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Catra leans against the window of Mara’s ship, head bowed, knees hugged close to her chest. The ancient machinery hums away beneath her in the bowels of the vessel as it tears through the air at mind blowing speeds, but with her eyes closed Catra can’t tell they’re moving at all.
A crash echoes from the direction of the helm, jolting Catra out of her reverie and sending her heart pounding a mile a minute. “Entrapta!” she calls out.
“Just a minute!”
“Do you have to do that right now?”
Silence.
A few seconds later, Entrapta’s beaming face peeks into view. “Yes!” she crows. “It’s been months since I had some quality time with Darla. There’s so much to do! ”
When Hordak accepted his exile to Beast Island, Entrapta was the first to volunteer to go with him. In the months since Horde Prime’s fall, she’s been splitting her days between the one-time master of the Horde and the Horde clones left behind by Prime’s fall.
On some level, it’s a simple routine that Catra envies.
“Oh!” Entrapta says, a little too loudly. “I just came back to tell you we’re almost there.”
Catra’s stomach lurches in a way that has nothing to do with Darla’s flying. “Oh,” she says, quietly. “Thanks, Entrapta.”
“Prepare for landing!” the princess cackles as her hair grabs hold of the doorframe and propels her back to the helm.
Catra closes her eyes again and thinks back to the last time Perfuma dragged her to a meditation session. Deep breaths, clear your mind, blah blah blah. She always feels a little silly, sitting there and trying to find peace with the universe or whatever.
But as much as she might like to poke fun at Perfuma’s “peace, love, and tranquility” approach to life, sometimes it works. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Oxygen in, anxiety out.
She doesn’t reach perfect peace with her inner self - and I probably never will - but by the time the ship starts to slow for a landing, Catra finds she can bring herself to open her eyes and face the sight on the other side of the window.
Salineas.
From the air she can see the full scope of the city’s devastation. The walls are scorched, scarred, battered, and in some places reduced to rubble. The swirling, opalescent buildings that make up the city proper are cracked and blackened with ash. And at the center of it all stands the Sea-Gate, one of its grand engravings all but shattered.
There are signs of life and rebuilding - cranes, scaffolding, Horde drones commandeered for the effort.
But all Catra can see is the destruction. The destruction she wrought.
The last time she looked out on Salineas like this, it was the moment of her greatest triumph. Hordak stood by her side. They were equals, two conquerors leading their Horde to victory. The memory is so vivid, but it feels like a fever dream now.
She remembers the vicious pride she felt when the Sea-Gate fell, the satisfaction of seeing her soldiers overwhelm the defenders on the wall. She had been an avatar of spite and pain and hate, and the people of Etheria had trembled before her.
Not a fever dream, no. A nightmare, the kind that she awakens from in a blind panic, leaving her lying restless and on edge until dawn. Catra feels like she’s going to be sick. She tears her eyes away from the grim scene, her heart pounding feverishly and her chest so tight she can scarcely breathe.
What she wouldn’t give to turn the ship around, head back to Bright Moon, and let Adora sweep her up in a warm embrace. She could bury her face in her girlfriend’s shoulder, let Adora gently run her fingers through her hair, tell her that everything would be okay. And for a few brief moments, she could believe it was true.
Then the ship comes to a shuddering stop, and the daydream fades, leaving behind a pang of longing in her chest. She wants to hold Adora so badly it hurts, but Catra’s only company is cold steel.
Reluctantly, she slides down off her perch. Adora will be there for her when she gets back. But she has to do this alone.
Entrapta is waiting for her by the ramp. The ship sits in an open courtyard in the shadow of the shattered walls. It’s mostly clear of rubble, but a building sitting opposite them bears the tell-tale mark of a blast from Hordak’s arm cannon, a gouge in the outer wall as wide as Catra is tall.
A small crowd has started to gather in the square, mostly workers with shovels and wheelbarrows. The sight of She-Ra’s ship sends an excited murmur through the group, but when Entrapta and Catra step into view, they fall silent.
Catra follows Entrapta’s gaze. She’s staring at the destruction Hordak’s weapons - her weapons - visited on this place, her expression unreadable. When Catra steps into her line of site, Entrapta flinches as if shocked out of a stupor. A tendril of hair pulls her mask down with a firm click.
“Darla and I still have a lot of work to do,” Entrapta says, her quiet voice muffled. “Take as long as you need.”
Catra nods, but she lingers on the threshold. Before she can talk herself out of it, she puts a hand on Entrapta’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Thanks again,” she murmurs. “For the ride. And for, uh, not telling anyone.” Entrapta’s nod is almost imperceptible. She stands frozen in place, her hands raised mid-fidget.
The hug catches Catra off guard.
Entrapta’s embrace is sudden and clumsy and desperately tight. Her hard mask presses into Catra’s shoulder and a wrench pokes her uncomfortably in the side. Catra freezes, almost recoils on reflex, but once the shock wears off she wraps her arms around the princess and holds on tight.
It doesn’t last long. Entrapta pulls away in a few seconds, looks around sheepishly, and flees back into the ship, muttering something about compression coils.
Catra watches her go with the ghost of a smile and little warmth in her chest.
That small comfort fades when she turns to face the world beyond the ship. With one last deep breath, she steels herself and marches down the ramp, into Salineas.
Murmurs ripple through the crowd as she moves back into view. The faces staring back at her wear a range of emotions, none of them are friendly. As she steps off the gleaming metal ramp and her feet sink into a puddle of brackish sand, the voices start to fall silent. Catra watches as the last of the Salineans who didn’t recognize her on sight get the message. Their confused faces harden and turn to her with hostile interest - angry, wary, fearful, hurt .
The crowd goes silent. The salty air is so thick with tension that she can scarcely breathe. Fear grips Catra’s heart, a kind of fear that fuels her worst impulses. She wants to scream, to lash out, to run .
She does none of those things. She swallows - her mouth is suddenly dry, and for a second she’s gripped by panic. Can she even speak ?
The words don’t come easily, even though she practiced them a dozen times on the flight over, whenever she thought Entrapta might not have been paying attention. “I ” - her voice cracks, but she takes a breath and presses on - “I want to do something to help. Anything. Even if it's just hauling rocks.” She wants to look away, but she forces herself to see the faces in the crowd, looking from one to the next as she speaks. “I know it’s never going to be enough, but…”
Her words die on her lips as she looks from one scowling Salinean to the next. The man in front slowly shakes his shark-finned head, giving her one last baleful glare as he turns to leave. A crew of workers carrying shovels follow him.
One by one, the crowd disperses, and Catra’s hopes are slowly dashed. The last to go is a woman in a tattered guard’s uniform. Her cheek bears a trail of four angry red scars. When Catra meets her gaze, she flinches and hurries away.
Catra looks down at her trembling hands and clasps them tightly before her. Trying to hide her claws.
This was what she was afraid of. This was what she’d always been afraid of. Adora’s forgiveness was more than she’d deserved, how could she have expected these people to even give her a chance? She’d destroyed their home. People had ...
She stares down at her claws, unable to bring herself to move.
“Hey.”
The sound of a familiar voice is a shock to her system. She shakes herself, blinks furiously, and looks up.
Princess Mermista stands before her, dressed in a simple shirt and trousers. The sea-queen’s sleeves are rolled up, her boots are muddy and battered, and she carries a shovel in place of a trident. She somehow manages to look as cool and imposing as ever.
Her face is no friendlier than any of those in the crowd.
“Mermista, I-”
“Shut up.” Mermista steps closer, the butt end of her shovel rapping on the cobblestones. “If you say anything right now I will actually, literally wash you out to sea.”
Catra bites her lip and nods, mute, her ears pinned back against her head. She deserves worse.
Mermista stares her down for what feels like an hour, until she finally heaves in a breath. Catra braces herself, but the princess just lets out a groan of visceral frustration, dragging her fingers down her cheeks and finally tossing back her head. She starts to pace, averting her gaze. “Why did you come here, Catra?” She sounds … wary. Angry. Confused.
Catra looks back down at her hands. A dozen hostile retorts are on the tip of her tongue. She hates you. They all do. Why do you even try? Get away, push her away.
She puts away her claws and squeezes her hands together so tightly she’s afraid she’s going to cut off circulation.
“Salineas is … this is maybe the worst thing the Horde ever did, and it was my idea. Hordak went into exile, and it’s like everyone just wants to pin it all on him and move on, but this was me . And now I … just …” She’s forced to trail off. Her thoughts are a jumbled, anxious mess. She has to force the words to come. “I can’t fix what we did here, but I have to try. ”
A gamut of emotions flicker across Mermista’s face. She slaps her hand back to her face and lets out another groan. “Uuugh, this would be so much easier if you were still being a turbo-bitch.” She composes herself, and when she looks back up her expression is unreadable. “It’s super-cool you feel bad and you want to help out. That said. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my people kind of hate your guts.”
Catra looks up. It’s all she can do to keep herself from balling her hands into fists. “I don’t need them to like me, I need to help them!”
“Oh my god, you aren’t getting it,” Mermista says. “Did you stop and think that maybe you’re making it worse, just being here? They’re trying to rebuild. They don’t want to see someone who tore everything down in the first place.”
Catra tries to swallow past the lump in her throat. “I can’t just do nothing.” She feels like she’s sinking, slipping into a black abyss. Her anger flags, the fire begins to fade.
“People died , Catra!” Mermista screams. “Do you understand that? You can’t just fix this.”
The words hit Catra like a punch to the gut, the anguished shout echoing off the walls like the chant of an angry mob. Mermista slams the haft of her shovel on the ground, and every last drop of water in the square leaps into the air, a thousand orbs gleaming in the sun. She’s positively seething , her cheeks flushed red.
Catra swallows hard. Slowly and mechanically, she reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a compact roll of paper. She grips it to stop her hands from shaking, starts picking at the edge of the sheet.
“Captain Delphine,” she whispers.
Mermista blinks. The orbs tremble, and a few drop to the ground. “... What did you say?”
Catra almost breaks then and there, but she presses on, her voice rough. “Captain Delphine. She was the leader of the guard, right? She wouldn’t surrender when Hordak took the wall. Lophi and Orcina stayed with her.” Catra’s vision blurs, and the paper crinkles beneath her trembling fingers. “I made Glimmer give me the names, okay? Everyone who” - her voice cracks, and a wave of shame washes over her, so deep and dark it’s almost crippling. Shame for the things she’d done, a deeper, learned shame for looking so weak. But she swallows her pride and forges on. “Everyone who died. I read them all. I memorized some.”
Mermista stands frozen with a white-knuckled grip on her shovel, trembling with righteous anger. But as Catra hastily wipes away her tears, her expression softens. She opens her mouth to speak, thinks better of it, closes it again. She isn't channeling the furious sea-queen anymore. She just looks tired.
Without saying a word, Mermista lets her shovel drop to the ground, then sets herself down heavily on a mound of wet sand. All around the courtyard, water falls to the ground with a sound like a wave crashing on a beach.
The princess leans forward, massaging her temples, and her thick brown hair tumbles over her face like a shroud.
Catra follows suit. Her whole body feels overcome with the shaky, post-adrenaline-rush fatigue that she’s come to associate with the aftermath of a battle, and her jelly-like legs give out as soon as she lets them. The ground is lumpy and uncomfortable, but she’s beyond caring about that. She clutches the names of the dead like a talisman. The lump sits heavy in her throat.
Catra forces herself to stay still and silent while Mermista collects her thoughts. Finally, mercifully, the princess looks up and brushes her hair out of her face. Her expression is reserved and aloof, but she can’t hide the tears that threaten to spill forth over her cheeks.
She still doesn’t look Catra in the eyes.
“I get it,” she says finally, all the fire gone from her voice, “wanting to make things right or whatever. It’s hard, but I know you keep trying. It’s why I don’t hate you. Maybe I should. But I don’t. It’s … yeah.” Mermista fidgets with a lock of hair, clearly uncomfortable. Catra knows exactly how she feels.
Mermista still can’t seem to make herself meet Catra’s downcast gaze. She flicks a drop of water, sending it spinning wildly through the air. “Ugh. How screwed up is it that I almost wish we were fighting right now?”
Catra huffs out a weak laugh. “Trust me, princess, if I could make up with everyone by letting them have a free shot at me, I would.”
Mermista almost smiles. “Nah. It’s tempting, but Adora would kill me.” She sighs and lets the water drop. “This shit’s tough. I’ve thought about it kind of a lot, ever since the, you know.” She waves her hands vaguely. “Everything. I can’t hate you, but I can’t forgive you either.”
Catra nods. She knew that going in - how could Mermista forgive her? - but hearing it out loud makes her feel like someone grabbed hold of the knife in her gut and gave it a twist. It dredges up dark, unpleasant thoughts she’d done her best to bury.
They’ll never forgive you. You’ll be alone, forever.
“People act like you can make up for doing bad things, and it’ll be like you never did it in the first place,” Mermista says. “But that doesn’t work for the big stuff.” Mermista slumps forward, resting her forehead on her palms. “You’ll always be the one who burned Salineas, Catra. And I’ll always be a princess who fought for Horde Prime.”
Catra’s head snaps up in shock. It takes her a moment to even process what she just heard. “What the hell? No, Mermista. That’s not on you. Prime was controlling you.”
Mermista squeezes her eyes shut, and with that the tears finally flow. “Yeah, well, maybe I should have tried to fight it harder. Maybe I could have snapped out of. You did.”
“Barely.” Catra leans forward, staring at Mermista as though she could make the princess understand through sheer force of will. “I got control for like a minute , and after that it took almost dying to snap me out of it. You can’t blame yourself for that. It’s not on you.” She speaks those last four words one at a time, with emphasis. She has to understand.
Because if Mermista is beyond redemption, what hope is there for her?
Panic sets her mind racing, and she wants to think of something else to say, some way to convince her, but nothing comes. Mermista’s shoulders shudder, she wipes at her eyes, and Catra realizes she’s … laughing?
When Mermista looks up, there’s a tired smile on her tear-stained face. "Lame,” she says, letting out another weak laugh. “Gross. You're making it even harder to hate you, you know that?"
Somehow, Catra manages to smile back. "I’m working on that. Mostly I just do the opposite of what I would have done a year ago."
Mermista laughs again, and it's a bright sound that makes Catra smile just a bit wider. But there's a hitch in her breath, and she falls silent again.
Catra looks back down at her crumpled notes. Sea-birds squawk in the distance.
“I know he’s gone,” Catra whispers. “But …”
Mermista nods, her eyes downcast. “Do you still get the nightmares, too?"
Catra almost can't bring herself to admit it. “Yeah," she says, her voice rough.
"It's shitty."
"Yeah." Catra lets out a sound halfway between a laugh and sob. Gently, she rolls up the scroll of names and tucks it into her pocket, and heaves a sigh.
She doesn’t look up as Mermista climbs to her feet. It’s not until the princess nudges her knee with a boot that Catra realizes Mermista is standing over her. Holding out a hand.
Catra blinks. What?
Mermista rolls her eyes. "Come on, dummy, I'm helping you up. Didn't they have that in the Horde?”
“No, actually.” Old instincts die hard. Part of her wants to slap Mermista’s hand out of the way and get back to her feet on her own.
Instead, she grabs on.
Mermista’s hand is warm and callused and dusted with sand and salt. And the princess is stronger than she looks. With barely a sound, she hauls Catra to her feet.
Catra brushes herself off and smooths down her fur, suddenly feeling awkward and out of place. “What now?” she asks.
“Maybe … you had a point. Even if we can’t undo what happened, that doesn’t mean we stop trying to make it right.” Mermista tosses Catra the shovel. She catches it effortlessly. “Now let’s go find someone who actually wants your help.”
Catra takes hold of the shovel like it’s her own personal Sword of Protection. The lump in her throat swells, and when she meets Mermista’s gaze she sees the princess of the oceans through a misty haze of tears. “I am going to help the shit out of someone,” she says firmly.
Mermista snorts out a laugh that seems to take even her by surprise. "Oh my god," she says, "that sounds just like something Adora would say."
An image of her girlfriend’s bright, smiling face flashes through her mind, and Catra wipes at her eyes, even as the desperate, longing ache deepens in her chest. She hides it behind a lopsided grin. “Adora probably wouldn’t have said ‘shit’. Too much of a square.”
For the first time, the lull in the conversation feels natural, instead of tense and uncomfortable. Catra hesitates. She wants to let Mermista take her to the nearest construction site and haul boulders in peace and quiet. But she finds she has one last thing to say. “They miss you in Bright Moon, you know," she blurts out before she can convince herself otherwise. "Adora thought you were just busy rebuilding, but ...”
Mermista looks away and says nothing. She doesn’t threaten to toss Catra into the ocean, either. “Come on, they’re letting me hang out there,” she continues. “No one’s gonna hold a grudge against you for getting brainwashed.”
Mermista goes still, her face turned away, and Catra feels the breath go out of her. Shit, shit, shit, she's no good at this, why did she have to keep talking -
“I’ll think about it." The words cut through Catra's growing anxiety like a machete through tangled undergrowth. Mermista offers her a sheepish smile. "Thanks, or whatever."
And that's that. With palpable relief, Catra follows Mermista off to whatever dig site or pile of rubble she has in mind.
“Just so you know," Mermista calls back over her shoulder, "this doesn’t mean I like you."
Catra can live with that.
It's a start.