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With the portal gone, there's nowhere to go unless she's willing to travel on her own two feet, unless she's willing to run. So Catra does.
She pushes off easily from the metal floor, cold against her mostly bare feet. And then she doesn't feel the cold; she runs so fast its like she's flying. When she was a kid, she always used to do this--sprinting through the corridors of the fright zone (of course, when she was a kid, she ran after Adora, or with Adora giggling as she followed in close pursuit, or running side by side, holding hands like it made them unstoppable, not slower and more clumsy around corners in the tight space).
The door is right there, and the /princess alliance/ didn't think to cover their exits. An easy escape. Catra tore her eyes from her path, just for a moment; a glance thrown over her shoulder, casually, cruelly, and always at Adora. To taunt her escape, to see the wreckage, at least emotional, left in Catra's wake. She looks back at Adora, anxious to see what feelings spilled across her face, what irritation or anger or /fear/ spilled across her face (often the vaguely unfamiliar features of "She-Ra", which seemed stronger and harder, like her whole figure when she was in princess form, or whatever. Maybe it was the magical transformation, shifting her face into that of a stranger. Or maybe she was just a lot taller. Catra's veiw of her face was different from the one she had known forever).
Catra looks back. Expecting anguish and heartbreak. Adora always looked at her like that--like her very existence was the most tragic thing she had ever known. Pathetic: so vulnerable to Catra's every whim. Catra loves to see her eyes, blue as tears, and the space between her lips where she couldn't find the right thing to say.
Adora is looking at her, too. Of course, because she's always that desperate. It makes Catra feel /good/. Powerful. And so she meets Adora's eyes, which are shining blue as ice and then shifting to a stoney grey (silver?) as her eyes narrow maliciously. And Catra feels that this is the end.
It's a tightening in her chest. It's the daggers, made of ice and rock and steel, from Adora's glare hitting her chest, breaking the skin, and piercing her heart. She feels fire spreading across her chest, and wonders if shes really actually bleeding out.
Adora, her Adora (obviously, she's the only one. what kind of name is Adora?), regarding her coldly.
And her breath rushes out of her lungs. Another sign she might be suffering from a stab wound.
Adora hates her.
Or maybe hate is too strong of a word. Sure, Catra hates Adora, but she can't fathom her reciprocating the feeling. Like Adora isn't quite capable of full blown hatred, for Catra or anyone. She was just too... well, too Adora for such an ugly emotion.
Even from across the room, Catra imagines she can see her own reflection in those angry blue eyes. Like Adora finally understood the thing she had been to dense to get all these months: they were enemies.
And for all her vicious taunts and aloof antagonism and repeated assurances that they were enemies, she never wanted Adora to look at her like /that/.
Harsh. Angry. Determined (determined to defeat her and not save her, in that annoying way she always did when they were kids: charging in heroically with a hard set in her round chin and a glint in her overlarge eyes, so different from the gleam now, which chilled Catra to her core).
They were enemies.
Catra's heart broke. It felt hot in the burning cold room.
Like, she hadn't realized how much she clung (tooth and nail. Literally) to the softness in Adora's eyes. Catra hated her, and laughed at how stupid she was for holding on hope that Catra was somehow /good/ at her core. But it didn't seem laughable that Adora finally let go.
(Adora's hand had been fisted in the front of Catra's shirt, warm and angry enough to be felt right through the fabric. It made her heart pound. Fighting with Adora, that is. It always did. Every single time, but when Adora was so close the pressure was almost unbearable. Almost. Then the hand was gone, the pressure gone, the warmth gone. When she let go, Catra fell, and she couldn't tell if the memory was real or a nightmare that had come to life in her head.)
Catra let out a huff of breath, trying to find the will to break her gaze away from those blue eyes. Narrowed, piercing. And Catra was falling. For all of her apparent recklessness, she never really wanted this rope harnessing her to safety cut. For all that she pushed Adora away, she never really wanted her to be glaring at her from across an insurmountable chasm.
She could be mean, because she thought she'd always have Adora, have her attention, her affection, maybe even something resembling love (which scared Catra to even consider. She wasn't anywhere near in love with Adora. The opposite in fact: it was hatred. It was just that she liked having that power over Adora, that love power). Catra was mean, but she never thought-- well, she never wanted Adora to look at her like that.
Her head spins with every possible thing she could so to redeem herself in Adora's eyes (such a light, hard ice blue that they seem completely different from the soft sky blue she was used to) and every way to further scatter the ash from this burnt bridge. But she can tell, in those blue eyes, that there's no going back now, only kicking her feet through the wreckage. There's no going back.
It's the end of the brand new dynamic they had been developing since Adora left the Horde. It was the end of the familiar and a harbinger of change. Maybe it was even the end of the days when Catra had a reason to turn around, to look back.
With the portal gone, there's nowhere to go unless she's willing to travel on her own two feet, unless she's willing to run. So Catra does.