Chapter Text
"Come on, Adora! What are you even looking at?"
From down below, Catra called up the hill, her patience growing humorously thin with her girlfriend. It was bad enough that Adora made her wear a coat on what was an otherwise perfect fall day (even if it was her favorite from Adora's wardrobe). Now her partner was dragging her feet as well, as if they didn't still have a million places to be that day.
As if there wasn't something she still needed to get off her chest.
Adora, though, was all too content to take things slow. Before her eyes, the dog days of summer had settled down into autumn ripen, leaving the hills of Erelandia aflame with the husks of yesterday's foliage. Back in the city, they'd hardly noticed summer's passing, between their days of incessant texting and their nights of endless sleepovers. Had it not been for Catra's own sardonic comment about missing the town's harvest festival cider, they might not have thought to snag a couple of train tickets and venture back into the countryside, its beauty fully on display for this pair of seasonal sojourners.
Gazing up at the arcing branches above, the blonde's look of awe didn't waver for even a second.
"It's the leaves. They're just so...I don't know. They're gorgeous - like something out of a painting."
Catra gave a sarcastic snort and leaned back on her heels. "I'll be the judge of what belongs in a painting, thank you. And besides, I thought you got enough of the leaves on the way up here."
Indeed, their pace up the hill had been slowed by Adora's enamored meandering from tree to amber-tinted tree. Only as they walked the halls of Catra's old school did she begin to pick up the pace, her attention now drawn to the way Catra sauntered around and told stories about the place like it still held a fond place in her heart.
"I don't know," Adora grinned, finally reaching the spot where her dark-haired companion had stopped. "I mean, just look at that. I love Bright Moon but...you can't beat that. I don't think I could ever get enough of that."
As she followed Adora's gesture out toward the horizon, Catra couldn't help but get a bit caught up in her partner's romantic sentiments. As soon as they stepped off the train, hands wound tight in a pilgrim's embrace, she'd felt like she was seeing her own hometown through new eyes. Maybe it was Adora's rosy recollections or even her own nostalgia percolating up like so much early morning coffee, but something about the sight of Erelandia in autumn tugged at Catra's heart strings, making her wish she could pull Adora down and hold her close among the fallen leaves the whole season through.
"Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool," Catra finally admitted with a contented sigh. "But we've still got places to be, remember? Scorpia's going to have a fit if we skip town without seeing her. And I still want to go visit the shrine, if we have time."
Taking her opposite's hand in her own again, Adora started back down the hill, one grinning idiot in tow.
"I think we'll have time."
Time, anymore, felt more and more certain to the pair, with the fickle summer giving way to a more temperate, more predictable season of decay. That was most apparent in their lack of switching, which hadn’t occurred again since the day with the painting. It wasn't like they needed the excuse to see one another anymore; after all, they saw each other, one way or another, almost every day now, with plans to find a nicer apartment together a regular subject of their pillow talk.
Even with the warm glow of the future inviting them onward, the pair both agreed - in silence, and without conscious acknowledgement - that there was a need to make up for lost time. In a sense, this trip was meant to commence those reparative efforts, the first in a wishfully endless series of adventures taken together, side by side, smile beside loving, unfathomable smile.
For now, though, those adventures had carried them someplace familiar - even for Catra, who hadn't walked these cobblestone streets in over three years. As they glided down the main thoroughfare, past the sparse shops that Catra had once looked at with distain, they both felt as if they were coming home. Even as so much about them had changed, in their demeanor and their outlook on the world, so much here had stayed kindly fixed in time - right down to the last moss-covered kami statue.
Slowly but surely, the pair made their way through town, Catra's weariness of their gradual pace progressively melting away with each step. Along the way, they stopped to knock on Catra's old door, where a completely dumb-struck Lonnie answered and immediately questioned Adora's return. It had taken punching Catra in the arm to prove that she was real, but her old roommate kindly welcomed the pair in afterwards, only half-joking that Catra could pay back her years of missed rent if she'd just visit again and cook up one of her long-missed feasts.
Finally, after parting on promises to stop by later to gather up some personal possessions, Adora and Catra returned to their course, their eager feet padding out the path to Black Garnet shrine in no time flat. Once there, where the vibrant red torri gate stood back just meters from the road, Catra paused to catch her breath. Adora, meanwhile, wasn't about to let a few steps slow her down.
"Now who's slow?" the blonde woman called down from the second landing, her mocking tone well-practiced from her time in Catra's tutelage. "Maybe I'll just meet you up there later, then?"
"Go right ahead." Catra sounded like she meant it, if her casual slouch hadn't been enough to give her away. "Taako’s good out here."
Rolling her eyes, Adora quickly back-tracked down to the main entrance and snatched up her partner's hand. Smiling that warm grin Catra found herself lost in each day, Adora caught her opposite's gaze and nodded up hill, her spirits trained on the heights they could finally climb together.
"You coming?"
But Adora didn’t wait for a response. With a quick heel turn, she pulled Catra up and over the threshold, taking the steps two-at-a-time with her opposite in tow.
Catra, for her part, felt her frame lock up at first, her initial steps clumsy and out of sync with her guide. But as they crossed the second landing together and turned their shared gaze upward, Catra felt her body lean into the exhilaration, this runner's high strong enough to help her overcome any bodily fatigue.
After charging onto the shrine grounds and scaring away some roosting pigeons, Catra dropped her partner's hand and slowed herself to a stop. Despite the thrill of their sprint, her lungs cried out for a break, and as before, a full drink of water. Adora had other plans, though.
"Hey, what's the hold up? You wanted to go see the big tree, right?"
Looking no worse for wear, Adora motioned back beyond the shrine, her legs already eager for a second rep. Catra, meanwhile, shook her head and gestured at the shrine proper.
"Actually...I kinda want to stop here for just a moment - to pray."
Adora grinned and raised a curious eyebrow. "Oh, since when are you the superstitious type?"
With a light shove, Catra pushed by and made her way over to the purification station. "I'm not. I just have something I want to say before...before..."
Catra's words trailed off as she splashed water over her hands and mouth. After turning and spitting out what remained, the shorter woman lightly shook her head and paced over to the shrine's dais, her prayer already formed at the front of her mind. Leaving things unsaid, she'd learned first-hand, was no way to live at all.
As Adora looked on, Catra bowed deep and true, the warm rays of the descending sun falling like blankets on her back. With another bow and a clap, she gazed up at the shrine’s menagerie, each wooden figure now clothed in their own bib or hood of vibrant, prosperous red. They still smiled just the same, Catra could tell even at a distance. Even to her own rational mind, they'd managed to smile down on her - in the end, anyway.
With the breeze in her voice, Catra finally closed her eyes. At a whisper, she was certain, this would be a moment between herself and the land she’d come to cherish so deeply.
"Thank you."
Like that, she was done. Her soul now relieved of the debt it owed, Catra bowed a final time and turned back to her girlfriend, who watched with polite interest. Now she felt ready to go, ready to say what needed to be said in this place just a step from heaven.
With a grin, Adora reached out and squeezed her opposite’s shoulder. "Ready to go now?"
"Yeah," Catra nodded. "I think I'm ready."
After a short walk around the shrine, the pair arrived at the second staircase, its breadth still patterned with patchy lichens. Springing forward a few steps, Adora turned and jabbed a thumb to her chest, her energy as spirited as ever.
"Hey, I bet I can beat you up to the top!"
"I bet you can," Catra agreed, recognizing immediately that she didn't stand a chance against the Alliance's newest all-conference captain. "But how about this instead - could we, maybe, just take this one slow?"
Surprised at her own uncharacteristic deference, Catra quickly added, "If that's okay with you..."
Adora didn't need any convincing, though. To see this person beside her glow with such an earnest, gentle request was testimony enough.
"Yes," she beamed in return. "Absolutely, yes. You lead."
And so she did, Catra taking the first step and Adora following close behind. At a pensive adagio, they climbed together in silence, the breath of the wild filling their lungs with each step over chipped granite and fallen twigs. Independently, they'd seen these sights before and felt them nestle a place into their fixed memory. But now, together, they were seeing this sacred ground united, a feeling that managed to put even their most indelible solo trips to the tree into sharp relief.
With each purposeful step, Catra also felt her heart beating a little faster, her eyes less focused on their surroundings and more on the inconstant words whirling around in her head. She'd spent three drawn-out years thinking about this moment, but always as an abstract - a "what could have been" to help her fall asleep at night. Now, before her eyes, those hypotheticals were quickly becoming a "what will be" and Catra was suddenly unsure if her voice was up to this challenge after all.
But the moment arrived all the same.
Cresting the hill, Catra stepped into the sanctum sanctorum first and beheld the guardian sapling, as stoic as ever - save for its new crimson garments. Stopping at the final landing, Adora passed by and approached the tree's trunk, taking it in slowly as she had the first time she'd stumbled upon the hidden yard. Her thoughtful gaze then continued on toward the depths of the forest, hoping to take in every detail as she would any other elegantly curated work of art.
At the same moment, Catra's gaze was cast not into nature, but directly ahead, set in line with her partner's slow stroll forward. In awe, the dark-haired woman watched as the tableau she'd created on the canvas came to vivid life before her eyes, the whole scene now more lucid than any medium could capture. Indeed, the colors of the trees were different than she'd imagined, and it was she - not Adora - that was meant to stand at its focal point. But Catra appreciated this improvisation all the same, imagining it as the boldest stroke either of them could ever make.
Well, maybe not the boldest, Catra knew. That pièce de résistance was yet to come.
After watching Adora longingly for a minute or two more, Catra finally steeled herself against the coming discord. This was it, the voice in the back of her mind encouraged her. Now or never. Show time.
Her voice wavered at first. Then, with as much strength as she could muster, Catra began.
"Hey, Adora..."
Her attention focused on her phone’s camera at first, Adora turned and looked back, her tone relaxed and at ease with the moment.
"Yeah? What's up?"
But as soon as she saw her girlfriend's expression, silhouetted against the agate sun setting in the distance, Adora knew something was amiss. Taking a step in Catra's direction, she made her concerns immediately known.
"Hey, are you okay? You look...upset."
"It's not that.” Catra deflected. “It's just...I have something I want to say."
Stage-fright was setting in now, despite how many times she'd rehearsed these lines in her head. All of a sudden, Catra couldn't find it in herself to meet Adora's gaze, even as it had come to comfort her more and more over the passing weeks.
Despite that trembling in her core, Catra pushed herself to persevere. Just as she parted her lips to continue, though, Adora cut in, her own expression suddenly taking a turn for the dour.
"Oh, I actually have something I wanted to say, too. But it can wait."
Looking up momentarily, Catra felt the slightest relief in her opposite's words. Stepping toward her slowly, she reached out and took Adora's hand, winding their fingers together effortlessly in a heartbeat. Between them, their bound hands remained aloft, even as Catra shook her head in disagreement.
"No. No more waiting. Not for either of us."
Sensing at once her partner's genuine intent, Adora nodded and tried to maintain their shared gaze. In her fingers and in her feet, she could feel her own nerves starting to prickle out. She wasn't sure how she'd imagined this moment, but all of a sudden, her heart told her that this was as good a time as any to give her authentic all.
"Okay. So, I wanted to tell you this before - when I visited the first time. But I wasn't sure yet. I think I was a little scared to admit it, actually, since we hadn't met in person and all."
Adora chuckled to herself lightly. "For all I knew, you could have been some weirdo in real life. Or at least, you might not have been who I'd imagined you to be. And if that had been the case, then...then..."
Trailing off, tears started to form at the corner of Adora's eyes. While she pushed back the thoughts that had swarmed her mind on that unbearable train ride home, the young woman pressed on, intent on saying this loud and clear.
"But then, you were gone. I couldn't have told you if I wanted to because I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I immediately regretted not telling you sooner, so I don't want to miss my chance again."
With a warm smile, Adora looked into her opposite's celestial eyes. In the city, in the countryside, wherever their lives took them, something in her bones told her that those eyes would always be her home.
"Catra, I lo...”
“…oh.”
Suddenly, with a gasp, Adora's words cut off into the static evening air. Catra, now closer than ever before, had pressed Adora's forehead against her own, connecting their thoughts into a single stream of consciousness. A squeeze, firm and assertive, tightened around Adora's hand. In the pressure, Catra spoke like she already knew without having to say the word at all.
Then, with a wafting sigh, Catra whispered.
"Can I kiss you?"
Adora's eyes grew wide at the question. This was no dream, no fantasy playing over in her head. This was real, and she was real, and now, as real and as true as the spark of life within her, this was what she wanted most in the world. She wanted this feeling fulfilled.
With a gentle nod, Adora gave her consent. And in only a beat, the distance between them evaporated. Time slowed and at once, as their lips meet and danced with fervent joy, they were taken away to someplace new, a third place beyond the steel and stone enclaves that had raised them. This was a place all their own, of the world and beyond it, a place where they could always get away to - somewhere only they knew.
With another squeeze, Catra pulled back, her eyes now dewy with the moment's passion. In silence, their foreheads remained pressed together, their hearts still racing but beating perfectly in time. Finally, as the sun finally kissed goodbye to the day, Adora spoke up, her voice still breathless from the emotional exertion.
"How...how did you know?"
Catra simply smiled in return, this masterpiece of a person now more resplendent in her eyes than ever before.
"You're such an idiot."
---
Sometimes I have these dreams where I'm somewhere else entirely. It's a place I've become fond of, a place I've visited many times before. This town out in the mountains, it's become our second home. Every time we visit, I get to know the people better and better. And each time we visit, I grow closer to you and the land that gave you life. No longer do I have to search for the person from my dreams. Now, wherever I go, she's always here at my side.
*
Sometimes I wake up crying, like I've just been through a nightmare. I can never remember what scared me so much, but it doesn't matter anymore. You're always there to comfort me, always there to dry my tears. The sounds of the big city can't intimidate me now, not if you're by my side. I'm glad I waited all that time, through every season and every storm. It was worth it to finally meet you and know this place for the first time."