Chapter Text

After scrambling through the entire Fright Zone—which, come on, wasn’t really made for someone of her stature—looking for Catra for nearly an entire day straight, it was safe to say that Scorpia was frantic.

‘Freaking out’ might’ve even been a better way to describe it.

Scorpia had searched every nook and cranny in the Fright Zone (the ones that she could reasonably fit in, at the very least), every hiding spot that she’d learned over time that Catra liked to slink off to (with a bitter taste in her mouth, Scorpia realized that Adora probably knew all of the magicat’s old hiding spots far better than she herself did), and even asked around after her friend, all to no avail.

“I haven’t seen her,” supplied Kyle, and Scorpia’d had half a mind to fire the kid out of sheer frustration at the unhelpfulness of his answer.

Rogelio had looked like he’d known what he was talking about, an earnest and knowledgeable look in his eyes and an impassioned speech quickly leaving his tongue, which would’ve been absolutely perfect—if Scorpia had any idea how to tell what the lizard-guy was even saying. After twenty minutes wasted trying to get out of that conversation, she finally managed to excuse herself when she heard a clanging in the vents that signaled Entrapta’s nearby presence, and followed the trail of noise to the scientist’s lab, where she found the older woman lowering herself from the air duct and onto her strangely comfortable couch.

The Force Captain opened her mouth to ask Entrapta if she’d seen the third member of the Super Pal Trio before briefly reconsidering the action. When she’d told Scorpia about Shadow Weaver’s escape, Catra had told her that they couldn’t trust Entrapta, because she was too close to Hordak, apparently. And, sure, she’d been spending a lot of time in Hordak’s sanctum lately, but that was just because they’re lab partners…right?

No. Entrapta was still their friend. Of course Scorpia could trust her. Poor wildcat was just…going through a hard time.

“Have you seen Catra recently?” she finally asked—ultimately, more than once, because it was a bit of a struggle to get the scientist’s attention the first couple of times.

“Hmm…No, but…” Entrapta rubbed her chin thoughtfully, her hair forming a hand that snapped when she apparently remembered something. “Aha! I heard Hordak say something about ‘Catra’ and ‘transport’—something about an island? He didn’t seem very open to my offer to come along to collect data, even though we could always use more data and Catra’s so good at getting First Ones’ tech for us, and—”

Scorpia didn’t wait around to hear the rest of her friend’s confusing and convoluted spiel—as soon as she’d heard ‘Catra’ and ‘island’, she’d started to put the pieces together, and bolted out of the room. She almost barreled straight into Lonnie.

“Watch where you’re—oh, hey Scorpia,” she said, her voice adopting that almost patronizing tone it did whenever she spoke with the Force Captain (who’d be lying if she said she knew why, exactly, though she knew that the behavior made her uncomfortable regardless. Just another case of being treated differently because she was different). “What are you doing here?”

Scorpia couldn’t contain her worry. “I’m looking for Catra!” she blurted, then the rest of the words just rushed out of her, “I haven’t seen her since the other day, when Shadow Weaver—uh—and, and Entrapta mentioned that Hordak said something about putting Catra on a transport and—just, have you seen her anywhere?”

Lonnie was managing to look even more smug than usual. A firm smile on her lips, her chest puffed up, and a look in her eye as she laughed debasingly. “Oh, I don’t think anyone’s going to be seeing Catra anytime soon,” she said, bringing up a finger to tap against the shiny new Force Captain badge adorning her uniform.

Mouth open to absent-mindedly congratulate Lonnie on her promotion, the praise fell short of Scorpia’s mouth when she noticed the nick in the badge—a very familiar nick, which she recognized as where Catra’s claw had gotten caught when the badge got stuck during their makeover session before Princess Prom. Which meant that was Catra’s badge.

“Why—why do you say that, Lonnie?” she chuckled uncomfortably.

“Come on, Scorpia. Even you’re smarter than that! They sent Catra to Beast Island last night. Good riddance, if you ask me.”

Scorpia’s mind went blank.

Wildcat’s on Beast Island.

--

With a rattling gasp, Catra woke up. Her lungs gulped down large, greedy breaths of air as she clutched at her throat—not-so faintly remembering the events prior to her loss of consciousness, in Hordak’s sanctum; his red eyes and sharp smirk as she struggled to breathe. She couldn’t remember anything after that, except for darkness. And now she was…well, she wasn’t quite sure.

Catra moved to push herself up, and hissed in pain when something sharp embedded itself into her hand. With a grimace, she pulled what she initially thought was a shard of glass out of her palm; upon further inspection, she could see the intricate lines and shapes engraved on the glass and recognized it as First Ones’ tech. In fact, it looked like the entire surface she was now standing on was covered in shattered tech, glinting here and there as they caught the light of the moons, occasionally being washed over by the crash of an errant wave.

It took her a mere instant to fully realize the implications of everything—the water, this tech-littered shore, the raw red skin on her wrists where her fur had been rubbed away.

She was on Beast Island.

Fuck. She was too weak to send Shadow Weaver here, lost her, and now she was being punished in her stead. And Catra had been so stupid as to try and lie to Hordak. Hell, she’d been so stupid as to assume that she wouldn’t be punished so disproportionately just for one mistake—she was the Horde’s Second-in-Command, for fuck’s sake! Catra was pretty sure she’d once heard, while Entrapta was excitedly prattling on about numbers and statistics and tech and bots, that she’d single-handedly managed to raise the Horde’s efficiency by 400%. Okay, well, maybe she’d had a little help from Scorpia and Entrapta—not that she’d ever admit that out loud. Regardless, Hordak couldn’t even manage to crawl out of his musty ‘sanctum’ for long enough to squash a rebellion headed by a group of teenagers (admittedly, one of which was the fabled warrior princess She-Ra, but the blonde behind the Sword wasn’t exactly the brightest, come on), and he sent her to fucking Beast Island, all because of one mistake! With a growl, Catra kicked at the ground, sending up a shower of glittering tech-sand and only succeeding, really, in scratching up the bottom of her foot, which only made her growl louder.

The magicat took a few moments to collect herself, knowing—based on the stories she’d been told about the island—that was really all she had before some razor-toothed/clawed/finned creature would inevitably try and eat her. But as it currently stood, it looked like she was the only living creature on the shore. There were, to her displeasure, several skeletons also littering the shore, a few of which were wearing Horde-issued uniforms. So much for armor being any semblance of helpful, she supposed.

The next thing Catra did was take stock of herself—her wrists were sore from where the handcuffs had been, her mask was thankfully still resting in its rightful place upon her head, and her Horde uniform was…ragged, at best. Her Force Captain badge was no longer affixed to her chest, which, of course. She dimly wondered who would get the promotion in her stead; certainly not Kyle, who somehow had managed to avoid getting outright fired so far, and not Rogelio—as good of a fighter as the lizard-guy was, nobody could understand him. So Lonnie, maybe? Or perhaps Scorpia would just take over the squad, instead. She wasn’t entirely sure what squad Scorpia was actually in charge of, now that she thought about it. Did she only get the promotion because she was a princess?

It wasn’t like any of that mattered, anyways. What mattered was that, just like everyone else in her life, Hordak had betrayed her. Him, Shadow Weaver, Adora…

Catra hissed again, pairing it with an angry growl that scratched unpleasantly at her throat. Hordak’s atmosphere-sucking-whatever machine must’ve done more of a number on her than she’d initially thought. Not too big of a surprise there, admittedly. It wasn’t like it’d been a pleasant experience the first time she’d struggled through the threat, although that time she’d managed to stay conscious—a feat that was by no way easy, mind you. Her throat was probably too raw to speak at the moment, not that it really mattered. From what she knew about Beast Island (most of which was only stories and thinly-veiled threats, but regardless), there wouldn’t be any friendly living creatures for her to have the pleasure of having a nice chat with. Not that she’d want to chat with anyone right now, anyways. Having ‘friends’ had clearly never worked out for her, and she wasn’t planning on making any with the fucked-up creatures that supposedly inhabited this island.

So, after wiping the blood from that stupid First Ones’ shard off onto her pants, taking a deep breath, and properly re-adjusting the mask affixed to her face, Catra resolved to do what she did best.

Survive, and prove everyone else wrong.

--

Chapter Text

Catra’s ears were ringing.

More accurately, Catra’s ears hadn’t stopped ringing since she’d woken up on this stupid fucking island. For the past several days, she’d had to put up with the incessant noise that, quite honestly, she wasn’t sure was only in her head. It wasn’t quite so loud that she couldn’t hear anything else, but it was certainly a pain in her…uh, ears. And it was definitely making the avoidance of getting murdered and/or eaten by something on the island a bit of a challenge.

So far, she’d managed to outrun several herds of pookas, outsmart a flock of scruffers, and narrowly avoid being crushed underneath the giant body of some sort of…giant dinosaur lizard worm.

Her sources of food on the island were…scarce, at best. There were bugs, sure, but they were gross. Like, really gross. ‘Worse than brown ration bars’ levels of gross, all wriggly legs and crunchy exoskeletons and bug juice. Catra didn’t even like thinking about having to eat another bug, especially given that she’d found razorfins—for all the warnings about their razor-sharp teeth—were both relatively easy to catch and not too-bad tasting. The biggest issue with the fish, though, was that she had to wade out into the ocean to catch them, and Catra hated the ocean. The fish did have the bonus of being a (albeit paltry) source of water, but she was still starting to get rather parched.

She blamed the incredibly intrusive noise and the lack of sufficient nutrition for why it’d taken her until just now to realize that she was being followed. In fact, Catra felt almost embarrassed for not having noticed sooner. Sure, she was near-constantly having to dodge the aforementioned deadly creatures that occupied the island, but there was something different about this.

Who—or what—ever was following her wasn’t exactly a master of subtlety. Even over the ringing in her ears, Catra could hear the way they shuffled on the glass of the beach, or the way they occasionally tripped over one of the ever-encroaching vines that seemed to make up the entirety of the island’s flora—that is, if the vines were actually organic, which Catra had a few doubts about. Regardless, it was a wonder that whoever was following her hadn’t already been eaten by one of the other plentiful predators on the island, because they clearly weren’t the apex. Right now, for example, they were apparently stumbling along behind her, making some sort of grumbling noise as she led them through various parts of the island (never straying too far towards the center of the island, which seemed to make the ringing in her ears almost completely unbearable).

So, the magicat decided that enough was enough. She was going to catch this…thing.

Judging by their footsteps, which were measured and heavy, they weren’t on the fast side, and that was where Catra had always had an advantage. She may not have been the strongest Force Captain in the Horde, but there was no doubt that she was by far the fastest. By a long shot. Not to mention the most mobile.

Before too long, she’d managed to create a trail for them to follow that, if they were indeed tracking her,  would end up with her being the pursuer. And before any longer, perched upon a wayward vine, she found herself poised right above them, ready to pounce.

And pounce she did, with the fiercest growl she could muster (which, though very fierce, definitely wasn’t the fiercest she’d managed in the past, due to the continuing soreness of her throat), tackling the person (for it was indeed a person, after all) to the ground in a blur of fur and fangs.

To her surprise, the person rolled free of her grasp, assuming a defensive stance and levying his weapon—a staff—against her in one hand, and what she could recognize as a spell-circle (from her unfortunate experience with Shadow Weaver’s escape) in the other. Catra hissed at the sight, assuming an equally battle-ready stance and circling the sorcerer with a sharp sneer.

“Who are you?”

--

It was an uncomfortably quiet night in Bright Moon. Which is to say, it was like most other nights in Bright Moon tended to be. That was something Adora had a hard time adjusting to especially, even after nearly a year of being with the Rebellion. She’d spent eighteen years in the Fright Zone, after all—getting used to falling asleep to the rhythmic hissing of steam and pulsing/whirring of electronics every night, the sound of the other cadets’ steady breathing in the barracks (not including Kyle, who snored like a freight train to the extent that, before she left, their superior officers had been considering giving him a Force Captain room just so the rest of the cadets wouldn’t have to hear him at night), and the warm and familiar weight of Ca—well, you get the point. Bright Moon, however, was quiet.

It was times like this that Adora had the hardest time sleeping; when it was too quiet, when her bed (despite having been replaced with something sturdier than the typical Bright Moon bed) was too soft, and when she felt alone. But especially after Bow’s big reveal with his dads and a day full of research and fighting that elemental, she knew her friends were tired and didn’t want to bug them with a request for a sleepover. So she tossed, and she turned, and she anxiously listened to the gentle trickle of the waterfall—what was it for??—and she fidgeted with the knife that she kept under her pillow.

Adora had nearly managed to wrangle herself to sleep when she heard it, just barely: a deep, rattling breath, like someone was in pain. Then she sensed a shadow fall over her—dark and looming like a midnight threat—and sprang into action. Dagger in one hand, Sword of Protection in the other, Adora leapt out of her bed, immediately falling into a battle-ready stance to protect herself against…

Shadow Weaver?

The sorceress in question swayed, unsteady on her feet, with thick, dark shadows sloughing off of her in waves as she coughed viciously, barely eking out an “Adora…” before promptly collapsing to the ground before Adora could so much as respond.

The next few days were a whirlwind, to put it lightly. Shadow Weaver’s appearance in Bright Moon was only the start of numerous very confusing developments for Adora, especially.

Finding out that there was apparently a much larger sect of the Horde, but from outer space? That Hordak and Entrapta were planning on building a portal using First Ones’ tech—and that the proof that portals both existed and worked was that Adora herself had come through one and was therefore not of this planet?

Storming into the Crystal Castle to demand answers from an as-usual, less-than-helpful Light Hope, who informed her that she was, in fact, a First One herself, and that her She-Ra predecessor had trapped them in an empty dimension that would, most likely, destroy the planet if a portal were to be opened?

And if that wasn’t bad enough, she and her friends had the pleasure of being temporarily trapped and betrayed by Huntara, who Adora had to admit had been mostly distracted by the entire mission (her muscles were just so big).

Being confronted by a (abnormally ragtag) group of Horde soldiers right after being told by a terrified-looking hologram of Mara that opening a portal would “bring death and destruction to the universe” was just the icing on the cake.

Adora supposed that sending Scorpia and Entrapta to the Crimson Wastes (assumingly because Entrapta had picked up on the signal that Mara’s ship was putting out) made the most sense. After all, they were in search of First Ones’ tech for that portal Hordak was working on, and both Scorpia and Entrapta had been there in the Northern Reach in search of something similar—not that Adora herself really knew what had happened up there, given that she had been infected by that awful disk almost the entire time, but regardless—but they hadn’t been up there alone…

They’d been with Catra.

Catra, who was conspicuously absent from the fight. The fight which the Best Friends Squad (feat. Huntara and her big muscles) won with an almost alarming amount of ease, resulting in almost every Horde soldier on the ship turning tail and retreating as soon as she made her first swing as She-Ra. Entrapta and Scorpia, on the other hand, didn’t flee. In a shocking turn of events, Adora found herself looking at both princesses with their hands up in the air, in surrender.

Well, that was weird. ‘Letting yourself get captured’ isn’t exactly very high on the ‘Approved Things to do if You Lose a Battle’ list that they went over as cadets.

Scorpia was quick to speak up, however— “We need your help.”

“What?”

--

Chapter Text

“Who are you?” Catra hissed, claws extended and ready to pounce. She ignored the way that it hurt, slightly, to talk. Hopefully her damned sore throat would let up soon.

With high-pitched petulance, the sorcerer countered, “I asked first!”

Catra resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she used the standoff as an opportunity to take in the stranger standing in front of her. He certainly looked worse for the wear; dark, matted hair that was graying at the temples, strange purple scars on his arms, and a ragged tunic that was more rips and tears than actual fabric at this point. Her nose wrinkled involuntarily against the smell—a horrifying mixture of bug juice, sweat, blood, and…magic.

Back in the Horde, most of the other cadets (with the exception of a certain blonde) had never believed her when she’d said she could smell magic, but she could. Magic smelled acrid, and bitter, and stung the back of her nose like a sneeze did when you held it back for too long. A particular someone’s special brand of magic came not only with the smell, but also with a tingling sting that always sent the fur on the back of her neck straight up, even when she hadn’t been the target of the spell—like when Shadow Weaver had escaped her cell, and Catra caught a whiff of the spell circle she’d used to escape.

That particular memory only made Catra angrier. “I don’t care! Tell me who you are!” she snapped, tail lashing back and forth in arrhythmic rage. “Or skip the stupid introductions and fight me, already!” She hadn’t really realized how much she was itching for conflict. In all honesty, she almost missed the battlefield. Ever since taking over as Second-in-Command, she hadn’t gotten much field duty at all—of course, now she was currently stranded on an island, left for dead, with no means of escape. But before that. And, sure, maybe coming back to the Fright Zone after a battle with blood matted on her fur and dried between her claws kind of…well, completely sucked, at least she was doing something. She was useful, effective in combat, and most importantly, not stuck doing paperwork and being tossed around by Hordak.

But here, on Beast Island…maybe she could be top dog. Well, top cat, but whatever. It wasn’t like she considered the sorcerer in front of her much of a threat, even if the idea of fighting someone with magic made her hackles raise.

Catra, having been briefly distracted by her own train of thoughts, was taken by surprise when the man charged at her. She barely managed to leap away, panting, as he shouted, “Get back here! Are you even real?”

“What! Of course I’m real!” There was, of course, the possibility that Hordak’s air-sucking machine had actually killed her, and that she was dead, and her eternal torture was just to live out a life (unlife?) on Beast Island as punishment for all her misdeeds on Etheria. But that wasn’t something that Catra really liked thinking about. Another possibility, however… “Are you real?”

He leapt backwards, just out of range of her claws. “Yes, I’m real! I think!” He managed to say it with such conviction and yet sound so unsure of himself at the same time, it was really quite the feat. “If you’re real, then why are you attacking me?”

“Because I—” and she faltered, because why was she attacking him, really? To be in charge of this desolate island where she’d been sent to die? When Catra allowed herself to really think about it, what sense did it make at all? She didn’t miss fighting. What the magicat really missed was feeling useful. Because, as Shadow Weaver always said, if she wasn’t useful...

Then she might as well be dead.

And what use was there in trying to kill the first actual person she’d talked to or even seen in days?

Mid-leap, Catra redirected herself, skidding to a stop next to the sorcerer instead of barreling right into him, like she’d originally planned. With a great show of self-restraint, she sheathed her claws. “Okay. No fighting. But still—who are you?”

“But still,” he parroted, pitching his voice higher in what the magicat sincerely hoped was not an imitation of her own voice, “I’m the one who asked you first.”

“Oh my fucking—are you kidding me? How old are you?” It was like he knew she was trying to dodge the question, because he just stared at her blankly. Waiting for an actual answer, probably. She growled. “Fine! Catra.”

“Catra,” he repeated softly, lengthening the syllables as he tested out the name. A smile formed on his face, quickly evolving into a full-blown grin. “See! There we go! I’m Micah.”

--

With the help of Huntara and her muscles gang, the Best Friends Squad was able to get Mara’s ship back to the Whispering Woods—near the Crystal Castle. It wasn’t easy, even with the gang’s help, but it was even more difficult to keep Entrapta from ‘escaping’ custody and running off to try and tinker with the ship while they were transporting it.

Trying to wrangle Entrapta was the least of Adora’s worries, though. After surrendering, Scorpia had explained that they had come looking for her, specifically.

“We need your help,” said Scorpia, eyes wide and earnest.

“What?” The shocked sentiment was shared by all three members of the Best Friends Squad.

“Wildcat’s in trouble,” she began, her gaze focused on Adora. “A week or so ago, Catra—Hordak wasn’t happy after she let Shadow Weaver escape—but she didn’t let her on purpose, I swear! But Hordak didn’t like that since she lied to him about it, so he—and she’s gone, now—”

Adora waved her hands around, shaking her head as she interrupted the Force Captain/Princess. “Woah, hold up. What’s going on with Catra and Hordak? You’re not making any sense.”

Scorpia blinked, staring blankly at her for a moment before seeming to understand.  “Oh! Uh, sorry. Hordak sent Catra to Beast Island. Please, we need your help to rescue her!”

“Beast Island is real?” Adora gasped, her own eyes widening in horror. “With the blood beetles? And the trees with razors instead of leaves?”

“That’s the one.”

“And—and Catra’s…Hordak sent her to Beast Island?”

Bow and Glimmer exchanged an uncertain glance. “And you want us to rescue her from that place?” asked the archer.

The Force Captain nodded vigorously. “Yes! Can you help us?”

Glimmer and Bow had seemed incredibly wary of the circumstances at the time, but they eventually agreed to discuss it more once they returned to Bright Moon. That didn’t do much to ease Adora’s nerves, however—not that they tended to be anything more than frayed at best, given how much pent-up anxious energy she carried around with her.

So over the couple of days it took to return to Bright Moon, Adora’s mind raced with…well, everything. Being a First One, having the key to the planet, having to possibly face off against even more Horde (but in space!!), and now finding out that her—that Catra had been exiled to Beast Island? It was getting to be a bit much.

Once they got back to Bright Moon, and after showing Entrapta and Scorpia to the second guest room prison cell, they called a meeting of the Princess Alliance to discuss what to do about the situation.

The opinions of the Alliance weren’t exactly split.

“She ruined Princess Prom!” growled Frosta, forming ice around her fists like she was going to punch the mere memory of the event if given the chance.

Mermista crossed her arms. “And didn’t she, like, try to destroy the Sea Gate? That was like, so not cool.”

“She led the Horde in the Battle of Bright Moon, didn’t she?” asked Spinerella. In the seat next to her, Netossa nodded along.

“Not to complain, but she did kidnap Glimmer and I,” Bow added, looking almost sheepishly at Adora. “Also, she did throw me off a cliff once.”

“Not to mention she’s totally insufferable and a complete pain in the ass!”

“Commander Glimmer! Language!”

“Sorry, mom. But it’s true!”

Perfuma frowned deeply. “It is true that Catra has a very negative energy. And she was the Horde’s Second-in-Command. Are you sure it’d be a wise mission to undertake?”

“Not to mention, without her, the Horde isn’t nearly as strong. You saw how easily we won the battle in the Crimson Waste,” Bow pointed out.

“And besides,” said Glimmer, “have you ever even heard of anyone coming back from Beast Island?”

“Well, no, but—”

Angella stood—almost abruptly, but with enough regality that it felt both direct and official—and declared, “Then it’s decided. It is simply too dangerous of a mission to undertake. I will not risk the safety of any member of the Alliance just to add to the number of prisoners being kept in Bright Moon.

“But, your majesty—”

“I am sorry, Adora, but the decision is final. No one is going to Beast Island. That is an order.”

Adora hung her head with a sigh, squinting against the sting of tears in her eyes—frustration, she reasoned. They were probably just tears of frustration that she was fighting back—what else would they even be? Certainly not worry or fear that Catra was…

Catra would be fine. She’s a survivor.

“Yes, your majesty.”

Chapter Text

As Adora scaled down the side of Bright Moon Castle, she tried to rationalize her actions. Technically, she hadn’t been ordered not to talk to the prisoners. It was just…strongly discouraged. Still, she’d probably get into trouble if she got caught, so she was doing her best to be stealthy, even if stealth wasn’t necessarily her forte.

This time around, she would blame her lack of stealth on the efficiency of the Bright Moon window cleaners, who were apparently quite stellar at their jobs—Adora genuinely believed that she was about to jump through a wide-open window (and, well, didn’t take a moment to wonder why the window to the prisoners’ room would even be open), when instead, she slammed flat into the pane, sliding down the glass slightly as she scrambled for the latch. She was, luckily, able to open the window and climb in that way, and only hoped that nobody had heard the loud clunk of a person whacking the window at three in the morning.

The noise had been enough to rouse Scorpia and Entrapta, who were both staring at her like she’d sprouted an extra limb (Adora looked down to make sure that, in fact, she still had the normal number of limbs, just in case). She then came to the abrupt conclusion that, between Scorpia’s tail and Entrapta’s hair, Adora actually had the least amount of limbs out of everyone else in the room. That felt weird to think about.

Scorpia was the first to break the silence. “Um. Adora? What are you doing here?”

“The Princess Alliance voted not to go to Beast Island to go after Catra,” Adora began, noticing the dejected look that crossed Scorpia’s face at the news. She was quick to add—“But I don’t care.”

That certainly got Scorpia’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“You came here because you, knowing all that you do about Beast Island, couldn’t just stand by with the idea of leaving Catra there to—to die. Well, neither can I. I know that we’re…enemies, now, but still. I just can’t.” She leveled her best determined stare at the two princesses. “But I have a plan.”

--

“Step one: Entrapta, we’ll need your help to fix up Mara’s ship.”

Just telling the scientist that step nearly ruined the entire plan—at the news that she would be working on the First Ones spaceship, Entrapta let out a loud squeal of excitement that was high-pitched enough to completely shatter one of the lights hanging from the ceiling. After a very tense moment of waiting for a response, Adora and Scorpia let out two synchronous sighs of relief when nobody came in to investigate.

In a hushed voice, Adora continued: “There’s no way I’ll be able to sneak you out of here every day to work on the ship, so I need to convince Bow that you can help us, first. Okay?”

Honestly, she was just glad when Entrapta only nodded (albeit so enthusiastically that Adora feared the princess might give herself whiplash).

The next morning, Adora asked Bow to stick around after breakfast so that they could talk. “Heyyy, Bow! How’s it going?”

Maybe she’d overdone it with the enthusiasm, because he gave her a strange look. “Uh, I’m all right, Adora. How are you?” came his stilted reply.

She laughed uproariously, doing a totally excellent job of seeming completely normal. “I’m doing just great, Bow!”

“Um…Adora?” Bow sounded concerned, his voice low and gentle as he placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. Adora winced—both at the contact and at the fear that she’d already blown it. “Listen, I know you’re upset about…everything. About Catra. I won’t pretend to understand how you’re feeling, but just know—you can talk to me and Glimmer about anything, okay? You’re our friend. We’re here for you.”

And, wow, that wasn’t where Adora thought the conversation was going. “Thank you, Bow,” she said, the words genuine. “You’re right. Everything that’s going on—” she couldn’t outright lie to him— “Shadow Weaver, the First Ones, Mara’s message…it’s been rough. Have you had any luck with unencrypting the rest of her message? ’cause I was thinking, Entrapta’s really good with First Ones’ tech stuff, and—”

Bow cut her off. “Woah, woah! Hold up! Entrapta? The Entrapta that we’re keeping prisoner because she switched sides to join the Horde? The Entrapta that gave the Horde that evil virus disk that corrupted She-ra twice? That Entrapta? You want to give her access to a spaceship?”

Maybe it was the way that he listed everything off in order like that, or maybe it was the way that Bow’s voice cracked as it pitched higher and higher with disbelief, but for just a brief second, Adora wondered if maybe her plan was a bad idea. But it wasn’t like there were any better plans, and she definitely wasn’t going to give up, so she soldiered on, thinking quickly on her feet. “Yeah! Crazy, right? But she said so herself in the Northern Reach, right? She’s ‘on the side of science’? And Shadow Weaver said that she was what Hordak needed to be able to build a portal. So if we keep her, uh, distracted with the tech on Mara’s ship, then we can, um, kill two birds with one tech princess! She won’t want to go back to the Horde to work on the stuff with Hordak, and we’ll have at least one actually functioning spaceship to stand more of a chance in the case of…um…Space Hordak? The Galactic Horde?”

He still didn’t seem entirely sold on the idea, so she quickly added, “And we can totally keep an eye on her! That way we can make sure she doesn’t, like, just totally break everything or turn on us again or—y’know, I can just go all ‘grr, She-ra!!’ if she tries anything funny, and you’ll be able to watch her and learn more about the ship in the process!”

That was apparently convincing enough to get Bow to pull out his ‘thinking arrow’, which was just an arrow that popped out a fake mustache and beard for him to stroke with thoughtfulness as he pondered hard decisions. Did Adora consider it a waste of resources? She would have to decline to answer that question. After a long, long moment, he finally nodded sagely to himself. “Gee, Adora, it really sounds like you’ve thought this through. If you think it’s a good idea, and with both of us keeping an eye on her…I don’t see why not.”

“Awesome! Thank you so much, Bow!”

--

“Step two: Scorpia, while Entrapta fixes the ship, you figure out the guards’ routine.”

Adora could only hope that Scorpia did a good job at her part of the plan, because she was too busy watching Entrapta at the ship to actually check in on Scorpia.

Watching Entrapta had actually become a sort-of a full-time job for her—both to genuinely make sure the scientist didn’t do anything crazy, as well as to keep Bow from getting too suspicious. Besides, there wasn’t much other use for her as She-ra, anyways, because there notably hadn’t been any major Horde attacks ever since…well. So she bounced between spending her days absently keeping an eye on Entrapta and plotting every single possibility in her rescue plan, and her nights trying not to think too hard about Shadow Weaver being in a room down the hall.

And one night, after about two weeks have passed and the ship still isn’t fixed and Catra is just all that less likely to still be alive, Adora just can’t ignore it anymore. So she slips out of bed and heads in the direction of Shadow Weaver’s room.

The guards aren’t too enthusiastic about letting her through, but the Queen had lightened up on her orders against entering after she’d come to the tired conclusion that Adora would find a way into the room regardless of how hard they tried to stop her, so they eventually yielded.

Shadow Weaver was awake, sitting in her lounge chair with a book in her hand that she had very clearly not been reading, because it was apparent that she had been waiting for Adora to arrive. Adora pretended not to be creeped out by the fact that it seemed as though the sorceress knew she’d be coming. “Ah, Adora,” she crooned. “How nice of you to visit a poor old woman.”

“Catra’s on Beast Island,” Adora said, and that gave the sorceress pause. Most people couldn’t tell the subtle shifts of her mask betrayed her emotions, but then again, most people hadn’t been raised by the monster for eighteen years.

When she responded, Shadow Weaver’s voice was dripping with insincerity. “Oh, dear Catra. I always knew she would be her own undoing. It’s such a shame. She will be missed.” She spoke in a way that indicated that she would not be the one doing the missing.

Adora growled. “She’s on Beast Island because of you. She—for whatever reason—helped you escape, and got sent to the island in your stead. This is your fault.”

“I held no responsibility for the actions of that disappointing runt. It was her own foolish fault. And, dearest Adora, you should know by now that if it has truly been that long since she was sent away…well, perhaps it’s best that you memorialize the so-called ‘good’ memories of her. That is, if you have any.” Shadow Weaver chuckled, lowly and darkly, and Adora clenched her fists. She wasn’t a child anymore. If she wanted—and by the stars, did she want to—she could storm right through that magical barrier and break both Shadow Weaver and that stupid plush chair that she so loved to lounge on, and no one in the rebellion would hold it against her.

But it still wouldn’t be enough to make up for the way that the witch had treated her—had treated all of them—growing up.

So she let her hands fall limply at her sides, and took a few deep breaths before leveling Shadow Weaver a cold stare. “You’re going to pay for what you did to us.”

Adora didn’t give the sorceress the satisfaction of replying before she strode through the exit, a newfound determination burning in her belly.

The next morning, Entrapta shared the exciting news—the ship was fixed. Which meant they could move on to the next step in her plan.

“Step three. Rescue Catra.”

            --

“Bug?” Micah asked, holding the squirming creature between two fingers and proffering it to Catra, who grimaced.

“No! Bugs are disgusting!” The sorcerer shrugged, popped the bug into his own mouth, biting down with a sharp crunch! and hummed happily as he chewed. Catra gagged. That was it. That was what was going to kill her. Not pookas, or scruffers, or blood beetles, or the weird vines that sometimes crept up on the two of them as they walked the island, but that. Watching this old guy happily munching on bugs, of all things, would be the death of her.

Micah gave her a strange side-eye, and as he swallowed his gross little bug, a smile quirked at the corners of his mouth. Catra almost feared whatever he was about to say. “Spoken like someone who knows what bugs taste like,” he quipped, lips pursed together as he tried to hold in a laugh at his own joke.

This is who you’ve allied yourself with, Catra thought, though ‘allied’ was maybe too strong of a term. More like, she’d agreed not to claw his face off after he tried to pinch her (to make sure she was definitely, completely real), and the non-pooka-infested sections of the island were few and far-between, so she’d unfortunately run into Micah more times than she’d like. His accusation hit close to home, however, and if she let out an indignant squeak, well, that was her own business. “It was one time!”

Micah’s response was a loud, genuine guffaw. She was starting to learn that everything about the man was obnoxiously, bleeding-heart genuine. It was almost as nauseating as the fact that, again, he ate bugs for fun. At the same time (and she would never admit this out loud), his unadulterated positivity even in the face of Beast Island was…comforting. It actually reminded her a bit of Scorpia.

But Catra tried not to think too hard about stuff like that. Her life before the island. For one, most of the memories weren’t that great anyways. Even the ‘good’ ones—most of which were from before…everything—were overshadowed by the fact that she was never going to have that life back; if not because of the fact that she was trapped on this island, then because of the fact that her own decisions had pushed any ‘good’ from her old life away. Besides, thinking too hard about that stuff just made the ringing in her ears worse—which was another reason she’d decided to tag along with Micah. His constant chit-chat served well to distract her from the incessant noise.

“They’ll grow on you. I didn’t like the bugs at first, either. But now…” Micah trailed off, his eyes darting past her shoulder. Catra had just enough time to dodge out of the way before he leapt forward, hitting the ground with enough force that he kicked up a cloud of tech-dust. When he stood, he did so with a triumphant shout and held aloft yet another bug, which he quickly chomped down.

Catra was going to be sick.

--

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Catra asked, having just tripped over the third vine in just as many minutes.

“I’ve lived on this island for years! I think! Whatever! Yes, I know where I’m going. Besides, I know you’re sick of fish, and since you won’t eat any bugs—I thought you might like this.”

“Well, I might like ‘this’ more if you’d just tell me where you’re taking me! How do I know you aren’t just taking me to a pooka den to leave me for dead?”

That, for whatever reason, gave Micah pause. Enough pause that Catra bumped into him, startled that he’d stopped walking. He whirled around, a strange look on his face. If Catra didn’t know any better, she might say it was…concern? “You really think I’d do that?” he asked, his voice more serious than she’d ever heard it so far.

“Um…maybe? I don’t know you that well.” Sure, everything about him seemed all-too friendly, all-too genuine, but maybe… “Maybe, this whole time, you’ve just been trying to gain my trust so that you can ditch me in this fucking place as soon as you find something better, even though you promised we’d look out for each other!”

Micah cocked his head to the side, confused. “I get the feeling that you aren’t actually talking about me.”

Catra blinked. “Wh-what? No! Of course I’m talking about…you…?”

The sorcerer was clearly unconvinced. “I take it that ‘friends’ aren’t exactly smiled upon in the Horde?”

“How did you—”

“Well, for one, your belt clasp has the Horde insignia on it.”

Oh. She hadn’t even thought about that. With a hiss, she grabbed the clasp and yanked it off of her belt, tossing it as far as she could. Catra crossed her arms tightly against her chest and glared at him. “Whatever. I have friends! Adora was...” She frowned before quickly adding, “Um—Scorpia! And Entrapta. Kind of.”

“‘Was’?” asked Micah. “What happened with this ‘Adora’ person?”

Her tail lashed and she tried (unsuccessfully) to suppress a growl. “She left me! They all leave! Adora, Shadow Weaver, everyone! How do I know you won’t ne—agh!” She clamped her hands over her ears, stumbling backwards as the ringing in her ears suddenly exploded in intensity.

Dimly, she could hear Micah shouting. “What’s wrong?” Something grabbed her shoulder, and without thinking she slashed at it, only for her claws to dig into something warm and…fleshy. Micah’s hand withdrew, though his concern did not.  “Come on, kiddo, you gotta talk to me. What’s the matter?”

“I can’t—” Catra hissed through gritted teeth. “The noise—”

Micah gasped. “The signal! You can hear it?”

“It’s so—loud—” And painful. It was like the sound was drilling into her skull, making it impossible to focus on anything else. The pain made her dizzy, disoriented, and before long, Micah was just a purplish blur.

The last thing she heard before she hit the ground was Micah shouting her name.

--

When Catra came to, she was on the beach, and it was dark. For a moment, she wondered if she’d imagined everything—if the isolation of her exile had really been enough to drive her mad, and she’d only dreamed up a bug-eating sorcerer who was too friendly for his own good.

“Catra? Thank the stars, you’re awake!” Huh. So she hadn’t imagined him. “Are you all right?”

The magicat grumbled and rolled onto her back, splaying out her arms and staring at the blank, endless night sky. Her ears were still ringing and her head still ached, but it was less intense than before, by a long shot. “I’ve been better,” she admitted. “I’ve also been worse.”

“I’m sorry,” Micah said softly, much to Catra’s confusion.

“For what? I’m the one who attacked you.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

He let that hang in the air for a while. After a few long moments, Catra heard a crackling noise. She sat up slightly to see that Micah had started a fire and was crouched over it, cooking…something. Hopefully not a bug—she couldn’t decide if that would be better or worse than the fact that he ate them raw.

Luckily, it turned out to be a fish, which he held out to her with a gentle smile. Catra’s eyes flicked to his forearm, which was wrapped in a piece of cloth that looked suspiciously like the cape drawn over his shoulders. Some red had seeped through the makeshift bandage. Catra frowned. When she didn’t take the fish, Micah placed it on the ground nearby, within her reach—presumably expecting her to grab it eventually. But she wasn’t hungry; in fact, she felt a bit nauseous.

“So…Shadow Weaver, huh?” Micah asked, like the name wasn’t enough to wipe away any semblance of an appetite the magicat may have had. She hissed, ears pinning themselves against her head, but he continued nonetheless. “How do you know her?”

“She raised me,” Catra spat. “If you could call it that.”

Micah shook his head solemnly. “I’m sorry. If she’s anything as bad as she was when I knew her, well…I’m sorry.”

“You knew her?”

“She was my mentor, once. Many years ago.” He sighed. “Back then, she was known as Light Spinner. She wanted nothing but power, and was willing to do anything, to hurt anyone, to get it. I knew she’d gone to the Horde, but to think that she was put in charge of children…” The thought seemed to make him shudder. “I always regretted not being able to rescue the children taken by the Horde.”

Catra scoffed. “What could you have done? You’re just one man. Weird, old, magic, and bug-eating, but still just one guy.”

Micah laughed—but it wasn’t his normal laugh. This one was dark, bitter. Disillusioned. “I was more than that, kiddo. I was the King of Bright Moon.”

Chapter Text

“Wait…that’s the whole plan?” Scorpia sounded uncertain.

“Yes, that’s the plan! What’s wrong with the plan? You do want to rescue Catra, don’t you?”

Scorpia raised her hands (claws, more accurately) in mock-surrender. “Okay! All right! I’m just making sure that…you’re sure that’s the plan? Like, the plan to save Catra? The plan made specifically to rescue Catra? Catra’s rescue? That plan?”

Adora buried her face in her hands and let out a long-suffering groan. “Scorpia. Do you have a problem with the plan?”

“Whaaat? Me? No!” How was this an actual conversation she was having with another person? “But—uh, Entrapta, she, uh, mentioned some…concerns?”

“I’m sure she did. What concerns did ‘Entrapta’ mention?”

Entrapta herself, up until that moment, had been darting around the room (which consisted of swinging from the ceilings using her hair, as well as suddenly ducking out of sight and re-appearing elsewhere, as was her M.O.) scrounging through the vast pile of techno-junk she’d accumulated. Honestly, Adora wasn’t even sure where Entrapta had gotten any of the tech—and came to the surprising conclusion that Entrapta must’ve managed to find a way to sneak out of the room so that she could…steal and hoard a bunch of junk. She sighed. Entrapta did as Entrapta does, and there wasn’t much she could do about that. Knowing her, Adora figured that if the scientist had wanted to escape by now, she could’ve already. She took a little bit of comfort in knowing that meant she didn’t want to escape.

Regardless, the scientist/Princess stopped her rummaging at the sound of her name, turning her attention to a sheepish-looking Scorpia and a very frustrated Adora. “What are we talking about?”

“Oh, Scorpia here was just saying that you have some issues with the plan.”

The scientist pulled out a—how did she get a trackerpad??—and started pressing buttons on the screen. After a moment, she nodded to herself. “Well, there is about a 68.5% chance that we’ll all die slow, painful deaths, and that all of your friends will think you’ve abandoned them, unaware that you’ve—in fact—died a slow, painful death! Oooh, but think of all the data we could collect!” As usual, she managed to sound absurdly cheerful while describing the most grim scenario imaginable.

“We’re going to come back! I wouldn’t just abandon my friends!”

Scorpia cleared her throat not once, not twice, but four times, loudly, before coughing. When Adora shot a glare at her, she stood straighter, crossed her arms behind her back, and started whistling, all while pointedly not looking at Adora.

“Hmm.” Entrapta pressed a few more buttons on her trackerpad. “According to my data—"

“We get it!” Adora was going to scream. Yes, she’d decided it. That was how this plan was going to blow up in their faces. She would scream in frustration, and then the guards would come, and then Angella would find out that she’d gone against orders and had been helping Horde prisoners, which was treason, and then she’d be punished, and no one would trust her again, and she’d be kicked out of the Rebellion, and—

“Adora? Are you okay?”

Scorpia’s concerned voice drew her attention, but it was a few moments of concentrated breathing (a technique that Perfuma had taught her) before she could answer. “I’m fine,” she lied, and it was clear that neither of them believed her. A few more breaths. “Look, I get it. Do you think I don’t feel bad about leaving Catra with the Horde? About leaving you—” she gestured to Entrapta— “behind when we rescued Glimmer from the Fright Zone? Trust me, I do. But we are going to rescue Catra, and we aren’t going to die any slow, painful deaths, all right?”

Entrapta started typing even more into her trackerpad, seemingly satisfied (or re-calculating the odds of those slow, painful deaths), but Scorpia still seemed unconvinced. Regardless, the Force Captain eventually shrugged. “Okay. But please tell me that there’s more to step three than just ‘rescue Catra’? Like, how exactly are we going to sneak out of Bright Moon, get to the Crystal Whatchamacallit, and steal the ship to get the Beast Island, all without getting caught?”

“Without getting caught doing what?”  In a sudden rush of sparkling magic, Glimmer appeared behind Scorpia, looking smug and like she was itching for a fight—so, she looked like Glimmer usually looked.

Adora hid her sword behind her back, as if Glimmer wouldn’t be able to see the way it poked up behind her, and started stammering out an explanation—

But before Adora could explain, Glimmer hit the ground with a thud. For a moment, she had no idea how that had happened—making people spontaneously pass out wasn’t another secret function of being She-Ra, was it? That is, until she saw the surprised and guilty look on Scorpia’s face. “Scorpia! What did you do?”

“I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry!” She grabbed at her tail, clutching it like she was planning on keeping it from stinging anyone else. “She scared me, and I just—it’s instinct! I can’t help it!”

“Agh! Ugh, okay, so…” She didn’t have time for this! “How long until she wakes up, Scorpia?”

“Forty-five minutes? Maybe an hour.”

The door opened, and all three heads turned to see who the latest intruder was. If it were literally any other time, Adora wouldn’t be upset to see him. In fact, she might have even been happy to see Bow—he was one of her best friends, for First Ones’ sake! But right now was the worst possible moment for him to be bursting into this specific room. “Adora? What are you doing here?”

“Whaaat? Uh, nothing! I’m not doing anything! What are you doing here, Bow?” It was almost laughable, how guilty she sounded even to her own ears.

“Glimmer said she thought—oh my stars, Glimmer!” He ran into the room, crouching next to Glimmer, who had started drooling all over the floor. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“It was an accident! She’ll be fine! My venom isn’t deadly. Most of the time.”

“Adora? What’s going on here?”

Well, her plan had already gone completely haywire, and it wasn’t like there was any point in lying now (especially since she was known for being a bad liar), so…

Screw it. New plan. “Okay, look. Bow, I know this all looks bad—” Adora gestured vaguely towards the whole…situation going on, what with Glimmer laying unconscious on the floor, Scorpia looking like she was considering if she should sting Bow, too, and Entrapta, who was apparently trying to collect a sample of Glimmer’s spit (she definitely didn’t have time to unpack that). “I know this sounds crazy and stupid and dangerous, especially since she’s technically our enemy, and I know the Alliance voted against it and the Queen said no, but—”

“That’s why you’ve been acting so weird lately! And why you wanted to fix the ship so bad.” It was like every puzzle piece was falling into place for Bow. “You want to rescue Catra.”

Something cracked inside Adora as she nodded. A sharp twist in her chest, and her throat felt tight. When she felt her eyes start to sting, she shook her head, determined not to cry—to show weakness—in front of anyone. But her voice still wavered when she spoke. “I can’t just leave her there, Bow. I have to do something. I made a promise—I-I can’t break it again.” Resolve settled in her stomach. “I won’t.”

But at the same time, she really didn’t want to have to fight her friends to do it. She literally couldn’t even imagine hurting Bow.

To her surprise, Bow smiled. It was only a soft, slight smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. Then, he nodded. “I understand. I mean, I don’t, because she did throw me off a cliff, once. But you clearly care about her, so I’m not going to stop you.” He glanced down at Glimmer, who had stopped drooling in favor of snoring, loudly. His smile twitched. “But she probably will, once she wakes up. So I’ll cover for you, okay?”

And, well, stars, she hadn’t been expecting that reaction. Tears were welling up in her eyes before she could stop them, but she cracked a watery smile and wiped them away with her arm. “Thank you, Bow.”

“Just—promise you’ll be careful, okay? Promise you'll come back.”

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Catra laughed. It was delicate and dangerous, like a cracked window only one touch away from breaking to pieces. Not quite sharp, not yet, but harsh and disbelieving. “There’s no such person.”

There was a Queen of Bright Moon. There was a Princess of Bright Moon. An Arrow Boy of Bright Moon. And, more recently, there was a dumb blonde of Bright Moon. But there was no ‘King’.

But Micah was insistent about his title. “Growing up in the Horde, you must’ve heard of me—even if it was just propaganda? Led the forces of Bright Moon into battle? I was also the head sorcerer of Mystacor? The King of Bright Moon!”

“Mysta-where? Look, maybe all this time on this fucked-up island, alone, eating bugs—maybe it’s gone to your head, old man.”

“I’ve not seriously been gone for so long that they’ve already erased me from history?” Micah asked, but it wasn’t directed at her. His voice was soft and sullen, and Catra only heard him because of her heightened senses. “Surely not that much time has passed.”

He seemed sad. Catra didn’t know how to react to that—Micah never seemed sad; he always had an obnoxiously positive air about him, like Scorpia. Woefully optimistic. Always smiling. Eating bugs like they were the most delicious delicacy in the world.

He was still talking quietly to himself. “If I’ve been gone that long, then what has become of my dearest Angella? Of my baby girl?”

Fuck.

Fuck.

She’d been so wrong. This whole time, Micah hadn’t been reminding her of Scorpia. For all of Scorpia’s strangeness, she was still a Force Captain—Princess Prom was the best example of that. She’d delighted in being part of the plan to kidnap the—

Earnest. Naïve. Ridiculously easy to manipulate. Well, maybe Micah was less-so, but still.

“Sparkles,” she growled.

“What?”

But it was too late for Micah to play dumb, now. Catra knew. She knew. Her claws dug sharply into the sand and her tail lashed as she came to the realization that she’d been lied to again. Misled again.

Betrayed again.

Catra pounced before he could even think to react. “You son of a bitch!” She slashed at him, but he managed to twist out of her grip, rolling away and into a more defensive stance. But there was apprehension in his body language. Confusion, like he didn’t know why she would be attacking him. Did he really think she was that stupid?

The magicat charged—snarling, tail lashing behind her, claws fully extended. Micah leapt out of the way and her claws caught nothing but air. “Catra, wait! I don’t want to fight you!”

“Like hell you don’t!” she shouted, and this time, Micah wasn’t quick enough to avoid her attack. Her claws dug sharply into his arm—unfortunate, since she’d been aiming for his face—and she felt a small satisfaction at the warm trickle of blood that seeped from his skin.

Micah pushed her away with hardly any force—just enough to dislodge her claws—and she leapt forward again. The impact sent them both tumbling into the sand, and she could feel small bits of glass embed themselves into any exposed skin they could find. She didn’t care. Ignoring the sting of the glass, she rolled over, a sharp knee on Micah’s chest to keep him in place, and raised her arm to slash again.

But the attack was never completed. Mid-swing, her arm froze—against her will—and she realized her mistake. The scent of blood had worked against her, masking the acrid smell of magic until it was too late. She felt her body shift and she was pushed away from the sorcerer, who stood with practiced caution and eyed her warily, like she was a feral animal.

In a way, she was. Catra struggled against the spell. She hissed and snarled and growled and spat. “Let go of me! You lied to me! I hate you!” Micah didn’t say anything. But he looked forlorn. “I hate you! I’ll kill you!” She tried to ignore the salty taste of the tears that ran down her face.

For some reason, he released the spell. Who in their right mind lets go of the person who just swore they’d kill you?  But despite her threats—despite herself—as soon as the hold of the spell was gone, she dropped to the ground. She was tired. So, so tired. Everything hurt—not like a bruise, or the cuts from the glass sand, but in the way bone-tired exhaustion ached.

Micah took a cautious step towards her, holding his hand out in a placating gesture. He hesitated, slightly, when she hissed at him, but took another step nonetheless. “Look, Catra—”

She scrambled backwards. “Stay away from me!” she demanded. Her voice was weak, though, and her ears pinned back. “You’re my enemy!”

The sorcerer paused. Stood up straighter. Pondered. “Oh. Is that what all this is about? The Horde and the Rebellion?”

“Of course it is!” Maybe she’d been right, and he really was crazy. For some reason, the thought didn’t bring her any ease. “You’re my enemy! You pretended to be my friend! You lied to me!”

“It’s not like that,” Micah said, and his voice was softer, now. He held both hands up in the air and, never taking his eyes off of her, sat down on the ground. He made no effort to get closer to her. A long silence stretched between the two of them, and he sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It was…misleading of me, especially knowing you used to be with the Horde, for me to not share my identity.”

Catra was confused, and she hoped it didn’t show. But the lashing of her tail and the way her ears swiveled at his words gave her away. Why was he apologizing to her? He was with the Rebellion, she was the Horde. They were enemies. Enemies don’t apologize to each other.

She said as much.

“This is Beast Island,” he said, like that explained everything. It didn’t. “There’s no Rebellion here, no Horde. There’s just us—you and me—and all the countless many creatures that are out to kill us. We don’t have to carry out their war just because those were the roles we used to fill. We just need to…survive.” Micah gave her a solemn stare. “Besides, the Horde exiled you here, did they not? You came here on a Horde transport. You can’t seriously still be loyal to them, can you?”

“Unlike some people, I’m not a traitor. I won’t just switch sides because it’s convenient for me,” Catra hissed. She stood and dusted herself off. “But…you’re right.”

Micah’s eyes lit up instantly at her words, and she rolled her eyes. Princess types, always so bleeding heart.

“Stop that. I don’t like you, and I’m definitely not going to be your friend—especially not after you lied to me. But I won’t fight you. Just…you stick to your side of the island, and I’ll stick to mine. That way, we never have to see each other again.”

He deflated at that, and she caught the realization that dawned in his face as she turned to walk away. The sorcerer scrambled to his feet, following after her. “Catra, wait!”

Her claws dug into the soft flesh of her hands, but she didn’t turn around. And when his footsteps picked up pace, Catra ran.

She waited until she couldn’t hear him chasing after her anymore before she let herself cry.

Chapter Text

The plan, originally, had been a bit more nuanced than “rescue Catra”. Adora had perfectly envisioned the whole thing: memorizing the guard rounds, sneaking past them in the dead of night in the middle of a shift change, traversing the Whispering Woods (under the assumption that they would play nice and not actively inhibit their path) to outside the Crystal Castle—which was where the ship was—and then flying to Beast Island, where they would hopefully find Catra alive and relatively well.

Granted, the latter part of the plan still held water, but with Glimmer lying unconscious on the floor and Bow having also barged in, the first part quickly devolved into “let’s get out of Bright Moon as fast as we possibly can”.

Everything was going great until they reached the Great Hall, when the group very unfortunately stumbled across General Juliet, who leveled her spear at them with a look of guarded suspicion. “What are the prisoners doing out?” she demanded. “What are you doing with them?”

“Um—ah, uh.” Adora shot a look at Scorpia and Entrapta, the former of which looked just as nervous as she felt. “We were just—I was—”

“I can tell you what we’re not doing,” Scorpia chimed in. “We’re definitely not breaking out of Bright Moon, stealing Mara’s ship, and then going to Beast Island to rescue the Horde’s former second-in-command. And Adora is definitely not helping us with that. Because that would—that would be crazy, right?” She laughed in a completely normal, not at all nervous or suspicious way.

Adora’s own laugh matched Scorpia’s in energy. “Aha, uh, right—yeah, that would be totally, completely crazy, so…” The General raised an eyebrow and tilted her head in what Adora could only imagine was disbelief. “Oh, forget it. Run!”

She grabbed each of the other two princesses by the arm and half-dragged them away from Juliet, whose slight amusement at the general absurdity at the situation quickly morphed into anger as she raced after them, shouting for the rest of the Bright Moon guards to come to her aid.

Somewhere along the way, they took a wrong turn—instead of being at the entrance (exit, in this case) to the castle, the door the three of them had just gone through led to a balcony.

“Now would be a really good time to have—”

“DID SOMEONE SAY SWIFT WIND?” The eponymous talking horse appeared over the crest of the balcony, his mane flowing in the steady wind caused by the flapping of his rainbow-feathered wings. Adora was surprisingly relieved to see him.

“Nobody said ‘Swift Wind’,” Entrapta pointed out helpfully.

Swift Wind snorted, his ear flicking in annoyance, and Adora had to bite down a snicker. Instead, in the interest of preserving time and not getting caught by the Bright Moon guards who were hot on their trail, she said, “You’re right, Entrapta, but I was going to, so I’m so glad you’re here, Swifty! Can you do me a favor?”

He raised an eyebrow.

The guards were getting closer; Adora could hear them. “Can you fly us to the Crystal Castle?”

“Aren’t those two with the Horde?”

“Yes! I’ll explain everything later, but right now we don’t have time for this, Swifty!”

Swift Wind eyed Scorpia and Entrapta warily, squinting and tossing his head back as threatening of a gesture as he could. “As your LOYAL STEED, I am happy to—”

“Swift Wind! I’ll get Perfuma to grow extra apple trees—I know how much you love your Plumerian apples!” Never mind that she had no idea how she would convince Perfuma, or anyone, to do her a favor after they found out that she was committing treason. But she tried not to think too hard about that.

“All right, fine! Hop on. I’ll get us out of here before the extremely angry Bright Moon army catches up to you.”

Speaking of—just as the three of them climbed onto Swift Wind’s back, the aforementioned army flung open the door, the General at the forefront. “Stop right there! By order of the Queen, surrender yourselves now!”

The Queen? Great, Adora was really in trouble, now. She cringed at the thought of explaining herself to Angella—but there was nothing she could do now except keep going and finish what she had set out to do.

--

Catra didn’t have much freedom to explore the Island.

One of the reasons that she had even started tagging along with Micah the King in the first place was because she’d kept running into him, which basically forced her to spend time with him and put up with his relentless chatter.

A chatter that she only missed because of its ability to drown out the equally-relentless, only-slightly-more-painful droning of ‘the signal’. She didn’t miss it for any other reason—it wasn’t like she was lonely. Besides, he’d lied to her. She should’ve known better—making connections with people was what got her sent to Beast Island in the first place.

Regardless, she kept having to double-back on whatever path she was taking. Sometimes, it was because the signal was too strong in that area, other times because there was a pooka den nearby, and still other times it was because she stumbled across wherever the King was camping out at.

Catra suspected that he was following her, just like he had been before they first ‘officially’ met. Whatever. There wasn’t anything he could say to fix the fact that he’d betrayed her—that he was with the Rebellion. She did notice that she never found him in parts of the island where the signal was stronger than a residual (albeit still painful to her more-sensitive magicat ears) thrum.

That morning, she decided to investigate something that she had been putting off. Given her experience with the signal the last time she’d been in that area, she was both trepidatious about returning, as well as confident that she wouldn’t have the misfortune of running into Micah there.

It was easy to retrace their path, which had been up a winding pass that slinked through some of the more closed-off parts of the island, climbing upwards in elevation before dropping in a steep series of switchbacks. The scent of old blood in the area served as a definite sign that she had been there before. Now it was just a matter of searching the area to find what she was looking for.

The problem was, she didn’t really know what she was looking for. Micah had been the one to lead them there, presumably with a final destination in mind, and Catra hadn’t managed to wrangle that information out of him before their…falling out. It wasn’t like there was much of anything in the area besides the steep dropoff—so, she figured that would be the best place to look.

Being a magicat meant she had a natural propensity for climbing—in addition to a natural skill at it. It’s what gave her an edge in all of their training simulations, and it’s why she always beat Adora whenever they’d race to the Forge (not to mention that Adora was the world’s slowest person, but still). So, climbing down to the bottom of the cliff didn’t take much effort on Catra’s part at all.

About halfway down, she heard the sounds of a fight before she smelled magic—the stench of which made her hackles rise and her fur stand on end. On instinct, Catra growled. She hadn’t expected for Micah to come this way, since the signal was stronger, especially given what had happened the last time they were here. But it wasn’t like there was another resident bug-eating sorcerer, so it had to be him.

Curiosity won out against all her instincts screaming to run, and she climbed back up the cliff, peeking slightly above the edge.

A battle was being waged—well, what seemed like a one-sided battle, at the least. Micah, armed with his magic and his weird staff, had been backed up against the cliff by a pack of pookas. Their jaws were unhinged, mandibles spread as they advanced on the king, who took another step backwards. The act kicked a handful of rocks over the side, which landed, annoyingly, on Catra. From what she could tell, he was injured; there was a bite mark on his left calf, one that was bleeding pretty badly. Taking steps on it seemed to disrupt any concentrated spells that Micah was attempting to cast, and he was panting with exertion.

One of the pookas—probably the leader of the pack, judging by its size and the way the others seemed to watch it with almost as much rapt attention as Catra herself was observing the scene—leapt at Micah. The force of the attack broke through the magical barrier that he’d hastily put up, and the subsequent impact of the pooka with Micah’s chest sent both of them tumbling off of the cliff.

Catra didn’t think. Digging her feet into the rock surface for a better grip, her arm shot out, her claws catching the fabric of Micah’s tattered cloak. For a moment, they tore through the cloak, cutting the fabric with ease, before she curled her hand into a fist, desperately clutching at the fabric. The weight was more than she’d expected—though, really, what did she expect from a fully-grown man with a pooka attached to him?—but still not unbearably heavy (Micah’s diet of bugs must’ve made him lighter than he looks, she would later determine—besides, Catra was far stronger than she appeared). With her other hand, she grasped the king’s arm and hoisted him (pooka attached) above her head, half-tossing, half-lifting him back up to the top of the ledge.

Immediately following, she leapt up to the ledge herself, grabbed the—admittedly stunned—pooka off of Micah, and with a grunt of effort, threw it back off of the cliff. It barely had time to yelp in surprise before it disappeared from view.

The rest of the pack, horrified at the sight of their alpha being launched away, backed up several paces before turning on their heels and running away, whining the whole time.

Catra spat after them, for good measure.

“Holy shit—” it was the first time she’d ever heard Micah swear— “you saved me!”

She scrunched her nose up in distaste and let out a long-suffering groan. Great. He was going to take this the complete wrong way. There had to be a way to set the record straight. “Look, I didn’t do it because I like you. And I still don’t trust you as far as I can throw you—you saw, that wasn’t very far. I just…couldn’t let the pookas get you. You deserve a better death than that, at least.” Catra crossed her arms. “What are you doing here, anyways? Why were the pookas after you?”

“I can’t say I know why they were hunting me,” Micah said, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet. “But I was following you. I was worried, when I saw you heading this way. The signal is stronger here, and I know what happened last time. Why were you here?”

The reminder of how—how weak she’d been, to let the signal get to her, made her hiss, tail lashing behind her. “Whatever. I was just…fuck it, I was curious about…what you wanted to show me, the other day.” The last part is mumbled as she turned her gaze away from him with a soft growl.

Micah smiled—tentatively, but a smile nonetheless. She hated it. “Well, why don’t I show you, then?”

Chapter Text

Micah had a difficult time climbing down the cliff. It seemed as though the bite-wound on his leg wasn’t doing him any favors; even now that his (ill-fated) battle with the pookas was over, he was still huffing with exertion and needed to take long, frequent breaks every few minutes.

While she waited (impatiently) for Micah to make his way down the mountain, Catra found herself with some free time to reflect—since, for once, Micah was too preoccupied to fill the quiet void with his endless chattering. Frustratingly enough—and she would never admit this—it was actually the king’s own words that she found herself thinking about.

“We don’t have to carry out their war just because those are the roles we used to fill. We just need to…survive.”

It was a novel concept to Catra, surely. After all, she’d grown up in the war. It was all she’d ever known—the Horde, the Rebellion, and that she was only useful so much as she could fight, strategize, and ‘not fuck up Adora’s prospects’. The latter of those were Shadow Weaver’s words, and the mere thought of them amplified the ringing in her ears and the thrumming in her skull.

“What’s up with that?” she asked, absently, during one of Micah’s short rests on the way down.

“What?”

Catra frowned, not quite sure if she wanted to pursue a discussion. After all, was there any guarantee that the king wouldn’t mistake it for an attempt at being conversational, instead of what it actually was—a regular old question? But you know what they say about curiosity. “The signal. That’s what you called it. Why does it get worse, sometimes, even when you’re not near the center of the island?”

“So,” Micah began, and Catra already regretted asking her question in the first place, “this whole island, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is a giant mass of ancient tech. First Ones’ tech, to be precise. Well, some of this stuff still works, and I think that’s what the signal is. Something just—never stopped signaling. And now, it dulls your resolve, and it exposes your vulnerabilities. The island…pulls you in. Makes you a part of it.”

Her tail, the traitor, puffed up of its own accord. If she were being honest, she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or indignation. “Well, I’m not going to be a part of this stupid island, okay?” she yelled, digging her claws into the rockface she was holding onto. “I may be stuck here, but I’m not—I’m not weak, and I’m not vulnerable.”

“Nothing’s wrong with being vulnerable.”

“Of course you’d believe that,” Catra spat. “But I’m not going to fall for that. It’s called ‘being vulnerable’ for a reason—not a good one! It makes you open for attack. It’s a weakness.” She laughed, and it was bitter as it rang against the valley: dying as soon as it reached the techno-jungle above them, and echoing against the rocks surrounding them. “Look, I’ve tried the whole ‘being vulnerable’ thing before, and all I did was get burned. Or, well, electrocuted. But you know all about that, don’t you?”

The sorcerer winced. Catra pretended it must be from his injury. “Shadow Weaver really did it, then? Tapped into the Black Garnet? Stars, that kind of power in that monster’s hands…I’m so sorry, kiddo.”

“Don’t call me ‘kiddo’! And it doesn’t matter. I did sever her connection with it.” She smiled smugly to herself, remembering the look on that witch’s face when the gem in her mask had shattered, leaving her a powerless husk grasping at broken fragments on the floor of the Black Garnet chamber. Catra remembered how strong she had felt after that. If anything good had come of Adora leaving, that was one of them: getting the opportunity to be taken seriously by Hordak, and taking down Shadow Weaver herself.

Of course, she was then betrayed by both Hordak and Shadow Weaver, but…

“You took down Shadow Weaver? That’s an impressive feat.” And to his credit, Micah sounded genuinely impressed. When Catra looked at the old sorcerer, his eyes were wide and earnest. And annoying. So, overall, in character for him. “But dangerous.”

“I’m plenty capable of taking care of myself, thank you,” Catra huffed, folding her arms against her chest. “And don’t go acting like you care about my wellbeing.”

“I do care.”

That brought Catra some pause. She hoped he didn’t notice the way that her ears swiveled toward him at his words. After a moment, she spat, “Well, you shouldn’t. It wouldn’t look good to your little Rebellion that you’re getting all buddy-buddy with the former second-in-command of the Horde.”

“Second-in-command?” Micah stumbled, his hands slipping from their holds. He scrabbled for purchase on the rock face, was wholly unsuccessful, and let out a yelp as he started to tumble down the cliffside. With a disinterested sigh, Catra grabbed his arm before he could fall any further and hauled him up onto a pseudo-relief in the rock where he could, for a brief moment, just sit and regulate his breathing. When he was done, he continued, “But you’re just a teenager.”

“Okay, and? I’m still an adult. I still led the armies of the Horde in the Battle of Bright Moon. I was still promoted by Hordak himself to Second-in-Command because I was the only member of the Horde competent enough to face She-Ra in battle.”

“Woah, okay, slow down for an old man who hasn’t been involved in society for, like…a number of years. Anyways. I have a few questions.” Micah left a pause in the air that was just long enough for Catra to consider pushing him off the cliff herself and calling it an accident. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you really don’t like She-Ra—like, the She-Ra? Princess of Power? The one from the legends?”

“Yes, that She-Ra. And no, I don’t like her.” Catra’s tail lashed and her ears pinned back against her head, despite her best efforts to stop them.

“Okay. That’s completely normal…She-Ra! The She-Ra! In the flesh? And you know her?”

She hissed at him, hoping to shut down that line of questioning. “What happened to—” Catra deepened her voice into her best imitation of Micah— “‘there is no war here. This is Beast Island. Blah, blah, blah, magic princess glittery love junk. I eat bugs for fun.’” She made sure to do some extra-exaggerated, kingly arm movements, just to sell the whole thing.

Micah narrowed his eyes. His mouth set into a fine line that wasn’t quite a frown, and wasn’t quite not a frown. It was the perfect face of ‘slightly-angry, mostly-disappointed’. “I eat bugs because of the immense nutritional value. Not for fun.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

The sorcerer huffed, having been—apparently—thoroughly offended, and resumed his climb down the mountain in amusingly annoyed silence. Catra tried not to look too pleased with herself, but what could she say? She was good at shutting down a conversation, when she needed to be. Once they finally reached the bottom, Micah’s mood changed to ‘frustratingly peppy’. Princess types were so damn predictable. “Come on!” He was practically bouncing up and down, with the occasional wince at the injury on his leg. “We’re almost there!”

Catra wouldn’t admit that she was already pleasantly surprised with the area in general, which seemed fairly quiet and secluded—something she was a fan of. The valley they were in was surrounded on all sides by rocky mountains, but the bottom was a surprisingly lush green that was uncharacteristic of what she’d come to expect of Beast Island. “Huh.”

With a broad—and proud—smile, Micah gestured with both arms to a nearby cluster of bushes. Tucked within the bushes, nestled between the leaves, were small, round berries.

“Um. What are you pointing at?” Catra asked, after an uncomfortable enough length of time had passed.

“Try one!” Micah said, plucking a handful of berries and holding them out to her.

The magicat eyed them warily, all of her ‘wilderness survival’ training from the Horde warning her not to eat the random berries being proffered to her. Especially not the berries that were on the island where she had been sent to die, given that everything else on the island (Micah excluded, she supposed) had tried to kill her so far.

Seeing her trepidation, Micah’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh! They’re safe, trust me!” And, as if to prove his point, he shoved a whole handful of them into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He even made a show of sticking out his—now dyed bright red—tongue, just to prove that he’d actually eaten the berries.

That was enough to convince Catra, though she was a bit more cautious about the act of picking a single berry, which she rolled between her fingers before delicately placing it on her tongue. When she bit down, she was surprised by the sudden burst of sweetness.

See, not many things in the Horde were sweet. Actually, nothing that occurred naturally in the Horde were sweet at all—only contraband, like candy and chocolate. Candy was all right, at least the kinds she had tried before, there were so many. But chocolate? Ugh, she’d barely had any and it had left her sick all night. Never again.

This berry, though? It was a different kind of sweet—fresher. And, well…she didn’t hate it.

In fact, after she’d gotten over her initial apprehension, she ate a whole bush’s worth.

Micah seemed proud of himself, the smug bastard.

After Catra finished off the last of her berries, she couldn’t help but notice the way that the sorcerer was limping around the area. Her eyes fell to his leg, which was still bleeding slightly, and she sighed. “How’s…” she cleared her throat. “Um, how’s your leg?”

“Oh, it’s fine.” He withered under her disbelieving stare. “Okay, fine. It hurts.”

“Sit down.” She glared at him until he followed her directions, and then returned her attention to the bushes. It took a few minutes of poking around to find what she was looking for, but she was eventually successful; she snapped off two of the sturdiest-looking branches she could find from the bushes. Then, she rounded on the king—well, around him, so that she could rip off a piece of his ratty old cloak before he could protest. They certainly weren’t what could be considered ‘medically appropriate’, but they should make a relatively decent splint in a pinch.

Unfortunately, the fabric from the cloak basically evaporated in her hands (to the extent that fabric can evaporate, which was something Catra had never considered before), so she was forced to use her belt as the object with which to tie the whole splint together. Once she was done with that, she leaned back on her heels and gazed upon her handiwork with barely-concealed pride.

Micah hadn’t stopped looking at her with wide-eyed confusion the whole time.

She sighed. “Look. Don’t get all weird and princess-y on me about this, or I’ll kill you myself. I’m not doing this because I like you or want to be your friend or anything. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said, and it’s…nice. Knowing not everything on this stupid island wants me dead. So, uh…” Catra held out one hand and tried her best not to make any eye contact with the sorcerer. “Truce?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Micah’s mouth, but he quickly schooled his expression into one of stony-faced sincerity. With a nod, he clasped Catra’s hand, shook it twice, and said, “Truce.”

Chapter Text

“Did you win?” Micah asked between gasping breaths. They were climbing back up the mountain, and Catra was trying to determine if it was more or less slow-going than it had been coming down, given that Micah’s injured leg was now, at the very least, splinted.

“What?”

“The, uh, so-called ‘Battle of Bright Moon’? Did you win?”

Catra paused to bite down a harsher response, in favor of, “Mr. ‘No-War-on-Beast-Island’, asking me questions about the war?”

The king shrugged—well, as much as someone could shrug while they scaled a thousand-foot cliff—in an (unsuccessful) attempt at appearing nonchalant. “Well, you know. You seemed proud about it.”

“You do get that the Horde and the Rebellion are enemies, right? Why do you care?”

“It’s ok to be proud of your achievements,” Micah said. Catra made her disbelief clear, and after a moment he added, “It was my home! I guess I just want to know if…it’s still there.”

Something about the desperation in his voice made Catra hesitate. Micah had been on Beast Island for who-knew-how-many years, and he was still clinging onto the hope that he could get back home. She’d been on the island for like, a month, and she’d already practically resigned herself to living out the rest of her days on the island.

“Well, don’t worry,” Catra said with a roll of her eyes, “Bright Moon’s still standing, thanks to some magic-princess-rainbow-bullshit.” She didn’t miss the way that the sorcerer’s eyes lit up at that news. “And…besides being an annoying pain in my ass, Princess Sparkles is fine, too. So you can stop asking me questions about it, okay?” Her tail lashed slightly at her own words, but she didn’t make much of an effort to suppress it.

Micah, having noticed the movement, didn’t press the issue. But he seemed rejuvenated by the news that his daughter was okay (if annoying) and like he was actively trying not to shout with joy. Not interested in waiting around to see if he was successful in that endeavor, Catra hurried up her pace, scaling the cliff with almost-practiced ease (she’d climbed this damn mountain enough times in the past day for it to be considered practiced, now that she thought about it). Once she reached the top, she perched there on the edge, wrapped her tail loosely around her legs, and waited.

And wait she did—a good two, maybe three hours, in which she mostly did two things. One, she briefly considered climbing all the way back down to grab some more of those berries and two, she occasionally called down to Micah to check if he was still alive and kicking. Luckily, before she was absolutely certain she was going to die of boredom, the sorcerer hauled himself up and over the ledge (with a bit of help from Catra). He collapsed in a heap of stained cloth, bug-juice, and unkempt beard.

“Glad you could finally make it,” she quipped.

“Not all of us are magicats. Some of us are old men whose diets consist mostly of bugs.”

“I’m just saying, you have plenty of options on the island for food that isn’t bugs, and you still choose to eat the bugs. What, when you get off the island, are you gonna keep eating bugs in whatever fancy dining room they have in Bright Moon?”

Micah sat up in a movement quick enough that it briefly disoriented Catra, giving her a strange look. “I’ve been here for years.”

She shrugged. “You do wanna get home and see your angry, annoying, sparkly kid again, right? Well, hate to break it to you, but you have to get off this damned island, first.”

That apparently gave him a lot to ponder, and she really didn’t wanna stick around for that show, either; she’d spent enough time listening to him chatter all day, and she was more tired than she’d like to admit after scaring off those pookas from earlier. Not to mention, her stomach chose that moment to rumble alarmingly loudly. “Look, you think whatever you need to think to figure that out, but I’m gonna go get some grub that isn’t grubs, and I’ll meet you on the east beach, ok? Cool.”

She didn’t give him much of a choice or even any time to answer at all, instead stalking off into the techno-jungles of Beast Island in the direction of the beach to hunt some razorfins.

And, in fact, she was actually getting quite good at hunting those stupid fish—all she needed to do was glint a piece of tech at just the right angle into the water, and they just came swarming.

Not too long had passed, maybe another hour or so, by the time she met back up with Micah, who was starting a fire on the beach. She dropped the handful of half-dead fish at his feet. “A gift. Food that isn’t bugs.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

Catra shrugged. “Are you ever going to stop eating bugs?”

The sorcerer scoffed, rolled his eyes, and said nothing. After a moment, something caught his eye as he stared past her shoulder and pointed. “What on Etheria is that?”

“Huh?” Catra whirled around to see what he was pointing at. Something really was the best descriptor for whatever had just plowed into the beach. It looked like a Horde transport if it were mixed with a skiff and was also made by the First Ones—that part, she could tell by the angular, geometric design of the thing.

Then, as if the whole situation couldn’t get any weirder, the thing opened. The bay of the…transport-thing lowered, and a group of people slowly stepped off of it.

At the forefront was Adora.

--

Micah didn’t really know what was going on. Off of the ship had walked three people, and a horse with rainbow wings and a spiraling horn; that wasn’t exactly ‘typical’ for Beast Island.

The blonde girl at the forefront—their leader, perhaps?—was armed with a sword. Her two companions were a scorpioni woman in Horde garb, and who he recognized as the now-older Princess Entrapta of Dryl.

“Oh my stars!” the blonde exclaimed with wide eyes. “Your Majesty.”

“Please don’t kneel, I’m no king here. You…know who I am?”

“Of course! You’re King Micah of Bright Moon!” said the blonde. “Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Adora. This is Scorpia, Swift Wind, and Entrapta.”

Scorpia was looking at him with narrowed eyes. “Uh, isn’t the King of Bright Moon…dead?”

“If the Horde had their way, I would be. But I survived!” Judging by the reactions of the others, he probably sounded a bit more intense than he’d intended. Micah cleared ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “Ahem. My apologies. How have you heard of me?”

“Well, duh. They go over it in Force Captain Orientation,” Scorpia scoffed.

At the same time, Entrapta said, “I have no idea who you are. But this place is fascinating…”

“Entrapta, calm down. Sorry about that, Your Highness,” said Adora, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I came from Bright Moon. I’m friends with your daughter, Glimmer!”

“You know my Glimmer?” The sorcerer could feel a smile build its way upon his face—a broad grin at the idea of seeing his wife and daughter again.

“Yeah!” Adora’s ponytail sways back and forth as she bounces on her heels. “And when she and Angella find out that we managed to find and rescue you, they’ll have to totally forget we went against orders, committed treason, and broke out of the castle!”

The horse—Swift Wind—whinnied nervously, and placed his head on Adora’s shoulder. “Uh, Adora?” he asked. “Do you—”

Wait, asked? The horse? “You can talk? You’re a talking horse? A horse—that can talk?”

The horse in question lifted his head proudly, but not without glaring at Micah in a way that made him feel a bit sheepish about his reaction. “I am more than just a horse, I am She-Ra’s mighty steed! And Adora here is the mighty She-Ra!”

It took a moment for his brain to wrap around all of that beyond “this is a horse that can talk and I’m the only one acting weird about it”, but the rest of Swift Wind’s words eventually settled in his mind. “Wait. You’re Adora—and also the legendary warrior She-Ra? Oh, stars—no wonder Catra—”

“Catra!” Scorpia’s shrill voice interrupted him. “No offense, but she’s kinda the whole reason we came here to Beast Island—which is lovely, by the way! Very…uh, creepy—but we came here to rescue her! Have you seen her?”

“Oh, well, she’s just right—” For the first time since the ship landed on the beach, Micah became aware of the lack of Catra’s presence. Admittedly, he felt a bit foolish for not noticing earlier, but in his defense, how was he supposed to remain focused when a giant First Ones’ ship, with its hodgepodge of Rebellion and Horde members, had just shown up on the island he’d been stranded on for years? Forgive an old man for getting distracted.

But, indeed, Catra—who had just been standing next to him, bullying him about the way he ate bugs—was  nowhere to be found. In her stead was a flurry of footprints, consistent with someone who was running…

And they were headed toward the center of the island.

Chapter Text

“Why is it so bad that she’s heading toward the center of the island?” asked Adora, genuinely confused at the alarm painting Micah’s face. She wasn’t sure what he looked like when he was relaxed—he had seemed a bit freaked out by the fact that she, Entrapta, and Scorpia (and Swift Wind!) were here in the first place—but she couldn’t imagine that his natural state was ‘wide-eyed horror’. He definitely didn’t look like that in his mural, at least.

“Can’t you hear it?” Swift Wind’s own face was scrunched up in what Adora could tell was pain, and he was using his wings to try and cover his ears. “That awful noise, I told you, I—”

“You can hear the signal? Already?” Micah’s face twisted even darker. “The signal—it’s an old piece of First Ones’ tech or something. But it pulls you in, eats away at you, and then…everything that stays on this island becomes a part of it, eventually. I know Catra has heard it before, and the fact that your talking horse here can already hear it…”

He trailed off, but it wasn’t hard for Adora to pick up the pieces. “That’s…not great. Um—okay, guys, it looks like step three is a little bit more complicated, now. Micah, can you lead me to where Catra went?” She turned her attention away from the long-lost King of Bright Moon and towards her traveling companions. “Entrapta, you know your way around First Ones’ tech. If it comes down to it, maybe you can determine the source of the signal and shut it down for good. You and Scorpia will stay here with Swift Wind and the ship.”

Scorpia was quick to protest: “But Wildcat needs—”

“Scorpia, I need you to keep Entrapta and Swifty safe. And to monitor the ship in case anything happens. If anything goes wrong, Swift Wind will know—we have that sacred bond. You’re our backup, okay?”

She didn’t seem happy about it, but the Princess/Force Captain didn’t try to argue any further.

Micah, however, apparently had his reservations. “You can’t go in there,” he said, voice shaky with what Adora could only assume was fear, “it’s too dangerous. The center of the island is where the signal is the strongest.”

“Which means that Catra is in danger, and every moment we waste arguing back and forth about it is another moment we could be saving her!” Adora had come too far to turn back just because one not-dead King told her to. “This isn’t up for discussion. If you won’t take me there, I don’t care. I’m going anyways.”

She stormed off in the direction that the footsteps—Catra’s footsteps—were headed.

“Adora, wait!”

She didn’t look back.

--

The beaches of Beast Island had been—'inviting’ wasn’t the right word, but compared to the rest of the island, they were substantially less foreboding. Which, don’t get her wrong, Adora thought the beaches had been plenty foreboding. It was just that the rest of the island was literally all of her worst nightmares and childhood horror stories come to life, except with the bonus of being paired with a horrifying, unknown First Ones’ signal that was also trying to kill her. Like the razor-sharp teeth/claws/fins/etc. weren’t bad enough on their own. Why, oh why, couldn’t Catra have gotten herself banished to somewhere else, like the Crimson Wastes? At least there, she would’ve gotten so well along with all of the tough-guy gangs that ran based on the ‘survival of the fittest’ mantra.

Adora actually chuckled to herself at that thought; Catra would’ve thrived in the Crimson Wastes. She could imagine the magicat in one of the jackets that Tung Lashor and his gang wore, the way that the leather would hug her shoulders and—

But now wasn’t the time to get distracted.

“Catra?” she called out.

The sound of her voice died against the dense overgrowth of the island, and it made her feel…small. She had lost track of Catra’s footsteps a little while earlier, so was now just wandering in the last direction they were headed. A small voice–familiar, saccharine, insincere, oh-so Shadow Weaver—started to worm its way into her thoughts. You won’t find her, it said. She doesn’t want to be found. She’s going to die here on this island, and so are you if you keep up this foolish mission.

“Stop it,” she told her thoughts. Adora shook her head in an effort to clear it. Was it just her, or were the vines starting to close in around her? Had she just walked into a denser part of the jungle than she’d realized, or were they actually—

Adora didn’t have to wonder for long, because one of the vines shot out and tripped her, sending her tumbling to the ground with a yelp. Her arm twisted around to grab the sword at her back and she half-shouted the familiar call, “For the Honor of Grayskull!”—but before she could transform into She-Ra, another vine wrapped itself around her wrist and pulled with enough sharp force that she was forced to drop the sword.

Well, that wasn’t good.

What kind of She-Ra are you? You can’t even put up a fight against a bunch of plants? And here I thought you were special. All this time with the Rebellion, and you’ve gone soft. A dull throbbing started to pulse behind her ears. Her eyes grew heavy.

“Adora? Adora!” called a voice, and she was snapped out of her trance by a blast of purple magic striking the vines surrounding her. The vines curled away from the impact, writhing like live creatures, and something about it made Adora’s stomach churn. But she was free now, and scrambled away from the vines with speed to rival even Catra’s best training times.

It took her a moment to realize the identity of her rescuer. “Micah?” He hadn’t said anything about the island making you see things, but he hadn’t mentioned that she’d start hearing things, so she had to make sure.

“I didn’t survive this long on Beast Island by being a coward. And I—I owe Catra my life. I can’t just leave her to the island. So if that means facing my fears, and whatever lies in the center of this forsaken place, well…I’m here.”

Adora almost cracked a smile at the sincerity behind the King’s speech, but her mind got caught up on, “Wait. Did you say you owe Catra your life? Like, Catra Catra? My Catra? Can we discuss this?”

“Only if we discuss the fact that you just referred to her as ‘my Catra’.”

“We should get going!”

Unfortunately, Micah wasn’t going to let her get away that easily. He fell into a limping stride next to her. Even while pointedly not looking at him, she could see that he was giving her the side-eye. “You know, she’s brought you up a couple of times.”

“All good things, I’m sure,” Adora grumbled through clenched teeth.

“Look, I don’t know exactly what happened between you two, but I do know that whatever it was, it put you guys on opposite sides of the war.” Micah drew a long, wistful breath. “That kind of distance—physical, emotional—from the people that you care about? It kills.”

“I abandoned her.” The hoarse words wrangled themselves free of her throat. “I just—I just left her there, in the Fright Zone, with Shadow Weaver, and Hordak, and—and—I never went back for her. I promised I would look out for her, and I just…didn’t.” Her vision blurred—wet, wavering, watery—and she sniffled a few times in an attempt to hold back tears. The throbbing grew stronger, and her ears started to ring.

“You’re here now, aren’t you?”

The dam broke. Adora choked out a sob and nodded vigorously. “I can’t leave her behind again.”

--

They had been walking in relative silence for a while, now; Adora hadn’t really been able to say anything more without crying, and Micah was focusing on a tracking spell, since they’d so thoroughly lost Catra’s trail earlier.

It was eerie, how quiet the jungle had become—save for the ringing in her own ears, which might’ve, now that Adora considered it, been what was blocking any outside noise from reaching her. She didn’t notice Micah had stopped until she kept walking, bumping into him with a soft, muttered apology.

He held up his hand to quiet her, and when she looked up, it appeared as though they’d reached a dead-end. A massive wall stood in front of them, completely covered in vines that shifted slightly with every movement Adora made. Creepy.

“We’re here,” Micah whispered, his voice strained. “But we’re not alone.” Ever-so-slowly, he turned around, looking past her shoulders to a point that she couldn’t see.

Adora whirled around, hand already wrapped around the handle of her sword. As soon as she spotted what Micah had seen, she couldn’t help but gasp.

Eyes. There were dozens and dozens—maybe hundreds—of eyes. Reflective, purple, and staring at them from every side. No matter where Adora looked, there were more eyes. They were surrounded.

“The pookas. Of course they’d follow us here—they’re counting on the signal to weaken us. We’re easy prey.”

“We won’t go down without a fight.” Adora raised her sword and called for She-Ra, channeling all the magical energy necessary for the transformation. There was a brilliant flash of light from the sword, which Micah briefly shielded his eyes from, and then…

Nothing.

Of course. You’re a failure. Not fit to wield the Sword.

Nothing happened. “What the hell?” Adora glared at the sword, which was glowing faintly with a flickering light. “For the Honor of Grayskull!” she yelled again, and again, and yet again, but nothing happened. “Why can’t I transform?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Micah drew a hasty spell circle—a shielding spell that he managed to send up just before one of the bolder pookas leapt at them. It bounced off with a surprised yelp, shook itself off, then started pacing around the circle, looking for an opening. “Go! Catra should be inside! I’ll hold them off, but we don’t have long!”

There wasn’t much Adora could do except for nod, which she did. She turned around and placed her hand against the wall of vines, half-expecting to be met with an actual wall behind them, but was surprised to find that her hand passed through easily. With a grunt of effort, she pushed the vines aside to reveal a corridor. Immediately, a pulse of energy shot through her—and she could both hear and feel a deep, droning noise that rattled her skull and knotted her stomach with dread.

It’s too late, whispered the voice in her head. But she stepped forward nonetheless.

The corridor opened into a vast room—so vast, in fact, that she couldn’t see the bottom, even when she peered over the sides of the platform. She picked up a piece of rubble from the floor and tossed it into the darkness, expecting to eventually hear it hit the ground. It never did.

At the very end of the platform was a round dais that held a familiar, crystalline structure, inset with a large kite-shaped screen that was running with lines and lines of First Ones’ code. It was moving too fast for Adora to read—she could only catch glimpses of a few words here and there, like “Heart” and “She-Ra”. She had no idea what it could mean.

Her eyes trailed down the screen to the console, where a familiar figure was standing with their back turned to her. A wave of relief washed over Adora at the sight.

“Catra?”

“Hello, Adora.”

Chapter Text

Adora was shaken by how empty Catra sounded. Her voice held none of the harsh bite that she’d gotten familiar with over the past year. None of the teasing from back in their cadet days. No confusing levels of emotion that she was used to being accompanied with “Hey, Adora.” Hell, it wasn’t even an actual “hey, Adora”. The over-pronunciation of the word “hello” was grating. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right.

But Adora didn’t have time to worry about that. Micah was outside, barely keeping a wild pack of pookas at bay. “Catra?” she repeated, acutely aware of the way her own voice echoed around the chamber. “Are you okay?”

The magicat gave no indication of having heard her; there wasn’t so much as a flick of her ear or a twitch of her tail.

“Catra, please, say something. It’s me.” Adora took a few steps forward and placed her hand on Catra’s shoulder, which prompted the former second-in-command to turn.

Now face-to-face with Catra, Adora couldn’t help but gasp, withdrawing her hand with a sharp movement of her arm. The entire surrounding chamber seemed to fall away; all she could see was Catra’s eyes. Or, to put it more accurately, how unlike Catra’s eyes they were. Instead of their usual vibrant blue-and-gold, her eyes were a dull, lifeless gray. The longer she looked, the duller the gray seemed to grow. When Catra returned her attention to the screen, Adora couldn’t help but notice that not even the harsh light of the First Ones’ tech reflected in her eyes.

A vine appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and began to snake its way up Catra’s leg. She made no movement against it, but Adora slashed at it with her sword, cutting through it with little resistance. To her disgust, the remnants of the vine kept wriggling. With the blade of her weapon, she gingerly lifted it off of the ground and threw it over the edge of the platform.

Outside, she could hear Micah yelling. “Come on, Catra, we’ve gotta go. Micah’s fighting off the pookas, but we don’t have long.”

Catra blinked. “Micah?”

Adora felt a wave of relief at finally getting a response from her. “Yeah! He told me you guys are friends—that you saved him!”

“Friends..? We aren’t friends...” Catra’s brow furrowed—the first sign of emotion she’d shown the whole time.

“You’ll have to tell him that yourself, ‘cause I don’t think he’ll agree with you,” Adora countered. “Speaking of your friends, Scorpia and Entrapta are waiting for us, back on the ship!” She wanted to add that she was here, too, but wasn’t sure that would have a positive effect.

Catra’s ears—along with the tip of her tail—twitched. “Entrapta would love this place,” she murmured, eyes still transfixed on the screen. Another vine twisted its way up Catra’s body.

She wasn’t wrong. In fact, most of the reason that Adora had told Scorpia to stay behind with the ship, Swift Wind, and Entrapta, was to keep the scientist from running off and getting herself into trouble. Of course, who knew how successful Scorpia would be, but she just had to hope for the best. A part of Adora was, admittedly, even surprised that Catra would consider such a thing as what Entrapta would like or dislike.

None of that mattered, though, because she could tell that she was losing her. And if Adora couldn’t get through to her, to convince her to come with them, with her, then what was this all for? What kind of She-Ra was she if she couldn’t even rescue her best—her ex-best friend from Beast Island? That was one of the myths, right? “She-Ra, the warrior who tamed the beasts of Beast Island with a single word!”

A vine began writhing over her foot, but she was too distracted with her own thoughts to notice. Another voice plucked away at her resolve. That wasn’t you, it said, and it sounded almost like Light Hope. That was Mara. Who went mad with power and became so scared of She-Ra that she stranded us in an empty dimension. You can’t become a better She-Ra until you let go of all your earthly attachments.

But what if Adora didn’t want to let go?

One of the vines coiled itself around her arm, tugging the sword gently away from her grasp. Another encircled her legs to drag her down to her knees. Her own eyes began to feel heavy, and she wondered if just resting them for a while wouldn’t hurt. What was the point, anyways?

Catra let go of you, too, didn’t she? You may have broken your promise, but so did she. She led the Battle of Bright Moon. She kidnapped Bow and Glimmer. Why bother saving her? Shadow Weaver’s voice crooned darkly. You heard her—she never wanted you to come back. You leaving her was the best thing that ever happened. What’s the point of coming back for her, now? She doesn’t want you.

“But…” Adora’s voice fell flat against her own ears. As more vines slithered over her, grabbing and pulling, all she felt was tired. What had she done this all for? Shadow Weaver was right, Catra didn’t want her. She’d betrayed Glimmer, had asked Bow to lie for her, had committed treason, all to fail at the final step.

What a failure.

But she hadn’t failed yet, had she? Catra was right here, on Beast Island with her. For the first time in a year, they weren’t on opposite sides of a battlefield. They weren’t under the thumbs of Hordak, or Shadow Weaver. They were just…Catra and Adora.

Besides, Adora had promises to keep. Promises she’d made to Bow—to come home safe—promises she’d made to herself, promises she’d made to Catra—to look out for each other. Even with all the bad blood between them, she still wanted to uphold that vow.

She couldn’t do that if she died here on this damned island.

With a sudden surge of energy, she fought against the vines, tearing her sword free in the process. Adora held her sword aloft and screamed, with all the energy burning in her lungs, “For the Honor of Grayskull!”

The transformation was quick; a flash of golden magic, and she could feel She-Ra’s power embody her. With a blast of energy from her sword, the surrounding vines evaporated.

“…Adora?” asked a soft voice.

She didn’t have time to react, because Micah sprinted in, panic on his face. The look briefly shifted into one of confusion and awe as he took in her She-Ra form, before he shook his head. “There’s a lot going on right now, but we have to run before the pookas regroup!”

Adora nodded, scooped up Catra—who she hauled over her shoulder—and started running after Micah, pushing past pookas without regard to the fact that they were supposed to be the prey.

They were about two-thirds of the way out of the jungle when Catra seemed to regain her bearings. The magicat struggled against Adora’s grip, pounding on her back with clenched fists. “Adora! What are you doing!? Let me go!”

After a particularly hard punch, Adora slid to a stop and let go of Catra, who landed on the ground with a hiss. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m rescuing you!”

“I don’t want to be rescued! I don’t need to be rescued! You won, okay? Is that what you want to hear?” The color in her eyes, which had briefly returned, was starting to fade, become duller. Vines erupted from the ground, only being stopped by She-Ra’s blade as the magicat continued her rant. “You won! I lost. Hordak doesn’t trust me, Shadow Weaver abandoned me, you left me. Nobody wants me. Nobody cares about me. I don’t get to be happy. I don’t deserve to be rescued…”

Her eyes were gray once again, devoid of emotion, and more and more vines were twirling and writhing around her. Adora shared a brief, alarmed look with Micah, whose eyes mirrored her own emotions. All around them, the reflective pink eyes of pookas began to appear, and Micah threw up a hasty defense spell.

“Come on, Catra!” Adora shouted. The words twisted in her gut and her voice shook with desperation. “If that was true, then why are Entrapta and Scorpia waiting on the ship for us, for you? Why did they leave the Fright Zone and come into enemy territory, let themselves be taken prisoner, just to ask for help saving you, if they didn’t care? Why would Micah be here—” she gestured to the King, who nodded earnestly, a sharp look in his eyes— “if he didn’t care about you? I’m not here to gloat, Catra. I’m here because I made you a promise, and I’m going to fucking keep it. I’m not leaving you. I care about you.”

Catra’s eyes flickered. So, too, did the spell surrounding them. “People care about you, kiddo,” Micah said, voice hoarse. Clearly, the sorcerer was tapped out, and they didn’t have much time before the surrounding monsters broke through.

Catra was responding, but not quickly enough. At this point, Adora would even prefer for her former best friend to fight her, to claw at her, to yell, anything. Adora racked her mind for ideas; what, in the past, had always gotten her to snap out of any mood she’d seen her in? What could get her attention like no other? Her brain flashed back to their cadet days, and it hit her.

“Catra, listen,” she began, “I know how you feel. But right now, I need you to—” she broke off with a gasp, swinging her arm around to point somewhere in the distance— “IS THAT A MOUSE?”

“What! Where?” Immediately, the magicat perked up—tail and mane puffed up, ears alert, claws out, fangs bared. She wasn’t facing her, but Adora could guess that the color had returned to her eyes, the pupils of which would be blown out, dilated to the max.

In her defense, it only took Catra a mere moment to realize that she had been tricked, by possibly the oldest trick in their book. When she whirled around to face Adora, fury in her eyes, all she could think was, thank the stars.

The former second-in-command, however, didn’t seem to be amused. “Are you—you fucking—are you kidding me!?”

Maybe she should’ve thought the plan through a little more, because she certainly wasn’t expecting Catra to leap at her with a snarl. She slashed her claws at Adora, who barely deflected the attack with She-Ra’s bracers and a grunt, but who made no effort of her own to retaliate.

“Do you think you kids could save the infighting for later? We have bigger problems to worry about. Run!” Micah’s spell shield fell, and he ran into both of them, paying no mind to the growl that escaped Catra’s throat.

A swarm of pookas darted at them, and Catra was the first to react; she turned sharply on one heel, which she then leapt off of with a flourish as her claws tore through its back. The creature scampered off with a whimper. Adora couldn’t help but give a wince of sympathy, herself having experienced the same thing at the Battle of Bright Moon, but she still didn’t hesitate to strike down another pooka that was charging.

It went on like that for a while until the pookas began to hesitate, circling for better opportunities to attack while they recouped their numbers.

Adora de-transformed—ignoring the odd look she garnered from Micah at the action—and held out a hand to Catra. “Look, you don’t have to like me, or be happy about it. But we do need to get out of here. Which means you need to—no. I’m asking you, to trust me.” She fought back the tears that were threatening to spill, knowing her former friend would take them as a sign of weakness. “Please.”

Catra looked warily down at Adora’s outstretched hand. Her gaze shifted quickly, questioningly, to Micah, then darted around the area and the surrounding pookas. Behind her, her tail lashed, but only once, before her eyes finally met Adora’s own. Catra’s face, scratched, bruised, and bleeding as it was, was still a perfect mask of emotionlessness. Adora held a tense breath.

Finally, after what felt like years, Catra took Adora’s hand in her own and shook it, just once, with a nod. “Fine,” she said, eyes downcast and avoidant. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter Text

Catra’s mind had been so dull. Like every thought or emotion she tried to experience was wading through a dense pool of fog. And then, in a sudden overwhelming wave, she felt anger. If she were being honest with herself, it was almost relieving to turn on Adora in a rush of fury. There was something familiar about it.

Maybe that was a bad thing.

And when Adora didn’t fight back against her claws, and when Micah interrupted her, and when they fell easily into their old battle-stances, and when She-Ra flinched at the sight of Catra digging her claws into that pooka’s back, and when Adora de-transformed from She-Ra before she talked to her again—

She wasn’t sure that anger was what she was supposed to feel, anymore. She wasn’t sure that anger was what she wanted to feel, anymore.

Damn Micah and his little speech about there being no war on Beast Island. War made her life easier—well, in the sense that it was her life. It was all she’d ever known, and now that she’d been banished to this fucking island, she didn’t know what to do, anymore. Now that Adora was holding out a shaky hand, asking Catra to trust her, she didn’t know what to do anymore.

Hopefully, Adora wouldn’t notice the way she was actively trying to school her expression—wouldn’t notice the way she turned, almost instinctively, to Micah for advice.

(Catra tried to ignore the ease that visibly worked its way across Adora’s face when she did finally take her hand. She tried to ignore the way that Adora’s sigh of relief sounded almost like a prayer.)

“Fine. Let’s get out of here.”

Adora’s eyes hardened in determination, and suddenly, getting off the island seemed trivial, like it was always going to happen. Like Adora was always going to be there.

(And for the briefest of moments, Catra let herself forget about all the times that Adora wasn’t there.)

--

When Catra woke up, it was in an unfamiliar room that looked (and smelled?) like the color pink threw up in it. For some reason, there were sparkling pink crystals hanging over her from the ceiling. A wardrobe sat against the far left wall, painted with intricate pink flowers. She counted not one, but three chairs, not including the weird bean-shaped thing that looked like it could be treated like a chair—all of which looked over-plush and too comfortable. Speaking of which, she became aware of the bed she was lying in, which was just as pink and just as over-plush as the chairs. It was also huge, and with, like, eight pillows, which was objectively too many pillows, and equally pink.

In theory, she should’ve been more alarmed, more shocked at this development. But it made sense. Scorpia and Entrapta had been there on the island with Adora and her weird horse, on that hulking monster of a First Ones’ ship. And even though she hadn’t given Scorpia the opportunity to regale her with the entire account of her journey up to that moment, given the fact that Hordak had banished her, of course the Horde wouldn’t sanction a rescue mission.

Catra herself had passed out from exhaustion as soon as the ship left the oppressive atmosphere of the island, and so, of course, she’d woken up here.

In Bright Moon, as a prisoner. And maybe that was the only place she belonged. After all, the Fright Zone wasn’t ‘home’ anymore (if it ever was). She didn’t belong there. She didn’t belong anywhere. She had nowhere to call her own, nowhere to call ‘home’.

What about with— Catra was quick to tamp that stray thought down before it could grow legs and run off. It wasn’t like that particular thought held any water, anyways. It was just a wild pipe dream.

Think of the devil, the door swung open, and she immediately hissed at the woman in the doorway. The absolute last person she wanted to see while trapped in Bright Moon was standing there, hair poof and all.

“Catra! You’re awake!” Adora sounded relieved—excited, maybe? But that didn’t make any sense. Why would she be relieved to see her enemy up and running around?

“What does it matter to you? Sooner I’m awake, sooner you and all your sparkly friends can punish me for my crimes, right?” Catra’s tone was even harsher than she’d intended (which, in fairness, was pretty harsh), and she made no effort to keep her tail from lashing angrily back and forth. We’re enemies. We’re enemies. It was almost becoming a chant—or a reminder?

The blonde had the audacity to look confused—to tilt her head ever-so-slightly and furrow her brow in that oh-so-Adora way that she does. She held up her hands, gesturing with the objects in them; in one hand was a bottle of water, and in the other was something in a wrapper. If Catra didn’t know any better, she would think it was a ration bar. “I thought you might be hungry?” Adora’s voice lilted up into a question.

Another hiss. “What, you can’t finish me off yourself? That’s the plan—poison me? I always knew you were a coward.”

“Catra, what are you talking about? Why would I want to hurt you?”

“Oh, I don’t know—are  you gonna make me list them all off? How about Thaymor—” Adora flinched, turning her gaze to the floor, while Catra counted on her fingers— “attacking Salineas, capturing your little friends at Princess Prom, the Battle of Bright Moon, turning you against your friends in the Northern Reach…and leaving you in the Crystal Castle?” Midway through her list, Catra’s tail started whipping furiously, and her ears pinned against her head. “What don’t you get?” she snapped. “We’re enemies! Of course you’d want to hurt me. You played the hero long enough, and now you’re here to finish what Hordak started.”

“You’re not my enemy! Catra, that’s not what this is about!

“Then what the fuck is it about, Adora? Why else would you bother?”

“Bother with what?” Adora’s voice was exasperated, confused, maybe a little angry. Good. “Making sure you eat? Making sure that you recover from the five weeks you spent on Beast Island after you almost died?”

“So, what? You’re trying to keep me alive long enough for all your princess friends to put me on trial—”

“I’m the one going on trial!” Adora shouted, and the energy of her voice was enough to make Catra falter; her ears perked up out of sheer curiosity. With a sigh, Adora deflated, half-falling into one of the many chairs. She held her head in her hands. After a moment, she returned her gaze to Catra. “I don’t know what you want from me, Catra. Why do you think I was on Beast Island in the first place?”

It felt like a rhetorical question, but the silence that the blonde left in the air was making Catra antsy, so she answered, “To save Sparkles’s dad, obviously?”

Adora shook her head. “We had no idea he was there. No one did. Scorpia and Entrapta left the Horde for you—they put themselves in danger because they care about you. They wanted to rescue you. And so did I. But the Princess Alliance…” Her brow furrowed again, this time in a mixture of frustration and—sadness? “Everyone thought it was too dangerous. And that you were—that since you were part of the Horde, you weren’t worth saving.”

It wasn’t anything that Catra hadn’t heard before. Fuck, it wasn’t even anything that Catra hadn’t thought before. But given that Adora had spent the past year trying to convince her to join the glitter party (“I know you’re not a bad person, Catra. You don’t belong with the Horde.”), it still hurt to hear.

Adora continued, seemingly unaware of Catra’s reaction to her words. “So they voted. And they all voted not to save you, even knowing how bad Beast Island was. And when I tried to argue…Queen Angella forbade me from going after you.”

“So, what? You gave them all a big, impassioned speech about seeing the best in people, even in your enemies? Or did you convince them that I’d be useful? That capturing a knowledgeable member of the Horde would be beneficial to the Rebellion?”

“No, I—” There was something sharp, fragile, in Adora’s eyes, something dangerous, but Catra couldn’t bring herself to look away. It was Adora herself who eventually broke the eye contact, squeezing her eyes shut. “I snuck out. Behind the Queen’s back. I broke Entrapta and Scorpia out of Bright Moon, we stole Mara’s ship, and I ignored a direct order from Queen Angella. I committed treason.”

“You—I—” Catra’s voice was caught on a tangled thread of her own emotions, and the sentence died out before it was fully formed. Adora had committed treason for her? For Catra?

“You never protected me! Not in any way that would put you on Shadow Weaver’s bad side!” Except, Adora had put herself on the Queen of Bright Moon’s bad side, just to save her. Nothing made sense. Nothing made sense. Nothing makes sense. We’re enemies, we’re enemies, we’re enemies. “But I’m still a prisoner here.”

The blonde shook her head. “The King of Bright Moon’s word carries a lot of weight, apparently. Micah already vouched for you. So did I, for what it’s worth. But…” Another sigh. “You can leave whenever you want. You can walk right out the door and…you’ll never have to see me again.”

“I—” What the fuck was Catra supposed to say to that? How was she supposed to react? She could just leave, right now, and never come back—fuck off to the Whispering Woods and just survive. Never have to deal with the war, or princesses, or Adora, ever again.

So why didn’t she want to?

After a long moment of silence, Adora stood like the motion pained her. “I have to go,” she said, abruptly, and left in a hurry. Catra didn’t even have time to call after her—not that she wanted to, of course. We’re enemies, we’re enemies, we’re…

The bottle of water and food were on the floor next to the chair. When Catra unwrapped it, she was surprised to find that it had been exactly what she’d originally thought.

It was a gray ration bar.

Chapter Text

Adora paused at the doors to the throne room and took a deep breath, hastily wiping away the tears that still sat upon her cheeks. As soon as she’d darted out of the room, she hadn’t been able to keep them from spilling. The Horde-raised part of her criticized her for having shown weakness, and it was a hard thing to ignore—even though Glimmer and Bow (and Perfuma, in their meditation sessions) had been trying to train that out of her.

Glimmer. She hadn’t talked to or even seen the princess since she’d appeared in the spare room and Scorpia had stung her. She’s probably so mad at me.

Actually, she realized, she hadn’t really talked to anyone since returning; the Queen, briefly, who announced her trial through the confused tears at being reunited with her husband and disrupted her profuse apologies, the guards who had been assigned to her room and who had gracefully allowed her privacy when she went to talk to Catra, and…well, Catra herself, just moments ago.

Now, she had to talk in front of everyone—every princess she’d betrayed by deciding to steal Mara’s ship. Everyone she’d betrayed by saving Catra.

It was safe to say she wasn’t looking forward to it.

But the doors opened without regard to her feelings, and with one more sharp sigh, she stepped through them.

--

All conversation in the room halted, some pausing midsentence as everyone turned their eyes towards her. Adora felt her shoulders start to creep up, tense, and had to school herself into an expression of ease; she held her head high and puffed out her chest, hoping it would convey some semblance of confidence. It probably didn’t, but it was worth a shot anyways.

There were two thrones now, she noticed. One for Queen Angella and one for King Micah, who were seated in them, their hands joined in the empty space between their respective armrests. It made the room just different enough to seem foreign, unfamiliar. Along the right side of the room stood General Juliet, Spinerella, Netossa, and Perfuma; on the other side were Bow, Frosta, and Mermista. Notably missing was Glimmer. Adora shot Bow a confused look, to which he only replied with a shrug and a shake of his head.

Finally, she came to a stop at the foot of the steps that led to the thrones, and knelt, head bowed.

“Adora,” the Queen intoned, and she couldn’t help but look up at the sound of her name. The sight of Angella’s angry face, however, made her almost immediately regret that action. “You stand before us accused of conspiring with prisoners to organize an escape, of assisting said prisoners with their escape, of stealing a First Ones’ ship, and of ignoring direct orders to aide an enemy combatant. Not to mention your part in the attack on my daughter, Princess Glimmer of Bright Moon. In summation, you are accused of nothing short of treason.”

Adora flinched at the tone of her voice. “Your majesty, I—”

The Queen cut her off with a sharp look and waved a hand toward the King, who also stood, staff in hand. Micah drew a spell circle, which he then pulsed towards her. Adora braced for an impact, but was surprised when there was none. “That was a truth spell,” Micah explained, and there was a hint of something like regret in his voice. “You will be compelled to answer honestly.”

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I—uh, jeez, I—” Adora stammered out the mess of words, then felt herself flush. She cleared her throat. “Ahem. Your majesty. I did plot with Scorpia and Entrapta to rescue Catra. I did break them out of Bright Moon, and I did steal Mara’s ship. I take full responsibility for my actions.”

“My daughter was hurt as a result of your actions!”

“I’m sorry!” Adora’s voice cracked mid-shout. “I didn’t mean for Glimmer to get hurt! It was an accident. You can ask anyone—ask Entrapta, or Scorpia, or Bow—and they’ll tell you the same. Glimmer is my friend, of course I’m sorry that she got hurt! I wish she hadn’t!” she half-yelled, half-cried. It took three deep breaths before she could continue in a subdued voice, “But I can’t change that. And I’m sorry she got hurt, but I’m not sorry for doing what I did.”

“You went against orders to rescue—”

“The orders were wrong!”

A collective gasp rang out, Bow’s being the loudest of them all. When Adora glanced over at him, he was doing that antsy little dance of his—the one he did when he knew he wanted to do something, to interfere, but didn’t know what to do specifically. It gave Adora a bit of comforting familiarity in the face of Angella’s incensed yell. “I beg your pardon?”

Adora nodded, doubling down on her argument. “They were wrong. Entrapta and Scorpia betrayed the Horde just to ask us for help rescuing their friend, and you said no. We all told you just how horrible Beast Island was, and you still said no. I begged you to let me go, and you refused to even listen.”

“You wanted to squander resources, to put your life at risk, to save the Horde’s Second-in-Command!”

“Well, clearly she isn’t the Second-in-Command anymore, since she was banished,” Adora countered. “And even if she was, so what? Aren’t we the so-called ‘Great Rebellion’? Aren’t we supposed to be the good guys? How can we be good if we aren’t willing to help people—to help everyone?”

“We are not obligated to assist the enemy.”

“Catra is not our enemy! Not anymore, at least! I—she—she’s my—” Adora briefly lost both her words and her confidence, uncertain with how she wanted to classify the magicat. “The Horde are people too, you know. I was a Horde soldier. You know this.”

Angella shook her head. “That’s different. You’re—”

“What? I’m She-Ra? And that automatically gives my life more value than anyone else’s?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t want the confirmation that she was just a pawn, a tool for the Rebellion. She knew that already. Plus, during all of this, she’d come up with her final argument— “Besides, if I hadn’t gone against orders, we never would’ve found out that Micah was alive and—er, well…?—on Beast Island! And if it weren’t for Catra, he wouldn’t be alive and well at all! He’s the one who told us that!”

Micah murmured something to the Queen that Adora couldn’t quite pick up, but it seemed to deflate the Queen, whose wings drooped with a great sigh. Her face softened. “I am…aware, of my husband’s strange affinity for the former second-in-command, and I am aware of the reasons I should have to be grateful to her. I am, and this is why—so long as she does not intend to return to the Horde—she is free to leave the castle if she so desires.” Angella’s eyes set, determined, as she leveled one last glare down her nose to Adora. “You, however, will not share the same privileges. Adora, you are under house arrest until further notice. You will not be permitted to leave the castle without my express permission, and your guard will continue to monitor you, your whereabouts, and your actions.”

“I…understand, your majesty," Adora said, bowing her head.

Chapter Text

“Halt!” commanded one of the two Bright Moon guards now blocking Catra’s way out—which, of course. She shouldn’t have expected the truth. She shouldn’t’ve expected it to be that easy. “Are you planning on rejoining the Horde?”

“What?”

The other guard leveled her a glare. “They said, ‘Are you planning on rejoining the Horde?’”

“Yeah, I got that,” Catra rolled her eyes. “Why does it matter?”

“A condition of your freedom is that you must not plan on returning to the Horde. Otherwise, you are free to go. So we must ask again, are you planning on going back to the Horde?”

Catra’s eyes narrowed, one ear flicking slightly. Was it that easy? “Uh…no?”

Both guards stepped out of the way, their sullen faces suddenly upturning into bright, off-putting smiles. “Good enough for me! Enjoy your day.”

“I…” Her voice trailed off as she decided not to push it, instead taking the opportunity to stroll past the guards and through the gates.

It had been a few days since she’d ‘talked’ with Adora (it was more of an argument, honestly); most of the time she’d spent sleeping—turns out having been banished to a remote island and surviving for weeks after what was supposed to be a death sentence was actually pretty exhausting—and the rest had been spent replaying their conversation. “You can leave whenever you want…you’ll never have to see me again.” Spent overthinking the way her own brows drew in and tail lashed vigorously at the thought.

After three days of having been stuck in her own mind, Catra had become understandably restless. She was sure the fact that she’d scratched up every possible surface in the room would probably be frowned upon by…someone, but she didn’t care. If she didn’t get out of there soon, she was going to explode.

So she’d left, to explore the castle. Wondering if she really could leave—a question which apparently had just been answered, after that interaction with the guards just now.

Catra wasn’t leaving Bright Moon, though. These gates had led somewhere else; from the finely manicured hedges to the sprawling, colorful flower beds, it was clear that someone cared very much for the Bright Moon gardens. There was a cobblestone walkway trailing a path through the garden, at the end of which was a pink-and-white gazebo balcony. At the gazebo stood a familiar figure, who smiled at her and made a gesture with their hand, encouraging her to join them. She did.

“So, you haven’t left yet?” asked Micah, leaning an arm on the railing of the balcony and looking out into the Whispering Woods below. He looked different than the last time Catra saw him—his beard had been trimmed and his hair looked clean, combed, and carefully pulled back away from his face, and he was no longer wearing the ratty cloak and tunic from Beast Island, but rather a regal purple robe. Very Kingly, Catra thought, half-sarcastically. No more dark, far-off look in his eyes, anymore.

She crossed her arms at his comment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, you haven’t left yet. Why not?”

“I—no. Why would I? This is a great chance to check out the enemy’s base of operation up-close and personal.”

Micah shifted his face to shoot her what was possibly the most skeptical look to end all skeptical looks, one eyebrow lifted in disbelief. “See, but you’re too smart to tell the enemy King that you were spying, aren’t you, kiddo? So what’s the real reason you haven’t left?”

“I—don’t…” The magicat’s arms dropped to her sides, tail and ears drooping. It was something she’d been wondering herself, over the past days. The first day, she could justify needing to recuperate after the Island. On the second day, she’d argued needing to plan an escape route just in case she’d been lied to about her ability to leave. By this third day, well…it wasn’t something she could really ignore anymore. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The King shook his head simply. “Sure you do.” With a sweeping gesture over the balcony, he continued, “You’re not a prisoner here. You’re free of the Horde; you could go anywhere you wanted out there. You could live in one of the civilian towns, like Thaymor—” Catra flinched, slightly, at the thought of the village she’d razed a year ago. The start of everything going wrong— “or you could travel all around Etheria, from the Salineas Sea Gate all the way to the white-topped mountains of the Kingdom of Snows. Anywhere.”

“Someone really oughta share the list of ‘places I definitely wouldn’t be welcomed’ with you, huh?” Catra commented dryly.

Micah didn’t laugh, but the corner of his mouth quirked up into a quick smile that he hastily covered up. “You caused a lot of trouble as second-in-command, didn’t you?”

Catra scoffed. “You could say that.”

“So where didn’t you cause trouble?”

The magicat pondered for a moment, tail swaying back and forth. “Uh, Plumeria? But I don’t really do flowers. The weird wizard sorcerer place you said you’re from—”

“Mystacor.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, bug-man. I don’t do magic, anyways. And…I haven’t fucked up the Crimson Wastes, yet.”

Micah chuckled. “I have no doubt you could conquer them in one day.”

“Because I’m obviously over the moons to be the leader of a giant, empty desert.” She shook her head. “Who wants to deal with all that sand, anyways?”

“Fair enough,” Micah laughed. He let the ensuing silence sit for a little while before turning away from the balcony to face her head-on. “You’re also welcome to stay, you know.”

“Something tells me not everyone would be too happy about that. On account of the whole ‘former Horde soldier’ thing.”

“Well, I know I’d be glad to have you here. And wherever you go, I’m sure those friends of yours—Scorpia and Entrapta?—will follow you, too. But you’re free to come and go as you please, as long as you don’t go back to the Horde. Adora fought pretty hard to get that for you, you know?”

Catra crossed her arms over her chest and hissed. “Oh, I bet she can’t wait to get rid of me, huh? I—”

“You’re kidding, right?” The brief flash of irritation in his voice was startling to Catra, whose eyes widened and ears pinned back as he continued, “You can’t possibly think that she wants to get rid of you, after everything that’s happened?”

“Of course she does! We’re enemies!”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am! She chose her side, I chose mine. We’re not friends.”

“Kiddo,” sighed Micah, in a way Catra had never heard before. It was a sorrowful kind of sigh, tinged with the sad draw of his eyebrows and the downcast of his eyes. “It’s not about sides. It’s about what you want.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. Adora doesn’t want me here. Why else would she fight so hard to get me to leave?”

The sorcerer shook his head, a deep frown line etched into his face. “You’re wrong, kiddo. She doesn’t want you to leave. She wanted to give you the choice to stay.”

“I—” A tightness in her throat swallowed Catra’s words. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood—a common side effect of having fangs—and the taste of metal was harsh on her tongue in the way she wished her words could be. For a moment, she stammered, trying to find a sharp comment or something, but she couldn’t. The sheer heart in Micah’s words had knocked the wind out of her. “I don’t…”

“Have you talked to her, yet?”

“Well, not really, no…”

“You should.”

Micah hovered a hand over her shoulder, but apparently thought better of the action, instead sighing again and walking away. He disappeared behind the gates, leaving Catra to sit with the weight of their conversation.

And sit she did, until she grew restless on the balcony.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was another gazebo on the other side of the garden. Curious, she decided to investigate; was there something special about that gazebo that earned it a set of floating pedestals instead of the stairs that led to the one she was currently standing on?

Once she stepped through the threshold of what she quickly discovered was a sort of greenhouse, Catra shuddered, though at first she wasn’t sure why. She looked around, confused. Of all the things she’d expected from this, it hadn’t been the world’s creepiest flower garden—all dark roses and creeping vines that, honestly, reminded her of Beast Island. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and her nose turned up at the smell. In general, Catra wasn’t the biggest fan of the smell of flowers, given that they tended to make her sneeze and sniffle for hours afterward, but this was something else. Even in the Fright Zone, flowers didn’t smell like this—bitter and acrid and stinging, tingling like electri—

“What are you doing here?” demanded a dark voice from behind her, and Catra froze, stock-still. She chided herself for not realizing sooner. For not figuring it out. For being too distracted to notice the rustling of tattered red robes behind her, or the palpable shift in the air.

Because of course, after the escape, where would she have gone? Where would she have slinked off to in the dead of night after leaving Catra to take the fall? After manipulating her, using her, lying to her? Where else would she have gone, except for here?  She was a weak old woman, and she was predictable, and Catra had been so stupid and naïve not to realize that, out of everywhere in Etheria, of course she’d be here. Where else would she have gone, except to where Adora was?

Catra forced down the bile rising in her throat (which mixed unpleasantly with the blood from her split lip, and made her feel sick—well, sicker than she already felt, which was saying something.) and turned to find herself face-to-face with the mask she’d shattered with her own claws right before the Battle of Bright Moon.

“Shadow Weaver,” spat Catra, a ready snarl on her lips and her claws already extended. The magicat hissed, baring her fangs.

“Catra,” the sorceress droned, voice dripping with condescension. “I suppose I had been too optimistic to assume that you’d meet your end on Beast Island. That’s my fault; trash thrives in a dump, after all.”

Chapter Text

“Can’t even be banished properly.” Shadow Weaver let out familiar sigh that straightened Catra’s spine and raised her hackles. “But then again, how much could really be expected of you?”

“Fuck you,” Catra spat back. “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be in shackles?”

“Shouldn’t you?” retorted Shadow Weaver. “You’re the one traipsing around in my garden.” She made a sweeping gesture to the creepy plants surrounding them; Catra didn’t take her eyes off the sorceress.

“Your garden? They gave you a garden?” Catra’s ear twitched forward at a sound in the distance—a gate opening? She was a bit too preoccupied with the witch in front of her to tell.

Shadow Weaver tilted her head by a fraction, scanning the magicat for signs of weakness and soaking her in disdain. “Yes,” she drawled, sounding bored. “And it looks like they gave a bag of fleas a place to sleep.”

Catra, who until then, had been exercising an inhuman amount of restraint, growled and tackled Shadow Weaver, knocking both of them to the ground in a flurry of fur and fangs. With the sorceress pinned below her, Catra raised a clawed hand, ready to strike. Angry tears pricked at her eyes as she snarled, “Do you know what happened to me after you escaped? Do you even care? You couldn’t wait to get away from there—from me. But you came here for Adora.”

“Catra!” In the threshold stood the blonde herself, wide blue eyes looking at her in fear. Of course she would be here right now. Of course she would take this away from her.

“I came to Bright Moon because I had to. To stop Hordak.” Shadow Weaver didn’t seem at all concerned that Catra was still revved up to attack—didn’t seem to care that the magicat was wholly unsuccessful at biting back her tears.

“So what?” Catra demanded. “You’re on the side of good now? You made me this way, and you get to be the good guy?”

Her arm swiped down, but before her claws made contact with the witch, strong arms wrapped around her waist and yanked her backwards, off of Shadow Weaver. She twisted, snarling, sinking her claws into whatever she could reach—which ended up being the soft flesh of Adora’s arms. She didn’t have the capacity to care about the consequences of that; she was still thrashing, trying to break out of the blonde’s grasp.

“Catra, stop! Please!” Adora’s voice didn’t come in a shout, but in a pleading whisper, and the two of them briefly stilled.

The pause was enough for Catra to break free, jumping away from both Adora and the sorceress. Her anger at the latter was redirected at the woman in front of her, her ex-best friend. Her enemy. “After everything she’s done to us, you’re going to take her side? You’re going to defend her?”

“Catra, I—”

“Thank you, Adora,” crooned Shadow Weaver, who had used the brief distraction to push herself to her feet, and was now making a show of dusting off her robes. “You always did know how to keep this one under control.”

Catra hissed, ready to attack again, but was interrupted by Adora stepping between her and Shadow Weaver. She bared her fangs, expecting nothing to have changed from when they were kids—another half-assed effort at avoiding punishment in a way that wouldn’t rock the boat too much, wouldn’t disrupt the balance of power. A wide spread of her arms to keep them apart, despite the damage having already been done.

But that’s not what Adora did. In a movement so quick that even Catra’s eyes failed to track it, Adora swung her arm back, and with what looked like a brief flash of golden light, punched Shadow Weaver squarely in the face. The sorceress fell backward gracelessly onto the ground. With a sharp clatter, her mask followed, split into two pieces right down the crack that Catra had left in it.

Shadow Weaver opened her mouth—shock painted clearly on her scarred face—but Adora didn’t give her the opportunity to speak.

“Shut up!” The sorceress’s mouth snapped shut as Adora continued, shouting with an anger, a distress that Catra had never heard before, “I will never forgive you. You ruin people. You ruin any chance they could ever be happy.” Adora took a deep breath. “I’m not going to let you anymore,” she finished after a moment’s pause. There was a determination in her voice so steely that Catra couldn’t help but believe she was telling the truth. Adora turned to face Catra, but the upturn of her brows was too much.

Everything was too much. The shallow groaning of Shadow Weaver on the ground was too much. The smell of flowers and magic and electricity and blood was too much. Adora, right in front of her, looking so hopeful and sincere was too much.

Catra shouldered past the blonde, ignoring her cry of protest, and ran to the edge of the balcony. The endless expanse of the Whispering Woods shuddered in the wind, and so did she.

“Catra, wait!” Her ears flicked at the sound of Adora calling her name, at the sound of rushed footsteps close behind. Her tail lashed.

Without any further hesitation, she leapt off of the balcony, crashing into the trees below.

She landed on her feet, leaves and twigs likely stuck in her hair, but she didn’t slow down or stop. Catra raced through the forest, trying desperately to ignore the way the wind seemed to deliberately carry Adora’s cries in her direction.

She stumbled over rocks and stray tree roots. She trampled grass and moss and flowers. Stray branches struck her face, leaving stinging marks that drew blood. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she needed to get away from there—away from Shadow Weaver, from Bright Moon, from Adora.

Adora, who defended her. Adora, who fought for her freedom at the expense of her own. Adora, who punched Shadow Weaver in the face for her. Adora, who committed treason to rescue her. Adora, Adora, Adora.

Catra screamed, and the sound rattled loose every ache she’d felt in her chest since she’d woken up on that damned island. Catra cried, and her tears were for every anguish she’d suffered in the Fright Zone. Catra sank to her knees on the forest floor, and her sobs were for the war, for being pulled apart at the seams and re-stitched into a weapon. Catra dug her claws into the ground and the wounds they made in the earth were mourning every injury she’d inflicted, every drop of blood she’d drawn out of hate, out of fear, out of anger, out of sadness. Catra grieved for everything she’d lost, and for everything she wanted but could never have.

Catra wept.

For how long, she didn’t know. She cried until her voice was hoarse and her eyes ached and she ran out of tears to shed, until the blood and dirt under her nails caked into red-brown mud, and the chirping of birds and the trails of light filtering through the canopy of leaves above were replaced by darkness and the droning of crickets. A speckle of light fluttered around her, illuminating her surroundings with a soft glow.

She knew it was magic, but it didn’t smell sharp or acrid. It smelled like the moonrises. It smelled like the home she so desperately wanted.

Her eyes followed the flittering light around until it dipped behind a tree, and her legs carried her after it, some part of her desperately unwilling to let it disappear from sight and leave her alone again.

Catra wasn’t sure where she wanted it to lead her. She kept following.

Eventually, it came to a stop, hovering just out of reach, and she was so focused on its warm glow that she almost didn’t notice what it was hovering over: a hut, covered in moss and giant tree-fronds and crafted so delicately out of sticks that it might blow over in a strong wind and yet—it looked as though it had stood there for a thousand years.

A rustling came from inside, and a voice called, “Mara, dearie? Is that you?”

Chapter Text

By the stars, Adora would’ve jumped right off of that platform after Catra—had gripped the railing, ready to haul herself over in a heartbeat—but the two Bright Moon guards, tasked with making sure she doesn’t run off, each grabbed one of her arms and pulled her away from the edge.

After a longer span of time than ideal, she did manage to convince them that she was fine, they could let go, she promises she won’t try to leap from a platform a hundred feet off the ground (again).

During all of the commotion, Shadow Weaver had slinked away, probably to lick her wounds and gather her strength for the next time she wanted to ruin Catra and Adora’s lives. Adora flexed her hand at the thought, her heart still racing. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened; she could’ve sworn that even without the sword (which she’d left in her room, having gone out with the intention of talking to Catra and not wanting the item that so thoroughly tore them apart to be present) that somehow, she’d channeled the power of She-Ra into that punch.

And then Catra had run away.

For someone who was so pissed at me for leaving, Adora thought with a bitter irony, she sure does run away a lot. She sighed. I just wish she’d talk to me.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a tap on her shoulder; she sighed in relief when she realized that it was only Micah, a mixture of confusion and concern on his face. “Adora, are you okay? What happened?”

“I wish I knew,” Adora said, feeling a frown work its way onto her lips. “I came here to talk to Catra, like you said, ‘cause—well, ‘cause I wanted—I…You said she’d be here, and you were right. But Shadow Weaver was here, too, and—” She was shocked by how quickly Micah’s face darkened at the mention of the sorceress, his features hardening with anger and his hands balling into fists at his sides— “She and Catra were fighting, and I pulled them apart, but—I’ve…never seen Catra look that hurt before. Micah, I just got so angry. Shadow Weaver—I hate her. I…” Her eyes fell to the knuckles on her hand, which were red and quickly starting to bruise.

When Micah connected the dots, he laughed—then looked startled at his own reaction. “I’m sorry, I just—you—you punched that hag in the face!” he exclaimed, choking out the words through laughter. Tears had started forming in the corners of his eyes, and he doubled over, trying to catch his breath. It took at least two full minutes for him to scale down from full-blown cackling to intermittent chuckles. “I’m sorry. Whew. Stars, if anyone deserves to be punched in the face by the great warrior She-Ra herself, it’s that witch.”

Adora allowed herself a small smile at his reaction, feeling vindicated in her anger, but as she continued her explanation, the smile quickly fell from her lips. “But Catra ran away. And because I’m on house arrest, I couldn’t go after her.” She shot a brief glare to her guards, who were standing emotionlessly off to the side. “I betrayed Angella’s trust, I—I got Glimmer hurt, I…and now Catra isn’t even here. She wouldn’t even talk to me. She still treats me like I’m her enemy, when all I want is—all I’ve ever wanted is—” Her voice caught, the words stuck sharply, haphazardly, in her throat. Her vision watered. “Micah…what if I’ve messed everything up?”

Micah rested a firm hand on her shoulder. “The Whispering Woods have a way of leading you where you need to go, even if you don’t quite realize it at the time. I’m sure she’ll be fine; Catra’s a tough kid. But, Adora—you’ve spent so much time running after her. Maybe it’s time you let her come to you?”

“But I—What if she doesn’t? What if she never wants to see me again? What if we never—”

“Adora.” She shook her head, trying to scramble out of the spiraling pit that her thoughts were leading down. Micah was giving her a soft, reassuring smile. “She will. I have a feeling everything’s going to work out.” He said it like he believed it.

Adora hoped he was right.

--

“Who the fuck is Mara?”

The weird old woman in front of Catra didn’t answer, instead choosing to set her broom down and adjust her glasses, causing the lenses to reflect the still-hovering light that brought her here. Catra could see the way the old woman’s eyes widened, seemingly in both shock and recognition. “Catra? Hmm, that’s not right. Your hair is usually shorter by the time you first meet Madame Razz.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? How do you know my name? We’ve never met before!”

“You’re usually much less angry, too. Where’s that glowing blue friend of yours?” The old woman squinted again at Catra, before sighing and clicking her tongue. “Hmm, that’s not right, is it? Things are different this time around, aren’t they?”

Catra’s tail was lashing behind her. “Listen, lady—”

“Madame Razz! I told you this already, dearie!”

“Listen, Razz, I have no idea who the fuck you are, what you’re talking about, or how you know my name. We’ve never met!”

Madame Razz chuckled. “No, not this time around. How different are things?” She tilted her head, and for the first time, Catra noticed what seemed to be a group of white butterflies where fluttering around her. “Ohhh, the Island. You’ve been through so much, dearie. Why don’t you come inside. The pie should be ready soon.”

“I—” Crazy old ladies in the woods who apparently knew her but didn’t actually know her, huh? “Somehow, this isn’t even the weirdest princess thing I’ve ever encountered,” Catra muttered to herself. The thought didn’t exactly make her feel better. Nevertheless, she decided it was too late and she was too tired to try and find her way back to Bright Moon, and so she followed Razz into her hut. How dangerous could the old lady be?

The inside of the hut was a mess. Sure, her room in Bright Moon was a disaster, given that she’d torn every sheet and cushion to shreds, but this was on another level. Strewn about were various pieces of what could only be considered junk. Broken plates, strings of beads, random scraps of fabric, clumps of dirt from an overturned plant (which Catra gently uprighted when she thought the old woman wasn’t looking), and a dust-covered Horde helmet—which was sitting on a shelf next to the sun-bleached skull of some ancient animal. The latter two reminded her a bit too much of waking up on the beaches of Beast Island, and she shuddered.

She was a little worried that the mess around the active hearth was a fire hazard, but Madame Razz glided (not literally, but close enough to it that Catra briefly thought she was) through the room without a care in the world. Something was in the fire, and whatever it was smelled good.

The ding! of a timer startled her; she had to smooth out her tail to hide it. “Ah! Pie’s ready!” Razz put a mitt on her hand and pulled a circular pan out of the fire, holding it out for Catra to see. The old woman whirled around her, producing a knife and two plates. She cut two slices of the pie and handed one to Catra along with a fork. “Careful, it’s hot!”

Too hungry to ignore the way her mouth watered at the smell of the pie, Catra took a bite. Then another. And three more after that. “This is really good,” she mumbled under her breath. It reminded her of the berries that Micah had showed her, but sweeter.

“What’s that, dearie? You’ll have to speak up, I don’t have my glasses.” Madame Razz’s glasses were clearly and sturdily perched upon her nose. Catra figured it might not be best to comment on that.

“I, um. The pie is good.”

“You’re too kind! It’s blueberry,” Razz said with a grin and a conspiratorial wink, “I know it’s your favorite.”

Catra placed her fork down on the plate and ran a hand through her hair, detangling a few knots with her claws along the way. She sighed. “Look, lady, I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I swear, I don’t know you.”

“Ridiculous! You visit old Madame Razz more often than Swift Wind does!”

“Swift...Wind? Isn’t that Adora’s weird horse?”

“I am no one’s horse! I am my own stallion! Huzzah!”

There was no denying the way that Catra yelped at the sudden appearance of the winged pegasus himself, and dropped her plate, which shattered on the floor with an ear-splitting noise. She cleared her throat, smoothing out her hair and tail. “Ahem. Horse.”

“Horde Soldier,” retorted the horse, an unamused lilt in his voice.

“Not anymore. What are you doing here?”

“I visit Razz all the time! You gotta check up on old ladies alone in the woods.”

“That’s...” Catra glanced over to Razz, who was humming a song to herself as she swept the plate shards and dirt into a pile in the middle of the floor. Suddenly, she twirled the broom around and slammed it into the pile, sending up a cloud of dust that made Catra’s eyes water. The old woman looked proud of her handiwork. “Yeah, I get why. She seems a little—”

“Cuckoo bananas? Bonkers? Off her rocker? Senile?”

Catra shrugged. “Well, yes. But I was gonna say...she seems lonely.”

Madame Razz threw her arms in the air with a cry. “Swift Wind! You’re just in time! It’s getting late. Catra needs to get back home!”

The magicat exchanged a look with Swift Wind, grateful to have a witness to the old woman’s antics. “Uh. This is a Princess horse. Bright Moon isn’t my home.”

“Not Bright Moon. Home.”

“Well, it’s not like I can go back to the Fright Zone, either!”

The business end of the broom was whacked against the top of her head, and Catra shrieked in protest. “Don’t be daft! I’m not talking about a where, I’m talking about a who. Stars, does it always take the end of the universe for you to figure out your feelings?”

“End of the—who are—what are you—?” Catra stumbled over several false starts, unable to piece together a reply that encompassed all of her confusion. “Look, lady, you don’t know what you’re talking about, okay?”

“Of course I do! Madame Razz is more perceptive than people think.” The old woman shook her head. “You’re a smart girl. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t talk to one another.”

“I—but what about—”

Razz started sweeping at her feet, effectively pushing Catra back with the broom until she was halfway out the door. “Go on, silly! It’s time to go home.”

“I—” Catra turned to Swift Wind, who looked just as confused as she felt. It was a small comfort. “I...she’s right. Um. Is there any chance you could give me a ride back to Bright Moon? I have—I have someone I need to talk to.”

Chapter Text

“Can’t you just let me in?”

The guard shook their head, continuing to block the door with broad shoulders and a blank-slated face. “I’m under strict orders.”

“Please? For me? I really need to talk to her.”

“I’m under strict orders.”

She groaned. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

The guard cut their eyes down to her, the corner of their mouth quirking up in amusement as they said, “I’m under strict orders.”

“Are you kidding me!” It was a shout of frustration, not a question, and the guard didn’t quite manage to school their face back into neutrality before letting out a chuckle. “I—come on! Let me through!”

“Nope. I’m under—”

“Strict orders, I get it!” She was going to scream. “Listen, just—”

“Adora!” There was a flash of pink as something grabbed her collar and she was suddenly in the room she had been trying for so long to get into. The feeling of being teleported was still something she was getting used to, so she swayed slightly before regaining her bearings. In front of her stood Glimmer, a scowl on her lips and her hair mussed up; she was in her pajamas. “Why are you making so much noise at my door this late at night?”

“I was just—” Adora faltered as she took in the rest of the room, spotting the sleeping figure of Bow among a pile of blankets on the floor. "You guys are having a sleepover without me?"

Glimmer flushed, glancing back at Bow before crossing her arms and looking back at Adora. “No! Well. Not on purpose. He came by earlier to apologize, again, and he was apparently so worried about it that he just fell asleep.” Adora raised an eyebrow. Bow had very clearly been delicately tucked into the blanket pile, and if he didn’t do that himself, then... “What?” hissed Glimmer. “Nothing happened!”

“I mean, I wasn’t—I didn’t say anything,” Adora hummed, shrugging nonchalantly—or at least, in an attempt to portray nonchalance. After a moment, her features fell into guilt, remembering her reason for being there. “Glimmer, I haven’t seen you once since before we—”

“Knocked me out, asked Bow to lie for you, went against orders, stole a ship, rescued the former Horde Second-in-Command, brought her back along with my dad, stood up to my mom during your trial, got yourself put on house arrest, and then punched Shadow Weaver in the face?”

She winced. “So, you heard about all of that, huh?”

“I’m the Princess of Bright Moon. I hear things.”

 “Look, I wanted to apologize—”

“For which part?”

“The knocking out part.” Adora’s gaze shifted back to Bow, who had started to snore. They were being quiet—their words were more sharp, back-and-forth whispers than anything else—but he was unlikely to wake up anyways. “And the asking Bow to lie for us part.”

Glimmer glanced over at the archer, and her gaze softened in the same way that Angella’s did whenever she and Micah shared a quiet look. “He wasn’t very good at it, anyways.”

“It was an accident!” Adora blurted. “I mean—the knocking out part. I did ask Bow to lie on purpose. I’m sorry! I didn’t want you to get hurt, we were just supposed to sneak out and—and you just appeared—and I—Scorpia swears she didn’t mean to and you know—”

“Adora, you’re rambling.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, “for all of that. But I’m not sorry for rescuing her, or your dad, and I don’t really want to be sorry for punching Shadow Weaver in the face because it kind of felt good and she’s such a horrible person and I hate her so much and—"

“Adora.”

“Right. Rambling. Sorry.”

Glimmer groaned, dragging a hand across her face. “Look, Adora, what do you want me to say? I’m not mad about you punching Shadow Weaver—good for you, honestly. Someone had to do it—and obviously, I’m not upset that you rescued my dad! We didn’t even know he was alive to be rescued. And it’s—it’s so great, having him back, even if he does still treat me like I’m a little kid, and even though I’m pretty sure I caught him eating a bug the other day...” She trailed off for a moment before continuing, “But, Adora, why didn’t you tell me?”

“That your dad was on Beast Island? I didn’t know! I skipped Force Captain Orientation, so I didn’t know anything about—”

“Adora, I’m pretty sure they don’t cover ‘the long-lost, presumed-dead King of Bright Moon has been surviving off of nothing but bugs and sheer spite for the past fifteen years on Beast Island’ during Force Captain Orientation.” The Princess rolled her eyes. “I’m asking why you didn’t tell me about your plan to stage a prison break.”

“Oh. Right. That makes a lot more sense, actually.” Adora twisted her hands together. This was the part of the conversation she was looking forward to the least. “Glimmer, you were so against the idea of rescuing Catra. You hate her! You called her ‘completely insufferable and a pain in the ass’!”

Glimmer crossed her arms and grumbled, “Well, it’s true,” under her breath. She returned the glare that Adora sent her way with one of greater intensity.

“Besides, it’s like I said during the trial! Everyone was so against saving her, even though she’s my—even though she’s important to me. You saw how important saving her was to me and you still voted against it. How was I supposed to know how you’d react to me doing it anyways? What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey Glimmer, I know you hate Catra and that she’s our enemy and literally everyone voted against it, but I’m going to rescue her whether you like it or not, because even after everything she’s done, I still care about her’? What if it were you and Bow?”

She scoffed. “That’s different! Bow is—he’s Bow!”

“And Catra is Catra! I had to do it, Glimmer. I made a...I made a promise, okay?” And she was trying so hard not to cry, not to let the tears that hesitated at the edges of her eyes fall, to not let her voice tremble. “I don’t regret doing any of it, but I am sorry you got hurt because of it. And I didn’t want you to stop me. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“I just don’t get it! Why do you care about her so much? She’s your enemy!”

“I don’t want her to be! I never wanted her to be!” Adora swiped furiously at her eyes with one hand, trying to preempt the tears. “We grew up together for eighteen years, Glimmer! We were best friends! And in the blink of an eye, in the span of like, two days, we were on opposite sides of a war! Do you know how awful that was—fighting people I grew up with? Fighting my friends?” Her hands curled into fists; the bruised skin on her knuckles ached. “No! Because you never asked!”

“I—” Glimmer began in protest, but she faltered. It was as if all the fight had seeped from her body. She turned back to Bow’s sleeping figure (he had barely shifted, even despite their raised voices) and sighed. “We didn’t, did we?” A long pause, and when she turned back to Adora, her eyes were filled with tears, too. “I’m sorry, Adora. We never asked. We just—you’re She-Ra, and all we cared about was what you could do for the war, but you’re also Adora, and you’re our friend, and you never brought it up, either, but we—we never asked. I’m sorry, Adora. We should’ve asked.”

Glimmer jerked forward, half-teleporting them into a tight hug, and as Adora wrapped her arms around the Princess, she felt the weight on her shoulders—of carrying that hurt, of tamping it down into a glass bottle and sealing the lid so tightly that not even She-Ra had the strength to reopen it—lessen, and suddenly she didn’t have to carry the whole world, anymore.

The hug lasted for a long time.

“Aww, what?” It was Bow, rubbing sleep from his bleary eyes and pouting his signature pout. “You guys are having a group hug without me?”

Adora laughed a watery laugh, and the load on her shoulders lightened that much more.

--

“Angie, are you awake?”  The first moonrise was starting to filter into the room, catching the waterfall and painting the walls with shifting rainbows of light.

The Queen shifted next to him. “Yes, my love? What is it?” Her voice was still thick with sleep, but she didn’t sound as though he’d interrupted her rest. Thank the stars.

Micah fidgeted with the hem of his nightgown. It was still weird, getting used to having clean clothes, an actual bed, hot water and soap to bathe with. Getting used to being around his wife. His wife who looked barely different at all, save for the worry lines etched into her forehead. And being around his daughter. His daughter, who was so much older now—not the little girl he left at home before battle but a teenager, a fighter, a commander of the Rebellion. Everything was different now. Everything had changed, everyone had changed, he had changed. But the war was still going on; the only thing different there was that now kids were fighting the battles their parents had lost so many years ago.

But that wasn’t what this was about. That wasn’t what had been keeping him up these past few nights, tossing and turning words and phrasings over and over in his head until finally, on this morning, he felt ready to ask: “Why did you punish Adora so harshly?”

A grumble. She rolled over and shifted down on the bed so that they were eye-to-eye. “Darling, you were there. She committed treason.”

“To save her friend!”

“The ex-commander of the Horde.”

“Who saved my life,” Micah countered. “Thereby making her one of the only reasons I’m here with you, now.”

 Angella sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “I know, my love. But Glimmer was hurt—”

“An unfortunate accident—we confirmed Scorpia’s intentions—that she has fully recovered from. Our daughter is a tough cookie.”

“And stubborn. She gets that from you, you know.”

Micah grinned before continuing, “So, besides that, Adora was doing what she thought was right. She wanted to rescue her...friend. Can you really fault her for that?”

“The Rebellion voted against it. She went against orders.”

“Angie.” Micah shook his head softly—a difficult movement when one was lying down on a bed. “What would you have done? If the roles were reversed? If you were Adora, and someone ordered you not to go after me? Not to rescue me?”

“It’s different. You’re my—”

She broke off at the look he gave her, a raised eyebrow that he hoped conveyed the idea that it wasn’t so different after all. “Don’t think. Just answer the question. What would you have done?”

“If I had known that you were there, the whole time—I’d be beside myself with worry. I would’ve torn the world apart at the chance to find you again, my love, orders be damn—Oh...”

Micah took that as a sign that he had successfully gotten his point across, and though he did nothing to hide his triumphant smile, he did refrain himself from smugly saying “See? I told you so.” Perhaps it was a testament to the patience that he’d cultivated over the past fifteen years. A stray piece of pink hair had fallen loose, and Micah carefully, dutifully, tucked it back into place behind Angella’s ear.

“I’ll talk to Adora later today,” she said, officially conceding his point.

“Thank you.” He paused before leaning in, shifting his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, “So what do you think of this Bow fellow? Do you think he’s good enough for our daughter?”

--

The second moon had risen, and Adora was no closer to finding any sleep, so anxious was she.

Sure, she felt better now that she’d talked to Glimmer—and Bow, after he had woken up—and she was trying to let herself believe that Micah had been telling the truth when he’d said everything was going to work out, but still. It was hard to sleep without knowing where Catra was. So, instead, she’d spent the past several hours staring at the ceiling, listening to the waterfall’s steady stream.

She was too distracted, her thoughts too distant, to notice the sound of someone climbing in through the balcony.

“What is the waterfall even for? Showering?”

The voice startled Adora to her feet, hastily grabbing her under-pillow knife and whirling to face the intruder.

“Watch where you point that, princess.” Catra was leaning against the wall causally, unintimidated by the blade. In fact, she looked wholly amused that Adora had chosen to brandish a knife at her.

“Catra. You came back.” It was supposed to be a statement—albeit one of shock, of relief—but the end of ‘back’ pitched up in what was unmistakably a question.

“Don’t sound so happy to see me.” The magicat smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, Adora.”

Chapter Text

“So, are you gonna put the knife down, or...?”

Adora flushed, tossing the knife haphazardly behind her. It skittered across the floor with a harsh sound, and she couldn’t help but think that if Bow were there, he’d probably shriek something about “blade safety!!” The thought made her chuckle softly to herself. “The uh, the waterfall is apparently not for showering?”

“Then what’s the point?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been too scared to ask.”

Catra crossed her arms, turning her gaze to the waterfall with a tilt of her head. She squinted at it, like getting a better look would help figure out its purpose. “You’ve lived here for, like, a year. And you still haven’t asked?”

“Well, at first it was—y’know, Angella didn’t really like me that much, and Glimmer laughed at me when I asked if it was for showering, so I didn’t wanna ask again and have that happen, but then so much time passed and now it’s like, I should’ve asked by now but I didn’t, so that’s even more embarrassing, ‘cause it’s been too long, and now I just—”

“Adora.”

“Huh? Yeah, oh. Uh. Right. Sorry. I’m just a little...” She wasn’t sure where the rest of her sentence was going. Instead, she punctuated it by flopping back onto her bed. She folded her legs, clutching a pillow to her chest with one hand and gesturing with the other for Catra to take a seat. “We should probably talk."

Catra sat slowly, warily lowering herself onto the very edge of the foot of the bed. There was a yawning gap of pillows and blankets between them. Adora wanted to reach out, to touch Catra—if only to confirm her existence. If only to prove that this wasn’t a dream, that they were really here, together, without a war in their way.

She clutched the pillow tighter. “So.”

“So...”

“What, uh, do you wanna talk about?”

Catra laughed, and it was sharp but not bitter. Not dangerous. “Where do we even start?”

She huffed a slight laugh of her own. There was so much to talk about.

She wasn’t sure what to do, or even where to look. A silence stretched between them, each tugging on one end until it grew so taut that it had no choice but to snap.

“Why did you—” Adora began, at the same time that Catra started to speak. “Oh, sorry. You go.”

Catra shook her head. “You.”

It wouldn’t be a good idea to argue, even if she wanted to. And she definitely didn’t want to. Never wanted to. Had to. “I was just...” she sighed. “Why did you stay with the Horde?”

“Starting big, huh?” Catra’s claws flexed into the sheets, just once, but enough to leave a slight tear in the fabric. In the otherwise complete silence, Adora could hear the deep breath Catra took before speaking again. “I was...I was angry. Hurt. Betrayed. Everything went to hell. Everything had already been hell, but it was okay if you were there, too. And then you weren’t.”

“Catra, I—” But how many times could she re-hash the same words? I never wanted to leave you. So she asked something different. “Was there anything I could’ve done, could’ve said, so that Thaymor would’ve ended differently?”

“I don’t think so,” Catra said. “Not then. Not there.”

Something like relief combed its way through the knot in Adora’s stomach. Having spent so much time agonizing over what she did wrong, what she could’ve done differently, the words she could’ve, should’ve said—despite the pain of hearing that there was no other way, it was an odd sort of relief. “I, uh, guess it’s your turn.”

“I...why did you come after me?”

Adora bit her lip. “Because...” What was she supposed to say? There were so many reasons—because she made a promise, because Scorpia and Entrapta asked her to, because what else would she have done, because she cared, because, because, because— A sense of clarity washed over her. “Because...you’re Catra,” and as soon as the words passed her lips, she knew that was the best answer she can give. It was the answer. The only answer.

Silence.

When Adora glanced over, it was to see Catra draw in her legs until they were being held as tightly to her chest as Adora’s pillow was being held to hers. Catra’s tail lashed a couple of times, before it snaked around her legs in what Adora knew was a self-soothing gesture. A long moment passed. “Your turn,” she said weakly.

Adora sighed. “We’d still be enemies, wouldn’t we? If you hadn’t been sent to Beast Island?”

“I mean, what do you expect me to say, Adora? Probably. Yes. I’d still be with the Horde, running around trying not to piss off Hordak while he and Entrapta built whateverthefuck they were building in his sanctum.”

“A portal.”

Catra gave her a sideways look, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How did you—”

“Shadow Weaver told us. Told me.”

“Oh. Right.” Catra’s ears were pinned back, and once again Adora was overcome with an urge to reach out, to eliminate the space between them, to promise everything was going to be okay. But she couldn’t promise that. And she couldn’t reach out, for fear of pushing Catra away once more. So she waited. “Speaking of Shadow Weaver, uh...It’s my turn to ask a question, I guess. So, why did you...”

Her voice trailed off, but the shape of the question was clear. “Why did I punch her in the face?” She couldn’t help but laugh—a reaction that yanked itself from the pit of her lungs. It felt so surreal, that she’d done that. That it had only been yesterday. She looked down at the bruises on her knuckles. “The way she talked about you after she found out you’d been sent to Beast Island? The way she was talking to you in the garden? About—about control? I hate her. I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry, before.” Adora turned her gaze back to Catra. “You were right. When we were kids, I—I didn’t protect you. I’m sorry. I should’ve tried harder.”

“You were—we were—” Catra shook her head. “We were kids. That shouldn’t have been your job, Adora. We were just kids.”

“Shadow Weaver really fucked us up, didn’t she?”

That startled a laugh out of Catra. “You could say that again.” A sigh. “Damn, that crazy old lady in the woods was right.”

“Crazy old—you met Razz?” Adora whirled around, turning herself to fully face Catra and, in a moment of excitement, throwing the pillow right at Catra.

The magicat batted it away with an indignant shriek and a glare. “Hey, watch it!”

“Sorry, sorry. I just—you met Razz! What was she like? What did you think of her? Did you find her, or did she find you? Is she doing okay? What did she tell you?”

“Uh...Old, crazy, and surprisingly knowledgeable. I would’ve liked her better if she hadn’t hit me over the head with a broom. I found her, but it was thanks to some weird forest magic or whatever, so I’m not really sure. She’s fine, just—y’know, crazy. And she told me...that we wouldn’t get anywhere if we didn’t talk.”

“She always seems to know exactly what to say.”

Catra nodded. “Plus, the pie was nice.”

“What!” Adora gasped, and if she’d been holding another pillow, she likely would’ve thrown that one, too. “You actually got to eat some? She’s always talking about pie this, and pie that, but I’ve never actually gotten to—” she was interrupted mid-rant by a sharp yawn, reminding her that it’d been over a day since she’d last slept. It was an odd feeling, paired with the warm light creeping in through the now-open balcony window. “Sorry. How was it? Did it taste good?”

“Oh, delicious. Way better than ration bars. Which reminds me, uh—” She made a face, and Adora was struck by the familiarity of it; it was the face she always made when she was fighting back a yawn. In the end, she lost the battle. She glared at Adora, who couldn’t hold back a laugh. “You yawned first! Not my fault they’re contagious.” Catra huffed. “Anyways. What I was saying...The gray ration bar you gave me. How did you get one?”

“Oh, I—” Adora felt her face grow warm and wished that it was still dark; of course, she knew that Catra would be able to see, regardless, but there was something different about being vulnerable while wearing the armor that darkness, that a late-night conversation, provided. It was another thing to be vulnerable in the light of day. “I asked the kitchen to make some. I wasn’t sure if I got the ingredients right, but it’s been so long by now that I’m not even sure that I remember what they actually taste like, but...I get them to make a batch, and then I have one whenever I’m...homesick.”

“For the Fright Zone?”

Adora shook her head. “No.”

“Oh.” Catra let that hang in the air for a bit, before coughing. “Your horse is weird.”

“What do you mean? He’s not weird, he’s—” Adora hopped to her feet, raising an arm over her head and puffing out her chest. In the deepest, Swift Wind-iest voice she could manage: “She-Ra’s loyal steed! Did somebody say Swift Wind?”

Catra cackled. It was a laugh that Adora recognized, hadn’t heard since their cadet days—the kind of laugh that kept going until she’d clutch at her chest and complain of her stomach aching. “Please, no—” she squeezed in between wheezing breaths— “he’s gonna hear you. You’re gonna summon him!”

Adora hadn’t been able to avoid joining in with Catra, and was busy catching her own breath. “Phew. We should be fine. He’s probably off kicking down stable doors! right now.”

“Ow, my sides,” Catra laughed, wiping tears from her eyes. With an amused sigh, she leaned back on the bed, letting her legs dangle off the sides.

Adora smiled, despite knowing Catra couldn’t see it. She flopped back onto the bed, spreading-starfished across it. The space between them didn’t feel so expansive anymore. She could feel the warmth of Catra’s body, the weight of it on the bed, and it was enough. It was home. “You’re here,” she breathed, rolling over to face Catra.

Catra nodded. “I’m here.”

“I can’t wait for you to meet my friends.”

“I’ve already met your friends.”

“I can’t wait for you to meet my friends in a non-kidnapping capacity.”

“No promises,” Catra said with a wink and a wicked grin. Then, a squeak, because Adora whacked her with another pillow. “How many of those do you have?”

“Too many. And I’m not afraid to use them!” She held one aloft, readied in case she needed to strike again. “You can’t kidnap my friends again.”

“Fine, fine. Sparkles and Arrow Boy can roam free. For now.”

Adora nodded. “I think they’re dating.”

“Duh.” And something on her face must’ve given her away, because Catra sat up. “What, you mean they weren’t already??”

--

It was mid-afternoon when Angella knocked on the door and received no answer. She waited a moment, then knocked again. Still, nothing. “Adora? Are you in there?”

She pushed the handle and, upon finding that it wasn’t locked, opened the door with a creak of the hinges.

“Adora? Do you have time to—” Angella snapped her mouth shut, spotting two sprawled, sleeping figures on Adora’s bed. The magicat was purring—though softly enough that she could deny it if necessary.

Angella was unsuccessful at biting back a soft smile as slowly stepped out of the room, closing the door as quietly as possible. “Never mind,” she whispered, turning back to the hallway. “It can wait.”

Chapter Text

When Catra woke up, she felt rested. That was, admittedly, unusual for her, given that sleep was hard to come by in the Fright Zone. Sleep had been especially hard to come by once she had moved into her Force Captain room, where Kyle’s snoring and Rogelio’s tossing and turning and Lonnie’s sleep-talking could no longer be heard; paradoxical, sure, but the noises of her squad-mates were comforting. In the quiet of her Force Captain room, all she could hear was the hissing of machinery and her own thoughts—she was forced to admit that she had slept better with someone sleep-fighting in the same bunk. For obvious reasons (the imminent danger and constantly being hunted by countless monsters), sleep had also been hard to find on Beast Island.

With all of those various thoughts and observations rattling around in her head, she hadn’t realized exactly where she was until she felt the slightly-too-soft bed shift and became aware of the sound of trickling water, the nearby warmth of another person, and the overwhelmingly familiar scent of Adora. Catra remembered, then: running away, meeting Razz, climbing through Adora’s window, talking and talking and talking until neither of them could stay awake any more. Being themselves for the first time in years, since before the war and the Crystal Castle and Thaymor and cadet training and Beast Island and the sword and—

Getting to just be Catra and Adora. It was...nice.

The moment was interrupted by Catra’s stomach, which chose that moment to growl. She sighed and opened her eyes into darkness—not a problem, given that her eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of light, but a surprise, since it had been daytime when the two of them had fallen asleep. Which meant that it had been about a day since she’d eaten, and as delicious as it was, Razz’s pie hadn’t been very filling.

She’d have to leave the comfort of the blankets, would have to disturb Adora’s soft breathing, would have to leave Adora...

Her stomach insisted. She shifted, pushing herself up from the bed carefully, as though gently yet efficiently extracting shrapnel from a wound.

“Adora?” the word whispered from her lips, tapping a hesitant finger against the quiet of the room. The silence didn’t break. The peace didn’t fracture. Adora simply rolled over again, curling in on herself around the empty spot that Catra had just previously occupied. She let out a sigh, relieved. Adora needed the sleep.

Her hand was on the doorknob when something shifted under her foot—a piece of paper. A note, addressed to Adora. A different Catra would’ve shredded the note, would’ve taken it as a symbol of everything that had ever stood between the two of them.

This Catra knew better—was a little less hurt. A little less broken.

As she closed the door with a gentle hand, she found herself smiling at Adora’s still-sleeping figure.

--

She wasn’t exactly sure just how late it was, but it must’ve been past dinnertime, because the dining hall was empty and the kitchen doors were tightly shut. They were trivial to unlock, though, so she slipped into the kitchens with practiced ease (cultivated from countless nights of being denied her rations by Shadow Weaver) and began searching for something to eat.

As she was thumbing through a cabinet, trying to puzzle out what was food and what was ingredients and a part of her was wishing for the simplicity of ration bars, she heard a noise. Her ears twitched towards the sound behind her, but she didn’t move—she stood stock-still and silent, save for the traitorous twitch of the tip of her tail.

A shimmer of light in the room. A shoe touching the ground. A gasp.

The scent reached her nostrils, and she couldn’t help but scrunch up her nose in distaste. She did her best to bite down that reaction. “What, Sparkles, scared of the big bad Horde soldier?”

“More like the big bad Horde outcast, last I heard,” countered the Princess. “Or do they always send their best and brightest to die on Beast Island?”

“Aww, the Princess’ got bite.” Catra stood, turned, and crossed her arms. “Shame your personality isn’t as sparkly as you look. I’d threaten to kick your ass, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

“You’re right. It won’t.” Sparkles threw a punch, which Catra easily dodged, stepping out of the way and letting the air shift around her. “What are you doing in here? Spying? I knew we couldn’t trust—”

Catra scoffed, avoiding another glittery fist. “I’m here because I’m hungry, and I missed dinner. Does the so-called ‘Great Rebellion’ not let its people eat? What are you doing in here?”

“Um.” The Princess paused mid-punch, stopping shy of where Catra was standing, arms still crossed. “I—am here for the same reason.” She had the audacity to sound sheepish, of all things. “I’m here to get a snack.”

“So you spotted me and, what, decided that it was a great time to pick a pre-dinner fight?” Her claws were extended, digging sharp crescents into the flesh of her arms as she fought against every instinct in her body that was telling her to start slashing. “What’s a former Force Captain gotta do to get some peace and quiet around here? Is saving the King of Bright Moon’s life not enough to at least get you to leave me alone?”

“Are you always this much of a jerk?”

“I have to stay consistent, don’t I?”

Sparkles groaned, disappearing and reappearing a few feet away—what she had apparently determined was a safe enough distance from Catra. “Ugh, what does my dad see in you, anyways?”

“My charming personality?” Catra suggested with a fanged smirk and a shrug of her shoulders.

“It’s gotta be something, or he wouldn’t keep defending you to the Alliance.” Sparkles started pacing, the click-clack of her shoes on the kitchen floor echoing around them. “But you’re so annoying. I’m not a fan, Horde Scum.”

“Get in line,” she snarled. “You’re not the first person to hate me, and you won’t be the last. What, you want an apology? You can get in line for that, too. Just because we’re on the same team now doesn’t mean that I’m sorry. It was war, Sparkles—get used to it.”

“This isn’t about the war. This is about Adora.”

“...what?”

Sparkles was face-to-face with her, now, a fist knotted into the fabric of her shirt. “You’ve hurt her. It’s going to take a lot to take that back.”

Catra was trying so hard not to fight back, not to lash out, not to defend herself. She bit her tongue. “I’m not trying to take anything back, princess. I already know I can’t do that. I’m trying to make things better.” Sparkles hesitated just long enough for Catra to push her away and jump back, smoothing out her hair just to have something to do with her hands. “And I can’t do that on an empty stomach, so if you’d be so kind as to stop attacking me, that’d be great.”

The Princess didn’t move.

“What?” Catra snapped, turning her body back to the cabinets but keeping her attention on her attacker. “Don’t you have anything better to do? Go bother your boyfriend or something.”

“He’s not my—! Look, Horde Scum. Adora’s my friend. And she—for some reason—cares about you. Don’t fuck this up.”

Catra growled, but this time is was more directed towards herself than at anyone else. "Just...leave me alone, okay?” But when she turned back around to face her, she realized that the princess was already gone.

She slumped to the ground and tried not to cry.

--

When Adora woke up, it was to an empty bed and a dark room. She rolled over with a groan, trying to fall back asleep, but instead of finding more sleep, her hand brushed against something else—a piece of paper.

“Huh?” She sat up in bed, flicking on the lamp so that she could read what it said.

Adora, read the elegant, looping letters, please report to the throne room at your earliest convenience. I believe we have some important matters to discuss. Signed, Queen Angella of Bright Moon.

“What did I do this time?” Adora wondered. “And where’s Catra?” She sighed, turning the paper over. She was surprised to find writing on the other side—these letters were messily scrawled, all hard edges and sharp lines:

Got hungry. Don’t sleep in too much, dummy—good luck at your meeting. It was accompanied by a rough, scribbled drawing of a figure with a fanged smile giving a thumbs-up and a wink. Catra.

Adora smiled. She could live with this.

--

The guards didn’t even stop her on the way to the throne room, much to her surprise. The two who had been following her every move for the past few days were nowhere to be seen, either, which left her with a strange sense of both freedom and trepidation.

“Uh, your majesty?” she called, stepping through the doors with uncertainty. “You wanted to see me?”

“Ah, Adora! Good to see you’re finally awake!” There was something knowing about the Queen’s smile, something Adora didn’t quite understand. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

“What?”

Angella’s smile turned somber as she cast her gaze to the floor. “My judgement has been...clouded, lately. I was preoccupied with my daughter, and the war, and my dear husband returning to us...I didn’t stop to think how you felt, Adora. Micah helped me to understand how you must’ve felt, learning that your dear childhood friend had been sent to Beast Island. What must’ve been going through your mind. We confirmed that Scorpia meant no harm, and you...You were right.”

“I was?”

“Indeed.” Angella met her eyes, and there was kindness in them. Sorrow. Adora didn’t know how to react. “The Rebellion, we’ve—I’ve—been treating you like a weapon, when you’re just a girl.”

“I—”

“It was wrong for me to fault you for your actions, Adora. Especially when they returned to me someone so precious.” She stood, taking careful, measured steps in Adora’s direction as she said, “I am a coward. I've always been the queen who stays behind. Micah was the brave one. And then Glimmer...so much like her father. When she was hurt, I told myself I was being responsible, but, Adora, I was just scared. But you—you heard that your friend had been sent somewhere to die, to a place where no one had ever survived, let alone returned, and you went anyways. Not because you were She-Ra, but because you are Adora.” She placed a gentle hand on Adora’s shoulder. “And you never let fear stop you, never let us stop you from doing what you thought was right. From doing what was right. And I punished you for it. I’m sorry, Adora.”

“Your majesty, I—” Adora didn’t know what to say. Not that it mattered—it wasn’t like she could say anything, anyways. Not with the lump in her throat and the knot in her chest. Not with the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. Not with the sobs that escaped her lips as Angella wrapped her into a tight hug and held her with a warmth that was the opposite of everything she had grown up with, the opposite of the Fright Zone and Shadow Weaver’s cold, harsh demeanor.

Adora had no idea how much time passed. Only that the moment was interrupted by the shouting of guards as someone slammed open the doors.

Entrapta was deftly outmaneuvering the guards who were pursuing her, barely paying them any attention as she frantically typed on her tracker pad. “Adora! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Chapter Text

Once Angella had dismissed the guards, promising them that Entrapta was not a threat, the scientist took a bit of coaxing to dive into her explanation:

“So,” Entrapta began, not looking up from her trackerpad, “remember how you asked me to determine the source of the First Ones’ signal on Beast Island, so that I could shut it down if anything went wrong?” It was a rhetorical question, since she didn’t wait for Adora’s nod of affirmation before continuing, “Well, I did manage to triangulate it, and that’s when my trackerpad overloaded! I had to reconfigure the network upload settings, because the signal was actually a huge, ongoing data transfer! Turns out, the First Ones were using Beast Island as a dumping ground for all of their secrets, and the signal was coming from giant First Ones supercomputer! It took a few days to finish downloading and translating all of the data, but my theories have been confirmed!”

Adora frowned in visible confusion. The last time Entrapta had a ‘theory’, she’d supercharged the Black Garnet and sent Etheria spiraling into a permanent winter.

Entrapta didn’t notice the hesitance in the room. “See, I knew that the First Ones were retrofitting the planet with tech, and that the elemental runestones were involved—when I hacked the planet, we learned that they were all connected. But I just didn’t know why. It all makes sense now! They were mining the planet’s magic, using it to power their weapon, the Heart of Etheria! Which, of course, you know all about already, since you’re a part of it!”

“What? What do you mean, ‘I’m a part of it’? The First Ones had a weapon?”

“Of course you’re a part! All of the princesses are!” Entrapta pressed a few more buttons on the trackerpad and held it out to show Adora. The Queen hovered over her shoulder, also interested in seeing what she was talking about. On the screen was a diagram of the five runestones and of She-Ra, with a mess of lines connecting them together. The line attached to the symbol for the Black Garnet was broken, disconnected. “The Heart draws its power from the magic of the princesses. It needs all their Runestones engaged to work—the planet balanced! And She-Ra is the most important piece, the key! She channels the weapon's power and focuses it.”

“But the planet isn’t balanced yet. Light Hope never shuts up about that. ‘You must bring balance to Etheria’, but she’s never explained what that means!”

“Oh, that one’s easy! The Black Garnet is offline! Shadow Weaver’s connection to it was severed, and it never got the chance to connect to its actual elemental princess.”

“Scorpia,” Adora supplied. “If she were to connect to the Black Garnet, then balance would be restored? And we’d have access to this weapon?”

“Exactly!”

Catra was glad she had decided to listen in on Adora’s meeting. Initially, it had just been to make sure that Adora wasn’t getting into even more trouble on her behalf, but when Entrapta had burst into the room, she couldn’t help but stay; maybe the information would be useful, and besides, she was curious. But this? This was perfect. This information could turn the tide of the war—

Which was exactly what they needed. It was perfect. She could prove to the Rebellion that she could earn her place here, that she wasn’t going to hurt Adora again, and she could prove Sparkles wrong.

She wasn’t going to fuck this up.

Catra slinked out of the throne room as Entrapta continued talking, ready to prove that she was useful.

--

“Scorpia! Scorpia, wake up!”

She’d been knocking at the door for a solid few minutes, without any answer. Just when Catra was considering just climbing in through the window, the door flew open to reveal a bleary, sleepy-eyed Scorpia. “Wildcat? What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be with Adora?”

“She’s not my keeper,” Catra snapped, unable to keep the defensive edge from her voice. She softened when Scorpia flinched, sighing. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be asleep already. I need your help.”

Scorpia’s entire body shifted as she moved into Horde-standard attention, complete with the salute. “You got it, boss!” Catra blinked, and Scorpia lowered her arm with a sheepish smile. “Oh, right. Sorry. But, really? You need my help? You need my help?”

“Yep. Pack a bag—We’re going to the Fright Zone.”

“We are? You want to go back to the Horde? After getting banished?”

“What? Of course not!” Catra’s tail lashed. “If it were up to me, I’d never step foot in that hellhole ever again. But if we do this, then we’ll get in good with the Rebellion. We can prove to them that we aren’t useless! That we aren’t failures!”

Scorpia frowned. “How will we do that? Also, uh, haven’t we already? The Horde was kinda...basically falling apart without you. They gave Lonnie your old job. Lonnie! Don’t get me wrong, she’s a good fighter and she’s definitely loyal, but she’s nowhere near as smart or resourceful as you! Actually, now that I think about it, can—”

“We’re going to connect you to the Black Garnet.”

“We’re what?”

“There’s some sort of First Ones superweapon. But in order to fire it, they need you to connect to your runestone. That’s the Black Garnet, right?”

“Well, yeah, it did used to belong to my family, but that doesn’t mean—”

“The Horde took it from you. The Horde took everything from us. It’s yours! All we have to do is get you reconnected to it, and then we’ll show them! Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Sparkles...all of them! We can prove that we’re worth something!”

She seemed hesitant. “I dunno, Wildcat. Since I got here, I’ve been talking to Perfuma a lot about—”

“Scorpia, please. One last Super Pal Duo field trip?”

Catra couldn’t bring herself to regret the words, even though they earned her a bone-crushing hug as Scorpia squealed with glee. For Scorpia’s sake, she didn’t even fight the hug too much. “Well, when you put it like that! Let’s go!”

--

Adora eyed the sword-gauntlet on her wrist. “I know Mara said that the sword was the key to the planet, but...”

“Exactly! She-Ra is the only one powerful enough to withstand the force of the weapon. The First Ones made the sword to use her.”

“What would the First Ones need a weapon for? Would it even still work? It’s been over a thousand years!”

“Who knows? That’s the fun of it! Based off of what I know about First Ones history, and what Hordak told me in his lab, I suspect that one of their enemies might have been the Intergalactic Horde. It’s a clone army, so it’s feasible that even now, a thousand years later, it’s being led by the same emperor! Isn’t that fascinating?”

Angella spoke up, a skeptical twitch to her brow, “You mean to imply that we share a common enemy with the First Ones? And that this...weapon of theirs, it could be used to stop the Horde?”

“Absolutely! There are, of course, degrees of uncertainty, just as there are with any scientific endeavor.”

“Well, what could go wrong?” Adora asked, almost immediately regretting the words. It was probably better to think in terms of what won’t go wrong.

“Oh, plenty! It might be the reason Mara—the She-Ra before you—pulled us into Despondos in the first place! It’s possible that the First Ones couldn’t control the weapon, and now that they’re gone, and without their safeguards in place, the planet could have been storing the magic at its core for centuries! That kind of raw magical energy, when released, could be—”

“Extremely powerful,” Adora finished.

At the same time, Angella had concluded: “Incredibly dangerous.”

“Or both!” Entrapta grinned. “The likelihood of the magic being too unstable to control is, by my calculations, about sixty-eight-point-seven percent!”

“But if it’s our best chance at stopping the Horde for good...I need to talk to Light Hope.”

The Queen placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “Adora, it’s too dangerous. If the Heart is unstable—”

“What if there’s a way for us to just...tap into the magic? It used to belong to Etheria, to the princesses! What if we got some of it back?”

“But what if the unstable superweapon that’s been siphoning magic for centuries without safeguards is set off? What could happen to the planet itself?”

Entrapta frowned, rubbing at her chin with a gloved hand. “Great question! Let me run some simulations, and I’ll get back to you on that!” She tapped a few more buttons on her trackerpad before hoisting herself up to the rafters with her hair and disappearing into the ventilation system.

Adora turned back to the Queen. “Your majesty, this could work! Let me go to Light Hope, I’ll ask for just enough information that she doesn’t catch on, and by then, Entrapta should be done with her simulations! It’s perfect!”

“I don’t know, Adora. It could still be dangerous.”

“Scorpia’s here in Bright Moon, on our side, and now we know that she’s the key to balancing the runestones. As long as she’s here, the Heart won’t be able to activate, so we have nothing to worry about!”

“Well, I suppose...”

--

The skiff that they stole from Bright Moon wasn’t like any of the skiffs from the Horde, and it was only by sheer dumb luck that Catra managed not to crash the two of them into one of the countless trees in the Whispering Woods that—she swears—kept popping up out of nowhere on their path.

It only took them a few hours to arrive, even despite the trees in their way. The moonrise was starting to peek over the horizon behind them, illuminating the vast, smoggy expanse of the Fright Zone.

“Are you ready, Scorpia?”

“Not really.”

--

Unfortunately, Adora wasn’t able to find Catra anywhere in Bright Moon—she would be more worried, but the note in her pocket from earlier that night brought her some comfort. Catra had probably just climbed up somewhere high, like the Spires, for some alone time. She could respect that. It was like Micah had said, “She’ll come to you when she’s ready.”

With those thoughts in mind, Adora set out for the Crystal Castle. It was always a tossup when it came to finding the First Ones’ temple in the Whispering Woods—sometimes, the woods would play along, and the trip would only take about an hour. Unfortunately, that night wasn’t one of the lucky ones, and it wasn’t until the first moonrise started filtering through the trees that she finally found it.

“Light Hope?” she called, instinctively transforming into She-Ra as she entered the Crystal Castle.

“Ah, Adora. It’s been several weeks since you last attended a training session. I was worried you had forgotten about your duties as She-Ra.”

The AI was dry and to-the-point as usual, but seemed off-put by the determined expression that painted Adora’s features—her jaw squared, her sword grasped so tightly her knuckles (uninjured in the She-Ra form) turned white—as she demanded: “Light Hope. What do you know about the Heart of Etheria?”

Chapter Text

“Are you sure about this, Wildcat? Should we have brought Entrapta? She always was real good about sneaking around the Fright Zone.”

“I ‘snuck around’ the Fright Zone for years, Scorpia. I basically invented the concept. All we need to do is get in, connect you to the Black Garnet, and then get out. Easy.” The panel next to the door flashed a green light when she entered in the last code she remembered—seriously, no one had changed it since she’d gotten banished?—and the door opened with a mechanical whoosh. Catra smiled. “See? This’ll be—”

“Scorpia? Catra?”

Catra’s ear twitched. Their old squad had never been great about waking up before call. So why, on today of all days, was she face-to-face with Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio at the crack of dawn? Her eyes flickered down to the Force Captain badge on Lonnie’s chest, and she schooled her features into a smug smile. “Hey, Lonnie. Long time no see.”

“You were sent to Beast Island.”

“I lived. Congrats on the promotion, by the way.”

“Who the fuck cares about the promotion!” There was a thickness to Lonnie’s voice, the measured scratch of her throat that Catra recognized—exhaustion. All three of them had pronounced, dark bags under their eyes. “Ever since Entrapta left, Hordak has been off his shit! Why would you come back here? If he sees you—”

“Then I’ll be sure to give him the ass-kicking he deserves. Don’t try and stop us.”

Lonnie’s grip tightened on the stun baton she was holding, and Catra’s claws flexed instinctively in response. “Look. I don’t like you, Catra. I never have. But...” she lowered her weapon. “You knew how to run this place.”

“I’d get out of here, if I were you.”

Lonnie shot a glance toward the rest of their squad-mates, who shared a nod. “That’s the plan.” They pushed past Catra and Scorpia with one last nod of recognition.

--

“The Heart of Etheria project is classified information. You must fulfill your duties as She-Ra by restoring balance to the pl—”

“Balance to the planet, blah blah blah. Because the Black Garnet is offline, right? Because the Heart is some First Ones superweapon to fight their thousand-year-old war? There aren’t any First Ones left, Light Hope. Surely you can tell me something now. Why was Mara so scared of it?”

“Mara...” Light Hope’s stony demeanor faltered for just a moment at the mention, before hardening again. “Mara was compromised.”

“Mara was afraid!”

“Mara was compromised,” repeated Light Hope, a blank matter-of-factness in her voice. “Mara was a traitor. She turned against her people.”

--

Entrapta had been running simulations on the Heart of Etheria being fired for several hours, and there was a very distinct common thread between all of the results. She needed to report back to the Queen, and they needed to warn Adora.

--

“Wow. Never thought we’d end up back here, huh?” Scorpia chattered nervously as Catra watched the door. Admittedly, she was right; Catra wouldn’t have ever expected to end up back in the Fright Zone in general, but being in the Black Garnet Chamber? She was never the biggest fan. Still, this was what they had to do to prove themselves. To prove Sparkles wrong.

Scorpia stretched out a tentative pincer to the runestone, pausing just before it made contact. "Agh, I—I’m not a princess, Wildcat. Not a real one.”

“You’re right,” Catra said with a shrug and a roll of her eyes. “You’re not one of those cushy Princesses who have never had to fight to get what they want—what they deserve. You’re better than that! You’re Scorpia! So, what, are you just gonna let them, or the Horde, keep you from the power that you deserve?”

“Well, when you put it like that...” Scorpia’s pincer made contact with the Black Garnet, and the room lit up with crackling red energy.

Despite herself, Catra flinched, the fur on her body standing on-end. It didn’t have the same sour-scent as the sorceress who raised her, but the memory of electricity, of red waves of pain, was enough to freeze her in place. She bit down hard enough on her lip to re-open the injury from the other day, and the coppery taste of blood managed to snap her out of her spiral just in time to see Scorpia glowing white-pink, shock and awe painted on her face.

It was distracting enough that she didn’t notice the footsteps behind them, didn’t turn around until she heard a gravelly voice announce, “Hello, Force Captain,” and barely managed to push Scorpia out of the way of a giant red blast of energy.

--

Adora felt a rush of magic run through her, could see the way that Light Hope tilted her head, smiled, and made a sweeping gesture with her hand. A jagged red rune appeared in front of the AI, then lit up.

Her trackerpad beeped. Entrapta was on the other line—

“Bad news, Adora! I was wrong about my calculations; if the Heart were to go off now, there is a 99.87 percent chance of planet- or universe-wide destruction! That’s why Mara put us in Despondos—the Heart is too unstable to activate! We can’t let the planet be balanced!”

“Planet balanced. Full functionality restored,” chirped Light Hope.

“Uh, Entrapta?”

There was a loud bang! off-screen, and Entrapta turned her head away from the trackerpad to listen to whatever was happening in the background.  “Oh, that’s not good.”

“Entrapta? What’s going on?”

“Scorpia and Catra are gone. And a skiff has been stolen.”

“Oh, no no no no. You don’t think—send Swift Wind and Bow and Glimmer to the Fright Zone, maybe they—is there a way for the Heart to be stopped?”

Entrapta opened her mouth to reply, but another surge of energy pulsed through Adora, a wave of strength that she couldn’t control, and the trackerpad shattered in her hands.

“It cannot be stopped,” said Light Hope. “After a thousand years, my programming will be fulfilled. The Heart of Etheria will be unleashed against the First Ones' enemies.”

“No, no no!” Her hands, drawn to the sword, were pulled up, and she struggled to fight against it. “Didn’t you hear me earlier? There are no First Ones anymore. Whatever war they’re fighting, it’s long over!”

“The First Ones will rise again. You are a descendant of their mighty empire. That is why I used all my strength to reach across the entire universe to find you and bring you here.”

Adora slipped, sword being pulled above her head. “You told me the Horde stole me. But it was you. All of this is your fault!”

“You will return the First Ones to glory. There is no stopping it now.”

--

Catra dodged another blast—this one evaporated the far wall of the Black Garnet chamber—and growled at Hordak. She really didn’t want to know what would happen to her if she got caught in the crossfire of that cannon. “What?” she taunted. “Didn’t expect to see me again? Didn’t expect me to survive?”

The cannon began to glow again. “What else could be expected of a cockroach like you? No matter. I will stomp you beneath my feet.”

A shock of electricity bolted past her, pushing Hordak through the door and away from the two of them. Hordak groaned, and a bit of light caught on the crystal embedded into his armor. “Oh yeah? You’ll have to catch me, first!” She looked at Scorpia with thinly-veiled awe, glad they were on the same side. “Come on, I have a plan!” she hissed, half-dragging Scorpia through the hole in the wall.

Hordak was close behind the whole time, shooting blast after blast of energy after them. It was part of the plan for him to follow them, but that didn’t make the explosions any less terrifying.

When they reached the Forge, Catra gestured for Scorpia to hide while she climbed one of the giant cranes, perching at the edge and watching the entrance for when Hordak barreled in, cannon glowing. She couldn’t help but gulp when he looked up, red eyes glowering at her with unbridled hatred. Her throat and chest felt tight as she remembered the atmospheric energy shield and the way Hordak had stared onward as she struggled to suck air into her lungs.

But she had the power right now. “You shouldn’t have underestimated me, Hordak. But then again, you’ve never been very good at your job, have you? Maybe that’s why you haven’t been able to defeat a group of magic teenagers.” She had more of a taunt at-hand, but had to break off in order to dodge another blast that shredded half of the cord holding up the crane. Catra leapt down, bounding at Hordak before he had the chance to charge another blast, and used the momentum of her fall to land hard on the cannon, shattering it into pieces. She couldn’t help but smile—smug, triumphant—at his shocked expression as she leapt at him again, twirling them around as she yanked the First Ones’ crystal out of his armor.

“Maybe you should’ve thought twice before sending me to Beast Island,” she spat. Then, staring at a point past his shoulder, she yelled, “Scorpia, now!”

A blast of lightning lit up the room, and Hordak flinched, but the shock didn’t hit him. It was aimed above him, and he didn’t have time to dive out of the way before the crane—now with nothing holding it in place—came crashing to the ground with a wave of billowing dust.

Catra coughed, rubbing dust out of her eyes. Hordak was half-under the crane, groaning. She smirked and bounded over to where Scorpia had been hiding; the princess crushed her in a hug. “Wildcat, that was amazing! What did you—“ she broke off the hug with a scream of agony as intricate white lines appeared on her skin. Scorpia fell to her knees.

“Scorpia? Scorpia? What’s wrong? What’s happening to you?”

--

“Mara hid us in Despondos so that no one would get hurt!”

Once again, Light Hope briefly softened. “Mara...” A flicker through her form. “Mara's interference caused a significant delay. But no longer. With the planet balanced, portal capability is restored. Initiate planetary move, out of the Dimension of Despondos.”

Adora screamed as another surge of white-hot magic burst through her. The energy in the Crystal Castle shifted, pulled, tugged at Adora’s chest; they were surrounded by stars. “Look at all these stars, these worlds. They’ll all be destroyed. Mara sacrificed her life to stop this from happening. Please, Light Hope! You can stop this!”

“I am not as strong as Mara. I cannot change my programming. It is our destiny.”

--

“No, no, nononono—no! This isn’t what I wanted!” Scorpia’s screams echoed in her ears, but there was nothing she could do as waves of energy wafted off of her. This hadn’t been the plan—this wasn’t the plan. No one was supposed to get hurt. She was supposed to help the Rebellion, she was supposed to prove that she was worth something. No one was supposed to get hurt.

--

“It’s not my destiny!” But even as she yelled, her arms were yanked up again, the force of the Heart surging through her body. She fought, gritting her teeth so hard she thought they might break. Thought she might break. “I won’t be used as a weapon! We have to end this!”

“No, stop! Don’t—do it—don’t,” Light Hope’s voice glitched between angry and desperate. “Don’t—don’t—” Her hand faltered, paused, then lowered, the pull of the Heart suddenly halting in Adora as Light Hope’s face hardened with resolve, and she nodded. “Do it.”

Adora understood. She turned the sword down and with one last scream of effort, she drove the tip of the blade into the ground with all of the strength left in her body. The sword shattered like fragile glass.

“Adora? Thank you.”

--

The glow faded from Scorpia’s eyes, and the screams stopped, much to Catra’s relief. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice that Hordak had pulled himself free, had pushed himself to his feet. Was hefting a piece of metal, wielding it like a club over his head.

An arrow struck him in the back. and Catra whirled around at the sound of Hordak’s shout. “Arrow Boy?” And sure enough, at the entrance to the Forge was the archer himself, along with Sparkles—who looked worse for the wear.

"Catra!"

Hordak rose, ready to strike again. Catra heard the twinkle of magic. A green beam of light suspended them mid-movement. Hordak grinned. “Horde Prime. He’s here.”

Chapter Text

The sword is gone.

She-Ra is gone.

The two thoughts circled one another like arena fighters in Adora’s head as her boots crunched against the ground in slow, measured steps. It was all she could do—replay the way the sword shattered into hundreds of jagged shards, and walk.

Above her, millions of stars dotted the sky. Among them were hundreds of Horde-emblazoned spaceships, hovering with malicious intent. She marched onward.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been walking in that daze, wasn’t sure when her surroundings had changed from the Crystal Castle to the grass and trees of the Whispering Woods to dry, bitter sand that slid underfoot to the green, industrial smog of the Fright Zone. In fact, she might’ve kept walking through that, if not for the voice that called out her name.

“Adora!” It was Bow, just at the entrance to the barracks. “Adora!”

“Bow!” He seemed fine—uninjured, at least—but out of arrows and with a deep-set frown on his face, eyes watery. It was a very un-Bow-like expression, and it made Adora nervous. “Did you guys find Catra and Scorpia? Are they okay? Why does the whole Fright Zone look like a blast zone?” Suddenly, she realized that he was alone. “Where’s Glimmer? Bow...what happened?”

“They took them.”

Her eyes widened. “No. Bow, no. The sword, I—She-Ra is—Bow, the sword is gone. She-ra is gone.”

“What are we gonna do?”

Adora looked up at the expanse of stars and ships, hands curling into fists at her  sides. Tears fell, hot on her cheeks, and she turned back to Bow. “We’re going to rescue them.”

--

Catra was, admittedly, shaken after seeing Hordak be tossed aside like he was nothing. Prime’s nonchalance at the idea of destroying all of Etheria to cover up the “embarrassment” that Hordak caused was terrifying, and it was all she could do to step between him and Scorpia and Glimmer. “You don’t want to do that!” she half-shouted, hoping that he couldn’t hear the shake in her voice. She had to think quickly while she had his attention. “The—the whole planet of Etheria is some ancient superweapon. These two princesses are a part of it. And if you want to know how to use it, you’re gonna need me,” she added, jabbing a thumb at her chest and puffing it up in an attempt to portray confidence.

The only indication that Horde Prime gave that he’d even heard her was the miniscule raise of his brow before turning to the massive screens behind his throne. “That would explain these readings. They are stronger than anything I’ve ever seen.” He turned back to face the three of them, and Catra felt a shiver run down her spine as his face morphed into an insincere smile. “Your majesties! It is my honor to host guests of your stature. Trust that your planet, as the jewel of my empire, will allow me to bring peace to the farthest corners of the universe. You will all have a place in service of Horde Prime.”

The three of them barely had time to share a concerned glance—Catra hoped hers conveyed “Trust me, I can get us out of this”—before being ushered in two different directions by clones.

She had to find a way to fix this.

--

Weeks crawled by. Then months.

Months.

Weeks and months in which the only constant was the endless affront of clones, of bots, of rescuing towns and throwing herself into fights and dodging the concerned looks of the Princesses, of Bow, of Micah all reminding her of how weak she was, of the fact that she wasn’t She-Ra anymore, of trying to make herself useful—because if she wasn’t useful, if she stopped moving for even a second, if she slipped up in her training or had too much time to herself, alone in her thoughts, then all she could think about was how three people she had failed so immensely were trapped, somewhere, in the endless void of space.

Entrapta’s repairs on the ship for the Beast Island trip had been enough to get it in working condition, but—she’d explained chipperly, and Adora couldn’t fault her for being excited about the scientific aspect of it—there was still a lot more to do. Life support, shields, engine upgrades, ensuring that the hull can properly pressurize so that they aren’t crushed into a compact little cube as soon as they leave Etheria’s atmosphere...all things that Entrapta had been diligently working on, which Adora appreciated, but she couldn’t help but get impatient whenever she asked for an updated timeline.

Not to mention, they had no idea where in space to even look. It was one thing to say “we’re going to rescue them” with hardened conviction, but it was another to keep the Rebellion intact on Etheria, to keep morale up, with the princess of Bright Moon missing—it had been especially difficult on Angella and Micah when they had to abandon the castle to make camp in an area where they had better overhead cover. Perfuma seemed to be hit the hardest by Scorpia’s disappearance, and Adora...

Well.

There were a few things she kept on her at all times. An extra hair tie, her jacket, the golden wing pin on her belt. Lately, her quarterstaff. A shard of the Sword of Protection.

And always, always in her pocket, paper worn soft from constantly unfolding and re-folding it—the note from that morning oh-so-many nights ago.

She didn’t need to look at it anymore, had long since memorized every aspect of the note, every scratch of ink and stray mark and the shape of the letters and the words, but sometimes, late at night when she had no other option but to sit in her tent alone with her thoughts, she unfolded the note and let herself imagine things having gone differently. Because everything had been so close to perfect. Everything could’ve been perfect.

Adora let herself imagine a world where, instead of a note, Catra had still been there, pressed against her, warm and comforting and familiar. That instead of having a meeting, Adora could’ve stayed there, let herself just bask in the presence that she’d wanted so dearly, for so long, until heterochromatic eyes blinked open. A world where soft smiles and I really missed you, y’know’s had been exchanged. One where they woke up like that, together, every day. Where they were given the freedom to break free from the weight of having grown up in the Fright Zone and could just be themselves.

A world where the warmth in her cheeks hadn’t been exchanged for a knot of dread in her gut.

She stepped out of her tent and laid on the ground, looking up at the stars and hoping that, among them, Scorpia, Glimmer, and Catra were still alive.

--

Catra wasn’t sure how long it had been since they’d been dragged from the Fright Zone and onto Horde Prime’s ship. Space was...too dark, too constant, and the ship was too bright, too empty, too crawling with the watchful eyes of clones. She scratched paths into the walls, marked corridors with x’s as warnings of dead ends or too-many clones.

She did her best to visit the royal guests, as Prime called them, even against orders. Didn’t know what he knew, about them, about her, about Etheria, what he had learned from his hivemind connection with Hordak, didn’t know how long he’d put up with her dancing around giving answers she didn’t have about the Heart, but she wasn’t just going to leave Scorpia and Glimmer in their cell when this was all her fault.

Glimmer hadn’t been happy with her, the first few times, and had just sat in sulking silence the entire time while Scorpia tried to maintain polite conversation until the energy was too awkward, too uncomfortable for Catra to bear and she had to slink off, to find somewhere high-up to climb, to find some more metal to sink her claws into.

“Look, I get it, Sparkles! Silent-treatment me all you want, but I get it! I fucked up, this is all my fault, and now we’re probably gonna die out here without anyone on Etheria even knowing what’s happened to us!” Catra half-screamed the words, half-ripped them from her chest one day—night? week? year? who knew how long it had been—when it was finally too much to handle. “But I can’t go back and keep it from happening. I can’t take it back, no matter how much I wish I could. I tried to make things better, to fucking help for once, and I made everything worse. I’m sorry, okay?” She took a deep, shuddering breath, and her claws bit into the flesh of her palms. “I don’t care if you forgive me. But we’ll never get the hell out of here if you don’t talk to me!”

“I—”

The clones appeared out of nowhere, startling Catra when they spoke in perfect, emotionless unison, “Horde Prime requests your presence for dinner this evening. All of you.”

--

Dinner with Horde Prime was, unsurprisingly, a disaster. Catra had been doing all right, at least in her opinion, at pretending not to care about the state of the Rebellion, about what was happening on Etheria without her. About Adora. But her success had been mostly reliant on the lack of information she had. The not knowing kept her safe. If she didn’t know that Adora was in danger, then she could pretend that everything was okay. She could imagine her sleeping safely in her cushy little room in Bright Moon, or laughing with Arrow Boy, and she could hold on to the last image she had of her. On harder nights, she could imagine herself there, too—slotted neatly into Adora’s life.

But seeing her on that screen, surrounded by bots and barely scraping by with her life? The carefully constructed walls that Catra had spent so much time and effort building came crashing down.

“Stop.” She so desperately tried to school her expression into one of disdain, of disinterest. Under Prime’s contemptuous gaze, she couldn’t help but shiver. “Remember what I said about the princesses being a part of that ancient superweapon?” she bit out the words and swallowed down bile. “That means all of ’em. Including She-Ra. She’s the key to the whole thing. You can’t hurt her.”

Glimmer gasped. Scorpia shot her a look.

Horde Prime smiled. “Thank you, Catra. I look forward to more of these conversations. But for now, eat up.”

As if she could eat anything after that whole ordeal.

--

Losing their camp had been a tough blow, certainly. But Adora was letting herself be excited about something for the first time in months—finding out that not only were her friends alive, but their location (even if it still did need to be pinpointed by Entrapta) as well? That was worth being happy about. They weren’t out of the tunnel yet, but at least now they knew there was a light at the end of it.

Next: the matter of space.

--

Catra shouldn’t have gone back to the cell so soon after being chewed out by Horde Prime like that—could still feel the cold ghost of his hand as he promised every part of the machine has value. Even you—but she was going to bite her own hands off if the next person she talked to was a clone, so she resigned herself to getting an earful from Sparkles, too.

What she got instead was so much worse.

Sparkles’s awestruck, curious face was worse than any insult she could’ve thrown in that moment. It didn’t help that it was paired with a knowingly sympathetic look from Scorpia.

“You really do care about Adora, don’t you?”

Catra hissed. Bit back an insult, bit back a lie, bit back a cynical half-truth. Settled on the truth, bitter as it was, and half-whispered in case a clone was nearby: “Of course I do, Sparkles. What else is new? I always have.”

Her tail lashed behind her. She really didn’t want to deal with any of this right now.

“Even if it mattered, which it doesn’t, it’s not important right now, okay? What matters now is getting the fuck out of here.”

Chapter Text

To say that finding out Prime was sending reinforcements had disrupted their timeframe was an understatement. A better way to describe the situation was “pure, unbridled panic as they scrambled to get Mara’s ship as ready as possible and come up with a plan to safely leave the atmosphere without being gunned down by Horde ships.”

Good-byes had to be quick.

“Your majesties, I know you’re worried about Glimmer, but trust us—we’ll get her home safe,” Bow’s reassuring smile promised. “The Rebellion needs its King and Queen. Leave the princess rescuing to us.”

Angella and Micah shared a look—the meaning of which Adora couldn’t quite figure out, but she envied their connection, their ability to read each other so well even after so much time apart from one another. Surely, if they could reconnect after so long, then she and Catra...?

Oh, but she was getting ahead of herself. They had to rescue her first.

“Just...stay safe, okay? I want everyone to come home safely,” Angella said. “Take care of each other.”

“Of course, your highness! I won’t let you down!”

The Queen sighed and shook her head. “Oh, Adora...” her voice trailed off sadly, but she didn’t explain.

Adora frowned, briefly, before schooling on a smile. “We’ll be back before you know it!”

That was the extent of their good-byes, because Entrapta’s tracker pad beeped again. “Horde Prime’s ships are on the way. We have to leave now or we can’t leave at all!” she shouted, and that was Bow and Adora’s cue. “Bye, everyone!”

“Keep ‘em safe, Swifty.”

“I’ll always be your loyal steed.”

The loading bay of the ship raised slowly, and before long, they were barreling into space.

--

Catra ran into something interesting on one of her latest rounds of the ship—or, to put it more accurately: she found someone interesting.

She’d been tracing a path in the hallway with her claws, wondering just how the hell she was still finding new corridors, when she bumped into a clone who she swore hadn’t been there five seconds earlier. But maybe she hadn’t been paying attention—it was easy to zone out during these rounds, easy to slip into nostalgia-ridden memories of...y’know, whatever.

“This part of the ship is off-limits to you, Catra.”

And she was about to mark it with an ‘x’, the way she has been for other dead-end paths she’d come across, but there was something in the clone’s voice that was...familiar. Which was strange, considering that for the most part, all of the clones sounded the same to her.

It took another moment for her to put her finger on what was off about this clone. “You called me ‘Catra’,” she figured out. “None of the other clones do that.” The clone scowled lightly, glaring directly at her. “But you remember me, don’t you...Hordak?”

He growled. “It is wrong to have a name. Prime’s chosen servants are but parts of a whole.”

Catra glanced over her shoulder. “Look, it can...it can be our secret, all right? It’s just—” she couldn’t believe she was saying this to Hordak, of all people— “it’s good to see a familiar face.”

Hordak shifted his gaze to a point somewhere past her head. “This part of the ship is off-limits to you, little sister.”

“Ugh, I get it.”

So much for that. Sure, she wasn’t entirely sure what having Hordak around would’ve helped with, but she hadn’t been lying—if they could have one more familiar face, regardless of how much that face hated her, it might’ve helped. She marked that particular hallway with two jagged crossed lines.

--

As it stood, it was harder to come up with an escape plan than Catra thought. Between mentally mapping out the ship and pretending to report to Horde Prime, she was starting to spread herself thin. Still, she found sleep hard to come by, instead opting to sit on the opposite side of the green barrier from Glimmer and Scorpia and spend her ‘nights’ talking with them.

“How breakable do you think that chair is?” she asked, pointing. “Could work as a weapon for you, Sparkles, since you don’t have any magic right now.” She knew it was a sore spot for the princess, her lack of magic in space, and maybe that did spur the comment, but it was also practical. Scorpia had her pincers and tail, Catra had her claws. Glimmer would have to figure something out.

“How breakable is your face?”

Catra rolled her eyes. “Come on. I’m not the one whose ‘royal accommodations’ are a prison cell. You’re gonna have to work with me on this. Scorpia gets it.”

 Scorpia grinned. “I’m the muscle.”

“Exactly. Scorpia can hold her own in a fight. You were raised on a silver spoon. I highly doubt you’ve been training to the same extent that we’ve been in the Horde for our entire lives.”

“Well, sorry I don’t sleep-fight or keep a knife under my pillow, like someone we know!”

A genuine laugh startled itself out of Catra. “Okay, maybe Adora’s a bad example to follow. She can’t relax, even in her sleep.”

They laughed about that for a moment before the mood turned somber.

“I miss them,” Glimmer sighed. She turned to Scorpia. “What do you think you’d be doing right now if we weren’t, y’know, prisoners on an alien ship? And, like, the war was over, obviously.”

Scorpia looked behind her, like there was someone else the princess could’ve been talking to, pointing a pincer at her chest. “Oh, me? Oh, jeez, I mean—no one’s ever asked me what I wanted before...and I never considered the war could end, y’know? I just assumed I'd always be a Force Captain, taking orders from someone bigger than me.”

Her eyes strayed toward Catra, whose ears pinned back in response. Before everything with Beast Island and—shit, did she technically join the Rebellion?—well, this, Scorpia had tried so hard to be her friend. But she hadn’t been ready, hadn’t wanted, hadn’t known how to have a friend. How to be a friend. She’d only known how to hurt.

She wondered if that wasn’t still true. Found herself hoping, wanting to be able to try the whole having friends thing again. Maybe she could do it right this time.

She sure hoped so.

Scorpia continued, finding her footing, “I think it’d be fun to travel the world, make new friends? I got to talk to some of the other princesses while I was in Bright Moon trying to rescue you, so it’d be nice to visit their kingdoms sometime. Perfuma invited me to her drum circle, but I think that’s just so I can stand-in in case Prince Peekablue doesn’t show.”

Glimmer smiled knowingly, placing a hand on Scorpia’s arm. “You wouldn’t be a stand-in. She invited you because she wants you there.”

Catra didn’t miss the way that Scorpia flushed at that, and she couldn’t help but smirk. “So...flower princess, huh?”

“Look who’s talking, Ms. I always have,” countered Sparkles, emboldened by the green barrier between them.

“Like you don’t spend all your free time mooning over Arrow Boy?”

“WHAT!” The response is shrill, indignant, and to Catra, absolutely hilarious. “I do not!”

“Arrow Boy is the one with the bow and arrows, right? Crop-tops? The one we kidnapped at Princess Prom?” Catra flinched, briefly, but nodded, and Scorpia continued, “Ohh yeah, definitely. I totally thought he was your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—ugh, you two are impossible! I can’t believe you’re teaming up against me like this!”

“Two Horde soldiers teaming up against a Princess? The world must be ending.”

“Former,” Scorpia chimed in. “Two former Horde soldiers.”

Catra growled and glanced around quickly, double-checking that there weren’t any clones around who could hear the conversation. Satisfied that there were none, she sighed. “Fine. Former. You’re right. But don’t say that too loud—I don’t want to end up on your side of this barrier—” she tapped the green energy field with a single claw, watching the wave of energy ripple out from the point of contact— “or worse.”

“After seeing what happened to Hordak when we got here, I really don’t want you to have to learn what ‘worse’ would be.”

“Careful, Sparkles, or I might start thinking you actually care about my wellbeing. Or worse—I might start thinking that we’re friends.”

“Don’t get too full of yourself, Horde Scum. Right now, you’re just our only way off this hunk of metal.”

Scorpia squeaked indignantly. “Well, I care about your wellbeing, Catra. You’re my friend!”

An unexpected smile dashed its way onto Catra’s face. Friends. For the first time, it had a much better ring to it than “squadmates” or “people who are expected to watch your back out of a legal obligation”.

After the war, she decided, she was very much looking forward to picking and choosing the people she got to spend her time with (Scorpia, Entrapta, Micah,  Adora, Adora, Adora), and who she’d like to get to know better in a non-wartime capacity (flower princess, if only to vet her in order to make sure Scorpia didn’t get hurt, Arrow Boy, and—heaven forbid—Sparkles).

Catra just had to get them off of this gods-forsaken ship, first.

A clone appeared at the far end of the hall, marking her cue to leave before she got into (more) trouble for visiting the ‘royal guests’ against orders.

--

Once again wandering the countless winding halls of Prime’s mothership, Catra came across a group of clones speeding into a side room that she hadn’t noticed before. Seriously, how many hidden hallways and rooms did this damn ship have??

Curious as to why the clones seemed to be in such a hurry, she slipped silently through the door. The room was relatively simple—empty, save for a control panel and a large, circular pad in the center. All but one of the clones were standing on the center pad, surrounded by a green forcefield as the last clone pressed a few buttons on the panel.

“Contacting Planet 1659 ground base. Please prepare to receive our brothers into your flock,” chirped the clone, and with one last press of a button, the clones in the center of the room vanished.

Catra recognized the green beam of light; this was whatever had teleported the four of them (including Hordak) onto the ship in the first place.

It was the key to getting out of there.

She smirked, slinking out of the room before the last clone could notice her, only to bump directly into the chest of another clone. Catra flinched, not at the impact but at the sound immediately following—the crackle of bones and the faint noise of thousands of voices whispering all at once. In other words, the sound of Horde Prime.

“There you are, little sister. I seek your company.”

Chapter Text

Catra was escorted by the clone to a room she had never seen—how big is this fucking ship?—and filled to the brim with more clones than she had ever seen in one place before, even on Prime’s live-feed of the invasion of Etheria (she hadn’t seen Adora on that screen since the disastrous dinner with Prime, since tipping her hand, since Adora means something to you and do what I ask of you and she can’t help but wonder—but worry—if Adora is okay).

In the center of the room (massive, ceilings so high that, paradoxically, she felt trapped, wished there were more places to hide, to slink out of sight) was a glowing green pool of...something. She highly doubted that it was water. There stood Horde Prime himself, smiling his characteristic false grin. Behind him, the pool, and behind that, another screen, showing footage of Etheria from a bird’s-eye view, of something metal and hulking bursting past Horde ships and rocketing into space.

Horde Prime’s smile widened—unnerving, creasing the sides of his mouth but never touching his eyes—and he spread his arms in what, on anyone else, would be a holy gesture, inviting and open and the mark of a savior, of a god. On him, the gesture was empty, cold, and unnerving. It reminded Catra of the signal, of the center of Beast Island. It reminded her of hopelessness.

She shuddered.

“Ah, little sister. Thank you for joining us.” Part of her wanted to huff out a bitter laugh at his greeting. As if it was a choice. “Despite my scouring, I have not been able to find this She-Ra on Etheria. Yet, a few days ago, my drones reported a ship leaving the planet, and as fate would have it, it is of such ancient design that it is not detectable by my instruments. How can this be?”

The screen behind him shifted to a closer image of the ship he was describing, and Catra stood stock-still. Coordinates flashed in the top corner. Very clearly, it was the ship that had crested the horizon on Beast Island, had brought Adora there on a harebrained rescue mission for her then-enemy, was now bringing that same stupid blonde here on yet another ill-fated mission. It was Adora’s ship. Which meant she must be on it.

Catra couldn’t let Horde Prime know that she knew that, though. So she shrugged, shaking her head like she was just as confused as he was. “I don’t know. Adora and I aren’t friends.” And it wasn’t a lie—startlingly, she realized it was never a lie, because what were they, growing up, growing apart, torn asunder and then briefly shifting back together before she was so cruelly ripped into space by this galactic tyrant? In the Horde they were never those two friends, they were more. They were Catra and Adora, inseparable, attached at the hip, looking out for one another by any means necessary. Fighting together, sneaking around together, playing tricks together, making promises together, doing whatever it took to spend more time together.

She wanted that back, without the pressure of Shadow Weaver, of cadet training, of a war, of an intergalactic asshole breathing down their necks. Her claws flexed, in then out with the timing of her breaths.

If Adora was on that ship, she was coming here. I look out for you, she’d sworn, six years old and with that ever-present upward draw of her brows, the look that she only reserved for Catra, first saved for only tender moments, growing more and more frequent until it was practically the only face she would make at her, the look that never left even across a battlefield, even with a sword-shaped rift between them and—oh.

Oh.

Maybe I always have wasn’t a feeling exclusive to Catra.

For a moment, in that realization, the world fell away, because this story—her story—was never about proving that she was more than second best, that she was worth keeping around, that she was worthy of being loved, of being wanted. It was about the fact that she had been, the entire time.

“Oh, look at you, poor sister. Can’t you see? Your Adora causes you nothing but suffering.”

And it was nothing further from the truth, but she couldn’t say that, couldn’t show that, had briefly dared to let herself forget that Horde Prime had been there the entire time, wished so desperately that she hadn’t come to all of these realizations in front of him, of all people, and now had to pretend that Adora hurt instead of healed.

“Don’t you want to be free of it?” No, no she doesn’t, wouldn’t, could never. Horde Prime extended a single sharp finger, pointing at a nearby clone and gesturing for him to approach. “You spoke with our little sister this morning, did you not, brother? What was it she said to you?”

“She gave me a name,” said the clone—waveringly, falteringly. Like a child confessing to a mistake they knew the punishment for, were scared of the consequences of. It took a second for Catra to realize that the clone was Hordak. “Forgive me, brother. Please, take this affliction from me.”

“Those who seek freedom shall be granted it.” Horde Prime’s hand fell onto Hordak’s shoulder, the other gently leading them towards the pool and Catra supposed that, under different circumstances, it would feel holy. The rising timbre of the surrounding clones suggested that it was meant to be holy.

Instead, she couldn’t help but feel she was witnessing Hordak’s damnation.

Hordak screamed, the green liquid of the pool lighting up with electricity, and her fur stood on end. Scorpia’s power had been awe-inspiring. Shadow Weaver’s had been fear-inducing, meant to put her in her place. But that electricity, as it danced along the liquid and made Hordak’s body convulse with pain, not affecting Horde Prime in the slightest...it was horrifying.

“Cast out the shadows, cast out the shadows,” chanted the surrounding clones, in perfect unison.

“I am sorry that you must suffer.” Nothing about the words seemed genuine. False platitudes, all part of the show he was putting on.

“All beings must suffer to become pure, all beings must suffer to become pure!”

When Hordak finally stopped screaming, it was with a puff of green smoke and his body falling suddenly limp. He stood like a puppet, strings taught and twisted, eyes slate-white.

“Behold, the purest among you!” The clones cheered, hollered, wept. “The tabula rasa of our brotherhood. One to be honored.”

The sounds were too loud, too much, and Catra had shuddered into herself, ears pinned back and tail wrapped around her own legs. She flinched at the sharp feeling of Prime’s hand on her shoulder, a fingertip placed against the base of her neck. He didn’t spare her so much as a glance as he bit out the words, “Do not disappoint me.”

As Catra, blank-faced, left the room, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. I look out for you hadn’t been the whole deal. You look out for me.

It was time for Catra to hold up her end of the promise.

--

“Do we have enough fuel to get there?” Adora was asking, because it was important information to have, and because she was getting restless. It was hard to count the days on the ship; all she knew was that they had left Etheria, she had slept a few times (well, to put it more accurately, she had passed out from exhaustion a few times, much to Bow’s displeasure. But she didn’t have the energy to deal with his worried looks) and that they still hadn’t gotten to Prime’s mothership yet. She was also aware of the fact that she had no idea what their ship—which Entrapta had begun to affectionately refer to as Darla—used for fuel, how much fuel they’d had to begin with, or where to find more. Not to mention that the fuel that was in the ship would be a thousand years old by now.

Entrapta was tinkering with some part of the ship that was beyond the scope of Adora’s knowledge—which was, admittedly, most of it, and what Entrapta spent the bulk of her time doing. She didn’t even look up as she answered, “Oh, definitely. We have enough fuel to get there.”

“Do we have enough fuel to get back, afterwards?” asked Bow, always thinking ahead. Someone had to.

“Oh, absolutely—” and there was just enough of a pause before— “not. But no worries, I’ve already charted a list of planets where we can fuel up on the way back to Etheria! Just think—we’ll get to experience alien lifeforms! It’s so exciting!”

“Entrapta, alien lifeforms are currently invading Etheria as we speak.”

“Well, different alien lifeforms, then. Maybe the next ones we meet will be friendly!”

“Here’s hoping.”

The ship—Darla—chirped, startling Adora and resulting in a loud clattering as she tried and failed not to drop her staff. “There is a transmission being received. Would you like to open communications?”

That was weird. They were still, by Entrapta’s calculations, about two days (as little meaning as the word now had) out from reaching Prime’s ship. No one should know where they were—having an old-as-hell ship had some upsides, one of which was not being trackable—so who could be trying to communicate with them?

“Patch it through,” Adora said, putting on her best ‘captainly’ voice.

“Adora?” the voice on the other end called.

Her heart stopped beating in her chest. Found a new home, roaring in her ears, drowning out every stray sound that the ship was making. Her eyes widened—in shock, in surprise? In relief? In wonder?—and it was all she could do to eke out, “Catra?”

“Don’t sound so happy to hear me.” And Adora could imagine the sly, slight smile that must’ve worked its way across Catra’s lips at the words.

“Catra, what’s going on?”

“We don’t have time.”

Chapter Text

Adora appreciated the effort that Entrapta had put into the creation of their space suits. Given the circumstances, it was probably best to wait until later to mention that hers was a little big, spare fabric bunching up in the folds of her armpits. She bit down her frustration, knowing that wasn’t why she was upset. Entrapta had been kind enough to make these suits.

She was upset because she was confused—because Catra’s voice over the transmission had sounded like “I trust you”, when she warned Be careful, Horde Prime is ready for you. Her voice had sounded like “Goodbye”, when she had apologized for what she had done, what she was doing. It had sounded like a confession when she began, “Adora, I—“, had sounded like despair when the transmission had cut off with a “No, no, no, no, wait—!”, leaving them with no other choice but to ramp up their speed in the direction of the coordinates they’d been given.

Adora had already been upset. The bunched-up fabric under her arms just wasn’t helping.

Bow’s sympathetic face was blurry, but the helmet prevented her from wiping away at her tears, so she resigned herself to the feeling. “Adora...”

She shook her head. “Bow, I know you’re the ‘friendship stuff guy’, but I can’t do this right now. Right now, we just...need to be ready to catch them, okay?” . Her hands curled into fists, like this was a situation she could punch her way out of.

Thankfully, Bow nodded, but the look in his eyes said that he wasn’t going to let her get away with not talking to him forever. Which was unfortunate, because the best-case scenario she was thinking of involved Bow never asking her about her feelings ever again, and she would be able to just let them simmer under her skin until they came to a rolling boil and spilled over. But no, Perfuma had been teaching her that it wasn’t good to sit on her feelings like that, because it was self-destructive and not a good way of coping. What else could she possibly do, though?

Entrapta’s voice crackled through Darla’s speakers. “We’re arriving at the coordinates.”

The bay of the ship opened slowly, and the pull of space threatened to yank both her and Bow out of the ship. Adora adjusted her stance and grabbed the line that Bow was attached to as the distant outline of a person appeared in front of them. As the figure came in to view, Adora recognized the swoop of glittery hair just before Bow shouted, “GLIMMER!” and leapt out of the ship after her.

In the span of a few seconds, he had wrapped his arms around her, and Adora pulled at the line with all of the strength she could muster and then some. She barely managed to jump out of the way as the force of Bow and Glimmer entering the ship sent them both stumbling into themselves as soon as Bow’s feet touched the ground.

“Glimmer! Are you okay?”

Bow fumbled to get a helmet—also designed by Entrapta—placed solidly over her head, and Glimmer gasped for air as soon as he was done. “Bow? Adora?”

“Do you know what’s going on? What happened back there?" Bow crushed her into a hug, cradling her head into his shoulder. Something in Adora’s chest twinged as she turned back to space.

Another figure appeared, shimmering in green. But the figure wasn’t broad-shouldered and sharp-pincered, like Adora was expecting to see. Instead, as they materialized, she could see wild, untamed hair, a lithe frame, and— “CATRA!” much in the same way that Bow had shouted his childhood friend’s name, she too shouted Catra’s, not even looking to see if Bow had a grip on the line before she leapt into space.

She collided into Catra with the force of a hurricane striking land, the force of a meteor impacting Etheria’s moons, of Mara after the Heart, beaten and bruised, her ship hurtling into the deepest part of the Crimson Wastes with all the force of the hero who she never asked to be. Adora held on to her as Bow pulled them back, so tightly that her arms might as well have welded around her, hammered into shape like red-hot metal, and didn’t let go—not even when they slammed into the wall of the bay, not even when all of the air in her lungs rushed out as the doors screeched shut, would never let go again.

Adora loosened her grip, pulled back just enough to search Catra’s face with her own, wishing she could freeze time so that she could memorize every forgotten detail. Realized quickly that she had nothing left to memorize; she’d committed every available part of Catra to memory long ago. There were, however, new details to take in—the cut along Catra’s brow, the way her hair was standing up in the way it always did after she got into a fight, the tear tracks on her cheeks. The fresh tears in her eyes. She lifted a hand, cupped the palm of it against Catra’s face, eyes never wavering as her thumb swiped a tear away.

“Catra.” She uttered the name like it was her first prayer.

“Adora.” Eyes wide and lip trembling, she let out a sob, and Adora felt her own heart shatter at the sound.

“Catra, what happened back there?”

--

“We’re getting out of here.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s the plan, isn’t it?” Scorpia was holding one of the chair legs, proving that it was, in fact, breakable. Sparkles sheepishly took it from her, and Catra couldn’t help but crack a smug smile at that, despite herself. If she focused on potential bullying ammunition against Sparkles, she could almost take her mind off of the scene she’d just witnessed. Could almost forget the threat of Horde Prime’s sharp hand on her neck.

She wouldn’t even pretend to be able to forget the sound of Hordak’s screams.

There was an unconscious clone at her feet. With a grunt of effort, she lifted his body and used his hand to open the force field. “We’re getting out of here, now.”

Apparently, there was enough urgency in her voice and earnestness in her eyes that not even Sparkles argued as she lead them down the maze of hallways that made up Prime’s ship. Scorpia, however, couldn’t seem to contain her curiosity. “Where are we going? Why are we leaving now? What happened?”

"Adora’s on her way. I can’t let her just walk into Prime’s trap. I found a way out.” Catra’s tone was clipped, not necessarily meaning to sound rude, but they just didn’t have the time afforded to them for long-winded explanations.

“Little sister. What are our guests doing out of their quarters?” Of course there was a clone around that corner. And, a glance over her shoulder confirmed, two more behind them.

She was already mid-leap by the time she answered, “Oh, they just wanted some fresh air.” The clone dropped to the ground before he had time to even blink. “Hit them in the back of the neck,” she shouted, shooting Sparkles a slight smile of approval when one of the clones got a chair leg to the neck. The last clone dropped like a fly, Scorpia’s tail quick on the draw. “That works, too.”

It wasn’t too much farther to the teleporter room, but the clones were on high alert, now, and they had to get going.

When they did finally reach the door, Catra half-tossed Glimmer and Scorpia through it and slammed her fist into a panel of buttons next to the door, which, luckily, shut the door with a sharp hiss.

“That should hold them for a bit. You—Sparkles—on the pad.” The glare she shot the princess worked to shut down the questions in her eyes, which was good, because they didn’t have time. She could already hear the clones slamming against the door.

The control panel was a bit more confusing than it had seemed when the clones were operating it, but Catra did her best to follow the steps she remembered. She pressed a few buttons and a speaker on the panel crackled to life. “Adora?” Silence. Had she already messed it up? “Adora?”

“Catra?” crackled the response.

Once, on Beast Island, Micah had explained ‘music’ to her. A sound so symphonious that you couldn’t help but be moved to emotion. She decided, in that moment, that Adora’s voice was music. She wished she could hear more. Instead, she schooled a smirk onto her face. “Don’t sound so happy to hear me,” she teased, like she didn’t feel the exact same way.

“Catra, what’s going on?”

“We don’t have time. I’m sending Glimmer and Scorpia to you. I don’t know your exact coordinates, but I can get them to your quadrant. You have to be there to catch them."

"Catra, what—What about you?”

“Yeah, wildcat, what about you?”

Shit. Scorpia wasn’t on the platform. Catra took a deep breath—it was okay. She would just have to send Scorpia after Glimmer. That would give Adora more time to prepare, anyways. Everything was going to be fine. She was going to make up for the fact that she was responsible for setting off the Heart. For bringing Horde Prime to Etheria in the first place. She pressed a few more buttons. “Glimmer’s on her way. Get to these coordinates now. Scorpia, get on the platform.” She flinched at the sound of her own voice—too demanding, too similar to the way it had sounded when she was Force Captain Catra.

Scorpia didn’t budge. “Wildcat. What’s going to happen to you?”

“Someone has to—I have to stay behind.” She couldn’t meet Scorpia’s eyes. Readied the coordinates again, busied herself with the task at hand while she ignored the sound of clones starting to break through the door. “I’m sorry. For everything.” And it was an apology for Scorpia, and everything she’d done to hurt her in the Horde, but it was also an apology to Adora, one that was too shallow to make a dent in all of the apologies she owed her, but it was a start, at least. “I didn’t mean to mess everything up.”

“Catra, I don’t understand, what’s—”

“You have to be careful, okay? Horde Prime is ready for you.”

“I can’t let you stay here, wildcat.”

“Please, don’t make this harder than it already is, Scorpia. We’re running out of time. I’ll be okay.” Catra’s tail swished, betraying her. It was clear that Scorpia noticed. “Look, if I don’t—can you tell Adora I—”

She yelped, surprised, as Scorpia suddenly lifted her off of the ground. “Tell her yourself. I’m the muscle, remember? I can do this.”

The green of the teleportation field closed around Catra before she had the chance to fight Scorpia. All she could do was watch as the door split open and the room filled with clones. All she could do was scream, “NO! No, no no no, wait—” as Scorpia fought them off for just long enough to press the button on the console.

A beam of light surrounded Catra, her stomach dropping as gravity flip-flopped. The last thing she saw of Scorpia was a pile of clones barreling through the door.

Chapter Text

“Spacesuit testing officially a success! All suits stood up to ship’s velocity with zero loss of life!” Entrapta chattered happily into her recorder, and Catra saw the way that Bow’s and Glimmer’s eyes widened.

“That was a possibility?”

Catra chuckled. “With Entrapta, that’s always a possibility. It’s like, half the fun of it. Come on, Sparkles—let’s go find Scorpia. We’ll meet back here when we’re all done.”

The group shared a collective nod, and split into their respective groups.

Glimmer was quiet as Catra led them through the now-familiar maze of Prime’s ship; she had to glance over her shoulder every once in a while just to make sure that the princess was still there. The earpiece she was wearing crackled softly while they walked, just consistently enough to break the silence. She had never understood certain people’s need to fill the space around them with pointless chatter until just then. “What’s on your mind?” No reply. With a twitch of her ear and a slight smirk, “Cat got your tongue?”

“Why’d you do it?”

Her tail swished. “I do a lot of things, Sparkles. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Glimmer huffed. “You know what I’m asking about. Why did you do it?”

“I already told you, it was to—”

“Help Adora, blah blah blah, I’m already acutely aware of how obsessed with her you are, thank you very much. But how could it have helped? If you really think that she wouldn’t have come right back here after you, you’re even dumber than I thought.”

They turned another corner; if she remembered correctly, the royal accommodations should be down the next corridor.

“Gee, thanks,” Catra grumbled. She stopped in front of the door to the cell, hand hovering over the force-field. “It’s more complicated than that. The plan was to get you and Scorpia to safety so that Horde Prime couldn’t...” Her explanation trailed off when she realized what she was looking at—or rather, what she wasn’t looking at. “Scorpia’s not here.” The earpiece crackled with sharp static when she tried to relay the information to the rest of the group. “Bow? Entrapta? Adora?” Nothing.

Catra ran through her mental list of all the rooms she remembered marking down—the server room, which hopefully Entrapta and Bow were able to find, Horde Prime’s throne room (where Adora was currently being led by clones. Catra hoped she was okay), the trophy room, the teleport room, and— “Come on!” Catra whirled around, grabbed Glimmer by the arm, and dragged her down the corridors that ended in the big, jagged ‘X’. Around the corner, the door was being guarded by two clones.

“Catra, what’s going on? So that Horde Prime couldn’t do what?”

“You don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“You can’t expect me to just keep trusting you if you never explain what the fuck you’re doing!”

Catra’s tail lashed. “We don’t have time for this! Just listen; when we take down the clones out front, there will be a lot more ready for us. We can’t fight them all. We have to get in, grab Scorpia, and get back to the ship as soon as possible. Follow my lead.” She didn’t give Glimmer the chance to argue anymore, instead leaping out at the clones guarding the door and quickly slamming her claws into one’s neck. The other clone dropped to the ground in sync, and she nodded. Counted down on her fingers: three, two, one! before she opened the door and sprang at the next clone before he could even react.

There were eight clones standing on the main walkway, in between Catra, Glimmer, and the green pool in the center of the room. The hundreds of other clones, perched on the viewing platforms—interrupted in their shrill cries of “Cast out the shadows cast out the shadows castoutthe”—were already frantically attempting to scramble down the scaffolds so that they could join the fight.

As Catra systematically made her way through the clones, she realized that the numbers weren’t adding up—she’d seen several clones standing when they’d entered, but there were already a decent number of them on the floor, unconscious and groaning with distinct stinger-sized lumps pockmarked on their bodies. She smiled; Scorpia put up a good fight. She suspected that a similar string of downed clones littered the hallways between there and the teleport room.

Granted, her brief glee at the idea of Scorpia beating down clones like it was her job was quickly sullied once she reached the center of the room and stared out at the pool. Bile forced its way up her throat as she stared at Scorpia’s unconscious body, floating face-up. She was covered in bruises and blood that mixed muddily with the green liquid. From where Catra was standing, she couldn’t tell if there was a rise and fall to Scorpia’s chest or if it was just the bobbing of the not-water.

Swallowing down the sick, Catra squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep, grounding breath, and stepped forward.

To say that she was used to being electrocuted would probably be an understatement. She had, after all, spent the bulk of her lifetime in the Horde under Shadow Weaver’s wardship. It was safe to assume that she had mostly acclimated to, had overcome the torture—she’d proven it once and for all right before the Battle of Bright Moon, even. But that didn’t stop the way her skin sizzled with pain and her fur stood pin-straight the instant she waded into the liquid. By sheer luck (and biting sharply into her tongue), she was able not to scream. She hooked her arms underneath Scorpia’s and, after briefly scrabbling for purchase on the bottom of the pool, hauled her out.

Glimmer was still battling clones, the number of which seemed to be never-ending.

Catra stared at Scorpia, like the sheer intensity of her glare would be enough to wake the woman up. It, in fact, wasn’t, but she was able to discern faint, harsh rasps of breath. “She’s still breathing! Come on, let’s go!”

It was easier said than done to carry Scorpia’s dead-weight (not dead, just unconscious, not dead, just unconscious, not dead not dead notdead—) through Prime’s ship, given that two of them were dripping a trail of glow-green liquid down the hallways, but they managed. Well, they were managing, until they turned down a path and ran into a group of clones barreling straight at them, turned down a different path and ran into an even bigger group of clones, and then turned down a third path and someone screamed as they collided into another, smaller group of—

Not clones. Bow, Entrapta, and...no, wait, there was a clone, but he wasn’t attacking and was instead covered in tear-tracks, so Catra didn’t really pay him any mind. She was just glad to have run into the other two.

“Oh, thank the stars, you guys found Scorpia! We lost contact and didn’t know if you guys were okay or if you’d been caught or captured or—”

“Arrow Boy, as glad as I am to see you guys, we don’t really have time to catch-up right now. Clones incoming!”

“They’re following us, too. What do we do?”

“I have an idea,” Entrapta piped up, then sheepishly added, “as long as you promise that you won’t be mad that I maybe, possibly, onehundredpercent disregarded all those times you told me not to mess with the ship.”

Catra grinned. Of course Entrapta would ignore orders so that she could experiment with some new tech. Water is wet, after all. “I’m sure Arrow Boy will forgive you,” she said, shooting a glare in his direction that said: “you absolutely will” before finishing with, “as long as you get us out of here.”

Bow nodded with enough vigor to give the poor boy whiplash, eyes wide. “If we get out of this, you can tinker with the ship as much as you want!”

And, wow, maybe that was the wrong thing to say to Entrapta, if the devilish cackle that nearly ruptured Catra’s eardrum was anything to go by, but at least the scientist was happy. “Hey, Darla!” she shouted, then whistled with exceptional force.

Around them, the hallways rumbled in protest as their ship slammed through the wall to their left, and Catra didn’t have enough free hands to block the resulting rubble from hitting both Scorpia and herself, so she hissed in protest when a ceiling tile landed heavily on her foot. While the least of their worries, a broken foot was not something she wanted to deal with at that moment.

She handed Scorpia off to the rest of the group, flexing her foot slightly to confirm that it was not, in fact, broken, before curling her hands into fists. “We need to get out of here fast.”

“But Adora isn’t—”

“I’ll go get her! Just keep Scorpia safe. No one’s getting left behind, not this time.”

--

I knew it, was Catra’s first thought when she snuck up the stairs leading to the dais that held Horde Prime’s throne and spotted Adora facing off with the galactic tyrant himself.

They hadn’t talked much since they’d been reunited—just an exchange of we need to go back for Scorpia and of course, leaving her was never an option, and then hatching their half-baked plan with a sense of urgency that Catra was too shaken to properly explain—but Catra could always tell when Adora was off. Had always been able to. She’d had an inkling at Prime’s disastrous dinner, when she’d seen Adora up on the screen, fighting with a staff. She’d had an itch in her skull at the way that the plan to rescue Scorpia relied on Adora distracting Horde Prime (a part of the plan that, again, Catra wasn’t entirely happy about), with no accounting for the eight-foot-tall Princess of Power that they were supposed to have in their arsenal. But now, seeing Adora going toe-to-toe with Horde Prime, armed with nothing but her fists, Catra knew. She didn’t know what or how it happened, but something must have, because Adora didn’t have She-Ra anymore.

Later, she was going to have strong words with the blonde about putting herself at risk and launching herself into danger without a proper plan, but for now, they had to get out of there.

While she was briefly distracted by her musings, Catra hadn’t caught Adora slip-up (a too-slow dodge), hadn’t enough time to react to Horde Prime grabbing her face, sharp fingers digging into Adora’s cheeks as he dragged her to the edge of the dais. “Adora!” Catra yelled, and Prime’s attention briefly shifted over his shoulder.

“Ah, little sister.” She was never going to get used to the disquieting croon of his voice. A shiver ran down her spine. “So good of you to join us. I must thank you for leading your Adora here. I will deal with you next.”

“Why don’t you deal with me now?” she taunted, extending her claws and trying to keep her gaze steady despite seeing the way that Adora’s feet were barely tip-toe on the ledge and struggling to find purchase. She felt sick at the sight of Adora in danger, of Adora bloodied, and wondered how she managed to war with her for an entire year. Catra stepped forward, three, four, five large steps.

“Why don’t I, indeed.” And he dropped Adora over the edge.

Horde Prime lunged at Catra in the same split-second that she leapt forward, but he wasn’t expecting her to dive between his legs, roll right, and grab Adora mid-fall with both hands (she hoped the pop she heard wasn’t a shoulder being dislocated, but she didn’t have time to think too hard about it). By the look on her face, Adora also wasn’t expecting it, staring up at her with wide eyes like she was surprised that Catra would catch her.

But of course Catra would catch her. This wasn’t the Catra that let her drop in the Crystal Castle, having just relived every negative moment of their upbringing and struggling to feel like anything other than second-best. This Catra knew what she felt, knew what she wanted, and was never going to let Adora fall, ever again. She dug her feet into the ground for leverage.

Something in her back cracked dangerously, a pained shout briefly escaping her as Prime’s heeled boot stomped down on her spine. Catra’s grip on Adora slipped ever-so-slightly before she corrected herself and held on tighter.

“You miscalculated. I see all. I know all. You were beloved in my sight and this is how you repay me? Foolish child, you have only brought your friends to their own destruction...”

Staring into Adora’s frightened eyes made it surprisingly easy for Catra to ignore the self-satisfied drone of Prime’s victory speech. Keep talking, she thought, you pompous asshole. And then she smirked—the knowing, conniving smile that she would always share with Adora right before a successful prank on Kyle—and as the look on Adora’s face shifted into confusion, Catra mouthed, “Three, two, one—”

If we aren’t back here in ten minutes, this is what I want you guys to do...

“NOW!”

The room rumbled, and Horde Prime stumbled off of Catra’s back just in time for her to swing her arms sideways and up, effectively tossing Adora back onto solid ground. The glass on Prime’s viewing screen cracked, then exploded, and Catra rolled herself over Adora to bear the brunt of the glass before jumping to her feet (a bit unsteady, a bit pained, but still with a half-smile on her face as she held out her hand to help Adora to her own feet).

Darla’s bay opened to a frantically-waving Glimmer and Bow, and Catra could safely say that she had never been so relieved to see those glittery idiots than she was in that exact moment as she lead Adora up the ramp.

As the bay-ramp slowly lifted, she turned to face Horde Prime—his face was contorted with a rage that she had never seen before—and cackled. “You miscalculated.”

Chapter Text

Two day cycles had passed on Darla since they had successfully completed their rescue mission aboard Horde Prime’s flagship.

Well, only as “successful” as you could consider a rescue mission in which one person got thrown off of a platform, another wound up with two cracked ribs and a handful of electrocution burns, and somewhere down the line they ended up adopting a clone that Entrapta seemed insistent upon calling “Wrong Hordak”. At the very least, they did manage to save the person that they intended to rescue, but...

Scorpia still hadn’t woken up.

Catra had refused to move from her vigil-standpoint the entire time, regardless of burnt fur, regardless of the way she flinched almost imperceptibly whenever she took too-deep of a breath, and regardless of the darkening circles forming under her eyes.

“Catra, can I talk to you?” Adora’s hand circled itself around Catra’s bicep, and she jumped.

“You’re talking to me right now.”

“In private?” At Catra’s brief, worried glance over her shoulder in the direction of Scorpia’s room, Adora added, “Glimmer said she’d cover, isn’t that right, Glimmer?”

The princess in question, who was standing a bit down the hall so as not to interrupt, nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll let you know immediately if she wakes up, okay? Okay. Have a good talk!” and then shoved Catra, who lost her footing and stumbled further into Adora.

Catra still seemed apprehensive, but relented, following Adora into her room.

The door slid shut behind them with a whoosh and a simple beep, and Catra crossed her arms, taking a wide step away from Adora, whose hand reached out, stopped midway in the distance between them, before falling and returning to her side. She sighed.

“Well? What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” Catra demanded.

“Catra, we’ve barely talked at all since I got you back! You were missing for months, and I had no way of knowing if you were alive, let alone okay, and now that we’re finally together again, you’ve barely said twenty words to me! You just sulk, and sit at Scorpia’s door, and tell us ‘no’ when we offer to switch shifts or bring you food, and I don’t get it! Before everything happened with Horde Prime and the Heart, I thought...” Adora faltered, her hand twitching into her pocket to grab the overworn piece of paper that she kept there. She could re-write it by memory, with her eyes closed and her right hand bound, so familiar was she with the shape of the note, but she wondered if she had been kidding herself—wondered if Catra even remembered the note. Remembered that morning.

“Scorpia got hurt because of me! She hasn’t woken up yet because of what Prime did to her, which was my fault!” Catra’s hands were trembling fists, angry and uncertain of their direction. “I need to be there when she wakes up.”

Adora shook her head. “Whatever Horde Prime did to her is his fault, not yours.”

“She wasn’t supposed to get hurt!”

“What? And you were?” She didn’t remember taking the steps forward that were needed to close the gap between them, but nevertheless it had been closed, and she was barely an angry breath away from Catra. “We were already on our way, Catra! Why did you do it?”

Catra’s hands found a direction; she shoved Adora away from her with a sharp hiss. “It was a trap! Horde Prime knew you were coming, and he was ready for you!”

“We were expecting a trap! We could handle it!”

“Oh, because it’s so much easier to rescue three people than it is to rescue just one? I knew what I was getting myself into, I knew what he was capable of—Scorpia didn’t!” Catra stalked a step forward. “It was a calculated risk that I thought She-Ra would be able to handle.”

Her eyes were too intense; Adora ducked her gaze away. “Catra, I—"

“When were you going to tell us that you didn’t have She-Ra anymore, huh, Adora? Why did you rush into space without a plan and without your warrior goddess persona, knowing you could get yourself killed?”

And it was so familiar, the words—she’d heard them in so many different forms, from the other princesses, after the Heart. You’re not...you-know-who anymore. You really should’ve brought backup. But something about hearing the words from Catra’s lips made them hurt more. The anger in her shoulders slumped into grief. “Look, you don’t have to tell me how worthless I am now. I’ve heard it plenty of times already.”

Catra’s next step fell flatly on the cool gray metal of the floor, doing nothing to push her forward but rather halting, hesitating, in the space between them. “What? What are you talking about?”

She didn’t think that Catra had it in her to be so cruel as to make her say it out loud. “Now that I don’t have She-Ra anymore. You don’t have to tell me how much of a disappointment I am. Trust me, I’m well aware.” The magicat’s eyes were wide, ears pulled far forward like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Like what Adora was saying didn’t make any sense—which was ridiculous. She was just saying the quiet part out loud.

All Catra said was a breathy, confused, “What?” Then: “Since when have I ever cared about She-Ra?”

Ouch. “Wow, okay. I get that she was your enemy, but she was still a part of me—”

“You’re such an idiot.” Before Adora could protest, Catra continued, “You can’t seriously think that I’ve ever based your worth on the version of you that wears a ridiculous tiara. She was a part of you, sure, but She-Ra is nothing without you. That’s the difference between you and her. Without She-Ra, you’re still Adora, and unlike the other chumps with the Rebellion, I l—cared about Adora way before I knew She-Ra.”

Adora’s brows furrowed. “Wait, then why were you upset that I didn’t have She-Ra?”

Catra shoved her again, but without any of the earlier anger. This one was gentler, and her hands lingered on the fabric of Adora’s shirt. She, understandably, had a hard time concentrating on Catra’s next words. “Because you threw yourself into two harebrained rescue missions without an actual plan. Because you could’ve gotten hurt.”

“That was never going to stop me.”

“Why? Why take the risk?”

“Because—” And the answer was, of course, the same as it had always been. The same answer to why did you go to Beast Island? why did you lie to the Rebellion to rescue me? why did you go to space with the bones of a plan and no tendons to hold them together? And now that she had the words to name her feelings, it would be so easy. All she had to do was open her mouth and say it: “Catra, I—”

The door slid open and one beat-up, out-of-breath Glimmer tumbled through it. “You guys!” she gasped, eyes wide, “Scorpia’s awake!”

“Oh, thank the stars, she—”

“And something’s wrong.”

Chapter Text

While briefly annoyed at Sparkles’ refusal to elaborate, it wasn’t too difficult for Catra to figure out what she’d meant by ‘something’s wrong’ when Arrow Boy flew past them and slid into a heap in the hallway, his eyes wide. Luckily (and she was past the point of denying this if asked; unfortunately, she’d started growing fond of Adora’s annoying friends), he seemed more shocked than actually hurt. Across the hallway from them stood the more-daunting-than-usual figure of Scorpia, and any initial relief at seeing her up and about was erased when Catra realized that the woman was responsible for Bow’s current state.

Scorpia’s eyes glowed sickly green, and Catra felt nauseous. That had been exactly what she’d been trying to prevent—or, at the very least, what she’d been trying to make sure that Scorpia and Glimmer wouldn’t be subject to. She wasn’t surprised that Horde Prime had followed through on his threat; she’d just been holding onto the naïve hope that he hadn’t been able to finish the process. She should’ve known better.

Adora rushed to Bow’s side, concern and alarm painted over her face. After making sure he wasn’t injured, her head whipped around to look at the culprit. “Scorpia—? What’s wrong with her?” The question was addressed to Catra and Glimmer, the latter of which shrugged and shook her head.

“It’s Prime. He did this.” Catra’s tone was unsteady. She’d never seen Scorpia so lifeless, so stoic, so…not herself.

When Scorpia spoke, her voice was joined with the unsettlingly smooth sound of Horde Prime’s. “Little sister,” said the voice. “Certainly you didn’t expect to slink into the shadows so easily? Your little stunt on the ship was clever, I’ll admit. But I know all. I see all. You will come into the light yet.”

Catra growled. “You really never shut the fuck up, do you?”

Not-Scorpia walked toward them, and Catra had to crane her neck to look her in the eyes. Even considering the way they glowed just like the millions of clones aboard Prime’s ship, it was hard for her to grapple with the fact that she was staring down Horde Prime and not her friend Scorpia. Still, she did her best to stand her ground.

“She was afraid, in the end. And she suffered,” they said. Catra’s throat burned with bile—that’s not what was supposed to happen. Scorpia wasn’t supposed to get hurt. Why did she keep getting her hurt? Why did she keep getting everyone she cares about hurt? Not-Scorpia held a claw aloft, examining it. “Perhaps I will make her my new vessel. Though, she would not last me long. What do you think—” the voice suddenly shifted into Scorpia’s alone— “wildcat?”

The only thing that stopped Catra losing her lunch at the idea of Scorpia being anyone’s “vessel” was the fact that she hadn’t eaten since before the rescue. Well, that, and the claw that backhanded her with enough force to throw her into the wall right next to where Glimmer had propped up the still-dazed Bow. The wall, which she was pretty sure was made of some sort of solid metal, luckily remained solid, although with a now roughly-Catra-shaped dent in it. Hopefully, Entrapta would be able to fix that.

Despite the pain in her already-broken ribs that insisted it was possible, Catra was also pretty certain that she hadn’t hit the wall quite hard enough to rock the entire ship. A solid 78% sure, at the very least.

Sure enough, Entrapta’s voice chirped over the ship speakers: “We’ve got company! Three Horde ships!”

Glimmer glanced over to Catra. “I thought you said he couldn’t track this ship!”

“He can’t!” she replied in a half-breath, as her ribs stubbornly decided that no, she was not allowed to get up. “It must—whatever he’s done to Scorpia, he must be able to track her using that!”

“There was a, like, chip or something, on her neck,” supplied Bow. With a shiver, Catra remembered the icy touch of Horde Prime’s hands on her own neck. “Entrapta said she couldn’t get it off until Scorpia woke up, because it’s wired to her central nervous system.”

“Is there any way to disable it without hurting her?” Adora asked, clumsily dodging blows from a far-too-agile Scorpia and fumbling for the quarterstaff at her belt.

Bow frowned. The nerdy, arrow-shaped gears in his head were definitely turning. “Maybe electricity? But that could overload it and—”

Glimmer snapped her fingers. If they were on Etheria, there certainly would’ve been a handful of sparkles to join them, but the sound rang out hollowly. “You can take out the clones with a whack on the back of the neck—that might work!”

“And if it doesn’t?” asked Bow.

“Then we’ll just burn that bridge when we get to it!”

“Adora, that’s not—”

Catra interrupted with a sigh— “She knows,” and she tried to sound exasperated, but the smile quirking the corner of her lips dulled the effect. With a grunt of effort and a concerned look from both Bow and Glimmer, she managed to pull herself to her feet. She offered a hand to Bow. “Can you go help Entrapta navigate us somewhere we can avoid the ships? Sparkles, you and I can help Adora. She can hold her own, but she doesn’t want to hurt Scorpia. Horde Prime will take advantage of that.”

Bow managed to slip past the standoff, where it was clear that Adora was holding back. It didn’t help that her shoulder was still messed up from the whole “being tossed off of a ledge and narrowly caught before she plummeted to her inevitable death” thing (though a recovering dislocation was much more preferable than the other option, admittedly), and she was tired. For all of her complaining that Catra hadn’t rested once during her two-day vigil after the rescue mission, Adora hadn’t been much better; while Catra sat in front of Scorpia’s room, hoping she’d wake up so she could apologize, Adora had been sitting down the hallway, pretending not to watch her with bated breath. But Adora wasn’t the one who was always chart-topping stealth training back in the Horde, and time with the glitter brigade certainly hadn’t helped. It had been hard to ignore the (annoyingly endearing) upturn of Adora’s brow, even from the corner of her eye.

This was all to say that they were sorely outmatched by not-Scorpia, who didn’t have the same disadvantages regarding lack of sleep and, apparently, “feeling any pain whatsoever”, given that Scorpia’s body still looked pretty battered from the fight on the ship. Glimmer was the only one of them who was well-rested and mostly uninjured, but without any sparkly magic, her fighting form relied mostly on making a lot of noise and confusing the enemy with how wide her punches flew. Luckily, she still fought with all of the same reckless abandon as Micah had on Beast Island, which was something they sorely needed.

But Scorpia wasn’t pulling her punches. Or her kicks. Or her claws. Or her stinger, for that matter, which took priority in avoiding over the rest. And the added addition of the pitching and rolling of the ship wasn’t doing anyone’s balance any favors.

Wait.

“Adora! Kyle’s shoelaces!”

“What?” came the synchronous response from both Glimmer and Adora.

And, well, it had been over a year since Adora was with the Horde. But it’s not like Catra could just announce what her plan was, with Scorpia right there. “Kyle’s shoelaces.”

“I don’t—wait…OH! Kyle’s shoelaces! Exactly!”

Glimmer paused mid-punch, her fist falling flatly in the air, and stared between the two of them incredulously. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”

Again, they couldn’t just point-blank explain the plan, so Sparkles would have to stay in the dark for a bit. In the meantime, Catra feinted up, then dodged down, jumping away just as Scorpia’s claws swung around at her. “Come on, Scorpia—this isn’t you! We don’t want to hurt you!”

Scorpia responded with a dry cackle (entirely uncharacteristic and, frankly, a little frightening to hear) and a swipe of her tail, which Catra barely avoided. “Oh, but you’ve already hurt me. I was never an equal to you. I was always just a stepping stone for you to get to Adora. But all children are equal under the light of Prime. Every part of the machine has value.”

“You’re not some cog in a machine! You’re our friend!” Catra stepped forward, desperately hoping that her words were reaching the real Scorpia, hoping that the real Scorpia was still in there at all. She had to be. “You’re my friend! I know you’re still in there! Fight him!”

“I don’t want to fight this. Prime has set me free. He will set us all free.” Another swipe that Catra didn’t dodge in time, and she was forced backwards, digging her claws into the metal floor to keep her footing. “He will reign triumphant over all the universe.” In one smooth motion, Scorpia spun around and struck Glimmer, who wasn’t as successful at catching herself; the princess went sliding across the floor and landed in a graceless heap with a shout.

Scorpia’s attention shifted over to Adora. Their plan was quickly falling apart. "Come on, Scorpia!” She paused, glancing over her shoulder at Catra, who continued: “You’re the most compassionate person I’ve ever known. You never let the Horde bring you down—not Shadow Weaver, not Hordak, not me!” Scorpia turned back fully, taking a step forward, claw raised. “Prime can’t turn you into something you’re not!” For a brief, wonderful moment, her eyes flickered from green back to normal. Catra’s ears perked up, and she doubled down, holding out her hand. “Right now, I just need you to trust us. Trust me.”

Just as Scorpia’s eyes flickered again, and she slowly began to lower her arm, the ship shook violently. She stumbled forward, and Catra nodded to Adora, who charged. Already off-balance and half-distracted, Scorpia wasn’t prepared for the full force of blue-flash, blonde-hair-poof to tackle her to the floor. Quite frankly, neither was Catra.

The strips of lights lining the walls of the ship flashed blue, then green, and the intercoms trilled: “Administrator detected.”

Adora struck down with her quarterstaff, striking cleanly in the center of Scorpia’s neck. The chip puttered out a few sparks, glinting off the glow in Adora’s eyes, and Scorpia fell still.

At some point, Glimmer had found her way back to a standing position, and was now standing over the…concerningly motionless Scorpia. “Is she…?” Nobody needed her to finish that sentence; they were all thinking it.

A few heart-stuttering seconds passed before Scorpia groaned and rolled over. When she blinked open her eyes, three sighs of relief came out in unison. They weren’t green. They did, however, widen in what was impossibly more concern than any of the three, before Scorpia’s hoarse voice exclaimed, “Oh, my gosh—I am so sorry! Did I hurt anyone? I did not mean to do that!”

--

 While Bow was relegated to piloting the ship through an asteroid field in hopes of fully losing the Horde ships in their wake, Entrapta was prepping to fully remove the chip now that Scorpia was awake and not, well, possessed. The room was too small for everyone to crowd around and watch the process with bated breath, so after a bit of arguing and some not-so-gentle shoving on Glimmer’s part, Catra and Adora were pushed out of the room. “You two still have things to talk about,” Glimmer added, before she shut the door with a mechanical hiss.

They stood in the hallway for an awkward moment, neither entirely willing to be the first to speak. Finally, Adora caved, cleared her throat, and said, “Who would’ve thought that pulling pranks on Kyle would save our asses some day?”

“You’d think that he would’ve eventually learned to start tucking his laces into his boots,” Catra chuckled, “but he never did.” More quiet seeped between them, only filled with the whirs and beeps of the ship, the flickering lights along the walls. “You…”

At the same time, from Adora: “I—mmph. You go first.”

“When you tackled Scorpia, you—”

“Yeah.”

“And the ship, it—”

“Yep.”

“Was it…?”

“She-Ra?” Adora scuffed the toe of her boot on the floor, picking at one of the deep gouges left by Catra’s claws from earlier. “I—it felt like her. There have been…times, before, where I’ve felt her without the sword. Beast Island, against the signal. Then, um, when I punched Shadow Weaver.” (The memory quirked both of their lips into a slight smile, despite themselves.) “And now. Hearing you talk about trust, and seeing one of our friends like that…I don’t know what makes it happen, I just—I felt her.”

Catra pondered that for a moment, the tip of her tail flicking back and forth. “Have you ever…” She paused to look up fully at Adora, truly meeting her eyes for the first time in days, with an intensity that she’d been withholding from herself until then. “Have you ever considered that She-Ra could be…more? Than just the sword?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like…people have magic in them, right? Micah, he taught me some things about sorcery and magic, and princesses and runestones and all that shit, while we were on Beast Island. Some sorcerers have to use this crystal stuff from Mystacor to cast spells. But powerful, experienced sorcerers like Micah can cast spells using their own energy. Shadow Weaver—” she hissed involuntarily at the name— “already had magic. But she used the Black Garnet to supplement her power and make it…well, you know how she was. The princesses all already had some sort of magical connection already, but the runestones act as a conduit for their power. Or—if Entrapta’s theories are correct—more like a siphon, or a limiter.”

“That explains the Heart. The First Ones made the runestones, after all. And they were siphoning all that magic away from the rest of the planet.”

“Exactly! So, if the sword was just another runestone, then it wasn’t She-Ra herself. It was just a tool made by the First Ones to control her.”

Adora held out her hands, staring down at her palms like she was afraid they would suddenly erupt in blue energy. Given the events of the past…well, forever, she wouldn’t be entirely surprised. “So you think…that She-Ra is still inside me?”

Catra, on instinct, on impulse, on been-wanting-to-do-this-for-years, pushed her hands into Adora’s outstretched ones, twining their fingers together. She smiled softly, and hoped it distracted from the heat behind her cheeks. “I think she’s a part of you,” she said. “But we don’t need She-Ra. You’re worth more than enough to us, to me, as Adora.”

“Catra, I…” She saw a million different words and phrases pass through those gray-blue eyes as Adora struggled to find the words. Or was it the same words, and a million different ways to muster up the courage? Regardless, it was a moment before she finished with, “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“Me, too.”

The lights flickered, and the ship lurched again, the force of it tripping Adora forward, into Catra, who was startled by the sudden warm contact. Luckily for her, Adora recovered quickly, stepping back and shouting towards the cockpit, “Bow? What was that? More Horde ships?”

“No!” came the reply, sounding a bit sheepish at the next thing he added, “But there’s another problem…”

“Spit it out already, Arrow Boy!”

“We’re out of fuel.”

Chapter Text

In a turn of fortune, they weren’t too far away from a planet that had the fuel crystals they needed, and the ship wasn’t entirely out of fuel. Just mostly out of fuel, and barely chugging along through space until they arrived on-planet half a day-cycle later, with a very rocky landing.

Adora knocked on the frame of Catra’s door, trying not to startle her and being mostly successful, though she did notice that Catra’s ears flicked backward for a moment before returning to normal. The magicat was pulling on her spacesuit boots (Adora frowned in sympathy; she knew how much Catra hated wearing shoes, since they limited her mobility) before pulling her hair into a haphazard ponytail with her helmet on the floor next to her. Next to the helmet was a familiar red shape that Adora could recognize anywhere.

Adora cleared her throat. “Uhm, hi.”

“Hey, Adora. What’s up? I’m almost ready to head out.”

There must’ve been something wrong with the ship’s cooling system—it was the only way to explain the inexplicable heat rising to Adora’s cheeks at the not-so-subtle fondness in Catra’s familiar greeting. “No mask? I don’t think I’ve seen you take that thing off since…like, ever.”

Catra’s hand flitted over to where the mask lay; she tapped the metal, which resonated with a soft clang. “Oh, yeah. It was, uh, uncomfortable with the helmet. And…I just…wanted a change, I guess? It felt like time.”

“Well, I like…you—look good,” the words tumbled clumsily out of Adora’s mouth, and she just about bit through her tongue trying to stop herself from saying…well, anything else that she didn’t know how to say.

Catra smiled, but shrugged lightly. “Thanks. It feels weird, though, without it. Like, it was my thing. But it doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“Well, uh—If you…” Adora reached into her pocket, her fingers brushing past worn, folded paper, before they settled around cool gold. She fidgeted the wing pin out to Catra, who stared at it quizzically. “If you want a new, uh. Thing.”

Catra’s fingers wrapped carefully around the pin, hesitating for a moment in Adora’s palm before pulling back and holding it up to examine it more closely. “You’re giving me this?” Her voice was low with disbelief. “Why?”

Because, because, because— “I…” Stars, why was it so easy to figure out what she was feeling, and so fucking hard to find a way to say it? “I want you to have it. It’s a thing I’ve seen other people in Bright Moon do—they give something they care about to someone they care about.”

“You…do.” It wasn’t a question; Catra said it softly to herself, under her breath, as the pink lights of the ship cast red on her cheeks. It was an affirmation. She smiled, a sharp tooth peeking out from her lips (Adora’s stomach flipped at the sight). “Thanks.” Her smile dropped into a small frown, and Adora found her own lips copying the expression. “But I don’t have anything to give you.”

The words “I care about you, too”, stayed unspoken between them, but it was enough. Adora held out her hand with a smile for Catra to take. “I’m just glad you’re here. We should get going.”

--

With her newly-acquired gold pin securely fastened to the belt of her spacesuit and her fingers securely laced through Adora’s, Catra stepped off of the ship to meet Bow and Glimmer on the…

Completely gray, desolate, barren planet. “Uhh…I’m not saying that I don’t trust Entrapta, but are we sure this is the right planet?” Bow’s eyes were glued to his trackerpad, but she didn’t miss the way that Glimmer’s flitted downwards, then back up to meet Catra’s with a raised eyebrow. Catra hissed softly, earning her a confused and slightly hurt look from Adora when she let go of her hand.

“My trackerpad is picking up an energy signature,” Bow said, shaking the tablet as if that would improve the signal. “And Entrapta is like, never wrong. They must be somewhere else—maybe underground.”

Catra was wrong; the planet wasn’t completely gray, desolate, and barren. There were, in fact, large spiraling structures that reminded her, shudderingly, of the architecture of Prime’s ship. “Is that…?”

“We’ve been calling them ‘Spires’,” said Adora, bumping gently into Catra’s side in a familiar reassurance. “They’re the first wave of Prime’s invasion.”

“He destroyed this planet.” Catra’s own words felt like chalk on her tongue, settling blankly into the empty atmosphere. “And he’s—he’s doing this to Etheria, too. I’m so sorry, I—I thought that I was helping the Rebellion, I thought that I was helping, but I’m the one who brought that monster to us. I’m sorry.”

Someone placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. To her surprise, it was Glimmer. “You couldn’t have known this would happen. You—” The ground rumbled. Bow, whose eyes were still glued to his trackerpad, didn’t notice the crack forming below his feet. Luckily for him, Glimmer did; she dove towards him, knocking him out of the way before the ground split. They both landed in a disgraceful heap. An aftershock from the earthquake briefly knocked Catra off-balance as the crack widened, splitting a seam in the earth with ease.

Behind them, Adora yelped. Catra whirled around in time to see the now-fragile rocks beneath Adora’s feet shift, then crumble, tossing her into the chasm with a scream. “Adora!” Catra yelled (paying no mind to Bow and Glimmer’s shocked and synchronized “Catra, wait--!”) before recklessly, thoughtlessly, leaping off after her.

--

Adora’s rough landing was slightly mitigated by some quick thinking on her part—deploying her staff to catch a ledge that turned her fall into more of a (barely) controlled catapult into a crystalline cavern. That being said, she still landed with a face-full of dirt and no clue how far she had fallen. When she looked up, expecting to barely see the sky and the distant blurry figures of her concerned friends, she instead saw a flash of movement tumbling down the cliff with far more grace than her own fall.

Catra landed on her feet, though not as cleanly as she would’ve if she wasn’t wearing boots.

“Catra?”

“Adora!” her ears perked up, and any effort on Adora’s part to pull herself to her feet was made moot when Catra pounced, knocking them both back onto the ground. A soft rumble resonated in the magicat’s chest. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” Adora smiled at both the purr and the instant shine of relief in Catra’s eyes at her reassurance. “Wait a minute…did you just jump off of a cliff for me?”

“Ugh, yes, I did—but if you tell Sparkles or Arrow Boy, I’ll deny it.”

“I think they’d figure out you’re lying pretty quickly if you keep blushing like that.”

Catra’s palm shoving into Adora’s cheek wasn’t successful at wiping off her smug smile. In fact, it only made her grin wider when it was paired with a shrill, side-cast, “Not because I like you!”

“I mean, I didn’t say anything—”

“Adora? Catra! Are you guys okay?” Glimmer’s concerned voice echoed against the crystal walls of the cave.

Taking the opportunity to distance herself from the still-grinning blonde, Catra pushed herself to her feet and yelled at the ceiling: “We’re okay! Found some crystals! Not the pink ones, though…” She turned around, looking past Adora; her eyebrow raised and her tail flicked, which made Adora stand up to see what she was looking at. A soft glow of light was coming from deeper in the cave. “There’s some kind of weird light in here!”

“We’re gonna go towards it!”

“Don’t go towards the light!” screamed Bow, his voice cracking on the last syllable.

Catra rolled her eyes, and Adora sported a fresh grin. “Not that kind of light, Arrow Boy!”

“We’re gonna look for the crystals—you guys find another way down! One that doesn’t involve falling and/or jumping down a cliff, maybe.” Adora said the last comment quieter, directing it to Catra, whose ear flicked in half-hearted annoyance. With a deep breath to hype herself up, she held out her hand, gesturing for Catra to follow.

To her swelling heart’s relief, Catra took her hand with a soft, stomach-flipping smile.

--

Before they found the crystals, they’d run into a group of siblings who were, conveniently, also looking for thulite, and also refuges on-the-run from Horde Prime. Small universe, huh?

They seemed disbelieving—in a sad, melancholic way—when Adora explained to them that she was the leader of a rebellion that was fighting against Horde Prime, and they seemed disbelieving—in an incredulous, impressed way—when she continued to explain that they had just recently gone toe-to-toe with him on his ship, and got away with their skin intact. (Most of it, at least. In Catra’s case, some of the electricity burns were worse than others, and there was a patch of raw skin on her leg that she was sure she’d have a hard time growing back the fur on, but that was beside the point.) And they seemed disbelieving—in the wide-eyed, slack-jawed, annoyed way—when Adora knocked back an entire bowl of berries in three ravenous gulps. The last part, all Catra could do was offer a small shrug of, Well, it’s not like I can do anything about it, either, which the gangly one—Tallstar—grumbled and rolled their eyes at.

The three were a ragtag group, but nonetheless proved themselves resourceful in both combat (which they tried to engage both Catra and Adora in, as well as Bow, Glimmer, and Entrapta when they managed to find their way down into the cavern), but also in strategy, when they helped develop the plan to get the last thulite and get the hell out of there before the entire cave came crashing down, per Entrapta’s predictions.

Of course, per true Rebellion fashion, their plan went to shit as soon as it made first contact with the gaping cliff standing in their way.

Creating a bridge from a falling pillar of crystal was relatively easy, considering the weight of it, but only Glimmer, Catra, and Tallstar made it across before a second earthquake hit, sending the pillar into the dark depths below. “Get back across, swing over if you have to,” Catra ordered, drawing on her own strategy experience from, well, leading the entire Etherian Horde for a year. “Arrow Boy has rope arrows, doesn’t he?”

“Catra, are you crazy? We’re not leaving you behind,” Glimmer protested.

Catra shook her head, extending her claws in a matter-of-fact motion. “You’re not leaving me behind, Sparkles,” she said, and started scaling the wall to where the thulite gleamed pink. “I’m just much more qualified.” She tossed a chunk of the rock down to Glimmer, who caught it clumsily, and grabbed another two pieces before jumping back down, landing on her feet with practiced ease (she’d previously taken off her shoes, given that she was much more mobile without them and Entrapta had deemed the atmosphere safe enough to go on without the suits). “Beast Island had its fair share of cliffs,” she added by way of explanation. Now, go!”

Bow was able to swing Glimmer across, and Tallstar’s mechanical prosthetic served well for mobility, but another earthquake rumbled before Catra could cross, widening the gap even more and breaking the stone that Bow had been using as an anchor. Over the gap, Catra could see Adora, Jewelstar, and Starla struggling to keep a large crystal from collapsing over their exit tunnel.

Adora met Catra’s eyes, a tinge of blue circling her pupils, and Catra gave her an encouraging smile before readying her own leap across the chasm. If she judged it right, she should be able to—

Near-miss the edge, slamming into the ledge with her already-injured ribs screaming (which knocked the wind out of her), and barely twisting mid-air to cling to a rock about a foot below the edge.

She hung there for a brief second to catch her breath again, and while she did so, she heard a shout of effort and saw a bright blue flash of light that glowed with enough intensity, bouncing and reflecting off of the surrounding crystals, that Catra briefly had to shut her eyes.

When they re-opened, she saw Adora leaning over the cliff-edge, a soft relieved smile on her lips. “Hey Catra,” she said, barely suppressing a coy grin, “how’s it hanging?”

“Did She-Ra really show up late and let us do all the hard parts?” Catra replied, with the ease of a practiced conversation. “That’s low, even for a Princess.”

Adora giggled (and Catra’s cheeks did not warm at the sound, not one bit, and any statement otherwise she would firmly deny). “You know nothing’s too low for us,” she said, then offered her arm out to help Catra. “Now come on, you look stupid hanging down there.”

Chapter Text

With Scorpia’s chip deactivated and some stressful (for Bow) maneuvering through asteroid fields, they were able to fully lose any of Prime’s ships that had followed them. Wrong Hordak—the clone that they had somehow ended up in the care of—was a surprisingly good cook, managing to piece together meals from ingredients that Adora refused to translate from First Ones’, out of fear that the group wouldn’t go near them anymore. Still, Catra spotted Adora whispering to herself, her keen hearing catching frightening phrases like “dehydrated slaw”, but it wasn’t like they’d been fed anything better in the Horde, so she happily remained quiet for Adora’s sake—and for their friends’ sake, though she still wouldn’t admit that fact.

About five days after retrieving their fuel and convincing the Star Siblings to take up the Rebellion’s cause, the ship was in relatively high spirits. Adora had been practicing accessing She-Ra, to varying degrees of luck—occasional blue flashes of light that would activate Darla’s administrator access (long enough for Entrapta to do…whatever it was that Entrapta did to the ship, but it seemed to make her happy), and even managing to summon the ghostly outline of a sword, though it was usually short-lived. Catra, Glimmer, and Bow managed to find a new, fun common ground of being annoyances to Adora, each of them blithely excusing their behavior by saying that she needed to learn how to concentrate on her magic, even with distractions. And if it gave Catra an excuse to tease, poke, and generally be close to Adora, then that was between her and the sly look that Glimmer wouldn’t stop sending her way.

It was on this fifth day—night—spacey time-cycle—that Scorpia was well-enough recovered to stay awake and hold conversation. She quickly managed to befriend Wrong Hordak, thanked Entrapta for removing the chip, and scooped both Entrapta and Catra into a sudden, tight hug that would’ve made Catra’s ribs ache if they didn’t already (which they did), and declared that, “The Super Pal Trio is back in business!”

“Super Pal Trio?” asked Adora with a snort and an upturned eyebrow, her voice nasally with a barely held-back laugh.

Bow squealed. “That’s so cute!”

“Are you or are you not members of the so-called Best Friends Squad?” Catra shot back.

“We are!” said Bow proudly. Then, giddily, “But if you guys are the Super Pal Trio, and you’re our best buds now—no, Catra, it’s already been decreed, you’re our friend, no take-backsies—then we need a new name! The Best Pal Team—no, the Awesome Squadron—wait, is that too much like the Horde? I don’t know what the structure of your groups were…”

Catra cast a lighthearted smile towards Adora, who was watching Bow’s rant with a fond smile of her own.

“Why don’t we combine the names?” asked Scorpia, excitement abundant in her voice. “We can be the…” With an impressively wide sweeping motion, she pulled Adora, Bow, and an unfortunate, unsuspecting Glimmer (whose eyes barely had time to widen as she entered the room) into the hug, squishing all five of them in her arms. “The Super Friends Squad!”

“The Super Friends Squad! I love that!”

Bow’s and Scorpia’s wide grins were infectious, and Catra couldn’t help but smile at the name, and at her friends, corny as it was.

--

After the excitement died down, Catra asked Scorpia to speak alone. Her tail lashed and she wrapped on hand tightly around her arm as the door slid shut behind them. The med-bay had become Scorpia’s room—Bow and Glimmer, then Adora and herself shared the two other rooms, and Entrapta slept who-knows-where, but likely in the vents—and was less barebones than the bedrooms as a result of the haphazard pile of medical supplies in the corner, along with a couple of chairs. The bed was made with Horde-regulation precision, save for a few tears in the sheets that suggested claws had served as a challenge, and Scorpia sat on the edge of it, looking at her with an expectant tilt of her head.

“Scorpia, I…I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. For everything.”

“Wildcat, you don’t—”

“No, I do,” Catra interrupted, her ears pulling back at the same time that she furrowed her brows, staring intently at the ancient, polished metal flooring of the ship. Her own reflection stared back at her, so she squeezed her eyes shut, instead. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I thought that if I—that if my plan worked, everyone could get out safe, and I didn’t think about what Prime…” The image of Hordak, screaming until he went still and blank-eyed, flashed behind her eyes. She remembered the scorching, electric pain as she waded into the pool, the fear pounding in her chest at the sight of Scorpia there, unconscious. Catra’s eyes shot open again, and she leveled them on Scorpia, who was looking at her with sympathy. “Scorpia, I…I keep thinking I’m doing the right thing, but it—I keep getting the people I care about hurt. I never should’ve pressured you into connecting to the Black Garnet—this wouldn’t even be happening if I hadn’t. I haven’t been a good friend to you, and I’m sorry.”

“Catra, it’s—”

“Please don’t say ‘it’s okay’. It’s not.”

Scorpia sat back a bit, with a small pout, but nodded nonetheless. “Well. Then I’ll say this instead. I forgive you.” Catra eased some of the tension in her body, pulling her hand away from what was surely now a few pin-prick claw wounds on her arm. “I don’t think I was a good friend to you, either. I’m not very good about the whole ‘personal space’ thing yet. After hanging out with the Rebellion, I don’t think I really knew what a friend actually was. I don’t think friends are the same in the Horde.”

Catra bit out a tentative, defeatist smile. “Man, the Horde really fucked us all up, huh?” She held out her hand. “Maybe we can try to learn together?” She saw Scorpia’s sudden movement, the movement of her arms that signaled she was going in for a hug, and flinched—minutely, involuntarily. So she was surprised when, in a moment of hesitation, Scorpia’s claw touched her hand.

Scorpia shook her hand (to the best of her ability) with a smile, “Together,” and Catra couldn’t help but match it.

--

There was a blockade surrounding Etheria. Hundreds of ships filled the atmosphere, patrolling the sky and the stars. Mermista had been right, which meant that the rest of her concerning message—that the Rebellion had been compromised—was also likely true. Catra didn’t miss the way that Scorpia flinched upon hearing the news.

“We could force our way through it. If we go fast enough,” suggested Adora.

Glimmer pounded her fist into her hand with an excited shout. “Yeah! We can plow through the ships, save our friends, and stop Horde Prime once and for all!”

“Oh, wow. I’m—wow. And I thought that ‘fix the ship, escape, and rescue Catra from Beast Island’ was a bad plan.” Scorpia’s imitation of Adora was a bit wanting, but her decision to put her claw on her forehead in an impression of Adora’s hair-poof was enough to earn a chuckle from Catra. “Is the Rebellion like…just that bad at planning?”

Adora’s face turned pink. “What? We’re not—”

“Y’know, now that I think about it, there was that time that Catra left me in charge of the outpost and we saw you guys doing a planning session and there were dolls involved…” Scorpia’s claw had shifted from its mocking position to a more contemplative one, positioned under her chin. “And Catra’s plans usually revolved around how easy it was for her to distract you.”

At that, Adora’s cheeks went from a flush pink to bright red, eyes wide. Glimmer snorted out a laugh, which was enough to unfreeze Adora long enough for her to sputter out, “What! I am not—”

“Well, there was Princess Prom, and then the Northern Reach, and—” Adora interrupted Bow with a sharp elbow to his unprotected abdomen, and he doubled-over with a strained, if a bit dramatic, oof. Catra, who had been watching the entire interaction with a smug smile, noticed the group’s eyes (save for Entrapta, who was piloting the ship) all eventually settle on her, apparently expecting some sort of response.

She just shrugged, but made no effort to stop the affectionate swish of her tail. “It’s all in the past,” she said with as much nonchalance as she could muster.

“Is it?”

“Glimmer, don’t you want to prove you can make a better plan than ramming through an armada of ships?”

“Catra, don’t you want to prove that you can make a plan that doesn’t consist of distracting Adora?”

The ensuing stare-down was cut short by Adora, who stepped between the two of them with her hands held placatingly in the air. But it was Bow who managed to redirect everyone’s attention by saying, “Scorpia and Catra are right, we can’t just storm in. In case anyone’s forgotten, our last encounter with Horde Prime didn’t go so smoothly. Catra, Scorpia, Glimmer—you were all on his ship. Is there anything that he’s…weak to? Or distracted by?”

Catra decided to let that last comment slide (for Adora’s sake; she didn’t want to embarrass the poor girl any more than she already was, even if it was cute, the way her face flushed) in favor of addressing the problem at hand. “It’s not like he’d tell us.”

“We do not discuss Horde Prime’s weakness.”

The whole group jumped, startled, at the sudden appearance of Wrong Hordak, who was wearing his chef’s apron and smiling widely, which was still unsettling to see on a clone’s face.

Adora peered at him. “So, he does have a weakness?”

With a bit more pressure, and some help from a pale-looking Scorpia, they figured out that Horde Prime did have a weakness, and that answers about it were located on a nearby planet named Krytis. Entrapta was more than happy to immediately begin charting a new course for the planet.

“Well, if no one has any better ideas…I say we suit up,” said Bow, remaining the voice of reason. “Maybe there’s something on this planet that can help us get past the barricade, at least.”

Chapter Text

Krytis was nearly as barren as the planet that they’d landed on for fuel had been—insofar as it showed no signs of life besides acres of spires and twisting corridors that Entrapta seemed more than willing to let them all wander aimlessly through while she comforted Wrong Hordak, who was having an existential crisis at the idea that Horde Prime had been, at once, long ago defeated and forced to retreat from this planet.

Catra wasn’t too excited about seeking out something that could potentially be even scarier than Horde Prime, and her traitorous tail wanted the world to know, despite her efforts to smooth it out. The tunnels they were maneuvering smelled strange, her nose scrunching as she tried to identify the scent that felt like it could be familiar, if she only could remember; almost like the pies that had been baking in Madame Razz’s hut, except there was certainly no way that crazy old lady was somehow here. She startled when something brushed past her hand, but relaxed into a sigh when she realized it was Adora, who was giving her a soft, reassuring smile, which she returned.

All was, at least, going surprisingly well, until Entrapta voiced over the intercom: “Ooh, who’s your new friend?”

The group froze, and Scorpia eked out, “What friend? There’s no one here.”

“Well, the heat signature behind you indicates otherwise. Data never lies!”

In slow, horrified unison, they all turned around to find the towering, ghostly shape of a creature, looking at them with blank eyes and a tilted head. Bow screamed, Adora drew her staff, and Catra—thoughtlessly, on instinct—pushed past the both of them and leapt at the creature, tackling it. She was expecting the force of them to slam into the thick metal walls of the building they had been traveling through. Catra was not expecting to phase through the wall (hearing several concerned shouts of her name in the split second before this happened) and land, rolling in a pile, on the hard ground of the cavernous outside.

Dirt and dust kicked into the air as she scrabbled away from the creature, which morphed fluidly into the shape of a giant catlike beast, growling deeply in its throat. Fighting instinct had quickly been replaced with self-preservation instinct, and the two were arguing in Catra’s head as she debated whether to flex her claws out and attack, or to run for some sort of cover (or, ideally, to where she wouldn’t be alone, which she had achingly realized she was as she looked around for an escape). But she didn’t have much time to decide, because the cavern glowed a bright, familiar blue and the metal wall behind her crumpled to bits with an ear-screeching sound. In the rubble stood She-Ra—in a sense.

It had been a long time since Catra had seen She-Ra, and it was still frustratingly hard to tamper her resentment towards her at first sight. But that quickly dissolved when she realized that this She-Ra was so much more…Adora, than she had ever been before. She-Ra had always been a third party, wearing the voice and vague facial features of her best friend. At Thaymor, she hadn’t even been that—an entirely separate being of frightening power. This She-Ra was Adora all the way, even down to the dorky ponytail hair-poof that Catra pretended to hate so much.

The settling dust tickled Catra’s nose, and to her dismay and embarrassment caused her to sneeze, while in the meantime Adora—She-Ra—Adora put herself between Catra and the creature.

At that moment, the creature sneezed, too, in almost an identical mimicry of Catra’s. Something about it made Catra interrupt Adora, stopping her just before she could strike out of anger or protectiveness or, or, (if Catra could stutter out the words, just once, that had been behind every Hey, Adora.) “Adora, wait!”

“Huh?” She-Ra slid to a halt, heels digging into the dirt. “No, I—"

“No, I think it’s okay! Listen—”

But Adora’s face didn’t show any sign of understanding as the creature spoke in a language that felt like it had been slumbering in Catra’s head for centuries, so she translated as it chirruped and chattered at her. “Their name is…Melog. They lived here, with their people, before they were attacked by Horde Prime.” She choked a bit on the words as the creature, Melog, shifted itself into the image of Prime. She swallowed thickly. “They’re the last of their kind. Melog says they fought Prime off the best they could until he eventually retreated.” Melog flickered back into their feline form, ducking their head low.

“Guys, guys!” shouted Glimmer shrilly, racing out of the rubble that She-Ra had left behind when she’d busted through the wall. She was sparkling again, in a way that Catra hadn’t really seen since before the ship entirely. “It’s magic! There’s magic on this planet, just like on Etheria!” Her boots kicked up even more dust as she skidded to a halt next to the three of them, and Catra sneezed again.

An idea clicked into Catra’s mind, and by the wide-eyed look on Glimmer and Adora’s a moment later, similar ideas were racing through theirs. “Magic.”

“Magic!” Adora echoed, and Catra’s heart fluttered.

“Maybe you can make a plan better than ‘distract Adora’, Horde Scum.”

“And maybe you can make a plan better than ramming through an armada, Sparkles.”

“I’m here, too. I thought of the same plan,” added Adora, fading back into her regular form with a pout. Before Catra could respond, Melog mewed and also shrunk their form, their mane turning a soft, familiar blue. They pressed their forehead to Adora’s arm, starting a deep, affectionate purr in their throat that sounded almost like a mimicry of Catra’s own. She had drawn enough connections from Melog’s behavior and her own to understand what that meant, so she pointedly did not look at Glimmer, who was sure to be sending her a knowing glare.

Instead, she stood, dusting herself off (which caused another sneeze that Melog copied duteously) and told Entrapta over the comms that they were coming back to the ship with a new buddy.

--

The plan went off without a hitch; except for that she couldn’t help but grab onto Adora as they sped recklessly past the blockade with the help of Melog, and couldn’t bring herself to yank her hand away—even if it did make her the subject of even more looks. This time, Bow was even part of the lineup, and Catra was certain that at this point even Entrapta would be, if her eyes weren’t glued to the ship’s panels and screens. There was a group celebration that ended up with Catra squashed in a group hug, courtesy of the new so-called Super Friends Squad. But unlike her past experiences with hugs from people other than Adora, she actually found herself not hating it as much as she expected.

More thoughts to lock away and never reveal to the world, she supposed.

Unfortunately, the mood turned somber when they realized what had become of the planet while they had been in space. A town of terrified residents trembled at the mere whisper of the word princess—

(“A town that hates princesses? If I’d known, I would’ve invested in some property here,” joked Catra, receiving a sharp glare from all parties except for Entrapta, who was busy winking back and forth with Wrong Hordak, and Adora, who valiantly fought back a snort, but ultimately devolved into laughter.)

—and they were all nearly squashed in a net by a chipped Netossa before they managed to drive her off with the help of Spinerella (names that Catra had to pick up on through context, and pretend that she properly knew beforehand).

If it had been somber already when they were escorted back to the Rebellion’s final holdout, and it was even more so when they found out that the Queen, Frosta, and Perfuma had all been chipped throughout the events that had led to them losing each base. The news about Perfuma, especially, immediately affected Scorpia, and Catra found herself wordlessly placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder in a silent offer of support. For Glimmer, there was a shared nod between them that she hoped conveyed the same thing at the news of her mother.

Not to say that all the news was bad—they still had Micah, who was overjoyed to see his daughter again, and swept her up into a giant, crushing hug that would put Scorpia’s best days to shame. To Catra’s own surprise, his next hug seemed to be directed to her; luckily, he caught himself, clearing his throat to compose and holding out a hand, which she shook appreciatively. “I’m so glad you’re all back safe,” he said, as Mermista stalked behind them, not-so-surreptitiously checking for chips. “I wish it was under better circumstances. Still, we have plenty of bugs to eat!”

Catra laughed, heartily, devolving into an almost delirious giggling fit. Everything was so ridiculous, and fucked up beyond all recognition or repair, but she was back on Etheria, alive, with Adora, and Micah was here still being the crazy man that had done his best to befriend her on Beast Island despite how prickly her behavior and her claws had been. If anyone was surprised at what she was sure looked like a breakdown, they didn’t let it show, which was a bit of a relief. She really needed to blow off that steam.

Which, ugh, if the princesses and Micah were starting to rub off on her by teaching her good coping mechanisms, she didn’t want to consider the ramifications. She’d have to change her whole thing.

But, despite everything going relatively well despite the circumstances, Catra’s hackles raised. Something was wrong—there was a sharp, acrid smell in the air, and Melog’s mane turned a bright, wavering red as they growled and wrapped themself around her Adora’s legs.

“You always bring home strays, don’t you, Adora?”