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“Isn’t it funny? How the cold numbs everything but grief. If we could light up the room with pain, we’d be such a glorious fire.”
— Ada Limón, “Lashed To The Helm, All Stiff And Stark,” from Bright Dead Things
Catra starts losing count on day six.
Six? Maybe seven. No, no. She looks at the scratched wall. Definitely six. She marks it again.
Why do you even bother? You're never getting out of here.
On the first day, Horde Prime himself had came to check on them. If she once feared Hordak, there were no words from the cold that went down her spine every time he opened his mouth to speak. But he didn’t hurt her, or Sparkles. Yet . On the third, came the interrogation. Catra's wrists were hurting from where the handcuffs had been, and for a moment it was like she was at the Fright Zone again, Shadow Weaver having discovered that she skipped training and asking her to come to the Black Garnet Chamber.
It wasn't news to her that she was worth nothing to Horde Prime. But, after jumping on that flash of light and ending up on this spaceship, she figured she would have at least some time to something, anything . If Sparkles nearly destroyed the whole universe because she wanted power against Catra and yet took a step back, maybe Catra could step forward, finally. She didn’t know where, exactly — and maybe it was too late for her to figure out.
She looks at the wall. Glitter sleeps on the other side of the cell. The scratches on the wall face her. Six days.
You’re never getting out of here.
You see— somethings are just meant to stay inside. Somethings, Catra keeps within her, deep into her core, written all over her bones. Like the fact that success and winning had a bitter taste and weight heavy on her hands and back; the fact that not even months of loathing after Adora left could have prepared her for seeing Scorpia’s force captain badge on her bed; the fact that she kept looking to the side but, in the end, she was truly all alone and there was nothing she could ever do about it.
There were dreams, before the sword. And there were dreams after. And, even after Adora looked at her after the portal — eyes so blue and so full of hatred there was nothing Catra could even think — there were dreams. Some were like the portal. In a few of them, Adora woke up, pressed her lips against Catra’s face and they stayed like that, immortalized in a mind delirium. In others, She Ra standed before her, sword on her hands and blood all over her fingers, her hands, her body.
And it’s not like she minded, actually.
But there had been some times that Adora came to her and took her hands and told her that she loved Catra. Rubbed her calloused thumb over Catra’s lips and she was gone — how could Adora love her if she left just like that, without even thinking twice , how could Catra just ignore her heart and organs and bones being ripped out of her body when she saw Adora fall on he knees as She Ra, as someone she no longer knew. But she did, somehow, someway , and woke up with a sour taste on her mouth and numbness all over her body.
Catra doesn’t dream anymore, she concludes.
She doesn’t know how many days have passed, either.
“Eleven.”
Catra blinks, stares at the wall, to many marks on the wall for eyes to understand. But Glitter seems certain, so she marks it again.
She still asks, though. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”, she says. “If we’re going to leave this place, you’re going to have to trust me, you know.”
Catra stops, looks down at her nails and then back at the other side of the cell. Sparkles’ hair doesn’t shine anymore, and her hands can’t barely leave her lap. An image on her mind— a staff above her head, ready to end her, and hesitant hands; a flash of light coming from the sky and her legs moving before she even can consider.
“You know that by this you have to trust me too, right?”
If she still knew what time is, she could’ve filled the space between the two of them a thousand silent times.
Glimmer blinks.
“There’s no way we’re getting out of this if we don’t work together.”
There’s something somewhere inside her, and it’s hurting . It rises, grows and breaks all over the floor between the two of them. She doesn’t have a name for it, nor truly understands how to put the writhing in her body in words.
She knows about Angella, now. If she squints hard enough, she can see Shadow Weaver’s hand on Glimmer cheek, like it once had been in hers. She sees a girl ripped away from her mother and her stomach empties—she sees the hatred, the hurt, and, when she blinks, she can almost see them both side by side with Glimmer.
Catra marks the wall.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Sparkles.”
When she wakes up, she knows she’s in Bright Moon. She knows it before she opens her eyes and sees the tall pink walls and pastel colors all over the place, before she sees moonlight bright on her feet and the smell of something— how do you name it? It’s a feeling on her bones that she’s in the heart of the rebellion, and what in Etheria she’s doing her, why is there so many bandages on her body and there’s this tingling on her arm and—
Adora’s head on her bed, hair loose from that stupid ponytail and hair strands tickling her arm. She’s asleep, deep in it like she always have, just like when she rested her head against Catra’s shoulder after a long day of training and Catra could swear she would combust.
Catra gasps— it’s a dream, it has to be, right? Right ? She counts her fingers, feels her body. But it’s the right number, the right body, and how could this be real ? Maybe she doesn’t remember, maybe something big, really huge happened and she hit her head so hard she doesn’t remember and this looks like an infirmary so it’s plausible and—
Adora’s turning her head, looking up, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking at Catra, really looking with bright eyes and—
Her hands move to touch Catra’s head, and she wants to melt into her touch.
“That’s a really nasty bruise you got in there, y’know?”
She takes her own hand to where Adora’s resting and there is, in fact, a bruise there, but her attention is focused on the way that Adora’s fingers brush with her before Adora takes her hand.
“What am I doing here?”
“You hit your head really hard when the ship crashed.” What? “There was no way we were going to just leave you there.”
Leave, leave, leave—like you left before .
Didn’t need you.
Catra’s head hurts and there’s this beat, this throbbing coming from somewhere but she can’t quite know and name. She looks up and she wants to ask what happened, did you really come to look for me, do you really want me here , but it’s fast and slow and Adora leans in and Catra gives in and closes her eyes because, yes , okay , maybe it isn’t a dream, maybe this is really happening, maybe—
Left you.
Adora’s head falls heavy on her lap, white eyes and blood dripping from her mouth. The room starts spinning and erasing in front of her eyes and when Adora looks up, she wants to vomit, the portal behind her consuming everything around them.
“Why did you do it, Catra?”
She wakes up screaming.
She doesn’t sleep anymore.
Maybe that was her mistake— giving in when she should have been strong and in position. Maybe now, yeah that seems right, maybe now she can actually do something, and fight back, and find a way to leave this place.
Catra looks at her side, Adora’s ghost looking back at her.
Why did you do it?
“You dreamt about her again?”, Glimmer aks one day — or night, Catra gave up trying to figure out long ago.
She turns. Glimmer is closer now, tired in a way Catra never thought it was possible for the Bright Moon Princess to be. It’s a funny thing — that the one she despised the most would be the one to wake her up when she starts having nightmares— even that she would never recognize the action itself out loud.
“Is it a dream if I can see her right now?” And she can, really. Adora is smiling.
“For what it’s worth”, she starts. “I think she loved you. I think she still does.”
“I know.”
“What?”
Catra exhales. “I know. That’s all I ever knew before everything that happened. At the Horde, that’s what it was always right in my mind, what was always certain. That she loved me, and that I loved her back.
Glimmer doesn’t say anything, staring at her like she knew something Catra doesn’t. Maybe she does. Maybe there’s nothing left to say.
Catra stares at the wall, Adora’s laugh beside her, Angella at the other side of the room.
It’s been two weeks now, she thinks.
Catra starts seeing Adora more often, but Adora doesn't see Glimmer, and Glimmer doesn’t see Adora, and maybe Catra is losing her mind—she feels like it, somehow. She counts her fingers, feels her body— ten fingers, same body. Everything still in place. But still—
She feels like she’s lost something.
Catra wakes up with Glimmer dragging her by the arm — to outside their cell. Has she gone crazy? She wants to scream, but her lungs don’t work, words don’t exist near hear throat and she remembers gasping for air in Hordak’s sanctum and, yeah, maybe he learned a thing or two from Horde Prime.
But Glimmer doesn't seem tired as she once was, flashes of places and broken lights around her. They’re going fast, yeah, and it’s only when something explodes and she is set back that she realize there’s someone else besides her— she knows it’s not Adora before she can even look up and see Bow’s concerned face above her.
What is happening?
Red lights flashing before her eyes and is this real, because, for all she knows, she could’ve still be in the fright zone, in Shadow Weaver’s —or hers— cell and this had all just been a big delirium but—
Something opens and there’s a ship in front of her— the same one that she found on the Crimson Waste. Her knees hurt, weaken and she falls, blurred vision and a strong grip on her arm. Bow says something, but she can’t hear— Adora’s laughing too much beside her and it’s all so loud and— she’s not laughing anymore. Adora kneels in front of her and takes her, and Catra never thought she would enjoy being hugged by a ghost.
“Hey, Adora” it’s what she manages to say. “You never did leave, did you?”
Adora says something, and she hears a laugh, and there it is the pain of her body being split in half and spitting everything in front of everyone. She feels something hit her stomach, wet blouse and red covered hands.
She closes her eyes before she can realize it’s not a hallucination.