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"All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”
-- All The Lights We Cannot See, by Anthony Doer
***
Adora and her used to have a plan.
It always began with “When the war is over…”
They’d talk about it late at night when they were children, whispering about the unspecified point in the future when the rebellion was defeated, Horde’s mission complete, and it was just the two of them calling the shots. In this dream future, the violence they were to wreak upon the world was only a vague blur they swept over -- what fascinated them was not the reign of complete power, but the dream at the end, the happy-ever-after, when they could rule together, side-by-side, forever.
Now, the war is over, and her old dream rewrites herself.
There is now a future where Catra lives on the other side of the war. The tanks she might have controlled now sit in the mud, partly demolished, and overrun with weeds. Old Horde flags flap in tatters, abandoned in the metal wasteland she once knew as home. The blank-faced soldiers of the old war have blended in with the crowd of normal people.
The war is over, and she now has a unit to measure her life with. Before, she had no steadfast element, no faith or truth within the ageless metal walls of the Fright Zone except for Adora: growing up with her, loving her, losing her.
Now, she has a life after the war. A life, as people say, where one can live happily, and in peace. Where she can live happily, and in peace.
Happy. In peace.
She has a hard time imagining it.
There was happiness in her old life. A kind of happiness. There were moments, although rare, where she felt a bright edgy flare of feeling so deep it rocked her to the soles of her feet. Made her dumb, breathless, ridiculous. She always shared these moments with Adora, and though sporadic and uncertain as they were, they were hers completely. Hers and Adora’s. Theirs.
Now, her happiness feels different. It comes more frequently, sure, but it flutters around her chest now like a frantic, frightened bird stuck in the rafters of an old house. When she hears Adora laugh now, it is not always because of her, and the future that they talk about stretches beyond the simple, singular desire they once shared as children, of being together forever; and with this expanding future comes an even larger shadow, the fear that she’s had forever: that Adora’s love shines on her only as equally as it does for everyone else, that their hearts hold love with different depths.
The war is over, but Catra wouldn’t say she’s happy. She wouldn’t change her life for anything else in the world, not even for their old childhood dream, but she wonders if there’s anything Adora would change.
She follows Adora everywhere, wondering, constantly: Is this what you want? Are you happy? Is this what you were expecting? Am I what you want?
Even at night, while the stars are at their brightest and Adora is sleeping peacefully, her happiness cannot settle. Catra feels instead a kind of breathlessness. A hunted, frightened feeling. She used to feel it whenever Shadow Weaver was near, and now she feels it again, here, in moments alone with Adora. At night, she plays a kind of nightmare in her mind, one where guards clamber up the stone steps to drag her out of Adora’s life, and though Catra cries and begs and fights back, Adora does nothing to stop them.
Worse, are the nightmares without the guards. The nightmares where Adora lays awake beside her, quietly deliberating what she will say and how she will say it, and then, at last, she will sigh, and turn to face Catra with an admission. One she will say gently, with tenderness, and that sweet soft smile of hers. She will say something kind, like how she will always love her, and she will always be her friend, and then she’ll gently brush a strand of dark hair out of Catra’s face while between them, unspoken, the nightmare settles. She’s sorry, she’s changed her mind. It isn’t that kind of love, after all.
Three days have passed since the war ended, and none of these things have happened. Yet, nothing has convinced Catra completely that they won’t happen. How can there be happiness when everything is so fragile? When there are no guarantees it won’t be taken away again? How can there be peace?
Beside her, Adora shifts quietly in her sleep.
With a soft sigh, Catra rolls onto her side and watches as the dim blue shadows of the trees outside flicker across Adora’s sleeping, peaceful face.
Do you love me? Gently, with the tip of her fingernail, Catra trails a line down Adora’s neck to the back of her shoulder where the skin is lined with rougher, raised skin. Do you forgive me?
Adora sighs dreamily, and her eyelashes flutter near waking. Withdrawing hastily, Catra resorts to simply watching again.
In the three days it’s been since the war ended, this is how it has been. Wanting more, she’ll reach forward, then quickly retreat, too frightened to ask.
Adora never asks for anything. It felt at first like a kindness, and then later, like caution. Now it frightens her.
Catra lays there watching until the light comes into the room. This, she can love without fear. Here, light is unavoidable, everywhere. Every morning she watches as sunlight spills through the high dome of their ceiling, then slants down into long rectangles of yellow along their walls. In the afternoons, the light turns the color of honey and makes their bed cozy and warm. Sleep comes easy to her then, lets her float in dreams as warm as bathwater.
Sunlight never entered the Fright Zone. Everything bright there was artificial, without warmth, like a net that came down from the ceiling. She could never have imagined living in a place so full of light that one must never search to find a window. There is simply so much in this new world, so much more light and laughter and happiness than she can even fully understand.
When Adora stirs again, she looks less peaceful. Her face crinkles with a look of internal conflict, as if waking were a moral struggle that she could not make up her mind on.
Gently, Catra reaches out to smooth her thumb along Adora’s eyebrow, smiling softly when the lines in her forehead begin to ease. In here, at least, Adora was hers. Completely hers, again.
But before she can comfort herself with that fact, however, a loud, jarring knock reverberates against the door. Right at the break of dawn, like every morning since the war has ended.
Just like always, Adora jolts awake with a short yelp, and nearly falls straight out of bed.
“Are you awake?” Glimmer’s voice floats through the door. Catra’s ears flatten against her head. “Can I open the door?”
“Huh?” Adora rubs her eyes sleepily, and looks uncertainly around the room as if she were the stranger in it, “Who’s that?”
Catra sighs, “Your friends are at the door.” Like always.
“Oh okay,” Adora yawns, and smiles sleepily, happy as always to see them, “Guys, you can come in!”
Immediately the door opens, and both Bow and Glimmer arrange themselves goofily at the entrance like toy soldiers awaiting proper instruction. Which they have done for four mornings in a row now.
Catra can feel her tail flicking irritably already, but with some concerted effort she makes herself go still again. She has been working with Perfuma to make sure that she doesn’t ruin everything with her jealousy. Although that’s not the words they use when they work together, she suspects that that’s what Perfuma means, though she uses other words, like “cope” and “expressive needs”. She told her once that jealousy is only an insecurity that wants to communicate itself, and that it would create a wedge between her and Adora if she did not find a way to properly channel it. Though Catra hasn’t quite figured out what “channel” means, she’s been working very hard on ensuring that nothing “wedges” between her and Adora.
“Are you guys ready to get to work?” Bow asks, an electric current of excitement in his voice.
“Again?” Catra sighs, “Haven’t we been working on this stupid party for the last three days? I’m sure it’ll be fine without our help.”
“But Catra,” Bow gasps, “It’s tonight!”
“It’s our first real celebration since the war ended,” Glimmer answers, her voice firming with queenly authority, “We have to make sure it’s perfect.”
“Right,” Catra’s tail flicks again, “I’m sure that’ll fix everything.”
“You don’t have to help,” Adora says. Catra snaps a look at her. Despite the warmth of her kind smile and the hand on Catra’s knee, the words feel meant to cut, “You’ve done enough.”
You don’t have to, meant only that Adora would do it without her. Adora would never stay with her if it meant leaving her new friends.
Catra bristles. “Fine, I’ll help,” she snaps, and flattens her ears against her skull.
Adora blinks. After a beat, she slides her hand off Catra’s knee.
After a long moment, Bow inhales hugely, as if hoping to suck all the awkward tension in the room and hold it in his body instead.
“Well,” he says at last, exhaling, “We should get going, we still have a lot of work to do.”
“Great,” Catra says lightly, as if nothing matters, and slips off the bed, “I’ll see you all downstairs.”
She leaves the room before anything more can be said.
***
Tonight will be the first New Moon since Prime’s defeat. There will be celebration, a party, which Catra has tried her best to understand.
She’s been told the basics: the people in Bright Moon will shoot lights up into the sky to celebrate their new freedom. The affect will be bright, colorful, and cause no damage to people or their property. There will be food, music, and dancing, which will apparently go on as the explosions go off in the sky. Catra has listened earnestly to all of the strange, extravagant details that Adora’s friends have excitedly described to her, but each new question she asks only seems to extend the distance between what they all understand of one another.
She wants to be excited, too. To join Adora and her friends in their celebration. But she can’t make her heart lift at the thought of being close to anything like an explosion. The mere thought of it makes her fur stand on edge.
She can still remember the force of the bombings that reverberated throughout her childhood. Explosions of that kind were strong enough to move through thousands of feet of metal and still rattle through her spine. She cannot imagine wanting to stand beneath something like that.
But Adora had felt those very same explosions all her life, too. She had been there with Catra. How she is still excited, Catra can’t understand why.
Being in Bright Moon sometimes made Catra feel faraway from Adora, as if separated by an impossibly large meadow. There, amidst the dandelions and blue chicory plants, she can still hear Adora’s voice, still talk to her, but only from a distance. She could not walk with her through that field. She could not stand with her.
Even now, she can hear Adora laughing. She’s not anywhere nearby, but Catra could pick out that laugh anywhere. The bright, body-deep sound of it. But she is somewhere else, away from her.
Laughing with her new friends, probably.
With a wild yowl, Catra yanks the large purple banner down from the tree she’s meant to hang it from and throws it heavily onto the floor. She nearly kicks it as well, but the energy goes out of her as quickly as a light and leaves her standing there, breathing heavily as a blank-white emptiness wells in her chest.
She doesn’t know how long she stands there. Out here in the distant corners of the palace, space gathers naturally. There are only trees, the quiet rustle of weeds. The wind.
“Need a boost?”
Catra starts, and whirls around. Adora is there behind her, smiling that particular smile of hers that makes one corner of her mouth look heavier than the other. But it’s a warm smile, full of fondness, and it melts all the tiny prickling defenses in Catra’s heart.
Still, she scoffs. “I can get it up there myself.”
“Oh yeah?” Adora’s smile boldens, “Then how come I could hear you yowling from across the palace?”
Warmth floods her cheeks. Scoffing, Catra closes her arms over her chest, “I have not been yowling.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Aw, Catra,” Adora’s shoulders broaden playfully, “You sure you don’t need me to boost you?”
Catra catches on to the tone. Adora arms are spread out wide, and already she is bending into the slight crouch she always gets into when she’s planning on something mischievous, likely to wrestle or pull her tail.
Catra steps back with a slight hiss. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Adora grins, still approaching slowly.
“Adora,” she warns, “Seriously. I’m not in the mood.”
“What?” Laughing now, Adora side-steps in front of Catra’s route of escape, “I’m not doing anything.”
Sensing the impending momentum, Catra quickly ducks beneath Adora’s arms, and sidesteps around her, causing her to stumble off-balance. Predictable as always.
As Adora turns around again, still crouched, Catra feels herself loosening with laughter,
“You idiot. Go play with someone else.”
“Why? You’re the one in need of a boost,” another unsuccessful lunge.
“I don’t need a boost!”
“Come on Catra–” Adora laughs, lunging again, only to be evaded, “I’m just trying to help!”
“Forget it, you’re too slow.”
“I always get you in the end!”
“Liar,” she halters, galled by the lie. All through their childhood she has always been the faster one, the one three steps ahead, winning every race, “You’re–”
Suddenly, Adora wraps her arms around her, pulling Catra effortlessly off her feet and tumbling them both toward the grass. Damn it, Catra thinks as they fall.
The impact of the ground collapses all the air in her chest. After a moment of stunned breathlessness, Adora settles quickly atop her again, pinning Catra’s arms to her side firmly with her elbows, the way she always used to as a child to avoid being scratched. Strands of loose blonde hair sway around Adora’s face as she laughs, looser now, her face bright and clear and full of happiness. Behind her, an impossibly blue sky is spattered with clouds. It frames Adora with light, and as Catra looks up at her, a core of yellow light flares brightly within her chest as brilliantly as a mini sun.
“So?” Grinning, Adora blows a strand of blonde hair out of her face, “You were saying?”
“Whatever.” she grumbles, her chest still warm.
Still smiling, Adora sighs contently, and lays her cool cheek against Catra’s.
“Like I said,” she whispers, and tightens her grip, “I always get you in the end.”
Her heart flutters. It’s almost too much to bear. The pleasant weight of Adora’s chest and hips on hers, the touch of her hair. Her cheek on hers. A warm contentment gathers into her throat and thrums into a soft pathetic little purr.
Adora must hear her because she makes a soft noise that sounds suspiciously like ‘Aww’ which Catra pretends not to hear for the sake of her own pride.
Bees buzz softly above their heads. The grass is still a little damp with morning dew, but the air is crisp and clean and warming slowly with the late morning sun. Soon, the palace grounds will be crisscrossed with soft beams of yellow rectilinear light.
The thought of sleep weighs on her. She’d like to doze for another hour just like this, with Adora beside her, all to herself. It wouldn’t have to be long. Just an hour.
“Alright,” Adora lifts her head, and smiles, “We should finish things up.”
Of course.
Catra groans, “Adora.”
“What?” Big innocent blue eyes blink back at her.
She sighs, “Can’t we just stay like this?” her tail flicks, and she looks away, feeling her ears flatten dejectedly, “It’s been a while since it was just you and me.”
Adora blinks at her again, her face blank and uncomprehending. “But Catra, we’re together all the time.”
A pang of distress weighs on Catra’s heart. Normally this would be enough to have her up on her feet and out of close proximity to Adora, but she pushes down the urge.
With a deep breath, she tries to remember something from Perfuma’s lessons, but her words tend to float in Catra’s memory like little dandelion seeds in the wind. She does vaguely remember Perfuma saying something about using ‘I feel’ statements, and that it was important to be as unassuming as possible when trying to understand another person’s behavior.
“I feel,” Catra begins, gritting her teeth, “That since the war ended, we have spent a lot of time with your friends, and doing things for Bright Moon, and because of that, we’re never just with each other.”
A heavy silence wavers between them. After a long beat, Adora raises up onto her hands and knees, making space between them.
“Oh. Okay,” Adora coughs into her hand, and comes to sit on her heels, her cheeks flushing, “Well, we can do that, too.”
The response deflates something in Catra’s chest. She snaps up onto her feet, “Well don’t exert yourself, Adora.”
“No, Catra, wait!” Adora reaches for her, but Catra is already well out of reach.
Ambling down the small grassy hill, Catra snatches the purple banner she had abandoned however long ago. Gathering up as much of the silky fabric as she can, she straightens up and directs one last moody look at Adora before she launches herself up the nearest tree. Her feet scramble only briefly on the rough bark, and then she pulls her full weight up the low-awning branch.
“Catra, come on!” Adora walks to the bottom of the tree, and stands there, watching avidly as Catra slinks from branch to branch, “You can’t just run away whenever you don’t like how the conversation is going!”
“I’m busy,” Catra crouches, and begins tying the edge of the banner against the thin tree branch, “You should return to your own duties, princess.”
“I’d like to finish our conversation,” Adora puts her hands on her hips with authority, but when Catra doesn’t look down again, she sighs, and drops her arms again, “Look, I’m – I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want to hang out with you. I do! But everything is so new, and there’s so much that has happened to us. I don’t…always know how to do this.”
Everything she says bruises her. She had known things were fragile between them, she had felt it herself, but to hear Adora confirm it made her blood run cold.
Everything slips away so easily.
“Come on, Catra,” Adora extends her hands upward as if she were asking Catra to jump, to trust, to be caught, “Of course I want to hang out with you. Come down, please, and we’ll talk.”
Catra wavers a moment. She looks down at her best friend, the one person she loves the most in the entire universe.
The silence abruptly breaks with the sound of a large metallic groan, likely something very heavy coming out of place. There’s a beat of tense silence, and then a startled shout as something in the distance falls, and clatters upon the floor. Although the impact is loud enough to make the fur on Catra’s hindlegs stiff, Adora doesn’t flinch or move from where she stands. Her arms remain perfectly still, open, reaching for Catra.
“Come down, please.” she pleads softly.
She pulls on Catra like a string, undoing her completely. The muscles in her calves release, and had the moment lasted only a beat longer, Catra would have slipped off the branch like water.
Then, through the windy silence, Glimmer’s voice carries across the palace, “Where’s Adora? Has anyone seen her? We’ll need She-Ra to pick this up.”
Finally, with a deep sign, Adora drops her arms.
“Fine,” she says, and swiftly adjusts her red jacket, tightening the belt, “We’ll talk later tonight.”
Catra tries to muster some kind of nonchalance, like a scoff or snarl, but no sound comes out. She can only watch Adora turn and stride purposefully up the small green hill, her blonde ponytail bobbing as she goes.
***
After all the banners are strung up in the trees, Catra walks along the lower rooftops of the palace where she can watch all the others at their work. There’s Bow wiping down chairs and tables. Scorpia is questioning the practice of each decoration she is meant to help with, becoming excitedly baffled by each explanation. In the distance, she can hear Glimmer’s calm, unremitting voice as she attempts to guide She-Ra through whatever manual labor she’s been asked to complete. Catra walks on, her heart a coil of wire.
In a small cobble-stone court, summer linen hangs on a line to dry. They blow in the gentle wind, catching the afternoon light.
There, Perfuma grows flowers for the evening. Neat bunches of orange, purple, and red flowers, all the size of a thumb, which she then sets into small vases to be carried out with the tables.
Before Catra can stop, she feels herself drop onto the cool white cobbled stones behind Perfuma’s chair.
Though her approach had been silent, Perfuma looks back at her with a brilliant smile as if she’d just rung a doorbell.
“Good afternoon, Catra,” Perfuma slides another vase full of flowers into the large crate beside her, “Are you here to keep me company?”
“Oh,” Catra’s ears flatten, “Um. Yeah, I guess so.”
Perfuma beams. With a flick of her wrist, the greenery between the cobbled white stones beside her chair rise into a lush bed of grass.
“If you’d like to lay down,” she smiles, and cheerily returns to her work.
Deeply embarrassed, but tired from her work, Catra lays down in the grass. The grass is warmed by the cement, but not as soft or sweet-smelling as it had been on the fields with Adora. Above her, the clouds have all disappeared, and in their absence the sky seems almost impossibly vast, empty of everything.
“So,” Perfuma begins lightly, growing another thumb-sized poppy between her fingers, “Are you excited about the party”
“No.”
“No?” she arches an eyebrow down at her, “But you’ve never gone to a party before. How can you not be excited?”
“Because I’m just not,” Catra’s tail flicks, “Why do I have to have a reason for everything? Sometimes I just feel a certain way, that’s it.”
Perfuma hums and nods quietly, not out of agreement, but as an act of acknowledgement, a gesture to show Catra that she’s being heard.
A moment of silent passes. As Perfuma slides another bunch of flowers into a vase, she asks, “I suppose your talk with Adora didn’t go well?”
“No,” Catra sighs up at the sky. It chills her slightly, to see so much open space. It makes her think of Adora’s eyes, so unbearably blue. Closing her eyes, she turns her head away, “No, it didn’t go well.”
Perfuma hums again but doesn’t answer. She has a strategy with Catra, a way of working things out slowly, carefully, the way one would work roots from hard soil.
The silence weighs heavily. Catra sweeps her eyes around the small court for something small to focus on, something to distract her from the welling in her heart, but nothing comforts her. It all seems to be a part of the growing wreckage in her heart, another addition to the endless tangle of loss. The column of fire-like light on the brick walls, how the sheets catch in the windy sunlight, the line of clay pots along the brick wall. The way the flowers whiten in the dusk. All these things would be lost to her. Should Adora leave her again, she’d never be able to look upon this place again.
To contain the feeling, Catra presses her wrists against her forehead, but even this pressure does nothing to close the feeling in her heart.
It slips out in a soft wail: “I don’t want her to give up on me.”
“Oh Catra,” Perfuma sighs.
“I’m serious,” Catra lifts up onto her elbows, bares her teeth aggressively, “She never wants to be alone with me. She always has Bow and Glimmer around her, to keep her from being alone with me.”
“Catra.”
“She probably doesn’t feel the same as I do. She’s just going along with this because she doesn’t want to break my heart.”
“Catra,” A cool palm touches her wrist, and then Perfuma is sliding down into the grass beside her, “I know you are scared of losing Adora, and while those feelings are still important, you are also ascribing all of Adora’s actions with your own assumptions. Your relationship has changed a lot over the years, and it’s changing again. She is learning how to communicate, just as you are,” A thumb circles gently along Catra’s wrist, “Considering how you two grew up, I’d say she’s probably working against the same hurdles you are.”
“I’m –I’m not the one with hurdles,” A watery thread breaks through her voice, “I told her how I felt, and she – she just –”
“Rejected you?”
“No,” Catra snarls, “But she seemed – I don’t know, worried or uncertain. She’s clearly not as invested in this as I am.”
“Have you asked her?”
“No,” she groans again, “I just feel like she isn’t.”
“I know,” Perfuma answers kindly, and gently smooths the stiff fur raised behind Catra’s ear. “And that still matters. She needs to know how her distance is affecting you. Have you asked her how she feels?”
‘No,” Catra murmurs, and sinks into the ground, “I’m too scared of what she’ll say.”
Perfume gently caresses the top of Catra’s head, and though it is just the sort of affection that would normally rankle her, after such a long day, the touch feels soft and warm, almost touchingly sweet. It settles something inside of her, deep down, that remembers what it was like to be a child. To be helpless and in need of comfort and patience, for a mother’s love, which she sought for everywhere and found nothing, only indifference, and later hatred. Perfume’s hand is soft and gentle, uncallused; it is a hand that has never been slapped or been put to work; has never lifted to willfully hit another, not even Catra, not even in anger. All Catra needs to do is let it happen.
“Your relationship is new,” Perfuma continues softly, and scratches behind her ear. All around them, the grass seems to be growing, thickening. Catra watches somewhat dumbly, sleepy from the sun, as small flower buds tentatively poke from the dirt, “New things are fragile, and they need to be nurtured and treated carefully in order to grow.” All around them, the flower buds reach towards the sun and open slowly, like hands uncurling, trusting the sky with its entire life, with everything. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t strong with love,” Perfuma smiles softly, and without a word quietly wipes the tear from the corner of Catra’s eye, “Alright?”
Nodding feebly, she flutters her eyes shut, “Alright.”
***
By the time she makes it back to the palace, the sky has bleached with the early evening. A scatter of clouds blush pink from the vanished sun and make a slow progress across the speckled sky. In the evening light, everything looks soft and faded. All the open windows flicker with white curtains, now bright as the clouds.
Catra leans against of the windowsills, watching the palace prepare. Soon, the gates will be opened and the palace will be flooded with people. They will sip their fizzy drinks and stand beneath colorful explosions without fear of being burned. Soon, she will have to confront Adora, tell her everything.
Just then, she hears the heavy march of boots along the floor. A familiar voice calls her name, echoic in these wide stone hallways.
“Catra? Catra?”
With a deep breath, Catra stiffens her spine with resolve. Perfuma’s words buoy her, make her calm. Nurturing something new doesn’t mean it’s weak. Catra turns to await Adora’s entrance.
But it is She-Ra that rounds the corner.
“Catra,” She-Ra exclaims, eyes fierce, “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
All of her resolve disperses. A painfully vulnerable conversation would have been difficult enough with Adora, but there is no way Catra can have this conversation with the perfect hero version of her. Should it all blow up, she’d never recover. It would be too humiliating.
With a yelp, Catra scampers quickly into the darkened hallway.
“Catra,” She-Ra gasps incredulously, “Stop!”
In the distance, there’s the hard pounding of her boots, running after her. But even against She-Ra, Catra is quicker, more amble. Slipping off a windowsill, Catra slinks along a branch, nearly invisible in the paling light.
“Catra,” She-Ra groans as she rounds the corner. The sound of her own name spoken with helpless anger pierces right through Catra’s heart.
After a few moments of calling her name and pacing, She-Ra finally leaves. She leaves silently, disappearing into the dark as smoothly as a needle through fabric. In her absence, there is just the lights and the utter silence of the stars. Catra sits there for a long time, watching as the soft rose-light of the evening hovers on the white-stone walls, gradually becoming only a narrow streak of light, and then, at last, as her hands go numb in the cold, leaves the hallway entirely in the dark.
“Why,” she whispers at last, to no one, “Am I so scared?”
A beat passes.
“Catra is that you?”
Catra sighs and looks down at the ground. Bow’s warm face beams up at her, his face flecked with light from the palace. He has the same warm jovial presence of a dog, difficult to let down, impossible to feel embarrassed in front of.
“Hey, Bow.” Catra sighs.
“I’m glad I found you,” He smiles brightly, “I don’t know whether you’ve got an outfit of your own, but I got you a suit of mine fitted for you, just in case.”
Catra rubs her chest faintly. People here in Bright Moon sometimes give out an inner light of generosity so endless, and ongoing it can pierce through her chest with a pain as tangible as a heartache.
With effort, she musters her warmest smile, “Thank you, Bow.”
***
The party is rather elegant. Delicate white lights are strung delicately across the large open square. Flowers of all color sit at each table. People circle in their own little groups, talking to other groups, all dressed elegantly. Drinks repeatedly clink together in celebration, over and over again, boisterous gratitude blending with laughter in the soft-black air.
Catra feels herself grow smaller in the presence of such a crowd. It is the first time she has been in a crowd this big without the protection of her own schemes to ward off social shyness. This time, she is merely a rescue, a defeated foe whose crimes have been cleared by She-Ra’s mercy.
Catra grabs a tall glass of something very sweet and fizzy just to hold something as she scans the crowds of people. She recognizes a few faces, although their names slip her memory. She might have tried to converse with them to get a clearer sense of them, but she’d never been all that great at making friends. She tended to hold onto one and never let go.
Adora isn’t anywhere to be found, though.
Spotting Scorpia, she dodges her huge stinger, and pops up beside her.
“Have you seen Adora?”
“Oh!” Scorpia startles and nearly crushes the small sandwich she’d been trying to pinch, “I haven’t, wildcat. But, you know, now that you’re here, do you think you could…?”
Plucking up three different sandwiches, Catra puts it on a plate and sticks a tiny plastic fork in one. “Here,” she sighs dismally, and passes on.
Spotting Glimmer, she materializes at her side.
“Hey—”
“Oh, Catra!” Glimmer smiles brightly at her, her face morphing immediately into the guilty sympathetic expression of someone who has likely been the confidant to a rather thorough ranting-session, “Heyy. Are you having fun? Have you talked to Adora yet?”
Her ears flatten, “No, I haven’t,” she hisses, and then with a deep breath, smooths out her voice. “Do you know where she is?”
“No,” Glimmer frowns, “She said she was going to look for you.”
“Great,” Catra groans, and turns back into the crowd.
Of course. Adora is going to miss this party because of her. Trying to look out for her, to make her feel better, as always.
Stamping down the slick oily feeling in her stomach, Catra moves on.
She walks the premise once, and then cuts through the palace. The grass looks black against the moonless sky, the stones the color of oil. She makes her way through the dark from the light of the party, the brightness of celebration extending a pale nebulous light. As she is walking back towards the front side of the palace, she sees Adora. She stands against the greater darkness, looking so completely alone as if she faced the end of the world against the balcony she now leans against. Though Adora is only a silhouette, Catra knows those shoulders, she could recognize them anywhere.
Approaching quietly, she drops onto the smooth-stoned balcony. She waits a beat, to see if Adora will acknowledge her, and then quietly steps forward.
“Adora?” She calls tentatively.
When Adora turns, the brightness in her eyes could not be mistaken for anything but tears, even in the dark. It draws all the air out of Catra’s lungs. For a moment, Adora seems to look right through Catra, but as she approaches quietly, Adora blinks rapidly, her face folding with recognition.
“Catra,” Adora exhales heavily, and settles a hand on the railing to steady herself. “You’re here.”
Pausing uncertainly, Catra waits for the mingled expression on Adora’s face to set upon anger or relief, but when Adora opens her arms, the distance between them closes as if a current of water had enclosed around her.
Shakily, Adora wraps one hand around Catra’s lower back and the other on the scruff of her neck, pressing Catra closer. Soon, in this embrace, Adora begins to tremble, and though Catra hugs her back, the touch only seems to inspire more trembling. Though the spasms are frightening, Catra doesn’t loosen her hold. She only digs in with her claws the way she used to as a child when a storm or explosion rocked their bunkers and she could do nothing but hold Adora through her own terror.
“Where have you been?” Adora’s breath breaks over her voice as she presses Catra closer, “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
“I –” Catra winces, “I’m sorry.”
“Why did you run away from me?”
“I shouldn’t have,” Catra sighs, and pets Adora’s arm softly, helplessly, “I was just scared. Of our conversation.”
A tick of trepidation enters Adora’s voice. “Why?”
I just…” Closing her eyes, she inhales deeply, “There is something I need to talk to you about. About how I’ve been feeling, lately, about our relationship.”
A beat of unbearable silence passes. Then, slowly, as if made of leaden, Adora pulls away, and looks down at Catra with an expression of terror so enormous it draws in Catra’s breath as if it had a magnetic pull of its own, as endless as a black hole’s.
“Okay,” Adora’s smile is a frozen picture of panic, “What is it?”
Catra merely blinks, absorbed by the look of utter fear in her best friend’s face.
Adora so rarely allows herself to be afraid. It happens so infrequently, even before Adora became the world’s hero, she very rarely offered any real illumination to what frightened her. Early on in the Horde, she had created a mask of cool daring bravery, so that even as a child it seemed that nothing could truly ruffle her. It is one of the many reasons Catra attached to her so fiercely; she had been a frightened child, given to mysterious fits of terror and rage, but Adora had provided her a sense of security, a place in the hierarchy that ruled the Horde. Beside Adora, she could breathe easier, knowing that she had nothing to fear. Calm, strong, fearless Adora would always protect her.
Now though, she can see the effort it takes.
In the blue and white puddle of lights from the party, Catra can see Adora’s struggle to pull herself together again. It begins with her forehead, and then with all the small little creases around her mouth. Soon, she seems calm again. All for the eyes.
“It’s alright, Catra,” she says, and gently squeezes Catra’s arms, rubbing small, calming motions along the small stripes, “You can say whatever you need to say to me. I’ll understand, I promise.”
Catra exhales shakily.
Then, with the same seamless ease she falls from any height, Catra falls against Adora again. She wraps her arms around her tightly.
“I love you so much,” Catra whispers softly, and clutches her tighter, “But I’m so scared of losing you all the time. I can barely think of anything else. It’s unbearable.”
A beat of stunned silence passes.
Then, Adora releases a teary laugh. Catra can hear it against her cheek, the slow, shaking release of her lungs.
“Oh, Catra,” Adora breathes, and passes her hand over Catra’s head, “You’re never going to lose me.”
“You can’t promise me that, you idiot,” Catra slides her head beneath Adora’s chin, her old hiding place, “You could change your mind. You could meet someone else. Something could happen – something is always happening.”
“Catra,” Adora’s voice sharpens with distress, “You know I love you, right?”
Yes, Catra means to say. Of course. She digs her fingernails into Adora’s back, hoping to compel the words by pure force alone, but it is as if there is an anchor tied to her chest. Her breath catches in her throat, and the words sink down into nothing.
“Oh, god,” Adora covers her face with her hands, “I’m a terrible girlfriend.”
“No,” she gasps, and reaches for her again, “No, Adora, of course not.”
“I’m so sorry.” Adora groans into her hands, “Is it because I’ve been pushing Bow and Glimmer on you? I swear I wasn’t doing it intentionally, it’s just things have been so new and fragile, and I was scared of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, and Bow and Glimmer, they just make everything easy, you know? I know how to act around them.”
Smiling weakly, Catra grasps Adora by the wrists, “Is that why they’ve been barging into our room every morning?”
Beneath Adora’s fingers, her cheeks flush bright red. She groans softly with her own embarrassment.
“Look…I…I’ve never even kissed anyone before you. And now we’re together, and” Adora sighs, but beneath her embarrassment, a tick of happiness pulls up her mouth, “It’s wonderful, and terrifying, and I don’t know how to do any of this right.”
Catra’s heart quickens in her chest, listening. All her life, she’s watched Adora climb through the ranks with a natural ease, as if built for success, she went from Catra’s protector, to an unassailing soldier, to Force Captain, all without even faltering. Even as an enemy, she had been unsurpassable, untouchable.
Finally, it seems, they were on the same playing field.
Gently, Catra squeezes her wrists, “Alright,” she says, and slowly, with a deliberate gentleness, peels Adora’s hands away from her face, “I understand.”
Adora slowly opens her eyes. Her face crinkles with uncertainty. “You’re…okay with that?”
“Of course,” With a soft purr, Catra inclines her head to rub the side of Adora’s cheek with her forehead, “It will give me the opportunity to beat you at something else.”
Adora laughs quietly, but in the small places they are now connected, Catra can feel her trembling. Emboldened, Catra puts a soft kiss against the corner of Adora’s mouth. A cloud of breath tumbles out into the chilly air. With a single finger, she tilts Adora’s chin towards her, and smooths her thumb gently over her lower lip, feeling the skin shudder beneath her touch.
As Catra lifts up to connect their lips, she is overwhelmed momentarily by the feeling that she is actually good at this, perhaps even better than Adora, and that, Adora may need her guidance for once. Smiling between their kiss, Catra cups Adora’s face tenderly with both hands. They kiss like that for a while, softly, tenderly, holding tightly to each other as they stand beneath the stars.
Just as Catra is settling her cheek against Adora’s, there is a quiet popping sound. Clear, but faint, as if from a great distance away, though it sounds almost right above their heads.
“Ohh,” Adora gasps, and holds Catra tighter, “It’s starting.”
Catra’s fur lifts. “What’s starting?”
“The fireworks,” Adora beams up at the ink-black sky, “You’re going to love this. Look up at the sky.”
Just then there’s a quiet whistling sound. It hurdles towards the stars, almost completely hidden in the dark, and then it flickers out, and disappears.
“Is that it…?” Catra begins, a flutter of relief in her stomach. But before she can finish her trail of thought, there is a loud popping sound. With a yelp, Catra jumps into the safety of Adora’s arms.
Catching her easily, Adora hugs her close. “Look!” she exclaims, and points to the sky.
Against the soft-black, streaks of stark-yellow light fall down all around them, spattered, and yet coordinated, driven downward with the same dazzling astral elegance of a shooting star. Smoke sharpens the air. Catra watches raptly as the lights gradually flicker out and leave behind soft-white impressions in the sky, soft trails of the light’s existence, a vestige of its journey. She clutches Adora’s shoulders tighter. Something huge is welling in her chest, something bright, and impossible to contain, prickling with tears behind her eyes.
The sky exploded with light, and nothing burned. Nobody is hurt.
“Here it comes, again,” Adora whispers against Catra’s ear, and holds her tighter, “I’ve got you.”
The air fills with a loud whistling sound again, one after another, bringing into the sky dozens of little missiles. When they erupt, it is like a thousand little crickets chirping at once, an immense chatter, filling the sky with vast spirals of light.
Staring up at the sky, the presence of such brilliant light overwhelms her. Catra stares up at the sky breathlessly, flooded by the presence of such a vast spectacle of harmless intent.
The war is over, and Catra lives in the future it has created. Though new and fragile as it is, it is lovelier than Catra could have possibly imagined. It is a softer, gentler future, where one may live happily, and in peace. One where the best friend she grew up with, loved, and lost, has come back to her. A future where even the explosions light up the dark with color and do no harm.