Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            When Adora came into the barracks that night, she noticed something strange in her bed. Something—or was it someone?—was curled up in a little lump in the far corner under the dull army-green blanket, someone as small as Adora herself. The lump was making soft, whimpery sounds, and it was trembling. The lump seemed scared.

            Tentatively, the little blonde girl approached the bed, sitting down next to the small, shaking person under the blanket. “Hello?” she said softly, giving the lump a gentle poke.

            “Aughh!” A messy head of dark hair popped out of the blanket, with long cat ears sticking out on either side, tears streaming from her mismatched blue and yellow eyes. She was just a kid—just like Adora.

            “Hey, it’s okay! I’m not gonna hurt you,” Adora said gently, sitting back on her knees to give the newcomer a little more space. Her little heart swelled at the sight of another kid, right here in front of her, in her own bed. Like a present. She’d never seen another kid her own age before; everyone else in the Horde was older than her. Even the Junior Recruits were twelve. “What’s your name?”

            “C-catra,” the new kid whispered, wiping her eyes and nose clumsily on the back of her hand. “I thought…you were the mean shadow lady coming back.”

            “You mean Shadow Weaver?” Catra nodded tremulously, her different colored eyes filling up immediately with tears again. “She’s not as scary as she looks,” Adora shook her head; then frowned, considering. “Well, most of the time. She takes care of me. Is she gonna take care of you now, too?” Catra just shrugged. When she didn’t elaborate, Adora asked, “Where did you come from?”

            “I…I dunno,” Catra shook her head, bunching up the blanket nervously in her hands. “I can’t remember.”

            “What part can’t you remember?” little Adora frowned.

            “Anything,” Catra whispered, staring at her hands as more tears dripped down her freckled face. “I can’t remember anything…I don’t know why I’m here, or…where I’m ‘spozed to be.”

            “Well maybe you’re supposed to be right here…with me.” Finally, Catra looked up, properly taking in the little blonde girl sitting in front of her, beaming at her with a gap-toothed grin. “I’m Adora.”

            “Hi, Adora,” Catra said softly.

            “Hi, Catra,” the blonde girl grinned back. “I like your ears.”

            “Thanks,” the little cat-eared girl finally cracked a small smile, wiping away the last of the tears with a hearty sniff. “I like your eyes. They’re bluer than the sky.” Adora grinned back shyly. “Do…do you remember where you came from?”

            “Oh, I’ve always lived here,” Adora shrugged, looking around the barracks and trying to imagine seeing it for the first time. It was kind of dark and dank. “Since I was a baby, anyway. Shadow Weaver took me in, just like she did for you, I guess.”

            “So…we’ll see each other every day now?” Catra asked tentatively, pulling her knees up to her chin under the blankets.

            “Of course!” Adora grinned. “And every night, too. Do you have any pajamas to wear?” Catra just shrugged again. “That’s okay. You can borrow some of mine.” Adora stood and went to her cubby to fetch two matching sets of faded grey nightclothes, and Catra finally ventured out from under the safety of the blankets to follow her. Adora frowned thoughtfully when she saw Catra’s long tail. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” The little blonde girl scampered off to get her pocket knife, and cut a small, clumsy slit in the back seam of a pair of her pajama bottoms. “Here, that’s better, right?”

            “Thanks,” Catra beamed. “How come you’re being so nice to me?”

            “I just like you,” Adora shrugged, wiggling out of her junior training suit and pulling on her own pajamas unselfconsciously, while Catra did the same beside her. “I never had another kid to be friends with before.”

            “And…you wanna be friends with me?” Catra asked slowly, as if she couldn’t quite dare to believe it.

            “Of course,” Adora giggled. “See, there’s nobody in the bunk above mine. It’s always been empty. Now we can be bunk-buddies!” Her grin faded when she saw Catra’s expression, frowning up at the top bunk with her ears flattened back. “Unless…you don’t want to be my bunk-buddy?” Suddenly Adora felt like an enormous rock had just been dropped into her stomach.

            “No! I mean—yes—I mean—could I…would it be okay if we…” Catra trailed off, her tail swishing nervously as she looked back at the bottom bunk.

            “Do you want to sleep in my bed?” Adora asked. Catra nodded shyly.

            “It…smells safe. Like you.” Adora had never thought of anything smelling safe before, but as soon as Catra said it, the heavy rock disappeared from her stomach.

            “Okay. It can be our bed, then,” the little blonde girl smiled. Then her eyes lit up, and she ran back to her cubby. “Here!” she held out two fat crayons. “I’ll draw you, and you draw me. So everybody knows this bed is ours.”

            “Okay,” little Catra smiled, taking the crayon from Adora’s outstretched hand. “Hmm…” she squinted at her new friend seriously and stuck her tongue between her teeth, cocking her head to the side with her nose all wrinkled up. Adora giggled. 

            “What are you doing?”

            “I’m trying to decide how to draw you, duh.” Catra smirked, her shoulders relaxing as she knelt down next to Adora’s pillow with her crayon poised to make its first mark. Adora sat beside her, and they drew in silence for a few minutes, both of them focused on their own work. When Adora was done, she looked over at Catra’s drawing of her; she was smiling, but somehow at the same time, she looked like a little monster. If the drawing could talk, it would say keep out! Catra grinned when she saw that Adora had drawn her with more or less the same expression.

            “Is that what I look like?” The blonde girl gave a little snort of laughter.

            “Is that what I look like?” The cat-eared girl challenged back. With Catra’s eyes on her, Adora made an exaggerated, goofy monster face.

            “Grrr!” she tried to growl; but her growl was just so un-scary that Catra started giggling, and then Adora pushed her shoulder, and Catra pushed back, and soon they were wrestling in the blankets and howling with laughter.

            “What’s going on in here?!” A sharp, booming voice cut through their haze of laughter, and Adora felt Catra’s body go stiff beside her as a tall, masked figure floated into the bunk.

            “We were just playing,” Adora explained innocently, sitting up under the blankets while Catra shrank back behind her, hiding her face against Adora’s hip.

            “Now, now, Adora, you know that lights out was fifteen minutes ago,” Shadow Weaver tutted silkily, patting the top of Adora’s blonde head. “You must get a good night’s rest so you can do your very best in training tomorrow, and make Lord Hordak proud.”

            “Yes, Shadow Weaver,” Adora nodded promptly. She could feel her new friend trembling under the blanket beside her, and she snaked her hand under the covers to hold Catra’s.

             “Catra!” Shadow Weaver barked, her entire demeanor shifting in an instant as the tone of her voice became vicious. “Come out of there at once and get in your own bunk! You are keeping Adora from her rest!”

            “I’m s-sorry,” Catra stuttered, her small eyes huge and scared as she emerged from under the covers, scrambling as fast as she could up the ladder to the top bunk and diving under those covers instead.

            “It wasn’t her fault, Shadow Weaver! I wanted her to play with me!” Adora exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

            “You are not to blame, Adora,” the floating sorceress crooned, patting her head again. “If you are fond of her, I suppose she may stay here…for now. But you must keep her under control, do you understand? I won’t have some common street rat interfering with your training.”

            “Yes, Shadow Weaver,” Adora nodded vigorously, her heart hammering hard in her chest. She had never heard her masked guardian speak this way before, the way she was speaking to Catra now. She had to suppress the urge to shield her new friend with her body, as if that would do any good. They were both so small. “I promise, we’ll behave.”

            “Very well. I’ll expect you both to report for morning chores bright and early.” And without so much as a nod goodnight, the tall, dark sorceress floated out again. As soon as she was gone, Adora scrambled up to the top bunk.

             “Catra! It’s okay. You can come back down now.”

            “But the shadow lady said I can’t,” Catra sniffed, her voice muffled as she was hiding in the blankets again.

            “She doesn’t have to know,” Adora grinned, pulling the blankets off Catra and hugging her. “Come on. It’s our bed now. We made a sign.” Little Catra smiled through her tears, and followed her new best friend back down to their bunk.

Chapter Text

            “Catra, what are you doing all the way out here? I woke up and you were gone,” Adora frowned, brushing cobwebs and dust off her brand new Junior Cadet’s uniform, slightly out of breath from the long climb to reach the top of the North Tower, where the cat-eared girl sometimes went to sulk. While it wasn’t impossible for the blonde girl to follow her best friend all the way up here, it wasn’t exactly easy, either. Catra could bound from one pipe to the next, gripping with her claws and balancing like—well, like a cat—with her long tail flicking behind her. Adora, on the other hand, had to rely on ropes and grappling hooks.

            “Careful, might get a demerit for getting a speck of dirt on your precious new uniform,” Catra muttered sarcastically, glancing at her best friend out of the corner of her eye without moving her head from her knees, staring out at the endless grey skyline of the fright zone.

            “What is your problem?” Adora huffed, hands on her hips in exasperation. Then, after a beat of silence where Catra continued to stubbornly stare out at the dull grey skyline, the blonde girl added more softly—“Are you mad at me?”

            Finally, Catra sighed and turned around, unfolding her awkward twelve-year-old limbs from their tightly wound position to hop down from her perch. “Of course not, dummy. Why would I be mad at you?”

            “I don’t know. Why are you up here hiding?” Adora asked in response, tapping her foot impatiently. “You know we have to report for squad assignment in, like, fifteen minutes—and you’re not even wearing your uniform!”

            “I am not hiding!” Catra exclaimed indignantly. 

            “Sulking?” The blonde girl raised an eyebrow impassively. Catra’s ears flattened indignantly.

            “You know what, forget it. I don’t have to tell you every stupid thought in my stupid brain,” the dark-haired cat girl grumbled, turning her back on Adora and hopping lightly back up to perch on the creaky old pipe, her tail swishing restlessly behind her. A few silent moments passed; but Adora knew that Catra didn’t really want her to leave, because her ears were still perked up at attention, waiting.

            “You have nothing to be nervous about, you know,” the blonde girl said gently, coming up beside her friend and leaning against the pipes, gazing out over the gloomy horizon together. “You’ll be on Alpha Squad, no question. We both will. And we’ll finally have other kids to train with! It’s gonna be so awesome, Catra. You’ll see.”

            “Who said I was worried?”

            “Oh, okay. I guess you’re just up here taking in the view.” Even without turning to look, Catra could hear the affectionate smirk in her best friend’s voice; and she rolled her eyes as she found herself smiling back.

            “Well yeah, duh. Most picturesque spot in Etheria. You just missed a group of tourists from Seaworthy.” Adora giggled, and Catra groaned in mock-annoyance, finally hopping down lightly from her perch to land next to the blonde girl. “Ugh, fine. I guess I’ll go put on my stupid uniform.”

            “Okay,” Adora agreed happily, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

            When the two finally made their way to the training complex, they were sprinting full-out to avoid being late for their first day as Junior Cadets. Adora beamed at the room full of kids, her head already spinning with images of all of them training together as a team, showing them all around the Horde Base. Beside her, Catra eyed all the newcomers suspiciously, her ears flattened back against her unruly hair. A shrill whistle-blow brought the murmuring group of kids sharply to attention.

            “Junior Cadets!” barked the tall, muscled monster of a man who would be their training master for the next six years. “You are here today to prove your worth to the Horde. You will be ranked according to your skills, your strength, and your ability to respond to combat conditions under pressure. There is no room in Hordak’s army for weakness! Do you little worms think you have what it takes to stand against the Rebellion and liberate Etheria in the name of Hordak?”

            “Yes sir, training master!” the kids all yelled, as if they had rehearsed ahead of time. Catra was the only one who remained silent, looking around at the others with a little smirk and a flick of her ear. What a bunch of chumps.

            “Cadet Catra!” the training master barked.

            “Uh, yes sir?” Catra stood up a little straighter, her stomach twisting unpleasantly as all the eyes in the room suddenly turned to her.

            “Since you are obviously paying close attention, why don’t you come up here and help demonstrate the first sparring exercise?”

            “Yes sir,” Catra agreed without any backtalk for once. This was a fresh start, after all, their first day as real cadets. I’m just as good as the rest of these dopes, she told herself, holding her head high as she walked to the front of the room and stood on the mat next to the instructor. He handed her a staff and a breastplate. Unlike the wooden ones she and Adora had been training with since they were little, these training staffs were electrified. Catra grinned as she wrapped her hands around the base, more than ready to bring the pain.

            “Cadet Adora! Front and center!” the training master yelled, and Catra’s tail wilted slightly as her best friend made her way to the front. 

            “Yes sir,” the blonde girl said seriously, standing at attention in front of Catra as the hulk of a man handed her a training staff and breastplate of her own. “Ready?” Adora asked, looking to Catra with excitement and focus in her clear blue eyes.

            “Do not ask your enemy if they are ready! Attack!” the training master roared; and Adora did. Of course, they had sparred together with quarterstaffs before, countless times. But they had never been electrified. And there had never been so many people standing around watching. It was unnerving, all these strange kids with their eyes on her, and Catra couldn’t focus in the way she normally could when it was just the two of them. It was barely a minute before Adora got the better of her and tagged her out. Catra felt her face flush angrily as the training master praised the blonde girl and began pairing all the others off for the first round of bouts. I wasn’t ready! She wanted to yell.

            But it was too late, and she was already being paired up with one of the new kids, a tall, green lizard boy who didn’t even say hello before he whipped his staff at her. With a feral snarl, Catra fought back. The kids were all paired up now, nobody was watching anyone except their own opponent. Catra felt her nerves vanish like smoke, and she gave the lizard boy a predatory smile as she proceeded to beat him down, along with every cadet that was put in front of her for the rest of the day.

…………………………………….

            “See, I told you there was nothing to worry about, didn’t I?” Adora grinned goofily as she caught up to Catra in the mess hall, flush-faced and sweaty from a long day of sparring with more different people than she had ever even met before. “I told you we’d both make Alpha Squad!”

            “Yeah, well, I guess you had to be right about something eventually, huh?” Catra smirked, and Adora shoved her shoulder, laughing. 

            “Watch it!” snapped the girl ahead of Catra in the lunch line, who had almost dropped her tray. She had dreadlocks and green eyes, and she looked kind of pissed off.

            “Oh! Sorry,” Adora smiled innocently. “I’m just not used to having so many other kids around us. I’m Adora, and that’s Catra. What’s your name?”

            “I know who you are,” the dreadlocked girl said stonily, looking the blonde girl up and down with a carefully unimpressed expression. “You think you’re hot shit or something just because nobody’s beat you down yet.”

            “I don’t think that,” Adora frowned, looking perplexed, like she couldn’t understand why anyone would ever be jealous of her—or intimidated. Beside her, Catra’s jaw clenched. Nobody had beaten her, either, except for Adora. But nobody was jealous of the person who came in second.

            “Oh yeah?” the girl who still hadn’t told them her name grinned, in a way that somehow didn’t look very friendly.

            “Um…yeah,” Adora agreed slowly, finally getting a little annoyed about being judged negatively, somehow, because she’d done well in training.

            “Okay. Prove it,” the dreadlocked girl said smugly. “After evening work detail, some of us are gonna go explore behind the South barracks. See, Tommy’s brother told him there’s a secret dungeon under this place, and the entrance is hidden somewhere over there. He even told us there’s a real live princess down there, too.” Catra snorted and rolled her eyes. “Was I talking to you?” the girl sneered.

            “Luckily, no,” the cat-eared girl said dryly. “’Cause I’m not dumb enough to believe there’s a princess in a dungeon under the Janitors’ barracks.”

            “Well maybe you don’t know this place as well as you think,” the new girl said smugly, looking completely and utterly sure of herself. “Tommy’s brother is a Senior Cadet. Said he saw it himself.”

            “I mean, it’s not like we’ve ever looked behind the Janitor’s barracks, Catra…” Adora chewed her lip pensively.

            “Naw. Just you. Not Cat-Girl,” the new girl shook her head. Catra rolled her eyes. Adora looked outraged.

            “Her name is Catra,” the blonde girl said huffily. “And if she doesn’t go then neither do I." 

            “Get real. Like I wanna go muck around behind the smelly Janitor’s barracks, gross,” Catra smirked, eyes narrowed at the newcomer.

            “A’aight,” the dreadlocked girl shrugged in cool indifference. “You change your mind, blondie—you ask for Lonnie.” She took her tray and walked off smugly. 

            “Man. What a jerk! Can you believe that girl?” Adora fumed. “I hope there really is a princess down there, and—and it eats her face off and sucks out her eyeballs!”

            “There’s no secret-princess-dungeon, Adora,” Catra laughed, shaking her head. “You don’t seriously believe that dumb girl over there, who’s been in the Fright Zone for exactly one day, knows more about this place than we do? I mean, how gullible are you?”

            “It’s not gullible to be open to new things,” Adora frowned. “She said a Senior Cadet saw it. The Senior Cadets have probably seen lots of things that we haven’t.”

            “Whatever, go if you want. I’m not stopping you.” Catra took her tray and walked away to find a table, Adora following right behind her.

            “But I don’t wanna go without you,” the blonde girl shrugged, taking the seat next to Catra’s on the long mess hall bench.

            “Wow, this just in. Adora doesn’t get everything exactly how she wants it, for the first time ever.” Catra regretted the sting in her voice as soon as the words were out of her mouth; but it was too late to do anything about it now. She could feel Adora’s eyes on her, but she just looked at her plate.

            “Catra…" 

            “Look, just go okay? We don’t have to be together every second of every day.”

            “Oh…okay,” Adora agreed quietly. Catra wanted to punch herself in the face for making Adora’s voice sound like that. But instead she just got up and left her half-eaten dinner at the table, suddenly not hungry at all.

………………………………………..

            When there was half an hour left till lights out and Adora still hadn’t come back to the barracks, Catra started to feel uneasy. When half an hour became fifteen minutes, she was officially anxious. And when it was five minutes to lights out and the blonde girl was still nowhere to be seen, Catra silently cursed herself and headed for the South barracks.

            “Adora!” she hissed in the darkness behind the far side of the Janitors’ Quarters, at the very edge of the Horde Camp. She could hear actual crickets all the way out here, and—was that an owl?! “Where are you?” Even with her superior feline night vision, Catra would probably have missed the shape of her best friend in the dark if not for the soft, hitching crying sounds. “…Adora?” Catra blinked. It was either her best friend, or a living pile of mud with Adora’s voice. “What…what happened? Did that Lonnie girl do this to you?!”

            “N-not just Lonnie,” Adora choked on her words, still trying to hold back her tears. “It was a…a whole bunch of kids…they didn’t really w-want me to hang out with them. They just…wanted to get me alone so they could all jump me at once and rub my face in the mud.”

            “Those little shitbags are so dead,” Catra growled, her ears flattening straight back against her head. “They’re just jealous, you know. ‘Cause they couldn’t beat you in a fair fight.”

            “I couldn’t go back before lights out, Catra. I can’t let the whole Junior barracks see what an idiot I am…”

            “You’re not an idiot. You’re awesome,” Catra purred consolingly, squeezing her best friend’s muddy shoulder. “Those assholes are the idiots, because now they are in for a world of pain. Just tell me their names, okay? Or, forget that, I don’t know their stupid names yet. Just, point them out. They’ll all wake up with one of their eyes scratched out.” Catra’s purr was turning into a growl.

            “No…no eye-scratching,” Adora sighed, finally getting her tears under control now that Catra was by her side, growling protectively. “Then they’ll just do something back, and then we’ll do something back, and…and we’re supposed to be fighting a war with the Rebellion, not with each other. Besides, I don’t want you to get in trouble for me.”

            “It’s only trouble if you get caught.”

            “No, Catra.”

            “Okay, just half of them, then…”

            “Nope,” Adora sighed wearily.

            “Ughhh, you’re no fun,” the cat-eared girl groaned. 

            “No…I’m pretty sure somebody said I was awesome.” Even though it was too dark to see the small smile emerge on the blonde girl’s muddy face, Catra could still hear it in her voice.

            “C’mon, we can get out of this mud puddle now. It’s past lights out, nobody will see.” Carefully, they snuck back to the main grounds, and into the Junior barracks, where Adora tiptoed down the long hallway to the showers to rinse off her full-body mud mask. But, before she did, Catra snuck a handful of the stuff from her back, which the blonde girl didn’t even feel because it was so thickly coated. The dark-haired cat girl snuck silently across the room until she found that jerk Lonnie’s bunk. At least there was one person she could punish.

            With catlike silence and stealth, Catra crept up and poised herself over Lonnie’s sleeping body. She could position herself exactly how she wanted before making her move, in a way that few other people could, with her preternatural balance and agility. Her tail waved behind her in triumph for a moment before she leaned down and whispered, “Hey, Lonnie.” When the dreadlocked girl stirred, Catra pinched her nose shut with one hand, so she was forced to open her mouth; and when she did, Catra shoved the handful of mud inside, locking her legs around Lonnie’s body so her arms were trapped against her sides. Catra was scrawny, but she was strong, and she knew how to use gravity to her advantage. 

            “Never. Again,” Catra hissed in Lonnie’s ear, letting her go after a few seconds of thrashing around. Instantly, Catra sprang up into the rafters, knowing that the other girl couldn’t follow. They stared at each other in the darkness for a moment, Catra smirking while Lonnie wiped her mouth on her sleeve and spat mud on the floor. A few people stirred in their bunks, and the dreadlocked girl froze, suddenly realizing in her sleep-fogged brain that she was the only source of noise. If anyone came in to investigate now, she’d be the one in trouble. With one last furious glare into the rafters, Lonnie retreated to her bunk.

Catra slinked off smirking in the darkness, climbing through the rafters until she got back to her own bunk. She dropped onto the always-unoccupied top mattress, slipping easily down to the bottom, where she curled up just in time to beat Adora coming back from the showers. Once her best friend was snugly under the covers, Catra curled up a little closer than usual; and as she drifted off to sleep, she felt Adora cuddling up a little closer, too.