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On bad nights, sometimes Adora thinks the Heart of Etheria still glows on her chest.
It doesn’t, of course. It’s just the moonlight reflecting off the silvery marks the Heart left on her skin, pale in the semi-darkness. It has been six months, but the First Ones glyphs have never faded. Adora doesn’t think they ever will. A reminder, day in and day out, of the weight of the world on her chest.
Catra is the only one who knows--the only one who is in a position to see. On Glimmer’s urging, Adora has diversified her wardrobe since the war--but plunging necklines and daring cuts aren’t her thing. And with the mark...there are some things the world doesn’t need to see. Etheria knows She-Ra saved them all, that she carried the world’s magic and freed it, but they don’t know how much it almost cost. Adora thinks that if they knew, they’d know their hero wasn’t infallible, couldn’t always save the day, and that is not something Etheria needs right now. Etheria needs strength, and stability. Etheria needs She-Ra, not Adora.
What do you want , Catra asked her. You’re worth more than you can give to other people , Mara said. On good days, Adora believes them. But nights are not days, and in the still and the quiet other voices are louder.
Light Hope spoke of destiny, Shadow Weaver of potential and promise. Both of them wanted her to conquer worlds. Both of them did their best to make her into a weapon. Now Adora is a warrior without a war.
Adora won’t sleep anymore tonight. She glances at Catra, sleeping beside her, face peaceful in a way it still never is in waking hours. Adora won’t take that from her. Adora promised herself she wouldn’t take anything from Catra ever again. She slips out of bed on silent feet, padding noiselessly across the room to grab her dressing robe. Years spent growing up in the Fright Zone have made silent movement habitual, and even though Catra’s ears twitch in her sleep, she does not wake. Carefully, carefully, Adora pushes the door open and slips out.
Her feet take her where she always seems to go, the nights she cannot sleep. They take her to the reminder of her greatest failure. They take her to Queen Angella, and she stops at the mural, the same way she always does.
I’m sorry, Adora mouths. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry you had to die for me.
They’re words she’s said before, and they’re words she’ll say again. Has Glimmer ever truly forgiven her for her mother’s death? Their friendship fractured during the war, and after Glimmer’s rescue from Horde Prime, they’d never spoken of it. When Adora thinks about trying, the words feel like ashes in her mouth. She remembers how she felt when Shadow Weaver died, in fire and flame and heat. Tears had streamed down her face, and a complicated mix of guilt and love and hate made her feel like she couldn’t breathe.
Shadow Weaver was never a mother. The closest thing to a mother Adora had ever known, maybe, but how could her grief compare to her friend’s, who had known love and lost it?
Catra would tell her to talk to Glimmer, and isn’t that funny? Catra, who has been talking to Perfuma, learning to use her words to heal instead of hurt. It isn’t perfect of course. Sometimes words come out of her mouth like daggers, hanging in the room until Adora’s gasp breaks the silence, and Catra’s remorse comes flooding in. But Catra, Catra is trying, and right now, Adora doesn’t know what she’s doing.
An exhale of air through her nose. Right now what Adora is doing is talking to ghosts, and not any of the people who she knows would catch her if she fell. But if Adora is afraid of wanting, she’s even more afraid of taking , and those conversations die before they ever begin. Sometimes she thinks she sees the question behind Glimmer’s eyes, or Bow’s, or especially Catra’s, but she never knows how to answer.
If Adora stays any longer the guards will pass her on their rotation, and then she’ll have to explain herself, and that is the last thing she wants to do. But there is one more place to go.
The trick will be getting past Catra again. Their room has a balcony, and it reminds Adora of all the times she and Catra climbed the structures in the Fright Zone, the cool air a balm on her face. In the end, she holds her breath and walks quietly as she knows how, until she’s out among the stars.
She’s not quiet enough this time, although she doesn’t know that for a few moments, caught in looking up at the stars, still so new to her, even after being among them. At once, the stars make her feel free and constricted, an entire universe beyond herself, and yet one she still has a duty to. Only She-Ra can bring the magic back to the stars.
A small cough behind her makes Adora jump, whirling around into a combat stance, years and years of combat drills and war experience coming to life in an instant.
“You’re awake,” Catra says, voice still gravely with sleep. “Adora, it’s the middle of the night, and when I got up your side of the bed was cold. How long have you been out here?”
“Not that long,” Adora says. “Just a few minutes.”
Catra isn’t fooled. “And how long were you at where you just came from, wherever that is?”
Adora sighs. “A while.”
Catra walks towards her, slowly and taking care to remain out of Adora’s blindspot. She stops beside her, hesitant, but with her tail wrapping carefully around Adora’s leg, her hand a hair’s breadth away from Adora’s own. All Adora has to do is reach out and take it. She wishes she knew how.
“ Talk to me ,” Catra says, a note of pleading in her voice. “I know this isn’t the first time you’ve done this, and I’ve tried to leave you alone to figure it out, but this has been going on for months and you still won’t let me help you. Please, talk to me.”
“I…” Adora starts. “I don’t know how. I don’t know where to begin. And you’re still working on your own stuff, I know how guilty you feel all the time, and I don’t want to add to that, and--”
“No.” Catra turns her around, hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look into mismatched eyes, bright with an emotion Adora cannot name. “No, that’s not how this works. I told you at the Heart, I’m staying, I’m here with you, but you have to let me in. I can’t do this alone, so what makes you think you can?”
Adora is the first to look away, and something is clenching in her chest, something is escaping in her voice--
“Because I always had to! I had to, Catra! I had to save the world, and I had to balance the planet, and even though I failed I always tried to protect you! I always had to do it all by myself, because no one else could! And when I fail, people die !”
Adora’s chest is heaving, her mind is whirling, and where did this anger burning inside her come from? Catra has taken a step back, and Adora thinks that if she touches her, she will burn.
“Adora…” Catra closes her eyes. “Adora, you didn’t kill anyone. Not anyone except Horde Prime, and that bastard deserved to die. Even you can’t argue that.”
“Not killing someone isn’t the same thing as not saving them. It took us three years to win the war, three years after the first time I became She-Ra. How many people died during that time? How many people, who wouldn’t have if I just figured it out faster ?”
“That isn’t your fault! It’s Prime’s fault, and the Horde’s fault, and...and mine. We’ve been over this, again and again, and you’ll tell me it isn’t my fault, but it is , and I can own that, but you shouldn’t have to.”
Now Catra is the one breathing hard, and Adora has been stopped in her tracks. Can she tell Catra where she was, who she was visiting? Is it fair, to take it off her own shoulders? Fair was never a part of this , something inside her whispers. Your shoulders were the ones meant to hold it .
But were they? Unbidden, the memory comes up, in the Heart, Catra holding her, Catra reaching her hand out, Catra begging her to stay. Catra, who had never begged for anything in her life, begging for Adora. Is it fair , another part of Adora says, quieter but somehow more insistent, to shut her out, after she laid herself bare to you?
“We should sit,” Adora says. “If I’m going to tell you this, we should sit down.”
“Okay,” Catra agrees, holding out her hand. It’s just like in her vision, except there Catra was smiling softly, and here? Here, there’s an expression on Catra’s face so vulnerable it makes Adora’s heart ache. It’s an expression that would be death, in the Horde. It’s a reminder they’re not in the Horde now.
Adora takes Catra’s hand, and where she expected to burn earlier, she just feels warm. She wonders if this is what feeling safe feels like.
They walk to the bed, hand-in-hand. Adora sits carefully, deliberately, back resting against the headboard. Catra, full of her usual grace, settles down beside her, never letting go of her hand. Adora is glad they’re sitting side by side. She isn’t sure she could say what she needs to if she was looking at Catra’s face.
“I was visiting Angella. Her mural, I mean.”
The words hang in the air between them. They have never discussed this. Adora can feel Catra tense beside her, hand gripping just a little too tight.
“Oh.”
“She died for me, you know. In place of me. Someone had to stay to stop the portal and I was going to do it but then she came and she did it. I couldn’t stop her. Part of me didn’t want to stop her. I was scared . I was scared and Angella died and Glimmer lost her mom and I could have stopped it! I could have stopped it all and I just...didn’t.”
Catra’s claws are digging into her hand. Adora doesn’t mind. The pain is grounding. It reminds her of when they were young, before Catra learned to retract her claws.
Adora feels a light touch on her face. She flinches. She can’t help it. It reminds her of Shadow Weaver.
“Sorry,” Catra murmurs. “But Adora, please, look at me.”
Adora does. There are tears in Catra’s eyes, but deeper than that, guilt. Pools of guilt so deep Adora worries Catra will drown in it. But even behind that, a more familiar look: resolve.
“That was my fault. Mine. I pulled the lever. Not you. Not even Entrapta and Hordak, who built it. Me. I wanted to hurt you so badly I almost destroyed the world to do it. I’m so sorry , Adora, and you’ve heard me say that, so don’t you dare blame yourself for this.”
Adora starts to say something, but Catra holds up a claw. The tears are starting to fall and her jaw is tight, but she’s looking right at Adora, pinning her in place.
“No. You didn’t kill Angella. You can’t believe you did. I won’t let you!”
The last part seems to escape Catra against her will. “This is mine! And before tonight, I didn’t know it was almost you! I didn’t know it almost killed you. I almost lost you, and it was my fault, and I’d never, ever know so don’t you dare try to put this on your shoulders, not again!”
Catra’s voice breaks. “I can’t lose you. I almost lost you to the universe. Don’t make me lose you to yourself.”
The sob escapes Adora before she ever knew it was building. Not my fault , something in her whispers, not my fault . It’s everything she’s ever needed to hear, and something no one has ever said. Another sob comes, and another. Adora is hunched over, trying to hide her face, hide her tears, and she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe and she can’t think and--
Catra pulls her against her before she can even think to resist, cradles Adora’s head against her chest, and even though her hands are shaking she’s holding Adora so gently, like she might break at any time. And maybe...maybe Adora has, just this once.
Adora cries, and cries, and Catra runs her hand through her hair, making soft shushing noises, murmuring things Adora can’t understand but that seem to be the right thing, anyway. Slowly, slowly, her breathing evens out. But she doesn’t move her head away from Catra’s chest, listening to her heart beat, the thumping slow and reassuringly steady.
“I love you, Adora.” Catra says, quiet. “I love you, and I want you to talk to me, please , please don’t bottle it all up like this. It’s been six months since the war ended, and this is the first time I’ve seen you cry like this. How many nights have you done this, alone?”
Adora finally looks at Catra. Tears are running silently down her cheeks, but she doesn’t look broken. She doesn’t look like the weight of Adora’s feelings has crushed her. She looks...what unconditional love looks like, Adora supposes.
“Too many,” Adora admits. “I’m sorry. I should have trusted you, I--”
“Stop!” Catra bursts out. “Stop apologizing. That’s part of the problem. Just let me take care of you, you idiot.”
Adora laughs. It surprises her, although maybe not as much as it surprises Catra.
“Well you know, being an idiot can make it hard to learn. I’ve never really known how to let someone take care of me. It might take a while.”
Catra laughs too, pulling her closer. “You’re lucky I put up with your thick head then. And I always will.”
“I know,” Adora says. “I love you too.”
The rumble of Catra’s purr vibrates through Adora’s whole body. “Come on,” Catra whispers, starting to lay down. “Come here. We can still get some sleep tonight.”
“Okay.” And maybe she even will, Adora thinks, curling around Catra. Maybe she can sleep, in the arms of the person she trusts more than anyone in the world.
Later, when she dreams, the Heart of Etheria doesn’t glow at all.