Work Text:
CHAPTER 1
'Hey Adora!'
A soft voice emerges as Catra gently plays with Adora's hair as the sunrise lights up the room in a delicate gold tone. Adora slowly opens her eyes. Catra is lying down beside her with the messed up sheets, looking like a sacred beach. Adora sits up and smiles, 'Good morning to you too'. She gives her a kiss and gets off the bed, going on to start off with her daily morning routine. Catra's expression turns to a bit of disappointment. 'Um.. Adora..' she narrows her eyes in a look of disapproval, 'Don't tell me you forgot..' Adora just stands there in total confusion, 'um..I...won't..' and gives a dorky smile which slowly fades as Catra gets off and comes closer. She hangs her head and looks up at her, 'The party. It's today....Mermista's party..'
'Ohh...right. How can I..forget', Adora sounds a little disappointed with herself.
'It's our first party together...after the..'
Adora smirks and shrugs a little, '..the apocalypse?'
'...kind of..something like..that'
'or the... the CATastrophe'
'uh....'
'the fire...'
'Adora..!'
Adora places her hands on Catra's shoulders then lifts up her chin lighltly, like brushing a thin wind, 'I know we lost a lot of things in the fire, Catra. But it's been more than a year and we're alright now. YOU are alright now. I know it's our first party together and I have been waiting for it for a long time. It just....skipped my mind..', she sounds confused, 'It's like I was....I...don't exactly..know' there is a small pause.
'Regardless. I am going to start getting ready now. Of course I don't want people staring at me and mocking me for looking like a total piece of shit while I walk in there with the most beautiful woman they would have ever seen-', she leans closer to her face.
Catra's looks away shyly and gives a flattered grin, 'Just stfu and be quick with it'. She goes away.
Adora is satisfied with herself. She hangs her head and shrugs in lovedrunk.
_
'Adora! Adoraaaaa..!!!' Swift Wind rushes towards her. He is jeweled in Gold and gemstones, and totally ready for the party. 'oh..Swifty..you-', she is stunned.
'There was a fire in the royal stable! I saw it'
'WHAT?!!'
They both run towards it immediately but to their surprise, there is no real fire to see. It's all normal. Adora blinks and freaks out, but goes totally silent in deep shock.
'You saw it too? Didn't you?'
'I..it wasn't....it was blue and....'
'Huh?' He is confused. 'No, it was a fire. Are you okay?'
'I'm... it's not there anymore.. What's going on Swift Wind.... Swift Wind??...Where did he...go..?' She can now see the the empty corridor through where Swift Wind was just standing. She goes back to her toom in total disbelief, her eyes wide open in a frenzy.
Adora gets ready with 1/4th of her brain's focus and the rest in some other crazy conspiring. While she's at it, Catra enters the room, with her black velvet heels making a sharp sound. Adora's jaw drops as she fixes her eyes on her, seeing her in a dress for the first time. Catra is wearing a long strapless wine coloured slip dress with a thigh rise slit. Her back covered with her smooth shiny hair. She looks painted, as if, very carefully and it's unmatchable the aura she's holding.
While Adora is wearing a stitched strapless white bustier with flared pants that has gold buttons and has a textured coat ready on the side as she is combing her hair, she is stunned.
'Hey Adora, ready to leave yet?' Catra said with a fancy smile.
Adora has lost her senses, 'Anything with you.....I mean, YES! Let's go....................you look beautiful, Catra.'
Catra raises one eyebrow and approaches her in a smug. She gives a little brush to her hair and places a soft kiss on her neck leaving a faint mark of red colour and smiles, 'You're such an idiot.'
-
It's afternoon. The party is a total dream. The princesses are having so much fun- there's food, music, dancing,lights, games, entertainment. Everything seems perfectly planned and in place but Adora can't stop thinking about what happened in the morning. She tries to wash it away with a few drinks but something starts to click. Something clicks like a quick thunder flash to her brain. Her head starts to feel these uncomfortable whirlpools. There is suddenly holographic lines tracing everyone at the party as they rapidly look at her and look away in a blurred motion. She visibly starts to feel a little terrified and suddenly something like a tactile hallucination, a nail hits her head. 'I can't! Adora!', she can hear something which somewhat feels like her own voice. She gets even more confused and uneasy as it repeats, 'I can't lo-'
'ADORA!'
'Catra! Something is going on! Something's wrong.... I keep hearing this voice.. it's my-'
Catra sighs and says, 'Why did you lie to me?'
'huh..?'
'Why did you say you were ok and everything was fine when we came back from Elderia. You could've told me you got hurt or something...maybe something happened when you set off the power source in its castle. Pfft..that shit was clearly rusted.'
'No! I am fine! I just saw this......wait....something might have happened in Elderia.....'
'It's ok Adora. You didn't think bringing back magic would be that simple?' She gives her a glass of the special crystal lime vodka made from some kind of underwater anemones, and took one herself.
Adora explains Catra everything while going around the party and her head actually starts to feel a little lighter. But suddenly the heat starts to rise in the castle and there is a strange chatter of confusion spread which slowly & gradually turns to loud babbling of fear and terror.
They turned around, to see the huge royal blue curtains on eerie pink flames. The tables were starting to crack like ice and the chandeliers were shaking. Bow and Glimmer had been busy with each other the whole afternoon but they ran to Catra and Adora in utter bewilderment.
'An earthquake!!!' Bow shrieked loudly.
'It's not an earthquake.....', Glimmer said numbly. 'It seems to be some kind of pro-'
'Glimmer look out!!', Adora pushed her away as the pillars started to fall.
Everyone was running around in confusion and the whole castle was somehow very quickly collapsing in on itself. Mermista immediately helped everyone out. But to their surprise it wasn't just the castle.....
'What is going on guys?!', Bow was horrified to catch the whole sea turning and twisting, defying any laws of nature. 'What is that?!!'
The creatures of the sea were jumping out like in a circus and disappearing into some kind of crystal like dimension. But it wasn't just Salineas that was a victim of this deranged mania. Soon reports from other kingdoms reached their respective princesses. Plumeria had been petrified into Yellowstone after an unrecognisable natural attack, the Kingdom of Snows had been snapped out of existence and what remained of it was the melted snow.
'I have to go to Bright Moon', Glimmer talked through her tears with a heavy throat and just teleported out.
'Glimmer..no!' Bow screamed but she was gone. 'Guys! Adora! Do something, please...'
Adora stood there numbly she wasn't even blinking. She somehow pulled herself together and stood close to Catra. Catra held her hand tightly.
'For the honour of Grayskull!-
There was a deep silence for few seconds when she said the words but then followed a huge white explosion that took over the whole planet with sound as loud as the pain in an accident. There was a low pitched noise that started to take over Etheria after a few minutes, as it had started its journey to death, with the She-Ra gone...
-
Adora slowly opened her eyes to see the same holographic lines that she saw before but thick, all over the place, around her. She was surrounded by them. She could feel it wasn't home. She had been thrown off and it wasn't Etheria. She felt confused, scared, lonely and the first thing that could hit her was the hand holding her, it wasn't there anymore. They had been separated, pulled apart, by some inevitable galactic force.
A low spirited smoke took over her chest and an acid concentrated pool filled her eyes as she screamed in agony,
'Catraaaa!!!!!!.....'
~