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"I'm, uh," says Scorpia, having clearly been holding onto something all night. She'd been quiet since she arrived, and hardly seemed to garner any joy out of getting her spikes painted pink and blue. Even her new nightgown, patterned with little scorpions, couldn't seem to perk her up. "I'm taking back the Fright Zone."
Catra stops nonchalantly kneading what was quickly becoming the fifth pillow crammed beneath her and Adora. She grimaced, baring a top fang. "Why would you want that old hunk of junk?"
"It's, uh, it's got a lot of significance to my family. Lots of old bits and pieces hidden. Most of them are defaced, but..." She paused, shrugging. "The ol' zone itself is too damaged to keep upright, so I'm gonna tear it down. I figured... I dunno. If you had anything you wanted to get, or visit, or-"
"There's nothing worth visiting there."
"Hate to, like, piggyback off the literal cat," added Mermista. "But it is a giant pile of garbage that almost destroyed my entire kingdom, so. Not really interested in seeing the sights, y'know? I'll totes come visit when you get to rebuilding, though."
"I wouldn't mind visiting one last time."
Catra swung her head around, ears flattening with surprise. "Seriously, Adora?"
She raised her hands in surrender. "Just to see if a couple of old trinkets are there! And, I dunno, relieve a few things. A few good things."
"We only had a few," she retorted, the tip of her tail twitching.
Melog lifted their head to meow pointedly at her. It translated to Catra as something along the lines of, 'that's not constructive, stop being a meanie.' She inhaled and rephrased, though it felt a bit like pulling teeth. "I just don't want you to feel like you have to go, and I especially don't want you to hurt. The Horde is gone, and anything resembling our home went with it."
Frosta stopped coloring long enough to chuck a few popcorn kernels at them. "Mush is not allowed at Princess sleepovers. It is law. Glimmer, tell them it's law."
But Glimmer just looked thoughtful. "I've kinda always wanted to see the Horde myself. Not as, like, a Princess Prom captive-"
"You didn't miss much," Catra told her. "Kyle puked on everything from ship-sickness."
"-But getting to see the inside of the giant hunk of metal was kind of a goal for me? It meant we were, like, winning. And taking it from Hordak. And then, when Adora came, she got spooked at every little thing. Birds, squirrels, moles. It was like... life was scary. What kind of place raises its young like that?"
"I still hold that moles are horrific creations of nature and should never be allowed near me. Especially the naked ones."
"Coward," Frosta said, pouting a bit that Glimmer hadn't taken her side.
"I'd like to see if there was any tech worth salvaging," Bow added. "If it won't get in the way of your emotional journey, of course."
"It won't," Adora said.
"I never said I was going," Catra said.
A warm hand immediately wrapped around hers, squeezing. "You don't have to go," Adora promised, crackles of something pulsing and gushy in her eyes. "I know you have a lot more bad memories of the Horde than I do. I won't ask you to trudge through all that."
Catra considered it, scratching Melog behind the ears. "Hordak won't be there?" she asked Scorpia.
"Oh, heck no," Scorpia said with a little laugh. "I think he'd blow a gasket if I asked him to help destroy his, like, emotional support empire."
"Fine," she answered, almost immediately, with basically no thought behind it. Catra didn't think she would ever feel okay with seeing the Fright Zone again, but leaving it alone to die quietly without a goodbye felt equally as unsatisfying. "I should probably check that Hordak and I didn't, like, bust any chemical drums while we were scuffling. That'd poison the ground pretty bad if it ate through the metal someday."
Scorpia smiled lopsidedly. "You're one in a million, wildcat."
"MUSH!" cried Frosta, throwing another handful of popcorn.
Catra eyed them all shrewdly. "I just want to reiterate that I was not a good person in the Horde."
"Wow," said Glimmer. "I'm shocked."
"Shut it, sparkles, I'm making a point. I did some pretty terrible stuff. Not just to you guys, but to everyone around me. To myself. You're gonna be seeing a lot of that." Catra wanted to tell them not to see it at all, to just bulldoze everything. She remembered the scratch marks on their old mural and felt her insides twist. "Just…. ugh, I dunno. Don't hate me for it? You can hate me for everything else, but the Horde..." Catra crossed her arms, digging her nails in. "It's too personal, alright."
Glimmer's features softened. She reached out to take her free hand. "Hey, relax. We've all been pretty shitty at some point. When I first got made queen, I was a huge jerk. I said some horrible things. Especially to Adora."
Adora glanced away. "Most of them were true."
"No, they weren't. I was terrible. That's not okay. It'll never be okay. But we're all working on being better people now, and that includes you." She smirked. "Besides, I think we've seen you at your worst, Horde scum."
Catra scoffed, though it was somehow reassuring to know that nothing she had done in the Horde would top what she had done to them. "Is that a challenge, sparkles? I'm taking that as a challenge."
"Uh-oh," said Adora, feeling her reach around to grab a pillow. "You better run, Glimmer."
Glimmer grabbed a pillow of her own, hands sparkling. She was smirking. "Fight me."
The Fright Zone is quieter than ever before as they crested the hills that surrounded it. Early morning sunshine peeked behind them, giving light but not heat, while dew settled like a fog on stray fragments of metal lodged into crevices in the ground.
Catra shuddered. Adora went to unbutton her jacket and give it to her, only for the women to swat her hands down with a firm glare.
"I was thinking we could split up," Scorpia said finally. She pointed a claw towards the large indents in the very center of the Horde. "I wanna make sure that the Black Garnet is safe to be moved. Not to mention the floor. It might, uh. It might not be safe to move on."
Perfuma took hold of her free claw, smiling, though it was clearly strained. "I'll go with you. I've never gotten to look at the Black Garnet up close before. It'll be exciting!"
"Ah," she replied, face flaring red. "I mean, it's a rock, so I dunno how "exciting" it'll be, but-"
"It's a very important rock! It's because of that rock that we have you with us now." The flower Princess pressed the smooth side of Scorpia's claw to her cheek. "That makes it my favorite rock."
Catra mimed coughing up a hairball.
Perfuma shot her a look. "Be open to this new experience, Catra. It could be positive for you."
"Watching you two do that?"
The blonde not-so-subtly rolled her eyes while Scorpia huffed out an awkward laugh. "I'd, uh. I'd try the West side first. It's probably the least damaged. If you're lookin' for anything more particular, well..." She paused. "Why am I telling you this? You know your way around. I am nailing this."
Glimmer gave her a solid pat on the shoulder. "You're doing great, Scorpia. Why don't you go on ahead? We'll meet up in the middle."
"This is a plan. This is a smart plan. I will follow this plan." She gently shifted her bottom claw, meeting Perfuma's eye. "Ready to see a giant rock?"
"Ecstatic!"
"Aw, now you're just tryna make me blush."
The duo walked off with a halfhearted wave, led by an increasingly flustered Scorpia. Adora took a long second to study the damage done to the exterior of the metal heart of the Horde. It was hard not to be impressed by the destruction. A couple more hits and it probably would've taken a good chunk of the building down.
"Well," said Catra, growing uncomfortable in her own right. "I guess that makes us tour guides, huh?" She turned to Glimmer and Bow, and found them both looking remarkably stiff. "Relax. We know where we're going."
Bow squinted off into the distance. "It's so... empty."
"I never would've guessed that an abandoned building would be empty. You've enlightened me."
"I mean- there's no sounds here. At all. Where's the animals? The plants?"
Catra raised an eyebrow. "What am I, chopped protein?
"Don't you have any life around here?" he pressed, frown cutting into his cheeks.
Adora perked up a little. "We have some scavengers! Rats, Racoons, possums-" She noticeably shrunk at their disheartened stares. "... um... white birds?"
"Scorpia'll fix it," Catra decided with a flourish, though she had absolutely no idea how she would. Maybe Perfuma could drag some in with her vines? "West side is the residential area. Hordak and his Sanctum was well out of the way in the North-East, so it's probably the least beat up from our little scuffle."
"Hissy fit," Glimmer coughed.
"Do you wanna see the barracks or not?"
The Horde isn't complicated to travel through, Bow and Glimmer soon learn. The outside is a mishmash of unfinished projects, unwelcome add-ons, and mechanical errors. The inside is fully functional, complete with walls, ceilings, floors, and even the occasional door.
"Not a lot of windows," Glimmer notes as they step onto yet another lowering platform. The cadet barracks are on the bottom floor- it's a literal step-up system, Catra had explained, pointing out her Force Captain and Second-in-Command rooms along the way. "How did you know what time it was?"
"They told us."
"How did they know?"
"They had pads and communicators with them most of the time," Adora explained. "We had stun batons."
"Can't really tell time with stun batons," Catra agreed. "Great way to pass it, though. If you turn it onto the lowest setting, you can knock yourself out and be up for training."
Bow made a choking noise. "There is so many things wrong with that statement, I don't know where to start. Just. Therapy, Catra. Therapy."
"Actually, it doesn't hurt."
"Therapy, Adora."
She threw her hands up. "I dunno what you want me to say!"
The platform jerked to a halt, revealing yet another dingy corridor. The emergency generators had left the lights on, but they were low and almost worse than no light at all. Bow and Glimmer both found themselves uneasily taking the center of the walkway, whilst Catra and Adora- perhaps out of an age-old survival tactic- had melded more with the shadows, taking quick glances over their shoulders.
They turned right at a dent in the wall, and Catra broke off into cackles.
"Oh boy, here we go."
Glimmer felt a weight fall off her shoulders as she began to quirk into a smile. "Lemme guess; practicing your punch?"
"She wishes," Catra answered. "Octavia did it out of surprise. Because someone punched her in the mouth."
"I did not punch her," huffed Adora, crossing her arms. "I just gently inserted the contents of my hand into her jaw region. Gently."
The feline took to walking backwards, tail twitching with devious intent. "Did she ever tell you guys about the nommies?"
"The what?" Bow squeaked, eyes turning into stars.
"Oh, sure, make it sound like it was my thing. You were the one teething on everything."
"My adult fangs gave me some problems when they grew in," she replied with a shrug. "Anyway, I was chewing on basically anything, right. Well, I ripped my pillowcase one night-"
"They didn't give you something to teeth on?"
Catra gave him a quizzical look. "What, like, a chunk of metal?"
"No, like teething toys. They're basically everywhere."
"That's stupid. Pillows work just fine." She rolled her eyes. "I ripped my pillowcase, and Shadow Weaver lost her hellbent little mind. I'd already stitched the stupid thing back up, but nooooo, Catra is an inexcusable mongrel, how dare she ruin fine pillowcases with her mongrel mouth, Adora how can you sleep near such filth, the usual. Adora and I scrapped the whole pillow thing so she'd stopped throwing her tantrum of whatever, and eventually I started chewing on her hands."
"What," said Glimmer. "Why hands?"
"They moved and they wriggled and they were alive. That's like. Teething gold."
Adora snorted. "Says the only person in the squadron who can't catch a mouse."
"That wall appeared out of nowhere and you know it."
"Anyway," said Adora, who'd given up on avoiding the whole story. "I didn't mind, honestly. She never broke skin or anything, and it made her more comfortable. No one really said anything about it."
"What," repeated Glimmer, eyebrows raising.
"We were weird fucking kids. Most children raised in the Horde didn't get free-range of it like we did prior to becoming cadets. We had a bunch of weird routines and stuff and it was kind of impossible to talk us out of them?"
"You scent-mark one pair of shoes," Catra trailed off, tutting. "Kyle always called it nommies, and we just kinda adopted the name. Well, one day we were doing usual kid stuff, and Octavia blew a usual gasket." She waved a hand at Adora, who was currently shrinking further and further into her jacket. "And someone looked at this giant hulking squid and thought what?"
"I thought she was stressed and needed nommies," Adora reluctantly replied, ears reddening when Glimmer and Bow broke into understanding snickers. "So I shoved my hand in her mouth."
"You punched that hand into her mouth. And she punched the wall. And it's my favorite wall forever."
"Thank you, wall," Bow called behind them, and they're laughing for a different reason now.
They find very little in the cadet stockades. Every bed is done neatly, with the exact same dingy blue blanket and pillowcase. Adora tsks when she discovers her once hollowed-out center has been replaced with an actual pillow, taking plenty of trinkets and snacks with it. Catra hopped onto her old bunk up top and stretched out, tail swishing.
Adora traced the clawmarks that dug deep into the grooves of their old drawing and felt a heaviness she hadn't in quite awhile. Not guilt, because guilt was always slumming it up somewhere in her gooey bits, but homesickness. She'd missed the Fright Zone. And it hurt to see how much had changed while she was away.
It was a heavy, personal moment, proven by Bow awkwardly clearing his throat. "We can, like, come back later?"
Catra swatted Adora's forehead with her tail and reluctantly hopped down. "Yeah, yeah, I'm done sulking. Satisfied?"
"Not really. This place is so... empty. Where's the toys? The nametags? How do you even know which one is which?"
"Personal quarters have to be clean of any potentially identifying paraphernalia," Adora recited, tearing her gaze away from the art to look at Glimmer. "Made it easier to put new cadets in. Training is on the east side, so... good luck finding any of it not destroyed?"
Glimmer was beginning to sound a bit desperate. "Childhood books? Drawings? Photos?"
Catra's ears perked up. "There's probably a bunch of old cadet photos in Shadow Weaver's office."
"You think?" Adora asked, surprised. "I thought they would've tossed them by now."
"Nah, not until everyone else moved up. Besides, you know how Shadow Weaver got with you." Adora shuddered; and Catra, noticing it, flexed her claws. "Hey. Relax. I destroyed most of that stuff when I got her filing cabinets."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Granted, it was out of spite, but Shadow Weaver's weird obsession stuff is gone."
"Thank the, like, bajillion moons."
Catra led the charge this time, though "charge" implied they were moving faster than they actually were. It was more of a meander, during which they came across other beloved divots and dents in things. Most of them had a story, but most were only funny if you were there- Kyle lost his front teeth on that railing, Lonnie kicked the wall on a dare and broke three toes, Adora tried to suplex a cleaning robot and the scorch marks just never left.
Adora tapped a code into a well-worn keypad, nose scrunching up. "There's that smell. The powder smell."
"Yeah, I never could get that out of the walls." Catra turned the lights on with a flick of a claw on a panel, revealing a surprisingly in-tact room. There was a couple of filing cabinets, a couple of destroyed monitors, and easily the softest looking chair in the entire Horde. "I know this was technically my place last, but it never really stopped being Shadow Weaver's office. I was just... using it for a bit."
Glimmer took a whiff. "Summoning powder."
"Prolly used it to get contraband into the Fright Zone." She idly began to card through drawers, looking for a folder she vaguely recalled being in the middle cabinet. "Remember the stool?"
"That stool was so illegal."
Bow blinked at them in that way he'd been doing most of the day, confused and very concerned. "Stools are illegal here?"
"Hell yeah, man." Catra kicked a drawer closed. "Unnecessary comfort was only for Hordak, and even he didn't really do that. Before Adora and I were cadets, we'd always wheel that damn thing out of its hiding spot so she could lounge after an exhausting day of meetings and general evildoering."
"Sometimes she'd read us reports," Adora added. "As a treat."
Perking up, Catra fished out a fairly large folder, closing and leaning on the cabinet while she flipped through it. "I scratched it up," she told them gleefully. "She always said that was when she stopped loving me. The look on her face was worth it. Aha!"
She handed over the folder to Glimmer and Bow. Standing in line was the cadets, each looking around five or six. Behind them was a height graph. Their eyes were wide open and their faces were blank.
"Wow," said Bow.
"I know, right?" Catra snorted. "Rogelio used to be such a shrimp."
There was a belated pause as the boy tried to decipher something kind to say. "Uh, Adora, I didn't know you had a tooth gap. That's... cute?"
"I tried to chew on a metal beam," Adora explained, proud. "I got gray bars for a month."
"Yeah, and you shared them. Weak."
"We both know you would've ransacked my bed if I didn't."
"That sounds like a you problem to me."
"Why are you acting like this is okay?" Glimmer exploded, making them both jump. The Queen's knuckles were turning white around the pages. "These are- these are basically prison photos!"
"That's not true," said Catra. "Brig photos where in black and white."
Bow gently touched Glimmer's shoulder. "Hey," he murmured, eyes soft.
Glimmer took in a deep breath. Her jaw clenched and unclenched. "I always thought that there was something more. Something that made living for the Horde worthwhile. But it really was just... fear and loneliness and cold metal everywhere. I thought it would hurt to find that something, to see what was so amazing it'd make people willing to do the things the Horde did, but somehow the nothing is much, much worse."
"Look, princess-" Catra started, tail lashing, before Adora touched her shoulder. Her tone softened to something marginally less rude. "I told you that there wasn't a lot of happy memories here. Did you think I was lying?"
She shook her head. "I just thought- I thought Shadow Weaver-"
"Shadow Weaver was a grade-a bitch, but she gave us more than most adults ever would in the Horde. She let us live in her room. She let us run around like demons. We got away with a lot of stuff. We were spoiled." She spat the word. "We got more than anyone ever thought we deserved and it still wasn't enough."
"We didn't deserve any of it," said Adora, quietly.
The frustration seemed to fly out of her in an instant. Catra's fur settled as she gently wrapped her tail around Adora's wrist. "C'mon. If you guys want happy memories so much, let's show you our favorite place."
Adora seemed surprised. "Won't that be a bit... unstable?"
"Nah, it's fine."
"THIS IS NOT FINE," bellowed Bow as he slipped on another awkwardly situated hunk of machinery.
"You're just a baby," Catra called down to him, helping Glimmer over with a solid tug.
Adora had climbed the old ledge without any problem, having years of practice with a giant cat as a best friend, and got to work digging out an old tin box from the rubble of an unfinished windowpane. She chucked a gray bar at Glimmer, then Bow, then took a brown one for herself with a tutting noise. "The things I do for love."
Catra reluctantly grabbed half, curling in beside Adora. It was the kind of affection they had never been allowed during their time here, and it was a bit odd to indulge in now, but equally refreshing.
"I'm not eating this," Glimmer said.
"C'mon, sparkles, don't be such a wuss. This is fine cuisine."
"It's a bar. It's gray."
"The best color for a bar to be."
Bow prodded his nervously. "Is it supposed to be hard?"
"They're a little old," Adora admitted with a shrug. "They taste the exact same, I promise."
"That... isn't comforting!"
Catra tutted. "Queen of Bright Moon out here rejecting the customs of an entire empire. Scandalous."
"This isn't an empire until Scorpia builds a throne. That's the law."
"That's a stupid law. Besides, there's already a throne here. I'm still right."
Bow staved off further teasing by taking the smallest of corners in his mouth. He hesitated, winced, then relaxed and began to chew. "This isn't so bad, actually. It's just... bland."
"The brown ones are flavored." Catra bit into hers with a displeased noise. "Pretty sure it's repurposed possum kibble. Great for lizards, not great for cats."
The wind picked up a little, billowing Glimmer's cape almost directly into her face as she nibbled at a bar that was almost as old as the feud that had once separated the four of them. Without the haze of smog and the heat of steam and smoke, it felt fairly pleasant this high up- and, in the distance, the edges of the Whispering Woods sat, waiting. The leaves shifted and moved like welcoming hands.
"This isn't so bad," Glimmer admitted, throwing a welcoming arm around Bow's shoulder. He happily leaned in. "It's a shame you had to climb up a giant metal deathtrap to see it, but one nice sight is better than none."
Catra and Adora exchanged a look, neither quite willing to tell her they hadn't been able to see the trees before all of this just yet. "Yeah," said Catra, ears falling into a half-flattened state. "I guess it could be pretty nice, sometimes."
"I think I like it better now."
"Oh, definitely," she replied. "It's way better, now."