Chapter Text
vanishing point: a spot on the horizon line at which all receding parallel lines start, end, converge and disappear.
i.
scratch
There’s a list of them—the memories that Catra would like to scratch, scratch, scratch out of existence. They’re corrosive things, these memories. An itching in her skull. A sickness in her chest. Her claws ache to tear them apart; to shred every memory into ribbons, reducing them to meaningless streaks of color and sound.
And still, the ribbons would remain. Pieces. Memories of memories. In fury, she’d scorch the colors black, and use the smoke to suffocate every sound into silence.
And what could be better than that silence, that empty darkness? What could be better than a blank list, a clean slate of memory? Finally, she’d be someone else, someone better.
But somehow—despite time and space and Catra’s own best efforts—the list remains. The memories crowd ever closer and more abundant, while "better” remains elusive as ever.
alone
In the Horde, being alone was a prerequisite. Hordak could cram and cram recruits into his barracks—fill them to bursting and pile people on top of each other—and still, the loneliness would pervade. That was just how the Horde was. How it would always be. If you weren’t alone from the start, the Horde would make you that way.
Catra didn’t know the exact logistics, but she could do the math. The Horde’s ranks were massive, more massive than any pre-existing supply of Etherian orphans could satisfy. So it stood to reason that when the Horde needed more soldiers, it simply made more orphans. More orphans meant more soldiers. More soldiers meant more hands with which to create orphans. And so the cycle continued onwards forever.
Catra often wondered if the Horde killed her parents—if she was one of the orphans the Horde had made to refill its ranks.
It was a bad thought. In fact, it was the worst kind of thought—the kind of thought that sent the world teetering from its fragile axis.
Because what the hell was Catra supposed to do with that thought, if it was true? The Horde was all she’d ever known. If all she’d ever known is evil and cruelty, then what did that make Catra? What did she know, except the worst things imaginable?
So every time she thought about it, she tried to forget it. The world kept turning, and things weren’t exactly right, but they were enough.
Still, she never knew her parents. Where her own name came from, she didn’t even know. It was just what she’d been called as long as she could remember: Catra. A designation given to her by the Horde, perhaps? It would be nice to know. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t be.
Her earliest days were a blur of fear and hunger; endless hours of clawing, dodging and running. Catra was small, smaller than most, and somehow that made her existence a crime. As punishment, the larger kids devised many not-so-creative ways to torment her—driving their sweaty knuckles into her stomach, kicking their dirty feet into her shins, grabbing at Catra’s meager rations with their grimy, greedy fingers.
The Horde didn’t feed her much as it was. But frequently Catra found herself with even less. Many nights, they left her with nothing. Nothing except blinding pain, budding bruises, and aching hunger.
Slowly, she learned to be quick—to escape with what was hers. Slowly, she learned to fight—to claw through the people who threatened her.
Slowly, she learned to be strong.
Because who would look out for her otherwise? No one. Not a single person. She was alone. Maybe someday, with some luck, she’d show enough promise as a cadet to join a team, or a squadron. And as a soldier among comrades, Catra could pretend that she wasn’t so alone. Just like everyone in the Horde did when they got older.
But the Horde never truly needed all the orphans it made. Hordak prefered to weed out a few early on, letting hunger and bullies claim the weakest of them. Catra refused to be counted among the weakest.
Though she remembers a few bad nights. The closest calls, the nights when weakness was at its strongest.
She remembers one night, in particular.
The whole Fright Zone had sweltered like an enormous furnace, blisteringly hot and drenched in smog. Sweat and dehydration sapped at Catra’s energy. She was tired. Hungry. Thirsty. When the bigger kids came—laughing their hyena laughs—Catra’s sluggishness had betrayed her. She managed to slip away eventually, but not before they kicked the air from her lungs and blackened one of her eyes.
Catra barely escaped the skirmish with half of her ration—a mealy bar of hard-packed nutrients, now torn down the middle. As she settled into a corner, sinking to the floor with her back against the wall, Catra felt half-sick. The air was hot, so hot, and her injured body seemed to bake and boil in the heat.
“Owie!” a high voice suddenly exclaimed, and Catra jumped to see a hand suddenly reaching toward her face. “Does that hurt?”
Frightened, Catra gave a terrible hiss—the most threatening she could muster despite her exhaustion and small size—and jerked her head away. The hand retreated with a small gasp of surprise.
Glaring, Catra looked up to see a small girl standing above her, barefoot and sweaty. Griminess was expected for Horde orphans, and yet this girl seemed cleaner than most. Childishly plump, not gaunt. Dimples in her cheeks.
Oddest of all was the tassel of wheat-colored hair gathered at the girl’s neck, the strands surprisingly soft-looking and well-kept. Catra’s hair was a wild, mangy thicket by comparison, and she almost grew self-conscious of it.
“What d’you want?” Catra half-hissed, squeezing her back even more tightly into the wall.
Hostility radiated from Catra’s every nerve, but the girl didn’t seem to care. Her hand remained outstretched, hovering close to Catra’s face. The brush of her fingers restrained only by the hesitation in the girl’s face. Catra’s eyes continued to dart between them: the hand and the girl’s eyes. The hand. The girl’s eyes. Over and over again.
“I don’t—” The girl hesitated before finally lowering her hand. “Your eye. It looks hurt.”
“It is hurt,” Catra said, voice shrill. She gestured to the black eye. “Haven’t you gotten one before?”
“Nuh-uh,” replied the girl, shaking her head. “Can I help?”
Catra’s mismatched gaze sharpened in annoyance, the yellow eye near-incandescent beneath the ring of blue and black. “No. You can’t. Not unless you have magic, or something.”
The girl shook her head again. No magic. As Catra expected.
Catra was too hungry to continue the conversation. Instead, she elected to clamp her mouth around the ration bar and tear, rending the food like an animal. The girl continued to watch her in awe and confusion.
Suspicious, Catra lowered her ration bar and said: “Don’t try it. This is my food—go get your own!”
The girl’s gaze wandered to what remained of the ration bar in Catra’s hand. Her eyes widened.
"That’s your dinner? It’s so small.”
“It was bigger before.”
“Before what?”
“Before a bunch of meanies took a lot of it,” Catra huffed, refusing to meet the other girl’s eyes. She was ashamed to have lost to them—lost her food, lost her dignity. Though Horde orphans don’t know much of dignity. Not orphans like Catra, anyway.
A pause between them. And then—
“That’s really mean. I’m really sorry they did that.”
Catra looked up at the girl once more, confused by the sincerity and softness of her words. Her eyes narrowed involuntarily. Was this girl even real? Or was this some sort of trick? A ploy to steal what little Catra had?
The girl smiled. She was missing one of her front teeth, but it was a soft smile. A smile as soft as her words. Catra had never seen, heard, or felt soft before. She hadn’t even known the word back then. Soft. Nothing in the Horde had been soft. Not the sky above, not the ground below. All of it was hard and heavy and mechanical.
But the girl—this strange, soft, smiling, all-too-pretty girl—leaned close to Catra, lowering her voice to a whisper. She should have felt threatened. She should have pushed her away, swiped a claw across those round cheeks and cheerful eyes.
But she didn’t. Catra was so confused by the sheer lack of threat that she forgot to flinch, forgot to back away. She did absolutely nothing as the girl began to whisper words directly into her ear, closer physically than Catra had ever allowed anyone.
“Stay here,” the girl told Catra in that too-loud whisper, the kind children always use to tell their secrets. “I’ll be right back.”
The girl darted out of sight. And for the first time in her life, Catra wasn’t quite relieved to be left alone.
Minutes passed. Long minutes. Many minutes. Time stretched, lounging long and tortuous. Catra occupied herself by gnawing on what remained of the ration bar, wondering if the girl would ever return. Or if she had even existed at all.
But apparently, she had. Catra jumped at the sensation of someone tapping on her shoulder. The girl had suddenly reappeared at her side, still smiling. There was something in her hand.
“Here,” said the girl, dropping a full ration bar into Catra’s lap. “We won’t let them steal this one.”
Catra’s jaw dropped, astounded. Her hands cradled the ration bar like something precious—something mythical and unfathomable. “You’re giving me your food?”
“Well, not all of it,” the girl said, shrugging somewhat sheepishly. “I usually have some extras.”
With that, the girl pulled another ration bar from the waistband of her Horde-issued shorts. Two ration bars. The girl had two ration bars. One for Catra and one for herself. And more incredibly, both of them were wrapped. Clean. Undented. Clearly not stolen—not unless the girl could turn invisible and grab them fresh from the factories.
“How’d you get so many?” Catra asked, even more disbelieving than before. She’d never heard of anyone receiving more than one ration bar.
“Shadow Weaver,” the girl explained. “She gives me extras, sometimes, if I train really hard. Harder than everyone else. Shadow Weaver says if I work hard, she’ll make me somebody important someday.”
Catra had, on occasion, seen the dark, scary, impossibly tall sorceress gliding her way through the Horde barracks. Everything about her seemed dangerous. Catra had always avoided wandering into her path—or her notice. It was difficult to imagine someone so terrifying giving rewards to anyone, no matter how well they performed.
Catra jumped as the girl dropped to the ground across from her. No one had ever sat so closely with Catra before. Or so casually.
The girl tore open her ration bar and stuffed a large chunk of it into her mouth. Catra swallowed a laugh at the girl’s overstuffed cheeks and unabashed glee.
Glee. Catra had never seen such a thing before. And she knew from firsthand experience that the ration bars, however nourishing they were, weren’t exactly joyous things to consume. If this girl was gleeful, it wasn’t because of the ration bar. It was because of Catra.
“I’m Adora,” announced the girl—Adora—speaking around a mouthful of gray ration dust. “What’s your name?”
Blue-gray, disconcertingly friendly eyes bored into Catra’s mismatched blue and yellow ones. Catra’s instincts screamed to take the ration bar and run, or take Adora’s ration bar for herself too and then run. But it didn’t feel right. Adora was being nice. Too nice. Nicer than anyone had ever been, ever, in the history of the world.
“Catra,” she said. “My name’s Catra.”
An even broader smile erupted across Adora’s face. “Well, Catra, if any meanies steal your food again, you can always come find me.”
promise
“You look out for me, and I look out for you.”
Catra really, truly thought that no matter how the world grew or shook or crumbled, there would always be a Catra so long as there was an Adora, and an Adora so long as there was a Catra.
“You promise?”
Catra wanted it to be true. She wanted to believe Adora’s promise so badly, she turned herself into a liar.
Because that was the nature of promises, after all. Either promises only make liars—or only liars make promises. It was a chicken-egg problem to be sure, but the fact remained that Adora lied to Catra. And by believing Adora’s promise, Catra lied to herself.
She should have known. In fact, deep down, she did know. From the start, Catra should have just accepted the awful, angry truth: that hearts are singular, proprietary—incapable of belonging to anything or anyone outside the ribcage they call home.
Catra didn’t choose Adora. She never begged for her friendship or her attention. It was Adora—pretty and optimistic and generous Adora—who chose Catra. Adora chose to make that promise; she chose to sit beside Catra in the barracks and rope their fates together.
Adora, who was so easy to trust. Always evaporating Catra’s tears with that kind smile, that gentle touch. Even then, it should have been obvious that Adora hadn’t belonged in the Fright Zone. How could she have belonged in that place, that wasteland of shadow and storm clouds? Adora was nothing like that, nothing like the rest of them. She shone too brightly; a patch of golden sky—a horizon drenched in sunrise, utterly untouched by the curtain of smog over their heads.
And someday, Catra would learn just how like a horizon Adora could be. Distant. Untouchable. Pretty to look at but impossible to follow.
Not that Catra wasn’t grateful, at the time. Adora’s promise took every scary facet of the world and folded it into a small, neat little box. Manageable. Simple. Good and clean and mutually beneficial, just as Adora liked things.
And someday, Catra would learn that Adora would always be good at that. Oversimplifying things. Weaponizing selflessness to get what she needed.
But she was young and scared, and the only world Catra wanted was Adora’s world. The horizon line. A patch of clear, golden sky.
“I promise.”
nightmare
Catra used to have a sleep problem.
She had no problem falling asleep, really. It was what happened after she fell asleep that bothered her so.
Catra often dreamed that she found herself trapped in a dark, empty nothing . No one around. Nothing to see. No sound at all. She would scream until her lungs broke apart and still no one would hear her, no one would find her. No one cared and no one was looking for her.
“It’s just a silly dream,” Adora always said when Catra brought it up, an amused sort of smile twisting across her lips. “That’ll never happen.”
And most of the time Catra would let the dream go, switching the topic and pushing it to the back of her mind. But other times, she needed more. More reassurance, more proof.
“But what if Beast Island is like that?” Catra would then ask, voice thick with terror. “What if I get sent to Beast Island, and I’m all by myself—”
Adora always just kept smiling. “Beast Island has monsters and plants and stuff, it wouldn’t be like that. And besides, I’d never let you get sent to Beast Island.”
“Shadow Weaver could send me there.”
“But she wouldn’t.”
“Yes, she would. She hates me!”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“She does.”
“I wouldn’t let her send you there,” Adora would insist, each word final and deliberate. An oath of sorts, even if it wasn’t explicitly made. “And even if she did,” Adora always continued, “I’d find you and bring you back. We made a promise, remember?”
Catra always nodded, acknowledging that Adora was probably right. And that would more or less end the longer conversations about the dream.
These conversations didn’t stop that horrible nightmare, though, however much Adora tried. It occurred infrequently at first. A couple nightmares every few days. That was manageable enough. But eventually, the dreams assumed a more nightly schedule. Catra would wake each night with a gasp, pulse skidding beneath her ribcage, skin soaked in sweat. Sometimes the nightmare would even jolt her upright, causing her forehead to slam into the ceiling of the top bunk.
“Catra?” would come Adora’s drowsy voice from the bunk beneath her, roused by the loud clang of Catra’ skull on metal. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Catra would mutter, rubbing at the bruise forming between her eyebrows. “Just fine.”
At that point, Catra elected to forgo sleep entirely. Better not to sleep than to sleep restlessly, she figured. She’d lie awake long after the other cadets fell asleep, blue and yellow eyes squinting into the darkness of the barracks. The silence was eerily reminiscent of the dream, she thought. But at least this was darkness she knew.
In fact, all was going well until Catra started to doze off during Shadow Weaver’s training sessions.
“She won’t do it again, I promise!” Adora protested, once again standing as a barrier between one of Shadow Weaver’s rages and Catra’s crouched, fearful form. Shadow Weaver had seen Catra nod off this time, mistaking exhaustion for laziness. Or worse, impertinence.
“Please forgive her. She’s just been having trouble sleeping lately,” Adora insisted, voice firm yet pleading. She hardly flinched as writhing, menacing shadows began to manifest all around them.
“I thought sleep would be the one thing you’d excel at, Cadet,” Shadow Weaver hissed at Catra over Adora’s shoulder. “But you can’t even seem to manage that.”
Catra didn’t know what to say. How could she apologize for something so utterly outside her control? She would erase the dream if she could, wash it from her mind. But the dream was within her and going nowhere, no matter how hard she tried to rid herself of it.
Eventually, the shadows dissipated and Shadow Weaver swept out of the room. Catra and Adora breathed synchronous sighs of relief.
That night, as Catra began to climb up to her bunk, Adora gave her tail a gentle tug. Catra looked down at her questioningly.
“Why don’t you just sleep down here tonight?”
When they were very little, Catra and Adora had occasional sleepovers where they talked all night long. Well, almost all night long. Catra would inevitably fall asleep at the foot of Adora’s bed when they had both tired themselves out. The bunks were narrow as it was, and it was more comfortable for Catra that way. But as training grew in intensity, their sleep had become more valuable. And those sleepovers became a thing of the past. This was the first time Adora had suggested such a thing in a long while.
“How’s that gonna help anything?”
“Well,” Adora began with a shrug, “you could fall asleep holding onto my ankle or something. And then if you have the nightmare again, you’ll feel it and know it’s not real.”
Catra examined the ground. “I don’t think—”
“I think it’ll help,” Adora said. “And if you’re having a nightmare, at least I’ll know and we can talk about it.”
Catra didn’t really want to wake Adora if the nightmare struck again. They all needed their sleep, and disrupting the sleep patterns of Shadow Weaver’s favorite cadet seemed like a particularly effective way to make Catra’s nightmare a reality.
“We can just try it for one night, if you want,” Adora then offered. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”
Such simple logic. Adora’s specialty. How could Catra argue with her?
Slowly, Catra nodded in agreement. Adora smiled and shifted to make space toward the end of the cot, pulling the blanket so that it only covered above her knees. Catra curled herself there, resting her hand tentatively against Adora’s ankle.
At that moment, Catra was determined to keep this plan from working. She would stay awake again and lie, telling Adora that the nightmare returned despite their efforts. Surely this couldn’t be a good way for either of them to sleep, crammed into a tiny cot like this. Certainly, they were too old for this sort of thing.
But for Adora, she would pretend to try.
And the lights went out as scheduled.
From the top bunk, the barracks had always seemed completely silent. Catra’s bunk was suspended midair, separated from the world below, all sound smothered by the padding of the cot. But down here, the barracks were distinctly louder. Dripping with water. Filled with creaking cots. Intercut with coughs and sniffles.
She could hear and feel Adora slowly drift off to sleep, her breaths growing as steady and rhythmic as the engines of the Horde’s machines. The blanket shifted slightly with those breaths, up and down, up and down.
Cold bit at Catra’s skin, uncovered by Adora’s blanket. Catra quickly realized her own stupidity. She should’ve grabbed the blanket from her own cot before settling down here, but she couldn’t risk waking Adora now.
At least Catra’s hand was warm where it met Adora’s ankle. She pressed her side closer to Adora’s legs, letting their warmth soak into her.
It seemed that everything about Adora was noisy and warm and moving. Even in sleep, she was so present and persistent, demanding all of Catra’s attention. Unwittingly and eternally pushing all other thoughts out of Catra’s mind.
Catra counted Adora’s breaths, measuring them against the pulse in Adora’s ankle. For hours, Catra listened to the subtleties of shifting fabric and Adora’s quiet, sleeping sighs until, finally, she fell asleep.
It was years before Catra had that nightmare again.
But it did come back. It came back stronger, if anything. The nightmare pushed back in as soon as Adora left, occupying Adora’s space on the bed, tearing up Catra’s pillow into feathers and ribbons of shredded fabric.
numbered
Catra’s days were numbered. Numbered, yes. Measured, yes—but not in sunrises and sunsets.
Catra’s days were numbered by a single unit. A single, finite, terrifyingly quantifiable variable: the depth of Adora’s attachment to her. The day Adora stopped caring would be Catra’s last, and not by choice. Not by Catra’s choice, anyway.
Shadow Weaver hated Catra. There was no doubt in Catra’s mind about that. No doubt that she wanted to kill Catra, no doubt that the terrible act would bring Shadow Weaver nothing but pure delight.
Shadow Weaver, who was the only mother Catra had ever known. Shadow Weaver, whose masked gaze, though expressionless, always seemed to carry a special contempt for Catra above all others. Shadow Weaver, who looked at Adora with tenderness and pride—the likes of which Catra couldn’t even imagine.
Shadow Weaver, who wanted to kill Catra. Kill her. With a capital K, Kill.
She had been a child when she first realized this. A child. Barely more than six years old and foolish enough to traipse into the Black Garnet chamber at her own risk. And yet at six years old, she knew that her mother—or the closest thing she had to one—wanted her dead.
Shadow Weaver probably fantasized of ways to do it, too. Dreaming of the day she could finally off stupid, incompetent, impertinent Catra—just like she’d always wanted.
Oftentimes, Catra found herself wondering what it’d be like, when it finally happened. Not if, When. When Shadow Weaver finally executed her. Perhaps she would arrange some awful accident, using magic to drop something heavy on top of her. And of course it would be too easy to send her on a suicide mission, use her as cannon fodder, place her at the end of a rebel’s spearpoint.
Or maybe—and this was the one Catra really feared—Shadow Weaver would send her shadows to do it. Those writhing, horrific snakes of darkness, curling around everything, garroting even the barest trace of daylight. She'd been tormented with them before, and Catra worried that they’d climb down her throat—that she’d swallow them until her brain starved of oxygen.
She thought about this too much. Too much, and too often.
She was sure Shadow Weaver did too.
“What’s wrong?” Adora would always ask, noticing Catra’s distracted expression. Adora wore concern in the same way Catra wore disdain—with far too much pride.
She learned not to let it show on her face, when she thought of these things. Adora would only worry. And if Adora worried, she was unhappy. And Shadow Weaver wouldn’t tolerate Catra making Adora unhappy.
There was only one thing keeping Catra alive at that point. Adora cared for Catra. Adora wanted Catra around. Killing Catra would upset Adora, and Shadow Weaver would never upset her precious Adora.
It wasn’t about Catra at all. It never was. It was all about Adora.
And it would always be about Adora. Adora, the hero. Catra, the sidekick. And someday later…Catra the villain.
But Catra knew. She always knew that the second something changed—the second Adora stopped wanting Catra around—it’d be all over. Shadow Weaver would be done with it. Done with her.
“Nothing,” Catra would reply, managing a reassuring smile. Because that was what she would be, if Adora stopped asking. Nothing. Dead and gone. Catra only mattered if Adora thought she did. Catra only mattered if Adora asked "What’s wrong?" ” every time fear crept across Catra’s face.
Adora never knew, though. She never knew the kind of power she had. Power over Catra. Power over Shadow Weaver. Power, endless power, tiara or no tiara. Sword or no sword.
Eventually, Catra convinced herself that it never meant anything. That Adora was just a survival mechanism. Of course she had to be friends with Adora. Of course Catra had to pretend to care. If she didn’t, Shadow Weaver would have disposed of her. They weren’t really friends. They never were.
When Catra loved Adora, it was only to stay alive.
That was it. Nothing more to it.
But sometimes, when Catra masked her fear with smiles, when she pretended that nothing was wrong...it wasn’t just for Shadow Weaver. Maybe that was the sickest part. That it wasn’t always about staying alive. That sometimes, when she kept Adora from worrying, it was for Adora. For Adora and no one else. For those blue-gray eyes that cared too much, and saw too little.
But it was all so tangled and wrong. It couldn’t be love if the alternative was death. Wasn’t that true? Didn’t Catra deserve a choice?
Adora had a choice—every choice that mattered. And still she chose wrong.
broken
“You don’t have to go back there! We can fix this!”
Adora had watched a lifetime of Catra’s misfortunes. Shadow Weaver’s endless abuses. The malnourishment, the bullying, the very nature of their profession—namely, that they’d be forced to die for some overlord who couldn’t care less for any of them. None of this had bothered Adora. None of this had forced Adora to consider, even for a second, that they were on the wrong side.
But Catra had always questioned it. She always knew there was something wrong—that people weren’t meant to live this way, the way they lived in the Horde. Of course, she had never expressed those concerns out loud. She wouldn’t grant Shadow Weaver the satisfaction of branding her a traitor.
But Catra knew, at least, that no good organization—army, empire, whatever the Horde called itself—would employ someone like Shadow Weaver. Not that Adora ever noticed. Not that Shadow Weaver ever gave her a reason to notice.
The Horde had been good to Adora, and Adora had been good to Catra. So it wasn’t like Catra could just up and leave. Where would she run to? Who would she run to?
At least she knew the Horde. There was a saying she’d heard once: the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. And boy, was the Horde ever a devil. But she had no guarantee that there was something better. After all—if there was something better, something stronger, wouldn’t Catra have been rescued from this nightmare by now?
But eventually, there came a day when everything changed.
A day when Catra found Adora standing before her, claiming that her eyes had finally been opened wide. That the true nature of the Horde—the evil of its ways—had finally become clear.
Catra could only stare at her, at those slate-hewn eyes she had known her whole life. The world began to shake, to crumble, and the neat little box that Catra called a life began to unfold itself.
And what, Catra wondered, had spurred this miraculous realization?
Adora was only too eager to explain. It was the suffering of these random rebel townspeople, of course. These complete strangers. Strangers whose only misfortunes probably consisted of the few times the Horde had encroached their lands.
As if that was the worst possible fate. If they thought being attacked by the Horde was bad, they should’ve tried growing up in it.
The Horde had tormented Catra—Adora’s best friend—for years, and Adora had never said a word. But the second that some hick villagers complain about the Horde, Adora was ready to defect? Had she not been paying attention? Did she not care about Catra at all?
She remembered balancing Adora’s Force Captain pendant between her fingernails, examining its shine in the smog-blurred sunlight.
Jealousy had surged through her at the sight of that damned thing, that stupid metal trinket that could never belong to her. Shadow Weaver would never permit Catra to become Force Captain. Catra couldn’t even conceive of that kind of ambition, couldn’t even imagine being promoted, or acting as any sort of leader.
Never her. Never Catra. Everything Catra wanted had to come through Adora. All of it—love, belonging, leadership, victory—that was Adora’s to give, never Catra’s to earn.
And without Adora, Catra would lose what little she had. Shadow Weaver would simply kill her.
But it didn't matter to Adora. Adora had to leave, for them—these random villagers who never did anything for her. Not for Catra, who would probably die in Adora’s absence. Hadn’t they made a promise? Wasn’t Adora breaking that promise?
And worse was the implication of it all. When Catra found Adora in Thaymor, it was already too late. Adora had already decided to leave the Horde at that point—she had merely been caught by Catra on the way out, departing without a moment’s consideration of what she was leaving behind.
Maybe Catra could have accepted this if Adora had said anything that was remotely fair. Something like, “This is bad, Catra. But it’s nothing like what the Horde did to you.” Something like, “I can’t believe I stood by all these years and let Shadow Weaver do all those terrible things to you."
But this wasn’t about fairness.
It was about Adora. It was always, always, always about Adora. Catra could suffer at Shadow Weaver’s hands, but Adora wouldn’t dirty her own.
And if Catra decided to come with her? Well, that was simply an afterthought. Catra supposed she could keep playing sidekick so long as she had Adora’s permission.
Well. That was where Adora was wrong. There was nothing to fix. Clearly, something was already broken beyond repair.
And what could Catra do with something broken, except break it some more?
lose
The Horde’s roof—its railings and rickety balconies—had always belonged to two people, and two people alone: Adora and Catra. It was their kingdom. Their empire. The rest of the world was too afraid to walk across those crumbling grates, too afraid to press their weight against the rusty guardrails.
But Catra’s feet always struck solid ground. And Adora had a talent for keeping stride with her, stepping exactly where she stepped and not an inch off target.
Adora was staring at the horizon—at the smoke curling from some distant battleground. The sun was hazy through the smog, glowing a sickly green-yellow between the fumes of the Horde’s factories.
Adora stared and stared at that horizon line, anxious to know which side would walk away victorious. But Catra wasn’t paying attention. She was too busy staring at Adora.
“Do you ever worry that we’re losing?” Adora asked. She was sitting with her elbows resting on her knees, legs pulled close to her chest. There was an exhaustion in her eyes that Catra had never seen before.
Catra, meanwhile, had sprawled out on the metal grates. She couldn’t care less. She really couldn’t.
“What’s there to lose?” said Catra, because there was really only one thing she could think of.
gone
Catra didn’t want Adora to come back.
Why would she? What did Adora ever give her, anyway? A few smiles? A few laughs? A body to throw in between Shadow Weaver’s wrath and Catra’s cowering form?
Well, it didn’t matter anymore. Adora was gone. Shadow Weaver’s golden child had defected, departed—and it wasn’t even Catra’s fault.
In fact, Catra was the one who'd tried to fetch her. Catra had begged her. Threatened her, even. She'd tried anything, everything, to get Adora to come home.
Whatever. It didn't matter. With Adora gone, Catra’s quality of life had only improved. She had assumed the role of Force Captain in Adora’s place. Yes, that was right. Force Captain. Catra was Force Captain now. With half the effort, Catra had nabbed Adora’s prized promotion.
Not that Adora seemed to want it anymore. Catra couldn’t fathom what, exactly, Adora wanted these days, because it certainly wasn’t Catra’s company.
While Shadow Weaver hadn’t yet killed Catra in Adora’s absence, her behavior hadn’t changed one bit. They spoke infrequently—they always had. But whenever they did speak, each encounter was more of a confrontation than a conversation, with Shadow Weaver spitting contempt in every word.
Though these days, there was something new in that coarse, angry growl of a voice. Bitterness. Bitterness that this was all Shadow Weaver could claim: Catra to order around, and the ghost of Adora’s potential to chase across Etheria.
But Hordak did manage to force Shadow Weaver to give Catra the Force Captainship. She’d had no choice—just an order to follow. Because even Shadow Weaver answered to someone, just as Catra answered to Shadow Weaver.
There was a catch, of course. Catra had only received the job because Adora had cast it aside. Which meant that Catra still held nothing that Adora did not give.
On the other hand, power was still power. Leadership was still leadership. And with Adora gone, Catra had more of everything than she ever did before. More power, more leadership, more freedom, more respect.
And more time to think. Alone.
So good riddance, thought Catra. If Adora thought she was too good for Catra’s company, then she could stay gone.
But that didn’t stop Catra from, well...thinking about it. Thinking about what would happen if Adora did return.
What else was she supposed to do, with so much time to think? Without conversation to fill her spare hours? It was difficult to think of anything else as she lay sprawled across her cot—the cot that would have belonged to Adora—had she stayed a day longer. A cot in the Force Captain barracks, one nicer than all the others. Softer. Plusher. But cold and stiff from disuse.
Catra hadn’t even considered this when Adora had been promoted. That Adora would have moved bunks—and Catra would have learned to sleep alone.
Well. It didn’t matter anyway. No matter who was Force Captain right now, Adora or Catra, Catra would still be sleeping alone. It seemed that was what she was meant to do.
But in that cot, she wasted her hours thinking away. Thinking that i f Adora came back, she’d have to do it by choice. Even if Shadow Weaver managed to capture her, the Horde couldn’t convince her to fight with them against her will. She was too smart. Too stubborn. She was a people-pleaser, sure, but the Horde was no longer the type of people she wanted to please.
What would make Adora come back by choice, then? Nothing. No one. She knew that the Horde was evil now, and that was that. What reason would she have to return?
Except, well.
Except that Catra was still here.
Catra was here, sleeping in Adora’s bed. Or what would have been her bed.
sick
Catra awoke to Adora nudging her shoulder.
“Wha...what?” Catra said, disoriented. Her eyes immediately found Adora upright in bed, retracting the arm she’d used to nudge Catra awake.
It was still the middle of the night. The lights were off and someone—probably Rogelio—was snoring at the volume of artillery fire. Catra had been sleeping too deeply to notice before, but now she certainly did. Getting back to sleep would be damn near impossible.
“What’s wrong?” Catra asked, battling a mixture of grogginess and annoyance as she squinted at Adora through the darkness. Her eyes could see better than most, in darkness like this.
Adora’s first answer was a small groan. She’d scrunched her eyes shut in a strange expression—like there was some great pain behind her eyelids—and pressed a hand tightly against her own forehead.
Then, in a hoarse voice, Adora said: “You should go back up to your own bunk.”
“What?” Catra demanded. “Why?”
Catra didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t often that the barracks were so warm, and she had been quite cozy at the foot of Adora’s bed.
“I, uh…” Adora’s voice wavered. Her eyes were open now, staring at nothing because it was too dark, but Catra saw the tears gathering at their edges. “You should just go. Please, Catra.”
That was when Catra noticed the sheen of sweat on Adora’s face. And remembered, suddenly, that the Fright Zone barracks had never—not once—been warm enough to be considered cozy . Rooms in the Horde were either sweltering or freezing—never anything in between.
A terrible suspicion entered Catra’s mind then, about the temperature. About the warmth. And so Catra leaned forward with an outstretched arm, ignoring Adora’s protests as she cupped a palm against Adora’s forehead.
Catra nearly gasped. Adora’s forehead practically burned to the touch.
The barracks weren’t warm at all. Adora was. Adora’s skin was on fire with fever. And Catra had been sleeping comfortably. Obliviously. Enjoying that warmth like it was her own personal furnace.
Catra lowered her hand, watching in horror as Adora resisted a fit of shivers.
There were no real doctors in the Horde. If a cadet had done something particularly heroic, they could maybe get treatment for a combat or training injury...but not for illnesses. A fever was a death sentence for many Horde soldiers. That was, after all, how Hordak preferred it. He considered sickness a sign of weakness.
But that wasn’t right. Adora wasn’t weak. She was the best cadet of their year. She broke records on nearly every simulation and training course—
“D-don’t tell Shadow Weaver,” Adora pleaded. “She’ll be so disappointed in me—”
“Who cares about Shadow Weaver?” hissed Catra, rearranging herself on the bed so that she too was sitting upright. “That fever is really bad, Adora.”
“I know,” Adora said, exhaling sharply. “I know, okay? I just—I don’t know what to do. If I can’t go to t-training tomorrow—”
“Are you seriously worried about training right now?” Catra said. “Adora. If you don’t get better, you could die .”
Adora could barely control her own shivering now. She hunched over, arms wrapped around her own chest as her body continued shaking uncontrollably.
“I know that,” Adora said, and this time she was fighting back tears. “Y-you need to go up to your own bunk, before I g-give it to you too—”
“No.”
“Catra, please —”
“We’ve been sharing the same bed,” Catra reminded her with exasperation. “If I’m gonna get this thing, there’s no avoiding it now.”
Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say. Catra’s words only made Adora’s tears stream faster. “I’m sorry,” Adora cried in a half-whisper, trying but failing to stifle her voice with her hand. “I should’ve s-said something earlier—”
Catra grabbed Adora’s wrist and held it tight. “Stop that. I’m not angry at you for getting sick.”
Though she didn’t keep hold of it for long. Adora was quick to yank it out of Catra’s hand, though Catra didn’t really see the point. Did she really think she could keep Catra from getting sick by maintaining her distance now, hours after they’d been training and wrestling and sitting side-by-side?
“But it’s not j-just me,” Adora said miserably, slipping under the blanket and speaking through the fabric. “It’s you too. I’m gonna g-get everyone sick.”
Adora’s shivering made the whole blanket quiver. Catra stared at it numbly, recalling all the stories she had heard. The Horde cadets that fell asleep and never woke up in the morning. The coughs in the barracks that turned to heaving gasps and then, finally, eerie silence.
A moment passed in which Catra imagined that happening to Adora, and her entire body was seized with a breathless panic. The thought of it—of Adora never waking up, of someone carrying her out of the barracks never to be seen again—was worse than anything else Catra had ever conceived of. Even the thought of Shadow Weaver trying to kill her didn’t compare.
The feeling wasn’t exactly unique, though. It was common enough once, during those old nightmares—the ones that trapped her in that lightless, empty place. Helpless. Hopeless. Alone and falling to pieces in the darkness.
A frustrated cry tore itself from Catra’s throat. “Forget about everyone else!” she hissed. “You need to sleep, Adora. Sleep and get better.”
Adora’s voice still shook from behind her blanket. “Y-you think I haven’t tried?”
“Try harder!”
Adora heaved a sigh, but the chattering of her teeth broke that one breath into a hundred pieces. “It’s no u-use, Catra,” she said. “I-I’m too cold. And n-no matter what I do, I can’t stop s-shivering.”
They fell into silence, then. Adora, shivering under her blanket. Catra, still upright at the foot of the bed. She couldn’t stop staring at Adora’s form beneath that flimsy layer of fabric. Couldn’t stop staring at that awful trembling. Couldn’t stop wondering what it’d be like, if there was no one under that blanket at all.
“Move over,” Catra ordered, and began scooting further up the length of the bed.
She felt Adora stiffen against her. “W-what?”
Catra kept moving up, pushing with an elbow to create some space for herself. “You want warmth? Fine. I’ll give you warmth. Now scoot over.”
Realizing just what Catra was attempting to do, Adora raised an elbow of her own and tried to shove Catra back. “No. No, Catra. You’ll get sick—”
“Don’t care,” Catra said, fighting off Adora’s elbow and flopping into the sliver of space she had made for herself.
Adora kept trying to shove her off the bed. “Don’t be stupid—”
“You’re the one who’s being stupid. I’m trying to help.”
Adora kept pushing, but Catra wouldn’t budge. She was determined to stay crammed against Adora’s side, steadfast, immobile...and warm.
In the end, Adora was forced to give up. She huffed and lowered the blanket—finally acknowledging that it wouldn’t do either of them much good.
When Adora rolled over, they found themselves face-to-face with one another, staring across the same pillow. Adora’s eyes were glassy from tears and sickness. If there had been any light, Catra would have seen her own reflection in them.
“Why are you doing this?” Adora asked quietly.
Catra was quiet for several moments. And then—
“If this thing takes you, it better take me too.”
Adora didn’t reply, at first. Only stared across the pillow. Stared, but with an expression that Catra could only describe as sad. Grateful, somehow, but sad.
And then Adora was shivering again, her whole body curling in on itself to keep the trembling under control.
“Give me the blanket,” Catra said, though she was searching for the corner herself—Adora was hardly in a position to help. It wasn’t long before she had layered it over the two of them, having pulled the nearest edge from where it had been neatly tucked beneath the cot.
Between the blanket and the heat from Adora’s fever, the warmth was near-unbearable, but Catra decided not to mind. Instead, Catra folded Adora into her arms, sharing her warmth, her comfort, her heartbeat.
Adora gave a small sigh, then pressed her face into the hollow of Catra’s collarbone. She was so close that Catra could feel Adora’s heartbeat beating against her own chest. Close enough to hear it too, pouding frantically to stave off the sickness that threatened it.
“Thank you, Catra,” whispered Adora, all three words muffled against Catra’s skin.
During their training sessions, Adora was always the height of confidence. All fearless cries of exertion and endless, unbeatable determination. She fought everything headfirst, incapable of losing—incapable of even understanding the meaning of that word, and the helplessness that came with it.
But here was something she couldn’t defeat with pure force. Something that turned her own body against her, something so completely beyond her control. She was helpless for the first time in her life, and it made her seem so impossibly small and vulnerable. Small enough to accept this—this space between Catra’s arms—and the possibility of wanting someone else.
Her shivering didn’t stop. But there was, at the very least, another pair of arms to keep it at bay until the morning.
truth
If Catra acknowledged the truth, it was only when she was half-asleep. Only in the darkest and latest hours of the night so that, by morning, Catra could pretend she had dreamed every traitorous thought that had entered her head.
Late at night, in what would have been Adora’s bed, she imagined that Adora would come back for her.
But this was not a hope to be rescued. She had no interest in being rescued—if Adora swept into the Fright Zone and insisted that Catra defect alongside her, Catra would've been first to knock her off that stupid high horse. Catra couldn’t care less about Adora’s merry little band of rebels and their doomed cause. This wasn’t about Hordak or the princesses or magic or whatever else.
This was about them—about Catra and Adora—and no one else.
But mostly, it was about Adora.
She wanted Adora to come back to the Horde. She wanted Adora to stay, despite her stupid morals. Despite logic and right and wrong. She wanted Adora to stay for Catra, even when everything else about the Horde was meaningless. Even when it was painful. Even when it was what she hated most of all.
Wasn’t that only fair? Catra had always stayed in the Horde, always stayed with Adora, despite what it did to her. Why couldn’t Adora do the same?
“You look out for me, and I look out for you.”
Catra wanted Adora to love her more than she hated the Horde.
But she always forced herself to forget that by morning.
pretty
It was the hottest night Catra had ever known. A sticky, humid heat in the dead of summer, the kind that left the barracks blistering and unbearable. Adora and Catra had stripped down to nothing but shorts and loose undershirts, but there was no hope of getting sleep that night for either of them. There wasn’t a person alive who could sleep with that much sweat oozing out of their pores.
Instead, Adora and Catra had stayed up gossiping about their newest revelation—Kyle’s crush on Rogelio.
“Do you think he’s gonna make a move?” Adora asked, hiding her laughter behind a hand. It was easier for them to talk side by side like that, lying on the same pillow, even if it was a bit sweatier and warmer than separate bunks or even Catra at the foot of the bed. Adora’s forehead, for one, was slick with sweat, and she’d rolled her shirt up to the spot just above her bellybutton to keep herself cool.
Catra was careful to keep her eyes on Adora’s face and not anywhere else—not the exposed stomach, not the biceps revealed by her sleeveless undershirt, and especially not the long stretch of her legs sprawled across the bed.
This was common practice for Catra lately. It’d been too sudden—the way everyone else had morphed into teenagers. Adora, in particular, seemed to be growing faster than the rest of them. She had already sprouted taller than Catra, taller than all the cadets in their year except Rogelio.
Though height wasn’t Adora’s only advantage. Years of meticulous training had perfectly toned Adora’s muscles, and it was distracting—the way they swelled and strained and stretched during their daily exercises. Catra wasted so much time watching them that her own performance had started to slip.
Though that wasn’t because she liked Adora, of course. It was just that...well...Catra was jealous. Clearly jealous. It simply wasn’t fair that Adora got to be tall and strong—not when Catra was still so scrawny and short by comparison.
But no matter how she tried, she still struggled. Struggled to keep her eyes fastened to the walls as Adora changed each morning, always slipping that same white shirt over the defined muscles of her back and…well, the stuff on the other side. The stuff Catra commanded herself to never so much as imagine.
“No way,” Catra told her. “Who’d want to go out with Kyle, anyway? He’s ugly.”
She watched Adora’s brow furrow in disapproval. “That’s not nice, Catra. How’d you like it if someone called you ugly?”
And those were something else, too. Adora’s expressions. The way she scrunched up her eyes when she laughed or chewed her lips in moments of concentration. The gloating arch of her eyebrows as she bested Catra in their training fights, always pinning Catra to the floor in an unshakeable hold.
Though Adora's victories over Catra couldn’t just be blamed on distracting facial expressions. There were other factors, too—such as Adora's tendency to straddle her opponents with her full weight, effectively trapping them between her thighs.
It was her favorite tactic to use against Catra, in particular—mostly because it worked so well. And when it was over, Adora never missed the opportunity to gloat—to lean down over Catra and whisper her two favorite words:
“I win.”
It wasn’t fair. Not in the slightest.
Catra rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t care if someone called me ugly. Maybe you didn’t get the memo, but you don’t need to be pretty to win a war.”
A beat passed before Adora shot her a sideways glance—and a smirk. “You think I’m pretty?”
Catra’s claws dug into the bed. “What? No! That’s not what I meant!”
“Sure,” Adora said, smiling all the wider at Catra’s denial. “Whatever you say.”
Catra yanked the pillow out from under their heads and stuffed it over Adora’s face just to shut her up. “You’re such an idiot,” Catra grumbled, grateful that the pillow would shield her blazing cheeks from Adora’s sight. “Not everything is about you, y’know?”
“Okay, okay,” Adora laughed, finally wrestling the pillow out of her face. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”
“What else is new,” Catra muttered, putting the pillow back in its place and settling back down on the bed. She willed her gaze to remain straight ahead, far from Adora’s still-laughing eyes.
Adora nudged her with a too-warm shoulder. “I think you are too, you know.”
“What?” Catra huffed petulantly, sparing Adora only the briefest of glances.
“Pretty,” Adora said, reaching for Catra’s hand. “You’re pretty, Catra. Even if you don’t care.”
Catra’s cheeks burned as Adora slid her fingers between hers. She tried to convince herself that it was the hot weather—and the hot weather only—that brought such warmth and color to her cheeks. But Catra hadn’t been quite so good at lying to herself, back then.
parasite
That stupid, magic sword. That ridiculous shard of shimmering metal. Savior of the rebels. Envy of the Horde. The sword that brought forth She-Ra, the warrior who could crush Horde tanks beneath her naked palms.
It had a name, supposedly. The sword. Shadow Weaver had interrogated the information out of some unlucky rebel insurgent. Lonnie had been standing nearby as the words escaped the rebel’s dying lips, and within hours, the sword’s name had spread throughout the Fright Zone, if not all of Etheria.
The Sword of Protection. That was what the damn thing was called.
But Catra knew better. She knew what that sword was, what it did.
It was a parasite.
A magical parasite, but a parasite all the same. Catra had seen firsthand what that sword did to Adora. The way it infected her body—twisting it, changing it, shaping it for its own purpose.
She-Ra wasn’t a princess—she wasn’t some mystical savior of Etheria. She was merely a side effect of the infection. The defense mechanism. The sword had found its host and it wasn’t letting go.
And so, with each and every transformation, Catra watched that sword obliterate everything Catra knew about Adora. And what was left, after that transformation was finished? Nothing of Adora’s. Just those impossibly perfect golden curls. Those inhuman, flash-frozen irises. That towering body, rippling with unattainable muscles.
She-Ra was beautiful in the way that storms were. Breathtaking, but untouchable and unknowable. Dangerous.
Adora had been beautiful too, but not because she glowed or clad herself in gold. There was beauty in Adora’s lean but still-toned form, tumbling over adversaries in carefully calculated maneuvers. There was beauty in Adora’s smile and its genuine, perfectly ordinary kindness. There was even beauty in that ridiculous hair poof, however much Catra used to taunt her for it.
Adora was beautiful because she was Adora. And Catra would have gladly burned all of She-Ra away, if only to find Adora again beneath all that snake skin.
Because that wasn’t her. That wasn’t Adora. That was the creature that had consumed Adora. That had corrupted her. A being that held Adora’s body hostage so that it could parade around, wearing her face.
Adora wasn’t coming back, because there simply wasn’t an Adora anymore. Not the way there once was.
undercover
“Undercover training, undercover training, undercover training!” Catra chanted, shaking Adora’s shoulders with every repetition. She’d practically leapt onto Adora's back, causing her to visibly jump and dip under Catra’s weight.
“Okay, okay. I get it—undercover training week,” Adora said as she brushed Catra’s hands from her shoulders and waved Catra’s tail out of her face.
Compared to the rest of the cadets—Catra included—Adora sounded remarkably unenthused.
“Come on,” urged Catra. “It’s supposed to be the best week of training. All the graduated cadets said so.”
Adora spun toward the nearest mirror and busied herself with preparing her usual ponytail. She kept talking as she leaned over, flipping her hair upside down so that she wouldn’t be battling gravity.
“Yeah, but the graduated cadets said that the Whispering Woods simulation was hard. And it wasn’t.”
Catra scoffed. “It was hard. For everyone but you, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” Adora asked, flipping her hair back over.
She examined the resulting ponytail in the mirror for several moments, then grunted in dissatisfaction. As far as Catra could tell, there was nothing wrong with it. But evidently Adora had identified something that Catra couldn’t. Some miniscule imperfection, some tiny hair spilling out from its designated location. So Adora released her hair and started all over again.
“You aced that course,” Adora said, once again upside down. “Just like I did.”
“Yeah, but it was still hard,” grumbled Catra. “Which undercover training is not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be fun.”
“Fun,” Adora muttered bitterly, as if the word had done her some great offense. She gave her hair one last flip, and this time, the ponytail seemed to satisfy her. “Training’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to help us defeat the rebellion.”
And then, the next phase of Adora’s hair routine began. A layer of hairspray, to secure each and every hair in place.
Catra groaned over the hiss of the can. “Could you please just try to have fun for once in your life? Or at least try not to ruin it for the rest of us.”
Adora tossed the can back into her locker and slammed it shut. “I just don’t understand why you’re so eager to dress up like a rebel.”
“Uh, because spying on people is cool?” said Catra, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Admit it—it’d be cool to go undercover.”
Adora sniffed and folded her arms. “Actually, I'd prefer to attack my enemies head-on. And besides, I just don’t think I could stomach pretending to be a rebel. They’re just so—” Adora shuddered. “You know. Sparkly.”
“Yeah, well,” Catra said with a shrug. “You won’t have much of a choice this week. Not if you want to stay top of the class.”
The training started exactly as the former cadets described—a summary of the purpose of the Horde’s espionage efforts, an overview of Etherian culture and customs, profiles of the key players on the rebel side, and tips to help the cadets trick their way into the rebellion’s good graces.
Catra heard Adora scoff derisively. “Come on. Like I’m gonna pretend to be friends with Queen Angella. If I saw her, I’d just open fire.”
“That’s not the point, Cadet,” growled their instructor—a veteran spy who had obviously overheard Adora’s comment. “If you killed Queen Angella, her daughter would only take her place, and you would be arrested. But if you pretended to be a trusted citizen of Bright Moon, she might continue to tell you her plans, which you could then relay to the Horde—blocking the rebellion’s victories at every turn.”
Adora set her jaw. It was clear that she didn’t agree, though she didn’t raise any further critiques .
Ultimately, the last day of undercover training was the most exciting. First, they were to learn about disguise tactics. This meant sifting through piles of stolen rebel clothes and fabricating a convincing identity based on the appearance they chose.
After they had developed their aliases, all cadets were to enter a simulated interrogation. Their goal? To convince the program that they were exactly who they claimed to be. To do this, they had to recall intricate knowledge of the various rebel kingdoms and—more than anything—lie convincingly.
When the chests of rebel clothes arrived, the cadets descended on them like a pack of wolves. Catra was first to pounce on some pirate garb from Salineas, having yanked the clothes right out of Lonnie’s hands.
It was simply a good-looking outfit, Catra thought. Puffy sleeves and a comfortable jacket. Though she wasn’t a huge fan of the boots, or the eye patch.
Adora, unfortunately, had not been fast—or eager—enough. By the time she reached the ravaged chest of clothes, there was only one item left: a sparkly golden dress.
A dress from Bright Moon, of all places.
No one had wanted it. Mostly because it looked exactly like what a princess would wear.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Adora said with a groan. She lifted the dress as if it had a terrible smell, extending it at arm’s length and balancing it on a single finger.
Catra grinned at the dress, then at Adora. “Guess you’ll have to play the princess, princess.”
“Shut up,” snapped Adora, then marched to the locker room to change. She smacked Catra with the dress on the way out, and Catra found herself spitting glitter as she swatted the fabric out of her face.
Adora always took forever to change, so Catra worked on her alias in the meantime. She was to be Stella Seaweed , Cat of the Sea. A humble fisherwoman by day and a killer pirate by night. Catra thought the whole thing was all very creative—hilariously stupid, but just believable enough—and was still scribbling notes about her alter ego when she heard Adora step back into the room.
“I look ridiculous,” came Adora’s voice, grumbling yet again.
Catra looked up from her notebook.
And immediately dropped her pencil.
Adora looked exactly like one of the princesses the Horde had warned them about—tall, confident, shimmering with what looked like magic. She had released her ponytail from its usual hair tie, leaving the strands to fall loosely around her shoulders.
And her shoulders—Adora almost never revealed those, unless it was too hot to wear her usual long-sleeve shirt. This dress was sleeveless, though, revealing her shoulders, her back, the smooth skin around her collarbone.
“And this,” Adora complained further, picking at one of the golden sparkles on her skirt, “is definitely not my color.”
“Y...your hair— ” Catra stammered. Catra couldn’t even recall the last time Adora had worn it down in public. It might have looked nice, actually—really nice—if, obviously, Adora hadn't been dressed like the enemy.
A pretty, sparkling, dangerous enemy.
Self-conscious, Adora threaded her fingers through the long, blonde waves. “I know, I know. It looks awful. But I wanted to look as little like myself as possible.”
Well, she’d certainly succeeded at that. Catra hardly recognized her beneath all that glitter.
“So you’ve got the clothes,” Catra observed. “But what's your alias?”
Adora grimaced. “I’m Princess Sunshine. I, uh...rule a desert island.”
Catra pressed her lips together, struggling not to laugh. “Princess Sunshine?” she echoed. Never in her life had she heard such an utterly ridiculous name.
“Shut up,” Adora snapped again, but Catra absolutely would not.
“Princess Sunshine,” repeated Catra gleefully. “I cannot believe that was the name you chose!”
“Catra—” Adora said in a warning voice.
“What? Was ‘Princess Princess’ already taken?”
Adora let out another frustrated groan.“Look. All I want to do is take the exam, and then never speak of this again—”
“Are you kidding?” Catra exclaimed. “I am never letting this go.”
Though she would have to, ultimately, for Adora’s sake. Catra managed to get a decent score on her espionage exam. She had lost a fair number of points for not knowing how to swim, which, given the fact that she was supposed to be a pirate, had been a pretty huge oversight.
Adora, on the other hand, had absolutely flunked it. She hadn’t been able to tell a lie to save her life. Or her grade, for that matter. And so the espionage exam became the only test Adora had ever failed.
That night, Catra graciously provided a shoulder to cry on while Adora worked herself into a new level of hysterics. She sobbed all night long about how her life was ruined, how she’d never become Force Captain, how she’d be stuck mopping the Horde’s floors alone with Kyle forever.
She was crying so profusely that Catra could do nothing but sit there and stroke her hair, murmuring whatever soothing words she could muster. Comfort had never been Catra’s strong suit, but Adora was such a blubbering mess, Catra doubted she noticed.
“You won’t be scrubbing floors alone with Kyle. I’d be there too, scrubbing floors right alongside you. You know that.”
Catra meant it too, even if she did roll her eyes from behind Adora’s back. Shadow Weaver would never let her star pupil become anything less than Force Captain. But Adora always had an affinity for worst-case scenarios, and it was often Catra’s job to make those worst-case scenarios seem just a little less terrible.
Adora blubbered something completely incoherent into Catra’s shoulder. Catra couldn’t decipher a word of it, but she got the gist from Adora’s hopeless tone.
“And besides,” Catra continued, “mopping floors wouldn’t be all bad. We could make Kyle slip, like, all the time.”
Despite herself, Adora laughed—even if it was a thick and mucousy one.
feel
Catra didn’t know what She-Ra could feel, if she could feel at all. Did past friendships mean anything to her? Was she capable of feeling guilt? Loneliness? Did she ever miss the people Adora once held close, or was she simply above it all?
Catra hated staring into She-Ra’s eyes, searching desperately for the affection she once found in Adora’s. There was too much blue in those eyes—bright, glowing blue, blinding and inscrutable as the sea in sunlight. There was nothing in that gaze, nothing she could interpret. No trace of emotion or humanity.
Catra never knew whether She-Ra felt emotions. But she could, at the very least, see that She-Ra felt pain.
She could see to it that She-Ra felt pain.
Catra was always so clinical about it. So precise. A claw across the cheek, the arm. A fist in the gut. A kick to the face, the leg.
If She-Ra had Adora’s body and mind, she also had her weaknesses. Namely, balance. Adora had never been good at keeping her balance, especially not while distracted. Especially not when Catra was doing the distracting.
And then always, there was the easiest target: the back. It was easy, too easy, for Catra to sink her claws into that stark white fabric, raking slashes deep into the skin, tracing jagged lines across shoulder blades and hip bones.
It was like she didn’t even know how to protect it—her back. And why would she? Before all this, before She-Ra—before defections and Force Captainships and cots that didn’t smell like they should, like soap and sweat and hairspray—that was Catra’s job. It was Catra’s job to watch Adora’s back, and Adora’s job to watch hers.
But now they were both vulnerable. The only difference was that Adora wouldn’t play dirty, while Catra was only too eager to do so.
She-Ra wouldn’t play dirty, she meant.
But She-Ra could scream. She could cry in agony. She could plead for mercy. Even if she could feel nothing else, she could feel pain.
And if She-Ra felt it, could Adora feel it too? Could Adora feel anything, trapped as she was in She-Ra’s golden shell?
Catra didn’t care if she did. It served her right, if anything. For picking up that stupid sword. For leaving Catra behind. For replacing Catra with new friends who didn’t know her, who didn’t watch her back, who didn’t keep her on balance.
And if pain was the only thing Catra could make She-Ra—or Adora—feel, then she wouldn’t hesitate to inflict it.
misstep
“Hold still!” Adora ordered, clicking the tweezers closed, then open again.
But Catra couldn’t. She squirmed and shrieked and clawed the floor as Adora carefully extracted a couple nasty-looking shards of glass from Catra’s foot.
But Adora was unwaveringly focused, biting at her own lip with the intensity of her concentration. Catra tried to distract herself by watching that—by watching her—and struggled to ignore the cold bite of the tweezers against her skin.
“There!” Adora said, releasing hold of Catra’s foot and dropping the tweezers to the floor. “That’s the last of it.”
Catra scrambled into a sitting position, bringing the foot close for further inspection. There were still a few ugly-looking cuts, but there were no longer any glass pieces physically lodged into Catra’s skin.
Adora dragged a sleeve across her own forehead, wiping away the sweat that had beaded there during the tweezing process. There was a distinct note of frustration in her voice when she said: “Would it kill you to wear a pair of shoes?”
“Yes,” Catra replied with a terse nod. She was still clutching her injured foot between her hands. “It would.”
And Catra she raised the foot, bringing it close to her mouth—
“Don’t you dare lick that,” Adora gasped, thrusting Catra’s foot back toward the floor, far from the proximity of Catra’s tongue. “I haven’t even cleaned it yet!”
But Catra didn’t want that. This was by no means the first time Catra had suffered a painful misstep. And it definitely wasn’t the first time Adora had been forced to operate on the resulting injury. Experience told Catra that “cleaning” meant applying a stinging layer of disinfectant—the kind that always left Catra howling in pure agony.
This time, Catra was determined to keep that from happening. “I can clean it fine by myself!” she insisted, clambering to pull her foot far, far away from Adora—and her disinfectant.
But Adora was having none of this, and Catra soon found herself fighting Adora for custody of her own foot. Twisting, pulling, writhing across the floor as Catra sought an escape that Adora simply wouldn’t allow.
“Your tongue,” Adora said sternly, “is not a disinfectant. Do you want your foot to get infected?”
“Let me go!” Catra yelled, still desperately trying to yank her foot out of Adora’s reach—though with little success. Adora’s grip on Catra’s ankle was stunningly vice-like. “Adora, stop it, it’s not gonna get infected—”
“If you walk around barefoot with an open wound,” said Adora, “your foot will absolutely get infected. That is literally how infection works.”
Catra shrugged. “It hasn’t happened before.”
“Uh, yeah,” Adora said pointedly. “Because I’ve always cleaned it!”
“But it hurts,” she complained, puffing out her lip in the hopes that Adora would take pity and leave her alone.
Adora only rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a baby.”
Heartless. Adora was heartless.
And so Heartless Adora kept one hand wrapped around Catra’s ankle, then reached for the bottle of disinfectant sitting at her hip.
Adora spun around to stare Catra in the eye. Her gaze was accusatory. “Do you promise not to run away if I let go of your foot?”
“No.”
“Catra.”
“Ugh , fine!” Catra groaned. “I promise.”
Satisfied, Adora loosened her grasp, instead using both hands to pour the disinfectant onto the clean towels they had stolen from the locker room. She raised one towel to Catra’s foot, and Catra braced herself for pain.
Though she did not brace herself nearly enough. The moment the cloth touched Catra’s skin, reflex overwhelmed logical thought. She screamed and sent her foot flying upwards toward freedom, toward painlessness, toward—
—Adora’s nose.
Adora cried out, dropping everything—disinfectant, towel, and foot alike—to stifle the copious amount of blood that had burst from her nose.
“Shit,” Catra hissed, immediately pulling herself upright. She hauled herself toward Adora’s hunched form. Both of Adora’s hands were fully devoted to the task of pinching her nostrils shut, and it wasn’t long before her fingers were utterly soaked in blood.
“Adora,” Catra murmured. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” Adora said calmly, despite how odd her voice sounded with her nostrils closed. “It was an accident. Hand me a towel, will you?”
Catra grabbed as many towels as she could carry and shoved them into Adora’s arms. They were quickly repurposed as tissues, and turned red just as quickly. The sight nauseated Catra slightly, though she knew that blood wasn’t supposed to frighten them. They were Horde soldiers. Or would be, someday.
“Does it hurt?” Catra asked, guilty that she had caused such a mess. And when Adora had been trying to tend to Catra’s injury, no less.
“No,” Adora said, voice muffled by the towel she had placed over her nose. “Not really, anyway.”
“Are you gonna tell Shadow Weaver?” Catra whispered fearfully.
Adora shot her a look—one that made it seem as if Catra had suggested something crazy. “Of course not,” Adora said, and then extended a free hand toward Catra’s leg. “Now give me your foot. And try not to kick me in the face this time.”