Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Adora wasn’t sure how she’d ended up here. 

Sandwiched between Bow and Force Captain Scorpia, grinning up at Catra, who was taking them home to Bright Moon. It felt like an especially surreal dream, and Glimmer’s ongoing conversation with her not-so-dead father was decidedly not helping to ground her. 

“And then Adora turned into She-Ra and wham!” said Glimmer, swiping animatedly as she acted out the fight. “So long, Grizzlor!” 

“Anyone could beat Grizzlor,” scoffed Catra. “Tell him about a real fight.” 

“Oh, like the time we won the Battle of Bright Moon?” Glimmer huffed. 

“Or escaped from your evil clutches?” said Bow, his grin making the question much friendlier than Glimmer’s.

“Okay, well, I let you go, so…” said Catra, rolling her eyes. 

“Thanks for that, by the way,” said Adora, staring meaningfully at Glimmer. 

Glimmer groaned, like she couldn’t bear to be polite to Adora’s best and oldest friend, who had just very heroically rescued her father at great personal risk. 

“Yeah, thanks,” said Glimmer, dripping with sarcasm. “It was really nice of you to let me escape after kidnapping me in the first place.” 

“Wish I could return the gratitude, Sparkles,” Catra tutted, looking smug. “Shame I had to con my way out of your evil clutches. At least you managed not to torture me in the end.” 

“Which is more than can be said for certain parties!” said Glimmer. 

“I’m… a little confused,” said Micah. 

“Catra was evil until like, two days ago,” Bow informed him. 

“She wasn’t evil,” said Adora, frowning. “She was—” 

“Nefarious? Dastardly? Super mean?” Glimmer suggested.

“No! Well, okay, maybe super mean, but it wasn’t her fault, you guys. Really.” 

“Alright, I’ll accept that she had reason to kidnap us, even if those reasons were wrong, and based on a series of very large misunderstandings,” said Bow, “but she is still responsible for her actions, Adora.” 

“No, I know that, I just—it was my—” 

“Ah-ah!” said Catra, interrupting her with a scowl. “If you say it was your fault, I crash the skiff and we all die. Arrow-Boy’s right.” She grimaced, looking pointedly back out ahead of them. “And I’m… sorry. For kidnapping him. I apologized and everything.” 

“Wow,” said Scorpia, staring at Catra in open shock. 

“Oh, but not for kidnapping me, right?” asked Glimmer, rolling her eyes. 

“I forgive you!” Bow said brightly. “For kidnapping me, specifically. I am still kind of upset you kidnapped Glimmer, or at least what happened to her because of it.” 

“That’s fair,” Adora assured him. Catra huffed but didn’t argue. 

“I think we can all agree that Catra was very reasonably, uh, distressed when she did those things,” said Scorpia, tapping her pincers together in what seemed to be a nervous tic. “And I’m also sorry I helped kidnap you. Both of you.” 

“Yeah, no, I’m holding onto this one,” said Glimmer, crossing her arms. “Not the distress part, I maybe accept that, but you guys did still use me as bait and hand me to Shadow Weaver.” 

Micah gasped beside her, stiffening, and Catra actually winced at the helm.

“Okay, that part I’ll admit I regret,” she said, ears flat against her head. “It… I thought maybe… I made a bad call. I admit that.” 

“And…?” Bow prompted patiently. 

Catra growled, tail lashing back and forth. “And I’m sorry, okay?” she snapped. “I fucking paid for it, already.”

“I’m still a little lost,” said Micah. “Why did you do it?” 

Catra’s tail kept lashing, but she didn’t snarl again. Adora decided to count that as progress. They probably needed to talk about that ‘paying for it’ thing, though. If she was still operating under the Horde’s punitive approach to apologies, no wonder this was like pulling teeth. 

“It’s like she said. She was bait,” Catra said after an uncomfortable silence. 

“That’s not the part I mean.” 

Catra exhaled loudly, almost a sigh. “It’s not like I had a choice, okay? She was still—she outranked me. I thought maybe she’d actually be fucking impressed with me for once, but clearly that was stupid as shit. It wasn’t—it was different.”

“Different from what?” asked Glimmer. Adora frowned at her, trying to signal without words that she should stop talking immediately. 

“I don’t know, being her ward?” Catra huffed. “You only had to put up with her for a few hours, Sparkles. Count your fucking blessings.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence that Adora quickly decided she couldn’t sit in. 

“Glimmer, do you have anything you’d like to say to Catra?” she asked, playing up the sternness as if she were talking to a junior cadet. Glimmer gasped in clear outrage, the picture of betrayal. 

“Adora!” she protested. 

“No, no, she’s right,” said Bow, hiding a smile. “She apologized to us, you know.” 

“We were at war! We thought she was holding Entrapta captive!” 

“But I wasn’t,” Catra pointed out unhelpfully. She was still facing the front, so Adora couldn’t see her face, but her tail was swishing in that self-satisfied way it did when they’d pulled off a successful prank, so she was almost definitely smirking. “Arrow-Boy over here even said you should let me go! But you were all ‘did she let us go?’ when like, I fucking did, so, you’re welcome.”

“You are the worst!”

“You shouldn’t steal an asset you can’t control, Sparkles. Common sense.”

Glimmer closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and took a deep, deep breath. Beside her, Micah watched the argument in what was either confusion or mild fear. Adora gave him a reassuring smile; she had a feeling this was going to be their dynamic for a long time.

“Fine. Catra, I’m sorry we kidnapped you. You were just being such a huge jerk and I really wanted to rescue Entrapta, and getting you out of the field would have saved us so much time and energy—”

“Aw, you kidnapped me because you were scared?” Catra crooned, stoking the dying flames of Glimmer’s rage. 

“Aaugh!” Glimmer shrieked. “Adora!” 

“Hey, I’m not happy any of you kidnapped each other,” she chuckled, raising her hands in surrender. “Although she’s got a point Catra, the Horde’s kind of doomed without you.” 

“Obviously,” Catra said smugly, turning her head just enough to show off the corner of a smirk. Adora preened. Called it. “There’s no way you would’ve been able to get me from Dryl to Bright Moon, though. You were shooting way too high; should’ve cut your losses after I shoved Bow off the cliff.”

“Aw Catra, you used my name!” said Bow, eyes glittering with mischief. Adora beamed at him in appreciation. He was so accommodating, trying so hard to be friends with Catra just because he knew it would make Adora happy. And maybe by now he was seeing what Adora saw in her.  

“Oh shit, is that your actual name? I was just trying to mix up the nicknames.”

“The nicknames you haven’t changed once in all the time I’ve known you? Those nicknames?” 

“Yeah, Arrow-Boy doesn’t really roll off the tongue,” said Catra. “How do we feel about ‘Crop-Top’? Maybe ‘Mr. Sparkles’?” 

Bow actually looked a little flustered at the second one, so Adora decided to rescue him before Catra could sense weakness.

“Come on Catra, just based on appearance? You’ve lost your touch,” she challenged.

Catra cackled, throwing her head back in delight. “Oh princess, I’m just getting started.” 

“Adora, please don’t encourage her to make up mean names about who we are as people,” said Glimmer. “It’s not better.”

“It can be better,” Scorpia disagreed, smiling brightly. “Sometimes she calls you mean names about things she only knows because she secretly likes you!”

“This is exhausting. You grew up with this?” Glimmer asked Adora. 

“You just have to get better at reading her,” said Adora. “Besides, she won’t call you anything too mean. This is Catra: If she wanted to destroy you emotionally, she’d cut to the chase.”

“What could she even say about me as a person?” asked Bow. “I’m delightful.” 

“You’re the perfect boy,” Adora agreed, grinning at him. “What’ve you got, Catra? Nice-Boy?” 

“Something about hearts?” Catra said with a faux-speculative air. “It works on multiple levels, since I’m making fun of his outfit and his personality.” 

“That’s not mean at all,” said Bow, grinning up at her. “I have amazing taste in outfits.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” said Catra, turning to make a ‘this is who you’ve been hanging out with?’ face at Adora. Her nose scrunched up, emphasizing her freckles and the way her eyes curved when her cheeks were lifted in a genuine smile. Adora beamed back, her chest warm with an almost expansive happiness.

“What, he hasn’t brought you around on crop tops yet?” she asked, closing the lid on that feeling before Catra could notice and call her a dork, leaning forward to rest her head on her hand, elbow propped up on her knee. 

“After one conversation? It’s a hard sell, Adora,” Catra joked, turning back around with a flash of that sharp grin. 

“As soon as I get you to try one on, you’re gonna be sold,” said Bow, still smiling. “Guaranteed.”

“Good fucking luck. I’m not going to go around baring my internal organs in a war zone,” she snorted, facing forward again. “Ah—Bright Moon ahead.”

She pulled the skiff through the woods, drawing it to a stop at the edge of the water. Turning around, she crossed her arms and looked down at the rest of their motley crew, settling on Glimmer and Micah. 

“How are we doing this?” she asked, brusque in the way she thought made her sound aloof. Maybe it did; maybe Adora had just been around long enough to know what she sounded like when she cared about something more than she thought she should. 

“Uh,” said Glimmer, looking uncertainly to her father. “Well, Dad’s never teleported before so maybe… we go the long way?” 

“Great,” said Catra, leaping from the skiff without further preamble. “Teleporting fucking sucks.” 

“Hey!” said Glimmer, indignant as she stood and awkwardly tipped over the edge of the skiff. “Teleporting is super cool, and useful!” 

“Motion sickness, Glimmer,” Adora reminded her, with a placating smile. She dismounted the skiff at the same time as Scorpia, holding a hand out to help Bow and Micah down. 

Adora was a little preoccupied making sure everyone made it to the ground safely, but she heard Catra’s sharp intake of breath as clearly as if it had been a siren. Whirling on her heel to find the threat, she drew the sword from its place around her arm, eyes darting to Catra immediately. 

Catra was staring up at the castle with wide eyes, which confused Adora until she followed her gaze and saw Angella descending from the sky, wings spread in a slow but purposeful glide. 

“Angie,” Micah breathed, breaking away from the group and rushing nearer to the bank. 

She landed just outside his reach, staring at him like she’d seen a ghost, raising a shaking hand to her mouth. 

“Angie,” he said again, and his back was to them so Adora couldn’t see his smile, but she could hear it in his voice. 

Angella murmured something, still frozen, still staring, but whatever it was it was enough for Micah to close the distance, flinging his arms around her waist and burying his face against her collar. She responded instantly, automatically, wrapping trembling hands around his shoulders and enveloping him in her wings like she could shield him from the world. 

Adora was starting to feel a little awkward. 

Bow and Scorpia were openly cooing, visibly delighted—Bow was even starting to cry—and Glimmer looked like she was caught between several emotions, none of which Adora could parse beyond ‘happy’ and ‘sad’. She looked to Catra, trying to find some kind of insight (even if she didn’t know Glimmer very well, Catra had always been better at reading people than Adora), but she was staring determinedly at the ground, her arms wrapped around herself and ears flat against her head. 

Adora shifted closer, dragging her boot a little so Catra would hear her coming. An ear flicked in acknowledgement, so she pressed her arm to Catra’s, shoulder to elbow, a weight she hoped was enough to anchor her. 

She twisted her neck so her face was lower than Catra’s, trying to meet her eyes without being too intrusive. She didn’t want to speak and draw attention to them, but she needed to know if Catra was okay. 

Catra huffed, raising her head a little to scowl at Adora, with an unimpressed twist in her mouth that meant she was hiding a smile. I’m fine, quit worrying, Adora could almost hear her say. Well, there would probably be an insult in there somewhere. Quit worrying, idiot, she amended mentally, congratulating herself on staying fluent in Catra. She pressed a little harder against Catra’s shoulder, nearly a challenge but softened by the smile she couldn’t hold back, happiness spilling out of her at the comfort of being with Catra again, being able to read her again.

She’d been so closed-off on the battlefield, all rage or smug confidence, hurt leaking through the cracks in her armor on the rare occasion she let her guard down. It was so good to see her softer, like she used to be when they were alone—the real Catra that lived under all the pain and anger she dealt in. The one only Adora got to see. Patient and caring and understanding Catra, laughing and indulgent, letting Adora catch up to her for a few shining moments. 

She’d loved chasing her, before. It had felt like her whole being was stretched out, reaching for the echo of itself in Catra’s, the pieces it was missing, driven to know and be known. She’d always been so sure Catra wouldn’t run somewhere she couldn’t follow, that she’d never be left behind or turned away. 

But she’d also been sure of the Horde’s mission. Maybe part of knowing Catra was admitting she hadn’t known everything—maybe part of it was just… not chasing anymore. Reaching for her without driving her up the tallest towers or into the darkest corners. Being as patient and caring and understanding as Catra herself, sounding out the echoes. She could show Catra what she knew, instead of taking it for granted again.

She could be better. 

Catra glanced away, ears swiveling, and Adora followed her gaze to see the king and queen had remembered the existence of their subjects and were approaching the group. Catra straightened a little, posture stiffening in a surprising show of decorum, so Adora shifted to parade rest beside her. 

“Thank you,” Angella told them all forcefully, voice rough with emotion. “I cannot imagine—could never have imagined—thank you all.” Her head turned, and Adora felt more than saw Catra’s ears flick back. “Especially you, Catra.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” she said awkwardly, clearing her throat. “I attacked half the extraction team, anyway.”

“It wasn’t her fault,” said Adora, giving her a sharp, stern look before turning back to Angella. “Beast Island—it does things to you. She didn’t know it was us.” 

“A few new scars, I take it?” asked Angella, with a wry smile that meant she wasn’t actually mad. Adora relaxed a little, grinning and nodding, holding her hand up for inspection. A thin pink line across the side of her palm, healed by her transformation.

“Just one. It was super shallow,” she promised. It was a stupid plan, she could admit that, but Catra’s eyes had looked so weird, pupils blown wide and unfocused. Adora had been convinced that she could break through Catra’s other senses, although she’d been planning more for touch than the smell of her own blood. “We snapped out of it when I turned into She-Ra.”

“We?” Angella echoed, smile dropping. “Did it affect everyone?” 

“Just me and Catra,” said Adora, shaking her head. “It was… weird. It responded to our feelings, but also our memories, I think? It was like it made us think stuff, but it felt...”

Unbidden, she remembered the first incident, Catra’s eyes glazing over with pain and despair and shame in an expression Adora hadn’t seen in years. 

Catra’s eyes glazed over in death, a milky film diluting the beautiful colors and

Stop. 

“Then I owe you more than I knew,” said Angella, nodding to Catra. “It would seem our trust in you was well-placed, Catra. Glimmer reported on the events of your incursion into the Fright Zone. While I’m sorry you weren’t able to retrieve Entrapta—”

“We’re going back for her,” Catra interrupted, stiffening a little further. 

“Of course we are,” Angella assured her. “If there is even a slight possibility that she could be won over, we owe it to her to try. She was captured during one of our missions, however unauthorized it may have been.” 

Adora forced her gaze to her boots, swallowing thickly. She didn’t regret it—not when they’d been able to rescue Glimmer and Bow, not when they’d prevented Angella from sacrificing herself and dooming the entire Rebellion—but Entrapta was her fault. She’d been the mission commander. She’d told them to go that way. She’d failed to take Entrapta’s distractibility into account. 

She hadn’t gone back for her. 

Was she just the kind of person who abandoned her friends? Who could justify anything if it was in service of a ‘greater good’? Where was the limit of what she would do for the Rebellion? 

Shadow Weaver had always had justifications for the more unsavory aspects of their upbringing. Catra was disrespectful, so she needed to learn what their superiors were capable of when disrespected. When Adora made a mistake, she had to understand the consequences that mistake would have wrought in the field. 

It was straightforward, logical. Adora had been able to accept it as a child because it had seemed natural to teach them what they should expect outside of the Fright Zone, to prepare them for the war they’d been born to fight. 

But it was never for their benefit. Cruelty for the sole purpose of breaking them down, forging them into tools Shadow Weaver could wield more easily. So she could achieve her goals, convinced that a few children were insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

It was terrifying to think that Adora herself might be capable of that kind of callous disregard in pursuit of a ‘greater good’, but hadn’t she left Entrapta for dead, without so much as checking? 

Hadn’t she left Catra to the mercy of the Horde, to the woman who had been tormenting them their entire lives, and thought Catra was the one in the wrong? 

Catra shoved against her where their arms were touching, nearly forcing her off balance. 

Scowling, Adora shoved back automatically, only to find Catra laughing it off, rolling her eyes at Adora like she was being slow on the uptake again.

“Adora, are you alright?” Angella asked softly. 

Adora jolted to attention, face flushing with embarrassment. Great. Now Angella thought she wasn’t listening. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said quickly.

“She’s sulking,” drawled Catra.

“Catra!”

“What? You are.” Catra rolled her eyes again, relaxing a little as she fell into the familiar routine of making fun of Adora. “She’s blaming herself for something stupid, I bet you a week’s rations.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Adora mumbled, unable to hold Angella’s eyes. 

“And it’s not your fault,” said the queen, laying a hand on the shoulder opposite Catra. “You have always done your best, Adora. That’s all anyone can expect from you.” 

“Tell it to Shadow Weaver,” said Catra, eyeing her other hand with open mistrust. Adora had the distinct feeling that if Angella tried to touch her there would be repercussions of the biting variety. “And Bright Hope.” 

“Light Hope,” Adora corrected, huffing at her. If she was going to be so candid with every person Adora knew, she could at least get the names right.

“Whatever, Adora.”

“Uh, ma’am?” asked Scorpia, waving timidly in Angella’s peripheral. Angella turned expectantly. “Uh, hi, sorry to bother you, but, now what?”

“Now what indeed,” said Angella, looking between Scorpia, Micah, and Catra. “I believe that’s entirely up to you, Princess Scorpia.”

Scorpia was instantly flustered. “Oh, wow, you don’t have to—I mean I’m not really a princess, you know, I just—” 

“You got invited to that stupid ball,” Catra cut in, scowling. “That means you’re a princess. Fuck anyone who says that’s not enough.” 

Adora’s eyes lingered on the genuine anger on Catra’s face, the pinch at the corner of her lips that meant she wanted to bare her teeth. It was—weirdly annoying, still, to see her so invested in Scorpia. Their conversation on the Dragon’s Daughter V had settled her nerves a little, but knowing Catra wasn’t going to marry the woman was hardly enough to quell the jealousy Adora felt. 

It wasn’t fair to Catra to feel like this—she should be allowed to make other friends. It should be encouraged, even. And it wasn’t like Adora didn’t want that, she was thrilled to see the bond that seemed to be forming between Catra and Bow, but it was different with Scorpia, for some reason. 

Maybe because she’d been there for Catra when Adora hadn’t been. She knew things about Catra’s life that Adora didn’t, and that was unsettling in a way she could place. Less jealousy and more envy, pure and unfiltered, to have been at Catra’s side instead of facing her on the battlefield. Scorpia had supported Catra through Adora’s betrayal, just like Bow and Glimmer had done for her. 

Wow, was this how Catra felt about Bow and Glimmer? No wonder she’d been so determined to antagonize them.

“Well, I just mean I don’t have any powers or anything,” Scorpia demurred, still blushing. “Can’t be a princess if you’re not magic, right?” 

“You absolutely can,” said Angella, with a note of finality. “And you are. Perhaps one day—before or after we end this accursed war—we can help you forge a connection with your runestone.”

“Oh,” said Scorpia. She looked stunned, and a little disbelieving, but was apparently too nervous to continue stammering.

“You are of course welcome to stay within Castle Bright Moon,” said Angella, sweeping an arm across the castle, perched on the cliffs. “Whatever you decide to do next. I’d also like to introduce the two of you as our allies, if you don’t mind?” 

Catra’s hackles rose above the neck of her uniform. “To who?” she growled. 

“The Princess Alliance,” said Angella, eyeing her carefully. “They’ve been briefed on the situation, but were not able to reach Bright Moon before your mission departed.” 

“Who all is here?” Glimmer asked eagerly. 

“Everyone,” said Angella, and though her tone didn’t change her smile became slightly strained. 

Adora snickered under her breath. The princesses could be a lot when you got them all together. Catra turned to her at the sound, gaze lingering as she seemed to weigh her options. 

“Fine,” she said finally. “But if anyone attacks us, I will burn Bright Moon to the ground.” 

“Catra!” 

“Fine. Just the attackers.” 

“I suppose that’s as good as we’re going to get,” Angella sighed. “Glimmer, would you mind showing our guests to the dining hall? I’m going to take your father to get cleaned up.” 

“Want me to teleport you?” Glimmer offered eagerly, raising her hands.

“We’ll be fine, thank you.” Angella leaned over her, pressing a fond kiss to the crest of her head. “I love you, sweetheart. We’ll see you at dinner.” 

“I, also!” said Micah, wrapping Glimmer in a too-enthusiastic hug, squeezing so hard she actually winced. “I love you and will see you at dinner!” 

“Thanks Dad,” Glimmer wheezed, patting him on the back like she was tapping out of a grapple. “Love you guys.”

Chapter Text

“So maybe we should like, do a little introduction,” said Adora. “A little, ‘hey, surprise, guess who’s here!’ kind of thing?” 

“I mean, they already know, right?” asked Catra, raising an eyebrow. “The queen told them where we were going, there’s no way she wouldn’t have said it was my idea.” 

“That… is a good point,” Adora said slowly. “However. I would really feel a lot better if I could just—go in there first. Get them warmed up. Everyone good with that? Can we do that, maybe?”

“Adora, just go,” said Glimmer, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what you think this is going to accomplish, but it’s not like we’re going to stop you.” 

“Letting her make stupid speeches, huh? Rookie mistake,” said Catra. “Next thing you know she’ll be making everybody do drills.” 

“Drills on what? Hugging?” Adora snorted, shoving her half in jest and half to get her farther away from the doors to the dining hall. “Listen, I got this. Everybody be cool.” 

She didn’t knock as she entered, slipping through one of the doors and shutting it quietly behind her. The princesses didn’t even seem to notice her, still catching up, laughing at something Mermista had said.

“Hey guys!” said Adora, a little too loud and definitely too squeaky. She cleared her throat. 

“Adora!” said Frosta, beaming at her. “You’re back! Where’s Glimmer?”

“And everyone else?” asked Mermista, with a raised eyebrow at Frosta. 

“Well! So! The thing about that,” said Adora, cheeks aching a little from her forced smile. “The, um—how much did Queen Angella tell you?”

“Less than we’d like,” said Perfuma. “She said Catra defected but wouldn’t say why, and King Micah—” 

“I’m not gonna be nice to her,” Frosta cut in loudly. Adora grimaced. 

“No, I know, just—don’t like, ice her, okay? Take it from me, defecting isn’t easy.” 

“Yeah but you kind of like, found a magic sword,” Mermista pointed out. “What’s her excuse?” 

“Magic baby,” said Catra, slipping into the room, apparently satisfied that no one was going to attack her outright, even though Adora had told her to wait. “Well, two, really.” 

“What?” asked Perfuma, a little stiff at the sight of her but not braced to strike. 

“Two magic babies,” said Catra, slower, like she was explaining something obvious to Kyle and wanted to make sure he was paying attention.

“So in like ten years Catra has kids and they’re magic for some reason,” said Adora, pressing the palm of her hand against her temple like she could physically organize her thoughts, “and uh, one of them opened a portal through time and space and brought them here. So future-Catra got current-Catra out of the Fright Zone and she’s on our side now, everything is great, please be nice to each other.” 

“She has kids?” Frosta asked incredulously, pointing at Catra, who looked mildly offended but wasn’t actively hissing, so, it was probably fine? 

“Yeah and they’re really really cute,” said Adora, grinning. “Like I know I haven’t seen that many babies but easily the cutest babies ever.” 

“I have pictures!” Bow announced gleefully, swinging the doors wide open, revealing Glimmer and Scorpia as well. 

Mermista and Frosta looked at each other, some vaguely judgmental expression that Adora couldn’t decipher passing between them, but Perfuma lit up like she’d just been told the war was over. Paying no mind to Scorpia, she rushed to Bow’s side, making eager grabbing motions for his tracker pad. 

Catra made no move to join them, watching the other princesses warily, but Adora couldn’t help herself. She pressed in between Bow and Perfuma, hooking her chin over Bow’s shoulder for a better vantage point. She was vaguely aware of Scorpia leaning over his other side, clearly trying to maintain a respectful distance but eager to see the pictures he was pulling up. 

“Oh Catra, they’re beautiful!” Perfuma gasped, voice raising several octaves in rapturous glee Adora could honestly say she understood. 

“Told you,” she said, grinning at her as best she could while keeping her eyes on the screen. “Cutest ever.” 

“And is that future-you?” Perfuma asked eagerly, looking between the tracker pad and Catra, who was still trying to maintain her aloof façade but was becoming visibly flustered. “You’re so pretty! You should smile like that more often!” 

“I—shut up!” said Catra, ears lowering in clear embarrassment. Adora left off staring at the pictures to grin at her properly. 

“It’s true!” she insisted. “You have a great smile when you’re actually happy.” 

Frankly, she had a great smile when she wasn’t actually happy, but Adora wouldn’t really describe those smiles as ‘pretty’. More ‘sharp’ or ‘dangerous’. The kind that made her stomach lift in anticipation of mischief, or roil when she faced it on the battlefield. Catra had nuances to every smile, but the ones with nothing behind them but undisguised joy? Those were Adora’s favorites. 

“I have future-Adora, too!” said Bow, excitedly swiping to the next photo. Adora’s heart swelled at the sight of it—her older self was watching future-Catra say something undoubtedly sarcastic with a fond smile, Catra’s babies reaching for each other with tiny claws in the space between them. 

“O—oh,” said Scorpia unexpectedly. Adora glanced up at her inquisitively. Her eyes were wide and darting between Adora and the screen, and she looked a little like she’d been clubbed over the head. “Hey, so—so you have a wife? Or um, will have one?” 

Adora blinked, trying not to frown at what was for all intents and purposes an innocent question. She shouldn’t be jealous that Scorpia knew Catra would marry a woman—she probably didn’t even know, it was just wishful thinking on her part. Catra wouldn’t tell her stuff she hadn’t told Adora. 

Right?

“Yeah, but we don’t know who it is,” Bow reported sadly. “All future-Catra would say is that she’s married.” 

“Catra knows,” said Adora, glaring at her in pointed accusation. She seemed to have recovered from the unexpected compliments, drifting over to the table to pick at some of the scattered foods and pretend she was ignoring the princesses, even though one ear was angled their way. 

Frosta and Mermista had given into temptation, crowding around her and Perfuma, so she couldn’t break away from the group to wrestle the truth from Catra, but wow did she want to. It was driving her a little crazy, actually. The babies just looked so much like Catra, she couldn’t find any traits that stood out. Cyra’s hair was a little lighter, Adam's a dirty blond, and neither had heterochromia, but those could just be regular genes for whatever they were. She should ask if anyone knew what Catra’s people were actually called; she could hardly look that up without knowing where to start. 

“And uh—and none of you—have a guess?” Scorpia all but squeaked. Everyone was staring at her now, even Catra, whose tail Adora could see lashing out of the corner of her eye. 

She didn’t want to admit that her only guess had been Scorpia herself. It felt silly in retrospect, almost petty, but, well—

She couldn’t help it, okay? Catra let Scorpia get away with so much, let her get closer than she’d ever let anyone when they were growing up. Part of Adora still stung with jealousy over it, a probably unhealthy but very loud desire to hoard those smiles and shelter her from any and all outside forces that might dampen them. Adora didn’t know Scorpia, still didn’t really trust her, and the idea that Catra did—that she’d been open or vulnerable in a way she hadn’t been with Adora—it was just a little… incredibly annoying. 

She wanted to be the person Catra trusted, the one who knew everything about her. She wanted to be allowed to hug Catra whenever she wanted, to hold her close and keep her safe. She wanted, selfish as it felt, for Catra to belong to her the way she still belonged to Catra.

“No,” she said aloud, staring at Scorpia with more intensity than was probably warranted. 

“Oh,” said Scorpia, flushing a little. 

“It’s not you though,” Adora added before she could stop herself. Bow looked away from Scorpia to raise his eyebrows at her. “Catra said so.” 

“I uh, I gathered,” said Scorpia. She didn’t seem surprised, but she still looked flustered for some reason. “Do you know who you uh, want it to be?” 

Adora frowned, confused. “What?” she asked. 

“If you could pick,” said Scorpia, darting a nervous glance at Catra, who was now glowering at them, clearly unhappy but not yet willing to interrupt, probably because she didn’t want to remind the princesses there was someone that actually did have answers in the room. “Who would you want Catra to marry?” 

“I don’t get to pick,” Adora said immediately, frowning a little deeper. “It’s Catra’s life, she gets to pick.” 

It was a stupid question, anyway. How was she supposed to pick someone else to make Catra happy? Spinerella and Netossa said they were each other’s best friends, and if they were married—if marriage was like that—how could she cede her friendship with Catra to anyone? She couldn’t even share her with Scorpia. 

“Well, yeah,” said Scorpia, outright blushing now, “but I know who she’d pick. I want to know what you—”

“Okay!” Catra yelled, leaping forward. The Princess Alliance scattered, mostly shifting to defensive stances, but Adora, Bow, and Scorpia didn’t move beyond looking up at her. “We’re all done with story time now, Scorpia.” 

“Aw, come on,” Glimmer whined, lowering the fists she’d raised on apparent instinct. “I wanna know—” 

“Who you marry?” Catra interrupted, eyes flashing. Glimmer let out a soft eep! and stopped talking abruptly. “My future, my business, Sparkles. Lay off or I start dropping names.” 

“Why do you get to know everybody’s wife?” Adora groaned, throwing her head back. “This is blatant favoritism. They liked you better than me.” 

“Adora, if you haven’t figured Sparkles out yet you’re dumber than I gave you credit for.”

“Guys, if Catra doesn’t want to talk about it, I think we should respect that,” said Bow. “This is already a lot for her to adjust to, let’s try to make this as painless as possible.” 

Adora looked away, grumbling. 

“Bow’s right!” said Perfuma. “We should focus on cultivating a healthy environment for her to flourish in. There’s no sense in making our new friends uncomfortable.” 

“But—” Adora started, frowning. 

“No buts,” said Bow. “Catra asked us not to talk about it, so we’re not going to until she’s ready. Okay?” 

She let out a huge, gusty sigh. “Fine. I’ll find out eventually.” 

“Hopefully sooner rather than later,” said Scorpia, with an expression Adora couldn’t decipher. 

“Scorpia, hallway. Now,” said Catra, through gritted teeth. She shoved a compliant but visibly nervous Scorpia through the doors, slamming them after her. 

There was an awkward silence. 

“So it’s not Scorpia?” asked Frosta, looking up at Adora and finally lowering her ice gauntlets. 

“Not Scorpia,” Adora confirmed with a huff. “I can’t figure it out. She never had a crush on anybody when we were growing up, but her future self said she’d already been in love, so—either it’s happened since I became She-Ra, or she lied to me for like… years, probably.” 

“She never told you she liked anyone?” asked Perfuma, apparently surprised. 

“She never even tolerated anyone. The other cadets were either total jerks or scared of her, except the rest of our squad.” Adora blinked, doing a mental double take. “It can’t—not Lonnie. She hates Lonnie. She kind of hates most people.”

“I mean, what about you?” asked Mermista, raising an eyebrow. “She tolerated you.” 

“Yeah, of course, but I was her best friend,” said Adora, a little distracted as she tried to scrub the idea of Lonnie and Catra being married from her brain. “We did everything together. I’m telling you, there’s no way I wouldn’t have picked up on it, even if she didn’t tell me. It’s gotta be recent.” 

“Adora, no offense,” said Glimmer, in her ‘trying to be patient’ voice, “but it did take you almost twenty years to realize the Horde was evil.” 

“That’s different,” said Adora, rolling her eyes. “This is Catra. Your mom says I didn’t realize the Horde was evil because—because it would hurt too much? I guess? There wouldn’t have been anything I could do about it, not until I found the sword. I needed to be able to… do something. Before I could do something. Does that make sense?” 

“No,” said Frosta.

“The sword represented an unprecedented agency,” said Perfuma, nodding. “By accepting its power, you were able to accept your true feelings about the Horde.” 

“Uh, sure,” said Adora. 

“That’s great and all, but how do we make her accept her true feelings about who Catra’s in love with?” drawled Mermista. She crossed her arms over her chest, leveling Adora with an unimpressed stare. 

“Uh,” said Adora. 

“We are allowed to talk about your feelings,” Bow pointed out unhelpfully, smiling in encouragement. “We just can’t bug Catra about hers!”

“I don’t—my feelings?”

“Yeah!” said Glimmer, brightening. “Maybe it is like you not realizing the Horde’s evil! You could have some like, mental block keeping you from unlocking the truth!” 

“How are my feelings going to help that?” Adora asked weakly. 

“Well, let’s consider it from a new angle,” said Bow, rubbing his chin in one hand. “The only people we know she’s spent time with since you left are Scorpia and Entrapta, and I think we can pretty much rule out Entrapta. Are there any other female Force Captains?” 

“I mean, yeah. There’s Octavia—” 

“Oh! The octopus lady! Could it be her?” 

“Catra clawed her eye out when we were six.”

“Ah.”

“I appreciate your creativity Bow, but from what we know of Catra I think it’s more likely that she already had feelings for someone,” said Perfuma, folding her hands delicately in front of her. “She’s very… goal-oriented. I doubt her attention was wandering in romantic directions once she was promoted.”

“So she lied to me,” said Adora, grimacing. 

“Well… maybe,” said Perfuma. “Did you outright ask if she had a crush on anyone?” 

“Yeah! A bunch of times! She always said that stuff was stupid and she had more important things to worry about.” 

“That’s not a no…” said Glimmer, like she was trying to make Adora feel better.

“Did she ever ask you?” asked Mermista. 

“Well yeah, it’s kind of—it’s a reciprocal thing, you don’t just ask and not answer yourself,” said Adora, growing a little flustered. Princesses had sleepovers, Mermista totally knew how it worked. Was she asking Adora just to tease her? “Like half the time she asked first, it’s just a basic—friend—question—thing.”

“And did you ever tell her when you had a crush?” asked Mermista. 

“I’m—I mean, I would have? But I never had one, so—”

“You never had a crush?” Mermista interrupted, raising an eyebrow. 

“I kind of had a lot going on, okay?” huffed Adora. “There’s no time for stuff like that in the Horde.”

“So where do all the little Hordelings come from?” asked Mermista. 

It was supposed to be lighthearted, poking fun at Adora for failing to notice whatever fraternization had gone on behind closed doors, but in the wake of what Shadow Weaver had revealed about her own origins, it stung a little too much for Adora to force a laugh.

“Most are stolen,” she said quietly, glancing back at the door over her shoulder. Was Catra stolen? Shadow Weaver always said they found her in a box, but even if it were true, what hadn’t she told them? She couldn’t help but imagine Catra’s children being stolen away, how powerful her own grief and fury would be. If they were treated like she and Catra had been treated... “Some are surrendered willingly. Some of us were taken in after being kidnapped across dimensions by an artificial intelligence bent on universal domination. You know, classic Hordeling sources.”

Silence. 

Tense, awkward silence. 

“Uh… look, Adora, I’m… sorry?” said Mermista, clearly struggling to understand where she went wrong. 

“It’s fine,” said Adora. She sighed, trying to picture the heavy feeling in her chest blowing out of her mouth. “It’s—it’s been a long few days.”

“Do you wanna like… talk about it?”

Adora hesitated, but only for a few moments. She was supposed to tell people how she was feeling, even if that felt incredibly uncomfortable and just made everyone realize how weak she really was, but she was trying, she was going to be better. 

“I guess I just like—like I always knew the Horde took me in as a baby, you know? I kind of wondered if that had been a lie after I realized they were evil, but… I don’t know. It felt… Like, everything made sense, it was never—it was all for something, you know?” 

“You felt that way even after you defected?” Perfuma asked gently.

“I mean, yeah, kind of,” said Adora, with a helpless shrug. “I knew they were training me to do horrible things, but I didn’t think the way they did it was horrible. Not for me. I mean, apparently they really did take me in as a baby.” 

“But?” prompted Glimmer, wrapping a supportive arm around her.

“But I dunno,” said Adora. “Maybe it’s just seeing Catra’s kids, maybe it’s realizing I was just kind of dumped in their laps, but I… I knew it was bad for the other kids. That it wasn’t fair to treat them like that, but—seeing the twins—hearing the way Shadow Weaver—” 

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. 

“I was never anything to them,” she managed, clutching Glimmer back with one arm. “I looked at those babies and all I could think about was how much I loved them, the potential they had, how much I wanted to keep them safe, and happy, but the Horde—Shadow Weaver—I wasn’t even a weapon. I wasn’t even that.”

“I mean—” Mermista started, a little uncertainly, but Adora cut her off with a shake of her head. 

“I wasn’t, because even if—even if you program in a kill switch, you don’t—you don’t—” 

You don’t rig a weapon to grind itself to a halt without even a wrench in its gears. You don’t set it to tear itself apart or break into pieces under pressure. 

She didn’t know what Shadow Weaver had intended for her, but she’d seen enough in the familiar gleam behind her mask when she told Adora she should drown Adam and Cyra. They were obstacles to her, distractions pulling Adora from some prescribed destiny. 

Adora wasn’t even a weapon. She was a means to an end. 

She wished that didn’t hurt so much.

“I hate her,” she said quietly, willing the burn behind her eyes to die down. Willing the words to be true. 

Saying it should make her feel better. Should get all of these feelings out of her, like removing some kind of tumor shaped like all her worst hurts and impulses. She was supposed to let herself feel things, but this—this didn’t feel better. It didn’t feel true, even though she did, she hated Shadow Weaver, but—

But—

“You don’t have to,” Bow said, soft and supportive beside her. “You can, but—”

“Yes I do,” Adora hissed. “How can I not hate her? The things she did—the things she told us—made us think—” 

She’d been hurting them their whole lives. She’d been torturing Catra since they learned how to read, and she’d put all of these things in Adora’s head. In her heart. It felt like the corners of her mind were shrouded in shadows, like the darkness had seeped into her veins and poisoned her, ruined her, and she’d never be free of its influence. Of her influence. 

“It’s normal to care about the person who raised you,” said Glimmer, clearly trying to match Bow’s tone. She sounded a little more frustrated, like she was ready to fight about it, but if anything that soothed Adora’s nerves. It was comforting to have Glimmer in her corner, impatience and righteousness included. If she were as tender and patient as Bow, she wouldn’t be Glimmer.

“Not when that person is literally evil,” Adora retorted, no real heat behind it.

“She taught you how to tie your boots,” said Bow, gentle. 

Adora closed her eyes. 

She’d taught her to read, too. She’d tended her wounds, shown her favor, supported her in achieving her goals. Intellectually, Adora knew that was all self-serving, that her ambitions had been planted in her as much as her unflinching loyalty to the Horde, but emotionally… 

Emotionally, it was so hard to relinquish. The way she’d craved Shadow Weaver’s attention and approval like nothing else, the desperation to live up to everything Shadow Weaver said she could be. The feeling—the illusion of being cared about, and protected, and loved. 

But Adora wasn’t enough. She’d never be enough for Shadow Weaver to love her, not until she burned to ashes trying to keep her warm. Maybe not even then. She wasn’t enough for anyone. 

“I hate her,” she said again, but it sounded weak even to her own ears. She lacked conviction. She needed to be more decisive, to be in better control of her emotions. She huffed out a breath, opening her eyes again to look around at the princesses, who all seemed concerned. Catra and Scorpia weren’t back yet. What was taking them so long? 

“I’m gonna go check on Catra,” she mumbled, shrugging out of the cocoon her friends had formed around her. They were so caring, and thoughtful, and she didn’t deserve them, really, but—for some reason, she couldn’t relax into their collective embrace. It was stifling instead of reassuring, and she just needed someone who actually understood what Shadow Weaver was to her. Someone who didn’t need her to fill in the blanks Adora couldn’t bring herself to explain. 

“Adora, we should give her space,” said Perfuma, not quite chastising but enough of a reprimand that Adora’s limbs locked automatically. “This must be a lot for her to process. If she wants to turn to her friend for support, then—” 

“I’m her friend,” Adora interrupted, a little sullen.

Perfuma actually looked exasperated for half a second, before she took a deep breath and smiled beatifically. “You two haven’t had much time apart to process since your reunion, right? It’s important that you respect any boundaries she might set, including stepping out of the room for a moment.” 

Adora’s shoulders sagged at the word ‘boundaries’. Right. Respecting boundaries. She was doing that now. She could do that. 

“I don’t want to talk about the Horde right now,” she admitted quietly, avoiding eye contact. 

“Then we won’t,” said Bow. She could see him look around the group in her peripheral vision, like he was challenging them to disagree. Frosta opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a pointed stare. “Boundaries.” 

“Seems to be the theme today,” said Mermista, with a dramatic sigh. “Can we at least figure out who fucks the cat?” 

“Mermista!” said Perfuma, clapping her hands over Frosta’s ears and looking absolutely scandalized. 

“What? She’s like, twelve,” said Mermista, rolling her eyes. “She knows what sex is, Perfuma.”

“I can also still hear you,” said Frosta, leveling Perfuma with an unimpressed look. 

“It’s not about the—it’s about the language,” Perfuma stressed, blushing. “It’s disrespectful!” 

“I think it’s a little more disrespectful to imply Frosta doesn’t know the word ‘fuck’ yet,” said Mermista. 

“I am objecting to the gossip,” said Perfuma, but she finally let her hands fall from a disgruntled Frosta’s ears. “We don’t need to speculate about any—any—private activities. It’s unproductive and it diminishes Catra’s—”

“Okay, whatever, fine,” said Mermista. “What respectful clues do we have?”

“Well, Catra’s in love,” said Glimmer, glancing over her shoulder, as if afraid Catra might hear her through the door. “Or has been? Her future self wasn’t very clear on that, actually. But we can safely assume she will be in a decade or so, anyway.” 

“And it’s not with Scorpia,” Adora added.

“You’re like super fixated on it not being Scorpia,” said Mermista, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure you haven’t had a crush? She is kind of your type.”

“My—my type?” Adora spluttered. 

“Yeah, you know, big, strong, muscular,” said Perfuma, smiling. “Totally understandable, she’s dreamy.”

“No,” Adora said emphatically. “I mean—yeah, sure, she has nice muscles, but she’s…”

She couldn’t very well admit that Scorpia was annoying, not without sounding like a total jerk. After all, she was helping Catra. Had helped Catra, while Adora was off being an idiot. 

“No,” she said finally, wrinkling her nose at the other princesses to indicate they should just drop it. “She’s… too nice. We’d never get anything done.”

Mermista acquiesced with a small smirk and a shrug, but Glimmer laughed unexpectedly. 

“I thought you guys meant Catra,” she explained when Adora gave her a questioning look. 

“Is Catra big, strong, and muscular?” Frosta asked dubiously. 

“Two out of three’s not bad for Adora,” said Glimmer, rolling her eyes. “You should see her around some of the guards. It’s embarrassing.” 

“Hey!” Adora protested. She could feel her cheeks heating, definitely in indignation and not because she was embarrassed. If she were embarrassed, that would mean Glimmer was right. “That’s not even—come on!”

“What, that’s not your type? You walked into a wall when that Mintoran from town came by the court,” Glimmer teased. “Bow, back me up. She’s into muscles.” 

Bow didn’t answer. 

Adora looked over at him, a little confused that he wasn’t joining in in some capacity.

He was staring into space, eyes wide and gaze distant like he’d just seen a ghost. Glimmer shook him with a hand on his shoulder, clearly trying to break him out of whatever had frozen him in place. “Bow?”

“Bow, are you okay?” asked Adora, trying to lean into his field of vision. His eyes snapped to hers abruptly, and he made a strangled noise like the air being let out of a ball. 

“Yep! Grood! I’m gate! I—just remembered I have to ask Catra something! Right now!” he squeaked, shoving the tracker pad into a startled Glimmer’s hands and bolting for the door before anyone could react. 

He skidded to a halt, executing an impressive spin on his heel and flinging his arms out like he was talking them down from setting something on fire. “Everything is fine!” 

They stared at the door as he shut it behind him, speechless.

It muffled his clearly panicked shouting too much to discern the words, but it was clear he had both found Catra and was extremely worked up about something. Adora exchanged a mystified glance with Perfuma. 

There was a tremendous thump! as something hit the door, rattling it in its frame, and Bow’s shouting cut off with a yelp. Adora frowned, starting forward to investigate. She didn’t think Catra would hurt Bow—not badly, anyway—but the princesses were sure to get a little skittish at their master archer being (at best) harangued by two very recent Horde defectors. 

As she reached the door, she could hear a furious, familiar snarl. 

“—break into your closet in the dead of night and sew midsections onto all your shirts if you so much as hint—” 

Okay. Time to intervene. 

“Hey,” she said, opening the door that hadn’t shaken in case—yeah, Catra had Bow pinned to the one that had, holding him up one-handed and pointing an unsheathed claw at his face. They both turned to look at her as she emerged, as did an extremely nervous Scorpia, who had clearly been fretting over Bow. 

They all looked incredibly panicked. 

None of them said anything. 

“Everything okay out here?” asked Adora, indicating Bow’s position with a raised eyebrow. He nodded vigorously. 

“Things are—” his voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, grimacing into an incredibly forced grin, “things are great! We’re just, you know, chilling. Becoming best friends, like future-Catra said we would, nobody’s being threatened.” 

“Are you sure?” she asked dubiously. “Because I did just hear something about vandalizing your shirts.”

“Oh, what’s a few fashion disagreements between friends?” asked Bow, high and strained. “I’ll convince her yet, don’t you worry.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be convinced,” Catra hissed. She still hadn’t lowered him to the ground or released her hold on the front of his shirt. “Maybe I’m already changing outfits and there’s no point in making stupid, impulsive decisions about crop tops.” 

“Heh, outfits,” Scorpia chuckled, doing absolutely nothing to cut the tension pouring off of Catra. “Like clothes, but also like you’re changing organizations—got it, shutting up now.” 

“But you don’t know how crop tops feel!” said Bow. He was staring down at Catra a little desperately. “As long as you’re updating your wardrobe, you might as well try, right? What do you have to lose?” 

Catra’s eyes flashed, and for a moment Adora was concerned she’d lose her temper on Bow’s face, but she just pulled him forward enough to slam him back into the door, finally relinquishing her hold with the motion. 

“Everything,” she snarled, turning her back on all three of them. “Literally every single thing I have. Don’t talk to me like you fucking know me. You don’t know anything about me.” 

“Catra, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Adora assured her, frowning at Bow. She was fairly certain this was a thinly veiled metaphor for something, but he shouldn’t be pressuring her right now. He was the one who’d forbidden her from interrogations in the first place. “You can—try crop tops, or whatever, and—you won’t. You won’t lose everything, okay? I—you won’t lose me.” 

She reached out for Catra’s shoulder, withdrawing momentarily when she flinched. After a moment’s debate, she laid it back. It was almost an extension of the unspoken language they’d always used, communicating through touches and glances that no one else even noticed. If Catra had flinched like that when they were kids, Adora would have—well, she probably would have bundled her up and hidden her away somewhere, and been bitten for her trouble. Ignored Catra’s words and actions because she was convinced she knew best. That she could actually do anything to keep Catra safe.

But now, here? All she could do was try, and see. If Catra shook her off, or hissed, or anything, Adora would listen. She was going to be better. 

Catra leaned into the pressure on her shoulder, and it was all Adora could do to contain a sigh of relief. She’d just been startled before—this was still okay. Maybe this could work. This little give-and-take, trusting Catra to communicate boundaries and holding herself accountable if she crossed them. 

“You can’t lose me,” she murmured, so quietly Bow and Scorpia probably couldn’t hear. “No matter what, okay? Not forever. I just—I want it to be us again.”

Catra’s shoulder shook slightly under her hand, a miniscule tremble. Small, subtle. Adora flexed her fingers like she could contain whatever emotion had her so worked up. 

“And I maintain that you’d rock a crop top,” she added, smiling a little. Catra huffed out a laugh. 

“You’re such an idiot. You know that’s not what we’re talking about.” 

“Then consider this free fashion advice,” said Adora, smile twitching into a smirk. 

“Uh, from you? Not interested.”

“Oh, then I guess you don’t want me to fix your hair?” Adora asked innocently, slinging her arm fully around Catra’s shoulders and going for a headlock. Catra shriek-laughed, ducking out of the way and landing on all fours with her tail bushed up in a playful warning. 

She should look terrifying, claws splayed, fangs bared, but the bushy tail gave her away. Catra had better control of her tail than that, and her eyes were far too bright for her to be truly annoyed. 

“You don’t get to talk about hair either, pouf-for-brains,” she retorted. Adora grinned, bracing herself, pivoting as Catra pounced and scooping her out of the air by her hips, letting the momentum carry them in a spin that she used to set Catra upright, flush against Adora and just in range for a serious noogie. 

Adora all but cackled as she buried a hand in Catra’s wild hair, mussing it up as much as she could. Catra squeaked indignantly, pushing against Adora to escape but unable to get the leverage she needed to break the hold around her waist. 

She could still get out if she wanted to—she didn’t even need to use her claws. 

It warmed something in Adora’s chest, an almost glowing sensation spilling out of her into an uncontrollable smile. Catra was here because she wanted to be. And maybe it was okay, now that they weren’t fighting, for Adora to admit—just to herself—that she’d missed this. 

She’d missed this desperately, but she hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t let herself think about it. There were so many other things that she could focus on, it had been easy to bury. Almost routine. 

Organizing her thoughts, shelving the ones that weren’t right. It was efficient—it helped her stay on task, instead of sidetracking everyone with trivial problems that paled in the face of the war efforts. 

But with Catra back, with things getting back to the way they were supposed to be—better than they had been, even—it was all Adora could do not to curl up and break down. 

It felt like that time Grizzlor shot her with the sawed-off barrel of a tank. Her chest was aching and tender, her stomach tied in knots of anxiety. 

She missed Catra so badly. 

She was here, she was okay, but—

They’d been apart so long, and Adora had just—

She’d ignored the gaping absence that was eating away at her from the inside. Convinced herself it didn’t hurt, that it would heal, that she wasn’t missing something vital and it would mend without bandages, without intervention. 

And yet she’d still worried at the injury with tooth and tongue, like a wounded animal that only managed to clear away its own blood. Insisting she be the one to fight Catra, that Catra knew what she would do, where she would go. 

Some part of her had insisted on feeling the wound, even while she denied its existence, and that—

That scared her, a little. It scared her how much this hurt, that it hurt at all when she should be relieved, healed, whole again. The force of her delayed grief was nearly overpowering; only the feeling of Catra in her arms, her hair under Adora’s fingers, was keeping her rooted in the present. 

She folded Catra into another hug before she could help herself, giving up the pretense of wrestling in favor of scratching the base of Catra’s ear. Catra seemed surprised by the stuttering purr it elicited, as if she had forgotten how much she loved having her ears scratched. 

Something relaxed in Adora as she felt the gentle vibrations reverberate through her chest, and she exhaled deeply, softly, almost a sigh. 

“I’m going to lose all of my shirts,” Bow said miserably behind her. 

Chapter Text

“So Glimmer, your friends tell me you’re a Commander?” Micah asked over dinner. It hadn’t been easy wrangling the princesses into sitting down, but Adora always did love a challenge. She’d even managed to convince Catra to sit between her and Bow—though she’d agreed under the pretense of ‘keeping an eye on him’, whatever that meant, so it was a little worrisome anyway.

“Yep!” said Glimmer, beaming over at her father. He was seated next to Angella at the head of the table, clearly against protocol, as his chair didn’t fit and was angled a little awkwardly, but Adora found she could empathize some. Etiquette was nothing in the face of what Angella must be feeling. Adora could hardly believe they’d made it to dinner at all.

“Mom finally caved and let me start fighting when I turned sixteen,” Glimmer went on, chest puffed out in pride. 

“And she just skipped right to naming you Commander of the entire Rebellion?” Catra asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Of course not,” said Angella, with a good-natured frown. “Of her own squad, certainly.”

“Which was just me and her bodyguards at the time,” Bow stage-whispered to Catra, shielding his mouth as if Glimmer wasn’t sitting on his other side and able to hear him regardless. 

“And I led you valiantly,” said Glimmer, turning her nose up with a fond, playful dignity that had Bow laughing in moments. 

“She wasn’t supposed to see actual combat,” Castaspella told her brother, pointedly not looking in Angella’s direction. “I kept encouraging her to come apprentice at Mystacor!”

“Auntie, please,” Glimmer groaned.

“It was not for lack of trying on my part, let me assure you,” said Angella, a little indignant. “The number of times she disobeyed direct orders… and groundings!” 

“Mom,” Glimmer groaned louder. 

“It’s okay sweetheart, I would have done the same thing,” Micah assured her with a conspiratorial grin. “Matter of fact, I kind of did.” 

“Yes, and look where it got you,” said Castaspella. “Really Micah, don’t encourage her!” 

“I mean, full offense to our parents or whatever, but maybe if they’d been more like that they wouldn’t have wimped out of the first alliance when he got bumped off,” said Mermista. 

“Speak for yourself,” said Frosta. She’d refused a booster seat, so only half of her face was visible, but that half appeared to be scowling. “Your dad’s as lazy as you are.” 

“Uh, it’s called pragmatism?”

“We’re all rebels in our own way,” Perfuma said diplomatically, with a smile. “We can come together to accomplish something more beautiful than any of us could achieve on our own!” 

“Bright Moon was the only kingdom actively fighting the Horde until She-Ra came along,” said Catra, raising an eyebrow. “What, were you too busy building tree houses and snow forts to come help, or were you just scared?”

Adora winced as Frosta swelled in anger, her chin clearing the table. 

“Scared? Scared of what? You? You did your worst, and it wasn’t enough,” she spat.

“Oh boohoo, I livened up your little dance,” scoffed Catra. “The rules said no weapons, not no kidnapping.” 

“Most people would classify heat bombs as weapons, Catra,” said Adora. 

“Then be mad at Scorpia! I didn’t plant them.” 

“Ooh, uh. I did plant most of the heat bombs,” said Scorpia, wincing. “Sorry about that, little buddy.” 

“Scorpia apologized,” said Frosta. “And we all know it was your idea anyway.”

“I apologized for the kidnapping!” Catra said indignantly. 

“And what about the rest, huh?” Frosta shouted. 

“Alright everyone, let’s take some nice, calming—” 

“What do you want me to do, apologize for being in the Horde?” Catra snarled, ears flat against her head. “Did you make Adora do this? Did she have to fucking grovel like—” 

“Catra,” Adora said, laying her hand on Catra’s arm. Catra stilled, chin jutting forward from where she’d been gritting her fangs.  

Catra’s jaw worked from side to side like she was chewing Adora’s intervention over, but her ears lowered in remorse almost instantly. She slowly relaxed from where she’d been leaning over the table, eyes fixed on her plate.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “You’re… I shouldn’t yell. At you.” 

“Why, because you think I’m a kid?” Frosta demanded, bristling again. “I run my whole kingdom, you know!” 

Catra’s eyes darkened, staring past what remained of her dinner like she could see through the table. 

“That doesn’t make it better,” she said quietly. Adora squeezed her arm, trying to be reassuring. To communicate the pride and appreciation she felt watching Catra learn what Bright Moon had to teach. “I’m—sorry I wrecked your party. It was my best chance to lure Adora in, and I wasn’t thinking about anybody else. It—must have meant a lot to you.” 

Frosta blinked, stunned into silence. Adora smiled at Catra, dimly conscious of Bow beaming on her other side. 

“I was just thinking of you as a princess,” Catra went on, brows furrowing, “a princess hosting a war meeting. But you were also a kid, throwing a party, and I should have been able to see that. I got—too focused. I couldn’t look at you objectively when all I saw was another obstacle. Another enemy.” 

“Catra, you didn’t know what a party was,” Adora broke in. And what a world it was, that she was defending Catra’s actions at Princess Prom to anyone, let alone Catra herself. “And I doubt you knew how old Frosta was. Even I didn’t.” 

“Still unclear how,” called Glimmer. Adora waved her free arm dismissively. 

“It didn’t matter how old she was,” said Catra, finally glancing at Adora. “Nothing mattered except—except making you go back.” 

“Well, we still won, so...” said Mermista from across the table, looking as bored as ever. 

“Debatable,” said Catra, relaxing a little at the confrontational tone. Adora frowned; how messed up was it that Catra was more at ease when people were being antagonistic? That this was what they were used to?

“We lost Entrapta, Glimmer and I would have been recaptured if Catra hadn’t let us go, and the Battle of Bright Moon was kind of a direct consequence,” she pointed out, when Mermista made a noise of disagreement. “As missions go…” 

“As missions go, that was Adora’s worst defeat like, ever,” said Catra, smirking at her. “I always said I’d kick your ass in the field. Granted, I didn’t think it would be so literal, but—”

“How was I supposed to know our training sims were nothing like actual combat?” asked Adora, huffing.

“Common sense? I mean for crying out loud Adora, they had us fighting like fifteen princess bots per exercise. Do you see fifteen princesses at this table?” 

“Shadow Weaver always said we had to prepare for the worst case scenario!” Adora protested. Something dark slid over Catra’s expression, making Adora falter. She shouldn’t have brought up Shadow Weaver, especially not in the context of their training. It was always stacked in Adora’s favor, built to address her weaknesses. Of course Catra would be bitter. “I—I mean. She did say that. She always said the sims were to prepare us for seeing combat.” 

“Combat? Or her little consequences?” asked Catra, voice low and sharp, quiet enough no one else could hear. Adora realized with a jolt that the darkness hadn’t been jealousy, but anger. At Shadow Weaver. 

“Sometimes,” she said, breaking eye contact to fiddle with her utensils. She had to get them off this. What were they talking about before? Strategy?  “But I’m—I make good plans, right? I got us through most sims okay, it’s not like I’m hopeless. I’m a good strategist when I’m not against you.”

“Eh,” said Catra, tone dismissive but smirking again to show she was kidding around. Adora smiled back gratefully. She didn’t want to talk about this here, now. Catra always knew when to back off, even if she usually refused to anyway. 

“She is!” Glimmer protested, indignant on Adora’s behalf. 

“Let’s just say Adora’s strengths lie in other areas,” said Catra, smirk widening. 

“Such as?” prompted Perfuma, eyes wide and curious. Beside her, Scorpia looked over at Bow for some reason. Adora looked between them with a faint frown; were they friends now too? Bow worked fast. For some reason it was far less grating than Scorpia’s friendship with Catra. Maybe because Adora had been here the entire time; she hadn’t missed anything.

“Hmm,” said Catra, looking up at the ceiling as though for inspiration, theatrically tapping at her chin. “She’s very good at losing.” 

“Hey!” said Adora, elbowing her in the side with a grin. Catra snickered. 

“Good instincts, when she can get out of her own head,” she allowed, making eye contact with Adora. Her eyes were dancing with amusement, evaluating, like she was trying to pick more good qualities of Adora’s to elaborate on. Adora sat up straighter, puffing out her chest in a show of mock pride. “Old-me actually said you were good at caring about people, but shit at surviving.” 

“I’m great at surviving,” said Adora, still grinning. “Look, still alive and everything.” 

“Thanks to the intervention of several magical princesses,” snorted Catra. “And several non-magical, non-princesses.” 

“She was going to fight the Battle of Bright Moon by herself,” said Glimmer, like she was tattling on Adora to a superior officer. Adora spluttered indignantly.

“Of course she was. She’s a total control freak,” said Catra, rolling her eyes. She and Glimmer exchanged sympathetic grimaces, commiserating. “If she thinks something bad is going to happen, she freaks out and tries to do everything herself. I used to think it was a trust thing, like she thought everybody else would just screw it up.”

“It’s not a trust thing?” asked Mermista from across the table, raising an eyebrow at Adora. 

“No!” Adora protested. “Of course not, I trust you guys with my life. It’s just—if I can handle it by myself, why should I put you in danger?” 

“Uh-huh,” said Catra, dryly, like she didn’t believe her. “Pure altruism, nothing to do with your pathological need to be useful.” 

Adora frowned. “It’s not pathological! I like helping people. That’s a good thing.” 

“You forget I was there for old-you’s little speech? I know exactly how deep this runs.” 

Adora faltered, looking over her to Bow and Glimmer, who were grimacing. They’d been there for the beginning of it, when Adora had almost started crying. 

“You know she was right, right?” asked Bow, catching her gaze. Adora looked away. “We love you no matter what, it doesn’t matter if you do stuff for us.” 

“I know,” she mumbled, fiddling with her own silverware. She did know, intellectually, that they cared about her, it was just… it was a difficult thing to accept. She’d spent her whole life striving to be useful, to earn scraps of affection—to have it granted so freely made it almost feel like a trap. 

It didn’t matter how many times she told herself they cared, how much she believed it, because it didn’t feel like it could be true. They were too kind, maybe. Soft. 

“Seems like you don’t,” said Catra, ducking into her line of sight. “Look at it this way. Would you still care about Sparkles if she lost her magic?” 

“She did, for a while,” said Bow. 

“Yeah, no thanks to—” 

“Glimmer, focus.” 

“Right. Yeah. Adora?” 

“Of course I would,” said Adora, glancing up at her. “I—of course. But it’s different.” 

“How is it different?” asked Catra, short and exasperated where Bow and Glimmer were trying to be gentle. It made Adora smile, half at the familiarity and half in self-deprecation. 

“Well, I don’t know, I mean, Glimmer can do other stuff. She fought most of the Battle of Bright Moon with no magic, and she’s—you know, she’s Glimmer.” 

“Oh dear,” said Perfuma from across the table. Adora glanced up at her, surprised by the genuine dismay in her voice. She looked like she was going to start crying. 

“And Adora without her magic was the best cadet the Horde’s ever seen,” said Catra, drawing Adora’s attention back to her. “And even without that, she’s Adora.” 

Adora sank a little in her seat. “Exactly,” she mumbled, tucking her head to her chest defensively. The best cadet. She always had to be, didn’t she? She’d taken responsibility for her team, for Catra in particular, with the understanding that if she failed, they would suffer the consequences. 

And then she ran away and left them all to just deal with it, because she was too stupid to realize the Horde was evil, too egocentric to see how Catra was feeling, too bumbling to convince her to defect. She was so selfish that she let her best friend take the fall for her missteps for years, and then just left. How was she supposed to make up for that? How could she ever even begin to atone for a lifetime of punishments and cruelty and abuse committed in her name? 

“Hey, we happen to like Adora,” said Mermista. Adora could hear the frown in her voice without looking up to see it. 

“Well, you shouldn’t,” she managed, sinking lower still, arms crossed in front of her. She felt like she was pulling her own teeth out. It was agonizing, viscerally wrong to be exposing these kinds of weaknesses. Even with the memory of her older self fresh in her head, her assurances and confidence and happiness, Adora was struggling to follow the simplest orders. She had to earn the future she’d been promised. She had to communicate. She had to. “I’m… If you knew what I’ve done, how I was in the Horde, how I am now, you wouldn’t. You’d—it isn’t like with Glimmer, or any of you, you’re all—” 

“All what?” Catra snapped, interrupting. “Good? Do you think you’re any worse than me? I was running a fucking army, Adora! I kidnapped your friends, I stole your shit, I ripped you open, and you’re going to sit there and tell me I deserve to be cared about and you don’t?” 

“That stuff was—” 

“It was my fault! My decisions!” said Catra, lips peeling back in a snarl. “You’re not fucking responsible for me, alright? I’m not your fucking problem! You think you’re so special, don’t you? Oh, poor Adora, so evil and unforgivable, fighting to save the fucking planet!” 

“How the fuck am I supposed to save the planet when I couldn’t even save you?” Adora yelled, rising to the challenge instinctively. “Face it, Catra—the only reason I’ve ever done anything good is this stupid sword, and even that’s just because I’m a First One! If I weren’t from another dimension, I’d still be in the Horde, making everything—” 

“No you wouldn’t!” Catra hissed. “You fucking idiot, do you think that thing gave you a new personality? You could never have stayed when you realized! Because you’re a good fucking person!” 

Adora flinched back as if Catra had struck her, reeling away from the conviction in her voice. That wasn’t right. She wasn’t good, she was stupid and selfish and she ruined everything she touched, even when she was trying to help. Especially when she was trying to help. 

“Girls,” said Angella, from the head of the table. Adora straightened in her seat automatically at the gentle admonishment in her voice. “I am truly proud of both of you. These are very difficult things to share, and doing so against what I’m coming to understand as your instincts is very brave indeed. But raising your voices—” 

“Oh, you don’t raise your voice?” Castapella interrupted. 

“Casta, this is about Adora and—” 

“She is kind of right, though,” said Glimmer. “I mean—”

“I do not raise my voice!” 

Micah laughed, loud and bright, and all three women fell silent to stare at him in apparent wonder. Adora met Catra’s eyes again, almost hesitantly, but she didn’t seem mad. Frustrated, yes, but she also looked amused by the royal family’s bickering. 

“I think what Her Majesty is suggesting is that we all take a moment to recenter ourselves,” said Perfuma from across the table. “Adora, why don’t you take a deep breath and explain it to the rest of us?” 

Because that sounded awful. Adora looked away, jaw clenched tight, as she tried to breathe deeply and regain her composure. 

“Do you need her to spell it out for you?” Catra asked tersely. “She hates herself.” 

“I don’t hate myself,” Adora protested. “I’m just saying it’s different.”

“So you don’t hate yourself, it’s just that everyone on the planet deserves to be forgiven and protected and loved, except for you,” said Catra. 

“No,” Adora retorted. “Shadow Weaver doesn’t.” 

Catra hissed, and this time, she meant it. “Shadow Weaver?” she repeated incredulously, not yelling but angrier than she’d been when she was. “You’re comparing yourself to fucking Shadow Weaver?”

“Catra,” said Perfuma, gently, patiently. “It’s important for Adora to be the one to articulate this.” Catra bristled, but didn’t object, glaring venomously at Perfuma. 

“Why, though?” asked Adora, struggling not to turn it into a whine. 

“Well if all you’re going to do is disagree with how I put it…” Catra muttered, turning the glare on her. 

“You have a tendency to…” Perfuma began, frowning to herself as she trailed off, apparently unable to phrase it tactfully. 

“You’re repressed as hell,” said Mermista. Her posture seemed almost bored, but she had the same gleam that Catra got in her eyes when she was stalking prey. It made Adora feel like a cornered mouse.

“This is more about her self-image,” said Perfuma, with a chastising frown.

“I don’t think they’re big on emotional literacy in the Horde,” said Bow. “They might not have the vocabulary to do this.”

Adora looked from a scowling Catra to a mystified Scorpia. “To… explain my feelings,” she said slowly, watching Bow to make sure she was getting it right.

“Honestly, to understand your feelings,” he said sadly. “I think we all… I know that I took it at face value when you said you were okay, and I know you’ve been happy here, but… there’s so much you haven’t processed. I don’t think you let yourself.”

Adora felt her brow crease, looking around the table. Everyone was watching her, expressions ranging from sadness to outright concern. 

“Processed,” she repeated, looking back at Bow over Catra’s head. She couldn’t quite bring herself to ask for an explanation, but he’d always been patient with her, able to recognize her prompts for what they were. 

“Adora, there’s so much you went through that we never even knew about. And I know you—I know the Horde discourages displays of weakness, I know you probably wouldn’t have talked to us about a lot of it without all the time travel stuff, maybe ever, but sometimes it feels like you spent so much energy suppressing stuff that—well—what Mermista said.” 

“Suppressing stuff,” said Adora, echoing him again as she turned the word over in her mind. Like suppressive cover fire. Holding an enemy at bay. 

There were definitely thoughts she kept as far away as possible. 

“It’s not real, Adora,” said Shadow Weaver, her raspy voice scarcely above a whisper in Adora’s ear. “You know it’s not real.” 

“Adora, no,” Catra pleaded, tears beading in her mismatched eyes, “please, I’m real, please, don’t let her do this—”

Stop. 

“I guess I could see that,” she allowed, frowning. “Repressed is something different?” 

“Repression is unconscious,” said Perfuma. “Whereas suppression is a conscious choice. Your understanding of the Horde’s true nature was repression.”

Adora’s frown deepened. “Is—could there be more? That I’m repressing? I really don’t want to deal with that again.” 

“It’s possible,” Perfuma explained apologetically. “There are a lot of reasons that people repress things, Adora. It doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you.” 

“Doesn’t it?” she asked incredulously. “There’s—I didn’t see that the people raising me were evil until it was shoved in my face. What if I’m missing something else? Something worse?”

“It doesn’t have to be negative!” said Bow. “Like what we were talking about on the skiff before, with hugging. It felt like it wasn’t allowed, right? So you didn’t let yourself want it. But now that you’re here, and it’s safe to want things like that, maybe there are other things… like that?”

Catra’s ears went back, head whipping around to face him. Adora couldn’t see her expression, but she could see the pleading note in Bow’s as he looked back at her. 

“You’re all talking about her like you know better,” said Catra, a low growl building in her chest. “Like you know what she wants, or what she knows, but she never realized about the Horde for a reason. If there’s other stuff she isn’t facing, there’s a reason for that, too. You don’t— none of you know what it was like in the Horde. Even Scorpia—things were different for us. For Adora. You don’t know.” 

“Catra,” said Adora, laying a cautious hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shrug it off, but Adora could feel her fur bristling under her fingers. “They’re just trying to help.” 

“Well maybe they should start by listening,” Catra hissed. Bow dropped his eyes, shoulders slumping in surrender. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Adora admitted. “He’s right, you know? I don’t have the vocabulary for this. I know what I try to suppress, but the rest of it is… a new concept.” 

“Is there a common theme between the thoughts or feelings you try to push down?” asked Perfuma. “You don’t have to give us any details. We just want to know how we can help you.” 

“I mean, mostly it’s memories,” said Adora, shrugging. “I guess sometimes I’ll stop myself from thinking something—selfish, or—rude? I guess? But that doesn’t happen as often.”

“Do you remember things a lot?” asked Perfuma, wilting. “Things you’d prefer to forget?” 

Adora laughed humorlessly. “Oh yeah. Stuff I wish I’d done differently, or like, times I’d… yeah. I think about how I could have avoided getting in trouble, how I should have—” 

“You didn’t deserve that,” Glimmer cut in, voice dark and wrathful. “There was nothing you could have done that would have justified that, Adora.” 

Catra huffed a little, leaning back in her chair, and said, “Besides, when she decided to punish somebody, nothing could get her to stop. It would have happened even if you were perfect.”

“Yeah,” Adora agreed readily. It was easy to agree that Shadow Weaver was unfair, that there was nothing Adora could have done to slake her thirst for blood. It only became difficult when she tried to reconcile it with the simple fact that she’d deserved to be punished—perhaps not to such extremes, but she wasn’t blameless. Somehow she didn’t see that going over well. “She took it too far.” 

“When you think about these memories,” Perfuma began, slowly, “What do they make you think? How do they make you feel? Suppressed thoughts of any kind have a tendency to reappear. It’s like trying to hold an apple underwater. If it slips, it comes to the surface. If you’re remembering these things, they’re affecting you; no matter how much you push them away.”

Adora felt her breath catch in her throat. Cautiously, holding her most recent intrusive memory at a metaphysical arm’s length, Adora tried to consider how it made her feel. 

Sick, mostly. Horrified, guilty, scared out of her mind—she’d been torn between the conviction that Shadow Weaver would never hurt the real Catra like that and a creeping dread that insisted if she did, of course she’d pretend it wasn’t real. It would almost have been easier if Shadow Weaver had lied to her outright, because then she wouldn’t have been paralyzed by self-doubt. If it were the real Catra, she would have already acted—but if it was pretend, she shouldn’t act at all.

It had been overwhelming, the naked fear on Catra’s face eclipsing any coherent thought Adora had, even as she’d struggled to make a plan. The crowned shadow specter of a princess had been so vague beside her, sinister but featureless, hand glowing a harsh red as she raised it, and Catra’s skin split open under her touch, and she screamed—

“Adora,” said Catra’s voice beside her. Adora jolted, consciously unclenching her hands from fists on the table. 

“Yeah?” she asked, clearing her throat when it came out a little strangled. 

“We lost you there,” Catra told her, concerned beneath a thin veneer of amusement, soft and unbound, unscarred, unhurt. Adora swallowed reflexively.

“Sorry,” she said. It sounded hollow; she felt hollow. Floating loose from her body, spectating. She couldn’t stop staring at Catra. There was no pain in her eyes, no fear or betrayal or even anger, and when had that started feeling like it wasn’t real? When had seeing her best friend happy started to feel like the illusion? 

“You don’t need to apologize,” said Perfuma from across the table. “Would you like to talk about it?” 

“No,” she said instantly, emphatically. She didn’t want to even think about it. She wanted to curl up inside this moment, this peaceful little gathering of the people she loved, and live in it forever. She wanted to feel this. She was warm and full of good food and Catra wasn’t hurt. 

“Then we won’t. No one will make you talk about anything you don’t want to,” said Perfuma, smiling. Her voice was soft, reassuring. The kind of gentleness that would have been stamped out in the Horde. The part of Adora that was a soldier, that had trained to recoil from displays of fragility, was almost insulted by it in the face of her own weakness. It felt like she was being mocked, even if it was in a friendly way, like when Catra laughed at her for tripping over her own feet. 

The part that was growing louder every day she was in Bright Moon was pathetically grateful for it.

“We don’t… I don’t want to talk about it at dinner,” said Adora, looking down at her empty plate. “We just got King Micah back. Let’s—let’s celebrate. We can do this later.” 

The princesses obligingly changed the subject, turning back to Micah and only glancing at her occasionally. Adora tried to focus on her breathing, but she could feel Catra’s eyes on her. Of course Catra wouldn’t let it go. Catra never let anything go.

“Are they all going to sleep in your room?” Catra murmured finally, eyes flicking between each of the princesses in turn. 

“No,” she murmured back, knocking the sides of their ankles together to draw Catra’s attention. “Too many people. We’d be up too late, and we need to be in top shape to extract Entrapta tomorrow.” 

“Three Horde extractions in a week,” snorted Catra. “You ever think we’re pushing our luck?” 

“We didn’t exactly get out cleanly. You suffocated,” Adora stressed, frowning at her. “If I didn’t—if—” 

“Oh, calm down,” said Catra, rolling her eyes. “I’m fine. Nine lives, remember?” 

Adora didn’t respond, looking away. 

Catra was fine, yes, but she’d looked so desperate as she’d struggled to breathe. She’d actually shown the fear she always worked so hard to bury, and the sight of it had been like a punch to Adora’s gut. 

Catra’s eyes were squeezed shut, face contorted in terror and agony as the princess—

Stop. 

“We’ll get her out,” she said aloud, forcing her thoughts onto a different track. She had to focus. Entrapta needed her full attention. “I’m not leaving anyone else behind.” 

“She might not want to go,” said Catra. 

“Then we’ll grab her and figure it out later.” 

“Uh-huh. That was Sparkles’s entire plan for kidnapping me, and if you recall, it didn’t work out so hot.”

“Entrapta goes where the tech goes, right?” Adora huffed. “So we tell her about Beast Island, or let her mess around with the sword, or the Crystal Castle or something. There’s loads of First Ones’ tech I can get her access to. It has to be enough.” 

“She’s… close, with Hordak,” said Catra, grimacing. “They’re ‘lab partners’. Friends.” 

“Hordak has friends?” asked Adora, raising an eyebrow. 

“Friend. Singular. If we take her—even if she’ll leave him behind, he’s not going to give her up without a fight,” Catra sighed, pushing her empty plate away from her. “He’s…”

Adora tilted her head a little, watching her. Waiting. 

“He’s—he wants to impress his big brother, right?” said Catra, frowning as she cast around for the right words. “He wants to prove that he’s worth something. But he’s just sunk himself into this like, pathetic little delusion where he’s the ruler of the world and if he could just take out the Rebellion, it would all be enough. But I think… with Entrapta, he... I think he’s actually like, happy. When he’s around her.” 

And they were going to take Entrapta away. For a moment, Catra’s face in Thaymor flashed before her eyes, stunned, confused, betrayed. Lost, in a way Adora had never seen her before. When Catra’s only friend left, she threw herself into the war with gusto. What if Hordak did the same?

“Okay,” said Adora. “You know them better than me. I don’t think I’ve been… I haven’t been thinking of him as like, a person with feelings, you know? He’s just Hordak. But he’s doing all this for a reason, just like we were.” 

“It’s just like the fucking Horde, huh?” Catra growled. “I always thought the conditioning ended with cadets, but he’s just as backwards as the rest of us. And he won’t wake up.” 

“Conditioning,” Adora repeated quietly. 

“What?”

Adora hummed noncommittally. “It’s just… a good word for it. Sometimes I feel… it’s like everything I am, she put in my head. You know? Like my whole life is just according to her master plan, or whatever. Like maybe she did account for my morals, and she just—put too much stock in what I would sacrifice for the ‘greater good’ of the Horde.” 

“No,” Catra said softly, her tail wrapping loosely around Adora’s ankle. “The martyr complex, sure, but she couldn’t make you care about people. She didn’t make you good. You did. It’s—when we were on Beast Island, Bow said... being good is a choice you make, every day. One you make. It’s who you are. Who you’ll always choose to be.” 

“I’m not good,” Adora laughed, dry and humorless. “I’m not—Catra, I fuck everything up. I left you behind. She-Ra is supposed to save everybody, but all I’ve done is lose more and more ground in this stupid war.” 

“Uh, because you were up against me, and I’m amazing,” said Catra, bumping their shoulders with a pointed grin. “It’s not about what you can do, dummy. It’s who you want to be. The things you want to protect. The goodness you see in people, even when they really don’t deserve it.” 

Adora scowled at her. “If I’m good, you’re definitely good,” she countered. “You just—your life has been so unfair, Catra. Everything has been against you, since we were little kids.” 

“That’s not an excuse for the things I’ve done,” said Catra. “Any more than it is for you. Maybe if we’d had perfect little childhoods we wouldn’t have hurt each other, or—or escalated the fighting, but—we didn’t. And we did. We can’t change what we’ve already done, or how fucked up things were, but we can change how fucked up they are. I’m—choosing to be better.” 

Adora smiled, small but genuine, at the reminder. That Catra was trying. “Me too.” 

“Then we’re gonna do it,” said Catra, nodding as if that settled the matter. “No matter what. Until there’s no more Shadow Weaver bullshit in our heads at all—just us, and who we want to be.”

- - -

It ended up being just her and Catra in the end. Frosta had insisted Scorpia sleep in her room, and Perfuma had happily joined in, but Mermista had been heading for Glimmer’s room last Adora saw, so—she wasn’t really sure what was going on. The only thing that mattered was that Catra was making up a bed on the floor again, for no good reason. 

“Catra, c’mon,” Adora groaned, dangling off her mattress. “There’s nobody even here, it’s just us! Why can’t we just do what we want?” 

Catra’s ears flicked back, and she opened her mouth as if she were going to say something pointed and doubtlessly rude, but she seemed to think better of it. She closed her mouth with an audible snap!, shaking her head instead and busying herself with the tangle of blankets she’d been arranging for at least ten minutes. 

“Look, I promise I’ll wake you up before anybody even comes in here. You can be comfortable and still keep your big, intimidating Force Captain reputation, okay? Win-win.”

“Win-w—Adora, I don’t want to sleep on your bed again. I only did it the other day because I was too tired to make up a bed!”

Adora flinched, drawing her arms back up onto the bed. 

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Okay. I didn’t—sorry.” 

She’d just kind of assumed, after all the progress they’d made on Beast Island. All she’d wanted since the moment she saw Catra’s tears was to hold her close, to know she was safe because she could feel it in her arms. 

She rolled over, staring at the ceiling instead of watching Catra. She was being clingy, and inconsiderate, and stupid. The sounds of Catra making her bed quieted, and Adora squeezed her eyes shut. Great. She made it awkward, too. She’d gotten too comfortable, too caught up in the return to their old dynamic—

Catra sighed. “No, dumbass, I’m sorry. I was lying before.”

“You were?” Adora breathed, turning her head to find Catra watching her in the dim light. 

“Obviously,” said Catra, rolling her eyes now that she had Adora’s attention. “Look, if you’re going to make it like, a thing, I’ll come sleep on your bed, but only for your sake, okay?” 

“No no,” said Adora, shaking her head emphatically. “Catra, I don’t—you shouldn’t do stuff like that for me. I want to respect your boundaries.” 

Catra groaned theatrically. “Adora. I know you know when I’m serious about shit or not. I need you to use your brain, okay? I don’t want to, like…” 

Ah. A slow smile spread across Adora’s face, wide and smug. She didn’t want to admit it. Adora could work with that. 

“Oh Catra, please won’t you come sleep in my bed? It’s so cold, and your fur is so warm,” she said, as dramatically as possible. Catra sniffed imperiously from the floor. 

“I suppose,” she drawled, grinning back at Adora as she got to her feet, moving to settle at Adora’s ankles. 

“Hey, actually,” said Adora, dropping her eyes to where her hands were twisting in the blanket, “could you sleep up here with me?” 

Catra didn’t say anything, but Adora could feel her watching her from the foot of the bed. 

“I just…” Adora blew out a gusty breath, brow furrowing as she searched for the words. Communicate. Talk about your feelings. ”I just want to hold onto you. I’ve been… thinking about some of the stuff Shadow Weaver showed me, and—” 

“Okay,” said Catra, voice a little raspy. She crawled under the blankets as Adora hastened to scoot back, making room for her, hardly daring to believe her luck. 

They stared at each other for a moment across the narrow mattress. Adora knew she looked eager, relieved, the smile Catra always called ‘dopey’ splitting her face. 

Catra seemed hesitant, almost nervous, her eyes darting between Adora’s like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Adora reached for her, and Catra slid willingingly into her arms, letting Adora cradle her into her chest. She let out a shuddering breath, nuzzling into Adora’s collarbone, and everything was finally whole, and safe, and that glowing feeling was back, pricking at Adora’s eyes. 

“Are you crying?” Catra asked softly. Adora raised one hand from her shoulders, dabbing at her cheek. 

“Yeah,” she admitted, with a croaky little laugh. “Sorry. I’m just happy. It doesn’t—uh. I really, really missed you.” 

Catra’s shoulders shook a little under her hands. “Yeah?” she asked. 

“Yeah.”

“I really missed you, too,” Catra whispered, wrapping her arms around Adora’s waist. She had to kind of burrow to get one under her, but when she succeeded she pulled them even closer together, like they were blurring at the edges. “Do you, uh… want to talk about it?” 

Adora sniffed, wiping her tears with the side of her hand. “About missing you?” 

“No, dumbass,” said Catra, but gently, like it was a term of endearment. “About what she made you see. Is that what was bothering you at dinner?” 

Adora winced, replacing her hand and snaking it beneath the strap of Catra’s tank top so she could scratch at the fur between her shoulders. A thin purr rumbled through both of them from Catra’s chest, and Adora hummed an echo. 

She didn’t want to, really, but… it wasn’t as scary as it had seemed earlier, not when the real Catra was here and safe in her arms. 

Her future self said it was important to talk about it, and there was nobody else who would understand. Nobody else she could imagine sharing this with. 

“She, um…” Adora tried, swallowing when the words came out a little thick. “She didn’t really repeat stuff, when she showed me things. It was—it was usually something new, what would have happened if the training sim had been real, you know?” 

Catra made a small noise to show she was listening, colored with displeasure, but didn’t move from where she was tucked under Adora’s chin. 

“But sometimes if I messed up outside of training sims, she’d show me—variations on a theme, I guess. The s—the same scenario, but updated as we got older.” 

“Was it worse than the others?” Catra asked quietly. Her breath was warm against Adora’s throat, tangible and here and real.

“Yeah,” she admitted, swallowing again. She flexed her fingers, tightening her grip on Catra even though they were pressed as close together as they could get. “I think, um—I think she saved it for times she was really upset with me. When I’d done something really, really bad.” 

“Adora, Sparkles was right. Nothing you could have done warranted that,” said Catra, harsh and jarring in the otherwise quiet conversation. “She put all this stuff in your head—” 

“Yours too,” Adora interrupted, swallowing. “I know she used to—the things she said about the babies, those weren’t new. I know she said worse to you.” 

Catra didn’t say anything for a moment, just breathing deeply. “We’re talking about you right now,” she said finally. “What did she make you see?” 

Adora’s next exhale was shaky, rattling like a skeleton. Bare and exposed, rotted away until it was just the vague outline of a person. 

“She—it was you,” she managed after a moment. Catra went still in her arms. “She showed me what would happen if you were captured. If I weren’t there to get you out, or stop you from being taken.” 

“I thought she always showed you stuff like that,” said Catra. Her voice was thick, quiet in an uneasy way Adora hadn’t heard in years. “Us getting killed and stuff?” 

Adora pulled her tighter against her chest, tight enough that it must have been hard to breathe, but she just needed the proof of her solidity, to feel her heartbeat pressed against her. Catra started purring again, the rasp that meant she was forcing it sending another swell of emotion through Adora, burning her eyes. 

Catra shouldn’t be comforting her. Not about this. Not when she’d still left. 

“It wasn’t just killing you, Catra,” she said, burying her face in Catra’s hair like it could hide her from the world. “It—she would—they’d torture you, or—I saw them torture you so many different ways, ways I didn’t even know about until I saw them, and—and I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t fucking touch them, sometimes she’d hold me still so I couldn’t even move, and you’d—you were always so brave, I couldn’t understand how she could—could fake you so well when she didn’t know you, but—”

“Adora,” Catra murmured, stroking Adora’s back. “Adora, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“She wasn’t faking at all, was she? She—she knew exactly how brave you are. It took—you were—it took you so long to break,” Adora sobbed against the back of her ear. 

“Adora—”

“You’d—you would fight back, always, but then—you always—you were screaming—” 

“Adora!” said Catra, shoving Adora onto her back so Catra was straddling her, her hands coming up to frame Adora’s face. Adora struggled to catch her breath, eyes darting over Catra’s face, her unbroken skin, her ruffled fur. “I’m alive. I’m here in Bright Moon, and I’m not going anywhere.” 

Her eyes were glossy, too. Adora was upsetting her. She shouldn’t have—

“Stop it,” said Catra, flexing her fingers against Adora’s head. “It’s okay. I’m—I’m glad you told me. I don’t want you to deal with that by yourself, alright? It’s okay, it’s fine, I just—I need you to take deep breaths. You’re going to pass out.” 

She reached behind her, where Adora’s arms were still draped uselessly around her waist, and grabbed one of Adora’s hands, bringing it up to her own chest, pressing it flat against her heart. 

“Breathe with me, okay?” she said, rough and awkward and practically an order, but so Catra that Adora’s gasping breaths faltered for a moment before she could try to find the rhythm. 

For a minute, they just breathed.

“Sorry,” said Adora, when she had enough air to talk again. 

“Don’t be,” Catra huffed, flopping sideways onto the mattress so they were lying parallel again. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw you cry.” 

“You totally cried on Beast Island earlier,” said Adora, but the jab sounded weak even to her own ears. Catra gave her an unimpressed stare. 

“Actually, yes I can. You started sobbing like a fucking baby when our future selves were here,” she said. Adora flushed. 

“That doesn’t count! There were extenuating circumstances!”

“Extenuating, huh?” Catra teased, grinning at her. 

“At least as extenuating as Beast Island,” said Adora, wriggling so she was on her side again, facing Catra properly. “Magic, and stuff.” 

“Ah yes, ‘and stuff’. How could I forget?” 

“Shut up,” Adora huffed, grinning at her. 

Catra smiled back, small and relieved, and it was only the absence of her earlier tension that made Adora realize how worried she’d been while Adora cried. 

“Thanks,” she added quietly, shuffling a little closer to reach for her again. Catra rolled her eyes, reaching back just as readily, and they moved back into each other’s arms. 

“She never broke me,” Catra said at length. “Not like that. Not for good. She couldn’t, because… it didn’t matter. We were the only ones who mattered. I gave in sometimes, but… in the end, you still cared about me, so there was still… I was still worth something. At least enough to put up with her bullshit.”

“You always were the strong one,” said Adora, smiling even though she couldn’t see it. 

“I dunno if it counts as strength,” Catra said wryly. “Tenacity, maybe. Stupidity definitely. Although it seems like we’re tied in that regard.” 

“You never let them change you, you know? I always admired that.” 

Catra was quiet for a long moment, but she stayed relaxed in Adora’s arms, thinking something over. 

“They did,” she admitted. “I used to be so… the older we got, the angrier I felt. The more I resented you, the more I just wanted to be unleashed on something I could fucking destroy. I was a grenade that just kept exploding, over and over. Shit, I still am.” 

“Are you?” asked Adora, snickering a little as she scratched the base of one ear and Catra erupted in a purr. 

“Yes,” she growled, smile pressed against Adora’s neck. “The way old-us talked, it was like… I dunno, I never thought they changed you either, but… I think you’re a grenade too. You just implode. So to you I seemed all cool and defiant, and to me you seemed… steadfast. Like you had your shit together. But we were both…” 

“Yeah,” said Adora, when she made no attempt to finish her sentence. She knew what Catra meant, anyway. “Yeah.”

“If this sword shit is what it took to get us out and talking about our issues, so fucking be it. If we’re gonna be fucking disasters, I’d rather we do it together.” 

Adora laughed, knocking her chin into Catra’s temple affectionately.

“I’ll tell you when you’re being stupid, and you tell me when I’m being stupid,” she went on, ears lowered slightly in apprehension. “Okay?” 

Adora hummed in affirmation, eliciting a raspy chuckle. “Promise?” she asked, nuzzling into Catra’s untamed hair. 

Catra was silent for a long moment, just long enough for Adora to worry she’d overstepped again, but finally...

“I promise,” Catra answered softly. 

As they both relaxed, as Catra’s breaths evened out and she seemed to melt into the warmth surrounding them, Adora focused on sensation. The feeling of Catra’s muscles shifting beneath downy fur, the familiar shape of Adora’s bedroom, comforting even draped in shadow, the faint noise of the Whispering Woods beneath her window, the lingering salt of her own tears. 

The feeling of light, blooming in her chest, warm and bright and growing, making her feel happy, peaceful, whole. The weight of the girl who inspired it in her arms. 

Oh, thought Adora, taking a deep breath as realization dawned. 

Oh, shit.

Chapter Text

Waking up with Catra in her arms probably should have felt different, now that Adora had realized that she was wildly in love with her. It should have been profound, or awe-inspiring, or at least a little more romantic than a series of insistent pats to her cheek. 

“Wha…?” groaned Adora, squinting her eyes open. Catra was raised several inches off of her torso, watching expectantly, hand still raised but mercifully no longer gently slapping her awake. 

“You’re on my arm,” said Catra, visibly unimpressed with Adora’s confusion. 

“What time is it?” asked Adora, closing her eyes again. 

“I dunno. Early. Nobody’s come looking for us yet, but I’m hungry.”

Adora rumbled something vaguely affirmative, turning onto her side, into the lingering warmth of where Catra had been laying. 

“Hey, genius. Still on my arm,” said Catra, though she couldn’t disguise the fondness so early in the morning. 

“Go back to—” Adora tried, cutting off mid-word with an enormous yawn. She pulled Catra back down to the mattress, so they were face to face again. “G’back to sleep. They’ll come’n look for us when food’s ready.” 

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Catra. She made no move to escape Adora’s arms, shifting a little nearer under the pretense of resettling. As if Adora couldn’t tell. “What the hell is your problem, anyway? You’re always up before me.” 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Adora mumbled. 

It was the truth; she’d been all but paralyzed with shock, which gave way to a brief wave of joy, which was promptly clubbed to death by spiraling anxiety. 

Because even if she were in love with Catra—even if, as she was realizing, she had been in love with her this entire time—even if just being near Catra filled her with peace and happiness and comfort, she could absolutely never say anything. 

Catra had a future already. She was going to have a wife, a family, and if Adora wanted to be around to see that, she needed to keep her feelings to herself. If she told Catra how she felt, she’d ruin everything. Things would get so awkward between them, and she’d lose her again.

Adora couldn’t stand to lose her again, not now. Not ever. 

She’d laid awake, running through a hundred different scenarios and approaches, some of them decidedly less realistic. 

There were so many components. It was like planning a battle, but the stakes were so much more personal than being responsible for everyone’s safety. That she was used to; this was uncharted territory, an assault with zero intel where the only essential aspect was baring her own vulnerabilities. Painting a target over her heart and walking onto a battlefield with no idea what she was up against and throwing down her arms. All she knew for sure was all the ways she’d already fucked it up, the landmines she’d placed herself and the trenches she’d dug in her denial and ignorance. 

And Catra always saw through her strategies. Always. Whatever Adora planned, Catra would see it coming and react before Adora so much as opened her mouth.

She could just say it, just wake Catra up and be like, ‘hey, guess what, I’m in love with you’. Catra could be so mad that Adora woke her up she didn’t answer; Catra could be so mad Adora had feelings for her that she defected; Catra could feel betrayed, could feel like Adora was keeping secrets this whole time; Catra could think Adora was lying, since she’d still left the Horde without Catra, but that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t a choice between what she wanted, it was—

“Adora?”

“Huh?” asked Adora, startling slightly. 

“Yeesh, it’s worse than I thought,” said Catra, frowning. She leaned a little closer, squinting at Adora’s eyes like she always did when she was checking for head trauma, but it was too much, this morning. 

Adora recoiled, flushing, and sat up abruptly. “I’m up, I’m up!” she complained, studiously avoiding Catra’s gaze. She could feel the suspicion rolling off of her. “Sorry. It’s early.” 

Catra didn’t say anything, shifting to the edge of the mattress and turning her back on Adora. Her ears were angled back and down, not quite pinned, but she was clearly reacting negatively. Uncomfortable in some way. 

“I’m...” Adora started, without really planning where the sentence was going to go. An ear flick, tacit permission to continue, but Adora didn’t know with what. “Are you okay?” she settled on, reaching for Catra’s hand automatically before she caught herself. 

Bad Adora. No non-platonic contact. 

“Yeah, I’m… Sorry,” Catra huffed, turning her head just enough that Adora could see a sliver of her blue eye through her hair. “I know it’s—it has to be hard, waking up next to me like that. When I’ve been hurting you.” 

Adora sucked in a breath, snatching Catra’s hand off the mattress, platonic contact be damned. “Catra, no. I’m not scared of you, I just—have—morning breath?” 

Catra turned all the way around to raise an eyebrow at her. 

“I do,” Adora defended self-consciously. She hoped Catra at least knew her well enough to hear the naked truth of Adora’s trust in her. Doubtless, she was still suspicious, but Adora could keep it together a little longer. She’d made it this far without even recognizing her feelings for Catra—how hard could it be to keep from expressing them?

- - -

The answer, as it turned out, was very, very hard. 

Catra was just so… Catra. Every time Adora let her guard down, she was swept up in Catra’s gravity, orbiting nearer and nearer until she caught herself and withdrew.

She could tell Catra was getting frustrated with her. She’d thrown off the rhythm of their interactions, alternating between lovestruck mooning and awkward, self-imposed distance. Breakfast had been agonizing, trying to focus on the words being exchanged when all she could think about was where Catra’s tail rested against her leg.

She was barely keeping it together for their planning session, stiff and straight-backed in her chair as she stared determinedly at the map, trying desperately to pay attention. 

The princesses didn’t seem to have caught on yet, although Bow looked bewildered and mildly terrified whenever Catra so much as glanced at him, as if they were under the impression he was the cause of Adora’s strange behavior. Somehow. 

Maybe that was what he’d realized yesterday, when they were talking about Adora’s ‘type’. It did kind of boil down to ‘Catra, and women that reminded her of Catra’. Someone sharp and challenging and dangerous, who could definitely kill her but never would. 

She probably shouldn’t read into that. 

“Has the Horde addressed the vulnerabilities exposed by our last infiltration?” Angella asked, pulling the Fright Zone up on the map. 

“What, like, how you got in? No. Nobody ever grilled Entrapta on it, she kind of jumped right into experimenting once I, uh… got her on our side,” said Catra, clearly a little uncomfortable.

“You didn’t interrogate her?” asked Frosta, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean yeah, but not about that. I wanted to know why she’d been left behind. I thought you guys just left her there until Sparkles and Arrow-Boy here kidnapped me.” 

“Why would we leave her in the Fright Zone?” asked Mermista, huffing. Catra tensed, the tip of her tail beginning to flick from side to side.  

Adora swallowed thickly, looking down at her lap. Why would anyone leave someone they cared about in the Fright Zone? Much less someone they loved?

“Entrapta’s… different,” Catra said bluntly. “She’s not like the rest of you. People who don’t fit in get left behind. If they’re lucky.”  

“That’s Horde bullshit,” said Mermista, narrowing her eyes. “Getting people to conform and fall in line or whatever. We don’t do that here.”

“No?” Catra growled. “What about Scorpia? None of you princesses gave a shit about her or her kingdom. Where’s her family? Where are her people? We know where her fucking runestone is, and believe you me, it’d be better off destroyed.” 

Adora reached out on instinct, keenly aware of what Catra wasn’t expressing. She gripped the back of the fist Catra had made, gently encouraging her to relax it as she threaded their fingers together. Catra released a slow, purposeful breath. She didn’t look at Adora, but her ear flicked once in acknowledgement, and she let her hand be uncurled. 

Catra lashed out when she was scared, feeling weak or insecure. Even if she were only feeling that way on Scorpia’s behalf, Adora couldn’t let it go without some measure of support or assurance. 

“I was wrong,” said Catra, through gritted teeth, but clearly sincere. “I know now you thought she was dead, and I kind of get why. But at the time, I had a purple weirdo with magic hair fall out of a vent three days after your little rescue mission, with no attempt to go back for her. And you—no matter why, you left her behind. You might have cared, but not enough to verify.”

Her ears were drawing back again, uncomfortable or maybe angry. Adora couldn’t blame her. 

“Entrapta is different,” said Perfuma, after a tense moment of silence. “But we’re all different, too. We can get frustrated with one another, and even fight, but at the end of the day we’re friends, and we care about each other.” 

“She’s literally our enemy,” said Mermista.

“We can still be friends,” said Adora, glancing at Catra beside her. “Sometimes friends fight.” 

“On opposite sides of a war,” Glimmer added, only a little sarcastic. 

“We’re on the same side now,” Adora said firmly. 

“Yeah now that Catra had her moral awakening or whatever,” said Frosta. “You always knew the Horde was evil, right? So why didn’t you think about leaving until you knew you were supposed to?” 

Catra growled faintly. “I’m not supposed to do anything. This is our timeline now. She just… talked me into it.” 

“In a day?” asked Frosta, raising an eyebrow. “When you’d never even considered it before?”

“Of course I’d considered it,” Catra retorted, to Adora’s surprise.

“Really?” she asked, blinking stupidly. 

“All the time, when we were kids. And… I was set to desert until Hordak made me Force Captain,” said Catra, frowning down at the table. She didn’t seem mad at Adora, but it definitely wasn’t a nice memory. “Wasn’t going to join the Rebellion or anything, just get out of dodge. Go be a hermit or... something.” 

Adora’s hand tightened around hers reflexively, and Catra looked up with a raised eyebrow and the barest hint of a smirk. “What, you preferred it when I was kicking your ass?” 

“At least I knew where you were,” Adora mumbled, flushing with embarrassment. “I thought I knew you were okay. If you’d been a hermit I wouldn’t have, like… would I ever have even seen you again?” 

Catra hummed noncommittally. “Maybe. If I ever got my head out of my ass. Depends where I would have ended up, probably. Can’t imagine there’s a lot of chances for reflection in, say, the Whispering Woods.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Adora, chuckling. Madame Razz had shown her the things that mattered—the things that were important to her. Even if she’d been weird and evasive about it. And Adora got shot with a cannon. 

“I thought about it again when we got trapped in your shape-changing house of horrors,” said Catra. “I just… it was like a highlight reel of the things I never told you I felt. All the ways I thought you looked down on me, or… used me, or something.”

Adora tried to meet her eyes, but she wouldn’t look up. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, squeezing Catra’s hand again. “I didn’t understand how I was making you feel. Not when it happened, and not when Light Hope…” 

She trailed off, stomach plummeting as she remembered. Light Hope who had brought her here to be She-Ra. Light Hope who wanted her to ‘let go’. She sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“She did it on purpose,” she hissed. Catra finally looked up at the venom in her voice, ears pricking forward. “She was trying to turn you away from the Rebellion so I would let go of my attachments. She wanted me to give up on you.” 

Catra’s lips pulled back as if to snarl, but she didn’t make a sound, just glaring at nothing. Her hand flexed under Adora’s as she unsheathed her claws, tapping them against the arm of her chair to keep from gouging the wood. 

“She could see all of my memories, all of my feelings, and she still—she—” Adora struggled to find words, withdrawing her hand so she could clench it into a useless fist, breathing hard through her nose. “Am I just—?”

Was she that easy to manipulate? Shadow Weaver pitted her and Catra against each other like it was nothing, made Adora really, genuinely believe that the Horde was good, that she was helping—Light Hope had kidnapped her and convinced her there was nothing she could do to help her best friend, not even bothering to mention ‘oh yeah, also you’re in love with her’. Even Catra knew exactly what to say or do to get Adora to do something. 

“No,” Catra said shortly, familiar enough with Adora’s past spirals to read between the lines of this one. “Remember what we talked about?” 

Right. The ‘conditioning’. Catra had called it a martyr complex, though that still chafed a little to admit. Adora nodded, trying to take deep breaths, like Catra had guided her through last night.  

“People take advantage of it when they notice,” said Catra, voice low. The other princesses were watching, openly curious, but Adora didn’t care if they knew this about her. Maybe they could snap her out of it. 

Or maybe they’d do it too, and Adora was just supposed to be steered around the rest of her life by the machinations of other people, trusting that their reasons were good and moral and just. She certainly couldn’t trust herself to tell the difference. The better someone knew her, the easier it was to steer her down the path they wanted.

“People like Light Hope, or—or me,” Catra went on, swallowing, “they see how much you want to help, and how it gives you tunnel vision, sometimes. You always go—went after me, because you thought I was the biggest threat, so it was your responsibility to handle it. It’s not—it isn’t your fault. That people take advantage of your…”

Adora grimaced, grateful Catra hadn’t finished the sentence. She knew how it ended. Weakness. And it was; she was so tractable that she hadn’t even noticed she was being manipulated until their future selves staged an intervention. 

Fine. She had a weakness. It was just like having weak arms, or legs—she could improve with the proper training, or equipment. Deficits could be remedied. Corrected. She could be better. She would be better.

“We’ll figure it out later,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re here now, and that’s what matters. I’ll fix it before our next mission if I can, but right now we have to plan this one.”

Catra made a face at the words ‘fix it’, like she wanted to disagree but couldn’t contradict the enforced subject change. Maybe Adora should be more sensitive—Catra had said on the boat that she resented Adora’s determination to fix certain things. She’d have to ask about it later, when they had a little more privacy. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Glimmer muttered. “Catra, you said nobody addressed the vulnerabilities?” 

“Nobody even acknowledged them,” said Catra, nodding. “They all just accepted you got in with princess magic and didn’t want to admit they might have fucked up. It’s poetic, really. The Horde would rather be invaded again than accept they have any weak points.” 

“I’ve a feeling that if none were apparent, you would simply create some,” said Angella, smiling at Catra with a soft admiration that had her hackles rising, even as her expression remained unchanged. Adora laid a hand on the back of her neck to disguise it; Catra hated any tell she was unconscious of, and bristling fur was a big one. If her ears weren’t back, she was trying to seem unaffected. 

It was an allowable point of contact, even if friends didn’t usually touch friends’ necks. It was something she did all the time in the Horde, something Catra actually appreciated. She said it helped her ground herself. 

“Catra’s smart,” she told the table at large, to disguise the gesture’s true purpose as a plea for Catra to let her speak, instead of hiding her reaction to Angella’s almost affectionate softness. 

It was a lot to take in, fresh out of the Horde. Adora still wasn’t entirely comfortable with Angella, and she’d been here for ages. Of course Catra would have mixed feelings about that kind of feedback. “She knows the current Fright Zone best, and has a solid grasp on our assets and liabilities. With her brains and She-Ra’s brawn, we’ll be unstoppable.” 

“Uh, we’re here too,” said Mermista, sounding more bored than offended. 

“The only variables we can’t account for are Hordak and Entrapta herself,” said Perfuma, frowning down at the table. “If he can just suck the air out of a room, we may be in trouble. My plants can produce oxygen, but not that quickly. From Catra’s description we’d have a matter of seconds.” 

“I don’t think it’s just any room,” said Catra, pressing back into Adora’s hand to indicate she could let go. “Old-Me stopped walking at a very specific point in his sanctum, and I don’t think she would have walked into something like that while she was holding Cyra. Even if she was that confident in her plan, there’s no way I—she’d risk it if it affected Cyra too.”

She stiffened slightly, like something had just occurred to her, and Adora tilted her head inquisitively. 

“No, it’s just… magic baby,” Catra mumbled, so only she could hear. “Maybe it wouldn’t affect her. I hope that’s not the kind of thing I’d like, test.” 

“What would you say the likelihood is?” asked Angella. 

“Almost a sure thing,” said Catra, swallowing. “I’m confident Old-Me wouldn’t have stopped where she did without a reason. And unless I do some really unethical experiments on my kids, that reason was probably to keep Cyra safe.” 

“And how likely are you to do unethical experiments on your kids?” asked Mermista. 

Catra’s demeanor shifted abruptly, her walls slamming back into place as she snarled at Mermista, claws unsheathed and flexing against the arms of her chair. Adora couldn’t help but glare at Mermista for the insinuation, and was opening her mouth before she could think better of it.

“Catra would never, ever do something like that,” said Bow, deep and solid, before Adora could actually speak. Both she and Catra turned to stare at him. Adora was more shocked by his conviction than the sentiment; he was right, obviously, but she wouldn’t have expected this much confidence after only days of really knowing Catra. “She wouldn’t let anyone hurt them.” 

Scorpia beamed at him from across the table, nodding in agreement when Adora glanced over at the rest of the princesses. Mermista looked surprised at the strength of his reaction, but intrigued, like she’d just been handed another clue to one of her mysteries. 

“They’d maybe be okay with a magical scan or something,” Bow went on when the stunned silence stretched too long for his comfort. “Maybe.” 

“They?” Adora echoed, still staring at him. 

“Catra and her wife,” said Bow, nodding firmly, like that settled the matter.

“I mean, that’s great, but how are you so sure?” asked Glimmer, though she backtracked quickly at Adora’s glare. “Not that I don’t believe you! It’s just, you’re like, really sure.” 

“Because,” said Bow, getting a little flustered. “Catra’s a good person. And I bet her wife is, too. Too good to marry somebody that does experiments on little kids.” 

“I don’t think her standards really factor into this conversation,” Catra said dryly. Her claws slid back in and her shoulders relaxed, but it was stiff enough that Adora could tell it took an effort. Adora pressed their shoulders together in a show of support. 

She’d seen the way Future-Catra looked at those kids, and Adora at least knew without a doubt that any Catra would keep them safe, no matter what. Catra loved with her whole heart, and she’d do anything to keep the people she cared about protected and happy. It was why it had hurt so much to lose that regard. 

At least Bow had a point. Catra wouldn’t marry someone who didn’t deserve it. Even if it made Adora’s chest ache to consider, she could take solace in knowing Catra and the kittens would be loved as fiercely as Catra herself loved. 

And Adora… Adora would love them, too. None of them would ever have to be alone, or wonder where they came from, or if there was just something wrong with them. They wouldn’t have to go through hellish training, or hide their weaknesses away for fear of reprisal or attack. If Catra loved this woman, if the kittens had any part of her, then Adora would love her as much as she could bear to. Adora would protect them, all of them, no matter what. 

“—most likely that she was protecting Cyra,” Angella was saying. Adora blinked as she tuned back in, trying to catch up.

“She was standing outside the ring of towers,” said Catra. “They light up when he pulls the switch. It’s what makes the walls. Although, the switch is broken now, right?” 

Adora faltered, trying to conjure any image of the sanctum during those tense few minutes that focused on the walls of energy enough to remember ‘towers’, but all she could picture was Hordak’s snarl, and Catra’s body falling far, far too still. 

“So as long as we stay outside the ring of towers, he can’t make the air bad,” said Adora slowly, focusing on the future instead of the past. “Well, as long you guys do.” 

“Rub it in, why don’t you,” Catra muttered, rolling her eyes. Adora grinned back at her. 

“And he probably won’t activate it while Entrapta’s in range, right?” she asked Catra. “So it might actually be to our advantage to get them together, or keep them there.” 

“So whatever the opposite of divide and conquer is?” asked Frota, looking a little disappointed. Probably because she wanted to ‘conquer’.  

“Uh, no,” said Catra. “If they happen to wind up together, fine, but we can’t waste time and energy herding them around. We need to be able to improvise on the plan without jeopardizing the mission, okay?”

“Hmm,” said Mermista. 

“Okay?” Catra repeated, a little more forcefully. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” said Mermista. 

“Improvising is our specialty!” said Bow, with a bright smile. 

“Miracles are your specialty,” said Catra, rolling her eyes. “The only way you ever win is weird magic bullshit or the power of friendship.”

“Friendship, huh? Does that include when you let me and Glimmer go?” asked Adora, unable to resist a little ribbing. She grinned as Catra scowled at her, huffing. 

“We have already established that I was your friend, thank you,” she responded, sarcasm unable to fully mask her fluster.

“Are,” Adora corrected, grinning wider. “You are my best friend.”

“I will have no part of your fucking ‘Squad’, thanks.”

“Oh I’m afraid it’s far too late for that,” said Bow. “You’re officially a member.” 

“What!” Glimmer demanded. “Since when?” 

“Well officially since we became best friends yesterday,” said Bow, his smile a little sly as he made pointed eye contact with Catra, who growled but didn’t disagree. “But come on, she’s basically been inducted since future-Adora cleared her.”

“Do I not get a vote?” Glimmer asked indignantly. 

“Do I not get a vote?” asked Catra. 

“Nope!” said Adora, grinning at Bow. “You guys are best friends now. Deal with it.” 

Catra and Glimmer glared at each other in mutual disgust, noses wrinkled, lips curling, but Adora knew both of them well enough to see past the pretense, even if neither of them could. They didn’t like each other (yet), but Adora could work with that. A little wariness was to be expected, given the circumstances. 

“If that’s settled,” said Angella, slow and cautious, as if waiting for another interruption, “then we’re agreed. The raiding party will leave at midday.” 

Adora sobered somewhat, nodding as she began preparing herself. After their last excursion, she wasn’t exactly eager to return to the Fright Zone, especially since this time the plan called for them to split up. It was risky, prioritizing speed over security, but that was the kind of strategy Catra excelled in. All Adora had to do was trust her, and try not to let her worry eat her alive. 

If they could extract Entrapta, the Horde would stall out. Hordak had lost his last two commanders, and even if he’d managed to replace Catra, she outclassed every officer in the Horde. Entrapta’s tech—and apparent friendship—were the only remaining factor behind the Horde’s momentum. Getting her on their side would be a huge coup, and Catra (and Scorpia) seemed to believe they could do it. 

With all three of them reclaimed, the full might of the Princess Alliance, and Shadow Weaver locked in the closest thing they had to a cell? The Horde didn’t stand a chance.  

Chapter Text

The Fright Zone was unchanged since their last mission, all towering steel and oppressive smog. Before, Adora had found it comforting, protection on every side, but since her defection every trip back felt like a noose tightening around her neck. 

The metal was frigid, the steam was searing, temperatures blistering in both extremes and dangerous to the uninitiated. She picked her way through the hallways as quietly as she could, guiding her team away from obstacles both real and hypothetical. 

Don’t go through that chamber, there’s a guard on rotation that may be doing rounds. Don’t touch those pipes, they’ll scald. Foxstep, don’t tiptoe, you’re making too much noise. Breathe through your mouth. Be vigilant. Be ready for anything. 

She was struggling to follow her own advice, distracted with worry for (and about) Catra. Between her slipping off through the vents alone and Adora’s own realizations about her feelings, she was having a hard time focusing on anything else. 

“This way,” she murmured to Mermista and Frosta. If everything went according to plan, the secondary squad—Glimmer, Bow, Perfuma, and Scorpia—should be arriving shortly after them. 

The sanctum loomed ahead, shrouded in long shadows from the sparse lighting. There were fewer guards in this part of the Fright Zone; no one would dare to disturb Hordak, much less attack him outright. Even Catra feared him to some degree.

Thinking about that made Adora think about how Catra must have felt under his command, though, so she firmly shoved the thought aside and tapped out the coded knock they’d agreed on. 

After a few moments, the door slid open to reveal a visibly smug Catra, who tilted her head to invite them in. Entrapta was there, by some miracle, chattering about something Adora didn’t quite understand and completely unaware of their entrance. 

“—promise, it’s as safe as any experiment. Wait, did you need something? I thought Hordak said something about Bright Moon yesterday.”

“Yeah, I was picking up a few things,” said Catra, stepping up beside her and squinting at the diagrams on screen. “Explain this to me again. Why are you opening a portal?” 

“The scientific value is incalculable!” said Entrapta, bouncing on her pigtails. “The theory behind it has always been sound, but having never looked into it I didn’t realize how achievable it all was. Retrofitting Hordak’s designs is easily enough to sustain a stable, self-supporting portal, as soon as I find the missing variable.” 

“What do you mean ‘missing variable’?” Catra asked warily. “You just said it was possible.” 

Entrapta made a noise halfway between a groan and a whine, as she always had when she had to dumb things down for Adora. “It’s not that I don’t know the value of the variable, it’s that it’s physically missing. There’s a sort of… hm… if you think of portal technology as a door, this is the key. I’m confident that given enough time I can replicate its energy signature, but mixing magic and technology is a volatile business.” 

“So it’s possible,” said Catra, slowly, “but it’s what, locked?” 

Entrapta nodded emphatically. “And not by coincidence! According to the decay of this isotope—” she pointed at a series of numbers Adora really didn’t understand, “—portal technology was forcibly locked down about a thousand years ago. Etheria itself is generating a field preventing the manipulation of spacetime in any capacity.” 

Catra hummed, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the results Entrapta had pulled up. “A thousand years ago, huh?”

She glanced at Adora over Entrapta’s head, with a significant look at the sword in her hand. 

A thousand years ago. What happened a thousand years ago?

The First Ones left. The stars disappeared.

And the last She-Ra died.

She couldn’t stifle her gasp as she realized what Catra was implying. A thousand years ago, Mara was destroying aspects of Light Hope’s communications hub, fighting against whatever plan their future selves had declared her a hero for stopping. 

Taking down communications would be pointless without removing portal technology; whomever she was cutting off from sending messages could have just delivered them in person. 

But if the last She-Ra for a thousand years had locked down portal technology—

If Light Hope brought Adora through the portal to become She-Ra, if she was meant to undo the safeguards Mara had left in place—

If there was a key to portals, then Adora was holding it. 

She looked down at the sword with a sudden turn of nausea, fear gripping her like cold, clammy hands. She had the only thing that could grant their enemies the power to succeed, and she’d brought it right to them. 

“Adora!” said Entrapta, bright and delighted as she finally turned away from her screens and noticed them. “Princesses! Hello! What are you doing here?” 

“I—” said Adora, swallowing thickly as her eyes darted around the room, flitting from Entrapta’s smile to the incomprehensible and yet terrifying numbers, back to Catra’s thinly-masked anxiety. The other princesses were silent, letting her take the lead. “We’re—I’m here to—” 

Here to what? Talk her into abandoning her friend? The same way they’d abandoned her? Abandoned Catra? 

Adora was so sick of leaving people behind, but how was she supposed to reconcile peace and Hordak? Even thinking of him as sympathetically as she could, even relating him to Catra wasn’t enough to twist him from the image she’d grown up with. Hordak the conqueror. Hordak the omniscient. Hordak, the embodiment of the Horde’s goals, its very heart. 

But if someone had said that about Catra when they were in the Horde together, if they’d tried to convince Adora to leave her on that basis? Adora would have hated that person. They wouldn’t understand Catra anymore than she understood Hordak. 

There had to be good in him somewhere, right? Entrapta wouldn’t have been able to befriend him if he were as fearsome as Adora had always heard. So maybe she just… needed to try.  

“I’m here to apologize,” she said finally. “I’m—Glimmer and Bow told me about why you stayed, and Catra explained some stuff to me. I didn’t… I thought you were dead. I should have—have gone back for you, or at least verified, but—I thought you were dead.”

Entrapta blinked owlishly, staring at her. “Apologize for what?” she asked after a moment, tilting her head at a deliberate angle. “Thinking I was dead?” 

“For leaving you,” said Adora, shaking her head. “Entrapta, you… I want us to be friends. I’ve—I realized I’m not very good, at being a friend. I’m stubborn, and selfish, and I don’t understand why people do the things they do, a lot of the time.” She glanced up at Catra, who was frowning in apparent disagreement, but she remained mercifully silent. “I’m not good at it, but I want to get better. I want to be someone who doesn’t leave people behind.” 

Entrapta continued to stare at her, expression completely blank. After a moment, she hummed, pulling up a graph with crude graphics of different people’s faces. 

“According to my data, you’re a relatively good friend!” she said, pointing at a series of bars next to Adora’s cartoon face. “You’re in sixth place if we limit it to organic lifeforms. It did make logical sense to think I was dead—I was upset for a while, but the Horde has been very welcoming! And they provide so many materials for my experiments. Hordak and I are working on something together, isn’t that exciting? I’d never had a lab partner before.” 

“Yeah,” said Adora, taking a step closer, a little cautiously. “It’s—I heard you talking to Catra just now. It’s very exciting, but Entrapta... I think it’s dangerous.” 

Entrapta turned back to her, laughing. “You too?” she asked. “Catra was just saying the same thing. There have been some anomalies in my portal trials, yes, but the planetary interference accounts for all of them. Once I have the missing variable—” 

“Run more tests,” Adora begged, “please. The last She-Ra, she did something to stop portals from working. I—I don’t really understand it, but future-Adora said—” 

Entrapta swiveled so quickly her pigtails twisted together beneath her, like a thick rope. 

“Future-Adora?” she asked, eyes shining. “As in, a second Adora? From the future? Here, in our present?” 

“I—well, yeah—” said Adora. “Uh—” 

“An alternate timeline now, technically,” Catra put in, watching Entrapta with a steady, wary edge. “A future where portal technology has been ‘unlocked’, and opening one is just a matter of having the right equipment.” 

Entrapta’s eyes shone with a feverish light as she whipped her tape recorder from her pocket, leaning into Adora’s face. 

“Tell me everything,” she demanded. 

“She—there was a lot of stuff she thought was more important to talk about, so I don’t know that much,” said Adora, looking nervously at the other princesses. 

“That’s fine, we can start with the relevant information and go over the rest later. This only takes precedence since it concerns an open experiment.”

“Uh, well. There have been five portals opened in the last thousand years,” said Adora. She hesitated, looking to Catra for a cue on how much to share, but Catra just nodded, expression grim. “Three of them were a couple days ago, from the future.” 

“Three?” Entrapta repeated eagerly. 

“Yeah, uh. One for future-Catra, one for future-Adora, and one to take them both back.”

“Fascinating,” said Entrapta, eyes going unfocused for a moment. “Did they have some kind of device to facilitate this? Perhaps in the future—” 

“No,” Catra cut in flatly. “The first two were basically accidents, and the third one was ‘twin magic’ or some shit.” 

“Twins? You two aren’t twins,” said Entrapta. She frowned, looking between them. “Are you? There isn’t much of a resemblance, and I think someone would have mentioned it by now.” 

“No,” said Catra, gritting her teeth a little, “it was our—mine and old-Catra’s—kids. They did—something. And then switching them undid it, or redid it, or whatever.”

“We weren’t super listening,” Adora said apologetically. “Kind of a problem for future Catra and Adora.” 

Entrapta hummed, nodding a little too fast to possibly be comfortable. “And what about the other two portals? Were they temporal? Spatial? Both? When and where did they occur?” 

“Does it matter?” Adora asked uncomfortably. She wanted to stop the portal, but she was still coming to terms with her kidnapping; she hardly wanted to be treated like a science experiment on top of everything else. “We don’t even know about one of them.”

“Of course it matters!” said Entrapta. “If it’s dangerous to open a portal—which I’ll need to run some simulations on actually, let me set those up—” 

She swooped back to her monitors, typing frantically for a moment, as the graphics changed to a model of Etheria. 

“If it’s dangerous to open a portal, understanding the exceptions would be essential to circumventing its hazards!” she explained. “What did you say would happen if we opened one?” 

Catra grimaced. “The phrase ‘destroyed reality’ was tossed around a few times.” 

“Fascinating,” Entrapta said again, grin widening as she continued to type. “Past tense? Implying that it had been accomplished? And yet somehow they restored enough of their reality to not only stabilize it, but travel back in time and space. But if we accept that the danger is real, and could not be reliably or safely counteracted, then why did the five examples not destroy reality?” 

“I mean, it makes sense for the future ones, right?” Adora asked hesitantly. “They’re from a future where the restrictions have been removed.”

“That makes sense for their trips here, but what about the return portal?” asked Entrapta, pressing a button with a dramatic flourish. A simulation began to run on the screen. “If portals can be opened to stabilized future timelines, we would still be able to continue with the experiment—we’d just need to tweak our output variables. Maybe they left a wormhole behind that was imperceptible to the naked eye? It would explain how they arrived in the same time period, and why it was so easy to reopen. I suppose that would mean we can’t utilize the same method, but the essence of tracing a pre-existing bridge—so to speak—that we could explore further. We might be able to travel through time as well, under the right circumstances!” 

Adora exchanged an alarmed glance with Catra. 

“Entrapta,” said Catra, stepping forward, “we can’t do that. If we open a portal, Hordak will send a signal to his brother. He—” 

“You know about Hordak’s brother?” Entrapta interrupted. 

“You know about Hordak’s brother?” asked Catra, visibly shocked.

“Well sure, that’s why we’re focusing on the portal issue! I’m—oh! Oh! Hordak was pulled through a portal!” 

“He—he was?” asked Adora. Was that the fifth portal? It did make sense, now that she thought about it. To have a brother outside of Despondos, one of them had to have been transplanted somehow, and it sounded like Hordak was the interdimensional traveler of the two. 

It also meant his discovery of her as a baby was a little more profound than she’d realized. How had he found her? Did he think her portal was opened by his brother, trying to signal him? They were the only two creatures on Etheria not born in Despondos. Did he feel any sense of camaraderie with her? He hadn’t shown it during their confrontation. He’d treated her with open scorn, condemning her origins as easily as her, as Etheria itself. 

Catra lashed out when she was scared, weak, or insecure. What if Hordak did the same thing? What if he was just as lost as Adora, plucked out of time and space, fighting for a cause he didn’t know was evil? 

“Hmm, so then how did he get sucked through a portal if the technology is locked down? Even an anomaly shouldn’t have been able to absorb him and his ship,” Entrapta carried on, oblivious to Adora’s moral crisis. 

“Hang on,” Catra interrupted, sharp and barely attempting to hide her alarm. “He came through with a spaceship? How did he get through?” 

“He didn’t plan to, it just kind of opened up!” said Entrapta. “He was out in the field and it swallowed him up, then dumped him on Scorpion Hill. He doesn’t think it’s important, but if portals are restricted, it could be vital.” 

Catra met Adora’s eyes across the room, her tail not quite lashing but swishing with an apprehensive flick at the end. Adora frowned inquisitively, tilting her head in a silent question. Something about this information had made Catra nervous—more concerned than afraid, but for what Adora had no idea. Would this affect that other timeline somehow?

“We only know the source of the fourth portal,” said Catra, eyes still locked with Adora’s. “Not if it was temporal, or spatial, or both. You know how the First Ones turned the planet into a machine? There’s an AI interface. She got around the restriction somehow.” 

Adora sucked in a breath. “You—you think she brought—Catra, do you think…?” 

“I don’t know,” Catra said grimly. “I don’t know. But she’s the only one we know who can get around it that isn’t from the future, and if future-us were right about the war being over for them—why else would someone take him?” 

“No,” said Adora, not a true denial but a reflex. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, taking a step back. “No, Catra, why would she—why would she do that? Why would the First Ones have programmed her to want that?” 

Catra didn’t look away, but she grimaced like it hurt her to voice. “Why would she take you? She needed…” 

Her voice broke, and finally she closed her eyes. She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to—Adora could see the horrible picture laid out before her. 

Light Hope needed She-Ra. She needed a First One to wield the sword, but it would be pointless if they wouldn’t wield it. If they lived happily and peacefully on the only planet in Despondos, why would they see the need for the sword? Why would they follow through with the weapon future-Catra mentioned only in passing, if they had no enemy to fight? 

“Did she… Catra, did she bring him here because of… because of me?” she asked, voice shaking. 

“No,” Catra said emphatically. “If she did bring him, it wasn’t because of you. It was for that fucking weapon.” 

Adora’s breaths were coming too fast, too shallow. Light Hope brought Hordak, brought the Horde here, because she needed Adora, needed her to be a soldier, a tool—

How many people had died? How many thousands had been crushed beneath the heel of Hordak’s army, how many children like Catra’s had been orphaned and stolen and twisted into cogs in a machine that Adora had not only perpetuated, but facilitated—

“It’s not your fault,” Catra hissed, moving to stand in front of her, glaring ferociously. “It doesn’t matter, okay? If she did do this, she was just using him too. The—the First Ones were—Right now, we need to focus on the mission.” 

Adora took the deepest breath she could manage, meeting Catra’s eyes. Right. Focus on the mission. She could do that. She could compartmentalize. It was as easy as—well, at the moment it was easier than breathing. She nodded resolutely, still trying to catch enough breath to form words. Catra nodded back once, short and curt, a clear show of approval that Adora soaked up like a sponge, using it to bolster her faltering composure. 

There was a series of unpleasant beeps from Entrapta’s machine, and the diagram of Etheria exploded, replaced by a skull. 

The room was silent for a moment as everyone stared at the screen. 

“Okay so you might be right,” said Entrapta, teeth exposed in an uneasy grimace. “Oh, Hordak’s going to be so upset. Hopefully when I tell him about—” 

“What? Entrapta, he’s not going to believe you,” said Catra, incredulous. “He’s poured everything he has into this for as long as he’s been here, he’s not going to accept that it’s impossible.” 

“Well, not impossible,” said Entrapta, one pigtail pointing at the skull graphic. “Just extremely volatile and not at all something we should pursue at this juncture.”

“What does the skull mean?” asked Frosta, shouldering her way through the group. “Is the planet going to explode?”

“Of course not,” said Entrapta, pointing at the readings that didn’t have illustrations. “Look! The anomalies that showed up in my portal trials—they increase exponentially the longer the portal stays open, both in number and scale. It would warp the fabric of reality, stretching and tearing until it collapsed in on itself, erasing us all from existence!” 

“Destroying reality,” said Adora. 

“Destroying our reality,” said Entrapta. “Who knows what would happen afterwards! The entropy of an isolated system will never—”

“Hey, Geek Princess. You can’t do experiments if you don’t exist,” snapped Mermista.

“Well yes, but as a theoretical exercise it’s fascinating. I’m sure Hordak will understand!” 

Adora looked to Catra, a current of understanding passing between them. 

“We’ll back you up,” said Catra, turning back to Entrapta. “If anyone can talk him out of this, it’s you.”

“Speaking of backup,” said Frosta. “Where’s ours?”

Adora blinked, looking around for their secondary squad. They should have arrived by now. They should definitely have arrived by now. 

“How well does Scorpia know the Fright Zone?” she asked Catra. 

“Well enough,” said Catra. She didn’t seem outwardly concerned beyond a faint crease between her eyebrows, but her tail was swaying nervously behind her. “She could get them past the patrols and everything, at least. And she definitely knows where the sanctum is.” 

Adora turned to look out at the rest of the sanctum. They’d come in through one of the side doors, right next to Entrapta’s computer station, so she hadn’t properly cased the room. Stupid, rookie mistake, but Catra would have already done it herself. They were definitely alone in here. 

The sanctum was enormous, and without the chaos of her last visit she had time to really appreciate it. The throne that towered over the room, sharp and imposing atop the stairs. The wires and cables that were slung from every surface like vines in the Whispering Woods. Tanks full of brackish green fluid, with what appeared to be scientific specimens floating within, each twisted and almost familiar. And at the foot of the stairs, not quite in the center of the room, lay three pieces of metal in a crude square, a pedestal at their center standing empty. 

The sword pulsed in her hand like a heartbeat, and Adora nearly dropped it in shock.

The portal. It had to be. 

She took a step towards it, set on dismantling (okay, destroying) as much as she could as Entrapta started trying to reason with Catra that Hordak would never attempt an unsound experiment without due recourse, and all they had to do was talk to him—

“She will not dissuade me,” said Hordak’s voice, heavy and oily like the smog that billowed from his machines and foundries. Adora whirled on her heel, searching for him, but she couldn’t see anyone. 

“Show yourself,” she called, as steady and commanding as she could manage.

“I will open the portal,” he snarled, “and I will be reunited with Horde Prime.” 

“No, you won’t,” said Adora, scanning the shadows that lined his sanctum. “It will destroy everything, you can’t—”

“I shall not bow to the word of a creature as weak and pathetic as yourself!” 

Adora gritted her teeth, trying to see him, hear him move, anything. His voice echoed all around her against the metal, impossible to pinpoint. At least, for her senses. 

“Adora!” Catra yelled, dashing on all fours up the side of a pipe. 

Hordak’s imp swooped away from her reaching claws, cackling. 

“Pathetic!” it jeered in Hordak’s voice, landing on the wall by the main door. Adora started running for it immediately, even as it switched to Shadow Weaver’s chilling rasp. “You’re useless!” 

She lunged for the imp just as it clawed open the cover of the control panel beside the door, punching the emergency button with its entire hand. 

An alarm blared, lights flashing overhead, and Adora swore vehemently as she snatched the imp, holding it by the back of its clothes like a scruffed kitten as it twisted around, growling and trying to bite her. 

A level five intruder alert. That would bring half the Fright Zone down on their heads. They had to establish control of the situation, quickly, or they’d be overwhelmed in minutes. 

Adora looked up at Catra, barely visible apart from the light reflecting in her mismatched eyes, and could feel her tension. Simulations that changed scenarios partway through to ‘keep them on their toes’ weren’t unfamiliar, but they were never pleasant. It had always fallen to Adora to give orders and marshal their squad to glorious victory or bitter defeat, but now—

Glimmer and Bow appeared in a shower of sparkles, poised for combat. 

“What happened?” Glimmer demanded immediately. 

“A complication,” said Adora, lifting the writhing imp slightly as evidence. “Where’s the rest of your squad?” 

“Complication. I couldn’t teleport us all,” said Glimmer. She grimaced, looking back at Bow. “We got caught by your old friends. Scorpia was trying to talk them into deserting when the alarm went off.” 

Adora laughed in spite of herself. That certainly tracked with what she knew of Scorpia. “How was that going?” 

“Lonnie tried to shock her,” said Bow. “Perfuma was able to restrain them, but honestly, the way Lonnie was yelling it was only a matter of time before we got the alarm pulled on us.” 

“So really it’s just a matter of which disturbance Hordak responds to first,” Catra summarized, dropping into their midst from the pipes. Glimmer and Bow both jumped, almost attacking on instinct before they recognized her. “Fantastic. Entrapta, do you want to write a report or can you freeball this ‘don’t open a portal’ speech?” 

“Oh, a report won’t be necessary!” said Entrapta. “I can summarize my findings just as efficiently out loud, and the graphics are a useful visual aid if he needs one. Although, he shouldn’t. He’s really quite good with—” 

“Shh!” said Catra, swiping a hand to silence them. “Incoming. Main hallway. At least a dozen.” 

She looked back at Adora, locking eyes with her in a clear challenge, one Adora hadn’t seen outside of group sparring in years. Vying for control of something, something beyond the two of them and their own little world. 

It was different than how she’d looked on the battlefield; that was all smug confidence or snarling defiance. Now, Catra looked at her with the assumption that Adora would actually concede. Her glare was softened by an expectant sort of patience, like Catra knew it was nearly impossible for her to do, but there was a warmth of assurance that made Adora feel like maybe she could. Catra trusted her to cede control, as much as she’d ever trusted her to take it during sims. But Catra wanted to call the shots on this one, and hadn’t she demonstrated that she was the better strategist anyway? 

Adora nodded, small but firm, and Catra’s face split in a feral grin. She looked thrilled, as though Adora’s acquiescence was all the victory she needed. Adora’s heart was squeezing as Catra directed them, preparing an ambush in a matter of seconds. 

This was what she’d been chasing, those years in the Horde. Reaching out to Catra and seeing her reach back. This feeling of absolute trust. She just had to face her fears, to relinquish control and communicate how it made her feel to do it, and Catra listened, Catra understood. Catra understood her better than anyone—she knew exactly how fucked up Adora was, but she still trusted her to make that call. She wouldn’t have taken the lead if Adora hadn’t been ready to give it up, even if she probably would have given her an earful for it later. 

This feeling, this warmth and peace glowing in her chest—this was all she needed. Catra loved her, even if it wasn’t in quite the same way.

Catra loved her, and Adora would give her anything she needed, no matter what it cost her. If she wanted control, she could have it. If she wanted to marry someone, Adora would learn how marriage worked and take over the party planning. She wanted Scorpia and Entrapta at her side? Adora would burn the whole Fright Zone to the ground if that’s what it took to get them there.

The princesses took up their posts at Catra’s direction, only Frosta grumbling complaints, and Catra herself bounded up the stairs to lounge sideways in Hordak’s throne, moments before the doors slid open with a hiss. 

“You,” Hordak snarled, lifting a stun baton that crackled with power. “I told you before, Force Captain, you cannot hope to stop me.” 

“Oh sorry, did I forget to tender my resignation? I’m not your fucking lackey anymore. You can do your own dirty work from now on,” said Catra, light and overly casual. She made a show of examining her claws, drawing Hordak’s attention as he stomped further into the room, his contingency trailing behind. Not one of them properly cased the room, leaving the princesses laying in wait undiscovered.

“Simply existing on this forsaken rock is beneath me. Do you think I’ll shy away from a little violence?” he sneered, raising his baton to fire a bolt of electricity at her. 

Catra slipped out of the throne and rolled to her feet several steps down with a natural grace that would have taken Adora’s breath away, if it hadn’t been moving Catra closer to the homicidal dictator they’d come here to stop. 

“Only a little?” Catra jeered, swiping her claws across his forearm, gouging marks in the metal bracer. His armor looked different, more like plate mail than its previous imitation of musculature, streamlined around him. The collar was lower, studded with a bright chip Adora was more than ready to categorize as First Ones’ tech, and subsequently blame on Entrapta. “You always think so small. One kingdom, one experiment, one military operation at a time, just aping big brother’s strategy. You’ve been here what, two, three decades? And Entrapta got a portal working in weeks? No wonder Prime didn’t want you.” 

Hordak roared wordlessly, lunging for her with a precise stab she barely danced away from, flipping off the stairs and landing precariously on one of the specimen tanks. The Horde soldiers began to converge, finally crossing the point Catra had indicated. Her eyes flicked up to Adora’s, and her face split in an easy smirk that was as clear a signal as any command.

“Now!” Adora yelled, sprinting forward from her hiding place. She ducked under one of Octavia’s tentacles, scoring a bright blue line across it with the sword, somersaulting to avoid a second. Vines slammed into Octavia’s side before she could really engage Adora, dragging her back towards Perfuma. 

Scorpia, Lonnie, Rogelio, and even Kyle were rushing through the open door of the sanctum, hot on her heels. 

Adora grinned, lifting the sword over her head to transform.

Thwack!

The swipe of a battle staff bowled her off her feet, sending the sword skidding from her hands and the air rushing from her lungs. 

“Well if it isn’t the mighty She-Ra,” Grizzlor sneered down at her, lip curling up to show his fangs. He raised the end of his staff to her throat. “Rushing in without a plan again, princess?” 

Adora opened her mouth as if to respond, baiting him into pausing, and whipped her arm up and around the staff like a snake, wrist locking. Instead of pushing it away, she yanked it sharply towards herself, pulling Grizzlor off balance for long enough that she could leap to her feet. She ripped the staff away with her other hand, spinning it defensively to drive Grizzlor back. 

“Frosta,” she said curtly, tearing past him as an obliging wave of ice froze him up to the neck. 

“Hordak, wait!” she heard Entrapta’s voice, but Adora saw her at the edge of the crowd, neither side yet attacking her. “Stop!”

She’d lost sight of Catra and Hordak, but there were a series of laser bursts across the room that seemed promising. She ducked and weaved through the chaos, dodging Perfuma’s vines, Octavia’s tentacles, blasts of magic and electricity. The sword was nowhere in sight. 

There was a mechanical whirring noise from where the disassembled portal had been, and Adora took a moment after tripping Cobalt with her staff to glance over. 

Fuck. 

“Glimmer, grab the sword!” she shouted over the din, looking around frantically for the switches. One was still snapped off at the shaft from Hordak’s attempts to suffocate Catra, the broken handle laying at its base, but another was perfectly intact, gleaming and menacing. Adora ran for it, lifting her stolen staff to snap it in two.

With a tremendous crash, Hordak and Catra landed in front of her, both snarling. Catra was breathing heavily but seemed unscathed, while Hordak had a glittering slash mark across one cheek. 

They struggled for a moment, and Adora dashed in to help—for all that Catra was a brilliant fighter, Hordak was twice her size and wearing a suit of armor that definitely enhanced his strength—but as she reached them, Catra wrenched something from his suit with a victorious cry, and he screamed in clear agony as energy crackled over his body. 

“Not so tough without your fancy jewelry, huh?” Catra sneered, chest heaving as she extricated herself from his grasp. She lifted the bright data chip, dangling it over him like she was teasing a child. “It’s over. You lost.”

Hordak started to reply, but a wave of electricity washed over him and he contorted again, teeth bared defensively. 

“It wasn’t going to work,” said Adora, taking a step closer. “There are more—there’s so much more to Etheria than what the Horde knows. Let us help you see it.” 

“You cannot help me,” he growled, glaring up at her with red, red eyes. “You cannot even help yourself, She-Ra. I do not need help to conquer this miserable planet.”

“Then why are you running crying to Prime?” asked Catra. She was grinning down at him, eyes gleaming with vindictive pleasure, still visibly riding the adrenaline of the fight. “All that talk about weakness, and look at you now, huh? He’s not coming for you. Why would he? You’re fucking pathetic.”

“Catra,” said Adora, closing the distance between them. Catra looked up at her, gaze feverish and shining with emotion. Adora didn’t need to say more. She looked away, ears pinned to her skull. 

“You don’t need him,” she growled. She pointedly did not look at Hordak, slumped on the ground at her feet. “Look what you did without him. You terrorized the whole damn planet for decades, overthrew kingdoms, razed countrysides—” 

“And I shall do more,” said Hordak. “I will not rest until—”

“Were you ever happy?” Catra interrupted, looking back at him only to turn away deliberately moments later. “Did any of it ever fucking help, or were you just pouring all your time and energy into a bottomless pit, waiting for your brother to magically change his mind about you?” 

“You dare—” 

“I bet you weren’t,” she interrupted again, tail lashing behind her. “I bet you spent all those years drowning in the banality of the worst place in the damn world, lashing out when someone got too close and then choking on their blood.” 

“You presume much, Force Captain,” said Hordak, voice low and deadly. “I have never allowed even an attempt to get ‘close’ to me. Every last inhabitant of this backwards, backwater planet is consumed with weakness and shadows beyond their own comprehension. You cannot imagine a universe wider than this paltry scrap of rock. The concept of a star is mythological to you.”

“What about Entrapta?” asked Adora. She reached for the data chip in Catra’s hand. “You’re lab partners, right? That new power-suit has her written all over it.” 

“Entrapta has forsaken me,” said Hordak. “She has allowed her judgment to be clouded by your insidious lies, as I was taken in by that—aberration from the future. Once I have succeeded, she too shall see.”

Adora turned the data chip over in her fingers, rubbing it with one thumb almost idly. “Did she tell you what this says?” she asked, staring down at it. 

“There was no need. Your people’s idle scrawl—”

“It says ‘loved’,” she interrupted, still looking away.

Hordak didn’t respond. 

“We don’t have to fight, Hordak,” said Adora, tracing the letters. What had drawn Catra out of the pain and anger she’d been trapped in? What could reach Hordak? “We can end all of this here, now. You can be… We can help. We can show people—”

She was still staring at the data chip, attention wholly on her words, when Catra cried out, staggering towards her. Adora’s breath caught in her throat, and she reached for Catra automatically, scanning her for damage, fear slamming into her like a brick wall. 

Adora’s heart stopped.

The broken shaft of the lever to Hordak’s atmospheric device was plunged through Catra’s back, the bent, broken end emerging from her abdomen. With a twist and a yank, and the worst noise Adora had ever heard, Hordak pulled it back out the other side.

“No,” Adora breathed, staring at the wound, transfixed. There was so much blood. “No no no no no, Catra—” She lowered Catra to the ground as her knees gave out, turning her on her side to prevent jostling, to put pressure on the wounds, looking over her frantically. 

“Do not pretend to understand me,” Hordak said coldly, snatching the data chip from where Adora had dropped it, reattaching it to the collar of his armor. “You are petty, and small, and I am loyal to Horde Prime. I have worked day and night for years to return to his side, and I shall not be delayed on the account of traitors.”  

“Catra,” Adora said again, trying to catch her gaze. She was gasping for air, wild eyes rolling as her body tried to identify the threat. She was going into shock. Of course she was, there was so much blood—she couldn’t even apply pressure properly, it was too slippery— “Catra you’re going to be okay, it’s okay, I know how to heal now, I can fix this—” 

She looked around in a panic, searching for the sword before she remembered, half-rising to her feet, but she couldn’t just leave Catra bleeding on the ground. “Glimmer! Glimmer, help—I need the sword—” 

Hordak stepped away from her, one deep blue hand stretching like shadows at moonset, and pulled the switch.