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In the night, silence became Bright Moon.
The castle especially felt at peace. The hallways were empty of busy bodies, all retired behind heavy doors. Tall walls reached up into darkness, with only the softest of glowing lanterns illuminating the way. If you listened carefully, you could hear the palace breathing, low and deep in its slumber with the inhabitants.
But not everyone was asleep. In the heart of the castle, down some curved corridors that circled around towers, was a royal guard standing to attention.
Catra had never backed down on her duties as a royal guard. Despite her being friends with the princess and attending as her personal guard, Catra had always insisted on being thorough in her training. It had always been something prideful to her, and that made it important that she did her fair share of the duties that were expected. That included the likes of the nightshifts. Until Catra was promoted to a higher status, she intended on standing in quiet hallways, waiting for the moment the princess was endangered to spring to action.
It wasn’t always so bad. Not when her mind was flipping the day’s events over and over in her head.
It had been long, and tiring. Stressful might be the word that some people would use, but Catra had been more calm than frantic. Glimmer was gone, sneaking out from her grounding while Catra had been off duty, and therefore not around to follow her wherever she went. As the night before had shifted into the next day with still no sign of her, Catra had only grown more antsy. She wanted to know where on Etheria her friend had gone without her.
“How do you not know where my daughter is? I allowed you to be her personal guard for a reason, Catra!”
That one had stung, but Catra didn’t let it get to her. She knew Queen Angella was only worried, and the anger that came from her was misdirected. She doubted it was even directed at Glimmer, and maybe just at the general universe for making her daughter so difficult to handle sometimes.
In the end, all of that had been the least interesting part of the day. What held onto Catra’s attention even into the deep of the night was who Glimmer had returned with.
The lost She-ra, Princess of Power — or rather, a stray Horde soldier who was questioning her entire identity.
How the universe wanted to be ironic. Their lost hero, apparently in the form of one of their enemies. That in itself was funny, but Catra couldn’t help the conflict she felt inside. Basic training had her feeling wary, but Catra’s instincts said otherwise. She’d sat with her, while she was stuck in their make-shift jail cell, and looked upon that soft face of hers. Those light blue eyes filled with such fear, unsure of herself and what had become of her. This was more than a miracle, and Catra wanted to see where it went.
If this was a trick, a trap set up by the Horde…
Glimmer believed. For that reason alone, Catra wanted to believe as well.
Her mind went around in circles, following the same thoughts down the same paths. It kept her occupied as the hours ticked up, the night getting deeper and the world stilling further. Even as her brain became sluggish, that eventful day finally catching up with her, Catra tried to find the flaw in the trap. Every time her mind went round it came up with nothing, and she went back to the beginning again.
Finally, a hand touched at her shoulder, and Catra was free to find her way back to her room as the change of guard took her place.
She walked slowly down the corridor, passing from one tower to the next. These halls were so familiar to her now that Catra could have easily found her way back with her eyes closed, but she glanced out the windows she passed to look up into the night sky. She could see three of Etheria’s moons tonight, shining different colours onto the hills beyond Bright Moon. This may have been her home for all of her life that she could remember, but Catra still found it beautiful everytime she gazed out.
Her silent walk was interrupted as a door opened at the other end of the corridor. Catra stopped in her tracks, staring at the person that appeared through it.
It was her. The Horde soldier.
Adora.
Catra’s hand reached to settle on the hilt of the rapier strapped to her waist. She didn’t arm herself, not yet, but was ready at a moment’s notice if Adora did anything she didn’t like. Her eyes watched her curiously as Adora stepped a little closer, though clearly looking a little caught off guard herself. She was lacking that red jacket of her’s, only wearing the white t-shirt and grey trousers. Something told Catra this was as casual as Adora ever got.
“What are you doing?” Catra asked first.
Adora nervously shifted her weight onto her back foot, a guilt spreading across her face. Or was that just embarrassment?
“Sorry,” she started. “I was just— looking for Glimmer’s room.”
That didn’t settle Catra’s suspicion. Her hand tightened it’s grip on the hilt of her sword. “Glimmer’s asleep.”
“Yeah, I figured she was.” Adora awkwardly rubbed at the back of her neck, looking more sheepish as the interaction went on. “Look, this is going to sound really, really stupid…”
“Ohhh, I’m excited to see where this is going…” Catra teased with a flash of a smile.
That didn’t help the redness of Adora’s face. “I was just— I was really struggling to sleep because it’s so quiet by myself, I’m not used to sleeping on my own, and the bed is way too poofy I couldn’t get comfortable, and I may have… Accidentally broken it a bit and… I was hoping Glimmer would let me…”
She trailed off, her voice getting quieter as she went. Catra couldn’t help tilting her head in confusion, trying to follow Adora’s story so she could visualise it. She couldn’t figure out how Adora had managed to break the safest bed in the world. It seemed like such a silly story that she couldn’t help but believe it. It was too stupid to be a trap, Catra was at least certain of that. Her tension eased, her hand relaxing the grip on her sword until she was just resting her wrist against the pommel.
“So you were hoping to sleep in Glimmer’s room?” Catra asked.
“Well, yeah,” Adora answered. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Catra breathed in deep and exhaled a moment later, as if she were resetting herself into a professional persona once again. She turned back to look at the hallway behind her and the direction she’d come from Glimmer’s bedroom in the Royal wing. There was no possible way she was letting Adora wander down there on her own, disturbing Glimmer at best and doing who knows what to the princess at worst. It was unnecessary risk. She was sure Glimmer would say otherwise, but Glimmer wasn’t here at the moment and Catra was her personal guard. She got to call the shots.
She spun back around to Adora, letting out an even louder sigh. “Listen, Glimmer’s asleep. I don’t think we should disturb her. Why don’t you just… come back to my room for the night.”
Was it any safer for Catra to be alone in a room with her? Probably not, but at least Catra would be able to keep an eye on her. Maybe if she survived the night, her trust in Adora would be much stronger.
The suggestion even surprised Adora, who’s body went a little slack as she processed what she just heard. “Are you sure?”
Catra shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, if you don’t have a bed to sleep on, you need to sleep somewhere. Come on, it’s not too far from here.”
After closing the distance between them, Catra gestured for Adora to head back through the door she had just come through. Adora blinked, taking a second to register what Catra was asking of her. Catra raised an eyebrow, helping her understand the dare she was giving her. You go first. Once her head had caught up, she twisted on her heel and headed back the way she had come. Catra followed, making sure to always stay a step behind Adora.
As they curved around another tower, something made Catra’s ears twitch. She noticed that as they walked Adora’s feet had fallen into perfect step with her, following in a soldier-like manner. She glanced down, watching her feet move in time with her own. There was something amusing about that. Something in Adora didn’t know how to turn it off, even after leaving her institution behind.
Once a soldier, always a soldier, it seemed. Catra allowed the smallest of smiles to curl up the corner of her lip.
“Sooo,” Adora drew out, breaking the silence between them. “Why are you up this late anyway?”
Catra scoffed a laugh. “I’m a royal guard, I was on nightwatch.”
“Oh, right!” Adora turned back to look at her, still marching forward. “We used to do nightshifts in the Horde. I always hated it. Too much standing around.”
Catra raised her eyebrows. “And what did you like, the battlefield?”
“The exercises,” Adora corrected. “Working to get faster times in races and higher scores in challenges. Combat training with my squadmates. I liked it when I got to keep moving. It felt like there was always something to do.”
Right, Catra noted. Adora was the type of person who couldn’t keep still. That was something Catra could at least understand. When it came to training, Catra could only focus on going all out. It didn’t feel like a good day’s work unless her muscles were aching in every part of her body and they screamed for her to lie down and rest. It was part of her drive — ensuring that she would be the very best the royal guard had to offer.
“If it’s training you like, you’ll have to come out with us sometime,” Catra offered. “Maybe see how we do it instead.”
Before she could get Adora’s answer, she tapped at her arm to bring her to a stop. They had come to a door that looked like any other in the castle. Catra gestured for Adora to step inside first, allowing her to follow up the rear and close the door behind them.
Catra’s room was just as magnificent as the rest of the castle too. A large, circular room with crystal lights hanging from the ceiling. They sat at a low glow at the moment, keeping the room in a slow, relaxed mood. A large circular window looked out onto the water, mountains behind it. The windowsill space was soft, cushioned with pillows pushed up at the walls, giving Catra the perfect place to sit and stare out into the world when she felt the need.
The rest of her room was wellkept. Shelves of books lined one of the walls, with so much variety that Catra didn’t even bother listing them all. Rapier swords were hung up on another, decorating her room with some of her past progression. The messiest space of her room was probably her desk, which Catra would point out meant that it was used. A neat workspace was not a busy workspace.
Adora stood in the middle of the room, clearly unsure of what to do with herself. Her eyes wandered, glancing over the swords and the books and the sparkling decoration. Catra instead watched her as she moved towards her dresser to start removing her uniform.
When Adora’s circling of the room landed on Catra, they held eye contact.
“Still not used to it?” Catra asked as she folded up her cape.
“No, not really,” Adora replied. “You really just get this whole room to yourself?”
Catra nodded, slow.
“And all of these books?” Adora wandered closer to the shelves, unsure where to look first. She pulled out one — Catra recognised it as a record of ancient Etherian maps.
“Well, some of those are borrowed,” Catra confessed. She started taking off her belt with the scabbard and sword attached, which she placed carefully on top of her dresser. “But yes, most of them are my own collection.”
“Wow,” Adora muttered as she placed the book back into it’s place. “I’ve never seen someone own so many things before in my life…”
She went back to looking around the room. Catra only continued to watch her as she carefully took off her uniform. It was very similar to the uniform of the other guards, made up of pale purples and lilacs and blues, but where most wore long cloaks Catra had requested something else. Something that worked better for her style of movement and fighting. She wore a specialised bodysuit — tight around the legs, keeping restriction to a minimum, and strapped around her feet. The top half was looser, styled like a collared shirt. She wore it with an undershirt, layering her up. Neither seemed appropriate to take off at that time. Catra chose then to remove her arm guards strapped around her wrists, pulled her hair from it’s ponytail, and decided that would be comfortable enough for the night.
By the time she was finished, Adora had found herself standing before Catra’s display of swords. Catra moved to join her, looking up at all the blades she’d previously used. The smallest, her first, looked worn through. Two more sat above it, getting longer in size. The top was the only full length rapier, and the second most worn through. It had done her well through her initial training, but it was retired as soon as she’d passed her exam and become an official member of the royal guard. Not by choice, but only because she’d been gifted with the blade she used now by Glimmer and Bow. How was Catra supposed to pass that up?
“These are all of yours as well?” Adora asked.
“Yup,” Catra answered, and her voice came with a pride and confidence. “All of my old swords from when I was training. It’s like a wall of memories, stretching back to my childhood. I started young, back when I was living with the royal guards.”
“Why were you living with the royal guards?”
“Well they were who raised me. Before I made friends with Glimmer and Angella realised my existence.” Catra smirked at the memories. “I lived with them, and they started to train me, but Angella didn’t believe it was a place for someone so young to grow up in so she invited me to stay within the palace instead.”
“But you kept on training?” Adora prompted.
“What can I say, it struck something in me,” Catra looked to Adora then, catching her eye. It was really only then that she realised what she was doing — sharing her history with someone she didn’t fully trust. Something in her had forgotten. Something felt too at ease. “I found my way back to training. Even the Queen couldn’t stop me.”
That at least made Adora laugh. “You know what’s funny? I’ve never even trained with a sword before. I don’t know how to use one.”
Catra looked to her, for some reason surprised to hear that. She knew the weapons the Horde liked to use — the reports from battlefields always said the same thing. Still, part of her had always assumed that the Horde had taught a wider variety of weapons, just in case the soldiers would have to use whatever they could get their hands on.
That was maybe giving the Horde too much credit. It was too much of an individual outlook for them.
“Doesn’t She-Ra have a sword?” Catra asked.
“She sure does,” Adora answered. It was slight, but Catra’s ears were good. She heard the smallest of twinges in Adora’s voice. A hiccup, where her throat strained around the words. It was only the smallest of inflection, but Catra could recognise it nevertheless.
The thought of using the sword made Adora feel anxious.
She hid it well. The moment of vulnerability lost as Adora stared in wonder at the rapiers on the wall. Catra wondered if Adora had even noticed herself that her anxiety had spiked.
Catra hated to admit it, but she felt a rise of sympathy within her.
“Come on, then,” Catra said to distract. “It’s late and I’m tired. You can look around more tomorrow.”
Adora nodded, and with that Catra pulled away from her to walk towards her own bed.
The bed itself was inside an alcove in the wall. Once again, Catra had been allowed to specify preferences and all she had said was “up high”. A bunk had been built two thirds up the wall, with curtains swept to the side that Catra could use if she wanted to make her sleeping space feel even smaller. Below the bed was more of her belongings stacked on shorter shelves — more personalised items; pencils and paints and sketchbooks, old mementos from her childhood, gifts from Glimmer and Bow and Angella and Juliet.
Catra didn’t hesitate, jumping up to pull herself onto the bed in a way that had been practised hundreds and thousands of times before that. She rolled herself onto the blankets, settling comfortably on her back as she finally let herself relax.
Her ear twitched at the sound of the ladder. Mostly for Bow’s sake these days, as neither she nor Glimmer needed it. So unused that for a moment Catra had forgotten its existence towards the foot of her bed. She glanced down to that spot, leaning herself up on one elbow.
Adora stared back at her, paused in her climbing up the ladder.
“What are you doing?” Catra questioned, sounding even more confused than she had previously in the corridor when asking the exact same thing.
Adora’s mouth opened, struggling to find words. She glanced below the bed and looked back to Catra, saying so earnestly “You don’t have a bottom bunk.”
They both looked confused in their own ways. Catra, because a stranger was trying to climb into her bed, while Adora had naturally come to this one conclusion that apparently wasn’t correct. Catra even tried thinking back, wondering if the invitation to sleep in her room had meant sleeping in her bed. It was bewildering, and something in that training of her’s told her she shouldn’t be okay with this. She should do what makes the most sense and send Adora back down that ladder to sleep somewhere else. Except there was something in that honest answer — you don’t have a bottom bunk — that made Adora seem so… harmless.
It was feeling less and less like Adora could be some kind of danger, and feeling more and more like all Catra wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep. She didn’t want to be debating this all night, she didn’t have the stamina for it.
With a small wave of the hand, Catra gestured for Adora to continue climbing into the bed, and flopped herself back down onto her pillows. She made the effort to shuffle herself closer to the wall, giving Adora more space to crawl into and lie down in. Her body brought an unfamiliar weight to the bed, forcing Catra to shift herself again to get comfortable as the mattress balanced them out.
She stared up at the ceiling above her bed as she felt Adora making herself comfortable beside her. It was decorated with swirling patterns that Catra’s eyes had followed so many times before. Her eyes ached, too tired to do that now, but she couldn’t bring herself to close them just yet.
Everything about this was weird. Wrong and weird. What had started out as her trying to protect Glimmer now had the enemy sleeping beside her… But Adora wasn’t the enemy anymore.
Catra thought about those eyes of her’s, those fearful eyes as she had spoken about She-Ra and the Horde. She thought about how she had turned her back on them, how Glimmer swore by it. She thought about the way she had sounded so harmless, and the anxiety that had creeped into her voice, and how she was honest to a fault. Adora was a conundrum, something Catra had never encountered before, and that sent her brain spinning.
And what made it spin even more was the truth that Catra could feel below all of this — that the only reason Adora was in her bed at that moment was because she wanted to believe in her so badly.
Perhaps it was a good thing she was still thinking about this, keeping her mind sharp. Perhaps the universe had willed it, because as Catra was lying there with the cogs going inside her head, she felt the weight of the bed shift some.
Adora rolled, and Catra’s hand shot out, claws snagging into Adora’s shirt and holding her as her body almost went over the side of the bunk.
Adora jolted, a yelp coming from her as she was shocked back into consciousness. Her arm flailed, trying to find something to grab — the back wall above her head — to leverage herself back onto the bed. Catra helped a little, pulling her over so that she was resting on her back instead of her side.
“You okay there?” Catra asked. Adora’s eyes were wide, breathing quickly as her body reacted to the shock. Catra could hear — no, feel — Adora’s heartbeat racing.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Adora answered, and somehow despite the fright Catra believed that she was. Her calculating eyes stayed on her, watching every small movement. Adora’s eyes flicked about, as if making sure the space around her was still the same as she remembered it. Her breaths started to calm as she regained control of herself. When she rolled her head over, looking right back at Catra, her lips burst out into a grin.
“Hey,” she said so gleefully. “You caught me.”
Something about the way Adora said that flicked something on inside Catra’s mind. As if it was snapping her back to reality, reminding her of who they were. She scoffed before saying “Yeah, no thanks to you, dummy. Have you never slept on a top bunk before or something?”
“No,” Adora answered, her eyes wide. “I was always on the bottom bunk.”
If Catra had known Adora would be such a danger to herself, she absolutely would have thought up a better sleeping plan.
With that, Catra hoisted herself up onto her elbow again, leveraging herself up onto one knee at the same time. “Well then I think it’s best if we swap places. Come on, shuffle over.”
Adora’s eyes flicked between Catra and the space she had previously been occupying, looking as though she didn’t understand. Catra nodded her head towards the pillows she’d just been lying on, a silent get a move on, which forced Adora to act. She shuffled — awkwardly — into that space as Catra crawled above her to take the opened side.
As she passed over her, Catra couldn’t help looking down, making eye contact with Adora in their precarious positioning. It was too close, closer than Catra could have ever imagined letting herself get into with the Horde soldier. Personal space meant nothing between them like this. She didn’t let it last longer than it had to, flipping herself back down onto the pillows and making herself comfortable on that weirdly weighted mattress once again.
She settled on her side, a little grateful they had swapped places so she could turn herself into the rest of the room. It suddenly felt less cramped and made it easier to pretend that what had just happened hadn’t at all.
Behind her, Catra heard Adora say a soft “Thanks.”
“Get some sleep,” she replied, forcing a less friendly tone as she closed her eyes to finally settle down.
The things she did for Glimmer…
She felt Adora roll herself over too, what Catra presumed to be lying on her side into the wall. It felt more comfortable — enough that Catra could lull herself into a sense of security, that with her eyes closed she could finally let her brain shut off and fall deeper and deeper into a state of unconsciousness. It was gradual, that lingering sense of the room around her drifting away slowly until she had no sense of the room at all, only a place so out of reach that she felt like she was floating. Nothing felt real on that edge of sleep, as her mind crept closer and closer to the dreams that awaited her.
But then it was gone. Snatched away in a second as something slammed into her back. Her eyes snapped open, her heart thumping fast in her chest as her body came into alert. It still wasn’t fast enough as she realised too late that she had tipped over the edge of the bunk, the floor staring back at her as she fell down.
Catra’s reflexes kicked in even in her sleepful state — she tucked into herself just before her body hit the hard wooden floor, and she rolled with the momentum. It hadn’t done too much, she still felt the blunt ache in her shoulder, but at least nothing felt broken.
Well, nothing except her pride.
She groaned as she pulled herself up from the floor, glancing up to the bunk. She was met with a fretful Adora staring down at her, already speaking words that Catra hadn’t been paying any attention to.
“—I’m so sorry, I really am. Are you okay? Did you hurt anything? I can do first aid if you need it—”
“Stop, stop!” Catra snapped as she stood up, one hand rubbing at the bruised shoulder. “What the hell was that?!”
Adora swung her legs over the bunk, sitting more appropriately to speak to Catra below. “I’m sorry, I must have pushed you over by accident, I was just trying to sleep and I’m not sure if I wasn’t comfortable or if it was too small or—”
“You pushed me off the bed?!”
“It was an accident, I swear!” Catra didn’t want to believe her out of pure stubbornness, but the distressed look on Adora’s face told her that she was speaking the truth. “I’m not a very still sleeper…”
Dots connected inside her head as soon as Adora had said that word. What was it that Catra had thought earlier? Adora was the type of person who couldn’t keep still.
“…Are you kidding me?”
Catra felt like an idiot for forgetting. How had she misjudged this so badly? Adora wasn’t just a danger to herself, she was a danger to both of them. Catra ran a hand over her face, going extra hard at her eyes. This was painful. How was going to sleep this difficult?
She dropped her hand and waved at Adora to get down. “Well for a start we’re not going to be sleeping up there.” She began to roll her shoulder, stretching the muscle in hopes that it wouldn’t injure too badly. She glanced across the room to where the windowspace was. It was spacious — more spacious than the cubbyhole that was her bunk — and much closer to the ground. If there were anymore accidents from the dummy herself, at least it wouldn’t be so dangerous.
Adora jumped from her perch, landing with a deep thud as her feet found place on the ground. Catra couldn’t help a short glare as she passed her, grabbing one of the blankets from the bed. She wandered to the windowspace, Adora tailing her, and spread the blanket over the seating.
“Here, we can sleep here.”
Adora nodded, walking passed Catra to crawl onto the window side. Catra followed, ignoring the logical part of her mind that told her she didn’t need to join Adora on the windowspace. She could have easily just gone back to her bed where she would finally get her peace. It seemed long past that now as she pulled some of the pillows into a better position to sleep on, Adora staring out the window beside her.
From here you could still see the moons shining brightly onto the sides of the mountains. The moonlight sparkled across the water as well, shimmering under the darkness of the night. It made the world look like it was covered in glitter.
“It’s beautiful…” Adora whispered. It sounded as though she thought speaking any louder would disturb it all, would scare away the moons behind the mountains and cause the water to still completely.
Catra wasn’t looking out the window anymore. Her eyes watched Adora instead. It was like she had already forgotten why they had moved in the first place. Knocking Catra off of her bed was no longer important. All she could focus on was outside, distracted by the beauty of Bright Moon. Catra couldn’t blame her, not when she knew where she had come from. “Yeah, it is. I’ve always preferred it at night. Something about it is just…”
In the lull of her sentence, Adora turned back inquisitively.
Finally, Catra settled on the word. “Magical.”
Adora laughed lightly, but it didn’t feel humorous. Something about the laugh felt strained. It reminder Catra of the catch in her voice earlier. “I’ve been hearing that word a lot lately.”
“You better start getting used to it, She-Ra,” Catra teased with a smile of her own, feeling the need to soften her words. She closed her eyes then, trying to settle to sleep.
If that was meant to be a prompt, it worked. Adora moved herself to lie down as well, resting against the pillows. Silence between them lasted only a few seconds before Catra heard a whisper in the dark.
“Catra?”
“Mm?” Her eyes opened slowly as she turned to Adora. The moonlight landed on Adora’s blonde hair, still tied up in that stupid ponytail. The light suited her.
“Are you magical?”
Catra smirked. “Me? No, I don’t have one magical bone in my body.”
It was hard to tell if that was the answer that Adora wanted. She looked puzzled, her forehead creased with a worry that must have gone deep which Catra was only seeing the surface of.
“Do you really think it’s supposed to be me?” Adora eventually asked, her voice sounding somehow smaller.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well why shouldn’t it be you? You’re from here, you understand all of this better than me, you even know how to wield a sword. Why shouldn’t you be She-Ra?”
“Adora…” Catra turned a little into her, her hand reaching across to touch Adora’s shoulder to reassure her. “I’m not going to pretend I understand the ancient magic of this world, because I don’t. All I know is that that sword chose you for a reason. Why you, I would like to ask it that myself, but none of that changes the truth. You are She-Ra. Not me, not Glimmer, not Bow. You. There’s no ‘supposed’ about it.”
“Would you want to be?”
That question caught Catra off guard. It was honestly something that had never crossed Catra’s mind. Of couse she’d heard all the legends about the Princess She-Ra. She’d grown up with them as bedtime stories from the royal guards, dreaming of the heroics. It was inspiring, but not to become She-Ra herself. Just to help, and that’s where Catra had found herself.
“No,” Catra finally answered. “No, I don’t think I would… but it’s not my destiny.”
Those words didn’t help the expression on Adora’s face. It felt as thought Catra had said the wrong thing, not giving Adora the answers she wanted. Somehow Catra thought the answers would all be wrong, though. She was scared, scared of her future and what her newfound power meant for her.
That could be overcome in time. Adora just needed that. Time.
“What if I’m no good at it?” she asked helplessly.
It was funny that only earlier that night Catra had found herself so wary of this stranger and yet now, lying next to each other, she was trying to find the right words to reassure her. Maybe it was that magic she apparently had beneath her skin.
“I think,” Catra started carefully. “It’s not about being good at it. I think it’s about what you have in your heart.”
This time Adora’s expression eased. Her brows settled back, and Catra watched as her tensed muscles relaxed once again. She turned away, looking up the ceiling now, and Catra took that as her cue to turn herself away as well.
After all, that’s what had been plaguing her that entire night. Adora’s heart. Where it was and what it wanted and what she had inside of it. It was the key to the puzzle inside of her head, and that wasn’t just about her worth as She-Ra. This was more important — that Catra could find that trust in her.
What Adora didn’t know, and what Catra hadn’t realised until that moment, was that it was those questions that managed to fill Catra with some kind of reassurance. They weren’t the questions of a guilty person, and far from a doubling-crossing Horde soldier.
After a few minutes of silence, Catra found the courage to ask her own question.
“Why didn’t you leave the Horde sooner?”
Seconds ticked by, long and drawn out, and Catra wondered if Adora had miraculously fallen asleep in the short time they had been quiet. Eventually her voice came out from the dark.
“I didn’t know,” she muttered. “I didn’t know what they were doing. They lied to us. Our entire lives, they lied to us.”
They both went silent, Catra turning those words around in her head. Even if Adora believed she wouldn’t make a good She-Ra, Catra could only go off on the information she had. What she did know was that Adora had found out her entire life had been built on lies, and instead of running back home to demand answers, she’d turned her back on all of them for good.
That was courage, and strength, and honour. That was heart.
That was She-Ra.
With that realisation, Catra found herself feeling perfectly relaxed for the first time that entire night. She allowed her eyes to flutter shut, allowing drowsiness to take hold, feeling the warmth of Adora’s body beside her.
She would sleep easy next to a Horde soldier that night.
———————————————
The next morning came at Catra too fast, and too hard.
She was woken up abruptly by Glimmer teleporting into her bedroom, screaming one word as soon as she had fully materialised.
“CATRA!”
It shocked Catra into consciousness, and at the same time the sleeping body next to her. This time it was Adora’s instincts and reflexes that acted instantly. Her arm flew out, trying to hit at whatever was intruding on her sleep. Within a second of waking up, Catra was punched across the face, her cheek and nose lighting up in pain as she tumbled off the side of the windowspace.
Too much then happened at once. Glimmer, still on her mission, was continuing her shout of “Catra, Adora’s gone missing! I don’t know what to do—” Catra crumpled to a heap on the ground, groaning into the wooden floor that didn’t do much help to her other cheek. Behind her she could hear some cursing and fumbling before a hand grabbed at her shoulder.
“Fuck, Catra, I’m so sorry— It was an accident, I really swear, oh my God—”
Still groaning, Catra’s hand moved up to rest on her burning skin. She could feel the heat on her palm, and she could only imagine how red her face had turned. Who knew someone half asleep could hit so damn hard…
The hand on her shoulder tried to pull her over. Catra took the coaxing and pushed herself up into a sitting position. Standing before her was Glimmer — somewhere in the commotion she had noticed what was going on and found the answer to why she was there in the first place. Now she just looked bewildered, trying to piece together what she was seeing before her.
Catra was not going to enjoy that line of questioning later.
“What the hell, Sparkles?” she mumbled. “What have I told you about teleporting into my room?”
That at least pulled Glimmer’s attention away from Adora and back to her. “Oh, so it’s my fault you got hit in the face?!’
“I think in some way, yeah, it is!”
“Hey, hey,” Adora chimed in before a full blown argument could breakout between them. “It was my fault, there’s no need to throw blame around.”
Catra felt Adora slipping of the bed behind her, and then she was sitting before her, coming to join her on the floor. There was an expression across her face — a concentration that Catra hadn’t seen on her before. It took a moment for her to recognise that it was an expression of professionalism. Adora had turned into soldier mode, focused on her task at hand.
How funny that her soldier mode resulted in soft fingers, carefully removing Catra’s hand from her cheek and tilting her chin to get a better look at the damage she’d done.
“How hard did I hit you?” she asked.
“Hard enough,” Catra replied, dropping her hand into her lap as she watched that focused expression.
Adora’s eyes scanned over her cheek, her nose, checking to make sure the damage wasn’t worse than what they could see.
“We should put some ice on it before the swelling begins,” Adora ordered. She twisted in her spot, looking back to Glimmer behind her. “Glimmer, could you—?”
“Oh! Yes, I can, I’ll be right back.”
As Glimmer disappeared with nothing but sparkles in the air left in her place, Adora twisted back to face Catra, still looking rather concerned with what she had done. She was careful not to touch more than she had to, tilting Catra’s chin upwards to get a better look at her nose.
“Be honest, doc,” Catra said. “Am I going to live?”
A small smile crept onto Adora’s face through all the seriousness. Catra took that as a win. “I don’t think it’s broken, at least. Can you breathe through it?”
Catra inhaled through her nose, and exhaled. It stung inside her nostrils just a little, but everything seemed to be working fine.
Adora, happy with what she saw, dropped her hand from Catra’s chin. She offered an apologetic smile. “I really am sorry. You’ve been kind to me all night and I’m just… throwing punches all over the place.”
“It’s not your fault,” Catra answered her. “You just have really fast reflexes. I’m honestly kind of impressed you can switch into fighting gear so fast. What were they teaching you back there?”
“That nothing else mattered,” Adora replied. It was instant, the way her eyes turned a little sad once again, and Adora appeared more like the person Catra had been talking to the night before. “Only the fight, and to be the perfect soldier.”
No wonder Adora was so uneasy inside the castle then. She had been raised with only one belief, her entire world view structured around that, and it had all come crashing down in a matter of days. If she was no longer that perfect soldier then who was she?
At that moment, Glimmer teleported back into the room right where she had left. She came in with the shimmer and sparkles in the air, the noise fizzing around her, and yet another shout. “I have ice!”
It was another fright, another shock. Adora, unused to Glimmer’s teleporting antics, jolted again. Stray hands went up, ready to fight the danger. Catra was fast this time. She barely reacted to the teleport itself, but her hands snatched up and grabbed Adora’s wrists before they could cause anymore damage. They held still for the few seconds it took for Adora’s brain to catch up. Catra knew the moment it did — her eyes lighting up with understanding — and she loosened her grip.
Their eyes were locked on to each other’s, and Catra offered Adora a smile.
“Hey, don’t worry Princess,” Catra whispered between them. “I’ve got you.”