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“Hey…what’s it feel like?”
Without prompting, the question tip-toed from Catra’s lips, curious and gentle. Still unable to sleep after hours of dozing, her thoughts had caught on the unknown sensation, a process she’d witnessed hundreds of times before from both sides of the battlefield. Now, though, something about this line of questioning felt more urgent, as if it had been the single anxiety keeping her awake all of this time.
Not that she expected a response, anyway. Adora had been out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow. Some nights, the blonde was just as restless, unable to find sleep until the early morning hours. But tonight wasn’t one of those nights, with her snoring commencing before Etheria’s nocturnal moons even crested the Whispering Woods’ treetops.
To her surprise, though, Catra heard some soft rustling from the other side of the bed. At first, she assumed that Adora was just sleep fighting again, a regular occurrence even after the war’s cessation. But rather than her usual arm thrusts and half kicks, Adora’s movement remained calm and sedated, like she’d just wandered out of a dream.
“Hmmmm?”
Her voice muffled by a pillow, Adora tried to acknowledge her partner through her waking fog. Catra felt herself subconsciously perk up in response, her ears like magnets to Adora’s every word. It was this voice that comforted her in the wake of her own persistent nightmares, and reminded her of her worth time and again, even when she couldn’t find it in herself to believe the sentiment.
“Oh, ummm…” Catra muttered, her train of thought lost as self-consciousness set in. “I was just wondering what it feels like to transform…you know, into She-Ra.”
Pausing for a few beats to contemplate the question, Adora shifted slightly and tried to clear her throat.
“I’m not really sure how to explain it…” she started in before trailing off. “I mean, it just sort of happens when I want it to now. I haven’t really thought about how it feels in a while.”
“Then, what did it feel like before?”
Catra wasn’t sure where this curiosity was coming from all of a sudden, but she still felt compelled to follow it to its natural conclusion.
“Well, the first time felt really weird. When I raised the Sword, this huge wave of energy coursed through me. It didn’t hurt or anything, but it made my entire body feel like it was burning up. I tried to fight it at first because I thought it was something dangerous, like we were taught everything in the Whispering Woods was. But after I heard Light Hope’s voice, I just sort of…let all of that light and heat take over.”
“Next thing I knew, I was standing there, taller and stronger than I’d ever felt in my life. It was such a rush, like I could take on the world right there and then. The feeling didn’t last long, though, once I took a look at myself. I sorta freaked out when I realized I was wearing a tiara.”
Chuckling lightly, Catra rolled toward the center of the bed. “Sparkles told me about that part. I can’t believe you thought being a princess was contagious.”
“Can you blame me?” Adora shot back above a whisper as she followed suit and rolled over. “From what the Horde taught us, I would have been justified in thinking Glimmer had horns and a tail, too.”
“Who’s to say she doesn’t?”
Adora couldn’t help but crack a laugh at the mental image. There was no argument that their lilac-haired friend was far from regal at times, especially when she lost her temper. Perhaps horns and a tail were overkill, but Adora chuckled at the idea of Glimmer pulling them off all the same.
Her gaze now turned to the ceiling above, Adora continued her recollection.
“Honestly, I think I reacted like that because the whole situation felt so out of control. First you and I crashed the skiff, then I went back and got captured by Rebellion soldiers. Next thing I know, we’re being attacked by this massive bug and I’ve turned into this super lady in a bright white skirt. It wasn’t the most sane scenario, you have to admit.”
Bluffing, Catra rolled her eyes sarcastically.
“I don’t know, Adora. I think I could have handled it better. Of course, I wouldn’t have been captured in the first place. And even if I had, I’d have just transformed into a super buff blonde lady as soon as possible and escaped.”
Adora knew her partner’s sarcasm well but couldn’t help feeling a bit incensed at the notion.
“Oh, that’d have been a sight to see - you with flowing blonde hair and a tiara.”
“You laugh now, but imagine how I felt?”
As soon as the words left her lips, Catra knew they sounded unnecessarily curt. The grin retreating from Adora’s face only made that more obvious.
“I mean, when you transformed at Thaymor…it felt like I was watching you be possessed by some weird princess magic. You didn’t sound like yourself and I was afraid they’d hurt you…”
“I know now that they didn’t,” Catra clarified while passing a hand through her cropped bangs, “but still. It hurt to see you like that. It hurt to know that I wasn’t a good enough reason for you to come back…”
Silence returned as Catra’s earnest admission hung in the air. They’d only been reunited for a few months now, so Adora knew well that there was still so much that they hadn’t had a chance to talk through. Even so, she felt a twinge of regret in her heart, knowing that’d she’d caused the love of her life such pain years back.
After a minute or two without a word from Adora, Catra felt the urge to speak up and clear the air. Without question, talking about her feeling like this still felt off-putting and awkward. But her practice with Perfuma had helped lower that barrier ever so slightly, as had her time spend bonding with Melog.
“It’s almost funny,” the brunette added while tracing a finger on the duvet between them. “I started to feel pretty awful right around then, after Thaymor. You were off becoming the hero you’d always wanted to be and I was…becoming the villain, I guess. I wanted to join you so badly, literally every time we fought. But I wanted to prove you wrong so much more. I hated fighting you, but it felt like the only choice I had left after you chose the Sword over me.”
Reaching out from beneath the covers, Adora softly grabbed her partner’s outstretched hand. Her voice wavered slightly as small tears formed at the corners of her weary eyes.
“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘funny’. But I’m sorry I made you feel like that. It’s just…I know I’ve said it a million times, but I couldn’t go back. I had this awful feeling in the back of my head that if I did, they’d force me – they’d force us – to attack civilians like that again. I just didn’t have the heart for that.”
“I didn’t want you to go back, either” Adora went on. She swallowed hard, thankful that the darkness obscured her trailing tears. “I know I chose the Sword over you back then, and that was wrong of me. You were – you are – worth so much more than everything good the Sword ever brought me, and it took me almost losing you to see that.”
Now it was Catra’s turn to push down a sour feeling rising in her throat. Even when they’d fought on opposite sides of the war, something in her hardened heart loathed Adora’s tears. Deep down, she didn’t hate Adora for showing that kind of vulnerability, as Shadow Weaver might have. Instead, she detested her own pernicious instincts and their ceaseless compulsion for shared anguish.
Grasping her pillow tighter as a new wave of remorse coursed through her core, Catra tried her hardest to not become upset. But before she could let loose a cross word, Adora giggled softly and shook her head against her pillow.
“You know, I kind of wish I had better control of my power back then. If I did, I could have just turned the Sword into a lasso and taken you with me by force.”
Almost instantly, Catra felt her ill temper fade like a broken fever. Adora’s dorky humor was always the best medicine and it had done the trick again.
With a gentle shove and a half smile, Catra quickly slide back into mock scorn.
“Like I would have let you.”
Adora pushed back harder than she’d meant, and a peal of laughter rose up between the pair. It was just like old times, when they’d share Adora’s bunk and jabber the night away. It was a wonder either of them slept at all, now that they’d been able to renew their endless sleepover.
After settling back down, Adora let out a weighted sigh and readjusted her covers.
“You’re right, though. We really were on different paths after Thaymor. I guess I never really thought about how everything between us started there…”
“I’m just glad those paths ended up in the same place in the long run,” Adora bubbled, her nostalgic tone a sharp contrast to her earlier tears. “I don’t even want to think about what my life would be like now without you in it.”
As she gently squeezed her partner’s hand, Catra knew she was equally grateful – even if it had taken the long road to get here.
“I’m glad, too, you big dummy. It still doesn’t feel entirely real…but it’s still so much better now.”
On that heartwarming note, Catra was ready to lay back down and forage some sleep from the remaining darkness. But Adora still had something on her mind, and Catra was all too willing to listen.
“You know what?” the blonde asked, her wistful grin directed skyward once more.
“What?”
“I used to wish I could go back to that time - before I destroyed the Sword, that is. I didn’t regret doing it. But without the Sword, I felt so incredibly weak, like I was dragging the rest of the Alliance down because of how little I could do on my own. Glimmer and Bow said otherwise, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was useless without the Sword.”
Catra tried to keep her sarcasm to a minimum while her partner spoke her earnest mind. But a few flecks crept in anyway, almost reflexively.
“You really started to think you were She-Ra, huh?”
“I mean…yeah, I did,” Adora nodded, “probably more than was healthy. Can you blame me, though? Being She-Ra felt so empowering, especially when I figured out how much everyone worshipped her. I tried to keep the fame from going to my head but being She-Ra was what everyone wanted from me. If I could have, I would have stayed She-Ra all the time, just to keep myself at my best – or what felt like my best, anyway.”
Catra reached up and twirled a finger around one of Adora’s loose bangs. “And to keep your perfect, platinum blonde hair, right?”
“If there would have been a way to keep She-Ra’s hair all the time, I would have done it in a heartbeat.”
“But then how would I be able to pick you out in a crowd without your hair poof?”
“I’d be 7 feet tall, for starters. But I guess you’d have to get used to me without it.”
Catra scooted in just a bit closer, such that their legs now intertwined beneath the covers. The early summer air had already grown muggy, necessitating a more distant sleeping arrangement most nights. But right now, Catra wanted to be close, humidity be damned.
With her hand still combing through Adora’s hair, Catra tried to sound as genuine as possible.
“Naw, I like your hair as it is – hair poof and all. Don’t go changing it.”
Adora smirked and raised her eyebrows playfully. “I’ll be sure to ask your permission first.”
Outside their bedroom window, a woodland creature howled at the moons above. A gentle breeze blew in from the balcony, temporarily reprieving the chamber from its stuffy climate. Even as the cool air washed over her, Catra remained still and serene, her bones now intent on keeping her partner close at hand the whole night through.
After allowing the breeze its moment of attention, Catra looked back up at Adora, her curiosity still un-soothed.
“So, without the Sword, how’d you get her back? She-Ra, I mean.”
Adora knew at once that she didn’t have a straight answer. She-Ra had come back to her so suddenly on that crystal planet, when Bow, Glimmer, and the Star Siblings were all moments away from being crushed. But that had felt like some kind of involuntary reaction, a safety switch encoded into her DNA that was flipped on just long enough to keep her alive.
“I’m not really sure,” Adora admitted, a stitch of disappointment in her voice. “Right after I destroyed the Sword, I started having these dreams where She-Ra was there. But she was always really far away, glaring at me silently. Even when I was awake, it felt like she was still near me, trying to judge me or something. I wanted to ask her how to bring her back…but I couldn’t focus enough to get her to listen.”
“But after I saw what Horde Prime did to you, she suddenly felt close again, close enough that I could really reach her. When I tried, she didn’t say anything. But she put something in my hand, something that felt like the Sword. She told me to use to protect Etheria, and the people I loved.”
Turning her head in Catra’s direction, Adora beamed. “So, I did. I closed my hand and felt the Sword…my Sword, like it had always been there. I thought She-Ra would just take over then, like she always had before. But somehow, I was the one in charge now. I was actually the one at the helm, the one calling the shots. It felt…amazing, and it didn’t come a moment too soon.”
“Too bad I missed it all,” Catra lamented in jest, “on account of being half dead and all.”
Her comment earned her another shove and a displeased scowl from her partner.
“Don’t even joke about that. I…I really thought I was losing you. Your breathing was so shallow when I got to you. I thought I was too late.”
“But you weren’t,” Catra shrugged. Making light of her near-death experience felt like the only way to live with that memory anymore. “You transformed back into She-Ra just in time and the day was saved.”
Adora still didn’t feel like this was a laughing matter, but she wasn’t awake enough to take real issue with it. That could wait ‘til morning, if it even felt that important come daybreak.
“You make it sound so easy,” Adora half-heartily chided. “I seriously didn’t know I could do all that without the Sword. It was all pretty spur-of-the-moment.”
“But it’s easy now, right?” Catra didn’t mean for the question to sound so presumptive, but it felt pertinent to ask.
Pursing her lips in thought, Adora gently shrugged beneath the covers. “I wouldn’t call it easy. But I did eventually figure out a way to call the Sword when I need it – you know, without the whole ‘world is ending’ or ‘my best friend is dying’ issue.”
“And how’s that?”
After drawing in and exhaling a full breath, Adora closed her eyes.
“I actually figured it out when we visited Plumeria, after everything settled down. I was telling Perfuma about how I still wasn’t sure how to bring out She-Ra when I needed her, and she said that she used to have the same problem with her powers.”
“A princess not being able to use her powers properly? I can hardly believe it.”
Ignoring her partners snide comment, Adora continued.
“Basically, she uses an ‘anchor’ now when she needs to harness her powers. It’s like...well, it’s not like an object or anything, like the old Sword was. It’s more like…an idea that reminds you of why you need your powers and why you should cherish them whenever you use them.”
“Perfuma said she usually thinks about her parents, and their devotion to protecting their kingdom’s natural beauty. She said it always makes her a little sad to think about the way they sacrificed themselves for the cause way back when. But she knows they’re still with her, and that’s how she connects back to her Runestone. Once she explained it like that, I knew immediately what my ‘anchor’ would be.”
Catra wasn’t sure where this was going, based on Adora’s tone alone. “And that is…?”
“Well, when I used to transform with the old Sword, I remember thinking about fighting for all of Etheria. Then, when I transformed on accident on that crystal planet, I was thinking about saving Bow and Glimmer and the Star Siblings. So, I knew that part of my ‘anchor’ had to be about protecting my friends and our home.”
“But when I thought about it some more, I realized that I wasn’t thinking about either of those when I transformed on Horde Prime’s ship or even when we were back on board Darla.”
Suddenly, the train of thought clicked in Catra’s ears. Her eyes grew wide and expectant, just as Adora cupped a hand over her palms.
“Catra…I was thinking about you all those times. You were why I wanted to keep on fighting, even when Horde Prime had us surrounded. You were why I wanted to send him a message, why I wanted to prove to him that I wouldn’t let him hurt you anymore. You were why She-Ra came back, and why she’s still here now.”
Tears slipped out from the corners of her eyes, but Catra didn’t move to quell them. Instead, she let the feeling sink in, this reminder of Adora’s genuine devotion. The woman across from her, tangled in their shared bedsheets…she was a terrible liar, through and through. So, what she’d said had to be the truth, even if she was still adjusting to the feeling of being loved so unconditionally.
Hearing the consternation in her partner’s voice, Adora sat up slightly and reached toward Catra’s face. After feeling a fresh tear trickle over her finger, unease sparked deep in her core.
“Catra…are you okay? Why are you crying?”
Blinking hard and batting Adora’s hand away, Catra tried her best to remain stoic.
“I’m fine. You’re just a big, dumb, corny idiot and I love you so much.”
Wiping away a few more tears, which caught just a fleck of moonlight as they fell, Adora smiled and lovingly cradled the side of Catra’s face.
“I love you, too. More and more every day.”
“Promise me something, though.” Catra’s tone took a turn for the austere without warning. “Don’t ever change. Transform into She-Ra all you want but…don’t change you. I like you just like…”
Her voice trailed off as her eyes caught Adora’s. In them, she saw a kinder future, a future worth growing for, a future filled with more moonlit moments like this. It was a future she still didn’t feel like she deserved, but would accept graciously all the same.
“…this.”