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Adora watches Scorpia from across the rebel camp, hands clenching in her lap with her effort at restraint. Adora is not a patient person. She is not someone to sit still, or wait, or even bide her time no matter how smart it would be. She rushes ahead, charging full force.
She doesn't know where to start though. Not with this specter looming over them both like a dark shadow. Adora sighs, standing from her makeshift seat and making her way to where Scorpia is nodding enthusiastically to Perfuma. Perfuma is happily babbling away about something, but Adora’s focus is narrowed on the older of the two women.
“Scorpia? Could I talk to you in private?” Adora asks, gently placing a hand on Scorpia’s arm to draw her attention. Scorpia startles a little, turning to her with a brilliant smile. She glances over to Perfuma, getting a nod of encouragement with a gentle smile, and then happily turns back to Adora.
“Sure thing!” she agrees. Adora lets out a breath of relief, pulling Scorpia through the camp until they reach the edge of the clearing and then pausing a moment before continuing on. She leads them along the path out so they can make their way to the privacy of one of the protective cliffs they are camped at the base of. Scorpia chatters nervously about the weather and plant life in the Whispering Woods as they go, Adora simply nodding and making noises of agreement. It's probably what she was talking about with Perfuma.
Adora leads them to the cliff’s edge, settling down atop it with her legs thrown over, looking down at the camp. “I need to keep an eye on it if I’m not in there,” Adora explains as Scorpia hovers a few feet back, over her shoulder.
“Oh, I get that. Paranoia, it’s what keeps us kicking, right?” Scorpia responds, scooting closer to sit just back from the edge a few feet away from her. “What did you want to talk about, uh, Adora?” Scorpia asks. Adora feels a little smile pull at her lips. Scorpia has not known how to address Adora the entire time she has been here. For the first few days – back in Bright Moon, before they had to abandon it – she had seemed confident in merely using her name. Once she had properly joined them in the fight against Prime, Scorpia had started calling her She-ra when she was transformed. Then she started just interchanging the two regardless. Recently she has given up and largely gone with “team leader,” which is a bit odd, but Adora is not going to push her on it. They both have a lot of hang-ups about each other. Hang-ups she is hoping to talk about, right now.
“I know I’m – let’s say not the best? – at emotional stuff, but… I wanted to talk about Catra,” Adora tells her, finally forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the camp below. Scorpia looks shocked, which is honestly surprising to Adora. If they needed to talk about a mission they would have done it down in camp. What else is there for them to talk about but the woman between them?
“Has there… been news?” Scorpia asks, brows drawing together. Adora kicks herself over her mistake.
“No, nothing still. I just- No one else here knows her and not knowing where she is – I worry, but I don’t feel like I can talk about it with anyone here because she was their enemy, you know? And mine, too, I guess, but she was my friend first,” Adora explains, shoulders slumping a bit. This was a stupid idea. She is not blind – Scorpia was in love with Catra for a long time. Not as long as she has been, but – for most of the time they were apart. And Adora wants to ask about that, wants to know what Catra thought about that, but more than anything she just misses her. Misses even facing her on the battlefield, if only for a few minutes of charged connection.
“That makes sense. It’s hard, suddenly having to pretend the Horde didn’t mean something to me, just because I’m fighting for you guys now. It was my whole life, you know? Well, of course you do,” Scorpia tells her. Adora whips her head up, nodding eagerly. Scorpia looks conflicted, but hopeful. “I- I know she wasn’t a good friend to me, but I miss her.”
Adora nods at that. It isn't a surprise to her, really. When they were cadets, Catra was volatile, certainly, but a good friend, if one with issues. Catra changed, after Adora left. Or at least, she pretended to. Moments like the ones they were able to share in the Crystal Castle would shine a light down to the girl she always knew, always loved. Adora has not had one of those moments with Catra in a long time.
Adora has a question that has been burning in her mind for almost three years, and she did not mean to open with it, but she has to know. “Were you and her..?” she asks, unable to even finish the question, gaze darting nervously across Scorpia’s face. Scorpia’s smile is sad and understanding.
“No. I tried – a lot. To be there for her, to ask her on dates, just to be that to her. She usually ignored it completely. Weirdly, that gave me hope? That it wasn’t an outright rejection,” Scorpia tells her, shrugging a little sadly. Adora lets out a shaky breath. She knows her shoulders drop with relief – she knows she is obvious. Scorpia already knows, anyway – that understanding in her smile gave her away. “Before everything, were you and her something?” Scorpia asks, echoing her question. Adora actually startles at that, staring in disbelief.
“You’re kidding, right? If I tried anything, Shadow Weaver would have killed her for distracting me or whatever. Besides, we – were never like that,” Adora tells Scorpia, looking down and away. A lump in her throat threatens to choke her. Adora swallows it down. She has so many more words she wants to say – but she has to force them down. She knows she has already given too much away by admitting she had thought of the consequences of being more. It was never her place to have those thoughts anyway - those desires.
She just wants to see Catra again, now. To know she is okay. If it weren't for the niggling doubt and fear in her mind, if it were not for Catra’s unusually long absence since Horde Prime’s spires touched down – she doesn't think she would even be able to say these things. To admit this much, however little. Scorpia looks a bit incredulous.
“Listen, I may have called her Wildcat – but she called you her friend. Her best friend, actually. She never called me that,” Scorpia tells her, awkwardly. The ridiculousness of the situation, her and Scorpia sitting next to each other, fighting for the same side, talking about Catra while Scorpia comforts her about her importance to Catra – it is almost enough to make Adora laugh. This is something she never would have believed to be real a few months ago.
Still, Adora’s mind latches onto Scorpia’s words, and it takes no effort to dismantle them. She was Catra’s friend – her best friend. And that was all she would ever be. Adora might actually kill for the opportunity to be just her friend again – at least, the right person, anyway. Horde Prime, for sure. And Hordak, probably. He had it coming.
“Where do you think she is?” Adora asks, quietly, not acknowledging Scorpia’s words. Scorpia turns to look out over the cliff and towards where the sun is low in the sky.
“I don’t know,” Scorpia whispers back, hunching over. “When I left, she was stationed in the Fright Zone, but she was supposed to go into the field with Hordak for the siege on Salineas. Bow saw Hordak get taken with Glimmer, right? So he must have had time to make his way back to the Fright Zone by then. Catra could have been there, or she could have still been in Salineas,” Scorpia reasons, gesturing a bit as she speaks, nerves evident in her jerky movements.
“At least until Prime landed,” Adora finishes on her own, sighing and hunching over. The Fright Zone had been quickly abandoned, most of the troops usually stationed there scattered from the Battle for Salineas or some unknown, final raid that never happened before the Heart went off. If Catra had been there, she likely would have fled. Adora has to believe that Catra is not so far gone that she would have stayed and worked for Prime – at least not willingly, and opening up that line of thinking is enough to make the bottom drop out of her stomach. Maybe Scorpia sees the look on her face. Maybe she just needs to tell someone.
“I- I like to imagine she was still in Salineas, when it happened. She hates the sea, but when we were there the first time, we lost a lot of our rations with the damage to the ship. We had to get some of the local seafood on our way back. Catra loved the fish we got,” Scorpia recalls, gesturing indistinctly, eyes shining at the memory. “When- when I start to worry, I tell myself she is hiding out in Salineas or one of the nearby coastal towns, lying low and eating seafood every day. She knows how to bide her time, play the long game, you know? So I have to tell myself that is what she is doing now.”
Adora’s arms shake a little. She pictures it, in her mind. Catra in that new uniform she started to wear in the last few months, an inconspicuous jacket thrown over her shoulders to hide the Horde symbols, living out of the backroom of some fishing shack while she keeps an eye on the troop movements of both sides.
It does not seem realistic – but it does seem nice. “She could never admit she was wrong, you know? So I bet she doesn’t want to fight Horde Prime, even if she can see now that what is happening is wrong. Her biggest fault was always her pride,” Adora should not sound so fond over it, but it has been so long since she got to just talk about Catra. “I bet she is lying low, waiting for the dust to settle. Can’t come help us and prove me right. She- she is safe. She has to be,” Adora finishes, low and quiet. Scorpia places a claw across her shoulders gently, unusually cognizant of her strength. They are practically dangling over a cliff – if Scorpia nudged her now, it could be disastrous.
“Catra is a fighter. She has lived through so much and the fact that she managed to make it through still fighting is a miracle. Horde Prime is not going to be the thing that takes her out. And even if he was, she would not go down quietly. The destruction her death would take would probably rival the state of Salineas right now,” Scorpia reminds her. Adora laughs, knowing that should not be reassuring but it is. It is true. Catra has lived and fought through so much. This – this will not take her down. Not quietly, without anyone knowing it happened.
“You’re right. We’ll find her again, after all this. And then I owe her an asskicking, before I drag her back to the Rebellion,” Adora tells Scorpia. Scorpia smiles, a bit conflicted, but mostly relieved.
“You can try. I’ve seen her go toe-to-toe with She-ra before and win,” Scorpia points out. Adora smiles, shaking her head.
“Catra could always win against She-ra. But She-ra is gone. I’m going to fight her as me. And that- that fight I will win. I have to,” Adora responds.
I have to mean something to her. I have to give her pause. Even if it is not what I want, not the way that I want.
I have to mean something to her.
She doesn’t know what she will do if she doesn’t.