Work Text:
day 1: nightmares/dreams
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Blood. There’s blood everywhere – on her hands, on her clothes, on her sword.
But it’s not her own.
Catra is lying just a couple meters away from her, and a gaping wound bleeds out on her stomach, soaking her clothes. Adora’s knees scrape the ground as she crawls towards her. Instinctively, she places her hands on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it’s no use, she just gets covered in more blood.
“No, no, no…” she says, as tears start streaming down her face.
“Catra, please, stay with me.”
Catra meets her gaze, her eyes half-lidded, as if she was about to fall asleep. A drop of blood runs from the corner of her mouth and down her cheek.
“Adora…” she wheezes, and coughs once, and it’s a gross, wet cough. Adora realizes Catra’s lungs are likely filling with her own blood.
“Catra, please…I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for everything,” Adora cries, and her tears land on Catra’s face, running down her cheeks, mixing with the blood from her mouth.
“Oh, so now you’re sorry,” Catra says, her gaze distant.
Adora grabs her shoulders and shakes her, her voice frantic as she says “Catra? Catra, please, don’t die, Catra…”
“Adora, I…” Catra’s voice is quiet, so Adora has to lean in to hear her.
“Yes?”
Catra’s eyes gloss over and her body goes limp in Adora’s arms. Adora shakes her again.
“Catra? Catra, wake up!”
But she doesn’t. And Adora cries, hugging her lifeless body, as magic and fire flies around them.
…
Adora jolts awake, sitting up in her bed, drenched in cold sweat, her heart racing in her chest.
“It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” she chants like a quiet mantra to herself, as she breathes deeply. But she can’t control the tears, that are already streaming down her jaw before she even registers them coming out, nor can she control the sobs that escape her throat.
She lets herself cry, because she’s alone, and its night, and no one’s awake to hear her.
She reminds herself, again and again, that she didn’t kill Catra, that Catra is alive and well, be it on the wrong side of the war.
Adora hugs herself, wishing that she could hug Catra, too, to make sure she really is alive. But that’s impossible, and she knows this, and it only results in making her sob deeper, more desperately.
Eventually, she manages to calm herself down, and wipes the tears off her face, before laying down again and trying to fall asleep. But every time she closes her eyes, she sees Catra’s limp body on the ground, covered in blood.
Adora doesn’t sleep that night.