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“When was the last time you had someone do this for you?” Scorpia asked, her surprisingly-delicate claws gently sliding along Catra’s wings.
Catra groaned. She didn’t want to think about that. Maybe if she passed the noise off as being about how nice this felt—and it felt really nice; she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone else preen her—she could get away with not answering.
“I mean, you keep them really neat!” Scorpia backpedalled her words, and her stroking stammered erratically too. “But there’s some bits back here, by your shoulders—”
“Just straighten them out, okay?” Catra clutched at her ankles, trying to keep herself still. She was sitting on a desk, Scorpia standing behind her, because she hadn’t been able to bear the idea of lying down and letting Scorpia kneel behind her the way Adora used to. “I’m molting. It sucks. I can’t reach there well enough. It’s been two days, it’ll take another few to finish, and I want this over with.”
Scorpia dug the tip of her claws into the coverts where her wings met her back and feathers mingled with fur. “Let me know if I pull too hard, okay?”
Catra nodded, tail flicking back and forth impatiently. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, okay, if you’re sure.” Scorpia’s voice went businesslike, the way she always got when she was putting all her focus and determination into a task she wasn’t sure she knew how to complete. Catra was about to roll her eyes and rebuke her, but then Scorpia’s claws dragged along the ragged feathers waiting to fall out and it was all Catra could do to keep herself from outright moaning at how good it felt.
She restrained herself to arching her back and letting her wings spread out with a bitten-back exhale. “Keep going,” she said, though it sounded less like a command and more like begging than she’d prefer.
Scorpia started chattering about how much effort it took to get a good scrub in on her carapace, and how it just wasn’t the same to rub against pumice herself as it was to get a good friend to help, and Catra let the words wash over her. She suspected Scorpia would take this as tacit agreement to exchange the favor, and maybe she’d regret that later, but right now it was hard to think about anything past the itchiness in her wings that was slowly being relieved.
Loose feathers fell around her, and Catra leaned into Scorpia’s strength and patience. She was good at working through all the little feathers: first ruffling them up and encouraging the ones ready to drop to give way, and then scratching gently to let the new feathers break through. Somewhere around the five-minute mark, Catra abandoned hope of keeping her mewls of satisfaction inside, especially since Scorpia didn’t react to them as anything other than a sign she was doing a good job.
That was how it should be, Catra thought, as the too-tight feeling of her skin started settling. She’d been working through the longer feathers herself, but Scorpia moved from the coverts to her flight feathers, gently tugging to check how attached they were and then preening the ones still too solidly-rooted to pull until their barbs were all in perfect alignment.
“Do this again tomorrow?” Catra asked, because a full half of her flight feathers were still in place and needed to be shed over the next few days. She’d be ground-bound for the next month as her feathers grew back in, but that was a small price to pay for the freedom of flight the rest of the year. Catra rolled her shoulders experimentally, spreading her wings with the motion. “It’s helpful.”
It also felt good, but she didn’t need to say that.
Scorpia clapped her hands together, and Catra twisted around to see the wide grin on her face. “Yes! Definitely! I love best friend bonding times!”
Despite herself, Catra had to smile at Scorpia’s joy. “Yeah,” she said, re-settling her wings along her back. “It’s good. Thanks.”
There were missions to plan and battles to fight, but it was easier with someone Catra trusted to have her back.
(Even if she still wished it was Adora, not Scorpia, who stood at her side.)