Chapter Text
Ten years ago, Catra’s life changed forever.
Ten years ago she was nothing but a young cadet of the Horde who, far from standing out for her undeniably extraordinary fighting skills, was labeled a misfit and a troublemaker.
Ten years ago she was working day and night just to get a taste of approval from a woman who ignored her, if not abused her since childhood.
Ten years ago, though she never really earned Shadow Weaver’s validation she so strongly desired, she managed to topple her and take her place as second-in-command for the Horde. This could probably be considered even better than her initial objective by many. However, even now she’s still not completely sure she shares the feeling.
And, most importantly, ten years ago she was betrayed by her best and only friend.
Looking up from her feet and into the mirror in front of her, Catra was immediately faced by the image of a woman completely different from the girl she’d just now been forced to remember. Her face and shoulders were marked with scars from past and recent battles; since being promoted to second-in-command by Hordak never stopped her from jumping head-on into every single battle she lead her people into.
Her hair was still long and her face had been covered in even more freckles than before due to sun exposure, but there was no trace of that cheeky, playful smile Catra used to be known for. Her passionate and cheerful eyes now looked tired and worn out, due to the years of constant stress she’d been subjected to. Her jaw and cheekbones were more accentuated than when she was a child, giving her a more threatening look that matched her strong personality perfectly. Everything from the way she walked to the movement of her ears let you know that this wasn’t someone you should get in an argument with. And it wasn’t someone you’d want as a friend either for that matter.
Still, it was undeniable Catra stood as one of the best leaders the Horde had ever had.
“Your dedication to our cause has earned my full interest and admiration,” Hordak said to her the day she was promoted to Shadow Weaver’s position. “There’s no doubt in my mind that, with your help, the Horde will rise to the place it rightfully deserves as the ruler of Etheria.”
She’d smiled back then, feeling for the first time that rush of adrenaline that came from knowing that someone believed in you enough to express it out loud.
Relentless, smart and dedicated. Those were the words that best described Hordak’s second-in-command.
“Thank you, sir.”
“No need to thank me.” He added almost immediately. “It’s not an empty compliment; it’s what I truly believe. I hope you won’t disappoint me.”
After spending her whole life trying to earn her parental figure’s favor, now she’d find it in the shape of Hordak’s encouragement. He risked more than he led on by giving such an important title to someone no one had ever rooted for, and Catra would be forever thankful for this.
“You’re too impulsive. Too emotional.” The man had told her once during one of his visits to her new room, that was now separated from the cadet’s overly populated bedroom she used to share with everyone else. Earlier that day she’d been practicing by herself in the training room, and as the machine that kept sending artificial enemies into the room to fight her made the image of an old friend begging for her life appear in front of Catra, she got distracted just long enough to be knocked down by another creature. Later she would learn, Hordak was responsible for said apparition. “Your conviction makes you strong, but your heart gets in the way.” The tone of Hordak’s voice remained as calm and collected as always, but the words he spoke made the hairs on Catra’s back stand up. “You must change that.”
So she did. She tried her best to stop feeling so much, to stop connecting everything she did to the emotions she was felt at the moment of making a decision on the battleground.
And it worked, for a while. Though as proud as she was of her new title, something inside her told her she didn’t deserve it, and it didn’t matter how hard she’d worked for it or how much she’d sacrificed to get it. At least not anymore. Not after what happened because of her.
Just a year ago, disaster struck Etheria. When a young Entrapta met Catra after apparently having been abandoned by the rest of the princesses, the brunette took her in as an ally to the Horde once she proved herself more than useful to their cause. It took more time than expected, but after nine years of intense fighting back and forth with the princesses after the failed attempt to take over Bright Moon, with Hordak’s approval and with Catra now in charge, the engineer modified the Black Garnet and managed to weaken all of the princesses’ runestones present in Etheria until they were all completely disabled. The Black Garnet’s power now proving stronger than ever.
With the knowledge of this, and aware that they still had the upper hand Catra lead the Horde’s army into battle to destroy the members of the new Rebellion, with the objective not only of making the Horde the ruling entity on all of Etheria, but also with the intention to destroy the people who’d taken what –or who- she most cared from her. To prove to herself the pain and suffering she’d overcome wasn’t for nothing.
This win meant more of an emotional victory than a literal one for Catra, but one thing was for sure; she would sacrifice anything and anyone as long as it meant she would achieve her goal.
What she wasn’t expecting as her troops marched across a now frozen Whispering Woods, is that Entrapta’s alteration on the Black Garnet would overpower it to the point where it not only ended up destroying itself, but it sent Ethernia into absolute chaos. First, there was a sudden uncontrollable blizzard that sent some of the Horde’s members flying across the woods to never be found again.
Then, once the blizzard stopped, a thunderstorm took over. With the woods covered in snow and now thunder destroying almost every tree around them, Catra had no choice but to give the order to retreat.
Soldiers screamed and ran for their lives as the sky seemed to unleash its fury on them, destroying everything and everyone in its path.
Most of them survived. Only most of them.
Upon returning to the Fright Zone and once everyone that made it was seemingly safe, they learned that the Whispering Woods wasn’t the only part of Etheria which’s weather suddenly rebelled, but it was the same all around the planet. It’s like the Black Garnet sent a last bolt of energy before breaking apart, causing some kind of natural apocalypse to unleash upon them.
These events forced the Rebellion and the Horde to stop the war they’d began so long ago. Both retreating in an attempt to survive the terrible disaster that had just been brought upon them.
“I’m sorry!” Was all princess Entrapta had to say in her defense when she was confronted about it. “I may have dabbled a little too much with the Garnet while sending electronic responses from the batmex and the merging of both energies must have been too much for it to handle… But I can fix it! I just need a capacitor to store the energy by sustaining an electric field, I'll have to make a new integrated circuit to place the transistors and capacitors and a knurled piston to increase compression to avoid…”
Catra had stopped listening at that point, the blood boiling through her veins and making her ears ring from anger and frustration.
One year. It’d been one entire year since those events took place, and she still couldn’t stop blaming herself for the lives that were lost that day.
She’d always found someone else to blame for everything in her life; her colleagues who never accepted her, Black Weaver who never gave her the same treatment as everyone else… But the lost lives of those soldiers would forever haunt her. Maybe she should’ve waited, maybe she should’ve thought about it better. She couldn’t blame Entrapta either since she was the one that gave the engineer green light to mess with the Black Garnet in the first place.
She didn’t even know the engineer that much, after spending her whole life putting up a barrier between her and every single person she ever met to avoid getting hurt again, and still Catra let her anger and distress rush her decision to allow the other to alter something as important to the Horde as the Black Garnet without question.
Surprising everyone, Hordak didn’t immediately demote her after the disaster. If anything he seemed almost pleased.
“Do not misunderstand my compassion.” He faced her right in front of everyone; Entrapta, Scorpia, the soldiers who’d lost friends in a disaster that had only taken place mere hours ago. “You’ve led some of our people to their demise and your rushed decisions have resulted in a huge step back for the Horde. But the Rebellion has been forced to retreat as well, and even if this situation doesn’t get us closer to ruling over Etheria it does bring both sides to an even condition. A tie, if you must. We’re not the weaker force anymore and it’s time we take advantage of this” his eyes pierced through her as Hordak spoke his next words. “You stay deserving of my praise, this incident hasn’t changed that Catra.”
The thought of someone believing in her for once gave her strength, so as her childhood desires came true in an unexpected way Catra found herself growing more and more attached to Hordak and his extremist values and beliefs.
It took months for the catastrophe to desist, and even then it wasn’t until a year passed that anyone dared to even step foot outside of the Fright Zone.
As the word was spread that the outside was safe again, the Horde started investigating the situation of the Rebellion; had they also found out it was safe to go out again? Were they still in hiding? Was anyone even still alive out there?
Just like them, the princesses seemed to have noticed the sudden outburst of extreme weather conditions had ceased and were now focused on the same thing as the Horde: figuring out what to do next.
The lands weren’t as fertile anymore, most of their animals died during the disaster, the food supplies had almost completely disappeared after a year of isolation forced them to make use of them, buildings had been reduced to ashes…
They needed to start from the beginning, but where was that beginning? Were both sides even on the same page?
It’s not like they could just shake hands with the Rebellion and decide to put their conflict on pause until Etheria recovered. The mood was charged with tension and frustration from the members of the Horde, who expected answers from the people in charge; were the princesses going to attack? Were they themselves going to attack? Whose fault was this? What came next?
But, before they could come up with a response, the response came to them.
A message sent by Queen Angella, the immortal queen of Bright Moon and the leader of the Rebellion, summoned them in what now, since it’d been reduced to nothing but ashes, could only be considered neutral territory; the Whispering Woods.
As always Hordak knew about the message before you, even though the soldiers were instructed to contact Catra immediately after they received any notice from the outside. And as usual she just assumed it was due to Hordak’s little pet’s doing; that small winged creature that you eventually found out was his trusted spy, who didn’t seem to be able to speak but could apparently recreate sounds and conversations he’d heard down to using the participants’ voices. Now she understood why Shadow Weaver was so hostile towards it.
Of course, Catra expected Hordak to absolutely refuse to meet up with the queen or to use the opportunity to either attack them or get some extra information about their current situation. But he instead prompted her to go with him to said meeting, in peace, just to hear what they had to say.
Knowing him this struck her as weird, but as blindly believing of him as always there was nothing left to do for her but follow his command and accompany him to their meeting.
Maybe if Catra knew she would be going too, she would’ve never even attended said meeting herself.
* * * * *
“I can’t do it.”
She-Ra was almost convinced this was the one-hundredth time she’d repeated these words in the span of two hours.
“You don’t have a choice.”
She-Ra was also almost convinced that this was the one-hundredth time she’d gotten the same reply from Queen Angella herself.
The princesses –at least almost all of them-, Queen Angella, Bow and She-Ra were all reunited at Castle Bright Moon to discuss a very important matter; the future not only of the Rebellion but of all of Etheria itself.
It’d been more than a year after the big disaster the Rebellion collectively decided to name the Cataclysm, due to its impactful and intense nature, and once the word spread that the Horde was sending spies to check on their situation it became clear that they had to act before the evil organization got a chance to do something terrible again.
Because, even though no one truly knew why it happened or what caused the Cataclysm to take place, there was one thing for sure; it had to be the Horde’s doing.
Only they could be so rotted and hungry for power that they would risk destroying the whole planet if it meant there was a small chance they would achieve their goal. It made Adora sick to her stomach to think about the time when she was an accomplice to this, but beating herself up for mistakes that now belonged to the past didn’t stop her from feeling sad when thinking about the people still fighting in the Horde’s name because of the years of intense brainwashing she also had been subjected to herself. It made her feel sorry for them.
Especially for her.
As a pair of hands slammed into the table in front of them, the sound forcefully pushed Adora out of her thoughts to make way for She-Ra, who had no doubt in her mind that this was the right thing to do.
“You can’t make her, do this, Queen Angella," said the daughter of the queen herself, who still refused to call her ‘mom’ whenever she was reunited with them in official meetings like the one taking place. This made Adora somewhat uncomfortable after she’d seen the queen tuck Glimmer in bed when they were younger, but no comments were ever made about it. At least not to her face.
There were still traces of that little girl in the woman that now sat next to She-Ra at the table, Adora thought. Her hair was shorter than when she was younger, now reduced to a pink pixie cut that made the round features of her face pop even more. Her eyes still gleamed with determination and her brows and nose both furrowed the same way as always when she heard something she disagreed with.
Relentless as always, Glimmer wasn’t going to let anyone force her friends to do anything they didn’t want to do, at least not without putting up a fight.
“Glimmer…” Bow almost whispered, reconciling as always and, for once, being more reasonable than a lot of people in the room. “Your mom… I mean, Queen Angella” he corrected himself immediately after seeing the expression in his childhood friend’s face change when he mentioned their kinship “is right. I don’t think She-Ra has a choice” he added, now timidly looking at the tall woman he was referring to.
Bow hadn’t changed that much either. His hair was still short on both sides of his head, but stood longer on the top. His tight curls softened the now sharper edges of his face; his cheekbones, his jawline… but the archer’s soft expression portrayed something completely different than what his now harsher features tried to convey. His slanted almond eyes were tender as always and still filled with compassion, which Adora was eternally grateful for. She didn’t know what she would’ve done for the past ten years if it wasn’t for the comfort she found in looking into those eyes.
“Besides, it’s not even that big of a deal, right?” That was Mermista’s voice, princess of Salineas, who still used the exact same tone as when she was 17 years old. Everyone thought she’d grow out of it. Sadly, everyone was wrong. “It’s not like you’d have to do anything with him, it’s just… paperwork.”
“Just paperwork?” Perfuma, princess of Plumeria, sounded almost offended by the words that just came out of the other princess. “That is so heartless of you to say… how would you feel if you were forced to marry and live with someone against your will?”
“Well…” Netossa chimed in. “She did marry that guy with the terrible mustache. I refuse to believe she would do such a thing willingly.” Her comment earned not only the mermaid’s scoff but also a small giggle from the purple haired woman sitting next to her who, as Mermista, wore a wedding ring on her right hand.
“Are we here to make jokes?” It was finally time for Frosta to bring order to the reunion, and as the twenty-one year old girl stood up to speak every other adult in the room turned to face her. “Or to settle an agreement?” Her cold blue eyes stared directly into She-Ra’s, who’s eight feet of height didn’t make her feel any braver when it came to facing the fiery princess of the Kingdom of Snows. “You must marry Hordak, leader of the Horde. Unless you can think of a good reason to avoid this path, it’s the only way to make sure they won’t attack us again now that we are weak, since their name has already been tarnished enough and they can’t allow their people to see them failing to their word again. They are evil, and so is their community, but if the people see them betraying someone they’ve made allies with, they won’t be able to put their trust in their leaders anymore. Hordak knows this.”
“They can’t refuse, because if they haven’t attacked yet it's because they also aren’t strong enough.” Queen Angella resumed where Frosta left off, standing up as the youngest princess sat down once more. “They need the time as much as we do, and they need their citizen’s trust as much as we do.” The tips of her long fingers were now rested on the table, and She-Ra couldn’t help but admire once more the grace with which the queen moved and spoke to refer to everyone in the room. “I understand I cannot force anyone to marry someone against their will.” The woman said, now turning to She-Ra. “But it can only be you.”
“But why her?” Glimmer added, still clouded with anger and powerlessness since, even though she was still fighting against her mother’s suggestion, she knew as well as She-Ra that this was the only way to obtain the peace their people so desperately needed. “Why not someone else? Maybe another princess. We need She-Ra here, fighting with us.” Her words expressed one thing, but the glance the woman sent towards her blonde friend said something completely different. The princess of power stared into those pink eyes that begged for her to stay, and tried, with no luck, to ignore their pleading.
“Yes, She-Ra is an amazing fighter” the Queen was still looking at the warrior and gesturing in her direction as she spoke again, diplomatic and formal as usual. “The best one we’ve ever had. Your years of practice have turned you into the most amazing soldier of our army, and I will be forever grateful to you for all you’ve done for my kingdom, my family, and our planet.” When the woman slightly tilted her head forward to bow, a feeling of uneasiness took over She-Ra, fully knowing she wasn’t deserving of the praise she’d received from such an amazing woman. “But this is precisely what made you the face of the Rebellion. You saved us in our times of need, and now the people at looking at you for answers. They trust and believe in you, so they will be pleased with anything that you do or say.”
With a movement of Queen Angella’s hand a hologram appeared in the middle of the table they were all sitting around, and everyone’s attention was immediately directed to it.
There were a few scenarios being represented in the hologram; from people raising She-Ra sculptures to inquiring protests that had She-Ra’s name plastered on signboards all over them. There were even young children playing around in She-Ra costumes, but before the protagonist of these movements could appreciate the scene the hologram evaporated to make place for a new display; Etheria’s dreary current image.
Seas with no water, forests with no trees, ice structures melting into nothingness… She-Ra felt a knot in her stomach and forced herself to swallow, making a noise that almost echoed in a now deadly silent room.
“As I said, I will be forever grateful for all you’ve done for us.” The Queen spoke to the hero once more, and this time when she repeated her petition no one dared to speak against her anymore. Not even Glimmer, who now quietly looked down at her own feet. “But I’m afraid I need to ask for a favor one last time. Will you come to terms with our request, or will you refuse to help in this time of need?”
A quick glance around the room let She-Ra know, even though she was being politely asked, Queen Angella and Bow were completely right.
She didn’t have a choice.