the vanishing point

by chellethewriter

Chapter 5

Notes:

posting this a bit earlier than usual. again, we're diverging from 'Don't Go' because canon is a relative statement and ya girl is too tired to rewrite. This chapter is looooong.

anyway, hope you've enjoyed this enormous nearly 70k chunk of catradora angst and fluff!

v.

magic

Magic radiates from She-Ra like warmth radiates from the sun.

And she’s something of a vision—She-Ra. The tallest woman alive. More of a goddess, really, than a woman.

At least, that’s what the residents of this distant planet will think, when they see her. When they catch sight of those shimmering blue eyes, those brawny arms capable of hoisting the whole world high above her head.

Even that hair, with its stupid poof. Hair that flows from its ponytail with remarkable grace, twisting and twirling like a ribbon in the wind.

She really is too beautiful for most people to comprehend. And in a universe so utterly devoid of magic, she’s sure to spark some imaginative tales.

Catra definitely likes this version of She-Ra better than the old one. The hair isn’t quite so golden or massive—arranged into the ponytail that Adora always prefers—and the outfit is much more practical and mature. Armor befitting of a warrior in battle.

She looks like Adora now. Like she’s a part of Adora, rather than the thing that possesses her on occasion.

It’s an awe-inspiring if not somewhat ridiculous sight: She-Ra, raising her sword and then—with a mighty yell—charging directly into the enemy’s crosshairs. The kind of sight that will surely spread across the galaxy through rumors and retellings.

It’s the first time She-Ra has fought anyone in a long while, and Catra can tell that Adora is enjoying it. Swiping shockwaves with that sword, smashing boulders to pebbles beneath her fists. The group of interstellar pirates that hoped to terrorize this tiny colony—they never really stood a chance.

Catra considers helping. Really, she does. But what’s the point? She-Ra seems to have the situation well in hand.

So Catra returns to her previous distraction. Namely, examining the strange selection of alien fruits available at this little merchant’s stand. That was why they landed here, after all. To stock up on food. But of course Adora had to stick her nose—or rather, her sword—in the planet’s burgeoning criminal enterprise.

“Who is that?” gasps the merchant, and Catra doesn’t even have to look to know who they’re gasping about.

It’s her, of course. She-Ra.

Catra glances briefly over her shoulder, acknowledging that Adora is, in fact, still alive and tearing the pirates to pieces, and then returns her attention back to the odd green-and-red melon she’d picked up for further inspection.

“That,” Catra says, closely examining the melon for imperfections, “is my girlfriend.”

---

hiding

“Stay away from me!”

Catra’s voice climbed in its shrillness—rasping like something scoured with shards of glass.

The last time she saw Entrapta was within a nightmare. One of the worst of her life—one that recurred so frequently that Catra had stayed awake for weeks rather than surrender to it.

But now Entrapta stood before Catra, real as stars and space and alien empires, clutching at wicked-looking instruments that could easily tear Catra from the life she’d barely managed to reclaim.

Catra squeezed herself against the wall, seeking distance—any distance at all. Because here was yet another product of Catra’s worst mistakes. Another friend who she’d betrayed—who she’d hurt in the most unforgivable ways.

Another friend who had every right to kill her.

And no one would blame her for doing it, either. No one would blame Entrapta for “accidentally” killing Catra while carving the chip from her neck. A necessary casualty in the pursuit of scientific exploration, she would say, and move on.

Though truthfully, Catra wasn’t scared of dying. She’d received far worse punishments in recent days alone.

But she was afraid of submitting herself to Entrapta’s judgement. Because that was what it would be, if Entrapta operated on her. A medical procedure, yes—but also a clear-cut valuation of Catra’s life. Catra would have to sit there, helpless, as Entrapta decided whether or not she should tolerate Catra’s continued existence.

To fight an offensive or a defensive was one thing. War was war, fighting was fighting—a simple exchange of blows and a mutual desire to survive at the cost of another person.

But to place her life squarely between someone’s hands and hope to be saved? That was something else entirely—something sacrificial and vulnerable and altogether too trusting.

Especially if Catra had once ordered those hands to be bound and dragged off to Beast Island.

Desperately, she wished for another way. Wished that the chip simply came off when she scratched at it with her nails. But nothing Catra did—picking at it, clawing at it, beating her fists against it—shook it free from that spot at the base of her neck.

The chip refused to leave, and so did Horde Prime’s presence in Catra’s mind. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? That was why Adora and Entrapta had barged in so suddenly. To stop them—these whispers and visions that flashed constantly in Catra’s mind, bright and vicious as lightning lashing at the sky.

The chip couldn’t control her anymore. But Horde Prime could still see her, could still feel her, could still reach across lightyears of space and sink his nails into her—

“Catra!” Adora barked, striding purposefully toward Catra’s cowed position against the wall. “Horde Prime is tracking that chip! He’s coming for us right now.”

Adora radiated impatience as she bore down on Catra—a body of stiff, stilted motions and marching footfalls. Her expression was hard, the hardest Catra had seen it since arriving on the ship. Still simmering with leftover irritation from their last conversation.

They’d been arguing—Catra and Adora. Or really, Catra had been arguing. Stoking Adora’s fury with blatant ungraciousness and refusals to help or be helped.

But Catra couldn’t behave any other way, not after everything. The only Adora Catra understood these days was an angry one—not that gentle, endlessly concerned figure who perched on Catra’s bed as she feigned sleep, sometimes even brushing stray hairs out of Catra’s face as she tossed and turned.

The truth was...Catra just couldn’t remember how to do it. She couldn’t remember how to care and be cared for in turn.

Catra scurried into the corner, hoping to circumvent the bed to achieve her escape, but Adora was too fast—a hand flying out to snag Catra’s wrist before she could bolt toward the door.

“Grow up and let us remove it or we’re all dead!”

Catra gasped as Adora pinned her wrist to the wall. Not in pain, exactly, but in surprise. Adora’s face loomed over hers, enraged and unyielding—as immovable and unwavering as the metal pressing into Catra’s back.

It was difficult to meet her eyes. Difficult, especially with the memories of their last conversation just as fresh in Catra’s mind.

“I never hated you!”

It was strange—the way Adora had shrieked that one reckless sentence. Sometimes, it struck Catra as a reassurance. Other times, a confession to a terrible crime.

Catra had only stared blankly at her, processing those words like they were something thick and viscous. Something that oozed like sap across the surface of Catra’s mind.

It just didn’t make sense. Adora must have hated her. She must have. She’d seen that in Adora’s eyes, after Catra opened the portal. She’d seen it in the way they’d fought, claws and swordpoints thirsting for blood.

Adora had every right to hate her, just like Entrapta did. It was only fair—only right.

And Adora was supposed to be good at that. At doing the right thing. But Catra wasn’t right, she wasn’t good—she was the villain, the monster that plagued Adora’s heroics at every turn. She had no state but this, no state but run or attack, and if Adora didn’t hate her for that, Catra was going to lose her goddamn mind—

Because if Adora hadn’t hated her…

Then what, exactly, had she felt all that time?

Catra felt herself slide down the wall, her knees buckling beneath her. It was utterly exhausting to be so afraid—afraid of being weak, of relying too much on anything or anyone, but also afraid of having nothing, and no one. Forever.

“We’re doing this,” Adora said. “And then if you think hiding from the people you hurt will make you feel better, we’ll drop you off—and you’ll never have to see us again.”

And then they began to falter—Adora’s knitted eyebrows, her determined eyes. Drooping until they became something else entirely, something dejected and disappointed.

She inhaled deeply—eyes tightly shut—and sighed.

“You’ll never have to see me again.”

She turned from Catra, then. Turned, and then began to walk toward the door—seeking escape from this version of Catra who only screamed and resisted and refused to care.

There was no more fight left in her. In Adora. Whatever energy Adora had once mustered to battle Catra—to stand across from Catra as her enemy—it was gone now. There was only one thing left in those tightly-coiled shoulders, in those hands that hung so limply at her sides.

Hurt. Even now, Catra was still hurting her. Still hurting Adora. Just like before, when she’d attacked the rebellion. Just like on Horde Prime’s ship, when she’d sunk her claws so deeply into Adora’s skin.

Catra had only been trying to protect herself by saying all those things before. By demanding to be let off the ship, by claiming that she didn’t want or need Adora’s help. By accusing Adora of acting selfishly when really, rescuing Catra was the most absurdly selfless thing she’d ever done.

Adora, who had almost died trying to save her. Who might still die now, trying to save her.

But Catra wanted Adora to feel small. Small, despite the fact that she was—and always would be—the most imposing thing in Catra’s entire life.

“You matter to me,” Adora had said. Back on Horde Prime’s ship, when they were too desperate and exhausted for arguments. When they were beyond any hope of protecting themselves, beyond caring about the too-distant past or the wholly unattainable future.

And wasn’t that what Catra had always wanted to know? That that no matter how the world grew or shook or crumbled, she mattered to this person who mattered most to her?

A memory emerged, then. Bright and flashing as Horde Prime’s, though far more damaging and honest than his could ever hope to be.

“It’s you, wildcat,” ” Double Trouble had said. “You drive them away.”

And she did. Catra did drive them away. Every person who’d ever cared about her. Refusing to listen, refusing to care, refusing to meet them in the space between meaning everything and meaning enough. Always expecting the worst, always searching for that cloud of smog to blot out the sun.

She should have known better, by now. Done better. Been better.

Adora, of all the people in the universe, deserved better.

“Adora, wait,” Catra called, reaching out to secure a hand around Adora’s wrist before it fully moved beyond her grasp.

Catra had fallen to her knees. That was the only way she could reach Adora in time. By leaning forward, by dropping to the floor.

It was also the only way to show that she too was finished. Finished insulting, finished fighting. Finished trying to make enemies out of friends, and a monster out of herself.

Catra slid her hand down Adora’s wrist until she found them—Adora’s fingers, dangling so loosely at her sides—and then enclosed them within her own.

It was something of a struggle to look up at Adora, knowing what Adora would see when she looked down. This beaten, broken, desperate version of Catra, kneeling on the floor, tethered to Adora’s hand like an anchor suspended from a ship.

“Stay,” Catra pleaded, and not for the last time.

---

cue

“Hey Glimmer, is Catra in here?” comes Adora’s voice from around the corner.

Catra covers her own mouth with a free hand. Laughter—loud, snorting, indiscreet laughter—already threatens to escape her lips. And she can’t reveal herself now. Not when she’s positioned herself so perfectly, hidden exactly where Adora is sure is to walk past.

Of course, all depends on Glimmer’s willingness to play along. If she decides to betray Catra now, it’s all over. And it’s always a persistent question—where Glimmer’s loyalties truly lie in this particular battleground. She tends to swap sides depending on the day.

“Nope!” Glimmer says, mouth clearly half-full with something. Though the chewing is hardly unexpected. They’re all standing in the kitchen right now—though only Catra has stationed herself behind a wall, out of sight.

“Oh,” Adora says. And it’s a little too flattering, how disappointed she sounds to find Catra absent. “I could’ve sworn I heard her —”

Glimmer gives a little hum. “Nope, just me. Maybe Catra went to raid the closet for snacks?”

Alright now Glimmer might be laying it on a bit thick by doing that—by actually sending Adora in Catra’s direction. Not that Catra can actively complain about her heavy-handedness. Knowing Adora, she’ll probably fall for it either way.

And so she does, muttering, “Huh. Maybe,” as she walks directly into the hallway that Glimmer pointed out to her. A hallway that runs perpendicular to the wall that Catra has concealed herself behind.

The footsteps grow closer—louder—a soft thudding against sleek marble flooring. Catra braces herself, watches for the tip of Adora’s nose at as it turns the corner—

And then, once it’s within her sights, Catra hurls out her arm and lobs an entire cake directly into Adora’s face.

Adora skids to a breathless stop as it collides with her—that mass of pink frosting and yellow batter. For a few moments, she merely stands there, sputtering and scraping frosting from her eyes. The cake coats her fingers wherever she touches it, wherever she tries to scour it from her skin, her clothes, her nostrils—

“Catra!” Adora gasps, though it’s only a blind accusation. She still can’t actually see who threw the cake, not with her eyes so coated in frosting.

Catra finally releases it—the laughter that she’s swallowed this whole time, patiently awaiting the perfect opportunity to prank Adora back, just as she deserves—

Adora groans furiously, arms stretched wide—sightlessly pursuing the sound of Catra’s laughter. “Seriously, Catra? I have to be in a meeting in ten minutes! Now I’m gonna have to upstairs and change—”

“Boo hoo,” Catra says mockingly, smoothly backing out of Adora’s reach all the while. “Though I do wonder—if you change into She-Ra, will you still be covered in frosting?”

Teasing Adora is always enjoyable, but it does have its drawbacks. Namely, that it allows Adora to triangulate her general position by sound alone.

A small shriek escapes Catra’s lips as a clump of cake smacks into her jaw, and it’s enough to let Adora know that she’s met her mark.

“Ha!” Adora says, laughing as she pumps a triumphant first in the air.

Catra’s laughing too hard to be upset. In all fairness, it was a pretty good throw for someone whose eyes are filled with frosting.

Catra is still swiping the cake from her own chin when Adora half-tackles her in a hug. A hug, yes, but hardly a tender one. It seems that Adora has one goal in mind, and one goal only—to spread as much cake as possible all over Catra’s clothes and face.

Adora smears her cheek, her forehead, her jacket all over Catra—streaking pink across skin and fabric alike. “You have the worst timing,” Adora complains, though there’s no real frustration in her voice.

And Catra can’t really complain, either. It’s a nice feeling—having Adora pressed up so close to her, rubbing against her in all sorts of enjoyable places.

Adora’s voice is smug. “You’re purring.”

“Am not!” Catra protests, definitely lying.

Adora’s smiles somewhat gruesomely beneath her pastry-face-mask, trailing a thumb along the spot she managed to hit with that clump of cake. “I definitely got you good here.”

Catra scoffs disbelievingly. “Not as good as I got you. I mean, just look at you—”

Adora presses a kiss into Catra’s jaw, right where the cake landed. “I’m totally gonna get you back for this,” she mumbles against Catra’s skin, and then, laughing, uses her proximity as an opportunity to rub even more batter into Catra’s hair and face.

She leans forward and kisses Adora on the nose—her original target. The tip of it is bright pink with frosting, and Catra tastes the sugar as her lips brush over it. “Can’t we bury the hatchet? I was only getting revenge for that stupid mouse trick—”

Namely, the time that Adora left a stuffed mouse on the floor, right where she knew Catra would walk past and freak.

Adora laughed for nearly twenty minutes at the way Catra had hissed and jumped in the air. This little cake stunt—it wasn’t nearly as humiliating.

“Nope, no hatchet burying,” Adora says resolutely, flicking even more cake into Catra’s face. “This is a war I fully intend to win. You’d best prepare for devastation.”

Catra snorts. “I was the best prankster in the Horde, not you.”

“Then I’ve learned from the best.”

Catra rolls her eyes. “Aren’t you late for something?”

“I’ve got ten minutes,” Adora says, then waggles her eyebrow. “Besides, I’d be a shame to let all this cake go to waste–”

“And that—” Glimmer grumbles from somewhere beyond the corner, chair scraping as she rises to her feet, “is my cue to exit the kitchen.”

---

familiar

It was something equal parts foreign and familiar—being around Adora again.

Space was huge and empty, but the ship was small and cramped. Just four small compartments against an infinite backdrop of stars and silence. No exits, no distractions. Just the stars streaking across the windows in bright white lines.

Given the limited space, there wasn’t much Catra could do without Adora being present in some capacity. And Adora made herself present, always. Not that she was ever aggressive or needy about it. Catra doubted she was even aware of it.

Adora just had a particular way of making herself known. Constantly broadcasting herself through looks and touches and shrunken gaps between bodies.

There were so many little things that Catra had learned to forget. The way that Adora’s hip knocked into hers as a morning greeting. The smile she’d shoot Catra whenever either of them entered the same room. The hand she’d curl around Catra’s shoulder whenever the air around them grew tense or anxious.

That was all familiar. Echoes of memories that she’d never quite managed to smother.

But there were new things too. Things that Catra had never imagined, back when they were at war.

The way she’d pull Catra into conversations with her friends. Tugging on the barest threads of connectivity so that Catra could feel included, even when she hadn’t earned right to be.

The way that Adora would sit across the floor with her, talking away the hours. There wasn’t much else to do aboard the ship besides that—besides talking—and she loved telling Catra about all the strange things she’d learned since leaving the Horde. Loved describing, in detail, the intricacies of birthdays and floral arrangements and cookies with bright blue frosting.

“There are also these things called board games—” she’d explain, “and they don’t have any stakes, not really, but people get really competitive over them anyway…”

Catra would listen quietly, asking questions only when Adora would mention something that sounded particularly absurd. “And people go to beaches and just...sit? For hours? And do nothing?”

Adora nodded with a disbelief that mirrored Catra’s. “I know, I didn’t understand it either, but apparently it’s a whole thing—”

There was a time not too long ago. A time when any mention of Adora’s life outside of the Horde would outrage Catra beyond expression. But it was hard to be outraged now. Impossible even, when neither the Horde nor Bright Moon still existed. Not as they once had, anyway.

It was just something to talk about. Something strange and interesting and too harmless to be painful. And again Catra was battered with a rush of shame because, really, was this what she’d been waging war against all that time? A kingdom of people who played games and lounged on beaches and ate cookies covered in frosting?

“People were happy there,” Adora told her. “In Bright Moon. And I don’t think...well, I never met anyone who was happy in the Horde.”

They were both sprawled out on the metal floor, staring at the ceiling. Catra had been imagining herself on a beach. A beach like the one Adora had described: a stretch of calm waves and warm sands and blissful thoughtlessness.

Adora, meanwhile, was still far too fidgety to sit still. She occupied herself by playing idly with Catra’s fingers. And Catra could feel her every touch—the way she lifted Catra’s fingers and then released them one-by-one, listening for the soft clatter of the nail as it dropped onto the metal beneath them.

“I think we were,” Catra said, after a moment. And it was a quiet, unthinking statement. One that surprised even herself. “Not always,” Catra continued quickly, as if already doubting her own words. “But sometimes, despite everything…I think we were happy.”

Yet another moment passed over them, and Catra worried that she’d said something stupid. Something that Adora didn’t feel the same about. And now Adora was pulling away, releasing her hold on Catra’s fingers and—

But Adora didn’t actually let go. She merely shifted her grip, slipping her palm around Catra’s fingers until they were fully enfolded within her grasp.

“Yeah,” Adora agreed—squeezing Catra’s hand in hers. “I think we were too.”

Though they didn’t speak only of Adora’s discoveries in Bright Moon. Sometimes, their conversations stretched way back, long before beaches and cookies and princesses who maybe weren’t so bad.

“Remember when you climbed into that old bot and convinced Kyle you were a robot that gained self-awareness?” Adora asked, voice already tipping over the edge of laughter.

Catra snorted, near-hysterical at the mere reminder. “Uh-huh. He spent weeks warning everyone about an ‘imminent robot uprising.’”

Nostalgia used to be one of Catra’s worst enemies. Sweet memories like those…she always did her best to bury them beneath thick layers of concrete. Always tried to suck the color from those kinder, sweeter moments, replacing them with memories that flashed red in their ugliness—Shadow Weaver’s ceaseless favoritism and abuses; the glow of that hideous sword in Adora’s hand. If Catra replayed her worst memories enough, all other things faded to dull static.

But now Shadow Weaver was far away—maybe even dead if they were lucky. And the sword had been destroyed, replaced by a better version that Adora could conjure all by herself.

So it seemed that even concrete did not last. Not in a world like theirs, anyway.

Though at the end of the night (or whatever they decided night meant, since there was no sunset to judge the days by), Adora always retreated from Catra’s quarters, slipping out the door with a subdued sort of goodbye.

Catra would lay in bed after that, fending off nightmares. They were lesser here, somehow, but not completely gone. Horde Prime’s tortures still recurred frequently enough, yanking Catra from sleep like the tug of some great garrote.

One night, she awoke with a jolt from a particularly awful dream involving half-shattered mirrors and glowing green water. The kind of dream that lingered in Catra’s thoughts long after it had stopped projecting itself onto her eyelids.

She grew too restless to remain in bed. It would be more peaceful, she thought, to emerge onto the main deck and allow the procession of stars numb her mind into blankness.

And so she threw away the covers and left her quarters, stumbling wearily toward the central compartment of the ship.

It was the first time Catra had decided to do this—to leave her room while everyone else was asleep. She was afraid that if she lingered too much, or did anything that seemed suspicious, they would once again decide Catra was an enemy. An enemy who only sought to sabotage or spy on them.

It was a stupid fear, of course. But one she had all the same.

She stepped quietly. Quietly enough that she didn’t wake Adora upon entering the room.

Because Adora was there, for some reason, when Catra entered. Slumped in the uncomfortable-looking metal chair at the center of the floor, her head flopping onto her own shoulder.

She had a blanket at least—one that had been thrown somewhat messily across her torso. Messily enough that Catra suspected that someone else had placed it there, upon seeing Adora look so uncomfortable.

Adora moaned softly in her sleep, unconsciously shifting to find a more comfortable position, but there simply wasn’t one to be found. The chair was too cold. Too rigid to painlessly support a sleeping body.

Catra couldn’t fathom why she was out here, sleeping like this. Maybe Bow or Glimmer snored, and she’d sought some silence on the main deck? But then again, Rogelio used to snore, and that never sent Adora searching for a new place to sleep.

Catra kneeled in front of Adora and then, with both hands set lightly upon Adora’s shoulders, shook her awake.

“Hey, Adora—” she whispered.

Adora jumped a foot in the air, flinging out both arms in a defensive sort of gesture, and Catra had no choice but to hurl herself out of Adora’s reach.

“Watch it!” Catra snapped as she dodged Adora’s fist.

Adora was panting and wide-eyed for several moments, disoriented from being agitated from sleep so suddenly. But then she seemed to recall where she was, and her panic subsided in favor of a more pressing concern—the soreness in her joints and muscles. Catra watched as Adora scrunched up her eyes and rubbed remorsefully at her own tailbone.

“Catra…?” Adora’s voice was still half-blurred by sleep. “What are you doing out here?”

Catra rolled her eyes. “I could ask you the same thing. Why aren’t you in bed?”

Adora merely shrugged.

“Did you hear what I said?” Catra said.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Adora countered somewhat childishly.

Catra raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. “I’m just taking a walk to clear my head. But if you stay here all night, your neck’s gonna hurt like hell in the morning.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Adora muttered.

“Seriously, Adora. Just—”

“This is my bed, okay?” Adora interrupted her. “It’s either this or the floor, and the floor’s even colder.”

“What?” Catra blinked. “Why don’t you have a bed?”

Adora shrugged wordlessly yet again. And this time, Catra knew that there was more to this silence than a half-asleep unwillingness to explain. There was something else here, beneath the surface. Something that Adora didn’t want Catra to know.

“Adora,” Catra said, more firmly now. “Why don’t you have a bed?”

Adora sighed and dropped her elbows onto her knees. “We only brought four, okay? Four cots.”

At first, Catra didn’t understand. Four cots should’ve been exactly enough. One for Glimmer, one for Bow, one for Entrapta and one for Adora. There was no reason why Adora had to sleep in this stupid chair—

But then Catra remembered the abandoned cot in her own quarters.

Four cots. Because Adora had only expected to rescue Glimmer on this trip. One person plus the three already embarking on the mission. But instead she’d collected another passenger, another body in need of a place to sleep: Catra.

“You gave me your bed,” Catra realized, barely murmuring the words. Because of course Adora had. Adora had given Catra her own bed, her own room. She had probably refused Glimmer and Bow’s offers to switch off sleeping in the chair, too.

She felt dazed with guilt. They’d been on this ship for days, and Catra hadn’t even noticed. Everyone else was sharing a room but Catra had been given a full section of the ship to herself—

“It’s fine,” Adora assured her all-too-quickly. “The chair’s really not that bad, and I’m always the first one out here for breakfast—”

“Do you know how dumb you sound right now?” Catra hissed. “First you save my life, and then you give me your bed? You should’ve made me sleep on the floor–”

“You were recovering,” Adora said, voice devoid of regret or doubt. “Besides, it’s no big deal. I told you—I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re sore. You’re sleeping like shit. You should’ve told me earlier—”

“I’m fine, Catra. Really.”

“No, you’re really not,” Catra said, then clasped a hand around Adora’s wrist. Adora didn’t have time to react before she was yanked to her feet, stumbling off-balance as Catra pulled them both back to what should’ve been Adora’s room.

“What are you doing?” Adora whispered, too quiet to sound properly angry or surprised.

Catra hauled open the door and tugged them both inside. “I’m giving you back your stupid bed,” she told Adora, flinging a hand in the direction of the empty cot, the blanket still hanging loosely from the mattress. “So lay down and get some sleep.”

She shoved Adora even deeper into the room. Shoved and shoved until they were both standing at the foot of the bed.

“No way,” Adora protested, attempting to scramble backward, “You lay down and get some sleep. I’m fine, I promise—”

“Don’t be an idiot—”

“You’re the one acting like a idiot—”

“Fine!” Catra whisper-shrieked. “We’ll both lay down and get some sleep, if that’s what you want.”

“What are you—?”

The question transformed into a small oof as Catra gave Adora another shove, one that finally pushed Adora onto the mattress, flat-backed and breathless.

And then, before Adora could clamber to her feet, Catra dropped herself onto Adora’s legs, curling herself at the foot of the bed in the same way she used to, when they were kids.

“Catra,” she heard Adora whisper exasperatedly, somewhere up the length of the cot. Her legs wriggled beneath Catra’s body. “This isn’t necessary.”

“Would you just relax for once?” Catra said, hissing yet again. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, anyway. We’ll both get a good night’s sleep this way.”

Adora made a small noise of protest. “But you shouldn’t have to sleep like that, on top of my feet—”

“Yeah, well,” Catra shrugged, “I like sleeping like this. I always have.”

Adora fell into stunned silence for several moments after that. And Catra could admit that it felt strange to do this, after everything. After exchanging so many blows and sharing so many terrible, world-shattering moments.

“Unless you don’t like it,” Catra added as a self-conscious afterthought. “I’ll get up, if you really want me to—”

“No,” Adora said quickly. “I liked it too, back in the Horde.”

“Good,” Catra said, trying not to sound too relieved. “Now be quiet, and get some sleep.”

She felt Adora turn onto her side and chuckle softly as she settled onto the pillow.

“Goodnight, Catra,” Adora whispered.

Catra sighed and pressed her side more tightly into Adora’s legs. And somehow, it was warmer than the blanket, having her here.

“Goodnight, Adora.”

---

team

It was definitely weird. Being part of a team. The rebels’ team—Adora’s team.

She didn’t really know what she expected. A part of her never really believed that they’d make it back to Etheria. Less believable, even, was the idea that the rebels would let Catra hang around once they got there.

Though Catra had tried to earn some semblance of a place among them. She’d apologized to Entrapta—and apologized a couple more times after that—and overall just did her best to be helpful wherever help was needed.

Bow and Glimmer seemed to have acclimated to Catra’s presence rather quickly. They had been quick to pull her into their conversations, their plans, their taunts and teases. Part of that, she assumed, was because Catra had nearly died to rescue Glimmer. It was difficult to hate someone who’d once saved your life.

And no one knew that better than Catra, in Adora’s case.

Not that Catra was too concerned with hating Adora anymore. More concerning was that opposite feeling. The prickling of Catra’s skin wherever Adora’s hands brushed against it. The straining of Catra’s ears to measure and memorize the laughter in Adora’s voice.

There was something else, too. An unidentifiable furnace of an organ, somewhere inside of her. Lodged between her chest and the base of her spine. It burned bright as distant stars whenever Adora’s eyes met hers, or whenever Adora’s smile quirked upwards.

It used to scare her. That feeling. But now Catra only wanted to wrap herself inside of it. To lay in bed aboard that ship forever, surrounded by stars and silence and the warmth of Adora’s legs. Close within Adora’s reach, but far outside of Horde Prime’s.

Something was still missing, though. Even now, with Catra happier than she had been in years, she felt its absence. That aching gap in the universe. A phantom limb, of sorts—something that had never once existed, but demanded to.

Thoughts crawled from the depths of Catra’s brain. Thoughts that she had never once allowed to evolve beyond formless, nameless wants. But now she knew. Now she could name them. Picture them, even, in daydreams more vivid than her worst nightmares.

She wanted to relinquish that space on the foot of the bed. She wanted to climb higher, go further. To match Adora’s body inch-to-inch, chest-to-chest, face-to-face. Legs slung around Adora’s waist and lips ghosting across her collarbone—

But their time aboard the ship soon came to an abrupt end. Adora fulfilled her promise. She brought Catra home, to Etheria. She folded Catra into her rebellion, her team, her hopes to liberate Etheria. And of course Catra would help her free the planet from Horde Prime’s control. Horde Prime had done more than enough to earn Catra’s vengeance.

But the princesses on Etheria took one look at Catra and poised themselves for attack. Netossa tossed her nets. Frosta swung her ice-coated fists. And of course, Catra couldn’t blame them for that. Catra more than deserved it, after everything.

But Adora always soothed them, assuring them that Catra was with them, now. That Catra was part of the team.

And who could ever argue with her? Adora was always so self-assured, so confident. So put-together and determined and committed to the broader strategy. If she trusted Catra, the rest of them certainly could—

And if she was transformed into She-Ra? This new version of She-Ra, who really just looked like a taller, buffer, glowing version of Adora? The whole world would happily do anything Adora said, when she looked like that.

Admittedly, the old She-Ra used to disgust Catra. She’d only considered her a false skin around Adora’s body—an illicit possessor of Adora’s mind and soul. But this She-Ra...Catra didn’t want to talk about how she felt about the new and improved version. If there was anything for her to say except a single word (hint: an antonym of “cold” that happened rhymed with “dot”) that Catra refused to say aloud.

Of course, joining the rebels meant sharing their camp. And Adora and Catra’s old-but-new sleeping arrangement came to a rapid halt. Adora was the rebel leader here. Catra was the Horde’s former second-in-command. Neither of them were prepared to reveal their rather embarrassing sleeping habit to the eyes of the entire rebellion.

Besides, there was always something to do, someone to save. And Catra knew she owed it to these people—to all of Etheria, really—to help.

And she did want to make things right. Really, she did.

But she wasn’t always thinking about Etheria’s future.

It was a more than common occurrence—for Catra to stare across the room at Adora, wishing that the room was empty, save the two of them. Wishing that the war was over.

It was difficult to imagine what life might be like, after this. If they won the war. The world had already been changed beyond recognition, and Catra could only guess at the transformations yet to come.

Catra didn’t know what she would be, either, when it was all over. Didn’t even know what she was now. Was she a Horde soldier? A war criminal? An exile? A rebel?

Everything kept changing. Everything, except for one thing. One person. Someone who smiled whenever Catra met her eyes, just like she used to. Someone who reached for Catra’s hand as they slept on adjacent cots—even if it was just a little bit embarrassing.

Catra didn’t know who she wanted to be, when this was all over. But she knew who she wanted to be with.

---

control

The Fright Zone looks nothing like it once did.

This place destroyed Catra, once. This place of smog and clanking machinery and marching feet. It spent a lifetime poisoning her mind in the same way it poisoned the skies and the soil.

It killed so many people: the children too small to fend off bullies, the cadets too unhealthy to survive sickness, the soldiers too slow to escape the battlefields unscathed. All of them, dead and gone in unmarked graves, cremated and disposed of amidst piles of scrap and trash.

The ones who survived were destroyed too, though in a different way. That kind of survival—it only makes people cruel. Only makes them selfish and mistrusting and incapable of properly discerning between right and wrong.

There sometimes were exceptions to the rule. Catra can name two of them, in particular. But they were just that—exceptions.

It doesn’t excuse anything, obviously. That the Horde made such monsters of its people. But it’s something that Catra needs to remember, if she’s to have any hope of understanding herself.

The Fright Zone is unrecognizable now. It has been for years, since Adora freed Etheria’s magic. Flowers spring from its every stony crevice. Grass bursts from rusted tin sheets as though metal has always been a viable substitute for fertile soil. But that's the nature of magic, Catra supposes. It creates beautiful things in the most inhospitable places.

This is Scorpia’s kingdom now, but there wasn’t much to be salvaged from these old Horde buildings. She’s abandoned them here, letting nature take their toll and reclaim the structures for flower beds.

Catra pulls at one of the old doors. Pulls and pulls, but it doesn’t budge in the least. She tries her claws next, slashing lines across the surface, but she doesn’t manage to sink them deep enough.

“Here,” Adora says, outstretching a hand. “Let me.”

A glowing sword flickers into existence between Adora’s fingers. Her grip tightens around the handle and then, with a grunt of effort that echoes through the trees, Adora thrusts the blade deeply into the metal.

When sparks stop flying and a suitable square is cut, Catra and Adora kick the door down together. It topples to the ground with an echoing, dissonant clang.

The interior that lies beyond is dark as pitch, but Adora doesn't hesitate, surging blindly ahead. Catra smirks as she holds out an arm to stop her. “Let me,” she says, gesturing for Adora to back up so Catra can take the lead.

Adora blinks at her in a funny sort of way—like she’s deciding whether or not to be offended. “Why?”

“You’re not so good at seeing in the dark, remember?”

Adora raises her sword, which glows bright as a lantern within her grasp. Her voice is half-mocking as she says: “I don’t need to see in the dark, remember?”

Catra rolls her eyes, then lowers her arm. “Fine. But if you trip and twist your ankle, I am not carrying you home.”

Adora smiles like she simply doesn’t believe her. And she’s right not to—not to believe her—because Catra would absolutely carry her home. She’d complain about it the whole way, sure. But Catra would carry her, just as Adora would carry Catra.

Hours pass as they walk the hallways in silence. There’s water dripping somewhere in the distance, and the old metal creaks as it expands and contracts in the heat.

They don’t really have a good reason for being here. It’s been years, in fact, since they’ve set foot in this particular region of Scorpia’s vast kingdom.

But Catra supposes that even the worst memories eventually become scars. And what are people supposed to do with scars, except try to remember how they got them?

“This was our bunk,” Adora says, raising her sword to reveal long-abandoned barracks. Though Catra could guess at their location by the scent of moldy blankets alone.

Adora approaches their old cot. She leans over it, careful not to touch the rotting fabric with her hands as she illuminates the bunk with her sword.

“Hey! My old flashlight!” Adora exclaims, finding the little metal device wedged in a crevice between the cot and the wall. Catra watches as she flips the switch on, then off, then on again—a beam of light sputtering between presses. Adora is absurdly excited when she declares: “It still works!”

Adora throws around the flashlight beam until she catches an odd set of shadows on the metal frame of the bunk. She settles the light—focusing it on that particular spot until it becomes something they both recognize.

“You crossed me out,” Adora observes, referring to the old drawing that Catra had once carved into the metal. The silly cartoon of Catra and Adora’s faces, side-by-side. They were twelve when they drew that, Catra thinks. But it’s difficult to remember.

She remembers slashing across Adora’s drawing, though. The way she cried and clawed at the bed, devastated by the idea that Adora wasn’t coming back.

Wordlessly, Catra walks over and swipes her claws over what remains of the drawing—namely, the mischievous-looking drawing of herself, left so alone and abandoned on that heavily-scratched wall.

And then Catra is walking onward, to the next hallway. Adora follows her, and Catra can feel her wanting to say something about it—about the drawing—but she doesn’t. Catra is grateful for her silence.

They keep walking. Past the locker room, the bathrooms, the old training courses, even the mess hall.

Catra thought they had no destination in mind—just a desire to wander aimlessly through this aging backdrop of their childhood. But as their feet bring them closer and closer to a particular location—a particular room—Catra knows that she’s only lying to herself.

They’re standing outside the Black Garnet chamber now. Or what used to be the Black Garnet chamber. The runestone was moved elsewhere long ago, when Scorpia started rebuilding her family’s kingdom. But the room that once held it still remains.

The room remains, even if its most infamous occupant no longer does.

Catra still remembers Shadow Weaver’s sacrifice—the way she incinerated herself and that monster in a swell of fire and light.

“It’s too late for me,” Shadow Weaver told her. “But you….this is only the beginning for you. I am so proud of you, Catra.”

She always thought that watching Shadow Weaver die would be satisfying. Those words—I’m so proud of you, Catra—they should have been satisfying to hear too. But there was no satisfaction to be found in that single, horrific moment. Just resentment. And sadness. And confusion, most of all.

There’s a blaring in Catra’s mind at the sight of this one room, so empty and abandoned and decayed. A thousand syllables of tormented nonsense, an endless stream of questions and demands.

Her legs begin to tremble, and then so does the rest of her. She’ll be crying soon—she can feel it. The tears are already welling in her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks.

Catra and Adora wandered into this room once, when they were little. And Shadow threatened to kill Catra for it. For one small intrusion, one tiny infraction.

She was only a child. They both were.

“It’s been years,” Catra says, wiping an elbow across her eyes. “It’s been years, and I still don’t understand why she did any of those things to us. To me.”

It’s first instinct for Adora—to surround Catra in her arms, to pull her close and hold her there. Catra allows herself to be guided there. Allows her head to fall onto that impossibly strong platform of Adora’s shoulders.

“I know she wanted power,” Catra says. “But how did hurting me get her any closer to that? Why did she have to play favorites? Picking on me all the time, hurting me for the smallest, stupidest things, things that didn’t even make sense—”

But then there are too many tears spilling into Catra’s mouth, and the words come out jumbled and drowned.

They stand there for some indeterminable amount of time. Stand until they can’t stand anymore—until they’re both kneeling on the rusted ground, still clutching tightly to one another.

“She never hurt you the way she hurt me,” Catra manages between sobs, and it’s not an accusation, or even a complaint. Just a statement. A statement of an injustice that once was, one that can’t be forgotten or changed.

“You’re right,” Adora whispers. And her voice is thick, too. Like she’s also been crying. Though Catra can’t see that beyond the blurry film of her own tears.

“I just don’t know why,” Catra says. “Why did she hate me so much—”

“She didn’t hate you, Catra,” Adora tells her, and begins stroking Catra’s hair. “She was cruel. And unforgivable. But I don’t think she ever hated you.”

“Then why—”

“Why do you think?” Adora says. “You said it yourself. She liked power. She liked control. And by hurting you, she could control the both of us.”

“Both of us?” Catra echoes, leaning back and blinking tears out of her eyes.

“You had it worse,” Adora says solemnly. “You always did. I will never deny that. She controlled you through threats, through pain. But there were times that I…” She inhales sharply. “There were times when I talked back to her, or didn’t perform well, and it wouldn’t make sense—the way she’d just let those things slide. But then I’d come back to the barracks and see what she did to you—”

A large, trembling sigh escapes Adora’s lips.

“She knew I’d do anything to protect you—anything at all. And that was how she kept me from disobeying her. By threatening you—by attacking you whenever I did something wrong. And I think it drove her especially crazy, when you and me fell apart. She’d suddenly lost her most effective method of controlling me.”

“She made me hate you, sometimes,” Catra murmurs. “Hate you, because I knew that if you stopped caring about me, or if I did anything that put you in danger, she’d just get rid of me—”

Adora’s grip on Catra tightens. “It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair—what she did to us. It never will be. She pitted us against each other, used our feelings to her advantage.”

“And yet she sacrificed herself for us,” Catra says quietly. “How are we supposed to feel about that, then? She hurt us our whole lives, but then she goes and does this one thing–”

“We let her go,” Adora says. “We acknowledge that she did one semi-decent thing out of a million terrible ones, and move on.”

Catra shakes her head. “It’s not that simple.”

“No,” Adora agrees. “It’s not. But we need to stop asking ourselves these things about her. She wasn’t complex. She wasn’t heroic. She was cruel, and we were her victims. You and me—” Adora presses her lips into Catra’s cheek. “We were lucky to survive her. And that’s all we need to remember.”

---

watch

Catra found fearlessness as she stared into the eyes of Shadow Weaver’s mask. Expressionless, inscrutable eyes. Eyes that all too happily hid the truth.

“I’ve been watching you,” Catra said, “the whole way in.”

She tugged Adora by the wrist down from the dais, away from the electrically charged crystal that hovered overhead. It crackled dangerously above them, snapping and lashing at everything within vicinity, and Catra was certain that it would do the same to Adora if she approached it any further.

Catra clutched at Adora’s hand like it might be snatched away at any moment. Her instincts howled at the sight of this place—at the sight of that crystal—and Adora walking blindly toward it, under Shadow Weaver’s orders.

But Catra had more than instinct in this particular case. Because finally, finally Catra had learned to know better. To listen beyond Shadow Weaver’s silk-smooth words and convenient assurances. It was almost like Catra could hear them, now—the lies squirming like maggots beneath that gauzy veneer of care, of sympathy, of wanting what’s best.

She’d been studying Shadow Weaver since her all-too-opportune arrival in Bright Moon. A visit in which she claimed to have miraculous knowledge of a Failsafe. One that would disable the Heart of Etheria before Prime could seize control of it.

That never made sense to Catra. It never made sense that Shadow Weaver knew not only the exact purpose of this Failsafe, but also how to find and use it in exact detail. Never made sense that instead of acting on this intimate knowledge during her excursion with Castaspella, Shadow Weaver had decided to push that responsibility off on Adora and her friends.

Shadow Weaver loved manipulation, sure. But she wasn’t one to waste time if she could achieve her goals all by herself.

Their arrival in Mystacor had only heightened Catra’s suspicions. It seemed like Shadow Weaver knew every inch of the corridors that led to this chamber: the correct paths to take, the location and nature of the traps along the way.

And now Shadow Weaver was practically shoving Adora beneath those crystals. Refusing to explain, refusing to waste another moment, insisting that this was the only way, that Adora didn’t have a choice—

“You’ve been in here before, haven’t you?” Catra accused. “You could’ve taken the Failsafe yourself and gotten all the power you’ve ever wanted. But you didn’t. Why?”

“You’re being paranoid,” said Shadow Weaver. But still Catra could hear it. The lies, the false denial embedded deeply in those words. “This is the only way to stop Prime. Adora understands that well enough—”

Shadow Weaver stepped forward, hand outstretched to Adora, but Catra wouldn’t let her come any closer. Wouldn’t let her poison Adora with a touch that hoped only to coax, to trick.

Because nothing, nothing, nothing about this made sense. If this Failsafe was so critical, why didn’t Shadow Weaver take it? Or even if Shadow Weaver couldn’t be trusted to take it, why not someone else? Anyone in the rebellion or on this mission, Glimmer or Bow or Castaspella or even Catra herself—

But no. Shadow Weaver was certain that it had to be Adora. And of course Shadow Weaver knew that Adora would do it, too. Adora would walk into any danger, any trap in the desperate hope that it would protect Etheria.

All that talk in the hallway that Catra had overheard—talk about distractions and saving the world and Etheria needing She-Ra and not Adora. All of it, perfectly crafted to create an illusion of urgency around this task. An urgency so profound that there couldn’t possibly be time to think things through, to consider the consequences, to remember that there was and always would be more to Adora than just She-Ra—

But Shadow Weaver was fixated on Adora’s ability to turn into She-Ra. Fixated on it in the same way she was fixated on the Failsafe, like the two things were interconnected, somehow—even though, as far as they’d been told, the two things were supposed to be entirely independent of one another.

“Why does it have to be Adora? What is going to happen to her? What aren’t you telling us?”

The room descended into silence as Shadow Weaver said nothing—revealed nothing. Only lowered her hand and backed away a few paces, out of the immediate range of either Catra or Melog’s claws.

Catra knew, then. Knew that there could be only one fate for Adora, if Shadow Weaver expected such terrible reprisal at the slightest mention of the truth.

The Failsafe was going to kill her. Somehow, some way, the Failsafe would end Adora’s life.

“Answer the question!” Spinerella demanded. But Catra didn’t care. Catra had heard enough. Shadow Weaver’s silence spoke more truth than her words ever would.

“Whoever uses the Failsafe must absorb the full magic of the Heart when it is destroyed. That much raw magical power would burn any mere mortal apart," Shadow Weaver said, and pointed her mask toward the floor. "None of us are strong enough.”

And then Adora echoed the words already ricocheting through Catra’s brain.

“But She-Ra is.”

Catra looked back and saw Adora staring at the crystal, her eyes fixated as if hypnotized. She was still considering it—still considering accepting the Failsafe. She’d been too seduced by this lie of an idea, this vain hope of defeating Prime in one fell swoop.

Shadow Weaver nodded. “Only She-Ra can hope to survive the process. No one else can do it.”

And this time, Catra was too stunned to stop Shadow Weaver from stepping forward—from separating Catra and Adora with her towering figure.

“And if I don’t survive it?” Adora asked Shadow Weaver.

Because only Shadow Weaver would answer that question. Only Shadow Weaver would even consider taking this path, this risk—

Catra could only watch as Shadow Weaver reached for Adora’s cheek, cradling it gently—comfortingly—as she spoke revolting words of how worthy the sacrifice would be, if Adora was burned to ash by the Heart’s magic.

Catra felt sick, looking at them like that. Wholly and horrifically sick.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Catra had spent her whole life preparing to be murdered by Shadow Weaver. That was simply an affordance of Catra’s whole existence: the expectation of Shadow Weaver’s violence and its deadly, inevitable result.

But Adora was Shadow Weaver’s favorite. Her golden child. The one she’d groomed since childhood to be the model of success, the vessel through which Shadow Weaver could gain power.

Killing Catra—that made sense, at least. Catra had never been anything but a nuisance to Shadow Weaver. But would Shadow Weaver really work so tirelessly to kill Adora too? The girl she had always showered in pride and tenderness?

But then Catra realized what it all meant. That all of it—every kindness Shadow Weaver had ever bestowed on Adora—was just as manipulative, just as murderous. A stack of cards built high as can be, only to be toppled at the perfect moment.

She’d trained Adora to be selfless. To care about the mission above all things. Above herself, most of all. And this was the noblest mission Adora could hope to receive. The chance to be the planet-saving hero that everyone had always wanted her to be. The chance to sacrifice herself for the whole world.

And of course Adora would accept it happily. Adora had been taught to take any risk, so long as it would take the risk from someone else.

Questions swarmed Catra from all sides. How long had Shadow Weaver sought this Failsafe? How long had Shadow Weaver known that Adora would someday turn into She-Ra?

Catra remembered when the first footage of She-Ra had been brought to the Horde. Everyone else had been stunned. Frightened, even, by the arrival of such a new and powerful princess. But not Shadow Weaver. Shadow Weaver hadn’t even seemed surprised. No, she was only desperate to find Adora. To bring Adora back to the Horde, back to Shadow Weaver’s control.

What if Shadow Weaver had spent a lifetime grooming Adora for this moment? Not for conquering Etheria or laying waste to the rebellion, but for this—a heroic death at the center of the planet, one that would release all the magic that Shadow Weaver had ever wanted.

And it was such a good ploy. This idea that She-Ra had the best hope of surviving. She-Ra seemed so strong, so indestructible. No one could take her place. No one could be better suited for the job.

And if Shadow Weaver proved to be wrong—if Adora perished after all—it was simply a misfortune. A miscalculation. A well-considered risk that hadn’t fallen in their favor.

Adora was still the vessel through which Shadow Weaver could gain power. Though not, as Catra had always assumed, by conquering territories or rebellions or even Etheria itself.

No. Adora was to help Shadow Weaver through self-destruction. Her designated purpose since her adoption. Her fatal flaw, placed there by none other than Shadow Weaver herself.

And it took only three words to bring Shadow Weaver’s plan to its terrible, all-too-predictable conclusion:

“I’ll do it.”

The floor seemed to stretch a mile long as Adora began ascending the stairs to the dais. Catra sprung forward—sprinting, stumbling toward Adora. Trying to stop her, trying to make her see sense.

“No!” Catra cried. “What—What’s wrong with you?”

Catra’s hands found Adora’s jacket. Her grip on the fabric was white-knuckled and trembling, but still she pulled. Pulled and pulled until Adora was turned around and facing her.

She would hold Adora here. She would make her understand. Make her let go of this deadly fantasy—shake her until every lie planted by Shadow Weaver was dissolved at the root.

Catra’s voice was a strangled, begging thing. Shrill as grinding metal, desperate as a drowning breath.

“Shadow Weaver is sacrificing you! Why can’t you see that?”

Catra could see it. She could see it too clearly in her mind’s eye. Adora, walking alone to the center of the Heart. Laying down her life for a future she would never see. Dying with a smile on her face as the magic returned to Etheria in a rush of shimmering, body-dissolving light.

But this was nothing to smile about. Nothing to be proud of. Adora didn’t have to do this. She didn’t have to die just because Shadow Weaver said so. She deserved better than that. She deserved everything, anything she wanted—

Catra couldn’t do it. She couldn’t watch Adora disappear again. She didn’t want to face a world without Adora’s smile, Adora’s laughter. A world without Adora was—and always would be—the worst existence Catra could ever conceive of. One that she’d already lived and suffered and made a mess of.

Adora was more than She-Ra, more than the rebel leader. She was a person, the person that Catra cared about more than any other. Why wasn’t that something to live for? Why couldn’t that be enough? Enough for her to live, to stay—

“Because even if she is—” Adora yelled, “it’s better than Prime getting the Heart and destroying the universe!”

Adora was determined to do this. She was determined to die for Shadow Weaver. Her fists were clenched at her sides, her body rigid with resolve. Even now, she looked at Catra like an obstacle. The thing standing between Adora and ultimate victory.

Ultimate, in the truest sense of the world.

---

want

Catra couldn’t sleep. She’d stayed awake all night, staring at the Failsafe branded across Adora’s chest—at its soft blue glow, spilling between the threads of Adora’s blanket. It was a surprisingly beautiful way to mark someone for death, Catra thought bitterly.

Adora slept restlessly, but that wasn’t anything new. Melog had perched themself at the foot of her bed, over her legs—the spot that Catra herself wanted to occupy, but refused to take.

Catra wouldn’t even lower herself onto the cot adjacent to Adora’s. She knew what would happen, if she did. She knew that Adora would inevitably reach for Catra’s hand—her arm thrown out in a sleepy, grasping search. And Catra knew that she wouldn’t be able to take that hand without starting to cry.

Adora was going to save the world by doing this. By sacrificing herself. Adora was going to give her life so that the whole world could survive.

But there was still a world that wouldn’t survive, if Adora didn’t make it back. Their world. Catra and Adora’s.

A damaged world, one that had never fully recovered from the war they’d waged across its surface. But it was still theirs—still warmer than any other. Still enough to fill Catra with blind, buoyant hopes for the future.

But Catra had been foolish to hope for anything. Happy endings were—and always would be—an impossibility. Villains were too selfish to deserve them; heroes were too selfless to ever live to see them.

And Catra couldn’t…she couldn’t even breathe thinking about it. She just couldn’t believe how little Adora had considered this—that they were a world worth saving too, just like any other.

But this was always the problem, wasn’t it? Adora’s heroism took up too much space. It left no room for Catra, no room for Adora, no room for anyone at all. It was a world of its own—a meteor the size of a planet, hurtling unstoppable at the speed of light.

And Catra? Catra was just another cosmic obstacle. A distraction. That was what Shadow Weaver had said, anyway—and Adora had believed it. That Catra was something that Adora would have to forget to complete the mission.

That had always been the nature of this fissure between them. The one that wouldn’t stay mended, no matter how they stitched it back together. This splintering, jagged gap in the universe. This space, this distance, this chasm between hands and hearts and lips—

Adora had always wanted to save the world.

But Catra had always just wanted Adora.

There was no point in lying about it now. No point lying about this one tiny, insurmountable fact. The pupil at the middle of the iris, the star at the heart of the galaxy. The needlepoint at the center of every choice and mistake and good deed.

Catra really, truly, deeply wanted Adora—wanted her lips, her eyes, her body. Wanted her to be happy, to be healthy, to be safe. Wanted to hold Adora in her arms, wanted to grow old with her, wanted all those stupid, silly clichés that Catra should have been mocking rather than dreaming about.

Even now, Catra wanted her. Wanted to curl beside her on the bed, wanted to wake Adora with the pressure of her lips and the weight of her arms, wanted to stifle the glow of that horrible Failsafe with her own body.

She loved Adora. She’d loved Adora for so long, she couldn’t remember which came first—knowing her or loving her. Maybe there wasn’t even a difference in Adora’s case.

Catra knew that this would destroy her, if she let it. This impossible, unmet want, this thing that pinned her somewhere between joy and devastation. She’d already walked this road. She’d already felt her heart collapse into dust, only to be pressed back into shape. Would she really let it happen again?

No. Catra couldn’t stand waiting. She couldn’t stand around, waiting for the world to end. She always had to be the one to pull the switch—had to be the one to have the final say. Control was the one thing she clung to, in the absence of the thing that truly mattered.

So what could Catra do with a broken heart, except break it some more?

Melog mewed mournfully as Catra gathered supplies in a pack. She could hear them questioning her, incapable of understanding why, exactly, she was choosing to leave someone she clearly cared about—

But what did magical monsters from other worlds understand about her, about this? Nothing. Nothing at all.

And so Catra left. Left the rebels, left Adora. It was best. It had to be best, even if best was nothing at all. Catra didn’t need to be here to fight Horde Prime. She didn’t need to sit around, waiting for Adora to die.

She’d be fine on her own. Catra was never meant to be anything else but this—alone.

Catra marched adamantly into those woods, the pack weighing taut and heavy on her shoulders. Her steps were confident and unhesitant, but Melog’s weren’t. They kept looking back, despite how they trotted at her side. Still questioning her, doubting her, asking her why, as if it wasn’t obvious—

And then came the voice she hoped she wouldn’t hear. Not yet, anyway. Not until she was farther away.

“Catra?”

Adora poured so much outrage and disbelief into her name, it stopped Catra in her tracks.

Stopped her, at least, until she took off running.

“Catra, stop!” Adora called, and Catra could hear the frantic footfalls scrambling to catch up with her. The heavy breaths panting somewhere behind her and growing louder, closer—

Catra had always been faster but Adora had always been stronger. This sprint was the sort of distance Adora excelled at—a test of stamina rather than speed. It was inevitable, really. The way that Catra slowed while Adora only raced closer.

Catra leapt up for a tree branch, knowing that her climbing skills were definitely superior to Adora’s. But she’d miscalculated. Adora was too close, close enough to leap with her, catching her by the backpack and towing them both down into the dirt.

And then they were wrestling—crawling, grappling, elbowing one another. Catra was determined to leave but Adora simply wouldn’t let her squirm away. She pulled Catra by the leg, by the backpack—curling hands around Catra’s wrists and pinning her beneath her weight.

“You were just gonna leave?” Adora demanded, furious—eyes bright and burning as the stars overhead.

“I’m doing you a favor,” Catra hissed, leveraging the weight of the backpack to shove Adora away. “I’m a distraction, right? Now you can go save the world without having to worry about me confusing you.”

“No, no that’s not true—” Adora protested, eyes wide with hurt and indignance. “Don’t listen to Shadow Weaver, this isn’t about her—”

No. At least that was something they could agree on, for once. That this wasn’t about Shadow Weaver. It was about Adora, just like everything else. It was about what Adora wanted. Or perhaps more accurately what she didn’t want, or didn’t want enough.

Frustration surged from a dark, twisted place inside Catra, and she found her palms thrusting outward. They collided hard with Adora’s shoulders and Adora fell several feet backwards, tumbling onto the grass.

Catra stood. She knew she shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have shoved Adora so hard. But she was smothered, so smothered, pinned beneath Adora like that. Bodies close but not close enough, immovable lips mere inches apart—

“Why are you like this?” Catra shrieked, unable to stop herself from asking, even when she knew. “Why do you always have to sacrifice everything for everyone else? When do you get to choose?”

Adora was sprawled on the ground several feet away, staring up at Catra as though she were speaking an alien language.

And still, it crumbled something within Catra. To watch Adora’s expression as she asked that question: When do you get to choose? It was almost as if she’d never considered it. Never considered a fate other than this awful sacrifice, this noble calling.

“What do you want, Adora?”

And of course Catra was crying. This moment couldn’t be truly mortifying without a proper river of tears from Catra’s eyes—without the tormented grate of her own voice, echoing sharp and desperate in the otherwise peaceful night.

Adora only stared at her.

“I…” she began, blinking—as though seeing Catra clearly for the first time.

But whatever Adora saw, it clearly wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough to change her mind, wasn’t enough to make her admit anything real. Wasn’t enough for Adora to utter the four words that Catra wanted to hear more than any others.

“I want you, Catra.”

Instead, she received two excuses—the most predictable, tired excuses Catra had ever known. Twelve stupid words that said everything and nothing all at once.

“I have to do this, Catra. I’m the only one who can.”

Catra couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t stay here, couldn’t keep on mending this fracture. How was she supposed to hold them together if Adora wanted so badly to dissolve into pieces?

Catra swiped an elbow across her eyes.

“Then do it,” she said. “That’s what you want. That’s what you’ll always choose. I don’t have to stay and watch it happen.”

It wasn’t easy, turning away from Adora. But it would be easier, Catra thought, than hoping for something that would never happen.

“Catra, please,” Adora begged. And when Catra glanced back, Adora was on her knees—hunched over the grass, the pack clutched between her arms. “Stay.”

And that wasn’t fair. Adora had no right to turn that word on Catra. What was she asking Catra to stay for, anyway? To stay and watch Adora die? To stay and watch Adora choose the world over everything, over everyone including herself, over and over again?

Adora couldn’t ask Catra to stay. Not now, not ever. It was a word that Adora didn’t even understand. A promise that Adora had never once fulfilled.

“I need you.”

And that one…that was laughable. A contradiction, even. Why would she expect Catra to respect Adora’s needs when Adora refused to respect her own? Her own need to live, to survive, to make it past twenty-one-fucking-years-old—

Besides, that wasn’t what Catra wanted. She didn’t want to be needed. She didn’t want to be a convenient comfort.

Need was not want. Adora had always conflated the two. She had never understood the difference, the value of one over the other.

Adora would take this path whether Catra was here or not. This choice—it had never once taken Catra into account. So if Adora needed Catra so badly, why was she so determined to leave her behind?

“No, you don’t,” Catra whispered. “You never have.”

And then, beneath a shimmer of magic, Catra walked away.

---

need

“Would you just kiss your girlfriend and get a move on?” Glimmer calls impatiently, waving for Adora to join her in the courtyard where Adora, Glimmer, and Bow would soon be teleporting out of Bright Moon.

Adora makes a vaguely placating gesture in Glimmer’s direction, then turns back to Catra. Her gaze is appealing. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Catra throws her arms around Adora’s neck, peppering kisses along her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids—and then, finally, the mouth. She leaves that for last, gliding her lips rhythmic and lingering against Adora’s. Biting just gently enough to drive Adora completely insane—and to remind her what would be waiting in Bright Moon, when she comes home.

“Positive,” Catra whispers, letting the word float somewhere between their lips, vaporous and buoyant.

Adora’s voice is nearly a whine when she says, “But I’ll need you there.”

Catra laughs at that. “No, you won’t.”

Because really, the last thing either of them needs is for Catra to go on this particular diplomatic mission. Catra doesn’t have a diplomatic bone in her body. Never has. Never will.

Plus, there will be at least four members of Etherian royalty at this summit who Catra has no desire to see. Three royals—ones who rule strange and distant corners of Etheria—each with major, blatant, actively flirtatious crushes on She-Ra. And Catra really can’t be expected to behave civilly toward them for an entire weekend. It simply isn’t possible.

Though Catra can’t really blame anyone else for feeling that way without turning herself into a total hypocrite.

She-Ra saved the planet—perhaps even the whole universe. It’s no wonder that people admire or love her. (Though Adora still pretends not to notice as they throw flowers at her feet and erect statues in her honor.)

Of course, that much adoration (ugh) is not ideal for someone like Catra, who already exhausts hours each day thinking, wondering—tallying all the potential reasons why Adora might leave her, someday.

She’s sure that the rest of the world can’t even fathom it—why their savior wastes time on someone like Catra. Catra, the destroyer. Catra, the former leader of the Horde. Someone who seems, by all appearances, built for violence and not much else. Claws on each finger and toe, mangy and crude and crass to her very core.

Catra entertains the notion that she’s better now. Kinder and quicker to use her words than her claws. But jealousy is certainly something she still struggles with. Something that sends her stumbling toward tears and accusations and fits of rage.

They do their best to talk about it, when it comes up—Catra and Adora. Do their best to talk about what—exactly—Catra is so afraid of when people show interest in Adora.

It’s easy to identify. Easy to name.

Adora deserves better. The best, even. The greatest person alive. Someone who Catra most definitely is not.

And there’s probably a significant portion of the Etherian populace who would happily take Catra’s place. People who are far less tainted by the past than Catra is, and far more capable of making Adora happy.

“If Adora wanted someone else ,” Perfuma once told her sagely, “she would be with someone else. But every day—every morning and night—she chooses you. You need to trust her to keep making that choice. And you need to accept it, if she someday chooses differently. Holding on and letting go are equally powerful acts of love.”

And so Catra will stay behind this time. She will trust Adora to come back, to stay. To choose her, despite the thousands of admirers constantly vying to pull her from Catra’s arms.

And if she doesn’t, Catra will be happy for her. Catra wants Adora, yes. But she wants Adora to be happy most of all.

But...she’ll still hope that Adora continues to choose her. She thinks that’s fair—it’s fair to want to be loved in turn. Love has to be a little bit selfish, if it’s going to last.

Breath huffs from Adora’s lips. “Okay, fine. I want you to come with me.”

“Well,” Catra begins extricating herself from Adora’s arms, stepping backward without breaking eye contact in the slightest. “We can’t always get what we want, now, can we?”

But Adora isn’t ready to let go. Not yet. She clings to Catra’s hand—her fingers a bridge in the growing space between them. “What are you gonna do while we’re gone?”

Catra shrugs. “Don’t know. Take some me time. Maybe go for a hike with Melog, or find something to read. You on the other hand—” Catra wrinkles her nose in mock disgust. “Well, enjoy meetings and negotiations. I’m sure those will be very fun.”

“Adora!” Glimmer yells, stomping a foot. “We’re going to be late!”

Adora glances over her shoulder and sighs. “I swear, there are some days I wish I could just give She-Ra to someone else.”

Catra leans in for another kiss. A brush of lips, short and gentle. “Don’t be stupid. No one’s better for the job.”

“I’ll miss you.”

Adora’s looking at her in a particular way, now. The way that seems reserved for Catra alone. Mouth relaxed into a contented smile, eyes settled into clear pools of affection.

Catra gives her a playful shove in Glimmer’s direction. “It’s a two-day trip, Adora.”

“So you’re not gonna miss me?”

Catra rolls her eyes. “For god’s sake—yes, of course I’ll miss you. You are really unbearable sometimes, you know that?”

Adora grins at her. “You know you love me.”

And Catra can’t disagree. Not without lying to herself.

---

vein

Catra swore that she wouldn’t look back.

But then again...she’d never been very good at lying to herself.

It should’ve been easy. To let the blur of the trees numb her mind into thoughtlessness, into apathy. To let distance carry her far from the violence of her own heartbeat—the vicious tremors of that fractured thing in her chest.

Catra was made of steel cables, she reminded herself. She could survive this. She could survive anything.

But she supposed that even steel cables had to affix themselves to something. And she could feel that something—that someone—tugging at her. At her feelings, at her thoughts.

And so she looked back. Looked back, and cried.

Though Horde Prime had cables of his own. Veins, really. Bright green and branching. They stretched across the whole world, constrictive as some great snake, painting the ground with an unnatural glowing circuitry.

Adora wanted to save the world. Catra wanted Adora. But neither of them would get what they wanted, if Horde Prime seized the Heart and split the universe in two.

And so Catra didn’t just look back. She turned back. She went back, back to the rebel camp, back to Adora, back to—

Nothing. No one. The camp was empty when she returned, panting and calling Adora’s name. Everyone was already gone—Entrapta, Bow, Glimmer, Adora…

Everyone except Shadow Weaver.

Shadow Weaver, perched upon boxes with a wineglass in her hand. Typical that Catra would find her here, drinking away the end of the world. Letting the rebels fight their doomed battles while she merely relaxed, listless and addled by alcohol.

Shadow Weaver told Catra what she’d already feared to be true. That Adora had already set off for the Heart. That Adora was blind to what was happening—the start of Horde Prime’s greatest assault—as she stumbled to the planet’s magical core.

She grabbed Shadow Weaver by the collar. Screamed in her face. Insisting—demanding—that she lead Catra to Adora, wherever she ran off to.

But Shadow Weaver was uncooperative. And Catra was forced to half-drag her into the forest, fury simmering beneath her skin all the while.

It wasn’t long after that Horde Prime projected himself onto the sky. Declaring that the world was over—that the fight had been lost, that Entrapta had been captured, and that She-Ra was gone.

“All that is left for your world,” he said, voice booming across the sky, “is a terrible and eternal night.”

The world was ending. This world—and every world beyond or within it. The whole universe was teetering on the edge of nonexistence, and as soon as Prime had full control of the Heart, it would be over for good.

And then Catra was yelling, screaming in Shadow Weaver’s face again. Urging her to bring them both to Adora, before it was too late for her—for Catra, for everyone.

Shadow Weaver shook her head, feigning resignation. Claiming that Adora was too far, too out of reach. Separated by dwindling time and insurmountable space.

But Shadow Weaver was, and always would be, a liar. No matter how weak she pretended to be—no matter how she sidelined herself—Shadow Weaver never relinquished power, not entirely. Somehow, someway, she always had one last trick up those dangling crimson sleeves.

There was one spell, at least, that Catra remembered. The one Shadow Weaver always reserved for situations where her own life was threatened. The one that had permitted Shadow Weaver’s escape so long ago, when Hordak had ordered Shadow Weaver’s exile to Beast Island.

At least Shadow Weaver wasn’t foolish enough to deny it now. She seemed almost defeated as her fingers sunk deep into her pockets, plucking out a single, glinting bottle that was no larger than Shadow Weaver’s pinky finger.

She outstretched a hand to Catra. The implication was clear: Catra must grab on if they were to make this journey together.

Catra didn’t want to touch Shadow Weaver. Didn’t want to touch her, didn’t want to be touched by her—didn’t want to be near her at all, if it could be avoided. There was little that could fill her with such profound discomfort as that prospect, the prospect of Shadow Weaver’s hand in hers.

But as much as Catra wished otherwise, there was nothing about this situation that could be considered avoidable or comfortable. Shadow Weaver, least of all.

So Catra took Shadow Weaver’s hand. Her fingers were cold, and stiff, and they held each other in an entirely detached way—the way two strangers might after a marginally satisfactory business transaction.

And then Shadow Weaver smashed the bottle upon the ground.

Catra struggled to swallow a scream as shadows rose like the tide all around them. Twirling from some terrible space beneath the ground, lifting from the grass like smoke from an imaginary fire. They encircled her, these shadows. Encircled her and Shadow Weaver, enveloping them in darkness, blotting out the stars, the sky, the nearby trees. They crowded close to her, compressing her between shadow and more shadows still, spilling across Catra’s skin and pouring into her lungs—

And then they were somewhere else. Somewhere dark, yes, but somewhere different. A cave that was equal parts wide and long, the walls lined with green.

Glimmer and Bow stood before her, frozen—watching Catra and Shadow Weaver’s arrival in astonishment. Catra glanced at them, then allowed her eyes to search the surrounding room. Glimmer and Bow were here—visible to the naked eye—but Adora was not. Adora was nowhere to be found between them, beside them. Nowhere within this room.

Catra lurched toward Glimmer, ignoring the nausea tumbling through her stomach. She grabbed at Glimmer’s shoulders, asking the question that had plagued her since Prime first started etching the world with those green lines—

“Where’s Adora?” Catra demanded.

And if Horde Prime’s announcement hadn’t convinced Catra that the world was ending, the twin streams of Glimmer’s tears certainly did.

“She left us,” Glimmer cried. “She’s headed to the Heart on her own.”

And again Catra learned just how foolish she’d been—foolish for hoping for anything beyond what she’d learned to expect from Adora, time and time again.

Adora always had to do everything by herself. Every journey, every sacrifice had to be hers, and hers alone. No one could help her, no one could carry her burden with her. Not Glimmer, not Bow, and certainly not Catra.

Adora had probably thought she was being noble, by heading off on her own. But she’d only made herself an easy target for Horde Prime. There was no one there to watch her back, to keep her on balance, and Horde Prime likely knew her weaknesses as well as Catra did. How could he not, when he’d spent so much time in Catra’s head?

Catra quickly and frantically explained everything Glimmer and Bow had missed—the nature of Horde Prime’s machine, and the doomed battle between the princesses above. It was instant and obvious—how badly they wanted to ascend to the surface and rejoin the fight. They didn’t want to wander these corridors aimlessly, hoping to find Adora when she didn’t want to be found.

But they also didn’t want to leave Adora behind. They were good friends. The kind of friends that Catra wished she’d had all her life.

“I’ll stay. I’ll find her,” Catra said.

And really, it made too much sense. Staying was the one thing Catra had always been good at. She’d always been the one to stay—to hold on—even when it broke her into pieces. The proof was right here, after all—standing where Catra stood, having returned mere hours after trying to run away.

She just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stay away. Not now, not ever.

Catra would always stay with Adora in some capacity. Tied by steel cables. Drawn to each other by a promise. A promise that they both wanted to keep, but slipped from their grasps at every critical moment.

Except this time, this moment. In this moment, unlike all the rest, Catra would keep the promise.

Catra’s hands were shaking. Shaking like they knew something she didn’t—that this choice to find Adora would likely be the last one she’d ever make.

The last choice, but also the most important one. Catra wanted to be good, didn’t she? She wanted to be better. And this was the best she could do, given the circumstances. For Adora. For herself. For everyone.

Glimmer and Bow were hesitant to trust Catra with this. To trust Catra with Adora. She could see it in the glance they exchanged—Glimmer and Bow. Their eyes connected by a thread of concern and trepidation.

“I can’t lose her again, okay?” Catra told them. Indignant. Desperate.

And really, that was all that remained. Catra wasn’t sure that she could save Adora. Wasn’t even sure if she could even save herself. But she could, at the very least, ensure that if the Heart or Horde Prime took Adora, it took Catra too.

Maybe Adora would do whatever it took to save the world. But Catra would do whatever it took to make sure Adora had that chance.

“I promised her a long time ago that I’d look out for her,” Catra said. “It’s time I made good on that.”

Catra wasn’t expecting Glimmer to throw her arms around her. To smile, and clutch her tightly, and whisper words in Catra’s ear:

“Take care of her, Horde Scum.”

It was an old nickname. One from a rather unfortunate hostage situation a long time ago, during which Glimmer had sought to exchange Catra for Entrapta’s unwanted freedom.

Back when she’d first uttered it, Glimmer meant it. She'd really, truly believed that Catra was evil. Irredeemable. Worse than dirt, worse than a monster.

But now she said as an endearment. An inside joke between friends.

And perhaps it was too easy to throw her arm around Glimmer’s back. To smile and say, “That’s the plan, Sparkles. And good luck.”

And of course Bow was all too quick to throw his arms around the both of them. He was always too affectionate, that one.

“The four of us don’t need luck,” Bow said. “We’re the Best Friend Squad.”

And for a moment, Catra let herself be swept into this embrace. An embrace between friends. Friends that she cared about, and maybe—just maybe—cared about her in turn.

They were both heading off into terrible danger. Glimmer and Bow, in particular, would be emerging to any army of clones and chipped princesses. They’d need stealth. They’d need it more than Catra did, anyway. Catra wasn’t trying to hide from anyone down here. Not anymore.

So she elected to send Melog off with them. She scratched behind Melog’s ears, transmitting affection and goodbye. Goodbye, because this could very well be the last time she’ll ever see them—or anyone—ever again.

And then, in a flash of smiles and glitter and pink light, the three of them—Glimmer, Bow, and Melog—were gone.

And then it was simply Catra and Shadow Weaver.

And Adora, too. Somewhere. If Catra searched for long enough.

Though in the end, there wasn’t much searching involved. Not when the screaming started.

The cry of terrible pain, somewhere down the corridor. And the piercing, rattling shriek of a creature that Catra couldn’t identify.

Catra ran down the hallways with only the vaguest awareness of Shadow Weaver following her. Ran and ran, listening for the ever-increasing volume of Adora’s cries, and that creature’s shrieking. A shrieking that only grew deafeningly louder as Catra grew closer. She leveraged every sense she had—sight, smell, hearing—to carve a path through this maze, eventually finding a section that hadn’t yet turned green. One that still glowed in that semi-familiar purple-blue. The kind she’d seen in that First Ones temple so long ago, the one she had snuck into when Adora wasn't looking.

And that was when Catra saw it, beyond the opening to a wide, crystalline cavern. A hulking, multi-legged beast with tentacles for tongues and a thousand green-glowing eyes. It towered over everything—stories tall, armored from head to toe.

It had cornered something at the far end of the room. Even from here, Catra could hear the labored breathing. Could smell sweat and something oddly familiar—a corrosive chemical sort of scent.

And of course, Catra saw that blue glow, peeking out from between the monster’s legs. The shine of the Failsafe.

Adora.

Catra lunged forward without a thought. Jumping as high as her legs would carry her, upwards toward the ceiling, toward the monster, her claws outstretched—

It hurt, when she collided with it. The monster wasn’t flesh and organic exoskeleton, like she’d originally assumed. The eye she slashed broke into thousand shards of jagged glass that rained upon the floor—becoming yet another obstacle she would have to avoid, unless she wanted to stab one of those shards into her feet.

The creature roared and reared, and Catra allowed herself to be thrown backward. Flying clear over the collection of glass, the creature’s lashing tongues and the scrambling legs beneath them.

And then she began to fall. Adora was in her periphery as the ground loomed larger beneath Catra. Even now, Catra could hear Adora’s heavy breathing. Could see her sprawled on the floor, her legs limp as broken threads, a hand clutching at her side.

Balance, luckily, was something that Catra still excelled at, and she managed to stick the landing on both feet.

The creature, on the other hand, was less lucky. Its rearing brough it staggering into the wall, smashing fissures into half of the cavern.

She turned briefly to Adora, and it was entirely involuntary—the smile the sight of Adora brought to Catra’s face. She’d been half-certain that Adora would already be dead when she arrived. But this Adora was still alive, still conscious and breathing, staring at Catra in bewilderment—

“Hey, Adora.”

Though looking at that horrific, oozing green gash near her hip, Catra couldn’t be sure how long Adora’s breathing and consciousness would last. Her skin was sweated-soaked, her eyes dim and hazy as she sat upon the floor. And Catra worried that even if she wasn’t too late, she was still just late enough—late enough that Prime’s killing blow had already been struck.

But there was still She-Ra to consider. If Adora turned into She-Ra, she could heal herself.

But why wasn’t she She-Ra right now? Why hadn’t she raised her sword and fought off this monster?

“Catra?” Adora exclaimed. “You can’t be here. It’s too dangerous—”

Adora tried to stand, but her legs and her breath immediately collapsed beneath her. Catra almost turned her back to the monster to reach her—to grab her before she dropped to the ground—but Shadow Weaver beat Catra there, clutching hands around Adora’s shoulders and hauling her upright.

And that was the only time that Catra allowed herself to feel grateful for Shadow Weaver. If Catra had turned around, if Catra had allowed herself to approach Adora, the monster would have skewered a leg directly through Catra’s body. Instead, Catra ducked and rolled just in time, managing to avoid the skittering limb as it smashed into the ground, erupting a thick fog of dust into the air.

Catra was on her knees, but not for long. The monster had recovered from Catra’s surprise attack, and now seemed more vicious than ever.

But Adora was too injured to fight. And Shadow Weaver had been left too exhausted by that magic that had brought them here.

So that left Catra. Catra, alone, against this monster tall as a tower.

Catra had claimed she was made of steel. But she wasn’t, no matter how she wished it now, facing a creature that could shatter her bones with a single swipe of its legs.

“Get Adora to the Heart,” Catra told Shadow Weaver, sending the words over her own shoulder. “I’ll take care of this thing.”

“Catra, no—”

Adora was delirious and oblivious and self-destructive to a fault, but she wasn’t actually stupid. She knew that Catra had exactly zero chance of surviving this thing. Catra wasn’t She-Ra. She had no sword, no magic. Her only weapons were her claws, her wits, and her determination.

But she was determined to save Adora. And Adora was determined to save the world. And this was the only way to ensure that someone, somewhere got a happy ending. Even if it wasn’t them—even if there just couldn’t be a world where Catra and Adora were happy.

But there would be an ending here, today. And maybe it wouldn’t be happy. But it would be good, at least. Noble. Selfless. Twin acts driven by love.

“I’ll catch up, okay?” Catra lied, and the words sounded fragile to and false to even her own ears. “Get to the Heart.”

And then Shadow Weaver was guiding Adora away, back toward the corridor. And Catra was sprinting, tearing down the ground that led directly to the monster, a tiny body framed against the most massive one she’d ever seen.

Adora screamed her name as she ran, but Catra could hear its volume diminishing with distance. That was good. That was what Catra wanted. Shadow Weaver would get her there—to the Heart. And Catra just needed to hold this thing off long enough to give them a chance.

It wasn’t easy. It was nowhere close to easy. It stretched and pulled every fiber of Catra’s muscles as she leaped over and over again, catapulting herself into the creature’s eyes—the only vulnerable point she could identify on that enormous stretch of armored body.

Catra’s breath heaved from her body in each landing. But no matter how many times she sent that monster tumbling to the floor, it just rose again. Tall as the cavern. Pulverizing crystal and rock beneath its weight.

But then something worse descended on the cavern. Those green outlines, extending from some distant corridor. Tracing the ground and the ceiling and the walls, stretching to the cave that Adora and Shadow had just retreated beyond—

Horde Prime. He was almost here. Almost at the Heart.

Catra measured the threats that stood before her. Ultimately, Horde Prime was worse. Especially if he got the Heart. This monster was just a distraction, a way to waste their time while he tightened his grip on Etheria—

The monster was still recovering from Catra’s most recent attack. If there was a chance to leave, this was it. The only opportunity she’d have to reach Adora before it was too late, before Horde Prime got to her. And if the monster pursued her there…

Well, Catra would cross that bridge when she got to it.

And so Catra darted into that cave, the one that still just barely glowed purple-blue instead of green. But even as she ran, the purple grew fainter, the green ever-brighter, and soon enough there’d be no colors at all beneath Catra’s feet except greens and whites and blacks—

But then he was there. Right in front of her. Towering over her.

Horde Prime.

But he couldn’t be here, not really. He was elsewhere, on his ship, far away.

Or was he? What if he’d teleported himself here, just to laugh in Catra’s face as the world she loved broke into dust? Catra wouldn’t put it past him. He loved nothing more than punishing those who’d once disobeyed him.

“Oh little sister,” he chided. “What a shame. I had such high hopes for you.”

And then, pain. Sharp as a knife and sharper still, piercing up Catra’s leg with a tingling, almost electrical fire. Catra’s whole body wailed at the way it bit at her, her leg buckling out from beneath her—boneless at that stabbing, all-encompassing pain.

She was collapsed on the floor when she realized what had caused it. One of the creature’s tongues had wrapped itself around her ankle and was pulling, pulling, cutting deeply into her skin and filling her veins with poison.

Catra plunged her nails deep into the crystalline floor. Anchoring herself with the sheer strength of her own fingers and arms. Even in agony, she knew it wouldn’t be enough to hold her for long. The creature was tugging and tugging, yanking her inexorably toward its maw, and she couldn’t defend herself, couldn’t get to Adora in time. Not now, not like this—

Her claws scratched dark gouges into the floor as the creature towed her backwards, feet first. It was a terrible noise—the squeal of her nails against the smooth ground. But it was a comfort, at least, as the screech partially smothered Horde Prime’s voice as he continued to taunt her.

“So brave,” he said. “Risking yourself for Adora. But it will make no difference. The Heart is almost mine. And when it is, Adora will die.”

And then she wasn’t just being tugged, but lifted. Lifted directly upwards, nails pulled vertically from the floor so that her body was suspended in the air. Suspended, yes, but not free. The creature still had her by the ankle, still thrashed her from side-to-side within its hold—

And then Catra was dangling. Dangling upside down above the monster’s mouth, its many tongues, its endless rows of teeth.

Tears streamed upside down from Catra’s eyes. Dripping from her eyebrows, her forehead. Even falling back into her own eyes and blurring her vision.

She didn’t want to die like this. She didn’t want to die, period. She’d been willing to, yes—but that wasn’t the same as wanting to. She didn’t want to die here, in this dark tunnel where she couldn’t see the sky or the sun or the horizon line in the distance—

“So tell me, little sister. Was it worth it ?”

---

stay (ii)

It takes Catra years to convince Adora to sleep in on the weekends.

For most of their lives, Adora remained an incurable early riser. Always waking at daybreak to exercise or train. Sometimes even waking extra early to study the weaknesses of their adversaries—whoever their adversaries happened to be at the time.

And when the number of adversaries started to dwindle, Adora began occupying the dawn with other critical tasks: preparing meeting agendas, practicing speeches, looking over schematics, and so on. There are countless still-dark mornings where Catra’s eyes squint open to discover Adora hunched over supply sheets or infrastructure renovation proposals—reading by the light of a too-bright lamp until the sun fully rises.

There’s never seemed to be enough hours in the day for Adora. So she always tries to steal a few of them back—particularly the ones that should be reserved for sleep.

It makes sense for a while, Catra supposes. There’s a lengthy period where Adora is endlessly busy. Etheria requires numerous repairs after Horde Prime's defeat—some of which can only be achieved with She-Ra’s help. And of course the universe needs its magic restored after centuries of a magic-less existence.

And so, for years, Adora fully devotes herself—and those early morning hours—to those tasks.

But over time, even those responsibilities begin to diminish. Systems emerge that manage themselves without Adora—or She-Ra’s—direct supervision. And so the world and the universe begin to settle into something peaceful. Something that knows what it’s doing, and where it’s going.

There eventually comes a day when the mighty She-Ra has nothing left to do—no more battles to fight, no more destruction to repair, no more broken people to heal.

Catra can tell that nothing frightens Adora more than this. This idea that she isn’t needed, isn’t useful. She picks up hobbies by the dozens. She teaches herself about a thousand alien languages so that she’s the first one called when the planet needs a translator. She borrows an endless supply of books from Bow’s dads, desperate to make herself an expert in every topic imaginable. She tries knitting, and cooking, and carpentry, and even weird skills like crystallography and cartography that Catra can’t understand let alone pronounce—

“Adora,” Catra murmurs one morning as she sweeps out a searching hand. Adora’s side of the mattress is cold to the touch.

Rather than sleeping beside Catra, Adora is seated at her desk, closely examining a bright yellow crystal beneath an enormous magnifying glass. It probably wasn’t intentional—the way that magnifying glass reflected the lamplight directly into Catra’s eyes. But it woke Catra all the same.

Adora doesn’t hear Catra call her name. She’s too focused on the crystal in front of her.

With a groan, Catra sits up and rubs her eyes. The moonlight-drenched windows evidence the time well enough, but a glance at the clock on the wall confirms the terrible truth.

5AM. Even earlier than usual.

Catra rolls out of bed and shuffles to the spot beside Adora’s desk. Gently, carefully, Catra lowers a hand onto Adora’s shoulder—knowing that if she acts too quickly, Adora could jump and end up shattering one of her prized crystals all over the floor.

“Adora,” Catra murmurs again, slightly louder this time. And Adora finally looks up and lowers the magnifying glass, stunned to see Catra awake and upright.

“Oh, hey!” Adora greets brightly, placing a hand over Catra’s. “What’s wrong? You don’t usually get up until—”

“Five and a half hours from now?” Catra finishes for her, sounding a bit more annoyed than she even intended.

Adora’s face falls. “Oh. Did I wake you?”

“Just a bit,” Catra says, then sighs. “What’s so important about this crystal that you have to analyze it at 5AM?”

“It has a very unique structure—”

“It will still have a unique structure in five hours,” Catra reminds her pointedly. “So why is this so time sensitive that you have to study it before dawn?”

“If I don’t write up my notes on this crystal now, then I won’t have time to work on the table for Madame Razz later. And I really need to finish knitting those scarves—”

“Adora.” Catra shoots Adora a look of exasperation that she hopes seems more affectionate than truly accusatory. “You don’t need to finish any of those things today.”

“But I promised—”

“Whoever you promised will understand. The world won’t end if it takes you longer than a day to do something, you know?”

And then Adora is the one sighing—turning, defeated, from her piles of crystals and her assortment of magnifying glasses. “I just want to be helpful, Catra. It’s like…”

Catra waits patiently for her to find the words, but it’s clear that she thought better of them—and has instead elected to let them trail into silence.

“It’s like what?” Catra asks, unwilling to let whatever Adora wanted to say go unspoken.

“It’s like no one needs me anymore,” Adora whispers. “No one needs She-Ra.”

“It’s a good thing,” Catra tells her. “Not to be needed. At least, it’s good not to be needed the way She-Ra is needed.”

“I know,” Adora says. “But I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do now—now that I have nothing to do.”

“You can do whatever you want,” says Catra, as if it’s obvious. And then, more suggestively: “Or whoever you want. Namely, me.”

Adora smiles a bit at that. “At 5AM?”

“Well, not at 5AM,” Catra concedes. “But I’m just saying...you don’t need to be useful to matter. And you especially don’t need to be useful to matter to me. I would perfectly happy if the two of us just never left the bed again—”

“We can’t just never leave bed, Catra. I’ll lose my mind if I don’t do something with my time—”

“Alright, fine,” says Catra. “Compromise.”

Adora raises an eyebrow. “Compromise? Was this even an argument?”

But Catra just keeps barreling forward irregardless. “We sleep in on the weekends. The rest of the week, you can get up at the asscrack of dawn, the way you always do. But on the weekends…you don’t get up until I do. Deal?”

Adora pouts. “But I’m most productive on the weekends—”

“Adora.”

Adora huffed out a sigh, then grumbles: “Fine. We’ll sleep in on weekends.”

And just like that, the tradition falls into place.

Adora struggles at first. Some weekend mornings, Catra wakes to find Adora sneaking books under the covers, reading by the beam of the old flashlight that Adora rescued from the Fright Zone. Other mornings, she finds Adora staring blankly at the ceiling, clearly unable to keep wakefulness at bay.

Most common of all are the mornings that Catra feels Adora tossing and turning, fruitlessly searching for a position that might allow her to fall back to sleep.

When Adora seems particularly restless, Catra reaches out and wraps her arms around Adora’s stomach, holding her tightly enough that she can’t keep rolling from side-to-side.

“You need to relax,” Catra then mutters into the crown of Adora’s head.

“I’m trying,” Adora mutters back, scrunching her eyes tightly shut—as if that might force them to suddenly drop off into sleep.

To a degree, it’s an issue of a lifelong sleep schedule. Adora has spent so many years waking up at dawn, she’s programmed her brain to start firing at that time.

“If you start waking up,” Catra tells her, “don’t let yourself get swept away by your constantly massive to-do list. Just… think about how comfortable the bed is. And how warm and nice it is to be lying there, with me.”

Adora snorts. “Ah yes. So warm and nice. That was exactly what I was thinking when you practically stabbed me with your overgrown toenails the other night.”

“They’re claws, first of all—not overgrown toenails,” Catra corrects her. “And maybe you’d avoid my toenails if you stopped thrashing around all night long.”

But like any other of Adora’s ridiculous acquired skills, sleeping late is something that she learns with time. She studies tactics—strategies to maximize her sleep on the weekends. Some of them work better than others. From Perfuma, she learns to meditate when sleep seems elusive. From Glimmer and Bow, she finally receives some functional blackout curtains—ones that effectively limit the amount of light spilling into the room during the early morning hours.

And finally, from Catra, she learns to completely and utterly tire herself out on Friday and Saturday nights. Something that Catra is all too eager to help with—whether that means late-night trips, or drinks with their friends, or intense sparring sessions...or other activities.

Eventually, they discover that if Adora becomes exhausted enough, and stops treating her everyday to-do list as something life-or-death, she’s actually fully capable of being lazy. Perhaps even lazier than Catra is on weekend mornings—and Catra is rather notorious for being lazy.

One morning in particular, Catra wakes to a sharp rapping at their door.

The first thing Catra notices is the body curled around hers: the blonde hair tickling her face, the loose tangle of Adora’s limbs, the warm breath ghosting across the nape of her neck.

The next thing Catra notices is the clock on the wall. It ticks the same as always—the only sound in a near-silent room—but she realizes that it looks different, somehow. The hands resting in places that she doesn’t recognize, or isn’t accustomed to.

It’s noon, she realizes with some surprise. Morning has since past, and they’ve officially started lazing their way through the afternoon.

And most miraculously—judging by the continued evenness of Adora’s breathing—Adora is still asleep.

Another knock bangs across the door, causing Catra to jump and Adora to moan in annoyance at the disturbance.

“Would you two please wake up already?” comes Bow’s voice, from the other side. “Glimmer made breakfast. Like...a lot of breakfast. And if no one eats it, she’s gonna get real upset—”

At the mention of breakfast, Catra’s stomach begins to growl. Some of Glimmer’s cooking experiments over the years have turned out better than others. Her attempts at breakfast? Usually pretty great.

Plus, it is noon, after all. Catra loves her sleep, but she’s more than gotten her fill. The prospect of food is enticing enough to make her want to leave the bed, however warm and comfortable it is.

Catra begins to shift, carefully disentangling herself from Adora’s limbs. She lightly puffs Adora’s hair out of her face—

But Adora’s grip on her only tightens. Her movements are almost zombie-like as she pulls Catra even closer—constricting her arms across Catra’s torso and wrapping her obnoxiously muscular legs around Catra’s shins.

“Adora,” Catra says with a pointed nudge. “Breakfast.”

Adora only grunts in disagreement.

“Adora,” Catra says again, impatient. “Don’t you want to eat?”

She feels Adora shake her head.

“Glimmer’s gonna kill us if we don’t get up.”

“Glimmer can’t kill us,” Adora mumbles drowsily. “Not if we’re asleep.”

Catra laughs. “You’re right. I guess I forgot that death and sleep were mutually exclusive. My mistake.”

Adora hums like she accepts Catra’s apology, then settles back into a silent slumber.

Though not for long. A few minutes later, Bow is once again knocking on the door, now growing increasingly frantic. “Guys! Seriously!”

“Alright, alright! We’re coming,” Catra calls, and then renews her efforts to squirm her way out of Adora’s grip.

Adora is having none of this, though. She senses the movement—senses Catra’s intention to leave—and immediately takes action.

“Noooo,” she whines, then rolls over—rolling Catra with her—until Catra is buried beneath the full weight of Adora’s body and completely unable to move.

Catra is quickly realizing that she might have created a monster with this whole ‘sleep-in-on-the-weekends’ thing.

“Adora–” Catra shrieks, but Adora holds up a finger and shushes her.

“Just stay,” Adora insists, the words muddled and slurred. “Stay...and sleep.”

And then she drops her head onto Catra’s chest and nods off before Catra’s very eyes.

---

stay (i)

“Whatever happens, I am staying with you!”

Catra was prepared to watch Adora die, but not like this.

They had been side-by-side, standing before the Heart—preparing to deploy the Failsafe without She-Ra’s protection—when Adora collapsed onto the floor, her whole body buckling as though she’d been suspended by strings that had suddenly been cut.

She cried out in pain as she fell, clutching at the Failsafe like it was a knife lodged in her chest.

“Adora?” Catra exclaimed, falling to her knees beside her, gently trying to roll Adora face-up.

Adora was gasping, screaming in pain, her eyes scrunched tightly shut. On the front of Adora’s shirt, the Failsafe was still visible, but there was something wrong with it. It was flickering. Glitching. Blinking between blue and green and no light at all.

Adora’s veins were tinged with green—with poison. With Horde Prime’s virus. It almost had her, just as it almost had the Heart.

“—no, no, no!”

Catra babbled refusals as she pulled Adora more closely into her arms. She searched for something to do—some way to help—but there was nothing. Catra knew nothing about this, about magic or saving the world. But the Failsafe had to work, it had to, or else all of this was for nothing and Horde Prime would win—

Catra froze as the ground began to shake—the whole room crackling with ozone instead of magic.

There was some sort of swell of energy—the kind that made the hairs on Catra’s arms rise. And suddenly Catra knew that ‘almost’ had been too optimistic of a term to use. Horde Prime didn’t ‘almost’ have the Heart. He had it. Period.

Catra threw herself over Adora’s body, acting as a shield as a bolt of green light lashed down from somewhere above, a thousand times as wide as a lightning strike and about a million times as powerful. It plunged directly into the Heart, suffusing the entire chamber in an eerie green light. The kind that faintly singed Catra’s skin in its intensity.

There was a grating, metallic sound from the reactor above them. It seemed that the Heart was resisting Horde Prime’s control to some degree, but Catra knew wouldn't last for long.

And upon glancing downward, Catra realized that Adora wouldn’t last long either.

Adora’s expression was no longer tense with pain, but slack with near-unconsciousness—lips parted and eyelids drooping. She was limp and listless in Catra’s arms, her skin slick with sweat and too-hot with fever.

“Adora,” Catra called, breathless panic multiplying within her. She could feel it in her every molecule—the rising terror and hysteria as she looked at Adora. Adora, who was quickly becoming lifeless within Catra’s grasp, her breaths escaping as shallow, feeble wisps of air.

“Adora, stay awake!”

Catra sounded more commanding than she felt. Adora’s eyelids fluttered open at the sound of Catra’s voice, but the eyes beneath them were glassy and unfocused.

There was something in that face. That face Catra had known her own life—the one that she’d practically memorized in its every feature, expression, and mannerism.

For the first time in her life, Adora looked resigned. Resigned to this—to dying here, at the Heart. The world unsaved. The universe doomed. She wasn’t going to make it—wasn’t strong enough to fend off Horde Prime’s virus all by herself. She was just one person. One girl.

“I’m sorry,” Adora whispered. And that was all. That was all she could think to say as delirium bore down on her.

Tears welled in Catra’s eyes. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand that Adora had to take responsibility for all of this—any of this. This fault wasn’t hers—this was Horde Prime’s—and Adora deserved to live even if he didn’t want her to.

The future was supposed to mean something more to them than this—than wars and alien conquerors and an infinite stream of end-of-the-world scenarios. There was supposed to be something to look forward to, something to hope for—something, somewhere out there for them, on the horizon, besides this crushing darkness and poisonous green light.

Catra cupped a hand to Adora’s cheek, and Adora held it in hers. There was enough strength in her left to do that. That, and nothing else.

Adora began to drift into unconsciousness. But Catra wouldn’t—couldn’t—let her fall away. Not now, not ever. She cried Adora’s name, clutched her as close as two bodies would allow.

She pressed her ear to Adora’s chest and searched for that sound she knew so well: Adora’s heartbeat. The heartbeat that was once the strongest, loudest, swiftest thing that Catra had ever heard—a heart that beat for everyone and everything it could.

But now it was faint, and feeble. Slowly sputtering into silence. Scarcely pulsating beneath Adora’s ribs.

She was still breathing, but just barely. And Catra knew that she couldn’t let it end like this. She couldn’t let the world end, she couldn’t let Adora die. Catra had done a lot of terrible things, but this would be the worst of them all—sitting by and letting Adora fade away in her arms, crumbling to dust along with the rest of the universe.

“Adora, please,” she murmured, arms trembling as she continued clutching at Adora’s limp body. “You have to wake up.”

Adora didn’t stir.

Catra shifted Adora in her arms, lowering her so that she had a clear view of Adora’s face. She imagined she was talking to her while awake—while still healthy. Both eyes open and heartbeat steady. That was better, at least, than what lay before Catra now—someone who might already be too far out of reach.

“You have never given up on anything in your life. Not even on me,” Catra whispered, voice threatening to fall apart—vaporized in the magic of Heart, just like Adora had hoped to be, but no longer could. “So don’t you dare start now.”

The Heart above her was snapping, and sputtering—nearly loud enough to drown out Catra’s voice. But she couldn’t muster any greater volume than this. This quiet whisper, this desperate plea to someone who might already be long gone, too far away. The one person Catra always wanted to stay close, despite morals or logic or right or wrong—no matter how the world grew or shook or crumbled. They were supposed to stay together, to look out for each other, and nothing in universe could justify Catra lasting for even an instant longer than Adora did—

But then Catra heard it. The smallest murmur of a reply, ghosting from Adora’s lips.

“It’s too late,” Adora whispered. “I’ve failed.”

“No,” Catra sobbed, clutching Adora ever-tighter. “No. I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”

Catra could hardly see beyond her own tears. The whole room was a haze of green and rainbow light, frightening and psychedelic and soon-to-be deadly, and for the first time it struck Catra that she really had nothing left to lose. Adora deserved to know the truth, even if the truth wasn’t reciprocated. Even if the truth only lasted for a moment before the world ended, and the rest of the universe with it.

Maybe they would die here. Maybe this was really the end. But Catra couldn’t stand the thought of them both disappeared, destroyed, without Adora at least knowing, understanding the reason behind everything, the reason behind Catra’s best and worst traits and choices—

“Don’t you get it?” Catra demanded to Adora’s still-listless body. “I love you. I always have. So please just this once—”

Catra lowered her head back onto Adora’s chest, willing that heart to beat faster, stronger, strong enough to keep Adora’s lungs working. Keep Adora’s ears working, too, so that she could listen and understand this one thing, the thing that had always mattered to Catra more than any other—

“Stay.”

The word had barely left Catra’s lips when that strange energy began to surge yet again, setting the whole chamber alight with static.

Another lightning strike burst into the room. A blinding flash of green light that hurtled toward them, powerful enough to incinerate them instantly—

But somehow, it didn’t manage to touch them.

Catra looked up, stunned to find herself still alive and breathing. More surprising, she soon discovered, was the glowing shield hoisted above her, protecting her from the Heart’s deadly energy.

Catra looked down to find Adora wide awake, sitting upright in Catra’s arms. Her eyes no longer looked glassy and delirious, but bewildered. Alert but disoriented, as though she had suddenly been roused from a terrible dream.

“You love me?” Adora said, stunned—as if she had never considered the concept.

And thinking back now, Catra really couldn’t believe that Adora hadn’t noticed. The purring alone should have given it away, but the evidence was truly endless. The way Catra said Adora’s name, held her hand, shared her smiles. She really couldn’t have been any more transparent—

“You’re such an idiot,” Catra laughed.

Catra didn’t know what she expected, after that. She never thought they’d make it this far. Never thought she’d live to hear a response. And if she did, she knew it’d be too much to hope that Adora felt remotely the same way.

She knew Adora cared about her, yes, because Adora cared about everyone. But there were different types of caring, different forms of love. And Catra couldn’t really imagine anyone else feeling this way about another person—this way that Catra felt about Adora.

But this was enough. It was enough to see Adora still alive and holding Catra’s gaze. Looking up at Catra with that strange smile on her face. A strangely serene smile—one that seemed a little out of place considering their still-dire circumstances.

No, not serene, Catra realized. Adora was happy. Happy in a way that Catra had never seen her before. Happy and relieved and—

“I love you too,” Adora told her. As if it were obvious. As if Catra should have known that from the start.

Catra stared, processing those words too slowly. They seemed too good to be true, those four little words. Words that Catra hadn’t even allowed herself to hope for. Words that instantly filled that aching hole in the universe, the one that had plagued Catra throughout her entire life.

Until now.

Adora loved her. Catra loved Adora, and Adora loved her back.

And then Catra was smiling too, mirroring Adora’s expression with her own. Truly, Catra had never been so happy to feel so stupid.

Well. Catra wasn’t one to waste time. She’d waited long enough to do this, to lean down and kiss Adora in the way she’d always wanted to. She’d waited long enough to feel Adora kissing her back, holding her close, radiating magic and happiness and all the things that shouldn’t have been possible here, at the end of the world.

But despite how the world shook and crumbled, it seemed that it wasn’t ready to end. Not yet. Not so long as Catra had Adora, and Adora had Catra.

---

princess

“And then after destroying the Heart,” Bow recounts, pantomiming an exaggerated explosion with his hands. “She-Ra emerged from the core of the planet with Catra in her arms, ready to defeat Horde Prime once and for all!”

“She did not carry me out of the Heart,” Catra objects. “In fact, before she turned into She-Ra, I was the one carrying her!”

But no one is listening to her. Everyone is too enraptured by Bow’s retelling of how She-Ra saved the world (with the help of Adora’s friends, of course, though Bow seems to get a bit more attention in this story than the rest of them).

Catra doesn’t know why she still bothers correcting Bow. He’s told this same exact story about a million times before—on a thousand different alien planets of people desperate to know how She-Ra did it, how she managed to defeat the tyrant that had reigned over their worlds for so long. And of course, the story is told at least twice at nearly every major function on Etheria.

It gets more excitement at Princess Prom than it does at the many balls in Bright Moon. There are some fresh faces here—a new generation of princesses and Etherians who haven’t heard or lived the story as many times as Catra and her friends have.

Adora’s white dress flutters outward as she returns to Catra’s side. There are two glasses of champagne in her hands, one of which she immediately hands off to Catra.

“What’d I miss?”

“We made out at the Heart,” Catra recalls. “Oh, and now you’re about to beat the shit out of Horde Prime.”

“Oh no,” Adora says, frowning. “I missed us making out? That’s my favorite part.”

Catra nudges her, then glances at the door. “Well, if you need your memory refreshed—”

“We’re not leaving early,” Adora tells her sternly. “Princess Prom is once a decade, Catra. We’re expected to be here for the whole thing.”

“Maybe you are, but I’m not a princess. I’m just here for the food and drink—”

Adora rolls her eyes. “Don’t be stupid—you’re expected to be here too. You do realize that marrying a princess makes you a princess too, right? You even got your own invitation.”

Catra blinks, recalling the scroll that had been neatly deposited beside Adora’s, back when the Princess Prom invitations were all delivered.

“Wait,” she says. “They don’t send those to all the plus ones—?”

Adora smirks at her. “Nope.”

“So I’m—?”

“Princess Catra,” Adora says smugly. “Princess of Power, through marriage.”

Catra gapes at her. She never considered this. Sure, she’s married to a princess, and lives in a castle, and has a magical creature as a pet but—

Shit.

“In fact, this was actually my evil plan all along,” Adora continues, still unbearably smug. “To make you fall in love with me so that I could turn you into a princess. The only thing you’re missing at this point is a tiara. Though I could easily have one made for you—”

“I’m divorcing you,” Catra declares, then downs the entire glass of champagne as a form of protest.

“Fine,” Adora replies, then takes a sip of her own champagne. “But I get to keep Melog.”

“You do not get to keep my cat.”

“Melog likes me better.”

“They won’t when they find out I’m divorcing you.”

“Right,” Adora says. “And will you be divorcing me before or after I carry your drunk ass home?”

“Me?” Catra laughs, setting her champagne flute on a nearby table. “You’re the lightweight, not me.”

Adora hums as if she doesn’t quite believe Catra, then wraps an arm around her waist. Catra settles into Adora’s side as they listen to the rest of Bow’s story. At the end of it—at the joyous conclusion of the magic being restored to all of Etheria and dismantlement of Horde Prime’s empire—people cheer and applaud.

“It sounds so fun,” Catra says. “When Bow tells it like that, I mean. Like it was just one big adventure. But it really doesn’t cover just how scary it was. You know?”

Because it was. Catra’s life was always scary—has never really stopped being scary, in some ways. But the days in the timespan of the story—life in the Horde, the war, the invasion of Etheria by Horde Prime—those days produced their own brand of terror, a terror unlike any other.

It was almost a different world, then. One filled with so many daily forms of devastation and endless opportunities to make terrible mistakes.

But now it’s gone. Replaced by something better—something that easily conflates unimaginable strife for a fun adventure. And now that world remains only in memory. The memory of the people who can’t quite forget, no matter how hard they may try.

Though Catra has stopped trying to forget by now. Some memories hurt still, but most of them have healed over, covered by tougher, stronger skin than before. Strong, yes—but not in the way she once defined that word: detached and stubborn and unwilling.

She’s long since learned that there can’t be a better or a best without a worst to precede them.

Life is all about this. Falling and getting up. Losing and trying again. Hurting and healing. Accepting an ever-growing list of too lates and almosts and not enoughs while never truly giving up on the things that really matter. The things that fill the hourglass. The things that Catra can hold in her arms and hoist above her head.

Now that Bow’s story is finished, the music starts up again. A slow, hopeful tune that Catra doesn’t recognize. She still doesn’t know much about music. Maybe Adora does—maybe it’s another one of her “hobbies.”

“Wanna dance?” Adora asks, extending a hand.

“Depends,” Catra says. “Do you promise not to shove me into an ice sculpture?”

“Depends,” Adora rejoins. “Promise not to melt the building down?”

They both laugh, and then they’re both tugging each other to the dance floor, Catra only semi-purposefully stepping on Adora’s dress and Adora being only slightly infuriating by saying things like: “After you, Princess Catra.”

Princess Catra. Truly—out of all the things she imagined on the horizon for herself, that was certainly not one of them.

Notes:

i have such mixed feelings about this chapter...but yeah. Tell me what y'all think.

Also TIL that marrying a prince makes you a prince/princess but marrying a princess does not necessarily make you a prince/princess. BUT—in the case of Etheria, I'm gonna pretend that misogyny does not exist and that marrying a princess just fucking makes you a princess. Because Catra being a princess is too funny of a concept to pass up.

Alright, that's all folks! I may or may not have a sort of crack-fic-with-too-much-plot on the way (because my two fanfic settings are angsty character studies or crackfic) so stay tuned for that if you're interested! I've got catradora brain rot so I guess this is all i write now.

Notes:

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Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of the catradora brain rot collection