Archive of Our Own ^beta

They say there is a woman in the woods who lives out of order. Ask her where this story begins and she will say, with the bouquet and the wedding, or perhaps that is where it ends, or the wedding is one stepping stone, the bouquet another, and the beginning and the end do not matter.

The rest of us live in order. The story begins with a girl and a broken sword.

i.

The worst thing was how her thoughts went around in circles. Everything would be fine, Adora thought, if she could just find the correct order, the sequence of events that led from the Sword of Protection shattering to Glimmer safely returned to Bright Moon.

‘Adora?’

There was a time she’d welcomed the gentleness in Bow’s voice. Days of helpless stargazing later, she was coming to loathe it.

‘We could go right now,’ Adora said, not for the first time. ‘The ship is right there. We have to help her!’

Bow turned towards the balcony’s edge, and even without seeing his eyes she could tell that he was thinking the same thing, looking at Mara’s ship where it sat like a giant insect in the shallow water below Bright Moon.

‘Micah said—’

‘I know what Micah said, but with all respect to him he just spent years on an island literally designed to make you lose your mind! Are we sure he has the right idea—’

‘He locked Shadow Weaver up.’

‘I—’ Adora turned away from the view. Easier to stare at the castle walls. ‘Yeah. He did do that.’

‘I know it’s hard, but we have one ship. They have thousands. Right now, there’s nothing we can do but wait.’

‘There’s always something I can—we can do. We could try and—’

‘Adora.’ Bow’s hand on her shoulder was comforting in a way none of his words could be. Adora let him anchor her, let her arms unclench. ‘You’re the big picture person here. Like, the really big picture. The save-the-universe, thousand-year prophecy big picture. Me? I’m the details guy. No problem too specific for its own specially-made arrow!’

He was trying to make her smile. It was almost working.

‘But Glimmer?’ Bow went on. ‘She was in the middle. She put the pieces together. And until she’s back, we have to trust that Micah can do that for her.’

‘She knows we forgive her.’ The words were smaller than she wanted, insignificant, but they would do. ‘Right?’

‘She knows.’ Bow’s fingers tightened one more time and let go. ‘Just imagine the look on her face when she comes home and sees her dad. It’ll all be worth it then.’

‘You’re right.’ Adora smiled. ‘And who knows. Maybe she’s busy up there, sabotaging Horde Prime, and any day now she’ll steal a ship—’

‘Adora?’

‘—and we’ll wake up and see it parked down there right next to ours, and then we’ll have two ships—’

‘Adora. Look!’

She only saw a trail of smoke first, too focused on the perfect image in her head to comprehend the version of it unfolding in reality. Then the whine of engines pushed past their limit, the shockwave rustling the canopies of the Whispering Woods, until finally she could make out the ship itself, not quite like Mara’s but perhaps a distant cousin. Its trajectory could charitably be described as uncontrolled.

In hindsight, she ought to have stayed behind and made sure the approaching ship wasn’t a threat. In hindsight, it was dangerous to stand in the path of several tons of crashing metal with nothing but her depth perception to judge where it would come down. Adora knew those things even as she ran down the steps of Bright Moon castle, even as she forced herself through the knee-deep water below.

None of them mattered in the moment. The ship slid to a halt twenty paces from her with the tortured shriek of bent metal. Its ramp descended. Dimly, Adora could hear Bow splashing his way to her side, but she had eyes only for the figure staggering down the ramp, her clothing tattered and stained, her hair a bright counterpoint to the harsh greys and browns of the burning ship.

Adora stepped forward to embrace her best friend. The smoke parted.

‘Help her,’ Glimmer said, her voice strained beyond all exhaustion, and Adora thought, I must be dreaming.

*

Catra knew this dream.

It was a dream she’d had since Thaymor, when the swirling smoke took Adora away from her. The smoke was how it always began, like she’d been swallowed at one end and spat back out at the other, like everything that had happened to her since then was only as real as a hazy shadow cast upon a wall.

Help her, she heard someone say. Her body ached. She remembered each blow and she remembered none of them. They couldn’t be real. She hadn’t held Horde Prime’s guards off all by herself, desperately buying time for the girl she would once have called her worst enemy to escape. She hadn’t stood alone. Hadn’t chosen to make that sacrifice. Those were the choices good people made. People who believed in something. People whose friends went back for them.

This was a dream—the dream she’d suppressed harder than any other, the dream she’d given up on.

This was the dream where she was the hero.

She opened her eyes in darkness. ‘Where am I?’

There was a squawk from somewhere to her right. A light came on. Catra squinted, trying to make out the face of the person rubbing sleep from his eyes.

‘Bow?’

‘Hey, you remember my name!’

Which explanation would he prefer? Of course I remember your name, I spent months obsessing over the people who replaced me. Of course I remember your name, Sparkles wouldn’t shut up about you.

‘Yeah. We’ve met. Where am I? Where’s Glimmer?’

‘Bright Moon! You were in the, um, infirmary for a while, but I guess they got you patched up ‘cause they moved you to your own room. Glimmer’s okay. She was here earlier. I told her to get some rest.’

Bright Moon. Catra let herself take the room in. A bed four times bigger than it needed to be—eight times if you removed the half dozen cushions she didn’t need. A door with no visible lock. Cloth hung around the bedframe and the windows with no conceivable purpose. The windows themselves were open, letting in a breeze. Even the night air was warmer, more comfortable than it had been in the Fright Zone.

She was wearing clothes that weren’t hers, loose pyjamas in pale purple that felt too small and too large at the same time. ‘What happened?’ she said eventually.

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

‘Passing out on the ship.’

‘Well, you landed. Crashed. Crash-landed. Glimmer had to carry you down the ramp, and then she nearly collapsed, but Adora was there, and we got you back up to the castle, and—’

‘I get the picture.’ Of all the people who could have been sitting in that chair waiting for her to wake up, she could have done worse than Bow. At least he didn’t have a personal reason to hate her. ‘This your idea of a prison cell?’

‘Well, now that you mention it—’

‘Really?’

‘Not that you’re in prison!’

‘So I can just get up and leave.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But what?’ Catra swung her legs over the side of the bed. Nothing happened. She tried to lift an arm. It flopped listlessly on one of the stupid tasselled cushions. ‘What,’ she said, biting back panic, ‘did you do to me?’

‘Nothing! It’s just—’

‘I can’t fucking move—’

‘Catra, listen to me, we don’t want to hurt you. You’re safe here, okay? The paralysis is—’ Bow sighed. ‘Entrapta thinks it’s temporary. Something about overexposure to shock weapons.’

She couldn’t let Bow see her helpless. Catra closed her eyes, brought her breathing under control. She didn’t need to move right now. It was fine.

‘Entrapta’s here?’

The door flew open. Catra had only a moment to process the sight of Scorpia, beaming like nothing had ever happened between them, before she was assaulted by waves of familiar enthusiasm: ‘Catra! You’re okay! And you’re one of the good guys now! I knew you weren’t evil, deep down inside, even when you were kinda terrible, I said to myself, there’s gonna be a day when she comes out the other end, and if it takes some tough love to get there—’

‘Shut up!’ Catra was breathing hard, her ears flat against her scalp. At least those still worked. She was acutely aware of her arms, unresponsive like she was sleeping. ‘Leave me alone.’

Scorpia gaped at her. Bow opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, frowned.

There was someone else standing in the doorway, nearly obscured by Scorpia’s excitement. ‘Scorpia, Bow. Could you give me a minute alone with her?’

Despite herself, Catra still found the sound of Glimmer’s voice soothing. It had been her anchor, up in the cold dark of Prime’s domain. Scorpia and Bow shuffled out of the room, and she waited for the other shoe to drop, for the uneasy alliance that existed between her and Glimmer to shatter in the light of Bright Moon.

‘How do you feel?’ Glimmer asked eventually, taking the seat Bow had vacated.

‘How do you think?’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘We used to play a game in the Fright Zone. One person would hide, and the others would search. If you found them, you’d join them in their hiding place until there was no one left. Whoever was last out gave up their dinner rations for a week. That’s how I feel. Everyone else has ended up here.’ Catra felt the tears welling in her eyes, tried to wipe them away, then fought down the mortification when she remembered she couldn’t. ‘First Adora, then Entrapta, apparently, and Scorpia and Double Trouble—and fucking Shadow Weaver, and I’ve just been—I’ve just been searching the whole time, because I don’t know how to—how to snap my fingers and become a part of the fucking team!’

Glimmer looked at her oddly. ‘When we play games in Bright Moon,’ she said, ‘everyone gets to eat dinner. Even the losers.’

‘Great. Great for them. I’m so glad Scorpia isn’t going hungry.’

‘And Shadow Weaver’s in prison. For good, this time.’

‘Oh. She is?’

‘Yes. My dad had her locked up while I was away.’

‘I thought he was dead.’

A smile, wide, warm, unplanned. ‘So did I.’

‘Well. At least one of us got some good news, huh?’

‘You know you’re not a prisoner, right?’

‘You know telling me that over and over isn’t actually reassuring, right?’

Glimmer shrugged. ‘It’s true.’

‘And you’re selling this to all your princess friends how, exactly? Oh, you remember Catra, tried to conquer the world, but we’re good now? Come on, Sparkles, that’s not how it works.’

‘You saved me. You saved everyone.’

‘I didn’t. I was just doing what I always do. Surviving.’

‘Fine, then.’ There was steel in Glimmer’s voice, and Catra hadn’t the faintest idea why. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that you’re here now. At the table. On the team. However you want to put it.’

It was a nice dream, but Catra was growing tired of it. That was the thing with heroics—make a habit of them, and people started to want things from you.

‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘If I’m a “good guy” now’—sarcasm practically dripping from her bared teeth—‘then answer one question for me.’

‘What?’

‘Where’s Adora?’

ii.

‘You should go see her,’ Bow said the next evening.

Adora blinked. She’d been so absorbed in watching Glimmer and Micah, the way they sat together by the fireplace, a little apart, a little together, like they were renegotiating the distance between them. She envied them, even when it was difficult. Micah forgot, sometimes, that Glimmer wasn’t a child any longer. She, in turn, pushed too hard, reacted too strongly, forgetting how years of isolation had blunted his social instincts. But it was—constructive. That was the word that occurred to Adora. Even when their conversations revolved around the war, around logistics and tactics and victory, Adora could see the places where they clicked, words replaced, for an instant, by something deeper. She thought, this is what they always should have been. She thought, it’s not fair that Glimmer only ever knew one parent at a time. She thought, I wouldn’t know where to begin doing what they’re doing.

‘Adora?’

‘What?’

‘I said, you should go see her.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

She tried to return to the careful blank space inside her from which she could watch the world as if it was a separate thing, a thing she herself did not need to worry about; but the crackle of the fire was intruding. Her senses reawakened one by one. Behind her, the scrape of a trowel bore witness to Perfuma’s patient attempts to teach Scorpia how to repot a plant, interspersed at regular intervals by Scorpia’s muttered self-encouragement. Across from her, the faint whiff of burnt circuits spiralled from—something—in Entrapta’s hands, and by the look on her face she was exerting all her patience in not dragging Bow away for a technical consultation. The velvet of the couch was—

‘Adora.’

‘What!’ She glanced at Bow, to prove that she wasn’t avoiding doing so. He was halfway between concern and exasperation. ‘I’m fine, really. Just tired.’

‘You’re always tired these days,’ he said softly.

She crossed her arms. ‘I’ve been up late. Strategizing with Glimmer and Micah.’

‘Maybe you should take a break. A night off.’

‘This is a night off.’

Bow sighed. ‘Then why have you done nothing but sit here looking miserable all evening?’ He paused. ‘You know I’ll support you whatever you do. You know I’ll help whatever way I can. Right?’

‘Yes,’ Adora said. ‘Of course. But I really am fine.’

‘I see how you look at them, Adora.’

‘What?’

‘Glimmer and Micah. Perfuma and Scorpia.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Old bonds. New bonds. I feel like maybe you’re a little jealous. And that’s okay. But there’s an obvious solution.’

‘It’s not like that,’ Adora said automatically.

‘What is it like?’

‘It can’t… It can’t be like that for me. With her.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’re both too—too broken, okay? I’m not She-Ra anymore, and—and who even knows what’s going on in her head. There’s no way that… that seeing her would help.’

‘You’re worth more than She-Ra,’ Bow said, not for the first time, and Adora wondered, also not for the first time, what she’d done to deserve so patient a friend. ‘And I think—I think you won’t know what’ll help until you try.’

Adora looked away.

‘I’m scared.’ Nothing happened. The words didn’t grow teeth. They simply were. She hazarded a few more: ‘I’m scared that I’ll walk in there, and I won’t… I won’t recognise her. At all. I’m scared she’s too far gone.’ She didn’t add the obvious, that it was easier to feel happy seeing her friends mending bridges than it was to risk taking up the tools herself.

‘Then you’ll know,’ Bow said firmly, squeezing her hand. At that moment, Glimmer met her gaze and raised her eyebrows, and Adora realised that this was a trap her best friends had set for her.

She stood up abruptly, dislodging Bow’s hand.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to—um. I need to get some air. Don’t—don’t wait up.’

The corridor outside was quiet and empty and large enough to contain her thoughts. Adora didn’t feel like sleeping; she directed her footsteps away from her bedroom. Nor was she hungry, so she passed by the staircase down to the kitchens. The colonnade outside? It was raining. She had no wish to catch a cold.

This was how she let herself make the decision, in the negative space of places she did not want to go, until only one was left.

She felt nervous. Like she was fourteen again, stumbling over new and unusual feelings. Maybe it was still easier to turn around. Go to bed. Let the uncertainty win. Sooner or later Prime would make his move, and then she’d be back in her element. It was the waiting getting to her, that was all. She needed a goal. She needed to act. She needed to knock on the door.

*

When the knock came, Catra was sitting up in bed examining the bandage around her ribs. The bed-shirt they’d given here was all loose, soft cotton, but it had taken an effort of will to hike it up far enough. Still. That was an improvement. The previous day her limbs had felt utterly divorced from her body; now they felt as if someone had been sitting on them for a very long time and only recently deigned to move.

‘Door’s open,’ Catra called, not bothering to look up as it creaked slowly open. Glimmer had been checking on her throughout the day, in between—whatever it was queens did. ‘Door’s always open in this place, I don’t know why you bother to knock. Not like I can do anything to—’

‘Catra?’

Catra’s head jerked up. Adora was standing half-in, half-out of the room, lit by the stupid dim lamp on the bedside table, wearing the jacket she’d worn the day she left the Horde. It almost made Catra laugh—her in the awful Bright Moon pyjamas, Adora looking like she was still an enemy soldier. How fucking ironic.

It almost made her cry. She bit down on her tongue, tightened her jaw, and made herself meet Adora’s gaze. ‘I thought you were Glimmer.’

Adora swallowed visibly. She looked like a cadet who’d been called on in training and didn’t have the faintest idea what to say.

‘Not calling her “Sparkles” anymore?’ she said eventually.

‘Only to her face.’

Catra tried to remember the last time she’d seen Adora with her hair down. Days before she’d left the Horde for good, in one of the shower blocks, Catra’s fingers lathering shampoo into Adora’s scalp, soap running down Adora’s back, the contented sigh of someone who deserved to relax after a day’s hard of work, after yet another day of being the best, the favourite—

No, Catra thought. No. That was behind her. There was no use remembering how Adora reciprocated, how her fingers always found their way, painlessly, between the tangled mess of Catra’s hair. The way she said hold still when Catra squirmed. The attention she paid to Catra’s ears. After, alone, Catra hated tending to her hair. It was uncomfortable, no matter how careful she was. Too many knots.

Adora made a noise, um?, discomfited by Catra’s stare. ‘So you’re… you’re friends now. You and Glimmer.’

Catra snorted. ‘Friends? Sure. Why not. It makes as much sense as anything else.’

‘Look,’ Adora said, ‘I know this is…’

‘Fucked up?’ Catra suggested.

‘Weird. I was going to say weird. I know it’s weird, but… I wanted to… I wanted to see if…’

‘Spit it out.’

‘If you were my Catra again.’ Adora said this in the world’s smallest voice, looking everywhere but at Catra, and that was just too fucking much.

‘Really,’ Catra said, not bothering to hide her anger. ‘Really?’

Adora flinched. ‘And I was going to—going to ask if you needed help with that bandage—’

‘I can handle it,’ Catra hissed. ‘Just like I’ve been handling myself ever since you left and I stopped being your Catra.’

‘That’s not how I meant it—’

It was awkward, but Catra had just enough control over her arms to pivot her body over the side of the bed. The next step went less well. She was vaguely aware of her feet hitting the floor, then her knees buckled and Adora squawked mid-sentence and the next thing Catra knew, she was lying on the carpet, half supported by Adora’s left arm.

‘Right,’ Adora said, and there was something in her voice, something deniable that nonetheless resembled a smile. ‘You can handle it.’

Catra’s face burned. ‘Let go of me.’

‘And leave you on the floor?’ Adora adjusted her grip around Catra’s shoulders. Catra’s ears, traitors that they were, twitched in response. ‘Come on.’

That was how she found herself hoisted in Adora’s arms again, cheek pressed against the familiar fabric of Adora’s jacket.

‘It’s temporary,’ she muttered as Adora settled her back in the bed. ‘I’ll be on my feet in a couple days.’

‘Yeah,’ Adora said. ‘I know.’

She sounded—jealous? Catra frowned. ‘What’s up with you? I thought you’d be happier. You know, Glimmer being rescued from the clutches of your worst enemy by your other worst enemy.’

Adora flinched. ‘Not that it matters,’ she said, voice tight, ‘but you’ll hear about it sooner or later, so… I’m—I’m not She-Ra anymore. I destroyed the sword. It was all a—a trap. A weapon. It nearly destroyed the—the whole universe.’ The words tumbled from her mouth. ‘And I should have figured it out earlier, but I didn’t, and it was nearly too late, and now I can’t do anything, so I’m sorry if you can’t use your legs for a few days but I’m never—never getting it back—’

Catra slapped her. Considering her condition, the blow was more to Adora’s pride than her face.

‘What—why did you do that?’

‘Because I’m mean,’ Catra said shortly, ‘and I can’t stand your self-pity. Boohoo, you lost the magic fucking sword. You never did anything to deserve it, why should you care if it’s gone?’

‘You,’ Adora said through gritted teeth, ‘are lecturing me on self-pity? That’s really happening right now?’

Catra raised her chin. ‘You’re welcome. I thought you might appreciate the hypocrisy.’

Adora stared at her a moment more. Then she got up. ‘I think I got the answer I needed. Goodbye, Catra.’

‘Oh, for—Adora.’ Adora stopped in the doorframe. ‘I would have followed you to the ends of the world. Do you remember that? You know why? I’ll give you a hint: it had nothing to do with your magic sword or your magic destiny or your magic anything. You used to be more than a feelgood, glowy song-and-dance with a ridiculous sword. You used to be someone I respected.’ Catra’s voice wavered, nearly broke. Suddenly she was glad Adora couldn’t see her face. ‘And it really makes no difference to me, but instead of pining after your poor, lost Catra, maybe you should start asking yourself when you stopped being my Adora!’

The door slammed shut behind Adora. Catra slumped back onto her pillows, feeling altogether drained.

‘I thought that went pretty well,’ she muttered.

iii.

Could someone be both spiteful and right at the same time?

‘Are there any staffs in the armoury?’ Adora asked Bow the next morning, poking through a rack of maces. He and Entrapta were sitting in a corner, tutting over a bundle of arrows.

‘Isn’t it “staves”?’ This from Entrapta, who otherwise gave no sign of paying attention to their conversation.

‘Are there any staves in the armoury?’ Adora made sure to imbue the word with the eye roll they were too preoccupied to see.

Bow looked up. There was a gleam in his eyes. It made Adora happy, seeing them together. Jealous, too, but mostly happy. Bow deserved a friend who shared his love of technology.

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘You sure you don’t want a sword instead?’

She was sure. The next few days flowed with renewed focus: Light Hope’s constructs replaced with Bright Moon’s training ground, the Sword of Protection with a simple wooden staff, leather-bound around the middle. It was the right decision. She’d learnt to use She-Ra’s enormous broadsword. Compared to it, the regular swords in the armoury were a different type of weapon entirely; absent it, there was only one other weapon she’d been trained in.

Each morning, she swept through battered practice dummies like a hurricane flexing its wings. Muscle memory returned. So did actual memory. The Fright Zone training halls, the sharp buzz when a blow landed. Catra’s laughter as she danced out of the way again, and again, and again, leading Adora in a chase she always won in the end. Catra when Adora pinned her to the floor in victory, their faces inches apart, looking, for the moment before she shoved Adora off, like she was the true victor, like she’d won a game Adora wasn’t aware they were playing.

Each afternoon, she repeated the exercise until her muscles trembled and even the memories could not keep up. It felt good. Let Horde Prime scheme: the moment he dared show his face, Adora would be ready for him.

On the third day, Adora stowing her staff after her afternoon session, Catra was simply there, silent against one wall, watching. She was wearing her old clothes. Adora’s heart rate spiked and she forced herself to breathe. Clothing didn’t matter. Catra was either her enemy or she wasn’t.

‘How long have you been there?’

When Catra’s gaze swept over her, Adora had the sudden, ridiculous urge to wrap a towel around herself.

‘A while.’ Catra raised her eyebrows. ‘You took my advice to heart, huh?’

‘That’s not why—’ Adora stopped herself halfway, continued in a more measured tone: ‘I guess, maybe you had a point. Not when you were...’

‘Being an asshole?’

‘Your words.’

Catra grinned, feral. ‘Yep. But go on, tell me about how I had a point.’

‘I can fight without the sword. I can be useful without She-Ra. I can still—fix things.’

‘Not exactly what I meant.’ Catra’s smile faded. ‘It’ll do, I guess. You done?’

‘Oh, um, yeah. Do you need… ?’

‘Glimmer suggested I come down here. Make sure everything is working properly again.’ Catra pushed away from the wall, flexed her unsleeved arm by way of clarification. To Adora’s eye, her gait looked as smooth as ever. ‘Must have slipped her mind you’d be here.’ She ran a finger along the weapon rack Adora had been using. ‘Staffs? Been a while.’

Adora’s mind stuck on Glimmer suggested, the way it always did when she was reminded that her friends had, to all appearances, accepted Catra’s presence.

‘Staves,’ she muttered.

‘Whatever. We always called them staffs.’

Catra’s fingers lingered on the staff Adora had just put away. Adora tensed, as if the weapon meant something more to her than three days’ worth of practice. As if she cared whether Catra touched the leather, rough-smooth, where Adora’s hands had begun to make their mark.

‘You planning to pick one already?’

‘Mmm. I have an idea.’ Catra grabbed two staffs, and before Adora could object—hey, that’s mine—she tossed one in a practiced motion and Adora snatched it out of the air without thinking and barely got it up in time to block Catra’s first, overhand blow.

‘Hey,’ she said, parrying a second blow and a third, crack crack echoing off the castle walls. ‘I was just finishing—’

Catra went in for a sweep. Adora barely jumped in time.

‘And I spent three days paralysed in bed. Seems fair to me.’

Then there was no time for talking, because Catra was fast—faster even than Adora remembered, feinting one way, shifting her grip mid-blow, making Adora yelp with a tap to her abdomen. Adora stumbled backwards, wiped sweat from her temples, caught her breath.

‘You got better,’ she said, partly because it was true and partly because it gave her a few more seconds’ rest.

‘Oh, please. I’ve always been this good.’ Catra twirled her staff, showboating, all finesse and studied boredom. ‘I don’t have a reason to hide it anymore, that’s all.’

It was like seeing double, the young Catra overlaid on the old, teasing, mocking, but now the things unsaid were said, the thoughts neither of them could ever have expressed in the Horde slowly coming to the surface, as sure as bubbles rising from the seabed.

The sea was very deep.

‘Why did you hide it?’

Catra’s staff stilled. She studied Adora, as if trying to guess whether the question was meant in earnest.

‘Because,’ she said eventually, ‘there was no point in trying. It was made clear to me that you were the best, whether or not it was true—’

Adora lunged forwards, the point of her staff finding Catra’s side, and Catra squawked in indignation, scuttled backwards, her tail tangling in her legs. Adora pressed her advantage, not really knowing why, knowing, even, that if ever there was a time for this drive to win, now was not it—but still she wanted it, as if beating Catra here and now might disprove her words, justify the favouritism Adora had always, guiltily, enjoyed.

Catra recovered quickly. One moment she was on the backfoot, then she drew Adora into an overreach and hit back, teeth bared. Adora blocked one blow too many, her arms numb under the force of Catra’s assault, dropped her staff, stumbled backwards, and let the fiction shatter.

Catra was better. There was no getting around it. Adora had never been the best at everything. She’d never deserved Shadow Weaver’s sickly-sweet praise. The image of her, perfect, shining, wasn’t real. It was something the Horde had created, first, something Light Hope built on. It wasn’t her destiny to succeed Hordak, or to activate the Heart, or to fix all the damage the world had already suffered. It wasn’t her destiny to do anything at all.

That was bad. Wasn’t it?

Her line of thought was interrupted by Catra’s weight bearing her to the floor, sand gritting into her hair and scalp, Catra’s staff horizontal across Adora’s shoulders, not pushing her down but limiting her movement.

‘Ha!’ Catra said, sounding genuinely delighted. ‘You finally learned to fight dirty!’

Adora didn’t respond. She was still hyperaware of her own body, of every tired muscle, every drop of sweat, every point where Catra’s weight settled on her, where the brush of Catra’s tail tickled her side. If it weren’t for the staff, she could have reached up and traced the lines of Catra’s cheekbones, the curve of her lip, the soft skin below her chin. Was this how Catra had felt? Looking up at Adora, noting every strand of hair falling out of place, trying to steady the beat of her own heart? It was heady, a sense memory she’d only ever experienced from the other side. It felt like victory: like knowing what you wanted.

‘Adora?’ Catra said, puzzled, uncertain. Her left ear twitched intermittently.

‘I’m sorry,’ Adora said quietly, ‘that I made you feel inferior.’

Catra straightened slowly, sinuously, the motion exposing a thin band of skin at her waist, and pushed sweat-matted hair away from her face.

‘You were the best, you know. At some things. Maybe even a lot of things. It’s not that I wanted to beat you all the time. I just—all I wanted was for someone to look at me and see that I was good, too. That it was even possible for me to be good. That’s all.’

Adora imagined bubbles bursting in the spray. ‘I never cared about that. You know? You were always good. To me.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

Adora wet her lips. ‘Yeah.’

‘Whatever. That’s over. I know my own worth.’

‘Do you?’

The question seemed to catch Catra off-guard.

‘I beat you, didn’t I?’ she said, defensive.

‘That’s not exactly what I meant.’ Adora smiled, and she couldn’t tell herself if it was genuine or not. ‘But it’ll do, for now.’

*

In the darkness of Adora’s bedroom, the doubts crept back one by one, and she did something she hadn’t since her early days in Bright Moon: she got up, wrapped a dressing gown around herself, and padded down the corridor to knock on Glimmer’s door.

She was half expecting there to be no reply, for Glimmer to either still be at the war table or sleeping so deeply she couldn’t hear, but a minute later the door swung open, Glimmer only a little bleary-eyed.

‘Adora? Is everything okay?’

‘I need you to tell me,’ Adora said, aware she sounded more panicked than she ought to but unable to do anything about it, ‘what happened on Horde Prime’s ship.’

Glimmer blinked at her, concern replaced by sleepy irritation. ‘And this has to be now?’

‘Um,’ Adora said. ‘No? But you’re awake now, so…’

Glimmer snorted. ‘Come in,’ she said, already sounding more awake, and vanished in a burst of glitter.

Adora shut the door behind her. Glimmer was by the hearth, teleporting back and forth as she got a cheery fire going.

‘Is that really more efficient than walking?’

‘It’s more fun than walking.’

‘I’m sorry for waking you up.’

‘You can make it up to me some time.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll think of something.’ Glimmer tucked herself into a chair by the fire. ‘All right. I assume this is about Catra? I heard you sparred together today.’

Glimmer sounded too pleased. Adora squinted at her. ‘Did you—set us up?’

‘Yup.’

‘You could at least pretend to be embarrassed.’

Glimmer shot her a tired smile. ‘We only have so much time before Horde Prime attacks for real. If there’s anything to work out between you, Adora, now’s the time.’

‘I’m trying, I swear I am, but it’s like—everything I do makes things worse. I thought—I thought maybe you could tell me how… how you got on with her. On the ship.’

‘It was easy. She was the only person up there who cared if I lived or died.’

How do you know she really cared? Adora wanted to ask. How do you know it wasn’t just another trick, that she’s not planning to sell us out—

‘Prime was going to kill me,’ Glimmer went on, voice quiet but steady. ‘So the first thing Catra did was save my life. She told him about the Heart. How I was essential to making it work. And he would have happily destroyed Etheria, and—and gone on his way, so I guess the second thing she did was save the whole world.’

Adora had sat through hours and hours of planning sessions, during which she and the other princesses had gone over every single piece of information Glimmer had managed to glean while Horde Prime’s prisoner, any minor detail that could prove crucial in the fight to come.

This part she hadn’t heard.

Glimmer shrugged slightly, what can you do? ‘She’d given up, Adora. Before we were captured. I’ve never seen someone so… defeated. She wasn’t acting, wasn’t pretending. I don’t even think she knew Horde Prime was about to show up. It was just… over. And then it wasn’t. You know? Like she thought, well, being evil didn’t work out, let’s try the other way.’ She laughed. ‘Does that help?’

‘Not really,’ Adora admitted.

‘Ugh. You’re telling me you woke me up for no reason?’

It was a weak joke, but Adora smiled anyway, drew her knees up to her face, brushed away the seeds of tears.

‘I don't know what—well—she meant so much to me, Glimmer, and I thought either she’d be like the old Catra, the good Catra, or she'd be the new Catra, the bad one, and not—not another new Catra, and I don’t know if this one is good or bad, and I don’t know what to do, I don't know—I never learnt how to—’ Adora stopped, gasping for breath. ‘I don't know how to forgive her.’

‘Do you want to forgive her?’

‘Yes,’ Adora said. ‘I mean, yes. I want to, I just want one thing to be like it was, not broken, but that's just it! She doesn’t want things to be like they used to be, and I...’

‘Do you want to know what I think?’

‘No,’ Adora said, sucking in a breath through the tremors wracking her chest. ‘I thought I’d wake you up for no reason.’

Glimmer snorted a laugh. ‘I’ll tell you anyway, because I love you. I think that Catra isn’t the person you used to know. Not entirely, anyway. And I think you need to acknowledge that, and let yourself see who she is now. After that it’s up to you.’

‘What is?’

‘Choosing to forgive her or not.’

‘But how do you know—how do you know that she deserves to be forgiven?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Then how… how could you?’ On paper the words would have been an accusation. In the air, they were something else: a plea, a desperate search for direction.

‘Angella is gone because of her.’ It broke Adora’s heart to hear Glimmer use her mother’s name, as if the distance might soften her absence. ‘And no one—nothing—on Etheria could compel me to forgive her.’ Glimmer’s words were carefully measured, clipped cleanly off her tongue, the rage that bubbled underneath them relegated to her balled fists. Then she relaxed, all at once, as if she’d flipped a switch in her own head. ‘But you know what that means?’

‘No!’ Adora said, more forcefully than necessary. ‘I have no idea what that means.’

Glimmer laughed, a little, enough. ‘If nothing could make me forgive her—that means there’s no such thing as deserving forgiveness. If there was, there’d come a time when I was expected to forgive her. And I refused to accept that.’

‘Wait. Wait, I’m confused. I thought you had forgiven her.’

‘I did.’

Adora groaned. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense! I just want to… to…’

‘You want someone to tell you it’s okay. Right?’

‘I want it to be okay.’

‘Adora.’

‘What?’

‘I fucked up. With the Heart.’

‘Glimmer, you know I don’t—’

Glimmer waved a hand impatiently. ‘No, let me finish. That’s not the important part. The important part is, once I realised that, I never once doubted you and Bow would forgive me. I tried my best to put it right, not because I thought I had to earn your forgiveness, but because—because being the sort of person who tries to do the right thing is the reason we’re best friends in the first place, and—and best friends forgive each other.’ She frowned. ‘It’s not—it’s like a circle? Forgiveness and friendship and love, they all exist at the same time. Not in a line.’

‘You’re making my head hurt.’

A ghost of a smile crossed Glimmer’s face. ‘That’s how I know I’m on to something.’

‘Not fair. You clearly had tons of time to think about this.’

‘Yeah.’ Glimmer’s expression clouded. ‘Yeah, I did.’

‘I didn’t mean—’ Adora swallowed an apology. ‘What happened up there? Afterwards? You were trapped together for… weeks.’

‘I think,’ Glimmer said carefully, ‘that that’s Catra’s story to tell.’

iv.

The news came through two days later: strange, mechanised soldiers, few at first then many, spreading outwards from the ruins of the Fright Zone, probing, searching, cataloguing. The council room was more crowded than Adora had ever seen it, the only free seat at the round table the one directly to her left. There was a tension in the room almost like relief: that Horde Prime was finally here, that the time for concrete planning had finally arrived.

‘Before we begin,’ Glimmer said from her seat—the Queen’s seat—‘there’s someone I want to welcome.’

Heads turned to face the door. Adora didn’t look. Somewhere to her right, Scorpia gasped in delight.

‘Most of you have already met Catra,’ Glimmer went on, serenely avoiding the topic of where and how. ‘Some of you might have your doubts about her. If you cannot trust her, trust me. Catra has already done more to oppose Horde Prime than any of us.’

The empty chair next to Adora scraped backwards, loud and jarring in the silence. Adora braved a sideways glance, right in time to meet Catra’s gaze.

‘I know you don’t like me,’ Catra said, pitching her voice to carry across the room but looking, still, at Adora. ‘But I refuse to let Horde Prime destroy Etheria.’ Pause. ‘And I’m saying that as someone who nearly did destroy it.’

Someone—Huntara, Adora thought—laughed, then stopped abruptly when no one else joined in. Perfuma cleared her throat. ‘Welcome to the Princess Alliance!’

Bless her: that was that. Everyone turned back to Glimmer, and before she could begin to second guess herself, Adora reached under the table and brushed her fingertips against Catra’s. Slowly, painstakingly, Catra’s claws released their death grip on her knee. Her tail curled around Adora’s wrist for a split second, then retreated, and that, too, was that: the briefest thanks, the smallest link in what had once been an unbreakable chain between them. But it was something.

*

The meeting went on for hours. Catra stayed silent, and the princesses—well; mostly princesses; Catra still hadn’t figured out who Sea Hawk was, or why he was there—seemed content to return the favour and ignore her. At least the chair was padded.

Afterwards, she closed her eyes and waited for the others to file out, until even Princess Frosta’s oaths of retribution no longer echoed down the corridor outside. Her ears twitched. Perhaps not all the others.

‘You don’t need to keep an eye on me,’ she said without opening her eyes.

‘You seem tense.’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ Catra said. ‘I've only been stuck in a room full of people who have every reason to hate me. I don’t know why I let Glimmer talk me into it.’

‘Because she believes in you.’

Adora said this in a way that made it clear she didn’t. Maybe Catra had imagined the soft touch of her hand, drawing tension away like a needle draining pus. Or maybe Adora’s brain operated on a different level than her physical gestures. That would make sense. She’d always reached for Catra, back at the start, back when the gulf between them hadn’t seemed so large, like her hands weren’t willing to accept they might never touch Catra again. Catra had almost been relieved when she’d finally given up.

Almost.

‘What do you want?’

‘I need to ask you something,’ Adora said. ‘But I don’t know if it’s the right time.’

Catra gestured at the translucent map still projected above the table, marked with glowing red triangles where Horde Prime’s scouts had been spotted. ‘Does it look like there’ll be a better time soon?’

‘That’s what Glimmer said.’

‘C’mon, Adora, spit it out.’

‘Fine.’ Adora looked straight at her, determined, and for a second she reminded Catra of a younger Adora, eight years old and gap-toothed, steeling herself to rip off a bandage. The memory made her smile. Then Adora said, ‘What happened on Horde Prime’s ship?’

Oh. Of course.

‘What happened?’ If Catra closed her eyes, she’d see Prime's face again, see the twist of his lips, crooked like his eyes. She kept them open. ‘I'll summarise. Glimmer was you. Prime was Shadow Weaver. His ship was the Fright Zone. Anything else you wanna know?’

‘And you?’

‘Me?’ Catra barked out a short, sharp laugh. ‘I was myself. That's the thing, isn't it? No matter what, no matter what I do, I'm always just... me.’

‘You say that like it's a bad thing.’

‘Isn't it? Nothing changes, Adora. Nothing I do matters.’

‘Except it wasn't the same. Not really.’

‘You weren’t there. Don't pretend like—’

‘It wasn’t the same,’ Adora said, and something in her voice made Catra shut up, her tail curling protectively around her waist. ‘Because you escaped, too. Because Glimmer protected you. The way I should have.’

‘Fuck you. I don't need your fucking—’

‘And you protected her!’ The heat in Adora’s voice brought Catra up short. ‘You saved her life! You saved—you saved everyone on this planet, and you still think nothing you do matters? What you did was—’ Adora’s voice threatened to break. ‘I was supposed to save them. And I didn't. And you covered for me. Like you always did.’

This was not the conversation Catra would have chosen.

‘Adora—’ What was she supposed to say? She didn't know the first thing about magic swords or ethically compromised holograms. That was Adora’s thing. That was the hero thing. She wasn’t a hero.

‘I'm sorry,’ Adora said after the silence between them began to grow thorns. ‘I didn’t... mean to make it about me. I just thought, you know, you never got credit. For what you did. So this is me, um. Giving you credit.’

Catra’s ears folded back. Her heart beat so hard she could feel it in her wrists, as if Adora had threatened her instead of praising her. ‘Prime’s still up there,’ she said at last.

‘And because of you, we have a chance.’

‘Because of—Glimmer.’

‘That's right. Because of what you and Glimmer did, together.’

Catra bared her teeth, fighting the heaviness in her throat. It was her own fault—she’d made the analogy, not Adora; she'd backed herself into this rhetorical corner. Because if she could work with Glimmer, then—

‘There's so much we could have done together,’ Adora said, with such conviction that Catra knew the words had been building for months.

Could have, Catra thought. Didn’t.

She frowned. Something was wrong. The hairs on her tail stood on end. Her ears twitched. She turned towards the door.

‘Catra?’

‘Do you hear that?’

Adora stepped up next to her. ‘Hear what?’

‘Explosions,’ Catra said, and the moment she stepped outside she knew she was right. The corridor was in chaos. From a distance she heard Glimmer shouting, directing the columns of guards streaming towards the castle gates.

And still: something was wrong.

‘Catra!’ Adora had followed her out. ‘We have to—I have to help.’

Catra raised her hand. Adora, miraculously, listened. ‘Something’s wrong.’

‘Yeah, duh, it's Horde Prime! We knew he was starting his invasion, it makes sense—’

‘No,’ Catra hissed, turning towards Adora, tail lashing in agitation. ‘It doesn’t! He’s sent nothing but scouts so far. What’s he trying to accomplish, attacking head-on in broad daylight? Think, Adora!’ The corridor was emptying. Catra had space enough to pace. ‘What’s in the other direction? Everyone’s heading that way. What are they leaving undefended?’

‘Nothing.’ Adora was quivering with impatience. ‘Just bedrooms, I think, mostly empty ones, and—’

‘And?’ Catra demanded.

‘The cell.’

Suddenly Catra found it harder to draw breath. She growled, cleared her throat, banished the phantom pain. ‘Shadow Weaver,’ she spat.

Catra could practically track the realisation spreading across Adora’s face. ‘Prime knows everything Hordak knew, and if Glimmer won’t help him with the Heart—’

‘He’ll go for someone who will. Come on!’

‘I don’t—what if it’s a trap—’

There wasn’t time for this. Catra grabbed Adora by the shoulders, forced her to meet her gaze. ‘I’m going to stop Shadow Weaver,’ she said, fast but even. ‘Either you trust me or you don’t. Right now, I don’t care about anything else. So: are you coming?’

*

The second before Catra walked through the battered door of what had once been Shadow Weaver’s cell, Adora remembered her mismatched eyes, an inch from hers and so intensely beautiful they occupied her entire field of vision, hypnotic, alluring. She remembered the fear in those eyes, when they had been children. She remembered the hurt, at Thaymor.

Encumbered with memory, Adora did not cry out in time, did not say wait, stop, it might not be safe. The air felt like a dream, honey-thick and distant. She saw the shadows curl in the corners of the room, stretching towards Catra like hounds baying for the hunt. She watched the jaws of the trap snap shut around Catra, immobilising her mid-air.

The sight triggered something, some atavistic instinct of childhood, the ironclad oath of look after each other, and Adora did not stop to consider she was unarmed. She saw the way Catra squirmed, helpless; she heard Shadow Weaver speak the same words she’d always spoken, the words designed to make Catra feel small and weak and insignificant, the words Adora herself had never heard, and before her brain even registered their meaning, she was rounding the corner, lunging, fist drawn back and—

Dimly she became aware of Catra calling her name, Adora? Adora!, but the words were weak, like a signal punching through too much interference. Her body felt—static. Awash in something, muzzled, and then she realised the sensation was pain, an intense, background pain in every single part of her body, and her mouth was open, panting, and above her Shadow Weaver was laughing, her hands crackling with crimson energy, and Adora felt bile rising and this wasn’t right, it had never been like this before, Shadow Weaver had never done this to her, she’d only done it to—

Time ceased to make sense. Cause and effect dismantled. How could they matter, when she was a child again, cowering in some corner of the Fright Zone? Except—her body crumpled to the ground. The Fright Zone did not have marble floors, and the marble beneath her cheek was cool. That was nice. The pain was gone, and it was nice to have something in its place, something comfortable. One of her limbs twitched, but that was fine too. It would get better. Instead of wondering how she knew that, she focused on the tile pattern and the edge of the carpet she could just about see out of the corner of her eye. There were people fighting above her, but that didn’t matter. Sooner or later, it would be better.

Someone was picking her up, holding her to their chest. She heard voices, strained her mind, attached names to them: What happened? That was Glimmer. Is she all right? Bow. Where had they come from? She’d been alone. Alone with Catra. Alone with Catra and—

Get out of my way, Catra snarled. The words reverberated through Adora and she snuggled closer, chasing the vibrations of Catra’s voice.

Catra, and that was Glimmer’s steely queen voice, I need to know what happened to Shadow Weaver.

Follow the trail of blood, Catra said curtly, and then Adora was aware of movement, of being carried back down the corridors the way they’d come, and slowly, slowly the world came back into focus.

‘She got away,’ she mumbled into Catra’s shoulder. ‘Shadow Weaver.’

‘Maybe,’ Catra said, all savage glee. ‘But she’s gonna think twice before coming anywhere near us again. I call that a win.’

‘What did you…’ Her lungs were still remembering how to breathe properly. She tried again: ‘What did you do?’

The slightest hitch in Catra’s step, the slightest tightening of her arms around Adora. ‘I protected you.’

‘Oh.’ Adora closed her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

‘Maybe don’t charge straight at the evil sorceress without a weapon next time.’

‘But she was—’

‘Yeah. I know.’ A pause. ‘Thank you, too.’

Catra carried her the whole way back to her room, unflagging, meeting the gazes of every person who passed unflinchingly. Once they were alone the façade dropped, and she lowered Adora into her bed on trembling arms.

‘You’re going to be okay,’ Catra said. ‘It’s rough, the first time. You get—used to it.’

Used to it. The thought made Adora’s heart ache, deep in the hollow of her chest where true emotions lived.

‘I’m sorry.’ She wanted to say more—sorry for what?—but it seemed beyond her, like an image she couldn’t hold all of in her mind at the same time.

It didn’t matter. Catra seemed to understand. ‘You’re going to be okay,’ she repeated, twining her fingers through Adora’s hair like it was the most normal thing in the world.

If I were her I’d be purring. The thought should have been uncomfortable. It wasn’t.

‘Catra?’

‘Yes?’

Adora swallowed past dry-mouthed nerves. There were moments when nothing else mattered but a shared history of survival, when there was nothing to be done but take comfort in the person beside her, still there, still stroking her like they’d never left the Fright Zone at all.

She said, ‘Stay?’

*

Adora woke with terror on her lips and dread in her heart. Her pulse was racing, the haze of nightmare giving way to the realisation that someone was in the bed with her. She went for the knife under her pillow without pausing to think.

Catra didn’t seem fazed to find cold steel at her throat. ‘It’s just me,’ she said. ‘Just me. You were dreaming. I wanted to wake you up.’

Adora stared, unseeing, at the blade in her hand. She’d dreamt—she’d dreamt—the memory rose to the surface and she jerked back with a cry, casting the knife aside.

‘I'm sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I'm used to—waking up alone.’

Catra’s ears twitched, as if cataloguing where the knife had landed.

‘Shadow Weaver, right? Me too.’

It would have been easier to lie. ‘Not Shadow Weaver.’ Adora refused to meet Catra’s eyes. ‘Not this time.’

It didn’t make a difference. When had Catra learnt to read her again? ‘I'll go,’ Catra said, already standing up, already turning away.

‘No, Catra, don’t be stupid. Your room is on the other side of the castle, you'll get lost—’

‘The floor, then.’

Adora opened her mouth to invite Catra back to bed with her. ‘I can sleep on the floor. It’s not your fault.’

‘Now who’s being stupid?’ Catra liberated one of Adora’s countless pillows. It was big and square and purple, with tassels around the edges. ‘The rugs here are softer than any of the beds in the Fright Zone. I’ll be fine.’

Adora watched her making herself comfortable on the floor. ‘Catra, I’m sorry—’

‘It’s not your fault either,’ Catra said curtly. She toyed with one of the tassels, half illuminated by a moonbeam. ‘This was a bad idea. That’s all.’

‘At least take my blanket.’

‘I’m not cold. Good night, Adora.’

Among all the ways she’d changed, Catra’s stubbornness remained the same. Adora settled back into bed like a balloon deflating. ‘Good night.’

Sleep came slowly. Catra’s breathing bothered her, too far to offer comfort but close enough that, once noticed, it was difficult to ignore again. Now that she was alone the bed was too cool, for all that she’d slept at that temperature for months with no difficulties. The moon was too bright.

‘I have those dreams, too,’ Catra whispered, quiet enough that she might not have intended to be heard, late enough that Adora could justifiably pretend to be asleep.

Pretence became reality. Mercifully, she did not dream of Catra again.

v.

The next morning, Catra left Adora snoring, one arm flung out across the bed as if embracing someone who was not there. Events had rubbed them both raw. Let Adora sleep, let her dream of someone other than Catra. Waking up together would only lead to more chafing.

Catra wandered aimlessly through the castle. The mood was noticeably more tense, the warmth of victory mixed with the knowledge that yesterday had been nothing but a prelude. All at once she found she couldn’t stand it: the air was thick with anticipation and she felt mired in it, stuck in it. She needed to get away.

Halfway across the castle courtyard, the gates to freedom open before her, someone called her name. Catra turned, wracked her mind for names—how many princesses could there be in one place?—and came up with Spinnerella.

‘Are you alright?’ Spinnerella asked.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘You’re going out. Alone.’

‘So?’

‘So it could be dangerous out there.’ That was the other one. What was her name? She was sitting on the empty bed of a cart, one hand draped casually on Spinnerella’s shoulder. They were a couple, Catra was pretty sure. She was no expert, but no one spent that much time touching another person if they weren’t involved.

‘Netossa and I,’ Spinnerella said helpfully, ‘are going for a walk in the woods—’

‘A patrol,’ Netossa said, long-suffering. ‘We’re going to scout the woods.’

‘Yes, dear. The point is, you can come with us, if you like.’

An image flashed through Catra’s mind: Adora, waking up alone; Adora, asking around and learning Catra had fled the castle, alone, gone into the woods and not returned. What conclusions would she leap to? This thing between them was new. Fragile. For once, Catra had no wish to shatter it.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘If it gets me outside.’

Netossa, for some reason, winked at her. Then they were on their way, out through the gates and down into the lagoon surrounding the castle. Catra trailed half a dozen paces behind the other two, painstakingly keeping her feet dry, trying to decide whether it would make more sense to turn back. She didn’t know these two, not really. Did she really want to spend her day with them?

On the other hand: it was different.

‘So, Catra,’ Spinnerella said when they reached the treeline of the Whispering Woods, drying herself off with a casual wave of her hand. ‘How are you finding Bright Moon so far?’

‘It’s—fine.’

Netossa barked out a laugh. ‘What my lovely but impractically tactful wife was trying to ask,’ she said, ‘is why you were so desperate to get out of the castle.’

Catra only vaguely knew what “wife” meant. ‘I wasn’t desperate,’ she snapped to hide her ignorance.

‘Mmhmm. And did your lack of desperation have anything to do with Adora?’

‘Why would it have anything to do with Adora?’

Netossa reached up, plucked a leaf from a low-lying branch. ‘Oh, no reason at all.’

‘Leave the poor girl alone, dear.’

Catra’s tail bristled. ‘I need you to answer the question.’

‘Well.’ Netossa drew out the syllable. Spinnerella shot her a warning glance, which she appeared to ignore. ‘Because I’ve never seen two people more obviously obsessed with each other. I bet neither of you have gone half an hour since you got here without either thinking of each other or trying really hard not to.’

‘It took her a day to even come see me.’

‘Uh-huh. Like I said, trying really hard.’

‘Don’t,’ she snapped, ‘pretend like you know how I feel.’

Netossa matched Catra’s indignation with an easy grin. ‘Oh, I dunno. Granted, I never tried to destroy the world, but you should really ask Spinnerella to tell you about me when I was younger—'

‘Anyway!’ Spinnerella said brightly. ‘Aren’t the woods lovely this time of year? Much nicer when you’re not trying to invade through them, I imagine.’

What was Catra supposed to say to that? ‘Sure,’ she grunted, accelerating past the other two, leaving in her wake the sounds of Netossa snickering and Spinnerella admonishing her.

The woods were beautiful. That much was true. Catra knew their reputation, and yet she still found herself looking for the place she’d crashed with Adora, all the way back at the very start of it all. Her mind had replayed that day hundreds of times, trying to imagine a different outcome, a different path than her, standing over Adora in a First Ones ruin and letting her fall. Following Adora had seemed completely impossible at the time, but here she was now, in Bright Moon—had there really been no shortcut? No way to get here that bypassed all those months of pain? She supposed not. Her younger self had made sure of that.

Eventually she noticed she could no longer hear Netossa and Spinnerella. Catra turned around. The woods looked perfectly unfamiliar in every direction, sunny and pleasant in a bland sort of way, and she made the mistake of turning again, losing track of where she’d come from. Her pulse fluttered faster. Not panic—wariness. There was a sound from the bushes, unsubtle, like someone thinking to intimidate her. Catra unsheathed her claws.

‘Netossa?’ she called, keeping her voice light. Let whoever it was think she was unaware. ‘Spinnerella?’

Whoever-it-was emerged from the bushes, bushy-haired, bug-eyed, a woven basket on one arm. She was old—older than anyone Catra had ever seen before, and she seemed utterly unsurprised to find Catra standing there, claws out, tensed.

‘Catra, dearie! Are you all right? Usually it is me calling people by the wrong name!’

‘Who—who are you?’ Catra scanned the trees around them, but the woman seemed to be alone. ‘Have we met?’

‘Have we met? Ha! Why people are always so interested in beginnings, hmm? Have we met, yes, no, who cares! It is the memories that matter. Do you remember the wedding?’

‘The what?’

‘The wedding! Ah, you looked so handsome, dearie, like you were made for her! I remember when she caught the bouquet, and—’ She frowned. ‘That doesn’t—when she caught the bouquet, yes, but—oh, Adora looked so beautiful in—’

‘Adora?’

‘Yes, of course, dearie, who else?’

Like you were made for her. ‘What the fuck do you know about me and Adora?’

The woman smiled blandly, reached into her basket, and drew out a handful of raspberries. ‘Blueberry?’

There were ghosts in the Whispering Woods, Catra thought, and immediately cursed herself for so childish a thought. She was an adult. She neither believed in nor feared ghosts. Someone laughed behind her, loud through the undergrowth. She jerked her head to the side, caught the flash of Netossa’s white hair through the gloom.

When she looked back the woman was gone.

By the time Spinnerella and Netossa caught up, Catra had herself under control. ‘I need you to tell me something,’ she said, and her voice didn’t tremble in the slightest.

Netossa tilted her head to the side. ‘What?’

‘What’s a wedding?’

‘Oh!’ Spinnerella looked around furtively, as if someone might be listening in. ‘How did you—who told you? Where did you hear that? We weren’t going to make an announcement until we were sure, because it feels a bit silly, you know, we’re already married, but we always regretted not doing it properly the first time, with the war and all, and Glimmer agreed it would be good for morale…’

Catra was staring. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh. You mean you didn’t… know?’

‘Know what?’

Spinnerella flushed. ‘Oops?’

‘A wedding,’ Netossa said, clearly on the verge of laughter, ‘is a ceremony where two people in love agree to spend their lives together.’ She smiled fondly at Spinnerella. ‘You’ve, uh, heard of wives and husbands?’

Catra hesitated. ‘Sort of.’

‘Well, a wedding is how you become someone’s wife. Or husband.’

‘And you’re…’

‘Having another one, yes. We didn’t do it right the first time.’ Netossa rolled her eyes. ‘It was supposed to be a secret’—(‘Sorry, sorry!’ said Spinnerella)—‘for now. Where did you hear the word, anyway?’

‘Some woman in the woods,’ Catra said, not really paying attention to the words. ‘Wild hair, huge glasses, a bit... weird.’

‘Oh, Madame Razz!’ Spinnerella still sounded flustered, but she let Netossa take her hand and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I’ve heard about her. A bit odd, but harmless. Fascinating, really, Bow thinks she lives out of order.’

Catra froze. ‘He thinks what?’

‘I know, I know, it’s hard to wrap your head around, but he swears that she knows the future, sometimes, or thinks she’s still in the past. According to him, you never quite know if you’re talking to Razz now, or Razz in the past or the future.’ Spinnerella sighed. ‘Imagine the things she could tell us about the future!’

Catra was imagining. Catra was imagining them all too well. Her mouth was dry; her tail perfectly still. Like you were made for her.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, this isn’t right, this isn’t fair, it was—it was supposed to be better, I can’t—’

‘Catra?’

‘I can’t belong to her!’ Catra’s voice was hoarse, her ears flattened back against her scalp. She screwed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t cry. Not here. ‘Why can’t I just—be? Why does everyone—always—want to mess with my life? I’m more than—’ She couldn’t clamp down on the sob in time. ‘I’m more than her!’

Catra couldn’t bear to be out in the open, exposed, observed any longer. She looked around, wildly, from the concern on Spinnerella’s face to the spires of castle Bright Moon just about visible through a gap in the trees. She broke into a run, fixing her gaze on that gap, ignoring the shouts behind her, but no matter how fast she ran, no matter how hard she dug her claws into the flesh of her palms, she couldn’t escape the steady drumbeat of the words bouncing around in her head, twisting, changing, made for her made for her for her for her hers hers hers—

*

Adora wasn’t anxious.

She wasn’t surprised to wake up alone. She wasn’t worried when she asked Bow if he’d seen Catra and he reported that she’d gone out with Spinnerella and Netossa. They were sensible women. They’d keep an eye on Catra.

Not that Catra needed an eye on her, but—well. She was in a strange mood today, and she couldn’t imagine it was any easier for Catra.

Adora could give her space. She wouldn’t look for her. Instead she went out to the garden, which Shadow Weaver had once made her own and which was now reclaiming itself. For once, the moons aligned. Catra was standing in the middle of the garden, facing away from her. Her ears perked up when Adora entered.

‘I didn’t think you’d be here,’ Adora said. ‘I can go.’

‘Doesn’t matter to me.’

Adora considered leaving anyway, but—if Catra wanted to be left alone, she’d never been shy about making that clear. ‘In that case—I wanted to apologise. For last night.’

Catra turned. There was something—calculating in her eyes, as if she were administering a test. It reminded Adora of Entrapta.

‘Not your fault. You can’t control what you dream about.’

‘I know, but…’ Adora reached out, hesitated, placed a hand on Catra’s elbow regardless. ‘I want you to know that—that I’m not scared of you.’

‘I know you’re not.’ Catra raised her chin, met Adora’s gaze. ‘Neither am I.’

‘Of me, or of you?’

Catra almost smiled. ‘Both.’

‘Maybe we could… talk?’

‘We’ve been talking.’

‘I know, I mean… can we talk about... nothing? Not this? Talk about something normal. Unimportant.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Like—how was your day?’

Catra’s expression shuttered. ‘Not that.’

‘Oh.’ Adora’s fingertips brushed against Catra’s. ‘Then maybe—’

‘Adora?’

‘Can I—touch you?’ Catra was looking at her strangely. Before she could get too self-conscious, Adora added, ‘It’s okay if you say no, I just want to—I want to show you, when I’m awake, that I’m not—’ She forced the words to stop running away from her. ‘I want you to know,’ she said carefully, ‘that I still care about you.’

Catra’s expression was unreadable.

‘Okay,’ she said eventually.

‘Okay?’

‘Okay.’

Adora stepped forward. She raised her hand, slowly, brushed it against Catra’s shoulder. It had been some time since Adora touched Catra this way: lovingly, without the threat of violence; peacefully, without the drumbeat of Catra’s heart threatening flight if she so much as put a finger wrong. Catra young had been strong in the way a trapped animal was strong, desperate and underfed and too prideful to cower. Now she stood taller, though she had not grown; she felt more solid, thought she was no more real.

Catra leaned into the embrace, her breath tickling the side of Adora’s neck. They stood, motionless, for long minutes, arms locked around each other, muscles relaxing one by one, until Catra was so close, tucked up against her body just right, the way she’d always been, and Adora could feel her heartbeat, fast and strong and vital.

When she pulled away, it wasn’t very far.

‘I know what we can talk about,’ she whispered.

‘What?’

‘You have beautiful eyes. Have I ever told you that before?’

Catra snorted softly. ‘I have weird eyes.’

‘No. Beautiful.’

‘And unimportant, apparently.’

Adora laughed. ‘In the grand scheme of things? Yep. That’s why I love them. Right now—I want something beautiful and unimportant. That sounds perfect.’

Catra went the tiniest bit tense, but she was so close Adora couldn’t help but notice. ‘I don’t understand how you can say things like that. After—everything that’s happened. After everything I’ve done.’

How strange. Adora had been dreading this conversation, as if she could pretend not to care about Catra’s past actions so long as they were not brought up explicitly, so long as she could focus on the present; but now that it was here, now that Catra had ceased avoiding the topic, she found it did not carry as much venom as she expected. It was a process, working through what Catra had done, but a process that had been underway, unnoticed, ever since she first set eyes on Catra again, small and crumpled in Glimmer’s arms.

‘We’re in a different universe than we were when everything happened.’ Adora studied Catra’s face: the slant of her nose, the lines on her lips where skin had cracked and healed. ‘Literally. And I don’t—I’m not sure about… anything, anymore. It’s scary. I just know that—’

Adora felt suddenly, overwhelmingly shy. A strand of hair was coming out of her ponytail; Catra raised a hand and tugged it the rest of the way loose. ‘What do you know?’

‘I choose to forgive you.’ Adora’s voice was barely more than a whisper. She could feel Catra being drawn in to hear, like metal shavings to a magnet. ‘I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I don’t care if they think you deserve forgiveness or not. I forgive you. Because I can. Because I want to. Because I’m scared, Catra, and being around you… helps.’

‘No one ever deserves forgiveness,’ Catra murmured.

‘Glimmer got to you, too, huh?’

‘Yep.’

Adora sighed. ‘We can’t manage it, can we? Having a normal conversation. It always comes back around to’—she gestured expansively—‘this. Us.’

‘Us,’ Catra repeated. ‘Us, huh? You know, I figured I’d be angry. When I got back from the woods today. But instead I thought, maybe I’ll give it a try.’

‘Er. Am I supposed to understand what you’re talking about?’

Catra stepped closer, tilted her head up, traced the outline of Adora’s chin with her thumb. Adora’s heart skipped a beat.

‘No,’ Catra said, and Adora felt the word on her skin as much as she heard it. ‘Do you know how easy it is,’ she added, ‘to want to be yours?’

And Adora thought, She’s going to kiss me, and the way her body responded, leaning in ever so slightly, lips curving in a tiny smile, told her everything she needed to know. Catra was going to kiss her, and Adora wanted her to. The thought made her giddy.

Catra did not kiss her. Instead she said, ‘Invite me to Netossa and Spinnerella’s wedding.’

Adora was finding it difficult to keep her thoughts straight. ‘I—do you want to come to Netossa and Spinnerella’s wedding with me?’ She didn’t bother asking how Catra knew about the wedding.

‘Do I want to? Yes.’ Catra’s eyes were huge, luminous, all-seeing in the dark. ‘I thought I’d be able to. I really did. I thought maybe I’d mellowed, that I wouldn’t feel the same way anymore.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘But I do. I’m sorry, Adora. I know who I am now, better than I ever have. And I’m more than you. I’ve always been more than you. And I will—not—tie myself to you again. I won’t let anyone tie me to you.’

Catra’s touch slipped away. Her tail brushed Adora’s hand on her way out.

Adora stood in the garden long after Catra left. Was it ironic, she wondered, to have finally figured out what she wanted, then had it taken away the very next moment?

Catra would have understood.

vi.

The day of the wedding, Catra resolved to sleep in. She’d wake up as late as possible, then find somewhere quiet, somewhere high up, somewhere far away from the festivities. Let everyone else watch Spinnerella and Netossa give themselves to each other, if they wanted. Catra refused to be given.

This plan was interrupted distressingly early by the hammer of someone’s fists on her door. She ignored them. A minute later, Glimmer appeared on the other side of the door.

‘I need you,’ Glimmer announced, ‘to come to the wedding.’

‘No,’ Catra said. Then, ‘Did Adora put you up to this?’

‘Adora has been tiptoeing around the subject of you for days. No, I need you for entirely selfish reasons.’

‘Go away, Sparkles, I’m tired.’

‘I expect better behaviour from the top general of the Princess Alliance.’

Catra sat up. ‘The what?’

Glimmer’s smile was too wide by half. ‘You kicked our asses. The Horde was days away from total victory. As queen, it would be irresponsible of me not to use you.’

‘I lost.’

‘Only because of Double Trouble.’ Glimmer hesitated. ‘I think, this time, you won’t be so easy to fool.’

‘You’re insane.’

‘Maybe. But I need you. Unless you have a better idea?’

‘Yeah. Literally any other idea. How about Sea Hawk?’

Glimmer teleported to the foot of the bed. Her shoulders were hunched, as if some layer of confidence had fallen away from her, revealing nothing more than a young woman doing her best.

‘Catra,’ she began. ‘I’m not going to make you do anything. But I saw the way you worked Horde Prime. If you can trick him in person, you can trick him on the battlefield. I don’t know who else to ask.’

Catra let the silence stretch almost to breaking point. ‘Why the wedding?’

‘I want to announce it there. Give everyone a chance to see you as, you know, just another member of the alliance. If you can go to a party with someone, they can’t be that bad, right?’

‘Tell that to Frosta.’

‘Well, maybe you can even apologise to her.’

‘Don’t push your luck.’ As much as it rankled, Catra couldn’t deny that it felt good to be—needed. Acknowledged. Asked to do something, rather than demanded, manipulated. She was tempted to say no, just because she could. ‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’

‘Taken care of. Is that a yes?’

It’s a yes, Catra thought, and laughed in disbelief.

*

Adora told herself she was enjoying the wedding. There was food, and flowers, and dancing, all things she now understood were necessary for a good party, but none of the tension of Princess Prom. This was a day for everyone to relax, an evening to forget that they were in the middle of a war. It was nice.

‘Not dancing today?’ Bow was leaning against a table with a glass of something bright purple in his hand. He’d already danced once with Perfuma and twice with Glimmer—not that Adora was counting. She was tired, content to stay at the edges of the party. That was all.

‘I don’t really feel like it.’ Pause. ‘I liked the ceremony. Understated.’

‘Frosta was disappointed. She wanted giant ice wolves—’

‘At a wedding?’

‘—to symbolise the fierceness of their love for each other. I think.’

‘In hindsight, I can’t believe Princess Prom went as well as it did.’

Bow’s laugh smoothed into a serious expression. ‘And the—news? About Catra?’

Adora sighed. ‘I’m all right, Bow, really. I just wasn’t expecting her to… be here.’ What she didn’t say was: I thought when she turned me down, she was turning the whole thing down.

By the expression on Bow’s face, he knew what she was thinking. All he said was, ‘Have you said hello?’

‘I don’t think she wants to talk to me.’

‘And yet,’ Bow said, saluting with his glass and turning away, ‘here she comes!’

Adora turned, too fast, and knocked over a platter of canapes.

Catra was dressed in tailored burgundy trousers, ripped at the knee, and for a moment Adora couldn’t help thinking of Princess Prom again. Her top, however, was all new, black and asymmetrical, the neckline slashing across her collarbones, leaving one arm sleeved and the other bare. It made her look open. Vulnerable. She was—herself, in synthesis.

‘Hi, Adora.’

‘I hear I should call you General.’

Adora’s eyes followed the rise and fall of Catra’s exposed shoulder.

‘Sparkles can be very persuasive. I’m starting to see how she got you wrapped around her finger so quick.’

‘Is that how she talked you into the belt, as well? Who knew pink was your colour.'

Catra’s smirk faded quickly. ‘Says the girl wearing the huge bow around her waist.’

It felt so normal, bantering with Catra, that Adora felt suddenly awkward, like there was something she was forgetting to do. ‘You look—good,’ she offered, quietly.

Catra raised her eyebrows. ‘Just good?’

She looked gorgeous. Confident. Self-assured. All things Catra had been only rarely, all things Adora thrilled to see her wearing now. And yet—‘That’s not fair,’ she whispered. ‘I asked you to come with me.’

‘You’re right.’ Catra looked like she was about to say something else, but she was interrupted by a whoop from across the room. Adora heard Bow yelling instructions: time for the bouquet toss.

‘Do you want to… ?’ Adora turned back, froze. Catra’s expression was stricken, her eyes flicking back and forth, deer-like. ‘Catra?’

‘What’s the bouquet toss?’

‘Oh. Um. It’s a… tradition. The brides throw a bouquet, and whoever catches it gives it to someone else, and that means they’ll be getting married next. I think. It’s a bit silly, but—’

‘I’m leaving,’ Catra said, abruptly. ‘I can’t—I don’t—you’re okay with this?’

‘Catra, I don’t understand—’

‘What about me?’ Catra snarled. ‘Why do I never get a fucking choice?’

‘Catra?’ It came out a plea. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Never mind,’ Catra said, visibly controlling her breathing. ‘Enjoy the party, Adora. I’ll see you at the council meeting tomorrow.’

And then she was leaving, again, walking too quickly, as if she wanted to run but couldn’t bring herself the embarrassment. Adora raised one hand, ineffective.

‘Are you ready?’ That was Netossa, coming up behind her, her voice lightly teasing. ‘You seemed pretty interested when I described the bouquet toss.’

Adora was still staring. Netossa followed her gaze just in time to see Catra swing the heavy door to the ballroom shut behind her.

‘Oh,’ she said softly. Then: ‘I wasn’t sure if it was my place, but… I think I should tell you something.’

With an effort, Adora made herself meet Netossa’s eyes. ‘About what?’

‘The day we were out in the woods with Catra.’

Adora almost walked away. What was the point? Every time she thought she had Catra figured out, something else happened, and Catra became her erratic self again, closed and unreadable. It was exhausting. Just once, perhaps, she could not worry about it and enjoy the party.

Or she could take one more chance. One more chance to find Catra and tell her that no one had ever looked as radiant as she did that night. One more chance to make it work.

‘Tell me,’ she said, and Netossa told her.

Afterwards, Adora looked across the hall at Spinnerella, laughing, holding the elaborate bouquet Perfuma had prepared just for this purpose, glowing with every colour of the rainbow. She wasn’t too late. She could still walk over, join the crowd buzzing in front of Spinnerella, jostling for space. That was how this story ended: with her, catching the bouquet, taking it up to Catra, offering it to her. Admitting, finally, what she’d only recently admitted to herself.

She loved Catra. More than that—she wanted to love Catra. It was inescapable.

But life wasn’t a story. Life had only one beginning and only one end. Her life—their life—would neither begin nor end here, with this wedding and this bouquet. It could only continue.

What came first: love or forgiveness?

She knew what she had to do.

*

Catra sat on the edge of the tower roof, knees up to her chest, tail curled around her side. The moment was so familiar it made Adora dizzy.

‘Hey,’ she said quietly.

Catra’s ears twitched. ‘Get back to the wedding, Adora.’

That brought the differences home. There were no weddings in the Fright Zone. There were no scenic vistas, no endless sea of trees, no Moonstone gleaming in the starlight. Catra herself looked different, too. More assured. Her single black sleeve was sophisticated. Adora picked at the edges of the bow adorning her waist. When had Catra’s clothing become sophisticated?

It was an idle thought. Adora didn’t expect to blurt the answer. ‘Your sleeve—it’s where… in the portal. Your arm.’

Catra’s shoulders stiffened. ‘You… remember?’

‘Yes! Of course I remember! It was—’ She wanted to say real. Had it been real? Real enough to take Glimmer’s mother away from her. ‘It meant something.’

Sarcastically: ‘Did it?’

‘Tell me you don’t wish reality had been more like the portal.’

Catra twisted towards her, the corner of her lips bared in a snarl. ‘Second best? Watching everyone fawn over you? Oh, yeah, no wonder you liked it so much.’

‘Come on, Catra.’ Adora took a step closer, where Catra could see her. The bouquet she kept hidden behind her back. ‘You know that’s not the part I meant.’

Catra’s knuckles were white against the stone of the roof. ‘I didn’t know the portal world was—real. For you. I didn’t know you remembered.’

‘Does it matter that I do?’

‘It’s embarrassing.’

‘Why? I liked seeing you happy. Soft. It couldn’t last, but don’t you think it could be like that? Again? Better than that?’ Adora’s voice wavered. ‘Don’t you want to like me again?’

‘Fuck,’ Catra said, so vehemently it made Adora jump back a step. ‘Fuck! You know what the worst of it is? I do! I mean—forget like. I want to love you, Adora. I want to believe that you really are willing to forgive me. I want to—to be your equal, the way Glimmer is. I want to—’ She stood up. Adora could see that she was crying. ‘I want to kiss you. I want to lose myself in you. Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s all true. Because it’s all—always—been fucking true! And that’s the fucking problem.’

Adora blinked. ‘I don’t—’

‘I can’t be in your shadow again. That’s it. I just—I can’t, Adora. I need to be me.’

‘I don’t want you to be in my shadow!’

‘Then why are you up here? Because you caught the fucking bouquet. Because that’s what you’re hiding behind your back. Because you want to give it to me, so I can belong to you, officially, just like you always wanted—’

‘Because I want to be yours!’

Silence.

‘What?’

Catra sounded so perfectly perplexed that Adora couldn’t help smiling. ‘You're right. I want you to be mine again. But I want to be yours, too. That was always true. They’re—they’re the same thing to me. I’m sorry you didn’t realise that. I should have… made it clear. Somehow.’

‘Fine. Whatever.’ Catra’s body language was off-balance, her eyes a little too wide, her ears a little too alert. It was subtle. Adora doubted anyone else would be able to tell. ‘It’s too late now.’

‘Is it?’

‘This? The wedding? I don’t belong here. I’m sorry. I just don’t.’

Adora mulled her words over, watching the wind tug at strands of Catra’s hair. ‘Netossa told me you had a run in with Razz.’

‘So what?’ Catra's voice was painfully neutral.

‘And I think I figured it out. What’s bothering you.’

‘Did you.’

‘She remembered a wedding, didn’t she?’

Catra’s shoulders slumped. ‘Yes.’

‘Our wedding.’

‘I suppose you want me to ask how you figured it out.’

‘Netossa said you asked about weddings, after, and then you acted weird when she told you about Razz. I figured...’ Adora tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I figured that was the problem. You feel like you're—I don't know, destined to be with me. That you don't have a choice. And then, even if you want to be, it feels...’

‘Tainted,’ Catra whispered. ‘It feels tainted.’ She barked out a laugh. ‘I honestly can’t believe you finally understand. All my life, everything I've done has been tainted. No matter what I did, there you'd be. Inevitable. Better. Just once I wanted to...’ She withdrew in on herself, tail wrapped around her knees. ‘It doesn’t matter. Turns out that wasn’t what I wanted, either.’

‘What do you want?’

‘It’s not that simple, Adora.’

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was too much for Adora to fix. Or maybe—‘What if I could make it a little simpler?’

The look on Catra’s face stopped Adora’s thoughts in their tracks. She looked young again, deep sadness and naked hope mingling with something softer, a gentle swell of affection Adora had missed so much she’d almost forgotten it existed.

‘How?’ she said quietly, eyes brimming with moonlight.

Adora’s pulse quickened. There was no way forward but through. When she brought the bouquet out into the open, she looked away, not wanting to see Catra’s expression change to scorn, not wanting to witness even a second of her disappointment. Before Catra could say anything, Adora turned to one side, drew her arm back, and threw.

The bouquet sailed over the side of the tower in a picturesque arc and disappeared from view.

‘We make our own future,’ Adora whispered. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, hoarse with emotion finally unleashed. ‘We become who we want to be, not who we’re supposed to be. I don’t know what Razz saw. Maybe she misremembered. Misunderstood. Or maybe she can’t see the future at all. I don’t care. All I can do is swear to you, on every good moment we’ve ever shared, that I won’t ask you to marry me. Not now. Not ever. If that was supposed to be our destiny—we’ll just have to make a new one.’

*

When Adora finally looked at her again, her cheeks were flushed. Catra was close enough to see her pulse, beating beneath the soft skin of her neck in time with Catra’s tail swishing back and forth.

‘Catra?’ She sounded so timid, so sincere, it nearly made Catra’s heart break.

But this was new. This was unknown. This was, for the first time in her life, someone giving Catra exactly what she wanted. She didn’t know how to react. She did know it was not a cause for broken hearts.

‘I’m not gonna lie,’ Catra said, and even under these circumstances she found herself irritated by how awestruck she sounded—‘I didn’t think there was a single thing you could say that would make me feel any different.’

Adora dared to say, ‘But?’

‘Your friends won’t understand.’

Slowly, ever so slowly, Adora smiled. Catra wasn’t even aware of her own fingers fidgeting against her thighs until Adora reached out, stilled them, took Catra’s hands in hers, pulled her to her feet. Her fingers ghosted over Catra’s collarbone, leaving goose bumps in their wake.

‘They will. This’—and she gestured with both their clasped hands, encompassing the celebration still ongoing beneath their feet—‘it’s all just a symbol. Netossa and Spinnerella aren’t any more in love now than they were yesterday. And I don’t know the future. I don’t know if this will work out between us. I don’t even know if it can. But—’ She shrugged, smiled, left the word hanging like a fishhook.

The tower was high and cold. The stone transmitted its chill to every speck of bare skin that came in contact with it. Catra hadn’t noticed her skin was dry with the cold, not until Adora touched her, her hands rough with callouses and gentle like a friendly hearth.

‘You’d really give yourself to me? After everything?’

And she said the words, but Catra knew they meant nothing. Her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart hadn’t been in it since Adora threw the stupid flowers over the edge. It had been elsewhere: filling with warmth, basking in it, waiting for the rest of her to catch up. It was only instinct now, throwing obstacles in Adora’s path—in their path. A lifetime believing that nothing she did would make her happy.

‘Yes,’ Adora said quietly. ‘I think I would.’

Catra raised a hand, unsheathed her claws. Experimentally, she traced the line of Adora's jaw. Adora didn't flinch. Claws retracted and it was only Catra’s fingers left, brushing Adora's cheek, feeling Adora’s steady breathing on her thumb. She felt like an explorer seconds from the rise, a thousand images of what lay beyond flashing through her mind.

To rule the Horde, with Adora—that had been Catra’s dream. She’d known it her whole life, from the very first time she’d thought to wonder what her future would hold. It was a dream of two parts. One part had come true, and nearly destroyed her. The other—

It was simple. The other was what she had, always, wanted.

She said, ‘I'm going to—’ and Adora said, ‘Yes,’ and Catra took what she wanted.

Her lips were dry at first against Adora’s, awkward, teeth bumping, and then not; and then it was easy, kissing Adora. Her hands found homes on Adora’s hips. She whined deep in her throat and Adora smiled into the kiss and tangled her hands in Catra’s hair, pulling her in, her tongue tracing Catra’s lips, then her teeth. It felt perfect. Effortless. Just the two of them beneath the reborn stars, just the two of them making something new. Catra surged forwards, wrapped her legs around Adora’s waist and Adora laughed in reply, tilting her head up, letting Catra kiss her deeper, giving her access to her mouth, her breath, her neck. Giving Catra everything she ever wanted.

‘Mine,’ Catra whispered and heard Adora’s breath catch. ‘Mine,’ trailing kisses down the soft skin of Adora’s neck. ‘Mine,’ tightening her grip, entwining their bodies, locking them against each other, a thousand points of contact echoing the litany: mine, mine, mine until she returned to Adora’s face, until she kissed the woman she loved again, until the words dissolved in their shared breath.

And, after, like a raindrop rejoining the sea, like a feather drifting on the wind:

‘Yours.’