sweetheart, I've got her, why don't you go help down the hall?”

Another voice agrees and Catra grumbles to herself listening to Adora's hysterics growing quieter as she leaves.

“So how long have you two been together?”

A woman with white hair stands outside, leaning against the wall. Catra growls and turns her back to her to sit back down.

“We're not together and we never have been.”

She laughs a little, stepping inside.

“Well then you fight like you’ve known each other for a while,” she quirks an eyebrow.

“Sure, you know everything about us.”

“No, I never said that. I’ve just been married for ten years and seen plenty of arguments.  Some are petty one-offs. Some repeat themselves for a long time before they get completely worked out,” she answers.  “You two sound like you’ve had this argument before.”

“Yeah,” Catra mutters.

“I could tell.  You’ve got one of those that just keeps circling and circling around until one of you can’t take it anymore.  That happens when you try to force something that’s going to take a while and try to rush it.”

“What are you saying?

“That some problems don’t get solved in a day.  Some problems don’t get solved in a decade. There’s an argument we have about once a year give or take,” she sighs.

“Sounds like things aren’t working that well for you and that you’re not actually qualified to give me relationship advice.”

She laughs.

“From the girl who just sent her girl crying down the hall-”

“She's not ‘my girl’ and looks like neither of us has any plans to change that.”

“We have the same argument sometimes still,” she continues as if Catra hasn't said anything. “ But now it’s not as much of an argument anymore.  Just a little reminder that we’re still working on it. There’s definitely no more crying. Some things take a lot of work to get through. Doesn't mean it's not worth the effort.”

“I’m not apologizing.”

“Then you’ll have to accept that you’re not going to have a relationship of any kind with her.”

“Excuse me?”

“Trust me, you don’t get a decade in without a lot of apologizing.  Relationships are no place for your ego.  You’ve got to let that go. I’m not saying she doesn’t have problems too and things she needs to apologize for too.  You're both going to have to admit that neither one of you is completely right.”

“Yeah, good luck with that. Have you met Adora?”

“I've spent more time with Adora the past few years than you have,” she quirks an eyebrow, half-challenging, and half-amused. “She's a little oblivious sometimes-”

Catra snorts, derisive.

“- but she does actually apologize and try to make things right once she figures out she’s messed up.”

“Well I knew Adora for about nineteen years before you met her and I’ve never seen her apologize for anything she did wrong.”

“Well, maybe you’ll hear it now if you give her a chance and you’re willing to talk to her and apologize too.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Why not? Because you don’t want to or because it’s hard for you?  There’s a difference.”

Catra pauses to mull it over.  Right now she certainly doesn’t want to apologize to Adora.  Her teary and angered expression replays every time she closes her eyes and it makes her own anger flare again, a writhing in her stomach and chest that won’t calm no matter what.

“I’m going to assume it’s hard for you,” she chuckles.  “You know, have you ever thought of just telling her that?”

“What good is that going to do?”

“It helped me.  I’m not much of a talker, actually.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“That’s what ten years of work does.  I’m still not that much of a talker, but my wife knows that now and I know she needs to hear from me sometimes.  Just think it over, okay?”

“I think this is a little far past just Catra doesn’t like to talk and Adora won’t shut up-”

“Fair point,” she nods.  “But that’s certainly not helping you two get anywhere.  I’m going to leave you alone now. Just think about it.”

“As if there’s anything else to do,” Catra mutters under her breath, but she’s already gone.

Catra does think about what she said, though not for lack of trying to avoid it.  But there are hours of nothingness to fill and quiet has a way of making thoughts weigh, heavier with each minute that stretches on.  

It’s not unlike the Fright Zone in here, really, with bursts of activity followed by blank hours.  It reminds Catra of her days before becoming a Force Captain, before Adora left. Curling up on a skinny and slightly threadbare mattress. Meals on a regimented schedule.  It’s almost comforting to think of days when she was young and things seemed somewhat simpler, not that they ever were truly simple, when all of her decisions didn’t weigh so heavily.  It’s a comfort and at the same time, it’s painful. Adora is here and also isn’t and this room and this bed that remind Catra of her makes her want to see her so badly and never want to see her again at the same time.

Regardless, the knowledge that Adora is here somewhere won’t leave her no matter how much she’d like to ignore it.  With nothing to do, Catra wonders where she is. She thinks about what her room and her bed are like here, what she does with her days, and who she’s with instead of her.

She doesn’t see Adora again for a few days.  She’s just starting to think that Adora may leave her here for the entire month she has without another word when she appears, hesitant.

“Hey,” she raises her hand in a half-hearted wave.  She doesn’t smile.

“Hey,” Catra answers, barely moving to incline her head.

“Can I?” she gestures to the space in front of Catra’s cell.

“Knock yourself out.”

“I won’t be long.  I just wanted to give you this,” she holds out a little stack of paper, folded neatly in half.  Catra takes it hesitantly through the bars.

“What is it?”

“I thought maybe this would be better since we aren’t really getting through a conversation right now.  That and I don’t know if I can take another argument yet. I thought about what you said-”

“That lady told you to do this, didn’t she?”

“Huh?”

“The one who caught you crying in the hallway?”

“Oh!  Spinnerella?  She suggested it, yeah. I think Netossa came in to talk to you? Would you rather talk?”

“Not really.”

“O-okay.  Well, I’ll just go, then?” she gestures at the door.  Catra nods wordlessly. There’s a pang when Adora turns her back to her and leaves that she wants to ignore.  

Opening the little letter and seeing Adora’s handwriting just reinforces the feeling she’s had here that they’re children again.  She nearly folds it back up, the memory of sitting in the bottom bunk together, Adora grudgingly letting Catra copy her homework strong and pervasive.  But Catra reads anyway.

Hey,

I thought really hard about what you said and even though there’s a lot of stuff I’ve been wanting you to apologize for, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do right now.  I thought about it and you’re right that you’ve never heard an apology from me that wasn’t in another argument or fight. I’ve been waiting on you to apologize when I should’ve already apologized to you first a long time ago.

I think I really messed up the day Shadow Weaver threatened you like that.  I should never have said it didn’t matter what they did to us. It’s pretty clear to me now that it mattered then and still matters now.  I was scared and I wanted to believe what Shadow Weaver said because it made it easier for me as a kid to understand it. It was easier for me to believe that you deserved some of what she did because you were disrespectful or didn’t behave the way she wanted.  But I always knew on some level that she never treated you fairly regardless of what you did or how you behaved and that you didn’t deserve it. It made me realize I should’ve left way before I did and I should’ve taken you with me. I should never have tried to convince you or myself to stay.  

The fact that I stayed even that long is something I have to answer for both to you and to everyone here at Brightmoon. If I had left with you when I should have, so much damage to us and to Etheria could’ve been avoided.   I’ve been trying to make it right here in Brightmoon, but I realize I still have a lot to do to make it up to you and that starts with admitting that I was wrong. I messed up way before I ever left and I don’t blame you for being really angry with me.  I shouldn’t have expected you to move on and forgive me before ever getting any acknowledgement or apology from me. I prioritized other people before you and I always kind of have. I’m sorry and I’m going to try to make it right now, whatever that means and whatever you need.

-Adora

Catra folds the paper back up again and curls up on the bed, shoving the letter under her pillow.  She pulls the small quilt over her head, hiding her face in case anyone sees.

Catra re-reads the letter a few times, often at night in the moonlight.  She doesn’t want anyone to catch her reading it, least of all Adora.

Adora doesn’t return again for days.  When she finally appears, she has the same hesitance to her, although this time she attempts a weak smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey, Adora,” Catra mutters, unable to meet her eyes.

“Can I?” she gestures to the floor and Catra nods.

“Did you, um, read it?” she gestures to the stack of paper that sits on Catra’s bed.

“Yup.”

Adora nods and waits for Catra to respond.  When she doesn’t she stammers, “W-was it okay?”

“It’s nice or whatever.  But you’re doing that thing again.”

“What?”

“That thing where you’re all guilty about a bunch of stuff where half of it isn’t your fault.”

“No, I don’t want to absolve myself, I messed up-”

“Adora,” she groans, tipping her head back to rest on the wall behind her.  “Look, I’m not good at this, okay? Yeah, you screwed up. But Shadow Weaver was also a complete psychopath and-” she sighs, trying to find the right words. “Look, I’m still mad.  It’ll probably take me a long time not to be. And some of it is your fault, but I grew up with Shadow Weaver too. She messed all of us up in different ways and I knew she was messing with you too.  And yeah, you should’ve way figured that out and I still definitely think that you got off way easier than me in a lot of ways, but-”

Catra trails off, unsure where to go from here.  Adora stares with wide eyes, quiet, waiting for her to continue.

“Also, not to start a fight, but you’ve got to dial down the hero complex.  Like way down.”

“What hero complex?” she scowls lightly and Catra grits her teeth.

“Adora,” she spits through clenched jaws.  “I’m trying really hard to be calm and whatever.  I just mean you’re constantly acting like you’re responsible for saving me and it really pisses me off.”

“I’m just-”

“Trying to help, I know.  But I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.  I can and have saved myself and I went toe-to-toe with you for three years with no problem.  Your thing where you want to keep taking care of me is kind of insulting.”

Adora nods, swallowing.  It’s clear there’s a little kickback in her.  She scowls lightly, but she swallows any rebuttal.  

“You don’t have to babysit me and I don’t like feeling like you’re trying to.  Just let me figure this out and if something bad happens to me, I’ll handle it, okay? I want to handle this myself.”

“Okay,” she murmurs.

“Okay.”

They sit in silence for a minute.

“Can I keep this?” Catra asks, holding up the letter.  The pages are a little wrinkled now.

“Oh.  Uh, yeah.  If you want.”

“Thanks.”

She starts to smile, trying and failing to hide it.

“What are you smiling about?” Catra drones, rolling her eyes.

“It’s just,” Adora shrugs.  “That’s kind of the first conversation we’ve had since I left that didn’t explode by the end.  I think that’s pretty cool.”

Catra looks at her for a moment and blinks at her.

“Yeah.”

Chapter Text

The rest of Catra’s time here passes quickly.  She’s used to regimented and uneventful days like this and they flow naturally for her.  Adora comes to sit with her intermittently but their conversations are staid and a little halting, neither of them sure how to proceed from here.  

Adora is there the day she’s released too, hesitant, but with that half-smile she wore the first day they really talked in here.  

Angella and Glimmer are not so optimistic.

“This will track you so we’ll know if you attempt to leave.  Understand that we’re putting more faith in you than I personally feel is warranted.  Should you betray our trust, you will never be allowed to return to Brightmoon again. If you leave, we will not protect you from the Horde and neither will any of our allies.  Understood?” Angella tells her, clear and with no room for protest.

“Yeah, got it,” Catra crosses her arms.

Angella purses her lips and stares for a moment before she turns and leaves.

“Jeez,” Catra mutters to Glimmer as soon as she’s out of earshot.  “Your mom is uptight.”

Glimmer bristles, jutting her chin out.

“She’s not.   You tried to destroy our home more than once.  She’s going out on a serious limb for you.”

“Alright, chill,” Catra puts her hands up.  “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down-” she growls.

Adora and Bow watch, eyes wide.  Adora looks like she wants to step in and break it up and it’s taking everything in her power to let Catra handle it herself.

“Okay, fine.  Stay mad then.  I’m not going to do anything.  I’m pretty much as good as dead if I leave.  I’m stuck here.”

Glimmer deflates a little.

“Hm.  Follow me, I guess.”

They follow Glimmer up the steps into a cavernous and bright main hall that towers so high it looks as if it nearly disappears into the sky itself.   Catra looks at Adora and cocks an eyebrow. She smiles sheepishly. Stained glass windows reflect a glittering array of colors on the floor.

“You’ve been living like this?” Catra mutters.

“Yeah, pretty much.  It’s nice once you adjust.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about adjusting to this-” she squints at one of the windows.

“The dining hall is here. Breakfast is at nine.”

“That’s late.”

“I know, but it’s way better food,” Adora grins.

Glimmer clears her throat.

“Lunch is at one.  Dinner is at seven.”

“You eat three times a day?”

“Uh.  Yeah,” Bow answers, clearly uncomfortable.  “Is that not normal?”

“I don’t know,” Catra shrugs.  Adora looks like she wants to move on from the topic as quickly as possible.  Glimmer stammers nervously.

“R-right, so.  Uh, this way?”

The rooms Glimmer show her start to blur after a while.  They’re all enormous, airy, and, to Catra, an incredible waste of space.  She tries to remember only the ones that seem essential.

“And this is your room.”

“You’re giving me my own room?” she snorts. “But I didn’t do anything.”

"Uh, well, everyone has their own room here-” Bow chuckles nervously.  

“You don’t get your own room unless you’re a Force Captain in the Fright Zone,” Adora explains and Glimmer nods, although she doesn’t appear to entirely understand.

“So do you just share beds?” she asks Adora.

“No, but you share a room. They’re bunk beds.”

“What beds?” she tilts her head.  Catra swallows the comment she wants to make about Glimmer being a typical princess.

“They’re like kind of stacked on each other,” Adora continues and Catra leans against the wall to wait out their conversation.

“You put the beds on top of each other?!” she exclaims as if the idea is horrible.

“You know what? It’s not important,” Adora shakes her head.

“Right.  So like I said, this is your room,” Glimmer mutters, opening the door.

Catra steps in and the hair on the back of her neck, down her spine, and along her tail stands on end.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Uh, no.  This is it.”

The room is beautiful in a technical sense.  Ornate and plush, with the same glittering windows and a bed big enough to house half their barrack back home.  But Catra has never stayed anywhere like this and the unfamiliarity is daunting.

“So,” Bow starts, waiting for her to react.

“Is there one that’s a little less-” she gestures around at the space.

“They’re all like this, I asked-” Adora mutters to her.  “You get used to it. Mostly.”

“Sorry, is it not good enough for you?” Glimmer sniffs.

“It’s fantastic-” Catra answers, not bothering in the slightest to curb the sarcasm in her voice.  “Especially the waterfall,” she shudders.

“Great! So we’ll leave you to it, then,” Glimmer turns to leave, clearly ready to be rid of her.

“We’ll meet you in a few?” Bow asks Adora and she nods.  Once they’re gone Catra laughs nervously.

“Wow, so this is a lot,” she jabs her thumb at the room behind her.

“Yeah,” Adora laughs.  “It was really scary the first time I had to spend the night in it.”

“Is that even a bed?”

“Not really, it’s more like a really large pillow.  You can ask them for another bed if you want. They ended up giving me a new one because I accidentally destroyed the first one trying to flatten it out a little-”

“Yeah, I’m not asking any favors.  I wish they could take the waterfall out though,” she grimaces.  “But like I said, I don’t want anybody holding any favors over my head.”

“That’s not really how things go here.  I doubt they’d care.”

“Just leave it, Adora. Don’t you have to go meet your friends or something?”

“Yeah.  Aren’t you coming too?”

“Call me crazy, but I’m not so sure those two want me in there.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not.  I’d really rather not spend the rest of my afternoon where I’m not wanted.  We’re not all going to be best friends right away. Maybe that’s how it worked for you, but I doubt that’ll work for me.”

“Okay.  If that’s what you want.  Do you want me to hang out here for a bit?”

“No, I can handle being in a room by myself, Adora.  I handled myself without you just fine for a long time.”

“That’s not what I-” Adora shakes her head, defeated.  “Okay, whatever you want. See you at dinner I guess?”

“Maybe.”

Adora nods and leaves without a word and Catra stares at the space around her, moving slowly to explore it.  She sniffs the bed and sneezes. Everything smells as if it’s been lightly perfumed.

There’s almost nothing to scratch in here.  Everything is made of marble and gauzy fabric, but there’s a chair that looks promising.  It holds with a good amount of give. She examines her claw, satisfied. For a room that has such high ceilings, it’s hard to find anything to climb on, but the curtains are enough for her to climb up and hang on the ornate railing.  She naps there for a while, draped across the railing and braced against the wall there.

She hesitantly ventures out around dinner time.  She doesn’t remember where the dining hall is. She tuned Glimmer out for most of the little tour through the palace, but it’s easy enough to smell it even from here.  

Catra is well acquainted with what it’s like to be hated by the people she lives with, but even she has never been quite so uncomfortable in a room before.  She doesn’t recognize most of the faces around her when she enters, but they clearly recognize her. She’s met with everything from shock and open-mouthed staring to unease and outright anger and Catra knows instantly she’s not hanging around for long here. She won’t simper or cower to try and fit in and she won’t stay where she’s clearly unwanted.  She heads straight for the closest table, swipes a plate from an empty seat, blindly plops whatever is being served on it, and leaves.

Some seem glad to see her leave and some huff, miffed at what they perceive to be disrespect.  Catra isn’t sure whether it’s Angella’s blank if not mildly disapproving stare or Adora’s wide-eyed disappointment that feels stronger as she turns her back to the room and scampers off.  

She spends the week like this, appearing for only the minute or so required to eat and disappearing back into her room again.

About three days in, Adora knocks.  Catra doesn’t even have to open the door to know it’s her.  The three sharp, measured raps on the door are too familiar.

She opens it and stands there without a word.

“Hey, so I noticed you’re not staying for meals and-”

“Is that against the rules?”

“No, but-”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m just...you know you can eat in there, right?”

“Not really.  When are you going to get that no one wants me here, Adora?”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is! And I knew that going into it, okay? Relax.  I don’t want to stay where people don’t want me, okay? I’m done doing that.”

“It just-”

“Look, are you here to lecture me?”

Adora growls under her breath.

“No.”

“Then what are you here for?”

“I don’t know, it’s weird not to see you or talk to you when you’re here?  I’m trying to salvage some semblance of a relationship?” she huffs, starting to lose her patience. “I keep trying but I don’t even know if you want me to. I’ve apologized, I-I’ve tried not to argue about anything even when I don’t agree with you, I’ve tried to keep the peace, and I really don’t know what else to do.”

“How about back off a little, Adora?” she bristles.  “And let me do this my way?”

“I’m trying! I’m just-” she throws up her hands, unable to find the words. “You know what? Fine.  Have as much space as you want,” she huffs and walks off. Catra growls and slams the door behind her, curling up to sleep.

At the beginning of her second week in the palace, she starts leaving her room in the dead of night to explore while everyone is asleep, learning the passages and rooms without disapproving eyes watching.  

She finds a vast library and it proves a wonderful place to hide both at night and during the day.  One night she climbs to the top of one of the towering shelves and sleeps there once she’s able to clear the dust from the top.  It feels much more like her bunk back home than the mattress in her room now that feels like she’s being swallowed whole every time she lies down on it.  She spends the morning there too, lounging up at the top and watching the sky. She watches people too as they mill about in the stacks, unaware of her, crawling across the tops of shelves to silently watch the palace go about its business.  

Another night she stumbles across an observatory and spends the night peering through telescopes and sleeping in an attic at the top of a tower just above it.

Catra discovers the kitchen while prowling the palace and after that her appearances at meals stop entirely.  All she has to do now is sneak in, swipe what she needs for a day or two, and disappear back into her room. She’s able to get away with it for a few nights before she notices Angella in one of the hallways on the way back.  Catra knows enough now about the place to know she can’t get back to her room without passing through this hallway and she isn’t sure how long Angella will be here. She seems pensive, staring at a mural painted on the wall. She decides to try and sneak past her.  She’s usually quiet enough and if she goes quickly enough she might make it-

“I know you’re there, Catra, you don’t have to hide,” Angella says without turning when Catra is directly behind her.

“Good, wasn’t trying to,” she shrugs, playing it off as if she knew Angella saw her all along.

“You realize you can go to the kitchen during the day?” she asks in that same tone she always has, the one that Catra is never sure is disapproving, bored, or something else she can’t place.

“Yeah, no thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” she sighs and Catra bristles.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Angella quirks an eyebrow, finally turning to look at her.

“Exactly what I said.  What did you think I meant?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It seems to have mattered a great deal to you.”

“Whatever, I’m going to bed.  I don’t care if you’re mad about me not going to dinner or whatever.”

“I’m not. I don’t care what you do with your time so long as you don’t leave the palace.”

“You really expect me to believe that?”

“I can’t control what you believe.  But I’ll say that I don’t waste my breath on words that I don’t mean.  I don’t have time to waste on games or things that are meant to be interpreted or that are unclear.  If I had a problem with what you were doing, I would have already told you in no uncertain terms how and why I expected you to change it.  You haven’t done anything I asked you not to. Should that change, you’ll be the first to know.”

Catra narrows her eyes and watches Angella, unsure if she should believe what she says.  

“You’re unsatisfied with that answer,” she says and it’s clear to Catra that it isn’t a question.

“Well, yeah? I know you, like, hate my guts and I’m supposed to believe that you’re just fine with the fact that I’m here not going to your stupid dinners or whatever.”

“I don’t hate you.  I don’t particularly like you,” she laughs humorlessly, “because I do hate the Horde and the damage it’s done to my country and my family and you were instrumental in that for a little longer than I’m comfortable with.  But I don’t waste nearly as much of my time and my thought on you as you seem to think. Nothing you’ve done under my watch has warranted my attention. I think you might have me confused with someone else.”

“I’m not confused,” she bristles, but Angella is unfazed.

“Alright.  Goodnight, then, Catra,” she tells her, making it clear she doesn’t intend to entertain the conversation any longer.  

When Catra returns to her room, she can’t shake the feeling of something looming over her head, as if she’s forgotten something or missed an important detail.  This reminds her of the Fright Zone too, and it’s not a feeling that’s comforting this time. A long and dark night, threats that could be nothing or could be very real.  Shadows that seem to twist and warp and she isn’t sure if it’s just her eyes failing her or if there’s really something sinister writhing in the dark. It was on a night like this that Catra first climbed down to curl at Adora’s feet.  She was only a kitten and something about Adora, as small as she was, seemed steady and strong even then. Catra wonders for a moment if she could do the same now. But the hall between their rooms seems long and the impasse between them too far still.  She stays here instead and doesn’t sleep until the sky goes dewy and grey outside.

Things go flat in these days.  They’re not necessarily peaceful, but certainly not eventful.  Catra basks in the directionless way of it at first. Wandering around, undisturbed, at night. Sleeping during the day.  Watching the palace move from afar, removed from its machinations, a distant observer. But eventually, it goes staid. There are no new rooms anymore.  The palace routine is no longer fascinating as Catra learns the habits and schedules of this place.

It’s days like this that she wants to talk to Adora.  Adora is familiarity in a place that’s still alien to Catra, even after observing it quietly for a while now.  But Adora is also simultaneously strange to her here. She’s both the Adora she’s always known and a stranger to her, her habits and routines and even the way she carries herself and the turns of phrase she uses now just different enough to sting.

Catra wants to talk to her, but she wants to talk to her Adora, the Adora she was before all of this.  So Catra settles instead for watching her, trying to figure her out as she is now. She lounges in the window sill and watches her do training exercises with her friends.  She watches her transform every day and tries to make She-Ra and Adora synonymous in her mind. Sometimes she almost forgets that Adora left, watching her here, until She-Ra takes her place and Catra remembers crumbling rock, heavy punches, slamming into rock.  She sighs and stops watching Adora train.

Catra especially likes to perch in the rafters just outside Glimmer’s room whenever there’s a meeting going on.  This Adora, the one that strategizes, the one that is commanding and talking battle plans, is one that Catra knows well and it’s a small comfort to listen to her.

For once, Catra is grateful for the lofty ceilings in this place.  She can lounge on one of the beams, tail flicking lazily, and listen to her voice and almost feel as if she’s back there, before.

The door opens and Catra passively watches one of the princesses leave.  It’s Mermista. Catra’s tail puffs up, fur standing on end just thinking about the drop she took into the ocean last time she saw her.

“Are you, like, spying on us?”

She jumps and nearly tumbles out of the rafters.  People almost never notice her up here.

“Pfft, no.  Why would I care about spying on you?” she bluffs, resting her head on her arms crossed behind her.

“So you’re just being creepy for no reason?” she rolls her eyes.  Catra can’t tell if she’s annoyed, bored, or somewhere in between.

“I can sit wherever I want.”

“Yeah.  And where you chose to sit is weird.”

“Look, do we have a problem?”

“Technically? Probably, yeah.  But I don’t have the energy to do anything about it,” she mutters, leaning against the wall.  She goes quiet, looking at her nails and idly examining her hair for split ends.

“So why aren’t you in there?”

“You know when you’re just tired of everyone opening their mouths and want everyone to be quiet?  That’s why.”

“Yeah, actually.  That’s why I’m sitting somewhere weird ,” she grins, taunting her a little.  But this girl doesn’t take the bait. She barely even looks at Catra, close to outright ignoring her.

“Right.  So like you’re Adora’s ex or whatever, right?”

“I’m not an ex, we were never together,” she sits up, scowling a little.

“Sure.  So like are you a hermit or something?”

“What?”

“Well you’ve been in the palace for a month and no one ever sees you.”

Catra sighs deeply, reclining back again.

“Look, I just don’t want to hang around where I’m not wanted.  So if I that makes me a hermit, so be it. I don’t beg for anyone’s approval.”

“Wow, so you, like, really care what people think.”

“I just said I don’t care about anyone’s approval.”

“Okay.  So like Seahawk-”

“Your boyfriend?” Catra smirks.

“He’s not my boyfriend.  But sometimes he starts repeating how much he doesn’t want to burn down his ship.  You know what happens after that? He burns it down within a week.”

“Great story,” she stretches and yawns. “Sounds like I’m not the weird one around here.”

“Yeah, you’re literally climbing the walls, spying on your ex, and repeating to anyone who will listen that you don’t care what people think.  So I don’t really know if you’re one to talk.”

“Whatever.  I don’t know why you think I care about your boyfriend burning stuff.”

“Because you’re basically doing the same thing. Just to help you out a little, saying stuff over and over doesn’t convince anyone you don’t care.  It just makes you sound a little desperate.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I’m just saying, either care or don’t.  It’s probably easier for you to just care, you aren’t very good at looking like you don’t.”

“Don’t you have a meeting you’re supposed to be in?” Catra snaps.

“Yeah and since it’s actually louder out here,” she gives Catra a pointed look, “I’m going to go back in there.”

Catra rolls her eyes and doesn’t respond.  Mermista doesn’t seem fazed and she wordlessly goes back inside.  Catra is about to keep lounging here when her voice drifts through.

“Your ex is weird, Adora.”

“Huh?”

“The creepy cat girl?”

“Catra?  W-was she out there?”

“Yeah-”

Catra doesn’t wait around to hear the rest of it.  She bolts back to her room, determined not to get caught hanging outside.  She thinks she hears Adora call her name down the hall, but she doesn’t turn around to check.

Catra doesn’t see anyone else for days after that.  The palace seems progressively quieter this week. Each day, the halls and rooms Catra prowls seem to echo louder and louder. Catra shrugs it off until the night she goes to slip into the kitchens to find the door locked.  They must have caught on and are trying to force her to come during normal hours.

Catra comes back in the early morning, getting ready to stalk the doors and slip in when the first shift arrives.  But the sky goes from blue to grey and then to a bright pink and yellow and the doors stay shut tight, no staff in sight.  

Catra grumbles and goes back to her room.   She sleeps, trying to make up for a sleepless night.  She sleeps through breakfast and lunch. When the sky goes dark, she’s accepting that she might have to make an appearance at dinner when there’s a thud at the window and she starts.  There’s an arrow embedded in the wood of the windowpane. Catra sinks low to the floor and creeps to the window, out of sight of anyone outside of it, to investigate. There’s a message rolled around it.  She aims, gets ready to strike, and shoves the window open as fast as she can, swiping it and closing the window with a snap after. She unfurls it.

I know this is weird but can I come in? I have food.  - Bow.

Catra growls and flings the window open again.  Bow waits a little distance from her window and waves.

“You probably shouldn’t lead with weapons if you’re trying to make a good impression.”

“Probably not, yeah,” he laughs nervously.  “But I thought that would be better than just showing up right outside your window.”

“What do you want?” she asks, flat.

“Mostly to see if you wanted any food?  They closed the kitchens and I didn’t see you at lunch.  They gave everyone rations and I don’t think you got any.”

“Why are the kitchens closed?  You guys expecting a fight or something?”

“Actually, yeah,” he shrugs.  “We got some intel that we might be seeing some Horde action here.  We think they’re going to be here in the next day or so. A lot of the staff live in the woods so most of them evacuated somewhere else.  Staying with family and stuff. A few hung around but not enough to feed a whole palace.”

“Figures,” she mutters.  

“Well, I have food.  It’s fish. I know that’s your favorite.”

“Did Adora tell you that?”

“No, actually.  The complaints from one of our chefs about ingredients going missing did,” he grins conspiratorially.   

Catra sniffs hesitantly out the window.  It smells good. She wants to turn Bow away, but she hasn’t eaten since early in the morning.  If she doesn’t eat now, she’s going to have to ask someone for rations. This, while annoying, is less public.  

“You’re lucky I’m hungry,” she huffs and Bow gleefully clambers in.  He settles on the floor by the window with two covered bowls. He hands her one and it’s almost too warm to hold.  Catra lifts the ceramic cover off and a cloud of fragrant steam wafts up from it. Catra has never seen anything quite like this.  It looks like soup. It swirls, a milky and light red-orange. Plump pieces of fish and shellfish float in it. She spears one with a claw and pops it in her mouth.  It’s creamy and almost sweet.

“Do you...want a spoon?” he eyes her, uneasy.

She wordlessly shakes her head and he puts the other spoon down.

“Do you use forks either?”

“Not really.”

“Cool. Claws are preferable to spoons and forks.  Noted.”

“They don’t have this kind in the kitchen,” she holds up a piece of fish, narrowing her eyes as she examines it.  “Where did you get this?”

“My dads,” he answers simply, in between mouthfuls.  

“You don’t live here?”

“No,” he shakes his head.  “I grew up in the Whispering Woods.  My place isn’t far from here. You like it?” he nods to the bowl.

“Mm,” she grunts, nodding shortly

“Good, I’ll take it,” he laughs.  “So I heard you talked to Mermista last week.  How was that?”

“What are you doing?” she asks, bristling under the question.

“Just making conversation,” he quirks an eyebrow.  

“Yeah, well, Mermista  told me I ‘sounded desperate,’ for not wanting to hang around where I’m not welcome.  So it was a pretty short conversation, honestly.”

“Harsh,” he winces. “She can be a little blunt.  Is that why you don’t stay at dinner?”

“Obviously,” she rolls her eyes.  “People around here aren’t exactly my biggest fans.”

“Makes sense,” he nods.  “But you told her that and she said-”

“That I must really care what people think.  What I actually told her is that I’m not going to beg for anyone’s approval.”

“That’s fair.  But, to her credit, I think what she was actually trying to say is that it’s okay to care what people think.”

“You seriously think she was trying to be helpful when she’s like that?”

“Yeah, she’s not the most enthusiastic person,” he laughs a little.  “But Mermista does actually care. A lot. So do you.”

“I really don’t.”

“It’d be okay if you did.  It’s hard not to. We’re wired that way.  Everyone needs to feel like people like them, even a little bit. You and Mermista just have your own ways of letting people know to be gentle with you.”

“Gentle?  I’m not a flower,-” she rolls her eyes.

“I know,” he nods brightly.  “You two have both had to do a lot of really hard things by yourselves.  I mean, Mermista has been handling that kingdom by herself for years. I don’t know everything about you, but I know you pretty much carried an army for three years.  Even if it’s one I was fighting, it was a lot. It makes sense that you’d want to protect yourselves a little bit, especially if you really care about something. I think Mermista was actually trying to help you.  I mean, if she talked to you at all, she likes you.”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“And you don’t?” he smirks.

“Shut up,” she shoves him lightly and he giggles.

“Also, at the risk of getting thrown out the window, if you want to see Adora, all you have to do is ask her.”

“Why would I want to see her?

“Well, she obviously still means something to you.”

“Did she tell you that too?”

“No.  I figured that one out on my own too,” he taps his temple a little, playful.

“How?” she groans, unsure she wants to hear the explanation he’s come up with and hoping it doesn’t have to do with the day Mermista caught her lurking in the rafters.

“Easy.  She’s the first place you thought to come when you knew you had to run from the Horde.  You could’ve gone anywhere, but when you were in trouble, you went to her. “

“Yeah, well, things don’t always work out.”

“True.  But I think you two will.”

“These aren’t exactly ideal circumstances.”

“They weren’t ideal before, either. There was something good that kept you two friends in a place that tried its best to separate you.  You did it before. I think you could do it again,” he smiles.

“Things were a lot simpler then.”

“Were they? From what I’ve heard, they were pretty complicated then too.  I think you two just have to find that something again-”

“Whatever,” she cuts him off, disgruntled. “ It’s more complicated than I want to deal with.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.  You want to take things slow.  Stick around here and avoid all those people in the dining hall.  And then there’s Adora in the mix and she’s complicated, it’s a lot.”

Catra growls.

“If I keep talking about Adora, you’re going to kick me out, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay.  We’ll talk about something else.  So...you took some liberties with the decorating-” he looks around at the scratches in the wooden chair and in the curtains.

“Mmhmm,” she answers, barely humoring him.  They go quiet again until the silence presses on Bow too much and he speaks again.

“So, what do you like to do for fun?”

That catches Catra so off guard that she can’t stifle the cackle she lets out after.

“Seriously?” she laughs. “I was a soldier from the time I could talk to a month ago.  Fun wasn’t really the priority.”

“Have you ever had fun at all?!  Okay, the Fright Zone is living up to its name a little too well.  After this thing is off,” he gestures to the tracker on her ankle, “you seriously need to get out more.  You like clawing stuff and climbing stuff, maybe we’ll go hiking or something?”

“Sure, whatever, if it shuts you up.”

"Nothing really does that,” he winks, good-natured, and Catra grumbles under her breath, unsure how to respond.  Once they’re finished, Bow stands and takes her bowl.

“I still don’t really get why you’re here, but I like the soup, so I’m letting it slide,” she narrows her eyes.

“I’m here because I like you,” he shrugs.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not.  It gets a little tiring being the only one around here who isn’t magic. It’s nice to have you around,” he answers.

“I know what you’re doing.  Stop trying to be friends,” she huffs.

“Aw, what? But it’s working.”

“It’s not working.”

“Yes it is, I can tell.  You don’t like me yet, but you let me in and didn’t kick me out, and you laughed once, so that means you don’t hate me-” he points at her, grinning.  “I’ll be back tomorrow?”

“You can show up, but I might not let you in.”

“That’s fine. More for me,” he shrugs.  “My dads are amazing cooks, so no skin off my nose.  Night!”

“Night,” Catra mutters under her breath, too low for Bow to hear.

He drops out of the window and disappears into the woods.

In the morning, she wakes to the sound of shouts and footsteps thudding down the corridor.  She recognizes Adora’s voice, barking orders. Catra yawns and stretches lazily, slowly making her way to the window. They’ve banned her from fighting, so the least she can do is watch it unfold.  A little skirmish might be entertaining, she reasons. She’s almost looking forward to watching both sides struggle a little and enjoy the novelty of getting to be above it all, both literally and figuratively.  Sure enough, like Bow said, there’s a team at the tree line of the Whispering Woods, making their way onto palace grounds.

It’s a rather rag-tag team, Catra thinks, one that’s not really worth the panic.  There’s nowhere near the right amount of bots to conquer this place. There’s only two tanks.  It’s mostly a little collection of skiffs and transports.

Still, they give the Rebellion enough of a fight.  They advance a little into the grounds and it’s easy enough for them to split the Rebellion’s small ranks.  The Rebellion has strong fighters, but there are relatively few of them. Even a small Horde team has the upper hand in numbers and with enough coordination, they can force them to break rank.

Catra watches the fight rage on, passively lounging in the window, one leg dangling a little, tail twitching lazily.

She almost feels bad for the ones that are trying to subdue She-Ra.  They’ve managed to get her away from the rest of the group, but it’s hardly an accomplishment.  It’s more a punishment she thinks as she watches her mow them down. Catra snickers as she cleaves a skiff in two in one blow.  Normally Catra doesn’t like seeing She-Ra in action, but at the moment it’s almost gratifying.

Bow is holding his own from a rocky outcrop at the edge of the grounds.  She’s always known he’s got an incredible aim, but she’s never gotten to watch it at a distance like this.  He picks off bots one by one, methodical and precise.

She’s glad for the distance when Mermista drenches half the green in front of them with a veritable tidal wave and Frosta freezes it in an instant, catching the little band trying to subdue them in it.

Glimmer is the closest to the palace, guarding its entrance and its runestone, back to the massive stone pillars holding it up.  Or Glimmer thinks she has her back to the pillar. Catra narrows her eyes. Rogelio has slowly and quietly scaled the stone pillar she’s using to guard herself and sits, poised above her from behind on the back of the column, a stun wand and a net in hand, waiting for her to get close enough.  Glimmer is swiftly being pushed back towards him, barely holding her own. No one is here helping her. No one is there to notice the Horde Soldier sneaking up on her.

It hits Catra in a sudden rush.  The lack of bots and tanks. The unusual amount of transports.  The way the little team has barely advanced, settling instead for battling it out in small teams spread across the grounds, far away from Glimmer.  

They don’t want the palace.  They want Glimmer.

They already know that Glimmer is an effective bargaining chip against Angella.  It almost worked once and they don’t have the power anymore to conquer the entire palace.  But they have the power to take Glimmer and that will be as good as conquering Brightmoon. They know the alliance will be too focused on guarding territory to be expecting a capture.  They’ve already lured everyone else as far away from her as possible. If they stun her hard enough, she’ll be out long enough for them to grab her and tranquilize her and anyone who could assist will be too far away to prevent it.  

Catra sits up in the sill, ears swiveling back and forth.  She isn’t supposed to interfere and she isn’t supposed to leave.  But if she lets the Princess be captured and anyone knows she saw it happen without intervening, she’s probably as good as out of here.  Her room has a direct view of her, stories above the long passage to the runestone that Glimmer guards. She has a perfect vantage point.  

Catra can probably shrug Angella off by playing at sticking to the rules to a fault.  But if she lets Glimmer be taken and Adora ever figures out she saw it happen, Adora will never forgive her.  

No matter what she does, she’s going to be in some kind of trouble.

“Figures,” she mutters and groans, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes for a moment, frantically thinking.  

Catra reasons that she’s never managed to follow rules for long and she’s never stayed out of trouble for long either.  She’s long overdue for both. Catra wonders if she’s stupid to do it, stands, accepts that this may well be the end of the road for her here at Brightmoon, and clambers out of the window down the wall.

She goes as fast as she can, scampering down the wall and dropping onto the long path to the runestone.  She dashes along it and moves to climb down the column behind Rogelio and Glimmer. She’s almost there, but she’s not going to be fast enough not to betray her position and keep Glimmer out of that net.  She’s only a few paces from Rogelio when Glimmer’s back hits the wall and he takes aim.

“Princess! Watch your back!” she screams and both Glimmer and Rogelio turn at the same time.  Rogelio, angry at losing his opportunity, tosses the net at Catra instead. It tangles around her easily and she hisses, stumbling and falling in a heap into the adjacent shallows and he bears down on her instead.

“Long time no see, Force Captain,” he grins, looping an arm around the base of the net, dragging her across the muddy floor of the water.  Catra struggles, clawing wildly at the net, but Rogelio is strong and he’s swiftly dragging her to the transport that’s landed just on the other side of this outcrop.  “Hordak will be happy to see you.”

He rears back to throw her in and Glimmer appears in front of him in a cloud of purple, swinging at him with a ferocity that makes him stumble back.  He drops Catra and, unable to twist to land on her feet, she lands hard on her back on a rock. It stuns her and she can’t move for a moment. Rogelio growls and tries to catch Glimmer and shove her into the transport.  But Glimmer is in rare form and appears and disappears like lightning all around him, swinging so quickly all he can do is deflect wildly.

Glimmer can defend herself against him, but the rest of Rogelio’s team is on them in moments and Glimmer is backed into the water, standing in front of Catra who’s still tangled.  Every few moments she tries to reach down to disentangle her, but she fails every time, having to block instead as they try to cram both of them into a transport.

“I need backup!” Glimmer calls, desperate, as she tries to free Catra and defend herself against three opponents on uneven ground.

Heads whip around across the grounds.  Perhaps most painful is Adora’s face, drained of color, when she realizes she’s the farthest from them both all the way at the tree line of the Whispering Woods and won’t make it.  She’s surrounded and holding her own, but she can’t leave without unleashing an entire contingent of transports on them. She turns back around and swings so hard and so angrily she cuts one in half in one swoop.  Mermista and Frosta dash over to them, closing ranks around them. A tumultuous wave crashes over the soldiers and the transport before it freezes into glittering blue. Frosta sharpens a hunk of ice and cuts Catra free.

“They’re after Glimmer, not the palace!” Catra yells to everyone. “That’s why there are so many transports.  Don’t worry about territory, just make sure they don’t get to her!”

“Got it,” Mermista drones as Frosta nods once, determined.

“Should I go back upstairs?” Catra asks Glimmer, smiling in a way that’s clear she doesn’t intend to.

“Hell no!” Glimmer yells in midst of throwing a fistful of magic at their opponents that have broken out of the ice.  “I’ll deal with my mom later, go help Adora! Looks like someone got a second chance after you left!”

“What-” Catra looks behind her and her ears flatten.  Shadow Weaver has emerged from one of the transports and stands, bearing down on Adora.  Adora hasn’t seen her yet as she hacks at another bot.

“More like Hordak doesn’t have anyone else willing to do his dirty work anymore,” she cackles, but it does nothing to quell the panic of seeing her lunge at Adora’s turned back.  Catra curses under her breath and runs at breakneck speed. She’s beaten Shadow Weaver once before and she can do it again. But she isn’t sure about Adora. She-Ra should be more than strong enough, but she stands nearly frozen in front of her.  She struggles, her swings slow and halting as if she’s moving through quicksand.

When Catra gets closer, She-Ra disappears in front of her and Adora stands there, unnaturally still.  She looks terribly small to Catra in this moment, her shaky grasp trying to hold on to the sword. She tries to speak to transform again, but Shadow Weaver has her completely frozen and she can’t utter a word.  Shadow Weaver twists her around to face her. Adora stares at her with a righteous defiance but she trembles at the same time.

The culprit is Shadow Weaver’s mask, restored and with a much larger shard of the Black Garnet in it this time, more than strong enough to subdue Adora completely and strong enough to slow She-Ra down too.  Catra suspects it’s there as a backup to subdue Glimmer, but Shadow Weaver has her sights on Adora as always. Hordak must be getting desperate to let her back out and to have her lead a mission like this to Brightmoon no less.

Catra slinks into the trees, trying to stay hidden from both Shadow Weaver and Adora.  Adora betrays her thoughts too much and she’ll give Catra away if she sees her.

Shadow Weaver circles Adora and clasps a hand around both of her wrists.  It makes Catra ill to watch her touch her and steer her towards the entrance of the ship, to watch Adora’s wide eyes as she thinks she’s going to be taken back to the Fright Zone.  But their turned backs give Catra what she needs. She tiptoes out on a low-hanging branch. Shadow Weaver isn’t going to know what hit her.

Catra rakes her claws across Shadow Weaver’s mask from behind, lightning fast and as hard as she can muster and she drops with a strangled and furious shout.  Adora stumbles forward with a yelp as Shadow Weaver releases her hold on her too quickly for her to right herself.

The mask lies, cut in half, the gem shattered, in the mossy floor of the woods.  Shadow Weaver whips around to see Catra.

“You-”

“Miss me?” she laughs, leaning over her.  There are deep gashes there where the mask once was.  One of her eyes is shut, claw marks snaking across the lid.  

“I can’t believe Hordak gave you another mask.  It took me, what, a minute to destroy it again?” she taunts.

Catra wants to make sure Shadow Weaver never touches either of them again.  She wants to stay here and unleash every bit of anger towards her that’s festered in her since before she can remember.  But then there’s Adora, lying on the ramp of the transport, desperately struggling to stand and failing.

“Relax, Adora.  Your ankle’s messed up,” Catra rolls her eyes as jumps down from the tree and walks to her.  She leans down and slings Adora’s arm over her shoulder, standing.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps.  “I couldn’t-”

“You’re not the one who needs to apologize,” she bares her teeth at Shadow Weaver.   “Here, wait here for a sec.”

She sets Adora down at the base of a tree, with her back propped against it.  Catra walks to Shadow Weaver and drags her by the collar towards the ship. She tosses her in, unceremoniously, hopping in to program it to fly back to the Fright Zone.  Just before she presses the button, she leans down to Shadow Weaver.

“Count yourself lucky Adora was here today.  She saved your life. If I catch you alone here again?” she brandishes her claws at her and Shadow Weaver narrows her eyes and laughs.

“You’ll what? Kill me?”

Catra grins.

“You were always smart.  Just not smart enough. Tell Hordak I said hi, by the way,” she laughs.  “I’m sure he’ll be really impressed with the job you did today,” she tosses the broken mask at her, sets the transport on its way back, and leaps out just before the door closes.

“You didn’t...do anything to her, did you?” Adora asks, still propped where Catra left her.

“No.  I knew you’d get all emotional about it if I did.  Even though she deserves it.”

“She does.  But I just don’t know if I could-”

“I know,” Catra rolls her eyes.  “That was always your problem. You give everyone way too much benefit of the doubt.”

“I’m sorry,” she shakes her head.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Adora,” she mutters.   “And, hey, it’s handled,” she shrugs, picking her back up.

“Thank you,” she whispers, a clear and teary ache in her voice.

“I knew you were going to cry,” Catra shakes her head.  “And don’t mention it.”

When they reach the palace again, the rest of the force has retreated.  They’ve either taken Shadow Weaver’s disappearance as the signal to fall back, or they fell back themselves after realizing they weren’t going to be able to get close enough to Glimmer.

“Adora?!  Are you okay?”  Glimmer nearly wails once she sees Adora limping.

“I think it’s just a sprain, yeah-” she nods.

Catra hands Adora over to Glimmer.  As they all chatter and examine Adora, Catra turns and quietly walks across the grounds, in the opposite direction of the woods.  She slips the little tracker off of her ankle. She covers a fair amount of ground before Glimmer appears in front of her.

“What are you doing?” she crosses her arms.

“Why do you care?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she shrugs.  “Maybe because Adora is over there freaking out because she can’t find you?”

Catra looks behind her.  Adora is frantically trying to catch her eye, craning her neck over everyone else.

“Also, you saved my butt?” Glimmer raises an eyebrow.

“I kind of assumed I was getting kicked out now?” she explains.

“Why the hell would you get kicked out?!” Glimmer exclaims, incredulous.

“What happened to ‘no military participation?’” Catra asks.  “You really think your mom is just going to give me a pass?”

“Yeah, that rule was there in case you were going to betray us.  You just did the opposite. Also, she’s going to have hell to pay from me if she doesn’t,” she says before her eyes go wide and she shrinks a little.

“She’s behind me, isn’t she?” Catra cackles.

“Yes,” Angella’s voice drifts from behind her and Catra turns.  “We’ll talk about the hell I was going to pay later, Glimmer.

“Sorry,” she mutters.

“But Glimmer is right that I don’t set rules arbitrarily.  They have a purpose and you haven’t betrayed the purpose of anything I asked you to do.  Like she says, you’ve done the opposite. You saved my daughter’s life. That isn’t something I’ll readily forget.  I won’t force you to stay if you feel you need to leave. But I’d be remiss to force you to leave over a technicality.”

Catra doesn’t know what to say to Angella.  She nods once, curt, and Angella inclines her head.

“Also, if you left, I think Adora might spontaneously combust,” she sighs, somewhere between fondness and exasperation.  Catra rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, probably.”

The corners of Angella’s mouth quirk a little and then she turns to Glimmer.  “You’re having dinner with me tonight, Glimmer. Not optional.”

She flies off with a swoop and Glimmer groans.

“I’m getting grounded.  I know it.”

“What’s grounded?” Catra asks and they start to walk back together.

“When you can’t leave the palace.”

Catra cackles.

“So like me?”

“Ugh, pretty much.  Just without that,” she points to the little tracker.  Catra slips it back on.

“You probably don’t have to wear that anymore,” Glimmer gives her a look just off of concern.  “Since you just did all that.”

“I’m not pushing my luck.”

“Suit yourself,” she shrugs.

When they reach the group, Adora is visibly shaken, but she doesn't say anything.  She just smiles weakly at Catra. She doesn’t smile back, but she does move to stand next to her.  She brushes her tail across her hand for an instant, too quickly for anyone else to see.

They make their way back to the palace, exhausted but victorious.  Adora leaves for the infirmary. Catra tries to break away when the rest of the group heads to the dining hall to rest and eat lunch, but Bow blocks her retreat.

“Hey, so I was thinking we should eat together today,” he looks between her and Glimmer.  

“No thanks,” Catra answers, trying again to leave.

“If you do it, I’ll get my dads to make you food for a month.  That’s an offer you don’t want to pass up, trust me.”

“He’s right, you really don’t,” Glimmer confirms.

She pauses, arms crossed.

“Why do you want me to go in there so bad?”

“Because I think you’re about to have a really different experience in there,” he points.  “Plus, Adora isn’t going to be in there. So you can, you know, do this yourself.”

“New plan.  If I do this, you leave me alone and stop trying to be best friends.”

“No food? I mean, if that’s really what you want-”

“Can I have it if she’s not going to eat it?” Glimmer asks and Catra grudgingly enters with them.  

The crowd in here is sparse today.  People eat from rations that are clearly pre-made.  The conversation is less of a roar and more a gentle hum.  Bow grabs three parcels and they sit. Today there are fewer disapproving looks and more curiosity.  It’s still more attention than Catra wants, but at least curiosity is something she can suffer for the few minutes it’s going to take her to eat.  The princesses all gather around them to chat with Glimmer and Bow. Catra finds herself in the middle of it in her seat next to Bow, but thankfully they don’t call much attention to her.  Once Glimmer mentions how well Catra did today and the others start to join in, talking to her at once. Catra doesn’t respond, tail starting to thrash a little.

“Alright, let’s give her some space and let her eat,” Bow chuckles nervously and Catra is grudgingly grateful for it.

When Catra has had enough she stands unceremoniously.

“Yeah, I’m out of here.”

“Okay,” Bow answers brightly, waving.  “See you later.”

Everyone murmurs some sort of goodbye to her.  A wave of relief washes over her when she gets back to her room.  She wasn’t sure when she leapt out of the window earlier if she was going to get to come back.  She has to admit, despite its annoying opulence and the bed and the waterfall, she would’ve missed this strange room she’s spent so much time in.  

The rest of the afternoon into the night is blessedly quiet.  Bow shows up again like he promised with another plate. He chatters for a moment about his parents and how they’re fine after the skirmish, but he doesn’t hang around for long.  He seems to know Catra wants to be left alone after more attention than she’s used to.

Catra is just about to curl up to go to sleep when three familiar knocks sound at the door.

“Hey, Adora,” she says as she opens the door to find her standing there, hand braced against the doorway to steady herself.  She smiles, sheepish.

“Hey.”

“So, what’s wrong with your ankle?” Catra asks with no preamble.

“A sprain, like I thought,” she answers.  “So not that bad.”

“Aren’t you supposed to, like, not walk on it?” she nods to the bandage wrapped around it, keeping it steady.

“W-well, yeah, but-” Adora sputters.  “I just wanted to come by and say thank you. That was really cool what you did today.”

“What, saving you?” she smirks, not bothering to hide the self-satisfaction in it.

“Yeah. I couldn’t do it,” Adora smiles, and grateful. “You did a really good job.”

“Sorry, what was that?” Catra asks.

“You did a good job?”

“No, the other part.”

Adora rolls her eyes.

“I couldn’t do it?”

“One more time,” Catra twists her finger in a circle, gesturing for Adora to repeat it.

Adora huffs.

“I couldn’t do it.   Happy?”

“Mostly,” Catra nods.  “You could stand to say it a few more times.”

“I couldn’t do it,” she groans. “And that’s the last time.”

They laugh haltingly for a moment before it goes silent between them and they hang in the doorway for a little longer.  Adora worries at the sleeve of her jacket. Catra looks at the floor.

“Um, I was also actually wondering...and you can say no, but-” she flushes nearly the color of her scarlet jacket and dissolves into an unintelligible babbling.

“Spit it out, Adora,” Catra sighs, arms crossed.

“Seeing Shadow Weaver again was-” she trails off and suddenly looks very small again and very tired.  Her shoulders hunch as if a weight is bearing down on them, pressing harder every moment that she stands in front of her.

“Yeah.  I know,” Catra mutters.  

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep at all but,” she shrugs.  “I didn’t know if you wanted to join me? Unless you’re fine, but if you can’t sleep either, you can-”

“Are you asking me to sleep with you because you’re scared?”

“Yeah, I kind of am,” she sighs, before the implication of the phrase hits her and she flushes again.  “I-I mean n-not like that, just-”

Catra laughs.

“You really walk into these things, you know that, right?”

“You set me up for failure,” she volleys back.

“Not my fault you’re a failure.  Anyway, yeah, I’ll help you since you’re all scared or whatever.  Just, didn’t you say your bed is normal?

“You know you can just-”

“I’m not asking for a new one.”

“Okay, fine.  And yeah, my bed is normal.”

“Okay, so we’re going to your room.  Lead the way. Wait, no, don’t. Your ankle’s all messed up,” she rolls her eyes and slings Adora’s arm over her shoulder like she did on the battlefield this morning.  

“It’s just down the hall-” she points.

Walking into Adora’s room here is strange and welcome and painful all at the same time.  Seeing where she’s been the entire time she’s been away from Catra stings for a moment but walking Adora over to her bed and gently sitting her down on it is almost sweet.  Catra looks around, taking it in. It’s the exact same as her own room here in a technical sense. Same features, minus the bed, same gauzy drapes, vaulted ceilings. But there are also little hints of Adora in here that make it so distinctly her that Catra would recognize it as her room anywhere.  The way her clothes are folded just so, with sharp and regimented creases, even down to her socks. The way there’s a book there on her bedside table because Catra has never known her to be able to sleep without reading for at least a half hour first. How the pages are marked with little notes, color-coded.  The hairbrush on the dresser with a nest of golden hair tangled in it and the bands and pins strewn everywhere, one of the only bits of mess Adora allows herself.

Catra curls up at Adora’s feet in a bed that smells like her for the first time in three years.  She thinks she should feel small again, that the familiarity of it should give her some feeling of being young again. But there’s something blessedly different about it now.  Some things are the same. The hush that makes them feel strangely isolated, as if this bed is its own world just for the two of them. The way Shadow Weaver looms in their minds a little bit and the way they try to forget her.  The absent-minded way Adora scratches her ears without realizing she’s doing it as she reads, the three-year rift between them forgotten as she’s absorbed in her book and old habits take over. The purr Catra can’t stifle and the way it puts Adora to sleep the way it always has, book still in hand.

But then, some things are different.   The absence of another bed above them that Catra will have to climb in if anyone finds her in Adora’s bed.   The faint light of a lamp next to Adora’s bed because she doesn’t have to hide her books or her nighttime reading any longer.  The way it staves off the dark, a little bit of golden glow coloring even the dimmest corners of the room. The way it’s not Adora, who’s been a light sleeper as long as Catra’s known her, who wakes when the door opens just a little.  Instead, it’s Catra, who curls closer around her feet, protective, ears flattened, a low growl rumbling in her chest.

“Adora? Are you okay...oh!  Sorry-” a hesitant Glimmer starts in the open door.  “I’ll just-”

She disappears as quickly as she came, shutting the door with an imperceptible click.  Catra allows herself a contented smile and isn’t scared as she falls asleep.

Chapter Text

After the third night Adora invites Catra into her bed, Catra stops waiting to be asked.  She slips into her room every night and they settle into a rhythm that’s both an old one that they’ve known their entire lives and a new one that has little twists and turns that they don’t know what to do with yet.

Curling up at Adora’s feet after that night lulls her into a familiar rhythm, but it’s one that doesn’t stay. The first time Catra comes into Adora’s empty room,curls up on the bed to wait for her, and she doesn’t return is jarring.  Catra naps intermittently but never does completely sleep, half of her mind wandering to questions of where Adora is and explanations of her unexplained disappearance, trying to stave off memories of the first nights she spent without her in the Fright Zone.  When Adora reappears just before sunrise, Catra is waiting.

“Oh! Catra!” she claps a hand to her forehead as if remembering something important, wincing.  “I’m so sorry, I forgot to tell you-”

“That you’d be gone all night?  Pretty much. But it doesn’t matter, sleeping here without your big feet in my face was kinda nice,” she jokes to mask the lie.  Adora rolls her eyes.

“Coming from the girl who has actual paws.”

“Where were you?”

“Out on She-Ra business-” Adora sighs deeply, clearly exhausted as she sits next to Catra

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Yeah, kinda.  Sorry. I’ve given up on having any sort of predictable schedule,” she smiles weakly.  Catra has nothing to say back to it. Adora without a schedule isn’t an Adora she recognizes.  

Lonnie used to joke that you could set a watch by Adora’s schedule but now she drifts from place to place at odd hours.  Her presence feels ephemeral sometimes, inconsistent in a way that makes Catra wonder if she really does still exist or if she’s back in the Horde, dreaming that she never left.  

Adora at least gets in the habit now of telling Catra when she won’t be there for a night.  Sometimes she knows days beforehand. Some nights she wakes Catra in the middle of the night, sword in hand, hurriedly reassuring her that she’ll be back.  

She always lets Catra stay in her bed if she wants.  Some nights she takes her up on it. Some nights the absence of her mingling with the smell of her on the sheets is too like those first nights after she left the Fright Zone and Catra was left to curl around her cold pillow.  On those nights, Catra has to return to her room to be able to bear it.

These days have a simultaneous feeling of having Adora back and just out of reach at the same time, a cloud of worry that she’ll never get her back the way they were before.

There are little hints of an Adora who doesn’t need or even want her presence here everywhere.  Catra tries to ignore them, tries to remember the hush and warmth of the bed they share here. But these thoughts echo louder the longer and harder she tries to ignore them.

She’s eating almost all of her meals with her again, but now there are new faces and there’s new conversation along with it, little jokes and experiences she isn’t privy to.  Trying to talk to Adora about the little things they used to share feels impossible in the presence of those who won’t understand it. Catra doesn't want to suffer the awkward looks and waiting of Adora’s new friends who don’t want to know anything about the Horde, about what their life was like before.  Instead, she stays silent, the old familiarity of Adora eating next to her mingling with the crowd of new people pressing in.

There are others here who have her friendship and even her love more easily and more completely than Catra thinks is possible for her anymore.  Perhaps most painful and most beautiful is the way Adora looks at Glimmer. Catra remembers looks like these. Adora used to give them to her in the low light of night, nestled together in the bunk they shared.  It’s inexpressibly lovely to see them again and it stings to know they don’t belong to her now.

The day she accidentally catches a glimpse of them as she passes, Glimmer’s door left cracked a little, catches Catra off-guard in a way that makes her feel as if the floor is disappearing beneath her.  Catra moves past as quickly as she can, averting her eyes, but not before she can catch a glimpse of Adora peppering Glimmer’s face with playful kisses as she giggles.

Catra knew intellectually that there was something between them.  No one tried to hide it from her, least of all Adora. Catra has even mentioned it herself before.

But hearing Adora’s voice drift from her room, a hint of laughter in it as she tells Glimmer she loves her in a practiced way that tells her she’s said it before sits with Catra in a way she can’t quite place.  It simultaneously strikes her as something she didn’t know she wanted until witnessing it and as something that feels desperately out of reach.

Catra returns to her room and doesn’t make any attempts to see Adora for days.  She moves about the palace as normal, but she doesn’t go to Adora’s room at night anymore.  Questions of what Adora might mean to her and the ways Catra wants her to love her loom too large.   

She knows she can’t escape her forever.  She can tell Adora is getting restless by the looks she gives her at meals.  Soon enough, after almost a week of this, three knocks sound at the door right at the time Catra normally comes in to see her.

“Hey.  Are you okay?” Adora asks.  Catra can see she’s been picking at her cuticles like she does when she’s uneasy.  They’re swollen and puffy.

“Nothing’s wrong.  I just wanted to sleep in my own room.”

“Okay,” she answers, skeptical.  “It just seems a little weird because you were in there for, like, a couple of weeks straight and then-”

“Are you scared again?” Catra laughs a little and Adora crosses her arms.

“No, that’s not what-” she growls a little, frustrated.  “Look, it is nice to have you in there obviously, but you can do whatever you want.  It just seemed weird and I was trying to make sure there was nothing wrong and-”

“Relax, Adora, everything is fine.  Stop freaking out so much.”

Adora narrows her eyes.

“I think you’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Where you don’t tell people you’re upset.”

“Well, even if I am, I’m handling it, okay?”

“Okay,” Adora answers, skeptical, before leaving.

Catra still sees Adora, of course.  Her appearance at meals is still intermittent, but she manages to show up at least once a day now that the staring is at a minimum.  This placates Adora well enough, but it’s clear she doesn’t buy Catra’s assurances that things are alright. She gives Catra nervous and watchful looks across the table that both annoy her and make her feel just off of guilty.  She should talk to her. She might even want to, but the right words aren’t easy to grasp even for herself, much less in a way that Adora might understand.

Then there’s a span of four or five days that Adora is gone entirely.  Catra watches her leave in the middle of the night, newly transformed, making her way across the grounds, sword in hand, to disappear into the woods.  She doesn’t see her at meals. She swallows the concern that starts to well when days go by without her.

Catra doesn’t want to admit it, but having the others around is a small comfort in these days, especially because they don’t handle it well either.  Bow chats more than normal, his smiles wider but perhaps less genuine. Not all of them reach his eyes. Glimmer makes no attempts to mask her worry.  She picks at her food, barely responding to Bow, dark circles under her eyes.

Catra decides to ask.

“So, do you two know where she went?”

They shake their heads, somber.

“She doesn’t always tell us.  I think sometimes she doesn’t actually know herself.  She just gets little hints here and there that something’s wrong.  Or it’s too much to explain. Or she doesn’t want anyone to worry,” Glimmer explains. “Sometimes she’s just training, but I don’t think so this time.”

“She should be back soon, though,” Bow explains brightly.  “She always comes back, not to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried.  Just curious.”

On the fourth night Catra doesn’t see Adora cross the grounds to return, a knock sounds at her door.  Catra narrows her eyes, wondering if Adora came a back way into the palace. She didn’t see her come back.

When she opens the door, a tired and disgruntled Glimmer stands on the other side.

“Hey,” she pouts.

“As lovely as it always is to see you, Shimmer,” Catra tells her, making her sarcasm and impatience as clear as possible. “ it’s kind of the middle of the night?  What do you want?”

“I know.  I...ugh,” Glimmer growls in frustration.  “I can’t believe I’m asking you this but I’m about to go crazy.  I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days.”

“And what do you expect me to do about it?”

Glimmer mutters something unintelligible.

“Sorry, what was that, Glitter?”

“Do you want to come in my room?” she mutters.

“Are you serious?!” Catra cackles.

“If you laugh again I swear I’ll throw you out the window.”

“I dare you to,” Catra grins.

“Look, I don’t sleep alone well anymore and Adora’s been gone so it makes it way worse so I wondered if you had the same problem.”

“Aw,” she croons.  “Not really. You sure it’s not because you like me?”

“I mostly hate you. But I do like Adora, and you two are being weird, which makes her be weird around me, which makes us weird, and I’d really like for everyone to just calm down and if this is what it takes to get everyone to stop being weird, so be it,” Glimmer hisses, whispering furiously in the dark.   “Plus, I didn’t sleep alone for three years before you showed up and now I have to and can barely sleep anymore! Adora’s been gone for days and I’ve been up all night worrying about it and if I don’t get sleep soon, I’m going to go crazy!”

“You sure it’s not going to make everything weirder?” Catra taunts and Glimmer growls under her breath.

“I don’t even know if that’s possible at this point.  Are you coming or not? Make it quick, I really need sleep.”

Catra mulls it over for a moment.  She’s never much liked sleeping alone, even as a kitten.  

“Why not,” she shrugs and follows Glimmer.  She isn’t sure why she agrees to it. Maybe it’s because she misses the comfort of warmth in a bed that isn’t her own.  Maybe it’s because it’ll prevent her from staying up all night to watch for her. Maybe it’s to feel like she has some handle on a part of Adora that feels strange to her.

When they get to her room, Glimmer teleports, landing delicately on her bed that dangles in the middle of the room.  Catra takes the steps two at a time, leaping into it without any trouble.

“Ah! Watch it!” Glimmer snaps as the force of her jump makes the bed swing back and forth.  Catra cackles.

“Why do you even have this if you’re too much of a Princess to handle it if it shakes a little?”

“I don’t take a flying leap onto it.”

“And you’re telling me Adora doesn’t mess up trying to get in? She’s not graceful, I remember that much.”

“Yeah, I teleport her up with me most of the time.  The first time was okay, but the second time she tried it, she fell off,” Glimmer sighs, half-smiling and Catra snickers.

“That sounds more like her.”

Catra starts circling on the bed, fluffing up the covers.

“What are you doing?” Glimmer sits up from where she lies under the covers, clearly annoyed.

“Don’t invite me into your bed if you don’t like this.”

Glimmer rolls her eyes.

“How long do you do that before you go to sleep?”

“Depends.  Not usually more than like five or ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?!”

“Relax, it’s usually less.”

She settles down, curling up at Glimmer’s feet and she mutters “Finally.”

It’s quiet for a moment as they get comfortable before Glimmer laughs a little.

“Are you purring?”   Glimmer asks, incredulous.

“It helps me sleep,” she mutters, a little trill in her voice she can’t mask completely..

“Oh my god.  You know, it’s a good thing you’re on our side now because I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to take you seriously again,” she laughs.

Catra growls a little and swipes at the bottom of Glimmer’s foot.  Not hard enough to do any true damage, but hard enough to make her startle and for the laughter in her throat to quiet.

“Ow! What the hell?!”

“Do you take me seriously again now?”

“Let her into your bed, I said.  It’ll be fine-” Glimmer mutters to herself.

They settle into another silence and Catra thinks Glimmer is asleep when she speaks again.

“So, you know Adora has no idea that being with both of us at the same time might be...unusual, right?”

“I thought you wanted to sleep, not talk.”

“I do.  But I don’t know when else I’m going to get a second to tell you this.  Just,” she sighs and sits up for a moment. “She’s not trying to upset you.”

“I’m not upset.”

“Look, you can try to bullshit Adora, but not me.  You’re avoiding her and she’s noticing and she’s a wreck about it.  And I’m honestly a little tired of you two not talking to each other because it’s becoming my problem.”

“It’s not your problem and I didn’t ask for you to help.”

“It is my problem because I care about Adora and she cares about you and it’s upsetting her. She has zero clue that either of us or anyone for that matter might consider this...not traditional.”

“Well, I mean, in the Fright Zone there aren’t any traditions, so-”

“Whatever.  I’m just trying to tell you she doesn’t see it as a competition and I don’t either, okay?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t want you to avoid her because of me.”

“Or is it because you secretly like me too?” Catra taunts and Glimmer sputters.

“I...y-you…I will kick you out-”

“You know, you two suit each other.  You’re both easy to mess with.”

“Whatever, just please talk to her as soon as you can because I don’t know how much longer I can keep her from freaking out, okay?”

“Sure, whatever,” Catra shrugs.  “Can I sleep now?”

“Yeah, please do-” Glimmer rolls her eyes and flops back down.

There’s a faint morning light drifting through the windows when Catra feels the bed swing gently, weight on the other side that wasn’t there before.

“Morning, sleepy,” Adora’s voice drifts from the top of the bed.  Glimmer murmurs unintelligibly and cuddles closer to her. Adora stretches out to lie next to her and her foot hits Catra’s shoulder.

“What... Catra!?  What are you doing in here?” she yelps, startled.

“Hey, Adora.”

She stares at her in confusion for a moment, but after she gets used to the idea her face clears, confusion replaced for a smug grin on her face.  

“So you and Glimmer are getting along pretty well, huh?”

“Yeah, she has like a huge crush on me,” Catra stretches, deliberately putting a foot in Glimmer’s face.  She shoves her roughly.

“I do not! Get your foot away from me!” she sputters and swats at Catra’s foot, sitting up as Adora laughs.

“Don’t worry, she yelled at me a lot at first too,” Adora jokes.

“I’m about to yell at you right now,” Glimmer answers.  

“See?  I knew you liked me, Glitter,” she murmurs, winking at her.  When Glimmer turns fuschia, Catra can’t keep up the pretense anymore and she cackles.  Adora giggles too.

“You’re blushing, Glimmer,” she teases.

“This was a mistake,” Glimmer huffs.  “I’m out of here. Wait, no, this is my room.  You two have to leave,” she points at them.

“Make me,” Catra grins.  Glimmer wastes no time, shoving Catra over the edge of the bed with both feet.  

“Hey! Just because I land on my feet doesn’t mean I like falling nine feet out of the air!” she snaps once she lands.

“You’re kicked out for now too, Adora,” she crosses her arms.  

“Really?  Like actually?” she asks.

“Yup!  You two want to joke around, you’re going to have to take it outside.”

Adora seems to grasp that Glimmer’s annoyance is teetering over the line into anger and elects not to keep baiting her.

“Sorry. I’ll see you a little later?”

“Yeah.  I’m sleeping in today without her-” she points to Catra, “in my bed.”

“So, what was that about?” Adora points behind her, a crooked and teasing grin on her lips as they leave, meandering down the hall in the direction of Adora’s and Catra’s rooms.

“Your princess of a girlfriend can’t sleep without you,” Catra pantomimes fainting, a hand draped across her forehead.  “So she asked me to come in with her.”

“Oh.  Yeah, she got kind of used to me being in there, I think.”

Catra doesn’t respond.  

“So.  You and Glimmer?” she wiggles her eyebrows and Catra shoves her.  She laughs, stumbling to the side.

“There is no me and Glimmer.  I told you what happened. Your girlfriend is a princess, both literally and figuratively, and she showed up in my room in the middle of the night asking me to come sleep with her.  You both have that in common.”

“But you went.  Which means maybe you’re doing that thing that you do when you don’t want to admit something and denying it.  I bet you both like each other.”

“No, that’s not why either of us were in there together.”

“You sure?” Adora teases, giggling.

“Yeah, positive,” Catra rolls her eyes.  

“But you’re getting all embarrassed, I can tell,” Adora points to the way Catra’s ears and tail can’t stay still, agitated.

“I am not!”

“Oh my god, you totally like her,” Adora teases.

“I don’t.”

Adora giggles in a way that makes it clear she doesn’t believe her.  

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you pointers.  The key to impressing Glimmer is-”

“Ugh, why are you so dumb?” Catra snaps, true annoyance taking hold.  Adora stops, taken aback.

“Woah, what?”

“If you’re going to try and figure me out, at least do a good job,” she grits her teeth and she can feel her tail puffing out like a bottle-brush.

“Okay, I think I missed something here,” Adora looks at her, eyes wide.

“You think?”

“So,” she looks around as if searching for the right words or for the answer to her conundrum, “do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Why does everything take spelling out for you?” Catra growls.  

“Catra, come on, what happened? We were fine and now you’re obviously upset with me and this would all be a lot easier if you’d just tell me what’s going on,” she crosses her arms, all playful pretense dropped in favor of the straightforward severity and disbelief she always has when she’s frustrated.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you everything,” she scowls, stalking off in the direction of her room.  Adora follows.

“Okay, yeah, I get it.  Sometimes I don’t notice stuff.  But I can’t read minds-”

“Aw, that didn’t come with the She-Ra package?”

“I’m serious! I’m not completely oblivious, I know you’ve been avoiding me. I know something I did upset you.  But I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what’s going on!”

“Nothing’s going on-”

“That’s such a lie!”

“Fine, then it’s a lie.”

“Come on, Catra! We were doing fine and now we’re just going to let something like this get in the way?  Just tell me what I did so I can fix it-”

“Not everything is about you, okay?!” Catra snaps.  “Stop taking everything so personally. You can’t fix everything okay?”

“So there is something that needs to be fixed?”

“I think it’s kind of passed that,” Catra mutters, turning to her room.  Adora stands, staring in a way that’s quietly hurt. Catra can’t look at her for long.  She leaves her in the hallway, desperately wanting to articulate it all to her and unable to understand how.

Things are quiet for the rest of the day until evening.  A high-pitched and insistent voice startles Catra out of a nap.

“Hey! Just wanted to say thanks a lot because whatever you did made things even worse!” Glimmer bursts unceremoniously into the room.

“Uh, who told you that you could come in?”

Glimmer rolls her eyes, turns around, and stands over the threshold.

“Can I come in, your majesty?” she mocks.

“Aw, you gave me your title.  Thanks,” Catra smirks. “And let me think.  No, sorry, can’t let you in. You know why? Because Adora thinks I want you to date me, not the other way around.  So this is actually your fault.”

“You’re joking.”

“Wish I were, Twinkle, but you forgot an important detail in this situation and that detail is that Adora is clueless.”

“Why is everyone from the Horde clueless? Is that something they teach you or is it just natural?” she groans.

“ I’m not clueless.  That’s just an Adora thing.”

“Really? You’re not clueless?  You yell at Adora instead of just opening your mouth to tell her you like her and you think you’re not clueless?”

“She told you?”

“Yeah! That’s why I’m here! Adora is freaking out thinking she’s ruined everything between you two.  If Adora’s clueless, then you are too and you both deserve each other!”

“Well, maybe I didn’t tell her I like her because I don’t like her.”

Glimmer starts to laugh, incredulous and desperate.

“Great, you’re not clueless!  You’re just in complete denial!  Why do I bother?” Glimmer says to herself.

“I’m not in denial.”

“Yes, you are,” Glimmer jabs a finger at her.  “And you’re taking it out on Adora and, by extension, me.”

“What makes you think this is going to work even if I am in denial?” Catra snaps.  

“So you’re just going to give up on it before you even try?”

“Well maybe there’s just a little bit of a complication here,” Catra mocks.  “Oh, right, three years of her abandoning me for me to work through.”

“Seriously? We’re going to play that game right now?” Glimmer shouts.

“I know what I want and I don’t skip out on the people who’ve been there for me,” she growls.  “And I can’t say the same for Adora. Have fun with that, by the way.”

“She’s already apologized a billion times and I thought everything was okay with you two because you keep sleeping in her bed .”

“Some things aren’t forgivable.”

“You’re seriously never going to let it go?  Or at least try? Like you’re so perfect?”

“I’ve never done that ,” Catra shouts back.  Just as Glimmer opens her mouth to volley back, guards appear at the door.  Catra’s mouth snaps shut, hair on end, worried they might be here because the Princess is in an obvious shouting match with her.

“Princess?  We have a situation outside.”

“What kind of situation?”

“Horde soldier.  We think she’s alone, but we can’t be sure.”

“Again?!”

Glimmer turns to follow them.

“I’m not done with this,” she warns Catra before she leaves.

But Catra is too preoccupied wondering who it is out on the grounds that needs their attention. She dashes to the window to look outside.  Her mouth goes dry and a numbness takes over in her limbs, tingling.

It’s Scorpia.

She knows without having to be told why she’s here and she clambers out of the window like she did that day she rescued Adora.

She Ra is trying to subdue Scorpia.  They both dig their heels in, Scorpia’s claws clashing with the sword, ear-splitting cracks sounding across the clearing.   

Catra drops onto the ground behind Glimmer, Bow, and She Ra and starts to run forward when Angella cuts her off.

“Catra!” Angella warns.  “Do not interfere.”

“I’m not!  I’m trying to help you!” she snaps.  “I promise she’ll calm down once she sees I’m okay!”

Angella raises an eyebrow, skeptical.

“That’s why she’s here.  She thinks you captured me and she’s trying to protect me.”

Angella eyes her for a moment, thinking before she steps to the side and allows her to run forward.

“Scorpia!” she calls, elbowing her way through past Glimmer and Bow.

Scorpia looks around desperately.

“Catra?”

“Down here,” she rolls her eyes and Scorpia looks past She Ra’s shoulder to see her.  She loosens her grip on She Ra as soon as she sees her and Adora doubles down. Catra jumps between them.

“Adora, quit it!” she shoves her in the stomach, trying to put some space between her and Scorpia.  It does next to nothing, Catra’s own feet digging in and making little divots in the grass as She Ra stands, unmoving.  But it gets Adora’s attention. “Stop being stupid, she’s looking for me.”

“Huh?”

“She’s not trying to attack us?  She came alone? Because she thinks you captured me?  She’s just trying to bring me back?” Catra stares up at her, jutting out her chin.

“Oh,” she lowers her sword.  Scorpia runs around her and hoists Catra up in her claws.  Glimmer and Bow bristle at first, expecting her to barrel through towards the palace.  But Scorpia turns and starts to run the other way instead as soon as she has Catra in her arms.

“Oh my god, come here.  Did they hurt you? Did they torture you?  If I didn’t need to get you out of here, oh, I’d wipe the floor with them-”

Catra wriggles out of her grip.

“Stop, I’m fine,” she huffs.  “They didn’t hurt me. I-” she trails off, unsure how to tell her.  Scorpia watches her patiently. The weight of the situation starts to sink in for everyone except her.  Bow fiddles with the fletching on an arrow. Glimmer looks at the ground.

Adora is the only one who watches, wide-eyed and melancholy.

“Wow, I wish there was somewhere less public to tell you this,” Catra murmurs.  “But I kind of...live here now.”

“They’re holding you prisoner! Oh my god, I'm sorry it took me so long, it took me forever to get out of there and then I got lost-”

“No!  No, they’re not holding me prisoner.  I’m here willingly.”

Scorpia blinks at her, confused.

“What?”

“I defected, Scorpia,” she mutters. “I got myself captured on purpose.”

“You...you what?”

“I asked them to capture me so I could leave.”

Scorpia blinks rapidly as she starts to understand, eyes starting to well up.

“Oh.  I, ah, guess I overreacted, then, huh?” she chuckles, but her voice goes thick with tears.  “I guess I’ll just be on my way-”

Catra has never wanted to disappear so badly in her life.  She wants to erase the obvious heartbreak on her face and knows there isn’t much she can do.  The damage is irrevocable and deep. This is an agonizing helplessness Catra has never experienced before.

When Catra is too frozen to be able to do anything when Scorpia starts to leave, it’s Adora who steps forward, placing a hand on Scorpia’s shoulder as she turns.  She stiffens at first, but she relaxes once it’s clear Adora isn’t going to strike at her.

“You’re welcome to stay if you want,” she offers.

Scorpia looks between her and Catra for moment.

“You’re staying?” she asks her, eyes glistening.

“Yeah, I am,” Catra nods.

She swallows hard and nods.

“Then I’m staying too,” she murmurs, a tremble in her voice.

“You would give your allegiance to the Rebellion?” Angella steps forward, surveying her strictly.

She stands, resolute, staring at Angella blinking tears out of her eyes.  

“My allegiance is to her-” she points at Catra.  “Where she goes, I go.”

There is nothing worse she could’ve said to Catra.  It makes her feel so incredibly small. Angella nods curtly.

They lead Scorpia in and Angella and Glimmer interrogate her lightly for a little while, skeptical.  Once they’re satisfied that Scorpia’s only intention is to find and protect Catra, they agree to keep her in the palace, similar to Catra.  They give her a matching tracker. When they put her in a room, Catra can’t handle it any longer. She disappears, settling in the window sill of her own room to watch dark clouds drift across a blue night sky.  

She’s there for nearly an hour before anyone comes to find her.

“Hey.  You okay?” Adora asks her, knocking softly on the door to her room.  She stands in the doorway, eyes wide with concern.

“Not really.”

“I figured.  If it helps, I get it,” she smiles sadly at her.  “You want to talk?”

“Yes and no.  I don’t know.”

Adora comes in and sits next to her in the wide, circular window sill.  Catra tries to enjoy her silent company for a moment.

“Is it normal to feel like the worst person in the universe?” she asks, still looking at the sky.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Adora chuckles darkly.  

“Does it get any easier?”

“Yes and no,” Adora sighs, echoing her.  “It gets a little easier in some ways. You get used to life changing around.  It’s a lot easier after you start to make up a little,” she smiles slightly at Catra.  “But things don’t really go back to the way they were before.”

That hits Catra with a strength she can barely bear right now.  That the things she knew to be true once will never completely come back to her.  That Adora, and even unyielding and loyal Scorpia, aren’t the same as the ones she knew in the Horde.  Though Scorpia is still loyal, she thinks. Painfully so.

“I kind of wish she would just be mad at me.  That might be easier,” Catra admits.

“I can’t vouch for that.  You were pretty mad at me and let me know in no uncertain terms,” she giggles and Catra laughs with her.  “But honestly? I doubt it’d actually make it easier for you. I don’t think anything does.”

“I shouldn’t have left-”

“You couldn’t stay,” Adora shakes her head, emphatic.  “You had to get out of there for your own sake. Sometimes the opportunity that presents itself isn’t a perfect one.  If she loves you like I think she does, she’ll understand eventually. She’s just pretty understandably hurt right now.”

“What do I do?” Catra asks, helpless.  “I feel like shit.”

“You talk to her,” Adora offers.  “And understand she might not forgive you right away.  It helps to try and accept that you can do the right thing for yourself and have it be the wrong thing for someone else.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot easier said than done.”

“Yeah,” she nods emphatically.  “I haven’t really gotten there yet myself.  It’s really hard knowing you hurt someone you care about,” she bumps her shoulder gently against Catra’s.

“Thanks,” Catra mutters.  

“Anytime."

Catra nods and stands to go and find Scorpia.  She turns to face Adora just before she crosses the threshold.  Adora’s back is still turned, watching the clouds drift lazily across the sky.

“Adora?”

“Hm?”

“I-”

She can’t finish at first.  Adora watches her, eyes wide and concerned.  The silence hums around them.

“I kinda get it.  Sorry. For before.”

Adora stares, open-mouthed.  She opens and closes her mouth once or twice, trying to answer her through the shock.  When she can’t find the words, she nods once with a soft smile.

Scorpia is sitting on the bed, pensive when Catra walks in.

“Hey, big gal.  How you holding up?” she asks.

“Huh? Oh, uh.  Great! Fine, yeah.  This place is nice, huh?  Except for the bed-” she points to the bed that’s already ripped open, feathers everywhere.  “Claws and feathers don’t really mix I guess,” she jokes, but it’s so clearly dampened. Catra walks over and sits next to her.  “I hope they’re not mad about their bed, it just kinda happened-”

“We’ll get them to get you a new one.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to be any trouble,” she shakes her head, frantic.  The silence settles back on them, heavy.

“So, I don’t really know how to do this,” Catra begins, looking at the floor.  “But I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you there.”

“Oh, good,” Scorpia sighs.  “I thought maybe you...maybe I was part of the reason you left?”

“No.  I wasn’t thinking of you at all.  Which is kind of the problem, I guess.  I just mean you weren’t the reason I left.” Catra stutters.  “Things were getting bad for me there-”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking of leaving?” she asks.  “I would’ve done anything I could-”

“I know.  I made the decision on the fly.  I didn’t even think I was going to do it.  There wasn’t really time to tell anyone else.  I didn’t really see it getting better for me there no matter what you or anyone else did and I kinda panicked.”

Scorpia nods and doesn’t say anything.  

“Are you, um, okay and stuff?”

Scorpia shrugs a little.

“I mean, I’ll be alright.  Life goes on, right? And I’m here with you now!” she answers and Catra gets the sinking feeling she’s not telling her everything.  “I’m glad Adora was here for you and everything-”

Catra’s ears flatten, guilty that the first person she sought out when she was in danger wasn’t Scorpia and that she knows it.

“Yeah.  Well, I’m sorry.  I know what it’s like and it isn’t fun.”

Scorpia smiles weakly.

“Thanks, wildcat.”

Catra smiles grudgingly at the nickname.

“So,” Catra chafes under the silence that settles in the room. “Did Shimmer show you the dining hall?”

“Ah, actually, I think it’s Glitter? No, no, that’s not right-” Scorpia shakes her head, thinking.  “Twinkle? No.”

“It doesn’t matter, come on, let’s go eat.”

“Ah, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to go in there,” Scorpia winces.  “I haven’t seen a lot of these princesses since the ball and they never really liked me much anyway-”

“Trust me, they hate me a lot more than they hate you.  Plus, it’s way easier to just get it over with.”

It’s almost frustrating how easily Scorpia melts into life here after the initial bout of stares and unease for the first few days.  Most take to her much more easily than they did Catra, particularly Bow after an initial wariness. They chat easily with each other as if they’ve known each other for years.  Frosta too becomes enamored with her, happy for someone who doesn’t tire of talking to her and indulging her. Their combined enthusiasm has Mermista joining Catra at the far end of the table more often than not lately, sighing frustratedly in their direction.

Scorpia also quickly makes it a habit to hang out in Catra’s room whenever she has downtime, chattering incessantly.  Catra normally tunes most of it out, content to have a familiar presence there in the background. Tonight Scorpia lies on Catra’s unused bed, putting holes in it every time she accidentally snags it with her claws, chatting as Catra lounges on the curtain railing.

“So, how are things with you and Adora?” comes through the drone in the background and Catra sits up from her perch.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean what’s the, uh.  Are you two-”

“Yeah, not really.  Because you and everyone else thinks there’s something going on between us except for Adora.”

“Oh.  Is that normal for her?  The one time we got to talk she was a little, uh,” Scorpia pantomimes the kind of wobbling Adora did when her sword was infected.

“Yeah, that’s not a far cry from her all the time.”

“Really? She seems a lot different.”

“Whatever, she’s still oblivious.”

“Do you want something with her?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Things seem tense between you two.  If you like her, you should talk to her if she doesn’t know.”

“No, I mean why are you trying to help me talk to Adora?  Don’t you, uh,” Catra pauses for a moment, unsure if she should voice it.  “Don’t you like me too?”

“Oh, definitely,” she laughs a little.  “Yes, I do. That’s why I’m trying to help you.   Sure, I wish you liked me back and it’d be great if you’d be happy with me.  But someone really wise told me that caring about someone is the greatest adventure. If you care about someone, you have to accept that there are two people on an adventure and sometimes that the adventure might not work out the way you want it to.  Doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.”

“Oh my god, stop,” Catra groans.

“Did I say something?”

“Stop being so perfect.  It’d be easier if you were just mad at me.”

Scorpia chuckles.

“I’m definitely not perfect.  And sorry, wildcat, but I’m not mad at you no matter who you like or don’t like and I’m not going to act like I am.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really know what’s going on in that department, honestly,” she sighs.

“You do talk about her a lot-” Scorpia offers.  “And look at her a lot. And you slept in her bed.  And all of your decisions had to do with her back in the Horde and-”

“Okay! Fine!” Catra snaps, twisting around to look at her.  “But even if I do, there’s like a billion things in the way.  How am I supposed to even bring that up? ‘Hey Adora, I know we’ve been mortal enemies for three years and we’re only barely back to not trying to kill each other now, so I thought it was a good time to tell you we should date.’  Does anything about this seem romantic to you?”

Scorpia just stares and blinks happily, clearly unfazed.

“Ugh, whatever,” she flops back down.

She thinks Scorpia has left it alone until an evening that Scorpia is suspiciously absent.  Catra is about to go looking for her when Adora appears in her open doorway instead, knocking hesitantly.

“So, uh, Scorpia said you wanted to talk to me or something?”

Catra growls.

“Seriously?!”

“Yeah, she said you were sad and needed immediate attention?” Adora asks, scowling and clearly skeptical.  “So what’s up?”

“I’m going to kill her-”

Adora starts to smile smugly.

“What’s going on?”

“Stop, I know that look.  There’s nothing going on.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“I’m not!”

“And you’re doing that thing you do when you’re trying to hide something where your tail-”

“I know you’re baiting me, Adora.”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

Adora considers this for a moment, pensive, and walks around Catra’s room idly.  Catra settles on the floor, her back to her, in an attempt to look busy and ignore her.  Adora sits next to her and leans into Catra’s shoulder, resting her head on her hair.

“What are you doing?”

“Well since you’re so sad,” she taunts.  Catra shoves her.

“I’m not!”  

She expects Adora to shove her back.  Instead, there’s the feeling of a breeze that ghosts over Catra’s forehead and Adora, who leaps up from the floor, heading for the door.  Catra claps a hand to her forehead. Her mask is gone.

“Hey! What the hell?!”

Adora giggles madly and races out of the room, mask in hand.  Catra growls and dashes after her.

“Are you crazy? What are you doing?” she hisses.

Adora shrugs, jogging backward for a moment.

“Trying to cheer you up.”

“Stealing from me is trying to cheer me up?”

“I bet you can’t catch me,” she taunts, running off down the hallway.  Catra growls.

“You’re so annoying! You know I’m faster than you right?” she clambers up the wall into the rafters, leaping across them in bounds, easily catching up to her.  She’s about to pounce on Adora when she darts right into Glimmer’s room. Catra growls under her breath.

“Adora, what are you-” Glimmer’s voice drifts through just before Catra drops to the floor and barges in.

“Ah!” Glimmer shrieks as Catra nearly collides with her, but she dodges in time.  “What is going on?!”

“Your girlfriend is a thief is what’s going on,” Catra huffs, chasing her in circles about the room, making wild grasps for the tail of Adora’s jacket.

“Hey, maybe we can work something out that doesn’t involve running around and destroying things?” Bow proposes, laughing nervously and pulling his feet into the chair he occupies to avoid them.  Catra ignores him in favor of scaling the steps to Glimmer’s bed and using them to try and tackle Adora from above. Adora yelps and side steps just in time, bumping roughly into Glimmer’s dresser.  Multiple little bottles and knick-knacks tumble to the floor, strewn everywhere. Catra rolls unceremoniously to right herself.

Adora tosses the mask to Bow, who fumbles.

“I don’t want it!” he cries, frantically throwing it before Catra can get to him.  It hits Glimmer in the chest and she snatches it, gritting her teeth.

“Get out of my room!” Glimmer bellows throwing the mask back at Adora, having had enough.  Adora catches the mask and turns to the door.

“Sorry, Glimmer!” Adora waves, dashing back out.  Catra doesn’t bother apologizing as she pursues her and the door to Glimmer’s room slams shut behind them.

“Adora!” Catra growls as she keeps running after her, skidding around a corner.  “I know what you’re doing!”

“No you don’t!” she laughs, out of breath.

“Yes, I do!”

“Then it’s working because you’re still chasing me!”

“I swear when I catch you-”

“You’ll do what?” she stops for a split second, raising an eyebrow.  She lets Catra get close to catching her, inches from her grasp, before turning to run back in the direction she just came from.

“Oo, are we playing a game?” Frosta brightens as they dash past her.

“Yup!  Keep away!” Adora shouts, tossing the mask at her.  She catches it and giggles.

“Seriously?!  You’re acting like a twelve-year-old!” Catra growls, pointing to Frosta.

“I’m fourteen and three quarters, actually!” Frosta huffs before laughing.  “Your hair looks weird without this-”

They toss the mask back and forth before Adora catches it and takes off again, turning a corner erratically.  But this time she doesn’t have time to gain momentum before Catra dives and catches her ankles and she falls in a heap on the floor.  Catra makes a wild lunge for her mask, but Adora stops her with a foot on her shoulder, blocking her

“Why..ugh...are you doing...this?” she huffs, swiping in between words for the mask that Adora holds above her head, a foot against Catra’s hip, blocking her movement.

“Because you’re avoiding me and won’t talk to me,” she growls, half-annoyed and half playful.  “And I’m pretty sure you told Scorpia something that made her try to get me to talk to you. She isn’t smooth.”

“So you think this is going to get me to talk?!”

“Nothing else has worked!”

“When has this ever worked before?”

“Like every fight we had as kids?”

“No, it didn’t!”

“Yes, it did!  You always calmed down after going to play.  It was the only thing that ever got you to talk!”

“Stop trying to figure me out!”

“I already have you figured out,” she taunts and Catra growls.

“No...you...don’t!” she swipes frantically at the mask in between words.

“Then talk to me!”

“No!” Catra growls, abandoning grabbing for the mask, grasping Adora’s wrists, pressing down  It turns into a tussle on the floor. The moment feels split for Catra, half-playful like their roughhousing when they were children and half-frustrated with tinges of residual conflict in it, traces of pain that haven’t left yet.  Catra twists wildly, licking the length of Adora’s arm.

“Ew!” she yelps and lets go of her for a moment.  Catra darts forward a few paces, but Adora grabs her ankles and she tumbles down.  Adora wipes her arm on Catra’s leg.

“Ugh!  What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you?! Why won’t you let anyone help you?” Adora scowls, pushing back.  Catra forgets how brutally strong she is as she nearly flips them over.

“Because I don’t need it and I didn’t ask for it!” she snaps back and the tussle starts to take a downward turn, frustration winning over playfulness as they push against each other.

“Do you even care that it bothers me when just shut down like that?”

“Oh, so it’s all about you?”

“You won’t tell anyone when they do anything wrong! You just push people away!”

“What is your problem?!  How did I even push you away?”

“You like Glimmer and you’re mad at me and won’t talk to me and even Scorpia knows it!” she barks, any hint of amusement gone.

“Why are you so clueless all the time?!” Catra snarls.  “Everyone else but you knows it’s you , you stupid-”

She freezes for a moment after she realizes what she’s told her.  They stare at each other for a moment, both frozen in shock before she abruptly lets go of Adora’s wrists, scrambling up to run back to her room.  Adora has to brace her palms against the floor to catch herself.

“Catra, wait!”  she calls and Catra can hear the scuffle of her boots as she tries to stand, but Catra has too big a lead on her.  She rounds a corner and nearly collides into Angella.

“Catra?  What is-,” she starts, a scowl across her features before they clear.  “Are you alright?”

Catra doesn’t bother answering, dodging her to take off down the hall to her room.  She can hear Adora’s hasty apology to Angella, flurried assurances that everything is alright.

Catra makes it to her room, slams the door, and scurries up to the curtain railing, settling there, curling her tail protectively around her.  A quiet knock sounds after a moment. Catra doesn’t move to answer it.

The door opens a little.

“Hey.  Can I come in?”

Catra shrugs.  She can hear Adora’s hesitant footsteps behind her.

“I’d come to sit by you but I can’t climb the curtains,” she chuckles weakly.  Catra rolls her eyes and clambers down. She sits on the floor and Adora follows.  Catra still sits facing a little away from her and doesn’t look at her.

“Here’s your mask.  Sorry, I took it, I shouldn’t-”

“I don’t care about the mask, Adora,” she rolls her eyes.  “It was fine. It was actually almost fun, I guess.”

“So,” she starts and stutters.  “I obviously misinterpreted things-”

“Why would I care about someone I’ve barely even spent time with?” Catra asks, looping her arms around her legs.

“I don’t know.  I’m sorry. I should’ve known that.”

“You think?!”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Adora murmurs.

“Maybe I was trying to figure out how to? Or just wanted a minute to figure stuff out?” she snaps. “Maybe there’s been a billion things happening between Scorpia getting here, and you being gone half the time, and already dating someone, and-”

“Sorry.  I just,” she sighs.  “I felt like things were getting better between us and then things went back to the way they were before and I got scared.  But I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

Catra moves to rest her chin on her knees.

“Yeah, well, maybe I got scared too and that’s why I didn’t say anything,” Catra murmurs.

“Was there something else?”

“Something else what?”

“That bothered you? You kind of stopped talking to me before I started talking about Glimmer and all that.”

“Yeah?  I-” she trails off, unable to speak just yet.  Catra has so rarely voiced the things that frighten her, the things that are ever-present in the back of her mind and weigh, heavy, on her shoulders.  Things like these, the things that are close to the core of her, the things that really matter, have been used against her so often and the push to keep them near to her and secret is powerful.

“I just,” she shakes her head, willing herself to continue even if it takes every ounce of her strength to do it.  “I can’t be like her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything!” Catra bites back.  “I heard you two together and didn’t really feel like I could give you anything like that for a while, okay?  I can’t be all happy-go-lucky, I can’t even talk to you properly all the time! It didn’t really feel like there was any point to me being there when you’ve got her.”

“Catra-” Adora murmurs and Catra curls tighter into herself.

“I don’t need you to be like Glimmer.  I don’t want you to be. I want you to be you-”

“That’s cute and stuff, Adora, but I don’t really know what being me even is right now, so-” she huffs.

“I get that,” Adora smiles sadly.  “I mean, I’m technically a reincarnation a lot of people.  It’s a little hard sometimes to figure out what’s me up here and what’s other people,” she taps her temple.

Things go silent between them.  

“Look, I don’t expect anything in particular from you.  I just want you back in my life again, whatever that means for you, no strings attached.  I missed you. I still miss you.”

Catra doesn’t respond.  She just tips to lean her shoulder into Adora’s.  Adora relaxes, leaning back into her.

“Why don’t we just take it one day at a time?  No expectations. And if you ever feel like you want more, just let me know.”

“What are you saying?”

“That I’d, uh, reciprocate.  If or when you feel ready,” she flushes, looking at the floor.

“Just say you like me back, Adora,” she shakes her head.

“Yeah, I like you back.  But I’m also going to let you call the shots for a while, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Was that so bad?” she murmurs.

“Yeah, actually, it was the worst and I hated it.”

Adora giggles and cuddles into her side.  Catra sighs and leans into it, for once content with the sincerity of it, the feeling that things are at least clear if not settled between them.

“So do I get to sleep in the bed again?” Catra asks.

“I never kicked you out of it.”

“Yeah, but is your girlfriend going to freak out if she has to sleep alone?”

“I...we’ll work something out,” Adora

Catra wishes she hadn’t said anything about it when, nights later, she hears Adora’s voice approaching with Glimmer and bow and she opens the door before Adora can even knock.  She’s there with Glimmer and Bow, holding a wealth of blankets.

“What is this?”

“So since the sleeping arrangements are, you know, complicated, we thought this might be a nice change of pace,” Glimmer suggests, grinning in a way that’s clearly forced and overly friendly.

“What are you suggesting?”

“We kinda thought we could have a sleepover,” Bow smiles, laughing nervously.

“A what?”

“It’s actually nice,” Adora assures her.  “Like, we sleep together-”

“Where?”

“Well, we were thinking in your room.”

“That’s not happening.”

“Catra, I will literally never, ever ask for another favor from you in my life,” Glimmer pleads, somewhere between frustration and whining.  “But we could sleep. Both of us, all of us. Think about it. Real sleep,” she sighs dreamily.

“Will you shut up and leave me alone if I let you in?”

“Yup,” Adora grins and Catra rolls her eyes and lets them in.  

“Oh my god, wow.  I’m really going to have to ask you to stop doing that, whatever that is,” Glimmer gestures at the chair and curtains that are ragged.

“Oh sorry! I should’ve mentioned that, I kind of forgot,” Adora winces.  “She-”

“Destroys things?”

“Sort of?”

“If I don’t ‘destroy things,’ these,” Catra brandishes her claws and Glimmer jumps.  “will grow all the way here,” she points to the first joint of her finger.

“They will.  I know from experience,” Adora shudders.  “She went through a phase as a kitten where she didn’t do it and then I had to clip them and-”

“Okay, whatever, I don’t need the whole story.”

“You’ve been in my room before,” Catra reminds her.

“Yeah, well, it was dark!”

“Is there something we can put in here that isn’t irreplaceable furniture for her to destroy?” Glimmer asks.

“Sounds like a She-Ra problem to me,” Adora grins, satisfied.

“Oh! Treehouse?! Can we build one? Please, Glimmer?” Bow asks, gleeful, as Adora high-fives him eagerly.  “It would be perfect!”

“I don’t care, just don’t make me deal with it and make sure she stops destroying the furniture.”

“Actually, that’s the only good idea you’ve ever had, Bow,” Catra tells him, examining her nails.

“Yeah, I feel like I should say thank you and that I also shouldn’t,” Bow narrows his eyes at the backhanded compliment.

“Right.  But for now, sleeping bags-” Adora holds up a pile of them.  They spread them out in the middle of the floor. Glimmer crawls into hers immediately, in clear need of sleep.

“And with that, I’m going to leave you all to it,” Bow nods, turning to leave.

“What?!” Glimmer sits up immediately.  “No!”

“Sorry, uh,” Bow trails off, thinking.  “My dads want me home tonight!”

“You can’t blame everything on your dads!” she huffs.  “What am I going to do with this extra sleeping bag?!”

“I thought of that too!” he calls before running off.  

“I won’t forget this, Bow!” Glimmer calls after him.

As if summoned, Scorpia appears at the door moments after.

“I, uh, got this note? Oh, whoops,” she fumbles, dropping it after accidentally puncturing it with her claw.  “About a sleepover or something?”

“Yeah,” Glimmer groans, waving her in lazily, giving up.

“Oh, I’m so excited!  Although I, uh, gotta be honest with you all.  I do not know what a sleepover is, so-” she examines the note attached to an arrow.

“It’s what it sounds like.  You sleep over somewhere else.  Tonight it’s Catra’s room,” Adora grins, nudging Catra playfully.

“Of course it is,” Catra drones. “And if you don’t stop making a big deal out of it, you’re all going to be sleeping over in the hall.”

“No, you just need to relax,” Scorpia approaches her and Catra’s ears flatten.

“No, I know what you’re doing, don’t you dare-”

Scorpia, either deaf to her protests or willingly ignoring them, zips her unceremoniously into a sleeping bag and lifts her effortlessly.

“It’s okay,” she croons.  Catra hisses.

“I’ve done this before, I promise it works,” she assures Adora and Glimmer, who both watch on gleefuly.

“Put me down!”

“This is amazing,” Adora snickers.

“Just put me down !” Catra struggles as Scorpia gently lays her down, sleeping bag and all, beside Adora.  Catra huffs but doesn’t move.

“Wow, it actually did work,” Glimmer giggles.

“Of course it did!”

“Everyone just shut up and lie down before I change my mind!” Catra snaps.  There’s the rustle of sheets and pillows as everyone does as she asks, although not without scattered giggling.  Scorpia settles behind Catra. Adora wedges herself between Glimmer and Catra with a pleased smile.

“So what happens at these?” Scorpia asks.

“Mostly talk and sleep, but I’m really leaning towards sleep right now,” Glimmer answers.

Scorpia doesn’t heed Glimmer’s words in the slightest and continues talking.  Glimmer responds politely for a little while before they become one-word responses.  Adora continues to entertain it, too agreeable. If Catra doesn’t say something, this is going to go on all night.

“Scorpia, and I mean this in the nicest way possible,” she mutters, sarcastic.  “Please shut up.”

“Thank you! We’re supposed to be sleeping!” Glimmer huffs on Adora’s other side.

“Yeah, for once, I agree with Twinkle.”

“It’s Shimmer, I think,” Scorpia corrects.

“Ugh, no one knows my name? It’s Glimmer.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry!  See, I knew it was similar, but I just wasn’t getting it.”

“I don’t know, I kind of like Shimmer.”

“ Adora,” Glimmer scolds, betrayed.

When everyone finally quiets, and both Glimmer and Scorpia’s breaths go measured and deep withs leep, Adora turns on her side to look at Catra.  Normally, Catra would look away, the wide blue of Adora’s eyes too sincere and too open. But tonight, she looks back, and tries to match it as best she can.  Adora smiles at her, hopeful and sweet, but it twists into confusion when Catra sits up for a moment. She unzips the side of Adora’s bag and clambers in with her and Adora tries to stifle her laughter when she realizes what she’s doing.

“Eep!” she squeals, as quietly as she can.  “Your feet are so cold!”

Catra deliberately presses them against her legs and the way she wriggles and tries not to giggle too loudly is so like the way she used to when they were young.  After her laughter has quieted, she runs a hand through Catra’s hair, content. Catra can’t do very much yet, but there’s something about how otherworldly she looks here, looking at her with this simultaneous gentleness and strength.  Catra wants her to know, even a little bit, that she wants to love her, is trying to love her. More, she wants her to know that she wants Adora to love her too, love her through the ways she pushes against her, love her even though she doesn’t know how to return it yet. Catra leans forward, and as quickly as she can, kisses her gently on the cheek once and curls under her chin after, too afraid to watch the expression on her face.  Just before she drifts to sleep, Adora softly kisses her back, between her ears, pulling her close. For the first time since Adora left, Catra is content to let her.

Chapter Text

Catra doesn’t sleep the same place twice in the coming weeks and it’s a sweet comfort not to have to sleep alone any longer if she doesn’t want to.  Some nights she does stay in her room, grateful to have a space that’s just hers to do with what she wants. Sometimes, if she steals into Adora’s room and she doesn’t return, she slips into Scorpia’s room and curls up next to her.  On rare occasions she finds herself in Glimmer’s bed, sometimes with Adora there, sometimes not. Adora’s bed, though, is still Catra’s favorite place and she loves nothing better than being curled up with Adora in her bed, listening to the quiet turn of pages as she reads just before going to sleep.

She sleeps easily next to her now that the heavy secret of how she feels about her is gone, but it’s replaced with a different kind of tension, a stagnant stillness that makes Catra restless.  It’s not one that makes it difficult for Catra to be around her, but it is one that makes her wonder where to go from here and what to do.

The sweeping confessions are out of the way.  Catra likes Adora. Adora reciprocates. But Adora, in trying not to scare Catra has made it clear that she’s letting Catra lead and that’s the thought that paralyzes her.  

She wants to get closer to Adora, but she doesn’t know where to start.  Does she tell her that? Does she try and get close to her and see if she’ll understand?

Catra is posing these questions to herself silently one afternoon, lounging on the curtain railing again, watching the ceiling.  Bow and Scorpia have ensconced themselves on her bed but she doesn’t have the energy to dislodge them.

“What are you two doing?” she asks, exasperated.

“Making friendship bracelets,” Scorpia answers, holding a lumpy one up to show her.  “I’m not so good at it, it’s very tricky with my claws, but-”

“The friendship bracelet is about the process, not the result,” Bow explains.

“So, why does this have to be done in my room?”

“Don’t worry, we made you one,” she answers and Catra growls, turning back to stare at the ceiling again.

“So, how are things with Adora?” Bow asks and Catra whips around.  Scorpia tries and fails not to look interested over his shoulder.

“What?! She told you about that whole thing?!”

“I mean, not the whole thing,” he shakes his head.  “But we got the essentials, yeah.”

“Figures.  Did you come in here just to ask me that?”

“Not really, it’s mostly because making these is more fun with more people around. And don’t be mad at Adora,” he pleads. “She’s just excited.”

“Cool, no pressure or anything,” Catra mutters.  “And to answer your question, it’s going a little slow.”

“Has she said anything?”

“No, she said she’s going to let me call the shots for a while.”

“Ohhhh, so the ball is in your court,” Bow grins.

“Guess it is, yeah.”

“That’s why,” Scorpia tells Bow and they nod conspiratorially.

“Have you guys been talking about this?”

“We talk about everything,” Scorpia shrugs innocently.  It’s true. After a week or so of hesitance, she and Bow have been nearly inseparable.  It’s highly annoying at the same time that she loves getting to watch Glimmer’s frustration with having lost some of Bow’s attention to Scorpia.

“So...you gonna make a move?” he asks.

“Yeah, a little hard to do that when there’s constantly everyone around,” she gestures at the room, “It’s a bit hard to get a moment alone.”

“That’s why you have to make a move! You have to make time to be together.”

“And when am I supposed to do that?”

“Any chance you get! It can be done, trust me.  I have twelve brothers and sisters and my dads still found time between thirteen kids.”

“My condolences to your dads,” Catra rolls her eyes.

“Nah, they love us.”

“You should do an activity together!” Scorpia brightens.

“Like what?” Catra grumbles

“Well, what did you do for fun together before?” Bow asks.

“I don’t know, run around? Get into stuff we weren’t supposed to? Punch each other?”

“Well, I didn’t really mean that kind of activity,” Scorpia clarifies.  

“Yeah, punching isn’t really what I had in mind,” Bow grins nervously.  “How about a board game?”

“You read my mind!” Scorpia chuckles.

“Have either of you met Adora? She’s not going to stay still long enough for a board game .”

“But I thought she liked strategy stuff-” Bow tilts his head.

“Sure, military strategy.  If I put something like that in front of her, she’s going to obsess over it until she has a meltdown.”

“Fair point.”

“Uh, dinner? Does Adora like food?” Scorpia asks, pensive.

“ Everyone likes food, Scorpia.”

“Well, then it’s perfect!”

“Yeah, I’m not sure you two are cut out for romance.”

“I’ll have you know I plan the best dates,” Bow crosses his arms.  “I planned Glimmer and Adora’s first one. It went very well.”

“Ah, I’m a hopeless romantic,” Scorpia flushes.

“Yeah, that’s probably the problem.  I don’t need help, I’ll figure it out,” Catra waves them off.  It doesn’t matter anyhow. Bow and Scorpia have resorted to talking amongst themselves, chatting idly, planning as if Catra isn’t even here.

Catra thinks about what Adora loves, things that always intrigued her and excited her.  Adora was always so open to the possibility in things, in things that seemed unlikely or unreachable.  She was always curious, running off to explore every corner of the place they lived, poring over every book she could get her hands on.  

Catra thinks there’s a place here she might not know of yet.  She might be wrong, but when Catra found the little observatory, it looked as if it had been untouched for years, thick films of dust covering every surface.  Full of strange books and stories and with a view of the sky that’s deep and ocean-like.

Once she’s decided what to do, it takes her even longer to broach the subject.  Adora is infuriatingly surrounded by people constantly. During the day, she’s surrounded by military strategists and princesses, everyone vying for her attention at once.  At night, Glimmer is almost always there and though Catra can’t help but admit she enjoys the warmth of both of them in the bed, their breathing a sweet background, it’s hardly the place to broach the subject.

She eventually has to take matters into her own hands.  She finally finds the opportunity watching Adora pass by her open bedroom door, alone for once.  Scorpia is in her own room for once too, chatting amicably with Bow. Glimmer is nowhere to be seen. Now’s her chance.  Catra bolts out into the hall, grabs Adora from behind, and yanks her into her room, slamming the door shut behind her. Adora yelps in shock.

“Catra! What are you doing?!” she huffs, just off of a shout, indignant at being snuck up on.

“Trying to talk to you alone for two seconds!  Do you know how hard that is?”

“Yeah, pretty much.  I’m kind of never alone,” she smiles sheepishly, but not in a way that implies she minds it.

“Yeah, well, it sucked for me to try to talk to you,” she mutters, the courage she built up in the moments before fading a little.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

Catra fidgets and at first Adora looks concerned, but it’s eventually replaced with an expectant grin.

“I don’t know how to ask you this, but do you-”

She growls, losing her train of thought again.

“Are you asking me out?” she grins and Catra wants to wipe it off her face.

“Yeah, okay?! And you make it ridiculously difficult, you know that, right?”

“Sorry,” she answers, but the teasing smile across her face doesn’t leave. “What did you have in mind?”

“It’s a surprise,” she answers, pleased that the smile disappears, replaced by confusion.

“Uh...okay.  You’re not going to prank me, are you?” she narrows her eyes.

“Not this time.  Tomorrow night after dinner?”

“Yeah, okay,” she answers, the slightest hint of a flush across her cheeks.

“It’s a date.”

“A real date, huh?” Adora smiles again.

“Yeah, we already established this.  Get out and stop teasing me before I call it off,” she shoves her back out the door as quickly as she brought her in as Adora laughs gleefully.

The next night, after dinner, Adora waits for Catra patiently outside the doors of the dining hall.  She’s obviously given Glimmer the heads up not to wait for her because she and Bow make a show of waving goodbye to her and giggling with each other.

“Hey. So, where to?” Adora asks her, looking at her expectantly.  

“I wanted to show you something I found.”

“Catra,” she sighs.  “You’ve been sneaking out of the palace haven’t you?”

“Nope.  This is actually in the palace, Princess.  And I’m willing to bet you’ve never seen it.  I’m actually willing to bet not even the queen knows about it.”

“Okay, yeah, I’m interested.  Skeptical, but interested,” she answers.

Catra turns and starts to walk and Adora follows.  She’s placid at first as they traverse familiar paths, but once they start to climb to higher and higher floors, the passages less familiar, Adora gets curious.

“Where are you going?”

“Adora, do you know what surprise means?”

“I-you. Ugh, yes, obviously I do.

“Then just wait and find out.  Have you been up here before?”

“Once or twice, but not much.  Are we even supposed to be up here?”

“I dunno,” Catra shrugs.  “No one’s ever stopped me before.”

Adora grumbles under her breath and but doesn’t protest further.

They keep climbing higher and higher in the palace, skirting down quiet and seldom-used hallways. Finally they reach a door and Catra opens it to reveal a tight spiral staircase that climbs high into the main spire of the palace, as far as they can see.

“I didn’t even know this was here-” Adora murmurs, staring, open-mouthed up at the stairs that spin endlessly up.  

“I mean, I kinda had to force the door open the first time,” Catra explains.

“Catra,” Adora rolls her eyes.  “Whatever, I guess if you haven’t gotten in trouble already-”

“Like I said, I don’t know if anyone even knows this is here.”

They stare at the staircase for a moment, its spirals dizzying and hypnotizing.

“I’ll race you-” Catra raises an eyebrow.

“Up that? ”

“Aw, are you scared?”

Adora scowls playfully, shoulders her aside, and starts tearing up the stairs.  Catra darts after her. The trouble is that the staircase is only wide enough for one person. When Catra catches up to her she tries to shove her way past, but she should know better.  Trying to move Adora with strength alone is like trying to move a boulder. She changes tactics, clambering over her instead.

“Hey!” she yelps, grasping wildly for her ankle but managing to grasp her tail instead.  Catra hisses and they both stumble, falling on the stairs, giggling. It turns into a game of trying to climb over one another until Catra breaks free, easily bounding up the stairs.  Not that Adora is slow by any means. She isn’t far behind, her footsteps falling heavily, panting.

Eventually, they both tire out, long before reaching the top, and they sit together, breathlessly smiling and still nudging each other half-heartedly.

“When did you climb all the way up here?”

“Those first few weeks.  I got bored of being in my room but wasn’t really feeling social.”

“So what is it?” Adora gestures at the door that can be seen now, though it’s still quite far away.

“It’s called an observatory.”

“Huh.  Never heard of it.  What’s it for?”

“It’s a little hard to tell.  But there’s lots of weird stuff to look at and a good view of everything,” Catra shrugs.  “I liked it. Spent a few days up there.”

“Days?!”

“Yeah,” she sighs, reclining on the stairs for a moment.  “It was so quiet. I’ve never heard quiet like that. Everything in the Horde made some kind of noise, you know.”

“Yeah,” Adora murmurs.  “Even when everyone was asleep all the machines made that weird hum. Here, too.  There are so many people and there’s always noise coming from the woods and everything.”

“Hmm,” Catra nods.

“Well, I can’t wait to see it. Except can we stop running?”

“Yeah,” Catra laughs a little, too winded herself to tease Adora for not being able to make it either.  

They continue the rest of the way together.  Catra opens the door and Adora takes it in with wide eyes, fascinated.  Catra allows herself a little moment of self-satisfaction. She wondered sometimes if she was losing touch with Adora, wondered if she really still knew her or if the Adora she knew was lost completely the moment she left her.

But seeing her light up as they open the door assures her that she still knows the truth of Adora, perhaps better than anyone even after years of separation.

“So, I don’t know exactly what it’s for,” Catra starts.  “But there are all these maps about these weird things called-”

“Stars,” Adora murmurs, walking over to something resembling a map, tracing the connections between them.  Catra is about to smile until she sees that Adora’s eyes are welling up and she panics.

“Woah, are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry!  I just-” she shakes her head, staring still at everything around her.

“So, you like them?” she asks, terrified that she’s misstepped and badly.

“Yes,” she whispers, grinning and her eyes still shine as if they might spill over.  “I remember them.”

“You remember them.  Sorry, I’m not trying to make fun of you, I just don’t really get it.”

“I don’t completely either.  I’ll try to explain it. But, Catra, this is amazing,” she grins, looking around the space.

“I have my moments.  When I found it there was dust on everything.  It didn’t look like anyone had been in here for a while.”

“They haven’t,” she shakes her head.  “No one has seen stars since Mara.”

“Who’s that?”

“The last She-Ra before me.”

She settles on the floor next to the largest telescope that takes up most of the room, staring at the glass dome around them.  Catra sits next to her.

“So you remember these things.  How?”

“I don’t know.  I get a lot of little bits of memory I don’t recognize.  They’re probably from previous She-Ras like Mara. But I remember looking up at the sky and seeing them everywhere.”

“What do they look like?”

“Beautiful.  They glow a little bit, like the moons here do, but smaller.  And so many of them,” she sighs.  “They cover the whole sky.”

Catra nods, looking up and trying to imagine it.

“So you said something happened to them?  After what’s-her-name?”

“Mara, yeah.  I’m the first She-Ra since her in a thousand years.”

“So what’d she do?”

“She,” Adora pauses, a grim expression overtaking.  “She was corrupted. Things were too much for her and she nearly destroyed us.  She stranded us in this dimension. That’s why there are no stars here.”

“That can happen?!”

“Yeah.  I mean, it’s a lot of pressure and a lot of weird magic you don’t understand.  And you saw how easy it is to corrupt She-Ra.”

“So we’re in another dimension? Like, not the one we’re supposed to be in?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Since the last She-Ra got us into a mess like this and almost destroyed the whole planet, it’s a lot of pressure.  I can’t end up like Mara,” she shakes her head, looking drawn and tired.

Catra can’t respond for a moment, feeling terribly guilty.  She always knew that being She-Ra meant understanding uncharted territory, magic ancient and alien and strange.   But she’s been so angry with Adora for so long that she’s been thinking of She-Ra as little more than magic that was mostly show and little substance.  She should have known. The true depth of Adora’s responsibilities starts to dawn on her. She can see the weight of an entire planet on her hunched shoulders and the deep circles under her eyes.

“I probably should’ve known some of this, but,” she starts, quiet and a little ashamed. “I had no idea.”

“It’s okay.  Not many people do.  And you’re here now,” she smiles but the weight of it all hasn’t left her.  Catra isn’t sure if it ever will. But she can try to lift it for her for a little while.

“Yeah.  But this is supposed to be fun, so let’s talk less about destroying the planet and more about the view if we climb up that thing-” she points to the telescope.  Adora grins, evidently glad for a distraction, and they both stand. It’s an easy climb for Catra. She scampers up the sharp incline of it quickly. Adora is slower.  Catra lounges at the top, making a show of yawning.

“Shut up,” Adora teases back.  Catra gives her her hand for the last few steps, opening the glass panel so that they can look out.  Adora gasps and Catra smiles a little. The entire valley stretches out in front of them, the rivers and rolling mountains of Brightmoon to their right and the dense forest of the Whispering Woods to their left.  They can even see the Fright Zone’s cloud of smog just at the horizon. It looks blessedly small and far-removed from here.

“Okay, I gotta admit. I’m impressed,” Adora murmurs, leaning her shoulder into Catra.  Catra cuddles close to her and they watch the goings on below them in a pink sunset. Bow appears to be testing a new arrow. It’s hard to tell when everyone looks so small from here.  They giggle as he gestures wildly, complaining to Glimmer after taking a shot. The new design must not have worked out. Swift Wind circles a pasture lazily, no doubt looking to see if any spare apples haven’t already been picked off.  Spinnerella and Netossa meander together around the gardens, hand-in-hand.

“You should really learn to have more faith in me,” Catra teases.

“Yeah, I really should,” she smiles, much quieter and more genuine than Catra knows what to do with.  The wide and sincere blue of Adora’s eyes looking back at her is both welcome and more and more terrifying by the second.  Catra looks back out at the sunset, trying to enjoy the moment and not obsess over where it might be going. She looks at Spinnerella and Netossa and laces her hand hesitantly with Adora’s.  Adora smiles, giving a satisfied hm .  Catra keeps holding her hand, hoping it’ll quell the growing nervousness in the pit of her stomach.  

As the sky goes more green and purple than pink with impending night, Catra gets the restless feeling that she should do something.  Adora won’t make a move herself. She’s been clear that she’s going to let Catra control how things go. Catra has never been on a date like this before, but she thinks it’s normal to kiss her before it ends.  She isn’t sure if she can do it, but she also doesn’t want the night to fade, staid, like this.

She moves forward towards her, despite the growing sense that she won’t be able to do it, hoping pushing herself will get her past the initial fear.  It feels much like taking a leap into open air when she isn’t sure if she’s judged the distance correctly, a rush and tingling fear mixed together.

She tips her forehead to rest on Adora’s.  Adora responds easily and sweetly, turning to loop her arms around Catra’s waist, clearly glad for their newfound closeness.

But when Adora closes her eyes and her nose brushes hers, something takes hold of Catra.  A cold wave of panic crashes over her with a rush. Catra can’t control her own movements any longer and she scrambles away from her.

Adora’s eyes flutter open when Catra pulls back abruptly and she goes scarlet, wondering if she misinterpreted her.

“Sorry, I thought you were going to-” Adora explains, confused.

“I was.  B-but I think I have to leave,” she stammers, the overwhelming urge to run growing stronger and stronger.

“Oh.  Okay, yeah, whatever you need,” Adora tells her, trying to mask the surprise and hurt as best she can, but Catra has always been able to read the things she tries to hide.  “Did I-”

“No.  You didn’t do anything.  I messed up, okay?” she climbs back down the telescope, trying not to let the tremble in her voice come through. “I just thought I was ready and I can’t yet and I’m sorry.  I wasn’t trying to trick you or ruin your night-”

She turns to the door.

“Catra, you didn’t ruin anything-” she calls after her, but Catra is already dashing back down the steps, furious with herself for doing it even as she keeps moving.

The climb down back to her room is a flurried one as Catra bolts to her room as fast as she can.  

Catra is almost to her there when she passes Bow, Glimmer, and Scorpia.  All of them look at one another, clearly understanding that it didn’t go well, and it all makes it so much worse knowing that everyone knows about her failure with Adora tonight.

Catra isn’t alone in her room for long.  The persistent tapping on her door tells her it’s Scorpia.

“Come in,” she mutters and Scorpia peeks in, hesitant.

“Hey.  You want me to come in?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Scorpia moves to sit next to her on the bed.

“So it didn’t go well, huh?”

“Not really.”

“Was she mean to you? Did she-”

“No! It was me because I suck at this!” Catra snaps, wishing it were Adora’s fault and not so clearly hers.

“Did she say that?”

“No, she was perfect like always and I messed up. Also like always.”

“So she didn’t say any of this.  This is what you think,” Scorpia clarifies and Catra nods.

“So how do you think you messed up?”

“Do you really want to hear this? I mean, this is about a date with someone else-”

“I don’t care,” she shakes her head, resolute.  “What happened?”

“I tried to kiss her and then I couldn’t, I freaked out, and ran away,” she growls, burying her face in her hands.

“Did you want to kiss her?”

“Yeah? Mostly? I don’t know, it seemed like what I was supposed to do-”

“You don’t think maybe you’re rushing this?” Scorpia suggests gently.

“It’s been, like, forever and I don’t want her to think I’m not trying to get around to it,” she sighs.  “And it was nice until then.”

“Well, from what I can tell, Adora is okay taking things slow.  I think maybe it’s you putting the pressure on yourself,” Scorpia pokes her gently with the tip of one of her claws.

“Yeah, I know,” she growls.  “I want to do this and I can’t figure out why I can’t.”

“You know what I think?”

“No, but you’re going to tell me.”

“Yeah, I am.  I think you’re scared.”

“Uh, yeah? Obviously? We’ve never done anything like this, I’ve never done anything like this-”

“I don’t mean like that, like kisses and dates.  I think you’re still scared to get close to her after, well, you know.”

Catra doesn’t answer at first.  She draws her knees up under her chin, scowling.

“Yeah, maybe,” she finally mutters.

“I knew it,” Scorpia laughs gently before opening her arms.  “Do you want a hug?”

“Ugh, no-” Catra swats at her approaching claw.

“You sure?”

Catra growls for a moment.

“Okay, maybe one,” she sighs.

Not two days after their evening together, Adora comes in to tell her that she and most of the princess alliance will be gone for a week.

“The Horde has some new machine,” she sighs, clearly disturbed.  “They’re trying to level the Whispering Woods so they can get to us.  They’ve already cut down some of it closest to them. It’s going to be tough and we don’t know what we’re walking in to, but we have no choice.”

“So it’s going to be dangerous is what you’re saying.”

“Yeah,” she answers, hoarse.  “I just wanted you to know what was going on in case.”

“In case something happens you mean?”

“Yeah.  It shouldn’t, we should be fine, but just as a precaution.”

Catra looks at the floor, tail thrashing nervously.

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Catra nods silently.  

She sleeps at the foot of her bed that night, trying to prepare herself for her to leave and wishing for the first time since she arrived here that she could leave to fight with them. When she wakes in the morning, Adora is pulling on her boots.  Catra lounges there, watching her as she slips her jacket on, fastens her belt. When she’s ready to leave, she comes to sit next to her again.

“I should be back in a week if everything goes well,” she reiterates, clearly trying to keep the tone of her voice bright.  “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Only if you do,” Catra tries to smirk, but she knows it’s lopsided.

As Adora crosses the threshold, she waves wordlessly at Catra, smiling a little, and Catra waves back and watches her as she shuts the door quietly.

As the week drags on, Catra finds herself wishing she had done more before she left.  She wishes she had told her something, anything, so that she’d know that Catra loves her despite not being able to voice it just yet.  She wishes maybe she had kissed her, suddenly and bravely before she went off to battle. Instead, she watched her leave with little more than a weak goodbye and she’s left now to wait, wondering if she’ll come back or not.  Wait with no word about how she is or where she is. Wait knowing that she’s there, just outside the borders of the Fright Zone itself, without knowing if they’ll take her back into their jaws and out of her reach.

When the day they were supposed to come back passes, Catra’s nerves are a frayed mess, so much so that she waits up nearly all night trying to watch for them.  She only naps when the sky starts to turn grey with morning, curling up next to Scorpia who tried to wait up with her.

She does it again that night and the night after that. They were supposed to be back two days ago, but so far, no word has made it back to Brightmoon about them.

Tonight, Catra waits in the window, watching.  Scorpia is asleep on the bed. She’s been up trying to keep Catra company during these long nights, but Catra has been awake deep into the night and Scorpia is getting tired, unable to keep up.  Catra can’t blame her. If she could sleep she would, but the whirring of her mind wondering if she should have done something differently before Adora left won’t let her.

Angella is waiting up tonight as well, watching from just under the runestone.  They’re silently aware of each other across the distance, watching the same spot on the tree line.  

What Catra doesn’t expect is for Angella to fly across to hover outside her window after a while.  Catra jumps, ready to dash away from the window.

“Would you like to join me?” she asks, quiet.

Catra watches her, wary, trying to see what Angella wants from her.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course.  It was an offer, not a command.”

Catra nearly says no, but the prospect of another night watch, alone save for Scorpia’s measured breathing, sways her.  Any distraction is welcome right now, even one that might turn out badly.

“Fine.  But I’ll get there myself,” she scowls in case Angella intends to try to fly her across.  

“Alright,” she nods once, making her way back.

Catra takes her time walking the length of the long path to the runestone, clambering up over the ledge.  She stares at the bright glow of the same stone she tried to destroy years ago, squinting.

“So what do you want?” she asks, unceremonious, to the queen’s turned back.

“We’re both suffering through a bit of a lonely and tense night.  I thought it might help if you knew you aren’t alone in it.”

“But you hate me, so I’m trying to figure out why you invited me up here.”

“I’ve told you before I don’t hate you.”

Catra scowls, skeptical.

“Would I invite you here if I hated you?” she asks.

Catra shrugs.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Angella sighs, giving Catra a look somewhere between exhaustion and sympathy.

“I’m not Shadow Weaver.  I didn’t bring you here to manipulate you.”

Catra stiffens.

“You know about her?”

“Of course I do.  It’s no surprise you believe I hate you.  Are my feelings towards you complex? Yes. But remember that I know Shadow Weaver and she has also hurt my family.  While obviously, I believe there were ways for you to overcome some of the regrettable actions you committed earlier than you did, I cannot fault you entirely for the difficulty you’ve had and that includes not always trusting me.  I know what she’s like.”

“Yeah, I guess you do. I mean, it took you and Glimmer all of a day to figure out how she is,” she mutters, walking to stand next to her, still a fair distance away, but now at least within range for them to speak to each other face-to-face.  Catra leans on the edge of the stone basin that holds the runestone like Angella does, looking out at the woods.

“I’m actually not talking about Glimmer.  I’m talking about Micah, my husband.”

“Huh?”

“She was known as Light Spinner then, but she was his mentor for some time when he was young.  She manipulated him as ruthlessly as she did both of you.”

Catra stares, open-mouthed for a moment before she can answer her.

“I...I thought it was just me and Adora.”

Angella shakes her head.

“I doubt even the three of you are the only ones.  Plenty of people can change, yourself included, but people like her? They rarely do.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I thought it might help you to know that you aren’t alone and that I do actually understand and respect what you both have had to go through.  I can disapprove of your actions and recognize the ways that where you came from might have contributed to it. I thought it might be important for you to know that, although I’ll never understand, I do know more than you might have realized.”

“Is that why you let both of us stay?”

“In part, but not entirely.  My daughter’s assurances that you were trustworthy carried quite a bit of weight as well.  But, ultimately, you’ve both proven yourselves in your own ways completely separate from your circumstances.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure about that,” Catra nearly whispers.

“I am. I actually think you’ve done a great deal.  I don’t think Micah would’ve been quite so lucky in your shoes.  He had his age and the support of an entire kingdom outside of her to help him.  You and Adora had very little. You were both much younger than he and so very isolated.  I think you should be proud of yourselves for what you’ve accomplished with circumstances that were incredibly difficult.”

“Thanks,” she mutters, chafing a little under the unfamiliar weight of this sort of approval.

“I’m sorry.  I know that might be a bit much right now for you.”

“How do you know?” she scowls.

“I notice some of the same things in you and Adora that I noticed in him.”

“Like what?”

“The way you were all scared of me at first,” she answers softly as a sad smile graces her lips. “ None of you really trusted that I meant what I said at first.  You seemed desperate to make me happy or at least predict what would upset me instead of doing what felt right to you. In every case, it took me quite some time to find each of you under the things you had to do to protect yourselves.  I’m still understanding you, gradually.”

“Yeah, sorry, your being an immortal queen goddess or whatever isn’t really going for  you there.”

Angella laughs.  It’s delicate and refined, but genuine all the same.

“No, I suppose not.”

“So why did you bring me up here?”

“It’s difficult to wait for someone you love and not know if they’re going to return to you safely.  I’ve had many nights like this over the course of my life. Nothing really makes them easier, but sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not alone."

“I don’t love her.”

“I don’t blame you for wanting to deny it. Love is rather terrifying.  I think you had to grapple with the truth of it very early in losing Adora.”

“And that is?”

“That it is fragile and devastatingly impermanent.”

“Yeah, that’s not encouraging.”

“I’m not trying to encourage you.  I’m trying to tell you the truth. The truth is that love is terrifying.  You aren’t alone in that either.”

“Is it ever not terrifying?” Catra huffs, a little exasperated with her.

“No,” she answers, a quiet and final murmur.

“Then what’s the point? Seems like a lot to go through.”

“Pain and loss are unfortunate constants.  Avoiding them is entirely futile. You’ll suffer them whether or no.  In my experience, trying to protect yourself from them only results in rejecting the things that make suffering them worth it in the first place.”

“Yeah, that’s all nice and deep or whatever, but I can’t really do that.”

“Can’t? Or are you just afraid to?”

Catra’s reply can’t escape her throat.  Angella has an uncanny way of getting to the truth of things, lending a clarity and illumination to things that are difficult to parse out.

“What are you afraid of?” she asks quietly and Catra shrinks away from her a little.  “You don’t have to tell me. But you need to know for yourself.”

Catra knows the answer in her bones.  She’s known the answer always and so thoroughly it’s colored every minute decision she’s made over three years, perhaps even every decision she’s made in her entire life.

“I’m afraid to lose her again,” she nearly whispers, surprising even herself.

Angella shakes her head.

“You have to accept that you will lose each other again someday anyway.  That’s an unavoidable fact of this universe. The only choice you can make is whether you would rather lose her now, avoid loving her for the sake of trying to protect yourself from an inevitability, or love her now while you can.”

“Still seems like a lot of trouble.”

“Hm.  But when you think about it, if you lost her today, would it truly be less painful than losing her later?  If one of you were on your deathbed, what are the things you know in your bones you would have done differently?”

Catra knows the answer to this too, not that she voices it to Angella.  She knows in the way she can’t sleep knowing Adora is still out there. She knows in the way that she can’t stop thinking about where she is and what she’s doing and if she’s safe.  She knows that if Adora doesn’t come back, she’ll never forgive herself for not kissing her while she had the chance.

“I don’t know if I can lose her again,” Catra croaks, rephrasing her original fear.  This one is a deeper, more honest one, and it comes out hoarse as if even letting the sentence out into the space between them is dangerous.

“I’ll offer you one piece of advice and then I’ll leave you to decide on your own.  The days after Micah died were the darkest of my life. I had lost my husband. I blamed myself for it. Glimmer was barely a year old.  I could hardly look at her without being so utterly terrified of losing her. I was afraid to love her for some time. I did love her always, of course, but I also tried to shelter her.  I wanted to love her without risk.”

Catra listens, barely breathing.

“Of course, Glimmer turned out to be exactly like her father and trying to protect her from a world like this,” she gestures out at the grounds, “proved completely impossible anyway.  I had to learn that love without risk doesn’t exist, that I couldn’t protect her completely. I had to learn to let love coexist with loss.”

“Does that even work?”

“Yes.  They’re more connected than you know.  You can learn to let loss strengthen your love.  Let it remind you how lucky you are to be together now, to love each other now, to have gotten the opportunity at all.  Love would not be half as beautiful without it.”

“That sounds really hard.”

“Yes,” Angella nods soberly.  “But-”

She points to the edge of the tree line.  Glimmer steps through onto the path to Brightmoon.  She-Ra follows her and Catra relaxes, a breath she didn’t know she was holding escaping.

“For me? It’s the easiest choice in the world.”

Catra just watches her as she walks, still transformed.  There’s a deep gash on her leg that’s bleeding. There are other wounds too, little scrapes, cuts, other gashes not as deep and long but there all the same.  Despite it, she grins at Bow, chatting through a limp and a busted lip.

“I’ll leave you here.  My daughter is home,” she smiles, giving Catra a meaningful look, before she takes off to meet Glimmer.

Catra doesn’t go to meet them like Angella does.  Instead, she meanders to Adora’s room, settling on the bed there, waiting for her.

It’s hours before Adora comes in.  When she does, the biggest gash, the one on her leg, is heavily bandaged.  Catra is certain it had to be stitched up. Her limp is more pronounced now.  She imagines the gash is taking up much more space now on Adora’s thigh than it does on She-Ra.  

She-Ra she always looks near-invincible and any wounds she sustains only add to the feeling that she’s nigh undefeatable.  But Adora looks like a regular young woman as she limps in, one that keeps putting herself through the ringer time and time again, offering her body as shield for Etheria without complaint.

The entire thing makes Catra want to cry so badly she can hardly stand it.

“Catra?” Adora murmurs, dark circles under her eyes.  She still smiles softly seeing her, even through a fatigue so obviously heavy she can hardly move.

Catra doesn’t answer her.  Adora moves slowly to sit next to her and Catra wordlessly takes her hand, reaching for a roll of bandages she found in her dresser.  She silently starts bandaging her hand, picking splinters out of them as she finds them. It’s a familiar process, one they used to share after training sessions or sparring that went awry.  

“Oh, um.  Thanks,” Adora tells her, quietly surprised.  Catra keeps going, methodical, trying not to let her hands tremble, but she’s swiftly failing.  The bandages between her fingers shake uncontrollably.

“Catra, are you okay? Did something happen?”

Catra doesn’t answer.  She continues to bandage her hand, wordless.

“You’re just being a bit more...helpful than usual,” she jokes, laughing a little but it fades as Catra continues not to respond.  

“Hey, you’re starting to scare me.  Catra, look at me.”

Catra knows she can’t look at Adora.  She knows she’ll cry and if she cries, she’ll fall apart completely.  Instead, she moves to loop her arms around Adora’s neck and buries her face in the space where her neck meets her shoulder.  Adora is too stunned to reciprocate at first, but after a moment, Catra feels her arms settle around her waist. Catra tightens her grip on Adora, afraid if she doesn’t that she might slip away again.  

“What’s going on?”

She knows intellectually that Adora is strong, but right now she feels fragile and ephemeral to her in her arms as if she might disappear at a moment’s notice. Catra isn’t sure when she’ll get the opportunity to hold her like this again.  She’s sure they were alright the entire time, but tonight, it feels like she was so close to losing her. Instead of answering, she leans up and kisses her softly.

Adora gives a surprised murmur, tightening her arms around the small of Catra’s back.  She isn’t sure if it’s just the wound on her lip or something else about her that tastes metallic, like sun and a little bit of earth.  Catra kisses her with her eyes shut as tightly as she can muster, terrified that if she opens her eyes, none of it will be real.

After a moment, something startles Adora and she pulls back gently and inhales sharply.

“Woah, hey,” she murmurs, running her thumbs gently across Catra’s cheeks.  It’s not until then that Catra realizes she’s lost her fight to hold back her tears. With Adora’s hands gently pillowed around her face, she can’t turn to hide them.  She isn’t sure she wants to anymore.

Catra, accepting defeat, finally opens her eyes to look at her.  Adora’s eyes, as bright as she remembers them, stare back, clearly worried.  The blue of them swims even more than usual as Catra’s tears start to run faster and she can’t stop them.  

“I don’t know what happened, but whatever it is, it’s okay,” Adora assures her, nearly panicked, drying her tears as fast as she can but they keep coming.  Adora pulls her to lie down with her, still drying her tears.

“I thought you might not come back-” Catra finally tells her, breath hitching.

“Catra-” she murmurs, brushing her hair away from her face.   It does little to console her though. Catra feels at once silly for breaking down so wholly in front of her and relieved that she isn’t leaving, even as she dissolves in front of her.

“Is there something I can do?” she asks as Catra’s tears don’t stop.

Catra doesn’t want to answer her, but the words escape her, overflowing like water

“Just don’t leave me alone again.”

Adora smiles sadly.

“I wish I could promise that.  But I’m She-Ra, so it would be a promise I can’t keep,” she sighs before pulling her closer.  “But I can promise that as long as I’m alive, I’ll always come back. If you’ll have me.”

Catra nods, tears slowing a little.  Adora stays with her, sweetly kissing her tears, stopping them in their slow trail down her cheeks.  Eventually, Catra starts kissing her again. It’s as if the tears have broken something in her because just days ago she couldn’t kiss her at all and now she can’t stop.  Adora doesn’t appear to want to stop either, burying her hands into Catra’s hair and pulling her as close to her as she can as if hoping if she tries hard enough they might melt into one another.  They stay like this until morning, eyes puffy and lips tingling and a little swollen, blessedly entangled in one another.

Chapter Text

Adora, despite recovering from a few minor injuries, is positively glowing in the next weeks.  It seems as if kissing Catra once has broken something in her and she can’t stop smiling. She also can’t stop herself kissing her every opportunity she gets.  Catra makes a show of being mildly exasperated by it, but she also loves it in a way she can’t hide. She can’t fully disguise the smiles under the exasperation, can’t disguise how readily she accepts these flurries of kisses.

Regardless, they make something of a game of it, seeing how many kisses they can steal without anyone noticing, and for once Catra is glad for Adora’s overzealous nature. She isn’t sure if she’ll be able to initiate this sort of thing very often yet and she’s glad that Adora is willing to initiate, but she thinks maybe the same thing that’s broken in Adora has broken in her, too.  Is it normal to want to kiss her so often? Is it normal not to be able to think about anything else? Is this something that will happen always, or is it just this heady novelty of it right now?

Catra likes making herself hard to reach or hard to find to see how far Adora will go to catch up to her.  Of course, the answer is always that Adora will do absolutely anything within her power to kiss her so long as she knows Catra isn’t truly annoyed and wants to.  And want to she does most of the time these days.

There’s the time Adora climbs into the inside of a thorny rosebush to kiss her.

“Could you pick somewhere less painful next time?” she huffs against her lips.

“But where’s the fun in that?” Catra grins back.  “I’m surprised, I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

There’s the day she scales one of the tall bookshelves in the library that Catra lounges on and they spend an hour silently people watching and sharing gentle, slow kisses that feel to Catra like they’re ringing in the rustling quiet of the place.

“I like this one better,” she murmurs and Catra shushes her playfully, putting a hand over her mouth, pointing to a sign reminding patrons to stay quiet.

Then there’s the time Catra lounges on top of the curtain railing in her room and gives Adora a teasing grin.

“Okay, that’s not fair,” Adora protests.

“Aw, you mean you can’t do it?”

Adora takes fistfuls of the fabric and tries to hoist herself up, but she only succeeds in pulling the railing out of the wall.  They both yelp as it tumbles down and Adora catches her in a heap of fabric as the railing lands with a deafening clatter.

“Yeah, that’s not what I had in mind,” Catra rolls her eyes.

“Still worked, though,” she nuzzles her, kissing her just as Catra starts to fluster in her arms, having been teased too long.

“What the hell happened in here? I heard-” Glimmer’s voice sounds at the doorway and they startle.  Glimmer wrinkles her nose when she realizes what’s going on. “Ugh, nevermind, just fix it. And close the door next time!”

“But we left it open just for you, Twinkle!” Catra calls down the hall and Adora kisses her again to stifle it.

“Quit it, leave her alone,” she admonishes between kisses.

Then there’s the time she spends ten minutes trying to climb into the rafters to get to her as Catra makes a show of stretching and sighing impatiently.  Eventually, Adora settles for hanging there, arms looped around the beam. Catra stays still.

“Hm.  I don’t know if this counts,” she deliberates, purposefully making Adora hang there longer.

“Get over here,” Adora growls and Catra cackles before she leans in.

Someone clears their throat with purpose below them.  They open their eyes and fly apart when they realize it’s Angella.  Adora drops, stumbling as she lands.

“Queen Angella, I’m so sorry,” Adora starts stammering, a tomato-red that matches her jacket.  The Queen rolls her eyes and waves her off.

“That’s not why I’m here, Adora, I don’t trouble myself with what you’re up to in your free time.  Apologies for the interruption, but I wanted to speak with Catra for a moment. She’s been difficult to track down in the past few weeks,” she raises an eyebrow in a way that’s just off of teasing.  Adora flushes even more brilliantly and it spreads to her ears.

Catra wordlessly leaps down, landing silently next to her.  

“We’ll be just a moment, Adora,” she tells her, making it clear this conversation is between the two of them.

She takes her into a room Catra has never seen before.  There’s a desk and all four walls are covered in towering bookshelves.

“What is this?” Catra gestures around, irreverent.

“My office. I wanted to speak to you about your sentence.”

“Sure, what about it? Giving me an extra year or something in here?” she asks, trying and failing not to be on the defensive.

“No, actually, quite the opposite.  How would you feel about my removing your tracker early?”

“Terrible, I’d rather waste away in here,” she crosses her arms.

“You know, I’m shocked you and Glimmer don’t get along better at this point with that sarcasm” she pinches the bridge of her nose.  “Maybe I need to be more straightforward. I’m removing it early because I feel your good behavior warrants it.”

“But I didn’t do anything and I have four months left.”

“That’s exactly why I’m taking it off.  You haven’t disobeyed the terms of your sentence, save one time that you did so to save my daughter.  I see no sense prolonging it.”

“Okay, sure, if you want to that bad,” Catra shrugs. “Thanks, I guess.”

“May I?” she nods at Catra’s ankle.  She sticks her foot out in response.

“Knock yourself out.”

Catra would never admit it, but she does feel lighter when Angella unlocks it and slips it off of her ankle.  Her ankle feels strange and too-light as she’s used to the weight of it after almost a year.

“You’re free to go,” Angella tells her.  “You’re welcome to continue staying here if you’d like, but I won’t require it of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m staying.  It’s not because I like it here that much, I just don’t really have anywhere else to live.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.  Now go and tell Adora before she implodes in the middle of my hallway,” she sighs.  Catra bolts out immediately, glad to be given permission to leave.

“Yeah, so apparently I get to have that tracking thing off early,” Catra shrugs, walking out to an Adora that’s clearly been a fidgety mess the entire time, pointing to where the tracker once looped around her ankle.

“What?  S-so you got it off? You can leave? You’re done?” Adora asks, frantic and clearly excited.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“W-what?  Catra, that’s amazing!” she picks her up, squeezing her gently.

“You’re so dramatic,” Catra rolls her eyes.  “She just told me she was taking it off because I didn’t do anything while I was here, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is. You got time off for good behavior.   You and good behavior? That’s a first,” she teases.

“Shut up,” she shoves her and Adora drops her, giggling as Catra pushes against her face.  “You’re such a pain.”

“So,” Adora grins, elbowing her playfully.  “We should celebrate. What do you want to do now that you can go anywhere?”

“I don’t care as long as it’s out of this place.  I mean, it’s better than the Horde, but not really interesting still.  Steal a skiff again or something.”

“Well, we don’t really have skiffs.”

“I know, you know what I mean,” she rolls her eyes.

“But I do have something better,” she grins.  

“No,” both Swift Wind and Catra answer in unison when Adora brings Catra down to Swift Wind’s stable to broach the idea.

“Come on, are you guys really going to let a petty grudge like this get in your way?”

“Adora, she called me ‘the horse.’  The. Horse. Like I wasn’t even there!” Swift Wind snorts and stamps his foot, peeved.

“Yeah, your horse is dramatic and I don’t trust he’s not going to, like throw me off in midair.”

“See? She has no respect for me.”

“Guys come on.  Swift Wind, don’t you want to take a nice flight on a day like this?” she gestures outside to what is indeed a lovely day with a bright sun and gentle breeze that looks heavenly.

“Well, of course, I do! Just not with her.”

“And Catra, don’t you want to get out of the palace?”

“Obviously, but I can do that on foot.”

“Okay, okay, listen.  If you two can get along for the ride there and back and you still hate each other, you never have to do it again.”

“Let me think.  No,” Catra answers.

“That’s not much of a deal,” Swift Wind echoes her.

“Okay, Swift Wind? What if I throw in an entire bag of apples a day for a week, personally delivered by me.”

“Now we’re talking,” he nods.

“So, I don’t get something out of this deal?” Catra asks.

“You get the luxury of a date with me,” she says, kissing her and trying something that’s supposed to be a sly smile but that looks a little lopsided on Adora.

“Can you tone down the PDA a little? I’m right here,” Swift Wind huffs.

“Fine. You’re lucky I like you,” Catra concedes, grumbling.

“I know,” she smiles, half-teasing and half-sincere.

“By the way, you’re a really weird flirt.”

“And that’s a really weird way to talk to your girlfriend if you still want to leave the palace with her,” Adora crosses her arms, peeved.

“Alright, chill out.  I’m still going and I still like you even when you smile all stupid like that.”

“Just get on.”

Catra clambers on the back of the horse behind Adora, clamping her arms around her waist, vice-like.

Swift Wind, in an obvious bid to scare her, wastes no time galloping out of the stable and leaping into midair, the strong beat of his wings as they rise rapidly making Catra’s stomach flip uncomfortably.  She squeezes Adora tighter, shutting her eyes and burying her face between her shoulder blades.

“Catra? You okay?”

“Just tell me when it’s over,” she answers through gritted teeth.

“Swift Wind?  Can you tone it down just a little?” Adora barks, frustrated.

“Ugh, fine.  I’ll slow down for the rookie,” he rolls his eyes.

 He slows down and the roiling feeling in her stomach calms somewhat.  But Catra’s eyes are still shut tight. Eventually, Adora elbows her gently.

“Catra.  Look. Open your eyes.”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Just once?  For me?”

Catra growls in frustration.

“If I do it will you leave me alone for the rest of this?”

“Yes.  But I don’t think you’re going to want to close them again.”

Catra grudgingly opens her eyes. Below them is an ocean of fluffy, white clouds that extends to the edge of the horizon on all sides.  Above them is the clearest, most infinite blue sky Catra has ever seen, only punctuated by Etheria’s moons. Adora grins back at her and looks a natural fixture of the sky itself, with yellow hair that shines and blue eyes as endless as the sky in front of her.

“What do you think?” she shouts over the whip of the wind and Catra can’t stop staring at all of it.  All she can do is nod, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Adora has never looked like she belonged so wholly somewhere before this.  Adora giggles back.

“Yeah, I did the same thing the first time.”

Swift Wind’s dazzling array of feathers in every color imaginable ruffle as the wind slides easily around them.  Catra settles her chin on Adora’s shoulder, watching them cut a clean line straight through the sky. She has to admit the wind through her hair and across her face has a way of carrying heavy thoughts away with it.  She inhales deeply. It smells fresh and clean here. Adora reaches up to thread her hand in Catra’s hair, laughing and kissing her on the cheek once.

“So you like it now?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s nice.  So where are we going?”

“Wherever you want.”

“Yeah, you know I don’t know that much about Etheria?”

“Because you never paid attention in class?”

“Yeah, that and even if I did the Horde brainwashed us, remember? I don’t really know what’s real or not, you know.  I also don’t know how to drive this thing.”

“I’m not a thing,” Swift Wind tosses his head.

“Catra, please try to be a little sensitive while we’re in midair with Swift Wind.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Whatever. 

“I really liked Thaymore when I first came here.  It’s beautiful. The food is amazing,” Adora grins.

Catra almost wants to say no.  Thaymore is where she lost her years ago. It flipped back and forth between Horde occupied territory and Rebellion occupied for years  They’ve only had a consistent hold on it for a little more than a year now. But, she reasons, maybe there’s time to make a different memory of a place she wants to forget. That and it’s very difficult to say no to the bright grin Adora gives her now.  She shrugs as if it doesn’t matter to her.

“Yeah, sure, sounds fine.”

Adora smiles softly, all too aware that Catra is playing at detachment, and gently nudges Swift Wind in the direction she wants him to go.

When they land, it’s admittedly a very different place than the one Catra saw years ago. Of course, part of that was her fault.  They had invaded the place with bots and people were running madly to get out of their path.

Now, it’s a lively and green little place, sweetly alive if not a little smaller than it used to be.  Catra likes the feeling of the grass, soft and a little ticklish, on her feet. She’s still unsure about the place and she walks hesitantly, eyeing things skeptically.  

Adora giggles at her left.

“No one’s going to bite.”

“Hmph,” she grumps, crossing her arms.

“Come on, let’s get food.  That’s what we’re here for, anyway.”

“That’s what you’re here for.”

“You will be too once you taste it, trust me.”

Adora does have a point.  Not that the food at Bright Moon isn’t good.  It’s certainly better than anything they ever had growing up, but Thaymore has things that don’t serve any purpose but to taste good.  They have good, hearty food too, but this is the first time Catra has ever come across something that isn’t meant to be nourishing but to be enjoyed instead.

“Yeah, so this is a dessert-” Adora tells her, handing her something golden brown.  “It’s sweet. Do you like sweet things?”

“I don’t really know, I guess?” Catra shrugs.  Sweets have always been rare if not impossible to come by for her.  She takes a hesitant bite. It’s creamy and soft inside, warm and sweet.  She doesn’t let on, but she loves it immediately.

“So?” Adora presses, unwilling to wait even a moment before hearing her thoughts on it.

“Okay, yeah, it’s awesome.”

Adora beams.  

“That’s nothing,  you have to try this-”

As Adora drags her eagerly around by the wrist, nearly glowing with excitement, Catra thinks how strange it is that she found the Adora she knew once back in the same place she lost her the first time.  This is Adora as she remembers her, excitedly tearing through a new place to parse out the truth of it, taking Catra along with her to show her her discoveries, the light of possibility glowing in her always.  She chatters excitedly about everything and while the place is indeed pretty, it’s far lovelier to feel like she’s dashing through the hallways where they grew up together, to feel as if the ways things have changed between them are small and insignificant next to the much larger and more constant ways things have stayed the same.

Eventually, they make a slow and steady way back to the little hill they landed on.  Adora flops happily into the grass, a mess of sweets in her arms.

“You think you got enough food?” Catra teases, raising an eyebrow at her.  Swift Wind gives them a wide berth, grazing happily in a distant pasture. He takes the occasional flight, drifting in lazy circles looking for apples.

“Nope,” she digs back before grinning. “Glimmer says I have a sweet tooth.”

“What’s that?”

“I dunno, I guess it means I like sweet things,” she shrugs.   “Are you going to sit down or just stand there?”

Catra quirks her already raised eyebrow even higher and Adora grins at her petulantly.

“Are you trying to start something?”

“Where’d you get that idea?”

“Okay, fine,” Catra smirks playfully and drops into the tall grass they lounge in.  She sees Adora sit up like lightning from where she hides.

“What are you doing?” she asks, suddenly alert and on-edge, although still playful.

“Nothing,” Catra answers in mock-innocence as Adora whips her head around, looking for her.  Catra stalks her near-silently through the grass, moving directly in front of her. She waits until Adora narrows her eyes in the wrong direction to pounce on her.  Adora yelps and falls back with the force of it.

The problem is, Catra hasn’t thought farther than that.  She smirks at Adora for a moment before it slips away and she’s left here, palms planted on her shoulders, much closer than she realized.  She flops to the side back on the ground beside Adora, turning slightly away from her in embarrassment. Adora giggles sweetly.

“You’ve always been shy,” she tickles her cheek and Catra jerks away.

“I’m not!”

“You are,” she leans over, curled around Catra’s turned back, and nuzzles her neck and kisses her there and Catra flushes despite herself.  She can feel the heat radiate from her cheeks and she grumbles, hoping maybe Adora won’t see the blush if she’s buried in her neck as she is now.

But then, it’s very difficult to worry about being embarrassed as Adora keeps kissing her softly there, with a gentle and satisfied ‘hm.’  She rests there, in the crook of Catra’s neck, lips resting softly on her skin there until she can feel the purr that starts to hum there.

“I was waiting for that,” she smiles, content.  “I missed that, you know.”

“Me too,” Catra answers, a brief pause before she’s silent again and the only sound between them is the rustle of grass and the rumble in her chest.

Eventually, she’s brave enough to turn to face her.  She wants to see what Adora looks like here, nestled close to her in the grass that sways gently.  Adora looks back at her, gently smiling, patiently watching her. She reaches out once to tickle the tip of Catra’s ear, watching it twitch in response, grinning.  Catra laughs quietly back and returns the favor by gently placing her index finger on Adora’s forehead. She isn’t sure if the gesture will be well-received, but she hopes like everything else today, that there’s hope of old things that have been twisted before unraveling themselves.  

Adora surprises her.  She expects disappointment or the kind of stalling confusion she’s gotten from her before for this.  But instead, Adora wastes no time gently taking her finger and leaning up to kiss it, intertwining her hand with hers before Catra can even process what’s going on.  She can only stare, hand held firmly and sweetly by Adora, and wonder if it’s normal not to want a moment to end. Is it normal to sit here, memorizing Adora’s features that have scarcely changed in the lifetime she’s known her, and want the moment to stretch forever, ocean-like, into oblivion?

Is it also normal to want to kiss her and never stop?

For once, Catra indulges herself without thinking too hard about whether it might backfire on her.  Adora, her blonde hair gently disheveled from lying in the grass, and the way light seems to emanate from her rather than the sky, is too beautiful to twist in on itself.

This time, it’s Adora’s turn to be surprised as Catra drapes a hand at the base of her neck and kisses her.

Adora doesn’t take long to embrace it, reciprocating with a heady warmth that makes Catra numb in the prettiest and most delirious way.

Catra isn’t sure when they stop.  It could be minutes or hours after.  The only way she knows it might not have been so long is the position of the light in the sky, the way it’s only a little different than when she closed her eyes.  They lie on their backs, nestled close, breathless and lips pink and a little swollen, a sweet accompaniment to the flush across their faces.

They lie together in a companionable silence that breaks into a giggle when Adora offers her another sweet.

“Were you holding those the whole time?”

“Yup,” she grins, popping one in her mouth.

“You really couldn’t put them down for just a minute?”

“I didn’t hear you complain,” she shrugs.  “You didn’t even notice until now.”

“Whatever, give me one of those,” she swipes one of her favorites.

“Hey!”

“Like you weren’t going to give it to me anyway? You don’t even like these.”

“Yeah, okay, but it’s just rude.”

As they lounge together under a warm sky that goes a brilliant pink as the afternoon starts to die, Catra thinks she may drown in the ecstacy of it.  The warmth of Adora next to her, the way grass and wind tickle her ears and the pleasant rustling of it. The smell of it all and the way Adora, who’s always smelled like soap and a little bit of mint, mingles with grass and sun and sky.  The tastes of Adora and sugar on her tongue.

As the sky goes green and pink, Catra stretches with a long yawn.

“Should we go?” she asks.

“Do we have to?”

“I mean, I don’t really care.  But I feel like I’m going to have to answer to Twinkle if I don’t get you back soon.”

Adora seems unsure whether to roll her eyes or laugh a little at Catra’s deliberate refusal to use Glimmer’s name.

Adora turns to call Swift Wind, but he’s already making a beeline for them.  She smiles at first, until she sees the uneasy look in his eye as he gets closer.

“Swift Wind?”

“Not to interrupt this, but we’ve got trouble,” he nods towards the little village.  As if in response, as Adora and Catra look to see Horde bots swarming the place, frantic shouts start to drift their way.

“Why are they still wasting time on this place?” Catra rolls her eyes.

“They’ve been after Thaymore for years.  It’s the most convenient base to Brightmoon.  Stay here-” she tells her before she transforms and darts away.  “I’ll be right back. Swift Wind, if I’m not back in ten minutes, take Catra and get backup."

Catra doesn’t want to stay where she’s told.  There’s a deep-seated panic that takes hold of her as she watches Adora turn her back on her and run.  She turns to run after Adora, but she’s jerked back by a tension on her neck. Swift Wind has pierced the collar of her shirt with his horn, holding her back.

“Let go of me!”

“I can’t.  I have to do what she tells me,” he answers soberly.

“No you don’t!” she growls, flailing and trying to catch him with her claws, but he has the upper hand on her, half lifting her, and she can’t reach him.

“She told us to stay here.  We need to listen.”

“When are you going to get that Adora is always going to tell you to stay back?  When do we get to help? When do we get to stop getting sidelined?” she snarls, trying to ignore the ache that’s building in the back of her throat.

“It’s not getting sidelined!” he barks.  “This isn’t about anyone’s ego! What happens to all of us if we all disappear here and no one knows what happened? What happens to you if the Horde gets a hold of you?  Sometimes what you want to do isn’t what needs to be done. She wants us here so someone knows it if they take her.”

“So we’re just going to let that happen?”

“No, of course, we’re not!  If I thought we could intervene without problems, I wouldn’t listen to her either.  But I have a bad feeling that we don’t stand a chance this time, even together,” he murmurs, watching a contingent of bots descend on her.  “We’re no use to her captured or worse.”

“Why would she just leave us here like that if she’s just going to get captured?” she shrieks.  “Why not just go with us for backup?”

“She has no choice,” he answers with a sobering finality.  “As She-Ra, she has to intervene, even if she knows her odds aren’t good.”

At that moment, a bot finally succeeds at wresting the sword from Adora’s grasp. It’s not long before her transformation dies before their eyes, and she’s as good as powerless when a group of ten soldiers descend on her.  Catra struggles with all her might against Swift Wind.

“They’re going to take her, you stupid-” she shrieks.  She reaches up to swipe at him, finally landing a hit, raking her claws down his nose.  He tosses his head a little, but he doesn’t let her go.

“Then that’s our cue to leave and get help.”

“You can go! I’m not leaving,” she struggles again, swiping wildly at him.  She lands more hits and he struggles to hold her.

“They’ll kill you if they catch you!” he shouts.

“Who cares?!”

“I care! And more than that, Adora cares!”

“Yeah, Adora always cares so much she leaves!” she snarls, and usually she’d be more embarrassed at the outburst, but it’s so difficult to care as she watches Adora get dragged into a transport.

“Catra, one of these days you’re going to have to accept the fact that she didn’t have as much choice as you think, this time and the last time!  And one of these days you’re also going to have to accept that a lot more people than you think care what happens to you! Adora will never forgive me if anything happens to you.  She won’t forgive herself, either, and neither will I.”

“Let. Me. Go!” she finally wrests free after a particularly vehement shout and dashes down the hill, but it’s already too late.  The transports are already airborne. Catra chases them for a moment, but she slows down when it’s clear it’s already useless. She whirls on Swift Wind, scrambling back up the hill.

“This is your fault!” she accuses, pointing at him.

“I’m willing to accept that if I ended up making the wrong choice,” he bows his head a little.

Catra growls and swipes at him wildly.  Swift Wind, now unburdened by the task of holding her back, goes airborne, knocking her down with two massive beats of his wings.  He hovers above her, just high enough to make it difficult to reach him.

“Catra, I know you’re angry and upset, but I’m not going to be your punching bag. I need to leave and help Adora.  So you can either come with me and help me or you can stay here and do whatever you want. But I’d think carefully about which one is actually going to help Adora right now.”

Catra scowls at him for a moment before tears start to spill over.  She can’t stop them no matter how much she wants to. Swift Wind lands in front of her and makes his way slowly to her.  He leans down to lie in the grass beside her where she’s still sitting after being knocked down.

“I’m sorry.  I’m really freaked out and sad too if it helps.”

Catra doesn’t answer.  She just curls around herself, pulling her knees to her chest, crossing her arms, burying her face in them for a moment.

They sit in silence for a minute before Swift Wind speaks again.

“Hey, the one thing I’ve learned about Adora the past few years is that she always comes back somehow.  Don’t count her out yet.”

“Shut up,” Catra sniffs, standing and flopping on his back without preamble.  “And just fly.”

He nods once.

“I’ll try to go a little slower.”

“Hell no.  I’ll survive.  Go as fast as you can.”

Catra buries her claws in his mane as he bolts across the sky.  The wind across her cheeks makes the tears she’s still trying to disguise sting with cold.  She doesn’t know whether the nausea growing in the pit of her stomach is the speed or the reality that they took her sinking deeper with every passing moment.

Swift Wind doesn’t bother with landing on the ground and walking up.  He bursts into Glimmer’s open window. He barely fits through. Glimmer yelps and falls off her bed, teleporting just before she hits the ground.  Bow ducks with a shout. Swift Wind lands, hooves clattering on the marble floor.

“What the hell, Adora?!”  Glimmer growls once she gets her bearings.  She looks up, ready to keep admonishing her, and stops short.  “Where’s Adora?”

Catra doesn’t answer.  She can’t look at anything but the floor.  She still feels sick to her stomach.

“Where’s Adora?” Glimmer repeats, quieter, but it does nothing to alter the severity of it.  Glimmer scowls.

“Catra? Are you okay?” Bow asks.

“We’re a little shaken up,” Swift Wind sighs, opting to speak if Catra won’t.  “We have a big problem. There was a situation in Thaymore. Adora went to intervene, but there were a lot of transports and we had no backup.  They were able to capture her.”

“What are you saying?  Y-you’re saying you lost her? Is that what you’re saying?” Glimmer asks, stammering in disbelief, each question louder and more desperate than the last.

“Pretty much,” Catra mutters.

“How did you lose her? What do you mean you had no backup, you were her backup!” Glimmer snaps, voice starting to tremble.

“I know, that’s what I tried to-” Catra intervenes, but Glimmer isn’t hearing her any longer.

“The first day you go out together and you just conveniently lose her?!  I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Glimmer,” Bow warns, but Glimmer is spiraling.  

“Yeah, you’re supposed to believe it because it’s the truth,” Catra answers, not backing down.

“Why didn’t you go after her?!  Do you know what could happen?"

“Yeah, better than you do, Princess,” Catra bristles. “I grew up in the Horde.  I know, okay?!”

“I bet you lost her on purpose!” Glimmer shrieks, finally breaking, eyes streaming.  Her anger is a raw and unbridled one Catra isn’t used to. She’s familiar with her own avoidant and oft-misplaced frustration, with Adora’s restrained and righteous fury, even with the commanding and cold malice of Hordak and Shadow Weaver.  But this white-hot wrath, clearly fueled by a devastation Glimmer isn’t afraid to show her, isn’t something Catra knows how to respond to. She can only do what she’s used to and bite back, even as she isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to do.

“No, I didn’t!” Catra snarls, the accusation that she lost Adora on purpose after finally finding her again stinging in a way she doesn’t want Glimmer to see.  She masks it the way she used to, with brandished claws and bared teeth. “Don’t you dare put this on me! I tried to go back!”

“Why didn’t you, then? I mean, why shouldn’t we put this on you, everything else has been on you! You’ve tried to destroy us so many times, why shouldn’t we believe you’re trying to do it again?!  The Horde takes everything , I don’t know why I trusted you-”

“Enough!” Swift Wind puts his body between her and Glimmer, head canted down defensively in Glimmer’s direction, voice commanding and final.  “I watched it happen. She tried to go after her. I told her not to and held her back.  It took everything I had to do it, too, she fought me as hard as she could. If you’re going to yell at anyone, yell at me.”

Glimmer steps back, eyes wide and teary, but Swift Wind’s insistence seems to have swayed her.  It’s a strange feeling to see him stand in front of her and protect her. He feels an extension of Adora that way, strong and unmoving, putting his body between her and what threatens her.

“It does us no good to argue and no good to lose her to the Horde too,” he explains, final.  

“He’s right,” Bow steps in.  He’s business-like, but there’s a deep sadness behind it that’s unmistakable.  “We need a plan and we need the other princesses. Adora got us out of the Fright Zone before.  It’s time for us to return the favor.”

Glimmer nods and sniffles.  

“Meet us there in ten?” Bow asks gently and Glimmer nods.  He and Swift Wind leave. Catra and Glimmer take turns avoiding each other’s gaze before Glimmer breaks the silence.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice thick with tears. “I shouldn’t have accused you of losing her on purpose, I knew you didn’t, I’m just so scared and-”

Glimmer can’t finish her sentence.  Catra doesn’t know what to do as Glimmer stands in front of her and cries near-silently save for a few little gasps.  She feels suddenly linked to her, grudgingly glad that someone else is as desperate as she is to save Adora.

“Yeah, well, I might’ve almost scratched Swift Wind’s eye out when he tried to stop me, so I got farther than you did,” Catra shrugs.  Glimmer gives her a giggle, one that sounds stuffy. It’s a mixed expression, tears still streaming and nose red as she laughs and cries at the same time.

“At least you didn’t cry,” she shakes her head, frustrated with her own tears even as they won’t stop.

“Yeah, I kinda did.  But if you tell anyone that, I’ll kill you,” she brandishes her claws at her and Glimmer sighs.

“I won’t.”

And then Glimmer does something Catra isn’t expecting.  She holds her hand out to her, palm up, open and waiting.  She turns towards the door, but she doesn’t move otherwise, hand still out.  

Catra looks at it for a moment, frozen.  Glimmer looks back at her, eyebrows knitted.  After a moment her arm droops a little, fingers curling, afraid she’s misstepped.

Catra wants to be able to reject it.  She wants to be able to deny the need to take her hand.  But Adora’s absence here has left Catra feeling terribly alone, without a place or a home here.  She reaches out and takes Glimmer’s hand. She smiles gently back at her and they walk out together.  They don’t make it far down the hall when they’re both suddenly airborne.

“I heard what happened! Are you two okay?”

Normally Catra would snap at Scorpia but she doesn’t have the energy to fight with her at the moment.  Glimmer seems both shocked and somewhat glad to be held aloft in her claws.

“We’re fine.  Mostly,” Catra drones.

“Oh, what are we gonna do?  This is bad. We’re gonna rescue her right?”

“Of course we’re going to rescue Adora,” Glimmer pouts.  

“Oh good.  You’ve both been crying, do you need a tissue? Do you need-”

“We need to get to the meeting that’s happening in five minutes,” Catra answers.

“Right! Just point the way and I’ll-”

“We can walk!”

Scorpia puts them down but doesn’t leave.  She follows them like a duckling down the hallway.

When they get to the entrance of the room everyone is gathering in, Catra slips her hand out of Glimmer’s.  She turns, questioning.

“I’m not allowed, remember?”

Glimmer rolls her eyes and growls.

“Ugh! We don’t have time for stupid rules like this!” she grasps her hand again, hard this time.  “You’re coming with me and if anyone has anything to say about it I’ll fight them myself!”

Scorpia hangs at the door, obviously upset at Catra being separated from her.

“You too!” Glimmer jabs a finger at her and waves her in, commanding.  Scorpia beams, salutes, and follows her in. The rest of the princesses aren’t here yet.  It’s been relatively quiet lately and they’ve been enjoying a brief respite back in their own kingdoms.  Catra has no doubt that they’ll be here within the hour, though. The entire room buzzes with a jittery tension and the cavernous absence of Adora.

Angella takes one look at Glimmer, flanked by Catra and Scorpia, and sighs deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose as if she has a headache forming.

“Glimmer-”

“Mom, listen-”

“Save it for the meeting and give me a moment to process it,” she shakes her head, exhausted. “Catra and Scorpia, sit,” she gestures at the side of the table, not even turning to look up at them.  “But not here,” she gestures at the chair to her left.

Catra settles to Glimmer’s right, Scorpia to hers.

“Woah, so you’re like, with us now?” Mermista comments when she strolls in a half an hour later.

“I don’t really know yet, honestly,” Catra shrugs.  

“Cool.  Where’s Adora? She’s usually, like, two hours early.”

The room goes silent for a moment before Glimmer speaks up.

“The Horde took her.”

Mermista is speechless for a moment, staring wide-eyed, hand frozen on the back of the chair she’s chosen.

“Wow, how’d you guys lose Adora?”

Catra growls defensively and Bow laughs nervously.

“Doesn’t matter.  What matters is that we’re going to get her back.”

“Yeah, not loving the odds of doing this without She-Ra, but I’m already here, I guess,” she shrugs, sitting down and crossing her arms.

Perfuma is not far behind her, floating in with a worried and soft smile.

“What happened? Why-”

“They lost Adora and want us to help them get her back,” Mermista explains, bored.

“W-what?” Perfuma asks, eyes watering.

“Yeah,” Glimmer answers quietly, trying to keep her chin from wobbling.

“W-where is she?”

“The Fright Zone,” Glimmer answers.

Perfuma sits heavily next to Bow.  He puts his arm around her and she leans into him.

Frosta is the last to arrive, nearly an hour after Perfuma, striding in with purpose and determination.

“What’s the situation?”

“Adora has been captured by the Fright Zone,” Glimmer answers and Frosta nods once, unfazed.  She opens her mouth to continue when Angella stands.

“Now that we’re all here,” Angella speaks, clear and commanding with a voice that rings in the silence.

“I think Catra and Scorpia should come with us,” Glimmer cuts her off with no preamble.

“Yes, I knew this was coming.  Glimmer, I worry-”

Scorpia covers her mouth with her claws, eyes darting back and forth between Glimmer and Angella as they argue.  Catra stays silent. She wants to go with them. She can’t bear the thought of being asked to stay here, but she’s loathe to argue with the woman whose good graces have kept her alive here.  

“Mom, I know you don’t know Scorpia that well, but you just let Catra go early, so you can’t tell me you don’t trust her-”

“I trust her not to betray Brightmoon, I don’t know about letting her go with the entire princess alliance into the depths of the Fright Zone-”

“But M om !”

“I mean, she has kind of a point,” Mermista shrugs.  “It didn’t go that well last time and she’s tried to kills us, like, a billion times more than Adora.”

“But what else will we do?” Perfuma pleads.

“There’s risk regardless,” Frosta cuts in, even and formal. “We either risk going into the Fright Zone blind or we risk the potential that they betray us once we’re there.  We all have to accept that one or more of us might not get out. The only choice we have is what we think poses the least risk.”

“And I think our odds are better with her than without. She knows the Fright Zone.  We don’t! Last time we had Adora, and we don’t have her now,” Glimmer shoots back.

“Glimmer, I don’t question her allegiance.  If I did, I wouldn’t even allow her to sit in this room.  I question her safety and the safety of all of you with her simply because the Horde does not put equal value on all of its soldiers.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that the Horde will hesitate to harm you, Adora, or the other princesses because of your value to them as bargaining chips.  I worry that they may not place the same value on Catra’s or Scorpia’s lives.”

“You don’t think I can do it,” Catra speaks for the first time, ears flat.  “You think I’m going to walk in there and immediately get me or one of us captured or killed, don’t you?”

“Catra,” she shakes her head.  “I know that you’re a capable young woman, but-”

“I survived the Fright Zone as a kid.  If you’re scared they’ll try to kill me, they’ve already done that enough times that it’s mostly routine by now,” Catra rolls her eyes, ignoring the shock that flits across the room across everyone’s faces.  “I know what I’m doing and I know how to handle them.”

“Catra, I don’t doubt that you do.  But I can’t, in good conscience, make a decision that I think might put you or anyone else in harm’s way.”

“Well, lucky for you, you don’t have to make the decision. I was going to go after her myself before and got held back by him instead,” she jabs her thumb at Swift Wind.  “I’m going whether you tell me I can’t or not. I’ll go alone if I have to. You can kick me out or whatever you want to do. There’s no point staying here anyway if she’s not around,” Catra shrugs, allowing a rare and brutal honesty.

“I’ll go too,” Scorpia scowls darkly.  “If she goes, I go.”

“That’s a suicide mission, Catra, I can’t possibly let you undertake that by yourselves-” Angella shakes her head.

“I didn’t really ask you-”

“I know.  I’m not saying it to try to get you to stay, I’m trying to tell my daughter that she can take you with her.”

“Yes!” Glimmer pumps a fist in the air, triumphant.

“If only because I don’t want their blood on my hands and that’s what I’ll have if I let them go alone.  But make no mistake, Glimmer, that I think this is risky and that you will have to be very careful with them.  Not because they’re untrustworthy, but because you and the other princesses have value to the Horde and I worry that Catra and Scorpia do not have value enough to them for them to hesitate.  I don’t want a tragedy on my hands today.”

“Well, you already have that anyway,” Catra mutters, pointedly looking at Adora’s empty seat and Angella nods soberly.

“Yes, I suppose I do.  Let’s not add another one,” she nods with a finality that lets them know they’re dismissed.

“Alright, you know the drill,” Glimmer pipes up, waving everybody out of the room.

“I, uh, I don’t know the drill,” Scorpia whispers to Catra.

“She wants to meet in her room to plan what we’re doing,” Catra explains.

“Catra?” Angella calls for her from the front of the room.  The hair on the back of her neck and along her tail stands on end.  She’s just waiting for Angella to admonish her for this. After all, she just took her tracker off this morning and now she could easily have doomed the Rebellion for good by losing She-Ra.

“Go with Glimmer,” she instructs Scorpia.  “I’ll be right there.”

“But-"

“I said I’ll be right there,” she repeats, firmer.  She doesn’t want anyone to witness her chastisement at the hands of the queen.

When the room is empty, Catra strolls up to the Queen. When she sighs deeply, Catra braces herself.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m terribly sorry.  I’ve been in your situation and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to withstand.”

Catra can’t respond at first, still adjusting to the idea that Angella didn’t call her here to punish her.

“Thanks?” she answers, unsure what to do.  Angella nods.

“I don’t expect you’ll take me up on this, but regardless of what happens, I’m here if you need anything.”

Catra just stares.  She wants to squirm under the attention, but wills herself to stand still at the very least.

“You don’t have to respond, I’m not expecting anything of you.  I just wanted you to know. You can go to Glimmer’s room like you want to now,” she tells her, the corners of her mouth twitching in a very slight smile.  

Catra takes the opportunity and scampers out of the room.  As she walks to Glimmer’s room, she wonders what it is about kind words that make tears fall so freely and easily.  

Glimmer’s room is a buzz of activity as they huddle around a map of the Fright Zone.  It’s hand-drawn and Catra can recognize Adora’s precise script on it. Unfortunately, it’s also terribly dated.

“You’re not going to make me go in the sewer again, are you?” Mermista drones.

“If that’s what it takes to save Adora, yes,” Glimmer scowls.  “And considering it worked last time from what I’ve heard, we might be taking you up on it again.”

“‘Worked’ is a strong word,” Perfuma chimes in, smiling weakly.  “There were many challenges.”

“Well, now that you’ve practiced, there shouldn’t be as many challenges this time, right?” Glimmer scowls, serious.

“If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it?” Bow grins, nervous.

“Yeah, it’s a great plan if you want to get yourselves killed,” Catra pipes in and the room goes silent.  They all turn to watch her. “Your map is old and the Horde isn’t stupid enough to let you exploit the same weakness again.  They put the sewers on lockdown after they figured out there were weaknesses in the system.”

“So what do we do?”

“We need a different approach.  Entrapta has that place bugged from top to bottom.  Even the vents are off-limits unless we want to run into her or one of her bots and get sent straight to Hordak.  We’ll have to disguise ourselves in the open.”

“How do we do that, then?” Glimmer huffs.

“Lucky for you, Scorpia knows how to pilot a transport,” she claps Scorpia on the shoulder. She jumps before she smiles back at her.  “If we can hijack one, we can fly right in.”

“I’m listening.  But how do we find one?”

“Listen, manipulating the Horde is ridiculously easy once you know their patterns.  Everything is scheduled down to the second. Supply routes travel the same patterns, same times of day, same checkpoints.  Our best bet is one that starts just outside of Seaworthy. It’s a short route, not many checkpoints. Best to go with a supply transport.  They’re under a little less pressure and it’ll be easy enough to hide all of you in the back. Plus, there’s only one camera on the supply dock and no one ever watches it.”

“And they usually have, uh, less experienced pilots on that route,” Scorpia offers.

“What Scorpia means is they only put idiots who can’t be trusted with anything else on that route, so it’s going to be like taking candy from a baby.”

“That’s so mean,” Perfuma pipes from the corner.

“Relax, miss shrinking violet, it’s an expression,” Catra rolls her eyes.  “If everything goes according to plan, we can get in unnoticed, grab Adora, and get out on schedule for the same transport to go on its next delivery back to Seaworthy.  Bonus is we can swipe the supplies too, “ she grins.

“Wow, this is a really different experience,” Bow chuckles.

“Compared to what?”

“Adora.”

“What, because she’s too nice to steal supplies from the people trying to kill her?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs.

“Yeah, well,” she narrows her eyes.  “We’re not playing nice with the Horde anymore.  That’s a great way to end up dead. Any upper hand we can gain, we take and we don’t feel bad about it, got it?  You guys have got to quit being so noble if we want to get out of this.”

“Yes, captain,” Scorpia salutes.  The others shift uncomfortably.

“When do we leave?” Catra drones, looking at Glimmer.

“Depends.  When does the supply transport leave Seaworthy next?”

“Tomorrow morning at five.”

“Then we’re on that transport,” she decides, final.  “We can’t waste time. I suggest everyone get as much sleep as you can.  It’s a two-hour sail to Seaworthy on a good day.”

Catra gets up to leave with the others when Glimmer calls her.  She growls, starting to tire of getting held back by first the queen and now the princess.

Bow and Scorpia are the last to slip away, giving them sympathetic looks before they leave.

“What is it now?” Catra asks.  Glimmer’s hardened expression dissolves and she looks up at Catra with a vulnerability she’s never seen from her before.  It simultaneously makes her want to run and return it.

“I just wanted to ask if you’d stay in here tonight,” she murmurs.  The tears she’s been swallowing for the past few hours spring up again.  “Obviously you don’t have to. But I thought I’d ask.”

For the second time tonight, Catra has to stare at Glimmer and wonder whether to do what will keep the illusions she protects herself with alive or to do what she knows somewhere deep that she wants.

Like last time, it’s the feeling that Glimmer reflects easily something she herself is too scared to show that sways her.  She nods once. She holds a hand out and Catra takes it, allowing Glimmer to teleport her up to the bed with her. They don’t say anything.  They merely curl around each other, chest to chest, as if trying to protect each other against the heavy ache that presses behind their breastbones.  They guard one another, listless and desperate together in a cavernously empty night.

Chapter Text

Catra wakes to Glimmer gently shaking her, a grim expression on her features in the dark.

“Hey.  We have to move out soon.”

Catra stretches and yawns.  Glimmer yawns back, hair disheveled. 

“Is this the only transport out today?” she groans, but she keeps moving, making it clear she doesn’t intend to miss it.

“No, but it’s the first,” Catra answers.

“At least no one will be awake by the time we get to the Fright Zone at six in the morning,” she rubs her eyes.  Catra cackles.

“Uh, yeah they will?  Brightmoon standards are lax.  Most will be up by then there.”

“For what?” Glimmer huffs.

Catra shrugs.

“I don’t know, I slept in a lot.”

“So how do you know everyone wakes up early?”

“You seriously think Adora would let me forget waking up late?  I’ll meet you here in a minute,” Catra waves, going to her room to dress.  She stops by Scorpia’s room. The door is ajar. She’s asleep, back propped against the headboard.  Bow is curled up on a duvet he’s taken from the bed. Catra suspects they were up too late talking.

“Hey sleeping beauties, wake up,” she reaches and nudges Scorpia with her foot.  She startles awake.

“Wha-? We’re ready, we’re-”

“Relax, you have a few minutes to get ready,” she answers before disappearing as quickly as she came.

Catra isn’t sure if she relishes the few minutes she has to herself or wants to run back to the others where the constant distraction of them makes it harder to remember the reason they’re all together.  Alone, the weight of what she’s going to do sinks, heavy. She’s going to try to get Adora back from the Horde. She’ll be in the Fright Zone for the first time since she defected. She’ll have to see it again.  She’ll have to be careful because, like Angella, she doubts they’ll hesitate if they catch her.

Catra can’t look at Adora’s closed door on her way back to Glimmer’s room.

When she arrives, everyone is already there.  Perfuma rests her head on Bow’s shoulder and he rests his head on hers, both half-asleep.  Scorpia’s tail droops and there are circles under her eyes. Glimmer keeps yawning. Mermista looks as she normally does, but Catra reasons she always looks a little bored and tired.  Frosta at least looks bright-eyed as she waits with rapt attention for Glimmer and Catra to give them directions.

“Right, so I’m taking this?” Catra asks Glimmer and she nods.  “Okay, so the supply transports run underground-”

They nod.  Seems as if Adora briefed them on this part, at least.

“And they run under major towns and cities along the way so you can’t just collapse the tunnel in.”

“Because they’re evil,” Bow pipes up.

“Yeah, we’ve already established that.  That also makes them difficult to hijack because to get to them, you have to break into the station.  They’re all guarded.”

“Cool, loving these odds already,” Mermista comments.

“Shut up and listen,” Catra growls and Mermista purses her lips.  “The thing about going in for the early departure is that there’s a shift change at five as well.”

“But that gives us pretty much no time to get in,” Glimmer protests.

“Exactly, so we’re going to have to act fast.  We have to get in during the shift change while the guards aren’t looking, swipe the uniforms from the last shift, and get in as it pulls off.  We also have to make sure none of the guards from that station find out we’re there before we’ve gotten a chance to get into the Fright Zone. If they report anything, we’re dead.”

“Shouldn’t we just capture the guards then? It’ll take too much time to change uniforms and leaving them there ups the chances we get found out,” Frosta asks.  Catra thinks idly she’s the only one here with a spare brain cell, but moves on without saying anything about it.

“Yeah, good idea.”

“But then we have to fight off, like, a billion guards,” Mermista huffs.

“Not if we just put them to sleep for a few hours,” Scorpia adds, patting her tail for effect.

“Good call.  So Scorpia puts them out for a day, we toss them in the back, steal the uniforms, and we’re on our way.”

“Seems complicated,” Mermista pipes back in.

“Yes, a little,” Perfuma agrees.

“Well, we don’t have a choice, so get over it,” Catra answers back.   “This is the plan we have.”

“What’s the plan once we get in?” Glimmer asks, blessedly distracting the others from protesting any further.

“Supply transports come in on the lower levels.  That’s the only thing. There are a few places they might have her, but they’ll all be in the higher levels. That’s going to be the hardest part about this, getting to higher levels without an access code.  They’ll have already changed it by now.”

“Maybe one of the guards will be nice enough to tell us the code?” Bow asks, sleepily optimistic.

“Yeah, sure, you give it a try and see what happens,” Catra rolls her eyes. 

“So, improvise?” Glimmer clarifies.

 “Yeah, basically try not to get ourselves killed and find her as fast as we can.”

“Fantastic,” Mermista mutters.  “As long as I don’t have to go in the sewer again.  My ship is still waiting in the harbor. Meet me down there.”

She turns and walks out.  

“Last chance to back out,” Glimmer looks around at them in turn.  She pauses a little longer on Scorpia and Catra. No one budges. “Okay, let’s do this,” she waves them forward.

They follow her in a quiet procession down to the dock.  One look at the swaying ship makes Catra queasy. Scorpia pokes her gently with a claw.

“You okay, wildcat?”

“Never better, I love water,” she mumbles.

“Oh, me too,” Scorpia sighs.

“I was being sarcastic, I hate it.”

“Hey, we’ve got you!” Bow pipes up, appearing at her other side. “You’re part of the best friend squad now!”

“The what?”

“Oh, can I be part of the best friend squad?” Scorpia asks, waiting for the answer with bated breath.

“Done,” Bow answers, bumping his fist against her claw.  She grins widely.

“We’ll make sure you’re okay,” Bow continues as they board.

“I’m fine now, but if you don’t leave me alone, I might barf on you,” Catra snaps.  It has the desired effect. Bow and Scorpia immediately move away from her. Scorpia is easily distracted by the sight of Seahawk, lounging with an obviously-staged nonchalance.  It breaks easily when he catches her eye and he waves. Glimmer spots him at the same time and groans.

“Here we go.  Let’s hope this one doesn’t burn down.  Do they know each other?” Glimmer asks, observing Seahawk and Scorpia, nonplussed.

“Yeah, they bonded or something at some point, she wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

“Weird.  Anyway, you look like crap.  Do you want help, or do you want everyone to leave you alone?”

“What do you think?”

Glimmer rolls her eyes but gets the hint all the same.  She turns and walks away, settling next to Bow, who’s content to watch Seahawk explain different types of knots to Scorpia.  Catra settles at the bow where the tossing seems calmer. Mermista is there too, sitting with her feet dangling over the water.

“You know, part of your problem is that you’re not looking at the water. You wouldn’t feel as sick if you’d just watch,” her voice filters through the slightly ill haze Catra is in after a few minutes.

“Sorry that I don’t like to be reminded that I’m in this death trap with water on all sides,” Catra bites back.  “Not to insult your ship.”

“No, with him driving, it’s a death trap,” she jabs a thumb at Sea Hawk.  “But either way, doesn’t change that you are where you are, you might as well watch.”

“Like I said, I don’t think that’s going to help.  The water is calm now, but if it starts getting rough, it’s not going to be a good time for me, I don’t think watching is good.”

“Look, at the risk of sounding like I care, which I don’t, you’re trying too hard.”

“Trying too hard?! I’m not even doing anything!” Catra snaps.

“Yeah you are, you’re blocking everything out. First step to dealing with the sea is accepting that it sucks sometimes and you’re never going to know when it’s going to suck.  It doesn’t care about you or what you want. The sooner you accept it the better.”

“Is this supposed to be comforting?”

“No,” she rolls her eyes.  “But I kinda find it comforting that it’s not comforting.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It’s a life metaphor or whatever, just quit being an avoidant baby about it and accept it.”

Catra is about to snap back at her, but looking up to do it gives her a full view of the sea and the way the ship cuts through it, waves parting and breaking around the ship as they move through it.  The water looks no more welcoming than it did before, but at least Mermista is right that looking at it eases the swaying feeling in her stomach.  

Perhaps more comforting is the way Mermista watches the water, simultaneously as uncaring as the roiling waves and also clearly in love with them.  The sense that she loves this expanse of water always, no matter its moments of anger, its storms, it’s moments of bright but reckless buoyancy becomes clearer as Catra watches her.  It is perversely beautiful, this acceptance and love of a terrifying and unpredictable force. Mermista notices and turns, a self-satisfied smile working its way across her face.

“You figured out I’m right.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Catra mutters, but she watches the water with her for the rest of the time, both terrified and in awe, the waves writhing like oil in the dark. 

It’s a bit of a walk once they hit land.  Catra scouts a few paces ahead when the station is in view.

“Wait here-”

“Why did you even bring us if we have to wait here?” Mermista rolls her eyes.

“Because you Princesses are too loud and we have to find the entrance and get in as fast as we can.  We won’t make it far before they spot us like this.”

“Or we could just use a distraction,” Frosta offers.

“Like what? You have a suggestion, Snowball?”

“Isn’t he good at setting stuff on fire?” she nods to Seahawk, noticing and electing to ignore Catra’s nickname for her.  “Why can’t we do that? If we set it in one of the electrical rooms, it’ll look like an accident.”

“Yeah, cute idea, but someone still has to scout.  So shut up and wait here for a second,” Catra hisses.

She stalks quietly around the building.  There are two entrances. It’s sparsely guarded so far with yawning guards, ready for the end of their shift.  They’re heavily armed, though. She supposes its proximity to Seaworthy makes it vulnerable to pirates and she doubts an attack would be an uncommon occurrence.  The electrical room, though, is thankfully the closest to their team. She can hear the hum of machinery through the wall, smell the tell-tale fumes.  

She dashes back.

“Okay, Snowflake is right.”

A ripple of exasperated sighs and mutters sound at the nickname, but Catra ignores them.

“The electrical room is at the southwest corner, closest to us. Seagull, you think you can get a decent fire going over there?”

“Of course!” he puffs out his chest, nearly yelling.  Catra pounces on him, clapping a hand over his mouth.

“Do you want to kill us?!” she hisses.

“No-” he answers, muffled, behind her hand.

“Could’ve fooled me!  If you yell anything , before or after you set that fire, I’ll throw you in it myself.  Got it?”

“Really?”

“Look me in the eye and tell me I wouldn’t,” she stares at him, blank.  In truth, she probably wouldn’t, but Catra knows there’s enough frustration in her bearing to make him question it and she channels as much of it as possible.

“Okay, got it.  Quiet fire,” he answers, wide eyed.  

“She’s meaner than Adora,” Perfuma murmurs to Bow, who goes stock-still, pretending that he’s not listening.

“Yeah, because I’m not here to be nice to you, Pansy, I’m here to get us in and out of here alive.  The Fright Zone has nothing on me if you blow this for us.”

“So commanding,” Scorpia sighs and Glimmer cocks a mischievous grin.

“Yeah, I kinda like it,” she crosses her arms.

“Shut up,” Catra bares her teeth, though with less ferocity.  “We wait until the shift change before we set the fire. We go in the back door.  The guards will be distracted by the fire and won’t notice us. We grab the last shift in the confusion and get out of there before anyone notices.  Everyone clear?”

There’s a ripple of silent and emphatic nods.

“Okay.  Let’s move.”

They move slowly through the tall grass as Seahawk splits away from the main group.  He’s remarkably quiet when he’s trying hard enough. He waits by the outside corner of the electrical room.  As Catra watches the shift change start, she nods emphatically at him. For emphasis, she mouths ‘quiet fire,’ and draws her finger across her throat.  Seahawk nods, eyes wide.

It takes too long for them to smell smoke.  Every second that ticks by feels like an eternity.  They only have a minute or two to get on that transport or the entire trip is for nothing.  Catra doesn’t have another plan. She isn’t sure what she’ll do if this one falls through.

Just as she’s wondering if someone needs to go help him, Seahawk sneaks away to join them, giving them the thumbs up.

The first alarm goes off as they get close enough for the guards to hear them.  The second sounds as they reach the door. Shouts from the upper deck drift down as the third alarm starts.  Frosta freezes the doorknob and control panel. The screen flickers and dies at 5:01. Bow forces the door open, but Catra worries it may be for nothing.  The train was due to leave a minute ago.

Still, they steal into the station just as the last shift is trying to clamber back through to help their comrades.  Their own entrance blocks them, the two doors slamming against one another, and Scorpia swiftly stings each of them in turn.  Catra muses it’s one of the only times she’s been afraid of her. Her usual gentleness is a distant memory as she hits all of them with swift and deadly accuracy and they drop, one-by-one.  

“Everyone grab one and move,” she whispers, thankful that her words are drowned out by the crackling hiss of fire.

They run as fast as they can, but they’re weighed down by the limp weight of the unconscious Horde soldiers they carry, and it isn’t fast enough.  The transport has almost certainly left by now. Maybe they can traverse the tunnel itself, but that could take almost a day. It would be dangerous work.  If they got caught at the wrong place, they could be flattened by the next transport.

Catra is still feverishly thinking, eyes watering with smoke when they reach the platform.  She narrows her eyes. The transport is still here.  

“This doesn’t seem right.  It’s still here,” she tells Glimmer.  Glimmer eyes it suspiciously too.

“I know.  But I don’t know what other choice we have.  Our exit is blocked,” she gestures behind her.  Sure enough, the fire has worked a little too well.  It’s now blocking their way out. The only way they can go is forward onto the transport.

“Dammit.  Okay. Everyone keep your wits about you. This thing should’ve already left and I don’t know what we’re finding when we get in there.”

They file in after her.  The transport is suspiciously empty.

“Okay, we have to get moving if we don’t want to get burned up in this godforsaken station, but keep an eye out for anything unusual.  This thing should have had a driver and I didn’t see anyone leave.”

Scorpia jumps behind the wheel and the transport pulls out of the station.  They do a cursory search and don’t find anyone. They watch the station grow smaller, but the orange-yellow glow of fire gets brighter as they leave.  The whole station looks to be ablaze by the time they can’t see it any longer.

“I gotta give it to you, Seahag, that was an impressive fire,” Catra stares, grinning a little back at it.  “There may not be a station to get back to after that.”

“Sorry,” Seahawk apologizes before Catra claps a hand on his shoulder.

“Hell no, you single-handedly took out a Horde transport station, don’t ever apologize for that,” she grins.  Seahawk looks simultaneously grateful for her approval and wary of her teeth.

“Yeah, it was kind of one of the coolest things you’ve ever done,” Mermista tells him.  There’s a faint quirk of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

“You don’t think it’ll do anything to those guards, though, right?” he asks.

“Nah,” Catra shakes her head.  “Those suits are flame resistant and they’re smart enough to get out of there once it’s clear that station isn’t coming back.  You Rebellion fighters have way too much sympathy, though. Those soldiers wouldn’t think twice for you.”

Seahawk shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter what they do.  We know who we are, and we’re not in the business of needlessly hurting anyone.”

“Hm,” Catra answers.  “Well, bleeding heart aside, you don’t really need to when you can do that, do you?” she nods at the spectacular fire that can still be seen from here.  

“Exactly,” Bow answers brightly.

As if on cue, they hear a cough come from the cargo hold.  Everyone freezes. 

“Stay here,” Glimmer murmurs, almost silent.  She disappears before them. In seconds, she’s back, holding Kyle by the collar.

Catra cackles.

“Don’t waste your breath, he’s harmless.”

“Catra! You’re alive!” he exclaims, eyes wide.

“Yeah, duh, I’m alive. I didn’t die, I just ditched you idiots.  What are you doing hiding in the cargo hold?”

“It’s my first day driving,” he sighs.  “I was trying to find the fire extinguisher when I saw the fire break out, but then the next thing I knew, the transport was moving.”

“That does sound like your luck,” Scorpia nods from where she’s driving.

Kyle waves to Bow from Glimmer’s grip.  He’s so small even Glimmer can hold him aloft and his feet don’t touch the ground.

“Hi, Bow!”

Bow sighs, exasperated.

“Hi, Kyle.”

“You know a Rebellion fighter?” Catra snorts.

“Yeah! We’re friends!”

“Acquaintances,” Bow corrects.  “Kyle talked at me a little bit when I was imprisoned in the Fright Zone.”

“Yeah, he’s good at sniffing out a captive audience,” Catra rolls her eyes before grinning wolfishly.  “But, I bet he has the codes they’re using now.”

“I’m not helping you,” he pipes up in shaky and tenuous defiance.

“Yeah, you just ditched your team in the middle of a four-alarm fire, let the whole transport you’re driving on your first day get captured, and are on your way with a team of Rebellion fighters to the Fright Zone to re-capture She-Ra as we speak.  I’m just saying, the cells in Brightmoon are way cushier than the Fright Zone. I would know.”

“If you help us, I bet I could get my mom to cut you a deal,” Glimmer cuts in.

“That doesn’t seem like much of an option.  Jail or also jail? Also, we have She-Ra?”

“You do.  And more like creepy jail you’ll never get out of with bad food or sparkly jail with better food that you will eventually get out of, probably with a pretty light sentence.  They only gave me a month as a Force Captain.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll go with sparkly jail.”

“That’s what I thought,” Catra nods.  “You can let him down. Trust me, he won’t get far if he tries anything.”

Glimmer drops him unceremoniously.  He stumbles before righting himself.  

“So what’s the code?” Glimmer growls.

“There’s not just one,” Catra answers.  “There’s different ones depending on how high you move.”

“Okay, so just tell us.”

“B-but, what happens to me if I just give them to you? P-plus, wouldn’t it help if you had someone the Horde still trusts with you?”

“Yeah, I don’t know about trust,” Bow mutters.

“I mean, I guess he has a point though.  We can at least use him as a diversion,” Mermista shrugs.  

“Yeah, if anything goes wrong and they find Kyle, it looks a lot more normal,” Catra nods, reasoning.  “Okay. You can go with us. It’s on you if you mess up and have to go to creepy jail.”

The transport lulls into a tense silence. 

“So, when we get there, Kyle goes out to deliver the shipment as normal.  We’re going to sneak out the back. Everyone put these on,” Catra mutters soberly as they get close.  They all stare at the pile of horde armor they gathered from the unconscious soldiers.  

“So, how does this go?” Mermista holds up a piece of it, staring at it with distaste.

“Got it!” Perfuma tells them.  She only has half of it on. Some pieces are backward.  Her hair flows out from her helmet.

“Mine is too long!” Glimmer wails.  The sleeves of hers flop over, much too short.

“ Yours, is too long?” Frosta asks, drowning in hers.  

“Mine is too short,” Perfuma giggles.

“Can I change this into a crop-” Bow starts to ask before Catra snaps.

“No! God, come here, all of you,” she groans.  “Perfuma, switch with Frosta. Mermista switch with Glimmer.  No, Bow, you can’t make it a crop top, it’s armor.”

“It’s so restrictive,” he complains.

“It’s armor,” she enunciates as if he’s doesn’t understand.  “Also, if you don’t want to get immediately identified, you’re just going to have to deal with it.  God, how did Adora deal with all of you? I can’t believe you all got into the Fright Zone at all.”

“We almost didn’t,” Perfuma explains brightly.

“I’m shocked,” she rolls her eyes.

“Alright Kyle,” Scorpia calls.  “We’re about to pull in. You have to take the wheel so they don’t see me.”

Kyle shakily grabs the wheel from her.  Scorpia swiftly tries to stuff herself into a suit too small for her.  Her tail is poorly hidden in the suit.

“Yeah,” Catra lifts her visor. “Someone is going to have to flank her at all times or we’re getting found out.”

“This is a nightmare,” Glimmer grumbles from a suit that’s better, but still too long for her.  

“Did you expect any different?” Mermista groans.

“I think it’s fun,” Seahawk quips.

“Everyone shut up!” Catra hisses.  “And get in the hold and get ready to move!”

When the ship docks and they hear Kyle talking, they file quickly out the back door and into the first door off of the supply dock.  Once Kyle turns over the cargo and the next driver takes over, he dashes over to them and enters the code.

“You actually remembered,” Catra snorts.  “I’m surprised.”

“I’m not completely useless,” he huffs.

“Not this time,” she snickers.

“You don’t happen to know where she is-” Scorpia asks him as they move, going up the levels aimlessly. 

“I haven’t seen her, I was at the station last night.  But you won’t find her on this level, this is the Force Captain barracks.”

“I know where it is,” Catra mutters.

They’re putting in the code to move to the next level when they see her, walking casually to the same platform.  Catra throws her arm out to stop the door from closing.

“Adora!”

She lifts her visor so she can see her face.

“Catra! I’ve been looking for you,” she sighs.  “What are you wearing?”

Something seems amiss with her.  She’s strangely calm, joining her in the lift as if it’s routine.  

“Adora are you okay?” Glimmer asks, lifting her visor.  The rest of them do too, in turn.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” she answers and Catra is relieved herself until Adora stops dead, taking a closer look.  She looks confused, and points at Glimmer and the rest of the princesses behind them, “Who are they?”

“Like, the entire Princess Alliance? Your friends?”

Adora snorts, quirking an eyebrow.

“Are they captured?”

“Adora, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Stop messing with me, Catra.  What are you doing with a bunch of captured Princesses? Does Shadow Weaver know about this?”

The realization moves slowly amongst them.

Adora doesn’t remember them.  Shadow Weaver must’ve erased her memory, exactly like she threatened to years ago.  Catra’s just noticed the Force Captain badge pinned to her lapel.

It’s a strange and sinking feeling to know that Catra wanted something like this so badly less than a year ago.  She wanted Adora to forget Brightmoon and Glimmer and Bow and all of the princesses that stand, wide-eyed and horrified, behind them.  She wanted to be the most important person in Adora’s life again. Wanted Adora to stay with the Horde and protect her from here in the only place they’d ever known before all of this started.

It’s even stranger to feel a grief as deep as the one that welled in her after she lost her for the first time build in her as it starts to hit her that Adora doesn’t remember.  She doesn’t expect to want her to remember Glimmer, who trembles and is helpless as she realizes the woman she loves doesn’t know her. She doesn’t expect to want her to remember her friends that react with a mixture of stunned shock and grief behind her.   She doesn’t expect to want her to remember Brightmoon, its soaring and cavernous hallways and glittering windows. She doesn’t expect to want her to remember little Thaymore, its grass an unearthly green. 

But Catra does.  She wants Adora to remember all of them, remember the hallways they’ve traversed together for the past months, the people they’ve lived with, how hard-won these tenuous friendships have been.

But more than that, she wants her to remember the first time they slept in the same bed again after three years. The observatory at the top of the tower at Brightmoon  The unmistakably comforting sound of all of them, curled up in sleeping bags on the floor of her room, breathing rhythmic and deep with sleep. The teary first kisses she gave her after she returned from a battle Catra couldn’t follow her to.

And how is she going to get her back?  How is she going to convince her that Brightmoon is where she belongs and where she’s safest? How is she going to get her to see what the Horde really is? 

Catra supposes it’s what she deserves to have to convince Adora to leave with her. 

“Yeah, I’m messing with you,” she picks up where she left off.  “They’re not captured Princesses, Shadow Weaver just wanted to see us.”

“That’s weird.  Shadow Weaver wanted to see me, too,” she tilts her head, suspicious.  Catra isn’t going to be able to keep this up for long. Adora is too smart to believe her for long.  

“Who knows,” Catra shrugs.  “You can go first if you want, it’s not like I really want to see her, you know.”

“Well, she might not be so bad if you’d respect her more,” she tells her, eyebrows raised.  Catra swallows the lump in her throat. The entire lift watches the exchange. It’s so terribly public, this pain Catra thought was just starting to heal. 

“Sure,” Catra shrugs.  It’s so easy to slip back into this false indifference. 

They follow Adora to Shadow Weaver’s quarters.

“Go ahead,” Catra waves her forward, leaning against the wall.  Adora gives her a searching look, taking in the armor again, before she goes inside. 

“What do we do?!” Glimmer whispers, chin wobbling.  She’s been valiantly trying to hold it in so as not to make Adora suspicious.  

“I don’t know,” Catra mutters, trying valiantly not to accept defeat right here and now.

“We don’t have a lot of time to make a call,” Scorpia reminds her gravely.

“I know that, too!” she snaps, tail puffing up in irritation.

She wracks her brain.  Should they leave her here? Should they try to take her by force? Should they try to explain? Explaining seems futile.  Taking her by force seems wrong, but so does leaving her here knowing there’s an Adora somewhere in there who wants to be with them.

Just as she’s about to make the choice between leaving her and taking her without any explanation, she sees it through a crack in the door.  The sword sits, propped against the wall of the Black Garnet Chamber. It glows faintly as if sensing Adora’s presence.

“Stay here.  I have an idea-” she whispers.

“Catra, no,” Glimmer reaches out to stop her, but Catra has already slipped in.  She steals along the edge of the wall. Adora briefly notices her, but she doesn’t let on.  Catra knew she wouldn’t sell her out. At least, in this horror, there’s the comfort that Catra knows Adora and all the myriad ways she’s existed like the back of her hand.  Adora may think Catra is disrespectful, but she won’t endanger her. She stands, frozen in front of Shadow Weaver, effortlessly playing at listening with rapt attention, terrified by the prospect of Catra getting caught in here again.  

Catra reaches for the sword, but as she touches it, it slides to the ground with a metallic scrape and Shadow Weaver whirls on her.  She narrows her eyes as she sees her.

“ You!  I told you before I’d dispose of you myself if I ever found you back here again!  You are not going to ruin this for me.”

She bears down on her, but before she can freeze Catra’s limbs, she does the only thing she can think to do.

“Adora! Catch!” she tosses the sword at her.

“What?!” she yelps as the sword spins towards her in midair.  She has to catch it before it hits her.

Adora doesn’t get to finish.  The whole chamber is bathed in a brilliant blue light.  As Shadow Weaver pins Catra’s limbs in mid-air, the rest of the Princesses burst in, ready to defend her at the sound of a scuffle and the sight of the light.  She-Ra appears in front of them as Shadow Weaver twists Catra’s limbs in a way that feels unnatural. Seconds feel like hours as Adora and Catra watch one another across the room, Catra barely able to keep her eyes open, Adora shocked and horrified at her transformation and at the ways Shadow Weaver twists and twists.

The other Princesses are frozen, too, struggling against Shadow Weaver’s magic.  But Scorpia, either unaffected by the Black Garnet or stronger than Shadow Weaver expects, lunges at her with a shout that sounds nearly feral and succeeds in stinging her.  She staggers back, releasing her hold on Catra and the rest of them. But she succeeds in hitting the alarm before she drops.

Catra and Adora stare at one another, stunned.  Catra remembers how little time they have as the alarm starts to blare.  She runs to Adora.

“I can explain, but you have to come with me,” Catra tells her.  Adora looks down at herself, terrified. Catra realizes with a sinking feeling that this is probably what she looked like the first time around, the one she wasn’t there for.   Her eyes are wide and round, her hands tremble a little. She hyperventilates.

“You knew that would happen?!” she shrieks, panicked. 

“Yeah, but there’s no time to explain here,” she answers. 

“I’m not going anywhere until someone explains to me what’s going on!” she snaps and Catra growls.

“I’m working with the Rebellion and so were you up until yesterday.  They captured you and erased your memories. That’s your sword. That’s why it reacted to you.”

Adora shakes her head in disbelief.

“That makes no sense.”

“I know.  But I won’t get out of here alive if we don’t leave soon and I don’t want to leave without you.”

“What, so this is a life or death situation?  Catra, what did you do, what happened?!”

“God, Adora, for once in your life will you please just trust that I know what I’m doing!?  Please, just trust me! I know that’s hard, but I need you to do it. Please. I’m actually begging you, just listen to me.”

Normally Catra wouldn’t plead with her like this, but for once, she allows herself a moment of true and raw honesty.  Adora scowls, confused and worried all at once.

“You seem different.”

“Yeah.  Because I am.  And like I said, I can explain all of this, but backup is going to be here in a second and we’re all dead if they see us.”

“Wildcat, if you don’t leave soon, I might have to take you myself,” Scorpia puts a claw gently on her shoulder.  “I’m not losing you on my watch and we don’t have much more time.”

Adora looks between them, confused, but something changes across her face, if only a little bit.  She seems to recognize that there may be truth in what Catra tells her. She doesn’t know Scorpia, but she knows Catra and it’s clear that they have a dynamic together she isn’t privy to.  

Catra wants to believe it’s going to be enough for her to go with her, but she knows Adora.  It took her nearly a day the first time around to investigate who she was as She-Ra and it was only her capture that brought her face-to-face with it.  That’s not to mention the veritable lifetime it took her to start to grasp what the Horde did to both of them. 

There isn’t time to hope that Adora won’t be Adora. 

“You can’t make her come with you,” Scorpia urges her gently.  Catra nods.

“We’re leaving from the transport deck if you want to follow us,” she tells her before she swipes the sword from Adora’s grasp too quickly for her to react, and runs with the rest of them.  Scorpia grabs Glimmer, who stands, stunned, and won’t move without being forced to. Even Kyle knows to leave with them and runs, tailing them as best he can.  

“Why are we leaving from the transport deck?!” Bow shouts as bots start to close in on them from all sides. 

“The supply dock will have figured us out by now and the last train already left! If we can steal a transport, it’s faster!” Catra snaps.

They leap into the first one they find as Scorpia takes the controls.  Bow picks off bots from afar as Mermista and Frosta freeze the floor in front of them.  It doesn’t quell the swarm of bots, but it at least slows them down. They slip and skid across the floor, firing still.  While they don’t hit them directly, they do plenty of damage to the ceiling. Great hunks of it start falling all across the transport deck, making their liftoff shaky and dangerous.

As they lift off, Catra and Glimmer watch the entrance to the deck together.

“You looking for her?” Catra mutters, low enough that only Glimmer can hear.

“Yeah.  It’s stupid, but-” she sighs heavily.

Catra shakes her head.

“I get it.”

They’re just out of the station when they see her appear.  Catra and Glimmer fall over each other to get to Scorpia.

“Stop!”

“Turn around!”

“W-what?”

“Adora!” Catra points wildly.  Adora stands, looking between the transport and the door.  She starts and dodges when another stray piece of the ceiling falls.

“I’ll go get her!” Glimmer exclaims.

“No! Not with a moving target, Glimmer, you could hurt yourselves!” Bow stops her.  “I’ve got her! Just help me open the door!”

Glimmer and Bow heft the door open and Bow shoots an arrow with a length of rope over to her.  Adora looks at it for a moment, back at the door, and then grabs it and climbs deftly to them as Scorpia flies off.   She rolls into the transport and Glimmer and Bow pull the door shut again as Scorpia dodges the shots aimed their way, hurtling out of the Fright Zone as fast as they can.

Adora sits on the floor, chest heaving.

“Hey, Adora.  I’m kind of surprised you came, to be honest,” Catra stands over her. “Did you leave because I had your sword?” 

Adora rolls her eyes.

“No.  I mean, I’m curious about the sword, but it was you,” she scowls lightly. “You’ve never talked to me like that.  You’ve never acted like that. You know all these people that I don’t and we haven’t been apart for a second since we were babies, and you knew the sword was going to do that.  I knew something weird was going on after that. Either that or I’m dreaming,” she holds her head, eyes a little wild.

Catra nods silently, inwardly relieved that it wasn’t the sword that made her leave.  Though it’s hard to be glad when Adora has still lost her memories, it’s comforting to know that there’s something in Adora, some space in her, that was Catra’s always.  It’s bittersweet to know that at least the presence of a Catra she doesn’t know unsettled her enough to leave. 

“You’re not dreaming,” Catra reaches out and pinches her sharply.

“Ow, quit it!” Adora swats at her.  Catra cackles.

“So, what is going on?” she presses, unwilling to wait any longer.  “Why are they crying, how do you know them?”

“They’re crying because they know you and you don’t remember them right now.  You defected from the Horde almost four years ago.”

Adora looks like she wants to laugh, but Catra’s uncharacteristic seriousness and the fervor with which the Princesses, particularly Glimmer, grieve the part of her they lost stifles it.  

“Okay, but is there any proof of that? Sorry, I’m not trying to accuse you of lying, it’s just a little hard to swallow.”

“You have a room in Brightmoon,” Glimmer pipes up, voice nasal with tears.  “Your clothes. Your bed. Your hairbrush. You have letters you wrote to me,” she trails off there.

“Letters?  Like what kind of letters?”

Glimmer can’t answer her.  Catra suspects they were romantic.  

“Sorry about all this, I know it’s a lot,” Bow, supplies, deftly lifting the tension.  “I’m Bow, by the way. Figured I might as well re-introduce myself,” he grins, deftly hiding any sadness in it.  

“Adora,” she replies, shaking his hand warily. “Wait, why is Kyle here?”

“That’s actually new,” Catra concedes.  “He had no choice but to come with us after he basically let us hijack a supply transport to come rescue you.”

“You were rescuing me?” she snorts, disbelieving.

“Yeah,” Catra mutters.  “They captured you yesterday.”

“So we defected...four years ago?”

“You did,” Catra answers, bitter.

“We didn’t defect at the same time?”

“No,” she answers shortly.

“Oh,” Adora answers, confused.  “Why not?”

“Another time,” Catra withdraws, crossing her arms, looking at the floor.

“I mean, I don’t feel any different, I look the same-” she shakes her head, still trying to make sense of it.

“No you don’t,” Glimmer hops up.  “I can prove it to you that you’re not the same.  Does anyone have a mirror?”

Adora scowls, wary, as Mermista holds out a pearl-encrusted mirror.

“Do you have any scars?” Glimmer asks before she hands the mirror over.

“A few.  One on my knee from when I was a kid.  I fell and scraped it,” she lists. “One on my arm from training.”

Glimmer shakes her head.

“You have scars across your cheek,” Glimmer runs forward, opening the mirror for her.  “And on your back, check when we get back to Brightmoon.”

Catra stares at the floor and hopes she doesn’t ask where she got them.

Adora stares at her cheek and touches it lightly at the pale red lines across it before she remembers herself.

“Wait, Brightmoon? We’re going to Brightmoon?”

“Yeah.  I’m Princess Glimmer of Brightmoon,” Glimmer answers, clearly pained at having to explain it to her. “We all live there.  You’ve lived there since you defected with us.”

“You can’t go back to Brightmoon,” she shakes her head wildly.

“Why not?” Perfuma asks, alarmed.

“It’s under siege,” she answers, clearly uncomfortable at having to break that news to a room full of Rebellion fighters.  “That’s what Shadow Weaver was bringing me in to talk about.”

“It can’t be under siege, we were there this morning,” Glimmer argues.

“How early did you leave?” Adora asks.

“Ridiculously early, like three in the morning,” Mermista drones.

“They left at five,” she tells them.  “They’re there by now. I was getting updates this morning about it, they told me it was successful.  You may be able to get close in this since they won’t look twice at Horde transport, but they’ll catch on once you get close enough.”

They all look around at one another, at a loss, unable to move forward.

“Are you sure?” Glimmer asks.  Catra can tell already Adora is telling the truth, but Glimmer clearly doesn’t want to believe it.

“Do you think they planned this?  To capture her just to capture Brightmoon?” Perfuma asks shakily.

“Maybe.  Seems more like they saw an opportunity and took it.  They knew we’d come after her if they could get her. Maybe they’ve had that in the back of their mind this whole time, maybe not.  They haven’t been able to get close to Brightmoon since I did it years ago and the last time they tried failed too. Whoever did this was quick on their feet about it, though, no doubt about that,” Catra crosses her arms.

“About that,” Adora eyes them, clearly nervous.  “I might know it’s under siege because I planned it.  Shadow Weaver suggested it, she told me its defenses were lowered.  She didn’t explain why, but she told me we should move forward with an attack on Brightmoon and she had me design the attack.  It was supposed to be my first act as Force Captain. It’s pretty thorough,” she sighs, guilty.

Glimmer sits heavily, covering her face.

“Of course you planned it,” Catra laughs humorlessly.  “I don’t know what else I expected. Figures that you’d be able to do it when I couldn’t. You always were good, Adora.” 

Catra is trying not to let old bitterness seep into her words, but it’s difficult not to.  It stings to know that Adora always seems to be able to beat Catra no matter whose side either of them is on.  It’s hard to shake off the ache that they’re trying to bridge a gap again so soon after the old one had started to close.

“I’m sorry, Catra, I didn’t know!” Adora huffs, gesturing wildly.  She’s starting to lose her cool like the rest of them, exasperated and confused.  “I mean, if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t even be here! I’m still not even sure about this “I’ve been a part of the Rebellion for years” thing!  But there’s obviously something going on I don’t know about-”

“And you just can’t have that, can you?” Catra rolls her eyes.  She can feel old habits start to settle in the space between them.

“Okay, we need to know what we’re doing next,” Bow interrupts, looking at her with a curt nod, trying to keep the interaction from devolving in front of them all.  

“Mystacor,” Glimmer answers, eyes still covered, sniffling. “We can get in contact with Brightmoon from there and my Aunt Casta can see if there’s anything we can do for Adora’s memories.”

“Yeah, because right now we don’t have She-Ra and I would really like to get her back before we go trying to break up a siege or something,” Mermista cuts in.  “Oh, and like Adora’s memories,” she corrects quickly as Glimmer shoots her a dirty look.

“She-Ra? Is that the-” Adora holds her hand high above her head as if measuring height.  

“The tall sword lady you turned into,” Bow confirms.

“Right.  And why do we need her?”

“The She-Ra has protected Etheria for thousands of years and you are the first She-Ra in a thousand,” Perfuma sighs dreamily.

“What, so I’m supposed to save Etheria or something?”

“Yes.  She-Ra’s role is to protect Etheria.  You’re a vital part of the Princess Alliance,” Frosta confirms, almost breezy. Adora nods absently. 

“Perfect, of course, I am.”

“Yeah, like we’re all pretty much dead without her,” Mermista adds.

“That’s so comforting, thanks,” Adora bites back.

“We’re not dead without She-Ra,” Bow corrects.  “We’re going to figure this out.”

Glimmer teleports down to Mystacor once they’re hovering over its airspace to explain before they try to land.  A Horde aircraft won’t be well-received without an explanation. When they get the go-ahead to land, Glimmer and her aunt are already walking towards the craft.  Aunt Casta makes a beeline for Adora.

“Oh, Adora, I’m so sorry to hear about your memories.  I’m sure this all must be so overwhelming,” she approaches them.  Catra rolls her eyes where Aunt Casta can’t see. She’s never met her, but this gushing she’s doing is already unappealing to her.

“Ah, yeah, I guess?  It’s not so bad because I don’t really have the memories to compare it to but, uh, thanks?  Ah!” she yelps and freezes as Castaspella throws her arms around her. She looks as if she’d rather disappear into the ground.

“I’m Glimmer’s Aunt Casta.  Nice to meet you again,” she tells her.  

“Nice to meet you...again too?” Adora nods, stuttering with a fervor that makes it clear she wants out of this interaction as quickly as possible.

“So, what’s an aunt?” Adora mutters to Catra when she moves on.

“Beats me,” she shrugs.

She doesn’t move on for long, though.  Catra forgets she’s already well-acquainted with Etherian royalty and she talks to each princess as if she’s known them all their lives.  Catra wouldn’t doubt it if she has. Eventually, she loops back around to them.

“And you must be Catra,” she grins.

“What gave it away?” she raises an eyebrow, tail twitching in irritation. “The ears, the tail, or the eyes?”

Aunt Casta purses her lips.  Catra can tell she’s already not a favorite.

Scorpia stumbles forward to introduce herself.

“Hi!  I’m Scorpia.  Thanks so much for letting us land here, we were in a pickle just circling around,” she chuckles.  “Who would’ve thought Brightmoon would be attacked that fast? It’s crazy-”

“I know.  Such a shock-”

They devolve into enthusiastic chit-chat.  When they’re finally done, Aunt Casta mutters “I like her, Glimmer,” far too loud.  Everyone can hear.

“Yeah, great, I’m glad you like Scorpia, she’s awesome.  But Adora? Her memories? It’s kind of an emergency.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Casta sighs.  “Come with me, Adora. We’ll see if we can’t get you back to your old self.”

Adora looks torn between wanting to refuse and her curiousness about a version of her that she no longer knows. 

While Adora is being looked after, they spend the first few minutes trying to get in contact with Brightmoon.  It takes multiple tries, but eventually, Spinnerella’s hazy image appears.

“Glimmer!” she sighs, relieved.  “I’m so glad, we had no way to contact you, we were so afraid you’d try to come back here-”

“So it’s true?” Glimmer asks, scowling bitterly.

“Yeah,” she nods.  “They attacked early this morning.  We’ve managed to hold them off, but they have us surrounded.”

Glimmer nods.

“Is my mom around?”

“They’ve stopped firing for a little while, we might be able to get her here for a moment.  Sweetheart?” she calls for Netossa off-screen. “Will you see if the queen is able to talk for a moment?”

They wait by the screen with bated breath for her to appear.  It takes nearly a half hour before they see her.

“Glimmer,” she sighs.

“Mom! I’m so sorry, we-”

“There’s no way we could’ve known,” Angella shakes her head.  “We did the best we could. I wouldn’t have let you go into the Fright Zone with less than the force you had.   Besides, this attack was uncharacteristic for them. They’re usually on the offensive and they retreat quickly. They’ve never attempted anything sustained like this-” she shakes her head.  “Did you find Adora?” she asks, grim, clearly bracing herself.

Glimmer covers her face.

“That depends on what you mean by found Adora.”

“Oh, Glimmer, no-” Angella’s eyes go wide and they can see them water even through the flickering screen.

“No, no,” Glimmer shakes her head wildly.  “She’s alive. But they wiped her memories.  She doesn’t remember any of us, doesn’t remember defecting.  She doesn’t even remember she’s She-Ra. They had her engineer the attack on Brightmoon last night and this morning.”

“So she’s still in the Fright Zone,” Angella nods.

“No.  Catra got her to leave with us, but that’s the best we could do.  We’re in Mystacor seeing if Aunt Casta can do anything for her.”

“And you’ll stay in Mystacor,” Angella nods.

“Mom!” Glimmer wails.  “No, we can’t leave you all there, we have to help-”

“No, you have to ensure the Princess Alliance stays safe.  We can coordinate an offense together later, but Glimmer, you can’t just jump into this and try to improvise your way through.  Their defense is all but foolproof-” Angella sighs. “I have to commend Adora, she designed an ironclad defense. But they appear to be opting for a low-impact long-haul defense.  We’ll outlast them long enough to think of something and buy you all time to help Adora.”

“I don’t want to just sit here!”

“Glimmer, I’d love for you to be able to come home.  But I’m not losing you after worrying all day that you all would come back without knowing and get yourselves killed trying to come back.  We’re safe for now and so are you. That will have to be good enough.”

Glimmer slams a fist down on the control panel but she doesn’t argue any longer.

“Please be careful,” Glimmer pleads.

“I think I should be more worried about you,” Angella quirks an eyebrow and smiles sadly.  “Stay there, stay safe, and we’ll be back in contact as soon as we have the situation a little more under control.  Focus on training. We’ll need you soon enough, with or without She-Ra.”

Glimmer nods.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

When the screen goes dark, Glimmer growls.

“I’m going to the steam grotto before I go insane.”

“You want company?” Bow asks kindly.

“Sure.”

“Can I come too!?” Frosta asks, frantic.

“I don’t even care, do what you want,” she stalks off, frustrated.  Bow and Frosta follow her.

“Not getting into that,” Mermista sighs.  “I’m going to see that cloud beach or whatever.  It’s not a real beach, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Oh, clouds!” Perfuma grins.  “I love clouds.”

Mermista walks out, grabbing Sea Hawk and Perfuma on the way out, both of them in tow.  

“You can go with them if you want,” Catra turns to Scorpia.  Kyle twiddles his thumbs in the corner. She leans over to look at him. “You too.”

Kyle runs out at the first indication that he’s allowed to, sprinting after them.  Scorpia stays.

“I’d rather stay with you,” she smiles.

“No you wouldn’t, I can tell you want to go see that beach.”

“Sure I do, but you’re way more important than a beach,” she shrugs.

“Okay, well I don’t know if I’m going to be very interesting right now,” Catra answers, wandering off with Scorpia following her.

She finally settles on a boulder at the edge of an outcrop.  Below them is a sea of fluffy clouds. Catra tries not to think of the ways it reminds her of the flight she took with Adora yesterday, how it seems like years ago even though it was barely a day ago, how the kisses she gave her seem now like they may never have happened.

“Hey, wildcat, talk to me.  I know you’re torn up about all this.”

“I’m not torn up,” she huffs, but the tremble in her voice gives her away.  Scorpia lifts her with ease and puts her in her lap. “Let me go,” Catra tries to protest, but the words crack, feeble and small.  Scorpia doesn’t listen, opting instead to gently hold her there. She doesn’t say anything.

“What was the point of all of this?!” Catra snaps, a wave of roiling anger and grief overtaking before she can fight it off.  “What’s the point in trying if it always goes to shit anyway?! 

She kicks at a rock and it falls, whistling as it descends.  She watches it disappear into the clouds.

“Careful, there,” Scorpia tells her, patient.  “I don’t want you going over the cliff, too.”

“I wouldn’t even care at this point,” she flops back into Scorpia’s arms.  Scorpia chuckles.

“Yeah you would,” she pokes her with a claw.  

“Not really!  Why do I try if she’s just going to end up not caring at some point anyway?!”

Scorpia sighs.

“Listen,  I don’t like Adora all that much-”

The admission stuns Catra so badly she doesn’t have the energy to continue her outburst.

“You like everybody,” she argues.

“No, there are people I don’t like-” she argues. “Adora never did anything to me personally, but I never liked that she left you.  She’s not my favorite person in the world. I have a lot of problems with her and I think she’s left you plenty of times. But this time?  I don’t think this time was one of them.”

Catra stares at her, open-mouthed.

“I can’t believe you don’t like someone,” Catra shakes her head, still stunned.

“Hey, I think Adora and I can make our peace some day after all this has calmed down,” Scorpia shakes her head, ever the pacifist.  “I might even like her then. But that’s not what I’m trying to tell you here. I’m trying to say that this time isn’t her fault.”

“Still sucks,” Catra argues and Scorpia laughs.

“I didn’t say that it didn’t, it’s definitely not the best.  You finally let your guard down and-”

“Ugh, stop,” Catra groans.  “I hate it when you do that.”

“I know, but I don’t think you two are getting out of this if you don’t accept that you’re more of a softie than you want to admit to anyone.  That’s one of the things I love about you.”

“I’m seriously going to die if you don’t stop.”

“No you won’t, you’ll live.  You get hurt easy and you thought you were safe this time and it happened again.”

“Yeah, okay?! Just keep rubbing it in!”

“I’m not trying to rub it in.  I’m trying to say it’s worth trying again.”

“Why would that ever be worth it?”

“Do you love her?”

“I’m not doing this right now.”

“Yeah you are, it’s okay,” Scorpia coddles her and Catra bristles.

“No, I’m not,” she tries to wriggle out of her grasp, but Scorpia holds firm.

“Don’t run from it, just answer it.”

“Yeah, okay?! Yeah, I love her, happy?! I have my whole stupid life and it’s come back to bite me a billion times and I apparently don’t learn because I still do after all of this crap!” she snarls.  Scorpia laughs and nods.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.  That’s when you know.”

Catra deflates when she realizes Scorpia is also talking about herself.

“You feel like that about me, don’t you?”

“Of course!  I’ve told you that,” she smiles, open and sweet.

“I don’t know why. Because it sucks.”

“You’ve got to stop looking at it like that.  Can it be sad when things don’t go the way you want? Absolutely.  But remember I told you caring about people was an adventure? Adventures aren’t easy.  They wouldn’t be interesting or worth it if they were. To me, there’s no point denying it or acting like you don’t love her if you know you do.  And if you do, you’ll do what you can for her even if it doesn’t go the direction you want.”

“Why are you still trying to help me when you don’t even like her?

“Because I love you, I don’t own you. What kind of person would I be if I said I loved you and then let you give up on something like this?”

“Like what? Being on opposite sides of a war twice over and almost killing each other more than a few times?”

“All that and you still love each other? That’s the real thing, wildcat, and I’m not letting you give up on it.”

“She doesn’t love me.”

“Oh yes, she does.  She trusted you enough to leave everything she knows and go with you barely an hour ago.  Shadow Weaver erased her memories, but she knew she couldn’t erase you and still have Adora be Adora at all.  Even the worst person we know knows you’re the most important person in her life, so why don’t you?”

“Great, so I’m important.  What good is that going to do right now? She doesn’t remember anything.  Nothing that happened in Brightmoon-” she trails off, remembering a flurry of soft kisses that Adora doesn’t remember. 

“What good will it do?  Well, all of it,” Scorpia chuckles. “You’re the only person in the world she knows she can trust right now.  She’s in a place she doesn’t know, with people she doesn’t know, and she has to figure out how to be She-Ra all over again. She needs you more than anything. Etheria needs her, but she needs you to get out of this.  I think you can do more good for her and for this entire planet than anyone right now.”

“Great, no pressure,” she rolls her eyes.  

They settle into a comfortable silence.  Catra doesn’t move from Scorpia’s arms. She nestles into them, wondering how Scorpia always manages to be there for her worst moments, always manages to be there and love her without expecting anything in return.

“Scorpia, no one deserves you, you know that right?” she mutters.

“Huh?  Sorry, I was watching that butterfly-” she points to a flower next to them and Catra snickers.

“I just said no one deserves you.”

“That’s not true,” she shakes her head.  “I don’t do things for other people because I’m expecting anything.  I just want to. That’s who I am and that’s enough for me.”

“Yeah, so like I said, no one deserves you, especially not me.”

“You deserve the world,” she answers simply.

“Not helping,” Catra groans.  “Anyway, thanks for always being around when stuff like this happens.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” she shrugs happily.  Catra gives up on trying to express how little she deserves anything like this and just settles in to watch the butterfly with her. 

The next thing she knows, Scorpia is shaking her gently.  Catra starts a little.

“You fell asleep,” Scorpia explains.  “She’s looking for you.”

Catra sits up and looks over Scorpia’s shoulder.  Adora has emerged and stands with Glimmer’s Aunt.

Scorpia nudges her forward.

“Thanks,” Catra tells her before darting off to her.

“Do you know where my niece went?” Casta asks her.

“Some steam pool or something?”

She nods.

“I’m going to go speak to her about this.  I did my best, but she did a thorough job. She may be able to recover her memories with time and work, but this is no quick fix.  They’re buried pretty deeply in there,” she explains. She looks drawn.

Catra shrugs.

“We’ll just have to make do without them for now.”

“I’ll keep working with her, but I think that’s indeed best not to rely on it.  If you’ll excuse me-” she turns to go find Glimmer. Adora sighs.

“That was weird,” she tells Catra.

“I bet.  What happened?”

“I mean, mostly me trying to lie still and her closing her eyes a lot and putting her hands around my head?  Trying to be still with nothing to do was the worst part. It was kind of torture.”

Catra laughs a little.  

“Yeah, better you than me.”

“Hey,” Adora pushes her playfully before she goes quiet again. 

“You holding on, there?” Catra asks her when she stands there, looking as if she isn’t sure what to do or where to go.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she tells her quietly, refusing to answer.

“Sap,” Catra answers, but she leans her shoulder into hers.  “But I’m glad you’re here, too. Thanks for following me.”

Adora shrugs.

“We look out for each other.  You know, you’re a little different, but I could get used to it,” she smiles faintly.  “Thanks is a new one for you.”

“Don’t get too comfortable, I’m still me,” she shoves her mercilessly with a foot and Adora stumbles, giggling and lunging back at her.  They wrestle playfully in the grass for a moment before Adora stops again.

“Do those princesses want to talk to me again or something? Should we go find them?”

“Who cares about them?” Catra waves her away.  “We’ve done enough today. I could use a break from them.”

“Me too,” Adora nods, grateful.  Catra isn’t actually bothered by them all that much anymore, but she can see the fatigue weighing heavier and heavier on Adora’s shoulders with each passing moment and knows she could use a moment of not being reminded that they know her and are grieving a person she isn’t any longer.

“So, why don’t we go see what’s around here instead?” Catra jabs her thumb behind her at the open landscape of Mystacor that blends so seamlessly into the sky.

“Haven’t you been here before?” 

“No, actually, this is my first time here too and I’m really interested in seeing how fast I can get into trouble,” she grins.

“Don’t we have to live here for a while?” Adora reminds her, disapproving.

“Yeah, so?” Catra shrugs.  “Just lighten up and have fun for a second, Adora, I won’t get us kicked out.  Promise.”

Adora waits for a moment.

“When have I ever led you astray?” Catra asks.  Adora rolls her eyes.

“Way more times than I can count.  And also never,” she smiles.  

Catra marvels that the one person that can make her forget that she lost the Adora she knew just yesterday is Adora herself.  Catra has known Adora in so many multitudes. She’s known a precocious child missing her front teeth, an ambitious and oblivious teenager.  She’s known a ferocious warrior and a scared young woman. She’s known her as a friend, as an enemy, as a protector, a betrayer, and a lover.  This Adora is different still than all of them. But there’s something that’s always the same whenever they’re together that Catra can’t fully describe or put her finger on.  

She decides that today, parsing it out doesn’t matter.  What matters is Catra and Adora and the ways they always seem to be able to make each other forget for a moment how the weight of the world presses differently on their shoulders.  Today, they play instead, finding new wonders to explore, giggling and running together where land meets sky.

Chapter Text

Catra braces herself, struggling to hold her stun wand steady against She-Ra’s sword.  Adora grits her teeth, clearly fighting to hold on to her transformation. When Catra’s arms start to buckle under the force, she slips under Adora’s arms, darting around to her back, lightly stunning her.  She-Ra yelps and swings behind her, slicing the top half of the stun wand clean off. She also shears off a few hairs from the top of Catra’s head.

“I mean, good move, but try not to kill me, maybe?” Catra growls.

“You startled me!” she huffs, turning and swinging again. 

“Yeah, that’s the idea!” she jumps and Adora moves to strike at her in midair, but she falls short.  The sword disappears before them and Adora is left stunned, standing in the middle of Mystacor’s training ground, holding a golden hairbrush.

“Is...I’m asleep, aren’t I?  This is a dream,” she mutters.

“No, it isn’t, your sword does that,” Catra stops her assault and walks calmly over to her.

“It does?  How do I get it to go back?!”

“Beats me,” Catra shrugs.  “I don’t know how it works, I just know it changes into other stuff.”

“Of course it does,” Adora growls.  “And everyone except me already knows that, don’t they?”

“Pretty much.”

“Not helping,” Adora crosses her arms, holding her head as if fighting a headache.  Her transformation flickers and disappears.

“You asked,” Catra shrugs.  “But let’s just say training is over for the day.”

“But, that’s not enough training! I’m supposed to be helping with that big fight or whatever you guys are planning, and here I am with this!” she thrusts the brush at Catra.

“I mean, I’ll fight with you with a brush as a weapon if you really want, but it’s going to be a short fight.”

Adora groans, helplessly staring at the glittering brush.  The tell-tale beat of a wide and strong wingspan sounds above them.

“Glimmer’s back anyway, maybe she knows how the sword thing works,”  Catra offers and Adora nods, following her, a little defeated.

Glimmer and Bow land, clearly exhausted.  Glimmer’s hair is disheveled. Bow blinks a little too often as if he’s having trouble keeping his eyes open.

“How’d it go?” Catra asks.

“Oh, you know, the usual,” Bow answers.

“Fly around, get shot at, fly around some more,” Swift Wind supplies.  Adora shrinks a little beside Catra. “Sorry,” he remembers, ducking his head a little.

Swift Wind and Adora have been tiptoeing around one another for the last weeks, friendly, but with an undercurrent of guilt.  Swift Wind seems to feel personally responsible for Adora’s memory loss. Adora, of course, is caught in limbo, listening day in and day out to the effects of the very same siege she designed at the same time that she’s trying to help outsmart it. 

“Everyone relax, it’s fine,” Glimmer sighs, a little disgruntled. “We got the supplies in, everyone is fine, Mom is fine and working on it, I recharged.  Now it’s time for sleep.”

“Yeah, sleep sounds great,” Bow smiles, wan.  “It’s a really long flight to Brightmoon.”

Glimmer, Bow, and Swift Wind have been in charge of running supplies during the siege.  It’s a two-day walking journey to Brightmoon from here and at least Swift Wind cuts the journey down to a little less than a day each way.  He can get Glimmer close enough to be able to teleport them in and Bow spots them to make sure they actually get through the blockade of Horde airships.  

There’s little time to rest, though, between journeys.  They can only carry so much at a time and Glimmer can only last so long without being able to recharge.  Catra can hardly blame her for being nearly at her wit’s end. Between constant traveling, being far away from her home, her mother, and her runestone, and the sting of a lover who doesn’t remember her, Glimmer has a shorter fuse than normal these days.  

“How’s training, Adora?” she asks, trying not to seem overly familiar.

“Oh, it’s, you know,” Adora shrugs.  “My sword turns into stuff.”

“That’s awesome! That’s quicker than last time!” Glimmer’s eyes light up, hopeful that She-Ra might be getting back to her usual self quicker than anticipated.

“I guess.  Right now, it’s just a hairbrush-” she sighs, defeated.  Bow chuckles.

“Don’t worry, that’s normal.  It’s a good thing! You’ll get the hang of it soon.”

“Yeah!” Glimmer nods, but her face has fallen in a way that’s difficult for her to hide.  Things between her and Adora have been a tense and strange dance of attempts to be friendly in order to avoid the undercurrent that Glimmer misses a girl Adora isn’t anymore.

“If not, I guess I’m taking on the Horde with a hairbrush,” Adora attempts a smile and a joke, but it falls flat.  

“Right, you three should probably sleep before she puts you to sleep out here,” Catra rolls her eyes, trying to lift the mood a little.  Like all such attempts lately, the best she gets is a round of half-smiles as Glimmer and Bow trudge off to their rooms and Swift Wind plods towards the stables. Adora hesitantly offers him an apple and a soft pat between the ears before he leaves.  

They wander automatically back to the room Adora and Catra share here.  Adora wastes no time flopping down against Catra on the bed. It’s been a strange feeling for her to get so close to Catra so willingly, but without the sweet intimacy they were just getting used to at Brightmoon.  This is how it used to be back in the Fright Zone, before all of this. Adora and Catra shared a bed, shared every moment and space together, without a second thought about it. Catra both loves the closeness she used to know, one that’s never been tested with a rift, and misses the imperfect beauty of an old and broken bond made new.

Catra never says anything about it.  Adora is barely coping with the changes she already knows about.  She doubts she’d be able to handle more. 

“Don’t you have another session with Casta-what’s-her-face?” Catra asks and Adora groans.

“In a half-hour, yeah.”

Catra laughs.  Adora patiently puts up with these sessions with Casta, and few know how badly she loathes them.  She’s putting on a brave face for the rest of Mystacor. But Catra gets her honest thoughts and, so far, she isn’t a fan.

“I don’t see how it’s helping.  I don’t know about you, but this magic stuff seems mostly for show to me so far-” Adora groans.

“I’ve seen it do a little more than show, but I’ve also never seen it bring back memories.  Then again, I’ve never seen anyone lose them like this either, so I don’t know what to tell you.  Beats fighting me with a hairbrush?” she grins, teasing.  

“I’d rather fight you with a hairbrush,” she rolls her eyes and Catra cackles.

During these sessions, Catra wanders aimlessly.  This is one of the few places in Etheria that’s as-yet unsullied by a twist of complex memories, paradoxes of pain and sweetness.  Mystacor is beautifully neutral territory. There’s something Catra loves about how the edge of it disappears into clouds, about the knowledge that they’re high in the air, nigh-unreachable.  She paces along the edges of its cliffs and its strange cloud-covered beaches, the feeling of sinking sand and dewey mist pleasant for its unfamiliarity.  

Sometimes she’ll wander around and find Scorpia sunning herself on the beach and sit with her, curling up to nap next to her in the sun.  Sometimes she lounges high in the boughs of the trees, for once enjoying the feeling that they’re frozen up here, in a stasis she almost loves.  Almost.

Without fail, though, she’s back in the room they share by the time Adora is finished.

“How was it?  I don’t know why I’m asking,” Catra laughs a little, walking in. “Unless she waved her hands differently this time-” she jokes. 

“Actually, something happened-” Adora answers, near-imperceptible.  Catra freezes, eyes wide.

“W-what? Actually?” she asks, frantic, bolting over to her.

“Yeah,” Adora answers, but she seems withdrawn.  She’s nowhere near as excited as Catra is. There’s a heavy feeling sinking quickly into the air around them.

“What did you remember?” Catra asks, her excitement fading.

“I remember leaving,” Adora tells her, staring almost blankly at the wall before she turns to look at Catra and her eyes go melancholy.  “You didn’t come with me.”

Catra can’t bear to keep looking at her.  She turns to sit on the bed, back to Adora, though close enough that they can still feel each other’s warmth. 

“Yeah,” Catra confirms.  “I know.”

Catra feels silly to have been excited to hear that one of Adora’s memories came back.  There’s a dearth of good ones about her until less than a year ago. What was she expecting?

“Why didn’t you come with me?  What made you leave? I mean, obviously you did eventually,” Adora scowls lightly, the shadow of the memory clearly fresh in her mind.

“It was complicated,” she answers.

“Complicated how?”

Catra sighs.

“Okay, look, you should probably know ahead of time, before you start remembering more stuff, that things got rocky between us for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Adora asks.  Her expression is almost unbearably disappointed.

“About four years.”

Adora’s mouth hangs open for a moment.  Catra takes the opportunity to speak.

“There are probably a lot of things you’ll remember about me that I’m not proud of. Just, maybe wait until they all come back before you judge me if you can.  If you can’t I won’t blame you. But a lot changed in the past year.”

“You make it sound like we hated each other.”

Catra can only look at the floor.

“Did we?”

“It was complicated, but hate might’ve been in there sometimes, yeah.”

“I don’t know if I could hate you,” Adora shakes her head, unable to process it.

“Maybe you should talk to me in a few more memories.”

“Was it that bad?” Adora presses.  

Catra just sighs and leans back against her.  

“I think you’ll have to decide that one for yourself,” she mutters.  

“Do you mind if I go tell Bow and Glimmer?” she asks, quiet, after a few minutes.  

“Go for it, they’ll be beside themselves,” Catra mutters.  Adora nods and leaves, looking a little lost. Suddenly Catra can’t bear to be in there anymore.  She can’t keep looking at the rumpled pillow with little strands of golden hair left behind. She can’t bear the familiar smell of clean sheets and Adora mingling together.  She leaves too, nearly on Adora’s heels, stalking down the hall and walking into Scorpia’s room with no preamble.

“Oh! Hi, Catra,” Scorpia jumps before grinning.  “You startled me.”

Catra just goes to sit on the bed, happy for a different smell.  Scorpia sits next to her.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Scorpia nods and chats idly about her day with Catra, not expecting a response.  

“It’s been a little quiet now that the princesses went back to their kingdoms, but you know, you have to do what you have to do.  But Casta has been so great to talk to. She even tried to knit me a sweater! It didn’t last very long with, you know, the spikes.  It kind of immediately unraveled and it’s not really the season for it, but I’ve never had a sweater like that before! And she told me Adora had a breakthrough today-”

“Wait, you know about that?”

“Sure, I do!  She said she finally remembered defecting.  That wasn’t a secret, was it? I’m going to feel so awful if it was-”

“No, no, it’s not a secret,” Catra cuts her off.

Scorpia stares at her for a moment before she raises her eyebrows.

“Oh, I get it.  You don’t like that she’s remembering things.  Because they’re not great-”

“No, they’re pretty bad!” Catra snaps.  “And I didn’t really have to face her about it the same way last time.  It’s not like I don’t want her to remember some things. There’s just some I wish would stay locked away in there.”

“I bet,” Scorpia nods.  “Well, you can always come in here if you’re feeling bad about it.  Don’t come in here for too long, though.”

“What?” Catra asks, genuinely confused and unable to quash the little flash of hurt she didn’t expect to feel.

“Not like that,” Scorpia chuckles.  “I’m always glad to see you. I just mean, if you really want things to work out with her, she needs to know it’s going to be different this time.”

“Different how?” Catra mutters.

“She needs to know you’re not leaving this time.”

“Leaving?! She left me -”

“Trust me, that’s what I think too.  But she probably feels the other way around,” Scorpia shrugs. “She needs to see that you’re sticking around this time.  She needs to see that you’re not the same wildcat from a year ago. You have to be around for that to happen.”

“I guess,” Catra sighs, flopping unceremoniously against her side.

Things are peaceful on the surface in the coming days.  Adora, despite her disappointment in her revelation that Catra didn't defect with her years ago, seems brighter.  The smiles she gives Glimmer and Bow are more familiar and less strained. She moves as if she’s a little more comfortable, not that Adora ever lacks a little bit of tension.  Adora has always been regimented and a little nervous, but at least this tension comes without the listlessness she had just days ago. 

For Catra, the smiles she gives back to Adora hide a fear in the back of her mind of what’s coming next.  Is this the only thing Adora will remember, or is there more to follow? What if she only remembers the bad things Catra did and never remembers those months in Brightmoon?  What if she remembers out of order and Catra is left scrambling to explain?

Catra watches her, wary for the next memories to flood her mind.  

But nothing happens.  They keep training together, eating together, sleeping together, just as they always have.  Every session with Casta leaves Adora empty-handed once again. Adora herself is frustrated, but Catra can’t help but be secretly glad.  

Things settle into a tenuous peace until the night Catra wakes to Adora’s heel slamming into the space between her ribs.  She wheezes, breath knocked out of her, trying to get her bearings. Adora’s eyes are shut tight and Catra can hear her teeth grind together.  She’s tossing and turning. It must be a nightmare.

“Adora,” Catra shoves her a little, trying to wake her.  “Adora wake up.”

She continues to sweat, kicking intermittently.  Catra rolls her eyes and moves to the head of the bed, taking a shoulder in each hand and shaking harder.  

“Adora!”

Adora’s eyes fly open with a strangled gasp.  She grasps Catra’s wrists and flings her off the bed with a yelp.

Catra has no time to react.  She lands on her back a foot away, chest heaving, staring at Adora.

“Catra! I’m so sorry.  Are you okay?” Adora asks when she finally remembers where she is.

“Kinda feel like that’s what I should be asking you,” Catra slowly rises, wincing a little.

Adora shakes her head, staring at nothing in particular.  She puts her legs over the side of the bed, feet on the floor.

“I think so.”

“Sure.  You just had a hell of a nightmare and threw me halfway across the room.  But you’re fine. You don’t have to talk about it, I’m just saying, that doesn’t seem fine.”

Adora absently touches her cheek before she scowls.  She traces the scars there before reaching to her back.  She turns to Catra when she finds scarring there too.

“Catra?”

Catra wants to run.  She knows what’s coming, but she’s frozen in place.  She doesn’t answer.

“Do you know where these came from?” she presses, scowling deeper as it starts to dawn on her.

Catra crosses her arms and nods.

“Was that real?” she asks.

“Depends what you saw.”

“You,” Adora’s voice starts and falters for a moment.  “We were in a simulation. It turned on us. It almost killed us. And then you,” she struggles to continue, voice trembling and going high and strangled with emotion.  “You dropped me off a cliff. And then we were in a fight or a battle or something and you scratched my face here,” she touches the scars in turn, “and my back. Really badly.”

Catra wants to be able to answer her, but the words can’t escape.  They falter and die in her throat

“Was that real?” Adora asks again, more urgent, the tremble in her voice rapidly building into hysterics.

Catra can’t speak, but she nods once.  Adora’s mouth hangs open and her eyes start to water.  She doesn’t want to look at her at the same time she feels it’s only fair to.  

“Why?” she asks finally after opening and closing her mouth, trying to find the words.

“I don’t know-”

“You seemed to know then!” Adora snaps.  “You dropped me off a cliff and clawed me so badly I needed stitches and you don’t know ?”

“Because I was angry that you left me!” Catra answers, trying to keep her voice level, but the desperation is seeping in anyway.

“But I told you you could come with me! I told you it wasn’t about you-”

“I know, okay?!” she snaps a little before she reins it back in, clenching a fist and willing herself to speak slowly, deliberately.  “I wanted to be mad because you left and I was scared.  I didn’t want to hear you,” she answers. Honesty like this smarts.  It takes every bit of restraint Catra has not to run from the conversation like she’s used to.

“Look, I know I messed up too.  I left you in a bad situation, but I tried to bring you with me. And you didn't just not come with me, you tried to get revenge on me.  And it worked. It really worked. I mean, losing you would’ve been enough, but you took it so far. Maybe it’s not fair to talk about this stuff right now, but it feels really fresh, and-” she babbles out of control, sniffling, words coming faster and faster until she’s stumbling over them.

“Because I wanted to hurt you back,” she mutters, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes, unable to keep speaking and looking Adora in the eye at the same time.  “I wanted you to feel like I felt when you left me.”

“I never left because of you!” she wails.  “I was so glad to see you in Thaymore because I was alone with Rebellion fighters and had just figured out I was some magic princess and I thought you would help me!  Instead, you turned it into something personal! It wasn’t like I was leaving you for them, it was a lot bigger than you! Than me, than all of us!”

“I know, Adora!  I’m figuring that out now! Like, right now,” Catra bites, exasperated but trying her best to keep the conversation under some semblance of control.  “Look, I wasn’t around last time for all this. All I knew is that you left me to cover for you in the middle of the night and when I found you again, you had two rebellion fighters with you.  You were telling me you were leaving because somehow they made you realize the Horde was evil, but years of Shadow Weaver treating me like she did didn’t faze you.  I didn’t have any time to figure any of it out-”

“I didn’t either!”

“Adora, I know! We’ve already had this fight-”

“Well I don’t remember!” she finally breaks and tears start to fall.  Catra at once hates its honesty and wishes she were able to do the same.  “I have to relive all of this stuff! I’m going through months in the span of a few days and everyone is staring at me and I know they want someone I’m not anymore and-”

“Listen,” Catra starts, hand half-laced through her own hair, tired and frustrated.  “I suck at this. Like, I really suck at this and mostly got through this fight before because you let me get away with not having to talk very much.  But it’s pretty clear that’s not going to work this time and it probably shouldn’t have before-” she trails off. Adora watches her, half-betrayed, half-hopeful, eyes still watery.  “I know I wasn’t there the first time around to see any of this. And I also did some really messed up stuff to you that I can’t take back. At the time, I thought you deserved it-”

“Who would ever deserve-” she starts before Catra shakes her head.

“No one, okay?! I didn’t deal with my own shit about you and Shadow Weaver and I took it out on you,” she growls, barely able to force the words to the surface. 

Adora blinks, looking at the floor.

“Sure, we both messed up, but you already apologized for yours and tried to make it right,” Catra continues.

“I did?”

“Yeah. And I haven’t really done the same.  I can’t fix what I already did, but I’m trying to do better now.  I know I wasn’t around last time, but I’m around this time. I don’t even think that probably helps, but-”

“It helps,” she nods, putting her head in her hands.  “I don’t remember the whole thing yet. But so far, the worst part of last time was doing it without you.”

Catra nods and can’t answer her at first.  When she does, she tells her, “Yeah. Same here.”

Catra sits heavily next to Adora, whose head is still in her hands. 

“I didn’t know you needed stitches.”

“Yeah.  But that wasn’t really the worst part.  The...words were worse,” she answers quietly and Catra shrinks a little, ears flat to her head.

“I know this is probably dumb, but I never knew how bad that stuff bothered you,” Catra tells her.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t really ask,” Adora murmurs, shaking her head and not meeting her eyes.

“I know.  I’m sorry.”

“And you obviously meant for it to hurt-”

“I know.  I just,” Catra shrugs.  “I guess I always thought of you as kind of invincible.  I knew it would bother you to a point, yeah. But not like this.  Or maybe I just didn’t want to think about how bad it might bother you.  I just wanted you to know I was mad and I was going to do whatever I had to.  I’m sorry.”

Adora turns to look at her.  It’s a searching look, a mix of skepticism and hope.  

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you say that.”

“You haven’t.  And I’m sorry for that too.”

Adora nods, sitting up a little.  

“Am I weird if I’m glad you’re here even though I’m also upset because of you?”

“I mean you are weird,” Catra nods.  “But not for that, no.  I get it. It was kind of the same with me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  I don’t know, this stuff is weird.”

“Yeah,” Adora nods, sniffling a little still.  She hesitantly tips her head to rest on Catra’s shoulder.   “Sorry I woke you up to yell at you about something you did almost five years ago.”

Catra shrugs, though gently, careful not to upset where Adora is as she leans against her. 

“It was pretty overdue.”

“Still.”

They settle into a strange silence, the kind that’s rough and tosses like waves, simultaneously relieved and heavy in turns.

“Do you want me to leave?”  Catra asks, hoarse after what seems like hours. 

“No,” Adora shakes her head.  “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.  You can go ahead if you want.”

“I’m not really sure I can sleep either.”

Adora nods and moves to prop herself up on the bed, back against the headboard.  Catra moves slowly to join her there, leaving plenty of time for Adora to protest if she wants to.  She doesn’t, though. They sit together, close but not touching, staring out at the room. Adora steals little glances Catra’s way from time to time.  Catra jumps, startled, when Adora reaches out to touch her arm.

“Sorry!” she yanks her hand back.

“No, it’s okay.  I just didn’t expect it,” Catra shakes her head.  She almost turns back to stare at the ceiling like she’s been doing.  But Adora watches her, hesitant, eyes wide.

“Just say it, Adora,” she rolls her eyes.

“Did I give you that?” she reaches out and gently traces a scar that runs across her upper arm, clean and straight.

“Yeah,” she answers with no hesitation or preamble. Adora flinches as if she’s been hit.  

“I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t worry about it.  An eye for an eye,” she shrugs.  Adora purses her lips.

“I don’t think it really works like that.”

“Well, whether it does or not, you kinda had to.  You hesitated plenty of times and that’s what happened,” she points to Adora’s cheek.

“Did I give you any others?” she asks.

“A few.  You cracked a rib once.”

She swallows hard and nods.

“I think I remember that.”

“If you remember that fight, you do, yeah.  It was right after I clawed you.”

“Yeah, I remember.  I didn’t know it cracked a rib-”

Catra nods, wordless.

“Things got pretty messed up between us, huh?” Adora sniffles.  “I know you tried to warn me, but I had no idea-”

“Yeah, see why I told you to wait a few memories before you said you couldn’t hate me?” she laughs darkly. 

Adora sighs.

“That’s the thing.  I still don’t. I don’t remember everything yet, but I don’t think I ever did,” she answers, resolute.

In a rare moment of honesty, Catra asks, “Am I weird if I wish you had, at least a little?”

Adora raises an eyebrow.

“Why, so you felt less bad?”

“Obviously.”

Adora quirks a tiny smile.

“Good to know you feel a little bit bad about it.”

Catra rolls her eyes.

“Of course I do, I’m not a psychopath, Adora.”

“You sure?” Adora pokes and the joke catches Catra off guard.  She cackles, glad for the irreverence.

“Not always,” she teases back, grinning.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m really kidding,” Adora shakes her head.  After the laughter dies, she gives her that look again, the one that tells Catra she has more to say, another question.

“Adora, you can just ask questions, you know.  You don’t have to figure out a way to say it, just say it.”

She smiles sheepishly before her expression goes pensive. 

“Did you ever hate me?”

Catra sighs.

“If you had asked me that before I left, I would’ve said yes.”

Adora stares, clearly a little apprehensive that Catra is going to answer yes.

“But to tell you the truth?  No. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to.  I really wanted to hate you. It would’ve been a lot easier,” Catra draws her knees up to her chest and loops her arms around them.  “I tried to. I actually tried really hard to, but I never managed it. I think I ended up hating myself a lot more for not being able to hate you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.  I worried you did.”

“Well, I did do my best to make you think so,” Catra concedes.

“Thanks for telling me that,” Adora continues after another strange and weighty silence.  “I know that wasn’t easy. You’ve always been sensitive.”

“Ugh, I’m not sensitive,” Catra huffs.

“Whatever makes you feel better,” Adora smiles.

They stay up until the first hint of sunrise bathes the clouds at the edges of Mystacor in brilliant orange.  Sometimes Adora asks small questions. Sometimes she silently rests her head on Catra’s shoulder. Catra refuses to sleep until Adora drifts off in the middle of a sentence, head propped on her shoulder still.  

The coming weeks are strange as she starts to remember more and the Adora they know shifts constantly in front of them.  Catra is never sure what to expect from her when she walks through the door. Sometimes things are level, the same for days or even weeks on end and they settle into a tenuous peace.  Sometimes she walks in to find that the Adora she’s just gotten used to is gone again and replaced with someone else.

More and more, Catra walks in to find that Adora isn’t there altogether.   Even when she’s physically here, there’s a distance to her. Catra should’ve known this might happen.  After all, she all but disappeared from Adora’s life for years, only appearing to oppose her before leaving again.  Of course she’ll want to be with the friends who were there for her during the years Catra was gone.

It’s a painful dissonance to see Adora, real and warm here in front of her, and feel as if she’s slipping through her fingers all the same.

But Catra stays anyway so that she’s there for Adora to come back to if she wishes.  For once, she resists running, resists leaving Mystacor and disappearing somewhere else like she might have done years ago, and stays instead.  

She stays for Adora to remember more and more of her friends and drift away from Catra a little.  She stays to watch them, overjoyed at finding her again, walk together around the grounds, eat together, train with her, laugh at things they’re privy to and Catra isn’t.  She stays the day Adora leaves her session with Casta, beet-red, to go find Glimmer, stammering through a conversation with her that Catra can’t hear but knows the gist of all the same.  She stays even when Adora doesn’t sleep here much any longer.

Catra loses her over and over again in these months and stays anyway.  She isn’t always sure why she stays, whether it’s because she’s hoping that Adora comes back to her or if it’s because she isn’t sure where she’d go if not here.  Whatever the reason, Catra feels a strange compulsion to stay, even when she knows the least painful thing would be to leave.  

Still, for all her distance, Adora doesn’t leave Catra completely either. She still looks for her on the training ground when they’re running through drills.   She still seeks her out to tell her when she remembers something new or to show her when she learns how to transform her sword into something else. She still runs up to her, breathless and grinning, after her first flight on Swift Wind after months.  

Catra has a new respect for Scorpia in this strange interim in which Adora craves Catra’s presence, but can’t love her the way Catra wants.  She hopes one day she’ll be able to tell her so, that she knows now how gruelingly difficult work it is to stay when it’s painful.

This dissonance makes Catra glad for the distractions that come with war these days.  There’s plenty to do that doesn’t involve Adora, or at least not as directly. As She-Ra, she’s often there when they’re strategizing, but there’s a formality to these meetings that’s blessedly normal.  

The only thing that’s not as comfortable is that Catra and Glimmer are often forced to strategize together, on their own.  They’ve been tasked with the majority of the planning to take back Brightmoon. While Catra can’t say she necessarily dislikes Glimmer anymore, it’s uncomfortable to know that Adora clearly remembers their relationship as it was before all of this and doesn’t remember the one with Catra.  

“So, if we have the Salinean navy-” Glimmer narrows her eyes, peering closer at an ornate map in the middle of the table.  The map sparkles faintly, clearly enchanted.

Catra snorts.

“What navy? Isn’t that place deserted?”

“Okay, so maybe it’s just a few ships, but not the point-” Glimmer growls.  “There are still some soldiers left and if we can get them in to break up the blockade, they can come in from the northwest.”

She moves a marker across the map in the water next to Brightmoon.

“And then the Plumerians could come in from the south-”

Catra shakes her head.

“You can’t put them in the open.  There’s too few of them and they’re not well trained.  Have them come in from the east from the woods. Then the woods are on their side.”

Glimmer nods.

“Fair.  The Kingdom of Snows has a bigger force and they can manage in the open, so if they come in from the south, and Brightmoon attacks from the north-”

“We surround them up-” Catra nods.  

“Exactly.  That just leaves She-Ra.”

“Do you think she’s ready?” Catra raises an eyebrow.

Glimmer sighs. 

“She’s not where she was when she was captured, no.  But she’s come pretty far. I think she’s ready enough.”

Catra nods.

“Put her in the middle.”

“The middle?!  Are you insane?” Glimmer exclaims.

“I mean, probably.  But if you, Bow, and Swift Wind go in with her, Bow can spot her, and between you and Swift Wind, you’ll be able to get her out of there if you need to.  She-Ra isn’t good with a pinpointed and strategic attack. What She-Ra is good with is-”

“Chaos,” Glimmer nods.

“Exactly.   I mean, the first time I saw her in action she made an earthquake with no training just by putting a sword in the ground.  It won’t take skill or finesse for her to do what we need her to do. If we’re already pressing in on all sides, and we drop her in the middle? Chaos is exactly what we’ll get.  The Horde is organized and they’re great at keeping rank. But they can’t keep rank on five different sides. ”

“True.  But where are you and Scorpia in all this?” Glimmer asks, narrowing her eyes.

“Listen.  The Horde is like a swarm of wasps.  You can weaken it, you can take out all of its drones.  But if you don’t kill the queen? Guess what’s happening next summer?”

Glimmer nods.

“Another wasp’s nest.”

“They got us while we were distracted, but two can play at that game. While the Horde is concentrating all its energy on fighting us, Scorpia and I need to sneak in and get the queen. ”

“Hordak.”

Catra cackles.

“You seriously think he’s running this anymore? Hordak is good at threatening people who are better than he is at doing his bidding.  And if I know him, he’ll be at that battle once it starts to turn.”

“So Shadow Wea-”

“Entrapta,” Catra corrects.  “Entrapta is behind every single failure you’ve had since she joined the Horde.  Sure, you can probably win this battle if you put every single soldier you have in it.  But if we don’t stop her, she’ll learn from this and have a new army of bigger, smarter, more dangerous bots before you’ve even recovered just for the pleasure of knowing she can.”

Glimmer nods and closes her eyes.

“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?”

“Not if we can help it.  We’re after her tech, not her.  But if you’re going to outmaneuver Entrapta, you have to think like Entrapta.  Entrapta thinks of all this stuff as her friends. And has Entrapta ever worried about hurting us in any of this?”

Glimmer shakes her head.

“Exactly.  We’ll do our best.  But she isn’t going to pull punches and we can’t either.”

“Can you two do that alone?”

“We wrangled Entrapta for a lot longer than you did.  I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but if we want to give you all a fighting chance, we can’t sacrifice too many people.”

“Quality not quantity?”

“Yes,” Catra grins.

“Adora isn’t going to like that,” she shakes her head.

“You think I’m going to start worrying about what Adora likes now?”

“Guess not. But she’ll have a point.  It’s dangerous and it doesn’t leave you two with much backup.”

“I know.  But we’ve watched her build these machines.  We know where the data chips are in a lot of them.  We know which computers to go for. And I paid a bit more attention and understood more than she thinks,” she quirks a smile. 

“Are you sure?  Some of that stuff is advanced,” Glimmer narrows her eyes, skeptical.

“I’m really good at playing dumb and keeping my enemies close-” Catra crosses her arms.

“She wasn’t your enemy-”

“I have trust issues,” she snorts.  “Everyone is my enemy.”

“Even Adora?” Glimmer raises her eyebrows, challenging.

“Shut up,” Catra snaps.  “We’re not talking about Adora.”

“I’m sorry,” Glimmer shakes her head, as if remembering herself.  “I shouldn’t have.”

Catra doesn’t answer, tail thrashing, annoyed. 

“I just have them too, that’s all,” Glimmer continues, quiet.  “Trust issues, I mean.”

“Yeah, well, can’t really blame you,” Catra mutters.  “I haven’t exactly been trustworthy for you until pretty recently.”

“I’m trying, though.  I’ve seen how you’ve been dealing with this-”

“Is there any way to get out of this conversation?” Catra interrupts.

“No, unless you want to jump out the window.  Just shut up for a second and let me finish,” Glimmer huffs.  

Catra grits her teeth but concedes.

“I just mean, I think it’s really cool that you stuck around for Adora.  I know it’s probably been really hard and really weird, but things are better for her this time with you here.  You have no idea how much of a difference-” she shakes her head, trailing off. “I guess I’m trying to say I’m sorry and thanks.  You can think of me as your enemy still if you want, but I want you to know I don’t think of you as mine anymore.”

Catra can’t answer immediately.   

“Even if sometimes we don’t super get along yet-” Glimmer stutters, uncomfortable with the silence.

“Yeah, I get it, Twinkle, we don’t have to be best friends.”

“Good, because there’s only so far I can go-” she sighs, relieved.

Catra just stands there for a moment, taking it in.  She doesn’t want to admit it, but hearing that Adora is glad for her presence, even in ways that she might not even truly realize, makes everything feel a little less pointless. Catra has been wondering if she’s stupid for staying here and hoping she might love her again the way she did before.  But this is reassuring, even if Catra doesn’t want to acknowledge that it’s from Glimmer.  

She supposes, though, it’s only fair.  Glimmer didn’t have to tell her this. A worse person would have been happy to leave Catra feeling listless and like she had lost Adora for good.  Catra herself, at least the one she once was, would certainly have taken great pleasure in making Glimmer feel that Adora didn’t care about her. But Catra thinks if she’s already here, waiting for Adora when she would’ve run from this already before, she might as well do other things she normally wouldn’t do.  

“Hey, Glitter?”

“Ugh, yeah?” Glimmer rolls her eyes, clearly displeased at Catra’s deliberate refusal to use her name.

“Thanks for telling me that.  It helps.”

Glimmer smiles faintly.

“Now woman up before Adora sees us if you don’t want her to get all sappy with both of us.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready for a group hug yet.  Even if Bow thinks that’s the best solution to all of this.”

“Don’t worry, Scorpia thinks so too.”

It isn’t long after that Adora comes into their room one evening, smiling hesitantly.

“You look dorky which means something good happened,” Catra mutters, barely looking up at her.

Adora shoves her playfully, sitting on the bed next to her.

“Yeah, something good happened.  You defected.”

“You okay in there?” Catra plays at knocking on Adora’s forehead.  “Because I’ve only been saying that for months.”

“I mean I remember it,” Adora rolls her eyes, swatting at her hand.  “Even though you couldn’t just ask to join the Rebellion, could you?”

“I’m sure you remember the many good reasons I didn’t do that?” Catra asks.

“I wouldn’t call them good, but they were reasons and I remember them too.”

“And here we are,” Catra gestures at the room around them.  “I’d say that’s proof enough that they were good reasons.”

“I also remember that someone saved me and Glimmer in a skirmish at Brightmoon-” Adora grins, crossing her arms in a satisfied way.

“Mostly because I thought I might get kicked out if I didn’t.”

“Sure,” Adora smiles before her expression goes a little softer.  “No matter why you did it, thanks. It was really sweet.”

“Okay, time for you to shut up now,” Catra shoves her and Adora flops over on the bed, giggling and not at all dissuaded.

“I guess we’re caught up,” she tells her brightly, grinning, eyes wide and hair a little disheveled as she looks up at Catra from where she lies on the bed.

“Yeah,” Catra answers, trying not to remember sweet and warm kisses in the grass outside Thaymore and how much Adora looked like this then.

But Adora has always been too smart to wholly believe Catra’s lies.  She scowls lightly.

“Are we?”

“I mean, not completely, but there are only a few weeks unaccounted for.”

“Did something happen in those few weeks?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Catra folds her arms.  “You got captured.”

“No, there’s something else you’re not telling me,” Adora narrows her eyes, sitting up.  “I can tell when you’re hiding things and you’re doing it now.”

 “Okay, fine, yeah.  Something happened but I don’t think it’s a good idea to get into it.  It’s probably better if you just let me know when you remember it.”

“Why?  What happened?” Adora asks, urgent.

“It’s not anything bad, it’s just-"

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s not bad! It’s just complicated!”

“Just tell me what happened,” Adora pleads, clearly exhausted.  “I don’t know how many more revelations I can take and this is honestly making it worse.  I don’t know what to expect and I’m sitting here wondering what’s about to hit me. It’s going to drive me crazy trying to figure it out.”

Catra stays silent, tail switching back and forth.

“Catra, please,” Adora sighs.  “You have no idea what it’s like when these things hit you out of nowhere.  A warning for once might be nice.”

“Fine! But don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Catra snaps.  “We started dating a few weeks before you were captured.  Happy?”

Adora stares, stunned.

“Dating?”

“Yup,” Catra confirms.  “We were on a date when they took you, actually.  My first day out of the palace, it was great,” she bites, sarcastic.

Adora blinks at her, eyes wide.

“You knew that the whole time and didn’t tell me?”

“Of course I didn’t tell you!” she huffs.  “You were in a new place and didn’t know anyone anymore except me! How would you have felt if I told you everything between us had changed too?  But now you’re mad about that too-”

“What?  No, Catra, I’m not mad-” she shakes her head.  “I actually think that was really nice.”

“Oh. Well, good.”

“That was probably really hard to just pretend like none of that happened.”

“Yeah, it pretty much sucked,” Catra shrugs. 

“Yeah. Thanks,” Adora smiles softly and Catra turns her head so she won’t see the flush across her cheeks.   “Sorry, you had to go through that, though.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’m actually really impressed with you,” Adora nudges her playfully.  “It probably would’ve made you feel better to tell me and you still didn’t.  That was really-”

“Okay, I meant it when I said don’t mention it.  There’s only so much I can take.”

“Sorry,” Adora grins before it fades and she picks at the hem of the sheet.  “I just don’t know if I can, you know. Reciprocate yet-”

“I figured,” Catra waves her off.  “It took us a while last time too. That’s why I was just going to wait to say anything.”

Adora nods.

“Thanks for telling me anyway.”

“Hm.”

“Sorry I can’t really consider us-” she gestures between the two of them, flushing a little, “right now.”

“Why not? We’re just staring down the barrel of a war we’re about to try to end, no big deal,” Catra smirks and Adora laughs faintly.  “It’s fine, I didn’t really expect you to,” Catra finishes.

“Yeah,” she sighs.  “It’s not off the table forever, just not now.”

Catra nods.  Adora gives her a searching look.

“Are you okay?”

She nods again.

“You’re lying.”

Catra throws her hands up.

“What do you want me to say?  It’s nothing you can fix, Adora.”

“You can still tell me.”

Catra shrugs and draws her knees up under her chin like she does when she feels like things are pressing in on her.

“The day you got captured was really rough for me, okay?  I think it would’ve been easier if we had stayed friends if it was going to happen like this.  I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty or whatever, I’m just-”

“Being honest,” Adora finishes.

“Yeah.  It feels like I’ve lost you a lot of times,” she rests her chin on her knees.

Adora leans into her gently.

“I’m sorry.  I know that feeling.”

Soon, Catra doesn’t have time to dwell on the fact that the only thing Adora doesn’t remember are the weeks just before her capture.  Mystacor becomes a bustle of activity as the alliance comes back together to prepare to take Brightmoon back. Glimmer and Catra have been furiously going over and over their plan to present to the princess alliance.  

She and Glimmer are swallowing their nerves days before they plan to ambush the Horde, staring at a crowded and airy room in Mystacor full of people.  Every princess is here. Frosta is flanked by generals. Despite her small fleet, Mermista has more people here than they expected, from the Admiral of her dwindling navy to what appears to be rag-tag teams of pirates from Seaworthy.  No doubt that Seahawk found them and brought them along. He chats enthusiastically with them, having dragged Scorpia into the mix too. Even Perfuma has a small gaggle of Plumerians with her, though they don’t have an organized military. 

Mystacor’s entire council is here.  Queen Angella watches from a flickering screen Bow has managed to get working on a smaller scale so she can be there. 

“Right, so, thanks everyone for being here,” Glimmer scowls, serious despite her nervousness. “What we’re attempting is an operation to take back Brightmoon and cripple the Horde’s forces as much as possible.  This will be a two-pronged operation consisting of a ground ambush at Brightmoon and an infiltration of the Fright Zone itself.”

Murmuring breaks out around the room.  Adora raises her eyebrows across the room at them, confused.  They haven’t told anyone about Catra and Scorpia’s part in this yet.  Scorpia tries to blend into the background, suddenly quiet.

“Everyone, let Commander Glimmer speak,” Casta calls and the muttering quiets.  

“For the ground ambush, we’ll be attempting to envelop the Horde forces and cut off their retreat.  Our goal is to annihilate as much of the Horde force as possible.”

“B-but not kill them, right?” Perfuma stutters.

“Our primary goal is crippling their artillery.  We’re focusing on taking out their bots, airships, and navy. Their infantry isn’t much of a threat without it.  Most of them aren’t well-trained. For soldiers, our hope is capture. But we can’t promise that for every individual case,” Catra cuts in.  Glimmer nods soberly. 

“Brightmoon will engage them first from the front.  Plumerian forces will take cover in the Whispering Woods here,” Glimmer highlights parts of the map in turn.  “While the Salinean navy moves to break up the blockade by sea. Once they break through, they’ll close in on land here on the side and flank. The Plumerians will attack from the tree cover here on the east side. We’ll use the mountain to our advantage to control the retreat.”

“That seems like a small force to pull a maneuver like that,” Angella cuts in. 

“Yeah, that’s kind of a lot for us to do,” Mermista drones.

“Yes.  Which is why there’s another part to this,” Catra nods.  “Once we have the Horde forces engaged on three sides, we’re going to try to penetrate the center by sending in She-Ra.  She’ll fly in with Glimmer and Bow, landing here and cutting through to the north towards Brightmoon.”

Adora nods, sharp and determined.

“Is there any particular objective?” she asks.

“Create as much chaos as possible,” Catra grins.  “We’re trying to split the front line and force their retreat through these narrow passages here and here,” she points to the east and west.  

“That will throttle any backup they try to send,” Glimmer explains.

“And there will be backup,” Adora assures them.

“And how are we handling this backup?” Frosta scowls. “You can’t expect us to believe the force they have at Brightmoon is that significant.  That means we can expect a much larger wave of backup.”

“Your forces will handle the backup,” Glimmer answers.  “They’ll be hiding to the south, in the woods and to the west along the coast.  When backup shows up, they’ll meet their own forces trying to retreat. In the confusion, your army attacks them at the flank.  We’ll have the majority of your forces stationed at the woods, with a smaller company here at the coast for any retreating in that direction.”

“That concentrates the majority where reinforcements will attempt to come in,” Catra explains.

“Adora, how significant is the force currently stationed at Brightmoon?” Frosta asks.

“Not very.  You won’t do significant enough damage to permanently incapacitate the Horde.  Not even close. But it’s varied enough that you could damage multiple divisions at once. They wouldn’t be able to retaliate immediately if we damage enough artillery,” she explains.  “We can at least take back Brightmoon and buy ourselves time.”

“Do you think we can do enough damage that the Horde will send the reinforcements Catra and Glimmer are counting on?”  Angella asks.

“With an ambush like this? Yes.  The siege wasn’t built for that much direct engagement, only for outlasting Brightmoon’s defenses.  With retreats cut off like this, the Horde will send reinforcements. They won’t want to give up the only solid foothold in Brightmoon they’ve ever had.”

“Do you have any concerns?” Casta asks.

“The only unpredictable factor is how much in the way of reinforcements Hordak will send and when the Kingdom of Snows intervenes.  If they intervene too early, the next wave of reinforcements will know about it and they could force us back towards Brightmoon. If they intervene too late, the Plumerian forces would be vulnerable.”

“I think they should wait to intervene until there’s no other choice,” Frosta agrees. 

“But I think our odds also depend on what the other prong of this operation is,” Adora narrows her eyes at Catra.  “I want to hear more about this infiltration of the Fright Zone.”

Glimmer gestures to Catra and the entire room turns to look at her.  She swallows her nervousness at having most of the Rebellion staring at her and takes over.

“We can’t weaken the Horde by engagement alone.  We don’t have the firepower,” she starts. “But we can weaken their firepower by attacking it at the source.  The plan is to infiltrate, capture Entrapta, and destroy as much of her technology as possible. It won’t eliminate the Horde’s firepower, but it’ll destroy the enhancements she’s made to it and prevent her from continuing to develop anything for them.”

“ Who is infiltrating the Horde?” Adora asks, leaning over the table a little, scowling.

“Catra and Scorpia will go in the stolen transport that brought us here-” Glimmer explains.

“What?!” Adora yelps.  “No, that’-”

“Adora,” Catra growls.  “If you want this fight to go anywhere you’ll accept that we have to do something about Entrapta.  With all the attention on Brightmoon, it’ll be easier than ever to get in.”

“By yourselves?!  That doesn’t make any sense-”

“Yes, it does!  What, do you think we’re going to be able to bust in with an entire battalion?”

“No, but-”

“Well, then what would you do? Who would you send?” Catra crosses her arms.  “We need a small enough force to get in there unnoticed, we need someone who can drive a transport, we need someone familiar with the Horde, and we need people familiar with dealing with Entrapta who is, if you remember, completely unpredictable.”

Adora opens and closes her mouth, sputtering.

“No answer?” Catra prompts.

“Adora,” Glimmer starts gently.  “I know it’s scary, but I really think it’s going to be okay.  I think Catra is right.

“I agree with Adora-” Angella interrupts.

“Mom, what?!”

“I think it’s risky.”

“You’ve been under siege for months, and all you have to say is that it’s risky?!” Glimmer shrieks.  “It’s risky to sit there and wait for the Horde to starve you out!”

“I think Catra has a fair point.  When are we going to address that Entrapta has been giving the Horde their edge for years?” Frosta asks.  “I think she’s right that if we don’t do something about it, this fight is for nothing.”

“It could still be for nothing!” Adora exclaims, desperate.  “What if you fail? What happens then?”

“Hell, Adora, all of it could be for nothing!” Catra grits her teeth.  “We have no guarantee that any of this is going to work out. We can’t!  We just have to try.”

“Exactly!” Glimmer huffs.

“We could lose them, Glimmer!” Angella barks.

“We could lose you too!  We could lose everything-” Glimmer argues back.  “But we can’t just back down because we’re scared!”

“I’ll go with you-” Adora decides, resolute.

“Like hell you will.  This entire plan depends on you breaking the ranks from the middle,” Catra argues. 

“You can’t go alone-”

“You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Uh, guys?” Bow winces.

“I don’t approve-” Angella cuts in again.

“Why don’t either of you think I can do it?!” Catra snarls at Adora and Angella.  She’s aware her tail is thrashing, fur on end, but she can’t stop it. She’s too angry.

“Wow, so it’s getting personal,” Mermista comments, grinning mutedly, clearly enjoying every moment.

“Alright, I think that’s enough,” Casta intervenes, quiet but firm.  “I think it’s only fair to put it to a vote. All opposed?”

Adora and Angella put up their hands.  Perfuma hesitantly joins them, as does Bow.

“Bow!” Glimmer growls.

“I just worry-”

“Gimmer,” Casta warns.  “You can’t try to influence a vote.”

She nods and scowls as a few of Mystacor’s council put up their hands as well.  But it’s already clear it’s much less than a majority.

“All in favor?”

Hands go up everywhere.  Casta nods shortly as Seahawk whispers, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mermista! You didn’t vote.”

“I don’t really care what they do, I’m just enjoying the show,” she shrugs.

“Alright, so it’s decided.  We’re going to proceed with Glimmer and Catra’s plan.”

When the meeting adjourns, Adora barrels for the door.  Glimmer sighs.

“So, who’s going after her?”

“She’s madder at me, I think, so I will,” Catra answers, darting after her.

“Good luck!” Glimmer calls after her.

Adora is already dashing across the grounds towards the stables.  Catra growls under her breath.  

“Adora!”

Adora doesn’t turn and doesn’t stop running.  Catra thanks every force she knows that she’s faster than Adora.  She speeds up, lunges, and loops her arms around her. She catches her knees and they both tumble down. 

“Catra!” Adora barks.  “Let me go!”

“No!” Catra bites back.  Adora struggles to get up and keep running, but Catra wastes no time sitting on her chest where she can’t get the leverage to dislodge her, like she used to as a child.  

“Catra, get off!”

“You know, you get on me for not talking all the time, but the first time something happens that you don’t like, you’re going to get on your flying horse and leave?”

“Just for some air,” she mutters.

“Or you could stop and talk to me instead of freaking out in a war briefing and running away,” Catra scowls.  “Just an idea.”

Adora starts to deflate the longer she lies there.

“You...why didn’t you tell me you were planning this?”

“Oh, I don’t know, can’t imagine it might’ve been because we both knew you’d do something exactly like this?”

“Maybe because I don’t want to lose you and anyone who cared about you would do the same thing?!”

Adora’s eyes are starting to water a little.  Catra relaxes a little, sympathy rather than frustration starting to take over. 

“Okay, Adora, come on.  Let’s walk.”

Adora nods absently and Catra helps her up.  They meander down to the beach where a sunset is staining the clouds a petal pink that Catra has come to love in her days here in Mystacor.  

“So, like I’ve said before, I suck at this,” Catra tells her after they’ve walked far enough that the spires of the palace are barely visible.  “But like I said before, the day you got captured was really rough for me.”

“Yeah,” Adora answers, quiet.  

“You don’t remember this, but you noticed Horde forces in Thaymore.  You told me to stay behind and that if you weren’t back in ten minutes, to go get backup with Swift Wind.”

Adora listens, eyes wide, with rapt attention and a clear confusion as to why Catra is telling her any of this.

“I tried not to listen.  I tried to go after you right there.  Swift Wind held me back. The rest, you mostly know.”

Adora stays quiet, waiting for Catra to continue.

“I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say, but I think it’s that I still don’t know if that was the right call.  I don’t know that it was the wrong one either. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had gone after you, whether it would’ve been better or worse-”

Adora nods.

“I think I know what you're trying to say.  I can’t know what the right call is.  Not letting you go could be just as bad as letting you go and-” she shakes her head.  “I’m sorry. I’m being unfair. I’m just scared. I like you, you know,” she smiles, but it falls so quickly.

“Yeah, that.  But I was also trying to say I get it,” Catra shrugs.  “I didn’t want to let you go and fight alone either.”

They keep walking as the sun dips lower and the pink sea of clouds meets a sky that’s rapidly turning green and blue with impending night. 

“I’m sorry I made a scene,” Adora murmurs.  Catra laughs.

“You call that a scene? You should’ve seen what I did to Swift Wind.  Ask him sometime. You should also ask Glimmer to tell you the story of how she reacted.”

Adora smiles gratefully.

“Are you scared?”

“Of what?”

“Oh, I don't know, the huge battle we're about to be in?” Adora asks, trying her hand at humor, but it escapes as bitterness.  She walks, staring at Etheria’s multiple moons, faint in the night sky.

“I mean, duh. Of course I'm scared,” Catra rolls her eyes.  “I lived with Entrapta for years. I know exactly how she can get, I’m not looking forward to it.”

Adora eyes her, apprehensive.

“Sorry, was I supposed to be comforting?  Then, never mind, I’m not scared at all.”

“I am too,” she follows.  “I wanted to be so much farther by now-”

“As She-Ra?”

She nods.

“Hey, you’re basically back to your old self by now.  Maybe even better since I helped train you this time around,” Catra grins and Adora rolls her eyes.

“Sure,” she quirks an eyebrow.

They walk aimlessly for a little while longer.  Around the time there’s only a pink line on the horizon and the light is swiftly disappearing, she speaks again.

“Sorry again.  I didn’t mean to make you feel like you couldn’t do it and I won’t say anything else about it, on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” Catra asks, wary and just on the edge of annoyed.

“Make sure you come back,” Adora smiles in a way that falters.  Catra has to turn her face for a moment as she remembers a teary kiss in Brightmoon and Adora’s murmured promise that she would always come back.  

Catra wonders if she should promise that.  She can’t guarantee it

But then, she supposes, Adora can’t guarantee it any more than she can.  Adora probably always knew she couldn’t guarantee it. Catra thinks it isn’t about that so much.  

“Okay, yeah.  I promise I’ll come back,” she answers.  She wonders for a moment if she was wrong to say it.  But then Adora’s answering smile seems a little less burdened and Catra is sure, if only for a moment, that what she’s doing is eminently right.

Chapter Text

The morning of their ambush on Brightmoon begins in tense normalcy.  It’s as if the routine of the day, so familiar and strangely unchanged for the time being, is mocking them.  They wake, eat, wash up, dress as normal. Some take to acting as if it’s another morning. Others are stony-faced and quiet, unwilling to pretend that a morning weighed down with a threatening veil is normal. 

Adora, though, is somewhere in the middle, trying valiantly and failing to act normal around everyone, but around Catra in particular.  Catra dismisses it, choosing to ignore it rather than add fuel to the fire. When Adora is being weird, its best to let her get it out of her system. 

Bow and Glimmer notice, but they elect to ignore it like Catra.  It’s easier for Glimmer, who’s one of the aforementioned stony-faced individuals this morning.  She has no time for playing pretend. She stares them down with the air of someone already ready for combat, the niceties of the morning an unwelcome distraction.

Bow, on the other hand, looks as if he wants to forget impending combat until he absolutely has to acknowledge it.  He attempts conversation, but it’s swiftly falling flat. He looks between all of them. Glimmer looks ready to pummel the plate in front of her, Adora seems to be coming unhinged, and Catra isn’t acknowledging any of them and appears neither aware nor unaware that battle is indeed imminent. It’s enough for him to politely withdraw from the conversation, gradually talking more and more to Scorpia until the conversation has shifted to that end of the table.

It’s just as well.  While Catra isn’t in quite the mood Glimmer is in, she’s never one for socializing in the morning, battle or no.

“Alright, you’re coming with me to get ready,” Catra decides, dragging Adora away from the table by the collar when she spills her drink for the second time.  Glimmer looks relieved to be given permission to leave too.

“Yeah, I’ll see you two there,” she answers.

“So, what’s wrong with you this morning?” Catra asks as they walk back to their room.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the way you were acting way weirder than you normally do?”

“I’m fine,” she lies.

“Whatever, I’m not going to drag it out of you.  I think you should deal with it before you’re on a battlefield, but what do I know?”

It’s quiet while they make whatever preparations they need to, strangely routine like the rest of the morning has been.  It feels like getting ready for morning training back in the Fright Zone when they were young.

“So, this is probably a bad time to say this, but-” Adora starts as she’s taping her hands.  “I think I remember you telling me you liked me. Nothing else but-”

“Great, that’s convenient,” Catra answers, sharpening a claw with a file, examining it closely.

“Sorry.  I just thought you might want to know.  And I thought you should know that I’m really looking forward to when this is all over because I think I do too.”

Catra isn’t sure whether to stare or laugh at the absurdity of it.  Laughing wins out and she cackles. Adora flushes brilliantly. 

“Sorry, you just have a knack for bad timing, you know that, right?  You wait to tell me this until the morning we leave for arguably the biggest battle this place has ever seen?”

“Well, it’s not like I planned it!” Adora huffs.  “I had the dream last night and since the rest of them have been real and you told me we were dating before, it seemed real!  Before I thought it was better not to get into it until after all this, but after that dream, I didn’t think it was right to let you go without telling you.”

Catra sighs.

“Yeah, I don’t know which is worse.  It’s all a bit of a disaster, but thanks, I guess.”

“I-” Adora starts and falters, struggling.  It’s clear she wants to say something, but she isn’t sure how.

“Adora, just-”

“Say it, I know!” she snaps.  “Please be careful. I love you.  I don’t know exactly how yet, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s definitely love no matter what way you look at it and-”

She’s stammering, flushing and losing control rapidly.

“I know that, stupid,” Catra rolls her eyes. 

“Y-you do?” she asks, her tirade halted in its tracks.

“Yeah.  You came with me, didn’t you?”

Adora stops for a moment before she nods quietly.

“Yeah.  So relax.  I don’t plan on gambling with my life today or anyone else’s.  If I didn’t think this could work, I wouldn’t do it.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I should be way more worried about you doing something stupid.  You’re really good at that. Just follow the plan, okay?”

“I’ll try,” she nods.

“Sure you will,” Catra narrows her eyes before moving to the door.  She opens it, turning to Adora, waiting for her to follow her. “Ready?”

“Not really.  But I’m going to do it anyway.”

“Yeah,” Catra nods, walking out of the room with her.   “Exactly.”

**

Adora watches from a steep cliff as Salinean ships start bombarding the Horde Blockade.  She, Glimmer, Bow, and Swift Wind take refuge in a cave in the mountains immediately southeast of Brightmoon where they can watch from above and pinpoint the right time to attack.

They’re pretty evenly matched.  The Horde has them outnumbered, but for what the Salineans lack in numbers they make up for a contingent of pirate ships with no respect for any rules of combat.  Between them and the veritable tidal waves Mermista is unleashing on them, they might just be able to break through. Adora pleads with an unspecified and unknown force, anything, that they make it through.  The entire plan depends on it.  

Glimmer flinches as one of the Salinean ships gets hit and starts a slow, sinking descent into the water.  

“It’s okay, they’ll make it,” Bow assures them, clearly needing to reassure himself more than anyone else.  Netossa hurls nets from Brightmoon’s ramparts, trying to see if she can get them far enough. They land, ineffective, too far up the beach.  Spinnerella joins her, trying to help her give the net enough momentum. With a gust of wind, it finally lands. The occupants of the sinking one clamber across to safer ground.  Netossa struggles to hold it from afar. They can see her arms shake even from here. She drops it once everyone has made it across.  

They sigh in relief, but it isn’t long until a second ship gets hit and then a third and fourth after it.  They look on in horror as the Salinean ships are swiftly decimated. Netossa does her best to repeat her rescue efforts, but it seems that any time she stretches a net from one ship to another, one of them gets hit.  She finally finds purchase on one of them and people leap and swim across the water, from ship to ship, a watery and bobbing path to rescue.

Adora’s gaze darts from the sea to the claw-like crags of rock that shield the Horde, barely visible from here.  She can’t tell if she wishes she could watch everything there like she watches Brightmoon now, whether it would ease her mind or if the events unfolding, out of her grasp and influence, would only terrify her more.

She feels a warm hand envelop hers and squeeze softly.  Glimmer smiles, gently sad and knowing.  

“She’s going to be okay.”

“It just feels like this is a bad omen,” she nods to the rush of soldiers trying to escape their ships.  “Like it’s going to go just as badly over there.”

“It’s not bad yet,” Bow doggedly continues.  “We’ve lost ships, but we always knew we would.  No one has been lost yet.”

“But we’re not breaking through yet.”

Bow nods grimly.

“I know.  But it’s also not over yet.”

Just as he says it another ship is hit.  Not a single ship has broken through yet. 

“This,” Glimmer shakes her head, the same fear that Adora has starting to take hold of her too.  “This isn’t going to work.”

Bow doesn’t reply.  He doesn’t want to discourage them, but even he knows continuing to reassure them is too much on the verge of lying for his taste. 

The ships stay stagnant for a moment.  They look as if they’re considering falling back as they each reposition their sails.  Someone leaps from ship to ship but they’re too far away to distinguish.

The Horde wastes no time taking advantage of their temporary stall.  When the first shot hits one of the stalled ships, passengers start jumping off.  Glimmer hides her face in Adora’s arm when the first one catches fire so quickly and wholly even their faces, sequestered in a cave in the mountains, glow yellow-orange with the light.  The others catch even quicker. Though it seems everyone made it off of their respective ships, they still toss in the green-blue water.

It happens so fast Adora can barely parse it out.  A great wave rushes forward onto the beach, enveloping any Horde soldiers standing there.  At the same time, a small cyclone appears behind the ships and they look to the battlements of Brightmoon.  Spinnerella stands, blowing the ships forward with all her might. As the water recedes, the Salinean navy and accompanying pirates lie, sputtering, strewn across the beach.  They leap up and start to move, engaging any spare Horde Soldiers that weren’t swept back into the ocean.  

At the same time the ships, propelled by unnaturally strong waves and wind, collide almost at once into the Horde blockade.   Many of them splinter on impact, but Adora realizes that keeping them intact wasn’t the point. Not after so many of them were hit.  The fires were deliberate. She sees Mermista emerge from the water, clapping Seahawk on the back, a rare grin across her features. Netossa blocks the beach after she’s sure they’re all out of the water, preventing anyone from helping the now aflame Horde ships.  They abandon ship, floating helplessly in lifeboats out on the water, only able to rescue themselves and unable to rescue their fleet.

They advance, wetter and sandier than intended, but through the blockade all the same.  Their little cave erupts in applause, but Adora’s is dampened. She can’t stop watching the Fright Zone, as if she’ll be able to see if anything goes wrong for Catra.  She won’t know. She won’t know until after all of this. It could take days for her to know if Catra will survive her mission depending on how badly it goes.  

“Hey, if that before was a bad omen, maybe this is a good one,” Glimmer murmurs, able to see her descending back into her thoughts.

“I hope so,” she murmurs.  

As soon as the Horde is engaged on the east by the Salineans, the Plumerians engage them on the west, as planned.  Adora is glad not to be the poor soldiers at the tree line of the woods. The Plumerians don’t engage them directly.  Instead, great ropes and nets appear from the trees, yanking soldiers back into the forest. The ones who are closer to the center press in, trying to outrun them.  The ground writhes as Perfuma works her own magic alongside them, the trees and vines coming alive, reaching out and sweeping whole squadrons into the brush. Perfuma won’t hurt them, but she will trap them there, the plants winding their way around their captives, pinning them where she wants them.  

As Brightmoon engages from the front, sending volleys of arrows down at them, the Horde forces buckle down, digging in, packing closer to the center and facing out.

Catra was right.  It would take an attack in the center to truly dislodge them.  

They wait for a moment for the Horde to settle into their defensive position.  They want to catch them off guard as wholly as possible. 

“Ready to break them up?” Glimmer takes a deep breath and grins.  

“Yeah.  They’re having too much fun down there,” Adora smiles back, trying to bury her fear under it somewhere deep where she can ignore it for the time being.  

They all crowd on Swift Wind and plunge into the center of the melee. 

**

“Whew.  So far so good,” Scorpia sighs as the transport lands in the Fright Zone.

“Of course it’s been good, we just landed,” Catra rolls her eyes, but Scorpia won’t be able to see it behind the visor she’s wearing.  They’re back in their armored disguises. Thankfully, Scorpia’s fits her better this time, though her tail is still a little cramped stuffed in the armor.

They seem to have landed right as the call for backup comes in.  Crackling commands sound over the speakers, soldiers rushing to the deck they’re on.

“Come on!  If we go now, no one will notice us come in-” Catra yanks Scorpia to her feet and they take off down the corridor.  They barely make it past the entrance to the deck before a rush of soldiers courses down the hallway. They duck into a supply closet to let them pass.  They’ll be noticed if they try to fight their way too far in the opposite direction, fish swimming upstream. Once the dull thuds of footsteps die down a little and the telltale rush of transports taking off sounds, Catra opens the door a hair, peeking out into the hall.

“Okay, looks like we’re clear enough.  Let’s move.”

They don’t get far before being halted by a closed door, keypad glaring in the flickering and greenish light of the Fright Zone.

“Do you think Kyle’s old code is going to work?”  Scorpia whispers.

“No, but I’m going to try anyway,” Catra mutters.  Sure enough, as Catra puts in the old code, the screen goes red and the doors stay tight-lipped.

“So what do we do?” Scorpia starts to panic and it grates on Catra.  She bristles.

“Hold on! I’m thinking!” she snaps, eyes darting around the space before landing on a vent cover in the corner.  Maybe to find Entrapta, they should start thinking more like Entrapta.

“There,” she points to it.  She can’t see Scorpia’s face, but she can nearly feel her blanch.

“Ah, you know Catra, I’m not the most, uh, small,” she measures the distance with her claws, stuck awkwardly far down in the sleeves of a suit not made for her.  The rest of the arms and the gloves flop helplessly.

“You’ll fit if you crouch.  We don’t have another choice.”

Catra easily leaps up to catch the edge of one of the ceiling tiles, swinging from one arm as she dislodges the vent cover and pulls herself into the vents.  She turns around and sticks a hand out for Scorpia to grab. Scorpia nervously shifts her weight from foot to foot.

“Come on, we don’t have time for you to stand there.”

Scorpia lamely sticks a covered claw towards Catra.  She takes both hands and wraps them around her claw, pulling as hard as she can.  She wishes she had Adora’s strength right now. Catra has always been slight, relied more on speed and agility than strength.  Scorpia nearly pulls her back down out of the vent, an anchor that’s unmovable.

“A little help?! At least try to jump or something!” she grunts as Scorpia doesn’t budge.

Scorpia finally obliges, jumping and clamping down on the edge of the tile with her claw.  Catra prays to whatever forces may or may not be out there that it holds. Scorpia flails, scrambling up into the vent, but not without a deafening noise and one ceiling tile falling with a loud clank to the ground.

As they start to move through the vent, Catra realizes they aren’t going to make it very far like this.  Scorpia barely fits, moving slowly. If it were just the speed at which they were traveling, they might be able to get by.  But even covered with fabric, Scorpia’s hard exoskeleton screeches and clatters against the metal in the vents, making such a racket Catra thinks they might hear it over at Brightmoon, even with a battle going on.

Just as Catra is about to tell Scorpia that they’re leaving the vent and taking their chances on the ground, access codes be damned, the dull sound of straining metal sounds up ahead.  Catra puts her hand out to signal Scorpia to stop and they wait. Catra hopes it’s just an errant rat and waits, hair standing on end. She bristles but doesn’t move when Entrapta rounds the corner.

“Hi Catra!  I heard you and Scorpia in the vents.  You’re just in time, I need two more assistants  stat!”

Catra and Scorpia look at each other.  She talks to them as if they never left.  

“What?” Entrapta looks between them as they stare back, unmoving.  She drops from the vent and suddenly the panels under Catra and Scorpia give way as Entrapta pulls them out from under them.  They fall to the ground in front of a door only one hall away from the one they were trying to get through. Entrapta faces them, suspended by her hair, strands of it punching in the code as she talks, rapid-fire, moving backward through it.  “Did I miss something?”

“Well, we haven’t lived here for a few months,” Scorpia chuckles nervously.

“Really? I didn’t notice, I haven’t really left the lab in quite some time,” Entrapta grins maniacally as she walks backward on her hair, legs dangling in midair.  “I’ve been trying to work out the kinks in this portal thing to work with the planet’s own power instead of the sword-”

Catra keeps moving, attempting nonchalance, but she feels the hair along her tail puff up at the thought.  

“Oh, hey, Entrapta,” Scorpia grins shakily as they keep moving to her lab.  “Remember how, ah, unstable the last portal was? I was thinking we could just, I don’t know, not ever do that again?”

“What’s the use in that? If I gave up on every unstable experiment, I wouldn’t have accomplished anything! I wouldn’t have Dryl, I wouldn’t have Emily, I-”

“Exactly, so how does it work?  Does Hordak know about it?” Catra cuts Entrapta’s endless babbling off as soon as she can.  She shoots a look at Scorpia behind her trying to signal to her to follow along. Trying to convince Entrapta not to do what she’s planned is just wasting time and breath.  Better to try to understand its mechanisms so she can dismantle it herself and find out if Hordak is involved. Catra realizes with a sinking feeling that she now has two missions on her plate.  The first is disarming Entrapta’s tech as they intended. But the second is now making sure Entrapta doesn’t attempt to doom the planet like she herself tried to years ago.

“Nope! This is a personal project I’ve taken on.  Hordak says there’s no use doing it again since the previous one was enough to signal Horde Prime, but I don’t give up on any experiment! I’ve been putting this together at night during my spare time-”

“Well, when do you sleep?” Scorpia asks as they enter the lab.

“Oh, here and there, but sleep isn’t what’s important! This is!”  she gestures grandly at Hordak’s old portal experiment clearly put back together and re-worked.  In place of the sword, a probe goes deep into the floor of the lab. Catra loses sight of it once it touches earth stories below them.

“Right, so how is this thing not going to go catastrophically wrong like last time?” Catra asks.  “And say it so we understand.”

“The last one was incredibly energy inefficient and underpowered!” Entrapta exclaims.  “Any portal drawing power from an outside and unstable source has the potential to blow way out of control!” she shouts and Catra fights the urge to clap a hand over her mouth to quiet her.   The shouting on top of the feverish way she’s trying to think her way out of this is maddening.

“So is it going to work?  It takes a lot of power to do it,” Catra crosses her arms, looking around to try and see if she can find the mechanism that starts it.

“I don’t know if it’ll work! That’s the fun of it!  But the idea is that by using a larger and more stable source, the planet itself, we make the portal more stable.”

“So, uh, how far does this thing go?” Scorpia taps the top of it with the point of her claw.

“All the way to the planet’s core, of course!  Etheria itself is one huge hunk of First One's tech! It took months to get down to the core without destroying any of the tech-”

“So, if the portal started to get unstable like it did last time,” Catra starts. “How would we stop it?”

She knows last time required pulling the sword out of the portal.  She tries not to think about the fury etched on Adora’s face after the last time, the years of trying to chip away at being useful to Hordak that was for naught, the years it took them to get Angella back. How that still hangs when she walks the halls of Brightmoon no matter the assurances of everyone around her.

“We couldn’t! This power source is much too permanent! But it should also be more stable!”

“Right, so how do we start it?” Catra asks, trying to work out how to start it so she can make sure it never happens.  If there’s no way to get them out of it, it can never be allowed to start. It’s almost funny the gulf between the version of her that would’ve gladly seen everything collapse and the one she is now, half of her mind with Adora miles away, hoping she’s alright rather than bent on destroying her.   

“Oh, don’t worry about that! It’s already started!”

Scorpia and Catra freeze.

“What do you mean?” she scowls, all friendly pretense vanishing. 

“That’s another thing! An instant start requires far too much power and leads to instability! It’s been slowly starting for days!”

“Then why did you need assistants?!” Catra snarls.  “Do you even know where we’re going?!”

“I need your eyes, of course! If things start to go wonky like last time, having more people recording the effects of the portal triples our chances of having someone make it out with the data!  And yes! I’m re-tracing the path of the last successful portal!”

“The one that nearly destroyed us?!”

“No, of course not! The one a thousand years ago.”

“How long do we have before it starts to-” Scorpia gestures out with her claws, illustrating an explosion.

“I’d say about five minutes.  Maybe sooner. I’m not sure, it’s just until it’s suitably powered up, it’s all automatic.”

Catra growls and shoves Entrapta out of the way.

“We have to contact them.  Don’t you know there’s a fight going on?!” she whirls on Entrapta, hunching over the control panel fumbling for the radio.  She just nods.

“Of course. It’s the perfect timing while Hordak isn’t here-”

“Wait.  You knew about the battle?  Hordak knows about the battle?” Catra narrows her eyes. 

“Hordak told me he increased surveillance at Mystacor after it was clear that Princess Glimmer didn’t return to Brightmoon.  It was the only place she could’ve gone. There’s going to be the first wave of backup like the Rebellion expects. Once the Rebellion’s guard is down and they think all the backup has arrived, they’ll launch a second attack, or at least I think that’s what he told me. Or maybe he meant something else.”

Catra curses under her breath, trembling, trying to tune into Brightmoon.  But nothing comes through. Everything is static. Even frequencies that should connect to the Horde are down.

“What’s wrong with it?!” she smacks the receiver in frustration. “It’s not connecting to anything!

“Interesting,” Entrapta speaks into her recorder, rapid-fire.  “It looks like the portal is already beginning to interfere with communications.  Even my computer seems to be affected by it-”

Just as she says it, Catra watches the computer screen start to flicker and warp threateningly..  She pins her ears.

“Fix it!!” Catra bares her teeth.

“I can’t! We’re just going to have to sit back and observe,” Entrapta grins.

“We don’t have time to observe! They’re going to get themselves killed if someone doesn’t warn them-”

But Catra knows in the way things feel heavy across her shoulders that it’s too late.  It was too late days ago and no amount of warning can take back what Entrapta has already set in motion.  She slumps forward, crossing her arms and leaning them on the control panel, burying her head in them and listening to the static.

“Catra, come on, you’re going to miss it!” Entrapta exclaims.

Catra grits her teeth.  She wants to lash out at her, scream and tell her how she’s dashed her chance to do something, anything, right.  How Adora, who’s finally started to love her again and trust her again and grow close to her again after so many years and lost memories, will disappear while they’re miles away from each other.  How, if she were going to fail, she’d rather have had a fighting chance or have it be some mistake she made herself. Anything but this futile mission. Anything but this repetition of one more thing she’s messed up.

But it won’t change anything.  No amount of yelling at Entrapta or wishing the radio would work will change anything.  Catra only wonders why she hasn’t learned yet that nothing she does ever seems to matter.

“Wildcat?” Scorpia puts a heavy claw on her shoulder.  The weight of it that Catra usually finds comforting feels oppressive in this moment.  “You okay?”

“I’m just great!  The whole planet’s been doomed for 48 hours and no one knew about it.  We should’ve just spared ourselves the trouble, slept in, and waited for it all to go to hell instead of all this.”

“Hey, you don’t know we’re doomed-” Scorpia offers, but even she can’t keep the hesitation from seeping into her voice.  She’s always been a terrible liar. “Maybe it’ll be alright?”

Catra is trying to think of how to respond when the lab is bathed in the tell-tale white light.  Scorpia tightens her grip on her shoulder and though Catra found it oppressive before, now she’s glad for it.  Maybe she’ll at least make it through with Scorpia. She thinks of Adora as the earth underneath them shudders and the lab disappears around them.

**

Adora watches the horizon to the west, though she knows it won’t tell her anything about where Catra is and if she’s alright. She’s more than happy to take out her frustration in the middle of the Horde ranks in the meantime.  She flings soldiers left and right, glad that her role in this battle doesn’t take a lot of concentration. She’s not where she’d like as She-Ra lately and her mind isn’t here today in any case.  

Glimmer presses her back to her and the warmth of her is grounding as they defend one another, Horde soldiers surrounding them on all sides.  Bow and Swift Wind skim the top of the crowd, picking off anyone who isn’t taken out first by She-Ra and Glimmer. He waves eagerly to them, pointing.  He’s signaling that the retreat has started.   

Adora and Glimmer grin at one another for a moment.  But the moment of joy is short-lived. Adora can see the happiness drain from Glimmer’s face and horror take its place.  A bright light gleams in her eyes as she watches something just over Adora’s shoulder.  

A tremor in the earth rumbles under their feet. Adora whirls to see a great light in the west right over where the Fright Zone should be.  The light splinters out in a way that can only be described as an explosion. The earth under the Fright Zone collapses in front of them, taken over by the light that moves rapidly in their direction.  Adora’s cry is swallowed as the earth under them jolts so suddenly that everyone, Rebellion and Horde alike, falls to the ground as the light bathes the entire field in front of them. Adora lays there with Glimmer, blinded. The realization that she’s almost certainly lost Catra hits Adora with more force than the shaking earth and brilliant light could ever hope to.

**

Catra awakes to the crackling of the radio and a penetrating light beaming down on them all.  She blinks, the light piercing. It makes the headache that pounds behind her eyes swell. She’s wondering what version of this world they’re waking up in when she sits up and unsettles a pile of debris that lays on top of her.  It clatters to the ground. She looks wildly around at the remnants of Entrapta’s lab, now rubble around them. The control panel seems to be the only thing that made it, though it’s charred and certain parts spark suspiciously.

She could be wrong, but it seems like they might be in the same world this time.  She hopes so. Catra has had enough of parallel worlds to last a lifetime.

“Scorpia?” she calls hoarsely.  She looks at the sky and there’s something different about it.  Etheria’s moons aren’t there. Instead, something else, another light source, bears down on them, too bright.

“Catra?” a call under a pile of ceiling tiles answers.  Catra sighs in relief. At least she’s not in this strange place alone.  Entrapta appears before Scorpia does, levitating out of the pile of debris, using one pigtail to dust herself off as the other holds her aloft.  Scorpia finally hefts the ceiling tiles off of her. 

“Stand down!  I repeat, stand down!” the radio calls, repeatedly.  Catra doesn’t recognize the voice. Figures that the radio would start working just in time to send them another puzzle to untangle.

“What the hell is that?” she points, looking to Entrapta.

“The radio-”

“I know what it is, I mean who?” she growls.  “Whatever, I’ll find out myself if you’re going to be useless.”

She stands slowly.  All of her muscles feel weak and jelly-like.  She knows they’ll be impossibly stiff in a few hours. She swipes the radio.

“What do you mean, stand down? Who is this?” she replies through the radio.

“This is Second Lieutenant Hubert of Squadron 4-”

“Yeah, I don’t know who you are-”

"Your aircraft has entered Eternian air space-”

“I don’t have an aircraft.”

“But our radar has calculated a foreign aircraft approaching Eternian airspace-”

“Where the hell are we?!” she snaps at both Hubert and Entrapta, hoping someone will be able to answer.

“If my calculations are correct, we should be in another dimension and galaxy entirely! The one that Etheria originates from,” Entrapta answers eagerly, electing to lie flat on her back and squint at the sky rather than do anything useful.

“So why are these geniuses asking about aircraft?!” she snaps.  

“Well, I suppose a large and foreign planetary body appearing in the middle of space would trigger any planet’s defense systems.  I think the aircraft is us!”

“What do you mean us?” Scorpia asks, fidgeting and shifting her weight where she stands behind Catra.

“I mean Etheria!”

“Like, the whole planet?” Scorpia makes a circle with the points of her claws.

“Precisely!”

“Thanks for transporting the planet into a hostile galaxy that wants to blow us up, Entrapta!” Catra snaps.

“You’re welcome!” she answers, missing the sarcasm entirely.

“We’re not an aircraft!” Catra yelps, fumbling for the radio again.  “We’re an entire planet, you idiot, stand down!”

“We’ve received word you’re part of a remote Horde colony-”

"No, we’re trying to fight the Horde!”

“We are?” Entrapta asks, more than loud enough to be overheard.   Catra uses her tail to cover her mouth.

“We’re rebel forces currently in combat with the Horde as we speak!” Catra turns from the speaker. “Scorpia! Use the other radio, see if you can get in contact with Glimmer or Adora-”

“Did you say Adora?” the voice asks from the speaker.

“Who cares? I’m too busy trying to make sure you don’t annihilate us all!”

“It’s just that Adora was the name of the crown princess of Eternia.  She disappeared when she was a baby.”

Catra stares ahead, blank for a moment.  She scoffs at first at the idea that Adora could be from another planet, another galaxy she’s never seen or heard of before.  But then, the more she thinks of her, the more it fits, if only just a little. The way Adora always seemed otherworldly to her, to everyone.  The strange power she has that’s so different than anyone else’s. The faint golden glow she always has as if lit by a celestial body they can’t imagine.  The way she always looks so at home in a vast sky that stretches into oblivion. And Catra never did know where Adora came from. None of them know where they come from.

“What did she look like?” she asks, stuttering.

“I-t-that’s not something I know much about,” the voice answers.  “I’m just part of the air force, all I know is that she was blonde like her brother-”

“Blue eyes?”

“I think?”

“I think we have her,” she tells him.  She isn’t actually sure that their Adora is the same one, but the fact that they have anyone on the planet called Adora at all could be enough to keep them from blowing the planet to bits.  It’s worth a try. Even if she’s wrong, it’s an innocent enough mistake for Etheria to be spared.

“What?”

“You heard me.  I think we have her.”

“I...g-give me a minute, this above my rank,” he stammers and the line goes quiet for minutes. 

“Ah, shoot, this one’s busted,” Scorpia mutters from behind Catra.  “Let’s try...oops!” Another radio clatters to the floor, parts bursting from the seams.  “Well that one’s definitely done now too. Let’s see-”

Catra just braces her hands against the charred control panel and sighs, exasperated at Scorpia.  Then she sees it. A repeating and flickering transmission from one of Entrapta’s bots. She-Ra and Glimmer look in the same direction, faces contorted in anguish.  They fall to the ground as if pushed and light overtakes the screen as the earth shakes. A Horde soldier fills the screen, blocking Glimmer and Adora from view as they advance. The transmission cuts out, repeating again. 

“Where’s the rest of it? Entrapta!” she snaps.

“Fascinating-” Entrapta lies in the rubble, staring straight up at the sky, holding her tape recorder that’s miraculously unscathed.  “It seems as if all of our previous celestial bodies have been replaced with new ones!! Most notable is a star, relatively close to the planet-”

“Get over here!” Catra hooks a claw around the dangling strap of her overalls and yanks her over.  “The transmission cuts off! Where’s the rest?”

“Your guess is as good as mine!” she answers, grinning.  “After traveling through the portal, we seem to have found ourselves in a different galaxy, scrambling our current technology!” 

“Can you unscramble it?”

“It’s impossible to know for sure. The process could take days, maybe even months.  Years if we’re lucky.”

“We don’t have years!” Catra snaps, starting to lose her grip on the dread swelling in the pit of her stomach. 

“Major General speaking,” a new voice cuts in. “My Second Lieutenant in Squadron 4 says a foreign aircraft claims to have Princess Adora captive-”

“We’re not an aircraft and she’s not captive!” Catra growls as she answers her, patience wearing thin as the transmission of Adora replays infinitely in front of her. “We’re an entire planet called Etheria and she’s lived here her entire life!”

“Etheria? That can’t be possible.  That planet disappeared from the galaxy a thousand years ago-”

“Well, apparently we’re back.”

“That’s not-”

“Look, lady, I’m as confused as you, but the fact is we’re not an aircraft and if you blow us up, there’s a good chance you’re blowing up your long-lost crown princess.  I don’t know about you, but we don’t have too many Adoras running around on this planet.”

There’s a long pause on the line before she continues.

“Requesting immediate clearance to land.  We need to investigate your claim that you have her on your planet-”

“Sure, have whatever clearance you want! But you better make it quick!!” Catra snaps, still staring at the transmission repeating itself.  “She’s in immediate danger! We need backup to the palace at Brightmoon. Can you find that?!”

“I..we may have some old maps, but they’d be a thousand years old.  We’ll do our best.”

“Doing your best isn’t good enough! Just do it and do it now!” she shrieks before ending the transmission, stalking off.

“W-where are you going?” Scorpia asks.

“To Brightmoon!”

“That’s so far, though!” Scorpia answers even as she follows her.  “You’ll have to walk-”

“I don’t care.  I’m not waiting here to find out if she’s okay.”

“But you’ll have to make it all the way through the woods.  It could take hours.”

“Yeah, well, it beats standing here watching that-” she gestures behind her at the screen that plays Adora and Glimmer’s horrified faces as they fall over and over.

“But the lab! We still have to rebuild-” Entrapta calls after them.

“You can rebuild it later!  Stay here so you can answer if you get another transmission-” she gestures behind her at the radio and walks into the woods, determined.

**

Adora opens her eyes to Glimmer’s concerned face hovering over hers.  Her view is obscured by her hair as she throws her arms around her, pressing her cheek to Adora’s.

“Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re alright-”

“How long was I out?” Adora asks.

“I don’t know,” Glimmer pulls back to look at her and shakes her head.  “Everyone blacked out. When I woke up a Horde soldier had passed out on top of us. Everyone passed out on everyone pretty much.”

She points to where the soldier still lies, still unconscious.

Adora looks around.  The battlefield is full of prone figures, some waking, some still out cold.   What she saw before they all lost consciousness comes rushing back with a force she can’t contain.  She yanks Glimmer forward.

“The Fright Zone!  There was an explosion. Was that real?”

Glimmer stares at her, blinking swiftly in a way that makes it clear she’s holding back tears.  She can’t answer her and Adora can’t ask her again. She can’t speak.

“Did anyone hear word from her?”

“Everyone is barely waking up.  We don’t even know if everyone here is okay-” she shakes her head.

“I’m going to find her-” Adora stands and tries to walk off but she’s cut off when sounds of a scuffle to the north make their way to them.

“Adora, I’m so sorry.  But I don’t think-,” Glimmer shakes her head.  She can’t finish the thought, tightening her hands around her staff as Horde soldiers around them start to stand again, taking a defensive stance as soon as they can.  Adora knows what she means. She isn’t sure there’s anyone to go find.

Bow flies shakily to them, hovering over them on Swift Wind.

“There was another wave of backup!” he calls.  “It hit right as that explosion in the Fright Zone did!  They attacked the Kingdom of Snows from the rear-”

Adora just stands and looks at the ground, tears blurring her vision.  Bow and Swift Wind land for a moment and Swift Wind nuzzles her shoulder.  

“She-” Adora starts, but her throat closes in on any words that might escape.

“We saw,” Bow nods, somber.

Adora looks to the woods.  She wants to run the entire way to the Fright Zone, battle be damned.  But she knows in the way her limbs feel leaden and how wholly that white light consumed the Fright Zone that there isn’t anything to run to.  

“I don’t think leaving will help anyone anymore,” Swift Wind suggests gently.

Adora sniffles and drags her arm across her eyes.  She knows as shouts start to draw closer that there is no rest for her today, no moment of mourning for a girl whose absence has already left a chasm in the space around them.  She only has this instant with friends before it’s time for her to keep giving herself to this place that’s taken so much from her. Though she would do it gladly over and over again, she wonders when there is any respite to be human for a moment, if any.

“I’m so sorry, Adora,” Bow puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” Glimmer nudges her gently, taking her hand and squeezing it once.  “I’m sorry we have to go. But let’s at least make them live to regret it if we have to fight anyway,” she scowls darkly and Adora, despite herself smiles a little.  

“Sounds like a plan,” Bow quirks a smile before taking off with Swift Wind again.

“Come on,” Glimmer waves her forward.  “Let’s give them hell to pay.”

“With pleasure,” Adora grits her teeth, lunging forward and slicing the artillery clean off an approaching tank.

The first moments of revenge feel sickeningly sweet, but now that they don’t have the Horde forces surrounded anymore, Glimmer and Adora’s position at the center of the battle doesn’t do much to break Horde ranks any longer.  Now that they have two waves of backup pressing in on the north, they swiftly close in on Glimmer and Adora. The fire of retribution fades into a deep hopelessness that Adora knows Glimmer feels too. They press against one another again, for comfort, for defense, and because they’re so thoroughly surrounded and outnumbered they hardly have any room to fight any longer.  Airships have cornered Swift Wind and Bow and they defend themselves on a rocky outcrop on the cliffs they hid in at the beginning of this battle.

“Adora?” Gimmer asks, out of breath.

“Yeah?”

Glimmer doesn’t answer. It doesn’t matter.  Adora already knows what she means, knows what she knows.  They are going to lose this battle very soon.

“I don’t think I can teleport us out-” she finally answers. “My magic-”

“I know.  It’s okay.”

She feels Glimmer nod against her.  Just as Adora is bracing herself to be overwhelmed by Horde soldiers the roar of aircraft sounds above them.

“What do they need more backup for?!”  Glimmer growls. But Adora scowls.  They don’t sound familiar. The shapes are foreign to her too.  As she gets a closer look, a strange insignia decorates the wings.

“I don’t think those are Horde airships,” she answers. 

“Well then what are they?!” Glimmer wails as they continue to try to defend themselves.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen them before!”

They duck as the airships start firing.  But Adora looks up and realizes they’re firing on the Horde soldiers.  

“Glimmer!  Glimmer look!”

“What?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think they’re on our side!”

“Are you sure about that?!” Glimmer shouts as one of the ships bears down right above the two of them.  Horde soldiers scatter as they attempt to land in front of Adora. She and Glimmer back up, eyeing them warily as the door opens and soldiers file out, a commanding woman in the lead.

“We’re looking for Princess Adora,” the woman in the front looks straight at Adora.

“I mean, my name is Adora, but She-Ra’s the princess, not me,” Adora frowns and looks sideways at Glimmer.

“You look like your brother,” her smile quirks a little.  Adora bristles. There’s no way she looks like anyone else now as She-Ra.

“I don’t have a brother.”

“If you’re the Adora we’re looking for, you do.”

“No offense, but I don’t have time for this.  Who are you and what are you talking about?”

“I’m Major General of the Eternian Royal Air Force.  We have reason to believe you may be our crown princess.”

Adora shakes her head.  She’s about to push past her to continue plowing through this battlefield, but one look around the airship stops her in her tracks.  Scores of the same strange transports keep landing, soldiers dressed exactly like the ones in front of her easily beating back Horde forces.

“Is that why you’re helping us?” Glimmer asks, still giving the Major General a healthy look of distrust.

“Yes.  Is the Horde colony here responsible for your kidnapping from our as a child?” she turns back to Adora, clearly disinterested in Glimmer.

“I don’t know! I ended up there eventually, but even if they were, I was a baby so I’m afraid I can’t give you a sure answer on that one.”

“ Where did you say you were from again?” Glimmer asks.

“The planet Eternia.”

Adora looks at Glimmer who raises her eyebrows in recognition.  

“The Princess Adora we’re looking for was stolen out of her bed at Castle Grayskull as an infant-”

“C-castle what?” Adora asks, dumbfounded.  She doesn’t want to believe them, but these words that have always seemed like nonsense to her, just parts of being She-Ra that she didn’t understand, start to fall into place.  

“Adora, I think they might be right,” Glimmer whispers.  “Even if they’re not, they’re from Eternia. You could at least learn something about She-Ra.”

Adora has known for a long while that she’s different from most Etherians.  She knows that to wield She-Ra’s sword, she has to be First One. She’s always wondered how that could be true, but she always expected that there might be one or two hidden families left and that she was unlucky enough to be found by the Horde.  She never expected that she might be from another dimension entirely. 

Too many truths are pressing down on her too quickly.  She’s always wanted to know where she came from, but the joy she might’ve felt at finding a thread of her past that might be real is undercut.  It’s dampened by the ravaged field in front of Brightmoon, the hours that have ticked by since the Fright Zone all but collapsed in front of them, the devastating silence about where Catra and Scorpia are.

“Can we deal with this later?” Adora grits her teeth.  “We’ve lost people in the Fright Zone and-”

“We’ve just saved your army a fight you were going to lose and you want to do this later?” she quirks a brow.  

Adora grits her teeth.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, but I’m sure you can understand we all need a moment to adjust-”

“Well, I’m afraid the king wants you taken in for questioning-”

“She’s not going anywhere!” Glimmer barks.

“We’re glad for the help, but no one is going anywhere until we have more information.  Don’t forget you’re the intruder on this planet, not us,” Adora answers as she digs her heels in, bracing herself and hoping their new-found allies don’t mean to make another fight for them.  The Major General’s mouth presses into a thin line and they stare one another down.

**

Catra reaches the tree line and skims the battlefield.  Seems as if the Eternian forces got here, but there’s no immediate sign of Adora.  She bites the inside of her cheek, trying not to let the panic that grows every moment she doesn’t see her overtake.  It thrums in her limbs.

“Hey, Wildcat? I uh,” Scorpia stutters, trying to find the words.  “I j-just, you know, I’m here. Whatever happens, I-”

“I know,” Catra leans against her quietly.  “Thank you.”

Scorpia nods and swallows hard.  

“Come on.  Let’s go,” Catra waves her forward.  She doesn’t want to step out of the trees.  Every step that she takes forward and doesn’t see her feels heavier and heavier.  What will she do if she doesn’t find her? What will she do if she does and she didn’t make it out?  Where will she go? She’d like to think that Brightmoon would be home still for her, but she knows it isn’t Brightmoon itself that made it feel like home.  Whether she wants to admit it or not, Adora has always been home to her. She feels unmoored by the idea that she might not be here anymore.

Catra is just thinking that she might’ve rather run because at least she would’ve been able to entertain the idea that Adora might still be alright when Scorpia yelps.

“Catra! There!” she points.

“What?!”

“There! Look!”

“I don’t see her, what are you pointing at?”

Scorpia hooks her claws under Catra’s arms.

“What the hell are you doing?!  Put me down!”

As she wriggles in Scorpia’s grasp, she sees her.  She can barely spot her on the other side of an aircraft.  Scorpia is the only one tall enough who could’ve possibly caught sight of her.

Catra cackles madly as she takes her in. Her fists are clenched, face a glowing red as she argues animatedly with someone in a uniform Catra doesn’t recognize.

“Are you okay up there?” Scorpia asks, clearly concerned at the maniacal way Catra laughs.  She’s sure she looks unhinged, disheveled and dirty and with tears streaming, making little tracks on her face as she laughs.

“I’m fantastic. Put me down, I’m going to get her before she knocks that woman out.”

“Go get her,” Scorpia nudges her and Catra dashes through the crowd.  She mercilessly shoves people out of the way, Horde, Eternian, and Etherian alike.  Yelps of indignation sound. One person tries to shove back and Catra lashes out with her claws, uncaring.  When she reaches her, she stops a few feet away to watch her.  

“Look, I don’t care how long he’s waited to find me, I’m not going anywhere until someone explains to me-” Adora exclaims.  Catra could’ve told whoever this woman is that arguing with Adora is about as useful as butting heads with a brick wall.

She crosses her arms and decides to wait and see how long it takes her to notice her.  She smirks as Glimmer notices, eyes wide as saucers. She tries to tug at Adora’s arm, but as She-Ra, Adora can’t feel her.  Glimmer’s attempts are as ineffectual as a puff of air.

“Adora.”

“Not now, Glimmer.”

“Adora!”

“Just a sec-”

“You idiot!” Glimmer finally has enough and teleports with what little magic she has left up to her shoulders, sitting atop them, placing her palms on either side of Adora’s face, wrenching her face to look in Catra’s direction.  Adora freezes when she sees Catra. She opens and closes her mouth, silent.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra smiles, the utterance so soft she wonders if they can even hear it.  It doesn’t matter. It seems to jolt Adora into motion and she takes off running. Glimmer tumbles from her shoulders. Catra runs to meet her. 

The Eternian guards scramble to understand what’s going on, both trying to protect their princess that wants nothing to do with them and trying to determine if Catra is a threat.

“Stand down!” they point their weapons at Catra, but Adora knocks the guard closest to her out of the way as if he was a feather as he tries to stop her.  She throws her elbow into another, right in the neck, and bursts through their ranks. They try to follow her, but she’s much too fast for them and one look behind her with a barked “ You stand down!” from her is enough to keep them in their place.

Catra would normally cackle at that or tease her for being a control freak, but Adora’s face, at once relieved and still etched with remnants of heartbreak disarms her.  It’s clear she’s been grieving the same as Catra has, bracing herself for heartbreak, assuming the worst so she can’t be taken by surprise by it. Few things have worked out for them in the years they’ve known each other.  They’re both practiced at keeping their hopes in check.

Adora yanks her up into her arms so swiftly and with such ease Catra’s stomach lurches.  But she gladly lets her legs dangle as Adora holds her, vice-like, burying her face in the crook of her neck.  She’d never tell her so, but she’d let Adora suffocate her if it’d erase the hurt across her face.

“Are you seriously crying?” Catra teases even as she is too.

“I thought you were dead, you-” Adora puts her at arm’s length for a moment.  When she can’t find an insult good enough, she yanks her back in. “You’re crying too, stupid.”

“Not as much as you.”

“You’re never going there again.  You’re staying here.”

“You gonna make me?”

“Yes,” Adora answers.

“I’d like to see you try. Plus, there’s not really much of a Fright Zone to go back to.”

“Will you just shut up and let me be glad you’re alive?” Adora sighs.

“You know that’s a no.”

“Yeah, you never did know when to shut up,” she laughs, voice still nasal with tears.

“Hey, my not shutting up is what got you this backup here.”

“You did that?” she leans back to look at her.

“Yeah, it’s thanks to me they didn’t blow the whole planet up too.  They kept thinking Etheria was an aircraft,” she rolls her eyes and Adora answers with her own look of exasperation.

“Yeah, they don’t seem to know what they’re talking about.”

They laugh together and then Adora gives her a conflicted look.  Catra is about to ask her what’s wrong when she realizes how close they are, noses almost touching.  Catra flushes, suddenly too-aware of everyone watching them and she scrambles out of Adora’s arms.

“S-sorry,” Adora scrambles.  “I don’t know-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I was just thinking about what I told you this morning and-”

“It’s fine,” Catra shakes her head, starting to feel silly for having jerked out of her arms so quickly.  She wants what they had before Adora’s memories were erased, but the fact that she’s even still here isn’t quite sinking in.  Not only that, but she’s still wrapping her mind around the jolt, both physical and mental, of the world moving through to another galaxy, the newfound knowledge of who Adora really is, the crowds of soldiers from another planet watching Adora apprehensively.

“As touching as this is,” the Major General cuts in, “the king is still waiting to hear-”

“For Etheria’s sake!” Glimmer stomps forward.  “I don’t care who is waiting for what, no one is going anywhere with you until you sit down and have a proper diplomatic conversation!”

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she stiffens, ready to unleash a tirade on Glimmer.

“She’s the Princess of Brightmoon.  And I am its queen.”

For the first time, the Major General freezes and seems to shrink as she turns to face the queen who towers over her.  

“I am Queen Angella. My daughter is right.  Though we’re thankful for your intervention, we cannot allow anyone off-planet until we do indeed have a proper diplomatic conversation about it.  Surely your king would not want to upset a foreign ruler so quickly, particularly not one that appears to have a common enemy with your kingdom.”

She sputters for a moment before finding words.

“I suppose I can contact him.”

“I suppose so.  In the interim, you and your forces are welcome to join us here at Brightmoon.”

Angella turns on her heel, making it clear she doesn’t intend to hear any protests.  Glimmer shoots a smug look back as she walks off after her mother.  

“So, what exactly happened over there?” Adora asks, looking west to what’s left of the Fright Zone as they disperse.

“I’d rather rehash that later, if it’s all the same to you,” Catra answers, swallowing hard.  Even with Adora here in front of her it’s hard to let go of the hours of wondering if she’d have anyone to come back to here. 

“Are you okay?  Did I-”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.  I’m just glad you’re here,” she answers, barely audible as if she’s afraid if she speaks it into existence it might not be true. 

“I’m glad you’re here too,” Adora nods, the exhaustion from the day’s events evident in how pale and drawn she looks now that her transformation is gone.  “I was starting to wonder what I was going to do if-”

Catra quickly laces her hand with hers.  She looks around to make sure no one is watching before she presses the back of Adora’s hand to her cheek for an instant, glad to feel its warmth against her.  She turns her cheek to kiss her hand for just a moment.  

“Yeah, I wondered the same thing,” Catra admits as she lowers their hands.  She doesn’t let go of Adora’s hand, though. Adora doesn’t appear to want to let go either.  They hold on to one another in a way that feels like their lives depend on it. Catra supposes it’s always been like this, though.  Catra and Adora have always relied on one another in some way. As friends, as lovers, even as enemies. Life has always been so much more lovely and more painful and angering and beautiful with her here.  

They lace their fingers together, walking back to the palace, as hopelessly entangled as always.  

Chapter Text

Catra has suffered through too many skirmishes and battles in her lifetime to count and it always strikes her how strange and unwelcome normalcy can seem following so closely on the heels of upheaval.  She almost prefers it this way, walking through the halls of Brightmoon with Adora surrounded by a foreign military.  At least there’s a physical reminder of the world-altering day they’ve had.  

The guard bristles, loathe to let Catra near Adora.  Adora pouts in the middle, chafing under the protective press of guards on all sides and jockeying for a window to shove her way through.  This shift feels less like coming back home, back into halls mockingly unchanged by the war outside.  Some sign of the change they’ve been through is comforting, even if Catra can hardly keep her lip from curling at the same guards Adora scowls at.  

Just as Catra is wondering if there’s a discreet enough way to trip one of them, imagining the domino effect it would cause, Adora finds her window, barrelling through.  

“Princess-” 

“Stop calling me that!” she snaps back at the guard reaching his hand out as if to stop her.  He’s wise not to touch her, letting his hand merely hover close to her arm.

“For your safety-” he starts.

“Okay, listen, if I am your princess, you lost me . You managed to let a baby get off-planet, so don’t lecture me about safety.”

The guards quiet and the corners of Angella’s mouth twitch. 

“For someone who lectures me all the time, you have a lot of trouble with a taste of your own medicine-” Catra mutters, giving a muted grin only Adora will see .

“You...it’s not the same!” Adora sputters.  Catra snickers. 

They attempt to follow and stand guard outside Adora’s door before Angella cuts in.

“I assure you we are perfectly capable of keeping Adora safe and have done so for many years.  Now, if you’ll follow my general to the barracks-”

They seem uncomfortable leaving them there, but they’re powerless against a foreign dignitary’s firm instruction.  Angella subtly extends her wings just enough to make it uncomfortable for anyone to try and pass her where she walks, flanking the group.

Adora and Catra say nothing as they walk into the room Adora was occupying before Brightmoon’s siege.  They haven’t been here in months.  The last time Catra saw the palace was the day they went to Thaymore together.  The air smells still in here, stale from being undisturbed for too long.  

They robotically bathe in silence, either too tired to say anything or too afraid to disturb the momentary strength that battle gives.  They’re loathe to let the barrier dissolve and the real weight of the day bear down. The push to keep moving instead of remembering the fear that they might’ve lost each other again is strong.

It gets harder to ignore, though, when Adora wordlessly places Catra’s hand in her lap, reaching for a roll of bandages.  Catra grits her teeth and breathes deep.  The warmth of her, the soft and slightly worn fabric of her sleep shirt, the damp of her hair that smells like soap and something else indescribable that’s just her.  It all makes the wave roiling in the pit of her stomach swell dangerously.  Even though she didn’t lose her today, it loomed too close, a grief that demands to be felt, writhing and unwilling to be pressed down much longer.

It’s more difficult still to bandage Adora after she’s looked after Catra, to touch her and gently clean her wounds.  A burn on her thigh from a stun wand, red and angry.  Red gashes on her arm that look like claw marks, glaring and too familiar.  A bruise forming on her cheek, a suspicious red and yellow for now. It'll blossom violet by tomorrow.  A finger that doesn’t rest naturally in Catra’s hands, either sprained or cracked.

Adora moves to brush Catra’s damp hair once she’s sufficiently taken care of.  Catra sits in a stasis, unsure if she wants to swat her hand away or let her keep carefully working through the tangles.  She used to do this when they were small.  She used to do this when they were together in Brightmoon, before the Fright Zone took her back again.  

She doesn’t know what to do with Adora anymore.  She’d almost prefer being her enemy again to this.  She told her she might like her again, but might isn’t what Catra wants.  She wants her to remember or at least she wants her to be sure again the way she was before.  She can’t take tenderness like this if it could be withdrawn.  Not again.

Catra sighs, relieved when Adora puts the brush down. The relief doesn't last.  Adora moves to sit in front of her, facing her cross-legged on the bed. She looks at her, wide-eyed.  She wants to address the day, unwilling to let it stay suspended any longer.  Catra expects her to want to rehash the day, want to drag the hurt out of Catra too and ask her to put words to it.  

“Can I kiss you?”

“What?” Catra blurts, still trying to determine if she heard Adora correctly or if she imagined it.

“Sorry.  It’s all I could think of when I saw the explosion in the Fright Zone.  That if you didn’t make it back and I didn’t before I left I was going to regret it-” Adora starts to babble and her eyes shine dangerously.  Catra has a tenuous hold on her own sanity right now.  If Adora starts to cry it could slip through her fingers. 

Catra doesn’t answer, taking a moment to think.  She examines one of her broken claws to avoid having to look at Adora.  The only thing that could be worse than watching Adora cry would be to kiss her and have her decide that this, the two of them, isn’t what she wants after all.

"Um,” she clears her throat, unable to look at her as she answers.  “I don’t know if I can do that if you’re still not sure this is what you want.  I've already lost you a couple of times. I'm trying to avoid number three if it's all the same to you."

"I get that," she nods, visibly swallowing. Catra can nearly see the ache in her throat as she tries to keep tears from spilling over.  “It’s probably a bad time to ask no matter how sure I am,” she laughs, the sound nasal as she sniffles and tries not to look as upset as Catra can tell she is.  

“Maybe,” Catra quirks a muted smile.  

“I just...can I say something?”

“Didn’t you just now?” Catra teases, but the air in the room still feels dampened.  Adora huffs gently.

“This isn’t to convince you to kiss me-”

“You couldn’t if you tried-”

“Will you just let me talk?” she rolls her eyes and Catra nods, the ghost of a smile still pricking at the corners of her mouth.  

“I wasn’t sure how I felt about you before we went into that fight.  But those couple of hours that I wasn’t sure if you were coming back were some of the worst of my life.  And I’ve had my share of bad moments,” she laughs humorlessly.  

Catra nods.

“I didn’t tell you this,” she starts as Adora dabs under her eyes a little, “but the last thing we saw before everything went up was a transmission from one of the bots.  It was you and Glimmer.  We just saw you fall and then nothing.  We didn’t know what we were coming back to.”

“I’m so sorry.  It’s a terrible feeling,” Adora shudders.  “What I’m trying to say is if I had any question in my mind before, I don’t anymore.”

Catra meets her eyes for the first time since she started talking like this and isn’t sure if she should’ve or not.  The full intensity of Adora bears down on her in a way that makes it hard to look away. 

“I love you.  Like romantically.  I think I always have and just didn’t know it for a long time.  But I figured that out today really fast and definitely the hard way.  It’s okay if you can’t do this yet.  But I’m telling you I’m not going anywhere.  Even if it takes me months of trying to get memories back or years of trying to fix everything that got messed up between us.”

Catra has to stop looking at her then.  She can’t do anything but curl in on herself, drawing her knees to her chest.  

“I...are you okay?”

“I mean you went from ‘I think I like you’ to this in a day-” Catra tries to joke, but the words come out hoarse and strained.

“You said you already knew when I told you I loved you yesterday,” Adora smiles, soft, somewhere between playful and sympathetic.

“You also said you didn’t know what way you loved me.  You’ve never said it like that,” Catra answers simply.

“I know,” she nods.  “But I thought you should know.  It doesn’t matter if I never get those memories back.  I’ll love you the same.”

Catra feels like she can’t breathe.  She’s never been told she was loved before, not like this.  Not with the kind of gravity that Adora’s leveling at her, blue eyes wide and with a vulnerability and sincerity Catra wishes she had the strength to match.

This is what she’s wanted since she was old enough to understand love like this.  It took her years to realize it but now she knows it in her bones.  So why can’t she smile at Adora? Why does she feel like she’s going to shatter if she looks at Adora any longer?

She doesn’t know that she’s started to cry until Adora gasps.

“I’m so sorry.  This was too much I shouldn’t have-”

Catra can’t answer her.  A dam has broken in her and it all rises inside her at once. It feels like drowning, remembering how many times she’s lost her and how many times she denied herself loving Adora. She’s always known somewhere in the back of her mind that loving her is at the core of who she is. She can’t help but think of how many years she wasted trying to hurt her because she couldn’t be brave enough to follow her out of the Fright Zone, couldn’t separate her defection from rejection of Catra herself. 

Like the first breaths after nearly drowning, getting everything she’s wanted so quickly and plainly burns as much as it feels like new life.

Adora tentatively moves next to her, moving to put her arms around Catra, slowly and gently at first to give Catra space to rebuff her.  But Adora’s love is both raging surf and life preserver and Catra doesn’t think she’ll be able to breathe any longer without burying her face in the crook of Adora’s neck, warm and soft and safe.  

Adora sweetly holds her and says nothing, as strong and constant as she always is as Catra cries herself into a fitful sleep.

Catra and Adora wake the next morning to the disbelieving hush of people lucky to be alive.  Catra’s eyes still burn, dry, and a little swollen from last night.  Adora rests across from her and looks at her without smiling, albeit with gentleness.  They exist with each other for a moment, unwilling to do anything but take one another in.  

“Sorry about last night,” Catra finally speaks, barely audible.  “I’m glad you feel the way you do-”

Adora shakes her head.

“I get it.  Yesterday was,” she sighs deeply, the exhale of breath and way she looks at the ceiling explanation enough.

“Yeah, our whole life has kind of been like that,” Catra shrugs, nodding in agreement and Adora laughs quietly.

“Yeah.  Thanks for letting me be around for that.  You don’t usually do that.”

Catra nods quietly.

“It was probably too much to get into,” Adora whispers.

“It’s okay,” Catra assures her.  “You can make it up to me.”

“And how am I doing that?”

“You can take me on an apology date.  A ‘Sorry, Catra, that I brought up stuff you couldn’t handle and made you cry’ date.”

“Well when you put it like that it sounds a lot worse and now I’m not sure what kind of date would live up to that,” Adora mutters, half-teasing and half-guilty.

“Lucky for you I already know where I want to go.  You just have to show up.”

“That seems too easy,” Adora narrows her eyes.  “Are you really okay?”

Catra sighs, the half-hearted teasing she attempted moments ago fading.

“It’s…” she starts and stops, trying to will the words to her tongue.  “It’s hard to accept.  I’m happy.  But-”

“Happy hasn’t always lasted for very long,” Adora nods, sober.

“Exactly.”

Adora nods, quiet.

“I can’t promise something bad won’t happen again.”

“I know.”

“But I can promise as long as I’m able to, I’ll come back.”

Catra smiles, faint.

“What?” Adora asks, self-conscious.

“You’ve said that before.”

“I have?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.  That’s probably not very comforting,” she digs the heels of her hands into her eyes a little, frustrated.  “That I still don’t remember a bunch of stuff.  I guess it doesn’t matter what I’m promising if-”

“Adora, quit,” Catra murmurs.  “It’s not your fault.  And it actually was weirdly nice.  You don’t change as much as you think.”

Adora removes her hands from her eyes.  

“I guess not.”

They lie together in silence for a moment before Adora speaks again.

“You know what?  I don’t think you change as much as you think either.”

“That’s definitely not comforting,” she mutters, thinking of the scars on Adora’s back.

“But I think the...less than savory things you’ve done and now have the same thing behind them.  Maybe this is presumptuous but-”  Adora devolves into stuttering.

“Just spit it out, Adora.”

“I think you’ve always loved me, too,” she answers.

Catra’s instinct is to rebuff her somehow, deny it or run or tease her.  Anything not to have to face the deep and vulnerable truth.  But hasn’t she already said it more or less in countless ways both cruel and tender?  It isn’t presumptuous of Adora to make the connection.  It’s always been too painfully clear and that’s been the crux of all of their anger and love wrapped up in one, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.  I have,” she nods, voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

Adora doesn’t make a spectacle of the admission.  She just cuddles closer and squeezes her middle gently.   Catra wraps her arms around Adora’s shoulders.  

“You’ve just gotten a little better at how you handle that,” she smiles softly.

“Have I?” she asks.

“Definitely.  That’s actually changed.”

“Good.  At least something has.”

They lapse into silence again.  Adora hesitantly laces her fingers with Catra’s and she accepts it, the warmth of her calloused and bandaged hand the kind of small and quiet comfort she loves.  

“Obviously take your time with what I told you,” Adora speaks up again, never quiet for long.  “I’m in no rush.  I’m here whenever you feel okay to,” she waves her hand, looking for the right word, flushing a little.  Catra cackles a little.

“Okay to what?” she raises an eyebrow just to watch Adora glow a shade of red more brilliant than that jacket she still insists on wearing.  She laughs again before taking pity on her.  “Relax, I knew what you meant.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” she mutters, cheeks still glowing.

“I know,” Catra mutters in reply, unsure if she hopes Adora hears or not.  Adora just squeezes her hand a little, beaming.

Catra wonders at first if it’ll be so easy to fall back in love with Adora.  But then, she supposes she never stopped.  She probably never will.  Angella’s words come back to her a lot in these days every time the urge to recoil or run starts to overtake.  Her instinct to avoid losing her ever again fights with the reality that she couldn’t stop loving her no matter how hard she tried.  

The push comes, funnily enough, from the constant presence of Eternia in the palace.  How often Adora is in meetings behind closed doors with only them.  How many similarities Catra starts to notice between her and the other Eternians.  

Another loss looms large in Catra’s mind.  She could lose Adora again to this foreign planet that’s her true home.  What if Adora does ultimately leave for Eternia?  What if she doesn’t want her to come with her?  What if they don’t allow Catra to follow her?  What if she never comes back?   

She couldn’t begrudge Adora the kind of home, a real home, that all of them used to fantasize over.  Hushed conversations in a dorm of small children, wondering aloud where they came from, who their parents might have been, what the places they came from might have been like.

For once, instead of running from the threat of losing Adora, Catra doubles down.  Whether it’s to remind Adora that there are reasons to stay on Etheria or merely to love her for as long as she can while she’s here, Catra isn’t sure.  But there’s a desperation in the pit of her stomach that she can’t shake, a deep and powerful urge to pull Adora close and not let go. 

She kisses her for the first time that Adora can remember after she comes back from one of the first meetings.  Adora can’t even close her eyes, startled and in shock.

“Wow,” she answers when Catra pulls away.  “That was nice, but are you okay?  You look kind of upset-”

“I’m fine.  Just felt like it,” she lies, pulling Adora to her again.  Adora seems unconvinced but unwilling to push Catra to talk when she’s decided she doesn’t want to.  

“If you’re sure.  This was nice to come back to, at least. That was a marathon,” Adora sighs. 

Catra is grateful that Adora chooses not to rehash her meeting with Eternia, deciding to lose herself in kisses instead.

When Adora is in talks with Eternia, Catra buries herself in work.  There’s no shortage of it with a large majority of the Horde’s forces captive and no Fright Zone to return to.  There are distant outposts to reclaim and repurpose for the Rebellion, people to house, rescue efforts at the rubble of the Fright Zone to organize, and relinquishing of occupied territories to coordinate.  She and Scorpia were deemed the most suited for the job with knowledge about the Horde and an understanding of how to command a now directionless force.  Catra is someone they recognize and she knows how to use the routines and commands they’re used to for a new purpose. 

Scorpia is less adept at the commanding part, but she is quite talented at coordinating with Entrapta who remained at the Fright Zone, already rebuilding slowly but surely.  She’s less likely to get impatient with Entrapta’s tangents.  The easiest way to get through a conversation with Entrapta is to humor her and Catra has an even shorter fuse than usual with the prospect of Eternia hanging over her head.  

“So I got those maps you asked for,” Scorpia tells her during one particularly busy day, chuckling.  “I think Entrapta might’ve sent a lot more than we need.  Wow, yeah, this is a lot of maps.”

Catra groans as Scorpia holds a screen with a list of files that’s already giving her a headache.  

“We just need an up to date one on occupied territory.”

“Right.   Yeah, let me just-”  Scorpia taps the screen with a claw and it cracks on impact.  “Whoops, sorry.”

“It’s okay, just go ask Bow to get you a replacement.  And we’ll find someone to help you search the files,” she pinches the bridge of her nose.

Bow has been run off his feet in the last weeks between trying to get Eternia’s technology to work with Brightmoon’s and helping Catra and Scorpia connect to the Horde’s databases with Entrapta.  

“A replacement Horde tablet,” he comes in, following Scorpia a few minutes after she hurried off to look for him.  He carefully hands it to Catra, bypassing Scorpia’s outstretched claw.  

“Thank you,” she nods. “You can hide in here and pretend to help Scorpia if you need a break.”

Bow sighs.

“I wish,” he smiles.  “But the Eternians are impatient and a little-”

“Pretentious?”

“You said it, not me,” he holds his hands up, disarming.  “They’re not bad, it’s just a lot of crossed wires.  Literally and figuratively.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” she mutters, trying to hide her resentment at Eternia.

“Yeah.  Well, the sooner I make sure they don’t get in a huff over a communicator, the sooner I can get Adora back to you,” he winks and leaves before she can huff and deny it.  She rolls her eyes and searches the bustle in front of her for someone to help Scorpia.  She spots Lonnie in the distance.  

“Good, we need someone competent,” she mutters to herself. They’ve been working closely with Lonnie lately.  Catra always suspected Lonnie might be the only intelligent life in her squadron and the past weeks have only reinforced her suspicions. 

 “Lonnie!"

She turns and strides over.  She isn’t happy about having to work with Catra and Catra can’t blame her.  They were never on particularly good terms and Catra was certainly not a good Force Captain to her in the time they worked together.  She reminds herself that the best she can do is try to lead her now the way she failed to in the Horde.

“You called?” she reminds Catra when the pause goes on too long.

“Sorry. I need your help.  We’re trying to find a map or list of occupied Horde territories and this,” she turns the screen to her, scrolling through the long list, “is what Entrapta sent us.  Do you know how to find anything like that?”

“Yeah, you know there’s not one master file on that?” Lonnie raises an eyebrow.  “There are way too many. There’s a report per territory.  That’s why Entrapta sent you so many.”

Catra curses under her breath.

“Of course, why would they make it easy?

“Hordak wasn’t going to have a master list of all of the Horde’s occupied territories and planned invasions in one place.  If that file ever leaked, it would’ve been the end of him.  Alien brain probably had it all in his head anyway,” she rolls her eyes.  “Split it up and all you have to do is give the information on the territory you need to the people who need it.  The one thing we can count on is that it’ll be detailed.”

“Is that a good thing?” Scorpia asks

“Whether it’s a good thing or not, that’s your project for the next however long it takes to go through all of that.  We need a comprehensive list of any populated territory that’s still occupied.  You’ll work with Scorpia to put that together.”

“Got it,” Lonnie nods before she turns to Scorpia.  “I’ll go through them, you write?”

“Ah, pens are a little hard,” Scorpia chuckles.  “I can do keyboards! If they’re not too delicate, anyway.  Screens are bad.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Lonnie nods, taking the tablet from Catra. 

“Thank you,” she answers.

It takes a few days for her to hear anything from the two of them.  By day Catra buries herself in the regimented and strangely comforting routine of her old life and clings to Adora by night, sometimes kissing her until one of them falls asleep, sometimes merely curling as close to her as she can.  

Catra is on edge the day that Scorpia sidles up to her.  There’s been more bustle than usual in the barracks and by the Eterian airships.  She feels like something has shifted and can’t put a name to it.  

“Uh, wildcat?”

“You’re done already?” she asks, surprised. 

“No, no.  Not done yet but, uh.  There’s something we think you should see.”

Lonnie isn’t looking at her with her usual restrained resentment when Catra follows Scorpia into the Horde airship they’ve been using as an office.  Its large computer and keys are probably the only things Scorpia can’t break.  Lonnie looks at her warily, hovering over a file.  Bow is in here too and that puts Catra on guard.

“So, uh.  I don’t know how to start-” Scorpia stutters.

“We were going through and found a territory that’s not currently populated,” Lonnie jumps in to save her. “ It was abandoned just before the Horde took possession of it but-”

“So why are you two looking at me like that?” Catra rolls her eyes.  “Is it going to explode or something?”

“Nothing like that but-” Lonnie starts.

“So what?”

“The people-” Scorpia explains lamely as Lonnie opens the file.  Catra freezes.  She’s seen reports like this one before, surveys of territory with maps, information about the land and climate, photos of the buildings and civilians taken from hidden cameras.

She understands now why they wanted her to see this one. On a flickering screen, Catra sees people that look like her for the first time.  She’s never met anyone like her.  She knew that there must have been more like her but nothing prepares her to see it.  

They’re exactly like her.  Well, not exactly.  There are eyes and coats of every color, stripes that fork across arms and faces like lightning, smooth monochromes, patches like drops of paint in water. Hair long and elegant or cropped short or a little wild like hers.  Builds both willowy and delicate and stocky and strong and everything in between.  The one thing they have in common are ears like hers, eyes like hers, hands and feet, and tails like hers.  

“We don’t know if there were survivors or not.  The report says it was populated one day and abandoned the next.  They must’ve known something was coming,” Lonnie continues, a little hoarse.

“Lonnie and Scorpia asked if we had anything on what happened,” Bow cuts in. 

“This is one of the only files that doesn’t detail either an evacuation or,” Lonnie swallows hard,  “an annihilation.  Just a disappearance.”

“The only thing we found was actually an Eternian file and it’s not much more than speculation.  But there’s a rumor they might have fled underground and a theory on where they might be located,” Bow shows her a screen, a little blip on the map with nothing else around.  “The old Eternian maps have it labeled as Halfmoon.”

Catra can only nod, numb.  

“I’m sorry,” Scorpia murmurs.  “I’ve been there if it helps?”

“It’s better than nothing,” she shrugs but it feels more limp than nonchalant. “Nothing’s what I had before, right?”

“I’ll get a copy of this for you,” Lonnie nods, clearly trying to mask her discomfort with a business-like nod.  Catra can’t say anything in return.  She can only look between the screen and the floor.  

“Are you okay?” Bow asks.

“Mostly,” she mutters.  “I didn’t know them.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t feel it,” Scorpia offers. 

“Um.  Yeah.  Thanks for letting me know,” she tries to acknowledge the work they’ve done and not succumb to the strange combination of detachment and grief and hope that roils in the pit of her stomach.  She can’t handle the uncomfortable stares much longer.

“Hey, so I’m pretty sure Adora got out of her meeting early,” Bow clears his throat, a poor attempt at giving Catra an escape route.  Catra is grateful for it anyway and takes the life preserver he’s thrown her.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go bug her then,” she answers before scrambling out of the ship, dashing back into the palace.   Sure enough, Adora is in her room when Catra bursts in, having run the whole way.

“Hey,” she grins before she takes in Catra’s face and quick breath and her face falls, now a mix of unease and suspicion.  “Did something happen?”

“Kind of but I don’t really want to get into it right now,” Catra answers.  She doesn’t want to tell Adora just yet.  She isn’t even sure how she feels herself.  It’s too new, too world-altering on the heels of too much other change and all she wants is to feel some sense of normalcy.  “It’s not bad, just complicated. I could use that apology date though.”

“Okay,” Adora agrees, clearly concerned but deciding to humor Catra anyway.  “You wanna go now?”

“Not yet.  After dark,” she answers.

“Where are we going?” she narrows her eyes.

“It’s a surprise.”

 Adora raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question it further. 

Catra is pleased to find that the door to the winding staircase and the observatory still looks undiscovered.  She supposes that few have had time to go exploring lately in the midst and aftermath of war.  She was grateful when they returned and she could see the small and spindly tower still intact.

Adora still doesn’t remember the first time she was up here, which is just as well.  Catra could use the bright look of surprise on Adora’s face again today. 

“What is this?” Adora asks, taking one look at the staircase and shooting Catra a skeptical look.  

“Adora, do you know the definition of a surprise?”

“Yeah, obviously.  It’s just sometimes your surprises are more like pranks.”

“I can’t convince you it’s not a prank.  You’ll just have to find out.  Plus, you love pranks.”

“No, you love pranks and I love to get you back for them.”

“Come on, we have a lot of stairs to climb,” Catra answers breezily, deliberately ignoring her to tease her.  Adora grumbles and follows.

They make it a little more than halfway and stop to rest.  Even as used to climbing as they are, the sheer number of steps starts to burn in their legs.  They sit on the narrow staircase, staggered, Adora just one step above.  Catra lounges against her, back pressed to her chest.  There’s something about high-up places like this, particularly when Adora is with her, that makes her feel like things make sense.  It’s as if they’re separate from the world for a little while, removed from its heavy truths and complications. 

“So I have some news but I want to make sure it’s a good time to talk about this-” Adora starts and Catra tenses.  “It’s good, I just want to make sure you can handle new stuff right now.”

“Go for it,” Catra answers.  She isn’t actually sure she wants to hear it.  She’s been plagued with a sense of foreboding all day, like she knows what’s coming.  But it’ll be worse to sit here and wonder what news Adora has.  

“So you know a lot of these meetings have been about whether I’m legitimately their long lost princess or whatever and what to do with the politically tricky position that puts us in if I am.  Since I’m a former Horde soldier and now tied in with a foreign kingdom and planet and everything.”

“You can’t just let things be simple, can you, Adora?” Catra asks, teasing to conceal the fact that her heart is starting to race.

“It’s not intentional!” she counters and then continues.  “But they did agree after a lot of deliberating, so much deliberating, that I...am.”

“Wow.  So does this mean you’re a double princess because you’re also She-Ra?”

“I don’t even know,” she shakes her head.  “Maybe.  But obviously that means we have to go to Eternia.  Not necessarily permanently but there’s going to be even more deliberating.  And I apparently have a family that thought I was dead my entire life.  No pressure,” Adora rolls her eyes.

Catra’s ears are ringing but she soldiers through it anyway, refusing to appear anything but happy for her.

“When?”

“In a week.”

Catra feels as if she’s going to be sick.  Adora is grinning until she catches sight of Catra.

“Catra? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she answers.  It won’t do to tell her how heartbroken she is to watch her leave.  It’ll just smack of resentment of her, the same kind that put a rift between them in the first place.  It doesn’t matter how Catra feels.  Adora has a real chance to meet her family, not some ancient suspicion on a foreign map.  She has a real flesh-and-blood family out there.  Catra has to let her leave matter how much she wants her to stay. 

“I thought you’d be more excited.”

“I’m happy for you, Adora, I really am,” she nods. 

“You don’t seem happy,” Adora scowls lightly.

“Yeah, I am, I’m excited for you.”

“But you’re excited too, right?”

Catra growls in frustration, the handle on her heartbreak weakening each time Adora presses her.  

“What do you want me to do, Adora?” she asks, defeated and quiet.  “I’m excited for you, but it’s a little hard to be excited for myself.”

“Why not?” Adora looks at her, nonplussed.

It finally overwhelms her, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.  A past Catra would’ve hidden them.  Now she turns to look at her and lets Adora see.

“Do you get how hard it’s going to be to watch you go again?  I’d never stop you.  We’ve all wanted to find where we came from and you’re going to get to do it.  But you can’t pretend that you really think it’s going to be easy for me to stay here while you leave for who knows how long-”

Adora stares at her for a moment, open-mouthed before she can speak.

“Um, yeah, that would be really hard if that’s what I planned to do,” Adora smiles sadly.  “But I was kind of thinking you might come with me?” 

This time it’s Catra’s turn to stare, silent and stunned.

“What?” she asks when her voice starts working again.

“Sorry, I guess I didn’t make it clear enough.  By ‘we’ I kind of meant you and me.  And also Glimmer and Bow and a huge bunch of diplomats and the Eternian army, but that’s not the point,” Adora stutters. 

“Will they even let me?” Catra asks, disbelieving.

“I kind of might have refused to leave with them unless they let me take you with me.  That is if you actually want to-”  Adora shrugs, sheepish.

Catra can’t respond right away.  She had been so sure a moment ago that Adora was going to leave again.  The idea that she didn’t even consider going without her is both beautiful and overwhelmingly foreign to her.  

“I’m sorry.  I really scared you for a second, didn’t I?” Adora asks, remorse and worry coloring her voice.

“Yeah.  I might need a minute to get used to the idea-” she picks at her cuticle. “But thanks for thinking of me.”

“Yeah I kind of love you, remember?” she nudges Catra’s shoulder, sitting next to her on the winding staircase. Catra sighs and loops her arms around Adora’s neck, leaning her head on her shoulder.  

After a moment Adora stirs a little.

“So what’s this place you’re trying to show me?” she asks, trying to lighten the mood.  It’s as poor as Bow’s attempt to do the same hours ago but Catra is just as grateful.  “There is something at the top of these stairs, right?”

“No, it’s a dead end.  I just wanted to see you climb all the way to the top for nothing.”

Adora gives a perturbed look.

“I hope you’re not serious.  I can never tell with you.”

“There’s something at the top, I’m not lying.  I’ve actually taken you here before.  But I think it’s going to be way cooler this time around.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” Catra smirks, standing. “Bet you can’t beat me to the top.”

Adora takes the bait like always and they giggle, thundering up the stairs.

When they get to the door at the top, gasping for breath, Adora comes up just short.

“Told you I could beat you,”  Catra crosses her arms, playing like she’s been standing here waiting for Adora for hours.

“Just shut up and show me what’s up here,” she rolls her eyes.  Catra laughs and opens the door.  

Even she isn’t prepared for the transformation the observatory has undergone.  It was beautiful before with the glowing of the moon against the inky black sky, the tomes describing skies in a past galaxy, the delicate art of telescopes and glass domes.  But now with the stars back in their rightful place, it stuns them both.  They stare, open-mouthed up at a clear and sparkling sky.  

“I remember stars like this,” Adora whispers.

“You told me that when we were here before,” Catra answers. “But all we had before were maps and books.  This is new.  Or to me it is.”

“I’ve always wanted to see them again.  The stuff I remember is pretty vague but this is-” she shakes her head.

“Aw, are you choked up, Adora?” she teases lightly.

“Yeah, they’re nice, okay?  And I’m really glad you’re here to see them with me like this.  How’d you find this place?”

“Wandering around my first few weeks in the palace when I was hiding and stuff,” she shrugs, explaining again patiently.

“Did we look at this one?” Adora laughs, as she gravitates towards one of the few disturbed books in the room.  They flipped through this one last time, a book of constellations.  There are obvious fingerprints in the dusty cover.

“You did,” Catra laughs a little.  “We can actually use it now, though.”

“Can we?” she asks, eyes brightening as she looks between the book, the telescope, and Catra herself.

“Yeah, we can do whatever you want,” she shrugs.  

They settle in chairs by the telescope, Adora eagerly flipping through the dusty book and fiddling with the telescope.  Catra is content to lounge, looking between the expanse of stars and Adora, wondering why they’re equally captivating to her.  She sits sideways in the chair, legs stretched out over one arm, head and arms propped against the wings of Adora’s chair, tail flicking lazily.

“Got it!” Adora exclaims after a long while of adjusting the telescope.  She looks through it, grinning for almost ten minutes before she remembers herself.  

“Sorry, do you want to look?”

“Yeah,” Catra nods, getting up and unceremoniously sitting on Adora’s lap, peering into the telescope.  

“They’re nice,” Catra nods after looking through the telescope for a moment.  “Brighter.”

“But do you see it?”

“See what?  I see stars if that’s what you mean,” she teases. 

“The constellation?”

“Oh yeah. I wasn’t looking for it, sorry.”

“So this is what we’re looking for,” Adora shakes her head, unsatisfied with just casually enjoying the view.  She has to have some sort of goal or something to do or she’ll go stir crazy.   

“What’s it supposed to be?”

“A horse, apparently,” she taps the description.

Catra eyes the shape in the book and then squints into the telescope.

“Yeah, I don’t see it.”

“I don’t really either.  But look, this one is a little closer.  It’s a dragon,” Adora repositions the telescope, fiddles with it for a moment.  “Try now.”

Catra looks again.

“I guess that’s closer but only because they don’t exist and no one can vouch for whether it looks like a dragon or not.”

“I mean they’re all a little abstract.  And this one is supposed to be...a cup?”  Adora moves the telescope once more so Catra can see another one.  

“Yeah, I just see more stars.  They’re pretty or whatever but that’s not a cup.”

“No, it is.  Look, if you start here-”

“I feel like whoever wrote this was making stuff up,” Catra grabs the book and flips through.  “You could just connect any of them however you wanted and call it a shape.”

“No, there’s more to it than that, give it back,” Adora reaches for it.

“I mean look at this one,” she keeps going.  “In what universe does that look like a person?’

Adora laughs.

“Okay, so obviously it’s not that artistic, but it’s fun, let me see-”

“Nah, I think I’ve had enough of star-shapes,” she sighs, deliberately teasing her and holding the book just out of reach.  

“Catra, just give it to me so I can mark my page,” she huffs.  

“Or what?” she raises an eyebrow, smiling a little.  

Adora considers her for a moment, clearly weighing whether she wants to take the challenge or leave it.  She smiles back, determined, and Catra bolts.  She knows that look and she isn’t giving Adora any sort of lead.  

“Get back here!” Adora laughs, leaping up from the chair.  Catra scampers to the top of the massive telescope, knowing well that  Adora will be slow to climb after her.  She tries valiantly though, making a slow ascent towards her.  Catra waits until she’s right within reach to drop to the ground and Adora growls, frustrated. 

“I should’ve known you were going to do that.”

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Catra taunts, standing beneath her.  She doesn't get to tease her for long, though.  Adora drops too.  She doesn’t land gracefully, but if Catra knows her, that wasn’t part of the strategy.  She crumples and Catra tries to run but Adora already has her arms wrapped around her knees and she has her on the floor in seconds. Adora isn’t fast but she’s always been heavier and stronger.  Catra flings the book behind her and Adora rolls her eyes and gets up to go grab it.  Catra uses the instant Adora’s weight is off of her to her advantage, scampering across the floor to swipe it again.

“Seriously?” Adora asks, somewhere between a giggle and a growl, chasing after her again.    There isn’t much room to run and it isn’t long before Adora is able to cut off Catra’s escape, grasping wildly for the book and missing it each time.  Catra laughs uncontrollably until Adora gets wise, reminded she doesn’t have Catra’s agility.  She hooks a heel behind Catra’s legs and pushes just hard enough to topple her.  She pins her on the ground, straddling her and swiping the book from where Catra holds it, arms outstretched above them.  Adora pins her wrists with one hand and marks the book with the other, smug.  

Adora hovers over her, close enough to make Catra’s skin tingle a little and heat pool in her belly.  The overwhelming urge to kiss her overtakes so quickly the room feels as if it’s spinning.  Catra just looks at her, smiling, and reaches up to twirl a tendril of Adora’s blond hair.

Adora clearly hasn’t noticed the shift in the air yet.  Catra should’ve known she’d need to make it more obvious.  Subtlety has never been Adora’s strong suit.

“You know, if you wanted on top of me so much, all you had to do was ask,” Catra tells her, well aware of the havoc it’ll cause. Adora sputters and flushes brilliantly.

“You...t-that’s not what I was trying to do!”

“Sure it isn’t,” Catra answers, making a show of looking skeptical.

“I wasn't!  Wait,” Adora pauses and Catra holds in her laughter at how comical she looks as she works through it. “You’re doing this on purpose,” she huffs.

“Duh,” Catra grins, wriggling a little beneath her between her legs.  “And it’s working.”

“What do you mean working?  What’s your goal? To mess with me?” she scowls.

“To flirt with you, stupid.”

“Oh,” answers lamely, flushing even brighter and Catra laughs before she leans in to kiss her.  Adora giggles into her mouth and Catra can feel her smile even as her laughter fades.  

The air between them goes from playful to effervescent to heavy and a little desperate.  Adora stops smiling as their kisses get deeper, trading her giggles for quick breath and a hand threaded in Catra’s hair.  She sighs happily when Catra slips her hand under her jacket, running her hands over the fabric of her shirt, along her back, against the flat of her stomach. Adora gives her a contented hum when she puts her hand just under her shirt to touch bare skin.  

Catra would let her kiss her like this for an eternity, but it’s almost more beautiful to look at Adora when she pulls back, breathing quick, cheeks flushed and eyes as blue and open as the sky above them.  It’s now that Catra truly realizes she doesn’t have to say goodbye to Adora the way she feared.  The tension she’s been holding in her neck and shoulders starts to bleed away.  Now it’s less desperation and more the knowledge that there’s a real path ahead of them that makes her want to pull Adora as close as she can and not let go.  

Catra moves to slip Adora’s jacket off her shoulders, questioning.  Adora grins widely and answers by sitting up on her knees to rid herself of it.  Catra takes the opportunity to hook her fingers under the hem of her shirt too, lifting it a little from where she lies between Adora’s legs.  Adora smiles wider and makes quick work of her shirt and her bra too.

“You’re such a dork,” Catra shakes her head, hoping the flush across her face isn’t matching Adora’s.

“Should I just-” she hooks a thumb under the waistband of her pants, questioning.  

  Catra shrugs, still trying to appear nonchalant.  

“Probably, yeah.”

Catra has seen her before a thousand times in the locker room in the Fright Zone and in the one here, too. But this is different.  There’s no quick aversion of her eyes, nothing to distract her when Adora stands and slides her trousers and underwear down her legs and tosses them aside, reaching up to tighten her ponytail before settling back on the floor over Catra.  She can’t speak.  

“You okay?” Adora asks, worried, and Catra realizes she’s been staring.

“Yeah, more than okay,” she manages to choke out.

“Thank you?” Adora stutters.

“It’s a compliment.  Just come here,” she answers, barely keeping her composure as she pulls Adora to her to kiss her again.  Adora kisses her back eagerly and Catra relishes running her hands over smooth skin.  She kisses her a little deeper as she gently traces the scars across her back.  Adora reaches for her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze before bracing her hand against the floor again.  She traces the smoothness of her belly and just under the softness of her breast and Adora moans softly.  She breaks the kiss to gasp, forehead leaning against Catra’s, as she cups her breast.

Catra barely suppresses a gasp herself because it’s difficult to believe she’s real and here and with her.  She seems almost intangibly beautiful as she tips her head back, arching her back, eyes shut and a flurry of pretty sighs and yeses escaping her as Catra teases her gently.  As her gasps and whimpers get stronger and less breathy, Catra hesitantly reaches to stroke her inner thigh. 

“Can I?” she murmurs.

“Please,” she nods, eyes fluttering shut again as Catra slips a hand between her legs.

Catra never realized how badly she wanted to touch her like this until now.  Everything about her is both recognizable and so strangely beautiful and new.  A familiar face with a new expression somewhere between concern and ecstasy. Her mouth, usually in a business-like line or in a crooked grin is now open and soft.  Her voice is the same as always and yet completely unfamiliar, making these moans and yeses and little admissions of love, higher-pitched and more delicate than she thought Adora’s voice could be.  Skin that’s always looked a little golden to her, a firm and calloused hand she knows and slick, coarse curls she’s discovering.   

Adora’s arms start to tremble with the effort of holding herself up and Catra gently nudges her to lie down.  She gratefully settles on her side, slinging her leg over Catra’s hip, gladly clinging to her.  She’s everywhere, the soft warmth of her, the heat of her breath, the sound of her now ringing in Catra’s ear.  She starts to tense, her breath and voice stronger and Catra can’t take her eyes off of her.  

She cries out, clear and unafraid, and pulls Catra to her, vice-like.  She keeps holding her as she calms and if Catra could melt into her, she would.  She’s tucked under Adora’s chin, can hear her breath start to calm and her heartbeat go from thunderous to tranquil. 

“That was-” she starts and then stops, still a little out of breath.

“Good I hope?” Catra pulls back and raises an eyebrow.

“Obviously,” Adora smiles and gestures to her flushed face.  

Catra just smiles back and tucks herself back to Adora’s chest, revels in the warmth of her skin.  It isn’t until Adora laughs a little and squeezes her lightly that she realizes she’s purring softly against her.  

Adora kisses the top of her head, her forehead, the apples of her cheeks.  Then her lips, sweet at first and then deep until Catra is almost dizzy with kisses.  She kisses her neck melting and open and maddening. Down to her collarbone, stopping at the edge of Catra’s shirt.  Catra doesn’t wait for her to ask.  She slips out of her clothes, eager to be lost in an ecstasy of Adora’s kisses.  Adora stares for a moment, long enough for Catra to have trouble meeting her eyes.

“Sorry,” she remembers herself, looking away sheepishly.  “I just think you’re beautiful,” she tells her with a look Catra would usually dismiss as sappy. But now it feels like something delicate she doesn’t want to disturb.  She can’t describe the way Adora is looking at her as anything other than reverent and she simultaneously feels undeserving and like she never wants her to stop.

Catra can only pull her back to her in answer and wrap her arms around her as Adora moves to hover over her again.  She shivers when Adora leans back in to kiss her and she realizes their breasts are pressed together.  

Adora’s kisses are endless and Catra presses a hand to her mouth to keep from whimpering too loudly when she takes her breast in her mouth.  

“It’s probably okay,” Adora tells her, murmuring against her skin, gently touching her elbow to signal that she doesn’t need to cover her mouth.  

Catra nods but doesn’t heed her just yet and Adora doesn’t press her, continuing to kiss her across her breasts and down her stomach.  Catra can’t help but thrash a little, heat growing between her legs.

“Is this okay?” she asks she gets to the space just under Catra’s belly button and Catra takes her hand from her mouth.  

“Yeah,” she murmurs, unable to stop the low moan that escapes when Adora starts to kiss her, slow and warm between her legs.  Adora gently laces her fingers with each of Catra’s hands and she gladly holds them in return, vice-like. 

It’s so difficult to keep her eyes open when Adora is kissing her languidly and expertly like this, but she tries.  It’s too impossibly beautiful, Adora’s fingers laced with hers, her blue eyes watching her tenderly, and an ocean of stars above them.  When Adora’s kisses become too much, she has to shut her eyes, something between a yelp and a squeak in the shape of Adora’s name slipping out before she can stop it.  Catra isn't sure what it would feel like to get lost in those stars, but she imagines it’s something like this.   Both weightless and heavy, numb and hypersensitive all at once.  And with Adora beside her, of course, as she moves to lie next to her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, smiling lazily and opening her eyes to the canopy of stars and Adora’s eyes that shine so much like them.  Adora smiles too as Catra settles back on her chest, her ear above her heart.  They lie together in the observatory, looking at the stars together.

“Can you see Eternia from here?” Catra asks on a whim.

“Actually, yeah.  It doesn’t look like much.  Mostly like a big star.  But that should be it there,” she points.

“Which one?”

“The really bright big one,” she murmurs.  

Looking at it, even from far away, it seems like the kind of place Adora would come from.  Brilliant and fixed and impossible to overlook. 

“It seems crazy that we’re going there when it looks so small from here, doesn’t it?” Adora murmurs.  

Catra isn’t sure what makes her say it.  Maybe it’s the way she feels like she’s glowing or the way Adora looks lit by stars or the ease with which she says they’re going together as if it’s the most indisputable thing in the universe.  

“I love you,” she murmurs against her chest.  Adora starts but doesn’t make much of it beyond that, clearly afraid to scare Catra off.

“I love you too,” is all she says as they lie, tangled in one another under a new galaxy of stars.

They wake in the morning, still undressed and curled up together on the floor of the observatory under the sweet yellow light of morning.  Sometime in the night one of them dragged Adora’s jacket over them as a makeshift blanket.

“Pretty sure I might’ve missed a meeting,” Adora grumbles in her ear, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.  Catra yawns, stretching.

“They’ll live.”

“Yeah, they will.  Definitely worth it,” she answers, looping her arms around Catra’s bare stomach from where she’s pressed against her back.

“What do they want to talk about this time?”

“Too much information on the royal family and my role as princess, so I can probably skip it.  Glimmer can yell at me about it later.”

“Skipping a meeting.  I’m a bad influence on you, aren’t I?” she grins.

“I’m not making a habit of it,” she answers.

“Maybe you should.  They seem like they talk too much.”

“Hey, most of it has been important,” Adora answers, defending her meetings.  “But I’m not really intending on playing princess with them.”

“Yeah, I don’t actually know if Glimmer will yell at you for that.”

“I was banking on her sympathizing,” she nods against Catra’s shoulder, lips pressed gently to her shoulder.  “Tomorrow there’s one you have to be in, too.”

“Ew, why?”

“Travel plans and a crash course on Eternian customs.  So we don’t walk in and immediately offend everyone.”

They fall silent and Catra thinks.  She hasn’t had much of a moment to wrap her head around yesterday.  She was so sure she was going to stay on Etheria if Adora left that she never considered going off-planet.  There’ll be a huge contingent of ambassadors and Glimmer and Adora.  Where does she fit?   The idea of what Adora’s family and a planet she doesn’t know will think of her weighs on her.  

“Adora?”

“Hm?”

“This going to Eternia thing.  I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to go with you.”

“You don’t want to come with me?” she asks, shocked and Catra turns in her arms to face her. 

“I do.  I really do.  But I mean, I assume you’re trying to make a good impression and I don’t know if walking in and going, ‘Hey, family I’ve never known, I’m Adora and this is one of the feral Etherian locals I’m dating.’ is going to do it for you.”

“You’re not going to make a bad impression, Catra.  I’m actually pretty proud of you, you know,” she nudges her, smiling.

“Gross, shut up,” she shoves her playfully before she quiets. “ Do you really want me to come?” she asks again, reticent.

“Of course I do.  I mean, we always said we wanted to see the world together.  You’re going to pass up the chance to see a different planet ?” she asks, gently cupping Catra’s face.  

Catra isn’t convinced yet.

“How are you going to explain why I’m there?”

“Why wouldn’t you be there?  I mean you were instrumental in this entire thing.   You were the first person to communicate with them, you’re the one who told them you thought I was their princess in the first place.  Also?”

Catra waits for her to finish.

“I don’t want to go without you,” she murmurs.  “I’d miss you so much and I’m kind of nervous. I want you to be there.”

“Okay,” Catra nods, reassured.  “ I’ll go as long as I get to drag you to Halfmoon-”

“What moon?” Adora asks, nonplussed.

“Yeah, so apparently there was some underground society of us on the old Eternian maps.  They think they might still be around, hiding from the Horde.”

“A secret society of who?”

“Apparently they were called magicats,” she raises an eyebrow. “People like me.  They found a report about it in those files Entrapta sent about occupied territory.  It was in there.  That’s what happened yesterday that I didn’t want to get into."

“What?!” Adora exclaims, grabbing her hand, vice-like.  She seems even more frazzled about it than Catra was yesterday.  “Catra, that’s huge!  T-there could be others like you, we have to go! Maybe we can find your parents!”

“I mean, I’m not holding out for that,” she shrugs, sighing for a moment.  “I figure if the Horde was able to pick me off that quickly they’re probably not around anymore. But it would be nice to see it, see if there’s anyone left. Be somewhere civilized,” she turns her nose up and Adora snorts.

“Sure, scratching your ear and sniffing it is civilized-” she smirks, teasing before she gets serious again.  “But yeah, I’d love to go with you.”

“You’re willingly going to walk into a city that’s either abandoned or full of people like me?” Catra raises an eyebrow.  “You’re brave.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Adora answers.

“What? You just said you’d go-”

Adora pulls Catra to her, takes her in her arms, and kisses her sweetly.

“There’s no one like you,” she murmurs against her lips and Catra can’t, for once, find anything to say back.